Russell Means, a former American Indian Movement activist who helped lead the 1973 uprising at Wounded Knee, reveled in stirring up attention and appeared in several Hollywood films, has died. He was 72.
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Photo by wallyg, used under Creative Commons license
I’ve been doing a fair amount of travelling for work lately. Luckily I was able to avoid the pitfall of eating shitty food on the road. Here’s what stood out.
When I first landed in Washington (interesting city, by the way) my hotel wasn’t ready so I needed to kill a couple of hours. I was starving and went looking for a bite. I was about to give up and eat a Starbucks snack, but happened upon Graffiato and took a seat at the bar. I was pretty happy with where I’d landed: cool spot, nice staff, excellent music (Led Zeppelin, Tool, Queens of the Stone Age, White Stripes, Nirvana, old Smashing Pumpkins, etc.) on the speakers, and an interesting beer & wine list — I had a Southern Tier IPA and an Anne Amie Amrita Cuvee 2011 Viognier blend from Oregon. I ended up back there the following night; I had the Brooklyn Oktoberfest and Shipyard Pumpkinhead while listening to The Talking Heads, Rolling Stones, The Pixies, and The Proclaimers.
I got to hang out at the POV Lounge for a while, overlooking the White House and Treasury and other Washington sites, and have dinner at The Hamilton. And when I kind of couldn’t take any more interaction at my conference I went down the street to Brasserie Beck to have some excellent beers: I know I had a Van Eecke Cuvée Watou and a double dry hopped Poperings Hommelbier; after that I stopped keeping track.
Finally, after an airport snafu had me waiting in Dulles airport for several hours, I was lucky to come across Vino Volo, a wine bar in terminal B. I had a Tabali 2011 Reserva Viognier from Chile and an Emerson 2009 Willamette Valley Pinot Noir from Oregon, and a Chardonnay that I forgot to write down. Between that, free wifi, excellent food, and a perfect view of the runway, it was a miraculous find.
It’s been seven years since my last visit to England, and unfortunately I didn’t have much time to really enjoy London this time around. However, the company I was visiting had arranged some excellent meals for us…some excellent coffee too, as I was able to have a flat white or three for the first time since our visit to Australia last year, courtesy of Taylor St.
Most impressive was The Hawksmoor, a restaurant with the menu and decor of a classic steakhouse, but with a badass young staff. We ate as a large group, meaning the apps and wine were communal, but the Tamworth belly ribs were the the standout starter. My enormous & rare bone-in sirloin covered in Béarnaise sauce was tremendous, as was the sticky toffee pudding. We all left nearly bursting at the seams…what a great meal.
The next day most of us had lunch at the nearby Jamie’s Italian, but none of us really had much room. Still, I managed to somehow force down some tagliatelle bolognese before heading to Heathrow for my flight home.
All this travel happened in the span of about nine days, so I was pretty wiped when I arrived home late Friday night. I’m just glad I got to try some decent new places and avoid fast food.
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Photo by Bill in DC, used under Creative Commons license
Oh Porter. I loved you. Like, a lot. For those of us who travel a fair amount and dislike most airline experiences, you were a breath of fresh air. I talked you up every chance I got. I always chose you over Air Canada if possible, even after AC began flying off the Toronto island airport. But Thursday’s experience — albeit it at Dulles, not your YTZ home — may have cost you a die-hard customer.
I was already booked on PD728 to Toronto at 8:45PM. As luck would have it I was able to end my day early so I thought I’d see if I could catch an earlier flight. My assistant called Porter, who told her it would be much cheaper to switch to PD726 (leaving IAD at 4:20PM) in person at the airport. So, after my presentation I jumped in a cab and arrived at IAD at 3:15. By 3:20 I was in a line of three people waiting to be checked in at the Porter desk. There were two people working the desk, so I figured I was in good shape.
I was wrong.
One of the two employees working the desk was new, and unable to process new check-ins. The other wasn’t at the counter, but rather in the room behind the desk making phone calls on behalf of a customer having Visa problems. Now, I do not begrudge her this; the customer needed help, and she was trying to provide it. But was there no way to have the other employee — who couldn’t process new check-ins — handle the phone call? Was there no way to call for additional staff? Was there no way to prioritize people like myself, and the passenger in front of me, as we rushed to make an earlier flight?
However, like good Canadians, the two of us waited patiently while the newly-returned Porter employee checked in the first passenger in line (and her family) and finished with the customer experiencing Visa problems. This took twenty minutes. TWENTY MINUTES. By the time the customer in front of me, also trying to get on the 4:20PM flight, got to the desk he was told that he was too late, and that the flight was boarding in just ten minutes. I had been standing in line for twenty minutes; the customer in front of me had clearly been waiting longer than that. If the counter had been properly staffed, or had the staff allocated work correctly, or had they prioritized in some way, we both could have made it easily, even at an airport as complicated as Dulles.
What made the experience even more frustrating was what followed: the poor passenger in front of me was told to return at 6:45 — more than three hours later — to check in for the next flight. He, being a nice guy and aware that I was also trying to make the flight, turned and told me the situation — that he’d have to wait three hours in the departures area just to check in to PD728, and then proceed to the gates. I felt sorry for him, but also felt relieved that I already had a seat confirmed on PD728 — Porter had emailed me 24 hours before — and assumed the staff would check me in so I could at least proceed to the terminal A gates, which are infinitely nicer than the departures level at Dulles. However, before I had a chance to do so, the two staff members put out a sign saying the counter was closed and disappeared into the back. I called to them; no answer. I waited a few moments; they did not return. I was incredulous. They didn’t even speak to me; they simply assumed I was in the exact situation as the passenger in front of me (who I didn’t know) and closed up shop.
About an hour later I realized my email from Porter actually contained the boarding pass and barcode I’d need to get through security. Luckily I could now kill three hours in a better part of town than Dulles departures. I should have realized that sooner, but I also shouldn’t have had to figure it out on my own…I should have already been sitting in an airside lounge, having been checked in by an agent.
I realize I was asking a lot to move my flight up, and that extenuating circumstances (a passenger wrestling with visa issues) made it difficult, but never in my experience has a challenging thrown a Porter employee. If Porter had lived up to my expectations of them — well-deserved expectations, I must say — I’d have been on the 4:20PM flight and home in Toronto by 6:00PM, instead of sitting in a Dulles airport bar for three hours.
I’ve been a long and loyal Porter advocate, but on Thursday my faith was shaken. I’m not sure how long it will be before my trust is restored. What I do know is that I will not defend as loudly, nor promote as proudly, the Porter service as I have in the past. And that’s a shame.
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Photo by bobolink, user under Creative Commons license
There are concerts you go to because you’re hoping the live show transcends the recorded material. There are concerts you go to because you want to see a band or artist of significant importance play live, just once. And once in a while, you see a concert that delivers both. Once in a while…like when Jack White schedules two nights at the Sony Centre.
We had an insanely busy week leading up to the concert (the second of the two) so I didn’t even know who was opening. Turns out it was a band called Pokey Lafarge and the South City Three, an entertaining little contraption of a band that impressed mostly via their rock star harmonica player and enthusiastic old-timey image. They dutifully played their set, got the energy level up, and were on their way. Then the roadies — all dressed in zoot-suit-ish garb — reset the stage.
When Jack himself took the stage, he did so with his all-male band. I was sad to miss his all-female band, who had played the previous night, but my disappointment was short lived. The band ripped into a 5-song sequence with no break, and this band let it all fly. The drummer and keyboardist especially; both were large, muscular guys who played the hell out of their instruments, contrasted against the waifish White. I found it hard to take my eyes off of them, especially as they were positioned at the front of the stage, framing White as he lurched about. The only difficulty I had was seeing through the 6-6 Shaggy-from-Scooby-Doo looking jagoff in front of me who kept swaying and dancing and then hugging his girlfriend every time she recognized a song. For once I knew what it felt like for Nellie to go to shows and not be able to see anything but the back (and iPhone screen) of the person in front of her.
The set was seventeen songs long, plus four in the encore: eight of his songs from Blunderbuss, eight White Stripes songs, two Raconteurs, two Dead Weather, and one collaboration/feature Jack White did with Danger Mouse. The set list didn’t seem to stray too far from the previous night; I would have liked to hear “John The Revelator” and “Hotel Yorba” but I was happy that he ended the main set with “Ball And A Biscuit” on the second night too, as it’s probably my favourite White Stripes song. It was a crushing version of it too; playing with a powerful backing band just gives the songs a lot more depth.
The range of styles White pulled out that night, the breadth of the bands and side projects, the tightness of the band, the art integrated with the show, the monumental musicianship…it all paid tribute to Jack White being one of the most influential and meaningful artists playing today. It was a fun two hours, but ten years from now it’ll feel momentous.
Pictures here.
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Photo from jackwhiteiii.com, taken Oct 4 2012 by Jo McCaughey.
After a very long week, Nellie and I wanted some place to relax, drink a few good pints of beer, and eat some great food. I convinced her that we should take a chance on Wvrst (ratebeer), a place on King West I’ve been wanting to try for a while.
And man, did it pay off. We had a great night. We’re already anxious to go back.
Here’s why we liked it so much:
Throughout the course of the evening we ended up meeting the manager Bram, who gave us a couple of samples and introduced us to Justin from the Beer Academy. Twitter: helping tipsy introverts meet each other since 2009.
If I weren’t still full of turkey (MLK and CBGB had us over last night; we ate their food and they drank our wine…the perfect symbiotic relationship!) I’d be there right now.
For the past several years we’ve missed Toronto’s version of Nuit Blanche (now called Scotiabank Nuit Blanche, I guess) because we’ve been travelling. This year we deliberately avoided trips in late September/early October so we could attend. Well, fine, okay, we also did it to avoid the opening of the NHL season, but that doesn’t seem so relevant now, does it?
So after spending the day yesterday cleaning the condo we settled into art & food mode: we ate dinner (filet mignon, Beringer cab sauv, and Portuguese tarts for dessert), threw back some double shots of espresso (made from Fahrenheit‘s Diablo beans), and joined the overnight art fray somewhere around 11PM.
The forecast had been warning of showers, but — apart from a tiny spit of drizzle at one point — the weather cooperated nicely. We were able to walk to all the exhibits we wanted to see, though we mostly focused on Zone C since it’s close to home (and also because the Zone C curator seemed to be getting the most nods).
We ended up seeing twenty projects. Here are some of my favourites:
With the time closing on 3AM I was getting hungry (and Nellie was getting sleepy) so we pushed through the hordes on Yonge Street and swung up to the Zone C rest station. I bought a porchetta sandwich from the Per Se food truck, which hit the spot nicely.
We felt like we’d done a pretty good swath of Nuit Blanche, and had the sore feet to prove it. While we enjoyed much of the art, by far the most exasperating part of the night is dealing with all the drunk idiots. It’s an unavoidable element on a Saturday night, certainly, but the sheer volume — I’d say 75% of the people out were more interested in a street party than in art of any kind — changes the feel of the event. It’s hard to process the images and ideas evoked by the art you just saw when, upon exiting the venue, you see two guys holding up a young girl desperately trying to make herself vomit on the sidewalk, or when the clubgoers spill out into the installations at 2AM and add their yell-y insight, or when the security guys have to yell at some self-styled ninja to get off the elephant statue in Commerce Court. It really takes you out of the experience and doesn’t allow you to get caught up in the art itself. I’m beginning to think the only way to really connect with the art is to go out early before the crowds really descend, or to wait until 4AM when the 905ers have gone home and the Ry High kids have passed out. Or just get wasted ourselves.
A quick note on two books I read recently:
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Photo by onebadpenny, used under Creative Commons license
Anyone following my Twitter feed or spending a moderate amount of time with me lately would have seen my rant about Uber. I was intrigued by the idea because of the potential for technology to disrupt a long-standing, stagnant industry: taxis. And, as someone who’s spent a little time over the years thinking about corporate strategy, I always have a morbid curiosity to see the next buggy whip industry begin to rage against the dying of the light.
Usually, when an industry is caught with their pants down and eventually admits to themselves that they see the end coming, you’ll see a variety of tactics by the incumbents. Some companies resign themselves and try to adapt, while others try to hold their ground, usually out of cultural stubbornness or an outright inability to make the change. In the latter case, companies will try to appeal to any existing sense of nostalgia for their products (see: Kodak). In other cases, they’ll fall back on regulation — either saying the threatening companies don’t comply, or trying to ensure they’re included in the regulation, knowing that burden placed on a small company with no industry lobby/alliance would crush them. Often the regulations are valid, but in the cases where the incumbents invoke arcane and irrelevant regulation, or make attempts at scaremongering, then you know they’re in trouble.
Hence, the taxi industry has begun railing at Uber in its various cities, saying it doesn’t met regs. Last week the Taxicab, Limousine & Paratransit Association sent a document to media outlets in Toronto making their case against “Rogue apps” like Uber. Speaking of scaremongering, note the title and subtitle of the report: words like “rogue” and “threat to public safety” are classic examples, meant to scare the townsfolk. Taxi associations in Washington, D.C. started pushing back earlier this year as well.
Really, though, the buggy whip is the wrong analogy. That was an example of an industry failing to adapt to the advent of replacement technology — the car — which quickly became the decided preference of most customers. But Uber isn’t that. The core product remains the same: a car takes your from point A to point B. There are two ways in which Uber differs from regular cabs: 1) the smart phone app used to summon Uber cars, and 2) the quality of the service itself. Let’s examine those:
The technology
Sure, it’s slick that smart phone users can summon a car from their iPhone, get an ETA, see the assigned car on a map as it approaches, easily call the driver if plans change, get an email receipt upon arrival, and rate their driver. But most of those things are nearly as simple with a traditional cab: you call a number, you give the dispatcher your address (I’ve not stumped one yet), and you can get a (paper) receipt on arrival if you need one. Seeing the car inching across a map is nice, as is getting an email receipt, but they’re not game-changers. To me, the two key features are being to rate your driver (and knowing those ratings inform future drivers, and knowing the reverse is true), and another one I didn’t mention: convenience of payment. With Uber you simply have a pre-loaded credit card that’s charged when you arrive. You don’t have to fumble for cash. You don’t have to linger in the cab while the cabbie rummages for correct change (which they often don’t have), while the irate drivers behind you honk incessantly. I like all the features of the technology, but the ease of payment is a killer feature. Still, it’s not enough to scare the taxi industry, and it doesn’t play much part in their complaints to regulators.
The service
This, to me, is the key. This, not the technology, is what creates Uber devotees. When I hail a Toronto cab, the very best I can hope for is an experience that’s not terrible. That’s it. That’s the bar. If you’re lucky you’ll get a cab that isn’t a mess, doesn’t stink of cigarette smoke (like the one I was forced to take yesterday) or something worse, runs well, and is temperature-controlled (I’ve had cabbies refuse to turn on the AC on heat-warning days). Meanwhile, Uber cars are immaculate, spacious, and comfortable. Sometimes they provide free bottled water, though I suspect that’s something the drivers pay for themselves.
The TLPA warned against the inaccuracy of the GPS in Uber cars. Personally, I’ve never had (or heard of a problem), unlike Toronto taxis where I have on countless occasions been forced to give my driver directions after he has started driving in the wrong direction, even though I live at major downtown cross-streets. Moreover, I’ve caught two deliberately taking longer routes; when I challenged them they claimed it was faster, which was patently false. Upon arrival I asked them to adjust the meter. Both times they refused; one threatened to call the police. All I could do was refuse a tip; even then, one claimed he didn’t have change. I called the cab company to complain, but the driver wasn’t displaying his medallion or cab number. Conversely, with Uber I’ve had only one incident where a driver missed a turn, got confused and took a roundabout trip to our destination, for which he apologized. When I provided my post-trip rating to Uber along with the explanation for the low rating, Uber instantly took $5 off my fare and apologized again.
Never, in my dozens of Uber rides, have I witnessed unsafe behaviour on the part of their drivers. Meanwhile, since moving to Toronto I’ve been a passenger in a taxi which drove through a red light and ran into a dump truck (I wasn’t seriously injured, but the driver couldn’t have cared less anyway; he was only interested in the damage to his car, and didn’t so much as apologize). I was never contacted by the cab company for an apology. I’ve been stuck inside a taxi as he chased a car — at higher speeds than were prudent on city streets — which had cut him off earlier, and refused to pull over. I got out at a light as he got out to confront the driver; he told me to get back in the cab as I still had to pay. I’ve also been hit by a cab driver doing a rolling right turn at a red light. He was on his cell phone and didn’t notice me on the cross-walk. I wasn’t hurt, but I fell on the hood of his car. He simply kept driving and talking on his phone. I recently took a taxi driven by a man who clearly hadn’t bathed in days. I took a cab (with my parents, no less) driven by a guy who had just smoked a joint. I could go on and on and still not recount all the poor experiences I’ve forgotten over the years. I’ve had good cabs/drivers too, but they’re the distinct exception. Like I said, the best I can hope for when hailing a Toronto cab is a not-terrible experience. When an Uber cab shows up, I expect a superb experience. And I get it. For a 10-15% premium (not the laughable 40-60% premium the TLPA claims) I’ll take that option whenever I can.
Taxi companies have begun to copy the technology side of Uber’s offering. Interestingly, Uber now allows you call a regular cab from their app too, suggesting at least some cab drivers are willing to work for/with them. Perhaps replicating Uber’s service will be cost-prohibitive for traditional taxi companies under their current regulatory requirements, though that doesn’t seem to be the thrust of their complaints, and I’ve certainly not seen taxi companies make a move in the better-service direction. If the playing field is to be evened, then the regs should be applied fairly to Uber, not in a punitive manner resulting from their lack of safety-in-numbers the taxi industry enjoys.
Even if the TLPA and others do manage to temporarily impose limits or regs on Uber, it won’t kill the idea. Buggy whip manufacturers likely raised issues of public safety concerning the automobile. The ice delivery industry probably declared refrigerators safety hazards. The music industry wailed and gnashed their teeth at Napster ostensibly on behalf of poor starving artists, but really on behalf of their profits. Uber found a way to deliver a better product. That scares the people who’ve made a lot of money (I mean the taxi companies, not the drivers) delivering the bad product, and so they’ll rail against the progress.
But that never lasts long.
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Photo by pgaif13, used under Creative Commons license. And I was by no means trying to single out Beck Taxi in relation to my story — I just liked the picture. Beck is actually one of the better companies in Toronto…though that’s not a high bar.
Last Wednesday, as part of Toronto Beer Week, one of our favourite beer places in the city hosted a special dinner. Beerbistro was pairing ten courses with Rogue beer, brought to Ontario on draft for the first time. For serious North American craft beers fans, this was not to be missed.
Good: the Dead Guy ale paired with bacon & eggs; the Yellow Snow IPA paired with duck salad; the Hazelnut Brown Nectar paired with quail; the Double Dead Guy ale paired with bacon-glazed pork tenderloin; the single malt whiskey paired with crême brulée
Not so good: the Brutal IPA paired with the mini wild boar burger (the stinky Époisse cheese ruined it); the Dirtoir Black Lager paired with seafood boil (the seafood was very unpleasant)
Anyway, with all the talk amongst tables of how Rogue draft compared to in-bottle, and of how it stacked up to Dogfish Head and Allagash and the like, by the end of the night I (and everyone around us) probably deserved one of these:
(via Kaylea McCarron, who probably wanted to say this to me many times)
Having the Gardiner Expressway closed for repairs is a mixed blessing. It makes the trip west out Toronto much more painful (Lakeshore can just suck it) but it appears to make the QEW less clogged. At least, that was our working hypothesis last Saturday.
And why were we heading west on the Gardiner and QEW last weekend?
Wine.
Obviously.
This wasn’t an overnight trip, this was a day trip. A quick down-and-back to fill the rack, driven in no small part by the release that day of Hidden Bench’s 2009 Tête de Cuvée Chardonnay. We made return trips to 13th Street, Foreign Affair, Hidden Bench, Stratus, Tawse, and Thirty Bench. We also tried three for the first time: Di Profio (which now hosts Nyarai), Marynissen, and Organized Crime. I must say, for all I’ve heard about Marynissen, I wasn’t very impressed. It had a very ‘fire sale’ feel inside, possibly because the new owners have told them to have one. Not sure. None of their wines jumped out at us, but the deal for two cases of Cab Franc — $140 — was decent value. $5.83/bottle of (admittedly, a very weak) Ontario Cab Franc is a decent option for everyday house wine.
The real highlights of the day were Hidden Bench (where I was selling fellow tasters so hard I might as well have been wearing an “I ♥ Felseck!” tshirt), 13th Street (where the awesome Lindsay looked after us, and whose winery should probably coin the phrase “pastoral cool”), and Tawse (where we expected to run in, grab two bottles, and run out, but instead spent time in the cellar with the delightful Catherine serving us all kinds of interesting pours and eventually up-selling us on their wine club). The service really stood out on this trip, but I expect nothing less of those three locations.
We even managed to squeeze in a lunch at Stone Road Grille. We probably should have stopped at Southbrook for a Treadwell pizza, or had a bite on 13th Street’s deck, but it’s hard to pass up the grille.
Here are the friends we brought home with us to live, less the two cases of Marynissen:
And here it is in word form:
That should last us a week or two.
Skirl | Dan Dickinson 