new kru review

Here's the SN&R review of Kru. It sounds good and I'm excited about the simpler rolls. I'm going to go there sometime next week, like, fer sure.

Product review

I have never done a product recommendation before, but in honor of our first 100 degree day of the year, I'd like to recommend the Alba green tea sun screen. A friend had it and I couldn't believe how non-greasy it was for an spf 30 sun screen. You could easily use it as moisturizer. And the best part? They sell it at the co-op for 5.99! I was prepared to drop a bundle just because of the quality so I was pleasantly surprised at the price. So there.

special for the worm

You can listen to the whole new R. Kelly album here. I'm listening to it right now, so I can't give a full review, but so far I can say for sure it's not the best R. Kelly album ever (as he claimed it is) because the first song is kinda weak and features the Game. Game sucks. Everyone knows that. The second song, a summer jam with Snoop is also lackluster. It picks up with the third track, Sex in the Kitchen, which is a typical Kels dirty jam. It's not blowing my mind yet.

Go Betweens!

The Go-Betweens are on Fresh Air right now! If you haven't already been listening, I would just download it today or tomorrow after 3:00 when it becomes available, because you already missed about 15 minutes of it.

There was a report of three armed robberies in the Bee today. The victims were all women and they occurred downtown, one of them at 14th and Q. The Bee said that two of the women were in their cars, I guess maybe they were getting in them to leave somewhere and the guy came up with a gun. So I guess just watch out for lurking guys.

pop quiz

I know Marie could finish this next line. But can you?

d.p. in m.c.

Now someone has called d.p. a fucked up asshole! http://sacramento.craigslist.org/mis/81518328.html

drunk in public

Does anyone (and I'm mostly asking katy) know the skinny on drinking beer in public parks? I wanna have an evening volleyball party for my birthday, and no one has a yard big enough so I was thinking of one of those parks where the kickball games usually happen. If I bought cups and people tried to be discreet would we get busted? Cuz my friends are all such boozehounds that if there's no beer I'm not sure if they'll show up. Who am I kidding, I just can't play any sport without beer being involved.

Gah. Creepy Sac true crime story. Here's a link. I was watching court tv last night and they showed a bit of footage of Century stadium theater. This story is horrible. This lady in Sac tortured two of her grown daughters to death and got away with it for about 10 years. I shouldn't watch these shows because I start to look under the bed for serial killers and have nightmares.

Speaking of Knightmares, does anyone have any more tour news? The dudes (and one lady) will all be back in town on tuesday, and I can't wait. The town seems empty lately without them.

d.p. connection

Hey look, D.P. got a missed connection!

Album Review

Anybody have any Mike C. party/afterparty reviews? Monday night is not great for me so I ducked out by midnight (like Cinderella) when the crap-lousy bands were still playing. But Lisa was playing good songs earlier, so maybe people danced?

OK, so the Four Eyes have a new album on Plan-it X and you need to buy it right now. I don't know where you can buy it. I stole a copy from my roomates room but I don't recommend you try that because I keep a loaded magnum under my pillow and if you break in and spook me I can't guarantee that I won't accidentally shoot you. Here's my review of the album: A-. It would be an A+ except they forgot to put The Oldest Dude in the World on it. The Oldest Dude contains the lyrics, "It's just like a dream, like Scott Miller's dream" which really cracks me up because I happen to have some insiders knowledge that this song was based on Scott's dream of the Four Eyes singing a song about an old dude. Also, I have heard from a source that "Hat Nerd" was based on Dillon telling them that they would know they're washed up as a band when they write a song about a nerd wearing a hat. And, the song "57 Chevy" was penned after Charles remarked that it would be funny if the Four Eyes had a song in which they ended the verse with Joel singing, in a low voice "a 57 Chevy". I want to think of something funny for them to write a song about!!! Write a song about my blog! I actually just want them to cover the Sopranos theme song. Wow, I'm rambling. Anyway, the CD also has parts 1-6 of the Ben Casey saga, which I love. It even has a doo-wop song with a saw part. The doo-wop harmonizing is so perfect that people were speculating that they used a pitch shifter to achieve the effect, but it's actually just Joel singing bass. That cements it, he's a genius. A mad genius.

Also, and did I already blog this? Get the Bright Ideas 45. The song "Stay Down" is a perfect pop germ. Oops, gem. It's probably at Tonevendor.

***special note to DB-Fatso came INSIDE just for the purpose of taking a big stinky crap. What's wrong with that cat?

krumpin'

I heard about the release of that krumping movie (Rize) and I figured it might never come to Sac but lo and behold it opened this last friday. It's playing at UA Arden Fair. That's kind of where movies go to die so if you are interested you should probably get out there by thursday.

El Chico R.I.P.

Oh my god! I can't believe I forgot to post about this. Most of you probably already know, but Joe Marty's El Chico burned down early saturday morning. Here's the story in the Bee:
http://www.sacbee.com/content/news/story/13132320p-13976417c.html For those of you who don't know, Joe Marty's was opened in 1938 (the same year the Tower opened) by a hometown baseball hero.

I went around to investigate the scene on saturday morning (so that I could keep my loyal readers informed) and there were charred napkins littering the street. Employees of the Tower theater are holding on the one of the last menus in hopes that it will become a collector's item. The bar may be salvageable, which is good news. I like that bar. All the baseball memorabilia was saved. The restaurant is toast, however. I have only eaten there a few times and I may have mentioned before that the cleanliness level kind of grossed me out. The cook appeared to be in ill health and to have only a passing acquaintance with soap and water. And it figures that a bug bomb would have set off the fire. I wouldn't be surprised if they were skirmishing with vermin quite often back there. You know what this means, though. No more pizza burrito. Please feel free to share your El Chico memories with me.

noshing

Still busy, but Anna wanted me to post about a thing at Taylor's market today. There is going to be a ton of free samples there tonight from 6-830. They only host this thing twice a year. Free food! Count me in.

pre-post

Can't blog. Interviewing potential employees today. Will post later.

monday birthday

homzee
Originally uploaded by becklerg.

I'll post this early so you can pencil it into your calendar. Hopefully you can read it. Everyone's favorite homzee is turning (gasp) 30 on monday. Go by the press club monday night and buy him a drink.

pissed connections

The bald J street barber strikes back with a lame post in which he uses "LOL" three times. And a LOT of RANDOM capitalization. This is the best he could do even with more than a day to think about it? Does he really think that every single person who has daily access to a computer and enough free time to check missed connections once in a while is a loser? That hurts, bald barber, you don't even know me.

whats happenin

Stuff going on this weekend...I don't know of anything besides two shows tomorrow night. There's a Fool's foundation show and a Losin' Streaks/Bananas show tomorrow at the Blue Lamp.

Peaches, nectarines, strawberries, and squash blossoms are in season at the farmer's market, for those of you who may find that exciting.

Knightmares/RTL tour diary (sort of)

I am a lazy blogger so the dudes on tour will have to do the work for me. I'm reprinting their comments here as kinda a tour diary thingy:

From Charles:

I am glad to see heckasac is going strong despite three of it's biggest fans here in KANSAS! Yup, tour is going well, last night these punkers weren't into our slacking. RTL is on stage and Paul goes whats the name of your band. they Yell "Chaotic alliance" and Paul goes, "Did you say Gay Artic Alliance?" The punkers didn't beat us up. We ended up sleeping in a Karate Doe-Joe and Joel gotten his ribs cracked by the Dude (his name was Spamm) who set the show up. Good times.Anyways, I hope all of you Heckasac-ers are coming to chico to party with the Mares and RTL. it is going to shred big time.Charlesps. I will tell all of you about how we have leanred the ways of scampunkery and what a "brobe" is. it's a new fashion Joel and Dillion invented out of sheet we scam punked from a hotel.

From Heckamax:

Hey, I'm e-mailing right across from Charles in a cyber cafe in Lawrence, Kansas. Weird, huh? The four eyes picture made me laugh outloud and the people who work here probably think that I'm a nut. Also, I happen to be very greasy, bearded, sweaty, unwashed and sexy. A sexy nut. Tour is great. I've been out of the van for about one half hour now and I miss it completely. I get a little road hungry when I'm not driving. Expect me to be very road hungry when I get back to sac. Hopefully some of you will drink brews in the van with me, cause I don't take to the outside much, or to a bed much, or to going without greasy food much. Here' Paul!!!!!!!Paul wouldn't type. F him. I hope everyone is having a good time in sac and that some of you come to the Chico show. I will now post directions to the show in Chico off the top of my head.
Step 1. Go to Chico. 99 North. Pass Yuba. Holler at the ladies for me.
Step 2. Arrive in Chico and take the Chester Orland exit. Take a Left on Chester (First left. Its one way)
Step 3. Left on Chestnut. You are almost there. Crack open a road soda.
Step 4. Right on W 12th St. One block down and park. Look for a Van or Beau's black truck. Or listen for Beau. He sounds like a young James Earl Jones. Seriously, his house will be on the left side of the road. I'll post the address later. These directions are pretty Al so handle with care. Again, I'll post the address.
Love you guys, stay frosty, -heckamax

Crazy tat!

nannertat
Originally uploaded by becklerg.

I don't know if you can see it but it's a picture of a guy with a Banana's tattoo.

clap your hands say yeah

Pitchfork has proclaimed Clap Your Hands Say Yeah (I know) as the current saviors of indie rock. There's a free MP3 today at Goldenfiddle, (it's linked at the top) so check it out . Sounds good, but I'm not crazy about the singer's voice.

Four eyes!!!!!

This is an amazing picture. Here's a little article in the SN&R

hott barber on J street

Speaking of continuing sagas, there is a funny series of missed connections about the bald barber on J st. If you follow such things, you'll remember that some lady posted about him before and all these other ladies were drooling but then his girlfriend got on and got really pissed. There are more postings about him today. In order, they are here, here, and here. And then after even more posts where people speculate if he's posting about himself (I doubt it), there is of course the standard curmudgeonly craiglist post. Why do some people read craigslist just so they can post about how pathetic all the other posters are? I'm surprised they didn't post that the other people are asshats and should take their meds.

kels does it again

KNOZ 96.5 (the station that broadcasts on 16th st) is getting better. It's even getting some advertisers, so I'm hoping that they can get a stronger signal someday. We are living right near the epicenter of the best hip-hop being made, and yet the Bomb and KSFM dish up that same tired New York shit day after day. I hate those stations so much. I can't believe I have been driven to listen to Mix 96 in my car.

Have people heard the 5 part R. Kelly saga of "Trapped in the Closet" yet? I can't wait to get the album. There are so many good parts, but the ones that stand out are when he is banging his lady in part 4 (it gets really dirty and funny) and the covers fall back and he sees a rubber. He actually calls it a rubber like we did when we were kids and he ends part 4 by trailing off singing "and what did I see, a rubber, rubber, rubber...". The other best part is when he bleeps his own cuss words. He sings the bleeps. He sings "mother bleep". I wonder if this will start a new trend. He's a genius and he has done it again. This album is going to be a monster hit. People call the hip hop stations constantly requesting it.

Hana Tsubaki review

There were some postings on chowhound.com about Hana Tsubaki's bad service and then someone pointed out this article in the Bee in which the food got a good review but the service got a thumbs down. On that note, I have kind of stopped eating at Andy Nguyen's cuz their terrible service gets on my nerves and I have heard some complaints about Taka's as well. Also, a lot of my food last time I ate at Andy's was burnt and probably shouldn't have been served to me. I guess these older downtown restaurants aren't used to all the business they're getting, but it shouldn't take them so long to figure it out. I usually don't mind waiting, it's just annoying when things are all disorganized and chaotic. Like having to ask a few times just to get a beer while you're waiting forever for your food. Get it together, people!

you know you're a redneck when....

We played another rousing round of Jew, Not a Jew at the Rubicon last night and even after consulting the internerd, the jury is still out on whether Justine and Jason Bateman are Jewish. I was disturbed to find out that if you google his name and the word Jewish you get sent to some horrible anti-semitic website called "jewwatch" that has all this crap about Jews controlling the media. Rednecks are just jealous that Jews are funnier than they are. Which would you rather watch, Seinfeld or Jeff Foxworthy's TV show? Who even knows what it's called anyway?

Speaking of racism, this whole Lodi terrorism probe is leaving a bad taste in my mouth. I like that their defense attorney has come out swinging. It doesn't sound like they have anything to hide. I'll bet you a million bucks (which I have in a secret Swiss account since I'm Jewish) that these charges will be revealed to be a load of bullshit. And then today the Bee wrote about how some stupid racist radio talk show host has called on the Muslim community in Northern California to march to prove that they're against terrorism. They don't have to prove shit.

Jew, not a Jew

I took the idea for this car game from the old SNL skit, "Jew, Not a Jew", which if I remember correctly was a fake game show where you guessed whether celebrities were Jewish. It's fun to try to stump people and speculate. Pretty soon it starts to seem like every single celebrity is Jewish. I only like to claim the good ones, though. Like Gene Simmons, I wish he was not a Jew. Here are some of the ones that were stumping us last night.

Gene Siskel=Jew
Roger Ebert=Not a Jew
I knew this one but I confirmed it today. Most people would probably guess that Ebert is the Jew.

Jason Alexander (George from Seinfeld). Yes. Changed his name from Jason Greenspan. Is he ashamed?

Jake Gyllenhall=foxy Jew.

I swore up and down and was ready to bet money that De Niro was at least part Jewish but this seems to not be the case. So sue me.

But the foxiest Jew of all? (besides Jesus of course) Elliot Gould. He is SO FINE I can't stand it. He and Barbra were the Jewish supercouple for the ages (besides Mary and Joseph of course). I am plotzing at how cute he was when he was young.

I played this game in the car with a group of people for about two hours coming back from Sonoma yesterday. Ben remarked that it seemed like we had been playing the game forever and I said that I've been playing this game for 30 years. The number one rule of a Jewish mother (well maybe number 2 behind using guilt as a weapon) is that she will point out Jewish celebrities to you.

Poinsettia review

So almost all my regular blog-checkers and commenters are on tour or vacation right now. Can the rest of you meet the challenge? Heard it was a boring week and weekend in Sac, which is understandable with so many people out of town. Poinsettia was really fun. Have you heard of this ghost town? It's the hottest ghost town around. Here's a website with pictures. I stayed in Cabin 2, which was the nicest. I shared this cabin with Jenny, Grace and a large desert rat. The rat and I had a close encounter and it was fun to run out of the cabin screaming, "desert rat!". I also saw what I am pretty sure was a rattlesnake, but I was drunk so I can't swear to it. It was also fun to scramble down the hill shouting "snake!". Wilson strapped a propane tank to a canister of gasoline, taped flares to that and then scrambled up the hill and shot it with a rifle. I think he got the idea from an episode of Martha Stewart or something. It exploded and almost lit the desert on fire. Science fact: it's hard to light the desert on fire. It was very fun to drink and drive. It's a taboo, which makes it exciting. Like twincest. I haven't looked in the mirror much lately (I try to avoid shiny surfaces), but when I glanced in it today I was dismayed to find that I have a weird uneven sunburn. More fun science facts: the sun is real hot in the desert. Basically the whole desert is designed to kill you. God designed cities to shelter you and keep you safe, so it's best to stay within their borders. I assembled a primitive computer and modem out of sticks and rocks and snakeskin, but I was only able to play Oregon Trail so I couldn't blog. I ate a lot but didn't poop at all because I refuse to poo in a hole like an animal. Well, there was an outhouse but it stank. Fun science fact: if a lot of food goes in and nothing comes out, a stomach ache is in your future.

I'm back in the saddle again

Welllll...my hits for this ol' blog are way down, which is to be expected as I was out of town for a week, so I have just one thing to say: Brian Peppers sex offender. There, that should get them back up.

I have led my people out of the desert and into the promised land, just like Moses or that other bible guy and I'm back in Sac (the promised land). I will probably post it up after lunch cuz I have a bunch of work right now.

Later I will tell you all about the most exciting car game ever invented (by me) called "Jew, not a Jew".

FULL BLAST!

I'm about to be out like gout (and back next monday or tuesday, not sure), but I would like to link something that for some reason is cracking me up. Maybe I'm in what some people refer to as a "good mood". I can't remember what it feels like. Anyway, the Onion AV club (which I now go directly to for Savage Love, bypassing the Onion which is usually not funny now), linked some free MP3s they like. There's this Milwaukee white kid rapper called Juiceboxxx. Right there that's pretty funny. His album is called "are you there God, it's me Juiceboxxx". Funnier. Check out the songs, the first one especially is making me laugh. Miller, I think you may find this amusing. I guess it's reminding me of Full Blast.

losing my edge

For anyone out there who might be interested, some bloggers have annotated all the references in the song "losing my edge". This is for those with some serious free time on their hands (obviously not me I am really busy and working really hard at my rewarding and fulfilling job)

http://banananutrament.blogspot.com/2005/06/lcd-soundboard-losing-my-edge-lyrics.html

this link is via the fader blog which has some LCD pictures

bigfoot!

Some sasquatchery on Josh's blog have led me to something that I think Natalie may find amusing.

http://www.sasquatchresearch.com/src.html

Note where this event is scheduled to happen.

warning

Any Cresties have anything to say about Dave Attell? I heard he was horrible and was making typical jock-style jokes about how women need to wax their public hair and stuff. I was surprised to hear this, he always seemed funny.

I have heard about some serial robberies in the Fox and Goose area. One guy was robbed and spent two days in the hospital. The cops told him it's happened to two other people (not sure if it was all men or women, too). It seems that it's two guys and their M.O. is to ask you for a cigarette. So don't stop for anyone and I guess if two guys approach you you should probably start runnin'.

Still waiting for info on the dates of the Knightmares/RTL tour. I'd like to know where the fourth of July show is so I could decide if I want to attend. The city is going to be boring without those dudes. And imagine how boring this weekend will be without them AND without me. You might as well rent season 2 of Sex in the City or something.

Bad news bears!!

mathau!
Originally uploaded by becklerg.

How good is this movie? It is the Godfather of trash-talking kids sports movies. Why oh why do they have to remake it with Billy Bob Thornton. I knew Walter Matthau, I watched his movies and TV shows, and Billy Bob, you're no Matthau. You're barely even Felix. This movie is a relic from another time. You can't remake it. This movie has kids drinking beer and throwing lit cigarettes at women. Matthau is constantly wasted and at no point during the movie does he renounce drinking or turn his life around. He throws beer in Tatum O'Neal's face when she sasses him! Now I'm making it sound grim, but it's amazing! It totally stood the test of time and confirmed my childhood love.

I am off tonight to do this activity that I think is called "camping". I'm not too familiar with it. But I fear that it may involve things like sleeping outside or interacting with wild creatures in a non-laboratory setting where if they act up I can't just shoot them full of some tranquilizer. I'll still be able to straighten my bangs every day, though, right? Right? I'd like to live blog this "camping" thing, but I'm not sure if they have DSL or dial-up at this ghost town in the desert. I'm assuming it will be dial-up cuz that's more old-timey but I can't stand slow internet service so I might not have the patience to blog. I wonder how those old west people could stand dial up? I guess it was just a different time.

least craziest post

Guess I can't answer this personal...It's too bad because I enjoy a good spurt of the moment drive to Reno or Santa Cruz.

And Oh My God this one is so disturbing.

And this one's just funny because I'm pretty sure that's a typo in the heading. I think he meant to say "share".

Finally, someone has proposed to me. I was beginning to think I wasn't marriage material. I'm pretty sure he's talking to me. What do you think, should I choose Reno or Vegas?

I keep adding to this post because I want to make sure that all my single lady friends can choose the post they like.

Most women say a sense of humor is important. This guy's a real laff riot.

However, some of my friends prefer brawn to brains, here's your dude.

Or how about a guy who seems really angry? For my lady friends who would prefer a white AMERICAN MALE.

If you're not into commitment, and you just want to have some fun, this guy could be for you.

tomkat attack!

For Michele and everybody else that's obsessed with TomKat, here's a funny site.

my job is too demanding for me to post

On Insight with Jeffrey Callison today on NPR at 2:00 they're talking about the proposed Sac highrises.

I can't post anymore because I'm too busy working really hard, but I will mention that last night I was driving home listening to the Eagle and they played a "from the vault" song, which means it's not one of the songs they play five times a day like "Don't stop thinkin about tomorrow" and "rock and roll hootchie coo", etc., and it was a very pleasant song that I had never heard that I liked and as I was waiting for the train to go by and the DJ was going to say what the song was I had to frantically re-tune as the pirate hip-hop station 96.5 tried to take over the dial and as I strained to listen I heard the DJ say, "that was Eric Clapton, with the song "promises". Boy was my face red.

clarification

Not that anyone will probably notice, but I took down that last post from friday cuz someone wrote an anonymous, mean comment about my job. For the record, while I do play up the lulls in my work for laughs, the nature of my lab (which is somewhat small, although it's growing by quite a bit soon) is such that sometimes people are engaged in writing papers or grants rather than actively gathering data, so that's why there can be downtime. It's my responsibility to keep everything organized at all times. I'm responsible for almost everything that goes on the in the lab and I happen to have everything running like a well-oiled machine. When we are running lots of experiments, my job can be very stressful and difficult. So yes, my job is "rewarding and fulfilling" as anonymous sarcastically said.

It's the beginning of the end and I'm already breaking down

If this blog post about last night were modelled on the movie "Memento" and it began at the end and proceeded to the beginning then it would seem like my night was awesome, really lame, and then awesome again.

End: stoned, drunk, watching an amazing T. Rex video with Heckamax and the Armeniac. It blew my mind. Marc Bolan was so fine, I asked D.P. how tall he was and then commanded him to lie to me so that I could pretend he was tall. He was wearing a shirt with his own face on it. With a shiny blazer and his hair was so cool. In fact, I think it would be safe to say that he had the universe reclining in his hair. Everyone in the audience looked rad and all the glam little girls were losing their shit. I think the video was interspersed with parts where Marc Bolan and Ringo Starr were spouting gibberish, and Elton John was playing the piano, but I'm not sure that really happened.

Middle: I just edited this part to maintain some semblance of dignity. Let's just say it involved lowered inhibitions and a phone and it was lame. Not something I would normally do. Wait, now I've made it sound like phone sex. I wish it was phone sex. Phone sex doesn't usually involve crying, though.

How did I arrive at this state? What happened to me earlier in the evening? Well....it all started at the Waterboy. Between the three of us (Miller, Tess, me of course) we brought three bottles of wine. We ended up figuring out the corkage policy, in which if you buy one bottle of wine from the Waterboy, then they waive the corkage fee for a bottle that you have brought. So we started the dinner with one of their cheaper chardaonnays. The bottle of wine was $26, and the bottle we brought was about ten, so we ended up getting two bottles of wine for 36 bucks, not bad. The service was slow as molasses all night but because of our witty, sparkling repartee we barely noticed. As the wine continued to flow my repartee became less and less witty and sparkling but at least I didn't end up telling someone that I had to go number two or talk about pooping as I can tend to do when I have overimbibed. We ordered a small deviled egg appetizer. It came in a cute ceramic dish and they gave us special forks. Really good deviled eggs with flecks of bacon or pancetta. Miller and I started out with the pickled beet salad, which was spectacular. It had a few different colors of pickled beets, a few arugula leaves, a few slivers of hard sheepsmilk cheese drizzled with a shallot pancetta viniagrette. It looked beautiful and the flavors mingled well. Tess had the seared scallop appetizer. Buttery and delicious. Well, I won't bore you with the description of the rest of the dinner but I'll just say that every single thing we all ordered was delicious. Once again, this place is the best. My next goal is to get a burger there at lunch.

Two hours and two bottles of wine later we wobbled over to the patio at the Rubicon and proceeded to polish off two pitchers of pomegranate cider (with the help of Mike Banana and Conway who strolled by). This may sound gross to you, but it was not overly sweet and my hangover is not that bad, considering. If we would have had Rubicon beer instead I probably would not have made it into work today.

The end...Or is it the beginning?

See, this post had all the excitement of Memento without the skeletal cheekbones. Two thumbs up!

The sexiest pet

hotparrot
Originally uploaded by becklerg.

The offer of a lifetime

Ladies?

Don't let your son go down on me

Does anyone else ever get goosebumps in the part of the George Michael live version of "Don't let the sun go down on me" (heh-heh) when he says, 'ladies and gentleman, Mr. Elton John" and the crowd goes crazy? It gets me every time. Yes, I am listening to Mix 96.

Fake post

Review of June's!!!
http://www.newsreview.com/issues/sacto/2005-06-09/eat.asp
But no real post until you comment on the last post.

Are you ready for the summer?

meatballs
Originally uploaded by becklerg.

Although I feel uninspired, it seems insane to not put all this free time to good use (in about 25 minutes I'm gonna take off and put it to good use by stopping off at Ollipom and Le Fun on my way home). You may remember if you have seen a little masterpiece called "Meatballs" that it contains a song titled "Are You Ready For The Summer". It is sung by a chorus of kids and it goes "are you ready for the summer, are you ready for the good times?". There are more words but I have scoured the whole internerd and am flabbergasted to find that no one has transcribed them. This is the kind of useful information that it's good for. Oops, I meant to type "useless". Anyways, this is the heckasac version of the crappy SN&R summer issue, or I hope it will be once you write hundreds of pithy comments. I hope I used that word right.

What are you looking forward to this summer? What says summer in sac to you?

Heckamax has said that for him it's going to be the summer of wine. I already had my first Sacramento treat (Miller High Life, ice, lemon) yesterday and I am looking forward to about 15,000 more glasses of this watery delight.

Let's just hope that this is the summer we all get laid.

Meatballs part 2

In the second of three Meatballs-related postings you can expect today, here's a somewhat creepy fansite for the kid, that is as Mike Banana put it, "the prettiest girl in the movie"

Also, here is a funny bad review of this movie. This reviewer is so wrong on so many levels.

Heckasac sucks

I heard Heckasac has totally fallen off lately. She used to be good. She coulda been a contender. Sorry, I've lost a little of my joie de vivre lately. Have you seen it? Maybe I should do a missed connection for it.

It's maverick billionaire Jay B. Beaumont's birthday. Happy birthday! I heard you bought another oil well to celebrate. Hope it's a gusher.

Have you watched Meatballs lately? If not, why not? This is the chantinest movie ever. I defy you to find a movie where they spend more time chanting. If the chant album (and party) ever does happen, I think the Sac chants should be interspersed with chants from this movie, namely "Spaz, spaz, spaz, spaz" and one of the best chants EVER (besides "best chant ever"), the chant of "it just doesn't matter" that Bill Murray whips up during the most absurd sports peptalk that has ever been filmed.

Brew, did you go to the So So Many Sexxeee Hotel Pistols show last night? What did you think of On the Y?

Ha ha funny

The Smoking Gun has printed some Mariah Carey fan letters that are very amusing.
http://www.thesmokinggun.com/archive/0607051_mariah_carey_1.html

Heckamax where are you?

I haven't seen hide nor hair of heckamax in quite awhile. What's up? Are you doing some pussy shit like molding young minds? I was just thinking of you because I was thinking of local haunted houses and I was thinking of your old haunted mansion. Where was that place exactly? What was the scariest thing that happened there? I know you've probably already told me but I love to hear scary stories. DB and Nicola, what scary memories are you trying desperately to repress? Last night I was talking about how the 26th street house has Ju-Oned various people. And I've heard that an acquaintance who bought a house in West Sac has been Ju-Oned recently, too. Miller, have the walls in your place stopped bleeding yet?

Let's see, So So Many White White Tigers and Hotel Pistol are playing tonight at On the Y. I'm probably not going. Exciting.

Rock the Light and the Knightmares are leaving to conquer the nation soon. If anyone wants to print the tour dates, I'd be interested. What's going on with the fourth of July show?

Aoli Bodega Espanola Review

Ok, Aoli. I decided to go there because I wanted to try somewhere new. I was racking my brain about where to eat friday night and I am so sick of everywhere in downtown Sac that I can't stand it! Our party of four ladies was able to get a table right away without a res at about 7:30 on a friday night. This place isn't as busy as other not-as-good places, like the craptastic Zocalo or Black Pearl Oyster bar. We couldn't get onto the tiny patio, but I hear it's beautiful so next time I will go I will try to make a reservation to sit out there. The waiter was brusque, as I find many Spaniards to be (sorry for the generalization) so I started getting stressed out. He turned out to be nice, though.

We ordered the cheapest bottle of wine, a 26$ bottle of Dom Minho, a tasty Portuguese wine. They bring a tiny basket of bread to your table and a garlicky white bean dip. We all started with salads. The salads here are really big and you could definitely get by with a salad and a tapa and a glass of wine without spending a ton. I got the endive salad. It was supposed to have a Spanish cheese but Brew and I were pretty sure they substituted blue cheese on the sly, which was disappointing. It was delicious, though, and I'd order it again. After the salads we each ordered a tapa. I got the assortment of Spanish meats and cheeses (good, not too exciting, a smaller assortment than Tapa's gives you, but the stuff at Aoli has a better flavor). We got a seared skirt steak (so-so, a bit tough), some grilled veggies (delicious and very spicy somehow) and stuffed calamari (the only off-note of the dinner, it was very fishy. The busser didn't know what it was filled with but I'm hoping that anchovies were in there because otherwise I don't know how calamari could be that fishy). We saw flan at the next table and it was so good we split one. Excellent flan. All in all, a pleasant and delicious meal, without the airport runway-style noise level at Tapa's.

Parrots are so hot right now!

From Gawker stalker:

June 1: Julianne Moore walking on 14th street and 9th avenue and carrying an African Grey parrot in a travel cage… I’m not a parrot- connoisseur but my mother has one so I know that’s what was. She was dressed waaaay-down but still she looked stunning…she’s much shorter than I would have expected.

Here's a quote I stole from pullquote, a movie blog:

From a 1992 interview with Pauline Kael in the Oxford American:
OA: I've heard a few people say that they have stopped reading you because you have made them feel stupid at times for liking something they shouldn't. Have you ever---
Pauline Kael: Tough.

That tough old bird was the best! I wrote that and then realized I have birds on the brain in this post.

More movie stuff: saw both Mad Hot Ballroom and Layer Cake this weekend. Layer Cake is confusing (I guess the pre-movie beer didn't help) and I didn't give a crap about any of the characters. It's no Godfather, but it is better than Godfather III. Mad Hot Ballroom is great great great! I don't even like kids particularly but everyone should see it. It even melted my cold black heart by a degree or two. The teachers in it are especially inspiring. All the noble teachers I know should see it and give themselves a pat on the back.

Review of Aoli: still coming, but if I add it to this post I know everyone will skim it.

Local news

Sac Bee columnist Bob Sylva did a feature on the new owner of Le Fun: http://www.sacbee.com/content/news/story/13006005p-13852566c.html
She just graduated from high school! She will probably do O.K. if she keeps more regular hours than the previous owner did. That's the big complaint that I heard. Also, I hope she buys clothes. I think that if she did that, it could really bring a lot more people into her store to browse. And the article says that she's basically selling her own clothes right now, so it sounds like she needs some more stock.

The Bee also had a big feature on local character/record collector Joey D and his Ikon records label: http://www.sacticket.com/music/story/12999786p-13846363c.html He had a release party at the Press Club yesterday, but I don't think anybody I know went.

I'll write a review of Aoli in a bit. I went for the first time on friday night.

Brian pepdog is out

To keep Heckasac from crashing in case the tsunami of public interest in Mr. Peppers has not yet peaked, I have edited his name out from all my posts. I've replaced it with B.P. or Pepdog or something. And putting it in comments doesn't effect this, so don't even try it. I already got about 550 hits today and I'm worried.

Gross story

I don't know how many of y'all have been to this or planned to (I know Jenny saw it and highly recommended it) but the exhibit of "plastinated" human bodies at the Masonic Center in San Francisco has a problem. Read this article, it's really amusing:
http://abclocal.go.com/kgo/news/iteam/052505_iteam_body_one.html Apparently some sketchy Austrian company did a rush job on these bodies (not the reputable guy that invented the process). Here's a choice quote:

ABC7's Dan Noyes: "Why are the bodies leaking?"

Gerhard Perner: "What means leaking?"

The news team analyzed the leakage (which Austrian dude said was silicon) and "The I-Team took samples from the bodies and sent them to a lab. It's silicone from the plastination process and liquefied human fat. The bodies were not degreased properly before they were filled with plastic

Gross!

Also, dude lied about where he got the bodies. This is kinda old news and the exhibit may have already been shut down for all I know.

Best of Sac

To steal some action away from the chick list, E.S. is brainstorming for the News and Review "best of" issue. My mind's a blank right now, but I'm sure I'll think of something later. Anyway, I'd like to second G-bomb that Parrot Fridays at Beers should get Best Parrot Fridays. Feel free to comment. And remember if you don't I will feel stupid and take the post down.

I'm the Martha Stewart that's totally Jewish*

Can't muster up a good post. Sorry. I'm boring now. My social life will be severely curtailed for the next few weeks, probably. I'm on house arrest for a little frottage incident. I'm lying because that's more exciting than the real reason. All the blogs got the jump on me today. Maya already talked about the Out Hud show. If you love Out Hud and you want to see a show that has a chance to be better than the one on sunday (and if you are a 9 to 5er a sunday night show isn't the best), I would go to the one in Oakland at LoBot on saturday. That's the one I was going to go to until the judge ordered me to wear this electronic anklet. Leon already blogged about the Claire Records article in the News and Review.

Charles is having a yard sale on saturday morning. He lives on the corner of 2nd ave and 19th st. (is it called Freeport at that point?)

To anybody that reads this in New York (Josh?), if I were there this weekend I would go see the new Werner Herzog doc. , "White Diamond". It's about a guy that flies old-timey airships over the Amazon. So if that floats your dirigible, check it out.

Tower finally opened a couple of good new movies today, so tonight I'll probably see either "Layer Cake" or "Mad Hot Ballroom". I really want to see "Palindromes" but the judge ordered me to stay away from the Crest, so I can't.

If anyone knows about any other crap going on, I'd like to hear about it.

*to explain the dumb post title, it's a combo of a Jay-Z lyric and a weak joke about Martha Stewart cuz of her house arrest thing. Painstakingly explaining jokes makes them funnier!

b. p. sandwich

I've gotten 450 hits today because of B. P.. Insane.

Today I was reminded of an idea that me and Scott had (were we stoned? i can't remember) for a restaurant in L.A. O.K., so if you checked the fugly website in the past they had millions of comments on the outfits, and the number one comment for all the skinny starlets was "eat a sandwich". It was never, "bitch, eat an omelette" or "eat a pizza" or anything. And because of the new blog trend of using periods for emphasis, the comment was often something like Oh. My. God. Eat. A. Sandwich. So me and Scott came up with the idea for a sandwich shop in L.A. called Eat. A. Sandwich. It would have giant blow up pictures of like, the Skeletwins and the Olsens and such. Brilliant!

Griego Erwin details

I'm a little behind in catching this, mostly because the Bee has reorganized their online content so that it harder to access the news (probably to encourage people to subscribe), but they have finally come out with the disputed facts in the Griego Erwin case. http://www.sacbee.com/content/opinion/columns/acuna/story/12929241p-13777035c.html

That is crazy. We're talking full-on fiction. I read that story about the older woman who took in a homeless woman and thought it was sweet, if a bit cheesily written. I honestly can't think of a better adjective than cheesy. I should get a thesaurus. I like some of the details she came up with, like a cat named "Queen Sweetness" in one column and a lady named "Aunt Queenie" in another. I want to check out those columns in their entirety and see what other funny details emerge.

B. P. is a star

My B. P. hits are completely blowing up! It's insane! I guess Peps finally hit the big time today.

The rumors are true

My close friends know that I'm been going through a very tough time in the last few days. You may have heard something about it. The rumors are all true. I've been watching the Godfather III. For someone that loves the Godfather saga (especially 1) as much as I do, this is akin to having your gall bladder out without anasthesia. This movie is like a cute young indie girl wearing a dress that's unbuttoned to the waist-you don't want to look but you can't look away (well, that makes it sound more pleasant than it is, but I didn't want to use the standard "train wreck" comparison). The hideous early nineties fashion (this movie is set in 1979), the Pacino scenery chewing, Sofia Coppola's terrified, stiff face, the incomprehensible plot in which Micheal Corleone is poised to become the richest man in the world (the sums discussed in business deals are so astronomical that it becomes like a scene in Austin Powers where Dr. Evil asks for 300 trillion dollars). The pope is involved. Horrible. What did I ever do to deserve this?

I feel guilty for the lack of local content lately. I guess I haven't heard about a lot of local news that has inspired me to write. I'll try to get my shit together to do another interview soon, I promise!