Category: dogs

Berlin boogie

~ Chris ~ 2 Comments

So there we were, rambling the hip Berlin sidewalks, hopscotching crumpled cigarette packs whose contents the locals so blithely puff, and glancing at the endless walls of colorful graffiti that looks like so much bubble-lettered gobbledygook, when we stumbled on a little shop that sells porcelain pups. Yes: glazed Great Danes and shiny Schnauzers. My brother and I peered in the windows, pointing, laughing, pining. Too bad the damn place was closed. We moved on, slightly crushed. Onward.

Berlin is a beaut. It may not be the prettiest or most charismatic city I’ve been to — you win, Paris, Istanbul and Tokyo — but it is relentlessly amicable, stylish, pulsing. The city, from which I just returned, has a big determined heart, still pulling itself out of the twin muck of Nazism and Communism, that makes it both a little staid and also, wildly, weirdly, the techno-rave dance capital of the world, a pent-up human energy explosion.

It’s an offbeat charmer, animated by a vibrant polyglot and a diverse people, be it leather-clad Eurotrash, Arab falafel slingers, or well-heeled bougies and their primly groomed doggies. It presents an alluring jumble of history and humanity, culture and cuisine, with a dash of decadence and the pesky ghosts of a bleak past that’s shudderingly recent.

We spent six full days stamping the streets, alleyways, museums and squares of this relatively young metropolis, whose US-backed west and USSR-backed east didn’t reconcile till the Wall came tumbling down in the great thaw of 1989. Much of the architecture looks shiny-new, replacements for the rubble left by ferocious Allied bombings during WWII.

Berlin was also rocked by rock ’n’ roll. We took a tour of  the city’s grungy, arty, DIY underbelly in a vintage 1972 Ford Econoline van driven by the shaggy founder of the Ramones Museum Berlin, which is really just a funky bar strewn with punk artifacts. It’s cool. The tour was happily heavy on David Bowie and Iggy Pop’s ‘70s stint in Berlin, which forged a collective creative milestone in rock, including Bowie’s wondrous “Heroes.” We can be heroes, just for one day. Or, in our case, six days.

A side note: For all its diversity — the Turkish and Arab worlds exert strong stakes — Berlin has blind spots. I saw fewer than three Black people in six days, and that’s troubling and hard to fathom for a US visitor. I googled this and read that most of the Black population lives in the so-called African Quarter, an area I’m pretty sure we didn’t hit and whose existence rather unsettles. Ignorance may place me out of my depth here; facts are elusive. And yet.

And now, a smattering of visuals — alas none of those porcelain pups that so capture the whimsy, artistry and dog-love of the bounty that’s Berlin … 

Berlin Cathedral with the famed, kitschy TV tower of East Berlin

Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe — stark, contemplative, abstract

My bed at the lovely Chateau Royal Hotel, with mystifying skeleton-emblazoned canopy

The Tiergarten park, a 520-acre urban oasis in West Berlin, where I sipped a stein of lager in a leafy biergarten

Tiergarten

A bar I wish was open when I passed

Cafe Frieda, my favorite restaurant in Berlin, swathed in that glorious graffiti

Some of the bar staff at our arty hotel, a fantastically hospitable crew, slinging mean, creative drinks
Guinea fowl dinner at my second favorite Berlin restaurant, Eins44 Cantine

The iconic Brandenburg Gate, doing its thing, just sitting there, from the 1700s

One of my new Berlin buds

Pet sounds

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The animals have it made. They just don’t know it.

Oblivious to their Edenic existence — room, board, vet care, treats, belly rubs — they try my charity and patience with animal trickery, inbred cunning that might serve them in the wild, but I doubt it. Tossed outside, the dog and two cats would eat twigs and weeds and cry for their mommies. That scratching at the door? I’m sure I don’t know.

When they’re not noisome they’re noisy, yawping dissonant arias that would make Yoko Ono reconsider her entire career. Every so often I am startled by the sound of hell’s maw bellowing tortured damnation. It’s just the cat.

While the cats whine constantly, the dog often breathes with the labored wheeze of a Sleestak, the reptilian humanoids from the “Land of the Lost.” He sounds about 100 and sneaks Pall Malls. And he barks at strangers with a fury so committed, you want to reward him with a meatball. But you don’t, because his outbursts are teeth-clinchingly annoying. Told to shut up, he replies: yap!

The male cat in particular, gray and greedy and shameless, is an air-raid siren of plaintive meows, begging for food then stealing that of his push-over sister. The other day I Frisbeed a small plate at him and missed. He gave me the stink eye and stalked haughtily to the other room, where he probably contemplated murder and mackerel.

Cubby the curly mutt is my pal, a boy and his dog and all that. We get along with a fellowship of such purity you could throw up. We’re like bros, even though I hate bros. He doesn’t know this.

The cats are another deal. They’re sweet and affectionate, but it’s hard to get close to creatures that prefer aloof entitlement to purry snuggles. One cat hibernates in the attic all day, zonked, and the other one is on call strictly for food, any food. (This is flagrant feline stereotyping, I know. My ex and I had a cat named Jesse who would play fetch with bottle caps and sleep on your head.)

Watching the animals in repose, on their back or curled up like a large ball of yarn, must be what it’s like when your small child finally falls asleep after a day of tantrums and slobber. Suddenly there’s a still angel in your midst, halo shimmering, mouth miraculously shut. Shhh.

Oft-seen shot of Cubby, blissfully at rest.



Back in black

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After an unintentional hiatus of chronic brain farts, here are a few bite-size entries:

Tripping over trips

I bought a flight to Chile. And scrapped it. I bought a flight to Toronto. And scrapped it. Fickle? Right. Even after planning and paying I decided neither destination would slake my thirst for culture, art, food, action. So I scotched them in favor of the capital of the European Union’s most populous nation, that mad beehive of historical and cultural abundance, Berlin. Chile would have happened this month, Toronto last month, and Berlin, well, it’s a ways off — October. Yet as with any trip, I’m already committing vigorous reportage, booking tours and meals, boning up on the history and italicizing gotta-see sights, from the fabled Reichstag and remnants of the Wall (now vibrant murals) to Hitler’s bunker (that fetid suicide pit) and the enticing Museum Island — five museums colonizing a mid-city isle on the lovely Spree river. Sounds great, I think. Equally terrific: I got full refunds for the Chile and Toronto trips. Did I mention my brother is coming along? Fine company, he’s also a crack navigator, which is perfect for me who gets hopelessly lost the second I step out of the hotel. I’m the guy holding a huge, creased paper map upside down, battling fluttering winds.

Doggy style

I don’t laugh out loud very often while reading, but I did, a lot, soaking in Miranda July’s new novel “All Fours,” a warm, warped, touching, unashamedly naughty and riotous love story that goes places you’re never quite prepared for. It’s a joy. The story follows the romantic zigzags of a 45-year-old artist who’s a married mother but stumbles upon unlikely love with a much younger man who likes to dance. Sex, perimenopausal panic and motel redecorating ensue. It’s conventional until it’s not, both bawdy and bizarre, with just the right touch of July’s signature kookiness. Never has the writer — who’s also an actress and filmmaker — been more in control of her habitual twee impulses. And never has she been so seamlessly funny.

Doggy style part II

Cubby the magical mutt is, I’m afraid, getting old. The guesstimate age for this chipper rescue pup is seven to eight, solid middle-age in human years — paunches and ear hair, janky joints and jowls, gray and grumbles. Yet while he can be a bit creaky scrambling up the stairs and some tiny warts have mushroomed on his compact body, Cubs still plays chase with his stuffed Yoda and barks with shattering verve at the random car horn and rumbling UPS truck, more than ever in fact. But he’s also more neurotic than he was in his slavering, carefree youth. Sometimes if landscapers are extra noisy or the wind rustles the trees in violent whooshes the dog will quiver and hide under my legs or behind a chair. Also, his outside duties (doodies?) seem harder to coax out of him. Otherwise Cubby’s a hale old boy, snapping up treats and begging for belly rubs. He sleeps well, too, though his snoring can register 7.5 on the Richter scale. Those little earthquakes are a thing of most assured comfort.

His head looks enormous.

Pet peeves

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Between the cat eating the house plants then vomiting greenery all over the place and the dog expressing his anal glands by scooting his butthole across the cream-colored carpet, the animals are just asking for a one-way trip to the pound. 

I jest, but it’s true that pets is only one letter away from pests. Love them as I do, these free-roaming (if housebound) creatures are high-maintenance, not quite like human children, god forbid, but demanding and nerve-wracking nonetheless.

Oh, what’s this adorable chunk of indescribable disgustingness? Just another hairball upchucked from my favorite feline. Thanks, Tiger Lily, you charmer!

Any responsible owner of pets knows the aggravation of keeping animals. That’s why I’ve owned so many pet rats over the years — low-maintenance while being cleaner than cats and smarter than dogs. That’s a truism that happens to hold water. And the rodents may just be funnier than cats and dogs, and more affectionate to boot. Plus they have a life-span a little longer than the common house fly, which actually drop-kicks your heart.

Rats always like to play and snuffle around. They are great explorers, endlessly curious and insatiably social. They hoard. They drink beer. They dig in the plants, climb all over you, squeak during belly rubs and, yes, even giggle with joy. Then again, they nibble anything in their path, from electrical cords to your favorite book.

Pets aren’t perfect. People aren’t perfect. And while my girlfriend isn’t going to express her anal glands on my light-hued carpet, she might dog-ear the pages and break the binding of my favorite book. Infallibility — let the Pope bask in that rarefied delusion.

So as I write about these pet peeves, the dog goes ballistic over the arrival of the mail. Screeches and door scratches, head nearly exploding with the notion of territorial intrusion. The dog is bored. Let him fulfill a sense of purpose for 20 seconds. Though, thanks to the hyperactive scratching, the front door needs a fresh paint job.

The dog, Cubby, grumbles as he comes off his hissy-fit. He relaxes, peers out the window for more invaders, then curls up in a ball like a sowbug on the couch. (He’s dark gray, charcoal, and small. Like a sowbug.) The cat … who knows where she went. She vanishes like the Cheshire Cat, but leaving no toothy smile in her wake. How come cats rarely smile? Entitled, they are, seething with grave self-importance.

Last week the dog shat on the dining room rug, an impressive tower of leaning Lincoln Logs, a bonfire yet unlit. The cat barfed out something bile-colored — an intoxicating shade of yellow, beige and lime green — and I, ha ha, got to pick it all up. Rascals!

The price of pets is worth it. They cost time, money and exasperation. They get sick. The dog needs grooming. The cat tears up the carpet. Then there are the Sea-Monkeys, which live in a miniature saltwater tank. Let’s not get into the Sea-Monkeys.

Pets are gems. Strange animals strolling the halls, licking themselves obsessively, barking and meowing the call of the wild, oozing reciprocal love in our gorgeous, fantastically maddening peaceable kingdom. Sit, Cubby, sit. Thatta boy. 

The cat’s seething self-importance

Food porn, Sicilian style

~ Chris ~ 2 Comments

It’s 33 degrees outside and a cold winter sun glares from unblemished skies, the deep snow melts and the tweedly doodles and musical Morse code of birdsong fills the chilly air. Even inside, my hands are numb and puckered, and I should really put on gloves. But I can’t type with gloves. The blogger’s quandary.

Here’s another quandary: I just got back from my maiden voyage to Sicily — namely, the capital city Palermo — and, writerly speaking, I am constipated, all blocked up. Ex-Lax for writers — is that a thing? Gloves or no gloves, my typing is stymied. 

Let’s try this. Let’s look at a picture of one of my many fabulous meals on the fabulous trip, like this heartbreaking pizza:

Or this exquisite specimen of pistachio gelato:

And why not this prosciutto panini with a popular Italian beer:

Or the best cannoli I’ve ever had, made before my eyes in an actual nun’s convent:

See, with most of my journeys, food takes up considerable real estate on my itineraries, at least 50 percent of why I go and what I do. Art, cathedrals, quirky museums — like the marionette and Inquisition museums in Palermo, the gruesome catacombs, plus the Mafia tour I took — are mandatory and rewarding. But nothing quite so viscerally gets the gut like, say, this succulent, perfectly seasoned chicken I feasted on:

Sicily — infamous for its Mafioso, which is actively being stamped out — is the biggest island in the Mediterranean, set just below mainland Italy. It boasts a regional flavor, dialect and attitude all its own, and its denizens are a proud people. They are also unfailingly kind, helpful, funny — and self-admittedly gesticulative and loud.

All of my Ubers were sleek black Mercedes and, as it was low season last week, non-local tourists were scarce. Booking a tour or a table was a cinch, and the weather hovered in the very comfortable mid-60s. (No gloves needed!)

Palermo, a coastal city of about 700,000, is exciting the way gritty Naples is. It pulses. It’s richly historical and traffic-choked with throngs of motor scooters; graffiti-strewn and colorfully multicultural. Pet dogs are plentiful — sidewalks are mushy minefields of poop — and street food rules. Like the Sicilian Arancini, fried rice balls, nearly the size of a tennis ball, filled with melty cheese and meat. Phenomenal.  

As I’m still a bit writer’s-blocky, I exit with these non-foodie shots of the rightfully famous Palermo Cathedral, a dazzling architectural melange of Islamic, Norman and Christian influences. I’ll share more about picturesque Palermo when my brain freeze thaws. Ciao.

Don’t eat dogs. Just don’t.

~ Chris ~ Leave a comment

I would never eat a dog. This goes without saying, but I’m saying it anyway to broadcast loudly that I would never eat a dog. Or a cat for that matter. But this is about dogs, a bit broached by a new law in South Korea banning the consumption of dogs.

In a brief from today’s newspaper: “Breeding, killing and selling dogs for their meat will be banned in a country where it has fallen out of favor. Hundreds of thousands of the animals were still being bred for human consumption.”

The first sentence fills me with joy, relief and pathos.

The second sentence renders me a clenched fist of disgust, outrage and sorrow.

The story goes on: “A person who butchers dogs for human consumption could face three years in prison or a fine of 30 million South Korean won, or about $23,000 … The breeding and selling of the animals would be punishable by two years in prison or a fine of 20 million won.”

Not nearly as draconian as it should be, but a start. 

While South Korea joins Hong Kong, India, Thailand, the Philippines, Singapore and Taiwan as places prohibiting the trading of dog meat, millions of dogs are still slaughtered for their meat in Cambodia, Indonesia, Vietnam and other barbaric regions.

I know first-hand about the trade in Vietnam. Some years ago, riding on the back of a ramshackle moto-bike in Hanoi, my makeshift guide decided to swing by an open-air market where cooked dog remains — whole torsos, heads and tails — were displayed. 

He then took me to a “dog restaurant,” where a trio of giggly, visibly drunk male diners beseeched me to join them for some bubbling dog stew (I waved them off). It was nauseating. (Of course later, the guide and I feasted on a cobra that was slaughtered in front of us. This was not a banner day for animal welfare.)

Thank god I saw none of this sort of atrocity, dogs caged like chickens:

The newspaper story has a link to Four Paws, an animal welfare group out of Australia, to which I just recently and coincidentally donated $100 and plan to drop more. I implore all animals lovers to do the same. Look at the site. It will break your heart, hopefully not your bank.

Short-form genius in the press today

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Pork’s perfect proportions

“She notes that her husband’s family used bacon slices as bookmarks.” — from a review of Anne Glenconner’s memoir “Lady in Waiting,” in The Times

Good question

“What Do I Buy My Stepmother Who I Kind of Hate?” — Amy Sedaris’ advice column in New York magazine

Great — or grody

“Cocktails Are Sandwiches. Now Deal with it.” — headline on trend piece in Grub Street, in which drinks taste like subs, paninis and hoagies

Say again?

“I love being immersed in water, but I don’t like being wet.” — actress Tracee Ellis Ross in The Times

Tea-bagging, literally

“The pet I’ll never forget: Moon the gorgeous, stupid doberman, who scalded his testicles in hot tea” — headline in The Guardian (from a funny essay here)

This week’s astounding headlines

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‘turro de force

Onstage, John Turturro is a frothing, frenetic vortex, spewing barbed-wire invective, spittle flying, making you cringe and laugh all at once. He’s Mickey Sabbath, retired puppeteer, devout deviant, a 60-ish sybarite of unbound lusts, a Vesuvian id raging in the night (and day and morning). I recently saw this crackling Off Broadway performance of “Sabbath’s Theater,” adapted from Philip Roth’s acclaimed, notoriously naughty novel, and while the small cast is a marvel, it’s Turturro as Sabbath who harnesses the show’s electric eros, whipping us along on a ride of pathos-kissed perversion. Everyone — he too — leaves exhausted. 

‘Home Alone’ 2023

In the “classic” Christmastime movie “Home Alone,” a little brat played by little brat Macaulay Culkin — in one of the most implausible plot twists in cinema history — is accidentally left behind when his family goes to the airport to fly to Paris for the holidays. So Culkin is all by his lonesome in the big empty house, until two bungling burglars show up … and yada-yada. This year I’m that little brat, home alone for the holidays, my friends flung around the country, and my immediate family jetting to Madrid on Christmas Day. With my parents passed, I’m left with Cubby the magic dog, a pair of impish cats, and, if I get lucky on Xmas Eve, when goodies will be gifted, a tiny tank of swirling Sea-Monkeys, my Proustian madeleine conjuring the age of Pet Rocks and the Fonz. I’m a loner at heart. I spent 10 Christmases solo in Texas, so this is actually my comfort zone. Leftovers, tipples of egg nog, a CBD gummy, a great old movie. I’m set. It might even snow. And there, the tableau is complete.

Mamet’s mad

Though repulsed by his latter-day conversion to all things alt-right, I will listen to nearly anything playwright/screenwriter/director David Mamet preaches about the craft of writing. The Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright (“Glengarry Glen Ross”) has written a zillion books about writing and directing theater and film, as well as penned movies like “The Verdict,” “The Untouchables” and “Wag the Dog,” and written and directed 10 of his own movies, from “House of Games” to “Homicide.” Mamet’s been through the Hollywood wringer, and he’s pissed. His new memoir, out this week, is “Everywhere an Oink Oink: An Embittered, Dyspeptic, and Accurate Report of Forty Years in Hollywood.” I just got it, and though not quite a swashbuckling thrill through the fraught Hollywood jungle (see William Goldman for that), it’s peppered with Mamet’s signature biting commentary. Producers are venal scum (“Are none of you idiots paying attention?”). Race and gender are never off limits. Errant grumpiness is rampant (“If you put cilantro on it, Californians will eat cat shit”). And fascinating insights into arcane movie lore abound. Mamet can be astringent, but anyone who calls “School of Rock” a “wonderful” picture can’t be all bad. 

Packing my bags 

So, Sicily it is. My next journey is a return to Italy — no! To Sicily. For locals, the distinction is vital. I quote: “People from Sicily consider themselves Sicilians first and Italians second. Though Sicily is a part of Italy [the big island beneath the boot] the region has its own culture, traditions and dialect, and Sicilians are incredibly proud of their heritage.” I go in February, after the chilly holidays, before the heat sets in, and before spring religious rites flourish. The history-drenched capital Palermo is home base, with day trips to the ghoulish catacombs and the dazzling mosaics of Monreale Cathedral, plus food and culture tours and lots in between. Tips? Phone lines are open … 

Fido’s funk

It’s raining and the dog went on a walk and got damp and now he smells like a giant corn chip. He’s needed a bath for some time, and the drizzle has activated a slightly fetid doggy odor that happens to recall a processed dipping snack. Pass the Ranch?

The angsty animal

~ Chris ~ 2 Comments

It’s raining and Cubby won’t go out to poop. He’s a dog, but he’s also a scaredy-cat. 

Yet even more than drizzling drops of water, Cubby cowers at mighty gusts of wind that make the trees sway, whipping up hissing whooshes, as if the gods are sighing at we dim mortals. 

Don’t even get him started when the landscapers are out, buzzing, rumbling and roaring with fossil fuel gusto. The spooked dog melts into a quaking, head-ducking mess. His body vibrates like one of those 25-cent motel beds and he hides between our legs and under chairs.

Cubby is a wuss. And he seems to be getting wussier with age. More neurotic, less secure in his fur, clingier and whinier. 

That hasn’t stopped his predictable barking tantrums when UPS or USPS drop by. Oh them he wants to tear apart between his keening and caterwauling. How exercised he gets when someone walks upon the front porch who isn’t friend or family. He’s a little guy, so it’s almost risible, all that raucous theater. We’d snicker if his clamor wasn’t so trying.

Poor pooch. He’s torn between fear and fury. Of course there’s the sweet in-between: the daily dogginess of cuddles and belly rubs, bully bones and the Baby Yoda chew toy, naps and nuzzles, loving woofs and lazy walks. 

But now, at this moment, Cubs has risen from repose and his ears perk nervously at a chorus of cicadas that’s blossomed after a day of rain. What’s that? Realizing it’s naught, his chin hits the floor again. The old man — 50ish in human years, really not so old — is learning that every noise isn’t a trigger.

An uppity pup? Hardly. He’s a humble character, gentle and obeisant, practically a lap dog. He likes to play chase with Baby Yoda and he gladly comes when called — he practically gallops. 

Despite his fear of the big bad lawn mowers and some other anxieties that may require pills, therapy, or both — did I mention he has to be sedated with not one but two meds before vet and grooming visits? — Cubby is fine, a good dog with curly gray hair and melting brown eyes. Funny thing is, he just might have taken a whole lot after … me. 

Cubby: craven and combustible; cuddly and crazy.

Is Austin overrated? and other stray thoughts

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1. Even through my teens, my two grandmas, bless their long-dead hearts, called me Chrissy, and I didn’t mind a bit (unless it was in front of my friends, then I turned a scorching shade of fuck me). Today, one of my best friends, an unassailable lady in Texas, occasionally calls me Chrissy or even Chrissy Poo in endearing texts. Born Christopher, I’ve always gone by Chris, but that’s a unisex name, and for those of you with monikers like Jamie, Terry, Jessie, Charlie, etc., you know it can get sticky. Sometimes at my newspaper gigs, I’d get hate mail addressed “Dear Sir or Madam.” But that was rare. Readers could pretty much tell I was a guy, because my reviews often had an acid tang, a little banner that said: dick. Two of my favorite names for girls are Samantha and Alexis, which of course become Sam and Alex. I almost named a pet rat Samantha. When my sister-in-law calls the dog my way, she’ll chirp, “Go see Chrissy!” I don’t blush. I kind of like it. If it’s good enough for old Cubby, it’s good enough for me.

2.If I got a bunch of dogs, these are some of the names I would give them: Bongo, Mamet, Alvy, Corn Pop, Gatsby, Heddy, Akira, Brando, Phoebe, Takeshi, Willa, Uncle Johnny, J.D. and, my favorite, Kaboom. I don’t think a single one of the dogs would be pleased with me. Too bad. That’s just for starters. (Growing up we had a little black poodle named Itai, which is Japanese for “ouch.” Just think how he felt.)

Corn Pop and Bongo going at it.

3.I just retired my 2-year-old Apple AirPods — the first generation earbuds that pop out of your head when you sneeze — and replaced them with snuggier AirPods Pro: 2nd Generation, and I made a vital sonic discovery. It’s one that many of you probably already know (this Luddite lags in the world of aural ecstasy). And that’s that the pods furnish remarkably better sound quality when used for movies and videos than plain Apple Music tunes. I do my listening on a MacBook Air, be it music, podcasts, YouTube or films. I’ve watched three movies with the new pods (including the enthralling if baffling “Arrival,” a film that pushes me even closer to hating sci-fi) and the audio excellence — sumptuous, immersive, surround-soundy — has me giddy. Even a 1950s Billy Wilder flick cranked out sound like I was in a fine, classic movie theater that actually gave a spit about its presentation. Power to the pods.

4.I once worked with a masterly, natural-born writer named Michael Corcoran, who was the newsroom’s resident curmudgeon, bristling maverick and trenchant culture critic. Now retired, the award-winning scribe, who’s also a friend, maintains a beguiling blog whose lead entry is as incisive as it is infamous, a biting takedown of his hometown Austin, TX, titled “Welcome to Mediocre, Texas.”

“Only the mediocre are always at their best, someone said, which could be why Austin is so damn proud of itself,” Corcoran begins, and continues:

“There are two cities in the U.S. that truly matter: New York and L.A. Everywhere else is bullshit. Austin is cool and fun and artistic and — most importantly, easy — but that doesn’t make it a great city. The things that make a town a city — rapid transit, a great art museum, Chinatown, pro sports — Austin is without. We’ve got L.A.’s traffic, but no one who can greenlight a project bigger than a Chili’s commercial.”

Read the full rant HERE, especially if you’re reflexively enamored with Central Texas’ ego-tropolis, which a visitor I know once compared to Sacramento and Stockton.

But it sure is purty