My compliments to the chef

The happy gentleman in the picture is Michel Richard, a French chef and former owner of Citrus, which was and will always be my favorite restaurant in L.A.

Citrus was novel for many reasons. Location was one. On the northwest corner just one block off Highland on Melrose, Citrus was at the end of an unassuming residential block. It had a closed in patio, with large umbrellas and a roof that could be drawn back, although it rarely was.

Instead of hiding the kitchen in the back of the house, Richard was one of the very first who chose to separate it from the dining area with a wall of glass, turning it into a gallery where diners could watch their food being prepared.

They could see the chefs at work. The attention to detail. The timing. The skill. And, vicariously, they could experience the pure joy of creation.

Citrus was also the home of my favorite restaurant dessert ever. Michel Richard's raspberry tart. Now, I'm not a fan of raspberries, and I'm not crazy about tart flavored items. But the way this dessert was made, the blend of flavors, the impossibly smooth texture, the thickness of the crust, the balance of flavors. It was perfection.

Citrus was around during the years I happened to be doing a lot of commercial production in Hollywood. And as any creative team will tell you, there's no lunch like a production company lunch. Or a post-production house. Or music production. If you had a good idea and a budget, you were wined and dined at the restaurant of your choice.

And since all the production companies and editorial houses were within five minutes of Citrus, the choice was easy.

I'm not saying I took advantage of that as often as possible. But I'm not saying I didn't.

Here's the thing. I can remember a lot of great meals I've had and restaurants I had them in: Jeremiah Tower's Stars in San Francisco. Emeril Lagasse's NOLA in New Orleans. Laurence McGuire's Lambert's in Austin. George Lang's Café Des Artistes in New York. Great meals and chefs to be sure.

But for me, none of them match the feeling of adventure, comfort, happiness, camaraderie and satisfaction of eating on the patio at Citrus.

Sadly, all good things come to an end. Citrus closed in 2001. Another incarnation opened at the Hollywood nightclub Social (cleverly called Citrus at Social- go figure). But the experience was never the same, and that version shuttered in December of 2009.

Michel Richard is no longer with us—he died of a stroke in August of 2016. But he did what every great chef aspires to.

He left me wanting more.

The royal treatment

I said I wasn't going to do it, but I did it anyway. I watched the royal wedding of Harry and Meghan. And my macho self-esteem isn't afraid to admit it: I was completely swept away.

I laughed, I cried, I wanted that 1950 Rolls Royce Phantom IV.

I don't think I realized until I was viewing the ceremony how desperately I needed to see something positive and affirming, something that felt like a beginning and not the end. It was a long overdue (since January 20, 2017) counterpoint to the scandals, lies, shootings and injustices we're all inundated with on a daily basis.

There was something reassuring about British traditions that aren't being abandoned for their own sake, or to spite someone out of baseless prejudices. Traditions that've endured, despite the test of time, the horrors of war and the microscope of the occasional royal scandal.

The fact it was a biracial wedding, with a black, London-based gospel choir singing Stand By Me, and a black, Chicago bishop—Michael Curry—whose fiery and passionate sermon about the redemptive power of love made it one for the history books. Set against the stuffy yet tolerant British audience, reminded that diversity is something joyous to be embraced. Not for its own sake, but for the results it elicits.

The decency and rightness of it all. A country united and happy for them. Leadership that inspires love and admiration, even when there's strong political disagreement. A stark contrast to the hatred and divisiveness being peddled as the new normal here.

If you know anything about me, and really, you should know something about me by now, you know I usually think of weddings as a waste of a perfectly good Saturday.

But it sure was nice to feel that good and hopeful, at least for one day.

You're soakin' in it

First things first. These are not my feet, my legs or my pink slippers. Not that I have anything against pink slippers. In fact I'm sure some pink slippers can be quite fetching, and I have no doubt were I to wear pink slippers I'd look fabulous in them.

But we're not here to talk about pink slippers. We're here to talk about my feet. Again.

In my last post, I described in more detail than anyone asked for about the minor procedure I had to remedy my ingrown toenail. In what us medical professionals like to refer to as the post-op phase, I've had to soak my recovering tootsie twice a day in luke warm water, with a half cup of epsom salts mixed in.

First, because of the water temperature, every time I fill the bin, in my head I hear James Earl Jones saying "Luke, I am your water!" Yeah, I know.

Second, I've never really known what epsom salt is. I've heard of it, I know it's something you soak in, but that's about the extent of it. Come to find out it's crystals of hydrated magnesium sulfate (pay attention class) that not only relax the feet and reduce swelling, they also draw out toxins and promote healing.

The problem is apparently epsom salt only comes in an eight-pound bag or larger. Do you have any idea what a cup a day for five days weighs? Neither do I, but it can't be much cause it doesn't make a dent in that gigantic bag.

Regardless, five days after the procedure the toe is looking swell. Not swollen, just swell. I don't know how the epsom salts do their job, I just know they are.

I know you'll be disappointed, but this is going to be the last post about my feet. Two is enough, and three would just be weird. I don't mean to be callus about it, I just want to manage your expectations.

Sorry about the callus joke. It was downright corny. Sorry again.

Foot jokes are my Achille's heel.

Ok. I'll stop now.

Nailed it

I've known for days something was afoot. I know, I'm already sorry I wrote it. But it's going to be that kind of post, so you may as well start getting used to it.

This is not an actual picture of my foot. For starters, my story is about my right foot not my left one. My legs are also considerably more muscular from the exercise they get walking from the bedroom to the refrigerator several times a night. It's all about the calves.

Anyway, I've had an ingrown toenail on the big toe of my right foot for a while now. It had gradually gotten more and more painful, finally to the point where I had to do something about it. So I went to my podiatrist, Doug Richie, who also happens to be Jerry Seinfeld's podiatrist when he's in town. Hope I don't hurt my foot again dropping a name on it.

With my vast medical background, I figured Doug would trim the nail properly, the pain would be gone and that would be that. Were it only that easy.

He said apparently what happened is the shape of my toenail has changed, something fairly common as "one gets older", a phrase I can never really hear enough. He then informed me the best way to stop it from reoccurring was to do a minor surgical procedure called a wedge resection.

This little piggy screamed ouch.

Basically, it consists of numbing the toe, then trimming the wedges on both sides of the toenail so they don't grow into the toe. Ever again. Part of the procedure involves putting acid—not the fun kind—on the roots where the trimmed nails were to make sure those suckers are gone for good.

When it's over, he wraps the toe up and it looks like the toe in the picture. Actually, by the time I got home, the bandage looked a little more, shall we say, colorful. Which is why I'm sparing you a picture of my actual foot.

So if you need me over the next few days, I'll be sitting here soaking in epsom salts while I finish bingeing Hannibal.

By the way, I don't know if you noticed, but I got through this without any "arch" enemy or "He's a heel" jokes.

And we had a ball anyway.

Take the afternoon off

You might think what you're looking at is a ratty old baseball cap with 330 embroidered on it. You'd only be half right. What you're actually looking at is a collector's item.

Years ago, my colleagues and close personal friends Alan Otto, Tena Olson and I decided what America, and dare I say the world, was crying out for was another advertising agency.

And really, can you ever have enough?

So to fill the void, and to have a place to go where we could work with people and clients we like all day long, we immediately leapt into action and started getting together every Sunday morning at Starbuck's to map out our plan of attack for opening our own agency. Between lattes and banana bread, we batted around ideas how we'd differentiate our agency from the zillion others out there.

The first name we were going to go with was The Beefery. We took an old butcher cow chart, and instead of the names of the cuts we substituted clever ad terms, none of which I can remember right now. That may be why we never went with it. Under the heading of collector's items, there are also Beefery t-shirts and hats hidden away deep in some storage locker somewhere.

Anyway, we knew an agency called The Beefery wasn't going to get any vegan clients, but we were okay with that. Then, somewhere in the course of those caffeinated Sunday morning discussions, we decided to go with a name that represented something the three of us had experienced many, many times in our combined years in the business— nothing really good happens after 3:30 in the afternoon.

Ideas. Strategies. Disruptions. Pitches. Performance reviews. Client meetings. They all happen, but just not as well as they should after 3:30PM.

Our promise was we were going to get while the gettin' was good in the first three-quarters of the day. People were fresh, their creative juices flowing, they hadn't burned out yet. Every single day, we were going to hit the ground running first thing in the morning.

We'd be unstoppable. Then completely stoppable by 3:30.

Of course almost immediately it occurred to us, what with this being a "service business" and client emergencies having a timetable all their own, that clients would have a tough time buying into our philosophy. Which explains why, at the end of the day, 330 never got off the ground.

Despite that fact we continued to meet at Starbucks for months afterwards, occasionally talking about opening an agency but mostly just enjoying each other's company and the people watching.

Optimists that we were, when enthusiasm was at its highest we ponied up and had these hats made. I wear it all the time, and have to say I still like it a lot.

But not nearly as much as I like the idea of calling it a day at 3:30.

Things that annoy me: Volume 1

You know, if the world worked the way I wanted it to I wouldn’t have anything to write about in this post. Of course, after reading it you might still think I don’t, but just hold your water and reserve judgement.

I know everyone could pump out a list of things that annoy them. But, as you should already know by now, I’m an only child. So it’s a given the world revolves around moi. Which means my list of annoyances is far more important than yours.

I’m glad we got that settled.

NOT UNLOADING THE WASHER

Frustration comes in many forms. One of them is a washer loaded with wet clothes that aren’t mine. I suppose there's an argument to be made for leaving them in there all day. After all, the delicate cotton and mixed blend fabrics have just been through a traumatic event, what with that extended spin cycle and all. They're probably still in shock.

I also understand the reluctance and hesitation in moving wet, overflowing, slightly moldy smelling clothes. It takes an almost Herculean effort to place them in a dryer that's an impossible Fourteen. Inches. Away.

I’ve always said the great thing about laundry is I can do it while I'm doing something else. It's just I don’t want the something else to be moving your clothes to the dryer.

And no, I have no idea where that favorite shirt of yours went—why do you ask?

THE DOG NOT LISTENING

We have two incredibly smart, cute dogs at home. Because one of them is an energetic German Shepherd, we wanted to make sure he was well trained. We didn't want a dog that big and powerful out of control and not listening to us.

That’s the kid's job.

So when we got him from Westside German Shepherd Rescue, every weekend for what seemed like forever, we loaded him and his little friend in the back of the SUV and carted him out to the same trainer in Corona where we’d trained our first GSD.

I’m happy to say after all those weeks of training, fighting the hordes of traffic on the 91 East and spending lots of money to "work with the experts," he has been thoroughly, selectively trained. That is to say he listens when he wants to and doesn’t when he doesn’t.

This is a picture of him after I said "Heel."

Still, when he’s backlit in the front window, and someone is outside thinking about making a move, it’s the visual that says, “Maybe the next house.” So we’re willing to cut him some slack.

THINGS ON THE FLOOR

There's tripping the light fantastic. Then there's just tripping.

It's not bad enough I have to navigate area rugs everywhere that are lying in wait for me. They look innocent enough, but their rug pad is just a ruse—they slip and slide around like Crocs on a freshly watered lawn.

If rugs were the only thing, then at least I'd know the enemy. But, like magic, other things appear to create my own personal obstacle course at all hours of the day and night.

Backpacks. Shoes. Dogs. Shoes. Boxes. Shoes.

On the bright side, it is cutting down on my 2AM refrigerator runs.

Since this is only Volume 1, you know there'll be more installments to look forward to. You might even be inspired to make your own list of things that annoy you.

I'm guessing my list is the first thing on your list.