Yesterday I walked into Garage Bona Forchetta Restaurant in Coronado Ca and about 15 seconds later I heard a sweet voice behind me say “Sir, you dropped this on the patio”.

I turned to find a sweet young hostess smiling at me with a little hand held out containing five on hundred dollar bills.

I gratefully took the money and thanked her profusely and in gratitude, I tipped her with two fives and one ten, or so I thought, indeed I had not given her a ten but a 100 dollar bill because she returned again  to inform me that within seconds I had blundered twice.

Stunned by her honesty and pureness I immediately marched her to the managers office to demand that she be further rewarded. “If you do not reward this employee, I will do so myself'”.

Marco the manager was thrilled that his staff was so honest, but told me that he was already in the process of promoting her even before that incident for her conscientiousness.

I further demanded that she be put up for future managerial staff and we all laughed with joy.

I am sure in the future she will become a vital member of Bona Forchetta

I am already a proud booster/promoter of Bona Forchetta for its exquisite and consistently good food and all of the professional staff who all display the very same top drawer table service and manners every single time I go there.

The manager Marco is a pleasant fellow who serves like a proud captain at the helm of this magnificent golden galleon eatery.

I can that assure patrons will never be disappointed by the service and the delicious food, wine and drinks served there.

Al Graham.

Food Critic

Coronado Clarion

Shin Matsuo is a high school student and he rides the Amtrak train from Los Angeles to San Diego.

He sits in silence as the passengers mill back and forth along the aisles. That silence is shattered by the grinding of wheels against the rails as the car lurches wildly back and forth over a rough patch on the rails.

Passengers hold on for dear life as a 78 year old man is elasticated across the car slamming his head into a steel post then falls back against the wall spilling his food tray on the floor. 

Shin springs to his feet and secures the fallen senior as he begins to slide down the wall. The old man has been stunned and is now half conscious and disoriented. For the next ten minutes Shin lovingly cares for the senior as if it was his own grandfather, who had fallen down in his own home. Talking to him in a calming and reassuring tone and with all the maturity of an adult many years his senior, he inches the old man back to his seat.

Overwhelmed by the young mans kindness and maturity the man begins to cry bitter sweet tears as he realizes how vulnerable he is riding alone, but how truly caring the student is for his elder an utter stranger.

Shin’s heroic actions rekindles the old mans faith in human kind, who had long since given up on todays callous and self indulgent generation.

Shin did not take a bow, nor did he seek the limelight, he simply slipped off the train as the old man napped with a nasty bump on his temple but with a smile on his lips and dried tears on his cheeks.

Shin is most certainly an old soul who for certain, in the future, will do more on the same like an ancient chivalrous Knight Errant * from long ago.

Frankie Setback And The Ghost Cowboys will appear LIVE at the Biltmore Millennium Hotel Los Angeles  Thursday March 24th  HIGH NOON -4.pm

BOOK /READING PRESS /CONFERENCE/ LIVE  PERFORMANCE VIA ZOOM.

Mike Matheny represents the vey best of  the American entrepreneurial system, because he has prevailed against all odds, and as the songs goes ” The record shows, He took the blows, and did it his way”

God Bless America.

Al Graham.

Editor: Coronado Clarion

Owner’s Rep. & GM, Asset Management Millennium Biltmore Los Angeles, Biltmore Tower & Court, Mr Jimmy Wu is one cool dude.

Whenever I am in LA, I stay at his hotel, which I regard as my second home and that is no exaggeration.

Wise eyes and warm hands, these are two phrases which best describe him, for he does not give a formal handshake, instead he extends two hands which emit genuine warmth and abundant energy.

Recently I paid tribute to the staff led by Martijn Sax General Manager at the downtown Los Angeles Millennium Biltmore, by surprising him with an impromptu singing telegram in the great hallway surrounded by the “ten thousand angels” embedded in it’s architecture.

Shortly thereafter, Jimmy presented Martijn with a certificate of excellence for his flawless customer service skills.

From the Doormen, led by Leo Calderon, to the cafe staff and even the lady who cleans my room, no finer and more friendly folk can be found.

After my most recent visit I received the following email from Jimmy..

Dear Alan,

Hope you have arrived home safe.  There is no place safer and comfort more than Home.

Please be mindful that Biltmore hotel is your second home outside San Diego. 

It was indeed great pleasure of officially meeting you in person this morning, although it was too short and brief to have enjoyed coffee, but I already feel and sense full of vibes and energy around you.

Life is too short, we are living in the right moment that leads one to meet right person.   I believe and feel you are the right person, and a purposeful person for me to know.

I would invite you to enjoy Chinese food  with me in town soon.

Have a great and safe long holiday weekend.

Sincerely,

Jimmy Wu

Owner’s Rep. & GM, Asset Management

Millennium Biltmore Los Angeles, Biltmore Tower & Court.

Before I met Jimmy, I had been making promotional videos which documented the impeccable service I have experienced from one and all.

To add further delight, Netflix is using the hotel to shoot some movies for the next few months, which all the more adds excitement to the experience.

At any moment, you may spot many famous actors, writers and directors of the great films they produce, which in turn is like being in a movie inside of another movie, (totally cool).

Al Graham.

Editor: Coronado Clarion

Sea anemones are small marine animals with a tubular body and circles of tentacles. Members of the coelenterate phylum, they are different from sea urchins which have a hard shell and long spines. Armed with stinging cells, the tentacles allow the anemone to paralyze small swimming animals which are then pushed into its mouth.

Sea anemones were one of the first creatures to appear on the earth. They are like jellyfish that have remained attached to a surface. Sea anemones are somewhat like coral expect they are bigger and live as live solitary somewhat mobile polyps rather than as part of a fixed colony. Like coral, sea anemones receive energy from single-celled plants within their tissues called zooxanthellae. The plants need nitrogen to survive.

Sea anemones take in oxygen and expel and carbon dioxide. They reproduce by dividing into two pieces (fission), by budding and by eggs. Eggs and sperms are formed in partitions in the body cavity and ejected through the mouth. The eggs are fertilized by sperm in the water. The fertilized egg develops into free-swimming larvae which develops into an anemone. Sometimes a piece of sea anemone can grow into a new animal.

 Feb.2022

Phil Dietz is a weasel who dumps bad candy into San Diego retail stores and restaurants, and he does so knowing full well that some of his products are inferior.

I spoke with this weasel about it twice and each time he made excuses and apologies but went right on dumping his garbage on unsuspecting store owners and customers alike.

During this awful pandemic, all manner of lowlife and unscrupulous legions prey on an already burdened public without regard for age or gender. Dietz does it without regret or shame and all the while presenting himself as a “hard working family man just trying to make a buck” 

There are severe penalties for price gouging and other devious business practices and this lowlife will soon reap the wind for his snide endeavors.

The Clarion has launched a campaign against him and other scumbags who present themselves as honest brokers, but are nothing short of low down scammers. Using protest flash mobs will appear at their homes and businesses to expose them for what they are.

PROTEST SIGNS:

PHIL DIETZ OF TREASURE TROVE CANDY COMPANY IS DUMPING INFERIOR CANDY ON SAN DIEGO BUSINESSES AND CITIZENS. 

BOYCOTT BOYCOTT BOYCOTT!

PHIL DIETZ

TREASURE TROVE CANDY

3334 E COAST HYWAY #155

CORONA DEL MAR

CA 92625.

Contact.

949-291-1332 cell.

866-565-5129 Fax.

The publishing house Lamiroy creates characters who are well-known but in other fields. Their names, faces are not unknown to you, but you didn’t know they had a book within them waiting to come out…

This new publishing house based in Brussels was founded in June 2013, and has already released around forty books which are distributed and printed in Belgium by the Maison de la Poésie d’Amay (Home of Poetry of Amay).

The catalogue includes various authors and is very eclectic. It integrates works in fields as diverse as philosophy, thrillers, folklore etc…

Maggie – Jacques – Marc – Jenny – Denis Lamiroy

If a ragman had a hard day, he would say “I pushed my cart up hill and down dale all day  long and never found even a feather”.

Some days it would rain and yet he still had to go and try to find some rags to pay for the rental of the handcart and the cups and saucers he had purchased to trade for rags.

In the 1940s and early 1950s, Liverpool still had horse-drawn carts carrying coal and other goods. Powerful Clydesdale horses pulled huge wagons, their broad horseshoes like heavy metal plates echoing through the streets. Even as big petrol and diesel lorries replaced beasts of burden, my father continued to use a little pony and cart to ply his trade as one of Liverpool’s many Ragmen.

When the pony went by the wayside, along with the great Clydesdales, my father rented a handcart, and from then on he bore his own burden. “I have traveled up hill and down dale today, and I did not find a feather.” My father often made this statement in hard times, and these were hard times indeed.

One early morning, we entered a tough section of the city referred to as The Holy Land for its many biblical street names: Isaac, Jacob, Moses and David. In a small shed on a tiny back street, my father bought cups, saucers and plates, which he would trade for woolens and rags. Hours later, we stood at the bottom of Northumberland Street.

By this time the cart was full of rags from the day’s collection. As usual, it began to rain without warning, and we were caught in a heavy deluge. Huddled in a doorway, we watched the noisy rain pelt the streets. As quickly as it had started, the rain stopped, and my father moved to pull off the top layers of the rag pile, shaking the water to the ground so as not to get the rest of the load wet. If the rags were even slightly damp, the load was “knocked back” – rejected until it was dry – which meant no wages for that day, sometimes longer, weather permitting.

Northumberland Street was very steep, its slick granite cobblestones proving a challenge even on foot. This day, the freezing rain made the ascent all the more treacherous. Together we pushed the loaded handcart, and as we began to climb I felt its great weight resisting. Just when I thought we might slide backward, my father gathered a great strength from out of nowhere. The cart began moving smoothly; the great burden seemed lighter now. The Ragman had used his “common denominator” – intelligence – to traverse a difficult terrain, and in the process he taught me one of the many survival skills I would need later in life.

The hill was so difficult it took quite a while to get to the top, but my father tackled it as sure-footed as a mountain goat. By using a steady switchback, or zigzag pattern, we reached the top quickly and almost effortlessly. Looking down, we watched others slowly inching their way up behind us, often stopping to rest before resuming.

My father went inside a tenement building. I stood outside protecting the cart – its load and crockery stock would have been pilfered instantly if left unattended – when a scruffy street gang happened by.

Four toughs surrounded the cart and began goading me into a fight. They mocked the fact that I was the son of a lowly Ragman, which both shamed and infuriated me. The leader, a loudmouth with a basin haircut, pushed too hard and soon we were embroiled in a fistfight. My father emerged in time to hear the gang urge their leader to “kick his fukkin’ ‘ed in!” 

Sadly for him, this was not to be, as my mother would later enjoy telling everyone who walked into our house. Like a raging pit bull, I had to be pried off the gang leader. I felt as light as air, the adrenalin rushing as I pounded the bully, chopping his neck with my open hand like an axe. He scrambled away like an animal freed from a trap, his eyes wide and scared.

When I was dragged off him, I held onto his shirt. He wrenched free from my grip but left the scene minus a collar and with his shirt and reputation in tatters.

The island is also where Lambert Simner, the young son of an Oxford merchant, landed in June 1487, claiming to be a legitimate heir to the army of mercenaries and the throne of England. He marched to London, was soon defeated by Henry VII, and rolled up a kitchen servant.

The “King of Pierre” habit was invented, perhaps in the early 19th century, as a reference to Simnel’s claim of fate, Douglas said. “A sort of looking back on the good old days and reinventing some mysterious rituals,” he said. “It’s a little weird.”

In the fall and winter, history lovers and picnics leave the island for birds, seals, and two full-time residents in one of their private homes. “It’s a very quiet place,” Murphy said. “If you don’t have a customer, you have to become Robinson Crusoe and enjoy the facilities you came up with.”

Mr. Calister said some of the landlord’s contract would be negotiated with Congress, including whether the landlord would need to live in Pierre all year round.

“It’s an opportunity for someone who is truly open-minded, loves that style of business, loves the outside world, and loves history,” Calister said. “After all, when we’re all a little older, you think,” I wish I had done it. ” Don’t miss that opportunity. “

Editorial:

Fifty years after his death, Gorian Delpâture takes us to the most intimate, the most inaccessible place of the artist Jim Morrison: the poet’s psyche. We discover – through a text which is also a literary game sprinkled with quotes from Morrison’s words and extracts from authentic interviews – the inveterate reader of novels and poetry, the disciple of William Blake, the lone wolf. Far from the cliché of a rock singer, Jim Morrison turns out to be an honorable candidate for the Nobel. Gorian Delpâture offers us a moment of contemplation, of inner meditation within this fantastic ball of energy. He makes us live in the heart of the “simple American poet”.

It is with great pleasure and interest that I read this story which takes the opposite of the impression that the singer had made on me during our recent meeting. It was two years ago, a demonic story that takes place, as it should since the Rolling Stones, in St. Petersburg and not in Bulgakovian Moscow. I had bought tickets at the Lensovet theatre, a place known for its very contemporary productions and little appreciated by a certain segment of the Russian population, like this seller of tickets for the Mariinsky who showed all her contempt – “Lensovet, this is not theatre! – with regard to two tourists who swore they did not want to set foot in a theater again following an evening spent at Lensovet. I had been attracted by the title of the play played, “The Demons”, one of the many theatrical adaptations of the immense Russian literary heritage. Now it happened that there was no mention of Verkhovensky, Stavrogin and his abominable crime, there was no reference to the Dostoyevsky plot! Instead, two couples alternately acted out household scenes. A woman had the whim of lighting cigarettes without smoking them, which had the gift of exasperating her companion who constantly asked her the reason for this mania. She refused to give him one. Couples moved between instruments and microphones. The stage was actually set up for a rock concert. And between each household scene, a rock band played and Jim Morrison took his place in the host body of an actor of prodigious talent, predisposed to rock spiritualism sessions. And from the first appearance, all the spectators and myself, seated in tight rows of conference chairs, “we had a great visitation of energy”. In this theater, the singer fascinated by cinema and literature had come back to life, I saw “an electric shaman on stage”. And we became eager to see the actor-singer come back to life, we were in need. We didn’t care about the marital problems of actors who were very sympathetic. In short, we were on the verge of a trance, and when we left the room, there was a rush to the doors to buy The Doors records. It touched me a lot to know that even there, where the West is lost and dissipated in the mists of the Neva, Jim Morrison had suddenly been able to make a completely unexpected, lively and enjoyable appearance in order to seal our first meeting.

From the same author :

In 1969, Jimi Hendrix was held hostage for two days during his so-called “lost weekend.” After his rescue, he was completely unaware that he had been abducted in the first place.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/when-jimi-hendrix-got-kidnapped-and-didnt-even-know-it?ref=home

When they closed down Coronado’s beloved five and dime store Coro-Mart, the whole town mourned collectively. Gone were those halcyon days soon to be replaced by the clinical drug stores like Walgreens.

For almost three decades, she sat in a state of  decay which worsened every day.

A ray of hope danced before our eyes when we heard that someone was negotiating a deal to refurbish and reopen, but that was soon dashed to the curb when worries arose over safety concerns due to  the structure’s inability to meet earthquake standards.

The agony ensued when the old Bank Of America building was going to be turned into a new ghastly looking Walgreens drug store  and was about to take up residence with a structure that looked like a tacky Las Vegas casino.

When construction began our hearts sank, and when we saw the awful rendering, we shook our heads in sadness. It could not get much worse you say? Get ready for beyond worse.

Construction was impeded, delayed or postponed with myriad setbacks and vague promises of a finish date. Three foremen came and went and delays only increased with each disquieting day. People hated the half-finished building; and when it did finally open, people hated it all the more.

To this day, Coronado citizens have boycotted and will to continue to do so forever.

In 2010, I wrote an article for the Coronado Clarion about Coro-Mart called “Goodbye Cruel World” which lamented it’s agonizing decomposition but still holding on to the dream that one day it would be revived.* 

Now the project is in the hands of one of the finest construction companies anywhere in this country.

I say that because all of the top management executive made their bones in the building industry as teenagers, starting out as apprentice carpenters and climbing the ladder one rung at a time. This is the stuff that is required to become proficient and excel in the crowded construction industry today.

Headed by Rick Backus – Chairman / Chief Executive Officer, and Greg McDonald – President, you would be hard pressed to find a more reputable and dependable construction corporation anywhere.

Even in a Co-vid environment and the regular struggles to proceed, Eleven Western Builders has manage to keep on schedule, a miracle in today’s chaotic landscape.

Hat tip to Von’s management for the revival of our lost and beloved Coro-Mart.

There will be a celebration on opening day that will put us all in bed for a week, but we will have a perpetual smile plastered on our faces for the rest of our lives.

Al. Graham. 

GOODBYE CRUEL WORLD

“In the dime stores and bus stations
people talk over situations
read books and repeat quotations
draw conclusions on the wall…”
Love Minus Zero No Limit–Bob Dylan

Coronado’s own Five & Dime store, Coromart, has been closed for many years. Not just the business itself, but the entire concept of the Five & Dime store has fallen by the wayside in most American towns. There are a myriad of knock-offs or 99-cent outlets and the big chain stores like Walmart offer many of the same affordable goods. The 7-Eleven stores bridge that gap in a small way and every liquor store now carries the same.

But a dime back then went a lot farther than 99 cents does today. There are very few items that you can by for one dollar, but back then you could get four pieces of candy for one penny and there were many other items for that price. My brother in-law, Andy, would be so happy that he could buy a six pack of BUCKHORN beer for a whole 99 cents.

There was not a single centimeter of wall space inside Coromart with its twenty-foot ceiling. It was packed to the rafters with gift items and sundries for any and every occasion.

The concept of the variety store originated with the five and ten, nickel and dime, five and dime, or dime store, a store where everything cost either five or ten cents. The originator of the concept may be Woolworth’s, which began in 1878 in Watertown, New York. Other five and tens that existed in the USA included W.T. Grant, J.J. Newberry’s, McCrory’s, Kresge, McLellan’s, and Ben Franklin stores. These stores originally featured merchandise priced at only five cents or ten cents, although later in the twentieth century the price range of merchandise expanded. Inflation eventually dictated that the stores were no longer able to sell any items for five or ten cents, and were then referred to as “variety stores” or more commonly dollar stores. Remember Coro-Days!

AL (SAD) GRAHAM

RicBackus – Chairman / Chief Executive Officer

•  Greg McDonald – President

https://ewbinc.com/key-personnel/