Monthly Archives: August 2014

The Little House I Used To Live In

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the cottage

Well, periodically.

Flip Cafe would indeed be the best cuisine in town if its chefs weren’t so darned scared of NaCl.

I ordered and omelet with something called “flip potatoes,” which is just hash browns, but they partially steam them somehow so they come out downright fluffy. Or maybe they rice them. I don’t know; there is a quality to these potatoes that are just a bit more luxurious than an eater is accustomed.

The omelet was a spinach and tomato affair topped with pepper jack cheese. It was technically excellent; fluffy, well-folded, the spinach still retained a nice bite. Not to mention: The toast is sliced from a homemade loaf.

The only thing missing was seasoning. Until I picked up the shaker, no sodium had touched my plate.

This might (and that’s a BIG might) be okay for my Mom’s dish, a little dish we like to call “Egg.” I mean, someone who orders scrambled may not be looking for a more seasoned dish and may not mind adjusting with the salt shaker if needed.

An omelet, however, sigh. A little snowing of kosher salt sometime during the cooking would have been helpful.

Despite this overlooked detail, it is safe to say the best plate in the ‘boro these days is Flip. My new goal is to try its lunch offerings.

It was a nice visit, a fine way to cap off my summer. I got to see Auntie and Uncle from Big Bear and got marched all around and up and down the Lake by my Mom. Got to see my Gramma to boot, and I finally got the friggin’ Roku set up for her. Now she can watch Frasier to her heart’s content.

We also took part in the human tradition of driving up to a rock in the ground with a person’s name on it and saying nice things about that person.

the cottage

Yeah, that was a pretty nice week.

The Little House I Used To Live In

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the cottage

Well, periodically.

Flip Cafe would indeed be the best cuisine in town if its chefs weren’t so darned scared of NaCl.

I ordered and omelet with something called “flip potatoes,” which is just hash browns, but they partially steam them somehow so they come out downright fluffy. Or maybe they rice them. I don’t know; there is a quality to these potatoes that are just a bit more luxurious than an eater is accustomed.

The omelet was a spinach and tomato affair topped with pepper jack cheese. It was technically excellent; fluffy, well-folded, the spinach still retained a nice bite. Not to mention: The toast is sliced from a homemade loaf.

The only thing missing was seasoning. Until I picked up the shaker, no sodium had touched my plate.

This might (and that’s a BIG might) be okay for my Mom’s dish, a little dish we like to call “Egg.” I mean, someone who orders scrambled may not be looking for a more seasoned dish and may not mind adjusting with the salt shaker if needed.

An omelet, however, sigh. A little snowing of kosher salt sometime during the cooking would have been helpful.

Despite this overlooked detail, it is safe to say the best plate in the ‘boro these days is Flip. My new goal is to try its lunch offerings.

It was a nice visit, a fine way to cap off my summer. I got to see Auntie and Uncle from Big Bear and got marched all around and up and down the Lake by my Mom. Got to see my Gramma to boot, and I finally got the friggin’ Roku set up for her. Now she can watch Frasier to her heart’s content.

We also took part in the human tradition of driving up to a rock in the ground with a person’s name on it and saying nice things about that person.

the cottage

Yeah, that was a pretty nice week.

I’m So Glad We Had This Time Together

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(I thought before that I knew how to use the iPhone’s panoramic lens. I didn’t. Until today. I was holding the phone incorrectly! This is pretty much the full view from the back deck of where I get to stay in Edinboro. This image is clickable to a larger view. Just click on it!)

The great musical movement that partially was born in my high school a generation behind me was called Devo.

That of my era was called The Twist-Offs.

It was fun to go to a Twist-Offs show and jump up and down a lot. They made music that was excellent for jumping up and down. But not only was it good for jumping up and down. It was good music. Well-considered arrangements. Horns. And actually thoughtful, imaginative lyrics. I am a Twist-Offs EVANGELIST. And if I still lived in Kent those boys would have had to put up with my funny face and my set list thefts now for decades. I think they play periodically in Northeast Ohio, but these guys had a real live indie record deal. I even heard one of their songs played as background during MTV’s The Real World once.

Anyway, I think they were playing KentFest once or something, and they were handing out some tchotchkes. These:

Get it?

I owned two of these. One was orange, and that one I made the mistake of using as a keychain. The band’s logo wore off. Luckily, my Dear Mother was in possession of this one all these years, and it has remained unblemished. She released it into my possession today, along with a boss collection of 45s (including some old joints from Illinois Jaquet and other Apollo artists, records I’ve been hunting down for years) and a rather interesting edition of the Akron-Beacon Journal from May 24, 1970 that I may mine for blog entries later.

So Mama brought me a treasure chest to Edinboro. Thanks Mama.

Speaking of legends who attended the same high school as did I, John Uhrich was and is one of the best drawers with whom I have shaken hands. You should visit his blog, Duck-Duck-Gorilla. The guy has apparently just started drawing comic strips to “brush up on [his] digital inking skills.” (Cough HUMBLEBRAG) Watch out, Pastis!

Edinboro needs cuisine. Badly.

This is the Sunset Grill at the Edinboro Lake Resort. As you can see, it does what it says on the tin.

Serves sammiches in baskets with chips. Which is fine, and the sammiches are good, but one would think the food could match the stellar ambiance. Still. I love this place.

The Crossroads Dinor has dropped the “Dinor” and seems to do everything it can to shy away from being a diner although it has the diner car. Oh to walk in there and be able to order an open faced roast beef sammich with fries flooded with gravy. But that ain’t on the menu.

No shit on a shingle for you.

And you don’t want these fries. The place prides itself on fresh-cut fries, but they don’t really know how to cook them.

My suspicion is that they’re circumventing the step of soaking the taters first to leech out some of the starch. These fries are rubbery and weird.

Get the applesauce instead.

The best meal out of the week so far has been at the Empty Keg. Burger. Steak fries, probably from Ore-Ida. Which were delicious.

And, where they served me a true Iron City beer:

Okay, it was a Sierra Nevada. But I have to wonder how many of these glasses walk out of the place under somebody’s jacket.

I said best meal “so far.” We have yet to enjoy my departure breakfast at Flip. That my friends is the finest food in town. Can’t wait.

(When Flip Cafe was opening, my then nearly 90-year-old Grandma DID A SOMERSAULT IN THE AIR in the middle of the sidewalk when we discovered it. She really did. I watched her do it. She jumped up in the air, kicked her legs around, and landed on her feet, and then she gave out this sort of guttural “WHOOP!” Because, you see, her Dad’s nickname all his life, or at least as long as I knew him, was “Flip.”

Okay, she didn’t really do that. But she sure was excited about that particular serendipity.)

The evening ended for some reason with me describing to my Mom and Grandma the famous incident on The Carol Burnett Show with Tim Conway and the elephant story. I can’t do it justice, so here, go see for yourself.

Thus, the title of this blog entry.

I’m sure I’m not done documenting my last summer trek to Lakeside of the year.

Gosh I need to moisturize.

I’m So Glad We Had This Time Together

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(I thought before that I knew how to use the iPhone’s panoramic lens. I didn’t. Until today. I was holding the phone incorrectly! This is pretty much the full view from the back deck of where I get to stay in Edinboro. This image is clickable to a larger view. Just click on it!)

The great musical movement that partially was born in my high school a generation behind me was called Devo.

That of my era was called The Twist-Offs.

It was fun to go to a Twist-Offs show and jump up and down a lot. They made music that was excellent for jumping up and down. But not only was it good for jumping up and down. It was good music. Well-considered arrangements. Horns. And actually thoughtful, imaginative lyrics. I am a Twist-Offs EVANGELIST. And if I still lived in Kent those boys would have had to put up with my funny face and my set list thefts now for decades. I think they play periodically in Northeast Ohio, but these guys had a real live indie record deal. I even heard one of their songs played as background during MTV’s The Real World once.

Anyway, I think they were playing KentFest once or something, and they were handing out some tchotchkes. These:

Get it?

I owned two of these. One was orange, and that one I made the mistake of using as a keychain. The band’s logo wore off. Luckily, my Dear Mother was in possession of this one all these years, and it has remained unblemished. She released it into my possession today, along with a boss collection of 45s (including some old joints from Illinois Jaquet and other Apollo artists, records I’ve been hunting down for years) and a rather interesting edition of the Akron-Beacon Journal from May 24, 1970 that I may mine for blog entries later.

So Mama brought me a treasure chest to Edinboro. Thanks Mama.

Speaking of legends who attended the same high school as did I, John Uhrich was and is one of the best drawers with whom I have shaken hands. You should visit his blog, Duck-Duck-Gorilla. The guy has apparently just started drawing comic strips to “brush up on [his] digital inking skills.” (Cough HUMBLEBRAG) Watch out, Pastis!

Edinboro needs cuisine. Badly.

This is the Sunset Grill at the Edinboro Lake Resort. As you can see, it does what it says on the tin.

Serves sammiches in baskets with chips. Which is fine, and the sammiches are good, but one would think the food could match the stellar ambiance. Still. I love this place.

The Crossroads Dinor has dropped the “Dinor” and seems to do everything it can to shy away from being a diner although it has the diner car. Oh to walk in there and be able to order an open faced roast beef sammich with fries flooded with gravy. But that ain’t on the menu.

No shit on a shingle for you.

And you don’t want these fries. The place prides itself on fresh-cut fries, but they don’t really know how to cook them.

My suspicion is that they’re circumventing the step of soaking the taters first to leech out some of the starch. These fries are rubbery and weird.

Get the applesauce instead.

The best meal out of the week so far has been at the Empty Keg. Burger. Steak fries, probably from Ore-Ida. Which were delicious.

And, where they served me a true Iron City beer:

Okay, it was a Sierra Nevada. But I have to wonder how many of these glasses walk out of the place under somebody’s jacket.

I said best meal “so far.” We have yet to enjoy my departure breakfast at Flip. That my friends is the finest food in town. Can’t wait.

(When Flip Cafe was opening, my then nearly 90-year-old Grandma DID A SOMERSAULT IN THE AIR in the middle of the sidewalk when we discovered it. She really did. I watched her do it. She jumped up in the air, kicked her legs around, and landed on her feet, and then she gave out this sort of guttural “WHOOP!” Because, you see, her Dad’s nickname all his life, or at least as long as I knew him, was “Flip.”

Okay, she didn’t really do that. But she sure was excited about that particular serendipity.)

The evening ended for some reason with me describing to my Mom and Grandma the famous incident on The Carol Burnett Show with Tim Conway and the elephant story. I can’t do it justice, so here, go see for yourself.

Thus, the title of this blog entry.

I’m sure I’m not done documenting my last summer trek to Lakeside of the year.

Gosh I need to moisturize.

Love Letters Straight From Your Heart

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You need something soothing and awesome and darned near angelic tonight, don’t you? Yeah, I thought so. Here ya go.

“Love Letters” was one of those cases where the deejays created a hit by preferring the b-side of the record. The intended hit in 1962 was “I’m A Fool to Want You.”

Ketty Lester went on to cover the song I think should be our National Anthem: This Land is Your Land.

She had other minor hits but by 1968, her follow-up album met with little commercial success. It was clear she’d have to settle as a one-hit wonder. Ketty Lester later turned to a career in prime time television, most notably (to me, anyway) playing Hester-Sue Terhune on Little House on the Prairie from 1978 to 1983.

But this entry isn’t really about Ketty Lester. It’s about Joe Walsh.

“Love Letters,” written by Victor Young and Edward Heyman, way back in 1945. It has been recorded my numerous artists, including The Elvis, including Boz Scaggs, including Toni Tenille, and Sinead O’Connor.

But Joe Walsh thought to do it up-tempo and kind of Caribbean on You Bought It – You Name It.

The stunning thing to me about this version is that, although Walsh approaches the material somewhat light-heartedly, it still doesn’t lose its pathos. That is how well-constructed a work it is. This is up-tempo with nearly a calypso backbeat to it, and yet, the song still retains its anguish, its tortured nostalgia.

What a fabulous song. Just fabulous.

(On the album, the cover in this vein is followed by Walsh’s own account of nostalgic longing, “Class of ’65.” The pairing of these songs is remarkably effective and surprisingly visceral for Walsh.)

That’s it. I’m going shopping for the girliest looking umbrella I can find.

SWAT Team Descends onto College Campus in Response to a Man Carrying an Umbrella

Other good music news today as it appears that Prince is done screwing around with limited releases and is ready to release some material that normal Americans can actually purchase and listen to.

There was a time there when you could count on a new Prince release every summer. I considered a part of my summer, going out to get the next Prince CD. Then he got all mad at Warner Bros., and, after that, the releases were more sporadic. Then he found religion. I dunno. I lost track of him, you know?

Hopefully, these new albums will be a bit more accessible.

Love Letters Straight From Your Heart

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You need something soothing and awesome and darned near angelic tonight, don’t you? Yeah, I thought so. Here ya go.

“Love Letters” was one of those cases where the deejays created a hit by preferring the b-side of the record. The intended hit in 1962 was “I’m A Fool to Want You.”

Ketty Lester went on to cover the song I think should be our National Anthem: This Land is Your Land.

She had other minor hits but by 1968, her follow-up album met with little commercial success. It was clear she’d have to settle as a one-hit wonder. Ketty Lester later turned to a career in prime time television, most notably (to me, anyway) playing Hester-Sue Terhune on Little House on the Prairie from 1978 to 1983.

But this entry isn’t really about Ketty Lester. It’s about Joe Walsh.

“Love Letters,” written by Victor Young and Edward Heyman, way back in 1945. It has been recorded my numerous artists, including The Elvis, including Boz Scaggs, including Toni Tenille, and Sinead O’Connor.

But Joe Walsh thought to do it up-tempo and kind of Caribbean on You Bought It – You Name It.

The stunning thing to me about this version is that, although Walsh approaches the material somewhat light-heartedly, it still doesn’t lose its pathos. That is how well-constructed a work it is. This is up-tempo with nearly a calypso backbeat to it, and yet, the song still retains its anguish, its tortured nostalgia.

What a fabulous song. Just fabulous.

(On the album, the cover in this vein is followed by Walsh’s own account of nostalgic longing, “Class of ’65.” The pairing of these songs is remarkably effective and surprisingly visceral for Walsh.)

That’s it. I’m going shopping for the girliest looking umbrella I can find.

SWAT Team Descends onto College Campus in Response to a Man Carrying an Umbrella

Other good music news today as it appears that Prince is done screwing around with limited releases and is ready to release some material that normal Americans can actually purchase and listen to.

There was a time there when you could count on a new Prince release every summer. I considered a part of my summer, going out to get the next Prince CD. Then he got all mad at Warner Bros., and, after that, the releases were more sporadic. Then he found religion. I dunno. I lost track of him, you know?

Hopefully, these new albums will be a bit more accessible.

A James Brown Story

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I was reminded today—due mainly to promotion of the new James Brown film ongoing—of what I consider to be one of the best James Brown stories ever told, by one Jackie “The Jokeman” Martling, from the “Music of Howard Stern” special. If any story tells you who the man was, this does it.

Look At My Butt

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There are currently two (2) hit songs I’ve been made aware of today that do nothing but celebrate the callipygian nature of the song’s protagonist.

And yet, Neil Young still tours.

You know, when Dana Carvey was doing his whole George Michael spoof back then, it was just that.

‘Twas a spoof.

I mean do NOT. Let Carole King. Hear “Anaconda.” She will break her hip kicking herself. THAT’S ALL I HAD TO DO? THAT? TALK ABOUT MY FAT ASS AND HOW GREAT IT IS? THAT’S IT? She’ll be at Gerry Goffin’s grave, all like Hey! Gerry! WE DIDN’T ACTUALLY HAVE TO USE ALL OF THAT POWERFUL, WELL-PLACED IMAGERY IN OUR SONGS! ASS, GERRY. THAT’S ALL THEY WANTED TO HEAR ABOUT. ASS.

What’s this new song on the radio? “All About That Bass?” NO! CAROLE! Change the STATION! QUICK!

That stuff will just ruin Carole King. Please. Keep her away from it.

In other music stuff: Here is an excellent piece regarding some of the finest music of my adolescence. A really great read. I Know Times Are Changing

Look At My Butt

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There are currently two (2) hit songs I’ve been made aware of today that do nothing but celebrate the callipygian nature of the song’s protagonist.

And yet, Neil Young still tours.

You know, when Dana Carvey was doing his whole George Michael spoof back then, it was just that.

‘Twas a spoof.

I mean do NOT. Let Carole King. Hear “Anaconda.” She will break her hip kicking herself. THAT’S ALL I HAD TO DO? THAT? TALK ABOUT MY FAT ASS AND HOW GREAT IT IS? THAT’S IT? She’ll be at Gerry Goffin’s grave, all like Hey! Gerry! WE DIDN’T ACTUALLY HAVE TO USE ALL OF THAT POWERFUL, WELL-PLACED IMAGERY IN OUR SONGS! ASS, GERRY. THAT’S ALL THEY WANTED TO HEAR ABOUT. ASS.

What’s this new song on the radio? “All About That Bass?” NO! CAROLE! Change the STATION! QUICK!

That stuff will just ruin Carole King. Please. Keep her away from it.

In other music stuff: Here is an excellent piece regarding some of the finest music of my adolescence. A really great read. I Know Times Are Changing