Kiss The Cook, Bang The Baker

Call it a mid-life crisis, call it whatever you want, but I’ve been possessed by a new obsession and it’s baking. I’ve always loved freshly-baked bread and live right by one of the greatest artisan bread bakeries in California, La Brea Bakery. Consequently, the thought of baking my own artisan bread was exciting to me. I stayed away from supermarket mixes like Pillsbury but dabbled with Duncan Hines and Ghirardelli mixes just to get oriented.

Insofar as baking bread, I bought a Rosemary & Basil Ciabatta mix and it turned out okay but I wanted to get more radical. I went on the internet and printed out baking recipes from thefreshloaf.com, a site dedicated to artisan bread baking and has a pretty awesome forum where people trade bread baking tips.

My baking obsession continued with classes at Sur La Table at Hollywood’s legendary Farmer's Market. In the dead of summer I slaved over a hot oven learning how to bake focaccia, braided challah – which reminded me of The Wicker Man because that’s how a challah is designed, and pumpernickel, which is considered in some circles as an artisan rye bread.

You can buy millions of cookbooks but until you’ve attended a few cooking classes you’ll never really learn how to bake bread properly. At my classes I learned all the appropriate tools used for baking: the dough scraper, the standing mixer (for making dough), much faster and more efficient at mixing, egg wash, pizza stones, etc.

The classes also provided valuable perspective on the chemistry needed for successful baking, case in point being that yeast is a bacteria, so using iodized salt will kill the bacteria, so always use kosher salt. For the very same reason distilled water should be used and not tap water, tap water has fluoride, which also kills bacteria. You don’t want to fight yeast, you want to allow it to work in the production of baking.

PIZZA: Pictured above is a pizza that I baked with dough seasoned with basil and sprinkled with olive oil. I used a store bought pizza sauce (sorry) and topped it with parmesan and mozzarella cheeses, mushrooms and lamb sausage to give it a wonderful Middle Eastern accent. I made enough for two pies, both of which were demolished in less than a week.

DESSERT: Pictured above are double fudge brownies with vanilla topping and semi-sweet chocolate chips to give it that Las Vegas dice effect.

Pictured here is a Punk Rock Spice Cake, where I baked a Betty Crocker Spice Cake mix and put in some blue food coloring making the brown cake mix turn green (!). I topped it with pink strawberry icing and even threw in some raisins to make it extra chewy. This one got chomped pretty fuckin’ fast, too.

The kick in baking your own stuff is that you can be as inventive as you want. My Lamb Sausage Pizza was a big hit and it still conformed to the classic pizza format. My next project will be a Green and Red Pesto Pizza with big buffalo mozzarella clouds and I’ll be baking that next weekend. Call for samples!

Happy Birthday Parker Posey

Every year I wish a fellow Scorpio a Happy Birthday; last year it was Alain Delon so this year I’m wishing a Happy Birthday to Parker Posey, one of my favorite actresses. A sort of modern day Louise Brooks (another Scorpio), instead of kids creaming over Audrey Hepburn they should be checking out every cool movie this nut ever starred in. She even put in an appearance in “The Coneheads” movie early in her career.

Born on November 8th, the daughter of a car dealership (“Posey Chevrolet”) mogul in Mississippi, Posey began her career acting in soap operas like “As The World Turns”. Tiring quickly of zooming tight shots before commercial breaks, Posey got small roles in movies, the most memorable (besides “Coneheads”) being in Hal Hartley’s brilliant “Amateur”, playing a punk chick commenting on the electrocuted state of a computer wizard. She looked more punk rock than most Lower East Side club girls, which probably explains how she got her big breakthrough role in “Party Girl” (1995), the funny film about a Lower East Side club girl who sets out to prove she can be a serious librarian. The standout scene is when she files all of her DJ roommate’s records in the Dewey Decimal System. (“100-200” is Jungle Music, “300-400” is Drum & Bass, “500-600” is Trance, “700-800” is House Music, etc.).

After “Party Girl” broke she became the unofficial queen of independent films in the Nineties. Other weirdo films soon followed, like “Drunks” starring Richard Lewis who tried to kick the sauce monkey by attending AA meetings, where Posey’s a member in group. “I wanted to slug whiskey just like Janis Joplin”, brags Posey with a silly, blissful grin. One of the most memorable aspects of the film was the way “I Must Be Mad” by The Craig kept playing through the movie. Weird! The cast was surprisingly star-studded for such a low budget production (Faye Dunaway, Calista Flockhart, Kevin Corrigan, etc.), but Posey steals the show.

More indie movies followed, “Dazed and Confused” (Linklater), “The Doom Generation” (Araki), and “Basquiat” (Schnabel). Her next really big picture was Christopher Guest’s brilliant “Waiting For Guffman” playing the girl from the local Dairy Queen who thinks “Red White and Blaine” is her big ticket out of town to Broadway.

Other films included “The Daytrippers” about a family who pile into their station wagon and plow through Manhattan trying to find Posey’s estranged brother-in-law and find out why he bailed on her sister (played by Hope “American Splendor” Davis).

There was also “Clockwatchers”, a great ensemble comedy co-starring Lisa Kudrow (hitting the indie movie circuit herself) and Toni Collette. The film is about a quartet of frustrated office temps waiting for something bigger to come along in their lives. The only one who appears to be a “lifer” in the temp game is Posey, whose jadedness and sarcasm gets her through the crushingly dull routine of temp work. This is easily one of her best performances to date.

She followed that with Hal Hartley’s “Henry Fool”, an utterly bizarre tale of a garbage man named Simon Grim who takes to writing pornographic poetry and finds his muse in the form of a drunken, philandering scoundrel named Henry Fool who in the course of staying at Simon's home manages to bugger both Simon’s mother and sister Fay, brilliantly played by Posey.

Big money-making movies soon followed for Posey, starring in high visibility jobs like “You’ve Got Mail”, “Scream 3”, and “Josie and The Pussycats”. By 2000 Posey was still starring in great indie pictures like “Best In Show” playing a neurotic yuppie dog owner. “Personal Velocity” was the brilliant story of a book editor who finds herself behaving more and more like the father she detested, realizing she has his arrogance and uses it to mercilessly step up in her career.

In “Fay Grim” she reprises her role from “Henry Fool”, now abandoned by Henry and notified by the CIA that his terribly written memoirs was really a code book for international terrorists, hiring her to track him down. A deadpan comic version of “The Third Man’ with Fay as the Joseph Cotten character and Henry as Harry Lime soon follows. This one was pretty strange, but again Posey turns in a stunning performance.

It’s hard to imagine catching all of Parker Posey’s movies, nine times out of ten you’ll end up finding them on IFC or The Sundance Channel, and when you do you’ll be watching an actress with her own unique sense of style, wit and humor. And, if anything else, she was the coolest judge in “Project Runway” history.

Pretties For You

In late 1971 Creem Magazine sent Lester Bangs out to write an article on the raging new rock force that was Alice Cooper, from which these pictures appeared.  It didn't hurt that the band spent a short tenure in the Detroit rock scene - where Creem Magazine was located - sharing bills with The MC5, Stooges, SRC, and The Frost (whose guitarists Dick Wagner and Steve Hunter later joined the band).

Before Alice became a trailer park rock god he earned a lot of bonus airline points playing the drag queen card, wearing falsies, Dolly Parton wigs and just queening out.  On the right is a still from the legendary "Ballad of Dwight Frye" song where's he's institutionalized in a strait jacket. In the next picture he's doing a bizarre Salvador Dali "Persistence of Memory" routine.  He later met Dali who adored Cooper to the point of creating a hologram of him.

Here's Alice in body stocking and heels to the left, and tearing the poster to the "Love It To Death" album on stage to the right.  Early footage of Alice Cooper performing live can be seen in Frank & Eleanor Perry's movie "Diary of a Mad Housewife" where chickens aren't killed, but pillows are ripped open instead and goose feathers are tossed around in a hail of pflug. 

When my band used to tour the driver got to choose which cassette tape we had to listen to while they drove. I had three guitar players; when one drove we had to listen to Neil Young & Crazy Horse, when the other drove we had to listen to the third Velvet Underground album, the real terrible one with songs like “I’m Set Free”, “Jesus”, and “I’m Beginning To See The Light”, yuck, and the third one played a tape that had Alice Cooper’s “Love It To Death” on one side and “Killer” on the other side. Guess who played the best guitar?

Here's Alice consolidating his queeny image by having his hair done at the beauty parlor.  He also had The Cockettes perform and appear at several events and shows around this time. I think Alice and Frank Zappa tried pretty hard to downplay any drug involvement because they were creepy guys from Laurel Canyon and at the time (1970-1971) every straight in LA thought if you had long hair and came from the Canyon you were Charles Manson, so eventually they went out of their way to brag about how average they were. Too bad. By the time "School's Out" was released (1972) our private party was over.

All photos by Ric Siegel, 1971

Smell Check 2010

Well, break out the champagne and crank up the brass band. Marc Jacobs has dropped his first men's cologne in 10 years called "Bang!" Not a great name but what a cool package! A bottle that looks like the bashed-in front of a car hood, all bent and twisted metal. The ad campaign (speaking of packages) depicts our intrepid designer totally nude sporting the ugliest tattoos this side of G.G. Allin with his jacked-up looking cologne bottle covering up his private parts (thank you, God!). The wait was definitely worth it; a sneak preview of the scent is enjoyable and sexy, so bypass the ads and just get it. You won't be sorry.

Light Blue (Dolce & Gabbana) = More Dolce than Gabbana, this sweet-smelling EDT (Eau de Toilette) has the standard blue, cool odor we've come to know and love by now. Very fruity, light and airy, but nothing new.

L'Eau D'Issey Pour Homme (Issey Miyake) = A little cinnamon, a little musk, not a bad combination, I liked it much more than L'Eau D'Issey. Now that was nasty.

Eternity Aqua (Calvin Klein) = Bland and boring, skip it. The ad touts "a watery surge of cucumber, vibrant lavender and the warmth of sandalwood". Not an inspired combination of materials, and placed together didn't smell terribly wonderful.

Bleu De Chanel (Chanel) = Too many scents these days call themselves "blue" this and "blue" that, and frankly, they all smell the same. This is no exception. Pass.

Gucci Sport by Gucci (Gucci) = For those that have a fetish for sniffing the grass stains off some sweaty guy's pants after he's played Flag Football all Sunday. I'm not among them! Gucci makes great clothes for women, but men's fragrances is clearly not their forte.

Burberry Sport (Burberry) = A rather shrill, citrusy odor for people who want that Gatorade body aroma, hence the Sport tag. Me, I’d be happier with the Burberry Brit cologne line, which has a less strident scent to it.

Cool Water (Davidoff) = I went to school with a kid called Davidoff and he never used cologne, much less used deodorant. Again, any cologne or scent with the buzzwords "Blue", "Cool" or "Aqua" pretty much smell the same, and basically this pretty much smells like Bleu de Chanel and the rest of their peers.

John Varvatos Vintage (John Varvatos) = If you want a great combination, learn from the master. Varvatos Vintage showcases the combined scents of tobacco, suede and even patchouli. Sounds like my house! I'm pretty prejudiced towards this kind of musky business.

One of my guilty pleasures is buying cheap deodorant from the drug store, but this time something's gone pretty awry. A few applications of Axe Deodorant's new "Dark Temptation" reminded me of another scent in my bathroom, a far more expensive one: Thierry Mugler's Angel for Men deodorant. Not as strong, but so close it's as if someone stole the recipe and put their stamp on it. Just imagine saving yourself over $20 on Mugler's deodorant for the cheapie Axe brand. Why, it's scandalous! All's fair in love and cologne war.

Zapped - The Greatest $1 Music Sampler LP Ever

In the late 1960's Warner Bros. Records released a string of promotional song sampler albums featuring their best tracks, some of which were getting heavy airplay on the radio. They usually went for $2 and were in the double-album format. The line-up on a typical sampler would be The Jimi Hendrix Experience, The Kinks, The Beach Boys, Tiny Tim (!), Joni Mitchell, Gordon Lightfoot, Arlo Guthrie, Deep Purple, T. Rex, etc. Not a bad deal for $2, and the artists you didn't like would even weigh in with a track that was halfway listenable. But formats begin to get stale after awhile and Warners began to play with it, releasing a sampler of easy-listening schlock called "Schlagers!" and going the extra mile for Frank Zappa's Bizarre & Straight labels with the best sampler ever (IMO) called "Zapped".

Released at the peak of Zappa's artistic powers and his impressive talent roster, "Zapped" is surprisingly eclectic, from Alice Cooper's haunted house metal (the genre he started), Tim Buckley's jazz-folk, The GTO's baroque minstrellisms, and vintage tracks from the Lord Buckley library. And the beast gores on. Liner notes were annotated by legendary rock critic John Mendelsohn, who deserves his own blog. A rogue critic for Rolling Stone Magazine in the Lester Bangs-R. Meltzer mode, Mendelsohn championed countless unknown British talents like The Move, Fairport Convention, The Kinks (when they were banned from performing in the States), and an unknown cross-dressing singer named David Bowie. He also had a great band called Christopher Milk, and I still own their excellent United Artists Records 7" EP with the gatefold cover. His liner notes are superbly informative.

Side 1 to "Zapped" begins with "Titanic Overture" by Alice Cooper, a solo pipe organ piece that recalls haunted houses and sailor shanties and quotes pop-schmaltz hit "I Think I'm Going Out Of My Head". Creepy stuff!

"The Blimp" by Captain Beefheart follows, a spoken word piece with a jumpy, jolting backing track complete with Zappa-style horns tooting. Beefheart's poetry is a joy to listen to, his affection for funny words ("Shadrach") is in the W. C. Fields tradition.

"St. Nicholas Hall" by Judy Henske & Jerry Yester follows. Frank liked to take hippie freaks and place them in stuffy, patrician settings for deadpan irony. Stilted vocals matched with an equally stilted harpsichord backing, The GTO's also used harpsichord on their album, too. The tuxedos worn by Yester and band on the cover were also employed by Captain Beefheart's band on the cover of "Lick My Decals Off, Baby". Maybe that's where the "straight" in "Straight Records" comes in.

"I Must Have Been Blind" by Tim Buckley is a nice song with some cool vibes backing him. Mendelsohn's liner notes indicate he didn't care much for this music, ha ha.

"Merry-Go-Round" by Wild Man Fischer is one of the earliest records that documented a street singer in his native habitat, warts and all. Many, many warts. This track features backing from the Mothers of Invention percussion section, Art Tripp III and Jimmy Carl Black.

"Refrigerator Heaven" by Alice Cooper comes from "Easy Action" and has a great Syd Barrett-style song construction with rabid guitars that play horror movie melodies in unison like some demented string section. And Alice's vocals rule the track. I love the final lyric, "I won't come back until the sun sets down on the moon".

"Little Boy Blue" by Tim Dawe is a surprisingly poppy folk track, catchy as hell. Tim Dawe was a founding member of The Iron Butterfly (!). The lyrics are very funny, too. There's mention of a woman dressed in black and busting out her whips. S&M folk? I love it.

"Governor Slugwell" by Lord Buckley is his version of a radio broadcast of a Gubernatorial fat cat's rally, with Buckley playing all the characters. His ear for people's voices is hysterical; the Irish cop, the crotchety politician hemming and hawing, perpetually clearing his throat, and tops himself with the Sun Shining Negro Drum Corps ("WHAM! PAM! WHAM! PAM! WUBBIDYBUBBIDYBOO!")

Side 2 to "Zapped" begins with "Lucille Has Messed My Mind Up". Jeff Simmons was a Mike Bloomfield wanna be who played acid blues, and this track is great, featuring superb backing by The Mothers (who he would later join), and an even more superb Zappa superfuzzed-out guitar solo.

Captain Beefheart returns with "Old Fart At Play", another spoken word track which I find rather odd. There are better tracks from "Trout Mask Replica" that feature his wildman singing. I would have picked "Ella Guru", "Moonlight On Vermont", or at least "Ant Man Bee".

"Holiday In Berlin, Full Blown" by The Mothers of Invention follows, one of the airiest and prettiest compositions ever recorded by Zappa and his colleagues. It always puts a smile on my face, even the boozy "Thanks For The Memories"-sounding 1940's Big Band sax break.

"Circular Circulation" by The GTO's is a country tune about some outlaw called Muddy Guts. It's probably the most tuneful song on their album sung by Miss Pamela (she struggles quite a bit on it). The GTO's were really getting into country at the time because some of them were chasing The Flying Burrito Brothers, the only glam country band in recent memory. Loved those Nudies outfits, boys.

Of course the album ends with Frank Zappa and his swinging "Willie The Pimp", vocals by Captain Beefheart and wild electric violin sawing from Sugar Cane Harris. Anyway, I'll let Mr. Mendelsohn have the last word in his brilliant liner notes, who had this to say about the late Frank Zappa:

"Finally we come to the creep who started it all, the man who keeps digging up these perverts and encouraging them and producing them and foisting them on a defenseless public that he's rendered a pushover with his wild eyes and intimidating wit.
"What can one say, except that we have him to thank for opening up virtually countless areas of popular music and for infusing what we sometimes refer to as rock for lack of a more explicit term with the self-effacing wit that enabled it to survive as long as it did".