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Roy, originally uploaded by petebrunelli.

Roy Estrada performing with Grande Mothers at Zappanale 20

About two weeks ago I received a very odd email from percussionist Christopher Garcia.  It was entirely in the subject line and was asking for my phone number, because he had a gig I might be interested in.  My first thought was that Chris had sent it to me by mistake, and I replied to him, telling him as much.  But no!  It was legit, so I sent him my contact info and that began a very surprising chapter in the life of “Pete Brunelli, International Rock Star”

I met Christopher back around 2007 at a DeManIa gig in Natick, MA.  That group is Alex DeGrassi, Michael Manring, and Chris.  I’m a fan of Manring, and IMO, DeManIa is the best thing I have heard from DeGrassi.  I am the kind of bass player who really watches and listens to drummers more than other bass players, and Chris just blew me away.  His approach, technique, musicality… he is a great player.  It took me a minute to figure the connection, but I realized that he was (and still is) the drummer in Grande Mothers, a group featuring ex-Mothers-of-Invention.  My band DOOT! had just opened a show for ex-Mother Don Preston’s Akashic Ensemble, and I had seen Chris’ name in the lineup for Grande Mothers.  We chatted after that gig, and we caught up again at Zappanale 20 in 2009.  We were staying in the same hotel, and had a chance to talk shop and such. I was fairly perceptive.  Chris was showing me tabla rhythm stuff with his hands as part of a normal conversation… my kind of guy.

Another notable event was that I met bassist Roy Estrada, one of the bass players who stands out to me as an influence, and as a very hard working player.  Nothing fancy, but no mistakes either.  More specifically, Roy met me, which is accurate but still seems beyond reason.  I was standing in the parking lot of the Horizonte hostel looking for a ride into town and this hand slaps me on the back and says, in a loud and funny voice, “what the fuck ever happened to Doctor Dark!”  So Roy somehow identified me as the former bass player in a Captain Beefheart cover band?  It remains one of the weirdest events of my adult life.  Roy has one of the most distinctive discography/biography lines in bass player history.  Original member of Frank Zappa’s Mothers of Invention, Original member of Lowell George’s Little Feat, and member of a few very good lineups of Don “Captain Beefheart” Van Vliet’s Magic Band.  So I told him: I fell hard for the music, couldn’t get the band to rehearse to a level I was comfortable with, and eventually I had to get out.  He didn’t miss a beat and said “Artie (Art Dyer Tripp) and I had the same problem.  You did the right thing”

Chris Garcia and Roy hung out quite a bit during Zappanale 20.  Most groups have that kind of dynamic where some members have other commitments, some are loners, and some end up hanging out.  We had some very loud and raucous breakfast conversations with Denny Walley, and I remember standing on grass beside the backstage wings with Chris, Roy, Steve Chillemi, and my wife Sandy during Terry Bozzio’s performance/finale that weekend.  Roy was a very “normal” guy, with no kind of attitude problems or “big time” issues.  I enjoyed the time I got to spend in his company.  On top of that, I felt like I had come to some closure with my Doctor Dark experience thanks to a benediction from the “rejected mexican pope”.

Via this odd sequence of events and connections, I was asked if I was interested in playing bass in a Captain Beefheart tribute at a festival in Rochefort, France.  The details worked, I am able to get the time off from the jobby job, so I agreed.  There was one small detail to work out…

Part 2

The hits, they just keep on a-comin’!

After a very bleak winter on the Hartford lunch truck scene we have been treated to a veritable deluge of variety and quality since the spring of 2011.  The latest is Lucky Taco, the brainchild of David and Erin Emmons.  Veterans of the Austin, TX restaurant scene, they have taken their skills to the friendly confines of Bushnell Park.

First off, I’ve been “lucky” enough to visit Austin about half a dozen times, with road trips from Houston to the hill country and out as far as Big Bend, and I think I have actually eaten at Magnolia Cafe, where David formerly worked.  That is a hash-slinger of a 24 hour joint known for cheap and good eats.  petebrunelli.com contributor Craig Caldwell says it’s a “hippie joint” and a descendent of The Omletry!  Either way, I have given Lucky Taco as much word of mouth around work as I can, and have also been eating a ton of their food.

About that food: they do a fairly narrow thing, and do it very well.  The tacos are very tex-mex, very hill-country, and very good.  The ingredients are not beating you over the head with sauce and heat like you might get in combo-plate mexican fare.  The flavors are lighter, cleaner, and more distinct.  You get your choice corn, flour, or wheat tortillas.  The small cups of red salsa and salsa verde are just the right size to compliment a taco without smothering it.  Their Pork Carnitas taco is the most overtly flavorful, and I think it is the star of their pork/chicken/beef lineup.  All three are good, but the pork seems a little better.  That is probably the sear on the shredded pork speaking to me.  They also make three types of veggie tacos, and the “portabello fajita” is the standout in that trio.  In each case there are three very good options, and you can’t go wrong with any of them.

Did I mention breakfast?  On my visits to Austin I have been indoctrinated into the magical goodness of “migas”.  These are basically torn tortilla pieces, usually softened up with some salsa verde or pico de gallo (or maybe just water…), and folded into fluffy eggs.  They are addictive, and *nobody* makes migas here in the northeast.  If they do, they probably suck at it.  Lucky Taco to the rescue!  The migas alone are worth the trip.  Fluffy, delicious, filling… get some of their very good coffee with it and you have a solid breakfast for about $5, maybe less.  here’s a tip: two migas tacos and a soda or iced coffee for a slammin’ lunch.

Pricing?  Tacos are $3, and they run breakfast and lunch specials every day.  They make a franken-dog creation that I have not thrown down for yet.  I’m saving that for a special event.  They also make quesadillas, and they look great too.  Just in case that wasn’t enough, black beans and chips make a nice snack or a way to add some variety to one or two tacos.  They also have sides of refrieds, and a chip and salsa side.

Editorializing: as a fan of both food trucks and efficient catering practices I am fascinated by places like Lucky Taco.  They can deliver their very good ingredients in a variety of ways without it seeming like the same thing in each dish.  That is harder than it sounds.  Dave is a machine behind the flattop, and he doesn’t seem to miss a trick.  I have eaten wayyyyyy more of their food in the past week and a half than I would like to admit and every item has been on the money.

Conclusion: These folks are setting up right next to the Agave Grill taco/burrito cart, which is also very good and very fresh, and still doing very well.  The two styles are very distinct, but that could easily be lost on the casual eater.  Obviously I am saying “Eat Here, ASAP”.  And I mean ASAP.  Today I showed up early for lunch, was third in line, and there were about eight people stacked up behind me before I ordered.  With food like this they don’t need luck, but they got it if they need it.

One thing that has surprised me over the past year has been how differently one is received on their bike by a fellow cyclist and how tribal the reception can be.

I typically ride in what bikesnobnyc might call “retro-fred” style.  Some form of T-shirt, mountain bike shorts, and sneakers.  If you have seen Time Traveling T Shirt Wearing Retro Fred From The Planet Tridork… you are most of the way there.  No cycling jersey, no aero helmet, no specialty eyewear, no specialty shoes.  Last year I was using clipless pedals and shoes, but I was getting pressure points and numbness in one foot.  Switching back to good platforms and light hikers solved the problem.  As well, I don’t notice a performance difference.  So much the better.  My bike is a bit of a mutant, cyclocross-style setup, fenders, blinky light…Kinda like a commuter setup with no storage.

What I noticed first was that “serious” cyclists with “serious” clothing and “serious” eyewear would not even give a courtesy wave on the road.  Apparently they were too busy being “serious”.  Then I noticed that if there was any kind of exchange it reeked of a kind of condescension… Like a “I’ll wave back when you get a retro Colagno team shirt and some real shoes” kind of vibe.  Real or not, I still notice it.  I guess the deal is that if you aren’t a Lance-bot, you are not in the Lance-bot tribe, and don’t get the Lance-bot secret handshake.   I am not in the Lance-bot tribe, so fair enough.

What I am is a guy who rides for fun and exercise, and rides with visibility and safety as a priority.  The roads I ride on are twisty and relatively narrow and you want any kind of edge to allow drivers to see and avoid you.  Helmet, bright colors, blinky light…  I also have a tendency to wave or say hi to anyone else I see on a bike.  Which led me to observation #2: The bike-ninja wearing black sweats and a black concert shirt with no helmet is also telling me that I am not in his tribe… I see more of these folks on bike paths, but they are all over.  Dark clothing, no helmet, no lights, no reflectors… and taking a nice evening ride on a busy roadway.  Regardless… I wave, they have the same response as the Lance-bot tribe… which is *none*.

The weird part is that the bike-ninja, or “even more casual than me” cyclist, sees me as the spandex guy because I took the time to think out my wardrobe at all.  All I’m trying to do is avoid becoming bumper bait, but really I am just another notch up the “spandex mafia” food chain.  Which is probably right.  I own bike shorts!  I am just one major cycling apparel choice away from capo de regime level fred-ness!

I may have been naive enough to see “people who like to ride a bike” as one fairly well integrated tribe.  No.  No such luck.  And it would seem that with every bike subculture (aka marketing segment) the result is more fragmentation.  (Don’t even get me started about the urban-fixie scene.  I love the idea, and most are good riders, but every YouTube vid of a messenger wannabee blowing through red lights and crosswalks while riding the wrong way on a city street just makes them part of the problem.) That fragmentation may help marketers of bike lifestyle products, but I think it really puts a dent in the ability of cyclists to work toward safer streets, better bike paths, bike-lock facilities, and the other things that ALL bike people would use.

So when you see another bike person, don’t feel like you can’t wave, say hi, or throw a half full kinger of Bud at them!  It’s all good!

The longer I observe the world of politics, sports, and other “very public” types of human pursuit, I am struck by how many problems or solutions come down to four-function math.  Like Edward Tufte demonstrating that the simplest form of x-y plot predicted the Challenger disaster… Sometimes the simple approach yields the best data.

Barry Bonds is in court for lying about steroid use.  My opinion is unequivocal: he knows what he used, when, and why.  The media, on the other hand, is stuck in a 1950’s muscle-mag fantasy about performance enhancing drugs.  They think it is about muscled up freaks.  While it is often about muscled-up freaks, they are either amateurs, or they are “hogs” who are too narcissistic to stay on a normal “program”.  Barry Bonds, and this is conjecture, was both a “hog” and he knew a few things:

• He was good at baseball
• He consistently hit X number of homers for Y at-bats
• He had a projected career of Z years
• He had to have A number of at-bats to break Aaron’s record, R
• and He could see B number of at-bats per season if healthy

The keywords in that scheme are “years” and “healthy”.  For an NL player, health is everything, because they can’t hide you at DL if you are too slow or too stiff to be an effective fielder.  You have to accumulate your numbers as an every day position player.  So he could easily have formulated:

R = (X/Y)*(B*Z)

which is the his projected home run percentage time his total career at-bats.  If you watched him stumbling around like a dancing bear in his one World Series appearance, then you know that there was good reason for desperation.  Even with his questionably natural physique he was booting balls and failing to catch up with routine flys.  And he was still a few years short of reaching that record.  Next Stop: Better Living Through Chemistry!  Anyone who goes to a juice-shop like BALCO,  and gets the one-on-one services of  “ultimate wingman” Greg Anderson is probably not guessing about his regimen (I mean zero chance).

Whether the feds can make it stick is another question entirely.  But my point here is that people in the highest reaches of their profession are not known as having a blah-blah-blah attitude about the source of their livelyhood.

All of this is to say: even if Barry’s ego liked to see a muscled-up freak of nature in the mirror, the calculator on his cellphone was all he needed to know about catching Hank Aaron.