Month: October 2017

Week in Review – October 29, 2017

 

 

 

 

 

The highlight this week was a weekend in San Diego to visit Campbell and hang out with Kris and Cat who were celebrating Kristina’s birthday.  We arrived on Friday afternoon and relaxed by the pool with books until Kris and Cat arrived.  Dinner was at Seersucker in the Gaslamp district and it was fun to observe all the folks out enjoying the evening in their Halloween costumes.  The fantastic Whiskey House was an after dinner drink stop on the way back to the hotel.  Kristina had quite a time selecting a scotch from the extensive menu of over 1,000 choices.

The afternoon on Saturday was spent exploring the Pacific Beach area.  A quick google search of “Best beach bars in San Diego” led us to the Lahaina Beach House which had a great patio right by the boardwalk with great views of the beach and the ocean.  Again we enjoyed the people watching of folks with crazy Halloween costumes on for an early Saturday afternoon drink.  A ramble along the boardwalk continued to provide entertaining sights including a gaggle of roller blading “Ducks” from Oregon.  We laughed as the last rollerblader bringing up the rear had “Robertson” on the back of his jersey.  There were several beach cottages and hotels along the boardwalk that we noted for future visits.  After a snack at the Firehouse restaurant it was time to head back to the hotel to meet up with Campbell and Molly.  The Firehouse food was very good with oysters, char-grilled Brussel sprouts and an excellent ceviche.

The perfect bite – ceviche and char-grilled brussels

Campbell and Molly met us for a very enjoyable dinner at Roy’s which backs up to the Marriott hotel pool on the marina side.  We sat outside and enjoyed the gorgeous evening weather and views of the marina.  I had the San Diego sea bass and Diana the shellfish combination.  Everyone seemed to enjoy their food very much.  Campbell and Molly headed off to celebrate Halloween with friends and we made a trip to the Nolen rooftop bar in the Gaslamp district.  This was a very fancy rooftop with great views of downtown San Diego and again lots of Halloween costumes.

San Diego white sea bass and risotto
shellfish combination

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

lobster egg benedict

Sunday morning brunch was planned at World Famous in Pacific Beach which Will recommended as having excellent lobster Benedict.  Shortly before departure they called to say that their block was having a power outage and they wouldn’t be able to do breakfast.  Plan B was the Harbor breakfast restaurant in Little Italy and it was a very well received alternative.  Diana had the lobster Benedict and I had a spicy Italian sausage omelet (when in Rome and all).  After brunch Campbell was able to introduce Molly to his Granny and Grandpa over facetime.

 

Kris and Cat headed to the airport and Diana and I watched the first half of the Cowboys game at the pool bar and then did the same.  We watched most of the remainder of the game in the airport lounge and then got the final victory score on the plane right before takeoff – a 33 to 19 win over the division rival Washington Redskins.

On the music front, we lost Fats Domino this week at the age of 89.  Fats and Louis Armstrong were responsible for putting New Orleans so firmly on the world musical map.  Here’s a performance he did at the New Orleans jazzfest in 2001 that sums up everything that’s so amazing about that festival.

I can remember first hearing Fats Domino on the jukebox at the student union on the Heriot Watt Riccarton campus in 1981.  Somebody in that student union really liked “Blueberry Hill” because I don’t remember a time that I was in there when it didn’t eventually come on the jukebox.  It’s amazing how many huge hits Domino had in the early fifties.  Here’s my favorite.  That’s Herb Hardesty with the excellent saxophone part – we saw him perform with Dr. John at Tipitina’s just before his passing last Christmas.

My current book is too fat to travel with so I started “Dirt Road” by James Kelman, who was born and lives in Glasgow but has taught at both the University of TX in Austin and at San Jose State University.  The book follows the travels of a Scottish father and son who go to visit the father’s brother in Mississippi.  I’m really enjoying the tale so far and particularly the son’s descriptions of the American musical styles he encounters.  There’s a great scene where he joins in on accordion with a Zydeco band and plays Scottish jigs for the Louisiana crowd.

McD gave me a gift of the new Tom Hanks book, “Uncommon Type”, this week.  I haven’t started it but chuckled at the continuing antique typewriter theme.  The reviews are very good and I’m looking forward to pulling this one out of my growing “to be read” stack.

 

Here’s the langiappe for this week if you made it this far:

Q: What do you call the combination of a Scotsman and an Italian?

A: A scallion

Just the kind of silly joke that I enjoy and courtesy of Cat in San Diego.

Week in Review – October 22, 2017

There was a snafu (technical information technology term) with the folks that host this blog for me that was resolved this morning.  On the plus side, I’ve apparently been upgraded to a faster service and so you should see pages loading quicker now.  I’m covering two weeks in this post due to the snafu and because there really hasn’t been too much out of the ordinary going on with us.

On October 8th there was another terrible disaster in Santa Rosa, California.  A fire that started in the hills between Santa Rosa and Calistoga spread so rapidly during the night that several thousand homes and over twenty lives were lost.  One of Diana’s schoolmates from San Domenico lost her house and several of Will’s friends were also impacted.  We’re really hoping that natural disasters take a pause for a few months.  Our sister-in-law, Amy, took these amazing pictures showing the layer of smoke and the amazing sunsets that caused.

Last Wednesday evening D and I attended a “Chalk Talk” at the Cowboys Club.  This is a talk given by Will Clay, VP of Player Personnel, who breaks down the previous game using film clips.  He also previews the upcoming game and what to look out for.  We both learned a lot and came away with a much deeper appreciation for all of the decisions and adjustments that a quarterback has to make in a few seconds.

The highlight on Saturday was a trip over to Wiley (been a long time since I drove so far on a 2 lane road) to watch Alicia’s band perform in a competition.  The music this year is called “Ballet-Ro” – a mashup (interesting that term passes spell check these days) of Bolero and music by Tchaikovsky and I really enjoyed it.  The Boyd band won 2nd place overall and 1st in their division.  Here’s a video of the winning performance.

On Sunday I packed McD off to San Francisco to check up on her Mom.  The Cowboys were on a bye week and so I didn’t have that 3 hour long distraction – just caught up on some reading and crosswords.  Diana returned safely on Wednesday night with no obvious regression in the healing process of her foot.  We chuckled because she returned early so that she could rest and repack for the trip to San Diego over the weekend – only issue was that was another week away.  We clearly didn’t consult the McCoo calendar effectively during that planning session.

After Diana settled back in we took Alicia over to the Cowboys Club with us to watch Dallas play the San Francisco 49ers (who currently have the worst record in football).  The game was very enjoyable with Dallas winning 40-10 and having the luxury of putting our backup quarterback and running back into the game in the last quarter. They have a DJ, photo booth and other entertainment at the Club on game days and we convinced Alicia (reportedly a 49ers fan) to take this picture in the photo booth.

Podcasts are really becoming a savior on my ever lengthening commutes to the other side of the Dallas Fort Worth metroplex.  This week I listened to Alec Baldwin interviewing Herb Alpert on his podcast, “Here’s the Thing”.  I learned a lot that I didn’t know about Herb – I’m only familiar with him from the Tijuana Brass albums that my Dad played in the car.  For example, Woody Allen and George Carlin were both opening acts for “The Brass” in their heyday.  Do you know who sold more records than the Beatles in 1966?  Imagining you guessed correctly.  In the 1970s, Alpert co-founded A&M records and was personally responsible for finding and signing The Carpenters, The Police, and Cat Stevens.  There’s a great story about him giving the song “Close to You” to The Carpenters and his labors to make it sound the way he thought it should on the podcast.  He sold A&M for half a billion dollars and has since enjoyed playing cabaret style small audience shows with his wife.  We heard a couple of songs from them at the New Orleans jazzfest last year.

http://www.wnyc.org/shows/heresthething

On another commute I heard a song that took me back to high school:  “Oh Yeah” by Roxy Music – what a great song and band.  By some weird synchronicity I was thinking that the way Bryan Ferry sings the high part of the chorus sounded a lot like David Sylvan from the band Japan.  And who do you think the next artist to come on the Sirius channel was?  Imagining you guessed correctly again.  The Japan song was “Talking Drum” which I also enjoy very much.  Soon after that I heard a song from the Kinks that I wasn’t familiar with, “Sitting in the Midday Sun”.  It’s an excellent song and had me thinking of their other songs “Sunny Afternoon” and “Waterloo Sunset”.  The start of a “sun” related Kinks playlist.

Series 2 of a short video series called “UpStanders” was released in the last week or two.  It’s sponsored by Starbucks and is a series of films that are 5 minutes or less and feature people that are not “ByStanders” but “UpStanders”.  There are some truly inspiring stories of kindness and creativity here and I recommend checking a few out.  Our favorite is the car wash operated almost exclusively by folks with varying degrees of autism.

https://starbuckschannel.com/originals/upstanders-season-2/

One of the positives when a music hero passes is the amazing tribute songs that are performed by their peers.  Here’s an excellent cover of “American Girl” by Jason Isbell and the 400 unit.  Who knew he could pull of that very speedy Mike Campbell guitar lick at the end?

And finally, here’s one of my favorite lesser known Petty songs, “Good Enough”, from the often overlooked but excellent 2010 album “Mojo”.

Here’s a special langiappe if you made it this far – a picture of me with W, who managed to get the twitter troll spun up with his comments this week.

Music Discovery – Paul Pena and Jet Airliner

The Spotify “Discover” feature that recommends music based on your listening history led me to Paul Pena and his eponymous 1971 album.  I was immediately drawn to the funky Meters-style beat and the excellent guitar work.  He has a deep, soulful voice that is quite reminiscent of Bill Withers with a touch of Richie Havens.  Some quick research revealed that the guitar playing was by Jeff “Skunk”Baxter who is responsible for some of the most memorable guitar on many of the Steely Dan and Doobie Brothers albums.  The production quality and mixing on the recording is excellent.

Further research revealed an interesting story about his second album.  “New Train” was recorded in 1973 but not released until 2000 due to a contractual dispute with Pena’s manager.  Jerry Garcia, Merl Saunders, and the Persuasions played on the album and it was produced by Ben Sidran (keyboard player for the Steve Miller Band).  Sidran gave an unreleased copy to Steve Miller and he recorded one of the songs on his 1977 hit album “Book of Dreams”.  That song was one of McD’s favourite sing along tunes – “Jet Airliner”.  I had always assumed that Steve Miller wrote the song but, as is often the case, there’s a very interesting story and journey behind the song.  The song is about a trip that Pena took from Boston to Montreal for his first gig with T-Bone Walker – he was a member of that band for several years.  Here is Pena’s original recording and a performance on the Conan O’Brien show in 2001.  The songwriting royalties from that song were Pena’s main source of income for many years.

Pena was born in Hyannis, Massachusetts. His grandparents were from the islands of Brava and Fogo in the Cape Verde islands off the western coast of Africa, and emigrated to the United States in 1919. Pena spoke Cape Verdan Creole with his family while growing up. His grandfather, Francisco Pena, and father, Joaquim “Jack” Pena, were both professional musicians, and taught Paul to play Cape Verdean music, including Morna. Pena performed professionally with his father, including a summer spent in Spain and Portugal, where he studied flamenco music.

Paul at age 5 with Duchess

Pena was born with congenital glaucoma. He attended the Perkins School for the Blind in Massachusetts, from the age of 5, and graduated in 1967. Pena was completely blind by the time he was 20.  He moved to San Francisco in 1971 and lived there until he died in 2005.  While living there he opened for Jerry Garcia, The Grateful Dead, and Frank Zappa on many occasions.

I was pleased to discover that my favorite singer, Susan Tedeschi, had discovered the music of Paul Pena long before me.  Here’s her cover of “Gonna Move” from his first album:

Susan must of told her husband, Derek Trucks, about Pena as he recorded his “Something To Make You Happy” on their “Already Free” album:

 

Week in Review – October 8, 2017

I’m quite late with this posting as some of my free time this week was spent helping with this high school project for Advanced Placement Government:

“The essay should address the historical evolution of the two major parties, changing viewpoints, and targeted voters by demographic (Age, Income, Education, Gender, Race, etc.).  Also, you should include each party’s position on the following topics: abortion, social security, the economy, gun control, immigration, gay rights, and health care.  Be sure to address the geographic nuances within the party.  You will find that in some cases, there are differing views even within the party.”

I learned quite a bit in the process including that the original Democratic Party had conservative views and the original Republican Party was the liberal one.  Their positions started to flip in the late 1800s. Now back to the update on activities and highlights from last week.

Tuesday through Friday were spent in New York in a workshop with Microsoft at our Wall St office.   On the flight to New York I read an interesting article in the American Way magazine about new restaurants in the Finnieston region of Glasgow, “Glasgow moves beyond haggis and deep-fried pizza, Finnieston is revitalizing the Scottish city’s culinary reputation”.  The pictures of the food, particularly from “The Gannet”, looked very good but I do take umbrage with the implication of the title of the article that Glasgow hasn’t had some excellent restaurants for many years now.

https://americanwaymagazine.com/glasgow-moves-beyond-haggis-and-deep-fried-pizza

The movie “Baby Boss” provided some excellent light entertainment on the flight.  Something about the combination of a baby in a suit and Alec Baldwin’s voice had me laughing a lot.

On Tuesday evening I made a return visit to Birdland to see Ron Carter’s Great Big Band.  This was a 17 piece big band that sounded excellent.  Ron Carter is 80 years old and looks and carries himself like a man 20 years younger.  His dexterity on the double bass at his age is phenomenal as demonstrated in this short video.

Carter has played on more than 2,000 albums including my favourite Miles Davis recordings and with Cannonball Adderley, Bill Evans, B.B. King, and Dexter Gordon.  The song I enjoyed the most was “Caravan” by Duke Ellington.  It evokes a picture of a line of camels crossing the Sahara desert and arriving in a town bazaar with snake charmers and the like.

Here’s another short video with the great Freddie Hendrix on trumpet.

The trombones in the big band had a gorgeous lush legato tone that blended with the rest of the band beautifully.  They made me think of a concert by Don Lusher that I saw in Kilmarnock many years ago and his gimmicky tune “The Typewriter”.  I found a video of it and teased McD with it since she had enjoyed the “California Typewriter” movie so much a few weeks ago.

Wednesday evening brought a rare treat – a night out with my friends Ron and Tim.  Tim and I used to work with Ron and hadn’t seen him in a couple of years (other than on FaceTime during our irregular “strategy sessions”).  Tim had suggested to Ron a couple of days before my visit that he join us in New York and by some magic Ron was able to pull off a trip from Los Angeles in very short order.  We met at Jim Brady’s Pub and I enjoyed a very good shepherd’s pie.  Ron and I then reminisced with a wander through some of our old haunts from a few years ago.  What a pleasant evening catching up!

Bruce Springsteen just started a 4 month run on Broadway with a one man show creatively titled “Springsteen on Broadway”.  It’s presented in a very small theater with just Bruce, a guitar, and a piano and includes a lot of storytelling about his life and song inspirations.  It was preview week when I was there and I strongly considered trying to attend.  I waited until an hour before show time and ticket prices hadn’t quite fallen into what I deemed an affordable range.  Maybe on my next visit they’ll be more reasonable but I don’t hold out a lot of hope.

Plan B for Thursday night was a visit to the City Winery to hear Joshua Davis.  We first visited a City Winery in Nashville and thought it was a great venue.  The New York incarnation is a bit different with a more open feel with windows to the street and a smaller menu.  The wine list, menu, seating and sound were all excellent.  We had seen Joshua Davis on “The Voice” and enjoyed his laid back vocal style.  Here’s his blind audition with a great song choice:

I forgot to mention that I was looking to have a drink before the concert and did my usual Yelp – Nearby Bars and Restaurants routine.  The closest was a cocktail bar that sounded really good and I started walking in that direction.  On arrival I realized this great sounding place was housed in a hotel owned by our senescent twitter troll who poses as a national leader.  Did a quick about face and found a much less pompous place on the corner that was playing “Simple Man” at loud volume – much better.

I enjoyed the show and particularly his tribute to Tom Petty who had passed away unexpectedly a few days earlier.  Here’s Joshua’s cover of “Time to Move on” from Petty’s excellent Wildflowers album.

Thinking of Tom Petty took me back to listening to his “Southern Accents” album in our flat in the Meadows region of Edinburgh while studying for final exams in the spring of 1985.  I couldn’t get enough of the wah-wah guitar riff in “Don’t Come Around Here No More”.   We were fortunate to see him at the New Orleans jazzfest a few years ago and enjoyed a rundown of the greatest hits with some interesting covers including “Traveling Light” by J.J. Cale.  It must have been a good cover if my aging brain cells have retained the memory this long.

Diana’s foot is healing a bit but she still can’t walk very far and certainly not downhill.  To get her out of the house for a while after my New York absence we had “Coffee, Crossword, and Quiche with Keith” at Filtered coffee in downtown McKinney.  I should mention that McD beat me on the crossword two days in a row this week – completely unacceptable.

Cole Beasley – star of the game with 2 touchdowns

Sunday started well with a delicious brunch at Zin Zen – they started weekend brunch recently and we hadn’t tried it.  The omelet and breakfast pizza with fried eggs and sausage were both very good.  I plopped down on the couch after that to enjoy the Cowboys and Packers football game.  The first 58 minutes of the game were good from a Cowboys fan perspective but the last 2 minutes were very annoying as Aaron Rogers marched his team down the field for a winning touchdown.  Our defense made it way too easy for him with Sean Lee (star middle linebacker and captain) out injured.

 

Week in Review – Oct 1, 2017

It has been a reasonably quiet week with us as Diana continues to move around pretty gingerly on her injured left foot.  The pain is certainly a lot less than it was last weekend but she still can’t rotate her foot on its vertical axis at all (no yaw is possible in McD’s foot).  One more week and then she’ll see the doctor if it’s not a lot better.  I’m enjoying grocery shopping and a few other tasks that are normally in Diana’s domain while she tries not to walk too much.

“Who reads at 5am?” was Alicia’s question when she came in our bedroom to say goodbye on her way to early morning band practice.  We chuckled.  She doesn’t enjoy reading and so was incredulous that I would be engaging in such a boring activity so early in the day.  I was trying to make some progress on “4321” by Paul Auster – I’m really enjoying the 4 different versions of Ferguson’s life that are set off by slight differences in life choices in the first chapter – but it is very slow going.

Diana met me at the Cowboys Club on Wednesday afternoon and we watched the team practice from the Quarterback Corner area.  We noticed a couple of the passing plays from practice in the game today against the Los Angeles Rams.  Unfortunately the Cowboys lost the game after a very strong first half and an opportunity to win in the last two minutes.

On Saturday we made an impromptu decision to attend a celebrity cooking demonstration and lunch at the Granada theater.  First time either of us had been to anything like this and we were very pleasantly surprised.  Chef John Tesar was quite the character, with an endless supply of stories from his years in the kitchen and on shows like Top Chef and Restaurant Wars.  The first course was risotto with duck confit and wild mushrooms.  The duck confit preparation technique was quite interesting and the risotto delicious.  Everyone’s name was placed in a hat for a raffle at the end of the event and I was lucky enough to be pulled out in time to claim a huge tray of the risotto.  It has been a nice accompaniment to football watching today.  The main course was Beef Wellington with dauphinoise potatoes – also very good but a huge palaver to cook.  I looked up palaver just now to make sure I was spelling it correctly (it’s a West of Scotland word meaning a lot of fuss and bother) and was surprised at how many fake definitions there are published on the internet.  Lunch ended with the pastry chef from Tesar’s “Knife” restaurant demonstrating his special technique for chocolate mousse – again very good but quite rich after the first two decadent courses.

Tesar was the chef at the Mansion on Turtle Creek (a famous Dallas fine dining institution) in 2007.  He replaced the well-known chef Dean Fearing and lasted two years before moving on to several other opportunities.  Until the last few years (when it appears he may have matured and settled down just prior to turning sixty) the consensus in the Dallas restaurant trade was  that “he’s a talented chef, but he’s also a narcissistic sociopath with his calloused index finger always hovering above the self-destruct button”.  That personality was certainly evident as he told stories while demonstrating amazing technique.

In his book, “Kitchen Confidential”, Anthony Bourdain writes, “Tesar was probably the single most talented cook I ever worked with—and the most inspiring. … His food—even the simplest of things—made me care about cooking again. The ease with which he conjured up recipes, remembered old recipes (his dyslexia prevented him from writing much of value), and threw things together was thrilling to me. And, in a very direct way, he was responsible for any success I had as a chef afterward. …”

Thankfully the lunch portions of all that decadence were pretty small since we had been invited to Patty and Brent’s home for dinner.  Dinner was delicious as always with both of us wishing we’d had better self-control when presented with such yummy fried cheese as an appetizer.  Brent administered a “Love Languages” quiz on us.  This is from a book from a few years back that talks about how people prefer a couple of the five common “love languages” – Words of Affirmation, Gifts, Acts of Service, Touching, and Quality Time.  Diana and I guessed each other’s preferences and then took the test.  She did a much better job of guessing my languages than I did hers.  Quite an entertaining evening as usual.

“Love is Like Oxygen” by Sweet transported me back to 1978 this week on my commute.  I can remember watching the band lip sync to this song on Top of the Pops.  I really like the initial syncopated guitar riff and the high vocal harmonies.  It reminds me of “Video Killed the Radio Star” by the Buggles.  What’s special about that song?  I’ll give you a couple of minutes to ponder while you watch Top of the Pops or listen to the song…

Ready?  It was the first song ever played on MTV.  I know – those are precious brain cells that I could be using to store something useful.

Now for something from a totally different genre and time – I really enjoyed “Is You Is Or Is You Ain’t Ma’ Baby” by Louis Jordan and His Tympany Five form the 1950s swing era.