Coffee: Good and Good For You

Diehard java addicts have known it for a long time. Not only is coffee OK for you, not only is it good for you, now we have studies that show it is really good for you. The reason? Antioxidants.

What in the hell are antioxidants? I don't really know either, but more of them is supposed to be good for you. I think they counteract all the other deadly stuff you pour into your body. And coffee, of all things, has plenty of antioxidants!

I recommend Peet's myself, but if you're really hard up even the crap they serve at Starbuck's should work. Have another cup.

Read why coffee is good for you.

As If You Haven't Had Enough

Now you can subscribe to Critical Cloud and get those new postings delivered to your email with obnoxious regularity. Of course, you ask, how can Critical Cloud afford to give away all this great information for free? Well, the fact is we can't and el Greco is shamelessly begging for donations of the liquid variety--yes, purchase a beer, wine, or whiskey for him and keep Internet journalism alive! Act anytime in the next two hours and you'll get the Ginsu knives as a token of our appreciation!

Click on the sidebar under "subscribe" and you'll be on your way to hours of wasted time.

I'll Have Whatever She's Smokin'

While not the oldest cigar maker around, Caribe has been importing one of the best lines around, Camacho. If you're an experienced smoker, I don't have to tell you about the SLR or the Camacho Corojo or the Havana. Many Critical Cloud readers may remember the memorable Crazy Marty incident involving a very stout Camacho 11/18, copious amounts of beer, and slabs of smoked ribs. It gave new meaning to the clinical term "hurl."

What I do need to tell you about is the soon-to-be released and as yet unnamed Camacho being smoked by the young lady below.


I'll have whatever she's smoking

I was fortunate enough to come by one of these sticks (prerelease sample) and lit it up the other night. Medium to full bodied and loaded with flavor. Well constructed and perfect burn. As my good friend Harry C would say...rich.
















That's the band (black) and Christian Eiroa of Caribe emailed me that they are releasing these in mid September. But what exactly do you ask for? Christian is taking suggestions on what exactly to name this cigar and if they pick your name, you win a bunch of cigars. I know, I know, most of you dogs want to know if the girl comes with the cigars.

Living Strong Ain't What It Used To Be

Move over, Rafael Palmeiro. Lance Armstrong may be joining you on the bench. The Tour de France folks are saying Lance was juiced in 1999. It might just be pedal envy on the part of the French. Or maybe Lance got a hold of some of Barry Bonds' flaxseed oil. Who knows?

Critical Cloud suggests you all turn in your yellow LIVE STRONG bracelets. We're recommending the handsome bracelet shown below. Sport this bracelet AND live a life of debauchery. No one will call you a hypocrite.

Dragnet 2005

This is the City. San Francisco. A lot of nutjobs and headcases live here, most of them fine citizens. Sometimes one of them goes over the line. That's when they call in Stone Cold Barry.

The story you are about to read is true. The names have been changed to protect the innocent.

It was just an ordinary Friday in the City. The same crowd of misfits, failed comics, and poon hounds were sitting around the tobacco shop. There was some concern about a recent rash of "door closings" at the shop. One of the City's headcases had been taking it upon himself to slam shut the door of the shop every time he walked by. Seems he objected to the smell of fine tobacco. That's where Stone Cold Barry came in.

4:00 PM The pepetrator slams the door to the shop closed for the 143rd time. Stone Cold Barry decides have a "discussion" with him.

4:02 PM Stone Cold Barry stops the perpetrator and politely asks him what the fuck he is doing. Stone Cold is known for his diplomatic tact that way.

4:04 PM The perpetrator repeatedly shoves Stone Cold, violently. There is little choice. Stone Cold bitch slaps him, sending his spectacles flying.

4:05 PM Bike messengers, their day pretty much over, gather to enjoy the entertainment. The perpetrator attempts to kick Stone Cold Barry in the nuts. Big mistake. Stone Cold does what any self respecting male would do. He pops him with a mean left hook.

4:08 PM By now building security and a plain clothes cop have arrived. Having been warned about the perpetrator's previous actions, they pretty much conclude that he had it coming and should have stopped slamming the door a long time ago. They suggest a stiff martini might soothe his now swollen lip. Stone Cold mentions that his wife mixes a mighty fine martini and he sure would be welcome to join them.

4:09 PM The perpetrator, declining the martini, slinks off to catch his train. Stone Cold Barry retires to the coziness of the tobacco shop, secure in the knowledge that he has returned a bit of civility to the City.

Jazz Messengers

Now, that's what you call jazz. The Marcus Shelby Septet kept Union Square toasty even if the fog was chilling. With a nod to jazz great Art Blakey, Shelby's band opened with some Blakey compositions and easily moved through a half a dozen numbers by the various band members themselves. It was a nice touch, as Blakey was also known for encouraging his band members, the Jazz Messengers, to write their own material. Keep swinging, Marcus.


Marcus Shelby Septet


Marcus Shelby, bass


Howard Wiley, tenor sax


Jeff Marrs, drums


West Texas Lass, jazz lover

This Week's WTF Award

Yes, boys and girls, San Francisco's own Supervisor Chris Daly is the winner of Critical Cloud's prestigious What the Fuck Were You Thinking? award. Supervisor Daly, well known whiner, crybaby, and spoiled brat, is the unanimous choice of the WTF judges. And what momentous accomplishment garnered Mr. Daly this honor?

It seems a certain online politically slanted publication, The San Francisco Sentinel, has raised the ire of the Supervisor so much, that he has called for it to be investigated by the City Attorney. Yes, Mr. Daly wrote a tart note to the editor of the Sentinel and the Sentinel printed it in all it's petulant nastiness and now Daly is mad at them because they dared to quote his own words. Daly says the Sentinel, which really amounts to a political news blog with great photography, is actually a political action committee disguised as journalism and therefore is subject to political disclosure laws. What a crock.


Supervisor Daly reads the Sentinel at a Board of Supervisors meeting when he is supposed to be working. Most people try to hide this sort of thing lest their boss catches them.

Please, Mr. Daly. Double check your copy of the Constitution. There's that one little item. The First Amendment? Remember that? Among other stuff it guarantees freedom of the press. Just because you don't like what they're saying about you, Supervisor Daly, does not mean you get to bully them around and intimidate them with the machinery of government. That is so 20th century Soviet totalitarian old school kind of stuff.

And so, it is with deep pleasure that Critical Cloud honors Chris Daly, Supervisor District 6, with the What the Fuck Were You Thinking? award. Congratulations, Supervisor.

Oh, yeah, Chris, you can pick up your award at the SF Sentinel office anytime. That's how we roll.

Free Jazz Worth Hearing

August evenings in the City can be chilly, but the jazz will be hot when bassist Marcus Shelby's septet takes the stage at Union Square tonight. Part of SFJazz' free summer concert series, Shelby's band and composition are well known to Bay Area jazz lovers. Rightfully so.


Marcus Shelby, bassist, band leader

Shelby brings tight arrangements and great band chemsitry to his gigs. You'll likely hear jazz standards as well as some original compositions. Be there, front and center; Shelby's 90 minute set starts at 6 PM.

The Canvas Can Do Miracles

el Greco

Some days you just need to escape it all. Exhibition football on TV just isn't going to do it, the kids have maxed out your credit card on back-to-school shit, your favorite bottle of scotch whiskey is bone dry, and you realize that if you don't do something quick Monday morning is going to be upon you.

Sailing--that's the ticket. Only one problem. I don't have a boat. "Call Shelley," said the Wild Irish Rose, "isn't she some kind of high powered executive corporate chick with lots of rich friends with boats?" Shelley isn't and she doesn't but she somehow set us up anyway.

The Wild Irish Rose and I boarded the Gaslight, a sweet 72 foot schooner, with about 30 other similarly escapist friends Sunday afternoon. With our foul weather gear ready, we were ready for some salt and spray on the Bay.


The Gaslight in full sail

No sooner had we pulled out of Sausalito than the Wild Irish Rose asked me why she didn't have a full wine glass in front of her. Perceptive lad that I am, I hustled down below to find plenty of food, beer and wine. It took me no more than 17 seconds to get two glasses of red wine back up on deck for us. She considers me well trained. Housebroken you might say.


"Why do I not have a glass of wine?"

Out through the Golden Gate we sailed and the wind and waves and fog were awesome. There was something magical about billowing sails and moving along powered only by wind. No wonder so many people get hooked on sailing. Nippy as it was through the Golden Gate, I noticed the Wild Irish Rose wasn't cold. Was it the exhilaration of the sails, the sea, the sky? Could it have been the three glasses of wine she had already poured down?


The Wild Irish Rose and el Greco head for the Golden Gate

The Gaslight headed now for some sun and that meant Tiburon and Raccoon Straits. The paparazzi were hanging off the railing at Sam's trying to get photos of the Irish girl (you know she was the producer of those chimp commercials on the Superbowl), but I threw a cigar butt that hit one of them in the eye and the rest scattered. After skirting Angel Island, we headed back to Sausalito, totally relaxed and buzzed.

Walking along Bridgeway, I remarked that the No Name had a nice heated smoking patio and you'd have thought I just announced a half price sale at Bloomingdale's by the way the Wild Irish Rose sprinted into the bar. It turned out it was necessary to steady our nerves a bit more after all that sailing and ladies being ladies and me being the bon vivant I am, that's exactly what we did.


Getting some much-needed nourishment at the No Name

What do you call this act? The Aristocrats!

el Greco

It's the dirtiest joke you never heard. Supposedly the comedy insider's joke dating back to vaudeville, the Aristocrats always began and ended the same way. A family walks into a talent agent's office and begs him to watch their act. After some initial reluctance, the agent agrees to give them a few minutes. What then follows is up to the comedian telling the joke, but usually a number of sex acts, scatalogical humor, bestiality and any other kind of obscene filth was included. It was what the comedian did with the middle--how he or she ad libbed it and made it more outrageous--that made the joke what it was. The punchline comes when the talent agent asks what the name of the act it and the family answers, "the Aristrocrats!"

Paul Provenza and Penn Jillette spent five years tracking down about 100 comics to do this 90 minute documentary and they got some of the great names in comedy as well as writers, critics, and others in the business. George Carlin figures prominently as does Robin Williams and Whoopi Goldberg. In a classic bit of humor, Provenza and Jillette tape "Billy the Mime" doing a completely silent version of the joke, which turns out to be side-splitting. Phillis Diller and Don Rickles' observations are sprinkled throughout. One could only have wished that Jack Benny was alive.


Provenza and Jillette "the Aristocrats!"

Bob Saget does a lengthy and totally gross version that is rendered even funnier because you keep having flashbacks of him as the cool and sane dad in Full House. Tom and Dick Smothers do their classic straight man/funny man schtick. The coup de grace, however, is Gilbert Gottfried's gratingly crazy version done at the Friar's Club roast of Hugh Hefner just a few weeks after 9/11.

Whether you're an post-adolescent fan of sick humor or a true student of comedy, go see The Aristocrats.


see The Aristocrats movie website

check out the database of Aristocrats jokes presented by Dead Frog

The Pier is Hot, But the Service is Not

el Greco

Sunday afternoons and evenings at Pier 23 have been one of the San Francisco waterfront's best known secrets for years. If you're looking for a casual brunch with a view of the bay, it can be fun. If you need a quick drink Sunday evening to fortify you before that week starts, there's usually a good band playing.

Pier 23 is crowded--especially the outdoor area along the water--and the crowd is a friendly, good-looking, over 35 kind of group. No 23 year Marina chicks drinking foo foo drinks here, thank goodness.


The West Texas Lass drinks it right from the bottle

But, and this is a big but, the service is god-awful. Trying to get a drink was as difficult as getting Barry Bonds to announce his return date. I don't know if they need more help, but when all the glasses on your table are empty and the cocktail waitress just walks by, you gotta wonder.


Anne's great smile belied the fact she was dying for another beer.

Did I mention the music was good? Or that you can smoke outside on the patio?

It's Free and It's Fun, But It's Not Jazz

el Greco



As part of the SFJAZZ free summer concert series, the Johnny Nocturne Band played Union Square last night. Free music is fantastic and the folks who brought it to the Square deserve a big "atta boy". And fun music is great too, as this band fit the "fun" criteria. Witness this nice older couple dancing right in the middle of Union Square.



But as fun and free as this band was, it ain't jazz. They kicked off with a nice blues number, but then degenerated into a big band version of the old Dusty Springfield tune Spooky. Fun to dance to? Sure. Jazz? Hardly.

Technically, the guys in the band are fine. The solos weren't particularly inspiring, but then for pop music who needs innovative solo work? The next number was a salsa-like pop piece that was only slightly spicier than elevator music. In my book, the Johnny Nocturne Band is doing for jazz what Starbuck's did for coffee--made it bland and offensive to no one.

Elegant Affair Features Cigars, Scotch, and Jazz (Crazy Marty also mistakenly admitted)

After a long hiatus, and yet another drunken stupor, Crazy Marty files this story from far off Sunnyvale, California. His wife reports that his recovery is coming along fine and all charges have been dropped.

The evening of July 23, in the garden at the Four Points Sheraton in Sunnyvale (not a bad place, as bedroom communities, with silicon residue for ground water, go) about 125 supporters of California Association of Retail Tobacconists (CART)--fighters for truth, freedom and the American Way, a way, by the way, that definitely includes Caribbean and Central American cigars...ok, and rum, too--gathered to pay homage to the grand old man of cigars, Avo Uvezian. That is why, despite this miserable headache, I’m still able to remember that the evening was called “An Evening With Avo.” Avo not only discovered the Avo cigar, distributed with pride by Davidoff of Geneva, but he is a fine, lifelong musician, playing, despite his 79 years, great jazz piano.


Crazy Marty was also the guest auctioneer. Please, Crazy Marty,
next time coordinate your purse with your belt.

One of his stopping points in a life started in Lebanon was at the Juilliard School of Music in NYC. Unlike me, his stay at Juilliard included an education. My stay only included lunch. Avo also was a pianist for the Shah of Iran, prior to the unpleasantness in Tehran that caused that gentleman his job, and us all kinds of grief.


Avo entertains the group with his fine jazz piano.

Having been volunteered to MC the evening, I got to sit at the table with Avo, who handed out a lot of his renowned cigars to one and all. But perhaps even more auspicious was my immediate neighbor at the table, Mr. Stephen Beal, Master of Scotch. In 2003, Stephen was crowned Sprits Ambassador to the World by some estimable organization, and all in all, he's the kind of guy we would all want to become close personal friends with; close, sharing friends, if you catch my drift.

Stephen turned out to be the perfect dinner companion, sharing not only his wonderful store of classic Scotch Whiskies (Oban, Cragganmore, Dalwhinnie, Lagavulin, Glenkinchie), including a different one for each course (have I mentioned how painful writing this is? You try to do better under a similar handicap) but also stories of his travels and tasting experiences.

What I like about Stephen (Steve, I think, to his friends) is that he has little time for the precious crap written about items like Scotch...hints of caramel, toffee, leather, butterflies, etc. To him, Scotch tastes like Scotch; some peatier, some softer, some stronger, but Scotch, not raisins. I like that in a man. Steve also doesn't give a damn whether you put ice in your Scotch or not. What you like is what you should drink, and mostly, since he's in the business, buy.
That Queen Elizabeth likes ice in her Johnny Walker Gold Label is just fine with Stephen Beal.

Something else I like about Steve is that he brought 3 bottles of Talisker for CART to raffle off as a money raiser, which was the point of the evening as we besieged California tobacconists continue our legal battles against onerous taxation. (Did you know that California has the highest rate of taxation on cigars of any state in the Union except Alaska? That means that tens of millions of dollars leave the state via internet transactions...saving customers a lot of money, but costing our state beaucoup dinero.) The donated Scotch comprised a 10,
18 and 25 year old (very rare; only 16,000 bottles for the world) and brought a high bid of $500 for the trio. Honestly, though, Steve explained (but not during the bidding process) after 15 years, Scotch doesn't improve very much. Might explain why I've been partial (overly partial?..gee, my head and stomach just aren't right this morning) to some of the younger stuff over the years(hey...get your dirty mind out of the gutter).


Crazy Marty is partial to the younger stuff. Oops, we meant scotch!

Besides the Scotch, most of the other auction and raffle items were cigars, and cigar related. One doozy was a large, unopened box of pre-embargo Cuban cigars (I believe it; thousands wouldn't) said to be worth about $5000. The winning bid was only $2000, proving that you're not the only cheap bastard out there.

Credit for this delightful outdoor evening, where the weather was so accommodating, must also go to Faz Poursohi, owner of Faz in San Francisco, as well as Danville, Pleasanton, and obviously, Sunnyvale. The entree was a pomegranate marinated chicken with a delicious basmati rice. Plenty of wonderful Mediterranean hummus, baba ganoush, olives, peppers, and cheese were available as appetizers and the surroundings couldn't have been more congenial. Nobody went home hungry, thirsty or cigar-deprived. Some, however, like us, only went home reluctantly, and only after Avo was requested to please stop tickling the baby grand that sits inside the restaurant for us stragglers because the staff was about to fall over. Once again, Avo proved he can still outlast his juniors.