The Great Plotnik

Saturday, June 30, 2007

Thirty Bottles of Wine in the Rack

Thirty bottles of wine in the rack
Thirty bottles of wine
If one of those bottles should happen to crack
Twenty nine bottles of wine in the rack

You know you're a Northern Californian when...your wine rack finally gets filled up. You know you're REALLY a Northern Californian when you have to remove your Emergency Earthquake Supply from the closet where the wine rack is, to make room for the overflow of wines that won't fit in the rack. Of course, the Emergency Earthquake Supply only has canned tuna left in it, since you already ate up the Oreos and chocolate bars and used up all the AA batteries.

And who is to say that good wine is not the perfect item for a natural disaster? The Plotniks do need to buy more batteries and more Oreos, though.

Friday, June 29, 2007


When The Great Plotnik journeys to The Great Haircut Salon, he likes to make sure Liz, The Royal Hairperson, knows just what he wants. So, he stands under the picture of the guy he'd like to end up looking like.

It never really works out the way he'd hoped.

The truth is, nobody likes their hair. The Great Plotnik defies anyone to tell him they are in love with their own hair. If you have straight hair, you want curly hair and if you have curly hair, you want wavy hair, and if you have blonde hair you want red hair and if you have gray hair or no hair you want the hair you used to have, even though when you had it you hated it. If you have little hair you just shave it all off and say FUAH.

FUAH is the new slogan for TIAPOS. We now say TIAPOS before we read, and FUAH when we're done. If you don't like my story, I say FUAH. If you don't like your hair, you say FUAH. If you look at all the candidates in any political debate and decide they are all worthless, small people incapable of one original thought, you say FUAH.

But we must bear in mind that any Democrat is better than Bush. We must fight against the desire to scream FUAH until November, 2008. Even if we don't like whoever runs against Dinglebrain, we must support her/him. THEN! THEN! and only then can we raise our fists to the sky and with joy in our hearts scream FUAH, Little George, and FUAH fat Dick, and Good F*ing Bye.

Thursday, June 28, 2007

The, uh, Hairless, uh, Cat.

Look, there are no two ways about it, this is one seriously strange looking cat. And the pussy on his lap has no hair. The previous comment would make more sense if you'd been at the bookstore last night to hear Gravity Goldberg's story.

When people drop out of TIAPOS there is nowhere to go but up. Mz. Sparkie is now masked and carries a flogger. Hey, it's a living.

OK, long-time Saint Plotnikians, yesterday The Great Plotnik was riding the plotkicycle on Van Ness Avenue, and at 24th St. he saw eight yellow dots painted on the road surface, two full circles, then two half circles, then two more full circles, then two more half circles.

So wassup with that? Does anybody know?

Incidentally, thanks to everyone who inquired on Plotnik's (mental) health after they realized he actually went to the doctor to see about a splinter in his foot. We all know Plot can, let's just say overreact somewhat when he is worrying about his Yearly Physical. This is all well documented. You'll be happy to hear he's still feeling fine, even after hearing an inane story read last night at the bookstore about a man who thought he had breast cancer.

No, The Great Plotnik is NOT adding this ailment to The Great Plotnik's Yearly Physical Big Six Worry List, sheesh, because the list is already full and to add 'breast cancer' he'd have to remove one of the other six diseases, like 'stroke' or 'brain tumor' or 'prostate cancer.'

Hey, that splinter COULD have been a tumor. It's possible. Let's just stop this conversation right here.

Wednesday, June 27, 2007


These red poppies are the bimbos of Plotnik's garden. Gorgeous flowers, borne on sturdy, vigorous plants, they are so sure of themselves they never take into consideration that they are growing in Plotnik's windy garden. They bear their flowers in June on spindly stems. What happens next? As soon as it heats up in the East Bay, the cool air and fog are drawn across the City of Saint Plotniko and this means gusts that shake even the venerable pines. Each poppy lasts maybe a day or two. An ounce of brains would make them volunteer somewhere else besides the absolute middle of the garden, but bimbos need center stage. If they were smart, maybe they wouldn't be so beautiful? Maybe it's worth it?

Take these hostas. Snails DOTE on hostas. So the hostas don't even bother to wake up until after snail season is over. That's why they come back each year and increase in size. Brains as well as beauty.

Then there are Emma's rolls. Emma lives across the street in the Hohulin Mansion. She is beautiful and getting more beautiful each day. But she is certainly no bimbo. Periodically, the doorbell rings and Emma is standing there, with her dad, holding a tray of fresh rolls or cookies that she has baked, and Plotnik gets to try them. They are always delicious. These had a coating of rock salt on the outside and were small but super-yum.

Speaking of small, delicious things Plotnik can't live without, here is one of them. Boyajian's Pure Orange is an orange extract you can buy at Rainbow (along with the lime and lemon), and every time you need orange flavor you just add a teensy-weensy 1/8th of a teaspoon, then get out of the way.

Plotnik was just kidding about the poppies being bimbos. He really loves those poppies. And the rolls, too.

Tuesday, June 26, 2007

Babies, Mosquito Netting and Meeting the Maestro

So much blather about immigration. Here's what's going on on the ground. The Great Plotnik defies any of his wonderful readers to guess the ethnic components of these four beautiful children. Hint: The two in the middle are both named Hana. Extra Bonus: The beautiful child on the right is so gorgeous she makes ya wanta cuddle wuddle ooooopsy dooopsy (GPS 5000 Baby Talk Filter Engaged).

A long conversation with the Beeze on Sunday helped bridge the long distance. She's doing well, a little amazed, as are her parents, that she can be in her bed at 10PM behind mosquito netting in a house with no electricity in a village in East Africa, and talk on her cell phone to her Mom and Dad sitting in their kitchen in their house near the Pacific Ocean where it's noon.

She sounds great, though it's exhausting work slogging up and down 45-degree hillsides, covered in brush, to get to the sites the group is testing for environmental information. There is the usual amount of politics and some frayed nerves, the kinds of things that feel large when you're in the middle of them, but then fade into memory when you consider how amazing it is for people of so many different ages, experiences, colors, religions and backgrounds to get together at all, even for such a good reason. Plottie wishes he was there too, to help do something useful in the world.

Last night, Plot and Duck went to a screening of half a dozen Frontline World short documentaries, all of which have aired (or are about to) on KQED and nationally as well. The series is edited by the Plotniks' friend Steve Talbot, and is entitled 'Heroes from a Small Planet.'

Plot has seen several of these already, but last night all the principals involved were at the screening. Plot got to talk with Maestro Luis Szaran, the conductor of the Paraguay Symphony, who is featured in one of these segments, for work he has done setting up community orchestras in the most poverty-stricken slums and villages of his country. Most of his kids have never even seen an instrument before he gets hold of them -- they are even constructing violins out of garbage found in the huge dumps where so many live. What an inspiration.

Tonight (Tuesday) the last segment in the series is airing, in whichever city you are (OK, Joy, probably not in Johannesburg). You shouldn't miss the segment about training the rats. These rats...well, you won't believe me if I tell you what they are doing for the people of Mozambique. Watch the show. In S.P. it's at 9pm on KQED.

Monday, June 25, 2007

Deep Breath: Phoooo? Let it out. Whoosh.

Take a deep breath. Phoooooo? Let it out. Whoooosh. There. There is no point in getting angry at events you cannot control.

Last Friday, the Plotniks experienced one of the worst service calls in the history of service calls. OK, probably not the worst, there must have been a few that caused death or dismemberment, but short of that, Mr. Numb(skull) from ADT Security Systems may have taken home the prize.

It all started when Plotnik decided STUPIDLY to upgrade to Comcast Digital Voice. It seemed harmless enough, and would save him some money. But to do that, he had to let Comcast techs into the house to swap out the modems and do some other mumbojumbo. They came last Thursday, took one look at the ADT Security System and said: You'd better call ADT and find out whether our digital system and their analog system are compatible.

MANY phone calls later, Plot had his answer: Maybe. The Comcast boys refused to work on the system until ADT came out and looked around.

Which led to the arrival of Mr. Numb on Friday. All Plot wanted to do was ask him one question: Will this system work with Comcast?

But Mr. Numb is English challenged. In fact, neither Duck nor Plot could understand more than every tenth word he was saying, and clearly he couldn't understand English either. He began tearing apart the box, and then moved inside to the alarm battery box and the phone box, ripping apart wires and swearing under his breath, then continued outside and tore apart everything he hadn't torn apart already. He then looked at his watch and said he had to leave for another appointment.

Oh, yes he did. With a straight face, yet. Or, at least that's what it sounded like he said, right before Plot went off.

Fear not, your Noble Leader of a Minor Western Religion didn't say the kinds of things he wanted to say, like, for example, WHAT THE MUH IS MUH-ING WRONG WITH YOU? WHAT THE MUH-ING SHEE ARE YOU DOING, YOU WHEREVER THE HELL YOU'RE FROM SWEATING MORON? No, he did not. He simply explained to Mr. Numb(skull) that if he didn't at least patch up the mess he'd made, he would not get out to his truck in, well, in one piece. OK, true, the repairman was older and smaller than Plottie, and probably didn't understand the threat, but still. Plottie was fierce, like some Old Testament Warrior, like Nate Thurmond.

So Mr. Numb (skull) patched things up...yeah, right. When he left the alarm didn't work and kept going off every fifteen minutes, and the telephones had a dial tone but couldn't receive or make calls, except to each other (phone to fax, fax to phone).

MANY more customer service waits on hold -- did we mention it was now Friday afternoon at 5:30PM?

In the end, Plot disabled the circuit breaker, disconnected the battery terminals, and: the phones went back on. ADT PROMISED they'd send two men out FIRST THING Monday morning.

Check the day: It's Monday morning, 11:10AM. They're not here. Plot just called the service line: "Oh," said the voice. "Didn't they call you? The tech called in sick."

Phooooo? Whoooosh. Phooooo? Whooosh.

Did Plottie mention BOTH his mouses went outses this morning? Computer doesn't work without a MUH-ING mouse, didja know? He'll go buy another one, AFTER THE FREAKING MUH MORONS FINALLY GET HERE to fix the ALARM and the PHONES and DANG, BZWZ, none of this really means much, does it, when you're living without electricity or refrigeration?

Tomorrow: photos. Recounts of wonderful phone conversation yesterday with Beezie from behind her mosquito netting. Maybe.

Sunday, June 24, 2007

Oreos with Hot Sauce

Yesterday, The Great Plotnik had a nice long splinter of redwood go into the spot between his little toe and the one next to it. He screeched, pulled it out, and forgot about it, until this morning when all of a sudden he bounced out of bed onto a sore right foot. Standing on one foot and holding his other foot up to the bathroom mirror, he thought he could see a red, kind of swollen area down there. But you can't see the bottom of your own foot.

Ducknik, with three pairs of glasses, couldn't see much either, but she, too, thought it might be somewhat inflamed.

You NEVER can see the stuff that can kill you. Remember this. For example, there is one spot on your back that is completely invisible to you, no matter which way you swivel your neck, and it's also the exact spot you can't possibly feel with your finger. Did you know that? Neither did Plotnik until Dr. I Dunno - Wadda You Think? told him he had a mole there.

Bearing this in mind, Plottie (after basketball) hied himself down to Kaiser.

This entire prelude is to tell you two interesting things:

1) On Gay Pride Day there is nobody at Kaiser. The parking lot is empty. The waiting rooms are empty. It's a great time to get sick.

2) You know that room that is always marked PRIVATE! AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY!...? Someone left the door on one of these rooms open today, and while Plotnik was waiting for the nurse to give him a tetanus shot, he looked into the room.

It's a lunch room. On a large, rectangular table were two items:
a) A giant, one-quart bottle of Tapatio Hot Sauce.
b) An empty Costco-sized bag of Oreo Cookies.

So while your doctor is telling you to watch your weight and avoid fatty foods, the orderlies are all eating Oreo cookies slathered in Tapatio Hot Sauce. Think about that the next time you're wondering why it always takes them so long to get to your exam room. Cookies. Hot sauce.

Saturday, June 23, 2007

Sleeping Beauties

Thursday, Plotnik and Ducknik took The Great Fate-Nik to lunch in the 'loin. Plotnik parked at Ellis and Leavenworth. Between Leavenworth and Hyde, he passed Sleeping Beauty Number One.

Between Hyde and Larkin he passed Sleeping Beauty Number Two.

At Larkin and Ellis he walked into Mangosteen and got to order these.

People walking around in the Tenderloin look worse than the people sound asleep. Every man seems to have a two day beard, and scabs, and a fresh cut or two on his face; the women are young and angry and cursing out someone on a cell phone, or middle-aged and washed out, bleached out, tapped out, screeched out, hair uncombed, a loose sweatshirt, floppy sandals, missing teeth. At Leavenworth, everyone is black, but by the time you get to Larkin they're mostly Vietnamese. Makes no difference. Drunk, drunk, drunk.

Wheelchairs, crutches that nobody touches. Faces lined like a canyon. Blind dog for my companion. If tomorrow is like today, OK. I can live with that, I can live with that. If tomorrow is like today, OK. I can live with that. I can live with that.

Friday, June 22, 2007

Astronical Event on 26th of October Boulevard

For years, Plotnik and Ducknik have walked down 26th of October Boulevard (formerly Sanchez Street) and passed an innocuous but curious line painted on the sidewalk: "Solstice Sun Crack Returns." Yesterday was the day. The Great Plotnik and The Great Ducknik gathered with half a dozen neighborhood citizens and watched the lady beat the drum and the other lady light the sage and the guy in the hat play the Peruvian percussion and then, zingo! The light arrived, right on schedule, and lit up the Boulevard. It's quite a feeling to be part of an astronomical event and then go home and eat breaded veal cutlets.

Thursday, June 21, 2007

The Edible Garden

Tomatoes and strawberries

Potatoes and arugula

Snow peas

Artichokes and scallions

Flowering chives and thyme

Huacatay (no, not what you think it is. Haucatay is a Peruvian herb in the mint family.

Spearmint and Meyer Lemon

Poor Little Curry Leaf

Shiso sprouts

Now, what's the point of growing curry leaf (which will never get big enough to amount to anything) and artichokes (Plotnik doesn't like artichokes) and shiso, not to mention the asparagus he never harvests and strawberries the birds get?

If you have to ask, you're not a gardener. Here, forgot these jewels: the world's
tastiest purple raspberries.

Wednesday, June 20, 2007

What a Yummy Mezze Platter at Ya Ya Mesopotamian Cuisine

The Great Plotnik apologizes to his loyal readers, many of whom expect their Plotnik when they want their Plotnik and that's all there is to it. This morning, however, there were minor computer glitches compounded by, shall we say, certain impossible-to-ignore gastrointestinal glitches, which brings us to last night's dinner.

Mmmm, boy, Ya Ya tastes good going down. The lamb shank in the top picture and the...well, whatever it was in the bottom picture (it had a lot of yogurt for sure) were delicious but paled before the best mezze (appetizer) platter Plot and Duck have ever tasted. Silent Bill was not silent in his praise for this dish, and neither was The Great Mush-nik, though all four barely paused to breathe while inhaling the tabboule, humus, smoked turnip paste, eggplant and curried cauliflower, mopping, sopping and slopping up every morsel with baskets full of pita breads and the occasional index finger.

"Dang, that's good!" said Plotnik.
"Dang, that's good!" said Ducknik.
"Dang, that's good!" said Mushnik.
"Dang, that's good!" said Silent Bill.

This morning, The Great Plotnik adds:

"It would have made a lot of sense just to stop after the mezze platter." But he didn't stop. Ya Ya specializes in ancient Mesopotamian dishes (yup, Iraq), and apparently the ancient Mesopotamians really knew how to eat. Three main courses arrived after the mezze platter (one of them had been created in 612 BC, by the way, for the Festival of Nineveh, so the menu and the waiter both pointed out, which made it the oldest known dish in the world. Plotnik must report that it tasted like it).

If dinner had stopped after the salad and the mezze platter, Ya Ya would be four stars. But it didn't, and so, oi, the stomach, the stress, the burbles, oi.

Plotnik must figure out how they curried that cauliflower. Dang.

Tuesday, June 19, 2007

Letter From the Beeze: ChardONNAY

At the Proud Papa Division at The Great Plotnik World Headquarters, this message was received this morning from The Great BZWZ in Uganda:

"Hi. The highlands of Uganda are absolutely breathtaking. Very steep slopes, covered in patches of banana, potatoes, maize, grasses, and shrubs. Tons of cows and goats and sheep running around. The cows are even beautiful-- they are the Nkole kind with the gigantic horns. Mom, it took me a really long time to figure out what kind of chard you were looking for and why-- I kept thinking, swiss chard, rainbow chard, what other kind of chard is there?? Eat a fresh salad with some goat cheese for me!

xoxo, bzwz

Monday, June 18, 2007

Open Yer Mug and Fill Up That Jug

It is always a pleasant surprise that taking a short weekend trip can feel so nice. Plot and Duck and their friends Jim and Karen, Wine Experts, left at 9AM Saturday and drove out Rte. 80 to Rte. 50 to Rte. 29 to Rte. 124, or some numbers like that, and ended up in Amador and El Dorado Counties in the foothills of the Sierras, picking up, tasting and buying a few zinfandels, frivolos, sangioveses, viogniers, one fabulous petit syrah, a bottle of champagne and even two jugs of red for $4.99 per jug, and if you bring back the jug they'll fill it up again for $3. And it's good!

Later on Saturday they drove back towards the Bay Area and stayed overnight in Lodi, then went to several more excellent wineries there on Sunday before driving home and arriving by 4pm.

The Great Plotnik likes wine, maybe even likes it a lot. But he doesn't love wine, not the way Jim, Wine Expert, does, which is to say he doesn't understand many of the complexities involved in how wine matures and ages over time. But he is getting to see why you drink one wine now while laying another wine down for a year or two to let it mellow. He still hears the godawful booshwa that passes for knowledge during the tasting process ("do you sense the boysenberry? I get carrot. Do you get carrot?"), but he has to say that each weekend he spends tasting wine he learns more about the things that he loves in life, and also the things he despises.

He loves friendly winemakers with something to offer. He despises haughty winemakers who only want your money. He loves beauty and hates development that passes for beauty, and he doesn't care if its three years old or three hundred years old, if they did it right. He loves winery dogs.

He is always suspicious of any wine he tastes -- expecting it to disappoint. But if that first part of the taste, in the front of the mouth, is nice -- hmmm, Duckie, this isn't too bad -- he is nonetheless always astonished when the 1 in 30 wines whose second taste, the afterburn -- where all the important subtleties are, like how it feels on the tongue and how smoothly it slides down and what all those lingering side flavors are, and man! That's great! -- takes him to a new place. The few are what make all the silliness of the many worth it.

And if they can afford it, the Plotniks buy that one, and if they can't, they keep looking for the one they can.

Plot likes the B&B in Lodi with the pond in the back surrounded by willow trees where the owner brings you out a complimentary large glass of the wine you seemed to like the best in the tasting room a half hour earlier, even though you didn't buy anything.

He loves passing by a pit bbq in a parking lot and having the smell of the ribs and tri-tips stop him in his tracks. He loves that bbq, run by Indians in the middle of Lodi, as much as he hates all the stupid restaurants in stupid restored downtowns with stupid bimbos as hostesses and stupid overpriced meals catering to stupid wine tasters on holiday. He hates scented candles and wineries whose tasting rooms smell like scented candles.

And yet Plot and Duck and Jim and Karen had a fine meal in the restored downtown in Lodi fronted by --yes -- a bimbo hostess. And the Michael-David winery near Rte. 5 makes a petit syrah that will knock the fillings out of your mouth, even though the place looks and smells like a Cracker Barrel.

Ya never know. That's why wine tasting is fun, especially in regions like Amador and Lodi where there are few people tasting and little pressure to buy. Folks, we suggest you tell your families that when they visit they should head North to Napa Valley. Meanwhile, you should join all the Plotnikkies as we head East, taking our empty jugs along for a refill.

Saturday, June 16, 2007

Short Pants and Sweat in the Forecast

Today, Plotnik gets what he wished for: heat. It's 100 degrees in Lodi. Why would anyone go to Lodi at any temperature? Don't know, but he'll let you know tomorrow. It has something to do with zinfandel.

Friday, June 15, 2007

Temporary Fairyland

It's like The Mad Hatter's Garden as you enter the Back Forty of the Great Plotnik World Headquarters through the exclusive, restricted passageway. The white brugmansia has decided that June is its month to explode. As the nights have stayed warmer longer the scent is also picking up in strength. Is there a sweeter smell? Are there any better plants? Simpler to care for? Don't care where they're planted? Will grow twenty feet tall or be happily pruned to five feet? Will give off free suckers at the base that can be dug up and replanted?

But only Plotnik would walk out onto his deck on another strange and beautifully hot June morning and think about Bangladesh. He wonders if Bangladeshis are constantly thinking about the next flood which will come to wipe them out, or if they actually are able to enjoy the few moments between apocalyptic disasters? Plottie knows the fog will return. It's been a great pre-summer already, but when real summer gets here so will the cold, the gray, the overcast, the sweaters and the Plotzers' annual Summer Swoon.

The rest of the Bay Area will have heat, huge tomatoes and swimming. Saint Plotnikians will have leather jackets, snow peas and full fire in the hot tubs.

Thursday, June 14, 2007

BZ's New Pith Helmet

The Great BZWZ is driving in a jeep somewhere in Uganda. So she now has an African Explorer's Hat as her Africa logo.

This morning the Plotnik Parental Unit received this text: "We just crossed the source of the Nile. Roads have been terrible but at least it's not the rainy season. 100 km to Kampala. Xoxo."

Plottie texted her back asking her if she was seeing any animals, since it's getting close to sundown where they are. She texted immediately back:

"No megafauna, but Cheryl points out birds and crop species as we go."

That's Cheryl on the right, BZ's boss and mentor. After a few days in Uganda, Cheryl will be back in Kenya and BZWZ will be on her own and heading down to Rwanda.

10 hours time difference and Plotnik and his daughter just had a conversation in real time, one sitting at a computer at World Headquarters and one in her jeep bumping along the Real World. Amazing.

Wednesday, June 13, 2007

Last Batch of Baby Pictures For Awhile? Maybe. Maybe Not.

While in S-City, The Great FiveHead made Plottie a cd of pictures from 5H and PD's trip to Playa del Carmen and Yucatan. You're staring at a cenote (once a sacrificial pool, now a swimming hole), inside a cave. PD says the water is warm.

At DC Niecie's brunch a few weeks ago, The Great Ducknik posed with The Great BZWZ.

PD, 5H and Baby I spent a lot of time on the beach on this trip, which makes a lot of sense since PD himself has been a fish since birth. That last shot of Baby I's Belly Laugh with beautiful 5H is really something.

And, Hildeb, Plotnik is not the only person taking pictures of bagels.