By William Burg Photo from Author’s collection
On August 21, 2010, Sacramento’s Western Pacific passenger depot at 1910 J Street marks 100 years since the arrival of its first passenger train. On that day a century ago, the Western Pacific Railroad began passenger operations in Sacramento Read more »
Lots going on Thursday/Friday/Saturday- here’s the MidMo guide to your weekend:
Thursday 8/5
The Verge Jumble Preview Party
The Verge Center for the Arts is hosting its first public fundraiser at the new 7th and S location tonight! $15 gets you food, drink, DJIng by Scott Soriano AND first crack at the incredible pile of treasures the Verge has collected for their rummage sale.
Verge Center for the Arts, 625 S Street, 7PM, $15
Friday, 8/6
The Ground Chuck Show
Lovable Midtown screever Ground Chuck started doing standup comedy last year – here’s your chance to catch his act as he hosts a latenight show of his favorite comics at the Comedy Spot. He may have a guitar and amp with him, maybe a drum set, he may play videos… who knows? “This is Ground Chuck doing whatever he wants,” says organizer Keith Lowell Jensen (who’ll do his own set earlier that night). “We’re just giving him free reign and trusting that hanging out with Chuck for an hour or so is going to be a good time.” We can’t think of a better way to wrap up a Friday night.
The Comedy Spot, 1050 20th Street, 11PM, $6
Saturday 8/7
The Zeros, Dungeons and Drag Queens and Blue Diamonds
They’re back! 34 years after forming in a Chula Vista garage, and 33 years after they released their seminal “Don’t Push Me Around” single on Bomp! Records, The Zeros are here to remind you what punk rock and roll is all about. I know, I know, reunion gigs pretty much always suck, but forget all those crappy comebacks you’ve seen from bands who never should have left the nursing home – these guys bring it. I saw ‘em at Gilman earlier this year and they were better than they had any right to be. Here’s some local TV footage from 1977 (starts wobbly, gets good quick).
And show up early – openers Blue Diamonds have a basketful of choice garage chestnuts (including a Fugs cover!) for you.
Blue Lamp, 1400 Alhambra Blvd, 21+, 9PM
The California State Fair opens tomorrow… but did you know that the State Fair used to be held IN Midtown? Bill Burg’s got the details…
By William Burg
The California Exposition and State Fairgrounds, site of the California state fair since 1968, seems like a permanent fixture to many Sacramentans. Older generations still remember the old fairgrounds at Stockton and Broadway. But that site was not the original location of the fair either; it was chosen when Sacramento’s urban growth crowded the fairgrounds out of their first permanent home – in Midtown at 20th and H Streets. Read more »
Rogelio Manzo, La Duda (the Doubt),Oil, Image transfer/Resin Panel, 2010
Stopped by Skinner Howard Contemporary Art yesterday and took a quick peek at Looted, the new Rogelio Manzo show. Manzo’s work is a good example of art that needs to be seen in person to appreciate. When I saw photos of the images online before the show I wasn’t particularly interested; in person the work (often much bigger than one might assume) has a luminous quality that isn’t captured well in photos. He’s got a good control of paint, and the active brushwork in the figures shows an appealing confidence that keeps your eye moving. Most of Manzo’s portraits are painted on resin based carriers that refract light througout the image, even behind the painted portraits. The effect is interesting and unusual- one can make out the hanging hardware on some of them- and speaks to an artist that isn’t afraid to bend some rules.
While I was intrigued the overall effect of the work, I’m not bowled over by Manzo’s actual rendering. The facial features in his portraiture tend to be outsized and cartoonish- they remind me a LOT of the faces drawn by amateur comic book artists with more experience learning other artists’ styles than looking at real people. The same is true of the clothing his sitters wear. It’s as though Manzo knows what a torso looks like and knows what a suit looks like, but has never really paid attention to anyone actually wearing one. These portraits owe a nod to Francis Bacon, and the comparison doesn’t help Manzo. Bacon’s masterful scrambling of features leaves the sitter not only intact, but eerily enhanced; Manzo’s decomposed faces leave the sitter identityless – which may well be his intent.
Dean DeCocker See Bee's,acrylic paint, cardboard, metal, powdercoat, 2009
We were a bit perplexed when we got a press release announcing that the new ‘Brand Identity’ of Midtown Sacramento would be unveiled last week. We were even more perplexed when we actually saw it.
It’s not that the logo isn’t nice. It’s well designed, I’d even say it’s visually ‘catchy’, as far as that goes. The scribble reminds me of ’50s Italian abstract sculpture more than anything, so Hot Italian was probably stoked.
But I truly can’t imagine the thought process that went into choosing ‘Go Your Own Way’ as a tag line, since A) Fleetwood Mac will probably sue us; B) who thought it was a good idea to associate Midtown with a rock group more famous for cocaine addiction than anything else? Was this just a tip-of-the-hat to that certain uber-successful Midtown businessman who made his bones as a coke dealer back in the ’70s?
Whatever. I’m inclined to ‘roll with it’ as local style-maker and boutique owner Olivia Coelho suggested in her comments on Heckasac. It’s done, it cost an ass-load of money (don’t even ask, it will make you so angry your teeth will hurt), and it could have been way worse.
Rob Kerth, quoted in the Business Journal, suggested plenty of uses for the new logo. “The logo will show up on t-shirts, banners and window stickers the association is making available to businesses. We’ll think of some other clever uses along the way.”
Reader Marion Millin sent us her suggestions for other clever uses. We thought they were too good not to share:
Hire Ground Chuck to draw the logo in chalk on the sidewalk in front of participating businesses
Hold hop scotch competitions and let kids compete for whose game is craziest
Print the new logo on meal tickets with prices, tax and totals artfully spread on the “grid”
Tell people it’s an old Gold Rush symbol used by miners to hide location of their claim
Hire Midtown Hipsters to get tattooed with the new logo
Encourage use of the cartoon grid as the template for Midtown bar crawls, bike rides and scavenger hunts
Check departing patrons level of inebriation by having them try to trace the logo
Bumperstickers on Humvees and Escalades: “Midtown: Get Out Of My Way”
Require barristas to draw new logo in foam on espresso drinks
Social networking to spread the buzz that we are now “Scribblemento”
T-shirts for locals: “Welcome to Midtown: Now Go Away”
Tell people the real logo will be ready soon
-Marion Millin
By Dennis Yudt photos by Scott Duncan
Recently, Sacramento mayor Kevin Johnson and a few associates made a pit stop at the venerable Midtown watering hole, the Rubicon Brewing Company. While there, he was goaded into singing “Happy Birthday” to Charles Adrian Thomas, a Rubicon regular who was celebrating his 41st year on earth. Mayor Johnson, never one to oppose a majority voice, gamely serenaded the birthday boy, muffing up his name only slightly. By all accounts, the mayor did a half-way decent job, adding one more episode in the life and times of Mr. Thomas, or, as every good denizen of Midtown knows him: ‘Ground Chuck.’ Read more »
By William Burg photos by Jesse Vasquez
Shawn Eldredge is a house painter, general contractor and neighborhood activist. His first attempt at public office, a bid for Sacramento mayor in 2008, gave him more notoriety for his long hair and Led Zeppelin T-shirts than his policy positions. After shedding the hair for a charity event this spring, and trading the T-shirt for a Kevin Seconds-designed “Shawn Eldredge for District 3” T-shirt (with a zeppelin on it), Shawn explained some of his vision for Sacramento while hanging out at Temple Coffee’s 28th & S Street location. Read more »
By Jackson Griffith photos by Scott Duncan
“Art is the only way to run away without leaving home,” a sign over the door tells you as you’re leaving Art Ellis Supply, a comfortably funky purveyor of artist’s and bookbinder’s materials that has been a fixture on J Street in Midtown Sacramento since 1948. It’s something Sharon Tanovitz, half of the husband-and-wife team that has owned the shop since 1976, found somewhere and decided to share. The source? “Anonymous,” she says. “The other one I’ve always wanted to do was: ‘Remember – everyone was a beginner once.'” Read more »
By Sarah Singleton Photos by Scott Duncan
Jonathon Modrow and Kimio Bazett didn’t know what they were getting into back in 2003 when they decided to open up a neighborhood bar in Sacramento. They had taken over a nineteenth-century building that once housed local hotspots Drago’s, Café Montreal and Café Paris, amongst other incarnations. Little did they know that they had purchased The Money Pit. Read more »