Local bastard

All good things. This is the last one. After 36 columns (counting today’s) of sweetness and fun, Local Bastard is leaving the building, sort of. CN&R Arts Editor Jason Cassidy has cut back his paper time to better pursue other endeavors in writing and rock, so L.B. has likewise cleared his calendar and will save up his biased pontificating for that day when his voice is again called upon.

Days of Lore: Basically current Calendar Editor and Lott Lyzzyrd Mark Lore is trading places with Cassidy and is your new Arts Editor, and he will also be taking over L.B.’s corner of the paper with his own brand of biased pontificating.

Weekly serotonin synthesis: Before he goes L.B. wants to take one last look back at the mess that’s been made. So, in the spirit of the season of giving he has gathered together a chronological list of snacks from each column and assembled a holiday meal so carbo-loaded, that all who reads will be fat with Bastard for days.

1. Glass blowing? Wall murals? “Giant Hands”? I doubt many local artists—the ones making, playing and acting—identify all that much with the tourist-guide fare.

2. Three college dudes in green stumbling down the sidewalk alone at 11 a.m. and screaming, “No way! No way!” in each other’s faces looks more like a homeless problem than a block party.

3. Wouldn’t the world be a better place if the weekly Synthesis went national?

4. Wear a jimmy, for crab’s sake!

5. We’re all so wound up here in the go-go world of the Northstate that only a collective public hurling can purge us of the urge to throw plastic rings ’round a rubber dildo sprouting from a porn starlet’s crotch.

6. Don’t spill my crunk juice!

7. Those who can, rock. Those who can’t, jam.

8. The Greek origin of the word cremaster roughly translates as “suspenders.” In the case of the muscle of the same name in a dude’s groin that draws the testes into the body to keep ’em warm, these suspenders are pretty important. For that reason, Local Bastard has spent his life exercising said muscle so that he can stow his li’l guys under hot wraps at will. His power to do so can often give an impression that there is no there there, but never mind that—just know that the extra heat keeps this soulless bastard’s fires a-burnin’.

9. How can you not get behind a team with a bear slicing a baseball with two swords!?!

10. This guy’s special, in a David Koresh-meets- Jesus Christ-meets-that-dude-who-sings-for- REO Speedwagon sort of way.

11. “Mom, we learned how to make meth today in school.”

12. “…the doll may be warmed to body temperature by wrapping her in an electric blanket before use.”

13. With an arsenal of moves that includes little more than running in place and the occasional beached-whale version of The Centipede, he is not pretty.

14. She has also built her own 44-ton floating island, which is totally badass.

15. “In truth, punk was just as full of bullshit and bad ideas then as it is now.”

16. ( Sammy Hagar is punk, right?)

17. Might I suggest a flaming skeleton riding a sinister motorcycle?

18. “I think if you’re gonna write about it, you should at least suffer over it a little. Lazy writing about lazy music for lazy readers—now that’s a sin, darlings.” — Bitter Betty

19. When the wind dies in Chico and it’s over 100, and your Local Bastard’s moist, pale, hairless thighs are splayed wide around his failing swamp cooler…

20. “INITIATION OF DEATH … at the world’s most terrifying university.”

21. (sphincter-wink)

22. The increased low-rise presence has coincided with a high number of Whale Tail sightings.

23. “The 10 members in Tinariwen met at a rebel training camp in Libya and eventually traded their guns for guitars to sing songs of resistance.”

24. (Any resemblance to superheroes or local heroes, living or dead, is miraculous and completely accidental.)

25. Posted Aug. 26 (from Oroville): “I need my 5th-wheel moved next week and I do not have a truck with hitch to move it. I will gladly trade some sexual talents of mine in return for a mover.”

26. punches the biggest cop there straight in the throat

27. You cannot avoid the rest of the cattle who spend their lives squeezing out giant loaves of shit with which the rest of us must consistently make our sandwiches.

28. So, with a white and hairy belly full of beans…

29. “Big shoes, big hands, big voice ‘what can you say? Do the math’ the little girls understand.”— Creedence Clearwater Revisited bio.

30. Get off the bar stool and do something new or yer finished.

31. There has to be a killer emo song in there somewhere: “I’ll never forget our last Halloween together/ You were a sexy pirate and I was Napoleon Dynamite/ and my broken heart was marked-down forever/ as we kissed goodbye under that flashing blue light.”

32. French newscaster Melissa Theuriau is a hottie. And she’s French!

33. Big turd, small pond.

34. Sleepyhead: Kind of like a Dungeons and Dragons club, with vintage effects pedals instead of multi-sided die.

35. Lots of glorious, brightly colored dildos with realistic veins and extra tiny dildos attached for those extra tiny spots.

Feeling sleepy? Tryptophan pooling in the head from too much Bastard? L.B. would like to extend one last big fat thanks to all the inspiring or creative or fun-loving cats and the insane or pretentious or clueless dogs that gave him plenty to sweat about.

Be kind, be honest and try not to take anything too seriously.