Dane Who?
Without trying, I have never seen anything starring Dane Cook. I didn't even know who he was, until someone informed me that not knowing makes me odd. I still don't really know who he is. I wonder if I should try to keep it that way.
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June 28, 2007
June 21, 2007
The Burning Butt (#4)
Yesterday, Sister Fi (no relation to Semper) was nice enough to send me this adorable little pic of the two of us taken a good 30 years ago (ouch). Sans big white numbers, natch. It was great to see the little kid she was, the super-hot micro-stud I was, and relive the warm fuzzies, but what really got me were all the memories attached to the incidentals. And that's where the big white numbers come in.
1) Quizzical look, with just a hint of "You may very well be full of shit, but I'm withholding judgment for now." This look has persisted since the last days of the Ford administration.
2) I call this look the "Clueless Smartass." This dates back to the late Nixon era, and I still use it daily.
3) Spider-Man shirt, given as a present by Rose Marie, the kindergarten girlfriend. I was big pimpin' at age 5. Little did I know I was about to hit a 15-year dry spell.
4) The radiator. In those days, we called it "bench seating for the boys." In the winter, that thing was freaking hot. Eddie and I took to hoarding telephone books in the warm summer months so we'd have some butt protection once it got cold and the heat came on, so we looked about 17 feet tall sitting at the table.
5) Random pictures thumbtacked to the shelf above said radiator. Also art projects, greeting cards, and anything mildly related to my mother's children. The heat rising from the Scalder of Cormac's Ass™ curled them into celluloid cannoli, but there they hung, flicking up against the faces of the two 17 foot tall kids sitting on stacks of phone books all dinner long.
6) The busted-up breadbox with the drawer front ripped off. This was a good thing, as trying to pry the thing open to get the Archway Date-Filled Oatmeal Cookies was the only exercise I got some years.
Makes You Nine Foot Tall When You're Four Foot Five...
...Hep, Hep.
So the Playboy Jazz Fest was all that and 17,500 bags of chips. And dip. And fried chicken. And sandwiches and mudslides and untold pounds of cheese and absurd amounts of wine and beer. Yes, there was a lot of food. But more on that later.
Etta James was awesome--and surprisingly spry. So spry, in fact, that she got downright trampy on-stage, bless her hussy of a heart. Sandee loves her all the more, now. Arturo Sandoval was terrific, with mambo dancers and a big band for the full Ricky Ricardo experience. And yeah, the Cheese actually got me up to shuffle in the aisle to a little "One-Two-Three-Huh?"
We were far from alone. After Nathan and the Zydeco Cha-Chas got things going, dancing erupted pretty much constantly throughout the day, due in no small part to the Hollywood Bowl's phenomenal BYOB policy. The entire audience was hammered by 3:30 PM and stayed that way for the next 7 hours.
Still, it was far from a frat party. It was more of a picnic or family reunion, set to a backdrop of really amazing jazz. One group of 60 people flew in from Houston for the 12th straight year. One teenager met up with 2 kids he hadn't seen since last year's show--that sort of thing. And then there was FoodLady™. FoodLady™ came prepared with two (2) full-size Igloo coolers containing (at a minimum):
* Salad
* Rolls / tomatoes / lettuce / onions / 2 kinds of meat for sandwiches
* Fried chicken
* Olives
* Cheese
* BBQ shrimp on skewers
* Beer
* Mudslides
* Ice for the mudslides
* 2 pumpkin pies
* 2 cheesecakes
She actually handed out cheesecake and pie to everyone within 6 feet, too, and offered to make me a sandwich. That's the kind of vibe we had going on. Well, that, and the 60-somethings dry-humping each other on the handrail....
Thx to Wydok of NewTexture for the pic.
Grats, Man!
Congrats to my nephew Andrew on his graduation yesterday from mi escuelita, Bulkeley High. Now, normally, I'd say this qualifies you for oh, tequila shots amidst the sleaze of Avenida Revolucion in Tijuana or something when you come out to visit, but your folks have nixed the "out-of-country" idea, so we'll have to settle for the upscale sleaze of the somewhat-legal happenings on the Sunset Strip.
And dude--what's with the facial hair and being taller than me? You make me feel old and yet somehow less of a man at the same time.
June 8, 2007
Our Numbers Grow. Fear Us.
Another one joins the fold. Thank you, Atomic, for the link, and congrats, little guy! Hit me up for an email address when you get a little older.
June 4, 2007
A Disaster of Gastrocnemial Proportions
I'd like to take a moment to talk about a dangerous trend. A trend that threatens to destroy everything that is good and just and right about this country. A trend that could well topple our cultural hegemony and eliminate our last remaining shreds of dignity. I'm talking about the erosion of a precious national resource--calves.
I live in Los Angeles. I used to be a personal trainer. I don't say "curves" or "healthy" when I mean "fat." I am not, in any sense, a cheerleader for unreasonable jiggle. So trust me when I say that the world has gone completely crazy.
Exhibit 1: I'm at the gym, and a thin, fit woman turns to her moron trainer and says "I need to get rid of THESE." She then points in disgust to her calves, which are slightly more than a blip, but just slightly. The woman was running maybe 14-15 percent bodyfat, which, for those of you on the outside, is roughly the skinniest of The Pussycat Dolls. So not exactly beefy. The trainer responded with a "Sure, we can get rid of that. Don't worry. It's all about patience." No, you moron, it's about being able to point your toe.
Exhibit 2: Asian (particularly Korean) women are cutting their calf muscles and having to relearn to walk properly in order to have thinner, "more Caucasian" legs.
And what are the Caucasian legs they're looking for? A Vietnamese news site has, for reasons beyond the comprehension of any online translation service, provided us with all the answers we could ever need. Let's examine some of the lowlights:
* Angelina Jolie: Beautiful from the neck up, certainly, but her legs look malnourished.
* Cameron Diaz: Pretty woman, but her legs, while slightly closer to human, are still barely functional and not at all attractive.
* Kate Bosworth: Yes, she was once a babe in Blue Crush, but now she's all shriveled up and looks like a corpse.
I'm not unreasonable. I'm not looking for Rosie O'Donnell gladiator calves (no link there--you can find that on your own time, if the need strikes). Just something that says "I eat enough to be able to move." Like Lucy Liu or Jessica Biel or, I dunno, maybe 95 percent of the world that isn't living in hunger and abject poverty?
Please, people. Shave your heads. Get tattoos. Pop pills. Whatever. Just leave the calves alone. STEP AWAY FROM THE CALVES.
June 2, 2007
Mac and Cheese go to SF -- to Eat
It's taken a while to get around to this post, and I think it's tied to digestion. The lovely Dr. Cheese and I made a Memorial Day weekend trip to San Francisco, and we ate. A lot. Oh sure. We wandered the streets at 4:30 AM. We rode a cable car. We went to the Mission for Carnaval. We saw a brass band and a bunch of burlesque dancers. We stayed in a cute little hotel with a wine reception every night. But mostly, we ate.
I haven't lived in SF for almost 10 years, now, and I'd almost forgotten just how many restaurants are packed in there. Unlike LA, which has its share of crappy burger joints and skanky taco shacks sprinkled in the mix, almost everything is SF is at least marginally good, and much of it is awesome. The highlight of the weekend, I think , was introducing the Cheese to Taiyaki, red bean-filled, oddly fish-shaped waffles. Leave it to the Japanese to innovate in my absence--the place in Japantown that sells 'em now offers chocolate and chocolate-banana, as well. Good times.