Casablanca Business

Archive for the ‘Cannons City’ Category

Sitting on the sofa with my dad at 9 years old and listening to Ernie Harwell’s excitement when Rocky Colavito came to bat. Cash and Kaline surrounded the rocket launching Colavito who promptly launched a bullet line drive that smashed into the seats near the foul line. my dad got up and gave a resounding “DON’T KNOCK THE ROCK” as Ernie Harwell did the same on the Detroit Tigers radio network.

In those days it was “The Rock” and Minnie Minoso, Larry Doby — Kaline, Cash and Colavito. the rock that was built for baseball and home runs. his fielding was beyond belief for a taller, strong player and he had a legendary cannon for an arm. I can hear Harwell casually exclaiming “DON’T KNOCK THE ROCK” after Rocky gunned down another runner. Rembering the Rock with the Indians when he hit his fourth consecutive home run in four consecutive at bats in Baltimore. The defensive minded orioles with the long fences refused to walk him but the Rock persisted.

Remember the “big trade” that sent Colavito from the Indians to the tigers ( Indian fans fumed). Then the rock went back to Cleveland for more good years and then off to other destinations including Kansas City where he did very well. the cannon-armed home run hitter In one of his final stops The Rock winds up pitching a little (and very well) for the New York Yankees, a team Colavito idolized as he was born in the Bronx, New York City. You can look at Hall of Famer records and and the Rock is comparable or better than some. It was his charisma and ability that made him so popular in Cleveland and made fans shout “DON’T KNOCK THE ROCK”

The Rock

Colavito was not fleet of foot. He reportedly had “flat feet” but he got along well for a larger player. His instincts were honed and his arm was like a laser, most fun was watching him throw out guys at the plate or pass a relay with a literal missile with laser guidance. He was totally error-less in one season. His assists and walks at the plate made him a very dangerous weapon. And what a hitter!

Colavito fans of all ethnicities were most impressed with him at the plate. in 1961, the tiger outfielder hit 45 rockets with 140 rbis and a .402 on base percentage. Teams didn’t want to pitch to colavito. he was a team player all the way as evidenced by his friendships and track record as a great role model for kids, fans, and American-Italians.

Baseball-reference.com is great Rocky site. If you are a Colavito fan, join the Yahoo! Rocky Colavito newsgroup. They run a very nice and down home discussion about the rock. The rock glows in this group as a very personable, proud, and although not perfect, a real role-model for American-Italians and his fans of all time. at 6’3″ and 190 lbs. Colavito played from 55′-68′.

Colavito and why he’s not in the Hall of Fame

Colavito in Cooperstown? if you thought you were going to read something deep here that is not the case. There is no reason why the rock is not in the mighty hall. The rock is more than stats. He was an American icon. wikepedia.com says “the curse of rocky colavito is a phenomenon that supposedly prevents the Cleveland Indians baseball team from winning, be it the world series, the American league pennant, reaching post season play, or even getting into a pennant race. its origin is traced back to the unpopular trade of right fielder Rocky Colavito for Harvey Kuenn in 1960. it is a classic example of an urban legend or a scapegoat for the Indians’ past failures.”

Did I hear “urban legend”? Colavito then returned to the Indians in his tenth season, after a one year stop in Kansas City where he ripped 34 missiles with 102 rbis. He leads a semi-private life in rural Pennslyvania. He and his family are doing great. The Hall of Fame has to hear that somewhere out there. to me it’s an outrage and a slap in the face. Every time the Indians have a reunion with the Rock, there is a large group who follows the whereabouts of the American-Italian urban legend

- Rocco Dominico Colavito. Now explain why the Hall of Fame members snub him. Have theories? born august 10th 1933, the rock is still the rock in 2008. You can make excuses but “DON’T KNOCK THE ROCK!

Sitting like a tired dinosaur on top of Fort Rinella, limits of Kalkara, is the world’s largest cannon – a 100-ton Armstrong gun – originally built by the British in Malta to safeguard that part of the coast and to protect naval shipping in the area from the newest generation of Italian battleships of the time.

Luckily, it was never fired in anger, but an amusing legend about its first test still does the rounds much to the chagrin of military experts and local conservationists who have done a wonderful job restoring and up-keeping both the cannon and the fort.

The persistent legend says that when the gun was first fired, the 2000-pound shell fell just a few metres down into the nearby sea. If told, Queen Victoria cannot have been amused. Because a single shell cost, in those days, as much as the daily wage of 2,600 soldiers. In fact, so costly was it that the gun was only fired twice a year for practice.

The cannon and the fort that has housed it for so many decades are certainly worth a visit. When installed, the massive cannon was state-of-the-art, equipped with a steam powered hydraulic system that traversed, elevated and depressed the gun. Fort Rinella, sometimes also referred to as Rinella Battery, was built between 1878 and 1886, standing above the shore east of the mouth of Grand Harbour, between Fort Ricasoli and Fort St Rocco, in the same region of the island.

The fort, which is quite modest in size, was designed to operate and protect the single large gun, together with its associated gun squad, magazines, support machinery, bunkers and the troops that were stationed within the fort to defend the installation.

The fort was designed to engage enemy warships at ranges up to 7,000 yards. The low profile of the fort and the deeply buried machinery rooms and magazines were intended to enable it to survive counter-fire from Italian and Nazi capital warships.

The fort has no secondary armament; its fortifications, simply ditches, caponiers, a counter-scarp gallery and various firing points were mostly intended for small arms fire and grenade launching.

Today you can visit the museum and even attend, on the 5th of May of every year, the firing of the gun by volunteers. They use black powder only, of course, so you can’t really prove or disprove the legend.
Every afternoon the same dedicated volunteers, dressed as 19th Century British soldiers, provide a tour of the fort that combines lectures, demonstrations and live re-enactments. A Victorian-era muzzle-loading fieldpiece is fired, again without shot, but sorry, there is no legend about that……

Fort Rinella is one of the most fascinating things you will see in Malta with its authentic re-enactments and quite spectacular cannon. To get there by car you need to head in the general direction of the three cities and then follow the signs to Rinella. By bus you need to be catching the bus in the direction of Kalkara – the number 4.

In NYC for The Headwear Association’s 98th annual dinner at Tavern on the Green in Central Park, I was enthusiastic about trying a restaurant that I had seen reviewed some months previously in the NY Times. Favoring vegetarian cuisine for the past 16 years (James Rachel’s 1990 book CREATED FROM ANIMALS: The Moral Implications of Darwinism sealed this decision back then), I have been waiting for what I knew would arrive some day- Vegetarian Fine Dining. So on the evening of St. Patrick’s Day, the day after the association dinner (good event but, at best, middling meal at T on the G), I set off for the East Village and Heirloom. I wasn’t disappointed. When one enters most vegetarian restaurants, what is almost always palpable is the fidelity of the staff to the work. It feels good to be at a business where the people working there have a passion for what they are doing. In the case of vegetarian restaurants, for most staff, it is also a philosophical conviction that they are doing is the right thing.* So in Heirloom, you are met by hip, attractive, friendly well-dressed hostesses, wait persons, bar tenders, with whom you are on the same wave length (there’s also something sexy about this – but unfortunately I am old enough to be these people’s father). They might be cut from the same cloth as the jeans and t-shirt people that you encounter in most veggie joints, but here we’re all playing dress-up – it’s fun, it’s sophisticated, the d?cor is cool, it’s all well done. It’s also an important statement – Vegetarianism** is not mutually exclusive from fine dining.

On to the food: I’m seated with a good view of the bar and the front door – I’m catching the scene – I am happy. The wine menu is interesting, but California is conspicuously absent as are the great pinot noirs of Oregon. I’m not sure what this is about (I hope not another example of pretentious New York demonstrating their imprudent superiority by dissing California in favor of Europe- I’m giving them the benefit of the doubt). The two different reds I ordered (glasses) were good – the quality was right for the price. The menu is simple – a good idea – divided into “First Course” and “Second Course”. This works very well as one doesn’t need a lot of choices as one can eat everything on the menu. Vegetarians are usually eliminating four-fifths or more of a menu right out of the gate in most restaurants. So after seriously considering “Truffled Portobello Crostini with Apple Celeric Compote: balsamic vinegar reduction, truffle corstini and lavender honey”, I go with “Sous-Vide Poached Egg with Crispy Sweet Potato: meyer lemon foam, greens and horseradish oil”. Both my waitress and the server make the point that I should thoroughly mix the various parts of this dish before eating. Wow! What a brilliant idea – this really works. You’ve got warm-cool, crispy-soft, bland-spicy, runny-dry, and lots of great flavors all happening in harmony. This was the big winner of the night. I was having more trouble picking a “Second Course”. I intended to go with the favorite of the NT Times reviewer, but it was no longer on the menu. I settled on something unusual (for me at least), “Anson Mills Creamy Grits with Smoked Hominy: avacado, queso fresco and roasted tomato-poblano salsa”. I surmised that this down-home, mid-America sounding dish would be just the ticket for my weekend theme – don’t accept New York as cutting-edge Mecca on reputation alone.*** Well, this dish was fine, but it couldn’t keep up with the superior opening act. After couple of bites, I did come to appreciate the simple comfort food that was the objective. But the dessert almost did measure up to the appetizer – “Black Cocoa Cake, with Chocolate-Bourbon Glaze: sweet chestnut filling and espresso ice cream”. (Like most of the rest of the world) I consider myself an authority on chocolate – this was great. And the big surprise was that the chef de cuisine herself, Amanda Cohen, served me. After a perfunctory inquiry about the meal, she mentioned that she noticed I was carrying the Times review. Given the fact that I had had this article tightly folded into the palm of my hand and was reading it very discreetly, Ms. Cohen’s observation really impressed me. And that says something else about Heirloom – people are paying attention to their diners. As a merchant myself, that virtually says it all.

On Saturday afternoon, I caught the R-train for Brooklyn and visited with Tom Toomey, certainly one of the finest California hat store managers of the 1980s. Tom was a pioneer in the, now full-blown, downtown San Diego renaissance when he managed The Village Hat Shop in the then new Horton Plaza. Many years after his tenure at the hat store, customers would regularly come in asking for and about him. After a long stint in Russia and surrounds, he has settled in the Park Slope section of Brooklyn and is following his passion for art – http://www.tcatdesigns.com. We took a long walk in his neighborhood and ultimately landed at Al Di La Restaurant. And what a good landing it was! Everything was top notch at this restaurant including the best entr?e of the weekend, the truffles and ricotta ravioli.

Briefly: For an over-priced brunch at the Carnegie Deli you can get insulted by grumpy old-school waitresses at no extra charge. Dukes on Broadway in Midtown makes a good sandwich (hot or cold) highlighted by the bread.

And the winners are:

Heirloom – On Orchard Street near Houston in the East Village.

Al Di La – On the corner of 5th Avenue and Carrol in Park Slope, Brooklyn.

* I spent that afternoon at The Museum of Modern Art where a MOMA lecturer argued that the modern “art object” need not be beautiful, need not be skillfully executed, need not be tangible. Nothing mattered but “the idea” and that all ideas are fair game today with no cannons and no rules. She argued for a kind of relativism where all ideas are equal and nothing mattered other than if the art was “interesting”. She used examples of “artists” shooting themselves in the foot or nailing themselves to a Volkswagen as arguably having merit as art. She, the lecturer, refused to pass any judgments on these so-called works of art (or anything for that matter). In the end, it was hyper-academic drivel – really unnerving. I was left believing that this borough, where the St. Patrick’s Day parade organizers had refused to let gays and lesbians march, was in fact really as provincial as some argue. [But Heirloom, where something mattered, saved the day for Manhattan.]

** My philosophy professor friend (and a native New Yorker) argues that not eating animals is really quite conservative philosophy – anything but an eccentric stretch in thinking. For those of you still grappling with this question, ask yourself if your cousins should suffer so that they can be your food. Then realize that we are all animals differing only by some matter of degree.

*** I met Diane Feen, the editor of the yearly HAT LIFE Directory and bi-monthly HAT LIFE Newsletter at Bergdorf-Goodman, a NYC department store temple, for a visit to the men’s and women’s hat departments and lunch. Hats were way over-priced and their “lunch special” fussilli that I ordered was runny and tasteless (I think they opened a can of tomato sauce and poured it on poorly drained pasta – no kidding) – this was the worst meal I can remember eating at a restaurant in a long time ($18!). And, everywhere you looked, women were wearing full-length fur coats (okay with MOMA I guess, but it would be equally okay if I tossed a gallon of blood on these ignoramuses). What are these pathetic people thinking? This could never happen in California.

Fred Belinsky

VillageHatShop.com [http://VilliageHatShop.com/]

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