Nothing says “Come drink a clearish wheat beer and put on ridiculous shoes” like a bowling alley sign. In honor of this week’s feature, here’s a roundup of California’s most dated, divey, billboard-sized icons of a time gone by.
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EXTENDED PLAY: Redwoods Chopped
This week’s news story details the $98,000 sale of redwoods planted on Caltrans right-of-way land to the Sonoma County Water Agency. It also looks at land Caltrans will be building on that was supposed to be open space, and consults The Sierra Club as to why no hippies have been chained to the iconic redwoods in protest.
- Rachel Dovey
- Construction on January 29.
We looked at lots and lots of electronic, scanned and PDFed documents for this piece. Here’s a sampling of some of the main ones.
An outline of Caltrans historic right-of-way, in a project summary of the overall 101 widening project from 2001. The map is around page 27.
A Board of Directors’ agenda document detailing the interchange project.
The Environmental Impact Report for the widening project.
The agenda item talking about the Mark West Creek area open space.
The Caltrans record of Ghilotti’s bid.
Live Review: Yo-Yo Ma at the Green Music Center
So Yo-Yo Ma’s deep into the third movement of Stravinsky’s Suite Italienne, right? And he’s plucking and pulling at the strings like a madman, and bouncing his bow all over the strings, and then he starts strumming the cello while grunting and heaving loudly and banging his head. And then, in the midst of all this chaos, Yo-Yo Ma twists his instrument sideways, stands up halfway out of his chair, throws his head backwards and at the same time glides the bow ever so softly to produce one entirely delicate, gossamer note that hangs in the air like silk.
You think you know Yo-Yo Ma; he’s the face of virtually every other PBS telethon, he’s a constant at awards shows and inaugurations, he’s the punchline for cheap standup comics because of his name. But as proven by a jaw-dropping performance at the Green Music Center on Saturday night, you don’t know Yo-Yo Ma until you see the man live, doing unearthly things with a cello and wresting a lifetime of emotion from his sheet music—which, incidentally, he ignores most of the time.
Here is the List of “Influential Albums,” Which Incidentally is Bullshit
Facebook has been abuzz in the last few days with this moronic “Influential Albums” quiz, which users must hand over their personal information in order to take, and then watch as the app automatically posts the results on their wall. Strike one. Also, the 100 albums deemed “influential” are nearly all rock. Strike two. Finally, the mere existence of a list purporting to encompass the 100 most “influential” albums with the implication that if you don’t own these albums you are a substandard music listener is total bullshit and everyone knows it and I feel stupid even getting worked up about it because that’s what these trolling lists are designed to do in the first place but fuck it. Strike three. You know what your most influential albums are? ALL THE ALBUMS YOU OWN, HOLMES. (That’s coming from someone who owns a lot of these albums.)
So anyway, if you want to know what some guy with a computer decided are the most “influential” albums, here’s the list:
Enter To Win A Slightly Stoopid CD Prize Pack!
Enter to win Slightly Stoopid’s newest album, “Top Of the World” along with other great fan prizes!
To enter all you gotta do is log in to your Twitter account, follow @NBayBohemian and upload your best Instagram photo from tonight’s concert at the Mystic Theater. Use the “Mystic Theater” location and include the following tags: #SlightlyStoopid with #NBayBohemian
Our favorite photos will be chosen Monday evening and posted on North Bay Bohemian social media sites. All winners will be notified by email to their Twitter accounts. Good luck!
Live Review: The SFJAZZ Center Opens With Style, Intimacy, and Stars in San Francisco
By now, perhaps you’ve heard about, read about or even seen the construction of the new SFJAZZ Center on the corner of Franklin and Fell Streets in San Francisco. Now complete, the 35,000-sq.-ft. building is poised to redefine live jazz in the Bay Area, as it’s funded largely by private donations and handily dispenses with the tables-and-waitresses, two-drink minimum nightclub model.
After the SFJAZZ Center was announced, entirely valid concerns rose about the “museumification” of jazz. Jazz has always thrived in nightclubs—or, for that matter, seedy bars. Charles Mingus’ famous remarks about nightclub chatter notwithstanding, a certain amount of cultural globetrotting is present when the blues is played on the stage of a $64 million performing arts center.
I’m happy to report that the SFJAZZ Center strikes just the right balance between nightclub and theater. Cup holders allow the audience to bring drinks in from the bar, but nobody drops a credit card tray in front of you while the headliner is in the middle of a particularly engrossing solo. The sound, notably, is stunning, thanks to architect Mark Cavagnero and acoustician Sam Berkow. And as a mini-amphitheater set in the semi-round, with a steeply raked floor, the hall is very intimate—capacity is 700, but feels much smaller than that. There are no seats further than 50 feet from the stage.
How To Fix That Death Waltz Record Cover
Death Waltz is a record label from the UK that specializes in re-releasing classic cult soundtracks on vinyl. Their impressive catalog includes House of the Devil, Escape From New York, Zombie Flesh Eaters, Halloween II and III, Donnie Darko, Prince of Darkness, The Living Dead at the Manchester Morgue and more. For these, the company solicits great artists to conceive and design new cover artwork, all of which is outstanding—see above.
There’s just one problem. The label takes this beautiful art, shrinks it, and surrounds it in a style sheet of a blue circle with the Death Waltz logo prominent in the corner.
Live Review: Jessie Ware at the Rickshaw Stop, San Francisco
At the start of her packed show Thursday night in San Francisco, Jessie Ware’s token platitudes for the city of San Francisco started out as just that—expected banter from a touring musician, repeated hundreds of times over. By the end of the show, though, after constant affection showered upon the breakout UK star from an adoring crowd, her city-crush on San Francisco rose to fever pitch. Then, when someone handed her a bouquet of roses, Ware completely lost it.
“Oh my Gooooooodddddd!!” she wailed, in thick British accent. “This really is our favorite city!”
Ware’s full-length album Devotion still hasn’t been officially been released in the United States, whatever that means in the year 2013; everyone at the Rickshaw Stop seemed to know nearly every song. Opening with the title track, Ware and her rock-solid band emitted a slow pulse, built it to a climax and, as Ware sang loudly away from the mic, pushed the song into transcendence. It was a formula that would be repeated throughout the night, but never felt, well, formulaic.
Worst. Date. Ever.
Dating! Ain’t it grand? Well, except when it ain’t. You know you’ve been there at some point: sitting in the car, walking home the next morning, or trying to flag a taxi to get-the-hell-outta-there. Your only consolation is texting your friend: “Worst. Date. Ever.“
The other consolation lies in the fantastic leverage you now wield during “worst date” storytime, which, for the Bohemian, falls in our dating-themed Sex & Valentines issue, publishing Feb. 6. That’s right: we want you to spill the beans on your worst date ever. Tell us how terrible and awkward it all was, in grisly and humorous detail, and you may be selected as one of the top three winning stories to be published on Feb. 6!
Stories should be no longer than 400 words and emailed to: le*****@******an.com. Entries may be published with a pseudonym if desired. Winners are chosen by an editorial panel and awarded prizes sufficiently tantalizing to cleanse your memory of the awful evening in question. Entries must be submitted by Friday, Feb. 1.
Love & Kisses,
The Bohemian
Same Track, New Name
Erasing the worrisome burden of what to call that place near Sonoma where the really fast cars try finish a certain amount of laps before everyone else, it was announced today the place will officially be called Sonoma Raceway.
Seems obvious, right? But that’s the case with all good names, like Rollerblades and Band-Aids, which are trademarked names of in-line skates and adhesive strips, respectively. No longer will journalists struggle to find consensus on what to call that paved curvy track thingy in Sonoma. No more shall we see Raceway at Sonoma, the Sonoma Racetrack or my personal favorite, the Former Infineon Raceway.
But don’t try visiting www.sonomaraceway.com, because that’s obviously not the correct website for the one-lane, twisty infinite road that hosts NASCAR, NHRA and other major motorsports events. The correct site is www.racesonoma.com. Because anything else would ruin the genius of the new name.
After losing sponsorship from Infineon, it would be nice to think the 300:1-scale slot car race track in Sonoma defied convention and went with a name proudly boasting its location; after all, the Wine County is world renowned. But, much like Candlestick Park, which simply couldn’t find someone willing to pay millions of dollars for TV announcers just to say the company name a few dozen times per year, it’s more likely a sluggish economy and hesitant accountants contributed to the new name.
Was a local discount considered? What about Mondavi Raceway? Trione Track? Coppola Causeway? (OK, that’s Napa County and Causeway is a weird thing to be racing on, so nix that). How about Guy Fieri’s Donkey Sauce Full Throttle Raceway at 100 Percent Grass-Fed Meyer Ranch? That one sounds like a winner to me, I’ll take two.
But really, no matter what it’s called, I bet there’s a bunch of people who will always call it Sears Point.
EXTENDED PLAY: California’s niftiest bowling signs
Nothing says "Come drink a clearish wheat beer and put on ridiculous shoes" like a bowling alley sign. In honor of this week's feature, here's a roundup of California's most dated, divey, billboard-sized icons of a time gone by.
EXTENDED PLAY: Redwoods Chopped
This week's news story details the $98,000 sale of redwoods planted on Caltrans right-of-way land to the Sonoma County Water Agency. It also looks at land Caltrans will be building on that was supposed to be open space, and consults The Sierra Club as to why no hippies have been chained to the iconic redwoods in protest.
Rachel DoveyConstruction...
Live Review: Yo-Yo Ma at the Green Music Center
So Yo-Yo Ma's deep into the third movement of Stravinsky's Suite Italienne, right? And he's plucking and pulling at the strings like a madman, and bouncing his bow all over the strings, and then he starts strumming the cello while grunting and heaving loudly and banging his head. And then, in the midst of all this chaos, Yo-Yo Ma...
Here is the List of “Influential Albums,” Which Incidentally is Bullshit
Facebook has been abuzz in the last few days with this moronic "Influential Albums" quiz, which users must hand over their personal information in order to take, and then watch as the app automatically posts the results on their wall. Strike one. Also, the 100 albums deemed "influential" are nearly all rock. Strike two. Finally, the mere existence of...
Enter To Win A Slightly Stoopid CD Prize Pack!
Enter to win Slightly Stoopid's newest album, "Top Of the World" along with other great fan prizes!
To enter all you gotta do is log in to your Twitter account, follow @NBayBohemian and upload your best Instagram photo from tonight's concert at the Mystic Theater. Use the "Mystic Theater" location and include the following tags: #SlightlyStoopid with #NBayBohemian
Our favorite photos...
Live Review: The SFJAZZ Center Opens With Style, Intimacy, and Stars in San Francisco
By now, perhaps you've heard about, read about or even seen the construction of the new SFJAZZ Center on the corner of Franklin and Fell Streets in San Francisco. Now complete, the 35,000-sq.-ft. building is poised to redefine live jazz in the Bay Area, as it's funded largely by private donations and handily dispenses with the tables-and-waitresses, two-drink minimum...
How To Fix That Death Waltz Record Cover
Death Waltz is a record label from the UK that specializes in re-releasing classic cult soundtracks on vinyl. Their impressive catalog includes House of the Devil, Escape From New York, Zombie Flesh Eaters, Halloween II and III, Donnie Darko, Prince of Darkness, The Living Dead at the Manchester Morgue and more. For these, the company solicits great artists to...
Live Review: Jessie Ware at the Rickshaw Stop, San Francisco
At the start of her packed show Thursday night in San Francisco, Jessie Ware's token platitudes for the city of San Francisco started out as just that—expected banter from a touring musician, repeated hundreds of times over. By the end of the show, though, after constant affection showered upon the breakout UK star from an adoring crowd, her city-crush...
Worst. Date. Ever.
Tell us about your worst date ever, and you could be selected as one of the top three winners.
