St. Louis Diner Review

Diner Review: Mi Ranchito

2012-01-29T08:10:00.000-08:00

Sooooo.... As I have previously stated there are a great number of Mexican places that have opened in the last few years. Lots of good tacos and burritos and carnitas and asada and what not. Great tacos served on corn tortillas with a little cilantro and some lime. When the tortillas are warm and the carnitas is good it is more than a little bit of heaven. They have sprung up all over place. It is a treasure. I keep my eyes peeled and when a place pops up I like to check it out and the more off the beaten path, the better. Last year I touted El Ranchito in Fairmont City and it should not be confused with this impostor called Ml Ranchito.

So this place has been getting good reviews and there has been a lot of talk. It is on Kingsland just north of Olive and about 5 blocks south of Delmar. It is in the end of a crappy little strip mall and when I went on a recent day for lunch it was easy to get a table at 11:45 and it was a waiting line by noon. People seem to love the place and I had a table by the door and people just kept rolling in. it is hugely popular as a lunch destination right now.

The chips and salsa were reasonably good. Nothing too special. The sauce was read and clumpy with onions but not too hot. 4 kinds of hot sauce on the table to spice it up. Chips were clearly not the standard store bought chips and they crunched in a way that was not displeasing.

The menu was a disappointment looking to me like a slightly more authentic Casa Gallardo. Your meat choices for the tacos were “chicken” or “beef” rather than all the different delicacies that I have grown accustomed to. There was no beef tongue. There was no goat. There was no “asada”. I mean there has to be 4 different kinds of pork at El Ranchito in Pontoon Beach. But still, there were a ton of people there and quite a few cops (they know where to eat) and so it was with great anticipation that I ordered the carnitas plate.

While I would not classify it as a disappointment, the meat itself was great, the rest of the plate was uninspiring yellow rice and some lettuce with tomato pieces in it. I had to ask for some lime wedges. Then I unrolled the aluminum foil I was doubly disappointed to see flour tortillas. How does that happen? I know I am no expert about Mexican food, or tacos, or the law, or marriage or...well obviously anything... but FLOUR tortillas? Really? Still as I said, the meat was good and and it was acceptable but I want JOY from my food.

The iced tea was brewed. The bill was not too expensive but I just cannot recommend the place. It has no personality, an uninteresting location and a quality of food only slightly higher than chain Mexican restaurants. And flour tortillas? Blech! 6 Slingers on the ten scale.

here is their web site but it is down or at least was today. That says about all you need to know.

http://www.mi-ranchitostl.com/

Diner Review: The Crossroads, Mt. Olive Illinois

2012-01-28T14:56:00.000-08:00

Soooooo... your diner has been busy in his unceasing efforts to bring you news and reviews of unimportant, bland and trite in the diner and lunch world. Recently it was my lovely daughters 19th birthday. My wife explained to me that other than once when she was stranded in Florida that we had never missed being together with our kids on one of their birthdays. this seemed unlikely to me but as in so many things, I have no memory and fighting with my wife is similar to the bug fighting with the windshield. In any event I left St. Louis at 1:00, drove to Carlinville where my wife was auditing a bank and drove straight to Valparaiso for dinner with my daughter, turned around and drove back to Carlinville. Lets call it a 600 mile round trip for dinner with my lovely daughter... it was probably a little longer and we ended up back in Carlinville at 1:00 A.M. Friday morning.

1. The Magneson Grand Hotel is in Carlinville. i do not know if it is an old Holdiay Inn, and Old Ramada or an old Best Western. At 1:00 A.M. it was creepy. lets put it on the “avoid” list.
2. There are a spate of diners along 55 north of St. Louis but I never get to eat at them because I am n ever passing by them at breakfast time and if so it is on my way to court in some God forsaken Illinois hamlet and there is no time. I have hit the Country Air Diner, and the Ariston in Litchfield, before but other than that they have been woefully unrepresented in these pages.
3. On this morning I got up at 6:30, 60 miles out of town and did not have to be in a meeting till 9 back in the office so it lent itself to a little...meander.

The Crossroads Diner is on the outskirts of the buzzing metropolis of Mt. Olive. It is an easy on easy off from the highway sitting on the east side of 55. It has a big gravel parking lot and truckers are welcome. I tried to get a newspaper outside of it but was disappointed and later delighted to see that the only daily offered was the Herald. It proved to be excellent company for breakfast and i was able to read about all manner of deaths, DUI’s and public drunkenness, as well as the usual deliberations of local governance in the several municipalities and counties surrounding it. It really is a great little paper. No national news. That is OK.

I walked in after being amazed by the crowded parking lot and was pleaed to see a group of about 12 men, the youngest of which might have been 60. They were speaking loudly and at first i was annoyed and then i realized several of them probably couldn’t hear. They covered the weather, the state of several of their penises, politics (local and national), the weather, women, the waitress and her alleged boyfriend etc...It was a good show and a heartening piece of Americana which makes the Diner Review a worthwhile endeavor for yours truly. I wonder if I will have such a group, have such a place or even give a shit by the time I have time to have breakfast with a group like this.

They were at tables so I sat at the counter and what a counter it it. A double horseshoe of stools along a formica bar at just the right (low) height. Beautiful. The griddle was not in site and everything was cooked and passed through a window but still it had a good feel to it. I tend, as discussed to generally order the same things. Hash Browns, biscuits and gravy and sausage. The iced tea was brewed and fresh. The counter was clean and the waitress was pure...waitress. She put up with the bullshit from the old men and talked pork sausage with the cook. They agreed that the sausage here was not much but the sausage at the upcoming whole hog sausage festival at a local church was “to die for”. This was slightly disconcerting since I savor good sausage and it is so hard to find. The hash browns, shredded and crisp were perfect. The biscuits were of the proper fluffiness/soppiness ratio and the gravy was good if unremarkable. The sausage, as advertised.... not much. I saw the eggs at the old man table and they looked cooked to order. No one had the pancakes or any of the other specialty items on the menu and I get the feeling you want to stick to basics though if ever back around lunch I will hit the pork tenderloin.

The Crossroads is absolutely not a place you go for the food. It was serviceable yet unspectacular. You go for the experience because it will likely not always be there. If you head up 55 it is at the venerable Mt. Olive/Benld (buy a vowel) exit and although I did not have time I will, one day stop and visit the “Mother Jones Monument”.

The Crossroads Website: http://www.mtolivecrossroads.com/index.html

To learn more about Mother Jones Monument: http://www.roadtripamerica.com/places/mtolive.htm

Conundrum

2012-01-23T19:04:00.000-08:00

Soooo... there is a little bit of fun with Newt winning South Carolina. Like coming home tonight and watching FOX news and seeing them hem and haw... They cannot embrace Newt but he is clearly what their base, at least in South Carolina are embracing. They reap what they so as they have encouraged distrust and fear and racism and now that Newt (who ain’t stupid) has embraced those themes, the FOX news world is marching...indeed dancing to his tune. The bigwigs at FOX, now the mainest of mainstream media had assumed that they could undermine Romney, question his loyalty to “conservative values” and then hold their nose as he want on to beat Satan...er...I mean Barack Obama. Now Newt trounced Mitt. Now the game is on but they do not know how it will end or even really who they want. I mean, Mitt is a pretender who will be whomever he needs to be buty he is certainly “electable”, “Presidential” and a “businessman”. Newt made friends with Bill Clinton. Newt made a deal on welfare reform. Newt was forced to resign as leader of the house in scandal. Newt is on his 3rd wife (though family values people are bravely embracing his “repentance”.

Even Glenn Beck does not like Newt. What a nightmare for them all. The establishment does not love Romney. But Newt, they hate Newt. They started to hate Newt 30 years ago. He did it the old fashioned way. He earned it. he alienated EVERYONE! And the Tea Party, what has become the biting, vicious unhappy backbone of the party, which has had their anger and fear coddled by the establishment of the party to unleash at will hates Romney! He is a weak, intellectual, Harvard rich boy who has never been in a real fight. They can’t stand him. When Newt said that he did not want to bloody Obama’s nose but to knock him out... he had them at “knock”. Both sides are wondering how they are going to justify staying in the party and rallying behind a candidate which they cannot stand.

I Miss This Guy!
So tonight I am watching the four Republican candidates and Paul and Santorum look like reasonable guys, regular guys and Gingrich and Romney spent the first 15 minutes bitch slapping each other like teen age girls. When have we seen petulance at this level. The moderators from “The Mainstream Media” seem to be guiding them back to attacking Obama and talking about our countries issues. What a sad display. Now Romney is talking about what the release of his taxes will be tomorrow. They all agree that the best recipe for jobs is that no one be forced to pay any taxes, ever...EVER! All taxes are bad. All government is bad... even though we are running to elected to run government...we will hate ourselves when we do it. Now Romney is making his “I am not going to apologize for success” speech. He is a self made man.

When I look at him he looks like a very successful man who started from a millionaires perch with the best education money could by and a name that certainly did not slam any doors. Santorum... as long as he does not talk about his trademark social issues like the light of reason and measured thought. Now Newt is talking about his contract with Freddy Mac. I read the contract. It does not say anything about what he is supposed to do. That is what stinks about it. That and the fact that he said he performed services as a historian.

I EVEN MISS THIS GUY!
Perhaps the Republicans need to reset the clock and reset the clock and look around. And Romney and Gingrich are once again slapping each other like little petulant girls. They lecture and hector each other. They shoot horses, don’t they? The 4 Horseman of the Apocrypha? Ok...it is 9:03 and I put in my hour watching these guys debate. I think I am done for this election.

Ft. Sumter: The Rise of the "GingFish"

2012-01-22T07:19:00.000-08:00

BLOVIATOR IN CHIEF?

Soooooo....Newt. I wanted this because I thought it would be more interesting. It is indeed more interesting. Seeing Newt declare victory with the frightening...and there is no other word but frightening for her... blowing up a new populism from the right was really frightening. I was excited for Newt to win and to shake things up but this guy is an extremely articulate, quick thinking demagogue of the Huey P. Long genre. I love to read about Huey Long, because he is dead and he never got further than Louisiana. The question a guy like Gingrich poses is whether our whole country has essentially devolved into Louisiana 1932. The “GingFish”.

Everybody gather 'round
Loosen up your suspenders
Hunker down on the ground
I'm a cracker
And you are too
But don't I take good care of you
-Randy Newman “The Kingfish”

What is so mind numbing about this is that he is NOT a man of the people. He is a man who stands for himself and his vision of the hour. He changes his vision quicker than he changes wives and I do have to bash his wife once again. I have never heard her speak. To the best of my knowledge she cannot speak. I have read a little about her. She went to Luther College in Decorah Iowa and was a music major and is evidently a very talented musician and a committed Catholic. I admire all those things... but she appears to be a plastic, broken person with creepy, crazy eyes. She scares me like clowns scare me and that is the meanest thing I can say. Now I will leave her.

But I digress. Romney might be too much of a cold fish to be electable. He does not seem to be a street fighter and the Republicans howled again loudly that he is not their guy. After a proper counting in Iowa, he lost. He got killed in South Carolina. Perhaps he will rally back but he clearly is a wide open target for average Joe, Joe the plumber type attacks and whether it is Gingrich or OBama those attacks will come.

Why do we let three little states, all diverse but tiny to have such a loud, almost deafening voice in this process. These states carry population ranks of 30, 42 and 34 respectively. No one is even in the top ½. I had no idea that Iowa was full of evangelicals. That is because it is not. The Republican base in Iowa is full of evangelical conservatives. New Hampshire... do they have Republicans? South Carolina...seriously? South Carolina? Why should they have any voice in anything other than their key historical move of firing the first shot in the civil war. That worked out well, didn’t it? That what last nights primary was, Fort Sumter. It is a battle for the Republican party and it is the evil, final consequence of Nixon’s “southern strategy” to bring the social conservatives into the party...and now they are saying, “IT IS OUR PARTY!” It will be interesting to see if they are right.

Who took on the Standard Oil men
And whipped their ass
Just like he promised he'd do?
Ain't no Standard Oil men gonna run this state
Gonna be run by little folks like me and you

Watching FOX on a Sunday morning the said that Newt won a huge percentage of South Carolina voters who make less than 50k a year. What is a person who makes less than 50k a year doing voting Republican? How does that happen?

Kingfish, Kingfish
Friend of the working man
Kingfish, Kingfish
The Kingfish gonna save this land

The big question that my former party needs to ask itself is how were they left with these choices. I even think that Gingrich, Paul and Romney might be the best of the original pack but what a sad sack collection of people to send forward in the most eminently winnable election for them in years. I think they are going to have to find another person (and it is not Sara Palin) to carry their flag. There would be tremendous momentum for a Chris Christie or Jeb Busch or even that idiot from Indiana Mitch Daniels. They need fresh blood and it might be nice if they did not chum so much blood in the water. The electorate is taking notes, and they are not impressed. Gingrich is not a populist. He is not our friend. The Republican base is the party of the angry white man. Angry people make bad decisions and we just saw the Republicans in South Carolina make a very stupid mistake.

Diner Review: The Hearth Room

2012-01-21T09:24:00.000-08:00

Soooo.... In my exhausting, never ending march to cover EVERY breakfast place in St. Louis I am constantly roving the city, eyes peeled in strip malls, shopping centers, basements filled with the undead as I cruise through some time desolate streets at all hours of the day or night, occasionally I come upon something new or at least new to me. Such was the case last week when I ventured out to west county to visit my parents. West County as you all know is a bastion of people who have all centered their lives around “getting a lot more house for their money” and betting that the public schools are better out there. If nothing else I believe they better quality drugs. But I digress. the point is that west county is a soul less bastion of shopping, and national chain food. I know Kirkwood and indeed parts of the City were once pasture but ALL of west county is paved over farmland and the way we have done it for the last 30 years...depresses me. Wow, I digressed again.

The Hearth Room Cafe is in the “Lamp n Lantern Plaza”. The name was quaint when it first was built in the 70s. It was on the corner of Woodsmill and Clayton and sat a little awkwardly behind a building with a 7-11 (now a Pasta House) and a car wash and a bank. There once was a supermarket there, a Kroger I think. When my parents had a spot of financial trouble we moved to Village Green Apartments which are just west of the center and I would tromp through it frequently on my way to buy comic books and 32 oz bottles of Sprite and Nacho cheese Doritos. Good days. My parents moved several times since then but now live in Chesterfield and so I was driving by the shopping center when I saw a sign over the steps of tiered Lamp n Lantern for “The Hearth Room”. I drove around the center and could not find it because you cannot park in front of it. Instead it lies in a “charming” court of shops, 30 yards from any parking. What a great idea. That morning I had already eaten so I did not make the trek.

Still, I vowed to come back and I did so this morning, braving the cold in order to walk the long way from a parking space to the “cafe”. As I walked in I saw a small darkened room of tables on the right. To the left there was a a large, charmless, kind of formal and dimly lit room. Their was indeed a large hearth and hearty gas fired blaze was going, throwing off no heat and even less light on a room that lacked any charm. I stood there for a minute till a waitress finally came out of the kitchen and advised I could “sit anywhere I want”. There were perhaps a dozen people eating there which I found encouraging but the average age was about 65 and at least two patrons had walkers parked around their tables. Still, old people know their breakfasts and I am never one to snub food that is easily chewed.

The menu was unremarkable and seemed to feature omlettes and pancakes and breakfast sandwiches. The waitress was pleasant and attentive. The iced tea....BREWED! And it was good tea, fresh in a place where clearly I was the only one drinking it. I ordered my standard meal of ½ order of biscuits and gravy, side of sausage and...(gasp) the dreaded “breakfast potato”. Frequent readers (all three of you) seem sometimes amused and almost always saddened by my obsession with the humble potato but nothing sends shivers down my spine like the menu item called the “breakfast potato”. WTF is a “breakfast potato”? Is it a particular cut of a potato? I guess I should be grateful because they are giving me a heads up that they do not have real “hash browns” which as we have discussed should always be shredded and skillet fried to perfection. But your reviewer bravely ordered them anyway and considered the venerable St. Louis Post Dispatch and read about Newt Gingich’s bold attempt at an open marriage with his current (totally uncreepy, not crazy eyed or plastic haired) wife Calista and his former wife...after she was diagnosed with MS, who of course replaced the first wife (diagnosed with cancer). What a hoot. Also, Romney appears to not have his tax returns ready for release. I did look around at the Hearth Room patrons, several of whom were speaking loudly to their hearing impaired companions. There was classical music playing and despite my enjoyment of the iced tea and my paper I was annoyed by the decor, the pretensions and I think just by breakfasting in west county.

My meal was pleasantly surprising. the gravy was a little thin but full of sausage pieces although it was topped with some green seasoning which might or might not have been parsley and while suitable for dinner, was inappropriate for breakfast food, especially biscuits and gravy. Similarly on my plate was an orange twist as garnish. Garnish is wrong at breakfast. there...I said it. It is (and if this gets too technical for you I apologize but I am of course a professional need to use the proper vernacular) stupid. The sausage was really good though. properly cooked. A little savory, no spice. I like big flat patties that are more like thin hamburgers. The potatoes were a disappointment but were very edible. the biscuits similarly were appropriately baked and added nice texture with the gravy and when i mixed it all up together it was more than adequate. I think it cost $9.00 with the tip.

Bottom line. Nothing special. Take your mom there, or your dad. Nothing homey, nothing charming and food did not wow. Ambiance sucked and you have to walk a long way from your car. I predict they are out of business by summer (the location is just a bad idea, especially for old people who need to walk in their walkers) and so if you want to give it a try i would get out there now.

6 ½ Slingers On The Ten Scale

New Years Revolution! Resolution... or something

2012-01-19T18:37:00.000-08:00

Life...its bigger. Bigger than you and you are not me. Which is a break for you. So I never blog anymore. I am too busy. FEEL SAD FOR ME! My life is too full with work and family and work and friends and work and church and work and traveling and work and reading and work and work. But it is a good time to have work. A good time to have a vocation. Occasionally I post in my Facebook Status Update my favorite work song ever...EVER which is by the great Tom Waits. I am sure I have posted it before in this space:

“You gotta get behind the mule,
In the morning and plow”

It just has some classic lines that just resonate...every time:

“Well the rampaging sons of the widow James
Jack the cutter and the pock marked kid
Had to stand naked at the bottom
Of the cross
And tell the good lord what they did
Tell the good lord what they did.”

Because sooner or later, since we self identify as the most Christian nation on earth, most of us should anticipate having to do just that. What am I going to say? I scrambled for a buck? I... provided for my family? I educated my kids? I drove an excellent car? I lived in a bitching house? I really don’t believe judgment day will be like that. I really don’t believe that I will be judged because that is not what I have been taught. I have been taught that I need to believe, and try and live my life like I believe. Right now in 2012 that means living my life in some kind of grateful way for the fact that someone died for my sins. But living your life like that, might not look any different to anyone watching. Weird.

So what does it feel like to go to work every day. Are you filled with purpose? I know I am more like Tom Waits:

“I'm diggin all the way to China
With a silver spoon
While the hangman fumbles with the noose, boys
The hangman fumbles with the noose.”

Well that might be a little dark. It seems pretty clear to me that what I am expected to do to make a living really stopped working for me a few years ago. So I keep trying to change it. And I keep failing but life has gotten a little more interesting. If your lucky (and even though I bitch like there is no tomorrow I am the luckiest guy in the world) and you keep your eyes open there are some chances that are laid out there (I like to think that God lays em out) to do a couple of good things. Of course I am still a lawyer. I am paid to be a prick but even with that....Waits leaves us with a little hope at the end.

“Pin your ear to the wisdom post
Pin your eye to the line
Never let the weeds get higher
Than the garden
Always keep a sapphire in your mind
Always keep a diamond in your mind.”

I think Jesus said something like that. I don’t think Paul did. He could be kind of a judgy guy. Hold it... I take it back. Paul did have a sapphire and diamond in your mind type line. A little thing we call Phillippians 4-8: 8

“Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things.”

Seems like good advice and hard to remember when you are yelling at someone on the phone are arguing at court. A greater sense of gratefulness for 2012. I know I will not do it all the time but lets make it a goal for me for 2012.

Romney: The Great Pretender, With Apologies To Jackson Browne

2012-01-17T19:11:00.000-08:00

ROMNEY
The Pretender

I'm going to rent myself a house
In the shade of the freeway (Pan onto or flash pictures of one of his 3-4 massive houses)
I'm going to pack my lunch in the morning
And go to work each day (now shots of champaign caviar and lobster...and a lunch box)
And when the evening rolls around
I'll go on home and lay my body down (Bedroom of a Ritz Carlton or Fairmount Hotel)
And when the morning light comes streaming in
I'll get up and do it again (Romney coming out on stage)
Amen
Say it again (Romney among a crowd shaking hands)
Amen

I want to know what became of the changes
We waited for love to bring (Pictures of he and wife and family)
Were they only the fitful dreams
Of some greater awakening (Headlines of Kennedy Beats Romney for Senate)
I've been aware of the time going by
They say in the end it's the wink of an eye (Headline of Romney Winning Governor of Massachussets)
And when the morning light comes streaming in
You'll get up and do it again (Headline “Romney announces run for President 2008)
Amen

Caught between the longing for love (Romney Signs Universal healthcare In Massachusetts)
And the struggle for the legal tender (Picture of Bain Capital Logo)
Where the sirens sing and the church bells ring (Picture of Sara Palin)
And the junk man pounds his fender (Picture of Newt Gingrich)
Where the veterans dream of the fight
Fast asleep at the traffic light (Picture of John Mc Cain)
And the children solemnly wait
For the ice cream vendor (Picture of rabid college kids standing in front of Ron Paule)
Out into the cool of the evening
Strolls the pretender (Romney Again if front of Crowd)
He knows that all his hopes and dreams Flash on state maps of Iowa, Connecticutt and South carolina)
Begin and end there (Florida)

Ah the laughter of the lovers
As they run through the night (Bachman and her husband)
Leaving nothing for the others
But to choose off and fight (Rick Perry)
And tear at the world with all their might
While the ships bearing their dreams
Sail out of sight (Herman Cain)

I'm going to find myself a girl
Who can show me what laughter means (Anne Coulter)
And we'll fill in the missing colors (picture of a pink slip)
In each other's paint-by-number dreams (Big Fox Logo)
And then we'll put out dark glasses on (Romney in Sunglasses)
And we'll make love until our strength is gone (Pictures of $$$$ signs)
And when the morning light comes streaming in
We'll get up and do it again ($$$$$$$$$$)
Get it up again (Bain Capital Logo)

I'm going to be a happy idiot (Corporations Are People)
And struggle for the legal tender (Bain Logo)
Where the ads take aim and lay their claim (SUPER PAC)
To the heart and the soul of the spender (Karl Rove)
And believe in whatever may lie
In those things that money can buy (President of the US LOGO)
Thought true love could have been a contender (Olympics Rings)
Are you there?
Say a prayer? (Santorum)
For The Pretender (Romney)
Who started out so young and strong (Young Romney)
Only To Surrender (Fade to black)

2011 Music Review... a little late

2012-01-16T19:02:00.000-08:00

It has been a long time since I did a top ten list. maybe a year. maybe two. It was a good year for music. it was a good year. I listened to more music which was a goal.The challenge continues to be the same. Where in a world where there is so much music available all the time, for free and to pay, how do you find the good stuff? Who are the trusted sources? I still don’t know. So here we go.

1. Decembrists: The King Is Dead, OK, I like everything about this CD. I might be biased because I got to see the show twice. The album is so much lighter and so much easier and breezier than any of Meloy’s EPIC CD/Album/Song Cycle (pretentious bullshit) that it sings and it flies. It is right up my alley with an alt country flair and having no good hacks like Gillian Welch and Peter Buck makes it that much worse. When I think of 2011 it will be of this CD. If you have not bought it, get off your ass and get it done. No excuses.
Don’t Carry It All
Calamity Song
Rise To Me
Rox in the Box
January Hymn
Down by the Water
All Arise!
June Hymn
This is Why We Fight
Dear Avery

2. Dawes: Nothing Is Wrong, This was probably the easiest and perhaps saddest discovery of the year. I read about this band on Bob Lefsetz blog, email letter, Lefsetz.com and he was extolling the hard work of these guys. I tuned in and it sounded a lot like Jackson Browne and Browne in an effort to revitalize himself did some gigs with them. Download “A little Bit of Everything” and “If I wanted Someone.” If you like those two go for the whole thing. It is well produced and he writes good songs. Maybe a little over wrought. What is wrong with that? I think Jackson Browne sings some back uop and I would swear that David Lindley plays some of that beautiful slide guitar. As your attorney... I would recommend it.

3. Mountain Goats All Eternals Deck, I do not think John Darnelle can do anything bad at this point in his career. He is prolific, opinionated and brilliant. God is great, all the time. Darnielle is great pretty much all of the time. There is a mournful desperation to all his songs, a concentration of angst which sounds in each song like he is cathartically loosing it from his psyche. Try three songs, “Damn Those Vampires”, “Age of Kings” and my favorite...”For Charles Bronson”.

“Set your sights on good fortune
Concentrate
Pull back the hammer
Try to hold the gun straight”

Indeed.

4. Bottle Rockets: Not So Loud, This is Brian Henneman and the boys unpluggin and playin the hits. I am a fan. I heard them too many times this year but Henneman can write a song and can play. He puts on a show and he makes it bend and shake. If your not already a fan buy this, put it on and you will be. And go to his shows each year in the Lou on Christmas night. Good for the soul.

5. Rural Alberta Advantage: The Departing, OK, this is one of my favorite known, unknown bands. There last CD had several rocking songs. They sound is like a fun Billy Corgan who really embraces the beat and the lyrics with no pretension. The departing is just an excellent CD with no weak spots at all. It rocks. It rolls. it sighs, it cries. This could be the best of the year if for no other reason than that it sounds like no one else. If you want to check them out they have a My SPace page which is really kind of cute. last time I went to my My Space page there was a homeless man living there. http://www.myspace.com/theraa

6. Steve Earle: I’ll Never Get Out Of This World Alive, Earle turns out a CD that is not quite as haunbting as the Hank Williams song he named it after. A couple of songs with his girlfriend/wife Allison Moorer and production but the inimitable T-Bone Burnette. If you pick up the deluxe edition on iTunes it has the title song and a video of the albums making. Earle is a true artist who struggles and thrashes with his art in a way that remains interesting and has established some longevity that forces respect.

7. Bright Eyes: The People’s Key, Connor Oberst is long past being a child prodigy or even an edgy artist from Omaha. he is a pretty consistent producer of quality indie pop. The question is not whether he can still make good music but whether he still has anything to say. This album with his long time side man Mike Mogis would seem to say yes. Downlaod “Jejune” and “Triple Spiral” and see where the rest takes you. Your not in Omaha any more.

8. Blind Pilot: We Are The Tide, I was so in love with these guys after their first album that there was really not much room for them to do anything but disappoint. In 2008 it was really just a two man band with a lot of people helping out but on tour and on this album it is a full blown sextet. The sound is fuller and is sweetly swings. it has been described more than once as a “bookend album” and although there is much to be said for what it in between download the tunes “Half moon” and “New York” and thank me later.

9. Hayes Carll: KMAG/YOYO, You know if you don’t like Hayes Carll...I don’t like you. No one rocks the genre of insurgent country, alt-country, country, honky tonk like Carll. And he has two LLs in his last name. Every song is great with an anger and an irony and sense of real people and real music and a real good time. Get a feel for it with “Another Like You” and “Grateful For Christmas”. Be happy for Hayes Carll. Wait for what comes next.

10. Wilco: The Whole Love, This is kind of like The Decembrists offering. A little lighter, a little easier. But it is not as good. I get tired of all the guitar noodling and the techno rambles but it is much more to hold on to than the dreaded, “Wilco, The Album”. Not all of it is tuneful but still, it is an easy listen.

Honorable Mention:
Rhett Miller: The Interpreter Live
The Lemonheads: Varshons
Joe Pug: Live At Lincoln Hall
Ryan Adams: Ashes and Fire

it was a good year for music. This is not all of it. there was a plethora of one song bursts and discoveries of some old stuff that really made me smile. For a feel good that really goes way back try:
The Dismemberment Plan, “You Are Invited”.
Eddie Money From His Acoustic Unplug It In CD “Trinidad.
The Javelinas: Illinois Line
All of those should light you up one way or another. God’s Peace and go listen to a lot of music in 2012. it might make you whole again. it certainly cannot hurt.

The Christmas Letter 2012

2012-01-02T14:36:00.000-08:00

Preamble: I put this up because not everyone gets the hard copy. I do not know how you get on the mailing list but there seem to be 2 factors that allow it to happen.
1. Be in our 20 year old, fraying, address book which was inputted in computer; or
2. Send us a Christmas card.
Each year we are too busy to get the letter together. Between, writing it, picking the background paper, printing it, getting a family photo, ordering it and picking it up from Walgreens and then getting labels printed (neither Sandy or I really understand a mail merge) and then folding, stuffing and labeling 180 letters, combined with my wife's former need to write personal notes on some, make the process a nightmare. So every year it ends up being a hassle. While out letter was likely an amusing change of pace 7 years ago, now it even seems a little trite to me but, with no further apologies, The Becker Christmas Letter 2012!

Soooo...Christmas 2011. Last year Jon wrote the letter. It was too nice. As always with the Becker family...life is good and life is...funny. Sandy and I are finding our way being empty nesters. We miss our odd children. Both of our jobs are going surprisingly well and we continue to be blessed. We both do work relating to Banks... we don’t talk about work much. As is my habit, I come not to inform you of our blessings but to speak poorly of my children.

Jon is plowing away at BoomReactive.com with his partner Shawn Hautly. They make the web safe for social media marketing, web hosting, web design and digital media. I don’t know what any of that means but he has moved out of our house and followed my dreams back to live in St. Louis Hills. He is engaged to the beautiful and tolerant Lydia and all eyes will be on Michigan next September when we are all planning on a wedding. Lydia is mentoring for Lutheran Family and Children’s Services. They are very cute together and seem crazy about one another and we now have a “grandcat” named Henry David Thoreau. Historically we Beckers are not cat people. This must be love. Sometimes they play board games with us.

Pat is a senior at Truman and looks to graduate in 4 years with his degree in Psychology. Not even Abnormal Psych. He plans on going to grad school to get his Masters in Social Work. We cannot believe how well he has done at Truman. Apparently it is a really good school. Pat waited until senior year before starting to act again but has been in a few productions where in my opinion he has been brilliant and he has had a very good time. Pat still comes home, sits in the basement, watches anime and if I were to guess is still contemplating whether being a pirate or a ninja would be the best choice. Pat makes me laugh.

Laura...Miss Laura Becker is a Freshman at Valparasio who started out as an “Exploratory” ($30,000 a year) major and now will follow family tradition and major in communications and minor in business to be an “Event Planner”. Once again I don’t know what that means. She LOVES college, her friends, parties and apparently her classes where she tells us she is doing very well. Apparently it is none of our business. She has a room mate who cries a lot and has stinky feet. So far the boys have seemed to come and go. Once they get interested in her.... her interest...wanes. Laura lights up a room every time she comes in and now that she is gone I cannot bring myself to watch COPS anymore. Laura came home for Christmas, sat on our kitchen table... it broke. There is a reasonable chance Laura will take over the world. Be afraid.

Our dogs Lily and Lola refuse to die or run away though they do enjoy barking incessantly and acting sad.

So what are we to do? Really all we can do is marvel at all of our blessings as a family and give a lot of thanks as we look around at the kindness, tolerance and beuaty of our family and friends who support us through all this wonderful craziness. Whenever we are all together the whole seems greater than the sum of it’s parts. We close this year again with thanks for all of you. God is good. All the time. Have an awesome 2012. Our door is always open.

Mad Men Running The Asylum

2012-01-01T17:53:00.000-08:00

Sooooo....we have a problem with our government. Hopefully NOT with our governance. No, I think it is definitly with the government or more specifically the people we have sent there. I have always had a fascination, indeed a sick fascination with the mentally ill. Even as a small child the idea of being “cuckoo” or “crazy” seemed very freeing to me. As I got older I just aspired to be an individual and that often met abhorant or “crazy” behavior and now that I am ancient I still like the idea of being “a little off”. I believe those who know me can attest. But also as I have gotten older I have realized that mental illness is no joke and most of the people who really suffer with it are deeply and profoundly unhappy people. These people are often marginalized by life or education or employment. They are often ostracized by friends and even family and they find it very difficult to lead a meaningful and productive life. Sadly for many of them, this leads them to a life in politics.

I know this might seem cruel or random but these are the thoughts that arrive at four A.M. when I am not thinking about my clients and they are a welcome, welcome distraction so humor me. Think about the gathering rabble we have who are just about to really start in earnest competition for the right to take the White House from Obama. Shit, think about Obama. The go back with the Presidents and it is easy...Bush, Clinton, Bush, Reagan, Carter, Ford*, Nixon, Johnson, Kennedy, Eisenhower. You really have to go back to Eisenhower to find one whop is not a genuinely damaged person and Ike probably was too but it was just far enough back that I was not born yet and there was no 24 hour media circus to explain how crazy they were. Ike at least had the sense to identify “The Military Industrial Complex” and warn us about them on the way out the door. Thanks Ike. Carter of course is someone I like and perhaps he was not a manic depressive, megolomaniac...but he was a shitty President. Wonderful person though and probably the only one in the group I would want to have a beer with other than Clinton but with Clinton the conversation would have denigrated into discussions of women.... and in his case girls.

The point is not that our Presidents are mentally ill. In this day and age you really have to be mentally ill to want to be President. To think that “making a difference” means being President. To think that is the way you have to serve of God forbid to think that “God has called you” to the office. On that note, let me quickly say that God could not care less who is president of the United States. I think he cares about that in the same way he cares about Notre Dame and Tim Tebow and that is (and this is what is so great about God) more than you could ever know and less than you could even comprehend. The point is that we now are calling crazy, manic depressives, bi-polars and people who are a few clowns short of a circus at EVERY LEVEL OF GOVERNMENT!

State and Local Government, as I sit, are a huge dis functional problem. On the local level we still have the divided St. Louis, City and County. We still have a City police that are run out of Jefferson City and we still have people trying to do artificial, tax driven development in north city. All recipes for disaster. In the County we have Charlie Dooley, struggling to remain in power and spreading a lot of dis function as he asserts authority. On the State level the Republicans OWN both bodies of the legislature and yet can agree on nothing and can get nothing done and passed. Somehow saying “NO, I will not compromise on my principles no matter what!” has become a sick badge of honor. The people who we are electing have forgotten that once elected they are representing everyone. Not just the people who agree with them. That there is some obligation or social contract to work for the greater good but to make sure that government works.

We are totally screwed on the Federal level. I don’t even need to comment on it. The sad thing is that I agree that government is too big. I agree that government cannot solve all of our social ills. I agree that they often make things worse. But what I am seeing is that the conservative approach appears to be to shut down government through inaction. Make sure nothing gets done, no one gets what they want and slowly through inertia and financial strangulation government dies. Which in a vacuum and on paper might seem fine. Have government provide police, maybe some courts, some very basic laws and just let the market work it out. Have a standing army to protect our trade and oil rights. Health care, copyright law, it all can be worked out by the free market. Until your son is autistic. How does the free market deal with that? Or mental illness...your daughter is bi-polar and shoplifts and hordes. How does the free market serve her? Or you are returning 100,000 vets. Who takes care of them after the price they paid? Charities? Our Churches? In a perfect world yes. In the real world, no. But I digress.

What I really want to talk about is my theory on WHY this happening. Quite simply, we have gathered up all the crazy people and asked them to govern us. Nancy Pelosi/Eric Cantor. Harry Reid/Mitch Mc Connell. Just different sides of the same coin. Fundamentally broken people who are crazy enough to be gathered in one place to govern us. One of my favorite authors is a guy named Will Self. He is a Brit so he is probably a socialist and a commie but he writes a lot of interesting stuff and is a studier of human nature and people. I continue to believe that artists and writers of fiction continue to have some value. A long time ago he wrote a collection of short stories called “The Quantity Theory Of Insanity”. The premise was that there was only so much sanity and inanity around at any one time and it was spread among the population. So you could gather groups of sane people in a room or in a city to help balance the sanity in that place and influence outcomes. Our problem right now is that the sane people have opted out of the system and relegated it to the bi-polar, manic depressive, power seekers. They are not fit to govern. They are destroying us.

So what? Where does that leave us? A lot of us elected Obama because he had the opportunity to be a game changer. Instead he was the opposite side of the Bush coin. He played the same game, the same way. He called us to nothing better. Just a different version of the same. Granted he was greeted with a vitriol and hate no President had to deal with in my life, but whether he has done a good job or a bad job with the hand he was dealt means nothing. He did not change the game. He missed an opportunity. We do not have a chance to really change things in 2012. We will Obama or we will have Romney and they are the system. They are mentally ill demagogues trapped in a non functioning system. We need to elect smart, selfless people who will do the right thing, compromise, work for small, smarter government but recognize that government in any moral environment must take care of those without a voice. That is what has made America the shining light and the city on the hill. The compassion has left our leadership, as has the intelligence and we are left being ruled by the crazy and the ill. Elect thinking people who do not spout catch phrases. People who realize it is complicated, it is hard and it will take shared sacrifice, and who have the balls to lead us through it. Happy 2012!

In case I do not get to it. Romney wine Iowa by 5%.

Happy New Year: Music Is Everywhere!

2012-01-01T11:11:00.000-08:00

Soooooo my son gave me a XM/SIRIUS thingy for my car and a 3 month subscription. My wife already had it in her new car. I am really excited but it made me realize that I am starting to get overwhelmed by music availability. I have more places to listen to new and varied music than ever but feel like I am hearing less and less that is new that I am really interested in listening to. Lets look at how I used to find music:
1. Rolling Stone
2. KDHX
3. No Depression Magazine; and
4. Word of Mouth

Then I would buy a CD and make a mix tape to listen to in my car. Then I put music on my computer and that was awesome. I could make my own mix CD’s and after a few months of burning had most of my music library on my computer. I am convinced that there has never been more music out there as bands use he technology to make their music and distribute it but it is just too much to sift through. When we had only the record companies you were made aware of all major releases through advertising and buzz and then as the industry evolved which Indie labels were worth following. As the business has devolved it is a glorious chaos. Now I am in the middle of doing something called “iTunes Match” where I put it all my music on the cloud. I am told that I can now access my music library on any device and at any time. I don’t even know yet exactly how that will benefit me but I also know that Apple will find a way. In regard to music generally though, I am just sitting here feeling overwhelmed. Here are some of the things overwhelming with music as we start 2012:

1. Spotify: Spotify is cool and has easy access for even the computer semi literate like myself. Ease of use is what Apple gave us along with design that was more like art and made you feel cool for owning it. Spotify is similarly easy and intuitive for streaming artists you want to check out. But you got to find the artists. They do not make suggestions or at least meaningful suggestions and if your tastes are all over the place, don’t go here to find music, just to listen to it.

2. On Line Music Reviews: They are all over but what are the “trusted sources”. There is a great music industry blogger/email new letter guy named Bob Lefstz lefsetz.com who has turned me onto some good stuff but finding the guys you trust is really going to be the key to on line music in the near term. Who are the “filters” going to be that turn you on to good shit?

3. You Tube: A day killer. Pump in a bands name and check out videos and sometimes just the music of anyone...in the world. It will suggest similarly named videos but can do nothing to suggest types of music or artists.

4. Pandora: Is still fun and one out every 10 songs is something I have never heard and one out of every 20 is an artists I have never heard. I like to leave it streaming while I am working or reading to see what, if anything they come up with and take notes.

5. XM Radio: Great for filling need of what you want but you have to know where the new music shows are on your favorite channels. Still more for listening to what you like, rather than finding what you might like.

6. Pitchformmedia.com: Overwhelming! You should always want to go hear but they cover everything and whether you or I like it, electronica is huge, rap and hip hop are still forces and they cover EVERYTHING. They do it all in a self important justified “voice” that appeals to me. Sometimes wrong but never unsure, Pitchfork provides new music, and opinions as to quality. The key there is once again spending time and finding who the reviewers are that can really point you in the right direction.

7. NPR: For an old fart this is probably the best. Listen to their shows and touch their music pages at NPR.com and they will turn you on to some good stuff. They have become a trusted source and filter for me.

8. No Depression.com: This is what is left of the old No Depression magazine...RIP. It is still good for the alt-country/Americana music I love. My one complaint is that they are relentless cheerleaders for the genre. Sometimes you have to call something crap and stand by it. Everything they review is glowingly reviewed. Still, their annual top ten lists are something I always tune in to.

9. Radio: Normal, terrestrial radio is dead and irrelevant for music. Unless you are going to be satisfied with classic rock or big hat country, it is dead as a music source. Live with it. Move on. KDHX is the sole exception to this locally and they really are a treasure. They of course veer towards the Americana music that I like but they are deep on blues as well and provide a gathering place for those excited by music. Become a member. kdhx.org. Other than that, listen to NPR or if you want to be angry listen to 97.1. Other than that ride in silence.

Ok....so that is my thought on the current overwhelming state of music. There has never been a better time to be a fan and to find obscure things that no one else has ever heard of. Unfortunately it takes time and it takes sifting and I don’t have it anymore. At 50 life has suddenly...caught up to me. I never thought it would happen to me.

Diner Review: PW Pizza

2011-12-28T18:24:00.001-08:00

Soooooo....PW Pizza.... I really, really like it. I was turned onto it by an awful...awful lawyer who is an aggressive food snob and degenerate prick. I like ahim a great deal. He also turned me on to Mi Ranchito in Fairmont City. PW Pizza is on the first floor of Vin Du Cet. I would like to tell you all about it and how I was the first one there but I have never dined or drank there so screw that. But PW....I have been there a half dozen times now. It is pretty far east on Cheteau but not as far east as Ralson.

It is tricked out woody place with a nice little trendy spice shop, wine shop, cheese shop (useless) and a small bar (pleasant) as you come in. There are normally friendly people at the hostess station and if you get there by 11:30 you can always get a seat for lunch and if your ater be prepared to wait or sit at the bar. They have a nice selection of beers that can make any stay at the bar more enjoyable....even at lunch...even =when you have a client meeting....even when your going to going to court to argue against your client getting the death penalty at 1:00. I normally drink Grisedick Brothers there but that is just me.

Start with a salad. All of them are good. Very fresh and interesting. But then get what you are there for which is either pizza or calzone. I am currently higher on the pizza than the the calzone but the calzone is excellent too. My problem is that they use the buffalo mozzerella rather than good old fashioned processed mozzerella like God intended. But the crust is perfect. The sauce is generally very good and their red sauce just has a little...itty bitty bit of heat. They are good and slightly bigger than your head.

Normally I would hate a place like this. It says shit on the menu like:
“Crusts available in Original, Honey Wheat or Gluten Free
Vegan – daiya cheese substitute available”.
I don’t even know what that means. Get original. It is awesome. They have all kinds of items and they are all fresh. I have been extremely boring and generally get sausage and pepperoni. It is really good. Also, they only serve pizza in 12” pies and they serve two but I like to try and eat one by muself because I am after all a gross pig. I am generally of a mind right now that it is the best pizza in St. Louis. They are doing everything right currently and it is kind of a fun destination. perhaps one of you can get to Vin Du Set and tell me what that is all about. But you would have to likely get a job first and move out of your parent basement. Here is the link:

http://pwpizza.com/our_menu

Thanks GIVING! Weekend Address

2011-11-26T15:00:00.000-08:00

My fellow diners. Lincoln did it. He was a Republican, how hard can it be? At Glendale Lutheran our now retired Pastor Steve Albers used to read Lincolns Thanksgiving Day Proclamation every year. I internalized it, loved it, got sick of it, and came back around to it again. It is a pretty nice piece of writing:

http://showcase.netins.net/web/creative/lincoln/speeches/thanks.htm

There is much to be Thankful for this year. We are bringing troops home from over seas. The NBA season was delayed and almost canceled. The Republicans are debating every few nights and it is proving that the scariest ones, really are the scariest ones and as divided as we are, we really do not want obviously crazy people running the government. The Democrats should be doubly pleased because the only candidate who could obviously beat Obama, John Hunstsman has been abandoned by the party and the press. It has been a mild fall. Hurricanes have not been an issue. Corn prices are at a record high which is good for farmers and perhaps will make high fructose corn syrup too expensive to put in everything. According to the government more than 91% of us are employed. The economies sluggish pace, still appears to be a pace going up. Fewer Americans are killing one another. The show “Charlies Angels” was canceled. Indeed a great number of blessings.

As I prepare to write the annual family Christmas letter (I believe my son Jon took it over last year) I can really contemplate that despite all the negativity. Despite Glenn Beck predicting the end of the civilized world due to the dreaded and un-named “them” and the even more suspicious “they”... our democracy still stands free and America is still the most blessed country on the earth. Despite the inability of congress to do anything. Despite our President’s inability to lead on economic issues... I and my family are still eating, driving, working, sleeping in a warm, secure, gun free house. I am blessed with friends and acquaintances who tolerate me, amuse me and sometimes banter with me. I am, a lot to tolerate.

Once again despite the ravings about to come about this years “war on Christmas”, I continue to be allowed to worship at Glendale Lutheran Church with my family and my other Protestant, Catholic, Jewish, Hindu and Muslim brothers continue to worship unmolested (with a few sad exceptions) as we, and they please. The ability to exercise freedom of religion is such a gift and it is not that way in all parts of the world and we should be very, very, thankful. We also are blessed with opportunities to serve other people every day and all of us have the talents and possessions to share to make other people’s burdens easier and that is a huge blessing.

I am pleased to have a newish band that I like named Dawes.

I am especially blessed by the tolerance of my wife and children...and the aforementioned friends.

I am really thankful we got most of the family over, our bird turned out OK and we had an awesome day.

I am thankful to catch up a little at work.

I am thankful that Michigan beat Ohio State.

I know it has not been a great year for everyone. I work every day with people who have literally had the shit kicked out of them economically but I am blessed because even these people, staring financial ruin in the face, are able to wake up every morning, put a brave face on and go out and do what they can to take care of themselves and their families. And in this great country they are able to. With all of the divisiveness, with all the harsh partisanship and name calling and petty bickering at every level of government and politics, this is a time to reflect on how blessed we are to live here. How blessed we are to fight with words instead of guns. How blessed we are to worship free. How blessed we are to gather with our families and be Thankful, for one long weekend every year, and have that spirit of gratefulness which God wishes we could muster every moment of every day.

So on this Thanksgiving day weekend I am thankful to God for the sacrifice of his son for my sins. I am thankful to and for my immediate and extended family. Life is good. Have a beer and go to bed.

Saturday...In The Bar... Bogarts and iTap (International Tap House)

2011-11-13T11:51:00.000-08:00

Soooooo.... often I find myself at loose ends on a Saturday afternoon. I work in the morning when I am in town. Generally this is due to a lack of imagination and a general lack of motivation on my part. This makes me sad. There are many fun and wonderful things to do and eat in the Lou. I bitch about living here a lot but... God help me...I really like it here. Yesterday my wife was hosting another wedding shower for another of the innumerable children of our friends who are betrothed. Fortunately it was being held at someone elses house but there was still lots of set up, slicing of fruit, brewing of tea, lacy things and all thing imasculine and to be avoided.

I had considered making another run to Tienda Ranchito with the father of the groom and the poor lost soul whose wife was actually hosting the party. it is a festive thing to do because it calls for going to another State and not going to gamble or go to topless bars. This generally adds to self esteem. For one reason or another it seemed likje a reach so I suggested Bar B Que and specifically suggested either Pappy’s or Bogarts. Pappys has become an institution but Bogarts burst on the scene in the last year. They are related somehow in management or former management or ownership or something. Details, as is often the case, elude me.

So we all drove in to Soulard. Now I love Soulard. Lots of good bars, some decent food, too damn much blues music that all sounds the same but it is an area with character and history. It is kind of cool. I always explain to out of towners that when you lose your license on your 3rd DWI, you move to Soulard so you can walk to bars...and catch public transportation. It is really the only option unless you are going to stop drinking, or go to jail. But I digress. Bogarts is on the south west corner of Soulard Farmers Market on Lafayette.

There is always a line but this should not intimidate unless it is really cold. We walked in and there was a guy standing there handing out these brilliant...BRILLIANT chicken wings that were smoked and seasoned. We immediately started looking on the menu for them when we were informed that they “were not available” because they just did not have enough room in the smoker to make it a menu item. Shit. But we chatted up the guy and asked if they had beer and that is when the brilliance started. He said, “No but you can order a carryoiut and take it down to iTap or you can call in and we will deliver down there.” BRILLIANT!

Bogarts Menu: http://bogartssmokehouse.com/menu/

We grabbed a carryout menu and walked the 30 yards to iTap and settled in at the bar. iTap, The International Tap House, is one of those places that have 62,000 beers and tap and over 2 million different bottled beers. Once agin, I could not give a shit because I drink (in order of preference) Busch, Stag and Pabst. I am not proud of this. I do like good beer but obviously putting good beer in front of me is kind of a “pearls before swine” proposition. We settled into the bar and dialed up or order and they said “ten minutes and you can walk straight to the counter and not wait in line”. Despite all the beer selections we ordered some Schlafly Kolsch and a Boulevard Pale Ale (because they have a cheaper price for Missouri Beers when Missouri is playing) and we settled in to watch some Missouri texas football along with a little Michigan State.

Tap House Website: http://www.internationaltaphouse.com/

We walked down and got the food. One guy got a pulled pork sandwich and the other and I both got the ½ slab of ribs with an order of meat. They gave us a selection of sauces abd we chowed down. The iTap at the bar has three sweet large flat screens which makes it easier for an old guy like me. They also have a few tables and some couchy, loungy areas. I think they only serve beer. I did not see anyone smoking but I have stopped paying attention. The ribs were absolutely unstoppable. I had always gone pulled pork before but the ½ slab was meaty and perfect with great smoke and a little spice. When ribs are good, they are always “the best ribs ever” and these were THE BEST RIBS EVER! They really were good. Moist and plenty of meat. I did not even get to my pulled pork or any of the sides because the ribs were so much. I ate it today for lunch.

I really do have to recommend this as a great way to watch football and eat ribs. It is definitely a boy thing. I guess girls could be allowed but with beer, football and ribs wouldn’t that be kind of stupid? That is all for now, I am too good to you people.

Diner Review: La Tienda Ranchito, Fairmont City Illinois

2011-11-09T19:25:00.000-08:00

Sooooo seriously, it would appear that my FFL Franchise is on it’s way to a really, REALLY unprecedented 2nd year championship. If that happens I plan to quit practicing law and just bask in being a GOD AMONG MEN for a year or so. Fantasy Football might easily be one of the stupidest things that i do but it does keep you focused week to week on the NFL which I guess is a good thing if you are 50, like me, your children have abandoned you, like me and your wife is happiest when you are parked in front of the TV (where you can be found, observed and or quaranteened) and not pressuring her for sex on the weekend. The league is made up primarily of plaintiff’s attorneys and as near as I can tell they take great risks and generally make butt loads of money. There are some losers in the league who are not like that, like me and an investigator and an “Investment advisor”. It is NOT an exlectic group but it is an interesting one.

Three of us are pretty much locked at our desks all day emailing inanities and annoying the others by filling their boxes. The rest occasionally wade in. One of the only benefits I have seen from the league other than the millions in prizes I won last year is that it gives me a network of people who really like food and eat out almost every day and several of them eat out every night. This has lef to the following discovery in Fairmont City Illinois. It is Tienda El Ranchito, located at 2565 N 32nd St. in Fairmont City, IL 62201. Their phone is (618) 875-1521.

This place is....unstoppable. I have been to all the places on Cherokee and have a great respect for them. the same can be said for Durango on Page and a couple of the places in Overland. They are all literally shovelling out high quality food every day at a very reasonable price but Tienda is to be much lauded and glorified. Every time I go (and I have been there 5 times now) I drive by it. Take 55/70 East and get off at the fairmont City Exit that has the place that was formerly an old Venture. take a right on Collinsville Road. If you go left you see the burial mounds and eventually get to Fairmont Park, but if you go right it will sneak up on your left. On your right you will see the looming landfill by the highway. It sits back from the road and has one sign. When you park go to the left to find the door.

When you go in it is just a Mexican grocery with all the beauty that entails including tons of pepper and peppers and masa and Mexican sugar cane coke and little Mexican chotchkes and a full meat counter with all nature of chicken, pork and other treats, If you bear to your left as you go in and follow the wall it leads to to the restaraunt and bar in back and you have arrived in heaven. The TV’s during the week carry a steady stream of some Mexican MTV and another one will have on the Telemundo soap opera and if at all possible soccer will also be on. That is VERY important. On Saturdays there is also football (as opposed to Futbol) and Sundays they shgow the pro games. They have a full bar. they have a Facebook page:

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Tienda-El-Ranchito/120919354588146

The place is normally chocked full of the nicest people in the world. the staff tends to be helpful and patient although they can get busy. they will bring you out home made chips along with verde and a little red sauce and some of the best salsa your going to get. really simple with onions, tomato and cilantro and with the chips, heaven. They have a decent selection of cerveza and all the Mexican beers are of course served with lime because without the lime they have almost no flavor at all. Still, they are refreshing.

I must admit that I have been relatively narrow in my review of their offerings. As with breakfast I play in a certain wheelhouse and have a fairly telescopic view of the oferings. That having been said they are making the BEST tacos in a town that now has a LOT of good places to get good tacos. Recently I went for a Saturday lunch because I had heard (therough the FFL grapevine) that they make fresh corn tortillas on Saturday. This was not a lie. I ordered the carnitas and the pollo. They are served with onion, cilantro and lime and with the fresh buttery corn tortilla it was more than a small slice of heaven. My date had a chalupa which although i was incredulous about, looked good and he said was outstanding. The meat in both my tacos was floavorful without being overly seasoned and the heavy cilantro, fresh onions and a squeeze of lime made them absolutely perfect.

It is not often i can write about a place as nothing but a fan but that is the case with Tienda El Ranchito. I did a little more fact finding in another taquiria over there in what we will now dub :The Fairmont City Project”. I will report more on that later. For now, Tienda El Ranchito. 9 Slingers on the 10 scale. Quoting the old Milwaukee’ss Best commercial, “It don’t get no better!”

A Boston Surprise

2011-10-22T16:41:00.000-07:00

“I have come to know the wish list of my father.
I have come to see the shipwrecks where he wished.
I have come to wish out loud, from the overdressed crowd,
Come to witness now the sinking of the ship...”

-Joe Pug

So. Boston. October 10th. My borthday. Time to take stock or perhaps after a little more vodka to stake tock. It has been an awesome birthday and perhaps I will recount the trip later. I am still in Boston as I peck away but there seems a gravity that needs to be addressed. Of course I know it does not or at least it does not by me but... here goes.

Boston is awesome. We have never been here before and we are renting the second floor of a brownstone in the South end of the Back Bay. Evidently it is a historically gay area and history has stayed true and it is charming. We have done a lof fun stuff but yeaterday Sandy and I visited the Kennedy Museum out at U-Mass. I was vaguely interested and Sandy was really interested so we took the T out and took another shuttle and there we were.

It sits on the bay. A big glass and concrete facade with a giant (6 story) flag hanging inside of it. We had to wait about 20 minutes between tours and then were ushered to a little theater where they basically told us about the world leading up to his election and gave us a little Kennedy family history. The world is in turmoil, the Russians are about to blow us up, the 3rd world is heaving with early growing pains and everyone hates America as the leader of the former western colonial governments.

In walks the good looking, bornwell, Havahd boy who has a congressional seat and then a Senate seat purchased for him. He walks into office with a beautiful, horsey-set, monied wife and presides over this short, nightmarish Presidency. At every step he faces unbelievable challenges of a bad economy, and Russian pressure and plays hard with everyone he fights with. His speech from his inaugural was a tour de force of everything a leader should bring complete with the call for action, the rallying cry for a country which has been lost. Everyone recalls this fabulous, brilliant line which lunched a thousand programs for the assitance of others:
“And so, my fellow Americans: ask not what your country can do for you - ask what you can do for your country.”

But equally impressive was this line or observation:
“If a free society cannot help the many who are poor, it cannot save the few who are rich. “

Is anyone listening those words of wisdom now? Are any Christians paying attention?

These were not the blatherings of a guy out huckstering and posturing for votes. These were the words of an American, who had fought for his country and had a vision of us being a greater country than anyone, even he had imagined. A leader by example. And by words. Although in our 24 hour news cycle and lack of civility his personal life would have brought him down hard.

The most striking thing about the entire tour, the entire exhibit to me was the headline from a Des Miones newspaper saying “Republicans and Democrats Applaud Presidents Speech”. In what world could that happen in 2011? Obama gave some really good speeches but he was not brave enough to call on us a Kennedy did. That was a bridge too far for him and he, and we will suffer for his weakness and his fear. He had an opportunity to grab us and call us out to be a greater country, to redefine the discussion, to redefine greatness as not being a half million dollar house, a Mercedes and children who want for nothing, but to be a country that leads by example, focused on its religious heritage (not to preach to others, but) to lead and serve as Christ had served and through our example save our country, ourselves and the world.

Instead we labor in acountry where the rich keep getting richer on an accelerated basis. People who do nothing but make bets make tens of millions, hundreds of millions of dollars a year while job creators and the working people scramble for the rest. Which is fine. The rest is fine and we are lucky to have it, but what about those below us? How can they live with the people at the top insisting that they must make more? If they don’t make more they will leave. If they are taxed more, they won’t want to work anymore! I have never met a millionaire who would not keep working because he was taxed. I am not saying taxes are the answer, they are not! Not even close, but when we do not tax, when we stop regulating because it kills jobs, we lose site of the fact that human nature is selfish and those at the top, the very top, will take the want and change the rules through their money and power to keep what they want.

I am so frustrated right now by the same people who declare “American Exceptionalism” and extol our entrepenurial spirit, who run our largest countries but are telling us that “situations are too uncertain to invest their huge piles of cash”. There is nothing exceptional about fear. There is nothing exceptional about hoarding. Lets invest in ourselves and our values again so that there will be no doubt who leads the world. We are a city on a hill and that will not go away unless we allow our leaders, in politics and business to lead us through fear to make selfish, short sited choices.

We need another leader to call on us to be better. All of us. Together. One Country. One Nation. One People. I am ready for that man or woman to step forward. In the meantime we had best work with what we got.

Later this week I am going to explain why we need to consider rounding up and shooting all of our State Senators and State House Members. Should be a hoot.

The Charge Of The Lightweight Brigade

2011-09-24T20:08:00.000-07:00

Earlier this week I had a slight nervous breakdown and posted this on Facebook:

““OK...R.E.M. disbands ten years too late and now the U.S. Government is threatened with shutdown again. REALLY? REALLY? Again? We seriously cannot do any better than this? This is leadership? From anywhere on either side of the aisle? People pay taxes to support this type of leadership? People die on the battle field to support your current way of governing our great country? Our economy is in decline, people are not working and you squabble like petulant children. Every member of congress, Senator or House Member should be hanging in their head in shame. Real shame.
"It's the end of the world as we know it..." R.E.M.””

Slightly over wrought? Way over wrought? Probably the latter but really guys, this is embarrassing. I had overblown expectations for our President to use his HUGE popular support to be transformative. It retrospect that was very childish but we had come from a Presidency that was so stage managed and tone deaf that I needed change and certainly John Mc Cain was not the change I needed. I can still shudder to think about how his Presidency would look and we would all be beating on an old man. At least with Barrack we are beating on a young man in the prime of his life. But even though he was dealt an unplayable hand, he has played through every attempt to unite our country under a banner of real, PROUD change. Congress failed him totally, first the Democratically run congress and then the democratic minority dealing with a Republican majority in the House of Representatives who was elected with a mandate from the people, God and the Constitution to thwart anything else he tried. But the original fault is with the Democratic congress originally which played the same liberal, entitlement program that has been pretty thoroughly debunked by our countries history. Nancy Pelosi sucked...and she looked really, really scary, especially when she was worked up. The President, upon getting to his office should have asked she and Reed to resign their leadership posts because it was not what this country needed. He didn’t. Now we are here.

My brother, whom I love, is a Tea Party Conservative. God Bless him and them and their cause because they have changed the argument. I don’t believe they have changed it for the better but they have changed it and that is indeed what makes our country the greatest country in the world...still...no matter what the nay sayer’s say. They have successfully thwarted anything being done by government. Seriously, anything. Now I don’t pretend to know what the proper role of government is but I will tell you that it has to have a role and it is our largest employer and that tearing it down quickly, threatening to shut it down every time there is a spending bill, is reckless and stupid. Obama will be a one term President unless they run a crazy man like Perry or a crazy woman like Bachman. You cannot say stupid things frequently in public, and then stand by them and double down. Both of these candidates confuse this for courage and fortitude. What worked on their small stage (and Texas no matter what they tell you is an intellectually small stage) will be a disaster on Broadway (likely because of the pointy headed New York Intellectual Elite). So that is going to take care of itself. Run whomever you want and they should win and they too will likely be a one term President because we are in a deep trough with no easy way out.
But back to my brother. In regard to politics we agree on nothing. Ever. This might almost be a point of pride for both of us. But we have found a common desire and we need another one term President. We need someone who is brave enough to say the following:
1. We are in a deep, bad economy.
2. Government cannot spend or save us out of it
3. The American People are going to have to get us out of it.
4. We are going to have less government services and our churches and not for profits have got to start really stepping up because there will be needs that the government simply cannot meet for the needy and for those without a voice. This is a tragedy but this is reality.
5. We are going to pay more in taxes.
6. Our standard of living as we knew it was the creation of a bubble and is not sustainable. We can argue about this but time and economics have proven it.
7. Our standard of living will still be the highest in the world and we can lead like America should lead, by example.
8. Social security retirement age needs to be rolled back.
9. Means testing for benefits needs to take place. (I don’t know if my brother would agree with that one but my point is that we should not pay out the “safety net” of social security to people like Warren Buffet, or maybe even to people like me who have managed to put some monies away for retirement.)
10. Having troop fight wars overseas (even with radio controlled airplanes) is expensive AND we are going to have to figure out how to employ and equip all these troops we are bringing home for civilian life and it will be VERY expensive for a while but we have to invest in our best.
11. Something has to be done about health care. Here my brother and I would totally disagree so I will stop but that is the third rail of debt. Social security, War and Health care. Something has to be done about health care. Stopping frivelous lawsuits, stopping waste will not even cover next years % growth of the costs. So...something has to be done about health care costs and we will leave it at that for now.

So we need another one term President after Obama or even better we need Obama to embrace for his last year and a half, the role of being a one term President. Lead us to what is next. Dignity. Real Christian values that question our materialistic and militaristic culture and speaking the truth with love, rather than speaking the truth, when convenient, for votes and campaign dollars. But if not Barrack, and not the next Republican President, than it has to be the next guy or we are in some deep shit and the country will be so angry that we will elect a madman. So watch, pray and expect more of these guys. Congress? We cant shoot them. So lets vote them out and see if we can get some people who put America before their party and who can think for themselves without an agenda of talking points to get people to clap and sing God Bless America. What we need as President and in Congress are real people. Smart people. Creative people who are willing to take risks to do what is right and what this country needs. It didn’t have to be this hard. God already has blessed America, and he still is.

*cue the large eagle flying down with American flag in it’s beak...cue the country song about God and Country...fade to black*

ELECTION 2012

2011-09-17T22:01:00.000-07:00

Sooooo.... I have been gone but have not been missed. It is Saturday night. I am sober. I just cooked a pot roast. My wife is out of town. My kids have moved out. No one really gives a shit about me. I am sober. Thinking about drinking makes my body hurt. I have neglected to send bills out for my law practice for two months and when my wife does return...she will kill me. did I mention I am sober? One of my dogs got into the bacon grease jar under the sink and has been puking up bacon smelling dog food all evening which slightly (but not profoundly) diminished my enjoyment of the pot roast. I say the movie “Drive” tonight. Women love Ryan Gosling. I don’t know why but my talent at judging man flesh is...”limited”. Gosling had to say less than 100 words in the whole film. He did kill at least 4 people however. Silent, handsome...psychotic. What is not to love. The movie was well films but just too slow for an action film. I am still sober.

So it is politics today. We are well over a year from the election and I am exhausted. I do not understand anything. Why, oh why would the Republicans embrace Rick Perry? Why will the country elect another Texan? It is very early and we have no ideas about what skeletons he has but one has to believe if he is a graduate of Texas politics that they would have crucified him early and often. It is clear he is a classic pork barrel Republican who really knows how to help his friends who are now all OK because they are “job creators”. Which is another thing. How did everyone who makes over 200k a year become a “job creator”? Why do they believe that we are so stupid? Why do we keep proving them right. The idiot buzzwords of the season:

1. The “Elite”
2. The “top 1%”
3. Taxing the jets
4. Romneycare
5. Obamacare (recycling from 2010 election)
6. HPV vaccinations causing mental retardation, “Government Injections!”
7. Do nothing congress
8. Leading from behind
9. No tax pledge
10. Ponzi Scheme
11. Corporations are people...like soylent green....IT’S PEOPLE!!!!
12. PASS THIS JOBS BILL!

There are a hundred more. I mean, really...seriously... I am not going to make it this time. Last election I was excited about Obama. Now I want to be clear, I do not blame him AT ALL for the lack of recovery from the recession. I am not even going to blame him when it double dips and i will not even blame him if it turns into the next great depression. Who you have as President does matter but we are reaping the seeds that were sewn for the last 80 years. But seriously... he has shown himself to be a really typical left wing politician. So boy would I be ready to get rid of him, but for the fact that the Republican candidates are THE WORST.

The Tea Party has totally skewed the Republican party. Everything is an absolute, no compromise eternal truth. Do not concern yourself with facts. Do not concern yourself that there are people who disagree with you. NO NEW TAXES. CUT ALL SPENDING. MAKE GOVERNMENT SMALLER. PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITY. ONE NATION UNDER GOD! The sad thing is that on one level or another I agree with all these platitudes. I just also see that government does have a purpose. The free market and capitalism do not naturally solve all the worlds problems and that there really are no simple answers to the problems our country faces. So I will not be able to vote for any of the Republicans I have seen so far. I also have to admit, I really would have a hard time voting for a Mormon. I really feel bad about that but I really don’t think I can. And I like John Huntsman. He sounds like a totally reasonable guy to me. But he is a Mormon.

So here is what I want and what the country deserves. We deserve a candidate who is going to say the following:
“This is how it is, our country is in deep financial trouble. The world “including China” is in deep financial trouble as well. We don’t make a lot of things here anymore and the things we do make are military stuff (which makes a lot of jobs) and hi tech stuff and software (which does not). But it will take some time to figure this out but it is unlikely that we are going to bring a lot of high paying manufacturing jobs back here to restore the middle class. If someone tells you we are, they are lying and telling you they think you are stupid. Along those same lines, the housing industry, ain’t coming back. That was a bubble. Houses will need to be built, as population expands. Also, while we should not embrace illegal immigration we need to keep in mind that there are roughly ten million illegal immigrants here, we cannot to find them and send them back and... by the way by 2050, with or without illegal immigrants, we are likely to be a Hispanic nation. Embrace it! Change is good. Don’t be afraid. We are the greatest country in the world. The new economy might not be the consumption economy of the past. We might have a lower standard of living. We might have to live inter-generationally. We need to redefine what it means to be a GREAT country. People are going to have less government services. people are going to pay more taxes. Don’t let simpletons on the right tell you that it can all be done by cutting services and don’t let the Democrats tell you that we can make it up by “taxing the rich”. We need to demand that they treat us as adults, but in order to do that we have to hold them to a higher stadard and demand candor, even if it alienates the base.

Enui, Or The New Laziness?

2011-08-17T06:21:00.000-07:00

Sooooo.... it has been an interesting year. They all seem to be that way now. Taking stock as summer bangs down hard with some sweet weather. It is a morning in the office to be introspective and to avoid work...and the fucking phone. I think you all know I am a reasonably (or unreasonably) religious person but i have it on excellent authority (Beetle Bob) that in heaven there are no phones. No smart phones, dumb phones, fax machines, computers, iPads, think pads, game boys, X-Boxes, Play Stations or anything else that would allow (force) you to be interrupted from whatever we are supposed to be doing there (praising God eternally is, I believe the party line). I will not miss them. I hate them. When mine rings I flinch. This is most certainly true.

Yesterday I had a root canal. I am an incredible sissy as far as pain goes. This on a pain scale was not so bad (once you get the shots) but I did have my mouth wedged open for 1 ½ hours and I do not recommend that. Still, I was in pretty severe pain and now I am not. Still, there is something awful about being in that chair, having your mouth propped open and not feeling like you can close it, or pause, and hearing the whine of the drill. If heaven is a world without cell phones, that is probably hell. If it is not perhaps God could rethink it.

So yes, I digressed. A weird year. I cannot seem to read this year. Normally I would be about 15 books into the year but now when I go to bed I am good for about a page before I go to sleep. My discretionary (non-work related) reading is pretty limited to the Wall Street Journal and the New Yorker. I dislike the Murdoch paper’s hyper conservative agenda but their coverage world wide is better than the Times as far as hard news and catching up as to the arts. They have clearly surpassed USA Today (Highlights Magazine) as the daily of people who can actually read. The New Yorker is of course the opposite of the Journal with a bitter liberal bent that is whiningly become just as difficult to swallow. But the articles and in depth reporting is awesome. When they do a piece, you learn if you read it. Of course I cannot retain anything but that is neither here nor there. Bottom line is that I have not read any books this year that have really stuck with me. I also have stopped reading about 5 books because they did not ever grab me but it is hard to be grabbed when going about it at a page a day. I am taking my final mini-vacation and am thinking about buying 10-20 comic books (not graphic novels but actual comic books) to see if I can kick start an interest in fiction again.

I have seen a lot more live music lately and have not been blogging about it. Frank Black, the Old 97’s, the Decemberists, Joe Pug, Alejandro Escovedo, David Lowery, a couple of house concerts, Hayes Carll, Elizabeth Cook, James Mc Murtry, Chuck Berry (checking him off bucket list) and I am sure some others who have been lost already in the haze of middle aged memory. But, I seem to be losing touch for new music as it takes too much work, and time. Where did I find the time to listen to all that new music. Sift through the drech. Let the cream rise to the top through repeated listening. I am not even going to Lou Fest this year I do not think. I might change my mind at the last minute but while last year was chock full of bands I needed to see I can only recognize the names of a few and those that I do recognize, they are non-essential to see. The Roots? Surfer Bood? Really? I mean Cat Power might be interesting but only on an intellectual level. Her best songs are all someone else's, but I guess the point is that I am becoming intellectually lazy regarding my pursuit of pleasure.
This is troubling. This requires greater thought. This requires an expansion pack. I think the theory is that as i am ageing, I have less energy for frivolous stuff and the meat of life (which is sometimes hard, often annoying, rarely inspiring (with some exceptions for friends and family) is taking up more and more of my seemingly decreasing band width. Troubling times indeed my friends. More later but in the meantime, have a beer, go see some live music, or a movie or (gasp) even a play (though not a musical).

Friends Ruin My Life

2011-08-14T15:28:00.000-07:00

Soooooo....I believe we discussed in these pages before the Facebook idea of “Friends”. The word has taken a beating over the last 20 years beginning with the ubiquitous TV show but really now has been victimized. Facebook says I have 512 friends. Any of you who know me know how unlikely it is that I have 5 friends much less 512. I think I have 4-5 close friends including my wife. I might have another 20 or lets be really generous to me, 50 people who enjoy my company and perhaps another 100 who tolerate my bloviating, preaching, adolescent (once again being charitable) sense of humor and extremely poor personal hygiene. So that puts me at around 150 people (including family) who might be considered “friends”. But I come here not to discuss Facebook....

Instead we need to think on my iPhone. I have been very, very careful while establishing my solo law practice over the last 8 months to NOT DOWNLOAD GAMES on my iPhone. There is something so tempting about annoying all of the people and “Friends” around you so that you can lose yourself in your little hand held device. One need only to look around any crowd of people to see... well...everyone under 27...thumbing away on their iPhone or other hand held device. I ask what is going on and I am told, “Angry Birds”. I still don’t know what that means. Why are the birds angry? What was done to them? I have never found out.

But one day I saw my son was playing something that looks like “Scrabble”. I ask and he tells me he is playing “words”. He shows me. I like word games. it does not seem dangerous. On night I have to chaperon my daughters Senior Prom and I know I am going to be bored and so I download it for free from the App Store. It took approximately ½ hour for my wife to start to yell at me. I was obviously obsessed. I was horrible at it to start with because I did not reckon the importance of your double and triple word and letter scores but was more impressed by my own ability to make long words... setting up my competitor. My first game was against a gal I went to law school with 25 years ago. You find your opponents through Facebook or Twitter or just get a random opponent. She killed me. For the record i did better in law school. It became relatively clear to me that with my obsessive compulsive personality that i was doomed. I find I am using my phone more to keep up my game than to keep in touch. That is one of the insidious things about these games.... they wait for you. You get notified when the other guy plays but you can play anytime in like the next...week. But it would be rude to make them wait so you ignore your family, ignore your clients...Friends indeed.

From there I tried Chess With Friends. Slightly disappointing due to not many “Friends” who play but then Hanging With Friends came out and now I had another word game. These are all pretty good games but I am focusing today on what becomes of these “Friends” relationships? If they are used socially on Facebook and now used for gaming, where does it go next. Gambling with Friends? Strippers with Friends? Church with Friends? These people can do anything with me.... by virtue of my iPhone. It is starting to get frightening and I wonder if I am going to need to get another name for the people who I used to call my friends. My real friends, in real life I mean. What do I call them?

My peeps?
My posse?
My...pals?

All of these options seem a little sickening but someone needs to formally protest or perhaps file an injunctive suit to stop them from doing further damage to the concept of being “friends”.
The one thing competing with people by games confirms is... these people are NOT my Friends.

I Am BACK!

2011-08-13T14:43:00.000-07:00

Soooooo... it has been a while. I have had a lot to say but the bottom line is in regard to writing there has been no time...no energy. Lethargy and rushing around for work and figuring how to get out of town and then recovering at work and catching up from being out of town have made blogging a luxury that time will not afford. As you can see from this pic, I have not been wasting my time in Michigan with Polka-Fest and what not. So lets do a potpourri .

The Economy: Everything I see is bad but it is bad not from a perspective of things getting worse worse (other than housing prices which will have to continue to drop) but from the perspective of bouncing along the bottom, perhaps for a long time. Republicans are “restoring fiscal sanity” but there will be a huge 2-3 year price for this in the form of unemployed Federal workers and construction people in the private sector who will NOT be working on infrastructure jobs. This is a fact. Obama looks like a one termer but joining in on budget cutting and his own lackluster performance warrant it. The economy will still suck for the 2012 elections. He is toast. He cannot even start a war to jolt the economy because that card has been overplayed. Poor bastard.

Unemployment: I believe that our current unemployment rate and lack of growth are systemic. The Republicans will un-regulate us enough that perhaps we can find another bubble like the tech and housing bubbles that caused us all to learn to like unsustainable life styles but the bubbles will be shorter and shorter lived. We do not mass produce anything here anymore on a cost effective basis. We cannot do it because we believe people who work all day would make a living wage. At least we used to. In a global economy where grunt jobs can be done for dollars a day only an idiot would make anything here. The tech jobs that will be created simply do not need that many people. That is one of the hallmarks of tech. 9-10% unemployment is here till the next bubble. Some politician should be brave enough to say it out loud.

Obama: He has been a disappointment to me. Not because he has not gotten us out of the current economy. I believe and still believe our country needs to be pulled to the left. free market capitalism (unregulated) is a recipe for the top 1% to pack it in even more. It is never enough. Obama had the chance originally to ask us make sacrifices and redefine the conversation. Instead he played politics as usual and even worse, played it badly. In dealing with the Tea Party and their elected minions and every other republican scared by a possible primary challenge if he does not tow the line he negotiated with terrorists. They only understand one thing and that is force. They are willing to shoot the hostages. he should have let the house of representatives not lift the debt ceiling. But it was a total lack of leadership and judgment that he did not get this done during the last budget negotiations. Unforgivable really, embarrassing and it certainly added to our debt downgrade.

The Debt Downgrade: Who gives a shit? Our currency and treasury Bonds are still the benchmark and they will continue to be if slash programs and raise taxes. Be clear though that both these things are a no growth plan for the near future. The debt grading companies will be gone soon because S&P overplayed their hand. As I tweeted the day it happened, “The S&P downgraded Bob Dylans record catalogue for 5 stars to 4 ½ stars.... Asian markets are reeling.

Our Politics: Somehow we have elected and empowered the deck chair reorganizers to run our country. This is not a recent thing but has happened in my life time. The don’t think. They only want to get re-elected. If they do think it is with a zealotry that ill befits a democracy. I remember my 8th grade teacher asking the question about whether you want your elected official to do as the population wants him to do or to do what he believes to be the right thing based on the situation? Everyone said that a politician should do what his constituents (we did not use that word) told him to do (the majority). He said we were idiots. He was right. Ultimately, God have mercy on our souls, we have gotten the government we deserve.

The Republican Candidates: The only way barrack gets elected again is because there is a good chance the Republicans cannot find a credible candidate.

Romney: Paper tiger. leading candidate only because he has been running for 8 years now. If Iowa straw poll does not kill him now, South Carolina Primary will. When he comes to town I hear a prison guard yelling “dead man walking”. he even looks scared. He said “corporations are people” which is enough of a film clip to cost him any election against Obama. Also, and I know this is an awful thing to say in a post racial, politically correct, open minded America (hah, hah and OMG HAH!) I don’t think when push comes to shove we elect a Mormon President. Too much baggage, too new of a religion and I could scare people off him in a paragraph. If you are the Christian right how do you do it? When people start reading The Book of Mormon... this will go poorly for him.

Huntsman: I thought he would be good and run hard. He has been non existent. He is also a Mormon, albeit a good looking one. See above.

Michelle Bachman? Really? I mean REALLY? I know a lot of people think she is “just what this country needs” but she is a fallen Lutheran and she fell the wrong way. She has crazy eyes, is a zealot and when she says hate filled things and gets applauded it reinforces her desire to talk more. She is telegenic but every time says stupid things and not because she is being asked “gotcha” questions. She also loses because we have seen how our most recent short term legislator turned President worked out. Too easy to beat on too many levels.

Gingrich? Already shot himself. Not in the foot but in the head.

Pawlenty” Looks good on paper. Dies early. He brings nothing to the show.

Herman Cain? Herman Cain? I can get angry without watching him explode every time he is in front of the camera. Does anyone really want to give this guy a nuclear football? he lloks like a Commerce Secretary or something to me.

Ron Paul: I love him. he has the courage of his convictions and takes the heat for them. he is consistent to a fault. Small government means SMALL government. Small military, slash entitlements and let people do what they want as long as they do not hurt anyone else. He is unelectable in every sense of the word and he has one crazy, amoral son.

Rick Perry: Pre-annointed, he announced today. he has said a lot of crazy things. he wins elections by narrow margins and in a divided country he gets the nod. He seems to have the nod from the Taliban in the party and they vote 100% in the primaries. It will make an interesting race as we get more into his crony government supported buddies in Texas. If Texas continues to dry up it will hard for him to campaign because there will be more and more suffering in his state. Stupid on immigration. Runs hard to his faith which creates a lot of opportunities to paint as a demagogue. Will do or say anything to get elected. He looks like the candidate.

I am sure I have forgotten a couple of their candidates. I hope it is none of them. Ihope they can raise up a leader which can unite us in the middle. Someone who can claim the majority rather than a coalition carved from a base on the fringe. America needs better than it is being offered but as I said earlier... we are indeed getting what we deserve.

Diner Review: The Happy Cow In Caseyville Illinois

2011-07-17T04:40:00.000-07:00

Sooooo....a Diner’s work is never done. These are the things we learn on a hot lazy Saturday morning when I should be at work but have a new place to try. Caseyville. Caseyville is not even really a ville. As near as I can tell it is lower Collinsville to the extent that is possible. It sits directly in Illinois 157 and straddles the optimistically named Canteen Creek. I had no idea it was there. My trip to the Happy Cow also turned up the Caseyville Diner which will now ALSO have to be reviewed. I am, if nothing else, long suffering.

The Happy Cow is very good on the first try. It is a little hard to get to at 601 Main (really Caseyville has a Main Street (also known as Ill. 157). It is right next to some nameless Irish Bar/Restaurant and this reviewers antipathy for the Irish is well noted and documented. The placxe stands alone with a partially paved parking lot, lots of available parking and shade and newspaper machines for both the Post and the Belleville News Democrat. I like the bi-coastal feel of having both dailies for all of their weaknesses. There is not much to the decoration of the place. it looks like someone wanted to open up a restaurant a long time ago and did. They have since decorated it with whatever they could find.

Seating was ample. They had a good crowd (always comforting) and no one eye balled me coming in like I didn’t belong so we will call it welcoming as well. i am currently off of the iced tea for medical reasons and as such cannot opine on this most important aspect of a diner experience but i can say unequivocally that if the place had instant iced tea I would shit myself. The waitress brought me a simple blue menu already turned to the back which had their breakfasts. I ordered and was brought a water and looking around the place I could only describe it as homey. Not charming, but homey, lived in and comfortable. Not dirty either. Very clean. The place is decorated in all shapes and sizes of cows and while not charming it is at worst...amusing. There is no counter, booth or stools and they do have a kitchen rather than a grill but it is pretty clear that this was a house that was gutted to make a restaurant.

My food came, 1 biscuit and gravy, two sausage patties and potatoes. They did not ask what kind of potatoes i wanted other than to ask if I wanted onions in them (yes please). It was all... outstanding. the gravy was hot and thick but not too thick. Whitish in color with a little bit of pepper (I added more) and otherwise great flavor. The sausage patties were not of your standard variety and had a lot of flavor and perhaps even a hint of sage. they were worth coming back for on their own. My potato fetish left something to be desired. The good news is that these were fresh, cut up (sliced not cubed) potatoes and they were cooked a nice brown with some onions added. there was nothing wrong with them, other than they were not hash browns. Still... they were good and a nice accompaniment to the meal. All of this food cost $5.00. That by itself merits a return trip.

I will come back to this place at another date with my wife. She will try the eggs and coffee and I can give a further review. But I would have to say that should one have the misfortune to have to go to Illinois and not just be passing through on their way to somewhere else that The Happy Cow would be an excellent stopping off point for your breakfast meal. I need to make a plan to stop over there for lunch as they are said to have an excellent hamburger. After all... it is where the cows die happy. The concept might challenge “The Omnivore's Dilemma” but... I am OK with it.

8 Slingers on the 10 Scale

Diner Review: The Half and Half

2011-06-12T16:01:00.000-07:00

The Half & Half opened in Clayton. It is by no means a diner. It is a fashionable, trendy, delicious and slightly pricey breakfast and lunch place in Clayton. I think it opened June 1 or so, so The Diner Review is once again discharging it’s obligation to be cutting edge and deliver the 411 (and sometimes the 911) to my loyal (if somewhat sad, troubled and empty lifed) readers. I knew nothing of the opening and then one of my loyal dining companions called and suggested it. I of course ignored his suggestion and forced he and a third diner (loser) to commit to going to the Pomme where I had missed my normal weekly outing with St. Louis pre-eminent divorce counsel.

I was going to be dining with two other “lawyers”, both with a large downtown law firm and both, giving them full credit, deeply...deeply troubled. But I digress. A third attorney called me the night before and began to rant in a long monologue extolling the virtues of Half & Half. Now granted, this third lawyer is also somewhat effeminate, fashionable and had gone through at least two wives, so I should not have listened to him either. But I did and I called an audible and ended up arriving first at Half & Half. I understand it is owned and run by the people who own The Good Pie which is a pizza place well defended by those that know. It is on Maryland right next to Almonds. There is ample street parking. They do not open till 7, just like Pomme and the hated First Watch which makes it an anathema for anyone with a paying job and any kind of work ethic but, it is what it is.

The place is nice and sparse with a lot of four top tables and the ones on the wall feel like booths. It is reasonably well lit while not being bright and is tasteful with a white, off white and country blue interior. I sat. I read the Post Dispatch (that took 2 ½ minutes and only because I thoroughly read the law and order section looking for names of friends and clients and thoroughly read the obituaries because if my name is there i don’t need to go work) and noticed that there are no salt and pepper shakers, only a small container filled with sea salt and another with coarse black pepper. Fashionable? Yes. Practical? I am thinking about it.

The breakfast menu is a simple piece of 8 ½ by 11 paper. It looks like this:

http://halfandhalfstl.com/test/menus

It read more like a pastry shop but what the hell? You cannot judge it until or unless you try it and here I was. The iced tea by the way brewed, fresh and awesome. My compatriots arrived. One had coffee, without comment on it’s quality. The other ice tead. We surveyed the menu and made out selections. I opted for the blackberry french toast after I questioned the waitress at some length regarding exactly what constituted mascarpone and brioche”. I leave it to you to figure out. My fellow diner reviewers got the corned bread and chorizo and the fried egg sandwich. All were pronounced “excellent”. The corned bread, though vaguely phallic in presentation was perfect and the Mexican sausage was also very good and the eggs fresh. the fired egg sandwich was served on a bun and frankly looked as perfect as it was pronounced. I also sampled the bacon (flavorful, well cooked and slightly chewy) and even the dreaded “breakfast potatoes” which, since not hash browns, I can only call tolerable in fulfilling my need for tubers in the morning.

There are a number of things troubling about the place. it is not cheap. It seems to cater to a more sensitive and well adjusted group of people. Even if smoking were still legal in a restaurant you would not consider it here and if you did considerate one of the friendly, helpful staff would club you to the ground like a hapless baby seal. It is also troubling to offer veggie options and the inclusion of Brussell sprouts (which they are having a hard time sourcing) into not one, but two breakfast entries is just too....”look at me...look at how clever and healthy I am”, for me.

That having been said, the food was excellent. The service was cheerful, helpful and unpretentious. it would be a GREAT place to take your wife, mother or mother in law... or your “kinda gay” friends. In any case I think it is a welcome addition to the Clayton breakfast scene and the St. Louis one as well. I highly recommend it. Not a classic diner but a good fancy breakfast from nice people.

8 ½ Slingers on the 10 scale.

Tressel, Trazell, Travell, Trome....time for this coach to go home.

2011-05-30T19:38:00.000-07:00

Sooooo... it is well documented that I hate Ohio State. Along with Notre Dame they make up the make up the big two of arrogant, self righteous, mighty, we win because God wants us to win and it is the natural order programs in the NCAA. I know a lot of people at very successful NCAA schools. Nebraska, Oklahoma, Texas (formerly Michigan and Michigan State had some claim), Florida, Alabama... you get the idea. Storied programs. But their students never seem dumbfounded when they lose. They are never anticipating that the next National Championship is anything but a year away. They believe it. Every year is THEIR year. But people conspire against them. The refs, the NCAA, cheating coaches for other programs. Everyone is OUT TO GET THEM when you are in the OSU/ND mindset.

Granted ND has kicked themselves around and I really do feel for them because who what talented minority kid would go to a white, conservative, small, academically rigorous school in the armpit of America known as northern Indiana. But OSU? 7 National Championships but you would think from talking to their grads that the last one was just last year. Instead it was 2002. They did have great teams, year after year but in the last 9.... they never took it home. Tressel despite some problems at his last job appeared to be a paragon of virtue. 106-22 is... touched by God (even I see a touch of the design in that kind of a mark) but with their coaches and their players, all of these alumni put these people on a pedestal forgetting that they are just... people.

People make mistakes. Tressel made a mistake. I do not even want to guess or analyze why but the pressure to win in college athletics is relentless and shepherding over even the BEST intentioned 18-22 year olds is a suckers bet. I am sad for the fans but perhaps if everyone put college athletics in its proper place there would be a number of things that might happen:
1. Amateur sports could be just that.
2. Coaches in these programs would not be paid more than the governor or the President of the University. In almost every State the coach of the football team is the highest paid employee in the State. I don’t mean to be coarse, but how fucked up is that?
3. The NFL could start running a minor league as well as the NBA, rather than having it done for them.

In any case, this does suck. The asshole Pete Carroll cheats and cheats and materially damages his school and arguably a lot of kids and jumps to the NFL so his gravy train does not stop. I think, I hope Tressel is classy for that. If he loves the game he will keep coaching somewhere but perhaps it will not be all about the money, the power, the glory... maybe it will be about teaching kids the glory of the game and competition and learning sometimes through losing.

Blah, blah, blah...R.I.P. Jim Tressel.

Concert Review: David Lowery

2011-05-25T19:00:00.000-07:00

I come her not to praise David Lowery, but to bury him.

I went to the show with Donaldson and my son Jon. I was really, really excited. I often referred to Lowery as "The Funniest Man In Rock And Roll. I had seen he and his band Cracker ast least 5 times and have the most beautiful memories of seeing them play with Counting Crows at Mississippi Nights. I am no longer sure it really happened but the memory is no less indelible. I am a long time Camper/Cracker/Lowery fan and I attend a reasonable amount of shows each year for an old man of 49.

Johnny Hickman, his long time lead guitar man and collaborator came on and opened and had a perfectly servicable set of country tiwnged rock. leaning on his working class roots he made the guitar sing nd although all the lyrics were much too earnest for anyones taste but the rabid fan, it was a good opening act. earnest and true and he exhibited his extraordinary talent as a guitar player. But Hickman is a side man. An opener. That is none the less extra ordinary but it is what it is. I will never buy his solo stuff. it was (the harshest indictment of all) pleasant.

I was REALLY excited for Lowery. I heard he was going to tell a lot of stories, it made me even more excited. he was always, always an engaging performer with with awesome showmanship. That having been said I have never been more disappointed in a performance, and let down than I was in this one. He came on and had taped down with masking tape his Mac Book. He had a page of handwritten notes and he sat down and began to tell a tale of their (his and Hickman's) time in Iraq. I truly respected what he had done. I was interested.... well into the 5th minute of the story. it went on and on....it digressed...it regressed. It gressed in ways I had never considered which is really quite amazing. then he marched into one of the sweet songs from his new solo CD which if not brilliant, is at least brilliantly done. the song was "I was the man who sold the Arabs the moon". It is a really good song but after the interminable story.... was a dirge. but i persevered. i love this guy and you don't judge a show by one song.

But then he started to tell another story. it too went on forever and I cannot even tell you what it was about and then he started singing "Mery Christmas Emily". A great Cracker diddy that rollicks along in their sad sweet sway. And it was also a dirge. And I started to fall asleep. In an angry, angry way. I went to pee at the end of the song and as I came back he was still telling his third story/song intro that had to do with his love for the English and Victorian times and... I don't fucking know.... but he went into "Deep Oblivion"....from the new CD...and so did I. Donaldson had already left and I was embarrassed I had brought him out When that song ended and the fourth monologue started (and by the way "Deep Oblivion " also seemed like a funeral dirge...I went and got the check. It is always a long process getting the check at the Duck Room. I commented to the bartender that this was the worst thing I had ever seen and he nodded agreement. I paid the check. He was still talking. I got Jon. We began walking past the Cracker merch table....up the steps...he was still talking. One hours... three songs....hell. .I walked out at 11 having heard 4 songs in an hour. I was sleepy, bored and angry. I have always told people that Lowery is the funniest guy in rock but brevity is the soul of wit and he is no Mark Twain. The stories were long, rambling, contained multiple digressions and the punchline was never enough of a pay off. I never walk out. I respect the artist. I bought Neil Young's CD "Trans" for God's sake. The whole show.... 10 SONGS! that included 2 encores.

I know I sound like a grumpy old man but the show left me really sad and the audience sadder. And I hated the audience. they were awful. At least 1/2 of them encouraged him to keep talking. They laughed knowingly. They applauded when he needed. God I hated them. This was not a good show. I have never walked out on a show before in the literally hundreds of shows i have seen over the years. He needs to play his songs. Do short intros and let the music talk because he has put together a great body of work. But he is no Mark Twain.

He is no Mark twain. Someone should tell him. Even now 12 hours later I am incredulous over how un-entertaining I found him and the songs, though bueatiful were dirge-like when combined with the monolgue. Hickman by contrast was light and self efacing and though much less of a lead guy, put on a show. If you have tickets to see him on this tour, stay home. I got on the RFT site and wrote a comment about how bad the show was. I went to the Lincoln Hall/Schubas site where he was playing the next night and begged people not to go. You might think this is harsh but I decided that when Lowery comes through town again I want him to look me up, just so he can punch me in the face. At least that would be engaging.

He is no Mark Twain. He aint even Garrison Keillor.

Message From The Other Side

2011-05-25T18:50:00.000-07:00

Soooooo.... as I was wisely waiting for 6:00 to come yesterday evening I was with my family, out to dinner and clutching my Mac Book (TM) to my breast when suddenly the beam of light came down through the roof of the bar where we were drinking beer, eating 5 pounds of chicken wings and (sadly) watching NASCAR on the bars big screen. I of course had been expecting it which was why I was clutching the computer to my breast as I drank my bottle of Busch and ate chicken wings awkwardly with one hand. My family, used to my (for lack of a better word) foibles) made no comment and other than the awkward stares from other people in the bar it was a nice evening.

Once the beam of light hit I was able to see that my plan had worked and I was able to bring the computer up into the firmament with me so that I could keep up this memo as i observe the end times down below. It was a little awkward in the bar in that the beam of light came only for me. I had suspected I was a better (truer, moraller, more rightouser) Christian than the rest of my family and felt a pang for them as I was lifted up, wondering for a moment whether it reflected poorly on me since my wife and children were not going to be saved but than i remembered that God was perfect so he clearly would not have made a mistake and they must have been much worse people than they were letting on.

There were very few other beams of light coming up from the south county of St. Louis which also did not surprise me. I believe my numeroligist compatriots predicted only about 200,000 of us would be going. That had always seemed light to me in light of the fact that there are about 7 billion of us here and God was generally so just and loving but once again, I am sure he had it figured out. One beam of light did hold my dog Lola, a sweet but stupid beast. I looked for a beam of light containing my other dog Lily and than thought...”not so much”. Lily had of course led an evil and selfish life. Looking down and taking it in, it seems that my family is handling my departure remarkably well. My wife just refers to it as “my little stunt” and after trying to negotiate the bill at the bar down due to my absence the family went home and watched TV and drank some wine.

There appears to be a remarkable lack of lava, fire pestilence.... Even war seems to have taken a break. I am sitting somewhere... and I am sitting comfortably although there does not seem to be a chair. In prep for this moment I had researched where I would be going on Wikipedia which described the firmament as follows:
“The firmament was a great tent-like[8] ceiling made of solid crystalline material,[9] which might be pierced by skyscraper and gimlet.[10] It had many windows, some of which opened and closed for the sun and moon to travel through[11] or to let water, which was held above, fall through as rain.[12] On top there were also warehouses of snow and hail.[13] Stars were small objects that were attached tenuosly to its surface.[14]”.
Right now I am getting none of that. My retarded dog is sitting at me feet. The dog is slightly agitated and is drooling and shedding. I do not see a lot of other people who I know although no one seems particularly Beattiffic.

In fact as I look into the distance I see a lot of people hovering up in the sky, stretching and generally looking confused and the group seems rather uninspiring and perhaps... sketchy. Looking down I see that things seem to be going particularly well down on earth. Although I do not see them in the firmament with me it appears all of the announced Republican cantidates for President other than Ron Paul are gone. Al Zurkowi...gone. Muammer Khaddafy...gone. Looking to my left I see a guy who I recognize from his publicity stills as Kim Jon Il and behind him and to his left is...Bashar Assad. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was left behind, Khameni was up here with me. Every principal of Goldman Sachs was with me as were the oil company Presidents and that is what sealed it.

The dawning recognition that 200,000 of us were “raptured” and the rest of the world was left behind and it was becoming pretty clear that the world was getting along pretty well without us. I was looking with some concern and waiting for the other shoe to drop. Then it did. And God took Joplin.

***

So it is all funny and in good fun until life interposes itself. Global warming and our hoggish lives moves the jet streams north and Missouri becomes Arkansas and everything including the end of days becomes less funny because for 150-200 of my fellow Missourians, when the count comes in, it was the end of days. And that...that is what pisses me off about this awful, self righteous posers who believe they know God’s plan. Only God knows his plan. But if you have your heart open you can discern God’s plan for you and it is a markedly nicer plan than the life you are living. I know God’s plan for me and that is despite all my weaknesses, petty cruelties, limitations and stupidities... he can do great things with me. And he is. And he will. And I will live forever with god in heaven and hopefully too with my family and dear friends. And these people who claim to know the plan for the end of days... they cheapen it. They demean it. I know I am going to live forever in heaven with God. I would just assume that everyone I know do the same. I think that is God’s plan.

Diner Review: Luvy Duvy's

2011-05-13T19:02:00.000-07:00

Soooo....there is always some stress and embarrassed when you have to read about something in the Post Dispatch in order to realize that you should have been there. It is even more embarrassing when Larry reads the Post and calls you on it. I mean, when you ARE the St. Louis Diner Review you do have some things that are just your job and beating the under staffed, haphazard Post Dispatch to the punch is one of those duties. So the Post ran something last week in the GET OUT or LIVING section... or whatever they call it now covering Luvy Duvy’s.

I have seen Luvy Duvy’s before. On my way to get tacos on Cherokee at La Vallasina Luvy Duvy’s sat there, brooding on the corner of of Jefferson and Arsenal. I always assumed it was just a bad lunch and dinner place, doomed to go out of business. Garish pain on the sides and the windows. I had no idea that they had breakfast, There was no signage. Someone should speak to them regarding modern advertising. The building was garishly painted and I assumed extremely incorrectly that it was another “soul food” place like “Sweetie Pies”. I mean Sweetie Pie, Luvy Duvy... you cant blame me.

So the Post gave the place a nice review and said it opened at 7 and like a fool, I believed them. So I drove around south St. Louis. It was Cinco De Mayo (March 7th according to the posters) and they were setting up Cherokee for a party. Cherokee Street west of Jefferson is becoming a cool treasure with the excellent food and the print shop and that incredibly pretentious independent record store that I never know the name of. Anyway, I killed an hour and then went back at 8:05 and there already several cars on Jefferson in front of the place which is a really good sign.

I went in and the place is basically set up like a corner bar. I immediately knew I was in the new cool breakfast place in town. We have not had a cool place in a while. Really the last one was “After” which was on Manchester down in the Grove. It was a “cool” place and this place has a great vibe. Arguably even better than that because it was older and a little darker which... is good in the morning. It was also cool because of the servers. It reminded me of my recent trip to the “Waveland” in Des Moines where I entered and was instantly aware that I was not cool enough to be there. Since this was in the Lou and it was not a directly post college crowd... it was cool but not too cool. I am not sure I used the word cool enough in this paragraph. Are we cool on that?

So I walk in and get a seat next to the wall and start to read my Saturday Post. I found out a while ago that unless you get home delivery, there is no Saturday Post. Not in the machines. not in new stands...nothing. Who knew? It is hard bearing the St. Louis Dining world on my tiny little back but we all have a cross to bear. So, since I do not eat eggs I ordered biscuits and gravy with sausage, hash browns and an order of bacon. The iced tea.... wait for it... FRESH BREWED!

I tried to enjoy the Post as the place filled up and it did fill up. There were posers like myself but they clearly had a neighborhood crowd and a crowd of regulars, just like a diner should. The waitresses were young (under 40, maybe under 30, I can’t tell anymore) and they seemed polite and friendly and not overly chatty (huge advantage). The whole thing is run off of a very small griddle which I think is cool but I also have some concerns when they get a crowd. But mainly my concerns were overblown and for naught. I have become a diner “worrier”. An old woman among men, worrying that they are not doing things right.

Breakfast came on two plates.

The GREAT thing is the biscuits and gravy. As advertised their were two large biscuits (do not ask for half orders, it provides a mumbled “we don’t usually do that”). They were crispy on the bottom and not heavy and hockey puckish at all. A yellow or corn flower might be involved based on their color or they might have just been perfectly browned. They were also covered with sausage that also had a light char (as God intended). The gravy was classic, not too thinck and clearly made with love. Buy this.

The Good. the bacon was top notch. Also cooked with love. But not cooked with LUST as bacon should be cooked. It was crisp (averting the cardinal sin of floppiness) and had a slight smoke. really good. Not great like the biscuits but really good.

The ugly. The hash browns “looked” great. A thin browned patty of shredded potatos. They looked perfect in fact. like Spencers but thinner. Maybe only a ¼ inch of thickness. I was really excited... till I tasted them. I could not define what was off. I will try them again because they looked perfectly cooked but whether it was because the oil or because they were prepared ahead (remember the small grill) they did not match up to the first two.

The eggs I saw on other peoples plates looked cook to order and delicious. There is no chili so no slinger, but on the brighter side, there are grits. Here is the menu:

http://www.luvyduvys.com/Menu.html

You know how I feel about the potato. But still, everything else was perfect and I found in myself a forgiveness for bad hash browns that I had not known prior to this time. perhaps there is still room for me to grow? They also serve beer and following my usual Derby Day tradition, daddy had a Busch.

Who knows, but the bottom line is that Luvy Duvy’s is a keeper. 8 ½ Slingers on the 1o scale.

Concert Review: The Decemberists At The Pageant, St. Louis

2011-05-09T16:58:00.000-07:00

Sooooo.... I had the opportunity to see The Decemberists twice on the same tour. Why? WHY? WHY? WHY? do you go see the same band on the same tour? A couple of reasons:
1. Dooling had an extra ticket for Omaha and I needed a road trip; and
2. I am a fan
That is right. My bad old hating, cynical self is a fan of the Decemberists and their pretentious little prick and genius, Colin Meloy. What happened to being a fan? rarely do people gush any more and when they gush at my age it is more likely to be about a red wine or a great deal on a flat screen screen TV. It is a little sad and I am certainly part of the problem berating other peoples taste when they are so bold as to put forth an opinion.

But the Decemberists and Meloy are at the top of their game. Off of a string or pretentious concept albums telling stories through a song cycle that owes more to Shakespeare than to Lou Reed. He is an awful, horrible, dark, talented writer and he is absolutely at the height of his powers. We all know from our prior reading that this type of talent has a shelf life. There are some that are great enough that they have three or four creative high spots in a long career but for most...you burst on the seen for a few years, spill a lifetime (up to that point) of angst... and then either disappear and retire (smart and classy and no one ever does it) or thrash around in irrelevance and eventually end up playing the Ameristar Casino for a paycheck.

So when you get a chance to see someone who is doing it, right now, you go. The new CD will be one of the 10 best of the year. It is a totally accessible CD veering towards being as alt-country as possible, (without a steel guitar) and it is frankly just a fun album with great lyrics.

So raise a glass to turnings of the season
And watch it as it arcs towards the sun
And you must bear your neighbor's burden within reason
And your labors will be born when all is done

I saw the band in Omaha 10 days before at a sit down concert at the Holland Center. It was one of the first shows of the tour and he was a little tight but he also could not create the requisite energy in a sit down venue. He in retrospect was clearly sturggling and every song had to end with a big finish that would go on for ever and the crowd would clap thinking he was done and then...he would jump again, freewheel with the guitar again and then finally... end. he was trying to put on a show but the crown could not hop up.

And now I was going to see him again because I had ordered the tickets a couple of months ago. On a classic note, I had Jon order the tickets and when I got home from work to go to the show... he could not find them. I go crazy about this type of stuff but he had his receipt for the tickets and was able to (after I had a brain hemorrhage) get the nice Ticketmaster (TM) people to agree to print some more for us at the will call window. Win, win....WINNING!

Once again we had Steve Earle’s son Justin Townes (Van Zandt) Earle open the show and it immediately was a more connected show. The crowd was attentive if not respectful and interacted with him as he told a few stories and sang pretty much the same set. Once again a great opener, warming the crowd up but not raising expectations too much. He really can play guitar, he writes a good song and I will make an effort to buy his new album and see him when he comes around with a full band.

He finished. I had another beer. We were able to stand on the floor about 20 feet from the stage. I was able to get a beer at the bar but could not take the beer on to the floor since it was an all ages show. This seemed a small price to pay and i was able to grab another beer between sets because I was dry as dirt. Once again the lights dimmed. I was once again treated to the alleged Mayor of Portland telling me to close my eyes...imagine myself in a Pacific rain forest (as he allegedly hovered in a large ship over the venue) as a group of strangers wandered through the forest towards us, and they are The Decemberists! Yay! The lights come up and they break into the set and start with “The Infanta” and then “Down By The Water” and I was worried he was going to replicate the Omaha show but then we got “Calamity Song” and I knew it would be a different show.

Meloy was working the crowd from the start and the band was even tighter having performed the show a few more times and they tore it up. I do not know whether the show was so much better because of the venue and being able to stand and stand close to the stage if you wanted, or whether it is because there was booze, or whether it was just better. But it was better. Much better. It was tight and it rocked and I liked the set selection more. He played “Don’t Carry It All” and as if just to piss my Omaha host off he played “The Sporting Life”. It was awesome. The whole set list is below:
The Infanta
Down By the Water
Calamity Song
Rox In The Box
The Engine Driver
The Bagman's Gambit
Won't Want For Love (Margaret in the Taiga)
The Crane Wife 3
The Sporting Life
January Hymn
The Rake's Song
Don't Carry It All
16 Military Wives
This Is Why We Fight
The Chimbley Sweep

Hr did a three song encore and that was that but it was great night at the Pageant and while I questioned seeing them twice on the same tour within ten days.... definitely not a mistake. The new album is powerful. Go buy “The King Is Dead”. Even this early it will be on a lot of ten best lists.

THE OMAHA POSTER!

Lefsetz on Mc Murtry, and Life

2011-05-02T05:43:00.001-07:00

I rarely repost whole screeds written by others but one of the only guys who I try and read every time he posts (and he is prolific) is Bob Lefsetz. Entertainment Industry (Music) Lawyer. His theme about the music industry is simple, too many artists and aspiring artists are more worried more about getting paid and getting famous than they are about making art. Visit his site and start following him. He resonates. A little preachy sometimes but he resonates. Lefsetz.com. The piece below is a karma piece for me in that my favorite blogger is blogging about one of my favorite musicians. The whole article resonates for me and echos elequently what I would like to communicate. It also makes me think about being a Christian, being in society, and how do those things relate to "self reliance", "individual initiative" and not letting the government take what is "mine".

JAMES MC MURTRY AT MC CABES: by Bob Lefsetz
I didn't see one person I knew. Either inside or waiting outside for the 10 PM show.

That's the modern music business.

Yes, he played "We Can't Make It Here", but the highlight for me was the opening number, "Down Across The Delaware".

Watch the video here: http://bit.ly/lZgepe (Sorry about the ad, sorry about the localization.)

The relevant lyrics are:

"I heard a voice today I swore I knew
From somewhere down in the southern sticks I turned around to see some ragged stranger Bummin' change on the uptown six And I froze like a stone Could I ever get that low?
Turned my face to the window
There by the grace of God I go"

We're only a motion away from personal devastation.

Most are only a paycheck away from financial ruin.

If you think you're immune you're dreaming. It's the nature of the human condition. No matter how rich Steve Jobs is, cancer got him and he's having a hell of a time beating it.

Which is why you've got to love your brother, keep an eye out for him, pray that the safety net catches you on the way down. We're only here for a short time. Personal initiative goes a long way, but not all the way. You're nothing without society, without people. Maybe that's one of the reasons that Jesse Colin Young song is a perennial, we do all have to get together.

And "Down Across The Delaware" is about separation/divorce/human disconnection. That's another thing that'll break your bank account, put you into poverty.

But before the show James told me we're screwed as long as people keep needing so much stuff.

That's what it comes down to, right? If you raise my taxes, I won't be able to buy the stuff I need. Works whether you want to buy a private plane or purchase a new flat screen. Americans feel entitled, to more, more, more. The concept of sacrifice is anathema. But do we really need all the things we think we do?

And who's going to pay for them?

I hope the economy rebounds and everybody gets what they want. But it looks like the opposite is happening. When are we all gonna pitch in and fix this country. Instead of demonizing the government and asking what it can do for us when we want to give it nothing in return. I mean how do you expect to fill the potholes if you don't pay taxes?

You think you need money to make it in music. You think you need to be ubiquitous. That if you're a journeyman, you're lost.

But the journeyman gets to play forever. His time comes and it never goes.

James McMurtry is up there telling his stories, evidencing all the years of practice on his guitar, and his loyal audience comes to see him.

And that's all there is.

There's no front page story in a newspaper no longer being read.

There's no video on an MTV that's all reality shows.

There's no million selling CD.

There's just the music. And that's got to be enough. Journeymen can't afford backdrops and dancers, frequently they can't even afford a band.

Songwriters are bitching they can't get paid in the new world.

Yes, you can. You can put your old kit bag over your shoulder and go on the road. Those radio dreams are history. People find out about music online and support those artists who are authentic, who are playing to them, not the gatekeepers.

Everybody wants to go back to the past. Well, that's what we're doing. Only it's further back than you contemplated, before CDs, before radio, when you made your living live. Are you up to the challenge?

Postscript: It is a good piece of writing about life as it is in our country right now, which is awesome. And scary. And a great blessing on all of us. I have learned from my life and my law practice that I am only one mistake away from losing my law license and two mistakes away from being alone, broke and broken, and three mistakes from being in jail. "Its so easy to slip." It seems truer now than ever. Be nice to someone today. Osama is dead.

Concert Review: The Decemberists At Omaha's Holland Center

2011-04-30T12:46:00.001-07:00

Sooooo.... after a road trip of north central Missouri and southern and western Iowa (which might be catalogued in more detail at some later date, I found myself in Omaha, guest of noted author, law school professor, screenwriter, columnist, commentator and raconteur (look it up) Richard Dooling http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Dooling. The purpose of my trip was to go see the Decemberists who were playing at the much Vaunted Holland Center in Omaha, which is...pretty sweet I must say. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holland_Performing_Arts_Center. The Holland Center is named for Richard “Dick” Holland who was an early investor in Berkshire Hathaway and a great supporter of education and the performing arts. Evidently he kicked in 90 or so million to get the job done. The trip itself had been an adventure through Kirksville to see my son in a performance and then up to Ottumwa (loose meat), Des Moine (the Waveland) and on to Omaha and Hudsons for record Store Day. It was quite a Saturday.

The show was scheduled for a Sunday evening. Sunday is a problematical time to have a concert. It is a school night and there is always, no matter my age that feeling of dread that the weekend is about to end. Added to that was the prospect of a forced march back to the Lou for a 1:30 meeting with a banker and the owner of an electrical contractor that is shutting down (oh the exciting life of the Banking and Bankruptcy lawyer). We spent a little time before the show in Downtown Omaha in the Old Market District. The Old Market district is what is always supposed to happen when a city decides to save it’s historically significant “warehouse districts”. It has apparently worked better here than it has so far in the Lou where we have “The Landing” which is always just one year away from really “getting going” for the last 30 or so years and also in the oddish area west of the ballpark where we have a hotel, a restaurant and a mish mosh in the old but refurbished buildings. It must be a cool part of town because Saddle Creek Records has their headquarters there along with their own music venue, “The Slowdown”. Anyway, Old Market rocks and though much of it was closed you get a feel for what a successful rehab looks like and the city clearly values it.

The show was at 8 and the opener was to be Justin Townes Earle. We got there early and it was clear that this was more akin to an opera house than a rock and roll venue. First floor was an expansive lobby with a large merch table all manned by one girl and a bad charge card processing machine. There was a long line but the decision was that we should buy our posters now which were pretty sweet. Heading up there at 8:03 there was a bar outside the actually performing facility but it was also equally clear that there would be no cocktails inside the room. I remember when they were trying to do that for a while at the Fox in St. Louis for rock shows... it is a non starter. Soooooo, no booze. We went in and were seated by the typical old people volunteers (I recently heard a brilliant piece on the New York Metropolitan Opera gift shop which evidently had a huge old people volunteer shoplifting problem).

Justin Townes Earle is the example of the children of twang rock royalty that actually has a lot of talent. He was appearing ion a minimalist set up of just him, his songs, his guitar and a fiddle player. I do not know who the fiddler was but he was good, but how do you really judge that with a slightly twangy country scion who is singing about murder and addiction. I have seen Justin with a band, and I have seen him play guitar with his band and he can put on a show. he can REALLY play guitar and his lyrics and his voice are both very good. His dad of course had serious heroin addiction and other problems. The songs are all good but they require listening to and when you are waiting for the Decemberists... it just seemed a little too listless for the show that I was expecting and I think....I think that he was the perfect opener in that he was competent, obviously talented, and no one gave a shit. Still, I thought he was a perfect, yet unimpressive opener. Perhaps they had him because the new album is more Americana. Hard to say.

Anyway... he had a quick set and there was a brief intermission. Many of the crowd went out to have a cocktail and I just spent some time looking around the venue. It really is a pretty impressive place. Like the Touhill in St. Louis...but nicer. It was clear that no expense was spared for acoustics. Around 9:00 the lights dimmed and then we heard a voice. A voice claiming to be the Mayor of Portland who was hovering above the venue and asking us to close our eyes and imagine the Pine forests of Oregon... I could not quite get there. And then they came out and the CD cover from the new CD lit up and Colin Meloy came out.

It looked like he had gained a little weight...again. But whatever he had gained it weight he had also gained in stage presence... and they started with a harmonica bleat into the new CD. I was hoping that they would start right off with the first song off the new CD, “Don’t Carry It All”. I love this song because of the Tom Petty like harmonica and the line:
“and you must bear your neighbors burden within reason; and your labors will be borne when all is done”. I love that. But he did not. He started with “Down By The Water”. Also a great song. The new CD “The King Is Dead” is much more accsessable and is not the song cycle epic that he has pretentiously worked over in his last two CD’s. It is a really solid Cd and this Concert showcased it. He had his great band with Chris Funk on guitar and John Moen just playing awesome drums and Jenny Conlee doing keyboards and whatever else was needed. They really are a great band.

And Meloy directs them. Dooling really wanted to hear his favorite song “The Sporting Life” but this is a well rehearsed show and his arrangements are complicated and it does not lend itself to audience requests are deviance from the set list. So they played most of the new CD kicking it off with mournful harmonica burst that starts “Down By The Water”. The new Cd translates pretty well to live but the big favorites were when he got into the back catalogue. He doled out “The Crane Wife I and II and then he played one of my favorites, “The Rakes Song” and also got the famous indie rock sing along with “The Mariners Revenge”.

The show was really well done but in that room with people sitting he could not really get the energy going. he is a pretty affable performer and though he strikes me as someone who I would probably think was pretentious in a bar... he is just really talented, and passionate and hard working. I mean the guy really works hard. I kept waiting to hear “Valencia” and the opener from the New CD “Don’t Carry It All” but it was not to be tonight. He finally got the crowd standing for his encores and we brought them out twice for about a two hour show. An orderly but amused crowd headed out satisfied into the Omaha rain and I looked forward to seeing him again in St. Louis in about 10 days.

Emotional Deafness... A Tragedy

2011-04-12T18:50:00.000-07:00

Sooooo.... I have a premise about a malady which has gone long undiagnosed. As you are all aware love and strong emotions can cause a variety of maladies. Sympathetic illnesses when a loved one is sick. There is of course being “lovesick”. There are all of the maladies and violence that can result from feeling really, really passionately about God and religion like... Crusades, Jihads, and perhaps a Babylonian Captivity or two. Simpler things like hickeys (love bites) and of course being blinded by love.

But I believe that there is one awful, undiagnosed illness which has been afflicting myself, and married men like myself for eons and it is time for the truth to be told. I am calling this particular, wasting, debilitating disease, “love deafness” or LD for short. LD is absolutely debillitating and inevitably is misunderstood by a spouse. Spouses have often misdiagnosed LD as:
1. Inattentiveness
2. Insensitivity
3. Incivility
4. Inbreeding
This is totally unfair. Do you criticize someone with a disease for having that disease? They can’t help it. Indeed in my case I cannot hear almost anything my wife says. Every day it is the same weary trial. My wife tells me important things like:
When we are going to her mothers
What type of chocolate she likes
What is her favorite drink at Starbucks
When our children’s birthdays are
When are we going to her mothers
I want this information. I want to hear it. I want to retain it. I do not want to say, “seriously? We are going to your mom’s tonight?” I want to know so I can emotionally prepare. I want to know because I do not like her rolling her eyes and sighing heavily like I was mentally retarded (although this disability is similarly tragic in many ways).

Sadly it is a progressive disease. I have found it has advanced to apply to my children (who I also dearly love). They are often telling me about events at school, relationships, disappointments, achievements. I seem to be listening... but I just cannot seem to hear them no matter how hard I try. The disease is ravaging my family and costing me the affection of the ones I love the most.

More upsetting is that there seems to be no cure. it is very likely that I will need to be starting up a new not for profit in order to raise funds for research. I am reasonably confident that the Monsanto people can do something here if we give them a few dollars. maybe I can get Sally Struthers to do the adds or perhaps have Sarah Mc Gloughlin sing some insufferably sappy song as pathetically I wander around the house looking for where my wife told me she put the grocery list.

Soooooo.....

2011-04-04T20:54:00.000-07:00

The blood was in the water and in one of the worst NCAA finals ever... the Butler Bulldogs brought...nothing. And Konnectikut played just well enough to win. On the other hand... Adam Reed is the winner of the 2011 KUBE and from KUBE management and the KUBE nation (other than Rob Kukla), Kongratulations. Right now, other that thinking of Butlers shooting %...I really got nothing else. God Bless the Bulldogs and their fans. It is a great story. Tomorrow people will be talking on FOX News about how their coach...just cant seem to win the big one. Screw em. Great story, great team...really bad game.

KUBE FIANLE!

2011-04-03T17:59:00.000-07:00

Sooooo.... The Donald and Mrs. The Donald have promised an opulent spread tomorrow for the annual KUBE Bankwet. Last year we had over 200 Kontestants at Chez Kukla and the merriment was a palpable, tangible thing. It really was. People are still talking about DavidKowert and Johnny (Chico) Winstroer leg wrestling on the foosball table in the basement of the Kukla depot. Tonight we did a dry run of the buffet, making sure it laid out the way we wanted. It is pictured above. the best chefs were flown in from Europe and Togo and tomorrow evening should be a bacchanalia of truly epik proportions. Here is a short lift of just some of the items on the Buffet being prepared by The Mrs. Donald:
Steamship Roast Beef
Standing Rib Road
Prime Rib
Rump Roast
Chuck Roast
Filet Mignon
Strip Steaks
Skirt Steak
Flank Steak
Pot Roast
Hambugers
Beef Pot Pies
Beef Stew
AND LOBSTER!
And potato chips!
It should be a hoot.
If Konnektikut wins than we have a tie between Abam Reed and Rob (the bod) Kukla which will go to a tie breaker. It does not matter whether you are over or under on your final point total. Closest wins. If Butler wins...than Rob Kukla takes it all. If you are Kurious, Rob is the Donalds older, better looking brother. Adam Reed our other potential winner is a former member of Glendale Lutheran Church, Mizzou graduate and he married a woman much better looking than he is. Some other people are also in the hunt for 2nd and 3rd but no one cares about losers in the KUBE. No matter who finishes first they will have 250 more points than Michalak, Hunter. Good job there. I think four different people had Konnentikut winning it all but Adam Reed is the leader and his 92 point jump will vault him to first. Everyone else is...maxxed out.

Soooooo....Chez Kukla...The Depot! Tomorrow night. 7:30.

I will do my best to make even Stupider than in the past.

BUTLER Bulldogs: Greatest Tournament Ever

2011-04-02T20:49:00.000-07:00

Adam Reed or a Kukla relative. The best NCAA Tournament ever and perhaps the worst possible KUBE Klassik result. Very sad for my boy, the Mango Squash and all my friends who are UK supporters. Very happy for the Butler Bulldogs. The Horizon League... Triumphant! That is all for tonight.

Everyone should make plans to go to the depot on Monday night for the finals. Kukla has promised quite a spread.

KUBE KNOTES: Final Four MAYHEM!

2011-03-27T16:32:00.000-07:00

Holy &*%$#%%@!*&% Batman! What a tournament! What a Final Four.

Kentucky (Blue Blood) They have not been here since Tubby Smith was coaching.
Connecticut (Blue Blood)
Butler (Up and Coming) Back to back appearances. Really?
VCU (Upstarts)

What a great group we have here and most importantly, no matter what we have a mid-major in the finals, NO MATTER WHAT! How is awesome is that? Butler, the pride of the much vaunted "Horizon League". Do you not think that there was a bunch of Marketing Geniuses in Indianapolis who met in 2006 and said "Midwestern City Conference" is no good...lets spiff it up and call it something cool...THE HORIZON LEAGUE! Brilliant. Anyway, Butler has totally kicked ass and has actually looked like the best team in most of the games. VCU on the other hand is from that perennial backetball powerhouse conference...The Colonial Athletic Conference. While Butler may have the class of a Valparaiso the Colonial (Formerly ECAC South) has Towson State! Awesome.

OK...we get 4 inches of snow on Saturday and i walk in to my little office building and seeing this.

I think that is really messed up. Anyway, KUKLA will be posting the final combinations later this evening. Some great people made it and exited from the top 10. It will be interesting to see who divined the this unlikeliest of kombinations. This has really been a party.

KUBE KARNAGE! The Elite 8: Tearing Up The Floor!

2011-03-26T03:53:00.000-07:00

Soooooo...BEST TOURNAMENT EVER?!?!? That would be my opinion. My brackets...SLAUGHTERED like the OU Buck Eyes! Now that both OU and Notre Dame are out of the tournament I can rest easy but lets look at who is left.

Kansas (The only 1 seed remaining in the ELITE 8. Has that EVER happened before?)
Butler (Cinderella trying to come back to the ball after midnight. This is what makes the tournament so awesome.)
Kentucky (Perennial kontender who did the dirty on the hated Ohio State. Go Cats!)
Arizona (Ridded tournament of hated and smug Dukies. Kudos to these Kats as well.)
UNC (Bitch slapped Marquette.)
U-Conn (The real Beast of the East) and the last of the 11 unjustifiable Big East selections).
Florida (Got rid of the Jimmer.)
VCU (Can an Elite 8 have a VCU AND a Butler? Apparently so.)

I am cheering for a final 4 of Kentucky, Butler, VCU and U-Conn. Because it will make me smile. So much for my early, genius wisdom that KU, Duke and OU were so far and away the class that the only question was who would be playing for a 4th spot. It is March and the Madness (unlike the Spring) is in the air. Today and Sunday should be fun and may the lowest seeded teams WIN!

Apologies from KUBE Management regarding the lack of updated standings. This writer is as anxious as anyone to see where the fruit basket upset of this tournament has left us. A lot of KU fans should be feeling pretty smucg about themselves right now. Kukla is surprisingly out of town again this weekend. When questioned he claimed he and his lovely bride were taking their son to a Quidditch tournament in Louisville (pronounced loo-uh-vull). Apparently their son Brian is a very talented "Seeker" and is expected to get a full ride to Hogwarts. The eyes of the Kube knation await for the retun of our beloved leader and to see....WHO IS ON TOP!

Keep it stoopid today Kubists.

KUBER Fredette

2011-03-24T17:56:00.000-07:00

Sooooo....Kukla has renamed his youngest child Jimmer. Against the child's will by the way and his girl friend is aghast. Jimmer Kukla will be finishing up at Kirkwood this year and then likely proceeding on directly to the NBA. It might seem a little over the top to you and I but Don has been mightily impressed by Jimmer's efforts on behalf of BYU. Dons recent conversion to the Mormon faith came as a slight surprise to his wife Maria and broke his poor mother Pat's heart. None of his siblings were surprised. When i asked his sister Lenore she said, :he was always odd".

It is a good noight for Basketball. BYU and Florida are duking it out and UConn and SDSU were going back and forth with Kemba Walker starting to light it up as UConn pulls away. The late games are still to come. It seems that these "name" players always step up up in the tournament. Jimmer and Kemba. Now will a whole raft of children be named that in 2011? Will this be a national tragedy? It should be.

Later tonight Butler and Wisconsin. I have Wisconsin in the Final Four. I have mild hopes that Butler will be sanctioned immediately for violating child labor laws with their coach. Absent that, they appear to be the team of destiny and perhaps on a rocket sled for another Final Four experience. It will do further Karnage to my brackets but at this point, who can care? Jimmer just drained one from about 62 feet away. "Eye of the tiger, eh rock?"

We will see what the standings are tomorrow and how the Kube comes...down to the wire. it is the most wonderful time of the year.

KUBE Konquers ALL!

2011-03-24T04:06:00.000-07:00

Sooooo...we have been absent from these pages. When Kukla loses town I lose my muse and my inspiration. Kukla left us on Sunday so he could fly to Switzerland and ski for a few days. For some reason which remains unknown to me, he has access to the KUBE Jet while I am still left to bum rides to Hannibal on Claire Mc Caskills plane. Oh, the injustice of it all. Well, it is Thursday and for all of you who followers of the newest, pathetic, gone in 60 seconds (or less) pop star Rebecca Black, Thursday is the day before Friday. Her video has over 42 million hits. The KUBE site gets more hits than that. The Moneta site...not so much. If you have any desire to weep for the future of music and perhaps your own children, check out the link.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CD2LRROpph0

Makes me queasy.

But back to the KUBE Knation. It looks like Mango Squash and Linda Finnerty split the longshot award. Kukla has insisted that he has to be back in town to konfirm it on the Kube Kray Superkomputer but when i really quizzed him on how this unlikely duo kould be tied under the arkane rules of these brakkets he said..."uh...I am pretty sure." This is the same confidence he had when he told me to short oil future two months ago so I feel pretty good about it. Mangosquash has Washington but he swears he will not go quietly into the night as he has lots of people going forward to the sweet 16 which BEGINS TODAY! Finnerty looks strong with the hated Dukies winning it all. Carolyn Hiumes total possible points indicate that she might have some good long shots alive in her brackets though so it should very interesting. Our top four all have a different champion and we have John Steffens lurking down around 9th with North Carolina. Drew Burbridge who is in remedial classes at SLU Law is sitting at 36 with San Diego State winning it all poised to "SHOCK THE WORLD!"

The real battle is at the bottom of the bracket where Sheri Folis and Hunter Michelak are duking it out. Shari totally killed him on Sunday and moved ahead of him by one point. She has a lot more potential points so she might be hard to catch. GOOD LUCK HUNTER! Also, towards the bottom at 310 is Rex Curtis and seeing his name in these lowly straights reminded me of the glory years of KUBE pet kompetition. Rex was an early adopter of the KUBE and we are sorry to see has fallen on hard times.

My brakkets are now being used to wrap fish but that will not keep me from the action this weekend as the second greatest four days in sports commences this evening. As of Sunday, we will know who our final four is and hopefully Kukla can whip up some magik and get us all possible combinations and winners.

I will be cheering for Butler and against Ohio State, Duke and Kansas. Butler's 13 year old coach is going to have some problems if the final four conflicts with his high school prom.

Signs of the Kubokaust (Like The Holocaust But With K's)

2011-03-20T14:40:00.000-07:00

Soooo.... which is the more unlikely headline?

1. Butler returns to Sweet 16

2. France leads allied troops into Libya

3. Mississippi River turns red and runs backward.

You decide. But what a tournament. I am soooo happy for the Butler Bulldogs although they destroyed my bracket in the worst possible way with that nail biting victory over Pitt. Then Wisconsin has a great...GREAT game with K-State and ekes it out and SDSU battles and finally prevails over Temple. A great day of ball yesterday and more KUBE Karnage.

I am watching Sundays games play out but i will have to komiserate regarding that tomorrow. Needless to say i believe that there is a reasonable chance i could be shut out of the Elite 8. And it is not even my fault. My son... my son on the other hand comes back from his girlfriends sorority formal up at Valparaiso (they beat Butler in a Horizion League game) bouncing in and talking about his "Richmonds" and his VCU's and his "Wisconsins" and asking "who has two entries in the top ten?" Yes... he is becoming THAT guy. I have created a monster (pictured above).

I am taking some comfort that Kukla (recovered from car fire, third degree burns and hangnails in just a few days. If you ask him why he will credit his diet of raw chicken breasts ((at least 7 a day)) and protien shakes) is taking off for Colorado and will not be able to update standing showing my son moving up as my own brackets careen drunkenly towards the 300's where they will eventually settle like the Lusitania. At least I am not depressed or bitter about it. Rather than watching Sunday nights games and allowing my son to track his progress I am forcing my son to watch the "Matlock" marathon on Lifetime. That Andi Griffith sure can act and he keeps me from thinking about my 4 entries...dying...

But I digress. Saturdays stats are stimulating, other than my son doing so well. The kream always rises to the top in the KUBE and Finnerty, Assa and Mc Ginnis are a clear example. A just and loving God will indeed squash the Mangosqatch or "mangosaquatch" as I have come to think of him, out of the top of our hallowed brackets. Shayo Mowen made a HUGE 77 place jump but looking at todays games.. and her champ and she has a Mangsquash problem. Aaron Becker (my nephew) jumped 108 points and is also "on the move".Looking down at position 56 I see that Henry Warshaw is making his picks in hi Definition. Very techno savvy Mr Warshaw. Dropping l;ike a stone...Tom Mulvhill drops 119 places. And I think he had Butler going two rounds. Impressive. Shari Follis at the bottom of the bracket has flatlined. Services to be announced. She will be missed.

The obnoxious, monster of a son has just announced that if his Obama stolen brackets win he will donate 10% to his re-election campaign. God have mercy on us all.

5:30 A.M.....KUBE Knotes...Despair...

2011-03-19T03:37:00.000-07:00

I wish I had put my brackets in Kukla's car (pictured here).

Sooooo..... 5:30 A.M. tends to be an introspective time even for those of us who do not "spect" much. I come here not to praise my brackets...but to bury them. My pick percentage resembles a really, really good baseball players batting average. I am sure that I could have done a worse job at bracketology but it is hard, even for me to imagine. What is so embarrassing looking at my brackets is that there are almost no upsets (that I picked). Certainly I had upsets happen on teams that I picked. The nicest thing I can say about my success in picking underdogs is that I had marquette on ONE of my brackets.

Today is a DARK, DARK day for the KUBE. Even with the hope of Saturday and Sunday Basketball there is very little optimism in KUBE Central. KUDOS again to KUBE Koordinator Don Kukla. Serving his final term in office from a hospital bed at a secure and undisclosed location he has once again unfailingly updated the brackets, denying himself the sleep needed to recover from the fireball that was his former German high performance driving machine.

But on to the long dark tea time that has become the KUBE. Duh...WINNING! That would be the unlikely duo of Johnny (Chco) Wienstroer and Jon Becker, both of whom had the audacity to steal the brackets of one Barrack HUSSEIN Obama. I am going to save Becker the Wrecker the later morning phone call to me and ask all of you what he will be asking me (pardon as I paraphrase Tea Party Speak but the conversation will go like this:
Me: Hello
Wrecker: Have you seen the brackets?
Me: Yes, I blogged about them at 5:30 but i always forget that you can't read.
Wrecker: Well I cannot believe Barrack HUSSEIN Obama is undermining our brackets too? Isn't it enough that he is tanking our economy, undermining our country abroad and causing Tsunami's and nuclear meltdowns in Japan?
Me: Milka what?
Wrecker: Shouldn't he be spending his time being the President rather than filling out brackets?
Me: Probably but cant the same be said about all of us in our jobs?
*click*
Seriously. How sick will I be before today is over hearing people talk about the Presidents pick....REALLY SICK.
It might go like that. Both Wienstroer and Jon Becker live with their parents. I think that is about the meanest thing I can say so I will leave them alone other than to say that my son has contributed one meaningful thing to society at least with the site http://www.bathtubtuna.com/. For a lot of us this could erase the need for Kukla's people at Moneta altogether and althopugh I am not a licensed financial planner i would urge all of you to get out your wallets and invest. This investment opportunity perfectly mimics the crazy, socialistic values of "going green" "eating locally" and most unAmerican of all..."eating fish" values of our current President. Another key difference between Becker and Johnny Chico is that Becker is...engaged.

Johnny Chico seen here in "happier" times.

A quick look at other people who are suffering like myself:
1. John de Penaloza dropping 127 spots to 154. My real brother Aaron Becker dropping even hard 137 to be tied with him. A metaphor for your lives? Think on it.
2. BJ Pupillo who has the highest ranked "Louisville" as Champion pick. Excellent work BJ...excellent. At least you married well.
3. Hunter Michalak with a 39% pick percentage. Home schooled? On the other hand Hunter has a possible point total over 500.
4. Andrew Hume with total possible points of 182? Seriously Andrew... the first minority President already has 148. For 100 bucks I will have Kukla eliminate your entry but he needs the check before 5:00 today.
5. The Louisville Cardinals and just one time for everyone who picked them, like me...HOW ABOUT THOSE HOYAS!?

So it is a sad day. A thoughtful day and yet hope springs eternal. If Wisconsin, San Diego State and Purdue go deep there might be some redemption for my brackets. But in saying that, surely I have cursed them. But for the rest of you, do not lose hope. Do not lose faith. The KUBE is a right of Spring. Quoting the great American aloscent lit author S.E. Hinton..."Stay stupid pony boy".

KUBE KARNAGE AND KOMMENTS

2011-03-18T14:39:00.000-07:00

Sooooo... their comes a Friday afternoon when you are sober and you still have write the KUBE Komments. Boy do I hate that. A couple of things deserve immediate komment. First of all, the pic above is of Don Kukla, who even from his hospital bed at Barnes where he is recovering from the vehicle fire reported yesterday managed to post first day stats! It is that kind of devotion that allows us to pay $10.00 a bracket, for which he takes a meager $8.63 for KUBE Kosts and Sundries. You pay a lot for diligence folks but it is worth it. Without Kukla, painfully manipulating his laptop we would not know that:

1. We have 326 participants! A Knew KUBE rekord! If you do your math with 328 partiicpantsx$10.00 an entry that means that... according to my math we have almost 2100 in pool money and after Don's cut there should be almost 400 left for prize money. Again...great job!
2. We would not have the TOTALLY useless "Initial Projected Standings" which tell us nothing accept that Logan A. picked enough long shots that he should be drug tested.
3. The "projected stats" are also only useful in figuring out that A. Logan picked so many long shots that we do not even need to have him drug tested...because we KNOW he is on drugs.
4. Tyler Warlop (of the Quad City Warlops) is our current leader and out of the box very strong. Additionally my sister Lenore Becker (we call her coin flip) is number 3 with John Steffens at number 2.
5. Drew (the high functioning mentally retarded law student) Burbridge is the most intriguing of our early leaders with San Diego State winning it all. I am hopeful for him because Drew has over 2 million dollars in Grade School, High School, Trade School (he thought he wanted to be a dog groomer, then a massage therapist), College and Law School debt. Good luck Drew!
6. Luke Kissam is number 326 and his family is considering "pulling the plug". Occasionally we lose a kontestant.

It has been a very exciting tournament. And todays games have stayed a little kloser to form. Michigan humiliating Tennessee was the only thing that further prompted ideations of suicide. Arizona squeaked by in their game which was exciting and only marginally distracted me while on a conference call with a klients board of direktors. Right now Ohio State is performing a slow motion execution on Texas San Antonio and I am kontemplating a fish fry to go to.If Texas A&M loses to Florida, my sobbing might be heard as far away as Maplewood. We will see what transpires later this evening and if I am still sober. It could be a hoot.

In the mean time, maintain your personal stoopidity levels and enjoy the night and the weekends games. It is the best time of the year and you are participating in one of the finest, oldest March Madness Traditions in the kountry. God Bless Us Everyone.

KUBE KARNAGE!

2011-03-17T15:59:00.000-07:00

Soooo.... this is like... a nightmare. It is 5:45 CST and as near as I can figure out I am at best 4/7 and at worst 4/8... on my best brackets. I jut got off the phone and was informed that one of my sons brackets... where he just copied the picks of one Barrack HUSSEIN Obama were 7/8. How does this make me feel? Butler won. I love them but I split my picks. I love the Richmond Spiders but I was "smart" and went for Vandy. What is the matter with me? Why is God angry with me? I have no answers for these or any other questions. People kept tweeting and texting and emailing me...mocking me! I need people to make fun of me? Louisville loses to Moorhead State? Really? How much does Rick Pitino suck? How could that happen. He has 12 stallions who are 6'9" running the court and he gets beaten by Moorhead State. It was a great game. It was great too seeing Kentucky be pressed by Princeton. I in my Yoda like wisdom said that Duke, Kansas and Ohio State were far above anything else in the field and that anyone could win. But did I listen to me?

NO!

So tonight....Mizzou...if I can stay awake. BYU and Jimmer Fredette? If I had another child I would definitely name him Jimmer. Who is with me?

Kukla I discovered, had flown his wife and daughter back from Mexico (drug mules) and surprisingly his car burst into flames on highway 270. I think we need a serious pause before we pay him for ANY brackets... especially mine. The picture above is an actual picture of the Kukla car in flames. If any of you saw the movie Casino... you know how this happens.

More later...perhaps...unless I fall asleep or pass away from simple depression over my poor picks. Can people die from that?

KUBE GOES VIRAL

2011-03-15T03:24:00.000-07:00

I don't really know what that means but I have heard the reference regarding youtube videos... I assume of cats wearing hats or things that are important like that. In any case the KUBE is now on Twitter and is fully Tweetable. You can follow the basketball musings of our social media meister Jon Becker and I think he will follow you as well and... lets see...aggregate the KUBE Kommunities Komments. A living, breathing, throbbing mess of idiotic obsevations, rantings and musings related to the MADNESS of March. We want to know where the kommunity is gathering to watch the games. We want to know what you think about Charles Barkley's commentary. We want to hear your thoughts on why Brent Musberger refuses to die (he looks more like Dick Clark every day). We want to hear about the bad calls. The fixed games and about how over rated that Hansbrough kid is. We want it all.

If you do not Tweet it means two things:
1 You are not fully self Involved; and
2. You are losing the technology war and have given up, keeping up.

KUBE is here to help. You need to Tweet, you long to tweet. Log on now. Everyone really is interested in where you are eating lunch, what you think of when your on the toilet and your thoughts on life...in 140 characters or less.

Lets get after this people. I think we are only at 50 entries for the KUBE thus far. Pathetic. You people make me sick. No wonder your parents didnt love you. Now lets get busy and ket our entries in. Do it now.

www.kubeklassik.com

Mental Illness and March Madness

2011-03-12T04:26:00.000-08:00

That is not fair. Perhaps it is not mental illness but being up at 5:00 on a Saturday can really feel mentally ill. Of course I need to go to work. I woke up, thinking about it no particular order, making tamales, the NCAA Tournament and of course..work. Also making putting together a good playlist to make it through the day and perhaps going to Soulard Market and buying a chicken with a head on it to bake... and basketball.

“You got to get behind the mule, in the morning and plow”. Thats what Tom Waits said. Can he possibly be wrong. So Kukla is missing in action. I think the prom was last night and his wife is out of town and without her guiding his day to actions he seems to lose all motivation. All we can do is pray for him and pray for the hope that he gets it together quick enough to get the game up and running prior to tomorrow and, that is right, say it... SELECTION SUNDAY!

It is not really a high holiday but it really feels like one. Spring is in the air, I am not going to Vegas, I do not hate my job and basketball is in the air. The good news is that Notre Dame lost last night to Louisville. To my Notre Dame friends...I am so sorry that God let that happen. Ooops... no I am not. On the other hand the hated...hated Ohio State Buckeyes llok like they will go into the tournament with a number 1 seed. This obviously is an abomination primarily because I will have to speak and read Face Book postings and Tweets from OSU fans and they will be....insufferable. It also looks like the entire Big East is going to the tournament. This is only good because the TCU Horned Frogs will soon be part of that conference (doormat) and it should... all be good. My home town SLU Billikens will be watching and waiting for next year. My much loved Valparaiso Crusaders will not be going and I will find no pleasure in watching last years Cinderellas of the Horizon League Butle Bull Dogs get punted in the first round. Diaper Darlings no more.

So... I expect De Penaloza to get a strong Maritz group together. Kukla to work his usual magic, I will cull Kube Kontestants from my 17 ex law firms, Gates will draw in random people from kentucky and the West Coast, kommitted, konservatives from Omaha will be weighing in and good time will be had by all. 200 people playing would be good. 500 would be better. ZSo much better.

So brace yourself for a weekend of basketball... and get those KUBE Brakkets in and...God Bless us everyone.

THE KUBE IS BACK LIKE A BAD KOLD!

2011-03-09T19:38:00.000-08:00

The KUBE Kommeth. It is that time of year boys and girls. Empty the kids piggy banks. Steal from the kollection plates (sure it’s Lent but lets not quibble), steal from your clients trust accounts (lawyers), steal from your clients 401(k)’s (financial planners), knock over a 7-11, file a false wormans compensation claim, steal checks out of the neighbors mailbox, give blood...(for money)... you get the idea. Kukla is getting the web site set up and it will be ready for the brackets...TRUST US. www.kubeklassik.com. if you go the site right now you will see a homage to last years winner, the guy who has made us all winners...Henry Warshaw!

This could very well be the final year that The Donald and I handle the KUBE. That is right, it is time for us to pass it on to our children. Both Don and I have sons... graduated from college, not very bright or creative, sort of lazy... in short perfect for the rigors of keeping up a grand, glorious and idiotic tradition of bringing a community of pathological gamblers, and faux college basketball fans so that they can worship in the church of ESPN and CBS and fill out brackets and generally ignore their Lenten pledges.

For that really is what the KUBE is about. A gathering of the faithful as we hunker down and celebrate surviving another February and the promise of spring and...forgetting our Lenten vows. Especially if you swore of gambling. Don and I traditionally give up Karaoke, nuclear particle physics, swing dancing and saki. But sometimes we forget about the saki. I mean... we do this every year... we are only human.... at least i am only human. I cannot speak for THE DONALD.

What can we count on this year. A gaggle of Moneta people. Kukla relatives from all over the country, many of whom are not named Kukla, the Omaha contingent, Todd King in Afghanistan (making us fully international), several brain damaged Beckers, friends and former classmates and some people related to people who Greg at one time or another held back their hair while the puked in Vegas bathrooms... the Blue Horseshoe and part of his criminal client base...you get the idea.

So it is that time of year. We need you all to get all of your friends. Play multiple times. The more money you invest in the KUBE the happier your life will be. I have no idea what the prize stucture is. I assume we are keeping it at 10 bucks a pop. I WANT 200 players. I want it to be dirty and ugly with kompetetion. Portions of your proceeds will NOT go to charity.

Joyce Carol Oates:

2011-03-06T17:48:00.000-08:00

Sooooo Friday night in the Lou and I at the St. Louis County library seeing Joyce Carol Oates speak. That is right. Soulard was preparing for Mardi GRAS. The bars were open and I was in a Library I have not darkened since my children were writing book reports (pre-Internet). I did not know why I was there. She was there because she had been brought in for St. Louis Reads which brings in several authors each year.

Ms. Oates has reportedly written over over 50 books. I have read 3 of them. She is an incredibly versatile and ... Workmanlike writer. She has written maybe a billion short stories which I have liked better then her books. She has been nominated for the Pultzer three times and won the National Book Award. I have not done any of those things. It is now 7:04 and she is late. I have a golden ticket for group 5 for her book signing and do not know whether I am that interested. But I digress.

Recently she wrote a piece in the New Yorker regarding the death of her husband that broke my heart. She came out about 7:10 and Bob marsh introduced her. It was... a dark and stormy night and the sirens were going off warning that we should head for the basement and Ms. Oates commented on what a frightening place we lived in. She had just come from a chance to meet President Obama and seemed impressed by him. She talked a little bit about her late husband Ray and about their marriage and about how in a long marriage you just kind of take for granted that this person is canoeing with you down a river... unless they die.

The New Yorker piece I referenced above was really awesome. What I did not realize was that it excerpted the most interesting parts of her new book "A Widows Story". She really read beautifully and between each section she would read she would talk a little about that section of the book. I think she is about 73 years old and she really has a lovely reading voice and a really nice disposition for a widow. I think she has gotten remarried but her stories and comments about her marriage were really interesting and more than a little poignant. She just has a great way with the language.

I noticed that I was one of the youngest people there. The whole front 2/3 of the room was reserved for the Friends of St. Louis County Library. I did not even know that there was such a beast. More interestingly every man that was around me had glasses...like me. Universal eye strain? Two much self abuse? Who knows. The women...old and unattractive. I guess pretty young people do not read. Perhaps we can discuss that some other time. She read for more than an hour and wrapped up by taking questions and she once again was generally charming, interesting and grace filled. I left to go drink wine with my wife so i did not get my book signed. Perhaps after she writes 50 more.

Jonathan Franzen will be coming later in the year. I might have to come back.

Concert Review: Old 97's @ The Pageant

2011-02-27T19:31:00.000-08:00

Soooooo... it has already been a good music year for me. Saw a few shows at Off Broadway, a new CD by The Decembrists, Bright Eyes and Hayes Carll, new CD’s on the way from Okkervil River and The Mountain Goats. An auspicious beginning to the year. The Donald turned 50 on Saturday and his fine wife elected to have quite a birthday weekend for him which started with going to see the Old 97s at the Pageant with myself, as well as his son and his girlfriend. Then a big surprise when his other two kids flew in from college.

The Pageant really has gotten their act together over the last few years. I never really understand what all of the logic is regarding closing the upstairs. In any case, the sound is good, the beer is cold and all is right with the world. We missed most of the first band, “The Whiskey Folk Ramblers” who seemed to be tearing it up. They had made it so the under 21 peeps could not go down on the floor which sucks for them but it does allow the old men to take a beer onto the floor... which was PACKED. It was nice to see, on a Friday night in the Lou, that enough people would come out to an Old 97’s show. The second band...”Those Little Darlins” seemed to be the critics Darlins... and caused me to head out of the venue to The Halo Bar. The Halo Bar is always to be much recommended as a place to escape a band. The Darlins just seemed like they had nothing to add to the mix, other than the fact that they were chicks. I know that might seem sexist but... they just did not have it. Would have rather seen the whole “Whiskey Folk Ramblers” set.

So Rhett came out and the women... and the girls swooned. Everyone loves him... even me. He and Ken Bethea and Murray Hammond have been rockin for a while and he gave the appropriate memory rave to the Hi Pointe (I was there) and of course the old Cicero’s Basement (the for them twice). Both venues are gone but the opld 97’s are not. They tore into the title cut for their new album “Grand Theatre” and then went on to play about 30 songs. The RFT blog was really rough on them for playing such a long set but seriously...most of the tumes are 2 ½ -3 minutes (ala Beatles) and you can get in a lot of songs. The set list was a great one drawing from the whole body of work but most of us could listen to Rhett sing the phone book.
The Grand Theatre
Here's to the Halcyon
The Dance Class
No Baby I: “Blame It On Gravity, Blame It On Being a Girl.”
You Smoke Too Much
Salome
Victoria “She started off on percodan and ended up with me.”
Champaign, IL (Best song on the new CD)
W. Tx. Teardrops
Please Hold on while the Train is Moving
Stoned (Will always be my all time favorite song of theirs)
Question
You Were Born to be in Battle
Indefinitely
A State of Texas
Dance with Me
Let the Whiskey Take the Reins
Smokers
Every Night is Friday Night (Without You)
Big Brown Eyes “I’ve got issues...like i miss you.”
Doreen

That is a sweet, sweet set and that was before the encores.

Singular Girl
Valentine
The Fool
Jagged
Rollerskate Skinny “Nobodies going to see eye to eye, with a girl thats only going to stand collarbone high!”
Time Bomb

They had the crowd eating out of their hand and the whole crowd stayed for the whole show. The floor was packed and i stayed down there until we got to the encores. They had the upstairs closed off but it was a see of people and more importantly that nice Beatle Bob was taking up space with his dance moves for the whole show. it wrapped around 11:30 and was a sweet, sweet way to spend a Friday night. Go buy their new CD. It will make you smile. Even if you missed the show.

Diner Review: Strattons Cafe/Clayton

2011-02-27T08:07:00.000-08:00

Soooooo.... your intrepid diner has been busy again. Due to the frequent vicous and critical complaints of my voracious readership (thanks mom) I keep getting told, “we need more diner reviews”. Well this is not an easy thing my friend. Despite my frequent travels and my relentless stalking of the city there are very few quality breakfast establishments that I have not made a visit to, and given the cursory review. For that matter there are not that many crappy places I have not been to. I realized recently that I had not been to Strattons in Clayton having gone to their Webster location years ago and panned it for having nothing but the dreaded “fruity” tea. But, though I normally avoid chains (there are two Strattons in town) I have to admit that I was relatively pleased with my recent trip.

I drove there by the way with my folio from work and iPhone on the roof of my car which is an act of stupidity I was embarrassed about badly until I opened the paper and began reading about “assclown” Charlie Sheen. He really has never been on my radar screen and always seemed rather talentless, even in “Wall Street” but he had good breeding and seemed not to take himself too seriously as an actor. I do not think i have ever watched “2 ½ Men” but clearly it is, or was an institution. His work in "Major League" was inspired as was his apparent cameo in "Ferris Buellers Day Off". As I said, I was feeling bad about my own stupidity when I was able to read some of this guys quotes. This one made my stupidity seem...just fine.

"Guys, it's right there in the thing, duh! We work for the Pope, we murder people. We're Vatican assassins. How complicated can it be? What they're not ready for is guys like you and I and Nails and all the other gnarly gnarlingtons in my life, that we are high priests, Vatican assassin warlocks. Boom. Print that, people. See where that goes."

Tell it Charlie...tell it. But I digress.

Strattons has an little impersonal feeling. You order at counter but not a cool counter with a lot of formica and stools and a grill behind it but a fairly bright, bland little counter and you have to pass by their yogurt or gelato or whatever the hell it is to order. Seeing the bright un-natural colors of these ice creamy treats in the morning is slightly offputting. The staff was friendly enough and it was a broad menu offering everything the hungry breakfaster could want from pancakes to omelettes to biscuits and gravy. It looked to me like a place that might have the dreaded “egg white” omelette” which is painful to even see on the menu but I understand...I guess how some people might consider them...breakfast.

I ordered and was given a number and I received my large, waxy, Pepsi cup (32 oz.) which is always a bad sign and then went to get my own beverage and found that they still had fruity strawberry tea from “The Republic of Tea” but they also had “The Peoples Black tea”. SHouldnt the folks in The Republic of Tea be having some kind of revolt or uprising against these embarrassing tea names? Anyway, the black tea was passable and I started to read the Post Dispatch...oops here comes another digression...

The Post Dispatch appears to be in a death spiral. I honestly feel like every day when i read it, it is getting worse and worse. I look forward to the editorial page just to get some decent writing. It is like reading the A.P. wire and although i cannot believe it is true it feels like they have made the actual paper stock even cheaper (after downsizing the actual size) so that it is hard to read and cannot hold its shape as it is being read. Also, with all this trouble in the middle east, they oftern get to it by page 12... but the paper...it feels cheap...end of digression.

So I was reading about Charlie Sheen with a big number 28 on a little stand and they quickly brought me my food. I had the biscuits and gravy half order with some sausage and some hash browns and it looked like this:

The gravy had a nice spice and the biscuits had a home made taste. They were pretty heavy and dense and one of them could have made a nice fatty breakfast. The sausage was well cooked and had a little flavor but nothing remarkable, also nothing really offputting. The whole thing was not quite hot enough but it all had a lot of flavor and a little spice. The hash brown casserole is a suspicious menu item but these were good (excellent really) and had a lot of moisture and mixed excellently with the gravy and biscuit for a nice hash. I would recommend them highly even though not traditional shredded and also also their was no crispness. Still, they were good. they also had an offering of “Potato Pancakes” which I will need to sample on a return trip. This is what it looked like when I was finished:

I checked out other people’s plats and all the food looked pretty good. They had a number of booths and lots of people working there (it looked like too many) delivering food and cleaning tables. The food was not cooked right behind the counter but the kitchen was visible and looked crowded as well. As least there were no worries about food being trucked in from a commisary or anything like that. It sits right by the Ritz and also by that upscale condo development and the street in front was full of Lexus crossovers for the well to do soccer moms. There were a lot of kids there for 8 o clock in the morning and I will need to figure out what that is all about because I am a grumpy old man and kids+morning=grumpier and grumpier. It was a little pricey coming in at over 9 bucks which rules it out as a regular stop but check their website as their breakfast specials looked reasonable. Here is a link to their breakfast menu:

http://www.strattonscafe.com/cafe_clayton_breakfast.html

I liked it. I will come back. It is good to have the place as an option. 8 Slingers on the 10 scale. I will hit Webster next time and report.

Taking Stock

2011-02-13T20:01:00.000-08:00

Soooooo...I decided not to got to work today. After all, it was Sunday. I had worked Saturday. I feel like I have worked Saturday and Sunday for about a month. The thing is... I do not really love working 7 days a week but this time of year, my wife works a lot. A whole lot and with the kids getting older and older they do not really need me or at least it does not feel like they do. (In all actuality there is a reasonably good chance that we are neglecting our 18 year old but that is neither here nor there). I mean it is but... what are you going to do about it? I mean sure, calling Missouri Division of Children’s Services might be a good idea but I digress.

I like to cook. I am not a good cook. My ability to follow recipe’s is... suspect t best. But I like to cook. I find it relaxing and when something comes out good and you feed it to people and you like it... well that is a little sweet, perhaps a lot sweet. I have reading Anthony Bourdain’s “Les Halles” cookbook and like every other thing that he discusses about quality food revolves around making your own stock. I thought you made stock from bullion cubes. It would appear that I... to quote my great contracts professor, the late Vincent Immel... “erred”.

So, I went to the counter at the grocery store and requested some beef or veal bones... and they looked at me like I was an idiot. They were of course correct. I had forgotten that after all of these years that most grocery stores get “boxed beef” which they trip down. there are no carcasses and very few bones. So, I politely left and headed to Bauman’s Meat Market where I buy some of their specialty stuff and knuckle bones for my dogs and they hooked me up. The I bought a couple onions and some celery and a few mushrooms and some carrots.

You spread the bones on a greased sheet and preheat the oven to 375 and then you rinse the bones then you spread some tomato paste on them and sprinke a little flour on them and put them in the oven, turning occasionally and you baked them for 45 minutes. Do not let them get black. While they are cooking, chop up your celery and onions and carrots and mushrooms into a rough chop and in the bottom of a big thick bottomed pot brown them all for a while in just a little Olive Oil till caramelized. When the bones are thoroughly browned dump them into the pot and fill to the top with cold water. Heat it up almost to a boil (but not a boil) and then reduce to a simmer. Clean the scum off the top (there will be a lot early and then not much) and simmer those suckers for 8-10 hours.

Now it is 8-10 hours later. I had enough time in between to make, and eat a 4lb pulled pork roast. The hardest part of the stock making is when you have let it simmer for that long and then you have to put it through a strainer and a cheese cloth, and then a strainer and a cheese cloth, again and again. Then you let it cool. Now I am refrigerating it and tomorrow I will skim the scum off the top of it and then store it in mason jars in the freezer for whenever I need it. the next question... what will I need it for? Only time will tell.

Cafe' Osage: A Diner Review Sort Of....

2011-02-12T16:27:00.000-08:00

Soooo.... it is always a pleasure to find a new place to have breakfast. Even if it is (with all respect to Johnny Chico) a little gay. It was with some trepidation that my dining companion Sal requested that we go to a place called Bowood Farms http://www.bowoodfarms.com/ which is more specifically when dining, Cafe Osage. he gave me the address of the place and I had no ability to picture it. 4605 Olive in the city...where the hell was that. But on a recent Saturday morning I made the sojourn and finally pulled up in front of the place which is about two blocks east of Euclid. It is also about 5 blocks west of the Old Gaslight Square http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaslight_Square,_St._Louis . If you do not know about Gaslight Square it was kind of the equivalent of perhaps the Loop area, but probably a lot cooler. But anyway, I digress.

It is a very interesting part of town and the Bowood Farms people have located their, nursery, landscaping business, their plant data base and all of their knowledge and urban hipness in what was an abandoned manufacturing business.

A locavore dream. It is a cool place but at 7:30 on a Saturday morning it is a little disorienting. You walk into their indoor nursery through a big wooden door and then on your left is their little gem of a restaurant, the Cafe’ Osage. It is a big, open (and in February in the Lou) cold room. High ceilings and big windows give you great light . It is a really nice room with some big booths and nice table seating and a little bar area.

The menu is a little to frou frou but what I sampled was good. In fact very good. http://www.bowoodfarms.com/_ccLib/attachments/pages/Osage+Breakfast+Menu10-21-09.pdf . Unfortunately they were out of their biscuits and gravy but I did sample some of their Nueske Bacon and a very fresh English muffin while Sal had their Osage Corned Beef Hash with poached egg that looked pretty awesome and awfully fresh. The iced tea was top notch. The absence of hash browns was obviously concerning but is made up for with black beans and rice and cheese grits.... but those are for another time. The service was attentive without being annoying and over all I would say this is a great place for breakfast with your wife, girlfriend, daughter or mom and without knowing more I would guess that they do an awesome mimosa and bloody mary. It stinks to me of a mother day location for a great brunch where everyone, including me can be very happy. This is definitely a destination location to tuck away and save for the right moment.

Lets give it 7 slingers on a 10 scale but there is nothing Diner like about it.

The Great St. Louis Blizzard Hoax of 2011

2011-02-01T17:24:00.000-08:00

Soooo...I am not a man to hold a grudge. I am not a man to deal in conspiracy theories. I am not a man to deal in the blame game. That is not me. Not at all. I was totally disrupted in my job yesterday because everyone was a twitter about the nightmare that was soon to befall us. St. Louis was to be hit with a storm of Biblical proportions. The grocery store shelves were being raped of all perishables. MODOTR and the venerable Missouri Highway Patrol were one the air 24-7 screaming about getting home and please... for the sake of everything that is holy, stay off the roads tomorrow. I went to the store. I went home. I watched TV regarding Egypt and regarding THE STORM! First rain turning to ice... then 6 inches of snow on top. More to the north. My wife was sad that we were not in the zone marked "blizzard" on the weather map.

I woke up this morning and saw almost nothing on the ground. I turned on the news and heard 13-19 inches in the viewing area. ABANDON ALL HOPE! We are doomed. I had misplaced my phone the day before in the rain. So I packed my bags and hopped in the car to deserted streets. 8:30 in the morning, slippery streets and almost nothing going on. I drove into Clayton without incident. Clayton was shut down but the news flashes, the storm warnings and all the officials begging me to stay pff the road and go home. So, i got my stuff and went home. And it kept sleeting. No snow. No freezing rain. Sleet. I worked a little. The distracted work that a simple minded man does when waiting for the apocalypse. Looking out the window. Emailing people. Making phone calls when people were not there.

I started a chuck roast cooking at lunch. Nice big one with lots of garlic and onions and some rosemary and some mushrooms. My wife bought me a nice ceramic/iron/pot with a heavy lid. Browned the whole thing in the pot in a little olive oil seasoning liberally and then let it go. Figured it would be a nice hot meal when the power went out later and it would make nice sandwiches the next day. And I waited. I watched one guy at 3 explain that there was a lot more coming but that we were in a band that was just sleet. A sweet spot really. But more snow was coming. At least 3 to six inches.

And we got no more. I sat around waiting for it. Looking to be buried and nothing more happened. I watched the doppler as all the bad stuff went by us on the north and the south like were just a little protected pocket of bliss. I watched all the local weather channel and no one ever apologized. No one ever said we misjudged. No one ever said that we terrorized St. Louis and shut down an entire city with our professional scare tactics. Our incompetence. If you are going to insist that we rely on you. At least be right. Don't scare everyone into staying home and then act befuddled. Man up. Tell us it is complicated. Tell us you blew the call. Do not act like it never happened.

The roast was awesome.

Tomorrow...off to work. Maybe I can run over one of the weather terrorists.

Its The End Of The World

2011-02-01T08:27:00.000-08:00

As we know it... and I feel fine...fine...fine. Sooooo.... are the weather terrorists getting better at their game? I feel like every bit of bad weather they have predicted this year has arrived... in spades. Even though i went into work this morning I was being yelled at by everyone on the radio about what a selfish choice it is to leave my home when the apacalypse is coming. So, I looked for my missing iPhone and beat it back home. The roads were icy and slick and totally driveable. But you look on the doppler and it appears that St. Louis is just about to be eaten by...something. We do not know what but we assume it is bad.

When i went to bed last night my wife was complaining that we were not even in the “blizzard” zone but over night the zone moved south and we are now part of that elite group. It is weird how much it feels like one of those weather disaster movies, “The Day After Tomorrow” or some other piece of bad cinema. It is all exacerbated by the media which hopefully will soon be blissfully eliminated when icy power lines start falling and marauding packs of wolves begin leaping through our living room window plate glass looking for fresh meat. “Blizzard”, “Disaster Area”, “National Guard”, “snowpacalypse” and Obamacare are just a few of the terms I have heard on local Fox News in the last ten minutes and clearly they are all related. It is clear that the sins of past and present Democratic leaderships are finally being visited on all of us. Locusts and rivers turning red and running backwards are on the horizon.

Seriously, it does appear that this will be a memorable blizzard. I hope it is cool. When I went tto the store last night it was truly amazing to see how little there was on the shelves. Driving around this morning on Big Bend there was not a car on the road at 8:30 and it did indeed seem like a post apacolyptic zombie film. It was kind of cool. I went back home. Cooked a big breakfast, took 3 minutes to read the Tuesday Post and it appears that now it might be time for me to “work from home”. Really? Work from home? Seriously? My wife is upstairs doing that but i have no idea whether normal people really do that. I mean... the TV is still on. I do love the fact that my phone cannot ring. And they say tomorrow might be worse. I can’t wait!

The main thing is... I lost my iPhone.

Off Broadway, KDHX, Marshall Crenshaw, Bottle Rockets and Dale Watson

2011-01-29T20:38:00.000-08:00

Sooooo...I am falling in love with Off Broadway and with KDHX all over again. Last things first but KDHX in my adultery.... or in my adulthood has become such a mature, yet still such a fun station. We have no idea how lucky we are in a market like St. Louis to have a good NPR station and a good independant music station. There is NOTHING play listed about KDHX and if you know their programming schedule the chance to hear eclectic music in a genre that you like is awesome. They have always promoted live music in town but have gathered the people and economic resources so it seems like they are always promoting great music coming to town. Here is site for their schedule of weekly shows:

http://kdhx.org/radio/881-kdhx-schedule-shows-and-playlists

On to more important matters. Off Broadway was formerly a nightmarish venue. It had a lot of character. It had cold beer. It had good shows. But it was dirty, beaten up, looked like a big version of my old dorm room only the wagon wheel was a chandelier rather then a coffee table. That was not the problem though, the problem was that the shows would be doors at 8 and show at nine. More often then not the show would not start till 9:30 and then they would book three acts (two local) which meant that the headliner often did not start till 11:00 and sometimes would not be done till 12:30 or 1:00. That just became too late for and aging man like myself. They have a very accsesable web site which i link to from the Diner review home page but it is good to keep an eye on. I cannot complement the place enough and for the first time in a long time it seems like we have a somewhat worthy successor to the niche that Mississippi Nights formerly held. It can be a little “close” sometime but that does not change the...awesomeness of having great bands playing at a reasonable time, close enough so that the guitarist can spit on you... should he have a mind to.

I have seen two shows there already this year. the first was the Marshall Crenshaw show where he was backed by the Bottle Rockets. I got a little confused by the billing not understanding that the Rockets would be his back up band and then still not expecting an opening set from them. You can say what you want about Bryan Henneman but he has become a local treasure and he really knows how to put on a show. There is none of the shoe staring mopiness of a Jay Farrar show and of course though Tweedy is great... he did leave us... the bastard. So Henneman comes out and the place is packed. Easily 20% of the folks were out just to see a Bottle Rockets show and he did a great job... just the hits folks...just the hits. The bottom line is that he puts on a great show, works the audience and delivers... every time. Then Crenshaw came out. Marshall Crenshaw was the next big thing for a solid 5 years. he was a critics darling who wrote some excellent songs, had a distinctive sound and great pop sensabilities. But... he could never quite crack it. He got to play Buddy Holly and continued to put out quality, crafted pop but he never made it, as making it was defined in the day. His debut album in 1982, the epynomous Marshall Crenshaw is a pop gem. Buy it. But he is old. With the Bottle Rockets and Henneman all wearing what looked to be J Crew style pork pie hats they looked like a group of middle aged men very uncomfortable with their baldness. Still, Crenshaw worked through his beautiful jangly songs and it was just a lot of fun. As I said the place was absolutely packed and it was a lot of fun. it remined me again about how fun a show was and I saw local music head R. Brightman who informed me Dale Watson would be playing the next week... and I needed to see him.

I had no idea who Dale Watson was. But Brightman has an ear for the twang and he seems to have a lot of the Bakersfield penchant that has grabbed me for a while so... I trust him. he has also gotten me into a couple of house concerts and that is something for which i owe him no small debt. So... on a Sunday night after the first football playoff game and during the second one I headed out to the show solo. There were not quite as many people there and he had a nice big bus in front of the place but he came out and... he was site. He has a pretty regular gig at the revered Continental Club in Austin and I would judge his age at somewhere north of 50. I have never seen hair like his in my life. There was a good crowd there and he came out with a very tight band and a sweet lap steel player. Beatle Bob was there doing his thing (he made the Marshall Crenshaw show as well and he rocked us through a set made up of his own classic country relating to liquor, death and sadness. It was a well received show that had people two stepping the night away on the dance floor in front of the stage.

St. Louis is not grateful enough for it’s music scene. Off Broadway and KDHX are partnering to put on some great shows. Pay attention. In the words of Neil Young, “Live Music Is Better! Bumper Stickers Should Be Issued!” Amen.

Movie Night At Home

2011-01-28T18:30:00.000-08:00

There is something about being home alone. Whether you are Tom Cruise in “Risky Business”, Mc Cauley Caulkin in “Home Alone” or one of over 234,000 young girls who have succumbed in various horror movies over the years... there is just something about it. For me at 49 it was a matter of my wife being in Florida visiting her folks, my daughter being on a youth gathering with the church and my son Jon (recently moved back home) being back at college visiting his girlfriend. My other son Pat is safely in Kirksville and not likely to turn up. Jon was supposed to have been home and among other things were supposed to consider shopping for rings for his intended.

In my younger days this would have been an excuse for a weekend of poor choices. But no more. Now I worked, played a little poker, worked, had lunch with a friend, worked, went to a movie and rented a movie on line. I enjoy watching movies alone. I even enjoy it more at home when I keep the computer off my lap and concentrate on... the movie. Going to the movies is always problematic. I enjoy going to movies with Sandy, especially when we can have a coktail at the theatre but I enjoy action and heavy themes which often center on a lot of very graphic violence. I do not mean shoot em up violence but abusive violence, one and one. often a man and a women but just as often two men, or two women. She has no stomach or heart for it. Likely this is one of the things I love about her but I do not like it as far as movies go.

So “True Grit” was supposed to be awesome, so off i ran to the 4:30 show at the dying “Crestwood Court” AMC Cinema. There is nothing creepier then a dead shopping mall. It all seems like a movie set from a zombie movie it is all so unnatural. Going in there to see a film is an adventure in itself. So it is a Coen Brothers film and these guys really seem to know what they are doing. They make movies lovingly in a cinematic way that is just frankly lacking. I remember the first movie with John Wayne and yes, I had even read the book and this movie was an awesome replication of the book. The language usage and the dialogue are really awesome and the scenes that they film as they ride around Indian territory are really impressive. It is a story of female empowerment and a 14 year old girl and Jeff Bridges who in playing Rooster Cogburn is actually seeming to play....Tom Waits. It is definitly one of the best movies of the year.

Then I came home. I baked a chicken breast in an iron skillet with a little wine, butter paprika and butter and chipotle chile and...butter. It was really good and while it was cooking I got on U-Verse and rented “Winters Bone”. Everyone told me that this was the must see movie and I certainly understand why. it is a bleak movie in an ozark landscape that features another girl, this one 17 and it is just a tense, dark movie that does not go anywhere and tells a huge, huge story. The general feeling I got out of it was how hard life is for some people in ways I can never understand. This girl is trying to take care of her family and find her missing meth cooker dad who has a court appearance and if he does not show, they lose the house he posted for his bond. She never leaves her county and it still takes her to darker and darker places. In the end... it ends happily...I guess. But you should see this movie but you need to be able to tune out a little bit during some of the more troubling scenes.

Then I went to bed. It was good day.

GET ANGRY

2011-01-15T16:04:00.000-08:00

Sooooo.... I am ANGRY! And you should be ANGRY too. Then we can be ANGRY together! There is so much to be angry about. Mexicans taking our jobs! BIG Government! High Taxes! Limited business opportunities! Unemployment! Under employment! The government take over of healthcare (OBAMACARE!)! The United Nations! RICH LIBERALS! The conspiracy to trample on the Constitution! PROGRESSIVES.....FOR GODS SAKE PROGRESSIVES! MAIN STREAM MEDIA! Blame Stream Media! Lame Stream Media! The attempt to muzzle FOX News!! Creeping Socialism! The decline of American Values! People who question “American Exceptionalism”! There is just so much to be angry about and seeming so few exclamation marks. But EVERYTHING needs to be in bold type and end with an exclamation point because we are ANGRY!

Why would we not be angry? We live in the strongest, freest country on earth. A country so embarrassingly blessed with natural resources, clean water, tillable land, coal, oil, gas, timber and a temperate climate that it is as close to paradise as any geographical place on earth. But lets forget about that! Everything is bad! And it has to be changed and it can only be changed if we get ANGRY! If we forget that besides being blessed to be Americans, alive at this great time in history, that we also are blessed by a just and loving God who sent his only son as salvation from our sends. LETS FORGET THAT AND BE ANGRY!

And lets feed our anger by listening to angry people who think as we think, or perhaps are even more angry then we are so that we can feel like we are really not THAT angry. And lets blame people. Lets blame the past administration. Lets blame the current administration. lets blame, politicians, liberals, conservatives, Tea Party people, Progressives, Jews, Christians, Muslims, the damned Sufi Muslims, blacks, whites, yellow, brown, tan and magenta. Lets blame them because OUR COUNTRY IS BEING DESTROYED! And it is all their fault!

None of it is my fault! I am angry at all these people who have made everything so bad. by being angry i am going to get something done about it. By getting together with other people who are angry we will elect people who are different. People who are accountable. People who will not do whatever they need to do to make sure they stay in power and perpetuate their own families well being. People who are going to be “different”. People who are... not people. Until we elect someone who is not a person, we will not be happy.

We will continue to be angry about the tax code. We will realize that there ca be no free market with this bastardized amalgam of social engineering that seeks to reward behavior government wants to encourage. And we will do NOTHING about it in our anger because we still want the breaks which are good for us! We just want the other guys tax breaks taken away. They make us angry! We must scream about the sanctity of capitalism while insisting that the government subsidize ever Wal-Mart with a TIF and every wind farm with subsidies and price fixing.

It never ends, the things to be angry about. The things that divide us. The things that diminish us as a people. The things that make us smaller. Pettier. Hateful. Bitter. Alone, even in a mob. So we live in the greatest, most blessed Democracy the world has ever known with a higher standard of living than our much applauded founding fathers could have ever dreamed of and we scream about watering the tree of freedom with human blood. Because we are ANGRY!

And as Christians we can draw a lot of examples of this righteous anger from Christ. JUST READ YOUR BIBLE! Jesus was always walking around being angry about the government. Being angry at those damn, scummy Samaritan immigrants who were taking good Jewish Jobs. Angry with Ceasar for taxing the hell out of them. Angry with the politicians of the time for executing him. Angry with people who were exposing “social justice” and leaving a corner of their fields for the poor to get some grain! COMMUNISTS Christ would scream and berate them! At least he never got angry at the rich and powerful. They were blessed and they are guaranteed a spot at his right hand in heaven. That is what the Bible says. Right?

So be angry. Be a Christian and be angry. Follow Christs example and be angry and be a victim and complain. Complain from the left. Complain from he right. Stand up, sit down, fight, fight fight.

Woops...Looks Like We Shot Another One

2011-01-10T18:20:00.000-08:00

We are all poorer for what happened yesterday. You cannot blame anyone for the senseless shooting of Congressman Gifford resulting in the deaths of 6 and injury of 13 others by one, damaged young man. Two things to think about:

1. A culture of anger encourages anger and feelings of helplessness which can lead to violence. Somehow we have confused having a “voice” in government with having the right to always have our way. With demagogues on talk radio and cable 24 hours a day getting ratings through inciting feeling of anger and disenfranchisement in people, can we expect reasoned discourse? You can be angry about big government but should we not be encouraged to feel blessed to live in this country. Lucky? Blessed? Maybe even, God forbid, thankful? How about for those of us who try and be Christians...grace filled?

2. We, the safest, most peaceful country on earth have enshrined gun ownership and being armed as the most important right we have as citizens. Only one question... why? I am only 49 years old but once I got past middle school I cannot think of the last time I have felt physically threatened. Nor do I have the feeling that the government is encroaching on me in a way that requires me to arm myself. Ever. Even when W. was expanding Presidential power exponentially with a “unified executive” theory I did not feel the need to lock and load.

So, another politician shot when trying to spend time with their constituents. How long till they all have to ride around in Pope mobiles and standing behind bullet proof screens when speaking to
us. The best answer is that we all need to go through screening before speaking to a politician but once again that would not be needed but for our infantile, fanatic, fetish regarding hand guns and the RIGHT to carry a concealed weapon (where is that in the constitution exactly?). I really am fine with everyone having a rifle, or even a shot gun. I have the chance to see you coming. When you walk up to someone and reach into your pocket for your Glock, you are not exercising a right. You are a terrorist. Aren’t we in a declared “war” against those people?

Perhaps the President should declare a day of prayer. A day for all Americans to take a significant amount of time to sit down and pray to God for Peace and reconciliation. Civil discourse. Thoughtful discourse. It could happen here but we have to start by demanding it. And by tuning out the haters. They have nothing to add to the conversation but fear and anger and that is when any group of people do stupid things.

Now a few days later it is clear. This guy is mentally ill. You cannot blame it on rhetoric or politics or anything else. Still I would like to see our country pull back from from our sick fascination with hand guns. Let everyone have shot guns and rifles (I would still shy away from machine guns), we can see those coming but handguns, they are for killing people.

The Epiphany Letter...like a Christmas Letter...But Later

2011-01-09T15:59:00.000-08:00

I know not everyone is on the official, unedited Becker Christmas Card list. I don't know why. Here it is:

Dear Friends and Family,

If you were wondering where the annual Becker Christmas letter was, in keeping with a tradition we began last year, and in hopes of extending your holiday “cheer” and lessening our holiday stress, we have once again opted for an Epiphany letter.

So – for a Becker year in review…..

Sandy turned 50. I must admit that the family did not consider this to be quite the noteworthy event that she did. Based on the other women that she is related to, it is likely that she has another 50 in her. Let’s call it half time. Our primary celebration, in a long line of seemingly unending celebrations, was a family cruise. Among other things, we swam with the stingrays in the Caymans and zip lined in the jungles of Belize. She continues in public accounting, loving what she does and thankful for the flexibility her bosses are willing to give her, allowing her to spend much of her summer in Michigan.

Jonathon graduated this year from Valparaiso University. He spent the next 5 months (until late October when camp closed for the winter) up in Michigan working as program director at Camp Arcadia. He has joined one of his fraternity brothers from Valparaiso in a company called Boom. Reactive. They specialize in social media, videography and web production. You can check it out at boomreactive.com. You can also get a glimpse into the creative mind of Jon Becker by checking out the latest locavore trend at bathtubtuna.com. He has now moved back into our house. After a period of more than four year, where he was not ever at home for more than two weeks, let’s just say that he is “readjusting”. He continues to be madly in love with one Lydia Schaftenaar of Holland, Michigan. Jon's family could not be more pleased. Lydia is finishing her senior year at Valparaiso and we all hope to see a lot more of her in the future.

Patrick is a Junior at Truman State University. He continues to study psychology in what appears to be a Becker trend of cultivating unemployability. School seems to agree with him and his studies are going very well. Pat is focusing his non-studying hours on hanging out with friends, children’s television, the internet and general uselessness. He moved into an apartment this year and seems to have adjusted well. Who would have thought? He continues in his relationship with Kyle McComas – despite rumors that Kyle is no longer an accounting major - something Sandy cannot quite come to terms with. Pat turned 21 on Christmas day. It appears we may have started a new Becker family Christmas tradition of going to bars on Christmas night. Seems rather fitting for us.

Laura, a senior at Lutheran South, is biding her time until graduation and trying not to make any serious mistakes. She believes that she will turn 21 this year, when, in fact, she will only be turning 18. She had an awesome summer up in Arcadia this past year, and is looking forward to doing the same next summer. Additionally, she will be going on a two week trip to Europe with a group from Lutheran South. Despite living what appears to us to be a charmed life, much time is still spent grumbling because her parents will not pay to send her to Mexico for spring break. Life is hard. She has elected to attend Valparaiso University and received a nice scholarship to go there. The family (including her brothers) is very proud.

Mike has changed jobs – yet again - and is now Of Counsel (whatever that means) at the law firm of Waltrip & Schmidt. This has been another “string of transitions” year for Mike. He continues to thrash around with what he wants to do in the next chapter of his life, but for now, this seems like a good fit. 2010 was a year of travel, including, Hot Springs, Arkansas (horse races), Northern Wisconsin (wedding), Michigan (vacations with family and friends, Teen counseling, wedding), Austin (Austin City Limits), Cancun (wedding), Philadelphia (visit to see our nephew at Penn), the Caribbean (cruise), Instanbul, Turkey (work) and other points of call too dramatic to recount. The end of the year finds him in good health and spirits.

All in all it has been a great year to be a Becker. We are much blessed by one another, by our Lord and by our friends who provide an almost unending stream of love and support. Everyone in our family would like you to know that if you receive this letter you are very special to our family and we consider you a great blessing in our lives.

God's richest Blessings to you and your in 2011.

The Beckers
Mike, Sandy, Jon, Pat and Laura

Confessions Of An Addict And Thief

2011-01-09T06:17:00.000-08:00

Sooooo.... I steal iced tea. Somewhere over ten years and more like twenty years ago... I became addicted to iced tea. Not fancy green tea. Not fruity tea and certainly not the now ubiquitous...sweet tea. Just regular old Lipton or lacking that Luzianne or any solid orange pekoe and black tea mix. American tea...from China. Starbucks even broadened me a little bit to go pure black with their Tazo tea and although I went black... I still go back and forth. It is a nice change of pace.

I don’t know when I started to steal tea. For years I brewed my own in the office but then the delis and places in the lobby of my building started to offer it so I bought it... and I bought it... often buying two or three 32oz glasses a day to feed my habit. As three went to four and finally I was drinking tea all day long. I drink over a gallon of the stuff every day. I was spending 4-5 dollars a day on tea.

It started to piss me off. I was able to cut a deal with one vendor for free refills and that was fine but then I moved law firms (again) and the tea vendor did not move with me. i went back to brewing my own but there are so many hassles with refrigeration and having the proper ice (clear ice only). My ice obsession (fetish) is also troubling. I believe cloudy ice tastes funny and melts faster. I have absolutlely no facts to back this up. I am reasonably certain that I am wrong but I remain certain that I DON’T like it.

For the last two or three years I have struck a faustian bargain with the St. Louis Bread Company People. It is not a bargain which they have taken an active part negotiating. Fortunately i am comfortable with that. And lets be clear for my out of town readers, it is THE ST. LOUIS BREAD COMPANY! I know Panera bought them. I know they use the same logo. I know they are owned by some large conglomerate...but it was ours, ours OURS! But I digress.

I steal from the Bread Co. because I like their tea, and they make it easy for me, and I give them a reasonable amount of business. For a while I had a habit of meeting clients out in various Bread Companys refering to them as “my Des Peres Office” or “my Chesterfield Office”. I really do like the Bread Company... they do an awesome job with quality control, cleanliness and really friendly, competent people. They also toast a mean bagel. At first I started to buy a new iced tea every day and then I would consider it a bottomless cup. Now I have moved on to buying one iced tea a week and then refilling throughout the week. Soon I am afraid I will be using the same cup week after week as the plastic clouds and deteriorates.

I guess this is a cry for help. My tea habit appears to be out of control. I am breaking the law by stealing from the Bread Co. to support my habit and sooner or later I can see local police leading me off in cuffs after having compiled a YouTube video of me stealing iced tea over 20,000 times... over and over and over. This could severely derail my clear path to that Supreme Court nomination that everyone is considering me for.

2010 Book List

2011-01-04T17:58:00.001-08:00

This is my new answer to keeping track of what I am reading, have read or have tried to read this year. Note's where appropriate.

1. Jonathan Lethem: "Chronic City". See Diner Review, review at the link below. This is just a really good book. Everything he does knocks me out. A myth or creepy fairytale of NYC.

http://stldinerreview.blogspot.com/search?q=chronic+city

2. Jonathan Sanford: "Wicked Prey" Sanford is a guilty pleasure. In this one the bad guys arrive in Minnesota to the republican convention to steal money from the bag men. Carnage ensues. Lots of dead people. You have to like the genre of bloody serial killings. Who doesn't?

3. Jim Henderson: "Evangelism Without Additives". Not for everyone. A different approach to explaining Jesus to people.

4. John Fante: "Ask The Dust". Somehow I missed this guy. A really good easy read. I will need to read all of his stuff but after reading Bukowski who clearly was "influenced" or perhaps just copied the style it might get boring. Still... very good stuff.

Is it creepy that the first 4 books of the year I heave read were written by guys whose first names starts with J? Maybe.

5. Joe Abercrombie: "The Blade Itself" Another J. Author recommended by the Kowert it is Genre Sword and Sorcery fiction that I have not read in a long time. It takes a while to get going but is a good read and of course... there is a triligy.

6. Stieg Larsen: "The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo". Buzz book and movie. Really well written. Dark. At times extremely gruesome vut very well written. If you are squeamish, miss the movie.

7. Eoin Colfer: "And Another Thing..." An attempt to continue the fabulous "Hitch hiker's Guide To The Universe" series. Douglass Adams...dead. This guy, takes us no where. Miss it.

8. Stieg Larson: "The Girl Who Played With Fire". More of the same but still a great weird story about a great weird girl. I am finally getting that this is all about abuse of women in society.... every society... and every form of abuse.

9. Dave Eggers: "Zeitoun": had no interest in reading this. got it because I was a member of Mc Sweeney's book club. For a hundred bucks a year they send you a book a month. this is a true story (Like "What Is The What") that he tells of a Syrian business owner who stays in New Orleans after Katrina and his experiences. REALLY GOOD BOOK. Depressing, thought provoking and makes you consider how easily society breaks down and how much we take our "rights" for granted.

10. Stieg Larson: "The Girl Who Kicked The Hornets Nest". I don't know. I had to read it and finish the series. So this guy delivers these three books and croaks? Wow. Really good page turners. Tired of the series now.

11. Brett Easton Ellis: "Imperial bedrooms". A continuation of his self involved "Less Than Zero". I don't know. I am a really big fan of self involved nihlism but how much can he hit this same note over and over again and expect me to consider him relevant? This is not an essential read.

12. Harper Lee: "To Kill A Mockingbird". This is imply and easily the best thing I have read all year. not even close. I read it in high school and clearly did not read it well. I did not remember any of it and it was all awesome, all the time. Simply told, beautifully written and almost a "Sermon On The Mount" tour de force regarding how you are suppose to live your life. Read this book again or read it for the first time but read it. America needs this book now when we are talking about ground zero mosques and anchor babies we need another refresher on how we are supposed to act as Americans...as people.

13. Kurt Vonnegutt: Slaughterhouse 5. This was part of my new plan to re-read a lot of the books I have read and loved and somehow not internalized. I really miss Kurt Vonnegutt. I miss reading him as a teen ager and I miss my mom worrying about what i was reading and what is was doing to me. Of course she was right. So it goes.

14. Anthony Bourdain: Kitchen Confidential: This would now be the best book I have read this year. I had never read Bourdane before and this was a brilliant, funny, real book. I am looking forward to getting all of his stuff now. I feel like I was given a gift. Go read him now.

15. Frank Herbert: "Dune" I forgot what a great book this one was too. Each chapter starts with something of the false history or the deep sayings from Muad Dib, or the Orange Catholic Bible or other recollections of "The Princess Irulian". It is well written and I have to love the universe that Herbert constructed. He makes good so good and evil so evil through almost all of the book and you sense a satisfying morality play... and then then you realize that it is all more complicated... it is always more complicated. i did not appreciate nearly enough the first time I read it 30 or so years ago.

16. Jonathan Franzen: "Freedom". This book was over hyped from the start but his last book "The Corrections" was so awesome I had to go again. This one was just as well written, just as funny. In the end it was more preachy then I remember "The Corrections". Franzen though never married is a biting commentator on the institution and on families and ultimately on people. Do not have babies. Over population is evil. Money is evil, government is evil. Liberals are misguided and evil.

17. Gary Shtengart: "Super Sad True Love Story". This book beat me. it was supposed to be clever and funny and deep and well written. I could not get 100 pages into it. Perhaps I start again next year.

18. James Hannaham: "God Says No". OK, I got this book from Mc Sweeneys and I thought it would be interesting. A black guy at a small Christian Seminary in the south realizes he is gay and..wrestles with it. It just exhausted me. Perhaps it is well written but...

19. Thomas Pynchon: "Inherent Vice". I have never been able to get through a Pynchon book. This book was recommended to me as a detective story and was his effort at Bukowski. I was able to get through it. I wish that I would not have.

20. Keith Richards: "Life". Not a bad way to end the year. I hated the first hundred pages and could not care less about how he grew up. I mean it is kind of cool that he was friends with Mick from the time they were kids. The book starts to get awesome when he talks about music, songs, how they were made, how they worked, when they were written and who they were written with and how they were played. So many awesome songs form two guys. Unbelievable really. It was really an awesome read.

We will see what 2011 Brings

A New Year!

2011-01-02T17:52:00.000-08:00

Sooooo, it is a New Year and for a variety of reasons 2011 seems already like so much better and brighter a year. It seems like a long time that I have entered a new year with so much optimism. The economy seems to be getting slightly better even though we appear to have not really dealt with all of the problems that brought us here. I am frightened about what the government will or will not do this year but am choosing to believe that they will find a way to be brave, make hard decisions and request and lead the American people in a new direction. Perhaps that is silly.

We just finished what we think is our last New Years Eve party with Camp Arcadia staff. We had a nice run. I think 5 out of the last 6 years we have had Arcadia staff or campers spending New Years at our house and perhaps a few days before or after. We are tired but it was once again a good but exhausting time. The good news is, no one died. The bad news is that our house was somewhat trashed, we shepherded over some 20 year olds drinking, some people were smoking cigarettes on our back porch and smokers always make me sad. But once again, even not knowing all the people in our house I was heartened by what a nice group of people we know and what nice families they must come from. Once again, hope for the future.

My TCU Horned Frogs (my alma mater) went undefeated and untied and will have to settle for 2nd or 3rd in the final standings. It was really fun seeing them hold up so well against a really good Wisconsin team. I was worried they would be proven to be pretenders but they are so well coached and recruit so well that they appear to be building a nice program that so far has avoided even a hint of scandal. Their dominance of everyone who they played and their relative class in winning was heartening. Taking so much pleasure in the play of a team I last saw play 28 years ago seems a little pathetic but I take my victories where I find them. I do not think that is unusual. I wore my TCU hat all day yesterday and cheered loudly for them. I had friends out at the came and I think it was a huge victory for a school with 8000 undergrads. We will see how they do in two years in their new contrived conference of the Big East. I do not know whether their quarterback Andy Dalton is a pro but he seemed like a very nice young man. I do not remember another red headed pro quarterback. Perhaps too nice. I am predicting that their receiver Jeremy Kerley will have a nice pro career.

I am currently watching my Rams trying to play their way into the playoffs and right now, at the end of the first quarter it looks grim and we look a little out classed but what a season they have had with their rookie quarterback. It once again gives hope for 2011.

The practice of law looks a lot more interesting this year then it has for a long time. We will see if that lasts.

More then anything else I have the support of wonderful friends and family and no matter how 2011 works out I know that I am blessed. That is a little sappy for me, but what the hell. It is a new year. God's Blessings on all of you, let's make this an awesome year. Tomorrow, the Christmas letter (or more properly Epiphany Letter gets republished. It will give you something to look forward to.

St. Louis Tacos: The Real Deal

2010-12-16T18:50:00.001-08:00

Sooooo....tacos. I have an odd, inexplicable penchant for tacos. Tacos of many different types and styles. I tire of anyone calling such a bastardized item “authentic”. There are Mexican, New Mexican, Texas, Thai, Korean.... the road goes on forever and the party never ends. I have developed a preference generally for simple soft corn tortillas with some type of meat and a little lime and cilantro. They seem pure to me and when I discovered i could get them down on Cherokee Street it was yet another thing that made me smile about St. Louis. Sure, we have lost our brewery to Brazilians, the cardinals are owned by some rich boys from Country Day and every large company worth it’s salt has run (not walked) out of our little town. But we have some damn fine tacos.

La Vallesina with it’s outdoor dining is my favorite but on some days my inadequacies at Spanish can limit my meal. So this week I went on a small but interesting taco binge trying two new places. The first is The Farmhaus. I had tried to dine there last Friday fro fried fish but they were “sold out” when I went. The Farmhaus is open for dinner but has reved up a small, ravenous fan club for it’s daily Blue Plate specials. They tend to be comfort food and started being whatever they wanted to cook. There are no choices. you pay 10 or 11 bucks and you eat whatever they serve you with a side, salad and a drink. If nothing else it is a cute idea. So I went with my niece and nephew this Tuesday because the Farmhaus has announced taco Tuesday. I was unnaturally excited. the place is sparse in decoration but was already filling up at 11:30. The salad was suspicious to me with the dreaded “field greens” which I view to be weeds but they had an excellent dressing and in an effort to continue to broaden my tastes I ate it. They have flavored iced tea which is a strike against them but the water was cold. they then served each of us three tacos, chorizo, carnitas and veggie. They were all good but surprisingly the chorizo was the best. they were served plain with a lime along with Spanish rice and big meaty beans (which i hate but understand that I am in a sad, unschooled minority. It was all good. My complaint is that they were not great. Tacos should be great. i will not need to go back for Taco Tuesday but I look forward to experiencing other Blue Plates. it is a great kitschy idea. All you need to know:

http://www.farmhausrestaurant.com/farmhausabout.asp

Which brings me to my favorite, great kitschy idea....the taco truck! They have had these out in L.A. for years. Large wagon like trucks with a ull kitchen jammed inside. In L.A. it was the Korean taco truck that really got peoples attention. They were hard to find but a treat and developed quite a following. The thought of getting food from a truck is VERY appealing to me. I fondly remember the ice cream stock and the hot dog stand and the taco truck seemed a natural. For the last year I had been blathering in my tiresome way to friends that I was going to revolutionize St. Louis cuisine with a taco truck and that my son could run on it on his graduation. Alas he graduated and got a job and I got distracted...probably by a shiny object or perhaps a gum wrapper, and it never happened. And them the bastards stole my idea.

This is what a taco looks like on a car seat...as you drive.

So after taco Tuesday at Farmhaus I was leaving court on a Wednesday and got the tweet from Cha Cha Chow that the taco truck was outside Barnes Hospital on Euclid and Forest Park. Yes, I follow both Farmhaus and Cha Cha Chow on Twitter. Yes, i am not cool or young enough to be on Twitter. Get over it. I was done with court at 11 when I got the Tweet heading back to Clayton. Why not? I want to say for the record that it was an excellent decision. I pulled up behind the truck illegally parked on Euclid (and i illegally parked behind it). there is something illicit abd buying your food from a truck, especially when you are driving up behind it. it is kind of like a drive by shooting... with food. I hopped out and jogged to the sidewalk side of the truck and asked after the tacos. They assured me that they were life changing and I ordered the chicken, the carnitas and the fish. 9 bucks. I think that breaks down to 3 bucks each. The pork was mouth watering and flavorful with a verde that was not hot but very bright with great tomatillo bursting out and served as god intended on corn. The chicken was similarly flavorful with cheese and onion. the fish was a little disappointed because it was covered in their mayo, cha cha sauce.

I ate them all in the car as I drove. Even the fish. they did not change my life but it was oh so good and I know i will be hitting the taco truck at least a few times a month. If you do not tweet I think you can find it through their website of Facebook page but go hear to get the delicious menu.

http://chachachow.com/menu.html

Cha Cha’s Taco Truck, if they play it right will become a cherished St. Louis tradition. Even for the sober. Go there. Now.

Keep Your Head Down? Really?

2010-12-13T19:10:00.000-08:00

For whatever reason I have started to end phone conferences and emails to some people with the phrase “Keep Your Head Down”. I have no idea when I started to do this or why. I keep trying to stop but it just keeps fitting the situation no matter what I am writing or saying. It is, a little odd, even for me. For years I have been making fun of a classic local lawyer I have the pleasure of dealing with all the time named Vince Vogler.

For years Vince has been ending conversations with “Get To Work” or “Get back To Work” which tended to be great ways to end conversations. Vince is always good for a long and sometimes funny story normally relating back to the time when people used the word “mimeograph”. Anyway, you always know when your done with Vince because suddenly you hear “get back to work” and you know the call is over. This is handy.

I believe I started saying “keep your head down” meaning “stay out of trouble” or “don’t be noticed” or “stay off the radar screen”. All of this is pretty good advice. In fact it is REALLY good advice. All the time. People can never successfully play “whack a mole” with you if you keep your head down. If you do not stand out or say obnoxious things to people, they often will not have the need to take a shot at you. Obviously when people are shooting at you, “keep your head down” makes even more sense.

I came to realize though that if i was telling someone I needed some work out of them that “keep your head down” was an admonishment like “keep your nose to the grindstone”. Think about that one a little bit. But of course if you are working, your head is down. You are watching. You are also paying attention. Arguably, paying attention is a good thing.

It has also been advice I have heard myself... as a younger man, when i thought I was going to be an average golfer (I never quite made it there) but often when my slice would be the most pronounced or when I was busy watching my ball go into the lake my father in law or a similar figure of importance and sage would say, “keep your head down”. That is good advice. All the time when your swinging.

Like I said, I do not know how I started saying and typing this. It is trite, presumptuous and perhaps even a little...shallow. But until I can break myself of it. Keep you head down. And if you cannot keep your head down.... then get to work.

Best of 2010 Music

2010-12-12T20:01:00.001-08:00

Best Music of 2010

Sure it sounds easy to crank out a list of music no one else has heard, that no one else cares about and of course that...twangs. BUT IT IS NOT! It is hard... it is DAMN HARD to quote Wesley Snipes in “White Men Can’t Jump” but yet hear I am again. Another year... another failure to review a diner. But I want to tell you, I think there was a lot of great music this year. While listening to all this music I read the blog of Bob Lefsetz and internalized his rants about how cashing in does not matter, only loving music, being talented and working hard. How there has never been so much good music out there but there is so much that counter intuitively... it is hard to find. That now what matters is the filters, the trusted sources for recommendations. I am NOT one of those.

Hollerado: “Record In A Bag”. Damn this was fun. It is an unlikely choice for me. Straight ahead rock n roll with a driving guitar and drums. This band is Canadian (Manitck Ontario) and decided that they were going to make it on their own. They hopped in a car from somewhere up there and went as far as their gas money would take them. They then went to bars and offered to open, or to play before the opener... for nothing. Each morning they went to Best Buy and bought a CD burner and burned a bunch of CD’s and then returned it that afternoon. That evening at whatever show they played they sold the discs in ziplog bags. And they survived. It is more then a story. This is good music. Download the song Juliette. Do it now. You will smile. http://www.hollerado.com/

***

Frightened Rabbit: “Living In Color”. WHo would of thought a Scottish band? I would have thought that little block of land was played out. But this band grabbed me with this CD. Lots of good songs and it rocks. The title track, the uplifting suicide song “Swim Until You Can’t See Land”, “Nothing Like You” and “Not Miserable”. Dense arrangement and the pained, pained Scottish lilt. For me this CD was a departure from my normal tastes but it was just so well done and it grew and grew on me... like a fungus.

***

Elizabeth Cook: “Welder”. Best CD of the year and right in my wheel house. It grabbed me at first with an obvious painful song, “My Heroin Addict Sister” and then made me smile with “El Camino” but pretty soon I found myself listening to the whole CD over and over in my car when traveling. “Follow You Like Smoke”, “Its Not California”, “Girlfriend Tonight” and the painful hilarious (for me) “When you say yes to beer you say, no to booty”. I heard that. her voice is just awesome. She looks like a little girl but i would place her at 40 and her guitarist husband Tim Carroll is an old alt country favorite. If you like shit like Lucinda WIlliams... and I do, you will love her. This is my gift to you. And you owe me.

***

Joe Pug: “Messenger”: I got hooked on him last year. This CD is better. His song writing is poignant and probing and often painful. Of the group this year I think he is the best song writer. far and away. The CD is good, song after song but the high spots for me are and were “Messenger”, “The Door Was Always Open” and “Speak Plainly Diana”. This good good stuff. This guy will be one of the greats over time and the questioning religiousity of many of his songs speaks to me like almost no one else.

***

There was other interesting stuff:

Ben Wilkins does Ben Folds" Whatever and Ever Amen" sound as well as Ben ever did. This is really a nice EP and you should listen to it.

Costello's new CD "National Ransom" is another winner and essential for someone who loves his body of work (like me).

Arcade Fires new CD is on everyone's best of list. I know it is good but I just cannot like it that much. Still I keep listening.

Avett Brothers: They continue to develop their sound and their following. "And I love You" is really solid and for an alt-country fan like me is essential but....

Elizabeth Cook...Welder. Buy it. Thank me later.

THE Cruise Day 3 and 4: We Go Somewhere

2010-12-12T14:16:00.000-08:00

The Cruise Day 3 No Stops

You wake up on the boat. You eat. You float. Not a lot more then that happens. You notice a couple of things, or at least a copuple of things get confirmed.
1. The food is not that good
2. The food is plentiful
3. There are a shitload of people on this boat
4. Since we are not going into port anywhere they all think that they will swim and sun today.
5. Drinks are expensive
6. It kicks ass to have a room with a balcony to hide/drink on.
7. There are several pools. None of them really for swimming.
8. There are several hot tubs but none of them are that hot.

The people who are on the cruise tend to be from all over. I know it costs a lot of money to cruise but you would never know it from the people. They tend as a group to be unattractive, appear unhappy and appear pushy. They are in a word...me. I sleep a lot. I have a few Red Stripes. We go to dinner in the upscale (upcharge-CHA CHING) restaurant called Chops. The food is pretty good there. Better then the wedding fair in the main dining room. Not Smith & Wollensky's but not too far off. We go sit in the hot tub at night. Tomorrow Mayan Ruins. We go to bed.

***

Day 4: Costa Maya

Costa Maya is a made up town. Evidently the cruise lines all conspired to have a deep water port and town here because they needed one. It fir. Hurricane Dean blew through here in 2007 and leveled everything so they built a new little Branson outlet Mall complete with Senor Frogs and a Hard Rock Cafe and two other chain places and a load of jewelry stores, souvenir stands and t-shirts. Awesome. They also allow you to take a 2 dollar cab ride to town Muhahual or something. The town is like every port town we later find out with crappy shops and with people hustling you for your attentions and your dollars every step (literally every step) of the way.

We split up and Pat and I go and wait for a charter we have scheduled to go see Mayan ruins. While waiting, Pat pukes. We never determine why. We get on a bus and ride to town and hook up with a nuclear family of three from somewhere in Georgia. We all get in a mini van. The Georgia people are fat and appear (sound) stupid. The man forgot his "click camers" (I do not know what that is) on the bus so we drive back to the port.. We get the camera. The mini van we are in breaks down (equipment breakdowns seem to be THE common thread in the Caribbean). We drive 45 miles north through mango swamps and through a military check point complete with small child in fatigues carrying a machine gun. On the way our guide suggests we buy soem fresh pinapple from aroadside stand and put come chile peper on it. The fat family declines as does Pat but I do. It is VERY good.We go to ruins. The fat family keeps asking questions and "the Mayan calendar and things they heard on the discovery channel about the world ending in 2012. Based on their questions (including the fat kids questions about human sacrifice) I find myself praying it would end sooner. He shows us a town where the Mayans lived 1200 years ago and points out a face carved in the rock. The fat kid insistes that he see an entire tableaux that evidently has been missed by the thousands of people and archeoligists who have viewed it before. We go to climb one of the two large pyramids. The fat kid comes along with us while his parents sit and sweat. It is muddy. The Mayans disappeared about 1200 years ago. The fat man thinks it was aliens. I think that I would like for aliens to make me disappear. All during this time pat takes about 200 pictures of nothing. We drive back to port.

Where we find our four compatriots drinking fruity drinks out of long, plastic tuble like cups with name tags on from Senor Frogs which say things like "easy "and "Horny". I asses the situation and take a cab inbto town. Manalana is a fishing village and I saw several huge tubs on wheels filled with fresh snapper. I have cab driver take me to a bar with a dirt floor and I go in saying "cook me very fresh snapper". They nod. I insist on seeing it. They bring me out a fish that is perfect, [ink, a little sea weed in the gills and stillfresh with rigor mortis from being caught. They gut it on the bar. I am the only person in the bar. I say how much and they say 19 dollars. I have 26 dollars and it is a 3 dollar cab ride back to the boat. i ask them to throw in a beer. They agree. I sit there and watch this extended family go out to the beach and hustle people on the street but I sit in the shade sipping my Dos Equis. I explained that I just wanted the fish cooked who and as they kept offering me options and I kept declining they got happier and happier with me. They brought me another beer "no harga". Eventua;ly they brought me a beautiful (seriously beautiful fish with skin head and tail all in tact, staring up at me and screaming "EAT ME!" I did. It was awesome. I asked for a little chile and they brought me a green sauce I watched them mix up and I wanted it for side two of the fish. being smarter then I used to be I dabbed a little on a small piece of the fish and ate it... and almost passed out. Way too hot. Still...i used just a litte, folded it up in some soft corn tortillas with rice and it was awesome. It made my day. Fresh fish in a fishing village cooked on a very hot fire...to die for. I will never go to a fishing village again and not try to replicate this experience.

I went back to the boat, ate, had shots, fell asleep.

The Cruise Day 2: Bon Voyage

2010-12-05T16:05:00.001-08:00

Royal Caribbean is a fine cruise line, not that I have any idea what I am talking about. I have never sailed on another line and the last time I was on this one was 17 years ago. They tell you not to arrive before 1:30 but we woke up bored and tired and after running to Marshalls to get some golf shirts for Pat (who seemed to pack not realizing he might need shirts...WITH COLLARS!)we left the downtown Courtyard Marriott and headed over. The cruise lines all leave from one big terminal in Miami and it is something to see several boats all tied up there in the water. i was relieved in my way of overcompensating that our boat, "The Liberty of The Seas" was the biggest. my children informed me that it currently is the 3rd largest cdruise ship around. My children are of course my children which makes them hopeless liars and over dramatizers of the "facts" in our life. I could get on Wikipedia and check their facts but lets say it was a big ass boat and leave it at that.

Arriving at the terminal we got to wait in our first line for security and then to get the passes which would allow us to charge things while on the boat. You might find it curious to charge things on the boat. Isn't everything paid for? Well, that is how they get you. Your food and lodging is all paid for but... you want a soda, you pay for it. Any kind of alcohol...pay for it. A can of Pringles..."cha ching!". Merchandise of all kinds, extra amenities and shore excursions, a massage, a shave with a straight razor, a picture of the family, an upgrade on your wine, a lost towel, pictures which are constantly being snapped by their on board phtogs... it goes on and on and you get the picture. So you wait in line and you get your card. For four of us our card was pristine. Pat's card had one punch because he was only 20 and poor Laura at 17 had the dreaded two hole punched card. Pat could gamble, but not drink. laura could do neither. Oh the humanity.

We finally got through the check in and got to our rooms. The kids were on the interior but Sandy had bucked up for a room with balcony on it for us and it was delightful. Other then the bathroom it was as large a room as a typical Holiday Inn. Very comfortable with all the amenities including mini-bar (Cha CHING again). We set off to explore the boat walking around the upper decks and seeing the pools, hot tubs, running track, health center and "Flow Rider". The Flow Rider was a 20 foot padded slope with water shooting up it allowing you to boogy board or surf if you could get the hang of it. My wife quickly discerned that we could rent exclusive use of it some time for an hour (CHA CHING and a half) and so we reserved some time for later in the week. Wednesday.

We got some lunch at the Windjammer Buffet and I found it very...food like. My kids all got hot dogs and pronounced them great and the fries...greater. I thought the food was exactly as expected, a high quantity of average food with a reasonable amount of diversity. The iced tea was instant. The pizza had that troubling too much humidity texture. Everything was buffet and at the entrance their were 4 hand santizers and everyone was admonished to use them. I am NOT a germaphobe and think this a creepy habit we have gotten our civilization into but my wife explained how paranoid ships had become about germs AND that in a buffet we all used the same serving utensils. This provided some amusement as you watch the people get the alcoholic stuff on their hands and then rub them and wave them (waving is the key) to make the stuff go away. It was a weird little dance.

I then sat in the room on my balcony and waited for us to pull out. I love the ocean and being on the 10th floor of a floating sky scraper is very, VERY cool for me. As you pull out of the Port of Miami you pass their container storage and it is kind of...wow. A lot of stuff comes in here... and goes out. You also cruise by Key Biscayne and a few other private islands. I do not live on a private island...yet. Unfortunatley next to us, divided only by a plastic divider was a crew cutted, big gunned, heavy tatted 30 something and his two kids. I am sure there was a wife in there somewhere but I never heard from her. Men who look like this... for some reason...bother me. They look like they have so much to prove. This guy looked like the asshole older brother Chet in "Weird Science" and he had a camera with one of those 10k bazooka lenses and was taking pictures and ignoring his children who were screaming constantly...DADDY...DADDY...look at this!...or THAT!...in loud..surprisingly childlike voices. If that was not annoying enough for this old man he also had an iPod player and rather then burden himself with head phones he blared bad music from the 80's and 90's. Lots of bad metal but then even more annoyingly he had the complete Sheryll Crow collection on the mix. I had to go in and close the door... sobbing quietly to myself.

We hit dinner in the main dining room. Oddly enough the captain had not seen fit to invite us to his table (an oversight I am certain). We had two waiters, one from India and one from Turkey. It was here where I started to notice that none of the cruise employees are American. They were hard to understand foreigners of all stripes. Still they were nioce although the Turk had a VERY irregularly shaped head. The food is always good on cruises but never great. It is like going to pretty good wedding reception every night. We had ordered a "wine package" which meant I got to chose from a wine list of about 20 wines every night and that was a nice upgrade. At the end of dinner we were introduced to Dexter, the shot guy. They sell a specialty shot every evening (cha ching) in a special shot glass, you get to keep. A different color every night. BRILLIANT CHA CHING!

We sent the kids on their way and Sandy and I had a night cap at "Olive Or Twists". They had a nice little combo and lounge singer. We went to bed. The ship had pulled out and the Florida Keys had trailed into the sunset before darkness gobbled the sky on our first day at sea.

The Cruise Day 1: Getting There IS Half The Fun

2010-12-01T19:18:00.000-08:00

Soooo...It was my wifes 50th birthday coming up. She told me that she had originally scheduled the cruise before her 49th. She is a very thoughtful woman and thought a family cruise or some family vacation would be a good idea. Jon is 23, Pat 20 and Laura 17 and sooner or later they would all be going their separate ways and even if not leaving us and St. Louis would have other obligations with jobs, spouses families. Not only celebrating her birthday but the idea in my mind was a last hurrah for Beckerdom.... this little thing of ours. Perhaps as the late Hunter Thompson said, go out with a bang instead of a whimper. We had last cruised on our ten year anniversary over 17 years ago and my memory of the cruise were hazy and not altogether pleasant as it was not a particularly good time in my life for reasons which I cannot even name. Neither of us had been in a hurry to go back but where were you going to go with your family? An all inclusive really offered little other then togetherness, swimming and drinking and with two arguably under age children seemed like a poor call so, a cruise it was.

We left on a Saturday evening out of the Lou and flew into Miami bringing back some conflicted memories of a few jobs ago when I was a frequent visitor to the town. We got in around 9 and took a cab to the downtown Courtyard Mariott. It was very downtown and although not "sketchy" it did very little to encourage walking around. We took Jon's girlfriend, the lovely Lydia along with us and we decided it was not too late and we took a cab over to Southbeach. South Beach on a Saturday night around midnight is a crowded carnival of humanity and vice. Immediately a good parent wonders "what the hell am I doing here with my children?" Left without a good answer you hop out of the cab and see what is what. We walked to the ocean and Pat ad I walked in. I love the ocean. I love the smell of it and the taste of the salt but other then Pat the rest of the group was not similarly afflicted.

So we headed back to the strip and it is a STRIP. Ocean Blvd. runs along the ocean surprisingly enough and is literally lined with restaurants and clubs and all manner of humanity. Everyone is dressed to party and gays, straights, transgender, anglo, black, latino and everyone within 50 miles who can get there is wandering this strip, eating, drinking and debauching. It is loud and hosts and hostesses at each place are hawking to get you to look at their menu and have a seat. So we waked from the south end to the point where the action petered out and then walked back and found a large booth on the street at the Clevelander. There, we took it all in and there was much to take in. there was a suped up old Impala with a car alarm randomly blaring, there was a parade of people tricked out for the night, classy, slutty, sketchy, beautiful and horrid. Oh the humanity. The food at the Cleavelander was surprisingly good and we had a few beers as we watched a young man on the front porch of the hotel and his...girlfriend?...make out (and I mean make out in the most graphic, private dance, inappropriate way possible) but mainly we just watched people... and marveled at our sheltered (for me blessedly sheltered at this point) little lives.

We were also approached by a nice young African-American gentlemen who complimented on me on my family and struck up the patter of a true hustler. he was a rapper pushing his product with poorly wrapped CD's and although a little intrusive, he explained that he was doing "inspirational rap" and that he was different. I smiled as he told me his girlfriend was writing songs for Taylor Swift and he smiled when I told him that being from St. Louis we were Nelly Loyalists (and obvious lie and overplaying of my hand). I ended the standoff with him by paying him 10 bucks for his CD and he asked me to email him my comments. His name was heat Rock. I would like to say I could recommend him. They also had a cigar roller on the street and I went back and bought some cigars for the trip. They were average with a sweet wrapper but... they gave me something to smoke while on the boat and waiting to get somewhere that I could buy a Cuban (cigar, not an actual person).

I was wrong by the way about this being "how the other half lives". , this is not the other half but the other .0001 percent but God bless them all, they make out world a richer place and while exposing your children to it might not seem smart... it did seem very Becker. We were out till about 2:30 A.M. Too late for a Becker.

Book Review: Anthony Bourdain/Kitchen Confidential

2010-11-30T17:53:00.000-08:00

Soooo... I am going on a vacation. A cruise. With my family. I will be out of touch with work and with email for a week. Not "Michigan" out of touch where I actually have internet access but Cruise Ship out of touch where I can buy expensive internet access by the hour and it is unreliable at best. I made the decision to be totally out of touch and as such knew i would need something to read. I was finishing a re-reading "Slaughterhouse Five"... so it goes... and had a plane to re-read Frank Herbert's Dune next. I think I was reliving my high school reading but lately it has occurred to me that I have read a lot of great books and retained very little from them so perhaps a time of re-reading was in order. Perhaps it would take the rest of my left.

As is so often the problem, Kowert screwed everything up. I caught up with he and Johnny Chico at the "The Sports Zone" in Shrewsbury and we eventually got down to my upcoming vacation and reading plans and he said "Anothony Bourdain". I had never heard of the guy and so I kept rolling the rrrrrr and saying to Johnny Chico...Anthuuuuuuuny Bourrrrrrrrrrrdain... as obnoxiously as possible. I rarely take anyone's advice "other then NPR and the New York Times Book Review". It is, after all, part of being a book snob. But Kowert went on and on abou the guy and about how he wrote like I wish I could I could write and Kowert... damn him... is very smart and sometimes.... insightful. It is important to have friends who care enough to tell you things they think you will like even when they know they will be met with sarcasm and contempt. I am, after all, an asshole.

So I hit the book store (always Borders, never Barnes and Noble) and after looking around a little found "Kitchen Confidential". I finished Vonnegutt on the plane and then started this book and started to laugh, smile, think about food, people, relationships and personal shortcomings... and was totally hooked. Now I owe Kowert. Now I know I will be returning to the states and buying all of his books, fiction and non fiction. It will be interesting to spend the next 6 weeks or so reading all of his stuff but I am hoping that it will feel like being 49 and discovering Hunter Thompson for the first time. This Bourdain guy seems like the real thing to me. I have been on the cruise ship and am still so I have not yet had time to go to the only trusted source for information...wikipdia, but he makes himself out to be a rich boy, prep school, Vassar drop out, asshole who got into cooking because his room mates insisted that he stop stealing from them and start paying rent when summering in Providence so he went to work as a dishwasher and fell in love with... the life.

And that is what the book is really all about. His love of the "the life". His successes, more about his failures, a little (very little ) regarding his heroin addiction (which he beats) and more about his addiction to...everything. The book is a study on how life throws so many things at you, and most of us (including him) mis-handle most of them. Bourdain does the fucking up in spades and seemingly without remorse. He moves from dishwasher, to the line, to culinary school (before it was cool) and then on to his misadventures in NYC restaurantdom. The copy I had was even better because it had an appendix and and afterword with Bourdain commenting on the book from his present pedestal (evidently he is the star of a very popular international travel show called "No Reservations". I have never seen it but trust me, I will be TiVo'ing upon my return to the states.

This was, without a doubt the most enjoyable read of the year. Entertaining and insightful and sometimes just brilliant, and that is NOT a term I throw around. Even as he is daily dealing with Ecuadorian fry cooks, drug addict bakers and backstabbing sous chefs he is smart and resilient and the life lessons he doles out are common sense even though he is constantly giving examples of his ownignoring of them. Show up on time, do not steal, do what you say you are going to do, when you make a mistake own up to it. There is no rocket science here but as the author gets his shit together as his career advances it reinforces the truth of all those maxims. It made me long for my time in high school and college working in a restaurant and when he talked about the allure of being on a pirate crew I knew exactly what he was talking about and the idea of being a chef, or captain of the pirates...is compelling. But not for me. He points out that it is a very hard life, requiring dedication and attention to details and foregoing any kind of "normal" life or relationships outside the kitchen.

My favorite part of the book was when he described his relationship with his "Sous Chef" at Les Halles which became his permanent career gig, It is touching because it is kind of a pirate love letter to his first mate and it is written with such love, such compassion and caring that even when he describes Stephen as someone "who could not look at a desk without rifling it's contents" he means it as a salute rather than as a criticism. It made me think of my best friends and wondering whether anyone outside of my wife (and perhaps not even her) could speak with such love of me. It was touching... at least for me. I normally do not go for non fiction and though he admits in the new afterword that his recitation of the books events has not always been remembered with such clarity by the other participants... it rings true, all the way through.

Buy this book if you like to eat out, if you like food but most of all buy it if you like to read really, really, funny, well written, insightful stuff. I know I am embarrassingly late on the bandwagon but Anthony Bourdain is the real thing. Go buy his books. DO IT NOW! Go on Amazon and order them, or at least this one. I am totally confident of my recommendation.

Diner Review: Mama Josephines, The Best Comfort Food In The City!

2010-11-13T18:24:00.000-08:00

Sooooo it has come to my attention...again...pointed out by no less eminent a critic then Johnny Chico that I have been filing to Diner or even dining reviews which is of course my purpose for blogging. Instead I have been "bloviating" about politics, the budget, Lutherans, The Giving tree and CD Reviews. Wasting your time... and mine. All we really give a shit about is food. Am I right? Of course I am right.

Recently on of the Diner reviews friends, the inimitable Kevin Donaldson read a review of a place called Mama Josephines in the RFT. http://www.riverfronttimes.com/slideshow/mama-josephines-southern-home-cookin-at-its-best-30411679/. I do not spend enough time pursing the RFT reviews on line but Donaldson has an empty and vacuous life and as such he is a veritable fount of useless information. I cultivate people like this and it holds me in good stead.

So he told me about Mama Josephines, and I read the review and wow... it seemed like a perfect place. It is located on Shaw several blocks east of the Botanical Gardens. it is not a perfect neighborhood and it is very close to the highway. Still it is a neighborhood that is struggling to make a come back. It was a little bit of a chilly day and Donaldson brought his partner who will remain nameless (primarily due to the fact that he arrived in a KIA). I was late and called in my apologies and asked what was on the menu and Donaldson hooked me up directly with the proprietor. Mary spoke with a nice Louisiana drawl and was charming and when she told me that they had home made chicken fried steak. I arrived as the food arrived and it was succulent. When you get chicken fried steak in the Lou we often end up with frozen patties and even more obscenely they are often dropped in a deep frier. This was perfectly hand breaded around a perfect piece of meat. The white cream gravy was also home made and perfect with some fries. It was awesome. They also brew their own iced tea.

Mary served the three of us as we sat outside (which will probably be out of the question now that it is November. My compatriots had the fried chicken which was awesome and they came with sides like green beans and mashed potatoes and corn bread. I also had the corn bread and it was the only minor disappointment being a little dry. It was the only thing I had or sampled that did not make me think that it was made especially for me while I waited. They also had the chicken and dumplings which had a nice broth and huge soft dumplings that made a perfect paste of chicken, pasta and broth. It really was perfect. The whole meal was almost unstoppably perfect so. They offered a great deal of home made deserts as well. I felt like I had to come back and so I did and I had the fried chicken this time and my guest had the chicken fried steak. They were both perfect again.

When mary was waiting on us she told the charming story of being raised in the restaurant business and then her parents not allowing her to pursue "the life" but she got to an age and just wanted to do this, for herself, for her mother and, well, for all of us. Donaldson mentioned to me that the food is under priced and I agree with him. I am concerned the place is not going to be open long despite the fabulous food and the charming owner. I need to get back there to try their Philly Cheese Steak, their fish, their pulled pork, their angus burger and everything else on menu. I would STRONGLY suggest you join me. Remember, eating at chain restaurants is a crime against St. Louis. The next thing you know you will confusing Mc Rib for food.

http://www.mamajosephines.com/Menu.html