Lots of stuff for this day of Ash Wednesday/Passing of Jimmy Smith/Stranger than Fiction/Chinese New Year

Just as much as I taste a lot of wine and beer on a continual basis, I also enjoy a lot of music. Jimmy Smith, one of my favorite transcendentalists, passed away today (http://www.nytimes.com/2005/02/10/arts/music/10smith.html  My first encounters with the grand-daddy of jazz organ stems from my café daze in San Francisco while colleging my bachelors in Anthropology and Music. I was deeply into becoming a tabla performer and a couple coworkers/musicians invited me over one night to bang around to hear what sounds we could make together. Trumpet, bass guitar and tabla didn’t mix well, so after a passing of the pipe, we decided to sit back and relax to some recorded tunes we mutually brought together. I spun some late night raags for them, and they introduced me to Jimmy Smith. I was totally blown away. This nut of a ivory tickler brought down the house with some of the most stupendifying sidemen. from then on I started to amass a large collection of all his releases, and my slow spiral back into sax performance began. to this day, I reserve Wednesday and Thursday every week for the Gospel According to Jimmy Smith by playing as loud as possible organ style music to get me thru the remainder of the week til Friday takes it away to the weekend. (Currently, it helps tremendously that I’ve got a sub-woofer in the store to enable those deep bass pedals the B-3 pipes out.) Now the grand master has taken true flight and escaped our mortal comprehension. I never got to see him live in concert, despite my associations with the jazz community in the bay area, and I deeply regret it, as much as I missed Stanley Turrentine too many times and he took off as well. Life is short, lets enjoy it while we can.

Stranger than fiction, our Pepsi salesman came in the other day to fill an order as per usual. The strange part of it stems from the presence and demeanor he broadcasts. Most of the soda salesman I’ve encounter are ill-trained and dis-interested in low commission cornershops like ours, and getting good product count and price with them is a hairpull every time. Also, my own proclivities against Pepsi go back to the Civil War. First off, I don’t drink soda anymore. Second, in India and Zambia (my family’s places of origin) you drink Coke or the most available substitute meant to look like Coke, Pepsi just doesn’t exist. Also, how else are you supposed to have a Rum and Coke without something that looks like Coke. So you can imagine my pleasant amusement when I connected with the Pepsi salesman. Not only does he have a steady eye contact and considered and thought out reparte, he’s studied in Vedic sciences and has a musical background and life pursuit. When he told me he plays tenor and alto sax, I was thrilled to invite him to be part of my fledgling sax quartet project. He gladly accepted and then declined, informing me of his imminent relocation to Dallas that would make it not likely. IT always seems to happen this way: unexpected sources of similitude that get undone right when they come together, leaving you thrilled for the likeness and not able to bask in the camaraderie. Such is our lot, lets drink beer.

I enjoyed three very differing and yet yummy offerings from the Great Divide Brewing Company from our neighboring state Colorado. The IPA and the ESB are new to the market and available in six packs. The IPA has an awesome hoppy and tangy cut thru it, with a light palate and easy finish, this is a perfect summer beer to beat the heat and open up the taste buds. The ESB is something special, with the bitters in it more complex than the usual. Both of these two beers had a signature dryness that stems probably from the water and hops. I’m thrilled to offer them alongside their sibling the Old Rufian barley wine. I’m not much of a barley wine drinker, most of my encounters has prduced shock more than pleasure. I was not expecting much from this when my rep Dirk offered it before I bought any cases of quantity. When he poured it it looked like a thin porter with the head of a Guinness, the nose had a welcome sweetness and then the taste blew me away. Dark caramel toastiness danced on top of a bitter/dryness that I found in the other two Great Divide pourings. the entire first encounter left me wanting more, and luckily there was cuz the next sips produced even more dimensionality in maltiness and acidity that amazed me enough to  score six cases of the large bottles for our shelves. The Whip In will be the first to have these items available, and I am glad to point them out to the lucky interested.

So, one of our longtime beer vendors delivered the annual Tsing Tao Chinese calendar today, informing me of the importance of hanging it up in plain view cuz its been that way for the past decade. I was a bit taken by that due to all the changes I’ve enforced at my mom and pops store. But I quickly realized that after all is said and undone, some things should probably stay the same. When my wife and I lived in San Francisco, the dot.com boom destroyed the familial and friendly neighborhood we lived in. From 1993 to 1999, Cole Valley, situated in the center of the city and the border of the fog, became enveloped by gentrification. We lived on a side street away from the main drag which was Cole street itself, hence the appellation of the Valley (there are seven hills in San Francisco, each rivaling Mount Bonnell) We saw the elderly black couple across the street move to Oakland cuz i’m sure they went to the bank with a big fat offer from someone wanting their house for way over the 1950s mortgage they paid off. the changing demographics of the neighborhood was most pointed and epitomized by the evolution of this one ‘store front’ in particular: the Hare Krshnas were in Cole Valley, and they were quite prominent and apparent on any given day in the streets. Due to the rising rents, their location turned over into a burger joint by the time we left in 1999. From cow worshippers to beef on a bun, that’s karmic irony. Alors, the Whip In is a unique place, due largely to the setting and the tenure of my Mom and Pops behind the counter. Just as much as they want things to get better, they also want things to stay the same. and unfortunately as the area changes ‘for the better’, I don’t think things can stay the same like they want. it makes me wonder if that’s what growing old is all about, in terms of letting go of the ‘things’ that make you comfortable which allows you to learn to live freer and happier. Sounds semi-Zen, and I’m sure I’m gonna have a hard time figuring this into my life. I hope the changes to come keep us South Austinites good and right without the adverse effects of commodification and community dissolution.

BTW, me and the better half have been enjoying a wonderful white wine from the Marlborough region in New Zealand, and luckily enough my bro and Bob are pouring it for a tasting at Travis Heights Beverage World. To quote Bob himself:

“Nobilo Sauv Blanc is a yummy, zesty, typically tropical New Zealand
white, bursting with melons, peaches, and lemon peel, all held up well by
excellent acidity.”

GUNG HAI FAT CHOY (did I tell you I ate too much Chinese food? http://asiachineserestaurant.com )

with warmth and bubbles and ginger,
~dipak