Month: July 2009

The Koz is Back

jim-kozimor-96eGood news/bad news:

Good news first. Jim Kozimor, beloved sports announcing personality here in Sacramento, has gotten a chance at a second go-around with KHTK 1140. His new show, starting today, will air weekdays from 12-4 and will undoubtedly feature Kozimor’s candor, humor, and boyish good looks. Most of Sacramento was sad to see Kozimor laid off from the Maloof Sports and Entertainment broadcast team, and is happy to see Koz back on the air. While there’s no official name yet for the new Kozimor show, we at the ‘Rag suggest the following: “The Offical Report of Koz-ickstan,” or “The Kozy Korner”, or “The Sunshine Happy Goodtime Hour.”

Bad news. One of the reasons that this opportunity opened up in the first place is that the Mike O’Meara show, formerly the Don & Mike show, has been dropped from the Washington station from which O’Meara broadcasts. Many of us were devout listeners to the rowdy, smart, and media-centric show out of D.C. and will be sad to see it go, probably for good.

Happy Birthday Dinger!

Sacramento needs a mascot. A crusty old prospector? A river otter? Wine grapes? A vampire?

Dinger
Dinger
Until this happens, we’ve got Dinger, who turns 10 today and is having a Birthday Bash. Today’s game against the Reno Aces begins at 1:00, but the real action starts at Noon with Mascot Kickball. 18 mascots from across California will do battle in the classic schoolyard sport of champions. Guests include some awesome mascots, such as the dapper USF Don, the UOP Powercat, and Poppy, and some not-so-awesome, such as the PG&E Helmet (which sadly resembles a form of birth control), the creepy Mr. Jelly Belly, and MacGruff the Crime Dog, who simply worries me with that trenchcoat.

Have a great celebration, Dinger, and go Cats!

Barbera: A Local Treasure That Needs To Be Treasured

barberaIf we were to be honest with ourselves for just a moment, we’d readily admit that we live in the deep, enveloping cleavage of the bosom of great wine. Just barely peeking out over the plunging neckline of our beautiful valley, we can see some of the best vineyards in America staring back at us. And while Zinfandel, Cab, and Chardonnay get all the attention and all the praise, it is the simple Barbera that I seek out every time.

An Italian grape, Barbera is a foundational piece of many Italian table wines. Following suit, it’s been grown predominantly in the Central Valley as a blending grape in jug wines. (Shout out to my boy Carlo!) But in recent years, winemakers in Amador, El Dorado, and, to a lesser but by no means less successful extent, Paso Robles have taken the Barbera and turned it into an absolutely yummy single varietal that, in my mind, kicks the pants off of most zins, pinots, and cabs.

What does Barbera taste like? To be honest, it tastes like the cloudy mists of the firmament wrapped in bubble gum and dusted with cotton candy kisses. However, some have also described it as an inky dark, velvety wine with balanced berry sweetness and almost no tannins; it’s eminently drinkable and, like most Italian wines, very food friendly.  Take your pick of descriptions. Wine, after all, is a subjective beverage.

Where do you find good Barbera? One place you’ll rarely find it is on a restaurant’s wine list. The Firehouse, for example, whose wine list runs over 80 pages, has only a handful of Barberas from the U.S. and Italy. On last check, Biba’s wine list had two. L Wine Lounge, whose wine list admittedly is about variety and quality over quantity, carries only one.  Same with The Kitchen. Continue reading “Barbera: A Local Treasure That Needs To Be Treasured”

Thursday afternoon headline comedy

I know this is not necessarily a laughing matter but I can’t help, well, chuckling a bit whenever a headline has the word “sickened” being used for its literal meaning:

1 Sickened By Odor In Rancho Cordova Building (KCRA)

Are investigators considering the person who tipped them off as a person of interest, on the legal theory of He who smelt it, dealt it?

Food News: Marsupial Edition

kangaroo-meatThe newest burger at ‘Rag favorite Flaming Grill? Why, kangaroo of course. Kangaroo is low fat, dark, meaty, delicious, and full of all kinds of nutritional thingies that all strange meat claims to be full of. Hell, you can probably find some crackpot with a PhD to tell you that wombat meat delivers more X per serving than any other indigestible food.  But I digress.  The kangaroo burger is actually very good. Texture and flavor-wise I would say that it’s somewhere between a turkey burger and a lean beef burger. Highly recommended, but still not as good as FG’s ahi burger, which is the best in the state.

Gatsby’s, a ’30s diner (notice the apostrophe in front not between the numbers and “s”) whatever that is, recently opened on the corner of Alta Arden and Fulton. Check it out if you like a good tongue sandwich (I haven’t been there yet and couldn’t tell you if they sold tongue sandwiches or not).

David Berkley’s, purveyor of fine foods in the Pavilions shopping centre, is changing its name. As reported on this here fine ‘Rag a while ago, Mr. Berkley no longer owns the joint and will be removing his name from the masthead. The place, which checkout guy assures me will be unchanged, will simply be called “The Market at the Pavilions.” Talk about grabbing you by the short one’s, heh? That’s a name to remember. The Market. It’s about as remarkable as that place I go to work out, “The Gym.” Ok, it’s a pretentious load of wind, but I thought y’all should know in case you get confused next time you pull up to the ‘Vilions (ok, this apostrophe thing is getting out of hand) and don’t see the familiar name up on the marquee.

Spotted – the Coolest Couple in town

We spotted the coolest couple in town this weekend at Trader Joe’s in East Sacramento. He was bald and wearing faded short-legged blue coveralls, which gave him the appearance of an artist in his paint clothes. She had reddish dyed hair done up in an old-fashioned style, vintage inspired shades, a blouse, and high-waisted side-zip 1950s dungarees, like these from Freddies of Pinewood, but even higher-waisted and with flared legs. The two looked like Katharine Hepburn and Jackson Pollock out doing errands.

They passed in front of our car in the TJ’s parking lot and loaded their groceries into a older Volvo sedan. I’m not much for talking about fashion, but I knows über-cool when I sees it. If I were writing for The Sactorialist I would have stopped traffic in the TJ’s parking lot to take their photo.

Has anybody else seen this couple? Or did we dream it?

Burrous takes credit for spotting Art Beast

This morning’s Good Day Sacramento featured Art Beast in several spots in the “Prego (sic) & Beyond Posse” segment. (Or are they are covered in delicious sauce?) Reporter Lisa Gonzales spends a few hours at the studio, which looks like the most amazing place ever, interviewing owner Bridget Alexander. Anchor Chris Burrous then takes credit for “finding” Art Beast. What I assume he means is that he saw it first on this here web log and thought it looked like a good story ripe for horkin’. Only Mr Burrous knows for sure…

good day sacramento prego & beyond posse logo
Good Day Sacramento 'Prego & Beyond Posse' logo
Funny side note: the title on the videos tab says “Prego Posse & Beyond,” which is what you might think it was supposed to be called if all you had was the logo, which shows the words “Prego” and “Posse” in the same typeface (see right).

Public transit budget grab was illegal, court says


this poster should have
been illegal too

News & Review’s Cosmo Garvin blogs about Regional Transit’s EPIC WIN last week when the California 3rd District Court of Appeals ruled (in the case SHAW et al. v. THE PEOPLE ex rel. CHIANG, as Controller, etc., et al.) that a portion of the money taken from Public Transportation Account in the last 3 budget years must be repaid. Garvin points out that there is obviously no money in the state’s wallet to pay out, so it remains to be seen what will happen.

What should happen, to borrow a phrase, is the political heads of Gov. Schwarzenegger and many other elected officials on a platter. What would happen to a businessperson who shifted money around in order to pay his company’s bills and did something illegal?

DUI killer sues restaurant for serving him booze

In other crazy lawsuit news, convicted DUI manslaughterer Roberto Vellanoweth is suing the Camino Real Restaurant for serving him a “boozed-up mystery drink” that he claims caused the fatal crash in which he killed 4 people one horrifying and tragic day in South Land Park.

Obviously this is another insane what-is-this-world-coming-to lawsuit, but am I the only one who thinks it wouldn’t be a bad thing if somebody put that place out of business? In California there is really no excuse for bad Mexican food. The Yelpers back me up, using phrases like “HUGE mistake,” “thrown up,” “funny odor,” and “fat jerky was that brown ooze it had been swimming in” in their mostly 1-star reviews. If you’ve been to Camino Real Restaurant, you might wonder whether the mystery dosage in Vellanoweth’s drink was Hepatitis A. (This joke was brought to you by Mrs Cool.)

Squeeze Out

UPDATE: Bee reports that Squeeze Inn owner will move rather than try to fight lawsuit.  Let’s just hope it’s not to Roseville.

handicapped-adaChalk this one up in the category of “money grubbing, litigious douchebags ruining all of our fun.”  From the Bee:

Aficionados say the burger sold at the Squeeze Inn is perfection (including me), the consummate marriage of bun, ground meat and melted cheddar cheese. But a disabled woman has filed suit, saying the one-time coffeehouse with 450 square feet of space at 7918 Fruitridge Road (left) is anything but perfect. She says the kitschy confines where photos of fishermen, fighters and racers abound break federal law and violate her civil rights.

Here’s the really, really shitty part: the owner of the ‘Squeeze, Travis Hausauer, says that to make the fixes would cost so much that he’d be better closing his doors.

All the facts in the case, from the identification of the lawyer, Jason Singleton, as a wheelchair chaser who goes around finding small businesses that don’t meet all ADA guidelines then finding handicapped people to file suit against them, to the “victim” Kimberly Block, who is apparently a vegetarian (ok I made that up), make this case a grade-a shitball. But it brings this whole issue into regional and — thanks to that loud-mouthed Fieri guy — national focus.

Here’s what should happen and here’s what will happen: What should happen is that these type of ADA code issues be brought before the city or county and not be resolvable by lawsuits. If a disabled person has a problem with a business, they should complain to the city or county, an inspector would go out, issue an order to upgrade the property and/or fine the business. What will happen is that this case will be settled out of court, the lawyer will take the bulk of the settlement, and the “victim” will go about her tofu-eating life. Continue reading “Squeeze Out”