SATURDAY NIGHT AT THE MOVIES:  Feed Me Dammit

When my son is hungry, he will eat the fastest most convenient thing he can find. He will not wait for a piece of toast if he can eat the bread now. Butter? Jelly? Who needs it. He would just as soon eat at Whataburger as Brennan’s. Ordinary American food has always had its place in the movies. Harold and Kumar do eventually find the White Castle, Jake and Elwood order their fried chickens and dry white toast and many of us recall the beans in Blazing Saddles.

But every once in a while, Hollywood pops out a movie about food and the people who make it. Good food, very good food, the kind of food most of us are lucky to enjoy a couple times a year. Food presented as experience, not sustenance.

 In these movies, food is one of the central characters, the places where it is prepared the principle setting and at least one of the main characters is in love with food.

The food here is special. It is sometimes exotic. It is beautiful. It is cared for. It is selected with care, handled with care and finally consumed, bite by delectable bite, with care.

The preparation does not just make the food ready to eat. The chef is in love with the food as an artist loves his canvass or a sculptor his stone. It is this artistry, this love that sets the truly good cook apart from the rest of us.

Burnt

Adam Jones (Bradley Cooper) is a great chef and a crappy person. After serving a self imposed penance for his last screw up, he embarks on a quest for his third Michelin star. The food may just be the star of this movie. It is beautiful.

Adam Jones: I don't want my restaurant to be a place where people sit and eat. I want people to sit at that table and be sick with longing.

Chef

Renowned chef Carl Casper (Jon Favreau) is fired after an argument with a food critic goes viral on You Tube. At one point he makes his son a grilled cheese sandwich. This is not just any grilled cheese. It is a labor of love; love for the food, love for his art and love for his son. I would watch this again just for this scene.

Carl Casper: I may not do everything great in my life, but I'm good at this. I manage to touch people's lives with what I do and I want to share this with you.

J

Julie and Julia

 Amy Adams and Merle Streep come together in this biopic which should be enough to make you want to watch this movie. Food, particularly butter, is the common thread that ties these women together. Forty years ago Julia child taught me to cook pasta on television. I still do it her way.

Julie Powell: [voiceover, blogging] Last night, our sleep machine, the one we have by our bed to drown out the noise of freight trucks rumbling past our apartment, was speaking to me. And it was saying, lobster killer. Lobster killer, lobster killer, lobster killer.

Today’s Special

Daily Show alumni, Aasif Mandvi, stars as Samir, a sous chef out of a job. He is about to head to Paris to up his game when his father, proprietor of the family’s Indian restaurant is sidelined by a heart attack. Samir must trade in his French cooking skills and learn ethnic Indian cooking. This is a fun, feel good film.

Akbar: Eating with utensils is like making love with an interpreter.

So what is your favorite food movie. I’m hungry.

o, these past X number of Sundays, the Idiot Free Zone group on Facebook has been jointly, and solely for our own amusement, creating a weekly ad hoc musical melange comprised of YouTube offerings from the worlds of pop, punk, rock, rap, blues, be bob, r&b, soul, folk, funk and jazz, according to how well they fit into and/or wrap themselves around a weekly theme. We call it "The Sunday String." This past Sunday, November 8, 2015, for example, that theme was delineated thusly:

"This day in 1887, Doc Holliday lost his last fight to tuberculosis

"So let's dedicate this Sunday's musical string to the "bad guys." (to) the gunslingers, murderers, gangsters and bank robbers who make up so much of American lore."

So sayeth our fearless leader, Jose Rosa.

In thus flinging the proverbial gauntlet at our feet, Jose challenged our inner music nerds to come up with a definitive list of tuneful tributes to our favorite dangerous dudes and dirty dames, be they fearless, fatuous, completely factual or strictly fiction.

Here below, for the first time in these pages, is a link to a YouTube playlist of (nearly) all the songs submitted. Going forward, we'll only post one song from each IFZ member on the Idiot Free Zone website, so be advised. You may continue to post however many songs you like, of course, just be sure to put your best foot forward...that is to say, put the song about which you feel most strongly...first.

Right now, you may find yourself wondering: "Why is the hell should I do that?" Well, smart guy, because starting today, we're asking the IFZ community as a whole, to vote for three songs which they feel best represent the spirit of the week's stated theme, and the Citizones who have submitted the songs receiving the most votes are gonna get some kinda prize. Nothing fancy, you understand, but something you might like. Maybe even like a lot. Who knows? It could happen.

So, here's the link to the playlist. They Bad Playlist:

Listen to it (if you haven't already), and vote for three of your favorites (remember, no more than 3) in a comment below. Thanks, Citizones!! You da bomb (do people still say that?)

Peace.

Eric Wesling, a confident, 15-year-old guitarist – as a fifth of the Julian Esparza Quintet -- graced the stage of San Diego’s perennial jazz venue, Croce’s. It was a recent Wednesday night, which Croce’s reserves for its Young Lions program, an opportunity for worthy, musical yutes to show off their stuff. Thus it was with Eric. For a young man still facing two more years of high school, Eric’s performance on the jazz stage defies his youth and experience.

Despite Croce’s Wednesday night designation -- and as an indication of the universality of jazz – Eric was part of a group motley in age and nationality. While Eric Wesling held forth in his Paul McCartney-like, lefty stance on lead guitar, the other stars in his orbit were:

• Leader Julian Esparza -- Bass
• Jarien Jamanila -- Alto Sax
• Pete Bogle -- Drums
• Alan Zundelevich -- Piano

Gilbert Castellanos was a sit-in on the trumpet. Additionally, Castellanos is the shepherd of Croce’s well-conceived, Young Lions series.

Alan Zundelevich, the agile-fingered pianist, was the only group-member this writer was able to interview. Despite his tongue-twisting, Slavic patronymic, Alan hails from Mexico. It was revealed that he and this writer are acquainted with another brilliant, Mexican pianist, Irving Flores, also pursuing his jazz interests in San Diego. Alan was amazed to learn that – although separated by several decades --- both Flores and this writer had been colleagues with Mexico’s world-renowned composer/performer, the formidible Armando Manzanero.

Although this was Eric Wesling’s big-time debut, it was not his first time on a San Diego stage. He and other cohorts of his age have taken every opportunity to hone their skills by jamming with the big boys in other of San Diego’s jazz and blues clubs. That Wednesday night at Croce’s was another step upward on that long and competitive trail, leading to wherever one’s talent, dreams and determination might take him. Eric’s performance is indicative of the fact that he is aware of those challenges, and that he devotes his time to meeting them.

Witnessing a young man’s announced emergence within a prestigious cathedral of jazz was a mélange of Eric Wesling’s proud family, friends and educators – as well as admirers of the other members of that magnificent jazz ensemble. This writer mentioned to Eric’s accomplished grandfather that, in channeling that embryonic age of jazz -- of both our memories -- his energetic grandson seemed to traverse the path enshrined in that very Lincolnian phrase,  “…the mystic chords of memory.”

The enterprising widow of the incomparable Jim Croce, early-on, adeptly established her husband’s name as a staple of San Diego’s fledgling Gaslamp District. Currently, Croce’s is located in Bankers Hill, between downtown and Hillcrest. The quality of its musical and cuisine offerings remains gold standard. That says a lot for Croce’s, the Young Lions, the Julian Esparza Quintet and now-initiated Eric Wesling.

To review a videotape of the above-described performance, merely click on the indicated link.

My love with Salsa dancing started during summer of my Junior year in high school, the summer of 1999, the summer of the Latin Explosion! Across the Top 40 airwaves you could tune in any day and time to enjoy in heavy rotation 'Living La Vida Loca' by Ricky Martin, 'I Need To Know' by Marc Anthony, the hypnotic guitar riffs of the legendary Carlos Santana in 'Smooth'. These songs were a breath of fresh air on the radio, and I couldn't get enough of them! They all seem to call to me like how the Sirens called to the Argonauts. I found a new genre of music to appreciate but as a gringo (Spanish for a non-Latino) I was miserably uninformed regarding the various kinds of Latino musica and dance, but all that changed one faithful day.

A local celebrity in town hosted his annual benefit dinner and Stevie Wonder was the entertainment for the evening, STEVIE FREAKING WONDER!!! I was so glad I was able to attend this dinner with about twelve other minors and for free at that. You could feel the buzz in the air as Stevie come onto the stage. Women screamed, men clapped and howled in a deep voice STEVIE! Then he began the show, and I must admit it totally caught me by surprise. Stevie and his band put on a Latino musica show! Now I've been listening to this stuff on the radio and I was there privileged to witness a show like this live and person? Dreams do come true.

From the first note of Stevie's piano the crowd was moving! The crowd mind you is the well- to-do-citizens in my home town, dressed up in the slickest tuxedos and the most elegant dresses; but, that didn't stop them from getting down to that Latin beat. I spent the first ten minutes or so just watching the every one dancing up a storm. I am thinking to myself "Who knew there is Latin dance lovers in Toledo?" "Who knew Stevie plays Latin music and well at that?" Little did I know that back in the 1970s Stevie at the height of his popularity was a surprised guest star at a Fania All Stars show, the founders and creators of Salsa music.

Finally I mustered up the courage to step onto the dance floor. Oh my feet were taping for a while but I hadn't venture out there just yet. I haven't taken a single dance lesson just yet, but I only dreamed about dancing like that. I couldn't keep my butt on the seat, from the drums, horns, the clave, bass, piano those instruments pulled me onto my feet. All I remember is that I danced so hard, moving my body as if I had no control of it. I felt like a puppet and the Latino musica by Stevie was the puppeteer! But it wasn't just me friends were all dancing just as hard. We had a blast!

As the minutes turned into hours there were no sign of the party stopping. Stevie kept pumping out that Salsa music and the crowd kept up boogieing as well to it. I watch and attempted to copy the moves by many of those dancing couples; but, of course I didn't measure up, that would be a goal I decided to achieve in the future. One point of the night someone started a Conga line , grooving throughout the convention center like a dancing snake.

Sadly the show came to a close. Every one there gave Stevie and his band a thunderous round of applause thanking him for a fantastic show. My friends and I left the place still on a high from the performance. When I arrived back at home I told my folks what happened and they were just a shocked as I was. This is the beginning of my love affair with Salsa music and I haven't looked back since. Now years later from then as am I teaching dance classes, hosting Latin dancing events via my small business Michal T. Promotions LLC  and competing I find myself reminiscing about this performance by Stevie Wonder and how it solidified my love affair with Salsa musica and dancing.