Tuesday, June 12, 2007

dishwasher pete tomorrow

Dishwasher Pete is speaking and signing books at Time Tested tomorrow.

I checked out the new Sactown mag cuz a little bird told me they mentioned my whale shirt. It was in this little stats feature and it said something along the lines of "days after whales were spotted that a tshirt went on sale on cafepress that read "sacramento's got whale fever: catch it": 1. Not to quibble or anything, but it was quite a few days more than one when I made that shirt.

There's a depressing letter from a guy that says that sacramento is "finally moving in the right direction, and your magazine is a reflection of that change" and then he goes on to say he can't wait until we get a house of blues and a downtown arena! Yeah, sac will rule then but until that day I'm just going to stay in.

I also heard from the same little bird that Richie Rich got his chops busted pretty bad on the railyards tour and that he couldn't take the heat. I wasn't there, so that's secondhand.

17 comments:

Alice said...

becky, until you realize that a house of blues is just what this city needs, i don't know what we're gonna do with you. you're such a hater.

btw, can that person who knows about richie rich getting his ass handed to him let us all know what happened? i'm really itching to know how that tour went.

Anonymous said...

Now that it's been finalized, it is with great excitement that I can officially announce that the Crest will be renamed "House of Blues at The Historic Crest Theatre"!! This repositioning will take effect July 1st. The two downstairs theatres will be converted to a mixed use work live urban underground loft wine bar/urban sushi grill space. Soft opening June 30th. PF Changs & California Pizza Kitchen will provide food. The soft throb of smooth house music will be provided by some dude's ipod.

-new sac

Anonymous said...

Will there be superheated rocks? If not, I ain't into it.

Stoner

Anonymous said...

Would you settle for a Stone Grill?

-new sac

Anonymous said...

I don't know who gave you the 'chops busted' story, but that wasn't what i saw. Richie Rich and his butler Cadbury... er, actually some Railroad museum folks and an author/historian (whose name escapes me but will probably be supplied later by wburg) wandered around the railyards spewing big vision.

RR seemed like an OK dude except that he reminded me of Donald Rumsfeld so much I thought he was gonna have pancreatitus right there- but otherwise talked the talk... If even half of his pitch turns out to be true, the end result might be ok. but, will even half of it be true?

He did the whole event and then skipped out when the Railroad museum folks took us through their workshops.

I am torn on this whole railyards development thing. MY vision would be to restore the existing buildings into a public market, museums, etc and then to turn the whole rest of the property into a giant native CA environment city park. We all know that's not gonna happen, so in the end I'll be happy as long as it's not going to be an arena.

The problem I see with ANY development in the railyards is that by necessity, the whole shootin' match will be thrown up in a relatively short timespan. The neighborhoods that are really appealing to spend time in have genearlly developed over time. Homogenous neighborhoods don't have the 'character' that comes with organic growth.

Rich addressed this by saying that they plan to have 10 different firms do the architecture so that everything doesn't look the same. Not a bad idea, but still, everything is likely to end up being made of stucco and drywall.

The good ideas i heard were locating satellite classes for Sac State out there and making some of the existing buildings into public markets/restaurants a la the Ferry Building in SF.

A poor idea (to my ears) was the plan to create a huge plaza as a public space. I'm guessing that richie rich doesn't live in Sac, and thus doesn't know that a large plaza is miserable/unbearable from mid June to mid september. And, no offense to homeless folks, but the public plazas we currently have tend to function best as gathering places for panhandlers.

Whole thing was interesting, and Thomas Enterprises CLAIM that they're looking forward to community input... we'll see what happens when they really start to get it.

Anonymous said...

omf,

Was evil cousin Reginald Van Dough there?

PS Why is it that everyone named Reggie is such a hater...

Pres,
SASSF

Anonymous said...

I didn't see Reggie, but I thought I mighta spied Irona the maid hiding amongst some of the railraod machinery.

and ps, mea culpa, wrong cabinet reference. Ashchroft had pancreatitus-- you'd think I'd remember.

Anonymous said...

I'm not overly concerned with the railyard project. Basically, I'll be pleasantly surprised if it turns out well. But it's gotten to the point where it's been discussed & discussed & now something should just get started. I'd like to see it before I'm 60. I'd actually even be kinda OK with it if it just ends up being the new hip playground for the good looking urban drunk-driver set. I'd rather there be a designated area to avoid if I'm not up for the "whoo-hooo! sac nightlife scene. I don't hate development for development's sake, I just hate what it's turning good ol downtown Sac in to.

-miller

Anonymous said...

Yessiree. If we could confine all those Heyamotos and their schmancy cocktail woo-hoos to one district, particularly one that I avoid like the plague, I'd be one happy Sacker.

-Harry Rag

Anonymous said...

PF,

Are you talkin' crap about Mr. October? That is not cool.
gbomb

wburg said...

Richard Rich lives in East Sacramento. I wasn't sure where the chop-busting thing came from either. He had to leave early for another event.

I suppose I'd rather see a large public plaza between the Paint Shop and the Car Shop, as opposed to, say, big glass and metal buildings. There is an obvious need for shade and cooling--shade structures, trees, maybe a fountain--but there is an equally obvious need for public spaces, and activities to encourage those public spaces to be used.

While being panhandled isn't my favorite thing in the world, given my choice between a city with no public spaces and having spaces where I might be panhandled, I think the spaces are important--especially since spare-changers will still spare-change whether or not there are public spaces.

Believe it or not, they really do look for community input: it's a lot cheaper than paying a market research company to do focus groups. They don't necessarily follow that input, but they do look for it.

Alice said...

becks,

the latest on the tower project.

http://www.sacbee.com/103/story/218133.html

beckler said...

ok, ok. his chops WEREN'T busted. but they should have been.

beckler said...

this just in: dishwasher pete will be on insight with jeffrey callison tomorrow. hopefully, he will still manage to be interesting despite callisons attempts to suck all the life out of the room.

re: the sacbee comment thread on the towers project-this biblical quote is awesome:
luke 15
"Suppose one of you wants to build a tower. Will he not first sit down and estimate the cost to see if he has enough money to complete it? For if he lays the foundation and is not able to finish it, everyone who sees it will ridicule him, saying, 'This fellow began to build and was not able to finish.' "

beckler said...

and here's a nice, homespun phrase

They would ruin the skyline not to mention looking like a diamond in a goat's rear-end.

Anonymous said...

actually, to be fair, the sactown mag stat was: days after the whales were spotted "in the port of sacramento." it did, after all, take them a while to get there. they were spotted there on the 16th; the shirt went on sale on the 17th. not to quibble or anything ;-). love the shirt, by the way, especially the new and improved version. very cool.

Anonymous said...

Off topic, but I thought this was funny:

http://www.sacbee.com/static/weblogs/dining/archives/007284.html