San Francisco to Minneapolis to Atlanta (5/1 – 5/10)
It’s been a flurry of travel these past couple weeks. The 1st of May I flew from SF to Minneapolis for Midwest Lindy Fest. I flew overnight on Sun Country – an airline that only flies in and out of Minneapolis and arrived at 5am Central Time (it was 3am Pacific Time for me). I trucked my luggage across a parking lot to the light rail which shuttled me across the city to the Warehouse District. Andrew picked me up and I proceeded to sleep for half the day.
I got up, grabbed some coffee, found out Jo wasn’t going to get in until after rehearsal for the show. We hadn’t practiced or even run our routine since Lindy Focus and we had hoped for an afternoon to drill it back into our heads. Instead we got about an hour in between changing, eating and rushing to the venue.
Thankfully Davis and I had time to practice our Do No Evil routine which went off quite well. Despite being short the lighting and costuming (thanks for the shirt Peter) fit perfectly and it’s our goal to finish it and perform it again.
I haven’t been part of a full scale show that has felt this professional in a while. Competition performance is an entirely different affair than putting on a show. In a show it’s not just about which tricks you perform or how complex your routine or how bad-ass you look (although that helps) it’s about taking the audience with you on your story.
And it’s all pieced together by the M.C. – this one did an exceptional job. I forget his name… A something.
It’s a rare experience to get to work on a show with such exceptional characters like Stefan & Bethany, Falty & Casey, Adam, and many more. Some of them have a lot of show experience and some have very little (me) but the encouragement and professionalism more experienced performers exhibit draws the rest of the performers in.
Anyways, Midwest Lindy Fest was a blast. One of the best small events I’ve been to in a while and I haven’t danced that hard for months. The bands were killer (particularly the Southside Aces) and we even got a late night jam going Saturday night where Robert Bell joined us for a bit.
I got to spend Monday mostly on my own as Andrew worked late. I spent about 8 hours in Espresso Royale, a cafe about a block down from the apartment. It entertains me when I see two shifts of staff come in and out of an establishment. If you are ever in Minneapolis I recommend trying the breve latte. Deliciously sweet and seductive.
I went out in the evening to Famous Dave’s BBQ for dinner (at around 10pm) and to see the band there with a couple dancers. The band was playing Rockabilly – poorly – and I think they should have stuck to the bluegrass country sound they played well. As for Famous Dave’s… I recommend the happy hour appetizers (2$ for nearly any appetizer) and their ribs were pretty good, I’ve yet to find a place that truly tops Dinosaur BBQ in Rochester, NY though.
Tuesday I flew out to Atlanta in the afternoon. I had the opportunity to be driven by Clay Collins, one of my favorite internet people. He used to run a successful lifestyle design blog but abandoned it when he didn’t feel it fit him anymore. Instead he created Finance Your Freedom and Project Mojave just launched today. It’s a project with an excellent array of faculty to help you create an online business to free you from the burdens of a typical job.
Enough proselytizing. Clay was kind enough to meet up and drive me to the airport and I’m bummed we didn’t have the chance to sit down for a proper drink and chat. We talked the entire way to the airport, asking questions, talking about business, and the life paths we had chosen (why we lived where we did – or in my case out of a suitcase). It’s always great to meet someone who has that curiousity. I look forward to our next meeting.
Best compliment he gave me (to gloat a moment): “you’re the real deal.”
Montreal, QC – Food Binds Us Together (3/18 – 3/20)
I wrote about my first night in Montreal with a good bit of nostalgia. I remember so much about my life there when things had been left untouched by Immigration Canada but life is no longer so simple.
I live on the road. I am a vagabond artist.
Yet coming home to Montreal was really coming home even though I lost the home I had left my heart in.
One of the things that is always special to me, particularly in Montreal, is the sharing of food. Dinner or any other meal in the States often gets brushed over as just another chore to keep going in life. From the first bite of curry Tuesday night to the exorbitant spread of breakfast Sunday morning each meal is a communal act. Each meal showed me that while so much has changed being with my friends has not. I was not a stranger at our table.
Wednesday
I arrived at Caffe Mariani in the late morning. I used to work here, pressing sandwiches, serving espresso and sweeping the floors. Now it’s back to sitting at the tables, with the occasional fist-bump with Max (one of the owners), laptop out and working away for hours. A panani, cup of coffee (endless), latte and slice of gourmet pizza later, oh and six hours as well, and I had accomplished the majority of what I needed to.
When the chef greets you when you come in, leaves once his shift is done, and then comes back later and says “you’re still here?”, you know you’ve been at a café for a little too long.
I packed up my laptop and met up with Christina to sit at Cat’s Corner while she taught. It’s always great to see my old home away from home in Montreal. Cat’s Corners community is exceptionally vibrant with many individuals putting a lot of volunteer time and effort into the business to maintain what grew from a one-man business into a full time two-room studio. It is the third place for many people, not work, not home, but another safe comfortable place.
After Christina finished teaching we went to Euro-Deli for spinach calzones and I helped Pat and Chris plan a class they will be teaching out in the West Island. I am a solid fan of regular calzones and this one was quite good even before they drenched it in meat sauce.
Les Bobards was our next stop. Really I was going because I wanted to see people and not to necessarily dance so much. The last time I had been at Les Bobards was particularly disappointing (the band was shit). They were better this time, still a little square and replicated from recordings but better. If only the floor could have gotten softer and the ventilation actually manageable.
Thursday
I woke early (by vagabond standards) and worked out a little before heading off for breakfast with Dominique. It is always nice to reconnect with people who I’ve been friends with for a long time even if I don’t get to see them often.
We met at Aux Dernier Humains off of St.-Denis south of Jean-Talon, a little café with a delicious breakfast menu. I ordered an omelette with brie, spinach and onion accompanied with a side of potatos and bread. Dominique also ordered an omelette and a few bites into hers she realized she had mine and I hers. With a quick switch we were back to order, chaos averted.
We traded stories of where we’d been recently, she had also been traveling through Europe recently, and it was nice to hear her plans for future travels. It’s nice to chat with someone who understands the life of a traveler without having to explain it, even if it isn’t on the road without a house to go back to.
As her and I wrapped up our brunch I got a phone call from Alana (who I was supposed to meet for dinner but had inadvertently double booked on). She was a bit stressed out and rather than put our dinner off I headed down to NDG to her apartment for early drinks and sushi.
We sat in her living room and chatted for most of the afternoon. Finished a bottle of wine, went out to pick up sushi across the street along with another bottle of wine and some ice cream for me. By the time I had to teach at Cat’s Corner I think I was about a bottle and a half in (rosé not red thankfully) and slightly buzzed.
I caught a quick Metro ride up to Cat’s Corner on St. Laurent (I had missed the bus by a maximum of 3 minutes) and strolled in about five minutes before I was supposed to teach. Way to go me.
The group I taught is a practice troupe directed by my friends Alain and Marie. We started by playing a hide-and-seek game where everyone starts touching you, then as you count to 10 they run and hide. You then have to call them out from their hiding spot by name (great way to learn names by the way). During the game you can close your eyes and recount to 10 and they have to rush back out, touch you and rehide. I thought it was quite fun and I managed to get all but one of the students.
You also cannot move from where you are standing when you are looking for them. An added challenge.
I prepped a short bit with Marie while Alain took over. Then taught the Slim & Slam inspired chunky swing out focusing on loose and relaxed body movement. It’s quite comical at points where I get them to embody muppets in their motions. It is one of my favorite classes to teach. By the end of the class they were swinging out down the line more clearly and you could feel there was more energy. They finished their practice running the routine they had been working on.
Friday
Old Port day.
Alana picked me up at Caffé Mariani where I was doing a little internet work (since Chris doesn’t have WiFi yet) and we headed down to Old Montreal to walk around.
It’s been a while since I’ve been in the Old Port and it’s no where near as cozy in the cold months as it is in summer. The little alley streets are abandoned where in the summer they are filled with a variety of artists and vendors. The wind whips off the river and we definitely avoided the waterfront for that specific reason.
Our first attempt for brunch was an Alana favorite, Jardin Nelson. However, being a garden restaurant it was still closed. Yet I had to get a picture since it was obviously named after me.
Instead we ended up at a creperie where the service took a good hour to get us our table d’hote (never expect blazing fast service at a real restaurant in Montreal). Our soup came quickly to start us off alongside our drinks yet the waitress never returned to fill our water glasses. Disappointing slightly. Also, it was amazing how much the waitresses voice carried through the restaurant, it was that low, full Quebecois voice. Quite remarkable.
We then wandered through Marché Bonsecours, full of hand crafted art and a nice looking art cafe, before taking the Mini back to NDG for a latté at Shaika (an old haunt for me).
To wrap up my excellent streak of meals with friends I had a dinner plan organized with a number of old friends from Cat’s Corner and Swing Connexion who I used to dance with, teach with, or compete with. Eric & Caro, Syl & Adrian, Alain & Jenn, and Marie-Joseé
We were all to meet at Cafe Republic. Once I had exited the Metro and made it to St. Laurent I called Syl to ask where it was and as I was on the phone asking where it was a guy passing me overheard and told me to follow him. He was going there for dinner and would be happy to show me. It is great when people give you a moment of help, even for something so simple.
I have to say service on this Friday was particularly poor. I had ordered a rack of lamb rare and it came out nearly well. Although the waitress took it back and I had a new one cooked for me, it was a hassle to have to wait an extra ten minutes or fifteen minutes while everyone else quickly finished off their meal. On top of that, to flag the waitress for a desert menu, water, or even the cheques I had to get her attention each time. There was rarely a time when she visited the table of her own accord.
Despite the poor service, the friends made up for it. It was as if nothing had changed since I had left and it was dinner as normal. Conversation roamed from the newest indie band favorites touring through Montreal (thanks Adrian) to baby talk (half of my friends in Montreal are pregnant) to dancing. It’s nice to not feel like a stranger when you come home, even if it isn’t really your home anymore.
We grabbed our coats, tipped lightly, and headed out for Cat’s down the street.
Alain Fragman DJed the first set. I got to participate in a global shim-sham for Frankie at Cat’s Corner and a picture wishing him love from Montreal. It’s the third one I think I’ve been in so far.
Eric DJed the first half of the second set and I took over to finish out the night. I do enjoy DJing and I don’t do it too often, I’m more occupied with dancing and teaching these days, but I’m getting back into it.
Look for me behind the booth a bit more often.
San Francisco, CA – 9:20, Surprises and Teaching (2/4 – 2/8)
I stayed down in San Mateo with Carla & Rye for a few more days until I headed back to the city for The 9:20 Special where I would be switching to Manu’s place.
The 9:20 is held in a gorgeous ballroom off of Divisadero close to the Presidio. For physical spaces, San Francisco has excellent dance venues, yet the music can sometimes be lacking with late-swing tunes from the 50s on that fail to carry that chunk and rhythm that makes me want to swing out. Too much ballad or melody with singers or musicians soloing without a driving shuffle to back them up.
Manu lives in SoMa (SF equivalent of SoHo apparently) which is short for South of Market Street. It’s home to many nightclubs, restaurants, shiny loft apartments, and some high-tech headquarters including Twitter, CNET and and Wired. Manu works for CNET and his fiancé, Karen, is a doctor at a nearby hospital and their apartment was wonderfully decorated (and adorned with the finest of tech gadgetry). I had to fight on many an occasion to tear myself away from the top line Rock Band drumkit and flat screen TV.
Saturday my close friend Shawn Rae, who had flown up for an interview, was in San Francisco. He had friends in the area from college and we all convened on La Taqueria. While mexican restaurants are every other corner it seems in the Mission district, La Taqueria is famous for its food with accolades from Zagat, Yelp and much more. The place is unassuming yet the line that snakes through the restaurant is a sure sign the place is popular. One carnitas burrito later and I was convinced (probably the best burrito I’ve ever had) I’d be coming back here the next time I was in San Francisco.
We said our goodbyes to his friends from college and proceeded to Tartines, a french bakery on Guerrero, to meet up with students he knew from Middlebury College. Having spent four years of my life in Montreal, I have a thing for french cafés and bakeries and I rarely find one that matches the quality I can find in Montreal, no less the pleasure of dining at one in France. Tartines is the real deal. The croissants were not overly sweet or dry as is often the case, my latte came smooth and ready in a bowl, and I was thoroughly pleased. Even more entertaining, my name was on the doorstep.
We finished off all of our delicious food and wandered over to the Castro district, which Shawn Rae’s two friends wanted to visit and he encouraged us all to go. One of the boys even mentioned that this was the most rainbow colored flags he’d seen in all of his life and it made him exceptionally happy.
We wandered into a gay bookstore and the two boys and Shawn Rae wandered the racks while I perused a copy of Bitch magazine and discovered Gina’s name tucked away amongst the contributors who helped to save the magazine from folding. It’s a great magazine and I recommend it highly.
Being the addict I am, we then stopped in at a small coffee shop and I picked up an Americano, and we wandered through the Castro district chatting and taking pictures. Here is one of the famous Castro theatre (from a distance).
I had to bail on Shawn Rae early as I was heading to a surprise birthday party for Carla. Carla, thinking it was a game night at a friends, picked me up and we headed down to San Mateo to get Rye. Rye had already clued me into the bait-and-switch and had me as the notifier for the hiding guests. I failed to understand that we would be getting off of one highway and onto a second so I notified them about twenty minutes early, thus leaving the party members in the dark waiting for our arrival. It, however, turned out to be a great success and Carla was stunned enough to reel when people jumped from their hiding spots.
It was a great social gathering which soon became a game night anyways. We played a couple rounds of Pit, a commodity style card game where the goal is to collect all eight (or nine in the traditional game) of a card before anyone else does, before moving on to Taboo. I’ve never played Taboo before and it was highly entertaining when the first two cards I read from I accidentally covered the main word and was using the taboo words as my guideline for what to say. Taboo fail. All in all a good time.
Sunday, Carla arranged for me to teach a solo jazz routine up at City College. I spent the majority of the day choreographing before class. I forget how much work solo jazz can be and I was sweaty and tired before I even got to class. A class room full of eager students fills you with energy as a teacher thankfully. I taught around 28 or 30 students the first half of a song I’ve been really digging on lately by Don Redman All Stars called See No Evil, Hear No Evil, Speak No Evil.
Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
I taught this again recently and hope to continue developing the choreography and to complete the song. So if I’m coming to your city keep an eye out for it, I’m looking to teach it to whomever wants to learn and get feedback as well.
San Francisco, California – Cycling the Pacific Riptide (2/1)
Time flies and when you aren’t keeping track of it you don’t keep up with your travelogue.
I flew in the 31st of January and out on the 15th of February.
Flying in from Austin was a great experience and the glow of pacific sun warmed me on arrival. I toted my luggage to the Bart station and phoned my host, Shannon, that I had arrived and was on my way.
The Bart is a D.C. style metro system where you pay by distance traveled on the system, in comparison to flat rate systems like New York and Montreal. It is frustrating to pay $5 to ride the subway for 30 minutes when in NYC you can ride it end to end across three buroughs and still just pay your $2.50.
My first night in San Francisco kicked off with a bhangra dance party at the Yerba Buena Arts Center downtown. The main draw – free pizza of which I managed two tiny slices. The best parts: being complimented on my bhangra by random woman during the lesson and the short video documentary on helicopters and their status in Vietnam.
Cycling in Austin had me inspired to do the same in San Francisco and there are fewer better places that I’ve cycled. Sunday proved to be a perfect day for a ride and I started it off with a stop at the Squat and Gobble cafe. Breakfast was a florentine crepe, rosemary potatoes and coffee. The crepe fell flat for my expectations yet the rosemary potatoes were excellent. I sat outside and enjoyed the late breakfast, watched locals pass by, and admired the sun.
Packing away the leftovers of my breakfast for later consumption, I biked towards the ocean. The ride downhill was smooth and I stopped along the way for the occasional iPhone snapshot [note: invest in actual camera]. By the time I got to the coast it was nearly noon and I merged onto the coastal bike path. The coast has that short scrub-like appearance you find along the Atlantic. Trees are sparse and the ground is covered in short rough vegetation capable of weathering the salt and living in sand. Along the bike path there were occasional cases of unopened water bottles, presumably for cyclists and joggers. I decided against taking one.
By the time I reached Golden Gate Park, I was headed for Lindy in the Park, I had cycled farther than I had since living in Montreal and had good bit to go through the park before I got there. I was sweaty, having over-layered, and my legs had that semi-numb lactic acid buildup feel. I looped the bike-lock through the spokes and frame and set it to the side.
An hour later and I had barely rested a moment as Shannon introduced me to friends and fellow dancers and I was seized upon for nearly every song (this would prove to be a trend in SF). I took a few moments to snap some pictures of the park, although very few of them turned out well. The dance wrapped and we zipped off for food at a local Chinese restaurant.
I had work to do so I got advice on a cafe in the Mission, Ritual Coffee Roasters, and headed out. I barely made it down Haight St. before I saw a cafe that called out to me. Coffee to the People had a really nice vibe and by the time I looked at the time it was nearly 8:30pm. I had intended to catch Gaucho, a hot jazz band, down at the Riptide between 8 and 10pm, so I had to hurry. I slung my gear into my Chrome bag and huffed back down to the ocean.
Riptide is a hole-in-the-wall surfer dive bar a block away from the Pacific. Divided in half by a U shaped bar, with mostly local beers on tap, and a strange assortment of surfer paraphernalia and animal heads on the walls, it had a unique feel. There had been a Superbowl party earlier so leftover wings waited for the taking. Gaucho is a small group in the style of Django with a touch of the gutbucket New Orleans style. The musicians were friendly, quite talented, and encouraging of the dancers who got up in the tiny space.
We left the Riptide not too far into their last set and headed to the Rite Spot Cafe, a bar in the Mission district. The Sweet Hollywians, a string jazz band from Osaka, played a really tight set to a packed audience. They had a unique sound and really good presence on top of spinning ukeleles. I ran into a few other people I knew at Rite Spot and caught up with Manu who was my host for the last half of my stay in San Francisco.
My first day was full and finished.
I’ll attempt not to write whole days out again in my summary of San Francisco, but sometimes they are so packed it is hard to avoid.
Knoxville (Jan 13th)
January 13th I nearly missed my bus to Knoxville, TN. I had booked my ticket online and being used to e-Ticket check-in at the bus station in NYC I failed to attribute the wait time a normal desk check-in takes. I was the last passenger on the bus – washboard in hand, Chrome bag over my shoulder.
We stopped off in Dayton, TN at a Pilot truck stop where most of the passengers proceeded to buy food from McDonalds. Thankfully I had packed a Trader Joe’s survival kit of trail mix, dried mango and chocolate covered espresso beans along with my trusty Thermos topped up with homemade coffee. Being prepared saves me from fast food and my wallet from needless spending.
Jon picked me up at the bus station and we dropped my bags at his house and headed out for dinner at a local gastropub, The Crown and Goose.
We treated ourselves to a fine beer, mine was a “Caribbean” stout – smooth and easy to drink sans a coffee bitter, and our waiter was very knowledgeable and pleasant. I chose the Shephard’s Pie which was slow-braised lamb in a red wine sauce baked with Yukon golden mash and topped with two lamb chops cooked to rare. The chops dissolved as I ate them. The pie was baked with a nice crisp skin to the mash while the insides were a refreshing change from the regular ground beef I’ve had in shephards pie in the past much more akin to pulled pork in its stringiness which falls apart.
Nearly bursting at the seams we managed to decide, or perhaps were happily convinced by our waiter, to order the bread pudding which replaced the typical raisin topping with dried cranberries soaked in whiskey. Not my favorite bread pudding but delicious all the same. We even managed to score a tasting of the Sticky Toffee Pudding thanks to again to our waiter slipping it past the chef. The toffee pudding was deceiving, when you cut into it with your spoon it seemed dense yet upon delivery it melted away. An excellent sample to round off our night.
Waiting for one of Jon’s friends to potentially get us into a movie, we dodged off to a local Borders to peruse their books i.e. read their magazines without paying and nabbed a coffee from the Seattle’s Best cafe. After two magazines our coffees ran dry and with no word from the movie friend we headed back to Jon’s.
Curled up on the couch with You Don’t Mess with the Zohan on my laptop we called it a night. As for Zohan, I would say watch the first three quarters then give up before the movie decides to resolve the hackneyed plot.
