Poptarticus

We are making some changes to Poptarticus - changing from Movable Type to Wordpress and changing the look of the site. We should be done by the end of today (Monday August 18 2008).

Posting an example photo. Click on the photo and you get the large version.

One of my favorite bands ever, the Walkmen, has not only proved they are a totally awesome band and also, very cool - they have now shown how incredibly generous they are by selling their new record “You and Me” online for $5.00 with ALL proceeds to the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center.

This donation is in honor of a baby named Luca who has his own blog. Check it out.

You can download “You and Me” here. For $5 and for Luca, how can you say no?

For the past few weeks several of my slowtalk buds had a weekly bakefest called Sunday Slow Bakers, where they all baked their way through Gina dePalma’s excellent book, Dolce Italiano . I didn’t join the Sunday Slow Bakers because I was traveling an awful lot and, to be honest, I was a little scared to have a lot of baked goods around. I’ve baked some things from that book and let me tell you, once you have a taste of something it’s not so easy to stop.

Now, though, Sunday Slow Bakers are done and thanks to Jerry and his fantastic idea the Sunday Slow Scoopers were born. It’s all about ice cream, this time.

Last year I was playing around a little with ice creams, all with liquor in them. I made chocolate grappa ice cream and ice cream with a walnut liquer I brought home from Spain, and I played around with ideas like absinthe granita (which I haven’t yet done, but I think I eventually will.) Everyone who tried the ice cream thought it was awesome, and I thought hmmm… wouldn’t it be cool to open an adults only ice cream shop and call it Shannon’s Super Sexy ice cream, and all the ice creams would have liquor in them?

Suffice to say, ice cream, and learning about ice cream, is something that really appeals to me. So, I joined Sunday Slow Scoopers.

All the recipes are from The Perfect Scoop by David Lebowitz. Everyone who joins picks a different ice cream for their week, and I chose Green Apple & Sparkling Cider Sorbet, because I used to have green apple gelato at the famous Paolin gelateria in Venice, and that taste will never leave me. Ever. I’m going to change things up a little, by adding some sort of alcohol to every recipe. Just to see what happens.

This week’s recipe, Butterscotch Pecan, already has alcohol (uh, scotch) so no worries there. I did use macadamia nuts instead of pecans, though. This ice cream is AWESOME. Seriously awesome. Here is what my brother and my friend Mark had to say about it:

Tom: This is the best ice cream I have ever had.
Mark: Oh my god. Oh wow. That’s good.

You get the idea. Last night a bunch of us had dinner down at the Vine and we served the ice cream with Palma’s ooey gooey cake which she has photographed on her blog. Rich and buttery ice cream with rich and buttery cake? Oh my god. Oh wow. That’s good. The Vine staff all seemed to like it too, and they will be my guinea pigs for future ice creams.

You can check out the weekly selections and other scoopers blog links here, on Krista’s blog. Next up is her selection - Tiramisu!

Turner, that is. And some Hedy and Judy.

Sometimes we just need a little bit of fantasy.

I really love Ocean Beach but it seems like since the Vine first opened I haven’t really been excited about any of the new places that have opened up since that… we have a lot of new bars mostly. Not even NEW bars but instead, old funky bars that have been renovated into nicer looking, more expensive bars that all seem to be carbon copies of one another. Anyhow, they are bars, and as much as I love bars, do we really need anymore in Ocean Beach? Not really.

So, I was pretty excited when I noticed, a couple of months ago, that a new “Cuban Style Patisserie” would be opening up on Newport Street. I think if it was just a “Patisserie” I wouldn’t have really cared, but it was the “Cuban Style” that got my attention. I’ve never been to Cuba, even, but for some reason this sounded really cool. In a situation similar to when the Vine was getting ready to open, I started stalking the place, waiting. I think I walked by every freeking day, waiting, waiting, waiting.

So Thursday, finally, Azucar opened! And I am still excited, because this place ROCKS. They have sandwiches made with Spanish tortilla! They have serrano ham! They have cupcakes! Unfortunately, they don’t have wine but hey, you can’t have everything.

Friday I had one of their cuban sandwiches for lunch, and for dinner, a potato croquette stuffed with meat filling. But the thing that really rocked my world that first day was a coconut flan. I have a serious sweet tooth, and I am especially fond of anything custardy or puddingy. Azucar’s coconut flan… well, let’s just say I don’t think I have tasted a dessert that good in my ENTIRE six years here in San Diego. The only thing that could even come close to this is the panna cotta at La Zucca in Venice, and I would venture to say this may even be better, due the big glop of coconut on top of the custard. YUM.

Yesterday I went back and got a custardy ham and cheese quiche thing baked inside of a croissant dough. This is something I would imagine eating walking down a street in Paris, NOT Ocean Beach. I seriously tried to get the thing home before I snarfed it down, but that didn’t work. So much for the three mile walk I took before I got there.

And for dessert last night, while watching Heima with firecrackers going off in the distance, I had my first cupcake from Azucar - coconut, with a beautiful chocolate butterfly on the top of it. I love custards, but cupcakes run a close second.

So this is all really dangerous, because I love this kind of stuff. Out of sight, out of mind, only it’s not so out of sight any more.

I took some pictures, but my digital camera broke yesterday. My pictures wouldn’t really do the place justice, anyway.

My new plan is, I can only go into Azucar on the weekend. The cool thing is, I still have two days of this weekend left.

Never, ever be ashamed of who you are.

Happy 4th of July, everyone.

Today is the 6th anniverary of my time living in Ocean Beach. It’s very foggy, and a little cold - not unlike what my home town of Half Moon Bay, up north, is like for much of the year. But this fog, “June Gloom” as we call it, does not last long here in OB. It lasts, for, well, June.

I sort of complain about June Gloom a little, but the bottom line is: I have always loved it here, even before I lived here, and I loved it more when I moved here. And now I seriously don’t want to leave OB. Sometimes I get a bee in my bonnet about moving somewhere more urban, because I really and truly love cities like Paris and New York and San Francisco - I love the little villages in these big cities, and I definitely love that you can get anything you could ever want or need there (though, with the internet, is that really such a biggie anymore? I mean, you can order practically anything on the internet now. Anything.) And I miss good public transportation, and reasonable taxicabs.

But in the end, I don’t want to leave this place, this little village I’ve made my home. Let’s face it - this urban girl has moved somewhere so low-key that many of the residents don’t bother to put on shoes when they go out. Which totally freaks me out, but I love it anyway.

Ocean Beach has changed a lot since I moved here. Six years ago, there was no Vine. Now, there are a few upscalesque bars where just six years ago, you couldn’t find a decent wine by the glass anywhere. For me, this is great - for lots of old-school residents, this is the Anti-Christ. But there is also a new tattoo place on Newport Ave. which goes to show you, the roots are still there.

It’s hard to explain, if you have never been here, the funky surfer fish taco vibe that permeates the neighborhood, and harder to explain the feeling of complete satisfaction I get walking home from the Vine, in summer with a pink sky above the palm trees, or in winter Orion blinking over dark streets and lawns that still have summer flowers. But let me tell you - everything is velvet here. Velvet with a beautiful edge.

Six years ago I checked into an empty room. Now, my life is totally full. I have a lot to be thankful for, so thank you, Ocean Beach, for giving it to me.

Before the Elbow show, I talked for a while with a woman who was there with a photographer shooting the show. She told me that at the Avalon (and I am not sure if it is only the Avalon, but if so I love the Avalon even more) the photographer can only shoot for the first three songs and then they gotta go. I think this was in my response to complaining about this complete tool who shot 259,561 shots of Britt Daniel at his solo show at the Belly Up. For those who were there, this was the tool with the cockney cap and studded belt that probably blinded and irritated you for two hours, too.

Anyhow, Veronica was kind enough to send me some images from the Elbow show that her friend, Gary Copeland, managed to get quickly and unobtrusively. Here are a few of them for your viewing pleasure.

Guy Garvey with a halo. Cool.

This is exactly where I was standing - just below Pete Turner. He is AWESOME.

This one is my favorite though. I LOVE this shot:

Thanks Veronica and Gary!

It is the middle of May, and I feel like I have hardly been at home this year. In fact, I haven’t really been home, but instead, on the road.

I used to really love the road. It didn’t matter whether for work or pleasure – I just loved it. All the new places, new experiences, even if they were kind of boring… but I don’t really love this any more. I feel a sort of melancholy when I am not in Ocean Beach, not at home. Unless I am in, like, Paris or something.

I spent this week in Las Vegas, the third time I have been there this year. I use to love Vegas. I mean, I LOVED it there. I loved the desert heat and the endless nights and the bizarre unreality of it all. I love drinking and gambling – I did then and I still do. But I don’t like Vegas too much anymore. I’m an old timer who can’t handle change, I guess.

Paying $100 for a wine that should cost $50 just pisses me off. Even if it is not my money. Someone has got to pay for all that construction, I guess.

The sun goes down while I sit in my high-rise room, and it is beautiful. That desert sunset kills me every time. But then it is 4:00 A.M. and I am playing blackjack where country music is playing really loudly. I hate the music but I am winning. The guy next to me is singing, but he is a happy sort and there are high-fives whenever either of us gets a blackjack. The couple next from me is from L.A. She wears a lot of makeup and we whoo hoo loudly, obnoxiously, a few times, mocking the table next to us. I can’t stop humming Jeff Tweedy’s lyric from “A Shot in the Arm” -

“What you once were isn’t what you want to be anymore.”

It suddenly occurs to me, that I am not really enjoying this. What am I doing here, anyway? It’s freeking 4:30 A.M. All the things I once loved, I don’t love now. I am in a spiritual quandary. Everything seems empty, and has for some time.

The next day, way too early, tired and lonely and sick from too many hotel rooms and too many rich meals, I drive to Hollywood, because I want to go to see Elbow, one of my favorite bands. That drive, while quite beautiful in it’s Mohave-eqseness, it absolutely fucking horrifying when you are tired and hungover and having a spiritual breakdown. I mean, it truly sucks. What else is there to do but think for hours and hours? It is the desert, hours and hours and hours of it. Heat and dust and ears clogged by descending mountains that don’t seem to be there.

Thank the gods for Hollywood and my friends Kathy and Marcia and David, and for the bottle of red wine I immediately opened upon arrival. Fueled by lasagna and Refosco, I was ready, at least in theory, for the show.

I got to the Avalon right at 8:00 when openers Air Traffic went on. I won’t say too much about them because I still feel bad about writing about the last opener Elbow had, and one of the members of that band read my blog and commented. I am not a critic, so I am not going to say anything. Let’s just leave it at I Was Waiting for Elbow.

It was an incredible show that totally changed everything back to the way it should be. Elbow came out and played the first song from the new record, “Starlings” (as I pretty much knew they would) and pretty much the whole band was up with a horn… I can’t really explain it, so check this out.

There were two songs I really wanted to hear from their new record, “Mirrorball” and “The Loneliness Of A Tower Crane Driver.” Well, they played both of them and let me tell you, these two songs are among the most stunningly beautiful songs I have ever heard. Live, they pretty much slayed me. The rest of the show was alternately jaw-droppingly lovely and totally rocking – on some songs, I almost put my boot heel through the floorboards. I was so happy. I can’t remember the last time I was so truly and completely happy. Looking around at the rest of the audience, everyone was happy. The band was happy. It occurred to me, gradually and then suddenly, that THIS is what makes me happy. Fuck Vegas, fuck the road, fuck the long drives. I’m here, now, watching this amazing band and everyone is happy. And there is fake smoke and a disco ball. I am in love again. Everyone in the building sings “throw those curtains wide - a day like this a year’d see me right.” Yes, it is true.

Of course, not every show has this effect, and not every audience is so into it, and not every band comes on and plays a perfect show. But when it all happens, it is the best thing ever.

There is a footnote to this perfect night – I was going to try to meet another music freak there, Elizabeth, who I collaborated with to get Radiohead tickets for their August tour here (basically by staying up all night hitting refresh on our computers.) At 6:00 AM when the tickets finally went on sale, she got three shows and I only got one before the Radiohead server crashed. So, I feel sort of indebted to her.

Anyhow, she had emailed me and told me that she really wanted a set list, because she LOVES Elbow, and that is sort of how I know her in the first place. So during the show I was standing next to a bunch of Elbow’s crew, and right before the encore I asked one of the guys if he could get a set list for my friend. I should admit here that I told a bit of a white lie – I said it was for my friend who was not there, but she WAS there, I just had not found her yet. It just sort of came out that way, I truly did not mean to lie. So the guy tried to get me one after the show, but other crew members were faster and the curtain came down and then I saw him with a cigarette so I figured it was a no go.

Went and found Elizabeth at the sound booth and we walked out, and we were at the door in a big crush of people, I mean ON OUR WAY OUT when I felt a tap on my shoulder. It was the crew guy, and he handed me a set list. He had come out and found me! It was an amazing thing to do.

So, crew guy, if you ever read this, you are a PRINCE and you did something that neither Elizabeth or I will ever forget. THANK YOU.

I drove home Saturday morning from Hollywood playing The Seldom Seen Kid and when Mirrorball came on I broke out into tears. It brought out every lonely moment and every purging of those moments; it brought out everything. And it felt good to cry.

Tomorrow, a bit on last night’s Elbow show at the Avalon in Hollywood. For now, check this out.

I’m half way there.