Seattle Trip

So, a couple of weeks ago Mixy and I took a trip to Seattle because my friend Albert Aka "Suk" is finishing his craniofacial reconstructive surgery fellowship in July, and I promised I would visit him before he left Seattle.  Also I attended a conference in Seattle in 2003, and I always wanted to go back cause I thought it was a very cool city.

 

We stayed at a very cool hotel called the Edgewater which was right on a pier, so when you opened your window the water was right there.  The place is famous for the Beatles staying there and fishing out the window when they passed through Seattle in the 60's.  On the right is a picture of a cute little bear ottoman foot rest that was next to our fireplace. Weird, but extremely cute.

 

First day, we headed immediately to the famous Pike's Place Market.  That's the place where the guys throw the fish to each other.  Tons of awesome seafood and vegetables and eats there.  Fortunately for Irene and I, it was the second day of the Copper River Salmon run from Alaska, and we got to see the fresh stuff at the Market.  I'll explain more when we actually eat them. Look at the beautiful red colors, on those fish, not at all like that farmed stuff from the supermarket.

 

On the left is Mixygirl in front of the first Starbucks ever, which is located in Pike place.  On the right was an extremely cool little eats place.  It's owned by some old russian people and I guess it's the equivalent of what westerners would refer to as a pierogi.  The store looked dumpy so I was skeptical, but the piroshky we had kicked ass.

 

Just looking at these pictures makes me want to mail order some of the more different varieties.

 

After Pike Place, Suk joined Mixy and I for a lunch at a Tom Douglas restaurant.  We kind of spur of the moment decided to drive to Mt. Rainier that afternoon.  Plans were going Ok but there was traffic along the way and it took us 2 1/2 hrs to reach the mountain.  In true National Lampoon's Family Vacation style, when we arrived at the Mountain, the road was closed!!!  Fortunately there was cool scenery like a waterfall, and deer along the way, and it was just fun being able to catch up with Suk again.  My coworker Joe who is from Seattle told us that the North road which we took is always closed, until summer, and that we should have used the South entrance instead. 

 

After heading back from the Mt. Rainier debacle, we managed to get a reservation for Elliott's which is Seattle's top seafood restaurant located on one of the piers.  So, Copper River Salmon are only available for 3-4 weeks a year.  Copper river is a river located really far north in Alaska.  Because the water is so cold there, and the rapids are really rough, the salmon that go up there to spawn have an extremely high fat and fish oil content (so they can survive the journey).  The fortunate thing for us humans is that it makes these fish taste unbelievably incredibly juicy, and fatty, and just awesome.  It's like the Toro of the salmon world.  The fish definitely lived up to the hype and qualified for Super DHS status.  On the left is Mixygirl's Copper River Sockeye, and on the right is the Copper River Wild King that Suk and I had.  (We enjoyed the copper river salmon so much that we just went to Watergrill in downtown LA just to get another fix, two nights ago).

 

The next morning we went to the EMP (experience music project).  It's a museum owned by a former Microsoft executive that loves rock and roll.  The building as you could probably guess, was designed by Frank Gehry.  In addition to cool exhibits on Hendrix, grunge Music, and modern day rock posters,  there was a cool art exhibit of the owner's personal art collection, including several cool Monet's and some cool post impressionist stuff.  After that, we headed up to the Space Needle.  I have to say I liked the space needle more than I expected.  I think it's cause Seattle has a much more beautiful cityscape with all the water and mountains.  It was really really fun. 

 

For dinner that night, Mixy and I went to Rover's which is supposedly the best French/Northwest cuisine in Seattle.  I went there on my last trip and loved, it so I thought we had to go together this time.  I won't go into too much detail on my thoughts of the dishes, but the whole meal was incredible and helped me fall in love with Seattle even more.  Pictured on the right is the smoked salmon and cured fluke with a shaved radish-fennel salad and basil oil.

 

On the left is the diver sea scallop with celery kumquat and lemongrass nage.  Pictured on the right is the Alaskan halibut with asparagus, tomato confit, and a sorrel butter sauce.

 

On the left was a palate cleanser of grape fruit-dry vermouth sorbet.  On the right was a magnificent Sonoma squab breast with baby spinach, oyster mushrooms and lovage sauce.

Dessert was great, with a lovely panna cotta on the left, a golub jamun type of sweet in the middle, and a crispy chocolate ganache dish on the right that had just the most amazing texture of any chocolate desert I have had recently.

 

We had a pleasant surprise our last morning in Seattle.  The cruise ship we had taken to Alaska 2 years ago was docked right outside the window of our hotel room!!!  For our last day in Seattle, Suk drove us around to a couple of Japanese gardens per my request.  I loved the Japanese gardens when we went to Japan last year so much, that I needed another fix.

 

The first japanese garden we hit up was at the Washington Park Arboretum.  Am I getting old if I enjoy going to these kind of things?

 

In our final hours, Suk first drove us across the bay.  I think the picture to the left is pretty classic Seattle.   That is, it includes overcast skies and a guy wearing a flannel shirt .  Our final stop before the airport was Kubota Gardens located in South Seattle.  Apparently Mr. Kubota who is now deceased dedicated 20 yrs of his life to making this garden which has now become an official city park.  I love the Japanese foot bridge, kind of like Monet.

 

We even got to see a cute little family of mother with her tiny little baby ducks.

As we drove away from Kubota Gardens, I couldn't think of a better image to leave with, and I hope to go back to Seattle again. 

Last Tuesday I had a fantastic day of being blown away all day long by different forms of art.  It was truly wonderful, in what has otherwise been a very difficult week at work.  Is that the purpose of art?

That day was the release of the new Chili Peppers double album Stadium Arcadium.  I also got a call last week from the RHCP fan club telling me that I was one of ten fan club members to have won an autographed deluxe edition of the new album.  At first while casually skimming the album on i-tunes, I was worried that the new album may not have been as strong as initially promised.  Flea has been saying "If you don't like Stadium Arcadium, you don't like the Red Hot Chili Peppers".  Them be fighting words.  So I took flea up to task, got my headphones on and laid in bed to listen through the album straight through.  I have to say that I agree with Flea.  This record is a masterpiece,  it's genius, it makes me happy.  It's probably the top record to have come out this decade.  It has the melodicism of more of their recent music, but it also has a lot of funk, and heavier guitar that was more prevalent in their earlier years.  All the critics, whom I agree with on this, are raving about Frusciante on this album.  John Frusciante on almost every song, has embellished the music with awesome guitar solos (me and my friend Kane's wet dream come true as guitarists that worship him).  In addition to the solos, he's created many musical segments with multiple layered guitars intertwining together and leading the songs to an even higher climax.  He uses layers of his background vocals, and effects pedals to the same effect.  I'm so glad that the Peppers decided to play music more in their old style again, but at the same time taking it to the next level by adding that newfound, and still improving sense of melody.  I'm going to be listening to this record for years to come, and hopefully my whole life. 

 

Later that night Mixy and I caught the Arthur Miller play All My Sons at the Geffen Playhouse.  Starring in it included well known Broadway actor Len Cariou,  the man-the myth-the legend Neil Patrick Harris!!! (and Roseanne Show alumni Laurie Metcalf).  The play is set after WWII, and centers around a family who lost a son in the war a few years back.  Further intricacies of the plot include the living son wanting to marry the dead brother's girlfriend, and the secret revealed that shady business dealings by his Dad led to deaths of some airplane pilots during the war.  First of Mixy and I agreed that this was the best play we have ever seen.  We're not theater experts and we don't live in NYC, but we've definitely experienced a fair share of theater over the years.  It was brilliantly acted.  The script sucks you in.  It was definitely an emotionally intense play.  During a lot of plays, it can be difficult to understand all of the dialogue, which distracts from the suspension of disbelief you need to have to fully immerse yourself in the story.  Not in this case.  You forgot that you were even watching a play. 

The four lead actors were just amazing.  It's so unusual to have a cast where there are at least 8 actors which have pretty large roles, in which all of them just do a perfect job.  I have to confess that my favorite was NPH.  We saw him in Rent a while back and he was good during that (also great cameo during Harold and Kumar).  Again it was a "Talk Back Tuesday" at the Geffen, so the actors came out after the play in casual attire and did a Q and A with the audience.  NPH was very articulate, and it made me an even bigger fan of his.  The final comment from the audience was from an older lady, "Neil, I just want to let you know that your performance was so amazing tonight, that I didn't see you as Doogie Howser anymore!!!"

Had a great time yesterday.  Mixy and I joined our college friends Allen and Joyce for an afternoon at the Long Beach aquarium.  they have two kids, and after seeing more friends with babies these days, I can say it seems like a huge pain in the ass taking them out to do stuff.  We haven't been to the aquarium since Greedy and Pat's wedding, so it was really good to relive being there a little bit.  I loved the exhibits, I forgot how much cool stuff they had there.  One of my favorites was the Sea Dragon exhibited (sea dragon pictured above).  After the aquarium, Mixy and I caught Mission Impossible III.  I thought it was so-so.  It seemed like a juiced up episode of Alias.  It didn't have as much mystery and surprise that the other ones did.  Mixy liked it though, commenting that it seemed less confusing to her. 

Brief Coachella Highlights 2006 Review

1) Section Quartet:  Very cool string quartet opening up the festival on the main stage playing covers of alternative music.  Sound was awesome, and Radiohead covers turned out amazing.

 

2) Hip Hop:  Well represented first by Common from Chicago on the main stage, then Kanye delivered a great set.  Kanye was a lot more fun than I expected, and I can see why he's rated as extremely good for a hip hop live act.  Also did catch "Cool Like Dat"  by Digable Planets.

3) Franz Ferdinand was the best band of the first day.  Lots of energy.  Incredibly tight and intricate grooves, great stage presence.  I really am gaining a newer and better appreciation for them everytime I see them live.

4) Damian Marley provided a very cool reggae set on the outdoor stage.  One of the people on the stage just waved a rasta colored flag during the whole set,  no other job or instrument,  just the flag.

5) Depeche Mode.  I found disappointing.  Played newer stuff, but at least they ended with Personal Jesus and Enjoy the Silence.  They did have a very cool video display though.

6) Daft Punk was for many people were the highlight of the whole festival.  They closed out the first night at the dance tent.  They came out dressed as robots which is their trademark.  They were playing in some sort of pyramid with weird lights all over it.  The crowd was just huge.  For those unfamiliar, they are an electronica band with a discoish feel from France.  The crowd was huge, and it sounded and looked amazing but unfortunately Depeche Mode had sucked out all my energy and we had arrived at noon so we were too tired to stay for the whole set. 

7) Arriving Early:  Our new plan this year was to show up at noon.  There was absolutely zero traffic and zero line to get in.  Downsides were that it was so hot both days, it increased our time in the sun and also when arriving that early, by the end of the days we were wiped out and unable to get the most out of the bands on at the very end.  For example, I thought Tool was sounding great (and had disturbing visuals on the video screens), but I was too tired to stay.

8) Kudos to Goldenvoice:  They really know how to run a festival.  Sound has constantly been upgraded throughout the years.  You don't have to stand anywhere near the main or outdoor stages to see the screens and hear great loud crystal clear music.  They added a lot more tents, and shade, and weird exhibits.  Knowing that Madonna was playing the dance tent this year, they adjusted it by taking down the side walls, so you could see from far away, and adding two huge video screens on both sides.

 

9) Giant Drag turned out to be one of my favorite performances of the weekend.  They were the second band on at the outdoor stage on day 2.  They kind a sound like My Bloody Valentine, but their real assett is the sharp wit of lead singer Annie Hardy.  Despite "Tech Diffs" they were able to carry out their killer cover of Chris Isaak's Wicked Game (whom at the age of 8 apparently broke her heart, then "broke my hymen").  She was just spewing dirty weird jokes left and right, and what made it funnier was that she looked like she was still in junior high (despite being in her mid 20's) (I'm not sure if you can appreciate it from the picture).

10) Ted Leo was fun, but played too many songs I didn't know, and it was getting way too hot outside. 

11) Caught a really fun set by Amadou and Mariam, a blind couple from Africa that play cool African grooves, and are pretty well known internationally.

12) Matisyahu seemed like a poser, despite my initial open-mindedness to him.  Ray (of Karen and Ray)  commented that he's kinda like Snow.

13) Oakenfold delivered a high energy set.  He's grown his hair out lately.  Probably one of the better sets I've seen him spin.  It might have to do with the fact that he was playing right before Madonna.

14) Gnarls Barkley wins as buzz band this year.  It's a collaboration between DJ Dangermouse (famous for they Grey Album, a remix of the Jay-Z black album with the Beatles white album), and Rapper-Singer-Producer Cee-Lo.  Their 1st single is huge in England now even before any album has been released.  The backup band and Gnarls came out dressed in a Wizard of Oz theme.  Dangermouse was a Tin Man and Cee-Lo came out as the lion.  Great sound, with great soul singing from Cee-Lo over really cool music.  I'm really excited about the new album.

15) Yeah Yeah Yeahs.  Slightly disappointing.  I was looking forward to seeing them a lot this time because I think their new album is a huge step forward for them.  Karen-O certainly put on a bizarre performance-art esque show that she always does, but the live act didn't seem to have progressed as much as they have on album. 

16)  So we joined 30,000 other people rushing back to the dance tent to see Madonna.  We ended up outside the tent, but we could still see her and had a great view of the video screen.  She went on a little late, but came out eventually and the crowd went nuts.  Madonna did her thing with all the dancers etc.  I thought it was really fun.  I loved the opener from her new album "Hung Up", and Ray of Light turned out really cool as well.  The only downside is that I had to pee really really bad, and I couldn't make it to a bathroom cause of the crowd, and nearly exploded.  I ended up hiding behind a trailer for relief. 

   

17)  After really thinking about it I have to say that the Go Team set near the end of the 2nd day was the best band of Coachella.  They play this high energy infectious musical pastiche dance-rock.  On album, it sounds kind of like DJ music and it was all created by that skinny dude standing in the middle of the picture.  Live however, the band really brings the music to life.  The black girl aka Ninja just gets crazy dancing and getting the crowd involved all night.  Kinda difficult to describe but just extremely extremely fun.  Mixygirl loved it.  It even got me off the ground as I was recovering from exhaustion and near explosion of the bladder during Madonna.  Again I would've liked to stay later for more Scissor Sisters and Tool on the second night, but we called it quits soon after Go Team.  Not a bad way to end Coachella 2006, not bad at all.