Victoria Spring 2011 Getting Funky with Rick May · Tuesday April 5, 2011 by colin newell
Local Bass player and session musician, Rick May featured on this DB Clifford snippet.
If you do not find yourself shaking something within seconds of this track starting, you had better spot yourself for a pulse!
Rick May, locally known for his involvement in The Superior Cafe is a past partner in “Java on Johnson”, The Old Town Cafe and La Boheme Restaurant in the eighties.
Rick has played bass guitar with Michael Jackson (on the hit song “Beat It”), members of DEVO, Mae Moore (touring this summer), Marc Almond (Soft Cell), Mitch Mitchell of the Jimi Hendrix experience, Ricki Lee Jones, Roger Taylor of Duran Duran, etc etc.
Rick can often be found, when in town, sampling the great coffee at Habit Coffee & Culture on Yates Street in the Atrium (at Blanshard).
You can check out his thing on his website – RickMay.ca
Victoria Spring 2011 Observations Murder of Crows · Tuesday March 29, 2011 by colin newell
Nothing like a murder in Rockland near Victoria B.C.
A murder of crows that is – and I found myself near ground zero of a crow convention this morning – around 5:30AM – or when it was getting light.
And it was distinct in an entertaining kind of way – there were approximately 50 crows in a variety of perches – and what sounded like one head crow speaker on the hustings.
A main crow speaker who would cackle a couple of phrases with a clatter or derisive caws from 1 or 2 in the crowd.
Eventually, the main crow uttered something that the stadium liked because they all went wild — in a good way. I have never heard quite an eruption from a flock like this before. It was like the Justin Beiber crow hit the stage and all the crow girls and boys went nuts.
Translated
Main crow: “What say we all go down to Clover Point and look for garbage?”
Handful of crows: “F*ck that. We are SICK of garbage and picking floaters out of the water!”
Main crow: “Alright, alright… how about the Sooke Hills?”
All the crows: “HELL YA! SOOKE HILLS! YEE HAAAAAAAAAA!”
Assorted crows: “Awwwwwwww f*ck!”
And then everything went quiet – apart from the occasional clutter from some of the birds that were talking amongst themselves.
It is well known that crows are family oriented, cooperative, have social values, are generally monogamous and they share intelligence on the subject of food and drink.
Something we do not seem to find in our politicians… Federal or Provincial.
Colin Newell lives, works and writes in Victoria B.C. on the subject of nonsense – and this is how he sees it.
Winter to Spring Pop Culture 1 Facebook Face off · Saturday March 19, 2011 by colin newell
Just decided that my blog and websites have been neglected long enough – and the web stats show it.
This blog averages around 75,000 unique visitors a month – and that is not hits – that is actual people. Thanks folks!
But those reader levels have been dropping faster than the water level in the spent fuel rod baths… and it’s all my doing.
Dang you twitter.
Because if you do the math — and I am fond of my core twitter followers, that is a small audience relative to here — but it is there that I am putting my energy.
Foolish huh? Yea. It is.
And it is not like there are lots of people out there sitting on their hands waiting for me to write something – I mean, I hope not.
Still, writing pulp blogs here is way better that firing quips into the wind on Twitter.
As much fun as that is.
So my new rule is: Before I utter a beak full of tweets, I am going to bash the side of my head and think up some observation on the human condition…
Like this one.
Good start. But I am not finished.
Facebook – it has been way useful for keeping track of events of my actual friends in almost real time – with alarming regularity and reliability that rivals gravity.
But what of those special friends… you know the ones… the ones you have stalked on facebook from your past. The people you went to High School with. The friends of the people you may have dated 25 years ago… etc.
Well, I ask myself. Why am I peering into their lives. I have a cluster of friends on Facebook who are part of my distant past and I am pretty sure I will never, ever get together with them – for any reason… ever. So why do I look into the window of their lives? Or why do I continue knowing what I know?
Hard decision.
Time for a Facebook cleanup. People do it all the time. Different reasons. You have yours, I have mine.
It is time to let the past go and let people get on with their lives.
It is the right thing to do.
Colin Newell lives and writes in Victoria B.C. Canada and is often the go to guy for opinions on the subject of Canadian Cafe and Pop Culture
Winter to Spring Victoria Food Culture 3 Making sauces with Don Genova · Friday March 18, 2011 by colin newell
Prosciutto and tomato pasta sauce
Heat 8 tablespoons of good Olive oil in a pan
Slice 2 pieces of Prosciutto into bite size pieces (from 100g)
Cut up tablespoon of shallots finely
When oil heats add the Prosciutto and stir for 5 minutes
Add shallots
Add teaspoon of chili flakes
Add teaspoon of lemon pepper
Add parsley
Minute before you take out of pan, add 20 grape tomato
cut in half.
Drain pasta preserving around 1 ladle full of pasta water
Combine cooked pasta into the Prosciutto and tomato mixture
add 1/2 cup Parmagiano Reggiano cheese and the pasta water.
Stir to combine.
Plate and top with more grated cheese.
Serve with garlic toast and some yummy Italian Red Wine.
