Cobb: Eating Nemo

November 13, 2005

Eating Nemo

The third thing that you notice about Marc Danziger is that he's older than he looks and he has probably heard that amusing anecdote you're about to tell before. The second thing you notice is that he's totally unphony and genuinely interested in holding court, and he's good at it.

Last night, court was held at Ocean Seafood, downtown in Chinatown. We expected a couple dozen but became about 10 gradually thinking we might only be five. Among the courtesans as the Moscone-Schmitz Roundtable were Flap and his better half, Dave who remained rather reserved through the evening, Pamela the Kerry Goddess, Rand of Interplanetary Musings, Juliette, my brother Doc, Marc and myself. The guy whose name I forgot set me straight on some Long Tail implications, but he was on my bad ear side and some of his wisdom was garbled in translation.

There was nothing that quite got us rollicking but it was a pleasant kind of disjointedness to the whole affair. I was in desparate need of the distraction since spent all of yesterday on a conference call from hell. And I'm sure I've repeated that enough times so that it's all anyone will remember besides my 'Republican-mobile'. BTW, I wasn't the one who said that it's the door-prize for the black republican club, that was some snarky trackbacker.

The food went from pretty damned good to excellent. My pick was the pan-fried oysters in black bean sauce. The squid in ginger and garlic was the bomb, and Nemo was delicate and crispy at the same time. In the old tradition of Chinese seafood restaurants, our host picked out a fish which was brought to our table in a ziplock bag and displayed proudly. It flopped a bit gasped for breath a couple times while the waiter held it high. Marc stared it down, eyeball to eyeball and proclaimed that it should be sacrificed for our benefit. It came back deeply tanned from the fryer. I didn't get any of the cheeks, and they left most of the head off, but there was some sweet meat near the gills.

As the lazy susan spun our jasmine tea and delicacies, and my head spun a bit after a couple Jim Beams, we loosened up and discussed a million things from strange combinations of food in exotic locales to politics and blogging. (Ya think?). I'm surprised to find that the Dems in our presence tend to believe that Hillary might actually do something. Considering that the Left is out of ideas and really just need somebody popular, she might do. Flap says some guy named Allen might be Giuliani's Veep to satiate the insatiable Christian Right. We mumbled about other causes and effects of Bush Derangement Syndrome, and Pamela reminded us poignantly that the myth of the nuclear family is a myth - so who gets the tax cuts? We mused about the electability of Angelites, who has all of the charisma of Nemo there and the inimitable weiniehood of Grey Davis. Notably Marc reminded us that indeed the Democrats have been spoiled by success and their ability to fight Vietnam over and over again is one note that is beginning to sour all of us. Amen to that.

Danziger is a walking encyclopedia of Cali politics. He's a good guy to have around because he's been around. It turns out that his wife and I have a mutual acquaintance in a Superior Court judge, and that we probably see eye to eye on some matters of technical management. One of these days I'm going to find out if they can cook. In the meantime I'll be trying to read more blogs. I know, I keep promising.

We broke up around 11, and lagged around until they threw us out. All promised to return. I'm in.

Posted by mbowen at November 13, 2005 08:33 AM

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Comments

Always a pleasure!

Posted by: Juliette Ochieng at November 15, 2005 09:06 PM