Update on Taqueria Alayna's

Unbeknownst to me, pretty much simultaneoulsy as I wrote my review of Taqueria Alayna's, they were in the process of selling the shop and preparing to open an actual sit-down restaurant in San Antonio.

While I am, on the one hand very happy for their supposed upgrade, I also was pretty devastated to hear this news. After further inquiry, I learned that the owner's daughter was going to stick around to assist the new owners during the transition period. This gave me hope that at least they were going to try to stay true to Alayna's as best as possible.

Since the switch over, I have gone there a couple of times. The portions are still generous, the tacos are still tasty, and the hot sauce is... well it's good. It's not the same. It's close and it's good, but it's not quite the same. That extra little kick seems to have dissipated.

Overall, still a great taco stand. But a little of the something special has moved to San Antonio with the original owners. Oh, and now they're called Taco-Mex (lame).

Still worth the trip though. I'm getting a little hungry writing this...

Selections from my daughter's camera

While at first these may simply be images taken from the point-of-view of a 4 1/2 year old girl, they do seem to hold a perspective on the world that delves deeper into the artisitc mind of said girl.

Without having any instruction other than "here's where you look and here's the button you press." she has frequently abided by the photographic composition Rule of Threes. That rule being that were you to split the photo into nine boxes, the subject of the photo should not be in the center box but rather just off center near one of the four hash marks created by the horizontal and vertical lines.

For the most part the composition and any artisitc merit could easily be written off as merely accidental or random. But at the same time one can't write it off alltogether as simply chance.

I'm not saying these are works of genius that should be on display in the Whitney (although should the curator of the Whitney happen to read this please feel free to contact me about working something out) but some of them are at least as good as any pretentious art school undergrad.

That being said, I did have to scroll through a lot (a lot (I mean a lot)) of pictures of the cat and close-ups of her brother's face where the flash completely blanched out anything that made him recognizable.

Look, the bottom line is I thought some of these were pretty cool to have been taken by a little kid. I like 'em, thought someone else out there might also. (But seriously, my kid's a badass photographer, right?)

Lila May is turning six

Be Nice. Eat Good Food.

A wonderful friend of ours stopped by the other night and proceeded to almost die for about nine hours. It was a tough night, but that's what you do.

Last night the same friend stopped by with a gigantic whole Tiramisù and a beautiful thank you card.

The Tiramisù was mind numbingly good. I have actually passed this place a few times and wondered if it was worth checking out. It is. Seriously, I didn't even think I liked Tiramisù. Wow.

If you decide to stop by and try a piece I recommend eating it to this jam by Comets on Fire.

So anyway, it's like I say... Be nice, eat good food.

Cafe Lalo. Check it out!
201 W 83rd St
New York, NY 10024
(212) 496-6031

Brooklyn Public House

This place is about as good an afternoon beer and burger place as I can think of. Especially if you happen to be in Brooklyn in the afternoon for some weird reason.

The service was awesome. The bartender was friendly as hell and helpful and seemed to know what he was talking about. Three qualities bartenders often lack.

The burger he recommended was ridiculous and delicious, just the way I like them. The wings were ... well they were the kind my wife likes. Ten points. Everything was great except the homemade chips. they were seriously crap. Don't know if it was a bad batch or they were experimenting with using pine instead of potato that day, but it really didn't matter. Everything else was so good I just gave the chips to a jogger.

Brooklyn Public House. Check it out!
247 Dekalb Ave, between Vanderbilt and Clermont, Brooklyn

Josh Wonderful Josh

Josh Musick took me out to see Star Trek the other day, the day it opened at 10:00 a.m. on the I-Max. That's right, I'm friends with Josh Musick, and I saw Star Trek. Then he took me to the Brooklyn Public House and got me that burger in the photo above.

What a great guy. Here he is pictured below with the New York monument that he says best sums him up.

My biggest mistake...

... Was waiting so long to watch this video at Hey Future...

Eggs Horrible Eggs

Rangers defender and former St Miren hotshot Kirk Broadfoot was injured and spent a night in the hospital after an egg he was microwaving exploded in his face.

Broadfoot scored on his debut for the Scottish national team in a memorable 2-1 victory over Iceland last September and has been a regular with the club ever since.

Eggs! Check 'em out!

ROSS MACDONALD

Been more or less bragging to everyone I see about (more or less) finishing my book shelves. Seriously they look sweet. Pictures when I remember to get batteries. I've been particularly big headed about a new French collection I recently acquired. And Ross Macdonald (I'm reading The Underground Man) handed my butt to me once again with this beauty.

"The walls were lined with books,many of them in foreign languages, like insulation against the immediate present."

Asshead.

Hank Thompson

Hank Thompson. 3rd Black baller in the bigz. Great in the field. Killer at the plate. Pretty darn good as a New York City cab driver. Crappy armed-robber. Model prisoner. Top notch playground director. And of course, all the rest...

My man.

My other man Ted Hamm wrote book about him that drops at the end of the month, and he asked me to read from it at the big release party at THINK! Sweet!

Thursday May 28, Think Coffee, 1 Bleecker St (at Bowery)

Demolition Depot!

Some finds from a recent trip to Demolition Depot.


This boat shaped wet bar is sweet, but too big for our den.


Nuff' Said!

Demolition Depot
216 East 125th Street
between 2nd & 3rd Avenues
212-860-1138
Check it out!

Festo Aqua/Air Penguins

Please check out the air penguins if you haven't yet.

Go!Festo!Go!Festo!Go!

Thank you

Whoever first came up with the idea of making the Harry Potter movies pretty.

Can't wait for the new Star Trek!

This looks pretty good too.

Hey Josh Musick thanks for reminding me how sweet the world is, again.

Polar Man shovels elders' steps and walkways, entertains children and prowls the streets some nights keeping an eye out for vandals

He models himself after a figure in an Inuit legend, an unknown white man, who provided food and clothing to people in need.

Thanks Hey Future. You saved my life!

But a prison is a prison is a prison

Hey Jason,

Greetings, and apologies for having missed your show. Just spent five weeks as the guest of the Centers for Disease Control, Intensive Care Unit, located in the middle of St. Luke's/Roosevelt Hospital. Yeah, it was a trip. An itching on the left side of the face revealed a whelp that, upon inspection my primary care guy thought looked suspicious. He told me to get over to Emergency. Within 8 hours that itch had turned me into a candidate for the Elephant Man.

As emergency could not open what was now judged a viral infection, with their usual combination of medical horrors, as a precaution I was transferred to the ninth floor and the CDC. Public health hazard? Terrorist bio bomb? The Centers are now under Homeland Security......They too could not open the damned thing. It was responding to no known treatment when my white corpuscles suddenly headed for the floor. Radical treatment was called for. An induced coma did it, that deadly combination of morphine etc. The thing opened up, but for some five days I was on someone else's planet, incoherent yet aggressive, systematically ripping out all the tubes and IVs and the tracheotomy (that incision they make at the base of the throat to run an emergency tube down). They had to keep me tied to the bed for the first six days. When I did come around, I recognized only my kids and, eventually, my sister who had flown out from California, and her only after some several hours struggle.

The Centers performed every test imaginable. First, they thought that I had brought something back from Brazil; but the culture test quickly ruled this out. It turned out that I could have picked up the virus anywhere. It disappeared as quickly and as quietly as it came; my face returned to normal and the authorities admitted that they were none the wiser!

I have been home some ten days, trying to re learn to walk. My leg muscles atrophied to such an extent that I was given a care (giver?) to help me along.

The CDC can keep you tucked away indefinitely if it thinks that you might be a public safety hazard. I received excellent treatment and had a room, in an ultra modern complex, overlooking the Hudson, that we can only dream about. But a prison is a prison is a prison; and until they said "Lazarus, take up- your bed and walk," I was there at the CDC's good graces.

So, I am re learning to navigate the sidewalks of the neighborhood. Hopefully, I will be in working condition in a couple of weeks. Then we can get together for a long one.

Be well in the interim,

Bob

Friday's Report (from deep in the heart of Texas) #3

I have often heard comparisons between country music (real country, not the pop country schlock that Nashville is expelling out its anus these days) and punk music (again, talking about real punk, not the poser pop punk drivel that abounds these days). The comparisons ring true in many ways. Both genres are gritty and honest and rebellious. Johnny Cash probably comes to mind most when thinking of a country artist with punk tendencies. Social Distortion’s cover of Cash’s “Ring of Fire” sounds as if it were meant to be punk. And when Cash covered “Thirteen” and “Hurt” they sounded just as natural coming out of his mouth as they did from Glenn Danzig and Trent Reznor.

So considering the closeness of punk and country, it only seems natural that the band I went to see last Thursday night at Trophy’s Bar and Grill should combine the two so expertly. ConvOi! has a very straight forward concept; they do punk covers of country songs and country covers of punk songs.

When I walked into Trophy’s (with my 79 year old father who was visiting from Philadelphia, who thought the whole scene was a hoot by the way) they were in the middle of their country version of “Too Drunk To Fuck.” Were I to not have known that this was originally done by the Dead Kennedy’s I might easily have believed it was always meant to be a country tune. It has drinkin’, fightin’, and guns in it. Aside from not mentioning a dog and a pick-em-up truck, what’s more country than that?

On the other side, ConvOi!’s cover of Johnny Russell’s “Red Necks, White Socks, Blue Ribbon Beer” is a veritable cover song masterpiece. The true brilliance of this song is that they set the lyrics to the music of the Ramones’ “Blitzkrieg Bop.” When the first chords start playing it is easily recognizable but when lead singer Matt Jones starts in with the lyrics your surprise turns to deep appreciation.

Bassist George Schinler is the man behind the crossover arrangements and deserves a ton of the credit for the seemingly easy transformations of these songs. But drummer Marc Nelipovich and guitarist Hunter Powell also deserve much praise for their ability to change genres so flawlessly song to song.

Other highlights included Shania Twain’s “I’m Gonna Getcha Good” which, when you really listen to it, is somewhat disturbing no matter the genre, and The Clash’s “London Calling” which was done in a Tejano style with much of the song sung in Spanish.

But the best part of the whole experience was that there were at most maybe a dozen folks in the joint. And despite this rather meager turnout, ConvOi! played as if they were headlining the ACL Music Festival (That’s the Austin City Limits Music Festival for you Yankees out there). They were energetic during the songs and full of banter in-between them. And as any good country/punk show should be, it was loud as hell.

So check them out at the myspace (http://www.myspace.com/convoi) but if you really want the most bang for your entertainment buck grab a Lone Star Beer and check them out live.

Art Never Slept

The Art Never Sleeps event was amazing. Those photos along the back wall are from Doug and I's series. The oil painting of the dude in a baseball hat is of Chris Spencer of Unsane and Celon. The real life guy in the baseball hat painted it. His name is Jasper Latane. I also see Jessica Vulte, Josh Music (sweet hair,) Robert Kastler and some chick named Lindsy (also sweet hair.)

Carolina Peñafiel dropped some bombs on the turntable and kept the art lovers dancing between performances by me,Alex O. Bleeker, Juan Mapu, Tyler Maas, Ophira Eisenberg and Vermont's Putnigs.

Of course the stairs fell off of the building the night after the opening and nearly crushed someone, so the building was closed for the remaining weeks of the show, but that's just the way it goes I guess.

The place was packed with soaring eagles of art and industry, and for some reason a bunch of male models.