May 2008 Archives

RECOUNT, the HBO movie based on the Florida recount in the 2000 Bush vs Gore election is great movie making. Jay Roach has done an incredible job.
Every aspect of the film -- the casting, the visual details, the performances are all memorable.

    The fact that we know the outcome yet the movie puts you on the edge of your seat is tribute to how good it is. Kevin Spacey gives his best performance in years as Ron Klain the democratic operative; and there is (yet another) amazing performance from Tom Wilkinson as James Baker.

RECOUNT does a great job of humanizing Baker, and providing a compelling portrait of a man that I have long thought ill of --- chief among them his reported comments about Jewish voters.

But all the performances are great including Laura Dern's loopy but credible performance as Katherine Harris.

Kudos to Danny Strong for the script and Jay Roach  for  making a  great, great film.

Arts Journal's featured video today is Louis Armstrong and Danny Kaye singing a duet version of "When the Saints Go Marching in" It's available on You Tube, click here

You might think it's corny, but it swings -- Danny Kaye, a complicated man, was full of awesome talent -- check it out!

This weekend my family and I went to the Los Angeles County Museum and visited  the Broad Contemporary Art Museum. We had a great time -- the art is great, well selected, well edited, well installed and displayed and the exhibtion is well organized. There is a great flow -- as you walk from the early Warhols to Jeff Koons work, from there to Damian Hirst -- as you appreciate the Liechtensteins, the Rauschenbergs and the Johns and finally the wonderful Serra on the ground floor -- it is all very accessible.
    At the time of BCAM's opening I was qute rough on LACMA and Broad, There were a number of things that ticked me of, and still do:
The space is called the Broad Contempary Art Museum -- not the Broad Gallery or the Broad pavillon; Broad's art is loaned not donated; by displaying his art for the first year, he is increasing its value -- the  Renzo Piano architecture itself seems like a collection of ideas used more innnovatively elsewhere -- there's an outdoor esclator, like the Pompidou, and outdoor garden, like the Getty and so on. Finally BCAM was supposed to be part of a renovation of the entire LACMA campus, part of a 3 part plan over a decade -- but the truth is that it is a new building that is essentially its own campus, and the rest will come, if it all, whenever.....
    HOWEVER, despite those objectitions which I still stand by, BCAM is fun, and there were crowds there on Monday, Memorial Day, when admission was free thanks to TARGET. It is in fact a great addition to our town and will no doubt draw tourists and residents alike and expose them to contemporary art.

    Another legendary Hungarian Jew passes from this mortal coil -- another famous Hungarian Jewish photographer dies.

Cornell Capa began life as Kornel Freidman in Budapest in 1918 (strange as it may seem Kornel was a popular name for assimilated Jews at the beginning of the 20th Century -- My grandfather was also named Kornel).

Capa was known as a photographer, as someone who preserved and continued his brother Robert's legacy, as a photojournalist in his own right for Life and for his role at Magnum, the United Artists of photo agencies, and also known for founding and for his stewardship of New York's International Center for Photography (ICP)

Read the New York Times obit here.

You hear someone's name and then see the person, and it's their son (or daughter).

The other morning I had the TV on and I heard the name Benno Schmidt, which I imagined referred to my ex- Law School professor and occasionally actor in Woody films only to see his son, who is now an on-camera reporter.

Another one bites the dust.

Florent, a French bistro in a diner in what was once the meat-packing district is closing its doors June 29. There was an oral history of sorts in the NYTimes this Wed to bid Florent "Au Revoir".

Florent was open 24/7 which was a plus in the clubbing days but more recently it was also a good place to go when, arriving in New York from LA around midnight, I wanted to have dinner and the whole Upper East Side was shut down.

Actually, one funny visit occured last year when we arrived in the City around 11, and my daughter was starving -- every place was closed so we hit upon going to Florent -- where despite it being midnight and some of the pre- and non breeders gave us the hairy the staff treated her with delight, serving pasta, french bread and a glass of milk.

One day hence, somehow will be talking about the Florent that was, or she will read about in a book, and say, "My parents took me there when I was a child."

Just got my copy of Deanne Stillman's MUSTANG: The saga of the Wild horse in the American West (Houghton Mifflin).

Mustang has received great blurbs from Ian Frazier, Michael Blake (Dances with Wolves), Tony Hillerman, Samantha Dunn, John Fusco and Deena Metzger and that's just on the book jacket.

Stillman is one of the great narrative non-fiction prose stylists --- and with Hunter Thompson gone, that list just got shorter. Thompson, by the way, called Stillman's 29 Palms "a strange and brilliant story by an important American writer." -- and yes, Deanne is an old friend, and yes, I've tried to set up some movies with her -- but mostly we've been supportive of each other in this long haul called a writing career.

If you love horses, if you love great writing, if you care about the American West, you'll love Mustang -- that's my blurb without even reading the book yet.

Yesterday's Wall Street Journal featured an article on the ever-busy Marvin Traub, retail consultant. I'm not sure you can access it if not a subscriber but try here.

Traub ran Bloomingdale's for forty years. I was his co-author for "Like No Other Store" (Times Books). He now has a new tome in the works "Like No Other Career" a sequel of sorts about his post Bloomie's career and his thoughts on 21rst Century retailing. Traub is 83 and he just keeps on keeping on, from event to event, consulting in Russia, Europe the Far East, and the Arab Emirates. God Bless him.

One of his clients is Kira Plastinina, the 15 year old Russia girl who financed by her father, is launching her fashion designs in 20 stores across the US including 3 in LA (one is about to open on the 3rd Street Promenade).,

There is something going on at the supermarkets.

Yesterday I walked into the Ralph's at Barrington and Olympic. They are opening a branch of Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf there, next to a working branch of Wells Fargo Bank, complete with ATM. I also found one end cap devoted to a wireless store, selling phones and accessories and another was a gift card display where you could buy giftcards from retailers, restaurants, even jet blue, and Amex. They were also selling outdoor furniture. All this and food, fresh vegetables, prepared foods, bakery, deli.

It makes we wonder: is the supermarket trying to return to the old General Store. And will all these new offerings actually be good for business or just a distraction?

It's one of those questions I'm asked a lot and one I ask others, so
here goes. Most recently I've read:

Blood Sucking Fiends by Christopher Moore. Read this on the plane rides to and back from New Orleans. Vampire and slacker lover in San Francisco. Entertaining enough but started out better than it finished. Years ago I was involved in developing a film adaptation of Moore's Coyote Blue -- which never went anywhere. Ah well!

I was told there'd be cake by Sloane Crosley. The personal essays of a young upper middle class assimilated to the vanishing point suburban Westchester college educated New York-living magazine and book publishing working 29 year old --  don't know how charming she is in person, but she sure is on the page. Although some of the essays are longer than my attention span, I found myself consistently interested. That being said, if pressed, I just remembers shards of the essays: she collects toy ponies given by ex boyfriends, something about having a Christmas Tree, stuff about her mother and jewelry, living on the upper west side with a roommate, attempts at a one night stand -- I don't know either I'm losing my mind (possible) or I need the book in front of me as a cue (probable). Anyhow, I would read more of her writing and how often does one say that?

You don't love me yet by Jonathan Lethem - Slight but fun. The story of members of an LA rock band who have a moment and then tear apart, with loads of sex --- like Benjamin Kunkel's Indecision,  it reminds you of a certain moment in life (youth, ambition, promiscuity --others if not your own)

Otherwise, I'm somewhat in a reading funk. Lots that I should be reading, little I'm excited to read. I started the Jumpha Lahiri, and It's good, -- really good -- but I feel it's more a book to read on a trip than one to zip though on a weekend. I stated Charles Bock's Beautiful Children but I stopped and haven't started again.

I suppose I'm waiting for BookExpo, the bookseller's convention, when I will collect an impossible number of books and then have more than I can ever read to pick among.

You could do worse than read Alissa Quart's article " Lost Media, Found Media" in the current Columbia Journalism Review.

She tells it like it is, and how it may be......

Saturday night I met a woman who works for couchsurfing.com

You could take a few guesses but let me explain: Couch surfing is a network of people who will let you crash on their couch -- yup, the internet has updated the old network of crashpads -- and some have become practically evangelical about it.

As Extreme Capitalism continues on its merry path, with $3 billion hedge fund earners, and  $1000  legal fees, it seems only natural that others would run the  other way from a materialistic world. As a result there is a growing movement of people looking to simplify -- give away their possessions, exchange goods and services in a barter fashion, and a whole network of couch surfers.
 
It's a trend... let's see who capitalizes on it.

I've been hearing that Obama wants to put an end to all the rumor mongering and internet chatter suggesting that he will not be an advocate for Israel's security. My reaction to this info was that Obama should stop pussyfooting around -- no more nuanced conversation and put himself in a  place where he can answer the tough questions and be on the record.

My specific suggestion was that he speak or be interviewed at the American Jewish Press Association conference in Washington, DC in the next few weeks (this is the convention of all the Jewish newspapers in the country).

    But the rapid response team has done better and quicker (and I mean in no way to imply that my opinions were even conveyed to Obama's team -- this is just "in the air").

Anyhow in swift sequence Obama gave a speech on the occasion of the 60th anniversary of the founding of Israel, and an interview with Jeffrey Goldberg of the Atlantic.

Goldberg, author of "Prisoners" about his experiences as an American zionist who served in the Israeli army and the Palestianan he guarded and befriended and their lives since -- asks Obama pretty much all the questions one could ask on the subject, including one about Hamas, Olmert, and Jimmy Carter (although I promise if given the opportunity I'll come up with a few more).

Goldberg did a very good job, responsibly, and anyone interested in Obama's stance on Israel should read it here

There's a new website called "Mindful Mom" -- about the practice of "mindfulness" in the everyday life of Moms.
You might justifiably ask how in the world I know anything about this
The answer is simple: They asked to run a part of my column on Dutton's closing and I know Susan Kaiser Greenland who is the person behind the site.
Check it out! www.mindfulmom.com

One could arrive on Sawtelle avenue at the edge of West LA and spend a day wandering the few blocks between Santa Monfica Blvd and Olympic Blvd -- looking at the Japanese video and game stores, the hip sneaker shops and comic stores, and you could eat for several days wandering from restaurant to restaurant, food emporium to food emporium.
 
This Sunday, Mother's day, found us at my wife's new favorite discovery the LITTLE HONG KONG CAFE -- with the paucity of good chinese food on the westside, this is a welcome addition. Everything we had was great, including the wonton soup, a chicken with eggplant dish, a filet of sole special, and a rice noodle dish. Service was friendly and helpful. The restaurant is near Olympic on the west side of the street in the min mall that houses Hurry Curry and several other great eating places, which will be reviewed another time.

After lunch, we wandered to the Olympic Collection, the mall at the corner of Sawtelle and Olympic which houses a pastry shop called CAKE HOUSE and the inevitable PINKBERRY --

Across the street is Papa Beards which sells fresh baked cream puffis which you watch as they inject with the filling of your choice, such as vanilla, chocolate or strawberry -- we got a box of those as a gift.. the  fresh baked smell is enough to make you salivate.

Then we headed into the Japanese market there, where my daughter found herself in Pocky heaven -- Why Japanese cookies, candies and snacks look so cool, and seem so much interesting than American fare is anyone's guess.

I have long wanted to do an article/book where I go from one end of Fairfax Blvd to another writing about every shop and eating at every restaurant. Well, I am sure Sawtelle could fill a book and would take several trips to fully investigate a much shorter distance.

You might think that I'm using any excuse to showcase this photo of me and Dr. John

and you would be right!

But I do have a story to tell. When I met Dr. John last Wednesday night  outside Tipitina's in New Orleans, he asked where I was from.

"Los Angeles," I told him

"I know some people there," he said.

I offered that I knew someone he knew in Los Angeles, Stewart Levine" (a producer Dr John has worked with)

"I know two Stewart Levines in Los Angeles," Dr John said, "And one of them is an asshole. Which one do you know?"

Ian Brown is a Canadian journalist who has won about every award there is to win in Canada. He is on staff at The Globe and Mail in Toronto where he lives.

Earlier in the year Ian wrote a long series, "The boy in the moon," about his severely disabled son Walker.

It is a moving feature and from a writer's point of view, he has pushed himself to go to uncomfortable places and reach for an honesty that is to be commended and which makes this article memorable.

The Globe and Mail is to be commended not only for publishing it, but also for the excellent photos and video they have created to go along with the piece, which were nominated for a Webby Award.

He is currently expanding it into a book.

I know, I know, I've been on deadline on a bunch of things, and the items I want to post keep adding up:

So Let me share some quickly

Mark Sarvas read at Village Books Tuesday night from his novel "Harry, Revised" to an appreciative crowd, and I got to meet his bride, Mrs TEV (The elegant Variation is Mark's blog)

At the reading was the very talented Rachel Resnick, my writing guru, whose memoir Love Junkie will be published shortly by Bloomsbury.

There will be a reading at M Bar/ Word Theater in Los Angeles on May 28 at 8PM

Three years ago in the summer Katrina devastated New Orleans. The following May a group of us went to New Orleans for Jazzfest to support a city we loved by being tourists, by spending money in its restaurant and hotels, in its clubs and stores by attending Jazzfest.

At that time we toured the 9th ward where the levee broke Despite what I had seen on the news, in print and on TV, despite that it was 9 months later, the devastation was mind blowing: houses off their foundations, cars on top of houses, houses on top of cars, for blocks and blocks.

Now three years later, the levee is repaired, and the debris had pretty much all been removed. Apparently most of the removal had taken place last year. Now a few houses, new construction, or fema trailers stood alone surrounded by tall grass. No services, no schools, no hospitals nearby.
 

We drove block after block, the absence speaking volumes. We went over the bridge and saw the block Harry Connick has been supporting, his musician's street that is featured in commercials and it does look like the start of a neighborhood. But the reality is in the gap between what was and what is

.

Yes, three years later, New Orleans is coming back. But it is coming back slower, with less people, less services, a weaker economy than before.

New Orleans is also suffering because of a general slow down in the economy. Not as many people are choosing to drive because of the price of gas, not as many business people are attending conventions.

New Orleans does good business during Jazzfest -- but after -- well, things are still tough.

Saturday night found all of us wandering around Frenchmen Street, visiting the clubs there, from the Dragon's Den where a combo of guy on mac, guy on drums and guy on turntable jammed together.

Over at the Blue Nile there was a great band called Toubab Krewe -- a bunch of white guys playing exotic African instruments -- it was sort of the David Byrne / Talking Heads / Fela Kuti influenced "remain in light" sound taken to a trance level.





Sunday I worked in one more outrageous meal at Commander's Palace. Commander's reopned after 18 months with a multi-million dollar renovation to make it look like it always did --  Easter brunch year round. the Blood marys were reportedly excellent, I had perhaps the best cosmopolitan I've had in New Orleans, I had an incredible chicken and andouille sausage soup, --the famous turtle soup was terrific, the eggs sardou remain true to classic, but a steak and eggs was off the charts --- but all is prelude to the bread pudding. Such was a perfect ending to a classic meal.

PS. Harry Shearer and Judith Owen were at the next table

This deserves more detail but just want to put it out there: this comes as no surprise because everyone says so, but the best restaurant right now in New Orleans (or thus far in my eating adventures) is August.

I will go in greater detail at a later date but every course was fantastic as was the room and the service -- all great.
I'm going to recommend a beet salad that had the most amazing lardons and fried black eyed peas, a duck breast, that was incredible (almost too rich to finish, if you imagine me saying that) -- the parmesan crusted lemonfish was amazing -- and the deserts also off the charts -- a winner.....

The most moving moving moment was hearing Marcia Ball's rendition of Randy Newman's "Louisiana." Heartbreaking....

Despite early morning rains, the sun came out as did the people to play at Jazzfest


People at Jazzfest were dancing in the mud

Saw quite a few great bands


there were the jazz hounds of Tokyo a traditional New Orleans jazz band --- straight from Tokyo




Spent some time in the gospel tent

Perhaps one of the highlights was seeing The Roots. Here are pictures of  Questlove and their set list


But the surprise was seeing Ludacris come out and perform a few numbers


Ludacris is now my new best friend




Here's my buddy George Rush or Rush & Molloy on the job interviewing Ludacris



What was Ludacris doing there? He's part of a new show to begin airing on Aug 3 on Planet Green in which he and Tommy Lee travel to various places and end up having some positive charitable or environment impact -- in New Orleans I think they did a benefit -- it's called "Battleground Earth" -- and I'll have more details as we get closer to air date.

A couple of quick food notes:

John Besh (August) new restaurant Luke (with an umlaut over the u) is an Alsatian French restaurant where I had the best raw oysters thus far in New Orleans -- with Ueglesich's no longer in business -- Lukes makes an impressive showing. The food was really good -- there was a fried oyster and lardons salad with a green goddess type dressing and an onion tart --we ordered another round they were so good their choucrote filled with various sausages and meats was the winner of the evening (The schnitzle was too heavy). They had redfish as well, but thus far the best redfish is at Vizard's

Last night we went to NOLA emeril's restaurant, which had now has three floors going and here's the thing: the appetizers were all excellent -- and roasted oysters were done escargot style and there was a duck confit pizza with an egg on it but the main courses were good but not exceptional.

Day two of Jazzfest was cloudy --which made the temperature just perfect. That is, until the rain came which did in intermittent showers that never really stopped or deterred anyone from making or listening to music.

Among that artists we saw were:

Art Neville from the famous Neville family.




John Hammond, the famous folk, blues performer



and Mr. Steveland Wonder, Stevie Wonder to you.

It rained a couple of times while Stevie was playing. Here's the crowd in the rain.

What food did we try today at Jazzfest: Fried green tomatoes, crayfish fritters, crawfish bread, peach cobbler  were all just fine. In fact, just writing about them is making me hungry all over again!

Day one at Jazzfest:
Thursday was a hot one, with the occasional clouds and wind giving a break. But there was a healthy crowd there for a Thursday and some fine music as well.

Although I walked around and dabbled here and there I ended up spending most of the day at the Gentilly tent. It was a sort of New Orleans greatest hits.

Sammy Ridgely and the Untouchables cooked up a set of Otis Redding and other hits you would recognize but made them his own.

Kermit Ruffins, trumpeter par excellence, is the inheritor of Louis Armstrong's mantle -- he has become one of the favorite interpreters of classic and modern New Orleans music, and he delivered a set that was a love song to New Orleans including Professor Longhair classics.

Then Randy Newman took the stage. Now Newman has got himself to a place where he can make a song out of conversation, and his piano playing is masterful -- so he played some new songs -- about how the world hates us but we're not bad as some others before us -- a song about all the old performers who are still touring ("You're dead, but you don't know it) and some classics.

Newman told the crowd that he was down in New Orleans with a bunch of Disney and Pixar execs (he said Toy story made about $7 Billion and that his song for that movie had made them about $4,378 ) recording songs for a new animated film "The Frog Princess", he played a song that he said they had recorded that afternoon with Dr. John doing the vocals.

So the good Doctor is in the house, doing some Disney work as well. Turns out the good Dr is staying at our hotel here The Monteleone.

Now as I write this Dr John has ambled into the offices WWOZ the legendary New Orleans radio station (that you can listen to online).

I hope they archive it and you can listen to it, because that's it's like eavesdropping -- they just talkin talkin talkin

"Music is the language of New Orleans," is the Mayor's slogan Dr John explained," because nobody here speaks the same way."

In my travels around the city, I've been having conversations about how it's all going post Katrina. One cabdriver, who grew up in Los Angeles, told me he moved to New Orleans post-Katrina, working construction and clean up, which he said was good pay until a lot of other people got the same idea and the work slowed down. He started driving a cab then then, and said that he has stayed in New Orleans because he not only really likes the city, but because he really likes the people. "There's a lot of goodness here." He said.

Another cab driver told me that when Katrina happened, his married daughter was in Norfolk Virginia and couldn't get to back to New Orleans. Her husband ended up getting a job, and she did too, and then they had twins. And he doesn't know if she's coming back. He said she came down at Christmas and he took around to show her how things are coming back and it made her realize she misses it here. But the schools and the hospitals are still not completely back up to speed, he said, so he's not sure whether she will move back or not.

The manager of the Camellia Grill told me that he was closed for 18 months, and that almost all his staff left the city. When the restaurant reopened he managed to get 80% of the staff back.

My waiter at the Camellia Grill (who's pictured in the blog) told me that during the 18 months that the Camellia Grill was closed he was in Miami. He said when he first got there he wasn't sure he would adjust. But he did, he said smiling. He really liked Miami. He came back to New Orleans, but he's thinking of going back to Miami. In fact so many Camellia Grill people were in Florida and so many New Orleans folk went to Florida that they are talking about opening a branch of the Camellia Grill in Tampa and one in Miami -- and our waiter would go and work there.

So every one's story in New Orleans is different. But as you drive along the streets, there's a lot of new construction, new stores, new restaurants. And a lot of the old restaurants have reopened. Some of them don't have the same staff -- things are different but it seems like NEW ORLEANS is RISING!!!

The most caloric meal that I ever had -- and that I continue to have -- is at the famous Camellia Grill. Katrina closed the Camellia Grill for 18 months -- but The Camellia Grill is back -- as good as ever. 

Now you might wonder what is so special about the Camellia Grill, and what could one possibly eat there?

I'm glad you asked.

How about a Chili Cheese Omellette -- where the eggs are whipped to airy fluffly delight in a blender normally used for milk shakes.



Would you like a closer look at the omelette?


Or would like you to hear about the pecan waffles cooked on a special grill?

Or how about the pecan pie cooked on the grill and served a la mode?



And that's just my meal.... there are some awesome bacon cheeseburgers fully dressed (i.e., with the works) and club sandwiches and many other wonders to savor.

Kind of makes you want to head to New Orleans?