Monthly Archives: March 2012

First We Take Manhattan

Posted on by Bill Chance

“There is a crack in everything.
That’s how the light gets in.”

― Leonard Cohen

A bit back, I was checking on the sales of Lana Del Rey’s album – in a sort of morbid curiosity on the outcome of a pop culture bloodfeud that I cared nothing about, but was guiltily interested in. Her album busted out on the charts, hovering around the top non-Adel spot, battling with another album by Leonard Cohen. That interested me… I knew who Leonard Cohen was, but I didn’t know who Leonard Cohen was.

Of course, I was familiar with Hallelujah. For a long time, I assumed that old chestnut was a personal cry of lusty woe from Jeff Buckley. But it was written by Cohen… and covered by everybody in the world.

It was made famous for the unwashed masses by Rufus Wainwright version in Shrek. I have always liked the fact that a very successful Dreamworks Children’s movie had a song with the subversive lines, “I remember when I moved in you, the holy dove was moving too, and every breath we drew was Hallelujah.” Yeah kiddos, figure that one out.

 Any startling piece of work has a subversive element in it, a delicious element often. Subversion is only disagreeable when it manifests in political or social activity.

—-Leonard Cohen

I knew that he was a titan of music, but somehow his genius had slipped by me. So I set about cruising youtube and wikipedia and the library’s collection of music and text and immerse myself and learn something.

 “Avoid the flourish. Do not be afraid to be weak. Do not be ashamed to be tired. You look good when you’re tired. You look like you could go on forever. Now come into my arms. You are the image of my beauty .”

― Leonard Cohen

I learned I had been a huge fan all along.

The first song that leaped out at me was “Everybody Knows.”

“a kite is a victim you are sure of.
you love it because it pulls.”

― Leonard Cohen

It reminded me of something, something amazing, and it didn’t take me long to remember the song on the soundtrack of Exotica – one of the great films by Atom Egoyan (it wasn’t up to the quality of the shattering “The Sweet Hereafter” – but what is?) and played during a strange, erotic, and disturbing semi-strip scene at a semi-strip club. The sound and images are searing.

Then there is Leonard himself singing the song… a real heartache.

“Children show scars like medals. Lovers use them as a secrets to reveal. A scar is what happens when the word is made flesh.”

― Leonard Cohen, The Favorite Game

Then I came across the song “First We Take Manhattan.” This is probably my favorite Cohen song. I actually remember it best from an REM recording. An excellent version is by the female singer Jennifer Warnes. The eighties video features eighties dancers running down a street for no reason at all, Cohen himself looking mysterious, and, best of all, Stevie Ray Vaughan playing guitar on the Brooklyn Bridge.

Jennifer Warnes is best known for film music (Dirty Dancing, Officer and a Gentleman, Norma Ray) but had a long working relationship with Cohen and did an entire crackerjack album of his stuff – Famous Blue Raincoat.

“It’s hard to hold the hand of anyone who is reaching for the sky just to surrender”

― Leonard Cohen

I found that Leonard Cohen was a poet first, songwriter second, and performer third. I have copy of his novel, Beautiful Losers, but can’t seem to get any traction with it. I’m going to buy his new album and get to know, learn, and love the songs on it.

 “Poetry is just the evidence of life. If your life is burning well, poetry is just the ash.”

― Leonard Cohen

So, I’m sure a lot of y’all are going to think, “You mean he didn’t know about Leonard Cohen ’til now? Way to be four decades or so behind the time.” More will simply think, “Wha? Who cares? Glee is on.”

 “I have often prayed for you
like this
Let me have her”

― Leonard Cohen

I do the best I can.

“Now suzanne takes you hand
And she leads you to the river
She is wearing rags and feathers
From salvation army counters
And the sun pours down like honey
On our lady of the harbour
And she shows you where to look
Among the garbage and the flowers
There are heroes in the seaweed
There are children in the morning
They are leaning out for love
And they will lean that way forever
While suzanne holds the mirror
And you want to travel with her
And you want to travel blind
And you know that she will trust you
For shes touched your perfect body with her mind.”

― Leonard Cohen, Songs of Leonard Cohen, Herewith: Music, Words and Photographs

Shoes on a Wire

Posted on by Bill Chance

Photograph taken on the University of Louisiana Lafayette campus near the Intramural Athletic Fields, Lafayette, Louisiana.

This is a relatively untouched photograph. After I put up this entry I brought it into Illustrator and traced it. Now I’m trying to think of an interesting background to put behind the shoes. Any ideas?

What I learned this week, March 9, 2012

Posted on by Bill Chance

Never Number One: A Whole Bunch of Great CCR Songs

5. “Travelin’ Band”/”Who’ll Stop the Rain” (1969) was denied by Simon and Garfunkel‘s “Bridge Over Troubled Water.” No reason for complaint there, really.

4. “Lookin’ Out My Back Door”/”Long as I Can See the Light” (1970) was held off by Diana Ross and “Ain’t No Mountain High Enough.” No shame in that, either.

3. “Green River” (1969) could not overcome the Archies and “Sugar Sugar.” We like “Sugar Sugar” more than most people do, but c’mon, that’s crazy.

2. “Bad Moon Rising” (1969) stalled at #2 behind “Love Theme from Romeo and Juliet” by Henry Mancini, which is pretty close to the exact opposite of “Bad Moon Rising.”

1. “Proud Mary” (1969) was blocked for a week by Sly and the Family Stone‘s “Everyday People,” which is a great record and a worthy rival. But the next week, Tommy Roe‘s “Dizzy” jumped over both of them to #1. And that is a crime not merely against rock, but against art itself.

50 new fairy tales are discovered in Germany

Read one of them here:

The Turnip Princess

more:

Adult content warning: beware fairy stories. These tales of extreme violence and horror aren’t really just ‘kids’ stuff’, nor were they meant to be

Government By ‘Expert’

In one sense, the rule of the law must be consistent with at least some form of public administration. Over the centuries, governments have had to enforce the criminal law, tear down firetraps, and issue driver’s licenses. It is often not easy to decide what disabilities prevent people from driving or what qualifications must be met to operate a heavy rig. But with conscientious officials, these focused tasks can be accomplished. Today’s “administrative state,” however, goes far beyond this modest level of public administration.

Well You Don’t Say: 10 White Singers We Once Thought Were Black

Lana Del Rey On SNL, Haters, & Her Hair In First Radio Interview And On-Air Performance

Rock Flashback: Patsy Cline’s Plane Crash, 1963

http://youtu.be/K-wJNpWgss8

The 12 Dos and Don’ts of Writing a Blog

Eva

This guy found Eva in an album of 60s and 70s polaroids at a Berlin flea market. She appears prominently throughout the album, and his curiosity about her life led to Tuesdays with Eva, which began with this post.

http://vimeo.com/37817858

Le Petit Baton Rouge

Posted on by Bill Chance

Somewhere miles deep underground the dried salt remnant of an ancient sea is being squeezed by the unimaginable weight of the Mississippi delta building up above. All the loose mud from Ohio and Minnesota ends up washed downstream, piles up, and presses down. The salt becomes a sort of geological fluid and globs rise like pale columns in a crystalline subterranean lava lamp – reaching miles up until they almost burst forth under the starry sky.

One of these salt domes sits under Avery Island – pushing the land upwards above the surrounding sea-level flatness. It is truly an island – a disk-shaped protuberance rising above… not the trackless sea but the feckless swamp – a bit of dry, elevated land looking down on the miasma and the bog.

The salt dome rises and bears a number of gifts. There is the salt itself – mined or boiled from springs for centuries with only a short break when the saltwork was captured by Union troops during the Great War Between the States (as it is known in these here parts). There is the gift of petroleum – oil is dragged along and concentrated by the rising column until, like Spindletop to the west, a forest of derricks sprout up sucking at the black gold.

And finally, there is the gift of high, dry farmland – rich and fertile. The Avery Island Plantation could grow pretty much any crop and – luckily for us – they chose a unique crop, grown from seed brought back from Central and South America… Hot Peppers.

For Pepperheads and fans of spicy food Avery Island is capsaicin ground zero and a visit there, at least once during a lifetime, is a necessary pilgrimage – a hot sauce Hajj.

Avery Island is the home and only manufacturing facility of the McIlhenny Company – the maker of Tabasco Pepper Sauce. Every little red bottle – somewhere around 750,000 bottles a day – are made on Avery Island.

We were going to drive back to Dallas from Lafayette, about a seven hour drive, but I wanted to go see the McIlhenny Tabasco factory on Avery Island first so we drove south instead and, after a couple of wrong turns, crossed the little wooden toll bridge (one dollar per car) onto the complex of green hills atop the salt dome.

The first thing you notice when driving up to the factory is the smell. It is wonderful. It’s not a hot, painful tear-gas like capsaicin reaction like you might expect, but a mellow, complex warm feeling that envelops the whole complex. First, we took a tour of the factory. You get a lecture; watch a film, then walk past the filling lines behind a glass wall. It was a Sunday, so the filling lines weren’t running, which was fine with me – I’ve seen plenty of food filling equipment filling food in my day. It was good enough to be standing behind the glass looking at the place where all the goodness happens.

At the end of the tour was a little museum with facts about Tabasco Pepper Sauce. I already knew most of it, having seen it on the How It’s Made television show. The most amazing thing about Tabasco is that the ground up peppers are aged in second-hand whisky barrels and allowed to ferment for three years before being mixed with vinegar, blended, and bottled. The barrels are covered with a layer of Avery Island salt while they age. Ground peppers (the seeds are developed on Avery Island, though the peppers are grown in Latin America), water, salt, and vinegar… that’s it.

To help the pepper pickers pick the perfect peppers they are given le petit baton rouge – a little red stick. This is painted the color of a perfectly ripe Tabasco pepper.

Then we walked across to the Tabasco Country store and bought our share of touristy knick-knacks and hot sauce products. I looked long and hard at the gallon jugs of hot sauce with the plastic pumps – and was able to resist the siren song. They had a sampling table with all the different flavors, including one I have never seen before – a chipotle raspberry sauce (I bought a bottle). There is no reference to this chipotle raspberry Tabasco anywhere – it’s a bit gimmicky, but it tastes good.

They also had spicy cola, two flavors of ice cream, and anything else you can imagine – plus a few you can’t. Candy bought some stuff for Nick (he loves Tabasco) and a bag of cooking wood made from their broken fermenting barrels.

One odd thing I did buy was a big ziplock plastic bag of pure pepper mash. I’m not sure what I’m going to do with it, but it makes every room smell wonderful.

I took a walk around and snapped a few pictures, like a good tourist. Down at the end of the factory were some long brick buildings – these must be some of the fermenting warehouses where the sauce ages for three years in those oak barrels because the odor wafting out of the vents was unbelievably wonderful. One must have been the Chipotle warehouse because I could detect a smoky note in the air.

We had planned on stopping by a tony Cajun restaurant north of Lafayette on the way home, but there was a little trailer set up next to the country store selling red beans, rice, and sausage from crock pots. Of course, there was a large selection of spicy condiments available for testing.

I doubt the expensive restaurant had anything on the five dollar foam cup of red beans that I gobbled down with dabs of at least seven different Tabasco sauces on different nibbles.

There is a lot more to Avery Island – the Jungle Gardens and the Bird City went unvisited by us. We had a long drive ahead and couldn’t tarry. I’ll be back though, to smell that smell and explore some more. Once is not enough.

The factory has this crazy bayou gothic look to it.

The recycled whisky barrels with salt on top. The mash ages in these for three years.

Walking around, I found this pallet of old barrel lids after the peppers have been aged.

A box of labels from the filling line.

The food stand - great beans, rice, and sausage.

I haven't seen or read about this anywhere else.

Avery Island, Louisiana

Taking on Big Tabasco – Or, a little undercover research into le petit baton rouge

Tabasco’s Red-Hot Beginnings in Louisiana

The Fascination of Tabasco Sauce

Cajun Country’s Saucy and Spicy Tour

That’s a spicy ice cream

January, 2012. On the Geaux – Again – in Louisiana

McIlhenny Tabasco – Avery Island, Louisiana

Avery Island and Tabasco Sauce

Yes! My Camera Loves New Iberia Louisiana

5 Healthy Reasons to Love Tabasco Sauce

Avery Island – Tabasco, Alligators and Egrets

Touring the Tabasco Hot Sauce Factory and Scenic Avery Island, Louisiana

RV Trip Favorite Photos #51-55

Roadtrip: South Louisiana, Part 1

653: St. Martinville_Avery Island

Prejean’s Famous Gumbo

In the Pines

Posted on by Bill Chance

“Black girl, black girl, don’t lie to me

Where did you stay last night?

I stayed in the pines where the sun never shines

And shivered when the cold wind blows”

Grove of Pine Trees, Avery Island Louisiana (click to enlarge)

My husband was a railroad man

killed a mile and a half from here

his head was found in a driving wheel

and his body hasn’t never been found

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=blI2dXHyBj0

A Simple Song That Lives Beyond Time

Black girl, black girl where will you go?

I’m going where the cold wind blows

You called me to weep and you called me to moan

and you called me

to leave my home

No French Fries

Posted on by Bill Chance

Judice Inn, Lafayette, Louisiana

Lee wanted to go eat at the Judice Inn before the Rugby game in Lafayette. A friend of his at Tulane is a member of the family that owns and runs the restaurant. It’s an unassuming place with a long history. The building was handbuilt on a road out of town by two brothers right after WWII. Now, the city has grown to surround the restaurant, and it seems popular with locals and UL Lafayette students. USA today listed it as one of the 51 great burger joints in the country.

The interesting thing is the menu. Hamburgers… with secret cajun sauce, a few other sandwiches… and nothing else. No fries. No sides. This is Louisiana, so they serve beer. Lee had a milkshake, which was spun up fresh (no humming extrusion of milkshake machine).

Everything was simple and good, like it should be.

Acadian Hamburger – Judice Inn

Burgers at the Judice Inn

The Green Wave and the Ragin’ Cajuns

Posted on by Bill Chance

Well, I’m standing on the corner of Lafayette state of Louisiana
Wondering where a city boy could go
To get a little conversation, drink a little red wine
Catch a little bit of those Cajun girls dancing to Zydeco

—-That Was Your Mother, Paul Simon

Sometimes I think I went all the way from Dallas to Lafayette just to use that bit of Paul Simon. It’s one of those songs that always sits only a hare’s breath beneath the surface of my conscious mind. But that’s not why we are here, we drove down from Dallas to watch Lee play Rugby. He’s on the Tulane Rugby team, a club team, and he’s here in Lafayette to play the University of Louisiana Lafayette Ragin’ Cajun Rugby Team.

I know very little about rugby – I watched some a handful of decades ago, but don’t remember much of anything. It didn’t take long to pick it up though. It was fun to watch the kids play. There seems to be three aspects to the game – the scrum, the weird out-of-bounds plays where players lift each other up for no apparent reason, and the running around.

I have spent so much of my life driving kids to practice or sporting events and sitting on the sideline watching the games. It felt totally natural to drive Lee from our hotel down to the University of Louisiana at Lafayette intramural fields and to stroll the sideline while he and his team played a spirited, but ultimately meaningless, game.

One thing about rugby, though. It is the only sport I know about that actually encourages unsportsmanlike behavior. The language used by both teams and the referee crew was amazingly obscene.

The people from long ago that played rugby said the best thing about the game is that both teams would party together after the game. Since this is South Louisiana, that means food, and the other team, the home team, provided bar-b-que. They had a big smoker trailer going on the other side pouring out blow smoke and delicious odors all day. The ribs were pretty damn good, but the local, artisanal sausage (three varieties – hot ‘n spicy, geen onion, and smoked) was absolutely amazing. I have to find out where to get some of this stuff.

Laissez les bons temps rouler

In the scrum - Tulane Green Wave versus the University of Louisiana at Lafayette Ragin' Cajuns

The out-of-bounds throw in. I really don't understand exactly what is going on here.

The running around part of a rugby game.

That's Lee, running around on the right side of the picture.

Lee

Lee, jumping into the play

Lee, pulling the ball loose.

After the game, local food provided by the other team. It doesn't get any better than that.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ohIcL9SdHdI

Cafe Veracruz

Posted on by Bill Chance

Dallas is well known for being inundated by that delicious abomination – the Tex Mex Restaurant. So, if you want to open a Mexican sit down eating place not dedicated to Velveeta Cheese Sauce or plates of tiny tacos you have to distinguish your cuisine in some way.

Candy and I have been eating our way through the restaurants in the Bishop Arts District (there are more than you would suspect). So we decided to cross one off of the list and stopped by the Veracruz Cafe.

They seperate their style of cooking from the regular pedestrian Tex-Mex by advertising themselves as: Mesoamerican, Mayan, Huasteco & Aztec Cuisine. I’m not sure about all that, but I can say that it is delicious.

The restaurant sits on a corner on an edge of the Bishop Arts district. A group was coming out the door carrying to-go boxes, Candy asked, “Is it any good?” They all said it was great and offered their leftovers – tempting, but we decided to go in and pay for our meal anyway.

Inside is attractive – dark with a unique purple color scheme. It’s cool and relaxing. The service was excellent – I was a bit dehydrated and they were able to keep my water glass going, which was no small feat. I had the special, Pescado Tajin, a Tilapia filet covered with shrimp and scallops, with a tomato sauce and vegetables. Tajin is a Mayan archeological site near Veracruz. Unique and very good.

Cafe Veracruz has a tough job competing with a number of very well known restaurants in the area. It more than holds it own, though, and seems to me to be a popular place with the locals that live in the area. I deserves a close look from visitors too.

Above the entrance to Cafe Veracruz

The Daily Special Board - I had the Pescado Tajin

The pleasant and colorful dining room.

100 Favorite Dishes: Lomo Norteño At Veracruz Cafe

Veracruz Cafe for Fine Mexican Dining

Smoke

Posted on by Bill Chance

One restaurant that everyone in Dallas has to eat at is Smoke in the Belmont Hotel. It has been the vanguard of the revitalization of Oak Cliff – about to come to fruition with the impending opening of the Margaret Hunt Hill Bridge (unfortunately I will be out of town for the grand opening festivities). The Bar at the Belmont is one of my favorite places and the restaurant next door is not far behind.

Smoke is an upscale Bar-B-Que sort of place – a very non-traditional Texas Bar-B-Que – no serving line where greasy slabs of meat are slopped onto your foam plate and you choose the green beans on the side (not that there is anything wrong with that). You do get the seductive smell from the smokehouse out back and the piles of wood are carefully displayed to make sure you know where the goodness is coming from.

Smoke works hard to serve selections of local, handmade, and artisanal ingredients. It is a popular and crowded restaurant. Usually I don’t like to wait very long for a table (I don’t do well with the packed, chatty crowd), but they enter your phone into an iPad and you can sneak next door to the Bar Belmont to enjoy the skyline while you wait. They’ll send you a text when your spot is ready.

The brunch menu was up when we ordered. It was all good. I had the eggs florentine – with smoked salmon and collard greens (instead of spinach). I know this sounds odd – but it was the greens that made the dish. The slightly wild and bitter flavor of the collard greens added a bit of texture.

I appreciate the effort and thought that the chefs at Smoke put into their menu and the risk they took a few years ago to move into an area that seemed to be forever moribund. Luckily, it looks like their foresight, courage, and hard work is paying off and will continue into the future.

The view of the Belmont from the porch at Smoke - Dallas skyline in the background.

The porch and entrance at Smoke

Eggs Florentine at Smoke

Dallas Art Deco Architecture

365 Things to do in Dallas – 266. Catch the View and a Drink at Bar Belmont

DAY 5 & 6 of Shepard Fairey (OBEY) in Dallas

Smoke for Brunch 2012

Brunch at Smoke

Smoke: The Best Brunch in Dallas

People’s Choice Breakfast: Smoke

Smoke (Oak Cliff, Dallas, Tx)

Smoke restaurant in Oak Cliff

Smoke: a down to earth kind of place

What I learned this week, March 02, 2012

Posted on by Bill Chance

Such a lot of work for such crappy beer. A cannon that can shoot Bud Light, Bud Light Lime, and  Pabst Blue Ribbon? Really?

Funny and smart tips to make life easier

Just the Two of Us (and Ken Jeong)

I love photography

Make your own popping corn in a bag

I remember winning a cheap pocketknife in a claw machine when I was a little kid. I think the guy running the machine (it was at a fair, not a restaurant or something) set it so I would win. After all these years I still smile when I think of the clunk that knife made falling down the chute.

Hot to beat The Claw

Five Keys to Sleeping Well Tonight

  1. Have the right equipment
  2. Your bed is for sleeping
  3. Control your environment
  4. Stay the course
  5. The Final Stage

Noel Rockmore, ‘Picasso of New Orleans,’ revisited

The Noel Rockmore Project

Wordiness, Wordiness, Wordiness List