Raving Knaves Gigs

 

The Raving Knaves – Feb 22 – Live!

 

Vroom, Vroom, Party Starter!

Conan O’Brien Does Swedish

Here’s another example of the incestuous nature of modern advertising: the Conan O’Brien Bud Light ad that aired during the Super Bowl, on NBC, O’Brien’s network. Not only does it use humor to mock advertising, while advertising what it mocks, but it presents itself as lying. Advertisers lie. “We are lying to you RIGHT NOW. But it doesn’t matter. You will consume our product anyway. Why? Because you have no choice.” And, of course, it gets the party started…

 

WhatTheHellCon at Guilford College

This is a great free science fiction convention.  Here’s what GroovyDan has to say about it:

Next weekend – February 6-8 –  is what What the Hell Con?! 2009, which will be held on the Guilford College campus in Greensboro. The main activities for the con will be held at King Hall with some larger events being held at Dana Hall. For those who didn’t attend the show last year, here is the skinny. What the Hell Con?! is a fan run convention that is put on by the school’s Yachting Club. It is a very laid back show that reminds me a lot of the Stellarcons I used to attend back in the late 1980’s-early 1990’s.

It is a totally free event and open to the public.

GroovyDan is an officer with the USS Bonaventure. Those folks throw a pretty mean cookout.

 

A Fistful Of Love

The Secret Of Their Success

This story recently broke…and it’s a doozy. Insider secrets give us an unprecedented insight into the love life of the First Couple.

 

Around the PalookavilleNC World

What a Wonderful Japanese Idol World over on Buddsview, dog-trance-inducing cupcakes over on JazzzyTina, death of the independent artisan on FabianQuest, and Verona’s writing about Solargons (with pictures!)  Enjoy your ride, and as always,

 

Underwhelming Undercurrent

PalookavilleNC also gives a tepid response to local upscale restaurant Undercurrent in favor of other, just as upscale yet less hoity-toity, more diner- (and reservation-maker) friendly locally-owned restaurants.  We’re all about the locally-owned, and we give Undercurrent their props for that, but they need to, as one famous father-in-law puts it, “get their shit in one sock.”  Especially in this economy.

 

TV Funhouse Presents – JoKamel

When Cigarette Advertising Meets Pokemon…

It might be a bit dated, socio-culturally speaking, but funny never gets old.

 

Econocide: Why Can’t Americans Get It Right?

The Europeans Seem To Have it Down Pat

In a recent article in Forbes magazine, it was speculated that pressures resulting from our current economic meltdown have prodded several high-level financiers, hedge fund managers and investment brokers to commit suicide, also known by that charming sobriquet “econocides”. Leaders in these fiduciary fields have slit their wrists, shot themselves in the head and thrown themselves under trains, in some effort to atone for massive investment losses.

Now it emerges that several of their American counterparts – who in fact have not lost money for their investors in good faith, but have bilked them for millions (if not billions) of dollars in a variety of Ponzi and pyramid schemes – have faked their own suicides and run away, in pathetic efforts to evade punishment for their misdeeds.

What does it say about us, our collective psyche, when the Europeans have the balls to go through with something so absolute, so ultimate, while our money men act like the craven cowards and ethical scumbags they so clearly are?

Why can’t we get those numbers up?

Bernie Madoff, are you listening?

 

Panning Panera

The Food’s Good, So’s The Coffee, But What About The Culture…?

As far as so-called “third places” go, Panera has always been a tolerable alternative. The food is pretty tasty and reasonably priced. The coffee is strong and refills are free. And, often enough, the music is decent – especially off-peak hours, when they turn on the real jazz, the kind with edges, not “smooth,” in other words…

But there’s always been a nagging question in our minds here at Palookaville: Where do they get their art?

Well, we had that question answered for us the other day. As well as a few others that were equally enlightening…

We were having a business meeting at one of their area locations – there have at least six in the Greater Triad area – with a local artist, filmmaker and entrepreneur. It occurred to us that a Panera might be an ideal location to host a local arts exhibit. They make a point of marketing themselves as “Your Neighborhood Bakery” and they have art – granted, it’s all in some fashion bread-related – adorning every inch of available wall-space. So it might not be entirely unreasonable to expect they might be interested.

We asked to talk to the manager. A few minutes later, he came out and we put our question to him.

He could see where we were coming from, he said. But, unfortunately, it wasn’t possible. For one thing, all the art displayed at a given Panera’s had to be approved by corporate HQ. In fact, there was a catalogue provided to all franchise owners, from which they could select pre-approved works of art featuring loaves of bread, steaming cups of coffee, tasty sandwiches – or any combination thereof – rendered in every conceivable style and artistic technique.

But what you couldn’t do, what Corporate simply wouldn’t stand for, was to put on a show where works of art would be on display which any segment of the patronage might find disturbing, controversial or even just unattractive. Panera was not a location for local activity, not a venue for local exhibition. In fact, the only thing Panera was for (in any sense of the word) was the vending of foodstuffs and coffee-related products.

What it was not was a “third place” – a space that is neither home nor work, which encourages repeat patronage, as well as the regular influx of newbie walk-ins, under the aegis of fostering social networks, let alone civic involvement, both of which are traditionally seen as functions of these “third places”.

Truly disappointing. And, might we add, contrary to the public “persona” of the company.

 

Temporary Half Wit

Last night I walked home under a cold gibbous moon softened by atmospheric mist. A breeze nudged overhead branches and rubbed the remaining oak leaves together like dry, restless hands, and the sound made the night feel colder than it really was. Hold on, when I take the time to think of my surroundings with that kind of language, the real world starts to be beautiful and wondrous too.

Read the rest here.

-Verona

 

Shoes I Love

And I do love shoes. See my favorites here. Have a great weekend!

-Verona

 

A Jewel of a Place

Raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens?  Perhaps, but Jewel Day Spa is on my list of favorite places for 2008.  Read more here.  And visit their Open House and learn more next Friday, December 19 from 4:00 until 8:00 p.m.  Free services, free food and holiday music and spirit, and a chance to get to know one of the coolest places in Greensboro.  Free, everyone invited, discounts, free stuff, what’s not to love? Plus, you gotta see the beautiful gift baskets they have in every price range for everyone on your gift list that’s especially hard to buy for – mom-in-law, administrative assistant, your best friend, your teenage niece, and many others.

 

Welcome Fabian Quest

Our fourth writer, Fabian Quest has arrived in PalookavilleNC.  Look for great writing from Fabian in the days to come.

 

Don’t Forget – Open House at Jewel Day Spa This Friday!

Jewel Day Spa is hosting a wonderful Holiday Open House this Friday, December 19 from 4:00-8:00 p.m.  Stop by, have some free food, free samples of spa services, take a look at their great gifts for everyone on your list, and get discounts on wonderful products like Pevonia Botanicals Skin Care.  You won’t be disappointed.  Think of what a fun thing it can be to get your girlfriends together and attend this great open house for a locally-owned Greensboro business, as well as a nice break from the holiday hustle and bustle!  Hope to see you there!

 

Budd’s writing about Wise Blood

Over at BuddsView, Budd is writing about the great Flannery O’Connor’s Wise Blood.  Plus he’s got a new blog look with a great photo he took on our last vacation from a ferry boat.

 

Narc Alert

Read about narc paranoia here at Verona’s page.

 

JazzzyTina’s Raving About The Knaves

JazzzyTina picked The Raving Knaves as her favorite band for 2008.  Is that a surprise or what?  Just visit their MySpace page and you’ll hear why.  They just rock with great music and highly clever and catchy lyrics.  And as an added extra special bonus, Danny Bayer is in the band.  He’s JazzzyTina’s pick for Renaissance Man of 2008. I mean, what doesn’t he do? He writes. He sings. He plays the bass. He photographs. He does sound for other bands. And he’s damn fun and funny. And I’m privileged to call him my friend.

Here’s Danny, Dave and Adrian rocking “1975.”

 

Werner Herzog’s latest doc

Check out JazzzyTina’s take on Werner Herzog’s latest documentary, Encounters At The End of the World here.

 

Verona Update

When I look back on this, at first I can’t imagine why we’d still go “party” with a fat married man who’d just purchased about 40 condoms and whose wife was away.  More here.

At last the torturous onslaught of X-mas music is over. I had an appointment this a.m. and I overheard a nurse say, “Thank God we can listen to regular music again.” More here.

It’s like these crazy-ass radiators wake up when they think we’re all in bed and they hope to have some privacy to talk to each other. More here.

 

Looks like things are flaring up again in the Middle East. And by “flaring up,” I mean the Israelis and the Palestinians are going at it once more over whose god promised what piece of land to whom (You’d think the Supreme Being would be a little better at keeping track of how he doles out land to his followers, just to avoid misunderstandings like this. C’mon, big guy, get with it.). 

The biggest obstacle to peace in that part of the world is that everyone is fighting over the “never gonna happens”; Israel thinks it can eventually crush all Palestinian armed resistance; never gonna happen. The more extreme Palestinian factions, like Hamas, think that they can eventually drive the Israelis into the sea; again, it’s never gonna happen, at least not without the Israelis turning the Middle East into the world’s largest sheet of plate glass. Since neither side can achieve these absolutist aims, things follow a predictable cycle: The Palestinians  provoke the Israelis, or the Israelis provoke the Palestinians, leading to much one-sided bloodshed before yet another ceasefire is arranged. Six months, a year later, happens all over again. Wash, rinse, repeat.

It’s really easy to glamorize credos like “Death before dishonor!” or “Better to die on one’s feet than live on one’s knees,” until you look at all the carnage that results from attempting to live them. Is it worth it to the Palestinians to see their police recruits slaughtered by Israeli air raids just so they can fire militarily useless rockets into Israel as a form of resistance? Is it worth it to the Israelis to become international pariahs trying to carry out the impossible task of making sure no Jew is ever killed by a Palestinian?

Maybe I’m lucky. I live in the United States. The people we took this land from by force long ago gave up any attempt to drive us off of it. No one on the Cherokee reservation is firing rockets into my hometown. On the other hand, my ancestors never spent thousands of years fleeing from pogroms, ghettos and concentration camps either, facing prejudice and discrimination just because of their religious beliefs. Somehow, despite our own history of oppression, we in these fifty states have managed to avoid, at least for now, the kind of long-simmering conflicts that have devastated places like Israel/Palestine, Rwanda or Bosnia.

My government supports the Israelis, though, probably because they’re the ones in that region that remind us most of ourselves. They’re the stereotypical white people defending themselves in the land of savages, just like the townsfolk in the old westerns. I don’t know what’s going to happen in another 25 years, however, when a majority of people in the United States look more like Sitting Bull, i.e., people of color,  than John Wayne. Than again, that’s probably why the Israelis have those “secret” nuclear weapons. After all they’ve been through over the years, I probably wouldn’t trust my friends to stick by me either. 

So I visit CNN.com to follow the latest international ceasefire negotiations and watch videos of falling bombs and rockets, depressingly aware that similar footage will probably be airing six months from now. Part of me wants to just say, “Fuck the lot of ‘em, if they can’t solve their problems, why should I give a shit?” But that would be wrong. Like it or not, we’re all invested in this conflict, because it’s come to symbolize all the seemingly intractable problems that plague the human race: greed, fear, hatred, arrogance. If we can’t solve them there, then where can we solve them?

 

Talking Cat

Are My Lips Moving?

Is this cat speaking to us?  What information could she possibly have to impart upon us? And should we be listening attentively?  Those fangs look pretty wicked.

 

A Cat Called Throckmorton

Throckmorton: An Appreciation

By T. Crofton Mayhew

Throckmorton has her peccadilloes, it is true: She is wont to tear down our hallway, riffling our persian runner in the process, and she is known far and wide for her regurgitative escapades which, I fear, have sullied many a home furnishing…

As well, I feel I would be remiss if I did not inform you that, upon a morn, awoken from fitful slumber (sleeping off, if you will, my nightly intake of alcoholic sustenance), feeling carpet-tongued and a bit headachey, when I rolled upon my back and, taking in as much of a lungful of air as is feasible in such a weakened and precarious position, I proceeded to screech “Throckmorton!” at the top of my lungs, she was not soon there to wait upon me.

“Throckmorton,” I averred, now in a somewhat sotto voce grumble, “more endives!”

It is said that the poet and writer Johann Wolfgang Goethe’s dying words were “More light!” This may well be. Not being much of a book reader (I am a self-made man and, as well, self-read), I will take the word of the bookish worm who, tippling back a dram or two of Bushmill’s, so informed me.

Nevertheless, I feel it encumbent upon me to affix those two simple words as my (hopefully hasty) epigraph:

“More endives!”

 

Verona’s Hickey Update

Cupping can be socially hazardous – read more here.

 

Words To Live By in 2009 from PalookavilleNC

Courtesy of BuddsView.

Go placidly.

 

Verona Update: New Year’s Resolutions

In the past couple of weeks I’ve improved my gym attendance, but it doesn’t help that when I make that second turn on the indoor track I’m looking right at the sign for the Hardee’s across the street. They have ads in their windows advertising a two chili dogs for three dollars deal, and it makes me want to run out and worship at the altar of demon fast food. More here.

 

Verona Update: Sad Country Songs

Here recently Wyatt borrowed some equipment to allow him to convert records to CD. I look forward to listening to the Statler Brothers and John Denver records again and seeing how they sound now. I think country still mostly sucks at this point but if the Sex Pistols and The Clash had somehow made themselves part of the country genre it might not. But then again, they’d probably never have been heard. Country fans seem to prefer whiney drivel that all sounds the same.  More here.

 

Tuesday Night and Thursday Night Specials equals Inexpensive Eats and Drinks at Cafe Pasta

Cafe Pasta - Best 4-star rated locally-owned restaurant in the Triad

If you haven’t been to Cafe Pasta in a while, then Jan 2o or Jan 21 is a good time to go.

Every Tuesday night is 336 Night at Cafe Pasta.  You can enjoy $3 glasses of wine, $3 house liquors and delicious $6 entrees like Meatball Mozzarella, Chicken Fettuccini Alfredo, homemade Lasanga, Chicken Pomodoro, just to name a few.  And like other great locally-owned restaurants, they change up those specials at least every 2 weeks.  And, they come with free homemade bread.  You can’t go get a fast-food restaurant meal for much less than that price, and the food is homemade with fresh ingredients and is simply divine.

Thursdays, Cafe Pasta offers 1/2 price bottles of wine and 1/2 price martinis.

I know I’ve written a lot about Cafe Pasta, and here’s why.  One, the owner, Ray Essa, is a great guy.  Two, this is their 25th year in business in Greensboro.  How many locally-owned restaurants can boast that achievement?  I know there are some, but it’s so important in this day and age to keep locally-owned businesses in business.  The money they generate goes directly back into the local economy – not like the chains, who have to send money to Corporate for marketing, taxes, etc.  All the taxes local businesses collect go right back into the local coffers.  Isn’t that reason enough to buy/shop/eat local?  If it’s not, then a $6 plate of homemade lasagna ought to be.

Cafe Pasta is hosting a networking event with free drinks and food on January 21, so that might be a good time to check them out if you can’t make it Jan. 20.  And, in Feburary, they are hosting a European Wine Tour tasting with 98.7 Simon that should be a blast.   More on that later.  Oh, and I almost forgot – until Jan 31, Cafe Pasta is having a special – Prime Rib or Fresh Grouper with homemade mashed potatoes and vegetable d’jour and homemade bread for only $9.95.  Folks, you just can’t beat that.

Cafe Pasta is located at 305 State Street in the heart of historic State Street Station.  Parking is directly across the street from Cafe Pasta and in other lots on State Street within an easy walking distance.  They are open for lunch from 11:30 – 2:00 Tues-Sat and dinner from 5:00 until 11:00 Tues-Sat.  They also have great places for private parties – I had my birthday party there last  year and it was great.  They have private rooms for wedding receptions, rehearsal dinners, they cater, they do corporate lunches, they do everything.  If you have a  need for great food for your event, business, etc. or need to book a party, call my friend Ray Essa at 272-1308 or email him at rayessa@cafepasta.com.  Tell him Tina sent you and he will take good care of you.  Guaranteed.

 

Ding Dong the Witch Is Dead!

Well, it’s over.  Finally.  As everyone and their brothers and sisters are saying, our long national nightmare is over.  Let’s hope the next dream will be a good one.  I’m pulling for our new President.  Really, I am.  I like him and his family and think he’s just a stand-up decent guy.  I just so hope that nothing happens to make me think otherwise.  He has quite a task ahead of him, and it is up to the American people to support him and do their very best.  Unfortunately, I know at my place of employment, it was quite somber today.  No celebrations, no tvs, no watching the inauguration, barely any mention of it.  And that’s sad.  Because history was made today, no matter who was sworn in.  A new president arrived, giving the boot to the old one who was the most hated in the history of our country.  Even the opposition to the new president would have been better.  Even his horrible running mate would have been better.  Even the moose she shot from a helicopter would have been better.  But enough of all that.  It’s over.   Let the healing begin, because, after all, what IS so funny about peace, love and understanding?  Hopefully, we’ve found the strong, and we’ve elected the trusted.  Of course, Fabian Quest will always keep us grounded and thank whatever God you’re thanking for that.

The Nick is for you, Verona.  The Elvis is for me.  And I bet there’s enough T. Crofton Mayhew to go around this here PalookavilleNC.