English Singles singles

I may have mentioned that the English Singles have TWO (American) single coming out.  The first is on Slumberland.  Here's the info.  Look at that cover art! Here's a good review of it.  You better be able to get it at Phono Select.  The other one will be out soon on Squirmy Records, a Stockton-based label.  He also put out the Bright Ideas LP, which you can get at Phono Select for sure.  Speaking of records, the new King Tuff is out!  I'm gonna interview him.

Copenhagen/Gothenberg pics after the jump

Christiania

Did you guys see this?  The last sentence is key.  OK, dude, first you open a champagne bar during the worst economic times in this country since the depression (seriously, they opened in summer 2008, which is not your fault, but has to be taken into account).  Remember when they were supposed to have 20 champagnes by the glass? I don't think that was the case at any point.  Then, you put the word "lounge" in your name, which is a pre-recession word that deserves to get erased from the lexicon, along with "luxury" and "loft" - those days are not coming back.  Then you turn into a kind of douche bar/nightclub where food pretty much seems like an afterthought due to your liquor license requiring you to sell a certain amount of food (I am assuming this), then you rebrand yourself as a molecular gastronomy restaurant, with high prices and inconsistent (according to BAR) food.  And then you blame your restaurant closing down on Sacramento's "lack of support for uniqueness?"  I understand your frustration, well actually I don't because I have never owned a business so I can only imagine, but your business always seemed rudderless and smacked of a corporate investment scheme and was so NOT SAC.

Good luck in San Francisco.  I hear the restaurant business is a breeze there!

Post about Christiania after the jump

CPH post part 1

 So we'll start with Copenhagen.  This was where we stayed.  Psyche but we were in the sex shop district.  This is me looking not haggard at all from jet lag and FORGETTING MY BANG STRAIGHTENER.  Do you  know how many times Scott had to hear me bitch about this?

More pics after the jump

home again

I'm back! Scott and I went to Denmark, Sweden, Norway, and London, in that order.  Stoked. Not jetlagged (yet). I will post on Tuesday cuz I gotta do, like, some work and stuff. Our vacation photos are a disappointment, in a way.  I felt pretty into just enjoying things and not taking photos of them, but maybe I should have made a bit more of an effort.  Scott got the best tshirt of all time.

blogger's elbow

After today, I won't be blogging again until June.  I have blogger's elbow and the doctor has ordered me to stop.  I told the doctor, "Hey doc, it hurts when I do this", and he said, "Well, then don't do that."

In regards to the heated conversation below, the Bee had a very thoughtful opinion piece on biking in our region in the Sunday edition. Bike riders obeying the rules was a sensible number 7 on the list.  That's about its correct order of importance.  If you build the bike lines and other safeguards, safe riding will follow.

 Pics from the Arts and Leisure/Knock Knock Show

 Knock Knock is so fucking good.  Secret best band.

 Yeah! This is finally happening!  Did you know that English Singles have TWO singles coming out, almost simultaneously?  One is on Slumberland, so put that in your pipe and smoke it.

See ya in a month!

May is goddamn bike month

OK, I've taken it and I've taken it and I can't take any more (no, not dick).  Did you know that May is bike month?  Did you? Did you know? Oh what, you live in a hole and you didn't know? Well it is and you know what the real message of May is bike month is?! It's fucking finger shaking and shaming and chastising of the small minority of people who actually ride bikes! 

That's right, instead of celebrating the joy and benefits of bike riding, everyone just uses it as a platform for the tired saw of what bike riders should not do.  As if bikes are the problem.  Hey, I drive far more than I bike, and this is really a false divide.   Most people who bike do both.  Did you know that Amsterdam has far lower levels of bike deaths and injuries? Do you know why?  No, it's not because they wear helmets (they don't) and it's not because they follow every single rule all the time (they bike fast and pretty wild-style).  It is partially because of good city design but mostly it's because drivers there look out for bikes.  There are a lot of bikes and drivers are used to looking out for them so they don't hit them.  Period. 

In this spirit here is my May is Bike Month list of driver chastising:

1) Stop speeding, especially on residential streets.  I have a traffic calming island right in front of my house and I see you roar and whip around it all the time.
2) Don't drive in the bike lane.  This includes turning the bike lane into a fake right turn lane where there is no turn lane.
3) Don't put shit in the bike lane, including but not limited to: branches, trash cans, leaves, broken tvs, dead bodies, etc.
4) Look out before you open your car door.  Always. You know where I am extra mindful to do this? Davis, because there are so many bikes.
5) Look carefully before you pull out, especially in herringbone parking.  Have you ever biked around this shit? It sucks.
6) Don't text or talk on your fucking phone.  Every time you pull a bonehead move this is usually going on.
7) Don't run red lights.  This also applies to 2 or 3 cars jumping the light at left turns.  That counts.
8) Stop being so full of rage all the time.
9) Don't yell shit at me.  This doesn't happen much, but sometimes.
10) Don't crowd me in my tiny bike lane.  I know things can be cramped, but sometimes you're just gonna have to follow me for a block or two to avoid hitting me.  Sorry.  Refer to rule #8.

breaking news

I changed my Bee subscription to daily, and I am enjoying it quite a bit, especially because the online pop-up ads at sacbee.com are getting so intense.  And if I hadn't seen the print edition I likely would have missed this: Steve Mar and Amy Peterson's kid saved another kid's life! Is that picture the cutest or what?

Don't forget the Knock Knock show tomorrow night at Bows!

Gripe of the day

I just went to a talk by a scientist who is in the National Academy of Sciences (the highest honor for a scientist, and generally the culmination of a scientific career) and out of the two other people in my aisle, one of them fucked with his phone during the talk and the other started checking emails on her laptop and TYPING.  I told her that it was distracting and she stopped.  Tiny triumph.

Nooooo!!!

Sacramento, what the fuck is wrong with you?

Cool down

Enough of all this heated foie gras rhetoric.  We need a cat picture to cool things down.  Here you see Babs reading the NYT dining section that Biggert so generously dropped off.

fungible

My mind is pretty fungible (am I using that right?), so after I talked to Thiemann about the foie gras thing, I was a little more reassured that perhaps it is not excruciatingly cruel.  He has been to the Sonoma farm and said the geese seemed happy.  I think the really miserable part is maybe just the last 20 days or so.  He used the old slippery slope argument, but I don't think that's really a danger.

Lots of stuff going on at Bows this weekend.  I'll be the Friday and Saturday.  There's an art opening Friday, and then on Saturday it's Knock Knock, Allen Clapp Orchestra, and Arts and Leisure

Foie ban

There's been some activity locally around this foie gras ban that's about to go into effect.  Some local chefs are taking action.  From what I've seen of foie gras production, it's pretty hard to argue that it's not cruel and unusual punishment, and it seems weird to me that the same chefs who are scrupulous in sourcing ethically produced meat are rallying around this cause.  After all, they are against overcrowded pigs and chickens with their beaks clipped, right? This seems more cruel.  This could very well stem from the fact that I don't really like foie gras, especially when it's torched or warmed in any way.  I liken it to bullfighting, which I think should be banned.  I don't care if it's a cultural tradition.  So are public beheadings in some places.  I saw a bullfight in Spain and it was horrific.   I thought it would be festive and the outfits are so cool, etc., and instead it was people carving a hole in a live bull.

quote unquote

Can I rant a little bit about my community garden?  The people running it are power mad.  I receive a constant stream of emails about their rigid rules.  The new one is a directive that all tomato plants need to be planted 1.5 feet from the edges of the plot.  In a 6X6 plot doesn't that mean you can just plant one tomato plant?  And this garden is NOT CHEAP.  They seem to be terrified of stray tomato branches in the aisle.  Who does this hurt?  I don't understand.  Are they afraid a child will be trapped in the branches? And one of the organizers cut down some of my favas because they were leaning.  She wrote that she was "struggling" to get a wheelbarrow through.  Doesn't that sound a bit dramatic?  Also, there are two other paths to access her garden which are equally easy. Aarrggggghh.  Where are the easygoing garden hippies?

Pictures after the jump

grammy sez

 This is the last night of Jiro Dreams of Sushi at the Crest.  It's pretty good, not great.  The story is a little thin and I think he's rad and his sushi looks amazing, but I actually don't admire the kind of work ethic where you work a million hours a week and don't have time for your family and don't know what to do with yourself when you're not working.  I can't relate!  However, this preview made me cry and I CAN'T WAIT to see this movie.

Skipper dropped off some sauerkraut. I had actually just bought a cheap, commercial jar right before this and the difference is night and day.  The commercial stuff was so sour and flabby.  Skipper's is crisp and complex.  Just like him.

They tore down the Earl of Sandwich yesterday.  RIP.  I never ate there!  Thank god H. Salt Esquire is going strong.

Corti meatload!  Ha, look I wrote meatload instead of loaf.  The unusual looking lady who works at the deli has a half-shaved, asymmetrical haircut right now.  She found a style she liked and stuck with it.  She's like the Peggy Moffat of the deli.

My spring garden is off the chain! Chard is really the flamingo of the vegetable world.  Like my grammy used to say, "chard is just God showin' off".  Then she'd wisely rock in her rocking chair and spit a stream of tobacco juice into the spitoon that was always at her feet.  My special job was emptying the spitoon.

This guy was a stowaway in the bag.  Even though snails are evil I dumped him outside.  As my grammy used to say, "evil is as evil does".  Then she'd cackle and take a puff of her corncob pipe.

I got my first favas! A huge bag of them compressed down into about a cup and a half of bright green beans.  As my grammy used to say, "Fava beans, they're not fucking worth the trouble", then she'd fire up the ol' bong and let 'er rip.

ramblin'

Going to Corti Bros is very financially dangerous for me.  I should have some sort of electric shock collar that goes off when I try to enter the door.  That place does such a bangin' business.  The deli was MOBBED.  Did you read the profile of Corti in the latest Sactown?  You should, it's excellent.  Have you ever seen pictures of young Corti? I had not.

Who hasn't dreamed of opening a restaurant in this space?  I know I have, and I'm happy something is opening there.  However, a message to Sacramento business owners:  MAKE UP YOUR OWN THING.  Do not just copy someone else's idea!!  We already have a copy of the famous Korean taco thing, is called Kogi, which is just one "l" away from a lawsuit by the original truck, I'm sure.  Did her original restaurant, Yunece 61 close down?  That was a Korean/BBQ place that I reviewed years back.  It was OK.

Mmmmmasullo

 Mmmmmmmasullo.  This is a new lacinato kale salad he has.  Those little colorful bits are plant roots! There are micro beet greens in here and pistachios.  This salad is very rustic and chewy.  You will really get your fiber and vitamins for the day.  I liked it.

Here's a new-ish pizza with mustard flowers.  I can't really discern anything that they add to the pizza.  It's kinda like a Croque Monsieur pizza.

Did you know that the Lootenanny is this weekend? Starts Saturday afternoon at Darras' house.  Should be fun! Bands and really good raffle prizes. And you can pop over for a beer at Pangaea

Important message from a young person:

Matt Maxwell has Halloween show-related message for you, both old and young:

Does anybody who performed in the Halloween show have any objections to me posting their performance online? Keep in mind that I'm not asking for any money but am going to have a "donate" option to help cover costs of filming and editing. If you do, please contact me at maxmattm@gmail.com

California Poppy = the best

Could any state have a better state flower than the Cali poppy? I think not!  We went to Stinson Beach for the weekend. Love it! This is a brief little jaunt hike down to a rocky beach in Bolinas.

 Lunch at Cowgirl Creamery.  This sandwich had really soft mozzarella (Bellfiore) and wilted spinach.  What a brilliant idea for a concentrated green flavor on a sandwich! I'm going to copy it.  It also had some fra'mani salami.

 Chipotle chicken.  The bread was a good consistency so that the fillings didn't squish out.

 This is a crazy bottle of wine! It's a northern Italian sparkling wine made from the malvasia grape.  I loved it! Cider-y and it's sooo acidic.  It had a mouth-drying characteristic that reminded me of a lambrusco.  So food-friendly.

 I don't know that there will ever be a time when this does not make me laugh.

 Hit up the Marshall Store on our way home for oysters. 

Wish I had taken more pictures.  The Future Art Notables bike ride was extremely well attended. Here is the crowd gathering at the Verge.

J. Pump

Check it: His and Hers Beer Notes (linked at right) reviewed Jolly Pumpkin Oro de Calabaza (one of my faves) and DB gave it 4.5 out of 5 toasts!

RIP

Rachel Leibrock has a column in this weeks SNR about Cynthia Dall (everyone called her Cindy, right? But did she spell it that way?)  I didn't know they were friends.

I only met her once, but Rollerderby Zine was a big deal to me as a teen.  I only had a couple of them, but it was a glimpse into a strange world that both fascinated and scared me.  It was  mostly Lisa Carver's writing about her life that freaked me out. It's hard to explain, but I kind of lumped it in my head with G.G. Allin, who would scare me with his talk show appearances.  No coincidence that Lisa Carver had a fascination with him, and I believe the first Suckdog show was supposed to be with him, but he canceled?  I should check the book for my facts.

This was one of the issues I had, and read and re-read.  That's Micah and Cindy on the cover.  Scott was supposed to be in this picture, I can't remember why he wasn't.  I hope I didn't bum anyone out too much by writing about this.

On a different note, I usually feel squinky about linking to my own stuff, but I wrote up the death of MidMo party for this issue.