After Hours

Eddie "Lockjaw" David & the Basie Band. Cherokee

This tune starts out pretty shaky. Just give it some time. Everything works just fine, although I smell Frank Foster all over this arrangement. Whenever I hear a tenor player I don't like, it's either Frank Foster or Wayne Shorter. Foster also did a lot of arranging for the band. I like his work in that arena better than his playing, but his stuff tends to be bland a la Sammy Nestico. But none of this has anything to do with Lockjaw. His story is a curious one. As you can hear, he was a high-power player in the fifties and sixties. Suddenly, in the mid-sixties, he quit music to become a booking agent. It didn't last that long. He came back to jazz and died in 1987. Believe it or not, some of his finest work was during the seventies, the decade that killed jazz. Check out Heavy Hitter and you'll hear what I mean.

Igor Hits the Road

You know, folks, it's been a really slow news week here in this rotten neighborhood. Nothing's happening. There aren't any squirrels running around in Denny Park. And the weather is lousy. All of these combine to make me not want to post anything. But there's a simple solution: road trip! In this case, that means going to Uwajimaya. All I have to do is walk outside and head south. It's mostly downhill and it isn't far at all. If you're on 2nd (and you should be), you'll pass interesting sights like this:

Just a boarded-up building being renovated, right? Let's take a closer look.

I have no idea which Mariner this is supposed to be. I'll go with Griffey, even though it looks nothing like him. If anything, it looks more like Harold Reynolds. Remember him?

This is pretty nice. It's a bird.

Whenever I go to Uwajimaya, I keep a lookout for gross stuff. It's an Asian supermarket, so there's always plenty of that. Here's what I found this visit:

That's fried gluten with peanuts, sweet people. Uh, yum? I dunno maybe it's delicious. It just sounds gross. And it's also for vegetarians. Why "also?"

I assembled the necessary components for peanut chicken and walked around for a bit. These snacky things were on special:

Hey, if everybody says GOOD GOOD EAT, then I'm sold! These were actually quite yummy. They tasted like no known barbecue style I've ever had - they had more of a seasoning salt-like flavor - but they were still good. Just ignore the despondent-looking schoolgirl with the disproportionately large head who is on the package. She's probably sad about something else.

I also visited the tiny Daiso store across the street from Uwajimaya, but I took no pictures. And that was my road trip to the ID.

A Familiar Sight

On the way to the ID, I ran across this phenomenon:

Any of you who work near Pioneer Square know what this is. It's the line to Salumi. It's a common weekday sight. The last job I had was right next to Occidental Square, about two blocks from Salumi. I was there for six months and I kept promising myself that I'd go, stand in line and get a sandwich that everybody at the agency (and elsewhere) was raving about. It never happened. On rare occasions when I did eat lunch, I was too attached to Mediterranean Express and Jimmy John's. Yeah, I know, sacrilege. They shouldn't be mentioned in the same breath as Salumi. I mean, it's a Batali family operation and so forth.

Well, after my lovely second-place showing last Tuesday and the $80 that went along with it, I finally took the plunge. I stood in line with all the other schmoes. What you can't initially see is that the outside line is just the first line. As soon as you get inside, there's just more line. In fact, once you're inside, you're only about a third of the way towards getting your sandwich. And so time went by and the line crept forward. And I was getting hungrier. Finally, after at least 20 minutes, I placed my order: a salumi salami sandwich with mozzarella and onions/peppers on a ciabatta. My friend Ty said this was the best sandwich he'd ever had. After the sandwich was made, there was another 10 minutes of waiting to pay. The thing about that place is that it's so tiny that there's no room for people to move in more than one direction. People can come in, but getting out is another ordeal. I couldn't possibly imagine putting myself through this more than once or twice a year. I just hoped that the sandwich was as good as they said it was (GOOD GOOD EAT). On the bus back to Belltown, the smell of the garlic salumi became pretty apparent.

Guess what? It was really good. It wasn't the best sandwich I've ever had. That honor is split between the barbecue pork san from Buffalo Deli (right here in Belltown!) and the New Yorker from Tat's Deli (in Pioneer Square). This Salumi creation was up there, but didn't quite make it. I encourage everyone to go there, if anything, for the privilege of standing in line for half an hour. It was definitely worth the wait, but I'll tell you something: for purposes of comparison, I went to Jimmy John's today and ordered their complex Italian sub. I was out of there in two minutes (they are fast!) and it was good. And cheaper, too. In conclusion: Salumi: wait, wait, wait, wait, yum; Jimmy John's: yum.

After Hours

Les Bel Canto. Découragé

This is from that bygone era when bands all dressed the same. These guys not only do that, but their instruments match, too. Just about everything about this tune is amateurish - the songwriting, the arrangement, the production, etc. - but oh my, the ruffles make everything all right. Nowadays, the only band that dresses the same is the Hives. They look very sharp. And I like them immensely. I mean, who writes cool songs about going on strike besides them? Nobody, that's who. Certainly not les Bel Canto. Speaking of them, is it just me or do all of them have really retarded hair? It can't be just me.

More Spring

Argh! It's been a slow news week, sweet people. On top of that, today is pretty awful. I got totally soaked going to the Market for friggin' mandarins. But I mitigated that with lunch at the V-Bar. It was quite yummy. Anyhow, in my wanderings around Belltown this week, I found more evidence of spring. This time it was around the Rollerball Building, also known as the 4th & Vine Building. Here are a few photos:


Gosh, what uninspiring photos! Look, if you want the real thing, just walk by it, OK? It's much nicer than these pictures. It's not as nice as, say, the garden area by Grange Insurance at 2nd & Cedar, but it's nice enough. Sometimes squirrels run around here and that's nice to see.

After Hours

Françoise Hardy. Ce petit coeur

It's been a while since we've heard anything from the lovely FH. This clip is from her Piccadilly Show TV special from 1965. She gets to run around London and lipsynch a bunch of tunes. There never seems to be much plan to any of them. There's usually some riding around in cars or general hanging out, nothing elaborate. This video is firmly in the "hanging out" camp. I have no idea who the child is, but she looks confused. This is a pleasant little tune. My only complaint is that the child sometimes blocks my view of FH.

McGuire Scaffold-Watch! Week: ???? + 47

When I walked by yesterday, there was activity aplenty. The dwarf army was swarming all over the building, making all kinds of noise with their small grinders and hammers and whatnot. All of this means nothing. This scaffold has been up for over a year (I started documenting it about two months after they built it) and most weeks, the dwarfs are all over it and such, but it will remain. Forever. The dwarf army needs something to do and the building is seriously flawed. It works out perfectly. Long after human beings have vanished from the face of the Earth, that scaffold will still be there.

Security House Scaffold-Watch: Week 21

There's the SH again with the lovely blooming pear trees in the foreground. Soon they'll have boring old leaves and I'll change shots again. I know I say this week after week, but golly, I thought these guys would be done by now. There's no a lot of surface area involved. Sure, there might be something seriously wrong with the exterior, but I doubt it. I mean, the building's 30-some years old, right? Any profound design flaw would have presented itself long ago. No, I think these guys are just working slowly. They make a fair amount of noise, but that just so the world will know there are people beneath that attractive plastic sheet. Speaking of that, if I was a person who spent the last 21 weeks looking out my window and seeing an attractive plastic sheet, I'd be agitating for completion. Even the McGuire hasn't cut its tenants off from the outside world. You just have to look through a bunch of crap to get at said outside world. Those poor Security House old people don't have that luxury.

Another Run of Luck

I haven't played poker that much since the Week of Triumph, during which, in four games, I garnered a fourth, two seconds and a first-place finish and won something like $240. That was three weeks ago. Last Saturday, though, I got in on what I call the doctor game. Not everyone who plays is a doctor, but there are a lot more doctors in on the action than in my regular game, also known as the stoner game. So I played the doctors on Saturday. After eight hours of struggle, an entire evening of bad cards and many close calls, I actually took first place. That was pretty sweet. I didn't get to bed till 3:00. Well, last night was the stoner game. There are many games during the week - sometimes up to six - but usually, the most people show up on Tuesday. Last night's game drew 16. I had this strong belief that I would do well before play began, but I've had those lots of times. When convinced of my own invincibility, I generally end up going out first. It looked like I was on that same path yesterday evening; I got crappy cards, had no luck and all the flop cards broke away from my hands (for example, when I had high cards in my hand, the flop comes in low and vice-versa). And so it went. When we were playing two tables, I didn't do a lot of betting. I might have taken down two small hands and folded the rest. My cards were very crummy. Once enough people were out, we combined tables. My cards/luck didn't pick up after that, but I was able to bluff my way through a few hands. I had managed to double my original stake of 5,000 chips when the hand of the night came my way. Initially, there was nothing spectacular about it, a queen/ten of diamonds. I limped in as usual - the blinds weren't too high at this point. I had about six opponents. The flop came. There was a jack/nine of diamonds and some inconsequential spade. I had 80% of a straight flush. The hand checked around to Sherry on my right who raised 2,000. I went all in with this straight flush draw, because, why not? Sherry was the chip leader; she could afford it. She called. Everybody else folded, except for John who went all in, too. But he only had a few thousand. Since two of us had all our chips on the table, we flipped cards. John had paired up with the jack on the board. Sherry had pocket aces, the strongest possible starting hand. I had my straight flush/regular flush draw. At this point, I'm running dead last with two more cards coming. The turn card comes. It's a five of diamonds. There's my flush. I took the hand, all of John's chips and most of Sherry's. My luck still lagged for the rest of the night, but I did manage to knock out three more people. I'm not sure how, but it happened. The final three were Jason, Simon and me. Thanks to a lot of folding, I let Jason take out Simon, then we split the pot. He was ahead on chips, so he got his name up on the wall. But hey, $80 for second place isn't bad, especially considering how awful my cards were. I had just three pocket pairs all evening. My secret? Patience. I wait till the right moment, win some chips, then retreat into the background and let the other guys make crazy bets. That has worked well for me. We'll probably play again tomorrow night. We'll see if that strategy holds up then.

And hey, now I can afford to drink at Spur sometime!

After Hours

Félix Leclerc. Moi mes souliers

I featured this guy last week, and gee, he was really impressive. Here's another tune by him. He's riding a in a boat up a river with a bunch of loggers. I don't know where. I don't know why. And then he sings his song and the loggers just stand there. It's a very fine tune about his shoes. He was such a fine and upstanding French-Canadian that they named at least one school after him. In fact, when you go to the YouTube and do a search under his name, you'll get a lot of footage from the students of his namesake school. I haven't bothered to watch any of it. How interesting could it be? Certainly not nearly as good as this guy's music, which is pretty fantastic.