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Check, Please / Behind the music (and wine)

5 August 2008 in food, reviews, san francisco | No comments

I always meant to write about my close encounter with public television fame — the only kind that’s worth pursuing, if you ask me — but somehow I got waylaid by summertime, its various parties and good ol times. But I’ve got a sec, so I should just spill it before the good times take hold again.

Check Please - Sitting at the tableTime spent combing hair: zero minutes. Time spent ironing shirt: zero minutes. Number of heart attacks my mom would have if she saw this: countless.


Check, Please! Bay Area is a restaurant review show on our local public television station, KQED Channel 9 (what!). On each show, three Bay Area residents sit around a table and discuss their thoughts and feelings about three local restaurants. At the beginning of the process, each person gets to choose a favorite1 restaurant; then, each participant goes to all three restaurants; THEN, everyone assembles at KQED studios to discuss them in front real TV cameras.

So, yeah, it all started back in June.

Mara and I were at Pauline’s Pizza, eating dinner with some friends when we saw Leslie Sbrocco, the host of Check Please. We’re Check Please superfans, so we couldn’t resist the urge to approach Leslie and creep her out with our extensive knowledge of the show. Later, Leslie and her dining companion (who turned out the be the producer) stopped by our table and asked us to apply to be on the show. Somehow, I was the one who applied, even though Mara would have been 10 times better. Somehow, I was accepted, for reasons that are still unclear to me.

As I mentioned in the footnote, I chose a taco truck as my favorite restaurant, and this was a slight — SLIGHT — departure from those chosen by my cohorts — a fancy Noe Valley bistro, and a classic Financial District steakhouse. Therefore, my entire preparation for the show involve crafting arguments about why they needed to give the taco truck another try. “The ecology of taquerias is rich and diverse,” I would instruct them; “each one has its own specialty, a thing it does better than all others, and it takes time to fully explore this richness.” (Anyway, you can read more of this BS in my review on KQED’s website).

Turns out, my cohorts loved the taco truck. I was speechless, really. I had nothing productive to say to people who agreed with me. It could have been the wine. (IT’S REAL, by the way). And I drank too much of it, too much for a non-wine drinker, too much for 11am on a weekday (when we taped it), too much to generate extemporaneous bon mots worthy of PUBLIC TV.

Why even bother describing it? You can see for yourselves. It’s all over the Internet.


My YouTube debut: Tipsy on public TV. Awesome. Doesn’t get better this. Get used to it, America! You haven’t seen the last of me.

If you’re curious about what the blogosphere had to say about my taco truck recommendation, you need only get a load of this review from a guy named Ely, also from KQED’s site:

Dont eat from El Tonayense, I had a beef burrito that made me sick! The meat was too oily and mix in with fatty fat peices. The burrito was tiny and the ingridients had little favor.

My bad.

1 Check Please kinda repeatedly implies that each restaurant reviewed is the “favorite” restaurant of the person who suggested it. I chose a taco truck.

I live inside your television

11 April 2008 in food, reviews, san francisco | No comments

Doug LeMoine - Check Please - Looking at the cameraYou may recognize me from somewhere, somewhere like YOUR TIVO.



Pretty much the only thing the director told me: “Don’t look at the camera.” Dang.

More on my explosion onto the local public television restaurant-reviewing stage sometime soon; until then you can check out my episode of the Check Please Bay Area here.

Basketball / Tale of two teams

26 February 2008 in basketball, kansas basketball | No comments

Baron!
The Bay Area: Where Baron happens. Photo: Jed Jacobsohn/Getty Images

Living in the Bay Area, I’ve watched Baron Davis and Don Nelson breathe life into the corpse of the Golden State Warriors by playing fast, loose, undisciplined, unpredictable basketball. When they’re clicking, the Warriors are invigorating and life-affirming. Nellie doesn’t burden the team with structure — they don’t really run an “offense” or play “defense” in the traditional senses — instead, they rely on the players’ abilities to improvise, pull their opponents out of their own structures, and wear them down with running and gunning.

Playground electicity

When the Warriors are good, they’re like the best playground basketball team you could ever imagine. What makes them all the more exciting is that their roster lacks key traditional dimensions associated with successful teams. They compete without the traditional man-mountain in the low-post to take on Shaq, Yao, Duncan, or Pau; instead, Andris Biedrins, who has very little in the way of a J and doesn’t ever try to play facing the basket, uses his quickness and hops to rebound, follow, and generally surprise opponents with his ability to keep Warrior possessions alive. (Check out where The Wages of Wins ranked Biedrins for the 2006 – 2007 season) Spoiler: He’s #1 on the team, with 11.7 to Baron’s 9.7.

On the guard front, Baron and Stephen Jackson and Monta Ellis don’t really run an offense as much as they weave through defenses in perpetual one-on-fives, driving to the rim, dishing to teammates. Baron has a (admittedly deserved) reputation as a shoot-first point guard, but he defers to others when they’re hot and his teammates seem to feed off his energy. Monta, more of a two-guard than a point, somehow can’t shoot the three, but he can blow by just about anyone and he’s one of the better finishers in the league right now. 6’9″ Al Harrington is more reliable from behind the arc than he is with his back to the basket; Wages of Wins doesn’t think much of him, but it’s hard to deny the problems that he creates for defenses when he’s in the game. Stephen Jackson — Stack Jack, as Baron calls him — is the glue; when he’s in the game, everyone is better. Seriously, who wouldn’t want to play with him? He’s got everyone’s back.

Darnell
Darnell can’t do it alone. Photo: Nick Krug, Lawrence Journal-World.

Contrast the Warriors with the other team that I follow, the Kansas Jayhawks. Where the Warriors are dangerous, inscrutable, fierce competitors who save their best for big games, the Jayhawks have been the opposite: soft, predictable, vulnerable when the game is on the line. Where the Warriors have at least three guys who thrive in pressure situations — Baron, Stack Jack, and Harrington — the Jayhawks have eight guys who could start on any team in America, but not one who wants to take over a game.

Last week, I trekked to Oracle with Justin, Mara, and Lynne (Lynne? Blog?), and we watched the Warriors wear down the Celtics and, in the final moments, drive a dagger into their hearts. Three days later, I watched the Jayhawks wilt in the final moments against a very, very fired up Oklahoma State team.

Part of the problem is that Kansas simply doesn’t have reliable offensive weapons; another part is that teams love beating the Hawks, and each Jayhawk opponent is playing its biggest game of the season. College basketball is different in that regard. Message boards don’t rejoice each time the Lakers lose a game, but oh how people love to see teams like Kansas (Google: “kansas” + “choke”), Duke (Google: “duke” + “choke”), and Kentucky (Google: “kentucky” + “choke”) lose. Which is fine. If people didn’t really react this way, the wins wouldn’t be as much fun.

The root of the Hawks’ problem is offensive, though. The Warriors are stocked with guys who can create their own shot, but Kansas has to rely on Mario Chalmers and Sherron Collins (and, to some extent, Russell Robinson) to break down defenses and spring Brandon Rush on the perimeter or Darrell Arthur inside. Like the Warriors, the Hawks don’t run a structured offense with interchangeable parts; they rely on athleticism. This lack of dimension is easily exploited by teams who effectively pressure the Hawks’ guards, and who run big guys out to trap the ball at the three-point line. Add to this mix the fact that Kansas guards cannot seem to defend opposing guards, and there’s no question that they’ve got some big problems to solve before mid-March.