Sucky gardener's blog

Because sucking at gardening is good for the environment.

[suckygardener]

Review: Fanci Free to close if Obama wins. Vote Obama!

Today, because of a burning desire to try out a new local place (I know, I need to find an ointment) I tried lunch at Fanci Free Boutique and Garden Cafe in Prattville.

Prattville is a community of about 30,000 thought of by some as an alternative to Montgomery for those fancy big-box stores such as Target. It has tried, and sometimes stumbled, in its attempt to play with the big boys, with the big stumble being a development atop Cobb's Ford designed in the style of Destin Commons but without the foot traffic or retailers.

So I went off the beaten path to the quaint historic downtown in search of lunch grub. Upon walking in the door, my eyes were assaulted by the ridiculous assortment of junk, the various colors swirling in a psychedelia-meets-Candy-Land haze, except less cool and more Tammy Faye Bakker. We'll get to the boutique in a minute.

I chose to have the chicken salad sandwich and asked for a water. I guess the server lady thought there was something funny about the way I said what I didr, because when her colleague asked what I wanted, she mimicked my intonation as she repeated my order.

Mocking me happens to be one of my red flags. It's something the kids back in elementary school used to do in Saraland, Ala., when I was newly arrived from South Florida and "talked like a Yankee," and it's something people have been commenting on, in one way or another, my entire life. It's disrespectful, and I expect to be treated with respect when I drop my dimes on an establishment.

The experience didn't get better. The chicken salad tasted like it had been soaked in sweet pickle juice -- yuck! Nicer cafes tend to add nuts, celery raisins or grapes to a chicken salad to vary the texture. Not this place. Just chicken, Miracle Whip and mustard, as far as I could tell. The croissant on which the yuck laid was hard. The nut cluster I selected for a dessert was definitely nothing to write home about -- the chocolate tasted like it had been infected with peppermint, and it was generally tasteless. The chips were chips. This embarrassment of a lunch cost me more than $8.

The only good thing about the entire meal was their use of a reusable plastic cup for my eat-in order, though the cup looked like it came from their collection at home.

And now for the so-called merchandise, a blend of tacky and useless junk. A headache spread between my temples as I gazed from my tiny table at t-shirts with Auburn and Alabama-themed crosses (borderline sacrilege), various denominations of metal angels, houndstooth purses, purses and handbags with loud, tacky prints (such as zebra stripe with a pink border), goblets and ceramics done up like a middle-school art project gone awry, bowls, pictures frames with catchy phrases like "Dream: Home is a starting place for love and dreams," wind chimes and jewelry. This poor use of our natural resources makes the Native American in that commercial from the 70s cry.

The coup de grace came when the lady who had mocked my speech patterns began talking to a local, saying that she was waiting to spend money until after the election and saying that if Barack Obama is elected, the shop will close. At this point, I knew exactly the type of people I was dealing with, an establishment whose owners probably watch Fox News nonstop with all the alarmist claptrap, noise, and lies, and believe every bloviate utterance, who think single mothers are what's wrong with the world today, not the billionaires who are sending jobs overseas and whining about their 16-percent tax rate. And so forth. And so at that point, I just left, thoughts of peacefully finishing my glass of water gone.

Please, vote for Obama. Let's see if we can make the world free of Fanci Free.

[suckygardener]

Yoga DVD review: Yoga for Health, Depression/Gastrointestinal

In the interest of health and to break out of the rut of the 2 yoga and exercise-related DVDs I already own, I've been checking out yoga DVDs from the library, a sort of yoga journey exciting and new.

"Yoga for Health, Depression/Gastrointestinal" has been a somewhat disappointing stop on that trip, basically because for having two classes, both seem nearly identical. While not exactly the same, there's not enough difference between the two routines to make me feel like they are basically the same class over and over.

I also quibble with the length each pose was held. I had to cut short my poses a great deal. Even a 10-percent reduction in the amount of time spent in each position might make it more manageable and not like you've spent an agonizing eternity depending on your forearms to support your weight.

Disappointment over the classes aside, Yoga for Health does have some value for the absolute beginner. There is a pose interface, where one can go directly to a certain pose since, once the class gets past the inverted poses, it goes into a great many foundational yoga poses such as the warrior. Also during the class, Cordero discusses in great detail, perhaps at too much length, the impact of each position on the body. In addition, the tips section provides useful tidbits, some of which I had never heard before. For instance, they advise yoga practitioners not to perform yoga within 2-3 hours of a meal.

Cordero surprised me by doing a strange breathing exercise at the beginning of the class, holding one nostril at a time, inhaling, retaining the breath and then letting go. I'm not sure if I buy the switching nostril game, but I've been playing along. She also does relaxation different from any other DVD I've encountered thus far, having the class tense up, even sticking out their tongues, before relaxing.

The setting they used for the class I found awkward. It's like she's holding classes in her cavernous studio apartment, with a big bed on a black bed frame in the background, as well as two mattresses on the floor, like a combination yoga class/slumber party.

I'm going to hold onto this DVD until it's due to see if begin to kindle love for it, avoiding all the inverted poses, of course.

[suckygardener]

Giant spider in my backyard threatened to ensnare the waning gibbous moon.

[suckygardener]

On the job -- site of a green neighborhood being planned for Montgomery near downtown, along the Selma to Montgomery trail. Since the specifics of the green neighborhood is still being hashed out, am delving further into the history of the neighborhood, how the interstate began its demise. Also must return to take more pictures.

[suckygardener]

Drought, or Planet Fail 2012

What I need is a camera to capture the carnage, the plant shriveling carnage of very little rain for the past two months. While I was away, leaving my plants to the mercy of rainfall, my jalapeno plant shriveled, going from potentially three or more jalapeno buds to just the one nearly grown but runty jalapeno.

Beyond my small concerns, everybody's garden is in pretty bad shape. The corn fields to the right of 1-65 as I travel south from Prattville to Montgomery have all turned into giant fields of deathly brown. It's national news, as half the U.S. is in drought, the worst drought in decades, yet another revisit of the worst X in Y disaster construction we've seen too much of recently.

How dry is it? We've had 2.63 inches of rain so far this month, according to weatherchannel.com, and it's now July 24. The average for July is 5.24. In June, 2.72 inches of rain, compared the average of 4.

Reports state the drought will affect food prices all over the globe, leading to death and social upheaval -- same stuff, different year.

Here is a short roundup of recent drought stories to help paint a picture of the situation. With words.

Local

Farmers deal with dry conditions, by Marty Roney, the San Francisco treat, Montgomery Advertiser.

National

Another reason to bug out: Drought puts electrical production at risk by Phillip Bump, Grist

Interactive: Mapping the U.S. drought, by NPR.

Drought Disasters Declared In More Counties; 1,297 Affected So Far by Mark Memmot, NPR, July 18.

But of course, there's no such thing as climate change. Of course not. There's just hell on earth, apparently, perfectly normal rising of temperatures and CO2 in the last decades. The whole "activities of man" thing is a pure coincidence. It's like finding a body at a crime scene and someone with a large knife covered with blood. He didn't kill anybody. Of course not. He just happens to like knives and being covered with blood as part of his performance art. Someone else must have put the body there. He never met that person, nope.

This guy discusses climate change is in much clearer terms than I can atop my soapbox.

[suckygardener]

Lack of atmosphere award: Yazee Yogurt of Prattville

Yes, I've decided to begin an inaugural Lack of Atmosphere award, with photo courtesy of Gregory H. Revera via wikipedia, and yes, I know the text isn't centered, but so what? This is an award of ill repute.

I usually don't like to bust on people and places on the Interwebs. I usually reserve my irritation for squirrels, chipmunks and dogs roaming the neighborhood without leashes. But today, Yazee Yogurt of Prattville went above and beyond in an atmospheric assault on a customer.

I had gone for what I thought was going to be a pleasant writing, eating break, taking in a dessert crepe at a local establishment. What I got was an assault on my ears and body. Sounds dire? Let me explain.

Usually, Yazee Yogurt has just a T.V. going with some inane Disney show my son enjoys, which is tolerable if not the greatest ambiance. This time, I was greeted by a new flat-screen monitor blaring some Fox News show where the various anchors blabber over each other some nonsense. And if that wasn't enough, they had religious music playing at the same time. It was like a bad joke. Or a bad dream. Even with iTunes playing as loud as I comfortably could bear to have piped into my ear channels, I could still hear the Fox babble and Jesus singing. Having all that at the same time caused a sensory overload.

And if that wasn't enough, the air conditioning had brought the temperature down to around 68 degrees Fahrenheit, so for those of us coming out of the heat in shorts, it was quite frosty. 

I don't mind people having religion. That's fine. But it seems to be the practice of local establishments in these small Bible belt towns to put a coat of Jesus on everything. I'm calling it Jesus washing, and it's getting a little irritating. It's almost like people are in a competition about who can be the most "Jesus" -- and so far The Special Grind coffee shop in Prattville, which has Bible verses written on the walls, has them beat. At least they beat their Jesus drum soundlessly, with nary a TV on.

With all these folks blasting their religion, it's hard to take them seriously when they claim "Christianity is under attack," as I've heard a minister at church say before. What seems to be under attack are people who don't necessary want other people and businesses screaming "Jesus" at them 24/7. 

I think I've visited Yazee Yogurt for the last time, Nutella crepes be damned.

[suckygardener]

Excerpt: Traveling memoir on the city of New Orleans

Traveling often reveals as much about the traveler, and the baggage he or she carries, as it does about the places visited. In my case, traveling by train helped erase, at least temporarily, a certain regional myopia developed over years living in the South and growing accustomed to pervasive poverty that I skirt in my daily travels through the region.

It had been decades since I traveled by train. In the summers back when I was growing up in Mobile, Ala., my family, via train, visited relatives in locales such as California, Ohio, and Connecticut, via the Sunset Limited to California and the City of New Orleans and the Crescent to points north and east. Train travel was not as expensive as plane fares and, despite the sometimes bumpy ride, a more pleasant way of travel than the multiple stops and somewhat dodgy clientele that rides the bus. Through the train windows we saw the vast deserts of the southwest as well as the harrowing mountainsides of the Cascades when we took the long way to California via the Pacific Northwest.

Trains, along with car travel, provide travelers with a more up-close assessment of the areas traversed, a vantage point of not available via jet jaunts at 40,000 feet, where flyover country is crossed and ignored. From a bird's eye view, the world, if seen at all, is more of a totality, a province of shiny, tiny pools, lines of trees, clumps of buildings, all the dust and muck of living out of sight, out of mind.

A ground level view provided me with a sobering vantage point. It had been decades since I had been to the south Mississippi/New Orleans area ravaged by Hurricane Katrina, an area never known for tidiness and even glorified for the impromptu nudity, corruption, decrepitude and inebriation not limited to just Mardi Gras time. We traveled west from the Florida Panhandle through Alabama to south Mississippi and Louisiana, a change which one can feel from the bounce of the roads, as Mississippi and Louisiana have long been vying for a lousiest roads title, it seems, and even after all these years it is still a dead tie. We traveled to New Orleans to catch the train called The City of New Orleans bound north to Chicago.

New Orleans was a weekend place for Mobile teens looking for mischief, mayhem and booze. Considering it was not a gleaming metropolis back in the 90s, the ghostly city of New Orleans, particularly its east side, now reaches higher notes of dilapidation and despair than it used to, exhibited in still empty buildings, probable havens from the homeless, within spitting distance from I-10. One abandoned hotel with gaping open hotel room doors and rusting railings jutted up like an oversized above ground grave and could have had as its epitaph, “Here lies this city's best days.” An internet search discovered that this hotel, called Grand Palace Hotel, is set for implosion in July after much legal wrangling by the property owner, according to a Times-Picayune story from 2011.

A graph from the story details the eyesore's shady history:

“The building has passed through multiple owners and operated under several business models over six decades. It was initially introduced as a modern marvel of urban lifestyle, with apartments, offices and street-level retail and dining. Then it became a series of hotels — a Sheraton property, a Ramada franchise, the Pallas Hotel, the Crescent on Canal — few if any of them a success.”

BestofNewOrleans.com provided background of how tourists were misled into thinking the hotel provided quality, affordable rooms, as one glowing review on a jazz website attested. What greeted tourists, in review after review, was a rat-infested, poorly maintained mess that even inebriation couldn't make less appalling. Reviews for this closed hotel are still live on Yahoo!Travel. One proclaims: “If anyone has ever seen the beginning of Terminator where the cyborgs have demolished Earth - this is what the New Orleans Grand Palace looks like.” Despite the Times-Picayune article noting that the hotel was closed since Katrina, there are reviews from as recently at 2011.

[suckygardener]

Unlike me, my mother's home garden in the Florida Panhandle is fruitful. And vegetable-full. The tomato plants grew so big that it bent the wire holder it was on. Besides tomatoes, the small garden has blueberries and yellow.

The secret: Put 'em in the ground, my mother said. Her master gardener friend doesn't recommend a container garden in Deep South, because the extreme summer heat dried out the root system too fast. As busy as she is, it takes no special effort or human sacrifices to make her garden grow, beyond the first planting, and that's the way it should be.

Meanwhile, I'm hoping the two tomato plants I planted in front of my house hasn't died in the time I've been gone...

[suckygardener]

Jalapeno

One jalapeno on my jalapeno plant. Meanwhile, I kill embryonic sunflowers like nobody's business. And meanmeanwhile, my mother's fledgling garden has generated a goodly amount of tiny tomatoes already. 

I no longer have the internet in my home. This has been a good thing, as it helps keep me focused and centered, all those foundational things. It also means I'll have less opportunity to blog, but that is not altogether bad, considering how little I do it.

[suckygardener]

Weekend afternoons on the porch

I spent much of the weekend on the back porch, getting some much-needed Vitamin D, looking at the blooms on my jalapeno plant, reading Carson McCullers and writing Not!poetry during National Poetry Month. Why must I be so difficult?

A few days ago, I readied three sunflower kits donated by my mom. They temporarily reside in my master bathroom, and two of those sunflower kits are showing signs of seed germination. Hope springs eternal!

I also planted seeds for cilantro and jalapenos. Let's see what happens. 

I'm not pondering my next life change so much as holding out my arms, ready to embrace it. There is a new day coming. Let's see what happens there. No matter what, it will be exciting. I just hope it's a good kind of exciting.

[suckygardener]

Scene: Laundromat

The sign on the laundromat reads, “Home Style Self-Service Laundry,” the illustration of words alongside a cartoonish green roof, green like no one has, no one doing laundry here, anyway.

The laundry floor is the toddler girl's stage, a wide smile as she walks across. She could be the next Oprah, the next Condoleeza Rice, the next Whitney Houston without the tragic backstory, and she's practicing for her moment in the sun striding across the linoleum, big smile, head up, the confidence of not knowing what you have to lose.

The laundromat has a TV on, a flatscreen one person watches, a basketball game playing, as it is Super Sunday or Mad March, a month of college basketball games. 

Of everything that seems in need of updating in the laundromat -- the mysterious water leak that has created a puddle in one of the machine cul-de-sacs, one of the change machines out of order, the inescapable oldness of the business in one of the town's older strip malls, dating from the sixties -- the TV is what the management has chosen to update.

The new TV, near the window of the laundromat office in the back, is inconveniently located for anyone else, as all the lounging chairs and tables are at the front. Another TV, an old-fashioned, concave-screen black box mounted to the corner, is off and may no longer work for all I know.

The laundromat is home to three arcade machines no one plays –- Donkey Kong Junior, Ms. Pac Man and Wrestlemania. We have better uses for our quarters, all us washing women from 2 to 72 or thereabouts: an older woman and her middle-aged daughter; three late-teen, early twenties women washing their clothes in a group, possibly related, one of whom is mother to the toddler girl; and a woman here alone, sunglasses on her head and large, dangling silver earrings, dividing her time between the TV, her smartphone and the laundry. And me, hardly worth mentioning.

The woman here by herself sometimes gives me a look I take for annoyance, or maybe it's a quiet, frowning assessment. Maybe it's my black hat she's puzzled by. Or all the writing in a paper book.

Meanwhile, in the sidewalk donation area of the thrift shop next door, someone has donated two pews and a communion table. On the Sabbath, someone ditched Sunday worship stuff.

One of my pillows suffered a serious injury, hemorrhaging stuffing, which is everywhere when I open the washer, white and light like fake snow, falling all over the floor as I remove my items.

The child is unhappy, attended to by one of the young women, not her mother. Probably the location's novelty has worn off.

The old woman's daughter, a heavyset woman in a purple blouse and blue jeans, wanders the laundromat seemingly without aim, small eyes, sunglasses perched on her head, as unhappy as the youngster, though the woman's unhappiness is a quiet one, brooding. No one attends to her like they do the shrieking girl.

Overheard from one of the young women: “I'm grown.”

Laundry fatigues all, though most of the work is in the waiting, monitoring, folding, lugging clothes from one machine to the next, the heat and detergent fake floral scents, ladies hefting plastic bags and bins, blankets, women in their 20s and 70s united by the act of folding, measuring.

And where are the men? They soil half the world's clothes but are not at all represented here. It would be interesting to see whether or not any masculine-used items are here among the feminine, dirty, sudsy or damp and drying clothes. My little guy is with his daddy doing fun weekend stuff while I wash blankets, pillows and the pillowpet he named Snowy Frosty, a snowman bought during the Christmas shopping season..

The young lady here alone mutters to herself as she bolts out the door, a plastic bin crutched against her hip, then away in her rumbling Chrysler LeBaron, across the bedraggled pavement of the parking lot.

The child, satiated with a sippy cup, wanders once more, but her trip is a short one. Her mother brings her back from the machines to where the other two women are sitting at a table because, despite the others' incredulity, the little girl can open the dryer. She wants to imitate what she sees everyone else do, except she doesn't know why they are doing it. To her, it's a confusing pantomime of taking out, putting in, putting coins in slots, pushing buttons. So she gossips with the ladies once again, in toddler chatter.

Just a few minutes later, the mother calls the little girl back to bring her the money, but the child doesn't want to give up the small plastic zip-closed bag full of quarters. She already has learned the power of money.

[suckygardener]

Gardening update

Baby trees: Still alive, one with the beginning of leaves.

Cilantro: Still dead, its grave bed disturbed, probably by the cilantro-loving chipmunk. 

Jalapeno plant: The lone survivor from last year is sporting the bud of a bloom.

Me: Tired after spring break and the journey home.

My mom: Is starting a garden, tomato plants planted. Like daughter, like mother? I hope not. Me likely home-grown tomatoes. 

[suckygardener]

RIP cilantro, hello baby trees

Ah, cilantro plant, I barely knew thee. Now, you are nothing more than brown tendrils, like the hair of a voodoo doll, streaming out over the blue clay pot that is your burial plot. 

On to the next gardening fail: baby trees. I donated to the Arbor Day Foundation and received 10 dormant baby trees just before leaving for a weekend vacation. Following the directions, I put the saplings in the refrigerator.

I spent Monday at dusk trying to prepare a protected garden spot for the youngsters, digging up a variety of thriving weeds. When I come home tomorrow, I'll put the saplings in a bucket of water to prepare for the planting. 

After a year or so of being planted in the protected area, the saplings, if they survive, will be transplanted to their permanent spot in the year.

Kids, this is a multiple-step process, allowing a lot of room for gardening fail. I hope I'm able to pull this one off. My front yard in particular could use some arboreal improvement.

[suckygardener]

No TV: Island Delight

Listening to an Elton John greatest hits CD, the song "Island Girl" combined with lunchtime hunger led me to Island Delight, a lunch eatery nestled in a strip mall across the street from a trailer park on Air Base Boulevard, a stone's throw away from the Day Street gate at Maxwell AFB and the log trucks and commuters of Bell Street. It is an undreamy part of town, but this eatery is doing the best with what's it's got.

Island Dreams does not have a TV, and  judging by the bars on the windows, it would not be wise for the place to get one. Why give potential thieves the temptation?

Located in an industrial-urban blight area of west Montgomery, the restaurant doesn't have much of a view, with tractor-trailers barreling past on the boulevard. The joint shares a strip mall with a check-cashing place and a laundromat, and it doesn't have much in the way of parking.

The interior decor is kind of rough-hewn and cheap, with fake banana trees, posters and the yellow and green paint job giving the eatery a low-rent feel. A sign pointing to the cashier tells the guests, "Pay Eddie Here." When I asked who Eddie is, the ladies behind the counter told me the sign was left over from previous tenants. Though Eddie has long since fled, the "Pay Here" sentiment remains, with whoever is stationed at the register the designated Eddie. Diners go to the front, order their meal, and pay. Since the place is pretty reasonably priced, lunch-goers don't have to pay Eddie much. For about $8, I got enough food for two meals.

The snooty Montgomery-ites, the movers and shakers sipping $9 drinks while extolling the virtues of golf courses and briefs, are not likely to find their way out here to this dive. It's just as well. Island Dreams does plenty well without them. Being that it's a lunch place, the martini-drinkers would be hard pressed to find anything stronger than ginger beer, which is a yum-yummy, office-approved soda among their collection of hard-to-find imported sodas.

Island Dreams has cornered the market in the neglected local Caribbean food category, providing palatable dishes of plenty at a reasonable price. It also seems to specialize in takeout, from what I've seen, so there are plenty of seats available for those not afraid lunching in a working-class atmosphere. 

I tend to gravitate toward the jerk chicken, and even a small portion is more than enough for me, with two sides, rice and ginger beer and a dipping sauce from the chicken. The meat is flavorful, but the spices won't blow you away. Probably the least impressive part of the meat and three is the rice mixed with pinto beans, but the spice intolerant may find the rice to serve as an excellent palate cleanser. There's nothing wrong with the rice; it just isn't special. I also had a potato salad, which is white, mayo-based, not mustard-based the way Southern potato salads tend to be. It's a nice, respectable potato salad.

They serve plantains, ox tongue (if I remember correctly), curry chicken and other island goodies. Daily specials are written on a white-erase board. To really do a better review of this restaurant, I need to try more than the jerk chicken. I just can't seem to deviate from it here, because I don't eat out frequently, particularly at lunch, so when I do, I tend to stick with my old favorites. So you are stuck with a limited lunch POV.

[suckygardener]

Capri and "Miss Representation"

The second part of Friday funtimes involved me going to the Capri Theatre to see "Miss Representation."

Sadly, this is my first time watching a movie at the Capri, but it will not be my last. I love the older, one screen independent movie theater, the nostalgic feel, the beer, the fact that the sound system is not as outrageously loud as the multiplex, with the ear-bleeding bombastic Stereophonic 11 or whatever highfalutin soundsystem installed so every crunch of a skull under the robot's foot rattles your molars and the explosions burst the blood vessels in your nose.

I expected to be outraged, not about the Capri sound system, but about the content of the movie, which examines how the media -- TV and other entertainments -- and their limited portrayal of women have a corrosive effect on women and girls. And with that expectation, I was not as outraged as I thought I might be. Probably some of that had to do with the alcohol, as I watched the movie with the aid of a Stella, but part of it undoubtedly had to do with mental preparation.

Interestingly enough, the title of the Stella Artois web page -- "She is a Thing" -- is terribly relevant to the content of the film. By itself, it's innocuous, but when some tropes are repeated, it can and does have an effect on the way men view women and on the way women view themselves and other women.

Frankly, much of what was revealed in the film I kind of already knew, either through being exposed to the data before or just intuition. It's important to have all this material covered in one film, though.

"Miss Representation" makes strong statements about how the system, dominated by a handful of media conglomerates that are run mostly by men seems to make a concerted effort to keep women in their place, and every time there seems to be progress, there's always a backlash.

The director, Jennifer Seibel Newsom, who is also the narrator, shares her story and her reason for revealing the ugliness of modern culture. It's a nice touch and something we want for all our children -- a better future -- though this better future seems more and more unattainable as the years past, and the people in power try to drag us to the dark ages by rolling back so many of the advances made in the 60s and 70s. This is not just women's rights, this is civil rights, workers' rights, the environment. There is so much damage being done, I don't have the feet to march in all the rallies needed to right these many wrongs. But I digress.

To understand the future, you have to look to the past. She cites specifically how TV was used in the '50s to redomesticate women who had joined the work force during World War II and lost their jobs when the "boys came back home," diverting their attention to a variety of shiny household objects to placate them. 

Some of the information and statements made in the film caused the audience to gasp, as indeed they did when Rush Limbaugh appears on the screen spreading his screed. The clip is an appropriate cameo, as he has become a poster child for misogyny.

What stood out for me the most was the assertion that sometimes women can be the harshest critics of other women. I've found this particularly true in the workplace, with women of the Baby Boomer era causing the greatest amount of negativity and Machiavellian drama.

Newsom also addresses the plight of boys and men, often discouraged from showing emotion and thus become "emotionally constipated" and harmed from the limited role afforded them. Though my son is more likely to suffer from emotional diarrhea, it would be wise for me to make sure he understands there is more to women and girls than what he sees in films and on TV and that media should not have the final say on gender roles.

Toys seem to have a long way to go, as well. Take, for instance, the Easy Bake Oven, a present my son lobbied despite his more traditional grandfather's head-shaking disapproval. This contraption, painted pink and mauve with girls featured on the box, is marketed specifically for girls. Don't they realize that boys also want to cook sweet treats? How about a stainless silver Easy Bake Oven? Look, they even have dudes cooking sweets on TV. Let's not limit our boys!

Back to the movie: one quote that stood out for me, uttered by an actress whose name I cannot recall, talked about how roles for women over 40 are pretty much non-existent because those women's stories are largely ignored by popular media: "If you are 39 or 40, you might as well disappear." Ouch. My 39th birthday is coming up.

And with all the interviews with high rollers such as Nancy Pelosi, Condoleeza Rice and Jane Fonda, I knew the director must have been someone with clout, and indeed, Jennifer Seibel Newsom is the wife of the California lieutenant governor, information she should have included when he appears in the film. 

Films do have their limitations, though. I missed the chance to go behind the numbers. A stat would pop up on the movie screen, and I wanted to reach out with my nonexistent cursor and click on the nonexistent hyperlink to find out from where these statistics came. This doesn't mean I don't believe the stats; I just want to know more.

I also thought there was too much T and A. I think the first 12 shots of it were enough to drive home the point that exploitative images dehumanize women, but when the film showed boob and butt shots over and over, it becomes borderline exploitative itself. 

I saw a few moms with their teenage girls in the audience for a teachable moment. I'm sure there was much discussion after the film, and I hope they attained a more jaded, mature eye with which to judge media messages, which, like text or art, should always be engaged with actively, not passively.

[suckygardener]

NO TV: Leroy, El Rey

I stumbled across two establishments that have not been host to the technicolor scourge of a TV mounted on the wall.

It was a three-beer night in Old Cloverdale, and I logged a number of impressions I scrawled on a scrap piece of paper and hopefully can make sense of now.

Leroy Lounge

Busiest joint without a sign I've ever seen. No external signage, like a speakeasy but without the Bohemian feel. Crowd seems to be more professionals, movers and shakers, attorneys discussing briefs, Poindexters, men in sweater vests, people who can afford beer $4.25 at the cheapest, nonBudweiser drinkers. 

No TV! Soundsystem is quiet enough for people to enjoy a conversation without shouting. Lighting is dim, accented by several old-fashioned lamps of yellow and amber similar to the ones you would have found in your grandparents' houses, hung from the ceiling by S-hooks and chains. The theme is brick, wood, and the temporary smell of fresh paint, mirrors and glass, nothing roughshod, very polished.

Priciest booze item is $12. The namesake Leroy Cocktail is $9. I remember the late, lamented Dabbo's martinis were in the neighborhood of $8.50. I wonder if the Leroy concoction is worth the price.

A horse is located in the wood accents -- Find it! Also spotted -- a pay phone with coin slot.

A lot of comfy barstools with back and cusions and a place to put your feet at the bar. Woo!

I found the place to be a bit snooty due to the clientele at first but minded it less the deeper into the beer I got. They have an eclectic selection of beer in bottles and in draft form, and they are willing to let you try samples.

This place is popular at quitting time, with people filing in and regulars being catered to.

The server said they are a couple of weeks away from having appetizers, which is why I wound up at ...

El Rey

I had a movie to watch at the Capri, and I didn't want the jungle rumbling sound to distract from my experience watching "Missrepresentation," so I wandered down the alley to El Rey, a restaurant where I've eaten and drank at least twice, though always on the patio. I've also gone to El Rey unsuccessfully twice, both times on a Sunday, when the restaurant is closed.

This time, because of the cloudy, cold March weather, I opted for the indoors experience:

No TV! The El Rey atmosphere is awesome, indoors or out. Outdoors, you have nature, the sun, the passersby with their dogs, minivans, and children. Inside, there are lights made from hubcaps and marbles and a display of historical Pabst Blue Ribbons cans and bottles, Janis Joplin being played in the kitchen, and a dreamlike, trippy Bohemian feel like a coffeehouse or the Cafe Louisa across the street. Inside, though, if you get a loud group, the noise really bottles up, and it becomes less ideal for conversation.

I ordered a cheese enchilada, and I told the waiter, who reminded me of the comic-book guy from the Simpsons, to "surprise me, in a good way," with the beer. I ended up with a nice, light Weikenstephanen for $4.25, about the same price as I paid for my beer at Leroy. The waiter was helpful without being overfamiliar. So, two beers so far. It's been a bad time at work. I felt I deserved a little liquored up, a night on the town.

The food hasn't disappointed me yet, yummy and quite filling. It's clearly Tex-Mex, with black beans, but it's well-done Tex-Mex with enough respect for the culture to include cumin in dishes. Naturally, I have leftovers.

The selection of beers is tremendous. It's a great place for the sitting and drinking.

After a nice meal and two beers and even after a lousy week at work, I was inspired enough to call my mother  -- outside the restaurant, of course -- and tell her what a good time I was having.

I have thoughts about the Capri, where I had my third beer (a Stella), but I'll save that and a discussion on "Missrepresentation" after I've completed the sanding and staining of my bedroom floor, or, more likely, when my bedroom floor has sanded and stained me.

[suckygardener]

Cilantro and TV-less eateries

So I bought a big, bushy cilantro plant at the grocery store. Noticing that it was root-bound, I transplanted it to a ceramic container and have been keeping it indoors to save it from furry predators.

Naturally, it's more or less dying. A few shoots are showing signs of life, but the majority of it is flaccid. My luck continues...

In nongardening related news, I've had the idea of doing a roundup of TV-less eateries as a recurring feature. To me, nothing ruins the ambiance of a place more than a TV, particularly if the sound is up and it's playing Faux News. Sure, there are places where it is appropriate, but TVs have become like a plague of locusts on the restaurant landscape, making me more apt to keep my money and eat at home.

It would be great if I could take photos of said eateries, but being camera-less, I'll probably have to shoot video at each location.