My SoCal'd Life

Top Chef restaurant tour: Wilshire

2012-01-08T17:26:00.000-08:00

My favorite food shows are cooking competitions like Top Chef, Chopped, Next Iron Chef, Food Network Star or restaurant rehabs like Restaurant: Impossible or Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares (BBC version). As an amateur in the kitchen, I haven't been able to learn anything from these shows that I can use when I cook, but I have learned stuff. I've learned something about how to eat, which was a gap in my knowledge that I didn't even know I had, and more importantly I've learned where to eat. I'm lucky enough in L.A. to be in a city that has so many excellent restaurants.

So far I've eaten at Craft, which is owned by Top Chef head judge Tom Colicchio; The Yard, where cheftestant CJ Jacobson is head chef; Red O, where Top Chef Masters winner (and fmr Top Chef guest judge) Rick Bayless designed the menu; Ink Sack, which is Top Chef Vegas winner Michael Voltaggio's gourmet sandwich shop; and Gordon Ramsay at the London West Hollywood. They have been wows across the board. The latest stop on Dec. 28 was Wilshire, where current season Top Chef competitor Nyesha Arrington is executive chef. Though Nyesha went out fairly early in the competition, it was because of her partner in a double elimination challenge and she is owning it on Last Chance Kitchen (web only). Plus having watched her land the job at Wilshire on the tv show Chef Hunter, I was intrigued.

Even on my parents' not-quite HD tv, Wilshire looked like a physically great space: modern decor with dark wood and an overall dark color palette, but not so trendy that it would feel dated any time soon and inside and outside seating. The restaurant's GM said on the TV show that they pride themselves on being a neighborhood restaurant with lots of regulars. As usual in my fine(r) dining forays, this is not a place that I could afford to become a regular at. But that's the point, right? It makes meals like this special.

We had 7:30 reservations on a Wednesday night. The dining room was less than a quarter full, but the outside dining area in back was had only a few open tables. Obviously, we didn't need the reservations that night, but we didn't want to risk having to eat at 6:15 like last year when we waited to long to make reservations at Red O and had to choose between 6:15 and 10 p.m. We were warmly greeted and immediately seated at a half-circle booth, though we all noted how nice the outside dining area looked particularly with our gorgeous weather. While Steph and Erin went to the restroom, Guianna quickly asked out moving outside and voila al fresco dining on Dec. 28. Suck it, east coast and northwest.

Our new server, sorry first server, comes to the table quickly and asks what we want to drink. The ladies start with wine while I go with Macallan 12. Btw, Wilshire has Pabst Blue Ribbon. PBR! We all munch on bread, which was good (chewy, with a good crust), while studying the menu and trying to decide on appetizers. (Apologies for not knowing what everyone ordered for this course. This is what happens when I wait to blog.) I was debating between the black truffle risotto and the chicken liver terrine, when our server told us about the scallop appetizer special, seared scallops with brown butter, asparagus and some other kind of sauce (again too much time passed). He strongly recommended it because of its bold flavors. Someone ordered pork belly, which she liked. But I think I came out the big winner with the appetizer course. The scallops were stunning. Guianna noticed that I made that foodgasm face. It's true. So succulent and though I don't like vegetables the asparagus was good and the brown butter sauce was so rich but not too heavy.

When it came time for my dinner, I debated between the butternut squash gnocchi, monkfish with cauliflower puree, pan-roasted halibut with trumpet mushrooms and duck breast. I've spent the last year developing a love for duck thanks to Beer Belly. Ultimately I chose the monkfish, in part because Steph and Erin were going with the gnocchi so I knew I'd get to sample some. I also asked our server to choose the wine. I don't know jack about wine really save for basics, like red sauces and dark colored foods go with red wines. Our server said he would choose something and asked a couple questions but I couldn't understand him very well because of the combination of the not quite loud, but noticeable conversational buzz (we think that we were the loudest in general though since there's a good buzz in the atmosphere we didn't think we were rudely loud), his accent and my slight hearing loss. But I think it was Austrian or German. Later he would say something else about it that seemed to contradict what he said earlier, prompting Guianna to remark that he didn't seem to know wine that well. Nevertheless, it was a wine that I liked and that paired well with my monkfish.

My only small complaint would the be the pace of service. I've learned that when fine dining, it's not about speed but about the experience. I would say that two hours is a standard amount of time to expect for a meal. But still, at this point it's about 8:30 p.m. and we're just getting kinda hungry. A couple who got seated after us had their entrees before us, only a couple minutes, though. As soon as we collectively noticed that it has been a while our server came up and apologized that things were taking so long. And then literally seconds later food runners brought our entrees.

The wait was worth it. The monkfish was amazing. Not as good as the scallops, but wow nevertheless. For the most part the perfectly moist pieces flaked off with just a gentle downward push from the edge of my fork. Swirling them in the cauliflower puree added an earthy creaminess. And the salting was perfect, just enough to enhance the flavors. So good. I tried one of Steph's gnocchi which was great. Not so good that I wished I'd ordered differently though. The texture was so light and pillowy, which is a word that judges on cooking shows use to describe great gnocchi and they're exactly right. And the butternut squash flavor was sweet and earthy. Mmmmmmmmm.

And the portion was perfect sized. When I was finished I was just hungry enough that the desserts tempted me. Erin and I really drove the bus on dessert being the two least full. We decided to split an order of sticky toffee pudding and our server was smart enough to bring out four forks. Fantastic dessert. Very sticky, very sweet, rich but still balanced.

One cool thing about eating at Wilshire or The Yard is that Nyesha and CJ actually cook there regularly. We saw CJ while we ate at The Yard and Nyesha came out and said hello to the table next to us. She even posed for a photo. Guianna or Steph asked me if I was going to go up to her or ask for a photo. I said that I would talk to her but only if she came up to us. I don't think I would have done the photo thing, but looking back I think I would have.

Split four ways, it was $57 and change per person. My appetizer was about $14, scotch was $12, my wine was $9 and my entree was $26. Since mine was by far the most (it was the scotch that really elevated it since I was the only one to get two alcoholic drinks) I paid extra. But given how high the overall satisfaction was, I'd say totally well worth the price. And we even got free parking a block away!

World AIDS Day 2011 -- it's not over

2011-12-01T14:34:00.001-08:00

When I was in sixth grade my mom's cousin, who was gay, died of AIDS. We took a family vacation to Arizona during his last few months. My sisters and I all had the chicken pox at the time, so my parents told us that Danny was so sick that we shouldn't be around him. It made perfect sense to me then.

I'm not sure how many years later, but I eventually figured out that Danny had died of AIDS, even though I don't recall being told. The only thing I remember is talking to my dad after I had realized this (I was late in high school or college) and he said that given how much people didn't know about AIDS/HIV they decided to be extra careful (I suspect to protect us and him).

Danny's death and my parents' mostly well-intentioned obscuring of it has had a lasting impact on my life. I've given to HIV/AIDS-related charities and continued to try to keep up on the latest research and statistics (though not to the extent that I could quote them to you right now). The most important consequence though was this story I wrote while a reporter at the Albany Times Union.

Click for more information about AIDS/HIV in 2011.

WALKERS TAKE STEPS AGAINST AIDS

MIKE FRICANO Staff writer

Section: CAPITAL REGION, Page: B1

Date: Monday, October 1, 2001

Albany A pastel chalk message was all Emily Parker could write to honor her brother.

Shielded from the truth about her brother Chris' death 15 years ago, Emily didn't learn that her brother died of AIDS until 1992. On Sunday, she tried to make amends by letting him and anyone else who reads her fleeting memorial know ``one day we will beat this.'' While scrawling her 8-foot-by-5-foot message, Parker fixed areas where people walked over it. She also took the time to brush the chalk so that it filled in the heart she drew evenly.

``It's a tribute to my brother, because I never really got to say goodbye,'' said Parker, 22, who was one of 1,500 walkers who participated in AIDSWalk 2001. This year's event raised more than $200,000 for education, research and patient care.

After the walkers finished the trek through and around Washington Park, dozens grabbed colorful pieces of chalk and transformed the asphalt in front of the Lakehouse into a rainbow of remembrances for ``Fred'' and ``Jim'' and ``Uncle Dan.''

Sadly, said AIDSWalk coordinator Linda Glassman, the list will get longer. There are 3,475 people in northeastern New York with AIDS and thousands more infected with HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, according to the state Department of Health. Nationally, 774,467 Americans had been reported with AIDS and 448,060 had died of the disease through last year, according to the Centers for Disease Control.

``AIDS impacts a wide variety of people,'' said Glassman, noting that the infection rate has remained constant even while the death rate decreased.

When Parker learned that her brother died of AIDS, she was angry and sad and even a little glad that she hadn't known all those years.

``This way I remember him as my brother,'' Parker said as she recalled photos of him laughing and having fun.

While progress has been made, frustration abounds for AIDS caregivers, who must compete for limited funds with myriad other diseases and catastrophes. Throughout the last several year, AIDS has ebbed in the public consciousness following the limited success of drug ``cocktails'' in treating patients.

``But it's not a cure,'' Glassman said. In fact, strains of the virus are becoming resistant to the $15,000-a-year drug combination, which counts liver failure and fatty lumps among its harmful side effects.

``What happened in New York City was horrible, but each day across the world 8,300 people die of AIDS,'' Glassman said.

Now Parker, who walked for the first time this year with the Starbucks team, said that she wants to learn more about the disease and to do something concrete to help.

``I'm just really glad that people can do this at least,'' she said, ``so that other families may not have to deal with this.''

Getting better about honoring my commitments

2011-09-20T00:25:00.000-07:00

Since second semester of my junior year of college, I have a history of at least twice a year declaring "New Fricano." The first time it meant substituting tequila shots for beer because I was unhappy with my weight gain. (I just learned a few seconds ago that I was correct about shots having fewer calories! Hooray!!) Unfortunately, I didn't exercise and still ate like shit so I never lost an ounce. Since then it has usually meant curtailing discretionary spending but also cutting back on fast food.

Last fall though it took on a new meaning—exercising more. Or more accurately ... exercising. One pair of work pants had become a wear-only-when-everything-else-is-at-the-cleaners item and my unshirted profile (see stomach chubb, or don't if you wouldn't want to be grossed out) in the mirror was making me embarrassed. The goal was to build up my endurance so that I could run 3-4 miles each time I ran and to run four days a week. Unfortunately, the day I chose to start it was already 90 degrees by 9:30 a.m. so my first run was about one mile, and I couldn't even make it the full distance without stopping to walk. After a month I had increased to only about 1.5 miles per run. Of course I was running only twice a week (at most). After a life of not running (boringness of running, love of inline skating, arthritic knees), it was hard to want to run especially in our neighborhood (lots of street crossings, narrow roads, hardly any street lights) at night.

The neighborhood we moved to last December helped me increase the running. With much wider streets, more street lights and fewer street crossings, I increased to two times a week (most weeks) and 2+ miles per run. And I was running at about an eight-and-a-half-minute-mile pace. But still ... I never pushed myself beyond that.

Then I went to Portland and Seattle this summer to visit my best friend from college, Bill. I got there on a Sunday night and for the entire week it was a taste-tastic vacation of amazing beer (no better city for a craft beer snob), indulgent food (I swear that every goddamned restaurant we went to served mounds of tater tots) and video games. The unsurprising side effect of my gluttony and sloth was that by late Thursday night I couldn't wait to get back to Bill's just so I could change out of the jeans I was wearing, which had become straight-jacketly constricting on my creeping chubb.

I have to give a quick shoutout to Bill who generously carts my ass around wherever I want to go pretty much and every time I'm there that includes hiking to the top of Multnomah Falls.

This year my friend Amy, who had recently moved to Portland from L.A., joined us. It was one of the things she wanted to do upon moving but hadn't had a chance prior to my visit. We had a great time and Bill was nice enough to email me this picture he took of us.

Well, I thought it was nice until I noticed that a fat guy (with no neck!) had stolen my identity. This made me feel worse than any photo of me since the one that appeared in my yearbook photo freshman year of high school. My reaction to that one was "Who is that ugly girl? ... Oh FUCK, it's me!" It was again "New Fricano" time, but this time there's no fucking around.

So since returning home on July 2, I've started the Mike Fricano body modification project. It involves running at least three days a week, but four if possible. I have increased my running distance to three to four miles per jog at a nine-minute-mile pace. I have stopped drinking at home (though I still drink plenty). I eat an arugula, cucumber and pepper salad almost every night before dinner thus keeping my entree portion size down and increasing my vitamin intake. I also have decreased my sugar-loaded Coffee Bean calorie fests (iced blendeds) from thrice (or even four times) a week to just once a week—a Saturday indulgence. I've even taken to counting how many potato chips I eat to make sure I stick to the recommended portion size on the bag.

The results have been awesome. I estimate that at least half an inch of chubb has disappeared from my waist; I can fit into those jeans very comfortably again and even those work pants. I have even started to enjoy running. There are nights when I'm driving home and I anticipate the feeling of driving home stinking of my own sweat.

The running, which usually happens around 10 p.m. has eaten into time I would read or blog, but I have no regrets. In my older age, I've had to learn to prioritize my desires. And right now, being unchubby is top of the list. This is not the sexiest post to renew my blogging, but I'm back!

I don't even like soccer or America but ...

2011-07-11T12:07:00.000-07:00

... watching this feels a googolplex times more patriotic than wearing an Old Navy American Flag tshirt.

Thanks to Jimmy Traina at SI for this who got it from ... The U.S. women's soccer team pulled off a comeback win against Brazil Sunday as Abby Wambach tied the game with this impressive goal. The video below is the goal reworked to have Gus Johnson behind the mic. (Thanks to Kevin M., of College Park Md., for the link.)

Fine dining

2011-05-04T00:16:00.000-07:00

Dinner at Gordon Ramsay at the London West Hollywood was Saturday night. I was nervous all week because my longtime susceptibility to canker sores flared up with at least three in the back of my mouth (including a big one on my right tonsil that caused a throat sore enough that made eating hard). Thankfully by Saturday I felt like I was about 85 percent healed and knew I'd be able to eat mostly problem free as long as I didn't talk too much Saturday at work. Thankfully, my co-worker A. stepped up and ran the staff meeting pretty much on her own.

The London West Hollywood is a hotel just south of the Sunset Boulevard, a particularly swanky section of Sunset Boulevard—point of reference, I parked directly in front of The Viper Room (RIP River Phoenix). On a couple of the Yelp! reviews people complained about rather exorbitant parking costs (someone mentioned $20). I had a 30 percent off coupon courtesy of Blackboard Eats, but I didn't want to piss that away on parking.

Once we entered the hotel, everything was very tony in a more classic sense. There was brass/gold and lots of white, as opposed to the stark brushed steel, dark wood aesthetic. I dug that. Incidentally, when we walked into the lobby we didn't know where the restaurant was but thankfully we had our choice of two suited-up dudes just standing in the small lobby who smiled in the ask-me-a-question-I'm-here-to-help way. So we did and were directed down the hall that shot off to the left and then proceeded to the end and made a right.

When we got there for our 7 o'clock reservation the restaurant was mostly empty. Saturday at 7 p.m. is an earlier time, but I'd been working all day and figured why wait. As we checked in, I made sure to tell the hostess that I was redeeming my discount coupon and gave her my printout with the discount code. Nothing says I belong at a michelin-starred restaurant like pulling a six-folded 8.5x11 piece of paper out of one of my back jeans pockets to get a discount.

First thing that surprised me: Gordon Ramsay at the London West Hollywood (the actual name of the restaurant) is in the same place as The Boxwood Cafe. It's so the same space that when you open the menu you have the Boxwood menu on the left and the fancier restaurant on the right. Btw, the more casual cuisine at Boxwood (that's where you can order a burger) is still uncheap. The entrees range from $16 to $34.

The first decision was whether to get the three-course meal for $68 a person or the five-course for $82. Our waiter, Jose, who wore the standard uniform gray suit, white shirt, no tie. Jose had told us that the serving sizes were "European" meaning smaller as an enticement to order the five-course. After several minutes of deliberating G, one of my former students who now works for the city of SF, and I each decide on the three-course. I recalled my Craft experience of how a slowly consumed multi-course meal of smaller portions (meaning not TGI McOliveBee's Lobster size) could be perfectly satisfying.

As I've learned from my whopping five fine-dining sorties, the menu doesn't offer lots of choices, because the idea is that these dishes required lots of creativity and skill and some pricey ingredients so let's specialize in a few and just be aces with them. Suck on that Cheesecake Factory!

Before the appetizers came they brought us a canape of very thin crustini to dip into the silkiest thing I've ever ate—mascarpone, white truffle oil and olive oil. Several Yelpers said that this was their fave thing. I don't think I'd go that far, but still ... this was unlike anything I'd ever eaten and the best example of textural contrast I've ever eaten.

The canape was a big contrast to the standard dinner bread, which had a too-hard crust and was otherwise just slightly above average. :(

Then come the official appetizers. Sadly, I forgot what kind of Pinot Noir I ordered. I remember only that I allowed our waiter to choose it and that it cost $22 a glass.

I order the Tagliatelle with Charred Octopus as my appetizer. The pasta was perfectly al dente, the tomato sauce had a tiny hint of sweetness but wasn't too sweet. Still it was just well-cooked pasta, right? Wrong, with the octopus it was fantastic, though charred outside it wasn't dried out or too chewy. The octopus was cut into thin slices, like penny-sized and the charring added a texture and smokiness that mixed great with the pasta.

G got the foie gras with toast and a smoked ice cream, which neither of us remembers the precise flavor of. She said it was excellent though.

Entree: Scallops and Pork Belly with multiple vegetable purees. Double SAD:, I don't remember what specifically. One was green and one was reddish though. Seeing the three sauces, the two huge diver scallops resting on juicy pork belly and one of those towers was topped with a shiny golden fried quail egg, whoa. You definitely eat first with your eyes. The waiter explained that my dish was very complex and had "lots of flavors" happening.

The scallop was super juicy and the flakey pieces slip off so smoothly when cut that the butter knife was more than sufficient to slice it. It was so fresh that eating it solo was tasty, but combined with the pork belly and purees, it was divine.

G got the chateuabriand, which according to the internet and our waiter, is the best part of a cow. It's the thick center of the tenderloin. I don't eat mammals, but since this might be a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity I caved and tasted two small bites after G offered. We of course wanted to share as much as possible. (I think G had some kind of pork app, because I didn't try that.) The steak was very good, though since she ordered it medium, it wasn't as juicy as I used to eat steak. Nevertheless, if I had chateaubriand every time mom force fed me steak as a kid, I'll bet that I'd still eat beef.

I'm such a beef and high-end dining novice, that I didn't even know that this was a cut of beef that you could get, let alone that it was considered among the very best.

After that came dessert. G and I each ordered the chocolate cylinder. It's about 2.5 inches tall and thin, like an old school film canister. Inside there's roasted marshmallow that's crispish on top and melty below--think Smorelike--and then under that some caramel crunchiness, maybe peanuts. To the side is almost a golfball hazelnut ice cream. The hazelnut was by far the star of the dessert, which was otherwise good. Of my fine dining experiences, this was easily the most average dessert.

In fact, the average note of the dessert pushed this experience down below Craft and Silfur (in Reykjavik) on my list of best restaurant meals ever. Still, though, it was amazing. I mean, we're talking like distinctions between 98, 97 and 96.

Two last things, they forgot to apply my 30 percent off discount when they brought my bill. I didn't notice at first and just gave them my card. In part because I wanted to get going since I'd already gone past my two-hour meter by about 5 minutes. But when I was about to sign I looked more carefully and the bill was $224 pre-tip. WHAT? Thankfully, once I told Jose he cancelled the first charge and they re-ran my card. The new bill was only $156ish. Whew! Much better. Since we're instructed to tip based on the original bill, it came to about $98 a piece. This is the most expensive meal I've ever eaten, but totally worth it. It was outstanding. And, I managed to avoid the parking ticket!

Great comment from my friend Kerri: I assume these dishes weren't coated in a thick layer of cheese. You forgot to include that in your differences with TGI McOliveBee's Lobster. I'm with you on pulling out the folded coupon. I hate that feeling.

The Internet makes us all famous

2011-04-29T22:58:00.000-07:00

In this video, my friend Rich from Newhouse is a wingman in this extreme eating challenge. Here's his blog post about the challenge. I admire Rich for writing a brief blogpost rather than a Fricano. Interestingly, I'd never heard of Scrapple before this. I wish I hadn't.

What dead quantum mechanics cats can teach us about teacher evaluations

2011-04-18T17:13:00.000-07:00

One of my favorite books is Moneyball my Michael Lewis. In it, Lewis profiles Oakland A's general manager Billy Beane's methods of scouting baseball players and composing a major league team and drafting new players for the minor league farm system. Working in one of baseball's smallest television markets and having one of the smallest budgets, Beane has pretty consistently put together teams that are very competitive with his large-market competitors like the New York Yankees. They don't win championships at the same rate, but are one of the standards for how to run a small-business in a big-business world.

The chief way Beane did this was to quantify baseball in a statistically relevant way. Though ironically, baseball was the sport that produced more statistics than any other (which geeks like me memorized as kids), most of the numbers we memorized had little to do with predicting future success or measuring how a player made a true statistically valid impact on the game.

Like anyone who wants to do something new, Beane met resistance from lots of veterans who said "we've always done it this way." But his success validated his change in thinking and influenced many teams to adopt what have become known as "moneyball" strategies. Combine those strategies with actual money and you get the Boston Red Sox of the past 8ish years.

Anyway, I was so taken with Beane and his assistants' application of rigorous statistical analysis to a seemingly complex sea of numbers and variables, that like many who paid him to speak to their companies I started thinking that we just need better analysis and more things can certainly be quantified. Moneyball wasn't about baseball, it was about re-thinking and the power of math and education. In a weird way, I got so drunk on moneyball that I started half-equating climate change deniers and Creationists with those old baseball scouts who just wanted to keep doing things the way they've been doing them.

When the L.A. Times published an investigative series about using value-added analysis (my short definition: seeing how much students improved from year to year on standardized tests) I was so impressed by the apparent rigor of it, that I started coming around to believe that this type of analysis should be PART (about 20 percent maybe 33 percent) of teacher evaluations. Sadly for the L.A. Times its methods have since been called into question by one of the people it quotes in the story as someone who backed up the Times' numbers and conclusions.

What does this have to do with dead cats and quantum mechanics?

This article in The Economist, which basically says that what-many-now-see-as-the-MBA-ization-of-education has historical roots in failure. The Economist piece by I can't tell who (dammit Economist be better than that), notes that a couple centuries ago some Germans wanted to get better timber yield from their forests so they took some rudimentary measurements and eventually planted one species exclusively in very dense rows. At first huge success, but then the disaster of unforeseeable (at the time because of our lack of understanding about soil microbiology) consequences, like high susceptibility to disease and depletion of soil nutrients because one kind of tree will want the same thing.

But the greater premise, which the above example merely illustrates, is that efforts to "read" a population consequently beget efforts to transform that population to make it more "readable."

Finally, here comes the dead quantum mechanics cat. In 1935 Austrian physicist Erwin Schrödinger, developed a paradoxical thought experiment that essentially said if you put a radioactive substance that has a 50-50 chance activate in an hour and a cat in a box, after an hour the cat could be dead or alive, or is in fact dead and alive. Ultimately he didn't argue that it's both simultaneously, merely that one's conclusions are dependent on observation.

The Economist notes: Daniel Koretz, the Harvard education professor recognized as the country's leading expert on academic testing, writes in his book Measuring Up that Campbell's Law is especially applicable to education; there is a preponderance of evidence showing that high-stakes tests lead to a narrowed curriculum, score inflation, and even outright cheating among those tasked with scoring exams.

So by trying to measure teacher's competence with a students' standardized test how can we not be redefining the very nature of teaching into a way that no longer measures competence at inspiring students to explore, drilling cogent facts into them, encouraging ethical intellectual behavior, and demonstrating the importance of common sense?

The Economist piece closes by citing examples from South Korea and Finland (a country lauded in Waiting for Superman, though sadly the most important lessons of Finland aren't advocated for, instead the documentary pushes testing!); these countries "[rely] more on systems of peer review and intensive comment and training from in-school "master teachers", as well as making teachers' jobs involve much more time planning their lessons in groups with other adults.

I agree with the blogger who posted this on The Economist website. The common sense of using master teachers to do more in-service training is so obvious that it almost hurts. I haven't totally given up on a form of value-added analysis being incorporated into evaluations but I'm thinking much more like 10 percent. If we're sincere that children are our future and our most precious resource, then we need to invest in them with hard money. That doesn't mean using MBA cost-cutting and efficiency findings. It means hiring more teachers and aides and yes, perhaps even more assistant principals to serve as these "master teachers." This also would create additional middle class professional jobs, and the people who fill those jobs would spend money ... and create tax revenues and ...

My favorite thing about the Internet is the availability of information, specifically information that makes me rethink about important topics. And this piece in The Economist has certainly got me doing that.

I interrupt this blog to confess my language ignorance

2011-04-07T21:02:00.000-07:00

About six or seven years ago my old roommate Scott and I learned that we had been using "nonplussed" incorrectly. We each thought it meant "unimpressed" or "unmoved," though in fact it means "to render utterly perplexed; puzzle completely," according to Dictionary.com. As the great Ben Yagoda puts it in this unknown-supercommon-mistakes-we-all-make exposing piece on Slate.com: "nonplussed from ... fazed to unfazed."

Now I have a Masters degree in journalism from the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communication at Syracuse University and was (and still am) teaching writing at a teen newspaper. Scott was at the time a Ph.D. student at UCLA. We grew up together and attended a fine middle class suburban school in Western New York. We were each amazed that we were incorrect. Though neither of us could pinpoint when we learned the word, we each felt like we had learned it with its incorrect meaning around high school. We're well-read intelligent people, so how the hell did this happen?

Well Yagoda seems to be saying that it's basically societal language (de)-evolution. Examples abound (well, only three and since this post is about language I ought to at least clarify my exaggerations, but I'm exaggerating because that many misuses of relatively common words did embarrass me) in the piece that exposed more than my misuse of "non-plussed."

Momentarily. -- It traditionally meant for a short time, but now commonly means very soon.

Begs the question. -- In a logical argument it meant when one explains something by the fact that it is so. Begthequestion.info's example: "I think he is unattractive because he is ugly." It has become misused to mean "raises the question." I have used this with my students and even gotten them to use it. I've passed along misinformation.

Fortuitous. -- Traditionally this meant "accidental." It has come to be used to mean "lucky." I'm guessing that this is because a synonym for lucky is fortunate, and the shared "fort" beginning has created an erroneous historically logical connection.

Later in his piece, Yagoda writes about when should a person fight to preserve the proper historical usage and when does doing so render one pretentious or even confusing.

He brings up examples of pompons v. pompoms (which I've fought to preserve, though I'm not sure why given the widely accepted new spelling) and not ending a sentence in a preposition, which I've given up only in the last few years.

I must admit that part of the reason I've hung onto pompons is because it's so obscure and I like sounding smart. I've never been an athlete, nor was I tall, dark and rico suave, nor a great musician (though not bad). However, I was usually smarter than almost anyone I met in elementary school and even high school. As a nerd, who has become a word nerd (werd? as I steal from L.A. Youth alum Seth S.), I like to showoff in front of my students from time to time.

But what next? I'm not sure. I am going to try to be less end-of-discussion-because-I'm-smarter-than-thou. As I also tell my students (when not propagating misuses of begs the question), the older you get the more you'll learn that you have a lot to learn. So I shall (will?) try to take my own advice and pay closer attention to language so that I continue to learn to use it better, smarter and more clearly.

P.S. I used the title "I interrupt this blog ..." because I had planned to blog about something else today and even scheduled posts for the next week. But this was urgent!

Irony and the Presidency

2011-04-05T00:31:00.000-07:00

On the day Barack Obama formally announced his run for re-election in 2012, his administration also announced that it was kowtowing to Republican (among others) demands not to hold the trial of suspected 9/11 mastermind Khalid Shaikh Mohammed in New York civilian court.

I've spent the parts of the last two years defending Obama's record in the face of criticism who feel as though his Presidency hasn't maintained the magical unicornness of his campaign. They're right, because governing is like making sausage, ugly to know what goes into it. Nevertheless, we got Health Care Reform (minus the public option), a huge stimulus package, financial reform (though highly neutered), the feds to agree to stop defending DOMA, two more women onto the Supreme Court, a consumer protection czar who looks like she has teeth.

So the announcement that he was caving into the likes of Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala), who claims to love this country, but clearly has no faith in its justice system to try Mohammed, was disheartening. Republican NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg wanted the trial in New York, as did hundreds of family members of 9/11 victims. If those with the most at stake can see the wisdom of not allowing our basest instincts for retributive justice degenerate into revenge-at-all-costs-accountability-be-damned military commissions, why can't the decision-makers like Sessions? And why did AG Eric Holder and Obama cave? They said it was because Congress de-authorized funding for prisoner transfers from Gitmo to the States.

But to me this is a case of needing to stand up for our ideals in the face of resistance and challenge. I felt like W failed the test of compromise-vs-ideals-maintenance repeatedly, always adhering to NeoCon foreign policy even in the absence of evidence, see: Iraq. Here I want Barack to stand fast though. He wouldn't be standing up for Mohammed or Dems or even just this one case, but for the American ideals of accountable justice.

If we want to be leaders in the world, then we must lead, which means make the tough choices not the expedient ones.

A Vegas first

2011-03-22T22:21:00.001-07:00

I've been to Las Vegas enough times that there aren't many firsts left for someone of my income bracket. But this past Sunday, I dipped a toe into a different income strata and got to see Sin City from a new perspective ...

That's the view from The House of Blues Las Vegas Foundation Room which sits atop Mandalay Bay at the south end of The Strip. In a Spaceballsian bit of fortune, my college roommate's friend's brother's friend is Rob Belushi. Rob is an actor and also the son of James Belushi. Rob, who I met Sunday night on my 24-hour Vegas sojourn, was supremely generous and hooked up his friend, Tim, and then Tim's brother, Andy, and the rest of our usual Vegas crew by getting us on the list at the Foundation Room.

In addition to getting on the list, and a host taking us up the private elevator, we also scored a free round of drinks. BONUS because I was able to get a glass of 25-year-old Macallan scotch, which runs at least $477 a bottle according to the quickie Google search I just ran. Incidentally, we ventured into a club that served bottles of Macallan 25 for $2457ish.

But as amazing as it was to get a free glass of a scotch that I might not have again for a loooooong time and which was simply amazing, the views were even better (see above).

The rest of the trip though taught me one vital lesson, I cannot gamble alone nor ironically under a clock. While we were waiting to go from Mandalay Bay to another club, that Rob was awesome enough to hook us up to via a comp'd limo, we had about 25 minutes to kill gambling.

I sat down at a $15 blackjack table, which is actually the first time I'd sat down at such a high limit (welcome to non-profit teen newspaper editor Vegas guy's blog). Well, with only a few minutes to play I am not content to bet $15 a hand, but instead am betting $25 a hand, since throwing in one of my few green chips is easier than three reds. I know it's not, but it seemed it at the time. :o

Well, the higher limit sends Bill packing pretty fast but I am hanging on thanks to a big bet that came in. However, my up $50 quickly became a break even again. Sitting alone, I had the most intense bout of stupid recklessness of my gambling life. I put $100 on a single hand of blackjack. I've done this before, but this was the first time I ever did it WITHOUT feeling like I wanted to throw up. (A whole new sign of WHATTHEFUCKHAPPENEDTOME?)

Of course ... I get dealt something like a 15 (I've blocked out the details) and the dealer gets something like a 20. Needless to say voila $100 hand. Do I cut my losses at down $100 for the quick blackjack session?

UM ... I think you know where this is going ...

NO. I took a version of my bad joke advice and chased my big loss by betting big! And threw down another $100 bet (at, yes, a mere $15 table). And well, 30 seconds later I was down $200.

Thankfully the rest of the night was good times just hanging with the guys and I was still basking in the glow of a lucky, tense Arizona win over Texas.

------------

Weirdest sight (BY FAR): a dude in an ASU t-shirt cheering for UofA during the NCAA tournament game against Texas. I didn't even know how to feel about this one. I know that there's no fucking way I'd cheer for ASU against any other team or even against getting sprayed by a skunk.

When editors are tone deaf

2011-03-16T00:42:00.000-07:00

AOL, which owns TechCrunch and Moviefone, has gotten on the media-ethics-transparency radar because of a request relayed by the latter asking the former to tone down the snark in a review of the new Summit Entertainment movie Source Code.

The review writer, Alexia Tsotsis, balked at the request and standing up for independent editorial control everywhere outed Moviefone for passing along Summit's request.

In her response, Moviefone ed-in-chief Patricia Chui wrote:

2) This is important: We never told TechCrunch to change the post in any way. A publicist at Summit reached out asking if we could convey the studio's feedback to TechCrunch. We did so. If the editors had responded that they declined to edit the post -- which, naturally, is entirely their call -- we simply would have conveyed that information back to Summit.

The reality of our situation is that, as a movies site, we work with movie studios every day, and it is in our best interests to stay on good terms with them.

Here's where we get to the tone deaf editor part:

Staying on good terms with studios means that we will relay information if asked. It does not mean that we would ever force a writer or an editor to edit their work for the sake of a studio -- or anyone else.

We take editorial integrity seriously at Moviefone, and it's painful to be depicted as a pawn of the studios when that is emphatically not the case. You may think it unseemly for a studio to request changes in an article; that's certainly your right. But the accusation of pandering on our part or crossing an editorial line is, to my mind, completely unfair, and I would hope that a reasonable reader would be able to recognize the situation for what it is -- overblown and unwarranted

Relaying information, if asked, as a way to stay on the good side of an industry that a reporter writing for a site owned by your corporate parent is covering might not qualify as pawnhood. But the great fear First Amendment defenders have is that the consolidated media will severely curtail what should be our freest marketplace of all—that of ideas and opinions.

And Chui's wet-tissue defense of serving as an intermediary of a request to ALTER EDITORIAL COVERAGE is a stark naked example that fear manifest.

The absolute last thing any critic wants is for her/his readers to question their objectivity, a concern grossly exacerbated already when the studios own publications, too. (I've always been impressed with how Warner Bros. movies can get ripped in Entertainment Weekly, both of which are owned by Time Warner.)

So when Chui tosses off this entire matter as overblown, she tacks on the perfect coda to her tone deaf editing symphony. Not only does she not get what she did was wrong on the micro level of the appearance of trying to influence coverage, but she also blows the macro level by failing to recognize why this example of fears of choked independent media was a big deal in the first place.

1,000 words

2011-03-15T22:20:00.000-07:00

As a writer I value the power of words so much; they have made me feel triumph, love, grief, lust, fear, evil and the miraculous. But as an evolutionary creature I am also moved by the image and this picture from post-quake/tsunami Japan broke my heart more than anything I've read. It's 5-year old Neena Sasaki, carring some of her family belongings from her home that was destroyed after the devastating earthquake and tsunami on March 15 in Rikuzentakata, Miyagi province. (Paula Bronstein/Getty Images, via the Big Picture).

I'm not an image stealer, so please click on either of the links above to see the image in high-resolution on the Boston Globe website.

It's easier to hate "anonymous"

2011-03-08T02:22:00.000-08:00

Like lots of internet writer idealists who work on small news websites, I've long been annoyed (on my good days) at so-named content farms, like ehow.com. They're defined on Wikipedia as:

... a company that employs large numbers of often freelance writers to generate large amounts of textual content which is specifically designed to satisfy algorithms for maximal retrieval by automated search engines. Their main goal is to generate advertising revenue through attracting reader page views.^[1]

The big criticism is that these sites value page views, which attract dollars, over providing the best relevant information. Google has recently announced that it had changed its search algorithm to push these results further down.

The reason I've been down on them is that the small, independent teen newspaper I work for struggles to get page views, particularly our new adult-editor-written blog. Granted, we're not writing nearly often enough, nor maximizing our social media outreach to truly accumulate page views. Buuuuuuuuut at the same time, I hate that we'll never have the resources to simply publish post after post of keyword-jammed, semi-relevant-at-best articles just to increase our Google page rank as content farms are criticized for doing.

The result has been that like most of Internet users, I've found an anonymous villain to hate. Well, until Monday night. It turns out I know someone who writes for content farms. I've never had an in-person meeting with Christine Margiotta-Geraci, but we've known each other for years. She was a student at Newhouse who wanted to ask me some questions about the Albany Times Union. I answered and we struck up an e-mail "friendship" over the years. I've admired her drive as she went from interning at the TU to various other papers across the Capital Region and now to a public relations job for a school district.

I recently discovered her blog, which is linked to above and definitely worth reading if you're into social media, and in her most recent post she outed herself as a content farmer, someone whom I once considered "my enemy." And in fact the enemy of a truly democratic digital domain.

Well, like virtually everyone in 2011, who hasn't been the beneficiary of a Barack delivered extension of the GW Bush deficit-causing tax cuts, Christine has been trying to get creative earning some extra cash. I'll quick excerpt and let her explain:

I accept the fact that some of the stuff I’ve written for content farms is total crap. ... But when I put it into perspective, I’m still writing. ... There are so many worse things I could be doing for less pay that would require me to spend time away from my family. ... I’m not looking for sympathy. I felt the need to share my perspective plainly and honestly, because I’m tired of people bashing content farms and their writers when they don’t know the stories behind the stories.

Allow me be the first of the content farm haters to apologize, Christine. I feel like a Republican who has just learned that a longtime friend is the recipient of a government "handout" that he wants to cut in the name of inefficient bureaucracy.

So I'm done begrudging anonymous writers for trying to make a living. The economy sucks and the poor are getting ignored while the middle class is getting turned into the poor, because Barack and the Dems are wilting in the radioactive glow of John Boehner's orange-glo. What we really need is a content farm union!

Bad citizenship

2011-03-07T22:50:00.000-08:00

The polls in Los Angeles open in 8 hours 15 minutes. I will not be voting. I cannot in good conscience cast a vote when I haven't done any research into the nearly one dozen ballot measures. Of all the things I forgot to do after the move, namely addresses I forgot to change, my voter registration is the most important. One of the reasons I didn't do my research is because I never received the voter guide that contained the sample ballot and noted my polling place.

Without the reminder of the ballot sitting on my desk, the election never burrowed its way into my consciousness, despite the fact I read the Los Angeles Times every day. And since it never took root in my consciousness, I never pushed myself to do the necessary election prep.

Sadly, the city clerk's website and the county registrar's site don't give ANY information about how voters who have moved should proceed. I know that I can vote, but I have no idea what I should bring with me to try to expedite that process, given that I won't appear on the rolls for my new polling place. And I don't have the paperwork that I would normally present to my old polling place.

And jadedly, I don't want to bounce between polling places for a fucking March election. I can't stand that in California I can vote as many as three times a year—March, June and November.

In light of the democracy revolutions and protests in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, Yemen and China, I feel a stinging sense of disappointment in myself. But at this hour of the night, I am not sufficiently disappointed in myself to rectify that.

But it's not all laziness. I take voting seriously. Despite my hardcore liberal leanings, I don't want to simply vote Left or Dem. And though I highly respect the Los Angeles Times, I don't want to follow its endorsements unquestioningly or even with just a simple and too fast read.

Dammit. I hate when I blog about me sucking.

I miss this show

2011-02-22T19:33:00.000-08:00

Last year Glee captured my heart with its unapologetic celebration of fine arts underdoggedness. This year, not so much. Too much coupling, too many themed shows, too much unlikable behavior (why did Rachel turn into Order of the Phoenix Harry Potter?) and I think most of all song choices that don't appeal to me. Ironically, though, my favorite moment of second season was during Sectionals when The Warblers performed Train's "Hey Soul Sister," which is a gawful song. But at about 1:10 when Rachel implores a tentative to Kurt to smile, Glee touchstones Season 1 and hits the perfect note of the dumped-upon-show-choir-kids remembering that they're the best support each other will ever have and that the way we perform when we're doing what we love is the best we can show of ourselves, so don't fuck it up. Without further ado ... a horrible song done right by Glee ...

Los Angeles Mortal Coil list 1

2011-02-21T22:20:00.000-08:00

After eight-and-a-half years of living in Los Angeles I can now finally say that I've hiked up to the iconic Hollywood Sign, or at least as close as one can legally get. Kevin, Alicia and I did an early Sunday morning hike up from Bronson Canyon to the sign.

Alicia said it was labeled "strenuous" but we all felt that it should have been labeled "moderate." It begins with a good 15-20 minutes of a steep enough ascent to get a good workout, then it levels off for a leisurely 30ish minutes before a final ascent up to the top of the mountain. Great views, though sadly you see the sign from the rear.

That's obviosly the "Holly" and in the upper right you can see the reservoir.

A gorgeous shot of the snow capped mountains. It was a perfect California day—warm enough to go out without a jacket, sunny enough for sunglasses and gorgeously brilliant white snow on the mountains.

In the upper middle of this photo you can sorta make out the seats of the Hollywood Bowl.

Here's a link to the short photo album.

Woe Canada

2011-02-17T00:33:00.000-08:00

Growing up in Buffalo so close to Canada had a huge influence on my cultural, specifically musical, development. The Toronto radio station CFNY made a huge impact as noted in this blog several times. Through it I discovered: The Tragically Hip, Spirit of the West, Sarah McLachlan, Single Gun Theory, Moxy Früvous, The Barenaked Ladies, Sloan, Sara Craig, Leonard Cohen and gained a greater appreciation for Van Morrison.

I also was able to watch Good Rockin' Tonight on the CBC on Friday and Saturday late nights. They were more mainstream pop/rock oriented with plenty of American stuff. But they also did their best to promote Canadian acts including the one below. I loved this song when I heard it the first time. It's got a fast beat and excellent (though extremely produced) harmonies. That was apparently enough when my taste defenses were down at 12:30 a.m. and home alone.

Without further ado a musical confession from my pre-snob days also known as the days I thought that listening to major label releases in the "Alternative" section at major retailers made me different, just like the millions of other Nirvana and Pearl Jam and Singles soundtrack fans.

Speaking truth to power OR Journalism should be about huevos

2011-02-14T22:24:00.000-08:00

Love this column from Salon's Glenn Greenwald today. In it Greenwald not only defends CNN's Anderson Cooper for using the word "lie" or a derivative thereof when he used it to describe actions of the Egyptian government during his telecast last week, but calls out those who criticized Cooper, namely CNN and The Daily Beast's Howie Kurtz and the Los Angeles Times' Jim Rainey.

I'm going to quote liberally here from Greenwald's column, in which he points out that both Kurtz and Rainey admit Cooper was correct in using "lie," because not only do I agree with his point, but he wrote it with vigor.

Identifying lies told by powerful political leaders -- and describing them as such -- is what good journalists do, by definition. It's the crux of adversarial journalism, of a "watchdog" press. "Objectivity" does not require refraining from pointing out the falsity of government claims. The opposite is true; objectivity requires that a journalist do exactly that: treat factually false statements as false. "Objectivity" is breached not when a journalist calls a lie a "lie," but when they refuse to do so, when they treat lies told by powerful political officials as though they're viable, reasonable interpretations of subjective questions. The very idea that a journalist is engaged in "opinion-making" or is "taking sides" by calling a lie a "lie" is ludicrous; the only "side" such a journalist is taking is with facts, with the truth. It's when a journalist fails to identify a false statement as such that they are "taking sides" -- they're siding with those in power by deceitfully depicting their demonstrably false statements as something other than lies.

As a proud member of the media, I hope that I never forget and that my compatriots never forget that we are always on a SIDE—the side of the facts. And when those facts lead to inexorable conclusions that one side is also "RIGHT" we damn well better be on that side, too.

I feel like Fox News Channel's use of "fair and balanced" (which we've gutlessly allowed to be misappropriated from actual Truth), couldn't be smarter for them. They've exploited our country's glaring lack of knowledge about how the media operates or its role in a democracy to buffalo far too many of the mainstream press into always allowing the corrupt, the ignorant (Michele Bachmann and the Tea Party) and the liars (Michele Bachmann) an opportunity to offer opinions.

Instead of calling them for their quotes, we should force them to meet a standard of objective facts. Don't let them claim that we're not balanced, instead force them to be educated. If doing rigorous research is elitist then BE FUCKING ELITIST. No more stories about Birther arguments or about how climate pollution isn't happening or about fucking Creationism and the Earth being only a few thousand years old.

Working with teens in an age of social media

2011-02-06T13:29:00.000-08:00

I accidentally walked out of my favorite bar Thursday night forgetting to pay my tab. I'm enough of a regular at the amazing Eagle Rock Brewery (L.A. plug) that I'm allowed to run a tab without leaving my credit card at the register. Thursday night a friend of a friend bought me my third and final beer so I never had a chance to order and say, "I'll settle up now," which is what I've always done. I finish my third beer and head home.

I don't remember that I've failed to pay for my first two beers until I'm just about finished with a quick jog. D'oh! I immediately email the owners when I get home. The husband replies early Friday morning saying "no worries." I go to the bar Saturday night for a few beers and pay off my outstanding $10.

After paying I send out a message on Twitter that said: "Paying Beer tab at @eaglerockbrew makes me almost as balanced as the populist IPA." Btw, second L.A. plug, even as a non-hops guy the Populist IPA will change your life.

Anyway, this morning I see that I have a Twitter message from one of my former students who is a junior at Harvard asking "What's beer tab?"

I told him that I'll tell him when he's older.

Mega playlist for a girl off to college

2011-02-03T00:11:00.000-08:00

I made this for Charlene, one of my favorite L.A. Youth students, just before she headed off to college. When Charlene came to L.A. Youth for the first time, she was just finishing eighth grade, though she had the maturity of someone several years older. (When we're talking about teens, a few years is a HUGE leap.) Unlike most students who join the non-profit teen newspaper, Charlene stayed through her senior year, which is longer than any student since I got hired in 2002. By the time she graduated I considered myself her more than her editor, but more like her friendtor. She is one of the few students who ever made me a mix CD, so as she headed off to college I owed her one. Since I'm terrible at music editing, I made her a mega-playlist. Enjoy, kiddo!

Disc 1
"Vox" — Sarah McLachlan: She was one of the artists I discovered through living on the Canadian border and one of the first intelligent songwriters I listened to. This song was from her first CD, which was recorded when she was like 19, and captured like what I felt was coming up next in my life, whatever that may be.

"Goodbye" — The Sundays: I'm still trying to figure out exactly what Harriet Wheeler means when she sings, "As the heavens shudder baby, I belong to you." That the meaning mutates from year to year in my life is the sign of a truly great lyric.

"Make Your Own Kind of Music" — Cass Elliot: This is one of those glorious theme-music-for-life songs that's great to dance to. There's something to me that is very California in its attitude.

"Tightrope" — Yeasayer: Choices, consequences and perhaps regret or redemption. This is what Rock n Roll was made for.

"Albatross" — The Besnard Lakes: A gazy, hazy dream of a song.

"Young Adult Friction" — The Pains of Being Pure at Heart: With a name like this, I was nervously expecting precious, instead got precocious melodies and danceability.

"I Know UR Girlfriend Hates Me" — Annie: The dance vibe continues with the Swedish pop/dance star's could-be anthem to college. Not that I'm advocating!

"Spin The Bottle" — The Juliana Hatfield Three: A touchstone high school song for me, sadly not because I was playing Spin the Bottle, just because I listened to this song all the time watching Alternative Nation and dreamed of being misfit enough to write a song about doing something so HS cool later on that was half as great as this song.

"Fall On Me" — R.E.M.: Still one of my favoritest bands. Listen to this song when it rains, not because of any literal rain in the song, but to truly embrace the song's title.

"Stockton Gala Days" — 10,000 Maniacs: A Western New York band that made it HUGE playing at Bill Clinton's MTV-sponsored inaugural ball. Bonus points for making a garland crown.

"Stand By Me" — Ben E. King: There aren't many songs I would say are important non-musical markers, but this is one of them. I suspect that you're feelings for this song will deepen when it's dark outside.

"Tumbling Dice" — The Rolling Stones: Exile on Main Street is a perfect album and this is my favorite song on it.

"Country Girl" — Primal Scream: My friend Dave introduced me to this song, which he calls a great Stones song that they never recorded. I wish everyone friends who will introduce them to songs as kick-ass as this.

"Be My Baby" — Glasvegas: Wall of SOUND with this fuzzy remake of Motown.

"Release Me" — The Like: Sometimes my mom is right and something should just be fun.

"Birthday" — Sugarcubes: Another Mike HS fave. This song got me excited about music not made by people from the US, Canada or the UK.

"Coast Is Clear" — Curve: Mike's HS life continued. An amazing block-out-the-world song from a band that never got as popular as they should have.

"From A Million Miles" — Single Gun Theory: My fave radio station of all time, CFNY in Toronto, introduced me to this band and song from Australia. Not sure that I've made a playlist that didn't include this song, which for my money is more transubstantiational than any other.

"Anthems for a 17-year-old Girl" — Broken Social Scene: Aproposity should be obvious. This is a live version recorded live at Harbourfront Centre, Toronto 7.11.2009.

Disc 2
"Get Out The Map" — Indigo Girls: For anyone starting college this song seems really clear as to its inclusion on a playlist from a friendtor.

"So Young" — Suede: Another UK band that deserved more attention.

"I Can Dream About You" — Dan Hartman: Many of the songs on Disc 2 reflect how your definition of love and courting and dating and relationships can and will evolve.

"Who's Loving You" — Jackson 5: KCRW's Jason Bentley played this after Michael Jackson died and said that when he was growing up this was his "jam." That's a very smart musical man.

"Swimming Pool" — The Submarines: Songs use metaphors and similes all the time. Many of them suck. This one is a perfect fusion of lyric, melody, harmony, song length and idea.

"Dancing in the Dark" — Ted Leo & The Pharmacists: Awesome bootleg of a great Springsteen song. Play this at a party and someone might fall in love.

"All I Want Is You" — U2: I think this is the best. love. song. ever.

"Stay" — Belly: "He sleeps under stairs along with the heirs
Of nothing and nothing means no one who cares
But I love him dear and I love him dear
And I've loved him hundreads of thousands of years."

"Fade Into You" — Mazzy Star: Hope Sandoval's vocal on this song is a perfect match for the ambivalent lyrics.

"Plainsong" — The Cure: Dark dark dark moments of love.

"Chasing Dragons" — Gemma Hayes: over.

"Baby Just Be Yourself" — The Pipettes: Unfortunately, you'll probably encounter too many people in life to whom you want to play this song for. At least the Pipettes have fun with all their songs.

"Political" — Spirit Of The West: Work through the shit in this song and tis the real thing.

"Papa Was a Rodeo" — The Magnetic Fields: Ridiculously beautifully sad song.

"If Love Is A Red Dress" — Maria McKee: Someone's heart has been buffalo'ed. I hope that you never feel like this song, Charlene.

"The Drinking Song" — Moxy Fruvous: Here's what I told the Wude, when I included it on her mix. It still holds. One of my fave bands from high school. This song about aftermath is just about perfect.

Disc 3
"Little Bones" — The Tragically Hip: This is the PARTY disc. Another thanks-to-CFNY song. This song makes even a dorm room sound like a rowdy bar on the Canadian frontier. And what could make a party better? NOTHING.

"California Love" — Dr. Dre and Tupac: When this song stops being welcome at parties, then check the horizon for the silhouettes of four dudes on horses or a red Moon rising.

"Sexy Hypnotist" — Luscious Jackson: I think I always hoped one of these would show up at a party. I had to settle for --------------. You'll hear this story when you're older.

"This Is The Night" — Jarvis Cocker, Jonny Greenwood, Phil Selway, Steve Mackey, Jason Buckle, Steve Claydon: This is guaranteed to make your parties magical.

"Sukie In The Graveyard" — Belle & Sebastian: The second-coolest concert party moment I've ever seen was at the Hollywood Bowl when B&S closed their show with the LA Phil with this song. Crowd members got up and were dancing around the orchestra pit!

"The Bleeding Heart Show" — The New Pornographers: At 2:40 this song kicks into the greatest overdrive ever.

"Intervention" — The Arcade Fire: The first time I heard this was on a leaked mp3 of its debut on British radio. The DJ said that if this song didn't make you feel something special inside something was basically wrong with you. I could not agree more.

"Smells Like Teen Spirit" — Tori Amos: Nirvana's version of this song inspired slamdancing at college parties in 1992. This version is for when the party needs to chill.

"Into the Mystic" — The Swell Season: Van Morrison cover that's a much better song than Brown-Eyed Girl, which is a fun, if grossly overplayed, party song.

"Not Going Home" — The Elected: For when dawn is closing on you and you still wanna outrun it.

"Take On Me" — A.C. Newman: By the end of the song you'll know why this version is a must-include on the PARTY disc. :)

"My Life Would Suck Without You" — Kelly Clarkson: Favorite pure pop star of the decade must be represented. With any luck this is how you'll feel about most everyone you're surrounded by on weekends.

"Love U More" — Sunscreem: This is as techno as I got. Just dance.

"Summertime" — DJ Jazzy Jeff & The Fresh Prince: Be bold and bring it down and everyone will thank you.

"Birdhouse in Your Soul" — They Might Be Giants: A great party has the levity and intelligence of this song.

"Life In a Northern Town" — Sugarland, Little Big Town & Jake Owen: Little countrified version of an 80s classic. I hope that the parties you attend will have people who appreciate some diversity.

"World Sick" — Broken Social Scene: Just listen and fall in love with Canadian music.

"Sometime Around Midnight" — Airborne Toxic Event: Taste of California. I don't know of any songs that charge me up more than this.

Disc 4
"Safe Travels" — Peter and the Wolf: Another alum gifted me this song for the Perfect Song CD project. It's a spare and beautiful song. It's inclusion should be obvious.

"Pictures Of Success" — Rilo Kiley: This is my favorite song, Charlene. It's the song by the band that makes me (an early 30s person) feel about music the way that I did back in high school. Like the best songs, the opening notes immediately put the part of my brain that loves music into a suspended animation, in which exists only the song. Musically, it’s simple but the lyrical and vocal vulnerability as Jenny Lewis contemplates the future and laments the possibility of living a meaningless life ... it coalesces into something that absolutely hypnotizes me. It’s every moment of my youth that I wondered whether there was something beyond Amherst, NY and every moment since that I’ve understood that there is and that I can’t waste it. In short, the purest example in my life of William Blake’s concept of higher innocence—seeing with the unfiltered wonder of a child and understanding with the wisdom of those who have learned to value the fleeting nature of our time.

"Red Dirt Girl" — Emmylou Harris: You've already not become her. Be bold as you venture out and inward.

"Boy 1904" — Jónsi & Alex: Iceland rules as does music from Iceland.

"Us" — Regina Spektor: I hope that you'll feel this way about all your memories, especially of college.

"Elevator Love Letter" — Stars: The way Amy Millan talks about the power of shared memories as she introduces this live version speaks to the ineffable bonds of sharing a beginning.

"To Sir With Love" — Soul Asylum and Lulu: Maybe scratch what I said about "All I Want Is You" by U2? This might be the greatest love song ever. And I actually like this duet version better than the original solo version by Lulu.

"Slow Show" — The National: Another gift song from an alum. You guys have great taste.

"Umbrella" — Rihanna: Don't be like me and forget about great pop music while thinking that cool kids don't like it.

"A Million Tears" — Kasey Chambers: A song the defines a heartfelt plea.

"I Would Never" — The Blue Nile: I believe this is what the wisdom of having healed sounds like.

"Falling Slowly" — Glen Hansard & Markéta Irglová: This bootleg is from the movie. This will never cease giving me chills.

"Stay" — Lisa Loeb & Nine Stories: This is one of the most defining songs of my time in college. This video sorta made Lisa Loeb a precursor for Tina Fey's intelligent, quirky hotness. Reality Bites was a crappy movie, though.

"California Stars" — Billy Bragg and Wilco: Don't forget from whence you came.

"Ammæli" — The Sugarcubes: Icelandic version of "Birthday" from Disc 1. I heard this for the first time while vacationing there. LOVED IT.

"Parting Words" — Michael Giacchino: Giacchino's score made the raft scene in the season 1 finale of Lost the most emotional thing I've ever seen on TV. It felt like the closer to this mix, but then I realized that we needed something less poignant.

"Stadium Love" — Metric: fin

Closure after 20 years

2011-01-31T23:32:00.000-08:00

Most of us who grew up in Western New York inherited three things: a toughness to weather (and the lame, uninformed jokes about Buffalo's in particular), fandom of the Buffalo Bills and Sabres, and an inferiority complex.

I've never been as nervous as I was sitting on our family room floor on Jan. 27, 1991 watching Scott Norwood line up for the 47-yard field goal from the right hash that would decide Super Bowl XXV. If he misses the Giants would win 20-19, upsetting a team that the Vegas oddsmakers had made a 7-point favorite based on their vaunted no-huddle offense that thrashed the L.A. Raiders in the AFC Championship Game 51-3.

But if Norwood makes it, he wouldn't just be kicking the ball through the bright yellow uprights further than he ever had on grass and winning the Super Bowl for championship-starved Buffalo. He wouldn't even be kicking our region's inferiority complex in the face, he'd be stabbing it in the heart while simultaneously resurrecting a civic pride probably not seen since the turn of the 20th Century when Buffalo was a thriving city of half million people that provided life-giving sea access for the Midwest. Hell, he might even be curb-stomping the tired weather jokes.

Despite being just 15 years old and not even a lifelong WNYer (let alone an actual Buffalonian), I knew that. I knew that because every Bills fan watching knew that. It was inherited from our parents, the national pop culture, our giving the key to the city to Frank Deford because he stuck up for our weather on a national pregame show by pointing out that multiple NFL cities had colder average winter temps, our County Exec making the embarrassing choice to bet maple syrup with his counterpart rather than chicken wings, and two city slogans that used improper grammar (Talking Proud! and Buffalo, You're Looking Good).

To quote the great longtime Bills announcer Van Miller (as written in the Buff News story):

"Scott Norwood, rarely raises his voice above a whisper, he can fire the shot heard 'round the world now and win a Super Bowl with eight seconds to play ... He's made only [six of 10] outside the 40. Here we go. Lingner ready to snap it back to Reich. Eight seconds to play. Norwood takes a practice swing with the right leg. Everyone up on their feet, watching intently. Norwood reaches down and takes something off his left cleat, now does it again. Still standing up near his holder, concentrating, waiting for the snap. Here we go, the Super Bowl will ride on the right foot of Norwood.

Waiting for the snap, Reich, arm extended, puts it down, on the way, it's long enough ... and it is no good. He missed it to the right with four seconds to play. It was long enough but it was no good. And Norwood, walking slowly and dejectedly off the field. Scott Norwood missed a 47-yard field goal that would have won the Super Bowl for the Bills."

As Sports Illustrated's Peter King said later, "Does that paint a great picture or what?"

I have a pretty fucking great memory, but I can't remember how I reacted. I don't recall if there was yelling, screaming, punching of pillows or just shocked paralysis. I watched the game with my parents, so I know that I didn't swear. I know that I didn't cry and nothing in the room got broken save for the most important thing in there—our hearts.

My only memory of life after Super Bowl XXV is dreading getting the next issue of Sports Illustrated, which had typically been one of the highlights of my week. Apparently I let my feeling of being cheated metastisize so much that months later my mom yelled at me to "get over it, because it's just a game." I don't actually remember being bitter, but my mom wouldn't have said that if it weren't true. Joan F just doesn't roll with exaggeration.

Six months later I finally opened and read that issue of Sports Illustrated with Giants DB Mark Collins on the cover. A couple years (?) later, my father and I re-watched the VHS tape with the Super Bowl on it. The first half, which ended with the Bills up 12-10, was fine. For a fleeting instance we both felt like we might win.

At one point late in college (after the Bills had lost four Super Bowls in a row), I started to come to terms with the experience. My father and I (in that bizarro version of rationality that is mostly warped emotion but spoken without feeling in the voice) noted that what this Bills team did was as impressive as anything any other team had done (no NFL team before or since made it to four straight Super Bowls) ... they just didn't win when it mattered the most.

Twenty years later there's still a scar on my heart. The vulnerability of the open wound has healed over, but my heart is not the same as it was before. I walk with a feeling that Buffalo's best days won't return no matter how many cool new things pop up and thrive through the cracks in the city's foundation (like the Lloyd Taco Truck and Hero Design and even hosting a TEDX event). And I walk that way despite knowing what my mom said about it being just a game is true, particularly now as Egypt faces a revolution.

Well, all that was true until today. On Sunday, The Buffalo News ran it's 20th anniversary package about Super Bowl XXV. News Senior Sports Columnist Jerry Sullivan interviewed more than two dozen former players, coaches and execs to get their memories of that fateful experience. The benefit and wisdom gained over time paired with native Rhode Islander Sullivan's ineffable "get" of Buffalo resulted in the closure I've needed.

My favorite story was "It ain't hooking," which focused specifically on players' and coaches' memories of Norwood's kick. To liberally quote from the passage that redeemed my relationship with the city ...

Hearing [Bills longsnapper Adam] Lingner and [backup QB and holder Frank] Reich anguish about the laces, you sense that, even to this day, they would like to take some of the burden off Norwood. He was crushed by the miss. Norwood has said he didn't feel he had failed, but that he had let his teammates down. He trudged off the field, his head slumped forward, then went into the losing locker room.

Norwood stood at his locker for a good hour, answering every question from wave after wave of reporters. [Special teams coach Bruce] DeHaven stood by his side the whole time. A few minutes would go by, then DeHaven would ask Norwood if he'd had enough. Norwood shook him off each time. "I think I owe it to the fans to answer some questions."

DeHaven later named a son after Norwood. "We adopted him in Colombia," said DeHaven, who is on his second tour as the Bills' special teams coach. "Tobin Scott DeHaven. Scott handled that deal with so much dignity, so much class, that day."

He spoke haltingly, the emotions surging in him again. "I, I just wanted to be able to tell Toby some day, 'This is how you should conduct yourself in life. This is a pattern in life to follow.' He'll be 14 soon. I think he understands now."

I literally ended the story, which also revealed a new detail shared by backup QB and kick holder Frank Reich about Norwood's uncharacteristic struggles during warmups, in tears. And not a single Indian don't-pollute-or-litter tear, but cheeks soaked by streams of tears.

My favorite nuggets though were in Sullivan's interview, which ran in an extended version on his blog, with fantastic Bills backup running back Kenneth Davis, which reminded me how much the people who played on that team meant to me and the city.

I told Kenny he seemed emotional just talking about it.

"It is emotional," he said. "I never had a bad day in Buffalo. I don't care if it was practice, training camp at the college, Rich Stadium or on the road. I never had a bad day. I was excited to come to work. I was up early every day. I ... loved ... coming ... to work. It didn't matter if it was summertime or the middle of the year. It was because of the cohesiveness of the organization, the attitude. I'm talking even the people who cleaned up for us, the people who fed us lunch, the ones who cleaned up the stadium."

Davis said he never felt much separation between the team and the fans in Buffalo. He felt a kinship between a blue-collar team and a blue-collar community. He remembers how it felt on a cold Sunday on game day, seeing the smoke coming out of tailpipes in the cars, the smell of barbecue as he walked down the tunnel. He seemed ready to run out and hit someone as he spoke. By the time he was done, I was ready to run out the tunnel with him.

"To walk out there and see those fans with their beer helmets on, their wool caps, drinking their beer and the smiles on their faces. It made work better for them when we won. It was exciting to walk out and see them up there. You'd see the team on the other sideline and want to kick their butts. There was no feeling quite like it. Man, Buffalo is just a wonderful place."

The fact that men like Davis got that added the corollary to my mom's admonishment that I should "get over it, because it's just game" ... "and that what's most important about what just happened wasn't that kick or the score, but that you got to experience the unique synergy of a city, its team and the fans of both."

So thanks to Mom, Sully, Buffalo the city and the Bills and City of Buffalo fans and most of all to the execs, staff, coaches and players for the memories.

How to respond to Michelle Bachman

2011-01-28T10:20:00.000-08:00

From a great blog post on latimes.com by Paul Thornton ...

The problem is that [U.S. Rep. Michelle] Bachmann is a sought-after pundit in the first place. Much of her brand is bombast, which brings with it a less-than-wholesome treatment of the truth. Getting into a tizzy over her untrue, yet confident, utterances gives her more airtime than her intellectual heft deserves. Of course, this means the non-Fox News broadcasters would have to resist the temptation to invite her on as a commentator. No objections here.

Like many liberals and rationalists, I get frustrated when I see and hear how alarmist comments from the Tea Party and its favorite politicians and commentators generate enthusiasm from people. It's like arguing with Creationists about evolution and the age of the Earth. How does one have a reasonable discussion when the premises fundamentally conflict?

Thorton's blog post reminded me of advice I try to dispense to my students: being the cooler head in a disagreement will hardly ever hurt you. Rather than try to out-yell or out-scare or out-blame people like Glenn Beck and Bachmann, we should ignore them.

I didn't die // the body never ceases changing

2011-01-26T00:27:00.000-08:00

I willingly ate a floret of broccoli Sunday night and I survived. I didn't gag or even have a hard time swallowing it. Granted, I didn't like the taste but I realized that I could eat broccoli if forced and that I may not have to be so meticulously diligent when filtering it out of casserole-style mixtures.

This probably doesn't sound like much an accomplishment to most, but let me give a quick history lesson that will illuminate the significance of this post. After finishing my freshman orientation at the University of Arizona in the summer of 1993, my parents and I went to Applebee's for dinner. After basically finishing our meals, my mom, who also hates veggies, and I each had some broccoli left over that had come on the side of our entrees. We dared each other to eat a piece. My dad, if I'm remembering correctly, offered money to whomever ate one first.

We each stabbed a floret with our forks and slowly raised them toward our mouths. And about six inches away, when that pungent bitterness starts invading our nostrils my mom and I each balk.

My dad makes fun of us, yet neither of us even responds to his provocations because broccoli is a vile weed.

Now 17.5 years later, my taste buds have evolved and I hate broccoli and survived.

Holy Grail television moment

2011-01-19T01:05:00.000-08:00

I've been digging off and on for this since the day it happened back on Sept. 12, 2000. I owned a crappy quality bootleg copy for a short time. I left my AOL dialup connected for hours to download it. And then somehow the file corrupted and turned into encoded crud. And tonight ... U2 performing "Elevation" and literally owning the world of anyone who watched this for four minutes.

U2 - Elevation (Live on SNL)
Uploaded by zesuisla. - Music videos, artist interviews, concerts and more.

Discovering little bits of yourself where you might not expect

2011-01-17T22:45:00.000-08:00

One of my favorite things to do is read someone's Google chat status and respond. It's one of the reasons I don't sign up for Facebook. If I get so distracted by the emoticons, pop culture reference jokes and especially articles that my friends post sporadically, how would I ever filter "status updates"?

Well, one of my great friends posted this David Brooks story about how our brain works and our mind acquires its values and VALUES in The New Yorker and it blew me away, in large part because I'm geekily interested in neuroscience and evolutionary neurophysiology and behaviorism. But also just because I felt like I saw bits of myself on The New Yorker website.

There were so many passages that caused me to stop and think (the sign of great writing).

• Human beings are overconfidence machines. Paul J. H. Schoemaker and J. Edward Russo gave questionnaires to more than two thousand executives in order to measure how much they knew about their industries. Managers in the advertising industry gave answers that they were ninety-per-cent confident were correct. In fact, their answers were wrong sixty-one per cent of the time. People in the computer industry gave answers they thought had a ninety-five per cent chance of being right; in fact, eighty per cent of them were wrong. Ninety-nine per cent of the respondents overestimated their success.

• Research over the past thirty years makes it clear that what the inner mind really wants is connection. “It’s a Wonderful Life” was right. Joining a group that meets just once a month produces the same increase in happiness as doubling your income. According to research by Daniel Kahneman, Alan B. Krueger, and others, the daily activities most closely associated with happiness are social—having sex, socializing after work, and having dinner with friends.

• People generally overestimate how distinct their own lives are, so the commonalities seemed to them a series of miracles. The coincidences gave their relationship an aura of destiny.

Those are three of my favorite points, but the passage that inspired me comes toward the end when someone explains the river of knowledge. "I believe we inherit a great river of knowledge, a flow of patterns coming from many sources. The information that comes from deep in the evolutionary past we call genetics. The information passed along from hundreds of years ago we call culture. The information passed along from decades ago we call family, and the information offered months ago we call education. ..."

The quote continues and the additional explanation and context is illuminating.

Perhaps this is just me finding joy in an article that comes from experts who seem to be validating the choices I've made and who reinforce my spending hours trying to get my students to see beyond the SAT-over-preparation to impress the "right" colleges for the hopes of a lucrative and successful career. But I don't think so.

The most important lesson I feel like I've learned as an adult it to become comfortable with who I am and to be smart enough to recognize that I am not entirely sure of who that is anyway. And I dig that this article aligns with my values of enjoying people more than anything else.

An argument for copy-editing and/or drinking

2011-01-15T00:50:00.000-08:00

Found this on Politico.com yesterday in a story about a lavish fundraiser for GOP members of Congress.

[Freshman U.S. Rep, R-Ca, Jeff] Denham and his sponsors certainly went all out — despite the tone of austerity that incoming Speaker John Boehner is trying to set for his new GOP majority. Jim Beam, Dewers scotch, Johnny Walker Red Label and Souza tequila were readying to be served to VIP patrons at a tended bar. ...

Unfortunately for Politico and writer Jake Sherman, if Denham in fact had DewErs scotch and SOuza tequila served maybe it was a cheap affair, because those don't exist. I am going to guess that he meant Dewar's and Sauza.

I am only 10 percent laughing about this. The only humor is that the mistake was made about common alcohol, something most reporters don't make mistakes about.

The 90 percent of this that was scary is that Politico is usually an excellent website staffed by lots of talented people who used to grace the pages of fine daily newspapers. To mess up something so easy cuts to the heart of journalistic credibility (if they can't get that stuff right, how/why should the public trust us to get the more complicated and nuanced stuff right?).

UGH.

It feels good to be blogging again.

A professional's thoughts about language and the killings in Arizona

2011-01-11T18:53:00.000-08:00

The fantastic Roy Peter Clark at the Poynter Institute writes an amazing column about how we refer to/discuss/write about Jared Lee Loughner.

My fave section and what I tried clumsily to say in my post yesterday ...

The six dead in Tucson were not killed in traffic accidents but at the hands of another human being. The loss, the grief, the agony of those left behind remain as real whether we call Loughner an assassin, a domestic terrorist, a fanatic, a mass murderer or – the informal consensus – a “nut job,” a dismissive, self-deluding designation used by Americans (including me) who prefer to ignore the real consequences of mental illness.

...

The misuse of words, journalists know, is the fuel for propaganda, scapegoating, misinformation and hate. Try to think of a single hot-button issue in the American culture wars that has not been waged as a war of words, in which combatants battle to gain the upper hand by being first to name the issue.

Think of “death panels” to describe medical advice given near the end of life.

It’s the death tax vs. the millionaire’s tax; pro-choice vs. pro-life; illegal alien vs. undocumented worker; refugee vs. evacuee; prisoner of war vs. enemy combatant.

--------------

And here's someone else who said what I was feeling better than me ...

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart

Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c

Arizona Shootings Reaction

www.thedailyshow.com

Daily Show Full Episodes

Political Humor & Satire Blog

The Daily Show on Facebook

The media and "mental illness": Too quick to judge

2011-01-10T22:38:00.000-08:00

I really liked this piece by clinical psychologist Vaughan Bell about how the term "mental illness" is too quickly assigned as a reason for violence of the scale that happened in Tucson Saturday morning when six were killed and 14 others injured when a man tried to kill U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords.

Here are some great points in Bell's piece:

The mere mention of "mental illness" is explanation enough. This presumed link between psychiatric disorders and violence has become so entrenched in the public consciousness that the entire weight of the medical evidence is unable to shift it. Severe mental illness, on its own, is not an explanation for violence, but don't expect to hear that from the media in the coming weeks.

Seena Fazel is an Oxford University psychiatrist who has led the most extensive scientific studies to date of the links between violence and two of the most serious psychiatric diagnoses—schizophrenia and bipolar disorder, either of which can lead to delusions, hallucinations, or some other loss of contact with reality. ... they can say with confidence that psychiatric diagnoses tell us next to nothing about someone's propensity or motive for violence.

A 2009 analysis of nearly 20,000 individuals concluded that increased risk of violence was associated with drug and alcohol problems, regardless of whether the person had schizophrenia. ... In other words, it's likely that some of the people in your local bar are at greater risk of committing murder than your average person with mental illness.

I think that the reporters and the commentariat default to "mental illness" or "disturbed" or other variations and cease digging deeper or fail to contextualize more completely (particularly the TV commentariat) for several reasons:

1. We want answers quickly. And since the vast majority of us could not comprehend how/why someone does this our individual and collective failure to understand a possible motive means that the assailant was "crazy."

2. Not only do we want answers, but we also want to assign responsibility/blame. And to satisfy the always-hungry-news-cycle, it's usually ascribed as blame.

3. The over-abundance of commentators leads to an unwinnable contest to outscoop and differentiate a network's or website's coverage. Sadly, while Twitter was an awesome resource for maintaining up-t0-the-second coverage, it has opened more windows into the haphazardness of newsgathering (see NPR's early reports that Giffords had died).

So ultimately, it's easy just to say that the shooter was "crazy," even before a single thing is known about the shooter, because that's at least a starting point for your editor/producer and your audience.

I'll admit, too, that when I was a reporter and I had to cover a high school who murdered his mother, I automatically thought that the kid was "crazy" to do something like that. And that's not to say he wasn't disturbed, just that I wasn't thinking clinically, but rather pop-psychologically. And the really sad thing is that my completely unclinical and un-medically substantiated pop-psych diagnosis only helped to further stigmatize the idea of mental illness in a broader sense. I was that "what's easiest to use" media member.

I know Ron Artest got made fun of after on Twitter for thanking his psychiatrist after winning the NBA title with the Lakers last year, but his willingness to acknowledge receiving treatment was a big moment. And his subsequent raffling of his championship ring to raise money for teens who need emotional therapy is one of the most under-appreciated stories of the last year in my eyes.

A Small Act

2011-01-04T23:21:00.001-08:00

Simply inspired tonight.

Thanks to M, I went to a free screening of the documentary A Small Act, tonight at the Hammer Museum in Westwood. This film by Jennifer Arnold, which premiered on HBO last summer and packed them in at Sundance among other film festivals last year and that I'd embarrassingly never heard of, is about a woman living in Sweden who many years ago sponsored an African child so he could attend school in Kenya.

Every month Hilde Back sent about $15 to make sure that Chris Mburu could remain in school, which isn't free. Thanks to Hilde's generosity he goes to university and then Harvard Law School and is now a human rights lawyer with the United Nations based in Switzerland but travels the world.

And if that isn't enough a compelling enough tale, Hilde is a Holocaust survivor who emigrated to Sweden as a little girl, without her parents because they weren't allowed into Sweden. She was never wealthy, but just someone who thought that helping others was important.

Now in addition to his work with the UN, Chris has set up a foundation in Kenya to help students similar to him so that they can attend school. This might be the coolest example of paying it forward EVER. My favorite idea expressed in the movie was spoken by Chris's sister, who is also doing human rights work at the UN thanks to a mirrored path toward education. Essentially she said that despite how enormous and intractable a problem seems, one can never help too little.

After the screening Arnold, along with Producer Jeffrey Soros and Producer/Director of Photography Patti Lee participated in a brief Q&A and reported that thanks to the movie, the program has expanded from helping 10 students in one section of the country to between 200-300 this year. And smartly, they are patiently trying to increase the reach so as not to expand beyond their infrastructural capacity, Arnold said.

I wish I took advantage of more of these opportunities. Los Angeles abounds with them and thus I have a slightly late New Year's resolution. I am passing on the vague "read and exercise more" resolution which always fails despite it's total non-specificity. I am replacing it with attend a screening/book reading/freeorcheap speech/museum talk at least every other month. If I can't make that happen then I don't even deserve to live here.

2010 ... The Year of ...

2010-12-31T21:27:00.000-08:00

I took my first real international trip this year (apologies to Toronto and Nogales, MX) to Reykjavik, Iceland in 2010. It was amazing. I ate amazing food, saw jaw-droppingly beautiful sights and met some amazing people (and became a regular at a bar in less than a week). But as amazing as that experience was, 2010 was NOT the year of travel.

It was the year of food/drink.

During the past year I had the distinct pleasure of eating three of the Top 5 restaurant meals in my life, along with some other Top 20 dining experiences (particularly thanks to the last week of the year). While in Reykjavik I enjoyed amazing meals at Silfur and Fiskfelagid, grilled monkfish and salted cod. And I was able to close 2010 with the best Mexican meal of my life and I also discovered the best beer experience I could ever have imagined.

The closer this year was Red O, which I would say is a must-eat for anyone visiting L.A. who has even the slightest inkling for amazing Mexican food. Acclaimed chef Rick Bayless, who won Top Chef Masters season 1, created the menu and two of the chefs from his extremely successful Frontera Grill in Chicago, are head chef and sous chef (or at least they were when it opened a few months ago. I don't know if they still are).

Red O opened this summer to rave reviews from the L.A. Times despite imperfect service. One of the things reviewer S. Irene Virbila mentioned in her review, which ran in August, was that the restaurant was so in-demand that reservations for weekend nights needed to be made at least a month in advance and otherwise still often left people settling for 6 to 10 p.m. My end of 2010 dinner, which I hope becomes an annual tradition with L.A. Youth alums Guianna and Stephanie, was the same. When I called six days in advance I could choose between 6:15 or 10 p.m. (I opted for the earlier.)

Super short review: THE FOOD WAS AWESOME.

We got there at 6:15 and were greeted by a very friendly hostess—apparently things have improved since the LAT reviewed the restaurant. Given that it was so early the restaurant was only about 1/4 full. The crowd spanned a range of ages and races even in the high-end restaurant West Hollywood locale.

Despite the high-prices and high-end, fine-dining classification our server was very friendly and immediately asked whether we'd been there before. Perhaps most importantly, when we said "no" he didn't change his friendly demeanor.

We started with with freshly made guacamole with warm chips and salsa ($9), which was amazing. Very simple and clean, obold flavors. Unlike many other restaurants that offer "free chips and salsa" these weren't oily and well-worth the price. The guacamole was sooooo fresh and chunky that it stood out. As someone who loves avocado almost by default, creating memorable guacamole was an accomplishment.

We then had some sopes, which are silver-dollar-pancake-ish sized circular masa (corn) cakes topped with three choices. We ordered the sopes with plantains, thick cream and fresh cheese. UM, WOW. A contrast of corn texture and earthy taste with the sweet cream and just sharp enough cheese. These are a MUST EAT.

I also had the Topolo Margarita, which was made with Sauza Commemorativo tequila, Gran Torres orange liquer and homemade fresh-squeezed limonada. WOW. I had it "up," meaning no rocks, with salt. It was sooooo smooth unlike most margaritas, which need to be served on the rocks so the water dilutes the nearly pungent tequila taste. Btw, the place has a literal glass-cabinet lined hallway of high-end tequilas in the middle of the dining room. We didn't explore the tequilas since G was fighting off a cold and I was driving. But it was so tempting. Next time!

For dinner I had debated between the Pollo en Mole Poblano, which is my standard Mex restaurant order (chicken with mole sauce), and Chilpachole, which is according to the menu "velvety seafood broth with chipotle and epazote, Mazatlan shrimp, Viking village scallops, Carlsbad mussels, striped bass, roasted potatoes and chayote.

Since I always order the Pollo en Mole, I decide to step out and go for the seafood. SUCH A GOOD DECISION.

Chilpachole is basically a generous-sized vessel of all those super fresh ingredients submerged in a zesty seafood broth. It was so rich in seafood taste that when I shared potato chunk Steph wasn't sure whether it was seafood or potato, because the potato was so infused with seafoodyness. The pieces of shrimp were huge and there were like five of them, along with four scallops, cubes of bass and like half a dozen mussels. On the menu this is listed under "Mexico's Celebrated Seven," which for Bayless means one of the seven regional specialties that he has mastered.

Each piece of fish was succulent and just overloaded with the complex flavors of the seafood broth. I don't mean to sound like a pretentious foodie, but it was the perfect marriage of flavor and texture.

Soooooo soooooo sooooooo sooooo good.

One of the things I love about fine dining is that the portion sizes are just enough to make you feel borderline full after the app and entree but leave enough room for dessert. AND THANK GAWD FOR THAT.

We each felt the compulsion to order a dessert. I got the Mexican chocolate brownie tart with gooey meringue, graham cracker crust and blackberry sauce. Gui got the goat cheese cheesecake with Mexican root beer sauce and caramel corn and Steph got the three sorbets, cantaloupe, strawberry and vanilla. They were all fantastic, but Gui and I ended up trading the second halves of our desserts as we realized the other had ordered what we had preferred. But they all were awesome. They felt decadent without being cloyingly sweet. Rich in flavor but also with contrasting textures (save for the sorbet which is obvi just cold and creamy).

Since eating there people have asked what I liked so much about it and I found myself paraphrasing Top Chef head judge Tom Colicchio and saying essentially that the food isn't complicated, it just tastes fucking awesome. Repeatedly, throughout the TC seasons, the judges have said that even if you cook something simple, if you make it he best-X-you've-ever-tasted that's the most important. And that's what we all felt.

Steph ordered albondigas, which are beef and pork meatballs with smoky chipotle tomatoes and caramelized onions and Yukon gold potatoes, and noted that she thought her mom might even be convinced that they were worth the high cost, which initially had her mom thinking we were crazy to be going out for.

The great thing about this last week of 2010 is that though Red O was the highpoint, I had two other great meals to close the week after that. Oxnard (of all places) is home to a new solid classy restaurant and bar called Sugarbeets. And finally, Nem Huong Ninh Hoa (a Vietnamese restaurant in Rosemead in the San Gabriel Valley east of L.A.) that despite not serving pho or bahn mi, made the BEST Vietnamese meal of my life.

It was lemongrass-flavored grilled chicken served on broken rice. It was the juiciest chicken that still had a great slightly crispy surface. MMMMMMMMMMMM.

So what I've learned is that good food has made some of my best memories of 2010. I want 2011 to be even better.

Book reviews for philosophy majors | Do we characterize certain people as victims of violence?

2010-12-29T12:01:00.000-08:00

When I speak in classrooms for career days or about being a reporter, I usually get asked what I studied in college, which in my case was philosophy (as an undergrad). As a philosophy major, I always have trouble explaining what that means, particularly to middle school students. I say things like "thinking about thinking" and "we try to ask and understand the big questions, like what is meaning? how do we prove existence? what is moral?" But that doesn't always engage them and I'm loathe to go any deeper than that, because I wasn't brought in to discuss philosophy. Also, as is my tendency, I usually end my description with a joke about it not being ancient Greece and thus the job market isn't very good for philosophers.

But after reading this review of Judith Butler's book Frames of War: When Is Life Grievable? I think I'll have a better answer to give. In short, the review in Utne says ... Philosopher and Utne Visionary Judith Butler argues that we think of certain people as natural victims of violence. (That was the Tweet about the review.)

FROM THE REVIEW: Judith Butler’s trenchant and brilliant book is all about this kind of “frame,” an image or a discussion that allows us to think of certain people as natural victims of violence. Her work suggests that by defining people as residents of war zones, we have, so to speak, zoned them for war. We don’t grieve their deaths, and the call for nonviolence is shouted down because we haven’t recognized their lives as fully livable.

I think I'm just an angry person

2010-09-20T21:07:00.000-07:00

I was going to blog last week after having a couple great experiences at two favorite Los Angeles restaurants. Then I was going to blog Sunday after discussing those experiences with a friend and in that conversation seeing the common thread that unified the experiences into a focused blog post. But what has brought me back blogging today? GETTING PISSED OFF.

My parents (I think my father specifically) pointed out when we bought my Saturn in 1997 that Saturn had the highest profit margin of any car company on its sales—a consequence of the company's no-haggle policy. I responded that that didn't "bother me" because someone has to and also, I liked the people at the dealership. There was a legit emphasis on customer service: no pressure, extremely friendly, very patient and always honest (as much as car dealers can be).

I loved my first Saturn (1994 SL1). I drove it to 168,000 miles, on dozens of roadies, including a cross-country one. I loved it so much I bought a second one when the first one started dying. (To be honest, though, I had planned to save for a Prius, but the first one died before I had the cash saved for one.) The 2002 SL2 hasn't been nearly as reliable a car and sadly, got me thinking that my next car wouldn't be a Saturn. But at the same time, I loved the peeps at the dealership so I never would have bought a new car without at least giving them a shot.

But then Saturn died as a company last year. And though they promised they'd stick around as a service shop, Saturn of Torrance (ne, the Torrace Auto Center) disappeared. I was worried. I knew I was paying more at a dealer for oil changes and repairs, but I legitimately trusted the service consultants and mechanics not to hose me. And though appointments sometimes took a long time, they always kept me updated, apologized for delays, answered questions I had about any work they were performing and were super upfront with all costs and required signatures on all services and changes to work orders.

This brings me to this blog post's buried lead.

Oil change and tire rotation took five-and-a-half hours. ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME?

Several months after Saturn closed, I received a post card from Martin Automotive saying that they were welcoming the marooned Saturn customers. Of course the first sign auspicious sign, this happened to be just after I got an oil change at Jiffy Lube while waiting for someone connected to GM to point me toward a new service center.

Last Monday, four-plus months since my previous oil change, I called Martin to make an oil change appointment. "You don't need an appointment. Just come in. We have 75 repair bays," was what the receptionist told me. I go online and make a 10:30 appointment anyway, but never get any email confirmation or even a "thank you for making an appointment" message on the screen after hitting "submit" that I actually made one. Ironically, I got an email from GM asking me to rate the online appointment scheduler.

I showed up today at 11 a.m. (30 minutes late, but no matter because there was no appointment scheduled anyway, although my contact information was on the computer) and it was BUSY. Virtually all 75 bays looked occupied.

Randy takes my info and I tell him I want just an oil change and of course top off the fluids, and perform the however-many-point inspection. He never says how much it'll cost, though I see on his computer that it's $50 (are you fucking kidding me?) and that my car will be ready at 1 p.m. (um, this is just an oil change right?). He never mentions that to me either. Whatever, they've got Wi-Fi, I've got my laptop, a magazine and a book. So I'll miss the 1 p.m. showing of Catfish, but I can do the grocery shopping after the car appointment and catch the later afternoon show.

1 p.m. No word on my car.
1:15 p.m. I use the word "calcifying" to describe my waiting for an oil change.
1:19 p.m. Randy comes out and brings the list of other things. I should rotate my tires, replace my fuel filter, get new wiper blades and further look at the power steering. I say go ahead with the tires and the fuel filter, pass on the blades (I like in SoCal) and ask what's wrong with the power steering.

"I'm not sure," about that.

ARE? YOU? FUCKING? KIDDING? ME? Why the fuck are you coming to me recommending a repair that you cannot explain. He says that he'll look into it.

Between 1:22 p.m. and 1:50 p.m. I tweet and IM and email a series of emails expressing my frustration, which is transmuting to anger and then Cosby-show style madness.

1:50ish p.m. Randy calls and says that they were recommending replacing the power steering fluid, but that if I wasn't noticing any steering problems it probably wasn't vital. I definitely pass. Btw, no cost was given to me on that.

2:30 p.m. Get a call on my cell from someone in the repair shop, since my consultant is on lunch. (At least someone gets lunch.) They're trying to rotate and balance my tires but they had to call because they needed to ask me where the "wheel lock" is. Saturn NEVER gave me one when I got my car. So at the Saturn dealer they would always ask and then remember when I reminded them and get the wheels off without a problem. The guys here said they would try to figure something out and then asked whether I'd want the wheellocks replaced with standard lug nuts so if I ever had tire problems while driving I'd have nuts that any AAA person could remove no problem. I said yes. I wonder how much those will cost me. Had to share that nugget in the interest of fairness.

4 p.m. Randy tells me that they're still stocking their inventory of Saturn parts so they don't have the new fuel filter and will have to order it. This means of course that I'll have to come back and have them do it. Based on the, they started this and I don't know who might have parts for a dead car company, I agree to have them do it. So even though I had resolved that this was my last time using Martin Automotive Group, I will be back one more time.

4:25 p.m. I'm waiting to pay at the service cashier desk and notice that this service department has won company awards for service and has posted letters from customers praising the consultants and mechanics. I feel like I'm in a Twilight Zone episode, because this was not the place I went to. Five-and-a-half hours for an oil change and tire rotation that cost me about $150 just for those two things and not being apologized to for glacial pace or for not keeping me updated or for not ever actually disclosing costs.

So circumstances are forcing me to take another step into my adulthood and find an independent mechanic on my own.

Later this week I shall write the good blog post about how I have fallen deeper in love with L.A.

Hot night, chill music

2010-08-19T18:54:00.001-07:00

To anyone who has ever met me or even been in spacetime with me here's an apology ... If I've ever come across as someone who feels like he is the smartest person in the room and wants everyone else to know that a GIANT FUCKING "I'M SORRY."

I've recently come across a few people who radiated that vibe in a supernova way. They were all young (in high school) and I'm going to give them the benefit of the doubt that they had no idea. I'm quite sure that I was the exact same way in high school, in fact. So this apology goes out to my teachers and fellow Sweet Home Panthers classes of 1992-1996 the mostest.

Here's a great music sampler to try to help balance the metaphorical karmic scales (as an atheist I can't sincerely believe in karma). I deleted it today (1.12.2011) because it was starting to annoy me every time I went to my blog page.

A sentence I NEVER imagined writing about an idea I thought was impossible

2010-08-16T20:55:00.000-07:00

This is the most depressing story I've read in a while. As the U.S. media gets overobsessed with celebrities, sports and the inconsequential minutiae of politics, members of the news media in Mexico literally fear for their lives. It's so dangerous that I'm about to type something I'd never imagined I'd think ... Even in censorship these reporters work honorably.

Under threat from Mexican drug cartels, reporters go silent

By Tracy Wilkinson, Los Angeles Times

A new word has been written into the lexicon of Mexico's drug war: narco-censorship.

It's when reporters and editors, out of fear or caution, are forced to write what the traffickers want them to write, or to simply refrain from publishing the whole truth in a country where members of the press have been intimidated, kidnapped and killed.

That big shootout the other day near a Reynosa shopping mall? Convoys of gunmen whizzed through the streets and fired on each other for hours, paralyzing the city. But you won't read about it here in this border city.

Those recent battles between the army and cartel henchmen in Ciudad Juarez? Soldiers engaged "armed civilians," newspapers told their readers.

As the drug war scales new heights of savagery, one of the devastating byproducts of the carnage is the drug traffickers' chilling ability to co-opt underpaid and under-protected journalists — who are haunted by the knowledge that they are failing in their journalistic mission of informing society.

"You love journalism, you love the pursuit of truth, you love to perform a civic service and inform your community. But you love your life more," said an editor here in Reynosa, in Tamaulipas state, who, like most journalists interviewed, did not want to be named for fear of antagonizing the cartels.

"We don't like the silence. But it's survival."

An estimated 30 reporters have been killed or have disappeared since President Felipe Calderon launched a military-led offensive against powerful drug cartels in December 2006, making Mexico one of the deadliest countries for journalists in the world.

For the rest click here.

2010-07-29T19:11:00.000-07:00

My enthusiastic embrace of Twitter has kept me from blogging. But this time, I needed way more than 140 characters to promote one of the most important pieces of journalism I've seen in years.

Before you click on the link below, you should know that the cover image of the latest Time magazine (or perhaps the next issue) is disturbing. It's a close up the face of an 18-year-old Afghan girl who has had her nose and ears cut off by the Taliban because she fled her abusive in-laws.

The bulk of the email is Time managing editor Richard Stengel explaining the magazine's decision to publish the photo. I'll excerpt briefly what he says:

Our cover image this week is powerful, shocking and disturbing. It is a portrait of Aisha, a shy 18-year-old Afghan woman who was sentenced by a Taliban commander to have her nose and ears cut off for fleeing her abusive in-laws. Aisha posed for the picture and says she wants the world to see the effect a Taliban resurgence would have on the women of Afghanistan, many of whom have flourished in the past few years. Her picture is accompanied by a powerful story by our own Aryn Baker on how Afghan women have embraced the freedoms that have come from the defeat of the Taliban — and how they fear a Taliban revival. (See pictures of Afghan women and the return of the Taliban.)

I thought long and hard about whether to put this image on the cover of TIME. First, I wanted to make sure of Aisha's safety and that she understood what it would mean to be on the cover. ...
I'm acutely aware that this image will be seen by children, who will undoubtedly find it distressing. We have consulted with a number of child psychologists about its potential impact. ... I showed it to my two young sons, 9 and 12, who both immediately felt sorry for Aisha and asked why anyone would have done such harm to her. I apologize to readers who find the image too strong, and I invite you to comment on the image's impact. (Comment on this cover.)

But bad things do happen to people, and it is part of our job to confront and explain them. In the end, I felt that the image is a window into the reality of what is happening — and what can happen — in a war that affects and involves all of us. I would rather confront readers with the Taliban's treatment of women than ignore it.

I applaud Time magazine for this. This is the best of what journalism should be doing every day. It's time we stopped using our assumptions and bias-selected media sources to dictate our arguments for our positions. We're not going to solve anything until we deal in facts.

Read more here.

GOP/Palin/Tea Party reality check

2010-07-09T19:33:00.001-07:00

This is from Sept. 3, 2008, but something worth remembering. And more importantly, it's fucking funny.

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart

Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c

Sarah Palin Gender Card

www.thedailyshow.com

Daily Show Full Episodes

Political Humor

Tea Party

Pretty much perfect, no intro needed

2010-07-08T18:42:00.000-07:00

New Apple Friend Bar Gives Customers Someone To Talk At About Mac Products

Courage and love

2010-07-05T15:07:00.000-07:00

Toronto Maple Leafs GM Brian Burke recently marched in a gay Pride Parade in Toronto to keep a promise he made to his son Brendan, who died in a car accident in February. Brendan had come out publicly as gay two months prior in an ESPN The Magazine article. Here's how National Post columnist Bruce Arthur described the promise ...

This wasn't Brian Burke's first visit to this celebration of tolerance. The year before, eight months after Brendan's revelation of his sexuality, Burke had flown his son to Toronto and taken Brendan to the parade.

It's easy to say you accept a gay son. It's different, in a town where you are very recognizable, to take your gay son to the Pride Parade. And as they watched the rainbow kaleidoscope of people spin by that day, Brian Burke made a promise.

"He said, 'I really appreciate you coming out,'" says Burke, his eyes hidden behind sunglasses. "I said, 'Well, next year we'll march in it.'"

This story by Arthur made me cry (shocking, right?) but more importantly it's the most important thing that I've read in a while and quite inspiring.

Under pressure?

2010-06-29T21:27:00.000-07:00

When Twitter debuted I said that it was the vehicle of the narcissist. Who cared about meaningless blurps of "just had a great meal" or other randomassity that people bitched about with Facebook status updates? A month ago I U-turned and got a Twitter account. I use it primarily to get great reading recommendations from Roger Ebert and other great writers, sports nuggets from the likes of Bill Simmons, entertainment info some EW writers and music thoughts from Ann Powers and Robert Hilburn. At it's best, Twitter feels like the user-driven/chosen active web curation service that so many of us claim to want.

But I've also been seduced by some of the slightly more narcissistic indulgences. I have already Tweeted 191 times and given that I barely tweeted (F-U nytimes) while in Iceland, I am averaging about nine tweets per day. The NBA finals proved to be a big-time Tweet fest. I pass along great or provocative articles, occasionally funny observations and every once in a while communicate with my few friends who are on Twitter.

The other aspect of Twitter that feeds my self-centered appetite is counting my followers. Sadly (?) after a month I have 28 followers. I've done nothing to try to get followers; prior to this blog post I've only mentioned the account a few times and I haven't added it to my e-mail signature. And I don't follow someone just because they follow me, which has cost me some followers, based on how much my count fluctuates day-to-day. It's not that I am against following people who I discover are following me, but I read a person's Tweets first and evaluate whether they are worth following.

Today I gained my first "celebrity" follower, though I doubt L.A. Times pop music critic Ann Powers would call herself a celebrity. No reporter I've ever met would be comfortable referring to herself as a "celebrity." Doing so would violate one of the most fundamental tenets of being a reporter—you are not the story. But I digress, now that a writer who I deeply admire for her incredibly insightful ideas about music and her ability to express them in ways that have me saying, "that's what I was thinking but couldn't come up with," I feel pressured to Tweet more intelligently particularly about music. By the same token, I think that I should be blogging more about music. So hopefully I will be.

A someone whose writing is virtually only this blog, I think that feeling the self-applied pressure of trying to not suck in front of someone (even at just 140 characters), should be a good thing for me. And that's no disrespect intended to my writer friends who read this blog.

Iceland: Final 411, The journey home and The aftermath

2010-06-25T22:26:00.000-07:00

First here's the photo gallery.

Emptying the notebook of Icelandic info:

• There are 90,000 horses in Iceland, according to one tour guide. There are 110,000-120,000 horses according to another. Horses cannot return to Iceland once they leave and neither can their equipment or even a saddle. Icelandic horses, which are small, have been so genetically isolated for hundreds of years that they cannot risk any "contamination."

• There are between 500,000 and 600,000 sheep. The worst thing you can be called in Iceland is a "sheep stealer." It's so bad in Icelandic that our guide didn't even say the Icelandic word. This is because back in the Viking days, sheep were a family's sustenance (clothes and food). So if you killed/stole a sheep you fucked an entire family, hence why that was death penaltyable or exile.

• Volcanoes erupt every four years on average, so I'll have another chance to see an erupting volcano in Iceland. I need to time my return trip around one. And I WILL DEFINITELY BE BACK.

• Half of Icelandic women are genetically linked to Irish/Scottish women because of old Viking days. Vikings stopped in IRL/SCOT on way to Iceland and pillaged and murdered men and then brought women to Iceland. Hence why you see some Icelandic redheads.

• Swimming is the favourite physical activity of most Icelanders. They love it. There are public pools all over Reykjavik.

• In Reykjavik people get the day off in the summer if it's 25 degrees centigrade.

• If you want to get noticed as a Californian wear an Amoeba Music hoodie. I got recognized by three Californians in 15 minutes while wearing one Saturday night in a bookstore. I had to explain myself to the person I was with.

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The journey back to the States:

Shortly after getting to Keflavik Airport I see a sign promoting that Keflavik was voted Europe's number one airport in 2009. As someone in dire need of nail clippers to declaw myself I would say that ranking is crap. No place sold nail clippers, but I had my choice of several places selling Topas or Opal (the cough-medicine-tasting Icelandic liquers).

Oh well, once we board the plane (already running a few minutes behind) we end up sitting on the tarmac. After noticing we're 30 minutes behind, guy behind me says that he's getting a little nervous because he's got someone planning to pick him up in Seattle and no way to tell them that we're going to be late.

"We'll be fine," I offer reassuringly. "We'll make up the time in the air. They do that all the time."

"Are you sure?"

"Well, no. I am just a passenger, but I'm not crazy, right?" as I look to other passengers to nod in agreement. They do.

We soon learn that we're late taking off, because we're waiting for someone connecting from Europe. That person's plane landed in Iceland late and since this is the last flight to Seattle for another 24 hours, Iceland Air opted to wait for said passenger. There are some groans, but mostly I feel like this is a cool thing, trying to imagine what if that were me.

Eventually we get off the ground 45 minutes late. Fortunately on this flight my in-seat entertainment system works so I watch two episodes of Pressa (an Icelandic television show about a tabloid newspaper that actually treats reporters intelligently). I also monitor the plane's progress on any of the half-dozen maps that allow me to do that. I notice that the one noting our time to destination never seems to indicate that we're doing anything to make up even a minute of our late departure and the flight crew hasn't said anything about that either. Suddenly I wish I was on an American airline.

At 6:30 p.m. PDT we land in Seattle-Tacoma International Airport (Sea-Tac). My 105-minute layover, which allowed for plenty of time through Customs and perhaps a bathroom break and quick snack, is now just 60 minutes. And I'm in the second last row of a plane full of people who totally ignored the flight attendants' request to let passengers with tight layovers (me) go first. But after spending nearly eight hours in a flying tin can, I can't even begrudge those people.

6:42 p.m. I finally disembark. I now have 48 minutes to go through Customs, have my bag checked again, check my bag in again, go through security again and figure out where in the hell or Sea-Tac I'm supposed to go to catch my flight to L.A. I notice that my flight is of course ON TIME.

6:46 p.m. Customs Cattle Call. "If you have a U.S. or Canadian passport and are a citizen of either country please go to 'area 4.' Everyone else please go to areas 1, 2 or 3." Area 4 has as many people as areas 1 and 2 combined. I cannot even get into the official bank-style, velvet-roped line of Area 4, and neither can another two dozen people also overflowing from the Area 4 waiting area.

6:48 p.m. I am going to miss my flight. Oh well, at least I have a laptop and a phone and my friend Derek in Seattle, who I can try to call.

6:49 p.m. WHOOOOOOO! They open up Area 5 for U.S. and Canadian citizens and those of queuing up outside of the official Area 4 waiting line are now at the front of the Area 5 line. Perhaps I'll make it?

6:55 p.m. (35 minutes until departure). I am next in line to go through passport check. Meanwhile, three people have been pulled out of our line because they're "residents" not "citizens" and need to be walk to areas 1, 2 or 3. So here's the set up. The passport check stations are like bank tellers. There's a five-foot wide lane we're supposed to wait behind until called before we approach the agent, just like a bank. The person with the customs agent finishes just as the three "residents" start walking out of the Area 5 line. "Go, you're next!" a woman a few people behind me in line agitatedly instructs me. I wait because if I stepped forward at this point, I literally would have walked into the people leaving Area 5. "You're next. Go. Now. Move," most-impatient-woman-in-the-world says.

"I'm not going to be an ass," I say loudly enough for all of the people waiting in the Area 5 line to hear. I approach the passport check Customs agent.

6:56 p.m. "Everything OK?" he asks.

"Yeah, we're all just a little testy'" I reply.

"That's my job all day," he says and smiles with recognition, "dealing with testy passengers." He verifies my trip and passport and I'm done. It's now 6:58 p.m.

6:58 p.m. As I'm walking down the stairs I notice that my bag is coming out of the baggage claim conveyor. I grab it without breaking stride and head to the line to declare my purchases and once again verify the details of my trip and show my passport and Customs form.

6:59 p.m. They're asking me the standard questions, how long was your trip? What were you doing? yaddayaddayadda. The Customs agent scribbles on my Customs form. This has not happened to other people, by my observation. "Sir, you need to walk over there." He's pointing about 50 feet in front of me to an empty line and a lone Customs agent standing at a table. I walk over. This isn't good considering my flight leaves in 30 minutes and I'm not expecting them to wait for me, like we did in Iceland.

7:01 p.m. "Sir, you've been randomly selected for a manual baggage screening. That's why there's this mark on your Customs form. Do you know what this means?"

Now, I know the most basic rule of going through Border/Customs stuff. Don't fuck around. But at the same time ... the stand I've been standing in is turning into quicksand. "Yeah, it means I'm going to miss my flight," I say with the what I hope is the right balance of nervous urgency and resigned humor and a smile.

Agent Patrick gets it. "Let's hope not. It's 7 now. When is your flight?"

"7:30."

"It's not gonna take me that long. You got good shoes on?"

"Yeah, I'm wearing sneakers."

"OK, I'll try to make this as painless as possible."

Agent Patrick is great. When he asks if I want to amend my Customs form with anything I may have forgotten I mention that I forgot a pair of gloves. "I'm not that anal," he says. Basically, $10,000 is the threshold for Customs attention. "I don't think I have $10,000 to my name," I say only half-jokingly.

Theoretically, he has the legal power to take literally everything out of my bag and ask about it. He doesn't do this, obviously. When he comes across my plastic bag filled with my dirty laundry he asks about it and when I tell him what it is, he's cool. He unzips all the pockets, sifts through the folds of shirts and stuff and about 10 minutes later we're finished. I have hope.

7:11 p.m. I take my bag and hand it to the baggage transfer people who take bags from transferring international travelers. Hooray for not having to go through any standard baggage check-ins.

7:13 p.m. I am standing in a security line. Again, it's just for international passengers transferring to other planes. I de-belt, take out the laptop, remove shoes and throw everything with metal into my carryon.

7:18 p.m. I am through security and have shoes back on. I figure out where I need to go (Gate D6) to catch my flight which leaves in 12 minutes and is still on time.

7:19 p.m. I find the train I need to catch.

7:21 p.m. I find the second train I need to catch.

7:23 p.m. A flight attendant is standing on the escalator up. It's super narrow. I choose the stairs. I start jogging up the first flight, which is the equivalent of four flights of stairs in an office building. I easliy beat flight attendant up to the platform mid-stairs and take the escalator now running.

7:25 p.m. "All passengers for Alaska Airlines flight 481 to Los Angeles should be boarding now." I'm running now. Not jogging. Running. My shirt is stuck to my back with sweat and I can feel beads forming on my forehead.

7:28 p.m. I'm at gate D2 "Final boarding for Flight 481 to Los Angeles." I sprint.

7:29 p.m. I arrive at D6 and see the last few passengers turning in their boarding passes to the gate agent. Whew. Of course once I get on the jetway, I'm just standing there for five minutes. Needless sprint. :(

After watching two passengers get really pissed at each other about overhead compartment space (one guy wants to put his duffel bag up there but business traveler guy doesn't want his carryon with his suit getting wrinkled. ultimately they each remove the other's guys stuff until a flight attendant deals with it), I sit down. I immediately apologize for smelling. My rowmates are totally cool.

9:40 p.m. I am at baggage claim but my bag isn't. It turns out that those of us coming from Reykjavik were faster than the luggage transfer people and our bags didn't make it with us, but will instead be on the first flight out of Seattle in the morning.

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Since returning, I've been beyond tired but super happy. The trip was worth every penny (of which it totaled betwen $3k and $4k).

I've had to stop myself from saying "takk" when wanting to thank people.

And I've been evangelizing Iceland to friends. If you want a great vacation with the perfect balance of city and wondrous nature, Iceland is a no-brainer. And no country could be more grateful that you're there.

Day 7: Reykjavik

2010-06-16T17:00:00.000-07:00

On my last day, I've got until just after lunch I need to catch the shuttle to Keflavik Airport. I hope to soak up the city one last time before I leave. Of course, it's sunnier this day than any since I've been there. The night before I debated what my last meal should be, but Courtney smartly pointed out that I need to make my last meal memorable. This meant back to the Fiskfelagid Fish Company. This time I skipped the soup and the beer and ended up with another AMAZING Salted Cod with Saffron for only $15! Maybe I should quit drinking just so I can eat better? Nah, otherwise I never would have taken that super cool Eagle Rock Brewery photo at the Gullfoss or gotten hooked up with the three free pint glasses.

The highlight of the day was Bad Taste Records. It's the retail store associated with Bad Taste Records, which is the label that Björk was on way back in the day. I heard an amazing version of the Sugarcubes' song "Birthday" recorded in Icelandic and bought a copy of the special Icelandic compilation it's on. I got the double CD for just $9.45. WHOOOOO.

This discovery is in part attributed to Lindsay, too. I had stumbled into Bad Taste earlier in the week but it's tiny and was outta there pretty fast. But she mentioned that there was a Björk album that was released only in Iceland and thought it might be cool to find it. I did some digging online for it and discovered the name of the record label Bad Taste and figured that that would be a good place to look for some good native tunes. And voila!

Iceland Day 6: The Highland Trail

2010-06-15T18:22:00.000-07:00

I'm finally going to lead with the news in a blog post.

That is me standing on a real frakking glacier! It's Langjökull—the second-largest glacier in Iceland. Walking on it was a literal out-of-body experience; at least three times I stopped spun in a circle and said to myself "I'm standing on a glacier right now." All the science from Willow Ridge Elementary School (where my favourite library book was Arctic Lands) and earth science with Mike Aronica in eighth grade rushed back to me in a good way.

When I woke up I wasn't sure what to expect this morning. Saturday's improvised substitute for our aborted volcano tour ended up scuttling my original plan for Tuesday's tour. After much research I found what appeared to be an acceptable substitute: The Highland Trail tour offered by Iceland Excursions. The description said:

We start our journey by driving through the tunnel underneath the Hvalfjord to meet our guide at Deildartunguhver. From there we continue on to Hraunfossar and Barnafoss. Our route now takes us over the Kaldidalur pass, which is the second highest pass in Iceland, past Langjökull glacier. We stop at Jaki for a walk towards the glacier. Our last stop before returning to Reykjavik is at Thingvellir national park.

A walk toward a glacier sounded pretty great, but on Saturday I saw a group get it's glacier hike canceled. And this just said "toward" a glacier, what does that even mean? Regardless it was my last fully day, only $100ish and a 7.5-8-hour tour that didn't start until 1 p.m. What's to complain about? I'm in freaking Iceland FFS!!!

This is Barnafoss, one of many amazing waterfalls I've seen in Iceland. Seriously, if you love waterfalls (Dave) then Iceland is the country for you. This was one much bigger than the others in terms of width, but not as high.

When I'm home in L.A. I'll upload about a dozen photos from here. Wished I had a little more time here to try to figure out how to get lower. Gorgeous though.

More of the the glacier here.

OK, when the fam went to the Grand Canyon in sixth grade my father was worried that me (and my mom) got too close to the guard rail-less edge. It's become a running joke in the family for my dad to say "don't get too close." He of course reminded me before this trip. Hell, when I went to AZ with my friend Jon, even he got in on it (but seriously, because as usual I like getting close enough to see over edges).

Well, with the glacier it's not really the edge that matters. Though the opening shown here is actually much deeper than this looks and the water was moving crazy fast, I'd never fit in and the traction was surprisingly great for my hiking boots. (Hooray Keen!) The rub with glaciers is that the surface is unpredictable and could be covering something dangerous, like a fissure or a soft spot. Our guide, Mathias, told me that earlier this year two major accidents happened on this glacier, but much further in.

As we were all leaving, little Ian (who looked about 8) was about 70 feet in front of his mom and Mathias and about the same distance behind me and the Canadian couple I'd met. Suddenly I hear him yelling out something unintelligible. He's been really excitable on the glacier ("I'm gonna walk where I want," "I'm gonna walk as far as I want," "Have we walked a mile?") much I like I imagine I would have been, so I ignored it momentarily. Suddenly, though ...

"I'm stuck," Ian yells out.

I turn around and see him struggling to free his right leg, which is submerged into the slushy snow all the way up to his hip. He keeps yelling out that he's stuck and is clearly getting super scared. This kid had been all confidence, suddenly he was a helpless 8ish-year-old.

I sprint to him and start pulling him up. Of course, one of my legs sinks into the slushy snow.

"Hold on, Ian," I reassure him. "I gotta free myself before I can get you out. But don't worry. You're gonna be fine." I free myself quickly, find more solid footing and start pulling. I'm getting him part way out, but I can't quite free him. Thankfully, Winnipeg guy comes over and we get him out together.

By now, his mom is saying almost caught up to us and saying "thanks" and reminding Ian to thank us as well. All's well that ends well.

The tour continues along the super bumpy dirt road, which is actually the highest road in Iceland. It literally looks like we're on another planet. There is zero light and virtually zero evidence of humans. Living in L.A. now, it's sometimes hard to remember that there are unmarked places on the Earth.

OK, we get back to Reykjavik at about 8:45 p.m. I am famished beyond belief. Rather than explore for something new, I head to B5 (again) where I know I can get amazing fries and a great veggie burger for 1000 isk, which is like $7.85. Thankfully, Arnie is working again so I'll get to say farewell. I order a Scotch and he's never poured one. I find out he's been working as a bartender for just two weeks. Prior to that he had been in law school/considering law school, but realized he didn't want to become a lawyer.

I teach him that to eyeball it rather than use the shot measuring spoon, pour the scotch to as high in the glass as the width of a finger. He pours me a little extra and also doesn't even know what to charge. He ends up charging me less than a beer. I end up ordering three and each time I get the super cheap rate (cheaper than a beer) and nearly a double with the first two. At the end of the night I have a final question.

"Arnie, I have a strange request."

"Sure, what is it?"

"Can I buy a Gull pint glass?"

"No," I'm a little surprised, given the rapport we seemed to have. "But you can have one for free. They give them to us for free. Here." Then he gives me two more so that I end up with one of each kind the bar has. BONUS!

Here's Arnie ...

Iceland Day 5: Recovering in Reykjavik

2010-06-14T18:20:00.001-07:00

Super chill day that had only two musts on it: book a tour for Tuesday, which after several hours of scouring the web Sunday night, I found one that wasn't too long or expensive; make my Flybus reservation for Wednesday. Other than that it was a day to get some exercise walking around Reykjavik, read, blog, take pictures of stuff in the city that I hadn't seen and try a couple new restaurants.

Years ago as a newspaper reporter, I covered Frank Serpico's graduation speech at the Albany Academy. The legendary incorruptible cop dispensed some interesting wisdom, but what stands out to me practically 10 years later is don't go to Moscow to eat at McDonald's. I've taken that to heart since then trying to eschew chain restaurants whenever I can. The flip side isn't just to avoid chains, but to embrace the local. In a country like Iceland that means seafood. (Fun fact: 45 percent of Iceland's exports are seafood or seafood-related).

Iceland Must No 3: Fiskfelagid Fish Company. Literally one of the best lunches I have ever had. To start: more seafood soup. Even though *cured shark is the national food, it's seafood soup that seems ubiquitous to me. Every restaurant seems to have it. Fishsoup, bonito foam, boiled mussels & garlic roasted langoustine (mini lobster tails) with a coconut hint throughout. Rich and creamy and bursting with flavors only present in freshly caught ingredients. Once again, the fundamental rule I've learned from watching Top Chef, Kitchen Nightmares and Food Network is that the best meals allow the ingredients' inherent flavours to shine.

The main course: salted cod in vanilla, mussels piripiri, carrots, garlic mashed potatoes and saffron foam. The cod is sooooooo perfectly prepared. The fish breaks apart into flaky, perfect bite-sized pieces. It's slightly sweet and salty that works great solo or mixed with the potatoes and carrots. The dish is also served with small cubes of chorizo that I mostly avoided (as a non pig eater) but when I had them they, of course, were great, too.

The best thing about this lunch, it costs only $40 and that included a beer, tax and tip. Yeah, that's an uncheap lunch for one, but I'm on vacation! And this sincerely felt as good as dinner at Craft (almost) so I can't complain in the least. I really felt like I got the better of the restaurant.

*Cured shark. Shark cannot be eaten immediately after catching, because it's toxic to humans. Sharks lack kidneys so they excrete their waste through their muscles and skin. To remove the biotoxins, eventually Icelanders discovered that if you buried a shark for four months before eating it, then it would be fine. Well, fine as in not kill you, but not fine to taste. Syli (sp?) our guide on the aborted-volcano tour, told us that though he likes it, Icelanders typically do not eat or even like cured shark. He also joked that it must have sucked trying to figure out the number of weeks required until the shark was ready. And how hungry must someone have been after four months to eat toxic, ass-tasting shark?

Before lunch I spent the morning at the Reykjavik Art Museum, which was OK save for one exhibit which I found fascinating. The description is from the curator's notes.

Vanitas, Still-life in Contemporary Icelandic Art
Curator: Hafþór Yngvason

The Latin word vanitas means vanity, something that is empty, vain or valueless. In art history, vanitas is used for the artistic genre of still-life paintings that are symbolic of the futility of earthly life. It is a sub-category of a larger class of artworks referred to as memento mori (literally, “remember that you must die”) and is mostly used for Dutch paintings of the sixteenth and seventieth centuries.

Here we use the term for contemporary paintings and sculptures that count as still-life, although many of them were not originally presented as such. They all function on different levels but by bringing them together under the heading of vanitas, the intent is to highlight certain aspects of the artists‟ approaches to materials and construction but also to bring attention to the reminder of transience and renewal that is found in most or all of the works.

The necessity of care is also the subject of a two-piece sculpture by Rósa Gísladóttir. The title, Verðandi … Skuld refers to the names of two norns in Norse mythology. Verðandi (literally, “to become”) stands for the present and Skuld (“debt”) for the future. We are reminded that we owe the future, for better or for worse. This is a classic warning of a memento mori. Considering the materials of the two pieces and the enormous amounts of plastic containers used in daily life, the debt that we are referred to is environmental in nature. But the title refers us also to the life giving activity of the norns, who live by the tree of life, Askur Yggdrasils, and water it daily. Considering the shapes of the two sculptures—a bottle and a bowl—we are reminded of the simple fundamentals of life and of our responsibility to nurture it for the future.

I spend the rest of the day just walking through town again, snapping pictures of buildings, ducks and soaking up my last full day in the city.

Ducks in the pond outside City Hall:

The National Theatre:

Another view of the Hallgrimskirkja:

Iceland Day 4: (Mike vs. Eyjafjallajokull) vs. SCIENCE

2010-06-13T17:19:00.000-07:00

Blog readers: today's (day late) entry is loooooooooong, sorry. And no pictures for a while, but there was so much stupid, but memorable drama, that I had to get that out. The pictures are worth it though, so feel free to scroll down!

Leading up to my trip to Iceland I had one single MUST: I was going to visit the Eyjafjallajokull volcano. (Sadly, I still haven't learned how to say it properly, listen to the audio clips at the bottom of this NPR story and it kind of explains why—the locals say it too fast.) After all, when I would have another opportunity to see an active volcano or at least an area still in the throes of the devastation unleashed by nature?

Everything else about the trip I'd semi-improvise letting my whims dictate which days I wanted to tour and which days I wanted to explore Reykjavik. Fearing sold-out tours, though, I booked one of the $200+ Eyjafjallajokull tours before I left. This one would be in a SuperJeep that would drive us to areas only accessible by Jeeps with mega-sized tires and we'd get to hike around the crater. From that day I circled Sunday, June 13 on my mental calendar for this once-in-a-lifetime scientific adventure. This was such a big deal that even someone I'd met the day before on another tour requested I take a lot of pictures and share them.

On Saturday, while waiting to get picked up for that tour, the hotel desk clerk hands me an e-mail the hotel received from the tour company, Iceland Total, saying that there had been a mistake and I wouldn't be picked up at 9:30 but instead some time bewteen 8:20 and 8:40 a.m. by a Reykjavik Excursions shuttle. Oddly, shortly before my trip I had received a similar e-mail saying pickup had been changed to 8:30. The time listed on my original booking receipt was 8:30 pickup for a 9 a.m. departure. A partner carrier would pick me up then and later we would rendezvous with our SuperJeeps somewhere and then get lunch at a hotel and then scientific adventure!

I am so eager for the trip that I don't need my alarm clock (getting my body on GMT, finally, helped a lot, too). I get down there at 8:10 a.m. to grab some water, read and wait.

8:20 a.m. I anxiously check my watch. It's raining outside.

8:25 a.m. A Reykjavik Excursions shuttle pulls up. I am out of my seat before the driver walks in. I say my name and he says I'm not on his list. Four other people are though and they leave with him, smiling as they say that they're about to go see ICELAND!

8:30 a.m. I can't read because I'm too distracted now. This is saying something, too, because David Cullen's Columbine, which I'm halfway through, is one of the best books I've ever read.

8:37 a.m. Another Reykjavik Excursions shuttle pulls up. I'm not on the list.

8:45 a.m. The lobby has depeopled from about 15 of us to maybe 4-5? I approach the woman working the front desk (who is not shockingly for Reykjavik tall, blonde and strikingly beautiful). "My reservation says I should have been picked up by 8:40, should I be nervous?" I hand her the paper.

She immediately gets on the phone. Her business-like demeanor has me encouraged in that she's taking my concerns seriously, but nervous that my concerns are worth being taken seriously. Not getting picked up by 8:45 for a 9 a.m. tour apparently puts you in the risk pool for a forgotten passenger.

8:47 a.m. "I keep getting a busy ... tone," she says. She hangs up and dials again. Someone picks up and it's fast-talking Icelandic.

8:50 a.m. "Someone is coming," she says smiling with a confidence that calms me.

"Thanks," I say feeling relieved that my most anticipated part of the trip hasn't died a premature death.

8:55 a.m. Van driver pulls up in the pickup shuttle. These smaller shuttles are not tour buses.

9:05 a.m. We get to the Reykjavik bus station from where we would be departing once I found my actual tour bus. As I'm leaving, the driver, who'd been stoic even for an Icelander, points me at a nearby van.

When I ask that van driver whether he's taking people to the volcano he says "No. We're going glacier hiking. I'm not sure who's doing that one."

Most buses are nearly full and almost everyone whose faces I can see looks already impatient feeling like we're running late. I am confused. A very nice woman suddenly comes up and rescues me from the look on my face. After she scans my printout she says, "You're with me" and points me to the "South Coast Tour" bus.

When I board I ask someone near me whether he's going to the volcano and he says, "no." But an Irish couple behind us says that they are and that not to worry, this is the correct bus. Whew. Finally I can relax. It's been a bit snagged and we're a little late, but unpronounceable volcano, here I come! Well, almost, we have to change buses before we leave because we're on one that's too small. We're transporting Reykjavik Excursion South Shore people, my volcano group and also a group of glacier hikers who are with another smaller company that only handles the on-site stuff. There are more people than they had thought. Not a great sign, but hopefully the final minor fuckup.

After our driver who looks like Simon Pegg (Scotty from Star Trek and also Shaun of the Dead) misses a clear turn off and has to do a U-turn, our trip starts along the same road (Highway 1, the only road in Iceland that takes people around the perimeter of the country and it's mostly just two lanes), as yesterday's trip the Golden Circle. Since this is information I've heard just the day before I start zoning out and get ready to take out my iPod when suddenly ...

"Excuse me, people, but because of weather, the glacier hike has been cancelled. The company just called me. They are very sorry. But the ash has covered the road leading to it and the glacier and it would be too dangerous," says our tour guide, the woman who rescued me from my confusion earlier. "Now you have two options, you can stay with us on our South Shore tour and then get a refund when you get back. Or you can try to join the volcano tour. This tour costs more so you'll have to pay when we get to the Volcano jeeps." After several repeats of this announcement things get ugly (American).

A woman behind me a bit and the other side of the bus is LIVID. She's going on and on about how she has planned each day so that she's not overlapping activities and if she ends up doing the South Shore today it's gonna conflict with something similar later. I get that she's frustrated. Totally. But the bus tour guide is not responsible for the weather or the call to cancel the glacier hike. "To see ash is really not interesting, if I were to see lava ... . Try to find out if you can what else this tour does," she directs in her most condescending voice. She also asks the tour guide to call the company leading her later tours with a whole host of questions about changing her itinerary if she does end up doing South Shore today.

I am embarrassed for America. Yeah, it sucks what happened to her, but treating this very friendly woman so rudely, when other members of the glacier-hiking group just went with the flow and either joined the volcano group or decided to stick this out and get refunded, made her stand out as "the ugly American."

Impatient with the lack of response from the tour guide, who, btw, is also trying to give the actual tour, ugly american woman asks me about the volcano tour because she'd overheard me talking about it. I tell her what little I know: we're going to an unaccessible area and we get to hike around closer than any other tour that's offered. I don't know about lava though, though I think not.

The tour guide is still juggling this woman, phone calls from someone (maybe her boss or one of the other tour operators to coordinate unexpected mid-tour transfers) and trying to give the tour, I was ready to volunteer to take over the tour. I remembered this section well, it's the geothermal heart of the of country, there are lots of horses in Iceland, blahblahblah. And she was also giving the tour in German, and I felt like I could almost fake that enough based on HS and college to pass with the Deutsch, too. I ultimately didn't get that presumptuous.

Eventually ugly American realizes she needs to chill and wait until we get to a stop before resuming her quest for whatever it is she needs. Meanwhile our driver keeps getting mystified by the roundabouts. It's clear to me and a few other people I've made eye-rolling contact with which direction we should be going in these, but he misses them. There are only three options and we're looking for the signs for the village of Vik, which isn't hard to spot (no sign has more than two names on it and most have just one).

Finally we're settling in and I note some good karma, the dude next to me is listening to "Sweet Child o Mine" on his iPod and playing some air guitar and rocking out with his head bobbing. Good times.

We get to the first rest stop eventually and we disembark to get coffee, use the bathroom (I again have to stand on my tip toes to use the urinal, damn you tall people!) and stretch our legs. The tour guide, who has maintained a Zen-like calm during all the not-at-all-her-fault-but-she's-the-face-in-front-of-us bullshit, informs ugly american that she's talked to her other tour company and can make the changes she needs to keep her "no duplicating anything" (or whatever the fuck it was) agenda. Ugly American says thanks, but of course no "sorry." Then she asks to borrow the guide's cell phone, because she'd feel better if she talks to them herself. The guide sunnily agrees to this. Talk about the customer always being right. Icelandic tourism peeps (the country over from what I've seen) are fantastic. The best news, ugly american decides to stick with the South Shore tour and not join me on volcano! But GNR guy and his wife are! Has the screw turned finally for the good?

[Blog announcement: stuff actually about me and my tour and pictures coming very soon!]

12:30 (?) The bus drops off at the Hotel Anna, which is in the country, at the foot of the mountain that is home to the volcano. We can't see much though because of enormous, think clouds blanketing the peak. At the hotel, we'll be served a two-course meal (included in the Iceland Total package) and then board our SuperJeeps. Thankfully they could accommodate our group, which grew from three of us to 12 of us with the glacier hikers who joined our group. The lunch was yet another amazing seafood meal; this time I had fresh trout. Soooo good. With great potatoes and a small side salad, also vegetable soup for an appetizer. Mmmmmmmm.

Halfway through lunch, a burly blond man bounds in says hi and introduces himself as our tour guide. We look out the window and can now see the SuperJeeps. It looks they might be jump starting one. YIKES! Upon further review, they're charging an air compressor or something from one of the Superjeeps' batteries.

"Hello everyone, I'm really sorry," burly guy announces. "But the weather has caused the volcano tour a problem, too. The clouds are too high."

Um, what does that mean, I think to myself.

"If they were lower, like fog, we would drive through them and then we could show you the crater. But these clouds are on the crater covering it. You won't see anything and it would be very dangerous to drive up there."

The room deflates.

"But we're going to make a great tour for you," he says with a smile and enthusiasm that we're all at least a little bouyed. He says that they're going to lead us into Thorsmark national park area which was devastated by the flooding after the eruption and show us some amazing sights. And then hopefully after that it'll clear and we can go up for a briefer hike. He doesn't promise anything, but we're feeling optimistic.

Once we enter the grounds it's just dark gray and desolate as far as the eye can see. Syli (sp?) our driver points to the mountains that we're leaving behind and says to notice the green on the sides. Then he directs us to the mountains on our immediate right. No green. There was two months ago, he says. YIKES. At its peak the volcano produced 3000ish cubic meters of water per second of flooding. They had anticipated like 10x that. Iceland also decided to pre-emptively destroy some roads to create flood channels that would then spare bridges, which are harder to rebuild than roads. Interesting.

To make Thorsmark even a close substitute for Eyjafjallajokull though, Syli knows he's gotta do better though. So he says he's going to take us into a closed off area, but we'll have to get permission from the police, who he doesn't recognize otherwise it wouldn't even be a problem. At this point, I'm expecting that we're going to have to pool our cash to bribe this guy. It doesn't happen. I am oddly disappointed.

So here (finally!) are some pictures of Thorsmark Nature Preserve that will go way beyond what I can write ...

It was like being on the moon. The white blur at the top is the cloud covering precisely where the Eyjafjallajokull crater is. As Syli put it: "You can't trust volcanoes. You can't trust the weather. When you have to trust both at the same time ..." Another way he phrased it: "If we got up there, you'd see the same thing and hear me say 'trust me, it's under that cloud we're standing in.'" None of us went ugly american on him or ugly whatever country we were from.

Here are some people to give you some idea of perspective and magnitude.

The rocky-looking, lighter gray formation on the left is actually the glacier. It should be basically white with rocks.

Unfortunately, the weather never clears so they go to Plan B, the black sand beaches and another waterfall. There are LOTS OF WATERFALLS in Iceland (Dave, you would love it the most).

The black sand beaches are also unlike anything I've ever seen. Jenny Lewis's song "Black Sand" played in my head the entire time we were there. We had a much cooler black-sand-beach experience than any other tour, because of the SuperJeeps. Our drivers sped along the sand, splashing violently through the surf. It was awesome. I have two small rocks. Btw, black sand is really just old ash and volcanic rock bits.

This is the Seljalandsfoss waterfall we toured after hooking back up with the South Shore group.

This is a picture I took standing behind it!

Eventually, we get back to Reykjavik an hour after our original arrival time, because of the late start. The tour operators are nice enough to drop me at The Pearl where'd I arranged to meet up with Lindsay from Golden Circle tour and compare notes on our separate Sunday tours. I learn that I basically did the South Shore tour, with the black sand beach partly substituting for volcano (and we had more fun than anyone else who does it). So now my Tuesday plans are scuttled. I know I'll figure it out.

Iceland Day 4: prelude to a volcano

2010-06-13T00:41:00.000-07:00

I slept great (at least compared to previous nights). I fell asleep just after midnight, hooray! NO NAPS NO NAPS! This volcano is going down.

Iceland Day 3: Grand Golden Circle

2010-06-12T12:42:00.000-07:00

Finished my first guided bus tour a few hours ago. Sooooo tired now, but good tired. Once again, my body clock permitted me only a few hours sleep and then today was a full day of sight-seeing with plenty of walking, though thank god I didn't have to drive. That would have been brutal. Hooray, bus tours!

The Grand Golden Circle is a seven-hour tour through parts of southern Iceland that includes a stop at a geothermal power plant (really cool), a volcanic crater, a salmon ladder, the literal mother of all "Geysirs," agorgeous water fall, the rift valley, and Iceland's original Viking parliament. ...

Stop 1: Hellisheiði Geothermal Power Plant

That's the view inside one of the turbines, which is down for maintenance right now. The country is trying to use its expertise in geothermal energy to become a world leader. The relatively easy access to underground steam makes this a no-brainer for Iceland. Fun times. Short stop and they had a very nice tour guide. PR is big biz for the geothermal energy plant and the power company. On the gift shop counter each PR person had a full-color business card with his/her picture on it. And there were at least 6.

And yes, the geothermal power plant had a gift shop! And I solved the great T-shirt conundrum. One of my goals here was to get a "cool" (defined by me) T-shirt. That meant nothing "too obviously touristy" like "I love Iceland" or "Lost in Iceland."

Next pic ... The literal mother of all Geysirs

That's me in front of the Strokkur hot spring, which is literally the mother of all geysers in the entire world. At one time this was thought to be the only spring that erupted with regularity and the word for it "geysir" became adopted as "geyser" everywhere else. This is actually the second biggie in Iceland. The first died after seismic activity in the 1940s, according to what I remember our awesome tour guide saying.

This bus tour brought out the best in traveling alone. I met two great traveling companions who were in town just having attended the 12th Deep-Sea Biology Symposium. They were interesting to talk to, very chill and Lindsay (who is from outside Halifax, Nova Scotia and spoke with the always-endearing Canadian accent) was nice enough to take pix of me throughout. So a solo vacation that has pix of me!

Next ... Gullfoss

Don't worry, dad, I didn't get "too close" to the edge. The Picassa album of this trip, which I won't be able to create until I get back because of a wonky net connection, will have way more photos of this place.

Next pic ... Thingvellir National Park,

Thingvellir National Park, the site of the first Icelandic parliament, Althing. Basically, it's where the Vikings had parliament and held high court. Pretty civilized! The flag marks where it was. Sadly the ruins are pretty overgrown and poorly preserved. It must be something they learned from the Greeks.

Other discoveries/lessons of today: Iceland has 90,000 horses and exported 2,000 last year. There are only 320,000 people in the country. I am too short to live in this country. I've had to stand on my tiptoes to use three urinals. Icelanders don't say "V." It's Pavel Chekhov all the time.

MUST 2. Saegreifinn, or Sea Baron. Insanely amazing lobster soup. I learned of this place watching Three Sheets on the former Fine Living Network. Host Zane Lamprey traveled the world partaking in different countries' or regions' alcohol traditions. He tried this place because it was famous, cheap and a supposedly good hangover cure. I don't know if it cures hangovers, but it was amazing. And also cheap. My hearty-sized bowl of soup costs just 1100 krona. That's only $8, as of this typing. The currency fluctuates a lot. In Reykjavik that's a steal for a meal. I saw the old man who owned the place whom Zane had on. He was funny. In the middle of dinner he brought out a whale vertebrae. He just carried it into the dining room and laughed and smiled at all of us, as he set it down on the table and then floor. One guy picked it up and the owner gave him thumbs up. It was really weird, because none of us knew what we were supposed to be doing other than smiling. And with that I am signing off the blog today.

Tomorrow I finally take on the unpronounceable volcano. I seriously at least hope to learn how to say it. This is a bus tour that takes us to superJeeps that can access the back country roads. Hopefully can find traveling companions on this excursion who are even close to Lindsay and Leo. Hooray deep-sea biologists!

Iceland Day 2: Reykjavik

2010-06-11T14:33:00.000-07:00

Another rough morning because despite whatever fatigue I feel at around 11 p.m. local time, my body has no interest in sleeping at 3 a.m. local time, because to me that's only 8 p.m. Damn you, human body.

But since I knew that I wanted to schedule a day-tour Saturday and those typically start early in the morning, I was happy when I woke up around 9:30 a.m. and with only about 4ish hours sleep. Perhaps I would finally get my body clock close to local time?

I kept today light. Despite my earlier arousal, I still missed the comp. breakfast in the hotel lobby. I headed to one of the tourist info centers to book tomorrow's trip and settled on the Golden Circle. There are so many tour companies that I was glad to get some advice from a local tourism rep. She said that the bigger companies charge more and are typically a little less flexible with the trip because the busses are big and packed with so many people. The smaller companies are usually just as good, though, and cheaper and might be a little more flexible if the people on the tour have some general consensus about perhaps extending a stay for a bit. I booked with Netbus, based on this recommendation. I saved about $30. Not bad.

Other than that I tried to find the Reykjavik Art Museum but no luck. I forgot my city guide in the hotel. :( And since my right foot was cramping a bit I didn't have it in me to extend my already very long walk even further without a certain destination in mind. I did get these pictures though.

This is one leg of a sculpture of a Viking ship as one faces north toward mountains and some of the bluest water I've ever seen.

And the most random American export I could have imagined ...

Ruby Tuesday, seriously? I think even Amherst, NY has avoided the RT. Granted every other chain has inhabited Amherst, but still. Also saw at least another three or four A-Team bus stop signs and two Domino's and tons of Domino's signs. The search for pizza here was snake eyes. I had lunch at Pomodoro Rosso and went for a four-cheese pizza because everything else was super meaty. Amazing langoustine soup, OK pizza. It was a white pizza, which I should have noticed on the menu. I need red sauce or to me, it's not even worthy of being called pizza.

For a while I was the only one there. Eventually a family of four and couple also joined me, but it was very spare. Felt badly for the two people I saw working there.

Had dinner at B5 again. The lunch had me feeling kinda queasy stomach wise so a straight up veggie burger and plain fries seemed sensible and also cheap after last night's fine dining experience. I also remembered to pick up some sunscreen since my face is now quite pink.

Despite it being Friday night (almost 10 p.m. here) and the first night of the weekend night's pub crawl, I am chiling tonight. I have to be up early and I think am finally sufficiently tired to get to sleep at a reasonable hour. And I don't want to sleep away the bus ride since we'll be going through stunning country.

Signing off. Didn't learn any new Icelandic words today. :(

Iceland Day 2: Reykjavik

2010-06-11T02:45:00.001-07:00

I'm going on about four hours sleep today. The goal is not nap. I need to get my clock more closely oriented to Iceland time or the bus tours are going to be brutal since they start early!

Iceland Day 1: Reykjavik

2010-06-10T18:20:00.000-07:00

It's 0:21 (just after midnight) as I start today's blog post. I'm listening to the new Jónsi album and following along to Bill Simmons's live chat of game 4 of the NBA finals. Internet = perfect cultural bridge for an adopted Korean-American in Reykjavik, Iceland. That gorgeous building is the Church of Hallgrimur, a Lutheran church about a mile from my hotel. It's stunning. I wish I were a better photographer. Tomorrow I am going to try to replicate (pay homage to) shots I've seen online.

Today all the withdrawals my body made from the energy banks came due. Fortunately, I kinda figured this would be the case so I kept it agenda-free. I slept in until after noon, which was surprising given that the mattress/pillow are like a combined 107 years old I think. Hooray for no back pain!

I left my hotel and headed west (though I didn't even have that orientation when I started the day). I walked around downtown taking in the sights and realized one huge reason why women legitimately love shopping more than most men ... there's a heluva lot more of it to do. Not that I'm in the market to come home with lots of clothes or stuff in general (no space in luggage really), but the ratio of women's stores to men's stores has to be at like 10:1. No hyperbole required. And the men's stores are standard dead-tek, neo-bullshit clothes. The women's boutiques look far funkier and more local, which for many in Reykjavik means black on black on black. Amanda, you might feel underblacked.

Stuff that caught my attention today:

The above church. That's a statue of Leifr Eiricson in front; he's the discoverer of Vinland. The United States gave Iceland this statue in 1930.

The number of Indian restaurants, at least three today; I think the only cultural fare that outnumbers is that is Irish pubs, which I'm up to four.

Handprjónasambadi∂ the home of the Handknitting Association of Iceland and where I bought some great gloves. I also got a tax refund from the store which I need to remember to redeem at the airport. This was their version of a stimulus enacted several years ago, probably around 2005 when their economy cratered and which coincides with the country's attempted massive aluminium (aluminum to us) production growth. Pekke the bus driver told us last night that the government sees further increased aluminium production as part of the savior to rescuing Iceland.

B5 bar and bistro. From N YT in January 09: The shelves of liquor behind the bar at B5 (Bankastraeti 5; 354-552-9600) are bathed in glowing lights of different hues: orange, yellow, pink. And the big front window provides a great view of a street.

By 2ish p.m. I was famished. I'd been walking for nearly an hour up and down hills and had barely eaten in probably 18 hours. I go inside and of course it's four Americans. They were all in town for a wedding, btw, how cool is that!? If I ever get married I seriously might have to do the out-of-the-country thing. Granted for them it's because she was from Norway.

At a bistro I was hoping for the Icelandic twist on American pub food, instead I learned that B5, which is known as one of Reykjavik's hottest spots, has a small burger joint as the kitchen. There are few options, so I get a surprisingly good veggie burger with LTC. They also made excellent fries. But now the fun starts, which for me means sampling the locals' alcohol. If you're one of my students, STOP READING NOW.

The bartender recommends Polar Bear beer but says that Gull (pronounced /gulg/, which mean "gold") is the most popular. Honestly, they were both pretty weak. They taste almost Coorsish in terms of lack of flavor. I mean nothing objectionable, but just not much there, period. "Arnie" whose Icelandic name "Arnijul" I never quite mastered pronouncing despite many tries, says he doesn't like beer so admits his recommendation wasn't so strong.

But the drinks I'm most intrigued by are Topas and Opal. The former Fine Living Network had a show called Three Sheets in which comedian Zane Lamprey toured the world trying out local drinking customs. On the Iceland show he tried these two liquors which are based on very famous children's candies. He wasn't a fan. I am not either. Opal is exactly like flavored children's cough syrup. Topas is just slightly better (little sweeter but with a weird aftertaste). Arnijul's website is here, btw, he's a super nice guy who is in favor of legalizing pot, likes Michael Pollan and is also a bit of a conspiracy theorist. However, also a damned good bartender (friendly, knowledgeable about LOTS of stuff) who lives next to the Prime Minister!

Rest of afternoon is a long walk around the city until I got here.

After this gorgeous view I get lost a little. At least my lack of bearings has me completely unprepared when I end up near the Opera house which has become one of my landmarks. Back to hotel for loooooong nap. I wake up around 7 p.m. and then decide I should stir myself out of bed and get dinner, which brings me to my first MUST.

Silfur. It's a high-end seafood restaurant that rivals Craft for preparing one of the best meals I've ever had. I went with a three-course dinner for 4.900 kronur add in the glass of wine (not so great) and coffee and it was just 6.400 or $49, are you kidding me?

Appetizer: Saffron shellfish soup with fried Icelandic langoustine, scallop & mussle. Um, this might be the best soup I've ever had. I am not a lobster fan, but the langoustine (mini lobster) was succulent and the saffron broth was so rich, yet not heavy at all. Btw, the meal started with an amuse, that was some kind of blended-it-was-almost-creamy fish. Maybe arctic char quasi-mousse style?

Main course: Grilled monkfish served with Icelandic “smælki” potatoes & curry sauce. Excellent. The curry sauce was just about perfect. Given my palate, I wouldn't have minded some heat, but the flavor was great and it complimented the fish rather than overpowered it. Also served with some grilled (?) fruits and veggies on the side. Sadly, I don't know what ones, but they were great.

Dessert: Waffle with strawberry ice cream and baileys ice cream with skyr pannacotta and passion. Yes, that's what the menu said. Just "passion." If so, then all desserts must be prepared with passion. The strawberry ice cream was so tasty and I don't even like ice cream and combined with the waffle was like a perfect breakfasty dessert. The pannacotta was lucious and the bailey's ice cream was actually a little tame comparatively, but still solid.

The service was outstanding and very very friendly. Oddly, credit card receipts don't come with a blank for gratuity. When I asked the waitress said that they have them, but you have to tell them before they ring it up otherwise they have to do it again. I obviously wasn't going to be a heel so thankfully cash was of course cool.

I passed on some local delicacies: whale and foal. No way I'm eating Shamu or pick-your-favorite-horse-from-literature.

In the end one of the best meals of my life for just $65. So worth the splurge. Tomorrow though, I'm toning it down and plan to try Icelandic pizza. I am skeptical.

Incidentally, it was brighter leaving the restaurant after 11 p.m. than at pretty much any time since I've been here. The clouds drifted away and I wore sunglasses.

Tomorrow is one of the two intense pubcrawl nights. I am likely passing, especially if I book a tour for Saturday morning. I already have one booked for Sunday morning so for sure not partying hardcore Saturday night. The guy I was in college, grad school, Albany is officially dead.

Iceland Day 0: Reykjavik

2010-06-10T05:27:00.000-07:00

I blog from my tiny hotel room at the CenterHotel Klöpp in charming downtown Reykjavik, Iceland. It's 5:30 a.m. for my Pacific Time-body, though already 12:30 p.m. here. Despite having gotten only about 11 hours of sleep (about six of those were of any quality) in the past two days I am already loving it and eager to hit the town. But first a quick blog entry.

What I've learned: 10:40 p.m. is way too early for a red eye flight to NYC. Despite exhaustion before getting on board the plane, I managed only about 3.5 hours of sleep on the flight and never more than about 90 consecutive minutes. Following that with a 7+ hour layover at Terminal 7 at JFK blows, too. I ended up eating McDonald's twice! But I did get a great 15-minute chair massage (me sitting in one of those backward chairs getting massaged by somebody), which then included an additional 20 minutes in the Joe Mayo massage chair (Sharper Image style chair that squeezes you and beats you up but it feels good).

IcelandAir names its planes after the country's volcanoes. None are named after the one that just erupted in the glacier Eyjafjallajokull. Mine was Askja. I had one of the only seats without a working seat monitor. :( But no worries, an incredibly uneventful flight (in a good way). Oddity: of the at most four Asians I saw on the flight, three of us were in one row and we were all solo travelers.

This is my first trip out of the country in any real way. With all due respect to the sovereignty of Southern Ontario (Toronto) and Nogales, Mexico (which is directly across from Nogales, AZ), this time it counts—as in, without a passport this one cannot happen. As an international traveling virgin, I didn't expect having to go through airport security after I landed, which we did at Keflakvik Airport. It wasn't a horrible thing, but did take a while.

Being in the northernmost capital city in the world in June means all the elementary school lessons about daylight are true. This was the darkness we were greeted by at 12:30ish a.m. Or 0:30ish a.m. since we're on 24-hour time.

As Pekke, our FlyBus driver said, this is as dark as it gets and were the country not blanketed in clouds, we'd see the sun and the lights wouldn't even be on.

The European hotel experience took a bit of adjustment. When I got dropped off at the hotel, there was no one at the desk. I had emailed the hotel last week asking whether I needed to make special arrangements since I was getting in at like 1:30 a.m., but they assured me that this wouldn't be a problem with their 24-hour desk service. I saw a jacket and messenger bag on the chair but um, no human and no sign saying "be back in" or "if not here do ..."

After 10 minutes of literally standing there and calling out "hello" a few times, I pick up a phone on the desk and think about trying to call the hotel, and voila it rings before I dial. It sounds like someone picks up, but there's no voice. After a few seconds I say "hello" and no answer. Then a few seconds after that I see a guy emerge from a hall carrying a cell phone and he checks me in. Nice guy who explained that the only thing I'm going to be able to get to eat at 2 a.m. is from 1011, which is Iceland's 7-11. Btw, the few Icelanders I've met so far all speak practically perfect English.

The walk around Reykjavik at 2 a.m. was AWESOME. It's narrow streets, beyond safe feeling, even the high-end stores leave their display lights on and there aren't any bars on the windows or any tagging, (except on one sign at the bus station). Being June it's also very light out. I'm starved and exhausted but I'm so energized by being in such a different place that I walk for a good 25 minutes.

When I get to the 1011 it's underwhelming. Lots of days-old looking pre-made sandwiches, frozen goods (but I have no microwave) and American food (just like America!). :( I ended up buying an OJ and a Myllu Möffin, which was a muffin. More specifically an "original American style" which I didn't notice until I got to my hotel room. Other signs of America included a KFC, Subway, two A-Team bus stop posters and a restaurant on the road from the airport to Reykjavik called "American Style." In a country where cured shark is the national food, I am going to do my best to avoid.

Icelandic word learned: "Takk" (pronounced / tok /) which is "thanks."

And with that I'm off to start Day 1 in Iceland.

Iceland here I come

2010-06-08T16:28:00.001-07:00

My plane for JFK (stop on way to Reykjavik) leaves in six hours 12 minutes. I have been pretty much packed for more than 24 hours. I now fight the urge to unpack and repack.

I soooooo need to get out of this country

2010-06-05T21:08:00.000-07:00

Me = 34-year-old single male living in West Los Angeles with enough disposable income to buy lots of Lost-related memorabilia around the series finale.

Me = spending Saturday night listening to Peter Cetera's "Glory of Love" after watching the last half hour of Karate Kid II lamenting the loss of BeerUniverse as a Twitter follower which knocked me back from 19 to 18 followers.

I think I need my upcoming trip to Reykjavik in a bad way, so I can do that same thing there!

I kid, I kid.

Betraying my roots

2010-05-31T21:26:00.000-07:00

Growing up in the town of Amherst, NY—a suburb of Buffalo, which for those who don't know is in the western part of the state—means I said "pop." But then I went to Arizona for college and was surrounded by people who said "soda" and for some reason I quickly changed. I'm not sure why. I had promised that I wouldn't "change" despite going to a new part of the country, yet I didn't even resist this. I don't know why. I didn't adopt "freeway" (until moving to California) but "soda" just happened so easily.

Today, thanks to the magic of Twitter and the world's best Tweeter, Roger Ebert, I learned that someone is collecting data and plotting a map showing where "pop," "soda," "Coke" and other are most prevalent based on the region a person learned language. I answered "soda" because right now that's what I say and that's what the question asks (it's a very simple survey). But based on what the person is measuring should I have answered "pop"?

I love TV (too much?)

2010-05-28T23:15:00.001-07:00

My favorite show ever, Lost, and one of my other all-timers, 24, just ended their runs. And Fringe has ended its season. Yet the tube still has its hooks in me. Thanks to its ridiculously long hiatus, Glee is still going for two more weeks, which means that it runs up against my first trip overseas. EVER.

The season finale airs the night I leave on a red eye from L.A. to NYC while on my way to Iceland. (btw, just booked my volcano tour to the unpronounceable volcano). And the Top Chef Season 7 premiere airs the night I get back from Iceland. We have a DVR, so I won't miss anything, but dammit I thought that after this week the idea of appointment TV would really be past tense.

Lost finale (Spoilers included)

2010-05-24T22:29:00.000-07:00

I've thought about the episode tons since watching it last night, pretty much non stop this morning. I really liked it and the more and more that I think about it the more I like it. The best thing about the ending to me was that they ultimately answered most everything and did it in a way that is wide open to interpretations. I read it as "people and redemption are more important than anything and that the redemptive process can take lifetimes and that's OK." The meta view I interpreted is that the story we've been telling about deeply flawed people who are trying to redeem themselves and each other is more important than anything else we've been doing, just as we've said explicitly in interviews (in case some of you fans hadn't believed us).

Now granted, it wasn't perfect and they left one lingering question that I did want answered. Where were Michael/Walt in the Sideways purgatory? Also, loved the purgatory (maybe not intended as a wink but still for me functioned a bit as one, to season 1 purgatory theorists). It tracks with what we'd seen in Sideways, too, at least as best as I could remember. Using purgatory as they did allowed the accepting the entirety of their Island experiences to determine their redemption. Oddly, I didn't care about Walt's supernaturalness anymore, though.

Other great moments: Locke/Ben conversation outside the church. Jin/Sun ultrasound. Hurley telling Jack "I believe in you" and then Jack later reciprocating. Juliet/Sawyer waking up in the Sideways world. Ben being good. Hurley's knowing looks while on his mission to wake up Sayid and Shannon.

One seemingly big question that they never "answered" and that I didn't even think about until literally 20 seconds ago, what would have happened had MIB gotten off the Island and corollary to that why would that have happened? But I don't care now. The show was never about him and his mystery. Had it been, he would have been introduced long before the end of season 5 (which I know many, including me questioned why his intro was so late in the show's timeline). So as important as his character was, he was never one of THE characters.

When Lost started, as an action/adventure movie fan, I loved the story; it was filled with twisty mysteries and action. As a nerdy sci-fan fan, I loved the ideas and philosophical thought experiments. But what pushed this show (along with BSG) to the numbers 1 and 2 positions respectively on my list of favorite TV shows, were the characters. These were complicated, evolving, as-real-as-could-feel characters thrust into the most extraordinary of circumstances (which is truly what makes Sci-Fi such an intriguing genre). Here was a show on primetime network TV that openly introduced religion, science vs. faith, relativistic ethics, destiny vs. free will into its premise and conflicts. fuck yeah!

And as mind-bending as dealing with those concepts has been, of all the questions/ideas the show brought up, I think one of the least-discussed and perhaps even overlooked, is something that was emphasized in season 1: "How well do we know each other?" or re-framed "What do we not notice in our lives, particularly what don't we notice about the people in our lives?" Remember the fun in finding the hidden connections, like a lottery-winning Hurley on the Kwon's TV in Korea? In the final season with Sidways purgatory the show revived that, but this time we had a very different perspective from which to spot those connections, it wasn't simply a "fun mystery/game" anymore and we knew it was no longer mere coincidence. It was the last new puzzle to anticipate, wondering whether their seemingly idealized lives were real or how they connected to the trials each character had been through in the previous five seasons.

By forcing these characters into the most trying circumstances imaginable, we got to know them and they go to know each other with an intimacy far beyond what most people do.

As the final season started as as fans discussed what do I HAVE to know the answer to in the end, I started having my own conflict. Jeff Jensen and Dan Snierson at EW talked about this in their episode of Totally Lost previewing the final season. They mentioned how though they had checklists with unanswered questions, watching the final season with a checklist by their sides and literally marking things off every episode (something they had envisioned doing at one point and kinda been doing along the way even), would subsume the more important stuff and could ultimately be disappointing. I hadn't articulated it as such, but was feeling largely the same way. It would be like having a student ace a multiple choice test but not really learn the concepts you were trying to teach. I know that metaphor doesn't hold exactly, but I hope it's clear enough.

So as this season went along and we had BIG ANSWER episodes like, "Ab Aeterno" and "Across The Sea" (each of which I found ultimately unsatisfying for myriad reasons) I had an epiphany and realized, similarly to Jensen that finding meaning in what happened to the characters outweighed learning about The Island. "Happily Ever After" (the return of Desmond episode) was far more enjoyable to me, because it was about what happened to our favorite characters. Once I had that epiphany, I was able to let go of most my angst about whether the show would "end right" and put more faith in the writers' ability to craft a satisfying ending. One can tell how much these guys love their show. How much it means to them and how much the actors and characters they've helped give life to matter to them. And I just knew, I guess, that they would honor that.

I am not surprised that my friend, Scott, had more confusion processing the Jack-Christian scene. It reminds me of when we watched The Prestige. His instinctive science mind refracts everything through the prism of looking for explanations and logical answers.

Star Trek: The Next Generation, one of my favorite shows particularly growing up and the show that managed to have its series finale be its best episode, had it so much easier than Lost or Battlestar Galactica. TNG was a show driven by story, not characters or even acting and ironically enough for a sci-fi show not its special effects. Years later, I don't feel like I ever learned anything about a character not named Data, Picard or Worf? And apart from Patrick Stewart or Brent Spiner or John DeLancie and sometimes Jonathan Frakes, who ever could really bring it as an actor? The biggest challenge they had was to incorporate everyone else enough in a story that would really give Picard, Q and Data the most screen time. Throw in a time-travel story (ultimately Trek's biggest crutch) and voila ... best episode ever. But there wasn't a single thread they NEEDED to resolve with the show's continuity or mythology.

One big question that I think was ultimately meant to be unanswered ... what did Juilet mean when she told Miles from the dead "It worked"? I still don't know about this one. OK, other less big question, what Island did we see underwater in the Season 6 premiere? I think it was just a chunk that had fallen off. It was an independent (not character-pov-specific) glimpse into the future. And, I think the only time we've ever gotten one of those. I don't think this holds anymore now that I think about it more, but rather it's more metaphorical, though still unknown to me.

Last thought, I welled up several times, though never went first season when they launched the raft or Desmond-calling-Penny-during-TheConstant.

--------

In celebration of the final episode I went a little crazy buying Lost-related merchandise, but mainly because the merch has been sooooo good. In honor of the final season, 16 artists were commissioned to create posters related to the series. I sadly didn't find out about this until after the posters were shown at a gallery (of course near my office, dammit!). So I missed out on buying any of them at retail price and the silkscreen of the one I love most has been going for $500 on eBay. YIKES! that's before the price of custom-framing. Fortunately, this poster was also reproduced as a lithograph, which was given out at the poster show. So I purchased one of those on eBay for the bargain price of $217.50.

From the amazing Tyler Stout is the poster to the right ...

Then I bought another poster (this one a silk screen from series 2 and a t-shirt). But though I've told myself I need to rein in my spending, I can't feel bad at all about getting these posters and the shirt. I love this show. It's my favorite show of all time. I want to celebrate my love of the show as publicly as I can within the confines of my bedroom.

Sometimes you wanna go where everybody knows your name ...

2010-05-16T22:07:00.000-07:00

... or at least the employees know it enough to say "Hi, (your name here)" instead of just "Hi."

As noted several times in this blog, I was furniture at the Albany Pump Station and I must concede that I still miss my peeps there—especially the bartenders who let me put in orders just after the kitchen closed, who had the kitchen make me entrees that were no longer on the menu and who let me drink a free round when I helped pick up barstools after the place closed. I loved that bar as my Third Place, not home, not work, but that place that provided a respite from the other two.

Despite being in Los Angeles almost twice as long as I lived in Albany, I've failed to become a regular anywhere. They know my face more or less at an Indian restaurant near the office and I've been to a Cajun restaurant/bar plenty of times, but no place has captured my heart and wallet with regularity and ergo I have not found that Third Place.

But are things turning? Perhaps ...

Thanks to genuine heavenly deliciousness and the magic of Twitter, my fellow editors at L.A. Youth and I have fallen in love with Sprinkles cupcakes. The cakes are moist and not overly sweet which lets the frosting star but not overwhelm the cake, like a great ensemble cast in a movie with a great director. As the resident Westsider, I most often draw the "pick up Sprinkles on the way into work" role.

Going to Sprinkles, despite being in the heart of a particularly pretentious section of Beverly Hills near Rodeo Drive, is actually fun. The short line typically has friendly people sharing a mutual excitement for the best sweet treats ever. And then there are the employees who take "friendly" to a new level. They smile and are probably almost as sweet as the cupcakes. Not shockingly, all the front of the house employees are cute girls, while in the back is the only place I've seen men or older people.

This past Saturday with the debut of the salty caramel, I was on cupcake duty again. And when I ordered the girl who took my order said, "I'm sorry I have to ask your name again."

I know it's only cupcakes, but when a place you love gives you just a little love back it honestly preys upon the little kid in me who wants to be liked the popular kids.

Also, my goal is to become a regular at the Eagle Rock Brewery by the end of the month. I've been each of the last two Sundays and will be there every Sunday, even though it's across town. My love of the ERB is a clash of my values, though. I love supporting small, local business started by cool people who make beer! But it is lots of gas and pollution.

Good hockey karma needed

2010-04-20T23:06:00.001-07:00

Los Angeles closes the beer gap

2010-04-14T00:04:00.000-07:00

Besides some great people and the Grafton Peace Pagoda, the only thing I've missed about living in the Albany area has been BEER. There are plenty of brew pubs for such a small region and I was just a little more than an hour from the Ommegang Brewery.

But some of the finest people in Los Angeles have been working to quench the city's beer drought. And this past Sunday I finally had a chance to check out some of the best—the fine folks (Jeremy and Ting) at the Eagle Rock Brewery (ironically located in Atwater Village).

Kevin (another former Albany Pump Station devotee) and I stopped by for the Sunday Tap Room hours, which are from noon to 6 p.m. Quickie review:

Excellent beers. I tried the "Manifesto," which is a Belgian-style Wit bier. WOW. I love wit beers, similar to hefeweizens but a bit brighter and sweeter. This one was the most complex wit bier I've ever had with the standard citrusy flavors complemented by a hint of rose petals and some other spicy flavors that gave it a much greater depth of flavor.

I also had the "Solidarity," which is a very dark in color beer but with a refreshingly light taste. Malty, which I much prefer over the bitterness of a hoppy beer.

And then there was a 10.8 percent alcohol beer that I forget the name of, which is a gaffe beyond the upper range of the embarrassment scale. It was very red and though hoppy had a smooth closing taste that was like a velvet touch on the bitter flavor that typically turns me off to hops.

All the beers are $5 in the tap room and I cannot recommend the place enough. Great beer, super-cool enterprising, socially conscious, and extremely friendly proprietors, free brewery tours on Sundays, a warm-vibed space to enjoy the brews and even great merch.

* A hugely important thing to note is that, with a limited staff (Jeremy, his dad and Ting) and limited budget, they decided to forego exterior signage. Also, because the building is located at the intersection of an alley and a tiny street that has no other commercial store fronts or houses nearby (read: minimal foot traffic). This means that entry is kinda speakeasyish. But it's there. Just look for the street number (3056) on the army-green door.

Oh the Internet, I am so glad Al Gore invented thee

2010-04-01T19:34:00.001-07:00

I don't need to say anything other than funniest thing of 2010 (so far and how will anything top this? It can't unless Microsoft does more launch party video how-tos.) ...

beep beep beep

2010-03-26T18:06:00.000-07:00

The L.A. Times just reported that FOX has decided to cancel 24 after this season. I first read rumors of the groundbreaking show's demise a few months ago. Given the inconsistency of this season (and "inconsistency" is probably generous), I was OK with it. There were promising things going into this season (the addition of Katee Sackhoff and the continuation of Cherry Jones as a great female U.S. Prez), but sadly they've been squandered. BIGTIME.

But nevertheless, I find myself a little sad. Jack's torturing and acting out of Dick Cheney's favorite fantastical iterations of the Patriot Act have thrilled me for nine years. (This is season 8, but season 7 was postponed a year because of the writers' strike.)

The pilot, which my friend and former Albany Times Union television writer Mark McGuire shared with me after he got back from the Television Critics Association summer press tour, blew me away. I knew watching the real time drama unfold that I would never see TV the same way again. Though not always successfully (season 3, the amnesia, the bear trap, season 6), they managed to inject more pulse-pounding drama into a season than any show ever; I mean they essentially wrote 23 cliffhangers per year.

Even my favorite show, Lost, learned a lesson from 24. After a crappy season 3 of 24, FOX realized that a real-time serial had to be broadcast in real time as much as possible, meaning no reruns, just 24 episodes consecutively. Lost adopted this strategy beginning in Season 3 after viewers decided that they just couldn't keep up with the starts and hiatii of a traditional television season.

So I'll miss you Jack Bauer and Tony Almeida and Chloe O'Brian and Curtis Manning and Bill Buchanan and Edgar Stiles and Renee Walker and David Palmer. May you go to the great unifinished television universe in the sky.

Vegas 2010

2010-03-25T21:54:00.000-07:00

The challenge of writing about Vegas is that I've done it so many times with similar parameters necessitated by tax bracket that there's not much new to say. The trip that began with Bill and I has grown to include five total (Bill's friend and colleague Andy and then two of Andy's friends). But we still stay at the Stratosphere, because we can get a room for $22 a night, and that includes one weekend night (even during the NCAA tournament), and because that place has the $5 and $10 table limits that fit our budgets, as well.

So this year, it's coming in superlatives form ...

Quote of the trip: "Vegas does not suck."
Random Israeli dude who we met while walking through the Stratosphere. This was his first time in Vegas and immediately he was playing craps with Andy and Bill and lost almost all his initial betting money quickly before he got lucky. As he was recounting his vegasgamblingvirgin drama he kickered it with "Vegas does not suck."

Best question someone asked me: "Is this your invention?"
City Center is the latest and last-on-the-horizon mega casino/hotel complex. While the 90s were about outsizing each other (Bill believes three hotels were briefly the largest in the world) the expansion since then starting with the Bellagio has been about out lux-ing one another. Bellagio—with its nod toward Renaissance Italian Classicism—begat Wynn/Encore (grossly, Steve Wynn's idea of lux is red velvet motif)—which begat the Palazzo addition to the Venetian (more Italy and an obtrusive constant floral smell inside)—which begat The M (way south on LV Blvd, think dark colors, geometric lines and iron rectangles)—which begat City Center (similar inside to The M but all reflective glass towers).

City Center features Aria (the lux casino), which was actually pretty cool and even had $5 Craps during the day (WTF, Strat? Why were your limits $10? Aria gamers actually wore suits, well some. By contrast, there were lots of denim shorts and some long-sleeve denim shirts at the Strat). City Center also has The Crystals, which is the name of its extremely high-end retail mall. One of the attractions are the illuminated water tornadoes—lucite cylinders of varying heights that sit atop colored lights in the floor and inside each are literally tornadoes of water.

As we were walking around and taking pictures of the tornadoes with our cellphone cams, I spotted a twoish-year-old little kid who was mesmerized by the spinning cones of water. As I smiled and waved at the child trying to give that look that says "being curious is cool," the grandmother asked me "Is this your invention?"

"No, but I wish it were." Interesting point here, I kinda had a wannabe-a-dad moment right then. I imagined how cool it might be to pass along an appreciation for something so sciencey and cool and ultimately simple and beautiful.

Favorite Nickname: "Ferrari"
While walking The Crystals at City Center, one fellow patron jumped out at us. This 5-foot-6-ish, 50s-looking skinny man was wearing a yellow hat, a black t-shirt, short (almost Bill Clinton jogging shorts short) bright yellow shorts that said "Ferrari" on them, black socks and formerly gleaming, but still faded canary yellow Pumas. But though it's been said that the clothes make the man, in this case it was the walk. He had a swaggered gait that I can't really describe. There was a slight swinging of the hips and an almost imperceptible bounce when the balls of his feet hit the ground, almost as if his heels never quite touched. This guy OWNED his look and appearance.

Stupidest person: Me.
I've been coming to Vegas since 1999. I started as a black jack player (I already knew the rules, and learned enough of the etiquette from TV and Swingers that that was where I felt comfortable as a first-timer), but over the years have added Pai Gow Poker, Spanish 21 (when it's the only thing available) and even Bacarrat (see last year's trip blog for that story). But the game I've always wanted to play was Craps. It's always THE SCENE in the gaming area. Strangers high-fiving, whooping, jumping and attracting looks from everywhere. It's the TV-scene moment. This year Bill and I resolved to play, so we each spent a few weeks learning online and we were ready.

My first two forays were your typical gambling experience. I started hot, got up between $40 and $70, hit a cold spell, failed to recognize my doom and ultimately flushed $100 down the casino toilet. The good/bad part of craps is that at any given time even a small-scale bettor like me playing at a $5 table can have upwards of $50 on the table. That's good when you win only. Before playing the third time, I promised myself and even told Bill out loud that if I got up like $50ish right off then I would take a break for a little while so as not to Press. My. Luck.

Do I even need to say what happened? I got up, I even set aside enough chips that I would end with a $20 profit. But the problem was that a new shooter came up and to support my basic bets of a Pass and two Comes, I needed to dip into my set aside. Of course, that was the Pandora moment. I got wiped out on all those bets and then I felt like I had to play one more "just to make it back." And well, I said I was the stupidest person. I lost everything, even though I had promised myself I had learned my lesson.

Craps, btw, is the heroin of gambling. The rush from the crowd going nuts, especially when you're the shooter, blows away everything else, because it's the only time that you're "responsible" for someone else's winnings! And when you're friends are doing well, you feel compelled to stay at the table with them. And since space is often tight you're not allowed to just "stand there" so you end up playing the money you had promised yourself not to spend. DAMMIT. Of course, I can't wait to get back and play Craps again.

Saddest sight of the trip: Two Super Bowl rings (at a pawn shop)
Andy and Bill love Pawn Stars, the History Channel (did they forget WWII happened?) reality show about the Gold and Silver Pawn Shop in Las Vegas. They love it so much that Andy had already GoogleMapped it out and learned that the shop was just a little more than a mile away from the Strat. Of course, this means we visited.

The place was packed with people, like sold out show at the Troubadour packed. And this was during actual business hours. So we were shunted to shuffle along counterclockwise lengthwise through the ringed area inside the display cases. There were lots of rings, a few guns, some swords, weird random stuff (that we weren't allowed to photograph) and yes, two Super Bowl Rings. Giant, Gawdy, ass-ugly, diamond-overloaded rings. A Patriots ring from what appeared to be the first Super Bowl against the Rams and Broncos Super Bowl ring from the against the Packers.

Though these rings could have belonged to a secretary or assistant trainer or some other low-profile, normal-paying position (typically everyone in the organeyezation gets a ring), and the person was merely unloading this ass-ugly, unwearable piece of scheit for some scratch ... I couldn't help but get depressed staring at it through the cheap glass display case sitting on the old-velvetish geometric pyramid that looked like it was used from a derelict mall jewelry store. I mean, if it was the non-player we had imagined they wouldn't pawn it, right? Pawn shops always give you way less than something is worth, simply because they know you need cash IMMEDIATELY. A person who just didn't care about the ring would sell it on eBay or through a real auction site like Sotheby's or anything but a pawn shop. I mean fucking selling it at a garage sale would earn more money, right? right? Am I crazy?

Best food find: Noodles Asia
Remarkably uncreatively named, but very tasty little restaurant in the Venetian. Noodles Asia featured a great Dan Dan Noodles plate with spicy chicken peanut sauce. Mmmmmm. Highly recommend. It was the alternative to CraftSteak that we couldn't afford.

Worst decision: a buffet crab leg.
Last year we suffered the consequences of eating the Circus Circus buffet. It was such an awful experience, that I proposed we spend assloads of money on one great dinner this trip. Unfortunatley our collective Crapping the bed playing Craps scuttled those plans as too many of us felt too light to pay the $70ish per at CraftSteak. Now, the one disadvantage to the Strat is that you're not within walking distance of any good restaurants. Strat restaurants are OKish, and there's an IHOP. That's it. So Sunday we were starved after finally rousing ourselves and we just decided on the Strat Buffet. Honestly, it was good. Fresh fruit, good breakfast potatoes, eggs benedict. And of course since it was lunch already, there were all-you-can-eat crab legs. I tried one, just because ... it's free crab. Bad idea jeans. It was pretty gross and made me feel pretty grosser.

Beer + indie rock + California = :)

2010-03-12T21:02:00.000-08:00

Wilco's Yankee Hotel Foxtrot is one of my desert album Top 24. (I use the unusually high 24 for my desert album list of gotta-have albums because the first leather CD holder I bought for my car holds 24 discs.) It was my favorite album to listen to during my roadtrip from Amherst to Los Angeles back in August of 2002. And it seems to have inspired a new beer from the cats up at Lagunitas Brewery in Petaluma, CA.

I present Wilco Tango Foxtrot. (Thanks Pitchfork for pointing this out.)

According to posts it's an imperial brown ale that is "rich, smooth, dangerous, and chocolatey." And it's also 7+ ABV, so good times shall be had when I can score some of this. I'll even have my first beer review on the blog, which has been languishing. Hopefully now that deadline is over, I'll be blogging more.

Those who can't do, teach

2010-02-16T19:11:00.001-08:00

I am humbly and not fishing-for-a-complimentingly talking about myself. After having read Chris Jones's profile of Chicago Sun-Times film critic Roger Ebert for Esquire magazine, I know that though I may teach writing, I don't feel like I am a writer.

Jones profile made me laugh, smile, tear up and sit mouth agape marveling at his manipulation of language. It's a fucking master class in English. This section is stunning perfection:

Ebert's dreams are happier. Never yet a dream where I can't talk, he writes on another Post-it note, peeling it off the top of the blue stack. Sometimes I discover — oh, I see! I CAN talk! I just forget to do it.

In his dreams, his voice has never left. In his dreams, he can get out everything he didn't get out during his waking hours: the thoughts that get trapped in paperless corners, the jokes he wanted to tell, the nuanced stories he can't quite relate. In his dreams, he yells and chatters and whispers and exclaims. In his dreams, he's never had cancer. In his dreams, he is whole.

These things come to us, they don't come from us, he writes about his cancer, about sickness, on another Post-it note. Dreams come from us.

We have a habit of turning sentimental about celebrities who are struck down — Muhammad Ali, Christopher Reeve — transforming them into mystics; still, it's almost impossible to sit beside Roger Ebert, lifting blue Post-it notes from his silk fingertips, and not feel as though he's become something more than he was. He has those hands. And his wide and expressive eyes, despite everything, are almost always smiling.

There is no need to pity me, he writes on a scrap of paper one afternoon after someone parting looks at him a little sadly. Look how happy I am.

In fact, because he's missing sections of his jaw, and because he's lost some of the engineering behind his face, Ebert can't really do anything but smile. It really does take more muscles to frown, and he doesn't have those muscles anymore. His eyes will water and his face will go red — but if he opens his mouth, his bottom lip will sink most deeply in the middle, pulled down by the weight of his empty chin, and the corners of his upper lip will stay raised, frozen in place. Even when he's really angry, his open smile mutes it: The top half of his face won't match the bottom half, but his smile is what most people will see first, and by instinct they will smile back. The only way Ebert can show someone he's mad is by writing in all caps on a Post-it note or turning up the volume on his speakers. Anger isn't as easy for him as it used to be. Now his anger rarely lasts long enough for him to write it down.

I love this story because it starts with an idea. Who would be interesting to write about? I don't know Chris Jones and don't know whether there's any reporter's notebook explaining how this profile emerged. But given the painstaking craft in writing, I have to believe that Jones's first question was actually "Who would I be interested in writing about?"

And then it follows most important rule No. 2 ... report. report. report.

• Ask a profile subject about his/her dreams.

• Learn about how the facial muscles work and the importance of the jaw in holding our face's shape and the expressions we make and what those expressions communicate. Then write it without any scientific or anatomical terms.

• Take note of every color and convey size without measurement. "Blue Post-it."

• Listen to your writing. This passage gains power as the sentences shorten and words lose syllables. In his dreams, he yells and chatters and whispers and exclaims. In his dreams, he's never had cancer. In his dreams, he is whole.

• And use common words in an uncommon way; I wish I could remember who is known for saying that. His eyes will water and his face will go red — but if he opens his mouth, his bottom lip will sink most deeply in the middle, pulled down by the weight of his empty chin, and the corners of his upper lip will stay raised, frozen in place. Do we typically ever use "empty" to describe our chins or "sink" to describe what our lips do? Perfection.

• My favorite device though is the use of "paperless." It's a form of paper, incredibly common, yet a word used almost never save for when people point out the folly of how computers will creat paperless offices. But in this case, something so common is missing paralleling how easily those of us who are able to speak take it for granted. Because Ebert's ideas could be lost save for a Post-it.

Smartest thing I've read in a while

2010-01-25T23:06:00.000-08:00

This is from David Brooks's NYTimes Op-Ed:

Ever since I started covering politics, the Democratic ruling class has been driven by one fantasy: that voters will get so furious at people with M.B.A.’s that they will hand power to people with Ph.D.’s. The Republican ruling class has been driven by the fantasy that voters will get so furious at people with Ph.D.’s that they will hand power to people with M.B.A.’s. Members of the ruling class love populism because they think it will help their section of the elite gain power.

It's nice to see that no one is looking out for the vast majority of Americans who have neither.

2010

2010-01-01T14:43:00.001-08:00

Happy New Year, World!

Two worlds collide

2009-12-29T22:37:00.000-08:00

I hate wrap up lists generally, particularly when they're from news orgs because List journalism is usually just lazy. But I love Seth Stevenson's column on slate.com about advertising.

In the end, this column about the worst ads of the year is so great and I love it so much that I'm blogging list journalism. I mean, as a guy I'm perpetually a child and find humour in poop jokes. One of this year's nominees ... Charmin's cartoon bears discussing toilet paper.

Great line: And then this ad in which a young bear bends over, post-wipe, to display tattered t.p. still dangling from his furry taint. The scene is disturbing, and, to my dismay, causes me to contemplate the contents of the bear's stool.

I fear what lies beyond 2010

2009-12-29T22:08:00.001-08:00

A recent informal survey of ex-Los Angeles Times staffers, revealed that a slim majority expected the newspaper to fold. God, how I hope that will never happen. The Los Angeles Times has been doing amazing work in the last year-ish covering the drug war in Mexico. The latest story, reported and written by Tracy Wilkinson and Ken Ellingwood, tells of how one mayor has started his own "intelligence squad" because the fear has cowed the general public, the media and even the church to become complicit with the drug warriors.

This is an amazing story filled with terrfiying details, powerful quotes:

San Pedro, a suburb of Monterrey, Mexico's industrial capital, boasts multinational corporate headquarters, Ferrari dealerships, pristine streets and parks, the top luxury hotels. At one typically orderly intersection rises a copy of Michelangelo's David larger than the original.

In an interview in a City Hall office decorated with paintings by Mexico's top contemporary artists, Fernandez dismissed comparisons between the intelligence units and death squads or Colombia-style paramilitaries, saying his units are "more like detectives," albeit answerable only to him. He refused to provide any details as to who serves on the squads or how they operate.

...

In some parts of the country, priests have used money from traffickers to pay for church repairs, special chapels or other community projects. One senior priest was quoted a couple of years ago praising the drug lords' propensity to tithe.

"They make us accomplices," said another outspoken bishop, Raul Vera of Saltillo. "A steeple built with drug money has blood gushing from its rafters."

The problem we as a society face is who else would do this reporting? Take these risks? Have the intelligence, skill, dedication and trustworthiness to interview these sources so effectively?

As a former daily news reporter, let me say again that what reporters do every day is NOT blogging, it's not commenting on someone else's work with opinions (like I'm doing now), it's digging, it's finding someone to say yes what you ask "Hey, can I ask you a couple questions about _________?" It's sifting through a multitude of interpretations of the same events or set of facts and finding the logic. It's writing all those facts down in a compelling way that that helps readers relate and understand.

Congrats, L.A. Times on more amazing work.

---------------------------

No Merry Xmas blogging because I was sick. :(

Credit where it's due

2009-12-20T19:59:00.000-08:00

To the beleagured, overstretched staff of the Los Angeles Times, I must say thank you because today's paper was filled with great stories.

My favorite was Borzou Daragahi's story about a blind man who leads an all-female orchestra in Shiraz, Iran. Were he not blind, religious customs in Shiraz would never permit a male to be in the company of 30 women who he is not related to teaching them music on a weekly basis. But in this case, his blindness has become an opportunity to create something powerful. Here's the best quote I've read about music/the arts in a loooooooong time, from one of the musicians:

"We have something to say in this world of art, no matter how small," says Helen Parchami, a violinist in her 20s. "The instrument is strength. It's power. It's the freedom of my soul. When I play here I feel proud of all the women here. Only women play. We show that we can stand on our own feet."

But that's not the only reason the LAT was a great read today:

• David Zucchino's story about a recently elected city councilman in Asheville, N.C. who is an atheist. Local conservatives are threatening to sue the city because his public service is, according to them, in direct violation of the state's arcane constitution which bars those who don't believe in god from serving in public office in North Carolina. Classic case of "Is this 2010 in America?":

Six other states have provisions outlawing atheists in public office. The North Carolina clause was in the state constitution when it was drafted in 1868. In 1961, the U.S. Supreme Court reaffirmed that states were prohibited under the U.S. Constitution from requiring a religious test to serve in office. The court ruled in favor of an atheist in Maryland seeking to serve as a notary public.

• A great examination into how easily teachers in the Los Angeles Unified School District "earn" tenure by Jason Felch, Jessica Garrison and Jason Felch. Without the newspaper, how would we learn about this?

* The reviews are so lacking in rigor as to be meaningless, many instructors say. Before a teacher gets tenure, school administrators are required to conduct only a single, pre-announced classroom visit per year. About half the observations last 30 minutes or less. Principals are rarely held responsible for how they perform the reviews.

* The district's evaluation of teachers does not take into account whether students are learning. Principals are not required to consider testing data, student work or grades. L.A. Unified, like other districts in California, essentially ignores a state law that since the 1970s has required districts to weigh pupil progress in assessing teachers and administrators.

The LAT's work was so important that Supt. Ramon C. Cortines announced that change was coming. After hearing The Times' findings more than a week ago, the superintendent pledged to scrutinize probationary teachers more closely so poor instructors are ousted before they become tenured.

"Too many ineffective teachers are falling into tenured positions -- the equivalent of jobs for life," he said.

• Finally, this incredibly powerful photo essay from Marissa Roth, a freelance photojournalist who documented her photos and interviews with war widows through the last 20+ years.

In her words:
While working on assignment as a Times photographer in Pakistan in 1988, I was drawn to tell the story of the Afghan war widows, who at the time numbered about 100,000 after 10 years of war between Afghanistan and the Soviet Union. I went into Afghan refugee camps in Thal and Peshawar and photographed women and children, for what I considered to be an underreported story of that war.

My experiences in Pakistan inspired me to continue photographing other women affected by other wars, a photo essay that has turned into a 20-year personal project dedicated to documenting the lives of women who have been directly affected by armed conflicts.

Love the Internets

2009-12-19T20:27:00.000-08:00

The ulimate betrayal

2009-12-17T22:38:00.000-08:00

I have been losing my hair with some rapidity since around 2000, so when I was 25 (despite what two of my stylists have said while trying to assuage my anxiety over my ironic vanity. I say ironic because I never had like actual good hair) I started preparing myself for the inevitable.

But even though my scalp is very exposed at least what hair I had left was black. Well, until recently.

Today while I was washing my hands in the bathroom down the hall from my office, I saw it. A short white hair near my left temple. I couldn't believe how my hair stabbed me in the head and extinguished whatever self-respect I had left.

I kid, I kid. But 'tis sad, goddammit.

wtf, barack

2009-12-16T17:54:00.001-08:00

This from the Washington Post's Dana Milbank.

On the campaign trail, Barack Obama vowed to take on the drug industry by allowing Americans to import cheaper prescription medicine. "We'll tell the pharmaceutical companies 'thanks, but no, thanks' for the overpriced drugs -- drugs that cost twice as much here as they do in Europe and Canada," he said back then.

On Tuesday, the matter came to the Senate floor -- and President Obama forgot the "no, thanks" part. Siding with the pharmaceutical lobby, the administration successfully fought against the very idea Obama had championed.

"It's got to be a little awkward," said Sen. Tom Carper (D-Del.).

It's even more awkward for millions of Americans who are forced to pay up to 10 times the prices Canadians and Europeans pay for identical medication, often produced in the same facilities by the same manufacturers, simply because the U.S. government refuses to rein in drug prices.

Those favoring cheaper prescriptions amassed an impressive ideological coalition, from socialist Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) to conservative Sen. David Vitter (R-La.). But they were no match for industry-friendly senators backed by the administration, who on Tuesday night easily voted down "reimportation," as it is called.

No surprise here: Lawmakers, and the White House, are addicted to drug money. The industry has pumped upwards of $130 million into federal elections over the past decade and is now among the top 10 donors, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. At the same time, the White House needed the industry to spend its millions of dollars in advertising money on support of the health-care legislation, not against it.

The drug-money addiction could explain why the administration struck a sweetheart deal with the industry, which offered to give up $80 billion in revenue in exchange for an understanding that the government would not push for deeper concessions. The White House was determined not to go back on the deal -- even though the industry had demonstrated bad faith by raising prescription prices nearly 10 percent this year. So when Sen. Byron Dorgan (D-N.D.) brought his reimportation proposal to the floor, the administration pushed back with a letter from Food and Drug Administration chief Margaret Hamburg warning of "significant safety concerns."

Continued here.

Awesome links of this particular day

2009-12-08T23:06:00.000-08:00

From The coolest Wude in the universe comes a link to this story about a small group of Swedes who started manufacturing jeans in North Korea. Whoa.

I don't have much to add to this other than, thankfully there are Swedes, denim, storyreporters and an Internet to unite them.

Originally, this post was "Awesome link of this particular day" but then Amanda sent me this ode to SkyMall and it was forced to become linkS. All I know is that when my headache wouldn't let me read a book while flying from Chicago to Los Angeles, my mind could handle going from the wall-sized crossword puzzle to the continued iterations of Successories low-level-executive posters to Lord of the Rings chess sets.

Where never-was friendships go to live

2009-12-07T23:10:00.000-08:00

That was how I once described Facebook to Scott in one of our mocking IM conversations about the seemingly ubiquitous social networking site. Though, I regularly (though not frequently) Google people from my past (primarily college friends—the subgroup from which I've lost touch with the most people), I have staunchly resisted FB. Through, e-mail, phone calls, IMs, text messages and even annual xmas cards, I am in touch with the people I truly care to be in touch with. Honestly, not to sound smug, but if I've lost touch with you it's your fault.

That's why it's always been odd to me, when people use the "don't you want to know what (insert name here) is up to?" as some kind of FB incentive. To be honest, not at all, which brings me to the point of this blogpost.

Someone I know on a very cursory level (not a colleague, source or boss) from my days as a newspaper reporter, contacted me on LinkedIn. Now why am I on LinkedIn when I am anti-FB? LinkedIn is more professionally targeted. I can see what my friends are up to professionally, like promotions, transfers, in some cases moves, or the most basic thing, learn what their goddamned jobs are in the first place. Like I said, it's supposed to be professional.

And yet, despite LinkedIn's more professional slant, it's still a place where barely-was-relationships can stay on life support. I suppose in this case it's where never-were colleagues can pretend that they might puruse a joint venture in the future?

The person who contacted me is not someone I worked with, but he had been at the Albany Times Union before I got there and was still friends with several of my co-workers, so we saw each socially a few times. I don't harbor any particular ill feelings toward this person. I'd register my feelings as neutral. Once I left I never expected to see him or hear from him again and I was perfectly OK with that.

I am going to leave the "invite" unanswered. I highly doubt he really cares what I'm up to or about teen journalism. I suspect he's collecting contacts. After all, who doesn't take note of how many "friends" or "contacts" a person has on their FB or other social networking page? But even though I look at someone's contact number, I don't want to be a collector of languishing-online-relationships.

A case for the fine arts in education

2009-12-04T00:02:00.001-08:00

In third grade I lied to my parents and told them that third graders were too young to take instrumental music lessons from school, even though third graders who expressed serious interest were permitted to start a year earlier than typically. I don't know why I said that, given that I'd always thought of taking violin. But by fourth grade, when I think parents were notified through a letter sent home, I was in. I signed up for clarinet lessons, in part because a clarinet would fit in my backpack.

Nine years later, I would graduate as the concert master of my high school band. That just meant I was the first chair, first clarinet and that I tuned the band before concerts, even though I didn't have the ear to really understand intonation.

I thought that would be the end of my perfoming life, but in college my desire to attend University of Arizona basketball home games won out over my desire to drop music and fall semester of freshman year I joined the marching band, because only marching band members could audition for pep band (and pep band was the only way to guarantee good student seats to every home game).

Four years later, I graduated having sat courtside for a basketball national championship, but more importantly having cried my eyes out before, during and after my final marching performance at a football game. I knew that was the end of a chapter in my life.

I am so thankful that my parents encouraged me to try marching band. It was there that I learned to be accountable, how to lead people and equally as importantly how not to, to take pride in being a band geek, to see that different genres and styles of music are all just music and ultimately take my first steps becoming the person I am today.

And I am also equally grateful that I had those opportunities growing up and in college. It's why I am so passionate about the fine arts maintaining a thriving presence in public education. Sure, like with football and basketball, most high school violinists, tuba players, percussionists and oboe players won't become professionals. But they'll be forever changed by the experience, in almost every case, for the better.

It's one of the reasons I love the new show Glee so much, too. It really took me until I moved to Los Angeles to fully, proudly and publicly embrace loving musical theater, marching band, Star Trek and all those other subcultures of pop-culture-stereotyped popular kid ridicule. And now that there's a buzz-worthy show about high school kids who sing and dance ... wow. The only bad thing about Glee is that it makes me regret not supporting the other fine arts students at my high school, particularly abdicating my responsibilities to help out by doing pit orchestra for the musicals. I sucked. But as amazing as Glee is, it's a television show with ridiculously (at-times) over-produced numbers.

So perhaps to really appreciate the role and importance of the fine arts, check. out. this performance from the kids at PS 22 in NYC. (thanks, Jacquie for passing this along. I was chills for virtually the entire time.)

Public Option Please

2009-12-03T01:54:00.000-08:00

I love talent and intelligence, hence I love my friend Amy. She's a talented graphic designer and illustrator, fellow ultra-liberal, indie-music lover and also a pretty fucking good writer. I don't love her quite so much for that because honestly, what left do I have to bring to the friendship, right?

Anyway, she recently entered a contest to design a poster for the Public Option Please campaign, which implores Congress not to forget that healthcare reform should actually maximize making people more healthy. Of course, since she's talented and smart, she WON!

Check it out here or like below, too.

I want a party of ideas

2009-12-02T23:14:00.001-08:00

During the past few years I've become a big fan of NYT Op-Ed columnist David Brooks. He represents a rare conservative voice in the NYT opinion section, though not one that aligns much with the current Republican Party. Brooks frequently harkens back to the GOP of old, which touted itself as the party of ideas. Not the party that uses "elite" as an insult, particularly when referring to college-educated people who work for newspapers (earning middle class salaries) and magazines (often living paycheck to paycheck as freeelancers) who happen to disagree with the concept of wealth and power being concentrated in the hands of the very few (actual elitism ironically).

This mass amoeba of thoughtlessness has annointed Sarah Palin it's savior. Gawd, I fucking hope not ... from The Huffington Post via LAObserved:

Best Sarah Palin nugget ever?

December 1 2009 11:27 AM

In her new book "Going Rogue," best-selling author Sarah Palin claims to wrap herself in the flag of UCLA legend John Wooden. But, um, the quote she attributes to Coach Wooden is actually from Native American activist John Wooden Legs, writing in some left-wing journal. You'd think the stuff about the land and, in the original full quote, where Cheyennes talk the Cheyenne language, would have tipped off Palin and her people. Apparently not, as Palin watcher Geoffrey Dunn chortles at the Huffington Post:

There have been so many lies and distortions pointed out in Sarah Palin's Going Rogue since it was released last week that her memoir has already become something of a gag line.
But perhaps the most embarrassing gaffe so far is her mis-attributed quote to UCLA basketball legend John Wooden....

There's also no small amount of irony in the quote, given Palin's abysmal record on Alaska Native issues during her truncated term as governor.

He offers Palin some real Wooden quotes, such as "It's the little details that are vital" and "be more concerned with your character than your reputation" — and "never mistake activity for achievement."

The more things change ...

2009-11-30T13:34:00.000-08:00

... the more they change. In the Stephen King book It, a character says that and then strongly rips people who revert to the cliched version that they "stay the same." After my experiences going out on the town in WNY Saturday night post-Sabres game, King's character is dead on.

The night starts downtown at the Buffalo Sabres game against the Carolina Hurricanes. A somnambulant Sabres team wakes up in the third period to vanquish the team that kept us from winning the Cup in 2006. Until the third period the only thing worth noting is that Ryan Miller turned into Dominik Hasek.

After the game, my high school friend Kerri and I decide to do something we've never really done ... actually go out in the city of Buffalo. We grew up in the burbs and under the same parental protectiveness umbrella that pre-emptively squelched any curiosity of the city and instead rendered urban Buffalo an undesirable place to our suburban teen selves. WTF? So we meet near the Sabres gift shop and send Kerri's dad off with my parents and sister for the drive back to the burbs.

Kerri and her dad ate in the city before the game at the Pearl Street Grill and Brewery and she asked their server how to get to Chippewa Street (Buffalo's main drag in downtown) from the HSBC Arena; luckily it's only a few blocks, which is good because Kerri and I have gone California and find the low-30s temps more than cold enough. She's reached a state in which she happily layers with hat and gloves out in public knowing we're bar-crawling and I am thankful to have to hit the ATM and that someone really slow is in front of me, just for the warmup. (I am almost ready to turn in my 716 lineage at this point.) Along the way we direct one group of people toward the Buffalo Convention Center, home of the annual World's Largest Disco. (Yikes?)

We arrive on Chippewa and don't really know where to go. Pretty much any place that I remembered from the one time I broke night on Chippewa (grad school June 1998) is loooooong gone (probably multiple times over). There's an Irish pub, a Mexican place (which sadly really scares us because Mexican and Buffalo wasn't a good mix for us growing up), plenty of random bars and then a place called Pure. There's a line outside to get into what looks like an interior waiting area and then stairs that take you up to the club. We decide that any place that reminds of a Buffaloized version of Vegas is OUT. [From the Clubplanet site: "Pure - Here’s the problem with most bars: the vibe sometimes dies around 1am. Luckily for you, when most bars are sweeping up the floors and closing shop, Pure kicks it into another gear. The place usually keeps it going ‘til way late—guaranteeing a late and out-of-control night." IRONY ALERT: last call in Buffalo is 4 a.m. so nowhere is winding down at 1 a.m.]

We keep walking down the street (it's only a few blocks), and nothing really catches our eyes. An I'm-stumbling-now-but-I'm-a-sure-bet-to-be-puking guy is being supported out of Bada Bing's by two friends. This place also has really loud music thumping and looks pretty crowded. After a pre-Thanksgiving night of jockeying for drink ordering positions one of our few criteria for this night is ease of ordering our drinks. Welcome to our mid-30s!

By now we're at the end of the bar/club strip and notice Papaya across the street. With the dim lighting inside, lack of any dancing and chill-ly sitting (no standing) bar patrons, this place is giving off a classy vibe that seems more our speed. We enter Papaya and head to the bar. It's very dimly lit, with a dark wood bar (very polished) and the bottles of liquor arranged on glass shelves behind the bar. Modern and classy without being like Euro-trash modern. Best thing, despite the decor it's still got Buffalo bar prices of $3.75 bottles of Labatt's. MMMMMM Labatt's.

Kerri and I note that despite being named after a tropical fruit nothing about Papaya seems tropical or fruity. Hmmmmm. At this point, the cliche of things remaining the same is winning. We've seen public drunkenness, a place named after something inappropriate (betraying Buffalo's at-times rubeishness. I say because I love), and cheap beer!

I've come to learn that Papaya is an Asian restaurant. Whatever. It's got a good-enough beer selection, cheap prices and quick, friendly-enough service. And oh yeah, some damned good people watching. There were two silver foxey guys. One had a just age-appropriate younger woman with him and they weren't too shy about sharing lusty looks at one another. The other guy though is apparenlty working the room more. And of course since he's older looking than silver fox 1, he goes after younger women. After a few rounds, we decide to head out. I haven't eaten in about 10 hours at this point, so even Canadian light lagers are feeling good.

As we walk back up Chippewa, we've noticed that the street has been overrun with revellers from the World's Largest Disco. It's an explosion of polyester, afro wigs and bad shoes. And the line for Pure is getting longer and longer. I want to open a one-adjective place in Buffalo, put a velvet rope and two tight-t-shirted fat guys in front and make money.

Kerri and I resolve to get one round at one more Chippewa bar and then get some food at Pano's, a legendary local place known for it's all-night greasy goodness. Kerri has even seen and I've heard from my parents about the restaurants recent mega upgrade to a gorgeous new building. My veins cannot wait for a huge late-night omelette with onions, cheese and other things that are bad for me. I'm seriously thinking of abandoning my no-pork diet to eat some bacon.

But first we need that last round. We decide on The Third Room. As we get our IDs out, things start to C-hange.

"That's five dollars," door guy says.

I pause. I can't believe that a place with no band playing or DJ spinning or without a velvet rope is charging a cover. Seriously, WTF? Kerri gives the guy a $10 and we're in. We get up to the bar and the bartender tells us that if we came from the Sabres game and show our tickets we can get free Labatt's. DONE. So we take our free beers and perch on the wall (better people watching, which is about to get good since Disco-ers are flooding Chippewa).

A few minutes later a girl drunk-zags past us followed by a few friends. Judging by how much she's concentrating on maintaining even a general walking direction, she didn't do a little dance and won't be making a little love or certainly didn't get down that night. A few minutes after that we see her again walking again toward the back of the bar.

"That's smart," Kerri says.

"Yeah," I say agreeing with Kerri's smartcasm. She didn't look puke sick and bathroom bound, just like she needed another dose of drama. "The only thing her friends should be doing is taking her outside."

While our attention is focused on this, the bar has added another dozen or so patrons, all of whom seem to have been discoing. Facing the bar with his back to us is big leisure suit guy. He's got a white-ish (it was dark) leisure suit and he cannot stop dancing. Kerri and I immediately love this guy. He got the perfect amount of drink on: wear stupid clothes, dance like you wanna be the center of attention, be superfriendly to fellow bar patrons and oooooze cheeseycheer. We seriously spend an extra five minutes hardly touching our beers just watching him.

Kerri though has to use the bathroom and when she returns thinks she might have spotted Christopher Knight (aka Peter Brady), who has been a regular at the WLD for years. In fact, he's frequently interviewed during the Sabres home game prior to the WLD about his appearance there. I love that an appearance by a has been's has been generates such attention in my hometown. I immediately do a slowspeed walkby, but no dice. He's probably a few years too young and like many things in Buffalo, not as good-looking. :( Now it's time to leave, because I am beyond hungry.

Thanks to my phone's GPS, Kerri's memory and a parking garage attendant, we find our way from Pearl to Elmwood and are on our way to Pano's. It's time to change alert. We can't help but notice how not dangerous the city is and laugh at our formerly afraid-of-the-non-suburbs selves as we pass by coffee shops, book stores, galleries, boutiques, restaurants all independently owned. I guess not seeing a TGI McFunsterbee's and FoeverContempoGap would have scared our high school selves.

Pano's is in a gorgeous new two-story brick building on Elmwood. It looks great. Still with some charm, but definitely seems much cleaner than the old greasy spoon. This is a good change. Unfortunately, we were about to learn that some change sucks. Once we walk in we see a guy vacuuming even though there are at least half a dozen tables with customers. I guess when a restaurant is 24 hours they gotta fit this in when they can.

"We're closed," says a guy wearing the typical restaurant outfit of black and and black.

DEJECTED doesn't begin to describe how I feel. One of the most important things I try to do when I am anywhere, and in Buffalo in particular, is to support local business. I bring back all my watches when they need service or batteries to Watch World on Niagara Falls Boulevard because I want to support those guys in their struggle against the ever-growing Boulevard Mall. I buy xmas cards at Hero and this year picked up a poster promoting Buffalo there. But getting the bitchslap from Pano's hurts.

It's 1:20 a.m.ish in WNY and there aren't tons of late night options at this point. As we head east on Sheridan Drive hoping something similar will catch our fancy, nada. Clearly Pano's had long ago stomped out any competing 24-hour greasy spoons. And yet now they throw that market away? I am moving back and opening up a one-adjective place with a velvet rope and fat guys next to my new 24-hour grease joint.

Eventually, we end up at Denny's on Maple Road. This used to be a Perkins (see, things frakkin change) back when we were in high school. And after midnight it became practically like the high school lunchroom so many of us ended up there post movies and the mall. When we get there a bit before 2 a.m. it's pretty busy; all but one or two booths are occupied.

Upon opening our menus, I point Kerri toward the Rockstar favorites. Basically, current rock/pop/country stars "designed/developed/created" menu items. I saw these a couple weeks ago post-Swell Season concert with Dave.

"Jewel has a chicken quesadilla," I remark to Kerri. "I remember watching her on Alternative Nation every night practically in high school." I wonder what that Jewel would say to this Jewel. Probably, the same thing she would have said to Intuition Jewel. But since this was my second late-night Denny's run in a matter of weeks, I couldn't repeat the Moons Over My Hammy. This leads me to the biggest change I could imagine ... I order the HooBurrito. Allow the Denny's All-nighter page:

"If a slice of BBQ chicken pizza married the perfect burrito…this would be their favorite child.”

Back in 2008, Hoobastank combined two of their favorite foods for their ideal post-concert meal - BBQ chicken pizza and burritos! Starting with crispy chicken strips, they added in pepper jack cheese and onion crispers, all wrapped in a warm tortilla to create their own, custom (and now infamous) "Hooburrito." They went the full mile to throw in a side of tortilla chips, cheese sauce and ranch to complete the plate.

Shamefully, all I can say it that this is one of the best late night grease binges I've ever had. (Of course I washed it down with a few mozarella sticks.) How can fried chicken, fried onions and cheese be bad? It cannot. Denny's nor Hoobastank could ruin this. I found a reason to live and maybe forgive Pano's for shutting it's fucking doors at an ungodly early hour considering it was WLD night. Btw, polyester followed us from Buffalo to Denny's in Amherst.

While finishing our Denny's timewarp into an alternate high school reality indulgence, we overhear the conversation from the booth behind me.

"California is sooooo liberal," says a young man's voice. Kerri points out that he looks pretty young, like probably too young to have ever actually been to California. "They just like give college education away for free. If you want to go to a Cal State University you don't have to pay anything."

Kerri and I laugh at the distorted view non-Californians have of the Golden State and also at how smugly he peddles his opinions. First off, this college-aged rube's assertion is FALSE. Back when the University of California and Cal-State systems were chartered it was written that state residents would not pay tuition. And they don't. They pay "fees," which are exactly the same as tuition would be called in other states. And California just raised student fees at the UCs by 33 percent beginning next fall. I think they've doubled since I moved to Cali in 02.

Secondly, though, why would a free education at a good college be a bad thing? I realize once again that I'm a socialist. Kerri and I quickly debate whether it's worth correcting our know-it-all friend, but we decide against it. Starting something with someone at Denny's/Perkin's afterhours wasn't a good idea then and doesn't seem like one now. Perhaps some things don't change.

POSTSCRIPT: I learn a few days later that one of my former students, whom I'd texted that I was at Denny's eating the Hooburrito, confessesd to having eaten the Jewel Acoustic Quesadilla a few days before. Obviously, she is like my bffffffffff.

true test

2009-11-23T13:21:00.000-08:00

I forgot to pack my laptop for my nine-day trip back to Buffalo. Amanda tells me to disengage more from work. This will definitley make that happen. At least I can charge my iPod via my phone charger. I was hoping to blog more but without my laptop, I don't know whether that will happen. Hmmmmmmmmm.

Preview of review of Swell Season last night

2009-11-19T19:06:00.001-08:00

I have to thank the amazing person who filmed this performance from what is one of the best shows of a year which has featured AMAZING shows.

You and me baby ain't nothin' but mammals ...

2009-11-12T00:10:00.000-08:00

... so let's do it like they do on the Discovery Channel. That's a 1.5-entrende from a song by the Bloodhound Gang. But it serves as a great intro to this post, which coming the day after the previous one marks the return of regular blogging.

This story in the Telegraph (UK) about how scientists recently discovered the fruit bats practice fellatio (oral sex) caught my eye for obvious and non-obvious reasons. Obvious, because as a guy I'm still basically an immature junior-high boy who giggles when news articles cover sex, particularly non-missionary sex.

But in the non-obvious (and far more important way) is because of one quote in the article from a scientist.

Frans de Waal, a primatologist at Emory University in Atlanta, said that animal oral sex may be more common than we realise, but researchers’ prudery has prevented this fact becoming known. He said: "Part of the reason fellatio is rarely mentioned is shyness about this issue."

De Waal is an expert on the bonobo chimpanzee, which prior to this finding about fruit bats, technically in this case the short-nosed fruit bats (Cynopterus sphinx), were thought to be the only animals besides humans to practice oral sex.

His quote stood out to me because it shows how our paradoxical prudishness about sex and sexuality is so detrimental to the advancement of knowledge. I get that studying the sexual behaviors of animals probably won't cure cancer or cure world hunger. But genetically we have so much in common with other primates, chimps in particular, but also animals, period (why do you think animals are tested on for cosmetics, medicines, etc.?), that to pretend it's unworthy of study is narrow-minded.

The researchers were good scientists and didn't make conclusive proclamations, but they speculated that it's possible the bats simply enjoyed it or that perhaps it was a way for females to hang onto mates longer. Either could be true. But the conclusion I'm willing to draw is that if it's OK for animals and OK to be written about with animals, it ought ot be OK for people to talk about, too, and for newspapers to write about with some delicacy, maturity and also even a little humor.

I was talking earlier tonight to a friend about my job as an editor at a teen newspaper and was guesstimating that as much as 3 percent of my job is to if not, teach, at least evangelize the potentially life-saving benefits of comprehensive sex education. I'm always aghast when we have discussions at staff meetings about sex education in schools how many students tell us that their teachers, and in many cases parents, haven't told them anything.

Back before Dennis Miller became a stool pigeon of the Republican Party he used to be a biting social commentator who had the stones to say that Clinton-era Surgeon General Joycleyn Elders deserved to be president for saying that masturbation should be taught in schools. In context what she was arguing for was comprehensive sex education that included factual information about masturbation—it's natural, normal, common, 100 percent safe if practiced correclty and something no one should be ashamed of.

But sadly, we live in a country with so many sexual hang-ups that a story about bat blow jobs made me laugh as a first reaction. Of course, saying "bat blow jobs" out loud is giggly. Perhaps the Bloodhound Gang will be inspired to write a single to their song, "The Bad Touch."

It is the romance of the heavens that awakens the blogger

2009-11-10T21:03:00.000-08:00

This amazing story in the Science Times about using the solar wind to traverse interplanetary space caught my fancy today.

From the article (as is the Rick Sternbach computer image of the sail) by Dennis Overbye:

About a year from now, if all goes well, a box about the size of a loaf of bread will pop out of a rocket some 500 miles above the Earth. There in the vacuum it will unfurl four triangular sails as shiny as moonlight and only barely more substantial. Then it will slowly rise on a sunbeam and move across the stars.

LightSail-1, as it is dubbed, will not make it to Neverland. At best the device will sail a few hours and gain a few miles in altitude. But those hours will mark a milestone for a dream that is almost as old as the rocket age itself, and as romantic: to navigate the cosmos on winds of starlight the way sailors for thousands of years have navigated the ocean on the winds of the Earth.

Save for newspapers, particularly the NYTimes, which commits a whole day to a science section, where else could our general population read a story like this and get exposed to not just the technological advances of science, but perhaps more importantly the romantic notions of exploration that have fueled the scientist for millennia?

Though I am a word person by education and profession, I've always harboured a deep love for science and in adulthood even mathematics, which throughout my educational career I professed to detest. It was ironic because my aptitude scores in math were always in the mid90s percentile compared to 80s for verbal. I don't see them as exclusive at all, for the best reporters are just another form of scientist. A person in search for evidence of why things happen and who is always prepared to adapt a hypothesis in the face of countrary evidence and who is most content to allow others to reach the conclusions.

Sadly, mathematics and science seem not to be taught this way in school. Math is manipluation of numbers while science is the recitation of equations, principles named after dead men and memorization of obscure multi-syllabic words.

The student I actually tutored in math many years ago was literally amazed when I told her that math is NOT numbers. It is a way of thinking about the universe in terms of a search for certainty. It's a method that will allow you double check your work every time and approach any new situation with the ability to see it clearly through learning some mastery of logic. Sadly, she just thought math was numbers and she hated numbers.

I hope that people read this article about the solar sail and perhaps have their own version of Einstein's dream of traveling on a beam of light. And I hope that people remember WHERE they read it, as well. For if newspapers cease to exist who shall teach us of our world?

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And speaking of great journalism, listen to this public radio piece about why parents need to talk to their children about money management done by one of the L.A. Youth alums.

Pre-34 blog post

2009-10-28T00:35:00.000-07:00

I'm feeling old. I'm on deadline at work. I'm constantly tired. I am, of course, blogging about this at 12:36 a.m. That's one reason I'm blogging less often. But also, after the perfect song mix project, I honestly haven't been as motivated to blog lately. I don't want to be rest-on-my-affirmational-cliches guy, but I couldn't have been happier with how it went and the reactions from everyone that I haven't felt like I had much to say after that.

I've never blogged about my trip to SF; I suck. I shall. I shall, dammit.

But in the meantime, read L.A. Youth. One of our writers, Patricia, just wrote an amazing story about how she almost washed out of school after a combo of laziness, bad teaching, ditching and illness sabotaged her math future and then kept her out of school for much of two years, but ultimately thanks to her getting placed at an alternative high school she salvaged her academic career and her future.

It's one of the stories that I'm most proud of in all my time at L.A. Youth. With this one story she single-handedly blasted stereotypes about Compton, students who attend continuation schools and Latinas. Go, Patricia!

Seriously, Jon Stewart for some cabinet position, like secretary of common sense

2009-10-14T16:35:00.001-07:00

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart

Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c

CNN Leaves It There

www.thedailyshow.com

Daily Show
Full Episodes

Political Humor

Ron Paul Interview

Best. Email. Ever.

2009-10-06T21:24:00.001-07:00

I got this email this morning from my friend and former Albany Times Union co-worker Claire, who was one of the contributors to the Perfect Song Project.

Tess: “We want music.”

I pop in the Tom Chapin CD of kids’ songs.

Luke: “No, not THAT music. One of the cool CDs your friend Mike made you.”

(This is a very, very good sign. Turns out Lukien REALLY likes the Stones, The Who, and Bob Marley. I can live with that.)

-------------------------------------------

Other music notes. I feel sorry for one of our newer L.A. Youth writers who is writing about how she discovered the life-changing properties of rock-n-roll. This is in some ways, the story of my life particularly since moving to L.A., where I've become a concertmonster. I hope that I'll always remember to respect the vision she has for her story.

Finally, saw Thom Yorke at The Orpheum Sunday night. Wow. He played with Flea (amazing fucking bassist), Joey Waronker (REM drummer since Bill Berry retired), Mauro Refosco (supplementary percussionist) and Nigel Godrich (Radiohead producer extraordinaire).

I am not typically a dancer/mover at shows, preferring to lightly shake my body, bob my head and maybe tap my foot or my hand against my thigh. And even though Thom Yorke encouraged us to stand and dance and not to act like we were at the cinema, I was stiller at this show than almost any ever. But it wasn't because I wasn't moved, rather because I was mesmerized.

I've often not responded to electronica, which coincidentally enough can be called trance when composed in certain threads, because I find it boring and not in any way enrapturing. But when Yorke's The Eraser solo album was brought to live with such a talented band, I was simply stunned.

Flea's nearly virtuosic basswork added a vigorous pulse to every song, almost like a rumbling tremor cleavinng a beautiful glacier to reveal something hidden and dangerously interesting. And I can only pray that Waronker's freedom to bang the skins is carried onto the next REM album. Those combined with Refosco's percussive textures had virtually the entire rest of the nearly sold-out Orpheum dancing as much as is possible in the incredibly tight confines of the rows of an early 20th century (when people were much shorter) theater.

Add Godrich's synth/laptop/guitar and Yorke's delicately powerful vocals and it was the most visually musical experience I've probably ever had. In this case, I'm not referring to Yorke's rubberbandish dancing or Flea's non-stop gyrating, but like I felt like I could see the sounds and the best metaphor I can come up with is that it was a 3D fullspectrum rainbow.

My favourite song was Super Collider, which is a Radiohead that debuted during last year's tour. He played that haunting piano ballad immediately after Open the Floodgates, which also blew me away.

http://pitchfork.com/news/36693-report-thom-yorke-in-los-angeles/

Why Apple people are proud to be anti-Microsoft snobs

2009-09-24T10:50:00.000-07:00

I love this video. With the in-your-face age, racial and gender diversity, too-well-rehearsed "uhs" and "likes," desperately random (Clarice) pans and zooms, painfully faux-extemporaneous "oh and ..." afterthoughts, creepy fourth-wall violating do-I-look-at-the-camera-now-confusion, JC Penney wardrobe in the Home Depot Kitchen, and enough fake laughing to fill an NFL pre-game studio show if it was composed of every networks' crew, Microsoft's "how to host your own Windows 7 launch party" video takes the concept of unintentional comedy to quanta that I didn't know existed. It's like discovering a singularity-dense collection of dark matter that is the source of all other unintentional comedy. The best thing, though, is who the fuck host's an at-home launch party for a fucking computer operating system? I'll tell you who doesn't ... Apple devotees.

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I wish I could fathom why I haven't blogged so much in the past two months. Mostly work-related exhaustion. Sadly, the older I get the more the five-month sprint from July-November takes out of me and the earlier in the race that I start really feeling the drain. Because I have had things that I want(ed) to blog about ... like my amazing first trip to San Francisco (amazing everything, especially food and friends) town; a woman in Africa who continues to wear pants despite that being against the law; the opening of a new university in Saudi Arabia that has me genuinely excited to about continuing my education in a different part of the world; the joy of being surprised at a rock show (by Phoenix); discovering a former student's excellent blog about her experiences living and studying in India. I hope that by typing those post ideas down I shall force myself to write them, particularly since a couple are related to emails I've promised to send. I'm the let-downer friend. Argh, I never wanted to be that guy.

Democracy in trouble alert -- seriously

2009-08-31T15:08:00.001-07:00

Here's an amazing and frightening New York Times story about how news organizations (primarily newspapers traditionally) are cutting back on their spending to fund cases to keep courts open to the public.

Some highlights:

• The American Civil Liberties Union and other civil rights groups have taken the leading role in trying to shake loose information about the Bush administration’s policies and actions.

• As part of the settlement in a case involving Amtrak, the parties asked Judge Lawrence F. Stengel of Federal District Court in Philadelphia to “direct LexisNexis and Westlaw to remove the decisions” from “their respective legal research services/databases.”

The judge agreed, and the database companies complied.

Westlaw spokesman John Shaughnessy, which is owned by ThomsonReuters, said that the record's case number will exist and a note indicating that the judge ordered the record deleted will remain. WTF??? Noting the existence of censorship is still censorship.

We don't do everything better in America ... not even country music in this case

2009-08-27T23:32:00.000-07:00

Newest music recommendation: Baskery. A trio of Swedish sisters who play some mean country with just a tinge of occassional punkishness to bring something new to their sound.

I saw them a few weeks ago (and suck for not blogging about it until today) at a tiny show at The Hotel Cafe. There were literally about 18 of us watching the show, which was a motherfuckingshame because these women were incendiary when they were playing the fast stuff and slash the heartstrings when going more traditional countrystyle.

They caught my eye about two months ago when I was trolling the HC's events calendar. I hadn't been in a looooooong time and missed it, especially the world's greatest chicken quesadilla. While scanning the calendar grid, a picture of three very attractive women caught my eye. I clicked on the word Baskery and was taken to the band's myspace. The banjo, guitars and harmonies blew me away, along with the stylistic description of "Alternatve / Punk / Country."

And I can say that after watching them, their myspace doesn't do them justice. Live is a much more vigorous and urgent experience. The song "One Horse Down" is a great rip-roarer online, but online it was the fire-breathing dragon of the set with fierce yowls, scorching guitar and dangerously infectious energy. And the deliciously emasculating "Out-of-towner" (which features basically one lyric "I don't wanna go to bed with a man from town"), which they dedicated to the boys in Stockholm basically had all the guys there ready to prove their non-Swedish lineage. What else can one ask for in a show, right?

Discovering Baskery's existence and then being able to see them for all of $12.50 (we were the only people to buy our tix ahead of time), is what makes living in L.A. sofuckingbeautiful. So if you wanna seem infinitely ahead of the musical curve in your non-L.A. part of the world drop Baskery as a band to watch 2010 and you'll be hot shit. And in 2012 you'll be really cool for liking such a talented obscure band of Swedish sisters.

If you're still not convinced, read the reviews included on the embedded image!

What is a perfect song? Part II

2009-08-10T21:12:00.000-07:00

What is a perfect song? I've spent the last six weeks trying to get a better sense of the answer to that question.

It all started a few months ago when during a random IMing session with one of the L.A. Youth alums, I mentioned that I love The Elected's "Not Going Home" and when Angela asked me why, I said, "it's perfect." I hadn't really thought about why, but I was addicted to that song during that time and so rather than try to ad lib a Pitchfork-worthy reason I used the ultimate superlative. But that in-the-moment throwaway comment, stuck in my brain. What is a perfect song?

Is it one's favorite song? Must it meet any objective criteria, like lyrical depth, a certain musical complexity, or infectiousness? What are the criteria?

To get an answer I sent an e-mail to 15 friends with whom I've talked a lot about music over the years. I asked them ...

what is a song that you consider perfect?

It doesn't have to be your absolutely favorite song, if you could even have one of those, though I can't see how it would not be on your very short list. Now there's no definition of perfect that I'm going to set, because I'm sure we all would have many different and unique criteria.

But if each person could send me one or two songs (but preferrably one) that s/he considers perfect, that would be awesome. You're the people whose musical opinions I most value. This will lead to a CD that I want to burn and will happily send a copy of, if requested.

I quickly got great responses and realized that even more fun than collecting great music (any song not in my library I bought except for a couple which I had to have emailed), was learning why my friends chose these songs.

The only problem with the project was that I forgot to send the initial e-mail to some very important musical friends and once I did that the number of tracks and length of tracks exceeded what would fit on a single CD. So I added a few more people to the project and voila ... the Perfect Song Project double CD. Click here to get templates for making CD liner notes. Note: you gotta have Adobe InDesign.

Of all the places I've lived: Amherst, NY; Tucson, AZ, Syracuse, NY; Albany, NY, Los Angeles, CA ... L.A. had by far the greatest representation. This makes sense in that I live in a city in which I can immerse myself in music. And I also get to talk music with high school students and the way we connect to music in high school is with an unspoiled soul. Ironically, though, my former students often had the shortest explanations (but generally impeccable taste). I think though the greatest irony (on an objective scale) is that zero college friends were included. Honestly, I just didn't explore music much in college. Oh well. I don't think the list suffered for my lack of college music experimentation.

Without further ado here is Disc 2. There's not really a priority in terms of songs I like better than others (though Disc 2 has a few of the alternates), but instead it's based much more on how the songs worked together sequentially.

1. Pitchfork: “Rana” -- chosen by Kevin W.
The layers of guitar are near perfect, and the lyrics are great, if a bit simple. All in all, my favorite hard guitar song of all time. It also is very unique, and I think it’s difficult to place in a musical category, which makes it all the more intriguing.

2. blur: “Coffee and TV” -- chosen by Andrea
There's just something about Graham Coxon’s voice on this track that’s like curling up under a blanket. He’s not angry about the quotidian and the mundane, but comforted by it, and for some reason that makes the song full and satisfying. The way it’s structured, musically, is also satisfying. You have the mellow march of the guitar to complement the verse, then a little bit more honesty and rawness with the falsetto chorus. The guitar solo before the last chorus adds the perfect amount of recklessness, hinting that maybe everything is “not OK” after all. Complacency never felt so good. Mike’s note: an alternate selection from Andrea.

3. Neko Case: “Deep Red Bells” -- chosen by Connie
After a long day’s work I light candles, park on my couch and take deep breaths listening to Neko Case. I find her distinct voice and dark lyrics soothing. The tempo is both passionate and delicate, and when Case belts, “Where does this mean world cast its cold eye?” during the last verse, I get the chills and am in love.

4. Donny Hathaway: “A Song For You” -- chosen by Laura
This song makes me cry. Sob, with a snotty nose. I can't think of another song that has had that effect on me. It’s not perfect. The music is dated with an arrangement from the 1970s that can be at times trite. But his voice and the lyrics overcome all of the song’s problems. I've always thought that Donny Hathaway had the voice of an angel. The note at the end of this song may be the most perfect note ever sung. I can feel it in the center of my chest. The lyrics are heavy and sincere. The song is about a close relationship, perhaps romantic, maybe not. But he's singing to a person he cares about deeply. It's incredibly sad and beautiful. It makes me feel OK to acknowledge how much I love my friends and how important they’ve been in my life. It reminds me that we shouldn’t wait to tell the people we love, that we love them.

5. Joan Osborne: “Spider Web” -- chosen by Claire
When I was pregnant with my first child in 1996, I found out that he had Down’s syndrome and a related heart defect. It was a struggle coming to terms with who my child was, and with the terrifying realization that I actually had many prior expectations about who he would be. I played this song over and over, letting Osborne remind me that my son would have his own unexpected gifts, and attempting to channel her powerful energy. He did not survive, but I still consider this “his song” and I still listen to it when I need a reminder to embrace my own talents and flaws. And besides, the song rocks, in that soulful, courageous Osborne way.

6. Creedence Clearwater Revival: “Green River” -- chosen by Angela
I chose Green River because it makes me feel like I’m a hippie in the late '60s. It is SO TOTALLY TOTALLY on the playlist whenever I go up to NorCal. Mike’s note: Angela’s second choice.

7. Kirsty MacColl: “The End of a Perfect Day” -- chosen by Diane
It’s a bright, beautiful, wise song that reminds me that there is and always will be life after love. Mike's note: I'm a dope. On the liner notes her name is misspelled as Kristy. I'm a dope.

8. The Tragically Hip: “Nautical Disaster” -- chosen by Kevin W.
Nautical Disaster is all about lead singer Gord Downey. While the music is excellent, the conversational aspect of the lyrics sets this song apart from anything else in the Tragically Hip catalog. And lines like “Anyway Susan, if you like, our conversation is as faint as the sound in my memory, As those fingernails scratching on my hull.” Evoking the feeling of paddling away from other shipwreck victims is very, very powerful. You can take any line form the song. They are all equally as poetic. Mike note: Kevin’s second choice as well as Jon’s.

9. Al Green: “Love and Happiness” -- chosen by Katie
Because it's the best “driving on PCH with my boyfriend” song.

10. John Mayer: “St. Patrick’s Day” -- chosen by Quing
I like it because it has really simple and beautiful lyrics, and it’s slow with a constant beat. And obviously that John Mayer has an amazing voice.

11. Michael Jackson: “Billie Jean” -- chosen by Mike
Degrees of perfection aren’t supposed to exist. It’s a paradox to even consider them. That this song obliterates the paradox is why it’s the best pop song EVER written and a Mike wildcard for placement on the list. Most famous bass line of modern pop era + an imminently singable chorus that forces one to dance + socially pointed lyrics based on a crazed fan who claimed Michael Jackson was the father of her child = wow.

12. Norwegian Recycling: “How Six Songs Collide” -- chosen by Mindy
I knew I discovered a perfect song when I couldn’t pick out a favorite part from the song. Whenever I think I got to the best part, another one of the six songs enters and the mix only gets better. I especially like the song now because it reminds me of the view of my college courtyard from my suite. Unfortunately, you don’t get that kind of courtyard surrounded by Gothic architecture in Beijing. Mike’s note: These are the songs: 1. Jason Mraz - I’m Yours; 2. Howie Day - Collide; 3. Five For Fighting - Superman; 4. Angela Ammons - Always Getting Over You; 5. Boyzone - All That I Need; 6. 3 Doors Down - Here Without You.

13. The Shins: “Sleeping Lessons” -- chosen by Jon
I chose “Sleeping Lessons” by The Shins for the song’s spirit of ascent. I’m lousy at describing music, but if I had to … It begins with a synthy, teeter-tottering arpeggio. And then it builds and builds. Toneless chika-chika strumming quickens it. Deliberate, spare bass notes anchor it. A few measures later, as the new rhythm establishes itself, the guitar and drums arrive. The tempo increases more. And the song, now cloaked with chiming guitars, seems to just take off. There’s an undeniable lift to it.
It’s fun to list activities that song could “describe” sonically, like: A shuttle launch (“Mission Control, permission to use iPod.”); Hang-gliding; Summiting Everest (“H-h-h-ard to s-s-select song while wearing g-g-gloves.”). Less fantastic purposes include: listening on a lazy weekend morning when you’re slow to get moving, and reinvigorating a long car trip—when some vague ache in the joints reminds you of a teen-age injury (or the onset of age) and the trip’s original spirit of adventure has, for the moment, faded.
Re: listening while driving though, Sleeping Lessons weights a pedal-foot. So maybe set the cruise (assuming you’re not in a rental car whose wacked-out dash delays your discovery of cruise control until the last day of the trip).

14. The Velvet Underground and Nico: “Sunday Morning” -- chosen by Jane
There is no such thing as a perfect song. That being said, taking into consideration composition, melody, lyricism and presentation, of the songs I can call off the top of my head, I’ve narrowed it down to these, and you can do what you wish with this list because I just can’t pick:
“Sunday Morning” - Velvet Underground (Mike's note: I chose this based on how it starts, but it was a HARD choice)
“Gold” - Interference
“I Will Not Forget You” - Sarah McLachlan
“Piece of My Heart” - Janis Joplin
“Everybody Knows” - Leonard Cohen
“The Sunny Side of the Street” - The Pogues

15. Rilo Kiley: “Pictures of Success” -- chosen by Mike
This has become my favorite song, so much so that I have some of the lyrics tattooed on my right arm. It came down to this song and “Nightswimming” when I was first choosing. Do I go with the song that defined high school and college or the song by the band that makes me (an early 30s person) feel about music the way that I did back in high school? Like the best songs, the opening notes immediately put the part of my brain that loves music into a suspended animation, in which exists only the song. Musically, it’s simple but the lyrical and vocal vulnerability as Jenny Lewis contemplates the future and laments the possibility of living a meaningless life ... it coalesces into something that absolutely hypnotizes me. It’s every moment of my youth that I wondered whether there was something beyond Amherst, NY and every moment since that I’ve understood that there is and that I can’t waste it. In short, the purest example in my life of William Blake’s concept of higher innocence—seeing with the unfiltered wonder of a child and understanding with the wisdom of those who have learned to value the fleeting nature of our time.

16. Ludwig van Beethoven: “Ode to Joy” -- chosen by Claire and Mike
Claire: So I was really stuck on the word “perfect” last night. All I could think of was Beethoven’s “Ode to Joy.” Because at heart, of course, I’m a geek. As for "Ode to Joy," it is so perfectly what it says it is. Can you feel sad after you’ve heard that music? Mike: Seriously, it was such a “Why didn't I think of that” choice! I love it. And it’s totally genre-busting, which is always a good thing.