The Tower and Capitol Tour Ends on a Sour Note

Just as Junk Thief and Mr. Sullivan were wrapping up their tour of Sacramento and what seemed to be a perfect day, Mr. Sullivan looked into the face of one of the ornamental figures and screamed as he saw it morph into the face of his arch nemisis....
...Dr. Baumgartner. Just when Junk Thief was ready to tell Mr. Sullivan that he was imagining things, they both heard a Germanic voice say, "And vhat doo yoo tink dis means?"

Ornamental Near Overload!

But just when Mr. Sullivan thought he'd seen it all, he suddenly became all gaspy as he saw ornamental details in the capitol complex honoring the virile working men...
....Oooooh....
.....Ahhhh

A Jewel Is Discovered

Suddenly Mr. Sullivan became very excited as ahead he saw a building of the perfect proportions and provenance.
Ah, the Sutter Club, California's second oldest private club.
Here stood a gentlemen's club worthy of true gentlemen.
The proportions, the ornamentation.
All was perfect.
Fey and formidable all at once.
The corbels delighted Mr. Sullivan.
The covered walkway echoed some of his Chicago buildings.
At first Junk Thief and Mr. Sullivan thought this must be a Julia Morgan design, but then they learned it was the work of Charles Dean.

Me Men to Match My Mo

Junk Thief was anxious to get Mr. Sullivan's take on the capitol complex.
Suddenly, out of nowhere, Thomas Eakins appeared and snuggled up to Mr. Sullivan.

"Geez, why don't you two get a room!" shouted Junk Thief.

"We're taking our stand against Proposition 8."

All eyes then spied a profound motto across the plaza atop a structure of the bankrupt bureaucracy: "Me Men to Match My Mo." Words to live by.

It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like X-Street

Junk Thief and Mr. Sullivan continued their tour of Sacramento along X-Street and then towards its historical core.

Mr. Sullivan found its display of signage quaint and reminiscent of towns such as Elkhart and Grinnell.

Little Capitol on the Prairie

Mr. Sullivan and Junk Thief drove over to Sacramento today. As we zipped east of Davis, Mr. Sullivan turned and asked, "Do they have skyscrapers in Sacramento?"

"Well, they're more like sky 'reachers'. They don't reach quite high enough to actually scrape the sky."

Not unlike Chicago...or Des Moines...or Omaha...or Kansas City...or Indianapolis -- suddenly on the horizon of the prairie, the Sacramento "skyline" appeared.

"Oh, dear," Mr. Sullivan exclaimed. "They're not exactly structures of juicy proportions."

"More like squirty proportions."
The tour of Sacramento began at 16th and Broadway in the Tower District which is now something of a mausoleum of retail chains past.
It was here that the original Tower Records morphed out of the Tower drug store. Thus, the original sign references cosmetics and film in the plural form.
Mr. Sullivan appraised the extant Tower Theater. Though he found the structure's spire to be appropriately virile, he was dismissive of the surrounding palm trees. "Though fully erect, they are not indigenous. All landscaping should think of aboriginal foliage and fauna."
Within the tombs of the original Tower Records and Books are now R5 Records and just plain Records which were next door to each other. The former had a wretched selection and the drugged out goth staff ignored the sole visiting customer since they considered talking about last night's drug use of higher importance.
The latter was even more disheveled, but the drugged out staff were friendly, and there was a resident cat that reminded Junk Thief and Mr. Sullivan of a Valencia Street used book store. There were DVDs, VHS tapes and records haphazardly strewn about the floor. They had an impressive collection of not only vintage jazz LPs but also of 78s!