Small World Too

Saturday afternoon I went to my friend Laurie’s birthday party in Golden Gate Park. I’ve really just met Laurie. She’s in current Un-Scripted show Theater: The Musical, but she’s super cool and I wanted to go to her party.

I arrive at about the same time as a large clump of people. As Laurie’s doing the introductions, Jess, who looks awfully familiar, says “You look really familiar. Did you come see Money & Run at Impact?”


I did! She played Money (or was it Run? She played the girl of the duo). Not only strange that she would have recognized me from the audience, but my girlfriend Diana happens to be the production manager of Impact Theatre. The two had never met, since the one rehearsal Diana attended, Jess missed. Small world, right?

Well, a little later I overheard her say something about “back home in Illinois.” Being from Illinois myself originally I asked where she grew up. She said “a suburb of Chicago.”

Being from a suburb of Chicago myself I asked which one. She said “Downers Grove.”

“I’m from Downers Grove. I grew up a few blocks from Downers North High School.”

“I grew up a few blocks from North!” she says. “On Grant Street right near the stoplight in front of the high school.”

She grew up, literally around the corner from me. She used to hang out at the Omega in high school just like I did. Now, she’s probably about 10 years my junior, so it’s no surprise we never crossed paths. Her family went to St. Mary’s while mine went to St. Joe’s, eliminating any chance of knowing each other from church or grade school. She also, quite sensibly, went to North. I went many miles away to Benet. Why? Dunno. North was a perfectly good high school.

BUT WHAT THE HELL?!? What are the odds? We were practically neighbors. And yet, somehow that’s just how the world works for me.

French Martini - Liberated from my laptop at last

I should add, that when my girlfriend and I went to see Figaro Friday night at the Berkeley Rep we were there because of the 30 Below Night party. No they don’t super cool the theater and give everyone parkas. They sell cheap tickets to people under 30 in an attempt to get more young people in the door. A great idea, but since even at those prices twentysomethings are too hip to go see theatre, they pack the night with pre-show cocktails and a post show dance party as added incentive. Alas, by leaving at intermission I was deprived/spared the post show dance party, but I did partake in the pre-show libations.

The cocktail du jour was a French Martini. Not having any idea what’s in a French Martini, but being a Martini fan myself, I did some research before I went. First off, it's a vodka martini, which really isn't a "martini", it's a "vodka martini" so it should technically be a "French Vodka Martini", unless you give the creators license to decide that a "French Martini" is by default made with vodka. I'm not sure I do.

Secondly, it contains Chambord and pineapple juice.

Notice no vermouth. Another strike against the label "martini" given that Martinis are called "martinis" because of "Martini" brand vermouth. In point of fact, if you walk into a bar in Italy and order a "martini" you will get Martini brand vermouth, and nothing else. Meaning the vermouth is perhaps more intrinsic to the cocktail than even the gin.

Also notice, no olive. Now I’m not saying an olive would be good in a French Martini. I just mention it as further evidence that the “martini” moniker is a misnomer. After all, if you take the olives out of a Martini and substitute cocktail onions, suddenly you have a Gibson. Or really a Gin Gibson as Gibsons are, by default, made with vodka, much in the same way Martinis are, by default (in any high quality establishment), made with gin.

Finally, the French Martini was invented quite recently by the fine marketing people at Chambord.

So what should it really be called? Well, given that the signature ingredient seems to be the Chambord and given that Chambord invented it, I think it should really be called a “Chatam International Incorporated” or simply a “Chatam” for short. That makes way more sense, right?

All that said, they were yummy!

"A Day at the Beach" Classic Post

I wrote this really nice blog last night about French Martini's, probably the best blog I've ever written. Certain the best blog you would ever read. It would BLOW YOUR MIND. Just as I went to post it, I lost my internet connection and now its trapped on my laptop. Trapped like a Pharaoh's servant in a giant pyramid. Once I make an appropriate offer to Rah to free it, I'll post it. In the meantime, here's a classic post from my old Tribe.net blog:

A Day at the Beach
August 31, 2006

Spending a few hours at Ocean Beach can be an interesting experience, especially on a day when the weather keeps hovering on the edge of hot and cold. After a while, as I sat there reading my book and looking around, I felt like I got to know the random assortment of people there even without speaking to them.

I got sad when the woman in the heavy parka who’d been writing in her journal got up and left. I smiled at the lesbian couple, the femme sunning herself in her lime green bikini, the butch completely covered and androgynous. There’s the punk couple in their layers of ripped clothing with a backpack the size of a Honda sharing a 40 and a smoke. Crazy half-naked girl in a bikini takes a break from learning lines for a play to stand on her head while a few yards away skinny woman in her pink string bikini takes her sweater on and off as the sun passes behind clouds.

Oh, look, crazy half-naked girl is frolicking in the surf, literally. She’s spinning around, doing cartwheels, splashing in the waves, running around; seriously if you ever needed a visual example of “frolicking in the surf” this was exactly it. My god, woman, are you insane? Do you have any idea how cold that water is? Just from looking at you I can tell you must.

Skinny woman in a bikini slyly takes out her digital camera and takes pictures of crazy half-naked girl frolicking. I wonder what she plans to do with them? I see. After crazy woman comes out of the water and somehow manages to change out of her wet sandy bikini into her jeans and t-shirt without flashing the world any of her private parts, you go up to her and show her the pictures. Somehow I doubt if I did that it would have worked as a come on. (Get away from me you crazy perverted voyeur!) But you, you skinny woman in a pink bikini, manage to get digits. And judging from the electricity between you, I expect you’ll get more than digits. Go you.

Figaro

I went to see Figaro at the Berkeley Rep on Friday night. No, not the opera, but the new play.

The show begins with Figaro and his old master Count Almaviva hiding out in a deserted mansion across the street from the Bastile about 20 years after the events of Mozart’s opera have ended. The French revolution rages outside. The beginning plays something like Becket with the Count and Figaro humorously exploring their master and servant relationship now that the revolution has stripped the Count of his nobility. Unfortunately it also gets bogged down in modern political references trying to squeeze a few last moments of fun at Bush’s expense. While the jokes were clever, they did little more than beat a dead horse and cheapen the play by making it less timeless.

Soon Figaro and the Count start reminiscing about the good old days and talk about the events that happened in Mozart’s opera. Other actors even appear on stage as the younger Figaro and Count and perform songs from the opera as flashbacks. At fist I just thought this was exposition to bring people unfamiliar with the opera up to speed. No, the entire play is the old Count and Figaro talking about the events of the opera interspersed with songs from the actual opera.

It’s a Mozart’s Marriage of Figaro highlight reel and lecture. The actor playing the old Count directed the show. The actor playing the old Figaro adapted it. I think the two of them just love Mozart’s opera so much that they wanted to give us the best parts, and then use the older characters as a conceit to explain everything that was happening and teach us what it all meant. Otherwise, there’s really no point to it. I would have rather just gone to see the opera.

The first half runs an agonizing 1 hour and 40 minutes plus without even a blackout or scene change along the way to break up the action. On the plus side, the singing was beautiful and the acting was superb. They also did some really interesting things with the staging. They had a big screen on the back wall that showed projections, usually just pictures of architecture to highlight the setting, but often they showed live close ups of the actors on stage. While it was a really interesting use of multi-media, it didn’t seem to really relate to the actual show at all except perhaps to add to the college lecture motif. (Now here class is this wonderful song from the opera…)

I left at intermission.

To read more about San Francisco Theater, check out Tim's blog, Direct Address.

Listening to CSI Through Water

I’m home for the first night in a very long time trying to watch CSI. I say trying because for some reason my network channels often don’t come in very well. My cable comes free with my apartment and is essentially spliced from my landlords who live upstairs. The picture isn’t so bad, but it sounds like the dialogue is passing through box full of needles scraping along slate with some psychedelic Peter Frampton effects thrown in.

I’ve been very busy lately, which you may have noticed by the stream-of-consciousness nature of these posts. I expect once my show opens I’ll have more time to write more carefully constructed pieces of fine blogature. As busy as I am, my girlfriend is busier getting ready to open her own show. Only hers is scripted and requires more rehearsal. Fortunately or unfortunately for her she’s stage managing not performing.

I’ve often wondered about this. About how having improv rehearsal 3 nights in a row feels so much more taxing than play rehearsal 5 nights in a row. The only answer I’ve landed on is that in improv rehearsal you’re expending so much more energy creating than in a scripted piece. Maybe that’s a load of BS but it feels right.

Wow, there was just a Facebook reference on CSI. Or at least I think there was. Is it the reception or has my hearing just gone all wonky?

Superglue and Guilt and Kids

I suffered through the day yesterday with my less than useful liquid bandage, enjoying the fine acetone smell which always reminds me of my sisters removing nail polish. Then, after work but before rehearsal I ran down to Cole Hardware conveniently located just off Market Street downtown. A rare thing to have a neighborhood hardware store anywhere in the city any more, let alone one in the tourist heart of downtown.

Unfortunately they were out of the brush on Krazy Glue, leaving me to buy a tube. I opted for the Krazy Glue brand even though other brands were cheaper, partially because of the protective tube it comes in but mostly because I tend to be brand loyal. I head off to rehearsal, go straight to the men’s room to apply my new protective coating to my cut and… The tube is hard as a rock. After massaging it and throwing all my weight onto it I manage to get enough half solidified glue out to coat my cut. Even so… way better than the liquid bandage.

I can actually use my finger now. I can type away with reckless abandon. Of course, I wouldn’t actually be typing right now if I’d signed up to participate in my company’s volunteer community day today. Why didn’t I volunteer? Because I’m a heartless bastard who doesn’t believe in making care packages for children with cancer? No, because a the very poorly worded info on the community day made it sound like you had to use Paid Time Off to participate and I haven’t earned enough yet. But by the time I found out you didn’t need to use PTO to go, I had already scheduled a couple phone calls for this morning.

On top of all that, it’s bring your kids to work day. The place was swarming with the cutest little kids you’ve ever seen until about 20 minutes ago, when they all went across the street for community day. I could be getting my kid fix while getting a warm fuzzy from making care packages while getting paid! Instead I’m at work, but at least I’ve got Krazy Glue on my cut.

(And that my friends is probably the most I will ever blog about work, because I’m paranoid about getting dooced.)

Superglue

I cut myself this morning doing the dishes. It wasn't especially deep, but it bled a lot and hurt like a I'd cut my finger or something. I made it through the day from band aids in the first aid kit at my office. One perk of working for a company that owns a company that makes office first aid kits is that we have really nice first aid kits. I think you could perform surgery with the stuff in there.

But my last office band aid came off at rehearsal tonight and I could see blood start to seep through the edges. As soon as we ended I ran to the Walgreens. I didn't have much time as my ride needed to get home. Or rather, one of the other people hitching a ride with my ride needed to get home quickly to relief her babysitter and be reunited with her child.

So I run into the Walgreens and the line is literally halfway to the back of the store. Shit, but I rush through the aisles looking for the band aide section anyway. I wanted to see if they had any liquid bandages. I've never used liquid bandages, but I'm a big fan of using superglue on cuts. I wanted to see what the difference was.

As I'm rushing about the store I discover another little cash register on the side with a shorter line. A ha! I find the band aids. Grab the first liquid bandage I see and rush off to the shorter line.

The shorter line still moves achingly slowly, but I make it out of the store in time to catch my ride. Back home, my friend successfully reunited with her child, I apply the liquid bandage.

Jesus god it stings like I just put acetone in my cut, which I effectively did. The package says it has an anesthetic in it, but it feels more like it actively induces pain. This does wear off and I now have a nice coating over my cut. I'm not sure about it though. I kinda wish I'd just gotten some superglue.

The Primaries Have Fried My Brain or How Edward Albee Made Me Feel Like Less Of A Freak

OMG! Is it really finally time for the Pennsylvania Primary? It's actually happening? Seems like we've been stuck in this pre-Pennsylvania Primary for an eternity. I mean the last time anyone actually voted on anything it was still spring training. March hadn't madnessed yet, and oil was less than $100 a barrel. And by the end of the day, we probably still won't know anything. It's like Seinfeld of Presidential Primary seasons. It's about nothing.

When I was in college, one of my roommates was learning how to play the bass guitar. When he’d practice I’d feel like I was trapped in a never ending Seinfeld transition. It was maddening.

I never liked Seinfeld that much. Somehow I never got it, and that always made feel like a freak or an outsider since everyone else seemed to love it so. I felt much better later when I heard Edward Albee, self proclaimed avid watcher of sit-coms and arguably the greatest living American playwright, talk about how he never got Seinfeld either. He preferred That 70’s Show. I told him he should watch My Name is Earl. I don't know if he ever did.

Earthquake! (and regional pronunciations)

No, there wasn’t an earthquake here in the Bay Area, but back home in Illinois! Sure, California gets all the earthquake press, especially today: the anniversary of the '06 quake, but Alaska actually has more earthquakes every year. (The most seismically active place in the U.S. is the base of Mt. McKinley. Don’t ask me to back that up with a reference.)

But the Midwest has the New Madrid Fault system, which produces really deep quakes felt for great distances. This morning’s 5.2 quake was felt 400 miles away in Atlanta. That’s like feeling an LA quake up here in San Francisco. Back in 1811 and 1812 there were 4 quakes estimated at 7.0 or above on the New Madrid fault. The largest cracked a sidewalk in Washington, D.C. and rattled church bells in Boston. That’s like feeling a San Francisco quake in Denver. Farmers reported seeing their fields moving in waves like the ocean.

Take that Loma Prieta.

This image, taken from wikipedia, compares the 1895 Charleston, Missouri, earthquake in the New Madrid seismic zone with the 1994 Northridge, California, earthquake. Red indicates area of structural damage, yellow indicates area where shaking was felt:


I suppose I shouldn’t be bragging about the deadly potential of Midwestern earthquakes over California earthquakes, especially considering most of post-fire Chicago is built with bricks (uber bad for an earthquake zone) but really all this leads me naturally to a discussion of regional pronunciations.

I suppose in your head you’ve been pronouncing New Madrid like the city in Spain. It’s really pronounced New MAD rid. I find regional pronunciations fascinating, because I’m odd like that. Every area has them. San Francisco has Kearny St (ker-ny) and Gough (gof) which perhaps aren’t really that odd but often confuse newcomers. My favorite in Chicago was Paulina St (paul-I-na). And then of course there’s the city at the southern end of Illinois named Cairo, just up the river from Memphis, just like the two cities in Egypt. Only Cairo, IL is pronounced like the corn syrup: Kayro.

Perhaps my all time favorite pronunciation oddity I learned about in Bill Bryson’s Made In America. According to him and that book, Greenwich Village was originally pronounced like it is today. Then, for no discernible reason, at some point in the 1800’s everyone started calling it GREEN-wich and continued to do so for about a generation when it then mysteriously switched back to gren-ICH.

It's a Small World

I run into people. It’s just something I do. Today, I ran into a friend of mine who now works in a building a half block away. Monday I ran into 3 people I used to work with at the Bank of Opportunity. One on the train on the way to work in the morning and the other two in my neighborhood that night.

Those examples might not be so mind-blowing. After all, the one guy does ride the same train as me to work. The one girl does live a couple blocks away. But I’ve run into people in stranger places. I’ve gone to plays only to find an old friend I hadn’t seen in years sitting in my seat. I used to run into a guy I knew who lived in Anchorage on the streets of Berkeley all the time. I’ve been sitting on the steps of Santa Croce in Florence writing in my journal only to look up and see a friend from college walking by. I’ve returned to my hostel after a long rainy day of seeing sights in Istanbul only to find two friends staying in my same room.

And those are just a handful of examples.

I run into people. It’s just something I do. I’ve long ago come to accept it as a natural occurrence. Running into someone like that always leaves me with a sense of feeling really in touch with the universe. Yes, I know, I’ve lived in Northern California too long, but seriously, I always feel like in that moment I’m exactly where I’m supposed to be. Think of all the little tiny decisions that could have prevented any of those accidental brushes with friends. I usually spend my lunch at my desk, but today I went outside to read instead. I happened to look up just as my friend walked by. I happened to sit right where I would see her when she walked by. She happened to take just that route, to decide to go to that coffee shop on her break, to take her break at that exact time.

I suppose in any random system like life, occasionally running into people is inevitable. I’ll even allow that anomalies are statistically inevitable. That people will exist, such as myself, who experience it more than others. I understand all this, and yet, I still can’t help but think I’m somehow more connected to people, or more open to things. I can’t help but think I’m somehow responsible.

Maybe not. Maybe it’s just me trying to feel special. We’ll see. Maybe I’ll run into you someday. After all, it’s something I do.

Why I Love Neil Gaiman

I haven’t read everything he’s ever written. In fact, I’ve probably read more of his blog than his books, having really only read his children’s books (Coraline is one of my favorite books of all time) and the novel he wrote with Terry Pratchett (Good Omens, a good read). I don’t think I’ve even seen one of the many movies he’s written, except Mirror Mask which, again, is based on one of his children’s books.

I confess he is something of an idol of mine nonetheless. I hope to meet him this summer at BEA where he’ll be speaking at the Children’s Book Author Breakfast which I hope to attend, but in the meantime, here’s an excerpt from his blog.

It’s a snippet of dialogue between him and his daughter. He recently cut his nose when he was “hit in the face by a pipe propelled by 80lbs of leaping dog”:

I drove Maddy to school this morning. She has an extremely cool crescent-shaped scar next to her eye, from when, as a small child, she ran into the corner of a table. She said,

"Will you get a scar?"

"Maybe."

"I like my scar. You know, I get people I've known since kindergarten asking me about it, these days, as if they've just noticed it."

"Really? What do you tell them."

"What you told me to tell people who asked."

I racked my brains. Nothing. "What was that?"

"I tell them I got it in a swordfight."

"Oh. Good."

I'm So Mad

I'm so mad at Barack Obama. All he had to do was not say anything stupid and he was home free. What did he do? He said something stupid. Something that offended even me. What did he say? Here's what he said:

"Four words: Treasury Secretary Hannah Montana."

John McCain at least asked for a lunch box.

The Sausage Experiment

On the train ride home yesterday, I decide I want to eat Italian Sausage for dinner. Hmm, that’ll go well with the tube of polenta I have on my counter. What else should I get? So I go to the vegetable stand in my ‘hood and look around. I pick out an assortment of bell peppers (orange, yellow, and green) and a roma tomato. I also want some onion, but I think I have an onion. I’ll get one anyway, but all the yellow onions look terrible. Instead, I get a shallot. I’ve never really cooked with shallots, but it sounds good.

Then I head up the road to the Roxie for some mild sausages because the vegetable stand, while possessing a surprisingly wide selection of things non-vegetable, including pre-cooked sausages, they do not carry raw meat products.

When I get home I discover I do have half an onion, but it’s gone all moldy in the fridge. I really have no idea how to store unused parts of onions. Any tips would be appreciated. I chop all the vegetables into reasonably sized pieces and then arrive at the shallots. Realizing I have no idea what to do with a shallot, I consult my trusty handy dandy Joy of Cooking which tells me exactly which ends to cut off, how to chop it, and warns that they should be softened and not browned. Browning them apparently makes them bitter. As does crushing them, so take care in your chopping.

I also chop up a couple good sized garlic cloves because I’m largely incapable of cooking anything without garlic in it.

I start softening the shallots and the garlic in some olive oil, trying carefully not to brown them. Oh no! The garlic is starting to toast a bit. Browned shallots can’t be far behind. Quickly I squeeze the sausages out of their casings and throw them in. When the meats mostly cooked I add the green pepper. After a bit I added the tomato. Then I add what is fast becoming a staple ingredient of my cooking: old red wine I have lying around that’s probably no good to drink anymore. I used about a half a cup, but in retrospect should have used more. I throw a top on and let that simmer until the green peppers finally give up the ghost and go all pale and squishy.

Meanwhile, I take the tube of polenta and crush it into the bottom of a pyrex baking dish. It’s not very elegant, but it works. Then I pour the meat and stuff on top. Finally I add the yellow and orange peppers on top. I love orange peppers. I LOVE THEM. I would marry them, but I don’t often cook with them. They taste far superior raw. As I didn’t want them to lose all their flavor I just put them on top with the yellow peppers so that they would roast more than anything.

I popped it in the oven for 20 minutes at 350 degrees, and viola! Polenta sausage pepper bake thingy. And very tasty. The orange and yellow peppers stayed very flavorful and firm adding a nice contrasting texture. The polenta soaked up the juices nicely, and the shallots must be adding to the flavor in there somewhere. Yellow onion probably would have worked fine too. Had I to do it again, aside from the aforementioned extra bit of wine, I would also spray the baking dish with some sort of non-stick canned oil, like PAM. Perhaps a sprinkling of parmesan or some similarly flavored hard cheese would do nicely as well. I’d also double the recipe as it was so good I ate half of it for dinner leaving me only one meal’s worth for leftovers.


For a more recipe like version of the recipe, click here.

Cement Head

Today my head feels like a giant ball of cement as a result of a long weekend of traveling and an attack of my allergies. (I've also realized I'm a bit motion sick from my building swaying.) All this is to say that I am largely incapable of coherent thought and therefore lack the cognitive ability to produce a substantive blog.

So instead enjoy this youtube video wherein someone has used legos to animate part of an Eddie Izzard comedy routine about the Death Star cafeteria (or canteen as he calls it). I promise to blog tomorrow and, yes, I know I haven’t updated Our Intrepid Hero in a while. I’ll get to that too. That’s on the list of things to do.


Thanks to my girlfriend for sending me the video in the first place.

Breakfast Dogs and Sunshine

I’m sitting in a café in Woodland, CA marveling at how wonderful it is to wake up to a warm sunny day. Not a hot day, mind you, but warm with a nice breeze, the sun coming through the motel bathroom window and the sound of a lawn mower in the distance. It was one of those moments that reminds you so much of home even if you never really had any moments like that growing up.

The Savory Café in Woodland feels like a trendy modern addition to what one my companions tells me was a pretty run down nothing of a town even just 10 years ago. Ah, gentrification has long tentacles, but is that so bad really? After all, I’m about to eat “Breakfast Dogs”, which are two maple-bacon sausages dipped in pancake batter and served “corn dog style”. Does that not sound amazing?!

Yes it’s a little white trash, but its white trash chic in a way that you can only find in a hip, modern café complete with wifi. Oh, they’ve just arrived… Let me sample quick.

Mmm… so good. Dipped in Maple syrup. It’s exactly what you’re imagining and so much better. It starts out sweet with a savory finish, then you get that double hit of maple from the sausage and the lingering pancake after-taste. I should be filming this for Bizarre Foods with Andrew Zimmern.

OK, I have to eat this. Happy Friday!

Babies

I found out on Monday that my cousin knocked up his girlfriend and is getting married this week. It’s not really as bad as that makes it sound. They’ve been dating for 3 years. They live together. They’re in their early 20’s. I’m sure marriage was on the agenda. This just moved up the timetable.

Still this has affected me in many different ways. Currently I am going through what one might call a “biological clock is ticking” phase. I don’t want to have a child TODAY, but I would like to have one eventually. I also want to be young enough to enjoy them both as kids and adults, so I’d like to have one in the next 5 years or so. Plenty of time, right? Well, yeah, but that means I need to be getting my life a little more sorted out in terms of my career so I can support said child. Not to mention I need to be finding myself a woman to have said child with.

I’m uncomfortable with setting timetables for life events. That always seemed to me like a recipe for disappointment. Even this vague idea that it’d be nice to have a kid in the next 5 years, or even before I’m 40, makes me uncomfortable. I mean, if I find myself 40, single, and childless, I don’t want to be horribly horribly depressed just because of some self imposed deadline. Life just turned out that way.

I’ve always loved babies, and my cousin, the soon-to-be-dad, is one of the big reasons why. I was about 10 when he was born, and I got to see him a lot as a baby and toddler. He fascinated me and he seemed to like me. Soon a whole slew of my aunts began popping out kids and I was always first in line to play with the new baby. This continued on as my sister’s became mothers and now as my friends start to have kids. I have a new honorary niece living a half block away who just turned 1. She’s awful cute.

All of this is hitting me in a very real way. Suddenly I’m actually imagining what it would be like to be up all night with a screaming kid, rather than just thinking of it in vague theoretical terms.

So the idea that the baby that once helped spawn my love of babies is having a baby is… well… spawning complex emotions. Why didn’t I have a baby when I was in my 20’s? Because that would have been a HORRIBLE IDEA. For me. Maybe it’s a great idea for him. It’s times like these I have to remind myself not to compare my life to other people’s lives. That’ll drive you crazy.

Below Average

I am frequently a pedestrian, and I will freely admit that cars are not often a pedestrian’s best friend, especially when crossing the street with a walk signal and a car wants to turn. They don’t always want to wait for you. I even had a MUNI train seriously consider plowing through me the other day to make a turn even though I had a walk signal and the right of way. Apparently MUNI trains have decided that they always have the right of way over pedestrians and cars when turning at Irving and 9th Ave when anyone with even a remedial knowledge of traffic laws knows they clearly do not.

But I digress.

Yesterday I’m walking down Montgomery Street to go get try the mini donuts at the hot dog stand, when I come to the corner of Montgomery and Sutter. The traffic is one way heading towards me and even though they have a green light, I have the Red Hand of Don’t Walk. It’s one of those intersections where they stop all the traffic before you get a walk sign because lots of cars make the left turn off of Montgomery onto the one-way Sutter.

As I’m standing there a woman walks past me straight into the intersection. A large truck suddenly lets out a loud blast from its horn. She stops as the truck turns in front of us. She walks back shaking her head and gives me a smile with crinkled eyebrows as if to say “What a jerk!”

Why is he a jerk exactly? Because he had the right of way and you were jaywalking? Because he honked so you wouldn’t walk right into the path of an oncoming truck?

I smile back and say “We don’t have a walk signal.” She gives me a stern reproachful look. I keep smiling and say “I’m just saying… The signals are there for a reason.”

“Thanks for the lecture,” she says.

The signal changes and as we start to cross I say, “You’re the one who almost got yourself killed.”

She rushes off in a huff and says something I can’t hear.

WTF Lady? I hate it when people break the law or do something stupid and then act put-out or wronged when they’re called on it. She could have been KILLED and all she cared about was that she couldn’t possibly have been at fault and I was an ass for pointing it out to her.

As my dad always said “statistically speaking, fully half the population is below average.”

(photo by Donncha O Caoimh)

Potstickers!

My sister, the same one who introduced me to Aliens, also introduced me to San Francisco, my current home. Around the time I finished up college, she and her husband moved to the city by the bay. After I graduated, I spent 2 summers sleeping on their couch before I finally settled out here myself 10 years ago this summer.

That first summer I visited, we all went out for drinks with some tangential acquaintances. With my sister and her husband new to the city, some friend of a friend had set us up with some locals for a social evening aimed at introducing us to the city. These acquaintances recommended a Chinese restaurant up Hyde Street from where my sister lived on Russian hill called U-Lee. A week or so later, we went.

Had it not been recommended, I doubt we would have ever eaten at U-Lee. The sign is old and faded. The inside is small with a few old tables crammed in it. The place felt like a hole in the wall. The kind of place you’d expect to more likely get botulism than a good meal, but oh was that not true. Not only was the food excellent, but U-Lee boasts the best potstickers I’ve ever eaten. They are literally as big as your fist. Seriously. Ball up your hand right now into a tight fist and imagine that in potsticker form.

We immediately became regulars. My sister and brother-in-law soon became known by the staff by face, name, and order. After my niece was born, a friend stopped by to pick them up dinner and bring it to the hospital. The staff, recognizing the order but not the person picking it up, new immediately the baby had been born. They had a picture of her on the wall for years.

I haven’t gone much in the years since my sister and her family moved back to the Midwest, but recently I returned. The place hasn’t changed much. My niece’s picture is no longer there and neither are the hundreds of old business cards that once lined the walls. (While they made for fascinating reading, I’m sure they were a health and fire hazard.) The food’s still the same though. Most importantly, the potstickers are still huge and delicious.

Mmm… just looking at my fist makes my mouth water.

Aliens

When I was in high school, my sister came home to visit from college insisting I watch the movie Aliens with her. She’d seen it in a film class and wanted me to watch it. Really, she wanted to watch it again but didn’t want to watch it alone. Now, many years and countless viewings later, I wish I could recapture the sheer terror and intensity of that first time.

Friday night, I recaptured a glimmer of that first experience when I saw the film for the first time on the big screen. The Castro Theatre, one of the last remaining relics of a day when thousands of people watched movies on one screen in palaces of the cinema instead of the multiplex, showed three sci-fi movies Friday night: Explorers, Aliens, and Dark Star. My girlfriend and I skipped Explorers, featuring a very young pre-fame River Phoenix and Ethan Hawke, but ducked in for the end of it to ensure a good seat for Aliens.

A friend of mine, a fan of Explorers from childhood, explained that the bizarre-strange, acid-trip ending to the film that we saw was, in fact, the worst part of the movie and begged me not to judge it on that part alone. I’m not sure I believe him.

Between films, an organ rose up out of the floor for a brief concert and our host gave us a brief introduction wearing a shirt with a 3 dimensional stuffed Alien bursting through the front. He, quite rightly, described Aliens as the best action movie of the 80’s. Raiders of the Lost Ark would probably come in a close 2nd, but even Raiders can’t match the adrenaline overdose of Aliens.

Then, after some previews for an upcoming “animals attacking humans” festival (including a hysterical trailer for Jaws), the movie began.

Wow.

My girlfriend, having only seen the move once before, nearly squeezed all the bones out of my arm. Most of the thousand or so people there had obviously seen the movie as many times or more as I had. The lesbians in the crowd cheered vigorously at Sigourney Weaver’s bad-ass-itude. Everyone booed and chuckled at the juxtaposition of a young Paul Reiser playing the slimy Burke, Carter J, long before his lovable nebbishy days on Mad About You (or My Two Dads). Seeing a movie in a crowded theater always heightens the experience. The scary bits were scarier when the few “virgins” in the audience jumped or screamed or gave a grossed-out “Eeew.” The funny bits were funnier. Frost has the best comic lines in the first half of the movie (“I guess she doesn’t like the cornbread either” or “What are we supposed to use man: harsh language?”) Then Hudson picks up the comic relief, played by a very young pre-fame Bill Paxton. (The first time she saw it, my girlfriend was convinced Hudson would survive the movie because Bill Paxton was so famous.) Everyone laughed and cheered at “Game over, man. Game over!” (Was I the only one who kept waiting for him to say that in Apollo 13?)

But my two favorite spontaneous audience participation moments were these: A thousand people whispering the second “mostly” in Newt’s famous line “They mostly come at night. Mostly.” And those same thousand shouting the last word of “Get away from her you bitch!” (The lesbians shouting the loudest.)

Wow.

We did not stay to watch Dark Star. Aliens was too perfect to muddle with another film immediately afterwards. This was more than a movie. This was a collective experience, a bonding with a thousand strangers, a welcoming of new viewers through whom we could all experience the movie for the first time, a place where us obsessive fans could speak in the same language and feel validated in our adoration of the film. This was an interactive theatrical, cultural experience both spontaneous in its reactions and static in its presentation of a classic film.

Even so, as I walked exhilarated through the streets of the Castro to my car, I still found myself yearning to be back in my basement as a teen-ager with my sister with no idea what was going to happen next.

Improv

It's come to my attention that I haven't blogged at all today. Mostly because today was a busy day and because I blogged on my improv blog today:

http://www.un-scripted.com/blogs/alan/

The Shepherd's Pie Experiment

cartoon: www.xkcd.com


Somehow I got it into my head last night that I wanted Shepherd’s Pie, but I didn’t particularly want to go all the way to the big supermarket in my neighborhood where I knew I could get ground lamb. For those unfamiliar, apparently Shepherd’s Pie is made with lamb. If you use ground beef, you’ve actually made Cottage Pie because shepherd’s herd sheep and cows apparently live in cottages.

After arriving back in my neighborhood after work, I went straight to the small local grocery. This was, perhaps, a tactical error as I did not know by heart a recipe for Shepherd’s Pie. Rather I knew years ago I had made it once from a recipe I’d printed out off the internet. I also knew that print-out was still tucked in one of my cook books.

I went to the small meat section in the back and contemplated the three ground meats from which I had to choose: Beef, Pork, and Turkey. I of course chose pork. I have no idea why. It looked the freshest I guess. I also have no idea what you call a Shepherd’s Pie made from pork. Perhaps it’s a Swineherd’s Pie. Or a Swinebarn Pie. It depends on whether you’re going by the “animal tender” or “building nearby” naming standard.

I also bought instant mashed potatoes. I’ve always been suspicious of instant mashed potatoes, but as I was not about to make my own, I really had no choice. The ingredients seemed mostly natural. How bad can they be?

Without any real knowledge of what else I needed, I trudged down to the local fruit and vegetable market to get… well… to get whatever else I thought would be good in Swineherd’s Pie. I grabbed some carrots, broccoli, and a jar of tomato paste because something in the back of my mind thought I would need some.

At home, I quickly found the old recipe, tucked into my Frugal Gourmet cookbook right where I’d left it many years before, and read the ingredients. Celery, we’ll use broccoli instead and some celery salt. Worcestershire sauce… hmm… we’ll use soy sauce. A cup of lamb stock. I assume since I’m using pork I should use pork stock. I DON’T HAVE PORK STOCK. I do however have almost exactly a cup of old red wine sitting on my counter. I wouldn’t drink it, but it’s probably still good to cook with. Tomato paste, a ha! I’ve got that.

If you hadn’t noticed, I like to improvise when I cook and consider recipe’s to be more of a guideline or starting-off point. I had printed this recipe from a British website so all the measurements were in metric. Fortunately I had written down all the conversions on the paper the first time I made it. Except, I had converted the amount of mashed potatoes from 650 grams to “about 6”. I assumed I meant 6 potatoes. I had to guess what that meant in terms of instant potatoes, and I guessed wrong, necessitating a hastily made second batch.

That little hiccup aside, my strange Swineherd’s Pie concoction came off quite well. Definitely something I would eat again. Here’s the recipe for what I made last night, for you to use as your own starting off point: Swineherd’s Pie

Beakrolling

Since my last posting about Rickrolling, I have myself been Rickrolled a few times by friends and readers. I can’t say as I mind too much, as I find this particular meme (a unit of cultural information transmitted by repeated action from one mind to another) to by hysterical. My friend Mike even arranged for a website to call my phone and play that song into my voicemail.

But here, stolen from Mike’s blog on Tribe.net, is the ultimate Rickroll. To quote Mike: “I have reached the end of the internet. There is nothing left after this.” Why? Because by combining these two pop cultural units in the large hadron collider of the internet, a small black hole has been created that will consume the universe.

I can’t say I mind: