thanks for the memories

Well, you guys have probably noticed that this blog is moribund lately. I'm calling it quits. Nothing dramatic, I just never feel like posting anymore. Hell, I rarely even check the thing lately, and it's only partially because I haven't had much free time to do so lately. I've said all that can be said for now. It's been so much fun! Now go check movie city usa!

nice tail!

ok, ok, I'm back. or am I? I'm conflicted. I don't know. I don't want to make this forum simply a place to post birthday wishes (you can take that shit to birthdays.com). but....happy 21st birthday Heather K.!!! I'm sure this is an even more monumental birthday for a music fanatic such as yourself.

Have you read the new Midtown Monthly (I'm cupping my ear to catch the chorus of "but of course's")? Check the writeup on Chris Daubert. This guy was my art history teacher at Sierra College back in the '90s, and he was an awesome teacher as well as being kind of a tall, bearded fox that I had a crush on. My final project was a collage on riot grrrl that if I remember correctly contained some Rollins imagery, and he gave me an A. Then, due to the crush, I took his drawing class but couldn't deal with the most basic criticism of something I was so crappy at so I dropped it. The show is up until the 29th, and it's at 923 20th st., so check it out!

The Barnseyard (which continues to be the best thing going), has pointed out that we are one of 14 select cities to open the new Cronenburg joint (ha, I'm making myself cringe with that phrase). I heard Viggo (who stars) on Fresh Air yesterday, and in addition to his vestigial tail (OMG, I just googled that to find my old post and found a screen grab and discussion of the tail!!!!!!!) I discovered that he's Argentinian and Danish, and speaks a bunch of languages fluently, and wait, am I gushing? Hmm...I mean gushing with praise but this is sounding obscene. Time to go!

birthday wishes

I am suffering such major blog fatigue, I don't even check my blog first thing anymore! But if you are here, I'd like to say a big Happy Fucking Birthday to one S. Miller!!!!!

Pierlioni watch

first, a show alert....

Just to let everyone know, there has been a last minute show scheduled at the Turtle House (217 2nd street, Davis) for tomorrow, Sept 6th. The following are playing..And The Sorcerer's Stoned (with Jon Bafus);Spider Friends myspace.com/spiderfriends;The Old Haunts (Tobi Vail of Bikini Kill is drumming) myspace.com/theoldhauntsThe show will be starting at 7PM and ending by 10PM. Come check it out!-Audry (DJ Kiwi)

Tobi Vail is pretty much the coolest chick around and deserves our respect as a founding father of Riot Grrrrrl, so you know I'll be there!

AP reviewed ANOTHER chain restaurant...a BBQ restaurant!! Snore. I am sick of the fetishization of pizza, burgers, and BBQ in food reviewing. There, I said it.

Sweet! SIX "American bistros" are opening in Sac this fall. Do you think they will offer upscale pizzas, burgers and BBQ? Again, can someone PLEASE open a French brasserie rather than a bistro? I promise you can still have a burger on the menu if you want. Do I have to open one in my house? I have some Edith Piaf records and bottles of affordable French wine, maybe I can do it. Can we have some food downtown from other cultures that's not motherfucking sushi? Out of nine restaurants listed in this article as opening soon (I'm not counting Vientiane, although it's nice he mentioned it), 6 are American Bistros (which will all be pricy), one is a pizza place, and one is a sushi place. That's cool that Turkish restaurant is opening, too bad it's in Rocklin.

I had another in a very long string of excellent dinners at Pho Bac Hoa Viet the other day (I swear the pho broth was even more flavorful and aromatic than usual) and I noted from a flyer at the front desk that Pho Bac is opening a branch at Jackson Rancheria. Good for them.

Does anyone out there eat at Tapa the World anymore? We went there last night simply because it was still open at like 9:45 and it was fun. Certainly not spectacular. They really need to update their menu, but if you know to stay away from the few dishes that all have the same butter-and-practically-raw-garlic sauce (the mushrooms, the shrimp), some of the tapas are good. The bread basket is excellent, the boquerones were top notch, and despite some gristle, the pork skewers were really juicy and well flavored with chili powder. The live Spanish guitar was pretty earsplitting, though.

the Bee needs to block comments, obvs

Some in our fair-going party remarked on how dangerous the bungee cord ride thingy appeared to be and they were right...and look at the unsurprisingly racist comments on this article. Why oh why oh why will the Bee not block these comments?

Here are some other comments from hateful "tungsten". He's quite skilled at saying racist, homophobic things without using words that will get him flagged.

Renowned Yale singing group attacked in San Francisco
Tungsten at 3:47 PM PST Wednesday, January 10, 2007 wrote:
Gay Tolerance? Not for Straights!
There's the Gay militants for you. The same ones who continually call for Gay marriage and attempt to trump the will of the people. San Francisco values, you can have 'em

oh, and sexist, too

Equally gifted at gab?
Tungsten at 1:57 PM PST Friday, July 6, 2007 wrote:
It must be...............
Due to the feminization of the American male. Women finally henpecked the men enough that they too constantly and senselessly jabber. Let's all shaaaare!!!! And, by the way, your hair looks soooo cute!!! And those shoes!!! What about dancing with the stars?

summer '07-best summer evs?

Is it just me or does it feel like summer's over? I know it's not just me because I didn't think about it until a friend said it. How was your summer? This is what I did on my last weekend of summer.

Had oysters (from the farmer's market, they were all good, but the Kumamotos are a little small and "creamy" right now-I don't want to know what the "cream" is) and stout. This is a traditional accompaniment to raw oysters, but I'm not sure I get it yet. I googled oysters and stout to see what the deal was and this charming little Michael Jackson piece is what came up first. R.I.P. for sure. We are sitting shiva for him around our house.
Watanabe farms told me that this coming sunday (the 9th) might be their last at the farmers market for the season, so I stocked up this time and made a summer salad with tomatoes, cukes, mint, corn, red onions, and a little red wine vinegar and olive oil. The 9th is also the antique faire!
The summer-ending show has got to be Olsen's going away. The city will be a less musical place without him. I particularly enjoyed the old-timey Strokes song he played with Seven Arms of Shiva and his guest turn with the Four Eyes, on both the 'bone...

and the 'ba.
I also celebrated the end of summer by making perhaps my last summer produce pie, a peach one. That's a weed leaf rendering on top. Thanks to Marletta for the pastry cookbook, it was my favorite crust yet. However, due to lack of a double-crust peach pie recipe I screwed the pooch and undercooked it so that it became a double-crust, double-cooked pie. Speaking of pie, does anyone else think that Freeport Bakery is just so-so? Or at least just their pies. The Real Pie Co. berry pie blew theirs out of the water! Too bad the Real Pie Co. seems like it's never open or when it is open is out of pies. A victim of its own success!

return of vientiane

Vientiane is back! It's wayyyyyyy nicer inside. It's a lot smaller, but they never really needed all that space anyways. No TV blaring,which is great. I didn't testdrive the bathrooms but I'm sure they must be better than at the old place. I didn't go for the pork explosion today, but rather a light lunch of spicy chicken soup. It had a lemongrass punch. I'm not so crazy about those little mushrooms, though, and that's all that was in there besides some chicken bits, which were good.
And then a spicy papaya salad. Excellent. P.S. this lunch cost 14 dollars and was plenty for two. Stuff to do this weekend? If you can make it across the bay bridge in time, you can catch the Bananas at Thee Parkside with thee fleshies. Then you should go to the fair at some point this weekend. Soon approacheth thee demolition derby. Hold on just a second! Livmoe had told me that the demo derby was occurring after the fair but the daily schedule places it as taking place on sunday and monday at seven! This is the kind of unacceptable foul up that caused me to miss the dachsund derby this year, which led to the firing of my longtime personal assistant. What gives? Does anyone know?

fair!

Hello friends, what a long strange trip it's been. Going to the fair in 104 degrees may have permanently addled my brain. Please don't fear that I will only be doing photo posts, but today that may be true. I know the fear of photo posts keeps you up at night.

Here's a cute cat painting from the rip off tent where you pay a dollar to see a horse.
Goat with the yellowest beard I've ever seen
This turkey leg server strikes a bad ass pose.

I startle the brisket guy.
Does anyone else hate the photo uploading on blogger? It takes a Ph.D. to figure out how to order the photos correctly and hence, a gnawed-on turkey leg appears before the whole leg.

mmmm.....smoked for 12 hours!!!!
How giant you say?

I would have answered you with the next photo but blogger chose mercurially to put the nest of fries here. They lathe up fresh potatoes and fry them in front of you.

Here's how giant!

It was fucking good. the end

No time!

sorry, no new posts until friday or later!

jalapeno bandito strikes again

I had an excellent time in SF this saturday. The new Gourmet mag is all about Latin American cuisine and before we left I was reading it and thinking to myself how amazingly varied it is and how I really need to eat Mexican food a lot more because it's pretty much the best, which was a perfect prelude to being in the Mission! We ate at El Gran Taco Loco, home of the mural of this stressed out Taco being marched out to certain death by the equally stressed out (and well hung) Jalapeno Bandito.
I had the birria which was fucking delicious! The broth was tangy and thick and the goat was gamey and tender.

Later in the night I had Indian Pizza.
What's Indian Pizza you say? Why, it's regular pizza with curry powder mixed with the cheese, topped with coriander, onions and cooked cauliflower and it is two great tastes that go great together.

And then later, at Thrillhouse Records in the dusty, dusty basement, Nar played to a packed house

The Four Eyes headlined and everybody dug it.
Joel is wearing the hat that I was semi-successfully rocking before the basement got too hot.

OK, that's a pretty crappy picture but I don't want to make it seem like I was only trying to take pictures of Joel. It was really smoky inside and I'm going to be a grump and complain about the people inside smoking. Have some consideration, people!

Thrillhouse Records 3422 Mission St., San Francisco

so.....the Nar/Four Eyes show is a bit unusual. It starts way early and there are six bands and it HAS TO BE over by 10:30. I sure hope Nar will have time to play! Here's the scoop:

Saturday Aug 26th......
This show is going to start early cause we have 6 bands now and they are all out-of-town and awesome. Please show up early so itdoesn't really suck to play first. Show starts at 5pm
NAR (Sacramento)
Four Eyes (Sacramento)
Unloveables (New York)
Vena Cava (san diego)
Hostile combover (san diego)
All hope is noise (ireland)
The likely order will have the 2 san diego bands andthe irish band taking the first 3 spots, then the Unlovables, Nar and lastly, the Four Eyes. Who knows if this order will really happen, so try to show up on the early side. you can always go get a burrito orindian pizza if you want to skip the early bands.Heck, even if you get to the city on time, you might end up missing 3 bands while looking for a parking spot!

narnarnarnarnarnarnarnarnarnar

Nar has a show on saturday with the Four Eyes. In San Francisco, natch. I don't know why that sentence warrants a natch, but it just does. The Four Eyes are sort of on a mini tour because they have a show in Davis on sunday. It's not listed on their myspace, but it's at Delta on sunday.

Who has read Middlesex out there? What did you think? I don't want to make fun of anyones personal appearance, and I do like both of his books, but is Eugenides kidding with that author photo? I can't even comment on the Van Dyke (actually, is it a Van Dyke? Is there even a name for that thing besides Mons Pubis) but the turtleneck? Why not add a pipe while you're at it?

bump it!

There's a fun bump it or dump it going on over at the Barnseyard II. You should check it out today or tomorrow because I have wednesday off. The UC system gives all their employees one day off to go to the State Fair. J.K.

leos!

TraditionalLeo Traits
Generous and warmhearted
Creative and enthusiastic
Broad-minded and expansive
Faithful and loving

Leo! About Your Sign...
The Leo type is the most dominant, spontaneously creative and extrovert of all the zodiacal characters. In grandeur of manner, splendor of bearing and magnanimity of personality, they are the monarch's among humans as the lion is king of beasts. They are ambitious, courageous, dominant, strong willed, positive, independent, self-confident there is no such a word as doubt in their vocabularies, and they are self-controlled. Born leaders, either in support of, or in revolt against, the status quo. They are at their most effective when in a position of command, their personal magnetism and innate courtesy of mind bringing out the best of loyalty from subordinates. They are uncomplicated, knowing exactly what they want and using all their energies, creativeness and resolution to get it, as well as being certain that they will get whatever they are after. Their followers know where they are with Leonians. Leonians think and act bigger than others would normally dare; the ambitiousness of their schemes and idealism sometimes daunt their followers, their practical hardheadedness and ability to go straight to the heart of any problem reassures those who depend on them. If Leonians meet with setbacks they thrive on the adversity.

Amen to that!
Happy Birthday today to Brew!!!!!!!!!!
Happy Birthday tomorrow to AKR and JD!!!!!!!!!!

the developer you love to hate?

uh, yeah, nothing much to post. what do you guys think of the hijinks of moe mohannan? hate him? love him? love to hate him? i recently found out that the j. crew at downtown plaza is gone so now i will have to concede that it pretty does suck. i enjoy the sac brewing co., occasionally but that's it. i don't shop for new clothes anyways, and i weave my own underwear out of hemp, so who needs the mall?

burningmanyogaband

Don't forget to watch the Yah Mos video below! Yesterday I hit up the Shoki Ramen House (on 24th st. near Crepeville) for lunch. This is a most exciting edition to the selection of downtown restaurants. However, I think people who think it's better than Edokko II could cool their jets a little bit with the rhetoric. The menu is more limited, the price is higher, and the portions are quite a bit smaller. The fact that I can bike to Shoki means I will probably eat there more often than I make it out to Edokko II, of course.

Here's the interior:
Here's the seafood tan men. This was what I wish I had ordered. The broth was yummer yum. My fingers are very resistant to typing that last sentence, and for good reason.

This was the tan tan men. It was good, but Edokko IIs is better. I appreciate the artful presentation at Shoki, and the little radish shoots and seaweed were little taste treats. Those brown strips are the thing that tastes like pee to me, not that I drink pee very often. Oops, I mean ever.
Yesterday evening I went out to the Horse Cow Gallery for Reggae on the River. I believe this is the third move for the Horse Cow, and this place is probably the coolest yet. It's out on the river in West Sac.

There are art cars everywhere, some of them pretty bad ass.

I loved the hippie fire dancing. I think they were just practicing but it was pretty impressive.

Your eyes to not deceive you, those are two, count 'em two didgeridoos (how the hell do you spell that? maybe that bitch from the Bee can correct my spelling)

Here's the performance space. There's a swing.

Here's the Yogoman Burningband. We enjoyed calling them the Burningman Yogaband. They only got to play a few songs before the cops showed up. We were in the middle of nowhere!! Is there no place that is safe from the man? We should have burned the man in effigy.
This was my favorite artwork out there. I'm a sucker for flashing lights.

omg! there's nothing else to say

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-3102735953749536671

Yahmos footage from around '92, be sure to watch until the end. This was around the time I first saw them, and if I can take a stroll down memory lane for a second, it was at the Cattle Club (I pretty much have Jerry Perry to thank for the fact that I'm not still stuck in Lincoln), and I believe the bill was Yah Mos, Tiger Trap, Nation of Ulysses. You could see Nic's buttcrack for the entire show and I was very impressed with how punk he was. And he talked to me, which was probably made me feel the coolest I had felt up to that point. I would guess that he struck up a convo based on a Morrissey or Smiths shirt, since I wore one every day.

two new blogs! two new blogs!

All right, for real, you should plan on going to that show tomorrow. The food and Larry djing really puts it over the top.

Now on to some unbearably exciting news. There are two new blogs to enliven the moribund sac blogging scene (I can't possibly use the word moribund without thinking of Alan Partridge, hence the picture).

The Barnseyard is back!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Well, now it's called movie city usa but the important thing it's run by the inimitable, the irascible, the incomparable....DB

And an exciting newcomer on the scene, you know her, you love her, she edits the fuck out of midtown monthly....LM!!!!!!! Does she have the stuff it takes to stay regular? Stay tuned to find out!

also...the teaches of kiedis is particularly good today.don't forget to add it to your favorites, you don't want to miss a teaches

monumental show?

Why is it so monumental? Well, among other reasons because it involves food from the semi-traveling vegan chef! Here's the information:

HEY GUYS...BEFORE I FORGET::::THIS JUST GOT CONFIRMED TONIGHT!!!!!
AUGUST 16TH, THURSDAY NIGHT REGGAE ON THE RIVER-------->>>>>
YOGOMAN BURNINGBAND (bellingham, wa - ex-behead the prophet nlsl/modest mouse/etc.)
ARMED FORCES RADIO (ex-new maps out of hell/popesmashers)
DJ LARRY RODRIGUEZ
VEGAN FOOD BY JOSHUA PLAGUE

horse cow gallery...111 harbor blvd, west sacramento. 7pm until 10pm (strictly enforced). larry tells me there will be fire dancers there too, sounds like a weird ass time!!!! here's the links:

www.myspace.com/yogomanburningband
www.myspace.com/armedforcesradio

That's this thursday in case you didn't notice.

S'Mafrican Times

How good does that dinner look? And it's all from the farmer's market. Slow-grilled Bledsoe farm porkchops, chutney made from golden tomato, nectarine, mint, scallion (to put on top of the chops) and sweet, sweet corn.

I'll just step away from Bee bashing for a minute to give them time to recover and announce the birth of...a new Smashing Times!! (the eleventh?). It's an African comp compiled by Nic. Pick up a copy today at your nearest Smashing Times vendor.

I got a sneak peak at the new Knock Knock record last night and it's insanely great. I went insane and then when it was over I got sane again, barely.

The word on the street is that Fool's is caput on the music end for a few more months. This is terrible, terrible news.