bad guitar

Heavy Duti

2011-06-17T15:18:00.001-07:00

About 90% finished, for the time being anyhow, this is my 1967 Schwinn Heavy Duti cruiser bike. I bought the frame (and some tires,) at a garage sale and have restored it to what is called "Period Appropriate" for the genre. Besides an extensive clean up, lube, and tune-up, there are new pedals, a new Schwinn seat and seat post, sparkle grips, "dice" tire valve covers, a mini-license plate, and a rear hub-shiner with red reflector.

It rides incredible smoothly. But it weighs a ton, and frankly with those fat tires, it ought to be smooth

These Heavy Duti cruisers, built by Schwinn in the 60s and 70s (as near as I can tell,) were used mostly in factories and oil fields to haul parts around, say from one end of a factory to another. Some paperboys rode them, but there were so many other choices of fancier and lighter bikes at the time, that it was a rarer occurrence.

I've thought about fenders, but kind of like the stripped down, rat-rod look. Plus the fenders would only add weight. Looking for a Schwinn head-badge that is age appropriate, and I'm done. I think.

I like the cruiser mentality about bikes. I like old things and this fits in with my interests. There is a culture around these bikes that is based on the idea that we're saving elements of our history. I have a road bike, but i don't ride it very often. I don't particularly care for the road bike culture. It's based on athleticism and speed, which is more than kind of antithetical to the cruiser bike culture. Which is about going slow. And making use of the cup holder on your bike. Preferably for beer. Not that drinking and driving is encouraged.

In Colorado where I live, the cyclists, those road bicyclists in their logo-covered, lime green Spandex, with their $5000 carbon fiber whatevers, seem to feel a sense of entitlement about the right of way. I've had packs of them literally force my bike off the road without so much as a "How do you do?" They are in some part, large or small depending on your point of view and mine tends toward the large, douchebags. They swarm here. And are a growing lobbying force, recently having forced the passing of laws favorable to their cause, e.g., that cars must stay three-feet away from them, and that they can ride two abreast. They demand more and more space on the roads, yet pay no share of the taxes. Sadly, they won't be going away any time soon. The fact that their heroes, the pro riders, are being proven to be craven, doped up cheaters, doesn't surprise me in the least.

And so I ride my $700 road bike to post office. And ride my cruiser on the bike paths, happy to have pulled a piece of American history out of the dust bin. And to have gotten its shiny chrome rims spinning again.

Here's an earlier pic, just when i got it running.

Style Icon

2011-02-18T15:37:00.000-08:00

My daughter and I started to blog, for one reason among many I'm sure, so that we could kind of track each other while she lived in Florida, while I was still here in Colorado, some years ago. She started writing about thrifting clothes (the apple not falling far from the tree there,) and taking pictures of the outfits she put together and wore everyday.

She's since been picked up by style aggregators like Chictopia.com and Weardrobe.com and her photo has been even lifted by The Gap.com. She gets god-knows-how-many hits everyday. I'm not surprised. Her style is completely her own and her writing is top-notch.

And now (or last month anyway,) she was voted Style of the Year by 303 Magazine, Denver's style, fashion and clothing magazine for the modern hipster.

Yeah, you could say I'm pretty proud. Mostly because she just did something she wanted to do, something that came from her heart and was about who she is as a person. She wasn't trying to monetize it or count the hits or link here and there, though that came later. She just wanted to show the world what she did and let it hear what she had to say. So I'm proud that she's Style of the Year. But mostly I'm proud that she's smart, and beautiful, and witty, and thoughtful, and that she's my kid.

Till There Was You

2011-01-19T19:19:00.000-08:00

I played at the Beatles Tribute Night tonight at Oskar Blues in Lyons. My partner Nancy who is in my uke band Gadzukes!, and I performed "Till There Was You" from the first Beatles album, "with the beatles" on ukes. That album came out in late 1962, and of course everything in the world changed. But what really changed the most for me was I learned, from that album, what a good song was.

My parents and sisters loved musicals and played them endlessly around the house. I hated them, mostly because I loved rock and roll and they were not rock and roll. But mostly, I hated the sound track from "The Music Man," a huge Broadway hit that was currently a hit movie. I liked the Kingston Trio. The Beach Boys. Wilson Pickett. The local Minneapolis cover bands that specialized in rhythm and blues. Bob Dylan was a year away.

Then the Beatles (insert cliche here) exploded into the world. The singles started coming. "I Want to Hold Your Hand." "I Saw Her Standing There." "Please Please Me." I waited impatiently for the album. And when "meet the beatles" came out with its now classic noir cover, the half-shadowed pictures of the haircuts I studied for every detail, there was the ecstatic moment, the pleasure of ripping the plastic covering off and laying the needle down on the first groove. And what a record it was. But to my amazement, there on side two, cut nine, was "Till There Was You." From the dreaded musical, "The Music Man." What the fuck?

So what I learned from that track, with it's gorgeous classic guitar solo, claves and cha-cha beat was that it isn't about the haircut. Or the electricity. Or the beat. Or the culture. Or me versus my parents. It's about good songs. "Till There Was You" is a good song. A great song, maybe. And John, Paul, George and Ringo knew it. And once I listened to it, without the wall of the times and the culture, and my teenage anger, I guess I knew it too. And I'm proud that I recorded it on my CD. And that I copied George's guitar solo, note-for-note. And that i play it at every Gadzukes! gig. And that I played it tonight. Because it's a good song. And that's what counts.

I'll Tell You What's Stupid

2011-01-19T15:54:00.000-08:00

What's stupid is to have a recipe that works, that you've done a bunch of times, but reading a different recipe for the same thing and saying, "Hey, I think I'll try that," and then failing miserably. Waste of time, waste of food, waste of money. Jeez.

Yakety-axe

2010-10-31T11:45:00.000-07:00

Jeez, I've wanted one of these for a long time. Maybe since I saw James Burton backing up Ricky Nelson on the Ozzie and Harriet Show. The show ran every week on television from 1952 until 1966. And at the end of each episode, Ricky would come out with his band and do a song. And in the band behind him, on the Fender Telecaster, was James Burton.

There were great guitar players back then like Chet Atkins, and Les Paul, but they were for the older folks. There was Scotty Moore, Elvis Presley's guitar player and a giant, but he played more Merle Travis-style swing-style guitar. And Chuck Berry, who wrote so much of the elementary guitar book, but he played a horn-based kind of rhythm and blues. James Burton, on the other hand, rocked. And he introduced me, and the rest of the world, to the Telecaster. Over time, the Telecaster evolved to be the sound of country music, that high mid-range, snappy kind of sound that everyone calls "twang".

And now, some fifty years later, I got me one. A Fender American Special Telecaster. Made in the USA. Gloss sunburst finish with a maple neck and Texas-style pickups.

Do I need one? No. I guess I feel that if you've wanted something for 50 years, and you can give it to yourself, you might just as well go ahead.

Now I gotta get busy and start a country band.

Stranglehold of death

2010-10-27T15:20:00.000-07:00

Someone told me once that the word "mortgage" is from the French and means "stranglehold of death". Well, yesterday afternoon I went to my bank and withdrew money from my savings (that was paying me .5 percent) and drove over the local branch of US Bank and paid off my (5.5 percent) mortgage. In full.

So now, my little strangleholders...I own my house. Free and clear. There are now no bankers, stock brokers, debt traders, mortgage companies, real estate agents, lien holders or other low-life bloodsuckers involved in my personal business.

P.S.
I also own my car. I also have no credit card debt.

So, to you...you so-called financial wizards who brought this country to its bloody knees, you who heartlessly drove people from the homes you cheated them into buying and then put them and their children out on the street...you who traded and sold our hard-earned gains like baseball cards...you who created an unprecedented toxic environment of unemployment and deep, ink-black depression...to all of you pencil-dicks in your bad-fitting suits, tasseled cordovan loafers and stupid ties...to all of you I would like to just say, not in a nice way...

..."Go fuck yourselves."

A-1

2010-10-25T08:09:00.001-07:00

Yesterday was my birthday. Sixty-four years old. Which inevitably brings to mind the song, and consequently curiosity regarding the answer to The Beatles in-light-of-the-current-situation-really-not-all-that-rhetorical question..."Will you still need me?/Will you still feed me?/When I'm 64?"

Well, I received sixty-plus birthday greetings from friends from all around the world via Facebook and in my e-mail box. Which really was quite special. And I was treated to a truly incredible Japanese dinner dinner and sake by Hollie, in the company of my daughter Zoe and bf Ryan, at Amu, an izakaya in Boulder. Note the mysterious, and wildly appropriate, writing that appeared magically in a bowl of soy dipping sauce. A deus ex machina comment on the day.

And then I was taken back to Hollie's house, fed champagne, the tasty ice cream roll-cake that Hollie made at my request, and showered by very cool gifts...books, folk art, cooking machinery, and more.

So, will I be needed and will I be fed when I'm 64? The answer apparently is...yes.

And now...my favorite birthday song, "Have a Good Time" by Paul Simon.

Yesterday it was my birthday,
I hung one more year on the line.
I should be depressed
'Cuz my life's a mess,
But I'm having a good time.

A wild and crazy guy

2010-10-22T15:25:00.000-07:00

Yes. My close personal friend, Steve Martin. We chat frequently, mostly via Twitter.

He posted something the other day and I erroneously schooled him on his punctuation. I mistakenly believed that "correctly punctuated" should be hyphenated. I was then myself schooled by Hollie and some other person who's name I can't remember, and was directed to the Chicago Manual of Style for verification. I was wrong, and stand corrected.

What follows is a verbatim exchange between my close personal friend Steve Martin and myself from Twitter, the afternoon of October 21, 2010.

Steve: Today is get it right Friday! In an earlier tweet, someone pointed out that “correctly punctuated,” should have read “correctly-punctuated.”

Me: That was me. I was proven wrong, according to Chicago Manual of Style

SM: Evidently, that someone was wrong. So "get it right Thursday!" starts off with a bang!

SM: Get it right Friday to become regular feature every Thursday.

SM: So it's correct to say, "Chicago Manually of Style?"

Me: If correctly punctuated, yes.

SM: Am checking Tri-County Area Manual of Style. Very adamant about capitals beginning sentences, or at least being second letter.

SM: Tri-County Area Manual of Style also suggests, for clarity, inserting Arabic numerals when spelling them: Fo4ur. Fi5ve. Six6ty-Sev7en.

Thanks, Steve. Talk to you soon.

Failure is not an option

2010-10-19T11:46:00.000-07:00

Wrong.

I made this dinner for Hollie and I the other evening that sucked. It was some magazine recipe. I clipped the recipe out and it sat around and I kept looking at it and the accompanying photograph looked so good I wanted to eat the paper. But I didn't. I cooked the recipe instead. At some expense, I might add. And in hindsight I should have eaten the fucking paper.

But, it was something new and I tried it and it failed and I will try more new recipes because what I really like about cooking is trying new things to see if I can make them, or at least learn the technique. And I don't even get flustered anymore when they don't work because I know that my local is right down the street, less than a block away. And if it's really that awful, I can chuck my efforts in the dustbin, take a short walk down to the corner and be eating a hamburger inside of twenty minutes.

But we ate the bloody mess anyway. And I was thinking later that ten years ago I might have seen what I made as a success. So my standards have risen as, to some extent, have my abilities. And if you watch competitive cooking shows, which admittedly I do, you see that anyone, on any given day can screw the pooch.

So, you know...onward.

Gadzukes! at the Jamestown Mercantile

2010-10-15T09:36:00.001-07:00

Interesting gig. The tiny mountain town of Jamestown, Colorado is a throwback. Pot smell filled the air. Lots of big dogs wandering in and out. Abundant dreadlocks. But also well-dressed people with nice homes in the hills. It's kind of hippie/kind of 1980.

Our host, Rainbow (I don't make this stuff up, folks,) was really nice and although we were billed for most of the week as Gadzucky (wtf? Rainbow said someone asked her if we were Russian,) the sign was changed by the time we got there. It kind of seemed like no one was paying attention at the beginning, but the crowd warmed up, people danced and there was a full tip jar by the time we finished. We played pretty well despite being squeezed into a small space with a marginal PA. Got lots of nice comments from folks and invitation to come back.

By the way, the stars at night up in secluded Jamestown were worth the drive.

Le baguette

2010-10-13T10:12:00.000-07:00

Tiring of no-knead bread, I decided to make some real bread.

Made a starter with yeast, flour and water. Let it sit for 15 hours. Made dough. Let it sit 75 minutes. Knead it for ten minutes. Let it sit for 45 minutes. Rolled out the baguettes. Slashed them with a serrated knife. Baked for 30 minutes on an oven stone in an oven pre-heated to 500 degrees, then reduced to 450.

First starter attempt. Fail. Not enough water, or maybe weak yeast. But my second try turned out fine. Nice, crispy, chewy, airy baguettes made in my new baguette oven form.

Voila. Madames et monsieurs...le baguette.

Ropa vieja

2010-10-12T12:21:00.000-07:00

Old rags. A great cuban dish made with peppers, onions, an average cut of meat like flank steak, lots of garlic, tomatoes, capers, and spiced with cloves, cinnamon and bay leaves. The meat is cooked for hours and then shredded with two forks, thus the "old rags". Rice, beans and a couple of warm tortillas. It has a surprisingly, nutty flavor...perfect for a cool fall day.

This recipe can easily be cut in half, but I like the leftovers. here, try it yourselves.
http://www.foodandwine.com/recipes/ropa-vieja-with-capers

The raw and the cooked

2010-10-01T09:20:00.000-07:00

Lately I've not felt like doing this blog business. But nonetheless, I have been cooking and eating, in no particular order...a veritable cornucopia of hot dogs in Chicago....polish sausage for breakfast at Ronny's in the Loop...homemade moon pies in my kitchen...paella, gazpacho, and some chocolate deal for dessert for eight on the patio...spaghetti vongole at Club Lucky in Bucktown... scallops caprese on the grill...dim sum at Star Kitchen...the tasting menu at Black Cat in Boulder, courtesy of Hollie..croque monsieur tartiflette with bechamel sauce...a food cookoff at Kusmanoff's avec a hookah pipe, and tonight, my daughter's birthday dinner at Colt & Gray.

I'm having dreams about being a pastry chef. And I keep buying cookbooks, for some reason. And I wish I could get better at cooking, for all my books and bookmarks. I think about it too much, and I don't do it enough.

That's all.

Sweet Home, Chicago

2010-08-12T13:18:00.000-07:00

Please refer to me for the next four days as "The Man Who Ate Chicago". Thank you.

Bucket of steamahs

2010-08-06T07:45:00.000-07:00

I had visions of great meals on a recent business trip to Boston. But I ended up with shitty crew meals on my film shoot, a not bad but in retrospect, average steak frites at Bistro Jo, way too expensive and not terribly well done modern Japanese at Uni in the Eliot Hotel, and a shrimp pasta dish at Legal Seafoods that featured a bed of pasta so poorly cooked that I ate only the shrimp and the lonely cherry tomatoes.

But I have this Proustian memory of the steamed clams with drawn butter that I had at the Amaro household some 40 years ago. The daughter of Portuguese-descendants, my friend the lovely Stephanie Amaro had married a jerk that I worked for. Circumstance dictated that we had dinner one evening at her parent's rambling house in Ipswich near the beach. The succulent, dug-from-the-sand-that-day Ipswich clams, steamed and served with melted butter have stuck with me lo these many years.

So I ordered them at Legal Seafood. And they were pretty good. Sitting at a small table, looking out at the indoor mall, the Hello Kitty cart, and the passing throngs of Japanese tourists and fat, fanny-packed pre-Red Sox game Bostonians wasn't quite the same as sitting around the Amaro's long, noisy, family dining-room table in Ipswich. But the clams, fatter than the delicate Ipswich clams I remember, were good--tasting of the sea with that faint sandy grittiness that means it's for real. The drawn butter, spiked with the lemon wedge that it came with, made it all work.

And Hello Kitty notwithstanding, I got a flash of that magic thing that food, like a song on the radio or a scent on the wind, can do. Which is to not only fill your belly but to transport you to another place. And another time.

Steak frites

2010-08-01T17:27:00.000-07:00

Brasserie Jo at the Collonade Hotel on Boylston Street in Boston. Al fresco. Steak frites with red wine butter. Red Sox fans walking by. Boston Brahmins in preppy shoes. Skinny jeans guy with a guitar case. Neighborhood couples pushing strollers. One a woman with cerebral palsy. Pushing a stroller. Mooks with Lucky brand tee-shirts and cargo shorts, their girlfriends in nice dresses and impossibly high heels. Couples riding bicycles. Duckboats lined up in front of the Cheesecake Factory across the street. And me with my steak frites.

My friend Maia tells me there's a Jasper White Summer Shack down the street. I've heard of him. He supposedly does great East Coast seafood, raw bar, oysters, and stuff. So if I can ditch my clients and co-workers, I'm going to live there the next two nights. So...you know...stay tuned.

When the rain comes

2010-07-30T07:55:00.000-07:00

Uke fest cancelled. The rain came in around 4:00pm and it rained in sheets for some time. Not the usual four minute Colorado late-afternoon summer rain, but your proverbial torrential downpour. Around 4:30 Dave MacIntyre showed up at my door.He reported that the stage was wet (a deal-breaker for me as I'm not getting up on a wet stage and holding an electrified instrument in my little hands, thank you very much) and the town was reluctant to let its PA system be set up in the rain. Nancy showed up and we spent a half an hour calling musicians and spreading the word. Oddly, everyone is available for the scheduled rain date, September 2nd.

Lyons uke fest update: Moved it to September 2nd and a good time was had by all. Got dark too fast and the Lyons Hawaiians, god bless their pointy little heads, jumped into the crowd and played their hapa swing acoustically. By all accounts and reports people liked it. I think next year just one or two groups. End of that story.

Of course, the rain stopped shortly thereafter and while the skies looked threatening, it didn't rain another drop all evening.

Lyons uke fest

2010-07-29T10:17:00.001-07:00

This evening is the first Lyons Uke Festival. My band, Gadzukes!, together with Chris McGarry, Nine Dollar Shawl, and Rue with David Ritchey will attempt to wow the crowd with ukulele pyrotechnics. Hundreds of thousands of people are expected, so come early, bring a chair and prepare to be astonished. At the Sandstone Park stage, 6pm to 8:30. And best of all...free.

A hamburger today

2010-07-27T08:42:00.000-07:00

A pre-rehearsal cheeseburger with my friend and First Wednesday band-mate John Goggin as Oskar Blues in Lyons. Not much to say hamburger-wise, except that I'm always proud of myself when i forego the french fries and get a side of coleslaw, which of course is only marginally healthier. but it feels healthier. And more fiber-ey. But my rumination today is on the art of rehearsal.

It's my contention that there is no such thing as a bad rehearsal. Even if many of the players retain only 5% of what we learn, we're 5% farther along than we were before we started. My First Wednesday band is definitely making progress. We learn songs more quickly. We hardly ever argue about arrangements, chord changes, etc. We freely pass on advice, tips, etc. to the other players. (My only concern is that I'm too bossy, but i guess i figure that someone has to step up be bossy and it might just as well be me, since I lead the band on-stage anyway.)

Last night we learned two of Dave's songs ("Up On Cripple Creek" and "Down To Seeds & Stems Again,") one of Josh's (Robert Cray's Phone Booth) and went over some of the ones we had issues with. All in all, it was satisfying. More satisfying than the cheeseburger with cole slaw.

Tastes like chicken

2010-07-21T19:38:00.000-07:00

Because it was chicken. Grilled bone-in breast with garlic rub, corn on the cob, new potatoes. Zzzzzz. I told you I was going to record what I ate.

Regarding the image to left, I once got a birthday card with this cowboy and rooster on the front. Inside it read, "This man has a big cock."

Le fish

2010-07-21T15:28:00.001-07:00

We caught a bunch. That's Peter on the right. He likes those grey sleeveless t-shirts. Me, I'm a white t-shirt kind of a guy. That's me on the left.

Small world

2010-07-21T14:53:00.000-07:00

It's got me thinking. Not that's it's any big news or anything, but these days the world is pretty freaking small. It's those darn Internets.

My lovely daughter Zoe, of whom I think the world, has a blog. It's very fun, very much about vintage fashion (but lots of other stuff, too). She's part of a community of mostly women who blog and post images of their vintage fashion finds and how they wear them. In a matter of weeks (well, a month or so by now,) her blog has gone from a handful of people (me, my girl Hollie, Zoe's man Ryan, and some others,) to hundreds of followers.

And Zoe mentioned my blog on her blog, and now people have visited my blog from her blog. Like this lovely girl SecondSkin, who left some great comments about what I'm doing and how she's trying to get her dad to blog. Next thing you know, he'll be blogging, and we'll all be reading and digging what he has to say.

My conclusion? I don't have one, except that this makes me happy. Happy that I'm writing. Happy that Zoe is writing. And Hollie is inspired to start back up. And that SecondSkin is writing, and working on her dad to write. Why? Because I guess I believe that writing is a good thing. And it's a good thing to share what we do with other people.

I grew up in an era where we wrote things on paper and put a stamp on them. And I'm only somewhat nostalgic for that whole business. I like these Internets.

Fishing in the rain

2010-07-20T16:50:00.001-07:00

Not making dinner at home tonight. Off to fish the north fork of the St. Vrain River for the first time this year with my friend, Peter. And then we will likely grab a bit of dinner out afterward.

It's only the second time I've been fishing this season. Peter and I fished the Big Thompson River just below the dam, east of Rocky Mountain National Park, in later June, but the spring run-off was still in full force, and that, combined with wily fish that have seen it all, we ended up skunked.

The St. Vrain, here in town, was good to us last year. One magical evening this past summer we fished until it was so dark we couldn't see our hands in front of our faces. It was literally a "fish-every-cast" evening. That spot has since been fenced and posted. But Peter rents a house from one of the fellows who owns that stretch of property along the river and we are alleged to have fishing rights. "Well see," said the blind man.

Update: and now it's raining, so worst case...dinner.

Royale with cheese

2010-07-20T11:03:00.001-07:00

I had a rehearsal in Denver last night so i ate on the run. A #1 combo from Burger King. Why, I can't really tell you. I know this food sucks. That's it's the kind of corporate fast-food garbage that is killing people. And is everything I hate about the global food industry.

But I'm in late. I'm hungry. It's cheap. And, inexplicably, the shit tastes good.

But the rush of the salty fries, the mayonnaise-ey hamburger, the tingle in the back of the throat from the sugary soda does not outweigh the waves of guilt that wash through my brain. And the extra layer of fat that gets added my already disgusting waistline.

Picnic

2010-07-18T12:17:00.000-07:00

Hollie and I had a wonderful picnic Saturday evening on the University of Colorado campus before seeing Shakespeare's "Measure for Measure". I had nothing to do with it. Hollie made delicious pineapple-lavender coolers, pimento cheese spread finger sandwiches, and panko-fried chicken. All Hollie. Idea. Tickets. Picnic. That's my girl.

The play was interesting. A sort of tragic-comedy with the Duke assuming the disguise of a friar, a bed trick where females are swapped in the dark, and retribution for the bad guy.

Funny that on the way out, as we were leaving the balcony, I looked down to see our fellow food group members, and my co-worker, Jason Kusmanoff, with his wife Ashley, leaving on the main floor. And carrying a cooler. Turned out they had gone to the same play and had a picnic beforehand.

Hollie made baked eggs Sunday morning using black tomatoes from her garden. Delicious and relaxing. Reading the Sunday NY Times on her deck.

Honey-glazed Asian pork tenderloin

2010-07-18T12:06:00.000-07:00

This turned out quite good. I'm a savory kind of guy when it comes to my entrees, and typically don't like sweet except for dessert. But on Friday, Hollie and I demolished a one pound pork tenderloin cooked with a honey-five spice-rice vinegar and hoisin sauce marinade.

An interesting technique, the recipe called for cooking the tenderloin for 20 minutes in a 400 degree oven on a wire rack over a roasting pan with an inch of water, and then basting it while it cooked on a stove top grill pan for another 20 minutes.

I grilled some vegetables as a side and made a roasted garlic dressing for the salad We ate al fresco, even though it's too damn hot to be outside. But it was nice. Orange supremes, fresh strawberries and mint with agave and a squeeze of lime for dessert.

Apparently...

2010-07-15T11:55:00.000-07:00

Apparently, I suck as bad at playing golf as I do making sushi.

Actually, I may play golf slightly better. I played yesterday at Sunset in Longmont with Peter Maves and Jon Snyder. I flailed early on, but at one point did par two holes in a row and bogeyed most of the rest. So I guess that is, in fact, better than my sushi rolls.

In keeping with my attempt to record what I ate, I had corned beef and cabbage at the Irish pub, O'Shay's in downtown Longmont.

And tonight Hollie and I are eating at a new Chinese place in Boulder, Zoe Ma MA (?).

Time flies when you're having a good time.

2010-07-14T11:26:00.000-07:00

Jeez. I just looked and saw that my last post on this blog was in the winter of 2006. Since then, the top ten, in some sort of order:

1. My daughter moved back.
2. I found Hollie.
3. I released a sort of critically-acclaimed CD
4. My company moved to Denver.
5. I've almost paid off my house.
6. I've been to Nicaragua three times.
7. My daughter became a style icon.
8. I'm four years closer to retiring.
9. We elected a Democrat. A black one, at that.
10. I bought three ukuleles, one amp, and one guitar.

Sushi fail.

2010-07-14T09:24:00.000-07:00

An attempt at sushi rolls ended up like most of my attempts at sushi rolls. Lame.

Possibly I didn't let the rice cool long enough. Possibly the rice sucked in the first place and cool or not, would result in failure. The rice was too glutinous, too sweet, and thick. This produces a fatter, not particularly appetizing roll. Maybe I need a class. For sure I need a bottle of rice seasoning.

It was edible (with overdose of soy sauce and fake wasabi,) but only barely. Sigh.

Louie Blue-ey

2010-07-13T20:57:00.000-07:00

Truly one of the greatest musicians who ever lived. This, my friends, is Louie Armstrong's kitchen.

Why I'm starting to write about food again

2010-07-13T11:50:00.000-07:00

Today, in the New York Times there was an article about a woman who started a diary in 1998 about what she ate for dinner every day. I'm looking for a book topic and I'm stumped, so I'm going to borrow her idea and start writing about what i make for dinner and hopefully, about food in general again. Maybe something will come to me.

(I've bailed on my stagiaire.org website and i'm going back to my first blog (bad_guitar) as a kind of fresh start.)

I bought my umpteen-thousandth cookbook the other day--yet another Asian cookbook--and it told me (they do talk to me. In fact there's a book...What the Cookbook Told Me To Make,) to make sushi. (By the way, a book about cookbooks is also high on my list. I certainly have enough of them to be at least more of an expert than most people.)

I had thrown out my sushi rice during an infestation of pantry moths a year or so ago, so I drove to Boulder for a bag at the Asian market. Some young kid was behind the counter instead of the Wicked Witch of the East who usually is there. A sour, middle-aged Asian woman, she's not had a nice word for me in 15 years of shopping there. So a good omen for my sushi, which I need, since I've never been all that good at it.

So tonight, I'll try to make sushi and hopefully start posting more consistently about what i cook--and why.

oh. the snow.

2006-12-26T10:03:00.000-08:00

and the most amazing thing was...all the snowflakes were different.

walnut tree - fall - night

2006-10-05T06:20:00.000-07:00

trompe l'oeil

2006-09-14T12:43:00.000-07:00

"illusion is the first of all pleasures."
oscar wilde

season of the witch

2006-09-11T16:43:00.000-07:00

you've got to pick up every stitch,
the rabbbit's running in the ditch,
beatnik's are out to make it rich,
oh no, must be the season of the witch.

autumn in new york

2006-09-11T12:36:00.000-07:00

autumn in new york,
why does it seem so inviting?
autumn in new york,
it spells the thrill of first-nighting.

glittering crowds and shimmering clouds,
in canyons of steel,
they're making me feel i'm home.

it's autumn in new york,
that brings the promise of new love,
autumn in new york
is often mingled with pain.

dreamers with empty hands
they sigh for exotic lands.
autumn in new york,
it's good to live it again.

autumn leaves

2006-09-08T10:37:00.000-07:00

i am, in my own ungainly manner, learning to play the piano. my goal is to be able to pick up a fake book and play jazz standards with some degree of fluidity. i'm taking lessons weekly. and currently can almost get through "georgia on my mind" and a few other chestnuts without making glaring mistakes.

while looking for tunes to learn i came across "autumn leaves," written by joseph kosma, with lyrics by johnny mercer. while hoagy carmichael's "stardust" is often touted as the most beautiful popular melody ever written, and the overwrought instrumental hit from the 50s by roger william's notwithstanding, i cast my vote for "autumn leaves".

listen to the eva cassiday's or nat king cole's versions for verification. and dig the lyrics by johnny mercer. no tricks. no fancy metaphors. no internal rhyme scheme. just simple poetry to the accompaniment of an intelligent, descending melody and beautiful chord changes.

the lyrics herewith:

the falling leaves drift by my window,
the falling leaves of red and gold.
i see your lips, the summer kisses,
the sunburned hands I used to hold

since you went away the days grow long,
and soon I'll hear old winter's song.
but I miss you most of all, my darling
when autumn leaves start to fall.

feel like a broke down engine/ain't got no whistles or bells

2006-08-31T09:47:00.000-07:00

the north fork of the st. vrain river

2006-08-08T14:55:00.000-07:00

i took a day off on monday and my friend bill and i went fishing on the north fork of the st. vrain river. we left at 5:30 in the morning, heading up highway 7 out of lyons. the trailhead is hard to get to. bill's truck is four-wheel drive with skid plates and that's pretty much what it takes. just to get to the parking lot. then it's a half an hour hike down (an hour and forty-five minutes, up all the way, to get out) to the river.

it's a pristine section of river, designated wild and scenic, which means no dams, irrigation ditches or power stations between the stretch and the headwaters. we fished dry flys all morning...adams, BWOs, pale morning duns, mosquitos. bill took a rainbow and a really nice 14-inch brown. i took a ten inch rainbow once bill helped me figure out how to fish this kind of water. up close, not much line out, large #12 and #14 flies, rod tip high.

on the way down the trail i picked some wild sage and bill brought in olive oil, garlic, tomatoes, onions and red peppers. and heavy duty tin foil. i packed in some leftover potato salad i made with prosciutto and truffle oil. and a bottle of pinot grigio that we chilled in the river. let the fish cook twenty minutes on the fire. bill found some wild raspberries that we tossed on at the end.

after lunch we walked downstream a ways and fished back up until the rains came.

notwithstanding the fact that i fell in the river, almost broke my finger busting up wood for the fire and thought i might die on the hike up the canyon to get back to the truck, it was an epic day. people out east pay serious money for this kind of a trip. and it's a twenty minute drive from my house.

thanks, bill.

green, green grass of home

2006-07-17T18:54:00.000-07:00

down the lane I walk with my sweet mary,
hair of gold and lips like cherries,
it's good to touch the green, green grass of home.
yes, they'll all come to meet me,
arms reaching, smiling sweetly.
t's good to touch the green, green grass of home.

when the rain comes...

2006-07-10T10:27:00.000-07:00

three solid days of rain.

and i still miss someone.

our readers ask...

2006-06-29T10:11:00.000-07:00

bob "the customer is always right" lewis, a frequent reader of this blog asks..."it is now june 29th - and the last posting on your blog was the 19th. what kind of service is this?"

in our attempt to keep the customer satisfied, all queries will be answered. bob, i've been busy. among other things (work, affaires de coeur, children) a major backyard renovation at 246 stickney, lyons, colorado is taking place.

pictures and commentary were to be added upon completion, but to keep mr. lewis happy, preliminary photographs (before and in process) are posted herewith.

four pinions. three mugo pines. fifteen aspen trees. six tons of lyons sandstone. an irrigation system. one thousand square feet of sod.

anything else we can do for you, mr. lewis?

window box

2006-06-19T07:24:00.000-07:00

love poem

2006-06-09T13:50:00.000-07:00

love poem
by gregory orr

a black biplane crashes through the window
of the luncheonette. the pilot climbs down,
removing his leather hood.
he hands me my grandmother's jade ring.
no, it is two robin's eggs and
a telephone number:
yours.

lambent

2006-05-31T10:40:00.000-07:00

from the oxford english dictionary - 1. of a flame: playing lightly upon a surface without burning it, like a tongue of fire 2. shining with a soft clear light, hence of the eyes, the sky, etc. 3. softly radiant.
a.) her eyes shone, lambent in the soft light of the moon.

memorial day

2006-05-30T07:17:00.000-07:00

dulce et decorum est

a poem by wilfred owen
march 1918

bent double, like old beggars under sacks,
knock-kneed, coughing like hags,
we cursed through sludge,
till on the haunting flares we turned our backs
and towards our distant rest began to trudge.
men marched asleep. many had lost their boots
but limped on, blood-shod. all went lame; all blind;
drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots
of disappointed shells that dropped behind.

gas! gas! quick, boys!-- an ecstasy of fumbling,
fitting the clumsy helmets just in time;
but someone still was yelling out and stumbling
and floundering like a man in fire or lime.
dim, through the misty panes and thick green light
as under a green sea, i saw him drowning.

in all my dreams, before my helpless sight,
he plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.

if in some smothering dreams you too could pace
behind the wagon that we flung him in,
and watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
his hanging face, like a devil's sick of sin;
if you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,
obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud
of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,
my friend, you would not tell with such high zest
to children ardent for some desperate glory,
the old lie: dulce et decorum est
pro patria mori.

october

2006-05-24T11:53:00.000-07:00

i had a dream last night that it was fall already.

usufruct

2006-05-18T05:35:00.000-07:00

i came across this word last night in an article on the organic food industry in the new yorker. webster defines usufruct as..."the right to utilize and enjoy the profits and advantages of something belonging to another so long as the property is not damaged or altered." the article was talking about this guy who created a meal without engaging with the existing supply chain we normally use to get our food, i.e. grocery stores. he picked morel mushrooms in the forest. shot a wild pig for the braised loin. scraped sea salt from a pond by the sea. picked greens from his garden. and ate cherries..."taken by right of usufruct from a neighbor's tree."

could he have taken his neighbor's car, driven it around, washed it, filled the tank up and returned it, and done so under the right of usufruct...providing he returned the car undamaged or unaltered? how about his neighbor's wife? could he take her out, feed her, have sex with her, and it's OK neighbor, as long as you return her undamged or unaltered?

usufruct. i guess it's time to get a shed with a lock for my lawn mower.

western bluebirds

2006-05-17T10:08:00.000-07:00

mountain bluebirds at the feeder. i've never seen them around town. up in the mountains you might see them streak across a road or trail. but they've never appeared in my yard in the seven years i've been here.

i walked in to the kitchen early yesterday morning to make coffee and caught a flurry of blue in the corner of my eye rising up from the ground from beneath the feeder. i couldn't figure out what i had seen. i thought maybe it was the bluejays from the family of jays in the trees that surround the house. but minutes later the little bluebirds were back, half a dozen or more, hopping around the lawn, scratching the ground for uneaten seeds.

yesterday evening, in a group of sparrows zoe saw a single bluebird.

potato pancakes

2006-05-17T09:52:00.000-07:00

they leave a mess in the kitchen. you can take off a finger grating the potatoes by hand. they take forever. you end up with a nasty cup of grease to dispose of. the house stinks for a week. they're starchy, greasy and loaded with calories. but they're crunchy, hot, and crispy and you serve them with sides of applesauce and sour cream.

pass on the french fries. we like potato pancakes. last night zoe and i ate16 of them. eight a piece. and we both could have eaten more. just potatoes, eggs, flour, onion and salt. no fancy seasonings or expensive ingredients. the jews call them latkes, the swiss call it rosti. the greeks call them hash browns. in new york at the delis down on canal street, i've seen them served with a dusting of confectioner's sugar.

we like the potato pancake.

mum and da

2006-05-11T08:56:00.000-07:00

my parents were married sixty-five years ago this week on my dad's birthday, may 9, 1941, in youngstown, ohio. my dad was shanty irish. my mom, the daughter of an industrialist, lived in a big georgian-style house on gypsy lane.

at that time, youngstown was a booming steel town, home to truscon steel (a division of republic steel,) us steel, youngstown sheet and tube, and commercial, shearing and stamping. my mother's father was president of truscon steel.

my father's family was also in the steel business. they stoked coal in the besemer furnaces, stacked pipe in the mills and ground down forged goods in the machine shops.

after the war, my dad went to youngstown university on the g.i. bill. he worked as a machinist at night at commercial, shearing and stamping, and when he graduated he was hired as a salesman. in 1948, when i was two years old, he was transferred to commercial's sales office in chicago. they sent him to minneapolis in 1961 and in the early 1970s back to ohio. he left the company around that time to go build yachts with my uncle, my mother's brother. that partnership turned ugly and my extended family imploded.

my dad worked shitty sales jobs the rest of his career until he retired in the late eighties. he got in a few good years of retirement by the pool in southern california until he died of a brain tumor in 1988. my mother died of cancer in 2003.

my dad was a hale-fellow-well-met. he always had a good joke and a smooth irish charm. women were crazy about him. his people were what they call the "black irish," the gallic influence. he had a full head of hair and dark brown, almost black, eyes. he sang in a fine tenor, had an artistic hand and a theatrical flair. my mother was more reserved, stoic almost. a particularly nasty car accident in the late seventies left her crippled for the rest of her life. she was a tough bird and she was a fighter. so no complaints. ever. she loved her garden and the deep, dark mysteries of 99 cent stores.

i do miss them, especially my dad, probably because he left sooner, and not all that long after we had made our peace together. the vietnam war and my concientious objection to that war put us on opposing sides of the table. i'd like to sit down and have a couple of cocktails together and shoot the shit. now that we'd have something to talk about.

so happy birthday, happy anniversary and happy mother's day, you two.

mr. ed

2006-05-08T13:26:00.000-07:00

i took this picture sunday afternoon from my living room window. this cowboy, with his passenger, was riding his horse down the middle of the street, past my house.

i don't know why, but it always makes me feel good to see someone riding a horse. it's reassuring somehow. you have to love a mode of transportation that can make a good 20 miles a day on water and grass. and no stops at the conoco station.

it made me think that come a complete breakdown in mechanized society and/or the sucking dry of the world's fossil fuel reserves, i'll be stuck here with both a car and truck in the driveway that i won't be able to give away. and this guy will be able to go wherever he wants to go. if there is anyplace left to go.

note the four gas hogs in the background.

dallas, texas

2006-05-07T10:10:00.000-07:00

four dead in ohio

2006-05-04T15:58:00.000-07:00

thirty-six years ago today, the ohio national guard killed four students on the campus of kent state university.

the south st. vrain

2006-04-29T08:35:00.000-07:00

named after the french trapper ceran st. vrain, the south st. vrain rises up out of the continental divide and runs along highway 7 through allen's park and raymond and on down to lyons where it joins the north st. vrain. the two rivers form a loop around a section of the colorado piedmont before their not-very-impressive confluence in lyons.

i took the truck up out of lyons friday evening and fished a stretch of the south. it was cold and grey. no rises or hatches. it was my first time out this year and i felt rusty. like a clumsy beginner, even though i've been fly fishing for thirty years.

the runoff has just started and i stumbled on the rocks fording the river. the" greased bowling balls," as my friend bill calls them. snagged on an underground rock, i lost a favorite tippet, the last one of my hand-tied leaders from rusty gates' fly shop on the au sable in michigan. hands frozen from the frigid water, i could barely tie up another leader.

but even with the cold and frustration i couldn't miss this intense feeling of almost-spring up here. the green haze of new growth on the deciduous trees along the banks upstream. the sweet, vinegary smell of the pines in bloom. the detritus of winter in the stream; water scoured branches, leaves, plastic bags.

in a few weeks the snowmelt will be screaming down this stretch of river and where i was standing will be five feet underwater. and all the remains of winter will be scrubbed away. during the runoff you can't put your toe in this same water for fear of ending up in kansas. and the fishing will be over until the melt turns to a slow, steady run in late june. (with the heavy snowpack this year, maybe july.) by then the canyon will be lined with RVs chugging their way up to miniature golf and pony rides in estes park. the mayfly and caddis hatches will be on, but crowds will be out and i'll have to find another place to fish.

this, from a poem called "springwood" by jack ramey, first published in the toucan, the kent state literary magazine, circa 1968.

"...a close, a narrow gestation shaves
against our bark, trembling along springwood
to break loose the scale of buds
leaving scars, rings, for next season's building.

among these fragile units, paths intrude,
fretted like tight weavings of a tapestry.
listen. tear loose a piece of the bark;
place your ear against the naked cambium.
close your eyes to the liquid temper of steady
murmuring; the sound of water in secret pathways."

mothra

2006-04-26T19:26:00.000-07:00

mothra was the guardian of an ancient race of tiny humanoids named the cosmos who lived on earth. she lay dormant for many years, but apparently is back.

pho

2006-04-26T18:33:00.000-07:00

“no matter how hard your day, no matter how tough your choices, or how complex your ethical decisions, you always get to choose what you want for lunch.”
denny crane

the lady at the asian market in longmont pronounces it “phaaaaaaaar”. a vietnamese street dish, pho is a beef soup stock that is spiced with ginger, garlic or anise. rice noodles are cooked in the hot broth. i order pho tai, beef broth with rare, thinly sliced steak. the beef also cooks in the hot broth. it comes with a large plate of leafy condiments that usually include dandelion leaves, limes, bean sprouts, jalepenos and basil. at pho duey where my friend karen and i go for lunch, they give you a handful of basil that would cost $3.95 at the grocery store. karen adds plum sauce and chili paste to hers. i like mine plain.

and then there’s café sua da. strong vietnamese coffee brewed at table, mixed with sweetened condensed milk and poured into a tall glass with ice. it costs a dollar and a quarter (in vietnam, on the street, it costs 25 cents,) and is better than any four dollar coffee drink at starbucks. i believe café sua da has thirteen million calories.

and that's what i chose for lunch.

jane

2006-04-26T18:17:00.000-07:00

i played a gibson L-50 in a music shop in lyons, colorado one day after work. for hours. and i thought about the guitar all the next day. i went back the next evening after work to buy it. and even though the guitar had just arrived in the shop, it had sold by the time i got there. to a guy who was dying. i don't blame him. i spent the next year searching for another one. i scoured the internet. and then when i finally gave up, i found another one in a another shop in colorado. the neck was so worn at the top you couldn't make an F chord. i bought it for eight hundred dollars and put another seven hundred dollars into a shaved neck, a fret job, a new nut, saddle, pickup and a blush erase on the finish.

when i picked it up, my repairman showed me that someone, at sometime, had carved the name "Jane" into the heel of the neck. if my house was on fire, i'd run back in to save this guitar.

kent

2006-04-26T12:13:00.000-07:00

i want to bury my face in the past. sell my houses, find someplace nice, be with old friends, be in kent, drink some gin, play guitar and talk about giants and listen to the trains. hey momma, i aint got a dime.
peggy mainwaring

there are places i remember
all my life
though some have changed.
john lennon/paul mccartney

oh, way to go
O-HI-O
chrissie hynde

once upon a town,
water and whiskey neat.
no one comes around here anymore.
i’m down
on water street.
the bottomfeeders

she's gone everywhere but home.
tom rush

when giants walked the earth

2006-04-25T06:42:00.000-07:00

the ground covered in white this morning. all the heavy equipment dusted with snow.

it's almost eight and i'm still in my robe. its almost impossible to drag myslef to work some days. i want to go back to bed and read books.

i got an e-mail response from my friend bob lewis this morning. we went to kent state together. we waded through the later 1960s together. we were in love with the same girl, together. we rode around northeast ohio in his maroon 60-something chevrolet and smoked hash together. we wrote poetry and listened to blues records together. he says in his e-mail, and i quote, "i long to be old enough to dress as the immaculate old man. white shirt buttoned up all the way - black suit pants at nipple level with suspenders. high-top lace up dress shoes from Redwing: 'fuck you young punks - you guys don't know nothin' . . . when I was young there were giants on the earth."

indeed, i replied. we had professors who were giants. i think about my daughter and the giant-less earth she walks today. when i was 20, there were so many giants we didn't know what to do. which one to be. the beatles. goddard. chavez. leary. farina. ferlinghetti. corso. kesey. de kooning. ginsburg. kerouac. dorn. donleavy. warhol. dylan. kennedy. arbus. hayden. hoffman. king. pynchon. miles. barth. bellow. frost.

and, as bob said, we got to see elizabeth cotton. and reverend gary davis, i reminded him. in the cafeteria at the student union. pre-cult of personality. pre-video disk jockey. pre-people magazine.

giants, indeed.

and , on my iPod yesterday this came up in the shuffle. written in 1963 by a 23 year old bob dylan.

i got a letter on a lonesome day
it was from her ship a-sailin'
saying i don't know when i'll be coming back again
it depends on how i'm feelin'

well, if you my love must think that a-way
i'm sure your heart is a-roamin'
i'm sure your heart is not with me,
but to the country to where you're goin'

so take heed, take heed of the western wind
take heed of stormy weather.
and yes, there's something you can send back to me,
spanish boots of spanish leather.

giants, indeed.

weather underground

2006-04-24T14:29:00.000-07:00

yesterday at nine o'clock i was in the garden seeding my wildflower bed in shorts, filp-flops and no t-shirt. today, at three o'clock it is 37 degrees. flurries and misting rain. heavy coat and gloves for the drive to work. one hopes that the apple blossoms don't freeze tonight. it happens some years. last year the blossoms on the apple tree were astonishing, but not many apples.

i turned the heat down sunday morning and thenwhen i came home at midnight, didn't think to turn it back on. igloo morning. saw two white-crowned sparrows at the feeder this morning, the first i've seen. three goldfinches deperately clinging to the niger feeder.

i think i'll make spanish meatloaf tonight.

primera

2006-04-24T13:40:00.000-07:00

this is my first post. why? i haven't the faintest idea. to write something other than advertising copy, maybe. because it's spring. because i'm planting wildflowers. because i bought a truck. because i need to look busy at work. because i want a place to post pics, art. etc. because idle hands are the devil's playground. because what goes is writing if i just save it to my hard drive and no one ever reads it. my daughter zoe says she's going to start a blog. and boots has one. and i like boots' blog.

why "bad guitar"? because it's stupid. because my guitar's been bad. because i'm a bad guitarist. because all guitars are bad. which reminds me. i need to get in touch with my friend dan who went to the dallas vintage guitar show last weekend...to a drafty arena filled with old, bad guitars.

so here goes my blog.