Maybe It's Time for The Change

I just spent my whole night writing about Project Runway versus Top Chef versus Top Design and then the new Beta Blogger made my internet connection unexpectedly quit YET AGAIN. By now you'd think I'd remember to save my posts as drafts before digging around my archives for links to previous posts, but no, that would be too smart and logical.

It's not like I'm the only person to use Safari so why, oh why, must Blogger always be so incompatible with it? Maybe I should switch to Typepad. Do any Safari-users out there have any opinions or experience to share about Typepad?

In the meantime, I'm going to go write a big, long, angry letter to Blogger and then not send it. Because that's so productive.

LOL @ NPR

This past Thursday a group of friends, my sweetie and I braved Chicago's Antarctic weather conditions as we headed over to a taping of NPR's political/current events-based game show, Wait, Wait...Don't Tell Me!. Five hundred audience members sat in the Chase Auditorium, our seats enveloped in layers of shed coats and scarves, as the three guest panelists and two hosts took the stage. This particular show featured humorist and writer Roy Blount, Jr., Washington Post's Roxanne Roberts and former Daily Show correspondent/"television personality" Mo Rocca.

Host Peter Sagal immediately apologized for being somewhat moody, as he too was convinced that he was Anna Nicole Smith's baby's daddy. He then confirmed that the ANS references would be kept to a minimum for the rest of the evening and, aside from one or two exceptions, he was thankfully right. They launched into the questions, covering everything from Google Earth's most popular searches (nude sunbathers), how the Chinese government used green spray paint to make a dilapidated mountain range look prettier and the new culinary trend of picking up roadkill for food. All true stories, by the way. There were callers who answered questions for the chance to have judge and scorekeepr Carl Kasell leave the outgoing message on their voicemail. It would be worth it, too - the man could read a physics textbook out loud and make it sound badass.

The show got even more interesting with the segment called "Not My Job," where a celebrity of varying degrees (I guess some would qualify more as "personalities") calls in, ostensibly to participate in the quizzes but moreso to shill their latest project. Our show featured French chef Roland Mesnier, who has been the White House pastry chef for the past 25 years, from Carter to Dubya, and documents it all in his new book, All the President's Pastries. It was interesting to hear how stern Nancy Reagan was about entertaining, or how our current president likes "simple" desserts such as "American cake." But as Mesnier said, "It made no difference if [they] are Democrat or Republican, they all enjoyed my desserts."

Mesnier was quite the good sport. You know how, when you watch game shows in a language you don't understand, no matter what they're doing, they just seem so weird? Such as when Bill Murray's movie star character in Lost in Translation appeared on that Japense game show that made absolutely no sense to him since he didn't understand Japanese. If you remove even one factor - such as language or context - from what is otherwise a perfectly normal or funny situation, it appears as strange and nonsensical.

It would be funny if Mesnier was actually thinking, I climbed my way to the White House and they're asking me about fried worms? But he played along very well. He answered Sagal's multiple-choice question about 3 possible desserts eaten around the world - including the real answer of larvettes, which are fried mealworm larvae - by pausing for a perfect beat before asking incredulously, "Who eats that stuff?" The thickly-accented Frenchman laughed when Rocca asked him to say "Be our guest, be our guest..." and even bid adieu by claiming, "Time to make the doughnuts."

As the show wrapped up, the diverse crowd started weighing themselves down with layer upon layer of winter accessories. I couldn't help but notice a number of attractive twentysomethings in the audience. Who knew NPR listeners were so sexy? Maybe it was that whole metrosexual thing that told straight men it was okay to find clothes that fit, but there were quite a few guys who, a few years ago, could have been sweaty boys playing Dungeon & Dragons in their basement but were now stylishly scruffy.

We ventured out back into the bracing winds, standing under heat lamps while waiting for the Brown Line. We repeated the funny lines to each other (Rocca to Mesnier: "It's not 'creme brulée' anymore, it's Freedom Custard"), compared notes on the sexy group sitting behind us and eventually made our way onto the El only to be joined in the same car by some punk-ish kids with an empty grocery cart. Technically, they spoke the same language I do, but with the speeding train drowning out their conversation, three punk-ish kids with an empty grocery cart just seemed strange and nonsensical.

Also check out: Shut! Up!
And: The Death of the Metrosexual.

Oysters and Mussels and Squid - Oh My!

Since my last update, I've made 79 out of 125 recipes in Giada de Laurentiis' Everyday Italian. I was feeling pretty good about this until I calculated that it only amounts to 63% of the recipes. Ugh. Granted, I did have a big lull from December into January, which I've only recently, and barely, begun to correct. But still, how can I have made 79 recipes and not even technically be two-thirds of the way there yet?

To start with, I've barely touched most of the seafood recipes, many of which call for clams, mussels, oysters and squid. I've never purchased these types of items and they kind of scare me. Part of it is a somewhat rational fear that I will unknowingly store them incorrectly and thus poison myself. But, honestly, part of it is some weird fear that they won't be completely dead and any of the following things will happen:

1) I'll open my refridgerator door, peer inside only to have a squid leap onto my face and wrap its tentacles around my head á la Alien, attacking me before I have a chance to chop it up for Grilled Seafood Salad. I pass out on the floor, the squid stealthily oozes away like a salty, delicious ninja, and the cops can't figure out how my killer left a single streak of slime on the kitchen floor instead of footprints.

2) Same as above, but with oysters. They leap out of their bowl of ice and fasten themselves to my body like possessed clothespins. I run out of the kitchen, limbs flailing, until I pass out from the blood loss and am found lifeless in an alley. (Why I can't just pull them off is beyond me. This is, after all, a list of the ways in which seafood could attack me.)

3) After enjoying Mussels, Clams and Shrimp in Spicy Broth, I fall asleep. The emptied and discarded mussel shells force the trash can lid open and bounce toward my bedroom, clip-clapping against my hardwood floors. I wake up only to have a gang of mussels attacking every inch of my vulnerable body. I try to scream but they pinch my lips shut. They leave a note pinned to my lifeless body, a picture of a fish in a circle with a line through it, which will become their signature as they continue on their quest to take out those who dare to cook seafood.

4) Clams, much like their bretheren, the mussels, decide to wait until the perfect moment. I throw them in the pot while making Spaghetti with Clams. As I open the lid to see if they're done, they leap out at me, so they not only pinch my face but they're boiling hot. Once again, I end up dead in an alley, because no one wants to help the weird guy running around, screaming, with clams on his face. Worse, dinner is ruined.

5) I'm chopping up squid, coating it in flour and frying it in oil to make Fried Calamari. I take a bite, satisfied in my deep-frying skills. It's only then that my cat, who has been watching the whole process, proceeds to rip off his face, revealing a squid underneath. "A ha!" he exclaims in a British accent. "You thought it was I that you just ate, didn't you? Too bad it was actually poor little Isabelle, or 'Izzy' as I believe you preciously nicknamed her. That's right, I killed her in her sleep last night, skinned her and switched her body for mine! And now, as you wallow in the death of your domestic slave who's flesh was fried by your own hands, I shall finally taste the sweet nectar of freedom!" And he, a squid poking out of a real cat's body, jumps out the window and bounces down the street.

There's more, but they tend to become kind of dark and twisted.

So, yeah, I have to admit I've been avoiding certain recipes. Which may also explain why I'm closer to finishing the dessert chapter before any other. I mean, it's not like Almond Cake can just leap out of its pan and suffocate me in its cakey goodness, right? Right?

Also check out: Kiwi, Tab and Turkey.
And: Like an After-School Special, With Liquor.

UR Here

So part of the reason I've been largely absent from the blogging scene recently is due to the unexpected rush of assignments for Chicago magazine UR Chicago. In their February issue out now, I have a mini-review of my local coffeeshop/restaurant Cafénéo, a q&a-style interview with one of my favorite comediennes, Margaret Cho, and the cover featre on the Scissor Sisters. So it's all very exciting as I've been published before but never in a cool, glossy magazine like this one. And I got paid!

For some reason the Margaret Cho interview isn't online, but it's about her new career path into bellydancing and burlesque. She was in Chicago last month to perform in Gurlesque Burlesque, a fundraiser for the Sissy Butch Brothers' documentary about the history of burlesque and Exotic World, the burlesque museum of Las Vegas and the only archive in the world of bulesque-esque materials.

I went to the show so I could, you know, know what I was talking about when writing the article. I've never seen any burlesque before so this was quite the plunge into feminist, political debauchery. How could I not love it? "George and Dick" performed an act in which they dressed up as, well, our good friends and national leaders George and Dick, complete with plastic masks and and business suits. They stripped each other, ending up as George and Dick's creepy, smiling faces on top of two topless, bikini-clad women's bodies. They stepped into a kiddie pool and poured oil over each other and wrestled, finishing by draping an American flag over themselves.

Sassbox was a trio of women singing an a capella bluegrass lullaby while being washed down by an admiring fan. The Boyz, a group of drag kings, dressed as sperm trying to impregnate an egg to Eminem's "Lose Yourself" ("You've only got one shot/Do not miss your chance to blow!"). And Julie Atlas Muz, a well-known dancer and one of Cho's inspirations, performed two fantastic acts, one of which included a life-sized balloon that, by the end, she had completely crawled into and danced with a spotlight behind her, illuminating her sillouette as she writhed around inside.

Cho was equally awesome. For her first act, she emerged dressed completely in Aztec warrior garb, complete with helmet with a huge, sprouting mohawk, breastplate, shield and spear. She stripped and strutted around the stage, slowly losing each piece of her costume. Then, when it looks like she's about to rip off her black warrior skirt, she instead rips it in half. The waistband was actually two flexible batons with transparent black flags attached, draping all the way down to her feet and back up behind her, attaching at the back of her neck. She whipped those suckers around like some kind of warrior butterfly. She finished on the floor, topless. Oh, yeah, all this was done to Soundgarden's "Black Hole Sun."

For her second act, she slowly stripped off a nightgown while also flinging around two giant, pink-feathered fans that would throw Karl Lagerfeld into a jealous hissy-fit. She finally used them to reveal a twist ending worthy of David Lynch. I'll use a condensed excerpt from my interview to explain:

Me: Some of your burlesque is described as involving "gender swapping" and "gender play." What does that mean?

Cho: I have a very, very realistic false penis that will sometimes appear during dance routines. It's very shocking. It's very big.

Me: How big?

Cho: I don't know, but he's very big. Well, that's what people tell me - that he's very shockingly big.

So there you have it. I was paid to see Margaret Cho almost naked with a very shockingly big (and very dark) dick - with equally big, dark balls - dangling between her legs. Yeah. Awesome.

Deep Thoughts with Amy Sedaris

When having a party:

Have something ready in your apron pocket to talk about. My line is, "Yes, paella is very traditional to the Spaniards." Or "Wasn't that British territory?" If you see a shy person, ask them some questions like, "Why are you so shy? Tell everyone, we're all listening."

Thanks, Amy.

Check out other deep thoughts here!

Well, That's Better Than Oops! I Crapped My Spandex Shorts

Man, it's been over a month since I've posted, missing Christmas, New Year's and my birthday, the most important of all the holidays. But I swear I'm getting my internet situation cleaned up this weekend so I can get back to it.

In the mean time, feast your eyes on the latest in publishing glory:



OK, I don't want to be rude, since I have nothing but respect for the people they feature in their magazine (I say this because they show an elderly female weight lifter who could crack my head between her shoulder blades), but, come on, Geezer Jock? Couldn't they think of something less...um...self-parodic for the title? Like Elderly Athlete or Oldies Squattin' or something?

I shouldn't mock. Like I said, I just celebrated yet another birthday and twisted my ankle drunkenly falling down a stair. Yes, I twisted my ankle falling down one singular stair. Next stop: dialysis. So I can only hope that I'll be half as fit as the subscribers of Geezer Jock when I'm their age. Or hell, even by my next birthday.

Also check out: Happy Birthday to Me.
And: Party Like it's 2001, or 2001: A Space Cadet's Odyssey.

Sick and Busy...

...But I will hopefully be back in full swing soon. Let's just say December 2006 is already a strange, hectic, overwhelming, stressfull learning experience. Ugh.

So...Much...Green...

Obviously, I'm re-working a few things here. I like to give my blog a new look every once in a while, and when Blogger introduced their new Beta mode, I made a few drastic changes. Unfortunately, unlike many of my blogging friends who seemed to have made the transition smoothly, I seemed to have lost a few things along the way.

So bear with me, enjoy the fresh, crisp, herbacious new look, play around with the labels I'm slowly adding to all my posts and hopefully I'll get the kinks worked out soon!

(Update: Things are looking better as of 12/4, but I had to completely re-enter my links list. Please don't take it personally if I missed your link because I had no time to remember every single link I used to have. So, if you were a link on my roll, or would like to be, please email me - donb80@gmail.com - and remind me. Thanks!)

The Top 10 List of Top 10 Lists

It's that time of year again when editors need to fill space and people need to be told what to buy lest they actually think on their own. Thus, we have not only have The New York Times' Top 10 Books of the Year, but also their Top 100 Notable Books of the Year list which, now that I think about it, is a strangely vague title. Are they notable because they're good or just because they got the biggest PR, media and critical attention? Well, Nicole Ritchie's "novel" never made the list, so their credibility is intact for now, no matter how boring and obvious the list may be.

A more interesting list, however, is The Atlantic's 100 Most Influential Americans of All Time. This title is decidedly not vague, but it is a little unambitious. I mean, geez, only 100? "Of All Time"? Slackers.

The list is full of predictable (which I don't use to imply they're undeserved) choices: Abraham Lincoln (#1), George Washington (2), Thomas Jefferson (3) and Martin Luther King Jr. (8). What's interesting is reading about how the ten historians chosen to vote by The Atlantic made their decisions...

No celebrities! What? Are they all living in some stuffy, TV-less, elbow-patched-jacket vacuum? Historian Walter McDougall "eliminated celebrities altogether on the grounds that their influence is shallow, ephemeral, and replaceable." David M. Kennedy said entertainment is "highly evanescent" and that most entertainers "leave no lasting legacy." How colorless and asexual are their sad little worlds.

Of course, there is Elvis Presley (66) and Louis Armstrong (79), but, I mean, come on. Interestingly, Walt Whitman is ranked 22nd. Haven't they heard? Poetry is so 60's! A-duh hickey, too-cool-for-school (or should I say, too-cool-because-of-school?) historians. Since poetry is such a floundering, uninfluential medium today, how could Mr. Body Electric rank so high? (Please note: the last 39 words are totally sarcastic. Poetry isn't floundering. It's dead. Dead as a rotting carcass on top of a dried skeleton on top of Richard Grieco's career.)

So allow me, at the risk of making those so-called "historians" jealous, to make some of my own suggestions for this sorely lacking list:

3) John Travolta. Bear with me here. OK, in Grease he was this totally studly, good-looking, popular guy who could also sing and dance and wear fitted t-shirts all while appearing 100% heterosexual. So, thanks to him, a whole generation of women could believe that the studly, good-looking, popular guys who could also sing and dance and wear fitted t-shirts who went to their high school were actually straight, and those guys could actually convince themselves and others that they were all about chasin' the cooter. Thus, with one jut of Travolta's slithery hips, a whole generational high school survival system was solidified: millions of guys can avoid getting beat up and get to have prom dates and millions of girls can convince themselves that it's normal for really sensitive boyfriends to bake banana bread for their girlfriends. God bless this American tradition. God bless John Travolta.

2) The Sumerians. Because my .5 seconds of online research taught me that the Sumerians inadvertently invented beer 6,000 years ago (although it doesn't say specifically where they were when this happened, it's safe to assume it was either Vegas or the University of Wisconsin-Madison). Anyone who invented this sweet nectar must have been the celebrities of their time (even if we're talking about an entire culture). Sure, they may not be "American" (what does that even really mean anymore, anyway?) but because of them, ugly people get to have sex, frat boys accelerate the Darwinian process by killing 90% of their brain cells within two months of their freshman year and I get through life every day. (Please note: that last part was totally sarcastic. I also use pot. And Starbucks.)

1) Phil Donahue. Not because he introduced whiny, self-absorbed validation-seeking as self-help. Not because he taught us that the best way to communicate is through confrontation and televised humiliation. And not because he was a totally intellectual stud muffin paving the way for the Matt Lauers and Stone Phillipses (remember Stone Phillips? No? Neither do I) of the world. No, Donahue is influential because without him there would be no Oprah, and without Oprah there would be no Tyra Banks. 'Nuff said.

Yeah, so suck it, Thomas Edison. Eat you heart out, Walt Disney. And it's more like the "Wrong Brothers," Wright Brothers.

But, of course, these are just suggestions. The Atlantic's list is still kind of pretty good. I guess.

Kiwi, Tab and Turkey

In February I shared a poem and a video to celebrate Valentine's Day. Thanksgiving, my favorite holiday, is coming up, but I can't exactly reach through the screen and give you all a plate of steaming mashed potatoes with turkey and cranberry sauce. So I thought I'd do the next best thing and share two videos...that have nothing to do with Thanksgiving whatsoever.

Unless, of course, your Thanksgiving feast is enjoyed with a tall, frosty glass of ice-cold Tab. And if it is, then maybe you also enjoy Thanksgiving wearing leg warmers and torn-up sweatshirts hanging off one shoulder, but that's not the point. The point is, Tab is awesome. And so is this commercial for Tab from the late 60's/early 70's (I'm estimating). I was directed to its brilliance via Elizabeth Crane's awesome blog, and I urge each and every one one of you to watch it. Description cannot do it justice, but the lyrics allude to its dizzy hilarity: "When you can't be with him, be in his mind. Be a mind-sticker." Yes, I'm serious. Tab was all about appealing to the ladies: "Being in good shape - shape with Tab. Keeping your shape in shape has its rewards." All being said in a creepy/sexy male voiceover as a husband comes home to his foxy, Tab-chugging wife.

Watch it below or check it out here.



Um, yeah. Totally makes me want to drink Tab. Or trip on acid. Or both.

The second video is completely different. By way of Popwatch, this is a master thesis from film student Dony Permedi entitled "Kiwi!" It's about a bird who can't fly who goes to great lengths for one last grande attempt. It's cute, funny, sad, complicated and - ultimately - heartbreaking. It's also three minutes long, so break away from your work and spreadsheets and emails to watch it at least once. But you'll probably want to watch it more than once.

Check it out below or watch it here.



So what do these have to do with Thanksgiving? Um, let's see...one is reminder for an underappreciated, overlooked beverage to take its rightful place next to your spiced apple cider, and the other is about being thankful for the things you have rather than dragging yourself down about the things you don't.

Maybe that's a stretch.

OK, it's totally a stretch.

But my brain is already so distracted by the inevitable pleasure overload of pumpkin pie that I can't think straight. So enjoy!