Lost

Know when to walk away. Know when to run.

2006-11-13T09:18:00.000-08:00

*alt-title: I said poker's an honest trade. Only suckers buck the tiger. The odds are all with the house.*

For anyone who thought that blindness to the whole "he's just not that into you" thing was the exclusive provenance of the fairer sex, rest assured that it's not only women who can't read the cards. Allow me to paraphrase for you today's cringe-inducing AskMetaFilter post:

But...but...but...we had such a great conversation! Sure, she declined a coffee date, and okay, she would not give me her phone number, and yes, well, she did mention she had a boyfriend 5 minutes into the conversation, and I admit it, she did seem as though she was more than a bit disappointed that I was so obviously trying to pick her up, but are you *sure* that it's such a bad idea to move to her town and pursue her? I mean, we had such a great conversation! And she's absolutely perfect for me! Surely she wants me to pursue her, right guys? Right?

So what's the over-under on this guy being served with a restraining order?

The correct answer will describe "the absolute boundaries of what a lawyer is permitted to do" rather than "the morally correct behaviour"

2006-11-02T07:43:00.000-08:00

Which might explain why I failed the legal ethics exam (a pre-requisite for obtaining membership in the state bar) the first time I took it back in 2001. I prefer to blame a sleepless night before the exam for my poor performance (sleeplessness caused by a night at the city jail trying to keep a friend and classmate out of the slammer). The most likely cause of my failure, though, was lack of preparation. In any event, I passed the second time with flying colors, but because of my cross country move I am forced to take the exam for a third time. I will spend the wee hours of Saturday driving to the test site, 2 hours taking the exam, and the rest of the day driving home. Wish me luck, because I don't have Mike to blame this time.

Call off the search party

2006-10-30T08:06:00.000-08:00

I'm alive. I'll post something soon.

An agitation in the air

2006-09-15T09:25:00.000-07:00

And just like that summer is over. A cold wind ushered in autumn overnight and the first dusting of snow sparkled on the foothills to the west as the sun climbed into this morning's sky. Only a week ago the daytime temperatures hovered in the nineties and the sky was hued in that incandescent blue of high summer. Now, thick, puffy clouds obscure the mountain tops and it won't be long before I'll have to don a sweatshirt for my morning runs.

Summer's end makes me a little sad. I love the slanted light of autumn's late evenings but I dread the bleakness, the greyness, the oppressiveness of impending winter. I'm especially sad because this overnight transition from green to grey makes me think about how my writing here recently came to such a screeching halt. I've never thought my writing was anything special, but there was a time when I had ideas and thoughts and stories that needed expression, experiences that I wanted to share. All of that has dried up though, and I have been unable to find a way to get back to that place where the ideas and words flowed. Despite my best efforts, I cannot make the words come.

I don't really like the open thread/all-request style posts. I despise blogging about blogging. And if it were only about blogging, I probably wouldn't have written this entry. But the word-drought also afflicts non-blog writing. Story ideas and aborted essays stand unfinished on my computer like dry, cracked stalks in a parched and dusty field. I don't want to abandon this site or any of my writing, but I've reached a point where I don't know how to salvage my work. I would really like some help or advice from anyone who bothers to read here. Do you have any advice on how to revive my creativity or how to push through this barren time? Do you have ideas on how to reinvigorate my blog writing or what direction to take with my writing? I could really use a pep talk, a kick in the ass, or some words of wisdom right now.

(the title of this post comes from the Stanley Kunitz poem "End of Summer")

He was the strongest of men alive in that day, mighty and noble

2006-08-16T15:31:00.000-07:00

Having finished reading Scott Smith's "The Ruins" (a great story, flawed in the execution) I have started in reading Seamus Haney's translation of "Beowulf". I picked up the book in part spurred on by the trailer for "Pathfinder" (am dying to see this movie!) and in part because the book was on the discount shelf at Borders. In looking up reviews and criticisms of Haney's book I came across two new movies based on the story of Beowulf, the Icelandic film "Beowulf and Grendel", starring Gerard Butler, Stellan Skarsgard and Sarah Polley, which is supposed to be seeing a U.S. release soon (though probably only on DVD) and the upcoming motion-capture/CGI "Beowulf" starring Anthony Hopkins, Brendan Gleason, Crispin Glover, John Malkovich, and Angelina Jolie as Grendel's Mother (You can read a little background on the script at Neil Gaiman's blog/journal/thing). I hope to see both movies this fall. I am excited to compare these two very different approaches to telling the story of that magnificent monster-slayer Beowulf, the one told without the use of any CGI or computer-assisted special effects and the other using the envelope-pushing motion-capture animation technique that was last used to tell the story of "The Polar Express".

But back to Haney's book. This is an excellent translation of one of my favourite stories. Some critics have taken issue with Haney's deliberate politicalization of the ancient text by his intrusive substitution of Celtic and Irish words for the original Anglo-Saxon words. Meh. I cannot muster the will to care whether Haney's harkening to his Ulster upbringing perverts the poem. I like his translation heaps; it is more poetic than most (not surprising, I guess when the translator is himself a poet), and it is presented side-by-side with the Old English text which I really enjoy reading aloud to hear the words and their cadence. My only complaint is that I like the multitudinous descriptions of weapons of war and implements of death, all of which Haney simplifies to the basics - "sword" and "shield." He explains in the preface that he did this to make the work more accessible to a broad audience and I guess I cannot really fault him for it. But aside from that, there is much about this translation to recommend it to any fan of the story of the great king of the Geats.

I want her to live. I want her to breathe. I want her to aerobicize.

2006-08-08T10:30:00.000-07:00

In a comment over at Begging the Question, Sebastian Haff asked Milbarge to describe, Weird Science-style, his perfect woman. I'm shamelessly stealing the idea.

When you close your eyes and think about the perfect fantasy person, who do you think about? Is it a real person from your real life? A celebrity? A character from a movie or book? My fantasy is someone of my own creation. For as long as I can remember, I have fantasized about a very particular girl. I've seen her very vividly in my mind's eye for more than 20 years. In that time, I've dated a few girls who exhibited some of her traits and in a fit of lunacy married (then divorced) one who exhibited none of them.

I don't know where my fantasy girl came from exactly. She has no obvious counterpart in my past nor in the movies or books of my early adolescence when she first came into my life. I am too young to have been influenced by the Farrah Fawcett poster (or, if not too young at least too sheltered by my fundamentalist Christian parents to have seen that posted until I was in my twenties) and too old to have been influenced by Britney and Christina. She has been fully formed in my imagination since I was 11 and she has not changed since. She's been a constant influence on my entire adult life.

Until recently, I would have told you that she was too perfect to actually exist. But somehow, some way, the perfect girl was created. Maybe in a secret government lab. Maybe in Wyatt's bedroom. Maybe...well, I don't even know where she came from, but I can tell you what data they used to construct her. And I can tell you that I am the luckiest man in the world to have found her. So, if you want to continue reading about how to create the perfect girl, strap a bra to your head and prepare yourself. There's going to be sex, drugs, rock and roll. Chips, dips, chains, and whips.

The Perfect Girl

Her hair is long, thick, and sun-kissed blonde. It often frames her face in wild, windblown waves, though sometimes it falls straight past her graceful shoulders like an impossibly high tropical waterfall. For her hair, Wyatt and Gary would feed pictures of Shakira into the computer:

The tropical theme continues with her big, beautiful eyes. They are startlingly blue and flecked with emerald green, like the lagoons that surround Bora Bora. The closest Wyatt and Gary could come to replicating her eyes would be Carmen Electra's eyes. In size and shape they very closely approximate my fantasy girl's eyes. But, as bright as Carmen Electra's eyes are, they don't quite have the right color. Maybe Gary could jam a pair of emeralds into the disk drive.

Her mouth is full and pouty. Her lips are very soft and very kissable. They taste like cotton candy and they inspire lustful thoughts that you feel like you should bury deep, deep inside for fear of shocking anyone who hasn't experienced her slow, soft kisses. There is really no question whose lips should be added to the data.

Her arms and shoulders are toned but not wiry, feminine but not squishy. Brooke Burke's arms would do nicely.

My perfect girl's breasts are real, firm, perky, and full - identical to Keeley Hazell's breasts.

Her stomach is sleek and toned and perfectly replicated by Jessica Alba.

Her ass is a wonderous thing, round and firm and tight. Quite possibly her sexiest feature. It was made for bikinis. Rather, bikinis were made for this ass. My fantasy girl could get work in Hollywood as a butt double for Stacy Kiebler, Jessica Alba, or Jessica Biel.

Her legs are strong and defined, shaped into long, lean lengths from years of sports. Their graceful lines belie their power. They are equally sexy in running shorts and miniskirts. Anna Kournikova's legs are the perfect match.

Her personality, intelligence, sense of humor, and sense of style are equal parts Mademoiselle Claudine, Jessica Alba (SFW video), and Indiana Jones (with whom, in addition to sharing his sense of adventure, she shares a penchant for messenger bags).

So, say hello to the perfect girl. She is my fantasy girl come to life. Be nice to her because like Lisa in Weird Science, she can be a real serious bitch if she doesn't get what she wants.

Brittany Murphy broke my iPod

2006-07-18T19:37:00.000-07:00

Stereo Fuse, a generic rock-pop act from Dallas, has a song in heavy rotation on the local radio stations called "Beautiful (Now)." The tune is catchy enough, but not until yesterday did I pay any attention to the lyrics. And now, having studied the words, I think this is one of the worst love songs ever written.

Ostensibly the song is about how beautiful the singer finds his girl. Says the singer to the girl, "You're beautiful now, so much more than yesterday." The "so much more than yesterday" is a bit of a backhanded compliment, don't you think? Well, it gets better. The whole story told by the lyrics begins with a verse about how the girl was picked on by the cool, pretty girls when she was younger. They told her she was ugly. And she took it to heart. But in the chorus the singer consoles his girl. She doesn't have to believe them anymore! She's grown and changed and she's now ready to spread her wings. She's finally come into her own. She's beautiful...now. And now, now that she's beautiful, she doesn't have to listen to those hurtful words from her past.

I know I am applying too much thought to the lyrics of a cheesy top-40 song, but what kind of guy says that to his girl? What guy tells his girl that she's finally turned into the graceful swan, that she's no longer the ugly duckling? Does he not realize that by telling her she's "beautiful now" he is implicitly endorsing the hurtful things said to her when she was younger? That he agrees with the mean girls from grade school who thought she was ugly? Look out, Cassanova, Stereo Fuse is going to teach you a thing or two about how to compliment a lady!

Another annoying lyricist is Timbaland, whose lines in Nelly Furtado's "Promiscuous" simply don't make sense to me. But before I get to the offending lyrics, an aside. I am not pleased that this song about promiscuity and hookin' up at the club is performed by a woman who looks like a 45-year old stunt double from the Real Housewives of the OC. The song is unnecessary, but if we're going to be subjected to it, could we please have it sung by someone who doesn't look like she picks up her 3 kids from soccer practice in a Volvo wagon, gets tipsy on chardonnay at Tuesday Night Book Club, and accessorizes with botox?

Back to the song. However catchy the hook is, the lyrics are so stupid and contradictory as to render the song a disaster. I could take issue with every line from the song, but the ones that irritate me the most are those Furtado's paramour sings in the early stanzas, "I'm curious about you, girl, you seem so innocent." And then 2 lines later he sings, "Promiscuous girl, wherever you are, I'm all alone and it's you that I want." Now, if Timbaland knows she's a slut, then how can he be intrigued by her alleged innocent look? Can a girl who you openly refer to as "promiscuous" look innocent? Again, I know I'm overly concerned with lyrical consistency, but I can't quite see it. Maybe he's curious because he's heard that she's a ho-bag but she looks very demur. (But if that's the case, why would he insult her with the label he only knows from second-hand rumour?) Maybe he's just sweet talkin' her, I don't know. I do know that in a song full of stupid lyrics, those two lines are the ones that most bother me. Especially when he's singing those lines to ~~Janice Dickinson~~ ~~Teri Hatcher~~ Ms. Furtado.

I've been looking for some mood music lately and came across a song by Brittany Murphy that I really like. Yes, that Brittany Murphy. (Cal: You know how I know you're gay? David: How? Cal: Because you have Brittany Murphy on your iPod.) The song is "Faster Kill Pussycat" and it's produced by Paul Oakenfold. The song has a nice beat and Brittany's voice is surprisingly strong and sexy. I thought the tune would be a nice addition to my iPod playlist for gym. And it is a good song to run to. But every time the song plays, my iPod dies. It's happened 4 times now. Maybe my iPod is trying to tell me something. C.C. DeVille singing "Nothing but a Good Time?" Cool. The mousy chick from Clueless singing some trance-rave club song? Good day, sir. I said good day.

How can a man that weighs over 600 pounds have the balls to teach people about self discipline?

2006-06-30T09:36:00.000-07:00

Today's list - the soundtrack from my run last night:

1. "Lowrider" - War
2. "I Believe in a Thing Called Love" - The Darkness
3. "Cold Hard Bitch" - Jet
4. "Cradle of Love" - Billy Idol
5. "Boys of Summer" - The Ataris
6. "The Way You Move" - Outkast
7. "My Sharona" - The Knack
8. "Tush" - ZZ Top
9. "Nothin' But a Good Time" - Poison
10. "Photograph" - Def Leppard

We've had something of a heat wave recently, with the temperatures pushing past the 100 degree mark. The heat lingers well into the evening and makes running outside really unpleasant. So, I did my run at the gym last night. Because of recent suggestions that the 9/11 hijackers were using the gym as a meeting place, I tried to distract myself from the pain and boredom of running by scoping out the weight room to see whether any al Qaeda were lurking about. Conclusion? We seem to be al Qaeda free. For now. There are a lot of angry young men at my gym, but I think their anger stems more from sexual frustration and being stuck in this dump of a town than from any complaints against the Great Satan. And the one Arab guy? He is definitely not a jihadist. He drives a Porsche Cayenne and you just don't pack a car bomb into a $90,000 symbol of Western excess.

Speaking of excesses, how do you feel about a personal trainer who is overweight and out of shape? Me, I would feel like Jerry Seinfeld when he saw Milos take to the tennis court. You buy a $300 tennis racket based on the recommendation of the guy in the pro shop because you expect that he is competent and knows how to play the game. When you see him stumbling and bumbling you feel like maybe you've been had. I'm not suggesting that a chunky personal trainer might not have the knowledge to help someone get fit. I'm just saying that I can't respect a professional who says, "Do as I say, not as I do." Someone like the pediatrician who treated my childhood asthma as he smoked himself to death on 3 packs a day. Or the portly trainer in the ill-advised lycra shorts who was dispensing advice at the gym. It's not her weight that bothered me as much as it was the juxtaposition of her sipping a milkshake while admonishing her client that diet is just as important as exercise in sculpting a tight tummy.

World Cup Group Play: A Summary

2006-06-21T08:41:00.000-07:00

Favorite player - (tie) France's Thierry Henry and Zinedine Zidane. Henry is so athletic and quick. Zizou has incredible vision and control. They are a pleasure to watch.

Favorite hooligans - (tie) England and South Korea. So loud, so passionate, so organized and so effing many of them.

Favorite hooligans story - The efforts by English authorities to prevent some 200 notorious hooligans from traveling to Germany by seizing their passports.

Most disappointing fans - USA. The fans were disorganized and drowned out in both matches. The upshot is that the team and the coach are at least taking heavy criticism this year which means that the USA may finally be interested enough in soccer to put the kind of resources into the national team that we need to really become competitive in the World Cup.

Most impressive team - Argentina. Very likely to win it all.

Most overrated - Brazil generally and Ronaldo in particular. Best in the world? You couldn't tell from the team's performance so far in this tournament.

Most exciting match - Australia vs. Japan. There is no question that the last ten minutes of this match were some of the most exciting minutes of soccer ever played. The Australian substitutes came in at the end and turned a 0-0 game into a 3-0 victory that I am sure will become the stuff of legends down under.

Least exciting match - USA vs. Italy, which was incidentally the highest rated match since the 2000 World Cup finals.

Favorite goal - (tie) Park Ji-Sung's (KOR) goal in the 81st minute vs. France. Ji-Sung scored on an assist from Cho Jae-Jin whose header off a crossing pass allowed Ji-Sing to punt the ball just over the head of Fabian Barthez to drop it in for a goal.

My other favorite was Esteban Cambiasso's (ARG) goal in the 31st minute vs. Serbia-Montenegro, which was the culmination of a series of more than 20 passes and was set up by the most incredible back-heeled assist from Hernan Crespo.

Favorite goal attempt - Mark Viduka's (AUS) strike in the 85th minute vs. Brazil. He planted a foot, leaped, met a long crossing kick in the air, his body parallel with the ground, and sent a powerful shot at the top left corner of the goal. It was a tremendous effort denied only by a miraculous save from the Brazilian goalkeeper.

Most humorous event - The English announcer in the Australia vs. Brazil game, who might have set a record set for gratuitous mentions of Maradona's Hand of God. It's been 20 years already. You need to get over it. Hey, at least you still have the Falklands!

Friday Top Ten

2006-06-16T14:23:00.000-07:00

In the interest of getting back into this whole blogging thing, I am going to introduce a regular Friday feature. Each Friday (for as long as the motivation stays with me) I will post a top ten list. To start it all off, in honor of the one-year anniversary of the smartest decision I ever made, I present:

Top Ten Reasons Why I'm Glad I Divorced

10. No more withering glares when playing videogames.

9. No more hiding in the bathroom to masturbate.

8. No more cleaning up someone else's shit.

7. No more flack for tipping waitresses.

6. No more shopping at Wal-Mart.

5. No more being told that I am arguing unfairly by resorting to "memory" and "facts."

4. No more throw pillows.

3. No more Oprah and Celine Dion.

2. No more Cheetos dust on the couch.

1. Sex. A lot of sex.

Don't call it a comeback

2006-06-07T20:12:00.000-07:00

Actually, call it whatever you'd like. I am a lazy blogger you say? I disagree. I've kept quiet because I have had nothing to say. Why torture you with repeated posts about how I have nothing to blog about? Probably far better to keep quiet and risk losing you than to tap-tap-tap at the keys and guarantee it. Yet after a month of no posts I figure I should write something.

So what have I been doing instead of blogging?

Listening to Shakira's Oral Fixation vol. 2 and liking it heaps. Spanish is sexy. Period. But sexier still when sung in Shakira's sultry voice (she also sings in English and French on this album). She's evocative of The Cranberries's Dolores O'Riordan but with more passion than anger and none of Dolores' penchant for repetition ad nauseum (the only singer more prone to repetition is AC/DC's Bon Scott).

Listening to this album reminded me of some poems I wrote for my Spanish literature courses in college. If I can find them and if I can figure out the html code for accented letters then I will post them for your amusement.

Reading Gotham Writer's Workshop's Writing Fiction, Sean Condon's Sean and David's Long Drive (funny book but be warned: Condon is one of the world's champion complainers, bested only by the Travel Channel's Cash Peters and New York City's Larry David) and Popul Vuh.

Watching Entourage, Tony Bourdain, Into the Blue (not Oscar-worthy perhaps but any movie that features scuba diving, sharks, treasure hunting, and a woman who is so sexy she makes dolphins randy is a movie worth watching), and trying to work up the nerve to watch Open Water again. I bought it on DVD for $7.50 almost 3 months ago and still can't bring myself to watch it. I really can't imagine a worse way to die than to drift at sea until the sharks decide you're tender enough to munch on.

Speaking of freaking out about sharks, you simply must check out David Doubilet's spectacular gallery of shark photographs here. My favourite is the last picture on the second page of the boy on a surfboard and the massive shark gliding under the board.

Continuing with the shark theme, here is a cool use of Google Maps to mark the locations of all confirmed shark attacks since 2000. (Much thanks to Swim at Your Own Risk for the pointer.)

Thinking about writing. And doing some writing, too. I have two story ideas I've been playing with and I've been kicking around the idea of writing a tongue-in-cheek reinterpretation of Sun Tzu's The Art of War as a relationship advice book.

Cooking lots of Mexican-inspired dishes. Tomatoes and avocados are in season and I've been gorging on them alone, in tandem, and in guacamole.

Finally, to celebrate the World Cup kicking off this week, I offer you my pick for sexiest team (not exactly safe for work) (but the embodiment of my longstanding soccer girl fetish) and the team which has the greatest chance of converting Americans to the other football.

Barely Legal

2006-05-08T20:18:00.000-07:00

Despite my lack of focus during the months leading up to it, I managed to pass the bar exam. I don't feel the same sense of accomplishment this time as when I passed the Virginia Bar Exam four years ago, just a sense of relief. I feel like I dodged a bullet, particularly upon learning that the pass rate for the exam was only 55%.

But why "barely" legal you ask? Well, I'm not quite yet a lawyer in Nevada. I still must take and past the ethics examination - an impossible task you might jest, a lawyer taking and passing an ethics test. Don't laugh. I didn't pass it the first time back in 2001. Actually, you should laugh. I failed an exam which you need only score 33 out of 50 to pass. Oh well. There's a bit of a story behind that involve a sleepless night before the exam and accusations against a friend of stealing a dog. But that's a story for another day.

I am scheduled to take the ethics test in August. Once that is out of the way, I plan to celebrate all of this test-passing business in Vegas. I figure I took the tests there, so I might as well celebrate there, too.

We are living in a society!

2006-04-28T08:59:00.000-07:00

Some days I feel like I am so out of touch with the world. It makes me feel old, outdated, and crotchety.

A couple of days ago, I was directed to the site of a blogger who is apparently popular in some circles as the voice of put-upon, smarter-than-everyone-else administrative assistants. I might as well say it -I don't like the woman's writing. Frankly the personality she has created for herself rings hollow - the identity is a construct, a fiction. I don't think that she actually experiences half the things she writes about. It's all too neatly packaged, too sitcom-esque, too schlocky. But she fancies herself the Bridget Jones of NYC, the Carrie Bradshaw of corporate America. I would link to her site, but (1) I don't want to get involved in an exchange with her or her readers and (2) I don't want to give her any traffic.

But on to the point of this post. This woman wrote sometime last week that for lunch one day she was in the "make your meal" part of a grocery store deli when she took some meatballs, without paying for them, and ate them while she decided what she wanted for lunch. She settled on something other than the meatballs and so discarded the half-eaten items in a garbage can.

As she left the store she was stopped by security and was told to accompany the officer to his office. In the office she was confronted with the remnants of the meatballs she had eaten by not paid for. She offered to pay for them but the officer told her it was too late. She acknowledged that there were signs posted that clearly stated that eating food without paying for it was forbidden, but she decided (I guess) that the rules didn't apply to her. Well, fortunately, and quite reasonably, the store decided the rules did apply to her. The officer took her photo and placed it on a wall of shame and then had the woman sign a notice of criminal trespass, essentially an acknowledgment that she is banned for life from the store and that she will be committing a crime if she ever returns there.

Good for the store, I say. A person should not be permitted to steal even if she's "only" stealing part of a half-eaten meatball. Stealing is stealing, and it's all the more abominable when it's a well-to-do person stealing because she thinks she can get away with it. This is no re-telling of Les Miserables, a blogger sentenced to death for stealing a loaf of bread to feed her starving family.

Anyway, this woman is a thief. An admitted thief. But a proud thief. An indignant thief. Which is bad enough. But then I delved into her comments section to find that her readers are defending her and castigating the retailer!

"It's ridiculous... I mean, you go there enough that they make more money off of you than they lose from you eating a lousy meatball. And they just lost a loyal customer!"

"Obviously, they have a renegade security guard on their hands. I mean, for Christ's sake, if the you can't sample a god damned meatball, what's the world coming to? Everyone knows nibbling is *discouraged* - but now it's a friggin felony? Gimme a break... Those f*ckers need to sort out their priorities and understand that this is lousy customer service and terrible PR. I think people all around the country should print up copies of your story and tape them up at Whole Foods stores everywhere."

"Screw them. They lost a 1/2 a meatball, but more importantly, a good customer."

"Whoa. What a bunch of Nazis."

"Loyal customer?" It seems to me that loyalty would imply fidelity of some kind. You know, like following the rules.

"A good customer?" Good customers seems to me to be a class which encompasses only those people who actually pay for the products they take.

And "Nazis?" Really now? NAZIS??? There is, I think, some distinction between the regime which launched a world war that left tens of millions of people dead, devastated Europe, imprisoned, tortured, and murdered those who opposed it, and did its best to destroy the Jewish race and a grocery store who bans from its aisles admitted shoplifters who have been caught red handed. But maybe I, old fuddy-duddy that I am, am splitting hairs here.

I am baffled by the dozens of comments echoing the sentiments expressed in the quotes above. I can't even begin to make sense of this. Is this really the kind of world we live in, where an admitted thief is defended while a company that enforces a "we take theft seriously" policy is attacked? Is it because the grocery chain is an "evil" corporation that this theft is excused? And if so, are people so uneducated as to miss sight of the fact that "shrinkage" (a fancy term for the cost of loss from theft) is factored into the price of all goods and services so that, in effect, the woman who steals a meatball from the grocery is actually stealing from all of her fellow customers who pay a higher price for their goods? Has personal responsibility vanished completely?

Interestingly enough, the meatball thief's post coincided nicely with the outing of another thief, "author" Kaavya Viswanathan, whose pseudo-apologies for "accidentally plagiarizing" more than 3 dozen passages from author Megan McCafferty's novels are infuriating. Viswanathan, too, has her legion of supporters offering every excuse under the sun from "You just don't understand the pressure she must have been under as a 17-year old author and Harvard freshman and daughter of an overachieving Indian family" to "Her academic achievements are so great that surely she didn't do this" to "The plagiarism - if you can call it that - is basically just a compliment to McCafferty" to "McCafferty's books are so terrible and so ordinary it's okay to steal from them" to "So she plagiarized. So what?"

So what? She was paid half a million dollars for a book deal and her response was to steal from another author and try to pass it off as her own work. That's what. Or has it become acceptable to take hundreds of thousands of dollars for work you didn't perform, for ideas you didn't create?

Like so many things in life, these stories remind me of a Seinfeld episode. You may recall the episode where George is flagged for taking a book of French Impressionism paintings into the store's lavatory and then trying to return the book to the shelf. The bookstore makes George buy the book and he repeatedly fails to pawn the book off on other people, all the while complaining about the injustice of having to buy the "toilet book." In the same episode, Jerry rats out his Uncle Leo to store security for shoplifting. "That guy. Swarm! Swarm!" yells a security guard into his radio as the team of officers descends on thieving Uncle Leo.

"I'm old! I'm confused!" shouts Uncle Leo.

Me too, Uncle Leo. Me too.

There is only one thing in life worse than being talked about, and that is not being talked about.

2006-04-21T10:10:00.000-07:00

alternate title: Perhaps play a little game called "just the tip." Just for a second, just to see how it feels.

Inspired by my post on the top-ten women lesbians want to sleep with, Mez compiled her list of women she would go gay for. In that post she asked for a list of men who guys would switch teams for. And although I fear it might drive off the few remaining male readers I have, I have indulged Mez with my personal list of guys I might switch teams for.

Now, if I was just going for the superficial (as I am wont to do), the list would include your David Beckhams, your Freddie Ljungbergs, your Paul Walkers. But I'll only put one of those pretty boy types on my list: Brad Pitt - but the pre-Angelina, "Troy" Brad, the "Fight Club" Brad, the "Snatch" Brad. Not the post-Angelina Brad who is clearly a needy, clingy, whiny bitch. This relationship isn't big enough to handle two of those. For the rest, I will apply Mez's criteria: who would I also want to have dinner with or be friends with or find interesting or attractive in some way other than just physical appearance. So this list is not *just* about hot man-on-man love.

Alan Rickman - I love his work. Hans Gruber is one of the all-time great film villains. He alone makes that dreadful Kevin Costner Robin Hood movie entertaining. He has great range, superb comic timing and such a wry sense of humour. He has a great voice, too, which is notable because as a child he suffered from a severe speech disability. I feel some kinship with him in this regard, as I had to attend lessons with a speech pathologist as a young boy, too. My voice didn't turn out as nicely as Alan's (as you can observe from listening to these clips of me). Despite his affection for Canada, he seems very likable and interesting.

Liam Neeson - He seems very interesting. He rides motorcycles, he was an amateur boxer, and he operated a forklift for Guinness before he took up acting. I love that he sued a tabloid and won a libel case. Any man who would date such mannish women as Helen Mirren, Julia Roberts, Brooke Shields, Barbra Streisand and Sinead O'Connor might be willing to give me a chance, too. I love that he was so interested in working on StarWars Episode I that he didn't even read the script - and then reportedly hated working on the film. I too have a love-hate relationship with the StarWars franchise.

Bruce Willis - He is a man's man. I love that he was a vocal supporter of almost every Republican presidential candidate except for Bob Dole. I love that he has a blues band. I love that he plays the harmonica. I love that he parties like a rock star. I love his movies, even the bad ones like "Hudson Hawk." He kicked ass as the stand-in host for David Letterman back in February of 2003. He looks great for his age and he is my inspiration for going bald gracefully. And the man put a $1 million bounty on the head of Saddam Hussein. How can you not love this guy?

Laird Hamilton - Pro surfer. One of the all-time greats. I figure he would teach me how to surf and show me all of the best waves all over the world.

Vince Vaughn - He's fucking hilarious. He seems like a fun guy to hang out with. He is in some of my all-time favourite movies and from all accounts he's very normal. Plus, we could sit around and make fun of Ben Stiller together. Good times.

Chris Hitchens - Not an attractive man, but a damn interesting one and one helluva writer. He's a lush by all accounts, but an interesting one. I don't think we would last, as I loathe socialists as much as he hates Christians. I predict that the breakup would be a noisy affair with a drunken Hitchens slurring insults at me and throwing things.

Oscar Wilde - I know he's dead, but I love his work. I love his wit. I love his fuck you attitude towards Victorian England. The only problem is that perhaps I would be too old for Mr. Wilde, as he preferred his men very young.

George Clooney - I know I said I'd only put one superficial pick on the list, but I have to make it two. Honestly, Clooney's self-congratulatory air and his politics are huge turnoffs, but he is one handsome devil.

I'm good at three things: fighting, screwing, and reading the news

2006-04-13T07:56:00.000-07:00

Recall the search party. I am alive, all recent evidence on this site to the contrary. Alive, yes, but so little is going on in my life right now that I've not had much to write about. But, in the interest of keeping Blogger from canceling my password, I'll give you a peek into the goings-on.

I am trying to read Gabriel Garcia-Marquez's One Hundred Years of Solitude but I am struggling with it. The book is so slow. Yes, I know it's great literature, everyone from my Spanish lit professor to Oprah has said so. But I am bored out of my mind with the mundacity of Marquez's Macondo. Currently, I am also reading The Pirate Hunter: The True Story of Captain Kidd and I am breezing through it. I don't know what, if anything, it says about my tastes that I am devouring the pirate stories but am nonplussed by the book William Kennedy of the New York Times Book Review hailed as "required reading for the entire human race" (wax hyperbolic much, Mr. Kennedy?).

Speaking of hyperbole and other words that end in "e," I am ever-amused by the literacy skills of the radio DJ who reads the news during my morning commute. In the last week he has informed me that Jessica Simpson is the epitome of style, which statement suffered from not only his mispronunciation of epitome (pronounced with a long "o" but without the long "e" at the end) but from the sheer absurdity of the assertion. He followed that gem with a report on the efforts by Condi Rice to use diplomacy to confront Iran about its burgeoning nuclear program, only in stumbling through the bit he chose the oft-overlooked pronunciation of "diplohmassie." I'm not trying to pick on the guy, but when your job consists of punching the play button on a CD player and reading the news, I don't think it's too much to expect that you have a basic command of the English language.

In other news, it has become apparent that I have a nemesis at the gym. There is a short, barrel-chested, ruddy-faced blonde guy (he looks like a 'roid-enhanced Barry Pepper) who I've noticed glares at me the entire time I am working out. It's been going on for almost a month now. For weeks I dismissed it as paranoia but it's just too obvious that this guy hates me. Last week, I had decided that he was angry with me because I am about 6 inches taller than him and not nearly as muscular but we both work out with the same weight. But on Monday I had to revise my theory. This guy was sort of confrontational with me. He didn't say anything to me, but I swear he followed me around the gym and tried to bump into me or otherwise disrupt my workout. I turned up the volume on my iPod, lost myself in Sweaty Teddy's "Stranglehold" and did my best to ignore his physical taunts. Near the conclusion of my workout the source of his animosity was revealed. I was walking across the gym to the water fountain in between sets of pull-ups. I crossed in front of one of those floor-to-ceiling mirrors and saw Barry glaring at me. But I saw something else, too. His girlfriend, who looks like Rachel Bilson in MySpace makeup, was looking at me, too. But she had something of a lusty look on her face. Barry saw her make that face too, and I could see a tidal wave of rage wash over his already-crimson features. Some sort of heated discussion ensued between them and they took their argument outside and I was able to finish my workout in peace. My new theory, as bizarre as it sounds, is that Barry hates me because his girlfriend is checking me out. I know! It *is* ridiculous! Trust me, you're not laughing about the absurdity of it nearly as hard as I am. But Occam's Razor and such...

Is it wrong that I've contemplated telling Barry the next time he encroaches on my personal space that his girlfriend is thinking about me when she's with him?

Spanish Tortilla

2006-03-30T09:05:00.000-08:00

On Sunday morning I made a Spanish tortilla, a simple and satisfying food I really love. A Spanish tortilla is made with just a few ingredients: eggs, potatoes, onions, milk, and olive oil. It is similar to a frittata except that the tortilla is finished on the stovetop whereas a frittata is baked.

Along with paella (a melange of meat and fish with rice. It's quite delicious!), the Spanish tortilla is one of Spain's most famous national dishes. It is often sered as a tapa (bar food) in Spain, but you can serve it for breakfast, lunch, dinner, or any time. It takes very little time to prepare, so it's ideal for impressing guests at a brunch or dinner party.

Spanish Tortilla
adapted from a recipe featured on FoodTV's "Tyler's Ultimates"

6 medium potatoes, peeled and thinly sliced
2 small onions, coarsely chopped
1/2 teaspoon salt, plus 1/2 teaspoon
2 tablespoons olive oil, plus 2 tablespoons
7 eggs
1/4 cup milk

1. Peel and thinly slice the potatoes. Aim for uniformly-sized slices so that they will cook evenly. I used my fabulous new 5" Henkel Santoku (flippin' sweet birthday gift pictured at left) which sliced through the potatoes with ease. If you own a mandolin (not the musical intstrument, but the cutting implement) I would recommend you use it for the potatoes. Once you have sliced the potatoes and chopped the onions, mix them by hand in a medium-sized bowl with 1/2 teaspoon of salt (use sea salt if you have it).

2. Heat 2 tablespoons of the oil in a large non-stick frying pan (NOTE: I strongly recommend you use at least a 10 1/2-inch or 12-inch nonstick frying pan for this recipe otherwise you're going to have a mess on your hands). Fry the potatoes and onions on medium-low heat, covered for 6-8 minutes to let them soften. Turn up the heat for another 5 minutes until golden brown. Remove from the pan from the stove and drain off any excess oil.

3. While the potatoes and onions are frying, break the eggs into a medium-sized bowl (use the same bowl from step 1 above). Add the remaining salt and milk and whisk vigorously until frothy. Add the potatoes and onions to the eggs and mix until fully integrated. Clean the frying pan by wiping it out with a dish towel or handful of paper towels and return to stove.

4. Heat the remaining 2 tablespoons of oil on a high heat and pour in the egg mixture, moving it around in the pan to help the tortilla to rise. Fry on high heat for 1 minute until it has set. Then turn down the heat to medium to allow the inside to cook for just a few minutes (the cooking time will depend on your stove, the size of the pan, etc., but somewhere in the range of 3-5 minutes).

5. Before the eggs set compeletly (the center should still be slightly runny), don an oven mitt, and use the mitted hand to place a large plate over the frying pan. Lift the pan and flip the tortilla onto the plate. Return the tortilla to the pan, frying the other side until it is golden brown, about 2 minutes.

6. Perform the same plate and pan flip to remove the finished tortilla from the pan. Slice it into thin wedges and serve. This recipe serves 4-6 people as a meal, 6-10 people as a tapa. I ate mine with a nice bit of sliced tomato, but it would work well with a green salad or some spicy chorizo.

I like this recipe a lot not only because it is tasty, but becase it reminds me of the frittatas my mother used to make. She would add crumbled bacon or sausage, roasted red peppers, and diced tomatoes to the eggs and potatoes for a very hearty breakfast treat. I suppose you could that with this recipe, too. I'm no purist (except when it comes to Texas-style chili), so you won't offend me if you add in some other ingredients.

As a man with no skills to fall back on should something go wrong, I don't need to tell you how important winning is to my overall comfort level.

2006-03-29T08:49:00.000-08:00

1. You know they pitched it to the studio execs as: "It's Anchorman meets Days of Thunder."

If you're like me, you wish you had a time machine so you could jump ahead to August 4, 2006, to catch the opening of Will Ferrell's NASCAR movie Talladega Nights. But if you're like me you don't have a time machine. So we must make do with what we have. And what we have is the internet. Thanks to a pointer from The Best Week Ever blog, I learned that we can join the Ricky Bobby Fast Club. Members can print off an official membership certificate and a membership card. All you have to do is pledge to drive fast, play hard, and come in first. Because if you ain't first, you're last.

2. That Fez, he's a classy guy! Class, class, class!

Perennially unfunny television actor and no-talent ass clown Wilder Valderama recently went on the Howard Stern show and decided to score some cool points by mentioning by name and critiquing his alleged sexual conquests. Among other revelations, he bragged about taking Mandy Moore's virginity and somehow managed to let it slip that he believes himself to be very well endowed. He checked his indiscretion only upon being asked to identify which of these girls enjoyed anal sex. Wow! High five, Wilma! You're so fucking cool, man! Wait, did I say were cool? I meant you're a giant asshat, bro, for deciding that looking cool for Howard Stern and his rapidly dwindling audience is more important than behaving like a gentleman. I hope that Lindsay or one of the other girls he threw under the bus comes out and says that if Fez thinks his dick is 8 inches long then he must have mistakenly read from the metric side of his ruler. And that after sex, he cried like a little baby.

(What Would Tyler Durden Do? has some clips from the show available for your listening displeasure here.)

3. "Silent" Bob, you keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.

Here's another tale of kiss and tell, but this time substitute "Jason Mewes's 8-inch track marks" for "Fez's 8-inch penis" and "strung out Nicole Richie" for "strung out Lindsay Lohan." I can't decide which is more nauseating: Wilmer talking about his own junk or Kevin Smith talking about his buddy's.

4. If Jerry Bruckheimer had used this plane in Con Air, the movie would have been 6 hours long.

Wired has a story about a couple of guys from Ohio who are working on a $500,000 prototype of a blimp / airplane hybrid that they plan to market for it's ability to carry a lot of weight but use very little fuel. They hope to sell the plane for military and cargo purposes initially, but I'm sure they have aspirations of selling their idea to the airline industry as well. The airlines will probably go for it, too. They will save money on fuel costs and you'll get the same poor customer service and lack of leg room of a traditional plane, but with the added discomfort of turning that 4-hour flight to Vegas into a 2-day affair. By the time you reach Vegas, you'll be begging the pilot to crash land on the Strip.

5. Don't go into the water!

Swim At Your Own Risk has some footage of an actual shark attack on a diver. It's a miracle that the diver survived this gruesome attack.

6. She's my sister. She's my daughter. She's my sister...my daughter.

This is just weird. A baby girl born with two fetuses in her womb. The fetuses, which died after four months of gestation, were the little girl's sisters. It's a rare medical occurrence, but two of the triplets somehow initially developed inside the baby girl who survived.

7. If I had a million dollars...

GQ magazine's list of the 25 Places you must take your special lady friend. I'm partial to Island Outpost, especially their property at Goldeneye Villas, which is described as "relaxed and exquisitely private. Deep verandas, doors and windows that open wide inviting sensuous sea breeze, Goldeneye offers the best kind of out door living. Enjoy separate media play-rooms with Balinese platform couches. Fantasy garden baths and showers are designed for romance."

8. If I had a billion dollars...

One man's list of the best places to take your yacht. If you're like me you don't have a yacht, but the post is worth checking out for travel ideas and for the cool pictures.

9. And I'm hungry for more

Anthony Bourdain kicks ass. I just finished reading his book "Kitchen Confidential" (a wonderful Valentine's Day gift) and I really dig the man. He's not someone whom I would aspire to emulate in toto, but I love his passion for his work and his devotion to good food. The new season of his show "No Reservations" began last week on the Travel Channel and I love it even more than last season. "No Reservations" is the best show on television as far as I am concerned. Tony is a fun, wisecracking, entertaining and observant host. He visits so many interesting places and he seems like the kind of guy who knows how to have a good time. I don't share his love for blood sausage and sashimi, but I love his passion for cooking, writing, and traveling.

Men want her, women want to be with her.

2006-03-27T09:59:00.000-08:00

In a comment to my recent post on the lesbian most wanted list, Mez commented, "Someone should compare this list with top ten hetero men's list and top ten straight women 'who would you switch teams for?' list. That would be interesting."

Yes, Mez, it would be interesting, but I've not yet been able to find a list of the top ten women straight women would switch teams for. I know such a list must exist, but the internets have not been helpful in my search. However, with little difficulty I have found several lists of men's top tens.

Online "magazine" Ask Men reports that the results of it's 2006 "Most Desirable Woman" poll are:

1. Jessica Alba
2. Sienna Miller
3. Angelina Jolie
4. Adriana Lima
5. Maria Menounos
6. Charlize Theron
7. Jessica Biel
8. Amerie
9. Natalie Portman
10. Eva Longoria

And FHM just released it's list of 100 Sexiest Women of 2006:

1. Scarlett Johansson
2. Angelina Jolie
3. Jessica Alba
4. Jessica Simpson
5. Keira Knightley
6. Halle Berry
7. Jenny McCarthy
8. Maria Sharpova
9. Carmen Electra
10. Teri Hatcher

Finally, with the exception of a couple of odd entries (Hillary Duff and Professor Longoria), I can find a lot to recommend about this list of the 10 Sexiest Women from FHM Australia:

1. Bec Cartwright
2. Jennifer Hawkins
3. Angelina Jolie
4. Eva Longoria
5. Natalie Blair
6. Hillary Duff
7. Nikki Webster
8. Delta Goodrem
9. Imogen Bailey
10. Mary Donaldson

And for reference, here is the list of women lesbians most want to sleep with:

1. Angelina Jolie
2. Portia De Rossi
3. Gina Gershon
4. Sharon Stone
5. Jodie Foster
6. Queen Latifah
7. Halle Berry
8. Charlize Theron
9. Salma Hayek
10. Drew Barrymore

First of all let me say that I readily concede that there is no Queen Latifah on the men's lists, but excluding her, the women on the lesbian list are on average at least as thin as the women men chose. That in and of itself is interesting and I think raises some issues relating to the flack men take for preferring thin women. Issues that I will not get into here.

Angelina Jolie is the only woman who appears on every list. Angelina, Charlize Theron, and Halle Berry are the only women to place on a men's list and the lesbian list. Eva Longoria appears on two of the men's lists, but at the top of the men's lists it's Jessica Alba and Angelina Jolie most often competing for most desirable / sexiest woman.

What if anything can we conclude from these lists? Certainly it seems that Angelina Jolie has some kind of sexy quality that both men and women find attractive. It's probably the lips. Maybe her eyes. But I think it could also be her frankness about things sexual and her obvious comfort with her own sexuality. That kind of confidence is very attractive, as Scott Gramling, editor in chief of FHM, said of his magazine's selection of Scarlett Johannson as the sexiest woman of 2006:

It's remarkable how Scarlett Johansson has caught the attention of our readers. Her sultry voice and striking beauty certainly have a lot to do with that, but so does the confidence she exudes. She seems to be one of those women who would be equally at ease on the red carpet as she would just hanging out with the guys.

I think there is a lot to be said for the idea that it's something about Scarlett's or Angelina's attitude that makes them sexier than other women. It's not just the body that men or women find desirable.

I don't want to make too much of this, but I think it is interesting that there is so much variation in the men's lists. These are not greatest hits compilations of the Patriarchy-enforced Playboy / Pam Anderson fembot look - bone thin, tan and plasticy, with fake blonde hair and fake boobs. Scarlett Johannson has phenomenal (and real) breasts but she does not have the thinnest body. Jessica Alba's ass is absolutely perfect but she doesn't have the huge boobs. Angelina is sultry and sexy but she isn't a platinum blonde. (Oh, but remember that time she was a blonde in that awful movie with Ed Burns? Blech.) I don't mean this as a "See? There's hope for all you girls" kind of thing. I just think it's interesting that the women who comprise these lists aren't cookie-cutter centerfolds. I think that is in contrast to the widely-held (by women) notion that all men are the same and they all find only one type of woman attractive. I'm not trying to downplay men's shallowness or their obsession with physical beauty. Yes, these women are all mostly young and thin and pretty, but hair color, facial features, body size, and build actually vary significantly among the sexiest women in the world. What I think is consistent among the women at the tops of these lists though is, as Gramling said of Scarlett Johannson, the confidence they exude. That is what makes them so damn sexy.

Honey! That's not what I said...exactly...I didn't say you were a bad lover, just an inexperienced one...err...I mean...

2006-03-22T07:38:00.000-08:00

So this Eva Longoria woman - near-midget, star of Desperate Housewives, and self-described ~~tramp~~ sex teacher - recently threw her boyfriend, NBA star Tony Parker, under the bus by declaring to Allure magazine, "Tony's only been with one other person in his life. He's very sweet. I'm the experienced one. I'm the teacher, especially about love."

Heh. This dude doesn't know what the hell he's doing in bed. Eva's naughty bits are a mystery and Tony just doesn't seem to have a clue. Lucky him, though, that his girlfriend is so *cough* experienced. Luckier still that she decided to let the whole world know that he's a fumbly Gus. Eva, she's been with tons of guys, she KNOWS her way around a penis. But Tony? Well, the poor guy thought that the G-spot and clitoris were gangsta rappers.

My favourite part of the interview is that Eva even used the gender neutral "person" to suggest that Tony might have been with a guy - Eva could be his first female lover. No wonder he's so clueless! She might as well have thrown in that Tony has a small penis and that when he drops his drawers it's the equivalent of the two-minute warning, because that's what we're all thinking. What a sweet and loving girlfriend she is. Bitch.

Erroneous! Erroneous on all counts, Eva predictably protests. Allure got it all wrong! According to CNN this morning, Eva spoke with Access Hollywood last night and attempted to withdraw her earlier comments which suggested, nay established, that Tony is a crappy lover. Now Eva is saying that "when the lights are out, he's the teacher...I'm the student." Yeah, too little too late. The damage has already been done. We all know that whatever moves Tony has on the court, he's got none in the boudoir. For a girl so experienced in the ways of love, apparently Eva never learned that pulling out is not effective.

I think of a man, and then I take away reason and accountability.

2006-03-17T11:33:00.000-08:00

Some time ago, Marianne (whose blog you should be reading if you're not already) requested a post on the question of "low-rise jeans for women. why?" I am working on an answer to that question now. In the meantime, let me confess that while I think I could someday come to understand women's fashion choices, I will never truly understand women. Sometimes, I begin to think that I have them figured out, and then BAM! life reminds me that I know nothing. Scratch that. Make that LESS than nothing about women. To wit, via What Would Tyler Durden Do? I was introduced to a top ten list of lesbians' fantasy women:

1. Angelina Jolie
2. Portia De Rossi
3. Gina Gershon
4. Sharon Stone
5. Jodie Foster
6. Queen Latifah
7. Halle Berry
8. Charlize Theron
9. Salma Hayek
10. Drew Barrymore

I sort of get the first four on the list because they are known to have been with women before so there's the whole openness to gay sex and the "if she would have sex with Ellen maybe she would have sex with me" thing going on. Jodie Foster seems an odd choice despite the persistent rumours that she likes the ladies. I guess I could see why a certain cross-section of middle-aged intellectual types would be into her, but top five? That's nothing as shocking as number 6 on the list, though: Queen Latifah. Ex-squeeze me? Baking powder? She beat out Halle Berry (who, frankly, does nothing for me but is generally considered to be an attractive woman), Charlize Theron, and Salma Hayek? Does. Not. Compute. Now I'm no lesbian, but girl must have something special going on because to me she's not exactly eye candy like the women she beat out. Of course, since this is a tally of the women that real lesbians (gentlemen, be careful what you wish for) are into, maybe they think Queen Latifah would look hotter stuffing her face with cheetos in a sleeveless plaid button-down and a mullet than Charlize would (and that's certainly true if you take Monster into account). Still, number SIX? I am flummoxed. Just when I think I am beginning to understand the fairer sex, they go and throw a me a curve ball like Queen Latifah and I end up swinging at air.

Incidentally, I think Drew Barrymore is on the list for the same reason she would be on a list of top 10 for many guys (not me): she's got that Girls Gone Wild-style low self esteem and tendency toward drunken antics that just screams "get some jello shooters in me and I'll make out with the first girl who jumps up here on the bar and dances with me." That, and if you'll bonk Tom Green you'd do it with just about anybody. Hell, he's only got one testicle so he's halfway to being a lesbian anyway!

You take the good, you take the bad, you take them both and there you have...

2006-03-17T08:24:00.000-08:00

It shouldn't take a rocket scientist or brain surgeon to know that no matter who you are, no matter how many Oscars you have won, there is simply nothing lamer than blog drama.

He asked me if I'd seen a road with so much dust and sand

2006-03-10T11:12:00.000-08:00

I love to travel. I could spend my whole life on the move seeing new and interesting places. It's not that I am unhappy with where I am, it's just that there is so much out there to see, to taste, to experience. I've done some traveling, but only enough to whet my appetite. Mostly I stave off the need to abandon myself to a life of travel by devouring travel books, magazines, websites, and travel documentaries and have done so for as long as I can remember.

When I went off to college I studied languages - French, Japanese, Russian, Italian, I even majored in Spanish. I love learning languages and had hoped to apply my talent for it as a military intelligence officer or spy and then later as some sort of jet-setting diplomat, a travel guide, or international businessman. The whole military thing didn't work out though, so my backup plan was to join the Foreign Service. I took the entrance exam and was then placed a wait-list for open positions. I was told that they might call me anytime between the next week and up to 2 years later. This was around the time of the embassy bombings in East Africa and you would not believe the pressure from my family to find another line of work. My grandmother actually told me she was praying that the State Department would reject me! My then-newly-acquired in-laws made no secret of their displeasure at the thought of me carting their daughter off to some smelly, dirty Third World country (filled with "wetbacks or n*****s" as my ex's ultra-liberal, Bush-hating, Clinton-loving, teacher's union devotee father put it to me) and getting exploded in the process. Yeah, there's nothing like the love and support of your family to help you pursue your dreams (I hope you detect the sarcasm because I'm laying it on pretty thick). As it turns out, the State Department never did call me (so naturally I wimped out and went to law school). But despite some setbacks I've still been able to visit a handful of the many places I want to see before I die. So far I have been to:

Moscow

The first thing I saw as my plane touched down at the airport were the charred remains of aircraft bulldozed into the grassy area between the runways. Next came the customs official armed with machine guns. So many Spies Like Us jokes came to mind, but the fear of disappearing into a gulag (even a post-glasnost gulag) helped me keep my mouth shut. Stepping out of the airport, the smell of vehicle exhaust was thick in the air. Everything was covered in grime, the terminal, the bus, the roads, the people. But I loved the experience. The food was universally terrible, but the people were generous and eager to practice their English with an American. I brought a bag packed with blue jeans and Dallas Cowboys paraphernalia and came back with a bag filled with Soviet flags, military uniforms, Matryoshka dolls, a brick from Red Square, and 82 rolls of film. My month in Moscow was one of the most adventurous times of my life. I'm not sure I would go back today, but I'm glad I was able to visit the capital of the once Evil Empire.

Paris

A meal of extremely rare duck - I think it quacked at me once - in the restaurant of the hotel airport had me feeling a little vulnerable so the most I saw of Paris was the view from my hotel room window and a soccer match on television. I was not impressed.

Toronto

Wow. I loved Toronto. I was there for aboot 4 days and had a wonderful time. I got into a fight with one of my traveling companions and was propositioned by two girls for some group sex. I heartily enjoyed beating up my roommate but I declined the young ladies' generous invitation. They were so persistent and plied me with drinks for hours while begging me to go back to their room. I did, but once it was clear what they had in mind, I had to beg off. First of all, I'm not an orgy kind of guy (no moustache, no robes, no scented oils, no back hair). Secondly, in the back of my mind lurked the fear that once committed to the thing I might learn that what they were really after was the Vandersexxx - and I'm not sure I could pronounce the safe word.

London

The less said about this trip the better. Suffice it to say London is a great city. English pub food is shit but Chinatown kicked ass. The Metro is a fantastic way to get around. I touched a stingray at the aquarium. And that was the only action I got on that trip. Just so you know, a sexless honeymoon *might* be an indication that there is going to be trouble down the road (as if the racist, homophobic inlaws weren't already a clue). I'm just saying.

Mexico City

What a fantastic city! Diego Rivera murals, Aztec temples, open-air markets, mariachis bands, a wonderful museum and zoo, and a city that I found relatively safe and easy to navigate. The smog is hell on asthmatics though. Or anyone, really. You could actually feel the air enter your lungs. And feel your lung tissue dying. With every single breath. Oh, and they tell you never to take a green cab because the kidnappers and thieves drive the green cabs. Well, guess what. Every cab in Mexico City is green.

Good times, mostly, but it's not an extensive list. Nowhere near as many places as I'd like to visit. There's really no place I don't want to see, except for Kansas, Nebraska, and maybe New Jersey. But to give you a little taste of my modest travel goals - and with copious apologies to the Man in Black - here is the briefest of lists of destinations where I would someday like to step foot (sung to the tune of Johnny Cash's "I've Been Everywhere"):

I want to go everywhere, man
I want to cross the deserts bare, man
And breathe the mountain air, man
Of travel I want my share, man
I want to go everywhere

I wanna go to
Thailand
Amsterdam
the Guri Dam
Morocco
Scotland
Ireland
Finland
the Zocalo
New Zealand
Belgium
Axum
the Congo
Bern
Berlin
Melbourne
Monaco
Kosovo
Torino
Buddy don't you see now?

I want to go everywhere, man
I want to go everywhere, man
I want to cross the deserts bare, man
And breathe the mountain air, man
Of travel I want my share, man
I want to go everywhere

I wanna go to
Burma
China
India
Reykjavik
Laos
Cambodia
Vietnam
and Egypt
Minorca
Mongolia
the pampas
of Argentina
Uluru
Kakadu
Timbuktu
How 'bout you?

I want to go everywhere, man
I want to cross the deserts bare, man
And breathe the mountain air, man
Of travel I want my share, man
I want to go everywhere

You have the seltzer after the salsa!

2006-03-08T09:03:00.000-08:00

I get my hair cut at a salon. There, I've said it. I pay $32 (including tip) for a haircut and shampoo. I'm sure that Centinel goes to a rundown barbershop in the wrong part of town for a $7 trim and the atmosphere. Milbarge hits the $10 SuperCuts because he can stop by Chik-fil-A on the way. Energy Spatula spent a fortune on her color, but it was worth it.

But for my $32 I now get something extra special. Not a happy ending you perverts. Salsa lessons! I'm not kidding. Now, in addition to cuts, color, facials, manicures, pedicures, tanning, and massage, you can sign up for salsa lessons. The lessons are held on Saturday afternoons and are taught by one of the salon's clients. The girls who work at the salon are postively giddy about the whole thing. Last week, my stylist and the receptionist were begging me to come by and join in the "fun."

"You have to come! So far we don't have many guys signed up," pleaded the receptionist.

"Yeah. I wonder why that could be?" (Is it necessary to add "I replied dryly" here?)

Rest easy. I did not attend the salsa lesson. But I am intrigued, if only for the purposes of mining the experience for blogging material. Sure, salsa dancing at the hair salon would not do anything to aid me in convincing people that I am not gay. But oh man, can you imagine the mocking? The sweet, sweet mocking?

So I put it to you, dear readers. Do you want to read about salsa dancing? Should I swallow the tattered shreds of my pride and take up salsa? Let your voice be heard!

UPDATE: To clarify, there will never be hair salon or hairstyle blogging here. I've edited the post to make that clear.

If it's almost a sport, it's on the Ocho. If it's almost work, it's happening in my office.

2006-03-06T12:00:00.000-08:00

In sorting through my mail this morning (yes, I was reading through my mail at work) I came across a package from REI which contained my 2005 dividend check. REI is a customer-owned cooperative or somesuch entity. I don't really know or care about the ends and outs of the corporate structure. All I cared about when I signed up as a member was the discount. I didn't even know about this little bonus dividend thing. But now I have an unexpected $40.16 to spend at REI.

There are so many things I would like to buy, but so few that are within my price range. I think I will use the money to defer the cost of a new fleece jacket because the one I have know makes me look like I killed and skinned the Cookie Monster.

However, I will NOT buy anything from The North Face because I have too much of their crap as it is, including the Cookie Monster fleece. All of my outerwear and my laptop bag are North Face. When I go to work I look like I am a member of the official North Face's "15 Minutes of Actual Work" pro team - sort of a hunky cross between Peter Gibbons and Ed Viesturs but in a suit and tie. I imagine wearing under my fleece jacket a suit adorned with the patches and logos of all my various sponsors: North Face, PowerBar, Jamba Juice, Blogger, figleaves.com, Jeep, etc. As I enter the office and begin my day, Cotton McKnight and Pepper Brooks would give the play by play:

Cotton: Welcome sports fans to the greatest show on earth in the biggest little city in the world. We're here again for a no-holds barred showdown. A battle of wits. A battle to the death. No sporting match in the world is so dangerous, so exciting as the workplace tete-a-tete known as Fucking Around at Work. I'm Cotton McKnight and with me as always is my partner in crime, Pepper Brooks. Pepper?

Pepper: Yeah, Cotton! I love to fuck at work!

Cotton: Right you are, Pepper! Now, let's check in on our competitor this morning. It's 10 a.m. and he's not done a lick of work all morning. He has checked about 20 blogs, read through all the news sites, eaten 2 breakfasts, strolled through the corridors of the office, read a magazine, and sorted his mail. But what will Matt do next? Will he go for a another quick check of bloglines or cnn.com? Will he drink from his water bottle or grab a handful of m&m's? Oh my God, Pepper, he's surfing the net, listening to his iPod, watching television, AND eating a protein bar! The insanity! Wait...wait...he's getting a call on his mobile. Will he answer it? Can he? Does he have what it takes to receive a personal call at work? He DOES! Oh my! There hasn't been a Fucking Around at Work moment this exciting since the great George Constanza took a nap under his desk back in 1996! We are witnessing history in the making!

Pepper: That's rad!

I don't know about rad, Pepper, but it feels pretty good get paid to waste time. Oh, and Cotton? You forgot to mention that I spent the last hour writing this post.

Here at Globo Gym we're better than you, and we know it.

2006-03-03T14:06:00.000-08:00

I am not a freak. Let me clarify that by saying that just because I write about the gym a lot does not mean I am one of those orangey-tan, muscle-bound freaks who spend hours a day in the weight room. Far from it - at 6'1" and 190 pounds I am a long way from the homoerotic world of competitive bodybuilding. But here's the deal. I have only a few things going on in my life: work (which I can't write about), videogames (which I won't write about), metrosexuality (which I shouldn't write about), you-know-who (who some people think I write too much about), and the gym. So until something new and exciting happens in my life you're probably going to read a lot about my gym experiences here. Assuming of course that you continue to read.

My gym was recently bought out by World Gym ("We understand that "ugliness" and "fatness" are genetic disorders, much like baldness or necrophilia, and it's only your fault if you don't hate yourself enough to do something about it.") and I am not sure I like the change in ownership. It wasn't an Average Joe's kind of place before ("I'm not okay, you're not okay, and that's okay") but at least it wasn't overcrowded. Now I am lucky if I can get on a treadmill without standing in line.

Frankly, I don't get it. They have made only superficial changes since the buyout. The staff wear new t-shirts, the purple paint is now red, the sign outside has changed. But the equipment is the same, the trainers are the same, and the crappy "Bob FM" on the radio ("we're really corporate radio but we pretend we're not") is the same. The only other change is that the membership dues are actually higher now - 50% higher. For the same gym. What gives? Is it the name cache that causes people to flock to a World Gym but to shun Nevada Fitness? Were people scared off when it was Nevada Fitness because they interpreted that to mean that the members aspired to a Nevada level of fitness - methed out, chain smoking, sun damaged, and one arm grossly oversized from tugging at the slot machines all day? Does the name World Gym imply something more attractive?

Maybe the "cool" factor of being a World Gym member justify a substantially higher membership fee for the same gym. That's the only explanation that makes any kind of sense. Fortunately, it's not really an issue for me; because I had a membership before the gym was sold I am grandfathered in under the old rate. It's a bargain, really, despite my complaints about the crowding, the random guys grabbing my package, and the grannys hitting on me. But I'm not sure I would rush to pay 50% more per month just to tell people that I am a Globonaut.

Oh, you will probably think I am making this up, but the head trainer at my gym could easily pass for White Goodman - complete with the blonde, feathered hair, the moustache, and the spandex onesie. I will try to sneak a photo of him this weekend and post it for comparison.

Immortality! Take it, it's yours! Ummm, no thanks.

2006-03-03T10:48:00.000-08:00

I watched Ridley Scott's Kingdom of Heaven recently and was pleasantly surprised. Despite the casting of Orlando Bloom, it's not a bad movie, though it had some slow moments and required the suspension of disbelief a time or two. I can't speak to it's historical accuracy. I suspect that the movie might have deviated from actual events a time or two. But what I think the movie accurately captured, and what effected me the most in watching it, was the sheer brutality of ancient warfare. The battle scenes in KoH renewed my wonder at how men could kill other men in such a brutal, personal way.

I'd been thinking about this topic for a while, after watching National Geographic's "Hannibal vs. Rome" and the Homer-inspired, Hollywood-mangled Troy (another unfortunate casting of Orlando Bloom) several times (since it's on constant rotation on the Cinemax channels and maybe, just maybe, I have a man crush on Brad Pitt) in the last month. Each show features extended scenes of the bloody hand-to-hand combat which defined warfare until only very recently. Death came not from the random shrapnel of an artillery shell or a 500-lb bomb, but from a man who stood face to face with you, who stood close enough to you to shake your hand, on whose breath (if you weren't otherwise focused on the life-and-death struggle in which you were engaged) you could smell what he had consumed at his last meal. Combat wasn't about waiting until you could see the whites of their eyes. You could count their freckles.

As recently as World War II, hand-to-hand combat was favored by some armies. In Guadalcanal Diary (one of the first books I remember from childhood and one which I checked out from my elementary school library for three consecutive years), the author recounts numerous Banzai-charge attacks by the Japanese which disintegrated into vicious hand-to-hand combat. There are many stories of hand-to-hand combat from the Korean War (see in particular the accounts of Medal of Honor recipients Stanley Adams, Charles Baker, and Raymond Davis). But in the last few decades warfare generally has become much less personal and such encounters have become the exception rather than the rule (which is not to denigrate the bravery and courage of modern warriors in any way. Killing is killing and whether it's from a yard away or a continent away it is still deadly, dangerous work.). In fact, that the bayonet charge by the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders in Iraq was featured prominently in the news precisely because such combat is so rare. I am not sure whether it's a good thing that modern warfare is generally more impersonal. I think it's good in the sense that fewer men are killed than in the kinds of wars fought in ancient times (the United States lost fewer men in ten years of war in Vietnam than the 70,000 men the Romans lost in one day at Cannae in 216 B.C.) but maybe this makes it easier for nations to go to war and that is not a good thing.

I used to think of nothing but going to war. As a young boy I dreamed of going off to fight in some epic, heroic struggle like the ones I read about in books. As I grew up I began to appreciate the foolishness of such dreams. I don't have those romantic notions about war anymore, but sometimes I have dreams or write short stories about what it would be like to live as a Viking raider (sometimes I eat like I imagine the Vikings did, tearing a roasted chicken apart with my bare hands), to have stood with Caesar's legionaries in Alesia and defeated Vercingetorix, or to have fought side-by-side with Beowulf against the Grendel. Then something like Kingdom of Heaven comes along and reminds of the especial brutality of that kind of warfare, my dreams fade, and I return to the comforts of reality where the closest I've come to combat is. . . well, is nothing really. Reading and writing about war doesn't count at all. And I am okay with that.

Update: Edited slightly since original publication

The only woman I'm pimping is sweet lady propane, and I'm tricking her out all over this town.

2006-03-02T14:16:00.000-08:00

They co-opted Sir Mix-A-Lot for their "I like backpacks and I cannot lie" back-to-school ads last fall, so how long will it be before Target runs a television ad featuring some Joe six pack strutting around a Wagner CharKing Imperial while Nelly sings in the background, "Call me George Foreman cuz I'm sellin everybody grillz" and the Target dog dances a jig? I'm predicting 4th of July, I tell you what.

Pot & Kettle

2006-02-27T12:36:00.000-08:00

My five-minute commute to work this morning began with this gem from the Adam Corolla radio show:

Random radio personality: "My favorite host for the Oscars was Whoopie Goldberg. She's so talented and edgy and hilarious!"

Adam Corolla: "Really? Whoopie Goldberg? I don't think she's funny at all. I'm not even sure she's talented. In fact, I think she's just a blowhard."

Wild on!: Las Vegas

2006-02-26T19:15:00.000-08:00

subtitle: It's illegal in nine countries. It's made from bits of real panther. That's how you know it's good.

The girl I am dating, she is the hottest girl I've ever seen. She is heartstoppingly gorgeous and she oozes sex appeal. Words simply cannot do her justice.¹ So it is no surprise to me that men and women hit on her constantly. It is no surprise that she inspires stalkers. She is so beautiful she almost compels you to hit on her, even knowing that you have no chance. She doesn't always see it, though. Often she protests when I tell her how beautiful she is. She wants to chalk up the attention to men's slavish lust for breasts and long, blonde hair. Her latest way of deflecting the truth has been to blame it all on her "lesbian perfume." The thing is, people were throwing themselves at her before she wore this perfume so the scent is at best frosting on the cake.

But what delicious frosting it is! I won't reveal the details of the scent except to say that it is The Sexy. I love how it smells and I asked her to spray her perfume on the clothes I would wear while I was in Vegas for the bar exam. That request proved to be quite the educational experience.

I knew the power her perfume had over me, but until last week I never quite understood the full power of the scent. Now I am convinced. In the space of four days, I was hit on by six women, two of them indicating an interest in some sort of group thing. Each and every time I was simply minding my own business when the women in question walked by me, stopped, then came back and inhaled deeply usually while touching me and remarking excitedly, "Ohhhh, you smell SO good!" I responded each time that yes, I do smell good and that is because I am wearing my girlfriend's perfume for good luck. This lead to more sniffing and then pleas for the name of the perfume. I never revealed the secret nor did I ever let the conversations progress. To be frank, I'm dating an incredibly smart and funny girl who also happens to be a knockout. The aspiring lawyers, casino cocktail waitresses, drunk MILFs, and surgically-enhanced models of the world just don't measure up. Not even a little bit. Not even in a "What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas" kind of way. Still, it was a very eye-opening experience because I am not the guy that random women hit on. I never have been. In my rational moments, I don't think I am hideous (though I do have my body dismorphic moments when I feel like a cross between Kip Dynamite and Eric Foreman) but I am no Paul Walker or Freddie Ljungberg. Nevertheless, the girls were coming out of the woodwork and they were homing in on me. So while I was prepared to dismiss the claims about the lesbian perfume before Vegas, my personal experience now convinces me that there is something powerful about that scent. So take it from me, when she says, "My perfume rules the universe of scent" she's not just whistlin' Dixie.

1 I really don't possess the words or the skill to describe how beautiful my girl is. But for those of you who want some sort of guide to help you visualize her, she is a blonde, green-eyed Brooke Burke with better boobs and no plastic surgery. I am not kidding. The resemblance is striking, though not one that most people would see at first glance because the two have such different colorings. But they share the same thick, wavy hair, the same big eyes, the same full lips, high cheekbones, and delicate jawline. They have the same graceful necks and rounded shoulders, the same abs and perfect, round asses. Truly, the only difference between them is that my little girl has golden blonde hair, emerald green eyes, and legs toned from years of playing soccer. Not to put too fine a point on it, but she is smokin' hot. And she smells good, too.

A city where you can get a happy ending, but only if you pay a little extra.

2006-02-26T18:51:00.000-08:00

Dear readers, please don't be like me. Don't be a smug bastard. Don't ignore the hotel reviews on Orbitz. If the customers consistently say that the Airport Howard Johnson's in Las Vegas is a fucking disaster then don't assume that they are just random, whiny people or isolated bad experiences. Learn from me, I beg of you.

I was in Las Vegas last week to sit for the bar exam. It was three days of stress and frustration for which I wanted to arrive early. I flew in on Sunday afternoon. However, there were no rooms available at the hotel where I was going to stay Monday through Thursday. Since it was just the one night, I decided to save a few dollars; instead of springing for a $110 room on the Strip, I booked the $80 HoJo. And I cannot stress this enough: Booking a room at the HoJo was the second biggest mistake of my life (my biggest mistake involved a Ho of a different nature but who shared with the HoJo very similar ideas about appropriate levels of hygiene). I have stayed in some cheap motel rooms in my day. I've stayed in hostels in Mexico. I've stayed in rundown hotels in Moscow. But I can honestly say that my room at the HoJo in Vegas was by far the nastiest, most uncomfortable hotel room I have ever had the misfortune to spend the night in.

Think I am exaggerating? Well, for starters, there was urine in the toilet.

And a condom wrapper.

And a condom.

Yeah, you read that right. There was a damn condom floating in my hotel room toilet.

Generally I am not a squeamish guy. I know what goes on in hotel rooms. I've come to terms with the writhing legions of bugs, germs, and microscopic creepycrawlies that populate hotel room beds. But I added a mouthful of bile to the other contents of the toilet because the wave of nausea that swept over me was too forceful. I know what happens in hotel rooms but I don't want or need direct evidence. I just don't. After a few minutes I recovered from the queasiness but remained utterly stupified. I was staring at a condom swimming in my hotel room toilet. Someone else's condom, floating in someone else's urine in my room. It was at about this time that I began to re-evaluate my assessment of the disgruntled posters on Orbitz. Maybe they weren't too picky after all.

Naturally, my confidence in the cleanliness of the rest of the room was somewhat diminished by the time I exited the bathroom. While washing my hands at the sink I felt an unusually cold breeze about my feet. I peered under the counter and looked into a hole in the wall, about a foot square. I could see the exposed pipes in the wall and had a terrible vision of rats using the hole as a nighttime conduit to conduct clandestine sorties in my room. "Chin up, Matt, you're in Vegas!" I told myself. I forced a grin and flopped down on the bed to relax a bit before heading out for the night.

But wait, there's more! While channel surfing - a simple pasttime in this room as the television featured only 5 channels - and trying to forget what I had just seen in the bathroom, I glanced at the wall and noticed there was a hole about the size of a fist that opened into the adjoining room. It was too high on the wall to have been caused by a fist, so I stepped onto the desk to investigate. Thankfully, I could not see into the other room, but I could see that the hole was caused by water damage. The sheet rock was damp and there was the wonderful, musty smell of mold emanating from the wall. I recoiled from the stench and stumbled off the desk. The impact of my landing caused the curtains to fall off of the curtain rod. At that point, I just had to laugh. I reattached the curtains to the hooks and considered downing some pills for the rage-induced headache that was pounding at the base of my skull. I decided against the pills in favour of drowning my pain in massive quantities of alcohol. I figured that the alcohol would have the added antiseptic advantage that I was likely to need to survive a night in that room.

I took a cab to the Luxor and almost cried when I realised what an additional $30 would have purchased for the night's stay. I ended up spending the extra $30 anyway, only I applied it to the purchase of enough beer to dull me enough to go through with a night in the HoJo. With the beer I enjoyed a delicious meal of pork dumplings and a spicy Thai noodle dish. A good meal and a good buzz made the night tolerable, but it did not erase the digust I felt the next morning. The saving grace of that night, other than the meal, was that I was alone. I would have died of shame if I had brought a guest with me to stay in that hole.

I didn't even have the guts to shower the next morning. I checked out at 7 a.m. and sped toward my destination for the rest of the week with a level of enthusiasm entirely inappropriate for someone about to take the bar exam. But after spending a night at the HoJo I was ready to face any other challenge that didn't involve other peoples' urine and used prophylactics.

Las Vegas. A city built upon sand, broken dreams, and five-dollar lobster.

2006-02-24T09:40:00.000-08:00

Um, yeah, what he said.

I will post something more comprehensive once I recover.

I'm still alive

2006-02-04T14:22:00.000-08:00

I know it's been a while since I've posted anything, but there is not much going on in my life right now. I am spending my days studying for the bar exam. I go to the gym for a couple of hours a day and that's the extent of my activity. There's nothing to say about the bar exam. I'm not sure anyone wants to read about my trips to the gym or my attempts to master FIFA 2006 on the XBox. I would post about my Valentine's Day plans, but since my special lady reads the blog I don't want to spoil the surprise for her. There is nothing else I can think of that's worth writing about, so I'll open it up to the readers. Is there something you'd like to know about me? Some topic you would like me to address? Any questions you need answered? Email me or drop me a comment and I'll do my best to post something responsive.

It's real and it's spectacular!

2006-01-24T20:34:00.000-08:00

I am taking the bar exam at the end of February and so I've taken off the next five weeks from work so that I can devote myself to preparing for the exam. My plan has been to wake up early, spend some time studying and playing with my dog, eat breakfast, and then hit the gym.

My gym was until recently an independently owned and operated place not unlike Average Joe's. In my world, however, Chuck Norris didn't give the thumbs up and Peter La Fleur didn't do the dance in the dark. White Goodman and the Globonauts dominated the dodgeball championships and my gym was sold to World Gym.

There have been some changes since World Gym took over, some good, some not so good. The purple paint has been scraped away and bright red has taken its place. Some of the antiquated machines have been scrapped - thankfully - and lots of new equipment has been trucked in. Some new members have started crowding the place, too. Whether they were persuaded to join the gym because of the name change or they are simply January Joiners, I don't particularly welcome them.

Some of the new members, however, seemed very eager to get to know me a little better. On Sunday afternoon while sculpting my guns I noticed a couple of young guys staring at me. They seemed engaged in a conversation and from all the staring I assumed it was about me. What they could have been talking about, I hadn't the foggiest idea. I'm not some huge musclebound freak, I wasn't doing anything to draw attention to myself, and I am just not the kind of guy that people stare at. I'm nothing special nor am I a freak.

I didn't think much about it at the time, as I had weights in my hands and I was trying to focus. But they were still looking at me when I moved on to the next exercise in my routine. I ignored them for the rest of my workout and had forgotten about them entirely by the time I finished. As I headed to the locker room to collect my jacket, all I could think about was the burning pain in my arms and abs. Walking out the locker room door, stuffing my iPod into my jacket pocket, I recognized the guy coming through the door from the other direction was one who had been staring at me earlier. I held the door open and motioned him through. He smiled at me and said "Thanks, buddy," then made a big show of turning sideways to squeeze past me - a totally unnecessary move as there was ample room for the two of us to fit in the doorway. As he passed me, he kept eye contact, brushed up against me full body and he rubbed his hand against my crotch!

!!!

To put it mildly, it was an unpleasant moment. It couldn't have lasted more than half a second, but it felt like an eternity. An uncomfortable, dirty eternity. Not dirty in a good way, like making your girlfriend wear a miniskirt without panties, but skeevy dirty like Joe Simpson talking about his daughters' breasts. The following thoughts ran through my head in the eternal half-second during which his hand grabbed at my package:

(1) This guy just groped me!
(2) This cannot be happening.
(3) You've got to be joking. He's not really grabbing my dick is he?
(4) Yep. He is.
(5) WHY?
(6) I guess I should be flattered, but what the fuck is this guy doing?!?

All those thoughts raced around in my head, but I was too shocked to say anything. Mr. Hands smiled and continued on into the locker room, leaving me stunned and violated. I didn't know quite what to do so I just walked quietly to my car and drove home. When I got home, I tried to wrap my mind around what had just happened: another guy had just grabbed my crotch and eye-fucked the shit out of me. Why? What had I done to provoke him? I ruminated on this question for some time but no answer came until headed for the shower. I looked at myself in the mirror and realised that my gym shorts leave nothing to the imagination. Nothing. I guess that explains what they were staring at. It also means that it's time for me to buy some new, very loose-fitting shorts. All flattery aside, I don't think I can take another impromptu game of tummy sticks while coming out of the men's locker room.

I wish that I wasn't such an idiot. But, as someone once said, wish in one hand and shit in the other and see which one fills up first.

2006-01-19T08:29:00.000-08:00

*this post brought to you by Napoleon Dynamite, Summer's Eve, and the number 48

What a sad and discouraging thing it is to live in fear. In my particular case it has led me to overreact and to look like a fool. I don't really enjoy looking like a fool, so maybe I will learn a lesson from all of this. Maybe I will finally learn to live in my resolution to exchange fear for faith and to be the optimistic kind of person I encourage others to be.

What is the genesis of this post you ask? Well, regarding my previous post, it now seems very likely that I was mistaken to conclude that I had been found out by my girl's crazy stalker.

My reaction yesterday is a prime example of my tendency to act rashly. It's a flaw I've struggled with all my life. One should be slow to judgment and even slower to anger. You would think that my training in law school would have taught me to carefully and completely analyze the evidence at hand before forming a judgment. Yeah, it hasn't so much. I watch so many true crime shows like A&E's "The First 48" that you would have been justified in thinking that the process of investigating crimes would also give me pause before jumping to absurd conclusions. As Napoleon Dynamite would say, "Freakin' idiot!" Hopefully, with time and a real commitment to change, I can learn to overcome this annoying, fruitless, and embarrassing character flaw. You would think that I would be weary of looking like an enormous douche time after time. I hope that this time the lesson has finally sunk in because I really hate this feeling.

Instead of trying to make the evidence fit my premature conclusion, what should have been my first step in the inquiry? Perhaps to consider whether the search originated from a loyal and faithful reader who simply could not remember the URL of my blog. From there, I should have asked myself, "So, Detective, who else lives in the area near your stalker who might also want to read your site?" I too quickly answered that question with "No one. Who the hell wants to read this garbage?" That's the obvious conclusion, but it turns out to be erroneous. Erroneous!

The search was indeed from a loyal reader. I emailed him last night - AFTER I had erased my blog - to confirm what a reasonable examination of the evidence suggested in the first place. His response:

"I did do that search from home last weekend. I did read you at work, but the firm's filter now makes it impossible to comment on blogspot addresses, so I was trying to remember your @#$% site address since no one can link to you. You are likely, then, being retarded."

His kind use of "likely" softened the blow only a little. But the good news is that despite me being an idiot, the stalker (about whom I have exaggerated nothing) has not found my site. And, I suppose the other bit of good news is that I can and will continue blogging here. I hope you all will forgive me for freaking out and I hope we can move past this together.

Feel free to mock me in the comments. You have every right to.

Kindly leave!

2006-01-18T15:43:00.000-08:00

So the lunatic stalker who imagined he had a relationship with my girlfriend, who imagined that she "cheated" on him with me, and who imagined that at my old blog I sent him coded messages rubbing it all in his face has found this site. I don't know how, except that one of the few people who had knowledge of this blog must have alerted him to its existence. I feel betrayed.

The stalker - the crazy guy who emails pictures of himself crying about his broken heart to a girl he's never even met - has repeatedly threatened my girlfriend with physical violence and also with putting her personal information on his own site as retaliation for me writing about my life in ways that he deems offensive. I left my old blog so as not to give him a pretext for being such a dick. Not reading my old blog was "not an option" for him. I thought I would be free to write somewhere else if he did not know I wrote here. But now he does. And so I will close this chapter, too. It sucks, but I have no other choice. While I think he's completely full of shit, I'm not willing to risk it and put my girlfriend in harm's way.

Flourless Chocolate Torte with Raspberry Sauce

2006-01-17T13:18:00.000-08:00

I have been on a mission to find delicious treats that are also gluten free. Steak and potatoes - that's easy. Turkey. Easy. Eggs. Easy. Pastries and baked goods are a real challenge though. I've found very good recipes for pancakes and chocolate chip cookies and I am hoarding this state's entire supply of a yummy gluten-free prepared chocolate cake mix, but decent gluten-free bread remains elusive. It's one of those two steps forward one step back journeys. This weekend, though, the journey took a great leap forward when I baked one of the most delicious cakes I've ever tasted - a decadent flourless chocolate torte with raspberry sauce and fresh raspberries.

The recipe for the chocolate torte comes courtesy of Mario Batali. The raspberry sauce and fresh berries for garnish is how I made this recipe my own.

Flourless Chocolate Torte

6 tablespoons unsalted butter, plus more for greasing the pan
1 1/4 cups granulated sugar
6 large eggs, separated
5 tablespoons instant espresso
6 tablespoons Dutch-processed cocoa powder
6 tablespoons dark rum or Marsala (I would recommend 4 tablespooons rum and 2 tablespoons water unless you really like rum)
1 1/2 cups ground, toasted almonds
Gluten-free flour for coating the pan (you can use all-purpose flour if gluten-free is not an issue for you)
Confectioners' sugar for dusting
1 cup fresh rapsberries (or thawed frozen berries if you can't find fresh)

Raspberry Sauce
2 cups raspberries (fresh or frozen)
1/4 cup sugar
juice of half a lemon

To make the raspberry sauce, puree the raspberries with the sugar and lemon juice in a food processor or blender. Strain through a fine sieve to remove the seeds. Refrigerate.

To make the torte, first you need to toast your almonds. Place them in a single layer on a baking sheet and put them in the over for about 10 minutes at 350 degrees. Shake them a couple of times. Let the almonds cool, then put them in a food processor and grind them as fine as you possibly can. They should be pulverized, almost as fine as flour. The finer you can grind the almonds, the smoother and creamier the torte will be.

Preheat your oven to 375 degrees F (about 190 C) and butter and flour a 9-inch round cake pan. Set the pan aside for now. Next, separate the eggs. The fancy way to do it is to completely crack the egg and pour the yolk back and forth between the two halves of the shell while letting the whites drain into a small bowl under the egg. I'm not skilled in those kinds of kitchen tricks. I did it by cracking the shell and pouring the whites out. The crack in the shell was too small for the yolk to pass through. Once the whites were drained, I opened the shells and poured the yolks into a separate bowl. Do what works for you.

Now, melt the butter in a glass bowl over simmering water. I set a mixing bowl over a pan of water but kept the water from touching the bottom of the bowl. Once the butter melts, whisk in the sugar and the egg yolks. Cook for 5 minutes, stirring constantly so that the eggs become ribbon-like and light in color. Don't scramble the eggs. Whisk in the coffee, cocoa powder, rum and almonds, and continue cooking, stirring constantly, until it becomes smooth and creamy. Now transfer the cake mixture to a mixing bowl and set aside.

In a clean, separate mixing bowl, beat the egg whites until the just begin to stiffen and hold soft peaks. I'm not sure how to describe this exactly. The eggs should be frothy and sort of stiff, but not like whipped cream or meringue. Gently fold the whites into the chocolate mixture. Pour the batter into the prepared pan and bake until firm and beginning to separate from the sides, about 27-30 minutes. Remove from the oven and allow to cool 30 minutes more.

To serve the torte, flip it over and out of the pan, dust it with confectioners' sugar and cut it into wedges. Plate the pieces and dust a little more sugar on the plates. Drizzle the plates with raspberry sauce. To drizzle the sauce over the plate, pour the sauce into a large plastic storage bag (quart or gallon-sized Ziploc will do nicely) and seal the bag. Then, turn the bag so that the sauce is not filling one of the bottom corners of the bag. Snip a small hole in the corner of the bag, then use the hole in the bag to drizzile lines of sauce over each plate. Use your fingers to pinch off the hole between plates. Add a few fresh berries and serve.

But here's the trick if you want to write a post about this recipe: remember to add the raspberries and sauce to the plate before you take the pictures. It makes more sense that way. I chose a different path, hence no pictures of berries and sauce. But I will make this again in about a month and I'll try to remember to take some pictures of the final finished product. Oh, and also "dusting" means a light coating of sugar - not the thick layer you see in these pictures. I got a little crazy with the sugar. Less is more when it comes to dusting.

*I feel a bit like a copycat because the Gluten Free Girl (I love the tomatillos in her title image!) posted a recipe for a flourless chocolate torte on Friday (read her post here). I'm not using the same recipe, though after reading her post I think I will give it a whirl sometime. She noted something that I too would like to mention. If you eat this torte the night you bake it, it will be very light and airy. But if you refrigerate it and eat it the next day it will have a denser, almost fudgelike texture. It's delicious either way.

Am I a clown? Am I here to amuse you?

2006-01-12T10:22:00.000-08:00

My peeve of the day: Blogs that have "musings" in the title, like "So-and-so's Musings" and "The Musings of Someone-I-Don't Know" and "Musings of a Blah-Blah-Blah."

To "muse" means to be "absorbed in one's thoughts or engaged in meditation." It can also mean "to consider or say thoughtfully." Nothing of the sort goes on in the world of blogs populated by such sites as "The Hipster Muse" or "The Musings of a Mediocre Schoolmarm" or "The Ranting Muse." A blow by blow description of how your kid soiled his diaper this morning is not a musing, nor is it amusing. Ditto your contentless link to the reviews of the new Apple computers and your insightless rote repetition of other people's analysis of the day's political issues. You think you're blog title is clever, but it isn't. You think you are clever, but you're not. I'm sorry to hate on the musers, but most of the posts on these types of blogs are not musings on anything, they are the mundane details of some person's boring life - if you're lucky. I don't think it's too much to ask for a little truth in advertising in the blogworld. I want my librarians hot, my southerners southern, and my musers amusing.

And they call it puppy love

2006-01-12T10:14:00.000-08:00

A reader emailed to request an update on the puppy. I am always happy to oblige an interested reader. Coming up with ideas for posts is the hard part. I'm more than willing to let the readers shoulder a portion of the load.

Claudine is growing like a weed; weeds, incidentally being her favourite food. She likes to feast on grasses and sticks and tumbleweeds in the backyard, occasionally fortifying her diet with mineral-rich rocks from the retaining wall behind the house. Why do I bother with the gourmet dog food? Why?

She hasn't broken my skin with her teeth in almost 4 days. I hope we are finally over the hand-biting stage. Her claws are still sharp, despite our first clipping session. Actually, I think it was clipping her nails that finally broke her of the biting. She was so pitiful throughout the 2 minutes it took for me to trim her nails that I'm sure the neighbors debated calling the animal welfare folks and reporting me. The howling, the whining, the pathetic mewing - it sounded so awful. I think she mistook it as punishment. I'm tempted to reinforce that thought, but that will just make it harder for me to keep her nails reasonably groomed.

Claudey is very big on her illusion of independence. She doesn't like help getting onto the bed, she can't abide me lifting her up onto the couch, and she just generally gives off a "I can do it MYSELF" vibe. I expected this once she reached her teenage years, but this precocious pup is only 3 months old!

If only she could let herself outside at night, I would be all for encouraging this independent streak. But she cannot open the door, what with her lack of opposable thumbs and all. So it falls to me to accompany her to the yard at 1 a.m. Every. Damn. Night. Actually, it's not that bad. Most nights she's quite content to return to the sweet embrace of Somnus as soon as we return to bed. Only rarely does she decide she wants to play in the pre-dawn hours. But when she does, there's no stopping her.

Similarly, when she wants to be left alone, she makes it very clear. She will tolerate only so much petting and smooching when she's trying to sleep. Her initial response is usually a heavy sigh and "the look" (see below). If I persist, she moves just out of my reach and lays down again. If that doesn't work, she will move to the far corner of the room and lay down with her back to me, as if to say, "You don't like it when I wake you at 1 a.m. with kisses and licks so don't bother me at 7 p.m. with your infernal petting, buddy." I suppose we're more alike than I realised. We just need to learn to coordinate our schedules so that the love can flow freely and without so much swearing and biting.

2005 Year in Review

2006-01-11T11:45:00.000-08:00

2005 was a life-changing year in so many ways. It was tumultuous and stressful yet ultimately and unexpectedly good. A year that began on a sour and hopeless note ended in such a beautiful way that I am simply at a loss to describe it for you. The best way I can express it is that I feel like a man reborn.

To recap, after 7 years I finally escaped from a lonely prison of a marriage. I was taken to the cleaners by an ex-wife who, it turns out, was not just a lazy, grooming-challenged asexual, but a freakin' psychopath as well. Her getting all my money and my dog sucked, but it expedited the divorce and got her out of my life quickly. That's money well spent as far as I am concerned.

I worked 155 of the first 157 days of last year. The overtime hours I worked during that time period were equivalent to almost 4 months (15 weeks) extra I spent in the office last year. But I chose government lawyer over BIGLAW whore for the lifestyle...yeah, that worked out real well.

I got shingles. In my throat. It sucked. Hard.

I put on 15 pounds then lost 12 pounds and then put on 10, but lowered my body fat from 15% to 8%. I'm close to being in the best shape of my life right now.

I sold two Jeeps and bought two Jeeps. I now have one Jeep. It's the first new car I've ever purchased and I love it.

I lost one dog but was given another. She's cute and perfect, even though she's very naughty.

I left one blog but started another.

I resolved to get serious about writing, to stop talking about it and just write. As part of that, I submitted some stories for publication - the first writing submissions I've made since law school. I expect the rejection letters any day now.

I bought an iPod. It has not changed my life but my workouts are much more intense now that I can drown out the easy-listening music and the shameless pick-up lines from the middle-aged women.

I bought my first laptop. It is precious to me.

I tried kayaking for the first time. I loved it.

I gambled for the first time. I didn't win but I had fun.

I found the perfect pair of jeans and the perfect cologne and the most amazing girl. She's cute and perfect, even though she's very naughty. For the first time in my life, I am truly in love.

All in all a very good year, but it's only a prelude to what I expect to be a truly extraordinary 2006.

We were looking for a few good men. Now...give us your tired, your poor, your people with speed limit IQs yearning to be shot at for $600/mo.

2006-01-10T14:10:00.000-08:00

Apparently the Army has had to lower its recruiting standards as the war in Iraq drags on, despite its own studies that demonstrate the detriments of lower standards. Still, the standards could be lower. The Army isn't quite ready to recruit from the ranks of the mentally retarded. Fortunately for some, they are still actively recruiting from the ranks of the socially retarded. I don't know how they are going to play Battlestar Galactica drinking games in a war zone where alcohol is banned, though.

Corn Chowder

2006-01-08T19:45:00.000-08:00

If you like corn, you will love this sweet and smoky corn chowder. It's thickened with potatoes rather than flour so it has the advantage of being gluten free. Since my lady friend ("She's not my special lady, she's my fucking lady friend! I'm just helping her conceive!") is afflicated with celiac disease, I am now learning to cook gluten free. It's not easy sometimes, but this recipe is a winner - whether you're a celiac or just in love with one. This simple recipe tastes best made with fresh corn, but frozen works too. Please don't use canned corn. You deserve better and so does the dish. If you don't dig on swine (I'm looking at you, Mr. Poon), you can use turkey bacon. I can't vouch for the results but I'm sure it would work.

Corn Chowder
1/4 cup plus 1 Tbs. olive oil
1 yellow onion, diced
2 russet potatoes, peeled and cut into 1-inch cubes
5 cups milk
1 cup heavy cream
3 ears of corn, kernels removed (or 1 1/2 cups frozen corn)
3 bacon slices, cooked and chopped
1/4 tsp. cayenne pepper

In a Dutch oven or soup pot over medium heat, warm the 1 Tbs. oil. Add the onion and cook, stirring occasionally, until translucent, about 5 minutes. Add the potatoes and cook for 2 minutes. Add the milk and cream, increase the heat to medium-high and bring to a boil. Reduce the heat to medium-low and simmer until the potatoes are tender, about 10 minutes. Add the corn and bacon and cook for 5 minutes. Using a slotted spoon, transfer 2 cups of the soup mixture to a bowl. Using an immersion blender, puree the remaining soup until smooth. Stir in the reserved soup mixture, the cayenne, salt and pepper and serve immediately. Serves 4-6.

We're on a mission from God

2006-01-06T08:15:00.000-08:00

CNN reports that Pat Robertson has predictably come out and "explained" that Ariel Sharon suffered a stroke and is near death because God is displeased with Sharon for agreeing to the idea of partitioning Palestine into two separate nation states. Robertson's pronouncement, his insight into the mind of God and the workings of His hand, is being presented largely as the view held by mainstream American Christians - that Robertson is the voice of the dastardly "religious right."

So, are all Christians really this crazy? Undoubtedly some of them are. Far too many Christians are content to speak through the voice of Pat Robertson - as proof you can look at the vast wealth accumulated by Robertson and his 700 Club empire largely through donations from little old ladies and devout churchgoers. But then every faith, every dogma, every ethos has it's backsliders, hypocrites, its fringe elements, and those who are easily persuaded to follow such outliers. It's unfortunate but these kooks sometimes rise to notoriety and prominence.

For all his notoriety, Robertson only speaks for a minority of Christians. It is erroneous and lazy to attribute to all Christians Pat Robertson's words. It's certainly easy for the media to do this and it plays into the hands of those who would seek to demonize all Christians as hypocrites and liars. Let me suggest, though, that Christians do not speak with one voice, any more than all Americans do, or African Americans, or Muslims, or Arabs, or Democrats, or women or any other demographic you can come up with. After all, does President Bush speak for all Americans? Or Al Sharpton for all African Americans? Or Mahmoud Ahmadinejad for all Muslims? Osama bin Laden for all Arabs? Michael Moore for all Democrats? Kim Gandy for all women? No, of course not. It's this type of lumping together and resort to stereotyping that so many people rail against when it's done to other groups. And it's one of the methods most often used to dismiss a group or people - find the crazy one among them, attribute to the whole group the crazy man's ideas, and then you can dismiss the group as well as any of its sensible ideas that otherwise you might have had to confront. It's lazy and intellectually dishonest, but it's easy.

So, I say let Christians off the hook for Robertson's statements. Those who support him I think we're free to lump in with him. Those who speak out against him and those who are in no way affiliated with Robertson don't deserve it, though. And hopefully reasonable people will see that most Christians think Robertson is a nut. (A technorati search of the CNN article linked above demonstrates that many bloggers are making the distinction and holding Robertson and Robertson alone accountable for his words. And most of the blogs rightly see him as nutjob. But that does little to counteract the weight of the news article itself which presents Robertson as a mainstream voice of Christianity.)

As for Robertson himself.... So, his pronouncement is in essence his proclamation that he knows the mind of God. Pat Robertson knows with certainty the motivation behind God smiting Ariel Sharon with a stroke. Likewise, he knew that God brought about 9/11 as punishment for homosexuals in New York City, the Gulf Coast hurricanes were judgment rendered on the debauched residents of New Orleans, and that the south Asian tsunami last year was punishment for those who turned a blind eye to the Lord. That is some very powerful insight. Think of the kind of power and knowledge a man must possess if he can peer into and understand the mind of God. It's perhaps a bit bigheaded to put yourself out there as the one who can read God's mind. But more importantly, it is contrary to the Word of God (but one example of this is in I Corinthians 2:11 in which Paul explains that no man can know the mind of God). That is not to say that I think God cannot chose to intervene in life and give Sharon a stroke or that he never reveals Himself to us, only that Robertson's certainty is vain and arrogant and when put to the test just doesn't hold up. For Robertson the Lord doesn't act in mysterious ways, He acts in every event of daily life and every horrible thing that happens is retribution for some sort of failing or sin.

Let's take Robertson's recent declarations of the mind of God to their logical conclusion: my grandmother suffered through terrible pain for months as she slowly died from pancreatic cancer. The brutality of her agony must - MUST - have been delivered by the hand of God. I mean, if Robertson is right, then every death is a judgment from God. Every death is a condemnation of the person's actions. Isn't that what he's saying? So my grandmother must have been a truly evil person - worse than Ariel Sharon (who probably suffered no pain), for sure. But hell, she must have been worse than Hitler because he died from a single, painless gunshot wound to the head. So, though you might not think it had you known her, God saw my grandmother's heart and He knew she was more evil than Hitler! I wonder how Pat Robertson feels about taking thousands of dollars in donations from the world's most evil grandmother? Maybe he'll return the solid gold grand piano in the foyer of his mansion once he realizes that it was paid for with money that came from the hands of my granny...maybe not.

I have tried while writing this to remember the Golden Rule, which is such an important part of the Christian ethic. It goes something like this, "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you." (Matthew 7:12). I have tried to refrain from condemning Pat Robertson as a false prophet and a son of a bitch who does more harm than good. I've tried to resist judging him for all the damage he does to the Christian body and that he does in the name of God. I've come up short. For that, I am sorry and I ask to be forgiven. I think, no I know, that Pat would agree with me that we should seek to live by the Golden Rule. He has preached about it many times. I know from first-hand experience as my grandmother - that most sinful of women who must have deserved all the pain and suffering she went through - was a devotee of the Reverend. And so, Reverend, let's join together, shall we, and renew our commitment to do unto others what we would have them do to us.

To start us off Pat, why don't you give ol' Hugo Chavez a call? The Lord told me it's time for you to practice what you preach.

You're like a miniature Buddha, flavored like vanilla

2006-01-05T13:02:00.000-08:00

My lunchtime fortune cookie dispensed this gem: "You find beauty in ordinary things. Do not lose this ability."

Thanks, I guess. I suppose that the statement is true (even when read with in bed tacked on to the end), but how is that a fortune? It is not a prediction of any future event. At best, it could be read as a warning that I should not "lose this ability" but I have to assume that this command implies that I might be on the verge of losing it. This is all very confusing. My last fortune cookie was much better: "You will enjoy a visit to Asia." Now that is a fortune I can embrace. I just hope the next cookie gives me the winning lotto numbers so I can finance my trip to the Far East.

I'm guessing it was ladies' night at the Tahoe Biltmore

2006-01-05T07:57:00.000-08:00

*Yes, I am immature.

I think I was trying to suggest something about the duality of man, sir.

2006-01-04T09:19:00.000-08:00

I apologise for the extended silence 'round these parts lately. I've wanted to write, but I have not had anything to say for the past several days. No stories to tell and no crazy news reports to mock. Also, I've also been busy entertaining for the holidays and I've experienced some craptastic weather. Oh, and now that I do have a few things I would like to write about, I'm too busy at work to actually write. I am trying to wrap up several projects at work so that I when I leave on Friday the 13th - not to return until February 24th - I can leave with a clean desk.

How did I manage to score a five week vacation? Well, it's not a vacation at all, really. I am taking off time to study for the bar exam which will be held February 20-23. It's not my first bar exam, so I am not too worried. But the fewer distractions I have in the weeks before, the better my chances of performing well. My co-workers who are taking the exam have been out of the office since the beginning of December, but there is no way that I could devote myself to three months of exam preparation. I would end up snowboarding for two months and studying for a few weeks. If I had the money to snowboard, that's probably what I would have done, but things are still a little tight around my place. No one wants to read about my divorce (least of all me), but when my ex left, she took about $20,000 and a recently purchased vehicle with her. That put me in a bind. I have no problems paying my bills and affording some nice things, but at $60 a day, snowboarding is just too pricey right now.

If I can manage to organise my life, I will try to write from home this week. I plan to post a recipe of one of my favorite dishes - a corn and potato chowder. Also, I hope to write a little bit about The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe - the book, not the movie. Meanwhile, let me leave you with some unsolicited recommendations. Feel free to add your own in the comments.

Blogs: Swim At Your Own Risk - a blog about sharks and crocs and their victims, complete with pictures and movies? You can't go wrong with that kind of material. Also, The Write Grrl - and not just because she kindly added me to her blogroll. She's very entertaining, for example, explaining that she's not mad enough to be an Angry Black Woman, only a Cranky Brown Grrl.

Movies: The 40-Year-Old Virgin and Wedding Crashers are out on DVD now. I purchased both movies, but at a minimum you should rent them. Steve Carell is pitch-perfect as electronics salesman / virgin Andy Stitzer in a movie that could have been crude and condescending but was instead sweet and touching (finally). Wedding Crashers is not sweet and touching, but it's a hilarious tour-de-force from Vince Vaughn and it's full of enough one-liners to get you through a year's worth of happy hours, office parties, and blog post titles.

Television: I am not a reality television junkie, but I enjoyed Beach Patrol: San Diego on CourtTV this week. It's essentially Baywatch meets Cops, but who can argue with that as a show's premise?

Books: If you like travel writing at all, then you should check out Bill Bryson's In a Sunburned Country, a fascinating examination of the flora, fauna, people, and places of Australia. Bryson is the kind of writer that I aspire to be, described by one reviewer of In a Sunburned Country as "as much a travel writer here as a humorist, naturalist, and historian." Yeah, I would very much like to described like that someday. Maybe throw in the word "adventurer" too.

I put my pants on just like the rest of you - one leg at a time. Except, once my pants are on, I make gold records.

2005-12-23T10:33:00.000-08:00

My morning routine has been off the last few days. Maybe it's because of the new puppy and her erratic sleep schedule. Maybe it's because (now that I am finally over the herp) I've started going to the gym again (note to self: always wear your iPod at the gym as it reduces by 100% the number of old ladies who hit on you). Maybe it's because I ran out of my favorite cologne on Sunday and removing that one step in my routine has thrown off everything else (I need to buy a new bottle (and soon) but I am dreading going to the mall on the Saturday before Christmas). Maybe it's something else entirely. Whatever the reason, I'm just not functioning at a normal level in the a.m. On Wednesday, I put my English muffins under the broiler to toast, only to realise after several minutes that I forgot to turn on the oven. That's an improvement over Tuesday, though, when I dumped the muffins onto the burner and set two of them and my oven mitt on fire. Yesterday, I forgot to rinse the conditioner out of my hair until I looked at myself in the mirror while shaving and noticed that something looked odd. Today, I forgot to put on deodorant - and while rectifying that oversight, I realised I had forgotten to put on my underwear. I had to look at myself in the mirror and ask, "Forget anything else today, dumbass?" Unfortunately, the answer turned out to be "Yes." I locked myself out of the house while letting the puppy out to take care of her morning routine (which now includes angry growling at me because I will not let her dig through the garbage heap that, unbeknownst to me, my ex-wife dumped in a corner of my yard. Why a puppy would want to gnaw on a rotted potato or a decomposing head of garlic I do not know, but little Claudey is enamored with rotted veggies.). I gained entry to the house by pulling a screen off the window to my bedroom, forcing the window open, and tumbling in. Luckily, I managed to avoid breaking anything when I rolled onto the floor. I pulled myself up and went back outside to retrieve the puppy, who in my absence had picked out a nice rotted potato to supplement her puppy chow. When she saw me coming out the door, she ran from me, potato held high as she bounded around the corner of the house. After wrestling the potato away from her and getting her back into the house, I sat down and tried to clear my head (Focus, Daniel-san!). I comforted myself with the thought that even Superman must have mornings like these - mornings when he just looks at himself in the mirror and shakes his head. At least it would certainly explain why he always manages to wear his underwear on the outside.

Hard times for The Gap

2005-12-19T09:16:00.000-08:00

"It's just a sign of how badly things have gone for the brand: They can't even get world leaders to ejaculate on their clothes anymore," writes Seth Stevenson at Slate.

Anecdotally, I've purchased only two items of clothing from The Gap in the last, oh, five years - a pair of grey corduroy pants and a white button-down shirt. I haven't ejaculated on either.

What would we do without celebrity "icons" to educate us?

2005-12-19T08:05:00.000-08:00

Shirley MacLaine says she's no Paris Hilton. Thanks for clearing that up, Shirl, I was so confused! Now I can go back to living my life. You know, the one in which I had assumed you died 20 years ago when you career did.

I was Brokeback when Brokeback wasn't cool

2005-12-15T18:29:00.000-08:00

All the attention Ang Lee's movie adaptation of Annie Proulx's Brokeback Mountain is garnering reminds me of events from my past and brings up a question that I've never really been able to answer. Namely, why do so many people think I am gay?

During my sophomore year of college my life kind of derailed after a series of unfaithful girlfriends and financial struggles, the dashing of my dream to attend Navy flight school after graduation, and a growing dependence on alcohol led me to make some very poor decisions. Rather than address these issues, I chose to run away from them. I ran away to Colorado, convinced that the solution to all of my problems was to become a hunting guide and live out the rest of my life as a modern-day Jeremiah Johnson. Hunting, horses, and sleeping under the stars seemed like the ideal prescription for what ailed me. It was not the best-laid plan, in fact it was a pretty stupid idea, but when first conceived it filled me with the kind of enthusiasm Kramer showed for Frank Costanza's Festivus - it scratched me right where I itched.

I didn't go to the Rocky Mountains alone. In my eagerness to escape the world rather than deal with it, I had inadvertently proselytized about the joys and freedoms of life in the wild and picked up a convert - my friend Randy. Randy was from some no-name little town in Oklahoma. He was short, stocky, plain looking and pale. He was shy and had never had much luck with the ladies. Randy was frustrated by college, frustrated with life, frustrated by girls and quickly drafted himself into my escape plan. He had never been hunting, he had never been on a horse, he had never even left Oklahoma. But like me, he thought a change of scenery would fix everything that was wrong in his life.

We set out for Colorado on a warm summer night in 1995. We crossed the flat loneliness of the Texas Panhandle and the emptiness of eastern Colorado alone except for the occasional lights of a truck-stop oasis. Daylight broke as we climbed into the mountains and found the private road leading to the ranch that was to be our home for the next several months. As I parked outside the bunkhouse, I imagined I had discovered my Shangrai la.

When we joined up with the other prospective hunting guides at the ranch, Randy and I were the only ones who had known each other previously. We had been friends for more than two years and so, naturally, we hung out together. Early on in our training the new guides were told to partner up and work in teams. As you might expect, Randy and I paired off together. We were friends, we enjoyed each others company, and, frankly, most of the other guys were assholes or incompetents or both. This was especially true of the men who were in charge of our training: Dan and Chris. Dan looked about 50 years old, and I was shocked when he told me he was only thirty. He was haggard and bent over, missing his front teeth, and had had his back broken as many times as he'd been divorced (that would be three). Chris was a loudmouth know-it-all, a washed up rodeo cowboy with most of an 8th grade education. He was proudly unmarried, proclaimed a disdain for girlfriends, and loved to brag that when he needed "servicing" he would just head for Vegas. Dan and Chris were fair ranch hands and knew more about being hunting guides than we did, but you wouldn't call them smart men. You wouldn't call them tolerant, either.

We had a good time on the ranch, for a while. It was hard work, but it was fun. I began to think that I had really made a wise choice in dropping out of college and coming to Colorado to find myself. But one night about month after we had started working that changed. There were about a dozen of us relaxing around a campfire telling stories and getting drunk, when Dan looked square at me and told that tired joke about Texas.

"Only two things come out of Texas. Steers and queers. And I don't see no horns on you, Matt. I just see you and Randy holding hands all the time. So, why are you queer for him? You some kind of fag or something?"

"Yep," I replied, "You figured me out, Dan. I tried to sneak him away from Oklahoma and his momma so I could make him fall in love with me. Yep, you saw right through my plan. You goddamned idiot."

"What did you call me?" he asked.

"I think that you've got a lot of nerve to be pissed at me for calling you an idiot after you just called me a fag."

"Get up, fag."

"Why? You wanna fuck me or something?"

"No, I'm going to kick your fucking ass. Get up!"

"Does it make you feel tough to call me a fag? Make you feel real tough to beat up a fag? Does that make you feel like a man, Dan? Does it?"

"Get up or I'll kick your ass right there where you sit."

"I ain't moving, you broke-back son of a bitch."

"Yeah, you're gonna move. You're gonna move real good, fag boy."

Finally, Randy said, "Man, leave him alone. He's not gay, Chris. What the hell did he ever do to you?"

Chris finally spoke up. "These queers aren't worth it, Dan. You're just gonna make 'em cry."

That had the effect of silencing Randy, but also emboldened Dan to know that he had Chris's approval. None of the other guides even said a word or looked in my direction. Dan stared at me for a long time, but he didn't say anything more. I finished my beer and decided to turn in for the night.

No one talked to me the next day, and I thought that maybe the events of the previous night were forgotten. I was wrong. The accusations and the hostility began in earnest a day later. In fact, several of the new guides joined in with Dan and Chris. I don't think they actually believed a word of what they were saying, but they didn't want to risk being thought of as gay. Pretty soon, the dominant theme of conversation in camp was just how queer Randy and Matt were.

So Randy and I became the gay outcasts of the hunting camp, despite the fact that we weren't gay. We never shared any intimate moments on the mountain. I never felt like "my gun was going off" nor did I ever tell Randy, "I don't know how I'll quit you." We weren't gay, much less in love. But the notion that everyone else on the ranch believed that about us was too much for Randy to deal with. It wasn't long before he stopped hanging out with me, stopped speaking to me, and joined the ranks of the other guides calling me gay. Randy's abandonment of me didn't save him, though. Even after he turned on me, the other guys just called it a "lover's quarrel" and teased him about breaking up with me. Not long after that, Randy cleared out his bunk, bought an old pickup from the outfitter, and announced that he was sick of living with a bunch of guys. "I'm going to Vegas to get me some whores," he proclaimed to anyone who would listen. No one did. On the day he left, he said to me, "Don't you try to follow me. Don't you try to find me. Don't ever talk to me again." I offered him my hand, but he just looked at me, climbed into his truck and set off down that chalky unpaved road. We never saw or spoke to each other again. Last I heard, he had joined the Coast Guard.

I stayed on for the rest of the season. No one bothered me after Randy left, but then, I hardly saw anyone else during that time. My job was to lead a string of pack mules from the trailhead to the base camp, bringing in supplies and new hunters, then make the return trip the next day, packing out the garbage and the old hunters. It was lonely work, but a relief from the torment I had endured when working in camp. When the season was over, I was glad to pack the old, red Ford and head back to Texas. I had not found the solution to the problems that led me to run away, but my time in Colorado taught me that running away is never the answer.

That season in the mountains wasn't the first time I've been accused of being gay. I've been accused of being gay all my life. In fact, I was called a fag before I knew what a fag was. In the sixth grade, a teacher remarked to my parents that she was "concerned" about me because I was more interested in spending time with girls than with boys. (Don't get me started on the ridiculousness of the assertion that a boy entering adolescence who preferred the company of girls to that of boys was somehow suspect or exhibiting gay behaviour. To say that her assertion was counterintuitive is being generous.) This warning didn't seem to bother my parents and I then had only the vaguest notion of what was insinuated - I assumed that the teacher and my tormenters thought I was a "sissy" because I was sensitive and emotional, well-behaved, well-read, and interested in drawing, music, and writing.

By the time I started high school, I understood what it was that people believed me to be and it hurt. My football coaches made jokes about me to my face and encouraged my teammates to do the same. It had the desired effect. I quit the team after the end of my first season. Soon after, I tried out for and made the cheerleading squad. As you might imagine, becoming a cheerleader had the effect of intensifying the level of taunting and jeering I endured. Moreover, it brought out in my father an intense anxiety about his oldest son, one which had been bubbling just under the surface since at least the time when I joined the band and maybe it went as far back as my lasso-dancing performance of "I'm an Old Cowhand" in the fourth grade.

People still think I'm gay. And I'm okay with that. They are wrong (you would think that dating the world's hottest librarian would clue folks in) but I no longer care what people think or say about me. It doesn't bother me like it used to, but it still puzzles me. I used to think it was the cheerleading or my love for products or maybe the fact that I cook. Maybe it's because I am thin and neat. I just don't know. I never thought it could be because I spent a fall in the mountains with my good friend. But now, thanks to Annie Proulx and Ang Lee, I guess I have to add this story to the list, too. Not that there's anything wrong with that.

The adorable, brown eyes of a killer

2005-12-13T19:48:00.000-08:00

Claude is as cute as a bug, but I have learned through painful personal experience that she is not to be underestimated. Behind those puppy dog eyes lurks the mind of an assassin. And her target is me - or at least my hands. (I'll spare you the photos of my hands that make me look like the world's most inept suicide attempt since Felix Unger.)

Sometimes, I get this feeling that she is playing Stewie ("Congratulations, you finally managed to wean yourself from the cathode teat!") to my Lois. She will attack her toys and bed mercilessly, shaking them and tearing at them, all the while keeping eye contact with me, as if to say, "This is what I'm going to do to you, you fiend...someday."

Today, after one of these displays of her rage, I asked her if she's part sand tiger shark or part gharial. She responded by lunging at me and asking (with her needle-like teeth), "Does it look like I'm a shark? Does it look like I'm some lame-ass crocodile wannabe? No! I'm a puppy. A ninja puppy of death, dressed in black and armed with a mouthful of sai. Now feel them! Feel the cold steel of my toothy daggers! Mwahahaha!" Pain ensued, accompanied by copious amounts of swearing. No amount of pleading would end the savage attack on my hand.

Then, something else caught her eye and she left me alone. Five minutes later, Claude was back in loving Puppy Jeckyl mode, fast asleep against my leg with only fuzzy bits of her chew toy hanging from her lip to remind me of her darker side, her Hyde side, her deadly puppy ninja side. Still, it's enough to remind me that I have to sleep with one eye open (but mostly so I can look at her, because she is so goddang cute!).

*No, this won't become a full-time puppy blog, but do look for Claude to show up often. I promise the next post won't be a puppy post. Instead, look for a post on my Brokeback Mountain story.

So, the thing is, you think you've seen the cutest dog in the world, but you're wrong...

2005-12-11T09:48:00.000-08:00

because this little baby is officially the world's cutest puppy and the best Christmas gift I've ever received. I'll write more about her later, but quickly, she's about 10 weeks old, she's a Labrador retriever mix, her teeth are as sharp as needles, and when she growls at me she sounds like an Ewok. She was a rescue dog (scheduled to be put to sleep today, actually) and she was a total surpise. Her name is Claudine and her favorite toy is a laughing koala.

And just in case you were wondering, yes, I am in love with her!

And here are some more Germans we killed. That flamethrower really sausaged their waffles!

2005-12-09T08:52:00.000-08:00

Have you ever had one of those mornings where you should have called out sick but instead you dragged your sorry ass into work and spent all day surfing the internets? I have. I call those days "Friday." But, as John Lennon said, I'm not the only one. My email inbox contained this funny note from a fellow blogger this morning:

Hey --
That nap I took last night? Well, turned into a 4.5-hour supersize nap. Woke up at 11:30 or so. Nice. Naturally, couldn't get back to sleep until after 5:00, so I'm not my usual bright-eyed and bushy-tailed self today. Didn't trust myself with a razor, so I'm unshaven, too. I guess that's better than navy pants pretending to be black.

I would not pattern my whole life on this friend's example, but would that I had chosen wisely and left the razor well enough alone this morning. I didn't go to sleep until sometime after 1 a.m. and was absolutely exhausted when I got out of bed at 5 a.m. this morning. I was dead tired but unable to sleep - weird dreams, nonspecific stress, and continuing low-grade paranoia over how I found my back door opened and unlocked last Saturday kept me from the sweet embrace of Somnus. I thought a Coke would help. Nope. Hot shower? Not a chance. I should have followed Milbarge's lead and left the razor in its tray, but instead I decided to Zarqawi myself. I can't tell if I am woozy from the lack of sleep or loss of blood, but I can tell you that a white dress shirt is less "dressy" when it's stained with blood and coffee (what part of "don't fill it too full because otherwise I will spill it" does the wannabe Urban Outfitters model at Starbucks not understand?). It's a good thing no one ever comes into my office, because they'd probably mistake me for bloody effing hobo trying to get out of the cold and have security toss me. But come to think of it, if they threw me out, at least I could go home and go back to bed. Hmm, now where did I write down that emergency contact number...

If you don't re-enlist, the terrorists will win

2005-12-07T14:29:00.000-08:00

[Note: Let me preface this post by saying that I initially supported the decision to invade Afghanistan and Iraq and I continue to support our efforts in those wars. Not that my opinion on this should matter, but I don't want any bitterness in this post to be mistaken for bitterness for or opposition to the war in Iraq.]

My younger brother is a soldier. He joined the Army in February of 2001 to get away from a messy divorce and to try to restore some order to his life. I think that running away to the Army was a bad way to try to restore order to a chaotic life, but my brother is not the first to seek discipline and structure in the arms of the armed forces. Despite my reservations, I think that his time in the Army has been good for him.

Little brother is now serving in Iraq. He will be there until sometime in late 2006 or early 2007 - at least that's the plan as of right now. He's a sergeant in the Army and a few years older than the typical soldier of his rank. He's been promoted quickly and his promotions have outstripped those of the other privates who joined his unit with him. I think it's partly due to his age and his maturity, but it's also certainly because he's good at his job. And his job is killing other people. He's done it before, in Afghanistan, and he's lost good friends even as he's continued to serve his country. He has distinguished himself and complained not a whit about the hardship of serving in war zones for more than half of his enlistment. And that's what makes the most recent development in his tour so disheartening and infuriating.

Once my brother's unit deployed to Baghdad, the officers and senior enlisted men who run the unit began pressuring the soldiers to sign up for re-enlistment - to extend their contractual obligations to the Army. Re-enlistment carries with it the promise of financial bonuses, but it also means that you're almost certainly going to return to Iraq. Virtually all of my brother's friends and platoon members - the men who fight alongside him - chose to re-enlist. My brother's enlistment expires in February 2007, and he is ready to move on and begin a normal, civilian life with his wife and dog. He decided not to re-enlist. I confess that I am biased, but I think most observers might look at his decision not to re-enlist and say, "You know, this guy has done his part. He's served in two theaters of operation. He's served with distinction and we can't rightfully ask more from him, particularly when there are millions of Americans who are making no sacrifices in the name of the Global War on Terror."

My brother's superiors had a decidedly different take on my brother's decision. He's become a pariah. His former friends have turned on him at the behest of his officers, in what began as an effort to pressure my brother to change his mind but which escalated into full-on hostility. The situation in my brother's platoon deteriorated to such a degree that he went to his company commander to request a transfer to another unit because his platoon made it clear that they would not have his back in the field and that they considered him a "traitor" because he is "quitting" the Army. The transfer request was granted and my brother was moved to the motor pool. His civilian training in diesel engine repair made him well-suited to working on Humvees, but my brother was a little disappointed. He joined the Army to escape the life of a mechanic. Still, the transfer was a good thing from his family's point of view - no one dies in the motorpool. It was a huge relief to my mother, and frankly, to me.

But the transfer to the motorpool was short-lived. Little brother has been transferred to another unit entirely and is now helping to train Iraqi police. That's pretty much the most dangerous job for our soldiers in Iraq, because the vile murderers called by some people "the insurgency" have increasingly targeted the Iraqi police rather than the U.S. military. My brother did not feel comfortable relaying to me the conversation that transpired when his transfer orders were handed to him, but it was clear to me that the transfer to a very dangerous job was intentional and done for the express purpose of making an example of a soldier who chose not to re-enlist. I suppose that's one way to aid the military's efforts at meeting retention goals, but blackmail and strong arm tactics are not honorable. Our soldiers deserve better treatment. Furthermore, if the Army is having so much trouble keeping good soldiers, then maybe it is time to rethink how we recruit, train, pay, and support our troops.

So, to conclude, my brother is alive and well and he's serving with men who don't think of him as a traitor. He's helping train Iraqis to protect their own country and that's one of the most important jobs are troops are performing there. I'm proud of him for this, I'm proud of him for his service, and I'm proud that he had the courage to stand by his choices in the face of so much animosity from the Army.

I'll write another update when there's more to say. Meanwhile, I would appreciate your thoughts and prayers for my little brother and the other soldiers serving in Iraq - even the assholes who tried to force my brother to re-enlist.

Inspired by a true story. Only the people, places, and events have been changed.

2005-12-06T11:22:00.000-08:00

I have been mulling over in idea for a post for a couple of days now, but I just cannot make it work.

The idea came to me while watching a real-life crime show this weekend - I forget whether it was The First 48, Cold Case Files, or The New Detectives. I was saddened by the realization of how awful a murder victim's last few moments of life must be. The moment when the victim realizes that there will be no rescue, that there is no reasoning with the killer, and that this truly is the end must be so lonely. I felt such despair when that hit me. I couldn't shake that emotion all evening. Even now, writing about it makes me sad. Sad primarily for the victims of such horrific crimes, but also sad that there are human beings who cause this kind of suffering, who take perverse pleasure in killing another person. I don't really understand why some people choose evil, but seeing real life crime scenes leaves no doubt in my mind that some people are evil.

In addition, I was struck by the cold, clinical nature of the homicide investigation. Your cold, dead body is laying on the ground, naked from the waist down, and a quartet of Superfans with badges are staring at you, stepping over you, analyzing every little detail of your room, making judgments about who you were and whether that might lead them to your killer, all while Channel 4 News's Man on the Street Brian Fantana records the whole grisly scene for the entertainment of the television audience. It's just about the most exposed, naked, humiliating scenario imaginable. Nothing is sacred. Not your bodily integrity, not your bedside diary, not the two pairs of handcuffs under your bed, not the contents of your closet or your dresser drawers. The detectives put your life under the microscope. Granted, it's with good intentions, but think about all those strangers examining every detail about you like so many puzzle pieces spread on the table.

What would those puzzle pieces say about you? Imagine what the cops would decide was true about you based on the contents of your bedroom or your car. Think of the jokes they'd make upon finding those poems you jotted down in a notebook you thought no one would read. Think of how they would smirk at your rainbow-striped boxers. Would you want them to know that you eat Taco Bell four times times a week? Dear God, could you bear the humiliation of the forensics team blacklighting your room to look for traces of bodily fluids? Once the cops are pouring over the details of your life it's too late to care, but you still have time to evaluate what your crime scene would say about you. You still have time to sanitize your life and create the story that you want told when Bill Kurtis inventories your life for A&E. It's not too late!

And that's what I wanted to write about. But the definitive post on this subject has already been written. In fact, it was written almost two years ago by a funnier, more talented writer and it includes far more interesting details than what I could come up with. My bedroom as a crime scene is not nearly so interesting as hers. Yes, the detectives might initially conclude that I am gay based on the excessive number of products in my bathroom and the ~~girl~~ designer jeans hanging in my closet. They might also wonder whether I was some sort of extreme sports athlete sponsored by The North Face after taking a look in my other closet (seriously, five jackets, four backpacks, three pairs of pants, two hats, and a ~~partridge in a pear tree~~ laptop bag?). And they would probably throw up a little bit in their mouths when they hit the blacklights. But my being a messy he-bitch and wannabe mountaineer does not begin to compare to fishbowls full of condoms, post-it note reminders to buy batteries for vibrators, evidence of lame movie taste (Mona Lisa Smiles? Come on.) and dirty love letters from ex's.

So what to do? I could write my version of THL's post, but why? She's done it better and I have no interesting new twists to add. I could copy her post, but copying another blogger's posts, changing a few insignificant details, and then calling it my own is not what I want to be known for. Or I could write about writing a post, which seems kind of lame. Hmm, yeah, better not do that.

Instead, I'll take inspiration from that other he bitch, Deuce Bigelow, and write about Heidi Fleiss and her new stable of man whores coming soon (maybe) to a Nevada desert wasteland near you!

Fleiss hopes to overcome her criminal past (potentially a significant barrier to her entry into the legal flesh trade) and become the madam of a male-only brothel. She envisions it as "an exotic, unique experience: perfect for bachelorette parties or for women wanting uncomplicated, STD-free hookups." She's looking for a few good manginas. Her criteria? "I just have to get a feeling that women would like the guy, that he would treat her the way she wants to be treated," she says. Her first stallion in the stable? Lester Brandt, a washed-up soap opera actor she met at the mini-storage where she picked up her moving van last month. Yeah, because every girl wants to fuck a hobo you met at the U-Haul store.

Are there really women who would pay $250 an hour to fuck 40-year-old former soap stars? Fleiss says yes, but of course she would. I am skeptical. How many women (1) are willing to have sex with some random stranger, (2) want sex with a stranger so badly that they will pay for it and (3) also have the means to pay for it? Especially since all the random sex you could ever ask for is available at the casinos and bars on The Strip. And on the Strip the drinks and sex are free! I just don't think we're talking about a huge client base here. In fact, I'm guessing that the clientele would consist only of other former television actors. Oh, and let's not forget that even assuming that there is a client base, there is another issue that potentially effects the profitability of this new venture. No matter how effective Viagra is, there is no way that male whores could service as many clients per day as the female counterparts do.

It seems to me that Fleiss is destined to fail. But then, I'm a little like George Constanza - I know less about women than anyone. So, is there something I am missing?

Three words that should NEVER be used in conjunction:

2005-12-02T09:57:00.000-08:00

We're going to pump you up!

2005-12-01T16:30:00.000-08:00

Men's Health is a decent magazine for what it is, but they have a pretty lame website. It's difficult to navigate and sort of lacking in content (though not in ads). I visit it occasionally to enter their giveaway sweepstakes and to check for any exercise tips. Little else on the site is worth my time. Their sex and romance tips are so simplistic as to be useless to all but the most Neanderthal of men. What would we guys do without gems like, "Size matters. When buying a woman lingerie it's important to know her size, which you can learn from looking at the labels of her underwear, not by sizing up the sales associate at Victoria's Secret." - or am I being too generous to my fellow men? Their tech guides are just as rudimentary, but at least the tech guides have pictures.

Anyway, I was perusing the site today, and after entering a contest to win a Playstation 2, I clicked on a link that took me to the Men's Health Reader's Choice for best workout songs. It's a collection of eight songs that is either the world's shortest workout soundtrack (the brevity of which might explain why so many American men are so fat), or just another example of MH's lameness (or perhaps both you say?):

"Bombs Over Baghdad," OutKast: Anthem for the apocalypse grabbed nods for its frenetic pace.

"Welcome to the Jungle," Guns N' Roses: Even leather pants couldn't hold in Axl's rage.

"New Workout Plan," Kanye West: Reinforces your real fitness goal: to get in shape to get it on.

"Hell's Bells," AC/DC: The anti-Celine Dion anthem.

"Enter Sandman," Metallica: A classic headbanger from our most-nominated artist.

"Eye of the Tiger," Survivor: Warning: Will induce spontaneous fits of shadowboxing.

"Killing in the Name," Rage Against the Machine: More like rage against the ab machine.

"London's Burning," The Clash: Actually, it's not. But your quads are.

"London's Burning" is a good choice, but then I'm a huge fan of The Clash. Kanye is also a good choice, but I'd choose some classic LL Cool J "Momma Said Knock You Out" for my gym soundtrack. OutKast is okay, but it's not hardcore enough for me. I find that Andre & Co. stray too often from what I think rap has always been about at its core: sweeping a woman off her feet - and then skeet-skeet-skeeting like a water hose. I think that AC/DC belongs on any workout soundtrack, but I'd choose "Back in Black" or "You Shook Me All Night Long" over "Hell's Bells." GnR is a favorite band, too, but "Welcome to the Jungle" is a dated workout song, not a classic - hell, I was lifting weights to this song in junior high and it was a little played out back then. "Eye of the Tiger" is on that list either as a product tie-in with the forthcoming Rocky sequel or because the average age of MH's readers is 57. "Enter Sandman" seems appropriate enough, though it borders on being played out like "Welcome to the Jungle." Rage Against the Machine is what a lot of guys sound like they are doing in the gym, but I prefer less political message and hate in my workout music and more driving beat and kick ass guitar, which is why I would suggest "Another One Bites the Dust" (and really, any Queen song works for the manly, macho, ironic crowd) and "My Sharona" instead. But even with those substitutions, this list only clocks in at a shade over 30 minutes, which is not really enough time for a decent workout. There need to be more tunes! So, time to turn it over to the readers: What songs would you include on a list of the best workout songs?

What are you doin' here? You ought to be out in a convertible bird-doggin' chicks and bangin' beaver!

2005-12-01T12:18:00.000-08:00

Under the headline "Creativity Linked to Active Sex Lives" Reuters (via msnbc.com) reports on a study conducted by psychologists in Britain that examined 425 "professional artists, poets and schizophrenic patients, about their creative activity, sexual encounters and mental health characteristics" in which researchers found that creative types had between 4 and 10 sexual partners, while other people averaged only three partners. Thus, the researchers concluded that creative types, particularly the professional creative types like Lord Byron and Pablo Picasso, have "more active" sex lives than the rest of us. So, should you regret dropping that creative writing class in college? Well, not necessarily.

What the research did not address, so far as I can tell, is whether the frequency of sexual activity is higher for creative types. That is, I don't see anything in the study to suggest that the number of sex partners directly correlates to a higher frequency of sexual experiences. Perhaps the research supports the conclusion that a creative person's sex life is more varied in terms of partners, but I don't think that the number of sexual partners people have is the best tool for comparing who has the most "active" sex lives. Rather, I think that frequency of sexual experiences would be a better measurement of how active a person's sex life is. A Lord Byron or a Picasso might have more partners during his lifetime (than say, for example, a lowly and relatively uncreative government lawyer) but that doesn't tell us much about how active these men's sex lives are. I submit to you that infrequent sex with a series of partners is not as active a sex life as frequent sex (say, for example, multiple times per day every day) with fewer partners or even just a single partner. More varied? Perhaps, though I am not willing to concede that more variety in partners necessarily means more variety in sexual experiences. But more active? Not hardly.

Neither did the study address whether having more sexual partners leads to a better or more satisfying sex life. In fact, the study offered one piece of information that might cut against any argument that more sex partners equals better sex. The researchers' findings suggested that they saw more incidences of depression in artists than in the less creative among us. Is it possible that the poet who shags a baker's dozen of hairy-legged art groupies is depressed because he can't find the same fulfillment in the arms of a string of lovers that our boring government lawyer finds with his one true love?

Finally, I think there is one more reason to evaluate this study with caution. The findings of more active sex lives among artists really focused on well-known professional artists such as Lord Byron and Dylan Thomas. Isn't it possible that those guys were getting action from many quarters because they were famous, rather than simply artistic? Anecdotally, I know of many self-described and unknown artistes who aren't getting laid. Loads of them. Heaps and heaps of them. Having once spent a lot of time in the company of an unknown artist I can assure you that not every poet, potter, and painter has what you would call an "active" sex life. Dull government lawyers on the other hand...

"Sometimes," he sighed, "I think the things I remember are more real than the things I see."

2005-11-30T10:29:00.000-08:00

Arthur Golden's captivating novel "Memoirs of a Geisha" has been made into a movie which opens in American theaters in a couple of weeks (see the trailer here). The book is a beautiful piece of storytelling, a time machine of sorts, that has transported me to a place so foreign and so exotic and so sensual, with language so rich and vivid that I am totally immersed in Sayuri's world and feel so close to her that her hurts feel like my hurts, her hopes become my hopes, and her loves my own. As you finish reading the moving last pages of this book, perhaps wiping tears from the corners of your eyes, you understand what Sayuri meant when she began the story by saying, "That afternoon when I met so-and-so...was the very best afternoon of my life, and also the very worst afternoon."

I have high hopes for the $87 million Steven Spielberg production, despite the much balleyhooed controversy surrounding the movie. Japanese are upset because the main women characters in the story are Japanese, but they are played by Chinese actresses Zhang Ziyi, Gong Li, and Michelle Yeoh. It's presented mostly as disappointment that Hollywood has eschewed an opportunity to educate audiences about the differences in Asian ethnicities and instead perpetuated the American stereotype that all Asians are the same. Frankly, I suspect that the real basis for the complaints are deep racial prejudices, particularly Japanese disdain for Chinese. To hear the complaints of Japanese, you would think that casting Zhang Ziyi as Sayuri was equivalent to casting Jeff Foxworthy in a black face performance of the Martin Luther King, Jr. story.

That said, even assuming that Japanese concerns about the movie truly are a lament that Hollywood missed an opportunity to educate dumb Americans (a task that I suggest is not one for which Hollywood is well suited or well known), in a movie with a worldwide audience it's just not important whether the actresses are ethinic Japanese. The movie is intended for an audience that will neither notice nor care that Zhang Ziyi is Chinese.

There is a practical aspect to the casting of relatively well-known Chinese actresses as the leads in Memoirs. To my knowledge, there are no well-known Japanese actresses whom Sony Pictures could have cast in the lead roles - at least none who are well-known to American movie audiences. In fact, there are few Japanese actors who are well-known to the American audience. Ken Watanabe, who does star in Memoirs of a Geisha, may, in fact, be the only Japanese actor who Americans can readily identify. Incidentally, Watanabe is one of my favorite actors (you might know him from such films as The Last Samurai - a beautiful film worth watching in spite of Tom Cruise) and I would love to see him gain wider recognition. To sacrifice potentially vast sums at the box office by casting unknown actresses simply to be slave to ethnic authenticity seems misguided and ignorant. Movies are about making money, not educating people. Argue that it should not be so if you'd like, but that is the bottom line.

More importantly, why should absolute fidelity to a character's ethnicity matter? Actors often portray people who are different from themselves in important ways without ill effect. Gay actors like Rupert Everett and Ellen DeGeneres portray straight characters. Straight actors play homosexuals. Male actors called onnagata play the roles of women in kabuki theater. Mexicans play Argentinians. Aussies portray Englishmen. Englishmen portray Americans. A Scotsman gave life to Her Majesty's most renowned spy. And for Pete's sake, Julia Roberts played a law student! My point is that actors act. The whole performance is manufactured and often there is little of the character that would match up with the actual traits of the actor. And yet, our enjoyment of the performance rarely if ever suffers because of this subterfuge.

Sayuri's story in the book is no less compelling because it is told through the words of Arthur Golden. Golden's "performance" as Sayuri is compelling and honest. Golden is gaijin, but when he speaks as Sayuri we believe him. If the movie makers stay true to the story and Ziyi gives a compelling performance (and from all accounts hers is just such a performance), then the shape of her face and eyes will be immaterial - and rightly so.

Normally, I wear protection. But then I thought, when am I gonna make it back to Haiti?

2005-11-28T14:24:00.000-08:00

To the extent that anyone ~~ever~~ still reads this site and is wondering where I've been for the last two weeks, you may rest easy. I'm not dead, though I've been at death's door for the past several days (figuratively). No, nothing so exciting as death, just that I've been stricken with herpes. Not THAT herpes, you jerk! I'm not a whore! No, I've been dealing with herpes zoster, commonly known as shingles. Let me tell you something about shingles, the pain is truly excruciating. That's especially the case when the chickenpox-like blisters form in your throat, on your tonsils, and on your uvula (the speed bag-like thing in the back of your mouth). Eating proved impossible for most of the last 10 days. Sleeping was almost impossible. Grimacing in pain was easily doable, as was yelping every time I swallowed and crying off and on when the pain medication wore off. Only yesterday was I able to get some food into my system. I understand why David Letterman took a month off from work to deal with his outbreak. I wish I could do the same, but I used up all my sick leave last week so I am back in the office. To be fair, I'm not really working that hard, as evidenced by this post and the approximately 6 hours of internet surfing and emailing I've packed into my day so far. The only work I've done today is turn in my timesheet and meet and greet the new batch of attorneys - dorks one and all.

Where was I? Oh, yes, my throat herpes. Well, the sores are healing nicely now and I've been able to get through today with only 2 Advil, so I am almost ready to declare my bout with this horrible viral infection over. That's the first step on the road to recovery. The next step is convincing my beautiful girlfriend of a variety of things, namely that this isn't genital herpes, that it isn't trasmittable, and (having played down the extent of my suffering) that it didn't really cause me as much pain as this post indicates. Otherwise, it's going to be a very prim & proper and/or very lonely birthday on Saturday.

Lions, tigers, and bears, oh my!

2005-11-16T10:48:00.000-08:00

1. Lions?!? Are you sure it's not just a product placement campaign for The Chronicles of Narnia?

Not dissuaded by the public outcry resulting from the Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse scandal, the Washington Post reports that the U.S. military has allegedly resorted to using lions during interrogation sessions with allegedly innocent Iraqis. Yeah, you read that correctly. Lions, a/ka/ the Kings of the Jungle, a/k/a Panthera Leo, a/k/a "Okay! Okay! Yes! I know where Saddam is hiding! Yes, I will take you to the hidden WMD and I'll tell you who shot Kennedy!"

Using lions in war is pretty creative on the part of the Army, even if C.S. Lewis did come up with the idea first. Like Wonkette I immediately thought of a line from Anchorman: "Sixty percent of the time, it works every time."

As a friend remarked last night, it is some kind of commentary on the Bush Administration that you can read this story and not find it completely implausible. It probably didn't happen - I mean, LIONS? - but you cannot completely dismiss the idea of poet laureate and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld smirking at the idea of lions - one of those unknown unknowns he alluded to.

2. Yes, Virginia, there are tigers in Africa

A British project called "Save China's Tigers" has brought two pairs of captive Chinese tigers, of which there are only about 30 left in the wild, to a wildlife reserve in South Africa in hopes of teaching the young tigers the skills they need to successfully return to the wildlife sanctuaries in China.

Speaking of the depletion of China's natural resources, that nation's consumption of disposable chopsticks (to the tune of 45 billion pairs annually), is threatening the destroy China's forests. China's production of disposable chopsticks consumes 25 million trees annually or about 2 million square meters of forest. If they keep that up for long, those little tigers in Johannesburg won't have a place to return to once they've matured.

3. "I immediately regret this decision!"

In India, a man fought a bear to save his 10-year old son. The bear pounced on the boy and the father attacked the bear, yelling and screaming and using a stick to poke the bear. The bear attacked the father, too, but then ran off into the woods. Father and son are alive and receiving medical treatment (as the next item will illustrate, their chances of survival probably decreased upon admission to hospital).

4. Oh my!

In India, if the bears don't get you, the ants will. A poor woman died in a Calcutta hospital recently after ants attacked her and ate her eyeballs out of her head! She screamed for help, but hospital staff told her it was normal to experience some pain from the infection for which she was admitted. Holy hell, remind me never to get sick in Calcutta. Better yet, remind me to avoid Calcutta like the plague (which, incidentally, still runs rampant in the region).

At least when you're attacked by a bear in the woods, it's not completely unexpected. Bear attacks are rare, but not so shocking that you're left gape-mouthed after reading the story. But when ants eat your eyeballs out of your head in a freakin' hospital!!! astonishment is the only proper response, even in Calcutta. It makes the story about the U.S. Army drafting Aslan to run Abu Ghraib sound downright ordinary.

Speaking of ants, a researcher in Melbourne, Australia, has been awarded a grant of $224,000 (AUS) to study the traffic patterns of ants. No word on whether this will include a study of rush hour traffic in the hospital wards of Calcutta.

On reading "On Writing" and writing

2005-11-15T13:20:00.000-08:00

Nobel Laureate and writer Isaac Bashevis Singer said, "Every creator painfully experiences the chasm between his inner vision and its ultimate expression," and though I am not a Nobel prize winner, I understand all too well the pain that Singer voiced. That inability to express fully in writing what is felt in the heart did not impede Singer, but for too long I have used that chasm as an excuse for not being serious about my writing. I have stories to tell and I am desperate to tell them, but for so long I've done nothing but repress that urge or at best half-assed it. I don't think it is fear of success or fear of failure that is to blame. It is almost certainly my laziness, a trait which has plagued me in several facets of my life. "I could do better," I tell myself, "but it would be so much harder." To my shame, I've embraced mediocrity and just-good-enough for most of my life because it was easy. Several things have lately convicted me and exposed my laziness for what it is. It hasn't been pretty, but the upshot is that thanks to a confluence of events, I can never go back to those days of "well, but..." and "someday, maybe..." and "I just don't know if it's worth it."

Most recently, I read Christopher Hitchens's piece on "Lolita" in the December 2005 Atlantic Monthly. He made some of the same points I wanted to make in my post on Lolita, but his was the more comprehensive, the more insightful, and the better written of the two by far. Still, it was nice to see that I picked up on many of the same themes he did, even if my presentation lacked that certain something that the French call "I don't know what." It was encouraging, though I recognize that it's unlikely that I will ever be as successful a writer as Hitchens.

On Sunday, I finished reading Steven King's "On Writing." I picked it up after reading online a copy of King's talk "Everything You Need to Know About Writing Successfully - In Ten Minutes." The book is part autobiography, part how-to manual, part pep talk, and all inspiring. If you have any aspirations of pursuing writing, then I would commend King's book to you. It is a quick and delightful read, filled with practical tools and information for sharpening your writing. For me it was a kick in the pants, too, an admonition that there is no excuse for wishing and dreaming of being a writer. Do something about it. Write, damnit!

I've never read any of King's other work, though that will soon change. His is a very engaging writing style. By God, the man can tell a story. And what a story King tells in the first half of the book! King had a rough life growing up, a life that grew tougher still as he struggled financially throughout college and for several years afterwards, teaching high school literature and working in a commercial laundry to make ends meet. Despite countless rejections, he wrote each night on a child's desk in a closet in his family's single-wide mobile home. Only after several years of this impoverished existence was King's first novel, "Carrie" published. He was so poor that his family did not even have telephone service. King learned that his novel would be published via a telegram! But from there, things improved rapidly and he is now the most read and most published author of the 20th century.

The second half of "On Writing" is the section is which King doles out very practical advice about writing fiction. Some of the many important lessons he sets out are: (1) tell your stories honestly, (2) write your first draft with the door closed, (3) story is the life of the work, but plot should be avoided, (4) kill your darlings (those elements that you love but that do not advance the story), (5) the second draft = the first draft - 10%, and (6) avoid adverbs like the plague. Also, I really appreciated the reminders that you should write because you love to write and that writing is hard work. There are no magic bullets, there are no shortcuts. I knew that, but it's nice to have it hammered home by someone else.

King spends a fair amount of time discussing the idea of the Ideal Reader, that person for whom you really write. For King, it is his wife. When he's working on a particular passage, he thinks "will she find this funny/touching/scary?" and it is her enjoyment of his writing (in addition to his own passion for storytelling) that drives his work.

I have an Ideal Reader in my life, too. She's more than a muse, though she is also my muse. She's my target audience, the one person whose opinion on my writing I care about. I know I've done something right when I can crack her up or get a "wow" out of her. I know I need to re-write when she's silent. The addition of her to my life has been transformative in so many ways, not least of which is that she has helped me to focus my creative energies. She inspires me and drives me to be a better writer. Her encouragement and her love of my writing have done more for my confidence and my determination than reading Hitchens or King did or any other person could do. I want to write for her. I want to make her laugh and smile and cry with my words. To do that, I will have to learn to live with not being able to bridge completely the chasm between inner vision and ultimate expression.

Who are these people?

2005-11-09T12:02:00.000-08:00

How do you get to a place in your life where you think it's acceptable to kidnap a 15-year-old girl and hold her as a sex slave? How do you convince yourself that it's acceptable for an adult man to have sex with a 13-year-old boy he met on the internet?

It's art because they say it is.

2005-11-08T14:30:00.000-08:00

Have you ever been in an art gallery or museum, looked at a piece and asked your companion, "Are you kidding me? They want how much for that?" Then, the two of you chuckle and continue on, shaking your heads in amazement at what They have decided is "art."

I'm not saying that I have my finger on the pulse of "true" art. Only that my personal experiences with the art community, tangential though they may be, have ingrained in me a deep and abiding belief that most art is shit, especially when it's produced by self-described artists.

To illustrate what I mean, I've compiled some photographs of original works of art which I own and placed them side-by-side with works from a self-described "major" artist whose work is displayed in galleries throughout northern California. I'll tell you more about the artists after we take a look at the works.

In this first pairing we see how both artists have captured the prominent chin, the happy eyes and the crooked smiles of fanciful woodland creatures. Or, perhaps the one on the left is a portrait of Bobby Hill in a stage production of "Where the Wild Things Are" and the one on the right is a happy lion with a cute button nose.

In this pairing, the artists capture the prominent noses, bright eyes, and whimsical hair styles of their subjects. The one on the left, a blue pig dressed to the nines and ready to hit the town. The one on the right conjurs a memory of Red Riding Hood, with pursed lips and sly wink. She knows that's a wolf in grandma's robe!

In the third pairing, we see again how the artists have captured the bright eyes of their subjects. Here, though, the focus is on big, toothy grins.

In this final pairing, we see the artists explore their deepest fears and, by putting their fears on canvas, conquer them. The painting on the left appears to be a peyote-induced rendition of a mouse on the prowl. The drawing on the right is a basketball-playing yeti with a bow in her hair. Truly horrifying.

Now, if I were to tell you that drawings featured above were created by an 8-year-old Russian orphan, and further that young Katya used for her canvas a 9" x 6" college-ruled notebook, would you find that surprising? Probably not. You would probably find it cute and natural. "Of course a child drew those faces," you'd say. It just makes sense.

But what if I were to tell you that the paintings featured above were created by a middle-aged American woman and were hanging in a gallery in an upscale college town, and further that the works were priced in the thousands of dollars, would that surprise you? I hope so. It surprised and disturbed me. Yea verily, it shocked the hell out of me, and not just the pretentious nature of the gallery exhibit itself, though it was pretentious in that self-congratulatory style of enlightened people in enlightened college towns where the homeless are at home, the bike lanes take up half the street, and Bush=Hitler is more than a bumper sticker, it's a lifestyle. No, it was the utter lack of artistic ability and the outrageous price tags, particularly because there was no trace of irony in these technicolor knockoffs of a Russian orphan's afternoon doodles. When Picasso said, "Every child is an artist. The problem is how to remain an artist once we grow up," I don't think he meant that anything you could paint as a child should be slapped on a gallery wall and sold for thousands of dollars. But what do I know? I'm no artist.

The Slings and Arrows of Outrageous Entertainment

2005-11-07T16:31:00.000-08:00

I was out on the road early Saturday morning and I was listening to a little talk radio to keep myself awake. The show I was listening to featured a collection of "must have" items for this year's holiday season. For once it was something more than a talk radio personality hawking some lame ass product like Citru-Cal ("That's 'citru' as in citrus and 'cal' as in calcium." Really? Thanks, Paul Harvey. Good day. That's "good" as in go away and "day" as in now.), Posturpedic matresses (Nothing helps ease the pain of Rush Limbaugh's bad back like the Sleep Number Bed. Nothing that is, except for pudgy handfuls of percocet, vicodin, and demerol.), or gold bullion (Sean Hannity here to tell you that nothing is safer than gold. Taking investment advice from Hannity makes about as much sense as taking acting lessons from Ben Affleck. Jeez, the guy's such a meathead he makes Ron Burgundy look like Carl Sagan with a bushy 'stache.). I wish I could recall the name of the program, but I lost that bit of information when he started discussing one of the coolest products I've heard of in a long time. The lust and the frothing at the mouth and the gimme, gimme, gimme drowned out the name of the show.

I want one of these so bad. It's called the Slingbox, and it allows you to access your home entertainment system, including the cable channels, TiVo, DVDs, or any of several hundred other media storage devices, from anywhere in the world through your laptop and a broadband connection. That's right, you can watch your TV or TiVo from anywhere you can get an internet connection - the airport, grandma's house, the back yard, the boudoir, Africa, etc. Get off your unicycle and let the reality of that sink in for a minute.

I don't need one, mind you, as I don't have a laptop computer yet (keep reading for an exciting development on that front), but I love the idea of being able to watch your own television from anywhere on the planet where you can get a broadband connection. But it's even more than just your home cable channels. The Slingbox allows you to control and watch DVDs or shows you've stored on a DVR device. Say you're stuck in the San Francisco Airport (SFO) and you're suffering through a 2-hour departure delay. You'd really rather be back home in Bucyrus, Ohio, munching on a juicy brat and watching the big game. After all, Bucyrus is "recognized the world over as the Bratwurst Capital of America," as well as home to Ohio's Eatingest Festival and the site of the annual crowning of the Bratwurst Queen (a title that means something totally different in St. Tropez). But I digress. The point is, you are stuck somewhere and you'd like to watch TV. Well, with the Slingbox you can. You aren't hostage to the CNN Airport 15-minute loop. You can pull up your favorite channels from home and enjoy that 2-hour delay. Would the game be better with a big, juicy brat? You betcha (as they say back in Bacyrus). But where are you gonna find a thick, mouth-watering sausage in San Francisco? At least you can still watch the game, check up on local events and weather, and catch an old episode of Laguna Beach that you TiVo'd last week (Can someone please explain to me why those girls fall for Jason? I just don't get it.).

After much convincing, I recently decided to purchase a laptop computer. I chose a Sony VAIO and I think I am going to be very happy with it. If nothing else, it should allow me to post more frequently and to dabble more freely in the realm of blog design. I really hope to use this purchase as a catalyst for renewing my commitment to "real" writing and maybe, just maybe, being able to surf the net at home will allow me to be more productive with my time at work.

Reading Lolita in Nevada

2005-11-03T09:26:00.000-08:00

I have just finished reading Lolita and I must say that it now occupies a spot on my list of favorite books and that it has rekindled my interest in the study of Russian (which I studied for 3 semesters in college) if only so that I can read Vladimir Nabokov's earlier works in their original Russian.

Lolita is beautifully written and the imagery is just so interesting and original. The book is an amazingly insightful and, ultimately, sad portrayal of a maniac. It is even more amazing when you consider that it was written in Nabokov's third language (Russian, French, then English). In the afterward, he laments that the book is not better, that he could not plumb the depths of the English language in the same way that a native speaker could. It's hard to imagine feeling more inadequate (or is that less adequate?) as a writer than when Nabokov apologizes that Lolita is not as good as it could have been, that if only he could have written it in his native tongue it would have been a much better book.

I resisted reading this book for a long time because I was under the impression (via reviews praising it as "the only authentic love story" and the outrage expressed at the book by the usual suspects) that it was somehow an endorsement of Humbert Humbert's "love affair" with Delores Haze. What a fool I was and what a lesson I learned about paying attention to critics.

Lolita is not Nabokov's endorsement of pedophilia as I had been led to believe. Rather, this story, as told by the monster Humbert Humbert, is a fascinating and eerily accurate portrayal of the manipulative and conniving mind of the psychopath. Having recently been sucked into the world of a real-life crazy person, Nabokov's portrait of Humbert rang especially true for me. The beautiful prose, I think, deceives some readers with regard to the manipulative machinations of Humbert, leading them to see Lolita as an accurate retelling of a great and tragic, if taboo, love story. But seen through the prism of my recent real-life experiences, I believe that a reader who takes Humbert's tale at face value makes a dangerous mistake. Humbert's story is a self-serving lie designed to engender sympathy in the reader and to absolve the "author" from the condemnation he rightly deserves. There is absolutely no reason to give credence to any of Humbert's words, least of all his suggestion that it was Delores who seduced him. Likewise suspect is Humbert's central lie: that he loves Delores. No, he loves himself and Delores was simply a means to satisfy his selfish cravings. And in the end, his selfishness steals Delores's life and destroys his own.

What I found most interesting about Humbert are the repeated asides and parentheticals in which he acknowledges (and then dismisses) that he is deceiving the reader. Many of those passages could be summed up as, "Yes, I know it's wrong. Yes, I know I am a beast and a liar. Yes, I know you can see that, too, dear reader. But I am so much smarter than you and I know that because you only get to read my side of this story that I can present it in such a way as to abrogate my culpability in this tale. In fact, I'm so much smarter than you that I can mock you here and yet still deceive you into believing that this was merely a love story." I find this to be particularly insightful on the part of Nabokov because in dealing with my real-life psycho, I saw in him the same Humbertian smugness, the same condescension, the same selfishness masquerading as love, the same effort to rewrite history so as to blame the victim or others or anyone other than himself for his choices. It's a brilliant portrait by Nabokov, and I wonder whether his inspiration and insight into the character were found in people he knew or studied, or whether Humbert is in some way the manifestation of Nabokov's personal demons. Either way, the book is fascinating, the language rich, and I highly recommend it.

Hack journalist cites sources who contradict the premise of his article, but "social conservatives" suck so that's okay!

2005-10-31T15:24:00.000-08:00

"Vaccine for cervical cancer sparks debate, [but] Conservative groups fear drug may lead to promiscuity among teens" is the title of this Rob Stein article available on msnbc.com. The debate? According to Stein, "A new vaccine that protects against cervical cancer has set up a clash between health advocates who want to use the shots aggressively to prevent thousands of malignancies and social conservatives who say immunizing teenagers could encourage sexual activity." Shocking premise, isn't it, that those backward "social conservatives" would risk the health of countless teen girls by blocking the use of this promising new vaccine? But who are these evil "social conservatives" intent on preventing the use of cancer vaccines? Stein doesn't quite say. He throws about terms like "many" and "several leading groups" but his charges lack specifics.

The closest that he gets to identifying the persons leveling the charge that this new vaccine may promote promiscuity among teens is when he cites the results of a poll conducted by the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices ("ACIP"), a panel of experts assembled by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the group who will be largely responsible for formulating policy with regard to the new vaccine. In an ACIP poll of 294 pediatricians, 11 percent of the doctors said they thought vaccinating against a sexually transmitted disease "may encourage risky sexual behavior in my adolescent patients." Did you read that? The doctors believe that their patients may find a false sense of security in the HPV vaccine. Not "many" "leading" groups of "social conservatives" but 11 percent of pediatricians. Hardly the stuff of crucifix-emblazoned black helicopters that the author wants to suggest.

Stein offers one source who supports his attempt to set up some sort of conflict between social conservatives and medical science, Reginald Finger, a doctor trained in public health, a former analyst for James Dobson's Focus on the Family and now a member of the ACIP, who said that, "Some people have raised the issue of whether this vaccine may be sending an overall message to teenagers that, 'We expect you to be sexually active.' There are people who sense that it could cause people to feel like sexual behaviors are safer if they are vaccinated and may lead to more sexual behavior because they feel safe." Finger, "emphasizing that he does not endorse that position and is withholding judgment until the issue comes before the vaccine policy panel for a formal recommendation." So Stein's single source for the right-wing uprising against the HPV vaccine is a second-hand account of concerns raised by "some people" presented by a person not officially affiliated with any "social conservative group."

Damning evidence indeed. That is, until you get to Stein's other quoted source, Gene Rudd, associate executive director of the Christian Medical and Dental Associations, who explained, "I've talked to some who have said, 'This is going to sabotage our abstinence message.'" But, as Stein notes, "Rudd said most people change their minds once they learn more, adding that he would probably want his children immunized." I guess this Rudd guy is trying to turn his daughters into little sluts, despite his affiliation with a "Christian" association. Kudos to him for being sophisticated enough to escape the judgmental tentacles of social conservatism. Too bad that as a source he completely demolishes the premise of Stein's article.

What is the real issue for these shadowy "social conservatives?" They draw the line at making the HPV vaccine mandatory. In fact, Stein notes that the conservative groups his article title is so quick to condemn say that "they welcome the vaccine as an important public health tool but oppose making it mandatory." Why? According to Rudd, his group feels that, "Parents should have the choice. There are those who would say, 'We can provide a better, healthier alternative than the vaccine, and that is to teach abstinence.'" The CMDA also takes the unremarkable position that, "While we welcome medical advances such as an HPV vaccine, it remains clear that practicing abstinence until marriage and fidelity within marriage is the single best way of preventing the full range of sexually transmitted diseases." Boring? Yes. Old fashioned? Sure. But it's clearly the single best way to prevent the transmission of STDs. But to make such an observation does not in any way lead to the conclusion that the group is opposed to the HPV vaccine.

I am tired of journalists picking on the boogeyman of "social conservatives" - almost always a code-phrase for "Christians" - not that they don't sometimes deserve it (and readers will note that I am not hesitant to criticize the inane and self-righteous demagoguery of James Dobson), but that so many of the criticisms (such as Stein's here) are unfair. If you're going to set up some kind of imagery of "many" (unnamed) "conservative" "social" "groups" standing George Wallace-style in the doorway of the pediatrician's office, at least get your facts straight. Or at least give us some direct sources for your contention. Sources that actually support your argument. That would be nice, if not as exciting and condescending to the reader and "social conservatives" as the conspiracy that Rob Stein purports to uncover here.

Well, what do you expect mother? I'm half machine! I'm a monster!

2005-10-31T09:46:00.000-08:00

I had hoped to write a "man bites dog" post today, but after reading about another case of life imitates art, I'll settle for a "seal bites off woman's nose" story instead. Ouch.

Welcome to Thunderdome, bitch!

2005-10-25T10:33:00.000-07:00

The first time I spoke a swear word, I was 6 years old. It was an F-bomb. To be honest, I didn't know what the word meant, only that it was wrong and dirty. And to whom did I utter this vile word? My mother. Yes, my dear, sweet mother. My road to hell was paved from an early age.

But that road became an Eisenhower Interstate Highway System of swears after I spent a little time in the Navy. I cannot claim that those salty dogs corrupted me, only that through their tutelage I refined swearing into an art form. Yes, I know the criticism that swearing is the mark of a lazy intellect. Guilty as charged, asshole.

I would counter such criticisms with the argument that I do not resort to swear words exclusively when describing events, nor am I compulsive and indiscriminate in my use of explicatives. They serve their purpose, but I am not a slave to foul language. Or so I thought until Sunday morning.

I was dining out for breakfast and while waiting for a table my companion and I noticed a vile young woman staring at us and talking to her table mate (presumably a boyfriend or husband) behind her hand while looking at us and directing his attention toward us. This made my companion exceedingly uncomfortable, but the sheer length of time during which this continued turned her discomfort into agitation and then, finally, into anger. Her anger roused my anger, but even aside from my protectiveness of my friend's feelings, I find it annoying when people feel the need to talk about me and point and laugh. I am not a clown. I am not here to amuse you.

Eventually we were led to our table, which happened to be immediately to the left of point-and-whisper woman. Now, she simply looked at us with a smug look of condescension that I honestly could not derive the source of. All I knew was that there was something around her eyes. Yep, I'm sure of it. I hated her. And as she walked out of the dining room, mom jeans riding high on her hips, my companion breathed a sigh of relief. To her remark of, "Finally. I thought she would never stop talking about us," I replied, "Yep. That miserable bitch is a goddamn fucking asshole."

I started that little tirade while looking at my friend, but finished it by turning toward the door and (presumably) the backside of the woman in question. However, directly in my line of sight was our mortified waitress who clearly thought that my string of obscenities was directed at her. That was embarrassing all by itself, but the fact that she was at least several feet away from me and no closer to me than the nearest other diners only added to my embarrassment. Everyone within earshot had just heard me accost the sweet, innocent waitress - and their pointing and their judging looks, though born out of misunderstanding, were totally justified. I spent the rest of the meal apologizing and trying to explain that someone else was the object of my ire. The waitress just gave me that look which said, "Frankly, sir, your story sounds made up." I thanked my lucky stars that at least I had my food before this all went down. After seeing "Waiting..." the night before, I realized just how awful the waitress's retribution could have been. Lord only knows what they would have scrambled into my eggs.

And so, now that I've been confronted with the reality of my lack of self control, I see myself for the monster that I truly am. What? Why are you looking at me like that? I don't need your judging looks and your fucking cluck-clucks to tell me that I have a problem, asshole! I know that I need help. Don't judge me, goddammit!

Unsolicited bit o' wit and wisdom for the day:

2005-10-24T08:41:00.000-07:00

"[I]t's really hard to fuck a stupid man."

Why don't I pick on someone my own size for a change?

2005-08-25T14:25:00.000-07:00

I killed another snake this week. I came home from work on Tuesday afternoon and as I raised the garage door a small brown snake slithered out from under the door and headed for the interior wall of the garage. This snake was just a smaller version of the snake I killed in my house the week before - dark brown diamond pattern on light brown. No rattle this time, at least. Before the snake could snake his way into the wall, I stepped on him, held him in place, and then used a giant rock from the flower bed to crush his head. I know, it's not nice of me to go around killing snakes, but I cannot have those bastards getting into my house. It freaks me the hell out, man.

I saw something horrible last night on television. In between episodes of Dog the Bounty Hunter, I saw Old Navy's ads for their new fall line of women's pants. And you know what? If these ads are any indication, high-waisted pants are coming back into style. Noooooooo! Please, fashion industry, don't ruin a good thing. Low-rise jeans and cords look so good on the ladies. High-waisted, Mom-Jean inspired pants look good on no one! Change is not always good. I'm begging you.

What's scarier than a snake in the garage? Dog's hair. What's scarier than the Dog? Beth's boobs - they have their own gravitational fields! And what's scarier than Beth's chest? Mom Jeans for the 21st century.

But what's scarier than Mom jeans? A floating disembodied hand hovering in my kitchen, that's what. After the credits rolled on Dog, I went to the kitchen to pour a glass of juice to wash down my Pamela's gluten-free peanut butter cookies. As I was closing the refrigerator door, I caught a flash of movement in the corner of my eye. I quickly turned my head in the direction of the movement and saw a hand right next to me! Holy hell, I dropped the glass of juice, jumped about 2 feet into the air, and gave myself such a start - that is, until I realized that it was my own hand. Dumbass.

Fun for the masses

2005-08-19T17:37:00.000-07:00

If you haven't played with The Sloganizer, stop what you are doing and go there RIGHT NOW. My girlfriend turned me on to this site and I have to tell you that it is one of most fun ways to waste time on the internet. Simply type in your name or a phrase that needs a slogan, hit the button, and Whamee! you get a customized slogan. Do it again and again for hours of sloganizing fun. Some of my favorites from today:

For my name:
Don't Play with Fire, Play with Matt.
Matt nonstop.
When you say Matt you've said it all.
Naughty little Matt.
Matt - You see this name, you think dirty.
The Wonder has a name: Matt.

Thursday Recipe Post: Tom Yam Kung

2005-08-18T15:41:00.000-07:00

Continuing with the Thai theme from last week, today's recipe is for Tom Yam Kung which is one of the most well-known of all Thai dishes. The recipe calls for galangal, which is a rhizome, similar to ginger, and is used extensively in Thai cooking. Look for it in an Asian foods specialty shop. The recipes also calls for bird's eye chiles (sometimes called "mouse dropping" chiles) which are very small and very hot Thai chiles. They are most commonly green, but red ones can be used in this recipe. If you cannot find bird's eye chiles, substitute your favorite hot chiles instead.

Tom Yam Kung
(Hot and Sour Prawn Soup)

12 oz raw prawns (shrimp)
1 tablespoon oil
3 lemon grass stalks, white part only, bruised
3 thin slices of galangal
8 cups of chicken broth
5-7 bird's eye chiles, stems removed, bruised
5 kaffir lime leaves, torn
2 tablespoons fish sauce
2 oz straw mushrooms, or quartered button mushrooms
2 scallions, sliced
3 tablespoons lime juice
cilantro leaves for garnish

Peel and devein the prawns, leaving the tails intact and reserving the heads and shells. Heat the oil in a large stockpot or wok and add the prawn heads and shells. Cook for 5 minutes or until the shells turn bright orange.

Add one stalk of lemon grass, the galangal and chicken stock to the pot. Bring to a boil and then reduce the heat and simmer for 20 minutes. Strain the stock and return to the pan. Discard the shells and flavorings.

Finely slice the remaining lemon grass and add it to the liquid with the chiles, lime leaves, fish sauce, mushrooms and scallions. Cook gently for 2 minutes.

Add the prawns and cook for 3 minutes or until the prawns are firm and pink. Remove from heat and add the lime juice. Taste, then adjust the seasoning by adding more lime juice or fish sauce if needed. Garnish with a few cilantro leaves and serve hot.

Thursday Recipe Post: Thai One On

2005-08-11T15:42:00.000-07:00

alternative post title: I bring you the foods of Thailand, but without all the sweat and tuk-tuks

By "popular" demand (I'm looking at you, Wadsworth), I am bringing back the Thursday Recipe Post feature. Who knew that my calling would be as a food writer? I always assumed I would end up penning wildly popular erotica or perhaps a screenplay about stalkers and crazy ex's trying to hunt down and murder two bloggers in love. But you know what they say about about assumptions...

Today's recipe is Chicken with Snake Beans, which I adapted from a recipe for Thua Phat Muu (Pork with Snake Beans) taken from The Food of Thailand - one of those very nice recipe books filled with lots of background stories on the culture and history of the people, beautiful photographs, and great recipes.

First, let me explain "snake beans." Despite the name, snake beans are quite harmless, and, in fact, are not related to snakes at all. Snake beans are vegetables, similar to our green beans, but are much longer (sometimes approaching a yard long) and have a slightly leathery skin. You may be able to find them in a specialty food shop or gourmet grocery market. If not, substitute regular green beans. Now, on to the recipe:

Chicken with Snake Beans

1 tablespoon oyster sauce
1 tablespoon light soy sauce
1/4 teaspoon sugar
2 tablespoons water
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
4 cloves garlic, finely chopped
12 ounces of boneless, skinless chicken breast, finely sliced
9 ounces of snake beans, cut into 2-inch pieces
1/2 long red chili, seeded and shredded (for garnish)

Mix the oyster sauce, soy sauce, sugar, and water in a small bowl.

Heat the oil in a wok or frying pan and stir-fry the garlic over medium heat until light brown (stir constantly to prevent the garlic from charring). Add the chicken and stir-fry over high heat for 3 to 5 minutes or until the chicken is cooked through. Add the beans and the sauce mixture and stir-fry for about 4 minutes more. Taste and adjust the seasonings as needed.

Transfer to a serving plate, garnish with the shredded chili, and serve immediately. The recipe serves 3 to 4 people.

This is a very simple recipe, it takes very little time or effort to prepare, and it is delicious and healthy. Including the time it takes to wash and cut the chicken and beans, this meal can be on the table in less than half an hour.

I'm going to stick with Thai cuisine for the next few weeks, but I'm always interested in what you want to read about. I am happy to accommodate our readers' wishes, so if you have any recipe requests please let me know about them.

Your Result: You are 71% Gay!

2005-08-11T15:41:00.000-07:00

Hei Lun of Begging to Differ posted a list of "Seven Signs that your Male Child Might Be Gay" gleaned from Focus on the Family's "Is My Child Becoming Homosexual?" (via Dan Drezner), which consists of some true gems. Below are the questions with my answers - think of it as the "How gay are you?" internet quiz. I wish I had a Quizilla graphic to accompany the results.

1. A strong feeling that they are "different" from other boys.

Check. I've always felt like I was different from other boys. Never really enjoyed farting for an audience, never got into dirt bikes, preferred drawing and writing to cutting up in class.

2. A tendency to cry easily, be less athletic, and dislike the roughhousing that other boys enjoy.

Check, check, and check. I wouldn't necessarily say that I cry easily, but I cry more often than most men would find acceptable.

Less athletic than the other boys? So coordination and motor skill development effects whether I am sexually attracted to men? Interesting. I did not know that. Weird, wild stuff.

Dislikes roughhousing? That's odd. Grappling and wrestling with other boys, grabbing at each other, and touching each other makes you less likely to be gay?

So, according to Dr. Dobson, clumsy = gay, but "emotionally repressed" = not gay, and "likes to wrestle with and touch other boys" = not gay AT ALL. Are you following the math? I wish the good Doc had shown his work, because I'm having trouble keeping all the figures straight in my head. Of course, since at this point I'm at least 2/7ths gay, keeping anything straight might be too much of a stretch for me.

3. A persistent preference to play female roles in make-believe play.

Do I get a pass on this one? I've certainly dressed up in women's clothes a time or two in my life, but I guess my score on this question depends on how Dobson defines "persistent" - I'm guessing it means "ever." Judges? Yes, it means "ever." Damn. I'm 3 for 3 so far.

4. A strong preference to spend time in the company of girls and participate in their games and other pastimes.

Check. I have always preferred the company of women to the company of men. I like their games (watching them play soccer is a particular favorite), I gleefully participated in cheerleading, and who isn't a fan of slumber parties and tickle fights?

5. A susceptibility to be bullied by other boys, who may tease them unmercifully and call them "queer," "fag" and "gay."

Check, again. I wasn't bullied so much as teased, but I was teased without mercy and called "queer," "fag," "homo," and "gay" for most of my life. So other people's labels for me determine who I am? Because someone else says it makes it true? Okay...

6. A tendency to walk, talk, dress and even "think" effeminately.

Mostly guilty. I don' t think that I walk funny - at least not all the time. I had to go to a speech therapist in the first grade to loose my lisp (brought on by a lack of front teeth at the time). I use words like "fabulous" and "gorgeous" and "product." I wear girl jeans, I use lots of hygiene products, I use a facial mask, and I sometimes think that things are "pretty." Oh, and I admire Brad Pitt's body in Troy. It's unreal.

7. A repeatedly stated desire to be - or insistence that he is - a girl.

Whew! I avoided that one. I never felt like a was a woman trapped in man's body. I never felt like I got them menstrual cramps real hard.

Tallying up my Homo-score, it looks like I am 5/7ths gay. If this was the bar exam, I'd be gay for sure. Maybe a 71% score just means that I'm kinda gay. But I think that being gay is like being pregnant - you either are or you aren't. So, according to the quiz, I guess I am gay. I don't how that jives with my strong feelings of attraction to women, but Dobson is a DOCTOR. My brain is just a third the size of his. It's science.

Normally, I would kick into sarcasm overdrive mode here, but frankly, Dr. Dobson's list is so ludicrous that it doesn't even merit sarcasm. It merits only derision and scorn. Does anyone really think that this emergency list of "warning" signs tells a parent anything? And I'm not even going to address the notion of "becoming" homosexual. Ugh. Nothing like the tolerance of our religious leaders to really sway people to accept Jesus as their Lord and Savior. Did I say no sarcasm? Well, that was until I was inspired. In the middle of writing this post I realized that, not only do I score a 5 out of 7, but a close personal friend of mine does, too. Yep, that's right, Jesus is 71% queer. It's true! Just ask Dr. Dobson. Too bad Joseph and/or God the Father didn't have Dobson's handy list (heh - Jesus has 2 Daddys) (heh - yes, there's some potential blasphemy in this post). Check it out:

1. A strong feeling that they are "different" from other boys.

From a very early age, from birth, actually, people knew he was different from the other boys. He had special gifts and a penchant for performing "miracles."

2. A tendency to cry easily, be less athletic, and dislike the roughhousing that other boys enjoy.

He wept! He walked, not ran, everywhere. He slept while his buddies rowed a boat in a storm. And he said "Blessed are the peacemakers," and "Blessed are the meek." He's famous for the idea of turning the other cheek. What a sissy! I bet the young and very manly Dr. Dobson beat up girly boys like him every day in the schoolyard.

3. A persistent preference to play female roles in make-believe play.

I don't recall him ever taking on female roles. There's some hope for him yet!

4. A strong preference to spend time in the company of girls and participate in their games and other pastimes.

He spent time in the company of many women, especially HIS MOTHER. He was a real momma's boy. She went EVERYWHERE with him.

5. A susceptibility to be bullied by other boys, who may tease them unmercifully and call them "queer," "fag" and "gay."

You might say that he was bullied and teased a little. Does being whipped and crucified count as bullying? How about being mocked as "King of the Jews" - is that teasing? Did I mention that he was thin, neat, and a thirty-something year-old virgin? I think we all know what that means.

6. A tendency to walk, talk, dress and even "think" effeminately.

Seriously. We all know that he wore a dress and long hair. A dress! It doesn't get more effeminate than that.

7. A repeatedly stated desire to be - or insistence that he is - a girl.

Whew! (again) Luckily, he too passes this stringent test. I don't think Jesus ever insisted that he was girl. Or maybe King James had those verses stricken from the New Testament.

So, Jesus, like me, scores a 71% gay score. That's quite gay, don't you think? I wonder if Dr. Dobson's next piece will be titled "Jesus Might Be Gay, But Your Son Doesn't Have to Be." Or maybe he could post his results for the quiz "Am I an Ignorant, Judgemental Prick?" I predict he'll get a perfect score - but at least he's not gay!

Crikey! She's a beauty!

2005-08-09T15:42:00.000-07:00

After dinner last night of Thai-inspired stir-fried chicken and snake beans, I watched a Bill Kurtis documentary on the "I-45 Murders," a decades-long series of murders in the Houston area. It was an interesting show and the conclusion seemed to be that there are a number of serial killers who have worked or are working in the Houston area. Interesting but sad, because there are dozens of unsolved murders of young women dating back to the early 1970s and no one in law enforcement seems to hold out much hope that the murders will ever be solved.

After the show ended, I decided to hit the shower and then hit the hay. On my way out of the kitchen, I headed for the back door, a sliding glass door, to lock up the house for the night. As I approached the back door, I noticed what appeared to be a ribbon of crumpled paper or fabric lying in the track between the sliding door and the screen door. When I closed to within about five feet of the door I realized that it was not strip of fabric or paper, it was a snake.

A snake.

!

A long, brown snake with a lovely diamond pattern on it's back, like this.

!!

And when it saw me, it coiled up and . . . it began to rattle. So, not just a snake, not just a long, brown snake, but a long, brown, diamondback rattlesnake was coiled up at my back door and I had no means of removing him from my house.

!!!

My first reaction was not the most masculine. It consisted of a bit of loud swearing and my leaping back about 10 feet. To be fair, I was dressed only in a pair of gym shorts so I wasn't exactly suited up to do battle with a dangerous reptilian foe. Nor was I well equipped. Steve Irwin might tackle a 2-foot long rattler with his bare hands - hell, he might even do it while cradling his infant child in one arm - but I'm no Steve Irwin. What to do, what to do? I really was at a loss as to a plan, except that long pants and shoes would be required. I sprinted back to my room and donned a pair of jeans and some boots.

While I was pulling my boots out of the closet, I had a brainstorm. I took a metal hanger out of the closet, straightened it, and fashioned myself a long hook like the ones that snake handlers use on Animal Planet. But as I headed down the hall with my new tool, I realized that I could not just take the snake outside and let it loose. It could very easily return to the house, or it might head into my neighbors' yards - my neighbors who each have young children. No, it just wouldn't be safe to turn a poisonous snake loose in my backyard.

[Note to the squeamish: you may want to skip the next two paragraphs as they contain descriptions of violent acts]

Reluctantly (reluctant not only because I don't relish the killing of undeserving creatures, but also because I recently found a mouse in my kitchen, a mouse with whom I would have liked the snake to become acquainted), I made the decision to kill the snake. How was I going to accomplish this? I grabbed a knife out of the closet where I keep my backpacking and hunting equipment and figured that I would use the coat hanger to pin the snake's head to the ground and then quickly remove the head with the knife.

When I returned to the kitchen, the snake was still there, but it was coiled up and very unhappy. I tightened the loop I created in the end of the hangar and very cautiously slipped it over the snake's head. Then I twisted the hangar and used the loop to pin the snake's head to the ground. He did not like this at all. I didn't like it either, because his tail was rattling like crazy and his body was writhing and flipping about, trying to get free of me. Knowing that I had no time to contemplate the situation, and knowing that delaying my decision would not make it any easier, I reached down and cut off the snake's head with one clean motion. The body, now free of the head and the hangar, continued to writhe about for a little bit oozing blood all over the carpet, but I slid open the screen door and quickly flicked the now-dead snake onto the back porch. I went back inside and retrieved a garbage bag into which I scooped up the snake. I put the bag in the dumpster and spent several minutes cleaning the carpet by my back door before finally taking my shower.

Oh, it's the deep burn! Oh, it's so deep! I can barely lift my right arm 'cause I did so many. I don't know if you heard me counting. I did over 1000.

2005-08-03T15:43:00.000-07:00

I was at the gym last night, minding my own business, recovering between sets of crunches, when an older woman - late 50s to mid-60s maybe, frizzy perm, wiry old lady runner's body, day-glo tan, baggy tank top and running shorts - sidled up to the bench on which I was resting and just stood there looking at me and smiling.

In between gasps of breath I asked, "Do you need to use this bench? I have only one more set and then it's all yours."

"Oh, no honey, I don't need the bench," she said with a twinkle in her eyes. "Watching you work out is all the exercise I need."

The Snow Cone Stand

2005-07-26T15:43:00.000-07:00

Among the many jobs I've held over the years, one I've not yet talked about was my job as a snow cone jockey. It was a third job I picked up to supplement my income from working cheerleading camps and the ski & scuba shop. The perks were lots of young girls in bikinis eating snowcones, $4.25 an hour, and all the free snow cones you could eat. Best job ever? Perhaps. Better than slinging refried beans at Taco Bueno? You bet.

Our #1 flavor for the kiddies was not really a flavor. Rather it was a color combination - Rainbow. The traditional Rainbow cone featured coconut (blue), banana (yellow), and cherry (red) flavors poured side-by-side to create, you guessed it, a rainbow effect. Traditional was not really my style, though. Instead, my friends Adam, Bronwyn, Leanne and I devised a contest to see who could create the oddest flavor combinations for our Rainbow cones. I favored bubblegum (blue), pineapple (yellow), and cinnamon (red) because it was such a jarring combination of flavors. Nothing delighted me more than to see a kid take a bite of sweet, delicious blue and smile, then watch him take a bite of red and snarl his face up into a cinnamon-induced grimace. Such a simple pleasure, but a pleasure nonetheless.

The most popular flavor among adults was, I kid you not, Pickle Juice. P-I-C-K-L-E juice! This was not some syrup we made from scratch, ladies and gents. This was pure, unadulterated pickle juice poured over shaved ice and served with a smile. Why the smile? Well, because our boss obtained the pickle juice from a truly vile source - the juice was surplus pickle juice from McDonald's! Seriously. The pickles on McDonald's hamburgers come pre-sliced in 5-gallon tubs. The pickles are scooped out (presumably by greasy adolescent hand) and placed on the burgers. When there are no more pickles in the bucket, you're left with a couple of gallons of salty green juice. Well, my enterprising boss cut a deal whereby he relieved McDonald's of the juice and turned it into cash. We poured the juice, bits of pickle and cucumbers seeds and all, into bottles and then onto cones. People loved them. People would even pay an extra 50 cents for "extra juice." Pickle Juice outsold our next most popular flavor by at least 2 to 1. I don't have anything against pickles per se, but leftover pickle juice from McDonald's served over ice is revolting. Just writing about it now makes me queasy.

Something else that makes me queasy is remembering when one of the kids lost a finger tip in the ice machine. Later that summer, his brother lost 4 fingertips to a lawnmower blade, too. Not a family keen on adhering to the cautions on warning labels and certainly not who you want working with sharp objects.

I was lucky to avoid losing any digits (though I never got any digits either), but my luck with the ice machine did not hold entirely. I was the fortunate soul who discovered that neither the ice machine nor the refrigerator were grounded. And how, pray tell, did I make this Ben Franklin-like discovery? Why by having one hand on the ice machine (while it was in operation) and one hand on the refrigerator door at the same time. The result was a rather painful jolt of electricity passing through my body. I could feel the current in my heart, in my feet, and in my fingertips and it hurt like hell. I let loose a stream of profanities that would have made a sailor blush, at the precise moment when my boss - the Church of Christ minister and retired submariner - walked through the door of the stand. He walked into a face full of f-bombs and generalized swearing that didn't really project the image he envisioned for his burgeoning snow cone empire. He let me have it, because there were customers at the window who had front-row seats to my outburst. When he was done berating me, I casually mentioned that the next time his snow cone stand electrocuted me I was going to file for workers' comp and then sue him for every sticky dime he had. He started to respond but realized I had the advantage. An electrician came out the next day and grounded the appliances. The only shock I experienced after that day was my continued amazement that Pickle Juice outsold Cherry.

To commemorate the good times at the snowcone stand, I made a mix tape at the end of the summer. Is that the lamest thing ever? No, but it's close. The lamest thing ever was that someone stole the mix tape.

Is this some kind of fitness museum?

2005-07-20T15:44:00.000-07:00

Six weeks into my gym membership, some observations about me and my fellow gym members:

1. There is a guy who smells like ass and who likes to use the leg press machines. Literally smells like ass. Show of hands, who thinks it is acceptable to smell like ass? Anyone? Anyone? Bueller? No, it is not acceptable. Not at home, not at the mall, and certainly not at my gym. Has it escaped this man's attention that he smells like he doused himself in eau de latrine? How could it escape his attention? He's getting looks of disgust from people six machines away.

2. Five minutes of cardio - the bike, the treadmill, the stair climber, the elliptical machine, strutting around with your chest puffed out, or flexing and talking to the teeny bopper at the front desk, whatever - will not help you lose those unsightly bulges, saddlebags, or beer guts. You have to feel the burn for longer than a commercial break. Also, and maybe this is just me, but I don't think that eating a Twix bar (!) while you are on the elliptical machine is a helpful component of your workout regimen. I do, however, love the sense of humor of whomever it is who tuned all the televisions mounted over the treadmills to the Food Network.

3. The most ridiculous guy in the gym bar none is "Wife Beater and Jean Shorts" Guy. Runner up is his buddy "Flip-Flops" Guy. Always a bridesmaid, never a bride is their spotter, "Doing Bicep Curls While Talking on My Cell Phone" Guy. These guys are an endless source of amusement for me. They spend the entire time in the gym trying to pick up girls. It's sad, really, to see them crowd around some woman, each trying a different line, each one trying to be smooth, each one looking like a complete ass clown. It's like "A Night at the Roxbury" meets "Hans and Franz" but with that stupid "I like girls who wear Abercrombie & Fitch" song playing on constant repeat. "Flip Flops" seems very confused as to why he doesn't have six-pack abs after doing 3 sets of 5 crunches then making a circle through the gym trying to annoy every halfway attractive woman who is unlucky enough to be there at the time. The other two are too busy trying to DP the blonde chick on the stair climber to explain it to him and, frankly, I don't think he'd listen to me.

4. On the weekends, Saturday mornings in particular, the gym turns into a flabby-armed spanking machine. Nothing but geriatrics for as far as the eye can see! The upside is that all the free weights and treadmills are available. And there's a bonus - the smell of Brill cream and old lady lotion masks the smell emanating from the human septic tank over at the leg press.

5. As for me, I don't smell like ass, I don't hit on anyone at the gym, I don't talk on my cell phone while I'm there, and most days I feel like I'm going to puke during my last set of crunches. The gym has been a nice way to burn off stress these last several weeks, along with the obvious physical benefits of working out. My trainer took my measurements on Monday (yes, of course that's how they measure your inseam...in prison!) and the results were nice to see. In six weeks I've dropped nine pounds of fat and added 6 pounds of muscle mass. My waist is the size it should be and everything else is moving in the right direction (i.e., bigger). I'm no Adonis, but at least I don't feel so much like the "Before" picture in a Charles Atlas ad.

Confessions of a Dangerous Mind

2005-06-27T15:45:00.000-07:00

Because she said so, I'll give you a couple of confessions. You know, because there's nothing people want to read more than a list of my sins.

So, I confess that:

1. I stole an arrowhead from Alvin Wingo during first-grade show-and-tell.

2. It took me almost 15 years to forgive my parents for making me quit Boy Scouts and little league baseball.

3. There was a time when I had a bit of a mullet.

4. I tell people I live near Lake Tahoe rather than explain to them that I live in a hole in the desert 25 miles to the east of Lake Tahoe.

5. I have a secret blog that none of you know about.

6. I am a very jealous person.

7. I have anger-management issues.

8. I handcuffed Stacie Salter to the jungle gym and tickled her until she peed herself. I was six years old. I was paddled severely by my teacher, paddled by the principal, and then my dad went to work on me when I got home.

9. I am the happiest I've ever been in my life.

Above the blue and windy sea

2005-06-14T15:46:00.000-07:00

Today is the fifth day in a row for which I have had no work assigned. It's nice. I like coming to work in jeans and a t-shirt, doing nothing all day, and leaving at 5 p.m. I like wandering the building aimlessly, emailing without interruption, and enjoying some "me time" in my fortress of solitude (a/k/a my hole of an office). We are on a skeleton crew and hardly anyone comes by to see me or bother me. Since I leave before the cleaning crew's shift starts, I don't even have to worry about the janitor bothering me. I could get used to this.

I could also get used to all the free time I have now. I go to the gym after work and I am there for about 90 minutes, but the sun is still up when I go home. It's nice to be out and about in the daylight. I have a slight headache from the rush of vitamin D, but I'm sure the pain will go away soon. If not, I can always dull the pain with a finger or two of Member's Mark.

I've also been enjoying a lot of time at Washoe Lake. It's a nice, relaxing place to watch the sunrise. It's nice in the evenings, too, as the sun drops behind the Sierras. The lake is right off of the highway, but many of the times I am there I am the only person at the lake. It's secluded and public at the same time. Anyway, I like driving out to the lake on a Saturday morning and having a cup of coffee while I watch the sunrise.

The weekend before the Fourth of July, I am going to be in a wedding in Columbus, Ohio. I have been told that Columbus has some sort of tremendous celebration on the river, but frankly, there aren't many reasons I would want to be in Columbus. That's especially true this year because I would much prefer to spend the Fourth at Lake Tahoe. Watching the fireworks over the lake is infinitely more appealing to me than doing just about anything in Columbus. Or anywhere in Ohio for that matter.

I've been logging a food diary because my trainer wants me to track my calories, protein intake, etc. According to her, I am supposed to be eating 165 grams of protein per day and about 2900 total calories. Do you have any idea how much turkey you have to put on your sandwiches to get to 165 grams of protein? It is a lot. It's a good thing I like turkey.

People at work keep asking me if I am going to take a vacation soon. The answer is maybe. If weekend getaways to Lake Tahoe, the Sierras, and maybe Sonoma / Napa (but not on a Sideways-inspired trip with Milbarge) count as vacations, then yes. And I have a very tentative plan to head to San Francisco this summer. Nothing definite yet, but maybe just a few days of sightseeing, fine dining, hanging out, and enjoying the ocean. Eh, but who knows? Columbus may turn out to be so great that I won't need to go to San Francisco to feel like I've had a vacation.

Up from San Antone

2005-06-05T15:47:00.000-07:00

I've had Texas on my mind a lot lately. TP's mention of wildflowers, Coob's triumphant return to Austin, and an email conversation regarding essential country songs have combined to make me quite homesick for the Lone Star State.

I miss the smell of a smoky barbeque joint. I miss the Red River Shootout. I miss Lone Star beer. I miss the Cowboys. I miss Taco Bueno. I miss maroon pick-up trucks with Corps of Cadets stickers on the bumpers. I miss hating Red Raider fans. I miss the friendly wave from oncoming traffic on a two-lane road. I miss those glorious Texas sunsets. I miss the carpet of wildflowers - bluebonnets, Indian blanket, coneflowers, cornflowers, and Texas paintbrushes - in the highway medians. I miss the drawl. I miss knowing what's going on with high school football. And I miss, well, you get the point. I had to force myself to drive to work today rather than point the Jeep east for Texas.

Wild horses keep dragging me away

2005-06-04T15:47:00.000-07:00

A reader asked for a story from my days working as a packer for a hunting outfitter. I have several, but the really good stories I'd like to save until I have a chance to scan some photographs to accompany the post. For the time being, let me share some stories for which I have no visual aides.

One of the other new hires at the camp where I worked was a Yankee by the name of Dwayne. Dwayne was a recovering alcoholic, a burgeoning bow hunting guide, and very into "traditional" bow hunting. That is, he built his own bow and arrows from natural materials. Holistic hunting or something. I never really cared much for the idea, but it made Dwayne happy. What did not make Dwayne happy, however, was the prospect of riding a horse. The man had never been on a horse before, but seeing as how that was a requirement of the job, he exaggerated his experience rather than risk losing his place for the season.

Well, this story progresses as you know it must. Among the many horses on the ranch was a jet black stallion named Thunder. No lie. Beautiful horse, but aggressive and headstrong (not too surprising for a stallion). He was hell to round up each morning and was not easily saddled. One might have thought that Thunder was not even broke, he acted so wild sometimes. He spent most of his time alone in a round pen, separated from the other horses because he was constantly abusing the geldings and chasing the mares. Not exactly the ideal trail-riding horse, but no one asked my opinion on the matter.

For some reason, the ranch foreman decided that Dwayne would ride Thunder. I got stuck with a tiny little sad sack of a mustang that couldn't see out of one eye, but Yankee Dwayne got to saddle the widow maker. So, the first day Dwayne was to head out with us, he tied Thunder to the fence that enclosed the stable area and cautiously saddled his steed. After crossing himself a couple of times, Dwayne gingerly climbed up into the saddle. Poor guy had forgotten to untie the horse from the fence, though. I walked over and untied the lead rope and passed it up to Dwayne. The look on his face was that of sheer terror as he timidly took hold of the reins. I headed back to saddle my horse, and as I did I heard Wayne say "Okay boy, giddy up."

Thunder did not exactly acquiesce to that request in the manner Dwayne had hoped. At the command to giddy up, Thunder let out a bellow, turned on his hind legs, and took off at a dead sprint for his pen. His path to the round pen took horse and rider under the covered area (similar to the covered areas extending off the sides of the barns in these pictures) of the paddock where we fed and watered the horses. The roof of this area was about 8 feet off the ground and the supports of the roof were made of 6' x 6' solid wood beams. Dwayne was sitting tall, bouncing in the saddle, and shrieking at the top of his lungs. As Thunder headed for the covered area near the barn those of us nearby were yelling for Dwayne to duck. Sadly, our advice was of no avail to Dwayne. As Thunder raced under the roof, Dwayne made forehead-to-beam contact with a sickening "thunk". We heard that "thunk" twice more before Thunder exited the far side of the covered area, unaccompanied by young Dwayne. Thunder returned to his feed bucket in the round pen about the time we reached Dwayne, sprawled spread eagle in the mud, out cold, with so many deep cuts in his forehead it looked like someone had drawn a music staff across his head. The blood flowed like wine, and there was some concern that Dwayne might not make it. But he did, he pulled through. After about 40 stitches in his head and a couple days in the hospital, Dwayne was back at work. He never rode Thunder again, but to Dwayne's credit he acquitted himself well on his new steed - a dog food-factory reject that would have needed a Valium/Percoset pick-me-up to be considered dead.

I never suffered an injury so severe as Dwayne's but I was kicked by horses and mules more times than I can remember. I carry a reminder of the most severe kicking in the form of a nasty scar in my left shin.

One day in late summer, after we had rounded up the horses from their summer grazing, I was tasked with shoeing some of the animals. If you've never shoed a horse or seen it done, it is work for which a tall man is ill-suited. But my "colleagues" were none too eager to put their bodies in jeopardy leaned under the bodies of large, prone-to-kick animals. Looking back on it, I don't blame them.

To shoe a horse's back feet, you have to stand essentially under the horse's leg, lift his ankle up and hook his ankle between your knees. This way you have access to the horse's hoof. You use a scraping tool to clean any mud or debris from the hoof, then you use a long metal rasp to clean up the edges of the hoof, give it a nice shape, and even it out so that the horse shoe fits the hoof. Once the hoof is filed down, you use a hammer and very sharp nails to secure the shoe to the horse's hoof. The nails go through pre-made holes in the shoe and into the out edge of the horse's hoof. The nails are significantly longer than the width of the hoof, so you must use a pair of nippers to clip the pointed ends of the nails once they've gone through the hoof.

The area of the hoof into which you drive the nails is similar to the white part of your fingernail. There is no feeling in it, so you're not hurting the horse. However, a careless person can miss the mark and drive the nail into the soft, living part of the hoof (think of the flesh under your fingernail) and, naturally, a horse won't be pleased by the sensation.

Apparently, the horse I was working on had been conditioned to have nails driven into the quick of his hoof. He was very skittish and he jumped a little each time I touched his hoof. He was very good not to lean his weight onto my back and he never pulled his foot away from me, but it was clear that he did not enjoy the experience. He grew more anxious with each nail I drove into his hoof. On the third or fourth nail on his right foot, I drove the nail clean through with one hammer strike and this horse did not like that at all.

As I drove the nail home, the horse gave a little jump and kicked his foot forward as hard as he could. That kick had the unfortunate effect of driving the protruding end of the last nail through the skin between the index finger and thumb of my left hand, through the 1/2" thick rawhide chaps (Sebastian probably refers to them as "chinks") I was wearing, through my jeans, and into my left shin. As a bonus, the nail broke off in my shin and the horse stepped on my right hand as I fell down. I scrambled out from under the big fella and checked for broken fingers. Finding none, I turned my attention to my bloody left hand. No real damage there. I then examined my leg. I had to remove the newly-perforated chaps, ignore the blood soaking through my pant leg, and use a pair of pliers to pull the broken-off piece of horseshoe nail out of my shin. Good golly Miss Molly did that hurt. It hurt much worse coming out than it did going in, but after a couple of pulls on a bottle of Wild Turkey, a gauze pad and some tape I was (mostly) as good as new. I'm sure that horse is wearing different shoes now, but I'm still wearing the scar he gave me.

My TiVo thinks I'm gay!

2005-06-03T15:48:00.001-07:00

From the department of "Signs that my life may not be headed in the direction," the following are actual subject headers on several recent emails sent to me:

Super-hot dress trends: See what made the list

The Ultimate Swim Sale: 25%-70% Off Select Styles

Trendy embellished shoes, plus save during our Men's Sale

Summer's must-have tops: Slinky camis, sparkling tees, and more

Wild new handbags, in exotic snakeskin and luxe crocodile

Summer beauty: five ways to get gorgeous

The season's best dresses: See our favorites

Summer essentials: Full skirts, sunglasses, flat sandals

Conclusion? Neiman Marcus thinks I am a woman. You buy one pair of designer jeans and suddenly everyone starts questioning your manhood. Geez! Gmail thinks I am a woman, too, with its sponsored ads for purses, knickers, and jewelry pouring salt on the wound.

You have the seltzer after the salsa!

2005-06-03T15:48:00.000-07:00

A reader emailed requesting a homemade salsa recipe. Being the generous person that I am, I picked three of my favorites. I don't remember where these recipes came from, but I use them often. There's really no substitute for fresh, homemade salsa and there's no excuse for eating store-bought salsa. These recipes are easy and delicious. Plus, serving homemade salsa is a great way to impress your guests.

Mango Salsa

1 large mango, peeled, seeded, and diced
1/4 cup finely diced red onion
1 1/2 teaspoons minced cilantro (leaves only, no stems)
1 teaspoon freshly squeezed lime juice
1/2 teaspoon minced habanero chile
2 tablespoons finely diced red bell pepper
1/4 teaspoon salt

Combine all ingredients, mixing well. Serve chilled.
Good with fish, chicken, pork, or served over a salad with slices of avocado.

Chipotle Salsa

4 dried chipotle chiles
2 dried guajillo chiles (or dried New Mexican red chiles)
1 small onion, chopped
1 tablespoon vegetable oil
4 medium-size tomatoes, peeled and chopped (or 2 cups of canned diced tomatoes)
1 cup of low-sodium beef broth
3 tablespoons of cider vinegar
1 tablespoon of brown sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon pepper
1/4 teaspoon ground cumin

Place the chiles in a large bowl and cover them with hot water. Steep until they are soft, 20-25 minutes. Drain the chiles and discard the water. Remove the stems and chop the chiles.

In a saucepan, saute the onion in the oil until it is soft but not brown. Add the chiles and the remaining ingredients. Simmer for 15 to 20 minutes to thicken.

Put the sauce in a blender or food processor and puree until smooth. Don't strain.

Salsa Verde (Tomatillo Salsa)

1 pound tomatillos, husks removed, rinsed, and chopped (or 11 ounce can of tomatillos, drained)
1/2 cup diced white onion
2 garlic cloves, minced
2 or 3 serrano chiles (seeds included), mined
1/4 cup chopped cilantro (no stems)
sugar
salt

For a chunky salsa, combine the chiles, onion, garlic, and cilantro in a bowl. Mix well. Season to taste with salt and sugar. For a smoother salsa, combine all the ingredients except the cilantro. Add the ingredients to a blender or food processor and blend until smooth. Stir in the cilantro. Let the salsa to sit for an hour (refrigerated) before serving to allow the flavors to blend.

Pot holes and pitfalls on the road to becoming the man in the designer jeans

2005-05-31T15:49:00.000-07:00

My co-blogger at my old site used to complain that I picked on him. For some reason unknown to me, he never reciprocated, though it's not for a lack of material. Curiously, no one else really gives me a hard time either, so I've been forced to take on that role myself. In fact, the only time of which I am aware that people made fun of me is the time I revealed that I purchase products for my hair and skin and that, yes, I shop at the make-up counter.

Apparently, that post convinced a lot of people that they didn't really know me. They were confused, yet comedically (probably not a word) inspired to learn that the person they thought they knew was merely an illusion, merely a construct. I'm glad that my life provides a source of amusement for everyone, but I want you to know that I wasn't always like that. I wasn't always the man destined to wear designer jeans. Once, long ago, I was a real person, not just a blogger who liked to use a bit of gel in his hair. A photo or two of my Bronco would probably do more to convince you of that than anything I could write, but I keep forgetting to photo the old Bronc. Thus, I have resorted to words to counterbalance some of the misconceptions about me that you might have based on that silly Clinique counter post.

The summer before law school I had to find a way to pay rent and survive until my loans and scholarship money showed up. The metropolis that was my law school town was not really a hotbed of economic activity. So I did what I had to do. What any young man straight out of college with a B.A. with Honors in Spanish and Poli Sci would do. I took a job shoveling manure. Literally. I worked for a coliseum / arena complex that featured horse shows, tractor pulls, county fairs, and rodeos. I wore Wranglers ($19.99 at the Wal-Marts), boots, and a company t-shirt. I started sweating at 7 a.m. and didn't stop until well past dark. I smelled like a horse blanket and had the world's worst farmer's tan. My job consisted of the aforementioned manure shoveling, driving a tractor, hauling trash, watering arenas, and delivering hay, straw and feed to the stables. Not the most intellectually challenging work, but I got to work out of doors, I made enough money to survive, and I was constantly surrounded by horses. Contrast that experience with the one I was to begin a few months later in which I declined to accept the meager intellectual challenge advanced, I rarely saw the light of day, I was paid nothing, and I was constantly surrounded by asses. Well, they were similar experiences in that each involved shoveling shit.

Many years before that, I dropped out of college (long story involving a broken heart that we will not get into here), moved to southern Colorado, and took a job as a packer for a hunting outfitter. Yes, you read that correctly. I quit college, throwing away a career, scholarship money, readily available booze, and Big 12 football to live in the wilderness with a half-blind horse, 10 grumpy mules, and a tent full of fat, smelly, jackass hunters. I traded sorority parties for saddle sores, and tequila shooters for a Winchester 30-30. And it was fine, for a while. Actually, I had a very good time in the San Juan Wilderness. My daily routine consisted of cooking breakfast for clients, saddling my horse, and retrieving the mules that had wandered during the night. After that, I would load the pack string with whatever trash or equipment needed to be packed out, load the hunters into their saddles, and lead the animals out of the wilderness and back to the trailhead. The next morning would see me retrace the trail back to camp, this time bringing in new supplies and new hunters. That was my life for several months. There were no hair products to be found in camp. No Starbucks. No bronzer. Just a beat up cowboy hat, chaps, bug spray, and a pair of deer skin work gloves seared black from a lantern fire I foolishly tried to extinguish with my hands.

Let me tell you that as much fun as it is to ride a horse every day, 12 hours in the saddle can wear on your body. Twelve hours a day for 4 months is also a lot of time to think about your life. And when I began to think, I realized that I did not want to end up a career cowboy, broke down and broke at the age of 30. So, at the end of elk season, I packed up my truck and headed back to Texas. Older? Yes. Wiser? Perhaps. Bowlegged? Yep. Did I get a facial and a massage as soon as I returned to civilization? No comment.

Carnitas and Carne Asada

2005-05-26T15:51:00.000-07:00

Carnitas are traditional Mexican tacos filled with slow roasted pork. These tacos are served by street vendors in Mexico. The vendors roast the pork shoulder on a vertical spit rotating next to an open gas flame. When you order the tacos the vendor slices off a chunk of meat, chops it and cooks it a bit longer over a griddle. The recipe below employs a different cooking method. Decidedly not low fat, but still very delicious.

Carnitas
(parts of this recipe are borrowed from Food TV)

Ingredients for carnitas
2 pounds of lard (no, that is not a typo)
2 1/2 pounds of pork butt, trimmed and cut into 2-inch cubes
2 teaspoons salt
1/2 teaspoon freshly ground pepper
1 cup Chile de Arbol salsa
24 corn tortillas
1 onion, chopped
1 cup of cilantro leaves (no stems), coarsely chopped
1 lime, cut into wedges

Ingredients for the Chile de Arbol salsa
1/2 pound of roma tomatoes
3/4 pound of tomatillos, husks removed and washed
1 cup (30-40) Arbol chiles
A heaping handful of chopped cilantro leaves
1 medium onion, chopped
4 garlic cloves, crushed
2 cups water or low-sodium chicken broth
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

Make the salsa first. Preheat the broiler. Places the tomatoes and tomatillos on a baking sheet. Broil, turning occasionally until charred all over, 10 to 12 minutes. Transfer to a saucepan and add the remaining ingredients. Bring to a boil over high heat. Reduce heat and cook until onions are soft, 12 to 15 minutes. Transfer to a food processor or blender. Puree and then strain. Set aside.

To make the carnitas, melt the lard in a large deep saucepan over medium heat. Add the pork, salt and pepper, and simmer until tender, being careful not to crisp the meat, about 1 hour and 10 minutes. Remove the pork with a slotted spoon and set aside to cool. When the pork is cool enough to handle, shred the meat with two forks. Remove and discard any remaining fat. Transfer the meat to a medium saucepan, add 1 cup of the salsa and cook over medium heat, stirring frequently, 5 to 8 minutes.

To serve, heat the corn tortillas and wrap them in a towel to keep them warm and soft. For each taco, stack 2 tortillas, layer with the meat, top with the onion and cilantro, and squeeze a little lime juice over the top. Serve with the remaining salsa if desired.

As an alternative to or accompaniment to carnitas, let me recommend carne asada tacos - a Tex-Mex variation on the traditional Mexican taco. The idea is similar, but the filling for these tacos is grilled flank steak.

Carne Asada Tacos

1 skirt steak or flank steak, rinsed and patted dry
fresh corn tortillas
1 onion, diced
1 cup of cilantro leaves, chopped (no stems!)
1 lime, cut into wedges
1 avocado, chopped
Chile de Arbol salsa (see above)

for marinade
1 teaspoon vegetable oil
juice of one lemon
juice of one orange
juice of two limes
1 teaspoon of granulated garlic
1/3 cup of chopped cilantro leaves (no stems!)
1/3 cup of chopped green onion
1 teaspoon of salt
1/2 teaspoon of freshly ground black pepper

Place the steak in a large resealable plastic bag. Combine the ingredients for the marinade and pour over the steak. Seal the bag and place it in a shallow baking dish or pan. Allow the meat to marinate overnight in the refrigerator.

Remove the meat from the refrigerator and start your fire or light the burners on your grill. You will want to grill the steak over high heat. Once your fire is ready, remove the steak from the plastic bag and grill over direct high heat for maybe 8 to 10 minutes, turning once halfway through cooking time. You want to pull the steak off the grill when it is medium rare in the center. Remove the steak to your cutting board and cover loosely with foil for about 10 minutes (the meat will continue to cook while tented - you want to serve flank steak at no more than medium or it will be too tough to eat). During this time you can assemble your other ingredients.

Once the meat has rested, slice the meat into thin slices across the grain and then chop the slices into chunks. To serve, layer 2 corn tortillas, fill with meat, onion, cilantro, and avocado. Top with a squeeze of lime juice and a drizzle of salsa.

Coffee's not coffee! Coffee is sex!

2005-05-23T15:53:00.000-07:00

1. I don't pay attention to the news so much anymore, but I recently saw a headline somewhere that the world is outraged because some pictures have been published of Saddam in his undies. The horror, the horror. I would not have shed a tear for Mussolini when they strung him up from the lamp post, I don't think Pinochet should have gotten away with mass murder just because he managed to live to a ripe old age, and I can't find it in me to give a damn about "the timeless art of seduction" as practiced by a monstrous butcher.

2. Have I mentioned that Mr. Two Weeks Vacation (whose office is conveniently located directly across the hall from mine) has not worked a weekend since March? I was here from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Saturday and 8 a.m. to 11:00 p.m. yesterday. When I checked my messages last night, there was a voicemail from this joker asking me if I would be interested in helping him make some repairs on his 4-Runner some afternoon this week. Serenity now! Serenity!

3. I have only 2 more weeks of work before the end of our legislative session. Of course, I'll work the equivalent of 4 weeks during that time, but after that it's smooth sailing and 40-hour weeks for a year. Once the session winds down, I hope to shift my schedule to a 4-day work week and use the long weekends to do some traveling during the summer and lots of snowboarding in the winter. As a corollary, how much coffee can one man drink? I used to be a 2 cups a day kind of guy, but lately I've found myself drinking 7, 8, even 10 cups of coffee a day. And not just in the mornings. I'm drinking coffee all day long - when I wake up in the morning, in the shower, first thing when I arrive at the office, etc. I drink coffee during my lunch break and in the afternoons. I've even taken to drinking coffee in the evenings even though it keeps me up late. I don't know what's happening to me. It's like I am addicted or something. I would try and quit, but it's just so good.

4. I decided to scrap the original draft of my post opining on the difference between Mexican food and Tex-Mex. I'm going to churn out a new draft today and have that up by early afternoon. I am also working on the musical version of my blogroll and I'll try to have that up some time this week. I know this is not the stuff a real writer would spend his time on, and I know what you're thinking, "Since when are you a writer?" My answer to you is "Writer? We're talking about a blog."

5. Finally, I have some free time today, so if there are any topics on which you'd like to see a post, please leave your request in the comments or send me an email. For a variety of reasons, I'm thinking clearly lately, but my motivation to come up with new topics? Of course! Absolute zero.

SURPRISE! - I suggest that you wrap something in bacon

2005-05-19T15:53:00.000-07:00

This post is meant to address a couple of requests. Wadsworth asked for appetizer recipes and the lovely THL needs a recipe for mussels. As always, I'm happy to oblige. I have actually prepared the two scallop recipes for Wadsworth. I have not cooked mussels, or anything for that matter, for THL. Not yet anyway. But I digress. On to the recipes!

Margarita Scallops
(from Chevy's & Rio Bravo's Fresh-Mex cookbook - Yes, I got this recipe from a lame Cal-Mex chain restaurant's cookbook. Deal with it.)

1 pound large sea scallops, cleaned, rinsed and patted dry
1 tablespoon of olive oil

1/4 cup tequila
1 cup freshly squeezed lime juice (if you can find Mexican or key limes I recommend them)
1/2 cup freshly squeezed lemon juice
1/2 cup sugar
1 to 3 jalapenos, stemmed, seeded and coarsely chopped
3/4 cup of green onion pieces cut into 1/2-inch lengths
1 cup chopped cilantro leaves
1 teaspoon garlic (about 1/2 clove)
1/2 teaspoon salt

For garnish
1 lime, quartered
3 teaspoons minced cilantro

Place all the ingredients except the scallops and olive oil in a food processor or blender and puree. Taste the mixture and adjust the jalapeno to your desire. Transfer the mixture to a bowl and set aside.

In a nonstick saute pan over high heat, heat the olive oil just until smoking. Add the scallops to the pan and sear well without tossing or stirring (these will come in handy for turning the scallops). Add the mixture from the blender and bring to a boil. When the liquid reaches a boil, turn the scallops and cook for 1 minute more. Remove the scallops, cover to keep warm, and reduce the sauce to half its original volume over high heat.

Pour the sauce over the scallops (either on individual plates or on a serving platter). Garnish with the lime wedges and cilantro.

This recipe works well with shrimp, too (as Wadsworth can attest). Simply substitute 1 pound of cleaned and deveined shrimp for the scallops. You may have to adjust the cooking time, because few things are worse than overcooked shrimp. The shrimp are done once they've turned pink.

The second recipe today is for bacon-wrapped scallops, because apparently my preferred cooking method is "wrap _____ in bacon. Cook until done. Eat." Kosher? No. Tasty? Yes.

Bacon-Wrapped Scallops

1 pound large sea scallops, cleaned, rinsed and patted dry
1 tablespoon of olive oil
coarse sea salt
freshly ground black pepper
several strips of premium bacon (DON'T SKIMP ON THE BACON)
toothpicks, for securing the bacon

Wrap the outside of each scallop in a single layer of bacon (about half a strip) and secure the bacon with a toothpick. Lightly season both sides of the scallops with sea salt and pepper.

In a nonstick saute pan over medium high heat, heat the oil just until smoking. Add the scallops and sear well. Don't stir them or shake them. Turn the scallops after about 3 minutes. Let the scallops cook another minute or two. Remove the scallops to a plate and carefully remove the toothpicks. Be careful. Those babies are hot! Serve immediately.

For folks who don't dig on swine, you can omit the bacon from this recipe and not really suffer. The salty sweetness of the caramelized scallops alone is quite the treat for the tastebuds.

I saw this recipe on Tyler Florence's Food 911 and it is an easy, yet delicious way to prepare mussels. There are certainly more complicated methods to prepare mussels, but you're not going to be disappointed with the results of the quick and simple dish.

Steamed Mussels
4 pounds mussels
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 shallot, minced
2 garlic cloves, minced
4 sprigs fresh thyme
1/2 cup dry white wine (use something you would drink)
the juice of one lemon
1 cup low-sodium chicken broth
Pinch red pepper flakes
1 tomato, seeded and cut in large dice
1/2 cup roughly chopped parsley (flat leaf, Italian parsley)
2 tablespoons unsalted butter

Rinse the mussels under cold running water while scrubbing with a vegetable brush (or your roommate's toothbrush). Remove the beards, if any (the stringy black things hanging off the shells). Discard any mussels with broken shells and discard any that are not closed or do not close when you tap on the shell.

In a 6 to 8-quart stockpot, heat the olive oil over medium-high heat. Saute the shallot, garlic and thyme for about 1 minute to create a base flavor. Stir constantly or the garlic will burn. Add the mussels and give them a good toss. Add wine, lemon juice, chicken broth and red pepper flakes. Cover the pot and steam over medium-high heat for 5 minutes or until the mussels open. Toss in the tomato, parsley and butter, cover the pot again, and steam for another minute. The tomatoes should keep their shape. Transfer to a serving bowl. Serve with plenty of grilled garlic bread to sop up the broth.

No! I'll never join you! Well, maybe I will, I don't know. It's all so confusing!

2005-05-09T15:54:00.001-07:00

Some men are afraid of the "metrosexual" label. Some men take pride in their metrosexuality. Some men revel in it. Some men become Bobby Trendy. And then there's Scott. Scott is the dark lord of metro, with his designer jeans, his wine cellar, and his smooth bald head. The metro is strong with him. So strong that I think just reading L-cubed may have turned me to the dark side. Actually, I only wish I could blame Scott. The fact is, I was metro long before I knew anything about blogs, much less read L-cubed.

I ~~don't~~ didn't ever really think of myself as "metro." Not that I thought of myself as John Wayne or Burton Leon Reynolds, Jr. or a lumberjack or anything, but I just never looked at myself as one of "those" guys. That's despite my playing the piano, my sordid male-cheerleading past, and my pink button-down shirts.

The thing is, my whole universe came crashing down this weekend when, like a bolt of lightning, the realization struck me: I may be a little metro. Maybe a little too metro.

On my annual trip to the mall, I acquired a new fragrance. The liar of a sales clerk told me that Armani had discontinued He so I was talked into Armani's new cologne, Black Code. It's not bad. Very woodsy. According to Sephora, it is "Fresh. Sexy. Masculine." Err, just like me. Or maybe not. (Query: If "He" is discontinued, then why is it available on the Sephora website? Corollary to the first query: Why do I even know to look at Sephora?)

After purchasing the cologne, I wandered over to the Clinique counter, where I picked up a few other essentials: moisturizer (now with 21 SPF!), face cleanser, face scrub (it's different from the cleanser, trust me), aloe shaving gel (highly recommended for sensitive skin), and bronzer (in my defense, the bronzer was a free gift).

It was while I was seated at the Clinique counter that I experienced my epiphany: A man who spends more money on product than he does on rent should just acquiesce, give in to the dark side and accept his fate. He's a metro.

Looking at my purchases, I thought to myself, "Goddang. Maybe I AM that guy." Ugh. In an attempt to redeem myself and to ~~avoid~~ delay turning into the guy with the designer jeans, I knew I had to make some other purchases before heading home; moisturizer simply could not be the most expensive thing I purchased. Fortunately, I found a pair of decidedly un-metro cargo pants that fit well and a North Face Apex jacket that makes me look like a tank driving extra from Patton. Very un-metro. Whew. That was a close call.

Now I know some of you will argue that the jacket does not redeem my make-up counter purchases, and that pants from Banana Republic scream out metro, but I don't have time to debate that right now. I need to go or I'll be late for an appointment with my stylist.

Greed is good. Knowing what the eff you're talking about is better.

2005-05-09T15:54:00.000-07:00

Let me set the scene for this tale: Yours truly is seated in the bar section of a generic "Mexican" restaurant for Sunday lunch following my annual trip to the mall.

I'm sucking down the world's weakest margarita when 3 people take up residence at the table behind me. They are all dressed like (and probably are) waiters from the generic "Italian" restaurant next door.

Says the first idiot (whom I have dubbed Gekko for reasons that will become apparent) after ordering a vodka and Red Bull (WTF?), "Yeah, so I looked up some rankings and it turns out that the Business School at Chicago is very good. It's ranked near the top of all these different rankings. It has been for at least the last three years. So, you know, that's cool. I'm so glad I decided to go to Chicago once I finish my BA. It's cool, too, because they don't really care where you go to undergrad so long as you major in Business Administration. That's why I'm doing most of my classes at the community college."

To which his idiot buddy (Bud, naturally) responds, "Kick ass, dude! That's awesome! That's so cool that you decided you're going to go to Chicago and then you find out that your program kicks ass. Kick ass!"

To which I mumble (to no one in particular), "There is definitely some ass kicking that needs to be done, but it ain't at the U of C." While mumbling this, I have a daydream in which I turn around, and without warning punch Gordon Gekko in the back of the head. Alternatively, I consider turning to him and remarking, "You know, I hear they have a nice law school, too, you idiot." Instead, I bite my tongue and think longingly of better days in some remote location devoid of idiots. That whole deserted island idea sounds kind of nice sometimes, especially after a foray into that part of America in and around the local mall.

During the course of the business school discussion, Gekko's girlfriend says nothing, preferring to light a cigarette instead of revealing that she's not entirely sure what a business school is.

I assumed Gekko was a blowhard and a big fat liar. He just had that air about him, like the kid in high school (Mr. "Oh I am cool. You should see me when I'm hot.") who swore that he was asked to drop out of school and join the Navy SEALs or that frat brother who insists that he had a three-way with the Coors Light twins. Within minutes, my suspicions were confirmed. Gekko turns from his academic musings to a story designed to solidify his street cred. Yes, he spins a tale of a bar fight. Naturally, he was so wasted he couldn't really remember when the fight happened or where, but some girl started some shit with his girl, they threw down, the other girl's boyfriend jumped in, and the Gekko stepped up and started "wailing" on this guy. You know what's coming next: the other guy's buddies - "like 7 of them, man, cause the whole baseball team was there" - jump our hero. He manages to "tag" a "dude" in the jaw and break a bottle on another guy's head and he and the girlfriend escape just before the cops show up.

Like, no way, man! That story will sound so good in your personal statement for the U of C GSB. Drunken bar fights are cool. Lunch is for wimps.

Speaking of lunch, I lost mine when Gekko spiced up the tale by explaining that it was a Major League Baseball team. Yeah, I bet all the big shots in MLB like to party at the dive bars in Elko, Nevada. Vaughn, get the stewardess. I need one of those bags.

One tequila, two tequila, three tequila, floor.

2005-05-05T15:55:00.000-07:00

Look, I know they're not authentic Mexican bebidas, but margaritas are darn tasty and Cinco de Mayo is as good a reason as any to down a few. To aid you in celebrating the Mexican victory at Puebla, here are some delicious margarita recipes. Enjoy responsibly. And when I say that, I'm looking at you.

From Maria's New Mexican Kitchen in Santa Fe, New Mexico (as detailed in The Foods of Santa Fe) here is my absolute favorite margarita:

1 lime wedge
kosher salt
1 1/4 ounces Jose Cuervo Silver tequila
3/4 ounce Bols triple sec
1 1/2 ounces freshly squeezed lime juice

Rub the rim of the glass with the lime wedge, Dip the glass into a saucer of kosher salt to coat the edge. Pour the tequila, triple sec, and lime juice into a cocktail shaker filled with ice. Shake for about 5 seconds. Pour into the glass and consume immediately. Serves 1 (or so says the book). I usually triple the recipe.

If you are into margaritas made with premium tequila, this is a nice variation:

1 lime wedge
kosher salt
1 1/4 ounces El Tesoro 100 percent Blue Agave Plata tequila
3/4 ounce Cointreau
1 1/2 ounces freshly squeezed lime juice.

Same directions as above. Just a more expensive version. Frankly, when I have something as nice as El Tesoro 100 percent Blue Agave Plata I prefer it straight.

For folks who like a frozen margarita, Chevy's makes a pretty good one:

1 lime wedge
kosher salt
1 1/2 cups of crushed ice
4 ounces sweet-and-sour mix (1 1/4 cups freshly squeezed lime juice, 2/3 cup freshly squeezed lemon juice, and 2/3 cup of sugar. Put the ingredients in a blender and blend until the sugar dissolves.)
1 1/4 ounces tequila
1/2 ounce triple sec
1 thin lime slice for garnish

Salt the rim of a mug. Combine the ice, sweet-and-sour mix, tequila, and triple sec in a blender. Blend until slushy and well mixed. Pour into the mug and garnish with the thin slice of lime.

Meat, meat, meat. I like meat.

2005-05-04T15:55:00.000-07:00

Last week I was talking to THL on the phone and she happened to mention that she was munching on a tri-tip sandwich. Her innocent little comment inspired me to pick up a pair of tri-tip roasts this past weekend. I was actually home at a decent hour last night (7 p.m.) and had enough time and daylight to fire up the grill. I am glad I did. A tri-tip sandwich is hard to beat.

The tri-tip roast is a cut of meat from the bottom sirloin. It is triangular in shape, hence the name. There is one tri-tip roast per side of beef. They run between 1 1/2 to 2 1/2 pounds and the meat has a very beefy taste and texture. You should be able to find tri-tip in your local market, but if not, you can substitute a thick-cut top sirloin.

The Santa Maria-style tri-tip is considered northern California barbeque. The main difference being that tri-tip is cooked over direct medium-high heat and for only about 30-40 minutes, while true barbeque is cooked for a long time at a low temperature over indirect heat. The tri-tip is so good that I won't quibble with the Californians over the proper use of the word "barbeque."

I won't get into the whole history of Santa Maria-style tri tip, but for more details you can go to the California BBQ Association's website or just go straight to the source: the Santa Maria Valley Visitor Information website which has a whole section devoted to Santa Maria-style barbeque. I did not have access to the internet last night, so I used a recipe from Weber's Big Book of Grilling (for another, fancier take on tri-tip, you can try this recipe from Weber's website).

Preparing this dish is simple. Rinse the tri-tip under cold water and pat it dry with paper towels. Then, mix together a rub consisting of:

2 parts granulated garlic (not garlic powder or garlic salt)
1 part kosher salt
1 part freshly ground black pepper
1/2 part celery seed
1/4 part cayenne (use less if you don't like your food spicy)

Work the rub into the meat with your fingers, coating the entire surface of the meat. Cover the roast and let it sit at room temperature for about 30 minutes. Meanwhile, start your fire. If you are using charcoal, the meat can go on the grill as soon as the fire is ready. Once your coals are nice and hot, arrange them so that one side of the grill is medium or medium hot and the other side is cooler. Sear the roast over the direct heat, uncovered, for about 10 minutes (turning once halfway after 5 minutes). Watch for flare ups. You want a nice crust on the meat, but you don't want it charred. After searing the meat, move it to the cooler side of the grill, cover, and cook for about 20 minutes. After 20 minutes, check the internal temperature of the meat. At the thickest part of the roast the internal temperature should register about 135 degrees F. I would recommend pulling the meat off of the grill at this point. Let the meat rest on your cutting board for about 10 minutes, tented loosely with a piece of aluminum foil. The internal temperature will rise another 8 to 10 degrees while the meat is resting. This will produce a lovely piece of meat with a bright pink center, well-done edges, and a delicious (and spicy) crust. If you cannot deal with a pink center, you can cook the meat another 10 minutes or so, until the thermometer registers around 140-145 degrees F, but the meat will not be as juicy or tender this way.

To serve the tri-tip, slice the meat on a bias and across the grain in 1/4-inch strips. Traditional Santa Maria tri-tip is served with a tossed salad, piquinto beans and salsa (recipe available from the Santa Maria Valley website), macaroni & cheese, and toasted french bread and sweet butter. When I'm making a tri-tip sandwich, I serve it with baguettes (buttered and toasted over the coals while the meat rests), sliced avocados, grilled red onions, and fresh salsa. The traditional meal is more complicated than what I want on a Tuesday night. Besides, I'm not a Californian, so strict adherence to the official menu is not that important to me.

So, that's my (abbreviated) take on grilled tri-tip sandwiches. The great thing about tri-tip is that it's simple to prepare, it takes very little time to cook, and it's delicious.

A post in which I channel the law-student bloggers

2005-04-27T15:56:00.000-07:00

Um, yeah, so apparently I ran up a $48 bar tab last night ($60 with the tip). Alone. In two hours. Conclusion? A bar within walking distance of my office may turn out to be a bad thing. I remember downing 2 pints of Fat Tire and I remember pointing to a bottle of Maker's Mark. I don't precisely recall how I arrived at the $48 total though. Even estimating for outrageously overpriced drinks, that's probably more alcohol than I have consumed in years. Or should have. Well, except for the 8 shots of Jack Daniels and 4 beers I put away at the Violent Femmes concert on Saturday. That sonofabitch from Reno should never have advanced the argument that Nevadans are more manly than Texans. Or perhaps he should have chosen a different contest for proving his argument. I'm not sure that passing out mid-concert in your girlfriend's lap is the manliest thing, even in Nevada.

Those of you from the Great State can rest easy knowing that I didn't bring any shame to the Lone Star. I may have been a little loud. Perchance, I may have laughed in the girlfriend's face. Es posible. But unlike Mr. Reno, I didn't leave any liquor on the table or in the parking lot.

The Texasville Horror

2005-04-26T15:57:00.001-07:00

The commercials for the Van Wilder re-make of The Amityville Horror which opened last week brought back some memories of the haunted house I once lived in.

This was just an ordinary little house in an ordinary little Texas town. To my knowledge, no one was murdered in the house. But murder house or not, lots of spooky things went on there.

My little brother would talk to people in his room. He was very young, maybe 2 years old, but he would carry on conversations in his crib at night. There was no one in the room, but he would babble on for long periods of time. And there were sounds like a voice responding to him, but there was never anyone in the room.

I also remember hearing whispered voices in the house. Nothing I could make out distinctly, but definitely voices.

Doors would open and close of their own accord. The floorboards in the hallway creaked with footsteps at night.

Things would inexplicably be rearranged in the house if we were gone for more than a few minutes.

Also, my room was haunted by a ghost. It was a huge, black Doberman. It never harmed me, but after my parents went to bed at night, this dog appeared near the window of my room and would slowly walk across the room until it stood next to my bed. It would sit there and stare at me all night. If I called for my parents it would hide behind the curtain until they left the room. Then it would return to its station at the head of my bed. And stare at me. Every single night for almost 2 years. Not the stuff of Hollywood blockbusters, but more than enough horror for a four-year old kid.

Set your phasers on stunning

2005-04-18T15:58:00.000-07:00

A friend of mine is obsessed with William Shatner. She's been in love with him since junior high. Frankly, I don't understand why, but who am I to judge other people's predilections and peccadilloes? He's a handsome man, I suppose. He's entertaining, if over the top, and unlike many people in Hollywood he can laugh at himself. But an obsession with W.S. seems a bit bizarre. Especially now that he's well past his prime [directive].

Speaking of William Shatner and bizarre, those of you who have not seen Trekkies 2 are really missing out on some choice people-watching. If you have the means, I highly recommend picking up a copy. The movie features extended interviews with and concert footage of the Sacramento-based sci-fi rock band Warp 11. They have truly taken the W.S. obsession to the limits of the known universe with their song Everything I Do, I Do With William Shatner (you can download the song from this link). The opening stanza of "Everything I Do" goes something like this:

Everything I do, I do with William Shatner
Losing all my hair while my belly's growing fat-ner
And when I drink too much
He holds my hair in his hands
And while I'm blowing chunks
He treats me like the captain

It gets worse from there (or better, depending on your perspective). The band will be performing in Davis, California on April 30. Warp speed, Mr. Sulu. Make our destination Ticket Master.

You get a few of these pig men running around, suddenly I'm looking a whole lot better.

2005-04-16T15:59:00.000-07:00

I've been mulling over this for some time now. I'm not quite sure where I'm going with it, but I am fascinated by the idea of what it must feel like to be famous for something that traditionally would inspire scorn rather than adulation. Specifically, I wonder what it feels like to be a famous ugly actor. Steve Buscemi, Paul Giamatti, and Clint Howard are the three who immediately come to mind. There are certainly other actors who fit in this category, and I am sure there are more famous examples than those I've listed. But you get the idea. In an industry where physical beauty is one of the most celebrated qualities a person can possess, these guys have made careers out of being not just plain or average looking, but flat out unattractive.

Clearly, there is a need for average looking and unattractive people in the movies. It would have been difficult to believe Brad Pitt as the sad-sack English teacher in Sideways. George Clooney as the record collector in Ghost World? Those are extreme examples, but when the role calls for an unattractive person, the studios usually resort to casting someone who is "Hollywood ugly" in the mold of former model Rachel Leigh Cook who played the geeky "ugly" girl in She's All That or Judy Greer as the awkward and "ugly" Vylette in Jawbreaker. But these guys are not "Hollywood ugly" - they are Wal-Mart ugly. A spray-on tan won't turn Clint Howard into Clint Eastwood. Paul Giamatti can dye his hair, but he's never gonna be Paul Newman. And you can give Steve Buscemi the most extravagant makeover the world has ever seen, but he's never going to be Steve McQueen. Yet, these guys have made it in Hollywood. And because of their success, I have no doubt that there are people who are attracted to Steve, Paul, and Clint.

I wonder how this makes them feel. Buscemi has been in a lot of movies and he's made a lot of money. I don't mean to discount his acting abilities, but he gets a lot of mileage out of his unique appearance. I would think that it hurts to think that everything you have, your career, your fame is due to your looks. Your bad looks.

I suppose you might try to chalk up your success to your acting talent. Certainly some of their successes are due to talent. But there is no getting around the fact that the ugly factor is part of it, too. Maybe they don't care. Maybe these guys are too busy being happy and successful to dwell on the "why" of it all. Maybe I'm the superficial one.

Farewell and adieu to you fair Spanish ladies.

2005-03-31T15:59:00.000-08:00

Some time ago, a reader asked for stories about my scars. I have so many to choose from that, in the end, I decided to write about three of my scars: the most painful, the most prominent, and the most dramatic.

My most painful scar was given to me by my dad. When I was about 4 years old, my family had a purple Datsun station wagon. One Sunday morning, I was slow getting ready for church. My dad was outside, milling around outside the car and calling for me to "Hurry up or we'll be late for church!" I finished whatever it was I was going and ran out to the car. My dad saw me leap off the porch and make for the car. He then turned to the car to open the door for me. At the precise moment when the arc of the door reached its maximum, I too reached that point. Smack! Two hits. The door hitting me, and me hitting the ground. Out. Like. A. Light. I caught a corner of the door in the middle of my forehead. Of course I was bleeding, and of course we were late for church. My dad carried me into the house and my mom administered first aid. A couple of butterfly strips and a dose of bactine later we were on our way to church. We missed Sunday school but got there in time for the worship service. I don't remember the sermon, really. Maybe something about Abraham and Isaac.

This scar was the most painful, not because my dad did it, but because it just flat out hurt. Besides the pain of the door, I got the bonus pain of hitting my head on the ground. And, on top of all that, very little in the way of sympathy at the time of the initial injury because we could not be risk being late for church. I guess my dad wasn't sure if Jesus would understand our tardiness. If I had to guess, I'd say the Lord would probably have cared more about my Dad's decision to buy a Datsun rather than our missing one day of church because of my traumatic head injury, but I'm no biblical scholar.

My most prominent scar is 3-inch smiley-faced shaped gash over my left knee. I got that beauty from a wakeboarding accident. Before law school I worked at a scuba & ski shop, and one of the perks of the job was taking the owner's boat out to the lake on our days off. On one trip to the lake, I won the coin toss with my buddy Ed and got to hit the water first. On this particular day, we were trying out some custom fins handmade by a local skiing guru - he called them "shark fins" because of their shapes. I was eager to see how the carbon fiber fins compared to the standard fins mass produced by the wakeboard companies. Well, I was having a decent run for the first pass. No big tricks or anything, just getting warmed up. Well, once I felt warmed up, I pulled out away from the boat, then edged into the wake for a back roll. I landed the trick, but caught the edge of my board and took a tumble into the water. Both of my feet came out of the bindings and I felt a sharp pain in my knee. Eh, probably twisted the knee a little when I hit the water. Or so I thought. As the boat circled around to pick me up, I put my right foot back into the bindings and started to push my left foot into the boot when my knee opened up and sprayed blood everywhere. A huge flap of skin about 3 inches by 3 inches had been laid open and the cut was deep. Blood was really starting to pour out, and I signaled Ed to help me get into the boat. By the time the boat reached me, the water around my leg was pink with blood. When Ed and my wife (then girlfriend) saw my knee they started freaking out. I wrapped my t-shirt around the knee and Ed sped me back to the dock. My wife helped me hobble to the truck and drove me the 45 minutes to the ER. Once there, the nurse cleaned out the wound and a doctor closed the wound with staples. They came out about a month later. At first I thought I cut my knee on a piece of submerged debris, or maybe the edge of my board, but at work the day after the incident, Ed pointed out that my wound was shaped exactly like the fins on my wakeboard. Better to be attacked by a fin than by a whole shark, I suppose.

My most dramatic scar is over my right eye, below the corner of my eyebrow. I earned that one as a toddler. On one of our many trips to my grandparents' home, I was at that stage where I was learning to pull myself up to a standing posture. Not yet walking, but trying to. Anyway, on this particular occasion, I was using my Granny's coffee table as an aide. Unfortunately, I slipped and caught the corner of my right eye socket on the corner of the table, resulting in a nice big cut. People were freaking out left and right. My Granny (an R.N., God rest her soul) and my mother tussled over who would administer first aid. My dad was worried I'd put out my eye. My Gramp didn't say a word, but he picked up the coffee table and headed out the back door, stopping by the utility room to pick up his axe. He proceeded to chop the coffee table into kindling wood. I think that's what they call "cathartic."

Chili today, hot tamale

2005-01-30T16:00:00.000-08:00

As promised, just in time for the Big Game, here is a post on Texas-style chili. If I leave any questions unanswered, or if anything is unclear, please use the comments section. Let me note here at the beginning that I don't claim this to be the definitive version of Texas-style chili, but I will tell you that the recipe below is a world-champion passed down to me by my father. I predict you're gonna enjoy it.

The Lowdown: What chili is and what chili isn't

Chili is meat and spices, those spices being chiefly ground red chiles and cumin. For our purposes, the term "chili" does not include any concoction containing beans. Period. If you want chili with beans, go somewhere else. If you want to debate beans vs. no beans you've come to the wrong place. In Texas we don't cotton to beans in our chili. It's that simple. Understand that I've eaten chili with beans in it, and I've followed chili recipes that called for beans. Chili with beans is fine for what it is, but what it is not is Texas-style chili. Now that we have that settled, let's move on.

The Basics

Chili is simple fare - just meat and spices. It gets its red color and heat from the chile powder (not tomatoes) and gets its smoky flavor from the cumin. Chili should be thick. Mine will typically have a slightly thinner consistency than risotto. Some folks serve chili so thick you can eat it with a fork off of a plate. You may want a thinner chili. If so, just adjust your liquids in the recipe below.

A chili begins by browning meat - usually beef, but not exclusively - in a large dutch oven. Then the spices and other ingredients are added to the meat, which is kept at a simmer until it reaches the right consistency and flavor. The spices are added at intervals, in what chili cooks call "dumps." The spices are added in stages to control the heat and to keep the chile flavor from being too mellow. The exact components of these spice dumps are usually closely guarded secrets. The dump is where a cook can really customize his chili recipe.

I recommend using ground New Mexico red chile peppers (if you can find them) for your chile powder. The stuff sold as "chili powder" in the seasoning aisle of the grocery store usually has cumin, oregano, and other spices in it. "Chili powder" will work just fine, but pure ground red chiles will give you a hotter finished product.

The Recipe

Ingredients

3 lbs ground sirloin (you can use ground chuck, but you'll need to drain a lot of fat)
1 - 8 oz. can of tomato sauce
1 tablespoon of lard (or substitute your preferred cooking oil)
1 - 14 1/2 oz. can of beef broth (I suggest using a reduced-sodium broth)
2 - 14 1/2 oz. can of chicken broth, divided (again, I suggest using a reduced-sodium broth)
2 serrano peppers, halved and seeded

For the first Dump:
1 tablespoon chili powder
1 1/2 tablespoons onion powder
2 teaspoons instant beef bouillon
2 teaspoons instant chicken bouillon
1 teaspoon cumin (for the most flavorful results, toast and grind your own cumin)

For the Second Dump:
2 tablespoons chili powder
1 tablespoon cumin
1 teaspoon garlic powder
3/4 teaspoon white pepper
1/4 teaspoon salt - optional (I use just a pinch because the bouillon is plenty salty)
1 packet of Sazon Goya - Google it to order some online or head to your local Latin market

For the Third Dump:
1 tablespoon chili powder
1 teaspoon cumin
1/4 teaspoon brown sugar

Cooking Instructions

1. Heat one tablespoon of lard or cooking oil in a large pot or dutch oven over medium-high heat. Add the meat and cook, stirring occasionally until browned.

2. Spoon off any excess grease, then add the serrano peppers, the can of tomato sauce, the beef broth and one cup of the chicken broth. Add your First Dump, bring to a boil, then reduce the heat, cover, and simmer for about 1 hour, stirring occasionally.

3. Remove the serrano peppers, then add your Second Dump. Adjust the liquid with the remainder of the chicken broth. I add the remaining broth from one can. You may want to add some of the broth from the second can. It depends on your preferences. Cover and simmer for 30 minutes, stirring occasionally.

4. Add your Third Dump. Reduce the heat and keep the chili at a low simmer uncovered for about 10 to 15 minutes.

5. Eat. This should serve 6-8 people in mixed company or 2-4 guys on the day of the Big Game.

Variations, garnishes and accompaniments

I like the chili just as it is, though I will admit to garnishing my bowl with finely chopped white onion and shredded cheddar cheese from time to time. I've been known to spoon my chili over a bowl of Fritos corn chips - a dish known as Frito pie - and I've served chili with cornbread. Some people serve chili with saltine crackers. I've even heard of people putting a dollop of sour cream in their chili to cut the heat, but that doesn't do anything for me. Some folks dump a can of beans in there, too. If that's your thing go for it. I'm not here to judge you. Just note that you'll need to add more liquid if you add beans.

For a nifty variation on this recipe, buy sirloin steak instead of ground beef and then cube the steak in 1/4-inch or 1/2-inch cubes. You'll want to buy about half a pound more meat because you'll lose some of it when you trim the fat from the steaks. Using cubes of sirloin makes for a chunkier chili and is reminiscent of New Mexican chili verde, which is usually made with chunks of pork or goat. You could use the chunked meat sold as "stew meat" but I would recommend that you spend the extra money and time and buy some decent sirloin and cube it yourself. Venison or elk makes for a great chili, too.

Final thoughts

So there you have it. A killer chili recipe that doesn't require any special skills or take up your whole day like a brisket does. However, it's wise to plan ahead, because chili, like beouf bourguignon, tastes better a day later once the flavors have really had time to come together. For the Big Game, chili works great because you can make it the night before and then dump it in a crock pot on Sunday morning.

For more world-champion Texas-style chili recipes, check out the folks at the Chili Appreciation Society International (CASI) here.

If you've got any questions, critiques, recipes, or chili stories I'd love for you to share them with us in the comments section.

"When I got up I stuck to my plan -- stumbling forward and getting hit in the face."

2005-01-20T16:01:00.000-08:00

I watched The Knockaround Guys the other night (Why did I watch it? Because it was on TV.). I'll save you the review and just say it's a subpar story about the son of a gangster (Barry Pepper) and his buddies who toy with the idea of following in Daddy's footsteps until the very end when the son chooses to be a "citizen" rather than a criminal. There is plenty of beefcake for the ladies in the form of Vin Diesel and Seth Green. There's also an appearance by John Malkovich as the double-crossing Uncle Teddy.

There is a scene in this movie in which Vin Diesel is egging on a local Montana tough guy. Diesel says, "Five hundred." The shitkicker looks confused. Diesel elaborates that 500 is the number of fights he reckoned one had to have under his belt before he could be considered a legitimate tough guy. He then pummels the man from Big Sky Country, leaving him a bloody mess on the floor of the bar.

According to Diesel's calculations, I am about 497 1/2 fights away from being a legitimate street tough.

The first fight I was in was over sleeping arrangements in a hotel room. I've blogged before about being a high school cheerleader. Well, when I was a sophomore, our cheerleading squad traveled to Dallas to participate in the National Cheerleading Association's National Competition (you've seen it before on ESPN-8 "the Ocho"). There were 10 guys on the squad and we had to share 2 rooms. Each room had 2 queen size beds and a loveseat. But the fight was not about who had to sleep on the loveseat. No, the fight was about who had to share the bed with the gay guy. Not the noblest reason to engage in fisticuffs, but there it is. The whole thing was started because the seniors claimed one room and left the younger guys to sort out what was left. I claimed the couch, but that claim was challenged. Some name calling may have occurred, perhaps peppered with polite suggestions as to whom exactly was best suited to sharing the bed with Martin (who was not in the room at the time because he was out shopping or something). Push came to shove and then someone hit me. It knocked me to the floor where I fallen upon and pummeled (though not as badly as ol' Sea Bass in Knockaround Guys). Once I could get my arms free I began punching the guy on top of me in the kidneys. It did not really have any effect because I couldn't get any power behind my punches (I blame the constricted space, not my puny arms). I was desperate to get this guy off of me, so I did the only thing that came to mind - I grabbed the band of his underwear and proceeded to give him the world's most painful wedgie. I pulled so hard that I ripped the waistband out of his drawers and was able to start choking him with the elastic band. That had the desired effect. It got the bastard off of me and gave me the chance to punch him in the stomach while he was trying to extricate the remnants of his underwear from his, uh, well, his crack. I can't really say I won that fight, but I was standing when it was over and I kept my spot on the couch.

Incidentally, the Florida State football team was in town for the Cotton Bowl and they were staying in the same hotel (you talk about some big dudes). They were hauling in beer on hand trucks stacked 10 cases high and the elevators were packed with smoking hot chicks headed for their floor.

I did not find myself in a confrontation again for another 4 or 5 years. One summer during college, I was staying at my mom's house and so was my younger brother (the Army guy). For some reason, one afternoon he was berating one of my sisters. I think it was because she had taken one of "his" Cokes from the fridge without permission. He was all up in her face and screaming. He just about had her in tears. Well, I stuck my nose in it and asked him if he cared to talk that way to someone his own size. He said he did, not that he expected my response would be any different from my sister's. Interesting. I responded by punching him square in the mouth. I wouldn't call it a cheap shot, exactly, but he clearly wasn't prepared for it. He stumbled down to a knee, threw off his glasses and lunged at me. I caught him with a punch to the ear an instant before he tackled me to the ground. Once on the ground we both stopped. His mouth and nose were bleeding and my head was cut from hitting the floor. We just kinda looked at each other for a second, then he got up and gave me a hand. That was it. It was the weirdest thing, because from that moment on we've been very close. We weren't really close before that fight. I don't understand why that moment changed our relationship, but it did.

The last time I hit someone I was in Canada. I was up there with a group of Model U.N. kids from my college. One of the guys in the group was dating one of the girls. This guy, let's call him TJ, was a pig and he treated his girlfriend, let's call her Jenny, like crap. But she was one of those girls who always rationalized and apologized for his behavior. Anyway, on this trip I shared a hotel room with TJ (in my own bed this time) and the girls stayed in a room down the hall. Naturally, the "loving" couple hoped to share some intimate moments while abroad. To accommodate them I spent most of my evenings bar hopping. Well, late on our third night in Toronto, I headed back to the room after a fine evening of drinking and cavorting and heard yelling from my room. I unlocked the door and walked in on the cool guy and Jenny in the midst of a huge yelling match. They were both in their PJs. As I entered the room they turned to look at me. It was then I noticed that Jenny had a puffy lip, tears streaming down her cheeks and blood streaming from her nose. TJ glared at me and said, "We're in the middle of something, dude. Come back later!"

"Did he do that to you?" I asked, looking at Jenny. Before she could say anything, TJ piped up, "Yeah, I did! She's being a f***ing bitch and she deserved it!"

Wrong answer.

In two steps I was to him and an instant after that I landed a punch to the side of his jaw. He went down. I thought that was the end of it, so I grabbed Jenny and led her to the bathroom to clean up her face. But before we reached the bathroom TJ had recovered, gotten back on his feet, and punched me from behind. He hit me behind the right ear. It hurt like hell. I pushed Jenny into the bathroom and closed the door while he hit me again in the back of the neck. He hit me again in the shoulder as I turned around, and I caught him with a punch below the ribs. He doubled over and I got a couple more shots to his head before he went down. Meanwhile, Jenny was screaming her head off in the bathroom. TJ tried to get up again and I hit him in the face just about as hard as I could. After that he stayed down. After a couple of minutes of him mouthing off, I threw him out of the room. He stood right outside the door smarting off while I got Jenny calmed down and got her face cleaned up. Then TJ started crying, trying to tell Jenny how sorry he was, how much he loved her, and how he didn't mean to hurt her. That went on for about an hour. He finally stopped the yelling, but I could hear him sobbing for a long time. He spent the night in the hallway and she spent the night in the room. We left Toronto a day later. Jenny came to her senses and they broke up once we returned to the States and I think she married a seminary student. The jackass went to law school, of course. So did TJ.

*The title is a quote from Randall "Tex" Cobb, whom I had the pleasure to meet once. He and my dad were running buddies in high school. You might know him from such films as Raising Arizona, Collision Course, and Fletch Lives. You might not know it, but he went 15 rounds with Larry Holmes in 1982. He was the only man ever to go the distance against Holmes, thanks in large part to the strategy quoted in the post title.

Growing up Abilene

2005-01-09T16:01:00.000-08:00

Abilene, Texas. The city of my birth. The Big Country. Home to three private religious colleges; Dyess Air Force Base; Joe Allen's barbecue; and more churches per capita than any other city in the country - yet it also has one of the highest teen pregnancy rates in the country (note the ironic use of "yet").

Shall I describe its geography? Look at your desk. See how flat it is? How dry? Now imagine it covered in red dirt, cactus, mesquite brush, and dead grass. In the distance, picture a ring of low, flat-topped hills. Imagine that it is 105 degrees and the humidity is hovering at about 15 percent. The wind is blowing, but it's a hot wind. And it never stops. Ever. When it's not summer it's winter. The wind still blows, but the temperature drops. The winter wind is bitter cold and will cut right through you. It travels nonstop from the Rockies and you can't wear enough clothes to keep the chill off.

Basically, that's Abilene.

I was born there but I didn't live in Abilene until my family moved to town in the summer between the sixth and seventh grades. Nothing much to note about middle school. I played football and did pretty well despite my small size. In fact, I made some good tackles on a guy who went on to play running back at the University of Oklahoma. In my "gifted and talented" class I created a strategy board game about the Pacific Theater of World War Two. I rode the bus.

I went to Abilene High School, which wasn't so great in the beginning because all my friends from middle school ended up attending Cooper High School on the other side of town. I made a few friends on the football team. I caught a bunch of touchdowns my freshman year, but our varsity team was the district punching bag and I didn't really like the coaches so I quit football at the end of my freshman year. My dad was not pleased with that decision.

As a sophomore, I joined the golf team. I played golf for awhile until the constant practicing made me hate the game. I had to quit the team just so I could enjoy golf again. Oh, and I shot a 111 on the first day of my first tournament. No, that is not a typo - one hundred and eleven strokes, a/k/a 39 over par. In my defense, we played in a freezing rain and I had a 19 on one hole. I also broke 3 clubs that day. One I lost because the rain made my glove so slick I slung the club up into a tree on my tee shot. Another broke when I made contact with the ball. The head separated from the shaft (don't you hate it when that happens). I broke the third club by backing over it in parking lot. I loved that 2-iron, but it betrayed me.

Junior and senior years. Hmm. I tried out for the cheerleading squad as a sophomore. That was real fun. We had to perform a cheer in front of the entire student body. That's the entire 2,500-person student body. No, that wasn't embarrassing. Not at all. At least I didn't fall on my ass like one kid did. He had the crowd on its feet, but they weren't laughing with him. I don't think he ever lived that down.

So, anyway, the best part of cheerleading, aside from the constant accusations from football-player types of being a "fag" or "homo," was attending cheerleading camp during the summers. Imagine if you will, 2 weeks in San Antonio surrounded by literally hundreds of teenage girls in short shorts and cheerleading skirts. Contrast that with football two-a-days, which involved hanging around with literally hundreds of sweaty smelly teenage boys. Yet I'm the one who endured the jeering.

Actually, I take that back. The best part of cheerleading was the 3 and 4-hour long bus rides to Odessa and Lubbock to cheer the football team at their out-of-town contests. We travelled in luxurious chartered busses filled with teenage girls in cheerleader skirts (including 2 sets of twins!).

I wish I could regale you with stories of my adventurous youth in west Texas, but I don't have any, really. Our cheerleading team competed at Nationals in Dallas, taking 4th and 6th place. Once, one of the girls broke my nose falling from a pyramid. Other than that, I spent most of my free time in the late summer ("fall") and early summer ("spring") hunting doves, quail, turkeys, and deer. Probably the most exciting thing I can tell you is that I did not go to prom. Instead, I went to Dallas for the weekend with two friends. We played golf for four days and saw Willie Nelson in concert at Billy Bob's. Willie drank a fifth of Jack Daniels during that show. It was cool.