Parable of the Lawsuit

To what shall I compare this generation?

It is like unto the law court where a certain man sought relief. This man had an adversary who persecuted him day and night. So the man went to court to obtain the court's protection.

When the man first arrived in the courtroom, he thought he had taken a wrong turn. Instead of rows of seats facing a high bench, the room held a circle of folding chairs. Instead of suits, robes, and horsehair wigs, the man saw chinos, polo shirts, sandals and, in some cases, ankle socks. There was no gavel, no flag, no bailiff ordering the people to rise, not even a stenographer taking notes. Everyone seemed to be on a first-name basis. No one seemed to be in charge, until one man said, "Now, friends, let's talk one at a time."

The plaintiff's confusion only grew as the trial proceeded. There was no established order as to who was allowed to speak, what they were allowed to say, or what questions they could and could not ask. When an objection was raised, the "moderator" settled it by having the opponents play "rock-scissors-paper." There was a lot of talk about "settling differences" and none about actually determining what was right. Every so often, the assembly broke up into random, small groups that discussed nothing but broad generalities without any sense of purpose. After each of these "breakout" sessions, the "moderator" always seemed pleased that "progress" had been made.

The plaintiff became scared when he realized that he didn't know who was on his side or who spoke for his adversary. He did not know what this "court" was handing out, but he felt a growing certainty that it wasn't justice. As soon as there was a recess, the man fled. It seemed to be less trouble to put up with his adversary's hostility, even if it ruined him.

Let him hear who has ears.

Music by a Czech emigre

I've been listening to more and more mid-20th-century symphonies lately. It's a musical niche to which I find myself increasingly drawn. And it's not a very small niche, thanks in part to the work of conductor Serge Koussevitzky (right), who was music director of the Boston Symphony from 1924 to 1949. Koussevitzky championed contemporary composers and commissioned scads of works from them. Some day I think it would be interesting to study the musicological impact of a few people like Koussevitzky, along with Nadezhda von Meck (the rich lady who championed Debussy and Tchaikovsky), Paul Wittgenstein (a wealthy, one-handed pianist who commissioned many works for "piano left hand"), and Nadia Boulanger (a composer herself, but mainly known by the long list of prominent musicians who were her students).

But for now, I'm content to listen to the music they helped make possible.

Last night my main musical selection was the First Symphony by Bohuslav Martinů (1890-1959), pictured at the left. Martinů was a tremendously prolific composer, considered one of the great Czech composers along with Dvořák, Janáček, and Smetana. (I just love making Blogger cough up those weird letters.) Martinů wrote loads of operas, ballets, chamber and choral works, concertos, and eventually six symphonies. The symphonies were all written after Martinů emigrated to the U.S. in 1941, and in various ways express his longing for his homeland and his anxiety about what was going on in the world at that time. His music is often classed as "neo-classical," though it was influenced by jazz, folk music, the Baroque concerto grosso, and music by more modern composers such as Debussy and Stravinsky.

The First Symphony, commissioned by Koussevitzky, is in four movements. The first two and the last one are, to varying degrees, fast, intense, bustling movements, full of insistent rhythms. The third and slowest movement is a brooding, tragic piece that rises toward a passionate climax near its end. The themes, while not extravagantly lyrical, are pointed and distinctive. The variety of textures is mostly clear and easy to understand. The harmony is unusual but beautiful; you get the impression that Martinů worked with a very broad sort of tonality. Martinů's use of orchestral colors was unique yet effective, blending piano and a variety of percussion instruments into the palette, and combining groups of instruments to create worlds of sound I had never heard before.

One thing that caught my attention in this symphony was a rising motif, repeated frequently in the first two movements, once or twice in the third, and perhaps only hinted at in the finale. It usually emerges from the background, overlapping or intertwining with whatever else is going on in the music, and winding upward from a very low to a very high register. It never causes an ugly clash, but it never seems to belong to the same world as the music it cuts across. This rising figure reminded me of bubbles rising through liquid, or of incense smoke rising and dissipating, or of a spirit being borne away on the wings of a dream.

So maybe there is a significance in this motif's gradual disappearance from the symphony. Maybe it has something to do with the brutal machine of Fascism damping the levity of Martinů's homeland, banishing its good dreams and hopes and aspirations. Maybe it's about reality destroying the buoyant ideals of youth. Maybe it's about the soul of Koussevitzky's late wife (in whose memory the work was commissioned) rising out of this care-filled world. Or maybe it's just about the noise and bustle and chaos of New York City obliterating the composer's peaceful memories of home.

Save the Planet...Don't Ask!

The other night, I stopped at a Coldstone Creamery to buy an ice cream milkshake. While one of the employees was pouring my shake into a "love it"-sized cup, her co-worker punched my order into the cash register. To decide which button to push, she yelled over to her friend at the shake machine: "What's he having?"

Answer: "A shake."

Without lifting her eyes from the cash register, the check-out girl asked: "What size?"

At this point I cut in and said: "The size of cup she's holding in her hand."

Now, my cashier had a direct sight-line to what her co-worker was doing. She just couldn't be bothered to turn her head; instead, she asked to be spoon-fed the information.

The girls laughed, the one at the shake machine in a "What have I been telling you?" kind of way, the cashier in a "Shucks, you got me there!" way. But they both gave me a blank look as I propounded my theory: "Unnecessary questions give off greenhouse gases."

When you need to know something, and you can find out for yourself as quickly as you can ask and get an answer, then you shouldn't ask! This really explodes the theory that "the only stupid question is the one no one asked." Some questions really are a waste of time and, yes, resources! This is a tendency I have to check in myself from time to time. Because, when you think of it, asking a co-worker and getting an answer costs twice as much as spending the same period of time looking up the answer for yourself!

And when all you have to do is show an interest in the world around you (such as, turning your head slightly to see what size of shake girlfriend is making), you impress the customer as a smart, energetic, friendly person. Whereas the cashier at Target who accidentally calls you "Miss" (when you have a beard and a baritone voice), or who says "Good morning" when it's 8 p.m., impresses you as a careless jerk who is too lazy to think.

Of course, there is a corollary to the principle that stupid questions are destroying the environment, and that is: If you want to help save the planet, be "johnny on the spot" with the information your customer wants, and don't make him ask someone else.

A couple weeks ago I drove up to the curb outside one of the restaurants I named in my previous post. I wasn't sure the place was open at the time. So when a young man came out the front door (taking out the trash or some such chore), I assumed he was an employee and so I asked: "Is this place open?" He said, "I don't know. You can ask inside."

I didn't want to damage the atmosphere by repeating my question, so I refrained from asking inside. I had dinner somewhere else instead. It would have been in the interests of that young man's workplace, and the planet as a whole, if he had taken just so much responsibility as to know whether his workplace was open or not. He would also have impressed me, once again, as a go-getter who cares about what he does. Such seemingly-intelligent and fully-engaged help creates an atmosphere customers enjoy breathing...which, in turn, creates a freer flow of dollars that enable those who work there to breathe more freely too.

You see? Knowing the answers is good for the air!

Smokin' Al's

One of the best informal, inexpensive dining experiences in St. Louis stands a couple blocks south of US 40 / I-64 on Hampton Avenue. It's a little restaurant with a yellow awning and the name Smokin' Al's.

As you pull into the tiny parking lot (sometimes difficult if you have to turn left) and get out of your car, the first thing that hits you is the impressive smell from the smoker behind the restaurant. Once inside the door, you find two small dining rooms - one smoking, the other non-smoking - furnished with what looks like garage-sale kitchen tables and chairs. The walls are decorated with antique cowboy paraphernalia, but the piped-in music is pure blues. You order standing up at the counter, and your dining utensils are paper and/or plastic. They have something called "snoot" on the menu which, to my certain knowledge, really is the forwardmost part of a pig. Except for the combination of cowboy stuff and the blues (much cooler than the obvious choice of country-western music), you haven't seen anything to impress you yet.

But then the food arrives. And you realize that, clearly, the cheapness that touches everything else in the place has served a useful purpose. The folks at Smokin' Al's have spared every expense except the quality of their food. That's where it's all invested.

Smokin' Al's is run by a couple of restauranteurs with a fine-dining background. So as you sit at your cheap table and eat off a cheap plate, you can enjoy a spread of absolutely marvelous food, and all of it completely made-from-scratch (except, I suppose, the Texas Toast - though I'm sure they do toast it on the premises). The meat is smoked out back. The coleslaw, dressing and all, is made in the kitchen. The barbecue sauce (your choice of "wolf" or "cub" flavor, depending on how hot you like it) is a house recipe. Even the applesauce is homemade, and boy is it good!

After knocking off work today, I stopped in at Smokin' Al's and had the special of the day. It was a rib. And yes, I mean one rib. A beef rib, with a big, thick, juicy hunk of meat attached to it. If you ever need to smite someone and the jawbone of an ass doesn't come to hand, stop at Smokin' Al's and get one of their beef ribs. It is an order of magnitude above the more familiar pork ribs.

I still maintain that the best pork ribs money can buy are at the Texas Roadhouse, a chain that I have personally patronized from Yuma to Fort Wayne (and yes, also in St. Louis). T.R. makes them just right, falling-off-the-bone tender and candied with a sweet, tangy sauce. But the Smokin' Al's crowd have perfected the zesty, sloppy, served-on-Texas-toast-type barbecue, served with your choice of two sides (including fries, potato salad, cole slaw, apple sauce, and maybe something else that I forget) in paper tubs on a plastic platter. And the price isn't bad.

The same guys also own a Mexican place on Hampton, a good ways farther south. I've eaten there too, and it's not bad but not to my taste as Mexican food goes. It's the smokehouse flavor at Smokin' Al's I keep going back to!

While I'm nominating "superlatives" in various restaurant categories:

• BEST BARBECUE ANYWHERE: The Wabash Barbecue, within sight of the historic Elms Hotel in Excelsior Springs, MO. Harry S Truman stayed at the Elms the night before the newspapers declared "Dewey Defeats Truman." I once went to a wedding reception there. But I would skip out of any number of future wedding receptions at the Elms to enjoy another meal of extraordinary barbecue at the Wabash, a converted railway station (which also once served as a dairy) where, on weekends during the summer, you can eat outdoors and listen to live music.
• BEST PIZZA ANYWHERE: Minsky's in Kansas City, off I-29, north of the Missouri River, in the Platte Woods area. It's actually kind of a sports bar, but their pizza is so good that I've measured every pizza I've had in the past 5 years by it. Only a few have come close. I'm pretty well convinced now that the secret to exceptional pizza is an exceptional crust; don't let the "St. Louis style pizza" culture (a.k.a. "toasted crackers and cheese") convince you otherwise. Minsky's has an exceptional crust. Next to them I would recommend Uno's Chicago Grill (a chain that also serves steaks and burgers, but whose crust reminds me of a perfect, soft, buttermilk biscuit) and Gino's East (a graffiti-covered dive in Chicago where their idea of a sausage pizza involves a pizza-sized sausage patty).
• BEST HOMESTYLE MEXICAN FOOD ANYWHERE: The Chili Pepper in Yuma, Arizona, on 16th Street right around Avenue A. The same family (Gutierrez) also run a similar place on 4th Avenue called Mrs. G's, and small "sit-down" restaurant called Casa Gutierrez not far from that, but Chili Pepper was more convenient for lunch break where I worked, so that was where I lined up with a huge crowd of eager customers many a noon hour. You can tell the good Mexican places in Yuma by the size of the crowd lining up at them. The places to avoid, conversely, are the ones with the conspicuously empty parking lot; they serve meat so gristly that you half expect to find a missing pet's vaccination tag in it.
• BEST BREAKFAST BURRITO: Also in Yuma - a little Mexican grocery, adjacent to a crummy little laundromat, called Stan's Market. The kitchen is in the back, but you order at the cash register and browse shelves of canned tripe and dried shrimp in chili powder until they hand you the biggest, most delicious pile of egg, meat, potato, and cheese ever rolled into a tortilla. You can choose between many different varieties, including types midwesterners have no knowledge of, such as "machaca" and "chorizo" and "al pastor." Plan to spend a few weeks there some winter and get to know them all. Then go on a diet for the rest of the year, because you'll double in size.
• BEST ITALIAN DINING EXPERIENCE: I'm going to give this one in general to the Italian eateries on "The Hill" in south St. Louis. I haven't tried the smallest part of them, but some that I have experienced and highly recommend include Trattoria Marcella and Baldo's. They both make a "to-die-for" marsala, which isn't a given after all; I've had a few veal or chicken marsalas, even in this neighborhood, that I wouldn't die for at all. Baldo's is neat because it has a little cafe attached to it where you can imagine little white-haired gentlemen sitting on high-backed settees, drinking espresso around an oval coffee-table, and talking about Inter Milan. Marcella's is interesting because it has a doppelgaenger in Nebraska, near where my mother lives - a restaurant that has the same name and even looks similar, but is otherwise unconnected.
• BEST BANG FOR YOUR BUCK: If I ever go back to New York City, I am going to live at the Carnegie Deli as long as my money holds up. I had never had such food in my life as I did during my couple-three days in the Carnegie Hall neighborhood last spring. The Carnegie Deli serves gigantic portions of stunningly delicious food. You always end up needing a take-out box. One time I was having breakfast with a couple of my friends and one of them asked the waitress for a side of bacon. He meant a "side order" of bacon, e.g. 3 or 4 strips of bacon on a plate. She brought him a whole side of bacon (i.e. everything to the left of some porker's spine). Even after sharing it with everybody in sight, my friend still had to ask for a take-out container. Price: $5.95.
• BEST CHINESE FOOD IN ST. LOUIS: If you want the pocketbook-friendly type that you order standing at the cash register and eat off a plastic tray, it is (believe it or not) the Old St. Louis Chop Suey on Chippewa, just east of Kingshighway. If you want the type where you sit in front of a linen tablecloth and have a waiter refilling your glass of water every time it gets down to half full, it's the Hunan Star on the eastbound side of the big oval "island" in the middle of Manchester Road in Des Peres, just west of I-270. Both places serve "real" food that doesn't taste like it came out of the same can that they use at 90% of Chinese restaurants; food crafted with imagination and flair. It may not be what you expect, but I think you'll like it.
• BEST CURRY: I live right across the street from an Indian restaurant, but frankly, when I have a curry jones, I would rather drive several miles through the worst traffic in this part of town to go to a Thai or Vietnamese restaurant. I am personally more interested in Thai cuisine than Vietnamese, but the King and I (the one Thai place in St. Louis I have visited) is only "pretty good," not extraordinary. The best curry I have had in St. Louis was at a little place called Mekong on the corner of Grand and Hartford, just a block south of Tower Grove Park. I had something with squid, mussels, and shrimp that was so hot it made my eyeballs sweat, but it was marvelous. And when I can say that about a dish with squid and mussels, the curry must be really amazing. The Thai restaurant I still hunger for is "Tasty Thai" in Platte Woods, not too far from Minsky's.
• BEST SOUP: The 54th Street Bar and Grill in Kansas City has a steak soup that makes my mouth water even to think of it.
• BEST SALAD: I'll give this honor to the St. Louis Bread Company for their Greek salad. Kalmata olives and Feta cheese are just an explosive combination.
• BEST BURGER: I favor Marquart's Landing in historic Washington, MO, on the corner of Front and Elm, right down on the Missouri River. It's a nice little corner bar where you can relax after a gruelling day of looking at antiques, art, gorgeous scenery, and the numerous historical attractions of the town. Their meat (this goes for their steaks as well) has a really interesting flavor; I don't know if it comes from their seasonings, or from their grill, or just from the meat itself and the attitude with which it is cooked. Then, while you're in Washington, enjoy the
• BEST DESSERT: The "mile-high" pies at Cowan's, also in the old downtown area of Washington, MO. These gravity-defying confections stand 6 to 8 inches high at the center and they don't even collapse when a piece is cut out of them. I had a slice of lemon meringue there once and I couldn't believe it. The meringue was soft and fizzy, yet it stayed standing up even as I ate through the pie. The only defect is that the heaps of rich, sweet filling overshadow the crust so much that you never appreciate it as it deserves.
• BEST DELI SANDWICH: I've had to order food from them on many occasions because of work-related meetings in the neighborhood, and there just aren't that many choices of decent food out there, but Augusta Missouri has a delightful cafe, which actually shares a building with a gift shop. It's called Cafe Bella. You can enjoy local wines there, but for me the main attraction is its menu of focaccia sandwiches made from truly "gourmet" recipes. Everything I have tried has had a unique zip to it, from the vegetarian sandwich to the chicken salad, roast beef, or ham. These people take sandwiches seriously, not settling for the usual iceberg lettuce or plain, yellow mustard. They use lovely things such as Greek olives, cream cheese, brown mustard, bean sprouts, romaine lettuce, and of course, their wonderful bread that leaves Panera in the dust. It's only a tiny bit on the pricy side, but if you can afford to spend a weekend browsing antique shops and visiting wineries, or even cruising the countryside on your bike, you can't afford to miss this.

Upchuckward Tackiness

Now on display at the ELCA church sign down the street from my home:

LET US PRAY FOR A SLOW NEWS DAY

Hmmm. Sounds like they're already having one...kerygmatically speaking, that is.

License Bureau

And now, equal time for the stupidity of others... Here is the lightly edited text of an email I sent in March 2005 after moving from Arizona to Missouri. It was my opinion at the time (and I've found no reason to change my mind since then) that the Missouri Department of Revenue's Motor Vehicle Division is one of the great examples of institutionalized stupidity. I wrote:

I just got my license plates.

It’s a miracle, considering that every time I went up to the desk, they wanted one more piece of paper. And of course, they are the blindest, mindlessest bureaucratic twits you can imagine.

When I phoned ahead to find out what I needed to do, I was instructed to bring 4 pieces of paper:
1. My car insurance card,
2. An emissions inspection report,
3. A safety inspection report, and
4. A property tax waiver.

To get the emissions report I had to navigate through a maze of streets to a parking lot behind the city pool between 3 and 4 p.m. on a Thursday—which, after over a month of never getting home on time, I finally managed to do (but only after stopping for directions twice). The inspection station turned out to be an RV trailer, womanned by a bored attendant who, on learning that my car comes from an even-numbered model year, said I didn’t need the inspection this year. But, she said, I would still have to bring her piece of paper to the License Bureau, to show that I had made the effort. So, without even charging me for it (!) she Xed through everything on the form & gave it to me.

I asked the emissions lady, a town cop, and the people at the courthouse, and they all said I didn’t need a safety inspection this year for the same reason.

For the tax waiver, I went to the county seat, where the winding downtown streets so confused me that I couldn't find the courthouse until I stopped to ask directions at a cafe that offered a “brain sandwich” on its menu, and then I learned I was only a half-block from the courthouse. Then I had to go to the County Assessor AND the County Clerk, so I could give something to one of them in order to get something from the other. Finding my way OUT of the building was rather tricky too. So I finally got that done, and after calling the License Bureau to confirm that I had the 3 pieces of paper I needed, I went there the next day.

Well, the girl at the desk looked at all 3 pieces of paper very carefully, seemed to be about to give me my plates, then said, “You need 4 pieces of paper. Where is the title?” I didn’t have the title because the car has a “lien” on it, as they refer to auto financing in the License Bureau. “In that case,” she said, “you just need to bring me the registration.” What’s that exactly? “You know, the piece of paper that came with your old tags.” I luckily was able to dig it out of my glove compartment. I came right back.

The same girl looked carefully at all 4 pieces of paper as if she had never seen them before, and finally declared, “Your insurance card is expired.” My blood ran cold. I ran out to the car a second time and found a current card in my glove box, though only after digging through about three old ones. I brought it back to the same girl.

The girl then looked at all 4 pieces of paper again and declared, “You need a safety inspection.” I said everyone had told me I didn’t need a safety inspection. She said I did, so I asked where I could find a place that would get me in & out so I could finish this the same day. She gave me directions - poor ones. I went and got the inspection, came back just before the License Bureau was supposed to close, and said I was ready.

After reading through everything all over again, the same girl asks me, “Do you want local plates or unlimited mileage?” I asked her what she meant. She said I could buy plates that I could only use within 50 miles of home. I asked why I would do this. She said some people did this with farm machinery. I asked her why she thought “Hyundai Accent” meant a tractor. She then declared that the way the emissions form was filled out had misled her. This, you may recall, is the form on which everything was Xed out because it didn’t apply.

So now the girl pulls out the license plates and I ask her what it’s going to cost. She looks through 2 or 3 books and is only able to say “approximately” $35, which I would have had in my pocket if I hadn’t just paid cash for a vehicle inspection. But she wouldn’t accept my debit card, and it was too late to go to an ATM and come back. The girl explained this to me as she went around the office, pointedly locking all the doors. So I had to come back again the following day.

I arrived the next day with FIVE pieces of paper—insurance, registration, safety inspection, emissions inspection, and tax waiver. The new lady who served me read through every single one of them. She also needed to be told that I was licensing a passenger vehicle (not a piece of farm machinery).

The lady then demanded the name, address, and origin date of my “lien holder”—meaning a SIXTH piece of paper that, until now, no one had told me I needed to bring. I persuaded her to let me have the plates & I would call her back as soon as I got home to tell her these last three things she needed to know for the record. Which I faithfully did...but when I called her, she told me that I have to come back again the next and let her make a copy of the safety inspection, which she had forgotten to do!

She also noted as she stuck my tags on the MIDDLE of my license plate, that you have to be very careful because people will do anything, including cut off the corners of the plates, to steal your tags. I’ve heard a lot about this going on in Missouri, but I’ve never heard anything like that happening in any other state. And it’s NO WONDER. Considering what they make you do to get vehicle tags, stealing them begins to sound like a good idea!

My Bad No. 7

Here is yet another example of my invincible stupidity, also dating back to my college years.

When you hear the word "mace," especially in connection with a college campus, you probably think of something similar to pepper spray. But where I went to college, the mace was a scepter sort of thing that the president of the university carried on ceremonial occasions. The photo at left shows the actual mace of which I speak.

During my junior year, the university inaugurated a new president. The ceremony took place outdoors on a cold, drizzly day. After a series of bloviating speeches by various dignitaries, the new president made headlines by delivering the following inaugural address: "I have examined the entrails of birds and determined that it is raining." He then invoked his executive powers to move the remaining festivities indoors. This made him popular with the student press, but it was too late to save the mace. The beautifully finished wood was damaged by the rain.

So the scene shop at the university theatre took the mace, sanded it down, and refinished it. They did a marvy job of it. When it was all dry and ready to go back to the president, the scene shop sent it up to the theatre department office - where I had a work-study job. I was the uncontested ace at running errands. I not only knew how to get everywhere on campus, but I could plan the route through any number of points on campus requiring the fewest steps and the least amount of time. So the secretary of the department handed the mace to me, wrapped in a heavy blanket, and sent me on my way with the words: "BE CAREFUL!"

Balancing this huge, heavy, unwieldy object with one arm, I somehow managed to open the door from the office to the hallway. But before I could get all the way through the doorway, the door slammed on the end of the mace where the little wooden hand clutches a solid marble ball. The ball popped right out of the hand (it was only glued in place), hit the floor with a deafening crack, and rolled into the corner.

The first person I saw when I sheepishly came back into the office was the secretary of the theatre department. I'm not saying she looked angry; but if looks could kill, I would be a cripple.

There was no damage that couldn't be repaired. I suppose the job went to the scene shop. As for me, I never saw the president's mace again. I think some effort was made to make sure of that.