Friday, August 19, 2022

Uncle Jake and His World of Stories

by Gregg Chadwick

My Uncle Jake looms large in my life. And not only because he has the build of a defensive tackle on the San Francisco 49ers. When Jake walks into a room he fills the scene like James Gandolfini in the Sopranos. Then the stories begin. 


Jolly Green Giant

Jake sets the scene. Imagine he is on a covert mission during the Vietnam War. President Nixon has launched a secret bombing campaign in Cambodia and Laos. From March 18, 1969 until May 26, 1970, code name Operation Menu targeted resupply areas that the North Vietnamese and their allies the National Liberation Front and the Viet Cong were using as bases of attack against the South Vietnamese and their American allies.  Heavy B-52 bombers from the US Air Force carpet bombed the Laotian and Cambodian borders in an attempt to interdict North Vietnamese supply lines. 


Airman Jacob J Desch (Vietnam Era Photo)

Airman Jake Desch was deployed in Thailand where the massive B-52s were stationed at U Tapao Royal Thai Air Base, and smaller bombers at the secret Nakhon Phanom Royal Thai Navy Base on the Thai/Laos border. The story goes that Jake was onboard an aircraft collecting signals intel, possibly a C-123 Provider used for special ops over Laos, when the plane encountered difficulties. Engine failure, enemy anti-aircraft fire, pilot error - all possibilities. Jake is fuzzy on the details, but he definitely wasn't the pilot. Jake assures us that he was adept at airborne insertion and geared up quickly in his parachute gear. Soon Jake was out the door and free from the aircraft. The plane was flying low, so Jake's drop was fast. His parachute barely unfurled before he slammed into the Laotian jungle. Jake blacked out from the force of the descent and his abrupt landing. When he came to, Jake found himself caught high in a forest canopy. Jake was lucky, unlike many airmen whose planes were lost during the war. Jake had survived. Jake was a tech specialist and his quick thinking saved his life.  Trapped in the branches, Jake used the serrated edge on his survival knife to cut himself clear from the tree. 

A rescue team had taken off from a nearby base, perhaps Nakhon Phanom. Hope was on its way.
Fitting that Jake, a red headed giant of a man, would be rescued by airmen aboard an HH-3E Jolly Green Giant helicopter from the U.S. Air Force Rescue team. Jake hasn't expressed to me what he said to the rescue team. But, I am sure that as a Jersey boy he would have joked with them and asked - "What took you so long?"

The National Museum of the United States Air Force describes the incredible heroism of the Combat Pararescue teams in Southeast Asia during the Vietnam War:
"The blood-red beret, symbolizing sacrifice, has been the pararescueman or "PJ" (for parajumper) mark of distinction since early 1966. The PJ's unique mission in the Southeast Asia War was to ride into a combat zone aboard a rescue helicopter and descend into jungles, swamps, mountains, and forests on a cable and winch. On the ground, they stabilized and helped hoist the injured to safety, often under fire. All volunteers, the PJs earned more decorations per man than any other USAF group in the SEA War."


 A U.S. Air Force pararescueman is lowered on a forest penetrator from a hovering 37th Aerospace Rescue and Recovery Squadron HH-53 helicopter during a rescue mission in Southeast Asia, June 1970. (U.S. Air Force photo)


U.S. Air Force air rescue team: Four Nakhon Phanom based A-1 Skyraiders and a Lockheed HC-130P Hercules recovery aircraft refueling a Sikorsky HH-3E Jolly Green Giant helicopter



Jersey Guys 

Jake still carries the wounds of that encounter during the Vietnam War. Perhaps Jake gained courage that helped him move into his new life as a student at San Francisco State and husband to his effervescent wife Linda. 


Francis Ford Coppola directs Marlon Brando in the Godfather wedding scene 

Like a scene from Francis Ford Coppola’s sweeping masterpiece The Godfather, Jake's stories embrace the cinematic moments of life. Jake loves to tell the tale when he encountered a posse of overly friendly gentlemen at a reception in San Francisco. Jake's wife comes from an Italian American family and is proud of her heritage. Growing up in Newark, New Jersey, Jake had met his fair share of the cosa nostra. But that evening at one of the grand old hotels in downtown San Francisco was more than Jake expected. 


Linda and Jake Desch 1970s


As Jake tells the tale, the wedding celebration was opulent.  Lights, camera, action, The hors d'oeuvres, crudités (as only a Jersey guy would know), antipasti (most likely from Molinari's in North Beach),  lasagne, fish (this was San Francisco after all), and freshly carved meats were all spectacular. Champagne flowed freely , the music had swing (Tony Bennett should have been there), and the dancing went on all night. Linda liked to move on the dance floor and Jake eagerly glided along with her. Like most big men, Jake gets hot easily and he needed to take a break to cool off. 

At the sink in the men's room, Jake splashed water on his face with his eyes down. He could hear the thumping of the music down the corridor and then heard it grow louder as the restroom door swung open. Jake gathered himself quickly and looked up to see six large, beefy, muscular, no nonsense men gathered in the bathroom with him. Too many to wrestle with Jake thought. So Jake did what was natural to him. He made friends. "How's it going guys?", Jake asked in a Jersey accent he pulled out for these kind of occasions. The six men nodded positively as they looked Jake over. Their internal threat response meters sensed no threat from Jake. In actuality, the men saw Jake as a fellow member of their rare club. "What are you packing?", the lead bodyguard asked Jake in a whisper as he flashed his holstered weapon. The other five Italian guardians followed suit and displayed their handguns.
"What am I packing?" 
"These!" - Jake said as he held out his massive hands. 



Three Regular Jersey Guys in the Soprano's 
The meat market Satriale's created for the show  is possibly based on Sacco's Meat Market located at 806 3rd Avenue in Elizabeth, New Jersey which served as the unofficial base of "Uncle Joe" Giacobbe, a veteran made man in the DeCavalcante crime family.



Alaskan Earthquake

I remember sitting in the living room with Uncle Jake at the Desch family residence in Garfield, New Jersey when my Dad was with the 3rd Marine Division in Vietnam. We often stopped by to visit my Grandma and Grandpa and assorted aunts, uncles, nieces, and nephews on weekends in those years, 1965 - 1966, to hang out with family. One Saturday the TV was on playing Attack of the 50 Foot Woman - a low budget sci-fi film from 1958 - and Jake was passing around a stack of photos of the damage from the Alaskan Earthquake of 1964 that he had taken while stationed at a Strategic Air Command Base in Alaska. To me, the film's theatrical release poster appears like a green screened actress in front of Jake's earthquake photos. Worlds colliding indeed. 



While Jake was there, on March 27, 1964, a 9.2 magnitude earthquake struck the Prince William Sound region of Alaska. The quake lasted  4.5 minutes and is still the most powerful recorded earthquake in U.S. history. It is also the second largest earthquake ever recorded, next to the 9.5 magnitude earthquake in Chile in 1960. Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson provides an historical account of the military's response to the quake:

"The military in Alaska, from the moment of the disaster, mustered their full strength to assist their neighbors," wrote Air Force Lt. Gen. R.J. Reeves, commander of Alaskan Command, in a letter to Army Maj. Gen. Eugene Salet, commander of the U.S. Army Training Center at Fort Gordon, Ga. 'The military services proved once again that they are ready, willing, and able to cope with emergencies, whatever their origin.'"



Alaska Earthquake March 27, 1964. Collapse of Fourth Avenue near C Street in Anchorage due to a landslide caused by the earthquake. (Photo by U.S. Army)


Jake and his colleagues started working immediately after the earthquake to provide aid to those in need throughout Alaska:

"At dawn the next day, 17 C-123 Providers left Elmendorf's runway carrying equipment and supplies south and east to Valdez, Seward, and Kodiak. During the next 21 days, nearly four million pounds of cargo was flown out in Operation Helping Hand. Massive airlift operations by the Military Air Transport Service shattered records, hauling in two and a half million pounds of cargo - from baby food to heavy equipment - from Lower 48 bases."

Homeward Bound


Gregg Chadwick
Jersey Cantos 
16"x20"oil on linen 2016
Private Collection, San Francisco

Northern New Jersey, where Jake grew up, is one of the United States' largest transportation hubs. When Jake was a kid, rail lines, automobile parkways, and air traffic filled the Jersey earth and sky with movement and the possibility of adventure. I remember when I was a young boy, Jake was on leave from the Air Force and brought by a small collection of his old toys to give us. Trucks, trains, and planes were there in miniature. And a red plastic spaceship ready to carry Buck Rogers and Wilma into the stars. I could almost hear the first line in the United States Air Force Song - "Off we go into the wild blue yonder, Climbing high into the sun"

Jake enjoyed telling me about his childhood playgrounds along the tracks of the Jersey Central rail line that his father rode along as a railway engineer. Jake and his buddies would play ball in a dirt yard next to an auto body shop on the edge of town. The crack of the bat would mix with the sounds of pneumatic air pumps and the hiss of paint guns. Often a train whistle sounded by Jake's Dad would ring out from a Jersey Central engine moving slowly down the tracks next to the field. Jake says that he and the boys would run and jump onto the freight cars as the train rolled on. 

One day only Jake made it onto the train. He was actually able to reach up towards the train engine and his dad pulled him up into the cab. "Where are we going Dad?, Jake asked his father as the train pulled away. "Anywhere you want to go Jake.", his Dad said. "Anywhere you want to go!"

Tuesday, August 16, 2022

The Inflation Reduction Act is Now Law

Happy Birthday Bill Evans


Bill Evans, known for his work with Miles Davis was born on this day in 1929.
Evans received 7 Grammy's and 31 nominations for his work as a jazz pianist and composer.

Steve Silberman writes that "Evans once told a friend that a musician should be able to maintain focus on a single tone in his mind for at least five minutes—and in playing like this, he achieved a nearly mystical immersion in the music: a state of pure, undistracted concentration. Even before writers like Jack Kerouac and Gary Snyder made Buddhism a subject of popular fascination in America, Evans saw parallels between meditative practice and the keen, alert state that jazz improvisation demands, when years of work on perfecting tone and technique suddenly drop away and a direct channel opens up between the musician’s brain and his or her fingers." Bill Evans wrote Waltz for Debby for his niece, and it's a celebration of life.

More on Bill Evans at - Broken Time https://culture.org/broken-time/ via @believermag
 


Saturday, August 13, 2022

A Day of Poetry in Los Angeles


Los Angeles Poet Laureate Lynne Thompson and former Anaheim Poet Laureate Grant Hier will host A Day of Poetry in Los Angeles which will include readings by the former Los Angeles Poet Laureate, Luis J. Rodriguez, and the current Los Angeles County Youth Poet Laureate, Salome Agbaroji, as well as sixty other local poets.

Friday, August 12, 2022

Thinking of Salman Rushdie

 



Thinking of Salman Rushdie today after he was attacked at the Chautauqua Institution this morning. I had the privilege to meet Salman at an event in Beverly Hills in 2008 that was moderated by Carrie Fisher. This is a photo I created after meeting this amazing man. A card of my painting "A Walk With Ganesh" sits on the table next to him. On this #worldelephantday I wish for Ganesh to lift Salman up in his current struggle to survive and heal. Hate has no place in our world.

Tuesday, August 09, 2022

New E Line digital screens feature rider portrait artworks


The Metro E Line (Expo) has newly installed digital screens on its station platforms, and in addition to Metro customer information and third-party advertising, the new amenity also features Metro Art programming.  

The digital screens are the latest location where riders can view portraits from Metro Art’s multi-site We Are… rider portrait exhibition. Community art advisors worked with Metro Art to ensure that the commissioned portraits displayed on the new screens each have a link to the neighborhoods served by E Line (Expo).  

Here are the nine portraits featured on the E Line (Expo) digital screens: 

There are lots of ways to see the artworks even if the A Line (Blue) or E Line (Expo) aren’t part of your normal route!  The twelve A Line (Blue) and nine E Line (Expo) rider portraits are part of the collection of portraits in the exhibition We Are…Portraits of Metro Riders by Local Artists 

You can find them among the 41 portraits inside the Metro Art Bus, in the Union Station Passageway Art Gallery and in the online gallery on the Metro Art website. In addition, the A Line (Blue) portraits are also highlighted in the latest Art on TAP cards, too!   

Click here for more information about the Metro Art program. Follow Metro Art on Facebook and Instagram and subscribe for email updates.




From Metro - The Source

 https://thesource.metro.net/2022/08/09/elineriderportraits/

Happy International Day of the World's Indigenous Peoples

Monday, August 08, 2022

Vantage Point (Chicago Theatre)


Gregg Chadwick
Vantage Point (Chicago Theatre)
30"x22"gouache on paper 2022
Private Collection Bloomington, Illinois


Day turns towards night on State Street in Chicago. Above us glows the marquee of the timeless Chicago Theatre. Built in 1921, the building just celebrated its centennial last year. I am reminded that as a child - my father, a career military officer, taught me to be aware of my surroundings. "Always look up," my Dad would say. And as an artist, I heed his words and look up to see what is above.

Sunday, August 07, 2022

PASSED: The Inflation Reduction Act!

Wednesday, August 03, 2022

David Hockney: Moving Focus / Retrospective at Kunstmuseum Luzern


Long time readers know that I am inspired by the life and work of David Hockney.
My thoughts on Hockney's 2005 exhibition at LA Louver can be found here
 I wrote then and still feel that Hockney, throughout his career, has been as interested in how we see as in what we see. Light, color and questions on space and time have come to the forefront in both physics (light has become the cornerstone of reality and space and time have become observer-dependent) and the art of David Hockney. This new retrospective of David Hockney's art at the Kunstmuseum Luzern looks like a must see. 

Tuesday, August 02, 2022

Cherries Jubilee for Two (L'Affaire Cerises Jubilé)

 by Gregg Chadwick


My brother Kent called me last night while he was dining with our parents because he had a question for me. “Do you remember the name of the French restaurant in La Jolla where they would not serve me Cherries Jubilee for dessert  because I was underage?”

We laughed and chatted for a while and all I could come up with was Chez something. Fortified by a double espresso this morning I began to think about that meal and the wonderful times we have had as a family dining out, traveling, and learning about art, history, culture, and food. 
My first thought was to check in our collection of matchboxes from our travels over the years. I vaguely remembered a picture of the Eiffel tower on the matchbox and maybe the menu. It was the early 1970’s so likely there was a hand drawn feel to the menu and signage. I was studying French in Junior High and my brother was learning it in High School so we had few problems with the menu that night. We had visited Paris with my parents when we were younger, so we had an appreciation for French cuisine. Around that time I was painting my first oil paintings with a definite nod to Cezanne, Monet, and Renoir. 



Gregg Chadwick
Pink Chair
30”x20”oil on canvas 1972 
(The artist was 12 years old)

It was Kent’s birthday and the meal was great fun. I started with an order of escargots. That I do remember. The waiter asked if we would like some as it was a house speciality. The look on his face when I said, sure I would like an order of snails was priceless. “Bon choix” he said. 
They were delicious with just the right amount of garlic. It was fun using the two pronged fork to pull the snails from the shell. 


Eugéne Manet
Sketches of Snails, Flowering Plant
1864/68
Watercolor over graphite pencil on cream laid paper; 198 × 126 mm
The Art Institute of Chicago, gift of Robert Allerton, 1923.1057


I would often order fish as a main course so I most likely had the sand dabs. How do I know? Well, I discovered a menu for sale online while taking up my gorgeous and brilliant professor wife’s suggestion that I search for French Restaurants in La Jolla during the 1970s. First I found an article in the La Jolla Light with reminiscences from food writer Leslie James - "I can still taste the buttery, garlicky escargots at Chez Françoise.”  This looked promising, Chez Françoise could have been my brother’s birthday restaurant. The chef at that time was Pierre Lustrat. 



Chef Pierre Lustrat


An article in the San Diego Reader describes that "when La Jolla's Chez Françoise needed a chef, Pierre Lustrat jumped at the chance, taking charge of the kitchen from 1972 until 1975. While he executed the menu to everyone’s satisfaction, he longed to buy the place and to prepare his own dishes, in his own way, with the skill and imagination that his years of training had brought him.

When he finally claimed the restaurant as his own, he renamed it L’Escargot (the snail), redecorated it, and — most important — revamped the menu.

'When people first came here, they ordered escargot always the same way — with garlic and butter. Well, I thought up four or five ways to serve them, including en croute (in pastry dough).’”



After reading about Pierre Lustrat’s life as a chef, I pulled up images from the Chez Françoise menu from the 1970s. Pink paper. Hand drawn text with a quote from Chef Pierre - “ La bonne cuisine a besoin du temps et patience. Si vous l’avez, vous pourrez savourer un bon repas.” 
In English - "Fine cuisine requires time and patience. If you have it, you can then enjoy a good meal.” Our family had time and patience that evening as we dined. My Dad would have ordered the onion soup for his main course and Kent had the special which he remembers as Beef Wellington. Interestingly, Beef Wellington (named after the Napoleonic Era English Duke of Wellington who enjoyed the dish two or thee times a week if stories are to be believed) or Filet de BÅ“uf en Croute, is still served in French restaurants around the globe despite the Duke of Wellington’s devastating defeat of Napoleon at Waterloo. At dinner that night because my father was a career military officer and the rest of us were history buffs, we would have discussed Napoleon’s final battle while referencing our memories of the battle charts laid out in my dad’s A Military History & Atlas of the Napoleonic Wars by Vincent Esposito and John Elting at home in his library. The National Army Museum in the UK describes the final moments of the battle:

"Defeat of the Imperial Guard
At about 7pm, in a last bid for victory, Napoleon released his finest troops, the Imperial Guard. They marched up the ridge between Hougoumont and La Haye Sainte, but had chosen to attack where Wellington was strongest. Under a withering fire from British guardsmen and light infantry, the Imperial Guard halted, wavered, and finally broke.
Their defeat sent the rest of the French into panic and eventually retreat. This continued all night, with the French harried by the Prussian cavalry. Napoleon lost nearly 40,000 men killed, wounded or captured. The Allies suffered 22,000 casualties.
Napoleon was defeated. He spoke of fighting on, but was forced to abdicate when the Allies entered Paris on 7 July. He spent the rest of his life in exile on the island of St Helena in the South Atlantic.”

My Dad and Mom had visited the battlefield at Waterloo when they lived in Paris during their Julia Child years after the Korean War. I was taking a photography class at La Paz Junior High in Mission Viejo at the time of our outing to the French restaurant in La Jolla and I was actively printing my Dad’s old negatives including the monument at Waterloo. I can still smell the photo chemicals and see the glow of the red safe light  in my memory. 







The Duke of Wellington at Waterloo, 1815
‘My heart is broken by the terrible loss I have sustained in my old friends and companions and my poor soldiers. Believe me, nothing except a battle lost can be half so melancholy as a battle won.’
Duke of Wellington, 1815
Lithograph after 'Wellington at Waterloo' by Robert Alexander Hillingford, 1815 
National Army Museum, Study collection



Manet’s Still Life With Brioche
photo by Gregg Chadwick


As the night moved on that evening in La Jolla we talked about the future. Kent would soon finish High School and leave for college. Where? 
He wasn't sure yet. The mystery of our lives had just begun with many new chapters to fill. Our main courses were finished. The plates would be cleared. And then the menus reappeared like magic for a discussion about dessert. My Mom would have Mousse au Chocolat and my Dad would have his traditional Crème Caramel." "Brulèe please” my Dad would ask and then add - “Almost burnt.” “D’accord”, said the waiter. Perhaps, I had a lemon tart. I don’t remember because I soon was going to watch my brother’s birthday triumph reach a culinary Waterloo. "I will have the Cerises Jubilé, s'il vous plait”, said Kent. “Non. Monsieur - you will not” said the waiter firmly. We were all perplexed. Were they out of cherries? 




No, the dish was made in a traditional style at the table with flaming brandy. And my brother was too young to drink. But the alcohol burns off someone protested. No monsieur, you are still too young for some things the waiter seemed to say. We all were young then. The news of Watergate was just breaking and the Vietnam War was ending. I was reading film director Jean Renoir’s biography of his artist father Paul Renoir at that time and my Dad would ask me why I enjoyed the paintings of Renoir so much. The answer was easy - though I didn’t know it yet. Renoir’s joy of being alive appealed to me. 
Renoir often painted the simple pleasures of modern life in a way that spoke to me. In paint Renoir captured the beauty of sharing a meal with family and friends. Soon we would move back to the East Coast and I would stand in front of Renoir’s Luncheon of the Boating Party at the Phillips Collection in Washington DC. 
Kent would be off to college at UC Davis.

L'Affaire Cerises Jubilé would remain in our memories. Today looking at the old menu from Chez Françoise I found under Desserts proof that this was my brother’s birthday restaurant: And there it was - Cerises Jubilees (pour deux) - Cherries Jubilee for two 
Next time we visit with Kent and his wife Cathy at my parent’s house, we need to make things right for Kent. We will light the brandy on fire and make Cherries Jubilee in style.  


Renoir’s Luncheon of the Boating Party at the Phillips Collection in Washington DC
photo by Gregg Chadwick









JULIA CHILD’S CHERRIES JUBILEE

Here are Julia Child‘s directions for Cherries Jubilee:

Drain the cherries (save the juice), and toss in a bowl with the lemon rind, sugar, cinnamon, and kirsch or cognac; let steep until needed.

[At serving time]

Blend a tablespoon of arrowroot or cornstarch in a bowl with the cherry marinating juices, then beat in a few tablespoons of canned cherry juice. Pour into chafing-dish pan and stir over heat until thickened, adding more cherry juice if needed. Before entering dining room, stir in cherries and heat thoroughly. To flame, set over chafing-dish flame, sprinkle with 3 tablespoons granulated sugar, and add ½ cup (125 ml) cognac. Heat, then set afire with a lighted match. Spoon up the flaming mixture until blaze dies down; serve over vanilla ice cream.” [1]