Glass Shallot by Adam Baer | Adambaer.com

My Priceline Staycation... to Dubai?

It was Labor Day. We needed a break. I hated the bullshit word "Staycation," but we had to remain in our city. I turned to Priceline. Madness ensued.

[via The Faster Times]

Vista and Refuge: Interview with a Big Sur Yurt-Hotel Owner/White Tanker Firefighter

In May’s Men’s Journal, I have a one-pager about Big Sur in the wake of last year’s wildfires. In the piece, I write about an awesome collection of yurts overlooking the Pacific ocean called Treebones. My wife and I hung out in Big Sur for this piece in November ‘08, on the weekend that Santa Barbara's Montecito area lit up like a roman candle, and on which there were crazy winds that shook us, and a fair amount of our camping friends in Ojai and beyond, all night long. Why Lina and I continually end up in oceanfront mountains during wildfires and windstorms is beyond me. That said, we’d been to Treebones before, and we’ll return. There’s nothing like it, and it’s only perhaps too rustic for the Woody Allen wannabe who can’t hold down his lunch west of the Mississippi. But if you want a little supplement to the MJ piece, I thought that I’d post some of a long and bewitchingly cool interview with Treebones’s unusually decent founder, John Handy, a recently indoctrinated volunteer fireman and green-building pioneer who used to work as a toy executive down in super-serious LA, eventually decided to leave the so-called grid, and now owns a Big White Tanker and lives in Henry Miller’s woods, where it’s nice and natural, and no one wants to stick you with dirty needles for your change from the Korean fried chicken place. Here, if you haven't opened the PDF yet is the Q&A. For more about traveling to Big Sur, here's the MJ piece, which is also available on their Web site. --AB

Shallot Casual: Suggestions for flying JetBlue

1. Make sure you haven't already obtained and begun to use the American Express JetBlue credit card, so you won't be annoyed at how much more points towards a free flight it's supposed to provide than it really does, should you decide to make it your primary means of overspending.

2. Book flights last minute to get back to your ever-venerable Long Island hometown and the scumbags it produced to help your family mourn a close loved one.  You don't need to ask for "so-called bereavement rates" as numerous JetBlue employees will tell you, because JetBlue flights are "already priced so low that" they "undercut the rumored 'death discounts.'"

3. Do not tell the customer service lady in Utah that she's wrong about the pricing she mentions in point #2. She will get nasty. And yell. And tell you that "even Mormons have a limit." And isn't it more important to avoid any form of human conflict than to actually get a company to operate ethically? You do not have the right to ask simple questions of customer service employees when it might result in your last-minute flight back for a funeral not costing, oh, $1,500. Let's be reasonable.

4. Enjoy your DirectTV even if the headphone jacks don't work. It will be a good distraction from the frequent leg cramps you experience because the last-minute, $1,500 seat you purchased doesn't actually sport the "even more legroom" you chose to buy on top of the generously low price. Bask in the classless society of JetBlue. Every once in a while, DirectTV should be silent when babies are crying in three aisles around you. That's what being a part of a faux-Marxist passenger community run by a money-hungry airline is all about. Fraternity.

5. Believe in your pilot, even when the plane nosedives for about 30 straight seconds more than three times in one flight and then nearly flicks itself off the runway upon landing. Clearly the perfect flying conditions as reported by your friend the Caltech aviation buff should be blamed for the landing. JetBlue pilots rock. You know this because you saw them holding a Supertramp CD in the cockpit upon arrival.

6. Remain unconcerned about the fact that the cabin remains 80 degrees in the dead of August. JetBlue is keeping the planes "balmy" for your "tropical comfort," what might be called a "vacation extension," not because it's important to save money at the expense of passengers as oil prices and airfares rise.

7. Don't ask your cousin to check the e-mail itinerary confirmation the last night of the trip. The fact that you purchased last minute flights on the phone for extra money so that everything would be taken care of by an actual human should be enough to persuade you that everything was done correctly. But if you like, do please make two subsequent phone calls to confirm the flights are right. It's much more dramatic and hence exciting this way; after all has been confirmed twice and your family member finally gets around to checking the confirmation e-mail a few days later only to see that you and your wife have been put on different flights--one returning one week later than the other, despite the same flight number and price--you can get really deeply into the role of "irate customer," an archetype you had always wanted to study in film school.

8. Do not ask the next "nice" customer service lady in Utah if you can avoid change fees for the flight to be "corrected" back to the original plans that had been made and then confirmed twice over the phone.  Instead just force Betty with a barrage of expletives to apologize on behalf of the airline and then make everything right even though you failed to record the conversations you had with her brethren the way you now record almost every important call you make to your insurance company, because you've been wronged by them so many times, it's almost acceptable to be paranoid about them trying to rape your bank account on a weekly basis. Forcing people to do stuff like this over the phone, when your week hangs in the balance is definitely the way to go. Especially with the oh-so-flexible and friendly Utah-based JetBlue support staff.

9. Drink lots of vodka on the new flight, and ask for ice. That Oprah show your mom keeps talking about where the airline ice makers were found to contain all kinds of viruses and bacteria, including fecal matter, has to be complete bullshit. The flight assistants are really friendly. Friendly means no bacteria.

10. Remember that while Virgin America sounds like a thinking person's alternative to JetBlue, it would be a pain in the ass to have to fly from LAX versus nearby Burbank, with all its B-level celebrities, Universal Studios-bound families, and pornstars vogueing for paparazzi shots as you weep not that you have lost a family member but that even the most forward-thinking airline in America has gone to complete shit.

Shallot Casual: A Day at the Vineyard, or Comments One Could Have Offered to One's Fictional In-Laws on the Annual California Vacation

1. I'm all for visiting the Santa Barbara county wineries, but given the fact that you want to "do it right, all day long, like they do in the movie," don't you think we should plan to do it and leave LA later than 2 pm on an August Saturday so as to avoid traffic and other wine-country tourists and actually get a chance to visit more than one winery before they all close?

2. I'm all for visiting the Santa Barbara county wineries, but given the fact that you want to "do it right, all day long, like they do in the movie," don't you think we should plan to do it and leave LA later than 2 pm on an August Saturday so as to avoid traffic and other wine-country tourists and actually get a chance to visit more than one winery before they all close? And while we're at it, maybe we should plan to take a car that's big enough for the whole lot of us, so my wife (your daughter) doesn't have to twist herself like a contortionist in the middle of the backseat of your beautiful (and believe me, it's a knockout) but just ever-so-slightly too-small Dick Tracy-ish rental car?

3. I'm all for visiting the Santa Barbara county wineries, but given the fact that you want to "do it right, all day long, like they do in the movie," don't you think we should plan to do it and leave LA later than 2 pm on an August Saturday so as to avoid traffic and other wine-country tourists and actually get a chance to visit more than one winery before they all close? And while we're at it, maybe we should plan to take a car that's big enough for the whole lot of us, so my wife (your daughter) doesn't have to twist herself like a contortionist in the middle of the backseat of your beautiful (and believe me, it's a knockout) but just ever-so-slightly too-small Dick Tracy-ish rental car? Call me one of those "insane" California drivers, but maybe we should also go a hair faster than 55--you know, so we can just get to the winery before they stop doing their "Sideways" shtick that we all really think it will be fun to see even if we've seen it before (20 times, with other California visitors who have as original and fun ideas as you)?

4.  I'm all for visiting the Santa Barbara county wineries, but given the fact that you want to "do it right, all day long, like they do in the movie," don't you think we should plan to do it and leave LA later than 2 pm on an August Saturday so as to avoid traffic and other wine-country tourists and actually get a chance to visit more than one winery before they all close? And while we're at it, maybe we should plan to take a car that's big enough for the whole lot of us, so my wife (your daughter) doesn't have to twist herself like a contortionist in the middle of the backseat of your beautiful (and believe me, it's a knockout) but just ever-so-slightly too-small Dick Tracy-ish rental car? Call me one of those "insane" California drivers, but maybe we should also go a hair faster than 55--you know, so we can just get to the winery before they stop doing their "Sideways" shtick that we all really think it will be fun to see even if we've seen it before (20 times, with other California visitors who have as original and fun ideas as you)? And maybe once we get there (to the first winery), we should actually, just maybe, taste the actual wine and not complain that you could buy a bottle in a store for the price of the tasting? I'm not saying all the wine is good, but I don't know, I'm just throwing this out...perhaps it's a little too early to start hating the entire enterprise before actually doing one full tasting--that is, if you do plan on enjoying this day--at THE WINERIES--in the lovely Buelton countryside?

5.  I'm all for visiting the Santa Barbara county wineries, but given the fact that you want to "do it right, all day long, like they do in the movie," don't you think we should plan to do it and leave LA later than 2 pm on an August Saturday so as to avoid traffic and other wine-country tourists and actually get a chance to visit more than one winery before they all close? And while we're at it, maybe we should plan to take a car that's big enough for the whole lot of us, so my wife (your daughter) doesn't have to twist herself like a contortionist in the middle of the backseat of your beautiful (and believe me, it's a knockout) but just ever-so-slightly too-small Dick Tracy-ish rental car? Call me one of those "insane" California drivers, but maybe we should also go a hair faster than 55--you know, so we can just get to the winery before they stop doing their "Sideways" shtick that we all really think it will be fun to see even if we've seen it before (20 times, with other California visitors who have as original and fun ideas as you)? And maybe once we get there (to the first winery), we should actually, just maybe, taste the actual wine and not complain that you could buy a bottle in a store for the price of the tasting? I'm not saying all the wine is good, but I don't know, I'm just throwing this out... perhaps it's a little too early to start hating the entire enterprise before actually doing one full tasting--that is, if you do plan on enjoying this day--at THE  WINERIES--in the lovely Buelton countryside? On that count, and I'm just making a minor suggestion here, but maybe you might want to also mock the descriptive wine writing on the menus beyond earshot of the winery owner who already looks like he wants to hit you in the face with his full bottle of dolcetto? Just a suggestion--you know, so we can enjoy the jokes better without having to fight before we're even drunk enough to get into some serious bottle smashing.

summer in the hometown: jones beach nostalgia

comparing bathroom graffiti

In Rome, one tag on a bathroom stall read: "Bush = un pezzo di merda."

In Las Vegas's McCarran airport, one stall wall included the following line: "Jews runs the media." Directly underneath that line was another pearl: "That's because people have bad sense of grammar."

post-italy thoughts

Upon my return from Italy, the one thing I am sure of is that I currently dislike watching American dance reality shows (not that I ever did), reading tabs, seeing really bad movies (bad-good movies are still fine), even more than before. The leniency for crap that I acquired in LA after years of curmudgeon life in NY is gone, even after just returning from a foreign country where the music and television, at least the popular forms of it, are funnier (stupider, potentially, more sexist, etc.) than anything in America. Truth is: I cannot stand to see the way certain people live in this country that I can luckily call home in the current tense international climate. But the more I see Americans and our need and love to consume, lack of organic pleasure, the urgency and intensity with which we communicate via e-mail, phone, and even in person...it's overwhelming, and it's sad. I wasn't away very long. 30 days is hardly a long tour away from one's culture, but it was just long enough for me to slip into, as I had said, a more natural mode of existence, and these weren't on days gazing out over the Mediterranean. I experienced as much or more of this new internal pace and attitude at Autostrade-side Autogrills and in smoky Rome buses, bad gelaterias and even dangerous neighborhoods and boring Sardinia cellphone stores, as I did in restful medieval villages in the Abruzzi mountains. For it isn't rest that Italy provides. Italy doesn't provide anything, in fact, and that's why it's great; it doesn't try too hard, doesn't want to. Plus, there's a frenetic pace in the Italian world, too--especially in a city like Rome, which is hardly a groundbreaking observation, as kids reheat more frozen meals than ever while moms and dads still jump over each other and ditch their jobs to watch their children take swimming lessons. But what's different about it all is that to my mind Italians don't want to work more: they don't like it, they don't get a high from it. They don't have openings, in large part, in the little portal in our minds that the allows the urgency, devote-your-life-to-nonsense and anticipatory stress addiction that reaches and controls many American psyches. And if some Italians do not feel this urgency, if they do devote their lives to nonsense, well, they don't really feel as if they're living while mourning the loss of their lives simultaneously in that distinctly American way. A Naples advertising executive who doesn't really believe in the mission of his account, therefore, just waits for work to end to really enjoy his life--what most people in America *say* they do but rarely accomplish. He doesn't force an attempt at or quest for enjoyment into his every moment and then wince when he can't find any "quality time" for it; maybe he'll have some moments of joy throughout the day but they will come whether or not he creates an "action plan" to "achieve" them. For instance, Italy is currently looking into increasing the work week hours; as dangerous as it is to us, the Euro is killing too many people in Italy, too. But there remains a lovingly selfish-cum-socialist-y, "let the government take care of it" type of attitude--we don't like our president, but what the hell?--that even lets the overworked feel free, regardless of what's required of them. And maybe that's what I saw most obviously on my mini-trip. Not any sort of "la dolce vita" fiction. But the fact that most Italians feel free from expectation and big-brother ownership--especially state and corporate ownership, even when it's written into law--except for when it comes to family. Which is more an ownership of love and something all of us should applaud. More in the coming weeks. This is part of the book project...

sardinian contradictions

1. People can't really debone fish here. And the cuisine is made of more pig than you would think.

2. The best beaches aren't sandy but rocky (see Cala Mariolu, up top), and they often require a boat trip.

3. Ocean currents go in the opposite direction you think they should. Say, towards wherever you happen to be swimming.

4. There is happiness that the US military has left the Maddelena archipelago but now everyone's complaining that the US has left them with no means for economic stimulation. (I say, just be glad Bush is gone. Berlusconi's still up your behind.)

5. Everything's eco here, but those horses on the side of the road? They may end up in a ragu. For real.

6. A man came up to me on the beach, not selling Fanta or chips or even a panino. He was selling pecorino. Cheese! On the beach! For a snack!

7. The rich people here may pop their collars and sail superyachts but when you question them privately about the success of the Port Cervo marina, they tell you they fear it's becoming too much like New Jersey.

8. The wind blows everywhere you don't want it to, but when the lights come on (what some people call the sun coming out), it can stop dead in its tracks.

9. The "strange" black-clad ladies of the Barbaggia mountains happily sell bus tours to their lifestyle not unlike the Amish. Score one for taking dumb tourists to hand.

10. You actually swim with sardines here, among other interesting fish. Put on a snorkel mask, remove your makeup, and stop just lying on the sand looking at everyone else's D&G swimsuit while you considering buying fake Breitling watches from those Senegalese souvenirsmen.

*This is weird and beautiful place. Beautiful because of its oddities (the wild horses, Catalan-Arabic influences, ancient civilization ruins, the pirate-like flag), not the pretty coastlines. Stay atuned to that fact and you won't fall into the chasm of "whydidn't I follow cheesy American pop stars to Capri, (which, btw, is terribly overpriced and currently in a state of classless ruin by the onslaught of modern tourism)?"

vacanze da vacanze romane

Having been here for a week, for the fourth time in my life, it's pretty easy for me to confirm how much Rome and my adopted hometown of Los Angeles are alike. In Rome, everyone immediately looks you up and down, even the cheesy bridge-and-tunnel kids with the badly gelled hair who live miles from Cinecitta; everyone's pazzo, doing something unusually complicated on unusually expensive cellphones, especially when driving; and style trumps all (addendum: most Romans, outside your immediate family and favorite Hugo Boss salesman, will be nice to your face and speak crap behind your back). Tired of these inescapable Hollywoodisms as well as the tourists in every corner of the city (and every Dior, D&G, and Armani store)--even in the small, unusually good dining rooms and bars of the former slaughterhouse district, Testaccio--I recently sought refuge in my father-in-law's alpine region of Abruzzi (home as well to half of Madonna's family). Good thing, too, because aside from the best saffron, game, sheep's milk cheese, and mountainous national parkland in Italy, Abruzzi  (though it's been called "The Next Toscana," think more Colorado than Napa) also benefits from a lack of tourism. Which doesn't mean you won't find great restaurants and hotels here; just that they won't be overrun with tacky, in-your-face, fanny-pack-waisted Rick Stevesians and the guidebooks that they love--or worse, B-level American celebrities. After a fast two hour jaunt east from Rome, last week, I arrived in the small, rustic town of Campo di Giove, set deep under the imposing Majella mountains and just minutes from the medeival city of Sulmona, birthplace of Ovid and that Confetti (candied almonds) your significant other will likely adore as much as L. Locals, and there are plenty of young, single ragazzi still hanging in their hometowns--make sure not to say you are single as one friend did; you will get an invitation to a family dinner for the wrong reasons). Inadvertently stylish in 80's threads they don't care about (unlike some of the chic-geeks in Sulmona), these kids may win you over with genuine friendliness as quickly as, say, the freshly made annelini with speck and ricotta (which would no doubt be on tomorrow's Babbo menu if Batali ever scootered himself over), at the no-frills La Scarpetta di Venere. At this thin-aired pine-perfumed spot, on a recent night, the young locals gathered to watch Rome play Inter in soccer while scarfing down pizze (I recommend the local prosciutto as a topping; it's deeper in color and richer in flavor, with more substance, than the overbought Parma stuff you can find in any Dean and Deluca), taking turns saying hello to our Zia (yes, young people, in certain places still have respect for elders).  In the morning, you might want to follow my lead and dodge a brown bear, a few wild boars, and a wolf (if I was kidding, this would be mentioned with some degree of whimsy), while riding the funicular up to Gran Sasso d'Italia (the rock of Italy), the highest mountain in the country, for fantastic hiking and even a look at a hotel built by Mussolini in Campo Imperatore. It's true: I have a home here--in the city you see above--and thank god there's no Wi-Fi. I, however, never mind a night at the albergo diffuso Sextantio, a recently finished preservation-minded design hotel built out of the intact medeival Abruzzese town of Santo Stefano di Sessanio, right in the national park, where Philippe Starck bathroom fixtures sit in restored cave-like brick rooms for the socially conscious yet aesthetically driven travelers some of us know we have become. I'm OK with this kind of tourism; the place was purchased over ten years ago and painstakingly restored with natural materials allowing locals (those who remained) to enjoy a better quality of life each month. As the manager, Giovanni, tells me, it's not for everyone. You have "niche" clienti, I tell him. Yes, he says, nich-a. Like the philosopher? Not exactly, I say, but hotel managers who think philosophy at the drop of an Abruzzese wool cap definitely are a niche group. Ho capito, he replies: I GET you. Then we eat a few chunks of local pecorino, talking soccer, while an American in a rented Alfa drives by, almost hitting a deer, he is so focused on the combination of his G.P.S. system and the panino he bought at an Auogrill on the autostrade. Oh, Abruzzi, am I hurting you--and hence slowly poisoning my escape--with such a post?  I will have to care for you as I introduce you around.--A.B.

il dottore a roma

I am having a lovely time in Rome. But I can't help but feel that the trip is somewhat marred so far by a persistent cold, sore throat, and fever-like sensation that worsens at night. Until yesterday we thought I just picked up something nasty on the plane. But as it continued to worsen over a week's time, I figured it would be wise to get it checked out. First I went to a farmacia, where things are a little different than they are in America. For one thing, as my local farmacia dottore pointed out, in America, you never get to to speak to the pharmacist: That isn't entirely true, but I know what he means having spent lots of time in inpersonal Rite Aids run by uneducated fools. But then the farmacia dottore continued: Here, we are doctors, he said. And there are four of us all the time in this place. Of course, they only have one form of sudafed that doesn't make you drowsy (Vicks -ah"FLu-ah Action-ah"), and they decide what it is you need, but it is nice to speak to someone who knows a little something about medicine. You like-a this system better than America's, he asked, ah? No, I said. They are both good, but I wish I had the choice over my medication. Ah, he said. But we are doctors. Lina then perked up: But you are doctors of phramacy the same way I am a doctor of psychology, just like our pharmacists. Yes! he said. Clearly we weren't communicating very well. At any rate, I then ran into my Zia on the street looking for peaches at the fruit stand. It so happened she had just returned from her doctor. What type of doctor is he if you don't mind me asking, I said in Italian. Allora, she said. Ancora, sentai male? Si, I replied. Allora. She took my hand and we walked one block from the apartment where she rung up her local doctor's office. We entered and the doctor took me right away, checked my throat and gave me a full exam. I see no sign of bacterial infection, she said; drink water and lemon. And don't let water come from your body (sweat!). Then she OK'ed the phamacist's Sudafed and the new throat spray. Then, when it was time to pay, she refused money. Instead she kissed the both of us, tolf my aunt to feel well and tousled my hair. Then she sent us home and told us to bring her lemons from Amalfi. Now, think of even the nicest doctor in the U.S. Would he or she see you for free, and instantly? Would he or she care enough to put you ahead of her other patients? That is what I miss about the American system. I don't care if I have to pay for my Sudafed (my Zia will get reimbursed by her government-fortified insurance company for my over-the-counter cold meds). But it would be nice if I had a doctor who cared even 30% as much as this fine Roman doctor. Oh, and by the way: She went to Harvard but she grew up in Rome.  Va bene, indeed.