I was standing there at Bill and Shelley’s Christmas party (our new neighbors two doors up) when I felt something hard bump into my elbow. It was a breast, apparently in a pretty supportive bra, which got my mind going about sizes and cups and all that before I had even figured out whether to say sorry or not. The woman, who was about my height, hadn’t paid much attention to it, and was refilling her drink, holding the arm part of her big drapey shawl or whatever it was back while dipping her cup into the antique silver punch bowl. It had tasseled fringe (the shawl, not the bowl, although I guess that wouldn’t have been too surprising given its vintage) and was kind of hippy-dopey for my taste, but you can’t, or shouldn’t, really judge someone by their scarf, as it might have been a gift or handed to them from a particularly special deathbed or whatever. Scarves come and go, and I had on a stripy black-and-cream number I’d found after a party at Ray’s. It was Calvin Klein, and had a little silver tab that said so, but I was always careful to tie it so that that part was hidden. I don’t like clothing with names. I can get behind a Who t-shirt, but when it’s just an ad for a manufacturer who never wrote Heaven and Hell…you know what I’m saying. Anyhow. There was this woman, and she had a breast, and she was pretty fast and loose with it.
I filled my glass mug thing with some of Bill’s “famous egg nog” and gave it a try. We were all around the drinks table in their nice dining room; there was a fancy silver bucket of ice, with tongs, and pretty good handles of Maker’s and Aviation and stuff. I figured that I could have like twenty dollars’ worth of cocktails for free, and might even fill a Dixie cup with gin for the freezer at home. Work has been pretty scant lately, as not a lot of people are banging down my door wanting half-written guitar intros or untested recipe concepts scrawled on the back of that sticky cardstock paper that comes wrapped around a set of three new pairs of socks (birthday present from Aunt Brezna).
Cornelius had agreed to come along for a bit, which was a relief because I’m terrible at making small talk at parties until I’m kind of flippant from a drink or two. After that I can make jokes about the bathroom or whatever it is people like to chat about at parties, but until then I know I’m a wallflower, I own that I’m a wallflower, and that’s my job at the party. I do my job well. I’m that guy that makes people feel awkward, and they can take comfort in knowing that, as with any perfect party, the universe has provided the requisite awkwardness-making guy. Cornelius is old, and people also like having a guy around who isn’t sexually threatening, so we made a pretty perfect pair. They were lucky to have us.
Cornelius sidled over with his mug of nog.
“Hideous stuff,” he confided in me, putting the rim to his closed lips and feigning a sip. He was really good at it; I tried it a few times, and there are definitely tricks you have to know to take a convincing fake pull. He’s always surprising me with little social courtesy things like that. It’s nice.
“Yeah, look how proud Bill is of this stuff, over there in his big dopey red sweater,” I said, maybe too meanly. Bill was handsome, had his hair combed well, and was every bit the holiday host. His sweater was just red enough for the occasion, and had a nice white collared shirt underneath. He shared a big laugh with a tall guy who wore dark brown leather fashion sneakers, the kind of guy I’m inclined to call a PR-firm prick before even meeting.
“I don’t know how he makes it so damned thick.” Cornelius slid this line over like a snide comment jotted on a bar napkin. It was the eggnog-insult equivalent of a karaoke slag like KARRIE SINGS FIELDS OF GOLD LIKE SHE WAS WIPING HER ASS WITH THE SHEET MUSIC PASS IT ON. Sniggers and smiles hidden by quickly-hoisted green glass Heinekens. Poor Karrie. Poor Bill…his thirty-dollar cream flop was making him a target at his own party. Sure, we were jerks. And it probably cost more than that; cream’s like three bucks a pint and the bowl it was in was the size of a Beverly Hills holiday squash.
“I’m guessing,” I guessed, “...he whips the cream past the soft peaks stage to the point where it squeezes out its own moisture. It’s kind of like overworking a dough, and I don’t know of any way to rescue it.”
“Well, a gentler soul than I ought to pass along an anonymous card with the correct technique. I’m suffering a fool’s syllabub here and I don’t like it.” Cornelius wasn’t usually this grouchy, and I was liking it. Maybe we’d hassle someone later, like two wild dogs gone wrong on grog.
“I’m going to dump this out in the toilet, old man,” I said to him. “You can go next.” I liked calling him old man. It put me in my place.
“Mum’s the word. I shall follow your lead upon your reëmergence.”
I found the bathroom under the stairs, but it was closed, so I waited a minute. I don’t like to jiggle the lock and bug people when they’re exposed; it creates bad energy and I hate when people do it to me. I wish more people knew to leave the door cracked when they’re done. Anyhow, pretty soon the door opens and out comes the woman with the breast, and she gives me a freshly-peed smile or whatever you call it. I like a woman who can make eye contact with a stranger even when everyone knows the score about who just had whose pants down. Maybe she was a painter. I smiled back, hopefully quickly enough so that she caught some of it. I wanted to know more about the breast, I’ll be honest. What was it up to? Having a good time? Had the breast heard the new Vampire Weekend single?
I spent a minute checking my nose hair and gums and stuff, just to be sure I wasn’t about to start up a conversation with a piece of alfalfa sticking out of my eye, or one of those other little social gaffes. All clear, I let Cornelius in to dispose of his fatty, fluffy logjam. I wandered back to the drinks area to try something else.
The woman was there again; I guess she’d had the same trouble with the egg nog, and had moved on to bourbon with ginger ale. I forgot what that was called, which sucked, because I could have used that term when talking to her. Oh well, two fewer words in the universe at my disposal. I’d find a way. I grabbed a fresh glass, clinked in some ice cubes (perfect cubes, not the usual…interesting…it would seem that Bill had some fancy theories about ice cubes), and did a half and half of Grey Goose and that fancy full-calorie Braintree tonic water that comes in the little brown Old West bottle. There were some lime wedges, but I wanted to see if the Grey Goose actually had any of its own citrusy flavor, so I held off. I wondered if she’d notice that I evaluated the limes but then didn’t choose one; any little detail can catch a person’s eye. She might think I had been a lime snob and didn’t see a nice enough one; we might hit a good stride and I’d just be honest and tell her I wanted to see if this fancy vodka had any distinctive flavor that made it worth the extra money. She’d point out that if I really wanted to find that out I shouldn’t have mixed it with anything, and I’d laugh a little, and she’d have the upper hand, and people like that, especially at the beginning of a conversation when it’s anybody’s game and the power is up for grabs. Who wants Canada? What about Alaska? No? Okay, that’s where we’ll put nice people who don’t know what calzones are. Boom.
Oh, I forgot to mention that she’d left a napkin in the toilet. It had balloons on it. There weren’t any napkins with balloons on them at the party. Did she have a kid? And who leaves a napkin in the toilet after flushing? Maybe she’d been picking her nose with it after the fact, or doing one of those secret things ladies do in bathrooms, like wiping her makeup around to make better cheekbones, or hiding the hole where the little alien baby wriggles its hand out. I tucked that one away.
As I said, she was about my height, maybe a little shorter, which explains the breast/elbow thing. She had long mid-back blonde hair and a long flowy gypsy-type skirt thing that stopped just short of her funny boots, which I happened to know were Fluevog Grand Nationals, because I like shoes. Maybe she’d like that I knew that. I tucked this away as well, and had a celebratory big sip of my drink. If I was going to get into Stranger gear, especially with a mysterious woman, I was going to need some help, and I wasn’t there yet.
I found Cornelius in the library off the living room, a little alcove with candles burning tastefully atop tasteful stacks of tasteful books about Giverny and Baroque furniture and all kinds of other tasteful, tasteful stuff like that. Cornelius was looking this all over with his nose delicately clenched in a way that I had come to recognize. With him that was the equivalent of throwing a chair through a window in unhinged disgust.
“An assemblage of conspicuously sourced, unleafed dreck, if you ask me,” he slipped over. “Veblen would be smug as a bug in an ugly rug over it all.” He sipped from what looked to be a Baccarat of light golden Scotch. There wasn’t any Scotch on the drinks table, so I suspected he’d filled it from his flask. He may have even brought his own folding Baccarat tumbler; you never really knew with him.
“Yep, pretty damn tasteful stuff, I have to say.”
Bill came over to us, ever the consummate host, the superheated light of pure hospitality shining out from his collar like a crack in the surface of the sun. I took another sip so that he’d talk to Cornelius first.
“Gentlemen!” he boomed, scarcely able to contain the great good fortune he felt at having found two guys standing around in his house. I think he had pomade on his teeth. “How are we this fine evening!”
“One bump shy of a vacation in Rome, my good man,” Cornelius said. It sounded pretty worldly, but Bill and I had no idea what he meant. Sounded like a stab at bad Italian roads, but also made the party sound kind of like Rome, which generally seems like a good thing, though I hear the place is overrun with feral animals.
Bill slapped Cornelius on the back, holding his own mug of nog in his odd-looking hand. For a guy who was built just a little stronger than average, he had pretty fat hands. They seemed like the kind of thing that would happen to a guy who loves to eat French fries with his friends and then go home to have a baked potato and frothy golden beer. They were starchy hands, puffy with tuber tension. You didn’t get the way Bill was by avoiding potatoes. Cornelius took it in effortless stride and asked him to which year the house dated. I wondered what he was getting at.
“1975!” Bill boomed again. “My, you’ve really got an eye for architecture! You ever check this out?” He pointed at a book about Frank Lloyd Wright. The Masterpieces of Frank Lloyd Wright, or something. All I knew about Frank Lloyd Wright was that he was an asshole, but it was alright, because he made houses that people got F’s about in college.
“Quite a mind,” Cornelius mused. “Vibrating madly, just off-key in the mudroom of genius.” Bill didn’t know what to make of that, so he offered a hard-to-argue-with “Precisely!” and pointed out a few more architecture books, including one by that Le Corbusier piece of work (Le Corbusier is the guy architecture students vainly pretend they’re not directly ripping off by wearing severe little dark-rimmed circular glasses). Cornelius nodded in confirmation, and Bill said something about having to turn down the fire under the nog pot. He didn’t even bother to ask if we liked sports scores, which was kind of a relief. Good read, good play. Tie game.
Bill’s wife Shelley or someone had turned on one of those Pottery Barn holiday CDs in the living room, and some rich people were “getting loose,” inasmuch as there were basically quotation marks surrounding everyone on the dance floor, metaphorically speaking. Women in thin white sweaters and tall leather boots with spiky heels were physically moving around on top of the cream colored carpet in ways that said, “Sex with me will be a painfully one-sided, seven thousand pound letdown after a long, horrible night of lying to yourself.” One particularly wild woman had taken her shoes off. Perhaps she had been at Woodstock, or knew how to hold an ocarina.
Suddenly, a hand landed on the middle of the back of my thigh and crawled up to my ass. It didn’t stop there and, in fact, started looking for change in the space between the cushions, if you know what I mean. Interestingly, I stood stock still. Thinking about it later, I’ve never really formulated a game plan for that situation, because I never really had reason to. But there I was, standing stock still, I guess lest I make the situation worse. That’s how I react to surprises, I found out just then.
Trying to keep my eyes from going wide open, I carefully turned to the side to see who was doing this. Part of me wondered if it was Bill, finally revealing his insatiable appetite for all things sexual and depraved. No, in fact – it was the woman with the breast, and in her other hand she held a stiff golden tumbler of bourbon. She smiled right into me and left me no choice about it. I stood there, helplessly smiled into, and did the only thing I felt capable of: I smiled back, quizzical but delighted. Or at least, that’s what I was trying to convey. I was probably making a face like Tweedle Dum with a bee on his nose.
Continues…
Wednesday, January 18, 2012
Friday, May 30, 2008
Santa Cruz post #2
Well, Santa Cruz definitely wasn't the kick-start my brain needed. In fact, I think Santa Cruz needs a kick-start, in the form of a lot of high-pressure hoses and serious laws about okay- and NOT-okay ways to hock your bicycle to strangers on the sidewalk. I spent like ten minutes trying to get away from some spaced-out fifty year-old dude who was chugging from a huge can of Monster energy drink and crying out like an old fashioned newspaper boy about his Trek. I have a question for you: if you needed some money, and you had a bike, would you walk that bike right smack into the middle of downtown and start advertising it out loud? That's apparently how they do things in Santa Cruz.
Also, what's with the sneering righteous people? This group of like twenty scuzzy local college types was having some sort of march (they seemed organized; they even had a few flags of some sort), and when they marched past the bench where I was having a chicken burrito, one of the guys on the tail end did like this:
SCUZZY GUY: Hey man, this ain't politics as usual! Get involved!
ME: What are you marching for?
SCUZZY GUY: What are you, ignorant?
ME: No, just mildly insulted.
SCUZZY GUY: You gonna join in, or just sit there while this happens?
ME: Sorry, I wouldn't want to bring the thing down.
SCUZZY GUY: Jesus! Man, FUCK you! [Turns boldly back to group, thumbs under backpack straps, and walks off]
ME: Oh, wait! Wait for me! [I didn't say this]
Is that any way to persuade someone to join you in doing something that you believe in? Nowhere in How to Win Friends and Influence People does it suggest that if a negotiation is going poorly, you start yelling, "Man, FUCK you!"
That pretty much ruined my burrito, so I dumped it in a trash can, which prompted some busted-face hobo to scamper over the second I was about twenty feet away (is 20' the "radius of honor" among those who eat out of trash cans?). Figuring I'd walk downtown and get a motel room, I crossed a footbridge over an old creek bed that had filled in with ivy, and caught a beautiful view of an old Victorian home perched high on a stone cliff above the crashing waves. I paused to admire it for a bit, and when I turned my gaze downward to see if anything interesting had been thrown into the ivy, I saw a man's face—just a face—peering up at me, wreathed in foliage. I got a very unhappy feeling in my stomach and suddenly realized that if you can't even have lunch without these sorts of things happening to you, it is time to leave Santa Cruz.
Also, what's with the sneering righteous people? This group of like twenty scuzzy local college types was having some sort of march (they seemed organized; they even had a few flags of some sort), and when they marched past the bench where I was having a chicken burrito, one of the guys on the tail end did like this:
SCUZZY GUY: Hey man, this ain't politics as usual! Get involved!
ME: What are you marching for?
SCUZZY GUY: What are you, ignorant?
ME: No, just mildly insulted.
SCUZZY GUY: You gonna join in, or just sit there while this happens?
ME: Sorry, I wouldn't want to bring the thing down.
SCUZZY GUY: Jesus! Man, FUCK you! [Turns boldly back to group, thumbs under backpack straps, and walks off]
ME: Oh, wait! Wait for me! [I didn't say this]
Is that any way to persuade someone to join you in doing something that you believe in? Nowhere in How to Win Friends and Influence People does it suggest that if a negotiation is going poorly, you start yelling, "Man, FUCK you!"
That pretty much ruined my burrito, so I dumped it in a trash can, which prompted some busted-face hobo to scamper over the second I was about twenty feet away (is 20' the "radius of honor" among those who eat out of trash cans?). Figuring I'd walk downtown and get a motel room, I crossed a footbridge over an old creek bed that had filled in with ivy, and caught a beautiful view of an old Victorian home perched high on a stone cliff above the crashing waves. I paused to admire it for a bit, and when I turned my gaze downward to see if anything interesting had been thrown into the ivy, I saw a man's face—just a face—peering up at me, wreathed in foliage. I got a very unhappy feeling in my stomach and suddenly realized that if you can't even have lunch without these sorts of things happening to you, it is time to leave Santa Cruz.
Sunday, May 04, 2008
Sunday, April 27, 2008
I'm Hungry
Man, there's nothing in the fridge but eggs, tortillas, and some month-old three dollar bags of mixed greens that Chris "bought and forgot" the time he was supposed to bring dinner for his kid's evening preschool class (he did remember to bring the chili and corn muffins, or they would have run him off the property with little terrible paintings). There's nothing you can do with old lettuce but compost it, and I would love to compost, but I don't want to start attracting a lot of skunks and raccoons to the neighborhood. How does composting work? So much wasted food goes right into the trash here, and I have to think it could be put to better use. Is there a composting website? I'm sure there are thousands. I'd check, by my eyes are stinging from the new spring sun and my trip to the beach yesterday (I caught a ride in the back of the Onstads' car). Man, were there some beautiful bohemian women on the beach. I bet every woman in Santa Cruz knows how to compost. I bet every woman in Santa Cruz is fine about smoking pot three times a day. Maybe I need a lifestyle shift. Maybe I need to move to Santa Cruz. I'm going to save up a couple hundred bucks and see if Santa Cruz isn't the kickstart my brain needs.
Wednesday, February 13, 2008
I think I need to be offensive.
It turns out that checking my email and playing the guitar on the edge of my bed isn't generating as much revenue this quarter as I'd hoped, so it's time to drum up a gig. I'm tired of designing web pages, brochures, and logos for people who think they need to reinvent the wheel ("what if the text ran right-to-left, and you had to read our website in a mirror?"). I'm sick of getting forty dollars a pop doing blind tastings of freeze-dried coffee or letting college students measure my nipples throughout a showing of Bambi. It's time to take the low road.
That's right: I'm going to write a boorish, controversial column for the local paper. It will be cranky, it will provoke, the opinions will not be carefully considered, and, most importantly, it will run counter to the delicate sensibilities of precisely the sort of person who gets so ruffled that they end up giving me free advertising. It should gain notoriety in no time, and then be syndicated throughout the English-speaking world, hopefully at a hundred bucks a throw.
Here are some of my warm-up exercises. I've chosen especially divisive topics because, like I said, this isn't about doing great work. It's about bringing people apart.
VEGETARIANISM
There’s simply no need for it anymore. In this enlightened age I can buy meat from a cow that was pushed in a pram, wet-nursed by Thora Birch, and flown to Santorini for private pronking lessons. In the wild, this same animal would have been trundled off by a peckish eagle before it had traveled the distance from the womb to the grass below, so what’s there to be upset about? People who can’t stomach the idea of humane slaughter ought to see how inhumane nature is when it’s outside of our control, where Temple Grandin has no say over which end of the emu the dingo pack tears off first. As for the vegans, the vegetarians can start with them — they are no doubt fairly easy to digest, being composed mainly of wadded yarn and rhubarb poop.
WATCHING WOMEN PLAY TENNIS FOR THE FIRST TIME
It’s like watching Sylvester Stallone make a sandwich: every action so alien, so unsure...so much wasted movement, so much looking around for approval...your frustration eventually mounts so high that you are forced to leave and wait in the car.
THE COLLAPSE OF THE MUSIC INDUSTRY
I, for one, am happy to see the little MP3, that Phylloxera of the phonographic industry, bring Big Music to a halt. More great music has been written than you can ever hope to hear in your lifetime, so stop being fooled by this year's soulless, calculated retreads. And all this tongue-wagging about musicians finally recording for love of music over money is fine and good, but as long as I’ve got my Who Sell Out and White Album, you can keep that amazing new chord progression that no one's ever heard before, and those clever lyrics about a certain condition of the heart.
—Téodor Orezscu.
That's right: I'm going to write a boorish, controversial column for the local paper. It will be cranky, it will provoke, the opinions will not be carefully considered, and, most importantly, it will run counter to the delicate sensibilities of precisely the sort of person who gets so ruffled that they end up giving me free advertising. It should gain notoriety in no time, and then be syndicated throughout the English-speaking world, hopefully at a hundred bucks a throw.
Here are some of my warm-up exercises. I've chosen especially divisive topics because, like I said, this isn't about doing great work. It's about bringing people apart.
VEGETARIANISM
There’s simply no need for it anymore. In this enlightened age I can buy meat from a cow that was pushed in a pram, wet-nursed by Thora Birch, and flown to Santorini for private pronking lessons. In the wild, this same animal would have been trundled off by a peckish eagle before it had traveled the distance from the womb to the grass below, so what’s there to be upset about? People who can’t stomach the idea of humane slaughter ought to see how inhumane nature is when it’s outside of our control, where Temple Grandin has no say over which end of the emu the dingo pack tears off first. As for the vegans, the vegetarians can start with them — they are no doubt fairly easy to digest, being composed mainly of wadded yarn and rhubarb poop.
WATCHING WOMEN PLAY TENNIS FOR THE FIRST TIME
It’s like watching Sylvester Stallone make a sandwich: every action so alien, so unsure...so much wasted movement, so much looking around for approval...your frustration eventually mounts so high that you are forced to leave and wait in the car.
THE COLLAPSE OF THE MUSIC INDUSTRY
I, for one, am happy to see the little MP3, that Phylloxera of the phonographic industry, bring Big Music to a halt. More great music has been written than you can ever hope to hear in your lifetime, so stop being fooled by this year's soulless, calculated retreads. And all this tongue-wagging about musicians finally recording for love of music over money is fine and good, but as long as I’ve got my Who Sell Out and White Album, you can keep that amazing new chord progression that no one's ever heard before, and those clever lyrics about a certain condition of the heart.
—Téodor Orezscu.
Monday, November 19, 2007
Thanksgiving appetizers 2007
Ray's got me on appetizer duty for Thanksgiving at his place, which isn't actually so bad, since I know he'll have a ton of cooktop and oven space ready for my preparations. Still, though, I had to make sure, so I rang him up.
ME: So, can I have a couple burners to prep my apps on?
RAY: Heyo! Who wants to talk to my face? Thrill a minute, bargain at twice the price!
ME: It's me, man.
RAY: That works. What's up?
ME: Can I prep some Thanksgiving apps at your house?
RAY: Apps? Fill me in, dogg. Hella slang. Apartments? Apostles? Appreciations?
ME: Appetizers.
RAY: Oh, right. You got the cooking show vocabulary happening. Yeah, you can cook here.
ME: Thanks for not making me feel like an asshole.
RAY: It doesn't come naturally, but in our friendship, I have developed certain graces.
ME: That's really wonderful.
RAY: So, whatchu makin'!
ME: A toasted pumpkin seed dip, and a crostini with pumpkin butter, cream cheese, mint leaf, and a little garlic chili paste.
RAY: Cool. We doin' a crown roast instead of turkey, just so you dig.
ME: Really? That's a nice touch.
RAY: Turkey sucks the dong. All boring, all crappy drumsticks. Hate that animal. That animal is a crap-face repeater.
ME: Yeah, I've heard people say it was designed by committee.
RAY: You know what else was designed by committee?
ME: What.
RAY: Hitler's crooked one-ball dong.
ME: Wow. Bad committee.
RAY: Worst committee in the world. Look it up.
ME: Won't, but much respect. I'll show up with my apps and a little gear, ok?
RAY: We got gear here, dog.
ME: I like my own gear.
RAY: That is rude, but who can care if a man is rude when life is beautiful.
ME: I was banking on that.
RAY: See you on the day, then.
ME: A curl of clear custard on your doorstep.
RAY: The sign of a crappin' ghost!
ME: Mwaaa-ha-haaah. [HANGS UP]
ME: So, can I have a couple burners to prep my apps on?
RAY: Heyo! Who wants to talk to my face? Thrill a minute, bargain at twice the price!
ME: It's me, man.
RAY: That works. What's up?
ME: Can I prep some Thanksgiving apps at your house?
RAY: Apps? Fill me in, dogg. Hella slang. Apartments? Apostles? Appreciations?
ME: Appetizers.
RAY: Oh, right. You got the cooking show vocabulary happening. Yeah, you can cook here.
ME: Thanks for not making me feel like an asshole.
RAY: It doesn't come naturally, but in our friendship, I have developed certain graces.
ME: That's really wonderful.
RAY: So, whatchu makin'!
ME: A toasted pumpkin seed dip, and a crostini with pumpkin butter, cream cheese, mint leaf, and a little garlic chili paste.
RAY: Cool. We doin' a crown roast instead of turkey, just so you dig.
ME: Really? That's a nice touch.
RAY: Turkey sucks the dong. All boring, all crappy drumsticks. Hate that animal. That animal is a crap-face repeater.
ME: Yeah, I've heard people say it was designed by committee.
RAY: You know what else was designed by committee?
ME: What.
RAY: Hitler's crooked one-ball dong.
ME: Wow. Bad committee.
RAY: Worst committee in the world. Look it up.
ME: Won't, but much respect. I'll show up with my apps and a little gear, ok?
RAY: We got gear here, dog.
ME: I like my own gear.
RAY: That is rude, but who can care if a man is rude when life is beautiful.
ME: I was banking on that.
RAY: See you on the day, then.
ME: A curl of clear custard on your doorstep.
RAY: The sign of a crappin' ghost!
ME: Mwaaa-ha-haaah. [HANGS UP]
Monday, August 27, 2007
The Wedding Menu.
I was having a hard time coming up with a cohesive menu for Beef and Molly's wedding, so I went back to Ray for some pointers. The guys have known each other since early childhood, so I figure that gives Ray a unique inside perspective on foods that would really make the night special. He shot me back this list, via email:
_ _food! _ _ _ _ _ _ _ - _ _primeplayerinc
-=- RAYYYYY'S lissssst =-=
***alright T, here you go some rad nibbles and chin dribbles a la RQS ***
1) Some cheese thing with an extra fried-ness to mack the cheese beyond what cheese is
2) japaleño poppers, but gourmet twist (brie? smoked trout? "slow" movement? call a chef)
3) rack of duck brains ("rack my brains," hella classic saying, pun). Nice-ass toast? Metal thing?
4) pomegranates are aggh i hate those things all seeds poppin
5) main course
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
I can almost decipher his semi-cogent appetites and inspirations, but I'm sure he's forgotten whatever he tickled into that text field on that late, long, bleary night. I'm going to spruce it up a bit:
TO PASS:
1. Montasio frico with roasted white anchovy and shaved celery heart rib in paprika aioli
2. Smoked salmon on tempura parsnip planks with dilled sour cream mousse, chilled caper vodka back
3. Crispy duck skin bun, Peking style, with plum sauce
4. No pomegranate dishes
5. Main Course: Spit-roasted Baron of Beef, Yorkshire pudding, neeps and tatties. For light eaters, a choice of the lettuces which are being used to garnish the main plates. I hate light eaters.
Alright, that needs work. I guess I can cook up a vegan "garland of knotted long beans" for Pat and people like him who only eat stuff that punished people have to eat.
_ _food! _ _ _ _ _ _ _ - _ _primeplayerinc
-=- RAYYYYY'S lissssst =-=
***alright T, here you go some rad nibbles and chin dribbles a la RQS ***
1) Some cheese thing with an extra fried-ness to mack the cheese beyond what cheese is
2) japaleño poppers, but gourmet twist (brie? smoked trout? "slow" movement? call a chef)
3) rack of duck brains ("rack my brains," hella classic saying, pun). Nice-ass toast? Metal thing?
4) pomegranates are aggh i hate those things all seeds poppin
5) main course
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
I can almost decipher his semi-cogent appetites and inspirations, but I'm sure he's forgotten whatever he tickled into that text field on that late, long, bleary night. I'm going to spruce it up a bit:
TO PASS:
1. Montasio frico with roasted white anchovy and shaved celery heart rib in paprika aioli
2. Smoked salmon on tempura parsnip planks with dilled sour cream mousse, chilled caper vodka back
3. Crispy duck skin bun, Peking style, with plum sauce
4. No pomegranate dishes
5. Main Course: Spit-roasted Baron of Beef, Yorkshire pudding, neeps and tatties. For light eaters, a choice of the lettuces which are being used to garnish the main plates. I hate light eaters.
Alright, that needs work. I guess I can cook up a vegan "garland of knotted long beans" for Pat and people like him who only eat stuff that punished people have to eat.
Sunday, August 05, 2007
I'm Catering Beef and Molly's Wedding!
Ray came by tonight and asked me a favor that turned out to be a favor for me. He asked if I'd cater Beef and Molly's wedding. Carte blanche, all food and service expenses paid, any new equipment I needed to make it happen out of his kitchen. The wedding and reception are in the back yard, so it's all self-contained. I figure that since it's a blank check, he's not doing it to save money. He's doing it because he knows I want to learn how to cook in volume. Sometimes I think he's some chump eating creamed twenties with a side of ribs, but then he'll pop in with a double-sided gesture like this. As he would say, "Daaamn. I did that god-damned brains style."
Here's how our conversation went. I was in my room listening to old LPs with the headphones on, on my bed, both eyes closed.
- + -
RAY: [Walks in and starts air-tapping on my chest with pretend drumsticks]
ME: [Eyes closed, catches the smell of Marlboro Lights] Ray? Is that you?
RAY: Hell yes, doggie!
ME: I thought you quit smoking?
RAY: I...come on, dude! I ain't here to talk about that!
ME: You have any left?
RAY: [Looks side to side, fishes in his pocket] Let's go outside. A ways.
ME: Cool.
[Soon, outside, walking around.]
ME: [exhaling satisfying smoke] So, what's up?
RAY: [exhaling] Got a favor to ask from you, hoss. Cookin' thing.
ME: Really? What? You working on a sauce? Fish?
RAY: You know Beef and Molly gettin' married, right? You be interested in doin' the cookin'? No mini-quiche and no stuffed mushrooms at all, that kind of thing?
ME: ...Wow. You serious?
RAY: I'm as serious as a...uh...a milk company, dude.
ME: Huh?
RAY: Sorry, man. That one completely fell apart.
ME: Oh. So, I get to do the menu and hire a staff and cook everything myself? Do real volume cooking?
RAY: Yeah, dude. Pretty much. Wouldn't that be cool? Like I said, open budget. Get me a menu tomorrow afternoon. [Slaps my shoulder, stubs his ash, mentions a tennis date he has to keep, and heads for his car, which is parked nearby on the other side of a clump of trees.]
ME: I...cool man, thanks for— [the sound of Ray's Caddie engine turning over] ...for the opportunity.
- + -
So there you have it. He didn't even stay around for the thanks. He just knew I'd dig it, he'd done his thing, and he was off to the club.
Maybe I'll do a tasting menu, with one dish based on each of Beef's main friends. I'll keep you posted. This is going to take some brainpower.
Here's how our conversation went. I was in my room listening to old LPs with the headphones on, on my bed, both eyes closed.
- + -
RAY: [Walks in and starts air-tapping on my chest with pretend drumsticks]
ME: [Eyes closed, catches the smell of Marlboro Lights] Ray? Is that you?
RAY: Hell yes, doggie!
ME: I thought you quit smoking?
RAY: I...come on, dude! I ain't here to talk about that!
ME: You have any left?
RAY: [Looks side to side, fishes in his pocket] Let's go outside. A ways.
ME: Cool.
[Soon, outside, walking around.]
ME: [exhaling satisfying smoke] So, what's up?
RAY: [exhaling] Got a favor to ask from you, hoss. Cookin' thing.
ME: Really? What? You working on a sauce? Fish?
RAY: You know Beef and Molly gettin' married, right? You be interested in doin' the cookin'? No mini-quiche and no stuffed mushrooms at all, that kind of thing?
ME: ...Wow. You serious?
RAY: I'm as serious as a...uh...a milk company, dude.
ME: Huh?
RAY: Sorry, man. That one completely fell apart.
ME: Oh. So, I get to do the menu and hire a staff and cook everything myself? Do real volume cooking?
RAY: Yeah, dude. Pretty much. Wouldn't that be cool? Like I said, open budget. Get me a menu tomorrow afternoon. [Slaps my shoulder, stubs his ash, mentions a tennis date he has to keep, and heads for his car, which is parked nearby on the other side of a clump of trees.]
ME: I...cool man, thanks for— [the sound of Ray's Caddie engine turning over] ...for the opportunity.
- + -
So there you have it. He didn't even stay around for the thanks. He just knew I'd dig it, he'd done his thing, and he was off to the club.
Maybe I'll do a tasting menu, with one dish based on each of Beef's main friends. I'll keep you posted. This is going to take some brainpower.
Tuesday, July 31, 2007
Chris is a book-leaver-arounder
I guess I hadn't read much about the French Laundry before. I mean, everyone knows that they're the fanciest deal in town (town being the world, fifty years in either direction), and that Thomas Keller is the Agronius Hype (Iliad god-chef that I made up) of the modern age. Before Ferran Adrià split the disbelief molecule, before Bobby Flay wore Vuarnets and Gotcha jams to Pomp and Circumstance at the FCI commencement, Keller was kempt and self-flagellating, the "mad monk" of the gastronomic world. I need to sneak into that kitchen and watch them in action. For now, though, I'm going to finish this Michael Ruhlman book that Chris left on the couch.
Here's a funny bit. The French Laundry is considered one of the most serious kitchens in the world, equal to if not superior to any Michelin three-star brigade. For their first few months in the mid-90s, however, the cooks started every service with a tape of this song:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0L1hD5OlPtw
(George Baker, "Little Green Bag.")
Isn't that great? You can picture Alice Waters, 80 miles away in Berkeley, sautéing morels with the nose of an age-pocked Remington six-shooter she picked up off some blanket sale on Telegraph Avenue. Suede fringe on the arms of her tie-dyed chef jacket. Easier times, man. Rent on every building was six dollars, flat. The Internet? Nah, my sister got pretty confused and bored with Gopher, thanks. San Francisco may as well have been Dubuque. The web was a site with pi to 50,000 places and the AOL "under construction" page. Alice got on the back of Peter Fonda's chopper after service every night and flipped off America until they attained highway speeds, at which point she nestled her cheek between his shoulder blades and dreamed of making love in a mesclun-strewn bed.
From the sound of it, I bet there's a nice set of rafters above the kitchen where I can keep tabs on things. Might even bring a telescoping fork and an insulated burp-bag. Wish me luck.
Here's a funny bit. The French Laundry is considered one of the most serious kitchens in the world, equal to if not superior to any Michelin three-star brigade. For their first few months in the mid-90s, however, the cooks started every service with a tape of this song:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0L1hD5OlPtw
(George Baker, "Little Green Bag.")
Isn't that great? You can picture Alice Waters, 80 miles away in Berkeley, sautéing morels with the nose of an age-pocked Remington six-shooter she picked up off some blanket sale on Telegraph Avenue. Suede fringe on the arms of her tie-dyed chef jacket. Easier times, man. Rent on every building was six dollars, flat. The Internet? Nah, my sister got pretty confused and bored with Gopher, thanks. San Francisco may as well have been Dubuque. The web was a site with pi to 50,000 places and the AOL "under construction" page. Alice got on the back of Peter Fonda's chopper after service every night and flipped off America until they attained highway speeds, at which point she nestled her cheek between his shoulder blades and dreamed of making love in a mesclun-strewn bed.
From the sound of it, I bet there's a nice set of rafters above the kitchen where I can keep tabs on things. Might even bring a telescoping fork and an insulated burp-bag. Wish me luck.
Friday, July 06, 2007
Bubb Rubb is the Nation's Individual
Bubb Rubb does not like to think that anything is wrong. If his car is noisy, you should probably be eating breakfast anyway. Woo wooooooo!
Tuesday, June 26, 2007
Tuesday, June 19, 2007
Beef goes in for the kill
I guess it was just a matter of time. Ever since Beef paired off with Molly they've been sharing an electron, and it's not like anybody's against it. Well, maybe Spongebath and Emeril. Those guys are the most adamant anti-life-moving-along types I've ever met. They're stuck in some kind of "two bros living in a cheap apartment" stasis that rises and falls by the Pizza Chicago delivery window. Plus that enormous stack of home entertainment equipment they're always adding to. Are they right, or am I wrong? Is that zen? Not everyone's made for marriage, but they could clean up their comments a bit. It's not like you're going to dissuade some dude who's headed for marriage, and if you try, it's pretty much closing the shutters on your friendship.
They're registered for some pretty average stuff, like low-end stamped knives and nonstick cookware. I might go off the registry and get them some good stuff that will actually be fun to use and last a while. I think every new couple should get a cast-iron pan, an 8" knife, and a wood cutting board. In a perfect world, the government would mandate that you receive this when you get married. There's nothing a cast-iron pan can't do...you could roast a turkey in that bastard if you put your shoulder into it. And don't get me started on "knife block sets." How much crap is that. Four shitty steak knives, cheap shears, two paring knives...what?! A carving knife? Please. I hate products that are designed to be sold to people who will never have any idea how to use them properly.
Okay, I'm putting my foot into the stirrup and getting off the high horse. I caught some Rick Bayless on the TiVo and I have about exactly half an hour until Lyle gets home and starts yelling about how "real" Mexicans cook.
They're registered for some pretty average stuff, like low-end stamped knives and nonstick cookware. I might go off the registry and get them some good stuff that will actually be fun to use and last a while. I think every new couple should get a cast-iron pan, an 8" knife, and a wood cutting board. In a perfect world, the government would mandate that you receive this when you get married. There's nothing a cast-iron pan can't do...you could roast a turkey in that bastard if you put your shoulder into it. And don't get me started on "knife block sets." How much crap is that. Four shitty steak knives, cheap shears, two paring knives...what?! A carving knife? Please. I hate products that are designed to be sold to people who will never have any idea how to use them properly.
Okay, I'm putting my foot into the stirrup and getting off the high horse. I caught some Rick Bayless on the TiVo and I have about exactly half an hour until Lyle gets home and starts yelling about how "real" Mexicans cook.
Monday, May 07, 2007
Chris is such a Darrylict
So Chris is a bigshot now, with his subscription to the "Bacon of the Month Club." That fool wouldn't know salty from sweet most nights, the way he gets on with his $1.99 screw-tops from Grocery Outlet (I've seen the receipts). Yeah, I've been liberating a few of his slices here and there for my own purposes. I should probably start my own "bacon blog," where you can read things that actually work. That guy wears a coonskin cap and misses the bus on weekends -- at least I think about what I'm doing while I'm doing it.
Tonight while he was out eating lousy family restaurant food with his family, I cooked down a few slices of his latest jowl bacon. I put it in a hot, fresh-baked baguette with super-slim grilled, trimmed asparagus stalks, shaved Gruyère, mint, lemon zest, and chopped hard boiled egg. Mayonnaise and a romaine leaf moistened it up, and it was complete. Much nicer than the Study in Pepto he worked up for you last week. Stay tuned, I guess. I hear he's getting his next shipment tomorrow, and I bet he doesn't even know.
Tonight while he was out eating lousy family restaurant food with his family, I cooked down a few slices of his latest jowl bacon. I put it in a hot, fresh-baked baguette with super-slim grilled, trimmed asparagus stalks, shaved Gruyère, mint, lemon zest, and chopped hard boiled egg. Mayonnaise and a romaine leaf moistened it up, and it was complete. Much nicer than the Study in Pepto he worked up for you last week. Stay tuned, I guess. I hear he's getting his next shipment tomorrow, and I bet he doesn't even know.
Monday, March 05, 2007
Saturday, March 03, 2007
Tuesday, January 23, 2007
Whole Foods Attitude girl
I had to get some fresh dill, which is actually pretty hard to find around here, so I went up to Whole Foods in San Mateo. It was kind of a schlep, but I'm working on a lobster roll variation that uses west coast crustaceans (read: affordable non-lobstertutes) so I needed it.
Now, you know the kind of girl that works at Whole Foods. Slightly peppy and political, probably with some tattoos and Vans. I like that. I want to roll with that. I actively want to spend time with that kind of girl.
Or, I thought so. While I was meandering down the bulk spice aisle, this gorgeous Siouxsie Sioux-type with tousled bangs and big eyes (and some armpit hair, okay, not a deal breaker) asked if I needed any help. I already had my dill, so I said I was looking for lemongrass...she called me silly and started to pull me by the hand back toward the produce section, where they keep that stuff fresh. I guess no one's pulled on my hand lately -- it felt like an immense come-on.
Once she'd shown me the bin where they keep the lemongrass, she walked away, like Whole Foods was this big toy house where she lived and played and thought nothing of pulling on guys' hands. It was kind of a letdown after the personal contact, so after I suggestively lingered in the produce area I pushed my cart around the store trying to find her again.
I guess she was avoiding me, because after ten or fifteen minutes of wandering the aisles I gave up and checked out. Once I'd paid (JESUS CHRIST ON GOD MOUNTAIN IS THAT PLACE EXPENSIVE) I started to shove off, and there she was at the manager's station chatting with a few of her heavily tattooed co-workers. She glanced at me, made some sort of comment, and then the little batch of them started to snicker. Like there was something wrong with me. I left, kind of pissed off.
Maybe I don't actually like girls who spend a bunch of time looking like a particular downer style, or who work in politically charged low-end leftist jobs. I'm more or less "leftist"; why do leftist chicks drive me crazy? Is it true what they say, that you hate in others what you hate about yourself? Maybe I'll try to meet a tennis chick, with a blonde ponytail, diamond earrings, and an ML 350. Someone with no issues and rad thighs. I think I'd hate that, but maybe I'm wrong. Maybe I'm due for a personal breakthrough. Look how great I am, I don't even need specialty books or a padded mat to help me affect positive change in my life.
Now, you know the kind of girl that works at Whole Foods. Slightly peppy and political, probably with some tattoos and Vans. I like that. I want to roll with that. I actively want to spend time with that kind of girl.
Or, I thought so. While I was meandering down the bulk spice aisle, this gorgeous Siouxsie Sioux-type with tousled bangs and big eyes (and some armpit hair, okay, not a deal breaker) asked if I needed any help. I already had my dill, so I said I was looking for lemongrass...she called me silly and started to pull me by the hand back toward the produce section, where they keep that stuff fresh. I guess no one's pulled on my hand lately -- it felt like an immense come-on.
Once she'd shown me the bin where they keep the lemongrass, she walked away, like Whole Foods was this big toy house where she lived and played and thought nothing of pulling on guys' hands. It was kind of a letdown after the personal contact, so after I suggestively lingered in the produce area I pushed my cart around the store trying to find her again.
I guess she was avoiding me, because after ten or fifteen minutes of wandering the aisles I gave up and checked out. Once I'd paid (JESUS CHRIST ON GOD MOUNTAIN IS THAT PLACE EXPENSIVE) I started to shove off, and there she was at the manager's station chatting with a few of her heavily tattooed co-workers. She glanced at me, made some sort of comment, and then the little batch of them started to snicker. Like there was something wrong with me. I left, kind of pissed off.
Maybe I don't actually like girls who spend a bunch of time looking like a particular downer style, or who work in politically charged low-end leftist jobs. I'm more or less "leftist"; why do leftist chicks drive me crazy? Is it true what they say, that you hate in others what you hate about yourself? Maybe I'll try to meet a tennis chick, with a blonde ponytail, diamond earrings, and an ML 350. Someone with no issues and rad thighs. I think I'd hate that, but maybe I'm wrong. Maybe I'm due for a personal breakthrough. Look how great I am, I don't even need specialty books or a padded mat to help me affect positive change in my life.
Monday, November 27, 2006
Stupid Todd and his death wish
So a couple weeks ago Todd died. He had forgotten to bulk up for winter hibernation, and his body went kaput at the first cold snap (apparently he'd been on an America's Funniest Home Videos bender for a month or so and had ignored his body's primal instinct to gorge itself during autumn). His dying request was that I film me hitting his corpse over the fence with a baseball bat and send the video to America's Funniest Home Videos. I did, and this morning some police came to the door. Apparently squirrels getting clocked with bats raised a few red flags. I guess if I'd thought about it I would have realized that that's kind of a perverse thing to send to anyone...but when it's Todd it just seems like another funny PCP party trick.
Anyhow, Lyle got the door and I listened to his conversation with the cops from behind the couch. It went kind of like this:
LYLE: SooooOOOO! It's YOU again!
COP 1: Sir, are you Téodor Orezscu?
LYLE: Do I look like that fat pussy to you? Tell me now. Say it to my face, asshole shitwad. I fucked your mother and drew a daisy on her ass. [spits]
COP 1: There's no need for this kind of behavior, sir.
LYLE: Oh yes there IS! [sound of bottle breaking] ACE OF SPADES!
COP 2: Sir, have you been drinking?
LYLE: NO!
COP 1: Does a Téodor Orezscu live here?
LYLE: What's this about, mustache-dick? Your partner here put his dick across your upper lip like a mustache? Is that why you're buggin' me? I already have a mustache, so NO THANKS on the lip pedro thing.
COP 2: We're investigating some charges of squirrel cruelty. Does the squirrel in this photograph resemble anyone you know?
LYLE: Nope.
COP 2: And this...[flips page]...is this Téodor Orezscu?
LYLE: Never seen that fat piece of crap before. Get lost. Both of you. Get in your cop car and go to your cop car parkin' spot.
COP 1: Have a nice day.
COP 2: Make sure you clean up this broken glass. It's a hazard.
LYLE: Fuck...YOUUUUUUUUUU! [door clicks]
So, I figure I've got to lay low for a while, and probably change the way I look pretty significantly. Should probably grow a beard...get glasses...maybe do the Hasidic Jew thing with the black suit and stuff...what are those corkscrew sideburns called? I think my great-grandpa Bliklish had a pretty rad set. Okay, off to Jew it up. The next time I see you, it will not be as Téodor Orezscu. It will be as...Herschel Schviz-Meskewicz.
Anyhow, Lyle got the door and I listened to his conversation with the cops from behind the couch. It went kind of like this:
LYLE: SooooOOOO! It's YOU again!
COP 1: Sir, are you Téodor Orezscu?
LYLE: Do I look like that fat pussy to you? Tell me now. Say it to my face, asshole shitwad. I fucked your mother and drew a daisy on her ass. [spits]
COP 1: There's no need for this kind of behavior, sir.
LYLE: Oh yes there IS! [sound of bottle breaking] ACE OF SPADES!
COP 2: Sir, have you been drinking?
LYLE: NO!
COP 1: Does a Téodor Orezscu live here?
LYLE: What's this about, mustache-dick? Your partner here put his dick across your upper lip like a mustache? Is that why you're buggin' me? I already have a mustache, so NO THANKS on the lip pedro thing.
COP 2: We're investigating some charges of squirrel cruelty. Does the squirrel in this photograph resemble anyone you know?
LYLE: Nope.
COP 2: And this...[flips page]...is this Téodor Orezscu?
LYLE: Never seen that fat piece of crap before. Get lost. Both of you. Get in your cop car and go to your cop car parkin' spot.
COP 1: Have a nice day.
COP 2: Make sure you clean up this broken glass. It's a hazard.
LYLE: Fuck...YOUUUUUUUUUU! [door clicks]
So, I figure I've got to lay low for a while, and probably change the way I look pretty significantly. Should probably grow a beard...get glasses...maybe do the Hasidic Jew thing with the black suit and stuff...what are those corkscrew sideburns called? I think my great-grandpa Bliklish had a pretty rad set. Okay, off to Jew it up. The next time I see you, it will not be as Téodor Orezscu. It will be as...Herschel Schviz-Meskewicz.
Wednesday, November 01, 2006
Got kicked out of my one-man band.
I gave up on trying to learn how to use all that professional recording equipment. Too many dials, knobs, sliders, cross-faders, modalities, and unlabelled function keys. No user interface design to speak of. More Enigma machine than envelope, if you follow me. Every time I stood in front of it, I felt like Dave at the end of 2001: A Space Odyssey, presented with all those monolithic lucite "buttons." One wrong push and the whole thing might blow up in my face. Suffice it to say, I won't be releasing any album that isn't a YouTube webcam clip of my left hand doing the chord changes to "Free Fallin'." Yes, I will be sitting on my bed. Yes, at the end you will see me get up. Off-camera, I will hit the space bar, which stops the recording. You will hear the first half of the click of the key. VIEWS: 17. COMMENTS: Yah that was good, chek out mine 2 :) [link]
What's new with me...I've been making a lot of bread. I uncovered a bread machine in the garage (a wedding present that had never been touched), and it's great. It takes the crappy part out of making bread (interminable kneading), and leaves you to just throw essentially free ingredients together, wait a bit, and then see what happened. It's like tossing a grenade over a hill, having a smoke, and then climbing over to discover that the grenade has turned into a lovely rosemary focaccia.
I've got a sourdough starter going right now, this yeasty slop that's supposed to sit out for three days and rot. The more I try to figure food out, the more I find that toeing the line between discoloration and dysentery is where real flavor lies. Should we always be eating food that might almost make us sick, in order to keep up digestive strength? There might be some wisdom there.
You know what? I've never had Limburger cheese. Or Liverwurst, for that matter. I'll be stinkin' it up tomorrow. For dessert? You guessed it. I'm going to eat a red onion like it was an apple. You'll know me — I'll be the guy swatting away vultures with a big diagram of Mitteleuropa.
What's new with me...I've been making a lot of bread. I uncovered a bread machine in the garage (a wedding present that had never been touched), and it's great. It takes the crappy part out of making bread (interminable kneading), and leaves you to just throw essentially free ingredients together, wait a bit, and then see what happened. It's like tossing a grenade over a hill, having a smoke, and then climbing over to discover that the grenade has turned into a lovely rosemary focaccia.
I've got a sourdough starter going right now, this yeasty slop that's supposed to sit out for three days and rot. The more I try to figure food out, the more I find that toeing the line between discoloration and dysentery is where real flavor lies. Should we always be eating food that might almost make us sick, in order to keep up digestive strength? There might be some wisdom there.
You know what? I've never had Limburger cheese. Or Liverwurst, for that matter. I'll be stinkin' it up tomorrow. For dessert? You guessed it. I'm going to eat a red onion like it was an apple. You'll know me — I'll be the guy swatting away vultures with a big diagram of Mitteleuropa.
Tuesday, August 22, 2006
Rough goings with music recording efforts.
THE USER INTERFACES ON MUSICAL RECORDING EQUIPMENT ARE MANY LIGHT YEARS BEHIND THOSE ON GENERAL-PURPOSE COMPUTER EQUIPMENT OR EVEN BLENDERS. Thank you for listening while I got that off my chest. It's just that all this high-end gear I borrowed from Ray is virtually inscrutable. I go to establish the settings on one input track out of 64, and I'm faced with twelve knobs, two sliders, five three-position buttons, and so many LEDs that I might as well be shining a flashlight into a cave full of bats. I JUST WANT TO MIC MY ACOUSTIC GUITAR WHILE I PLUCK AWAY AT "APRIL COME SHE WILL." SORRY I'M NOT THE LONDON PHILHARMONIC. I'M LIKE A FAMOUS CHEF WHO BOOKED HELL BUT ONLY NEEDED TO COOK A SINGLE HOT DOG. Oh look, I'm yelling again. Maybe it's because I hate everything in my room, including the large stupid machines and the little idiotic man who is sitting on the floor in front of them.
Friday, June 09, 2006
Into the Studio
Wow. I was in Ray's garage looking for a soccer ball, when what should I find under a sheet but a huge mixing table, a bunch of recording equipment, a big Pearl drum kit, and a bunch of Pro Tools software! He had about fifty grand worth of gear in there, so I asked him if he was planning on doing anything with it, since I've really been itching to lay down some tracks.
RAY: Téodor! Doggie, you find that soccer ball I said about?
ME: Yeah, but it was flat. It looked like a rat had been eating one of the panels.
RAY: [thinks] That's right. Damn. I put that ball away with a slice of sandwich ham stuck to it. I shouldn't have done that. [Shakes head] Man, what if Coach Dan saw me doin' somethin' so—
ME: I saw a ton of recording equipment out there. [Pretends to give Ray benefit of doubt] Are you starting a recording project?
RAY: Don't talk to me about that stuff, man.
ME: What? I'm sorry.
RAY: Hell of annoying, dogg. Bad times.
ME: Bad, huh. I'm sorry.
RAY: Bad, dogg. You want a soda? Amstel?
ME: You don't want to talk about it, do you.
RAY: Well, I got kind of burned.
ME: Damn.
RAY: Yeah. These dudes from East side, you know, they played me this demo with this fat track on it, some real delicious wax, you know, but they said it was produced on equipment that had recently been stolen from them. I said I'd procure new gear and they had this thing where it was getting to be dinnertime, and they kept mentioning dinner, and I was like, I'll get on these dudes' good side, take 'em under my wing, get 'em some dinner. So we went and had steaks down at The Chophouse, and I dropped on some good wines, to kind of start grooming them for the limelight, and then afterwards real quick they said they had to go to bed because of all the food and wine, so I chuckled and they rolled off. I tried their pager the next day but no deal, it was fake, you know, and I played their demo for a friend of mine and turns out it was just the new Krass Medik single that got leaked onto the Internet that I hadn't heard yet. These dudes just burned that onto a CD and pretended it was them. Meanwhile I had ordered all this gear Next-Day Air. I feel like a stone idiot about that.
ME: Wow. Damn. Conniving, you know?
RAY: That's exactly it! They were conniving! Exactly!
ME: So you gonna sell all that stuff back on eBay?
RAY: I don't know. I'm kinda hopin' some new act will come along and need it.
ME: Why don't I take it to my place, and hook it all up, and learn it, and that way if a good act comes along, but they aren't too technically proficient, I can kind of serve as their engineer. A lot of times these guys can't tell an RCA jack from a USB port. All they know is straight mic.
RAY: [gets real quiet for several seconds] Damn. I had about sixteen thoughts just now. But yeah, yeah. That is a real genius idea for a service. A lot of these dudes had no advantages. There is this one guy, Kareem Kara-mell, his whole thing is that he can't use any digital technology, he is so poor. He can only use analog technology. He's warped. He's out there, but his sound is so odd, I can see it in like a Cingular ad. Old Navy at least, or like if Old Navy started to sell ringtones.
ME: Awesome. How can...do you have a flatbed we can use to get the gear to my place?
RAY: I'll take care of it. Business expense, you know. Nice. Thanks, T. This is real smart.
ME: Alright. Let's set that up right now.
RAY: Cool. [makes phone call]
Now I'm here in my room with tons of gear and trying to wrap my mind around the fact that I'm now able to produce studio-quality sound. It's a heavier burden than you'd think. Imagine when Simon & Garfunkel went in to record "April Come She Will," with just one voice and one guitar: that guitar's tone would forever define the feel of the song. Think also of the distinctive Stella that Kurt Cobain used here and there on Unplugged. Do I have a unique instrument like that? One that's got a sound worth recording?
Aw, crap. I'm acting like every note I set down will be angel-kissed. I'm probably gonna toss 99% of this stuff, then re-record later. Simon & Garfunkel probably threw out enough tape to rig a thousand Cutty Sarks. It's such a rookie move to act like every early project is worth saving, like it's going to be featured in a documentary twenty years from now. Do I watch too many "rockumentaries," or do I just think too highly of myself? Can someone please help me plot a realistic Venn diagram.
RAY: Téodor! Doggie, you find that soccer ball I said about?
ME: Yeah, but it was flat. It looked like a rat had been eating one of the panels.
RAY: [thinks] That's right. Damn. I put that ball away with a slice of sandwich ham stuck to it. I shouldn't have done that. [Shakes head] Man, what if Coach Dan saw me doin' somethin' so—
ME: I saw a ton of recording equipment out there. [Pretends to give Ray benefit of doubt] Are you starting a recording project?
RAY: Don't talk to me about that stuff, man.
ME: What? I'm sorry.
RAY: Hell of annoying, dogg. Bad times.
ME: Bad, huh. I'm sorry.
RAY: Bad, dogg. You want a soda? Amstel?
ME: You don't want to talk about it, do you.
RAY: Well, I got kind of burned.
ME: Damn.
RAY: Yeah. These dudes from East side, you know, they played me this demo with this fat track on it, some real delicious wax, you know, but they said it was produced on equipment that had recently been stolen from them. I said I'd procure new gear and they had this thing where it was getting to be dinnertime, and they kept mentioning dinner, and I was like, I'll get on these dudes' good side, take 'em under my wing, get 'em some dinner. So we went and had steaks down at The Chophouse, and I dropped on some good wines, to kind of start grooming them for the limelight, and then afterwards real quick they said they had to go to bed because of all the food and wine, so I chuckled and they rolled off. I tried their pager the next day but no deal, it was fake, you know, and I played their demo for a friend of mine and turns out it was just the new Krass Medik single that got leaked onto the Internet that I hadn't heard yet. These dudes just burned that onto a CD and pretended it was them. Meanwhile I had ordered all this gear Next-Day Air. I feel like a stone idiot about that.
ME: Wow. Damn. Conniving, you know?
RAY: That's exactly it! They were conniving! Exactly!
ME: So you gonna sell all that stuff back on eBay?
RAY: I don't know. I'm kinda hopin' some new act will come along and need it.
ME: Why don't I take it to my place, and hook it all up, and learn it, and that way if a good act comes along, but they aren't too technically proficient, I can kind of serve as their engineer. A lot of times these guys can't tell an RCA jack from a USB port. All they know is straight mic.
RAY: [gets real quiet for several seconds] Damn. I had about sixteen thoughts just now. But yeah, yeah. That is a real genius idea for a service. A lot of these dudes had no advantages. There is this one guy, Kareem Kara-mell, his whole thing is that he can't use any digital technology, he is so poor. He can only use analog technology. He's warped. He's out there, but his sound is so odd, I can see it in like a Cingular ad. Old Navy at least, or like if Old Navy started to sell ringtones.
ME: Awesome. How can...do you have a flatbed we can use to get the gear to my place?
RAY: I'll take care of it. Business expense, you know. Nice. Thanks, T. This is real smart.
ME: Alright. Let's set that up right now.
RAY: Cool. [makes phone call]
Now I'm here in my room with tons of gear and trying to wrap my mind around the fact that I'm now able to produce studio-quality sound. It's a heavier burden than you'd think. Imagine when Simon & Garfunkel went in to record "April Come She Will," with just one voice and one guitar: that guitar's tone would forever define the feel of the song. Think also of the distinctive Stella that Kurt Cobain used here and there on Unplugged. Do I have a unique instrument like that? One that's got a sound worth recording?
Aw, crap. I'm acting like every note I set down will be angel-kissed. I'm probably gonna toss 99% of this stuff, then re-record later. Simon & Garfunkel probably threw out enough tape to rig a thousand Cutty Sarks. It's such a rookie move to act like every early project is worth saving, like it's going to be featured in a documentary twenty years from now. Do I watch too many "rockumentaries," or do I just think too highly of myself? Can someone please help me plot a realistic Venn diagram.
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