For our Christmas party at work we ordered food from Phillip’s BBQ for lunch.  They have three locations in South Los Angeles.  On her way to school my wife’s bus passes near one location on Leimert Blvd.  My coworkers said they picked up the food at a location near the Los Angeles Coliseum.  We read on the Internet that Phillip’s is popular.  Some say it’s better than Wood Ranch and Lucille’s.  My coworkers said it wasn’t very crowded when they picked up the food, though it had been crowded at prior pickups.

They arrived with the food just before noon and we queued up.  First there were two medium-sized bowls of potato salad.  Next was a regular salad of iceberg lettuce and carrots.  I couldn’t have the dressings so I just mixed mine with the potato salad.  Next were two large foil containers of the barbecued meat slathered with dark reddish-brown sauce.  Both contained slices of tri tip and large beef ribs and smaller rib meat.  A third smaller container had chicken.  I tried to get one of each kind of meat.

I then sat down to enjoy everything with my coworkers.  The sauce on all the meat had a sweet, spicy, and smoky flavor heaviest on the spice.  The tri tip was also good, not as spicy as the sausage.  The smaller ribs made it difficult to tell the meat from the cartilage but the meat I could get was good and juicy.  I enjoyed my chicken wing though some of my coworkers felt the other white meat parts of the chicken were a bit dry.  It took some work (and one broken plastic knife) to get the meat off the large beef ribs, but it was worth it.  One of my coworkers was collecting the large beef rib bones for his dogs.

Due my dairy restriction I didn’t want to risk trying the dessert.  Most or possibly all the desserts were prepared and brought separately by coworkers.  They looked good, though: flan, eggnog cake, Seven Up cake, and cookies.  My coworkers enjoyed them, in some cases eating them before their lunch.  By the end there were only a few cookies left.  After lunch we had a Secret Santa gift exchange where each of us had to spent $5 at a 99 Cent Store.  I got four packs of AA batteries and one pack of soft earplugs.  It was a nice Christmas lunch and I look forward to the next time we have Phillip’s BBQ.

On Saturday, December 13 we attended the funeral of a former coworker who had died tragically the previous Sunday.  After we returned home we decided to have fish and chips for lunch since our coworker used to order fish and chips from Royal Fish House when we had fish for lunch at work.  My wife had noticed a fish & chips place when shopping at Fresh & Easy next door in the shopping center on Grand just north of Badillo in Covina.  As we approached it she noticed it was an H. Salt Fish & Chips.  She had known about them as a chain restaurant that had more locations when she was younger.  We entered and the woman at the counter said they only took cash.  We had to use the Wachovia ATM at Fresh & Easy that charged $1.75 for the transaction but it would be worth it.

After we re-entered H. Salt we studied the large menu above the counter.  It listed many different combinations of fried fish, fried shrimp, and chips.  Some had names such as Picadilly (1 piece of fish with chips) and London (2 pieces of fish with chips).  Some meals also included fried zucchini and they offered sides such as coleslaw for just a little extra.  The menu also included a mushroom dish.  We both ordered the Double Catch that consisted of one piece of fish, three fried shrimp, two pieces of fried zucchini, and chips.

The woman behind the counter asked if this was our first time at H. Salt.  She said that the place had been around and been family-owned for 43 years.  We weren’t sure if she meant this location or the entire chain.  Later research on www.hsalt.com revealed that she meant the chain.  The place was small with only 8-10 tables.  It was empty when we entered around 3 but it got more crowded within an hour.  On the walls were posters of clipper ship designs and maps of England and Scotland.  The map of Scotland had the family crests of each family name while the map of England had the banners for towns such as Brighton, Leeds, York, Liverpool, and Sheffield.  (We couldn’t find Crawley or Blackpool.  Sorry, Robert Smith.)  On the map of England we found London, Bath, and the Isle of Wight, the places we visited over four years ago.  I hadn’t realized that London and Bath were on opposite sides of England.

After about 15 minutes as she had said, the woman called out our orders.  They both came on one tray.  Each one covered a paper plate and came with small cups of tartar sauce and ketchup.  At a table next to the counter we obtained small cups of vinegar and mustard for the chips.  The piece of fish was shaped as a long scalene right triangle.  The batter was just thick enough and fried to the right crispiness.  Each shrimp actually consisted of two small or medium shrimp fried together into a little ring or wreath with the tails crossing to look like a little bow.  The zucchini were also the right combination of crispy outside and cooked inside.  Everything was good with the tartar sauce.  The chips were medium-sized and also just crispy enough.  They were good with the vinegar.

Around 4 pm when we had finished nearly every table was full.  I overheard someone else order the Double Catch.  The others were mostly older patrons.  Perhaps their demographic frequented the other locations when they existed.  We’re glad that this location has been around all these years.  To get a great taste of England we don’t have to book a flight on British Airways or Virgin Atlantic.  We can just drive a few miles to Covina.

Spoiler alert.

Every year I try to read one or more books about teaching.  That profession has always fascinated me and, at times, I’ve even pursued it.  But I didn’t read The Water is Wide just because it’s about teaching.  I’ve read some other books by the author, Pat Conroy, going back many years.  He is well known for having his novels made into films.  The more famous ones are The Great Santini starring Robert Duval and The Prince of Tides starring Nick Nolte and Barbara Streisand.  Most of Conroy’s novels are also based either partially or entirely on events in his own life.  When I was in college I read The Great Santini about a teenager growing up with an overbearing military father based on Conroy’s own father who, according to him, was even worse than the book.  Last year I read My Losing Season, a memoir about Conroy’s last college basketball season that he played at The Citadel in the mid 1960’s.  I like how he went to the details of the games such that I felt like I was there playing with them.  The dynamics between his teammates, the coaching staff, the other teams and fans were also interesting.  Overall, his writing can be very humorous and interesting, though he tends to focus on somewhat negative episodes in his life.

The Water is Wide is a memoir about Conroy’s experience teaching on Yamacraw Island that’s part of South Carolina and also near the coast of Georgia.  He taught a class of 18 children in the 4th through 6th grades, all African Americans from the poor families of the island.  He taught there during the school year that spanned 1969-1970, an interesting time for education in the Deep South.  He acknowledges how education in the South was much easier in the 1950’s when he attended a nice white school and African Americans played second fiddle in their separate schools.  But he also acknowledges that things were also very unfair, just kept under a rug.  By the late 60’s when he taught, the integration of schools had begun in earnest.  An entire culture was changing with sharp growing pains.  Even though he didn’t teach an integrated class on Yamacraw, these changes would be present.

Apart from the historical context, life on Yamacraw (actually called Daufuskie Island but fictionalized by Conroy as Yamacraw) is fascinating.  Initially, Conroy is flabbergasted by how little his students know.  They can’t name the president or the country in which they live.  Their education has been heavily underserved due to the lingering prejudices and the island’s isolation.  But Yamacraw has its own culture, even its own language in the Gullah dialect that Conroy and the reader come to appreciate.  The people of the island are very superstitious.  They believe in ghosts, spirits, and voodoo.  They’re also suspicious of strangers from outside.  Most of their life depends on the sea through fishing and crabbing.  They also hunt for food in the island’s forests.  Conroy describes how his students grow up in an accepted culture of violence and death.  Many people can’t swim so drowning is common.  Alcohol provides one of the few means of entertainment.  Most of the islanders fear crossing the river to the mainland, the river Conroy crosses to get to school weekly and eventually daily.  This crossing is the inspiration for the book’s title.

Yamacraw also has its characters: Ted Stone, the white rugged individualist who unofficially rules the island, and Ms. Brown, the other teacher at the school, an African American also from outside who follows the white system of educating and clashes with Conroy.  There are Conroy’s students whose individual and spirited personalities jump out as he recounts them and their parents who clash with and come to respect him.  The first meeting between Conroy and a grandmother who cares for three of his students in hilarious.  His students’ petty fights and their tendency to play sports by their own rules (or lack of rules) make for fun reading.  I almost forgot about their poor circumstances.  They have their own speech and expressions that are possibly cultural, regional, or other origin.  Conroy’s students call him “Conrack” and say things like “shoot him dead.”  There’s one student that Conroy can’t understand at all most of the time and has to rely on the other students to translate.  This student answers Conroy by saying “Yas’m” because no one had ever told him that the phrase “yes, ma’am” is only applied to women.  To the student, “yes, ma’am” is what he says to teachers.  Other characters from off the island include the helpful Zeke Skinberry and his kind but foul-mouth wife, the powerful white school administrator who hires and later clashes with Conroy, Conroy’s wife Barbara who he marries during the school year, and his friends, other teachers in South Carolina.

The book really showcases Conroy’s strengths as a teacher.  He tries to make learning interesting by including games such as identifying composers by their music and Play and Talk where each player must spell a word using the letter of the alphabet on which he lands.  Conroy also uses whatever technology is available to him: a tape recorder for recording student performances, films, a radio, records, and whatever else he can dig up.  He brings in guest speakers: musicians; his sister, a wannabe actress who the students believe is a witch after she performs a scene from MacBeth; and other teachers with their own ideas and methods.  Conroy organizes trips to the mainland for his students to further expand their horizons.  He’s willing to experiment: try one thing and if it doesn’t work, try another.  He also establishes a great rapport with his students.  Unlike many teachers of the time period, he refuses to use corporal punishment for discipline.  He jokes with his students and presides over an atmosphere that is semi-serious and semi-chaotic.  Though they are ignorant of much of the outside world, he doesn’t put them down for it.  He lets them share their stories about hunting on the island and the ghosts they’ve seen.  Conroy’s teaching style rarely sites well with the other teacher on the island and the administrators but he does what he feels is necessary.  His goal is to prepare his students for when they leave the island for high school and beyond.

Conroy seems like an excellent teacher but what really makes the story is his writing.  He doesn’t recount the story in exact chronological order but rather recounts different aspects of it in different chapters such as the use of technology, the trips to the mainland for Halloween, and his clashes with the other teacher and principal, Mrs. Brown.  This style suits the story better because many of these aspects overlap in time.  Initially it seems as if he’s digressing but after reading most of the book everything fits together.  When he describes something such as the people of the island he really gets into it making for fast and engaging reading.  As with his teaching, he incorporates humor into his writing not taking himself or most everyone else too seriously.  He describes how the islanders use the volunteers from California as free labor for building outhouses.  The volunteers sought to help those that were less fortunate.  To do so they “could come to the thickets and backwaters of the Carolinas and master the art of s***-house building.”  Conroy can be painfully honest and sarcastic at the same time such as when he writes, “It would be nice to report that the event (a civil rights sit-in demonstration) transformed me but it did not.  It did very little for me.” (p. 7.)  His writing gets very reflective.  He ruminates on whether it is worth trying to help his students, how their neglect by the schools is a crime.  From these thoughts he determines his education philosophy: “Life was good, but it was hard; we would prepare to meet it head on, but we would enjoy the preparation.” (p. 163.)  From his thoughts he also realizes that the power of the administration is nothing compared to the river he must cross to get to the island. (p. 267.)  The former could only end his teaching career but the latter determined life or death.  Hence, the book’s title.

Like Conroy’s other books, The Water is Wide was made into a film in the 1970’s.  It starred Jon Voight as Conroy and was titled Conrack.  Twenty five years later, Voight sponsored a reunion of the film’s cast and learned that many of the child actors became teachers.  I wonder what became of Conroy’s actual students.  They must be in their late 40’s or early 50’s by now.  I’m glad that Pat Conroy gave some insight into their lives and his teaching of them.  Yes, they were in unfortunate circumstances and living in an underserved community, but there was more to it than that.  Their lives also had so much joy, so much spirit and culture.  Conroy didn’t see it initially but learned to appreciate it.  The cultural and status gaps may be wide, but if the water can be crossed then so can they.

On Sunday, September 28 we had lunch at Chili’s in Glendora.  After lunch we went to the nearby Beverages and More (BevMo) to get some root beer because I was out.  I normally drink Virgil’s Root Beer that we buy at Trader Joe’s and it’s now available at Ralphs and many other places.  I can’t have High Fructose Corn Syrup (HFCS) that’s used to sweeten most of the popular sodas.  Virgil’s is made with cane sugar.  At BevMo there are many different brands of root beer in their “adult soda” section.  The section also has other rare and regional sodas such as Moxie and Bubble Up.  We looked around and picked out ten different kinds of root beers, all made with cane sugar with no HFCS and no caffeine.  We also picked out a soda called Apple Beer.  I reviewed them as I drank them and now that I’m done with all of them I can post the reviews in this blog entry.  My 5-star benchmark is Virgil’s Root Beer.

09/28/08: Mason’s Root Beer
Company: Real Soda (www.realsoda.com)
City: Atlanta, GA; Rancho Palos Verdes, CA listed on the bottle cap
Ingredients: carbonated water, sugar, caramel color, sodium benzoate (a preservative), citric acid, natural and artificial flavors.
The table is yellow-orange and states that it has a “Keg-Brewed” flavor.  It has a smooth and creamy flavor that almost seems bland when compared to the spicy flavor of Virgil’s.  The carbonation also seemed a little weak but overall it was decent and refreshing.  (***)

09/29/08: Apple Beer
Company: Apple Beer Corp (www.applebeer.com)
City: Salt Lake City, Utah
Ingredients: purified carbonated water, pure cane sugar, citric acid, natural flavors, vitamin C.
This is the only non-root beer of the bunch.  Despite it having “beer” in its name, it’s still just a soft drink.  The red, gold, black, and white label includes the phases “All Natural” and “The Soft Drink with a Head.”  Interesting that its ingredients don’t include apples.  Perhaps they’re part of the natural flavors listed.  It does have an unmistakable apple flavor.  The carbonation complements it well giving it a fresh, crisp taste.  It’s not overly sweet or spicy like spiced apple cider but simply refreshing. (*****)

10/09/08: Sea Dog Root Beer
Company: Pugsley Brewing LLC
City: Portland, Maine
Ingredients: water, cane sugar, caramel coloring, natural and artificial flavors (including wintergreen oil, anise, and vanilla), spices, herbs, citric acid, and sodium benzoate as a preservative.
The label is dark blue with orange trim and yellow lettering.  There’s the image of a white sheep dog in a fisherman’s rain hat had surrounded by a life preserver with the words “Old Style”.  There are also white paw prints.  This root beer has a very sweet flavor that’s just a bit creamy and spicy.  The flavor is just strong enough to be distinctive but not enough to repel in any way.  A solid beverage. (****)

10/17/08: Fitz’s Premium Root Beer
Company: Fitz’s Bottling Company
City: St. Louis, MO
Ingredients: filtered carbonated water, cane sugar, natural flavors, caramel color, vanillin, sodium benzoate (preservative), and citric acid.
This root beer comes in a tall, less tapered bottle with a red, white, and blue label.  It says that the ingredients are the same as the original 1947 recipe.  It has a sweet, comforting flavor.  There aren’t any strong spices.  It does have a strong vanilla flavor so I’m guessing vanillin is similar to vanilla.  A great drink to help me relax after a long day or long week. (****)

10/24/08: Sparky’s Fresh Draft Root Beer
Company: Knox Brewing (831-649-0529 or www.sparkysrootbeer.com)
City: Pacific Grove, CA
Ingredients: carbonated filtered water, pure cane sugar, honey, natural and imitation flavorings, spices, sodium benzoate to preserve freshness, phosphoric acid and caramel color.
Sparky’s Root Beer has a red and white label on the shortest and stoutest of the root beer bottles.  Its stature is similar to that of the bottles of Red Hook Beer that I used to drink before I stopped drinking alcohol.  The upper label has the phrase “Leading the Root Beer Revival”.  Also like Red Hook Beer, Sparky’s has a very strong flavor.  Its spices and flavors overpower the sweetness making it very distinctive.  I could really taste the root flavor that’s almost like licorice.  But it’s definitely an acquired taste.  I wasn’t quite used to the bitter aftertaste after finishing the bottle.  This one’s not for the casual root beer drinker.  I suggest starting with something a bit milder to revive your taste in root beer. (***)

10/31/08: Capt’n Eli’s Root Beer
Company: Shipyard Brewing Co., LLC
City: Portland, ME
Ingredients: water, cane sugar, caramel coloring, natural and artificial flavors including wintergreen oil, anise, vanilla, spices, herbs, citric acid, sodium benzoate as a preservative.
I picked this root beer for the week of Halloween because it has a yellowish label, the closest thing to the fall color of orange.  It has orange and red lettering and a pictures of a boy in a rowboat wearing a helmet.  A large parrot is perched on his shoulder.  I’d actually tried Capt’n Eli’s before back when I first heard about root beers made with cane sugar three years ago.  It tasted good then and still does.  It has a sweet, smooth, syrupy flavor with just enough spice to be noticed but not overpower the taste buds.  All the flavors complement each other perfectly.  It may not be 100% natural like Virgil’s, but it definitely rivals it in taste. (*****)

11/5/08: Waialua Soda Works Root Beer
Company: Waialua Soda Works, Inc. (808-371-7556, www.waialuasodaworks.com)
City: Waialua, HI
Ingredients: carbonated water, cane sugar, Maui natural white cane sugar, natural flavor, caramel color, sodium benzoate (for freshness), citric acid, Hawaiian vanilla extract.
This is the first of the root beers I’ve had that has a clear glass rather than a brown glass bottle.  There’s only one other in a clear bottle that I have yet to try.  Waialua root beer has a light brown label with a drawing of a hula girl.  It includes the words “finest Hawaiian quality” and “natural flavored soda”.  There’re also some writing in characters that look Asian or possibly Arabic.  Are they Hawaiian?  I was expecting this root beer from an exotic location to have an exotic taste, but the flavor is dominated by the vanilla and carbonation.  There’s also some sweetness and maybe a little spice.  I’m guessing Waialua makes other sodas and root beer is just one of their flavors.  It does taste more like root beer-flavored soda than root beer.  Don’t get me wrong, it tastes OK, just unexceptional.  Maybe real root beer comes in a brown bottle? (***)

11/13/08: Buckin’ Root Beer
Company: Jackson Hole Soda Company (307.690.7632, jhsodaco.com)
City: Jackson Hole, WY
Ingredients: carbonated filtered water, real sugar, natural & artificial flavors, caramel color, citric acid, sodium benzoate as a preservative.
This seems like the root beer for cowboys.  It has a brown, black and white label with some yellow lettering.  There’s a picture of a bull throwing a cowboy off its back.  The company logo is on a sheriff’s badge below the words “batch brewed”.  Luckily, drinking it isn’t like being thrown from a bull.  It has a solid flavor just aggressive enough to be noticed but still appealing.  It’s sweet, a little bit spicy and cohesive.  All the flavors blend seamlessly with the root flavor dominating as it should.  It’s straight up and the only knockout is the great flavor. (*****)

11/21/08: Dad’s Old Fashion Root Beer
Company: Real Soda (www.realsoda.com (310) 326-9202)
City: Rancho Palos Verdes, CA
Ingredients: carbonated water, cane sugar, caramel color, sodium benzoate (a preservative), citric acid, natural and artificial flavors.
Dad’s Root Beer is actually the name of a more common brand of root beer similar to Mug and A&W.  This bottled version still has the familiar black, yellow, blue, and orange/red label but it’s made with cane sugar rather than the HFCS that the regular Dad’s Root Beer contains.  It’s made by Real Soda but there’s also wording on the label that says: produced under the authority of the Dad’s Root Beer Company, LLC, Jasper, IN 47546 www.dadsrootbeer.com.  So maybe Real Soda makes a version with cane sugar and Dad’s makes the more common version with HFCS?  This bottled version has strong carbonation and a basic sweet flavor.  It’s fairly straightforward taste, nothing special.  It actually tasted a bit weak.  Dad’s should stick with the HFCS version. (***)

11/25/08 Faygo Original Root Beer
Company: Faygo Beverages, Inc., A National Beverages company (www.faygo.com, 1-800-347-6591)
City: Detroit, MI
Ingredients: carbonated water, cane sugar, caramel color, potassium benzoate (as a preservative), citric acid, natural and artificial flavor, gum acacia.
Faygo is one of the two (out of eleven) root beers to come in a clear bottle and the only one with the label printed directly on the bottle.  That fact, and its brown and white label give it a retro look.  On its heart-shaped main logo with a crown it says, “Est. 1907”.  So Faygo (the company at least and possibly the beverage itself) is over 100 years old.  It could be the oldest root beer of the bunch.  The label also states that it is draft style root beer.  Unlike the other root beer, Waialua, that came in a clear bottle Faygo has a solid taste with some spice, sweetness, and creamy flavor.  The spice and carbonation give it a bit of an edge at first sip but the sweetness and creamy flavor make it go down easy.  It tastes a bit like regular beer but in a good way.  It’s like a real friend not afraid to be itself, genuine, and good company.  No wonder it’s been around all these years. (****)

11/26/08: Berghoff Root Beer
Company: Berghoff
City: Chicago, IL
Ingredients: carbonated water, pure cane sugar, caramel color, sodium benzoate (preservative), natural flavor, and citric acid.
Well, I was wrong about Faygo being the oldest.  On the decorative copper, red, brown, and white label on the bottle of Berghoff root beer it says, “Founded 1898” above and below the main logo.  Berghoff is a famous restaurant/ bar/ brewery in Chicago famous for its root beer and German food.  I’m not sure if the restaurant is still around but I believe they still make the root beer.  The label also states that it is “Old Fashioned”, Draft Style, and “Chicago’s Famous”.  I could taste why it’s famous.  It has the right combination of spice, sweetness, and slightly creamy flavor.  It actually tastes very similar to Virgil’s.  It has bold but still unoffending flavor making it hard not to drink all at once.  After 100 years, they know how to make a good root beer. (*****)

Those are the eleven root beers from BevMo (actually 10 root beers and one apple beer).  I never knew there could be so many different kinds of root beer made with cane sugar instead of HFCS.  I remember when we went to Indy and a waiter at Loon Lake Lodge didn’t even know they made root beer with cane sugar instead of HFCS.  None of the root beers were better than Virgil’s but several were equally good.  I was also impressed with the variety of flavors.  I found it interesting that all eleven had some kind of preservative (usually sodium benzoate), something Virgil’s does not have.  Since I can’t have alcohol, this is my version of wine tasting.  Now that the holidays are here, we can raise our bottles both brown and clear to good, sugar-flavored root beer.

On Tuesday, November 11 (Veteran’s Day) we saw the Kaiser Chiefs perform at the Music Box at the Henry Fonda Theater in Hollywood.  The Kaiser Chiefs are from Leeds, England and we first heard them on the radio station Indie 103.1 about four years ago.  They’ve released albums in 2005, 2007, and, most recently on October 28, 2008.  This show was billed as “Indie 103.1 Presents the Kaiser Chiefs.”  Getting to the venue took less time than expected.  We left Azusa at around 6:10 pm, took the 10 west to the 101 north and exited at Hollywood Boulevard.  There wasn’t very much traffic probably because it was a holiday.  We parked in the lot on the south side of Hollywood Boulevard between El Centro Avenue and Argyle Avenue where we had to pay an $8 flat rate.  After parking, we queued up near the corner of El Centro and Hollywood.  It was 6:55 pm, five minutes before the doors were scheduled to open.

By the time we had queued up, a venue employee was already going down the queue scanning tickets with a hand scanner.  Another employee asked if anyone planned to drink alcohol.  She checked the ID’s of and gave wristbands to those who answered “yes.”  We later found out that there were actually two queues: one longer one for us who had tickets and a shorter one for the Will Call or guest list.  There was no queue to buy tickets because, as we heard an employee say, the show was sold out.  This was quite a change from when we saw Swervedriver at the Music Box back on late May.  Perhaps this meant they would open the balcony this time.  At 7 pm the queue started moving, right on schedule.  They told us to empty our pockets and we went through the usual “pat down” security.

After we entered the venue, my wife went to get some merch while I went to find us seats on the balcony that we hoped would be open.  I went up one flight of stairs, tried a door but it was locked.  A venue employee told me to go up the second flight of stairs to the side.  He said the balcony was first-come-first-serve and that we couldn’t hold seats.  When I reached the top of the balcony, only the front row was full.  I got a couple of seats in the second row from the front on the left side of the middle section.  They were next to a defective seat.  One of the seats I got was also a bit defective.  The cushion caused me to lean to the left.  Eventually, I rolled up my jacket and put it on the left to even it out, though it was cold in the venue.

The crowd consisted of Caucasians our age or younger.   I didn’t see any young enough to be teenagers.  There were some people who looked older than us and it was about even between men and women.  Behind us in the queue was a group of women who sounded like they were speaking Russian.  I also heard someone in the will call/ guest list queue speak with an English accent.  The venue looked pretty much the same as when we saw Swervedriver.  Rather than the venue logo, they shined the Indie 103.1 logo on the red curtain over the stage.  The balcony had red fold-down seats that fit in with the general blue-red-gold color scheme of the venue’s interior.  On the backs of the seats were “Logo hooks” for hanging purses and things, a great idea.  The walls up there also had the red and gold swirling waves painted on them.  We also noticed that they shined lights on the upper walls to the sides of the stage that looked like musical notes, treble clefs and measures.  This time there weren’t any DJ’s on the platform to the left of the stage.  But they still had canned music such as “I Can’t Even Be Bothered” by the Charlatans, the original version of Queen’s “Tie Your Mother Down” and “Up the Junction” by Squeeze.

After my wife finished getting merch and sat down in a seat I saved I went back to the ground floor to use the restroom.  When I returned I looked at the console of electrical switches at the top of the balcony and saw a printed schedule.  It said:    Doors Open        7:00
                    Hockey            8:15-9:00
                    Kaiser Chiefs        9:30-11:00
By 8:10 the balcony was over half full and at 8:20 the lights timed and the curtain rose.  The background was black and across it was the words “Kaiser Chiefs” in large letters.  But onstage was the opening act, the band Hockey.  They consisted of a drummer in a football T-shirt (the Rams possibly), guitarist, vocalist who didn’t play an instrument other than help play drums for parts of some songs, and bassist.  The bass drum had the letters “HKY” on it.  In addition to Hockey’s equipment, there was an elevated covered drum kit behind them along with other covered equipment presumably for the Kaiser Chiefs.  The first song they played was very rhythmic and fast and all their other songs would be like this.  When they finished the first song the vocalist said, “We’re called Hockey.”  He spoke with what sounded like an accent but later proved to be just a way of speaking.  The next two songs were also loud, rhythmic, fast, and very vocal.  The vocalist sang fast and at times it sounded like he was rapping and, other times, screaming.  One of the first three songs was called “Work” and included the line “Work Work Work, too much work for me.”  It was like the story of my life.

Before the next song the bassist said in a clear American accent, “We’re from Portland, Oregon here for this one show.”  The vocalist then explained that the next song was called Matthew McConaughey and was about the movie industry.  The chorus had them sing “Matthew McConaug”, pause, and then shout “Hey.”  The music seemed to include some electronic sounds from a keyboard, though no keyboardist was visible.  The next song, “I Want To Be Black”, had lots of rapping from the vocalist that seemed to tell a story.  Before singing, they mentioned that it was a new song.  Hockey had used just the colored spotlights for visual effects.  Included in their set was a catchy song called “Song Away.”  With their strong bass sounds their music could be classified as funk.  Overall, they’re probably the best opening band we’ve seen this year.  Before the last song the vocalist and the bassist seemed to be talking at the same time unsure who was supposed to speak.  One of them mentioned that they would be back for a show at the Troubadour in December.  Their last song got louder and faster as it went along.  The vocalist and the bassist moved around the stage.  They finished, thanked us and the Kaiser Chiefs, and the curtain fell at 8:55 pm.

By 9:30 the balcony was almost full and we could see that the floor in front of the stage was very crowded, much more crowded than when we saw Swervedriver.  At 9:30 the balcony lights dimmed and the curtain rose.  The stage was empty except for the drum kit and equipment that had previously been covered.  Canned guitar music played as the Kaiser Chiefs came out to their places.  The vocalist, Ricky Wilson, quickly raised his arms to excite the crowd and they went straight into their first number “Spanish Metal”.  The band consisted of the vocalist, Ricky, guitarist Andrew “Whitey” White, bassist Simon Rix, and drummer Nick Hodgson who also sang background vocals.  Ricky would move about the stage while singing and pick up tambourines during the guitar solos.  During the next song, “Everything is Average Nowadays”, he walked into the crowd and was held up by either them or security.

Before the third song, Ricky explained that they were one man down.  Their keyboard player, Peanut, had an appendectomy in Brazil earlier in the tour.  Ricky introduced Roger, “Peanut’s Roady”, who would be filling in for him on keyboard.  Roger looked older than the others in the band.  One of the other band members mentioned that even though Peanut couldn’t make it, his hat did and he indicated a black felt hat on top of a speaker near the keyboard.  They played the very fast song “Everyday I Love You Less and Less” using blue and purple spotlights during the verses and fast blinking white lights during the chorus.  At the end Ricky threw the microphone stand high in the air.  After it came down it had to be replaced.  They played the equally fast “Heat Dies Down.”  Whitey had switched to a different guitar and the song had prominent guitar riffs.  They then played the more vocal “Can’t Say What I Mean” and used blue and red spotlights.  They appropriately used red spotlights for the next song, “Ruby”, a single off their second album.  Ricking was jumping up and down and got the whole crowd on the floor jumping.  He picked up a mambo bell for the next song “Modern Way” that was also fast and had a strong rhythm.

The next song, “Thank You Very Much” began with a loud guitar and flashing lights.  They slowed just a bit for the one after that, “Time-Honored Tradition”, at least for the verses that Ricky also sang in a lower register.  They sped up when he sang “Oh-oh, oh-oh . . .” and he again picked up a mambo bell for the guitar solo.  Before the next song Ricky mentioned that Peanut was the one who got the audience clapping and since he wasn’t here we’d have to clap on our own.  We clapped as they played “Good Days, Bad Days” with Roger’s keyboard also providing rhythm.  They then did the very fast song “Na Na Na Na Naa” with Ricky and Nick singing the chorus (also the title) at their highest registers of the concert.  Fast-blinking spotlights accompanied the song.  It ended with Nick’s loud drumming that carried into the next song “I Predict a Riot”, a hit single from their first album.  They did the first verse without drums and then added them for the rest.  By the end of the song the crowd was clapping loudly.  Nick and Whitey kept playing loud and fast into the next song.

We didn’t recognize the next song as being from any of their three albums.  It involved a lot of shouting.  About halfway through, Ricky motioned for the crowd to clear some space down the middle.  He then got down from the stage and it looked like he walked through the crowd on the floor to the back of it.  He had his microphone on a long cord and continued to sing.  When he returned to the stage he was sitting on someone’s shoulders and after climbing back onstage they finished the song.  He then said, “Thank you for having us, L.A.” and they played “The Angry Mob” that’s a bit slower than the others but still very loud.  It gets even slower when Ricky sings, “Tonight you will sleep softly in your bed.”  The last part of the song is a repeated chorus of a line that starts with “We are the angry mob . . .” that they chanted more times than on the recording, chanted a cappella, and turned the microphone to the audience to hear us chant.  They ended at 10:30 and walked off stage but the curtain did not fall.

There was solid cheering and intermittent stomping for several minutes, though I noticed a few people had left the balcony.  We were able to move one seat closer to the middle and the band returned at 10:35.  Ricky described how they just appeared on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno when John McCain was also a guest.  “He didn’t win” Ricky said and most of the audience cheered.  “You’re so political” he replied sarcastically.  They then performed “Never Miss a Beat” the first single off their new album, a loud, fast song that featured Roger on keyboard.  For their final song they did the slightly slower but louder “Oh My God.”  It was another song that ended in a repeated chant, only this time it was “Oh my God, I can’t believe it, I’ve never been this far away from home.”  They shouted it loud and again turned the microphone to the audience.  At the very end Nick played the drums loud and fast.  They finished and all stood up.  Ricky motioned for Roger to come out from behind the keyboard to loud applause.  They all bowed and left the stage and the curtain fell at 10:45.

Leaving the parking lot, we had to negotiate many other cars leaving and pedestrians leaving the Pantages Theater where the musical Wicked was also getting out.  We drove north on Argyle Ave. and got on the 101 south from there.  There was even less traffic on the way back, definitely not a case of “Oh my God I can’t believe it, I’ve never been this far away from home.”  Rather, we “never missed a beat” with this concert: commute and seating both worked out.  No reason to “predict a riot” or expect “The Angry Mob.”  As of now, this is our last planned concert of the year, something that has become a “Time-Honored Tradition.”  What’s left is just the holidays and “work work work” but then, next year’s just a “song away.”

I needed a book to sustain my wait times during some months when I wouldn’t have time to check out other books.  I wanted to read a proven author because I couldn’t afford to switch to another book that didn’t pass the “Rule of Fifty”.  I first read a book by T.C.Boyle over six years ago.  My mom recommended his novel The Tortilla Curtain because it was set in the west San Fernando Valley (SFV) and I happened to be living in the western SFV at the time.  The Tortilla Curtain subtly refers to stores, streets and people where I lived.  I later learned that T.C. Boyle also used to live in that area.  Overall, I found the story depressing, overdramatic, and unbelievable.  It had an interesting premise but seemed to just blow everything out of proportion, embody the mountains made out of molehills, and push Murphy’s Law to the extreme.  My mistake was taking it all too seriously, also the mistake of many of the characters.  But I didn’t realize that for a while.

A few years later I was looking for audiobooks and I picked out A Friend of the Earth that’s told partially in the first person.  This novel didn’t take itself as seriously despite some extreme circumstances.  I actually liked how it jumped back and forth between different points in time.  The characters were a bit more likeable especially as they aged.  I then listened to Boyle’s collection of short stories from 2000 or 2001 called After the Plague.  He sets his stories in very interesting settings.  Many are set in the L.A. area.  Some are set in the fictional “Peterskill, New York”, a proxy for Boyle’s original hometown of Peekskill in upstate New York.  Most of the stories are not very realistic but make for entertaining reading because he has such a wild imagination.  I then read his 2003 novel Drop City because part of it takes place in Alaska.  But I didn’t like this book as much as the others because I couldn’t relate to or even like the characters much at all.

My respect for Boyle was restored with his 2005 collection of short stories called Tooth and Claw.  Before reading it I saw him at the celebration for USC’s 125th birthday where he is professor in the English Department.  It was in a small room at the library.  His grown daughter introduced him and he wore a yellow blazer that looked trendy.  For the presentation he answered questions and read one of his stories (more on this later).  Then we lined up to have him sign our books.  He signed my copy of Tooth and Claw “To David, con amistad. -T.C. Boyle” and I chatted with him briefly.  He seemed very fun-loving and easygoing and very different from his overly serious and suffering characters.  I subsequently enjoyed reading Tooth and Claw.  He has a way of taking a possibly real situation and twisting it into extreme proportions.  One story, “Jubilation”, is about the life and dysfunction at a housing development near and affiliated with a major theme park.  He got the idea when he saw such a development near Disneyworld in Florida.  One year later I read his 2006 novel Talk Talk, a suspenseful thriller about identity theft.  Much of the novel takes place in the fictional town of San Roque, CA that I believe is a proxy for Boyle’s current hometown of Santa Barbara, CA.  Of all his books I’d read to that point, I liked this one the best.

I figured I couldn’t go wrong reading his anthology of short stories called T.C. Boyle Stories.  It came out in 1999 and combines his previous four collections of short stories: Descent of Man (1978), Greasy Lake (1985), If the River was Whiskey (1989), and Without a Hero (1994).  It also includes a few additional stories.  Prior to being included in collections, most of Boyle’s stories appear in magazines such as Esquire, Harpers, The New Yorker, Rolling Stone, and Playboy.  Sometimes they don’t appear in collections until many years after they appear in the magazines.  In T.C. Boyle Stories, a year is given at the end of each story and I believe it is either the year he wrote it or the year it appeared in a magazine.  The years ranged from 1971 (“Drowning”) to 1997 (“Juliana Cloth”, “Mexico”).

The book separates the stories in to three sections: I. Love, II. Death, and III. And Everything in Between.  They more or less fit these categories though they also encompass many other themes.  They’re often about everyman heroes or anti-heroes, usually male, who get into situations that are more than can handle.  The situations that Boyle creates are as wide as his imagination.  Some involve real life figures from history or the present such as President Eisenhower (“Ike and Nina”), Jane Austen (“I Dated Jane Austen”), Idi Amin (“Dada”), and Jacques Cousteau (“Rapture of the Deep”).  These stories are fictional and usually told from the point of view of a fictional minor character such as the cook on the Calypso in “Rapture of the Deep”.  Many stories include elements of the fantastic such as “The Miracle of Ballinspittle” where the main character’s sins are paraded out in front of him (e.g. kegs of all the alcohol he had drank rolled by).  “Bloodfall” is a rather disturbing story about a group of people living communally when blood suddenly falls from the sky like rain.

I found things with which I could identify in some of the stories.  In “Without a Hero” the first person protagonist mentions owning a Bianchi all-terrain bicycle.  I own a Bianchi hybrid bicycle.  This same story shows its age (written in 1990) when it mentions shopping at I. Magnin, Robinson’s, and the May Company.  “The Hat” features a character called Mae Mae, also the name of my wife’s cousin.  “Peace of Mind” mentions Canoga Avenue, the street I lived on in Woodland Hills.  I read a couple of stories around the time events similar to them occurred in the news.  Hurricane Ike hit Houston around when I read “Acts of God” about an old man surviving a hurricane.  Two days before Election Day, November 4, I read “The New Moon Party” about a presidential election and the aftermath.  There were so many stories in the collection that I had actually read one before.  “Mexico” is also in After the Plague.  Another story, “Back to the Eocene” was the one that T.C. Boyle read at the book signing.  He read it well and made everyone laugh when doing the voices of the 5th graders.

I think my favorite story in the collection is “Sorry Fugu” about a chef struggling to impress a very critical food critic.  I enjoyed the descriptions of the food, ingredients, and cooking process.  I could relate a bit because I’m an amateur restaurant reviewer.  I also liked “The Overcoat II” because it takes place in communist Russia and I studied Russian History for one semester in high school.  The passage about jokes at the office is just too funny.  “John Barleycorn Lives” is also pretty good and features the historical figure Carrie Nation.  Some of the stories have especially interesting premises.  “Sitting on Top of the World” is about a forest ranger that lives in a mountaintop.  “Hard Sell” has an image consultant meeting with the Ayatollah in Iran.  “The Champ” is about competitive eaters and was written long before the celebrity competitive eaters we hear about today.

Every story is interesting in its own way.  Once I started reading one I found it difficult to stop.  I found some more humorous than the others such as “The Hector Quesadilla Story”.  Others are more dark and disturbing such as “Greasy Lake” and “King Bee”.  Very few stories end happily as this is Boyle’s custom.  He uses different styles.  Some are told by first person narrative, others by third person.  A few don’t give all the details and others have multiple narratives.  Some such as “Greasy Lake” and “The Fogman” seem like they could be autobiographical.  Boyle also likes to showcase his wide vocabulary.  When I read “The Arctic Explorer” I actually knew what an eructation was (a burp or belch) because my wife had learned the word in her medical terminology class.  I couldn’t stop reading yet I found going through all 697 pages a bit draining.  All the irony, sarcasm, and satire got to be a bit too much.  When I did finish after two months of reading, I felt like I had completed a long journey.  The first stories seemed like a long time ago.  It probably would have been better to read the smaller collections of stories included in this larger one.

Overall, I prefer his later stories to his earlier ones.  The later ones don’t seem quite so serious.  Despite the great variety many stories do have some similarities.  Most main characters are in their 30’s or 40’s, single or divorced, and male.  They all drink alcohol and usually smoke and they often feel like something’s missing in their lives, or they have to do something, or there’s a problem they have to solve.  Usually, the way they go about filling the void, doing something, or trying to solve the problem makes things worse or leads to unexpected consequences.  I couldn’t relate to the characters in most stories, but that’s probably a good thing.  I did find many stories entertaining.

I don’t suggest reading the entire book straight through.  Read the shorter collections or read part of T.C. Boyle Stories and take a break before reading more.  The stories that are funny for some can be disturbing for others.  I did get some sense of how Boyle’s writing developed over 27 years and insight into his way of thinking.  Some say he presents the failings of his generation: the Baby Boomers disillusioned by the Vietnam War and later materialism.  I think he just likes to mess with his readers, shake them out of their comfort zone while entertaining them, and give them a perspective they wouldn’t normally have or consider.  Yeah, the stories disrupted my “Peace of Mind” but I stuck with them “On for the Long Haul” from “Greasy Lake” to “Mexico” like an “Arctic Explorer”.  By the end I was “Beat” but for T.C. Boyle I still have “Respect”.