A couple weeks ago I had an amazing experience — I got to go to a Sufjan Stevens show at The Paramount Theatre in Oakland.  While I wish he would have played, say, at the Fox due to his new album’s funky, dance-y nature and the Fox’s spacious general admission area,

We all get stuck in midtown. I mean just look at its name… it’s a naturally convenient place to meet up sometimes no matter how much you don’t want to pay $12 for a cocktail or go within 15 minutes of Times Square. Fortunately, The Volstead offers up nice digs

My whole life I’ve been hearing stories about Wavy Gravy from my aunts who went on tour with the Merry Pranksters, from my Bay Area ex-hippie family members, and from my friends. People always joke about going to clown camp, but Wavy actually started the amazing Camp Winnarainbow. Some of

Stop the presses. You know, harking back to a simpler, more innocent and racist time back when people printed things and didn’t blink an eye when both Irish and dogs weren’t allowed somewhere. Well, welcome back, Kotter, because I’m about to unveil one hell of a wormhole in the time/space

Okay, so when it comes to getting toasty, you could hardly do worse than making a pit stop at the Lexington Club.  The Lex has a fondness for making a drop-in worth your while by offering booze in varieties of heavy-handed and cheap, or perhaps hard and fast? They have

Yesterday I posted about Tiffin Wallah, one of less-than-a-handful of places in Murray Hill I’d ever expect to find myself. Cheapskates aren’t too welcome over in the far eastern 30s. In an unprecedented move by fate and fortune, I’m posting about the neighborhood again because the holiest of holies, FREE

While the French are just now begrudgingly admitting that California puts out some badass wine, we here in the Bay Area have known this for years.  In fact it’s probably harder to get bad wine in San Francisco than it is to get good wine…not that I can really tell

It’s Sedaris week in NYC! In case you missed Amy’s reading last Thursday, David Sedaris is reading at Barnes and Noble tonight. But his will involve less crafts and more anthropomorphism. His newest book, Squirrel Seeks Chipmunk, is short stories about animals where squirrels and chipmunks go on dates, owls