This Week's Restaurant Review: Millennium in SF

The other night we ate at a place called Millennium, a totally vegan restaurant in downtown San Francisco. I had only been to a couple of vegetarian spots in my life until moving to SF last year, but now I’ve been to several and I can’t believe that in many ways I am beginning to think I could live sans meat and actually enjoy it. Don’t get me wrong – a nice steak, a couple of fried pork chops with apple sauce, meat loaf, barbecued ribs, a juicy brisket and other such items still cause me to salivate and swoon – but I’ve learned not to be frightened by meals that don’t involve something that was breathing prior to hitting my plate. Millennium is a true vegan establishment – they talk the vegan talk and walk the vegan walk, because they don’t have anything on their menu that had a face or anything that comes from something that has one. That means no dairy, no eggs, and no honey, for that matter. The only things you’ll find at Millennium grow out of the ground. And, believe me; they don’t sacrifice taste or variety in doing it that way. Located in the Hotel California on Geary Street, this restaurant explores the pleasures of perfectly prepared produce from every angle using every method of preparation imaginable. To kick off this all-natural exploration into the vegan universe, we started off with some pretty amazing appetizers. By far the best thing we ate all night was the Sesame Cornmeal Crusted Oyster Mushrooms ($9.00). They came with a cucumber mint salad, and a sweet & spicy apricot ginger coulis and they kicked ass. The texture and the flavor was a winning combination. I ate more than my share of this appetizer, which resulted in sideways looks from some of my dining companions, but to be honest, I really didn’t care. If this is the kind of stuff vegans eat, count me in! The other appetizer we sampled was a Black Bean Torte ($8.00), which consisted of a whole wheat tortilla, caramelized plantains, smoky black bean puree, manchamanteles sauce, cashew sour cream (without dairy), and a golden watermelon-jicama relish. I would say it was just okay. When I saw plantains listed as an ingredient, I thought it would have some of those flavors, but the rest of the dish overpowered the entire affair. For entrees, we had the Grilled Rosa Bianca Eggplant Napoleon ($22.00) which had more produce in it than your average Whole Foods Market. It’s a sage scented flageolet bean ragu seared garlic polenta cake with a summer ratatouille, arugula and Greek basil salad and a smoky Romesco sauce. If you know what that means, go for it, but all I know is that it tasted pretty damn good. The only criticism I might have with this dish is that it was very busy. There were so many flavors bombarding my taste buds in unison that some of them got lost. We also had the Chipotle Grilled Portobello and Zucchini Tamale ($21.00) with dried cherries and toasted almonds, sautéed greens, ancho-carrot “cream,” roasted tomatillo salsa and spiced pumpkin seeds. A version of high-end Mexican vegan cuisine, no doubt, this dish was muy caliente and mucho flavorful. All in all, I would say that Millennium is a very intriguing place that has taken vegan gourmet food to a whole new and exciting level. I would recommend it if you’re on a healthy food kick and even if you’re not. Millennium is located at 580 Geary Street in SF and their phone number is: (415) 345-3900.

Online Dating Sucks!!

(This is an article I wrote a while back about my experiences in the online dating world.)
I was very skeptical about entering the world of online dating when I initially signed up with match.com. As a 48-year-old single male with more issues than Reader’s Digest, my expectations were understandably low to start with. I’ve never been married, I don’t have any kids and my best friend is my shrink. I decided early on that I would probably be satisfied having a relationship with someone who simply had fewer problems than I did.
I had heard both horror stories as well as wondrous tales about the online dating experience, some undoubtedly as much fiction as truth, and all of them left me extremely tentative about entering the fray. One woman I know went on 26 online dates before meeting a suitable mate, whom she eventually married. I admired her thoroughness and determination. When I went to purchase a new car, I only looked at about five vehicles before making a decision. This gal kicked more emotional tires than I can count on all my appendages combined, which means she’s either a.) a complete control freak, b.) very high maintenance. c.) desperate as hell.
I guess what I felt might make me so potentially easy to match up with someone was the simple fact that after so many years of being either lonely or in dysfunctional relationships, I was quite frankly numb. A woman with a pulse who had the ability to talk in complete sentences would do just fine. My expectations were understandably quite low.
To get set up, I put a fairly honest and rather simple description of myself on match.com along with a recent photo. I hate it when people put misleading pictures of themselves online. If they say they’re 40 years old and the picture shows them standing in front of a Chevy Vega wearing a peace sign necklace and bell bottoms, you can pretty much tell that the photo is about a current as an old copy of the Magna Carta.
I immediately got responses to my profile and a few stood out right away. One woman sounded really nice and her picture was incredible. A really hot looking 30-something blonde with a killer body in a little bikini, she immediately caught my eye.
Two weeks later, after a series of e-mails back and forth, we met at a restaurant on Union Street in San Francisco. When I got there, I had problems finding the place. She was blocking it, along with the sun. The last bikini this gal wore had to have been the size of the Bikini Islands. I admit, I’m no svelte athlete myself, but the upper sections of this individual’s arms were bigger than my legs. I am so grateful that the place where we met was a buffet; otherwise I would have had to take out a small business loan to cover the bill.
I’m not someone who is usually too hung up on looks, but to be deceived to this degree didn’t sit too well with me. I could see she had a pretty face, and I’m assuming that the photo she had on match.com was at one time in the distant past actually her. But, since then she had gorged her way into being the behemoth that sat right in front of me – well, actually all around me. Discouraged and feeling defrauded, I bailed out halfway through the tiramisu – it was all-you can-eat and I could tell she was just getting started.
Undaunted, I went home and got back on the computer to see if there were any honest people out there who wanted a guy they wouldn’t be tempted to eat.
The next woman I started talking to was a school teacher from Berkeley. We met for coffee on a Sunday morning in a little café down on Telegraph. She was gorgeous, intelligent, vibrant, compelling, funny and….extremely opinionated. Listening to her was like watching CNN, the O’Reilly Report, MSN, 60 Minutes, Crossfire and the 10:00 News simultaneously on crystal meth.
Within minutes, I knew all of her feelings on Bin Laden, Bush, Rice, Cheney, Hillary, Robertson, Gore (both Al and Tipper) abortion, illiteracy, baby seals, childhood diabetes, fossil fuels, the greenhouse effect, North Korea, Iraq, Iran, Bosnia and some other countries I’d never heard of.
When she wasn’t hugging trees, creating colorful protest signage or pelting right wingers with rotten, but always organic fruit, this woman was angry at everything she felt was wrong with the world. At first, I thought it was inspiring. Wow, here’s someone with a set of beliefs that she’s not afraid to live by.
But, eventually I found out that one of the main items on this gal’s list of diatribes was the entire male race. She wasn’t just angry at the wrong things in the world, she was mad at the world in its entirety, at the human race in general, and men in particular.
Eventually she began to focus on all of the many things that are wrong with me and started a crusade against them. Needless to say, I bailed even more quickly from her than I did from Jabba the Hut.
Returning back to my Compaq Presario like a puppy that had just been chastised for peeing on the carpet, I slowly but reluctantly got back into the online dating game. I changed over to another web site, eharmony.com, figuring I’d have better luck. But, what scared me was that I started to see a lot of the same photos and profiles that I had seen on match.com.
I began to realize that there are people out there who are addicted to online dating. They use it like a shopaholic uses malls or a junkie uses smack. It’s a seductive vehicle, I must admit. Where else can you shop for potential mates and bid on them like baseball cards on e-bay? Where else can you meet so many different people in such a short time and in one location? When you go to the Humane Society to look for a pet, they only have a couple dozen cats and dogs there, maybe 40 at the very most. But, the selection on a popular dating site can provide you with hundreds, even thousands of viable choices.
So, I continued my search with a vengeance and a new-found commitment. I figured hey – maybe that woman who dated 26 guys had it right – play the field and have some fun and if you never find Mrs. Right, so be it. Play the human love lotto and let the chips fall where they may. Life isn’t fair, in fact, it specializes in being unfair. But, I thought, what the heck, I won’t invest too much into the process so how badly can I get hurt?
I’m happy to report that ever since I took that attitude things have been great. I’m not quite at 26 dates yet. I think I’ve met about 11 women online. But, instead of looking at it like a do-or-die situation, I treat each experience like a fun new adventure. That way I’m totally at ease, there are zero expectations and consequently no disappointments.
I used to think online dating was a quagmire of false hopes and a respite from our shallow lives. But, now I know that’s exactly what it is and consequently the whole thing is just a lot more fun.
I hope Chewbacca has lost a few pounds, because she seemed nice enough, between mouthfuls. And I hope Ms. Berkeley has mellowed a bit. Maybe I’ll meet up with one or both of them again on another dating site in the not-too-distant future and we can look back at the entire mess and have a good laugh. But, one thing I’m sure of is that this time around it will be better, because I’ve put the whole online dating thing in perspective. I’m happy with it and content with myself -- for the first time in a long, long time.

Playing Nurse Today

Some of my loved ones are down for the count today and I am taking care of them. I actually like to do it. I'm bummed they're hurting, but I'm happy that I'm there to help. Maybe Florence Nightingale is somewhere in the branches of my Family Tree. See you all tomorrow!

Teenager Terrorist Threat Thwarted!

A 14-year-old girl in Sacramento put an anti-Bush message on her myspace.com page. I guess it showed a picture of our president with a dagger stuck in his outstretched hand, with the words, “Kill Bush” scrawled beneath it. The girl was pissed off by the war in Iraq. She removed the message from her myspace page as soon as she learned in school that is was a no-no to post such material, but by then it was apparently too late. The Secret Service came by her classroom a week later and aggressively questioned her. They must believe that she’s a legitimate terrorist threat. Maybe they suspect that she’s hoarding bomb-making devices in her hair gel, or possibly plotting against the government during afternoon recess. They painstakingly combed through her pom-poms, her peanut butter and jelly sandwich, her fruit juice boxes and pudding cups, as well as her Little Miss Kitty backpack and Justin cowboy boots. They also made her empty out all her piercings and remove all of her temporary tattoos. Thank God our government is so on top of stuff like this. Next thing you know, kindergartners will be transporting terrorist correspondence in pop-up picture books and nerf balls. They may even start trying to involve celebrities like Barney and the Cookie Monster in their conspiratorial acts. Nip this stuff in the bud before these kids learn about things like Freedom of Speech and the Right of Assembly. Hats off to our government for making sure these children grow up to be just as frightened as their parents.
(Please Note: Wow! I am getting a lot of nasty e-mails on this one. So, let me say this. I don't think it was right for this young lady to use the words, "Kill Bush." I am in no way condoning that. Maybe if she had written, "Bush Stinks!" or "I Don't Like Bush!" or even "I Hate Bush!" that would have been a little smarter on her part. When you write "Kill (anyone)" it comes off like a death threat and that will upset people every time and rightfully so. I was simply trying to help people see the humor in this incident. Some of you should really just chill...)

Baseball Announcer Steve "Psycho" Lyons Gets Fired from MLB ALCS Telecast for Messin' With Lou Piniella

(I have to say I saw this coming. I just had a feeling putting Steve Lyons and Lou Piniella together in the TV broadcast booth was going to be a real problem. Piniella is a highly respected former player and veteran manager even though he is, in my opinion, a very flat and pretty dull announcer. He's as cool as a cucumber until you piss him off, and then he turns into the long-lost cousin of Attila the Hun. Just ask any of the umpires he's berated and intimidated over the years. Lyons has always had a quick wit and a very thin filter between brain and mouth. He's like the kid in class who's always cutting up and saying inapproriate things. After watching Game One, I could see these two would clash. The racial stuff will always take a guy down. Lyons has one of the most coveted jobs in the business and he had to blow the gig by being a smart-ass. Wow, he reminds me a lot of......ME!)

This article appeared recently on www.cbssportsline.com:

DETROIT -- Fox baseball broadcaster Steve Lyons has been fired for making a racially insensitive comment directed at colleague Lou Piniella's Hispanic heritage on the air during Game 3 of the American League Championship Series.
The network confirmed Saturday that Lyons was dismissed after Friday's comments. He has been replaced for the remainder of the series by Los Angeles Angels announcer Jose Mota.
"Steve Lyons has been relieved of his Fox Sports duties for making comments on air that the company found inappropriate," network spokesman Dan Bell said.
Lyons had been working in the booth for the ALCS alongside Thom Brennaman and Piniella, the No. 2 broadcast team for Fox this postseason.
A call to Lyons' cell phone was not immediately returned Saturday.
In the second inning of Friday's game between Detroit and Oakland, Piniella talked about the success light-hitting A's infielder Marco Scutaro had in the first round of the playoffs. Piniella said that slugger Frank Thomas and Eric Chavez needed to contribute, comparing Scutaro's production to finding a "wallet on Friday" and hoping it happened again the next week.
Later, Piniella said the A's needed Thomas to get "en fuego" -- hot in Spanish -- because he was currently "frio" -- or cold. After Brennaman praised Piniella for being bilingual, Lyons spoke up.
Lyons said that Piniella was "hablaing Espanol" -- butchering the conjugation for the word "to speak" -- and added, "I still can't find my wallet."
"I don't understand him, and I don't want to sit too close to him now," Lyons continued.
Fox executives told Lyons after the game he had been fired.
Piniella, approached before Saturday's Game 4, declined to comment on the situation except to say: "No, he's not here today."
This was not a first-time offense for Lyons, nicknamed "Psycho" during his nine-year big league career as a utilityman that ended in 1993 with the Boston Red Sox.
Hired when Fox began broadcasting baseball in 1996, Lyons was suspended without pay in late September 2004 after his remarks about Shawn Green of the Los Angeles Dodgers. Green is Jewish and elected not to play one of the two games at San Francisco that took place during the Yom Kippur holiday.
The network apologized for Lyons' remarks at the time.
Earlier in the playoffs, while working the Mets-Dodgers NLDS, Lyons unwittingly made fun of a nearly blind fan who was wearing special glasses to see the game.
"He's got a digital camera stuck to his face," Lyons said.
He also once pulled down his pants on the field during his playing days.
Lyons, 46, was a career .252 hitter with 19 home runs and 196 RBI for Boston, the Chicago White Sox, Atlanta and Montreal. He was a first-round draft pick by the Red Sox, 19th overall, in 1981.
(NEWS FLASH: As I was writing this, I got a HOT NEWS TIP that the aforementioned Lou Piniella will be named the new manager for the Chicago Cubs by tomorrow. Thank God, because he's a lousy announcer! Piniella's first hiring for his new coaching staff? You guessed it, not Steve Lyons, but listen to this -- Steve Bartman!! This is what my sources are telling me.)

Our Mayor Likes Undernourished, Underage Blondes with Fake ID's? And You Call That News?

A skinny little blonde by the name of Brittanie Mountz is making a lot of news lately because she's going out with our very eligible single Mayor Gavin Newsom. I met the waif-like Twiggy doppelganger myself about a month ago when she was our hostess at a trendy SF restaurant called Aqua. She seemed nice and cute enough, although a tad too skinny for my liking. I remember at one point a 20-something stylish looking yupster tried to hit on her and she just rolled her eyes. I bet she must have been thinking to herself -- "I've got the mayor, who the hell are you?" Anyway, there's been a little controversy surrounding her lately, because the crack reporting duo Matier & Ross of the SF Chronicle are saying she's been seen drinking in public, yet she's not yet 21. Underage drinking in SF? What a headline grabber! Matier & Ross are no doubt a shoo-in for the Pulitzer for that incredible piece of investigative reporting. Woodward & Bernstein, move over! High school kids all across the city are thinking of changing their college majors to journalism so that they can make the kind of impact on society that Matier & Ross have made. Next thing you know they'll be reporting about a love affair between two male penguins at the SF Zoo! Or that someone parked in the Fire Chief's reserved spot last Tuesday! Man, this is cutting-edge stuff! I have only lived here a year, but I can tell you that there are more fake ID's in this town than real ones. In fact, many women over 21 have fake ID's to prove they're much younger! Give us something substantial for once Matier & Ross. The last big story you broke was the 1989 earthquake....2 days after it happened!

Two Hottest New Shows on TV

There are 2 new shows on TV this season that I like. The first one is Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip. It's written by the same guy who wrote The West Wing and it's smart and fun. It's about a Saturday Night Live-type show and the characters are well-designed.

The other show I'm enjoying is Friday Night Lights (see photo). I think it's better than the movie it's based on. It's not all about football and it's smartly written as well. In the movie, the big star running back gets hurt. In this one, the star QB gets paralyzed during the first game.

When TV is written well, it's fun to watch. I recommend these two shows. The rest is pretty much s--t! If I have to see another show like Lost or Heroes, I will vomit!

New Book: "Marilyn, Joe & Me" by June DiMaggio -- Is it Fact or Fiction?

(There's a new book that just came out called "Marilyn, Joe & Me" by June DiMaggio, Joe DiMaggio's niece. It supposdly reveals a bunch of new things about Joe and Marilyn's relationship and about how she died. Now, several people are coming forward and saying the book is a fraud and that many of the things in it never happened. This is an article I found online by a writer named Mark Bellinhaus)

Let’s begin with the most outrageous character – June DiMaggio. Who is she? The last name itself creates interest and memories of the sweet past, the Yankee Clipper, Simon & Garfunkel's "Mrs. Robinson," and even Madonna includes the name in her “Vogue” ode to fame. But now I want to change that famous lyric to "Where have you come from, June DiMaggio?"
No one had ever heard of her, so it was extremely hard to find out anything, even with expensive investigations. But now she is willingly joining the media circus, without explaining where she was hiding while her legendary uncle Joe was alive. CBS is planning a 48 Hours special on Marilyn Monroe for this month, supposedly with June DiMaggio, and we look forward to the funny but absurd little stories she seems to have dreamed up and written down in her fictional memoir Marilyn, Joe and Me!, her "what if?" journal.
I watched her last November during the press opening for Marilyn Monroe: the Exhibit at the Queen Mary, and it was a weird, unreal experience—like a theatre performance gone bad. When talking about Marilyn, she shouted and stuttered, then regained her pace and followed (it seemed to me) her rehearsed lines.
Let’s begin with her one excusable untruth, her age. She claims to be 77, but for any former actress and dancer, knocking five years off is forgivable. But not so when it comes to twisting facts and fabricating fictions about the biggest and best-loved movie star of the 20th century. June says she was best of friends with Marilyn Monroe, and that her mother, Lee, wife of Tom DiMaggio (one of Joe's eight siblings), was Marilyn’s closest friend, and even knew who murdered her — Lee was chatting with her on the phone when the killer walked into Marilyn’s bedroom. Lee never told, because “she wanted her children to live.”
During June DiMaggio’s interviews, her co-writer Mary Jane Popp, actress, infomercial and radio host (www.PoppOff.com), always stood close by her side and sometimes gave the answers for her, because she sounded very coached and prepared. June repeated herself with what seemed like anger in her voice, camouflaged as a "sweet old lady with the trademark bangs". In some ways she reminded me of a marionette being dragged from one stage to the next, with her explosive news on Marilyn Monroe. She gave interviews even in the hallways, always making sure that the viewers would believe (and buy her book), her statements still sounding in my ear: "THAT IS THE TRUTH!” and “YOU CAN READ ABOUT ALL THIS IN MY BOOK!" But you can feel when someone is hiding something, and now I can prove it.
CBS recently referred to June as "the last DiMaggio," but that’s not so, Joe's brother Dom DiMaggio is still with us. When I called him at his home in Florida, Dom confirmed to me that "June DiMaggio is not the biological daughter of my brother Tom." So June is related, but only through her mother Lee. She is a step-DiMaggio only.
In my research, I find no evidence at all that Monroe was even friendly with Lee or June DiMaggio. The San Francisco newspaper story on Marilyn and Joe’s wedding has Lee and Tom on the guest list, but June is not mentioned. The names of Lee and June do not appear in four of Monroe's personal address and phone books -- these items sold at auctions in recent years for astronomical amounts. Because of my friendship with most of the known Monroe collectors, I could ask the new owners to look into those personal and intimate Monroe artifacts; it was not surprising to find that June DiMaggio and her mother Lee are not listed in any of them . . . while Joe DiMaggio and his son Joe Jr. are present in all of them.
In the infamous December Playboy interview, June DiMaggio claims to have attended the funeral of Marilyn Monroe ("as I was riding along with my uncle Joe in a limousine..."). There are numerous photos disproving this statement.
We also have a witness who can testify to June’s absence. Funeral director Allan Abbott, 68, was a pallbearer for Marilyn’s funeral. At Joe DiMaggio’s request, he also stood at the door checking off the names on the brief guest list, handing programs to each person on the list. He told me he’d never heard the name June DiMaggio in his life. Ernest Cunningham’s book The Ultimate Marilyn identifies the small group of invited guests but June is still missing.
Allan Abbott was 24 at the time Monroe was buried, but his memory is still fresh. This man’s statement was the true reason I continued in my investigations. My deepest appreciation goes out to him, a great man who had the honor of carrying Marilyn Monroe’s casket to her crypt, where we can visit her now, pay tribute, and weep.
June is the latest in a long line of Marilyn frauds, men and women coming out of nowhere, claiming to be Marilyn Monroe's son or daughter (or husband or lover, whatever). There’s a man claiming to be the illegitimate son of Marilyn and JFK, insisting that the three of them had lived openly in Marilyn’s Brentwood home. There was Robert Slatzer, who passed away last year, who claimed (with nothing to document it) that he had been married to Marilyn.

Mark Ulriksen: Cole Valley Artist Makes Good

(This is an article I wrote for the Haight-Ashbury Beat newspaper. Mark is a great guy and a fantastic artist. To check out his stuff, visit: www.markulriksen.com.)

Mark Ulriksen is a lot more than just an award-winning freelance illustrator who creates acrylic paintings for many of this country’s best known magazines, book publishers and ad agencies. He’s also a native San Franciscan and an integral part of the creative and political environment of Cole Valley.

Since 1993, Ulriksen has published more than 500 illustrations and over 20 magazine covers for publications including the New Yorker, Rolling Stone, Vibe, GQ, Entertainment Weekly, Time, Newsweek and The New York Times. He has worked for advertising agencies, creating paintings for clients like The Vanguard Group and Cole Haan shoes. He also paints commissioned pieces, primarily family portraits and dog portraits. In addition, Mark has done several book covers, and recently illustrated his second children’s book called “The Biggest Parade” by Elizabeth Winthrop.

Ulriksen, 49, was born in San Francisco and grew up primarily in San Carlos. He graduated in 1980 from Chico State University with a BA in visual communications. Upon graduation, he got a job as a graphic designer for a publishing group for Northeastern University in Boston, a position he held for the next two years. After that, he worked in various capacities within a variety of graphic designer jobs. In 1985, Mark returned to San Francisco and in 1986 moved to Cole Valley. At that time, he tried his hand at freelance illustrating and found the experience “very humbling.”

In 1986, Ulriksen parlayed his freelance gig into an eight-year stint as an associate art director and then later head art director for KQED’s San Francisco Focus magazine. In January of 1994, Mark made a full-time commitment to working independently and hit the ground running.

“After I decided to seriously start marketing myself, things happened quickly,” Ulriksen said. “In the course of one week, I got assignments from GQ, Rolling Stone and Esquire. I knew at that point I could do this for a living.”

Mark said it takes him approximately three days to create an illustration – one day to conceive it and two days to paint it. When he’s doing magazine covers, the deadlines can be very tight. “Typically the most a magazine will give you is a week,” Mark said.

Mark loves living in Cole Valley, where he resides with his wife and two daughters. He likes being close to Golden Gate Park and enjoys the political environment, the architecture, and the fact that there’s a friendly neighborhood market right down on the corner.

“We love this neighborhood and don’t plan on ever leaving” Ulriksen said. “It’s a very creative environment here. The actor Danny Glover lives down the block. Many creative individuals, including artists, musicians and filmmakers, live in this area. It’s a great mix of people here.”

Mark is also very interested in keeping the look of the neighborhood from changing for the worse. “We recently formed a neighborhood group to fight the demolition of a house nearby,” he said. “We tried to preserve the house and we lost. But, we did win in a sense, because we were able to force the contractor into building a new house that fits the look of this neighborhood. We prevented him from building another one of those faceless stucco condos.”

Mark said that one of his more well-known New Yorker covers is the one he created as a take-off on the movie “Brokeback Mountain,” featuring Dick Cheney and George W. Bush on a hillside standing very close to each other while Cheney holds a smoking rifle. The cover appeared in February shortly after Cheney shot an associate while bird hunting. Another famous cover he did that has received a lot of attention is called “Shakespeares in the Park” which shows the playwright walking a dog, riding a bike and just generally enjoying himself in New York’s Central Park.

Ulricksen was one of the local artists participating in San Francisco’s annual Open Studio, October 21-22 again this year. “Leslie and I welcome people into our home,” Mark said. “Open Studio usually happens right around the same time as the World Series. We’ve actually had people come here and sit down with us and watch a game.”

Mark also likes visiting other artists in their homes during Open Studio. “I enjoy seeing how other artists set up their workspaces,” he said. “Where they put their brushes and how they do their art is something I can always learn from.”

In some cases, Mark will paint portraits of people for publications and then later the personalities themselves will purchase the paintings from him. Martin Scorsese, John Travolta and O.J. Simpson attorneys Christopher Darden and Robert Shapiro have all bought original Ulriksens of themselves over the years.

Mark’s goals for the future include getting more heavily involved in working for the New Yorker doing covers, as well as increasing the amount of personal work he does for galleries. He’d also like to continue to do illustrations for children’s books and maybe even write his own.

“There’s a lot of freedom in kid’s books,” Mark said. “I want to explore that avenue more, because I enjoy being a storyteller.”

Oops! I guess I goofed on the Torre story!

Two days ago I wrote a silly poem saying Joe Torre was going to be fired as the manager of the New York Yankees. I really believed it. Knowing George Steinbrenner and how volatile he can be, I figured there was no way that Torre was going to be able to keep his job. Well, yesterday it was announced that Torre's staying. Oops! It's a good thing I'm not a legitimate sportwriter, because I would be getting heat like you wouldn't believe for what now appears to be a pretty stupid poem. Sorry, Joe. I never should have doubted you. Now hopefully you can get rid of Alex Rodriguez, who I am convinced is a liability. But, beware, Mr. Torre -- now that Steinbrenner has agreed to let you stay, he probably is going to be keeping a tighter rein on you, which many a manager in the past (ex.-- Billy Martin, Buck Showalter, etc.) couldn't handle.