Watching every move on her face

“All Right Now,” by Free just played on my iPod. That song reminds me of San Diego in July of 2006. I was waiting for Keri to pick me up outside of the Embassy Suites on 601 Pacific Highway in the early afternoon. She drove up in a rented red Mustang convertible with the top down, and that song was playing on the radio, and she was wearing sunglasses and a hat and a smile. It was a perfect moment . . . the kind of moment you see in movies and doubt ever happens in real life. Moments like that, and the hope for moments like that, make life worth living.

The opposite of Neil Diamond

Vincent van Gogh: artist, absinthe drinker, lunatic. I confess I’ve never been a big fan of Van Gogh, but I think that’s mostly because when I was in college all the wannabe hip pseudo-intellectual girls had posters of Starry Night on their walls. Dude’s gotta be the king of the art calendar/museum print circuit.

Well it all caught up to me this year, when the guy in the office next to me asked me if I wanted a calendar that somebody had given him for Christmas. I’m pretty lazy about my calendars; last year’s was a pharmaceutical company’s free calendar that Laz gave me, which advertised some epilepsy drug. Well, this year, courtesy of the guy in the office next to mine, I’m treated to twelve months of old Vincent Van. Weird thing is this month it’s his Le Café de nuit (The Night Café), and every day the picture drives me a little more crazy.


Here’s Vince’s own take on the piece, in a letter to his brother Theo:

“I have tried to express the terrible passions of humanity by means of red and green. The room is blood red and dark yellow with a green billiard table in the middle; there are four lemon-yellow lamps with a glow of orange and green. Everywhere there is a clash and contrast of the most alien reds and greens, in the figures of little sleeping hooligans, in the empty dreary room, in violet and blue. The blood-red and the yellow-green of the billiard table, for instance, contrast with the soft tender Louis XV green of the counter, on which there is a rose nosegay. The white clothes of the landlord, watchful in a corner of that furnace, turn lemon-yellow, or pale luminous green.”

I swear, I think I’ve drank myself senseless in this place, if only in my dreams.

Making it happen.

There’s a sushi place that opened up within walking distance from my house last summer. Aside from being super convenient, the place is fabulous. The fish is always fresh and the quality is unrivaled. It’s not the fanciest place, and there’s not much flash, but when I get the craving, I invariably find myself there. They don’t have a liquor license, so the place is BYOB, which is actually pretty cool, since I’ve found myself trying out different types of sake that I pick up either from Cost Plus, or the local “fancy” grocery store. Last Tuesday, I walked there, but forgot my sake in my refrigerator. I ducked out to go get it, and Koji, the sushi chef was out back for a “smoke” break. I’ll leave it to you to figure out the quotation marks. I laughed as I caught the unmistakable scent, since I’d describe Koji as demure, if that adjective can be applied to a male, and I’d never really said much more than a couple of things to him. As I jogged past him, I commented that I’d forgotten my sake. “Bring me back some vodka!” he called after me. I knew he was joking, but when I got home, I half-filled a plastic juice tumbler with Ketel One from the Costco-sized bottle in my freezer, and took it back with me. I gave Koji the vodka, and was delighted when a couple of chef’s choices came my way gratis. Among them was some delicious toro nigiri. When the check came, it was surprisingly less than I had expected.

Last night, I had the sushi craving again, so I went to the fancy grocery store to pick up a bottle of sake. As I was in the liquor aisle, I noticed that they had a sale on Rain vodka. I’d never tried it, but it was regularly $24 for a bottle, and selling for $17. In light of the “access and cachet” moment I’d had at Robertson’s on Friday, I decided to try an experiment. I bought the vodka, intent on giving it as a gift to Koji. I even bought one of those fancy little wine carriers so it would look gift wrapped. Let me tell you . . . after I got there and presented the bottle to him, as far as access and cachet goes, it was indescribable.

Koji came from around the bar, shook my hand and bowed, thanked me repeatedly, and told me that he was going to do something special for me. One of the waitresses opened the bottle on the spot and poured him a long draught of the hooch. She also brought me a sake cup full of it for my enjoyment as I waited for a table to open up. Served neat, I was pretty impressed with the smoothness of the Rain.

I paid close attention to my order, since I was sort of experimenting. I ordered some yellowtail, some snapper, a Vegas roll, and a California roll. When my order came out, Koji had doubled all my orders, and had included some toro sashimi, and a couple of other morsels that I’d never tried or seen. He also included some pickled wasabi. I actually struggled to eat it all . . . I was literally gorging myself on sushi. When I finally threw in the towel, I was spent. The vodka and the sake had also gone to my head a little and I was glad that I’d walked to the place. I asked for the check, and when the waitress brought it to me, I couldn’t help but chuckle. $31. I glanced at the sushi-menu just to gauge the net worth of what I’d been served. By my estimates, it was about $75 worth of sushi. The toro sashimi by itself would have been $20 if I had ordered it.

Sometimes, if you actually know somebody, or if you’re a regular at a place, greasing them a $20 bill can come across a little gauche. For those folks, the access and cachet requires thoughtfulness. Thoughtfulness always pays off.

Access and Cachet

One of my clichés when people ask me why I carry cash in this age of credit cards is: “Because at the end of the day there’s no better travel agent than Benjamin Franklin.” I believe that, and there are times, like last night, when the cash money talks in a way that the credit card never will.

My buddy Dan called me late last afternoon and asked if I wanted to get dinner with him and his co-worker Albert. Dan and Al are good guys, and word on the street is that Dan had recently broken up with his girlfriend of a couple of years. I said sure, and asked where they were going. Dan said he’d had a craving for Robertson’s for a few weeks and nothing short of Robertson’s would do. He suggested we meet there at 7:00.

Now, I know from experience that Robertson’s is a hot-spot for dinner on the weekends, and they don’t take reservations for parties smaller than four. When I pulled into the parking lot and saw the number of cars there, I knew we were in for a long wait, and I didn’t feel like waiting; I was hungry.

I took a $20.00 bill from my wallet, folded it in quarters, and put it in my front pocket. I walked in, worked my way through the crowd, and found Dan and Al, who had just gotten there as well. We walked up to the host, and Dan told him we had a party of three. He informed us that they were fully booked with reservations until 8:30, but he would put our name down and we would be in the queue with the other folks, behind the ones that had gotten there before us. I saw the look of disappointment on Dan’s face. I thanked the host, shook his hand, discreetly slipped him the $20, and told him that we would wait at the bar, and if there was anything he could do to minimize our wait, we would appreciate it. We weren’t at the bar long enough to even order our first drink, when he approached us and told us that our table was ready.

Dan and Al bought my dinner as a thanks for that moment of élan. $20 well greased will open doors for you. But it’s all about doing it right. I’m a firm believer that any gentleman worth his salt should know when, where, and how to grease a palm. It just makes life easier.

Bachelor life

I finished my Costco-sized bottle of Crown Royal last night and had to break into my bottle of Crown Special Reserve. I have to tell you, strange as it sounds, I prefer the regular Crown to the Special Reserve.

Got home from work late last night, and had two boiled eggs and a can of tuna for dinner. As it often is, the Crown was the highlight of the evening.

fly on the sitemeter wall

Somebody in Atlanta, Georgia must have been horribly disappointed when their Google search for "big dick fever" led them to this entry here at Mad Shoeshiner.

Because you can't unring a bell . . .

Courtesy of my buddy Robb, one of my first e-mails of the day:

I'm listening to the song "goodbye horses" by Q Lazzarus. It's not a bad song--very techno 80s. But there's no redemption for the song that was used in the "tuck" scene in Silence of the Lambs.

Back in Black

Well, it’s back to the grind. I wish I had a truly good adventure story to tell y’all, but nothing really emerged. Had a good time, and time spent with friends is always awesome, but not necessarily blog-worthy. Not even a great miss to report. Three thoughts from the weekend:

• Sometimes if you want to have a good time, you have to spend money. If you’re not going to do something right, you might as well stay home. I should have slung the shekel and gone to one of the “good” parties in Scottsdale (ranging from $100-$400) on Saturday night, rather than the $40 block party that turned out to be the ghetto/overflow party.
• Alka-Seltzer is a surprisingly effective hangover remedy. It tastes like carbonated saltwater, but it had me feeling like a million bucks unlike most “remedies” out there.
• People watching never gets old if you’re in a target-rich environment.

[hangover]

Двете споменати по-горе реакции също изискват преобразуването на NAD+ в NADH. За да може да обработи прекомерните количества NAHD, черният дроб отклонява киселината pyruvate от останалите процеси които я използват. Един от тези процеси е синтезът на глюкоза, а когато този процес е нарушен, черният дроб не успява да снабдява своевременно с глюкоза тъканите и най-вече мозъка. Глюкозата е основната енергийна суровина за мозъка, и при недостига ѝ се наблюдават някои от типичните симптоми на махмурлука – умора, слабост, промени в настроението, понижени внимание и концентрация.

Epicurean truth

It was 35 degrees in Phoenix this morning. Good thing I brought my coat. Can’t believe I actually debated whether to do so. Had a very nice, relaxing dinner with Carlos last night at a place called Durant’s. Ended up getting a little lit. Had three Crown Royals during the interview, and half a bottle of wine at dinner.

Let me tell you, Durant’s is a “Jack” kind of place, down to the red wall paper. The founder, Jack(!) Durant’s words are prominent there – words that speak veritas to me:

Good Friends, Great Steaks, & the Best Booze, are the necessities of life.