Life in the Grid

The New York Times gets Sactown right

2009-10-30T20:04:38Z

Longtime Sacramentans are accustomed to our city being misrepresented in the media - we get attention for legislative gridlock, under-performing teams, homeless tent cities, the foreclosure crisis and the latest, our chart-topping rate of drunk driving. Oh, and Dorothea Puente.

We're so insecure about how we're perceived that we have a well-established civic inferiority complex.

But we're a pretty good time, really. Beautiful, interesting, comfortable, entertaining, sporty, unpretentious - if you tell the truth about our city, it sounds like a made-up personal ad. But it's true!

So, it's gratifying to have Sactown portrayed so accurately today, in no less a place that the New York Times. The Times regularly features a city or place in its "36 Hours in..." feature, which runs in its Sunday Travel section.

In the chronological feature, which suggests a step-by-step weekend here from Friday at 4 p.m. into Sunday afternoon, author Beth Greenfield takes a virtual visitor from the Capitol (with the inevitable lede about how dysfunctional it is) to Ella for dinner, the B Street Theatre for a play and Harlow's for a nightcap. Saturday she throws in everything from the Tower Cafe and Old Sacramento to Second Saturday to dancing at Faces. Sunday she forgets about eating, but features a visit to the farmers' market and a ride on the American River bike trail.

In all, a very appealing portrait of a very appealing city. Ours.

Kudos to New Yorker Greenfield for getting it right. Take a look and let us know how you think she did - and what she might have missed. The story won't be published until Sunday's Times Travel section, but you can get a sneak peek online now:

http://travel.nytimes.com/2009/11/01/travel/01hours.html

Just a moment on the Grid

2009-02-12T01:38:15Z

Another one bites the dust...

2009-02-20T22:03:49Z

We're not sure why, but the sign in the window says it all: Sargent's Coffee at Alhambra and L Street on the edge of the Grid, is no more.

Along with Old Soul, Naked Lounge and Temple, Sargent's served top of the line coffee for discriminating tastes, in an environment that was light and airy, with big leather couches and jazz on the stereo. I liked 'em because they used Ambience soy milk, which has no soy taste. Highly recommended.

The place wasn't open long - maybe two years, probably not that long. Other business in that spot, notably Red Square (?), had trouble. But Sargent's Elk Grove location didn't make it even that long before closing a few months ago.

Perhaps there IS a limit to how many cafes this town can support?

Meanwhile, we've got a message into the Sargents' email address, and we'll let you know what they say. Whether this was the economy or just a bad location or other reason, we don't know. Do you?

Trash Film Orgy schedule announced

2009-04-14T22:13:23Z

Organizers of the annual Trash Film Orgy, now in its ninth year, have just announced their 2009 summer schedule for July through August at the Crest Theatre in Downtown Sacramento.

The festival, "bringing you the best in 35mm exploitation and cult cinema," will start on July 11 with the camp classic "Flash Gordon," and follow up with five more mostly-obscure films of the midnight movie variety. The shows will be hosted by the festival's original host, Francois Fly. The screenings will also feature a variety of other activities, including "live bloody stage shows," costume contests and audience participation. These folks go all-in.

What follows is the schedule for the 2009 Trash Film Orgy, complete with exuberant punctuation.

JULY 11th
FLASH GORDON
See the 1980 Sci-Fi camp classic on the big screen! With Max von Sydow, Sam Jones, Timothy Dalton, Melody Anderson and an amazing soundtrack from Queen!

JULY 18th
SATAN’S CHEERLEADERS
See the incredible 1977 tale of naughty cheerleaders in league with Satan! With B-movie veterans John Carradine, John Ireland and Yvonne DeCarlo! Also: A special screening of Trash Film Orgy’s own CHEERLEADERS FROM HELL!

JULY 25th
CHOPPING MALL
See this awesome 1986 robots-on-a-bloody rampage flick and find out what happens to unsuspecting teens who throw an all-night party in the mall. With special guest director Jim Wynorski LIVE in person!

AUGUST 1st
BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER
See the 1992 film that started the Buffy phenomenon! With Kristy Swanson, Donald Sutherland, Rutger Hauer, Luke Perry, Paul Reubens and Hilary Swank!

AUGUST 8th
LADY TERMINATOR
See a totally different sort of TERMINATOR this summer! This 1988 Indonesian import is loaded with so much boobs, blood and unbelievable action that you won’t believe your eyes!

AUGUST 15th
BLACK BELT JONES
See Jim Kelly clobber the mob in this amazing, but seldom seen 1974 kung-fu blaxploitation extravaganza! With Gloria Hendry and Scatman Crothers. Don’t miss it on the big screen!

It all happens Saturdays at midnight in the fabulous and historic Crest Theatre, located at 1013 K Street in Downtown Sacramento. For more information, call 916-44-CREST. Tickets are $9.50 per show. The TRASH FILM ORGY is adult fun for trash fans 18 and over only.

COME EARLY! Doors open at 11:30 for the Interactive Trash-Action Sideshow and Music from the Amazing DeeJay Junior. And for trash fans 21 and over, the RETRO-TRASH LOUNGE serves beer and wine!

Additional info at trashfilmorgy.com!

Can't say you weren't warned...

2009-05-30T02:18:47Z

From the Sacramento Police Department:

The Sacramento Police Department will conduct a sobriety and drivers license checkpoint on
Friday, May 29, 2009, at 21st Street and Broadway. It will begin at 9:00 p.m. and run for 4-6
hours.

Traffic flowing through the checkpoint will be contacted by uniformed officers, who will
be checking for alcohol and/or drug-impaired drivers. Officers will also check to make sure all
drivers have a valid driver’s license.

The purpose of the checkpoint is to promote public safety; increase awareness of the dangers
associated with drinking and driving, and serves as a deterrent to potential impaired and
unlicensed drivers.

Funding for this program was provided by a grant from the California Office of Traffic Safety,
through the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.

Please direct any inquiries to Sergeant David Hargadon at (916) 808-6069. Media is
encouraged to attend the checkpoint in an effort to spread awareness about the impacts of
drinking and driving.

West Coast Brew Fest enlivens Miller Park

2009-05-16T00:09:38Z

If you like beer, it’s Miller Time!

Miller Park, to be exact. That’s where the 10th annual West Coast Brew Fest will be held Saturday from 1 to 5 p.m. More than 120 beers from more than 60 microbreweries from all over the left coast will be available for tasting.

But you won’t be seeing any of those old-school commercial brews in this celebration of American Craft Beer Week. Instead, homemade and microbrewery concoctions will be the focus, with unlimited tasting all afternoon. Tickets are $25 in advance if you buy online at westcoastbrewfest.com before 6 p.m. today. At the door, tickets are $30.

There will also be live music from Aroarah and Shakedown. The WCBF also held a sanctioned Commercial Craft Competition two weeks ago, where certified judges conducted a double-blind tasting of more than 18 different categories of beer. Ribbons will be awarded and displayed at the various breweries’ tables.

The WCBF is a fundraising event for the Make-A-Difference Project, a local non-profit that aims to improve our communities by encouraging civic involvement.

To get to Miller Park, follow Broadway west until it runs under I-5 and park. Miller Park is at the end of Broadway, where it reaches the Sacramento River.

Watch the inauguration with your community!

2009-01-20T01:20:51Z

Sure, you could sit at home and watch it on TV. But this is the Inauguration of a new and different president, and this president, more than most, is about community. So, you wanna be with people on this historic day, no?

Someplace where you don’t need to wrap your head in wool to enjoy it?

The TVs will be on everywhere - what would a Sacramento bar be like without a TV? - but if you want a place where they’re celebrating, we’ve got a short list for you to check out. Keep in mind that most of these places will be offering drink and food specials, but we’ll leave it to you to find out what they are.

Here are a few places in town where you can watch the inaugural live - coverage begins at 8 a.m., but when He speaks is anyone’s guess. Aim for 9. And keep in mind that coverage will go all day and into the night. We’ve listed events by their start time. You are responsible for when they finish.

Start time: 8 a.m.

R15 - Bartender Todd tells SacramentoPress.com that the bar/restaurant will be decorated and ready with Bloody Marys and decorated food: red, white and blue pancakes. And the place has great east-facing windows for that “It’s morning again in America” sunshine. 15th and R Streets downtown.
40 Acres and a Mule and The Guild Theatre - Oak Park will be ground zero for celebrating the inaugural of the nation’s first African American president. The Guild, at 2814 35th Street, has a capacity of 220, and will be showing the whole thing on the big screen, while nearby 40 Acres and a Mule Gallery may be more conducive to live commentary. Note: There will be a $4 donation requested at the Guild.
A Touch A’ Class - Located at 4217 Stockton Boulevard, just south of 14th Avenue, this classic African American bar is a social center, and again, where better to be on this historic day?

Start time: 2:30 p.m.

Bridges on the River starts its celebrations mid-afternoon, but it should go on long after that. The bar will be offering drink and food specials, and they’re encouraging everyone to wear their Obama gear. At 2125 Garden Highway, this place is likely to be the prettiest and sunniest place to celebrate a new administration.

Start time; 4 p.m.

Revolution Wines, Sacramento’s premier “urban winery” will open its midtown location to Obama fans at 4 p.m., offering the first glass of wine for only 44 cents, in honor of our 44th President. The capacity of the place is only 80 and on Monday afternoon they were nearly 75% full, so get there early if you’re keen. 2116 P Street.

Start time: 5 p.m.

Colin Celestin and his staff are offering drink specials and their locally-legendary Island and Cajun Cuisine along with a celebration of the 44th President. The celebration starts at 5 p.m. at 18th and K Streets.

Start time: 6 p.m.

Butch and Nellie’s coffeehouse and soup emporium will start its celebration at 6 p.m. Their located at 1827 I Street, just west of 19th Street.

Start time: 7 p.m.

Fancy-pants gay disco Badlands will be hosting the gay community’s big celebration, starting the evening off right with its Red, Blue and White party at 20th and K Streets.

View Larger Map

Know of any other parties? Feel free to add to this list in the comments section below!

Drought, eh?

2009-03-03T00:25:50Z

So, yes, we're in a drought. We keep hearing about it. We're even in a state of emergency, officially.

But since when does a drought look like these pictures, taken this afternoon from the I Street Bridge during a break in the downpour?

If this is a drought, I say: Bring it!

New lights, lit

2009-03-10T00:59:54Z

The pedestrian warning lights installed last week at the intersection of 20th and K Streets are up and operating.

Here's a photo or two...

Sunshine and bluegrass

2009-01-17T00:36:22Z

David Putnam of Auburn and Robbie MacDonald of Half Moon Bay get together frequently to play bluegrass, which they do as Tenbrooks.

But in today's warming sunshine, they met up half way or so, in Sacramento's Cesar Chavez Plaza. As Putnam says, "We met up here because this is the place to be!"

Anton Barbeau and Allyson Seconds

2009-12-18T08:24:11Z

Anton Barbeau is dressed warmly on a recent Sacramento afternoon, bundled up for more northern climes. Walking into Weatherstone coffeehouse in Midtown, he’s soon peeling off his Nordic-style ski cap, freeing a tumble of long, curly and surprisingly gray hair with a comment about how relatively warm it is.

It may not feel that warm to spoiled Californians, but Barbeau doesn’t live here - anymore. Born and raised in East Sac, he has lived most recently in chilly Cambridge, England, home of his beloved cult band the Soft Boys, and even more crucially, of Syd Barrett, the tragic leader of the first incarnation of Pink Floyd.

But Barbeau, still impish at 42, no longer romanticizes England. “Cambridge is very lonely for me musically,” he says, and he sounds more sad than star-struck when discussing his one sighting of Barrett, not long before the legendary acid casualty died.

“He was this insane old man making his way down the road,” Barbeau says in between sips of coffee. “It was depressing. It was really sad, those eyes were haunting.”

He was born, as he proudly points out, one month before the release of The Beatles’ Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band in 1967. And despite spending much of his 25 year musical career pursuing the psychedelic muse, it turns out that England is for love - he went there for a relationship - but Sacramento is still his musical home.

“I can do more in a week at my dad's house than I can in two months in Cambridge," he says. "I have all my stuff here, and my people.”

One of Barbeau’s people -- and other people on his album include local lights Larry Tagg, Cake's Gabe Nelson and Tom Monson, and classic rocker Barry "The Fish" Melton -- has just sat down with him. Allyson Seconds is herself a fixture on Sacramento’s music scene, as a band member, as wife and musical partner of punk icon Kevin Seconds, and co-owner of the late, lamented True Love Coffeehouse. Seconds, who fairly sparkles as she regards Barbeau, has known the singer/songwriter for years, but for the last two years they’ve been connected, across continents and oceans, by something special: Seconds’ first solo album, Bag of Kittens.

Featuring Seconds singing Barbeau’s songs, and produced by the multi-talented Barbeau, Bag of Kittens is her first album after more than 15 years of live performance as a band member or harmony singer.

“There was no plan for a CD at all,” she says. “I just wanted to hear what my voice sounded like in different styles. The first time I sang live was in 1991, but I’ve always sung harmonies. I haven’t been ready to be out front. But when I hit 39, I thought, ‘I should probably tackle this solo thing before I’m 80.’ ”

The two have been a part of each others’ lives for so a long time, and have played with so many of the same musicians. Her first singing partner was her then-boyfriend Nelson, a longtime collaborator of Barbeau’s whose day job is as bassist in Cake. So it’s remarkable that they’ve never really played much together. Seconds has always been more of a support musician, giving herself to harmony singing more than standing center stage. And Anton always hasbeen the star attraction, even when performing for a dozen people at Luna’s.

The album opens with studio chatter, Seconds saying to Barbeau, “I’ll do the straight line, and you ... do whatever you want.” Then they both laugh. Barbeau always does what he wants.

And that’s pretty much how it goes, Seconds employing her lissome instrument, reminiscent of Susanna Hoffs of the Bangles, on Barbeau songs new and old. At times, the record sounds like a Barbeau disc with a guest vocalist; at other times, the challenge of framing Seconds’ voice leads Barbeau into new, more austere territory.

He also has a new album, Plastic Guitar, just out on England’s Pink Hedgehog label - he’s not sure if it’s his 13th or 14th, or perhaps just 12th - but once Seconds has appeared, he is self-effacing, preferring to focus on Seconds’ album.

“I think Al's record is really a record,” he says. “Mine is more put together, whereas Alison's really feels like a proper album - it starts here and ends up there. It's a lot darker than people might expect. It addresses global warming, murder ... there’s a lot there.”

It was, they agree, “a very organic process,” says Seconds. “Nothing was pushed or pulled, it just went.”

They continue to take things very casually, playing gigs when they come up and while Barbeau is still in town. Seconds says that she intends to put a band together, including husband Kevin, in 2010. But for the time being, before Barbeau returns to England for some gigs in early March, they are playing nearly a gig a night,here and in the Bay Area. Friday, they will play Luigi’s Fun Garden at 8:30 p.m., sharing the stage while they can.

The weirdest ticket you'll ever get...

2009-02-10T05:37:18Z

Sacramento is just random enough to be interesting. How did THIS happen?

Inside out-sourcing

2009-01-08T22:49:40Z

It’s one thing to read in the local paper about the outsourcing of jobs abroad, to India, to the Philippines, and it’s quite another thing to have it happen to you. And if you happen to work for the local paper, well...

The Sacramento Bee, under enormous fiscal pressure, is finding some unique ways to cut costs, from offering buy-outs to a hefty percentage of the people who write and edit the paper, to outsourcing the work of the people who design advertising, and currently, to the people who have, for decades, kept track of where the money goes.

The money is going to India. That’s the big story. It doesn’t seem right, but it adds up for The Bee’s parent company, McClatchy, which is desperate to avoid sinking out of sight altogether as its stock price plummets and circulation drops at its newspapers. The logic of the market is brutal.

But the little story is sadder, and more interesting, and it’s happening right here in midtown Sacramento, just blocks from where I write. Right now, a handful of eager young Indians from the city of Jaipur are getting the chance of a lifetime: They are spending their days at 21st and Q Streets, learning how to do the jobs of people who live in Sacramento, people who, come March 1 or thereabouts, will join the ranks of the local unemployed.

I spoke with Lanny Shay, a Bee employee for the last 18 years, who is currently doing the appalling task of training the people who will soon take his job back to India.

We could discuss the rightness or wrongness of this, but Shay himself says he understands the financial logic. And we could talk about the money that McClatchy is saving, and thereby, perhaps, saving our hometown newspaper. We could talk about the money that Shay and his soon-to-be-former co-workers will NOT be spending at the Tower Theatre and the Co-op and the Pine Cove and Cafe Bernardo and perhaps even on things advertised in The Bee’s shrinking classifieds.

Instead, we’ll just let Shay - who says he has a masters degree in finance from Stanford - talk for a bit about what he is seeing, and feeling, as he presides over his own obsolescence.

Basically, you have to train the person who’s taking your job. So if you do everything that’s asked of you, work long hours, do overtime, the best you can hope for is...you lose your job. My manager is trying to keep that in mind, but I think they lose sight of that. It’s weird.

I work in finance, accounting. On Sept. 14, they called six of us in and explained that the jobs were being outsourced to India. Our jobs are going to Jaipur. They’re jobs as finance clerk, accounting clerk, credit clerk, it’s a smattering of positions. All six people whose jobs are going do different things.

First, in mid-November, we had a number of people come to do discovery, to lay out the mapping of the jobs, what the jobs are, what they entail, how they’re done. Then, in December, the people who are going to be doing the jobs, or will be training the people in India who will be doing the jobs, came for 3-5 weeks. There were four the first time, and four or five of them the second time.

They’re all very young - the average age is, I’d say, 23. The project manager I have less interaction with, she’s early 30s, but the others are young. They actually are pretty rural. I don’t know what level of education they have, but none of them has a car or can drive, most of them live at home with their families, and at least one had the equivalent of a CPA. I’m guessing that some might have college degrees, but I don’t know.

They speak great English. Their written English is kinda stilted, but it’s far better than my Hindi will ever be. All they do is work. They’re staying in a Residence Inn or something somewhere outside of midtown, and every morning they show up at The Bee, then work with us the whole day, then they stay until 7 or 8 at night, after we’ve left, and then they cab back to the hotel. And I have the distinct impression that they work until they go to sleep. This group has been here for five weeks, and one or two weekends they may have gotten out to SF or Tahoe, but mostly, they work. I don’t know how much they’ll make for doing our jobs in India.

It’s frustrating, there are communication issues. They’re exceedingly polite, and totally avoid conflict, which is a cultural thing. There are times when you have to push them, and often, you have to stop and say, “Repeat what I just told you.” Because they’ll act as though they understand, even if they don’t. But they’re really nice kids, and work really hard.

At some point, there’s going to be some sort of anger about it, but at this point, we’re still working. I’m certainly not mad at the kids from India, this is probably the best chance they’ve had for a job, and it’s not their fault that it’s taking my job away. And realistically, it’s not my bosses’ fault either, I think my boss feels terrible about it. One of the people who is being replaced has been there more than 40 years. I’ve been there 18. Someone else has been there 26.

So, who do you get angry at? I haven’t really figured that out yet. It’s bad that it has to happen during the worst economy in 60 years, but it’s just one of those things. It’s just the way America works now. The people who make bad decisions that effect hundreds or thousands of lives pay no price at all for making those decisions. For all the talk of the “culture of responsibility,” we’re at the point where you can do everything right and potentially lose everything. And you can make disastrous decisions and retire with a $30 million golden parachute.

There have been times in the past when I thought I could work somewhere else and get paid more, but I like living and working downtown, and The Bee’s been here for 150 years. I figured that if I got to work every day and did a good job, I’d retire comfortably. Now we’re at the point where, is anyone’s job safe? I don’t know this for a fact, but if this outsourcing is successful, other things at The Bee that can be outsourced, will be outsourced.

They’ve outsourced circulation customer service, they’ve outsourced the classified phone bank, and now us. Which is funny, because the thing we had that craigslist didn’t have was really good customer service. So what did we do to compete with craigslist? We gave away customer service! To me, that doesn’t make a whole lotta sense.

Supposedly, March 1 will be the date we turn everything over. The people go back to India, they ramp up and start doing more and more of the work, and then I’m checking it to make sure it’s alright from my side, and then I’m out of a job. In a really horrible economy. But I can collect unemployment, I have skills, and they’re giving us severance packages. But I never thought I’d have to look for work.

And the sad part is, I believe in newspapers. I believe that there’s a good reason why freedom of the press is in the First Amendment and the right to bear arms is in the Second. I believe in media telling the truth to power. And watching the industry sink is really sad. As much as I love Huffington Post and Real Clear Politics, I take with a grain of salt everything I read on the web. I don’t see how websites can compete with real newspapers doing real journalism. Maybe it’s the permanency of ink: It’s real. If you put it on your blog and it’s wrong, you delete it and it’s like it was never said. I don’t know if the effort to get it right is there in electronic media the way it is, or was, in print media.

But I guess we’ll see.

Flying over the Grid

2009-02-10T05:35:16Z

It's cold, but it's getting lighter every day. And when you get a free ride over the downtown, things look entirely different.

Drinking games in the Grid

2009-04-05T01:19:50Z

No one would call Sacramento a party town, exactly, but Sacramentans determined to party hearty have found a number of intriguing ways to drink without appearing to just be getting drunk.

You want proof? Well, besides getting the city to close down entire central city blocks, as deVere's Irish Pub did on St. Patrick's Day, or indulging in the holiday cheer pub crawl known as Santacon (in which every participant must show up in red and white Santa drag), or the traditional Thanksgiving Day Appetite Enhancement Ride, there is a new (to me) way to drink and play at the same time: Pub Golf.

Pub Golf is a combination of treasure hunt and pub crawl, with a seriously tongue-in-cheek nod to the timelessly lame pastel color palate of leisure golf. The treasure are, yes, drinks. Lots of drinks.

Pub Golf is a pretty good way to spread your drinking dollars out over a number of establishments eager to serve whatever kooky drink you can come up with - and perhaps pace your drinking, since you will soon be walking to the next establishment. Yes, walking, which keeps drunks out of cars and on the sidewalk, where they belong.

Saturday afternoon's Pub Golf tournament drew a couple of dozen "players," festooned in pink, yellow and baby blue, as well as all manner of just-wrong argyles, as the players "drank through" midtown from deVere's to Zocalo, on through The Depot and Lounge on 20, all the way through nine bars ("holes") ending at the Pine Cove. Turns out you could get a bit of exercise at this as well.

"Playing" Pub Golf is easy: At each bar on the scorecard, a specific drink is listed, and each player (and his or her partner) needs to drink said drink, and do it in front of other players so that the score is counted and registered on a scorecard. Most "holes" were par 1, but a couple were par 2 - that is, two drinks - which meant that by the end of a nine-hole round each participant would have consumed 14 drinks. Pro drinking by any score.

Some drinks are simple - a shot of tequila or a "vodka drink" or a Guinness - others are a bit more challenging or at least exotic: a caipirinha at Celestin's, a Car Bomb at deVere's or a Mind Eraser at the Limelight.

When we caught the players they were just leaving Celestin's, the third of nine "holes" and participants were still keeping score and behaving acceptably, aside from the clothes. This was not expected to last.

No Outlet

2009-01-08T01:14:23Z

So, what if you had a special short cut to eliminate an extra stop light on your way to or from home to the freeway? What if you got accustomed to using a particular alley in midtown to speed you to your destination?

And what if, one day, you couldn't use it anymore?

That's what happened to downtown denizen Lanny Shay, who found one day that a formidable gate had been placed in the middle of the alley that runs from 27th to 28th Street, between E and F. With a "No Outlet" sign posted at the entrance to the alley, the gate - locked tight with a heavy duty chain - his shortcut was no longer an option.

"Aren't alleys public thoroughfares?" he asked me this afternoon. "When does that become someone's route to control?"

Shay had, of course, heard of certain alley closings in Curtis Park, where they were thought to be handy egress for thieves to case and enter private homes, out of the sight of residents. But the alley between 27th and 28th, like many alleys downtown, is hardly an un-utilized passage, useful only to thieves. Garbage men use it, there is parking there for people who live in the funky apartments that back up to it, and it is, or was, a handy alternate route for neighborhood residents.

There may be good reasons for the alley's closure, but Shay, a neighborhood resident who prides himself on knowing what's going on in the Grid, doesn't know. He doesn't recall being asked about it. Was there public notice? A hearing? We don't know. Do you? If you know what happened to that alley, we'd love to hear about it.

Boutique owner makes career change

2009-03-23T04:53:06Z

Michael Afshar, owner of midtown Sacramento clothing store DV8 Boutique, which has won local best-of kudos for its trendy threads, is closing shop. Sometime. Soon, he hopes.

Afshar, who was born in Iran and opened DV8 in Hawaii in 2002 after he was laid off as a pilot by US Airways, moved to Sacramento and opened the store at 26th and J Streets in early 2004. He was one of the first tenants in the MARRS Building, at 20th and J Street, when it opened in September 2007.

But now, he's eager to pursue his other passion: DJ'ing.

Spinning under the handle DJ Skittles, Afshar plays progressive and deep house, as he has for 20 years.

"I've been DJ'ing since 1989," says Afshar/Skittles. "I started at the Holy Cow in San Francisco, and I've played other places in San Francisco." He has also played in Toronto, Amsterdam, Cancun, Kuala Lumpur, Moscow, New York and Iceland, he says.

"Spinning records paid my way through college and flight school," he says. Afshar is a licensed pilot and flew as a first officer for US Airways until he was laid off during the post-9/11 collapse in air travel.

He was prompted to make the full-time switch to DJ'ing last fall, when he was signed to a San Francisco record label, Salted Records. But there's just one piece of business to take care of: Selling the store.

"I have a buyer, but banks don't want to lend money," he says. "There are people with money to invest, but they're very cautious right now, with the economy. I don't blame them.

"We'll just have to wait and see."

The option of being an absent owner just doesn't work with a boutique, which requires a personal touch, says Afshar.

"Having someone else mind the store doesn't work," he says. "They don't put their hearts into it. I had someone take over the store for a month over the holidays, when I was DJ'ing in Eastern Europe and Istanbul, but they made in a month what I can make in a three-day weekend."

Afshar said he had a moment in the Istanbul airport, with his bags at his side, when he thought about just walking away from the store and becoming a fulltime DJ. He'd done it before, escaping his native Iran as a teenager after its Islamic Revolution, and he's kept himself alive all over the world.

"I thought, 'I could walk away, I don't have to go back'," he says. "I got very close to that. But I chickened out. I have responsibilties to the landlord, to the bank. I couldn't do that."

In the meantime, the store will keep selling its in-demand fashions - business is decent, considering the economy, says Afshar - and DJ Skittles will be jetting off to Milan, Italy, in late April for a series of shows there.

"It's hard work," he says of the long distance travel and late nights of DJ'ing. "But it's a lot of fun."

To check out DJ Skittles' music, visit his myspace page.

New lights at 20th and K

2009-03-06T07:02:28Z

More flashing lights appeared last week over the intersection of 20th and K Streets in midtown.

The four flashers, which will turn the lights on this weekend, will bring more light to what is perhaps downtown’s flashiest corner. At that corner, a half dozen gay bars share street space with a handful of restaurants and the popular new MARRS Building, and hundreds of party people walk – and sometimes stagger - the blocks until the wee hours.

But the city’s department of transportation didn’t install the lights for looks.

Suspended over the center of the intersection itself, the four-lamp streetlight appears to be pointed down (see photo), but is actually just not yet activated. When it is lit up this weekend, the lamps will be rotated up and each will face down the four directions on both K and 20th.

The flashing yellow lights will alert automobile traffic that there are pedestrians about. Lots of them. And the lights will flash that they, like some of the drivers themselves, are likely to have had a drink or two.

How many people? Loanna Hernandez of the city's department of transportation went out to count pedestrians on one Friday night, between 10:30 and 11:30. During that time, she reported, 360 people crossed one of the four crosswalks at the intersection.

Given the considerable auto traffic, and an accident a couple of years ago, the department of transportation installed a "rumble strip" next to the pedestrian warning sign.

“It was to sort of 'wake up' drivers,” says Hernandez. “Getting people to slow down has been difficult."

So difficult, that a four-way stop was suggested, says Linda Tucker, spokeswoman for the department of transportation. But neither stop signs nor stoplights fit with existing traffic management in the area, because stops at the intersection could interfere with the railroad crossing half a block away, as well as with traffic on other busy streets one block away: 21st and J Streets.

The traffic flashers may not match the sophistication of one of the center city’s flashiest, most urban corners, but if it slows down incautious drivers – who have, we should remember, actually killed people in our downtown – those lights will be a very fine addition to the corner.