A warm Saturday evening brought more people out to experience a night full of art, music, culture and socializing during February’s Second Saturday. In the next couple of months, as the weather gets warmer and it stays lighter during the early evening, more people will be attending Second Saturday. I passed by the Midtown Bazaar on I Street (between 16 and 17th Streets) and noticed that more vendors are setting up stations. I went there to see a couple of murals. One of the murals is in the process of being painted while another has been completed. Amber Villegas has a finished mural on the right hand side wall as you enter from I Street. Another mural on the back wall directly across fro

The Offstage Actors Group's "Off Balance 6: Freaks, Geeks and Bad Choices" opened Thursday at Clubhouse 24, bringing a new kind of comic relief to real-life and even fairy-tale situations. This two-act performance, broken up into eight total scenes, gives the audience a taste of real life if it had a narrator's voice or a do-over button. With a soundtrack by Brother Dan Palmer, this show kicks off the summer with a cynical twist to how the average person sees oneself. Though "Off Balance 6" isn't directed toward a younger audience due to profanity and mature themes, the comedy sheds a new light on the characteristics of people and how one word or question can change everything. The firs

 It’s a cool April evening, but inside Clubhouse 24 in downtown Sacramento the densely packed bodies of concertgoers have the mercury rising steadily. The first band of the evening causally sets up its equipment as the audience chatters. The atmosphere is relaxed, however in the corner of the venue the bartender is working at a feverish pace. As the band finishes its set-up and waits for sound check, the bartender grabs a nearby friend to pour drinks as he pushes his way toward the soundboard. As he works to balance the various instruments with the vocals and drums, he hears his interim bartender shout: “You’re out of Ice!” When asked how hard it is to set-up, promote, and run a second Sat

What: Review of Blow Up, a music and fashion show. Where: Clubhouse 24. Punchline: Pay no attention to the timid man behind the curtain. It was raining Saturday night in Midtown. Not drizzling, raining. It was coming down so hard that any heads of hair not beneath an umbrella or the hood of a raincoat had that fresh-from-the-shower look. Meanwhile, on the sidewalk outside Clubhouse 24, a newly opened party space at 24th and J Street, there was some kind of sculpture/assemblage in the form of a tree. Christmas tree bulbs the size of disco balls decorated its branches, and it was on fire. Well, more accurately, it had been rigged with a large propane tank so that flames shot out of metal