Got Snickers?

I bought this ornament a good 15 years ago at a frame shop (now gone) on Christopher Street in NYC. It immediately proved to be an inappropriate clinker on the Christmas tree so ever since, for two or three weeks in October, I hang it from a protruding flange on a wall sconce in my living room. It’s quirky and pleases the whimsical side of my nature which is, I’m afraid, slender and rarely in evidence; if not nonexistent. Overnight, November first, he becomes redundant and I stash him away. So, trick or treat and all that…I do love those bite-sized Snickers bars if you have any left over.

Cronkite Beach Passes the Test of Time

About a ten or 15 minute drive across the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco is one of my very favorite beaches in the whole wide world (and I’ve been all over the damn place). The time differential for arrival at Rodeo Beach is the possible five minute wait to get through the one-way access tunnel. Rodeo is located on the ocean (as opposed to SF bay) within the confines of the ex-military installation of Fort Cronkite. Rodeo is unusual in that it is not sand but tiny rocks, making it infinitely fascinating to lie prone rather than supine, the fascination being the large variety of types of stone, some quite valuable if they were of any substantial size, including jasper (yellow), agate (various colors), jade (green) and carnelian (iridescent orange/red). From a distance it all looks a uniform brown. It’s not really a sun worship-per’s beach and it’s dangerous to swim there since the surf is so wild and rough (and cold). It’s quite the mecca for surfer culture as oxymoronic as that might sound.

Although the name Rodeo is technically correct, everyone refers to the place as Cronkite Beach and that’s how I’ve known it since I first discovered it in about 1956. I presume I was introduced to it by some crony or other at the time but the connection is lost in the mists of time. Although part of the National Seashore, the beach is not “taken care of” and nature is allowed to take its course. Consequently it’s sometimes overrun with kelp and/or driftwood (and maybe a dead seagull or two) but always, always, no matter the weather or the light of day; it is beautiful and makes the heart beat faster with the behold-ing of it. Hiking its length is worth the half-hour it takes if you are meandering but if you require a longer trek there are several hiking trials to consider. Uphill. Some of the ex-military structures are still in use by various entities but their exteriors remain the same. Can it be that army barracks could be considered landmarks? There is also a rough-hewn Mammal Research Center up the hill that is worth a visit.

Cronkite Beach is hidden within the confines of the Marin Headlands and remains, to this day (October 22, 2007) as I remember it fifty years ago. Whenever I get to the Bay Area I always try to spend at least a couple of hours there; it’s good for the soul and the knees but still only about five minutes from a decent meal in Sausalito, where you can surreptitiously let your socks dry out. Superfluous note: After breakfast I bought souvenir tee shirts and there is now a bowl-ing team at Melody Lanes in Brooklyn named Team Sausalito. We are currently in fifth place.

Peebs Overwhelmed by Women on B-Day

On Sunday, October 21, 2007, approxi-mately 19,500 women came to my birthday party, every one of them was covered with dried sweat and smelled like swine; but it was fantastic and maybe the best birthday of my long career of having them.

Reportedly there were also 500 men but I never saw, or caught a whiff of, any of them. Well, that’s not exactly true; there were seven or eight sitting at my table (let’s see: John, Garrett, Dan, Torbin and Rusty) and they seemed to have mostly controlled their manly effluvium with some external application of various substances that camouflaged their testosteronic emissions. This could also be due to the fact that they didn’t run in the Nike-sponsored women’s marathon that had just culminated right outside of the restaurant (the afore-mentioned Park Chalet…see blog below) where we were dining in nouveau-California style, as in Stylish…with a capital “S.”

The eight or nine women at the table (Amy, Trish, Jessie, Nan, Karen, Susan and Martha) were also in fine spirits, fettle, and casual finery. In my eyes they were, and are, the most beautiful women in the world. I was pleased, impressed and moved that they all attended (men and women), braved the marathon-muddled traffic, and enjoyed the wonderful restaurant, glorious weather and awe-inspiring cake. These people are 20 or 30 of my favorite people. Although Tom and Susannah were notably missing, 2007 could have been my best birthday ever! Approx-imately 19,516 women (and seven or eight men) made it so!

Eating San Francisco

Living in New York I have access, if not the financial capability of actually going, to some of the best, and highest rated, restaurants in the world. Upon rare and special occasions I get to slurp with the elite but mostly it’s just middle-of-the-road cuisine that still fills the bill for really good food at reasonably moderate prices. Sometimes the Amex Card gets stretched if the occasion deserves it.

However, like most people I get to indulge in something different and appealing while trav-eling, when oneself is the reason for induce-ment. San Francisco never fails to impress me with its variety of eateries, both large and small; both cheap and expensive; both glitzy and tacky. Last week was no exception. Whatever the venue, the food (and accompanying beverages) always seemed to be beyond the ordinary. I dined as follows and in proper order:

Lunch at Park Chalet (see photo).
Dinner at “Q” (grungy and basic).
Breakfast at Velo Rouge (neighborhood coffee hang-out).
Pres a Vie (drinks and hors d’oeuvres only but a gorgeous bar and a fabulous men’s room with lime-flavored soap).
Philz (coffee and cranberry pastry).
green chile kitchen (breakfast burrito…please note lower case name). Dinner at Downtown (funky with modern kitschy art on the walls and ceiling; in Berkeley).
Brunch at Park Chalet (a second visit for a special occasion).
Breakfast at Caffe Trieste (in Sausalito).
Dinner at Bacco (a very fine Italian restaurant).

I might add that at every venue the service was attentive and friendly as were the friends and/or family with whom I shared a table.

...lower case pretension

I can be just as pre-tentious as the next guy (oh, real-ly?). Nonetheless, I am uncomfortable with pretension and artifice when forced into close proximity to it, especially with the high expectations of its creator looking me in the eye, daring me not to understand it. (Well, look at that sentence would you; talk about pretension.) Anyway, with close family members who mostly forgive me my pretensions, last week I saw a production of …after the quake at the prestigious Berkeley Repertory Theatre. This paragon of artifice originated at the equally prestigious Steppenwolf Theatre in Chicago and was conceived and directed by the prestigiously portentous Frank Galati. The work is based on the work of Japan’s Haruki Murakami and takes the form of a writer spinning a fantastic tale to a small child to help her sleep after she has been traumatized by an earthquake.

Being a child of California I have personally experienced a major earthquake or two and know the total helplessness that overcomes you when riding it out, not only while it’s happening, but for months afterwards. Dread is the word and dread is the emotion that can engulf you and prevent you from getting a good night’s sleep, if any sleep at all. A child in Fresno, California in the late ‘50’s (I can’t pin the year down exactly) must have the same problems as a child in Kobe, Japan in 1995.

So I was looking forward to Mr. Galati’s interpretation of, and my reaction to, this piece of prestigious literature by Mr. Murakami. Maybe I wanted to recapture the dread, I really don’t know. What I got, instead of deep emotion, was disillusion and disappointment. No doubt this play (fashioned from another medium) is artistic; but, to me, it reeks of, well, here it is: pretension. Maybe its basic foreign-ness, inscrutable and stylized, were beyond my level of understand-ing. Maybe it was because I just didn’t get the symbolism of the set or the meaning of the musical accompaniment. I certainly recognized some ersatz Shubert and definitely an oriental version of The Beattle’s Norwegian Wood, played live on a cello and a koto (a Japanese percussive instrument). Luckily I didn’t pick up on You Light up My Life, which my theater companions perceived.

What I did perceive is that, with a couple of exceptions, the acting wasn’t all that great and consequently, along with my incomprehen-sion of what was going on, it made for one long 90 minutes of theater. You did notice, did you not, that …after the quake, dots and all, are in lower case? Say what?

A Paean to Crissy

Without fear of contradiction I think San Fran-cisco is a great city. Like every metropolis it has some major problems but more often than not they get it right. One of the things that their population should be eternally grateful for is the renovation and reclamation of Crissy Field. Once run down and obnoxiously neglected, Crissy is now a park with 100 acres, or so, of stunning, windswept shoreline and is obviously a favorite place for walkers, joggers and bicyclists; all of who seem to be there to do their thing but mainly, I think, seeking the enhance-ment of inspirational visuals; both natural and architectural. You can also swim there if you have an affinity for blue feet. Crissy is home to thousands of birds (certain areas are cordoned off as sanctuaries), and the occasional seal (our designated denizen-of-the-deep greeted us almost instantly when we took a long walk on a short pier early in our stroll).

The views are 360 degree spectacular. At one end is the GG Bridge and at the other is an incredible view of the sun dappled city, dominated at this ground-level angle by the dome of the Museum of Fine Arts. The bay itself, and the view across it of the Marin Headlands and the rough North Bay coastline (hiding the tourist traps therein), is a thing of beauty, enhanced by the busy shipping lanes and graced by numerous sailing vessels of various sizes.

Originally a rich salt marsh, Crissy Field was brought into the realm of modern civilization with a bang in 1915 when it was flattened and filled in for the Panama Pacific International Exposition. Shortly thereafter, the area became one of the country’s foremost military airfields and part of a U.S. army post (presumably that’s when the name “Crissy” was applied; sorry, I didn’t do that research) and was a major staging area for the war in the Pacific during WWII. It con-tinued as a military base as part of the Presidio until it was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1962. It pretty much was allowed to fall apart until a site restoration effort in 1998-2000 when civic organizations put in 100,000 (who counted?) native plants to help restore natural systems.

Nowadays community volunteers are fierce protectors of their park and, as far as I can see, continue to sustain stewardship. Would that it will always be so! It’s a feast for the eye and kind to the feet with a couple of miles of easily-walked shoreline and seems to have quite a few wet dogs who want their ears scratched.

Go to CA; Get Gas

Upon arriving in San Francisco last week and after the more-than-pleasant greeting from my Sis at SFO, my first notable experience was seeing this sign on the way to a late lunch at the Park Chalet; an almost-peerless restaurant located on the fringe of Golden Gate Park at Ocean Beach.

My Weekend with Bernie

My friend Bernardo was here for the weekend and he de-cided he wanted to carve a pumpkin. Since idle hands are the devil's plaything I thought it best to go along with this project. I gave him special pumpkin-carving tools, art direction, welcome (I'm sure) advice and the candle. He cleaned out the seeds and goop and did the carving. In spite of what those who know me might think, I had no inclination to help; al-though perhaps trusting him with sharp implements was not the best decision I ever made. We agreed the result was jolly and pleasing although somewhat Mongoloid in its ethnicity.

Cho Biz

Margaret Cho satisfies that need we all have to watch and listen to a short, tubby, heavily tattooed Korean-Ameri-can woman talk trash. I mean real trash…no euphemisms allowed. She was, in a word, sen-sational. Her new off-Broadway “event,” The Sensuous Woman, was less so but as one of my companions put it, there was never a moment of the 90 minutes that I didn’t have at least a smile on my face. Mostly it was in guffaw mode. The show is not all stand-up Cho comedy; far from it. Sensuous women are celebrated in all their guises except, that is, those whose bodies are idealized by most of America, if not the world, for the required curvaceousness, blondeness, blandness and lack of any real talent. To put it bluntly, the stage at The Zipper Factory is populated by the fat, the short, the gender confused, the gender outrageous and the Korean. We saw a lot of almost bare boobs (tassels atwirl) and butts clad (male and female, sometimes in combination) in the expected thongs accompanied by some unexpected songs and the discarding of quite a bit of garb; along with Cho's well-known gift of gab. We also saw, and heard, some really far-out weirdness and sometimes it was just so damned silly you couldn’t catch your breath. The stuff that didn’t work (Dorothy from Kansas stripping down to glittery, ruby slippers) is still in the nice-try, needs-work, category. But, overall, the evening was just terrific.

The Zipper Factory is a catch-all entertainment venue. I met my friends at the modern, sleek bar near the entrance, after which we repaired to the funky, spacious, double-floored restaurant where we dined on nicely presented, nicely served fiddled-with American cuisine. After dinner we were directed to the back of the room where we made a sharp left into a high ceilinged smoke-filled area (don’t be alarmed, the smoke was faux…manufactured from a machine) with a horseshoe bar and high volume vocalism competing with equally high volume music. From there we took another left and made our way to our seats in the oddly shaped seating area of the theater. Again, the word funk comes to mind. This venue was also filled with smoke but it was just for theatrical effect and it dissipated before curtain. The theater’s décor borders on cheesy and tasteless but it was absolutely appropriate for the show to come.

Not that The Sensuous Woman was cheesy and tasteless but, oh well, come to think of it, a very high percentage actually was. The one serious theme of the evening is a universal one; that is, recognizing and accepting our differences and, in this show, making fun of them and exhibiting them without shame with (upon occasion) the glitter that such an endeavor requires. Not that audiences in New York require hearing this gospel and it’s doubtful those that it would benefit, if they could actually understand it, would attend anyway. But we, the totally converted, get the benefit of the attempt. And the guffaws therefrom.

By the way, I sure do like Maker’s Mark manhattans (my current ever-changing alcoholic beverage of choice) especially if they seem to get slyly replenished before you get to the cherry. In thinking it over, that might be yet another reason why I thought The Sensuous Woman was so hysterical. And, of course, sensuous.

BLAT Bliss

Okay, now really, what's better than a Bacon, Lettuce and Tomato sandwich on rye toast on a nice, cool, breezy fall afternoon? Answer? A Bacon, Lettuce, AVOCADO and Tomato sandwich on rye toast. Mayo to taste, of course...true aficionados and aficionadas of the BLAT use Miracle Whip (shown).

More Fauna Business

A couple of years ago at about this time I was fiddling around on the back porch and was quite startled to hear and then see a pair of small green parrots bombing into my large forsythia bush at the back of the yard. I tried to stay still and quiet but they were just passing through and flitted off over the rooftops. I had forgotten this visit until this afternoon when I again had the privilege of a repeat visit. I know, I know…probably not the same pair but you know what I mean. This time I happened to be already sitting down so I was able to observe them comfortably. They didn’t hang around long, but they did make an appearance on the rim of the birdbath, taking dainty sips. These parrots, it seems, never shut up. If they are not squawking raucously in flight they are gurgling and giggling when at rest.

These are “monk” or “quaker” parrots (or parakeets) and they are certainly not native to Brooklyn (Argentina is their native habitat and considered unwanted varmints there) and it is surmised their propa-gation in this area started with the accidental release, or escape, of a shipment at JFK airport in the late ‘60s or early ‘70s. Somehow they have adapted to our cold winters and now seem to thrive hereabouts although their numbers wax and wane due to an occasional severe winter and/or a purge by the folks from Con Edison, New York’s elec-trical utility (who should, in my opinion, zero in on squirrels rather than parrots as wire-chewing culprits).

This year the parrot population seems to be booming with flocks sighted all over the place, including the usual suspects like Brooklyn College, the war monument at Grand Army Plaza and the main entrance to Green-Wood Cemetery on 5th Avenue. It seems this breed of parrot prefers the open nooks and crannies of buildings and the tops of utility poles, as opposed to the obvious shelter of the trees of Prospect Park or any other natural setting (like my backyard). Of course they have become an ecological “cause” and run their own website, www.brooklynparrots.com, which is presumably fronted by humans. Whatever their history I, for one, welcome them to the neighborhood. They are noisy little buggers but they sure are cute.

Freaky Fridays in The NY Times...Critics Binging on Adjectives

Every Friday the Arts & Leisure section of the The New York Times features reviews of eight to ten new movies. I am always bemused (and sometimes amused) by the fact that the reviews pretty much, for various reasons, bash the hell out of most of them. I am also bemused by the fact that all of the movies are the result of years of work and the expenditure of millions of dollars and this one review in The Times can make or break it even though, sometimes, one short paragraph filled with negative adjectives is all it gets.

Although I rarely go see even well-reviewed movies I still avidly read what the folks at The Times have to say and they have quite a good-sized staff covering the field with, I might add, good writers who would be first-string critics on any other newspaper in the country.

In the very same issue of the paper there are ads for these movies with sterling and inspiring quotes from various other media sources. What I like to do, and shame on me, is winnow out quotes that should be used for these current movies; I even use a yellow highlighter. For instance, using today’s Times as an example:

The Heartbreak Kid, “a lame, long, ugly joke of a movie.” A.O. Scott

The Good Night, “sour and joyless.” Stephen Holden

Broken, “defies basic credibility.” Stephen Holden

Sea Monsters, “efficient but bland.” Matt Zoller Seitz

The Seeker, “frequently dreary,” and “feels passé and lacks a charismatic lead.” Jeannette Catsoulis

For The Bible Tells Us So, “won’t win any prizes for technique.” Matt Zoller Seitz

Finishing the Game, “mired in absurdity,” and “never gets off the ground.” Jeannette Catsoulis

The only fairly good review (by Manohla Dargis; a Times first-stringer) covers the new George Clooney flick Michael Clayton. She has some caveats but it would not be fair to cherry-pick them in my ad quotes since, overall, the review is positive. The problem with me is that I really don’t see enough movies (maybe ten-twelve a year) to want to trust my puny dollars to what could be a dud, including Michael Clayton. But I’m enough of an idiot to play my little Friday afternoon game anyway. OMG, millions of dollars and film reputa-tions shot to hell by, very truly yours, Peebstuff! Yeah...as if.

Tchotchke Favorites

An interesting coincidence: A friend was visit-ing last Friday and he noticed this duck I have on display and he was marvel-ing at its intri-cacies. I told him that I had bought it at a store at the South Street Seaport in lower Manhattan approximately 20-25 years ago. This store, Pavo Real, carried various works of Mexican crafts, jewelry and art with some clothing accessories thrown into the mix. It was almost like a museum and, I might add, way out of my league price-wise. Eventually my desire to own overcame any financial good sense and I bought this little duck. It is a limited edition by Sergio Bustamante and it is paper mache at its absolute best. He is more famous for his large, sometimes life-sized, creations but I am still really happy to have a tiny piece of his heritage. The coincidence mentioned above comes from having received a catalog from Pavo Real yesterday with a “We Miss You!” sticker on the outside. As far as I know the only Pavo Real store left in the U.S. is in Boston and the catalog seems to feature mostly women’s somewhat exotic fashions (still costly). Whatever, the catalog and the coincidence is the goose that prompted this blog.

The duck is still one of my favorite tchotchkes and just about the only one that stays on display 24/7. The only other item that stays put is a wonderful scrimshaw that I bought in Sausalito, Calif. in about 1971. The little etched character had a name when I bought it but the intervening years have cast doubt on what I think I remember it to be; Ragnar the Viking. It’s a walrus tooth so not from an endan-gered species (just in case you were going to get snarky on that score). Ragnar is 3.5” high, including the bronze base. The duck is 5” x 7” and is highly shellacked paper mache.

I have a lot of, well, I’ll admit it, junk scattered around the apartment (some stored out of sight in a special “décor” cabinet) but they are all keep-sakes and gifts and travel souvenirs. All of them have sentimental value for me and are, thus, priceless.

As Time Rolls By

One lucky night this summer I bowled a 263 game. This week I was rewarded by the receipt of this watch from the U.S. Bowling Congress. The tiny blurry print says 100 Pins Over Average. I like my new watch. Maybe too much.