Reno, it’s just a stretch of desert. A  t least it used to be a stretch of desert. But the men and women who built this city on silver and meth turned it into something different. Time hasn’t changed Reno much, it’s still a place for the occasional dreamer to hang their hat and try to live whatever way they see fit.

14 years ago when I was still within the breadth of my infantile naivete my new step father promised my family the dream that is Reno and like so many before us we ate it up. The dream has been there as long as people have been. For each person it’s different, but has similar hopes.   So when we finally realized the dream was hollow we were too entrenched in the town to get out. It can take a lot to be driven to make the best of a situation, but that we did.

My brother and step father truly made the most out of it while I was stuck in the same ditch of constant repetition and agony as my mother. Until my brother started to show me what he and others had made out of it, that was when I was driven into the heart of the great monster, and that was when I was happy…

…but that really is the story of the west isn’t it? A gaggle of misfits and refugees driven towards something unattainable who craft their surroundings to fit their needs and resemble their homes. It’s macro-evolution at it’s finest. I told Gay Rodeo that the starting demographic form something, and then others glob onto what the demographic has made it. Every time you attend a show, or buy a cup of coffee, or buy a sandwich you are shaping Reno for the next dreamer who comes along. Some say buy local to support your area, I say do what you want and what interests you so that the city can always have your dollar vote for what you do.

- Ascuaga Cowboy

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I had a wonderful dream last night.

Considering I don’t usually dream, being one of those that has hardly any recollection from the time I fell asleep and woke up, it’s more like time travel than sleeping.  I just put myself in some pause before I find it is daylight again.  Sleep also doesn’t come easily for me, as you’ll see from back posts, I sometimes am up for quite a while, missing sleep over various things.

Last night, however, was not that.  After a weekend of visiting some of my favorite nighttime haunts, the TOXIC party (which went without a hitch, I might add…) and chasing fish at Lake Davis all day yesterday, perhaps my neurotic brain finally said, “Okay, you can have a relaxing night of rest now.   Sleep, my wicked,  sleep.”

I found myself in a fascinating scenario.  I was at what I thought was two places, but was actually one.  In some business that doesn’t exist, downtown Reno if my recollection serves me right,  I was observing a wall of used stereo speakers, kitchen ware and bins full of random wires.  There were washers, dryers, bikes, crappy jewelry and even guns.  I then noticed something interesting out the corner of my eye:  a woman in a white dress, next to a man in a tuxedo.  They were purchasing something, and headed inside a creepy back room.  At the counter, I noticed they also do weddings.  They do weddings?  Who the hell are they?

Much to my shock, in dreamland, I had entered the  “Thrift Chapel.”  Not only could you wander into this place and pick up a teapot with a broken handle, you could also find yourself getting hitched inside the chapel, a 1970’s decorated monstrosity.  Complete with orange, avocado, red and gold stained glass, red shag carpet and wood paneling everywhere.  It clashed wonderfully with the stark, hospital-white tiles in the thrift store entry.  Scratched glass display cases weren’t just for old rings and “expensive,” treasures, they also acted as tablet and witness to the nuptial signatures scratching into legal paperwork.   The sight was finished with people attempting to dress nicely from the clothing racks underneath the bare-bulb fluorescent lights as bad organ music (from one of the quintessential used “dead grandmother organs,” you see in any thrift store, no less) chiming from beyond the doors of the chapel.

It was something that probably could really be acheived in Reno, and only Reno.

This comes at a time when I have been using my spare time to crawl the trift stores in Reno, so I’m not shocked at the notion of such a dream.  Strangely, I’m combining something I like (trift stores), with something I loathe (weddings), but perhaps it is a means to something I have wanted to talk about.

Many thrift stores have become expensive — too expensive.  Long gone seem the days when most items are fifty cents or $1.00, $5.00 being something REALLY swank.  Enter the days where for-profit stores gouge you on prices on everything from used ladies blouses for $15 to $450 couches.   $100 used tube televisions, $18 coffeemakers, $20 binoculars with missing lenses…

…do I have to remind anyone that thrift stores are supplied by DONATION?

Something really reeks about a company that makes many hundreds of thousands of dollars in profits from people giving them something.  That’s called 100% profit that last time I checked.  Their workers usually are not paid very much, the stores are serious pain in the ass to keep organized (screaming children running about tearing things apart is always a joy) and yet, over the last 10 years, I’ve noticed prices of thrift stores probably triple to quadruple.  Economic times and inflation is one thing, but I can’t find a good reason this is happening in this case.

It isn’t to say this is happening to all of them, the Washoe Association for Retarted Citizens (Washoe ARC, WARC), or the SPCA of Northern Nevada thrift,  as  examples,  are still doing it they way it should be done, nay, the CORRECT way.  They are still non-profit, donation-run, and not price gouging.  They both also do something great for people (or animals) who otherwise have little ability to help themselves in life.

I also can’t boldly claim larger “chain,” thrift stores and organizations, such as Salvation Army, Goodwill or even Savers does nothing, but given the circumstance, they’re more interested in being companies than they are helping.  The Salvation Army is a good place to point out some negative standpoints, because while yes, they have bell ringers that collect during the holidays for the needy, and they feed people during the cold winter months, I’ve noticed a change in their stores and their services to the poor.  The food and clothing drives have all but stopped, the lines of the “needy,” they feed are people with better clothing than me, texting away on cell phones and driving near-new cars.  They also have ten times as many workers as they once did, even those irritating “sign wavers,” on the street corners near their outlets.  Prices there have gotten to such a point where I don’t even consider looking in there except for very certain items.  I can buy 90% of what they have in there for the same or even less new at a store.

Savers and Goodwill have probably gotten to be just as bad, even larger, examples of where thrift is going.

Savers “big season,” is now Halloween, where they bring in 30% - 40% new items, NEW items, to sell as costuming.  Okay, granted, they buy this stuff, but they are still getting people in there to buy their items they got for free at severely marked up prices, which raise about 20% overall in clothing and accessories.  Meanwhile, you get to hear advertisements telling you what a great person you are by preventing this stuff from going into a landfill.  Fuck you, Savers.   I do not condone price tag swapping, because it is illegal, but I’d be shocked if most of the shoppers in there weren’t doing such things.

Goodwill has been in Reno less time than Savers or the Salvation Army, with donation-only spots in Wingfield springs and in Double Diamond (we wouldn’t want the better-to-do driving into the rat’s nest, now would we…) so I’m not sure their ways.  I do know they are much more nationally established, especially in the Midwest and in California.  What I have noticed, however, shopping there has shown that prices have raises at least 20% - 30% in the few years they have been here.  Again, for donated items they get for free.

Back to my dream, I probably was excited because the Thrift Chapel was something of a novelty.  Combining two things, shotgun weddings and thrift stores, into a collaboration of pure Reno.   This is because thrifting is dying art, both to the proprietor and the buyer.  If thrift stores continue to overcharge and people stop buying their used merchandise (which will happen; their buying demographic has a few limitations, if that wasn’t obvious)… they will inevitably turn into low-level antique stores, or, they will close altogether.  This leaves a gaping hole towards people like myself, and those less fortunate, all in the name of profit.  Mind you, profit is a GOOD thing.  The problem is, profit is something you work for, you earn, from your effort or your design.  Price gouging on donated items is about one step above stealing something and selling it, if you ask me.

If you shop, or in particular, donate items to thrift stores in town, please visit the following locations:

- Easter Seals on Plumb Lane (North of Costco, across from Wooster High)

- Any WARC location (Keystone, Gentry, Wells, Sutro)

- St. Vincints Dining Room and Thrfit Store (4th Street)

- Reno Sparks Gospel Mission/Thrift Depot (4th Street or Gentry and Kietzke)

- SPCA of Northern Nevada Thrift (4th St. at Morrill Ave)

- The Assistance League of Reno Sparks (ALRS, on Vassar between Kietzke and Harvard Way)

These are local non-profit thrift stores with the intention of helping people (and even animals) in need, people here in Reno.  They rely on the simple concept that by helping people on both ends of business (the buyer and the beneficiary) they will help everyone.  It is a fine form of capitalism that is fun, cheap, and being threatened by a new concept of “thrift.”  By donating to non-profit, you give your items back to the community, not outside Reno, or paying for someone’s new Escalade.  At the very least, if something is priced a little high, more of those dollars are staying here.

So will the “Thrift Chapel,” ever become more than a dream? Can I expect to see someone piecing together a tux and a dress from store racks, the gift list being whatever you think they new couple might need from mismatched retail shelves?  Toasters wrapped in newspaper?  Silverware sets that mostly match?  Tennis shoes instead of patent-leather, all going into a strange back room with shag carpet and a preacher wearing jeans?

Probably not.  It just reminded me that there’s something going on with people’s concept of charity these days that bothers the living shit out of me.  Charity helps people more than anything, the good graces of people of all walks of life, rich and poor, into giving back and making better a community, Reno in particular.  There’s a spirit of such things that needs to stick around because it truly is a winning situation for all sides, rather than just for one.  I really feel if you want to make money, you should do it, and go for it, but I have to defend those institutions that have been around for a long time in concept and practice that work for everyone involved.

- GR

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Not many people know this about me, but I’m a proud kayaker.  Not the kind you see playing like otters in the rapids at the Whitewater Park in the Truckee at downtown Reno, but more the calm, casual, exploratory fashion.  I haven’t found an outdoor sport yet that ties in many of my personal interests and hobbies so well.  Fishing, exploration, the water, solitude, portablility, and best of  all, being cheap.

For less than the price of a motorcycle, many bicycles, a laptop computer or a Playstation 3 with all the trimmings, you can be set up for many years to even a lifetime of possibility, physical fitness, endless discovery and challenge.  Some like the environmentally-friendly aspect to kayaking, some are into the psychologically-friendly aspect of it.  Whatever your approach, since you have a choice of where to get your kayak these days with huge outdoor-oriented stores popping up in town, you should give a chance to Bob Krause over at Kayaks Etc. in Sparks.

Before I was aware of Bob’s great store at 424 S. Rock Blvd, I had already purchased a kayak.  It’s a 10 footer, recreational, nothing too fancy, but I’m happy with it and it gets the job done.  Outfitted with a fishing rod holder and a few personal extras like extra flotation and pirate flag sticker, I was attempting to find a place with better accessory choices.  R.E.I. by Costco had apathetic employees, high prices and a poor selection of gear.  Scheels usually is pretty good, but they usually only carry the basics.  Sportsman’s Warehouse has a limited selection of kayaks, less paddles and is frequently out of stock of important items.  Cabela’s keeps their kayaks locked up outside, and has a poor selection of both accessories, kayaks and has very high prices.

Hearing about Kayaks Etc., I had hoped that maybe the local guy could do one better than all the big retailers.  In the face of corporate juggernauts descending on the outdoor enthusiast part of Reno, like any local or small business, it is about innovation and picking up the slack where the bigger guys usually can’t keep up.  Offering things like one of a kind items, hard to find items, being competitive on price and personal service has to be the best way of staying afloat, so to speak, in a consumer world.

Kayaks Etc. isn’t easy to find, but I also don’t give up easily.  There’s a little-known shopping center at the intersection of Rock and Hymer Avenue in Sparks (between I-80 and Baldini’s)  small signs, with a dark paint on the roof.   Towards the back of the L-shaped center is Kayaks Etc.  Usually you can find the place with people’s brightly colored kayaks parked outside!  I was greeted happily by a sweet, big-headed dog named Roxanne when I walked in the door, and Bob apologizing for her excitable nature.  She’s a sweet dog, no apology needed.  Just a few learned skills to help her mind her manners and all was well.

Bob Krause, the owner of Kayaks Etc., is a friendly man, overflowing with advice and experience for kayakers new and veteran alike.  He greeted me like anyone should with a local business, with a casual, personal nature, passion and with sincerity.  I instantly found many things I was looking for.  A paddle leash.  A spray skirt.  Extra bungee deck rigging.  Rigging eyes.  Books.  It was as if someone had taken every complaint about the big stores mentioned above and catered a store just for me.

Beyond that, I was also looking at the prices for kayaks.  Impressive.

Even with the buying power of the big stores, Kayaks Etc. still beats them on their prices.  Sure, they’ll have sales now and then, knocking off $50, but they don’t get better than that.  Bob’s prices are better.   Believe me, I’m a smart shopper and I had to wait for cheap-man’s clearance before I got a boat.   I probably could have gotten a better deal at Bob’s store had I any patience.

Hopefully I can make up for my impatient ways for letting everyone know where Bob is, and that Kayaks Etc., if you have any curiosity at all, is the place you should head to first.

Maybe you’re thinking now, “Geez, I’ve been kayaking for YEARS!  What can Kayaks Etc. do for me?”  A lot more than the bigger stores will do.  Why?  Bob actually repairs and upgrades kayaks, the wooden kind, the plastic kind, and the composite kind, old ones to new ones.  From sea kayaks to river, Bob will take it all on.  He’ll even help you install the bits and pieces you might not have had time for, but have always wanted to add.  Just ask him!

For casual, relatively new folks to this sport, kayaking opens doors to the lifestyle we enjoy here in Reno.  We’re close to millions of gallons of beautiful water within minutes.  Water that can only be partially appreciated from the shore, and isn’t quite as personal from a boat or motorized craft.  Kayaking is very, very personal.  It makes the simple fisherman an angler.  It turns a beachgoer into an explorer.  It takes day travel, lunches, and simple afternoons and makes them into small vacations.   It can turn a river into a white-knuckle ride, and make working out and being outside an effortless joy.  Even poor bastards  not particularly athletic or coordinated like me can take advantage of it.   Another part of kayaking that gets better as you get into it is the customizing your rig however you like.  Making it faster, carry more, flexible, portable, is all easy if you have  a little help and ingenuity.

Can you tell it’s something I like yet?

That, and supporting local business is a good thing.  Enjoying where you live is a good thing.  As I fully support people trying new things, being open minded and willing to step outside of your boundaries is what GHR is, at least partially, about.   Want to try something new?  Already an enthusiast and want to get your boat fixed or add that important pice?

Go see Bob at Kayaks Etc.!

Click here for the Kayaks Etc. website!

- GR

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Seriously. Someone (David G. Schwartz) was bored enough to go around taking photographs of casino carpet. I suppose in some circles, you don’t see things like this too often. Garish, unending patterns meant to hide the cigarette burns, bile, beer and blood that casinos tend to generate. Casino carpet is also theoretically bulletproof, because they probably don’t want to close up shop just to replace the carpet every few years.

These patterns are not something you’ll ever find in an office building, a hospital, or a concert hall. Nope, these are exclusively a casino thing. Maybe a movie theater or a porn shop, but mostly casinos.

The amusing and slightly touching (if gambling nostalgia touches you…) is that some of these casinos are now gone, or the carpet has been upgraded completely.

Here are a few examples:

The Club Cal-Neva, Reno

(Old School!) Peppermill, Reno

The Golden Phoenix (now unoccupied luxury condos), Reno

Fitzgerald’s, closed, Reno

(Particularly garish Old School!) Reno Hilton, now the Grand Sierra Resort, Reno

The rest of the photos can be see here, at dieiscast.com, (also, all pictures courtesy of aforementioned).

Kind of a pointless post, I know, but I haven’t done any Reno history in a while, and this is sort of in that same area. I mean, someone really likes casino carpet. They obviously gave Reno a fair shot at competing against the Atlantic City (gag) and Las Vegas (fuck off, Clark County) juggernauts, but in my opinion, Reno probably, in it’s fame to hang on to the old and functional for just a little longer than most, probably had and has the best casino carpet representation out there. Or, maybe I’m just biased.  Thanks, David, if you happen across this.

-GR

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Those wacky funnyboys (and girls!) of comedy Reno are doing it again, this time, at the Methodist Chruch on First Street.  Join them for an evening of funny they pull out of any orifice they can.  They aren’t filthy, I know, I just made it sound that way.  Their own words rather than my own dirtiness:

“Empire Improv is Reno’s comedy alternative. Empire Improv’s house team Hostel Greetings and the student team Have Fine will be performing long form improv; what’s that? Comedy that we make up as we go along. We create a brand new show right before your eyes for the first and last time, every time. Hostel Greetings is Ben Craig, Tim Dufrisne, and Michael Lewis. Have Fine is Ben Craig, Doug Long, Joanna Dunlap, Shawna Hafen and Tim Dufrisne. Our shows are all ages, but we recommend them for ages 17 and up.”

If you are curious yourself about doing some of this kind of thing, they offer classes.  More info available at their website… yes, click this.

May 29th, $10, 8PM, the cement church at 209 W. First St.
-GR

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Recently I decided to fold in God Hates Reno into the world of Twitter.  I did so apprehensively, thinking suddenly my soul was going to get sucked out and danced upon by methed-out satyrs, however, this was not the case.  In fact,  I think in the future it’ll provide a lot of great contacts, discoveries, new friends and ways to reach out to people that I haven’t done before.  That and, without a cell phone from this century, I am not tempted to risk a mugging by 4th Street hookers as I tweet about them…

…or is it the other way around?  Meaning, not me mugging but…  Oh dear.

I’ll get to the point.  Twitter has provided me with my first interest and delving, which is an organization that creatively refers to themselves as “ReMo.”  A cute play on words for our fair town?  Yes.  Hip, semi-abbreviated, semi-acronymic phrase? Yes, as in, “Re-Mustache,” “Reno Mustache,” perhaps!  Doing something to better themselves, people around them, their town and the like?  Oh, well, hell yes!

It seems as if these boys are doing something about cancer.  Not just any cancer, but man cancer.   That’s right, the fist-sized unspeakable bittersweet organ that brings us joy that also can bring us concern as we get older:  the prostate.   As per their poise, and I agree, much of the cancer attention usually is breast-related, or somehow links to Lance Armstrong.  I don’t think any of the supporters of getting rid of cancer altogether would place any cancer above one another, but let’s face it, the breast cancer movement is huge.  Men care about them, women care about them, and I heard even a few suckling babies care about them now and again, too.   As well the movement SHOULD be huge.  Many lives are lost due to ignorance and misinformation about cancer, and this is not acceptable to the human race as a whole.

A quote from the CityOfReMo website that had me in socially unacceptable guffaw:

“Now, the focus of October is on Breast Cancer. Since it probably wouldn’t fly to have anything that resembles a teat on flyers, posters and t-shirts, they go with the pink ribbons. Likewise, it would be incredibly unsightly to have prostates pictured everywhere, so our ribbons will be brown. And made out of hair. And they will go above our lips.”

Cancer isn’t a laughing matter, but one thing I know about cancer survivors is they have one of the greatest renewed leases on life of ANY human being out there. I think they’d be just tickled to know they’re getting even more support in such a manner, and from creative people who obviously care. Truthfully, the idea is catchy and signature, and I think it should get quite well-known. It has a small worldwide following, that shows many signs of doing just that.

It might seem a bit of a travesty, but they actually set aside an event month for their organization, November. Well, going with good ol’ God Hates Reno fresh timing, we’re reporting this to you in May. Take this as we failed, or as I like to say, we’re early for 2009, so shove it! In any case, this will give us ample time to post any events this fine crew has in order to get some more cash for their cause. I mean, what will the future hold? Yours truly in a handlebar? I do need something to pinch and stroke as I write and ponder the Biggest Little, you know, besides the bubbly boys at the bars.

The month officially gets a name change courtesy ReMo, to “Movember,” and the idea is to shave your lip on the first day of said month, allow one month to pass while not shaving said lip, and hence, your support is gained through your brown Man Ribbon, money is donated, people are made aware as they wonder why you look like a 1970’s porn trucker, and the MO-vement is born. The Reno chapter, as you guessed, isn’t very large, but with the head count at 18 as of last year’s event, it is sure to gain some momentum locally. I’ll be sure to help out with that!

Josh Matthews, Don Morrison and Nico Aguilera it seems are the perpetrators of this Reno-side of the idea, and Nico himself is a frequent flyer here at God Hates Reno with his website alfaj0r.com. That’s why small towns can be great; you just never know who you know that you’re going to run into next. In any case, these gents would probably ask that you pop on over to CityOfRemo.com, or twitter them, and send them a message about what you can do seven months from now to prepare for a good cause.

I honestly can’t think of a better way to raise awareness for cancer that you might not always consider, nor a better way to spend a cold November than by warming your upper lip. In all seriousness, cheers to these fellows, their contributors and supporters in their quest to do something awesome, and count myself and the GHR crew and following to help out in any way we can.

- Gay Rodeo

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