Year: 2010

Every once in a while, I am going to post brief stories about the truly horrible service I’ve experienced or witnessed in local restaurants. Feel free to send in if you have a tale to tell about exceptionally bad service. Meanwhile, here are two stories. Not so long ago, I took my parents to a fancy downtown restaurant that is known for its home-made lemonade, its chicken entrees and its snide owner. My father complimented the waitress on the lemonade. “That is very, very good,” he said. “Do you give free refills?” “No!” she said. “You think we serve refills for free here? This is not Baker’s Square!” My father took this in stride — in fact, he thought it was pretty funny. Just to show that there were no hard feelings, when the waitress came back, he decided to give her some good-natured ribbing. When she asked if he…

Quite busy. Sorry I haven’t returned your email. http://cactuseaters.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default

Do your part. Do it for Rue McClanahan. http://cactuseaters.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default

Way to go to my friend Kara Levy. Here she is, reading a prize-winning fiction story that is now featured prominently in one of the world’s most popular media blogs. http://cactuseaters.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default

I was upset to see that a former haunt of mine, Bookworks in Aptos, California, seemed to be kaput. I used to spend hours in the store, guzzling coffee, reading the magazines and buying just enough inventory to upgrade myself from “loiterer” to “frequent customer.” Stopping in to browse through this charming store, I saw some ugly brown wrapping on the windows last week, along with a notice saying that the space was being turned into, of all things, a bike store. (I love bikes, but this area has bicycle outlets the way Haight-Ashbury has creperies and stinky bong emporiums.) Fortunately, the store has merely moved, although it’s smaller than before. http://cactuseaters.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default

Before relocating, I chatted with Lynn Gentry, the famed street poet of Haight-Ashbury, about leaving town. Among other things, I explained to him the staggering amounts of lead in my Victorian apartment (up to 45 times the permissible levels of lead according to the SF Health Department.)He sat down at his typewriter and came up with this nice farewell verse: “Calls come suddenly and time is too lateto dawn upon minds that wished for so much more butbeauty sits so fragile; who could have known yesterdaythe mystery that calls us to protect oursevlesFrom the dreams of ourselves where questions sit in mind but little girls sit in viewabout to turn twoand we turn our back on fantasies to realize paradise.” Good one, Lynn Gentry. http://cactuseaters.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default

I’ve been hearing from readers asking for more information about the Lost Rights nonfiction book and David Howard’s Lost Rights book tour. Here is all the info you need. Also, make sure to get your hands on Daniel Okrent’s highly entertaining portrait of Prohibition, Last Call: The Rise and Fall of Prohibition, another book that has been making the rounds this month. Amy and I did a bit of research work on Last Call, and it was very exciting to see it arrive in bookstores. http://cactuseaters.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default

Who stole the Bill of Rights? I’m not speaking metaphorically here. One of General Sherman’s infantrymen pilfered one of the fourteen original copies of the Bill of Rights in the North Carolina statehouse. The stolen relic (a real-life National Treasure) changed hands again and again as it made its way across America. The longtime journalist and author David Howard received a rave from Publishers Weekly for this highly anticipated book, which hits stores this summer. I had the privilege of reading this one in an early form, and I can tell you that it’s a jaw dropping combination of investigative reporting and narrative, with memorable characters and so-strange-it-could-only-be-true situations. PW gave it a starred review and named it as the nonfiction pick of the week. http://cactuseaters.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default

Tim Cahill will be speaking at SJSU on Wednesday night, (April 28th) and it should be a great event. By the way, I was once at a San Jose gathering where he was present, and I can attest to the fact that he is exactly like his writing persona: the life of the party, funny, self-effacing and smart, roaming from room to room with an endless supply of stories. Currently he’s the Lurie Professor at SJSU, teaching adventure writing to graduate students and undergrads here on campus. It’s pretty unusual when you meet an author and find that he or she squares with the voice that you ‘hear’ on the page and the persona that comes across in the stories. Alas, I’ve met a couple of my other adventure/outdoor writing heroes and found that one of them in particular was … well, let’s just leave it at that. http://cactuseaters.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default

Thanks to all the many, many people who wished me a happy birthday yesterday. I’m glad to report that my entire family has now recovered from the horrible, horrible stomach flu that had us all out of commission and off-blog for a long while. (I’m telling you, it’s nasty stuff, this bug that’s been going around. Don’t even think about going to Babies R Us or the doctor’s office without lathering up with hand sanitizer. Preferably something non-toxic like CleanWell. Lots of folks are asking where I moved. Not to be cryptic, but here’s a riddle. Suppose you were to drive south from San Francisco for roughly an hour and thought you were leaving behind all the slow food, weirdly high housing prices, Victorians with fishscale shingles and mansard roofs, lovely vistas, hippies and pot smoke of SF, only to find all these things waiting for you upon arrival? http://cactuseaters.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default