And what would it mean to live in a non-democratic, highly autocratic, quasi-monarchy? I suppose we could look to contemporary examples, nearly all of which are in the Middle East. But I, like our fearless, manly, courageous, and of all things decisive leader, am a confirmed Methodist. This means that I sometimes turn to the Good Book for guidance. So what does the Word of God have to say to the people of God on this day on these matters?

To quote from the Hebrew Bible, the first book of Samuel, 8th chapter, verses 6-20:

“But the thing displeased Samuel, when they said, Give us a king to judge us. And Samuel prayed unto the LORD. And the LORD said unto Samuel, Hearken unto the voice of the people in all that they say unto thee: for they have not rejected thee, but they have rejected me, that I should not reign over them. According to all the works which they have done since the day that I brought them up out of Egypt even unto this day, wherewith they have forsaken me, and served other gods, so do they also unto thee. Now therefore hearken unto their voice: howbeit yet protest solemnly unto them, and shew them the manner of the king that shall reign over them.
And Samuel told all the words of the LORD unto the people that asked of him a king. And he said, This will be the manner of the king that shall reign over you:
- He will take your sons, and appoint them for himself, for his chariots, and to be his horsemen; and some shall run before his chariots.
- And he will appoint him captains over thousands, and captains over fifties; and will set them to ear his ground, and to reap his harvest, and to make his instruments of war, and instruments of his chariots.
- And he will take your daughters to be confectionaries, and to be cooks, and to be bakers.
- And he will take your fields, and your vineyards, and your oliveyards, even the best of them, and give them to his servants. And he will take the tenth of your seed, and of your vineyards, and give to his officers, and to his servants.
- And he will take your menservants, and your maidservants, and your goodliest young men, and your asses, and put them to his work. He will take the tenth of your sheep: and ye shall be his servants.
And ye shall cry out in that day because of your king which ye shall have chosen you; and the LORD will not hear you in that day.
Nevertheless the people refused to obey the voice of Samuel; and they said, Nay; but we will have a king over us; That we also may be like all the nations; and that our king may judge us, and go out before us, and fight our battles.”

A significant portion of the American public (almost half, it would appear) do not want a judge, they want a king. To even ask the question “why should we hold an election – we are at war, aren’t we?” is to say, in effect, that we shall have a king over us, to go out before us and fight out battles. Do not the people of America realize the danger into which we are walking?
- There are already open calls for the return of the draft (NYT, 5/4/04, “A War for Us, Fought by Them”).
- This current administration has involved the biggest fire-sale to corporate America – or, more particularly, certain segments of corporate America (finance, energy, big pharma) – since the robber barons of the Gilded Age.
- Whatever else this administration may say about “family values” and “defense of the family,” they make damn sure that we have plenty of underpaid and overworked, men and women, adults and teens, native-born and immigrant, all working the slave-wage jobs of the new service economy – short-order cooks, maids and janitors, itinerant farm laborers, basic retail – jobs that support the lifestyles of middle class families but which themselves neither support a family nor provide a real escape from destitution and hunger.
- Whatever else may be said about the tax cuts, they disproportionately benefited the super-rich, the wealthy, and corporate America.

This is what it means to live under a monarchy, people. The prophet spoke, 3500 years ago, but we are making this choice now and in November. Remember, people, just because you voted for him doesn’t mean he was elected.

Do you want a judge, or do you want a king?

Will you live in Rome?

Geen reactie’s, je kan de eerste zijn »

I suppose my questions from last week’s column constitute a form of the “what if” game. And it is true that we could all play the “what if?” game until we’re blue in the face. What if Mars attacks? What if Texas Gov. Perry really is a big ol’ closet queen? What if Jesus and Mary Magdalene really do have descendants living in the south of France?

Let me suggest to you that contemplating the possibility of a disrupted election in 2004 is not idle, but quite serious. We had a disrupted election in 2000, and the administration that took the reins of power as a result still holds those reins. This administration also does not appear to contemplate giving up power lightly or without some kind of (already quite dirty) fight. And if we have a disrupted election in 2004, I would suggest we think serious about why we are even holding elections at all, to put a different twist on the original question asked by my esteemed colleague’s student. A disrupted non-election is precisely that – not an election. And two disrupted non-elections in a row suggest to me that we would, at that point (what if?) not really be living in a democracy anymore, at least not at the federal level, in anything but the most empty and hypocritical of forms. After all, doesn’t (at least one of) the definition(s) of a democracy require that we, the people, elect our leaders periodically?

What then?

I posed this scenario to my mother, and her first response was to suggest moving to Canada. At which moment I paused, and began to ask myself (and her) some fairly hard questions. Like, is it better to live close to the center of power – as the subject of a non-democratic, highly autocratic, quasi-monarchical empire? Or is better to live as a free citizen of a liberal democracy (such as Canada, or Australia) – albeit one that pays provincial tribute to the metropole?

This is not quite the same question asked by certain die-hard liberals under Reagan or die-hard conservatives under Clinton – the ones who contemplated emigration to Canada or Europe or Central America after the Gipper demolished Mondale in the 1984 landslide and silver-tongued William trounced Dole in 1996. Those questions were prompted by fears about how one lives within a democracy: i.e., how does one live under a leader who is passing laws with which one does not agree? I am asking a different question, one that pertains to whether one lives in a democracy, and that is a very different question altogether. This is not a question of who is in power – it is a question of who determines who is in power. And it is a question that I suggest Republicans need to ask themselves just as seriously as Democrats are doing. Just because George II is doing things of which you approve does not mean you elected him.

So, what if? What if we find the Rubicon crossed? Will you live in Rome, at the center of the empire? Or will you take your precious liberties to the provinces, and live in Greece?

I, for one, hope for democracy’s sake that we have a clear and uncontested result in this fall’s election. Yes, you read that right – I would rather see George W. Bush legitimately elected as our president than to sit under another four years (would it only be four? Why stick to silly things like term limits when…?) of George II.

Geen reactie’s, je kan de eerste zijn »

Let us contemplate, for a minute, the difference between streets and roads.

Associated with “road,” we have: “road trip,” “rules of the road,” “road rage.”

With “street”: street musicians, the man on the street, the “Arab Street,” street vendors, kids who grow up “on the street” and play “street ball.”

The difference? Roads are about cars, while streets are about people. A road is a strip of asphalt, divided into lanes. Such a stretch of asphalt is but one component of a street, which begins with the facades of the buildings along it, and includes the yards, sidewalks, trees, planters, and everything else in between.

Streets accommodate multiple users—pedestrians, cars, bicycles, and—in particularly enlightened places—streetcars. Along the fronts of buildings, alternation of windows, walls, doors, and decoration keeps the human-scale landscape varied and interesting. A densely spaced grid of streets assures a direct route to each destination, through a pleasing landscape. A mixture of uses brings a mix of users, and keeps the street populated with people. And the continual comings and goings of people on the street is perhaps the most interesting part of the cityscape.

Roads fail to accommodate any users except motorists. The buildings along roads are widely spaced, so distances between destinations are forbidding, and very few people travel on foot. Even where there are sidewalks, they are deserted, and no barrier of parked cars separates them from fast-moving cars on the road. This, together with the monotony of parking lots and lifeless landscaping, make them dreadfully uninviting to the pedestrian.

In traditional urban design, the distinction between roads and streets is clear. The town itself is composed of streets, which link its people and places together. Roads are only used to link individual towns. In sprawl, there are no streets; everything is linked by roads. As cities are built for people, suburbia is built for cars, so suburbs are built of roads.

We have enough roads. It is well documented that it is impossible to solve traffic problems by building more roads, as roads actually create traffic. Roads, and the drive-only places they connect, consume enormous amounts of land. And there’s too much land already devoted to roads and parking. What we need to do is to make better use of the built-up and paved-over land.

Consider, for a moment, a day in the life of a suburban soccer mom. She drives home along Major Road, which is the only road that leads to Glenwood Village, her subdivision. There is only one way into Glenwood Village, and except for a small unused park at the entryway, it is entirely composed of split-level ranch houses on twisty streets and cul-de-sacs. There are no stores in Glenwood Village, nor is there a school or library or church. To get to all these things, one must get back on Major Road which, between 4pm and 7pm, is always congested, not only with the residents of Glenwood Village, but also with those of Chelsea Manor Estates and Riverdale Park and Orchard Grove, subdivisions that are similarly accessible only via Major Road. So when suburban soccer mom goes to pick up each of her two kids, and shuttles them to soccer practice and piano lessons, and goes to the grocery store to buy more Cheerios and Sunny Delight, and picks the kids up from piano lessons and soccer practice, and goes to Office Depot to buy a new ink cartridge for their printer, then goes to Staples because Office Depot didn’t have the right cartridge in stock, and goes to Burger King to pick up dinner, and then goes home, she’s out on Major Road each time. And so are all the other soccer moms in Glenwood Village and Chelsea Manor Estates and Riverdale Park and Orchard Grove. No wonder it’s always congested. No wonder she wants to “get away from it all.”

The kids can’t really help out. They’re not old enough to drive. Even though their school is only a mile away, as the crow flies, there’s no reasonable way for them to walk there, so they have to be driven there, out on Major Road. Soccer practice is not at school or in a neighborhood park but 10 miles away, in a countywide mega recreation center, down Major Road and then left on Songbird Lane. Piano lessons are in Chelesa Manor Estates, down Major Road. The supermarket is just 3 miles down Major Road.

The pathologies of this way of living are numerous, but imagine if Glenwood Village had been built like a traditional town instead. You can still get there on Major Road. Or you can take a commuter train, which stops at the end of Main Street. Along Main Street is a grocery store, a post office, and a library, and several other shops. A continuous network of streets connects Main Street and the school and a park to all the houses. In this setting, the kids can help out, walking to school on their own, and to soccer practice, and perhaps even riding their bikes to piano lessons in Chelsea Manor Estates, because these two neighborhoods aren’t walled off from one another but are connected by several side streets, in addition to Major Road.

Of course, I have been describing extremes, of cities, sprawl, streets, and roads. What one actually encounters often falls somewhere in between. Unfortunately, though, it is most often cities that look like sprawl than sprawl that looks civilized. Parts of most cities have adopted the failed vernacular of sprawl—the superblocks, the cul-de-sacs, the strip malls embedded in parking lots, the impassible expressways dividing one neighborhood from the next—places where they built the roads but forgot to build the streets. Here, dividing a superblock into regular blocks, turning a maze into a grid, and opening up dead ends can all improve livability.

Which, in short, is the way we resolve an apparent contradiction in urbanist thinking, explaining why most pavement is bad but some is good. While we have too many roads, what we need, quite often, are more streets.

4 Reactie’s »

The following is the second installment of a three-part review of Mikuni Japanese Restaurant in downtown Sacramento.

While I concede that decor is important to creating the right ambiance in which to enjoy fine cuisine, I am not extremely particular about it. Give me a clean, comfortable, quiet and decently lit place and I’m pretty happy. Therefore, it wasn’t hard for me to look past Mikuni’s decor theme of cluttered eclecticism. The food is always the most important thing at a restaurant, right? Mikuni shall rise and fall on the palatability of its fare, so sayeth the Decadent Fob. Let’s eat!

If one goes to Mikuni with a hankering for dishes such as sukiyaki, tonkatsu or shabu shabu that are commonly found in Japanese restaurants in the U.S., one will disappointed. While dinner sets with the ubiquitous teriyaki and tempura combinations can be had, Mikuni is really all about sushi. As soon as one opens the menu, one is confronted with pages and pages of creatively named rolls in addition to the standard list of the more traditional nigirizushi. Apart from sushi and the dinner combos, a strong selection of non-sushi side dishes and appetizers is also available. As Guinness Paul and I were intent on eating tuna (and other raw fish) spread before us, we skipped the boxed meal/a la carte selections and dove headlong into Mikuni’s vast selection of sushi. Placed in charge of the ordering, I settled on a balanced selection that included three side plate dishes, three types of rolls, and four types of nigirizushi.

Side Plate Selections–Of all the dishes that ended up on our table, these were the best. The side plates are perhaps best described as tapa/appetizer-like non-sushi dishes that one can order individually or to share. The first of these creative little specials that we had was a “Barbequed White Tuna”dish–meaty chunks of tuna grilled medium rare and served with two special cream sauces. Both Guinness Paul and I enjoyed this very much. The pieces were tender without any fishy smell and were complimented quite nicely by the creamy yin and the spicy yang of the two sauces. The second side plate we ordered was something called a “Black & White” which is composed of seared slices of toro (fatty tuna), jalapeno peppers and fish roe all in a thin sauce. This dish turned out well in taste but fell short in presentation. I think that toro is best eaten raw and that plump morsels of pink flesh glistening with fat look better than do pale white slices of seared fish lying soggy and limp in their own sauce. The Black & White didn’t change my mind. The final side plate selection was the “Special Scallop,” tender cooked scallops on individual morsels of rice dressed with the same Thousand Island-type sauce that accompanied the Barbequed White Tuna. I would suggest that one avoid ordering two dishes that are both served with this sauce as it all becomes tired and trite quite quickly. Again, the taste of the scallops was quite inoffensive and the texture not at all rubbery as is the case sometimes with scallops that aren’t fresh. The presentation was unique in that the scallop morsels were lined up on a long rectangular dish.

Sushi Rolls–Although they are the featured part of the Mikuni menu, the rolls were nothing to shout about. Pretty standard fare, if you ask me. Despite the vast selection, many rolls are actually very similar with just one or two ingredients differentiating them. With so many ingredients, the nuances contributed by each ingredient became lost in all of the flavors. One problem that presented itself was choosing which rolls to order. With so many rolls, I just ended up gravitating toward those with interesting names. Interestingly, the “Sacramento Roll,” was a deep fried California Roll, leading both of us to wonder just what sort of message the creators wanted to send. Let’s see, we’re California but we’re deep fried. What could that possibly mean? Although we never were sure, Guinness Paul and I decided that it was somehow a swipe at the good people of our fair town.

After perusing the menu, we eventually ended up with three different rolls: The Pender Roll and the Judie 2 Roll to start and a Philadelphia Roll, a Japanese-American culinary fusion piece that has become as hackneyed as the California Roll. I ordered it as a sort of “baseline” against which to measure the other rolls, which were basically unrecognizable. The Judie 2, ostensibly named after an employee or an owner, consisted of spicy tuna and snow crab topped with eel, avocado, tobiko, green onions and, I believe, seared tuna. The roll’s double shot of fleshy tuna somehow made me very interested in meeting its namesake. The Judie 2 was loaded with fresh items, but suffered a bit from an overload of ingredients. The other selection that arrived on the wooden block with Judie 2 was the Pender Roll stuffed with snow crab and deep fried shrimp and topped with flounder, salmon and avocado with a sprinkle of green onion and fish roe. It wasn’t bad, but certainly not memorable for anything other than the fact that its litany of ingredients hindered it in much the same way that the Judie2 was stifled. So, the remaining curiosity is its name. Why Pender? I never did find out, but in hindsight, I’d venture to guess that it might have something to do with Teddy Pendergrass and tragic paralysis.

Nigirizushi–In many respects, nigirizushi is what we picture when we think of “sushi.” Sometimes known as Edomaezushi, the humble morsel of raw fish on a ball of vinegared rice has been at the vanguard of the spread and mainstreaming of Japanese cuisine here in America. I’ve been told that one can judge the quality of a sushi chef by his preparation of unagi (freshwater eel) and tamago (egg). I have never been able to understand how two cooked selections can reflect on a man’s ability to cobble together mostly raw ingredients, but I always try to order these types of sushi so that I look like I know what I’m doing. At Mikuni, I ordered tamago, uni (sea urchin), shake (salmon), and hamachi (yellowtail). Tamago was ordered to impress Guinness Paul as he is well aware of the unagi-tamago-good sushi chef triangulation thing. The sea urchin roe was ordered because it is so often prized by sushi lovers and also because my dining companion was an urchin virgin. Shake and hamachi were selected simply because they are some of my favorites. For better or for worse, they ended up being pretty much par for the course. They were fresh, but the fish could have been cut a little bit more generously. The order of tamago that was brought riled me as it was made up of the end pieces, which I don’t care for. Tamago is a layered omelet made in a special square pan. It is actually cooked in individual layers and rolled back and forth to create the golden strata of sweet egg familiar to sushi lovers. The end pieces are slightly more rubbery than cuts from the middle of the omelet, so I was disappointed that they served them to patrons rather than slicing them into strips for Futomaki or other rolls. Despite the tamago disappointment, the uni was quite special and almost made up for the slight from the itamae-san (sushi chef) on the tamago. Rather than being the sickly yellow of most types of urchin roe, this particular uni had a dark orangish, pumpkin-y hue. Generally, the lighter the color of uni the less flavor that is to be found within. Our waiter indicated that the roe had come directly from Japan, rather than from the California waters where most of the state’s uni is harvested. I wasn’t disappointed when I popped the morsel into our mouth. Sweet, soft and creamy was the roe as it melted onto my tongue. In hindsight, aside from Guinness Paul’s company, I’d say that it was the highlight of the dinner.

I should mention here that the service was what one would expect. Our waiter, an Asian man of college age, did pretty much what was expected. Drink service was a tad slow as they had yet to harvest the rice for Guinness Paul’s sake. Unfortunately, my water glass was not filled as often as I like. Call me unsophisticated (after all, I just got off the boat, remember?), but I do not like to take alcohol with my meals. Water is just fine for me and allows the flavors to speak for themselves. I take it that most diners are not this way, thereby leading many servers to devote less attention to the level of a patron’s water glass.

So, after about an hour of gorging ourselves on rice and seafood, I looked at my girth and wondered aloud whether or not I should procure more sushi for our table. I concluded that we had had enough to sate our cravings for fish and also enough for me to come to a fair conclusion on the quality of the Mikuni dining experience. All that was left was to pay our bill. This was set to be an interesting situation as we were laden with gobs of cash and thus had negligently ignored the right hand column of the menu that indicated the price of the culinary treats we demanded.

Next Time: The Decadent Fob, kingmaker of the Asian ethnic restaurant world, hands down his long-awaited verdict on Sacramento’s trendiest Japanese dining establishment.

2 Reactie’s »

I confess I have found it hard to comment on what’s been going on in Abu Ghraib. It is too disheartening. So instead of trying to find meaning in that madness, let me talk about something else going on in Iraq at the moment. And yes, I know this is out of order (my columns usually appear mid-week), but this was too bizarre to pass up.

Like the good pointy-headed liberal that I am, I was reading the New York Times yesterday, and came across an intriguing article (“G.I.’s and Iraqis Raid Offices and Home of Former Exile Leader,” 5/20/04). It details how, in our infinite wisdom, we (which is to say, the Coalition Provisional Authority), smashed up the offices of Ahmad Chalabi, former darling of Team Wolfowitz, and member of the puppet Iraqi Governing Council. And when I say “smashed,” I mean smashed. The article states that doors were broken, computers ripped out of the walls, the refrigerator raided (gasp!), furnishings torn apart, flunkies handcuffed and shipped off to the hoosegow, etc.

I find this curious. I thought Chalabi was our friend. If this is how we treat our allies in Iraq, then what the f**k are we doing to our enemies (aside from massacring them, I mean: see “Disputed Strike by U.S. Military Leaves at Least 40 Iraqis Dead”, NYT, 5/20/04)?

The article is curious for a number of reasons. Not only was Chalabi supposed to be the hand-picked successor to Saddam, and thus our new “democratically” elected leader of the “free” and “independent” Iraq, but he was also apparently on friendly personal terms with many of folks leading us into this bright “new American century” (Feith, Wolfowitz, Rumsfeld, etc.). What did he do to piss them off so badly that they would treat him like some capo who had disrespected his don?

Now, it’s not like we didn’t know from the start that Chalabi wasn’t exactly a great choice to be America’s Baghdad toadie: he’s apparently under indictment (in Lebanon) for laundering millions of dollars from a bank he used to run there. It’s never been exactly clear what he did with the $27 million dollars we (you and I, from our hard-earned taxes) gave to him as leader of the Iraqi National Congress (his London-based rabble-rousing exile group). Up until we invaded, he also hadn’t been in Iraq for over twenty years. Which is to say, people on the ground in Iraq didn’t know him from Adam. But evidently Doug, Paul, and Don all liked him, and so that was good enough, right?

So why are we busting up his crib? Is it:
a.) because we want all our money back,
b.) because we finally realized he’s sitting on a big chunk of Saddam’s old intelligence files, and they might actually be useful for finding evildoers (e.g., those that would torture innocent people using dogs and sexual sadism),
c.) because he’s been selling intelligence secrets to the Iranis.
d.) because he foolishly talked sass about his pimp, and we can’t have our bitches bad-mouthing us to the customers,
e.) because, in the words of one of Chalabi’s aides, “Bremer has lost his mind,” or
f.) because we need to “stand tall” and “stay the course”” with “the terrorists” and their allies.

You tell me. I can’t make head nor tails of it, to be honest.

3 Reactie’s »

The following is the first installment of a three-part review of Mikuni Japanese Restaurant in downtown Sacramento.

The third branch of Mikuni Japanese restaurant has, since its December 2003 opening, attracted throngs of diners to the corner of 16th and J streets, the former site of a Chevrolet dealership across from the landmark Memorial Auditorium. Long lines and even longer waits are now par for the course at what has become one of Sacramento’s most popular dining establishments. Reservations are for parties of eight or more I learned, as a recent Thursday call for a table was turned away, albeit in a very polite manner. So, what’s all the hullabaloo about? Have Sacramentans, who gave the thumbs up to Kentucky Fried Chicken as the “best fried chicken” in town, stumbled upon something unique and wonderful in the galaxy of Japanese cuisine? Could it be that the people who had an international airport with no international flights possess a hidden acumen for that quintessential Japanese culinary tradition known as sushi? Well, the Decadent Fob aimed to learn the truth about Mikuni for himself and for Pimpgnosis readers. Once I could find a table, I set out with the Pimpgnostic Guinness Paul to get the lowdown.

Mikuni and its neighbor, P.F. Chang’s China Bistro, are two of the few but increasing number of restaurants in Sacramento to offer valet parking to their patrons. However, as street parking was plentiful nearby, we decided to take a spot down the street so that we might have the ambulatory “pedestrian” experience which, in hindsight, was very appropriate.

Upon entering, Mikuni makes it loud and clear to its patrons that it is not the traditional sushi establishment. Glass, concrete, and metal with colorful touches adorn the “industrial” look of the dining room. Unfortunately, that look, with its serpentine maze of exposed ventilation ducts and general starkness, has become very tired. (For me, the thick ventilation ducts look less like anacondas at rest and more like huge fecal-filled colons–ascending, transverse and descending. Waiter, just make sure I’m not sitting under a rectum. Thanks.) It became clear to me that Mikuni is not a Japanese restaurant in the tradition of the kimono-clad waitress and of tatami mats. Rather, it is “different” in the most ironic sense. As one looks around, it becomes painfully obvious that the bustling ambience hides the banality of a restaurant trying so hard to be different that it drops itself right into the middle of the undifferentiated group of Asian fusion restaurants that are, well, trying to be different. From sushi chefs with sombreros to the three sushi bars each with their own name, the restaurant seems intent on beating the observant diner over the head with very obvious elements of a “look at me” East-West fusion decor. The boisterous employee shouts of “irasshai” that can be heard when guests enter are reminiscent of the same practice in many Bay Area fusion-y sushi restaurants. Also, as Guinness Paul noted, the flat, hard surfaces enclosing the dining area seem made to induce aural chaos on crowded nights.

As I glanced around at the clientele and the wait staff I began to develop an immediate sense of trepidation. Yes, the Decadent Fob, having just spread his toes into the coastal sands of your precious California after three months on a rickety boat dodging treacherous pirates, still relies on the tried and true “eyeball test.” No, not the eyeball test used by your weekend warrior Home Despot dad, but the Decadent Fob’s own special eyeball test. You see, when it comes to Asian restaurants, I look at the eyeballs of the patrons and of the help. Lots of epicanthic folds and slantiness, good; general ocular roundness and pale irises, bad. I won’t even begin to go into how many Thai restaurants went into the tank after their clientele base switched slowly from swarthy, diminutive Asians to hairy-chested, thick-wristed whites who, God bless them, are bent on trying different cuisines of the world come hell or high water. There is one exception, however: gays and Thai food. I don’t know what it is, but they always seem to know where the gettin’ is good when it comes to authentic Thai food. Drop me in a city and let me talk to one mama-san and two lesbians and I can find you the best Thai food in that town. Yes, they’re all generalizations, but it’s the best cognitive shorthand there is unless you know of something better.

Anyway, for ethnic Asian cuisine, I think there’s a balance to be had in terms of clientele and fidelity to culinary tradition. It seemed that Mikuni didn’t have it and didn’t really care to have it. The 6-5 white frat boy-type behind one of the sushi bars gave it away, not to mention the silicone-enhanced, low-cut, blonde salaciousness displayed by some of the patrons at the bar. Nope, if I expected any Japanese culinary traditionalism at Mikuni, I had better get back on my boat and shove off. Mikuni never leads one to think anything other than that it is a new wave sort of Japanese restaurant. Fair enough. No one said that East-West fusion can’t be well done or delicious. It’s just bad when you go into an ostensibly authentic Asian ethnic restaurant with a hankering for a particular dish only to get punked because the clientele’s idea of Asian culture is Mr. Miyagi, Charlie Chan and the fine fare at Yoshinoya and Panda Express. But because of its great popularity among our fellow Sacramentans, Guinness Paul and I went in full of hope and with empty stomachs.

Next Time: Learn about all the fishy details as the Decadent Fob finally puts tongue to tuna at Mikuni.

3 Reactie’s »

Dear Diary -

Oh. My. Fucking. God. Dr. Evil is like my total hero. That guy is totally totally out of control! I mean, I know sometimes I have self-esteem issues when it comes to being a super villain, but I have got to give it up to this guy. I knew he was top notch when I first got his invitation to come over to his secret base and it was - get this - written in BLOOD. I was so excited - most of the other supervillains hardly ever give me the time of day, and here I get a specially engraved invitation to lunch with the biggest bad guy of all time. And did I mention it was printed in BLOOD? Holy shit!

Well I’ll tell you what - I sure as hell wasn’t going to let that ingrate Chad come along to spoil the fun. I told him he had to stay back home at the undersea base continue like, planning and shit. He was all whiny about how he never got to ride on the submarine. I was like: shut it.

And let me tell you something: if you think my undersea base is impressive, wait til you see Dr. Evil’s! First, it’s made entirely out of crystal. Like, Fortress of Solitude level crystal. Second, he stuck that shit straight down the bottom of the Marianas trench, so all the crystal shine in the reflected lights of those big, fucked-up looking glowing worm things that you always see on National Geographic and shit. We had a hell of a time getting the sub down there, that’s for sure. Talk about impregnable - this place makes Tora Bora look like a gazebo at the country club.

And Dr. Evil himself is just like, ALL CLASS, you know what I’m saying? First, I have to give him props - his minions costumes are MUCH cooler than my minions. I mean all the black leather is actually black leather, not some fucked up Brittney Spears wearin’ synthetic substitute like I’ve got to use in order to maximize funding to my Death-O-Tron. And the man himself is also all class. He looks just like Professor X except that he can walk, has a wicked Fu Manchu looking facuial hair, and has this totally chilling accent which involves a lot of rolled rrrrs and lines that I could totally never come up. And when I got off the sub he had two of his fembots give us champagne for a welcoming toast. Fembots! I could use a few of those around my base I’ll tell you what.

But the thing that got me was his cat - a big fluffy white one he carried in one hand the entire time. He just stroked it and stroked it and stroked it, and it just kinda hung there in his hand the entire time. I swear to god he must have that cat coked up to the gills on tranqs. I’d go nuts with all that stroking. It just like sat there. He was just like stroking constantly. I don’t know why it fucked with my head so bad but it did for some reason.

And dinner - classy as all get out. It was all fancy stuff and there were like fifty forks and spoons and knives and I could never figure out which ones to use but he was too good a guy to mention it. We talked for a long time, about my career at Los Alamos as a respected atomic scientist, the accident with the glowing goop, how I sorta decided that a three-state killing spree really seemed to be the thing to do after my head stopped aching from the goo, and then all the heat from the pigs and how I went back to school at community college to get my associates in being an Evil Supervillain and everything. He was so solicitous! He even asked about my plans for the new Death-O-Tron.

After dinner during brandy, cigars, and some serious fembot ear massage I felt, dear diary, that I had finally found a friend I could confide in. I mostly talked about Chad, how he was always playing freeze tag and bragging about going to Second City and how he called my fugu-finger ‘corny’. When I told him that Dr. Evil’s eyes just about bugged out of his head. He said Chad was a total looser (except he said it way more classy than that) and that my genetically-engineered pinky of death was ‘a formidable and elegant weapon’. Hear that, diary? Formidable and elegant. Now there’s a guy with taste, a guy who understands what I’m trying to do, my vision for Evil Super Villaindom.

He was even cool enough to offer me one of his favorite lieutenants to be my right hand man so I could dish Chad, but I had to turn him down. I mean even if Chad is kinda a pud, he’s my pud after all and to be honest the thought of that poor fucker ending up back in that Sizzler in Encinitas does break my heart. I suggested maybe he could lend me a few fembots or something but he seemed to think that wasn’t a real good idea. I can see why - if I ever get my hands on one of those mind control Lando Calrissian Lobot head cuff things I’d backwards engineer those fuckers in like three nanoseconds tops. For SURE. I’d like to see Chad give me lip then!

Anyway Dr. Evil was pretty keen on having some of his men at least come on over and help do some volunteer work on the Death-O-Tron. Well, I couldn’t really say no what with how we had totally bonded and everything, so after a little more brandy I got them on board and said goodbye to my new number one Bud Dr. Evil. When I got back I actually caught Chad sitting on my Throne of Supreme Rule and reading Harry Potter. Normally it would make me just want to cry. But instead I stoop up strong, diary. I told him that the Throne of Supreme Rule was for the hombre was in Supreme Rulership - i.e. ME. And then I made him drop and give me twenty, just to show him how tough I was before he showed Dr. Evil’s scientists to the Death-O-Tron. That’ll show him. Dr. Evil has shown me the way. And after all, you’ve gotta be cruel to be kind sometimes, you know?

Geen reactie’s, je kan de eerste zijn »

Although I imagine that my esteemed fellow citizens of the Republican persuasion bristle at the Democratic point that George II was “appointed” and not “elected” surely no-one can dispute the fact that the 2000 election was not in fact decided by a popular vote. It was in fact decided by a 5-4 vote of the (unelected, appointed for life) Supreme Court.

What if it happens again in November?

Let me tell you a little anecdote: one of my fellow professors mentioned to me how one of her students wondered out loud, in class, whether or not we were going to have an election this fall. After all, this student said (according to my fellow professor) we are “at war,” so why have an election?

Why indeed. Let us leave aside the distressing historical ignorance (hello, 1864 and 1944). Let us also leave aside the rather frighteningly dismissive attitude this question betrays toward our Constitution (Article II, Section 1, Clause 1 “[the president] shall hold his office during the term of four years…”), and our federal law (2 U.S.C. 2c, which lays out the schedule of holding the presidential election on the second Tuesday in November).

Let me instead ask a different question, based on the following points: we know from recent polling that the nation is, basically, split down the middle in their support for Bush vs. Kerry. In fact, one recent poll (RasmussenReports.com, May 19th) shows Kerry ever so slightly ahead, 45% to 43% (which is to say, statistically tied). We know also that 10-15% of voters are, evidently, “undecided.”

Let us imagine, just for a moment, that something like what happened in 2000 happens again in 2004, and that the election is for all intents and purposes, a tie. And let us further imagine that, through one or even a combination of circumstances, the election is disrupted: perhaps the Supreme Court steps in again; perhaps massive numbers of voters in certain key states are intimidated, harassed, or even disenfranchised wholesale; perhaps, as the administration has already publicly suggested – NYT 4/19/04, “Election Could Tempt Attack By Terror Groups, Rice Says” – we shall all wake up the morning of Monday, 11/1, and find the Reichstag burning.

How should we prepare ourselves for such a possibility?

8 Reactie’s »

Newscorp, General Electric, Viacom, Disney, Time-Warner. None of these kids are doing their own thing.

This week the world of entertainment and news media contracted even further with the sale of Vivendi’s Universal assets to General Electric to form the new NBC - Universal. This is a big deal for the parties involved, their competition, and the rest of us. Lets take a quick look at the basic media outlets and how they are organized.

For each of these companies there are many related business. I won’t detail them all here, but this is meant as a general snapshot of their operations. In some cases they companies own a large portion of the assets, but not completely.

Newscorp:
Movies - News Corporation is the parent company of Twentieth Century Fox and its worldwide studio operation, as well as the distribution arm.
Network Television - Fox Television Network
Cable - Fox News, FSN, FX, SPEED, others.
Print - TV Guide, A ton of newspapers including the UK’s Times, and the NYPost, Harper Collins publishing.
Other - News Corp owns several satellite television companies with lots of subscribers, mostly in the UK and Australia, I think.

GE:
Movies - The new acquisition of Universal has added a studio to this already powerful media player.
Network Television - NBC, Telemundo
Cable - USA Network, SciFi, Bravo, others.
Print - Amazingly, it looks like they are not in print in any major way.
Other - GE is way bigger than the other companies listed here, and it’s media section is but a slice of its pie. In addition to the Universal theme parks GE offers products like insurance, commercial finance, and really big jet engines. As far as I know, Disney makes no jet engines.

Viacom:
Movies - Paramount Pictures
Network Television - CBS, UPN
Cable - Viacom is big on cable, and their lineup shows it. They have many stations including Mtv, VH1, Nickelodeon, BET, TV Land, Spike, Country Music Television, Comedy Central, Sundance Channel, The Movie Channel, and Showtime.
Print - Simon and Schuster
Other - In addition to Blockbuster Video and Paramount theme parks, Viacom owns Infinity Broadcasting which operates 185 radio stations reaching 76 million people a week.

Disney:
Movies - Walt Disney Studios, Touchstone, Miramax.
Network Television - ABC
Cable - Disney Channel, ESPN, E!, Lifetime, A&E, The History Channel, others.
Print - Hyperion books
Other - Theme Parks, Radio Disney, Disney Store, Internet Group.

Time-Warner:
Movies - Warner Bros., New Line.
Network Television - WB
Cable - TBS, TNT, CNN, TCM
Print - Warner Books, Little, Brown and Company, over 130 magazines under Time Inc. Major titles include: Time, People, Sports Illustrated, Fortune, Sunset.
Other - Clearly AOL is still a major asset even though it is hardly the big money item it once was. Time-Warner cable is a major provider, and RoadRunner provides broadband to the NY area.

It is a long way to get to my point, but we’re getting close here.

I don’t think that most people realize that so much of the media they consume comes from so few sources. Normally I applaud the streamlining of companies. Once a company gets good at doing one thing, why wouldn’t it look for a related business to acquire and expand its penetration? These companies also represent major names in television production and film distribution. There are some independent film production companies left, but many of them will still go through one of these heavy hitters for distribution to theaters, and almost all of them will have to work with one of these companies if they ever want to see their movie on television.

The problem isn’t that there are a few companies making rules, but rather that they all tend to make the same sort of rules. These companies are very bottom-line oriented and this leads to reactionary programming. If they have a super-hero movie, then we better get a super-hero movie, and what’s more, we’ll try and make it look as much like theirs as possible, because that one proved it could make lots of money. I think this is the reason we have fifty versions of Joe Millionaire/Survivor/Whatever. I don’t think people come away from these shows thinking, “wow, that was a great show” but rather, “that wasn’t too good, and the end kinda sucked, but I hear Fox has a show where they cut peoples arms off to see how they manage. Maybe that one will be better.” The problem is that the next one is never better. They production companies make them all the same because that is what the programming executives want to see. We live in an era of limited invention or imagination, at least in the big media.

I think that the time is nearing for something new though. People are going to get bored with the same old thing, and soon. I think that as soon at the public is given a quality alternative to these giants they will flock to it. certainly this wont unseat the major players, but hopefully it will convince them to change how they play the game, and teach them to take some chances on formats and entertainment that are more novel or risky than they are used to.

1 Reactie »

Dear Diary,

Sometimes, I wonder whether I was cut-out to be a supervillain. Am I too sensitive for the job? Will my poet’s soul be able to stand the degrading muck I have to wade through to get to the killing and mass-mayhem that I so crave? Lately, for some reason, I just want to crawl into a little ball and put on the Smiths and cry and cry and cry.

And don’t imagine for a minute I don’t know why - it’s that fucking Chad! When I found him working the salad bar at that Sizzlers in Encinitas he was nothing. NOTHING I tell you! But I lifted him up, tutored him in my evil ways, confided with him my plans for total world domination. It was even I who got rid of his goofy, unthreatening name to come up with his new, supervillain name. A name that would strike fear and terror into all who heard it: Chad.

But lately he’s been nothing but trouble - talking back in front of my minions, even fucking up while on conference call with the United Nations. Like just the other day, I was ordering him around in front of Koffi Annan as I laid down my ultimatum and he like totally refused to play along. And then afterwards I was like: why didn’t you play along and he was like: you’re the one who’s denying! And I was like: Don’t tell me about denying! If it wasn’t for me you’d be refilling bowls with bleu cheese dressing. And he stands up real tall and gets all haught and fancy-pants on me and lays down this big thing about how he’s a graduate of Second City and so he knows all about improv and why didn’t I do this and that and that kinds of thing. I had to threaten to poison him with my fugu-pinky before he’s shut up.

And then the other day I caught him playing freeze tag with my minions when they should have been blowing shit up. Fuck.

If this kind of thing goes on I’m going to have to do something drastic. I simply can’t take it much longer. Maybe I should dump him and get a cat like Dr. Evil does. That way I’d just have to pet it and feed it human flesh and shit and not have to worry about it’s fucking improv training. Jesus Christ.

Geen reactie’s, je kan de eerste zijn »