Placeblogger, putting the L in URL

Introducing Placeblogger, the hottest new thing in blogs dedicated to specific cities. FauxPaws pointed this out to me a few months ago but now it has launched, complete with major financial backing.

Placeblogs are sometimes called “hyperlocal sites” because some of them focus on news events and items that cover a particular neighborhood in great detail — and in particular, places that might be too physically small or sparsely populated to attract much traditional media coverage.

Sounds right up our alley. Here are the Sacramento placeblogs. Now with 33% McClatchy meat!! (Ours is in the queue.) Continue reading “Placeblogger, putting the L in URL”

Chain Reaction

There has been an awful lot of chain-bashing going on lately here on the Rag. Most authors here at Rag HQ support local businesses and encourage others to do the same. Heck, why start the Sac Rag in the first place if you don’t appreciate all things local. If we wanted to enjoy the sameness of corporate chains we’d probably write for facelessamericancityrag.com.

But let’s not shy away from the obvious, chains are not going anywhere in the near future unless there happens to be some type of extra terrestrial invasion that wipes out society as we know it. So, let’s learn to live with the chains, appreciate them for what they offer and use them as we need to, not forgetting our local roots and affinities, but not ignoring a piece of the socio-economic puzzle that, in the end, can compliment, rather than undermine, the local scene. (I heart commas.)

So, I give you the following roadmap to navigating the world of restaurant chains and big box eateries: Continue reading “Chain Reaction”

L.A. vs. Sacramento, L.A. rules edition

From the L.A. Times:

The love affair between Phil Jackson and the state capital continued Thursday.

“It’s a beautiful place,” he said, opening his arms figuratively with an apparent compliment for Arco Arena. […] “It’s just one of the very few places where you have to walk across the court to get to a locker room that’s a dungeon.”

There’s more, and the LAT seems to like it just a little too much. In fact, they took a dig in another section, too:

Sacramento is a suburb of Los Angeles. Nothing drives home that point more than a walk through Terminal A at Burbank’s Bob Hope Airport at the start of the workweek, where you can see a host of L.A. lawmakers — and lobbyists, political lawyers, labor leaders and corporate executives — waiting for their short hops to the Capitol. […]

California’s capital city may be where all the state’s movers and shakers mingle, but L.A. still rules.

Yeah, just ask ’em. Here’s the rest.

L.A. vs. Sacramento

After asking the S.F. vs. Sac question yesterday, I’m now dealing with the diss of the Big Tomato by Bee L.A. Bureau Chief (and sole reporter) Laura Mecoy. Well-known around the Bee newsroom as one of its best reporters, Mecoy headed south for The Bee 14 years ago and has filed some incredible stories in the years since.

But The Bee decided we didn’t need to know anything from L.A. (or S.F.) that couldn’t be pulled from the Associated Press wires and offered the far-flung correspondents either a bus ticket back to Sac or a buyout. (The recalled reporters also include Herb Sample in S.F., and Claire Cooper, who knows more about the California Supreme Court than the justices do).

Writes Mecoy, in the L.A. Observed blog:

I saw how the recall worked out for Gov. Gray Davis and decided it’s not for me. I look forward to traveling across the Los Angeles basin in search of a new calling. I know I will find great wisdom in all the wonderful people I will meet along the way.

Don’t bother checking in at the L.A. Times after that buyout money runs out, Laura. I got a Christmas card from a friend who’s pretty high up there, and in the note inside, that person scribbled a few words that weren’t entirely optimistic about prospects for the Best Darn Paper south of the Grapevine.

Sad.

SNR flash fiction offerings fail to impress

Chuck Rosenthal
Chuck Rosenthal,
one of my heroes

I know what you’re thinking, he can’t even write about local crime statistics without getting hated on, and now he thinks he’s a literary critic? Well naysayer, I’ll have you know I studied writing under Chuck Rosenthal, whose short short story “The Nicest Kid in the Universe” was anthologized in the eponymous anthology “Flash Fiction.” Anywhoo, this year’s stories are lame, and again I know what you’re thinking, no I don’t mean lame in an over-the-top shocking and offensive way. I mean lame fiction in the traditional sense. Continue reading “SNR flash fiction offerings fail to impress”

Will we always be in San Francisco’s shadow?

Since 1925, the place to go. My father was born in San Francisco, and still — he’ll quickly tell you — holds baseball records set in 1949 when he played for Mission High School in what my family have always called simply, “The City.” When my parents married — at Fremont Presbyterian, back when it was on 34th and J — they decided to settle in Sacramento. My father, by then a professional baseball player in the Red Sox organization, said he “liked the heat.”

Flash forward a half-century and change. My parents last October celebrated their 52nd wedding anniversary. They are happy with most everything they’ve done and accomplished, save one thing: They wished they’d settled as newlyweds in San Francisco.

My father is still a San Franciscan in his own mind, even though three-quarters of his life has been lived in Sacramento. He is in The City at least three times a month, to attend luncheons for former star jocks, visit with high-school buddies, pick up ravioli and proscuitto at Lucca’s or (with sadly increasing frequency) attend a funeral.

When I ask him about this, he shrugs. It’s pretty obvious to him: Would you rather be from San Francisco or Sacramento?

Continue reading “Will we always be in San Francisco’s shadow?”

Ha ha, you’re going to jail

I was reading this story today about how the new freeway message boards encouraging drivers to call 911 if they suspect someone is driving under the influence were very effective this holiday season and couldn’t help but wonder.

Has anyone ever called 911 to report a suspected drunk driver? Is it an easy process? If so, I have to think this can really get out of hand in a jif. Get cut off this morning on the W-X? Fix their wagon by dropping the 9-1-1 on their ass! Have a buddy that is always one-upping you? Here’s a way you can have the last word. What about the night club scene? I can see it now. A dude sees a gal that he is really sweet on. He walks over to buy her a drink but is intercepted at the last minute by a larger, buffer dude who closes the deal. They take off together and dude decides to let his fingers do the walking.

But seriously, folks, what’s the deal with this program? If anyone knows the 4-1-1 on the 9-1-1 feel free to drop a comment and get the word out.

That’s some good fiddling, Heather Fargo

What, me worry?
Mayor and buyers celebrate railyard sale

A telling quote from Mayor Fargo in the Bee’s report today on the railyard sale:

“I never thought I’d be spending most of my political career on this site,” Fargo said of her longtime role as railyard booster.

With 59 murders in Sacramento this year, easily the highest total in a decade, including at least 3 in the last week, along with other horrible stories of assaults, unidentified bodies turning up almost daily, and gunfire at the entrance to Arden Fair (that’s just this week), really, what else could she be remembered for? I bet you a Sac Rag t-shirt we bust through 60 by the end of the year.

Continue reading “That’s some good fiddling, Heather Fargo”

!!! – “Myth Takes” due out March 4th

!!!Tracks from !!!‘s forthcoming release “Myth Takes” have been hitting the mp3-link-osphere… Fans of the group’s hard dance rock will be pleased. It’s hard to pick a favorite from this mix but I like “A New Name” and as noted elsewhere you can’t beat the song title “Bend Over Beethoven.”

(Sadly, I have just noticed–before I read it in the Wikipedia link, that is–that a Google search for “!!!” gets you precisely zero results–well, not exactly zero results; it’s more like that search breaks Google. Luckily a search for the most common spelling, “chk-chk-chk” gets you where you want to go…)