The Spotify “Discover” feature that recommends music based on your listening history led me to Paul Pena and his eponymous 1971 album. I was immediately drawn to the funky Meters-style beat and the excellent guitar work. He has a deep, soulful voice that is quite reminiscent of Bill Withers with a touch of Richie Havens. Some quick research revealed that the guitar playing was by Jeff “Skunk”Baxter who is responsible for some of the most memorable guitar on many of the Steely Dan and Doobie Brothers albums. The production quality and mixing on the recording is excellent.
Further research revealed an interesting story about his second album. “New Train” was recorded in 1973 but not released until 2000 due to a contractual dispute with Pena’s manager. Jerry Garcia, Merl Saunders, and the Persuasions played on the album and it was produced by Ben Sidran (keyboard player for the Steve Miller Band). Sidran gave an unreleased copy to Steve Miller and he recorded one of the songs on his 1977 hit album “Book of Dreams”. That song was one of McD’s favourite sing along tunes – “Jet Airliner”. I had always assumed that Steve Miller wrote the song but, as is often the case, there’s a very interesting story and journey behind the song. The song is about a trip that Pena took from Boston to Montreal for his first gig with T-Bone Walker – he was a member of that band for several years. Here is Pena’s original recording and a performance on the Conan O’Brien show in 2001. The songwriting royalties from that song were Pena’s main source of income for many years.
Pena was born in Hyannis, Massachusetts. His grandparents were from the islands of Brava and Fogo in the Cape Verde islands off the western coast of Africa, and emigrated to the United States in 1919. Pena spoke Cape Verdan Creole with his family while growing up. His grandfather, Francisco Pena, and father, Joaquim “Jack” Pena, were both professional musicians, and taught Paul to play Cape Verdean music, including Morna. Pena performed professionally with his father, including a summer spent in Spain and Portugal, where he studied flamenco music.
Pena was born with congenital glaucoma. He attended the Perkins School for the Blind in Massachusetts, from the age of 5, and graduated in 1967. Pena was completely blind by the time he was 20. He moved to San Francisco in 1971 and lived there until he died in 2005. While living there he opened for Jerry Garcia, The Grateful Dead, and Frank Zappa on many occasions.
I was pleased to discover that my favorite singer, Susan Tedeschi, had discovered the music of Paul Pena long before me. Here’s her cover of “Gonna Move” from his first album:
Susan must of told her husband, Derek Trucks, about Pena as he recorded his “Something To Make You Happy” on their “Already Free” album:
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!
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:
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.
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.
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.
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.
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).
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.
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.
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.
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.
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 47th Street and 8th Avenue – half a block off Times Square but a quiet and modern boutique hotel which was a nice find.
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.
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.
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”.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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 81st street and our next option was 125th 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.
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.
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 20th 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:
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:
to Redwood City, in our very loud and flashy rental car, for my niece (I can now officially call her that) Olivia’s 10th 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.
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.
