That 70s Alexv

Alexinabox.

So my buddy Alex of Austria has been posting childhood pictures, which inspired me to look through the dusty old photoalbums on the shelves. My father was a bigtime hobby photographer, so there are lots. And all from before the invention of digital. A lot of the color pictures have faded badly, but Photoshop lets me repair them -- pretty well, usually. The black and white ones are all still good.

Okay, this time I'm back, for reals.

I haven't had the energy to update, because I've been dieting. I didn't have energy when I was overeating either, but this is completely different.

Anyways, the diet is going well, which makes me glad. I'm losing about 10 lbs per month (or 4.5359237 kg if you're Austrian), so in one year I'll be completely invisible.

I'm Back!

I will update this blog later today!

San Francisco

Pictured: The San Francisco Marriott Hotel.


I had a great time going up to the Bay Area for Jamie and Ben's wedding last week. I thought it might be a good idea to set down some of my diary of the journey.

Both of my flights were very comfortable. I flew Virgin American airlines, which is only a year old and only has a few planes, but had very good service and a kind of style you don't see much any more with airlines. The terminal counter had a vase of real flowers on it, and there was sort of a purple mood lighting on the planes. San Francisco International airport is much, much nicer than LAX, too. LAX is a dirty, noisy, congested crap-hole.

The BART subway now runs all the way to the SF airport, so I used that both ways and also to cross the Bay to go to the wedding. Very easy to use and efficient. I wish L.A. had a real subway.

I stayed at the giant Marriott hotel in San Francisco overlooking Yerba Buena Gardens. The floorplan is maze-like and I kept getting lost. One day there was a power failure and as a result, my room safe , clock, keycard door lock and the water pumps to the higher floors all failed, as did most of the lights and elevators. I had to go down ten flights of stairs. On the other hand, my bed had six pillows. As with the last several hotels I've stayed at, they tried to bill me for non-existant mini-bar purchases. I guess a lot of travellers are too unobservant or in too much of a hurry checking-out to fight back against this sort of fraud.

I walked all the way accross town on Columbus Avenue, from the Financial District, through Chinatown, through North Beach, to Fisherman's Wharf. I'm kind of surprised they haven't banned the name Columbus, given this city's politics. I guess the Italians still have enough clout not to get pushed around. But it's only a matter of time before Fisherman's Wharf becomes Fisherpersons' Wharf.

Random observations:

• All the Chinese people I see here look about 700 years old. Where are the kids?
• There are no mailboxes anywhere in this town.
• Japanese tourists can sleep in any position.
• It is impossible to buy a good map of the East Bay.
• Why do hotel housekeepers always "tuck in" the bed sheets? I hate that. I get claustrophobic.

An Evening With David Sedaris

Every year for the past five or six years or so, I've taken my mother and brother to see David Sedaris when he appears at UCLA.

Last Saturday night was his most recent visit, and he was in top form. He read about half a dozen stories over a period of two hours. They were all new except for one I had already read - a very funny story about his experiences flying to Europe, which you can read online here.

He always seems to include one gross-out story, this one about animals that commit suicide by hiding in the bushes by the side of the road and jumping into oncoming traffic at the last minute.

He's quit smoking and he no longer talks about being gay, and he didn't even mention living in France. I wonder if he's turning into a Republican.

Scarecrow Says 'Hi'.

Ears

Last night I had a terrible earache.

Today, it -- my right ear -- just feels sort of blocked up, like when you have water in your ears. But that's an improvement.

At least it gave me something to blog about.

Farm Report

I just noticed that my Clematis (above) is in bloom. I've had it several years now, and it never quite thrives here. I guess it gets too hot. Anyway, I thought this blog would be a good way to chornicle the gardening year for future reference.

The first raspberries have shown up, too. The blueberries have been bearing for a couple of weeks now.

Musical Interlude.

I just found a nice song sung by Dorothy Lamour, which led me to looking up pictures of her, which led me to remember what a crush I had on her as a kid watching those Bob Hope/Bing Crosby "Road" pictures. I must say, Lamour has stood the test of time better than the corny comedian or the child-abusing crooner.

Here's the song:

I Go For That

Music by Matt Malneck, Words by Frank Loesser


You can listen to the song here, and enjoy the lyrics below.


I hate the tall dark handsome type
I hate a man who smokes a pipe
But,
Your dopey walk, your double talk –
I go for that!
Your corny jokes, your dizzy folks –
I go for that!

Your kiss just misses;
Your dancing is rough.
But I love that stuff.
I guess I don't get around quite enough.

You play the uke, you're from Dubuque –
I go for that!
And, furthermore, I just adore
Your fuzzy hair, your vacant stare.
I'd run from Gable, but right off the bat
To be with you my romeo
Don't ask me why, 'cause I don't know.
I look at you and ooh, I go for that kinda lovin'
I like your huggin'.

You're kind of old
You're not a catch
I go for that

Your heart of gold
and teeth to match
I go for that.

Your kiss just misses;
Your dancing is rough.
But I love that stuff.
I guess I don't get around quite enough.

You play the uke, you're from Dubuque -
I go for that!

And, furthermore, I just adore
Your fuzzy hair, your vacant stare.
To Mister Cupid I take off my hat.
You can't account for silly taste;
Of all the hearts I could have chased,
I look at you and, ooh, I go for that!

Memorial Day

Today was Memorial Day in the U.S., when we commemorate those who've died in military service to our country. It was also a holiday in Britain, but they call it "Bank Holiday" over there. The question is: why? Do the banks sponsor parade floats or something? Seems to me like a missed opportunity to come up with a nifty holiday. I guess that Britain has become such a mish-mash of competing loyalty groups that it would be impossible to come up with any consensus on what is worthy of celebration. But I guess everybody needs banks.

The Voice of Spring

Or maybe early summer. There's a mocking bird outside my window that has been singing practically non-stop for days, day and night. I didn't even know that was possible, so I did some research. Apparently this is how male mockingbirds attract females, proving both their physical tirelessness and willingness to make fool of themselves in public in order to get laid. And it seems to work: the population of mocking birds has expanded by a factor of five in the Los Angeles area during the twentieth century.


Above: a mocking bird with a twig in his mouth, thus taking a break from his singing.



This is also the time of the year when the Jacaranda trees put on their big show, totally covered with their striking lavender leaves. The rest of the year they just drop sticky residue on sidewalks and cars parked beneath them.

These Jacarandas are planted dramatically against a dark green background of trees, so they show up better than they would against a blue sky.

Booty Call

I was reading in the news today about vandals using a hammer and chisel to steal bits of of the giant rocks of Stonehenge in England, and it reminded me of something that kinda disturbed me during my trip to Chicago. It was the Tribune Tower, the headquarters building of the Chicago Tribune news media empire. It's a very handsome building, but embedded in its outer walls are a bunch of trophies looted from other famous buildings around the world. I'm sure they would dispute the term "looted"--maybe the pieces of stonework were leftovers from remodeling, that would otherwise be used as doorstops-- but I bet at least some of them weren't.

Wouldn't most Americans feel a bit miffed to encounter a chunk of the White House embedded in the walls of some British newspaper, for example? Of course, it's possible that some of the pieces aren't genuine--we're talking about the work of journalists here--but there's something very narcissistic and bullying about thinking that one can pick up other people's stuff and display it as one's own. Newspapers have gotten in trouble over that before.

Above: The Wrigley Building on the left, the Tribune Tower on the right. Click to enlarge.




Above: chunks of the Cologne Cathedral, the Greek Parthenon, and a fortress in the Philippines.




A head that the British Parliament wasn't using any more.

Brahms' last photograph

Or so it was labelled when I found it. It's one of the things you find online that are interesting, but you don't know the back story. I'm assuming that finally the chair gave way.

I kind of like that he's smoking up until the end. Doctors wouldn't allow that sort of thing nowadays: "We have no effective treatment for your disease and we know that you'll be dead soon, but, dammit, No Smoking!"

Today is my birthday

I turned 41. I got my most important wish: cooler weather. But I know the summer is only just beginning.

Also, my brother Gary is heading into Cambodia today to see Angkor Wat.


Here's a creepy Dutch birthday card I found online.

Cool Web Thingie

I watched my brother fly from Los Angeles to Taiwan.



Okay, it did get a bit monotonous after a while.

Cobb Salad

It was another hot day today, so I made Cobb Salad for dinner.

My recipe:

Romaine lettuce, chopped up fine
watercress, ditto
diced tomatoes
cold cooked chicken breast, ditto
crumbled bacon
sliced avocado
minced hard-boiled egg
minced chives
crumbled Bleu cheese

Everything chopped up very small and mixed up with a Vinaigrette dressing (lemon juice, red wine vinegar, extra virgin olive oil, garlic, a dash of mustard powder and some fresh ground pepper).

This is adapted from the recipe given in the book Hollywood du Jour: Lost Recipes of Legendary Hollywood Haunts, by Betty Goodwin, which includes very interesting thumbnail histories of a lot of great vanished L.A. restaurants. I departed from the recipe by excluding the chicory (or Belgian endive), which I don't like and I don't recall being in the original salad served by the Brown Derby restaurants when I was a kid. Also, their recipe for Vinaigrette includes water and sugar and salt and is nonsense.

Here are some old pictures --click to enlarge-- which I scanned from a library book, whose name I've forgotten:


Carole Lombard and Clark Gable at the Vine Street Brown Derby, where he proposed to her. A caricature of William Powell -- Lombard's first husband, and frankly, a better actor than Gable -- peers over Gable's shoulder.

Then and now: on Vine Street looking Northeast at Hollywood Boulevard, the Brown Derby, right, with awning, has become a parking lot. I took the "new" photo in 2005.

Left: the Brown Derby at the corner of Wilshire Boulevard and Rodeo Drive, and it's later incarnation as a tacky Bulgari jewelers.

Dorothy Lamour and Edith Head at the Beverly Hills Brown Derby.

Two of Hollywood's leading Republicans have a laugh at the Vine Street Brown Derby.

Marlene Dietrich and Erich Maria Remarque, anti-Nazi refugee endive-eaters, in 1939.

Flight Report!

I couple of weeks ago I flew to Chicago for a friend's wedding. I hadn't flown since just after 9/11, so I was curious about the TSA and other changes.


Above you see the American Airlines check-in area at Terminal Four at LAX. You're supposed to print out your boarding pass (center of picture) before standing in line to hand over your luggage (lower left). I didn't know this of course until going through the line the first time. The seat preference I had requested when buying my ticket online had vanished. I got the last seat on the plane, second to last row, middle seat.

After that, you go up the escalator to stand in another line for security. I put my shoes in this little bin. They passed.


My Boeing 757 approaches the gate, where it is met by Gate Gourmet (make your own joke). Snacks are now for sale rather than "free," at least on a 4 hour flight, which is probably all for the best.

Walking through the "jet bridge" or tunnel thingie that leads into the airplane. The controls look like something from a James Bond movie circa 1962.



The 757 is surprisingly narrow. Once every seat was full it was very much like being on a bus.


Our friendly if harried cabin crew, before and during flight. Some a-hole in the row behind me refused to turn off his cellphone and sassed the flight attendant.



In-flight entertainment. I didn't indulge.




I arrived safe and sound. So did my luggage.

Good Lord It's Hot

Pinkie beats the heat.

It really is too hot to even be thinking of starting a blog.

High of 97 degrees Fahrenheit -- that's 36 degrees Centigrade. I'm including Centigrade because I want this blog to have an international appeal, like Levi's or Coca-Cola, but without all the middlemen.