2010 LAMINATED LIST # 2

Way back in May of 1998, when I moved back to Madison, some of my mail got lost/misplaced/delayed along the way, including that month's QPBC (Quality Paperback Book Club) catalog. The featured book in that particular issue was Infinite Jest... And because I didn't send back the order form with the appropriate box marked to inform QPBC that I did NOT want Infinite Jest automatically sent to me, they automatically did. And so I came home from work one day about two weeks after moving into this place only to find a fairly large cardboard box lodged between my doors. Before I had even unpacked the beast within, I was pretty damn sure I was never gonna read it. 1079 pages! If I didn't have the juice to conquer a tome like that when I was 32, you can bet yr ass I've got less juice now. Now...Now I could have simply sent the book back (free shipping) for a full refund, but I felt like the title of the book was the true jest for me - new city, new home, new job, new friends - a full-blown load of unknown. Twelve years later, and I can once again say Paul Simon is a prophet, because the more things change, the more they stay the same. Infinite Jest sits square in the center of my main bookcase in the living room, as it has for twelve years so far. I have read its spine countless times, every day. I've got my own ideas about God's sense of humor, the nature of fate, and the fortune of DNA, but don't ask me what this book's about. I'll never know.

Scanning Infinite Jest's character list at Wikipedia, I'd have to say if they ever made this 5 pound book into a movie, maybe they could get TINA FEY to play Joelle Van Dyne § (aka "Madame Psychosis" aka "The Prettiest Girl Of All Time")...I'm willing to say Tina is crazy pretty, and sometimes pretty crazy. There's also the acid-scarred face of this character, and the scar on Ms. Fey's face to consider. Whatever. I'm 99% sure I'll never read David Foster Wallace's magnum opus...Alas, poor me.

§ Joelle Van Dyne is the primary figure in the deadly Entertainment. ¶ In the work, which is filmed through a wobbly "neo-natal" lens, she is seen reaching down to the camera, as if it were in a bassinet, and apologizing profusely. This is said to trigger an addictive pleasure complex in the viewer, which makes even partial viewing of the Entertainment suicidal. She wears a veil to hide her face. She is a member of the "Union of the Hideously and Improbably Deformed (U.H.I.D.)", she may be disfigured; based on an account by the unreliable Molly Notkin. It is not made clear throughout the novel whether in fact she is disfigured; she herself states that she wears the veil because every man who sees her flawless face falls in love with her. Although it becomes clear that she was indeed disfigured by an acid attack, it is possible that the acid attack post-dates her adoption of the veil. She tries to "eliminate her own map" (that is, commit suicide) in Molly Notkin's bathroom via massive ingestion of freebase cocaine, which lands her in the Ennet House as a resident. [1]

¶ The plot of Infinite Jest partially revolves around the missing master copy of a film cartridge, titled Infinite Jest and referred to in the novel as "the Entertainment" or "the samizdat". The film is so entertaining to its viewers that they become lifeless, losing all interest in anything other than viewing the film. The video cartridge was the final work of film by James O. Incandenza before his microwave-induced suicide, completed during a stint of sobriety that was requested by the lead actress, Joelle. Quebec separatists are interested in acquiring a master, redistributable copy of the work to aid in acts of terrorism against the United States. The United States Office of Unspecified Services (USOUS) is seeking to intercept the master copy of the film in order to prevent mass dissemination and the destabilization of the Organization of North American Nations. Joelle and later Hal seek treatment for substance abuse problems at The Ennet House Drug and Alcohol Recovery House, and Marathe visits the rehabilitation center to pursue a lead on the master copy of the Entertainment §, tying the characters together. The text indicates that Hal and Gately dig up the grave of Himself (under the supervision of John N.R. Wayne) in search of the master copy. The novel ends in the Year of Glad (the first chapter of the novel), during which Hal's physical deterioration is made evident. [2]

§ Wallace's working title for Infinite Jest had been A Failed Entertainment. [3]

Hotcha! Hank

Tuesday's Fortune: 29 June 2010

MEAL: 2 Roast Pork Egg Rolls + 1 order (8) Crab Rangoon = $5.95 + $1.05 tip


Hotcha! Hank

Things I Liked Last Week 062710

01: JAWS FFFUUUU: I was never a big fan of the FFFUUUU internet meme that began, as these things usually do, over at 4Chan. It's not the meme itself that I don't like, but rather its execution by most internet morans. But I do like this particular piece, which captures the essence of FFFUUUU so succintly, so brilliantly...Yeah, yeah, this is probably old and you've probably seen it already, but...

02: This Perpetual Teen strip I did a while ago wherein Rageman auditions for vocalist (naturally) of Kieth's band, Peppermint Dildo. And then Jack Cactus makes the scene. Dinger Jockey! Classic.

03: This Week's Obligatory Cat and/or Squirrel Picture: Nuff said? Ayup.

04: Gus Van Sant: Gerry [2002]: I watched Gus Van Sant's Death Trilogy completely out of order. Gerry was the first made, so naturally I watched it last. I'm not sure if it matters what order in which Van Sant's three films should be watched, as they're all different kinds of the same thing, death. Elephant concerns murder. Last Days is about suicide. Gerry explores what I'm calling "organic death" - literally a body's organs shutting down (nevermind the ending, because Gerry was dead long before he died). I suppose you could call it a "natural death" because nature is the cause of death in this film. My point is, there may be a million ways to die, but I'm of the belief that these three kinds (organic, murder, suicide) are the only three, into which those million ways can be categorized. If I believed in God, I suppose his hand would be the fourth, and Van Sant would have to make one of those four-part trilogies.

Like the other two death films, Gerry tells it's story mostly through visuals, and here there are long stretches of relative silence, the sounds of the desert, with short bursts of dialogue between the two Gerrys (Matt Damon and Casey Affleck), who get seriously lost while hiking in the desert. But mostly this film is about the beauty and grandeur of nature, and the scenes here are awash in pastel skies stretched over a rugged and jagged terrain, equal parts adventure and danger. As the film progresses, the situation becomes much more serious for the two Gerrys, much more bleak, and here, in the third day of their undoing, the last reel, we see them slowly and painfully shuffling across white salt flats like they might be walking on the moon, or maybe heaven. Despite the pace of the film, I found myself riveted. Like Elephant and Last Days (and life itself) we know the inevitable end of Gerry, and that pulled me along quite effectively. Van Sant once again handles the subject of death with a sort of grace and an even hand, without really passing judgement on characters in any of these films. Death happens. And once again, his secret weapon in Gerry is certainly cinematographer Harris Savides, who's shots linger and shimmer like dreams. I like.

05: Bill Griffith: Zippy: "Four Frame Game" [2000]: Comic stripping and death come together, and Mr. Toad explains the meaning of bowling. If I haven't mentioned this before, Zippy is my favorite comic strip of all time. Hmm...One of these days, maybe I should rank 'em...



06: Kingsford Charcoal Fascination: I've been seeing this commercial around the television lately. That song is Rob Crow's (Pinback) interpretation of "(Keep Feeling) Fascination" by The Human League. At first I wasn't sure how I felt about this, but then I figured "fuck it" - I thought the '80's were a great decade, "Fascination" included.

Hotcha! Hank

Maneuver The Rat Fink Sideways

It would probably be unfair to call The Sadies a Country band, or a Rock band, or a Country Rock band, or a Country Surf Rock Band, or CowPunk, Surfabilly, or Spaghetti Garage Rock band...

Or Canadacore, even though they call Toronto home.

The Sadies are a fine band of top-flight musicians, and a smoking great live act that have been Neko Case's boyfriends now and then over the years.

Anyways...

It is undeniably true that I have a Rat Fink (on motorized skateboard) action figure on my desk at work. It's right next to my Mankind action figure, and together they guard my Altoids.

Hotcha! Hank

Sideways Sadie Hawkins Maneuver

Not only have I never known a woman named Sadie, I have never been asked to attend a Sadie Hawkin's dance by any woman named Sadie or not...That's probably because we didn't do Sadie Hawkin's dances in our town. I was asked to Senior Prom by a girl named Cindy, but that's a different story for later, if ever...

Did you know the origins of Sadie Hawkin's Day and Sadie Hawkin's dances can be traced to this Lil Abner comic strip from November 13, 1937?

BOOM!

Hotcha! Hank

Something 4 The Weekend # 172

Blitzen Trapper: Destroyer Of The Void: "Sadie" [mp3]

I was listening to the new Blitzen Trapper album this past week, and they're a band that evokes (for me) an era forty years gone...Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, Grateful Dead, Lennon & McCartney, Bob Dylan..."Sadie" is the last song on the album, a sweet piano ballad that I can imagine Richard Manuel working out with The Band in some empty afternoon saloon, circa 1969. That's kinda what it sounds like to me. Maybe even a splash of Elton John from way back when. It's all good - the song, the album, the band...

Bob Dylan: Self-Portrait: "Little Sadie" [mp3]

Speaking of Bob Dylan, here he is doing his version of a trad song, "Little Sadie", which you might/should recognize as a variation of "Cocaine Blues" as made famous by Johnny Cash. Both songs were born of, and usurped, an old '20's song called "Bad Lee Brown", about a dude who kills his woman with a .44 which he hides beneath his head when he sleeps that night... The next day Bad Lee Brown gets caught in rhyming places like Jericho or Juarez, Mexico...Anyways...

I love Cash's "Cocaine Blues" as recorded at Folsom Prison because he spits the song out with such fervor, a song of drugs and murder and judges and jail, and the inmates at Folsom cheer like a fucking choir. Nothing beats that, not even this song by Dylan, which is a damn fine version from a strange and interesting album in his catalog, an album that's a small, overlooked gem in it's way, and if nothing else, an album with stories and theories around it...

The Beatles: The Beatles: "Sexy Sadie" [mp3]

"Sexy Sadie" is the third song about a woman named Sadie that I am aware of, or should I say the third song in my MP3 folders? And the thing of it is - this particular song is supposed to be called "Maharishi" to begin with, a stinging indictment of the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, whom the Beatles had visited in India , and who was accused of making improper and unwanted sexual advances towards one of the young woman in Fab Four's entourage. Harrison (and McCartney)thought the allegations were bullshit, and convinced Lennon to change the title and lyrics...Viola..."Sexy Sadie". "You made a fool of everyone..."

I am well into my 40's, and I cannot recall ever knowing a girl named Sadie. Not once, not ever, not even in passing.

Hotcha! Hank

2010 LAMINATED LIST # 3

I've read Vineland, and The Crying Of Lot 49, and I kinda want to read Thomas Pynchon's newest novel, Inherent Vice, if I can work my way through this Lem Phase™ I've been travelling lately. I probably won't read Inherent Vice, actually, and I'm 94% certain I'll never finish reading Gravity's Rainbow. I read maybe the first 150 pages about 20 years ago, when I was in the last half of a 2 year relationship with a girl who I couldn't equate with any of the several hundred characters strafing through this maze of a place and a time before me, beyond me.
Gravity's Rainbow mostly takes place at the end of WWII, and concerns Germany's V-2 rockets...Christina Hendricks is an eternal bombshell.

Hotcha! Hank

Tuesday's Fortune: 22 June 2010

MEAL: 1 Roast Pork Egg Roll + 1 small order Mongolian Chicken = $5.65 + $1.35 tip


Hotcha! Hank

Something 4 The Weekend # 171

Seam: The Pace Is Glacial: "Get Higher" [mp3]

You know, when I was a teenager you didn't see many, if any, glass pipes. Back then it was all wood, brass and onyx. There must be some serious muscle behind the glassblowers in this country nowadays.

Nowadays 95% of the pipes are blown glass. Rainbow-hued fancy glass at upper-middle class prices. Pipes that are worthy of all the exotic strains flowing through this college town of ours.

When the weed you smoke has a name, you know yr getting somewhere.

Grad school!

Hotcha! Hank

2010 LAMINATED LIST # 4

I really like William T Vollmann. I've read four of his books so far, books about prostitutes and drugs and murder and war and death and am right on the verge of diving into his Seven Dreams cycle of novels about the clash of Native Americans and European explorers and missionaries across North America, from Virginia to the Pacific Northwest, and up to the polar north. A heady, post-modern collage of fiction, history, journalism, mythology, fairy tales and legends. Vollmann has written four of the proposed seven volumes so far, and now seems like as good a time as any to get going. 4 volumes, 2500+ pages.

And counting...

Yeah, most of Vollmann's books are loooooong. He emerged on the literary scene at the age of 30 with his 700 page debut novel, You Bright And Risen Angels in 1987, and in the 23 years since, he's written another 16 books, including the seven-volume, 3352 (!!!!!) page treatise about violence, Rising Up And Rising Down, in 2003.

Two years later in 2005, Vollmann published Europe Central, an 832 page National Book Award winner. Like so many of his books, Europe Central is a "sweeping" and "epic" story which brilliantly fuses fictions with history. In this instance, generations of countless characters living out their lives from Germany to Russia throughout the 20th century, against the backdrop of two world wars, the holocaust, fascism, communism, a cold war, and beyond...

Even if I happen to read my way through the entirety of the Seven Dreams cycle, which I admit is a long shot because I've also got a couple Stanislaw Lem books sitting here on the coffee table, and they're calling to me... "Polish sci-fi, Mohaski! You Polack!"

Anyways, I don't have the jam for Europe Central, even if I have the long-range Vollmann focus. Might as well laminate it.

That reminds me - Alison Brie plays the smart/cute/perky/uptight/annoying community college coed on, Annie Edison on the NBC sitcom Community. On that show she usually wears the kind of tight, colorful sweaters you might expect from a geeky rah-rah type who's never read Vollmann and has no idea who the fuck I am.

Hotcha! Hank

The Eternal Cart Return

Consumeroborus!

Hotcha! Hank

I've Been Maneuvering For A Sideways Girlfriend

Enjoy 'em while ya can, Matthew Sweet videos don't tend to stick around YouTube for very long...

Hotcha! Hank

Different Sideways Drum Maneuver

One foxy brunette covering another foxy brunette...Plus+++ Matthew Sweet and another dude who I'm guessing is Greg Leisz.

Hotcha! Hank

Tuesday's Fortune: 15 June 2010

MEAL: 1 order (8) Crab Rangoon + 1 small order Moo Goo Gai Pan = $8.30 + $1.00 tip

Hotcha! Hank

Things I Liked Last Week 061310

01: Ice Cube w/ The Roots: "Straight Outta Compton": Ice Cube appeared on Jimmy Fallon's show last week, and did the old NWA chestnut, "Straight Outta Compton" with The Roots. And it was goooooood.



02: Owen Pallett: "Game Of Pricks": The Onion's A.V. Club has been doing an ongoing feature called Undercover, in which contemporary bands do cover versions of older, more classic songs. In this week's installment, Owen Pallett (aka Final Fantasy) covers "Game Of Pricks" by Guided By Voices. It's a great rendition (love his voice) that really showcases Robert Pollard's knack for writing awesome melodies.

03: The Cat On The Silver Mountain: Not much needs to be said here - cats are fucking awesome, and this one's climbing a mountain.

04: Dunder-Mifflin floorplan: While The Office isn't quite as good as it used to be, it's still a quality show that delivers plenty of laughs. That doesn't matter though, because this is merely the floorplan for the Dunder-Mifflin office. I love floorplans. I wanted to be an architect when I was a teenager, but my math skills weren't good enough to get me into the program at UW-Milwaukee. Such is life.

05: Keebler Townhouse Flipsides: It's a pretzel shaped like a cracker! It's a cracker that looks and tastes like a pretzel! Will wonders ever cease? I've been putting cheddar cheese spread and sliced Manzanilla olives on 'em, and that's another wonder.

06: Jim's Pancakes: This is a website all about a guy named Jim who makes insanely awesome and inspiring pancakes for his daughter. Must be seen to be believed.

07: Hell's Kitchen [FOX, Tuesdays 8/7c]: I loathe reality shows. Just fucking hate 'em. Hell's Kitchen is the one exception. I believe I like this show because I've had several cooking jobs in my life, and I understand the dynamic of a working kitchen, and how the job is much, much harder and demanding than it might first appear. There's the heat, naturally, combined with the pace of a busy restaurant, that makes the job a bitch. Even with an able staff, there's always alot of different things going on at once, making one's timing perhaps as crucial as one's cooking skills. It's a very delicate balance that can get shot to hell in a heartbeat, and once that balance is gone, it's sooo hard to regain. One of the elements I like best about Hell's Kitchen is how the contestants brag about how great and skilled they are, which is ALWAYS followed by a segment showing them fucking things up royally, betraying their own egos and exposing their questionable skills. Seriously, I oftentimes think the producers pick some of these contestants just to humiliate them. Risotto and scallops are two mainstay dishes on the show, both being excellent barometers of the contestants skills, and almost every contestant who has appeared on Hell's Kitchen over it's seven seasons has fucked up both dishes. And then Chef Ramsay goes ballistic. I find this hilarious. People who have never worked in a kitchen think Chef Ramsay is an asshole. That's debatable, of course, but I can say that his demeanor is commonplace in the restaurant industry. Most chefs I've known and worked with over the years ARE assholes. I can't say that being a prick is a job requirement, but it is a high-stress job that tends to bring out the worst in people, and I just love when Chef Ramsay calls somebody a "useless donkey" or worse. Maybe it's nostalgia. Anyways, I consider myself a pretty good cook, but I don't think I'd fare very well on this show, so as moronic as I think most of the contestants are, I don't know if I could do any better under the circumstances.

Hotcha! Hank

Sideways Shade Of Maneuver

Here the Bangles cover "Hazy Shade Of Winter" by Simon & Garfunkel for the Less Than Zero movie soundtrack. While the movie wasn't horrible, it certainly didn't do justice to the Bret Easton Ellis novel, one of my favorites from the era.

Hotcha! Hank

Maneuvering Sideways To Liverpool

Another great song off the Bangles' All Over The Place album, this one written by Kimberly Rew from Katrina & The Waves. Ayup, that's a well-manicured Leonard Nimoy, who directed this video. His son was/is friends with Susanna Hoffs. The video isn't very good, but the song, like I said, is great, and this feels/looks like the '80's as I remember them, for better or worse.

Hotcha! Hank

Something 4 The Weekend # 170

Bangles: All Over The Place: "Tell Me" [mp3]

My words cannot do this album justice. The easiest thing to say is that it's flawless. Eleven pristine pop songs filled with beautiful vocal harmonies and chiming guitars, tons of energy and plenty of "kiss off" lyrics about bad boys who have done these ladies wrong. I've listened to this album hundreds of times since it's release in 1984, and it excites and energizes me every single time. A great and timeless album that everyone should really have in their collection. Really. A MUST!

Hotcha! Hank

HOT FIVE: Iron Maiden

05: The Number Of The Beast [1982]
Featuring: "22 Acacia Avenue", "The Number Of The Beast", "Run To The Hills", "Gangland", "Hallowed Be Thy Name"

Fuck Bruce Dickinson.

04: Piece Of Mind [1983]

Featuring..."Where Eagles Dare", "Revelations", "Flight Of Icarus", "Die With Your Boots On", "The Trooper"

Fuck Bruce Dickinson....But seriously, I tend to be a bit of a purist when it comes to rock bands. The only AC/DC that matters in my world is the one fronted by Bon Scott. Van Halen with Diamond Dave. The Who with Keith Moon. And yes, when it comes to Iron Maiden, I prefer the original line-up on their first two albums, when Paul Di'Anno was the singer. Seriously, fuck Bruce Dickinson. (I'm just kidding, of course - I've got no beef with Bruce, it's just kinda fun to say/type...)

03: Live After Death [1985]
Featuring..."Aces High", "2 Minutes To Midnight", "Rime Of The Ancient Mariner", "Powerslave", "Children Of The Damned"

Sigh, alright. Bruce Dickinson is a good singer, and he was a great fit for this band. And musically, Iron Maiden arguably hit their peak after Di'Anno left. They certainly weren't getting any worse on Number Of The Beast or Piece Of Mind. Still, I think if yr gonna own a non-Di'Anno album by Iron Maiden, I'd start with this one. It's an honest representation of the band as a live act, and having seen them on three different tours, I can certainly attest to the fact that these dudes can fucking play, and put on a damn good show. So not only does Live After Death serve as a fine document of the Iron Maiden live experience, but like all live albums, it also serves as a sufficient "greatest hits" package as well.

02: Iron Maiden [1980]
Featuring..."The Prowler", "Sanctuary", "Running Free", "Phantom Of The Opera", "Transylvania"

Here we are, where it all started. Iron Maiden's debut album, featuring Paul Di'Anno, and dammit if there isn't more than a bit of Punk influence twisted into these songs - songs with all the technical precision and dual-guitar melodies one has come to expect from this band. A bracing debut album from a legendary band that sounded unlike any other band out there at the time. A band soooo many have tried to emulate over the years, and never quite matched.

01: Killers [1981]
Featuring..."Wrathchild", "Murders In The Rue Morgue", "Innocent Exile", "Killers", "Purgatory"

Quite simply, one of the ten best Fucking Metal albums ever unleashed upon an unsuspecting world. A MUST! Nuff said.

Hotcha! Hank

Buzz Doesn't Need Your Money

The Melvins crack the Billboard Top 200 albums chart with their latest release, The Bride Screamed Murder! For true!

Hotcha! Hank

2010 LAMINATED LIST # 5

Sugar Street is the last book in Naguib Mahfouz's Cairo Trilogy. To get to Sugar Street, I'd first have to make my way through Palace Walk and Palace Of Desire - that's 934 pages, babycakes! Add Sugar Street's 309 pages, and that's an infinite jest... That's entertainment I most likely will never read...

I had picked up a like-new trade paperback edition of this trilogy for $9 at a rummage sale last summer. How could I, or anyone who reads, not snatch up a Nobel winner at that price? 1243 pages about three generations of the Gawad family in Cairo from 1919 to 1944...

Three books, 1243 pages, that might as well be laminated. Might as well be sealed in plastic because I'll most likely never read them. I think there will always be other, more interesting and relevant books for me to read.

Sugar Street, and the whole Cairo Trilogy, are not unobtainable to me, of course. They're well within reach, unlike Rosario Dawson.

Hotcha! Hank

Tuesday's Fortune: 08 June 2010

MEAL: 1 order Empress Chicken = $8.55 + $1.45 tip


Hotcha! Hank

Things I Liked Last Week 060610

01: Last Days [2005]: Writer and director Gus Van Sant goes out of his way to inform us that Last Days is NOT a Kurt Cobain biopic, but rather a "meditation on isolation, death and loss", but one only needs look at the poster to know this is mostly bullshit. Michael Pitt (as Blake, the protagonist of this film) has an uncanny resemblance to Cobain, helped in great part by the cinematography, in which we rarely see Blake close-up, and almost never see his face full-on. Instead, we see him stumbling around the large wooded estate surrounding his decaying "castle" in the woods, or shuffling aimlessly around the house, always on the verge of passing out. While we never actually see Blake doing drugs, the heroin use is certainly implied. Aside from the stumbling, Blake is nearly incapable of speech, and what does come out of his mouth is muffled and largely incoherent. Drugs or not, Blake is obviously a man with a serious, likely undiagnosed, mental illness. A mental illness that presumably doesn't matter to anybody else in the film because Blake is a huge rock star, and all those people around him have something to gain from his fame, whether it's bandmates needing him for a huge European tour and the wealth and fame it provides, his sycophantic housemates, who need him for money or lyrical help for their own songs for their own demo, or even the Yellow Pages salesman who simply needs another account, completely ignoring the near-catatonic Blake who sits across from him in the decrepit house. Yet somewhere beneath Blake's surface incoherence, it's quite obvious that he's aware of these leeches, because the entire film is really nothing more than a snapshot of Blake attempting to ignore, avoid, and escape them all, and when a friend brings a private eye hired by Blake's wife to find the rockstar, recently escaped from a drug rehap center, suddenly Blake doesn't stumble, but quickly and effectively escapes the house and evades the two. In the end, what Van Sant presents us is a portrait of a ghost, whether by choice or circumstance, who seemingly moves in a parallel world where everyone around him is incapable of seeing him for who he truly is, and more literally, often can't find him at all. It's a slow, haunting film, with little dialogue or plot, a strange audio track full of sounds that have absolutely nothing to do with what we see on the screen (ghosts, again), and even in the end, as the police stand over Blake's dead body in the greenhouse, one can't help but think he was gone long before he took his life.

02: Girl Eating Hotdog: Is it wrong that this photo turns me on? Yeah, it probably is.

03: Wolfguin: They can't fly, but they waddle rather fast. Long story short, you may want to laugh at the wolfguin, but once they clamp onto your leg, the joke's on you.

04: Whoomp! There Obama is!: The big question/conspiracy this week is that President Barack Obama appeared briefly in Tag Team's 1993 video for their hit, "Whoomp There It Is". True or not, the likeness is certainly uncanny, and I, for one, hope it's true.



05: Music & Lyrics by Stewie Griffin: I must admit, I don't like Family Guy all that much, but I happened to catch a syndicated rerun of this particular episode. "Things are a little more complicated than they seemed at first." Indeed, Stewie, life is often a stone-cold bitch, and yes, writing songs isn't very difficult, although writing good songs is something else entirely.

06: Milios' "Charlie The Tuna" Sub: Milios is a midwest-based sub shop chain, and aside from the absolute best French bread rolls I've ever had anywhere, their sub sandwiches are second to none. Now, usually I go with their Italian Club, but sometimes, as I did this past week, I opted for their Charlie The Tuna, which is most excellent for two reasons - Milios' secret gourmet sauce, and the fact that they don't use too much tuna. That might seem counter-intuitive, but think for a moment of a tuna sub that had too much tuna salad - it's dry, chewy, and ultimately, not very satisfying. The fine folks at Milios have found the exact right amount of tuna for their sandwich, and it makes all the difference. Just make sure to hold the bean sprouts. Sprouts suck.

Hotcha! Hank

Something 4 The Weekend # 169

Nazareth: No Mean City: "May The Sunshine" [mp3]

Here in America, Nazareth is known for two songs, "Love Hurts" and "Hair Of The Dog", and that's really about it. Over in the UK, this Scottish band is nothing short of legendary, still together, still touring, and still releasing records after 42 years in the business. No mean feat. I think that longevity can be summed up in a line from this very song - "never let your dreams grow small".

This particular song is my favorite Nazareth song. It got played a bit on the radio back in 1979 when this album was released, but certainly doesn't get played on the radio today. Not surprising, since FM rock radio in the United States is an absolute fucking joke. Nothing but small dreams on the FM dial. Dreams of profit and nothing else.

Anyways, I hope the sun is shining bright on you this beautiful Saturday in June. I'm off to the park to feed the ducks and read. Perhaps I'll read to the ducks.

Hotcha! Hank

Wishing Sideways Well Maneuver

One time I threw a silver dollar in a fountain somewhere in Minneapolis and wished to someday marry my girlfriend at that time. It was 1985. I was nineteen/stupid/high. Three months later she broke up with me and moved to South Dakota with her best friend. She's on Facebook, but that's as much as I care. I'd never socialize with her on this or any other network.

Another time I threw about 63¢ in a wishing well in Reno and got food poisoning from the Circus Circus buffet later that day. I had wished for "at least enough money to fix the broken CV joint on the stationwagon". Instead I lost a couple hundred bucks at the tables before fixing the wagon outta pocket and hitting the open roads...Interestingly enough, that wish actually came mostly true about a week later, when I won $400 at a craps table in Las Vegas.

And then there was the wish I made while blowing out the candles on my 16th birthday cake, some chocolate affair baked up by my high school sweetheart, who would break up with me about a year later. My wish that day had nothing to do with her, however. That particular wish was a fairly existential wish, and so far, after nearly 30 years, I would have to say it has come true and remained true. To tell you that wish now, and here, would certainly be flirting with disaster.

Anyways, I've never really liked "the beach". I looooove "the coastline" from a viewable distance, like driving up and down the Pacific Coast Highway, but I don't like sunbathing and the first time I ever swam in the ocean, summer of '75, I got stung by a jellyfish. Plus, that girlfriend I wished to marry? The first time we had sex was on a moonlit Flagler Beach, FLA...

Nah, don't care for beaches, and besides, I loathe men in sandals and/or flip/flops, unless they're Korean.

Hotcha! Hank

Tuesday's Fortune: 01 June 2010

MEAL: 2 Vegetable Spring Rolls + 1 order (6) Teriyaki Chicken = $8.15 + 85¢ tip


Hotcha! Hank