Note to bartenders everywhere

The classic recipe for the classic Manhattan:

Ingredients:

• 2 oz rye whiskey
• 1/2 oz sweet vermouth
• 2-3 dashes Angostura bitters
• One maraschino cherry


Preparation:

1. Pour the ingredients into a cocktail shaker with ice cubes.
2. Stir well (don't shake).
3. Strain into a chilled cocktail glass.
4. Garnish with the cherry.

So there; is that so hard?

Oil and some vinegar

Born, but not bred, in a small town in central California I have vivid memories of the landscape between my little town and the communities (equally small, more-or-less) 50 or 60 miles due south along Highway 99. As a high school basketball player I traveled with my team to towns like Taft and Arvin and Bakersfield and, as our old bus chugged along we passed mile after mile of sere wasteland, brown and dusty with nothing to relieve the flatness but the oddly birdlike shapes of huge oil pumps relentlessly rising and dipping as they sucked out the black stuff that fuels our nation then and now. I remember it being a very depressing sight and without a lick of green to relieve the monotony.

As of March 5, two replicas of these monstrosities were installed in an empty lot on the corner of Eighth Ave. and West 46th St. in Manhattan. In this context (in my opinion) they become artsy fartsy with a press release as follows (possibly quoting the artist, Josephine Meckseper; you never know for sure in public-relations-speak): “I hope to draw parallels between the American industrial system, transitioning from a past of heavy industry, factories, and teamsters and the disembodied present of electronic mass-media, surface advertising, and consumerism—so clearly embodied in Times Square. The critical placement of the pumps is a conceptual gesture that raises questions about business and capital; land use and resources; wealth and decay; decadence and dependence.”

Frankly, they creep me out, possibly because of my past and the dead end they could have represented in my life. There is even a hidden sound system that replicates the creak of the original moving structures way down south on those outskirts of Bakersfield.

The only redeeming quality of this installation, called the Manhattan Oil Project, is the nice happenstance of there being a huge advertisement on an adjoining building for the Broadway revival of Jesus Christ Superstar. There you go with the decadent and the dependent.

One WTC: A worms eye view

This Monday I had occasion to be in the Wall Street area of downtown Manhattan. After my appointment I strolled over to the construction site of One World Trade Center just to take a personal look at progress. The building has now reached the 93rd floor with 11 more to go before being topped out. Soon after it reaches this height, the construction of the 408 foot “transmittal” tower will begin which will take the overall building to its planned height of 1776 feet.

The view of the building from the street is overwhelming, it being about ten floors of an intimidating fortress-like façade with little decorative embellishment to catch the eye. The rest is a tower of glass rising beyond one’s ability to stretch one’s neck bones enough to take it all in . Just to put it in some sort of proportion you need to be at least five blocks away (I recommend the corner of Wall St. at, maybe, Fulton St. to get the full impact.

I have only one word to describe it right now: huge. Maybe next year other adjectives can be added. I’m hoping, at best, for “soaring.”

PB&J

I totally understand the motivation behind today’s receipt of the above mentioned culinary experiment and I thank my benefactor for the thought.
However, this might just be the worst candy bar ever made. Happily it is “no longer available” on-line at Williams-Sonoma, its distributor. It is, however, available as a “7-Day Food Discount” directly from the stores (or, at least, at their 2000 Chestnut St. address in San Francisco). It is marked down from $7.95 to $1.99 which would seem to be a bargain except that the candy bar itself tests one’s gag reflexes and not just for its aftertaste. I can think of a lot of better ways to test those reflexes.

I suggest you have a cold glass of water standing by after which a gargle of Listerine might repair the damage done. I will now forever cast a fisheye on Wms.-Sonoma food products. And I am grateful for the almost immediate healing properties of Listerine.

My Dog Ate My Boyfriend

I think we have a love affair with advice; in fact I’m sure of it. Not taking it particularly but certainly reading it. The New York Times, that venerable old slut, has recognized this passion and has not one, but three advice columns in their Sunday edition. One, The Ethicist (a long-running feature found in the Magazine and written by at least three “advisors” over the last five years), doesn’t tell you how to hold your fork during petit dejeuner but focuses on, well, ethics and ramifications thereof. The advice pretty much follows the guidelines you would expect, which is always to do the “right” thing, hurting as few feelings as possible while still staying on the right side of the law.

I almost never read anything in The SundayStyles section (there’s really not much in there directed towards any of my personal interests) but I don’t recycle it unopened because I always have to read an advice column called Social Q’s which, unlike in the Mag, delves more into the proprieties of dining and dating and it answers letters from people totally flummoxed about what to do about yapping dogs or nosy neighbors and how to deal with, well, social issues. Again, the advice is predictive but leans toward the more mundane like oh, that’s awful, you should see your clergyman/doctor/lawyer or consult the CDC, the IRS or the president of the PTA.

Within the confines of The Magazine itself there is a fairly new feature, usually on about page 10 or 11, called The 1 Page Magazine which has a one-question-one-answer advice column in the upper right-hand corner called Ask Judge John Hodgman. I didn’t notice it for a while because I only scan this page since it’s such a jumble of tiny-print nonsense and Judge Hodgman pretty much disappears into the mess that makes up the tiny items that constitute its make-up. I am reminded of the old days of Mad Magazine with little illustrative stuff running around the margins and between the equally tiny articles, comments and general trivia. Might I add that my trifocals work overtime gleaning the glister (if any) from this chaff.

The authors of all three of these columns, besides giving advice, attempt to entertain with pithy and, perhaps to them, humorous asides. I call this a shriek in the wilderness for someone to help them out of the literary abyss to which they have been allotted in the world of journalistic publishing.

As far back as I can remember there was always Dear Abby and her sister Ann Landers plying their very lucrative (I think) trade. And, of course, the ramifications of this preoccupation with advice, dare I call it a fetish? appeared on television long ago with Dr. Ruth and others of her ilk which then spawned Dr. Phil and Dr. Oz and, I’m sure, others I haven’t stumbled upon in my channel surfing.

Whatever is going on I’m just as much a victim of it as anybody else. Sometimes I’m even spurred to make up questions and send them to the various columnists just to see if any of my questions are taken seriously. Yes, I’ve been successfully published several times but, hey, the advice I sought could apply to the general public, if not really to my own problems/situations.

Maybe this would be a good question for The Ethicist! That is, is it ethical to send in bogus advice questions? My best one that got printed, so far, wasn’t answered and the columnist copped out and asked her (or his) readers for their opinions: “I love my new boyfriend and I think he loves me but he doesn’t get along with my dog and my dog hates my boyfriend. How do I choose?” I now realized that’s a totally unanswerable question. If I was the advisor I would probably say, “Wait for one of them to die,” but I’m sure I would lose my job immediately which, by the way, might be the right answer.

Moving Targets

Have you ever noticed how the moving handrails on escalators and moving walkways are just slightly faster than the stairs/walkways on which you tread? I know this sounds like a Jerry Seinfeld routine but I had occasion to check this out, yet again, at the American Airlines terminal at JFK a couple of weeks ago. It’s a very long trek, after going through security and reaching the gates, with several chances to take note of this phenomenon and to wonder just why this is so. If there is any extensive length between the start and end of the escalator/walkways and if you start the trip by holding on tightly to the handrail and not moving it you will more than likely fall flat on your face by the end. This doesn’t happen, of course, because you tend to adjust your grip but, hey, what’s up with this? I suppose Jerry Seinfeld could make this observation funny or, at least, slightly amusing.

Le Tub

A couple of weeks ago, at my request, my amenable host accompanied me to my favorite restaurant in Florida for a hugely satisfying late lunch. Le Tub serves the best burgers in Hollywood, if not all of Florida, and we also indulged in a really fresh seafood salad and a couple of bloody marys that proved that one is plenty, thank you. To quote their website the property was “Established November 2, 1959 as a Sunoco gas station...closed by the energy crunch of the early seventies, your host purchased the barren property in 1974 and dedicated a concentrated year personally hand building Le Tub totally of flotsam, jetsam and ocean borne treasures all gathered daily over four years of daybreak jogging on Hollywood Beach. All landscaping, planting and decor [are] by your host.”

Sitting outside, as one should, is an adventure in itself. Le Tub is situated right on an inland channel and boats of various sizes (some huge) constantly create waves, also of various sizes, that make the boats docked at the restaurant rock gently or sometimes rather dynamically, depending on the size of the passing vessel. Also you have to keep a vigilant eye on your french fries because they can get picked off by several breeds of brazen birds with sharp eyes and beaks.

The joint (in the best sense of that word) is easy to miss if you’re going the speed limit on A1A heading south; the signage is so understated that the entrance to its parking lot is only noticeable at the last minute to the careless and unaware. Le Tub is open 365 days a year, noon to 4:00 a.m., and its popularity is now rampant; reflected in the long wait-time for service (except for the drinks) and the prices. Just stay calm, try to ignore your impatient New York attitude and enjoy the ambience and, eventually, the food. The beach isn’t going anywhere.

Mad at Christie

Just as Rachel Maddow earned my own personal-hero endorsement, the Gov. of New Jersey, Chris Christie, heaved into view. If there is such a thing as an un-hero or, maybe and anti-hero (or a mal-hero?) he might as well be standing in a hole at the foot of my personal pedestal. With one stroke of a misguided and unfair veto he has fallen into the muck of my low regard. Hopefully, history will prove him to be the mean-spirited bigot he is…his reputation forever besmirched; his legacy one of shame rather than accomplishment.

Mad for Maddow

When I was but a tot I had three heroes: Superman (the comic book version); Tarzan, (as personified by Johnny Weissmuller); and Roy Rogers (not the man himself, but the Roy Rogers portrayed by Roy Rogers in the movies…there is a difference, ya know). My early teens brought Bob Mathias into focus since he was from my home town and won two gold medals in the decathlon in two successive Olympics (my awe turned to shock when he went into politics later in life and became a conservative Republican congressman). Then one has to jump a decade or two when John F. Kennedy captured my attention but, of course, that lasted only 1,000 days and my heart remains broken to this day. From then (although not articulated) I figured hero-worshipping was a path safely left untrodden and have shied away from admitting to anything beyond “admiration” for any one individual, living, dead or fictional.

A mere slip of a girl, Rachel Maddow, has now captured my attention and my heart. She is articulate and educated (including a Rhodes Scholar PHD in Political Science from Oxford) and a very brave “out” lesbian who tells it like she sees it. She’s the heart-and-conscience of MSNBC News and she consistently brings home the bacon, closely aligned of course, within my own political frying pan. On top of her political acumen and wizardry in analyzing it, she seems totally human and sometimes she can get enthusiastically shrill and also sometimes painfully corny (a comedian she is not) but the woman, I’m proud to say, has made my short list. I hope she hangs up there on my pedestal as long as possible and keeps her avowal to never, ever, run for elected office.

So that’s it: Superman, Tarzan, Roy Rogers, Bob Mathias, John F. Kennedy, Rachel Maddow. Hmm…so that means, I guess, that two of my heroes are still living; being, of course, Rachel and Superman. I wonder if she would be embarrassed to know this. Being on my list, I mean, not that Superman is still living.