The Art of Shaving

While visiting my first born Ed up in Walnut Creek this last week, somehow we started talking about shaving. I mentioned how I only use a Bic disposable razor for sensitive skin with the orange handle and how I used to stock up on Yardley Lavender Lather shaving soap while in Hong Kong because you couldn't get it stateside. Ed told me how his wife Cassy bought him a very nice upscale shaving ensemble consisting of soap, razor, pre-shave conditioner and badger hair brush and how he really liked it. Cassy had bought the set at The Art of Shaving which was a short stroll from their apartment and asked if I would like to check it out. Of course I said yes as I'm always up for new and varied experiences. We went in and I was approached by a pleasant but somewhat pushy young man who started extolling the virtues of the proper shave IE with a real lather using a brush etc. etc. As I explained to him that I had been using a brush that I inherited from my Grandfather the Barber since before he was born, I was no stranger to the "art of shaving". Pure bullshit of course. My Grandfather Alfred Koch was a barber but I acquired my mug and brush in Hong Kong twenty years after his death. But I have been using the genuine mug and brush technique for over forty five years. Cest La Vie. The soap that he was trying to convince me that was indispensable to the shaving "art" was a mere $45. Forty five bucks for a cake of soap? Gee, maybe I really do look that stupid. Wink, wink, but I'm not.

Occasionally, when I stay at a upscale hotel/motel, they provide complementary soaps that are round and that fit nicely into my shaving mug. The whole stinking room is about the same price as the soap that the nice young man was trying to foist off on me. When I'm on the road, I usually just shave in the shower and rub some soap on my face and have at it.

But when I'm "spoiling myself" and want to artfully shave I do the below.

So here's the drill.

Wash your face to get the accumulated oil(s) knocked down. I actually use dishwashing liquid for this task. I know Joy or Ajax won't ex-foliate quite like the $22 60 ml. pre-shave oil, but man up and do it. Wet the brush with a lot of very hot water. Nothing moisturizes like water in my estimation. Work up a nice lather in the mug and brush it on your puss. Squeeze of the residual in the brush and smear it above your pie-hole. Let it soak in for twenty or thirty seconds and start shaving. First with the grain (down) and then if you think that you're gonna get lucky later on back up against the grain. It's like going to a girly spa for men and probably a hell of a lot cheaper.

Top off with a little after shave, I still Canoe, and your good to go.

Screw change, this is the way to get the growth off of your face.

A Trip to TJ's

I'm not sure how or when I left the fold, but I sure did. I do know why however. I love Trader Joe's. I've been going there since it was a two liqueur store chain. I worked in Alhambra Ca and a co-worker, Al Bull III mentioned TJs in passing. When I proclaimed my ignorance of TJ's, Al gave the place a very glowing oral review. Back then TJ's was primarily a very eclectic liquor store with a few extra items. I was immediately hooked. This was in 1974. As the years went by, Joe added more items but then I moved out of the San Gabriel valley to live aboard and left TJs and In-and-Out behind me.

About 1980, TJ opened a store at Marina Pacifica in Long Beach and a few years later In-and-Out built a drive-through practically across the street from TJs. Both are less than a quarter of a mile from where I am moored. Life was, once again, complete.

I made my trips to TJ's to buy specifically the Italian pastas, the Santini Olive oil, the seeded baguettes, Palugra butter and the coffee. And let's not forget the Two Buck Chuck.

The store was small and as I hate crowds I went less and less. I couldn't seem to find an uncrowded time. It didn't matter early morning, mid-day or evening, I was always getting mowed down by a cart being pushed by some impatient portly yuppie who was perpetually in a hurry to go where, or do what else? This all resulted in my making less, and less, trips to TJs.

The other day while in Walnut Creek visiting with my son and his wife Cassy, we walked over to TJs, and I was immediately back in the fold.

The Italian pastas are now a buck, up from 69 cents. So what else hasn't gone up in price? I stocked up. No Santini olive oil so I got the TJ house brand. Seeded baguette, check. This one had anise seeds on it which seemed to overpower the taste of the bread itself. There was no Palugra butter in stock but Cassy thought that maybe it was because this was a fairly small store, even for Trader Joe's. Five bottles of Two Buck Chuck rounded out this excursion's purchases.

But the main event is the coffee. I'd been buying TJ's House Blend for years and there wasn't any to be had. Small store syndrome once again? They had decaf house blend but drinking decaf is kinda like having phone sex, why bother?

I got the Joe's Dark Coffee, $3.99 for a 13 Oz. can of beans. What a deal! I'd been buying ground coffee, in a can, from the supermarket for some time now and those days are probably over.

This morning, I dusted off my trusty Magic Bullet and ground up some beans, made a pot and am in heaven.

It looks like I'll be returning to my local TJ's, which is also within walking distance since they moved into a bigger location, real soon seeking out the elusive Palugra butter and Santini olive oil.

The Great Hope

It was just about two years ago when I was sitting in my hotel room in Vallejo watching the Republican National Convention when John McCain introduced Sarah Palin to us, the citizens of the USA. I liked her at once, but shades of Jimmy Carter I knew that she would get chewed up and spit back into Alaska. But son-of-a-gun she just wont go away. She's honing her political saber to a fine point and using Mr. Obama like a piece of paper to judge just how sharp it is.

Well guess what, it's getting a very fine edge on it. I'm watching her, right now, speaking in Anaheim stirring up the crowd, and stir it up she does.

For years, my dad in his wisdom as a die-hard union Democrat would go on about how the Democrats would get us into wars and the Republicans would get us into recessions, and once again it looks like the old man was right on the money. For the last generation, the Republicans tried on a variety of new dresses to see how they would be perceived. But as an old sailor friend of mine used to say, you know what you get when you put a new dress on an old whore. You have an old whore in a new dress.

Me thinks that Sarah may just be the undoing of the GOP, that she may just be the new spirit that is so badly needed. A blast of wind from the North, The Wolf. The new age of the GOP and hopefully the country.

I listened to Gorbachov speak years ago and remarked to myself that it sounded like maybe this commie was for real and speaking the truth and it came to pass that he really was.

I get the same feeling of hope listening to Sarah this evening.

Let us all hope, pray, think positivity or what ever works for you that maybe this bleak period of US history maybe be closing.

The roots of this bleakness go way beyond Obama and even Bush.

Basically it has been a mind-set of me-to, not what can I do for my country.

Just when did the world go crazy, and when did you realize that it had?

I remember my grandparents walking around bitching about how the whole world was going to hell. Yah, and I rolled my eyes back and grumbled about how the old farts didn't like the way things appeared to be going. Well, here I am and here I go.

A few weeks ago I started hearing about how some Muslims wanted in NYC wanted to build a mosque two blocks away from Ground Zero. Being that the USA is supposed to be a free country, the question is, do they have the right to build there. The answer is, yes, they do have the right. Is it the right thing to do, no, it's incredibly wrong and it is also unbelievably insensitive. It should be an insult to all Americans whether they be Christian, Jew, Wicka or even Muslim.

Next to further escalate the madness, some asshole in Florida, who calls himself a man of God, threatens to burn Korans. That's real bright. If you don't stop talking about building your mosque near Ground Zero, I'm going to start burning your holy books. If you ever spent over over five minutes on a school playground during recess, you probably know the the probability of success of that particular tactic. Once again. In our fair country does Reverend Buba have the right? In case you dozed off recently the answer is yes. This charlatan does, as an American, indeed have the right. Once again, though he has the right, it is not the right thing to do. It is also incredibility insensitive and no way to get the opposition to back down. Should there be a knock on his door at two o'clock in the morning like in Nazi Germany and have the boy "go to camp". I think maybe so.

Now we have some other hugely mis-guided folks who want to exercise their constitutional rights by displaying signs at military funerals citing that the newly deceased had it coming because of our, by their opinion, tolerance to homosexuality. IE that there are gays in the military. By now, we don't have to repeat the mantra of whether they have the right etc. etc. and whether it is the right thing to do.

I have a pragmatic solution here. It is so logical that I wonder why it hasn't been implemented by now.

Issue the Marine Honor Guard live ammo. Instead of shooting the 21 salute up in the air, yup blow those morons away. Preferably right into the fallen Soldier, or Marine, or Sailor, or Airman's grave and fill it in.

Damn, if I were King, the world would be a much better place to live.

Ya Shudda Been Here Last Week

In case you don't know it, I love the heat. As a kid growing up in Cleveland I delivered the morning paper, The Cleveland Plain Dealer. In the dead of winter, I would get up at five in the morning and freeze my ass off. With the wind howling in off of Lake Erie, it was enough to make me vow to get the hell out of that out-door freezer and head for a warmer clime.

When I arrived at LAX one February evening and it was eighty degrees as I deplaned, I knew I was at my new home.

Well last week, I was working in Watertown So. Dakota, a very nice place with very nice folks. But let's face it, it aint a beach city. The weather was almost nice in SD, it rained half of the time and it was still September so the cool mornings were just that, very cool, but not freakin' cold.

Back at the marina however, it was a very different story. Last Monday the all time high temperature record was broken. Not for that particular date, but the all time record. How does 113 sound? Sounded pretty good to me.

Here it is now exactly one week later and the temp is less than half of that 113.

I know, I know, all of those Clevelanders are wondering what the hell am I bitching about, it's still thirty degrees above freezing. Well after living here in La La Land, thirty degrees above is cold.

There is one thing however to take the sting out of being so cold. Grandma Kochberg's home-made matzo ball soup.

It's about the only thing worthwhile about being cold. So here we go again. The days are getting shorter and colder, so light off the soup-kettle cookie and make us a pot. It's real complicated.

You get a box of Manischewitz Matzo Ball Mix. There's two packets in the box. For one or two hungry sailors make only one packet. Blend two eggs with two tablespoons of oil and mix in the packet of he Matzo. Put the mixture in the fridge to firm up.

Bring four cups of water up to a boil. Take one of the two boxes of the Mrs. Grass' Chicken Noodle Soup mix and pour the contents into the pot. There will be noodles, powdered chicken broth and the ever so lovely Golden Flavor Nugget swirling around the pot.

After the soup comes back to the boil, take the Matzo mix out of the fridge and roll into balls the size of golf balls and drop into the soup. You should make four. At this point, I like to throw in about a 1/4 cup of rice because I like the chicken and rice combo.

Cover the pot, turn down the heat to a simmer and take smell as the galley starts to take on the aroma.

Now be patient and wait twenty minutes because as Alton Brown likes to say, your patience will be rewarded.

ZYNC?

I heard an ad on the telly this morning for an American Express Zinc card. I really couldn't believe what I heard, so I Googled it. Yup, there is a ZYNC card.

I have heard of a Platinum card, a Gold card, a Green Card and even a Silver card. But a Zinc card? Please.

Who's the freakin' marketing moron who came up with a ZYNC card? Zinc is the bottom feeder of the metals world. It is literally used as a "sacrificial metal" on ships and boats. It's the stuff that you let erode away in order to save the worthwhile stuff. Zinc is so worthless that it is the primary metal used in making American one cent coins since 1982.

I'm guessing that the marketing genius who came up with that snappy name will be standing in the unemployment line and be voting Democratic by election day. I wish that I knew his, or her, name so that I could track the meteoric arc of their carrier. Perhaps he should be retrained as a burger flipper at Mac-you-know-where.

Do you want fries with this card?