Cracks In Sidewalks

I finally joined Facebook this past Friday.  After numerous invitations from friends over many months I began to feel like one of the last holdouts of this social networking phenomenon.  Since Friday I’ve had so many people from different aspects of my life reach out to me.  It’s been great and a little weird at the same time.  All of the sudden I’m seeing unrecognizable faces from High School and hearing from people who I have not thought about in years.  I’m reconnecting with old friends from San Francisco, musician friends from both coasts, and people who saw me on other friend’s homepages and invited me to be their friend too.  I’ve also heard from friends of my nieces and have gotten a few Aunt Audrey letters.  I’m truly honored by those.

I still don’t really know how this all works and I need to look at other people’s home pages and see how they’ve used this tool.  How much information do most people share and what do they keep private?  Where to put things and how?  Kind of like this blog, it can be so much more if I only understood the process and knew how to truly facilitate it.

Besides reconnecting with old friends and friends of friends I’m also hoping it will help promote this site as this is a big part of what I’m doing right now and of course it would be nice to know that what I’m writing is actually being read and of interest and value to some folks.

The history of Facebook, is well-known to most, so what I will do instead of sharing that history is from time to time share with you my experience of participating in its process and ask you for your feedback.

If you haven’t already joined and are interested in doing so, go to: www.facebook.com

For years in my neighborhood whenever I got the craving for pancakes there was always the Bright Food Shop, a little southwestern diner in Chelsea with high quality food and the best cornmeal pecan pancakes I or anyone else I know had ever eaten.  When you got that craving your mouth could water but you knew soon you could be satisfied with the thickest tastiest pancakes on the planet served with organic maple syrup.  Every one in my family was addicted and when they would visit from out of town they would be requesting Bright Food Shop for brunch before their arrival.

When I walked into the restaurant the waiter would know my order before I sat down, because rarely although every thing on their menu was good, did I order anything else.  I always assumed they would be there.  The restaurant had been a neighborhood fixture for many years.  I never dreamed I would need to get their recipe and think of fixing them on my own, they were so successful it didn’t enter my consciousness that they could disappear.  Then one day I was walking by and they were closed, they and their sister restaurant the Mexican take out place called Kitchen, also a neighborhood favorite.  I can’t begin to tell you my disappointment and shock.   To this day probably a year or so later I feel the pain.

I was in Vermont in October enjoying the fall foliage, but one can’t think of Vermont or go there without indulging in pure maple syrup.  This morning I was thinking of that weekend away and woke up knowing I had to have something with pure maple syrup.  I wanted to go to Bright, for it to still be there and for me to be able to taste my beloved pancakes once again. I wanted the opportunity to turn new friends on to their pancakes and see their faces after that first bite, when they would be transfixed and in heaven.  Ultimately I went to the Half King and had a delicious waffle with pure maple syrup.  It was very good and I love Half King, but still it was not the Bright Food Shop.

It is my understanding that they lost their lease or decided not to renew their lease as the landlord was asking for a ridiculous increase in rent.  I don’t know if it is true but that’s the rumor that’s been floating around and given the transformation and high costs of everything now in Chelsea, it would not surprise me.  So I’m asking all of you out there, does anyone know the pancake recipe they used?  Did anyone get it before they closed?  Does anyone who worked at Bright want to share it with us or does anyone have a pancake recipe they think could rival the cornmeal pecan cakes from Bright Food Shop?  I’m calling out to all of you.  You can help.  If anyone knows the true story of what happened to this neighborhood favorite and it’s sister next door, or if you know and are willing to divulge their wonderful pancake recipe you would be doing a community service and I’m certain it would assure you a good place in heaven and most definitely in this life.  The maple syrup gods and all your new friends would look upon you most kindly and I’m certain you would be highly rewarded.

Trust me when I say this is a puzzle worth solving.  Has Bright opened some place else, and more importantly where can we get their cornmeal pecan pancakes or ones of equivalent taste and quality?  If you have an answer, please respond with your recipes and thoughts for myself and other readers of this blog.  All of our Saturday and Sunday mornings could then be truly Bright.

There’s nothing like your own bed.  Mine is an old cat carrier turned upside down.  It’s my favorite spot!

So far this fall season I’d have to say my favorite brand new show has been Steven Bochco’s “Raising The Bar.”  The creator of such hits as “LA Law,” “Hill Street Blues,” and “NYPD Blue,” has in my estimation struck gold again with his newest series “Raising The Bar,” that premiered this fall on the TNT network following one of TNT’s other hits, “The Closer.”

Pitting young Public Defenders against their young District Attorney counterparts all of whom are friends, the show brings up the legal moral battles and questions they each face.  It showcases their ambitions, what they will do to win, and how far they will go to achieve their win.  It touches on their lusts and loves and in some cases lack of love, how their professions affect their persons, the type of lives they lead, and the personal issues they deal with both at work and at home.  Taking place in NYC the show demonstrates a bit of the grit that one would think would come with jobs like theirs in an urban environment of that proportion.  It also displays the unexpected goodness and humanity that can sometimes be found in that same large urban environment.

The series starts with a difficult Judge named Trudy Kessler, an aspiring but closet gay law clerk with whom she’s having an affair and obviously doesn’t know he’s gay, an antagonistic tough District Attorney, and aspiring young Assistant DA’s.  Then on the other side is the Public Defender’s Office with their head played by actress Gloria Reuben, and several younger idealistic attorney’s who work for her, most notably the handsome I will do whatever it takes lawyer, Jerry Kellerman, played by actor Mark-Paul Gosselaar who I hadn’t seen before this series but will soon surely be well-known to many.

Gosselaar and Reubin play the moral compass roles in the show and the others seem to be the reflections of that always do right code playing off these two characters and discovering where they stand, at times shocking and disappointing one another with the favors they ask.  Whichever side of the fence they land, they each do “their” job as best they can, given their own priorities.  Many times on the other end their friends cannot comprehend how one of their own can take the stand that they have taken, especially given their personal backgrounds.  These obstacles surface through their friendships and often over drinks at the bar where the young lawyers gather weekly.

The moral dilemmas the shows characters face and dynamics are juxtaposed in such a way to create weekly interesting and compelling friction amongst the different attorney’s and Judge Kessler, while at the same time showing the humanity of each.  Having recently finished their first rounds of episodes you can go to the link below to find out more about the show and to watch full episodes so you can be up to date when the next season begins.  I think you’ll enjoy “Raising The Bar.”  It is much more than a courtroom drama.  When you have some time check it out for yourself and tell me what you think.  And if you’ve already been watching the show, feel free to leave a comment below expressing your opinion.  I’d love to know how others are viewing Bochco’s new drama.

To access the link below, simply cut and paste it and put it into your browser.

http://www.tnt.tv/series/raisingthebar/

Recently I have found myself listening to and loving the album of Shawn Colvin’s from the mid nineties that is the least critically acclaimed or well liked of her work, her album “Cover Girl.”  But presently in the confines of my apartment my neighbors can hear it playing through the walls and I’m finding myself loving it.  I don’t understand why the critics were so harsh when it came out?  I think it’s a good body of work and I like the song choices she made.  Somehow in the late fall of 2008 it is resonating with me like never before.  I can’t tell you why, but it is fitting my mood.   Lately I guess I’d have to say it’s been a girl thing.

In my CD player right now it is all girls.  I just checked it out to see if I was right.  Besides the “Cover Girl” CD of Shawn Colvin, I found Corrine Bailey Rae, Beth Orton, Amy Winehouse, and even an old CD recording of myself.  I’m surprised Lucinda Williams was not in the mix.  For some reason they are like comfort food or my favorite pair of jeans.  They make me feel strong and safe, protected, even when Amy Winehouse is singing and telling us that she’s refusing to go to rehab.  Perhaps it’s the resonance and tones of the female voice or these female voices in particular.  They are soothing and smooth in their simplistic complexities and rich textures and are just generally pleasing.  Their songs and sounds are diverse, but they are all likable in their differences and as a whole make sense to me.  Maybe as the leaves are falling and the trees are being stripped bare, these women are having the same effect on me.  Perhaps as I become naked in my thoughts these women have been there offering up food for the soul, shelter and clothing for the spirit.  Whatever it is, it’s been a formula I have unknowingly been working holding their music close to my chest letting them lead me into this next season.

The wonderful actor Ed Harris is a big support in every film in which he acts whether he’s playing a supporting role or a lead character.  He’s one of my favorite people to watch.  He always seems so intense and studied.  I first became aware of Ed Harris when he played the role of John Glenn in the movie “The Right Stuff.”  From that day forward I have been following his career and career choices believing him to be one of the top actors of today.

Oscar nominated several times over, Harris spent many years as a somewhat unknown.  Getting his first Oscar nod in 1995 for his supporting role in “Apollo 13” he went on to be nominated again in 1998 for his supporting role in “The Truman Show,” again a Best Supporting Actor nomination in 2002 for his part in “The Hours,” along side Meryl Streep; and finally a Best Actor nomination for his role portraying the artist Jackson Pollack, in what was also his directorial debut, the movie “Pollack” that came out in 2000.

Born in New Jersey in 1950 Ed Harris started out as a star athlete and jock rather than an artist actor.  He played football in High School and while attending Columbia University.  It wasn’t until his family moved to New Mexico and Harris transferred to the University of Oklahoma did Harris begin to study acting and appearing in summer stock theater.  He later moved to Los Angeles to continue his education by enrolling in the California Institute of the Arts.  In 1984 Harris met and soon married the actress Amy Madigan while working on the film “Places in the Heart,” along side actress Sally Field.  Madigan and Harris have one child together.

Some of my favorite films for which Ed Harris is best known besides the previously mentioned movies include “The Abyss,” “Glengarry Glen Ross,” “The Firm,” and the Clint Eastwood directed film “Absolute Power;” also “A Beautiful Mind,” “Buffalo Soldiers,” “The Human Stain,” “A History of Violence,” and his role in the HBO mini-series adaptation of the book “Empire Falls” which co-starred Helen Hunt.  Playing both villainous and sympathetic roles this intense blue-eyed actor is one to keep an eye on as his performances are usually flawless and almost always electrifying.