It is Time for Fantasy Art Exhibit

You know about those fantasy league baseball games? Where nuts (and I say that with all kindness, as I have several cousins who are into this sort of thing), make up teams drawing from all of baseball and then compete based on the stats of the various players. At least, I think that is how they do it. Cousin Matthew explained it to me one night, but it was after cocktails and the details are all a bit fuzzy. I remember thinking that it all seemed rather odd.

Anyway, what about fantasy art exhibits?

Here is your chance: curate a show, or at least come up with a good theme and a few examples of paintings/sculptures/etc. to fill it.

You can be very broad:

Toros! Representations of the Bullfight in Painting, with works by Goya, Picasso, Diebenkorn, etc. (although it is more fun if you get really specific)

Or you can get minutely detailed:

Moo! A look at English oil paintings of Scottish Highland Cattle from the mid 17th century.

Anyway, enter your ideas in the comments box and I will pick a winner, who will receive absolutely nothing beyond bragging rights.

Try to put together shows that you would want to see.

Have fun!

The Arts

I try to keep a balance of topics on the blog, but balance is one of those difficult things to attain and to maintain. I have noticed that I have been rather lax about posting serious art entries. Mea culpa. Sometimes recipes get the short end of the stick, sometimes it is baseball, but this time I have noticed a lack of art talk.

Part of it stems from the fact that I have been looking at art that I already know quite well. Part of it stems from looking at said art with a toddler. On Thursday we went to the Oakland Museum of California and took an inventory of horse (and sometimes cow) images. Then we looked for uses of the color purple.

Oh well, you gotta start somewhere.

We had an interesting discussion over whether a mid-1950's (a Berkeley 1954 painting that is predominantly black, grey and brown) Diebenkorn indeed was a picture of a horse. Amalia decided that it was, in spite of my argument that it was a more generally landscape oriented abstract expressionist piece.

"It's a horse, Babbo! Here are the legs, here is the head, and it is jumping!"

So there you have it. Horse or no, it is really a fine painting. Go to the museum to see it.

Presidential Election

I have still been far too busy to read through the ballot, so my full endorsements will have to wait. I did find this quick quiz courtesy of Fr. Tucker, so I filled it out:

1. Your ideal theoretical candidate. (100%)
2. Bush, President George W. - Republican (84%)
3. Badnarik, Michael - Libertarian (48%)
4. Kerry, Senator John, MA - Democrat (44%)
5. Peroutka, Michael - Constitution Party (34%)
6. Cobb, David - Green Party (12%)
7. Nader, Ralph - Independent (12%)
8. Brown, Walt - Socialist Party (10%)

I never would have guessed that anyone could score lower than Nadir on my list. I am also a bit surprised that the Libertine, I mean, Libertarian scored higher than the Constitution Party, although I tend to see both groups as kooky manifestations of decadent liberal democracy.

So, with that bit of fun done, it is time for me to get back to work! Full political conversation next week (I am driving a support vehicle for a giant relay race this weekend and will be out of Internet contact).

Our Schizophrenic Weather

Autumn is always a little strange. Last week we were worried about out of control fires. Now we are having rain dumped on us. Lots of rain. I had to change my route twice today because of flooding. This isn't serious, el nino flooding, rather backed up storm drains and the like, which is standard for the first big rain of the season.

I wanted to cook something warm and comforting so I decided on lamb stew. Unfortunately everyone else seems to have had the same idea, so my butcher had already sold out of lamb by eleven this morning. So instead, I roasted a Boston Butt, in honor of the Red Sox.

Here is the recipe:

Make a dry rub of fresh cracked pepper (I use a blend of pink peppercorns, standard black peppercorns, white peppercorns, tillecherry peppercorns, and Jamaican allspice), pimenton, allspice, nutmeg, dried thyme, fresh winter savory, bay leaf, fresh crushed garlic, and sea salt. You can also add a finely chopped salt-packed anchovy, if you have them on hand (which I recommend always having on hand). Lightly oil the roast and rub the spices on. Let sit for at least an hour, preferably overnight.

Put the roast on a rack in your roasting pan and place in the center of a 325 degree oven. When the meat reaches an internal temperature of 150 degrees, strew sliced onions and carrotts on it. Baste.

When the meat has reached 160 degrees, remove it to a board and cover it with foil for ten to twenty minutes (enough time for a martini and to make the salad). Slice and serve. If the pan is not too full of burnt stuff, you can deglaze with cognac, strain and whip in softened butter for a sauce. Salt to taste.

Serve with a red wine. Yum.

This is great!

Jeff Koons is probably my least favorite living artist. It actually makes me cringe to call him an artist. Says here that he is against Bush.

There is much more to this article, which is a thought-provoking read, though. Go read it yourself!

Elections and The Erik's Rants and Recipes Endorsements

First, let me say this about the elections:

Absentee voting is wrong. So is extending the voting to a two week period. Voting in National Elections should be an event, like the old Roman census, where you return to your hometown for a couple of days and vote, in person.

Frankly, most of you know what I really would like to see happen to National Elections: end them all. The framers of the Constitution got it right when they made the Federal Government a concern of the state governments, not the ordinary schlump (technical term).

But if we have to have every man, woman and dunderhead pulling levers, pushing buttons, scratching under his armpit and trying to figure out which one of those letter combinations spells "Kerryman", then let's at least have some ceremony about it. Jacket and tie requirements, natch. Hats must be worn to, but removed in, the polling place. The box of ballots must be picked up by an armed honor guard in shiny helmets. Then, all bars should have 2 for 1 specials. All night.

But instead, not only do we have to have women and 18 year olds voting (gasp! sputter! cough!), we get to prolong the misery for two weeks.

Therefore, my original plan to post my endorsements next week has been bumped up. I will do it sometime this week.

Please note that if you are not a Californian, I will not be giving endorsements of your local issues. In fact, I will only be tackling the Oakland local issues (maybe the San Francisco ones if I have time to do my homework).

Thornton Bullfight Report (Brief)

Today was pretty messy at Praca Sao Joao in Thornton. Out of six attempts, there was only one grab. Jose Manuel Duarte's horse was knocked over, and the bull gave him a pretty nasty injury on the face (not enough to even keep him down for that bull. I will give him a lot of credit there - his face looked pretty beat up, but he came back on another horse and finished the faena). The bulls were big and unpredictable.

Fortunately the best bull went to Vitor Ribeira (I think that is his name- I have never seen him before, but WOW! what a cavaleirho). This guy has style, knowledge of the bulls, skill, and a varied repertoire that balances serious torear with enough adorno to add sparkle.

I don't know if I am going to be there on Monday, but if you are at all thinking about it, I strongly suggest it. It should be good.

Har har har!

Just reading today's blog comments I see that John lists Andrew Sullivan as one of his favorite cartoon characters. Oh how true.

I have pretty much given up on Sullivan (actually, I rarely read any neo-con pundit anymore, as they just infuriate me), so I would not count him as my favorite, but he is indeed a cartoon character.

Along those lines, I would have to list my alter-ego, President Richard Milhous Nixon, as a favorite character. Or at least as my favorite Quaker.

Speaking of bizarre cults, I am getting sick and tired of Falun Gong acting like all they are is a stretching program. They were part of the Italian Heritage (read Columbus Day, but with a name that does not offend the natives) Parade. Believe me, anyone who dabbles in Falun Gong nonsense automatically loses any claim to Italian heritage. But these folks, with their calm monotone voiceover on the PR system and their matching yellow outfits, are creepy. Really creepy. Creepy as in "I'd like you to read some literature and possibly put a green pod in your backyard" creepy.

One of the people I was watching the parade with said, "oh, the Chinese Scientologists." Would you like a personality test to go with your tai chi?

I rarely praise commies, and even rarer is the day when I praise commie governments, but the People's Republic of China is right to smell a nasty rat in Falun Gong. Unfotunately, they smell nasty rats in Catholics, but they are right in smelling one in Falun Gong.

I can just imagine the next time I see a rat in a yellow suit slowly waving his hands at me and telling me to read some literature.

PS You might see their material calling itself Falun Dafa. It is the same thing, and it is all creepy stuff.

Derrida

I am not going to eulogize Derrida, because it is probably unseemly and uncharitable to use words like "gasbag" or "con man" or "fraud" while speaking of the recently deceased. And anyway, I never met the man. Perhaps he was a wonderful sort who was simply a little confused in his writing. So confused that he perfected the art of writing without actually saying anything.

And this is the way to speak of Derrida. Not Derrida the man, who, as I mentioned, may have been good people and all that. Rather, we can attack the work he left, and preferably with a can of gasoline and a book of matches.

Go ahead, pick up one of his books and diagram several of the sentences. You might be surprised to learn that in many cases he really was saying nothing. Nada. Zip. Nil. Of course for someone who thought that language made communication nearly impossible, this is probably fitting.

Anyway, thanks to OGIC, I read this very funnny article in the Guardian. Especially read what Denis MacShane had to say.

Sort of like the Friday Fives...

From TSO

Name THREE of your...

1. Pet Peeves: Sideways baseball hats, conversational writing, animal rights activists
2. Favorite Sounds: the wind in aspens, the fog horn in San Francisco in the middle of the night, the harpsichord.
3. Biggest Fears: being attacked by a shark (a crazy fear that never hits me in the ocean, only in swimming pools, even though I know the impossibility - something that goes back to my competitive swimming days), Kenny G, Canada.
4. Biggest Challenges: remembering the essential humanity of animal rights activists, drawing hands well, doing laundry without complaining.
5. Favorite Department Stores: Harrod's, Nordstrom, that's about it.
6. Most Used Words: dirty, commie, rat.
7. Favorite Pizza Toppings: pepperoni, sausage, mushrooms.
8. Favorite Cartoon Characters: I am changing this one to comic strip characters: Krazy Kat, the Katzenjammer Kids, Pogo.
9. Movies Recently Watched: The Triplets of Belleville, 8 1/2, Gaslight.
10. Favorite Fruits & Vegetables: cardoni, Bartlett pears, cavolo nero.

More on New York as the Center of Arts

Terry Teachout has responded in a very reasoned and reasonable way to my shot accross the bow.

First, I find it interesting that he points out that he was not born in New York. The late Herb Caen (two guesses as to where he was from, and if Sacramento wasn't one of them, you lose) often referred to people as "true San Franciscans, which means that they weren't originally from here." The same goes for New York. To voluntarily choose life in a big city is a much bigger step towards citizenship in that Imperial City (hat tip to Gray Brechin) than being from there and staying put.

Second, he notes that New York is where folks came to be validated. In bullfighting it is similar. A novillero can take the alternativa anywhere, but it must be confirmed in Las Ventas in Madrid. In many ways New York functioned that way for the art world, but...

It wasn't nearly as all-powerful as it thought. My counter-examples run in two categories: first, the darlings of the New York art world who are running deeper and deeper into obscurity (and mark my words, Warhol will be less known as an artist than as the father of some daft ideas that the art world took years to recover from) and second, artists like Wayne Thiebaud or Richard Diebenkorn who never did a significant stint in New York (Diebenkorn's few months in an upstate artists' colony don't count).

Certainly it took longer for Diebenkorn to be recognized as THE major American painter of his era (and there is still some resistance from the New York establishment), but in the long run he will be seen as a much greater painter than de Kooning, Pollock, or even Rothko (all of whom I think are first rate painters).

It is good to remember that Cezanne remained in Provence, and that his art reflected a terroir, to borrow an oenology term, that went hand-in-hand with his greatness as a painter. Similarly with Diebenkorn, Thiebaud, Kondos, Staprans, Arneson, and Park.

The jazz world that Terry cites, well, New York was and is the place to make a living at it. I might note that the bass player of a band that he mentioned on his blog a while back was from San Francisco (and a classmate of mine at UC Santa Cruz), and is living and thriving in New York. I also would note the departure of Charlie Hunter, a great Berkeley guitar player, a few years back, one who only a year prior was saying that he would never go to New York.

This is more a matter of pure economics. New York has more opportunities for gigs. However, there are jazz musicians (like the extremely talented Sonny Simmons), who have found that even New York doesn't offer enough and have found Europe to be a better bet.

One thing to remember is the role that other cities used to have. Philadelphia, for instance, was the headquarters of many great jazzmen (still is. I think Kenny Barron still lives there). Then there was Boise (har har har. I never could figure out why Gene Harris lived there. Certainly he wasn't working every night at the pay that his talent deserved).

As Terry notes, it is all changing, partly due to the Internet, but I suspect also because cities like New York have the habit of getting smug and stale. It certainly happened to Paris, as well as Rome (although Rome has come back and fallen and come back and fallen more times than should be possible). On the West Coast, San Francisco certainly goes through this (although San Francisco has a whole other set of issues regarding its artistic identity).

Chicken Mistral

Amalia used to like juice a lot. Now she likes the idea of juice, but not the stuff itself so much. As a result we had a bottle of pomegranite/apple juice that needed to be used faster than I could concoct cocktails. So I used it to cook chicken. I will warn you, this recipe calls for ingredients you probably will have to make yourself or procure through a specialty shop.

Inside the rinsed and dried, lavender salted and peppered chicken, I put in a roughly chopped stalk of celery, with leaves, two crushed garlic cloves and half a coursely chopped onion. I put the chicken in a clay Romertopf and rubbed the bird with extra virgin olive oil and put the finely julienned zest of a Moroccan preserved lemon (I do them myself with Meyer lemons and sea salt), the other half of the chopped onion, two more crushed cloves of garlic, and two Italian preserved hot chilis (in olive oil), with the seeds removed. I then poured the juice (one can and probably should use pure pomegranite juice for this, but I had the other stuff on hand), up to about a half an inch from the rim of the bottom half of the Romertopf. I put the lid on and placed it in a 375 degree oven.

When the chicken was done, I put it on my board and covered it with foil. I strained and skimmed the cooking juices and reduced them to a syrup. Then I whipped in almost a whole stick of softened, unsalted, cultured butter and finished with a dash of Spanish brandy.

After I carved the bird, I sauced it liberally and served it with a green salad (I would have served a simple pine nut and raisin couscous, but I was out of couscous) and a Napa Valley Zinfandel (in other words, a Zinfandel pretending to be a Cabernet Sauvignon). Yum.

Another Bullfight!

I was looking for details on the Thornton bullfight to give to someone and found out that there is going to be one more after Thornton in Stevinson on Sunday, Oct. 24. It seems a risky proposition, as there could be rain by then, but if skies are clear, I will probably go to that one, too.

Remember, for up-to-date bullfight information, be sure to check bullfights.org, and excellent and well-designed site that always has the scoop on California (alta and baja) bullfights.

Hidden Spam

Recently I have had major blog spam hits. I got all of the ones that I could find (with the help of MT Blacklist), but I think that 10 or 15 got through the cracks. I do not know how to view a list of comments more extensive than the five most recent that it shows.

As a result I have no idea what to tell MT Blacklist what to look for.

So, I am asking you, dear readers, to let me know if you encounter blog spam on any archive posts you happen to be reading. That way I can zap them. The best way to let me know is to email me at EKeilholtz [at] a[merica]o[n]l[ine] [dot] com. Thanks!

Columbus Day!

I hope you all had a very happy Columbus Day (observed). I did. I even ate Italian food, but I do that. Often.

In honor of Columbus and things Iberian being brought to the new world, I wore a Bullfighting T-Shirt today. Not even a funny glance, which is about par for the course. No one reads T-shirts anymore, which is a good thing, since argument from T-shirt is only a notch above argument from bumper sticker. At least a t-shirt is a potential conversation starter.

"Oh, so you like rejoneo? Don't you think that it lacks the full emotional range of toreo a pie?"

So far it only works in bullfights, except that the typical response to a shirt promoting Pablo Hermoso de Mendoza in a California bullfight is, "he's very good, but Joao Moura is better."

Of course Hermoso de Mendoza is better, but don't say that too loudly around several thousand Azorans.

Of course this coming weekend marks the end of the bullfighting season, with the great two day bullfight at the festival of Our Lady of Fatima at Thornton in the delta. I am planning on making it for both days, so if you are going, look for me (I will post later in the week what I will be wearing).

Volcanoes (again!)

This volcano thing has got to stop. I was up until about 2am reading about potential volcanic hazards in California (especially the Long Valley Caldera, a gigantic system that includes Mammoth). Fascinating stuff.

Tonight I have been consciously avoiding those sites, as I needed to get something else done. But I can't get some of the material out of my head, especially the mechanics of a caldera's creation.

It is really quite spectacular. You start with a giant build-up of magma. The magma is expelled and the land above the magma chamber collapses. Boom. Instant valley. Sometimes it fills with water (as is the case with Crater Lake), which can be extremely acidic at times.

Something that surprised me was the figure that the US Geological Survey quoted for the number of deaths caused by volcanoes since 1980: 29,000. That is a lot of people. Now, I know that there were few deaths caused by Mt. St. Helens, and that advancements in Vulcanology kept Mt. Pinatubo from killing a lot of people. I know that there are occassional deaths caused by Mt. Etna and Stromboli, but 29,000?!? I need to dig around more, but not tonight.

One of the most startling things I have ever seen in regards to volcanoes was in El Salvador. There were people who had settled in the crater of a large "extinct" volcano. Just because the thing is dormant does not make it safe. Even outside of cataclysmic eruptions, a gas eruption could smother the whole village in minutes.

Anyway, thinking about calderas made me wonder how we would react if a new caldera-forming volcano popped out in an unexpected place. Even in a remote, uninhabited location, such an event would be startling, to say the least.

Of course from a hazards viewpoint, existing volcanoes (and towns and cities like Takoma that are built on old flows) are far more of a concern than New Krakatoa emerging on Old New York or some other such scenario.

Here in the Bay Area we have a couple of old volcanoes. I think the one closest to us is Round Top in the Berkeley Hills. Other than that, we would have to look to Sonoma and Napa for something that is potentially active (Clear Lake comes up quite often in searches for this sort of thing).

Anyway, if this fascination keeps up, I will end up having to go to Erta Ale to look at the lava lake.

The Decentralization of the Arts

Terry Teachout lives in New York, yet he understands (to some extent, as I don't believe a New Yorker ever really gets the extent of this phenomenon) that New York is no longer (if it ever really was) the center of the arts in America or the world. Certainly it was at one time the center of the hype of the arts in America, but in the long run, I really don't think that New York will be seen as all that significant.

People will realize that Clyfford Still and Mark Rothko really found their styles in San Francisco, that Warhol was useless, and so forth. As to music, it is a different story, but New York's role has been greatly inflated. While they had Corigliano, we had Lou Harrison. You can guess which one I think will be a footnote, only of interest to historical musicologists desperate for a new topic, once Amy Beach runs dry.

So, I have a lot to say about the decentralization of the arts. Lots.

However, I need to go to the Amtrak station to pick up some friends who are allegedly only an hour late.

You want liberal democracy? Fine, then you live with the late trains. They should be there in five minutes, but, oh no, you people need to vote on every friggin' measure and then you still whine about "they're takin' away our freedom!" So, the train is going to be an hour late. At least. I can't even trust the LiberalDemocracyTrak to report accurately on how late the train will be. Speaking of innacurate Liberal Democracies, why, oh why does the clock on my Ford gain something like 16 minutes every six months? Has relativism hit so hard that these 'tards can't even make an accurate clock? But I digress. I better bring a book. Probably a biography of the Duce. Bah!

Then, when I get a moment, between Lepanto League parties, I mean, serious and somber symposia, Italian Cultural Heritage Parades (black shirts optional), ushering at mass, going to a big barbecue, I might write a thing or two on decentralization in the arts, particularly in regards to the outstanding theater that is happening all over the country, but particularly in Sacramento (almost enough to make me miss the place), but, well, don't hold your breath. Instead, go read Teachout. Off to the station.

Cars With Character

I like cars that have character. Citroens and old SAABs and the Fiat Personale and the like make me very happy. My beloved (yet disabled) Krautrocket, a 1989 BMW 325, is of the last generation of BMWs to have character. Sometime in the 1990's the folks in Munich (like the folks at SAAB) got boring. Not horribly boring, and that wonderful Krautrocket hum was still in the engine, but they were not the same.

Hope is not gone, however, because I remember when the Jaguar went through an unfortunate period of having rectangular headlamps. They came to their senses. Likewise, recent Thunderbirds have had character, as do the Honda Element and the Scion. The Mini and the new Bug (although is a car without a rear-mounted air-cooled engine really a bug?) have character. Soon we will see the Smart Car, which impressed me greatly the first time I saw it in Italy. The PT Cruiser is a car that thinks it has character, but it doesn't. The Aztek has character, but it is on loan, and Waste Management might want it back soon.

Today I saw two cars that have more character than one can possibly know what to do with. The first was some old military ambulance thing that was absolutely stunning. It looked 4WD and quite ferocious. It also had a bit of that pushme-pullyou thing going for it, which is always a bonus in my book. I like a car that always looks like it just MIGHT be going in reverse.

The second was a very old Bronco. I think Bronco and I think of the boring ones from the 80's on, but this was a beaut. More like an old Jeep than a modern SUV.

Speaking of cars with character, the Oakland Museum of California has (or had, I am not sure if it is still up) a show of Kaiser automobiles. Wow! Each one was a beauty. If the show is still up and you are in the area check it out. For the price of admission, you can also check out the great art collection (not to mention the opportunity to talk to a stuffed deer, Amalia's favorite part of any museum visit).

Foul Usury and Spam

I am amused by gambling. I don't go out of my way to do it, since I figure that waking up each morning and the ensuing hijinx (as a fairly avid cook, knives and fire are everpresent) are enough of a gamble for anyone. Once in a great while I will find myself somewhere where dogs or horses are racing or cocks are fighting, and I might put down a bet. Or I might play boss or liars' dice for drinks. I have only played games in casinos about three times in my life, quit while I was ahead and had a moderately good time, but not so much that I would go out of my way (or forego doing something more interesting) to do it.

As a result I honestly cannot understand people who love to gamble, let alone gambling addiction. My general view towards addiction is that it is a moral failing, not a disease, and should be treated as a moral failing. People who gamble all the time are frittering away their time and money to run and hide from some reality, and that's that.

So, I am generally only annoyed at gambling spam on the blog. I have to delete at least 30 messages a day of that stuff.

Porn spam is another story, especially if it claims to offer rape and incest and homosex. That should be suppressed by the power of the state.

Today I got usury spam, from some Payday loanshark. Like pornography, usury is bad, bad news. Everyday we pass one of these loansharks (who, ironically, has a poster of Malcolm X on his wall) and see the desperate folks who made the mistake of walking in there once and have been scrambling at playing catch up ever since.

I am not a computer whizz, so I do not know how to do all that hacker stuff to disable websites and the like, but if you are, www.americacashfast.com might be a worthy target.

Volcanoes!

For those of you who share my love of lava, be sure to add Stromboli online to your list. These fellows are dedicated volcanologists out of Switzerland and they do a great job of presenting photos, streaming video, seismic data, and other information about volcanoes all around the world (they definitely give Stromboli pride of place, but be sure to check out the pictures of Ethiopia's Erta Ale, especially of the lava lake. Also, they have some great photos of Sao Miguel in the Acores).

Food Magazine Worth Reading

Most food magazines are mediocre.

There are a host of recipe-based ones that really don't offer much that you don't already have, if you have a decent cookbook library. Then there are the ones that are full of reviews of restaurants all over the country, which is great if you are on the road a lot. Some, like Gourmet do a good job of describing the food at those restaurants, so a creative cook can get some ideas from the reviews (Gourmet also has pretty good recipes overall).

I could easily do without the stack of food magazines that come in the mail box. I find that the only sometimes tedious part of the job of restaurant reviewer is having to stay current on food trends and kitchen gossip (although I still manage to avoid a lot of that - for instance, I really couldn't care less as to what Wolfgang Puck or Jeremiah Towers are up to). I also am always on the lookout for different ways of describing food, which is probably second only to sports writing in its difficulty. So, I read the food magazines, albeit reluctantly.

There is one, however, that I enjoy cover to cover. It is Gastronomica: The Journal of Food and Culture, which is published by the University of California Press. As a semi-academic journal you do get the odd "you thought that X was good, but it is not. It is BAAAAAAAAD" sort of crap that is common in academia, but most of the articles, even the ones by cultural anthropologists, are pretty good, and the gems are really good.

For instance, if you go to the website, you can read a piece on the egg cream and the syrup racket in the 1930's (just the sort of thing that I can imagine reading about on Irish Elk). The cover price for Gastronomica is $10 per issue, which is steep, but it is a quarterly, and packs more content in a single issue than the advert-heavy food magazines pack in a year.

Also, they have great cover art, which earns big points from me. It is not a magazine for those looking for recipes (Cuisine at Home is the one I recommend for that), but it is one that should appeal to non-foodies as well as foodies and cooks.

Englischer Muffin Pizzas

Yesterday Melanie wanted to get Englischer muffins for breakfast, which was fine with me, since they are tasty and easy enough to prepare in the morning. But this morning rolled around and I was getting ready to toast mine and WHAM! It hit me. Memories of many happy childhood lunches. I pulled out the pizza sauce, sliced some chorizo, topped with mozzarella and baked myself an Englischer muffin pizza.

You know what? It tasted as good today as it did back then. I think that tomorrow, if I get up in time (Dante night, you know, sometimes goes into extra innings), I am going to rehydrate some dried porcini mushrooms, use goat cheese and finish it with white truffle oil.

It does bother me that these little things are called Englischer muffins. They taste too good for that. So, in the spirit of Freedom Fries, I am now going to call these little wonders by some other name. I thought of Blitzkrieg Buns, but that was probably a little bit to the edge of Just War theory, even if it was directed against England, so really shouldn't be honored that way. Perhaps something French, in honor of the nation that has been the biggest thorn in England's hide.

Suggestions?

The Debate

In spite of multiple attempts to avoid it, I ended up hearing and watching the debate tonight. I admit that I don't like George W. Bush. I voted against Gore more than I voted for Bush, even though it was W's box that I checked. I will probably do so again.

One person who mitigates my displeasure of the current administration is Dick Cheney. He is the best man in the administration, and I would vote for him for President in a second. Tonight he lived up to my expectations against the loathesome Senator from the Confederacy. Good Show, Veep! Please consider running for President yourself.

As for John Kerryman, the less said the better. Voting against him will be a pleasure.

After the debates the news came on with some good footage of Mt. St. Helens and the sad news that Rodney Dangerfield died. I have to admit that I liked him, although his schtick got old after not too long. He was a funny guy, he just needed some new writers.

Speaking of comedians, if you are looking for a way to rile up your boomer friends just remind them that Bob Hope was funny and Lenny Bruce was not. Of course the hagiographies of Bruce spin this as a virtue: "well, people realized that he was serious, talking about serious topics, blah blah woof woof."

In other words he played a not-small role in debasing political discourse. Great.

I am not saying that comedians should avoid current politics, nor that there is no role for comedy in the political discourse, but if the comedian is not funny, then what value is there in it?

I expect some of my readers to say, "wait a minute! Not funny? Bruce was a comic GENIUS!" To whom I say, go ahead, pull out the old records and listen. You will not need to call a doctor to sew your sides back up.

"But in his day..."

Look, Abbott and Costello are still funny. The Three Stooges, still funny. Lenny Bruce: yawnfest. OK, he had some moments, but mostly he was pretty dull. You want funny pinkos of the past? How about Charlie Chaplin!

Funny Pinkos of the Past. Good name for a union. The International Brotherhood of Funny Pinkos of the Past, Local 512. AFL-CIO. If they went on strike, all of our DVDs would just show picket signs. Amalia would be devastated, as she has taken quite a fondness for Road to Bali, mostly because of the tiger and gorilla. I like the chimp in the Bob Hope mask, myself, not to mention the Bogart cameo and Bing Crosby's brother's scene.

They don't make films like that anymore. Instead we get, well, what do we get? I never seem to get out to the movies these days. Maybe they do make films like that, but I just never get to see them. Nobody I know voted for Nixon, either.

And nobody I know is voting for Bush either. Well, not true, I do know a few Republicans and a few people who, like me, are not Republican but anti-Democratic. But I know people who probably think that nobody they know is voting for Bush.

I am also taking this moment to announce my non-candidacy for President in the 2008 elections. I know that the rumor mill has been circulating my name, but I am emphatically not running. I am not only not running, but if I win the write-in spot, I will not serve. So there. Elect someone else. I will not live in a house full of all that colonial crap, especially if it is in a subtropical swamp. Forget it. I might not like Ronald Reagan, but it still astounds me that a Californian (albeit by adoption) could ever live in that climate. Furthermore, there are no volcanoes in the DC area.

So, if elected and pressed into service, I promise that I will relocate the Capital to San Francisco and the Imperial Palace will be appropriate to the place. We will also have funny hats for all cabinet positions, and the Imperial Guard will have shiny helmets. The Supreme Court will be relocated to a secret location in Siberia (nothing in the Constitution about locating them in remote places), and Congress will meet for their annual meeting at the War Memorial Opera House. Most of that meeting will be spent listening to the State of the Union address, followed by cocktails in one of the exquisite bars in the area (OK, I put that last line in as a sop to Ted Kennedy. You see, I can be as bipartisan as I can be ecumenical).

I already have the design planned for my equestrian statue, which will replace the statue of Mohandas Ghandi, esq. at the Ferry Building.

But I am not running. Nope. I say this so that if I change my mind I will have broken a campaign promise before the campaign begins.

You call that Football?

What was that wind last night? Oh, probably the breeze generated by thousands of football fans yawning at such a dull game. Part of the problem for me was that I have absolutely no loyalty to either of the teams. By the fourth quarter I really could not say who I was rooting for. Kansas City has a little bit of a negative slant to me because of Joe Montana (he had no business being there, but I blame him more than I blame them - if I could have had him on my team, even in his twilight years, sure, I would have jumped at it. Joe should have retired a 49er, though).

On the flip side, I made pizza from scratch and that was fun. For the meat pizza we did Spanish chorizo, linguica and mushrooms. For the veggie side it was marinated artichoke hearts, Italian cherry peppers and mushrooms. I even have a couple of slices leftover, although Amalia will probably claim them for her lunch.

One problem was that the yeast was pretty inactive. However, it didn't seem to make much difference to the final product. I need to think about that, because an unyeasted dough would be much faster to make.

In other realms: I have been utterly absorbed in the Mt. St. Helens business. Volcanoes and earthquakes fascinate me (as well they should, living so close to the Hayward and San Andreas faults). I still cannot figure out for the life of me why anyone would spend good money for property at Mammoth Lakes. Who are they trying to kid?

Happy Feast of St. Francis!

If you are in the Bay Area, come to mass at the National Shrine of St. Francis of Assisi in North Beach. I will be the fellow with the beard and the three-year-old handing out programs. Say "howdy!"

If you are not in the Bay Area, or just can't come to mass, well, have a good feast day anyway!

Campion College

My SF Faith article on the closure of Campion College is up here.

Santa Cruz

Melanie has been taking a few vacation days, so we can do fun family stuff. Today we went to Santa Cruz, which is sort of home, in a way that I can say that knowing full well that I will never live there again. I really liked most of my six years in Santa Cruz, but saw the writing on the wall. If I stayed there another month, it would have morphed into a life sentence. At some point you have to leave the beach or become one of the beach people.

I knew and still know a lot of good folks in Santa Cruz, but for awhile it seemed like I was mostly encountering the flakes and weirdos, which would be fine if they were interesting flakes and weirdos. Unfortunately most flakes and weirdos are not that interesting. Aging hippies involved in pyramid schemes selling blue-green algae. Aspiring hippies just learning the ropes of attempting to buy one's way out of consumerism. Talented artists running themselves into the ground with increasingly dull work, inspired by the never-ceasing back slapping of the perma-grin sorts. People who are "spiritual but not religious." And the petitions. Oh those dreaded petitions.

"Excuse me. Are you registered to vote in Santa Cruz County?"

"No. I hate democracy. Go away, Stinky."

I still have petitions to avoid, but the level of kook in the Bay Area is much higher than the level of kook in Santa Cruz.

"Impeach Clinton! 12 Galaxies United in Zegnotronic..."

If you know what that means, then you are truly among the Bay Areans.

For awhile I tried to avoid Santa Cruz, because it is not a good idea for a rocket to hang around in low orbit when trying to maintain escape velocity. However, the temptation is mostly gone, so we go back now and again, mostly to visit friends, but also because it really is a beautiful place.

Today we actually spent very little time in Santa Cruz. We picked up our friends and headed down to the Monterrey Bay Aquarium to see the great white shark in captivity. I like the Monterrey Bay Aquarium when it does what it does well, which is to showcase the flora and fauna of the local coast. It tends to do a good job of explaining the ecosystem and the various zones that make up the ocean there. They do it with a spectacular collection.

What I can do without is the heavy-handed eco-preaching, especially when it presents positions that are disputed even within the eco-creep community as absolutes. For example: we need to relieve pressure on bluefin tuna fisheries (OK, true, but why am I to accept the figures they present as to how much we need to reduce the bluefin haul? They don't present any evidence or hard numbers here), so we should eat farmed fish instead of wild bluefin tuna.

Alright. That is a possible solution, but there are many smart cookies out there who point out that aquaculture is not ideal either. Why is that position not shown? Instead we are told in the "What can you do?" sermon at the end of each exhibit to follow their guidlines (without a shred of the reasoning behind the specifics) and to "support conservation organizations." I looked at their list, and, in fairness, they do not seem to have a lot of the really bad ones. However, they build no case for these organizations beyond the most flagrant generalities (they work to keep oceans clean -- very well, but how? Do they pick up trash on the beach? Do they lobby for strange and immoral legislation? Do they do careful monitoring of oceanic conditions?). Some of these details are given, but not always. We are just to assume that since the good folks at the aquarium said it, it must be true.

At least they don't have anything as bad as what the Oakland Zoo tells us to do to help elephants: "support population control efforts at home and abroad." Whenever I encounter that sign, it makes me want to carve goblets out of ivory to drink a daily glass of elephant blood out of.

Also, the Monterrey Bay Aquarium does not push vegetarianism, but admits that eating seafood is a good thing for the most part (as long as you stick to the choices on their list). They also don't go too much into the bizarre tangential realm of ecofreakishness.

Anyway, the long and short of it is that we missed both the A's game as well as the debate. It sounds like we missed a good game, but seeing huge tuna in the outer bay tank is something spectacular.

Speaking of ecocranks, I am further miffed at our Governor von Kennedy, who signed the awful, John Burton-hatched law to ban foie gras production in California. What it means is that I will have to somehow get ahold of a place to raise geese and will have to learn how to produce the stuff myself for private consumption.