Sidebars

Ric's....by Bob Sanders

 

The first time I had a drink at Ric's was during the summer of 1958.  I was in Chicago for TV Guide meetings of midwestern sales people and, not being a salesman, wasn't certain why I was invited.  I recall nothing involving the meetings other than escaping for a drink at Ric's with John Higgins.  We sat outdoors on a balcony overlooking on-the-make Rush St.  In those days, Ric's was known as the "Montmartre of the Midwest" whose superb location between the Daily News/Sun Times building and theTribune was perfect for journalists.

Higgins was a salesman and very good as I had learned in Rochester, NY where earlier we had advanced the TV Guide sometimes arriving at work to be met by Toronto advertising people shoving camera-ready ads in our faces.  Strict Canadian liquor advertising laws plus the Guide's weekly Lake Ontario Edition circulation of 700,000 had the Canucks begging for ad space.  As a side note, there was nothing vaguely similar to Ric's in Rochester and I'd be inclined to bet the ranch this many years later that what was true then continues today.  

Ric's (its formal name was Riccardo's Restaurant) was one of those places of considerable appeal to artists and writers, a condition worked to advantage by Ric who was a painter, dancer, musician and chef.  Ric, born in Italy three years after the turn of the century, first had a restaurant on South Oakley.  Prohibiton was in full swing as was Al Capone and the WPA (Works Progress Administration) whose Illinois Art Project provided work for artist friends--among them twin brothers Ivan and Malvin Albright, Aaron Bohrod and William Schwartz.  Riccardo (born Riccardo Novaretti), inspired by the work of his friends, did a lot of painting, then bought a former speakeasy at the corner of Rush Street and Hubbard and established Riccardo Restaurant and Gallery.  Hanging his paintings on the walls, he invited friends to participate in monthly exhibitions.

It was in 1947 that Ric purchased adjoining space in which he created a palette-shaped bar asking his pals to paint some panels.  Telling the artists not to check out each other's work, he gave six of them assignments dealing with The Arts.  Ivan Albright (his most famous work would be "The Picture of Dorian Gray") did Drama (Mephistopheles) while brother Malvin painted Sculpture.  Others included: Bohrod's Architecture; Vincent D'Agostino's Painting; Rudolph Weisenborn's Literature; Schwartz's Music; and Riccardo's Dance.  Seated at the Palette Bar, I found myself fascinated by the brilliance of those WPA Chicago School efforts, particularly Albright's fiendish Mephistopheles.  I later learned that Ric was the model for the recently-married Albright and that Mephistopheles' thoroughly ugly legs were inspired by those of Albright's bride, Josephine Medill Patterson, a member of the Medill/McCormick'Patterson family of journalists.  Not nice, but artists always strive for truth.  During my time in Chicago (1968-1989), the Palette Bar was rarely less than two deep shortly after 5 p.m. on weekdays.

An artist's life is rarely easy and so it was with Ric's pals.  There are no records, for example, suggesting that the Albrights were ever paid for their Palette Bar efforts.  It appears that spaghetti dinners went a long way then.  Ivan and Malvin received $75,000 for "Dorian Gray" but that was Hollywood money.  On the other hand, Ivan, cheekiest of the Chicago artists, was known to ask $100,000 for a painting while suggesting that he was "every bit as good as any old master."  Ivan Albright was the best of the Chicago School.   

Not all of Ric's friends were artists.  Ike Sewell, like Riccardo a U.S. soldier in Italy during World War II, became smitten by pizza and wound up getting credit for bringing the dish to Chicago via Uno's Pizzeria.  Because he knew nothing about restaurant business management let alone cooking, Sewell made a friend of Riccardo who did.  Oddly enough, Sewell wanted the restaurant to be Mexican, a bad test enchilada was prepared, and Riccardo promptly became ill.  The dauntless duo then turned to plan B pizza and that's how deep dish pizza and not chimichangas came to Chicago and, perhaps, why we have Tex-Mex rather than Chi-Mex.  Taking a step further, we, otherwise, might be salivating today for pizza tostadas.

Ric, a true Renaissance man, was 51 when he died in 1954.  His son, Rick, Jr., then serving with the army in Korea, took over the restaurant although his heart wasn't in it.  Possessing nowhere near his dad's work ethic, Rick had visions of becoming an actor and appeared in a number of local plays.  Married and divorced three times by 1975, he was close to broke from alimony and child support.  One night he sold the Ivan Albright and Bohrod panels for $1,000 each; those knowledgeable about details of the sale suggest Riccardo was drunk at the time.

Unable to catch a break, Rick Riccardo found himself taking a strange driving route from Chicago to Los Angeles.  It was in 1977 by way of Phoenix and he drove 30 miles west of there pulling over in Buckeye for a bite to eat.  Rather than head for pasta or pizza, he chose a steak house and choked to death among Heimlich maneuver-less diners.

Much has been written about Ric's whose food, while hardly haute cuisine, was basic, Italian, dependable and reasonably priced.  It was 10 years before Rick's death that columnist Jory Graham commented about the dashing restaurateur whose eye roved far too often over his female customers rather than concentrating on culinary efforts: "Mr. Richard (Rick) Riccardo hasn't changed the decor an iota since his father's day, so the restaurant still has its pleasant timeless atmosphere--strolling guitarist, accordionist and singing waiters--and the bar still swings under its famous Seven Lively Arts murals."

I moved to Chicago for Playboy Enterprises the next year.  While whatever carousing I did was pretty much concentrated at the north end of Boul Mich and Hugh Hefner's home, I became aware of Riccardo's and outstanding bartenders Jose and Peter plus a magnificent waiter, Bobby Estrada, whose approach to his profession was reminiscent of Victor Borge's to music.  Inclined to sit at the bar of generous pour, I became aware that one of Bobby's tables was that of the great editorial cartoonist John Fischetti, then with the still alive Daily News..  Seven years later, I counted myself fortunate to sit often at Fischetti's table when I began doing public relations for both the Daily News and Sun-Times.   

A  couple of Greek brothers, Nick and Bill Angelos, bought Riccardo's when Rick died.  They did a good job continuing to serve those dishes closely associated with the restaurant, among them magnificent minestrone.

Reduced in number by Rick's outrageous low-ball sale of the Albright and Bohrod panels, The Seven Lively Arts continued as a group with the replacement of the Bohrod by a John Foote work while a photographic reproduction of the dark baroquely drawn Mephistopheles looked down upon Palette Bar patrons.

One of the significant problems of the restaurant business today is that people don't drink like they used to.  Luncheon diners who accompany their meals with liquor are frowned upon by Corporate America offering further proof that corporations aren't people.  Fischetti and I firmly believed that a couple of martinis at lunch made us more creative in the afternoon.  John must have been doing something right.  He won a Pulitzer in 1969.  A humble man, Fischetti prominently displayed in his office Bill Mauldin's remarkable drawing of a tearful Abraham Lincoln monument reacting to the assassination of John F. Kennedy.  Fischetti thought the Pulitzer winner the best editorial cartoon ever.  His own similarly accorded work was nearby yet not showcased like Mauldin's effort.

Drinking then by those in communications and associated fields was inclined to be serious.  A major league of booze consumption was The Bermude Triangle whose watering holes were Ric's, O'Rourke's and the Old Town Ale House.  Ric's for dinner and drinks was the springboard into the evening's adventures with the other two, located a few blocks apart on North Avenue, were joints of revelry and occasional brawls.  To be perfectly accurate, there are those who insist Billy Goat's and not the Old Town Ale House was the third corner of the triangle.

For a magnificent look at O'Rourke's, check out Roger Ebert's Journal and a piece titled: "A Bar on North Avenue."  Still concerned principally with film, Pulitzer winner Ebert was assigned by the Sun-Times in 1968 to write about The Big Bunny, Hefner's DC-9.  After an initial luncheon session at The Mansion, Ebert faded from the project when he moved to full-time movie reviewing.

A changing attitude toward drinking, competition from new restaurants and taxes made things difficult for the Angelos brothers who gave up the restaurant in 1989, then attempted a resurrection in 1993.  During the period, an upscale dining spot with a private club upstairs was attempted.  By then, all the Seven Lively Arts had been carried off to places like New York and Connecticut; in their place was a huge bizarre psycho-historical painting offering an imaginary scene in Ric the elder's upstairs apartment/studio.  Seated around the table are Ric, Ivan Albright and then contemporary Windy City writers and talkers including Studs Terkel, Nelson Algren and Mike Royko.  Also seated are Salvador Dali and Marc Chagall whose presence makes little sense.  Others include an unidentified very dark person and Ivan Albright whose Mephistopheles once was thought to be worth but $1,000.  The final version of Ric's had a short life.

Last time I checked, the old Ric's is occupied by something called Phil Stefani's 437 Rush Street.  Always be wary of restaurants identified by full names of its owners.  The food will be lesser and the drinks shorter.

Oh, yes.  The Seven Lively Arts murals are back together again thanks to the dogged pursuit of Seymour Persky, a very wealthy Chicago preservationist who had become convinced the paintings represent something uniquely Chicago.  Costing a total of $665,000, they have moved up in in class and seen first at The Rendezvous, the Chicago Union Club's posh bar and most recently (2008) at the Chicago Historical Museum for a six month's run. 

If you're in Chicago, check in regarding their viewing availability with the Charnley-Persky House on the city's Gold Coast.  Located at 1365 N. Astor, it's about a soft 8-iron from Hefner's old digs.   

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Perfection....by Bob Sanders

 

Los Angeles, perhaps this country's most self-important community, has always been on an aggressive search for perfection.  It's as though the city, having overcome a prior description by Dorothy Parker who suggested L.A. was "72 suburbs in search of a city," expects perfection because it is so deserving.

My old boss, Hugh Hefner, has a somewhat beguiling theory about L.A.'s reputation for having a population of beautiful people perhaps not exceeded by any other of the world's cities.  The not exactly world-traveled Playboy founder believes Los Angeleans are noted for their beauty because something like five generations of attractive people have settled in Southern California with the intention of getting into the movies.  When Hef begins such beguiles, faint strains of Cole Porter can be heard along with the realization that he moved from Chicago to L.A. for many reasons, among them a surfeit of beautiful women.

One of Hefner's long-running friends was Barbie Benton, a UCLA premed freshman when she met him in 1968 on the set of "Playboy After Dark," a TV series I promoted when Screen Gems took a hike from responsibilities accepted on a handshake basis.  The pleasant, bug cute, and intelligent Barbie and I hit it off when we met poolside at Miami Beach's Playboy Plaza Hotel late in 1970.  Hefner, taking momentary leave of us, returned quickly accompanied by an unbecoming grumpiness about our somewhat intense chatter.  Asking her to come with him, Barbie refused, saying: "I will when I get through talking with Bob."  Hefner, decidedly a perfectionist, eventually determined that Barbie, certainly one of the girls next door, wasn't perfect although three pectoral pictorials were impressive.  Never a Playmate, Barbie appeared three times on the magazine's cover.

Benton hasn't been the only Barbie involved in nudity.  It doesn't seem possible but nearly 10 years have passed since the El Segundo-based Mattel Inc., then the world's largest toymaker, sued a Utah artist who used nude Barbie dolls in some of his photographic work.  That Barbie was regarded by many as perfection goodness knows and Mattel alleged that Thomas Forsythe's use of the doll infringed on its copyrights and trademarks.  The media never reported a reaction from Ken nor is there record of a Hefner response.

The humorless Mattel was stunned when a San Fancisco appeals court ruled that use of the doll's image was a parody and protected under the First Amendment.

There can be no doubt that greater Los Angeles is obsessed by beauty running from Botox to buttocks.  Further, going under the knife is now as common as sand on the beach at Santa Monica.  Fleshing out details is a tawdry business but we could start with Dr. Michael Niccole who began surgical improvements on two daughters beginning at age 10.  It all started with a much-improved belly button thanks to the critical eye of the refurbishment doctor.  Other family members, including a wife and two sons, have undergone cosmetic enhancement in the search for, among other features, the perfect nose.  Perkier and bigger breasts are part of perfection's pursuit and so it was that an 83-year-old grandmother recently acquired them, perhaps inspired by the terribly plastic Joan Rivers whose face these days is as tight as skins were on Gene Krupa's drums.  Granny is now hopefully at the beach attracting admiring glances if not conversation. 

As this is written, Granny may even be at Muscle Beach, one of this country's great freak shows now located in Venice although, judging from her age, might pay her respects at what what used to be the original site located on the south side of the Santa Monica Pier.  Officially closed there in 1959, Muscle Beach goes back to the '30s when Vic Tanny and Jack LaLanne sought body perfection later achieved by such celebrities as Arnold Schwartzenegger who made it to the movies and the governor's mansion in Sacramento before attracting the attention of checkout counter publications.

When the subject of baseball comes up, the sport's perfection is generally referenced by pitching performances in which but 27 hitters come to the plate in fruitless attempts to get a hit.  There have been 22 of them in the major leagues with the lone Los Angeles effort achieved by Sandy Koufax who did it in 1965 when he beat the Cubs, 1-0.  The Brooklyn-born lefty had a total of four no-hitters but only one was perfect.

Beauty, as we know, is in the eye of the beholder and so it was that what has been described as an eagerly anticipated environmental sculpture has been unveiled at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.  Titled "Levitated Mass," the work is by Michael Heizer who, apparently, was out to find the perfect rock, all 340 tons of it thus making possible a megalith in a megapolis.  If big is beautiful, then "Levitated Mass" is your cup of granite.

Moving the sculpture's center piece rock from its point of discoveery in a quarry near Riverside was not easy and required a circuitous, 105-mile path through four counties and 22 suburbs.  A huge transporter 200 feet long was used.

There's a stark quality about "Levitated Mass" and it might be its empty field location and a channel of polished concrete that cuts 456 feet across it.  The channel descends to a depth of 15 feet becoming a two-rail pedestal for the rock meaning that visitors can stand below ground level and see a rock from a vantage point never before possible.  At present there are no signs suggesting skateboarders should refrain from performing Gingersnaps and Godzilla Flips on the $10 million project, walking around money when compared to what it costs today to buy an election.  Everything considered, the location, immediately adjacent to the La Brea Tar Pits, is perfect and doubtless will  produce stories about the ghosts of dinosaurs being aroused by the new Paleolithic rock now located in the prehistoric resting place.

It was a good week for rocks.  We learned that not only could one of 680,000 pounds be moved in Southern California but, also, how the enigmatic stone heads (some weighing 90 tones) of Easter Island were transported from their quarry points of origination.  It's one thing to move the "Levitated Mass" by means of gasoline and a huge transporter with 88 pairs of wheels, but quite another to have mysteriously transfered nearly 900 smiley faces in those Polynesian halcyon days that preceded a devastating "ecocide" climaxed by the island's population descending into cannibalism and barbarity.  A July National Geographic  magazine story includes details of an experiment conducted in Hawaii in which a smiley face replica was rock and rolled down a road by three teams using very strong ropes.  Lost in all that rock and rolling was the weight of the fake stone head: five tons, 1/18th that of the real thing.  The mystery, in many ways perfect, may not have been solved.  

Moving an isolated big rock 105 miles across a suburban sprawl to the heart of a city the size of Los Angeles is a bit complex in the business of getting the public's attention.  Sometimes inspiration of an unusual nature comes into play as in Carhenge of Alliance, Nebraska where a replica of Stonehenge awaits the next owner.  The asking price is $300,000 and the gray spray-painted 38 cars, jammed in the ground in 1987 in the perfectly arresting symmetry of the British original built between 2500 and 2000 BC, is, according to owner Jim Reinders, "slightly used."    

Drawing eyes of the curious to Alexandria, Indiana is the world's largest ball of paint whose creator was an amateur baseball player who saw a ball accidentally fall into some paint.  Fascinated, Michael Carmichael began a program of dipping and painting with the ball eventually becoming the size and shape of a football whose lack of perfection may have caused him to donate it to the Indiana Soldiers' and Sailors' Children's Home Museum in nearby Knightstown where it can be seen today.

Carmichael had bigger things in mind.  It was on January 1, 1977 that he had his three-year-old son paint another baseball.  The only rule observed by father and son: each new coat must be a different color from the preceding one.  Today's paint ball is strung up in a backyard shed and has more than 20,000 coats with wife Glenda responsible for 8,000 of them.  Families that paint together are quaint together.  Something of a fanatic about paint, Carmichael currently performs 10 coats on dry days although he once called it quits for nearly a year only to return to his obsession.  Some of those dry days are longer than others; once a month Carmichael paints a neighbor's lawn employing a different theme each time.  One of the obvious aspects of the situation is that Glenda never questions her husband's whereabouts.  And, yes, the world's largest ball of paint perfection has been recognized by the Guinness Book of Records.

Some cities attract visitors simply by being strange and two come immediately to mind.  One is Manshiyat Naser, a suburb of Cairo.  Also known as Garbage City, Manshiyat Naser is one big dump whose most significnt citizens are the Zabbaleen, Coptic Christians much envied by Waste Management.  While western collectors of garbage recycle between 20 and 25% of litter, the Zabbaleen regularly register a fingers-to-nostrils 80%.  That's not perfection as garbage collecting goes, but it is impressive.

Another odd place is Miyake-Jima, an island off the coast of Japan.  Its special allure is to those enormously attracted by volcanos.  Sitting on top of a chain of them is Mount Oyama where 17,500 earthquakes occurred in less than a month in 2000.  Lovers of volcanic destruction can take tours that include abandoned houses and flattened cars.  Visitors and locals are required to wear gas masks, a necessity that for all we know may be called "OyamaCare" and not a bad idea for those Christian folks near Cairo.

Realists realize that crowd-gathering curiosities can achieve success quite simply.  San Luis Obisbo, California has Bubblegum Alley where you can affix a chaw of your very own while the World's Largest Hockey Stick is in Duncsan, British Columbia.  It's in Duncan and not Yazoo City, Mississippi because British Columbia is in Canada whose relationship to hockey is something like Green Bay to football only more so.  Canada also claims the World's Largest Egg measuring 3,000 lbs in its fourth reincarnation.  Other wonders include The World's Largest Thermometor in Baker, California while Rock City, Tennessee pays homage to miniature golf where it all began.

Having spent far too many days this year in hospitals, I'll probably be inclined to turn down an inviation, should one be extended, to The Clinic, a bar in Singapore.  Morbidly chic and located in the trendy Clarke Quay area, The Clinic brings a medical atmosphere to booze matters including such comforts as gold plated wheelchairs while drinks are served in syringes and vials by nurses dressed in scrubs.  Their wheelside manners are reputed to be perfect.

Perfection is not easy to find in thoroughly laid back Bellingham, Washington where I live although lovers of rain, moss and bad soil take pride in those daily confrontations believing such challenges are what define and isolate us.  If so, perhaps it's time to get serious, like Los Angeles, and create an attention-getting attraction that will create a new us.

Two possibilities come to mind.  One, providing homage to our past association with Georgia Pacific, would be the erection of the world's largest roll of toilet paper, a monument easily constructed of stone being used in what will be a failed attempt by Regal Cinemas to build a 16-screen Cineplex at Barkley Square.  The last "tissue" of the perfectly enormous 10-story monument would be an enormous American flag whose snapping in the breeze will keep awake all 'hamsters living within a five-mile radius.

A much cheaper Plan B possibility would be an empty store, a perfect and significant sign of our times.

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Pizza Adventures....by Bob Sanders

I'm not sure where or when I had my first pizza.  My best guess is that it was in Tulsa in the early '60s and definitely in a Pizza Hut.  This would figure since the chain was begun in 1958 by a couple of students at Wichita University--something like 130 miles north of Tulsa.

Pizza Hut was a reasonable beginning and it wasn't until 1968 that matters got serious when I moved from Los Angeles to Chicago to work for Playboy Enterprises.  L.A. was essentially pizza-deprived back then although Sam and Joe Martorano had established Casa Bianca at 1955 Colorado Blvd., a couple of field goals from the Rose Bowl.  The Martoranos had worked at Tony's Pizza in the Windy City but their approach bore little resemblance to the deep dish Chicago product; the crust, I'm told, was light and the toppings slight by comparison.  The California approach to cooking was underway and the pizza obsessive under-served.

I don't recall any L.A. pizza places largely because my dining was pretty much limited to West Hollywood and environs running to the ocean.  With an office at 9255 Sunset Blvd, my favorite places tended to be within walking distance and included: the Cock & Bull across the street; Hamburger Hamlet, eventually a chain created by the still with us Harry and Marilyn Lewis who started at the corner of Sunset & Hilldale; and Frascati, a casual yet classy place with outdoor dining at the rear.  Oh, yes, there was Musso & Frank Grill, still there since 1919.

My discovery of Chicago pizza was made possible by a convention at The Drake Hotel that forced me to stay at the St. Clair on Ohio Street.  The Drake, immediately across the street from the Playboy Building, was the logical place for me but timing, as always, was everything and I was told I could move to The Drake when the convention was over.  We know the importance of timing when we reflect upon Turner Classic Movie's decision to play next Tuesday's (May 29) Irving Thalberg tribute show at 6 a.m. EST.

I didn't need The Drake.  I had settled in at the St. Clair, a place complete with a large contingent of raffish folks from the entertainment industry.  On the top floor was the Chicago Press Club and down the street Ike Sewell's uncommnly popular restaurants, Pizzeria Uno and Due.  I soon found myself eating a fair amount of deep dish that contrasted enormously with prior culinary adventures of the Italian genre.

Sewell, having served in Italy during World War II, had become a regional vice president of Fleishmann's Distilling Corp. and wanted something more exciting.  He found it when he teamed up with pal Ricc Riccardo, an established restaurateur who in in 1935 had turned a former speakeasy into Riccardo Restaurant and Gallery.  A Texan, Sewell wanted to specialize in Mexican food but fate, in the form of a very bad enchilada in a test dinner played a significant role in cuisine history.  Riccardo became so sick that Mexican food was out of the question so he suggested pizza.  Like Sewell, Riccardo had encountered the food while serving in Italy; both were of a mind that the real thing was little more than an appetizer, and they set about inventing something more substantial.  What evolved was a meal-sized pizza with a thick crust and lots of cheese. 

Business did not flourish immediately at the corner of Ohio and Wabash and Sewell soon gave orders to his bartenders to provide free sample slices to customers.  Fortunately for Sewell (Riccardo by then was concentrating on his own restaurant up the street at Rush and Hubbard Streets), Pizzaria Uno's clientele were heavy drinkers and the pizza eventually caught on.  More about the remarkable Riccardo and son Ric, Jr. at a later date.

I lived at the St. Clair for a month, then moved into an apartment on Division Street between State St. and Lake Michigan.  As things turned out, Betty and the kids did not join me in Chicago until August of that year.  It wasn't all bad since Hugh Hefner's home was two blocks away and I had an open invitation to parties that, seemingly, had no end.

The true origins of pizza are difficult to pin down.  People inclined toward conspiracy theories tend to believe that Marco Polo brought back more than spaghetti when he returned from China although such claims are tenuous at best.  We are told the Greeks had a vegetable pizza in ancient times and the Italians improved the product with a variety of fillings before baking.  We do know that Virgil, who lived in the lst Century BC, had the good sense to write a pizza recipe for posterity.

It is generally conceded that the first pizzeria in this country was opened in New York City in 1905 thus planting the city's incestuous family tree.  Like Sewell's experience 50 years later, it was slow to catch on.  It took World War II and a taste acquired by GIs to create a fondness for the food.  Today there are more than 70,000 pizzerias in this country producing an average of 46 slices or 23 lbs. a year for every man, woman and child.  Deep dish pizza, still served at Uno and Due, has run afoul of criticism during recent years for a calorie count of 2,310.  Pizza Hut is out of contention in that league with a modest 9-inch Triple Meat Heliano of 1,280 calories.  And you wonder how this nation got to be one of big butts?

Not credited with a national sense of humor, South Korea spoofed itself when the country's artery-clogged Mr. Pizza unit produced a YouTube pizza story suggesting that Marco Polo stole the pizza recipe not from China but from Korea.  The send up was produced by Gumshoe Pictures and is worth viewing.

In 1990, wife Jan and I moved to the Pacific Northwest and San Juan Island's Friday Harbor where nary a pizza could be found until an expanded gas station started cranking out product geared for those of decidedly limited dining experience.  Even the availability of the mainland 60 minutes away by ferry was of pizza disappointment.  Alas, the exquisite pizza and the magnificent hamburger are rarities of the Pacific Northwest.  We eventually discovered, thanks to then banker Brian Brown, an approximation of hamburger heaven on Commercial Avenue in Anacortes.  The Brown Lantern is a burger discovery that resurrected fond memories of Charlie Beinlich's in Northbrook north of Chicago.  Mainland mainstay Bob's (nine locations--three in Bellingham) knows what to put in a bun; by all means, hit the bar in the Barkley Village location for a genuine pub feeling.

Each of us has had memorable dining experiences.  One of mine occurred in 1992 when Jan and I were guests in Barcelona of Antonio Susquellas Escala, whose employment as presidente of EniChem Iberica, S.A. put him in the midst of the Olympic Games.  Tony had been an exchange student in Thousand Oaks, California living with Jan and her family.  Our six weeks with Tony was his "thank you" and included a highly impressive number of event tickets including opening and closing ceremonies.

It was while strolling down Barcelona's impressive La Ramblas that Jan and I, accompanied by my brother John and his wife, Terry, decided to have lunch at the Hotel Royal's Cafeteria La Poma.  Curious about whatever Barcelona's approach to the pizza might be, I ordered a thin-crusted beauty whose intriguing ingredients included walnuts and blue cheese positioned in the pie's center--about a four-inch circle.  Outside of a delicate winner consumed at, of all places, a short-lived Two Illinois Center restaurant developed by Arnold Morton (he built steak house giant Morton's), my experience with the light version had been limited.

The Barcelona product was remarkably good and here I am, 20 years later, recalling its virtues.  I was so caught up in the pizza that I paid little attention to Magic Johnson, a member of the U.S.A. Dream Team, unquestionably the greatest basketball squad ever.  Magic was seated nearby dining while a circus-like scene developed outside in front of a huge hotel window where a human pyramid of kids had materialized.  Mesmerized, the kids were shouting "Ma-jeek, Ma-jeek."  Completing his meal, the basketball star vanished out a back door and the kids disassembled.  Pronounced evidence of the departed youngsters was left behind on the window; the glass was heavily befogged by human vapors.

Pizza satisfaction is a personal thing and my problem with the Fourth Corner version can be summed up in one word: pepperoni.  Enthusiasts of the pepperoni experience are inclined to believe that pepperoni pizza is to the Pacific Northwest what the Packers are to Green Bay.  A current television commercial extolling the glories of Pizza Hut is, I find, a stomach churner of prodigious success.  While an imaginatively constructed pizza heavy on vegetables can mirror the exultant beauty of a Joan Miro work, the Pizza Hut TV effort features a very large pie whose disgusting topping consists of nothing but a slathering of pepperoni that appears to have been sitting for a week under a scorching Arizona desert sun.  It is beyond ugly made even more so by bread sticks of almost equal repulsion.

Reaching pizza nirvana is not easy although there is a greater variety available today than, say, 30 years ago.  Now a $38 billion industry, pizza is available in chains dominated by Pizza Hut, Dominos, and Papa John who claim 21% of the pizzeria total.  With hard times upon us, pizzeria prices have come down--partly because of the frozen variety competition whose costs are appealing.  Papa Murphy's, whose come-on is take-and-bake, is a highly interesting game plan.  A warning: do not deviate fromn Papa's instructions.  Among other things, bake within a hour of pickup and make sure you don't get a product that's been sitting around.

Store-bought frozen product is challenging with Freschetta, Red Baron, DeGiorno, Paul Newman, California and the rest battling it out to see who has the least amount of cardboard taste.  The boredom of pepperoni pizza has dominated Fourth Corner freezers and I had all but given up until three weeks ago when I encountered what I immediately determined as homage to Chicago: sausage and mushroom pizza.  It was at Fred Meyer and, indeed, produced by Kroger, owner of FM.  Further, a rather stunning picture of the pizza was on the black oblong box and within an hour I had achieved a blessedness never imagined from a frozen product.  The crust was thin and flaky but not overly so and the toppings more substantial and decidedly tastier than all others experienced.  At present, there are four Private Selection pizzas (11-14 oz.) that sell for $4.50 each.  The mushrooms used are portobella and shitake and the sausage Italian.  There's some jive on the box about the baking having been done on a marble hearth.

This column, always inclined to recognize superior marketing, believes Private Selection deserves recognition for realizing all frozen pizza boxes are the same shape.  Simply by creating an oblong pizza has the firm given the product recognition in a highly competitive environment.

And, frankly, I don't care if Private Selection pizza is baked on Aunt Tilly's breakfast table.  Now, go get yourself some sausage and mushroom pizza and think Cubs; that is, if you can stand the thought.

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Hamburger Trust....by Bob Sanders

 

Distrust is a wicked matter to deal with under any set of circumstances and, offhand, I can't think of anything more frightening than too much of it in the restaurant business.

Having returned from a couple of weeks in Hawaii, I've been giving some thought to a rather strange experience there at the kind of restaurant where relative normalcy should be expected.  At the heart of matters was the good old American hamburger.

Not exactly hamburger heaven, Hawaii does have some dining spots where a good burger can be found.  Top of the list is Gordon Biersch, not surprisingly a brewery pub with an impressive reputation.  The hamburger is, I fear, largely bastardized in Hawaii and good luck finding one that isn't either soy sauced to death or the possessor of other Asian add ons and you can throw in an old standby: bread stuffing.

During our stay on Oahu's North Shore, wife Jan and I decided to pay what has become close to an annual visit to nearby Turtle Bay in Kahuku where a exquisite luxury resort is located.  Turtle Bay Resort's spectacular 880 acres are enhanced by huge waves whose presence is irresistible to surfers.  It's one of those places where simply watching waves crash on rocks recall T.S. Eliot's cogent observation: "Time you enjoyed wasting is not time wasted."

The Turtle Bay Resort is democratically located next door to a public beach which means hotel guests, should they become bored with their own impressive swimming pool, have access to it.  A small food/bar featuring burgers, hot dogs and lots of beer has for many years been available to the hoi polloi plus hotel guests who would rather get sand in their toes than loll in an expensive pool deck chaise.

As usual, we checked out the hotel's lobby and shops, then ventured around 2 p.m. into the pool area where we had drinks at the always lively bar now called  Hang Ten.  Turtle Bay has had numerous ownerships and the bar's name has been changed with nearly each new owner.  Seated at the bar (mai tais for $10), I noticed that a woman to my left ordered a medium rare hamburger and my mind leaped to a hallucinatory stream of memorable burger moments at such places as Charlie Beinlich's of Chicagoland's Northbrook, Bob's of The Fourth Corner and expanding, and the memorable Fuddruckers whose burger quality established in the 80s could not overcome controversial management decisions including a much-publicized enforcement of a no-weapons policy believing armed patrons might deter unarmed onces from entering.  When a Boston company like the original Fuddruckers moves its headquarters to a series of Texas communities, guns become an even greater reality and strange things can happen including Chapter 11.  I felt strongly that the little bar at the public place would have something decent and I was curious to see if the folks over at the beach had also packed for Motel 6 as had far too many of those luxuriating by the pool.  Among other shortcomings, Americans have become the unchallenged dress down champions of the world.

Wending our way through the hotel lobby and around a corner to the public beach, we soon discovered that the little bar was gone--probably a victim of island politics aimed at aiding and abetting the hotel's business.  Left to service the beach crowd is Ola's one of those upscale, casual and over-priced restaurants where much of the luncheon food is served at much higher prices in the evening when a rack of baby back ribs is $31.50.  Ola's great attraction is that it is literally on a beach offering memorable views of the pounding surf beyond a reef guaranteeing safe swimming within less than 50 yards of the restaurant.

A well-mannered and attractive young man took our order.  Jan requested a cheese and fruit plate and I opted for a medium-rare hamburger and a Longboarder, a Big Island beer whose popularity on the immediate mainland is reminiscent of Southern California days when the highly-overrated Corona crossed the Mexican border.  Also, I couldn't help recalling those hopeful times when Coor's finally made it from Golden, Colorado to Kansas City and stopped at the Missouri line meaning that those on the Kansas side of the border could get the kick-less suds while Missourians had to, in many instances, take long drives.

The burger arrived an it was a severely charred mess.  Scratch that.  In truth, the meat looked as though the preparer had used a blow torch while the condition of the bun offered further proof that a pyromaniac was roaming the kitchen.  I beckoned the waiter, complained, and he took back the offending hockey puck re-appearing almost immediately.  He asked that I cut the burger to see if I was satisfied.

"Do you see any pink?" he challenged as I applied a knife to what could easily have been identified as Kingford's finest.  It was at that point that I asked the waiter if he had ever heard of "Candid Camera," Alan Funt's great early-on TV fun involving a hidden camera?  I confided in the young man that I had been looking for a hidden camera because I had become convinced that I was being had having been told there is no such thing other than a pitch black hamburger of no interior pink.

Pink-less it was and I began to believe the waiter had determined I was a Honolulu County food inspector, a supposition suggesting the restaurant was on notice regarding under-cooked food leading to those deadly possibilities: E. coli and ptomaine.  After a third incinerated mess had been been rejected, the restaurant's day manager appeared and sat down at our table.  As Inspector Jacques Cousteau once observed in an old Pink Panther film: "There is a time to laugh and a time not to laugh and this is not one of them."  Perhaps even more appropriate would be the unique detective's response to being asked if he had ever experienced the hamburger: "No, it's a disgusting American food."  We were going to get to the bottom of the Case of the Three Incinerated Hamburgers.

The manager was affable and concerned and I gave evidence of knowing that laws vary from city to county to state and that Aloha burgers are probably supposed to be cooked at a minimum of 160 degrees.  Whatever was going on in the kitchen was not going to be revealed by her and her pleasant stone-walling was understandable.  She insisted upon not charging us for the meal and I later learned that, indeed, someone was suing the restaurant, not owned by the Turtle Bay Resort, for a claimed encounter with ptomaine poisoning.  Such are the vagaries of dining with the biggest problems in the kitchen.

Googling produced nothing in the way of complaints against Ola's and it could very well be that the restaurant's sensitivities were put on additional guard by an Associated Press story published last October 14 in which a soldier, based in central Oahu's Schofield Barracks, had damage done to his tongue when he bit into a Triple Stacker at his base's Burger King.  The offending agent was a needle and the soldier required five days hospitalization.

Admittedly, the Case of the Three Incinerated Hamburgers strongly suggests there's a great deal of difference between what happened at Ola's and the Burger King incident in which the quality of meat and the cooking of it had nothing to do with a soldier's chewed up tongue.

All quality restaurants should be able to serve a burger free of potential intestinal problems be the diner's order rare to well done.  The quality and safety of the hamburger meat, produced in this instance by nearby North Shore Cattle Company and served by Ola's, has to be trusted by the restaurant.

Without that trust, I guess a restaurant is suspicious of anyone asking for a medium rare or rare hamburger for fear that person might be a food inspector.  It's a hell of a way to run a business.

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Turtle Bay on Dwellable

Last Laughs....by Bob Sanders

 

I see my regular physician something like four times a year.  The other day, I got the good news that, in his opinion, there are no apparent reasons why my life span should not run another five years.  His words were entirely volunteered and not the result of any prompting on my part.  Assuming he's correct, I will make it at least into my 90s.

His words prompted my thinking about the enormously serendipitous aspects of living a life that appreciates improvisation in a world decidedly inclined to schedule just about everything.  I got to thinking about some of the delightful surprises I've experienced  over the years; with such thoughts come hope there are more down the road.

 

It was early on while working for TV Guide magazine that I found myself in Oklahoma City on the way to the airport to pick up Barbara Nichols, an actress whose charms produced deep conviction by some that she made Marilyn Monroe look by comparison like a boy.  Nichols, who made it into many dignified forms of show business by way of men's magazines, had flown in to bring some added attention to the new Oklahoma Edition of the publication.  It was while driving her to the Skirvin Hotel that I learned she was hungry.

We stopped at a very nice Italian restaurant where the food was good and the conversation sprightly.  Quite suddenly, the actress exclaimed: "Oh, my goodness, there I am," and pointed to a brick wall with an oddly mottled look.  With that, she pulled me out of my chair for a closer inspection.  Our examination revealed a great variety of the more interesting pieces of female anatomy that had been cut from magazines, pasted on the wall, then shellacked.

"Look, there's one of my boobs," she exclaimed, her voice trumpeting a manic sense of pride.  Who would know other than the possessor of it or them or, maybe, Hugh Hefner with magnifying glass in hand?  Later on, she found her derriere although she didn't call it that.

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The Chase-Park Plaza Hotel in St. Louis probably is still going strong and I suspect that public relations there continue to be done by a Mary Chase.  Just as there has been over the course of nearly a century something like 18 Rin Rin Tins, so it has been with the hotel and the myriad Mary Chases.

I met the very attractive Mary in 1956 at a party honoring Nat "King" Cole, the jazz great who had shucked his trio, become a pop singer, and had just acquired a TV show that would be rejected by a number of southern stations because he touched singer Peggy Lee.  More about that one at some future date.  

During a john break at the party, I chatted with pal/disc jockey/newsman Bruce Hayward who informed me that Mary, whom I had promised a resumption of our conversation, was very interested in me.  Married for seven years and alert to the "itch factor," I fled the hotel.  A TV Guide transfer to Atlanta occurred a week later.

During the next three years, I was moved four times eventually landing in Kansas City where my responsibilities included St. Louis.  One evening, I entered the Chase Hotel and there, standing precisely and impressively where I had left her, was Mary Chase whom I had stood up three years earlier.  

"What took you so long?" she asked.

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Tom O'Brien, a retired broadcaster who used t live on Orcas Island, left the party a couple of years ago and I recall his good cheer if only because of a story about musician Boyd Raeburn.

Tom was doing dance band remotes back in the early 40s from such places as the Glen Island Casino and Frank Daley's Meadowbrook.  One evening, O'Brien, then making $25.50 a week, was scheduled to do a remote at Ben Marden's Riviera.  It involved the Boyd Raeburn Orchestra, so progressive it made most other big bands sound funky.

O'Brien was approached immediately before airtime by Raeburn whose name was often mangled by announcers.  "Son, don't mess my name up.  It's Raeburn, Boyd Raeburn, Boyd Raeburn.  That's Boyd Raeburn."

"Yes, sir," replied O'Brien.

The engineer then threw the signal, the trumpet section sounded, O'Brien cupped an ear and intoned: "From coast-to-coast on NBC, it's Roy Boidbrain and his orchestra."

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It was on a lengthy tour of Spain and nearby countries that wife Jan and I checked into The Bajandillo in Torremolinas.  Not far from Gibralter, we quickly gave the hotel the not terribly sober sobriquet: The Banjo Dildo.  The hotel's architecture, U-Shaped, provides water views from all rooms and our second floor location was above a central lobby with the hotel wings angled from us.

Halfway into our 10-day stay, we discovered a laundry problem on a Saturday--bad timing in most countries.  Since our room had a balcony, we washed some clothes and hung them out to dry before setting out for a late lunch.

Returning, we noticed that most of our clothes had fallen to the lobby roof so we put retrieval procedures into motion.  To a wire coat hanger's shoulder was attached a clothesline which I lowered to a position above some underwear, then hooked a pair of shorts.  After a few feet of success, the underwear fell off and I resumed fishing for laundry.  This time I extended the middle of the hanger's base to form a V above the hook.  Although I had never attended an engineering school (a thoroughly laughable notion), I figured an engineer would improve the balance of the coat hanger by doing what I did.  Jan, of course, spelled me during what probably was 20 minutes of mostly frustration.  We finally hauled up the last of the laundry.

It was at that moment that a startling burst of rather deafening applause greeted us from the adjoining wings of The Banjo Dildo.  People, gathered on a great many of the hotel's balconies, either were demonstrating their appreciation of American ingenuity or recognizing our Chaplinesque low comedy.  We treated it as a La Scala moment and bowed graciously from our stage.

During the rest of our stay in Torremolinas, the guests of The Banjo Dildo greeted us with applause and more than one drink was sent our way.  The moral of the story is that loopdy Americans are much more appreciated on foreign shores than ugly ones.

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Living 14 years in Friday Harbor, Washington included a number of reminders that made it clear I was living in a small town.

One of them occurred when Lloyd Benedict and I met over lunch at Fords, a Bar & Grill.  Benedict, a retired insurance executive, had been given the assignment of talking me into becoming president of the San Juan Community Theatre's board of trustees.  We began lunch with straight up Beefeater martinis, then settled back to talk about rutabagas and kings, then matters theatrical.  With drinks reduced to the width of one's small finger, we ordered another round after which our waitress did a silent, awkward, table-side hover.

"Is there anything wrong?" asked Lloyd.

"Well, sir," she responded.  "Those are our only straight-up martini glasses and I guess I'll have to wait for you to finish your first drinks."

The story doesn't end there.  About a year after turning Lloyd down (he took on the trustee presidency himself much as Dick Cheney the George W. Bush administration's vice-presidency), we met once more at Fords where we again ordered martinis and laughed about our prior experience there.  A different waitress this time but the result the same: there were still just two straight-ups in the bar.

Figuring a third questioning would surely be the charm to produce proof of more glasses, I asked the obvious of a co-owner of the re-named Fords--still called Haley's Bait Shop.  A diligent search followed amid much laughter.  That was in 2002, eight years after the first incident.  Four months later, I was assured "we now have six or eight more" although no physical proof was offered.  I think it's time for another martini in Friday Harbor.

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Harry Chan was one of my favorite people and remains so because of memories.  A six-foot third-generation Chinese, he fathered film actresses Meg and Jennifer Tilly while married to a Caucasion.  Harry and I became related by marriage when, after a 15-year courtship, he married my second wife's sister, Susan Christenson.

The marriage took place during a very hot summer in Grand Island, Nebraska and was followed by a reception at a country club.  During the celebration, a quite puzzled little old lady toddled over to Harry.  Commenting about what a good time she was having, the quite elderly woman conveyed her puzzlement.

"Mr. Chan," she began, "I have noticed the mosquitoes are out in full force and they are biting everyone but you.  I don't understand."

"Well, mam," replied Harry.  "Those mosquitoes know that if they bite Harry Chan, they are going to be hungry in 20 minutes."

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Island Life....by Bob Sanders

 

Neither Jan nor I had ever lived in a small town before so I guess the odds were against us when we moved triday Harbor, Washington.  That was in January, 1990 and whatever odds were in play must have been elevated by our having moved from Chicago.

Our discovery of Friday Harbor was one of those fluky things that can work dramatic effect upon lives.  Retired and on a rather lengthy tour of this country's national parks, we had taken a Vancouver Island detour, spent a couple of days in Victoria, then set out for Orcas Island, one of 172 archipelagos that are the San Juan Islands.  Stopping off for lunch at Friday Harbor's picture perfect waterfront, we fell in love with the place, never continued on to Orcas Island, and wound up buying a home some five miles from town.

We quickly learned that not everyone is capable of getting attuned to island life.  Many of the problems can involve attitudinal baggage newcomers might bring with them.;  In settling into a San Juan Island lifestyle, big city types often exhibit an inclination to want things done in, say, a New York way.  Apparently aware of the challenges involved in such situations, New Yorkers pretty much stayed away with the few attempting a rural life achieving collective batting averages not sufficient to play for the Yankees.

The relative isolation achieved by island life was both a blessing and an eventual curse.  As we learned, a limited clinic, while sufficient for mundane medical matters, was not enough for serious situations.  In the general scheme of things, it's one thing to be treated for lower back pain, another for serious gotchas.

Washington State Ferries, the major connector to the San Juans, offered reasonably good service to the island from Anacortes although ferry schedules remain lesser during winter months.  Although it was quite clear to islanders that the ferry system includes a logical extension of highway 20, the state government in Olympia still refuses to buy into the philosophy.  That old debil clout and what doesn't happen when you don't have it is what it's all about.  By the time we left the island more than 14 years later, I think there was an understandable sense of resignation about all matters ferry.

In our early 60s, we determined to embrace island life and quickly became involved in such entities as the San Juan Community Theater, Lions, Whale Museum, the County Fair and Pig War Barbeque.  The latter was started by the wife of the editor/publisher of the Journal of the San Juans.  Memory is a bit murky, but I seem to recall a phone call from her as a result of a feature about me in her husband's newspaper.  Included was mention of public relations triumphs in Chicago and she figured I might be of help in getting the first annual bbq event off to a reasonable start.

The Pig War is about the only war reasonable thinking persons might applaud.  It started in 1859 and lasted 12 bloodless years if you forget about the plugged pig owned by a Brit who lived on San Juan Island.  The shooter, an American, also lived on the island and refused to pay $100 costs demanded by the Brit whose pig had intruded upon the American's potato patch.  Armies faced off on the island where the Brits, with 2,140 soldiers, held a roughly 5-1 advantage.  The sides got along marvelously and the few problems were prompted by the island's enormous stock of liquor.  It was truly a tight little island with Gilbert & Sullivan operettas based upon lesser inspiration.

Jan decided our honoring of the Pig War should involve some kind of Chicago connection--perhaps a team of grill masters whose superiority would recall the notoriety of such Windy City institutions as councilmen, criminals, mayors, precinct captains and the Chicago Cubs.  Recalling Chicago's rich and sometimes inglorious history, we found ourselves confronting an island artist of our choosing who indicated she could create a sign of reasonable significance that would bring attention to our team's name: Pig Al's Trickynoses.  A bit on the serious side (we were never sure the wordplay registered), the artist questioned just what it was we had in mind.

"We'd like a personality logo.  Think of a Chicago gangster wearing a derby.  He has a very tough look and is drawn as a pig.  He's Pig Al, a take-off on Big Al Capone."  Suddenly, the woman's face lit up like the Chicago Theater's marquee.  "Got it," she said, we added a few copy lines and a week later saw proof of her creativity.  The sign was perfect.

The event attracted 22 teams that competed for awards including best ribs (it was an all-pork competition) and best sauce.  Pig Al's Trickynosis (a press release, available at the team's stall, extolled the team's virtues) were aided and abetted by the Hooker Cookers and acappella renditions of songs associated with Chicago.  Many attendees joined in while providing booze of greater intensity than beer and wine to the Hooker Cookers.  The highly attractive HCers were dressed in Chicago 20s style and a couple got more than a little tipsy during the festivities.

Communications on the island were highly interesting.  Islanders but a couple of weeks, we soon found rumor center, a mostly breakfast place called The Donut Shop.  Located on Spring Street next door to Friday Harbor's only cinema, The Donut Shop's apparent rationale for being beyond food was as a starting point for stories of heightened titillation.  Island rumors, their care and feeding, gave evidence of being in the hands of an islander of long duration who claimed he had conducted tests on the spreading of rumors.  A favorite methodology consisted of telling a soon-to-depart for Roche Harbor fellow breakfaster a flawed whopper of incomplete detail.  The amateur sociologist was a firm believer in man's ability to extemporize story components that needed bolstering and whose final form could very well impact the very substance of the original falsehood.  His "studies" often utilized a traveresing of the road from Friday Harbor to Roche Harbor (a community 12 miles away), and the story's return to The Donut Shop brought with it versions of remarkable change.  While not accomplished at a rate as fast as a speeding bullet, the tales of complex altered versions containing such diversities as a town councilman, King's groceries and a bag of cement required as few as 90 minutes to return to its place of origin.

Now living two hours from Friday Harbor, I'm certain the community's direction remains in the hands of five councilpersons and a mayor who guide the citizenry through such challenges as whether or not to post stop signs at intersections ever mindful that the island prides itself on not having a single stop light.  The petunia planters were an entirely different matter.

As we know, capricious government is everywhere and further proven by the Strange Case of The Petunia Planters.  It happened in Friday Harbor and was island comedy relief of 1995-96 while totally devoid of graft--the principal difference between Chicago government and the island.  It was the owners of the Front Street Ale House who wanted to build a deck extension hard by Spring Street, the major connecter from the ferry.  Al fresco dining was the objective but the owners were thwarted twice by councilmanic vote.  During more than two years, the deck, tables, chairs, and petunia planters were in place awaiting the gastronomically-inclined.  The town council believed the deck would force people off the sidewalk into vehicular traffic.

The Ale House appeared to finally win when a teetotaler councilman, having voted twice for the project, suddenly realized the restaurant served booze, then abstained (an interesting word under the circumstances) thus enabling the mayor to break a 2-2 tie coming down solidly on the side of petunia planters.  The mayor's role in the decision was not of great surprise since the mayor had, once again, predictably done the bidding of one of the Ale House owners.

Public outcry ensued and the council went into a monumental dither followed by something of a fulsome funk succeeded by a decision to reverse itself.  The petunias, seemingly ensconced on the deck, were doomed and I wrote a dream sequence column in the Islands Sounder featuring Mayor LaTrivia and council members Bumble, Grumble, Humble, Stumble, and Crumble.

Working with some fellow pranksters and the Ale House people, we organized services plus a petunia procssion similar to a joyous and jazzy New Orleans parade.  Extended life for the petunias was realized when the parade was concluded at a restaurant entrance on Second St. 

A suggestion to the Ale House was irresistible.  Suddenly table-less, chair-less and planter-less, why not initiate a new culinary experience: Japanese dining on floor mats and called Sushi Deck-O-Rama?

That never happened. I do recall that two of the Council members back then consistently referred to those who live in Japan as "Japs."

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Happy Hour....by Bob Sanders

 

Seized by a desire to offer commentary about such significant matters as Martinis, Happy Hours and the current state of Bellingham restaurants/bars, it would appear that a certain amount of caution must be observed.  While I've spent nearly 22 years in the Pacific Northwest, it's also true that but 7 of those years have been in The City of Subdued Excitement.  Subdued City is one of those places where opinions seemingly meet acceptance (sometimes hesitantly) if you possess residential tenure of at least 20 years.

I'm delighted to report that the Happy Hour is alive and well in Subdued City although it's also true that our economic problems have inspired this current emphasis on dining and drinking deals.

If there was a magic year for the Happy Hour gaining traction, it had to be 2008 when our major banks were declared too big to fail thus bringing on the bilious bailout whose aftermath is being managed by the people who got us there in the first place.  Lehman Brothers, stiffed by their financial brethren, are probably still reeling while recalling that 1970 Earth Day Pogo cartoon: "We have met the enemy and he is us."  If, as I'm inclined to believe, there is decided linkage of that Wall Street disaster and the return of the Happy Hour buoyed by the Martini, it appears our more creative mixologists should invent drinks honoring Lehmanites and others damaged by the event.  The range of possibilities is broad and includes: Hurt on the Street, Pants on Fire (for liars only) Toxic Asset, Derivative Meltdown (ice cream involvement, please), Panic Mode, the Hosing Bubble, and Citygrope (last drink of the night).   Should our economic paralysis worsen while reducing the glories of Happy Hour, we may have need for something like the Halfway Measure, a $2.50 half Martini.  Let's be prepared for the worst.

The Happy Hour Martini is currently achieving its zenith locally at the Hearthfire Restaurant whose attractive Bellingham Bay setting is between the Bellwether Hotel and Giuseppe's where Happy Hours also hold forth.  Also nearby is the venerable Anthony's, a highly successful West Coast chain whose members include the Hearthfire.

The Hearthfire and Anthony's have little in common other than ownership and views of the harbor plus the San Juan Islands whose allure is emphatically enhanced by sunsets that make poets eyes mist.  One of those points of demarcation is the Happy Hour (3:30 to 6:30 p.m.) where Anthony's offers a $5 gin Martini whose construction includes a well pour distilled by Monarch.  I'll not comment further other than suggest Monarch quality is to gin what lesser Anheuser-Busch products are to beer.  Classy Hearthfire has designated Beefeater as a well drink thus, at $5, establishing itself as Bellingham premier Happy Hour.

Back about the time I started drinking the Martini, Beefeater pretty much stood alone as the premier gin.  It also was the most expensive in this country and led a rag-tag parade that included Gordon's, Gilbey's, Dixie Bell, Seagram's, Fleischmann's and Hiram Walker.  Today, Beefeater is slightly more than an average priced gin selling in Washington State liquor stores at close to a staggering $50 for 1.75 liters.  Fortunately, there's a Canadian border 15 miles away plus duty-free ferries.  Chicago, where I lived for 22 years (1968-90) was a gin drinker's paradise with Beefeater's available for as little as $12.99 at Sam's located at North Avenue & Halsted.  It's gone along with the $12.99 price.

I probably became aware of the Martini by way of motion pictures viewed while growing up in Lakewood, Ohio.  There were four theaters within easy walking distance and I recall Wiliam Powell often brandishing a Martini while solving crimes as The Thin Man.  Powell exchanged witty dialogue with Myrna Loy in those days when subtlety was understood by audiences and their dog Asta somehow stole scenes from very able actors.

Also closely associated with the Martini was humorist Robert Benchley, probably the most quoted personality in terms of the drink.  During the filming of China Seas,  with Clark Gable and Jean Harlow, Benchley had to spend most of a day floating in the studio's water tank.  Allowed to climb ashore, Benchley announced: "I must get out of these wet clothes and into a dry Martini;."

There have been awkward attempts to credit the comment to others including Mae West but Benchley's, made in 1935, appears to be the winner.  The West version has her writing the line for Charles Butterworth in an exchange with Charles Winninger.  That was for the film, Every Day's a Holiday, but was made in 1937.  I'm probably wrong because the Oxford Dictionary of Modern Quotations credits West.

Champion of the Martini, Benchley led the way for dry proponents.  His solution to just about any problem was gin and "just enough vermouth to take away that nasty, watery look."  So fastidious were some about dryness that shakers were sometimes coated with vermouth, then waved gaily about.  The method was called "in and out."  So decided a fanatic about dryness was Sir Winston Churchill that his pouring gin into pitchers was followed by glances, ever so brief, at a bottle of vermouth across the room.

Then, there's the fascinating case of drama critic George Jean Nathan who rigged an ingenious device in his apartment.  A complicated series of strings and levers were run from his front-door latch to his refrigerator so that when he turned the key to enter, a cocktail shaker in the refrigerator was gently nudged thus readying the Martini for consumption by the time Nathan reached the kitchen.

I've always been fascinated by the Ernest Hemingway Martini stories--particularly the one that took place during the Liberation of Paris in 1944.  Hemingway led two truckloads of highly grubby Free French soldiers into the Ritz Hotel, easily one of the great Citadels of world-class luxury.  There was in the hotel but one employee, a frightened assistant manager who recognized Hemingway as a pre-war guest and volunteered his service.  The writer looked at his scruffy horde and answered: "How about seventy-three Martinis?"

Others in the quotable mix include Johnny Carson who published Happiness is a Dry Martini in 1965.  The late night TV host once commented that "Happiness is finding two olives in your Martini when you're hungry."  Booze commentary without an observation by Humphrey Bogart would be sinful and so it was that Bogie, on his deathbed, uttered a regretful: "I should never have switched from Scotch to Martinis."  He did, however, have the good sense to trade actress wife Mayo Methot for Lauren Bacall.  Quickly, as I recall.

Fanaticism  for the Martini takes many forms and the story is told about a man who walks into a bar and says he wants a very, very dry Martini at a ratio of 25 to 1.  The bartender is a little startled but mixes it precisely.  As he pours it into just the right glass, he asks the customer, "Would you like a twist of lemon peel in that?"  The customer pounds the bar and shouts, "Listen, buddy! When I want a goddamned lemonade, I'll ask for it!"

Martinis at $5 a pop every day from 3:30 to 6:30 p.m. are not all that is attractive about the Hearthfire whose Happy Hour food is a big winner.  Maybe the best item is the "personal pizza," a nine-inch beauty that's just as good as a smaller version available at La Fiamma for three bucks more with a terrific salad featuring pine nuts included.

The Happy Hour is in full swing at The Fountain whose origins are what was a bedraggled Kentucky Fried Chicken operation at Girard & Broadway.  In business for less than a year, The Fountain bears no resemblance to anything Bellingham and, indeed, such ambiance in the blue collar town is a delightful surprise.  It would appear ignorance was blissful in The Founain 's creation with owner Jill Holmes having no prior experience in the food preparation business.  Best item on the French train sandwich-dominated menu are the fish & chips (go for the panko version) with second place going to The Waterfront, subject of a prior column.  The Fountain is a charmer of great, good taste with food available for all meals.  There's even a drive-in window for take-outs thanks to Col. Sanders whose portrait hangs respectfully in the dining room.

The Fountain's bar is a great place for a drink or more with Happy Hours running from 3-5 p.m. and after 9 p.m. Mondays through Friday.  Featured are $5 well cocktails, $4 pints and wine and $3 sliders.  Live music with an emphasis on jazz was available Tuesday evenings on the patio this summer.

Another restaurant favorite and a Happy Hour newcomer is On Rice whose success is so pronounced that there are three of them.  The best is located in Barkley Square, less than a mile east of I-5.  Ordering a traditional Martini in an Asian restaurant is for the highly adventuresome but there's always Singha beer and the mai tai.  An impressive array of appetizers awaits including six pieces of remarkably good Angel Twist for $2.99.

Bellingham's fastest-growing urban village, Barkley has a number of good restaurants with the Happy Hour best represented by Barkley Bob's if you have a coupon in hand.  It's a twofer deal with a free hamburger tossed in if two people order drinks plus a burger, easily Bellingham's best.  As if having the best Bellingham burger is not enough, Bob's (there are five others in Whatcom County) has an outstanding Bloody Mary ($4.75) whose only rival (and 25 cents cheaper) may be found at the Silver Reef Casino north of Subdued City.    

As one might expect, the restaurant business in Subdued City is having a difficult time.  There are upwards of 200 including the fast food variety.  It's all very chancy and three good ones--Nimbus, Flats Tapas Bar and Tivoli--folded recently.  Nimbus, the best of the three, was located on the 14th floor of the city's tallest building with glorious views from the highest point in town.  Nimbus was heavily into Happy Hours that included the first (and best) sliders in town.  A feature: pickled beets as one of several toppings.  Maybe Nimbus was too hip a name for Bellingham.  Perhaps, a more literal The 14th Floor would have been better.  I don't think a $10 Beefeater Martini helped.

My best, largest and most sensationally-poured Martini ever was delivered by bartender Brent Hagen at Barkley Bob's some five years ago.  A guy who could have given Tom Cruise and Bryan Brown pointers during the production of Cocktail, Brent poured what was at least a triple into an outsized glass positioned on the floor of the bar.  The perfect pour of a shaken not stirred non-Beefeater snob gin (Bombay Sapphire) into a smidgeon's worth of Martini & Rossi was accomplished from a height of about six feet (he was sitting on the bar) and included a tincture of Scotch and Cointreau.

Brent and the Martini were superb.

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Damnation to the 'hamnation....by Bob Sanders

 

Normally alert to opportunities likely to help stem the tide of Bellingham's over-population, I must confess failing to follow through on a Reuters story that ranked the Nation's most sedentary cities.  It ran a month ago in Men's Health magazine and I guess I was too distracted by the sandbox immaturity of Congress while wondering how polls could possibly give such clowns a vastly excessive approval rating of 18 per cent?  It was that or my attention was diverted by the 17-game losing streak of the Seattle Mariners.

As readers know, I am convinced that Bellingham, sometimes called the City of Subdued Excitement, would be much better off if we could convince the rest of America this is not the wonderful place so enthusiastically embraced by far too many of the media.  While the press continues hallucinatory insistence, we must remain aware that this damnable "selling" of B'ham occurs at a time when the public fear and loathing of the press may be our ace in the hole; believability, after all, has to accompany errant claims.  And our own trickery and deceit must be in play during all vital occasions.

Prior suggestions, in what adds up to a reverse public relations program, have included the creation of a wide open White Neck Riviera north of town; a slogan: "Tony Soprano's Kinda Town"; and the promulgation of the community's dirty little secret: an intense citizenry mopery based upon a shocking lack of vitamin D due to insufficient sunshine.  The model for the campaign is the monumental work done for many years by Karl Rove for George W. Bush and the GOP.  Oh, yes, citizen mopery is not entirely due to a Vitamin D shortage.  Caffeine comes into play and more about that later.

The sedentary rankings in Men's Health give first place to Lexington, Kentucky, normally renowned as the "Thoroughbred Capital of the World."  Such pronounced passivity was determined through number crunching taking into consideration such aspects as exercise time, the number of households that watched 15 hours of TV a week and bought more than 11 video games a year, plus the rate of DVT.  The latter is one of those rascally blood clots, usually in the leg, and associated with inactivity.

Lexington, battling it out with Indianapolis and Jackson, Mississippi for couch potato honors, was hurt most by the low amount of actual activity or exercise and the high rates of death from deep vein thrombosis (DVT).  There was no mention of The Mint Julep Factor and the amount of consumption effort required while performing elbow extensions and retractions.  

The three most physically active cities, according to the study, are Seattle, San Francisco and Oakland and therein is an opportunity based upon a logical assumption: that Subdued City (or any West Coast community north of the winners) would have to have an active citizenry.  Let's prove it not to be and enhance past success in proving Bellingham is a  four star bummer.  Let's massage that message.

I see this as a call for sloth and not just any sloth.  First off, let's get rid of Ski to Sea.  Let's palm that turkey off on poor Jackson, Mississippi although finding snow there might pose a problem?  Perhaps a highway game like kick-the-can-as-best-you-can, originating 40 miles away in Yazoo City, could suffice.  That lack of snow probably points up a reason for the south doing so poorly in what might be called "The Immobile Sweepstakes."  Southern lifestyles and the accompanying heat without question affected the worst-in-show outcome.  On the other hand, Louisville, but 78 miles from Lexington, finished 19 places behind the winner.  Not to be a conclusion jumper but it could be that folks in Lexington simply spend much too much time watching horses run.  Mobile, Alabama, very deep in the heart of Dixie, was not clocked, a pity for headline writers.

Sloth alone will not win the day for those who call Subdued City home.  Let's ratchet down this love of outdoors and make our fair city famous for being the home of an inordinate number of shirkers, slackers, dawdlers, and sluggards.  In fact, let's approach City Hall with yet another appropriate logo for the city: a slug mounted on a dazzling moss background with the motto: "Bellingham is Green."

We know Seattle as a very big bicycle town so let's draw a sharp contrast by re-introducing penny pitching as a major sporting activity.  Penny pitching is one of those skill games that bring out gambling instincts, costs little, and burns few calories.  The way things are going in this country, pennies might very well be all we'll have left when our financial meltdown is complete.

If we play our cards right, we may very well turn Subdued City into Sedentary City, a transformation that will help combat the plethora of population propulsion stories that keep coming at us with the rapidity of phone hacking indiscretions in England.   

Obesity, and the proper use of it in stemming the horrendous hordes of Fourth Corner invaders, is one of those subjects--at first glance sensitive--yet decidedly worth exploring.  B'ham's St. Joseph Hospital is preeminent in the treatment of heart problems, an odd fact in view of the very large number of terribly obese employees who work highly visible jobs there.  Let's make America think twice about moving here by using folks of such girth in all methods of promoting the hospital.  Included would be insurance company flackery.  We'll call this the Weighty Matters aspect of the campaign.

It's probably too much to hope for, but a great story to tell an America panting to come here would be for one of our town's more sensational fatties to get stuck while exiting a WTA bus.  While thoroughly fatuous, the essence of it calls for, dare I suggest, a little invention.  Let's say the stuck one was attempting to alight at the stop immediately outside the Bellingham Country Club on Meridian.  The story needs a hero and we'll provide one in the person of a two-handicapper with the short-iron talent of, say, Phil Mickelson.  It's all in the wrists and, presto, His Corpulence is wedged out of the bus.

One of the certainties of such a story is pickup by Bill O'Reilly and Talking Point attention based upon O'Reilly's kind of logic that would produce something like: "Bus systems are an excellent example of socialism and emblematic of the dependency far too many people have that, in the final analysis, give them a reason for not buying cars thus helping create the financial mess we're in.  And that's a Talking Point."

Then, there's baseball's popularity with the Bellingham Bells a playoff possibility in spite of a losing season.  While it's too late this year, a changing attitude toward cross-dressing suggests altering the name of the team to Bellingham Belles, dressing the players in drag and delighting in the fun.  We could bring in Tim Gunn and some of those merry fashion designers who entertain us on Bravo.  Perhaps the denizens of "Runway Bound" could draw up some appropriate wear.  Imagine a left-handed hitting Belle attempting to leg out a bunt in four-inch heels.  Among other things, such athleticism would bring new meaning to the term, drag bunt.  

Of more than passing interest as we turn Bellingham into one big turnoff is the matter of coffee.  Included among the online pages of E-Imports is coffee consumption information and, readers, it's worth a Google, if not a deadly giggle.  In determining the penetration of coffee houses in U.S. cities, the number 100,000 population is the measuring stick.  Keep this in mind: The U.S. national average is 1.5 locations per 100,000.  Seattle leads all U.S. cities with 15 per.  That comes to one Emerald City java house for every 7,000 slurpers.  New York's Manhattan runs a very distant second to Seattle.

Now, and here's where it get interesting, the telephone directory of our beloved Bellingham lists 88 houses of Joe--67 in Subdued.  That same directory includes 21 java joints outside Bellingham in Whatcom County.  According to popularion figures, half the county's' 180,000 total is in Bellingham.  

When you run the local numbers, Bellingham has a remarkable one coffee house for every 1,344 'hamsters--more than five times that of Seattle--the highest caffeinated U.S. big city.  This gives us enormous grist for our reverse public relations mill making it imperative to warn America about our caffeine-dominated lifestyles.  While an earlier reference was made linking Subdued to a shortage of Vitamin D, there is much more involved.  Judging from the Mayo Clinic's comments about possible chronic effects of caffeine, a case can be made that Subdued's lethargy is not just due to Vitamin D deficiency but, also, sleep deprivation--and, yes, even narcolepsy.  The mud flood alone is enough to call in Dr. I.B. Spacey, world-renowned master of the medical world and all-around smart-ass.  Readers may recall it was Spacey who exposed Bellingham's lack of Vitamin D nearly three year ago.  More about Bellingham's excessive coffee consumption in a future column.  Meanwhile, take a look at all those yawns around us.

We'll also hold off on details of a fascinating rumor that at least a couple of Subdued coffee houses have made overtures to some of the city's tattoo parlors (there are 11) to share space.  Such further damnation to the 'ham nation is probably not necessary, but you never know?  Just imagine ink being squirted into an arm or a well-turned ankle while others in the immediate area tweet their asses off limiting efforts to the prescribed 140 characters while connecting with Newt Gingrich, Michelle Bachmann or Sarah Palin.

Can't wait for Brewed and Tattooed to become a reality.

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Cutting the Mustard....by Bob Sanders

 

It was during the latter stages of the 1800s that French peasants introduced a method of smuggling uncut diamonds into Belgium.  Holding on high large crocks of mustard into which had been dropped future sparklers, the peasants were known to ask: "Do you know anyone who can cut the mustard?"  Over the years, the quaint term has come to mean success in performing a difficult task.

It is with mustard in mind that I remind faithful readers of the 20th Anniversary of the National Mustard Museum in Middleton, Wisconsin.  A semi-sleepy place immediately west of Madison on the southern edge of bratwurst country, Middleton will host the August 6 event whose entertainment will feature Mustard Stage performances by the Poupon Accordion Band, the Red Hot Horn Dogs, plus magic and mirth by the Duchess of Mustard.  The vaunted Oscar Mayer Weinermobile, having made an appearance earlier this year at the Museum, will not participate although Culver's Frozen Mustard Custard will, again, be a crowd favorite.

The Mustard Museum is the brain-child of curator Barry Levenson whose vision is devoted to a condiment many housewives believe capable of creating the most difficult stain to eradicate.  The Museum's origins are unusual and it was James Earl Jones' imploration of Kevin Costner in Field of Dreams  to keep his baseball field "and they will come" that inspired Levenson.  To be perfectly accurate, Levenson has transformed the museum from a for-profit (as in very little) operation to official non-profit status.  A gift shop and online business remain along with spirited fundraisers such as "An Evening of Mustard Royalty" held April 29.  There is no evidence of truth to the persistent rumor that a cheesehead hat, complete with a dangling eight-ounce jar of your favorite mustard, can be purchased at the gift shop at its Parmenter & Hubbard location.

That term, Mustard Royalty, whirled my mind earlier today.  Suddenly, I recalled a rather odd six months in Rochester, N.Y. during which I managed the Lake Ontario Edition of TV Guide.  By the time I arrived there in the fall of 1957, our weekly circulation had reached 650,000--a number greatly satisfying to any national publication let alone one edition of a major magazine.  Our success was all about water and the regional signals bouncing off Lake Ontario into, otherwise, channel poor places like Buffalo, Rochester, Syracuse and Toronto.  Half our success was achieved in Toronto and environs where the newspapers did a lousy job providing program information.  We also made a lot of non-newsstand money because Canadian breweries, confronted by strict government regulations, begged us to run their ads.  I recall being met on the street outside my office by agency people holding camera-ready art which had to be secreted across the border.  Since the Lake Ontario Edition ws printed in Philadelphia, Canadian liquor laws didn't apply.  On the other hand, the beer ads were making the edition so sudsy the home office agreed that we should limit beer advertising to 15% of each issue.  

During my time in Rochester, I got hooked on a condiment.  A Rochester product, Nance's Pouring Mustard was like no other and it wasn't just the pouring aspect, an industry first.  It was by far the best-tasting mustard I had ever experienced (it remains so) and I had the good fortune to meet owner Jack Delmarle one day in front of our office building.  The introduction was made by John Higgins, the magazine's local ad salesman.  Delmarle was a pleasant fellow and, as events unfolded, fit to be a member of Barry Levenson's Mustard Royalty.  The possibility of selling him advertising was, I'm sure, paramount in Higgins' introduction.  He knew I would rave about Delmarle's mustard and so I did.  Quicker than you could say: "You're never too old to cut the mustard," we were speeding to Nance's Pouring Mustard production plant located southeast of the city limits, as I recall, on East Street.

During the drive, Delmarle filled us in about marketing problems encountered getting his product accepted outside Rochester.  Rather than ship the yellow stuff to nearby Buffalo or Syracuse (where word of mouth probably existed), Delmarle had opted for Los Angeles with shipping costs already threatening the project.  There appeared to be evidence that Jack was without business savvy.

The mustard plant turned out to be a loft whose space was rented from one of five employees.  The tiny operation was reminiscent of a "Bob & Ray" bit of TV lunacy nvolving the Teddy Tinker Peanut Factory where pin-headed Uncle Eugene, a lone figure, sat with hammer in hand as an occasional peanut dribbled down an angled funnel to a "production" line.  Nance's daily output appeared to be about a dozen cases, give or take.     

During the plant inspection of a couple of minutes, I noticed a roll of labels and asked Delmarle if he had any steady customers.  He displayed a list of regulars including Eleanor Roosevelt, a bunch of Manhattan heavy hitters, and a guy who owned controlling interest in Kent Cigarettes.  "He really likes Nance's," said Delmarle.  "In fact, he's coming to town next week.  He wants to talk about a possible investment."  Jack then took us on a verbal tour of his favorite subject revealing an intense love of mustard complete with the kind of detail I'm certain can be found at the National Mustard Museum prompting me to wonder about the romance of condiments and whether or not hot rivalries exist between tarter types, marjoram mahatmas, and the piccalilli people with perhaps a plethora of personal peccadilloes unique to the profession?

We ran into Delmarle 10 days later.

"Hey, Jack," greeted Higgins in a burst of bonhomie so associated with the sales effort.  "How did things go with Mr. Kent Cigarettes?"

"It was amazing," replied Delmarle.  "I can't believe the money he offered me for my business.  I had no idea it was worth that kind of money."

"Did you sell?" we questioned in chorus.

"Hell, no.  What does he know about mustard?"

In researching this piece, I could find nothing about Delmarle.  It's as though he never existed although there is an online picture of a Jack Delmarle who managed the Rochester East High School swimming team in 1922.  That might have been Delmarle's father.  I did find the inventor of Nance's Pouring Mustard.  She was Nance Delmarle, presumably Jack's mother and never mentioned in conversations with him.  Nance's  Mustards (there are 12) exist today and are owned by Baldwin Richardson of Frankfort, Illinois.

According to Baldwin Richardson, Nance Delmarle got enormously creative one day in 1925; days later, she again reached for the condiment stars with a hot sauce for chicken wings.  Not to be a spoil sport, but chicken wing sauce from a mustard mullah made in nearby Rochester in 1925 not only strongly suggests multi-faceted talent but a possible stinging rebuke to Frank Bellissimo's claims of Buffalo chicken wing immortality in the Anchor Bar in 1964.  The City of Buffalo stands by an October 3, 1964 invention date with Chicken Wing Day observed every July 29.

Granted, Buffalo has suffered enough during recent times and it goes far beyond pro football, the city title-less since 1965.  Food sleuth Calvin Trillin, writing in the New Yorker in 1980, did a rather dazzling job shedding light on chicken wing contention including a suggestion that it may have been Teressa Bellissimo, Frank's daughter-in-law, who is the real creator. 

The true importance of chicken wings in Buffalo cannot be overstated as reflected by a Buffalo stockbroker's notion that the city adopt the chicken wing as its symbol.  That was in 1978 and was soon followed by a suggestion that the pro basketball team be called the Buffalo Wings with an enormous statue of a chicken wing located in the city's convention center.  The movement ran out of steam.

Buffalo, a community of questionable self-esteem, has had difficulty knowing what to call itself while drifting through a series of Chamber of Commerce-driven appellations.  The city has gone from "Queen City" to "The Nickel City" to "City of Good Neighbors" while acquiring a povery rate of 30%--neck-and-neck with Detroit and Cleveland.  The sort of good news is that Buffalo offers the Nation's most affordable housing prices although cursory examination suggests that's because it is second to St. Louis in terms of vacant properties.

Just as Barry Levenson needed nearly 20 years to achieve non-profit status in Middleton's mustard museum business, it took a long time for the chicken wing to take off in Buffalo.  Osmosis Jones, a 2001 film starring Bill Murray, included a fictional Chicken Wing Festival thus inspiring Buffalo's Drew (Wing King) Cerza to establish an event now held each Labor Day weekend for the past 10 years.  It attracts a crowd of about 100,000 who consume something like 1,000,000 chicken wings.

There is even a Buffalo Chicken Wing Hall of Fame whose first inductees were Frank and Teressa Bellissimo of the Anchor Bar.  At the risk of offending purists who likely go about the consumption of chicken wings in ritualistic fashion including the daubing into of highly-accepted sauces, maybe it's time to consider an innovation: mustard.  Perhaps a Middleton/Buffalo mustard-for-chicken wings trade off of sorts (make mine Nance's Honey Mustard) could be achieved thus enriching both milieus?

Hey, it might fly.

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Blarney Google....by Bob Sanders

 

A highly personal survey of little breadth and depth has been conducted by your trenchant observer and my overwhelming conclusion is that while Google gathers an impressive amount of information, that information is becoming increasingly difficult to access.  My point of reference is purely about what I write proving, once again, that there is nothing like the one-person survey. 

It's not that I want to be unnecessarily critical of Google because I don't know enough about cyberspace to form any reasonable attitudes.  I'd be on much firmer ground telling Sarah Palin how to shoot a moose.  On the other hand, I do have questions.

For starters, I'm perfectly amenable to admit that I blog myself.  I'm sure it's partly an ego thing but that wouldn't be a consideration were it not for TypePad under whose auspices I write after paying them $50 or whatever a year.  I write because I like to write and if anyone out there wants to take a look, so be it.  In another life of lesser freedom, I got paid but there were usually unfortunate accompanying factors including editors, copy readers, and space limitations; the latter a constant reminder of how vastly amusing it is today that far too many people cannot put together two paragraphs that make some sort of sense and that any possible literary merit contained in a twitter is highly unlikely because of the 140 characters (or whatever it is?) limit.  Shakespeare and some others with pen in hand have rendered some pretty compelling short lines. "To be or not to be" comes to mind as being of less than the twitter maxim and it's possible that twittering twits believe that brevity is the soul of twits.  No doubt we should remind ourselves that Will and others also had a decent handle on spelling without the benefit of a spell check often disregarded today.

TypePad can tell me each day how many "hits" I get and on what pieces.  Thus far, as I approach the end of my third year while still in search of a muse, my most popular columns have been about Hugh Hefner and a flying ape, Playmate Paige Young, Forest Tucker, Jean Shepherd, and retired film director Andrew McLaglen.  One day I got 90 hits on the McLaglen piece, a personal high.

Googling myself is somewhat reminiscent of searching for time share possibilities.  It was easy in the early stages of that game.  A year's advance search usually was sufficient with southern France, the Greek islands, and anywhere in Italy Blake Griffin slam dunks.  Even southern California was available for masochists.  Suddenly, it was a numbers game as time shares became more popular while new resorts and b&bs failed to keep pace. 

That's the way it has been for me lately.  As seemingly reliable as unending ocean waves, the Google information gathering goes on and on while shoving the once easily-retrieved (my stuff) to positions of increasing difficulty.  What used to be comfortably located on page six or earlier apparently is now in some kind of cyber netherworld.  Maybe a clue like: "you're on page 117" would be helpful.

Good news arrived the other day when the Indianapolis Colts released the highly-skilled but often-injured Bob Sanders.  A wide-ranging defensive back, Sanders not only shares my name but winds up in what I consider "my space."  Let's get this straight, Google.  There's Bob Sanders who used to tackle for the Colts and the one with the same name who writes out of Bellingham, WA.

I  dislike being critical of Google, a first love of sorts since I've never really embraced any other search engine.  A Microsoft person, I'm within kissing distance of Bing but until the other day inclined to regard it as something likely  promoting cherries or America's first pop singer.  Bing is Microsoft's recent venture into the search biz once again proving that it's better to be late than sorry.  Most revealing in my uneasy relationship with Google occurred the other day while searching unsuccessfully for Sanford Jarrell, the black sheep of the journalistic Jarrell family.

I never met Sanford but he was always (still is) Uncle Sanford to me.  That was because my second wife, prior to our marriage, was Mary ("Mickey") Jarrell Sheridan and Uncle Sanford the possessor of unique fame.  It was Sanford who pulled off what journalists consider one of the great all-time newspaper hoaxes and, maybe, the best.

Let us at this point examine two quite different shadings of newspaper hoaxes.  One kind is perpetrated, usually by the talent-challenged, to keep a career going through cheating.  Newspaper hooligans Janet Cook, ex of the Washington Post,  and Jason Blair, formerly of the New York Times, are examples.  Both plagiarized the work of others while Sanford's approach was much more creative and done during those times when editors were known to encourage reporting that, while highly readable, sometimes skirted the truth.

The year was 1924 when the reportorial reprobate of the Jarrell family gained more fame than his two ink-stained brothers, Jack and Arch.  Employed by the New York Herald Tribune,  Sanford titillated readers with a series of five front page reports about a fabulous gambling ship off Fire Island beyond the 12-mile limit.  The ship, the Friedrich der Grosse, came complete with ladies of the evening who danced on tables amid Niagaras of liquor.  Sanford's only clue concerning the veracity of the series came from a red-headed flapper who reportedly shouted an unlikely comment: "This is an epic lark."

The story was a series of falsehoods originating in Jarrell's fervid imagination.  He had phoned all of it in--mostly from a bar not far from the paper.  He lost his job, became an itinerant newsman, and died in a fire caused by smoking.  Time magazine's obituary included a picture of the Herald Tribune's  play of Sanford's entertaining deceit.  His call-in coverage had produced a first-day headline reading: "Wine, Women, Jazz and Revelry Turn Night to Day on Mystery Ship."  Those were Prohibition days when thirsts were parched by illegal booze.  The only real harm was to Sanford.

One evening in 1978 while employed by Field Enterprises, owner of the Chicago Sun-Times, I was having dinner with the paper's managing editor, Stuart Loory.  Present were our wives and the conversation turned to Loory's work for Sanford Jarrell's old paper, the Herald Tribune.  Warming to his subject, Loory (currently a professor of Magazine Journalism at the Missouri School of Journalism) delved into Uncle Sanford's accomplishment and remarked: "That was the magnificent hoax of all newspaper hoaxes.  It was pulled off in remarkable fashion by a reporter named Sanford Jarrell."

Warming to Loory's chortling enthusiasm, I said: "Stuart, my friend, you are sitting next to the niece of Sanford, the black sheep of the Jarrell family."  Loory was impressed.  Mickey beamed and we hoisted one to Sanford.  In toasting the juiced journalist, we concluded he had upheld at least half of a once popular publishing dictum: "Liquor is the curse of the Herald Tribune and sex is the bane of the Times."

The newspaper hoax is, curiously enough, of little interest to Google.  About all you'll find are brief if not downright dull snippets.  Perhaps the best is H.L. Mencken's fun with the bathtub.  Titled "A Neglected Anniversary," his column recounted a rich history of the bathtub in which President Millard Fillmore was the first chief executive to bathe in a White House tub--probably the most exciting thing to happen to him in his term of office except that everything in the column was untrue.  It took a long time for America to dissuade itself of Mencken's collection of bathtub "truths."

While completely ignoring Uncle Sanford's 1924 exploits, Google does manage to examine the rather tame Chicago Pigeon Killing Hawk hoax initiated by the Chicago Journal, and promulgated in bizarre fashion by a suddenly zealous Chicago Tribune.  Chicago had been put in an uproar by a Journal reporter whose story about a predatory chickenhawk prompted similar revelations by other Chicago dailies then numbering six.  Hunting parties roamed Second City streets.  Where was the hawk, when would it strike again and how about those Boy Scouts joining the search?

Ignoring the pigeon killing hawk for newspapers then was like cable and network news today taking a pass on Charlie Sheen and so it was that Journal  editor William J. Finnegan ordered a serial be written for his paper.  His problem: no self-respecting reporter was willing probably because word that the giant pigeon-killing hawk might be a hoax was being bruited about.  Finnegan wrote the series later calling it "trash."  More than 80 years of investigative journalism have passed and it appears that one large hawk did kill a pigeon although it is uncertain whether or not a hoax had actually occurred. 

Having been disappointed by Google, I turned to other search engines including Yahoo Search, Lycos, Sphere and Bing.  Pay dirt was mine with the latter and I was able to punch up some past stories about such worthies as Ronald Reagan, Carol Burnett, Sun-Times editorial cartoonist John Fischetti, Fourth Corner jazz singer Trish Hatley, Walter Annenberg, Elliott Roosevelt, Larry King and others I've had the good fortune to know.

So far I've failed to meet Sarah Palin but, as that old song by Harry Revel and Mack Gordon goes: "You Can't Have Everything."  

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