Snott Normal

2011 in Music

2012-02-01T00:01:00.003-05:00

Oh hey, it's February. This was my last year. Much love to y'all.

Man Man - "Knuckle Down"

Foster the People - "Waste"

Zilla Persona - "Slither"

Willie Nelson - "Crazy"

Patsy Cline - "She's Got You"

La Roux - "Not Your Toy"

Oasis - "Don't Look Back in Anger"

Tom Waits - "Hope I Don't Fall In Love With You"

Roger Alan Wade - "If You're Gonna Be Dumb, You Gotta Be Tough"

Velvet Underground - "After Hours"

Wherein Ed and Justin prepare for the holidays...

2011-12-02T10:58:00.002-05:00

Justin: I want to start trying my own punch recipes, but I feel like I need to like... write out ingredients and mentally process it before actually buying it. I figure if I stick to the "1 sour 2 sweet 3 strong 4 weak" I should be okay.

Ed: Like, proportions?
Justin: Yeah. That's the traditional saying for making punch.
Ed: Grapefruit juice, honey, Rumplemintz, Coors Light.
Justin: ...yeah. Yeah, you've just about got it.

Wherein Ed remembers why he shouldn't read comments sections on the Internet...

2011-11-10T13:41:00.000-05:00

"That was a pretty good movie, but it didn't have enough Citizen Kane in it."

As of late, I've taken to finally wading through Goodreads reviews, just to thumb through other folks' opinions on things I'm reading. It's the closest I can usually get to talking to someone about specific books, except for that rando time when a bunch of my friends read The World According to Garp at once. Or when Luke convinced me to give The Fountainhead another shot. In both cases, much literary symposium was had (in the passive voice) and it was lovely.

Anyways, the vast majority of the reviews of one of the books I'm currently slogging through boiled down to "This book is pretty good, but it doesn't have enough Bible in it." I don't think I get it.

If "not enough Bible" is your primary critique, what's the point of reading best-selling popular fiction? It's like sitting down to a game of Checkers and commenting that it's not enough like Chess. I get that the novel is essentially about a man's relationship with God, but it's trying to tell a story. If you'd really rather that not be the case, why not just read the Bible in the first place?

All I've taken from this experience: when I get around to writing The Great American Novel, it will be jam packed with Ezekiel 23:20. My public demands it.

Pumpkin faces in the night

2011-11-07T10:38:00.000-05:00

Last year, I learned that the fastest route to a sad Halloween is affixing a shoddily constructed M.O.D.O.K. helmet to your face with Krazy Glue. As such, I wanted to celebrate All Hallows' Eve in a considerably lower-impact fashion.

If things got any lower-impact, I'd've just gone as Kevin Smith again.

Sure, I made efforts to secure a complete outfit of shining yellow, and even had made plans to fashion a tail out of some fabric store findings. As it turns out, they don't really make an extraordinary selection of yellow clothing for fat guys. I found a thirty-dollar pair of yellow sweatpants, some overpriced tracksuits, and t-shirts with designer labels that apparently add twenty dollars to whatever a t-shirt should actually cost.

By that point, I was too lazy to even schlep up to Queens for some yellow fleece.

Still, I owe many thanks to the lady on Etsy who fashioned an extra-large Pikachu helmet for my enormous dome. It's so warm and fashionable! And I managed to dress it up just enough to make me adorable for our first Scale of Six gig. Pika-pi, indeed.

Thanks again to everyone that came out last Friday, and a belatedly Happy Halloween to all!

There's always room...

2011-10-18T09:32:00.000-04:00

Justin: Jell-O Pudding Wipes.
Justin: Let's make it happen.
Ed: Are they for wiping up pudding, or for... your business?
Justin: I'm not sure it matters.

Last call for drinks...

2011-10-08T00:01:00.001-04:00

Oh bloody hell.

I love Tom Waits' voice. A lot of folks are turned off by the "I have been marinating my vocal cords in whiskey for thirty years" quality he's taken on over the years, but they're all just stupid jerkfaces. This is one of my very favorites from his repertoire, and the addition of a sad puppet kind of makes me want to cry.

You know, in the good way.

It takes a whole lot of medicine...

2011-10-07T00:01:00.003-04:00

It's a shame that most folks don't know much of Randy Newman's songbook beyond "Short People," "You've Got a Friend in Me," and (sadly, most prominently) that time the red-headed lady reached for an apple. Mr. Newman writes a hell of a song.

I shared Bonnie Raitt's cover of this tune a ways back, but there's something jarring about Newman's simple delivery that has kept me looping this recording for years. His melody is presented so heartbreakingly matter-of-factly that you have to feel for the miserable slob weeping on his lost love's doorstep.

I can't help but think that most of us have been there.

I've got these little things...

2011-10-06T14:40:00.003-04:00

I want to sing this.¹ Drop it a half step or so, shuffle some pronouns, and I think it'd be a blast. Ladies give class rings to their manfriends, right?

I've been on a country kick for the past month or two, which is a long while for me to focus on any one particular thing.² Not modern radio county (which, for the most part, seems to be a bizarre amalgam of '80s hair metal and Radio Disney) so much as the older stuff that I used to find on cassettes in my grandfather's car. I didn't really appreciate it back then, likely because the cassettes didn't feature the pop stylings of my first true love. Lately, though, I've been playing catch up, from Willie to Waylon.

On the whole, I can't really say that I've lived a tumultuous enough life to "identify" with a lot of these tunes. I grew up in the suburbs of Connecticut with a large, loving family that actually supported my interests and talents. Sure, I've had some shitty years - '96 was awful, and I'm probably still hung over from The Great Fallings Apart of '07 and '10 - but I've lived a happy, comfortable life.

As country tropes go, I'm about as well-equipped to identify with this stuff as I was for the blues. The music to which I've been listening divides pretty neatly into two categories: gospel songs and heartbreak songs. As much as I love gospel music, growing up in a church that seems to have conveniently forgotten the whole "love thy neighbor" thing has soured a lot of that content for me.

As for heartbreak, well... that's a bit easier to grasp. I'm a walking Pisces stereotype. I emote hard.

Generally, the rule of "Right Song, Right Time" applies. It just takes one little song with the right timing to throw you head over heels for a whole branch of music that would have sent "middle school you" tearing towards the frequency knob.

And honestly, I think that's what music is supposed to do.

¹ So long as Haley doesn't mind, since she's the one who introduced me to the song in the first place. When I'm an eccentric billionaire, I want to hire her as my official music recommender.
² Thanks, Spotify!

Wherein Ed remembers why headphones are the secret to happy subway travel...

2011-10-05T14:23:00.004-04:00

I haven't really embraced the whole e-book craze yet. I just love the feel of turning pages and the smell of musty paper. Still, I can't help but see the appeal of a small, more convenient doodad for subway travel. Beyond relieving the wrist strain of that three-hundred-pound-oh-please-pay-attention-to-me-on-the-L-train copy of Infinite Jest, e-readers obfuscate the cover of whatever you happen to be reading.

As engaging as that hour-long conversation on The Fountainhead with that drunk hobo was, I'm rarely seeking that sort of dialogue at eight in the morning.¹

During yesterday's morning commute, I noticed a middle-aged gentleman giving me the proverbial stinkeye as I waded through my schlocky fantasy novel. After struggling to ignore him for a minute or three, he tugged on my sleeve, pointed nervously at the cover of my book, and asked what I was reading. I tipped up my novel to reveal what might as well have been a Molly Hatchet album cover, mentioned the title, and went back to reading.

The guy spent the rest of my commute fidgeting and loudly muttering about my "demon book."

Nobody else really noticed.

The silent majority of New Yorkers typically excel at the gentle art of strapping on blinders and getting from Point A to Point B. That vocal minority, though... those folks can belt.

I bet that I don't forget my headphones for a while.

¹ Seriously. The guy claimed that his reading of The Fountainhead was what led him to drop out of college for a life of hoboing. I might have called bullshit if he didn't have a pretty detailed analysis of how frequently Rand described Howard Roark as "angular."

Wherein Ed wishes his little brother good luck...

2011-09-30T12:14:00.003-04:00

Justin: My interview's in less than 3 hours. I'm a bit nervous. D:
Justin: I know the cardinal rule is not to say labia
Justin: But I know I'm going to slip up

Wherein Ed is a little teapot...

2011-09-20T13:02:00.003-04:00

"I am not interested in someone short and stout. KTHXBAI" - excerpt of reply to what I had hoped was a reasonably charming OKCupid message

Whoof. I give up.

Son of a gun, we'll have big fun on the bayou

2011-09-19T13:41:00.020-04:00

Once upon a time, I tried to make jambalaya.

Before this time, I had never taken a stab at Creole cooking. Beyond the base Holy Trinity and the inclusion of Andouille, I really had no idea what I was doing. This probably heralds about how well I was destined to fare.

I scurried about, seeking the closest approximations to Andouille and tasso that I could find in my suburban Connecticut Stop & Shop. Long story short, I purchased everything I thought I required, got home, and realized that I didn’t have long-grain rice. A-whoops.

Like a good little quarter-Italian boy, I did have a jug of Arborio rice in the cupboard. So I cobbled together some sort of jambalaya risotto. Given how poorly-planned the whole adventure was, it turned out edibly.

On a whim, I decided to recreate this experiment over the weekend, but with a clearer course of action. I'm sure that jambalaya-purists would scoff, but a well-planned jambalaya risotto seemed like a nice spin on something that I'm already pretty comfortable making. If I was going to spend an afternoon making a cauldron of lunch, it needed to be done up proper.

In preparation, I waded through a handful of jambalaya recipes online, and even found one that was risotto-centric. I had a skeleton with which to make food! With something resembling a recipe in-hand, I stalwartly plodded off to Key Food in hopes of finding delightfully smoked meats.

A side note: I grew up in a kitchen where quantity is measured in shakes, glugs, and handfuls, and where one knows broth is ready once it has "had the shit boiled out of it." As such, this recipe is really just a loose guideline that will change from batch to batch (and to taste).

three chicken thighs, skin-on and bone-in
two big ol' links of andouille sausage, cut into sassy little meat-coins
a half-pound of tasso ham, cubed (If you can find it - I couldn't, but I found a smoked chunk of pork shoulder that seemed vaguely analogous.)
one green bell pepper, diced
three or four stalks of celery, diced
two or three carrots, diced
one big onion, diced
four or five cloves of garlic, minced
one little can of diced tomatoes (I'd use fresh ones if I was cooking for someone else, but I'm a Lazy Gus.)
a cup and a half of arborio rice
one cup of white cooking wine (I don't really know anything about wine, but I know it makes risotto happy.)
four or so cups of chicken stock (preferably low-salt if you're buying it instead of making it)
two notches of butter or so
a blurb of olive oil
tbsp. oregano
tbsp. thyme
as much cayenne pepper as makes you happy
two or three bay leaves
"Cajun seasoning" (You can make your own through some combination of cayenne, paprika, salt, onion powder, garlic powder, etc. Again, I'm lazy and would probably be more discerning if I wasn't planning on eating the whole cauldron myself over the course of the week.)
Parsley, salt, pepper, etc.

So here's what I did:

Preheat the oven to 350 or so. Peel back the skin on the chicken thighs and liberally shake your "Cajun seasoning" on the meat within. Then fold the skin back over to create some sort of magical meatpouch of wonderful spiciness. If you're feeling saucy, you can shake a l'il spice on the bottom on the thighs, too! Bake the thighs skin-up, so all of the luscious skin-fat cooks into the chicken, making it better for your mouth and worse for your burgeoning gut.
Get to dicing. I threw all of the veggies into one giant bowl so I could marvel at how nice they all look together. And so I could dump everything in at once. Fewer cross-contamination fears are my favorite parts of one-pot cookin'.
Set a big honkin' pot on medium heat, and melt your butter with a spot of olive oil. Toss in the andouille and tasso, and wait for them to release their bounty of lipid-juices into the pot.
Dump in the carrot, pepper, onion, and celery. Keep it all moving until the kitchen starts to smell like awesome, and then keep it moving some more until the carrots soften up. Since all of the meat in there is precooked, feel free to make sure that it's sufficiently soft with your mouth.
Once everything has softened up, dump in your garlic, bay leaves, and rice. If you've made risotto before, you'll recognize this as the part where you just keep stirring and adding more juice, about a cup at a time. If you haven't made risotto before, this is the part where you keep stirring and adding more juice, about a cup at a time. I started with the wine, then the can of tomatoes, then the stock. The order probably makes an important difference, but I mostly just wanted to get some ingredients off of my limited counter space.
Really, just keep stirring and adding liquid for a while. Arborio rice sucks up a lot of liquid and spurts out a lot of starch, so the pot will get progressively creamier as it cooks. This is a good time to grab a beer or crank the music for some kitchen-dancing. I think I've settled on "Eight Days A Week" as my favorite song for cook-dancin'.
Once the chicken is cooked and cool enough to play with, remove the skin and shred the meat with a pair of forks. Toss it in the pot and mix it in, preferably while eating a greasy wad of chicken skin. There's a reason I look like this, and it probably relates to eating greasy wads of chicken skin.
By now, you should be on the last cup or so of stock. You might need more than four cups, you might need less; basically keep going until everything looks creamy. Toss in your oregano and thyme, and go nuts with the cayenne. I know I did. I also threw some fresh chopped parsley in there at the end. You can salt and pepper to taste, but I didn't find it necessary.
Get Other Ed to take a picture of it for you, because your camera is broken. This step is optional, and its success hinges upon whether or not Other Ed happens to be around.

The photo is a bit dim, but it was a pretty fantastic dinner. And lunch. And it will continue to fill those roles for a few more days, because this recipe makes a lot. If anyone wants to barter goods or services for jambalaya, hit me up.

Oh, and apparently I'm a food blogger now.

When there are clouds in the sky, you'll get by

2011-09-01T20:11:00.008-04:00

On my way home from work today, I witnessed a hippie-esque fellow in his late-forties slide down the railing to the Bowling Green station. I giggled, just because it was an amusing shift from the typically stodgy "folks-in-suits" that one usually sees around that particular neigh'. He stepped onto the same train car as me, and my mind wandered off as my nose fell into my book.

As we pulled into the next stop, he hollered to the entire train to hold the door for him while he stepped out for a smoke. He promised to bring back a cup of coffee for everyone that held the door, and went on his way.

And the whole train chuckled.

Making one New Yorker smile is a feat. Getting that many of them to actually laugh is a Herculean feat. If I had been wearing a hat, that Ginger Baker-lookin' guy would have warranted a hefty tip of it. Everyone needs more smiles!

Turn and face the strange

2011-09-01T13:38:00.002-04:00

2011 has been a kooky year. As of late, it's all been "kooky ha-ha," which is a nice shift from all of that "kooky uh-oh" I was wading through a few months prior. The year kicked off with a handful of questionable decisions followed by some markedly good ones. In a way, making so many bad ones went a long way towards helping me recognize the difference.

It has been ninety days since my last catastrophically stupid decision. I'd say that I'm doing pretty damn well.

I finally finished my thesis. For a while, I assumed that I would be a student forever solely due to my inability to juggle work, writing, and that thing we call "life." After slogging through the last of my editing, I have become what some might call a grown-up (or a "Master of Eric Clapton," which has a much nicer ring to it).

I'll likely insist that friends call me "Master Ed" until they hate me and/or I get bored of it.

This alone marks a significant turning point in my life - for the first time in nearly twenty-five years, I am uninvolved in the academic world. Although I was never adept at getting my homework done on time, it's a bizarre feeling to get home and not have it peering over my shoulder. I can indulge in whatever activities seem like a good use of my time without guilt. If I want to go home and listen to old Nashville country in my underpants for four hours, I can do so. I'm pretty sure that's what being a grown-up in all about.

Amidst this newfound sense of eternal summertime, good things loom.

The band, hopefully to be named "Shrimpfork," is getting ready to play for the world (or at least for a handful of friends that decide to show up). After a solid four years away from regular performance, it has felt fantastic to have this to look forward to. It's been a while since I have had to hold an audience's attention, but I'm hoping that doing so is similar to riding a bicycle.¹

Worst case, I'll just have to get by on my raw charisma and stunning adorability.

It has also been wonderful to involve myself in the songwriting process, bit by bit. I've never fancied myself a songwriter, but I have been taking sloppy stabs at it for a while now.² Working with other people, I can weigh in on the bits that I feel comfortable with - primarily melody and song structure - without getting bogged down by my less-than-stellar relationship with chord progressions and changes. Sure, I'm not really doing any of the writing, but I feel that I'm making myself useful for once. And that's pretty rad.

The eat-blog is primarily an excuse for unbridled buffoonery, but it has sent me on a handful of adventures which I otherwise would have put off indefinitely. It's a small step, but definitely one in the direction of doing things instead of just bloody talking about them. The slightly bigger step is applying this to the rest of my life. The Yes Man mentality might be a bit more than I'm ready to tackle, but it's more or less what I've been trying to live.

After I crack open that can of beondegi, I should be able to conquer anything that life tosses at me.

One of my best friends moved back to New York in June, and another just got here yesterday. I'm making music with one, and will be making music with the other once he's settled. These days, I'm living for those brief stretches of time where my hair is untied, I've got a microphone in my hand, and I can thrash around a bit to a tasty groove. When you spend so much time thinking about something, you can't help but think that you've stumbled into something good.

It's funny how the sorts of things that make me happy now are the same sorts of things that made me happy ten years ago. Sometimes you just need a little bit of a detour to suss it all out.

¹ Let's just put aside the fact that I really, really suck at riding bicycles.

² "Sloppy Stabs" - another pretty bitchin' band name. This is why I'm not allowed to name the band.

Notes From The Hurricane: Safe and Sound (Sunday, 5:07 P.M.)

2011-08-28T17:07:00.007-04:00

One broken umbrella and a few blustery mouthfuls of sand later, the perilous trek from Astoria to Greenpoint is complete. It probably wasn't the best idea to make the journey on foot while the winds were still a-whippin', but lord knows when they'll get the subways up and running again. Five bucks says tomorrow morning involves a foot-adventure down to the FiDi.

All the best to anyone that actually has clean-up to do. I didn't see much worse than some tree limbs lolling about in the street, but my walk mostly kept me inland.

Notes From the Hurricane: Caffeine, Part II (Sunday, 11:02 A.M.)

2011-08-28T11:02:00.007-04:00

As it turns out, Dunkin Donuts was the only place that was open.

Stick it, "The Bucks."

Notes From the Hurricane: Groggy Boredom (Sunday, 10:08 A.M.)

2011-08-28T10:08:00.004-04:00

Though some outdoor sloshing occasionally woke me from my two-seasons-of-Weeds-induced slumber, it looks like I've survived the night. Peering out the window, it looks like this neck of Queens wasn't hit too hard. Or at all, really.

Half of the news sources I'm looking at say there's more storm a-coming, half say that the rain-rain has gone away, and half say "Ed, you should go see if Dunkin Donuts is open." Based on all of the cars on the road, I might investigate the latter.

My host texted to let me know that there is a headlamp here, in the off-chance we lose power (or in case I decide to go spelunking). Now I kind of want a few hours without power. It'd make reading much more of an adventure.

Notes From the Hurricane: Caffeine (Saturday, 11:26 A.M.)

2011-08-27T11:26:00.007-04:00

Stir-crazy and wracked with cabin fever, I finally decided to brave the storms in hopes of finding a satisfactory cup of coffee. And boy howdy, was it drizzly out there. Even with the aid of a slick, navy umbrella, the rain managed to permeate the especially penetrable canvas of my sneakers. This is where that back-up pair of socks would have come in handy. Note to self.

Although the subways were about to shut down, many noble merchants continued to stalwartly tend their shops. Even as the raindrops pummeled my plucky little bumbershoot, I was afforded myriad dining options from falafel to Popeye's fried chicken. Say what you will about the general American work ethic - the folks in this neighborhood do not back down to a spot of liquid.

It's good to know that, even in the face of a big ol' wet mess, New Yorkers have their priorities straight. Every coffee-brewing establishment I passed was mobbed. I wouldn't like to think about the riots that would ensue during any sort of coffee shortage. Lines aside, the mission was a resoundingly damp success.

Despite the trickles of rain, there hasn't been any floodwater yet. That's comforting. I think it's a safe assumption that New York City floodwater would be the most vile liquid imaginable, comprised primarily of feces, rat moisture, and Coney Island whitefish. Blerf.

Notes From the Hurricane: All Good In the Hood (Saturday, 12:09 A.M.)

2011-08-27T00:09:00.005-04:00

It's still gorgeous out. I've been pondering going out for a beer and/or social interaction, but I'm pretty sure that the nice weather is just trying to trick me. If I take one step outside, I'm liable to get pummeled by bloodthirsty raindrops. We just can't have that.

My friends are probably going to be upset when their Netflix suggestions are based entirely upon my watching of "Wild Cherry" and "The Animal." They're going to get back, and it will insist they want to see "Raunchy Teen Comedies with Strong Female Leads and/or Rob Schneider."

By the by, "The Hot Chick" isn't available for streaming on Netflix. Hurricanes suck!

Notes From the Hurricane: Premature Evacuations and Go-Bags (Friday, 9:46 P.M.)

2011-08-26T21:46:00.003-04:00

With the impending New York City State of Emergency declared by our great president, the city's public transportation system is shutting down for (at least) the weekend. As such, I made the hasty decision to evacuate my Zone B Brooklyn apartment for the slightly more inland safe haven of Astoria, Queens. Some wonderful, wonderful friends offered me their couch for to weather the weather, so I jammed some odds and ends into a backpack and embarked upon The Greatest Adventure.

The last major hurricane that I recall occurred way back when I was a young'un. All I really remember about it was that Mom let me celebrate the gusty rains with a steamy bowl of Spaghetti-O's (a rare treat!), and this seemed as good a start as any.

two (2) cans of Spaghetti-O's (original)

Since I am more or less a grown-up now, it seemed logical to pack some vege-tables as well. Not wanting to wade through the murderous crowds at the supermarket, I opted to hit up the local 7-Eleven.

one (1) can of corn niblets
one (1) can of green beans

The skies were still clear (actually, it was a gorgeous sunset), so I decided to make a pit-stop en route for some additional sustenance. If I'm going to be stewing in my own juices for a weekend or so, I plan on doing so college-style.

three (3) take-out Chinese dinner combinations (General Tso's Chicken, vegetable lo mein, and pork egg foo young)
three (3) cans of Arizona Green Tea (they were out of the Black & White, likely due to inclement weather hysteria)

I'm not a total buffoon, and managed to remember the one thing I probably need.

one (1) jug o' water

Even though I planned on bunkering down in the apartment, I thought it wise to not wear the same clothes for days and days because I 1) am going to have to live with my own stink for the foreseeable future; and 2) have yet to shed my primitive notions of modesty. I'd prefer to keep my ass as non-bare as possible throughout this disaster, just in case Big Brother is watching or something. I don't want the government seeing any more of my bits than they already probably do.

three (3) dry t-shirts
two (2) dry pair of shorts
four (4) pairs of underpants (overstock just in case a horrible thunderbolt causes a more horrible accident)

Most importantly, my weekend of solitude was to require entertainment. Between growing up in the shiny 1980s and living in the 24/7 bustle of New York, boredom is a fate worse than death.

one (1) vaguely functional netbook (for to document this momentous occasion)
one (1) mostly-charged Game Boy SP (because I couldn't find a flashlight)
four (4) volumes of Fables (nos. 10-13)
one (1) cellular phone (actually charged for once)

Impressively enough, I also remembered to bring:

one (1) stick of deodorant (Old Spice, whichever scent I've been using since I was like 12)

I am going to bask in my masculine musk like "whoa."

This list was written after I reached my direction, once I decided that this journal would be a good way to pass the lonely hours. You'll notice that I forgot things like a toothbrush, toothpaste, and extra socks. Well, at least I remembered water.

Just because I'm more or less a grown-up doesn't mean that I'm any good at it.

When push comes to shove, you gotta do what you love...

2011-08-23T15:10:00.003-04:00

...even if it's not a good idea.

To get a New York State ID card, one needs an original social security card.

To get an original social security card, one needs a valid state ID.

I am just about ready to tear bureaucracy's face off.

Wherein Ed acknowledges that there is a limit to his nerd-dom...

2011-08-01T12:56:00.006-04:00

Owen: ed, they had a brony meetup at the local gamer store. SIXTY PEOPLE showed up.
Ed: Brony?
Owen: adult male fans of my little pony.
Ed: Huh.
Ed: I didn't know that it was that popular.

Wherein Ed passes along some wisdom from King Diamond.

2011-07-11T23:35:00.003-04:00

Agustina Hogan: just got home and i'm feeling a little naughty lol.. u gonna help me or what
Ed: But then you won't get presents for Christmas!
Agustina Hogan: Oh yeah i'm super horny lolz! u?
Ed: I think we need to address this Christmas situation.

Oh, simplicity. I love you.

2011-07-07T16:29:00.001-04:00

"When your remote control has fifty buttons, you can't change the channel anymore." - Chip Heath & Dan Heath, Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die

Words to live by, friends.

Monthly Challenge Journal, 20 June 2011

2011-06-20T01:12:00.001-04:00

I had been scribbling notes on my daily food adventures with plans of doing a write-up every day. I soon realized that it's a lot easier to just let my face do the talking. So the continued adventures of Ed! Eats Things will be documented over there with my video rantings and delightful commentary from the ever-studious Other Ed. I'll save this place for non-food related adventures. Hoo-ray.

In other news, I have a feeling that my monthly challenge may well turn into an "until I get bored of it" challenge. I had planned on switching things up month-to-month, but I'm having enough fun eating random schtuff that I'm going to keep it up until I run out of offal and bugs to shovel down my gullet.

Yes, that does mean there will be offal and bugs in the near-future.

Monthly Challenge Journal, 11 June 2011

2011-06-11T14:47:00.000-04:00

Again, this whole project is being compiled by the lovely Other Ed right over here.

For amusement's sake, here are a handful of recurring suggestions I've received from friends: ostrich, pig-foot, tempeh, ants, Four Loko, habanero peppers, tripe. All of that stuff has already wriggled its way through my digestive tract at some point or another. Keep posting, though! Just try to shy away from pee-eggs, because I don't want to die/cry.

Day Seven: With a scant few hours before band rehearsal, Other Ed and I confidently strolled into Gristedes in hopes of finding ill-advised foodstuffs. As I guessed at the conception of this project, raw produce was a wellspring of inspiration. This particular market afforded the opportunity to stock up on a few days' worth of culinary adventures, and nudged me to sample a vege-table I'd occasionally seen as an ingredient in hot sauce...

I love bad similia.

Day Eight: When I told people that I spent an evening trying to eat an aloe leaf, the general reaction was "Can you do that?"

The simple answer: you certainly can, though I wouldn't recommend it. It makes things like that happen.

Day Nine: The last of my Gristedes purchases was an unassuming can from the Goya aisle. I saved it for last, because I expected I might enjoy it more than the chayote or aloe leaf and because I suspected it was the least likely to rot in the sweltering humidity of my third-floor walk-up.

I discovered after the fact that my brother loves this stuff. I might have to pester him for further Goya rarities; I've mostly avoided the section since my first experience with tamarind soda. Doo doo, doo doo doo.

Day Ten: For a change of pace, today's adventure took place in the wild. I met up with my good chums Rich and Jay in Koreatown with the intent of gettin' our chow on.

A side note: if the Goya aisle is the Smithsonian of foods I haven't tried, Koreatown is the damn Library of Alexandria. Besides tapping to let me draw a card, the place is just filled with marvelous products that don't even look like food to my sheltered Western brain (See Beondegi). I have a feeling I'll be making several trips back here in the near future, possibly even to purchase those creepy, whole, freeze-dried crabs rolled in sesame seeds.

As we planned on hitting Han Ah Reum after dinner, I decided to order something I was familiar with - bibimbap. This time, however, I chose to stray from my usual bulgogi or pork belly and try something new - a sizzling bowl of rice and veggies with thinly sliced beef marinated in sesame oil. Delightful!

So, apparently, "Yukhoe" is Korean tartare.

My first indication was that the bowl was, indeed, not sizzling. My second was the waitress trying to stifle a giggle as I dumbly gazed at my chilled bowl of veggies and raw beef. I'd never had tartare before, mostly because I infrequently frequent establishments fancy enough to dabble in such endeavors.

Still, this wasn't exactly something I was going to be squeamish about. I usually order meat on the rare side anyways, and the hot rice probably de-raw'd most of the egg. Once everything was sufficiently sauced and jostled, I dumped a loaded set of chopsticks into my mouthparts - and it was bloody fantastic.

I suppose I expected the meat to be tough, but it was thinly sliced and marinated to the point where it was exceptionally tender. The texture was a bit gooey, but after spending an evening sucking on an aloe leaf, I can't see that being a bother.

All in all, it was nice to end the work week by eating something new that I actually enjoyed.

Monthly Challenge Journal, 10 June 2011

2011-06-10T21:53:00.005-04:00

So. This evening, I went on a wild adventure with some o' my besties through Han Ah Reum, the big honkin' Korean grocery on 32nd Street. I purchased magical, magical foodstuffs.

I bought a quince.

I bought a persimmon.

I bought a package of what I think were corn-flavored gelatin cubes.

I bought banana-flavored Cheez-Doodle-lookin' things.

I bought a can of Beondegi (and wept inside).

Full of joy, fear, and sundry other emotions, we gleefully traipsed to the comic shop to look through assorted nerdly goods. As usual, they had us check our bags at the register. As unusual, they managed to misplace my gunnysack of deliciousness. Now, one of two scenarios ensued.

Scenario the First: somebody stole my groceries/is a dingus.

Scenario the Second: somebody was given my bag by accident, and will be horrified once they look at what's actually in there.

I truly, truly hope that the latter scenario took place, if only because I like envisioning the look of horror on a rando's face after finding a can of boiled worms mixed in with their funnybooks.

Monthly Challenge Journal, 9 June 2011

2011-06-09T01:05:00.002-04:00

These past few days witnessed my discovery of iMovie, a newfound appreciation for cocktail sauce, and the realization that I've already eaten a whole lot of weird stuff. As always, and with many thanks to Other Ed, you can witness my excellent adventures (and bogus journeys) here.

Day Four: I knew I wasn't going to escape this month without shoveling down some sort of seafood.¹ Since I managed to keep an oyster down a few months ago, I figured I might as well kick things off with the devil I knew. I'd been meaning to check out Maison Premiere anyways.

Underdressed, outswanked, and bolstered by my emerald goblet of La Sirene, I shuffled through the oyster list, shrugged, and chose the one with the cutest name. How could one not be enthused about eating a Kusshi? Buried in enough lemon juice and cocktail sauce, it actually wasn't all that bad. I wouldn't go as far as to say it was good, but it was decent enough for me to try a different one.

Bad move. Whatever the second kind of oyster was - probably not so adorably named as my beloved Kusshi - it recalled the sensation of that time someone sneezed into my mouth while I gargled saltwater.

I atoned with another Kusshi, knocked back the dregs of my absinthe, and wandered off to Keg and Lantern for a lager and a rousing match of Connect Four. I'll call this a successful Saturday night.

Day Five: Long story short, I ate a coconut. Short story long, I hit a coconut with a bunch of things, then filled the shell with Bulleit.

Day Six: With a few hours to kill before Skee-Ball, I made a quick detour to Myers of Keswick. I'd wanted to try Cumberland sausage for a while, and I had heard that Myers makes a mean coil. I indeed bought some, but the true star of the show was something I'd wanted to try for even longer: Scotch eggs.

¹ Since I was tiny, seafood has been the one thing I just can't do. Apparently I would eat it when I was supremely tiny; Mom thinks I just ate a bad shrimp or something. I'm pretty sure it has more to do with my overactive imagination not wanting my mouth to get all slashed up trying to eat swordfish.

Monthly Challenge Journal, 4 June 2011

2011-06-04T19:14:00.001-04:00

Other Ed, Documentarian of Ill-Conceived Comestibles and Roommate to the Stars, has been kind enough to set up a sub-site detailing, in video, my grandiose quest to eat stuff.¹If my verbose rants aren't your particular cup of leaf-juice, go watch me try new foods there. Or make me feel super-special and do both!

Day one: After an unsuccessful trek to Whole Foods, I purchased a carton of unsweetened, "original flavor" hemp milk from a nearby organic-centric bodega. Imagine a thin, odorless, opaque liquid that tastes vaguely like Communion wafers, and you have a decent idea of what I just put into my mouth. Does anyone have suggestions for what to do with the rest of the carton? I don't want to throw it away, but I'm also loathe to dribble any more of it into my mouth-hole.

Interesting side note: the carton makes a point of explaining that this delicious rope-juice has no THC. I understand that the good folks at the hemp-dairy are simply trying to assuage the fears of conservative middle America or whatever, but I doubt that this is really a selling point for the stuff's assumed intended audience. Namely, filthy, filthy hippies.

Day two: Today, I hit up Slodycze Wedel, a most excellent Polish candy shop near my apartment. I wasn't sure for what I was looking, and given my non-existent grasp of the Polish language, I wouldn't be able to read it once I found it. Way back when, Rich and I used to make a game of purchasing foods that we couldn't read and hoping for the best. It usually didn't end well.

Luckily, I stumbled into something a friend had suggested I try - halva. As best I understand, halva is essentially tahini and sugar mushed up into a crumbly brick. Promising!

I'd always seen halva at Golden Farm when I lived in Kensington, but it never looked particularly appetizing. I plucked one that seemed to involve raisins, peanuts, and cranberries, and another that looked vaguely vanilla-esque. The texture was a wee bit mealy, but the bars were otherwise delicious! The first was indeed full of peanuts and raisins, though the "vanilla" one definitely wasn't vanilla-flavored. Hell if I know what it actually was. What else looks like a vanilla bean?

Day three: I poked around a few random markets after work, but it was a long day and I mostly just wanted to collapse into bed. So I drank half a shot of sweet vermouth.

It made me sad in my mouth.

¹ It bears mentioning: I am also Other Ed. "Other Ed" typically refers to whichever Ed is not present. It makes conversation smoother, and ensures that listeners comprehend that we aren't constantly speaking in the third-person.

Ed's Monthly Challenge, June 2011

2011-06-01T00:01:00.001-04:00

Based on recent happenings in the Kingdom of Loathing, I decided that life would be more interesting if I placed arbitrary guidelines on my day-to-day activities. At the beginning of each month (until I get bored), I'll implement a rule to live by and just... see how it goes. Maybe I'll learn important lessons about myself; more likely I'll accidentally drink a Coke on my "no corn for Ed" month and cry myself to sleep. In either case, I'll be sure to take notes and share my findings. For science!

In all honesty, this also seems like it could be a fun mental exercise. My memory isn't exactly sterling, so having something to keep in mind full-time might help sharpen the old noggin. Maybe. Kind of.

Ok, this is really just an excuse to amuse myself.

Hopefully, I'll wind up observing some sort of Bizarro Lent, but without all that nasty Catholic guilt to sap the fun out of things. Or even better, Reverse-Lent, where I have to pick something up for a month. Perhaps one month I'll have to eat every letter of the alphabet every day.¹ Maybe in another, I'll have to read a new children's book daily. If I'm feeling sassy, I can try to publicly misuse the word "lugubrious" once per day without anyone noticing. Hell, we can even celebrate a month where I have to switch to that creepy hippie toothpaste made out of tree bark or whatever. I don't know.

If you have suggestions for future months, please pass them along! So long as it won't kill me and I think it's funny, I'm probably game.

Without further adieu, Ed's Monthly Challenge for June, 2011: Each day, eat something I've never eaten before. Raw counts.²

Let's do this.

¹ Of course alphabet soup is cheating, dinguses. I imagine my diet during this month would entail a lot of quail eggs and snack foods labeled as "X-treme."
² This month's challenge comes courtesy of my brother, who will probably convince me to eat something horrible before the month is up.

This week I...

2011-05-31T12:38:00.001-04:00

...plopped my thesis into a mailbox.

...seriously, truly, plopped my thesis into a mailbox. I just needed to say that twice to acknowledge the gravity of the statement. That isn't to say that it's been formally accepted, but I'm not ready to ponder that particular cry-storm at this current juncture. What a long, strange trip it's been.

...found some gum.

...spent a solid two hours searching for a file that does not exist.

...received a pair of lovely visitors, one of whom overfed me with massive quantities of deliciousness. If any other culinary school students want to visit, drop a line. I'll offer up our crummy futons and excessive hugs!

I'm gonna drink whiles I'm up, woman. Drink until I fall.

2011-05-26T19:35:00.001-04:00

It's been a week++. There's a bit of light at the end of the tunnel, though, and I'm hoping that it's shiny enough there for me to sort out the odds and ends I've been putting off. It's time to break life's pause-button for a little while, methinks.

If nothing else, I'm looking forward to a good long nap in the park, a few handfuls of Skee-Ball, and a jug of "fancy" bourbon (which is like "fancy" ketchup, but it comes pre-fermented so you don't have to wait).

This week I...

2011-05-23T11:00:00.001-04:00

...edited even more. In the near future, I might actually make it to "non-failure at academia" status!

...helped a friend move. Hoo-ray for using my bulk productively!

...went to Staten Island on a non-work-related adventure for the first time ever. It's sitcomically suburban.

...ate some previously zested limes. The zest went into our second batch of beer, with which I have yet to be involved. This time around, I get to be The Bottle Captain. The Bottle Captain is in charge of getting the beer into bottles after it has spent a sufficient amount of time in the bucket. I suspect this position was fabricated to make me more excited about the prospect of transporting beer from a big container into smaller ones. This ploy, obviously, worked expertly.

...spouted more potential band names than anyone really cares to hear. The current fan favorite (well, Steinberg's favorite, anyways) remains Shrimpfork.

...faux pas'd my teeth in. I'm kind of bad at life sometimes, and I apologize for that.

This week I...

2011-05-17T11:24:00.000-04:00

...edited a lot.

...didn't edit enough.

...hit up Rub BBQ for Frito pie and fried Oreos with my folks. They were slightly skeptical until the Frito pie hit the table.

...came up with the best band name ever that nobody else likes: High Fructose Unicorn Syrup.

...came up with the worst band name ever that nobody else likes: High Fructose Richard Karn Syrup.

...received a jar of dried bhut jolokia peppers from my brother, which were promptly invested in a cauldron of dumpling soup. Nobody died.

...sort of hit the wall, but sort of kept running. Figuratively, of course. I'm too chubby to really run very far.

Mustn't let a few bad times dictate

2011-05-14T12:41:00.001-04:00

Though I'm not actively watching the show, I caught wind that Sia Furler was a guest coach on The Voice this past week.

"How odd."

I know that I tend to live beneath rocks, but I hadn't realized that she had received much attention in the States beyond "Breathe Me" showing up on the "Six Feet Under" finale.

Apparently, I need to pay more attention to what people are paying attention to.

According to The Wikipedias, Sia's cranked out oodles of music since Some People Have Real Problems (which I would have worn out by now if digital music was a bit more fragile). It goes on to patiently explain that she's been busy collaborating with everyone from David Byrne to X-tina herself. It even made a point of telling me that she happens to be Colin Hay's niece. Thanks, Wikipedia! I'll let that whole "1+1=3" incident slide.

Long story short, reality television is good for something. Thanks for reminding me to pop my head out from under that rock now and again, NBC. I need to be a bit more proactive about following up on music that makes me happy; the prospect of relying on reality teevee for my culture injections makes me weep with my inside-parts.

Don't forget to say, "Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah."

2011-05-10T00:01:00.001-04:00

Though I didn't really pinpoint it until recently, this early Isley Brothers performance highlights something that I feel is often lacking in modern pop music clips: spontaneity. I'm sure this was reasonably staged, but it mostly comes across as a group of brothers just having a good ol' time.

This isn't to say I'm not a proponent of the whole "pop music as art" notion. Most of my favorite music videos fall into the "artsy-fartsy" camp. Sometimes, though, it's nice to celebrate music for the sake of music and simply dance around. No fancy choreography here, just three dudes bustin' moves.

The resplendent airborne starfish leading into floor convulsions is especially glorious. Since our view is limited to the frenetic bobbing of Ronnie Isley's luxurious pompadour, one can only imagine what's going on below the camera line.

Part of me wants to study the fine craft of such powerful knee-dives, but a bigger part of me wants to keep my kneecaps attached.

This isn't so much about showmanship - it's hard to argue that modern pop performers are devoid of that - as much as my wishing things were still allowed to be a bit less deliberate. A shrewdly machinated spectacle is good times now and then, but that degree of orchestration is what pushed me away from more rigidly organized styles of music in the first place. I guess "rock" is the new "classical."

What with folks like Lady Gaga (or at least her fans) making such a fuss about their music meaning something, is there room on the radio for "music for the sake of music?" Would anyone care about a song that's "just" about dancing? Can there be middle ground between "Born This Way" and "Friday?"

I suppose that this sort of song still exists to some extent in the modern country and hip hop scenes, though I can't claim to have been paying close attention to either as of late. As best I can tell, modern country concerts mirror '80s hair metal concerts, but with better fireworks, less makeup, and fancier panties being hurled about. Modern hip hop exists solely to sell me things.¹

I'm not even sure if "radio rock" even exists anymore. Last I checked in on that, somebody thought it was a good idea to foist Nickelback upon innocent ears. As we all know, Nickelback is far too busy singing about how awesome it is to be Nickelback to juggle much else.

That pretty much leads us back to pop. It makes me wonder if there is a niche for American Bandstand-esque programming. Not that any of the music channels really feature music programming anymore, but more visible "live" performances would be a welcome addition to the increasingly detached pop world. I would relish a nudge every now and again to remind us that we used to watch performances for reasons beyond blinky Tron-suits and the occasional wardrobe malfunction. The very fact that we've come to expect this sort of debacle is just plain depressing.²

It's hard to imagine that this sort of show wouldn't be auto-tuned and nitpicked to hell, but it'd be a mighty swell alternative to the next best thing (which I'm guessing involves wading through chunks of Andy Samberg³ between musical performances). A few weeks back, my eyes were glued to a local pub's telly as they ran a marathon of old "Top of the Pops" tapes. Let's make that happen again.

Long story short, it feels good to be rehearsing again. I'm looking forward to singing because it makes me happy, in hopes of making other people happy.

¹ The Ying-Yang Twins (and Pitbull) are wholly responsible for me caring about Patrón at all, let alone why I should be "gwaking" it. Then again, the song is mostly about shaking it, so I suppose I shouldn't complain.
² Do folks watch the Super Bowl halftime show because they expect it to be enjoyable, or because they hope to catch a peek at Pete Townshend's leathery nipple? I sure know my answer.
³ Really, does anyone actually enjoy this guy? His career is almost as baffling as the ubiquitousness of Russell Brand.

Wherein Ed is denied steeping privileges...

2011-05-09T16:09:00.007-04:00

Me: I finally looked at the beer recipes.
Me: We should do the first one with lime instead of lemon!
Other Ed: it seems simple
Other Ed: and i want to do one where we have to steep things
Other Ed: so then we can steep weirder things later
Me: Yeah!
Me: Like jerky.
Me: Teriyaki stout, man.
Other Ed: you're not in charge of steeping
Other Ed: although that sounds good
Me: Sounds like the best.

This week I...

2011-05-09T11:16:00.000-04:00

...celebrated Mom. I also celebrated my grandmothers, aunts, and friends who happen to be mommies. Y'all are the tops.

...read in the park for the first time this year. I'd missed you, Spring.

...celebrated the 137th Kentucky Derby by drinking enough "mint juleps" to sterilize a bear. Speaking of bears and bars, it bears mentioning that "mint julep" at this particular bar actually meant "glass filled with ice, then filled with bourbon, then sprinkled with mint leaves." Whoo-whee. Shut my mouth, slap your grandma.

...managed to miss the actual "Kentucky Derby" part of the Kentucky Derby celebrations. It's not my fault that horses can run in circles faster than I can stumble towards the telly.

...noticed a trackback to a Google search for "is budae jigae healthy?" Given that it consists primarily of ramen noodles and Spam floating around in watered-down gochujang, I'm going to go with "probably not."

...took a handful of accidental naps. This either means I am i) spreading myself too thinly; or ii) getting old.

...couldn't pass for twenty-one. I haven't been able to pull that off since I was thirteen.

...wandered over to Midtown Comics for Free Comic Book Day. There weren't a ton of freebies left by the time we got there, but that's what we get for not queuing up in the wee hours of the morning like good little nerdlets. I'm still pretty bummed that I missed out on the Fantagraphics reprint of 1930s Mickey Mouse strips, though.

This week I...

2011-05-02T16:54:00.002-04:00

...discovered what happens when one microwaves an ice cube.

...burned my finger on an ice cube.

...witnessed a pair of hipsterfolk conversing about how much cooler everything was in Williamsburg. They continued with lengthy discourse on which color of lighter would garner the most attention from passersby. I politely palmed my face, purchased my dusty jar of bodega paprika, and scampered out.¹

...received a crash course in making proper tacos. It was a delicious adventure that heavily consisted of me sitting on the couch and/or watching the actual kitchenwork, and was a stellar excuse to recharge the innards of my spice cabinet. We were left with so much extra pork shoulder that I wholly expect next week's entry to contain something along the lines of "This week I ate copious amounts of leftover tacos." La vita è bella.

...learned who would win in a fight between a megashark and a crocosaurus - the United States of America.

¹ I suppose I'm not one to talk, living in such close proximity to Williamsburg. That said, the neighborhood really is turning into a caricature of what folks on the Interwebs purport it to be. The whole "whining about hipsters" thing is a bandwagon with wheels worn down to the ground, but it's been getting awfully difficult to avoid hitchin' a ride. I think the whole "culture" has finally succeeded in cannibalizing itself; all that's left for its participants is the ironic procurement of "real jobs" in various fits of Ouroboroscity.

This week I...

2011-04-26T11:01:00.008-04:00

...sang an open mic at a hipster dance club gay bar. It was an adventure.

...learned that coriander and cilantro are the same plant. My mind is still blown. Or "bload," if that's your thing.

...suffered a third consecutive silver medal at Brain Fart, despite my fairly decent showing at the Chubby Bunny Bonus Round. I just didn't know what to do when faced with a chubbier bunny.

..."jammed" with music-friends in the hopes of making beautiful noises. It feels great to slowly clamber back onto that proverbial saddle.

...got my netbook in the mail, and steadily have been training my oafish man-paws to utilize its adorably bite-sized keyboard. It's my first PC since Windows ME seemed like a good idea, mostly because I didn't want to shell out for another Mac worth of hardware. Windows 7 is actually alright once I uninstalled the mountains of preloaded garbage (such as the desktop shortcut to eBay). More than anything, I miss Adium.

...celebrated Easter and four months' worth of birthdays with my lovely family, some of whom I'll see a bit more of next month in a fit of Nerdrage. They're the bees' knees.

This week I...

2011-04-18T15:10:00.002-04:00

...staycated like whoa. I picked an awfully rainy week to do so.

...ate an oyster. For someone who has never particularly enjoyed anything oceanic hanging out in his mouth, this was a Pretty Big Deal. I cheated though - it was fried.

...caught Damion Suomi & the Minor Prophets (featuring my good friend David "Mos" Fountain on guitar, mandolin, banjo, trumper, and vocals) on their way through New York City. It was bloody fantastic.

...went back to studying snippets of chord theory after a long, long time away from the stuff. Turns out I'm still pretty awful at it. Ob-la-di.

...took second place at Brain Fart for the second week in a row. For "the team to beat," we could use a wee bit of brain-exercise.

...went to the Met (the museum, not the opera) for the first time! I did my best to channel knowledge from the single art history seminar I took, but I instead spent most of my time channeling "Ooo! I like the purple one!" Dad is probably disappointed.

...put a whole slew of words on pages. Well, on the screen, but I suppose they'll be on pages whenever I get around to setting up my printer.

...celebrated Jeremy's 27th in style as he rocked his way through Rockwood Music Hall. I'm all jazzed up for the eventual release of his album!

You're an elegant little pelican

2011-04-15T19:08:00.004-04:00

Being introduced to new music makes me happy. As does that degree of awkward chocolate-force-feeding.

This week I...

2011-04-11T16:40:00.001-04:00

...stared longingly through the window of a Harlequin Romance office while picking up some files from the office next door. My pitch for a series of novels featuring chubby, hairy dreamboats will have to wait.

...had a bad trivia week. When "Grammar" is my best subject, it's going to be a rough one.

...walked down a bizarrely cathartic road.

...convinced Other Ed that my idea for the best reinterpretation of a song ever is indeed the best thing in the entire world. Well, at least I talked him into giving it a shot.

...remembered that Cinnamon Toast Crunch is kind of delicious. I still miss those other two bakers, though.

This week I...

2011-04-04T12:00:00.002-04:00

...wised up.

...started looking into a backup hard drive for my brain, as the damn thing is clogged with useless "knowledge." What with the '80s toy jingles, Pokémon stats, and synonyms for "buttocks," I'm finding little room as of late for new data. As the very least, I could sure use some sort of rewrite function to replace the "Skip-It" jingle with something a bit more practical. At least I'm useful for pub trivia.

...started penning a new song! It's actually progressing rather quickly, which hopefully means I'm figuring out how this whole thing works.

...saw a remake of Independence Day. They forgot to put in the jokes, though. And all of the flying around was replaced with running around. A for effort, I suppose.

...lost my voice again, though I seem to have found most of it.

...decided that I need to find sexy lady back-up singers to follow me around. Kind of like Robert Palmer had, but with less hooker makeup. Thinking about it, he didn't have back-up singers so much as "back-up ladies who stood in the background looking bored." I don't imagine I'm famous enough to warrant those.

Wherein Ed gets to type the word "bumpus" like thirty times...

2011-04-02T18:40:00.003-04:00

6:12:44 PM bumpusfarms: hey
6:22:04 PM bumpusfarms: ...
6:22:49 PM Ed: Hi, bumpusfarms!
6:22:59 PM bumpusfarms: whats up???
6:23:14 PM Ed: Just Saturday-ing around.
6:23:25 PM bumpusfarms: oh cool im super bored u doing anything
6:23:54 PM bumpusfarms: i ask because im feelin reallllllly naughty and im thinking about gettin on cam. u wanna watch?
6:24:04 PM Ed: That sounds expensive.
6:24:14 PM bumpusfarms: YES! ok its on this website so kids cant get in and watch mk?
6:24:40 PM Ed: Does it involve farming?
6:24:51 PM bumpusfarms: super k here [redacted] go there then click accept invite and sign up
6:25:34 PM Ed: This is pretty light on the farm and heavy on the bumpus.
6:25:47 PM bumpusfarms: its gonna ask for a credt card but its ONLY to VERIFY your age. it dosent cost ANYTHING.
6:26:50 PM Ed: Is a non-driver ID alright?
6:27:01 PM bumpusfarms: mk well let me know when you get in sweety ill be here waiting
6:27:46 PM Ed: I... *think* I'm in.
6:27:57 PM bumpusfarms: k
6:28:11 PM Ed: Was... was it good for you?
6:28:21 PM bumpusfarms: are you in yet?
6:28:34 PM Ed: Yeah!
6:28:36 PM Ed: It was pretty awesome.

It bears mentioning that this saucy exchange prompted me to investigate this "Bumpus Farms" on the Googles. If this lady is to be trusted, she was leading me towards an online cattle shop. I don't think my Saturday is ready for that level of naughtiness.

Wherein Ed discovers some long-lost scribblings...

2011-04-01T15:14:00.005-04:00

A ways back, I fell into the habit of writing stream-of-consciousness short stories. The goal was to drop the pen on the page and just see what was there when I stopped. The goal wasn't really to produce a finished product so much as to burn off creative juices in a reasonably foreign fashion.

This is a transcription of one such experiment, from last August or so. I didn't actually finish it, because Cafe Grumpy was closing for the evening and didn't want me Americano-ing up the joint any longer. As much as it pains me, it's also unedited. I figure the raw thought-dump is the point of the whole exercise, right?

Anywho, enjoy the merry half-adventure of Mortimer L. Winthorp III and his stalwart companion, Mister Bobbins.

“Well now. I seem to have found myself in quite the pickle.” Mortimer L. Winthorp III gazed downwards at the smoldering remains of the terrarium with consternation. “Quite the pickle indeed.”

At the very least, the terrarium had been empty when Mortimer stumbled and lost his grip on the makeshift lantern. “Mister Bobbins would not have liked that one bit.” Sifting through the scorched debris with a remarkably un-scorched stick, Mortimer made a mental note to build the next terrarium out of glass instead of plastic. He made a secondary mental note to purchase a flashlight, though it soon slipped his mind. “Not one bit.”

Mortimer lived alone. He lived alone in the sense that he inhabited a creaky, old house by his lonesome, as well as in the sense that he kept few acquaintances. The other folks in town found him to be an agreeable sort, yet not so agreeable as to spend any appreciable amount of time in his immediate vicinity. Mortimer would smile at passers-by, passers-by would smile at Mortimer, and this was satisfactory for all parties involved. Given the fate of Mister Bobbins’s torched domicile, perhaps Mortimer’s solitary lifestyle was in everyone’s best interest.

Mister Bobbins was a small toad – or perhaps frog - that Mortimer had collected from the roadside in a rare fit of curiosity whilst on his weekly excursion to the market to replenish his stock of cheddar-filled sausages. Having heard old wives’ tales about the nature of curiosity and its morbid effect on felines, Mortimer typically steered clear of the stuff. Mister Bobbins, burping listlessly in a pile of grassy gravel, struck Mortimer as a lonely little thing. Though loneliness was foreign to Mortimer (he rather liked the peace and quiet of solitude), he distinctly recalled hearing that it could be nasty business. Determined to cheer up the warty hitchhiker, Mortimer scooped him up in a discarded cola cup (which looked sufficiently less lonely than Mister Bobbins) and continued the trek homewards.

As he waddled towards his creaky, old house, Mortimer suffered a bit of internal consternation over how to address the tiny frog (toad?). Mortimer took to calling him Mister Bobbins rather swiftly, as it sounded like a dignified name that any old chap would be proud to claim as his own. Still, he worried that the toad (frog?) might object to this random naming; just because he was incapable of speech does not mean he was incapable of comprehension. For all Mortimer knew, every croak might have been a defiant shout declaring the idiocy of even suggesting that Mister Bobbins was a proper name. “Mister Bobbins just rolls off the tongue so nicely. I hope that it is to your liking, because I believe that I will continue to use it.”

Mister Bobbins did not understand a word of Mortimer’s ponderings, but if he did, he might have suggested Missus Bobbins instead. Mortimer’s grasp of amphibian biology is negligible.

While herding delectable creepy-crawlies into the cola cup for Mister Bobbins’s supper (rather unsuccessfully), Mortimer resolved to establish a proper home for his new compatriot. “I certainly would not want to live in a cola cup. The floor would be awfully sticky.” Mortimer had never had a guest in his home, even for tea. He knew little of hosting etiquette, but was fairly certain that keeping one’s guests cooped up in a sticky little room ran afoul of it. Knowing very little about frogs (toads?), Mortimer settled into his favorite musty armchair to compile a list of things he was fairly certain that toads (frogs?) appreciate.

In its entirety, the list read: “Mud. Rocks. Twigs. Bugs (for eating). A Plant.”

Peering into the cola cup, Mortimer noticed a few creepy-crawlies atill skittering alongside the edges of the cola cup and triumphantly scratched “Bugs” off of his list. He chose to leave “(for eating)” untouched, however, with plans to test Mister Bobbins’s palate with a spot of cheddar-filled sausage. After all, it’s much simpler to prepare one supper than two.

Cobbling together the remainder of the materials was a simple task. The mud proved a bit tricky, as the county was in the middle of a dry spell. Luckily, Mortimer remembered that tap water really isn’t all that different from rain, and boring old dirt is more or less as common as dirt. Dumping a pile of worn-out boots from an old plastic bucket, Mortimer arranged the objects in what he imagined was an aesthetic fashion.

The last time Mortimer had used his imagination was in aught-three. Having overheard of this “imagination business” from a puppet show in front of the local market, he decided to give it a try for himself. Two bites into the newspaper he was imagining to be a toasted cheese sandwich, Mortimer concluded that the whole concept was rubbish.

Mortimer’s sense of aesthetics, however, was reasonably sound. Anyone peeking into the former boot-bin would find it difficult to arrange a pile of rocks and grass slathered in wet dirt in a more pleasing fashion. Pleased with his progress, Mortimer plopped Mister Bobbins into her new home and made his way to the kitchen to prepare a feast of cheddar-filled sausages that would hopefully fill both of their bellies.

As it turns out, Mister Bobbins enjoys cheese-filled sausages about as well as anything else. They were less crunchy than most things that wound up in her mouth, but she was not one to complain. After two and three-quarter sausages for Mortimer and the remaining quarter for Mister Bobbins, the newfound friends retired to the study.

Never been too keen a timekeeper

2011-03-31T14:53:00.003-04:00

I've been on a Moloko kick as of late, and I stumbled across this particular performance while digging for live ones more in line with the studio recording. It's got some of the kookiness of the original track, but just feels creepier.

I'm a total sucker for a lady that can pull off vocal creepiness.

And oh, that sax. I'd marry it if I could do so without having to make smalltalk with its awkward cousin at family reunions.

Ahem.

I'm glad that this performance is different from the one I'm used to. With so much of my brain entrenched in how a song transforms from one thing to another and then another entirely, it's fascinating to see these tweaks take place on a smaller scale (and over a much shorter period of time). Malleability is underrated!

I suppose this song in particular lends itself to innovation, as its construction is fairly skeletal. As I scribble and hum, this lends an important lesson to my skull: simplicity is awesome. While you've got to scrape off a few layers of skin to fiddle with something fully-formed, outlines can go in countless directions. Keeping things relatively simple during the construction phase allows for a whole mess of freedom once you start trying to pin down specifics.

I suppose that's also just a bloody fantastic excuse for my not being a terribly impressive musician. Tally-ho!

This week I...

2011-03-28T00:21:00.000-04:00

...learned that Arborio rice basically doesn't exist in Crown Heights.

...combined the eventually-procured Arborio rice with a cauldron of veggie stock to create bellylicious risotto.

...participated in Earth Hour 2011. We drank beer and sang songs in the dark! This led to the realization that I do know most of the lyrics to "Kumbaya," though this skill thankfully stayed off display.

...unleashed my inner bad boy.

...managed to sew a button onto my pants without losing a finger, primarily as a ploy to push off doing laundry.

...was shown how terribly miserable the Strokes look while performing. Happy music played by sad people is way more entertaining than sad music played by happy people.

...finally "got" the Velvet Underground. Just a little bit. After all these years, it's impressive that someone pulled off that argument.

If this is paradise, I wish I had a lawnmower

2011-03-25T11:25:00.004-04:00

At the risk of sounding my age, I've been pining for the days of MTV actually airing musical content. The YouTubes claim they will feed me music videos on demand, but Vevo ensures that all I really get to see are commercials accompanied by a whole lot of buffering.

As tots, Justin and I habitually recorded random scraps of television, evidenced by countless vaguely-labeled¹ VHS tapes scattered across our folks' basement. Most of these tapes are filled with attempts to catch very special episodes of our favorite sitcoms, but we would occasionally record random music video countdowns (countsdown?) while getting ready for schoolin'.

This generation of young'uns has it easy what with the YouTubes and the torrents and all of those other things that give lawyers headaches. If I wanted instant access to a music video (without purchasing a cassette or record), my only recourse was to hover over the record button until I made it happen. As my attention span back then was even less impressive than it is today, the path of least resistance was to just record entire blocks of music videos.

And that is how, at the sprightly age of six, I discovered the Talking Heads.

I always wonder what makes a particular song strike harder than others. In an ocean of late-80s power pop engineered to burn off excess energy from sugary breakfast cereals, I latched onto a bizarre anthem for a dystopian utopia. The lyrics are a bit too oblique for me to have really "gotten" them back then, and I can't imagine the visuals being apoplectic enough to hold my attention for very long. Back then, I was more a proponent of the "She-Bop" school of music videography.²

Regardless, it's amusing to mull over the general impatience brought about by the age of the Internet in the context of this song. Though the lyrics were likely written with a tongue in the cheek, they've become increasingly true over the past twenty-ish years. As idyllic as it sounds, I'm reasonably certain that I would suck at living in a sylvan paradise. Mr. Byrne's narrator would miss honky-tonks, Dairy Queens, and 7-Elevens; I grumpily dread a world without air conditioning, mp3 players, and beer. People want things now, because, for the most part, they can have them now.

I miss living in the woods, but the wonders of modern convenience have made me a whiny little bitch. It's pretty well-set in my brain that, if I ever get around to a text tattoo, it'll be the title of this post. Even out of context, it pretty much sums up how I'm feeling about the general state of things nowadays.

But I digress.

What makes a song "sticky?" Oodles of researchers have poured hours into figuring this out (basically for marketing purposes), but I'm not convinced that there's a concrete answer to the question. You can engineer a song hook, but that aims to get musical snippets stuck in folks' heads rather that their hearts.

Marketing aside, I believe that "right place, right time" holds a deeper sway than anything. Sure, the average twenty-something still remembers lyrical chunks of "Ice Ice Baby," but I doubt all of that stopping, collaborating, and/or listening means very much to any of them.³ The random song that made you smile for the first time after losing your dog, the random song that provided background music to your first kiss, the random song that kicked you in the teeth when you were down - this is what makes songs sticky.

And, to a kid, what's sadder than no more candy bars?

¹ If I rightly recall, the bulk of the videocassettes were labeled with exclamations we learned from episodes of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. To a small child, it makes perfect sense that "COWABUNGA" is mostly sitcoms from TGIF, "TUBULAR" is every episode of the "Legend of Zelda" cartoon, and "CHEVY NOVA" is mostly commercials. My mind boggles when I realize that my parents spent years listening to us memorize commercial jingles. I'm so sorry, Mom and Dad.
² I can't say with certainty whether this is due to the actual music video or my massive childhood crush on Cyndi Lauper.
³ The true Van Winkle aficionado knows that he saved the soul-pouring for the heartbreaking "Havin' a Roni."

Wherein Ed pines for bludon

2011-03-22T00:01:00.000-04:00

A few apartments ago, it was decreed from upon high that I was no longer allowed to utilize food coloring in my cooking endeavors. I don't recall if it was the blue udon or the green cheeseburger that tipped the scale, but my heart still aches from the savage shillelaghing it received that dreadful evening.

Maybe I shouldn't have flaunted my food decoration prowess so haughtily. You're kind of a dick, Hubris.

In honor of my Irish heritage, I plan to continue celebrating the true essence of Saint Patrick's Day; fueled by myriad whiskeys and the stalwart potato, I will righteously bludgeon all wayward serpents that happen to cross my path. More importantly, every morsel that comes out of my kitchen for the forseeable future will be oozing with enough chemical-laden green food coloring to choke a marmot.

And I reckon marmots have mighty strong gag reflexes.

This week I...

2011-03-21T10:37:00.000-04:00

...had the sax line from "Careless Whisper" stuck in my head for days.

...realized that there's an absinthe bar within stumbling distance of my apartment. They also deal in oysters, but I figure my head's already generating more snot than I need.

...savored a delectable lychee martini, but opted out of the bowl of duck tongues.

...tried to do my taxes. Dealing with our government is about as fun as making out with a pine cone copiously slathered in beaver ejaculate.

...made it two-thirds of the way to the high score in Bubble Bobble before being sucked into the undertow of the overwhelming bro-ness of the machine's location.

...recorded some demo vocals for Other Ed. Hoo-ray for having a voice again!

It's a wonderful place

2011-03-15T00:01:00.004-04:00

During rush hour, the 4 and 5 trains typically empty and refill at Union Square (where, on days such as today, I transfer). As such, I don't make a terrible effort to stand near the doors. I rarely have trouble making it off the train before the doors shut and the subway shuttles off to Grand Central.

Today, I was in the middle of the train and nobody got off.

This is the sort of incident that typically sets off a case of the rush hour grumps. I'm passably decent at shouldering my way through a crowded train, but sometimes luck just isn't on your side. It's not as if I had anywhere pressing to be, but riding aimlessly around Manhattan is not how I had planned on spending my Monday evening. I resigned myself to an unplanned trek to midtown.

Just as the doors started to close, a woman stepped out and held the door open to let me through. I thanked her with a smile, and the woman smiled back.

In The Big City, random smiles are objects of suspicion. Smile at a jaunty beagle out for his morning walk and the owner will pick up the pace. Smile at a napping baby and the parent will push that stroller to the far end of the platform. Smile at a scrap of witty graffiti and passersby will scoff at the "tourist."

Eff that poop.

This tiny act of kindness genuinely made my day. Truthfully, the smile meant significantly more than letting me off of the damn train. The woman could have kept reading her book, but chose to take a second to lightly interact with a rando on the subway. It was heartening. In the lonely house that is New York City, it's easy to forget that the maddening crowds are actually comprised of individuals.

I suppose that sounds horrible. Still, try to slog through Times Square on a Saturday afternoon a few times and tell me you disagree.

Every now and then, one needs to slow down - or stop - and appreciate the little things. As of late, I've felt I'm starting to miss the trees for the forest (or the buildings for the city, I suppose). Though my brain tends to function in such a manner anyways, it's pleasant to step back and simply savor life's crumbs. Coffee in a cup, little fuzzy pups, or bourbon in a glass, it's the spaces in-between that make the spaces out-between worthwhile.

Take a moment to notice something. Smile. Better yet, make your own something. Hug an old friend. Make a new friend. Drink a beer in the shower. Throw your head back on a rainy day and stand defiant in an ocean of bumbershoot. Most importantly, utilize that burst of optimism. Pessimism will always be waiting for you when you step on that subway.

This week I...

2011-03-14T01:09:00.003-04:00

...dropped my cell phone on the track at the Metropolitan G station. My buttery fingers were still all loosey-goosey from a hard night of Skee-Ball, and I managed to casually toss it underneath the first rail. The train hopped over it, the friendly MTA guy rescued it, and it underwent a fairly rigorous disinfecting ritual. At least I didn't toss it into the perennial river of sludge that seems to saunter through every G station.

...helped win a bar trivia night, despite falling face-flat in the lightning round. It's been a while since I've seen "Wet Hot American Summer."

...partook in a building-wide anthrax drill. Chuck D did not attend, and there was no bringing of the noise.

...reclaimed the sniffles. I do believe my respiratory system is conspiring to kill me.

On faking it, playing along, and the great American search for inspirado: Part IV

2011-03-08T00:01:00.001-05:00

Since my voice bounced back from the dread Bronchitis Beast, I've suffered from a somewhat manic streak of creative energy. In the past, these bursts have been funneled primarily into the writing of short stories, bad poetry, and prolific blog posts about asses.

This time, my brain has been kind enough to channel the bulk of its energy towards musicking.

The strange thing about this whole process is that none of the material I'm working on is actually new. I've been fleshing out lyrics and melodies that I've had floating about my head and notebook for well over a year. I'm not going to scoff at the notion of tinkering with work born out of a drastically different mindset, but it's interesting to watch these snippets transform so radically as I scribble and hum.

Case in point: a whiny singer-songwriter-y thing I had been kicking around over the summer has become vaguely Motown-y.¹ It's nifty.

For whatever reason, Detroit has been my muse as of late. Though I'm not nearly as familiar with Motown's catalogue as I should be, I've been drawing a fair amount of inspirado from the Four Tops and Temptations tunes that I grew up hearing on oldies stations. Stir in a dollop of Iggy Pop and a healthy slathering of Bob Seger, and I suppose you have a vague idea of how I've been spending my lunch breaks. Hopefully my coworkers don't hate the voluminous humming noises emitting from my head.

The next (terrifying) step is to actually share what I've been working on with the world. Though this fear has long been a major hurdle to leap, I'm actually excited to get this material into some reasonably shareable form. I've sang a few snippets, gotten some feedback, viciously slaughtered my handywork with the proverbial red pen, and continued to putter along. It's a wee bit less scary now, and I imagine that this will get easier as I make a habit of letting people hear what I'm up to.

I'm told sharing is caring. I suppose these endeavors can serve as symbolic markers of my great American quest to "start giving a fuck." Looks like I'm going to need to find myself a new slogan.

By the by, I stand by my staunch belief the video embedded above is one of the finest pop songs ever recorded. It's easy to write sunshine and rainbows, but shuffling a bit of frustration into the deck keeps things interesting.

¹ Admittedly, anything I crank out that's remotely singer-songwriteresque will likely sound like a Randy Newman knockoff.

This week I...

2011-03-07T13:52:00.004-05:00

...reached twenty-nine years of age, and am now firing endless love-rays out towards all of you beautiful people who made it one of the best ever. Many, many thanks to everyone at Full Circle Bar for being so wonderful, accommodating, and generally awesome.

...was given a stunning sketch (craftfully doodled by comic artist Ryan Dunlavey) of Batroc the Leaper eating a Scooby-Doo style sammich. Rich knows exactly which sorts of things are relevant to my interests.

...ordered a tube of cupcake-flavored toothpaste from The Internet. I'm one step closer to touting those "candy lips" and "bubblegum tongue" that I keep hearing about, and will be the most coveted boy at fat camp.

...saw a Choose Your Own Adventure musical based on The Oregon Trail. It was, as we say in the business, "totes rad."

...found myself slathered with feces. The slathering was thankfully contained to the calves of my jeans, and I'm told the city has their best detectives on a mission to determine the source of said feces. My guess: a new, horrible twist on that "subway groper" fad that was sweeping Japan for a while.

Wherein Ed gets back on the horse

2011-03-02T21:05:00.004-05:00

8:54:36 PM bostoneagles232: heyaa!
8:54:44 PM Ed: Hey, sexy.
8:55:15 PM bostoneagles232: haha I just scored 82 on this IQ test
8:55:26 PM Ed: Is that a... sexy score?
8:55:38 PM bostoneagles232: [redacted] Can u take it plz and tell me what u get?
8:57:09 PM Ed: ...sexily?
8:57:26 PM bostoneagles232: this one is supposed to be pretty accurate and I wanna see if I'm smart plus I know u wont beat me!! LOL
8:57:36 PM Ed: Oh, I'll beat you alright.
8:57:46 PM bostoneagles232: brb I'm gonna go get a drink...
8:59:17 PM Ed: You should bring one back for me.
8:59:27 PM bostoneagles232: k
8:59:41 PM Ed: Awesome, thanks!
8:59:55 PM Ed: I'll have a dirty martini. Easy on the martini, hard on the dirty.
9:00:05 PM Ed: ;) ;) ;)

Wherein Ed flirts with a robot and said robot violates the First Law of Robotics by breaking his heart

2011-03-02T20:49:00.005-05:00

6:41:26 PM¹ chrissyluv123: hey there
7:42:12 PM chrissyluv123: hey
8:00:33 PM chrissyluv123: hey
8:08:43 PM chrissyluv123: hey
8:10:10 PM Ed: Hi!
8:10:11 PM chrissyluv123: hey
8:10:27 PM chrissyluv123: have we talked b4?
8:10:41 PM Ed: Nope. You seem to message me a lot, though.
8:10:52 PM chrissyluv123: i'm 26
8:11:13 PM Ed: I used to be.
8:11:25 PM chrissyluv123: ohh sry im forgetfull sometimes.
8:11:36 PM Ed: That's ok!
8:11:52 PM chrissyluv123: so anyways.... whats up??
8:12:52 PM Ed: Not a whole lot. Just another Wednesday here.
8:13:04 PM chrissyluv123: oh cooll! hey you wanna see if you can beat my iq score? its really fun
8:13:10 PM Ed: Naw, that's ok.
8:13:26 PM chrissyluv123: kk go here [redacted] and click on the start button
8:13:36 PM chrissyluv123: hey
8:13:41 PM Ed: Hi!
8:13:51 PM chrissyluv123: after u finish the questions you got to put your cellphone number in to get your score k?
8:14:01 PM chrissyluv123: k let me know when your done i wanna know what u got k??
8:14:02 PM Ed: Can I put in a regular phone number?
8:14:13 PM chrissyluv123: k cool!
8:14:15 PM Ed: I only have a rotary phone.
8:14:25 PM chrissyluv123: you done yet?
8:14:52 PM Ed: I'm afraid to take it.
8:15:05 PM chrissyluv123: ohh i got a 113 tell me what you got.
8:15:06 PM Ed: If the test says I'm too stupid, you won't want to talk to me anymore!
8:16:02 PM Ed: Chrissy?
8:16:05 PM Ed: Did you go away? :(
8:17:04 PM chrissyluv123: hey
8:17:11 PM Ed: Oh, yay!
8:17:16 PM Ed: I thought you might have left.
8:17:29 PM Ed: Do you like dumplings?
8:18:35 PM Ed: They're probably my favorite food.
8:18:48 PM Ed: I eat them like three times a week with my mouth.
8:19:53 PM chrissyluv123: hey
8:20:08 PM Ed: I don't think this relationship is going to work out.
8:20:18 PM Ed: I bet you're not even 26.
8:21:23 PM Ed: ...if I take your IQ test, will you be my friend?
8:23:38 PM chrissyluv123: hey
8:23:48 PM Ed: Hi!
8:24:03 PM Ed: have we talked b4?
8:26:28 PM Ed: Chrissy?
8:26:36 PM Ed: I miss you. :(
8:43:21 PM chrissyluv123: hey
8:45:51 PM chrissyluv123: hey
8:46:32 PM Ed: I think I need some space.²

¹ I acknowledge that timestamps make this a lot harder to read. But I also think they make it hilarious. So deal with it.
² Chrissy has yet to comprehend my need to deal with these issues on my own, and has messaged me several times even though she's been blocked and I've gone invisible. The Internet has made dating so much more difficult.

Wherein Ed writes a love letter to his beard

2011-03-01T13:11:00.001-05:00

While attempting to weedwhack my unkempt man-face a few days back, I managed to dent my moustache.

I suppose I can blame this mishap on the fact that I only really shave once or twice a month; I figure if that's been the case since I started shaving, I've only wrestled with my luscious chin-scruff approximately two hundred times. This is probably a low-estimate, as one has to factor in off-schedule pampering for special occasions such as first dates, job interviews, and barbecue night.¹ Still, I imagine I have far less experience in such matters than the average almost-thirty-year-old male. I bet that they don't have to deal with a noon o'clock shadow, though.

Given the infrequency with which I tame my face, it's impressive that this sort of debacle doesn't happen more often. When bungles do occur, they seem to result from obliviousness more than from my general inadequacy with face-carving utensils. Back in college, I once started to trim my beard without first attaching the appropriate head to the buzzer. I tried to pass off the resulting look as "mange-chic." Apparently that's not "a thing."

The fashion world is confusing.

Of course, I once went with the collegiate "justache" on a simple whim. My brother told me I looked like a middle school principal. My mother told me I looked like a pedophile. My then-ladyfriend refused to speak to me until I shaved it off. I guess I don't have a stiff enough upper-lipper to bear that sort of responsibility.

Nowadays, I bet that bitchin' 'stache would make me the prettiest peacock on Bedford.² I just wouldn't be able to face my coworkers and/or my reflection in the mirror.

I thought about trying to mitigate the moustache-dent, but decided in the end that the problem could remedy itself over the subsequent few days. Given my razor acumen, I probably would have ended up an eyebrow short.

Having almost as much hair on my face as on my shoulders is just the natural order of things. I'd likely run out of fingers and toes before hitting the number of times the world has seen my babyface since sprouting this thick mane of fur from my chin. Going without feels like I'm waddling about in an off-season Halloween costume from Dollar Tree. Much like my glasses, the beard is just part of my face now - and probably will be for a lot longer than the mop on the top.

I love you, beard!

¹ As anyone with facial hair can attest, there are few scenarios more frustrating than trying to untangle a barbecue'd chinstrap.
² I really did walk around referring to it as my "bitchin' 'stache." On the occasional cold, winter evening, I still miss its tender embrace.

This week I...

2011-02-28T01:22:00.001-05:00

...got my voice back in functioning order, after a month or so of hideous croaking.

...sang with a bunch of other old men from the Vineyard Sound. It's been a while. The three-plus days of my life spent singing "Good Old A Cappella" (I actually did the math) have led to some good things.

...lost my voice again from the combination of a cappella and beer. I'm Danny Glover'ing pretty hard about now.

...started a glasses collection, pushing me well down the road towards being fashionable. Eyeglasses, not like... mugs.

...was offered discounted Krav Maga lessons. Somebody out there wants me to learn how to tear dudes' faces off.

...woke up with a giant spider on my face, freaked out, tossed it across the room, and then couldn't find it. The little bugger is likely plotting my demise from beneath the bookcase. Hopefully, John Goodman will dashingly swoop in to save me.

...wrote half of a song I'd started a year ago. It's turned into something vastly different from what I started with, but it's the most progress I've made on this sort of endeavor in a long, long while.

...decided, for better or for worse, to decide. L'chaim, friends.

Leon Russell's Hat Is Splendid

2011-02-24T18:56:00.004-05:00

I won't lie, I've been accused of having Joe Cocker arms when I sing the rock 'n' roll musics. I'm going to go ahead and blame those twelve or so years of classicality, where my arms were forced to calmly rest against my flanks while I sang songs about drowning maidens and weeping clowns. Now that I'm a wee bit distanced from that world, I'm not going to deny them their chance to dance.

The Joe Cocker face, on the other hand, I don't have quite so much control over. Ob-la-di.

Wherein Ed ponders why one would actually want a mouthful of dog hair...

2011-02-22T00:01:00.006-05:00

"Oh, I know you can hardly open a newspaper or magazine without coming across a set of instructions - most of them unoriginal, some of them quite helpful and one or two of them actually harmful - on how to cure this virtually pandemic ailment. But such discussions concentrate exclusively on physical manifestations, as if one were treating a mere illness. The omit altogether the psychological, moral, emotional, spiritual aspects: all that vast, vague, awful, shimmering metaphysical superstructure that makes the hangover a (fortunately) unique route to self-knowledge and self-realization." - Kingsley Amis¹

I've decided that "the hangover" is the singular most self-indulgent activity in which one can partake. There's no real arguing - either with the hangover itself or the hangoveree. Though the fault is obviously one's own, recipients of this most vile malady typically find themselves shaking an angry fist at the fates, ruing whatever dreadful superpower cursed them.

On these most unholy of mornings, the average individual manages to stumble though the five stages of grief before even getting out of bed:

Shock - "Bloody hell, I can't believe I actually put that in my mouth last night."

Anger - "Dammit, what did I tell myself last Monday? I am why I can't have nice things."

Bargaining - "Maybe I can call in sick? Will I really be useful to anyone today?"

Depression - "I am a trainwreck in workboots and emo glasses. No one will ever love me."

Acceptance - "Fuck it."

This whole silly catastrophe is exacerbated by the fact that the problem can be shuffled off by simply going back to bed. In my perfect world (i.e. the weekend), waking up to a hangover is immediately succeeded by knocking back a Gatorade and making out with a pillow. Being a "grown-up," however, ensures that one likely has Important Things To Do, making departure from the sweet embrace of blankets an inevitability.

A story: I didn't touch a drop of the devil's juice until I was pushing twenty years of age. Though I reveled in the majesty of collegiate endeavors as much as the next fellow, my hearty Irish/Italian/Polish/Canadian make-up magically pushed off my first hangover until the ripe age of twenty-four.²

It was, in pseudo-honesty, the most hellish day at work I've ever had.

At the time, my bizarre schedule involved Friday nights followed by Saturday and Sunday mornings. Though I had Tuesday through Thursday off, the rest of the world was partaking in their partytimes whilst I should have been turning in early and getting my proverbial beauty sleep.

I typically behaved myself, but the siren's call of Fridays at DA's were occasionally too much for my comically low willpower reserves to handle. After one such evening, my head awoke glued to the pillow, weighted by what felt like a horrible concoction of mud, Pop Rocks, and bellowing toddlers. I had just about twenty minutes to ready myself for work.

Having never endured this brand of self-induced torture, I had no idea how to mitigate the feeling of a thousand overzealous dachshunds trying to make vigorous, tenderizing love to the inside of my skull. I drank coffee, I begged my then-ladyfriend for aspirin and grilled cheese, I called Dad pleading for some sort of mystical college remedy that he could pass from father to son. I'm pretty sure that he just chuckled.

Little did I know, there's not much one can actively do about a hangover short of crawling back under the covers for a stint of extended unconsciousness. If I had discovered some sort of magic lamp that morning, I would have wasted my wishes on a nap, a hug, and the wisdom to ensure that this never happened again.

The fact that I'm here writing this, five or so years later, proves that I survived the ordeal. I can't say that I learned much of anything from having done so, besides that hangovers suck and make me want to be spooned until they go away.³ The Hangover Beast saw fit to leave me alone for a few more years; it wasn't until I moved to New York and my old age caught up with me that they became a common repercussion of putting Baltika 9 into my face-holes.⁴

What I have learned, at least, is that time is the only real cure. Still, trial and error has helped me fall upon the holy triumvirate of placebos to get me through these darkest of days: 1) Gatorade, preferably yellow or red, because my body craves electrolytes; 2) busywork to keep my brain's focus away from what a horrible person I am for putting my body through such a rigorous debacle; and 3) as much clickety-clack keyboard whining as I can squeeze between gulps of salty sugarwater and shuffling paper. I don't imagine these actions actually help anything, but I've never been a man known for practicality.

You can tell me that "water and sleep" are better remedies if you really want to. I'd posit, however, that if a person hasn't learned to not let themselves wind up in this predicament after a few faulty swings at bat, they deserve whatever they get.

Friends, please remind me that I said this the next time I start whining about that gorilla trying to boink a hornet's nest against my eyeballs.

¹ The entirety of this particular essay is magical, and should be required reading upon reaching the ripe age of twenty-one. Though "the real world" typically precludes one from taking the bulk of Mr. Amis's advice, it's heartening to have it there.
² Besides my passion for Googling images of meaty comestibles, I figure it's worth sharing the cure Rich passed down to me, many moons ago - drown the hangover in as many kinds of sausage as the pub will cram down your gullet. I'm not the biggest fan of blood pudding, but the stuff certainly takes your focus off of the headache.
³ It's also just plain nice to have an excuse to be The Little Spoon. It's rare that someone my size gets away with those sorts of shenanigans.
⁴ To be fair, I once received a text message from a friend complaining about a wretched hangover after a Baltika night in which neither of us were actually drunk. That stuff'll put hair in places you didn't know you had.

This week I...

2011-02-21T11:13:00.000-05:00

...received my test-drive glasses from Warby Parker. I'm bummed that I ordered them a week before new styles came out, though, 'cause I'd look bangin' in a pair of Larkins.

...saw a close friend for the first time in over two years.

...have been remembering my dreams much more frequently than usual, including one that involved being heckled by some sort of horrifying scarionette-type puppet show.

...marched in Brooklyn's annual Phil Collins Day Parade.

...was informed that my attempts to sing Lady Gaga through the dregs of bronchitis sounded "like Tom Waits ate Kermit the Frog."

...bitched about Internet Explorer. A lot.

Romantic Ruminations

2011-02-16T22:10:00.008-05:00

As I spent another Valentine's Day making mad, passionate love to my boyfriend, Jim, my brain detoured from slurring through bowdlerized La Roux tunes to reminisce about past loves.

This particular activity is the proverbial bread and butter of this lovely holiday, sharing the stage with such time-honored traditions as "eating too much candy" and "makin' whoopee." This year, however, felt like the first in a while where I found myself in a cheerful enough brainspace to objectively look back at my past fifteen or so years of disappointing ladies.¹

Really, I was most likely doing my thinking with the warming slurry of bourbon and antibiotics trudging through my veins. I take my wisdom where I can find it.

Though I decry myself as the proverbial kid with an addiction to licking frozen stop signs, I'm reasonably certain that I am capable of learning from my experiences. Some of my musings were the sorts of things everyone picks up through life's bungles, and some were just plain common sense that I had not yet gotten around to ingesting.

I never claimed to be the swiftest banana in the herd.

Obviously, the next step was to spew these revelations² onto the Interwebs in a bilious rainbow of joy:

Second chances can be a good thing. Third through fifth chances follow some sort of inverse bell curve formula made of bickering.

Sometimes, "it's not you, it's me" is the truth. Usually, though, it's just the easiest thing to say.

Though you won't admit it until after the fact, your friends are probably right.

The Pixies don't suck as much as they did in high school. The Red Hot Chili Peppers, however, sure do.

Following is easier, but not always better.

Heartbreak is the world's greatest motivator, though it quickly degrades into the world's greatest de-motivator. It's sort of like a forced New Year's Resolution, without the day off from work to get a head start on falling off the wagon.

Unless you're happy with yourself, you aren't going to be happy with anything. Except for possibly puppies, 'cause you really can't be unhappy with puppies.

I'm so helpful.

Truthfully, it's kind of fun to squirt out a wad of pessimism every now and then. As an admitted hopeless romantic and unabashed textbook Pisces, it's rather grounding to try and learn from my mistakes. I'm just a slow learner.

For the sake of balance, I'll toss in a less whiny observation - probably the truest thing I've picked up over the years:

The littlest things are the biggest things.

So happy belated Vee-Day. Hug your special somebody, or at least waggle a proud middle finger at passing traffic. Because, ultimately, every day should be marked as such, not just the ones dictated by the calendar. Less-than-three, y'all.

¹ Here, the word "disappointing" functions as a gerund, not an adjective. I'm not that much of a douchewaffle.
² Yes, I understand the hilarity of me trying to give relationship "advice." Just keep a saltshaker handy and we'll make it through this.

This week I...

2011-02-14T17:35:00.001-05:00

...was gifted with a cupcake topped with rosewater and cayenne buttercream, which basically made life awesome.

...realized, by way of the Interweb's general fury over Arcade Fire, that people apparently care about the Grammys.

...had my first sip of a slightly underage Nancy Brew. Her ~six parents did an excellent job raising her, and she is effervescently delectable.

...was informed that Nancy's younger sibling will not, by any means, be named "Brew Bledsoe." I wept.

...slept a lot. Bronchitis was the opposite of fun.

Wherein Ed understands about indecision

2011-02-10T00:48:00.000-05:00

As far back as I can recall, I've been a worrier. Though I'm reasonably successful at keeping such foibles boxed away in my brainparts,¹ there's always something stirring about to keep my focus slightly off-kilter. However, my brain shrugs off the things I should panic about in lieu of worrying itself sleepless over things that don't matter at all. This typically takes the form of me being less than exceptional (deceptional?) at making basic, everyday decisions.

In my mind's eye, I see myself as a modern-day, faux-hipster,² pseudo-Hamlet; paralyzed by crippling indecision, I wallow about anxiously instead of actually accomplishing all that much. Rather than pondering the nobility of suffering slings and rubs, however, I flounder about what sort of dining establishment would most nobly sling grub down my gullet. When I do finally get around to making up my mind, it rarely leads to fantastically bloody swashbuckling escapades. This is likely attributable to the fact that I am a lower middle class computermonkey from the suburbs of Connecticut instead of a smooth Danish prince with irrationally tight pants.

To be honest, it's more reasonable to liken my decision-making skills to those of Fraggle Rock's Wembley. Like Wembley, I imagine my indecision stems from a general desire to avoid conflict and make everyone happy (rather than any real interest in how things smell over in Denmark). Also, I dance like a Muppet, which is impressive given the existence of my elbows.

I'd like to think this general sense of indecision is a defense mechanism. Without the arresting indecision that stymies my attempts to choose between mortadella or capicola, I'm fairly certain my id (or general lack of willpower) would run amok - tearing tags from mattresses, taking wooden nickels, headbutting defenseless ponies, and undertaking ungodly acts of kitchen alchemy in attempts to make a Mountain Dew reduction with which one can bedazzle sausage patties.³ Indecision serves as a superbly janky super-ego, keeping me from jail and/or "being dead."

It also serves as a severe irritant to any woman I ever date. Unless anyone happens to know a lady with an "I don't know, what do you want to do?" fetish, which would make me the happiest man in my pants.

When it comes down to it, though, the only one who can decide to decide is the guy behind the keyboard. Sometimes you've just got to grab the bull by the delicates and make things happen. Turn all of those "maybes" into "yesses." Throw in the occasional "no," just to be saucy and assertive. Move to a new city. Talk to the girl. Eat something gross. Treat every day like an adventure, definitively pick a path at each fork, and relish wherever it happens to lead you.

Or just be the one to pick which Chinese take-out place to order from. Baby steps, y'all.

¹ Unless, I suppose, you're one of the unlucky handful that gets to be on the receiving end of my regular braindumps. You guys are the bees' knees.
² It's strange to acknowledge, but I think this was a somewhat inevitable realization. I live next to Williamsburg, my glasses cover more than a third of my face, I'm in a Skee-Ball league, I own a pair of fat guy skinny jeans, and I liked a bunch of things before they were popular. At least I'm self-aware. I might just even be "so meta."
³ See also: Ed's average Monday night. I'm fairly certain that my drunk kitchen inventions are a clear depiction of what happens when that little switch in your brain that's supposed to say "NO" gets clicked off.

This week I...

2011-02-07T12:40:00.001-05:00

...was talked out of riding a mechanical bull, as I consider that given activity as "tempting fate" at this particular juncture in my life.

...still managed to receive a comically massive bruise on what can best be described as my flank, leaving me with a love handle that looks suspiciously like The Grimace.

...talked myself out of purchasing plastic glasses with baby blue frames, steampunk goggles, and the controversial "double monocle."

...realized that I could color cells in Excel and zoom out to create stunning works of Office Pointilism.

...decided that, as much as I love beets, borscht is kind of nasty.

...helped bottle Nancy Brew, our apartment's first beer-baby. She's lovely and might be delicious once she comes of age.

...watched a larger portion of a football game than I likely ever have.

...was gifted with a box of gummy vitamins as a "Feel Better" gift.

...thought to look into the recommended daily dosage for gummy vitamins a bit too late.

...learned that I was free of pneumonia, likely due to an overdose of gummy vitamins.

Wherein Ed details his lifelong fear of caterpillars

2011-02-06T12:40:00.001-05:00

I grew up in a household that one might describe as "artsy-fartsy." My parents pushed creativity nearly as hard as education. Really, what good is book-learnin' if you don't have the imagination to utilize it? To this day, I get the occasional scolding from my folks for not pursuing musical theater.

I'm reasonably certain that a lot of folks would punt a dachshund for that level of support.

Dad is a metalworker, having worked on sculpture, furniture, and general metal installations since he was a teenager. He had also been a working musician for years, through when I was a baby.¹ Over the years, he'd picked up more instruments than one could shake at kielbasa at (at which one could shake a kielbasa?), but focused on piano and his voice. We spent many-a car ride harmonizing to cassettes and radio jams, and he is solely responsible for my unabashed love of Brad Delp's Boston vocals.

Mom studied interior design, and has always had knack for creative projects. When we were little, she set up a massive arts and crafts station in the basement stocked with everything from puff paint to non-puff paint. Needless to say, our school projects were stellar. She also studied piano as a young'un, and has a singing voice that she will deny up and down.²

My folks encouraged my brother and I to do things the fun way, but kept us grounded enough to grow into functional adults. For this, I really can't thank them enough. Though I've not always been able to perfectly strike that balance in my "adult" life, it's wonderful to know that it's possible.

One of the upshots of growing up in such a creative environment was the "Totally Awesome Birthday Party." Birthdays were an excuse to do weird, fun things just for the sake of it. Por ejemplo, in sixth grade, my folks covered the walls of the living room with butcher paper. Then my friends and I spent the evening scribbling all over the walls. I hadn't particularly indulged myself in that regard as a tot (that was more my brother's bag),³ so it was an amazing release of twelve years' worth of pent-up wall-doodling.

Beyond kickin' parties, we always had birthday cakes that were kick-you-in-the-teeth-with-a-steel-toed-boot fantastic.

Without fact-checking with Mom, I'd guess that this particular event took place on my fourth birthday (as that seems a decent estimate for when one might expect their earliest memories to crop up).⁴ That particular year, I had a caterpillar birthday cake comprised of several smaller cakes squished into a row. It slithered across the tabletop, and sported a cheery grin made of various candies. Best of all, it had red licorice string antennae.

For small children, this sort of detail is the chimp's banana. Mom might as well have installed a glorious, big, red button for the caterpillar's nose that bellowed "PUSH ME, YOU BEAUTIFUL FOUR-YEAR-OLD BASTARD" in a squeaky caterpillar voice, like a twistedly delicious predecessor to Bigmouth Billy Bass. One of those antennae was coming out, whether it was time for candles or not. So I wrapped my grubby little paw around the generically berryful rope.⁵

And the gorram caterpillar screamed.

I recoiled in terror. I'll admit that I dropped my stoic facade of bravado and let a few tears hit the table. My family reassured me that the caterpillar was just a cake, and didn't have things like neurons or organs or feelings, and wanted nothing more than for me to pluck a delicious antenna from its skull and devour it with gusto. Tentatively, I reached out towards the cake's candied face, eager to feast upon its lepidopterous pompadour.

And the cake began to whimper.

Now, I'm damn near carnivorous. I wear a leather jacket. My rebellious middle school stint as a vegetarian lasted about as long as it took Dad to cook steak for dinner. That said, I willingly admit that I could not walk up to a pig, clobber it over the head with a shillelagh, and mangle it into a pile of deliciousness. And this is exactly what I was attempting to do, at the tender age of four. I acknowledge that dispatching a cake with my bare hands is rather tame as coming-of-age rituals go, but I just could not do it.

After some prodding, I was finally convinced to give it another go. Straight away, the caterpillar began squealing again. I remorsefully steeled myself for a lifetime of unfeeling cabbage-shaped cakes, adorned with baby carrots instead of delectable licorice ropes. As I pondered the logistics of how many cupcakes it would take to formulate an ear-of-corn-cake, the caterpillar's horrible weeping gave way to belly laughs.

Apparently, my grandfather does a really good impersonation of a caterpillar pleading for its life.

I only remember two specific nightmares from my childhood. The first involves the dragon from Mega Man 2 appearing at my window and threatening to burn down our house unless I supplied him with a large garden salad from Tom & Pat's (with extra Italian dressing on the side). The second involves a giant caterpillar careening through the subway tunnels as I try to run (well, ride) away as fast as I can. Since my only exposure to the subway system prior to the age of twenty-six came via Ninja Turtles, I'm pretty sure we all know who is to blame.

But man, was that antennae delicious.

¹ I got to hear his band a few times, but only through Mom's belly. Once I popped out for a better listen, the stupid bars wouldn't let me in anymore.
² Really, I kind of hope she doesn't read this, 'cause I have a feeling she'll get grumpy about my having brought that up. Sorry, Mom!
³ Eventually, Mom stopped scolding him for his art and simply leaned frames up against the wall. He also once drew a Brontosaurus that took up the majority of the dining room rug (don't feed me none of that Apatosaurus bullcrap). When my parents inquired whether he was responsible for defiling the carpet, his proud response was "Pretty good dinosaur, huh?"
⁴ The youngest memory I recall is talking to my folks on the phone from my grandparents' house, letting me know that I was now a big brother. I told them to send him back. I didn't want to share my room.
⁵ Much as underbellies are typically seedy, little paws are typically grubby.

This week I...

2011-01-29T11:58:00.002-05:00

...converted approximately thirteen hundred loose nickels into approximately seven books.

...met a proper young lady who introduced herself as "Dirtbag Tits."

...cleaned out my closet and discovered no fewer than nine assorted NES controllers.

...engaged in telephonic combat with Old Navy's customer service department regarding a defective underpants situation.

...realized that the grocery store around the corner finally carries Schlitz.

...ate a slice of pizza without picking off the mushrooms.

...ate tongue-pastrami.

...likened Chris Dodd's eyebrows to what would happen if John Oates kissed your eyeballs after competing in a honey-eating contest.

...beat up Halfus Wyrmbreaker (stop judging me).

...beat up the concept of legal billing with the powers of extreme data entry (it's ok to start judging again - it's a pretty mediocre superpower).

The Least-Academic Research Paper I've Ever Written: A Hasty Précis on the Role of the Gluteus Maximus in the History of Hip Hop Music

2011-01-24T01:50:00.000-05:00

"Feels real good when you sing about your butt." - Eddie Murphy, 1982

With this simple realization, Eddie Murphy thrust his derriere into the public consciousness. While pop musicians had traditionally obfuscated their lyrical intentions behind euphemisms of "wanting to hold hands," "groove things," and "backdoor men," Murphy declared open season on his bottom as a topic for musical discourse. Though few chose to embrace Murphy's buttocks as a source of inspiration, this track laid the groundwork for the subsequent thirty years of brazen ass-jams.

Pop anthropologists typically smirk with disdain when recalling the media-dubbed "butt frenzy" craze. Not since Beatlemania had Western popular culture been so keenly focused on a single locus. Much as the Beatles' clever use of pronouns incited worried parents in the early 1960's, crafty hip hop artisans began to craft recordings designed to titillate and arouse.

"Tina got a big ole butt." - LL Cool J, 1989

A scant seven years after Eddie Murphy's initial discovery, LL Cool J revealed to the world that one could just as easily "rap" about butts besides one's own. In expounding the virtues of Tina's callipygian hindquarters, "Big L" ushered in the golden age of radio singles about bottoms.

Instead of childishly harping about one's own buttocks, this new wave of music fell into two disparate camps. The first took the form of a simple heart-to-heart with the listener, wherein the musician would imploringly describe the listener's rear as "real fine," or perhaps even "hundred proof." The more elegant second, grandly displayed in "Big Ole Butt," resembled the broadside ballads of old. Often autobiographical in nature, this sort of song exemplified the ebb and flow of the existence of an "ass-man." While there were most certainly comical or uplifting moments in these songs, this single-minded devotion to pulchritudinous bottoms more often than not led to the majority of the rapper's worldly troubles.

Mr. Cool J's candor is noteworthy, as brutal honesty in posterior matters soon became the norm. He seems content to joyfully acquaint himself with increasingly ample bottoms, as if their very existence justifies any path he might follow in life.

"Never trust a big butt and a smile." - Bel Biv DeVoe, 1990

The logical next step in this genre's development was the "cautionary tale." Hip hop performers continued the long-standing emphasis on bravado in popular music, and Bel Biv DeVoe's venomous opus served to temper this hubris. From Mustang Sally to Runaround Sue, the "dangerous woman" has long been a rock and roll trope. By warning their listeners about the consequences of chasing tempting tushies, Bel Biv DeVoe likely curtailed the disastrous impact the aforementioned butt frenzy could have had on Western society.

That said, it bears mentioning that Mssrs. Bel, Biv, and DeVoe were proponents of "smacking it up, flipping it, and rubbing it down," so it is unlikely that they made efforts to follow their own advice.

"I like the butt." - 2 Live Crew, 1990

While Bel Biv DeVoe chose to educate with their lyrics, 2 Live Crew eschewed lyrical nuance for primal simplicity. Musicians of bygone eras utilized colorful slang in attempts to slide risque rhythms past censors, whereas 2 Live Crew presented plain observations without subterfuge. Though accused of pandering to the populace's basest desires by anti-fun advocate Tipper Gore, it is more likely that these clever gents were testing the boundaries of what was deemed acceptable by the general population, Music Television ("MTV"), and popular radio.

While a bold move, many ass-enthusiasts cite this recording as the specific point of decline in the lyrical content of butt-rock. Though some attempted to continue this proud, young tradition, even such gems as Wreckx-n-Effect's rhyming of "wiggle" and "jiggle" was not enough to prove to detractors that there was much life left in the genre.

"So your girlfriend rolls a Honda, playing workout tapes by Fonda. But Fonda ain't got no motor in the back of her Honda. My anaconda don't want none unless you've got buns, hun." - 1992

Just when most had lost faith, Seattle's Sir Mix-A-Lot (née Anthony Ray) burst onto the scene with the most enduring, endearing love letter to fannies¹ ever recorded. The astonishing portion of America's drunk population that can recall Mix-A-Lot's lyrics verbatim is testament to the memorability of this song. Blending modern bluntness with the spirited euphemism of yore, "Baby Got Back" remains the "Heartbreak Hotel" of ass-centric hip hop.

It should be noted that this song established Oakland, CA as the booty capital of the United States. If Mr. Mix-A-Lot's knowledge of the relative attractiveness of the human face is as expansive as his familiarity with the human booty, the proverbial "Golden Mean" locale for sexy ladies would be found somewhere in the vicinity of Coalinga.

"I can't believe it's just so round. It's like... out there. I mean, gross." - Sir Mix-a-Lot (by proxy), 1992

While typically acknowledged as the hip hop world's foremost authority on butts, it bears mentioning that Sir Mix-A-Lot fairly presented the opposition's argument as well. Conservative pundits have long been understandably baffled by the popular emergence of the butt frenzy movement, and Mix-A-Lot's decision to address their fears remains the most daring move made in the history of rump-rock.

Unfortunately, Sir Mix-A-Lot's forceful ditty truly marked the peak of this movement. Even his 1996 release, Return of the Bumpasaurus, failed to ensnare the zeitgeist. Hip hop took a harsh turn towards doing "the Bartman," and all seemed lost.

"She had dumps like a truck. Truck. Truck." - Sisqo, 1999

After several intervening years severely lacking in descriptions of glorious glutes, Sisqo resuscitated the ailing genre with his poetic ode to undergarments. While the bulk of the lyrics deal more with fabric than flesh, Sisqo unflinchingly details the coverage of this particular lady's backside in painstaking detail. Though a reasonably simplistic piece, "The Thong Song" was a noble effort to revive public interest in creatively paying tribute to jiggling business-parts. Though the genre could never hope to recapture the glory of the early 1990s, Sisqo's grandiose masterpiece made strides towards revitalizing America's butt frenzy.

Sisqo's efforts were well rewarded - artistically, monetarily, and in the form of an enduring film career. Moreover, he established a new standard of lyrical nuance with his vibrant similes. Ass-celebrators waited with bated breath for the opportunity to hear who would lyrically top Sisqo's magnum opus.

"We all like to see ass and titties." - Lil Jon & the East Side Boyz, 2003

At least Sisqo tried.

And at least I refrained from providing an in-depth analysis of Fergie's "milky, milky cocoa puffs." Just think: in twenty-five years, that topic will be academically viable.

¹ American fanny, not British. That's a wholly different genre of hip hop, one which cannot be politely discussed in mixed company.

2010 in Music

2010-12-30T20:28:00.008-05:00

It's just about time for my little yearly exercise - sum up the past year of my life in song. It's interesting to look back a few years after the fact to dig up which songs got me through a particular year's ups and downs, and twenty-ten certainly had its share of both. The rather bipolar mix of this year's music displays that far better than I can, so I'm going to hush up and let a wad of links do the talking.

Talking Heads - "Road to Nowhere"

Divynls - "I Touch Myself"

The Defending Champions - "Reckless Legend"

Biz Markie - "Just a Friend"

Johnathan Richman - "When I Say Wife" (Sadly, this one is limited to a thirty-second Last.fm clip. The world needs more love for Mr. Richman.)

Tom Waits - "All the World Is Green"

Billy Preston - "Nothing From Nothing"

Leslie Hall - "Tight Pants/Body Rolls"

Rolling Stones - "Miss You"

Tom T. Hall - "I Love"

George Harrison - "Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea"

Rebecca Loebe - "Stronger"

Die Antwoord - "Evil Boy" (This one is especially NSFW... Just sayin'.)

Zilla Persona - "Gamer Chic"

Cee Lo Green - "Fuck You"

LaRoux - "Bulletproof"

Elvis Costello - "Allison"

Queen - "Don't Stop Me Now"

And I feel like this deserves an honorable mention. A very happy 2011 to all of y'all, and much love.

Life as a Sitcom: What Can Brown Do For You?

2010-12-01T14:40:00.002-05:00

(The family enters an unfamiliar restaurant of the Polish persuasion. Ed has been to other such establishments in the area, but they are all too busy on this blustery fall evening. The family finds an empty table in the corner and peruses the menu. Waitress takes and delivers the family's beverage orders, along with a wooden cutting board heaped with bread, pickles, and a cup of "brown.")

Ed: (Eats a pickle slice, wary of the "brown.") The pickles are tasty!

Dad: (Boldly slathers a bit of "brown" onto a slice of bread and takes a bite.) Hm.

Ed: Any idea what that is?

Dad: Nope. It tastes meaty. (Takes another bite.)

Ed: (Tentatively spreads a dollop of "brown" on a slice of bread and tastes it. He is relieved that it does not taste like fish paste.) It's... kind of like chicken salad? I have no idea what I'm eating, but it's pretty good. (Shrugs and takes another bite. With Gusto.¹)

Mom: I'm not eating that.

(Waitress arrives to take the family's order.)

Dad: (To Waitress.) Excuse me, what is this?

Waitress: Lard. (Beat.) Pork fat. Lard.

All: Huh!

Dad: (Smears an extra blob of the identified substance across his slice of bread.) Maybe we can come pick you up for Christmas this year so you don't have to take the train. (Waggles eyebrows and triumphantly takes a bite.)

(The family turns to the fourth wall. All throw their heads back and laugh. Cue theme music.²)

¹ Who's Gusto?
² In college, my roommate and I pretended that our day-to-day lives took place within a sitcom. There was a wall in our dorm room designated as the studio audience, at which all jokes were to be directed. Following the punchline, everyone in the room was to throw their heads back in laughter while the joke-teller sheepishly shrugged. Then someone sang the theme music and everybody froze in place on the last beat. This ritual was law, strictly enforced (in our room, anyways). I miss college.

Wherein Ed ponders his future as a reality television star for the teeevee companies...

2010-11-27T12:35:00.007-05:00

A few weeks ago, I spent my lunch break attending an event that was purportedly "Lil Jon serving pizza." Now, it takes about twenty minutes to get from my office to the mystical pizzeria in question, then another twenty to get back. Given the standard lunch hour of the working man, I was left with just under twenty minutes to seek out and observe the guy responsible for my undying love of the Ying Yang Twins. With such glorious people-watching opportunities at stake, I figured my protruding gut could handle a skipped lunch.¹

I emerged from the train-bowels of New York's seedy underbelly,² and attempted to locate my partner in crime for this investigation. Instead, I found Gary Busey.

He informed me (well, everyone) that he was The Pepperoni Prophet, and proceeded to have a conversation with a baby. Something magical was happening.

Something magical indeed.

Popping my peepers through the window, I realized that this shindig was far grander than anticipated. Mark McGrath! Jose Canseco! David Cassidy! It was like VH1 left the closet unlocked and their stable of shackled "celebrities" scampered off to embark on a zany pizzeria scheme in hopes of purchasing their freedom.³

I figured it was, more likely, some sort of bizarro community service stunt. There were signs explaining that the overpriced pizza was for a charity of some sort, and there were cameramen wandering all over the place ensuring that every scrap of ridiculousness was sucked up by the camera.

At some point within those fifteen minutes or so, a friendly guy with a guitar and cowboy hat struck up a conversation. I felt pretty bad for clearly not knowing who he was, because he was so friendly and enthusiastic about selling pizza and because I had already managed to identify Richard Hatch, tax-dodging winner of the first season of Survivor.⁴

I suppose I could have asked him exactly what was going on, but that would have spoiled the adventure. Even while signing the waiver that allowed my likeness to appear on some reality show or another, I didn't ask exactly which it was. For all I know, I could have been signing away my beautiful manface to a show loosely based on the plot of 101 Dalmations.⁵

All good things must come to an end (or all things in general, really). After slogging through a grueling fat-guy-jog back to the office, I couldn't resist the siren's call of The Googles. Apparently I'd signed a waiver to scuttle around in the background of "Celebrity Apprentice." I can handle that. I suppose it's better than having signed off on cheering for those Oompa-Loompas from Jersey. I didn't really get to see much of Lil Jon, though.

Also also, I discovered that the guy with the guitar was John Rich. He was totally rad.

¹ On the hierarchy of "Things Ed Likes," lunch typically occupies one of the very top spots (typically competing with "Pokémon" and "boobs"). Anyone that knows me probably recognizes this as a display of how damn excited I was to watch Lil Jon give people pizza.
² I can't help but wonder if there are non-seedy underbellies.
³ "I Love the Aughts" doesn't stand a chance without the comedic stylings of Mark McGrath let me tell you.
⁴ I sort of have an excuse, since my first real relationship was heavily defined by watching way more "Survivor" than anyone needs. Also "COPS."
⁵ A show about Meat Loaf trying to sell enough pizzas to buy enough puppies to make a fur coat would probably do pretty well. Just saying.

Budae Jjigae!

2010-11-08T20:27:00.001-05:00

A few weeks ago, I learned about the magnificence of budae jjigae, which (as a few friends and/or the interwebs have taught me) roughly translates to "army base stew." It's essentially a Korean stew combined with random schtuff from old-timey American rations - hot dogs, baked beans, and so on. Perusing various recipes, it seems that the only real constants are gochujang, onion, and garlic. And, of course, Spam.

Anyone familiar with my general level of willpower knows that I am not one to resist a seemingly bad idea, especially when said bad idea involves boiling comestibles of questionable edibility.

Anyone familiar with my attention span knows that I usually forget about seemingly bad ideas before implementation, which is probably some sort of awesome self-preservation mechanism. Nevertheless, I remembered the existence of this glorious hell broth the other day. It turns out that Other Ed used to make it in college now and then, and we promptly resolved that this hearty endeavor would make the perfect Sunday afternoon cooking adventure.

Really, I should give all of the cooking credit to Other Ed, as he performed the bulk of the essential choppin' and stirrin'. The extent of my contribution was dicing the Spam. I can't even claim to have done that adequately; consumed by zealous Spamlust, I mutilated way more of the tinned meat food product than any rational human being needs. Now we have a little container filled with future artery-cloggage!

Look at those meaty globules. Honestly, Spam is not half as gross as most folks make it out to be. At the very least, the stuff can't be worse than deli turkey - plenty of folks are more than happy to eat slices from what is essentially a jiggling loaf of reconstituted turkey juice. Pots and kettles, I say!

Other Ed also deserves photography credit, as my phone's camera makes everything look like it's been run through a Virtual Boy.¹ Clearly, he is the apartment's more functional Ed.

So yeah. Gochujang, onion, garlic, Spam, Tofu Pups, leek, bok choy, and ramen. This is what we were rockin' before the noodles absorbed the mighty soup-juices. Toss it over rice and you have a meal fit for a fiscally responsible king.

Don't you want that in your mouth? Well you can't have it in your mouth. It was already in my mouth.

¹ Look! Mario is playing tennis! In Hell!

Reasons Why I Shouldn't Become an Eccentric Inventor

2010-11-03T16:00:00.000-04:00

(Mother steps into the kitchen. She is the very image of a 1950s sitcom mother, resplendent in her apron and checkered housedress. The dress would look more comfortable serving as the tablecloth in a run-down diner. She pauses as she notices Little Johnny sitting at the kitchen table, his face slathered with a buttery substance. Little Johnny is rotund.)

Mother: Jonathan! Have you gotten into the butter bin again? (She waggles the finger of shame.) What have I told you about that? You'll spoil your appetite! And on Meatloaf Tuesday! (Aghast.)

Little Johnny: (Wiping smears of yellow paste from his jowls.) C'mon, mom! It's not butter! It's New Butter-Flavored Chocolate (For Fats Kids!)! (He triumphantly raises a fresh bar, before ravenously tearing through the wrapper. He jams yellowed hunks into his cheeks like an obese chipmunk preparing for The Day After Tomorrow.)

Mother: (Incredulous, Mother turns to the camera.) Butter-flavored whaaa...? (The camera rapidly zooms in and out on Mother's puzzled expression to emphasize that she is clearly behind the times when it comes to popular snack foods.)

Announcer: That's right, Mom! It's New Butter-Flavored Chocolate (For Fat Kids!)! (Cue montage of applications for this wondrous new product, from baking it into pancakes to crumbling it over ice cream.) Packed with the milk solids that moms trust and the salted buttery goodness that kids love, it's the best way to enjoy that dairy delicacy at school, on the go, or while participating in your favorite sedentary activities!

Mother: Well that just sounds delightful! (Beat.) Why, can I try a bite?

Little Johnny: No way, mom! It's for fat kids!

(Both laugh uproariously; beads of buttery saliva anxiously flee the wasteland that is Little Johnny's mouth. He turns to the camera and gives a thumbs up, soaked with sweat from this uncharacteristic exertion of effort. He flashes a greasy, lipid-caked smile. The camera does its ample best to hold down whatever it is that cameras ingest for sustenance.)

Announcer: Butter-Flavored Chocolate (For Fat Kids!): put it in your mouth and use your tongue to taste it!¹

And coming soon, from the makers of New Butter-Flavored Chocolate (For Fat Kids!): New Butter-Flavored Chocolate (For the Discerning Adult)!

(Cut to Mother and Father in a fancy restaurant for grown-ups. The dim lighting and tuxedoed waiter suggest that this particular establishment is charged with romance. Mother harshly drags a hunk of lobster meat across a freshly-unwrapped bar of Butter-Flavored Chocolate (For the Discerning Adult). She seductively pops the ruined morsel into her eager mouth, glances towards the camera, and administers the least-stealthy wink imaginable.)

¹ Special thanks to my brother for helping me come up with an awesome slogan. He probably shouldn't be allowed to become an eccentric inventor either.

Forgive or Forget?

2010-11-02T12:20:00.001-04:00

It's rare that I actually remember my dreams. On the odd occasion that I do, said dreams typically involve the purchase of imaginary products that I wish existed. Two favorites that come to mind are i) a Batman-themed home enema kit; and ii) a bejeweled bling-necklace in the shape of Eddie Murphy's face. Point being, the rare dreams that I recall are typically fluffier than a pillow filled with smaller pillows which are, in turn, attending miniature pillow conventions.

A few nights ago, I dreamed that I was in Hell.

Well, it wasn't specifically Aytch-Eee-Double-Hockeysticks. I didn't notice any fire, or brimstone, or circles, or furious Lucifers munching on Judas and Company. It was basically business as usual, except I was cognizant of the fact that I was dead (undead?) and chilling in the less attractive of the two options. Turns out, so was everyone else I knew.

In the grand scheme of things, the situation certainly could have been be worse. I've been enjoying this place so far, so the lesser of two options being another go around is far from the worst thing that the universe could offer.

Nobody really seemed to know what the nicer place entailed, besides that it was "better." However, everyone was given clear criteria on the entry procedure; to weasel one's way through those assumedly pearly gates, an individual only needed to mark two checkboxen on their to-do list.

First, you had to forgive someone. The rub was that you had no idea who this person was. It was someone specific, and for a particular action, but you wouldn't know if they were the correct individual until you truly and honestly had forgiven them. A half-bottomed "I'm sorry" through the side of the mouth wasn't enough - there was no leap unless the penance was genuine.

There was no impetus to do so beyond the half-promise of a land presumably engorged with unicorns and rainbows, so a lot of folks deemed it too much work to be proactive and just kept on keeping on. Honestly, there wasn't anything worse in store for folks that chose to stick around than what they were already used to. If it worked out alright the first time, no need to rock boats.

Genuine forgiveness is probably rarer than we give it credit for, especially when it comes to the weightier matters in life. I can't say that I've been brutally wronged in very many ways throughout my life, but I still forgive like an elephant. If it came down to it, could I really reach the "forget" step of the whole process for the "big things?"

Food for thought, I suppose.

The second step was a bit more complicated: you had to be forgiven. Again, you had no idea who needed to forgive you, or even what you were being forgiven for. There didn't seem to be any guarantee that the event to be forgiven was even a particularly grievous one. The only way one could be proactive about this step was to seek out anyone and everyone you may have wronged in hopes of making things right. For some, this simply made the passive approach towards step one even more appealing; no sense in breaking one's back when the other party might do the work for you.

The end result was a bizarre world in which countless folks spent their lives apologizing for various things they had done in prior lives, while just as many simply... kept living. I'm honestly not sure which option is more appealing - living forever in the world we've made for ourselves or trying to make the world a better place for wholly selfish reasons. I'm inclined to believe that most folks that "try to make the world a better place" do so for fairly selfish reasons anyways, but I'm also a grumpy old man with rattled faith in the average person. I suppose, in a way, that the whole situation wasn't very different from life as we know it, barring the slightly more tangible reward awaiting those willing to put in the work.

The more I think about it, this is probably some sort of weird political allegory for something or other. Instead of psychoanalyzing myself, I'm just going to pretend that it was just my brain's plea for me to stop wasting headspace on pining for that Eddie Murphy bling.¹

¹ It laughed like Axel Foley when you pushed its nose. To this day, my heart weeps that it cannot feel that pendant's cold embrace.

Brown-Leaved Vertigo

2010-11-01T19:58:00.002-04:00

That's Lumpy. Note his general sense of apprehension about the savage case of gourd-rash infecting his faceparts. He's kind of squishy now, but I think he's got a few more days left in him. If nothing else, he managed to survive the hordes of Halloween hooligans and will be allowed to naturally decompose on the stoop and/or be eaten by feral cats. Hoo-ray for Lumpy!

So.

As expected, I have been planning my Halloween costume for just about a year now.

As expected, I put off making my Halloween costume until the day before Halloween.

I wasn't terribly worried about the last-minute rush, as I'd done some prolific napkin doodling during lunch breaks.¹ I knew exactly what I needed to scrounge up, and figured a quick trip to Target would cover all of my proverbial bases. Well, Saturday certainly taught me a number of things.

Ski masks are rather difficult to find. This leads me to believe that the average burglar is a knitting superstar.

Sewing kits are basically impossible to find. I suppose that I could have improvised with medical supplies, but they're expensive.² Also, I doubt I would have been able to resist the siren's call of superfluous stitches. Though the mental image of waddling into the living room with my hands sewn to my bum is amusing, having avoided that situation is probably for the best.

I knew this going in, but want to reaffirm in case anyone is wondering: going to Party City the day before Halloween is, in actuality, a bad idea.

I didn't know this going in, but want to share: going to Rite Aid the day before Halloween is, in actuality, a bad idea. I'd give the place bonus points for the discounted candy, but the bulk of what they had left were heaping mounds of Fun-Sized Mounds bars. There is nothing fun about having less candy, unless they're Mounds bars.

When it comes to superglue, there's a hefty difference between "dry" and "dry enough."

Thankfully, the same can be said with "eye" and "eyelid."

Long story short, I managed to glue my half-finished MODOK helmet to my head in glorious blaze of stupidity. Thankfully, I managed to tear it off with minimal hair/skin loss, saving myself from being that guy in the emergency room on Halloween with wardrobe malfunction-related injuries.

This was the universe reminding me that I am exactly why I can't have nice things.

In the end, I decided to just go to my flatmate's ladyfriend's flatmate's coworker's party as "Ed." Given my past experiences with rando-parties, I wasn't exactly tromping in with the highest of expectations anyways.

As it turns out, the folks throwing the shindig were totally awesome and sweet. They didn't mind that I was a near-rando or that my costume was, as we say in the business, "totes lame." The hostess did make a point of lending me a costume, though:

Amusingly enough, people came up to me throughout the night telling me that my costume was awfully clever, some of whom hadn't actually noticed the nametag. Score another one for all fat guys with beards looking the same to everybody else!

Between meeting some awesome new folks, drinking something called "Troll," and witnessing New York's highest Gumby concentration since 1986, I'm going to call this Halloween a win.

¹ Really, everything I do essentially takes place at the last minute. I'm not a terribly useful person.
² And let's be honest... I could probably do a better job sewing with a stapler than with a needle and thread. Of all of the useful skills that I've picked up over the years, that's definitely one that I dropped somewhere along the road.

Don't Tell Me About That

2010-10-21T14:30:00.002-04:00

For the third day in a week's time, a second A train zooms past the station without room for more passengers. There's something debilitating about the notion of relying on mass transit to get you somewhere on time. I'm certain that someone has devised a formula that shows how leaving earlier in the morning just adds that much more time to your trek in the form of "train traffic ahead of us."

I flip open my current diversion from the fact that I'm slowly plodding towards another day of soul-crushing office drone ennui. As I turn a page, a wild-eyed gentleman of the drunken persuasion stumbles his way into my personal space... and stops there.

Based on the lingering aroma of Christmas tree flittering about his person, let us refer to this jolly old chap as Mr. Gordon Beefeater. It's a good, strong name for a man whose typical breakfast consists primarily of a Bloody Margaret.¹ Easy on the bloody, hard on the Margaret.

I look up from my book. Mr. Beefeater sports the cocked eyebrow of a man readying himself to detail his life story, what he suspects might be the life story of that lady shoveling down a styrofoam cup of breakfast ramen, and his heavily-researched opinions on Ayn Rand's "The Fountainhead."²

Mr. Beefeater's mouth creaks open, ever so slightly. I fake a half-smile, and stoically steel myself for a very long wait on the platform. Life in the Big Apple has brought out shades of my inner-asshole, but I'm still too generically polite to ignore him completely. His weathered mouth hangs open as his glazed eyes dart around my general vicinity. Just as I expect some combination of slurred speech and vomit to tumble from his gaping maw onto my weeping workboots, he swiftly veers left and injects himself into a conversation between two young professionals.

This is my cue to put my book away, because magical interpersonal interactions are imminent. Really, this sort of thing is hilarious so long as I'm not involved.

The young professionals are conversing about the previous day's lunch excursions, as young professionals are wont to do. They expertly pretend that Mr. Beefeater isn't standing directly between them, just a hair too close to both. Mr. Beefeater eagerly laps up every word, his gaze of wonder bouncing between the two young men at a pace approximately two seconds behind the actual conversation. The leftmost young professional mentions that, during the previous day's lunch excursion, he had simply gone to a deli and ordered chicken fingers.

Mr. Beefeater can no longer contain his excitement.

"Chicken fingers?"

Mr. Beefeater bursts into maniacal laughter, the type typically reserved for small children telling the sorts of non-jokes that make small children burst into maniacal laughter.³

"Don't tell me 'bout that!"

His chuckling bout marches on, punctuated with heaving exclamations of "I told you not to tell me 'bout that!" The young professionals continue to ignore Mr. Beefeater's presence, and go on to talk about important business things, such as bond paper and facsimile machines. From this point forward, Mr. Beefeater latches onto random words in their conversation and progressively deems them the funniest things he's ever heard (or so one might think, based on his wheezing attempts to catch his breath between chortles).

"Spreadsheets? Don't tell me 'bout that! Skypes? Don't tell me 'bout that! Victoria's Secret? Don't tell me 'bout that!"

Repeat the word, hunch over in laughter, insist that they not tell you about that. I'm on top of this one, Mr. Beefeater! I whip out my handy-dandy notebook and begin constructing a list of things about which I should not tell Mr. Beefeater. Sadly, I couldn't understand the bulk of what he was saying. I suppose that it can be difficult to annunciate while holding back the regurgitation of one's chicken fingers. Nevertheless, being late for work was definitely at the top of his list. Mr. Beefeater is an important man with important places to be.

As suddenly as they approached, Mr. Beefeater's laughs retreat. He glances somberly from one young professional to the next, content that the moment they shared was everything Kodak could hope for. The young professionals use every measure of willpower they have in reserve to continue the charade that they hadn't even noticed Mr. Beefeater in the first place.

If he was the touchy-feely type, this is the moment in which Mr. Beefeater would have placed a paw on each of their shoulders for a reassuring pat. Not one for such New Age mentalities, Mr. Beefeater simply gives each a grandfatherly nod and hobbles off to share a similarly tender moment with a pair of high school students.

Mr. Beefeater gets right down to business.

"Dustin Bieber? Don't tell me 'bout that!"

Soon thereafter, an A train with a prominently Ed-sized void appears on the tracks. Mr. Beefeater notices a void suiting his needs as well, but it doesn't seem like anyone is trying to tell him much of anything anymore. Three stops later, I hop off of the train and scuttle towards the office, wishing I had taken the time to ask Mr. Beefeater exactly what I should have told him about. Perhaps he has a passion for collecting antique cutlery or breeding Labradoodles. Perhaps Mr. Beefeater was meant to be my very own booze-soaked and urine-stained Mr. Wendal, and I bungled my shot. I'll never know.

The MTA kind of sucks at what they do, but sometimes their severe inability to schedule subway trains at reasonable intervals leads to some phenomenal people-watching. This one's for you, Gordy.

¹ His friends in high school called him "Gordy Beefs."
² I once had an hour-long conversation about "The Fountainhead" with a hobo on the F train. He made it abundantly clear that Rand was the reason he had dropped out of college and given up on any sort of professional life. I'm not entirely sure if he was for or against her ideas (my guess is against, based on his facial reaction when I told him I was reading it for pleasure and not for school), but I definitely noticed that he lacked the "angular" features idealized by Randians. Maybe he just felt he'd never make it in the business world with such a round face. Those rascally Objectivists are foisting unattainable self-images upon our impressionable academics!
³ How many cheeseburgers does it take to tune a piano? Eleven!

Wherein Ed ponders his future as an executive for the teeevee companies, Part Deux

2010-10-20T13:36:00.000-04:00

The Dad Olympics - The Dad Olypmics aim to settle the age old question: can your dad really beat up my dad? By competing in a series of events showcasing talents and skills integral to proper dadliness, these dads are going to show once and for all who has got the dadliest dad!

Here are some riveting glimpses of what you can expect to witness... in The Dad Olympics!

The Longest Yard - In this straightforward event, each dad must teach a small child the proper method with which to "toss the old pigskin." Between throws, dads must walk the line between subtle encouragement and verbal abuse to ensure that these valuable lessons stick with the children for the rest of their lives. Judging is based on a dad's teaching prowess as well as on the performance of the faux-fruit of his loins (who is more than likely a disappointment, but is loved anyways). Bonus points are awarded for creatively nicknaming particularly impressive throws.¹

The All-American Prom-Date Staredown - This competition utilizes both stealth and intimidation skills. While awaiting an imaginary daughter's slow-motion descent from her upstairs boudoir, each dad must inform "that snot-nosed little punk" in exactly how many worlds of hurt he will find himself if your precious baby-girl is not home by eleven o'clock (as creatively as possible and in one hundred words or less). Bonus points are awarded for drawing attention to the wall-mounted shotgun in the most subtle manner, but allowing any family member to overhear your lecture results in immediate disqualification from the event.

The Dadliest Catch - The Dadliest Catch competition combines the adrenaline rush of a fishing contest with the fabled fibbing skills of a seasoned dad. Each dad has exactly one hour to catch the biggest fish they are able. At the end of the hour, the dads convene with their biggest fish hidden behind their backs. Play proceeds as in Liar's Dice: a dad proclaims that he has caught a fish "this big," and the subsequent dad must either counterclaim to have caught a fish "this big" or call the previous dad's dad-bluff. The last dad standing is crowned The Fisher King; all other dads must clean their fish in shame to prepare for the License to Grill event.

License to Grill - This event is divided into two separate competitions and a bonus round, which are scored individually.

The first competition begins with the of lighting the grill; dads are given a choice between propane or charcoal.² Each dad must then cook a full complement of barbecue specialties to order, including but not limited to hamburgers, cheeseburgers, hot dogs, kielbasa, sausage patties, steaks, chicken, shrimp, fish that are "this big," and corn.

During the second competition, each dad will stand watch as another dad works on phase one, being sure to inform them when "that one looks done" and ensuring that both dads have a frosty beer in-hand at all times. These dads are also responsible for ensuring that conversation remains squarely on the topics of "meat," "the big game," and/or "people or things that are busting your ass."

The "Veggie Burger Bonus Round" awards bonus points to the dad who grills a veggie burger "in a corner of the grill that the meat didn't touch" in the most begrudging manner.

Basically, this idea spiraled from "I think this is hilarious and everyone else doesn't" to "I genuinely can't believe that this show hasn't already happened" way too quickly.³ Fox better snap me up quick before I start shopping my brilliance around to other networks!⁴

¹ This is, essentially, the speech section of The Dad Olympics, wherein eloquent dads can exercise their book-learnin' skills. Bonus point recipients in prior Dad Olympics include Earl Henderson's "Obliterator," with which he has deviated no fewer than nine septums, and Jack Tombley's time-honored "Obfuscator," which is a "tough love" parenting analogue of pretending to throw a stick while laughing at the dog-in-question's befuddled misery.
² The very suggestion of wood chips leads to immediate disqualification. This ain't no fancy-dad contest.
³ I'm reasonably certain that I am still the only person that finds the idea of this show entertaining.
⁴ Truthfully, I'm pulling for ABC. The sitcom-dad judging booth requires Carl Winslow's surliness for the show to really pop.

Rolling on the River

2010-10-14T09:35:00.021-04:00

When Justin and I were young'uns, our aunt and uncle took us to a pizza restaurant. Now, I can expound the virtues of New Haven pizza like Lionel Richie, but this is neither the time nor place. The important thing is that this particular pizza establishment had a jukebox.

To your average jaded adult, a jukebox is a piece of furniture found primarily in diners and dive bars, bulging like an expired carton of cheese-milk with the greatest hits of Hall & Oates and the greatest misses of REO Speedwagon.¹

To your average jaded child, a jukebox is power. In the right hands, a jukebox can be a ruthless weapon, inflicting your particular brand of musical torture upon an entire restaurant. In our case, we just hoped that it contained the newest "Weird Al" Yankovic album, upon which we had yet to lay our grubby hands.² I suppose some folks might argue that this would count as an example of musical torture, but we were starry-eyed children who thought (read: still think) that "Mr. Frump in the Iron Lung" is the second-highest form of comedy.

Obviously, the pizzeria proprietors knew better than to stuff their jukebox with Weird Al, so we were stuck trying to find four quarters worth of music while waiting for our bubbling joy-pie. The machine wasn't spinning a tune at the moment, so our songs were bound to be the next. We couldn't resist the appeal of hearing a handful of songs of our choice, even though we didn't actually know any of the recording artists listed on the box. This was probably evident based on the fact that we were looking for Weird Al in a pizzeria jukebox.

We scrabbled up four songs with exciting titles from bands that sounded like they might not suck. Keep in mind, that we were roughly ten and seven years old at the time, so "might not suck" effectively means "were named after dinosaurs or maybe even poop." I don't recall what songs we punched in, but that doesn't really matter (especially given that we didn't actually know them in the first place). Having selected our ballads of the noble Dumposaurus, we majestically waddled back to the table.

Rolling. Rolling. Rolling on the river.

To this day, I'm fairly certain that we didn't ask for Creedence. Still, I suppose there are worse accompaniments to zah-munchery. We chomped on crispy sheets of pepperoni-bedazzled deliciousness. We chattered about crispy sheets of pepperoni-bedazzled deliciousness (my interests have not matured much in the past eighteen years). Eventually, we got bored of rolling and started anticipating the next layer of our musical pastiche.

Rolling. Rolling. Rolling on the river.

Our aunt raised an eyebrow. Our uncle plopped his slice back onto the plate. My brother and I looked at each other in befuddlement. We didn't pick the same song twice, did we? Neither of us recalled choosing it the first time around, though most folks probably wouldn't come away from "Proud Mary" with anything resembling the song's title (which is notably devoid of reference to the regal Dumposaurus). We claimed that we didn't do it on purpose. We nervously shifted in our seats, pepperoni zest falling dead on our shamed palates, awaiting an end to the embarrassment.

Rolling. Rolling. Rolling on the river.

The only folks interested in listening to the same song for this length of time were probably already stationed at an Allman Brothers concert.

The other patrons glared. Justin and I were definitely the only individuals that had interacted with the jukebox throughout our entire stay. No one else in the pizzeria could have instigated this situation. Every eye in the establishment bore down on my very soul as a heady blend of pre-adolescent paranoia and pre-lapsing Catholic guilt washed over me. We didn't mean to hurt anybody! We were just trying to have a good time! This situation should have been covered in one of the myriad after school specials to which we had been subjected. As my panic crescendoed and I pondered whether or not I was too young to dramatically (sitcomically?) hyperventilate, the end of the song approached. I readied a purging sigh of relief.

Rolling. Rolling. Rolling on the river.

Check please.³

I should note that our aunt and uncle honestly thought the situation was hilarious, regardless of whether we did it on purpose or not. I solemnly promise that we didn't.

Or did we?

¹ Most jukeboxen also end with a disc labeled "Bartender's Choice." In almost every instance I've encountered, it's basically a compilation of Irish punk. My favorite bartender kept his wisely hidden from view, and would play the "Too Drunk To Fuck" by the Dead Kenndys whenever the machine was left unfed. Also, he would skip any Guns 'n' Roses song that wasn't "Mr. Brownstone." Good guy.
² It's pretty rare to hear the word "grubby" outside the context of hands. I need to fix that.
³ Not that I learned anything from the experience. The first thing I typically do upon entering a bar is drop two bucks into the jukebox and see where it leads me. It usually leads me to "Tonight I'm Gonna Rock You Tonight."

Wherein Ed ponders his future as an executive for the teeevee companies...

2010-10-13T10:10:00.016-04:00

I didn't have regular access to cable television for the bulk of the past ten years. This doesn't stem from any moral high ground-ism so much as from my not wanting to stack a cable bill on top of an Internet bill. Really, the Internet is just TV with louder commercials and fewer buttons to push.¹ Despite missing the awesomenoscity of "Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives" dearly, I couldn't see myself paying for hundreds of channels of "Most Blankiest Blanks." The YouTubes serve me the most surliest kittens, the most cutest babies-eating-lemons, and the most hurtiest faceplants whenever I ask for them!

Plus, I can watch whole seasons of things on the Netflix without people trying to get me to buy more waffles. Anyone who's been shopping with me knows it doesn't take much prodding to get me to buy superfluous waffles. Or superfluous bubblegum-flavored dental floss. Or superfluous DVD copies of Brewster's Millions. Ahem.

Although I'm now living in a flat with more channels than Springsteen, I tend to forget that the television does things besides play laserdiscs and let me play hockey on the game-machine.² Unless someone points me in its general direction, I'm more or less ignorant as to what is currently on the boob tube.³ Somehow, though, the roomies and I came to the conclusion that it might be a good idea to watch a chunk of a "Hoarders" marathon.

Whoops.

Now, I've had several conversations about "Hoarders" with various friends over the past few weeks. I knew what I was getting myself into.⁴ I harbor packrat tendencies myself, and I'm pretty horrible about throwing things away. I've gotten much better with age, primarily because I tend to move every year or so. Carrying that much debris down from and up to third-floor walk-ups (walks-up?) is what we in the business refer to as "totes lame." Still, I put off checking out the show. I was kind of worried that it would spark the horrible realization that it might be abnormal to sentimentally cling to random junk. "But this religious propaganda flyer was a present from that nice old lady I talked to on the subway about which flavor of Robitussin was the best flavor!" Oh, memories.

Instead, it sparked the opposite realization. No matter how much junk I have in my proverbial trunk, I can always say "Well, at least there aren't chunks of feral cat rotting under what may or may not be my dining room table!" Despite even Baggo's best efforts, I can proudly proclaim that I've never occupied a domicile that featured a heaping mound of cat feces reaching above my bellybutton. And I'm fairly confident that our kitchen is free of deliciously vintage tinned botulism.

Thankfully, I draw a line in the proverbial dust between clutter and grime. On a scale from "the time Larry and Balki babysat the wrong baby and wackiness ensued" to "the time Larry and Balki tried to open a turkey farm in their backyard and one of the turkeys ate Jennifer's wedding ring," I figure I rate a "the time Larry and Balki would have won the bowling competition if only Balki hadn't had his eyes dilated earlier in the afternoon." I am not very good at coming up with rating systems, but am otherwise in remarkably decent condition.

The thing that really struck me, though, was the slew of commercials between vignettes of weeping relatives. A&E is advertising a show about metermaids. I can get behind shows about folks wrasslin' with furious gar in swimming pools, but metermaids? I'm sure I can come up with something better than that...

...which leads me to the following series of reality TV show pitches. I actually came up with the first one a few weeks ago during an ill-fated streaming of Biodome. The rest are a direct result of the asinine commercials I was subjected to while trying to enjoy watching that guy excavate the hidden treasures lurking beneath that lady's poo-closet. I can see at least one or two of these actually happening.

Weasel'd! - Pauly Shore is back, and this time he's not just weasin' the juice! In the grand tradition of Kelso's Punkshow, Pauly Shore pulls the most bodacious pranks imaginable on some of your favorite celebrities!⁵ The real punchline? These pranks have stopped being polite and started being real! Watch Pauly giggle like a jabbering idiot while he sets Zach Braff's car on fire! See Pauly try to keep a straight face as he brings Paris Hilton the wrong dessert at a posh restaurant! Witness Pauly explain to Stephen Baldwin, in no uncertain terms, that Rick Moranis made a better Barney Rubble! Only on Fox, in our neverending quest for social relevance! Buuuddy.

Hugjobs - Rodney Bumbers is a man on a mission - a mission to seek out the world's saddest individuals and deliver unto them the most reassuring hugs that he can muster. Watch as Rodney wordlessly ensorcells the sadness away through the proper application of tenderly constricting arms. With an emphatic pat of the hair or squeeze of the arm, Rodney assures his huggees that everything will be alright (at least for the duration of this contractually obligated hug). Hug one out, with Fox's Touchy Tuesdays!

The Most Grumpiest Dog - Follow up-and-coming grump superstar Sneakers in her quest to become America's Most Grumpiest Dog! English bulldogs have long been known for their prolific surliness, but Sneakers is taking it to the next level! Will Sneakers have what it takes to uproot the reigning champion - Snickerdoodle, the Shar Pei with irritable bowel syndrome - or will the journey be too "ruff?" Plus, a special look: How many jellybeans can Little Ricky hide in Snickerdoodle's face wrinkles before dad finds out? Check it out here, only on Fox's Canine Invasion Caturday!

Iron Chef eXtreme (brought to you by 7-11) - You are only afforded the ingredients and utensils found within the confines of your local 7-11 convenience store. The secret ingredient is always Mountain Dew Code Red. The warm, smiling visage of Chen Kenichi has been replaced by those of rampaging teenagers, caked in Cheeto dust and eager to return to the compound obscenity-laden worlds of Xbox Live. If you can't take the heat, try one of six delicious Slurpee flavors today and then kindly exit the establishment. Part of Fox's totally real, totally radical Hoppin' Humpday line-up!

America's Next Top Reality TV Show Host - I give up. It's probably Snooki. And probably also on Fox?⁶

¹ Universal remotes are not universal enough for my liking. I have become the old man who can't work the telly.
² I don't really care which team I play, so long as I can pretend I'm the Hartford Whalers. Go Whale!
³ To save you time: it's never boobs. Remember when Comedy Central was the boob channel? Stupid Daily Show. Same thing with PG-13 movies, but I can't blame that on Jon Stewart. Unless he's shackin' up with the MPAA, I guess.
⁴ I knew into what I was getting myself? Prepositions are stupid.
⁵ Really, I'm talking "Dancing With the Stars" level of celebrity here. I'm not sure if Pauly Shore even has that level of clout anymore. He could probably pull off pantsing Kevin Federline in front of a webcam or summat.
⁶ And quick deleted scene, from a show about a woman that semi-inexplicably had to eat hamburgers for lunch every day: "Some days, I don't know if I'll be able to keep going. But I'll do it. I have to. I promised my dying grandma that I'd just keep on eating these burgers. And by gum, I'm going to do it." I would watch that show in the fashion that people used to watch "Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous." I would also watch a medical reality show that was essentially live-action Dr. Mario. This is probably why I don't get to make TV shows.

Some Musings and/or Things That I've Learned From Re-Entering the World of Online Dating

2010-10-06T12:41:00.043-04:00

According to OkCupid's magical love-math, I am specifically attracted to ladies who are "a lot like Liz Lemon, but without the _____." Thankfully, the blank has yet to read "love of sandwiches."

Sending messages that more or less read, in entirety, "You seem fun" is not just for men anymore.

I love the Bloodhoung Gang way more than a rational person should, but I'm not sure how "Hefty Fine" could be someone's favorite album of all time.

On a similar note, a lot of women really appreciate Coldplay on a level that I generally reserve for sandwiches.

Some other interesting things that ladies like: Hank Williams, Helvetica, glasses, David Sedaris, cilantro, the Mets, and Shark Week.¹

Some interesting things that ladies don't like: Axe body spray, the MTA, "games," wearing socks with sandals, the Mets, and pictures of dudes without shirts taken in front of mirrors.

When someone uses "nice" as their primary self-descriptor, one can't help but wonder what they're hiding. I don't think the same is true if someone says "I'm kind of douche-y." You just take that one at face value.

The most-frequently commented upon interest listed in my profile is that I bake pretty good cookies (thanks, Mom!). Second most-frequently commented upon is that I look like Kevin Smith (I really, really don't).² Third most-frequently commented upon is that I am "lol cute lol." (Lol).

Based on comments I've received, the ladies love Flat Stanley. The ladies also love beards, for which I need to write Zach Galifianakis a thank you note.³ I was once told, unprovoked and by a relative stranger, that I only have a beard because I'm insecure about my face. I believe my response was "you're just jealous, 'cause your ladyface can't have one."⁴

For every good date you actually go on, you wind up on seven or eight more where the lady in question either: spends all of dinner complaining about her boyfriend; spends all of dinner handfeeding her dozen-or-so cats; and/or spends all of dinner grilling you about your World of Warcraft talent build.⁵ The only common factors I can see are "dinner" and "me," so one of them needs some subtraction like whoa.

Ultimately, online dating is more or less testament to how impossible it is to meet new people in this city; case in point, I'm pretty sure I already know half of the people that the Interweb suggests as totally awesome. Very few match my dream ideal of "like Velma from Scooby-Doo, but with Shaggy's hoagie-engineering prowess."

¹ I recognize that this only takes into account the subsection of ladies that the aforementioned love-math believes I will find attractive. So really, this factoid probably says more about me than anything else - namely, that my innermost desire is to frolic arm-in-arm with my special ladyfriend, yodeling about holes in buckets while punting serif fonts in the delicates. While riding sharks.
² Every fat guy with a beard looks the same to everyone else. I'm sure I've been over this.
³ My fingers are crossed that he brings the potbelly in vogue as well.
⁴ We all know the real reason for the existence of my beard is because the forty-five minutes it takes to hack it up with a chainsaw could be better spent writing inane drivel and making sandwiches. Also because I live in Brooklyn and it is expected of me by the Em-Tee-Vees.
⁵ WoW is, at best, third date material.

Back to writing, soon...

2010-09-08T00:44:00.004-04:00

The thesis is finally almost done, and I'm working on feeling more like a human being again. I'm itchy to get back to writing for fun, but in the meantime here's another little thing that's been helping me through it all.

Hot damn, do I sometimes wish I was Levi Stubbs.

Cyril Davies & the All-Stars

2010-08-08T15:11:00.004-04:00

Sonny Boy is the coolest.

2010-08-02T22:01:00.002-04:00

On faking it, playing along, and the great American search for inspirado: Part III

2009-11-02T21:51:00.009-05:00

Before this train of thought spiraled into a series of self-discovery essays sprinkled with bad taste, I really just wanted to share that I recently purchased a little USB keyboard.

Its two little octaves are so adorable.

I suspect this bad boy isn't terribly useful for cranking out anything resembling a finished product. It is, however, a fantastic method of getting my music chops back into shape. Not that they were ever in shape in the first place.

On faking it, playing along, and the great American search for inspirado: Part II

2009-10-27T19:00:00.042-04:00

"Writer's block? I've heard of this. This is when a writer cannot write, yes? Then that person isn't a writer anymore." - Warren Ellis

To an individual that is decidedly a non-composer, composition is a funny little exercise. Whenever I dip my toe into these personally uncharted waters, I find myself brutally assaulted by a riptide of clichéd metaphors that might clog even Jim Steinman's gullet. Most of the composition tropes that crop up in elementary school creative writing class also tend to surface whilst musicking. As of late, I have spent far more time than I'd prefer nibbling on the most common shred of advice one seems to run across:

Write what you know.

There are two ways to digest this nugget of joy. On the one hand, I could sublimate my twenty-something, white, middle-class rage into a mélange of "nobody cares" sauce. Though tempting, I wouldn't subject myself to this sort of musical masturbation, let alone anyone else. At the risk of minimizing my current woes, I'm going to go out on a limb and hypothesize that my present life would not translate into a terribly compelling broadside. Despite efforts to foist "Mediation Brief Blues" onto my peers as a heartbreaking work of staggering genius, writing about my present feels like a mostly-dead end.

Mostly?

That's where the other hand comes in. It has been years - at least ten or so - since I've spilled my heart through meaningful creative expression. I've spent countless hours on blogging buffoonery and academic regurgitation, but surprisingly little on anything I would consider "serious." As mentioned earlier, "serious" has never been my strong suit as the public face goes. When it comes to the nuts and bolts of what happens to be mucking around in my head, the recipients of my output are remarkably few.

Honestly, the idea of dumping the contents of my brain onto tape provokes the idea of dumping the contents of my bowels into my underpants.¹ Even writing about writing about it feels a bit strange; I've really only had two major life events that knocked me off course enough to openly talk about them. In those cases, the sharing was cautious and incomplete. I could utilize the easy escape route and aim my pen towards pop culture ramblings and various homages to the artists that have aided in the sculpting of the Ed I know and love, but I think I might be capable of something more personally powerful.

It's not as if I have nothing to write about. I can always fall back on such lovely notions as matters of the heart evolving/devolving into over-analyzed matters of the brain, overcoming the general Valentine Michael Smith-ism of my past year and a half, or, as commonly crops up, the "Lonely House" that is life in New York City.²

I recently had a wonderful (albeit very drunken) conversation with a close friend on this very topic, which reignited my interest in actually finishing this essay (and caused me to expand from one post to however many it takes to exhaust this train of thought). There was a month's time between the first and final words of my last post. The past month has been a bit of an odd spot, with all of my wordcrafting focused on the ol' thesis and most of my thoughtcrafting focused on not plopping too many of the proverbial Cheez Doodles on any individual wager.³ It comes as no surprise that the following comment resonated most deeply: "Sometimes you just need distance."

Whether spatial or temporal, a bit of distance makes the personal, the painful, and the I'm-going-to-curl-into-a-ball-and-weep embarrassing a tad easier to share. Or to process. Or to interpret. Whatever the verb, time has a way of loosening the jaw. Though I haven't exactly struck a vein of usefulness, I'm working towards comfortability with uncomfortability. That appears to be the ultimate goal, as introspective writing goes: grabbing the bull by the business-parts and slamming said business-parts on the kitchen table for the benefit of gawking passers-by. The missing step is to obviously get myself some sort of special gloves or something, because I'm not sure how ready I am for that sort of gruntwork.

I am so done with that metaphor. I think y'all get the point.

Of course, writing doesn't have to be introspective. I could always take "write what you know" a bit more literally and start pounding out observational tales and musical renditions of yarns from my internal story-bank. I've been told I'm an engaging storyteller, though I've no idea what sorts of ears are seeking Randy Newman knockoffs with more vomit.

Why do all of my stories end with somebody/everybody barfing?⁴

¹ I wanted to re-word this, but it was just too beautiful. And classy. More classy than "to shit one's pants," anyways.
² The only real difference between the past two years of my life and the middle third of Stranger in a Strange Land is a marked lack of making out in swimming pools.
³ Tangent: I finally broke down and bought the Costco tub o' Utz Cheez Balls. I don't really like them that much, but the siren's call of the hefty orange bucket has been tugging on my eyeballs for months now. If you're interested, I can apparently fit twenty-three of them into my mouth before it becomes a problem.
⁴ Those who know me on the non-Interweb know that my folks inexplicably call me Chuck instead of Ed. My nickname as a tot was Upchuck-Chuck. This explains a lot about the analogies my brain constructs regarding "vomit" and "comedic panacea."

On faking it, playing along, and the great American search for inspirado: Part I

2009-10-27T18:55:00.003-04:00

Back when I harbored delusions of wanting to be a great stage performer¹ (let's say from 1992 to 1999 or so), I made a point to never specifically refer to myself as an actor. Rather, I preferred the title of "entertainer."

To be fair, I still do.

My few forays into non-comic roles - "seriousness," if you will - were muddy at best. I'm the sort that turns his brain off on stage and lets the gibbering internal voices deal with the gruntwork. The best example rolling about the top of my domepiece is my attempt to Tevye it up in Fiddler on the Roof a few years back. The character was so far outside of my internal frame of reference that the experience was effectively an emotional sewage pump. I'd waddle off of the stage with the shakes, my brain fatigued with worries about daughters I'd never actually had and the repercussions of nursing such a majestic hobo-beard.

Simply put, it felt like cheating. It was like method-acting, but without the acting parts. Or the method parts. I don't know what exactly I was doing, but the audiences seemed to enjoy it well enough for me to keep at it.

On that note, Zero Mostel seemed as good a role model as any. He couldn't really "act," he wasn't much of a singer, but he had presence. When he was on the stage/camera, eyes were on him. I want to be that guy. But with some singing chops.

All of this is really just a prelude to the point I actually set out to make: I am a bad musician. A bad musician that moonlights as a passably decent performer, perhaps, but a bad musician nonetheless.

Really, it's difficult for me to justify calling myself a "musician" and not just a "singer."² I came to grips with this notion quite some time ago. My dive into the world of the bells and whistles and guts and gristle of music was very delayed compared to most. To wit:

I kicked off classical voice training at the age of twelve. I kicked off "learning how to read written music semi-proficiently" around the age of twenty or so.

Even better - I took a single semester of piano lessons in college. My professor's final note to me was "You try hard."³

More than anything, I fancy myself an "interpreter." I love taking a song and making it my own. Having spent so much time analyzing drastically different interpretations of various blues songs has tuned my ears to a song's inherent potential. I can't hear Cheap Trick's "I Want You To Want Me" without stripping it down to a subdued piano and hushed vocal. I can't hear Hank Williams's "Lovesick Blues" without wanting to give it a shot as a blues shuffle. None of this is blisteringly revolutionary, but the notion of "the cover" has fascinated me since I realized that that Aerosmith song about a record was actually a Bull Moose Jackson song about a dong.

Joe Cocker made a career of it, so why shouldn't I give it a go?⁴

Well, there's the proverbial rub. Given my relative inability to coordinate more than one limb at a time, any sort of interpretation on my part would require a fair amount of assistance from other folks. Most of my surrounding musician-friends would rather create than interpret, and understandably so. This leaves the burden of accomplishment on my own furry little shoulders. And if I'm already putting in all of this effort toward interpretation, why not just squeeze in that little extra and try to create?

I'll tell you later.

¹ This directly followed my delusions of wanting to be a great comic book artist. I recently found some sketchbooks from back then, and flipping through them was an exercise in "looking at a bunch of hands and eyeballs." And cows. Not funny cows, not realistic cows. Just... cows. Also my superhero team, which effectively consisted of five Aquamen. Aquamans?
² What do you call a guy that hangs around with a bunch of musicians?
³ My manual dexterity skills gave up on developing when I was seven or eight, barring some mad Blanka skillz.
⁴ Y'know... Besides all of the acid.

We'll serve anyone!

2009-08-21T21:08:00.003-04:00

I've always loved grocery shopping. Besides being "that guy at whom the impulse-buy junk by the register is marketed toward," I'm simply enamored with the odd decisions occasionally made by bold imagineers such as those who thought this was a good idea:

I sort of wanted to buy some, but this feels just a slight step above the packages labeled "MEAT" at the supermarket. I understand paying that little extra for specificity, but sometimes I'd rather just not know.

Everything's Heavy Underground

2009-08-13T21:44:00.006-04:00

Not to be Debbie Downer on the CW's proverbial mojo, but was anyone actually asking for this? I can understand the "need" for a 90210 reboot - the first few seasons of the original show were good times, and seeing the posters slathered all over the subway walls kindled fond memories about what a vapid See-You-Next-Tuesday Tori Spelling was/is.¹

That said, Melrose Place sucked bonobo the first time around. At least The Heights had that kickin' theme song about talking to angels and holding them close to where you are.²

Tuesday is the Jan Brady of the working week. No matter how many scantily-clad ladybits you slap on the subway walls, Tuesday will always kind of bite the wax tadpole.

And really... If you're doing it correctly, every day is a Wednesday.

...household of Tuesday. Got it. I give up.

¹ You know you wept like Remy Brown when Scott Scott was written off. That was the heaviest shit Fox had touched since S.P.E.W.E.Y.
² The ladies love extended metaphors about cuddling. Aaron Spelling fiddles with this debilitating weakness like a puppy gnawing on a deliciously smoked wad of pig gristle.

Get equipped with Bubble Lead.

2009-04-11T23:14:00.001-04:00

2008 in Music

2009-02-08T19:56:00.020-05:00

This is a little something that has been floating around in my head for a few months now, and I just got around to organizing it all in a meaningful fashion. Some of is nonsense, some slightly less so, some was new to me this year, some not, and altogether it pretty much sums up the past year of my life in some way or another.

I'd rather not go into details, and just let the music speak for itself in semi-meaningful-mixtape fashion.¹ Some of the linked music isn't exactly the version I've been jamming to the hardest (I'm looking at you, Mr. Zappa), but I'm sure we can all make do. This is, in part, what got me through 2008.

So here's to 2009, a bit belatedly. 2008 was better than 2007 by leaps and/or bounds. Let's keep up that trend.

Cheap Trick - "Surrender"

Tom Waits - "God's Away on Business"

Screamin' Jay Hawkins - "Frenzy"

Camille - "Ta Douleur"

Howlin' Wolf - "Spoonful"

The BPA feat. David Byrne & Dizzee Rascal - "Toe Jam"

Frank Zappa - "For the Young Sophisticate"

Devo - "Jerkin' Back 'n' Forth"

The Ramones - "Sheena is a Punk Rocker"

Hank Williams - "Lovesick Blues"

Dusty Springfield - "I Only Want to Be With You"

They Might Be Giants - "Till My Head Falls Off"

Joe Cocker - "Cry Me a River"

Sia - "Buttons"

David Byrne - "I Wanna Dance With Somebody"

Electric Light Orchestra - "Rockaria!"

¹ Of course, I took the lazy route and found YouTube videos instead of embed-able mp3 streams. The latter takes so much time, and I am a very busy gentleman with very important Things To Do. Sorry, friends.

Just a Little Sump'm Sump'm

2009-02-06T20:14:00.005-05:00

This isn't much of a post... Just sharing a little something that was passed along and made me smile. Maybe it will make you smile too.

I'll be writing more once I have a computer that functions again. My laptop has a little case of autocannibalism, so I've been computing from an old XP machine I pulled out of the garbage a few months back. My packratting skills pay the proverbial bills.

Anywho, enjoy.

You know it's almost time to go home from work when...

2009-01-28T16:54:00.004-05:00

Jay: doc manhattan won't have pants!!!
Me:: Blue shimmery dong?
Jay: apparently
the director claims that it's not visible in trailers but in expanded movie screens he'll be sporting the dong
me: It's a proud day for comic nerds. I guess.

I put it in the hoop like "slam."

2009-01-21T12:29:00.004-05:00

I gave my college roommate a Genesis copy of Shaq-Fu for Christmas one year.

Does that make me a bad person?

I can't believe a kid just stuffed O'Neal.

2009-01-18T12:03:00.006-05:00

The screen on my iPod is what we in the business call "all bugaboo", which means I've had to push myself out of the habit of listening through full albums and just toggling it to shuffle. Unfortunately, it can be difficult to navigate to shuffle without visuals, so I spent a trek on the MetroNorth yesterday listening to my library from A-Ha through Aerosmith.

After two AC/DC albums, all of Ace of Base's The Sign, a handful of singles, and a chunk of Get a Grip, I just took a nap.

Despite the fact that I didn't get the Zappa infusion I had been looking forward to, one of the singles made the experience worthwhile.

Over the summer of 2003, one of my flatmates bought a box of Cinnamon Toast Crunch. Normally I'd just get preoccupied about the grisly fate of those other two bakers, but this box had a little something extra going for it - a compact disc containing some of the greatest hits from the 2003 Nickelodeon Kids' Choice Awards.

On the ride home, this happened:

The following day, the apartment had a second box of Cinnamon Toast Crunch. I needed it. It was important. Also like "boom."

Terrible Games!

2009-01-15T14:15:00.004-05:00

Just wanted to share a quick plug for my friend's new bad-ideas-turned-into-awesome-games depository.

Ben is a man that knows how to turn wretched ideas into good times, perhaps better than anyone else I've run across during my short time on this floating chunk of mud and puppies. We could (and should) all learn several things from him.

Cheers, Ben!

Regrets?

2009-01-14T19:45:00.000-05:00

I still don't really get Sid Vicious.

Seriously.

I've been dipping more and more into older punk lately, but he's just the one figure I can't comprehend. Sure, I understand the commercial appeal of stretching the limits of the whole "Rolling Stones bad boys" thing. For fuck's sake, though, they kicked out one of the guys in the band that actually kind of knew how to play his instrument for this guy. As I understand it, mostly 'cause he was angry and/or hideous. Also incompetent.

Punk is funny.

I could probably piece it together more clearly if I made the effort to read and listen to the Pistols a bit more deeply, but looping "Sheena Is a Punk Rocker" a few more times just sounds like a better way to spend the evening.

...wherein Ed whines about the lack of decent role-playing games these days, because it's quiet at work.

2009-01-13T13:36:00.001-05:00

As I anxiously await the Chrono Trigger DS port, I've been thinking a bit about why I don't really play video games anymore. Sure, I'll kill time with the NES every so often, and I'll brainlessly whack things in the dumbed-down Final Fantasy Tactics Game Boy games while cruisin' on the subway, but it's somewhat rare for me to pick up the controllers to the newfangled current-gen systems sitting around our living room. I haven't picked up a new game since the Smash Bros. Brawl came out last March - though I've downloaded a few on the Virtual Console that I had already purchased two or three times over in other incarnations - and honestly don't feel as if much has been missed.

Why?

As a young'un, I often found myself lost in the rich stories contained in the likes of Final Fantasy 4 and 6, Lufia, and Secret of Mana. Though I always had a soft spot for side-scrolling platformers, I was a little RPG nerd at heart. The translations were choppy, but the games felt like grandiose interactive fantasy novels (without the Boris Vallejo naked-lady-clinging-to-Fabio cover art). Or like playing Dungeons & Dragons, but without all of the tedious set-up (and tedious social interaction). I spent many an evening wondering when it had turned into morning.

(Just so you know, I'm going to be whining about Final Fantasy games for a bit. Feel free to close the tab now, if you aren't inclined to care about such things).

While I was busy farming for a pink tail, this happened.

That linked post is nearly two years old at this point, but it comes up in most every conversation about modern gaming I have.¹ It details my complaints far better than I probably can, so read it. Please.

The games I've played where I felt the strongest attachment to the characters mostly sprung up during the SNES-era. I'm sure this is heavily a function of my age, though all of the Playstation Final Fantasy games hit while I was a Dr. Pepper-fueled high schooler with a slew of lazy Saturday afternoons to burn.² While the graphics showcased by the SNES RPG squad were mind-blowing by the standards of the times, they were relatively limited in scope.

That was and is just fine by me, 'cause they were attached to an armload of games that are still fun.

Just as I'll stand by my belief that your average Muppet is more emotive than your average actor, those 16-bit sprites just carried the whole "personality" thing with a bit more gusto. The protagonists of the Playstation generation certainly looked better, but most displayed about as much likeability as Jimmy Fallon. Just like in the real world, looks aren't enough (unless your sole goals are to be popular, make a lot of money, and bang coke dealers, in which case you're golden).³

Of all of the Playstation and Playstation 2 games I've waded through over the past ten or so years, Final Fantasy Tactics and Kagero Deception 2 are the only ones rolling off the top of my head that I'd want to revisit.⁴ Maybe the first Parasite Eve. Other systems aren't even really worth mentioning, as its a stretch to even remember many RPGs for them (though I'm sure I waddled through a few).

What has changed? Many a nerdboy wept like a chubby kid watching a bologna sammich fall into the garbage disposal when Aeris got skewered, but I can't say that it hit me as hard as when Palom and Porom did their statue dance. Upon finishing Final Fantasy 6, I was glued to the telly, savoring every moment of the epilogue, seeing where how my favorite characters set out to rebuild the world. Upon finishing Final Fantasy 8, I wanted to turn off the television.

After the third or fourth venture, watching the angsty, androgynous good guy smack around the angsty, androgynous bad guy lost its proverbial sparkle.⁵

Strangely enough, the only later game to recapture some of the charm of the older games, Final Fantasy 9, was villified for being too cartoony. I actually cared about the characters again (except for the main one, I suppose, but they aren't really Square's forte). I even bothered to remember the names of the characters, which is a lot more than I can say about 8's cast of people with various personality-defining haircuts (barring Quistis, just 'cause Blue Magic is fun and she was the one defined by her sexy librarian hairdo).

I'd like to think that the video game has potential to be an art form. Many pick up those controllers for the same reason we do half of the other wacky shit we do - to kick off some sort of emotional trigger. There's something to be said for killing braincells, but there's got to be some way to engage in moving game-ry without plunging into the depths of a Metal Gear-esque cutscene hell. If I want an experience generally devoid of plot, I'll just pick up an NES controller and play something that's plotless and fun. Probably Mega Man 2.

I think it's safe to say that, barring ports of fifteen-year old Square games, the role-playing genre (as I like to think of it) is dead. Game companies are cranking out action games with level-up systems and action games with hours of pointless grinding, but nothing that satisfies my love of a good story and general lack of manual dexterity.⁶ When the closest thing to a decent, oldtimey-yet-current RPG experience is whatever the most recent Pokemon game happens to be, it's time to give up.

Mega Man 9's "back to basics" approach was a nice step. I hope someone else follow's Capcom's lead.

¹ As an aside, I recommend taking a flip through the Rampant Games's blog archives, as there are some quality observations to inject into your eyeballs sprinkled throughout.
² Yes, I'm leaning on the Final Fantasy games a bit too much, but those were typically the benchmark of whether or not I enjoyed another RPG. Even though I didn't really like half of the later Final Fantasy games. Oh well.
³ Vincent Valentine? Bangin' a coke dealer. That guy with the cowboy hat and guy-who-thought-everyone-in-high-school-loved-him-but-that-wasn't-really-the-case hairdo from Final Fantasy 8? Bangin' a coke dealer. Anyone who enjoyed Advent Children as anything more than eye-candy? Bangin' a meth dealer. Style over substance, bitches.
⁴ And Deception didn't really have much in the way of story going for it. It just had the "Evil Kick."
⁵ Total aside: did anyone actually like any character from Final Fantasy 8? Half of the game's dialogue consisted of "..." and I'm fairly sure that's not hyperbole (for once). I've got a deeper emotional investment in the dude from Dig Dug.
⁶ I hated Sabin.

Poor Joe.

2009-01-08T11:47:00.001-05:00

This makes me kind of miss reading comics from the '60s, where most things were resolved with a sassy one-liner and a handshake.

If comics had a studio audience, that's the point where the cast would would break the fourth wall, spout a catch-phrase, shrug with a sheepish grin, pause, then lead the viewers in a bout of uproarious laughter.

I wonder how many more print runs they'll do on this book, though - this seems like the sort of thing on which folks will Beanie Baby away their savings, assuming that they'll be valuably collectible someday.

(That only works when you don't have thousands of other people scrambling about with the same idea, you see).

In any case, this doesn't quite notch up to that time the Hulk "wanted Freddie Prinze Junior" Can anything?

Seriously, I do read things that aren't comic blogs now and then...

2009-01-06T10:42:00.000-05:00

As I filter through the hundreds of items that have neatly piled themselves in my Google Reader queue over the holidays and such, I'm noticing a depressing trend: I don't really utilize the Internet to read about musical happenings. I've got a feed reviewing new blues discs (though they mostly cover modern jazz, which isn't quite my thing). I've got a feed covering the current Chicago blues scene (which is nifty). I've got Ipecac's feed, figuring I might find something new and kooky. And that's it.

I suppose this shouldn't come as a remarkable shock, simply because I can't think of any popular music publication that warrants my attention. Rolling Stone hasn't really been relevant since before I was born, Pitchfork is a bit too "Williamsburg" for my tastes, and most things in between simply pontificate upon what I hate about listening to the radio. My musical tastes are admittedly all over the place, but I certainly can't be the only one surfing the tubes in that particular canoe. It seems ridiculous that I'm having so much trouble finding anything enjoyable on a topic I spend so much time with.

Is there anything out there covering the middle? Covering stuff that's outside of the mainstream, but not under that ugh-inspiring "indie" umbrella?¹ Is there anything worthwhile left to say about blues, soul, and rock 'n' roll? Am I not following the right blogs? Should I stick to the writings of writers instead of hoping for those of musicians? Am I just stuck in the past, refusing to embrace the American Idols and Nickelbacks and Jonas Brothers that everyone keeps stuffing down my pants?

Direct me, friends. Aid me in the act of pointing my eyeballs at things worth the effort. I don't care if they're scribblings on rock, punk, jazz, old county, new county, hip hop, rhythm and blues, whatever passes for R&B these days, bluegrass, boogie, opera, electronica, blues, ragtime, heavy metal, black metal, speed metal, death metal, thrash metal - so long as it's interesting and makes me want to learn and listen, I'll give it a shot. I might not dig the music, but it'd at least be a refreshing change from hearing about what color underpants Britney chose this morning.²

Please?

¹ Using the word "indie" as a genre-marker makes about as much sense to me as "alternative" did. If the radio is plastered with "alternative," then how is it an alternative? Alternative to what? Is something still "indie" if it's cranked out by the big four? I hate genre.
² Anything but seafoam green, champ. Have some standards.

Snott Normal

2011 in Music

Wherein Ed and Justin prepare for the holidays...

Wherein Ed remembers why he shouldn't read comments sections on the Internet...

Pumpkin faces in the night

There's always room...

Last call for drinks...

It takes a whole lot of medicine...

I've got these little things...

Wherein Ed remembers why headphones are the secret to happy subway travel...

Wherein Ed wishes his little brother good luck...

Wherein Ed is a little teapot...

Son of a gun, we'll have big fun on the bayou

When there are clouds in the sky, you'll get by

Turn and face the strange

Notes From The Hurricane: Safe and Sound (Sunday, 5:07 P.M.)

Notes From the Hurricane: Caffeine, Part II (Sunday, 11:02 A.M.)

Notes From the Hurricane: Groggy Boredom (Sunday, 10:08 A.M.)

Notes From the Hurricane: Caffeine (Saturday, 11:26 A.M.)

Notes From the Hurricane: All Good In the Hood (Saturday, 12:09 A.M.)

Notes From the Hurricane: Premature Evacuations and Go-Bags (Friday, 9:46 P.M.)

When push comes to shove, you gotta do what you love...

Wherein Ed acknowledges that there is a limit to his nerd-dom...

Wherein Ed passes along some wisdom from King Diamond.

Oh, simplicity. I love you.

Monthly Challenge Journal, 20 June 2011

Monthly Challenge Journal, 11 June 2011

Monthly Challenge Journal, 10 June 2011

Monthly Challenge Journal, 9 June 2011

Monthly Challenge Journal, 4 June 2011

Ed's Monthly Challenge, June 2011

This week I...

I'm gonna drink whiles I'm up, woman. Drink until I fall.

This week I...

This week I...

Mustn't let a few bad times dictate

Don't forget to say, "Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah."

Wherein Ed is denied steeping privileges...

This week I...

This week I...

This week I...

This week I...

You're an elegant little pelican

This week I...

This week I...

Wherein Ed gets to type the word "bumpus" like thirty times...

Wherein Ed discovers some long-lost scribblings...

Never been too keen a timekeeper

This week I...

If this is paradise, I wish I had a lawnmower

Wherein Ed pines for bludon

This week I...

It's a wonderful place

This week I...

On faking it, playing along, and the great American search for inspirado: Part IV

This week I...

Wherein Ed gets back on the horse

Wherein Ed flirts with a robot and said robot violates the First Law of Robotics by *breaking his heart*

Wherein Ed writes a love letter to his beard

This week I...

Leon Russell's Hat Is Splendid

Wherein Ed ponders why one would actually want a mouthful of dog hair...

This week I...

Romantic Ruminations

This week I...

Wherein Ed understands about indecision

This week I...

Wherein Ed details his lifelong fear of caterpillars

This week I...

The Least-Academic Research Paper I've Ever Written: A Hasty Précis on the Role of the Gluteus Maximus in the History of Hip Hop Music

2010 in Music

Life as a Sitcom: What Can Brown Do For You?

Wherein Ed ponders his future as a reality television star for the teeevee companies...

Budae Jjigae!

Reasons Why I Shouldn't Become an Eccentric Inventor

Forgive or Forget?

Brown-Leaved Vertigo

Don't Tell Me About That

Wherein Ed ponders his future as an executive for the teeevee companies, Part Deux

Rolling on the River

Wherein Ed flirts with a robot and said robot violates the First Law of Robotics by breaking his heart

Seriously, I do read things that aren't comic blogs now and then...