Happy Thanksgiving!

Spend some time with this feature. This is the most entertaining food feature I have read in a long. So many things. Cookie salad. A Mormon dish made with pasta and coolwhip. The fact that in Oregon the #11 search is vegan gravy. Dishes with Snickers in them. So good.

is that a pigdog?

 Saturday Satan Wriders played at Café Colonial. I freaking love Satan Wriders. They are playing Sunday in Stockton and who knows maybe I will go? Manny's keeps coming up in conversation and I wanna eat there hella bad, so I could kill those two wonderful, wonderful birds with one stone.

 I am so picky about bagels that I hardly ever eat bagels. I had bagels a couple of weeks ago, just because I got some to go from Canter's, but I don't even think Canter's bagels are that great. They are just better than any of the bagels in Sac. Yesterday I finally got to to go to Beauty's in Oakland for their Montreal style bagels. That fucking Beauty above was STILL WARM when I ate it. Montreal-style bagels are wood-fired and usually sesame. Me and smiller had them at St. Vieateur in Montreal which is open 24 hours a day! You sit there and watch the bagel come out of an oven on a little conveyer belt which drops it right into your mouth. Or at least that's how I remember it. Doing that late at night is the best idea in the world. That's it - I'm making it my goal to go back to Montreal this next summer. It's been too long for how much I loved it. That and Schwartz's are reason enough.

 In addition to scarfing down the hot bagel I had a smoked trout salad sandwich that was delish, and a bite of lox that melted like butter.

 This dog was in the UCB art museum in a rather lame folk art exhibit. Clearly the work of an untrained artist.

How long has Corti Bros display case full of 17th century pasta tools been up? Has it been there and I just didn't notice it? Corti Bros never stops blowing my mind or draining my wallet. I highly recommend the Basque Cake. It is "almost too good" as the ad says below. It tastes like a really good poundcake with walnuts.

Heckarap!

I was really bummed on Heckarap and didn't get any new songs together and then very pleasantly surprised that it turned out fun. These dudes Machona and Amir are big supporters and they have been encouraging us to stick with it. They dj'ed a set and Machona did a few songs. They had mics and basically toasted, giving shoutouts to the Kings, me and Mike, whatever. Crowd def. arrived late and ebbed and flowed, but not too bad and looked like people were drinking. We got a ten dollar tip from a beautiful lady. She fell off her giant shoes a little later but was obviously having a lot of fun. Hope she feels ok today. This other women came up to me towards the end (she had come in late with a crew of 4) "can you play some hipster music? something that's not gangster? I don't mean to be rude". I was busy and didn't know what to say exactly but I wished I would have asked her for an example of hipster music.

A lot of people arrived about 15-20 minutes to close and I'm guessing they came from something else but I'm not sure what. I know there was something at the Golden Bear. It was really nice to have other DJs cuz then me and MC Ham could dance and hang out in a relaxed, not having to pick a song every second way. We are supposed to team up with those dudes to step up the promotion. We should probably be flyering at Ignorant and Bubble Butt, which is a new night on Monday. I was joking that I don't know what you have to do at the Press to get your night canceled, but now I really hope that doesn't happen. We are already scheduled til January.

There were some very lovely young ladies at our night dressed in a 90s, Sky Ferreira way (I don't know how else to describe it), who were sort of rave or goth dancing while Machona rapped and Mike C. laughed that we have the weirdest night in Sac and we sat there and basked in it. I killed with Aaliyah at the end (to the 5 people still dancing) and this (below) is obviously the song of the moment. I love this song!! I feel like it's giving Big Sean more cred. He has been popular for a while but he is usually a leading candidate for Softest Rapper In The Gamer (the top honor goes to Drake, obviously), but this is a step up. I like him but up until this he hadn't really earned my respect. Which I know is super important to him.

calling out Mark Trail

 You know you are married to the right person when he points out to you how awesome the Corti Bros ads are in the newspaper. Sometimes he cuts them out. Or rather that's how I know I'm married to the right person. By the way, do you read the Corti newsletter? Priceless.

 He also pointed out that the point of Mark Trial in the last week has been to show his gf in a bikini. Her name is CHERRY?!?

 and he finds this just as funny as I do. I agree WuMo is terrible (it replaced Doonesbury) but there are many other comic strips that are worse than Mark Trail. Nevertheless, bravo Ron O'Conner for penning this sure-to-be-controversial letter.

 This is by my house and I marvel at it every time I pass. Tiny baby hands.

This is one of my favorite cocktails - from Lowbrau. It has gin and a yogurt liqueur sounds gross but it's not! Brunch was pleasantly un-crowded at 11 am on Sunday.

 

Oh yeah, and I realized today that I have not looked at the best summer ever blog in like two years. I think maybe since it moved? So there went an hour there. bestsummereverblog.com

 

 

this sounds like an andy rooney segment

Where did the practice of a cashier saying "that will be five dollars" start? Why isn't it "it's five dollars"? It's like it's softening the act of asking you for money by casting it into the future. I also hate "I'll help whoever is next". Boy, do I hate that one, especially because it is often uttered while the person is looking right at me. Just say "I can help you"! Or, if you aren't looking at me "I can help the next person"!

The Bling Ring total garbage. It's not a movie, it's the Pretty Woman shopping montage with cooler music. Really slight. It makes Spring Breakers look deep.

I enjoyed Birdman quite a bit. Michael Keaton is a wonder in it. After watching Beetlejuice recently and tripping on how good he was and then this I'm wondering if I need to revisit his movies but what would I watch? I don't really like any Batman movies all that much. Mr. Mom? Looking at imdb I am remembering I liked Gung Ho as a kid. Wow, he wasn't in that many movies! Oh yeah, Night Shift! Going to the top of the ol' queue. I like the description in imdb uses the word "nebbish".

Looking at this I'm wondering why Michael Keaton is such a big star? I guess just Batman and Beetlejuice? Anyway, glad he's back! Ed Norton is awesome in Birdman, too. I see Oscar for Keaton.

....and I bought Gone Girl in the Long Beach airport because I had 6 hours to kill. There's a deal where you can buy a book new there and then return it for half off in a store in SMF sometime in the next six months. I'm sure there is little chance I will remember to bring it back but you never know. The writing is bad but it's a very fun book. Perfect for an airport. Speaking of the Long Beach Airport (which I am), if you hang out there for six hours you will hear many people remarking in surprise about what a nice airport it is. For some reason it is just such a cozy, pleasant airport. Have you been?

best best fest

Smiller and I went to the Shelton Beer Fest in San Pedro this last weekend and wow it was by a million miles the best beer event I've ever been to. Pretty much every single good brewery in the world was there. We're talkin' Prairie, Drie Fonteinin, (gasp) Cantillon, De Ranke, Mikkeller, Nogne O, Jester King, De Molen and more and more and more. Our hotel in Pedro was like a UN of brewers. In the morning you'd see all of them talking and hanging out (just like regular people!)

There were situations where lines would get really long for tastes of certain rare beers but then you could just wait until those were gone and stroll up with no line for a pour of Cantillon gueze. Good enough for me! I reminded myself that De Ranke Kriek is my favorite kriek in the world. I need to get some of it. No need to search far and wide for magical cherries - I like theirs the best. I tried a Mikkeller/Three Floyds collabo blueberry sour that blew my freaking mind! I don't think I can get it again so I will have to live with that. It tasted just like lambrusco. I also met a very nice brewer from Magic Rock in northern England and drank a pale made with mango that was surprisingly good.

The big celeb news at the beer fest was that one of the Hanson Brothers was there the whole weekend because they have a brewery and that Emilio Estevez came because he owns a wine/beer spot in SoCal.

I had lots of adventures at the fest and in LA, including trips to Roscoe's, Canter's and a place called Fantasy Castle packed with some very nice ladies, but I didn't take any pictures!

That fest was the best. I will go back next year.

classic

 

 

I rarely look back at things I've written, but someone was mentioning eating bugs to me and I remembered that I had eaten one for a story once. This one was fun to write. This guy is a real character, but was also shy and reluctant to talk about himself. I wish I could have drawn him out and interviewed him for longer. Wow, I've been writing for the SNR for over 6 years. My very first thing was a review of a Kingsley Amis book, then interviews with Dal, Larry R. and Karlos. There's that classic pic of him and MOM above. The next one was with Mario Solis, and then Hmong New Year. I forgot about all of this stuff.

 

Classic line from the Solis one:

 

Best seller? Worst seller?

Best seller: Angry Angles. Their Apparent-Transparent 7-inch EP went through two pressings and sold 1,200 copies. Worst seller: the Four Eyes. I blame the format (it’s the lone CD in the Plastic Idol catalog).