King Tuff! King Tuff!

King Tuff! King Tuff! King Tuff! King Tuff! King Tuff! King Tuff! King Tuff! King Tuff! King Tuff! King Tuff! King Tuff! King Tuff! King Tuff! King Tuff! King Tuff! King Tuff! King Tuff! King Tuff! King Tuff!*
*Jaill was surprisingly good, too.  I can't believe that in the space of one week I saw Dominant Legs, the Fresh & Onlys, King Tuff and Sonny and the Sunsets (and also Magic Trick who are super good but are not named Magic Mike like  I thought)  It's like a dream come true.

I had an excellent lunch at Bows.  Isn't it rad that there's a restaurant with a Sac Treat on the menu?!?!?

Fart Face (I accidentally wrote this and Im keeping it in) got a major picture in Sunset mag!

The Cubano, my favorite.

Look at this super thoughtful gift! It's the logo for The Wind, this power pop band from the early 80s.  I really like their record label logo (it's red and white and looks like a candy cane) and Scott made me a silkscreen of it!  Go to the link to see them performing a song.  The song is called "some friend (you turned out to be)" which I think is a really funny use of parentheses.

Phono Select hooked up an in store (or out store) performance for the kids.  The turnout was really good.  This is Jaill.

Here's King Tuff, with Audacity as the backing band.  OK, this guy on the right, you can say he looks ridic or whatever, but I admire his commitment to the Hulkamaniac look.

Closeup so you can really see it.  Check out the homemade rainbow wristbands, which is more Ultimate Warrior than Hulk, right?

King Tuff looked so cool as the wind blew his hair.

Fuckkkkk! what a good birthday.

America Loves Taco Tuesday

Wow, there is a kerazy show tonight.  It was not enough to have frequent four band show, now there's a five band show!  Some band, La Sera, Nacho Business, Magic Mike (which is a really good band that's the project of Tim from the Fresh & Onlys) AND Crystal Stilts. Guess I'll be eating at Taco Tuesday at Azul for dinner.

kingtuffsonnyandthesunsetsdominantlegsfreshandonlysbrianpeppersparishiltonbenjihooter

I guess Brian Peppers does qualify for the greatest hits.  As does Secret Blog.  Did you know Dillon and Amber own the Brian Peppers of cats? Something in the eyes.

I went to SF this weekend to see Sonny and the Sunsets.  God, I love that guy.  Ok, so I guess fucking blogger does not allow me to embed videos at all anymore, sweet.  I haven't loved a band this much in a long time.  He played like 4 country songs in the middle, which was annoying, but then came back with an encore of total hits.  (like the one in that link) His new album has a country vibe, but I think he will get away from that soon.  He called it "a childhood dream" to play these country songs live, but he was also apologetic and he knew people weren't that into it.  He played until one and I was really tired but I also could have watched him forever.  He played Teenage Thugs for the last song.  That song cracks me up.

I also hit up a little music fest during the day.  It was the last show of Dominant Legs.  (click to watch a badass video) I'm so bummed.  They are breaking up because the gorgeous super cool singer is dating the guy from Girls and they're gonna have a band together instead.  I still don't understand why they can't just take a hiatus?  I mean, what if her band with the Girls guy sucks?  He was at the fest, carrying her keyboard like a gentleman and he was dressed very eccentrically.  Big baggy wide wale cords with like, pleats at the waist, big white sneakers and a leather hat.  Fresh and Onlys were good, too.

King Tuff on Wednesday! The link goes to my favorite song on the album.  Can't wait to get the vinyl at the show.  Phono Select hooked up an in-store with him at 530 for you underagers.  It's really rad that Clay ok'ed that because there's a possibility it could cut into ticket sales.

8 year anniversary!!

Caring about someone masturbating in a movie theater is so 90s.  Remember when everyone was all uptight about stuff like that?  Thank god that shit is over and women are walking around with their butt cheeks hanging out again.  P.S. though, I have been in one of those theaters (not to mention that my grandpa used to work in one - I did not attend while he was there) and at the one I was at, an employee clocks in at the front every ten minutes or so to make sure no one is waxin' it.  So it's pretty dumb to do it.

I am so bummed I didn't get a chance to contribute to that SNR cover story!  I have quite a few good road trip stories.  Maybe if I have some time I will write a few of them here.

Wow, I knew we were getting close, so I just checked and it turns out TODAY is the day of this blog's 8 year anniversary (usually DB reminds me of this).  So this is my cue to say, "wouldn't it be fun for me to repost some of heckasac's greatest hits?" and then I never do it.  Remember how much it predated facebook?  Remember "Paris Hilton Benji Hooter"?  Remember Kevin Seconds and swinging?  Remember the heady days where I discovered that almost everyone local I was writing about found out about it?  Remember all the people who commented a lot, and how most of them stopped commenting (but I think a lot of them still read?)  I still love it, and I never admit this, but I really hope I place in the top three in SNR's "best of" this year.  I've never shilled for a vote before, but I think I deserve it, perhaps through sheer perseverance. 

crowdsourced writing

poll at right.  Closes at 1 pm.  If the siddhartha one wins I am totally faking it, I have no idea what that means.  If one of the modern ones wins,  I could use "the best mashup until". I realize the pliny one makes no sense

I have three things in the SNR this week.  Am I insane? I'm headed that way.  King Tuff interview!  This is my first thing to get reprinted: it's also in the Chico News and Review for which I received a sweet, sweet payment of 25 bucks. My real reward is if he sells a few more tickets in either place.  That guy should be rich as far as I'm concerned.

Other thing, a short piece on the Slant Step show at the Nelson.  I am unhappy with the truncation of my article, which my editor will probably be annoyed I am writing.  That's the way the cookie crumbles, I know.  And I accidentally turned it in at least 125 words too long.  Here's the original ending.  Read it after the piece, if you care to.

The opening was kicked off by a panel discussion which included conceptual artist Stephen Kaltenbach and Verge Executive Director Liv Moe, among others.  The moderator asked the panelists what they thought the original purpose of the object might have been and Moe punctured the playful mood somewhat with her prosaic, yet suddenly obvious answer: “I think it’s a shoeshine stool.”

And the third is my second food review.  I am still way to nervous about those things to link to it.  I try not to think about it, even though I stand by what I write.  I am the most happy about the review I'm about to turn in as soon as you pick my joke.  It will run in a few weeks.

Jamaica bound

The LCD Soundsystem movie is playing at 845 at the Crest tonight.  It's part of Launch.  Local boy Tyler Pope will be in it I imagine.  On that note, not only is !!! playing Launch but I see they are on the Coachella at sea thing which means they will be going to JAMAICA. So awesome.  They have played in so many countries. It would be fun to get a list.

Romney quote

Wouldn't it be wonderful to have a president that is this eloquent?

“We’re accused, by the way — in our party — of being the party of the rich,” Romney said. “And it’s an awful moniker, because that’s just not true. We’re the party of people who want to get rich. And we’re also the party of people who want to care to help people from getting poor. We want to help the poor.
“We also want to make sure people don’t have to become poor,” Romney said. “And we know what it takes to keep people from becoming poor.”

real men ate quiche

Busy weekend. Here's what I did, if you care. Or even if you don't you're already here so might as well look.

This wasn't the weekend yet but I was partying in a limo with sparkling wine so it felt like it was.  For an art fund raising event that LM was nice enough to invite me to.  This day was HELLA HOT and I was really sweaty around lots of wealthy people. They had probably all paid to botox their sweat glands so did not look as sweaty.

Friday the fair.  The weather whipsawed so that by the time it got dark everyone was extremely cold at the fair.  This is a monster truck call Wheels of Freedom.

You can ride it for only 5 bucks and it is hella fun.  If you are going to the fair I recommend you do it.

I got a cup of the world's largest margarita (did I place that apostrophe correctly?)  At 12,500 gallons how sanitary could it be? It tasted OK.

This guy is contemplating the wizard's challenge, which was actually really weak.

The big rib was the most hyped food at the state fair this year.  I should have gone for it, but it's 16 bucks and they keep touting how it has two pounds of meat, which I really don't want.  Ever since the chuck wagon fucked up their brisket I have been disappointed in every food I get at the fair.

I think I posted a picture of this last year, but it's still funny.

How is it possible that EVERY YEAR when I am near the Blues and Brews stage that  Mick Martin is ALWAYS playing?  He can't play all day every day, can he?  I was speculating that they keep him in suspended animation the rest of the year, like in the movie Alien.  He had a jaunty way of  using the bongo as a place to lean.

I finally got to satisfy my  curiosity about the Wonderbread 5.  This is what they look like.  They don't just cover oldies, they cover Lady Gaga and stuff, too.  They have seriously devoted fans.  People were getting down.

Then we saw the Happy Together Tour. These are terrible pictures of Dolenz. He ruled! Other people thought the Turtles were funny but I didn't really.  I am going to pray all year that the Lovin' Spoonful are on this tour next year.  Please Jah.

We finally got some farm eggs from the compound and I promptly made....

a quiche!  You know what, a real quiche, like a classic, is a lot of heavy whipping cream and milk, and only about four eggs (plus 2 yolks).  This quiche, combined with cider, sparkling wine, and lambic equalled a whole afternoon of nausea, but it was worth it.  Actually, I didn't like the quiche that much.  Too rich!  Next time I will probably make the pie crust and then put a frittata in it.  You pre-bake the pie crust so you could put anything in it!  I saw several real men eating this quiche.

launch

I've been paying very little attention to this whole Launch dealy, which has a lot to do with those douches on the flyer (I heard it's maybe Chromeo, which makes it excusable I guess), but then I heard that the King Tuff show was part of it and my ears perked up.  And then last night I met a dude, an architect, who is involved with planning it.  Some pretty crazy shit is going on!  There's quite an elaborate website, but the whole thing is so sprawling that I still find it confusing. 

The thing the dude was so excited about, which sounds really cool, is a temporary architecture installation made out of 1000 pieces of machine-cut cardboard.  It's going to be at Cesar Chavez park, I think set up on Friday? or Saturday and staying through the weekend.  They have gotten some crazy permissions from the city, including the ability to have beer at CC without having to restrict it to the beer garden.  I think this is where !!! and DJ Shadow, Chromeo, etc. will be.

Tuesday, July 24th is at Bows, with Ross Hammond and Gentleman Surfer.  Anyway, check out the website.  There are a lot of artists involved, too.

Fuck, I'm gonna do it.  I'm going to have a yard sale.  Sunday, 9 am.  Mostly clothes and other stuff.  Books, maybe records?  Prices will be CHEAP.  I hope none of you see me sell something you gave me.  I don't want to give out my address here, so if you don't know it, maybe email me?

no more secret

Well the (sorta) secret is out! I'm the new SNR food critic, or, uh reviewer.  This is exciting and nerve wracking for me.  Nick eased things a lot by writing me this very nice intro note.  I have been having fears about  "who the hell is this chick" reverberating through online sources, and this made me feel better.

I also have a piece about the SketchKlubb show at the Center for Contemporary Art.  The artist, Patrick Phipps was very interesting to talk to and very articulate about his art collective but I must say this art really leaves me cold.  I feel no connection to the subject matter or the haphazard nature.  In fairness, SketchKlubb was never meant to be exhibited, as he says, but I think it does not come off very well in a gallery setting.  Boy, I hope he does not see this.

Some art that makes me hot is going to be at the Nelson Gallery this afternoon.  It's the opening of the (3rd?) annual Flatlanders group show, and there are going to be pieces by Nate Cordero and Jose di Gregorio and many others.  There's also a panel discussion with Liv Moe and Stephen Kaltenbach! The discussion starts at 430.  I can't wait!! Actually glad to be in Davis right now.

More art talk: here's a sneak preview of Natalie's upcoming show at Bows.  I hear that her interview will be on the blog soon, but it's not up yet.

Speaking of Davis, Wounded Lion is playing at the Villanova house and you know they are always a good time.  Tonight the Merry Wells are at Leap in the Dark.

OK, this is not to guilt you guys, this is just to inform you.  Not many of you were at the Bananas show on Tuesday, and believe me, I understand why.  I know, I know, Tuesday show, four bands. Ended a bit before midnight.  However, now that the Bananas don't play that much they are positively on fire every time they play and you could see it on the face of every man, woman, and child (Dog Party) in the audience.  They were delightful, that is the word that kept flashing in my head.  I got goosebumps at one point.  So, next time you are trying to weigh your desire to sleep against your desire to see  them, I promise you you will be glad that you did.  I had never seen Dog Party and they were unexpectedly very good.  So cute! They both currently have braces.

real men don't carry opera tickets

Bananas/Babies/Dog Party/4th band show tonight at Luigis!

It finally arrived! It's hecka short.  I will show you the "best" parts and save you the trouble.

 one of these three things disqualifies SM from being a real man. I'll let you guess which.

 See, food was the big battleground here.  I guess they though quiche was just a given.  Check out #13.  Smiller has noted that light beers have pulled off a remarkable marketing turnaround because now many bros proudly proclaim it as their beer of choice.  I guess real men hate arugula so much they don't even want to know how to spell it. 

 hmm....Hughes Rudd was a newsguy.  They seem to have the most respect for TV journalists.  I think the Hunt brothers were the guys who tried to corner the world market on silver? I remember my parents telling me about that.  John Milius was the screenwriter of Red Dawn.  Nuff said.  James Galanos the fashion designer? This list is super random.

 why the Gifford hate? rex humbard is an evangelist. The pope? So real men are atheists? I agree about John Davidson for sure.

Sunday supper

 I know there's a secret show on Thursday in Davis with celebrity bands, but this leap in the dark is going to be good, too.  The Merry Wells are Dan from Makeout Party's new band, and that guy is great.

 I don't think I ever posted this amazing card that OMF drew us for our wedding.  We're planning on framing it.

 Secret Hub show (I guess secret shows are the new shows) with Buk Buk.  They played the Pink Panther theme for a long time.  That reminds me how confusing I found the concept of the Pink Panther movies when I was a kid.  I still don't get what Clousseau has to do with the cartoon character.

 Couldn't capture Fine Steps because it was so dark.  It got even darker for the Singles so I didn't even try.

 Looked at the furniture at Macys because I am warming up to the idea of someday buying quality furniture (which means I will purchase my first piece in two to five years), got pretty into this ultra-smooth acacia wood table.  It costs almost as much as the last Toyota I purchased.  I love the bench side though! It comes with four chairs and a bench.  I can picture a Danish Modern hanging lamp over it.  And sweeping those vases to the ground.  What do you guys think?  Set with some dansk flatware and heath dishes?  Is it douche-y?

 Sunday supper!  Slow grilled chicken, but I realized that I should have removed the skin.  It got really tough after 45 minutes over a few coals and the spice rub did not penetrate.  I am still trying to learn how to grill properly.  The chicken was expensive farmer's market chicken and you know what?  It was gamy, stringy and stingy with the meat.  Organic is not always better tasting.

The salad is corn, Krim tomatoes and pesto.  We shelled the peas.  That's probably 3.50 worth.  We had it with a petillant natural rose from the Jura, a blend of Chardonnay and Savagnin.  Yeah!

Apricot crumble thing with vanilla ice cream.  The apricots were so tangy that it was a really good combo with the oatmeal cookie-like crust and the ice cream.  I love apricots.  I think apricot jam might be my favorite jam, with marmalade second.

rad

Wah? Crazy.  I just emailed Harold McGee (THE Harold McGee) about whether "the bloom" in coffee really is carbon dioxide (rather than just air on the grounds) and he answered me back almost right away!!

the bubbles are indeed CO2, which slowly dissipates from freshly roasted beans, so that after a week or two the same beans won't bubble up. If the bubbles were just air entrained during grinding, old beans would bubble too

absinthe story

Speaking of coffee, do I have it right that there are only two types of beans and the rest is terroir and how it's roasted?  That is crazy to me.  I know terroir is a real, although very mysterious thing.  As it applies to wine my science brain has a hard time with the concept because I don't understand what the mechanism is.  For instance, how would growing a grape in chalky soil result in a mineral character? Is the chalk actually in the grape? I am just making that example up but it's hard for me to understand.

However, imagine if there were only two grapes in the world and yet there were people claiming to find hundreds of different flavors in the same two grapes.  I guess it is still possible.

There's a hub show this weekend! Is it sort of a secret? Am I not supposed to post this? It's not on undietacos.  It's Fine Steps and English Singles.  Both of these bands are currently on fire.

Also, Bananas and Babies and Dog Party and someone else on Tuesday the 10th.  Again, I ask Charles: why you book four band show on weeknight? I'm sure this will irritate him (if he's reading) but four band shows irritate me.

Since you've all stopped reading by this point I'll tell you the story about why my car reeks of absinthe.  Once upon a time NH bought a bottle of absinthe and we wanted to have a nip early in the day (as you do) and the cork fell in.  DL decided that the perfect cork would be a baby carrot, which promptly fell in.  Perhaps the nips had something to do with this.  Then, the absinthe had to be poured out, strained for bits of cork, and poured back in.  The carrot was strained out (some mixologist should made a drink with absinthe-marinated carrots) but the cork remained.  As you may know, NH and JBB just bought a house and they are moving.  The absinthe top was wrapped in plastic wrap so they decided not to move with it.  I said, "I'm not letting good absinthe go to waste" so I wrapped a rubber band around the plastic wrap.  Rock solid plan, right?  Then I put it in my trunk to go home since that's an open container.  I am so lazy about this kind of thing (not about other things!) that I just propped it up against a box of giant Lacoste towels that I am supposed to take back to Macy's (wedding present, but I picked giant ones accidentally).  Of course it all spilled as soon as I pulled away.  So now the car smells like booze and I probably can't take the towels back.  I'm scared to look.  This is mostly news to Scott right now.

hecka show

Hey wait a minute, I had it on my calendar that Heckamax was playing tonight at a coffee shop.  Did that get canceled? Aha, I see it's not on undietacos (mistake!) but it is in my fb events.  Starts at 8pm at the Naked Lounge on H st, Al and Dead Western

So as a wedding present we got this sweet electric kettle, Kitchenaid I think.  My goal was to use it to make coffee in the perfect temp range, and let me tell ya, it makes a HUGE difference.  I'm serious.  With that and my burr grinder I get perfect coffee every day.  Just a little advice if you're into it, if not don't bother obviously. 

Friday at Bows is Goia Fonda's art opening and I'm quite excited to see what she has cooked up. 

that's not a tampon!

After ten years I just noticed that the sign on the tampon containers in the bathroom at my work are anti-Semitic!  That looks nothing like a pad OR tampon.  I think we can all see what it looks like.

I keep reading references to Tropic Thunder everywhere so I went to put it in my netflix queue and I was informed that I rated it one star three years ago.  I don't know how to feel about that.

Speaking of movies, I did not love Moonrise Kingdom, but I do think it was Wes Anderson's best movie since Rushmore.

Babs' Big Adventure

It is way too gross to say I partied like a rock star on Saturday, but I came the closest that I get (actually it's so gross that I want to erase that).  I paid for it yesterday, but that only happens maybe twice a year so I think that's ok.  Maybe three times.  I know it's strictly a coincidence, but it's usually when the Mantles come to town, weird.  Those guys are all super quiet, go-to-bed-early types who never bring over a case of beer and three frozen pizzas at one in the morning so I wonder why.

You know what sucks the most about having an indoor cat? The constant fear of the cat getting out when you have a bunch of people staying at your house.  It's very anxiety-producing.  Like dreams of her getting out and stuff.  All that worrying, and when we went out to brunch it turned out that the downstairs window was completely open for hours, no screen.  Babs was just sitting by it, but with lots of cobwebs in her whiskers, so who knows what she did and where she went.  Maybe she "went to town", like in the scene from Wet Hot American Summer above. Oh, I see now blogger will no longer embed youtube clips.  Don't make me switch to wordpress, blogger, I'm warning you.

I judged a latte art contest on Saturday at Chocolate Fish.  Silly, kinda, but it was pretty cute that they took it so seriously and got really nervous and shaky.  The guy above took second.

Connection

Ahhhhhh!!!!!! Just interviewed King Tuff!! He is nice!! I was nervous.  I hate how my smart phone goes dead in between people talking, you know what I mean? That dead air that makes conversation awkward? My awesome old dumb phone was more like a land line in that it did not do that.

English Singles were good last night.  Sophia's is a funny scene.  It's a real meat market inside.  The promoter dude is very cool.  Direct message to Knock Knock: if you wanna play there, you should probably just email him.  He likes you and would probably put you on a show, plus he remembers that show you were on with Dreamdate had more people than he expected.

Tomorrow is Mantles.  If as many people as RSVP'ed on FB show up there are going to be too many to get in.  Luckily, we all know a FB RSVP means very little.

Sunday is Scouse Gits, the band with OMB, Tristan, Alex Shrugg and Stan. It's at 6pm at Press Club.

molcajete!

This is part of what I had for dinner last night. This is an exciting/scary dish. It kept spitting for about 15 minutes and it was delicious.

English Singles tonight! Sophia's! 830! Davis can be fun for an evening if you don't work here.

Caution Joggers Ahead - ruined by a dick

Whoever did this is a colossal dick.  This is my favorite sign in Sacramento, by the train station.  There is so much construction over there that I have contemplated stealing it many times, in case they tear the fence down.  First, someone tagged it, which could be cleaned off.  And then some dick took the painstaking time to change the "j" to and "m" and scrapr off the top half of the "o".  And there aren't any fucking muggers in that area.  I can't believe anyone did this.  I should probably still take the sign and try to fix it.  I have often pondered the mystery of this sign and its location on an obscure strip of road.  I figured that a jogger must have been hit there at one time.

From my study of Cathy cartoons from the 80s I have realized that jogging was a really big deal.  It was like a revelation to people, and a whole lifestyle.

Anybody got any questions for King Tuff? I'm interviewing him on Friday.

photo post

First things first: English Singles are playing at Sophia's in Davis on Thursday.  It is currently a two band show, starting at 830 and maybe Singles are first?  My point is, this is a rad place to see a show and it will be over early.  The stage is outside on the patio.  You can get sugary drinks at Sophia's, or delicious brew at Davis Beer Shoppe.  If anyone will join me, I will go drink a Wicky Wacky Woo at Bernardo.

Photo post after the jump, which includes some of the best photos that man (or mankind or womynkynd) has ever seen:

ToHoShoHo

Had a reliably stellar dinner at Masullo the other night, including splitting the lemon posset (a kind of British pudding - Masullo serves it with a cap of cava gelee and a tiny oatmeal cookie) and his famous ice cream sandwich, also with oatmeal cookies and vanilla ice cream.

He said he's had an uptick in business since the mention by the most well-respected pazzaiolo in the U.S. (Chris Bianco) named him as one of his top picks.  Masullo's is about to be four years old and it's about damn time that people give him the respect her deserves.  Pizza of that caliber is very hard to pull off, certainly no other Neopolitan-style place in Sac comes close.

English Singles and Knock Knock at the ToHo tonight!!!

once again: suck it Breton

I know this is controversial, but I'm gonna say it: best plant in Sacramento.

Ok, take a sec and read Breton's most recent column and come back.  I'll wait.

Is it just me or did he take the exact wrong point from this debate in Seattle?  The real point is that every city has woken up to the fact that in the 90s and early 2000s a lot of cities got sold a bill of goods about what an arena would bring and financed them publicly and saw that they did not pan out the way they were promised and now no city, no matter how world class, is willing to foot these enormous bills.  amiright?  Add the recession into that and boom! It's not just Sac that has naysayers.

movie talk

This upcoming weekend is weekend two of the French Film Festival.  I attended two movies this last weekend, which is  indicative of the fact that there are hardly any good shows, or that I am now no longer following current music (or camping much).  Every year when the FFF happens I usually can't make it to any of the movies.  Oh well.  I like going to it.  It seems to be doing very well.

I saw House of Pleasures at the late night.  It's loooong, with no plot, and a ton of nudity, oh yeah, and a panther on a leash that acts like a kitty.  You'd think it would be perfect for me, but in the last 45 minutes or so it gets pretty darn stupid.  It's set in a fin d'siecle brothel in Paris.  Lots of good stuff but by the scene when all the girls are crying and slow dancing because one has died of syphillis and the strains of "nights in white satin" (I shit you not) are ringing out, it pretty much lost me.  Still fun.

The next evening I went to Hotel Du Nord, a classic, and they had a very old print and the sound was fucked.  More than the sound has been fucked in any movie I've ever seen.  There was constant crackling insterspersed with heavy WHOMP noises.  I heard that it was so back that the projectionists upstairs were turning the platters by hand.  The movie was not stopped and no announcements were made about what was going on.  I can't believe how many people stayed! I made it about 40 minutes and when it just got worse I tried to get one refund for my mom (I didn't ask for one) and we couldn't get one.  Amateur hour! I know it would have sucked to give people a refund but it was insane.  They should have just offered people passes to next week's festival.

I haven't heard a single rave about Moonlight Kingdom.  Even people who love him seem to not be able to find much good to say.

I like motocross. Who knew?

I went to see Luis Palau this weekend and my writeup will be in this weeks SNR. It was a'ight (I can feel Scott cringing as I write this.  Now that we're married we're connected like that) The motocross RULED

I was reading people and would like to share with you the difference between my wedding and Matthew McConaughey's wedding. Yes, I just talk about weddings now:
1) I did not supply the guests with African robes to lounge in.
2) I didn't have custom coozies that said "don't mess with Texas"
3) No Woody Harrelson dancing up a storm (I feel that he and Joel would find some common interests
4) I did not have Guy Fieri cooking BBQ the next day.  This is a point in my favor.

English Singles show on Friday!NOW WITH 100% MORE KNOCK KNOCK

a million ways to die

Stopped by Mike C. and Hailey's bday night last night.  Hung with my tiny buddy Prince.  He didn't want too much attention so he just hung out in my purse most of the time.  Josh Ploeg had made delicious empanadas and salsa (although I wouldn't try it because it was fruit salsa and I don't "do" fruit salsas).  He is doing a big picnic in Southside Park on Sunday afternoon. Smiller, what time does it start?  Who was there for the hot dog eating contest.  Tip for the Press Club: instead of all the disgusting beer they have get a gin and tonic with Hendrick's.  It's only 5.50 and Charles for some reason got his for two bucks.  What a shameless flirt.

This weekend is shaping up to be so busy! There's Luis Palau (not kidding - for a writing assignment), French Film Festival (with a dirty movie Saturday at 11 pm and a classic one Sunday at 730 - if anyone has researched which of the modern ones look good, I'd love some recommendations), Josh's thing...

English Singles show next Friday on June 22nd.  Come out and buy the single!  I am pumped for the Mantles show on the 30th although that house it's at is so teeny tiny! Hope the porch doesn't collapse.  A lot of the house show times in my life have been spent hoping that the floor/porch doesn't collapse.  Have I mentioned before that I once sat outside during an entire Bananas show because the building was such a fire trap? That sucked.  I also used to hyperventilate about it at the basement space where Troy Bayless used to have dj nights.  I think I have written about this before.  After 8 years of blogging...

The one place I don't worry is at the Four Eyes and Halloween shows at Gbombs house because during those times I am so happy that it would almost be the best time to go, although I guess surviving with a crushed limb and watching all my friends die would be pretty bad (on a scale of 1 to 10).

various things and stuff

Have you guys heard the news about Rachel Leibrock and Nick Miller being co-editors of the SNR (of course you have it's all over FB)?  I am really psyched about this.  I heard rumblings for a long time that there would be someone brought in from out of town to do this and I think that would have been a big mistake.  This is great.

Mike C.'s birthday Leap In The Dark is tonight, and I heard there is a hot dog eating contest hence barfing. Or booting as I have recently learned that the frat boys call it.

I went to see the Cap Stage play How I Learned to Drive last night and it is stellar.  This is the last weekend to catch it.  It made me cry, it made me think, it's got some comedic parts but I can't say they really made me laugh.  According to the play notes (written by their excellent dramaturge, Stephanie Tucker) the playwright was thinking of it as Lolita written from the nymphet's point of view, which I totally get and which is made clear in the scene that made me cry, which mirrors the comics reading scene in Lolita.  If you've read it you remember that scene.  The relationship between the abuser and the abusee is very complex and there are real feelings on both sides; it's not as simple as a leering creep and a victim.  My only beef (and I think B Street is a big offender on this point, Cap Stage usually isn't) is that the current parts are set in 1988 by my calculations and the star is wearing a completely modern outfit.  Wrong jeans, wrong shoes. 

angry crank

I was 20 minutes late to work because of that stupid yellow plane that flies over the causeway!  It filled me with rage, just because everyone knows that this plane does it but no one can do anything. I already emailed the FAA last year.

I don't know if you guys read Saveur, but the newest one also filled me with rage.  Almost every single article (at least five of them) started with the lazy "remember when?" intro.  As in, "I always picture my grandmother with a gin and tonic in her hand" for an article on making tonic water (who has the time?) or "My first taste of creme brulee was during a summer roadtrip in France when I was 16". These are not direct quotes but are based on two real articles in the mag.  This is just lazy writing and a tired cliche.  Who the fuck cares when you first experienced something?  It's usually not that exciting of a story.  Can we keep it a little more current? How do you feel about it now? I can't say I've never done it, but I try not to and I wrote a column (probably not one of my best) making fun of it.  It was about having shabu shabu in Japan.

At least half of my rage is because this type of intro usually reveals a very privileged background on the part of the writer (like in Bon Appetit last month, the daughter of some super famous painter - can't quite recall which one - recounts summers on a yacht in Greece and the cooking their servants did for them).  Yes, I am jealous because it is often the 1% that have the connections to get these writing gigs.  Vogue is dripping with this, of course, not that I'd ever want to write for Vogue.