Shuggie Otis - Sweet Thang

Midnight-Moonlight

Do the hustle

I have been working since I was eleven years old. Never got an allowance, did a lot of shit jobs, some even legal. 

Cleaned out apartments, groomed horses, carried concrete forms, washed out storm drains with a firehose, got up at three in the morning to bread chicken for a fast food restaurant, the stinking smell of the breading is still fresh in my mind, fifty years later. 

Made a dollar and a nickel an hour, got fired when I asked for a dollar and a dime.

I did what I had to do to survive, like most of us. Painted signs, built houses, ran a financial research firm for a little while. All sorts of crap.

And since about 1990 I have exclusively hustled paintings and antiques, was never exactly easy and there were a lot of times when it was next to impossible, but I managed to soldier on and survive while watching a great many cohorts bite the dust and exit the arena. Hooray for me. Last man standing.

I like the job, there's no boss, a lot of freedom and only one person to praise or to blame when it goes upside down, me. Plus you meet a lot of nice folks.

I figure I will try to hold out for seven more years, until I am 75. Several of my cronies have made it to 80 but it gets harder as you get older, especially the long hours driving. 

The grand plan, if I make it that long, is to cash in whatever chips I have left in 2032. Hopefully have a few years to mess around and have fun before some orderly starts feeding me gruel in the old age home and wheels me off to the bingo game.

*

I mention this because I am running into a weird phenomenon. I have friends who did everything right and got the cush corporate job or public gig or union parachute and retired early. They retired when people are supposed to, in their mid sixties. Now they knock on my door or call me up and ask me when we can go play? 

Of course, as I said, they did everything right and I engaged in a different sort of play and fucked around and continually shot myself in the foot. Should have stayed on the old straight and narrow.

My bad.

I have to explain that I can't go out and have fun, can't really get off the hamster wheel. It may not look like I am working but I am. Can't take a vacation and haven't in years. Money pours out like a sieve in this life, my insurance bills alone on home and shop would send most into a catatonic state. 

I really can't take a break. I travel for shows or business, or deaths in the family. That is about it.

I have to keep pushing it and crossing my fingers or the house of cards collapses. Happily, tragedy has been averted so far, but only narrowly. Perhaps that is why it is easier to congregate with people on a similar income level? 

A buddy was flabbergasted the other day when he found out that I didn't have a Roth or 401 k plan. Actually, I put what little money I have left over into inventory, it is how most of my ilk survives. Frightening, isn't it?

No trust fund, no inheritance, just an eye, a mind and a decent ability to communicate with people. What does that get you? Not a lodge in Wisconsin or a second home in Kennebunk, I can assure you. Slow payment for a misspent youth.

Was probably a fool's errand from day one but it was the path I chose and the horse I picked to ride. Never said I was all that smart. So don't ask me to come out to play because I honestly can't. I've got too much shit to do. Enjoy your retirement. Have fun. But don't hold my seat. And I'm not saying I don't enjoy life along the way. I do.

*

Had a friend who married well and never worked much. I don't hear from him anymore, never calls except for a postcard once or twice a year from an exotic locale. Bora Bora, New Zealand, wherever. I am honestly happy for them but can't help but feel like my nose is getting rubbed in it. He wants me to know that he is living the great life for some reason but he no longer wants to talk to me. Well, good for him.

I know another man whose father was a prominent national architect. The family decided to ride out the great depression by circumnavigating the globe a couple times on the queen whatever. 

I was a prep school student in New York Coty, on scholarship. Knew a fellow whose family had a gigantic floor in the Dakota. You rarely see a green persian carpet but this antique one on the floor was a hundred foot long if it was a foot. Took my breath away.

He had three names, Harding Winthrop something or other. Another family that was setting out to go round the world for a year or two on the family skiff.

Toodleoo! A neat fellow honestly and one who lived in a part of the world that I would never encounter.

Beautiful, the rich get to skate, I get it. Not my fate.

* 

I drove seven hours yesterday, three and a half hours each way to Chatsworth in terrible traffic. Lawyer fellow told me that thirty years ago I had promised to handle his estate at a fraction of my normal rate. Don't exactly remember that but, as a man of my word, thought I would come up for a look see.

Spent all day giving free appraisals to the couple, took two minor paintings home.

I wrote up a rough and honest appraisal today. They just got back to me, bring the two paintings back, they paid more back when. It was honestly a little test on my part.  The cost benefit equation did not favor me whatsoever. It would never pay for my time. Lets see if I can sneak out the back, jack.

I am done. I was trying to help them but nothing there I really need and nothing I can't live without.

I won't be making a special trip back, probably easier to write the whole thing off and just stick them in the mail.

Whoops, I did it again.

*

Had a cool thing happen the other day. I get up at five and got dressed, sat on the couch and watched my two cats fixated on something outside the screen door.

Hmmm, wonder what they are checking out?

I never went over to look and went my merry way. 

Leslie called a few hours later. She said that she got up shortly after I did. She actually walked over to the door and saw a giant buck mule deer out the window. For months we have seen the large doe and her fawn but not the male deer.

We rarely see deer in Fallbrook and in forty five years have never had one in the yard. He jumped a four foot fence. Leslie said he was proud, strong and graceful.

Once again, sorry I missed it. I'm happy that she was there to see it.

*

"Measles and Polio Down in the Schoolyard"

eight days on the road...

I thought that this was going to be my month to chill and get in touch with my artistic inclinations but it hasn't quite worked out like that. Life got in the way again.

I left for the Bay Area at five in the morning, Sunday before last.  Reached San Mateo at 1:30. Bought an incredible collection of antique Persian  silver from Isfahan, made by some very prominent artisans. Bought a rare antique Persian opium pipe.

I had three meetings the first day, stayed with Melissa.  Next day I drove to Sonoma and did some business with Rick, got a few paintings and a Pillin piece.

I stayed with Renee Monday night, saw  Big Dave on Tuesday and came back home.

Tomorrow I drive to Chatsworth to look at another collection, this time from a forty year client who is downsizing.

Hopefully, guitar and painting next week, after I do my taxes of course.

Texas will be here before I know it.

Short rib time

A few months ago I bought one of those enormous packages of plate ribs at the Costco Business store. 

Also known as Dino ribs in some parts of the country, these are massive beef bone in short ribs.

I had never bought bone in ribs this big before and cut them up so that the package would fit in my freezer.

Tremendous amount of meat per rib.

Normally I braise short ribs in the Dutch oven but Leslie doesn't like it when I heat up the house in the hot summer, says that is winter food.

I decided to smoke the ribs last night, something I never do. Went home early to start things off, put out the new fireproof mat under the Weber. Understand, I have very little experience smoking, never been my thing. New territory.

I  patted them dry and did a heavy pepper, salt rub with a bit of garlic but not too much. Kept it simple. Threw some hickory wood in and started my briquettes. 

I placed the ribs on the indirect side of the kettle, bone side down.

An hour went by.

And then another.

And another.

And  my temperature was static. 

I needed 190 to 200 degrees and was stuck around 170.

I was in something that I had read about. 

The dreaded brisket stall. 

Large hunks of meat often hit a crescendo around 170 and just won't budge. 

I decided to take evasive action. 

I stuck them directly on the fire and seared all four sides, about a minute and a half per side. 

I had built a nice bark by then and the searing sort of  made the perfect crust less pretty but all in all things were still looking good. 

There is a lot of info out there on smoking short ribs but very little on grilling them. 

Those that do take them to 140 but this is not enough heat for the connective tissue to break down and make them super tender.

I waited for another hour, still stalled, regularly spritzing them with water so they wouldn't dry out.  I ended up wrapping them in foil, got them to 189 and that would have to do. 

About a five hour cook.

We ate two small ribs and grilled organic summer squash as well.

Really delicious, everything was great. But we got really full.

Tonight  I shredded the fattest remaining rib and made a short rib pappardelle ragu.

I chopped carrots and garlic and sauteed them. Leslie made mushrooms. 

We cooked it all up and put some fatty short rib pieces in as well.

I added red wine, tomatoes paste, cherry tomatoes which I smooshed down, thyme and rosemary.

Added all the  beef back and simmered it up for about ten minutes with the cover on.

Leslie made the noodles and we added a ladle of pasta water to the ragu, then mixed it all together.

Topped it off with fresh parmesan.

Absolutely scrumptious.

I have two more sections of plate ribs stuck in the freezer somewhere.

I am going to do this again.

Winning much?

Hippie from Olema No. 5

Katie Porter

Last week my wife asked me if I would like to see ex California congresswoman and current gubernatorial candidate Katie Porter speak.

I eagerly said yes, as I have always liked her style and savvy and thought it was a shame she went up against Schiff in the last senatorial election.

It balkanized two excellent candidates. 

I didn't follow the race very closely but I guess it got pretty ugly in the end. 

Losing can be tough for any of us.

The meet and greet was put on by the Fallbrook Democratic Group of which I was once a member, about forty years ago when we had roughly ten people in the club. 

I left decades ago when I started hearing anti semitic comments and felt it was time to make my exit.

Truth be told I relinquished my Democratic party membership about a year ago and am greatly dissatisfied with both the right and the left. I guess I am a mostly liberal centrist that will rarely if ever tilt right.

Now the club has over three hundred members and I am told is one of the most robust clubs in the state.

There was one ticket left, seventy five bucks at the door and I claimed it.

The event was held at a beautiful home overlooking Fallbrook Winery, a place that as a teetotaler, I have never visited. 

We were brought up the steep drive in a golf car, past a lot of vitriolic signs castigating the current regime.

I love to see a little liberal passion in our notoriously conservative community.

I saw several people I knew and enjoyed talking to our host, Pepper, who used to be acquainted with my father in San Diego.

We met Katie and then heard her speak.

A Harvard and Yale educated lawyer, Porter originally hails from a farm family in Iowa.

She graduated magna cum laude and clerked for the eighth circuit court of Appeals under Richard S. Arnold.

She currently lives in Irvine and teaches law locally.

Porter is a self professed numbers nerd and has a penchant for getting into the economic nuts and bolts.

And this is where she lost me.

You see she started out her talk describing the underlying crisis in California as being the fact that our mean demographic is getting older.

We need more young people to take care of the old people and they are currently priced out of affordable housing.

We need to streamline permitting and regulation and build more units, environment be damned. Because there are too many forty year olds still living at home.

I waited for the question and answer period and asked her a question. We are facing a water crisis in Southern California, which is basically a high desert, have two pending rate increases on Colorado River water, where will we get the water for these new housing units?

She said that she is from Irvine and that they ar a model city. They evidently have purple pipes for recycling up there and better recycling and purple pipes would solve the problem.

Which is total malarkey.

The reality is that we have reached a tipping point for water, our California ecosystem and roads can only support so many more humans and the reality is that not everybody will be able to live in California. Unfortunately, the old people will have to fend for themselves. 

She says that we need more water pipeline projects. Sounds like the right wing signage I read up and down the central valley this weekend, screw the fish and the indians, give the water to corporate farms instead. 

In addition, our snowpack is reduced every year due to climate change and megadroughts. Aquifers have been depleted throughout our state and are not being recharged,

Interesting, her college thesis at Yale was titled The Effects of Corporate Farming on Rural Community. I wish I could have asked a follow up question. Because here we have a person from Orange County, trying to impose an Orange County solution on a rural community that would like to keep its character and generally loathes Orange County density. Frankly, if we wanted to live in Irvine we would.

At least the people here who have a clue who live on this side of Interstate 15. 

Katie Porter is a hammer who sees the rest of the world as a nail. I fear for our rural area's lifestyle and environment if her build at all costs mentality is allowed to transform and destroy our state and rural residents' quality of life. 

Where exactly will the water come from? One must be quite careful when trying to impose a malthusian economic solution to a quintessentially environmental problem.

What works in Irvine won't necessarily work in Fallbrook, Garberville, Santa Paula, Ramona or Ojai. And of course will never be seen in Rancho Santa Fe or Tiburon.

Jeez

 

COVID Vaccine Costs Just Spiked for Millions Thanks to RFK Jr.
RFK Jr peddles dubious health claims as CDC roils under his leadership.

RFK Jr. has never been briefed by CDC experts on measles, COVID-19 or flu, former official says.

As Measles Exploded, Officials in Texas Looked to CDC Scientists. Under Trump, No One Answered.

Science or Trump? The impossible choice faced by the ousted CDC chief.

RFK Jr. attacks pediatricians’ group over vaccine recommendations.

Red states last in health.

Podcaster speaks the truth.

“We’re 50th in education. We are 50th — the worst in the whole country for women to live. We’re poorer. Worst health care. If you look at the bottom ten states in the United States of America, they are all MAGA supermajorities,” she explained.

“These policies hurt people. They use people’s faith to lure them in and say, ‘Oh, we’re family values.’ But then they don’t vote to help women have children, they don’t vote for health care, they don’t vote for child care. They demean the poor.”

She went on to stress, “These policies have horrifically impacted people in rural America that vote for this very party because they weaponize their faith and lure them in.”

Blues Stay Away From Me

Around the ranch...

I have several fairly large stands of cactus on my ranch. Standard stuff really, I'm not much of a collector. More of an agave or aloe buff. Natives and epiphytes.

I have several different columnar things going, a huge stand in the back of the ranch of the San Pedro type which I will snap a shot of one day.

And this one, which you have seen before.

The Jubea chilensis palm behind it is really doing well, Todd recently pruned it for the first time.

The Chilean native, which can grow in the snow, has the widest palm trunk in the world.

I hope I live long enough to see it in its glory. 

There is one growing on the street on Leucadia blvd. that is massive and worth a fortune.

Todd trimmed the echium up and now there is more room for other things to catch sun.

We rediscovered a beautiful blue cactus that I will have to take a picture of.

Anyway, I wanted to show you my opuntia cactus.

I have two different strains, one of which I planted but the prickly pears are of an entirely different color.

I call the one with the deep red pears my mickey mouse.

The pads of the one above one get really big and rounded.

I am not sure what the real name of the cultivar is, there is one called Mickey Mouse that looks nothing like it.

The weight of the pads or nopales gets so great that the thing has a hard time staying upright.

Its growth is a series of intermittent crashes, sort of like my own history.

The pears are called tuna.

The great horticulturalist Luther Burbank made the study of the opuntia his life's work. He felt that it provided more nutrition per acre than any other food source in the world. He hybridized over 60 spineless varieties.

Luther and his cactus

This one of mine has a yellow fruit. Two species of dasilyrion next to it, wheeleri and longissimum.

My expensive Australian grass tree has expired. Couldn't take our harsh climate I imagine. I replaced it with a native yucca that I bought at grangetto, hopefully it will have better luck.

The princeps cycad I got from Doug when he moved is very happy.

It has a beautiful blue color.

My Sea Squill keep surprising me, think it's dead and it pops back up.

All for now...

Omara Portuondo

Cocina Catrina

I first saw the sign a few weeks ago, on my return from New Mexico. 

A posada woman, adorned in day of the dead makeup. 

The graphics were incredible.

Cocina Katrina.

Katrina's Kitchen. Hmmm. I would have to give it a try.

It was out there on East Mission, in the old Ramirez nursery encampment. 

I had seen a lot of parties there over the years and a lot of cars parked there on the weekend but never felt exactly welcome.

Would I be?

I asked some Mexican people about it and my friend Anna said that for a while it was three old mujeres cooking big vats of food the old fashioned way for the gente.

I asked a few friends if they would try it with me but only one manned up, Tony Campbell.

Tony grew up on the res and is the one person you would want at your back in a bad situation.

He said that he ate there once about a year ago and that it was great.

We met at five and I ordered for the both of us.

I can't tell you how nice and welcoming everybody was.  

A family restaurant, we met a very gracious brother and sister.

The parents have a place on Scott Rd.in Menifee.

They have been open here for about a month.

The food truck was clean and there was ample room to sit.

It is so nice to finally have a birria restaurant in Fallbrook! 

I love quesobirria! The menu is quite heavy on the beef as you can see. Originally birria was made from goat but those days are obviously over.

I ordered both a flour and corn tortilla birria taco. 

Tony had a birria taco and a chile relleno. Don't forget you have to dip your taco in the cup of sauce. That is the key to birria. It takes a long time to make the rich and fabulous beef broth.

They also make delicious aguas frescas to drink.

Mine was with cucumber and mint, not sure what Tony had.

The food was terrific and they gifted me a lovely buonelos dessert to take home!

This place  is a bit out of the way but wonderful. Do not be intimidated. They are the nicest people you can imagine.

Do yourself a favor and check it out.

And tell them I sent you.

Generation Landslide

Your offerings

 

Nigel's son caught these pictures of a beautiful bobcat in his yard up in Beverly Hills.

*

A seven year old Kip Peterson admiring his father's new 1964 Ford Mustang. Funny enough, my dad had a red 1964 mustang convertible with a giant plastic phone and briefcase.

Very cool.

And young James is definitely a kip off the old block.

* 

BigDave sent a more disneyfied AI shot of me in the hospital.

*

I don't remember how I got this reddit post but I like it. Autistic comedian talks about the Grateful Dead.

*

Loughlin sent this. Watch out who you let in your home.

*

I've been getting a lot of political stuff from you. I still have my head under the covers and can only take so much. The current occupant of the oval office is hellbent on turning every institution upside down. One day even his most faithful supporters will be shaking their heads and asking how in the hell they let that happen? But I'm not holding my breath.

From Chandler:

When Silence Screams: Did Biden and Harris Pull Their Punches Because of Kremlin Threats?

Reframing Jan. 6: After the Pardons, the Purge

From DeGoff:

What Is Trump Hiding in His Secret Budget?

Comrade Trump

From Melanie -  In your head, rent free

From Ricardo - Bagley

Roy Cohen's brother Mark is running for Congress. Mark for Nebraska.

I appreciate all your submissions. If I can summon up the strength I want to write an extended dive into the havoc Kennedy is causing and creating and the danger to American citizenry. I believe in getting rid of harmful dyes and a couple other things he advocated but honestly he is a complete disaster to our health.

He just demanded that a Danish journal retract a study. They said no. Good for them. I trust scientists and doctors a lot more than I trust ex junkie politicians. 

The man running the NIH, Jay Bhattachary is pulling all MtRNA vaccine funding. Not because it doesn't work but because it has failed to gain "public trust." What a dolt. This is more post covid pandering to the dumbest among us.

Very sad.

Forchettina

I told my wife I would take her anywhere she wanted to go for a birthday dinner, Pampelmousse, Jakes, Mille Fleurs, anywhere.

It was really hot here and we had a monsoon wind this morning. Neither of us felt like working. We decided to leave for the cooler coast around 3:00 and figure it out on the way.

She knew that she wanted to walk on the beach but had two choices for dinner, good pizza or roast duck curry at Bangkok Bay, a Thai restaurant in Solana Beach. "Why not do both," I asked?

Fine.

But where would we go for pizza?

I remembered a nondescript place in Encinitas, located in  a large strip mall on El Camino Real that Ron and Lena took me to. It had outrageously good pizza. It also had a connection to Buono Forchetta but I was stumped on the name. We drove around through the endless malls and looked for it but couldn't find it.

We called Lena and she said the name was Forchettaboutit. We looked it up but couldn't find it, maybe it had moved or gone out of business? 

No, Lena called with the address. 252 El Camino Real. It has a new name, Forchettina. But they wouldn't open for another forty minutes. That's alright, we would wait. 

We drove back up to Leucadia Blvd.and made the circle east again, maybe the third time.

The sign on the door suggested that reservations were required. The busboy told us that it wouldn't open for a half hour but that we were welcome to sit down outside on the patio. The owner finally arrived and we were on.

We started with grilled long stem Italian artichokes, carciofi. She had a rose prosecco, I stuck with water. 

It was a tough decision but we ordered the large parma pizza, with arugala, prosciutto and burrata. 

It was totally amazing.

We had been to Buono Forchetta on coast highway twice last year. 

The first time it was great, when we went with chef friend Melissa later it was less so. Inconsistent.

And then they had their well documented problems with ICE.

Well three months ago the new owners of Forchettina bought their independence from the mother ship. 

The young Sicilian owners Joele and his wife, could not have been any nicer.

And this is a great pizza and looks to be a very popular spot with the locals.

We ate about half the pie and realized that Thai food later was a fantasy that our stomachs could not cash, another time.

We had a lovely dessert instead, an elegant and understated ricotta, pistachio cake.

Quite yummy.

My go to pizza is still the Bronx in San Diego. 

But honestly the raw ingredients are better at Forchettina. In fact, Leslie says the whole pizza is better.

We will definitely be back and trying other things on the menu.

Happy Birthday Leslie!

Wishing my wife a happy birthday today. And one to my late mother Adelle, Robin Adler and Steve Stoops too! Lot of Leos in my world.

May you all enjoy a beautiful coming year.