CRUISER CHRONICLES – Bike or Die

What do you do when the price of oil reaches $125 a barrel? Garage the car and reach for a bike, that’s what Cultivator is doing. With the impending doom of a society built on the consumption of oil the office is ready for doomsday with a fleet of bikes ready to take its employees and clients anywhere around town fossil fuel free. Choose your color and style and get on a bike and pedal. Watch out for thorns though, those tires are still made with petroleum products.
-Armando

B SIDES: DISCOVERING NEW MUSIC – Santogold

This is the best music you aren’t listening to right now. How do I know you’re not listening to it? Because you’re still listening to the new New Kids on the Block comeback song. Turn it off now and turn on Santogold.

Take one part reggae, one part punk, one part dub, one part Gwen Stefani, two parts MIA, and a lot of Brooklyn attitude and you’ve got Santogold. With lyrics like “we think you’re a joke, shove your hope where it don’t shine” and “Me I’m a creator. Thrill is to make it up. The rules all break on me…” you know this is gonna be good, and not the same old, same old BS Clear Channel is pumping out. Santogold is Brooklyn-native Santi White. She crosses almost every music genre (except country thankfully) and successfully blends it together on her debut CD. It’s jazzy. It’s funky. It’s rasta. It’s classy. It’s hip hop. Unlike her contemporaries, Santogold doesn’t muse about bling, brands or cars. Rather, she calls it like she sees it and sticks to what she knows which is an artist’s expression of her world through lyrics.

So why should you be listening to this now? (other than the fact that it’s and honest, genuine, unique musical release in a world of remixed, overmixed, sampled music). It’s a great summer cd. There are tracks perfect for sitting on the front porch with a cold one (LES Artists, My Superman, Lights Out). Then, there are the customary “get your ass up and dance” tracks (Creator, You’ll find a way). And then there are those tracks that you know are going to go over incredibly well when you see her at one of the many music festivals this summer (Shove It, Unstoppable). Give yourself and afternoon with Santogold. I think you’ll find you might be friends.

- Sarah

more info: myspace.com/santogold

video:

WHAT IS AUGUST HUNTING? – More walleye

After Jeremy and I got the skunk off our hands, we both got lucky.

- August

WANDERLUST – KCMO

Sometimes I miss the smell of hay, dirt, grass, BBQ, conservatism, ignorance and grease. So, I return to Kansas City, MO. (not to be confused with Kansas City, Kansas. Don’t ever go there. It’s bad. Real bad. ) My roots. Sort of. I’m from a small town outside of Kansas City, which no one knows about, and I spent little time in, and Kansas City was always much more fun growing up, so I say KC is my home by default. Anyway, it seems I’ve been hungering for trips there about once a year (read: my best friend lives there and I go visit her and her husband in their big, comfy house for a $100 plane ticket). The last few times I was there, I was reminded of how glorious an escape, if only for three days, Kansas City really is. I roll in to this idyllic neighborhood called Brookside which is lined with trees and happy families and kids walking to school, and actually has the street names tiled into the sidewalk. On every block there are these old, stately houses from the 1910s & 20s. It’s much like Stepford, but without the robotic wives.

We start every morning with a walk to central Brookside where we have a reserved corner table on the patio at The Roasterie Cafe, and we people watch, bag on fat, unstylish KC people, and happily eat ham and cheese croissants and drink lattes.

Then something else happens during daylight hours, not incredibly important. Then we go out at night. And this is maybe when I love KC the most. The entire city is lit up like a Hollywood back lot. There are all these gorgeous old buildings in downtown with large lighted signs on the top that always transport me to the industrial times of the 1900s when the city must have been really bumpin’. Western Auto. Folgers. Abdiana Futons. Howard Johnson.

This Western Auto sign happens to be my favorite.

Then comes the best part of the evening where we have been rendered too inebriated for words and must soak up the booze with the best hamburgers ever made on a greasy grill. Town Topic.

You sit at the counter and a woman, presumably named Flo ( who looks like “throw mama from the train”), takes your order without showing any emotion, mechanically hands it over to the line cook, and begrugingly gives you drinks in a brown glass with rabbit turd ice. It’s magical. And, I recently found out if you sweet talk the mute line cook, he’ll throw some extra bacon on your burger for free. That’s livin.

All in all, it’s a nice escape from reality. Friends. Pretentious latte drinking. Greasy burgers. Remnants of old industry. Perfectly kept lawns and even more perfectly kept timeless homes. It lures me back time and time again. That yearning to experience a life unlike my own. And burgers.

-Sarah

THINGS TO DO IN DENVER WHEN YOU’RE NOT DEAD - In Cahoots @ Plastic Chapel

So, maybe you’ve been dying to be a part of Denver’s urban art scene. Here’s your chance. Sah-weet show at Plastic Chapel this Saturday, May 10. Everyone who’s anyone in the urban art scene will be there. Make something of your worthless weekend and see this show. Be somebody!

More info here: PLASTIC CHAPEL

THINGS TO DO IN DENVER WHEN YOU’RE NOT DEAD - Lucha Libre

Remember the days when you imagined wrestlers with masks throwing each other on to a ringed mat? Not the kind on Pay-Per-View with smoke filled entrances, plot lines that rival the latest soap opera and names like the Undertaker and Phenom. I’m talking the kind with crazy mexicans dressed in masks and throwing each other around with the comedy of a Benny Hill episode. Well, those days are here.
Sunday saw the first time appearance of Lucha Libre Mexicana at Dick’s Sporting Good Park. After the Rapids’ game against DC United they cleared the stadium and set up the ring for some of Mexico’s finest superstar entertainment, Mexican wrestling.
The event was entertaining to say the least. They don’t take themselves too seriously like the wrestling found here in America, rather they joke, poke fun at each other while body slamming and entice the crowd to participate with the heckling and screaming. True entertainment.
I hope Lucha LIbre comes back. It was some of the best entertainment I’ve seen in Denver in a long time.

WHAT’S AUGUST HUNTING?

It’s walleye season, baby.

ONE SENTENCE RESTAU-RANTS – ???????

So delicious and so charming that I’m not divulging the name or location for fear it will soon be hour-long waits for lunch.

ONE SENTENCE RESTAU-RANTS – La Fiesta

It’s edible, just make sure you’re stocked up on Gas-x, Tums and Pepto.

TALES FROM THE HOOD - The murder of Jerry French

One sunny day this little man walked into our offices at 2737 Larimer. His name was Jerry French. Yes, yes, he was full of hot air, peddling his pretty paper and whatnot, but he had an honest smile so we humored him.

As he nervously adjusted his tie and shook people’s hands with his two clammy fingers, he talked fast about the benefits of printing on his paper. Well, as innocent and charming as that may sound, one employee was rather offended by Jerry’s sales pitch. Was it the paper cuts Jerry gave while clumsily handing over paper samples? Was it the smooth moves he was throwing out to the ladies? Was it his small demeanor?  Was it the classy tassles on his shoes? Whatever it was, later, as Jerry left the building and was innocently crossing Larimer street, a large black truck with a bowhunters association decal on the back window squealed out of the parking lot and ran over Jerry, deflating him on the spot. Flat Jerry French lay face down and lifeless on the pavement. No one spoke up to identify the murderer as the drove off into the sunset.

R.I.P. Jerry French