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Candyce and I met Franky Bones at Radio Milano, LGO’s newest restaurant at the corner of 40th Street and Campbell in Arcadia. Frank is a 2nd generation Italian who was raised in Arizona. I hadn’t seen him in a while, so was a natural fit to invite him to join me and Candyce at LGO’s “new Italian” restaurant on its first week. I’ve enjoyed LGO’s other restaurants, and was anxious to see what they came up with.

If this were a new restaurant in another part of town by a different restaurateur, I wouldn’t be so critical. But LGO has momentum, so you expect creativity, especially when it comes time to branding the restaurant. Having said that…

The atmosphere disappointed me. It’s one thing to keep a visual theme in all of your restaurants, but it’s another thing to re-use old ideas. The interior is all-too-familiar: lots of hard surfaces, concrete floors, block walls. These surfaces might be hip, but it makes the dining area too loud. Even with a full spread of fabric curtains stretching across the back wall, the voices of the room roared too loud for good conversation.

The only thing that sets this restaurant’s interior apart from the gang that is LGO is the ceiling and the seating. They inherited the unique architecture from the previous owners, and they played up the low, wood arched ceilings from wall to wall. The chairs and tables were wood laminate held up by thin, spidery legs. When compared to the volume of the room and the scale of the arched ceiling, the furniture combined for the busyness of a high school cafeteria.

There were a couple details that did please me. The front windows look like they’ll swing right open in nice weather, a detail worth carrying over from their other restaurants. The lower portion of the windows is a wide concrete shelf that will serve as a bench for folks inside and outside. It’s a clever way provoke the social life through the restaurant walls. Like Chelsea’s Kitchen, waiting for a table might be as fun as having a table.

The other details I like were at the back of the restaurant. Behind the wide curtain on the back wall were glass doors that will most likely open to the narrow strip of courtyard. The young trees planted in an orderly row will give some organic relief to the industrial vibe inside. If they’re smart, they’ll make friends with their neighbors whose back wall defines the far edge of the courtyard. A whimsical Italian mural could set the tone for the whole restaurant. (And why not? The wall is shielded from the harshest desert sun.)

The food? For the record, the restaurant is a “new Italian” concept. Aside from the fashion capitol the restaurant was named after (Milan), there wasn’t much on the menu that spoke Italian. I didn’t expect numbered pasta dishes, but I expected to read through creative interpretations of Italian classics.

We started with the vegetable plate. It was fresh and tasty, but it was hard to figure out how you can charge $11 for a handful of vegetables with two thin slices of fresh mozzarella. Listen, if you are a “new Italian” restaurant and you are going to anchor a dish with an Italian staple, then make sure to slice like that mozzarella like the hungry Italians do. And I am talking about a handful of vegetables. I could’ve scooped them off the plate and put them in my pants pocket.

Perhaps the waitress was too scared to tell us the truth, but we were under the impression that we got real entrees with descent proportions. The menu seemed to be divided into appetizers and entrees. Come serving time, we were surprised to see we bought appetizers that were priced like entrees. The confusion grew…so this is a new-Italian tapas restaurant?

I understand the concept of a tapas. You get lots of little servings and you share them with friends. You explore the menu and discover different flavors. But that only works when you have dozens of options at reasonable prices. I’ve been to several tapas restaurants and enjoyed every part of the dining experience. But Radio Milano’s menu was short, and every item was stickered between $10 to over $14. It’ll take five orders for a couple on a date to feel full, and all of a sudden you’re inching towards $100 with tax and tip. Where’s the fun in that? For less money than that, you can have the timeless $10,000,000 atmosphere of Sassi up in Pinnacle Peak.

Anyway, I was served my main course. I ordered the meatloaf because I like to see how chefs spin a comfort food classic. It was tasty and moist, but it was just a fraction larger than a biscotti I ate that morning with my espresso. If you can make it bigger and serve it to me at Chelsea’s Kitchen, I’d order it again. Candyce and I didn’t bother ordering anymore when we realized the cost of the night had already run over $50.

After dinner, Candyce and I walked to the car and we both admitted to still being hungry. We flirted with the idea of going to LGO Grocery across the street to buy a salads or a couple sandwiches to go. If our night had ended there, our evening would’ve been a big let down. But we swung by Safeway and got a big massive sub sandwich from then sat by Tempe Town Lake under the night sky. It was the perfect night, almost a little too cool with the breezes coming off the lake. (Could this really be June in Phoenix?) (Could that’ve really been LGO’s newest restaurant?)

Sunday night I gave the baccalaureate speech for Mountain View High School in NE Mesa. It was an honor to give the keynote in front of the proud graduates in the caps and gowns. Half-way through my talk, I explained the importance of using your life to lift others up. That we aren’t made to take everything in this world for ourselves we were made for more. I explained that this world needs more players like Steve Nash. Someone who makes everyone else around them better. Every head started to nod in the church walls.

:::

The Suns got knocked out of the NBA playoffs. It’s been melancholy around town, and I haven’t been in the mood to write about it. Candyce and I were downtown at Stoudemire’s restaurant to watch Game 5 at home against the Spurs. We were without Diaw and Stoudemire because of an unjust rule in the NBA that killed us in the closing seconds of Game 4 in San Antonio. We won that game, but we were punished in the series.

Stoudemire’s restaurant was proud and rowdy. Even the kitchen crew came out into the restaurant to watch the final quarter of the game. The place was a happy riot until the final minutes of the game. The Suns came up a few points short in the final minute, and we lost the game. Slowly, the crowd emptied into the streets. Nobody spoke. Everyone just walked to their cars, stunned by the reality of our bad fortune.

On our walk to the packed streets past the stadium and to our car, I was encouraged by dozens of fans I didn’t know. “We’ll see you back Sunday night…we’ll get ‘em back here in Phoenix.” There were 25,000 friends walking those streets. How fantastic is that? Sports break down a cities walls so that absolute strangers are able to encourage one another and show compassion.

By the time Candyce and I got to our car, I was overwhelmed with by how much the team fought in that game. They were undermanned, but they fought with every fiber of their bodies. They left it all on the floor, and few people in this world really know what that’s like. Even though I was discouraged, sitting in my car beneath that humming street lamp, I had such a profound respect for the tigers that are the Phoenix Suns. Victory or not, they were tigers.

:::

Earlier this season (sometime after the All-star break?), ESPN ranked people throughout the NBA according to different statistics. Steve Nash was ranked number one in fist bumps: putting his fist out to his teammates as a sign of encouragement on the court. He gave the other people high-fives, encouraging words, whatever was he showed connection with the other players on the team. This is important because players have feelings too. Teams have spirit, a collective self-esteem between all the players and coaches. You need a team leader who can contribute to that spirit and to make that team better. You’ll never see Steve Nash angry at his teammates. He never shouts at his guys on the court, even if they miss an easy shot.

I’ll never forget a situation earlier this season when Raja Bell shot an air ball from behind the three point line. This is rare because this is where Bell hits most of his shots, but this season he’s been off. Steve Nash understands that he has to build up Raja Bell’s confidence, just like all of us understand one another need a boost of confidence. So after Raja Bell missed a three pointer, Steve Nash scrambled for the rebound and dished it back out to Bell, still standing at the three-point arch. Of course Bell drains the three, team runs back to the other side of the court and high-fives fly. How many people would offer someone redemption like that?

This season I got to see this up close. I had good seats, maybe 20 rows up from the court behind the scorer’s table. I watched two of the Indiana Pacers bench players walk up to the table and got ready to check into the game. They both slowed down caused stepped over something and then stood patiently at the sideline until they could go in. I wouldn’t have noticed this as anything eventful, but a few seconds later, Steve Nash stepped up to the table. He reached down and picked up a piece of paper and handed it to guys behind the table.  How awesome is that? Those guys thought they were too big too cool and too important to do something as silly as picking up a piece of paper. But apparently the leagues 2-time MVP isn’t too important.

There’s no doubt Nash will leave a legacy in the NBA. He’s still writing that legacy every time he bounces the ball on the court. So nobody knows for sure how his story will be told. But it is undeniable that he possesses a certain magic that take the game to the next level. Anyone with eyes to see knows that he leads a team unlike any team of this generation.

Next season, we’ll see this team do it again.

Tonight was so random. I was sitting in the grocery store parking lot, patiently waiting for the light to turn green so I could drive home. On the other side of the street, I saw two teenage boys dressed in black run away from what looked like a campfire. The flames rose high and began reflecting off the wall just a few feet away close to someone’s house. I was on the phone with Candyce. “Holy sh!t there’s a fire! I gotta go.”

I drove across the intersection through the red light. It was almost like I was on Frogger. A few seconds later I was dialed 911 before jumping out of the car. I ran through the ditch and my flip-flops towards the flame now 5 feet tall. As the 911 operator picked up the phone, I turned back towards my car and grabbed a gallon of milk I just bought at the store.

(Honestly, I look pretty stupid now that I think about it, talking on the phone while running through a ditch, wearing flip flops with a gallon of milk.)

I tore off the top doused the fire with 2% milk. I could smell the chemicals that teenagers poured on the dry bush. At this point, the excitement was over. I stood next to the fire answering the questions from the 911 operator. I looked to the left and right and realized that many other bushes could’ve caught on fire, and I was happy to be there when I was.

I met a cop in the parking lot five minutes later, and he hit me with the typical questions and officer might get someone who he believes is actually the culprit.

1. Where were you when you saw the fire?
2. Did you say there are how many boys?
3. And you just happen to be here?

I couldn’t help but want a laugh in his face. Really. I’m a 28-year-old man, I have better things to do than light bushes on fire, extinguish them with milk, and then report myself to the police. I gave him a quick thank you and then walked back to my car, just like the impatient New Yorkers do on an episode of Law & Order.

My brother is a police officer, so I called him this morning and retold the story. He got a good laugh out of it to.

Not once in my first 21 years did I call 911, but now that I’m out of college, I feel like I do it every year.

1. Several years ago I called 911 after I heard gunshots in my neighborhood. They said that they would send a police officer right over to check things out. I went back to sleep and forgot about it.
2. Six months later Matt Maher and I woke up in the middle of the night to a gigantic BOOM, the sound is so big that you imagine a dump truck filled with gasoline exploded in your living room. The windows of the house shook. He ran outside with his shotgun and I, well, I just ran outside. The dark street was peaceful. We called 911, and they said they would send someone over to check it out. (To this day, I have no idea what would make that loud of a sound.)
3. Earlier this year, I almost ran into a parked car in the middle of a busy street just after sunset. It was tucked behind a median in a dark corner where there were no street lights. I just knew the people driving through the intersection trying to make a green would rear end this thing and get seriously messed up. So I pulled over underneath a street light and ran to the median and back to the car to see if there was anyone inside.

It was empty and totally trashed. It smelled like cigarettes and alcohol in body odor. I felt so dirty. Whoever drove this car lived a life so unlike my own. The car wouldn’t start, but it did have enough juice in the battery to keep the parking lights on. I hopped in my car and drove off to my appointment. The 911 operator treated me similar as how the cop did last night. She prodded me trying to figure out if this was in fact my car and not someone else’s. I was blunt with her this and it’s not my car. I’m in my own car now I’ve got to go. I very neat car, by the way.

Ultimately, my good deed today with the fire was returned today by Leah, Nick’s girlfriend. She made a trip to the grocery store and picked me up a gallon of milk. There’s a true hero—no good story, no excitement. Just a nice thing to do for someone who really wanted to eat Lucky Charms.

Last night we were driving down Central Avenue in downtown Phoenix when I looked through the front window to see a woman in a biker jacket crawl up from the ground, and then limp along as she tried to stand up. I was riding in the passenger’s seat, and so I handed my coffee to someone in the car and darted out the door.

There was Harley Davidson Fatboy bike laying on it’s side, and a dude laying down behind it grabbing his leg. His face was twisting with pain. A salty cigarette-bobbing waitress in her 40s got to the scene seconds before I did. We were an unlikely team, but she and I together lifted the bike up and moved it out of the entryway to the parking lot before someone plowed through it. (This seemed like the priorities were wrong, but the rider of the bike told us to do it.) The bike was as heavy as a horse. Once the kickstand was out and the bike was steadied, I ran back to the guy on the asphalt to wave off the traffic so he didn’t get run over. I tried to comfort him, but he was most freaked out that the police and ambulance was coming and the bike wasn’t his. He said over and over again in a slow, pain-filled voice, “That’s not my bike. That’s not my bike.”

–Now I don’t think he stole the motorcycle. Because if he did, he would’ve had to walk around town with his girlfriend, both equipped with leather jackets and helmets, until they found a bike worthy of stealing. If they did hot-wire the bike, it seems bizarre that they would’ve been cruising around town on a Friday night.–

His leg was all screwed up. I don’t to describe which way it was bending because Candyce might read this and she’d throw up. But this guy had to be in pain. Johnny and Danny were next to me by this time, and the three of us helped carry him out of the street and onto a chair near the entryway of the restaurant. The whole time he kept repeating, “That’s not my bike. I just slipped and fell and broke my leg.” At this point, he didn’t seem as delirious as he did manipulative. I felt like he was giving me instructions that I was supposed to repeat to the cops whose sirens were getting louder by the second. By this time, he had a few helpers around him and I knew it was our time to get out of there.

Once we were in the car, Danny said that he almost responded to his moaning: “Yeah man, I know how it goes. I trashed a my buddy’s bike too.” This was outrageously funny because Danny did in fact trash Johnny’s bike last year, and Johnny was sitting next to him when he said this. As tragic as the two bike wrecks were, the irony was hilarious enough to keep us laughing all the way home.

Downtown to Celebrate

We went downtown last night to celebrate Adam and Carolyna’s upcoming wedding at Lisa G Wine Bar. I’ve read a lot about the restaurant, and it seemed like the perfect place to celebrate with friends: classy, casual, and cozy.

As much as I enjoyed dinner, I need to complain about the greedy sonofabitch waiter. I’m 28 now, and I’ve been to dozens of places around the country who pride themselves in the wine selection. And to date, only one waiter actually had something of substance to say when I’ve ask for a suggestion. The rest of the waiters always recommend the same thing: the most expensive wine on the list. For them, a $15 bottle of wine brings a $3 tip, and a $30 bottle of wine brings a $6 tip. I mean, don’t they think they’ll get caught being greedy?

Let’s say he didn’t do that out of greed. Then he could’ve at least made a case for the wine he chose. Or even better, he could’ve shown expertise by first considering the food on the table, suggesting three wines each of them in a different price range. Then he could explain what you get by investing $10 or $20 more. Then I could make an educated decision and feel great about it. But no, he was too greedy to do something so logical and considerate. He pointed to the high-dollar wine as fast as an arrow through the heart of a target. I actually tried to nudge the him into reality by asking him if there were any other wines on the menu he might suggest. All he could do was frown and shake his head: “I’ve never had anyone not like this wine.” As if by disagreeing with him, I’d dissappoint the thousands of elitists who’ve allowed me to sit in their company.

(I’ve learned a lot about greed since I’ve graduated high school. Greed is everywhere. You can’t treat everyone as if they are greedy, because that would be unfair. But you need to sniff out greed and know how to deal with it, or otherwise you’ll have dollars fleeced from every pocket.)

After dinner at Lisa G, we bravely drove through the construction to Lux Coffee Bar, a place I discovered a few years ago on a hot afternoon in downtown Phoenix. It was pretty exciting to sip on our hot drinks on such a cold night, looking out the big front windows onto a road ripped apart to make room for the Light Rail System that’ll connect Mesa to Tempe, and Tempe to Phoenix. It’s going to be a great catalyst for change downtown.

For the past couple weeks, Candyce has been out in California, and I’m all alone here in Arizona. I keep my life busy by watching the Suns and catching up on odd jobs around the house. The first half of that sentence is cool, but the second half is boring beyond belief. I mean, really, watching Stoudemire dunk is awesome, and unloading the dishwasher is lame. But I decided that it’s okay to have a life, which meant that I’ve been going out like I was in college again. Read on.

The Pre-Show: The Mondrian

Friday night my roommate Tam and I decided to go out and have fun. Our final destination on Friday night was the Martini Ranch in Scottsdale to see Matt Weddle in concert, but we had some time to kill before the show started.

We stumbled upon a new restaurant in Scottsdale called The Orange Table, a locals-looking spot for arsty people. A DJ was spinning The Shin’s “New Slang”, so it was worth checking out. It ended up being customer appreciation night, so they offered free appetizers and drinks. Not bad.

We scooted over to the Mondrian Hotel to shoot some pool by the pool side. Tam’s ninja skills explode in unlikely places, like shooting pool. He made some amazing shots. It was so damn cold outside that I could barely hold my pool stick. People don’t realize how cold it can get in Phoenix. Especially this year, it’s been so cold.

For the record, this used to be the James Hotel, Scottsdale’s first boutique hotel. It was purchased by the same company that owns/runs the Hudson Hotel in New York, one of my favorite hangouts. So I’m excited to see what the place looks like once they re-open.
The Concert: Matt Weddle

Matt Weddle became an Internet sensation after he did an acoustic cover of Outkast’s song “Hey Yah.” It’s beautiful. It got picked up by our local alternative rock radio station, and before you know it, he’s a local celebrity:

The line was so long to get in. It took 30 minutes just to get to the door. Everyone was too cold to make small talk with the everyone else in line, so we all just stood there and watched the street. I was caught off guard by a guy-girl couple standing on the curb waiting for a friend to come pick them up. He was casually talking to her about something like any guy does with his girlfriend, and she erupted into what I guess was her sexy stripper dance routine.

She kept her clothes on, but she popped and grinded and flipped her hair. It only lasted about 10 seconds, but it was a bizarre thing to watch while standing in line with 100 scensters on a crisp 30 degree night. The saddest thing was that she actually thought she looked sexy, like she’d been waiting for this moment to show us what she could do and now she was doing it. It was the type of bizarre impulsive behavior you only see from crazy homeless people (who think they’re sexy.) Nobody was impressed. She got in a car and left. The line moved forward.

Going to bars/nightclubs is a bit odd for me because I’m not looking for women anymore. I didn’t realize how many things I did and places I went over the past ten years just to meet girls. So all that was left was the music. It was a good night for me, because Matt sang “Hey Ya” at the same time that Shane Battier of the Houston Rockets hit a game wining 3 against the Denver Nuggest. Two good guys doing two good things.
The After Party: AZ88

After the show Tam and I went to AZ88 to grab a bite to eat. That’s the most hip, pretentious place in Scottsdale. I like the atmosphere and enjoy the food, so I just ignore the arrogant waiters and just have a good time and act like I don’t belong.

On the walk to the car, we stepped into the Scottsdale Center for the Performing Arts to check out an exhibit in the atrium. I’d read about it in the paper. It’s basically a 15 foot tall pyramid with thousands of toy figurines standing on the steps. It would look trashy if the figures were thrown in boxes at a yard sale, but when you see the cartoonish army looking back at you in the face, it’s almost intimidating. I actually found a few long-lost toys from my childhood perched near the top. It was bizarre. If I had a camera, I would’ve taken a picture.
Saturday Night at Da Club

That was all last night. It’s Saturday night now, and I just got back from Nick’s birthday party at Sugardaddy’s. The best way to describe my group of friends is fun, responsible, and moral. Disciplined, maybe. We always have fun parties at my house. And if I’m not having people over, someone else will. But I’ve never been out with this group to a nightclub. It was fun to watch their personalities take on a new life in a place like that. It was a good time. I would’ve stayed out later tonight, but I was already tired from a long day of working on my old house (more news on that later.)

It’ll be nice when Candyce gets back to town. She’s awesome.