One of My Faves - Blind Lady Ale House

Blind Lady Ale House (BLAH) - Normal Heights

Recently, a great establishment opened up in my area. Actually, it may be the perfect business to open up in Normal Heights!

Blind Lady Ale House is situated just east of the Normal Heights sign on Adams. It inhabits what was recently a French bakery and restaurant called A La Francaise.

This ale house is a godsend for beer aficionados. Beer consultant, brewer, hat model and all around good guy Lee Chase is one of the principals of this hot spot. And it shows!

The attention to detail in pouring the perfect glass of beer is evident from the pre-rinsing of every glass to touch beer to the pouring system to the appropriate pour level in the perfect glasses for that particular draft. But most of, the Ace selection of beer that Lee hand-picks for the bar.

The pub is warm in tones, child & family friendly, and offers the crowd a comfortable and clean environment. The crowd is diverse and db-factor (douchebag) is low. Unlike most brew-pubs in San Diego, BLAH is not a sausage party! The mix of men and women is more even than most.

They have listened to their customers and put in custom made made overhead, recycled acoustic panels that dampen the noise.

Out of the kitchen, BLAH offers up pizza, salads, cheese plates and other dishes. They are organic and local as much as possible. Prices are affordable and portions are reasonable.

Blind Lady Ale House - It's about the beer here!

3416 Adams Avenue, San Diego CA 92116

This is On the Real

DOA - Boombox Thursday

How do you know that a place is dead?

I went to Boombox Thursday at Air Conditioned on Adams Avenue. It was around 12:30 am, they were giving away free booze from Sailor Jerry's and there was no cover. Yet inside, in this prime period when drunk and fun find a common ground, there were less 20 people inside.

Let me reiterate. There was free booze and no cover. And nobody showed up.

It pains me to say these things, but it isn't like I haven't uttered them to friends before. I have even met with Edgartronic with a colleague to try to determine how to get his event more traffic. But unless DJ Edgartronic and DJ Groundfloor do something pronto, this night at AC is going to die, fast. This is kind of sad, since my crew and I have been hitting this spot up since last summer. I know the DJs personally and have actually had fun here in the past. So I hope that they heed these words and take it for what it is...mean girl tough love.

Like I said, this has been said before to the players in the game. But because of lack of visual proof of forward progress, it seems as though our thoughts and suggestions have fallen on deaf ears. But here are some of the thoughts that we have bandied about in the recent past.

• Better Promotion: these two DJs can't just spin records. They need to be marketing their event as well. Instead, what I've been observing is an utter laziness with these two. At one point, I saw a weekly presence on their Myspace and Facebook profiles and event posts on Yelp. Now, I see last minute posts that smack of being an afterthought.
• Better Performances: the feeling I get are both these guys are either stagnant or unmotivated. Groundfloor has been doing a better job than Edgartronic recently. 'tronic seems to be calling it in half the time. Groundfloor has it in him to be a respectable DJ, and I kind of feel that the constraints of Boombox is doing him a disservice.
• More interactivity with the audience: Part of the allure of an event are the DJs. Both these guys show little to no stage presence when they are on the decks. There is the occasional "Hey Boombox!" but it seems forced and insincere. Is there anything sadder in a club than a DJ with little or no emotion and the personality of an iPod
• Newer/Fresher sets: How many times can you play the same songs and sets before the audience gets bored with it? I have been hearing the same jams from these two for months. Playing nearly the same set week in and week out is basically slapping your loyal following in the face. If we want to hear those songs over and over, we'll listen to your mixed cds, thank you very much.
• Follow up on success: In the past year, DJ Edgartronic has been nominated as one of the top club DJs in the city by SDMA, he has had a Night & Day article written about him, and has gotten a gig at X1FM.com. He has done very little to nothing to capitalize on these opportunities and exposure. I would be very surprised if Edgartronic will be getting another nomination this year as there have been some insanely great DJs that have come into their own in the past 12 months. But more than anything, Edgartronic has not shown growth musically nor promotionally as he should have.

I don't know if any of these suggestions are going to help this late in the game. I have a feeling that, without their friends, this night out would have zero people coming. They have taken a potentially hot start to the weekend, and killed it with their lack of motivation and inspiration.

Give us a reason for coming out, boys. There is no good reason for me, or anyone else for that matter, to start our weekend off on the slow tip. Because if you are too lazy to do something dramatic and drastic, I have no reason to even bother showing up at your lame ass attempt at fun.

This is ON THE REAL!