Friday, June 28, 2013

Food Network and the Foodie Effect, Part 1




If you are from the South and I were a betting man, I'd bet that you claim that your mother's specialty dish, the dish she'd prepare for dignitaries, is the best of its kind.  I claim that my mom makes the best fried chicken.  I've eaten a lot of fried chicken, really good fried chicken, and I've yet to eat better.  She doesn't do anything out of the ordinary, except remove the skin.  It has never occurred to her to brine the chicken overnight, say.

As a newlywed, my mom didn't know a fork from a spoon, and the spork wasn't even on the drawing board.  My paternal grandmother intervened after one too many of her son's grumblings of "meat loaf every night" during the first year of my parents' marriage.  After my grandma's tutelage and close to fifty years of slaving over a hot stove in an effort to feed her husband and kids, my mom can claim mastery of the largely lost art of Southern cooking (Incidentally, my dad, whose efforts in the kitchen I'd characterize as "well-meaning," makes the best catfish.)

My mom set me loose in the kitchen one day when I was nine.  I don't remember what she was making, but it smelled good and I wanted to learn how she did it.  I remember that one of my first efforts was four exceptionally salty hamburger patties, hardly an auspicious start for a budding gourmand, but a good lesson:  add salt carefully.  Thirty-five years later, I've got these two pork roasts, larded and spritzed with an Oolong tea/root beer mixture, slow roasting on my smoker.  Mom says I should open a restaurant.

To tell the truth, I have contemplated a culinary career.  I entertained reveries of cooking for hundreds of hungry customers, all of whom I'd get to know on a first-name basis.  I'd create signature dishes so inspired that they'd be the talk of a town that wallows in pride for ranking among the nation's fattest.  Not least of all, I basked in the thrill of business ownership, no longer beholden to the big boss man whose chief delight in life seemed to be standing on my neck.    

I am happy to say that better sense has largely prevailed.  I truly enjoy the art and craft of cooking and entertaining family and friends, but that joy would cease within a week after cooking for too many people with nothing better to do than throw money around like expatriates in 1920's Paris and write haughty Yelp reviews on the spot because the waiter didn't respond to the request for another "marg" quickly enough.  And even I, still foolish with money but learning, know that the failure rate for restaurants is abysmal.  The likelihood that today's innovative weenie truck, which seemed like a sure bet in the beginning, the one that gets all the good press from the city's tastemakers, will wind up on the playground of an underfunded elementary school tomorrow is too high for me to seek out a small business loan and put my wife through the stress. 

Speaking strictly as a consumer, eating out not only isn't as fun as it used to be, but also not very sensible, for too many reasons.  You might agree with me that Whataburgers are exemplars of their type.  If you do, you might also agree that eating at a Whataburger restaurant and then catching a late movie might rank among the dumbest ideas you've ever hatched.  The odds aren't bad that a night of fine dining followed by a movie with lots of fire won't be much fun, either.  Children cry at fires, especially loud movie fires, and there's little that's more irritating than a gaggle of smartly-accesorized early-30 somethings posing for pictures around the lamb shank, their drunken capering frozen for eternity.  In short, I don't want to cook for these people, and I don't want them around me.  

Some of the benighted among us take no small delight in, after an especially fine meal, uttering the phrase, "That'll make a turd!"  On the one hand, their numbers are shrinking, thank God.  On the other, the membership of the Shitty New Leisure Class, reared by Google, posing around platters of meat is swelling unabated.  To be clear: as a food lover (to further clarify, I've got no truck with the too-precious neologism "foodie"), I'm thrilled with many of the developments that attend contemporary food and dining.  At the same time, I'm bothered, even disturbed, by many others.  I can't help but suspect that Food Network might be the chief culprit.

To be continued at exasperating length.







Friday, June 14, 2013

Uncomfortable Encounters: Five Minutes to a New Me? No Thanks




Of the many things I'm thankful for, one is that I don't encounter the term "life coach" very often.  The term conjures all manner of physiological chicanery in me, most notably moderate dyspepsia.  The discomfort passes quickly, for which I'm also thankful, but I'm afraid we're all saddled with the phenomenon of life coaching for a while yet, which might mean an entirely new battery of prescriptions for me, including regular strength Pepcid.

I'll admit to a touch of facetiae regarding my attitude about so-called "life coaching," but the recent emergence and popularity of this strain of Chickenshit For the Soul inspires more than a bit of skepticism in me.  Still, I'll give any topic a fighting chance, so I conducted some, and since I'm in a confessional mood, admittedly, piecemeal research about life coaching.

But maybe my methodology was the proper one - I learned that life coaching is a rather piecemeal affair itself, a bricolage comprised of academic and professional sources.  To put the latter more precisely, corporate sources.  Indeed, life coaching really began to flourish in the 80's, when a bunch of suits found themselves out of work and needed bucking up.  To paraphrase one executive, "We really like it!"

And it's not only the corporate types who really like it.  I submit:  Oprah Winfrey is nothing less than our preeminent life coach.  If her ratings pre-OWN were any barometer, Americans like to be told that they're living all wrong, and they believe that only a celebrity of Winfrey's stature can set them straight .

That phenomenon merits a piece of its own, but some bulking up is in order.  Truly, our rap sheet of life-defects is a long one, and we're dying to clear it.  We like to be told that we shouldn't smoke, that we should eat only gluten-free food, that that food should also contain as little flavor content as possible, and that we should read Deepak Chopra and Faulkner, in the interest of "wholeness."  As a final thump in the chest, she invites celebrities to luxuriate, to excruciating length, about their quality of life (a notable example is neo-hippie/timeless dingbat Gwyneth Paltrow.)  She's not above sneaking a fraud or two onto her stage, either.  She also scolded us about being fat.  Oprah, starve thyself!

What I've delineated thus far might incite some unpleasantness in you.  I would hope not; rather, I'd hope that you think it at once a bit disturbing, but also laughable.  Of this I can assure you:  you haven't been disturbed and amused until you've encountered a life-change facilitator.  They like to be referred to as life coaches.  I like to laugh at that.

My Uncomfortable Encounter occurred recently.  I'd prefer not to state how recently, but recently enough.  I'd never seen him around, so I thought I'd introduce myself as he did laundry and fielded phone call after text after phone call after text.  He introduced himself as "the one who drives the BMW," and I introduced myself as "Don."  Our conversation was off to a sterling start.  I told him I hadn't seen him around, to which he replied that he works all the time (and why not?  I'm sure he loves his work.  He did most of the talking.  More on that later.)  Strictly in the interest of maintaining friendly chit-chat at this point, I asked him what he does.  He may have said, "I'm a life coach, brah," but don't hold me to the term of endearment part.  I can confirm, with God as my witness, that he did say that he's a life coach.

The perceptive reader has noted throughout that I cast a sideways glance at this entire life-coaching business.  It is only partly in jest when I state that my gut told me the enterprise is fishy.  Still, when the guy, who, as the perceptive reader has also noted, is still nameless at this point, told me what he does, I replied that I've been looking for a life coach.  To be crystal clear, to hector was not my intent.  Since my discharge, I have had one hell of a time finding a therapist (I'm quite happy and more relieved to say that I finally found one.)  My stay in and subsequent discharge from the hospital, if you'll allow, yanked my third-eye wide open.  Post-hospital, I've accomplished more than my wildest reveries ever suggested; still, there is a stack of dirty dishes in the sink that won't be denied.  In short, I still need help organizing and, in some cases, reorienting my life.

I was willing to entertain, and, as it turns out, be entertained by My Beemer's Parking Space is Wherever I Say It Is' spiel.  Permission granted, he unloosed a barrage of life-coach speak that, in a heroic effort on my part to distill it all, was a predictable enough admixture of Oprah-esque ersatz empowerment clap-trap and corporate shuck and jive, a true bastard sired by the Alec Baldwin character from Glengarry Glen Ross and, yes, Oprah Winfrey.  A blow-by-blow account is not necessary, but the highlights are delectable.  In due time, which is soon.

I have not yet revealed the nickname of I Park My BMW in Handicapped Spots Because the Handicapped are Pussies because I have, to this point, neglected his chief characteristics.  A somewhat thorough description is necessary because I think it might apply categorically to life-coaches.  If you encounter anyone who fits the following profile, there's a better-than-average chance that you've run into a life coach.  It's up to you to fight or flee.

The guy's built like American cars used to be:  able to withstand wreckage and inflict damage to other cars.  One also might say that his physical profile matches that of a third-string middle linebacker for an NFL wildcard contender or the tackling dummy for any NFL team.  The guy has, as he might put it, "creds," too.  Lots of them.  He named them all, yet he did so so quickly that I don't what they are.  He's an ordained minister to boot for all I know.  Of course, anyone not crammed to the gills with Xanax can tell you that credentials do not confer intelligence.  Ram Tough's certainly not the brightest guy, but he's no dumbbell.  I'm certain that if he were inclined, I Crushed a Datsun and its Occupants the Other Day, Bro, Ha-HA could Google himself to this very entry.  It would take him a couple of minutes to come to terms with the effrontery, but surely by minute three, my doors are off the hinges and the last he sees of me is my ass flying out the bedroom window.  Insufferable to be sure, Dandy is one to contend with. Believe me, folks, Dandy is closer to comfort to me than he is to you, and that's real, real close.  Think of Dandy as Henry Rollins, only without a heart or record collection.

Dandy let it be known that he can, in his words, "see through the bullshit," and that his job is to cut through it.  If that were my job, I'd take all the vacation and sick time I could get, and then some.  It's like raw food, in his estimation:  you want the most nutrients, you eat raw food.  So Dandy likes to give it to you raw.  Above all, he likes to "Keep It Simple, Stupid," which is simple enough.

Simple, stupid, and insulting.  What Dandy doesn't understand is that I see through bullshit pretty well myself, and I was sizing him up from his ridiculous spiel forward.  He's not a therapist - that's so 70's.  No, he's a life coach, and as a coach, it's his job to shape sulking sacks of shit into statuesque Supermen and spineless corporate minnows into merciless corporate sharks.  He'll turn you into a Bloodthirsty Franklin Planner Who Draws His Own Parking Lines, and if that means busting your door down at the crack of dawn, that's what he's gonna do.  You'll do pushups until you curse your birth, you'll memorize and recite Deepak Chopra if it takes forgetting your first son's date of birth, you'll eat steel cut oats for breakfast, lunch, and dinner until you don't need the steel anymore because you're eating those bitches whole with your own teeth now, not the false ones you had before, and you'll pay him handsomely and you'll like it.

LIfe is funny, don't you know:  I learned a life lesson from Dandy.  I don't want the likes of him shaping any aspect of my life.  I don't even want him to show me how to program a remote control.  My stay in the hospital was a far greater teacher than Dandy, in his most bat-shit crazy dreams, could ever hope to be.

I wouldn't be doing right by my new friend if I didn't offer him a some simple advice of my own:

Coach, hear thyself.

Also, move your car.  Someone who needs the spot might have a mind to have it towed off.  BOO-YA!

Wednesday, June 12, 2013

Some Things I'd Like to Accomplish - Another Ongoing Concern

God willing, I'd like to accomplish the following during the rest of the time I have on Earth.  My dear readers, you'll note that I do not refer to this as a "Bucket List."  I do not know that dreadful term's etymology, yet I detest it, as it seems that it originates from the realm of Hallmark inspired schmaltz.  I suspect that the Painter of Light guy had a bucket list.

Not necessarily in importance of order:

Improve upon the things I'm already good at, and, perhaps, master a couple of them.  Music and writing are at the top of that list

Be a better husband

Have a child.  Son or daughter, it doesn't matter.
Read the following books:

  • Finnegan's Wake (in progress, albeit in fits and starts
  • The Bible
  • Don Quixote
  • War and Peace
  • Gravity's Rainbow

There are plenty of others to add to number 2.  I'll never read all of them.  That's okay.  Only Nabokov and Joyce have done that, and they never field dressed a wild boar (cf #7.)

 Meet new people.

 Make my own soda (in progress!

Learn to use tools and make my own furniture

Hunt and prepare a wild boar for a dinner party.  Granted, this is really low on the list, but wild boar is delicious.

Travel.

Start a garden.

Start a business from home.  If it's a product, I'd like to name it Edward's, in tribute to a friend.

Learn the value of money, and achieve financial security and independence.  That achieved, I'd like to throw that money wildly at charities that I feel good supporting, and keep my mouth shut when I do it.  The following looks to serve as a good guide:  http://www.openbible.info/topics/tithes_and_offering

Be someone's mentor; better put, serve as a good example.
Host a favorite band at our place.

Own a home, where my family and friends can gather. The only extravagances will be a wood-burning stove in the backyard and maybe a pool because swimming is among my favorite forms of exercise.

Count my blessings. An ongoing concern.

Learn several musical instruments, and master two. I'm thinking guitar and, I don't know, keyboards? Drums would be cool, too.

Perform more charity work, and keep my mouth shut about it.  I'm no do-gooder.  They're no good.

Stay sober, but make allowances for the odd drink here and there. For today, coffee is fine.

Perform stand-up comedy (in progress.)

Spend more time with my parents and aunts and uncles. I want to hear their stories sothat I may learn from them and then pass them down.

Be an equal in a peer group of artists.

Play tennis with John McEnroe. Ideally, I'll win one set.

Learn to meditate.

Renumber this list.
Control less.
Patronize and support the arts, especially the artistic endeavors of friends.
Do not suffer fools gladly, yet attempt to lead them toward wisdom.
Always have hope; never have expectations.
Learn to fix things around the house.
Learn essential car repair, at least.
Own a muscle car and a fuel efficient car.
Act proactively, use the term as little as I can get away with. The term is in the same class as "Bucket List."
Rest. Know when to call it a day.
Champion the underdog, always.


An ongoing concern.







Friday, June 7, 2013

Don's Oblique Strategies

Dedications to:

My beautiful wife, to whom I dedicate all good things.
Our dear friend and neighbor, who helped inspire this list.  Thank you, dear friend.

Don's Oblique Strategies are called such in order to distinguish them from the Eno/Schmidt originals, not as a self-referential pat on the back.  These strategies are culled in large part from ordinary experience, and may serve as an aid when faced with creative dilemmas.  A creative dilemma, as I define it, may arise during the so-called "ordinary course of life."  Such dilemmas are not limited to artists:  since every positive action is, again, by my definition, a creative one, these may prove useful to you.  For example, "What to clean first?" may help to break a creative block.   

As you'll note, the strategies are aphoristic in nature; however, they are not aphorisms. Alas, I am not willing to place myself in league with aphorists.  

The list of strategies is ongoing and plastic.  Readers, I welcome your observations as well:  feel free to contribute.  


Don's Oblique Strategies:  An Ongoing Concern:


1, Edit 3:  Steal with abandon, and pile up the loot with care. Upon discovery of your thievery, you will be lauded and derided, assuredly not in equal measure. 
OR
Steal with abandon, and pile up the loot with care. Upon discovery of your thievery, you will be lauded and derided, assuredly not in equal measure. 
The preceding is an Oblique Strategy, edit 3.
Provide a "steal" option
FB#:  1

2.  Put off one thing until later.
FB#:  2

3.  Pick a good idea at random, and then abandon it. If you choose a good night's sleep, pick again. It's the only instance in which you are allowed to do so (Abandoned Idea)
FB#:  3

4.  Create, steal, organize, combine.  Lists work well.
FB#:  4

5.  Create, steal, organize, combine. Lists work well. The addition of a short list culled from Eno/Schmidt's original Oblique Strategies list further enhances your lists.
Don's Oblique Strategies, #4, Addendum (FB#:)

6.  Everything we do is music. Please observe your cues to be silent. In that way, you, at once, participate in creation and behold its awe. 
Don's Oblique Strategies, #5, Co-Authored by John Cage (FB#:)

7.  Expression, Not Self-Correction
Don's Oblique Strategies, #6 (FB#:)

8.  Take an object. Do something to it. Do something else to it. Do something else to it.  Then attempt to restore it to its original form.  
Don's Oblique Strategies, #7, with kind assistance from Jasper Johns
  
9.  Take an object. Do something to it. Do something else to it. Do something else to it. Then attempt to restore the object to its original form. 
Don's Oblique Strategies, #8, with kind assistance from Jasper Johns (Application 1)

10.  Take your ringer off the hook. Proceed.
Don's Oblique Strategies, Number Unknown.

11.  Fill a void:  Dig a hole.

12.  What to clean first?

13.  Unplug your phone.  Proceed.  
Cf:  DOS 10.

14.  Go to your room!

Wednesday, June 5, 2013

It's Pick Your Own Steak Night, Don!




Dear readers, I don't wish to put you all through the sort of Hell I experience, so I'll just say that I managed to secure a doctor's appointment, and boy, is my frontal lobe tired!  It's so tired that can't recall the last time I was this excited about securing a doctor's appointment.  It's right up there with "It's 'Pick Your Own Steak Night,' Don," only with more fat.

The phone scold said, "You'll be waiting awhile."  To gauge how long, I asked, "What size book should I bring?"  She kinda laughed and said something along the lines of "Looong."  

I don't know to whom or what to credit the following, but literary and journalistic turnaround times are truly impressive.  Twenty-three car pile-up on the Katy Freeway one minute, Dominique Sachse on the scene the next, and flawlessly dolled-up to boot.  

In short, my dear friends, my literary selection for my doctor's visit will be an unauthorized account of my attempts to secure a doctor's visit.  And no, I'm not the author.  I'm not that narcissistic, and I'm afraid I just don't possess the verbal fecundity nor the urgency that such a weighty tome requires.  Also, I cannot in good conscience authorize this doorstep because in it, the author claims I'm a vegetarian.  Why I ought to sue the hack until he's subsisting off government cheese.  Vindictiveness, my friends, is not in my nature.

Look for "Goofus the Vegetarian Has His Tonsils Removed" at your local literary outlet of choice.

Post Script:  With all due respect, the phone scold moved mountains to ensure I get in. I appreciate her throwing her weight around.  However, she also said she doesn't mind that patients may have a long wait time, punctuating her statement with an insouciant chuckle.  To be charitable, I reminded her that she should care because mental illness is a disease that ranks alongside cancer in terms of severity.  The surcease of her self-satisfied smirk occurred, I assure you, abruptly, as though Steve Martin's "The Jerk" was interrupted by a Click 2 News Special Report.

Dominique?   

Tuesday, June 4, 2013

And Now, a Shiftless Chef Minute...


Good evening, friends.

I think I heard the phrase "slow your roll" tonight.  If I heard correctly, it's one too many times.  Without trying to sound too much like a scold yet cognizant that I probably do, I'm tired of "the roll," which I interpret to mean one's "m. o.," and its variants, as well as most other hip-hop inspired lingo of recent vintage.  It's tired.  In fact, forget tired: hip-hop, with maybe slightly more than a handful of exceptions, is dead.  Even the good stuff is largely hidebound.  And once Walmart becomes a vendor of one's cultural artifact, that artifact has entered another realm, one that I try to avoid.  


I will not try to pretend that I'm a "thought and language" scholar.  I know that one influences the other, and I'm still swamped in self-debate.  I know that the two exist in symbiosis, so I'll start from there.


One thing quickly:  I'm among the bigger jazz nuts you're likely to find.  In the main, contemporary jazz sucks too, but the genre taken as a whole was viable for closing in on one-hundred years.  Hip-hop imploded in less than twenty-five.  To make my point brief:  if you accuse me of racism, well, sir or ma'am, you've got three fingers pointing back at you, and I'm holding back.  Would you really like to know what's on my mind?  Again, I'm willing to entertain differing points of view.


Market Night for June 3, 2013


You Can't Print That!

I regard Redbox as little more than an automat that dispenses nothing by shitty sandwiches.  I will hand it to its creators, though:  they understand the dictum "location, location, location."  You can't walk past a Redbox without stubbing your toe.  Until we can have movies parachuted down to yus, we all risk the loss of our feet.  Such is its ubiquity, I'm certain there's one at the entrance to the White House.  Plus, it's red, redder than a snapper.  If you can't find a Redbox in ten minutes, you're too old and you're from out of town.

Yes my dear friends, Redbox is the cigarette machine of the Information Age.  I'd argue that the contents of the cigarette machines of yore are more wholesome, but I don't like picking fights on social network sites.  You know that!  In brief, the Redbox is a great concept executed very poorly for a guy like me.  And no, that guy isn't waiting for  "Emmanuelle in Space," Volumes 1-7 to return.  Sheesh, what an audience!

Like I said, notwithstanding your entertainment proclivities and demands, you can't avoid Redbox.  Every time you go to Walmart, you bump your head on it.  I'm surprised it's not equipped with a sensor that trips a chip that contains phrases such as, "Ooh, I'll bet that smarts!" or a thousand other variants, the same chip used in one of those mouthy new Hallmark cards that go over well in Peoria.  But a couple of weeks ago, after rubbing my noggin and kicking the machine and stubbing my toe, I struck paydirt.

My wife and I love Jim Gaffigan, the comedian who rose to fame dissecting Hot Pockets and their manifold iterations of vile.  The love is such that I don't feel like discussing it at length here; indeed, Mr. Gaffigan deserves a dedicated post.  My wife and I were, at once, stunned and delighted when we spotted his new release, Mr. Universe, in the display, sandwiched between all manner of crap.  A truffle, if you like.  We needed the laughs something bad that night, so we began to search for it.  Naturally, Mr. Universe was not available; in fact, after exhausting every possible search scenario (and we're both librarians, mind you), we discovered that it wasn't even in the damn box.  Such was my paranoia that I began to think that this particular box was bent on destroying me, in the manner that Hot Pockets destroy their consumers from the inside out.  And after I bumped my head this time, Redbox laughed and dispensed an actual shit sandwich.  

Usually, the first thing I do upon entering the store is get a drink of water.  The Redbox in question is located near the bathrooms and water fountains at the grocery store where we shop most often.  I need not state that the machine's placement betrays evil on the part of everyone associated with it.  

The tortures inflicted upon and the indignities visited upon me as I used Redbox are legion; I've enumerated merely a few above.  In time, I've come to learn that this particular machine does not possess an intuition of its own.  No machine does.  Machines can't do anything without human input, and that includes what looks to be accidentally dispensing a shit sandwich - machines don't know I hate shit sandwiches because they can't know I hate shit sandwiches!  So, there is a simple, sane explanation for the machine's "behavior."

Billy Barty is inside the HEB Redbox waiting for me.  

It makes perfect sense:  

1.  Wonderful, that it is, I hate Redbox.
2.  The creators of Redbox know that I hate Redbox (oh please, I know you're not that thick - bugs!)
3.  Redbox hired a dwarf whose sole job is to wait until I come into the store.   
4.  That dwarf is Billy Barty.
5.  Therefore, Billy Barty is still alive, and he's still active in the entertainment industry.  

My dear readers, you don't need a Venn diagram to understand all this.  To create one would be an insult to you.  You've all known the entire time:  Billy Barty is still alive and, at the age of 89, very much active in the entertainment industry.

This past evening, my wife and I decided to go shopping so that we'd have a leg up on tomorrow's dinner.  The preparations necessary for this dinner will be quite involved, so much so that it would be sage of me to start well before my wife returns from work.  Against my better judgement, I decided to check on the Gaffigan DVD.  Low and behold, I found it within two searches, and it was available!  I decided I'd play it cool.  My plan was simple:

1.  I wanted to surprise my wife, so I'd whisper the news of my discovery to her during check out.  We'd have to check out at the register farthest from the entrance, an inconvenience (all told, a minor one) that was necessary in order to maintain the facade.  
2.  I'd keep a poker face while in proximity to Redbox.  After all, Billy Barty does not take breaks, not even to sleep.  I kinda feel bad that he has to subsist on shit sandwiches, but the little creep knew the score when he took the gig, so fuck him.   

All was going according to plan after we'd paid, and I was about to pull my sneak attack.  There was another customer in front of me making his selection, so I stood behind him with my cart.  I was afraid I'd hit a snag , but I regained my wits:  I was waiting by the gumball machines next to the Redbox.  Billy Barty would think I'm buying gum.  Boy was I going to get Billy Barty.  I was going to get Billy Barty good.  

Curse that shit-eating pygmy because I got fucked out of our DVD again.  I didn't count on the customer standing at the Redbox for twenty minutes.  Billy Barty must have bribed him, that's the only explanation.  Billy Barty saw the guy and said to him, "Hey kid (everyone's "kid" to that wrinkled old prick.  It's common Hollywood lore that Billy Barty once propositioned Abe Vigoda by saying, "Look kid, me and my old lady are on the outs, and no one else wants anything to do with me, see?  Here's $100.  I'm light.  You can lift me up to your mouth.  See there, kid?  Yeah, yeah, that's it.  That's the stuff..."), you wanna make a hundred bucks?  Looks like you could use a hundred bucks."  Billy Barty flashed the goods through the slot where you collect your movie.  Billy Barty told the guy to stand there and play dumb for twenty minutes.  I figured this out after I'd filled all the available nooks and crannies of our cart with gumballs.

Ladies and gentlemen, I am not only a reasonable man.  I am also a fair man.  It is in the interest of fairness that I tell you all that Billy Barty picked a real crackerjack.  The guy played dumb so well that he made Dustin Hoffman's Rain Man look like two dolphins playing chess telepathically.  

The simpleton, and the rest of the story is not a fabrication, I assure you, stood at the Redbox like he was poised to earn another Donkey Kong, watching a peep show, or taking the sort of leak he's fantasized about for years.  He can't be much older than I am, but he looked like his mom dressed him and, furthermore, he looked proud of that.  His mom, obviously a woman put upon, but with a deliciously cruel sense of humor, somehow squeezed him into a faded Coca-Cola t-shirt and matching red shorts with white stripes running down the side, the sort of stripes that ordinarily indicate participation .  Dumpy of comportment, his mouth hung agape the whole time.  By the looks of things, he saw the cover for a movie about hamburgers and thought he could eat.  My cogitations were becoming cruel and confused indeed.

Well before long, I had company in line.  After a couple of minutes, I looked at the woman behind me and shrugged my shoulders, fishing for a response.  She stared back blankly, as though she enjoyed standing in Redbox lines.  I bumped the gumball machine in hopes of getting Dumpy's attention.  It was no use.  He continued to run his hands over the screen as though it was the first time he'd set his hands on a human butt, and the woman behind me stands in lines as sport.  I figured my wife and I would be there again tomorrow anyway; besides, I was sure neither of these champions would rent the Gaffigan DVD.   

It wasn't long after I'd bowed to my fate that Dumpy finished his business at the Redbox.  He was on his way out the door when I said to my wife in what I thought was a furtive manner but hoped not, "Man, I hope that guy got a good one!"  I got what I wanted:  his face, which resembled the face of any other boob's as rendered by a funhouse mirror, betrayed meanness and ignorance.  He quickly faced forward again, presumably for fear that he might tump over and lose his grubby grip on McNugget's Murder Mystery 3:  Dipped in Shit and Left for Dead.  

My wife and I loaded up the car and started home.  Manfred Mann's "Blinded by the Light," aka the "Manned Up Like a Douche Song," started playing.  No, this affair wasn't quite over yet, and it wouldn't be for another couple of truly absurd minutes.  The moment I heard the song, I must have rolled my eyes.  Then I started laughing, just like any of you would do when it all makes sense.  Still laughing, I said to my lovely wife, "Geez, standing in line behind that guy is just like this song, except this song isn't long enough."  Oh what a wonderful world.   

Saturday, June 1, 2013

Lover, What Is Gorgonzola?

Lover?

My delightful wife and I declared tonight a wash in terms of dinner preparation. We're both too beat for much besides eating and a good, clean game of gin rummy. Star Pizza - It Never Fails to Deliver (get it? Hyuk!)

David Cross fails to deliver more than I'd like him to. Often, it seems that he doesn't respect the intelligence of his audience and resorts to hackiness (cf, the letter to Larry the Cable Guy.) And even then, he's mostly funny.

Mr. Cross stands on the right side of most issues, so you can't really give him much static for the contents of the routine I've posted.  It's one of my personal desert island routines, and it's a perfect post for Pizza Night.

Happily, my wife and I didn't go through the folderol that Cross captures with Swiss-like timing and precision. I did describe Gorgonzola as a "cross between blue cheese and Velveeta," but I didn't recommend "hours-long Bud Light braised 'coon" as an add on, so I not only got off the farm, but I also thrived since fleeing.  I opted for the swamp?  Alas, my dear friends, another blog post.

Star Pizza insisted that I'd never called from my own number before, so they called me back to ensure that I wasn't placing a prank order of twelve pizzas, like in that one old Saturday Night Live sketch. The one in which Steve Martin plays the Roman Centurion.  You know it already (no video anywhere?  Lorne Michael, eat a dozen double-dick pizzas.)  


So Star Pizza calls back. Here's the exchange:

Me: Star Pizza!
Star Pizza: HA!
Everyday Surrealism, folks.

Star Pizza had the taste to play "Maggie May" as its hold music.

We picked it up.