A+E

"Sorry, dude," the bartender replies. "We're a beer and wine bar."

My friend begrudgingly asks for "anything Canadian," and quietly mutters a few other complaints about the establishment—most having to do with the disappointing male-to-female ratio on this night.

"Excuse me," I say to the bartender. "I understand Sporting News recently named you guys one of the top 25 sports bars in America."

"We're a ‘sports' bar?" the baffled barkeep replies. "Best dive bar maybe."

Huh. At this point, I notice a banner hanging near the door that reads: Now Serving Cocktails. I point it out to my friend, who quickly points it out to the bartender.

"Yeah," the bartender says, holding aloft a small bottle, "but it's like $6 for a tiny appletini like this." So it's not that they don't serve cocktails—it's just that the bartender is kind enough to save patrons from ripping themselves off. That must've been what the Sporting News was getting at: good sportsmanship.

1. Jarring TV Juxtaposition of the Week, or Mmmm Plop: Catching David Carradine's mesmerizing turn in Kill Bill Vol. 2 on TNT, and then, channel surfing, seeing him in a commercial that requires him to intone "Yellow Book dot commmmm ..." That is the sound of self-respect melting away.

2. Jarring Local Newspaper Website Juxtaposition of the Week, or Mmm, Mmm, Human: A September 20 Review-Journal online story that read, "A Reno company that obtains and sells human bones and tissue for transplant operations has sued one of its workers and alleged he stole tendons" was wrapped around an R-J restaurant-guide ad showing a big plate of BBQ ribs. Mystery solved, finger lickin' good, it's all in the sauce—you add the punch line.

Those crazy dreamers who run the Goldwell Open Air Museum—a sculpture park near the ghost town of Rhyolite—have this idea for an artists' community out there. A place where artists can squirrel away for a while to create new work. If that seems like the equivalent of Jamaican bobsledding, you should know that they have development grants from the state arts council to get the planning under way, and a top local architect, Eric Strain, to help.

Design meeting, Wednesday, September 27, at 6 p.m. in the Michael Wardle Gallery in the Arts Factory. 870-9946.

The Devil and Daniel Johnston (4 stars)

$24.96

The parallels to Wilson's well-documented ordeal are obvious, but comparisons to R. Crumb's brother, Charles, as witnessed in Crumb, are similarly unavoidable. Feurzeig cautions against lumping Johnston into the same class of artists pigeon-holed as being naïve or primitive. To the untrained eye, however, his subject's music and drawings likely would seem more amateurish than the byproduct of genius. Such admirers as Beck, Kurt Cobain and members of Sonic Youth would disagree. This portrait of the artist as a young manic-depressive is informed by the 20 years' worth of obsessively recorded notes, home movies and cartoons, and the recollections of his long-suffering and deeply religious mom and dad, both of whom deserve a place in the parents' hall of fame.

Also touching is the documentation of Johnstone's unrequited love affair with a college friend who only recently learned of her muse status. Their reunion, included in the bonus material, is heartbreaking. Anyone looking for more evidence of Johnston's talent will find it in expanded interviews, radio recordings, concert footage and commentary.