cripes

I found out that the Davis show I thought was Wednesday is tonight (Sneeze Attack, Memories), and I thought that because I got it mixed up with a Wednesday show at WR (Trashies, Life Stinks, Rad). I will probably go to both of those and then I'm going to see Future at Ace of Spades tomorrow. Oy vey. I know it's my choice, but I really wish they weren't all within three days.

perfect ballet flats

Ladies! I have finally find the perfect ballet flats! (that I can afford) I have been suffering in J. Crew ones trimmed with ribbons that are rough on the feet and cut too wide on the sides in a way that looks stupid. I found some Sam Edelman ones at Nordstrom and they are soft inside and out and basically feel like a comfort shoe. They wore in in one day. They have a little logo tag on top with a bow that looks cute. the only annoying thing is the embroidery on the side and it is barely noticeable. I have a black pair and am going to buy a navy pair. This is not a paid advertisement.

cockeyed!!

I didn't even know that Cockeyed, one of the internet's early great websites (which still holds up), is a going concern until CM posted a link on facebook to a recent post about measuring decibel levels at local restaurants. So I checked it out for the first time in years and found that this interview with Rob Cockerham was just published a few days ago. It really brought me back to all the glory days. I happen to have a photo of him from back in the day when he put up a golden banana in the downtown plaza that stayed up there forever! Peruse the website. There is so much hilarious content. Check out the photos on this classic - you just might see yourself!

bugaloo!

Lil Debbie was fun. She is just ok. She rapped along with herself on the tracks so that was kind of dumb. The vaporizing going on in the room was insane. It's all anyone uses no, you don't smell any weed. I actually like that.

The bananas are playing the Burger Bugaloo in Oakland on July 5th. I do feel that the Bananas get slighted a bit when they play in Sac, so I would like to let you read the description on the Burger site and note that they are playing on a festival bill with No Bunny, La Sera, Personal and the Pizzas, Ronnie Spector, the Oh Sees among others. Here's what the website says:

Sometimes operating under the moniker DIY TIL EYE DIE, The Bananas are Sacramento, California's best and worst kept secret. This power trio consisting of Mike, Marie, and Scott Banana will always be the best band to rock any party on the face of the planet.

Tickets are on sale but they are not cheap.

bumpin bumpin

I was hating on Sac a bit for poor attendance of the WR show last night and then we got turnt up Sac-style and I was in love all over again. The Susans are the Sac-est band from LA. The drummer said "I'm from Austin and we love to chant and do random countdowns so I feel at home". I know, it was a Tuesday night show, so I shouldn't have been hating anyway.

 

LL can you send me that video of 2014 to post?

Lil Debbie is tonight. I am pretty whatever on her but I heard she was fun last time and it's 5 bucks. My first time in the grown n' sexy nightclub District 30! Out of the White Girl Mob of Vnasty, Kreayshawn and her she is my least favorite, with Kreayshawn being first of course. The first time I heard this (before she blew up, somehow saw it randomly) I was like wha??!?!?

riff raff

I noticed that Riff Raff's new album "Neon Icon" did not rate a pitchfork review. He also did an over/under on P-fork and was lackluster, ignorant, and not funny. In contrast to Danny Brown's which was awesome. The album pretty much sucks, besides the version of "how to be the man" with Slim Thug and Paul Wall. It even has a terrible rage rock song on it. His show pretty much sucked too.


He has proved himself to be the new Vanilla Ice. I found him entertaining at first, and his awesome Nardwuar interview made me think he had the chops and cred of a real rapper but nah.

I know this post is sure to start a firestorm of controversy among the readers. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qbg67ShDohQ

Arts and Culture

Wow, I've seen 6 movies in the last couple of weeks. I'm stoked. This weekend I saw 22 Jump Street with my mom, which is a good mom movie in the case of my mom. She was like "what's that guys name" and I honestly couldn't remember if it was Channing Tatum or Tatum Channing.

Then on Saturday I saw the midnight screening of "naked dudes by a lake" (can't remember the real name) at the French Film Festival. It was pretty good. The big deal with it was that there are male-on-male pornographic sex scenes interspersed with a psychological thriller. The movie is slight, but the boners are mighty.

I also saw the new play "The Submission" at Big Idea Theater in Del Paso. It's a great theater company. Honestly, this was a terrible play with mostly good performances, and in the case of Eason Donner, really good. He is funny! This guy is an up-and-comer in the local theater scene. Really good in Orlando recently and now this.


Sonny and the Sunsets were brilliant last night. I love him so much. He played a lot of new stuff, with older stuff bookending the set. I requested Teenage Thugs and he joked that the song he was playing was Teenage Thugs 2, but really it was a Richman-esque song about a health food store.

Tuesday Charles Albright Band and 2014 are playing the Witch Room.

Vivian Maier

So I see the ladeez don't have any thoughts they'd like to share on cutoffs. Scott thinks I just need to look through vintage jeans more but not only do I like thrifting but I have always hated looking through jeans the most. Usually I rely on Scott to find them for me.

 

I saw Locke last night and loved it! Any movie with a tight focus on Tom Hardy's face for 90 minutes as his voice soothingly speaks is enough for me. But seriously it had the feel of a play and I really liked it. It should be staged as a play.  DO NOT see that horrible Tom Cruise movie tho.

 

I'm really happy that I've seen three movies this week and am going to see the Vivian Maier (see above) documentary tomorrow at the Varsity.

Rad

I never, ever, ever thought I'd say this but....I might go to Forever 21 and buy some cheap-o cutoffs. When cutoffs at stores started happening I always thought: what kind of idiot would buy cutoffs at a store? Young people, that's who.

I mean, the thrift stores were full of jeans that were too short for me and could be cut off! I never would have believed I would stop thrifting, but I have almost entirely. Spent a couple of hours doing it this weekend and emerged with an expensive, vintage, handmade wool blazer with a fur collar and soft lining - it fits perfectly. Obviously that is a good thing but it's rarely hot enough here for me to wear that and it cost 40 bucks. I could have gotten something more practical new for that amount of money.

Back to the point: the cutoffs I have from vintage shorts are all mom jeans with uncomfortable high waists. The only ones I like are a pair from h and m from like 12 years ago that I cut off from my favorite jeans and they are literally falling apart. We are getting into pockets hanging out territory and I am no Britney Spears. Ladies: what are your thoughts about this?

A couple of spectacular Witch Room shows are coming up: Sonny and the Sunsets and the Memories this Sunday, and Life Stinks, Trashies, and Rad on July 2nd. Can't wait to see Rad!!!!!!!

run don't walk

First: RUN, don't walk to see Jodorowsky's Dune at the Tower. What an inspiring movie! He is the most positive guy in the world. Makes me feel sad I hated his new movie enough to walk out, but mostly it was because of the horribly cheap way the hi-def video (or whatever the hell he shot it on) looked.

Specifically, it inspired me to watch an actual movie on Netflix streaming, instead of horribly crap TV and I picked Assault on Precinct 13. That idea was planted by the fact that Jodorowsky was going to have one of Carpenter's special effects guys work on Dune. I realized once it started that I had seen it before, but it is awesome. It has such a slow build up to a quick, exciting resolution, and a lot of Douglas Sirk, noir-y lighting. I realized there is a pattern to some of my favorite directors (and musicians, if you count R. Kelly), in that the kitsch of the art can fool people about the fact that the artist is in on at least some of it. Does that make sense? It's true for De Palma, too.

I mean, obviously the part of Assault where the convicts play "one potato, two potato" to choose which has to make a dangerous escape is tongue-in-cheek. I think in his movies, sometimes you are laughing at Carpenter, and sometimes with him.

The extended sequence of the thugs shooting out the windows of the building also reaches enjoyable absurdity.

I also saw a show that was the first non-rap show to make me so stoked in a while. It was Mt. Eerie at WR. I had never seen him perform but what a guy. The part that got me so in the zone besides how the music sounds was the rapt crowd who seemed to want his low-key performance to go on forever and who kept their phones in their pockets. SM didn't want to hear about it because he thought it was a Pregnant show (as did I) and didn't go. I just went to hang with friends so Mt. Eerie was a wonderful treat.

Wow, right after I wrote this I saw this thing on Pitchfork with a teen Phil Elverum (Mr. Eerie guy) on MTV talking about Nirvana. What a cool coincidence because I had no idea who he was before Saturday. This clip illustrates what a disorienting experience it was to be "alternative" or "progressive" (terms that were used with a straight face at my high school) and then have this shit go mainstream at the speed of light. Let me clarify, I was by no means cool - I was a chubby dork who wore a Morrissey or Cure tshirt EVERY SINGLE DAY and was rejected by the goths - but I had built my identity around something that got appropriated for Calvin Klein ads. It's disturbing to me that cultural figures like Courtney Love get venerated because kids these days are getting it all wrong.

Which is a good segue into the new show "Champagne" at Verge, curated by a 23 year old skater/rapper dude (who is a great guy) and the strong feelings it provoked in me. Strong negative feelings until I got a new perspective by realizing that the strong feelings themselves are interesting, to me at least. You may not be interested in my navel gazing.

These kids are appropriating 90s icons through the filter of growing up on the internet. I don't share the humor or willful naivete. But it's at least interesting that they feel a connection to this time and are getting it wrong probably in the same way we got the 70s wrong when we were kids. But then again, even though I liked some classic rock because of my dad I was generally only interested in current culture at that age. And the endless churning/blendering of culture that goes on now is mind-numbing and exhausting. Instant nostalgia sucks.

long time no see

As you can tell if you've been checking, I've been super busy. I doubt if I've ever gone so long without blogging without being on vacation, not even during one of my many dramatic declarations that I was ending heckasac.

 

I got a story published in the Bee! I almost feel like I can retire from writing, especially since I have been too busy to do jack shit for foodways. I am kind of kidding but not really. Besides the difficulty of hooking up the interview with the professor, this article was a pleasure to write.

 

I have been working at UCSF and Bodega Bay which has been fun but like 13+ a day. I got to roll in a white Chevy with "UC Davis Safety Services" printed on the side so you know I've been feeling cool as hell.  Also ate at Bar Agricole which I recommend. Cool place and I've been loving rum agricole since VA tipped me off to it.