JACK BERNARD'S TRAVELS

Posted by jdbernard743

· December 14, 2016

The Perfect Latte…

“When you aim for perfection you discover it’s a moving target.”

Geoffrey Fisher – Archbishop of Canterbury (1945-1961)

There are many strictures and cautionary tales about the pursuit of perfection and though the target may be elusive sometimes it’s all about the chase.

The Surviving Seattle blog began in the fall of 2012 as an antidote to the weather I hate in the city I love. I was looking for strategies to mitigate against the gray overcast, constant rain, and penetrating cold. I love writing this column and for the most part it’s kept the weather from defeating my optimism. I’ve written about films and food, books and bikes, art and architecture – even politics – but I’ve barely touched on the thing that gets me up and ready to open the front door and face the gloom. What is it? What keeps me charged up, optimistic, and hopeful? Of course, it’s COFFEE and my quest for the perfect cup.

Just to be clear, we’re not talking about your mother’s Folgers, not what the Germans derisively refer to as braunes wasser (brown water), or what you get at the diner poured from an onion shaped glass pot that’s been sitting on a hot plate for hours.

With all due respect, I know there are those who prefer a fine tasting cup of “drip” coffee, and there are aficionados who brew it lovingly with carefully measured Arabica beans, time it with a digital timer, and pour it cautiously through a Melitta paper filter. There are others who like theirs pressed carefully down through a Pyrex French Press carafe, but for more than 40 years the only real coffee for me is the one and only forcibly extruded, crema-topped, high octane, Italian-style espresso – singolo, doppio, macchiato, cappuccino, or caffe latte.

Pursuit of the perfect espresso drink is like rocket science. The task is to match the right payload with the right delivery system. Even the most expensive beans roasted to perfection are wasted if the brewing system is inadequate. If the payload is too heavy the resulting coffee is too strong, too weak, too acidic, or just sludge. On the other hand, if the beans are old, over-roasted, or too green what ends up there is equally unsatisfying. The rocket fizzles or the payload is a dud. The payload isn’t right for the delivery system or the delivery system can’t lift the payload.

I realize this tech talk and metaphor is a little over the top, but to those of us who LOVE the pursuit is a form of foreplay. It’s disconcerting to hear myself talk about the quest, the knight errant, or foreplay when what we’re really talking about is a cup of coffee, but the search for perfection is also about obsessive compulsive behavior. I own it. I am OCD about coffee.

Here’s a condensed history of the quest: I learned to love espresso on my first trip to Europe in 1965. California in those days was just discovering the joys of espresso. Since then the Starbucks revolution has brought espresso to the people and in recent years I have been able to find near perfection in commercial settings like the caffe latte (at the top of the page) from the Urth Caffe in Santa Monica but I’ve never been able to reproduce it at home.

My first at-home effort was a basic, no-frills, stove top espresso pot like that found in most Italian homes:

Here it is. It does the job. It supplies a jolt. It gets the engine started in the morning, but its primitive technology lacks the finesse and fine art of Italian coffee making – the kind I came to love that’s available in any corner coffee bar in Italy. The stovetop’s simplicity and efficiency are its strengths but for a sophisticated modernist looking for a superior end product it doesn’t deliver. It doesn’t grind the beans, time the brewing cycle, or steam the milk. It tends to be dark, dark, dark. Powerful but acidic. Still, it is the brew of some espresso purists.

The stove top was the standard until a few years ago when Nestle, the food conglomerate, aware of the espresso revolution and sensing the need for a more sophisticated home system, created a subsidiary brand called Nespresso and developed an automatic machine with prepackaged coffee capsules. Nespresso was an instant hit with a system that simplified all the functions.

The Nespresso Cube was the prototype (below). It heated the water and forced it through individual foil-wrapped single shot capsules. It didn’t heat or froth the milk, but Nespresso solve that problem with a separate milk frother accessory called the Aeroccino to deliver a creamy foam. Now cappuccino lovers had a simple home system.

Nespresso created that simple system – but the coffee was expensive. Individual capsules cost between 80 cents and a dollar each. Two shots, at home, cost around $2, not that much less than a latte at Starbucks or your local drive thru.

I tried a Cube for a couple of years until the next improvement came along – the Latissima – a machine that incorporated the milk frothing function and cutting edge Italian design. It also came in colors. That was important to Marilynn who is a color coordinator par excellance. Her at home color scheme is black, red, and stainless. The Latissima comes in Chinese lacquer red, the same Chinese lacquer red as the walls that wrap from the living room to our bedroom.

So we upgraded and updated to the state of the art Latissima.

Remember the Archbishop’s quote about perfection? It’s a moving target and the Latissima is not the Holy Grail. It’s “adequate” but can’t quite deliver the perfect coffee. I tried a dozen different capsule flavors and intensities. They come in various categories with descriptions that might reasonably be mistaken for something out of the Wine Spectator. Intensities are rated on a scale of 1 to 10. But, bells and whistles aside, the Nespresso capsules are expensive and the machines don’t have the muscle to deliver a coffee that stays hot like a commercial latte and hits the tongue with impact.

All this time my OCD was idling in the background because despite the variety of Nespresso offerings I was never able to find the payload or delivery vehicle that met my taste, texture, or warmth needs. It is a good system for delivering a simple, quick, one step coffee, but not necessarily a satisfying one.

My particular problem, in addition to OCD and time spent in Italy, springs from the fact that 25 years ago I owned an Italian café that featured a commercial 220 volt, 3 Group, Faema machine, the 747 of espresso delivery systems. I was trained to make espresso drinks by Vida, a young woman who learned her craft at Torrefazione, Seattle’s most famous Italian-style roaster. There, every morning before the restaurant opened, a group of friends – including the owner of the Elephant’s Perch mountaineering store next door, the Forest Service snow ranger, and others – gathered at the Piccolo bar where I brewed frothy bowls of caffe latte for them to kick start the day. I know the coffee taste I’m looking for.

The truth is that I’ve known for a long time that it’s possible to make that coffee at home. The problem is that it’s not cheap. I always hoped the next iteration of the home machine would be able to duplicate the true strength and flavor of Italy. I was looking for a bargain, and it’s clear to me now that you get what you pay for.

A year ago I went skiing at Whistler with my friend, Tim Shields, who is as particular as I am about his coffee. Tim made the leap to an expensive machine a few years ago, and on our first morning at Whistler he brewed up a delicious latte on his DiLonghi Magnifica 3300. That did it.

Last week I ordered one, and here it is. I made my first cups yesterday. It takes a little practice to get the grind (yes, it grinds the beans), portion size (yes, adjustable), steamer/frother operation (yes, commercial grade), cleaning protocol, and find the right beans, but it is indeed Magnifica.

Marilynn is amused, but she’s also relieved. She no longer has to listen to my complaints about how my coffee doesn’t taste right or stay warm. It doesn’t last until I’m through reading the NY Times (but would any cup of hot liquid last that long?).

We’ll know soon if the quest is over, if the Holy Grail of home-brewed espresso has been found. My friend, Julie, has a daughter who works at Starbucks headquarters and she is bringing me a variety of beans to try out this week. Right now, I’m in the honeymoon phase and the target seems to have stopped moving. It looks and tastes just right – and with an Amaretti cookie dipped in the crema… Oh my God, we could be on the Via Veneto.

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Categories : Fashion/Lifestyle, Food/Restaurants, Personal/Family, Travel, Uncategorized, Weather

Posted by jdbernard743

· December 6, 2016

· 6 Comments

Remembering a Friend…

Often, as the year draws to a close, my thoughts return to friends who departed the planet earlier than they should have. Those memories remind me that we never achieved a natural closure – that their premature deaths inflicted wounds that are slow to heal.

Gary Gibson Stoecker is one of those friends. Gary and I were young Pan Am pilots when we met in 1972. We both lived in Mill Valley, flew out of San Francisco, and our lives continued to parallel each other as we moved on to Ketchum Idaho in 1973 and Berlin in the late ’70’s.

We shared a number of interests but we were different, most notably that I was married and Gary was not. He was a lifelong bachelor whose closest companion in the early years of our friendship was his dog, Jomo. There’s a line in the song Mr. Bojangles where the singer says, “After 20 years he still grieves” referring to the death of his dog. That might have been Gary’s truth too. I never spent time with Gary that we didn’t talk about Jomo.

Jomo Kenyatta Stoecker was a muscular black Labrador with all the traits familiar to those who know the breed. He loved Gary, loved chasing balls, loved chasing birds, and most of all he loved the water – any water. Gary named him after the African chief who was the first freely elected president of Kenya.

My wife loved Gary and Jomo too, and during the Ketchum years we were Jomo’s surrogate parents. Gary would drop him off at our house when he left for work and pick him up when he returned a week or two later. We had three young kids, an acre of lawn, and a river running along the back side of the property. Jomo loved it there.

Sometime in the mid ‘80’s Gary was promoted to Captain and transferred to New York. He sold his house in Ketchum and moved to Connecticut where he rented a new home fronting on Long Island Sound. Jomo was aging and slowing down, but still loved chasing balls, birds, and swimming in the Sound

Eventually, arthritis limited his mobility and about that time an annoying goose appeared on Gary’s property. The bird sensed Jomo’s limitations and took great delight in tormenting him from the water’s edge. Jomo would stand and bark but wasn’t able to chase him down. Then, one day late in the fall, the goose appeared and started to taunt him. Jomo stood, barked, shook himself, and gave chase. The surprised goose took off across the lawn with Jomo in pursuit then into the cold waters of the Sound. The last Gary saw of them the dog was still swimming far from shore. He never made it back, and Gary and I agreed it seemed a fitting final act for the big retriever.

Gary always lived well but he wasn’t much interested in material things unless they engaged him in other ways. He owned houses in Mill Valley and Ketchum, a sailboat when he was based in Miami, and two racy little Porsche’s over the course of his lifetime, but he was never flashy or showy. Surprisingly, though he was smart, affluent and good looking, he never found the right woman to share his life. He dated beautiful, intelligent women but never had a serious long term relationship I knew about. It may just be that he couldn’t find a woman as beautiful, loving, or loyal as Jomo. My former wife, who was his good friend, talked to him about it often and thought it was a tragic waste. I thought his high standards combined with his desire not to disappoint others made it hard to commit to that kind of a relationship.

As an engineering grad from UC Berkeley he could have had a lucrative career in the private sector, but he was restless, endlessly curious and loved adventure, so instead of engineering he followed his father’s footsteps as a Pan Am pilot just after graduating from college. I think that choice haunted him. He always wondered what his life would have been like if he had taken that other fork in the road. He talked about it openly and often.

As it was, he had big shoes to fill; his father was a tall, former USC football player, who became a senior Pan Am Captain (with a reputation as a womanizer – something that probably played a role in Gary’s decision to remain a bachelor). Nevertheless, Gary’s restless nature led him successively from San Francisco to Ketchum, Berlin, Miami, and Connecticut during his years as a Pan Am pilot.

After the loss of Jomo, Gary never seemed to find a real home. When Abby and I visited him at his apartment in Greenwich, Connecticut the room was lined with unopened moving boxes – and he’d been there for a year.

In 1997 Gary’s life took a turn for the worse. He was flying the Delta Shuttle between New York and Boston, after Delta’s acquisition of Pan Am assets. That summer he met Delia Cabe, a Boston-based science writer, who shared his wide ranging curiosity and interests. Their friendship grew and they spent time more and more time together over the next few months.

That fall he expressed concern about his health to Delia. He was also having bouts of depression. She encouraged him to see a physician but he resisted, saying that he didn’t trust them and didn’t want Delta to find out he was seeking medical help on the outside. That fall he took a medical leave to sort things out. Around Christmas, because of his increasing symptoms, Delia pressured him to consult a neurologist in Boston. Within days, Gary was admitted to Beth Israel Hospital where he underwent surgery for glioblastoma, a malignant brain tumor. He was 53.

Following this devastating diagnosis, Delia and Gary became a team whose mission was to beat the odds and overcome the glioblastoma. They moved Gary out of his Connecticut apartment and into Delia’s in Boston. She was a great companion and resource – smart, connected, and scientifically sophisticated. Gary had always been interested in science but this was personal – it was a life and death struggle. Together they devoted themselves to Gary’s case. Over the course of his treatment, including three surgeries, chemo, and radiation Delia provided a home base, exhaustive research, accompanied him on doctor visits, cooked his meals, and helped manage his care and treatment.

Delia and I became friends during this period, and the three of us talked often about his condition, treatment, and progress. In the beginning we were all optimistic, but when I think about the Kubler-Ross stages of grief I realize we were all suspended, with fingers crossed, in the “denial” phase.

I’m not good on the phone, but during his illness I found a place in myself where I could be of use just by being available to him, to Delia, and to others to talk over the situation and be a friend.

Gary was very private but his diagnosis took our friendship to a new level. I learned that there was a woman in Miami, he wanted kept in the loop. Ria, was a Miami-based flight attendant, with a child, who seemed particularly close to Gary. Delia told me she thought Gary felt bad about the way their romance had broken off, and later in the evolution of his illness Gary told me he wanted to do something for Ria – leave her something if and when he passed away. Gary had many girlfriends, but Ria was the only one that was part of our conversations during his illness.

We all deal with grief in different ways; when I tried to follow up with Ria in 2012 she told me that Gary had, indeed, left her something but she felt my call was an invasion of her privacy and asked me not to call again. I respected her wishes.

The final phase of Gary’s illness wasn’t pretty. After his third surgery he had a psychotic episode and became physically threatening. Delia contacted the doctor and together they were able to get Gary to the hospital where he was sequestered in a psych unit. He flew into a rage when he realized he was being restrained and he blamed Delia for everything. The hospital held him but neglected to take his cellphone, so he called Bob and asked him to come and get him out of there.

The next day brother Bob flew to Boston and Gary under heavy sedation was taken to California. He was seriously failing, irrational, depressed, and lashing out. Bob flew with him home to California but left him with his parents, then in their ‘80’s. Delia, who had devoted 18 months to Gary’s care, never saw him again, though he did call her several times after his return to California. Gary’s folks also kept her in the loop and up to date on Gary’s condition. They appreciated what she had done for him and knew she had nothing to do with his breakdown.

Bob, on the other hand, blamed her for everything, including Gary’s failed medical treatment. As an interesting aside, she told me that when they heard about the tumor, prior to the first surgery, Bob and the parents had flown to Boston, and as he was being taken to surgery Gary had pulled her into a women’s restroom and told her that Bob was a bully and told her not to let him bully her. Interesting in the light of the way events played out.

I was living in Salt Lake City when Gary returned to California, and we continued to talk. I told him I wanted to visit and he seemed pleased. It was a hard decision and I wasn’t sure it was a good idea. I had no idea what he would be like, what kind of shape he was in, or what I would say once I was there, but I flew to San Jose, rented a car and drove to the Stoecker home in Los Altos Hills.

I was startled when I saw him. Women regarded him as movie star handsome and flocked to him accordingly. Facing me was a poor facsimile of the Gary I knew. He looked bad. His clothes were rumpled. He’d lost weight and was unshaven. He was glad to see me but not himself—spacey is the word that comes to mind. We both knew what was coming. He was unsteady and stumbled when he walked. His parents greeted me cordially then left us alone. We talked for a couple of hours, then he asked if I would take him out for a drive. He wanted me to help him buy a suit. His nephew was getting married, and he needed one for the wedding.

It was an interesting afternoon. We drove to a lookout spot above Palo Alto where we talked a little, then made a quick stop at Bob’s house. I had never met him, but I felt he was suspicious of me or my motives for being there. He might have worried that someone outside the family would take advantage of Gary, but in view of the warning Gary gave Delia I have a different, less generous perspective.

After the stop at Bob’s, we drove to Nordstrom in Palo Alto. I must have parked the car near the entrance; I don’t remember. I do recall getting a wheel chair and wheeling Gary to the men’s department where I explained to the saleswoman that Gary needed a suit for his nephew’s wedding. Privately I told her why Gary looked and acted as he did. She understood and couldn’t have been more professional. All the time I was thinking that this suit was really going to be for his own burial. Maybe he’ll last long enough to wear it to the wedding, but it’s really his burial wardrobe. Gary and I settled on a medium gray suit with a dark pinstripe and bought a dress shirt and tie to go with it. I made arrangements for the family to pick up the suit after it was altered.

I drove Gary home and left for the airport. I never heard from the family again. When Gary died a few months later I called Bob to ask about the funeral. The call was obviously unwelcome, and I was made to feel that I was prying into the family’s private business. I haven’t spoken to him since.

I’m not sure there was a funeral. When I searched Google for an obituary I couldn’t find one though I found them for Stoeck (his father) and Winnie (his mother) both of whom died a few years later.

I’ve lived long enough to watch others grieve the death of a friend, lover, or family member and to have experienced all of them myself. There are many manifestations of grief. Some are mysterious. Some are devastating. Some are angry, and some are simply sad, but I’m always drawn to those who are generous and dignified as they work through the process. I never understood Ria’s hostility or Bob’s suspicions. I didn’t know them as friends and we didn’t share our friendships with Gary. They each had a different relationship with him. I was an outsider to them. I have never gotten over Gary’s early passing. 53 is not old. I have a son older than that. It’s unimaginable to think of him without friends, adventures, and a future.

I think about Gary fairly often and he continues to pop up like this at Thanksgiving or Christmas. I think about all the years we missed out on together, but also about the gift he gave me near the end of his life. Delia Cabe, his friend and caregiver, became my friend and has remained so since his passing. We see each other on Facebook almost every day. She’s married to a college professor now and has a new book coming out in June, Storied Bars of New York, about the bars where writers go to drink in The Big Apple – a subject near the center of my world. Yesterday we talked on the phone for over an hour. Life does go on and we do our best to make a difference until our time is up.

Gary and I led very different lives – my three wives and three children contrasted with his lifelong bachelor existence – but our lives intersected in a special way. We appreciated our differences and shared common interests. This remembrance is a celebration of friendship and memory. It’s about the loss of a friend and the 19 years he missed out on. It would have been fun.

In the best of all possible scenarios Gary and Jomo are together again. Maybe, in the words of Peter Matthiessen, they’re “at play in the fields of the Lord.”

Categories : Aviation, Fashion/Lifestyle, Personal/Family, Travel, Uncategorized, Work and Adventure

Posted by jdbernard743

· November 24, 2016

· No Comments

Urn Baby Earn… Planning Ahead

Nora Ephron is famous for saying, “Everything is copy.” She never failed to amuse as she told stories from her own life. Oh, how I wanted a direct channel to her off center view of the world yesterday. It was one of a kind.

On a dreary late fall Seattle day the cold, wet, gray weather seemed just right as M and I headed into the city to prepay our own cremation expenses. Macabre? Sure, but the responsible adult living somewhere deep within me told me it would be smart to take care of business, clean up the mess, tie up loose ends, and make it easy for the kids. Nevertheless, all the way to the destination I kept thinking it was perfect material for a Nora Ephron-like piece. The woman who wrote “I Feel Bad About My Neck” would surely find plenty to work with in prepaying for her own cremation.

When you’re closer to the end than the beginning it’s time to take inventory, and though it is that time and the smart thing to do there’s still something creepy about tinkering around with your own death. What’s definitely right about all of this prepaid business is that it’s no fun to be on the other end, no pun intended, and suddenly be responsible for the arrangements when a parent dies.

I know what it’s like to fly into town and be confronted by the myriad tasks and arrangements that need to be made. What did he/she want? Should there be a memorial service, a celebration of life, a viewing, a wake, when and where, cremation or burial, death certificates, is there a will, where is it, what does it say, was there anything about organ donations, obituary, who gets notified, etc.?

So, in that spirit and acknowledging a visceral hatred of morticians and other agents in death’s sales force, we did some research. My friend Pat Kile’s husband, David, is a retired minister so I called David for advice. I told him we didn’t want the deluxe pewter coffin with French silk and Belgian lace. We didn’t want the clergyman in the black suit who didn’t know us or the chorus of professional mourners singing Bridge Over Troubled Waters. Rather, we wanted a quick cremation and a cardboard box for the ashes.

Where could we get what we wanted and avoid the sales pitch? David delivered. People’s Memorial is the death industry’s TJ Maxx. For less than a grand we get picked up and delivered to the Co-op Funeral Home (of People’s Memorial). We get “sheltering and refrigeration.” Not sure what “sheltering” is or about the refrigeration part since I’m a California boy at heart and hate to be cold. Nevertheless, that’s part of the package. Then it’s burn baby burn. When that’s done the ashes go in this tasteful plastic container and cardboard box ready for pick up by our next of kin.

But wait; there’s more. Like the TV guy selling Vegematics at 2 a.m. there is more. No, not a carrot peeler or potato masher but the basic cremation package does include 5 certified copies of the Death Certificate, complimentary carbon offsets to equal the carbon dump of the burn, a complimentary tree planted in honor of the deceased (me/us), and payment of the King County Medical Examiner tax, plus 9.6% sales tax. Not bad, eh?

Well, here’s where we had second thoughts; in addition to the honorable service we were providing our children, we needed to get this done within the three months in order pick up 70,000 miles on our Delta Platinum American Express card. That’s enough for a roundtrip to Europe. Bingo! Great idea! Death benefits and free travel in the same package.

I’m afraid our travel plans shocked Kimberly, the very nice young woman who was helping us. She kept smiling as we celebrated our dual conquests – prepaid death benefits and a free flight to Europe. Unfortunately, she said, People’s Memorial only takes Visa or MasterCard – no American Express. Huge disappointment, as The Donald would say. Great idea but no cigar. We ended up putting our post-death benefits on a Visa card and collecting 2000 points – far from the roundtrip fare to Europe we planned on but a nudge in that direction.

Too bad we didn’t earn those 70,000 points for the burn and urn, but I’ve had my eye on an Italian espresso machine complete with a full compliment of bells and whistles. We’re going to Europe one way or another and if it means buying the Ferrari of espresso machines to get there, so be it. We’re definitely not going to let Delta wrangle us out of our travel perks this time – like they did in 1991 when I got screwed out of my pension and travel benefits because Delta pushed Pan Am into bankruptcy.

RIP Pan Am. I’m not in a hurry to join you in the boneyard but when I do it’s all prepaid. Cheers.

Categories : Fashion/Lifestyle, Personal/Family, Travel, Uncategorized, Weather

Posted by jdbernard743

· November 18, 2016

· 2 Comments

Be Kind. Make Art. Fight the Power…

“Everything that has a beginning has an ending. Make your peace with that and all will be well”

– Buddha

I’m trying…

Trying to stand up and rebalance after the political knockdown. Trying to refocus on the positive. Trying to take my cues from Colson Whitehead, this year’s National Book Award winner, who celebrated the redeeming power of art in his acceptance speech last night. His mantra for all of us – “Be kind to everybody, make art, and fight the power.”

Good advice. I’m exhausted from the turmoil of the news cycle. Be positive. Stop whining. Look forward. Live honestly. Celebrate integrity and take comfort in reading, writing, and living the values I hope will inform the future our children and grandchildren’s will inherit.

Two weeks ago Robert Olen Butler read from his new novel, Perfume River at my local bookstore (Third Place Books) in Lake Forest Park. Mr. Butler is the 1993 Pulitzer Prize winning author of A Good Scent from a Strange Mountain, a collection of short stories sourced from his experience as a Vietnamese-speaking US military interpreter during the “American War.” I read A Good Scent… around the time it was published but didn’t appreciate how good it was until I reread it while working in Saigon.

As an admirer of creative fiction I was astonished at the way this American writer was able to inhabit the characters of an old Vietnamese woman, a VC sapper, an American GI deserter, and a young Viet Kieu girl. Like a great actor, the author became these characters. I was so impressed on rereading the stories that I sent him an email asking if I could visit while in Florida on a work assignment. He agreed and I drove 421 miles out of my way to do it.

Butler lives in Capps, Florida, a T-intersection near Tallahassee, in an old plantation house filled with books and shelves lined with “hot” sauces –two of his obsessions. The house is on the National Register of Historic Places just a few miles from Florida State University where he teaches creative writing.

“I‘ll never stop believing it: Robert Olen Butler is the best living American writer, period,” (Jeff Guinn, book editor for the Fort Worth Star-Telegram).

There are a number of exceptional American writers but Robert Olen Butler, is unquestionably one of the best. The 71 year-old, five times married author, has published 16 novels, 4 collections of short stories, and a seminal work for aspiring writers called From Where You Dream: The Process of Writing Fiction.

When I pulled up to the house – literally pulled up to the house because there is just a hard flat piece of ground ending at its steps – I was greeted like an old friend. “Come on up” he said. I climbed the stairs and entered a large simply furnished room. He led me through the house, a jumble of rooms filled with books. My kind of place. If you’ve ever toured the colonial homes of our Founding Fathers you’ll know what I mean, many small rooms with high ceilings but no discernible floor plan.

After the house tour and some small talk he asked if I liked Mexican food. I do. “Let me grab my coat and I’ll take you to the best Mexican restaurant in the country.” Sixteen miles north, in Monticello, near the Florida-Georgia line, the Rancho Grande looks like a typical Mexican café – high backed wooden booths, bright yellow walls with royal blue trim decorated with sombreros and serapes. But appearances can be, as they say, deceiving, and Butler was right; the food was some of the best Mexican I’ve ever eaten. I ordered the special Lunch Fajitas with rice and beans and washed them down with a Dos Equis Dark. Delicious.

During our meal we talked about writing fiction and the outline of our lives. He asked how many times I’d been married and laughed when I said three. He told me I was one behind.” Actually now it’s two, since then he’s divorced number four and married number five. Last week he told me he thought he was over his compulsive need to “commit.”

After lunch we drove back to Capps and he took me around to the small outbuilding that serves as his office/studio (also lined with books). He had just signed a contract to write two thrillers based on a short story written years before. There was no artifice about him. He asked me about myself and seemed genuinely interested. He asked if I read thriller fiction and if so what authors I liked. He was looking for models. I told him I admired Alan Furst, and he quickly said “Yes, but I think the characters are a little thin.” I wouldn’t have said that but he’s the expert. His characters always jump off the page as real people.

Our afternoon together passed quickly but he never made me feel it was time to go. When it was over, I thanked him and left behind a stack of books I brought for him to sign. Then I drove to the FSU campus to see where he teaches. Nice place. Two weeks later the box of books arrived in Seattle, each with personalized inscription. Bob Butler is a class act.

I’m reading Perfume River now and seeing in it my own Vietnam experience as well as universal and personal family issues. There’s no shortage of literary hanky panky here. The protagonist is a 70-year-old Vietnam vet, now a professor at FSU, who by virtue of the imminent death of his father must confront a number of long buried issues, personal, familial, and global. There are dysfunctional marriages, mistaken identities, a doppelganger homeless man, and reflections on family and mortality. It dexterously shifts back and forth between the war in Vietnam, the protagonist’s pre-war family, and his present day life in Florida. The scope is global but it’s grounded in the particular – something he implores his students to strive for. I’m not finished with the book but I’m savoring every word. Perfume River is an important new novel from a writers’ writer. It’s also a great launch point for me with Colson Whitehead’s mantra ever in the background.

Be kind to everybody, make art, and fight the power.

Categories : Art, Books, Fashion/Lifestyle, Food/Restaurants, Personal/Family, Politics, Saigon Diary, Uncategorized, Work and Adventure

Posted by jdbernard743

· November 1, 2016

· No Comments

Electile Dysfunction…

Unlike the erectile dysfunction email that fills my Spam folder, I haven’t found a way to block the electile dysfunction rhetoric that is filling my Inbox, Facebook, and news feeds. And I know I’m not alone; even Ringling Brothers, Barnum and Bailey is worried. Last week it registered a complaint about calling the election a circus. It’s giving the circus a bad name.

Given the current state of affairs I don’t have any faith that the noise will die down after November 8th. I’m afraid it’s likely to get louder when less than half the people are celebrating and more than half are cringing. Optimist that I am, I’m still looking for the silver lining but it’s not easy when the swamp is churning with smarmy, secretive truth-shaders, habitual liars, and sexual predators. Isn’t there any way we can spin this and minimize the creepy cringe worthy aspects?

What if we peel off the top layer – Hillary and the Donald – and see what it looks like underneath? Given that nobody’s perfect, I see the two Vice-Presidential candidates as more like the old paradigm – and they pass the smell test. I don’t have to hold my nose when I think about either one of them. Democrat Tim Kaine and Republican Mike Pence both appear to be men of good character, solid values, and proven leadership qualities. Both served their home states in Congress and have governed at the state level. I like Kaine’s politics better, but Pence, in spite of his defense of “he who shall not be named,” projects character, leadership and values honestly held. I wouldn’t be happy but I could probably live with a Pence presidency.

And then there’s the Commander-in-Chief/nuclear codes issue; neither Kaine nor Pence served in the military, but I find it reassuring to note that both have sons serving on active duty with the Marine Corps. Flash back to last summer when Pence’s avatar attacked a Gold Star family whose 100% American son, Captain Humayun Khan, gave his life to save his American comrades in Iraq. When asked to respond to Khan senior’s charge that Trump had “sacrificed nothing” for his country, The Donald said “I think I’ve made a lot of sacrifices. I work very, very hard” and employ “thousands and thousands of people.” Really Mr. Trump? Sacrifice?

We haven’t had a President or VP with military experience since George H.W. Bush left office in 1993. (Don’t get me started on the cut and run antics of George W). I want a thoughtful Commander-in-Chief and I prefer to have one with some skin in the game rather than a Dick Cheney Trump-like character who avoided service with multiple deferments but has no problem sending other people’s children to war. With that in mind, I prefer either VP candidate to be my Commander-in-Chief. They both have skin in the game.

Democracy is messy and the choices we’ve been offered this time are deeply flawed – each in a different way – but deeply flawed. I don’t like either one of them. Our political system isn’t working. It isn’t voter fraud, but it might be Citizens United. It’s not working because unlimited campaign money on both sides is “rigging” the election. We have the best government money can buy and it stinks. “We the people” have been disenfranchised by wealthy donors and special interests. If Citizens United is overturned, we might regain our ability to hold elected officials to a higher standard. We might be able to apply pressure and force them to work together for the good of the country.

Every four years we elect a President, Vice-President, 30+ senators, and 435 representatives. We’ll be doing it again next week. The system may not be broken but it’s in serious need of repair. Remember Spiro Agnew? Unless you’re my age you might not, but he was Richard Nixon’s corrupt Vice-President forced to resign in disgrace when his corrupt activities and tax evasion were uncovered. And, speak of the devil; Richard Nixon, also forced to resign when his criminal involvement in Watergate was revealed. The system may be cumbersome but it does work.

I love this Barbara Kruger mural at the Hirshhorn Museum in Washington. Maybe hers is the answer. Maybe we just need to restore sanity to the electoral process. We need to throw a little doubt over our belief systems in order to solve the equation.

I have faith that handicapped as it is our system can recover its balance. America is resilient, and, in spite of the current rhetoric, it is great right now. We don’t need a savior to make it great again. What we need are people of character and good values working for the common good. Kaine and Pence fit that description and I know there are others out there.

Eight years ago we had hope that our first black President would help us heal. He was, and is, a man of good character and strong family values, but he was hamstrung by a deep economic recession and an obstructionist Congress. We need honorable worthy candidates but we also need to take the “rigging” out of the system so that these people of good character can work together with Congress for the welfare of the country as a whole.

Let’s treat our electile dysfunction and get healthy again. Let’s climb out of the swamp, get cleaned up, and take the steps we need to take to rise above the dysfunction.

Exercise your franchise. Vote on November 8^th – even if you have to hold your nose. Belief + Doubt = Sanity.

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