Travel Column: The Sacramento River Parkway

     Sitting on the convergence of two rivers, Sacramento is uniquely blessed with scenic trails. Sacramento State students are well aware of the American River Trail that winds past their school.

     A less well known but equally scenic trail runs along the Sacramento River through the Pocket neighborhood. An easy access point to this hidden jewel can be found at the intersection of Riverside and Captain’s Table Road, near the Fruitridge/ Seamas exit off I5.

     The trail picks up behind the La Riviera Hotel and runs north towards Old Town. The trail runs along the top of the levee separating the river from I5. Walking the trail offers a juxtaposition between the urban frenzy of the freeway and the bucolic, slow-moving river. The freeway is screened off by trees for the most part, but is still visible off to your right as you walk north. Not to worry however, the traffic noise is muffled and you are more likely to hear the honk of migratory birds than the bellow of truck horns.

     The glass and steel office buildings downtown can be glimpsed though the trees as the trail winds along with the river. Unfortunately for would-be commuters from the Pocket /Greenhaven neighborhoods, the trail does not quite reach downtown. The trail peters out at the marina at the foot of Broadway.

     A lack of commuters doesn’t mean a lack of traffic however. Those wishing to enjoy a leisurely stroll along the path need to be aware that the Spandex-Boy Bike Brigade uses the trail for time trials. Thankfully, the trail is wide and both groups seem to be able to co-exist.

     For those left footsore and weary after exploring the trail to the north, respite may be had back at the hotel at the foot of the path. La Riviera Hotel is home to Scott’s Seafood, an upscale restaurant and bar overlooking a marina built into a bend in the river. Be forewarned that if you’ve been working up a sweat on the trail or have been splashing around at the water’s edge, The Maitre’d at Scott’s may not give you the best table in the house.

     For the adventurous, or those too dirty and sweaty to be seated at Scott’s, an old-school neighborhood bar can be found nearby. If you continue south along Riverside from the La Riviera Hotel, you can pick up the trail again in about a mile or so at 35^th Ave. As you walk south along the top of the levee, you can look down on the river flowing to your right and Riverside Blvd on your left. At the end of the trail, about a mile from 35^th Ave., lies The Trap.

     The Trap is an institution in the Pocket neighborhood. It’s a clapboard shack that seems to lean away from its foundation. Inside is a short wooden bar and a lone beer cooler. Nothing’s on tap and don’t bother asking for a mixed drink. Bud longnecks are $2. A 24oz can of Pabst Blue Ribbon costs $3. The patrons favor longhair and tattoos; mind your manners around the pool table.

     The Sacramento River Parkway remains in the shadow of the contiguous American River trail because it is segmented and forces users onto city streets for blocks at a time between access points. This might be it’s strength however; because it weaves back and forth between the levee and surface streets, it connects the Greenhaven, Pocket, and Land Park neighborhoods. The Sacramento River Parkway provides an easy way to explore some of Sacramento’s oldest neighborhoods.

Restaurant Review: Superb Burger

     Is there anything as quintessentially American as a cheeseburger? The old cliche may call for apple pie, but ask yourself, which have you eaten more recently: apple pie or a cheeseburger?

     This restaurant review deals with cheeseburgers so let us, right from the beginning, define our terms. First, and most important, is the understanding that I am not talking about the depressing lumps of protein served by the fast food chains under various trademarked names like "Big Mac" and "Whopper." Those things are a slur on cheeseburger’s good name.

     Nor am I talking about "gourmet" burgers, like the kind you find at a steakhouse: too big, too expensive, and made from too high of a quality beef. A cheeseburger is cheap grub, made from the leftover cuts of meat. As any chef will tell you, the flavor is in the fat.

     Those two qualifications aside, there are no rules for what goes on a burger. The ground beef is but a blank palette for a creative and talented grill master.

     I have found the ideal expression of the cheeseburger right here in Sacramento. It is served in a spartan outpost on the corner of Fruitridge and Power Inn Road. The Superb Burger is housed in an unassuming cinder block building next to auto repair shops and other industrial businesses.

     The inside decor is similarly utilitarian but the draw is the food not the atmosphere. The Superb Burger’s basic fare is their $4.99 cheeseburger and fries lunch special. Don’t let the price fool you, it’s a perfect example of how a passionate grill man can make humble ingredients sing. It’s a 1/3 lb. beef patty seared over a flame grill with American cheese and onion, lettuce, tomato and pickles on a sesame seed bun. There is nothing exotic to it but every component is perfectly realized. The meat has a taste of the char from the grill but the middle is tender and juicy. The vegetables are fresh and crisp and the bun is substantial enough not to get soggy without being chewy.

     And then there’s the fries. The french fries need and deserve a mention of their own. Each batch is cooked fresh with the burger and served right out of the fryer, too hot to touch. They are big and crunchy and, unlike so many other french fries, actually taste like potatoes. The truth of the matter is, that with a burger as good as they make, they could get away with serving weak fries, the fact that they make superlative fries is a credit to their integrity. Remember that all of this is at a price point that is competitive with the dreck that the burger chains serve. Superb Burger’s $4.99 cheeseburger is undeniably one of the best deals in town.

     Superb Burger’s menu is split into two parts with half devoted to burgers and sandwiches and half given to Asian influenced dishes. The sandwiches include different burgers like the Western, which has bacon, and the California, which includes avocado. They also serve grilled chicken sandwiches and Philly cheese steaks. The Asian side of the menu includes teriyaki-style rice dishes and sides such as pot stickers. I must confess that I have not tried any of these things. I am sure that they are good but I am obsessed with their cheeseburger.


     In a town like Sacramento, with a plethora of exotic and novel eating options, it can be easy to over look small, nondescript diners like the Superb Burger. Perhaps that’s part of the pleasure however, the sense of discovery, of finding a diamond in the rough.

     Superb Burger is located at 5665 Power Inn Rd. at Fruitridge. They are open Monday through Saturday for lunch and dinner.

TV Review: Community

     Community is part of NBC’s Thursday night comedy juggernaut that includes The Office and 30 Rock. Unfortunately, watching Community in the same line-up as the critically acclaimed The Office and 30 Rock only makes the show’s weak writing seem that much worse.

     It is a situation-comedy about a group of older adults enrolled in junior college. This is played for laughs. We’re supposed to regard them as losers for going back to school in middle-age. As someone who returned to Ju-Co at age 29, I was not amused by this premise.

     Personal objections aside, the show stars Chevy Chase as Pierce Hawthorne, a ne’er-do-well scion of a wealthy family and Joel McHale as Jeff Winger, a disgraced ex-lawyer who had no law degree or license. They are surrounded by a collection of quirky, kooky, fellow students that exist to provide fodder for insults and one-liners from McHale and Chase.

     Of the ancillary characters, Abed Nadir, played by Danny Pudi, and Troy Barnes, played by Donald Glover, are notable because they act as "zanys." In the classical Italian street theater Commedia Dell’Arte, the Clown mocked the main characters in the story and the Zany mocked the Clown. Similarly, the subplots involving Abed and Troy are, ironically, comic relief in a comedy. Abed and Troy segments are also usually surrealistic flights of fancy that parallel the main story.

     In last Thursday’s episode, "Advanced Gay," Pierce and Troy each struggle to emerge from the shadows of their respective overbearing fathers. The main plot is about Pierce altering the family business to cater to the gay community (hence the show’s title) despite his bigoted father’s objections. The subplot involved Troy being forced to choose between following in his father’s footsteps to become a plumber or pursuing his talent for repairing air conditioners.

     Chevy Chase seems to still be playing the role of his eponymous title character Fletch from the inexplicably popular movies. Even his jokes seem recycled from the Fletch flicks. When he is greeted by another character, he responds: "At your cervix." You know, like "at your service" but with a pun on a lady part! Somewhere in Hollywood, a writer received a paycheck for penning that line.

     The main story was a trite homily about rejecting bigotry. What was interesting about it was how many derogatory stereotypes about gays the writers managed to cram into story that is ostensibly about overcoming intolerance. For example, the gays are all depicted as mincing and feminine. Also, it is implied that the reason the gay community is into the products Pierce’s company produces (Handi-wipes, not that it matters to the plot) is because they have found a deviant sexual use for them.

     The Troy subplot was a dream-like story that imagined the building trades as being shadowy cults like the Freemasons. It featured John Goodman in a cameo as the head of the college’s air conditioning repair school. Goodman had some funny lines describing the origins of air conditioning technicians. "We started as slaves; fanning the pharaohs with palm fronds," was how he explained their beginnings. It was more interesting than the main plot but it was not original. The concept of renegade cabals of HVAC technicians goes back to the movie Brazil which came out in 1985.

     The main problem with the show however, is one that is common to many sitcoms. The characters have no distinct personalities, they exist soley to trade insults with the other characters. One character refers to Pierce’s trouble with his father as being "edible" in nature, later in the show, she demonstrates broad knowledge of psychological concepts. How can a person who didn’t know edible from oedipal suddenly channel Sigmund Freud? Easy, both times the character was simply setting up Joel McHale for a one liner, not speaking as a fully drawn character.

     Community is slightly weirder than other sitcoms but it relies on the same cliches and hacky jokes that a million other shows use. It is a clunker in NBC’s otherwise exceptional Thursday lineup.

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     On a related note, the producers of The Office and Parks and Recreation have reached a level of product placement that rivals Steven Spielberg. The last segment of Parks and Recreation featured two main characters driving off on a romantic road trip. The director made sure to include lots close ups of the VW logo on the car’s grille. As the last scene closed with the couple gazing out over the Grand Canyon, an ad for the Volkswagon Passat came on. Coincidence? Not when the last segment of The Office ends with a character playing with his iphone and referring to it as "the one everyone has," and the next commercial played is for the iphone. Is it too much to ask that the commercials be kept in the commercial breaks? Sitcoms are only about 22 minutes long as it is, there is not enough time to both be funny and fellate the advertisers.

Licensed To Commit Journalism

     Should there be a license for journalists? And I don’t mean, as some wags might suggest, a hunting license for journalists. I mean an independent agency that certifies a reporter as being trained and ethical. Should journalists have something similar to state Bar associations or medical boards?

     The argument in favor of such licensing is that the "blogosphere" is wholly unaccountable. If the local paper prints a libelous screed against you, there is at least a brick and mortar building to deliver the subpoena to. Newspapers assumed the responsibility of screening out unethical reporters if for no other reason than to avoid court costs. Now, anyone with access to a computer can write "news articles" and publish them on the world wide web.

     The licensing would, of course, be mostly for the consumer’s benefit. There has been an explosion of news sites in just the last few years and blog hosting sites can make even the most uninformed writer at least look professional. It can be difficult enough sorting through the big, legacy media sites like Sacbee.com or CNN without ever getting to bloggers. Blogs are relevant however and even professional journalists no longer dismiss blogs as the last refuge of cranks and amateurs. In fact, most professional journalists maintain their own blogs now. But that’s the point: how does the reader separate the good journalism from the cranks and the amateurs?

     Licensing would also help assuage the bruised egos of reporters who are tired of being lumped in with people who blog about their cats and guys who post 20 misspelling-filled pages worth of theories about the influence of the Freemasons in America. The fact of the matter is that "journalist" has become too big of a job category. It’s the same problem nurses face. A "nurse" could be anyone from the highschool dropout who empties the bedpans to the surgeon’s assistant who has almost as much medical school as the doctor under his or her belt.

     The argument against a license is that, unlike a doctor or lawyer, being a journalist doesn’t carry any special privileges. A journalist doesn’t have any more access to public records than any other citizen and no one is arguing that they should. It’s unfair to add another financial burden (applicants pay to take the Bar exam) to people seeking employment in an already struggling industry.

     There is also the question of who this sanctioning board would be comprised of and the inherent problem of "policing the police." Will a stodgy board prevent young talent from being seen? Will an unscrupulous board accept bribes to issue licenses to the staff of The National Inquirer? Will there be a reporter bold enough to risk his license by investigating the board?

     For some reason, the idea of a sanctioning board for journalists rings a sour note. Despite the measure of credibility a license theoretically would bring, I think most journalists would try to avoid getting it. Reporters tend to naturally be anti-establishment types; it’s why they went to J-school. They’re better suited to scrutinizing and criticizing institutions than forming them. The idea of a license also feeds into the elitist attitude many reporters have toward feature writers. Who says writing about your cats isn’t legitimate? Jon Carroll does it all the time and he’s published in the San Francisco Chronicle.

     I think reporters will have to build their credibility the old-fashioned way: by being credible. Writing with honesty and integrity, whether covering your cats or your nation’s government, is the path to legitimacy as a journalist.

The Ethics of Lying

     In the late 1970's the Chicago Sun-Times newspaper purchased and operated a seedy bar near the paper’s building. This was not, as one might assume, a concession to a Writer’s Guild demand that journalists be provided with a convenient place to drink their lunch. It was actually a prop in a sting operation to expose corruption among city licensing inspectors.

     The reporters rigged the dilapidated tavern with hidden cameras and then staged as many code violations as they could dream up. They brought filth and maggots into the kitchen. They blocked fire exits. They draped bare electrical wire over exposed wooden beams. They sabotaged the plumbing so that all the drains emptied onto the basement floor. In short, they made sure that every code enforcement department would have something to cite them for.

     As you might guess from the dateline of this story, the reporters found corrupt permit inspectors. Every single inspector in fact. The focus of the story became not that there was corruption, but how casual and routine the bribery was.

     The expose’, which played out in a 25 part series, was brilliant journalism. Unfortunately, the story turned out to be as controversial as it was compelling. Many professional journalists felt that it was unethical for the reporters to misrepresent themselves. The story was eventually denied a Pulitzer Prize due to a campaign led by Washington Post editor Ben Bradlee that condemned the Sun-Times’ methods.

     Is it acceptable for a reporter to misrepresent himself? Does Ben Bradlee condemn Upton Sinclair for accepting a job in a meat packing plant simply to research the conditions? Is it worth lying to catch liars? Is there an ethical way to expose unethical people?

     I think the benefits of this kind of sting far outweigh the murky ethics. History has shown how effective undercover reporters can be. Sinclair’s The Jungle changed the sanitation and workplace practices of the entire meat-packing industry. Reporters aren’t supposed to sit at their desks waiting for a whistle-blower to call in; they’re supposed to chase stories and wrest the truth from the liars.

     Today, television news magazines routinely employ hidden cameras and deceptive ruses to get stories. Unfortunately they seem to be influenced more by Allen Funt’s Candid Camera than Upton Sinclair.

     NBC recently ran a hidden camera expose of HVAC repairmen. They rented a house with a working air conditioner and called technicians out to see if any would recommend unnecessary service or otherwise pad the bill. It’s a reasonable premise for a consumer advocacy piece, but it seemed more focused on humiliating individual technicians than investigating problems in the industry or flaws in regulating it. There was no consumer benefit other than the enjoyment of watching sleazy contractors squirm under Chris Hanson’s measured but insistent questions.

     Speaking of Chris Hanson, his "To Catch A Predator" was perhaps the most notorious hidden camera, "gotcha-style" show. While child molesters are the least sympathetic creatures on Earth, it would be hard to argue that the show was anything other than entrapment for entertainment. Not to mention the ethical quagmire created by partnering with the vigilante group that lured in the suspects in and the police departments that arrested them.

     ABC’s Primetime program runs semi-regular series titled "What Would You Do?" in which the producers use actors to stage bizarre little morality plays in public places. For example, cameras are set up to record two actresses, a woman and a young girl, pretending to be mother and daughter sitting in a café. The mother begins loudly and cruelly berating the daughter and cameras record how the other patrons react. Other scenarios have included a faked bicycle theft and an actress, made to look pregnant, getting drunk at a bar. After recording a few people’s reactions the show’s host steps out to congratulate the busy-bodies who engaged with the actors and rebuke those who minded their own business. A lesson more suited to North Korea than America in my opinion.

     Reporters should not be punished for being sneaky and deceptive when the public good is at stake. The news media should respect the implications of this however and not use deception and hidden cameras simply to allow the audience to indulge in cheap schadenfreude.

The unofficial, de facto column about Occupy Wall Street

     What is "Occupy Wall Street?" Who are these people squatting in our public parks? What do they want? And, most importantly, should we give a shit?

     "Occupy Wall Street is a leaderless resistance movement with people of many colors, genders and political persuasions." That somewhat vague proclamation is taken from the website occupywallstreet.org, which boldly proclaims itself to be the "unofficial de facto online resource for the ongoing protests happening on Wall Street," (The revolution may not be televised but it will be blogged, webcasted, tweeted, and posted on Facebook.)

     The website includes a document called the "Principles of Solidarity," that has a bullet point list of ideas such as "Redefining how labor is valued" and "Empowering one another against all forms of oppression." I suspect that when OWS says that they are comprised of people of "all political persuasions," they mean that they welcome both communists and Marxists.

     The website also explained that they were part of the "99%" of the population that does not have as much money as the richest 1% of the country. For some reason, this crowd uniting under a banner like that reminds me of nothing so much as outlaw bikers referring to themselves as 1%-ers. And OWS has not been without its mob-like moments. They recently staged a march to picket outside of "rich peoples’" homes. There is no political objective in doing something like that, it’s just a way to threaten and intimidate people that the anonymous, faceless, leaderless OWS movement has targeted as "the enemy."

     The OWS crowd, for all their rage against "the rich" seem to have blinders on when it comes to some multi-millionaires. The perpetually designer-suit-clad and bling-drenched rapper Kanye West stopped by to offer support and mug for the cameras. No one seemed interested in taking him to task for his jet-setting lifestyle.

     Documentary director Michael Moore, who has been known to use tax shelters for his film profits, showed up with much fanfare, as did fellow millionaire Susan Sarandon. Oddly, the OWS people didn’t challenge them about their wealth, nor did they picket outside of Moore and Sarandon’s mansions. Apparently there is such a thing as "good rich" and "bad rich."

     The Occupy Wall Street movement also likens itself to the Arab Spring. This is fatuous. The men and women in the Middle East who are defying totalitarian regimes are risking torture and death to be free of oppression. Occupy Wall Street is risking discomfort to protest that a few people have more material wealth than most.

     Probably the most damning thing one could say of Occupy Wall Street however, is that they are nothing more than the flip side of the Tea Party’s coin. OWS certainly does have some parallels to the Tea Party. They’re both an angry group of people who seemed to form a movement before they formed a goal. They both complain that the mainstream media presents them unfairly. Some wags have even suggested that the natural evolution of OWS members will be to grow-up, turn conservative and eventually join the Tea Party.

     The OWS protesters probably won’t turn to the Tea Party any time soon but neither will they maintain their movement. They have no clearly defined goal other than vague platitudes about economic equality and social justice. They certainly don’t have a plan for how to implement their goals. This demonstration is a fad and the onset of winter weather is going to be the end of it.
　
　
　
　

Reefer (Revenue) Madness

     Will potheads save the newspaper industry? No, I’m not referring to the current crop of J-school grads, I’m sure they could pass any drug test if given enough time to study for it. I’m talking about the readers.

     Anyone who has read through the comments section of any newspapers’ website would reasonably suspect that most of the writers were under the influence of something. The level of anger and hostility displayed by the comment writers however, would suggest that they were ingesting something stronger than pot.

     Vitriolic commenters aside, I can’t help but notice that my local newspapers have begun to resemble a visitor’s guide to Amsterdam. In a time of declining ad revenues, the marijuana dispensaries are splashing out money for full-page, full-color ads week after week. And there sure are a lot of them. Who knew there were that many sick people in Sacramento County?

     The Sacramento News & Review has even started publishing a big, stapled pull-out section devoted almost entirely to ads for medical marijuana. Frankly, that’s not surprising. SN&R lets their writers use the F-word in their articles. SN&R would probably accept ads from crack cocaine dealers if they thought they could get away with it.

     What is surprising is that The Sacramento Bee has quietly added its own weekly, pull-out pot section. The horror! A family newspaper, bearing a mascot drawn by Walt Disney himself, is now publishing ads for schedule one narcotics? I suppose Scoopy shall have to be drawn holding a bong in the paper’s banner from now on.

     It is odd really that it has taken The Bee as long as it has to begin accepting ads from the dispensaries. It’s not as if they have some strict moral code about what sorts of ads they accept. I’ve seen ads for patent medicines and all manner of dubious cure-alls in the pages of The Bee. And don’t get me started on the classified ads. Tarot card readers, "massage" parlors and ads from people seeking anonymous sex have paid for a lot of ink down at 2100 Q street.

     Even some of their legitimate ads are distasteful. I remember ( I should say: "can’t forget") one ad that The Bee ran for weeks; it was a full-page ad for a diabetes clinic and it featured a picture of a foot ravaged by the disease. It was, of course, rendered in full-color and life-sized. I mean, who wouldn’t want to sit down to breakfast, open the paper and look at lurid pictures of a fat, rotting foot? The sight of that foot is enough to send anyone running for a dispensary for relief.

     Who can blame The Bee for grasping at the dispensaries’ filthy lucre? If anything, they’re behind the curve, pot ads have become normal. The weed from the Devil’s garden is advertized on radio and television and even on huge, electronic billboards by the freeway. It was inevitable that The Bee would succumb to the lure marijuana’s lustrous green color and enticing smell. The lustrous green color and enticing smell of freshly minted money that is.