Weekly Updates – Page 31 – Keith Robertson

Week in Review – October 22, 2017

There was a snafu (technical information technology term) with the folks that host this blog for me that was resolved this morning. On the plus side, I’ve apparently been upgraded to a faster service and so you should see pages loading quicker now. I’m covering two weeks in this post due to the snafu and because there really hasn’t been too much out of the ordinary going on with us.

On October 8^th there was another terrible disaster in Santa Rosa, California. A fire that started in the hills between Santa Rosa and Calistoga spread so rapidly during the night that several thousand homes and over twenty lives were lost. One of Diana’s schoolmates from San Domenico lost her house and several of Will’s friends were also impacted. We’re really hoping that natural disasters take a pause for a few months. Our sister-in-law, Amy, took these amazing pictures showing the layer of smoke and the amazing sunsets that caused.

Last Wednesday evening D and I attended a “Chalk Talk” at the Cowboys Club. This is a talk given by Will Clay, VP of Player Personnel, who breaks down the previous game using film clips. He also previews the upcoming game and what to look out for. We both learned a lot and came away with a much deeper appreciation for all of the decisions and adjustments that a quarterback has to make in a few seconds.

The highlight on Saturday was a trip over to Wiley (been a long time since I drove so far on a 2 lane road) to watch Alicia’s band perform in a competition. The music this year is called “Ballet-Ro” – a mashup (interesting that term passes spell check these days) of Bolero and music by Tchaikovsky and I really enjoyed it. The Boyd band won 2^nd place overall and 1^st in their division. Here’s a video of the winning performance.

On Sunday I packed McD off to San Francisco to check up on her Mom. The Cowboys were on a bye week and so I didn’t have that 3 hour long distraction – just caught up on some reading and crosswords. Diana returned safely on Wednesday night with no obvious regression in the healing process of her foot. We chuckled because she returned early so that she could rest and repack for the trip to San Diego over the weekend – only issue was that was another week away. We clearly didn’t consult the McCoo calendar effectively during that planning session.

After Diana settled back in we took Alicia over to the Cowboys Club with us to watch Dallas play the San Francisco 49ers (who currently have the worst record in football). The game was very enjoyable with Dallas winning 40-10 and having the luxury of putting our backup quarterback and running back into the game in the last quarter. They have a DJ, photo booth and other entertainment at the Club on game days and we convinced Alicia (reportedly a 49ers fan) to take this picture in the photo booth.

Podcasts are really becoming a savior on my ever lengthening commutes to the other side of the Dallas Fort Worth metroplex. This week I listened to Alec Baldwin interviewing Herb Alpert on his podcast, “Here’s the Thing”. I learned a lot that I didn’t know about Herb – I’m only familiar with him from the Tijuana Brass albums that my Dad played in the car. For example, Woody Allen and George Carlin were both opening acts for “The Brass” in their heyday. Do you know who sold more records than the Beatles in 1966? Imagining you guessed correctly. In the 1970s, Alpert co-founded A&M records and was personally responsible for finding and signing The Carpenters, The Police, and Cat Stevens. There’s a great story about him giving the song “Close to You” to The Carpenters and his labors to make it sound the way he thought it should on the podcast. He sold A&M for half a billion dollars and has since enjoyed playing cabaret style small audience shows with his wife. We heard a couple of songs from them at the New Orleans jazzfest last year.

http://www.wnyc.org/shows/heresthething

On another commute I heard a song that took me back to high school: “Oh Yeah” by Roxy Music – what a great song and band. By some weird synchronicity I was thinking that the way Bryan Ferry sings the high part of the chorus sounded a lot like David Sylvan from the band Japan. And who do you think the next artist to come on the Sirius channel was? Imagining you guessed correctly again. The Japan song was “Talking Drum” which I also enjoy very much. Soon after that I heard a song from the Kinks that I wasn’t familiar with, “Sitting in the Midday Sun”. It’s an excellent song and had me thinking of their other songs “Sunny Afternoon” and “Waterloo Sunset”. The start of a “sun” related Kinks playlist.

Series 2 of a short video series called “UpStanders” was released in the last week or two. It’s sponsored by Starbucks and is a series of films that are 5 minutes or less and feature people that are not “ByStanders” but “UpStanders”. There are some truly inspiring stories of kindness and creativity here and I recommend checking a few out. Our favorite is the car wash operated almost exclusively by folks with varying degrees of autism.

https://starbuckschannel.com/originals/upstanders-season-2/

One of the positives when a music hero passes is the amazing tribute songs that are performed by their peers. Here’s an excellent cover of “American Girl” by Jason Isbell and the 400 unit. Who knew he could pull of that very speedy Mike Campbell guitar lick at the end?

And finally, here’s one of my favorite lesser known Petty songs, “Good Enough”, from the often overlooked but excellent 2010 album “Mojo”.

Here’s a special langiappe if you made it this far – a picture of me with W, who managed to get the twitter troll spun up with his comments this week.

Week in Review – October 8, 2017

I’m quite late with this posting as some of my free time this week was spent helping with this high school project for Advanced Placement Government:

“The essay should address the historical evolution of the two major parties, changing viewpoints, and targeted voters by demographic (Age, Income, Education, Gender, Race, etc.). Also, you should include each party’s position on the following topics: abortion, social security, the economy, gun control, immigration, gay rights, and health care. Be sure to address the geographic nuances within the party. You will find that in some cases, there are differing views even within the party.”

I learned quite a bit in the process including that the original Democratic Party had conservative views and the original Republican Party was the liberal one. Their positions started to flip in the late 1800s. Now back to the update on activities and highlights from last week.

Tuesday through Friday were spent in New York in a workshop with Microsoft at our Wall St office. On the flight to New York I read an interesting article in the American Way magazine about new restaurants in the Finnieston region of Glasgow, “Glasgow moves beyond haggis and deep-fried pizza, Finnieston is revitalizing the Scottish city’s culinary reputation”. The pictures of the food, particularly from “The Gannet”, looked very good but I do take umbrage with the implication of the title of the article that Glasgow hasn’t had some excellent restaurants for many years now.

https://americanwaymagazine.com/glasgow-moves-beyond-haggis-and-deep-fried-pizza

The movie “Baby Boss” provided some excellent light entertainment on the flight. Something about the combination of a baby in a suit and Alec Baldwin’s voice had me laughing a lot.

On Tuesday evening I made a return visit to Birdland to see Ron Carter’s Great Big Band. This was a 17 piece big band that sounded excellent. Ron Carter is 80 years old and looks and carries himself like a man 20 years younger. His dexterity on the double bass at his age is phenomenal as demonstrated in this short video.

Carter has played on more than 2,000 albums including my favourite Miles Davis recordings and with Cannonball Adderley, Bill Evans, B.B. King, and Dexter Gordon. The song I enjoyed the most was “Caravan” by Duke Ellington. It evokes a picture of a line of camels crossing the Sahara desert and arriving in a town bazaar with snake charmers and the like.

Here’s another short video with the great Freddie Hendrix on trumpet.

The trombones in the big band had a gorgeous lush legato tone that blended with the rest of the band beautifully. They made me think of a concert by Don Lusher that I saw in Kilmarnock many years ago and his gimmicky tune “The Typewriter”. I found a video of it and teased McD with it since she had enjoyed the “California Typewriter” movie so much a few weeks ago.

Wednesday evening brought a rare treat – a night out with my friends Ron and Tim. Tim and I used to work with Ron and hadn’t seen him in a couple of years (other than on FaceTime during our irregular “strategy sessions”). Tim had suggested to Ron a couple of days before my visit that he join us in New York and by some magic Ron was able to pull off a trip from Los Angeles in very short order. We met at Jim Brady’s Pub and I enjoyed a very good shepherd’s pie. Ron and I then reminisced with a wander through some of our old haunts from a few years ago. What a pleasant evening catching up!

Bruce Springsteen just started a 4 month run on Broadway with a one man show creatively titled “Springsteen on Broadway”. It’s presented in a very small theater with just Bruce, a guitar, and a piano and includes a lot of storytelling about his life and song inspirations. It was preview week when I was there and I strongly considered trying to attend. I waited until an hour before show time and ticket prices hadn’t quite fallen into what I deemed an affordable range. Maybe on my next visit they’ll be more reasonable but I don’t hold out a lot of hope.

Plan B for Thursday night was a visit to the City Winery to hear Joshua Davis. We first visited a City Winery in Nashville and thought it was a great venue. The New York incarnation is a bit different with a more open feel with windows to the street and a smaller menu. The wine list, menu, seating and sound were all excellent. We had seen Joshua Davis on “The Voice” and enjoyed his laid back vocal style. Here’s his blind audition with a great song choice:

I forgot to mention that I was looking to have a drink before the concert and did my usual Yelp – Nearby Bars and Restaurants routine. The closest was a cocktail bar that sounded really good and I started walking in that direction. On arrival I realized this great sounding place was housed in a hotel owned by our senescent twitter troll who poses as a national leader. Did a quick about face and found a much less pompous place on the corner that was playing “Simple Man” at loud volume – much better.

I enjoyed the show and particularly his tribute to Tom Petty who had passed away unexpectedly a few days earlier. Here’s Joshua’s cover of “Time to Move on” from Petty’s excellent Wildflowers album.

Thinking of Tom Petty took me back to listening to his “Southern Accents” album in our flat in the Meadows region of Edinburgh while studying for final exams in the spring of 1985. I couldn’t get enough of the wah-wah guitar riff in “Don’t Come Around Here No More”. We were fortunate to see him at the New Orleans jazzfest a few years ago and enjoyed a rundown of the greatest hits with some interesting covers including “Traveling Light” by J.J. Cale. It must have been a good cover if my aging brain cells have retained the memory this long.

Diana’s foot is healing a bit but she still can’t walk very far and certainly not downhill. To get her out of the house for a while after my New York absence we had “Coffee, Crossword, and Quiche with Keith” at Filtered coffee in downtown McKinney. I should mention that McD beat me on the crossword two days in a row this week – completely unacceptable.

Cole Beasley – star of the game with 2 touchdowns

Sunday started well with a delicious brunch at Zin Zen – they started weekend brunch recently and we hadn’t tried it. The omelet and breakfast pizza with fried eggs and sausage were both very good. I plopped down on the couch after that to enjoy the Cowboys and Packers football game. The first 58 minutes of the game were good from a Cowboys fan perspective but the last 2 minutes were very annoying as Aaron Rogers marched his team down the field for a winning touchdown. Our defense made it way too easy for him with Sean Lee (star middle linebacker and captain) out injured.

Week in Review – Oct 1, 2017

It has been a reasonably quiet week with us as Diana continues to move around pretty gingerly on her injured left foot. The pain is certainly a lot less than it was last weekend but she still can’t rotate her foot on its vertical axis at all (no yaw is possible in McD’s foot). One more week and then she’ll see the doctor if it’s not a lot better. I’m enjoying grocery shopping and a few other tasks that are normally in Diana’s domain while she tries not to walk too much.

“Who reads at 5am?” was Alicia’s question when she came in our bedroom to say goodbye on her way to early morning band practice. We chuckled. She doesn’t enjoy reading and so was incredulous that I would be engaging in such a boring activity so early in the day. I was trying to make some progress on “4321” by Paul Auster – I’m really enjoying the 4 different versions of Ferguson’s life that are set off by slight differences in life choices in the first chapter – but it is very slow going.

Diana met me at the Cowboys Club on Wednesday afternoon and we watched the team practice from the Quarterback Corner area. We noticed a couple of the passing plays from practice in the game today against the Los Angeles Rams. Unfortunately the Cowboys lost the game after a very strong first half and an opportunity to win in the last two minutes.

On Saturday we made an impromptu decision to attend a celebrity cooking demonstration and lunch at the Granada theater. First time either of us had been to anything like this and we were very pleasantly surprised. Chef John Tesar was quite the character, with an endless supply of stories from his years in the kitchen and on shows like Top Chef and Restaurant Wars. The first course was risotto with duck confit and wild mushrooms. The duck confit preparation technique was quite interesting and the risotto delicious. Everyone’s name was placed in a hat for a raffle at the end of the event and I was lucky enough to be pulled out in time to claim a huge tray of the risotto. It has been a nice accompaniment to football watching today. The main course was Beef Wellington with dauphinoise potatoes – also very good but a huge palaver to cook. I looked up palaver just now to make sure I was spelling it correctly (it’s a West of Scotland word meaning a lot of fuss and bother) and was surprised at how many fake definitions there are published on the internet. Lunch ended with the pastry chef from Tesar’s “Knife” restaurant demonstrating his special technique for chocolate mousse – again very good but quite rich after the first two decadent courses.

Tesar was the chef at the Mansion on Turtle Creek (a famous Dallas fine dining institution) in 2007. He replaced the well-known chef Dean Fearing and lasted two years before moving on to several other opportunities. Until the last few years (when it appears he may have matured and settled down just prior to turning sixty) the consensus in the Dallas restaurant trade was that “he’s a talented chef, but he’s also a narcissistic sociopath with his calloused index finger always hovering above the self-destruct button”. That personality was certainly evident as he told stories while demonstrating amazing technique.

In his book, “Kitchen Confidential”, Anthony Bourdain writes, “Tesar was probably the single most talented cook I ever worked with—and the most inspiring. … His food—even the simplest of things—made me care about cooking again. The ease with which he conjured up recipes, remembered old recipes (his dyslexia prevented him from writing much of value), and threw things together was thrilling to me. And, in a very direct way, he was responsible for any success I had as a chef afterward. …”

Thankfully the lunch portions of all that decadence were pretty small since we had been invited to Patty and Brent’s home for dinner. Dinner was delicious as always with both of us wishing we’d had better self-control when presented with such yummy fried cheese as an appetizer. Brent administered a “Love Languages” quiz on us. This is from a book from a few years back that talks about how people prefer a couple of the five common “love languages” – Words of Affirmation, Gifts, Acts of Service, Touching, and Quality Time. Diana and I guessed each other’s preferences and then took the test. She did a much better job of guessing my languages than I did hers. Quite an entertaining evening as usual.

“Love is Like Oxygen” by Sweet transported me back to 1978 this week on my commute. I can remember watching the band lip sync to this song on Top of the Pops. I really like the initial syncopated guitar riff and the high vocal harmonies. It reminds me of “Video Killed the Radio Star” by the Buggles. What’s special about that song? I’ll give you a couple of minutes to ponder while you watch Top of the Pops or listen to the song…

Ready? It was the first song ever played on MTV. I know – those are precious brain cells that I could be using to store something useful.

Now for something from a totally different genre and time – I really enjoyed “Is You Is Or Is You Ain’t Ma’ Baby” by Louis Jordan and His Tympany Five form the 1950s swing era.

Week in Review – September 24, 2017

I dropped Diana at the airport on Friday morning for her trip to San Francisco for her High School reunion. At the time of her graduation San Domenico was an all-girls school and so husbands are not invited to the reunion luncheons. The school is located in San Anselmo, Marin county and looks beautiful from the pictures that I’ve seen.

Alicia agreed to accompany me to the Lettuce concert at the Granada on Friday night in McD’s absence and invited a friend to join us. We enjoyed dinner on the patio at the Sundown restaurant next to the theater and I learned more than I ever wanted to know about ways that high school girls go about getting the right boys to invite them to the dance.

All three of us really enjoyed the concert. It was obvious that Alicia was particularly enjoying the music from my seat upstairs – Alicia and her friend wanted to be downstairs in the standing room section in the middle of all the excitement. Alicia had been listening to the band for several days in preparation for the concert and listed off her top 5 favourite songs – she knew more about the band than I did going into the show – I had heard them on the radio and really liked the song so I took a chance on the show.

Lettuce is a funk band that was formed in Boston when its members were attending a program at the Berklee College of Music as teenagers. They would visit local jazz clubs and ask, “Would you let us play?”, let us becoming lettuce. I really like the mix of an excellent brass section, funky bass, and great guitar. They clearly have a very loyal following – I’ve been to many shows at the Granada and this had by far the loudest crowd.

We got home from the show a little before 1am and as I checked my phone I found that there was a work issue that needed attention. Around 3:30am I thought it was under control and went to sleep, only to find when I awoke around 6am that it was still a big issue. We ultimately had everything fixed around 10pm on Saturday night. Ugh!

Double Ugh when I heard from Diana on Saturday morning that the maneuver she had performed with her foot while walking back on the gravel at Adamo’s home with her nephew Luciano from watching the sunset was causing her enormous pain now. Apparently the most pain she’s felt since childbirth. All family members had important plans on Saturday morning and my boys were busy with Will’s knee surgery (more on that in a minute) so poor Diana had to call an Uber to get to the clinic to have her foot looked at. To add insult to injury (clever, no?), the clinic didn’t have an x-ray technician on Saturday and so had to send her to a sister clinic for that. She finished up with a diagnosis of no obvious fractures, a stiff boot and a pair of crutches. Adamo came to the rescue and picked McD up from the clinic and drove the 90 minutes to catch the tail end of the reunion luncheon. Diana had let the girls know that she might not make the lunch due to her injury and so received a big round of applause when she approached the group just in time to have a nice visit before everyone disbanded. The good news is that the foot seems to be healing rapidly now and we hope she’ll be back to normal sometime next week. I found it exceptionally frustrating to be so far away and to have no control over the situation while my wife was in so much pain.

While these two situations were developing, Will was getting surgery to repair and reattach the meniscus in his knee. He injured it again last weekend playing “ultimate Frisbee” and wasn’t able to be scheduled for surgery until Saturday morning. A few years ago he had a nasty skateboard accident at Cal Poly and had a similar surgery to recover. It seems the surgery went well – Will was in a lot of pain and looking for a pastrami sandwich because he hadn’t eaten all day.

I had planned on attending a tribute concert for Leonard Cohen at Dan’s Silverleaf in Denton on Saturday night but was way too tired to consider it.

I gave Alicia the choice of several places for Sunday brunch and she selected Sugar Bacon in downtown McKinney. She asked if she could drive Penelope down there and I had a moment of weakness. P found Alicia to be an excellent driver – even when we encountered the Oktoberfest traffic and parking challenges in downtown that I’d forgotten about. Alicia had the pulled pork Benedict which I think gets close to my becoming famous version. On the drive home, after punching the accelerator, Alicia remarked, “I’ve got to get me one of these”.

I picked Diana up at the airport on Sunday night and had the pleasant surprise of finding her accompanied by Patty and Brent (while she hobbled around on her crutches)– they had been on a trip to Paso Robles and Carmel and Diana ran into them on the airport concourse. It took forever for D’s checked back to come out on to the carousel (close to an hour) because a car seat had caused a jam up somewhere in the system.

Diana had “won” an iPad mini at a band silent auction and gave it to her Mom during the visit. We’ve been enjoying her experiments with Facetime and she seems to be really enjoying the visual communication. I did make the mistake last night of asking her what she thought of the NFL teams kneeling during the playing of the national anthem – she did have an opinion on that one for sure.

We watched a documentary/comedy performance movie this week called “Becoming Seinfeld” that shows Jerry Seinfeld talking about how he got into comedy and also performing a comedy set at the club where he first started in New York. I really enjoyed the history and his comedy. The final credits were accompanied by the song “Grazing in the Grass” by Hugh Masekela. I hadn’t heard him or the song before and it really caught my attention. I read that he is best known for his flugelhorn work and left South Africa in 1961 with the help of a few New York based musicians like Dizzie Gillespie and Harry Belafonte. Grazing in the Grass was released in 1968 and topped the charts, selling more than 4 million copies – seems it caught the attention of a lot of people when first released as well.

Another song I heard this week that I enjoyed very much was Leon Russell’s version of “Georgia on my mind” from his 2014 album “Life Journey”. The big band arrangement that joins after the quiet solo vocal and piano first verse is excellent and totally unexpected. One of my regrets is not going to the Elton John and Leon Russell show in Dallas when Diana suggested it. Leon passed away a few months later and I would have enjoyed hearing him live.

Week in Review – September 17, 2017

“Music makes a house into a home”, Ivor Tiefenbrun, M.B.E.. More about that later.

Things are improving with our work teams in Houston – one of the five campus buildings is open and we’re moving folks out of it so that critical teams can start to occupy it – this means a lot of technology updates and is keeping me quite busy. While Houston recovers, I was shocked to see videos of the devastation in the Virgin Islands. All the leaves and limbs have been completely stripped bare from what used to be jungle like vegetation and many buildings are completely destroyed. I really worry about the future of these islands as they are so dependent on the tourist economy and it looks like it will be many years before they recover. We count ourselves lucky that we were able to enjoy such a wonderful vacation on St. John a few years ago (see post from February 28, 2016 – https://www.keithjrobertson.com/?m=201602).

My boss was visiting for the week so on Monday evening I took him to the Cowboys Club for dinner. He’s a diehard Eagles fan but really enjoyed the club and a lovely sunset from the terrace. I collected another “small world” story – my boss was a chef in Bucks County, Pennsylvania before getting into IT. He ran the back of the house operation at several restaurants and on occasional nights was a guest chef at the Ottsville Inn which my Uncle Scott and Aunt Evelyn ran for several years.

Ivor Tiefenbrun delivered one of the best presentations I’ve heard at my local audio store on Wednesday evening. He’s the chairman of Linn Products in Eaglesham, Scotland and was on a speaking tour of the United States. My friend Raj was in town from California and was able to attend with me – he’s a much bigger audio nut than I am and understands a lot of the technical details. Ivor grew up in the Gorbals in Glasgow and started Linn in the 1970s. Their famous and ground breaking product is the Linn Sondek LP 12 turntable and I was lucky enough to receive one from Diana as a gift a few years ago – hence the invite to the event. I’ve enjoyed countless hours of listening pleasure from my Linn system in my home office.

Ivor’s wit and humour reminded me of my Uncle Scott (he gets two mentions in the same week) and he obviously has a huge intellect and is very well read. He engaged the audience in about an hour of stories from growing up and starting Linn and verged off into all kinds of topics. I enjoyed one about his Dad who created special purpose machines – some for the Singer sewing factory in Clydebank. He had the audience touch someone we didn’t know and posited that touch conveys many emotions – love, hate, indifference, curiosity. He believes that music is the equivalent of “touching at a distance” and that an audio system of sufficient quality allows the listener to be touched by the emotions conveyed by the artist. He mentioned that hearing is the first sense to develop and usually the last to be lost and told a story of his mother conducting her favorite piece of music, which he was playing on one of his systems in her hospital room, while in a coma. One of my favourite quotes from Ivor that night is, “Music transcends race, class, religion, education and time”.

The last 30 minutes was a lesson in “active listening” and a demonstration of Linn’s top of the line system using the 2^nd movement from Beethoven’s Emperor concerto (one of my Mum’s favourites) performed by Artur Pizzaro. It was a rare treat to hear such an expensive system which costs almost as much as a small house (in Texas at least). It turns out that Linn’s Chief Technology Officer is also a Keith Robertson. This led to an interesting conversation and an invitation from Ivor to tour his factory with him the next time I’m in Scotland.

Raj’s research before the event taught us that Linn in Scotland describes where a watercourse has cut through a shelf of hard rock creating a narrow, steep-sided cut through which the watercourse runs. Now the name and logo make sense – the needle in the record grooves.

The annual Americana Music awards were held on Wednesday night and I was pleased to see several of my favourites winning. Sturgill Simpson won Album of the Year for “A Sailor’s Guide to Earth” (see my May 10, 2016 post – https://www.keithjrobertson.com/?

m=20160510). One of my favourite songwriters, John Prine, won Artist of the Year. His most famous song is “Angel from Montgomery”. Charlie Sexton, who we saw a couple of weeks ago at the Kessler (see my August 28^th post – https://www.keithjrobertson.com/?m=20170828), won Instrumentalist of the Year. Iris Dement, Robert Cray, and Van Morrison also won awards.

I had bought tickets to see David Gilmour’s new concert film from Pompeii on Wednesday night at the iPic theater but unfortunately had to pass that up to attend the Linn event – I’ll see it on DVD soon I’m sure. It’s amazing to read that no audience had seen a show in that amphitheater in over 1,000 years until the Gilmour shows.

Saturday started with a workout at Cowboy’s Fit followed by a delicious lunch at Neighborhood Services Grill across the way from the gym. This location of NHS opened about a month ago and proved to be just as delicious as the original that we enjoy so much on Lovers Lane in Dallas.

After lunch we went to see the movie “California Typewriter” at the Angelika Cinema. I had asked McD if she’d like to go to a movie and only told her the name of it and that Tom Hanks and Sam Sheppard were both in it. She asked if it was a documentary and if she could see the preview video – I declined on both because I didn’t think she’d approve the choice if she saw it, and because I suspected her reaction to the movie would be quite funny. My prediction was correct – she was doubled over in laughter at the end of the movie because it was so strange, dry, and geeky – including an attendee behind us in the theater asking at the end of the movie if anybody else was a typewriter collector.

The movie centers around a repair shop in Berkeley, California and various avid typewriter collectors and historians. Tom Hanks excitedly demonstrates his collection of over 200 machines and explains why he prefers some over others. I enjoyed the documentary but think it probably appeals to a very niche audience. Here’s the preview that McD didn’t get to see:

My sister-in-law, Amy, sent us this Jack Johnson video from a new song that I think perfectly captures the current sentiment about dividing walls.

I’m currently making slow progress (combination of being busy at work and the density of the prose) on Paul Auster’s book “4 3 2 1”. The book tells the life story of Ferguson in four different variations. The first couple of chapters show how small variations in the story line can start to have dramatically different impacts on Ferguson’s life. I think I’m going to enjoy getting into the meat of this one.

The Cowboys are playing Denver in Denver right now. There was about an hour long weather delay as a thunderstorm with heavy lightning moved through. The game is tied at 7-7 and looks like it might be quite exciting.

Week in review – September 10, 2017

Tuesday through Thursday of this week was spent in New York in meetings with Microsoft. Their offices are next to Times Square which is filled with hustle and bustle at all hours of the day and night. The view from the conference room included the New York Times building and huge TV screens with advertisements and breaking news – quite distracting. I stayed at a hotel called The Sanctuary which is at 47^th Street and 8^th Avenue – half a block off Times Square but a quiet and modern boutique hotel which was a nice find.

On Tuesday night I made a repeat visit to Birdland jazz club having enjoyed it so much a few weeks ago. I enjoyed the NYT crossword before the show and a nice dinner during.

The music was by the Steve Kuhn trio which featured Steve Kuhn on piano, Steve Swallow on bass, and Joey Baron on drums. Steve Kuhn made his initial name playing piano with jazz legends like John Coltrane, Stan Getz, and Chet Baker. Steve Swallow is a wizard on the bass and a very well respected jazz composer. He has played in the Stan Getz and John Scofield bands. Joey Baron is one of my favorite jazz drummers – he brings a huge positive energy and excitement to his nuanced playing and is always completely in tune with the other personnel in the ensemble. I saw him play with Bill Frisell at the Blue Note a couple of years ago for the first time and was very impressed.

Here are a couple of videos of the show that highlight Steve Swallow and Joey Baron’s skills.

Wednesday was a full day of meetings and then a family style Italian dinner at Tony di Napoli’s restaurant on 43^rd Street. The food was good and we got to share a number of Italian classics – veal Saltimbocca, penne pasta a la vodka, eggplant parmigiana and the like. After dinner I took my boss and a colleague from California to the Stinger bar in the Intercontinental hotel that Mc D and I discovered on our last trip for the excellent “Smoking Sipper” cocktail.

Thursday was another full day of meetings and then travel back home. Thankfully all travel both ways was smooth and uneventful. I even had the seat next to me vacant on the flight home which is quite unusual for a Thursday night when all the consultants are usually traveling home.

Much of Friday was spent working from AutoHans while Penelope was attended to. She needed an oil change and new brakes. I did find a very nice neighborhood bistro only a five minute walk from the garage called Astoria. I was able to sit outside in the nice summer transitioning to autumn weather and enjoy lunch, the newspaper, and good coffee.

On Friday night we watched a documentary about the Chinese-American artist Tyrus Wong who created the sketches that were the original inspiration for Bambi. Tyrus lived to be 106 and endured all kinds of discrimination during his lifetime but never stopped creating excellent art. Late in life he studied library books about Chinese kite making and created some amazing flying machines. A recommended documentary for sure.

Saturday was a very pleasant day – not too hot and no humidity. So I sat outside and finished the book “Bruno, Chief of Police” by Martin Walker. This was a light, quick and thoroughly enjoyable read. Martin Walker was born in Scotland and moved to the Perigord region of France in 2006. He published the first Bruno novel in 2007 and has been pumping out a new one each year since. I enjoyed the local village characters and the food and wine descriptions – life in St Denis sounds perfect.

Here’s how Martin Walker describes Bruno:

“Bruno cooks, he hunts, he builds his own house and grows his own food. He organizes the parades and festivities and fireworks displays and keeps order in his fictional home town of St Denis. A pillar of the local tennis and rugby clubs, he teaches sports to the local schoolchildren.

Bruno finds lost dogs, fights fires, registers births and deaths, and enforces the parking regulations. But he maintains a sophisticated intelligence network to outwit the interfering bureaucrats of the European Union in far-off Brussels. The country folk of the Perigord have been making their foie gras and their cheeses and sausages for centuries before the EU was ever heard of, and see no reason to bow to its rules and regulations now.”

An article in the newspaper this week had the phrase “topsy turvy” in it. I had a flashback of about 50 years and a book called “Topsy Turvy Land” that I loved – all about a world that was upside down for the people who lived in it. I tried to find some pictures of the pages online but didn’t find anything that looked like that book – maybe it’s still in the attic in Stewarton.

For dinner on Saturday night we were joined at the Cowboys Club by Patty and Brent. With the cooler weather we were able to enjoy coffee and dessert on the lovely patio. Everyone was excited for the start of the football season on Sunday and the Cowboys versus Giants game on Sunday night.

The Cowboys had a nice 19-3 victory over the New York Giants on Sunday night to open the season. Highlights were an amazing one-handed behind the shoulder circus catch by Cole Beasley and Jason Witten setting the franchise all-time receiving record by passing Michael Irvin’s 11,904 yard total and scoring a touchdown doing it.

Jason Witten sets all time Cowboys receiving record

“Southern Blood” by Greg Allman got a posthumous release on Friday. I’ve listened to it a couple of times now and it is my favorite release of this year by far. Greg’s voice has a frail, less gravelly quality to it that lends even more poignancy to songs like “Going, Going, Gone”. The arrangements and musicianship are excellent throughout.

I heard the song “Jealous Moon” by Hayes Carll and it really caught my attention. I’ve seen him listed on the schedule at several of our local music clubs – Dan’s Silverleaf, the Kessler, and Poor David’s Pub – but hadn’t heard any of his music. We’ll have to give him a try next time.

Week in Review – September 4, 2017

This was the busiest work week in a long time due to Hurricane Harvey recovery efforts. The campus buildings that house 3,500 colleagues were (and still are) offline due to significant basement flooding. Here are before and after pictures – the tall building is one end of the campus. To see the roads that I’ve driven so many times to work in Houston completely submerged really made an impact.

Some staggering statistics about the Hurricane – 51 inches of rain fell in Houston over 6 days, 37,000 displaced people are currently in shelters, 84,000 homes were damaged and 6,400 totally destroyed. The estimated economic impact is over $40 Billion. Most of my friends and colleagues in Houston have homes that remained dry throughout the storm – only one family had to evacuate to San Antonio.

The weekend was spent catching up on some exercise, relaxing by the pool, finalizing the wedding albums, and pulling together information for our estate plan – nothing very exciting. I did watch most of the movie “Gentlemen prefer blondes” starring Marilyn Monroe and Jane Mansfield (a native of Dallas). I’d never watched more than a few minutes of this before and McD was entertained by my constant chuckling at what is a very silly but quite funny movie. It’s maybe best known for the song “Diamonds are a girl’s best friend”.

So far the Labor Day holiday has been spent on a troubleshooting bridge since 6am for an outage. It’s after noon now and so hoping the 6 hour marathon ends soon.

I finished “Bel Canto” by Ann Patchett this week. Given how much I enjoyed her most recent novel, “Commonwealth”, this was a disappointing read to me. The first section of the story where a world-renowned soprano sings at a birthday party in honor of a visiting Japanese CEO in an unnamed South American country and is then taken hostage, along with 58 other visiting dignitaries, in the vice-presidential mansion was quite engaging. The middle section where the hostage situation drags on for weeks and then months becomes slow moving and struggled to keep my attention. Interest peaks again in the last few pages as the hostage situation is resolved but it was too late for me to give this read anything above an average rating. On a positive note, the descriptions of the operatic aria performances and piano accompaniment are very well done.

I’m looking forward to receiving the new John Le Carre book this week. The New York Times review of this book by Dwight Garner is very well done:

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/28/books/review-john-le-carre-legacy-of-spies.html?_r=0

“Among this book’s pleasures is a reminder that adults were once in charge of the destiny of the free world.”

“Le Carré’s prose remains brisk and lapidary. His wit is intact and rolls as if on casters. He is as profitably interested as ever in values, especially the places where loyalty, patriotism and affection rub together and fray. He wears his gravitas lightly.”

“Le Carré hauls out his greatest creation, the Yoda-like spymaster George Smiley, for a cameo appearance, as if he were taking a ’60s-era Lamborghini long kept in the garage — Smiley’s last appearance was 27 years ago, in “The Secret Pilgrim” — for a jaunty Sunday spin.”

Another excellent article in the NYT the week is “Charlie Parker and the Meaning of Freedom” – it discusses that even highly improvisational jazz has to live within a set of well-established musical rules.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/29/opinion/charlie-parker-freedom.html

On the music front I heard “Maybe Your Baby” by Stevie Wonder on the radio and don’t think I’ve ever heard it before. The funky bass and piano immediately grabbed my attention. This is from the excellent 1972 album “Talking Book” which also includes “Superstition” and “Tuesday Heartbreak”. The challenge of this album is the alternating schmaltzy ballads (“You are the Sunshine of my Life”, “I Believe”) with excellent funky soul.

I also heard the song “This is where I get off” from Robbie Robertson’s 2011 album “How to Become Clairvoyant”. It reminded me a lot of the song “Somewhere Down the Crazy River” from his eponymous 1987 album that was so amazingly produced by Daniel Lanois.

Week in Review – August 27, 2017

On Thursday we had breakfast at the Cowboys Club and then watched a bit of the Cowboys training camp at their indoor practice facility at the Star in Frisco. It’s a sign of the popularity of the Cowboys and their new facility that several thousand people showed up to watch them practice. The whole event was a typical Jerry Jones production with a lot of booths and hoopla outside the event. We enjoyed watching the whole team doing their calisthenics and then running drills with the various groups. After that the teams worked on passing and running plays which was the most interesting part. I hope Dez Bryant doesn’t drop as many passes in the regular season as he did in practice. Jason Witten (Campbell’s favorite Cowboy) got the biggest cheer as he ran out on the field and they were passing out replicas of his face on the plaza outside the facility that were quite funny.

Jason Witten talking to a coach on the sideline

Friday night took us to Trinity Groves for dinner with Patty and Brent and then a concert at the Kessler. We met at Beto Mexican restaurant which was so loud inside from both music and people that we only lasted for a drink and appetizer before moving to a neighboring Mediterranean restaurant named Souk. The nitro margaritas at Beto were an interesting table side display. They use liquid nitrogen to freeze the margaritas – not bad but a little sweet for my taste.

The food at Souk was a bit mixed but it was quiet and comfortable and gave us a chance to catch up without yelling. I enjoyed the lamb moussaka and had some leftovers to enjoy for lunch on Saturday. We laughed at the restaurant name because my Mum had been telling Diana last weekend that “Sook” was a good Scottish expression for sycophant – a term McD had been using to describe my behavior with her Mom.

The concert at the Kessler was by Charlie Sexton. He’s a Texas guitarist and singer who was most famously in the band Arc Angels in the early nineties. I saw them in San Antonio in 1993 and still remember it as one of my favorite concerts. Charlie has also played guitar for David Bowie, Bob Dylan (still in his band), and appeared as a session musician on many famous records. He did play one Arc Angels song, “Always Believed in You”, which was the first highlight of the show for me.

Later in the show Charlie and his keyboard/accordion player did a few songs without the drummer and bass player which were very well done. Brent commented that the drummer had “guitar envy”. We didn’t initially understand until he explained that the drummer had been swapping out snare drums several times during the show to provide different sounds just as guitar players swap guitars frequently for different tones.

Rather than make the hour drive home after midnight, we opted to stay at the lovely art-deco era Belmont hotel close to the Kessler. The bar at the Belmont used to have an amazing view of downtown Dallas from just across the Trinity river but now one of the increasingly ubiquitous and increasingly annoying urban loft living developments has blocked it. Great views are still available from the pool area.

One of the benefits of staying at the Belmont is the restaurant Smoke next door. We enjoyed a leisurely brunch on Saturday morning this time opting for a salmon and collard green benedict over the usual pulled pork benedict that I’ve been practicing at home.

After brunch we stopped at a newly discovered coffee shop for “coffee and a crossword with Keith”. The “Magnolias Sous Le Pont” was a lovely coffee shop on the north side of downtown Dallas that you would never know is there if you didn’t stumble across it. The Saturday crossword was unusually difficult taking both of us over 20 minutes – it’s good to get a challenging one sometimes.

Sunday was a quiet day with workouts, coffee and crossword (this time at a boring Starbucks) and some tennis shoe shopping for McD. In the evening I watched the first half of the Cowboys pre-season game and was pretty happy with the overall performance – looked like the practice was paying off although Dez did drop a pass just as he had in the practice that we watched.

Some new or re-discovered music this week included this song by the Velvet Underground that I heard playing at the Belmont hotel – they play such an eclectic mix and this song got stuck in my head all weekend.

I heard this collaboration between Beth Hart and Joe Bonamassa on my commute and enjoyed it. It’s the most bluesy (a la Susan Tedeschi) that I’ve heard Beth Hart.

And finally a very poignant new release from Gregg Allman who passed away in May of this year. I’ve seen the Allman Brothers a number of times including at the Beacon Theater in New York, the Mountain Winery in Saratoga, Dallas, and the New Orleans jazzfest and enjoyed Gregg’s voice and Hammond organ immensely. This is the first song from his upcoming release “Southern Blood” that was recorded at Muscle Shoals studio just before his passing. I’m looking forward to listening to the full album in early September.

Week in Review – August 21, 2017

The last of our three consecutive weeks of travel took us to New York to accompany Clorinda on her visit to watch our niece, Sophia, perform in an off Broadway play. We arrived a few hours before Clorinda and visited the “Black Tail” restaurant in Battery Park. This is run by the folks who have the “Dead Rabbit” close to my work office in the Wall Street area – it was named the best cocktail bar in the world and so we had high hopes of “Black Tail”.

The cocktail menu was very cleverly constructed as a multi chapter novel and had lots to choose from. My favorite was the “Doctor Zhivago”. The place had a Cuban theme including décor and menu options. A highly recommended stop for a great craft cocktail and good views of the Statue of Liberty from outside.

For Friday lunch we tried “Craft”, a restaurant by the celebrity chef Tom Collichio. They have a 3 course prix fixe lunch menu that we all thoroughly enjoyed. The duck liver mousse appetizer was a highlight. Clorinda enjoyed tasting the desserts. The restaurant had a nice relaxed feel while the food and service were very well done.

On Saturday we took Clorinda to the top of the Empire State Building. Diana sprung for VIP tickets and we avoided the very long lines for the elevators. The views were quite spectacular and everyone enjoyed the visit very much. The ladies opted for a pedi-cab ride back to the hotel. It’s been about 25 years since I was up in the Empire State Building – the last time was on a work trip from San Antonio to install computer systems in Pennsylvania. That was the same trip that I surprised my Uncle Scott and Aunt Evelyn at the Ottsville Inn.

Clorinda went to watch Sophia’s first performance on Saturday night and so we tried a restaurant that Diana had picked from those participating in New York restaurant week named “Batard”. This was our best dining experience in a long time. The place is located in Tribeca and has one Michelin star (not that you would know from their advertising or menus – it’s just a small award in the window). We had foie gras and steak tartare to start and both were phenomenal. Then duck and lamb to follow – Diana’s lamb was the best I’ve tasted. The service and atmosphere were just what we like. We’ll certainly be back as soon as we can.

After dinner we tried to go to Small’s tiny cellar jazz club but it was full and so we opted for the late show at the Village Vanguard. This is the place that I like to go to on Monday night when they have the Vanguard orchestra. On Saturday they had a three piece band without any names I recognized and a “special guest”. The guest turned out to be Joshua Redman – perhaps the best living saxophonist. We both really enjoyed the show and Diana was able to share some of her left over champagne with the star of the show and his friends.

All three of us attended the matinee of Sophia’s show titled “Show and Tell” on Sunday. The show was very well done – particularly considering the short rehearsal time the kids from all over the country had together. Sophia had one of two leading parts and so we got to enjoy a lot of her singing and acting.

A picnic in Central Park was our plan for Sunday afternoon. We got off to a dodgy start as the subway train didn’t stop where we expected at 81^st street and our next option was 125^th street in Harlem. We quickly came back down to Columbus Circle on the next train, picked up some sandwiches and headed into the south area of the park for our picnic. A short ramble after lunch took us past the carousel, baseball fields and “Library Walk” which features statues of both Robert Burns and Sir Walter Scott.

Birdland jazz club was our destination on Sunday evening. We saw the Birdland Latin Jazz Orchestra which was in the midst of a five week Sunday residency. The music was excellent – mambo and salsa style and the band was very well rehearsed and together. Here’s a video of the rhythm section getting a workout. I hadn’t been to Birdland before and was very pleasantly surprised by the white table cloths, food, service, sound and room to move around the tables.

After the show we stopped into a cocktail bar in the Intercontinental hotel across from the club. The craft cocktail performance making the “Smoking Sipper” was quite something as was the presentation. We met a few interesting characters at the bar – a former McKinsey consultant from Dallas and a couple from Canada who had owned and worked in the “Horseshoe” – apparently the most famous music club in Canada. The club owner was named “X-Ray” and told us a story about the Rolling Stones playing his 180 person club.

Travel home for us on Monday was smooth (after the horrible traffic into LaGuardia airport with the construction) but Clorinda didn’t fare so well with multiple cancelled flights and redirection to Cleveland rather than Akron. It was very late when she finally arrived at her destination in Wooster, Ohio.

I finished the book “A Gentleman in Moscow” by Amor Towles this week. Amusingly the lady across the aisle from me on our flight home was reading the same book and was at about the same place. We had a nice chat about how much we were both enjoying being transported to Russia in the early 20^th Century. The book details the exploits of Count Alexander Rostov after the Russian revolution and his “house arrest” in the Metropol hotel. The Count spends more than 40 years in the hotel and finds ways to pass his time, ultimately becoming the head waiter of the excellent restaurant in the hotel. This was a very interesting view into a period and location in history that I don’t know a lot about. A couple of favorite quotes:

“his fingers were half an inch longer than the fingers of most men his height. Had he been a pianist, Andrey could easily have straddled a twelfth. Had he been a puppeteer, he could have performed the sword fight between Macbeth and Macduff as all three witches looked on. But Andrey was neither a pianist nor puppeteer – or at least not in the traditional sense. He was the captain of the Boyarsky, and one watched in wonder as his hands fulfilled their purpose at every turn.”

“As the willow studied the Count, he noted that the arches over her eyebrows were very much like the marcato notation in music – the accent which instructs one to play a phrase a little more loudly. This, no doubt, accounted for the willow’s preference for issuing commands and the resulting huskiness of her voice”

I heard the song “Senor Blues” by Taj Mahal this week and was taken with its combination of jazz and blues – particularly on the piano part. Some research showed this to be the 36^th album from Taj Mahal, released in 1997, and with the fabulous Jon Cleary (an Englishman who has lived in New Orleans for many years that I’ve had the pleasure of listening to several times) on piano.

The oldest of nine children, Taj Mahal was born in Harlem to a gospel-singing schoolteacher mother and a West-Indian born composer-arranger father who was a big jazz fan. So from his youth Taj Mahal was immersed in the music which would become his career. He writes that his father had a short-wave radio, and when young Taj was growing up, he was able to tune in to styles from all over the world. Later, his heroes would be American blues masters like Mississippi John Hurt, Sleepy John Estes, Big Mama Thornton, plus rock & roll pioneers like Bo Diddley and Chuck Berry. In his college years at the University of Massachusetts, before his graduation in 1964 with a degree in animal husbandry, Taj had an R&B band playing on campus. Then he turned professional after graduation, co-founding a group with fellow blues aficionado (and one of my most favorite guitar players) Ry Cooder called The Rising Sons.

Having finished my book on jazz, I picked up a new “car book” – the book I keep in the car for a quick and light read if I stop for coffee or have to wait for someone or something for a few minutes – titled “The Olivetti Chronicles – Three Decades of Life and Music” by John Peel. Peel was a late night Radio 1 DJ in England when I was growing up and I love the walks down memory lane that his short stories provide. Here are a couple of snippets:

From “Kenny Dalglish” in the Guardian, 12 August 1994

“Of course, we were well aware of Kenny’s abilities long before he came to Anfield. I stood on the Kop for his first home game and we warmed to him in a way that we had never really warmed to Keegan. The most impressive of his abilities in those early matches was the way he seemed to know where every player was at all times. Even a superb Liverpool squad, by far the greatest team the world has ever seen, took a few weeks to catch up with Kenny’s speed and anticipation”

From “Tubular Bells” in The Listener, 7 June 1973

“With Tubular Bells we have a record that does quite genuinely cover new and uncharted territory. Without borrowing anything from established classics or descending to the discords, squeals and burps of the determinedly avant-garde, Mike Oldfield has produced music which combines logic with surprise, sunshine with rain. In the process of so doing he plays a bewildering range of musical instruments without ever playing merely for effect.”

Finally, a couple of other songs I heard this week and really enjoyed. A cover of “Hey Joe” by Jerry Douglas, the amazing dobro player from Nashville.

And a song from the upcoming release from “The War on Drugs”. I’m looking forward to listening to the whole album.

Week in Review – August 15, 2017

Our second of three consecutive travel weekends is behind us now. We arrived in San Francisco on Saturday afternoon and headed straight down to Redwood City, in our very loud and flashy rental car, for my niece (I can now officially call her that) Olivia’s 10^th birthday. The party was finishing up when we arrived but we did get to enjoy Marco’s hand crafted Tiki bar. I got to learn a new card game from Gianluca and we had a nice visit with Marco and Julie. When we checked into our usual room in Pacifica, I gave Clorinda her gift of some “exquisite” plates (causing Diana to sneeze “sycophant”) I had picked out for her at the Tablas Creek winery in Paso Robles.

On Sunday we headed down to Silicon Valley to catchup with family and friends. Diana had lunch with her friend Aimee and I had a delicious lunch with Finn at the Straits Café. Their roti prata bread with curry dipping sauce is something I had missed. After lunch Finn and I met my friend Sean for a good blether.

Then Sean joined us at Kristina and Cat’s home for dinner. He enjoyed discussing Cat’s new track racing car with him. Dinner had a Greek theme with lamb, Greek salad, dips, and excellent potatoes. As usual there were lots of laughs and entertaining stories. Rather than make the long drive back to Pacifica, we ubered over to the Toll House in Los Gatos to spend the night.

Monday started with brunch with Campbell and Molly at the Los Gatos café and their fluffy soufflé omelets. It was very nice to get to catch up with Campbell and Molly – we hadn’t seen Campbell since the wedding and Molly since our sailing trip in San Diego. We made our leisurely way back up to Pacifica via Half Moon Bay where we stopped into Sam’s Chowder House for chowder and a lobster roll for lunch. That was followed by coffee and a crossword at It’s Italia (where we had Diana’s 50^th birthday dinner). We finished up with dinner at Adamo and Amy’s house.

Tuesday started with overdue workouts (Diana’s first time at the 24 hour fitness in Pacifica). In the afternoon we made the drive down to Saratoga for a pre-concert dinner at the Basin. Dinner was very good – particularly Diana’s scallops.

Then the main excuse for the visit to California – Willie Nelson at the Mountain Winery. I wasn’t sure what to expect from an 84 year old country singer but was extremely impressed – Willie sang and played the guitar very well. He didn’t hide behind any backup singers or guitarists at all – it was all him out front with minimal backing. His older sister, Bonnie (86), played the piano. Here are a couple of highlights from the show. He opened with Whiskey River, then highlights for me including Georgia, Always on My Mind, and On the Road Again.

The Mountain Winery venue is one of my very favorites with great sound, views, and setting. We’re going to try and pick one concert each year to attend here.

Wednesday morning involved babysitting Massimo and Luciano for an hour or so before heading to the airport for a quick unpack, wash, and pack again for New York. Thankfully they were both well behaved and easy to handle.

I really enjoyed the movie “Hidden Figures” on the flight home. It’s about female African American mathematicians and their contributions to the early NASA flights. Highly recommended.

I heard an interesting version of “Apache” by “The Incredible Bongo Band” this week – reminded me of the trip to Zin Zen with the Halls and the Shadows covers played by the local band.