Elegy for Chops

Once upon a time, a man slipped me his phone number. It was the beginning of a beautiful friendship. 

Benny "Chops" Arradondo had played trumpet with Basie and other big bands of the era, on tour and nearer to home in Deep Ellum. We met at an elementary school in South Dallas where he was a volunteer at the library, trumpet still at the ready to play a brief tune when the kids gave him an opening. He was in his 70s; this was the mid-'80s. I told him my late father had also played the trumpet in big bands early in his life, we talked about a few other things, and while I was saying goodbye to the librarian, Chops wrote down his number and said to call whenever I wanted to revisit the old days.

I did. During one of our long conversations, he mentioned that he and some friends played music of their era at nursing homes. (One of his bandmates: Buster Smith. Look him up.) At the time, Deep Ellum's revival was getting in gear, and I introduced Chops to Jeffrey Liles and Russell Hobbs one day at their Prophet Bar, which was in a building Chops remembered from his old Deep Ellum days. Talk happened, ideas flew, and the result was a new act for the bar: the Legendary Revelations. 

Any doubts we might have had about a group of retirees playing music from the past in this hip club just evaporated -- the crowd was well past capacity that night, and very appreciative of the tradition before them. Chops and his band were astounded. And very, very happy.

After Chops died, his Legendary Revelations carried on, and even supplied the closing track on the (otherwise current) Sound of Deep Ellum compilation LP. 

Once upon a time, Chops told me he was going to get the LegeRevs to learn Fats Waller's "You're Not the Only Oyster in the Stew" for me. Don't know whether they did, but -- Chops, I still smile for you whenever I hum it.

7 June 2023 

Larry McMurtry

Larry McMurtry used to drop by the Blockbuster where I worked because it was near the Dallas branch of his beloved Booked Up empire. Apparently he liked to collect obscure B-movie videos almost as much as he loved old books, because he never rented, only placed special orders with us.

One day, as he walked up to the checkout desk, my co-worker said, "Who's that guy? Why do people always get excited when he comes into the store?" He hit the desk in time to hear me say with a wink in his direction, "Oh, he has a great bookstore around the corner." Never seen a smile as wide and proud as his that some video store clerk "got" him. Whenever he came to the store after that, he always greeted me with a little wink. (And I did reveal the bestselling-author part of the story to the co-worker later.)

(Thanks to my Love, Lust and Other Facts of Life buddy Frank Crim for inspiring me with his memory of "Mr. Jazz," the actor George Segal who was a musician at heart. RIP to you both, Msrs. McMurtry and Segal, and here's to everyone with passion projects beyond their best-known occupation.)
27 March 2021

 

A Tale of The Sage (a like letter to Greg Lake)

When I was 14 I wanted to graduate to a real guitar from the $20 model I had bought two years before in a market in Juarez. My parents weren't keen on this potential investment since I had recently quit taking piano lessons so they thought I wasn't suitably serious about music. (Really, what was left to learn after Bach's two-part inventions?) Besides, in their minds 14-year-old girls only played the guitar at campfire singalongs and my $20 special was good enough for that. 

To convince them that I was serious I put my new "Pictures at an Exhibition" LP on the turntable to play them the song "The Sage" and promised to learn it, because in my teenage mind Emerson, Lake and Palmer passed for serious music. They relented and I signed up for classical lessons to do this thing right, but unfortunately my teacher convinced me that Classical Gas was a better choice if I had to go pop. (He obviously wasn't an ELP fan. Fool.) 

I haven't played much since my carpal tunnels started screaming* at me around the turn of the century. But when one of my jam buddies posted to her Facebook wall a video of The Sage played by a young and quite adorable Greg Lake, that riled up my old Emerson, Lake and Palmer obsession all over again. 

Carpal tunnels be damned, I think it's finally time to keep my promise to my parents and learn The Sage. And I'm going to learn it on that very guitar. 

So thank you, Greg Lake, for sharing your great talent with us over the years...and thanks, too, for helping me get my first real guitar. (Please send tabs.)

* update: After he told me that "The Sage" wasn't that hard to learn, Greg Lake and I discussed our various hand surgeries and post-operative attempts at using voice-recognition software. This isn't a remarkable soundbite for the normally eloquent Lake, but I do love his description at the end.

And if you've read this far ...

# # #

There once was a feline named Friska ...

A few weeks ago, when my cat's vet told me that it was time to think about letting go of my ailing pet, I started my grieving by posting to Facebook, the modern town crier that gives you a step back from one-on-one contact just when you need it most.

This might sound way too poetic for an often indifferent spitfire that hissed at most of my friends and lately required me to cover all corners and soft surfaces of the house to protect them from her effluvia, but it was what I felt -- and believed -- at the time:

"As she nears the end of her ninth life, Friska the demon cat from hell has finally embraced her docile side. She will now go gentle into that good night."

I was wrong. While she did turn a bit nicer as her health faded, she was anything but docile in defying two death sentences in her last month, and even this morning as her time finally drew near, she let it be known that this wasn't part of her plan. Forget the dismal diagnoses; the kid went out with moxie.


First thing this morning I found her on the living room sofa in the Buddha-cat pose. She opened her eyes to acknowledge my existence then resumed meditation or whatever it is that cats do when they're upright but idling. Out of habit I removed the nighttime barricade to the backyard cat door even though yucky weather would repel the wellest of cats, and went to take a shower.

A half-hour later, she was no longer on the sofa, or in her closet nook, or anywhere else I looked ... until I opened the blinds and saw her sitting in a cushioned chair on the covered patio. The temperature was 57 degrees and it was raining all around her, but she stayed put even after I tapped on the window to get her attention. I left her as she was because it seemed right to give her that one last commune with the yard she had explored and patrolled and fearlessly defended from interlopers for the four years we've lived here. By then it was 7:30 and we would be leaving for her last visit to the vet in less than two hours.

I turned on my work computer and tried to concentrate on my overdue deadlines, but nothing I wrote came out right.


Friska had put on such a stellar performance of spunk at the original appointment for her dispatch that, with the mobile vet's blessing, she cheated death that day. After good days and bad, her second d-day was scheduled for last Friday, but this time her vet couldn't feel her tumors at all and she had been 95% her old self for the days leading up to it, so in the absence of the hard data I needed to make the final decision, I took her home thinking I'd revisit my decision in a couple of weeks if she didn't tell me otherwise sooner.

She did. That night she took a turn for the worse brought on by the corned beef I had given her earlier thinking it would be her last supper. She appeared to be on her last legs by the next morning -- although she was still breathing, she didn't open her eyes and her usually twitchy tail didn't move an inch when I talked to her, and that had never happened before. (Friska had the most aggressively opinionated tail I'd ever seen attached to an animal.) I called the vet and took the soonest appointment they had, which was two days away.


Let me now attest to the restorative powers of chicken tenders and whitefish to a diminished cat. After I hung up the phone, I started rummaging through the refrigerator to try to come up with something palatable to fortify her for the next two days. At the first open container she was up and begging again. And she scarfed up various white meats for the next 10 minutes.

I was so impressed by her latest comeback that I left to pick up some more meat for her and get myself a turkey sandwich along the way. When I got home, the old normal happened for the first time in weeks: My little white ghost had left her haunt in her old habit of escaping to the driveway as soon as the garage door opened. For that, she deserved to share a bit of my sandwich.

Aptly rewarded, she took advantage of the one nice, semi-warm day of the week to renew her acquaintance with her backyard domain, somehow avoiding the hole that was already dug for her inevitable fate.


Make no mistake, Friska was one sick kitty toward the end despite her Saturday afternoon revival. But even when she could barely keep her food down, she never lost interest in whatever I was eating, and right up to her last moments was susceptible to bribing with a nice, meaty nosh.

So I'm not sure I can cook dinner tonight knowing there won't be a soft, furry rub against my ankles to remind me that her supper must come first. It's been strange enough working in the living room all afternoon with rain and wind taunting the window where she used to sleep and making noises that I have to force myself to accept aren't the sounds of a restless feline across the room.

She was just a cat, but she was also my housemate, responsibility, companion, albatross and footwarmer. She was just a cat, but she was also my little girl who brought out the nursemaid in me when feline independence no longer carried her. Besides, anyone who lives with a pet knows that there's no such thing as "just a cat," "just a dog" -- heck, "just a ferret" -- anyway.

All cats love to find a dark, quiet place to wedge themselves into now and then. I'm grateful that Friska found her way into the dark, quiet place that my heart can be, and reminded me to open it up now and then, too.

Thank you for letting me love you, sweet girl, and for granting me the great favor of loving me back sometimes. See you in the next go-round ... as always, you'll be the one with the moxie.

Hill Country Vegetable Soup

Note: I like a lot of vegetables and a colorful soup. Don't fret about using everything on the list.

1              teaspoon olive or toasted sesame oil

1/2          pound beef or buffalo stew meat, cubed 3/4"

1/2          cup onions, diced

1/4          cup celery, sliced on the diagonal

1/2          cup carrots, jewel cut* or sliced in rounds

1              cup vegetable or beef stock

4              cups spring water

1/4          cup barley, rinsed

2              cloves garlic, minced

1              tablespoon dried roasted garlic slices (or 1/2 teaspoon roasted garlic powder)

1 1/2       cups canned diced tomatoes

3/4          cup yukon gold potato, diced, or 3/4 cup of wheel-shaped pasta in keeping with theme
1              cup cooked white beans

1/2          cup yellow squash, 1/2-inch half moons

1/4          cup corn kernels

1/2          cup green beans, sliced 1"

1/2          cup shredded green cabbage

3              tablespoons mushrooms, sliced

                salt and pepper to taste

1/2          teaspoon herbes de provence

1/2          teaspoon marjoram

1/2          teaspoon smoked paprika

Heat oil and saute stew meat until it quits bleeding. Add onions, celery, carrots and pinch of salt, and stir until bright, adding stock if needed. Add rest of stock and water. Bring to boil. Skim meat foam if it appears.

Add barley, garlic, tomatoes, potato or pasta, beans, squash, corn, green beans, cabbage and mushrooms. Bring to simmer.

Add salt and pepper and simmer until barley is cooked, adding remaining seasonings partway through.

Makes 4 servings, more or less.


* Jewel cut: Slice carrot on the diagonal 1/2 inch from small end. Rotate 1/4 turn toward you and slice at the same angle. Keep rotating and slicing all the way down the carrot, making multi-faceted pieces that look like cut jewels.

does writing about food = dancing about football?

About an hour into Julie & Julia, I realized that I was engaging with the action onscreen just like a football fan watching a game on TV. I'm not sure whether there's a foodie equivalent of "armchair quarterback," but that's what I was acting like.

(I write this in tribute to Julia. I'm leaving it unfinished in tribute to Julie, who finally finished something.)

mmmmmm, mighty tasty crow

One of the stories on today's "This American Life" mentioned the infamous Van Halen contract-rider clause: must supply bowl of M&Ms backstage with all brown M&Ms removed.

For years, this has been cited as the ultimate rock-star indulgence, although while researching a feature I wrote for the Dallas Times Herald in 1984, I found several more that seemed to go way farther than adding a little extra labor to the task of pouring M&Ms into a bowl. Sammy Hagar's demand that each venue supply a bottle of expensive vintage wine -- not for after-show drinking but to add to his personal collection -- comes to mind.

The point of the radio mention was that, far from being indulgent, this was actually a very visible quality check for the band. In his autobiography, David Lee Roth wrote that when he arrived at the venue and saw either no M&Ms at all or a bowl complete with brown ones, he knew that someone on the management end either hadn't read the contract thoroughly or wasn't keen on detail. And with a production as extensive and complicated as Van Halen's, ignoring the specs about load-bearing stages and massive electrical requirements could prove disastrous or possibly even fatal.

So Van Halen, I stand corrected and I apologize for perpetuating the indulgence myth. But your apparent belief that incorrectly supplied M&Ms gave you license to trash the backstage turns that crow I'm eating from entree into tiny tapas.

Late-breaking rewrite aside, that was one fun article to put together. Every concert promoter and venue manager I talked with had some eye-rolling excess to brag about having to endure. (When I find the article I'll post some here.)

Among all of the foodstuffs, doggie perks and general silliness I heard about, the most touching came from Paul Leary of the Butthole Surfers. Maybe he was a little more candid with me than he might have been with some other journalist -- after all, he was my first boyfriend, many years before -- or maybe he was, just for a moment, wanting to transcend the extremes of the Butthole Surfer image.

Paul told me that their contract had no special food-related requests beyond a vegetarian meal for one band member and no pork for another. Being a self-contained, seasoned touring group, the most important thing for them, he said, was six pairs of new cotton socks at each venue. Looking at my own overflowing basket of freshly washed laundry nearby, my heart ached for these itinerant boys. Clean laundry is hardly an indulgence, but in some circumstances it can seem like unattainable luxury.

#  #  #

Amazingly yummy quinoa

And now, a detour into the kitchen for your alternative grains. Serves 2-3ish.


Ingredients

1	tablespoon extra virgin olive oil
1/4	cup carrots, diced
1	cup kale, spines and leaves finely diced separately
3	cloves garlic, minced coarsely
3	tablespoons scallions, diced
3	dashes ume plum vinegar
3	sun-dried tomatoes, soaked and diced
3	tablespoons pine nuts, toasted
6	ounces chicken breast, (smoked) diced
2	cups cooked quinoa
3	tablespoons mango, diced
1/2	ounce romano cheese, finely grated
2	tablespoons yogurt cheese or sour cream (optional)
1/2	teaspoon smoked paprika (optional)

Directions

1. Cook quinoa according to directions.
   
   
2. Dice vegetables to about 1/4-inch cubes.
   
   
3. Heat olive oil in a heavy skillet over medium-low heat. Add carrots, kale spines, garlic and scallions, stir to coat with oil, and add ume vinegar. Stir until bright. (Do not overcook.)
   
   
4. Add kale leaves, sun-dried tomatoes, pine nuts and chicken and blend in well with other ingredients. If using unsmoked chicken, add smoked paprika.
   
   
5. When ingredients are heated through, stir in quinoa and mix well. Add another dash of ume vinegar if necessary. Gently stir in mango and romano cheese.
   
   
6. Serve immediately, topped with sour cream or yogurt cheese (drained yogurt) dusted with smoked paprika, if desired.

Guv, this one's for you

My friend Richard Hoffman wrote the Wikipedia entries for both New York TX and Texas NY. Here's an interesting factoid from the latter:

"Texas is a hamlet in Oswego County, New York ... It is officially part of the town of Mexico."

So next time someone shoots his mouth off about secession, you can stop him in his tracks by truthfully informing him that, six-flags history notwithstanding, Texas already belongs to Mexico.

By the time he figures out what you were actually referring to, you'll be safely off the Capitol grounds.

Memory dump 3: KLIF

Very early in my working life, I was Kelly Clarke, a disk jockey (ahem, radio announcer) at what had been the birthplace of Top 40 in years past, KLIF. As an AM station in a world where FM ruled music radio, we had to try harder to get attention, so we regularly appeared at onsite promotions. It was only natural that KLIF would sponsor the local premiere of the Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band movie (starring Peter Frampton and The Bee Gees!), and the promo department announced that it would involve some "very special guests."

The premiere was scheduled for a multiplex in the Dallas suburb of Garland. (Garland was a major inspiration for the setting of the cartoon King of the Hill, so try to imagine what kind of movie premieres there and what kind of "special guests" might actually show up.) We, the on-air talent, learned that WE would be the special guests, dressed in colorful band jackets rented from a costume shop. Y'know, like on the cover of the Sgt. Pepper album, right?

So Allen Farmer, Steve Scott, Harry Nelson and I arrived at the premiere in a limo, but stayed inside hidden behind the darkened windows, building what we were assured was a frenzy of anticipation and excitement, until the audience was seated in the theatre and ready for the movie to start. Then we walked in together under a spotlight -- like anyone would recognize our faces anyway since we worked in radio -- and the only reaction was "Hey, that isn't Frampton and the Bee Gees!" We had to sit there in our cordoned-off seats wearing smelly old band jackets through the entire awful movie (rated 3.4 out of 10 on imdb.com; the Zap2it.com description is "Sgt. Pepper's grandson and three other guys form a band and fight bad guys. Based on a Beatles album."). The promo guy wouldn't let us leave during the screening while the house lights were safely out. I hope he's shilling for the ghost of Enron now.

I recall discussing that evening with my fellow suffer-ees only once afterward, when we decided that the TV show WKRP in Cincinnati, while billed as a sitcom, was actually a documentary.

(NB: Possibly the most bizarre twist in this story is that my cousin, the late Terry Southern, also had a connection with Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band ... the original one. He was among the faces on the cover of the album -- wearing dark glasses, not a short red band jacket. Sigh.)