for the weekend

Happy Friday!

important PSA

I call this one

 I call this one "nature's bounty"

 I call this one "God is everywhere, even in the lowliest flower"

 I call this one "Jesus loves you and wants you to be happy"

 I call this one "setting up the Verge for the Southern Foodways dinner which is TONIGHT"

I call this one "cat in a bag"

does this make sense?

Why do you think everyone has to stress how busy they are all the time?  I do it for sure.  I feel like people are often trying to out-busy each other.  It's not like there's any award for how busy you are, or like people are going to admire you for being busy.  It's like the small consolation for feeling like you don't have control over your time.  Very small indeed, in fact, not really satisfying at all.  I am on a big self-help kick (which is almost always a sign of unhappiness, right?), so maybe I will try to substitute the word "happy" for "busy".  And maybe it will be like when you try to force yourself to smile and you start to actually feel happy.

That reminds me of a thought I always have, about how often people are trying to blast music out of their cars to seem cool, and how rare it is that any person who hears the music blasting will in fact think that that music is cool.  Kind of a sad disconnect, and one that is occurring millions of times a day all over the country.

I have tomorrow off to do setup for the Verge dinner during the day.  So, yeah, I'm really, really happy this week. It's working!

awkward!

What a weekend!  What a country!

Here's a fact that won't surprise you: if you want to profile a weed store owner, he/she is very likely to "forget" to call you back and/or lose your information.  Too much medicating, I guess.

Oh shit!  I am so excited I just found out Dave Foley is going to be doing stand up at the Punchline in October. I know I talk about the WTF podcast way too much (obsessed), but when Dave Foley was on it was truly crazy.  I am totally going to that.

The Southern Foodways/ FatFace dinner at Verge is this Thursday.  It's about to sell out, so better get your tickets if you haven't yet.

Awkward story after the jump

comedy/reggae

Meckfessel on Democracy Now!

Some of us checked out comedy/reggae night at Shenanigans last night, which I have wanted to do since I drove by that shitty place and saw a sign that said "Thurs Comedy/Reggae".  We did not hear any reggae but we did see some "comedy".  Alec Roberts did an impromptu set and he was quite good.  Nice delivery. I look forward to seeing him again.  I think he gigs at the Lunas comedy night regularly.

 Here's the aforementioned "puto" scratched on the door of my car.

 I got doughbots donuts for my work today, a dozen, mixed of "premium" and regular, which is 18 bucks.

I hate to say, but they were just ok.  The P B and J had peanut butter smeared on top and unremarkable-tasting strawberry jam in the middle.  The donut itself was really bready, so it did kind of taste just like a PB and J, not any better than that.  I split the chai and lemon cake donuts and the consistency was not that good.  A little too dry and floury in the middle and the chai didn't really taste like chai.  I feel like a dick, and they're probably going to google themselves and see this.  My coworkers who tried "the dude" both said it was good!

nostalgia

The "Best Of" SNR is out, but, annoyingly, I could not get it at the Davis Co-op today.  Sometimes I like to bust out the lazy Davis distributor by emailing NM about it.  The winners of best blog (who cares about anything else?) were...a fully-funded website (SacPress), something called P Weekly that seems....irreverent.  And Poor Girl Eats Well.  I've met her and she's nice so congrats to PGEW!

Speaking of SacPress I read in the Bee today that David Watts Barton got laid off there?!?!? That is awful.  He wrote a pretty raw thing about it.  Does anyone get the Josh Fernandez comment?  Good luck, DWB.  You have millions of connections in Sac and I'm sure you'll bounce back.

 Soo......yesterday I came out of the Davis Beer Shoppe and my car was on fire.  It was a small fire, there were flames licking out of some electrical wires.  Freaky.  A wrecking yard came and got it and gave me 300 bucks.  The Blue Devil is no more.  I never called it that until just this second.  My mom bought this car new in 1993.  I don't even know when she gave it to me.  8 years ago?  I never put the title in my name until a few weeks ago: typical.  There's a Mazatlan sticker on it because that's where my mom and dad used to vacation every year.  But then they got divorced (violins) and now she lives there.  I've always hated the "exploring alternate realities" sticker that my mom put on it but I left it because it was funny.  I remember a friend pointed out that it should be "alternative realities", not "alternate"  MD clandestinely put the Bananas stickers on, including Calvin pissing on the Bananas (well, maybe I put that one on), there was one of the limited edition "keep midtown janky" stickers that YOU STILL CAN'T BUY on the MidMo website, for reasons unknown.  And a Montauk Lighthouse sticker that Smiller and I got when we rode bikes to it.  I somehow got lost in the woods on my bike that day and we were looking for each other for a half hour in a way that seemed scary at the time.  There was a Poinsettia "a sunny place for shady people" sticker that came off.  What else? Oh yeah, the Big Foot Museum in Felton, that was a great weekend.  And a Finches sticker, and a Grateful Dead steal your face, or course.  All meaningful.

 Bye bye car!!

Here's the new one: Black Beauty.  A 96 Geo Prizm.

questions

I felt a little weird about disclosing about the card.  I'm probably being dumb.  Oh well, wouldn't be the first time.  I just wanted the experience of going in a store and buying weed.  And it was amazing.  The doctor's office was unbelievably seedy, but All About Wellness was cool.  Fuck, I'm all about wellness, too.  Aren't we all?  I wish they would just legalize it and cut out the rigamarole.

So...who's going to the Zak Nelson show at Bows tonight?

Charles is playing tomorrow at Luigis with the Cute Lepers, a band with a lot of....equipment.  They sucked when I saw them with No Bunny and The Bananas, but I guess even Beethoven would suck it if he had to follow those dudes.  Even Beethoven.

Man, not a lot on the calendar as far as good shows.  We gotta get another underground venue going in Sac amiright?  Easier said than done, I know.  Anyone working on it?

But you can breathe a sigh of relief, entertainment-starved Sacramentans, because there are a couple of good plays around or coming up.  B St. Theater is doing God of Carnage, which made a big splash on Broadway last year when it opened with Jeff Daniels and James Gandolfini.  I hear it's really shouty.   Most plays are, unfortunately.  Also, Cap Stage will be opening their new season soon at the converted Armory on J st.  It's another recently-written play, by the Tony and Pulitzer-winning playwright of August: Oskage County, Tracy Letts.  I'm stoked.

Anybody excited about any downtown/midtown restaurants right now?  They don't have to be brand new or anything.  I need some ideas for a column that isn't based super far away from downtown.

The Other Office

Hmm...well I couldn't tell if anyone was still out there because hardly anyone chimed in on Four Eyes Xmas show suggestions, but my statcounter said a buncha people checked yesterday (they're probably all searching for "Justin Bieber" or "paris hilton benji hooter" that's a heckasac callback for you longtime readers) and none of the hits were me because I was too busy to check, so guess I'll keep going!

Knock Knock and the Four Eyes were heckagood on Friday.  The Four Eyes are such consumate entertainers.  Picture an extended imitation of Tattoo from Fantasy Island as voiced by Peter Lorre, with a soupcon of Lost in Space thrown in = comedy gold.  And they closed with the theme song to Happy Days! Poifect.

Tales of Old Sac and weed cards after the jump!

Thanks Amanda

Thanks to Amanda for the wonderful portrait of me and Scott.  I commissioned it for a very reasonable price.  Get ahold of her through her website (linked at right under Best Summer Ever) or FB if you'd like to do the same.

Brew Awareness after the jump

It's like baby baby baby oh

Four Eyes and Knock Knock at the Blue Lamp tonight.  That reminds me, The Four Eyes are asking for Xmas requests.  Just put 'em in the comments.  Mine:  Baby, Baby by Bieber.

menu is here!

Sweet, we got the finalized menu for the Southern Fat Face Food and Film Fest.  Buy your tickets here.

salad of babydoll watermelon, lemon cucumber, cherry tomatoes, buttermilk vinaigrette
mesquite smoked bledsoe pork shoulder served with rolls and cabbage green bean slaw
cache creek chicken and andouille sausage jambalaya with grilled corn and smoky heirloom tomatoes
"red velvet" popsicle
fat face popcorn

time to buy

Hey dudes-
Have you bought your tickets for the Southern Foodways Film Festival FatFace Food Fest yet?  For the low, low price of 47 dollars you are going to get:
beer and/or wine
a full meal of FatFace Southern Grub including dessert and intermission snack
music during dinner from this guy
and, as if that's not enough, a program of short documentaries about Southern food culture distributed by Old Miss University.

if you have been procrastinating about getting tickets, please go ahead and pull the trigger because we need to plan for the number of guests.  Get tickets here!

Think about it, if you went to say, dinner at Magpie, had a couple of beers and then dessert, then went to the movies and bought popcorn, you would probably spend more than 47 bucks! You can't afford not to go to this.

ch-ch-ch-changes

I'm hearing reports today that Bon Air and Red Lotus may both be closed?  That would be a big blow to Jay street, which if you haven't noticed, and I have, since I live around there, is really struggling.  It's kind of the bro zone and non-bro-type restaurants (and even some bro-type ones) don't seem to be doing so well.  I really hope this isn't true.

Also, I'm sure everybody already knew this but I was totally surprised that Temple moved.  I've heard that the owner got a way better deal on rent and a bigger space, to boot.  I'll never forget those first few weeks of Temple.  Me and Smiller were so stoked on it!  It got popular pretty fast which put and end to us ever getting those cozy window seats again.

last set of pictures

Last day of Michoacan photos. 

 There are a few dishes that are touted as local specialties in the Michoacan guides.  One is called corundas, which are kind of tamale-like triangles, only un-filled.  The corn is a bit sweeter and more coarsely ground.  In this case, they're topped with rajas.  Quite good.  More after the break.

Purepecha - it's fun to say

Did you know there's a show tonight?  Actually, a couple of shows: one in Davis (Buk BUk Bigups) and one in Sac, at Luigi's (Devon Williams and English Singles)

More stuff about my trip to Michoacan (if you care to look) after the jump

give the gift that keeps on giving.

Hey-
If you guys know and/or love Caroline and/or DP, I just wanted you to know that you can show that love right now in the best way of all - with money.  J.K., of course, but their cute kittie, Sylvester, needs a thyroid-destroying operation.  This was the same thing Steve Miller (RIP) needed and in hindsight, I wish we would have done it rather than giving her the toxic thyroid meds.  Anyway, kick in a few shekels if you can.  Here's the donation page.  I mean, Kevin Seconds already got his tour van paid for, so if you hesitated on that you probably have a few extra dollars burning a hole in your pocket.

Michoacan report

I'm back from vacation! I went to Michoacan, more specfically the cities of Morelia, Patzacuaro, Janitzio, Quiroga, Tzintzuntzan, and Uruapan.

 But first, I went to the last show at the DAM Haus, which these rather terrible photos attempt to capture.

 Fine Steps were super good and SUPER LOUD.  Really kind of uncalled-for loud.

 I didn't get to see more than a couple of songs from the Ganglians and none of Ty Segall because the show was running late and some sort of raucous drum thing went on and on in the living room foreverrrrr.

 I had a plane to catch, a red eye to Guadalajara.  Stupid Aeromexico was delayed by an hour when I got there, so they said I could either catch the next plane tomorrow or wait in the airport in Mexico City for 13 hours!! I was all like, "nuh uh, girlfriend, what's your other offer?"  Long story short, I made it to Morelia on time.  Oh yeah, I forgot I can do "after the jump" to not make this too long.   So...there's more after the jump