Movement: The Moving Episode (Ep 4)

Thanks to everyone who listens to my podcast. Every time it plays, I love you.

Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots Pt. 1

HERE'S WHERE I RUIN THE FLAMING LIPS: YOSHIMI BATTLES THE PINK ROBOTS, PT 1

I remember in 1995 the Flaming Lips were playing at the Peach Pit in Beverly Hills. At least, I remember when Beverly Hills 90210 featured the band in one of their episodes, and all the kids at Beverly High were stoked. I thought they were pretty good, and I didn't think about them much after that.

I moved to Germany when I was 19 years old in 1999.

When I was 26, a student at UC Berkeley, I hung out a lot in Oakland bars. At some point, Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots Pt 1 came on, and everyone was surprised I hadn't heard it. Their most successful album Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots had been released in 2002. I'd missed it abroad.

I instantly fell in love with the experimental psychedelic sound and the lyrics that seem to be saying one thing but meaning something entirely different.

My friends at the time were mostly artists and poets, people who maybe often feel like they are alone without anyone looking out for them. Maybe it was just me. Either way, my circle of friends took to singing the song at the tops of our lungs any chance we could. If there was a jukebox, we chose it. If we were closing down the bar, our friends behind it put this song on and sang along.

Here's what Billboard said about the album:

"beneath the sunny, computer-generated atmospherics and the campy veneer of talk about gladiator-style clashes between man and machines with emotions, Yoshimi is actually a somber rumination on love and survival in an unfathomable world."

During the chorus we'd choose someone to point at and sing that they wouldn't let the robots eat us. Every time we shouted "Oh Yoshimi!" we pointed at a new person until everyone was included. The robots are everywhere. They're programmed to destroy artists and writers or people who just care about anything in the indifferent universe. Sometimes, for fleeting moments, maybe you have a few Yoshimis around you who might take their vitamins, learn karate, and keep you safe. When those people are around, sing them a song. If you can't sing, just play them this.

What's the Best Cheap Wine

THE BEST CHEAP WINE IS CK MONDAVI

The first time I heard the term Sommelier, was at a place called Club 33, a hidden club at Disneyland. His name was Pierre and he suffered me as a buser who asked too many questions. I learned more about drinks there than I would anywhere else.

I'd find out how to make drinks at the bar from a magical bartender named Lee, and I'd make them for my friends at home. But Pierre was more about wine and Cognac of course. He'd let us try a little bit each day to train us on what we were serving. And at the end of the night, if guests had left bottles not quite empty, we'd help ourselves to their leftovers. It was a great way to learn about wine.

Pierre was from some famous steakhouse in Texas, but he didn't have a Texas accent. He had a very posh American accent; he never said "y'all," but sometimes "you all." And I liked him a lot because he seemed to know everything I didn't but wasn't a manager and didn't lord it over me. My managers there were nice enough, but it was only the second time I'd worked in a real restaurant, and since we were all pretty young, they had a lot to do with training us; they had to be really hands-on.

So one day, I went to the supermarket and saw a bottle of Mondavi,and I bought it because I thought wow, this is the house wine at Club 33. This is really good stuff and it's on sale. I brought it home and shared it with my roommates and went on and on about how good this wine was and regaled them with all the things I knew.

They were sufficiently impressed.

I went into work the next day proud of my accomplishment and told Pierre. He looked at me sideways and asked which Mondavi I'd bought, and when I told him, he burst out laughing in my face.

Apparently CK Mondavi was the cheapest, bottom-of-the-line wine I could have bought. I didn't know anything about how much a bottle should cost or anything.

It took a while for the burn of that embarrassment to cool down--YEARS! I had to leave America a year later, travel the world, and come back to America, before I thought it was safe to drink ANYTHING from Mondavi again. But when there were hard times and I was broke as hell, I drank CK and let it remind me of a simpler, less weltschmerzy time.

CK Mondavi is available in a 1.5 L bottle for around $10.00, and it tastes as good as it did before I knew any better.

At the time this story took place, CK (Charles Krug) was owned by Peter Mondavi, who studied oenology at Berkeley. The vineyard was known mostly for mid-range affordable wine, and still is. Up the street about six miles, Robert Mondavi, Peter's brash brother who'd been forced out of the family business due to sibling rivalry, was busy making premium wine and using his family name and penchant for marketing (he and his brother both studied econ and business at Stanford)  to build an empire. In 1997, the brothers weren't talking except in court.

If you didn't know who Robert Mondavi was, he's the guy who really put Napa Valley on the map. He's also the reason why Americans (and now consequently most of the world) refer to wines by their varietal rather than their region names. For example a Beaujolais is a type of wine that refers to a very specific region. You'd have to know what grapes grow in that region to really know what grapes are in your Beaujolais-Villages (mostly Gamay).

Mondavi hated that because he wanted to grow whatever he wanted in Napa. He wanted the consumer to know what a Napa Cab tasted like versus a Cab from anywhere else, but he also wanted to grow Chard and even Sauvignon (Fume) Blanc blah blah blah. This isn't as controversial today as it once was. And many places were too far in to back up and do it like the Americans. Most people don't know what's in a glass of Champagne, for example. And most mortals don't have the faculties to remember every Italian grape varietal.

Anyway, he changed the global landscape and language of wine. And you can buy entry to that rich history for little more than the change in your pocket, and if you want to fly first class, Mondavi's got you covered there too with much pricier options.

Lee's blog »
In 2008, I ran into Lee at the Claremont in Oakland, and he remembered me 10 years later.

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Last bit of Mondavi history I think is kind of important to mention:

A lot of people think of Robert Mondavi as a symbol of everything that's wrong with globalization, and they might be right. But I think it's much more interesting than just this current generation. Cesare Mondavi, the family patriarch, was an Italian immigrant who ran a fruit packing business that shipped grapes to the east coast during prohibition for illegal wine-making.

I don't think it's a stretch to say he was a mafioso bootlegger. Cesare was just really, really smart. He didn't run booze; he ran grapes. He put warnings on the grapes that essentially told people how not to make wine so that people could reverse the instructions and make wine at home. He dealt a lot with a company called Beringer in St Helena, CA, shipping "raisin cakes" and sacrament wine. Later he'd buy a vineyard named Charles Krug basically next door to Beringer, and plant the seed of global wine domination.

If they had been Irish instead of Italian, they'd probably have followed fellow-bootlegger Joe Kennedy into politics.

These powerful dynasties are not exclusively American, but the prohibition of alcohol certainly helped. I wonder what families we'll be talking about in 50 years who made their fortunes in the illegal drug trade.

What's a Mangina?

IN DEFENSE OF JAMES BOND

Guest blog by Kevin Kunundrum

I'm tired of dreadlocked Millennial Manginas making videos to meet Social Justice Warrior women under the guise of declaring how terrible men are. And I love when they speak for all men and apologize on our behalf. Do they think by condemning men en masse, they’ll appear all sensitive and sanctified to Feminists?

I see through you, Manginas! Babbling whiningly at length about men's oppression, blah-blah-blah, and chanting the new catch-phrase: 'Toxic Masculinity' 

O, to be an evil Man, the wellspring of all that is bad, the oppressor of all that is good.

I try to ignore them, but now they're Bond bashing!

Behold the usual Bond-bashing boilerplate. "James Bond is a misogynist Neanderthal alcoholic murderer who flees from his own feelings and uses women as disposable playthings for his own amusement, etcetera..." Sure, James Bond's an easy target, from a superficial point of view. So let us for a moment, examine James Bond in depth, the real Double-O-Seven... 

James Bond was conceived in a World War, with bombs raining down on Britain. According to Ian Fleming, he had a traumatic childhood. Orphaned at eleven, he went to live with his aunt in the small English village of Pett Bottom. If you don't find that hilarious, you'll be among the first to go in the coming Apocalypse. Learn to laugh, dear friends...  

So Bond is an only-child-orphan-introvert, which means he can become one of three things: a serial killer, a poet, or a secret agent. And he chooses secret agent. And what does this mean? He decides to live his life for the greater good, the greater good being England. And this used to be part and parcel of coming of age, the notion that you go into the service to give something back. That's why they call it the service!

This is how Britain withstood the Nazis when the firebombs set London ablaze. When the blackest of evils was right across the Channel, the people gave their all, out of sacrifice and selfless obligation. But James Bond takes it a step further. He doesn't just sign up for a stint, two years and out. He's in it for the long haul. And it's not as some desk-bound bureaucrat, home by 5 for G&Ts... No, Mr. Bond does the heavy lifting. He ventures where no one wants to go, where the shit is always headed for the fan.

And he doesn't just save a few people or even England, but more times than not, the world!

How 'bout you, dreadlocked Mangina? How many times have you saved anything?

When 400,000 men are stranded at Dunkirk, you don't whine. You get in your boat, whatever it is, and you sail out. And you fight the freaking Nazis for six long years and you see things and do things that scar you forever. But it's for England, the world, and the children unborn. Talk about sacrifice! And you silently endure because those that don't know will never know, and those that do, know it all too well. We can't tailor-make our life to be rid of rough edges. The rough edges are there precisely so that we can become our best or our worst. It's not easy to heed the call. It's when we find what we're made of. And some of us, sadly, come up short.

And what does James Bond do? His courage and mettle are constantly tested. His loyalty, his steadfastness, his ingenuity, his humanity. He's given the worst tasks where he must do things most never imagine. And because of this, his life is measured not in decades or years but in days. Sometimes, hours and minutes. Imagine if you knew that you could be dead tomorrow. You might enjoy that drink tonight. You might savor that woman. But you know there's no future in it because you have no future. That's a given. You've accepted it. 

And what do these women see when James Bond appears? A man with the confidence that stems from confronting humanity's darkness. Someone who faces death and defeat and who somehow surmounts it. And as things crash around them with death racing forward, James Bond calmly, collectedly figures it out and saves the day. Who wouldn't find this attractive?

He's someone who will always have your back. Who will never give up. But unlike Mr. Mangina who uses exalted rhetoric as a ploy to get laid, James Bond says very little.  And when he has a brief respite he enjoys it fully because he knows more than most the measure of life. As Bond says to 'M' in Casino Royale, 'So you want me to be half-monk, half-hitman'... But he's more than just a blunt instrument. He's a 'sin-eater' who takes in the darkness for the benefit of all.

Courage, fortitude, loyalty, authenticity. These are Bond's currency. And he is nothing if not authentic. He's always himself, never anyone else, and you can depend on this. It's one of the rarest things in a world in which you can depend on practically nothing.

Homophobia at Bulleit

WHY I DON'T BUY BULLEIT BOURBON ANYMORE

I was on the Bulleit train from almost the beginning. I love their rye and their bourbon and drank them often, as I'm addicted to Manhattans for half the year, and I don't mind a Boulevardier when I'm feeling saucy. But now I've officially disembarked.

For better or worse, America went with capitalism, and the only way for that to work is for consumers to vote for the world they want with their dollars.

That's why I'll never go to a Hobby Lobby and why I haven't drunk a drop of Bulleit Bourbon for almost six months now. 

The story goes that Tom Bulleit's daughter Hollis Bulleit made the brand the powerhouse it is through dogged ambassadorship but was pushed out when her sexual orientation became public. I guess it shouldn't surprise anyone that a Kentucky-based family's patriarch is a homophobe; homophobia and racism are rampant down south unfortunately. But I don't care that I'm not surprised, and I'm not going to support a brand that I know is anti-gay.

There are other great bourbons at the same price point anyway.

There's a Slate article about how family businesses are more susceptible to such problems. It makes me think of Marxist notions to abolish the family unit. I don't understand how people spend Thanksgiving and Christmas with racist/homophobic family members. If the world is going to be a better place tomorrow, eye-rolling isn't enough; pillory your grandparents if you have to.

Diageo owns Bulleit and Johnnie Walker and countless other brands. As a consumer, it's hard to pillory Diageo. Remember when Dove was running ads about all women being beautiful while Axe was running ads about all women being sex toys? Unilever owns both brands and didn't care how anyone felt about that if you kept buying their products. That's just how branding works and why Diageo is so powerful (and also dangerous).

For now I'm drinking Buffalo Trace and Gentleman Jack, owned by Sazerac and Brown-Forman, respectively, both of whom have probably had similar issues in their histories. . . but what else am I supposed to do?

---

When I was living in Virginia, my ex-in-laws were horribly racist, sexist, and homophobic. The father of the family would proudly declare himself one from time to time. When his daughter was dating a black dude Big Daddy announced his intention to "tie him to the back of his truck and drive down a dirt road." When his daughter pointed out that her father had expected her brother to marry a Chinese girl, he proclaimed "I'm a racist and a sexist."

When you talk like that you deserve to lose your brand—you're a nazi. Nazi's, contrary to Trump's view, are the enemy because they threaten peace and hinder progress toward equality.

My ex-wife often sided with her parents. That drove a rift in our relationship. It was the thing we fought about the most, and it eventually tore apart our marriage. I thought I had to tolerate it until we had the chance to move far away from her ancestral home. But when that became a real possibility, it became clear she would never be out from under their influence.

And I'll never take that train again.

Have You Read Live Nude Girls?

LIVE NUDE GIRLS

Hope might be a trap. It might be what keeps us all going, but it might destroy you. Or it might just be what gets you on Oprah.

Kevin Postupack wrote this incredible novel ostensibly about a bisexual stripper with an overactive mind and who's maybe too much of an autodidact. She's a voracious reader with ADHD and an extreme imagination. But what the novel's really about is identity.

What's in a name?

Every character in the book has an alias, and you'd think this'd be a little confusing but it isn't. People are able to be two things at once, and rather than make this liminal space off-limits to the reader, Postupack invites you to inhabit it with Daphne and her assassin cat, Noodles. It's easy to do because the narrator is operating under the assumption that we all contain multitudes.

Like Schrödinger's cat, we're alive and dead at the same time, but rather than keep that proverbial box closed, Postupack spends his time ripping the tops off them like Cracker Jack boxes looking for prizes. Sometimes there's a prize, and sometimes you get a dead cat, but the courage to keep opening them is something worth celebrating, and I think Kevin Postupack's novel does that with aplomb.

Live Nude Girls is sexy without being crude, deep without being preachy, and hilarious without being corny. Those are all hard balancing acts.

There's even a Nazi-hunter, a self-declared goddess/restaurateur, and a Cuban strip-club-owner who claims to have prescient visions. The name of the strip club? Pandora's. You can't help but open that one.

---

Prometheus could see the future, and Epimetheus could see the past. Epimetheus is often called the "foolish brother" but how could he be? Wouldn't an accurate and crystal clear remembrance of the past endow you with great wisdom? Wouldn't you almost be able to predict the future based on the events of the past? After all, that's how statistics work.

Anyway, the box: It was given to Pandora as a dowry after Hephaestus built her with beauty and cunning. But it was Zeus's plan to unleash plagues onto man via her box to take them down a notch. They'd recently been blessed with agriculture and fire. So out of her jar came disease and famine and hard work and all the other evil fates that befall men. . . but only one is mentioned by name. Elpis, hid under the lid, claiming instead to be the only palliative to assuage the plight of man. Elpis means Hope.

But I think Elpis was simply the most clever of the fates, endeavoring to stay close to us in order to inflict the most constant, enduring pain of all.

The White Maggot Story

Googled "sexy white maggot"

I know everyone who tells a story like this makes themselves out to be the perfectly rational one in the scenario. But I think anyone who has ever worked in a restaurant, especially as a manager, has stories like this one. Bear in mind, a manager's job is to remain calm.

We had a party of 18 come in and buy a bunch of birthday desserts at the end of their meal. We didn't normally sing to birthday people, but someone thought it'd be funny to make Gerardo put on a little sombrero and sing happy birthday. Gerardo had only been there for a week and was a shy guy, so I thought it'd be funny; after all, the group had a huge bill. I couldn't let him go it alone, so I put on a lucha libre mask, and Gerardo put on a little sombrero, and we sang happy birthday to the table whilst delivering four giant desserts.

Back in the kitchen, a server told me a guest was being very rude to her saying she wanted me to sing happy birthday. I sent out a free dessert and asked the server to kindly tell her that we don't normally sing and the masked man has left the building, but her birthday dessert was on us.

We got a little rush in business just then and I forgot about it, but a bit later the same server said someone wanted to speak with me. So I dropped everything and went out to the table.

"Hi ladies, my name's Sky; how's everything going?" I said in my nicest voice possible.
"Well, the service was great, the food was good, but you're a fucking ass hole."
One lady was eating the dessert I'd sent out. Their meals were in to-go bags. They'd already settled their tab. She just wanted to curse me out.
"What happened, what's going on?" I ignored the insult to figure out why she would be so rude.
"You didn't sing to my friend!"
"Oh," I smiled, "that's not normally something we do, we were just playing a joke on the new guy. I'm sorry we didn't sing. I can sing for you right now if you'd like."
"I don't want anything from you!"
"Maybe I can look at your tab and take something off."
"I don't want anything for free!"
"I did send out a free dessert for your friend's birthday."
"We had to wait forever for it."
"Ma'am, I'd really like to fix the problem, but I don't know how I can do that. You don't like the free dessert, you won't let me reopen your tab, and you don't want me to sing."
That's when the birthday girl put down her spoon and said "You're the fucking manager, you ain't got no fucking skills."
Too which I said, "well you're obviously a classy lady that doesn't have the time for the likes of me, so I'll say thank you and I'm sorry your experience wasn't what you wanted. Happy birthday," and I walked away. I really thought that was my only option: remain calm and polite and walk away.

I posted up at the host stand because people who go nuts on the manager usually like screaming at the hosts, and I hate that. What do you seek to gain by yelling at an 18-year-old girl who has nothing to do with you?

First the ladies went to the bar and said something about how I think I can treat them any kind of way because of who's president. The bartender just nodded in that scared way service people nod when people have gone psycho.

Then someone was at the front door, so I opened it for them. They walked in and when I looked over my shoulder the ladies were RIGHT BEHIND ME. So I smiled, held the door, and said "have a great night."

The first lady walked through without a word, but the second started hollering at me. "I ain't walking through no door held by you. Fuck you peasant mother fucker. Fucking white maggot. I'll beat your white ass."

"Ma'am, please just go. Your night gets better the second you leave. Have a great night."
"Fuck you maggot. Get out of my way."

So I asked her friend to hold the door and got out of the way. But that wasn't enough.

"Fucking maggot. Get outta here."
"Ma'am, that's not how this works. You're the one who has to leave, and I'm the one who has to stay. I live here. Please just have a great night."

She had her back to her friend and the front door and kept screaming "white maggot." And I kept saying "Have a great night." The whole restaurant was staring. Later, many of them would console me, including three black dudes who apologized on behalf of black people, a first in my life. I've apologized for racist white ass holes many times in my life, but I'd never been on the receiving end of that weird apology.

Then the lady crossed the line, and I almost lost it. She said, "you support Donald Trump and think that gives you all the power!"

"Lady, if you don't leave I'm calling the police. I might be a white maggot, but I'm no fucking Trump supporter. Now GET OUT!"

---

The lady called corporate the next day saying she had other problems in life and that I egged her on. I told corporate I would have taken care of their meal and sung to them even after they called me a fucking ass hole, but when you start off calling someone a fucking ass hole, there's not a lot of places that conversation can go.

She wanted to abuse someone, and there I was. But she would have had a much better night if she had just a tiniest collection of manners at her disposal.

What Kind of Scotch Should I Get My High Roller

The MACALLAN M at Whiskey Down
Guest Blog by Kanna Smith

Eager to be a part of something new and learn about a spirit that I didn’t even like before, I started working at the brand new Whiskey Down in the middle of the MGM Grand Casino in Las Vegas. I was frustratingly scheduled 1AM-9AM, the hours when sobriety is rare, manners and inhibitions rarer, and small-town women realize the enormous responsibility of high heels.

If there were guests, they were too drunk to drink, or too rude to serve. I had an odd amount of power as a cocktail server: if I didn’t like you, you didn’t drink. You could stumble into any other bar you wanted to in MGM, but I'd have already given my friends there a heads up. Sorry bud, you’re done drinking for the night.

Opening night at Whiskey Down

I tried to exercise caution. I would make the call only when I was certain that the douchebag I was kicking out was just that, a simple drunk douchebag. . . because money talks in Vegas, more so than anywhere else. It screams at you from every machine, every table, every hooker’s eyes as they follow their unsuspecting marks to the bar. And that's what screamed at us when one of the youngest millionaires in the world requested we carry Macallan M at Whiskey Down.

My ears rang when he came in. He was polite, liked whiskey, tipped well, and was a big gambler. There was nothing more I wanted in a guest. He was drunk this evening, more than I had ever seen him.

“Whisky makes me frisky.”
-Some drunk guy probably

“I’d like an M. neat please,” he slurred, eyelids dropping.

I smelled a delicious opportunity in the alcohol on his breath. As I delivered the M, I mentioned my love of whisky and my curiosity surrounding the single malt.

“You’ve never had it?” He asked thickly. I could hear the concern in his voice. I nearly had him.

I blinked coyly, “I can’t afford it." That sealed it. He instructed me to add another to his tab, so I could enjoy it after work.

What followed was the longest shift of my life. I couldn’t wait to try this $730-per-1.5-ounce Scotch! 9AM finally came, and after I tasted the whisky, I nearly did too. I carefully brought the glass to my lips and slowly let the liquid gold touch my tongue. The warm scent of dried apricot melted delicately into flavors of vanilla with a tart plum finish. The first swallow numbed my entire mouth; a sensation I’ve not experienced since.

And though I’ve had the Macallan M once more since that fateful night with my high roller, you know what they say… You never forget your first.

The MACALLAN story »

What Should I Buy for My Bourbon Drinker

If you watch the video above, you might get why I like this bourbon so much. Anyone who thinks Tito's is handmade should take a look. I don't have a personal romantic story to go along with this except I drink it a lot with friends. This bourbon comes with its own story. This is the real deal. This is old-school American craftsmanship at its best, but you get to put it in your mouth and consume it! You can't say that about fancy cars, Jerry Seinfeld!

First up, you see. You see the barrel-shaped bottle with its parchment like wrapping. On closer look, you can see where someone has handwritten where the juice in this thing comes from. And there's a little horse on top with letter by its back leg.

Next is the smell. You can smell that barrel. You can smell Kentucky! You can smell the bluegrass on the morning after a thunderstorm. There's a tiny bit of smoke from where lightning struck the night before.

Then the taste. You can taste the summer humidity. You can taste the sweating pipes in old barns. You can taste the dust settling at dusk as the fireflies start their nightly fandango. The freshly cut trees.

It's a magical drink, and it's not the same for everyone. You see, a single barrel means each batch is slightly different and will never happen exactly the same way again. Now, there's something to be said about the incredible talent some masters possess to create the same bottle over and over again, year in and year out, but there's also something worthwhile knowing that after you're done with some Blanton's bottles, that's it: a unique experience you'll never track back down.

If you're at a bar, if they have it, a dram of this will run you between $23 and $55. I knew a bar that sold it at $15, and I drank all they had. I know a cigar lounge that sells it at $23 here in Vegas, and when they see me coming, they pour it before I sit down. I go there a lot for the bourbon.

A colleague asked me before Christmas what he should get for his friend who is a bourbon-drinker, and this is what I suggested. He went with the easier-to-find Angel's Envy, which is a fine bourbon. But if you want to make someone feel special. . . or better yet, make yourself feel special, buy a bottle of Blanton's.

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A short word about the horses:

When I worked at MGM Grand, I helped work a bar called Whiskey Down. Some bartenders there collected the stoppers because they spell BLANTON'S when you collect them all. You can even buy barrel staves with pre-carved holes into which collectors might insert and display these stoppers.

I'm not a big collector of things, but I have a few of these stoppers, and now I feel like a schmuck not having collected them. I've got a couple N's that are different from one another, which means to me they change these horses fairly frequently, adding to that uniqueness. They're small and easy to forget about in a drawer. Maybe when I get a few more, I'll buy one of those staves. I just found one on Amazon I want:

Letterman Does what CNN Can't and Fox Won't

I watched David Letterman's new show, My Next Guest Needs No Introduction, last night and loved it as kind of a highbrow version of Sarah Silverman's I Love America with far fewer jokes and a format more like Actor's Studio but not as cringeworthy and far less boring somehow.

Its genial tone and Letterman's obvious interest and genuine stake in the conversation are like a welcome respite to the maelstrom of political screaming everywhere. Even when they spoke of Trump, they were respectful and polite. GASP POLITE!!!!?!!?!

I could gush about the show, but what's really interesting to me is this line I saw quoted on CNN when I woke up this morning:

"One of the things that Michelle figured out, in some ways faster than I did, was part of your ability to lead the country doesn't have to do with legislation, doesn't have to do with regulations, it has to do with shaping attitudes, shaping culture, increasing awareness."

This is a really great line that encapsulates what I love about this show (and Barack Obama) and what I hate about what's happened in the media in the last few years.

This is president Obama speaking off the cuff, and it's more measured and thoughtful than anything we've seen come out of prepared speeches from most presidents, least of all our current one. He's humble and manages to maintain a dominant position with a self-deprecating opening. It's almost as if he's willing to say, "forget about who I am for a moment, Jack; I'm begging you to realize how important your role is to our culture."

Today when I rolled over and looked at my phone, the first article was from CNN:

Obama's stern warning for Trump

I mean... a plea maybe. A stern warning? C'mon. I know you guys went to college and know what words mean. I'm not even asking you to take the high road, but this is a little ridiculous. You can't say truth matters and words matter when you're going to use this as your headline for a one-sentence quote in which Trump wasn't even mentioned. If the truth matters, act like it.

Anyway, in a world lacking dignity, decorum, grace, civility, and compassion at the highest levels of governance and entertainment, this new David Letterman format had me sighing in relief that all is not lost.

I'm glad someone like Letterman is throwing himself back into this in a meaningful way.

Here are some links:

Obama's Stern Warning »
Mr Letterman's New Show »

You Can Say You to Me

There's a legend in which Helmut Kohl told Bill Clinton "You can say you to me." I remember laughing about this friendly little gaf. See, in the German language, they still have the familiar pronoun. "Thou" is in the ashcan of English antiquity, but it survives as "du" in modern German.

So when a German says "you can say you to me," he's inviting you to be his friend. And who wouldn't want to be Helmut Kohl's friend? He promoted peace, unity, prosperity for 16 years. His accomplishments include unifying Germany and ushering in a pan-European currency!

And he was a conservative!

The reason I'm thinking of Helmut Kohl and his funny little (alleged) language error is our own conservative party in the USA.

Everything is vitriol now. "I'm a genius." "You live in a shithole." "That guys sucks his own cock." "That guy is a fucking idiot." It's exhausting. Where's the basic human decency?

I'm a progressive. But I've agreed with some conservatives. High-functioning humans in politics are complicated, and you can agree with some of their views without accepting all of them. But these days conservatives are two-dimensional caricatures obsessed with cheap insults and bad manners.

Helmut Kohl was at times brutal in his politics, but wanted to be your friend. He wanted everyone to be friends. He convinced Reagan to visit a German military (NAZI) cemetery in the name of friendship!

And after he left office, he was humble and introspective and reflected on his own political tactics, admitting that he at times acted like a dictator in the name of peace.

Helmut Kohl died in June last year (2017).

Here's more about him:
Wiki »
Acted like a Dictator »
Cost of reunification »

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As a caveat, I'd like to offer this anecdote:

Yesterday at work a couple of women ate lunch and in the end, after eating everything except their ceviche appetizer, told their server that they "tried everything in the world to make this taste better, but it tastes like shit." They didn't want to pay for it.

They could have said something like "I'm sorry, but I didn't enjoy this, and I'd prefer not to pay for it." Why be vulgar for no reason? Why begin with conflict?

The ceviche was covered in hot sauce and salt as a result of their trying to make it "taste better."

I'm guessing they were not Trump supporters. But what the president and his ilk are accomplishing is a drastic diminishment of how we interact with one another. And I think it's important to have a culture of dignity and respect.

I resisted the urge to ask them if that's how they talk when they go to someone's house.

Pixies and Pump Up the Volume

When I was a kid, a movie came out called Pump Up the Volume. It was the best movie Christian Slater made, and it really spoke to me. I loved it so much, I had to have the soundtrack on this new thing called a CD. My mom must have bought it for me.

That CD came in one of those really huge cardboard boxes they were wrapped in in the beginning. And I put that CD into my little boombox in my room and maybe my whole life changed at that point.

I was already very much into music. I loved the Beastie Boys and Run D MC, and Guns n' Roses was definitely a mainstay in my ears. But I had never heard of Concrete Blonde, Leonard Cohen, the Pixies, or Cowboy Junkies. My life would be shit if I never heard of them, and I have this movie to thank.

My musical taste is broad. I often wonder how it got that way. It seems that I have one of those minds that isn't satisfied with the mere consumption of anything. I have to know everything's origin. I want to compare what's out now to what came before. I want to hear what's next because I'm so familiar with the tools and inspirations that will have brought the artists of the future to those brand-new things.

People who are older than I am are amazed I know their generation's music. I've read books about music to make that happen. I've checked CD's and records out of libraries. I've burned lamps to their ends in deep conversations with people who intensely love this or that genre or artist. I'm a vulture of culture and I'm voracious. I'm weird and intense like that.

A Personal Update

FAQ:

What's with your name?

I changed my name when I started travelling seriously and living in other countries. When I came back to the states, I brought a person with me who called me Jack, so everyone else called me Jack, too. Some of my oldest friends and family call me Skyler or Sky. Most of them live in the western United States. Then some people started calling me SkyJack. I like that. But you can call me Sky, Jack, Skyler, SkyJack, or Captain. Those are all the things people still call me, and I'm OK with that. How did I think I was going to have this unique, distinctive, adventurous life without a few different names sticking?

Where do you live now?

I've moved to Las Vegas. It's in the name of my blog now to help people know.

Is your wife with you?

I don't have one of those anymore.

What? What happened?

It turns out I only fall for people who don't have consciences.

Why Vegas?

I've always wanted to move to Las Vegas. I love it here. I grew up coming here at least once or twice a year. My father worked here, my grandmother lived and died here, and I have a cousin and an Aunt here. Plus, work. It might be the only place on earth with opportunities to incorporate my entire skill set. 

Where are you working now?

I'm a Beverage Manager at MGM Grand. It's a dream job for me at this point in my career. I moved my relocation schedule up because they showed interest, and then I was in a holding pattern for a bit, while seasonal managers were moved around and whatnot. Now I'm training and excited about every second of it. There's a lot to take in.

Do you miss Virginia?

I miss some people in Virginia, and I kind of wished I'd seen the leaves change one last time. VA was pretty good to me, when it's all said and done. I did some amazing things professionally, and I saw some stuff I don't think most Americans get to. I lived in Virginia almost exactly the same amount of time I lived in Germany, and I still feel like a German in a lot of ways. Surely, I'll always have a little southern boy in me now, too.

Why didn't you move back to California, either to SF Bay or to live near your mother in SoCal?

I think I might have gotten all the personal development I can out of those places. And moving back to anywhere is symbolically unfortunate. I did consider Los Angeles, but Las Vegas has always been on my target list of places to live. I really want to live in a place where all my friends will visit me from all over the world. Who doesn't visit Vegas at least once? And if they were on the fence about it, now they have a reason to come. I'll always love California, but I don't know if I ever want to live there again.

What about the restaurant?

TBD

When is your new book coming out?

I'm almost halfway done with it. It's the most ambitious project I've ever undertaken in poetry, and it's the most difficult thing I've ever written. Some time in the middle of next year I hope.

Are you going to make any more videos?

I don't think so. I was turned off by the lack of response. Maybe I'll try again, but there's too much going on right now to edit videos. If I had someone to edit them for me, I'd do it.

Isn't Vegas crazy all the time?

Well, it can be. But on my morning runs, inside Las Vegas, I run down a street that often has chickens in the middle of it and there are horses and cows, too. I saw someone walking a miniature pony like a dog. Oh, and burros. And I live next to a fairly big casino. So it's a city of contradictions. I love contradictions. Come visit me and find out.

Stratosphere

I went to the Stratosphere with my friend L. For $35 you get to go to the top of the tallest structure west of the Mississippi and ride all of the rides. It's a great way to spend an evening.

First though, L was running late, so I decided to play a few hands of Blackjack. The dealer was cool, and I was up to $100 at one point, but I ended up giving most of that back. I think I was $10 in the hole, but I tipped her and also had enough in chips left to tip the bartender at the lobby bar and the valet.

I asked for a Fernet Branca on rocks, but the bartender didn't know what that was (bad sign), so I ordered a Dirty Martini with Tanqueray. It came garnished with stale olives and a chip of ice, but it tasted right. The music was a mix, but there was more rock and roll than you usually get at places like this, and I dug that. "Everything is better with Rock and Roll."

L showed up and we figured out how to get to the top of the tower. The signage of the place and indeed the very flow of traffic seems to be a haphazard afterthought. The ladies at the counter selling tickets told us to use the machines. The machine contract must have gone to the lowest bidder. One was down, the other two ran like they were on DDOS. But it added to the fear of dying at the top.

The double-decker elevator is fun, there's a video screen showing the people riding beneath your feet. Your ears pop with the changing pressure. It's fast. At the top, more confusion as to where to go. I wondered if someone had spiked my drink. But the view!

I've been to the tops of many a tall building, but this is Las Vegas. Things are more fabulous out here. This glowing garden in the middle of the black valley looks like a shining testament to our humanity. Keep the crown jewels, England.

The bar up there was closed for a private party, so we couldn't get a drink, which was disappointing.

The rides are contraptions that dangle and spin you over the edge of the tower and shoot you off the top of it. Thrilling, terrifying, wonderful. I recommend doing all of them. I didn't feel like going on any of them more than once, so it wasn't a loss that we didn't buy bracelets that allow you to take unlimited rides.

I found out about Level 107 Lounge after this outing, so I'll be going back to the tower for that.

Thoughts on the Napa 2014 Quake

By now you've heard of the 6.0 Napa Quake in August costing businesses there a conservative $80,000,000. It's probably a lot more. Firstly, let me just say to all those idiots out there who keep saying 6.0 ain't no thing: It is. I grew up in LA and went to school in The Bay, and I will tell you, a 6.0 is major. Half the structural damage you won't notice for years, and you're lucky to have lived through it. And if you're a collector of little glass figurines, and you've put thousands of dollars and years of your time into the collection, imagine how you'd feel picking up its shards. Now imagine if that was a massive cellar of aging wine you'd planned on selling as part of an investment strategy for your business, or worse, retirement.

But that's not even the worst of it. You might have harvested and crushed and aged for a year. You were about to bottle to make room in barrels for an October harvest. Too bad; you just lost your 2013 batch. And if you'd already started on your 2014, tough break, kid.

And all of that is why I think Napa wines will be 15-30% more costly from 2013, 2014, and maybe even 2015. And that is probably mostly going to be on the shelves because wineries have already maxed out what they can charge tourists in Napa (they've been fleecing visitors more and more each year).

On another note, I hope there will be a cool factor associated with 2014, maybe even collector's edition bottles commemorating the great quake. I personally would like to have a few bottles in my cellar like that, break 'em out at parties and have a story to tell.

But here't the other thing: If I were a winery in Oregon, Washington, New York, Virginia, or maybe even France or Argentina, I would DROP my prices ever-so-slightly. No one is taking down Cali any time soon, but I do think there is some brand development opportunity available to anyone willing to make a go of it next year. "Hey Napa's expensive this year, but check out this similar quality Cab from XYZ. It's usually more expensive than Napa, but they've actually lowered their price this year, and now they're CHEAPER than the Napa label." That's the pitch. EASY!

But I really do feel for the citizens of Napa and to anyone who loves Napa wine. It's a tragedy, it really is.

tragic

Celebrating at the Top

Let's say you had something to celebrate. Plus, there's a perplexingly pulchritudinous person whom you've convinced to participate in the celebration. Pray tell, where should you ponder your recent approbation? To where will you and this prepossessing partridge perambulate to partake in a phial of Champagne?

Well, I might make at least one major recommendation: the Mandarin Sky Lobby. There's a mysterious lounge up there on the 23rd floor masked by massive lenses with magnificent views of Las Vegas. If I may, men go mad for it, and ladies love it.

I was here for Perrier-Jouët, which they graciously serve by the glass, but their cocktail list looked proper, including a section dedicated to tea. The views really are fabulous, or fabuleaux, as they say down the street in Paris. The service, attentive but elegant—not pushy or rushed. A place like this could probably get away with letting some things slide; enough people are willing to pay preciously for the sophisticated vibe and views, so it's a testament to their managerial acumen that there's a high degree of attention to detail and an art to their service.

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A note on parking:
It's easier, in a way to valet at Aria. The Mandarin is a large building, but its decor is somewhat subdued. If you're not familiar with its precise location, park at Aria, which has far easier traffic access from Las Vegas Blvd, IMHO, walk past their gorgeous fountain, follow the little signs, and you'll be in an elevator heading skyward in about 12 parsecs (45 seconds).

American Books One Might Want to Get to Before Others

I have a new friend from England, C. C admits to being woefully underread when it comes to "American Classics."

C wanted a list of American books I thought were worth reading, so I made one. I stuck to ten novels. Here's my list:

• To Kill a Mockingbird: Harper Lee wrote one of those books you can never unread. It's simply the truest American story ever told.
• The crying of Lot 49: Thomas Pynchon's shortest novel isn't his best, but it's the best to get to know this writer and see if you want to try out heftier tomes like Gravity's Rainbow and V., which is my personal favorite.
• On the Road: Kerouac beats Thompson when it comes to writing about the American Dream. I think I've read everything by Kerouac, and I like Lonesome Traveler more than On the Road, but you have to start at the beginning.
• Lolita: Nabokov wrote possibly the best novel of the 20th century, called himself an American novelist, and the book takes place in the US, so don't try to tell me this doesn't count. If you can read, you have to read this.
• The Sun Also Rises: Fucking Hemingway had to write this one first. I think it's his best book, and I think the way the Lost Generation felt might be the way this one does in a lot of ways. Anyway, I think it's timeless.
• Sea Wolf: Jack London wrote the greatest sea adventure ever written, according to Carl Sandburg. How he's more famous for his dog books, I'll never understand. Anyway, this book is about a poet trapped on a ship with Nietzsche, and supposedly the captain is based on a real guy who used to go to one of my favorite bars on the planet: Heinhold's First and Last Chance Saloon.
• Huck Finn or Tom Sawyer: You have to read one or both. It's mandatory. Race, youth, class, yeah, Mark Twain had it all.
• The Catcher in the Rye: They make people read this one too young. Then they bury you with criticism about it. I think I've read this book four times. Each time, I get something different and hate my teachers more. 
• Moby Dick: Melville's better book might be White Jacket, some people say, but I never read White Jacket more than once. Moby Dick is possibly the greatest novel ever written and is experimental by even today's standards. If you say it's slow, watch a YouTube video instead. Yes, when I read this the first time as a young man, I struggled through some of it, but argh, thank god I did. 
• A Movable Feast: I feel a little guilty putting Papa on here twice. I'm not really a Hemingway freak, but this book has so much going for it. Wonder what it was like in Paris after the war? Read this. Gertrude Stein is in it. I love this book.

On a personal note:

• Legend of Greystoke: When it comes to prolific sci-fi writers, Edgar Rice Burroughs is, in my opinion, the best. I know, Lovecraft. Yeah, Lovecraft is wonderful, and everyone should read at least the Mountains of Madness, but I had to cut him because Edgar Rice Burroughs is just a better writer in the end.

Canadian Honorable Mentions:

• Yann Martel: Life of Pi and Virgil and Beatrice.
• Douglas Coupland: Microserfs, Girlfriend in a Coma, Life after God, Generation X
• Margaret Attwood: Handmaid's Tale

White guys I wanted to put on this list but didn't make it:

• Truman Capote
• Cormac McCarthy
• William Faulkner
• Thomas Wolfe
• Henry Miller
• Others already mentioned and even more I don't want to.

Women I should have put on this list:

• Zora Neal Hurston
• Toni Morrison
• Kate Chopin

Black guys I should have put on this list:

• Chester Himes
• Ralph Ellison
• Richard Wright
• Ishmael Reed
• Amiri Baraka

Anyway, that's my list. The last thing is, I think Howl should be mandatory American reading. It's a book of poetry, but I didn't want to leave this post without explicitly mentioning HOWL by Alan Ginsberg. I'll have to find C. a copy somewhere.

1901

I worked at Club 33 at Disneyland when I was in my more formative years. I think it's where I caught the food and beverage bug, and it's certainly where I got into fine wine and beer and cocktails.

It looks like Disney is at it again with 1901. Only Club 33 members will be able to get in there, which makes it one of those things I'll have to finagle for seeing as how all my connection at Disney have pretty much dried up. It looks like something I just have to experience though. I mean, look at it.

It looks like it's been up and running for a while, so I have to start sneaking in my desire to see it into conversations with corporate types who might have an in.

Here's a link to the Disney blog about it.