Time Passages

I spend a lot of time thinking about the notion of time.  Perhaps I spend too much time doing this.  I developed a very simple theory about time and why it seems to accelerate as we advance in years.

First, let’s assume that we have no conscious knowledge of any past lives we may have led and the clock starts to tick from the time we’re hatched from our mothers.

When we reach the age of ten, an interval of one year constitutes 10% (give or take) of the length of our lives to date.  Fast forward to the age of fifty, which is near where I’m at now on this journey, and that number is reduced to 2%.

Let’s do some simple math:  10 divided by 2 is equal to 5.  Therefore, I profess that time seems to travel five times faster for a 50-year-old than it does for a 10-year-old.  The good news for us AARP types is that, while time will continue to “move faster” for us, the rate at which it’s changing won’t seem to be as fast as it was when we were younger.  And that’s just about the only silver lining I can come up with on this topic other than to say we’re all wiser or something like that.

What do you think?  Spot on or B.S.?  I’m sure someone else must have thought of this but in the off chance that I’m the only one, this concept is officially copy written, patented, and proprietary so you can send me $20 if you want to use it in a public setting.

In the meantime, I think I’ll spend the next few minutes of whatever time I have left listening to the song that inspired this post:  Time Passages.

Thoughts About 2012 and Beyond

I rarely write about my political views on this blog because, frankly, I’ve seen how social media has fractured relationships that would have otherwise been okay.  The conversation usually goes something like this:  (insert political party or candidate here) is ruining our country and only the presence of (insert other political party or candidate here) can save us from impending disaster.  And then civil discourse takes a back seat and it starts to get personal, etc.  Just like everyone else, I have opinions but will only attack the issues and the people behind the issues.  Not friends, acquaintances, family members or anyone else who might be reading this.

People who know me know that I tend to lean Democratic, as (a) they actually have a chance to win elections and (b) they more closely represent my viewpoints on most issues.  But  every now and then though, I’ll vote Republican for what I deem to be good reasons as I did this year in our state gubernatorial election.

There’s something though that I always remind myself of before I cast my vote:  Democrats and Republicans all work for the same people.  Money talks and their campaigns are being funded by PACs (they really need to go away), insurance companies, banks, hedge funds, energy conglomerates, and so on.  And they expect a return on their “investment”.  I have no expectations of anything getting better strictly by virtue of who wins or loses a presidential election.

Having said that, I do try to assess what kind of a future might be looming by trying to understand a political  party’s platform.  Four years ago, I dropped a blog post regarding how thrilled I was that Barack Obama was elected.  Four years later, I’m not nearly as excited and have come to understand just how polarized we are in this country.  There are nearly three times as many annual filibusters in the Obama years as the “W” years, for example.  Lots of people with a –R at the end of their names really dislike this guy.  Because he’s a Democrat?  Because of his policies?  His race?  Yes, yes, and (unfortunately in 2012) yes.

Has Obama done a perfect job in his first four years?  No he has not.  But despite the ideologues who refuse to work with him, and want to see him fail no matter what the cost to the middle and lower class, we are slowly coming out of the long-term mess caused largely by a person I consider the worst and most irresponsible president we’ve had since I’ve been on this rock.  And that even includes Nixon.  I could go on about Bush but why bother.  He’s yesterday’s news.  Let’s learn the lessons we’ve had to learn and move on.

Here are a few things that I'd like to see happen this term (not that anyone has consulted with me on this):

•  Obamacare needs to get roots.  It HAS to be a priority, end of sentence.  We’re getting older as a demographic and unless there’s a plan like this in place, the day is not too far off when far too many of our citizens (and their family members) will have to decide whether or not to go bankrupt to stay alive.  Then we can all watch every other form of consumer spending bite the dust along with it.   If tax increases are necessary then so be it.  Tax the wealthy at the rates they paid 20 years ago.  Alter the laws and tax structures so that the Mitt Romney's of the world aren't rewarded for moving their millions offshore.  Heck, tax me a bit more.  I’m not rich by most definitions but am doing okay and am fine with that if we can avoid turning away our disenfranchised.  And by the way, at the risk of being called a “socialist” (a word bantered around by some righties in a completely misunderstood fashion) I’m for a single payer system as well and believe health care needs to be available to all.

• Related to this, we need to make sure that big businesses (such as insurance companies who would just as soon exempt you due to a pre-existing condition as see that you’re treated) play by the rules as opposed to circumnavigating them so that a few lucky VPs at the top of the food chain can get rich.  I think we all saw how well that worked with the lending industry a few years back.  If they can’t police themselves, pass legislation and send a few to the Greybar Hotel.  The rest of the corporate lab rats will see this happening and start to push the button that doesn’t deliver the electric shock.                        
• Get out of Afghanistan.  Enough said.  And let’s use the money we’re not spending on wars to start fixing our infrastructure before it crumbles away.  The shelf life is closer than we think.

I could go on, but I’m up to more than 700 words on this post already.  So I'll just say here’s to hoping that during the next four years we decide to look out for one another with more conviction than we have in recent memory.

“A nation's greatness is measured by how it treats its weakest members.”

~ Mahatma Gandhi

Meeting Ken Levine

This short blog post has been sitting in limbo for a while now, but it’s time for it to see the light of day.

I’m very fortunate in that every now and then I’ll get a chance to meet someone I admire and appreciate in the worlds of music, books, sports and so on.  Several weeks ago I had an opportunity to do that once again.

One of the links I have on this blog leads to another blog (and a darned good one) written by a guy named Ken Levine.  He’s actually had a few full-time careers over the years that include Emmy winning television writer (M*A*S*H, Cheers, and Frasier are among the many shows that he’s worked on).  He’s also written a few books, two of which I own and have read.  Oh, and in his spare time he’s a major league baseball broadcaster, currently with the Seattle Mariners.

BowlingJoe and Ken Levine

I first heard Levine on the radio back in the 1980s, the FIRST time he was with the Mariners.  Those were some god-awful Mariner teams that used to inhabit The Kingdome in those days (my old college buddies and I used to enjoy sitting in the left field cheap seats giving washed up Mariner left fielder Gorman Thomas "the business") .  But Ken Levine was a breath of fresh air.  When the first batter up in a given inning got to first on a base on balls, he’d quote what he called Levine’s Law, which states:  “When you walk the leadoff batter, he comes around to score 100% of the time.  Unless he doesn’t.”  How can you argue with that?

And then there were the traffic reports he’d give in the 9^th inning of another Mariner blowout loss waiting to become official.  He’d tell the listening audience to avoid the Highway 520 bridge due to an accident.  Of course that was fake.  Levine used the bridge to get home and wanted a clear path to get there after the game.

When I had the chance to meet him at the Mariner’s team store in Seattle and get a couple of books signed, I jumped on board.  During our short chat he was very friendly and gracious.  I think I tried to make a joke.  Something about how I enjoy reading his book during sittings in the smallest room of our house.  Which brings me to something I’ll call BowlingJoe’s Law:  “Never try and be funny around someone who writes comedy for a living.”  After all, you wouldn’t demonstrate your lightning fast left jab for Mike Tyson, right?  I should really thank Ken for not ejecting me from his book signing for that lapse in judgment.

Finally, I know he’d appreciate me hawking his latest book on this blog, even though I only get about 200 site visits a month, half from people who are somehow related to me (which isn’t bad but I’ll bet he gets 20,000).  So here you go, Ken, this one’s on me.  You can order Ken Levine’s hilarious new book, The Me Generation…By Me (Growing Up in the 60s), right here.  Available in Kindle or paperback.

http://www.amazon.com/The-Me-Generation-Growing-60s/dp/0615653529/ref=tmm_pap_title_0/188-3745147-0523011

Southport Lanes in Chicago

Well, here's a post that actually is about bowling for a change.  After the Chicago Cubs' baseball game we made a short walk from Wrigley Field to this unique little bowling and billiards joint called Southport Lanes and Billiards, on the corner of Southport Ave. and Henderson Street.

Southport Lanes and Billiards

Southport Lanes and Billiards was built in the 1920s by The Schlitz Brewing Company.  History tells us that, like a lot of places in its day, it was once a front for a speakeasy with a brothel located on the second floor.  But what makes it really unique is that this four-lane house is one of just a handful of alleys in this country that are currently using manual pinsetting machines operated by "pin boys" in the area behind the pins.

Southport and Its Four Lanes

In fact almost everything about the operation includes original equipment including the above-surface ball returns.  The main exception to that is the lanes themselves:  the expense of maintaining the original wood lanes was too much to bear for the owners so they were replaced with synthetic lanes and approaches a few years ago.

It was a slow day when we were there, so I was lucky enough to convince the general manager to give me a quick tour of what life is like behind the lanes, something he said he doesn't do too often.

Mind the Rules and Don't Bowl If You See Legs!

The first thing I noticed is that being skinny (which I'm not) would be an advantage in getting back there as I contorted my body up and around the ball return between lane one and the wall.  There's also not much room when you do get back there and I'd find it amazing if a year goes by without somebody getting hit by a ball or a flying pin.

We didn't actually bowl at Southport (and in case you're wondering there are no sanctioned leagues here).  Just being there was special enough.  Here's a good news story I found that was done by a Chicago TV station a couple of years ago, followed by some photos I took.

http://www.myfoxchicago.com/story/17819843/southport-lanes-and-billiards-preserves-chicago-history

A Brief Tour of Chicago

Hog Butcher for the World,

Tool Maker, Stacker of Wheat,

Player with Railroads and the Nation's Freight Handler;

Stormy, husky, brawling,

City of the Big Shoulders

And so on goes the poem by Carl Sandburg that described Chicago in the early 20^th century.

When we visited for the first time recently, we really didn’t know what to expect.  We heard it was one of the great cities in the country to visit but didn’t exactly grasp why that was.  Now we do.

A View of Chicago From Willis Tower (aka Sears Tower)

Chicago is not a tourist Mecca.  There are no tropical beaches, no Mardi Gras-like celebrations, and no ancient ruins.  People don’t come to Chicago to gamble, climb mountains, slide down zip lines, play golf, or lounge around next to the pool in their thongs while drinking Margaritas.  If most of this appeals to you, don’t bother visiting Chicago.  Go to Vegas, Maui, or whatever other destination you’re being told by USA Today that you have to go visit.

Okay then, just what is so alluring about the place?  I can only speak for myself of course but here goes:

The Sports Scene:  Chicago is truly one of the great sports towns in the country.  They eat it up.  Football, basketball, baseball (two teams), hockey and soccer are all represented professionally.  It’s written and talked about in the media extensively.  And when a team isn’t performing the sportswriters tend to go into lambasting mode.  They’ve been doing that all year with the Chicago Cubs’ baseball team.  BowlingWidow and I attended a Cubs game at Wrigley Field, a gem of an old ballpark that was built in 1916.  I tried to give the poor Cubs some luck by buying a cap with the 1914 Cubs’ logo on it but they still lost 5-3.

Outside of Wrigley Field at the Home Plate Entrance

The Music Scene:  There’s plenty of music of all kinds going on here every day of the week.  We like to focus on the blues and jazz that’s happening.  Unfortunately almost all of it happens starting at around nine o’clock at night or later.  Bummer for those of us who are programmed to nod off at about that time.  Here’s at tip:  Andy’s Jazz Club in the North Loop has good live jazz music that starts at five, 7 days a week.

The Food Scene:  Chicago is the best place in the nation to get a good steak.  Too bad we really don’t eat steak.  Not to worry.  Every ethnicity is represented here in the culinary sense.  You’ve heard about Chicago style hot dogs and deep dish pizza, but we also had some of the best Mexican food in history.  Famous chef and restaurateur Rick Bayless lives in Chicago and he has ways of procuring the best Mexican ingredients.  We had incredible meals at his Frontera Grill on Clark Street.  BowlingWidow had one with three different kinds of mole sauces and I had a fabulous meal of marinated shredded pork with onion and black beans and a snappy habanero salsa.  Yes, of course, they gave me steamed tortillas to fill up with the mixture.

BowlingJoe at Wrigley Field:  The 1914 Cubs Hat Brought the Home Team No Luck

The Art Scene:  Here I’m talking about paintings.  We don’t “get” art.  I usually am way off the mark on what paintings represent or are supposed to represent.  I don’t know a still life painting from an impressionist painting and frankly it’s not that big of a deal to me.  But for someone that is into art I understand that Chicago is one of the best places outside of Paris to take it all in.

The Museum Scene:  There’s the Field Museum, The Museum of Science and Industry, The Planetarium.  And that’s just for starters.  The sad reality is that we didn’t get to see any of them on this go around.  They tend to close early in the day and we didn’t plan as well as we could have.  The silver lining is that now we have a reason to go back to Chicago in a couple of years.

Chicago From the Chicago River

The Neighborhood Scene:  Let’s see…they’ve got the Polish neighborhood, the Greek neighborhood, the Italian neighborhood, the Mexican neighborhood.  I’ll bet they even have a Liechtensteinian neighborhood.  Like the museums we didn’t get much of a chance to explore these.  Put it on the list for next time.

The Scene Scene:  For the best view of any city, head to the top of the Willis Tower (formerly the Sears Tower).  You’ll be at the 104^th floor with an opportunity walk out “over the streets below” on the 4-foot glass section that juts out from the building.  We also took an educational Architecture Cruise on the Chicago River where we learned a lot about the massive structures that dominate the skyline.

BowlingWidow in Seated Yoga Pose over Chicago at the Top of the Willis Tower

Some final thoughts about Chicago:

• Go to Portillo’s on Ontario Street for a real Chicago dog.  But don’t even ask them to put ketchup on it.  It’s a felony in Illinois to even ask.

The Portillo's Chicago Hot Dog:  A True Work of Art

• Don’t expect to find any good beer at Wrigley Field.  The best they have is Dos Equis Light in a can.  Avoid Old Style Beer.  They call it that because it was brewed in the year Wrigley was built.

• Visit Millennium Park and take your picture in the reflection of The Bean (actually called Cloud Gate).  It’s required during your time in Chicago.

The Cloud Gate Sculpture:  We're in the Distance Taking the Picture

• Stay in the Loop area if you can (we stayed at the Central LoopHotel).  It’s worth being close to a lot of things as well as having great access to the Elevated Rail System.  Anything around $150 a night is a great deal here.

• By and large, people are friendly and willing to help out if you have a question about how to get somewhere.  Even more so than in the Southeast, we found.  And certainly more so than in downtown Seattle.

• Don’t buy the Chicago style caramel/cheese popcorn mix and bring it on the plane.  It goes stale really fast.

At Midway Airport:  A Business That Has My Full Support

• Bottles of hot sauce WILL get confiscated from your carry-on luggage.  We had no checked baggage on this trip and bought a couple of bottles of habanero sauce to go from Frontera Grill.  The TSA caught this and took them away from me.  I can only imagine how good those TSA after-work fondue and appetizer parties are at Midway Airport.

A Chicago Pizza Tour

BowlingWidow and I are just back from a 5-day vacation to Chicago, a place neither of us had ever been to.  We’ve heard so many good things about this metropolis and it certainly didn’t disappoint.  I’ll have a few topical blog posts coming up about the place but I thought I’d jump right in with a subject that will prove to be extremely popular:  pizza.

Prior to our trip we asked several experienced Chicago travelers and ex-residents what their favorite pizza place in the city is.  And we got several different answers (Gino’s, Pizzeria Uno, etc.); with each individual claiming that they were right.  Maybe they all are?  Maybe we just ought to turn our question over to the experts?  So that’s what we did.

In Chicago, there are local companies that will drive groups of people around town on an organized tour and sample a variety of some of the best pizza around.  We did this with Chicago Pizzatours.
 

Dough Force One:  Our Pizza Party Vehicle

The tour, which numbered around 17 of us,  originated at a restaurant in the downtown “Loop” area of Chicago called Pizano’s Pizza and Pasta.  There we sampled both deep dish and thin crust styles.  The deep dish featured fresh plum tomatoes with a bit of salt as the sauce (traditionally served on the top of the pizza) as well as fresh mozzarella slices. 

The topping I chose was sausage, which they’ve been obtaining from Anichini Brothers since 1925.  In fact, most reputable pizza joints get their sausage from there as well and mix their own unique blend of spices with it.  But don’t bother asking the Pizano’s people how they mix their sausage.  It’s a secret.  In fact, so is their dough recipe which only three people on the planet are privy to knowing.  I can tell you, though, that it’s cooked in the deep dish pan at a high temperature with a bit of corn oil, giving it a crispy bottom and a soft, tasty crust interior.  A hearty thumbs up from us.
 

Pizano's Deep Dish and Thin Crust Side by Side

Pizano’s thin crust pepperoni pizza didn’t get quite as high of a rating as the deep dish, as we didn’t think there was a whole lot that distinguished it from decent pizza we can get in the Seattle area.  But, as it was pointed out to us, it is Oprah Winfrey’s favorite.  Then again, I’m often puzzled over Oprah’s book-of-the-month choices as well.

Finished at Pizano’s it was time to board the van, also known as “Dough Force One”, with Jim at the wheel and Mike as our informative and entertaining tour guide.  We drove north.  Many miles north in fact, to a place called Spacca Napoli which churns out one style and one style only:  certified authentic Neapolitan style pizza.  Very few restaurants are allowed to call it this, as very few adhere to the simple but strict standards that are required.

Making Pizzas at Spacca Napoli

This includes using only salt, flour, water and yeast for the dough.  The sauce must consist of San Marzano tomatoes.  The mozzarella slices have to be produced using the milk of water buffalo (not native to Italy, but present there in large numbers).  The pizza is baked in a 900-degree oven for less than a minute.  Our pizza was topped only with fresh basil leaves and olive oil.  It was amazing as the simple flavors came together for an amazing pizza eating experience.

A Perfect Neapolitan Pizza at Spacca Napoli

Next it was time to head south to Pequod’s Pizza.  This is heavy duty deep dish pizza and is probably what most people think of when “pizza” and “Chicago” are in the same sentence.  In reality though, far more thin crust pizza is sold in the city than deep dish.  

At Pequod’s, in traditional deep dish fashion, the ingredients extend to the edge of the pie.  In fact, they make a point of laying a bit of cheese on the inside perimeter of the pan to give it a slightly burnt, caramelized crispy cheese edge.  We sampled a slice with pepperoni and a slice with fresh spinach.  The sauce was sweet and ample on top.  BowlingWidow thought it was a bit much and it was her least favorite, while I thought it was pretty darned good, albeit really filling.
 

A Small Slice of Saucy Deep Dish from Pequod's:  Note the Crispy Cheese Edge

Fans of the novel “Moby Dick” will also be glad to know that across the street from Pequod’s is…..yes…..a Starbucks Coffee house.

Our final stop was Coalfire.  And yes, the do in fact use a coal fired stove to cook their pizza at around 770-degrees for 2 ½ minutes.  At Coalfire we had a thin crust American-style Neapolitan pizza.  Much less strict than the ingredients we saw at Spacca Napoli, as the mozzarella was from Wisconsin, the flour from Vermont, and the tomatoes used were from California.

The simple toppings built what is called a Margherita pizza (Queen Margherita was apparently a fan of this back in the day) and consists of sauce, mozzarella cheese slices, and tomato being supported by a thin and crispy crust.  Coalfire’s version of the Margherita was in fact judged to be number one in its class by Chicago Magazine recently.

The Margherita from Coalfire Pizza

When it was all over, we were really satisfied with what we tried yet happy that there wasn’t a fifth restaurant on the tour.  We couldn’t possibly have eaten any more.  Our favorites?  BowlingWidow went with the deep dish at Pizano’s.  I liked it, too, but will give a slight edge to the high-quality, spare and simple ingredients of the authentic Neapolitan pizza of Spacca Napoli.  Everything else finished second by the narrowest of margins.

Now that we’re home, here’s the REAL problem though:  now that I’ve been exposed to the best pizza in the world, I’ve got to (a) increase my Friday night pizza budget and (b) actually find decent pizza within driving distance of our condo in Everett, WA.

Papa Murphy’s  pizza will somehow no longer taste as good after last week.