Why People Miss John Burton

From today's edition of "Calbuzz":

From The Department of Corrections

In our Saturday post about the California Democratic Party’s ad attacking Meg Whitman but masquerading as an “issues ad,” we described the abrupt ending to our conversation with California Democratic Party Chairman John Burton. Through his spokesman, Burton on Monday complained that he had been misquoted. Burton says he didn’t say “F*ck you.” His actual words were, “Go f*ck yourself.” Calbuzz regrets the error.

Another One For The List

Congratulations to Dallas Braden of the Oakland Athletics. Now you get to be added to the song!

Jeff's Chicken Cacciatore

I don't usually make it with this kind of pasta, but I wasn't in the mood for another trip to the store.

It's very good, if I do say so myself.

Karma

The worst person I waited on during my years as a waiter was a man named Fred. He was a “regular,” a widower, quite likely an alcoholic, very rich, and generally a poor excuse for a human being.

One of his favorite pasttimes was tormenting waiters. Unfortunately, he spent so much money in our restaurant that our owner/manager made us tolerate it, and had little sympathy for our stories about Fred’s latest affronts to our dignity. To make matters worse, he loved late dinners, which would generally begin about 15 minutes before closing time. To make matters even worse, he would insist that his waiter remain at his party’s beck and call until he was finished. And if it was an early dinner, that meant he didn’t care how many tables you had, you’d damn well better make his the top priority. He was a good tipper, but trust me - it wasn't worth it.

Of course, he and the members of his party were slow eaters, which basically meant (in the case of a late dinner) that you had to stand around doing nothing while waiting for them to finish, when you could be going through your regular closing routine (and get to the damn bar for a much-needed drink). And if it was earlier in the night, he and his fellow idiots would take up valuable space, sucking the potential tips from other parties right out of your pocket.

The first time I waited on him, his first words to me were, “it’s kind of dark in here – are you a boy or a girl?” I couldn’t help myself, and responded, “what will get me a better tip?,” even though as I was saying the words I worried about my ass getting fired that very night. He actually laughed, which didn’t make the rest of the night any easier. It finally got to the point that if he ended up in our section, we would literally offer to pay the other waiters to take his party. One night, one waiter paid another $50 to take the table, and later said it was the best $50 he’d ever spent.

And this is where the karma comes in. From time to time I’d pop back into the restaurant, and would ask “so, is Fred still around?” Eventually, he died, and the bartender told me, “and you’ll love this – there was a mix-up, and his body was accidentally cremated.” And this probably reflects poorly on me, but man, did that make me feel good. Because I honestly can’t think of any other person who deserved a fate like that more than Fred.

So…keep that in mind if you’re ever tempted to mistreat a waiter.

American Top 40 Flashback - "Call Me," Blondie

The late seventies king of disco, Giorgio Moroder, meets the queen of new wave, Deborah Harry, and the results are spectacular - "Call Me," the #1 song this week in 1980.

Also, one of the great movie openings - Richard Gere in "American Gigolo." I don't think I saw it more than once, but I liked it. At the time I subscribed to the Village Voice and read it from cover to cover, and I remember their film staff - which at the time consisted of Andrew Sarris, Carrie Rickey, J. Hoberman and Stuart Byron - was widely divided on Gere's performance. It's been a long time so I don't remember which one of them liked it, but I do remember that Bryon hated it with a passion - and he had been a long-time supporter of Gere's work, dating back to the time before Gere became famous. Truth be told, I think Bryon was a little bit in love with Gere - and he viewed "American Gigolo" as a betrayal of the talent he'd shown in "Days of Heaven" and the play "Bent."

Corkscrew

From 1983-1987, I worked at Chuck's Steak House, a restaurant that was quite popular at the time but does not exist today (not in Sacramento, at least - the original is in Honolulu, and we went there on our Hawaii trip in 2006). For the first year, I was a bus boy, and after that a waiter. I was in graduate school at the time - never finished my Masters Degree (finished the coursework, but not the thesis), but met my wife in one of my classes, so it wasn't a total loss.

I may have learned just as much as a waiter - how to deal with unreasonable people; how to form a team with a group of people that have little in common except for the fact that they work at the same place - as I did in graduate school. Waiting tables is a hard job, and to this day I appreciate good service at a restaurant as much as I do the food.

Every now and then, our manager would set up a "wine seminar" for the wait crew. Our wine merchant would come into the restaurant in the afternoon, ask each of us to open a bottle and present it as if we were presenting it to a customer. He'd tell us about each wine, and then critique our technique - and even if we hadn't done a great job; well, heck - there were 6-7 open bottles of wine that needed to be consumed before the work night began.

The corkscrew in the picture above is the one I was given at the last wine seminar I attended, which was probably in May or June of 1987. Once you get a great corkscrew, you should never let it go. This one has served me well for almost 25 years, and I expect it to be around for at least another 25. That is, if they are still making wine with corks by that time.

Willie on the Assembly Floor

Willie Mays on the floor of the California State Assembly, honored on his birthday.

It's safe to say that it's been a long time since the Assembly had as good a year as Willie had in 1965.

"Sometimes I dream of Willie Mays"

"Sometimes I Dream of Willie Mays," The Baseball Project. One of the best albums of the last decade.

Birthdays

Orson Welles and Willie Mays.

So...who has had the greatest impact on the American landscape? Discuss.

What Happens When Dinner Is Late

You've Got To Be Kidding Me

I haven't read the article yet, but the main headline right now on SI.Com - for an article about Ben Roethlisberger's issues - is:

Head Injuries to Blame?

Please.

Four More, Then No More..."24"

I have no idea how many people are still watching, but for those who haven’t been paying much attention, there are only 4 episodes of “24” left before the series comes to a close.

If you haven’t been watching and haven’t been paying attention, I can’t say that I blame you. For the most part this season has been a train wreck, substituting viewer frustration for genuine suspense, and consistently creating situations (not to mention characters) that are simply head-slapping in their stupidity.

For all that, the show still surprised (if not shocked) me last night [SPOILER ALERT], by allowing Jack to kill Dana Walsh in cold blood. Dana Walsh may have been the most poorly written character the series has had in the five (six?) years I’ve been watching, and there’s no question that she deserved to die, but it was still shocking to see Jack shoot her twice at point blank range, essentially executing her in cold blood.

In the short term, the moment was very gratifying, but as a dramatic device I think it was a spectacular failure. I have no idea how the current producers and writers are planning to end the show, but it seems to me that with those shots last night, any vestiges of humanity in Jack have been obliterated. If the show opts for a “happy ending” that sends Jack back to his daughter and grandchild with a smile on his face, it will feel totally false. From a dramatic standpoint, about the only thing that makes sense now is to allow Jack to go out in a blaze of glory, killing every bad guy in sight, and closing with a “Butch Cassidy” freeze-frame, with Jack surrounded by the entirety of the nation’s armed forces and the New York City Police Department.

To be honest, I’m not sure why I still care. But I’m nothing if not loyal; heck, I didn’t even start watching "ER" until the 4th season, and I stuck with it until the end. When it worked, which was frequently enough, “24” contained some of the greatest television I’ve ever watched. But I’m convinced that if you ask anyone who’s ever seen it to name their favorite season, they’ll tell you it was the first one that they saw – whether it was the first, third, fifth, whatever. For me, that was the 4th season. And even then, I didn’t start watching until about the sixth episode, when Son #1 said, “dad, please…just watch for 15 minutes; you won’t be sorry!” And he was right; that was all it took.

And that may be another reason why that season was so special, because in a way it represented a turning point – the point at which we could watch shows like “24” with our sons, instead of telling them to turn the channel and/or go to bed.

So…whatever happens in the next four episodes, all is forgiven. Jack, you were always great.

UPDATE: I won't post the picture here, but check this link for a photo of the moment just after Jack shoots Dana. Even after having seen the show "live," looking at the picture (it's the one where Jack is looking down at her lifeless body, gun in hand) is a shock - and pretty disturbing.

Fat Cat

This is my mother-in-law's cat, Lucky, who weighs in at a sleek 22 lbs.

The reason he is named "Lucky" is that we saved him from the engine of a neighbor's car. Yes, you read that right. He was a very tiny kitten, and somehow had managed to get himself into the engine, and then couldn't find his way out.

We couldn't keep him...well, I suppose we could have, but we already had two cats, and as any cat owner knows, the annoyance level with cats increases by a geometric progression with each addition. So, he went to stay with Debra's mom. He did stay with us for a couple of days, and I remember coming back from running one afternoon, and having him jump up on me and licking the sweat off my arms.

With all this, you'd think he would show some gratitude, but no...this is just about the meanest cat this side of the Mississippi. I'm not kidding - get too close, and he'll rip your arm off.

Stanley Kubrick's "The Shining"

How is it that I managed to go 30 years before seeing Stanley Kubrick's "The Shining" in its entirety? I'm not really sure. I'm glad that I finally saw it, and would recommend it to anyone with a passion for horror movies. There are moments of absolute brilliance - the opening scene as Jack Nicholson's car slowly makes its way up to the Overlook Hotel; just about every scene that takes place in the hedge maze; the wonderful shots of Danny as he rides his big wheel through the big hotel.

Having said that, I would also say that the end product is less than the sum of its parts. For all of Kubrick's genius, the movie fails to make the viewer care much about its characters, with the exception of Danny, the little boy, and Dick Halloran, the hotel's chef played by Scatman Crothers. And that failure, I hate to say, really falls on the shoulders of Jack Nicholson.

Even if you haven't read the book, from the opening moments of "The Shining" it is obvious that Jack Torrance, the character played by Nicholson, is going to descend into madness. A lot of what happens to Jack is genuinely creepy - the scenes with Lloyd the bartender aren't scary per se, but are presented in such a matter-of-fact way that they become scary. But once Jack goes nuts, he goes full-on nuts, rivaling "crazy Al Pacino" in terms of the lack of subtlety in his performance. And though I wonder how much of my reaction was based on the fact that every Nicholson move is now etched in memory by this point of his career, it felt like I was watching a comedian doing a spoof of Jack Nicholson. Overall, the things that happen to Nicholson are genuinely terrifying - the scene where Wendy reads what he has written since they've been in the hotel is a great, great scene - but I didn't find him very scary at all (except to the extent that any crazy dude running around swinging an axe is going to be scary).

It may not be going too far to say that the real star of the movie is the hotel. Stephen King's concept for the story was also nothing short of brilliant - who wouldn't go out of their mind after months of seclusion in a place so remote that it feels like it's on another planet? But I can also see why King didn't particularly care for Kubrick's adaptation of his book; the movie is much more "Kubrick" than it is "King."

"The Shining" is well worth seeing, because the good scenes are so good that they give the movie enough momentum to make it through the low points. But I would hesitate to afford it classic status.

"What I See Out My Window" - Check It Out

Tony McCune, an Internet pal from Ohio, runs a Web site that he calls "What I See Out My Window." It's a very cool concept - from around the world, people send him photos of, as you might have guessed, what they see out their windows.

He also posts temporary views, and here is my contribution, from my recent trip to Chicago.

Sad

In the course of a life, one's path crosses with many others.

From 1991 until 2004, I worked for the California State University system. During that time, I met many wonderful people, and remain friends with many of them today. Some of them are my very best friends.

Because I worked for the Office of Governmental Affairs, my office was in Sacramento. The main Chancellor's Office was in Long Beach, as it is today. Because of the nature of my job, I communicated with folks in the CO, as we called it, very often. At first, most of that communication was by telephone. Later on, most of it was by e-mail. Part of my job was to manage the bill analysis process, which meant that I needed to be in regular contact with the designated liaisons for each department in the CO that had responsibility for analyzing bills.

During my time at CSU, I met Linda, who was the bill analysis coordinator for Physical Planning and Development, or PPD, as we called it back then. Over the course of 13 years, most of my contact with Linda was either by phone or e-mail, but I did have the opportunity to meet her, and then talk to her in person, on several occasions.

Linda was one of those people of whom others say, "they are too good to be of this world." It's hard to put into words what a wonderful person she was. When I first met her, my first son had just been born, and over the course of the next 13 years, she wanted to know how he was doing, as if he were her own son. When son #2 was born, it was the same thing. She was a rare gem.

When I left the CSU, I kept in touch for a while, but over time, fell out of touch. And tonight, I got a message on Facebook from her daughter (who also worked at the CSU). who remembered me and wanted to say hello, and also let me know how difficult it was to go on without her mother. It was the first I'd heard that Linda was no longer with us.

If there is a better place, Linda is there. And if she is listening, I just want to thank her for the friendship she showed me during the years I worked at CSU, and say that I'm really sorry that I didn't do a better job of staying in touch. We're doing well, and the kids are great. Thank you for everything.