Sha la la la la

I called my brother in Toronto this morning. "Hey Buzz," I say. There was a long and pregnant pause on the phone. "Buzz?" Finally a few moments later I heard his voice, dripping with the usual sarcasm. "You haven't eaten one freaking sandwich this week you can write about?"

Buzz is a lawyer turned chef/ restauranteur who is dealing with some unfortunate health issues at present and now gets to eat around courtesy of his older brother, somewhat cathartically as you may guess.

I have, of course, been ensconced in the sprawling metropolis to the north all week and the blog has been pretty much out of commission. My buddy Steve and I did the Los Angeles Art Show at the Los Angeles Convention Center for the second year in a row.

I did reasonably well, haven't matched last year's number but the figure was fairly respectable, for these times anyway and come to think of it, a lot of last year's totals came weeks after the show with call backs. Perhaps the fat contralto has not yet sung?

We stayed at the old Hotel Figueroa, a moorish affair quite popular with the young, hip and freshly scrubbed. Old belter styled wooden divans decorated with paisley and peacocks, crude faux arabic gilt patterns stenciled on the walls and trim. We are repeats there, it allowed us to walk to the show and we stayed out of our cars and on our feet whenever possible.

The rooms are small but functional. Steve and I had an identical complaint; the pillows were too full, we like a big pillow to be accompanied by a smaller pillow that you can scrunch for under the neck. You have too fold a corner of one of the big beastly pillows over and slide it under your neck and it almost does the trick.

I had the overpriced and pedestrian buffet one morning and amused myself watching the similarly checked young couple across from me ignore each other over their coffee.

I like the Figueroa, hope the upcoming grand remodel doesn't screw up the overall funkiness of the place.

I don't know if I should talk about food or art so I will try to mix the two up a bit.

It was a two day setup. A gruff teamster barked at me from the top of the ramp and there was a whole barrage of passes we had to obtain and license plate numbers they had to jot down.

I twiddled my thumbs in an uncomfortable chair for what seemed like a mini eternity before the lady from the Palm Beach group deigned to take my check and give me a badge. A large check, I might add, this baby is expensive to do.

We went minimal so setup was a breeze. Had the same fantastic booth as last year, right by the entrance.

The show really looked different. Our historic section had really contracted this year, perhaps some politics involved, all I know is that a lot of the normal dealers were missing, Goss, Karges, Trotter, David, etc. Nary a single impressionist painting to be found anywhere, very little early California, with very few exceptions. The worm has turned and where it's going, god knows?

M.S. Rau had its normal Rockwell and Corot, didn't look quite as amazing as last year but they still had some pretty heavy firepower and I am sure turned several trillion ducats.

Chris Beetles from London brought some amazing original Beardsley and Rackham drawings. Tom French had a small Bellows oil and a Hopper drawing which I never got a chance to look at. Steve and I focused on mid century abstract, I had early works by Goings and Thiebaud and people were I think, quite impressed although not to the point where they were forking over large wads of cash yet. Steve's Staprans was I think the hit of the show.

The contemporary section dwarfed our own and didn't impress me all that much. Arcadia brought great stuff, but not quite as nice as last year and somewhat more somber. I liked the Frostig collection of small portraits. Some of the work in the section was derivative, designed to shock and occasionally even rather shoddy. But hey, it's a big world and it takes all kinds.

If you lack inspiration you can always sell off chunks of the popular culture.

The crowds were incredible, most people I have ever seen at a show in 20 years. Waves and waves of them. Thousands, injecting themselves into the room in a strange peristalsis.

I tried to engage everyone with my customary incessant patter but it was like the chinese flooding the korean dmz, too many bodies, I finally gave up. Thousands of people swarming, I had to leave the booth several times just to come up for air.

 

Of course, I was in La-La land and the people watching was fantastic. The woman standing in front of the Picasso in my booth above is Mrs. Beverly Pink from Pink's hotdogs fame. Lovely woman, very friendly, her family has been selling the dogs with the snap for over 75 years.

Los Angeles has a lot of very snappy dressers and I snapped a bunch of pics. Men and women dressed up like peacocks and peahens, the males in the species perhaps even more flamboyantly decked out than the females.

It was a lot of fun meeting the great multitudes of art lovers and engaging them in conversation.

This woman had quite an earful.

We even met the original Gidget, Kathy Kohner Zuckerman.

Frankly, I need a new cell phone. The camera on my HTC sucks and sometimes it is all I have. Here is a terrible picture of two old geezers who walked into my booth. One of the guys was wearing a red cap with a pot leaf. I asked him if he had any stash to share and he said I would have to pony up some cash first. Funny dudes.

We met all sorts of people. Beautiful people, not so beautiful people, kept women, kept men, songwriters, bartenders, actors, thespians, lesbians, thespian lesbians, lots of artists that wanted representation (sorry, I would explain, only handle the dead ones with two exceptions. not emotionally cut out for it…) photographers, bankers, wealthy, poor, tall, short, we saw them all.

Lots of friends stopped by, Jill and Byron, Genser, Linda and Joe, Gary, Bob, Roy, John Morris, of course, Glenn and Lena Bray, Joe and Cindy K, Michael Stutz and his mom, Lance and Donna Jost, Gordon Mclelland, Mark Hilbert, Eric B with George Barris son, Helen and Buzz, Rich Levendoff, who else?  Genser says the blog is a little bit overkill, he knows way more about my life than he needs to!

Found out that my Ed "Big Daddy" Roth drawing was not done by Wes Bennett as I thought. According to his son Dennis, it is an extremely rare piece by one Richard Ash, who went on to work for Stanley Mouse. Asheye. They say it is quite valuable.

And some of the people were indeed wonderful. The two girls from Seattle, and the songwriting chanteuses above, the adorable artist girl from NOLA who was tired of tending bar and waiting tables and is just looking for a fucking break. Really enjoyed the people this week, even though some of them confided that they were actually miserable and lonely. Los Angeles can be a tough city.

We saw great outfits and great sticks (legs.) Lots of checked patterns, which I didn't know were suddenly so popular. This gay designer is like Hello- it's been two years already! Always the last to know… Steve got stopped on the street for his pendleton jacket which I guess are collector's items now. Live long enough, it all comes back.

Oh yeah, food. It's all starting to melt together and I can't vouch for the chronology but here goes. First

night we drove over to Chinatown and ate at Mrs. Ha Ha's Mayflower restaurant. I can't say it was great but it wasn't bad. The salt and pepper shrimp were fantastic. Delicious duck wonton soup, if a little sparse with the duck. Very ordinary pork fried rice.

Talked the parking cop out of giving us a ticket after dinner. Or I should say, Steve did.

Next day lunch we drove to Montrose to meet Robert Bijou at La Cabanita, my favorite mexican restaurant in the world. Instead of my customary chuletas (thin pork chops cooked in a pasilla chili sauce with sour cream) I had a large and flavorful bowl of red posole and a chicharron taco which was crunchy and simply amazing!

Steve had sopas, one chicken, one pork and one picadillo.  Not sure about Robert, ordered what I thought were pedestrian sounding tacos. Not going to lecture him, his lovely wife Irma is Mexican and he certainly knows his way around the cocina.

The next morning we had breakfast at Phillipes. What a place, going back there with my film camera, it is a trip into the distant past. Coffee prices have gone up, now it will set you back 45 cents for a cup of joe.

Where else did we eat? Well we had sushi around the block at the place on Flower that was decent. Went to Langers one morning for a great breakfast. Salami omelet pancake style and rye bread. Steve had lox, eggs and onions.

Jodi, a great wisecracking waitress who gave as good as she got. Langers, the only deli that I know of with a James Beard award.

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On the way back we drove down Broadway and marveled at some of the old theaters. I am going back with my photo group to take pictures next month. Most impressive was the Million Dollar Theater, built by Grauman in 1918.  Did a little research and discovered that its wonderful monumentation was sculpted by the famous California southwest artist Jo Mora.

Wild stuff!

We ate at the Pantry the last day. Terrible. Made the mistake of ordering steak and eggs. Poor cow lived a sad life. Beware. And staff with attitude.

Steve and I also ate at El Cholo one day. My mother was raised in a home next door to the original El Cholo on Western
and I wanted to eat a meal in her honor now at the end of her road.

A fantastic meal, we both had burritos filed with lobster, scallops and shrimp in a chipotle cream sauce. Mom would be proud. I am going to find her picture in front of the restaurant and post it soon. Service was fantastic, margarita and food at El Cholo were simple but excellent.

Bopped over to Arcadia one night to see Bill W. and Cam. We ate at an old warhorse near Santa Anita Racetrack called Peppers. I opted for the pear salad, feeling slight pangs of guilt for the week of gluttony. At some point you have to mix in a salad.

I enjoyed the city this time. Need to come up here and shoot. Planning on taking some guys, hope it doesn't screw me up.

That's pretty much my story. If I can think of anything else I will add it and you'll probably never know. Peace. A nice week, learned a lot and met some great folks, ate some decent grub. Sold some stuff and bought some great stuff. Thassit!

Crumb and the hairy ass of Mohammed

I’m not going to make a career out of baiting some fucking religious fanatics, you know, by insulting their prophet. I wouldn’t do that. That seems crazy. But then, after they got killed, I just had to draw that cartoon, you know, showing the Prophet.  The cartoon I drew shows me, myself, holding up a cartoon that I’ve just drawn. A crude drawing of an ass that’s labeled “The Hairy Ass of Muhammed.” 
Robert Crumb  

Torsten Silz - Getty Images

Jonathan Hill sent this cool Crumb interview over from the New York Observer.

Jemima Surrender

1.11.15

Age is a strange thing. One day you're the kid and the next thing you know you're getting that senior discount and instructed by the universe, in no uncertain terms, that you are hereby past your due date and any viewpoints, life experience or general conceit that you might have harbored and/or cultivated are officially no longer valid, and furthermore, no one is interested.

Leslie asked me if I wanted a little color in my hair the other day and I shrieked (believe me, in a most masculine shriek) snarled,"Never" most forcefully. Not doing the grecian thing. Hippie kid, I'm going out like an old navajo, wrinkles and all.

My computer is acting up. I hate technology, always have. My Macpro, the one with the intel processor 2 x 2.66 GHZ Dual Core Intel Xeon with all that extra memory is getting long in the tooth, or so I am instructed by my computer gal, Heidi.

Seven years old is like dog years to a mac. It is starting to send me little communiques, gasps for memory and notices of speed malfunctions, tired groans that are getting hard to ignore.

We hooked up two new G drives and they have to be rebuilt every time I reboot the computer because of some pissing match between G and Apple. Finger pointing. So my photo and backup drives ain't working so good.

Things are starting to lag but I like to use things until they are officially dead and past tense, get every last ounce of use of them like the good old provincial farmer that I am. Waste not, want not. It's just starting to sputter and wheeze a bit, just like me.

Anyway, Heidi gently broke the word to me when I called to bitch about the drive situation, Robert, your computer's old, like a veterinarian telling you it's finally time to put down the horse.

I'll, sniff, miss the old gal. Not going to buy one of those expensive donut cylinder macpros, will buy a humble 27" retina 5k imac, that is when I can scratch up the dough.

I have a new significant attraction. I was walking across the street, minding my own business, when I espied out of the corner of my eye an object of singular virtue and beauty. One of the very nice merchants on the block had an old twin lens reflex rollie sitting there in the window, an old flame of mine. The first camera I ever shot, actually, in 1962 or 3, stepfather Don taught us to use it. Think he lost it later, got rolled in Juarez but that is another story. Damn Oso Negro.

Anyway I approached the shop owner and she said it was a prop in the closet when she bought the place and I was welcome to use it if I wanted to. I have been yearning for film and medium format and I think she will do the trick for a while. Bought some 100 Velvia and Ilford at OPT. Have my new scanner in place.

This one is a K4A from around 1951 or 1952. She has the Tessar Opton 3.5 77mm. The MX automat. Ken helped me load it and reorient myself. Seems to be in fine shape, not abused. Might need a little lubrication, nothing major. Aches and pains of getting up there. This is going to be fun. Light meter on the way from Hong Kong as we speak.

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Soon I will tell you about Prometheus.

first night back for fois gras - Vincent's, Escondido

Tom Paxton - Ramblin' Boy (1964)

Swami's

© Robert Sommers 2015

Christine Perfect - Mean Old World

One from Crumb

Bitter Harvest

I am trying to remember the last time we were in France. Leslie thinks it might have been 2001. In any case, it was the jewish holiday of Sukkot and we found ourselves pleasantly strolling around in the Marais, the epicenter of jewish life in Paris.

In the yiddish language that the jewish French have used for centuries, the area is known as the pletzl or little square.  We watched hasidic jews buying palm fronds and searching for the perfect etrog, the citrus fruit most associated with the harvest festival in the jewish tradition.

The day before we arrived the jewish market in the Marais had been blown up and we watched as the black smoke continued to pore out of the market's smoldering eaves.

Marais 1942

We loved Paris but the signs of antisemitism were hard to miss. We had several minimal type confrontations with the brutish algerian youth that tend to the petty criminal and are seemingly ever present in Paris but they paled next to our experience one morning on the Champs d'elysee when the old gallic matriarch veered out of her way, unprovoked, walked right up to us and spit at our feet with a dramatic flourish.

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What we witnessed ourselves in the Marais was not the first time a jewish market had been bombed or vandalized, in 1982 it was Goldenberg's. In fact, 423 antisemitic acts were logged in France last year, including rape, 49 acts of violence and one attempted homicide. Jews are now leaving the country in droves for a hopefully safer haven.

Fame Flynet

Today, french born islamic terrorists invaded a kosher market in Porte de Vincennes, the Hyper Cacher. Sixteen hostages were taken, four people were killed and four wounded before the attacker was killed and his girlfriend accomplice escaped.

The Grand Synagogue of Paris has closed today for security reasons and the authorities are suggesting that businesses in the Marais do the same. This is the first time that the Synagogue has closed for shabbat services since World War II.

The attacker in the kosher market, Amedy Coulibaly, called a local radio station during the siege and explained his actions, claiming allegiance to the Islamic State and saying that he wanted to defend Palestinians and target Jews.

France is now said to lead the world in antisemitism.

A survey last year from the European Jewish Congress and Tel Aviv University found that France had more violent anti-semitic incidents in 2013 than any other country in the world. Jews were the target of 40 per cent of all racist crimes in France in 2013 – even though they comprise less than 1 per cent of the population. Attacks on Jews have risen sevenfold since the 1990s.

Jews became the favorite whipping boy in France at the end of the nineteenth century, when they were blamed for every ill imaginable by a scared ruling class, which sadly culminated in the Dreyfus affair.

In World war II, the Vichi france of Marshall Phillipe Petain deported between 75.500 and 75,000 french jews to Nazi death camps. Many of these deportees were scooped up right on the Rue de Rosiers, the exact site of today's tragedy. Truth be told, the French have long turned a blind eye to crimes against this particular citizenry.

Elite French Soldiers performing Quenelle in front of synagogue

French Comedian Dieudonné M'Bala M'Bala has now popularized the quenelle, a backward Nazi salute and created a stage act that targets jews. The people love him. Regular french people, french soccer players and even soldiers have been photographed performing the gesture.

There are frequent demonstrations where marchers proclaim "death to the jews."And this is happening in a society where thousands of French Islamic youth are leaving every year for Jihad. It seems like it has become a very dangerous place, at least for members of a certain tribe. The rest of you, by all means, go visit and tell me just how wonderful a time you had in Provence.

Today the situation in France is framed by the National Front of the far right Le Pen on one side, and a muslim powder keg on the other, with a homegrown gallic variety plunked down on top for good measure.

And also mix in the typical self righteous European liberal intelligentsia who find it easier to play along with the dangerous muslim underclass than to take a stand for a relatively small number of people they have never cared for much anyway. Blame zionism for the whole thing.

I think that I would get the hell out of there too. Of course, that is, if there was anywhere one could go.

Getty Images

A little politics and a lot of food.

You know the world is pretty rotten out there. People getting killed over cartoons, people getting flogged for not offering sufficient obeisance to other people's belief systems, people getting thrown in jail for blogging and insulting the poor prophet. Can't an all powerful god take care of his own business?

Kids killing their parents, parents killing their kids, sleeping with their kids, eating their next door neighbors, killing cops, cops killing people, frankly the whole fucking world is on its ear.

I am getting pretty sick of politics and religion. Seems like there is a wide swath of humanity that lacks a brain, funny bone or irony gene. Every religion is suspect, even the Buddhists are whacking poor muslims in Burma.

Of course you know who gets the grand prize, you only have to hear the words Paris and bombing to figure out that the Huguenots are at it again.


Certain writers peg the number of hard core terrorists in the world at a hair under 200,000. One and a half billion muslims in the world and if a liberally estimated one percent are ideological supporters of jihad and salaf/wahabism that means that there are only about 150 to 200 million bad guys we may need to deal with.

A muslim commenter this morning wrote that just because 19% of french muslims support the Islamic State doesn't mean that we can therefor extrapolate that they are also for killing innocent people. Well, excuse me, but yes, I think we can. I see a definite nexus. Ditto the 40% of British muslims that want to institute sharia law in their newfound home. Hey, you self righteous Euros invited the wolf in to the henhouse, you figure out to do with him.

Charlie Hedbo was said to go after Jews pretty mercilessly as well but you don't see a bunch of crazed hasids from Williamsburg ever committing jihad, do you? Anyway you can only listen to that religion of peace shit for so long before an honest person calls bullshit.

My brother Buzz asked me this morning if I was afraid of ever getting whacked for something I had written and I tried to explain that I pretty much steer clear of anything controversial these days. Can't talk about much of anything except food.

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 First thing I need to mention food wise is that we finally have a really good thai restaurant around these parts, Thai Thai. For a hundred years we had no thai restaurants and than a few months ago we got a place right next door, Golden something and now we have Thai Thai.

I went to Golden Kitchen after it opened and had the worst spring roll I have ever tasted, a limp and under stuffed roll that fell apart and lacked both taste and a binder of any kind. Than I had my gold standard, my universal thai test order, the roast duck pineapple curry that was decent there, but sparse and overpriced.

Next time I went back I had the phad thai which was cloyingly sweet and pretty inedible. I really want to like the place, they are practically next door. I hear that they have a new chef and that things are now better. I hope so. I need to give the place another look.

But it is really tough when you have a place as good as Thai Thai right down the street. Have been spending way too much time there.

I ate there with Brigitte today. You get a small bowl of soup of clear broth and vegetables on the house when you sit down at Thai Thai, very refreshing and tasty. We segued into the big appetizer plate, then she shifted to a papaya salad while I went for the green curry duck, no bell peppers.

I got hooked on their green curry last week, had it with the pork last time. It is exceptional. We went there one night with friends and tried every curry on the menu and they were all great, including the masoman, penang and red.

Finished with mango sticky rice today, a seriously generous portion. The Thai Thai people had a place in Ramona for ages and they are obviously old hands that know what they are doing. I am hooked on their duck fried rice. The only problem with the place is that a thai starved Fallbrook jams the small place, which once served a gloppy chinese buffet. They did a really nice job bringing it back.

Great soup too!

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Down the block from Thai Thai, Yama has a new owner, Yama. Hank and Suzie have ridden into the sunset after many years at the helm. Will miss Hank's custom beef yakisoba, which he always insisted on personally making for me.

The first thing you notice is the place has been really freshened up, a new coat of green paint and more. The staff has changed, Ono is out with a back injury, there might be a new partner from Temecula. Very nice and personable people. The food is different too, some very interesting rolls and entries, Yama asserting a new vision and even a new wide screen. I am mostly happy but still think they need to dial it in.

The sushi burrito I had the other day was a mockery of its former self, pretty tiny. And I think they may have changed fish purveyors. The taste is a little different and I am not sure if I am totally on board. Will keep coming back, like the people very much but it all starts with the fish.

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Faro Trupiano's new venture (the one with the numbers) is only a few days away from opening supposedly. He has worked his ass off and I wish him the best. Great guy. Hope they will allow old people like me in the door, I think it will be oriented to a slightly hipper and far younger crowd.

Faro has done a great job with his Espresso Lounge, the food at Trupianos is always surprisingly good, especially the eggplant dishes. I think he is crazy to be working this hard. Needs a new place like a hole in the head. Have my fingers crossed for him. Appreciate what he did to Primo, gave us shades, plastic flowers, great staff, really focused on the place like no owner ever has. Now a sizable number of people practically live there. Hey, at least I go home at night.

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Hear the Valley Fort is near history. It is too bad. He worked really hard, brought the place back from the grave but for a variety of reasons and with a curiously always crammed parking lot, it was a money pit.  He gave it a good go but honestly seemed to have no idea how to run a restaurant. Ruined a friend's 50th anniversary. Met several people that would never go back. Never figured out the bread, a deal killer for me. The ratio for me was that one out of three meals were decent. Bummer though, he gave it his all. But it was certainly amateur hour over there, at least when I showed up.

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Went to Oink and Moo with Les the other day. Love their chicken, she had the rib platter. All was good but I picked the wrong table. Leslie's back is hurting right now and we sat at the high table. I also screwed up this and that ordering. Food was good but the beef ribs were not what they once were. He has switched meat guys a couple times and nothing compares to the first company that he can no longer get his beef ribs from. This one was a little tough. Baby backs and spare were delicious.

They brought out some of their new kielbasa appetizer for us to try. I liked it, cooked slightly sweet but the sweet sauce that accompanied it was almost too much. Redundant. Would rather see them go to something with a bite. The owners work awfully hard to make sure that their food is good and that their diners are happy and I salute them both.

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I love Jack in the box tacos, as does my sister Barbara. The cheap ones, two for ninety nine cents. The guys at coffee said that at two in the morning they jam a big box with everything for some small paltry sum. Unofficially termed the "tweaker box." Got to remember that the next time I am out late.

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Speaking of out late, we were driving back from the airport near midnight and decided to check Convoy. Mapo Korean Barbeque is open at least until midnight and the food was dynamite. We cooked duck and bulgogi on our round grill and had delicious purple rice. Delicious kim chee and great side dishes.

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Excellent cara cara oranges at Albertson for ninety nine cents a pound. If you have never had one, you have to try one. Quite addictive.

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I went to Baltimore recently to see my mother. Haven't wanted to talk about the food. But a guy has to eat. My brother Buzz said that I had to try pit beef, the local favorite culinary staple. We went to a place in Catonsville called Kirkwood, lot of the places are shacks, thinly cut beef slices cooked in the fire, delicious.

Nick here has cooked at Kirkwood for nine years. Of course the locals told me there was an even better one down the street.

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I also went to a place that my brother John knew of in Linthicum, an old warhorse of an establishment, G&M Crabcakes. Steak and crab cakes. An east coast style steak and seafood house, pretty fantastic.

Although I must admit my wife's crab cakes are even better. Also had crab cakes at Obryckis at the airport on the way home. When you are in Baltimore you have to eat local, you know? Obryckis has been rated top ten airport food in the country and I can see why.

Place was excellent, my waitress had the build of a Raven linebacker. But it delivered.

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Went to the Aztec game the other night with Kent and we stopped at D.Z. Akins. I had the corned beef and the server asked me what kind of bread and I knew it was going to be one of those nights. They are starting to cheat you on the amount of meat in the sandwich. At these prices they can afford to give you a freaking fresser.

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Fans of my photography might want to check out the back room at Fallbrook's Cafe des Artistes this month. Michael graciously invited me to put up some work.

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Fois gras is back and we are headed to Vincent's tonight with friends. All is good. That is all I've got. You see I'm on a diet. And sworn to secrecy on the New Years dinner.