Sacramento area community musical theater (esp. DMTC in Davis, 2000-2020); Liberal politics; Meteorology; "Breaking Bad," "Better Call Saul," and Albuquerque movie filming locations; New Mexico and California arcana, and general weirdness.
Notes on Individual Scenes
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I saw this film, I think on September 5, 2025 at the Tower Theater in Sacramento, CA. I was curious about it, because it was mostly filmed in Albuquerque and the Los Lunas/Belen area, representing Bakersfield, California. This is a smart, detective-style movie rewritten with a lesbian plot. The movie is reasonably entertaining, but it suffers a little. Surprisingly, it needs more of a femme fatale. It has some other femmes - notably Chere - but not that special, unique character of the femme fatale. (Maybe Chere is that character in a sequel?)
Various Locations
Car crash site - ?
Creek - Kern River - Not sure about exact location of swimming hole, but propose this possibility (35.579365°, -118.536500°)
Mountain road - Kern County Road near Bodfish, CA. Last view appears to be (35.576859°, -118.536405°)
Mt. Zion Missionary Baptist Church, 825 California Ave.
Globe Motel, 1701 S. Union Ave.
Railroad overpass, 2349 Union Ave.
Ignacio's Appliance, 699 E. Brundage Lane
1530 17th St.
Bakersfield Police Dept., 1601 Truxton Ave.
Bakersfield Californian Building, 1707 Eye St.
Intersection
Building
El Dorado Bakery (can't locate proper address)
New Testament Christian Church, 299 Stine Road
Railroad
Pump Jacks
Church
Bus Stop
Cinema 19, 1224 19th St.
Water Tank
Nile Theater, 1721 19th St.
Intersection
Frosty Queen Express, 2055 Flower St. #4147 (Flower at Mt. Vernon Ave.)
Bus Stop
Stop and Shop Market, 1007 E. Brundage Lane
Dog in Yard
Los Compas Auto Glass Warehouse, 2595 S. Union Ave.
Building
Bus Stops 1 &2
ACW Mufflers, 2129 Edison Highway
Car lot
Fenced Area - New and Used Tire Repairs
Club Cabana, 276 Union Ave.
Exit 222A - ?
Fox Theater, 2001 H St.
Padre Hotel, 1702 18th St.
City Smog, 1705 California Ave.
Striped Building
Street Scene
Signs
Day and Night Market, 355 Chester Ave. (Chester at 4th St.)
Wood-Dale Market, 250 Stine Road
Pump Jacks
Bus Stop and Building
Another Bus Stop
Car Crash Scene
- - - - - - - - -
More Locations
Bedroom
Car Crash site
General Yums Coffee Shop - Helen's Bakery, 1014 San Pedro Dr. NE.
Honey O'Donahue Investigations, Behind Sisters Salon, 1024 San Pedro Dr. NE.
Office
Driving - ? (the mountain isn't quite recognizable)
Trailer Park - Ulibarri and Sons, about 620 N. 7th St., Belen, NM
Trailer - includes view out back of trailer as Corinne gets picked up
Four Way Temple (back of church)
Dead Joey - ?
Bar where Elle plays - Looks like The German-American Club
The German-American Club, Edelweiss am Rio Grande, 4821 Menaul Blvd. NE, Albuquerque (February 15, 2017).
The German-American Club, Edelweiss am Rio Grande, 4821 Menaul Blvd. NE
Looks like they moved that shield with swords from the wall towards the door.
Swimming Pool. Downtown Inn, with the swimming pool, 1213 Central Ave. NW, 12th St. & Central Ave., Albuquerque (Photo taken September 1, 2022.)
Police Station
Old Bernalillo County Courthouse, also called the Annex.
Bernalillo County Courthouse Annex, located at the corner of 5th St. and Tijeras Ave. NW. For MG's scene it looks like they are in the basement. This picture is ground floor, I think.
Bar (Casa Escencia? Rancher's Club?)
Parking lot near Crowne Plaza. Hector's Car Parked (35.107093°, -106.625456°) Hector exits parking lot here (which is actually still in parking lot; 35.107189°, -106.625733°).
Near the Crowne Plaza Hotel, 1901 University Blvd. NE, Albuquerque, NM. Photo taken February 27, 2026.
Desert Road - Shooting Range Rd. (also a Better Call Saul location) (35.125125°, -106.824100°)
Houses - it looks the Kirtland Addition neighborhood.
Mom's House - Kitchen and bedroom
Church and Back of church
Hector's Abuela's house - Looks like Dalies, west of Los Lunas, but where?
Potential Abuela's House (34.808780°, -106.823086°)
Honey's office
Bar - Wild Pony? (4555 NM-314, Los Lunas) Don't know, but kind of looks like it.
Honey's place
Honey's office
Back of church
Wiener Heaven - ?
Church office
Wiener Heaven
Bedroom
Walking on street
Bus stop
Honey's office
Trailer park - What trailer park is this? Ah, it's the same trailer park!
Honey's house
ABQ Street - search - this should be easy, with the tower visible near San Mateo and Central, but for some reason I don't see it.
Restaurant - Trina, perhaps?
Brief glimpse of rail yards building off Second St. SW?
Laundry
Bakersfield Hotel again
Nail Salon
Street scene
All American Barber Shoppe - Downtown, 1833 F St., Bakersfield, CA.
In front of Taco Sal Restaurant, 9621 Menaul Blvd. NE, Albuquerque.
More search scenes
Honey gets in car, with building in background - about 116 Madeira Dr. NE, Albuquerque.
Stunt bus stop next to Fox Executive Offices on Madeira Dr. NE (use red brick as background)
Honey's office
Police office
Back of church
Four-Way Temple exterior, 3020 Princeton Dr. NE, near Princeton & Candelaria NE. Photo taken March 1, 2026.
Four-Way Temple exterior near Princeton & Candelaria NE. Photo taken March 1, 2026.
Courthouse basement
Driving - bus stop
Huning Highlands neighborhood. Honey parks at intersection of Silver Ave. and Edith Blvd. SE.
MG's house - 301 Edith Blvd. SE
Stretcher
White-tiled hallway
Police office
Driving downtown ABQ, at Gold Ave. - View of Honey, Westbound (!) on Gold Ave. SW at 6th St. View of intersection, northbound on 6th St. at Gold Ave.
This is the location where Qiryat Merari Ceyeli-Gomez, or Rari for short, someone I barely knew from Zumba class, died in a car wreck on July 3, 2017. It's located on Sunrise Blvd. at a curve a short distance south of Douglas Blvd. in Roseville. I wasn't able to visit this place until December 1, 2017. At midnight on the following night, on December 1-2, 2017, I was in a high-speed car accident on Highway 50 in West Sacramento, from which I escaped injury almost completely. I figured the only reason I survived essentially uninjured was because I visited Rari's wall first, and she protected me in some spiritual way. So, this place is sacrosanct to me. I don't visit often. But I did visit on Sept. 14, 2025.
"Accomplice" is a delightful show. It is directed by friend John Ewing and features Katie Smith-Induni, with whom I was in "Bye, Bye Birdie" with in 2018. The show was written by Rupert Holmes, the Englishman who sings the PiƱa Colada song. The show has a unique premise, which makes it special, and about which I'm not supposed to say anything. Go see it! One more weekend!
It's Coming! The skeleton pictures I took on August 17th and 19th, making them the earliest Halloween decorations I've ever seen, by far. The masks are currently at Broadway Costumes, on Franklin Blvd.
In the Sixties, demonstrations tended to be paroxysmal and associated with distinct political events. The demonstrations of Trump II are different; a marathon, not a sprint. I've reoriented my Saturdays to focus on protest, particularly the anti-ICE protests at Howe about Arden, 12-2 p.m.
The experience of protesting involves getting good feedback and dealing with bad feedback. Fortunately these sorts of anti-Trump demonstrations are popular with most Sacramentans. Lots of people honk their car horns while waiting for the light to change at the intersection, and more honk when they start moving again. Still, there are people who disagree with us. I see people fumbling with their rusty hands and relearning how to throw the middle finger.
I see my role as being to walk up and down the sidewalk, making eye contact with people waiting in the left-turn lane, bidding hello to people, having brief conversations, acknowledging horn honks with a "we're not worthy" dip of my protest signs, and basically functioning like the human Facebook equivalent of a "Like" symbol to their expressions of support. I like the engagement with people. It's much harder to get that kind of interaction at other kinds of protests, like banner drops, where the protesters are not at street level.
This last Saturday (Sept. 13th) I had some fun interactions.
One of the protesters likes to speak through a megaphone at drivers while they wait at the light. She reads good educational material from a prepared text on the screen of her phone. Looking at her phone, she had just pivoted on the sidewalk and started walking north again, when I saw a woman in a car in the right turn lane decide to ambush her.
The car had an open sunroof. The woman picked up a large cup from her center console and hurled what appeared to be fruit punch through the sunroof at the protester. Trouble was, the edge of the cup struck the edge of the sunroof. Fruit punch sprayed all over the interior of the woman's car, across the top of the car, onto the pavement outside, and basically absolutely everywhere except on its intended target.
Some of the protesters were a little unnerved when a fellow drove his convertible into the parking lot and started staring at us. The fellow was wearing a red cap with white lettering spelling out "Whiteboy." With his Popeye looks he appeared to be a caricature from backwoods Appalachia. I exchanged a few words with him when he first arrived and I didn't think he posed a threat (but you never know).
There isn't much time to get messages across. Sometimes you think of better comebacks only long after the interactions. A fellow drove up and asked in wondrous but defeatist tones: "Do you think that any of what you are doing accomplishes anything?" I replied, "Yes, I can't think of a better way to use my time right now." He replied "Oh!" Later, I realized I should have explained further that the protest also has expression on social media - TikTok, Facebook, and the like - and thus a larger reach than was available for Sixties protesters.
Walking up and down the sidewalk I say hello to folks, but then I saw a balding white man at the wheel of a pickup truck muttering to himself. His eyes were blinking fast. It looked like he was about to stroke out from unwillingly viewing political opponents on his day off. So, I pressed in, walking into the stationary traffic with my signs, making certain he could clearly see them. The man refused to interact, but I looked over to another vehicle with two black women inside, who were watching the scene unfold. They had big grins on their faces.
Another balding man driving his pickup truck out of the parking lot didn't roll down his window, but he did take off his red cap to show me the "Make America Great Again" lettering. Wow, the pickup truck's paint job was on a MAGA theme. I vigorously shook my head. We didn't exchange any words.
I decided to get aggressive with my new protest signs for this Saturday. Since leftists are completely cleared in Charlie Kirk’s killing, it’s time to celebrate by pitting fascist factions against each other. Did Nick Fuentes or Laura Loomer order Kirk’s execution? Or did someone else? Was it actually Tyler Robinson’s idea to shoot Kirk? Or maybe he did it just for the 4chan lolz? If so, we are deeper down the rabbit hole than I thought. From the limited-information available on Friday, September 12th, when I made the sign, I decided to go with the conservative Mafia gang war angle - the angle that is most-useful for liberals right now.
A driver waiting for the light to change called me over. "Do you support the killing of Charlie Kirk?" he asked. I knew immediately where he wanted to lead this conversation, and I didn't want to go there. "Well, that's an interesting question," I answered. I stalled with evasions and prevarications, but time was running out. The light was about to change. He cut to the chase. "That's the trouble with you nutjob liberals!" he exploded in rage. I shouted back at him too. I stepped out of moving traffic back into the stationary right-turn lane, where I was immediately startled by loud, enthusiastic cheers from four teenage girls leaning out the windows of their sedan, who had witnessed the entire confrontation.
Charlie Kirk came up again. A woman bravely shouted from a pickup truck in the left turn lane, "Thank you for reminding me what a great man Charlie Kirk was!" I replied, "Charlie Kirk was a BAD MAN. A very BAD MAN!"
Elsewhere - I couldn't identify the vehicle - I heard a sincere, plaintive wail: "Charlie Kirk was a FATHER!" I shouted back that Charlie Kirk was a BAD MAN. I probably should have gone further about all the murdered school kids in America and how they have fathers too, but there just wasn't time.
The role of a protester isn't to be nice, it's to be truthful. It's time to start getting rough with conservatives and their sickening excuses for murder. This is especially the case now, when people are being fired from their jobs just for expressing their opinions.
My protest signs for this Saturday’s protest at Howe about Arden, in Sacramento. Since leftists are completely cleared in Charlie Kirk’s killing, it’s time to celebrate by pitting fascist factions against each other.
[UPDATE (9/15/25): I see Google corporate office in India is checking out these pictures. The Censored hammer may come down on these soon!]
I'm still trying to wrap my mind around the idea that the shooting of Charlie Kirk is part of the Groyper Wars. There may be a conspiracy here yet. I’m wondering, did Nick Fuentes or Laura Loomer order Kirk’s execution? Or did someone else? Was it Tyler Robinson’s idea to shoot Kirk?
Kirk was a hateful troll helping feed young men into the far-right echo chamber via Turning Point USA.
The Groyper Army, under Nick Fuentes, are an even more hate filled alt-right online group of agitators. They and their leader Fuentes had a war going against Charlie Kirk for being too soft.
In 2019, Fuentes & his trolls began their Groyper War of systematically showing up to harass Charlie Kirk when he appeared speaking at public events. Groypers are terminally online, think their endless memes are clever and spread their poison transnationally.
Journalist and college professor Stacey Patton goes viral by penning a stunningly powerful statement about how she was on Charlie Kirk’s “digital hit list” and recounting the horror that he inflicted on her.
We cannot allow this tragic assassination to whitewash Kirk’s legacy…
“I am on Charlie Kirk’s hit list,” Patton wrote to her 215,000 followers on Facebook. “His so-called ‘Professor Watchlist,’ run under the umbrella of Turning Point USA, is nothing more than a digital hit list for academics who dare to speak truth to power. I landed there in 2024 after writing commentary that inflamed the MAGA faithful. And once my name went up, the harassment machine roared to life.”
“For weeks my inbox and voicemail were deluged. Mostly white men spat venom through the phone: ‘bitch,’ ‘c*nt,’ ‘n****r.’ They threatened all manner of violence,” she continued.
“They overwhelmed the university’s PR lines and the president’s office with calls demanding that I be fired,” Patton wrote. “The flood was so relentless that the head of campus security reached out to offer me an escort, because they feared one of these keyboard soldiers might step out of his basement and come do me harm.”
“And I am not unique,” she added.
“Kirk’s Watchlist has terrorized legions of professors across this country. Women, Black faculty, queer scholars, basically anyone who challenged white supremacy, gun culture, or Christian nationalism suddenly found themselves targets of coordinated abuse,” Patton wrote.
“Some received death threats. Some had their jobs threatened. Some left academia entirely. Kirk sent the loud message to us: speak the truth and we will unleash the mob!” she continued.
“That is the culture of violence Charlie Kirk built. He normalized violence. He curated it, monetized it, and sicced it on anyone who dared to puncture his movement’s lies,” she wrote.
“And now, in the wake of his shooting, there’s all this national outpouring of mourning, moments of silence, yellow prayer hands, and tributes painting him as a civil debater,” Patton continued. “But the truth is that Kirk and his foot soldiers spent years terrorizing educators, trying to silence us with harassment and fear!”
“And now the same violence he unleashed on others has come full circle.”
“But what i find especially jarring is the dissonance in public mourning for a smug white man whose life work was actively hostile to certain groups,” she continued. “Kirk spent years demonizing LGBTQ people, mocking gun survivors, spewing racism about Black folks, and pushing policies that literally shorten lives.”
“It is so revolting to watch a bipartisan wave of grief sweep over this hateful racist as if he was a neutral community servant,” she concluded.
This is pure unvarnished truth from Patton. Charlie Kirk did not deserve what happened to him, but nor did his victims deserve the hell that he unleashed on them. If Americans are going to build a more peaceful future for ourselves we must condemn political violence while also condemning the hateful, bigoted rhetoric that made Kirk a multimillionaire.
We need to strike a posthumous medal to Charlie Kirk for lack of self-awareness. Darwinian rules apply equally to everyone. That's why it's important not to celebrate political violence.
And speaking about the assassination, here is video summary:
I'm sorry, but this is Karma at work. No better justice has ever been served.
“BurnBot is a huge, Zamboni-like vehicle that executes precisely controlled burns of flammable grass alongside buildings and roadways.
It’s designed to create fire breaks — lines of charred land — that keep flames from spreading.
When plants do grow back, instead of invasive, combustible grasses, it’s typically native, more fire-resistant vegetation.”