Toon Mai Toon
This Sunday will be Larry Bensky's final broadcast. I've woken up with Bensky every Sunday for the past 5 years and he will be sorely missed. He was one of the last voices of reason in an increasingly inane radio landscape.
Bensky's impending retirement prompted me to catalog all of my favorite Bay Area institutions that are no longer with us. I'm mainly doing this for my own records, so feel free to ignore.
1. The Bay Leaf Cafe. Bay Leaf provided the food for our pre-wedding party. When I lived in Palo Alto I'd eat there at least once a week. They had a library of books and magazines and a fireplace and the owner was always friendly and excited to see me. Sometimes I'd just drink tea, read books and stay until closing time.
2. The Spangenberg Theater. The Spangenberg would show first run indie and foreign movies (and some mainstream movies that had been out for a while) for $5. You could get a bag of 3 homemade cookies for $1. Afterward you could visit the donkey farm. It was the best deal in town.
3. Cosmo Doogood's Urban Almanac. OK, so this isn't a Bay Area thing, but still, it was a great idea and I wish it would come back.
4. White Lotus. We had lunch here with my family the day before our wedding. It was one of the tastiest and classiest of the Vietnamese fake meat restaurants. (Ditto for Kim's in Mountain View, another place that no longer exists.) Their banana blossom soup was delicious and I don't know anyplace else around here that serves it.
5. Q-Cup. Q-Cup was another now defunct cafe that we took the family to when they were here for our wedding. (Am I sensing a pattern?) They went out of business during the great bubble tea crash of '05. Their plum and kumquat flavor was my favorite bubble tea ever and I still haven't been able to find a suitable replacement.
6. Printer's Inc., Megabooks, CD Land, and Record Heaven. It's always sad when small independent book and record stores have to shut down although I understand that there's just no way to compete with the chains, the internet, and the downloading. There's a great documentary called Indies Under Fire that I recommend to everyone, especially Bay Area residents.
7. BAM Magazine. I read it every week during the 90s. I might even have been in it a couple of times. I don't really remember. It was where musicians went to post "drummer wanted" ads before Craig's List.
8. Cuppa Joe. This is probably the most important non-existent entity of all and has has been mentioned at length in this journal several times.
Bensky's impending retirement prompted me to catalog all of my favorite Bay Area institutions that are no longer with us. I'm mainly doing this for my own records, so feel free to ignore.
1. The Bay Leaf Cafe. Bay Leaf provided the food for our pre-wedding party. When I lived in Palo Alto I'd eat there at least once a week. They had a library of books and magazines and a fireplace and the owner was always friendly and excited to see me. Sometimes I'd just drink tea, read books and stay until closing time.
2. The Spangenberg Theater. The Spangenberg would show first run indie and foreign movies (and some mainstream movies that had been out for a while) for $5. You could get a bag of 3 homemade cookies for $1. Afterward you could visit the donkey farm. It was the best deal in town.
3. Cosmo Doogood's Urban Almanac. OK, so this isn't a Bay Area thing, but still, it was a great idea and I wish it would come back.
4. White Lotus. We had lunch here with my family the day before our wedding. It was one of the tastiest and classiest of the Vietnamese fake meat restaurants. (Ditto for Kim's in Mountain View, another place that no longer exists.) Their banana blossom soup was delicious and I don't know anyplace else around here that serves it.
5. Q-Cup. Q-Cup was another now defunct cafe that we took the family to when they were here for our wedding. (Am I sensing a pattern?) They went out of business during the great bubble tea crash of '05. Their plum and kumquat flavor was my favorite bubble tea ever and I still haven't been able to find a suitable replacement.
6. Printer's Inc., Megabooks, CD Land, and Record Heaven. It's always sad when small independent book and record stores have to shut down although I understand that there's just no way to compete with the chains, the internet, and the downloading. There's a great documentary called Indies Under Fire that I recommend to everyone, especially Bay Area residents.
7. BAM Magazine. I read it every week during the 90s. I might even have been in it a couple of times. I don't really remember. It was where musicians went to post "drummer wanted" ads before Craig's List.
8. Cuppa Joe. This is probably the most important non-existent entity of all and has has been mentioned at length in this journal several times.