The smoking and drinking curse

So pissed. Went out the other night, thought we'd have a cocktail outside, it was a beautiful night, and then we'd go home and grill and hang out. We felt a bit social.

So we headed to this really cool little neighborhood wine bar, Volo. It has an awesome outside patio in back, and we had seen ashtrays out there. And the wine by the glass is fantastic. And the snacks are very yummy. So off we went, optimistic and enthusiastic.

We walk in, they escort us back to the gorgeous little patio. There are little "booths," with wood panels around them, comfy little loveseats, it's really pretty. Mike asks for an ashtray.

The owner arrives. He explains that they've been written up twice. I point out that they're within their rights -- it's an outdoor space, for god's sake, and it's far away from any entrance or exit. The law is explicit. They meet all the requirements.

He says he just doesn't want to fight it. It's easier to not allow smoking.

Not only that, and it's true that I am telescoping two separate visits to Volo where the topic of smoking in the outdoor space came up, but this did happen... Not only that, but at a later date when I brought it up with the owner, he proceeded to pull the idiotic American wine snob silliness -- "I understand if someone has come in and ordered a 100 dollar bottle of wine, they don't want to breathe burning carbon," he sniffed at me. I almost choked and thought, "What an idiotic wine snob you are. You obviously know nothing. I lived in countries where people enjoy smoking hundred dollar cigars with their 800 dollar bottle of wine, you moron."

Ugh. That's the way to give American wine drinkers a bad name. In many countries, people just drink wine because... because it's lunch time, because it's dinner time, whatever. Or they stop in a cafe bar for a quick ballon de rouge. Or they order a spectacular 1985 Pomerol (if you can still find one, mmmmm) and enjoy a post prandial smoke. Really, way to go, Chicago U.S.A. moron. Way to go.

We leave. Of course. We walk to the next place, a place we like a lot, a place that has a very nice sidewalk space, a place where we've smoked before. Four Moons, it's called. We like the food, we like the bartender, we like the laid-back thing. We get there, and this bitchy waitress we've never seen before is removing the ashtray as she cleans our table. I ask her to leave it.

"Oh, you can't smoke here. And those smoking tables are reserved."

Can't smoke at the table from which she is removing the used ashtray? Really? And then the other tables where you can smoke are taken up with obnoxious families with small obnoxious children. Why are they not sitting at the tables where you can't smoke, so we can sit at the tables where you can smoke?

Hmmmm?

I wonder if it's because we live in this ridiculously yuppie family with many small children neighborhood here in Chicago. Roscoe Village. A place where there are a coupla bars we don't frequent because people bring their little kids to the bar. Yuck. What's that all about? Is that legal? Hmmmm. But smoking at outside tables is not.

The point is, smoking at outside tables, more than 15 feet from the entrance, IS legal. It's just that the bar owners are not only playing it safe, they're not at all worried about alienating their smoking customers. They make no effort to protect the smoking customers' rights at all.

If they were smart, they would be measuring outdoor spaces, marking off smoking areas and nonsmoking areas, very obviously marking them off, and signposting them. They would be banding together, neighborhood by neighborhood, even throughout the city, to protect their rights (so people complaining actually have no leg to stand on -- if it's marked, and it's following the letter of the law, there's nothing to complain about) and to protect smokers' rights.

Obviously they don't care about their smoking customers. That's too bad. Because we smokers are good customers, and we appreciate it when people actually try to keep a little legal space for us. And we go back, over and over. We become loyal regulars.

Personally speaking, I am a hefty champagne drinker and a goer-outer, partyer, happy pricey snacker, meet my friends at places I like and feel comfortable at. I practically lived at my neighborhood cafe in Paris. Coffee in the morning, lunch, cocktails after work. Often I would close the place down. I brought all my friends there. I was a loyal customer and a big tipper.

Hmmmm.

So, Volo and Four Moons, you have lost a potentially very good customer. I live in the hood. I love to go out. I love champagne. I love nice bars. I love yummy food. I love socializing.

But I won't be doing any of that at your establishments anymore, will I? And I won't be bringing my in-town or my out-of-town friends and family, all of whom love to go out and drink and eat with me, to your places. No, instead, we will stay home, where we can sit on our deck, or our patio, cook yummy food, hang with friends, drink our own champagne and smoke cigarettes.

You, bar owners of Chicago, have let smokers down. It really wouldn't be that difficult to take a stand on this, you know? You would be completely within your rights, adhering to the law. Instead, you've completely caved. But you clearly don't give a shit about these "smoking customers."

Mmmmmmm

Mmmmmm bbq. We just found a fabulous new bbq place, Honey 1 BBQ, on Western, a hop skip and a jump from home. We tried to call ahead, but we got voicemail, so we went over, just in case.

We got voicemail, it turns out, because the guy just took the phone off the hook. That was a very busy little place, a long line of people waiting in a smoky corridor. As we waited, we could look through a little window at the smoking oven, and the smell was divine. Smoky. Yummy.

We ordered a slab of ribs and three pieces of perch. Ready in ten minutes. Grabbed the bag and ran. Got home and fell upon it like wolves on a flock of lambs.

No talking, just a lot of chomp chomp mmmm mmmm mmmmm.

Licking our fingers. Deeelish. Smoky, sweet, spicy, crunchy, chewy, big and meaty. Like candy.

The slaw was a great combination of peppery mayonnaise-y vinegar-y.

Mmmmm-hmmmm.

It's our new place for ribs.

Mike says, "Yum."

random ramblings, and rants...

There are a lot of things on my mind right now. I've been sick for what seems like eons, and it's a long, hard slog back to health. It frightens me to be this weak and dragged-out, and to take such a long time to feel normal and well.

Much of it has to do with the foul weather. It has been truly disgusting, demoralizing and depressing. It seems that it cannot stay nice for longer than a day or two; sometimes it's lovely during the day and by 6 o'clock, it's dark and windy and threatening rain. Then it rains. It rains all the time. The evenings tend to be chilly, in the 40s. I'm sick of it. I want 10 consecutive days of sunshine and blue skies and temperatures in the 70s. And soft spring evenings. I think I would get healthy again if that happened.

Alas, this seems to be a hopeless hope.

But enough about the weather, and me feeling crappy.

Recently, there was an enormous and important show of Edward Hopper's work at the Art Institute of Chicago. I wanted to go. I checked the hours and the ticket prices and was horrified to discover that -- even though the museum has a free day, and a day that it stays open late, both happy and thrilling bits of information -- it would cost me $20 to attend the show.

Now, I'm sorry, but this enrages me. I am one of those that believe that art should be freely available to all. Large cultural institutions in major cities around the world have an obligation to make art accessible to anyone and everyone. Art is NOT meant to be an elite "sport," only for the rich.

Bah, humbug. And humph. That's what I say. At the very least, the museum in question could have waived the $20 ticket fee one day a week, on the "free" day, which also happens to be the "late" day, when it stays open until 8 at night. Thus allowing many people who work during the day and don't have a lot of money to enjoy a magnificent show like this. (I've actually seen an enormous and gorgeous retrospective of Hopper's work, years ago, in New York, so at least it wasn't something that I had not had the opportunity to enjoy. Still, I would have loved to see those paintings again.)

That's an equal opportunity move that would automatically result in people who wouldn't, under normal circumstances, be exposed to the luminous beauty of Hopper's vision of Americana. It would allow people to see beauty, feel beauty, walk out into the afternoon, or evening, exalted and moved.

I do not want to live in a world where all the beauty, and joy, and exaltation are reserved for the rich elite. We should not be accepting cultural institutions doing this to the populace. We should resist this. I'm disgusted.

A related point -- a man named Tony Fitzpatrick, a Chicago artist who does large "collage-y" pieces (big influences including Hopper and Joseph Cornell's little "box worlds," two of my all-time favorites) about the city where he grew up, a city that he obviously loves, but also a city that he excoriates for its inability to nurture art, to create an environment in which new, young artists are supported and "brought up," where markets are created, not exploited, where art is not just a safe bet, where new artists are gambled upon in a bid to make an exciting, vital city of the arts... this artist has an important show of large pieces from a Chicago series of works. He selected the Chicago Cultural Center as the venue for this show, in large part because admission is FREE. More power to him. I, for one, will be happily and heartily attending this show. (The image at the top of this post is a piece of Mr. Fitzpatrick's entitled "King of Chicago, 2004. I borrowed it from his Web site: http://www.tonyfitzpatrick.com/drawing_collages/index.htm)

Onwards... A favorite topic of mine, grrrrrrrr, in recent months has been political correctness. This state of affairs, this social phenomenon, whatever you want to call it, has always been one of my pet peeves. I am a woman, I am not an infant, I can watch out for myself, I can get good jobs with good pay, I can interact with my male colleagues in much the same way I do with my female colleagues, with respect, often affection and playfulness, professionalism and fun.

I do not have a problem with a male or female colleague commenting on my blouse, on my skirt, on my dress, or on my hair, in a flattering way (obviously, I, like most people, feel bad if I'm told I look like shit). I do not have a problem with playful flirtation, be it with a man or a woman. I do not think it increases my respect quotient if I am a humorless, easily offended bitch who considers a compliment an insult to my equality.

Thus, I am not against men opening doors for me, or lighting my cigarette, or flirting with me. If I think that said man's behavior crosses a line, I do not have a problem with telling him that. I can be firm and tough on my own. I do not need the threat of a lawsuit, or the help of a superior (often a male???!!!), to say where I think the line should be drawn.

I think this system is one that is paternalistic and infantilizing. Why would women need the automatic protection of lawsuits and overbearing male superiors to assert womanhood, to demand respect. I think we all have the right, and yes, the obligation, to interact with our fellow humans directly.

One example, perhaps a bit off the mark, but still relevant. When I first moved into my apartment in Paris, I had an unknown, unmet neighbor who banged and bashed in the middle of the night (hammers?), and played very loud Eurotrash music at odd hours. I dealt with it for a coupla weeks, but one night, as there was hammering -- bam bam bam -- and pauses when I would think, "ah, it's finished now. hooray," and more hammering, in an erratic and unpredictable way, at about 12:30 a.m., I finally ran out of patience. I got up, put on some clothes, opened my door and faced the neighbor's door.

Tap, tap, tap, I knocked gently on the door. The hammering stopped, the music was turned down, and the door opened a crack. A very lovely girl looked out of the crack. "Oui?" she queried me. "Excuse me," I replied in French. "I'm your neighbor, and I was just wondering, are you gonna keep playing loud music and hammering on the walls in the middle of the night? Cuz it's kind of annoying, you know?"

She opened the door wider and looked at me. Then broke into a big smile. "Come in," she said. I walked into a large airy studio. She was obviously an artist, she was hammering some canvas to the wall, and there were little bits and pieces of material for collages and paintings littered all over the studio. She apologized profusely, saying she hadn't been aware that somebody had moved in next door (it's true that I was pretty quiet when I first moved in there; I was working long hours, coming home exhausted and falling into bed at night). She assured me that she would completely cut out the hammering at night, and we did several experiments, with her stereo and with mine, to see what levels were ok for the other, and which were not.

Then she said it: "I'm so glad that you came over and knocked on the door. Most people here in Paris would have just called the police. No direct interaction. It must be because you're from New York."

Call the police? Your neighbor lives right across the hall from you, this is your neighbor, and you call the police? You don't just walk over there and have a little friendly dialogue?

That's just insane. It's this attitude that lies at the heart of the politically correct thing. This attitude that you can't just deal with people about things, you have to turn to some kind of authority figure. A superior, or legal action, or the police, something really extreme like that. God forbid that you should actually just be a functioning, communicating, mature adult, one who can go over to the other person and discuss things, face to face.

Ridiculous.

So the reason I'm talking about this political correctness issue at this moment is because of "sweetie-gate." The silly story about Barack Obama calling a reporter sweetie, and being raked over the coals for it.

I am one of those warm, affectionate sorts who hugs people, touches their arms, walks arm in arm or arm around or leaning up against my companion, someone who calls everyone sweetie honey baby doll babe, all these things.

I call strangers or new acquaintances honey or sweetie, and often. No one has ever objected. Nor do they look annoyed when I do it. My lovely guy has called me baby and babe since the day we met. The first time I called my mom doll she blushed happily, looking sweet and young and surprised, and then she laughed. Now she calls me doll, and gets a big kick out of it. My guys at Chez Prune, the most wonderful of all cafes in the great big world, would hug me and cheek-kiss me every morning, as they called me bebe and la belle (the beauty), while I responded in kind, calling them beaux mecs (gorgeous guys) and bebe, right back atcha. I lo-o-o-o-oved it, made my mornings very, very nice, and fun, and made me feel happy and beautiful.

I do not think of it as an insult when the cashier at the store calls me hon. I do not mind when the guitar player in a band I've gone out to see calls me babe in a brief conversation we have after a set, when I'm telling him how great I thought the band sounded. I don't mind these things at all. I don't mind the construction workers on a job site near my home saying, "Hey, gorgeous, you're looking lovely today, sweetheart." In fact, I find it endearing, and friendly, and warm, and often it can turn a bad, lonely, sad day into a very nice sunshine-y one. I wish there were more of this sort of "un-politically correct" behavior in the world.

Mike says, "Well put, sweetie."

the medical mystery

I'm very upset. About a very American thing. I got sick in between health insurances. Here in Chicago. And at first, I thought it was no big deal, just a head cold, I'll get rid of it. But it went on, and on.

So bad, in fact, that I couldn't get on a plane to go to a wedding I really really wanted to go to, in New Orleans.

So bad, in fact, that I had to bite the bullet and see a doctor, without any insurance.

I went to a Minute Clinic, one of those little walk-in clinics in a CVS drugstore, where physician's aides examine you and prescribe for you.

That was fine. Not expensive at all. She was good. She prescribed antibiotics and steroid nose spray.

The prescriptions cost $300.

Swooon. Oh my god. How do normal people do this? I mean, my insurance will kick back in again at the end of the month, and I'll be safe. But really, suppose I didn't have a full time job with benefits. Jeez. It's disgusting.

When I lived in Europe, I could go to a doctor for about $20. I could fill just about any prescription for about $25. And that was before I became part of their national health system. When I qualified for that, everything was pretty much free -- doctors, hospitals, prescriptions...

So I realize that here in the U.S. of A., we have a gigantic problem. And it's not just the health care problem. It's the medicines.

Why can I get the exact same medication in Europe for 1/10th the price? Why is that, pray tell? Why do doctors cost 10 times as much to visit here? Pray tell?

It's a mystery to me. But the fact that this country has no answer to these questions, and no solution to these problems, is obscene. People should not have to live in fear of this, or be wage slaves because they're terrified of getting sick and being totally bankrupted.

Which brings me back to the question: Why is it affordable in other countries?

America says: Give me your tired, your poor... but certainly not your sick.

stupid war

The war on intelligence. Kinda has a nice ring to it.


Inevitably, though, an unwinnable "war." Just like the war on drugs, the war on poverty, and more recently, the war on the middle class. What exactly does that mean anyways? War on the middle class. Humph. We brought it on ourselves and it pisses me off.

So what does that have to do with intelligence? It is true that we Americans, as a society, have really become very accepting of mediocrity. Our food is bland, our music is lifeless and dull, the movies that Hollywood mostly puts out suck, and people don't even read anymore, so forget about books. Mcdonald's, Starbucks, American Idol, Will Ferrell (get another character to play- please!). We love it. We pay out the ass for all this crap, knowing that it's crap. We don't need any of this crap but darn it, Wilbur, we sure did get a good deal.

Then there's social norms that aren't very normal to me. Kids playing soccer (soccer?) and they don't keep score. We all win. Hooray. We're winners. Schools don't give grades because you might hurt some kid's feelings. Poor bastard. There's not one valedictorian in high schools. There's thirty seven. Tests are too hard. Homework is too hard. Timmy needs time-out time all the way to senior year, so let's just be nice. Give me a break.

So we think that it's ok not to excel. You don't have to rise above because we're all nice and polite for the most part, so you'll be ok.

We accept that in our politics as well. Uncle George got elected by being the guy you'd want to go and have a beer with. Mccain is pretty manly too. What a pal. Hillary is, well, white. So for the members of the left who go Dem, she's safe. But Barry (I'm biased- you knew) gets lambasted for being Harvard-educated. Too uppity. Too many big words. Wow. I mean, wow! Really? Of all the choices you have, he's the one to be questioned? Hill has $103 mil in the bank in the last 7 years. She's down with the people? Maybe the guy you want to have a beer with?

We like our stuff, and we like our gadgets. We like good deals from Mexico and China (although we don't really like THEM), and who got eliminated last night anyways? So its easy for us to have become like this. We now let a lot of things happen around us and to us that sanitize us more and more each day. All the stores, bars, malls, condo buildings, haircuts, they all are starting to look the same. You've got a machine that pays your tolls (maybe, anyways), and a camera that takes your picture on the highway or at the corner of Belmont and Sheffield. We've got ear buds in and ipods on and we shut it all out. Politely.

I don't think its very smart.

Mike says: "People really need to vote and its no joke."

the war on intelligence

I've been getting progressively more and more disturbed by a tenor of the national debate. A kind of disdain for, a hatred of, intelligence, of intellectual discourse, a dismissal of this kind of activity as elitist and out of touch with the American ethos.

This is unacceptable.

I have always been an intelligent human being, this was always a point of pride, a happy thing, a quality that I was pleased with. My mother and father, both, are intelligent human beings -- they read books and newspapers and discuss with enthusiasm and knowledge the arts, politics, the sciences and many other topics. They are curious, questing, interested and interesting people.

I grew up like that. I enjoyed it. I enjoyed the discourse that I encountered in my home, and at other people's homes. When I was a teenager, in the late '60s and early '70s, we all turned into ungrateful rebellious monsters. We loathed our parents, on principle, and we loathed their values. We began our own intellectual discourse. This was a good thing. We were politically and philosophically and culturally engaged and excited. We loved ideas.

This continued into college, of course. When I went to college, it was not with an eye to ending up well-positioned for an obscenely well-paid career, it was with an eye to learning fun and interesting things. When I began to travel, on my own and in earnest, it was also with an eye to having adventures, integrating myself into new cultures, learning other languages and other ways of living.

When I lived in Europe, many times over the years, I was always struck by the fact that sitting around discussing an arcane subject, dissecting a statement, parsing a book, analyzing a film, all of this was regarded as a legitimate activity, a worthy endeavor, NOT a waste of time.

Intellectualism as a positive -- what a refreshing idea.

Now I live in the U.S., and I find that, in this place and this time, it is a dangerous and negative attribute. I wonder if sometime soon, I will be arrested and incarcerated for speaking intelligently about something, or if my thoughtful discussion of a book or an article will be interpreted as a subversive activity...

1984 indeed. Who would've thunk? Twenty-five years later, in this country, this country that values -- or once valued -- free speech and new ideas. What has happened to us? Is it the Forrest Gump syndrome? A movie that I always hated because I thought that it celebrated mediocrity and idiocy. That its subtext was, if you're stupid and kind you will succeed. These are the qualities that are revered and to be emulated.

We, as human beings, if you accept the theory of evolution, which I am aware is even now being disputed vociferously all over this country, have big brains. Our brains incorporate the more primitive functions -- our reptilian brain, for example -- with more advanced functions, our neocortex. We have big brains, and we use them in unusual ways. We learn. We retain. We learn more. We are "brain-heavy." We are smart. We should use our "smart muscle."

I do not want to be simply a "reptilian brain" sort of person. The four F’s of reptile brain behavior – "feeding, fighting, fleeing and reproduction" -- is not how I want to live.

I do not want to be simply stupid and kind. I do not want to spend time with people whose only attributes are stupidity and kindness. I want wit and intelligence and brightness and creativity and originality and a questioning, curious approach to things. I want compassion and sensitivity, all the baggage that comes with complex higher brain functions. I want to hear "subversive" thoughts -- ideas that go against the tide of what we have had, the years of fear and stupidity and mediocrity. I want us all to be brave and intelligent and questioning.

Then, maybe, we can stop worshiping at the altar of mediocrity. And we can get back to the business of being smart and curious and creative and compassionate, in short, we can go back to the business of being better people.

...

...

Ah, and what does Mike say, you ask. Well, Mike has quite a lot to say about this, so I think I'll let him say it himself, in his own post.

three years, and counting...

Long time, no post, huh? Yes, it's true. I've been lazy. It's not just laziness, though, I say in my defense. It's a) my job, which demands that I sit in front of a computer 8 hours a day and read about U.S. politics, which can be a little bit of a burnout and a definite turnoff on all things computer-screen, and b) I've been sick for what seems like many weeks.

I was starting to write a "Spring Is Here" post, so excited was I that the sun was shining on consecutive days and the temperatures had climbed gently into the 60s and the 70s. That beautiful, soft, delicate quality of spring was filling me with quiet joy.

There are mysterious little plants in the yard, right off our patio, that have popped their furled young green heads out of the frozen tundra that was. The previous tenant must have planted them, so we have no idea what they are. The suspense makes it fun, and I had gotten into the habit of tiptoeing stealthily onto the patio in the mornings to inspect the tiny green troops. There are definitely going to be flowers.

Notice, however, the operative "going to be." I say this with disgust because in the past two weeks, the temperature has been swinging in a range from 80 to 36, there have been innumerable rainy windy gray days, and I have been stricken with some kind of horrible viral plague.

Nevertheless, I hold to my hope that spring will arrive, and soon. As they say, Hope springs eternal. Hee hee hee. Very apropos.

Yesterday wasn't half-bad, despite a dramatic wild and sudden blast of rain and wind late in the late afternoon, early evening. We sat outside, drinking champagne at the patio table, watching the sky darken and the wind sough in the trees until the pelting rain forced us inside, damp and laughing.

It's our third anniversay today. We had the extraordinary good fortune to meet three years ago, late one night in a club in Paris. Our paths crossed that evening, never to be disentangled. Yes, an aura of inevitability. I feel very mushy and romantic. Mmmmmmm. I love feeling soft like that. Mike always makes me feel that way. How lovely.

Last night was a Lonnie gig, at Legends, a club that I've always liked quite a bit -- appropriately dark and seedy, but not too much of a dive; big, but not too big; pool tables in the back (always important for purposes of ambiance); good big bar when you walk in, comfortable to lounge at.

I love hearing and watching Lonnie. There have been far too few Lonnie gigs in recent times, and I'm sad about that. I love watching/hearing Mike play with Lonnie, too. The two bands -- Lonnie's band and the BMR4 -- are qualitatively different experiences, and I realized again last night how much I enjoy Lonnie.

A few months ago, after a long hiatus when I barely saw Lonnie at all, I went to a gig of his at Fitzgerald's. It's a bar that I like, and it seems that he does too. When he walked out on to the stage, hat, boots and a red western shirt, and played the first few chords, and sang the first few words, I realized how much of an oomph presence he has. But I've always known that Lonnie shines.

Mike says he doesn't have anything to say... It's all been said.

slow life, back in the u.s. of a.

When I first got back to the U.S., I thought I was living in an alternate reality. I was unprepared for the gigantic supermarkets the size of football stadiums, where incredibly fat people prowled the aisles, throwing industrial-size boxes of cereal and pop tarts and donuts and frozen pizzas and 72-packs of prepared chicken wings. I wasn't ready for the self-checkout option, the futuristic ding of the machine each time it scanned an item, the disembodied voice. The fluorescent lights, the jets squirting mist in the produce aisle, coating the artificial-looking bright orange carrots and bright-green lettuce with a thin film of moisture, the weirdly echoing icy tundra of the frozen food aisles -- yes, there were more than one of them -- all of these were mind-boggling and hypnotically fascinating.

I found myself wandering these vast spaces, the supermarkets, the hardware and home-repair stores, the all-purpose Targets, the Walgreens, mouth agape, confused and overwhelmed. Everything so huge, everything so varied, so many choices, so many aisles, brightly colored packages and bottles, so much.

And yet, not to be predictable, so little. So little. They were oddly empty. Fat people in tracksuits, in a food-induced haze, buying mountains of prepared food-like food. Rotund, flabby children ripping open bags of cheese curls, stuffing them in their mouths, a frightening fluorescent sheen to the crunchy fat.

Whatever happened to the small specialty neighborhood stores, the butcher, the baker, the candlestick maker? Seriously, I miss the small shops, ubiquitous in Paris, very frequently found in New York, less in Chicago... in my limited experience anyway.

When I first moved to Paris, many many years ago, there were virtually no supermarkets IN the city; they were on the outskirts. I loved going to the tiny bakery, a window on the street where I lived, with a small space with one oven in the back. The lady who owned the bakery, an elegant redhead, knew that I loved the amandine cassis tarts, beautiful little works of art with a soft almond paste in the center and a cassis glaze with the fruit nestled into it, warm and buttery. When I was broke, which at that time was often, she would give me one, just because. We have remained friendly acquaintances, throughout all the years. Her shop has moved down the street, and expanded, to become one of the best-known bakery/pastry shops in Paris, and there is some silver in her gorgeous red mane, but she is still as elegant as she always was, and as warm, calling out, "Oh, c'est la petite Americaine," whenever I set foot in the store, even sometimes after an absence of many years. And she still gives me a warm buttery tartelette amandine cassis, presenting it to me with the gravity and humor of a benevolent queen. And I feel each time as if I've come home.

Those days are long gone. I was broke, living in a garrett space so much like old French novels describe, complete with candles for light and a slanted roof, a small fogged window set in it with a view of the rooftops of the Marais, the oldest neighborhood in the city. I had no money. I was living on love and I was young and I was happy. Life was simple.

Yes, those days are long gone, as are my days of wandering the streets of my neighborhood, slipping into the traiteur, where dishes of carrot salad, piquant with vinegar and lemon juice and raisins, and celery root salad bathed in homemade mayonnaise made my mouth water; into the butcher shop, where I would buy thin-sliced tender horse steaks for pennies, thinking that my thoroughbred horse breeder grandfather would be shrieking from his grave, visiting the outdoor greenmarket where we would sniff and squeeze the gleaming purple eggplants and fat aromatic tomatoes, inspect the fresh leafy greens for salad, laugh with the vegetable lady as she waved delicate golden chanterelle mushrooms under our noses, extolling their virtues in an omelette: "A simple omelette," she would lecture us, "just the fresh beaten eggs and some garlic, salt and pepper, and some of these beauties, sauteed with butter, thrown in as the eggs set."

Ah, yes, lessons in omelette-making from the vegetable lady.

That's how I want to shop.

As the world becomes progressively more and more automated, I think to myself, "I want none of this." I want none of the fluorescent, non-person checkouts, I want none of the plastic-looking vegetables basking in their artificial mist, I want none of the glazed overstimulted, no-joy shopping. I want none of this.

I want the home-baked bread, I want to sniff the fresh cilantro as I chop it to put in my shrimp tacos, the shrimp bubbling in butter in a saute pan with hot peppers and ripe red tomatoes chopped into little cubes and olive oil and mmmm garlic and shreds of young green onion. I want to make my chicken soup from scratch, sure, it's o.k. to use chicken broth to "beef" it up, but I want to cook the carcass of my roast chicken in water, with carrots and onions and mushrooms, the button ones along with some smoky wild forest ones, and fresh rosemary and sage and thyme. Maybe add a little hot sauce, but not tabasco, which just tastes like vinegar and pepper to me; use one of those Mexican hot sauces made from real hot roasted deep dark toasty red/brown peppers, that has depth of flavor and long slow heat, of course some red wine, to make it full and rich and round, and then simmer it for a long time before you throw in the noodles.

I want to eat with my hands, lick the sauce off my fingers, I want to use as much fresh as I can, because it looks beautiful and the smells, when they all get chopped, then combined with some fat, some real creamy butter, some fragrant olive oil, well, the aroma is seductive and lovely.

I want to eat with my friends, we're in the kitchen, drinking wine, listening to great music, chopping things, preparing things, everyone's helping, slow talk, bursts of laughter, it feels warm and soft, food is cooking, on the stovetop, in the oven, a kiss here, a hug there, someone bumps my hip as they move to put plates on the table, it smells great, it feels great, it sounds great. It's all part of the thing, the anticipation, the buildup, the joint effort, the time, the love that goes into it.

I want to eat fish, like the trout I ate years ago in the southwest of France, at my friend Alain's house, his 14th century "maison forte," which was half outside, half inside, built into the side of a cliff-face along a river, the kitchen just an open space half protected from the elements by the outward curve of a rock shelter, half open to the sky, the back wall of rock with moss growing on it, the open hearth where we cooked the just-caught fresh fish, sliced open and stuffed with fresh rosemary and garlic, sea salt and ground pepper, the flesh pink and tender when we cut into it, the flavor of the herbs and garlic bursting in your mouth. A bottle or two of a chilled Sauvignon blanc -- we worked on it throughout the evening, as we stuffed the fish and stoked the fire, as we grilled it and set the table. Then we sit at the beat-up wooden table, the night birds rustling in the trees. The stars bright above our heads.

These are memorable meals.

I want to eat chicken cooked in a covered pot dug into a pit in the dirt, covered with hot burning embers, buried in the red sand of the Australian outback, the smell of the roast fowl seeping out from the ground oven, we're licking our lips in anticipation, cutting into the bird, stuffed with wild rice and mushrooms, the fragrant steam. The vast sky, the full moon above us, bright as a reading light.

Now that I'm back in America, I want the real stuff. I know it's there. Real Americana, fireflies on the lawn under the trees, minor league baseball on a summer night, hot dogs covered with toppings, a drag race in the middle of fields in the Midwest, a fish boil in the north-center of the country, real BBQ in a pit in the southwest. I want country inns -- Mike says, "Yeah, baby, sure, there are lots of them here, let's go find one," as we drive to a gig one night, up north somewhere. He has a look of fond incredulity, as if he's dealing with the sweet little village idiot somewhere, she smiles a lot and she's a little bit slow. But I remember, when I lived in Vermont, there WERE country inns out on the snowy back roads, beautiful little places owned by a couple or a family, they cooked and served the food, it was all fresh and slow cooked, it was given with pride and love. Why is that a joke now?

Why do I see references to "slow food" now? Why has that become a movement? What has it had to become a movement?

Have we lost it all? The virtues of the doing of something, the process, the way it feels, the time it takes, all essential parts of it. Have we traded that for the lie of convenience? Does convenience really make us happy?

Why is it that as we drive from New York to Chicago, through the dusk, then the deep night, on winding narrow highways, through Pennsylvania and Ohio and oh, God, state after state, that there are no country inns? Why is it that he is right, that when we stop in a small town on our way, all we can find is a McDonald's, a Burger King, a KFC, an Applebee's and a steak chain, which, it turns out, is the best bet in town, the place for a night out, a chain that is brightly lit, filled with raucous locals hooting and hollering in the very bright bar, where the dining room is so eye-shatteringly outfitted with spotlights that we have to beg the waitress to turn it down, and when she does, the table next to us complains. We explain that we are feeling romantic, we wanted a romantic dinner, and they shut up.

They are round and large and unsmiling and they shovel the food into their mouths, not speaking a word to each other. They are annoyed that they can't see everything, clearly, on their dishes, and they depart, grumbling, in high dudgeon. We are pleased.

I will change this. I will make something else happen, in my own world. I will have a life that is filled with love, and choice, and fresh lovely colors and scents and flavors, and music that celebrates our ears and our hearts and our minds and our souls. I will have this. I don't want to live any other way. I will not live with earbuds in my ears, eyebuds in my eyes, butterbuds and cheese-food in my mouth, cynicism and acceptance in my heart...

I want a slow life, with "slow love," and "slow talk," and "slow drinks," and "slow evenings," and "slow friends," and "slow food."

Mike says: "Hey babe, let's grill some shrimp and salmon on the deck. We can marinate them, and we'll do some corn and you make that yummy salsa with the mangoes and the peppers. And some baked potatoes. Oh, and Dave said he might come by later. What do you think?"

I think that's a memorable night, a memorable meal. I think that's perfect.

oh no, we suck again

yes, indeed, here we are (at st. alphonso's pancake breakfast). opening day has come and gone once again. and once again, zambrano did not get the win, wood looked shaky, at best, and the cubs lose by one...stinking...run.

again.

second verse same as the first.

last season ended with a loss, and this season starts with a loss. and a one-run loss. to add to the list of multiple one-run losses. i haven't checked the stats, but i'm pretty sure that this was the only category that the cubs dominated. one-run losses. yeah, yeah, it's only one game and the season still has a long way to go and that's what's great about baseball because there's always tomorrow and shake it off and just come back and eventually you can string two or three together and then...

and then...

and then...

well, you get the idea. spinning our wheels again.

and again...

and again...

and again...

i see that the team had sold 2.8 million tickets before the first pitch was even thrown. 2.8 million! what is the population of chicago anyways? wow, do you think management has any incentive to even attempt to improve by june (the swoon, you know)?

mike says, "at least they gave good props to ernie. that was nice. fuckers."

baseball, finally

Baseball season. Yawn. I've never been a huge fan; I'm a fickle fan. When I lived in New York, well, we had two winning teams so we were a little spoiled. I remember watching the playoffs between the Astros and the Mets, and that was exciting.Now the Cubs, there's a hard team to love.

I went to one game last year, I loved Wrigley Field, I loved being there, it was so much fun, but this team is terrible. I mean, they just lie down and die. It makes it hard to feel good about them.

If I remember correctly, they won that night, despite themselves. Mike sulked on the way home in the humid night air.

"What's wrong," I asked. "They won.""Yeah, by chance," he answered grouchily, "They should have commanded."

Mike says: "I'm not excited about baseball season. Not really. I mean, I love baseball and all, and I'm happy to see it every day, but I don't believe that the Cubs are going to do anything this year. I believe that it's going to be a big smoke and mirrors thing. I don't believe we're gonna win anything this year. Third-place team at best. We suck. Again."

"Oh, and Robin wants to see a black cat streak across the field, and so do I, because at least it would be exciting and unexpected. Unlike the Cubs. Fuck."

sidestepping the crackdown on fun

Yesterday evening, as on almost any Friday evening, we went to the Empty Bottle, a quick straight shot across Western. It has been, from the first, one of my favorite bars here in Chicago, particularly at happy hour on Friday, when the Hoyle Brothers play their music.

"We going honky-tonkin tonight, babe?" is the question, around 4:30, just before I crawl out of whatever soft piece of furniture I've been ensconced in for many hours, reading thousands of vitriol-filled comments about the U.S. political process, and wipe off any bad-vibes slime that might have stuck to me. My job, you see. But that's another story...

Hooray! I think. Hooray, I say. I love the Empty Bottle, its dive-bar exterior, its late-afternoon sunny pool room, its adorable doorperson, its funny little hand stamps (bunnies, spiderwebs), its bony black cat (who prowls the poolroom, settles magisterially into the single couch by the bathroom door, or crawls into people's laps), its huge beer list, its camaraderie, its hooks under the bar for your outerclothing (winter in Chicago, you know), its almost-but-not-quite-dark bar and music room, its ancient hand-written signs and photos hanging around the bar, referring back to days gone by (when you could smoke in a bar), its occasional video loop played on the lone television at the end of the bar of men walking into the men's room and turning the light off.... I could go on and on.

Most of all, though, I love the Hoyle Brothers.

Mike's friend, Lefty, a man famous throughout the city, a man I have grown to love, first took Mike there, back in the days when I lived in another city. I remember Mike telling me about the place, and the Friday band, on the phone. Back when we used to conduct our relationship in brief bursts of in-person interaction peppered with long spells of many many telephone interactions. I wanted to go honky-tonkin back then, and I was dying to go once I got here.

So, hooray!

We drive over, and as the days have lengthened, so has the probability of catching some sun when we get there. Usually, one of Mike's musician friends is lounging outside, smoking in the late afternoon rays, when we show up. So we all stand outside and smoke (do you see a pattern weaving in and out of this post yet? hmmmm) and then we go in through the double glass doors and say hi to the door guy (adorable) and walk through the light-filled poolroom (not smoky grrrrr), past the couch and the cat, into the back room, where the band is rockin and the bar is packed.

And there's a reason for this, let me tell you. This band is great. These guys are all accomplished musicians, they play Bob Wills and Dale Watson and Patsy Cline, they play their own stuff, they play blues occasionally, people dance, people drink, people laugh, it's great. They pass the hat (actually, the beer pitcher) once or twice during the show, and I sure hope they get lots of cash...

They've got a guitar player who is spectacular, and a pedal steel guy who is also. The singer reminds me of Robert Gordon a little, kinda rockabilly with a small neat dark pompadour, fresh blue jeans and an acoustic guitar. I mean, really, where do you get a band of this quality and skill for free on a Friday evening? These guys are really accomplished musicians and they play fun, foot-stomping, beautiful music.

I look around and all kindsa people are hanging out -- the barflies, the musicians, the older couples, the young hipsters, people prowling for members of the opposite sex, the occasional out of towners, the locals, everyone is here. And everyone is loving it.

The band plays from 5:30 to 7:30, taking a coupla breaks. The place gets more and more crowded. We talk to folks, we dance a little in our corner, we drink... Toward the end of the show, the tamale guy wanders through the bar, selling plastic bags of cheese, chicken or pork confections, $5 a bag, out of a cooler. If we have space at the bar, we open the bags and pull out the little containers of red and green hot sauce, and eat the tamales, cleaning up afterward. The bartenders are great, I get the feeling they really don't care so long as you make it the way it was before you ate.

Sometimes, when the band is finished and the band that's gonna play later is setting up, I have a rush of sadness, that there is nowhere to go now, nowhere where this can just continue, no immediate gratification/continuation, a place where we can keep rockin and rollin, eat a little, drink some more, listen to more music. But no, in order to continue you have to wait a coupla hours and that has been our downfall many a Friday. Either we go home with plans to go out later (you know how that ends up -- in bed, snoozing, or simply too mellow to get it together to go anywhere), or we just give in to the inevitable, stopping off somewhere for dinner on the way home, ending up in bed, smooching and snoozing.

Back to the bar, though. Back to the Empty Bottle. We go outside to smoke. Again, grrrrrrr. But now, as spring approaches, it's not so bad. Still, last night when we got there, as we walked into the dim back room, the band, the music, the packed room with its beat-up wood floor, I turned to Mike and said, "I wanna light up so bad, right now, right here." I wanted to drink my Irish, smoke my cigarette, jump and dance, kiss my guy, listen to my music, all at one time, in one place.

And so, at last, we get to the the secondary theme of this post. What the fuck is the deal with the spreading smoking ban, a plague of government nannyism that is creeping around the world, with officials wagging their fingers at citizens, treating them like bad little children while refusing to suck it up and just ban cigarettes if it's really all about health.... I'm so sick of it. When Bloomberg did it in New York, it completely changed nightlife for this night owl. And day life, and cafe life, and bar life... The list goes on and on.

-

And for those of you who say, "Well, I didn't want to be in a bar with those nasty smokers, so I'm happy," all you had to do was make it a 50/50 split: half bar licenses with smoking, half bar licenses without. Then all of us, as grownups, could have decided which bar we wanted to go to. I think it's all a petty jealousy thing. You nonsmokers, who've been bitching about the stinky smoke, wouldn't want to be in a bar where we, the disgusting smokers, were NOT, because wherever we were, it was fun. That's where people were partying, that's where people were listening to great music and dancing in dark barrooms, where love and laughs and raucous misbehavior made for memorable nights out.

-

I really believe this is a massive conspiracy to crack down on fun. A sign of the times. I suppose fun isn't patriotic.

-

So I've been through it in New York, where my whole going-out life changed. The low point was one horrible cold spring day when I was wandering in the East Village, after doing some errands, wanting to just sit down somewhere outside (since inside was no longer an option) and drink a cuppa coffee with a smoke, and I couldn't find any place, no place, not one cafe or bar where I was allowed to sit OUTSIDE and smoke. I thought longingly of Paris, of my neighborhood cafe, Chez Prune, where I would go every morning for coffee and talk and company and good music, and I could sit outside or inside, with food or without, with alcohol or without, with caffeine or without, sitting inside looking out the long front window at the canal under the young spring green trees, or sitting out front, looking at the lazy ripples on the water, the swing bridge up at the next street, daydreaming, drinking coffee or wine, smoking.

Yes, smoking in Paris. Which has now gone the way of all things.... New York, Ireland, Italy, California, now Chicago... And, of all places, France. At least in Paris, it's never so cold that you can't sit outside on the terrasse, with the terrible inefficient mushroom heaters that only work if you're sitting on top of them, bundled up, granted, since it is a kind of gray bone-deep damp chill that never seems to end. So in Paris, you could, as they seem to be doing, still sit outside.

But alas, in New York, my once dangerous seedy edgey fun exciting hometown that wasn't regimented like a finely tuned army of kindergartners playing follow the leader, it's way too cold in the winter to sit outside. And, as my anecdote above demonstrates, one cannot even sit outside and smoke anymore, as sidewalk terraces have been deemed dangerous second-hand smoke areas.

And alas, I have discovered in these past months, one cannot even think about sitting outside in a Chicago winter. Brrrrrr. No way, no how. Even going outside to smoke is a serious drag.

So here we are, sheep who have been told we can't smoke a legal substance that is sold almost everywhere and provides a huge revenue stream for almost everyone involved in this fiasco -- except, of course, the victims of the smoking ban, who continue to pay higher and higher prices for tobacco products, which continue to be sold legally -- sheep who must now go to bars where we can't use said legal product. Sheep who have to stand outside in little huddles, bundled up against the fierce freeze, hopping and shuffling in little packs outside all the bars. Mike always points out that those people are not inside, spending money on drinks.

Of course, whenever a smoking ban goes into effect in a new place, there's an underground, under-the-radar rebellion that goes on, sooner or later, that leads to the development of a kind of smoke-easy mentality, where select bars allow patrons to smoke late at night, discreetly, putting out Altoid boxes, or paper cups filled with water, to act as ashtrays, where word spreads that this place or that place is tolerant, and the grapevine passes it along. I know that in New York there were a few places near my house that were like that. One can only hope that this kind of liberal-minded thumbing of noses will also occur in this city.

But for now, if it weren't for great bars like the Empty Bottle, and great bands like the Hoyle Brothers, we would just stay home and party alone, or with our smoker or smoker-tolerant friends, yummy food cooking, strong drinks flowing, excellent music blasting, windows open if necessary, having a grand old time.

As Mike says, "Fuck it, babe, let's just stay home. You can smoke, you can drink, you can eat, and there's no line for the bathroom."

ok, the bakery

So, here I am, an ex-New Yorker, ex-Parisian, living in Chicago. And what's one of the first things I want to do? Find a bakery, a bakery that smells good, that looks good, that feels cozy, that has yummy delicious fabulous croissants and pains au chocolat and croissants aux amandes and... you get the idea. I could go on and on.

Living in Paris, it was always fun, and crucial, to scope out the neighborhood one found oneself living in to find the epicerie that was open late into the night, the cafe that would become a second home, with wonderful cafes cremes and hopefully some good food and fun people, and the bakery. My last sojourn in that city landed me in a lovely quartier, the canal st. martin, nested in a gorgeous little apartment on the top floor with four sunny balconettes overlooking the canal, and the best cafe bistro in Paris, as far as I was concerned, catty corner from my front door.

I only needed a boulangerie/patisserie.

I found one, around the corner, on a small angled street that ran directly behind mine, at the corner. It was old fashioned, a lovely little work of art, with painted ceilings and walls, gilded detailing, and artisanal bread and goodies. I went there most mornings, walking in the sun, the jingle bell that rang when a customer walked in, sniffing the air, the high-pitched-voiced madame thanking each customer, insincerely, as they left. I bought croissants aux amandes, sugary, crispy, oozing almond paste, hopefully cooked enough so that the almondy filling was browned where it seeped out of the pastry, if they had them. If not, it was a pain au chocolat, or a palmier mmmmmm if I really craved the sugar-butter crispiness, or one of the little savory breads stuffed with cheese and bacon that were the house specialty, or a lowly croissant.

Now, the lowly croissant is the really telling piece of French pastry. The lowly croissant is the one that informs you of the bakery's quality. If it is crisp and buttery on the outside, light and ethereal on the inside, something that is a delight to bite into the end of, the crunchy layers dissolving into butter in the mouth, then you can be sure that all will be good.

My bakery was the bakery of bakeries. Only one other that I know in Paris ever approached its light touch with butter pastries, and that was the first one I ever knew. It, by the way, outgrew its tiny storefront long ago and moved into much more elegant and expansive digs in the trendier than thou Marais. But that's another story...

My bakery excelled. All of the breakfast pastries were fantastic. I would buy my little paper parcel of them, one or two or three, depending on how hungry I was and how long I had been out of bed, and stroll around the corner to take my barstool at the bar of Chez Prune, the greatest of all Parisian cafes-bistros. The room was flooded with light from the windows on the Canal and on the street, the bar was convivial, and my guys, my lovely guys, made every day an adventure. Hugs and kisses from many attractive Frenchmen every morning/afternoon I went in did nothing to quench my good mood. Delicious cafe creme, unctuous and frothy, appeared miraculously in front of me, a newspaper was slid in front of me, and I unashamedly inhaled my delicious pastries, punctuated with sips of my three, sometimes four, cups of coffee.

Delicieux.

Memories that actually make me wince in pain now. In New York, it wasn't too bad -- there are many lovely bakeries in the city and though during my most recent brief sojourn I didn't develop a favorite morning routine with any of them, I have had the good fortune to eat many a wonderful pain au chocolat, croissant aux amandes and plain old butter croissant over the many years I have lived there, on and off.

My hopes were high. I moved into my gorgeous coach house in the Roscoe Village neighborhood and began the search. A strange little Hispanic bakery on Roscoe appealed to me but ultimately disappointed. Starbucks is a joke, with their reduced fat offerings -- how can you have a good reduced fat breakfast pastry, what with the butter and the sugar and the flaky yumminess therein?
And then, one day, down by Damen, I spotted a natural bakery, with a spectacular sign outside, a huge glass window in front, and the assurance that natural butter and sugar were used in the products. Aha! I had struck gold. I tried a croissant (no pain au chocolat that looked edible -- theirs are some kind of weird hybrid croissant shaped entity with chocolate stripes on the outside, nothing that should have the right to be called a pain au chocolat) one day, during a frenzied shopping spree, and was pleasantly surprised. Yum! It was delicious. I decided I had to go back and buy a bunch, freeze them, and heat them up, one by one, each morning, for our ritual breakfast in bed.

And so, last weekend, we went to the Mexican joint next door for lunch, and when we were finished I told Mike we should pick up some of the high-quality croissants next door.

In we went. Mike approved, "It looks like a cafe in Amsterdam," he said happily. I asked how many croissants were left and the girl behind the counter told me there was one left. "Only one?" I asked, filled with disappointment. She nodded, looking sad. "Okay, I'll take it," I said. One was better than none, I thought.
So I get my croissant and she rings it up -- $4.09. Mike is cracking up, telling me that I have been fucked. I am amazed. Did it really cost that much the last time? I couldn't remember. I had to ask if it really was $4 a croissant. The girl behind the counter again smiled sadly, even a bit uncomfortably, assuring me that, yes, that was the price. Oh my god, I'm thinking. Is that possible? Is it possible that in Chicago a good croissant actually costs $4? I know I will never buy another croissant there again.

I mean, really, that's simply ridiculous.

And, to add insult to injury, it was a bad croissant. Not buttery and flaky and ethereally light. Just a kind of ordinary croissant. An ordinary croissant for $4.

Hmmmm.

We went to Tony's supermarket and I bought a large plastic container of mini-croissants. When we got home, I took one out and put it in a 325 oven for about 15 minutes. It was delicious.

So much for the pretentious little overpriced bakery. The scene is a little yuppie, the pastries are ordinary, the prices are outrageous. I think the bread might be good...

Mike says: "Bend over, baby. I think they just fucked you."