Totally, completely, absolutely, unequivocally unofficial blog
These are my opinions, and that's the truth
Those who teach, can
Just twisting an old phrase. Tonight we went to Yoshi’s in Oakland for a benefit concert by a band made up of Oakland Unified School District music teachers. Our friend John Harrington was the trumpet player.
School music teachers are an interesting lot–they are pretty talented musicians, each competent on a variety of instruments, capable of conducting, teaching, composing and structuring a concert or show. Many of them, it seems, have other outlets for performing–as a fund raiser, they were raffling off CDs that they had individually released.
We went with BJ Ledgerwood, just back from 2 weeks in Tanzania, and her friend June.
The good looking members of our group.
The band performed twice tonight, at 7 and at 9. We were at the early show, which had a goodly contingent of young students there to see their teachers perform.
The music was big-band era, with at least on piece written by one of the teachers, and it was as completely professional as you would expect.
Clarinets in this photo, but these guys played saxophone, percussion and flute, as well.
Not being part of the in crowd, we didn’t have reserved seats and were off to the side, so we never really got to see our friend John. I went to the back of the room to get this photo–John is the guy with the trumpet dead center in the back.
Letting it rip for the house.
Music departments need money, and they sure aren’t going to be getting it from the state–or the city, since the Oakland school district is pretty broke. It’s a measure of the devotion these teachers have that they are willing to do this, not for their own benefit but for their students. I’m glad we went.
Flying low
Like flying used to be. Without the glamor, of course.
We were scheduled to come home on the 3 pm flight, but Gail wanted to get back earlier. I call Alaska Air, and they said we could get on the 10 am flight, but the fees would be over $500, more than we had paid in the first place. Not an attractive offer.
Then the agent told me that if I called within 6 hours of the flight time of the new flight, the change fee would be only $25 apiece. That was more like it, but it meant that I had to set my alarm for 5 this morning to call the airline. The things I’ll do for $500.
Here is the fun part of this story–our flight home was on a 2 engine turboprop, on Alaska’s subsidiary, Horizon Air. The flight doesn’t take any longer, and it much more enjoyable, at least if you have a window seat.
We cruised at 23,000 feet, a full two miles closer to the ground than the jets fly. The view was spectacular, high enough to see the wide vista while low enough to see details.
Approach to Oakland took us over Orinda; I got a kick out of seeing the house I grew up in and Miramonte High School.
I’m hardly interested in going back to when it took eight hours to fly from St. Louis to Los Angeles, like it did when we moved out here in 1958, but today sure was fun.
Seattle Spaceneedle
Just found the right place to stand to get a photo I really like.
Max Hipness
We’re in Seattle overnight to visit the kid–except that he’s almost 22, a college senior and not a kid anymore but a grown man. It’s been a pleasure watching him grow and mature, and now he can share Gail’s wine with dinner. I don’t feel any older, how did he get so big?
Anyway, we’re staying at the Hotel Max, a place so hip it hurts. Built over 100 years ago as the Hotel Vance, it was a downtown Seattle landmark for the large neon sign on the roof. In 2005, it was rebuilt as the Max, with original art by local artists simply everywhere. They boast almost 400 pieces of very modern art and photography in the hall, rooms and elevators.
What they don’t boast is size. Remember this is 100 year old building, and they used to build them small. The rooms are petite, delicate, picayune, diminutive, tiny, microscopic. I’ve never seen such small rooms. Henny Youngman told jokes about rooms like this. Fortunately, I brought along my widest wide angle lens:
The room. Notice the utter lack of space.
Now the toilet. Not the bathroom, there is no bath in this cubbyhole:
That's it. All of it.
Now the bathroom. You’re seeing the whole thing–the door is flat against the wall.
The entire 'bath" room. it is approximately 5 feet square.
The most amazing feature is the “closet”. I use that word advisedly because the space in question is only about 8″ deep. The hangars hand at an angle, almost parallel to the rod. It’s astonishingly creative.
That shelf holding the iron is as deep as the closet gets.
There are other features that intrigue me. There is a mini-bar, of course, and then there is a basket of goodies for sale. Most modern hotels offer to provide a razor or toothbrush if you forget to pack yours. This place offers a little razor kit, with a fancy, hi-tech razor made of recycled materials, for $20. A similarly packaged toothbrush is $15. Most interesting is the “intimacy kit”, a small tin filled with a condom and a couple of love oils for the bargain price of $30. Valet parking was $30. Good thing I got the room on Expedia for a very reasonable $112.
Don’t take this wrong–we’ve stayed here before and knew what to expect. We enjoy this quirky, hip bastion of modernism, and will likely stay here again. We just don’t expect spaciousness.
So I’m contrary
Chinese for people who don't really know Chinese
I was at a national tournament once, in someplace like Cleveland or Kansas City or Birmingham, Alabama, and a group of us were going out to dinner. Somebody suggested a Chinese place, and I just flat refused–I live in the Bay Area, where we get the best Chinese food in the country, if not the world, and can’t imagine looking for great Mongolian beef in a town famous for chili with cheese, or ribs, or the production of steel.
I thought of this today while eating lunch at P. F. Chang’s. Why, in an area full of fantastic, genuine Chinese food, does this monument to homogenized, de-fanged, commercialized, middle of the road, mass produced blandness not only exist, but get to charge premium prices for sub-adequate food?
P. F. Chang’s is a high-volume mass merchandiser of middle of the road food for people who don’t really know or like good Chinese cuisine. They have systems and accountants and process engineers and a human resources department. They don’t have a ounce of Asian soul.
We were met at the door by a young woman who demanded to know my name to write on the check, then called me “Chris”. Okay, so I”m an incipient old fart, but I don’t need some 23 year old who doesn’t know me addressing me by my first name. She also had the headset to her phone hanging out of her ear, so she could ignore people in the most professional way possible. We were led to a table by the back wall; Gail was sitting on a banquette that was a good 3 inches too low for the table–who designs these places? We moved to a table with two decent chairs.
The service is very good–profit maximization requires turning the tables quickly. A very nice young woman (much more pleasant than the hostess) took our orders, advised on which of the rib dishes we would prefer, and got things moving.
The food comes out quickly. We started with the hot and sour soup. It was thick and sweet, with a rich strong base utterly unlike any hot and sour soup I’ve ever had, and not in a good way. The ribs Gail ordered were indeed interesting, but not great.
It was when Gail’s pan fried noodles arrived that I knew we were in deep trouble. Whatever they were, they sure weren’t like the Hong Kong style noodles you can get all over, and not an improvement, either.
I had orange peel beef, which had a great orange peel flavor in a too-thick sauce on over-cooked beef.
They refilled my iced tea quickly.
The bill for this no very fancy and not very good lunch was $67, including one glass of wine. Almost $80 with tip. At least twice what a much better meal at Yan’s China bistro, or the Green Garden, or almost anywhere in Oakland Chinatown, would cost.
Still, there they are. Right smack dab in downtown WC, across from Nordstrom and behind Neiman Marcus. People flock in their door all day and night. Clearly, they have the formula to bring in the masses. That doesn’t make the food any better, and I’m still contrary and difficult. But I know good Chinese food when I see it, and I didn’t see any today.
Life is not fair
I think that there is a basic flaw in the universe when one man gets all the good looks, all the cool and huge acting talent, to boot. At least it’s unfair if that man isn’t me, and it isn’t. It’s George Clooney.
The coolest man ever in a really good movie.
Last night we saw The Descendants, starring Mr. Cool himself as an uptight, repressed Hawaiian lawyer, heir to a huge plantation, whose world is turned upside down when his wife suffers a traumatic brain injury. He has two out of control daughters he doesn’t know how to parent, having always left that to his wife. He is in the midst of having to dispose of 25,000 acres of the family estate on Kauai to satisfy inheritance law, and has many dueling cousins to deal with.
Then he finds out that his wife was cheating on him, and contemplating divorce.
He prevails, of course. He’s George Clooney, he can’t lose. The movie gets a little lost in deciding whether it is a comedy or a drama, but nobody is perfect. The scene where he runs out of the house after hearing of the infidelity he is running like a clown in a Keystone Kops movie, and the sound dubbing is ridiculous. Similarly, when he is stalking the putative lover, the scene is shot as though he were Buster Keaton.
Still, I enjoyed the movie. I don’t think it is worth the Best Picture nomination it got, but it was pretty darned good. Our man George ends up with a couple of loving, well-behaved kids, a few zillion dollars and a new outlook on life. Some guys have all the luck.
Photos are where you find them
I’ve been taking pictures since my cousin Nick taught me how when I was 12. In those days I could develop and print black and white film myself, turning our bathroom into a makeshift darkroom.
These days I enjoy having a big-boy Nikon and a slew of lenses. The darkroom has been turned in for my computers and software. Easier to use and they don’t smell bad, either.
I can’t carry the Nikon all the time though, so I wanted something small to keep with me. Yes, there is a camera in my phone, the most popular camera in the country, in fact. There are more iPhone photos on the big photo sharing sites like Flickr and Picassa than all other cameras combined, but I wanted more capability. So I bought a little pocket Canon, the S95, and I love it.
Today we had lunch at Los Jarritos, a tiny Mexican place in the middle of Lafayette. I’ve written about this eatery before, but I didn’t have a great camera with me. Today, I did.
Los Jarritos has the most interesting painted windows I’ve ever seen–they are a faux stained glass, all done by a local artist just with paint. The walls are painted, too. Because I had my little camera with me, I can share them with you.
(the food there is just fine, too. We like it for a quick and easy lunch. The price is right, the service is both fast and good, you’ll enjoy the joint. 3563 Mt. Diablo, between the Roundup and Postino)
Just a window and paint, but the effect is stupendous.
The trompe l'oeil murals on the wall are as good as the windows.
And that’s why I carry my little camera. Hope you like the photos, hope you try the food.
Three cheers for Iris
My shopping cart this evening
Does advertising work? Sure. How much? Hard to tell. It was JC Penney, supposedly, who said he new that half his advertising was worthless, he just didn’t know which half.
Nonetheless, good businesses advertise, so I was happy to see the above display card on my shopping cart. We need more players, and Iris is doing what she should to get them.
The art of giving
An artist named Ken Hepurn made the gate at the top of our driveway. And the gates on the walkway. And the “totem” in the front yard. We wanted him to make us a mailbox, but he had sold out to corporate America and was designing for The Gap, so we had someone else make a knockoff of his style.
Then he went into the custom door business, and he made our front door. You could say we are big Ken Hepburn fans.
Now he is on to another adventure–he has started a web company called givigiv.com, which is in the business of facilitating gift giving by offering the ability to send drinks and appetizers at popular restaurants to someone via their smart phone. Your recipient gets an email which contains a link to the gift certificate, then goes to the chosen bistro and shows the link to their server. Two drinks and two appetizers coming up, no charge.
This is an easy gift–it fits everyone, it should offend nobody. No shopping, no wondering, just a few clicks and your social or business obligation is taken care of. The restaurant gets a new customer, who will likely order more than just the first round of drinks, possibly dinner. Everyone is happy.
At least, that’s the plan. The world is full of internet start-ups, some get rich, some sink without a trace. We’re hoping our friend is in the former group.
Ken has this business going in the LA area, and is moving towards SF. He sent us a givigiv test for a place called Serpentine in the city, so tonight we went and tried out both the system and the restaurant.
Serpentine is not downtown, it’s in Dogpatch, an honest to God neighborhood, at 2495 3rd Street. I think that’s the Potrero district.
The building is old and industrial, like the area. Inside, things are pretty industrial as well, but I liked the decor.
We got there at opening time, so the place was empty. It didn't stay that way long.
I tried to make an Opentable reservation, but they were booked, so we just walked in at the stroke of 6, when they open. I could see that they had a ton of reservations on the screen, but they shoehorned us in anyway.
A tiny table, a chair out into the aisle for the big boy. The cute redhead is grand-daughter Tessa.
When we got a waitress, I showed her the givigiv certificate on my iPhone, but she had no idea of what I was talking about. Her manager came over and made it work, though. We may have been the very first people in San Francisco to try this system out.
Gail had wine, Tessa the adored grand-daughter had a champagne cocktail, I had iced tea. We had appetizers–olives, and pickled veggies. Then, proving the concept, we ordered dinner.
A seriously beautiful piece of steak.
Gail and Tessa split the steak, which was sitting on a bed of mashed potatoes and, and, and, we never figured out what else. Some kind or root vegetable, maybe parsnips. Whatever they were, they were gone before long.
Seared ahi.
I went for the seared ahi, which came perfectly cooked on a bed of Himalayan red rice with a green curry. The rice was delicious, the curry was way on the hot side for a sissy like me.
The dessert card offered a lemon buttermilk pudding, and who could resist that?
Lemon buttermilk pudding with huckleberry sauce, topped with vanilla whipped cream.
It was like having just the good stuff from the middle of a lemon meringue pie, with whipped cream on top. I loved it.
So we had a double winner tonight—the givigiv concept worked; Ken sent us drinks and appetizers as easily as sending an email. We ordered dinner, so the restaurant made out. The meal was great, so we’re happy. Everybody wins, but I won the most–that lemon dessert was one to remember.
Ambivalance
At Berkeley Rep, Christopher Liam Moore (center) stars with Tyler James Myer and Bill Geisslinger in the world-premiere production of Ghost Light, written by Tony Taccone and directed by Jonathan Moscone. Photo courtesy of kevinberne.com
There’s an old joke about the doting mother watching her son march in a parade, who notes “Oh look, everyone is out of step but my Fred.” Maybe I need to change my name to Fred.
Last night we saw Ghost Light at Berkeley Rep. It’s the story of Jonathan Moscone, son of Mayor George Moscone who was killed by Dan White. Written by Tony Taccone and directed by Moscone, it’s as real and personal as a play can be. The acting is tremendous, the staging and set design are absolutely first rate. Every loves it.
Except me. Not for the first time, I’m out of step with the universe. I willingly concede the excellent parts of this play; I was laughing as hard as anyone at the wittiness, as emotionally involved in the serious parts. Christopher Moore is a tremendous actor who learned an astonishing amount of dialogue. Still, I found myself not liking the post-modern anti-structuralism, the theatrical pyrotechnics, the “look at me, I’m really cool” way in which the play was put together. Maybe I’m an old fogey. Okay, they give me the senior discount at the grocery store, I am an old fogey. I still like to know when a dream sequence is happening, not feel like a fool when I work it out 12 minutes later. I think the importance of a speech should be shown by the words, not by their over-amplification blasting out from the walls.
Is it possible to be too close to a subject to write about it well? Of course the 10 year old Jonathan idolized his father, but does that make for good history? Some of what we saw last night just seemed like so much self-actualization claptrap, some of it was egocentric poor-me-ism, some of it was a really interesting take on how George Moscone was a strong supporter of gay rights before it was cool or common and how that has been lost in the Harvey Milk hagiography.
All this leaves me in the middle. I didn’t love the show, I didn’t hate it. On balance, I suppose I’d recommend it, but it’s closing today and you can’t get there anyway. That’s either good or bad, I just don’t know.
