Kermit Lynch at the Chapel, today at 2pm

And then sometimes you get thrown a fat one right over the plate.  Gotta swing, right?  Gotta swing.


Today at two, Books Inc. presents Kermit Lynch in conversation with Rajat Parr.  Kermit Lynch, purveyor of fine wine, importer, wine maker, author - just so happens to divide his time between Berkeley and France - so those of us in the bay area are fortunate to have him so close, so often.

Have you been to his shop, Kermit Lynch Wine Merchant, on San Pablo in Berkeley?  It's just ridiculously wonderful to have someone with such exceptional taste so near.  I will admit that I am not an oenophile - if the definition of the word is a connoisseur.  If, though, you define it as someone who's simply a lover of wine, then I'm your guy.  I used to be a slave to the ratings-cards that wine shops provide - 87 points!  I used to be in.

Now, though, I talk to the people behind the counter.  That's what we do at ye olde bookshoppe, right?  If you have a question, I can answer it.  Same with wine.  Good shops employ knowledgeable people, and Kermit Lynch Wine Merchant is full of good people with great advice.

So there's the fact that Mr. Lynch is a recognized and influential wine expert - as this piece in the New York Times wonderfully demonstrates.  Then there's the book.  When Adventures on the Wine Route came out in 1988, critics as diverse as Roald Dahl, Hugh Johnson and the Financial Times praised it mightily.

It's idiosyncratic, funny, informative.  A wee bit different than the stodgy wine writing you might be used to.

Adventures on the Wine Route is a great pleasure to read.

It’s this idea of pleasure, I think, that separates Mr. Lynch’s book from the others, and that also illumines his taste in wine.  Wine is, he writes, above all, pleasure.  

What’s he a fan of?  Good wine.  He’s not a fan of filtration – which, though it makes more wine safe from spoiling, also makes it impossible to achieve the heights unfiltered wines can achieve.  We would not castrate all men, he writes, because some of them go haywire and commit rape.

Thank god for that.

But today - the event at the Chapel.  Not only is it Kermit Lynch, he's going to be in conversation with Rajat Parr, wine director for the Mina Group

At Parr’s restaurants - like Michael Mina - he says his concern is with showcasing the wine itself – not necessarily its reputation, but what’s in the bottle.  He says to taste with your heart, not your mind – which might give you a clue as to why they get on so well.

He also is the author of Secrets of the Sommeliers – bestseller and winner of a James Beard Cookbook Award.

Plus, he loves PDT, a speakeasy in New York which is one of my favorite bars, ever – in addition to his own Clock Bar here in the city, meaning you don’t have to travel 3,000 miles to get there.

Both men would agree that the great occasions of our life are celebrated with food and wine.  So, today, a celebration of an amazing author, a terrific book – and great wine.

Oh, and that fat one that was thrown over my plate?  It was the request to introduce both men at the Chapel - something I will gladly do.  Here's me, then, swinging away.

Join us if you can.

Introducing the Jenny Bonnet - Jenny to you.

One of the perks you get as a bookseller is being able to peek at books before they're published - we sometimes see these advance copies so that we're good and ready to tell you about them when they do come out.  Such is the case with Emma Donoghue's Frog Music.

You'll know Ms. Donoghue from her previous writing including her last novel, the bestselling Room - that desperate, claustrophobic and brilliant story about the ends one mother goes to in an attempt to shelter her son from their unthinkable crisis of circumstance.  Have you not read Room?  Go, ok?  Just go do that.

As is her wont, she has jumped from the contemporary to the historical in Frog Music.  It's the United States' Centennial and brash and dynamic San Francisco is where Blanche Beunon will be run over - literally - by Jenny Bonnet, a frog hunting, oft-arrested (for appearing in the apparel of the opposite sex), bicycle stealing twenty-seven-year-old who will spirit into your consciousness even quicker than she can snatch frogs.

More's the pity that Jenny is shotgunned on page three.  Leave it to Ms. Donoghue to introduce a woman you'll fall in love with as soon as she sings a lullaby to Blanche - leaving the rest of the novel to show how they met and why they ended up ambushed at Eight Mile House.

But all that's for next year - April of 2014 when Frog Music hits our shelves.  In the meantime, I'd like you to enjoy a drink inspired by Jenny.  I started with genever - gin before there was gin - because, yes, alliteration, but also because it's something Jenny and Blanche might've shared at the Pony Express Saloon.  It'll keep you warm through the winter - until spring when you can meet Jenny for yourself.

Another perk booksellers sometimes receive is breaking bread with authors during pre-publication tours.  I'm lucky enough to meet Ms. Donoghue tonight in San Francisco - and though we may not get to sample a Jenny, we will be able to talk about the real life Jenny Bonnet who inspired Frog Music.

The Jenny Bonnet:

 2 oz. Bols Genever
.75 oz. simple syrup
.75 oz. fresh lemon juice
.5 oz. Luxardo Maraschino Liqueur
2 drops Cherry Bark Vanilla Bitters

Combine all - except bitters - and stir with ice.  Strain into chilled glass.  Add bitters & garnish with maraschino cherry.

Mrs. Poe

First there came the book, and the book was Mrs. Poe by Lynn Cullen.  I was seduced by the novel because it gleamed like a diamond in gaslight, its facets glittering.  Look, there's a love story.  Over here, a tale of 19th century Boston and New York with their cobbled streets and sinister corners.  And sparking over it all, Edgar Allan Poe.  So part masterful biography, too.

But always glinting, first here, then there - the two woman that would complete Poe's triangle.  Their love story wasn't innocent, of course.  Is seduction ever innocent?  And who - there at the beginning - was I supposed to like more?  Mrs. Poe, the frail and dying wife of the poet?  Or Frances Osgood, a writer herself, laboring to support her children after her husband left her for a brighter bauble?

So the book came first.  Then came the dinner.

Booksellers are sometimes treated to pre-publication parties in celebration of an author or authors.  This dinner took place in July and Ms. Cullen was one of the authors being feted.

The gatherings are almost always a delight and this was no exception.  The hope is that you meet the author - putting the proverbial face to a name - but also, just maybe, something more.  Something that sometimes happens when you're able to talk to an author over bread and wine - about the book and how it came to be or about some interesting morsel that dropped to the floor but that's still illuminating.

I'm lucky to sometimes be included in those gatherings.  On that San Francisco night, we talked books and booze and writing.

The drink came next.

I have a bit of a thing for Poe -  and for cocktails - and so there was some mingled talk that night about both.  I was delighted, then, when I was asked by Ms. Cullen to create a drink for the book.  Mrs. Poe had been chosen by Book Movement to be their Book of the Month for October.  Book Movement is a great resource for book clubs and they requested food and drink suggestions to accompany the discussions the book would generate.

If the drink had been called Edgar, absinthe may have played a role, but for Mrs. Poe it seemed something lighter was in order.  Although, even when good cocktails taste that way, they're never really light.

Mrs. Poe would begin with St. Germain, a wonderful liqueur that's light and aromatic, made from frail elderflowers.  Perfect for her.

Maybe that and a little gin - I said cocktails are never light, right?  Some Benedictine, too, because that's something that Poe - Mr. and Mrs. - could have sipped in their New York, and I wanted to include something contemporaneous.

After some mixing and matching, Mrs. Poe became:


1.5 oz. Hendrick's Gin
.25. oz. St. Germain
1 barspoon Benedictine
1 dash Peychaud's bitters

Stir all with ice. Strain into chilled cocktail glass. Garnish with lemon twist.


Then we decided (this had become a collaboration and Lynn is as much the author of these drinks as she is of Mrs. Poe) some punches would be fun, too - since punches were all the rage in New York society in the 1840's.  Like, for example: 

Mrs. Poe's Punch:

  

2 cups apple juice, chilled
Juice of 8 lemons, about 1.5 cups
1 cup sugar
Fresh mint
1 or 2 bottles champagne, chilled
Frozen raspberries

Lightly muddle mint leaves with apple juice and sugar.  Add lemon juice and stir until sugar dissolves.  Chill until it's time to talk about Mrs. Poe.  Pour into punch bowl.  Add champagne to taste.  Garnish with frozen raspberries and mint.

As you can imagine, this was a joy for me.  Here I was, mixing two of my passions.  Terrific, yes? 

And that would have been enough, but then the wonderful people at Gallery Books (hello Stephanie DeLuca and Simon and Schuster) created a terrific broadside with the recipes for the punches and the cocktail. 

I've been called a number of things in my time, but never a mixologist, and yet there it was - in print - so it had to be true, right? 

So we made some drinks, and others have now made some drinks, and the drinks are good but the book?  The book's marvelous. 

For me, a favor?  Please purchase Mrs. Poe - I'd prefer that you bought it from your favorite indie bookseller, but what I really want is for you to own it, to read it.  So get it.  And if you have time, stop by ye olde bookshoppe tonight because Lynn Cullen will be there and we'll be talking Mrs. Poe and sipping more of those drinks. 

Stop by, yes?  I'll save a seat for you.

Dean Petrulas: August 10, 1936 - October 23, 2013


When the phone rang fifty minutes past midnight this morning, I knew my Uncle Dean had died.  Phones don't ring at that hour for other reasons.

I was supposed to be on a plane later in the morning - flying out to Salt Lake City to visit him.  We spoke briefly yesterday, the last time we would speak, and our conversation was short and heartbreaking.  Short because he didn't have the strength to talk very long, heartbreaking because his words were so labored but so soft that it was clear my uncle was passing.


Dean Petrulas, 1943

I held out arrogant hope that because I let him know I was on my way, he would be alive today, would be there waiting for me.  Would be present for one last visit.

I can be a smug, foolish man.

Dean Petrulas (yes, his name was shorter, yes) was the last member of his generation from the Petrulakis family.

My Papou and YiaYia had long since left us.  My father's sister, Sylvia, was the first of the four siblings to pass away - shortly after our own Elizabeth was born.  Elizabeth, named after my grandmother, my YiaYia.

This family, my family, was so loud - though my father was the most quiet - but so loud, so Greek.

This family, my family - and now they're gone.

My Papou, the coal miner - the man who would begin this family, my family.  George Anthony Petrulakis.  Why did he leave Crete as a teenager?  The stories vary.  There may have been a sister, avenged, and the need to flee.  There may have been a land of opportunity turned to when there were no opportunities at home.

Maybe it was just wanderlust.

My strongest memory of Papou is from my last summer with him, our last visit together.  After our annual drive - 714 miles from Sherwood Avenue in Modesto, California to Ramona Avenue in Salt Lake City, Utah - Papou met us outside his brick bungalow.  With a huge smile, he beckoned his grandchildren into his backyard, his yellow dahlias ablaze, and there, in front of the ramshackle detached garage, was a plastic tub filled with sand.

Carefully placed among the sculpted dunes?  Plastic cowboys and Indians.  Green ones and blue ones, red ones and yellow.  Attacking, retreating.  A tableau of the old west, of old time Utah, created for three boys from Modesto.  And YiaYia just stood there smiling at the love this old man showed for his young grandchildren - the only grandchildren I thought he had.

YiaYia.  YiaYia who was raised in Dawson, New Mexico.  YiaYia who, in my mom's kitchen, cooked the best Mexican feast I've ever had - homemade tortillas and enchiladas and re-fried beans.  Everything made from scratch.  Great Mexican cooking from a Greek YiaYia.

YiaYia.  YiaYia and her ridiculous affection for Kitty, her Siamese.  Kitty who hissed at everyone but YiaYia.

Well, at everyone but YiaYia and my Thea Sylvia, my dad's only sister.  Thea Sylvia who sent my brother George a silver letter opener for high school graduation, who sent me a gold tie pin.  What did she send my brother Dean?  I forget.  I forget so much.  But not her laugh.  Thea Sylvia's laugh?  Oh, Thea.  I miss you.  I'm so sorry you and YiaYia never met Elizabeth, never met Kristina.

Uncle Pete at least met Elizabeth.  Uncle Pete who passed away this year in that cruel month of April.  Uncle Pete who, one summer night, grabbed a grasshopper for me in front of his house in Sandy, Utah.  Held it in his fingers and gently pinched its head until it spit out what he said was tobacco.  And since he said it, I believed it.  Believed it and tried to replicate the pinching back home in Modesto - never successfully.

Uncle Pete who showed me the framed painting of the raccoon that he sheepishly said he spent too much money on, but that he loved.  Uncle Pete who came into my bedroom after I ran from my family, crying.  Crying because they'd just mentioned - this family, my family - they'd just mentioned, in passing, that Uncle Pete had been married before, had a daughter I never knew.  Everyone knew, it seemed, but me.  And Uncle Pete came into my room, quiet, and just talked to me.  Man to man even though I was a boy.  Talked and then explained to his brother, my dad, why it was important that we had talked.

My dad?  Ah, Dad.  Dad, I miss you.  Dad, I love you.

And Uncle Dean was the last, the last of this family, my family.  Uncle Dean who I spoke with more in the few years since my father passed away than in all the time before.  Uncle Dean, the last repository of the stories, of the knowledge, of the tales of this family, my family, the family Petrulakis.

Uncle Dean, who died at 1:52 am.  Judy called me then, right then, and we talked and we cried and I told her to tell Uncle Dean that I loved him, and she did, whispered to him my words while I apologized for not being there - I was supposed to be on a plane later this morning to visit.  My visit was going to keep Uncle Dean alive for a few more hours, I had that power, didn't I?

Didn't I?

And then, with Uncle Dean already gone, my flight would be canceled.  Oakland fog and gray, mocking skies would cancel my flight.  What power do we have?  We have no power.


Can I tell you a story about my Uncle Dean?  About the thing that comes to mind first when I think of him, of that tall, powerful man?

It must've been, what, 1975?  Was that when Glen Campbell sang about his Rhinestone Cowboy?  Uncle Dean was soon to arrive at the house, his parent's bungalow on Ramona, and when he did, the three Petrulakis boys would line up inside the front door, practically ready to salute when he came in.

And come in he did, Uncle Dean - confirmed bachelor, owner of a new car (seemingly) every year.  Did he once own a yellow Lincoln Continental with suicide doors?  Oh, he did.

So Uncle Dean walked in, and we've dutifully lined up for him, standing there in the living room of YiaYia's house, that brick house with the porch we'd jump from onto the small patch of grass, the grass where we'd drink cream soda during those Salt Lake summers - the three of us, the three brothers, in the new sneakers we'd get each year before making the trip to Utah.  And Uncle Dean walked in, and we saluted and smiled, and he looked at us, and down at our new shoes, and up at my dad - and by this time Uncle Dean was laughing.

"Tone," he said, calling my dad by one of the many nicknames he'd earned in Hiawatha - Wheels being my personal favorite - "Tone," he said, shaking his head and looking back down at our new shoes, "that is the exact reason why I'll never get married and have kids."

And that incident became shorthand for my thoughts of Uncle Dean.  I admired him for it.  Here was a man, part of this family, my family, who knew himself so well, who was so comfortable in that knowledge, that he could admit to his brother that perhaps he was selfish enough never to want children - but that he was content with the realization.  Happy to go about his life with his new cars and terrific condo on the golf course without the encumbrance of kids.

But then - a funny thing happened.  Life happened.  Life happened and Karen and I got married and then Karen got pregnant - though this took too long, the time between the one and then the other, much too long according to many of the Greeks in our life.

But after Karen became pregnant, we made our calls to share the news - and Uncle Dean was one of the first calls I made.

We talked for a minute about nothing - and then I said, "Uncle Dean, I've got some news."  And after I told him, that Karen was expecting, that we had a little girl on the way, the line got very quiet.

Very quiet.


Karen, Nick, Uncle Dean, Dean, Wheels
1989

"Nick," Uncle Dean said, "the best thing you ever did was marry Karen.  That young woman," he said, "she is so smart."

"I know," I said, "I keep trying to figure out what she sees in me."

"That's not what I'm talking about right now," he said.  "What I'm talking about right now is the fact that it's the best thing you ever did."

He became quiet again.

"But the best thing the two of you will ever do is what you just told me.  It's a blessing, Nick," he said.  "Your family is a blessing.  And you remember that, ok?  Because I made a mistake.  Never getting married was a mistake.  Family is so important and I made a mistake."

We talked more after that, but not much.  My conversations with my uncle were always short, then.  Not like they've been lately.  But his revelation was a surprise - because "Uncle Dean" was a story that I told, a story about a man - when he was younger than I am now - who admitted to his oldest brother that he knew what was right for him, for Uncle Dean, and a wife wasn't right for him and kids certainly weren't right for him.

But here he was, my Uncle Dean, this important part of this family, my family, upending the convention that I had created.  Upending and exploding it with a simple declaration that I had done right where he had done wrong.

My Uncle Dean was an amazing man.  An amazing man who was fortunate to find an amazing woman - Judy - with whom he spent the last ten years of his life.  Not married, no - but happier together than many who are.  And we were happy, too, everyone was happy that Uncle Dean had found his family with Judy.  Each of those boys that he ribbed my dad about almost forty years ago had found their own families, and Uncle Dean had found his, too.

My Uncle Dean was an amazing man.  Hardworking and proud.  The way he talked about my dad these last few years, the delight he demonstrated in displaying the pictures of his nieces and nephews - the gratitude in his voice when he talked to Judy, or about Judy.

My Uncle Dean was an amazing man, such an important part of this family, my family.

I'm sorry I wasn't there with you yesterday, Uncle Dean.  I love you.  I miss you.

Eternal be your memory.

St. George Single Malt Whiskey, Lot 13

Living on an island - Alameda - in the San Francisco Bay brings with it many things:  a great group of friends, good elementary schools, a terrific indie bookstore, a distillery.  And if we were playing that game, Which-of-These-is-Not-Like-the-Other, it might be easy to pick the distillery - but oh, how lucky we are.

St. George Spirits has been craft-distilling for more than thirty years.  When they began, in 1982, I was in high school and Olivia Newton John was screaming about getting Physical.  I didn't really know what she meant - let me hear your body talk? Really? - and like most Americans, I had no idea that craft distilling was even a thing.

We drank Metaxa in my house.  Still do.  But now I supplement that with whiskey.

Unfortunately, the luxury of a distiller in your back yard doesn't mean that you get to sample their wares all the time, more's the pity.  St. George just released this years' iteration of their whiskey, the 13th Lot of this beauty of a single malt, but it's a difficult bottle to score.

Having been hailed as one of the whiskies you must try before you die, having been called phenomenal, unlike any other U.S. single malt - these well-earned words of praise ensure they never have a surplus.  St. George distills, bottles, and ships it - then it's gone for another year.

This season I went all proactive and called two of my favorite spirits shops in San Francisco - Blackwell's and Cask.  Cask already had a waiting-list and added my name to it.  Blackwell's didn't have a list going, so they started one for me.

The following week, the shipments began arriving - I got a call from Blackwell's first.  By that time they had lots of people interested in the bottles they had and they wanted to know if I wanted mine.

Yes.

A few days passed, however, before I had the time to head across the new Bay Bridge - and on my first attempt, there was gridlock on the approach.  As I fumed in my car, I received a phone call.  Since I wasn't actually moving, even though I was on a freeway, I answered.



New Bay Bridge in front, old Bay Bridge behind.

It was Blackwell's, tactfully inquiring if I still wanted my bottle of the St. George because many other people had expressed interest in it.

I explained the irony of my being in my car and that I was - in theory - on my way there right then, but that the traffic was making forward progress negligible.  The next step, of course, to secure the Lot 13 under my name was simply to purchase it over the phone.  And again, since I wasn't moving, I dug in my pocket for the little plastic card that would keep the St. George on hand for me.

When, finally, I got to the halfway point on the bridge - the old connecting with the new - I took the exit for Treasure Island and just turned around and went home with the knowledge that when I was actually able to drive to San Francisco, my bottle would be waiting.

The next day, I talked to my friend Nick - yes, we travel in packs - and since he's fond of mash and what it can become, he expressed interest in a bottle of the whiskey if another became available.  Which is about when I got the call from Cask saying that they had a few extra bottles that hadn't been picked up and if I was interested I should call.

Right away.

Except when I returned their call ten minutes later they were closed.

I began dialing thirty minutes before they opened the next morning.  They didn't answer until one minute past the hour, but they finally did answer and I was able to add Nick's bottle to my bounty.  But then I called Nick and told him to call Cask and see if they had any other bottles available.

You know, just in case.

I didn't see Nick until Saturday night when a group of friends met at the Punchline in San Francisco in celebration of his wife's birthday.  I had just dropped off his bottle the day before - left it on his doorstep like a milkman delivering bottles, clink clink.

At the comedy club Nick told me that when he called Cask asking about the whiskey, they politely told him no, they didn't have any in reserve.  Nick gently toiled ahead, saying that perhaps he had heard through the grapevine that there might be a few bottles that weren't spoken for...maybe?

The woman at Cask laughed and said, By 'the grapevine,' do you mean Nick Petrulakis?

And then they both laughed.

Turns out there were a few other Nicks already on the list so she may not at first have believed my Nick when he asked to add that moniker to the growing queue, but she obliged him the addition of his name, without, alas, being able to follow through any more than that.

But he has his bottle, I have mine.  And the whiskey?

This version of St. George's Single Malt?  Lot 13?  It's splendid.  It's a fruit-first whiskey that lets you discover chocolate and cinnamon as you enjoy your glass, then it finishes smooth.  She's lovely to look at - light in the glass and bright on the tongue.  Sip her - unless you want to make a helluva great cocktail.

I had my first taste from a pre-Prohibition shot glass because, yes, it does go down better that way.  I like to imagine the San Francisco hands who slid this shot glass across bar tops more than a century ago.  I like to imagine the people who accepted the shot, tasted the whiskey, set the glass down and twirled their finger in the air as they called for another round.

And another.

With this St. George, that's an easy thing to do.

Savory Cocktails

Fall's coming, and your drinks should reflect that.  I mean, go right ahead and enjoy your Gin and Tonics in October, but when the leaves outside begin to turn and the flames inside your fireplace start popping, savory cocktails will respond perfectly to those autumnal clues.

Thankfully, Greg Henry has arrived with his new book, Savory Cocktails.

Henry is the author of Savory Pies - and now he's brought his palate and eye (his photographs in the books are stunning) to the bar.

Savory Cocktails is perfect for the novice drink mixer - with brief introductions to glassware, tools and techniques, but more experienced drink wizards will revel in his delectable recipes.

Don't think an heirloom tomato belongs in a cocktail? Just wait until you taste his Salad Bowl Gin and Tonic.  Horseradish and cucumber?  Try out his Breeder's Cup.

The drinks are grouped in categories like Herbal, Umami, and Smoky.  I went with Smoky.

My first selection was the Autumn Ash.  I hadn't had Scotch in a while - bourbon and rye have taken over my bar - but the smoky notes to the Ash caught my eye.  And while Henry calls for a blended scotch in this drink, I went with Glenfiddich because I had a bottle (and incurred the wrath of a friend who intoned that I had sullied the Glenfiddich and where did I get off thinking this type of heresy should be allowed?)

Ouch.

Still, it made for a delightful drink, so there's that.

 

Henry's photos are lovelier.

AUTUMN ASH

 

2 oz. Glenfiddich (or a blended scotch whiskey to keep my friend Al off your back)

1 oz. Laird's Applejack

.25 oz. St. Germain elderflower liqueur

2 dashes Angostura orange bitters

 

Combine the scotch, apple brandy, liqueur and bitters with ice.  Stir.

 

Strain into a chilled cocktail glass.  Squeeze a lemon twist over the drink, rub it on the glass' rim, and use as garnish.

Shave and a Haircut

Bad hair day doesn't begin to cut it, so I had to cut it.  I had Shirley-Temple curls, Alfalfa sprouts - I was a mess.  So much so, that when I picked up the kids for their first Daddy Day of the new school year, Daughter #1 said, from the backseat...

Daddy, you need a haircut.

...and simultaneously, from Daughter #2:

You need a haircut, Daddy.

Which is unanimous and so off we went to a Barber Shop of My Own.

The Temescal Alley Barber Shop is old-school in the ridiculously hipster way people use the term.  No sinks for washing scalps - you come in clean.  A barber-pole outside.  Hex tile floors inside.

The one major change is that among the gents cutting hair there's usually one gal.  So this isn't your grandfather's barbershop, but he'd approve.

Trust me, he'd approve.

So we park right across the street, on 49th, and then I put my name on the barber-shop's chalkboard.

Lots of hair on the floor, Daddy, Kristina says - and I say, Yes.  That happens in Barber Shops.  She just shakes her head.

While waiting, we check out the offerings in the Alley's other shops - super-expensive pants, hot hot coffee, succulents and dried sage.

Elizabeth picks up a bundle of that dried sage inside Homestead Apothecary and breathes in its earthy smell.  Ooh, I like that, she says.

A young customer inside has tats - everyone's got tats, or piercings, or both, and as I'm feeling especially like a citizen of Squares Ville, I hear my name called out by the young man who wrote it on the chalkboard earlier.

The girls decide to sit outside, in the shade (which is a relief on this hot August afternoon), and pet the dog stretched out under their bench. 


I go inside and take a belt of the Bulleit they have on a high shelf.  It goes down all spicy, orangey, and sweet.  Since I was last here, the shop's front door got moved - but more importantly, the bourbon and rye got moved, too, from the low bottom shelf of a cabinet to this high shelf on the wall.

Different location, same good taste.

I sit and my barber just looks at the unruly mop I offer once I take off my Giants' cap.

A trim? he says.

No, no, I say.  A proper cut.

Really? he says.

Really, I say.

Ok, he says, smiling.  Let's get you good and cleaned up.




The reading material is period appropriate.

We start talking.  He's got three kids - three, two and ten months.  A brave man, certainly.

My guy tells me that his #1 son is a big reader, like his mom.  Began by eating pulpy board books, as good readers should, and lit off from there.

Then he tells the young man at the door that he's ready for a drink.  A Shebang? the young man offers.  No, my guy says, the Whole Shebang.

Another of the barbers looks at the clock - a few minutes before three - and says that's it's also time for him to have a Whole Shebang.

What's a Whole Shebang? I say.

My guy pauses as he clips.  You're probably hoping it's got something inside that's high-octane, he says and laughs.

I was hoping that, yes.

You've had a shot yourself, right? and he points to the high shelf.  Magazines up there, too, he says.

What they were reading in August, 1971

I nod.

A Shebang, he says, will disappoint you then.  It's just Gatorade--

Original, I say?  Not purple or blue?

Original, yes, he says.  Yellow.  But a Whole Shebang is the Gatorade and Red Bull.  It's a good boost late in the afternoon.  Especially a hot afternoon like today.

So the young man leaves, and as he closes the door some of the hair on the tile floor does a little breeze-shift.  Lot of hair down there, I say.  My daughter thought it was funny, all the hair.

One of the other barbers, the guy who's in on the Whole-Shebang - his apron is leather, smooth like the skin on his scalp - shakes his head.  That would be the Apprentice's fault, he says.  There isn't supposed to be any hair on the floor.

Actually, my guy says, it's not supposed to even touch the floor.  He should catch it as it falls.

Fat chance, says the young barber - pretty and tattooed - who's just to our left.  But she's laughing as she says it.  Lots of laughs from this crew.

The bald barber looks my way.  First week of school for your kids? he says.  What grades?

Fourth and First, I say.

First grade, he says, and he scowls.  I fucking hated First Grade.  I got suspended on the first day of First Grade.

I didn't even know that was possible, my guy says.

What'd you do? I say.

I threw a chair at a kid, he says as he runs his fingers through the hair of the guy he's cutting on - checking to see if the ends are straight.  He deserved it, though, he says.

Lots of laughs at that.

And I went through all the steps to prevent it, he says.  I told the teacher three times that this kid was bugging me--

So you're a snitch in addition to being a truant? the pretty barber says without pausing as she combs through her customer's hair.

--I'm telling you, I tried letting the teacher know what was going on, but she just kept telling me to sit down, so I finally took matters into my own hands.  Taught him a lesson, too.

What was the provocation? I say.

He looks at me and says, all sotto voce, I didn't want to say this out loud - it's because I was crying.  I missed my mom, bad, and I'd been crying all day and this kid, man.  He just kept going at me, you know?  Just kept going at me.

Wow, the pretty barber says, you've got a lot going on, huh?  Terrible student, violent, and mommy issues, too.

Lots more laughter.

It's about this time that my guy drapes a hot towel around my neck - I always thought that getting my hair washed when I got it cut was the best feeling, but let me tell you, that hot towel?  As a prelude to getting the back of your neck shaved with a straight razor?  That's pretty great.

So he shaves me, and brushes me off, then whips the smock off like a matador.  How's that look? he asks as he swivels my chair around so I can get a look in the mirror.

Like a new man, the pretty barber says, and I smile at that because, yes - the curls are gone, the sprouts have been sheared, and I've got a shot of Bulleit in me and another story to tell.

Looks great, I say, and I tip my guy and go.

The girls are ready to head out, so we load up in the car and put Alameda in our sights.

Temescal Alley Barber Shop.  I'm just saying.