Insider’s Guide

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Our yearly Insider’s Guide offers up some of our favorite places and things

By Sara Bir

This will be brief–because little room can be wasted when so much lies ahead. This is what we call our Insider’s Guide, but the truth is that we’re no more inside than you are. So here we share a few of our favorite places and things that cover the basic necessities–food, clothing, music, and the outdoors.

Give Us This Day Our Daily . . .

You can’t swing a dead cat around these parts without hitting some kind of dense, crusty artisan loaf. Do you understand what that means? We are in a hotbed of some of the world’s richest bread reserves. Bread is the staff of life, as they say, and we here in the North Bay are living the good life.

Remember when bread meant mushy sliced and bagged Wonder loaves from the grocery store? Sometime in the ’80s that all began to change, when a wave of interest in brick ovens, prolonged fermentation, sourdough starters, and quality milled organic flours began to hit bakers across the country. It’s interesting–in Europe, longstanding baking traditions are beginning to take a hit from the modern homogenization of foods, but here in the States, our truly American (sliced white bread aside) baking traditions–based on an old-world model–are just getting started.

You probably have a favorite bakery, and it may not be on this list. Which does not mean it is not good; it just means that with so many impressive artisan bakeries around here, we don’t have enough space to list them all. How’s that for luxury?

Della Frattoria This family-owned Petaluma bakery only does wholesale, but when I worked at Dean and Deluca in St. Helena, they sold dense, beautifully shaped Della Frattoria loaves there–and I got to have the day-old loaves for free. It was my job to make croutons (well, that was part of it), and I always reached for the stale Della Frattoria loaves. The garlic and Vella Dry Jack loaf, with its whole, unpeeled garlic clove embedded in the crown of the boule like a beauty mark, was stupendous. Della Frattoria uses organic flours, and they bake their breads in a wood-fired oven. You can find their bread at decent grocery stores. 707.762.1722.

Basque Boulangerie Cafe Another place I discovered through my illustrious stint of food-service-industry grunt work–this time through a caterer in Sonoma, who served their Dutch crunch rolls at parties. Basque makes the best Dutch crunch rolls ever, although they tear up your mouth pretty good. The bakery is a terrific place to grab a sandwich for an uber wine country lunch on Sonoma’s plaza. 460 First St. E., Sonoma. 707.935.SOUR.

Artisan Bakers More great bread from the inimitable hamlet of Sonoma. Artisan’s heavyweight claim to fame is that owner Craig Ponsford won the highest international honor in 1996 for his baguette. This, naturally, cheesed off some French people, but I think they got over it. 750 W Napa St., Sonoma. 707.939.1765. 1139 Magnolia Ave., Larkspur. 415.461.7343.

The Model Bakery Isn’t this a great name for a bakery? If you are cruising through downtown St. Helena, their picture-perfect array of loaves in the window is sure to catch your eye. Model Bakery has 75-year old brick ovens and is known for its sourdough. 1357 Main St., St. Helena. 707.963.8192.

Brother Juniper’s Bakery Brother Juniper’s is known for its sometimes daring breads, which flirt with additions such as wild rice and raw polenta. 463 Sebastopol Ave., Santa Rosa. 707.542.6546.

Village Bakery 7225 Healdsburg Ave, Sebastopol. 707.829.8101. 1445 Town and Country Dr., Santa Rosa. 707.527.7654.

Alvarado Street Bakery 500 Martin Ave., Rohnert Park. 707.585.3293.

Nifty Thrifty

I’m not against barn sales; my budget is. The difference between used and vintage is oftentimes just a case of where the goods are purchased and how many armpit stains or chips and scratches mar whatever you are purchasing. So for purposes of this spiel, vintage goods come from tag sales, and used junk comes from thrift stores.

It’s a good idea to buy used junk whenever you have the option, unless you need underwear or sleeping bags. Consider the benefits of buying used: it’s cheaper, it qualifies as recycling, and used junk often looks cooler. It pisses me off that the government wants us to revitalize the economy by spending money on pointless new crap. What a tawdry way to revitalize an economy! It’s more noble to spend your money in ways that are more direct, and with used junk, you save your own money, and often a portion of what you do spend goes to some nonprofit organization. In reality, this line of logic probably does not pan out at all, but it’s a good way to give that doofus George W. a tiny middle finger. Take that, you abysmally unconvincing public speaker! The only admirable thing about our president is that he stays in pretty good shape.

The Dig The Dig is a strange, strange place. It’s not really called the Dig, but the nickname has stuck because it makes the most sense. At this Goodwill donation center, they have several rows of tables and a half-dozen huge clothing bins where they dump junk completely randomly. Literally, you dig through it. This factor makes the Dig both effort-intensive and highly rewarding, even if the probability of scoring great stuff at the Dig is pretty low. Everything there is insanely cheap; you pay for clothing by the pound. It’s fun to go, because you can act very rude and throw stuff around and ravage the whole place and it makes no difference at all, since it’s already a gigantic mess to begin with. At the end of the day, they trash everything and the next day they have a whole new batch of junk, which is one drawback to the Dig: it’s pretty depressing to think that there’s is so much pointless crap in the world. Plus, when you leave, you get this overwhelming urge to take a shower. Still, it’s worth it. As It Is Store (The Dig), 651 Yolanda Ave., Santa Rosa. 707.523.0550.

The Church Mouse, Sonoma Sonoma is home to three Church Mouse thrift stores–let’s call them the Church Mice Trilogy. The Church Mouse on the Plaza is full of boring and overpriced boutique stuff (on the Plaza, go figure). Skip it. The Church Mouse in Boyes Hot Springs is larger, less expensive, and still very clean. Hit and miss. The best Church Mouse is on Highway 12 at the end of town. It’s sloppy, but it has good deals on as-is furniture and household items. I got a great $6 lamp made from driftwood there. 15 E Napa St., Sonoma. 707.938.9797. 10 Boyes Blvd., Boyes Hot Springs. 707.938.9839. 18068 Hwy. 12, Boyes Hot Springs. 707.938.0188.

Goodwill The Goodwill in Sonoma is my favorite, with lost of furniture and quality cookware. The furniture, however, is often overpriced. It’s supposed to be a thrift store! Geez. Perseverance will pay off, however. I found a very comfortable $40 sofa there. Goodwills are best for clothing, though, and sometimes cookware.

My housemate swears by the Goodwill on Sebastopol Road and goes there at least twice a week. 3535 Industrial Dr., Santa Rosa. 707.545.2492. 645 Sebastopol Rd., Santa Rosa. 707.570.2392. 172 Petaluma Blvd. N., Petaluma. 707.778.7485. 18615 Sonoma Hwy., Sonoma. 707.996.4097. 513 Healdsburg Ave., Healdsburg. 707.431.8408. 1683 Imola Ave. W., Napa. 707.257.6610. 809 Lincoln Ave., San Rafael. 415.456.5273.

St. Vincent de Paul Thrift Store, Monte Rio Cheap, crammed, and diverse. Lots of old vinyl and stereo equipment, plus the staff is super friendly. Worth a trip to Monte Rio. 9869 Main St., Monte Rio. 707.865.1339.

Church Rummage Sales Best-ever for everything. Church rummage sales blow the competition out of the water. Usually they are run by very friendly old ladies who sell everything for cheap and bring clothing in excellent shape that’s been hanging in their closets in plastic garment bags for 30 years. Lots of vintage T-shirts and cowboy shirts and denim and house dresses at these sales. Oftentimes donuts too. Mmm. Watch for signs on the street; check classifieds.

VNA Hospice Thrift Store 421 E St., Santa Rosa. 707.528.9310 6350 Commerce Blvd., Rohnert Park. 707.588.8015 748 Gravenstein Hwy. N., Sebastopol. 707.824.4712

The Salvation Army 200 Lytton Springs Rd., Healdsburg. 707.433.3334. 136 Petaluma Blvd. N., Petaluma. 707.762.4880. 1290 Sebastopol Rd., Santa Rosa. 707.528.2520. 1020 Third St., Santa Rosa. 707.578.3924. 1326 Main St., Napa. 707.224.8220. Fourth and Mary streets, San Rafael. 415.454.7201.

For the Record

Growing up, we didn’t have a record store in my town, and I had to get my mom to drive me to the mall in West Virginia where I would get a cassette tape of whatever British band I had seen and fallen in love with on MTV’s “120 Minutes” that Sunday. Since MTV usually only played videos of bands whose albums were available at the mall, this was not a problem. I was 15, and I thought the two record stores at the mall were the bee’s knees.

Once you go to college, that idea is shot to shit, and it’s the greatest revelation in the world. Independent record stores abound, and they sell used stuff too, and good-looking members of the opposite sex shop there and you can look at them while looking through stacks of Pulp EPs. It’s bliss! Good record stores have a special smell, a heady mingling of glossy posters and aging album sleeves. Looking through everything is a treasure hunt, and when you find an out-of-print import, it’s like the guy you have been waiting for years to ask you out suddenly calls.

Mall record stores can suffice. But why settle for suffice? Why settle for indifferent teenage clerks in silly matching polo shirts? Real music can come from the mall, but it feels better when it comes from a real record store.

Red Devil Records Vinyl galore in this Petaluma store with mouth-watering array of 7-inches (most of them punk). Record collectors make special trips to Red Devil to plonk down major buckaroos on stacks of rare goodies. Owner Barry Lazarus is friendly, helpful, and knows his way around jazz, salsa, blues, and underground (read: not pop-punk) punk rock. Great small-press rock and roll books and magazines to boot, and you can get records cleaned here too. Not many CDs, but good ones. 170 Kentucky St., Petaluma. 707.769.8999.

Backdoor Disc and Tape Rohnert Park may have a college, but it’s Cotati that is, by default, the college town. And no college town is complete without a decent record store. Backdoor has tons of used CDs (which are very roughly alphabetized, so you have to search for your stuff) and a pretty inclusive selection of new CDs, with a section of local bands. The great thing about Backdoor is that you can listen to the CDs first, so you can figure out if that Royal Crescent Mob disc is really worth $4.95 or not. 7665 Old Redwood Hwy., Cotati. 707.795.9597.

Last Record Store Proprietor Doug Jayne and company keep a cozy store that’s not terribly big but still packed with a thorough range of indie, jazz, country, pop, blues, etc. Few times have I gone there looking for something and they didn’t have it. The used CDs are not super bargains, but the amount of good used stuff there highly outnumbers the junk, so it’s worth it. Covering the checkout counter they have a few decades of concert tickets under glass, so while you are waiting to buy CDs, there’s always something interesting to look at. And everyone there has always been very amiable, and not surly-record-store-clerkish like in High Fidelity or at Amoeba. 739 Fourth St., Santa Rosa. 707.525.1963.

Village Music A semireliable source (not affiliated with the store) told me that Village Music is Mick Jagger’s favorite record store in the whole world. Perhaps he and George Lucas are buddies and when Mick is chillin’ at Skywalker Ranch, he pops over to the Valley of Mill to check out Village Music. Perhaps Mick has a villa in Marin himself? Some Insider’s Guide this is: we can’t even verify Mick Jagger’s alleged affinity for Village Music. Elvis Costello, for the record, has said that Village Music “may be the greatest record collector store in the world.”

That should be telling. Besides lots of legendary musicians’ visitation of and praise for Village Music, the real reason to go there is because it’s a record store (meaning they sell great records for lovers of records). Plus, they sell really old copies of Rolling Stone for very cheap. Who wants to look at some cruddy new Rolling Stone when you can look at a Britney- or Creed-free old one? 9 E. Blithedale Ave., Mill Valley. 415.388.7400

Santa Rosa Friends of the Library Book Sale Not a record store per se, but this biannual used book sale has plenty of crates of old records, many of them super old. Lots of classical, plus ’50s Montovanni-type stuff, and some buried rock classics. Also records that you may have had as a kid, like Sesame Street and Disney titles. If you look hard enough, you can fine weird and obscure novelty stuff, the kind that you buy just for the cover. The selection is large, and the prices are low. April and October. Check www.sonoma.lib.ca.us/bkfr.html for details.

Land of 1,000 Taquerias

Here’s a funny trick you can pull on someone who sends you to get a burrito for them: get a lengua burrito and don’t tell them (hopefully, your friend is not a vegan). Just say it’s chicken. Maybe this will make a lengua convert out of them; who knows? Lengua is really, really good, but I think it’s best in tacos, not burritos. It’s kind of gray, though, and looks suspicious on a taco; you need it wrapped up in a burrito for the trick to work. It’s really a seventh-grade-level stunt to pull, secretly slipping someone the cow’s tongue.

We have really good taquerias here, though, and we can do that. Not everyone has lengua at their fingertips. I think there must be some kind of law in California that says every shopping center has to have a taqueria in it, just like every gentrified downtown area has to have a Barnes & Noble and a Starbucks. The great thing about the plethora of taquerias is that there are so many kinds, and each one has its own personality and at least one thing they do really well. Imagine if the taqueria with the good tortas merged with the taqueria with the good tamales with the taqueria with the good menudo. . . . It would be a whole new breed of super-taquerias, like a genetically altered designer test-tube baby. Kind of scary, actually. For the meantime, go to these places.

Juanita! Juanita! The interior here is just great. You can come with no newspaper or book and still have plenty to read. Sit at the counter, where they have dog-eared Trivial Pursuit cards. Tip: get the bowl of beans, which comes with sour cream, lettuce, and salsa, dump a whole bunch of hot sauce on it (they have a big selection), and grab a handful of the tortilla chips from the plastic bins on the counter. Presto! Economical vegan nachos. 19114 Arnold Dr., Sonoma. 707.935.3981.

Papas and Pollo Southwest Mesquite Grill The name would lead you to think Papas and Pollo was a potato-and-chicken shack of some sort. Nope. They have a long menu of specialty burritos named after famous people. You can get things like artichoke hearts in burritos here. 915 Gravenstein Hwy. S., Sebastopol. 707.829.9037.

Rubio’s Baja Grill Not really a taqueria, since it’s a fast-food chain. Rubio’s deserves a listing anyway, based on the strength of their rightfully famous fish tacos. Jane and Michael Stern wrote about the San Diego-based Rubio’s chain in Gourmet a few years ago, and it’s been a budget foodie destination ever since. Now you don’t have to go all the way to San Diego to enjoy a fresh fish taco (beans are solid too). Stay away from the evil knockoff franchise, Baja Fresh! It is a faker. 1016 Santa Rosa Plaza. 707.546.3267.

Joe’s Taco Lounge and Salsaria Also not really a taqueria (with a name like that, how could it be?), Joe’s Taco Lounge is a sit-down, table-service place with yuppiefied Mexican food. They have tasty seasoned fries, good pizzas with crazy toppings, and jazzed-up taqueria food. About as authentically Mexican as I am, but it’s fun and funky, so who cares? 382 Miller Ave., Mill Valley. 415.383.8164.

Pepe’s Taqueria Very good burritos, and breakfasts too. 2000 Sebastopol Rd., Santa Rosa. 707.545.7425. 1079 Fourth St., Santa Rosa. 707.571.7478.

El Patio The namesake patio is the winning factor here. 901 Fourth St., Santa Rosa. 707.571.2222.

Taqueria Santa Rosa 791 Montecito Ave., 707.538.2642.

Martha’s Old Mexico 305 N. Main St., Sebastopol. 707.823.4458.

Taqueria el Tapatio Excellent grilled chicken. Hot, hot salsa. 6364 Commerce Blvd., Rohnert Park. 707.586.2826.

Run Away! Run Away!

At 6:30 in the morning, a few friends of mine and I were hiking up the Grand Teton in Wyoming. The sun had just come up, and the sleep was flaking out of our eyes. I was beginning to feel very hardcore and badass and proud of my supposed buffness when this woman, all suited up in a sports bra and matching running shorts, came zooming up the trail like nobody’s business. She zipped right past us effortlessly. It was humbling but inspirational; I wanted to be her.

Running on a trail, there are no speeding trucks or stoplights or crosswalks to contend with; no exhaust from cars and no sidewalks that radiate fingers of heat under the sun, as hot as a baking stone. The trees (where there are trees) provide shade, and the only vehicles to dodge are bikes, the drivers of which are usually very considerate. And it smells better and looks prettier–all that good stuff. The only drawbacks are poison oak, ticks, and many rocky opportunities to sprain an ankle. Besides, the communal spirit between nature, body, and mind is a thing not often achieved. So get a pair of shoes with good treds and a bottle of sunscreen, and you are in for a workout that John Muir (and that one lady who ran up the Grand Teton) would approve of.

Annadel State Park Trails, trails, trails! So many trails in such a compact place, and right in sprawling Santa Rosa. It’s so comforting. You can run your heels off over Annadel’s terrain all day and still not cover all of the trails. However, they are not always marked so well once you get into the park’s interior. This may make for a longer run than you planned. I tried to chalk out a route using the little maps they provide for you, but these are confusing too. It’s maybe best to intrepidly go in and chart your own route. Starting from the Channel Drive entrance is the best, and the W. P. Richardson Trail makes a good base to branch off. I guess there are rattlesnakes here sometimes, but I have not yet stepped on any. Don’t you, either. 6201 Channel Dr., Santa Rosa. 707.539.3911.

The Shell Beach-Pomo Canyon Trail No wonder this is a popular trail: It offers the best of everything, from redwoods to meadows and then to the ocean. Or ocean to meadows to redwoods, your pick. Either way, it’s three miles. The elevation gain and loss is gradual, relatively painless, and makes for stellar views of the Russian River, the kind of vista that makes you think, “Damn, I’m glad I live here.” Trivia: Pomo Indians used to roll up bay leaves and stick them up their noses as an antihistamine (at least that’s what my boyfriend told me, but he’s not a Pomo Indian). So if you spot a bay tree along the way, you can take a quick break and stick a bay leaf up your nose just to see what it’s like. Pomo Canyon Environmental Campground. Going south on Highway 1 past Jenner, turn left just after the Indian restaurant. Or on the east side of Highway 1, directly across from Shell Beach.

Mount St. Helena This is the highest point in the North Bay, and won’t you feel like a stud when you run right up it! The elevation gain is steady and undemanding. Running this in the summer is a dumb idea, because it gets unbearably hot, so unless you are training for an ultramarathon, wait a season or two. This makes for a very solid 10-mile run with lots to look at once you get to the peak (where there is some kind of unsightly radio transmitter thing, but that’s not what you go there for). Taking the Silverado Trail, you’ll run right past Robert Louis Stevenson’s honeymoon spot. Just think, you can combine history, literature appreciation, and fitness!

To use the fire road all the way, go a few hundred yards past the state park parking lot and look on your left for an access road with a gate across it. Pull over on the northbound side of the highway and park. Robert Louis Stevenson State Park, eight miles north of Calistoga on Highway 29. 707.9942.4575.

Bartholomew Park Winery The best place to run in Sonoma. You can fashion a loop by going down Gehricke to Castle Road, which will lead you to a dead-end at Bartholomew Park Winery, who have a modest but lovely network of trails open to visitors. Just consult the map at the trail’s entrance. Since the trails are very pretty but not so long, this run is best combined with Sonoma backroads–so it’s a trail/street run actually, but so what. 1000 Vineyard Lane, Sonoma. 707.935.9511.

Instrumentally Minded

There are enough music stores up here to make you wonder how they all stay in business. Santa Rosa’s 4th Street alone must house, oh, 30 or so (well, maybe not that many). But then, considering how many people up here are musicians, I guess it’s no small wonder. What a splendid thought!

As a band girlfriend, I have leaned how dangerous it is for a nonmusician to accompany a musician (especially a drummer!) to a music store. I’m a listener, not a player. For those of you who are both, here are some shops to keep your bank account low for years to come.

Epiphany Musical Instruments This newcomer is a hands-on treasure chest of exotic ethnic and rare instruments from around the world–harmoniums, gongs, and many things that look cool but that I do not know the name of, plus plenty of assorted percussion toys. Fun even for nonmusicians. 640 4th St., Santa Rosa. 707.543.7008.

The Magic Flute Woodwinds, strings, guitars, brass, and drums (i.e., band and orchestra instruments), plus plenty of printed music. Sales and rentals. 206 Northgate One Shopping Center, San Rafael. 800.200.3112.

People’s Music First began as a record store. Specialization in acoustic instruments with a world flavor–kotos, autoharps, koras, sitars, etc. Repairs, rentals, and lessons. 122 N. Main St., Sebastopol. 707.823.7664.

Tall Toad Music New and used instruments with a focus on guitars. Lots of sheet music too. Lessons and repairs. Buy, sell, and trade. 43 Petaluma Blvd. N., Petaluma. 707.765.6807.

Zone Music and Recording “Run and overrun by musicians.” (Owner Frank Hayhurst is also creator of Musicians Helping Musicians, a nonprofit charitable organization that aids with medical costs incurred by often uninsured players or their families.) Electric and acoustic guitars, basses, rare and vintage instruments, amps, keyboards, software, drums and percussion, sound systems, and a complete 24-track recording studio. 7884 Old Redwood Hwy., Cotati. 707.664.1213.

Bananas at Large Despite the strange name, a store with much to offer for those involved in music and video production. Band instruments, percussion, sound systems, computer music, recording, and more. 1504 4th St., San Rafael. 415.457.7600.

A Drummer’s Tradition Extensive selection of vintage drums and hardware. Buy, sell, and trade. 1619 Fourth St., San Rafael. 415.458.1688.

Stanroy Music Center Well-rounded store for general music needs: band instruments, drums and percussion, pianos, keyboards, guitars and basses. Repairs, rentals, lessons. 741 4th St., Santa Rosa. 707.545.4827.

Rhythm Matters Drum circle heaven, with a focus on community and ethnic drums. 109 4th St., Santa Rosa. 707.523.DRUM.

From the July 18-24, 2002 issue of the North Bay Bohemian.

© Metro Publishing Inc.

‘K:19: The Widowmaker’

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‘K:19: The Widowmaker’

Dive, Dive

Harrison Ford and Liam Neeson reenact ‘Mutiny on the Bounty’ on the submarine ‘K:19: The Widowmaker’

By

Because of the breakthrough opening sequence in Saving Private Ryan, the modern war film can be a lot more frank about what happens to human bodies in battle. But other films following the lead of Saving Private Ryan, such as Black Hawk Down and Windtalkers, also suffer from the same problem as Private Ryan‘s ending. After showing such carnage, it’s hard to wrap up the film nicely in the flag, even when, as in the case of K-19: The Widowmaker, the flag has a hammer and sickle on it.

This story of the Soviet hellboat is shaped by screenwriter Christopher Kyle as a 1961 Cold War version of Mutiny on the Bounty. Harrison Ford plays Capt. Alexi Vostrikov, a by-the-book martinet like Captain Bligh in the more enlightened versions of the Bounty story. For political reasons, Vostrikov has been sent by the Kremlin to override Capt. Mikhail Polenin (Liam Neeson), the trusted skipper beloved by his crew.

The new sub’s mission is psychologically important. The U.S.S.R. hopes that this nuclear-powered submarine will rival the U.S. boats within firing distance of the Soviet borders. However, the sub is bug-ridden. (The bow is held together with trim that looks suspiciously like duct tape.) On the maiden voyage, the nuclear core sprouts a leak, a condition worsened by a lack of emergency planning and a grass-green reactor technician (Peter Sarsgaard). The sailors risk a horrible death by radiation poisoning to fix the problem. If they fail, the movie argues, a meltdown might convince the Americans that the Soviet Union is attacking a nearby NATO base with nuclear weapons.

Ford’s proven appeal doesn’t fail him. Vostrikov is another old-movie heroic role, tailored to a ’70s dropout, now aging, and once again we see the slight discomfort with authority that’s Ford’s hallmark (trouble is always thrust upon him). Neeson’s also a perfect fit in the Fletcher Christian part, and the film adds some nightmarish new details to the submarine ordeal movie.

Still, Kyle’s script makes the plot as simplistic as the characters. And proposing the fate of the sub as an incident that might trigger World War III seems suspiciously like an overstatement of the case. Plus, the film’s upbeat ending ignores the fact that the sub killed 28 sailors in 1972 during an undersea fire.

Director Kathryn Bigelow has had experience with horror (the influential 1985 vampire film Near Dark) and science fiction (Strange Days). Certainly K-19 goes beyond an ordinary war film into the realms of, first, science fiction and then horror. When it tries to loop back into the stirring they-died-with-their-boots-on finale every self-respecting war movie needs, the film can’t recapture that military spirit: everything we’ve seen has been too horrific.

The story of the submarine K-19 isn’t so much about legendary heroism as it is about hidden injustice. As always, the version we hear is the officers’ version, in which the word “honor” is supposed to make up for the lives lost under their command.

‘K-19: The Widowmaker’ opens Friday in the North Bay. See Movie Times for showtimes.

From the July 18-24, 2002 issue of the North Bay Bohemian.

© Metro Publishing Inc.

Affairs of the Vine’s Wine Boot Camp

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Affairs of the Vine’s Wine Boot Camp

Wine-Ho!

A boot camp offers a crash course from vine to wine

By Charyn Pfeuffer

There are few true faux pas in today’s society. Hardly anything is off limits, and what once may have raised eyebrows–obscure fetishes, unconventional childbirth tactics–has today become lively cocktail party chatter. But tolerance has its limits, and nothing stops a cocktail party deader in its tracks than ignorance of one of the North Bay’s most precious commodities: wine.

Wine appreciators everywhere–educated or not–could take a lesson from some savvy educators operating Sebastopol-based Affairs of the Vine’s Wine Boot Camp. Part tourist-driven “wine country experience” and part genuine educational program, Wine Boot Camp whips its recruits into shape so that the once mysterious characteristics of chocolate in a Merlot or the hints of honey in a Chardonnay no longer terrify.

Soon after registering for duty, I received an e-mail from “Major” Barbara Drady, president and event mastermind of Affairs of the Vine: “Be dressed for battle: We’ve requested perfect weather for April 20.” I was instructed to bring sunscreen, a hat, and rain gear in case of rain.

On Wine Boot Camp day, I arrived at the designated meeting spot (the Safeway parking lot in Sonoma), and the training officially began.

0830 HOURS–The recruits assemble at forward command post dressed for battle in casual clothes. There is no whistle blowing or yelling, and no mandatory push-ups–just 31 recruits gathered around three vans, anxiously awaiting instruction. Once everyone has arrived, we are shuttled in appropriately red and white vans to the square in Sonoma.

0850 HOURS–Rookie recruits and wine mavens join ranks for induction, orientation, and issuance of uniforms. The attendees range from married couples to single folk, event planners to stockbrokers, young surfers to wealthy, aging yuppies. Some people are pondering a career change in the wine industry, while others received Wine Boot Camp as a gift. Drady and her officers set out heaping baskets of croissants, muffins, and juice boxes before calling “Atten-shun!” for an initial briefing. The recruits gather around Maj. Drady, a spunky, middle-aged blonde woman–a cross between a Jewish grandmother and a Girl Scout–with an unstoppable sense of humor. Plump packets containing a three-ring binder with the “Orders of the Day,” a T-shirt, and baseball cap are efficiently distributed. We are also supplied with water and a box full of healthy and not-so-healthy snacks to sustain us through the day and, I suspect, to soak up some of the wine we will be drinking.

0900 HOURS–The platoon is transported to our first mission, a vineyard and winery tour at Gundlach-Bundschu Winery conducted by Lt. Col. Towle Merritt, assistant viticulturist. The recruits are handed brown paper bags crammed with Gundlach-Bundschu goodies, and loaded onto hay-filled trucks. Once we arrive and are unloaded, Lt. Col. Merritt briefs us on the vineyard.

0940 HOURS–Lt. Col. Merritt initiates and directs the group in a vineyard exercise called “suckering.” This precise pruning ensures the proper growth of next year’s grapes while also helping the current vines to spread evenly. As much as I’m opposed to performing hard labor, I quickly refine my careless gardening skills and find suckering to be quite meditative. I suppose if I were doing tens of thousands of vines in the hot Sonoma sun, I’d feel differently, but for a brief period, I am at peace with the activity.

1045 HOURS–Field exercises were continued by Capt. Stuart Young, wine educator and tour guide extraordinaire, with a tour of the winery and 10,000-foot wine tunnel. Capt. Young eloquently explains the winemaking process and conducts a barrel tasting of several of Gundlach-Bundschu’s red wines.

1130 HOURS–Aromatic Workshop. Several long picnic tables are set up beneath a lattice wooden awning nestled among the hills. Laminated sheets, sectioned into 21 spaces with 21 small containers sit before us. The paper containers hold items like honey, strawberry jam, pineapple, cinnamon, and vanilla. Two wine glasses sit before each of us, labeled “One” and “Two.” We proceeded to taste five rounds of two wines each. First we swirl the wine (I am the first to break a glass), taking note of its clarity, brilliance, tone, and depth. Next, we inhale the aromas. Finally, we taste. Each time we perform this drill, we compare what our noses detect with the different aromas placed before us. Maj. Drady says this task will help us “make the connection” when identifying a wine’s characteristics. In no time, I am able to identify characteristics of apple, honeysuckle, apricot, and gooseberry, which has a remarkable cat-urine-like smell.

1230 HOURS–Mess hall. We gain sustenance for the afternoon by feasting on panini, asiago pasta, and homemade cookies–washing it all down with Gundlach-Bundschu 2000 Chardonnay and 2001 Gamay Noir, both from Rhinefarm Vineyards. With full bellies and a warm, fuzzy feeling, we are granted permission to hike up the knoll for a spectacular view of the Sonoma Valley before boarding the transports for the next site.

1345 HOURS–Maj. Drady has an unexpected surprise in store for us, and our convoy proceeds to a secret mission site. We pull into the driveway of Tantalus, a small artisan winery located on Sonoma’s west side. Headed up by Jim Harwood, Chris Clemens, and local KRSH 95.9 radio personality Ziggy Eschliman, award-winning Tantalus produces only 2,500 cases of ultrapremium wine annually. Ziggy, an animated dynamo, and Jim, the yin to her yang, conduct a brief tour (the winery is just a few acres) and unique winetasting. Among the wines that tickle our taste buds are a 1999 Semillon (Russian River Valley), a 1999 Syrah (Lodi), a 1997 Cabernet Sauvignon (Sonoma County), and a 1998 Cabernet Sauvignon (Sonoma County).

1500 HOURS–Maneuvers continue at Benziger Family Winery, a friendly winery that produced a 1994 Late Harvest Reisling some claim to be “better than sex.” Lt. Nathaniel Reynes, a tanned, no-nonsense man with a sizable stomach, leads us on an educational vineyard tram tour. Benziger takes care of the land above and below the surface–they also don’t use herbicides or pesticides. Our education efforts are rewarded with a winetasting, and by this point, I am feeling comfortably numb.

1600 HOURS–Participants are advanced into the rank of winemaker, guided by cellar rat Col. Terry Nolan. Nolan dishes the ins and outs of winemaking from inside one of Benziger’s barrel-filled garages. We are soon unleashed around tables with test tubes, beakers, funnels, and bottles of Benziger’s 2000 Reserve Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, and Petit Verdot (which Nolan refers to as the “ugly step-kid”). The mad scientist in us taking over, we mix different variations of the three reds to create individualized bottles. I finally settle on a blend of 85 percent Cab, 10 percent Merlot, and five percent Petit Verdot before labeling, corking, and sealing the bottle with melted red wax.

1715 HOURS–Tired and hungry from our exhausting day, we head to Benziger’s wine cave. Over hors d’oeuvres, we sample some predinner wines, including Kunde and Kaz. Kaz (the winemaker’s real name), a completely kicked-back wine buff, was on hand to share his wine savvy. Kaz Winery produces organic and sulfite-free wines.

1800 HOURS–Graduation ceremony. Applause breaks out as, one-by-one, we recruits are awarded our honorable discharge papers.

1815 HOURS–The evening detail is the “Taste of Sonoma Valley” dinner, featuring Sonoma Valley food and wine pairings. We all relax and revel in our wine-induced buzzes, savoring the well-earned food. Not only have we gained an invaluable amount of information during the day, I’m sure we gained a few inches to our collective waistline.

2000 HOURS–Dismissal and issuance of discharge orders. Now officially a member of the wine military elite, certified in the art of wine small talk and a master at pairing, I feel assured that any mission ahead of me will result in success. The shelves of the wine store no longer contain enemies but compatriots.

Affairs of the Vine’s Wine Boot Camp, 696 Elliott Lane, Sebastopol, 707.874.1975, www.affairsofthevine.com. Upcoming Wine Boot Camp Missions: Napa Valley, Aug. 3; Santa Barbara County, Aug. 24; Monterey County, Sept. 14; Sonoma County, Sept. 21. The cost of Wine Boot Camp includes all workshops and educational materials, lunch in the vineyard, dinner paired with appropriate wines, extensive winetasting, a bottle of wine created by the recruit, transportation to all food and wine events, and an “I Survived Wine Boot Camp” T-shirt. $350 per person.

From the July 11-17, 2002 issue of the North Bay Bohemian.

© Metro Publishing Inc.

‘Vagina Project’

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‘Vagina Project’

What’s in a Vagina?

J. Eric Cook’s ‘Vagina Project’ aims to find out

By Sara Bir

Actor J. Eric Cook isn’t trying to prove anything with The Vagina Project, only that he had a hair up his ass and that he loves women. “I call it The Vagina Project because why the hell not? They called it The Vagina Monologues, and that seems to be totally acceptable,” says Cook, who wrote most of the show and performs all of it. “I think with the name, which is purposely provocative, people may think it is something that it is definitely not.”

What it is is a kaleidoscope of gods, goddesses, men, and Jewish mothers; what it is not is a feminist rant, a misogynist rant, or a garish drag show. “Being a young white guy, I know I have a pretty privileged position in the world,” Cook reflects. “But when somebody says, ‘You can’t do this,’ I tend to strike out. My way of slapping back was, ‘Well, they’ve got The Vagina Monologues, I’ll do The Vagina Project.’ I wanted to do something that honored women and yet remained true to my bastard self. So this is what came out of it. Good, silly, clean fun.”

Cook first performed The Vagina Project three years ago. “Actors Theatre was doing a whole Women’s History Month thing,” says Cook, “and it was all women all the time–which is great, and I’m all for that. But it was male-exclusive, and I said, ‘I’m gonna do something by a man that’s about women.'”

Mollie Boice (the current production’s director), wrote the poem “What’s in a Vagina?” that opens the show. Cook wrote most of the rest and wound up adding 20 minutes of new material for this revival.

What prompted Cook to bring the show back now? “I like doing it,” he says. “It’s a fun piece. It’s reverent and irreverent, [and] there are some characters that I really get a kick out of doing.”

The Vagina Project is “a one-woman-man show,” a series of monologues and stories, with Cook assuming both male and female roles. “I probably do about four women,” he says. “But it’s not in drag, I don’t do any costume changes; I just sort of assume these characters.”

Writing the characters proved to be harder than performing them. “I didn’t want to write parody characters. I wanted to write comedy, so people could walk away and go, ‘Ah!’ It’s mostly finding the truth and having it be fun and entertaining. Hopefully, they forget that it’s a guy performing.”

One of the show’s more challenging segments is “Tansy,” a monologue by Boice. “It’s a black woman who is telling a story of when her husband is lynched by the KKK,” says Cook. “As an actor, that was difficult, because you don’t want to come off as Mammy or anything. I had a couple people ask me, ‘Why did you have to do a piece about a black woman?’ It’s in there because it presents a point of view–this is my experience of what it is to be a woman, just from having a mother and girlfriends and a wife and a daughter.”

Another segment, “The New Frontier of Feminism,” recounts Cook’s real-life ordeal when he was a moderator for a teen panel and “interested community folks,” one of whom accused Cook of discriminating against men. The story then weaves in the killing of Galina Starovoitova, a prominent Russian politician and human rights advocate who was assassinated in 1998. “For every laugh, I like to give a slap across the face and keep people on guard,” Cook says. “I think [the story] encapsulates different things about the truth of being a woman in America and what you’re up against.”

“The Quicker Picker Upper” segment is Cook’s take on a Hindu myth about Durga, the goddess of universal energy, who in the monologue appears in a fur hat as the consummate Jewish mother/grandmother.

Cook, 34, has been acting since he was just out of high school. Since then, he’s been in over 100 productions. He helped start Sonoma County Repertory Theatre, where he was artistic director, and he served as associate artistic director at Actors Theatre. Currently, he’s tackling four roles in two different shows, Sylvia and The Pension Grillparzer, with Summer Repertory Theatre.

“I think it’s easier for women to cross the other side than it is for men,” Cook says. “Men could care less if women cross back and forth, but a man crossing the other way faces opposition and arms akimbo and ‘How dare you think that it’s appropriate!’ I’m not doing this on behalf of all men. I’m doing this because I think it’s interesting and stimulating, and I think it’s an important dialogue to have.”

‘The Vagina Project’ by J. Eric Cook plays Saturday, July 13, at 8pm, at the Mystic Theatre, 23 Petaluma Blvd. N., Petaluma. $18. Reservations recommended. 707.765.2121.

From the July 11-17, 2002 issue of the North Bay Bohemian.

© Metro Publishing Inc.

Randy Newman

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Randy Newman

New from Newman: The rough draft for ‘Good Old Boys’ finally sees the light of day.

Southern Discomfort

Rare Randy Newman disc surfaces

By Greg Cahill

It’s been called the Holy Grail for Randy Newman fans. Johnny Cutler’s Birthday, the previously unreleased 13-song rough draft for Newman’s controversial 1974 album Good Old Boys, has surfaced as a bonus disc in the first wave of Rhino Records’ extensive reissue series devoted to the iconoclastic singer and songwriter that includes extended editions of Sail Away and the score to Ragtime, Newman’s first foray into film work.

On the Birthday disc, included with Good Old Boys, Newman performs alone on the piano and narrates the backstory for the producer, delivering sometimes insightful asides and cynical self-criticism. Johnny Cutler’s Birthday is a highly theatrical work–a collection of short stories set to music, really–that forms the basis for the resulting concept album about Southern life and its cast of misfits. The disc includes eight songs that never made it onto the eventual Good Old Boys and is so different in its focus that Johnny Cutler’s Birthday stands alone as a “lost” Newman masterwork.

For its part, Good Old Boys serves as a richly hued history lesson, a snapshot of Southern culture haunted by the ghosts of the past–including racism, poverty, and rampant political corruption–as the region stood on the cusp of the so-called liberalism that has transformed parts of the New South. But Johnny Cutler’s Birthday is a much more personal tale, perfectly illustrating Newman’s uncanny ability to step into the shoes of his characters.

For instance, the lament “Shining,” later dropped from Good Old Boys, details the pain and disillusionment of Johnny’s wife, Marie, who bitterly complains about being little more than a trophy wife. It gives a whole new layer of meaning to “Marie,” Johnny’s wistful homage to his wife and a sadly beautiful song included on the final album.

Other Birthday songs, like a planned rendition of the Albanian national anthem that was to be sung by the West Point Glee Club (no, really), lend little or no insight to the project. “I haven’t decided whether to include this,” Newman announces to the producer before introducing the track. “Who the fuck am I talking to anyway?” he ponders. “Who’s gonna hear this?”

While Johnny Cutler’s Birthday is getting a lot of well-deserved praise in the press, it would be a pity if it overshadowed the brilliance of Good Old Boys. That album explored the dark heart of a nation grappling with the racial hatred and prejudice of the past and facing an uncertain future led by political hucksters and charlatans– “Mr. President (Have Pity on the Working Man),” featured on Good Old Boys, was recorded on Aug. 9, 1973, the day Richard Nixon resigned from office.

The album, from its racially tinged satire to its Huey Long-inspired populism, remains stark and relevant. Upon its release, however, Good Old Boys generated a lot of controversy. That was due largely to the provocative nature of the opening track, “Rednecks,” in which the New Orleans-born and L.A.-raised Newman made liberal lyrical use of the n-word at a time when that was almost unheard of outside the black community.

The song also drew fire for juxtaposing the stereotypical ignorance of white Southerners (“We’re rednecks, we’re rednecks / We don’t know our ass from a hole in the ground”) with the sanctimonious attitudes of Northerners who lived in denial about their own mistreatment of blacks. The song delivered a sardonic blast at a time when major desegregation battles, from widespread economic inequality to forced bussing of blacks and whites to public schools, raged though Boston, Chicago, Newark, Detroit, and elsewhere–supposedly enlightened Northern cities that had seen their share of racial violence in recent years.

In light of the flood of jingoistic pop and country music flooding the airwaves in the post-Sept. 11 period and the utter failure of contemporary Americana artists to come up with anything even remotely as poignant as Newman’s bittersweet 1974 ode to America, Good Old Boys stands as a highly influential masterwork akin to such literary counterparts as the best of Flannery O’Connor’s writings.

As O’Connor once wrote, “In the long run, a people is known, not by its statements or its statistics, but by the stories it tells.” Good Old Boys continues to speak volumes about America.

From the July 11-17, 2002 issue of the North Bay Bohemian.

© Metro Publishing Inc.

‘Rivers and Tides’

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‘Rivers and Tides’

Nature’s Mercy

Andy Goldsworthy’s ever changing art is made permanent in film

By

We comfort ourselves with the idea of the permanence of art. Against cataclysm, against the ultimate fall of our civilization, we hope that something of the best of our world will survive. But much vivid art today is made to vanish–think of fireworks, poetry readings, tattoos. Think of musicians who onstage send out their energy into the ether, leaving behind only untrustworthy memories of what witnesses thought they heard or saw. Thomas Riedelsheimer’s exquisite documentary Rivers and Tides gives you an hour and a half in the presence of a man who is in contact with something essential, maybe eternal. Yet much of his work is made to fall apart.

Andy Goldsworthy is an environmental artist, a sculptor of untreated natural materials. In Rivers and Tides, we see the creation of about a year’s worth of pieces. Goldsworthy has signature work–those egg-shaped cairns often encountered in modern art museums, sculptures made from flat pieces of slate, stacked as high and as wide as a person. Yet he uses a wide variety of mediums: materials as ephemeral as the heads of flowers, as tender as leaves, as massive as boulders, as doomed as the broken ice from a frozen pond.

Early in the film, he completes a squiggle of ice, formed from icicles painstakingly fused together. The same morning sun that lights up his sculpture like neon also melts it. Working against a persistent breeze, Goldsworthy assembles a fragile mobile of twigs and thorns in a pasture. At the end, he’s working with simpler materials yet: clay, red iron pigment, and, at last, handfuls of snow.

As a subject, Goldsworthy is both open and enigmatic. He talks of how he started as an artist, the local history of the town he lives in. We glimpse the personal life of the world-traveling artist at home in between commissioned pieces in Nova Scotia and Storm King, in New York. Goldsworthy has a family and several children, but his rapport with them is left vague.

The Internet helps a little. There, you can glean such information as the details that Goldsworthy’s home in Penpont is near the city of Dumfries. He was raised in Yorkshire; he worked as a farm hand and then moved to his present home in Scotland “due to a way of life over which he did not have complete control.” (That cryptic comment is verbatim from www.sculptor.org.)

Like Goldsworthy’s art, Rivers and Tides is sturdy yet delicate. It offers some clues to the mystery of his art but few clues to the mystery of the man. The art, as Goldsworthy says, focuses on those things that cause upheaval and shock–the tides, the power of water flowing, the seasonal changes. Yet the upheavals and shocks in the subject’s life are mostly suggested between the lines.

Rivers and Tides is worth watching and rewatching as a mystery and not just because it brilliantly conveys the beauty in decay, of ever shifting forms. By including the element of time–and how Goldsworthy works against it–the film gives the artist’s work tension, which keeps Rivers and Tides from being beautiful but dull.

‘Rivers and Tides’ opens Friday, July 12, at the Rafael Film Center, 1118 Fourth St., San Rafael.

From the July 11-17, 2002 issue of the North Bay Bohemian.

© Metro Publishing Inc.

‘Minority Report’

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‘Geek Love’ author takes a bite out of ‘Minority Report’

Writer David Templeton takes interesting people to interesting movies in his ongoing quest for the ultimate postfilm conversation. This is not a review; rather, it’s a freewheeling, tangential discussion of life, alternative ideas, and popular culture.

The popcorn-scented hall is crammed with humanity, a big, babbling Exodus of movie-goers, all surging across the theater lobby and out to the street beyond. Author Katherine Dunn–never one to be caught up in the movements of the masses–snakes her way out of the crowd and over to a cluster of plastic benches. As we wait here for the crowds to subside, Dunn takes the opportunity to deftly roll herself a little cigarette for future use.

“Well . . . I must admit I’ve been very, very curious about that movie,” Dunn remarks as she works, shooting a glance at the swinging blue doors behind which we have just seen Minority Report (That would be Steven Spielberg’s creepshow featuring Tom Cruise as a drug-using cop in the not-too-distant future, using aquatic psychics to bust bad guys before they commit their crimes).

Dunn almost liked it.

“It’s easily the most adult film, and the most complex film, that Spielberg has ever done–of those that I’ve seen,” Dunn suggests, “but the ending was so mawkish and so cliché and so Ladies Home Journal, that all I can say is, Stevie? You just went and fucked up another movie.”

Dunn–57, a longtime resident of Oregon–is best-known as the author of the wicked underground classic Geek Love (Vintage, 1989, $13.00), about a circus owner and his chicken-chomping wife, who deliberately breed their own family of freaks, and the phenomenal dismemberment cult that rises up around the figure of Arturo the Aqua Boy, the couple’s four-flippered first-born. Clearly attracted to what you might call edgy material, Dunn was predictably primed for a movie like Minority Report, with its philosophically rich depictions of mutant detectives, Future Crime departments, icky eye-swapping surgeries, and vast Detainment Units packed with electronically lobotomized prisoners. That latter notion–a warehouse full of convicts eternally locked in neural slumber–is of particular interest to my guest. By the time we’ve reached the theater exit, had a quick smoke, settled ourselves in a nearby bar and ordered up a couple of coffees, Dunn has dispensed with her entire list of critical judgments: thumbs up to mechanical spiders, the shots of dribbling snot, and the pizzazzy fire-escape fight scene between Cruise and four cops on flying jet packs–“it was Buck Rogers meets Jackie Chan,” says Dunn–and thumbs down to the “sappy, heart-tugging holographs” of Cruise’s missing son. With such observations out of the way, Dunn can sink her teeth into the meatier issues explored by Minority Report.

“I must admit that years ago I sort of played with the idea of cryogenics as a more versatile solution to the problem of the death penalty,” Dunn laughs. “I began thinking that, should we make cryogenics a reality, then simply turning our convicted felons into thugcicles might be the best way to go.”

“Thugcicles?” I repeat. “Like, popsicles with a rap sheet?”

“Exactly,” she smiles. “The problem with the death penalty, of course, is that it’s so final–but thugcicles could be thawed out if necessary and when proper. They could be stored in relatively inexpensive ways, on the various Poles of the earth or on some of our chillier planets and moons. I even toyed with the idea of giving individual citizens tax rebates in exchange for storing one or two thugcicles in their basement freezer. Though if there were ever a power failure,” she adds, making a face, “you’d have problems, wouldn’t you? The thugs would thaw out–and then where would we be?”

“Up to our ankles in dribbling snot?”

“Exactly.”

The central idea of Minority Report–based on a story by the depressing visionary Philip K. Dick–is that crime could be eliminated, in the future, by arresting violent criminals who have yet to be violent. Sounds good until you consider things like the American Constitution–and human nature. Still, Dunn believes that an anti-violent society is already blossoming into reality.

“I think the argument could be made that most of the First World really is moving toward a very nonviolent social stance,” she says. “Things have changed dramatically just in my lifetime. When I was a small child, it was absolutely acceptable to whip and spank your children. Now you’d go to jail for it. When I was a small child, boxing was one of the biggest sports in America, and now boxing is considered vulgar and barbaric. It’s all moving toward a kind of nonviolent representation of human activity, in which violence is increasingly seen as unacceptable.”

I remind Dunn of a certain scene in Minority Report, in which a middle-aged guy–he’s got a vaguely postal-worker vibe–enters a Holograph Lounge, where folks go to have tailor-made virtual experiences, and nervously requests the experience of murdering his boss. It is clear from everyone’s reaction that such a fantasy is strictly illegal. That scene makes her think of a fiction class she once taught for seniors and grad students at a university in Oregon.

“It began with a simple assignment,” she explains. “To pick a person they’d really like to kill, and then find a way to do it. And step by step, they’d plan these murders, and write it all out. My students had a wonderful time, planning the murders of their parents, their roommates, their teachers, and all kinds of people who were subjected, on paper, to some very hellish fates. But I could never teach that class today. Every single one of my students, and I, would be hauled off to jail.”

An event that would certainly leave Dunn’s devoted readers-and-fans up to their ankles in dribbling snot. But her story brings up another issue, one that runs all the way through Minority Point: How can a civilized America eliminate violent action without eliminating violent thoughts, and how can a society control its citizens’ thoughts without damaging the society’s collective imagination and the ability to create something better?

Dunn’s answer: It can’t.

“One of the things that alarms me the most is the failure of imagination in this country,” she says. “That’s what limits us the most. And it’s ironic, because I think this nation is a dream country, that we are founded on the dreams of extraordinary dreamers. So it is our job–not just to go on dreaming–but to bellyache loudly at every opportunity, every time the dream fails.

“America is never going to be perfect, because–as Philip K. Dick might point out himself–America is human. But the dream is always there. I only hope it’s still alive in the not-too-distant future.”

From the July 11-17, 2002 issue of the North Bay Bohemian.

© Metro Publishing Inc.

Cafe Japan

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Cafe Japan

Fresh Choice

Cafe Japan gets it right

By Maria Wood

My sister had a three-year-old neighbor in Los Angeles who would always tell her, “I love strawberries.” So one day, she picked the freshest, plumpest fruit from her strawberry patch and brought it over to him. He tasted one and wrinkled up his little nose. “Strawberries don’t taste like that,” he informed her. He then ran over to his cupboard, pulled out a jar of Smucker’s jam, and announced “These are the yummy strawberries.”

Me, I love Japanese food. So you can well imagine my surprise when I discovered that, after all these years, I was eating Smucker’s-style Japanese cuisine.

When I first went to the newly opened Jenn and Yo’s Cafe Japan in downtown Santa Rosa, the food tasted a bit off, like it was missing something. It was. It’s missing the monosodium glutamate. Unlike most other Japanese restaurants, Cafe Japan uses no MSG. Plus, the food is almost exclusively organic. Needless to say, it takes a little getting used to. It’s like eating corn-syrup-laden jam all your life and then being confronted by a fresh, ripe strawberry. What to make of this subtle flavor? Luckily, living in Northern California has taught me a thing or two about giving real food a chance. It always pays off. And this was no exception.

Take, for example, the humble inari, a bean-curd pocket stuffed with rice. Like vanilla ice cream, inari is a straightforward food that serves as a good gauge of the quality you’re getting. And Cafe Japan serves some of the best (if not the best) inari I’ve ever had ($3.50 for two).

Typically, restaurants use ready-made pockets that are already fried and seasoned with MSG, oil, and sugar. At Cafe Japan, 35-year-old chef and co-owner Yosuke Saito uses organic tofu and seasons it with a mixture he prepares of mushroom stock, kelp stock, organic sugar, soy sauce, and a sweet, cooking sake. He then fries it and stuffs it with organic rice.

Now, on to the fish. Sushi is not raw fish on rice. Sushi is an art form.

In his native Japan, it takes about five years of training before one can be considered a sushi chef, says Saito, who apprenticed at the Asahi Sushi restaurant in Kesennuma city. After moving to California in 1994, he worked at the Samurai Restaurant in Mill Valley and, most recently, at JoJo Restaurant and Sushi Bar in Santa Rosa.

“In Japan, you have to earn your uniform little by little,” he says. “After a couple of years, you are allowed to wear this,” he adds, pulling at his shirt, “but the pants must remain usual.” After a couple more years, the trainee is allowed another piece of the ensemble. “At the very end, you can wear the entire uniform, and it is a very big honor,” Saito says. His brother Junpei, who was trained at the Miyagi Chorishi Senmongakko culinary school, came to Santa Rosa last month so that he too could work at the new restaurant.

There are only a handful of Japanese restaurants in Sonoma County where the chefs were actually trained in Japan, and it seems that some of the traditional techniques that took generations to perfect are being lost. For example, the albacore tuna sushi at Cafe Japan is outstanding ($4 for two), partly because Saito takes the added step of searing the fish so that it retains its natural juices. He was taught that each type of fish needs to be treated differently: red tuna is seared with soy sauce; halibut is salted and marinated overnight with sea kelp; shrimp is marinated in sweet vinegar. And, of course, everything needs to be sliced with precision at the right angle.

Even the little tricks of the trade make a big difference. I don’t know how many times I’ve pulled off hunks of sushi rice from under the fish so that I could get a better balance between the two. “In Japan, you learn to make a little air pocket inside [the rice ball] so that it’s firm on the outside but soft when you bite into it,” Saito says. “And that way, you also don’t use as much rice.”

Not only is Saito trained in Japanese cuisine, he also makes a mean American-style barbecue. He learned the proper techniques when he was a youngster and an American family moved in next door. “Our families couldn’t speak together well, but we could eat together very well.”

As a teenager, Saito visited relatives in Marin and decided there was a lot more to California than just barbecues. Twelve years later, he moved to Mill Valley and started working at Samurai Restaurant. Just before the company Christmas party, Saito and Jennifer Bessette, one of the waitresses there, were asked to help provide the entertainment.

Saito plays guitar and has the broad smile and laid-back manner of a California musician. Although I haven’t heard it, I’m sure he uses the word “dude.” On the other hand, Bessette has a certain tentative giggle and other mannerisms that I’ve noticed in many Japanese women. Yet she’s also quite the rocker and sang lead vocals and played rhythm guitar for the local band Bella Luna. When she was 22, Bessette, now 33, came out to California from the East Coast on a Greyhound bus, bringing along little else besides a guitar, an amplifier, and hopes of becoming a rock star. In the meantime, she waited tables to pay the rent.

Bessette always insisted on working at Japanese restaurants. That way, she could satiate her other passion: sushi. “I can’t say I liked sushi much the first time I tried it. I was a little scared of it,” she says with a giggle. But after that initial attempt, she tried sushi again. And again. “And I became addicted to it,” she says. She’d drive from New Hampshire to Boston specifically for sushi. “I spent all my spare money on it,” she adds.

Soon she started waitressing at Japanese restaurants. She spent six months in Japan. She took eight semesters of Japanese language classes at a couple of different colleges. “I think about 10 percent of my brain is Japanese by now,” Bessette says.

So while barbecue helped lure Saito to Marin, sushi helped hook Bessette into the restaurant. Then, before the Christmas party, the two got together to create a Japanese rendition of “Please Mr. Postman.” They practiced each night and got to know each other. Six months later, they married.

Right around the time they were discovering each other, they discovered the Whole Foods Market across the street from the restaurant and started eating the organic produce there.

Saito says his own emphasis on organic cooking can be attributed as much to Northern California culture as to his training. “Luckily, around here, wherever you look, there’s great organic produce,” he says. “And once you taste it, you can’t go back.”

Little by little, Saito and Bessette began talking about opening their own restaurant and using all those tasty, organic ingredients and throwing away the MSG. And Cafe Japan was born.

If there’s any fault with the restaurant, it’s that Saito and Bessette are so true to their vision. I couldn’t get my customary dessert of green tea ice cream because they haven’t found any that doesn’t contain artificial coloring. They’ll probably make their own once they settle into a routine with the new business. But until then, I’ll just have to fill up on extra albacore.

Jenn and Yo’s Cafe Japan is at 98 Old Courthouse Square in Santa Rosa (near 4th and Mendocino). Open Tuesday through Saturday. Lunch, 11:30am-2:30pm; dinner, 5-9pm. Lunch special, $10. Entrées range from $9-$14. 707.566.7650.

From the July 11-17, 2002 issue of the North Bay Bohemian.

© Metro Publishing Inc.

Classic Rock Tributes

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Classic Rock Tributes

Strings Attached

Classic rock becomes a classical gas

By Greg Cahill

Forget everything you know about cool. The hippest record of the year is “War Pigs” performed as a Latin mass. That’s right, heavy metal god Ozzy Osbourne–Black Sabbath frontman, organizer of the Ozzfest summer tours, and co-star of MTV’s wildly popular reality series featuring the singer’s foul-mouthed family–gets a chamber music treatment that sounds so right, it’s frightening.

This ultracool manifestation of Ozziness comes from the Estonia-based group Rondellus, a chamber ensemble that performs Medieval and Renaissance music on replicas of period instruments. After three little-noticed but stellar recordings of sacred and secular music from the 12th to 15th centuries, Rondellus is riding the crest of a wave of string quartet tributes to rock’s heroes and has released a 12-song Black Sabbath tribute titled Sabbatum (Beg-the-Bug Records) that is getting a lot of attention.

These apocalyptic songs, penned by Osbourne and first released by the protometal band Black Sabbath in the late ’60s and early ’70s, seem destined to rest comfortably alongside the early music of 12th-century mad abbess Hildegard von Bingen.

Meanwhile, the string quartet tributes continue to pour in. Last week, just a day before the death of Who bassist John Entwhistle, the Hollywood-based Vitamin label (distributed by the label that brought you The Cocktail Tribute to Nirvana and which is responsible for about a dozen similar string quartet homages) released The String Tribute to the Who’s ‘Tommy.’ It’s a natural choice for this type of arrangement–Tommy, the landmark 1969 rock opera, already has been recorded in orchestral form on a 1972 album with the London Symphony. And, indeed, the “Amazing Journey/Sparks” medley is a minisuite that adapts well under the Section, the studio string quartet headed by violinist Eric Gorfain (who also produced the album).

This version of the tribute craze started nearly 15 years ago when the Grammy-nominated Hampton String Quartet adapted the songs of Led Zeppelin, the Rolling Stones, Kansas, and even *NSYNC as part of the What If Mozart Wrote . . . series. That series, created by the Juilliard-trained quartet, has sold over 750,000 copies. Of course, Kronos Quartet raised eyebrows in 1986 with a cover of Jimi Hendrix’s “Purple Haze,” and the Brodsky Quartet has tasted from the rock well on numerous occasions and even recorded an entire album with Elvis Costello.

But Hampton String Quartet’s success hasn’t gone unnoticed, especially at a time when classical record sales are plummeting. In 1996, the unorthodox leather-clad quartet Apocalyptica released its debut CD, Apocalyptica Plays Metallica by Four Cellos. The title says it all. The Finnish foursome have released a pair of follow ups, including last year’s Cult, featuring a ripping rendition of Grieg’s “Hall of the Mountain King.”

“Oh, we love to punish our instruments!” Apocalyptica’s Paavo Lotjonen recently quipped to Strings magazine. “Most of the time they are full of hair and sweat and rosin–our old teachers definitely wouldn’t be happy!”

Meanwhile, the Vitamin label has been busy this year, releasing, among other titles, a tribute to Led Zeppelin. Of course, those British rockers were no strangers to string instruments or bowing techniques, both natural and synthesized. (Such classic Zep songs as the bluesy “I’m Gonna Crawl” and the exotic “Kashmir” made liberal use of a string section, and axeslinger Jimmy Page frequently employed a bow to coax eerie sounds from his electric guitar.)

But who ever would imagine that a string quartet would want to tackle that band’s loping drum solo centerpiece “Moby Dick”? Enter The String Quartet Tribute to Led Zeppelin, a recently released 11-track ode to the gods of heavy metal thunder. The recording–which features contributions from the Section, Stereofeed, the Prague Collective, Interior Rides, and Painting Over Picasso–is a mixed bag of the inspired and not-so-inspired.

Other recent subjects for the Vitamin string quartet tributes have included Icelandic rock diva Björk (who has recorded in the past with the Brodsky Quartet), Sarah McLaughlin, and New Age vocalist Enya. The best of the new batch, however, is a string version of Radiohead’s wistful 1997 masterpiece OK Computer, rife with post-punk angst and rich textures that readily lend themselves to this treatment. Highly recommended.

Can a string tribute to rage rockers Limp Bizkit be far behind?

From the July 4-10, 2002 issue of the North Bay Bohemian.

© Metro Publishing Inc.

Black Sparrow Press

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Black Sparrow Press

Photograph by Michael Amsler

A Flashing Heaven of Luck

Black Sparrow Press leaves a mighty legacy

By Geneviève Duboscq

It had to bite the dust sooner or later,” says John Martin, founder of Santa Rosa’s Black Sparrow Press. On July 1, Martin will close the doors on 36 years of independent literary publishing. “I mean, I’m 71 years old. I’ve been doing this since I was 35. That’s over half my life.”

Far from looking tired, Martin radiates energy, and he’s a born storyteller. With oval wire-framed glasses, bushy red-brown eyebrows and beard, and a bald spot up top, he could play Santa at a Christmas party. He’s wearing a short-sleeved button-down shirt with little blue palm trees marching across it, dark pants, and tennis shoes. A faded blue tattoo colors his right forearm.

“Black Sparrow is really considered, by English-reading people all over the world, to be one of the very best and most successful literary publishers in the world. . . . To have lasted 36 years and been profitable that whole time–I’m very proud of that, damn it.”

Martin was manager of a Southern California office supply company that did some printing when he read the work of writer Charles Bukowski in mimeographed magazines in 1965, and sought him out. Meeting over the next six months, the two men worked out a deal. Bukowski needed $100 a month in order to quit his post office job and work on the writing that was stacked waist-high in his closet. Martin gave up one-fifth of his monthly salary to sponsor Bukowski and become his publisher.

In an interview with Transit magazine before his death in 1994, Bukowski said, “Black Sparrow Press promised me $100 a month for life if I quit my job and tried to be a writer. Nobody else even knew I was alive. Why shouldn’t I be loyal forever? And now the royalties from Sparrow match or surpass all other royalties. What a flashing heaven of luck.”

A book collector since the age of 20, Martin sold his collection of D. H. Lawrence first editions for $50,000 to UC Santa Barbara, leaving $30,000 after taxes and fees to establish Black Sparrow Press. The first publication in April 1966 was 30 copies of Bukowski’s poem “True Story,” which Martin priced at $10 and mostly gave away. “I wasn’t trying to sell those. They’re worth a fortune now, like $2,000 or $3,000 apiece, and I would give them to my delivery boy at that office supply company or one of the secretaries.

“I thought, ‘Well, maybe I’ll do a little book.’ And then I did another little book and another little book, and I did other people’s books.” Martin regularly worked 16-hour days: eight hours at the office supply company followed by Black Sparrow work until 2am and all weekend. After about five years, he realized he needed help. Besides his wife, Barbara, who has designed the press’s distinctive book covers from home since 1966, Martin employs an assistant, a bookkeeper, and a book packer. The print shop he opened in Santa Barbara with typographer and fine printer Graham Mackintosh in the early 1970s employs six people.

Combining his background as a book collector and businessman with Mackintosh’s skills and literary connections, Martin made the savvy business decision to offer expensive, hand-bound limited editions of every title, as well as cheap paperback editions of the same work.

He began publishing short collections by literary lights such as Robert Duncan, Denise Levertov, Robert Creeley, Diane Wakoski, Sonoma County’s David Bromige, Joyce Carol Oates, John Ashbery, and Paul Bowles. Many Black Sparrow authors are heavy hitters who shaped the direction of American literature in the 20th century.

Selling to “a built-in group of maybe 50 booksellers all over the world” who took everything he published, the press turned its first profit in 1971. Martin has never looked back, though he did have to give up his unlisted telephone number. “I was horrified at the thought of people actually calling the office and trying to order books. We were too busy!” But he relented, and business improved. Word of Black Sparrow spread, and New York began watching who Martin was publishing.

The press has never borrowed money or applied for grants. “I’m a Yankee. If a thing can’t support itself, it’s not worth doing.” When short of funds, Martin sold the press archives–including bills and correspondence–to university library collections, leaving a paper trail for future researchers to follow. But the hard times are over. “For many years, we’ve done in excess of a million [dollars] a year. Some years we’ve done considerably more than that.”

Once established, Black Sparrow issued first 12 and then 10 books per year in print runs from 3,000 to 15,000. “We would print or reprint a book, about one a week,” most recently keeping 300 titles in print.

According to Len Fulton, who has published The International Directory of Little Magazines & Small Presses since 1965, many small presses never see a fourth anniversary. Calling 36-year-old Black Sparrow “an institution,” he says that Martin has accomplished every small publisher’s dream: discovering authors whose work readers seek out. “A small press to survive must have an obligatory notion of publishing. For instance, if you publish a book about cheese making, you’re not going to sell a lot of copies, but everyone who makes cheese will have to have a copy. . . . The market that it suits must have it–the same goes for poetry.”

And Martin has a knack for picking winners. “My whole thing was [that] I would publish only what I really liked myself, and there’s got to be two or three thousand people in the world who would agree with me.” But unlike many other publishers, Martin was able to get his books in those people’s hands.

“Writing has to have some fire and some soul in it,” he says. It must be “artful while appearing to be artless.” How does he know when he’s found a winner? “Sometimes you can read just the first story. I mean, how long do you have to listen to someone audition on the violin? . . . If they strike those first few notes, and they’re right on and they’re beautiful–great tone and great technique and real feeling for the music–you don’t have to go much further.”

Asked whether he still comes across good writing these days, Martin strides into another room and returns with Black Sparrow’s last book: Weep Not, My Wanton, short stories and poems by Maggie Dubris. “Wonderful writer,” he says, “just what I always looked for. I mean, if I was going to go on, she’d be one of my best stars.”

The press’ office and warehouse on mostly residential Tenth Street stand nearly empty now. In May Martin sold the rights to publish 49 titles by high-selling authors Paul Bowles, Charles Bukowski, and John Fante to the Ecco Press imprint of HarperCollins in New York. Well-respected David R. Godine Publishers in Boston bought rights to publish most other Black Sparrow titles and hauled away 66,000 copies of books. Gingko Press in Corte Madera bought the rights to titles by artist and writer Wyndham Lewis. Santa Rosa’s Treehorn Books swept up the remaining inventory.

Asked how he feels about selling rights to HarperCollins, part of Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation Ltd., one of six media groups that own publishing houses worldwide, Martin says, “That’s just business.” He’s been impressed by the care Harper has shown. “Maybe they are a big conglomerate, but those people are so nice when you get down the line to the people who will deal with me.” After meeting Harper’s San Francisco sales force, he says, “What a fun, interesting bunch of people–completely familiar with all my books, as readers.”

Jeffrey Lependorf of the Council of Literary Magazines and Presses says that for a small press, being acquired by a large press “can turn out to be the best of both worlds.” The imprint can give personalized attention to authors and yet have the clout and distribution of a large publishing house.

Martin agrees, “I don’t feel pushed into some glacial dimension now–‘Black Sparrow’s going off to be put on a shelf and ignored’ or anything. I think they’ll do the best they can. I know it’ll be different, but they’ll do a good job.”

Despite the closing, Martin refuses to speak of Black Sparrow in the past tense. “The books are out there, and they’ll always be there, circulating. . . . Whatever I’ve accomplished, there it is. Forever.”

From the July 4-10, 2002 issue of the North Bay Bohemian.

© Metro Publishing Inc.

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