Category: Arts

Free Tickets! Free Drinks!

Sugar Plum fairies dancing in my head

I don’t know about you, but this time of year I start to dream of sugar plum fairies dancing in my head. Lucky for you, rather than watching the version in my mind, you have a chance to win FREE tickets to opening night of the Nutcracker Ballet on December 17 and watch professional fairies dance on a stage. This is the real holiday tradition performed by the Pamela Hayes Classical Ballet.

The first person to email greenbeet AT sacrag DOT com will win a set of two tickets.

Double plum bonus! If you win before Sunday (or if you are already a Nutcracker ticket holder), you can use your ballet tickets to enjoy FREE sugar plum punch (yes, the spiked kind) at Lounge ON20 during brunch on December 5. (Punch is free. You pay for brunch.) And it won’t be the drinks making you see fairies this time. The Nutcracker characters will be frolicking about to add to the festivities.

Yes, indeed! The holidays are upon us. Cheers!

It’s Okay to Laugh at the Disabled

Or it least it will be on Friday night at the Sacramento Comedy Spot. In fact if you don’t laugh at the disabled, the show will have failed to serve its purpose.

The “Comedians With Disabilities Act” goes up at 8:00pm at the Spot and features three incredible comedians, Michael O’Connell (has MD and is confined to a wheelchair), Steve Danner (little person), and Eric Mee (blind), who are not only disabled but who thoroughly mine their “otherness” for incredible, gut-wrenching laughs.

The first time I saw O’Donnell, I laughed so hard I was in pain, then told everyone I knew about this awesome comedian in a wheelchair. I remember distinctly that there were one or two audience members who seemed uncomfortable at the show, not with O’Donnell’s disability, but rather with his frank discussion of it on stage. If you’re one of those folks, you might want to stay at home and eat leftovers, but if you want to see what’s probably going to be the best standup show you’ve seen in a while, check out the “Comedians With Disability Act,” 8PM, Friday, at the Sacramento Comedy Spot, $12.

Joel McHale at Mem. Auditorium Dec. 11

Joel McHale
Creative Commons License photo credit: Alan Light

Joel McHale, star of E!’s “The Soup” and NBC’s “Community” is coming to the Memorial Auditorium on December 11th. Unfortunately the ticket prices are heinous, or not, depending on your internal heinousness gauge.

I love Joel’s schtick on both shows and I’m glad he is a famous dude. There are very few performances I would pay a lot to see, but there are also very few things I would go out at night to do in the first place.

Downtown Ice Rink is open

Sacramento’s original outdoor ice rink, the Westfield Downtown Plaza Ice Rink, opened today at noon.

The 7,000 square foot ice rink can accommodate up to 150 skaters. The rink is located at 7th and K Streets (across from the Westfield Downtown Plaza) and is a short stroll from Old Sacramento, the State Capitol, popular downtown restaurants and light rail trains. Because the ice rink is an outdoor facility, the quality of ice may be affected by weather and other elements. Please note that the ice rink facility does not have lockers/storage and skaters are responsible for their personal belongings onsite.

Remember, as an outdoor facility, the rink may close at any time…

In the event of inclement weather, poor ice conditions, war, acts of God or other reasons beyond the Downtown Sacramento Partnership may close ice rink operations without advance notice.

Good to know. If things get out of hand with our enemies in foreign lands and it starts to go down, your local ice skating rink may close without letting you know.

In other ice related news, Iceland reopened this week in, what, 8 short months? Impressive. Rick Kushman over at the Bee also wrote an article about the frosty stuff. Wait, so did Bill Lindelof, using the same photo.

New CAKE video for “Sick of You”

CAKE’s video for the new radio single “Sick of You” showed up on YouTube over the weekend. Here’s what the band says about it:

After years of holding back from using a pair of beautiful rabbit costumes acquired by CAKE long before the Flaming Lips even thought of using their various animal costumes, CAKE has finally decided to use the costumes anyway in their very own home made, self-directed music video! CAKE feels strongly that the rabbit poignantly expresses so much about human hope and frailty that CAKE could no longer restrain themselves. Filmed in one of Sacramento, California’s own richly decorated suburban decay settings, it is CAKE’s sincere hope that our “Sick of You” video and song accurately express the hostile cultural mood currently being enjoyed by so many in the United States today.

You gonna take that, Flaming Lips? Here’s the video. Who can identify the shooting location? Looks like Florin Road to me.

P.S. It got 1000 views in about 15 minutes while I was writing. I think this YouTuby thing is going to take off.

Secret Sacramentan: Brian Posehn

Brian Posehn
Creative Commons License photo credit: Steve Scap

Listening to Chris Hardwick’s Nerdist podcast the other day with geek comic Brian Posehn, I was pleasantly surprised to learn that Posehn got his start in comedy right here in Sactown. (I’m sure my compatriot sac-eats knew this already but it was news to me.)

It seems that after high school in Sonoma he moved to Sacramento and attended community college, and got his start in the comedy world at age 21 (the lack of all-ages comedy establishments being a reason nobody broke into comedy from Sacramento in days past). The notoriously cranky and foul-mouthed comic actually refrains from bad-mouthing our fair city on the podcast, only claiming that he made a premature decision to try comedy in LA after just a bit of experience here in the late 80s/early 90s. In LA he literally broke his back in a drinking stunt gone wrong. So he had to “press the reset button” on comedy career at about the time the alt-comedy movement of the 90s was really getting going.

To put words in his mouth, leaving this place was probably the best thing that happened to his career. Happy weekend, Sacramento! 🙂

What’s worse (Halloween edition)?

I visited the Party City store yesterday on Arden Way and couldn’t help but notice the costumes designed for our little ones. Seriously, what’s worse? Dressing your “boy” up as a Convict Clown (“This scary clown should be locked up”) or Rapsta (“F’Shizzle, this costizzle is the dizzle!”)?

Scary thing is, I am sure many kids will be one of these without ever visiting the costume store. You can guess which one, yo.

Kid's costume: Convict Clown
Kid's Costume: Rapsta
Sweet dreams, junior
Notice the tatted sleeves.

CAKE to play show in Sacramento

CAKE
Creative Commons License photo credit: anthony_goto

From CAKE’s newsletter:

Blue Lamp show tomorrow (Tuesday, October 19th at 9pm) in Sacramento. First come, first served.

As usual, no cameras or recording devices are permitted. Your presence is enough.

CAKE has also announced the release of their new album, “Showroom of Compassion.” We have an outstanding variety of pre-sale bundles to offer!

I wonder how the Facebook group is going to handle this. Ah, yeah. Ah, right.

Second Saturday: Hot or Not?

Hi kids,

I was very flattered when I was asked to contribute to The Sac Rag a few months back. My “beat” was supposed to be the Midtown music/arts scene, but my only post of significance so far has been about getting fined for riding the light rail when I was 5 cents short.

[Taken care of, BTW. I can walk the streets without fear of arrest. Well, for that, anyway. There’s still that whole “shot a man in Reno just to watch him die” thing. But I have a good attorney who says the “Twinkie defense” definitely applies in my case. Really. I ate a Twinkie. When I was 12, but since they have no expiration date, it still applies. Really!]

But as someone who has chosen to make Midtown his home for the better part of the decade, I thought I might chime in regarding Second Saturday: what it has meant to Sacramento, and what it’s become.

Continue reading “Second Saturday: Hot or Not?”

Sacramento’s Hidden Gems

Old Sacramento Underground from www.historicoldsac.org
Old Sacramento Underground
My son came home recently with information about a tour of “Old Sacramento Underground” which “will provide visitors with a unique glimpse into the massive and dramatic undertaking that took place when the streets were painstakingly raised in the 1860s through the 1870s to protect the city from devastating flooding.”

How have I not done this yet? Perhaps I haven’t lived here long enough, but it sounds very interesting. Has anyone taken this tour? Your thoughts?

Underground tour visitors will have the opportunity to view disappearing windows and doors, dipping alleyways, exposed retaining walls, walk into underground hollow sidewalks and tour historic buildings all while being entertained and educated by tour guides and docents who portray characters true to the period.

Man, sign me up. I enjoy docents any way I can get them.

In addition to this tour, we were asked to come up with other “hidden Sacramento gems” as part of a local history project. Well, who better to answer this question than our very own Sac Rag readers? Comment with your suggestions and I’ll pass them along.