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10 things about Leonard Cohen that the Negress believes

May 25, 2012

The Negress knows Leonard Cohen is a great songwriter. But the Negress is increasingly finding him and his ilk to be insufferable. This is for every person who has sat, increasingly furious by his dolorous delivery, in a state of rage at the person controlling the music player. The Negress realizes that this list is indefensible but she doesn’t care. She feels better for having written it.

1. You expect the famous blue raincoat to be stained and worn by Cohen in some large public park where he has a bag of candy. You can picture the rest.

2. Because, as much as the Negress loves Canada and many of its artists (54.40 and Rural Alberta Movement come to mind), Cohen is an exception she continually makes.

Notice she has her ears covered

This picture is from Leonard Cohen’s official website. note the woman has her ears covered.

3. The Negress doesn’t count among her female friends anyone who can tolerate Cohen. Yet just about all of us have been forced to listen by some man we know.

4. While the Negress can embrace a quite a few vocalists who sound as if they have gargled with drain opener, Cohen just annoys her.

5.  She’s sure she never wants to hear “Hallelujah” on the soundtrack of anything again.

6.  She’s convinced part of Cohen’s appeal to the men she knows is his barely concealed misogyny.

7.  She’s reached her quota of literate crabby old bastards.

8.  That his and Neil Young’s latest records prove the joke is on us if we buy them.

9.  That Emma Goldman would have punched Cohen out and kept dancing.

10. Her sequel to “Suzanne” would have Cohen moving in with Chris Farley in the van down by the river.

Posted in Knitting and Feministing, Music and our culture | Tagged , , | 4 Comments »

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10 reasons why the New Jersey Devils will win the Stanley Cup

May 18, 2012

The Negress is trying to become a morning  person arising between 5 and 6 each day. Because the New Jersey Devils are in the Eastern Conference finals of the Stanley Cup, she is sleep-deprived but very happy with the way things are going. The following are 10 thoroughly metric-free reasons why her sleep cycle will be chaotic until mid June. She knows there is basketball but ,with Derrick Rose in the hospital, who the hell cares. Here’s the latest 10:

1. Because the Rangers suck even though many of their team members are delicious examples of international male pulchritude.

Johnny Oduya, one of my hockey future ex-husbands, now with the Chicago Blackhawks

The Negress and her BF in better times.

2. Because Ilya Kovalchuk and Dainius Zubrus are playing as though they have been possessed by two-way players who know how to forecheck. When the Negress was a regular at the Rock with her hockey husband (we were domestic partners until he moved to Vermont and President Obama came out for marriage equality), she gave leather-lunged hell to Zubrus and he deserved it. She takes it all back.

3. Did the Negress mention that the Rangers suck?

4. Because this series has united her friends The Only Flyers Fans in North Dakota and her in wanting to see the Devils prevail.

5. Because Zach Parise deserves the captain’s “C” and a contract bigger than Kovalchuk’s. Feel me Lou?

6. Because Martin Brodeur is not of this earth, especially during the playoffs. However, he should start speaking to Rich Chere, the Negress’ former coworker. He hasn’t since has marriage to that cowboy-hatted slattern broke up.

7. Because Newark deserves a Cup parade. Hey, the mayor already saved people from a burning building so it’s the obvious next step.

8. Because New York took the Nets, to which we say, “Thank you. We’ll keep the good team. The one without Kris Humphries.”

9. Because the Negress can almost accept that Cam Janssen would get a ring, but her BF Johnny Oduya (who’s half-Kenyan, half-Swedish and shares tribal origins with President Obama) will not. He’s now with the Blackhawks where she can keep an eye on him. There are 28 players of African descent in the NHL by the way.

10. Because the Western Conference is a swamp of teams with weird names except for the Red Wings (whom we Chicagoans hate) and the Blackhawks. No one wants to say “the Stanley Cup champion Coyotes/Kings.” Really.

Posted in Hockey, New Jersey Devils | Tagged , , , , , , | 1 Comment »

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10 things I love about Chicago

May 13, 2012
a double size living room in an unnamed Evanston Three flat

The Negress’ undisclosed location

The Negress loves this town. Here are some of the reasons why.

1. That there are enough Peruvian restaurants that you can discuss at length which one is the best. Hint: The Negress is pretty sure it’s Taste of Peru.

2. That in five blocks on Clark in Rogers Park, there are a Somalian restaurant, an Eritrean restaurant and an Ethiopian restaurant. She likes having the entire Horn of Africa close at hand, though she knows the better of the Ethiopian Diamonds is the one on Broadway.

3. That people will help you when you fall off your shoes, as the Negress did one spring day last year.

4. That there are at least 75 named neighborhoods and no one knows what they all are or where they stop and start.

5. That the radio traffic reports are incomprehensible to outsiders, but most of us know what “Lake Cook  to the junction,” “Thorndale” and “Montrose” mean and which highways are the Kennedy, the Edens and the Bishop Ford. We love there is a gyro place called East of Edens, which is located, well, where you think.

6. That this is a better theater town than New York.

7. That it takes sports and the arts seriously without being pretentious.

8. That you can get handicapped seating at many of the standup venues for concerts (The Negress’s back and knees enjoy this immensely)

9.  That Lake Michigan is gorgeous but can be cold and deadly if you behave stupidly.

10.  That she is a Sox fan but is tolerant of those who like that team on the North Side. Minnie Minoso rules!

Posted in baseball and other sports habits, Music and our culture | Tagged , , , , | 2 Comments »

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10 Things I will never do again

May 6, 2012

The Negress likes lists and is going to post one every week so stay tuned. Sometimes it”s nice to know when you are done. These are not ranked but listed as the Negress thought of them.

1. Go see the Grateful Dead. Once in DC at RFK Stadium with Bob Dylan and Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers in the deadly DC summer was quite enough. No Dead spinoffs either.

2. Throw up at length in the bathroom at Fitzgerald’s in Houston. Take multiple shots of Weller, add swigs of Jack Daniels from the stage during a Dash Riprock show and you have a recipe for being tore up and sorry. Many thanks to the person who drove that night. You know who you are.

Dash Rip Rock

Members of the Louisiana Music Hall of Fame dadgum

3. Go to SXSW. The Negress acquired her last badge in 1999 and doesn’t miss it one bit. Except for the night she was onstage with the late Molly Ivins banging a tambourine. Austin is a fine place to visit but she will never go during South by or the ACL Music Festival. She wants to see her friends when they aren’t frenzied.

4. Stagger with two suitcases when your bus to the Melbourne airport breaks down a quarter mile from said airport. The Aussies’ friendliness and generosity of spirit does not always extend to customer service. The Negress flew to Brisbane and spent three hours in the airport between flights and drank diet Coke until she nearly exploded.

5. Pick up a full ostomy bag off the floor of a Manhattan theater. You want to know more about that, you just have to wait until the Negress writes her memoir, tentatively titled “Notes of a Chronic Negress” or “Another Black Room with a Pole in the Middle.”

6. Deal with a member of the clergy (identifying denomination will not be divulged) who began almost every sentence with, “I’m the adult child of an alcoholic.” The Negress just wanted her to pass the salt.

7. Take NJ Transit from Newark airport to the Newark train station to get on the PATH to Jersey City. One arthritic shoulder and two titanium knees scream out for another way to do this journey.

8. Be nervous about being in a room with Miami Steve Van Zant, Lenny Kaye, Jerry Wexler and Ahmet Ertegun. The Negress is actually sorry about this one since Jerry and Ahmet are gone.

9. Go see Gary Stewart in some wide spot in the road in Texas. This one makes her sorry too. Find the music and you’ll see what she means.

10. Sit on a tour bus in Belleville, TX while Brooks and Dunn blast their new single, “Rock My World (Little Country Girl).” This duo retired before the Negress and others could reach the “Oh them again” stage. She wishes some other musicians could take the hint, but that’s another list for another week.

Posted in Health and Wellness, Music and our culture, World Travelling | Tagged , , , , , | 2 Comments »

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The Negress explores the Zins of the past with Bogle (1993) and Beringer (2002)

April 30, 2012

The Negress has been trying to help people and build her business. As a result of one of those activities (a trip to Urbana to help a pal clean out her dead mot

hers house), she lucked into a pleasant flashback. The friend’s parents were 50s style “Mad Men” drinkers with cases of booze and wine stacked up in a damp basement. Quite a bit of the wine didn’t survive that cavalier treatment, but a case did. So the Negress brought it back to Chicago.

First up was a 1993 Bogle Zinfandel, which was 12.5% abv, making it a puny drink compared to the big-ass Zins populating various cellars and stores these days. The Bogle was a pale garnet and had the slightly ethereal taste of a wine past its prime. It was as though the Negress was tasting the ghost of the fruit, which only made her wish she could have gotten her hands on this bottle a little sooner. Color this one pale and stale.

Bogle and Beringer together again for the first time

The Killer B's of old Zinfandel

Next was a 2002 Beringer Zinfandel with 13.9% abv. This wine had held up beautifully, with rich notes of dark fruit and an almost chocolate-like feel. It paired nicely with the last of some chili the Negress was glad of during this frigid spring. She suspects most folks buying Beringer’s 2002 vintage drank it well before 2004. If you find some of this hiding in a corner somewhere, pull the cork. You will not be disappointed.

While the Negress adores big Zins almost as much as she loves just about any Petit Sirah, she was confronted with a saddle of elk at a recent dinner at the Gage here in Chicago. She had recently had a venison burger at this fabulous boite, and paired that with a 2009 Vina Sastre Tinto Ribera del Duero (all Tempranillo all the time). The elk was gamier than the venison but more subtle than she would have expected. Her dining companion recommended the 2009 Three Saints Pinot Noir from the Santa Maria Valley in California. Excellent pairing and one of the few California Pinots that hadn’t been vinified to resemble a Cabernet with a head cold.

The next time the Negress opens one of the oldies from Urbana, she will check in here and tell you all about it. But, for now, it’s back to the inhalers, work life its very own self.

Posted in Wines of the world in danger | Tagged , , , , , , , | 2 Comments »

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The Negress pickles her brain with Top 40 and enjoys it immensely

March 11, 2012

The Negress has been flitting through several realms of late. Alcohol was banished for Lent so not much to report there. Music comes and goes. Work is front and center, and is going well as far as she can tell. Hockey is good with the Devils surging and one of her future ex-husbands, Johnny Oduya, now a member of the Blackhawks. Right now, the Blackhawks can use all the help they can get.

The Negress loves Ke$ha and does not feel guilty at all

The Negress loves Ke$ha and does not feel guilty at all

With the impending arrival of spring and the annual crash landing of Daylight Savings Time, the Negress needed a respite from all the hard thinking she’d been doing preparing for the toughest part of her FINRA registration. So she flipped the dial to her favorite Top 40 (these days known as CHR for Contemporary Hit Radio) station, Z100, in New York. It’s available online and on satellite radio.

One quick conclusion she came to was that there are only about eight or nine songs in deuterium rotation, most involving Katy Perry, Chris Brown, Rihanna, Pitbull, FloRida and Drake. Ke$ha(her Twitter handle is @keshasuxx, which we love) and Lady Gaga show up, but not often enough for our tastes.

Also, prolonged exposure all of this mindless Auto-Tuned robot pop can shave a few dozen points off your IQ. You may not notice immediately, but it does happen. You say “awesome” a lot. You wanna party with, like, your friends and stuff.

However, the Negress is quick to declare her enduring love for commercial radio, especially the triple-A station here in Chicago, WXRT. She especially thanks them for Mumford and Sons and even some of the Fleet Foxes. The new Springsteen single is running heavy there now, which in its own way is as irritating as the robot pop. The Negress escaped after 12 or so years in Jersey without gaining a Springsteen obsession. She likes him and the E Streeters fine, but not to the point of rearranging her life.

Sorry for the long rest periods here, but the Negress is busy. Back as soon as something worth talking about happens. In the meantime, roll down your windows and blast some tunes.  It feels like opening a can of  spring. Baseball helps with that too, so do it. Go Sox (White, not Red)!

Posted in baseball and other sports habits, Health and Wellness, Hockey, Music and our culture, New Jersey Devils, Wines of the world in danger, World Travelling | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment »

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In which the Negress offers a BOLO and pops her cork

February 19, 2012
Green grow the grapes but they will ripen in time

We're all waiting on a harvest of some kind or another, no?

Your beloved Negress has been absent from her little corner of the bandwidth universe because she is getting Uncorked weekly, glorying in a new job and preparing for a convoluted solution to an ongoing health problem. She’s also been digging some tunes and reconnecting with pals old and new.

So, the new job. It’s a good one and it lets the Negress work as hard as she wants and enjoy the gains from that work. She can also help people, advocate for a company culture that has no peers in a business usually awash in short-term thinkers and brain-dead leadership. Thanks to some Federal regulations, she’s not going to say more than that here, but she’s very happy.

As for wine, a 21-day course of Augmentin has put almost all of her alcohol consumption on hold. This particular antibiotic leaves a metallic taste on everything. Add Prednisone and inhaled steroids, and wine is no fun. Woodford Reserve slices through the effluvia like a well-sharpened knife, but the Negress is too busy and happy to slip into an uncontrolled stupor. Also, she’s about to put her debilitating allergies where they belong. These drugs are a prelude to an effective protocol that should allow her to go outdoors with less agony.

However, she is still writing about wine. Thanks to the generosity of the folks at Nomad Editions, she executes a weekly column for Uncorked magazine, which is designed for tablet consumption, but can be viewed on any screen. You can get the app from iTunes, and view sample issues. Going all in costs a budget-friendly $9.99 annually. Read. Comment. Drink. It’s all to the good.

As for the tunes, the Negress caught both halves of the annual Chicago Bluegrass and Blues Festival. The first, headlined by David Grisman and Del McCroury, was satisfying, especially when the old “dawgs’ teamed up on a tribute to Bill Monroe (McCroury, now 72 with hair as immobile as Mitt Romney’s, was one of Monroe’s Bluegrass Boys). The Negress also gives big props to the Auditorium Theatre at Roosevelt University, which is beautiful and acoustically perfect.

While she does appreciate that Jerry Garcia’s love of  American string band and acoustic music led a lot of Deadheads to embrace the bluegrass way, she fervently hopes they learn how to behave. This is not to say they have to go all Bluebird Cafe solemn and silent, but all that hairy-footed Hobbit dancing accessorized by patchouli and Hacky Sacks is hard to take. The Negress almost screamed, “The last train to the Shire is leaving in 15 minutes. Haul it, friends.” But she demonstrated the restraint they seemed incapable of.

The next weekend was another story. The Negress headed to the Congress Theatre to check out theDrive-By Truckers,  Joe Pug and Dawes. Pug and the Truckers were transcendent and fine, with Pug winning points for doing Joe Ely’s “All Just to Get to You,” and making the original recede in memory. The Congress sounds like shit, unless you stand in the back under the balcony, but it had the right ramshackle fin-de-siecle feel for the proceedings. The Negress loves the Truckers unconditionally and thinks the songs about the frayed seaminess of the “New” South capture a sense of place and time like few others. As for Dawes, color this colored unimpressed. Everything felt watery and mellow in a way that makes you wish that the worst Chicago winter would descend on everyone you hate who lives in tropical climes and you have all the windshield scrapers and shovels. The Negress is sorry she’s been gone so long. It won’t happen again. Next up musically: Lez Zeppelin (March 9) and Rodrigo y Gabriela (April 12).

Posted in baseball and other sports habits, Hockey, Music and our culture, Wines of the world in danger, World Travelling | Tagged , , , , , , | Leave a Comment »

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The Negress, Whitney Houston and the dance of addiction

February 19, 2012

The Negress heard about Whitney Houston’s death when she was working the auction floor at the Equality Illinois gala. There were some murmurs of sadness, but very few expressions of surprise. The public Whitney had walked the same road a lot of addicts do, and their families no doubt now are recalling similar turns on their own roads. Think of all the family gatherings with knotted stomachs, awaiting the first slurred argument followed by the broken dishes. Review the whispered, tentative approval of a post-rehab appearance without drama. “She looks good, doesn’t she?” Yes she did, but we still checked on the jewelry drawer afterwards. Russell Brand and others momentarily safe in recovery have talked about the exhaustive lying that comes with addictions and how addicts are never fully present in whatever they’re doing. Family members know that all too well as they hear promises repeated, see contracts signed and wait for the better times to come. (courtesy of YouTube)

But those times don’t come usually. The Negress had an uncle whose heroin addiction lasted until he was near 60 when he died of an overdose. His third wife, she of the blond Afro and infantilizing nicknames, buried him in his Christian Dior pajamas because they were designer duds. My uncle used to drop by our house to pick up his disability check (addiction was a disability at that time. Not sure how that goes now.) He worked as a treatment counselor, which sounds like a macabre joke, but junkies were all over the Narcotics Treatment Administration in Marion Barry’s DC. The Negress remembers getting a lecture from said uncle about staying away from drugs, especially cocaine. His life was the best warning she could have gotten. His children split the difference. One is a successful entrepreneur; another a neurosurgeon. The third was an addict, gifted at illegal computer scams who bounced in and out of recovery like a Super Ball of unfulfilled promise. As far as the Negress knows, he is incarcerated still. There are other kids from other wives, but the Negress has lost them somehow. She hopes they are well, but doesn’t know for sure.

As for Whitney, our paths crossed when the Negress was working in New Jersey. The singer was beginning her long free fall of shoddy performances and tentative albums. It was hard to watch and, after a point, the Negress thought of her uncle and cousin and turned away. When Whitney was at her best, you could feel God in her voice even if you didn’t believe. The Negress regrets that many of her successors and emulators embraced her bag of vocal tricks and not the spiritual truth of her best performances (feel me, Miss Aguilera?). Whitney will be missed, but we hope she’s free from pain now.

Postscript: Frank Bruni wrote a column about alcohol that also has a connection to a cousin, who would go on benders, be retrieved by his fellow cousins, dry out and then do it all over again with a few drunken, spittle-flinging rants offered at family gatherings. Since the Negress loves fine wine and spirits, she also thinks she has some responsibility to show that it’s not all upside.

Posted in Health and Wellness, Music and our culture | Tagged , , , | 3 Comments »

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Negress offers alternative reading matter

November 29, 2011

The Negress is busy busy busy achieving NaNoWriMo nirvana, but if you want some reading matter in the meantime, check out this list from band of Thebes of LGBTQ recommendations.

Posted in Wines of the world in danger | Tagged , | Leave a Comment »

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Four bottles (2 California Pinot Noirs), one Series 7 exam and making the writing thing more disciplined with NaNoWriMo

November 6, 2011

The Negress has been in the midst of a whirlwind of food poisoning, medication titration, power knitting, yarn shopping, concert going (which led to booty shaking) and some more career whipsawing. There’s been a little time for wine and since she wants to get these empties out of the house, she’ll start there. Ordinarily, the Negress had been avoiding California Pinot Noir for a while since, post-Sideways, many producers got into the Pinot business as though delivering a delicious version of this persnickety grape required the same skill that it takes to make Kool Aid. The Golden State was awash in oceans of indifferent Pinot. It made the Negress want to smack Paul Giamatti in the mouth even though it was not his fault at all. However, thanks to her ongoing association with the Cellars of Sonoma wine club, she was able to quaff a pair of fabulous Pinots recently. The first was 2008 TR Elliott Three Plumes Pinot Noir (abv 14.6%) from the Russian River Valley. Winemaker Teddy Elliott put together five barrels from his Hallberg Vineyard and one barrel from the O’Connell Vineyard. The best Pinot Noirs whisper and the really good ones whisper dirty little nothings to your palate. Three Plumes is one of the good ones and, at $42, is a lovely special occasion wine that doesn’t require a credit default swap.

Johnny Oduya, one of my hockey future ex-husbands, now with the Winnipeg Jets

Johnny Oduya, on the hockey part of the future ex-husband list and my NaNoWriMo inspiration

Before moving on to next Pinot, this is a good spot to announce that I failed the Series 7 securities license exam by 4 points. This ended my pre-employment journey with an excellent financial services company, but it also put me on the road to somewhere very different. More about that as it develops.

You should love the James Family Cellars 2008 Stony Point Vineyard Pinot Noir ($35 but some discounted supplies remain, 13.8% abv) as well. This is a richer Pinot that will likely be enjoyed by those who like big fruit wines. Normally, when Pinot Noir gets artificially engorged by crafty vinification, things can get ugly. The James Family, who should not be mocked for using the words “world-class” and “artisanal” on their labels, walked a tightrope here and landed gracefully.

One of the better-kept secrets among wineaux is the loveliness of Merlots from the North Fork of Long Island. Much of that region suffers a bit from economies of scale — in short, most of the wine is pricier than its quality merits. But exceptions should be made for just about all the Merlots I’ve tried. My favorite is the Bedell Cellars Reserve Merlot. The 2006 vintage (13% abv, only available in minute quantities through the wine club) benefited from it being a warm year. This wine is ripe without being overblown. Think Lena Olin, not Anna Nicole Smith.

The Negress also lucked onto a surprising wine at her local WineStyles (small national chain of wine stores; some of which do online shipping).  The 2009 Finca La Linda Bonarda (14.3% abv) was going for $10 a bottle at last count. This one hails from the Mendoza region of Argentina. Bonarda is a bit like the Petit Verdot of Argentina. It rarely shows up alone. Too bad. This one is a little figgy with some red fruit. It went well with some spicy foods and drank well without food, although the Negress avoids doing that lately.

The blog has been quite of late, and it will remain so for the rest of this month. The Negress has thrown her lot in with the folks at National Novel Writing Month aka NaNoWriMo, so she’s hoping to have a 65,000 word draft for a memoir by Thanksgiving. She and the members of the ChiWriMo region are busy when they aren’t knitting. Stay tuned.

Posted in Health and Wellness, Knitting and Feministing, Wines of the world in danger | Tagged , , , , , , , | Leave a Comment »

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