Wednesday, October 12, 2011

Observations from last night's debate

Well, the kids at @bloombergtv had their evening in the sun with last night's GOP debate. I liked the structure quite a bit. However, this turned out to be a real showcase of this network's increasingly hard-left leaning, from ex-NPR moderator Charlie Rose to the downright rude interruption of Mitt Romney by @juliannagoldman. Here's a hint, Jules: The viewership isn't tuning in to hear you. Let the candidate speak and DON'T INTERRUPT. Even more nauseating was every Bloomie reporter with a Twitter account (yes, @lizzieohreally, I'm talking to you) praising her for this little bit of classlessness. Et tu @tomkeene? I expected a little more from a varsity letterman. We know which side of the aisle y'all fall on. Please humor us by masking it for at least a few seconds every now and then.

So how did everyone do?

Jon Huntsmann: There's no truth to the rumor that they had to squeeze in an extra chair at the table for him because debate organizers totally forgot he was still in this thing...but there should be.

Rick Perry: You showed up to a debate on one huge issue-the economy-without any semblance of an economic plan or any vision or insight. Camera cuts showed you as bewildered as Joey from Friends when he only bought the "K" volume of the encyclopedia and his other 5 codependents were talking about something that started with a "C" (or the other way around? Different letters? You get the idea). Cowboy down, li'l dogie.

Rick Santorum: He sounds like a guy with true knowledge and compassion about life an industry in a large swing state combined with an insider's knowledge on navigating Congress. If he didn't look like he was gonna snap into a full-blown nutty every time he spoke he may have a shot at bottom-billing on the ticket.

Michelle Bachmann: Spot on with ObamaCare. Reservations about adding a sales tax pipeline through Herman Cain's 9-9-9 plan are legitimate. I don't think she's the right messenger. "Sarah Palin with experience and a brain" is still damning with faint praise.

Ron Paul: Three words: VAGABOND...RIGHT...EYEBROW.

Listen, buddy. I get it that you were excited that your Andy Rooney Halloween costume arrived early...but on national (or at least the subsection of "national" that actually knows which channel Bloomberg is) TV at a time when your support is marginal (yet still at least a little vigorous) is no time to break the thing out unless you're certain the glue will hold up in 2 hours of heat from studio lights.

Ronnie stuck to the libertarian script admirably. I want to unleash him like the Tasmanian Devil as Secretary of the Treasury just to see what would happen.

Mitt Romney: Mitt held serve. I applaud him for not backing down to a downright rude Julianna Goldman in defining "hypothetical," but acknowledge that her cronies had a field day with it. In the end, it doesn't matter. Herman Cain questioned the unwieldiness of his 59-point plan, which is entirely valid. Mitt came back with a thoughtful response that did no damage. Still the frontrunner.

Herman Cain: HC got the biggest bump in brand recognition last night. Every time a moderator or fellow candidate mentioned "9-9-9" it was a win for him. His biggest flub was a deadpan answer of "Alan Greenspan" as the Fed chief he respected most, but he qualified his answer with...ummm..."reasonable sufficiency." He, like Romney, held serve.

Newt Gingrich: Y'know when someone asks you to list something not entirely obscure but something you're not used to rattling off every day...like "all the members of the Ivy League?" There's always one on the list that's harder to remember than all of the others. For me and the Ivy League list, I always forget Brown. Sorry, Newt. This morning you're Brown. It's not that you didn't do well last night. Your answers were those of a skilled debater that knows how Congress, DC as a whole and the US economy and healthcare system work. It's just that...well, in the list of GOP candidates, this morning you were Brown...and that's that.

Saturday, May 7, 2011

Toronto Dining Review: Lee

Last night, my Beautiful Bride and I visited Susur Lee's Toronto enclave, Lee. It had been quite a while since we enjoyed a night out at a "destination" restaurant so we both eagerly awaited the experience. The 9 PM seating on King Street West seemed a little late when I made the reservation, but it turned out to be extremely fortunate since work responsibilities resulted in an extra-late (although exceedingly fun and satisfying) lunch at The Only Cafe on the Danforth, which ended at around 3 PM, followed by a margarita, a Pisco sour and a few chips and amazing salsa at Eduardo Torres' La Cabana down the street. We made our way to Ossington and Queen, where we snagged a couple of beers at Sweaty Betty's. Then we took a 10-15 minute walk towards Lee and stopped into a BBQ joint next door to catch a least a little of the Bruins game, accompanied with a Maudite for me and a Creemore Springs Premium Lager for my Beautiful Bride. After the 1st period ended with the Bs up 1-0 (and by now we know how it ended), it was off next door to dinner.

We arrived to see a line of about 10 people who we presumed had reservations. However, 10 minutes in, the line hadn't really moved at all. Leave it to my Beautiful Bride to assert herself and speed along the process somehow and finally get us our table. We were seated at an extra-comfy corner table by the window. Our waitress was extremely friendly and offered up her suggestions on specials and drinks perhaps not with the most in-depth knowledge of the offerings, but with great enthusiasm. Good enough start? Sure. My peach lychee martini (Peachee Lychee?) was almost silky. Unfortunately, it took about 20 minutes to arrive at our table. Sure, it's a Friday night and the place was pretty well-filled. Still, the waitstaff across the board appeared frazzled, spastic and generally confused across the board. I can usually get past service issues if the food delivers, so let's see about what matters most...

We ordered two appetizers: the hot & sour soup and the signature Singapore slaw with salmon sashimi. We agreed that the hot & sour soup was the best hot & sour soup we've ever had in our lives. When you get hot & sour from a traditional take-out joint you consider elements of consistency, tang, heat and flavor (OK, maybe salt). Usually you have 2 of these elements truly firing. Good hot & sour may bring 3. This soup was almost velvety...by no means overpowering but its flavors worked in perfect synergy. The slaw was also quite good...perhaps a little heavy on the peanuts and sweetness, but the salmon provided a solid complement. I can't imagine this dish without the salmon; it would be a Gotham-style pile of peanuts and honey otherwise. The verdict? Quite enjoyable but perhaps not as breathtaking as a signature dish should be.

Something fell apart between the two appetizers and the "entree;" I mention entree in "quotation" "fingers" because our server indicated that it's most appropriate for each person to order two entrees since they're sized as tasting portions. Well, our 2-3 PM lunch left us less-than-starved, so we stuck with one each. Eventually, they actually showed up.

First up: Black cod over shrimp cake. True to the word of our waitress, it was indeed a tasting portion. We saw about 4 slivers of black cod and a fair amount of shrimp cake. Other than the service, this was the most disappointing aspect of our visit. The black cod was gently seasoned and obviously quite fresh, but that shrimp cake was thoroughly uninspiring. It literally had no flavor whatsoever while maintaining the consistency of a failed risotto.

Next we had the salmon ceviche, which was served in a row of six Oriental-style soup spoons. Because of its proximity to sushi, I suggested to our waitress that wasabi would be a nice complement. Unfortunately, there was no traditional wasabi to be had, but after a bit of prodding and several minutes wait, she emerged with some wasabi oil. This stuff was bright, lively and added a little bit of chill to the dish...and I can't imagine the salmon without it. Again, the dish on its own suffered from a little too much sweetness and needed that base-level kick of heat to merge its components correctly.

The wine list had a great proportion of younger offerings...perhaps 50-75 if I had to guess now. Since nothing really blew my doors off on the list, we kept it simple with a Riesling from the Niagara region of Ontario. It was OK but I would have appreciated a little more mid-range depth to the list.

Again we had a breakdown in service after the tasting portions. Our waitress seemed to be covering a little more ground than her capabilities could provide. Accordingly, it took a little while to get the bill squared away. In all, I would describe the service as choppy at best, even for Friday night prime time. I expect wait staff at a destination restaurant to embrace the menu and to express passion about the menu to patrons. Didn't get that at all. What we got was an enthusiastic, friendly and unfortunately somewhat clueless level of service.

On our way out we stopped for a couple of drinks at the bar, where our bartender Chris took care of us quite well with a fair amount of friendly knowledge. The few minutes there inspired me to turn back towards the hostess stand and express my concern with the troubles at the front of the house. Needless to say, my words were not met with extreme kindness from the borderline Napoleonic supervisor of the team up front, indicating that amateur hour was indeed upon us. Chris apologized to us on behalf of the restaurant (y'know, he really didn't have to do that but it was a nice touch) and we left it at that.

Overall, the food was quite good. However, it wasn't so life-changing enough to give a pass to service that I'd term best as sloppy and somewhat unconcerned. It's a damn shame that even a chef as seasoned and well-respected as Susur Lee can have his cuisine underwhelmed by unprepared wait staff and an utterly helpless team at the front of the house, but that's what happened. Did we enjoy the food? You bet, and that's usually what matters. That it was just short of compelling enough to overcome the service difficulties is telling for each of these elements. There's a difference between "excellent" and "enjoyable." The food came up just a wee bit shy of the "excellent" bar, but again it was very good. Was our experience at Lee memorable? Listen, any night out with my Beautiful Bride is a moment to cherish. Did Lee add to the occasion? In the words of the wankers in that old Hertz commercial, "not exactly." The service was far too much of an issue to overcome...sort of like a crappy coat of paint on an otherwise really nice room. Would we come back? Maybe.

Saturday, April 23, 2011

Fantasy Baseball Early Season Nightmares, 2011 edition

Everyone has 'em. Here's mine:








Saturday, April 16, 2011

Carl Crawford used to CRUSH the Red Sox

...apparently nothing has changed.

At least for now.

When Crawford signed with the Sox, I thought that the value of keeping him from facing us 18 times a year was good for at least $50 million. Keeping him from the Yankees was worth another $50 million. So really, the Sox were paying a little over $50 million for what he actually did on the field. Over 7 years, that's a little over $7 million per year for a solid defensive LF with great speed and a little bit of pop in the bat. Hey, we'll take it.

So far, CC's not been what we're looking for. It's clear from watching Sox games and what we read in the local fishwrap that the dude is pressing. Pressing wicked hard. The whole team's plate discipline has gone to nothing short of pure shit. What to do? Relax. Everyone. Relax. Let the game come to you. Don't worry about contracts, the fans, or that iffy lobster roll sticking around after lunch. Chil-lax, dudes.


Saturday, April 2, 2011

Fresh-Squeezed Opening Day in Texas

Like every other Red Sox fan, I eagerly anticipated yesterday's Opening Day tilt down in Texas. Our first look at A-Gone and Carl Crawford couldn't come soon enough as we all wanted to see if this team was as good in real life as it sounded on paper..because, as Kenny Mayne from ESPN used to tell us, "games aren't played on paper...they're played inside TV sets." Lucky for me there's a TV in my office so I caught the first few innings at work before heading home. Right from the top, I could tell this would be a grinder. Why? One reason and one reason only: Home plate umpire Tim McClellan.

Now, before you dismiss this as just another rant from just another entitled Masshole Red Sox fan, hear me out: McClellan didn't cost the Sox the game yesterday. He squeezed EVERYBODY. Jon Lester clearly didn't have his best stuff, and I'm not blaming his performance on the strike zone. However, losing 3 inches on each side of the plate clearly didn't help. Lester was pissed at McClellan in the SECOND INNING because his strike zone was smaller than a 1st-grader's attention span. C. J. Wilson wasn't too pleased from the looks of it, either. He clearly didn't get a couple of calls in the first inning, and it cost him. So I have to ask: What's the point?

Listen up, Bud Selig. It's the first of April. Teams just spent 6 weeks in Florida and this is their first game in more normal game and perhaps climate conditions. Everyone's still a little rusty. Why subject them to 4 hours of torture that a thimble-sized strike zone creates? We all know that the size of the zone has an inverse relation to the pace of the game. A tight zone disrupts game flow, causes fielders to doze and results in these 4-hour AL-East style suck-a-thons full of sloppy fielding, 10-8 scores and multiple innings by the 10th, 11th and 12th pitchers on each squad. You could just about golf a full 18 holes in 4 hours. Who the hell wants to watch a baseball game that long, that sloppily-played, and in most cases, under less-than-ideal weather conditions?

The fans sure don't. Again, it's the FIRST OF APRIL. Most casual fans forget about baseball after the first NFL regular-season kickoff unless their teams are in a pennant race. It's been a good six months since they've given two shits about baseball. Tim McClellan and his anorexic strike zone sure aren't helping. There's the Final Four still going on. Both the NHL and NBA are in their stretch runs. While yocu're at it, NASCAR is a month into it season. Like no other time of the year, baseball really needs to scratch and claw for its viewing audience in early April. Keeping game pace and flow is critical to engaging the fans. So how do we fix it?

The Solution
Here's what we do, Mr. Selig. Look down the roster of every umpire and go through whatever statistical sources (such as BaseballProspectus.com) to evaluate the OBP for every MLB home plate umpire. The information's there. For the first two weeks of the season, make sure that the 10% of umps with the highest "called OBP" are allowed nowhere near home plate. I'm actually being borderline charitable here. If there wasn't that pesky little nuisance known as "collective bargaining," I'd say fire the fuckers outright, but I guess that wouldn't play too well with the National Labor Relations Board. Perhaps in the umpires' next contract negotiation MLB can work in some performance clauses to rid the game of those that continue to slow the pace of the game, making it next-nigh unwatchable. Mr. McClellan and his grandstanding ilk are literally killing baseball, and they must be stopped. In April. NOW.


Sunday, February 27, 2011

10+ Covers That Don't Suck

Imitation may be the sincerest form of flattery. If we're lucky, the imitation is just as good or even better than the original. Look at a band such as the Grateful Dead...how many tunes did they play live that weren't their own? I vividly recall the band opening up the second set in Chicago (1994) with Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds, which was a very cool surprise.

Anyway, here are a few covers that definitely earn their keep, with original artists in parentheses. While these come to mind relatively quickly, but this is by no means meant to be an exhaustive list nor is it in any order whatsoever:
  1. You Really Got Me, Van Halen (The Kinks). OK, how many of you kids were in middle school and played the crap out of Van Halen's first album either on vinyl or cassette so much the inferior media of the day eventually degraded into nothing? Yup, me too. Right after Eddie's classic guitar solo "Eruption" was the charged remake of a Kinks classic.
  2. Friend of the Devil, Lyle Lovett (Grateful Dead). Deadicated was probably the first of the odd "tribute album" wave back in the mid-1990s and was recorded with proceeds to benefit the rainforests or something like that, a cause to which the Dead expended great efforts. Lovett's soulful country voice is a perfect match here.
  3. Pretty Woman, Van Halen. (Roy Orbison). Admit it...you like this much better than Roy's original. Especially with the "Intruder" lead-in on Diver Down, which is over half cover tunes. Probably the first Van Halen tune that got widespread airplay in my little corner of Central New York in the early 1980s.
  4. Gimme Some Lovin', Grateful Dead - Pittsburgh '89 (Spencer Davis Group, featuring Steve Winwood). Brent Mydland and his angst-ridden voice delivered some gems for the Dead back in his day, but this one slowly emerging out of Space is probably my favorite. Mickey and Bill's thundering drums introduce that signature wail of Brent's keyboards...and it is ON.
  5. Dead Souls, Nine Inch Nails (Joy Division). From The Crow soundtrack. I heard this long before I heard the Joy Division original. OK, yeah, it's not the best thing Trent ever churned out (I enjoyed Burn from the Natural Born Killers soundtrack much more), but anything involving Nine Inch Nails and Joy Division belongs on this silly list of mine just because, dammit. Honestly, I liked NIN's version of Adam Ant's Physical (Track #98 on the Broken EP) a lot more.
  6. Ain't Too Proud to Beg, The Rolling Stones (Temptations). Not the first nor the last time the Stones piggybacked off the Motown sound. This Temptations remake immediately precedes the title track on It's Only Rock 'n' Roll. Now Mick's voice sounds downright silly on occasion, but it works here with the piano and Keith's crooning bluesy guitar.
  7. Never Let Me Down Again, Smashing Pumpkins (Depeche Mode). This cut led off the mid-1990s DM tribute disc Ultra. I heard it first on the radio while driving...probably on WHFS while driving on the Beltway and was a little confused, 'cause it sure as hell sounded like Billy Corgan was singing a DM tune. Indeed he was. It took a while to finally track this down in a pre-amazon.com era. Clearly the class of the disc, the Pumpkins sound is nice and trippy.
  8. All Along the Watchtower, Grateful Dead-Buffalo '89 (Bob Dylan). Deep, DEEP into the second set of my first (of only four total, unfortunately) Dead show in the rain...uh, at least I think it was raining. Yeah...rain...that's it. Whatever the weather was, they nailed this one.
  9. My Way, Sid Vicious (pretty sure you know damn well who did the original). Just kidding, but this disembodied, frantic mosh pit version of a classic was a fitting ending to the Good Fellas' portrayal of the spiraling load of shit that Henry Hill's life ultimately became.
  10. Kerosene, Lowest of the Low (Bad Religion). The last track on the studio mini accompanying the live CD Nothing Short of a Bullet. I'm not sure if I've ever actually heard the original, but this rocks, so there ya have it. Big ups to Ron Hawkins, Stephen Stanley and the rest of the Low (didya hear? They're touring again: http://www.lowestofthelow.com/).
  11. Bertha, Los Lobos (Grateful Dead). Another track from Deadicated. Really, they should have stopped tribute CDs right here. Actually, they should have wrapped up this one before its last track (see below). Los Lobos' Mexibilly sound fits like a glove for one of my Dead favorites (and the opener to the aforementioned Buffalo '89 show).
  12. Overkill, Lazlo Bane (Men at Work). Just awesome. No, seriously. This is probably my favorite cover of all time. Much heavier than the irreverent poppy original. Goes at a more deliberate pace than the Men at Work version (tough not to - someone was definitely double-parked when they were laying that track down). Starts off quietly and slowly, then works its way up to a crescendo with a big-ass grungy edge...with Colin Hay topping off the last stanza. Excellent video, too: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RqOU7r4hdmw
And now let's recognize a few tunes that should never been messed with (especially in this fashion) to begin with:
  • It's My Life, Gwen Stefani (Talk Talk). Admittedly, I'm not a fan of her high-pitched, incessantly-droning voice, especially when I heard "Just a Girl" about 90 times a day when it first came out. This didn't help - the tune plays directly to her weaknesses and is annoying as hell. Seriously, why did this ever happen?
  • Ripple, Jane's Addiction (Grateful Dead). The first time through this disc I was intrigued to see what Perry Farrell and the crew would do with this on the last track of the CD. Needless to say, I was quickly disappointed. This was a mess. Farrell's voice doesn't belong within 1,000 miles of this tune, and the instruments were a disjointed mess.
  • Sweet Child of Mine, the woman in the Black-Eyed Peas at this year's Super Bowl halftime show (Guns 'n' Roses). Slash should have stayed home. This reached untraversed proportions of suckdom, even for the annual over-produced mega-letdown know as the Super Bowl halftime show.
  • Anything on Covering the Bases by Bronson Arroyo. Maybe Theo traded Bronson away for the human window fan that was Wily Mo Pena 'cause he was sick of listening to the kid consistently butcher Stone Temple Pilots riffs in the clubhouse. That would be enough reason for me.