I dropped by Java City on Capitol to meet up with my dear ol' pal and former partner in crime Tony, aka Tonedog, aka Schizm Murphy of Inducore for those of you keeping score. Tony introduced me to his lovely wife and we managed to catch up somewhat on the past 18 years: what we're up to nowadays, who went to jail and/or died, etc. It was good to see Tony again, and know that one more old friend has survived all the bullshit that life has thrown at us and is alive and well.
Mr. and Mrs. Tonedog needed to get back to the Bay Area, and at that point I decided, what the Hell, I'm right smack in the middle of the Second Saturday monthly hoo-ha, why not take a stroll around? Just five short months ago, in this very same blog, I had dismissed the event as a silly waste of time, but had heard and read all of these accounts of how "happening" Second Saturday now was, with big crowds and shuttle buses and shit like that all having been added since my opinions had been published back in March. So hey, maybe things have improved, and it's time to give Second Saturday the proverbial second chance.
Well, as the old saying goes, fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me.
Of course, Zocalo, better known locally as "Chipotle for people who have more money," was pulling out all the stops, with a festive music jam and some stupid kind of radio station promotion and people who either were local bigwigs or wanted to be perceived as such crammed in the outdoor patio and on the sidewalks waiting to get in. I weaved my way through to the other end of the block (where, as some sick twist of coincidence would have it, there is a Chipotle on the very next corner). I cut a left on 19th and began to make my way toward the reputed Ground Zero of Second Saturday: the now hallowed and revered intersection of 20th and J Streets.
What the fuck is the big deal? The way that bloggers and local media darlings were describing it, you would think that some almighty harmonic convergence was producing spectacular rainbow auras of pure magnificent nirvana raining from heaven and touching forever the souls of all who journey to the nexus of this art walk of the gods. Let me break it to you in the most honest way you will probably read about it from just about any local blogger nowadays. The best way that I could describe it, to rephrase one of Eazy-E's lines from NWA's "Straight Outta Compton": suckas walkin', but don't know where the Hell they goin'. No really, that's it. Just people walking up and down with mildly puzzled expressions and appearing rather lost, with no real sense of direction and just on a mental cruise to nowhere.
And what the fuck is up with all of the cheesy merchant tables? Who came up with the bright idea that a celebration of the arts should resemble something like fuckin' Market and Embarcadero across from the Ferry Building at lunch hour? Only spread out more? Even Java City had somebody with a big ol' table of hippie jewelry or some shit. I had a vision of transmorphing into this Christlike tirade, knocking tables over while yelling, "My Midtown shall be called the Midtown of artistic integrity; but ye have made it a den of tacky bead bracelets!"
And speaking of hippies, and moving back to ground zero at 20th and J, right outside of the Sacramento News&Review's building there was a blues rock jam with the only lyrics apparently being "Hare Krishna" sung ad nauseum. As I'm typing this (about 4 hours later) they're probably still out there singing "Hare Krishna" to a riff remotely reminiscent of "Mister Charlie." To each his own, though. And they were, in reality, one of my two favorite things of an otherwise dreadful overall exhibition of social flatulence, the other being the anti-war protesters on the opposite side of J Street with the Islamic-and-Iran combo colors flying along with the psychedelic peace symbol flag. That wasn't intended to be a positive opinion, by the way.
Eventually, I tried to enter an actual art gallery (20th Street) to look at some work, but the gallery was overcrowded with suburban goofs paying closer attention to their free sippies and snackies, and just sort of wandering past the art and conversing with each other. Sorry, but it did not provide for a very rewarding viewing experience. I got a glimpse of some of the works of Rod Swenson (alas, not the former porn producer who masterminded and managed the Plasmatics, but a different Rod Swenson) and got the fuck out of there.
As I managed to escape homeward bound to the relative desolation of the area of Capitol and 22nd, I had a deep seated desire to see this whole Second Saturday thing implode and rapidly make itself extinct. God damn it, release Midtown back to the natives already! Maybe with a little luck, Roseville or Elk Grove will develop a local version of their own and these fuckers will stay closer to home, where they certainly do, as well as should, belong.
(IMPORTANT NOTE OF GUIDANCE: This post is but one in a series called THE MUNDANE MONTH OF BLOGGING™. For those of you who are scratching your head right now and saying to yourselves, "What the fuck is he trying to prove?", Click Here, Pilgrim)
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