No news may be good news, but it's still fucking boring

We have to give it to the Record. When jack shit went on the previous day, it's fairly easy to tell. Whether it's the 7 full page ads in a 16-page section (and a mind boggling 4 straight pages of full pagers from A6-A10, and that's before we consider the half page ads. Is this a newspaper or a fucking catalog?), or Fitzy's column which breaks the hard hitting news that old people are stubborn (have a dispute that isn't inherently humorous and is extremely petty? Shoot a phone call over to Fitzy. Duke's e-mailing him about his ongoing saga with Wells Fargo as I type this), or something as simple as a fat kid running (putting the word "streaker" in the headline may have been a bad idea by the way), the message is clear. Nothing good happened yesterday.

Not to mention that fat kid who can run story made the front page of the Sports section while a preview of the Kings and their first game of the season doesn't make the paper at all. And we know they know the season is starting because they included a Warriors preview. Which (bold prediction alert!) is going to be hilarious because the Warriors are going to be worse than the Kings this year (you can't replace Boom Dizzle with Corey Maggette and Ronny "Zoneil" Turiaf and think everything's going to be ok).

Although we have to say, this slow news day is a lot easier to stomach due to the inclusion of not one, but two pictures of the beautiful Jenny Lewis. God, we would do dirty things to that woman. Even if she is technically a midget. (No really, we've met her a couple of times. She came up to our nipples while wearing platform boots. She's 5'0" tops. YouTube one of Rilo Kiley's appearances on Conan. She comes up to his kneecaps.)

And while were here we might as well dump some things we've been meaning to get to. Yes, we realize we still have a promised BWDW to do. We blame car troubles. Hopefully we'll be able to knock that one out by the end of the week. And if you know of a Halloween party that's not listed on 209Vibe's Events page, let us know so we can include it in the Friday "Shit to do" post. Oh, and we missed Saturday's Record so we're not entirely sure if Dolemitewatch should continue or not because the Record doesn't include the 3MR online (eRecord doesn't count). So Dolemitewatch continues until further notice.

The Record's sports pages, so predictable that I wrote this yesterday

So the Kings/Clippers game was yesterday. The Kings lost but it's preseason so wins and losses don't really matter. All that matters is how the young nucleus of the Kings played. How did Spencer Hawes do? Jason Thompson got his first start, did he have an extra spark in his game? Let's consult the Record's coverage.

Jason Anderson, what do you got for me? A Bobby Brown (Kings edition, not New Edition) puff piece with minimal stats included? Huh. It's a nice article and all, but couldn't this soft feature have been better used to help promote the game in the days leading up to it? It's really just kind of a basic rookie story.

Oh well, let's ask Bob Highfill, he's the editor so obviously he knows that the day after a game you usually say something about what happened in the game. Or he wrote a "Stockton and Kings both excited to be here" column that also probably should have been in the paper yesterday instead of today.

What the fuck guys? I got more info about the game from the photo captions than from the two articles about the game. No mention of Kevin Martin's 27 first half points in which he only missed one(!) field goal. No mention of Spencer Hawes' defensive aewakening? Kenny Thomas got playing time for fuck's sake! Were Highfill and Anderson even at the fucking game or did Cliff Oto just show them a slideshow about it when he got back to the office?

And worst of all, if they're not going to break down the game, can't they pull a report from a wire service like usual? For those who would like one SactownRoyalty's Tom Ziller has a fantastic (as usual) write up over on his site.

Kings game less advertised than Record-sponsered Literacy Fair

I know I've been pissing and moaning about this subject for the last month or so, and even did so earlier today, but I have to throw in one more observation that I missed.

As you know, the Record's attempt at helping push this game was a photo contest and a puff piece about Francisco Garcia. That's it.

It made me think, what other events have happened in Stockton that got better coverage? Let's compare shall we?

There were at least 3 articles/columns about that lame Dancing with the Stars show featuring people of various disabilities. The Stockton Rodeo got better coverage months before it was even supposed to happen.

Oh, and then there's everybody's favorite conflict of interest, the Record-sponsered Literacy Fair. Which pretty much took over the paper during the preceding week. Next year the Maloofs should totally get the Record to sponser the game so it'll get covered.

Really? That's it?

So the Kings are playing their first official game in Stockton in 20 years tonight (yes, tonight), and the best The Record can do is a youth movement puff piece centered around El Flacco's new contract? They should have been writing that shit a fucking month ago. Today should have been breaking the game down by position. You know, previewing the actual God damn game.

Or they could have picked one of the 50 other running sideplots for this game. Will Spencer Hawes continue to improve? Is Jason Thompson going to be the steal of the draft? Aren't those new unis snazzy? That's three easy fucking story ideas that I just pulled out of my ass that could have been printed throughout the month to help build excitement for the game. Instead, we get one half assed puff piece that doesn't even mention the best player on the team.

Kevin Martin, the leader of the youth movement the article was about, is treated an afterthought. He's the guy Cisco has to share minutes with in the backcourt. Don't get me wrong, I love Francisco Garcia and am stoked that he extended his deal, but if you're going to write an article that's going to be the only analysis we get from the Record before the game, it should probably be about someone who actually starts.

On a sidenote, I don't know why it took me so long to realize this, but the two ads that have been running for the game and the photo contest feature the exact same pictures of the players, just moved around within the ad so they don't exactly mirror each other. Are there that few pictures of Kings players out there?

Well, fuck.

I'm a dumbass. Being the procrastinator that I am, I went to go buy tickets to tomorrow's (that's right Record's sports section. tomorrow. Thanks for the complete lack of support.) Kings game this weekend and found out that I was shit out of luck. The cheapest available tickets are the $55 seats that run along the baseline on either end of the Spanos Center. In other words, the shit seats. Considering I'm not a rich man and don't even pay $55 to go to Kings games that count in Arco, I'll be watching the game from a place that allows beer, my apartment. Yes, I'm pissed. But hey, that means the game might have respectable attendance. So umm, hooray? Nope, still pissed. Excuse me while I got scour Craigslist for a spare cheap ticket.

Finally, Shit to do for the weekend of 10/10

(Apologies, the wind wreaked havoc on my wireless connection. This post took approx. 4 hours to cobble together. I wish I was kidding.)

Sexy Friday 10/10

Brassai, Novel Heroes, and Better Days are playing at the Blackwater tonight at 8. I've actually seens Brassai play before and they'll rock your balls off. Should be a good show, hopefully these hurricane force winds will have died down by then. Or else where will all the hipsters smoke? $5

Saturday 10/11

In what can only be described as the start of the "Oh shit, the game's this week" festivities, the Kings will be hosting a block party from 1-3 at the downtown movie theater. the Kings dance crew and Slamson will more than likely be there. No word on whether or not Spencer Hawes will show up. But hey, it's a last second event to promote the game, which is usually a good indicator as to how ticket sales are going. Free

Sunday 10/12

Again, fucking nothing. Next time Middagh or Ian post one of those "Look at the inoordinate amount of shows coming up" bulletins on MySpace I'm totally calling bullshit.

The Niners take on the Westbrookless Eagles in a game both teams need to win. And the Tom Cable era begins in Oakland as the Raiders go to New Orleans. In other words, it's another weekend where both Bay Area teams lose. But hey, at least the Kings game is next week. Not that anybody's making a big enough deal about it or anything.

Cutting through the bullshit so you don't have to

Only one week away until the Kings come to Stockton! Wooo! Who's got preseason fever!? Man, aren't those new jerseys awesome? You guys get your tickets yet? Yeah me neither. I'm not too worried. And while the Record's at least faking like it cares with it's photo contest, it's not exactly making ticket purchasing easy. But that's where we come in.

Let's say you want to purchase your tickets for the game online. Recordnet.com links you to this, which happens to be the homepage of the Kings.com site. (I'd have included the actual recordnet link but it was full of trackers to give recordnet.com credit for the clickthrough, and fuck them.)

The problem with the Kings.com site (and don't get me wrong, they do a great job over there), is that the Stockton game isn't listed with the rest of the preseason games. So if you click "tickets" looking for the Spanos Center game, it doesn't show up. Instead, amongst a sea of other banner ads, is a small "The Kings are coming to Stockton" banner on the right hand side. That link sends you to a press release about the game which includes the link to Ticketmaster for the game. That's where you can find tickets for the game online.

Consider that link help a public service. Want to go to the Kings game in the Spanos Center? The Record will give you a roundabout link designed to increase hits for the Kings site, we'll cut the bullshit for you. This counts as community service, right officer?

About fucking time

I've been fairly critical about the lack of marketing done for the upcoming Kings/Clippers preseason game at the Spanos Center. I placed blame on pretty much everybody (including you! Yes, you. And the person behind you.). I had hope change would occur but let's face it, if something were to change somebody would sue to put that change to a public vote.

But wait a second, what's this on the back page of the sports secti...Holy Barack Obama Batman! Motherfucking change! That right, the Record apparently has heard the plea to get their asses in gear. Sure, it's placed on the back page of what is almost assuredly their worst section. And yeah, I almost missed the ad myself because like most readers I've trained my eyes to skip ads in favor of actual articles. But it's something, which is really all I was asking for in the first place.

Bonus points for thinking outside the box and going with the special correspondent contest. (Wow, the Record's really contest happy this month, aren't they?) I might actually even take a shot at entering. Let's see if that month I spent in Delta's photojournalism class before I dropped it will pay off.

A quick lesson in marketing from El Duké

Alright, fuck this. I'm not letting this happen again. One of the biggest issues I had with the EliteXC fights a couple of months ago (besides the fact that I was in the minority that paid) was that whoever was in charge of advertising did a piss poor job. I'm no ad expert. Shit, I don't even watch Mad Men. But even I know that if you wait until the last possible second to advertise an event, nobody's going to show up. Then you're going to have to give away more than 50% of the tickets, and nobody will buy tickets next time around because they'll just wait for the week-of freakout where seemingly every radio station is giving away tickets. We all watched it happen with EliteXC and sadly it looks like it's happening again.

In less than a month the Kings are playing the Clippers in a preseason game at the Spanos Center. First time they've done so since the 80s (or early 90s if you want to count scrimmages with the Warriors). You probably wouldn't know about it unless you happened to catch the initial announcement a month ago. And that's really fucking depressing.

Most people who know me know that I'm a huge Kings fan. So when some of my not-so-tech savvy friends (i.e. friends over the age of 40) ask me about the game, I'm usually one of the only resources the have.

"When's the game?"
"Wed. October 15th"
"Who are they playing?"
"The Clippers."
"How much is it?"
"Tickets are between $10 and $250."

I've had that conversation roughly 800 times in the past week. Which shows me three things. A. I have too many friends over the age of 40. B. People are genuinely interested in the game. (Which is encouraging) and C. Whoever's in charge of advertising is doing a horrible job.

We're less than a month away from this game and people don't even know when the fuck it is. Like I said earlier, I'm not an ad guy, but even I know to properly advertise an event. You have to pound it into our skulls for about a month using every medium available so the ticket buying public (including the people who still haven't figured out how to send e-mail) actually knows when the game is and can budget for tickets accordingly. This is where EliteXC failed horribly. During the week preceeding the EliteXC fights, people would ask me what I was doing for the weekend and my response was universal. "I'm going to the fights." Sadly, the response to that was also universal. "What fights?"

When Stockton gets events like these they should be treated like the big fucking deal that they are. (Insert ironic "Event City" joke here) If you treat the events that actually choose to come to Stockton like they're just any old event, then they're going to be perceived as such. Now, I know we're all a little cautious to get excited about an event after the debacle that was the Stockton Rodeo. But this isn't some douchebag with a cowboy hat and a bag full of dreams, this is the fucking Maloof brothers we're talking about. If they're going to fuck us over, they'll probably do it with actual hookers.

Now of course this wouldn't be a proper post if I didn't blame somebody for whatever egregious error in judgement we're posting about. Unfortunatly with this situation, it's a complicated answer. It's pretty much everybody's fault.

It's IFG's fault because they've turned the Arena into such a money pit that the Kings were afraid that they wouldn't sell enough tickets to make the event seem respectable. Feel free to read that again. Let it sink in. A professional sports franchise wants so little to do with our Arena that they preferred to have a preseason game at a venue a quarter of the size of their normal venue as opposed to half. If you want any proof as to how shitty of a job IFG has done promoting the city and the arena, this is as good as an example as any I've heard.

It's also (obviously) The Record's fault. They're too busy telling us to go to their Literacy Fair, or assailing our eyeballs with Lori Gilbert's bullshit, or breaking the shocking news that Al Davis is fucking Looney Tunes, when they should really be beating it into our brains that we have an opportunity to show that can support and want decent sized events. I understand that they apparently have a sports staff of 3, but can't they at least fucking call Bobby Jackson and ask him about how it's going to feel playing in front of Kings fans again? I'm not even asking for hardball questions. I'm flat out begging for a puff piece on the Kings. Anything. ONE WEEK UNTIL TRAINING CAMP STARTS. Whoops, sorry. Got a little out of control there. But really guys, at least fake like you're making an effort.

It's also (sadly) the Kings' fault. As far as I can tell, they've also done jack shit to promote the event. Of course they could care less how they do here. They gave it a shot, if it doesn't work they'll just go back to having preseason games in Reno. But at the very least they could send Spencer Hawes down here to take hilariously awkward photos. (Yes, I'm almost certain that is the real Spencer Hawes' MySpace.)

And lastly, it's our fault. Yes, I mean you. I love being a cheap bastard as much as the next guy (and don't even get me started on Bris Isaak), but if you don't support at least some of the shit that comes our way nobody will come. We might have to pay money to see shitty acts like Brian Reegan or Gordon Lightfoot in order to get decent acts that don't cater exclusively to the Latino crowd. I know this may come as a shock, but steady ticket sales count. While I admire everyone's patience in waiting for radio freebies, those free tickets do jack shit for paid attendence figures. (You know, the important figures) (Note: I have no idea how this sentence got omitted from the original posting. Are we the only blog without fucking grammar Nazis ready to pounce at the misuse of a semi-colon?) Also, stop fucking attacking Morrissey when he graces us with his presence. That doesn't look good for other fucking awesome acts that otherwise wouldn't wipe their ass with our newspaper. (You think emo kids are bad? Imagine if we somehow booked Carlos Santana.)

ZOMG! Sports news people actually care about. Give that man a sidebar!

I was planning on going to the press conference the Kings had at UOP yesterday, but in true Record fashion they buried the time and location of Coach Theus' appearance in the Local Roundup section of the completly useless Sports page. I wouldn't have been able to make it anyways since I had to work at the time. But I wonder what went on there...

Holy Schnikes! An actual article about the Kings written by a Record writer? (With the exact headline I would have come up with too) Jason Anderson isn't just a pseudonym for Sam Amick right? The Record actually decided to cover a team people actually care about? I mean sure, nothing that we didn't know already was in the article. (Did you know the Kings are in the middle of a youth movement?) But hey, this is a step towards them, you know, actually covering the game when they come to they Spanos Center.

Original reporting about the closest professional sports team (minor leagues don't count. Or in the case of the Lightening, minor league teams of minor leagues.) resulted in me actually reading part of the Record's Sports page for the first time in a long fucking while. Original articles, what a novel concept.