Random lines of fiction surfacing today, but without context.
“It learned mouse.”
An isolated quote in a forgotten file lurking on a, until recently, nonfunctional laptop. The file itself reads as a dissertation prospectus, and one that is actually interesting to me now in a way that it clearly wasn’t at the time. The mouse references puts in mind Wen Spencer’s “Ukiah Oregon” series, but the writing itself is not the proper style for those novels. The sentence has more the feel of China Miéville’s work, but not one of his novels; more likely this is from the short story “The Familiar.” Lovely, creepy story – must locate the book and reread the story to see if my memory has actually decided to stand up and be counted for once. Ah, the dissertation prospectus that was wrestling not with representations of the fragmented self in post-cyberpunk science fiction, but rather a fractal self – a coherent individual who, depending upon angles and outside influences, switches among selves as necessary or appropriate.
Uh huh … fascinating, but ultimately worth what in the grand scheme of things? That may have been one of my biggest obstacles in grad school – it was (almost) all interesting, but had very little relevance to daily life. Or, as one of the women in my political science grad cohort said after she left the program, “Just try telling one of these homeless guys that you have to run a regression analysis before he exists. He’ll kick you right in the Chi-squared.” What I learnt my first semester of undergrad: the Greek alphabet. Three suite-mates rushing various sororities and I was the one who ended up learning the antiquated alphabet. Go figure. It does help to make me hell on wheels with crossword puzzles.
I finally have (almost) everything squared away for the spring/summer menu changes, have ordering, scheduling, and inventory streamlined, and have given myself permission to bring a book to work for those lovely afternoon slumps between lunch and dinner. There really is only so much preparation and cleaning that can be done during this time before you find yourself cleaning perfectly clean shelves. Boredom, tedium, desuetude – these are not good looks on me. I once quit a job because the level of desuetude far exceeded the engagement and activity opportunities.
Having been away from grad school for a couple of years, I find myself strangely drawn back to the theory texts that I always loved, but couldn’t bring myself to read once they became assignments. This isn’t a grad school specific problem, either. For as long as I can remember, the moment something became assigned, I was absolutely dead-set against reading it. Oddly enough, this came to include materials that I assigned to my own students. If I didn’t finish all of the reading before the course started, I was in deep trouble. Example: I once taught the first “Ukiah” book, Alien Taste, in a course on Science Fiction and Fantasy, but didn’t read the book myself during that three month period. I absolutely love those books, but simply couldn’t get past my mental block to actually read the damn thing.
Given the wide range of books out there, what have I chosen for my “work book” this month? Michel Foucault’s Madness and Civilization. Right now it is fun and lovely to read. Yep … that fairly well laminates me in the geek category.
Actually, this feels like the precursor to a summer reading trend. I always have several books that I’m reading at a time, but frequently there is a thread of continuity that runs through the books. One book will suggest the next, which then shapes my subsequent selection, and so forth. This theme feels like one of theoretical texts and novels that then embody or illustrate these thought systems. Foucault will inevitably lead to Delaney’s The Mad Man. That, in turn, will likely lead to revisiting Marx (either Das Kapital or “Communist Manifesto” and “The Eighteenth Brumaire”). The accompanying fiction will be Miéville, probably Perdido Street Station and the short story “Jack”. In fact, that choice will be influenced as well by what I’m leaning toward as the follow-up theory/fiction combination. If my mood is waxing epic, then I’ll likely switch out Perdido Street for Iron Council and movement toward Clive Barker’s Imajica and Edward Soja’s Third Space; the more economic my groove, the more likely that Perdido Street will remain, to be followed by Richard K. Morgan’s Market Forces and the relevant international economic and post-colonial theories. Either way, “Jack” will remain in the picture.
“Jack” is an amazing story in which the dominant structures in the New Crobuzon power system literally creates the means, if not of its own destruction, then of its own radical destabilization. The Remakers craft with the tools of the penal system the Remade who becomes Jack-Half-a-Prayer. One of Jack’s Remakers is conscious of his role in the creation of Jack’s rebellion. The penal system literally remakes the bodies (human and otherwise) in the image of its own punishment, but in so doing creates a group of people, many of whom are uniquely equipped for jobs and employment in the New Crobuzon labor market. In some ways, then, the Remade represent the roots not only of the prevailing system’s inherent weakness, but also the economic forces by which that change or destabilization shall occur. They represent a new form of labor – one that the capitalist/ruling economic class of the old/current system cannot either become or embrace without placing themselves, in the moment of conversion/inclusion, by default outside the “normal boundaries” of the system within which they previously exercised power.
In this sense, then, the penal system of New Crobuzon is not just an exercise of power or a node within which power is concentrated (or through which power flows), but it is also a point in which power becomes diffused out of the networks or wills of the system that created those very power pathways. Nowhere does this diffusion of power become more evident than aboard the ship in The Scar. Here there is an even further transition as being Remade in specific ways becomes not merely acceptable, but highly desirable and something which individuals in some social classes/circles begin to aspire. Being Remade evolves into a necessary and sufficient condition of employment in key arenas in the functioning of the ship city.
Eep! This is coming dangerously close to linking with Soja’s Third Space as well as suggesting that more Foucault may be in order. What I really want, however, is to find the fiction link that will let me justify rereading Herbert Marcuse’s Three-Dimensional Man. Hmm, that will take some pondering.
Wow! You made it this far?!? You’re still reading???
Geek.
A little reward is in order for your persistence, delusions, or ability to scroll in your sleep: the story, in brief, of how Mr. Mossy Oak also came to be known as Hickey Boy.
After finishing his delivery one Friday, Mr. Mossy Oak was on his way toward the back door, but had to pass by the Baroness in order to do so. Just as he passed she took one look at his neck and exclaimed, “Whoa! Your woman put one hell of a hickey on your neck last night!” Needless to say, that stopped him in his tracks. Then she looked a bit closer. “That’s not just one hickey! There must be half a dozen there. And I’m pretty sure they weren’t all made by the same woman. No way that one,” she said, pointing, “could be made by the same size and shape mouth as the one that made these two. And these! That woman must be half octopus!”
Poor guy, he was absolutely beet-red by this time, but he managed to paste on a silly grin, square his shoulders and say, “Sweetheart, it was a long night, but I bet she would have nothing on you.” The Baroness started laughing and said, “Bye-bye cutie. You drive safe Hickey Boy, and maybe she’ll give you another busy night tonight.”
Sometimes geekdom has its own debauched rewards.
25 April 2009
24 April 2009
Musical Kitchens
My Friday delivery driver, Mr. Mossy Oak, stopped dead in his tracks this afternoon, stared at the tiny pair of speakers sitting on a shelf, and asked, “What’s that?!?” Once we sorted out that he was referring not to the jankety sound system but rather the music issuing forth, I told him that the current song was “Can You Feel Me” by Dru Down. “Drew who??” East Side Oakland rapper … concurrent with Digital Underground and MC Hammer, part of the Bay Area Mobb hip hop style. Yeah, anyway. The previous song had been “Shadows of the Night” by DJ Bobo with Sandra. Mr. Mossy Oak commented that each kitchen he delivers to has its own musical tastes (where music is allowed), but that mine was by far the weirdest and most eclectic. Yep – weird music taste – that’s my dictionary definition.
Mr. Mossy Oak is a man of many names around here. (Some day I’ll share the tale of how he came to be dubbed “Hickey Boy”). This particular nickname derives from his head-to-toe garb of Mossy Oak camouflage. Now, there is something very not right about a non-hunter, non-camo person being able to identify – by name, mind you – various patterns and designs of camouflage. Not uncommon is an exchange such as this:
“Hey, did I leave my jacket here last night?”
“What does it look like?”
“Men’s large, Mossy Oak ‘Obsession’.”
“Let me check. Nope, that’s a Mossy Oak ‘Tree Stand’, and this one is US Woodland.”
Not. Right. At. All.
Mr. Mossy Oak’s comment started me thinking about the musical idioms of the various professional kitchens in which I’ve worked.
The first professional kitchen in which I worked was an absolute boy’s club. There were a couple of women who worked there, but they always were assigned the least desirable and most tedious tasks. Guys who had less experience were given more responsibility, better jobs, etc. I was the token dyke, which was mostly okay, but not always an entirely comfortable role. This kitchen’s musical tastes ran high to Public Enemy, Beastie Boys, DJ Shadow, DJ Spooky, Princess Superstar, and Beck.
U2 occupied a unique love/hate space for these boys. On the one hand, there was the infamous “Lemon” incident in which, faced with two dozen bushels of fresh lemons in need to slicing, peeling, zesting, and otherwise mutilating before a looming deadline, the chef commandeered the cd player and set “Lemon” on an endless repeat at maximum volume until the task was complete. The kitchen was separated, geographically, from the front of the house by a long hallway featuring a right angle turn half-way along the path. Careful experimentation had allowed us to determine the maximum volume at which music could be played in the kitchen before it filtered out to the dining room. Given the unidirectional nature of sound wave travel, the “maximum” volume was only a step below the point at which sound degradation began through the speakers themselves. Turning the corner that morning, one was met with a wall of sound, a wall of Bono screeching “Lemon! Circle in the Sky. She wore Lemon!” Yeah … even the dishwasher was drafted into lemon duty that morning, but the process was still several hours of one song. I will say, however, that at least it is a song with a beat that lends itself to a nice, steady, and rapid knife beat. This, I am obligated as “journeyman of the obvious” to point out, was the genesis of the “hate” component of the kitchen’s relationship to U2.
On the “love” side of the equation was the ritual early Friday morning playing of The Joshua Tree. Only, this was The Joshua Tree unlike you have ever heard that album before. For some people, multiple repetitions of a song or album are necessary before they can even begin to learn the lyrics. For others, however, frequent repetition breeds a whole new relationship with the song lyrics – the ability to improvise, rewrite, and customize – on the fly. Few people were ever in the house for Joshua Tree time, and the chef’s lyric improvisation ran wild. Some songs on that album are fairly well permanently ruined for me. Prior to that job, I loved the whole album, and had a particular fondness for “With or Without You.” Now I can’t hear that song without hearing the revised lyrics, featuring a chorus of “And you give yourself away/Cause you know your Dad is gay/And he’s fucking the neighbor.” Damn. This is a level of aural association on par with the Emily Dickinson/Gilligan’s Island pairing* that leaves you rather unable to ever hear the original version again without some sort of internal editing. Thus the love/hate relationship, though the lines of both categories were, and still are, irreparably blurred.
The next kitchen in which I worked was located in a fine arts college, so frequently our musical accompaniment involved student pieces or practice sessions right outside the door. Some of these individuals and groups were excellent; others not so much. When left to our own devices, our three person kitchen favoured Audioslave, Dru Down, Los Tigres del Norte, Alice in Chains, Boom Bap Project, and Blue Scholars. It was gangsta (the pantry cook was actually a former ESO gang member), it was male, it was aging punk, and it was all heavily tempered by the student population in which we found ourselves.
Incidentally, my first day in this kitchen was almost my last. I had subbed for a week on the coffee bar in this restaurant, with no problems at all other than some vague amusement at the freshmen practice dance routines in the middle of the dining room. When I hired on full-time and moved into the kitchen, well, that was a bit rough. As we were about to begin lunch service, a group of haphazardly clothed students ran through the dining room yelling “Clowns!” Turns out it was “Clown Day” at the school, when the junior clown troops performed various routines during lunch. Stef doesn’t do clowns. Stef hasn’t done clowns since attending a Pride of the Piedmont Jubilee clown performance when I was a kid. Said clown used a miniature guillotine to apparently chop off the index finger of an audience member, complete with blood. I didn’t see how the trick was performed (that’s kind of the point, no?), but I’m definitely scarred by the imagery. Add into the mix more than my share of reading about associative disorders among clown performers, and a neighbor who would troop by our sliding glass door at sparrow fart o’clock in full clown gear off to a performance and I’m done for where clowns are concerned. Interestingly, though, I don’t have any particularly bad associations because of Stephen King’s It, and count Killer Klowns from Outer Space as among my favorites of 80s “B” cult films. A museum security guard did once offer to beat up the “creepy clown” performer at an event, but only if I went with him and watched his back. He didn’t do clowns either, and this clown was particularly far along on the sliding creep scale.
MoMo’s kitchen – the last professional kitchen in which I worked in Seattle – ran high to Lucinda Williams, Nina Hagen, Steve Earle, Jurassic Five, The Roots, and the Sunday morning KEXP reggae show (until about 11am, after which it was deemed to be crap). Occasionally bits of Mos Def would filter in from the baking area, as well. This is by far the most musically talented kitchen in which I’ve worked, and having people randomly break into bits of song was not uncommon. Oh, and I mustn’t forget the month long one line repeat of “Santa Baby”; almost enough to drive a crazy person sane, that was. There was so much music surrounding the whole company that to speak only of what existed in the kitchen is to offer quite a limited view. That’s what you’re getting, though. :)
If Mongo had his way, music around this place would be limited to Johnny Cash, Brooks and Dunn, Toby Keith, Alan Jackson, Elvis, and Elton John. In that order, always. Fortunately the speakers in the kitchen slaved to the house speakers were easily disconnected. Now the kitchen music is far more eclectic, faithless to genre, tempo, country of origin, or classic groupings or clashes. There is still a fair amount of Public Enemy, Beastie Boys, Dru Down, Blue Scholars, Jurassic Five, and Nina Hagen. Joining the party are many other artists, creating a lovely cacophony of unpredictable play lists. There are very few things that I flat-out won’t listen to (at least to give a fair try), and even those things that I absolutely abhor have gained that title through repeated listening attempts. Artists that once graced my “I’d rather poke my ears out” list have crawled onto the “Don’t like them as a general rule, but make exceptions for songs x, y, and z” list. Such a wide range of music can make for a wild ride for others.
So, as Mr. Mossy Oak, the Baroness, and I stood talking about music, Dru Down gave way to Coyote Grace (a segue that actually worked well, believe it or not), and all Mr. MO could do was shake his head, laugh, and take his leave of our insanity. He had barely made it down the ramp, not yet out the door, before the Baroness cried, “Play that ‘constipated and pale’** song! I like that one best of all.” Mr. MO missed a step and walked face first into the screen door, I kid you not. Poor guy. You think he’d have learned not to turn his back on the Baroness by now.
*(E.D./G.I. in brief – almost all of Dickinson’s poems can be sung to the Gilligan’s Island theme song. The one exception I can think of off the top of my head is “I Cannot Live with You”. It was high school, senior year, English class was boring, and anything went when it came to staying awake. This trick later insured that I got at least one answer on the GRE Literature Subject Test correct.)*
**She was referring to the Blue Scholars song “Fifty Thousand Deep,” a song about the 1999 WTO protests, in which they refer to Seattle Major Greg Nickels as looking “constipated and pale” in the press, trying to deal with an escalating situation. The Baroness doesn’t know artists or song titles; instead, she has a tendency to group songs into “danced (professionally) to that” or not. The primary exception to this rule is John Fogarty. She’ll never remember his name when she hears one of his songs, but once you tell her, she’ll be off and running, telling the tale of her night of wild passion with the man himself. I’ll spare you the sordid details until I can guarantee that you are seated, with an appropriate beverage available for the requisite spit-takes.**
Mr. Mossy Oak is a man of many names around here. (Some day I’ll share the tale of how he came to be dubbed “Hickey Boy”). This particular nickname derives from his head-to-toe garb of Mossy Oak camouflage. Now, there is something very not right about a non-hunter, non-camo person being able to identify – by name, mind you – various patterns and designs of camouflage. Not uncommon is an exchange such as this:
“Hey, did I leave my jacket here last night?”
“What does it look like?”
“Men’s large, Mossy Oak ‘Obsession’.”
“Let me check. Nope, that’s a Mossy Oak ‘Tree Stand’, and this one is US Woodland.”
Not. Right. At. All.
Mr. Mossy Oak’s comment started me thinking about the musical idioms of the various professional kitchens in which I’ve worked.
The first professional kitchen in which I worked was an absolute boy’s club. There were a couple of women who worked there, but they always were assigned the least desirable and most tedious tasks. Guys who had less experience were given more responsibility, better jobs, etc. I was the token dyke, which was mostly okay, but not always an entirely comfortable role. This kitchen’s musical tastes ran high to Public Enemy, Beastie Boys, DJ Shadow, DJ Spooky, Princess Superstar, and Beck.
U2 occupied a unique love/hate space for these boys. On the one hand, there was the infamous “Lemon” incident in which, faced with two dozen bushels of fresh lemons in need to slicing, peeling, zesting, and otherwise mutilating before a looming deadline, the chef commandeered the cd player and set “Lemon” on an endless repeat at maximum volume until the task was complete. The kitchen was separated, geographically, from the front of the house by a long hallway featuring a right angle turn half-way along the path. Careful experimentation had allowed us to determine the maximum volume at which music could be played in the kitchen before it filtered out to the dining room. Given the unidirectional nature of sound wave travel, the “maximum” volume was only a step below the point at which sound degradation began through the speakers themselves. Turning the corner that morning, one was met with a wall of sound, a wall of Bono screeching “Lemon! Circle in the Sky. She wore Lemon!” Yeah … even the dishwasher was drafted into lemon duty that morning, but the process was still several hours of one song. I will say, however, that at least it is a song with a beat that lends itself to a nice, steady, and rapid knife beat. This, I am obligated as “journeyman of the obvious” to point out, was the genesis of the “hate” component of the kitchen’s relationship to U2.
On the “love” side of the equation was the ritual early Friday morning playing of The Joshua Tree. Only, this was The Joshua Tree unlike you have ever heard that album before. For some people, multiple repetitions of a song or album are necessary before they can even begin to learn the lyrics. For others, however, frequent repetition breeds a whole new relationship with the song lyrics – the ability to improvise, rewrite, and customize – on the fly. Few people were ever in the house for Joshua Tree time, and the chef’s lyric improvisation ran wild. Some songs on that album are fairly well permanently ruined for me. Prior to that job, I loved the whole album, and had a particular fondness for “With or Without You.” Now I can’t hear that song without hearing the revised lyrics, featuring a chorus of “And you give yourself away/Cause you know your Dad is gay/And he’s fucking the neighbor.” Damn. This is a level of aural association on par with the Emily Dickinson/Gilligan’s Island pairing* that leaves you rather unable to ever hear the original version again without some sort of internal editing. Thus the love/hate relationship, though the lines of both categories were, and still are, irreparably blurred.
The next kitchen in which I worked was located in a fine arts college, so frequently our musical accompaniment involved student pieces or practice sessions right outside the door. Some of these individuals and groups were excellent; others not so much. When left to our own devices, our three person kitchen favoured Audioslave, Dru Down, Los Tigres del Norte, Alice in Chains, Boom Bap Project, and Blue Scholars. It was gangsta (the pantry cook was actually a former ESO gang member), it was male, it was aging punk, and it was all heavily tempered by the student population in which we found ourselves.
Incidentally, my first day in this kitchen was almost my last. I had subbed for a week on the coffee bar in this restaurant, with no problems at all other than some vague amusement at the freshmen practice dance routines in the middle of the dining room. When I hired on full-time and moved into the kitchen, well, that was a bit rough. As we were about to begin lunch service, a group of haphazardly clothed students ran through the dining room yelling “Clowns!” Turns out it was “Clown Day” at the school, when the junior clown troops performed various routines during lunch. Stef doesn’t do clowns. Stef hasn’t done clowns since attending a Pride of the Piedmont Jubilee clown performance when I was a kid. Said clown used a miniature guillotine to apparently chop off the index finger of an audience member, complete with blood. I didn’t see how the trick was performed (that’s kind of the point, no?), but I’m definitely scarred by the imagery. Add into the mix more than my share of reading about associative disorders among clown performers, and a neighbor who would troop by our sliding glass door at sparrow fart o’clock in full clown gear off to a performance and I’m done for where clowns are concerned. Interestingly, though, I don’t have any particularly bad associations because of Stephen King’s It, and count Killer Klowns from Outer Space as among my favorites of 80s “B” cult films. A museum security guard did once offer to beat up the “creepy clown” performer at an event, but only if I went with him and watched his back. He didn’t do clowns either, and this clown was particularly far along on the sliding creep scale.
MoMo’s kitchen – the last professional kitchen in which I worked in Seattle – ran high to Lucinda Williams, Nina Hagen, Steve Earle, Jurassic Five, The Roots, and the Sunday morning KEXP reggae show (until about 11am, after which it was deemed to be crap). Occasionally bits of Mos Def would filter in from the baking area, as well. This is by far the most musically talented kitchen in which I’ve worked, and having people randomly break into bits of song was not uncommon. Oh, and I mustn’t forget the month long one line repeat of “Santa Baby”; almost enough to drive a crazy person sane, that was. There was so much music surrounding the whole company that to speak only of what existed in the kitchen is to offer quite a limited view. That’s what you’re getting, though. :)
If Mongo had his way, music around this place would be limited to Johnny Cash, Brooks and Dunn, Toby Keith, Alan Jackson, Elvis, and Elton John. In that order, always. Fortunately the speakers in the kitchen slaved to the house speakers were easily disconnected. Now the kitchen music is far more eclectic, faithless to genre, tempo, country of origin, or classic groupings or clashes. There is still a fair amount of Public Enemy, Beastie Boys, Dru Down, Blue Scholars, Jurassic Five, and Nina Hagen. Joining the party are many other artists, creating a lovely cacophony of unpredictable play lists. There are very few things that I flat-out won’t listen to (at least to give a fair try), and even those things that I absolutely abhor have gained that title through repeated listening attempts. Artists that once graced my “I’d rather poke my ears out” list have crawled onto the “Don’t like them as a general rule, but make exceptions for songs x, y, and z” list. Such a wide range of music can make for a wild ride for others.
So, as Mr. Mossy Oak, the Baroness, and I stood talking about music, Dru Down gave way to Coyote Grace (a segue that actually worked well, believe it or not), and all Mr. MO could do was shake his head, laugh, and take his leave of our insanity. He had barely made it down the ramp, not yet out the door, before the Baroness cried, “Play that ‘constipated and pale’** song! I like that one best of all.” Mr. MO missed a step and walked face first into the screen door, I kid you not. Poor guy. You think he’d have learned not to turn his back on the Baroness by now.
*(E.D./G.I. in brief – almost all of Dickinson’s poems can be sung to the Gilligan’s Island theme song. The one exception I can think of off the top of my head is “I Cannot Live with You”. It was high school, senior year, English class was boring, and anything went when it came to staying awake. This trick later insured that I got at least one answer on the GRE Literature Subject Test correct.)*
**She was referring to the Blue Scholars song “Fifty Thousand Deep,” a song about the 1999 WTO protests, in which they refer to Seattle Major Greg Nickels as looking “constipated and pale” in the press, trying to deal with an escalating situation. The Baroness doesn’t know artists or song titles; instead, she has a tendency to group songs into “danced (professionally) to that” or not. The primary exception to this rule is John Fogarty. She’ll never remember his name when she hears one of his songs, but once you tell her, she’ll be off and running, telling the tale of her night of wild passion with the man himself. I’ll spare you the sordid details until I can guarantee that you are seated, with an appropriate beverage available for the requisite spit-takes.**
23 April 2009
“I’m a hot, hot mama!”
“HELLO!”
“I’m a hot, hot mama!”
“I’m not ridden hard! This is my windblown look!”
“Jawohl!”
Sometimes you don’t even have need to look. Even when the bar is empty; even when you’re busy thinking about changes for the spring menu; even when you’re listening to a new cd – some things permeate all layers of consciousness and announce as bright and clear as a trumpet the presence of the Baroness.
“Hey! You mad, drunken woman! Someone out there is talking to you. Well, I just heard it, another horse’s ass whinny.”
Not just the Baroness, but the Baroness and Major Benjy. What else could one wish for at the start of happy hour? The whole floor show, loaded for werebear by the sounds of it. Now, this would have been a bigger issue for me in the past, but with the advent of a new health inspector in this area, Louise pulled a fast one on the Baroness. Louise claimed that a new health code had gone into effect which forbids anyone not scheduled to work from being in the kitchen. This has the lovely result of keeping the Baroness from hiding in the kitchen while when they are arguing or when Major Benjy gets drunk and gambles to his heart’s content. The Baroness asked me about this new health code before Louise had a chance to tell me about it, but it sounded like such a grand idea that I confirmed it simply by saying that Louise had mentioned a new set of health codes coming into play immediately.
Reports from the front today indicate that the Baroness is pissy, Major Benjy is cranky, and that they are working up to one of their truly epic floor shows. Hopefully it won’t result in her forcing him to go home before he is ready. Last Saturday, when things unfolded as such, they hadn’t been gone twenty minutes when he walked back in, much to everyone’s surprise. See, Major Benjy’s driver’s license has been suspended for at least the last decade. He had helped himself to the Baroness’ convertible and driven himself back down to the bar, though. When he told us he had driven himself in the convertible, no one believed him; Louise, J.J., Wakko, and I were like crows on a power line looking out the side window where he had parked the car. Realizing that he was facing ten days and several thousand dollars in fines if he got caught, he decided that it would be best to wait until after dark before heading home. Ultimately someone else drove him home, and the Baroness begged a ride from me yesterday so that she could retrieve the car.
“Major Benjy, back off! You’re biting everybody’s ass, and not all of them have their shots current.”
Then Mongo runs through yammering on to himself. On his way back through he stops and says, “You know it’s bad when you start talking to yourself, answering back, and arguing with yourself out loud. But I’ve been living here two years now, and it’s starting to rub off. I’m going native.”
All that can really be said in response is “Word”, which a certain lobster boatboy – J3 – was fond of defining as “urban vernacular for ‘I hear and understand you’”.
To that, I say “Double True”.
“I’m a hot, hot mama!”
“I’m not ridden hard! This is my windblown look!”
“Jawohl!”
Sometimes you don’t even have need to look. Even when the bar is empty; even when you’re busy thinking about changes for the spring menu; even when you’re listening to a new cd – some things permeate all layers of consciousness and announce as bright and clear as a trumpet the presence of the Baroness.
“Hey! You mad, drunken woman! Someone out there is talking to you. Well, I just heard it, another horse’s ass whinny.”
Not just the Baroness, but the Baroness and Major Benjy. What else could one wish for at the start of happy hour? The whole floor show, loaded for werebear by the sounds of it. Now, this would have been a bigger issue for me in the past, but with the advent of a new health inspector in this area, Louise pulled a fast one on the Baroness. Louise claimed that a new health code had gone into effect which forbids anyone not scheduled to work from being in the kitchen. This has the lovely result of keeping the Baroness from hiding in the kitchen while when they are arguing or when Major Benjy gets drunk and gambles to his heart’s content. The Baroness asked me about this new health code before Louise had a chance to tell me about it, but it sounded like such a grand idea that I confirmed it simply by saying that Louise had mentioned a new set of health codes coming into play immediately.
Reports from the front today indicate that the Baroness is pissy, Major Benjy is cranky, and that they are working up to one of their truly epic floor shows. Hopefully it won’t result in her forcing him to go home before he is ready. Last Saturday, when things unfolded as such, they hadn’t been gone twenty minutes when he walked back in, much to everyone’s surprise. See, Major Benjy’s driver’s license has been suspended for at least the last decade. He had helped himself to the Baroness’ convertible and driven himself back down to the bar, though. When he told us he had driven himself in the convertible, no one believed him; Louise, J.J., Wakko, and I were like crows on a power line looking out the side window where he had parked the car. Realizing that he was facing ten days and several thousand dollars in fines if he got caught, he decided that it would be best to wait until after dark before heading home. Ultimately someone else drove him home, and the Baroness begged a ride from me yesterday so that she could retrieve the car.
“Major Benjy, back off! You’re biting everybody’s ass, and not all of them have their shots current.”
Then Mongo runs through yammering on to himself. On his way back through he stops and says, “You know it’s bad when you start talking to yourself, answering back, and arguing with yourself out loud. But I’ve been living here two years now, and it’s starting to rub off. I’m going native.”
All that can really be said in response is “Word”, which a certain lobster boatboy – J3 – was fond of defining as “urban vernacular for ‘I hear and understand you’”.
To that, I say “Double True”.
07 March 2009
The Case of the Dastardly Belt Buckle
What goes through your mind when you hear hysterical laughter emerging from a single-stall women's restroom?
Most likely it took only a minute to think of several different answers.
Alright, now, picture that scenario again, but factor in this information: the Baroness is alone in that bathroom. Seriously. Go on - take more than a few minutes - give your imagination scope. This is the Baroness after all.
While I feel confident that everyone came up with something amusing (and would love to know what you dreamt up) - Louise, J.J., and I came up with some beauties of our own - I'll lay wager that no one conceived of the actual scenario that played itself out today.
Folks, what the good Baroness had managed to do this morning while getting dressed was to put her belt on backwards. Now, by backwards I do not mean upside down; nor do I mean inside out. By "backwards" I mean "straight-jacket-fastens-in-the-rear" backwards. The maniacal giggling was the soundtrack to her frantic attempts to reach behind her back to undo the buckle. This was a task made more complicated because one of her shoulders no longer moves in that direction and tends to lock out from her body at a thirty degree angle when she forgets this bit of trivia. So, there is the Baroness, thrashing about in the bathroom, left arm incapacitated, trying to remember from her stripper days how to skin out of tight jeans with one hand. Of course, she had never tried this stunt with the jeans belted on tightly from behind.
Finally, to the cry of "Balls on a Monkey!" she burst forth from the bathroom door and shouted, "Someone get over here and undo my belt buckle." Now, we didn't know what was going on at this point, but that was one customer's cue to step outside and smoke.
Eventually, having been freed from the belt trap, the Baroness reemerged from the bathroom, struggling this time to buckle her belt (in front this time). Throwing up her hands, the Baroness cried, "Sugar shit! I can't see past my tits! Somebody buckle this belt for me!" Well, J.J. took one for the team on that request (which is unusual as I seem to have permanently drawn the shortest straw in the universe where the Baroness and Major Benjy are concerned). Unfortunately, when confronted with the belt buckle, J.J. quite literally fell down laughing because now the difficulties stemmed from the belt buckle being upside down and inside out, though at least aimed forward.
The kicker? The Baroness was stone-cold sober at this point in the day.
Perhaps Eddie Izzard is correct in suggesting that fastening the seat belt should be a basic competency test for being allowed to travel on an airplane. Or, in the case of the Baroness, properly buckling your own belt buckle. Can't handle it? Oops ... not allowed out in public today.
Most likely it took only a minute to think of several different answers.
Alright, now, picture that scenario again, but factor in this information: the Baroness is alone in that bathroom. Seriously. Go on - take more than a few minutes - give your imagination scope. This is the Baroness after all.
While I feel confident that everyone came up with something amusing (and would love to know what you dreamt up) - Louise, J.J., and I came up with some beauties of our own - I'll lay wager that no one conceived of the actual scenario that played itself out today.
Folks, what the good Baroness had managed to do this morning while getting dressed was to put her belt on backwards. Now, by backwards I do not mean upside down; nor do I mean inside out. By "backwards" I mean "straight-jacket-fastens-in-the-rear" backwards. The maniacal giggling was the soundtrack to her frantic attempts to reach behind her back to undo the buckle. This was a task made more complicated because one of her shoulders no longer moves in that direction and tends to lock out from her body at a thirty degree angle when she forgets this bit of trivia. So, there is the Baroness, thrashing about in the bathroom, left arm incapacitated, trying to remember from her stripper days how to skin out of tight jeans with one hand. Of course, she had never tried this stunt with the jeans belted on tightly from behind.
Finally, to the cry of "Balls on a Monkey!" she burst forth from the bathroom door and shouted, "Someone get over here and undo my belt buckle." Now, we didn't know what was going on at this point, but that was one customer's cue to step outside and smoke.
Eventually, having been freed from the belt trap, the Baroness reemerged from the bathroom, struggling this time to buckle her belt (in front this time). Throwing up her hands, the Baroness cried, "Sugar shit! I can't see past my tits! Somebody buckle this belt for me!" Well, J.J. took one for the team on that request (which is unusual as I seem to have permanently drawn the shortest straw in the universe where the Baroness and Major Benjy are concerned). Unfortunately, when confronted with the belt buckle, J.J. quite literally fell down laughing because now the difficulties stemmed from the belt buckle being upside down and inside out, though at least aimed forward.
The kicker? The Baroness was stone-cold sober at this point in the day.
Perhaps Eddie Izzard is correct in suggesting that fastening the seat belt should be a basic competency test for being allowed to travel on an airplane. Or, in the case of the Baroness, properly buckling your own belt buckle. Can't handle it? Oops ... not allowed out in public today.
05 March 2009
Initiation Rites of the Brotherhood of Odocoileus virginianus
Are deer capable of waking up in the morning feeling suicidal? Or is there some sort of deer game akin to Paperboy? Perhaps they play a game akin to the driving game whereby you gain extra points for hitting pedestrians, small children, or other moving objects. Maybe they are playing some deer version of chicken?
I ask because this morning I had a close encounter of the suicidal deer variety. The only explanation that makes any sense at all is that it was a complex hazing ritual as a prelude to initiation into the Brotherhood of Odocoileus virginianus. I imagine the roadside conversation to have gone a bit like this:
Master of Rituals (MR): Hey, man, see that huge Montana Rail Link truck coming down the highway?
Pledge Deer (PD): Wha ... ? Montana who ... ?
MR: Oh, man, you haven't even learnt to read yet! This'll be great! I'm talking about that giant thing hurtling (that means moving rapidly, plebe) down that weirdly textured path.
PD: Yeah, I can sorta see it. It's a friggin' snow whiteout though ... I can barely see anything!
MR: Alright, well, walk this way a little. Okay, see that smaller thing cruisin' along about 100 yards behind the big thing?
PD: I can see lights! Pretty lights! What's a hundred?
MR: NO!!! Do NOT look into the lights. Never look into the lights - they paralyze you and make you do stupid things.
PD: But they're so swirleeeeeeeeee ....
MR: Snap out of it! Here's whatcha do - this'll be fun. After the big thing passes, you gotta get to the other side of the weird trail before the little thing gets here. That'll prove you're cool enough to go on our big adventure this morning.
PD: Okay ... between the big thing and the little thing ... to the other side of the path. Here it comes! There it goes! Here I go!
MR: Remember, don't look at the lights!
PD: Don't look at the lights. Don't look at the lights. Don't look ... WHEEEE!!!
MR: Whoa! Brothers, come check this out! That idiot actually made it across the highway between the two vehicles. I guess that means we have to let Virgil into the club. The driver of that second car doesn't look half scared, though!
I did not hit the deer, nor did I ditch myself. Hell, I didn't even have time to think about swerving.
Seriously, though, what is up with deer pulling those kind of stunts? It's not like it could have not seen the huge Rail Link vehicle. I'm going with the secret whitetail deer fraternity explanation; you aren't allowed to move into the cool den until you pass some spectacular rite of initiation.
Thanks to Deer in the Yard for the above image.
27 February 2009
Comparative Jail Cells 101
Ah, the comparisons that take place in casual conversation, today's involving jail cells of Sanders County. Yes, there actually are multiple cells - three, if I gathered correctly from the conversation. Based on the thirty years' experiences amongst the half-dozen people participating, the cells break down as such:
"Solitaire Confinement" - not officially, but true by practice. The special features of this cell include a non-functioning television and a lack of windows.
"Male Underwear Cell" - so named for the ancient pair of men's underwear that seems to permanently reside in the cell. These underpants have been confirmed to exist by conversation participants over a twenty-two year period.
"Western Genre Cell" - notable because it is the most frequently utilized cell. Features of this cell include a poorly-seated window which may be sufficiently wedged open to allow free passage for a small cat (making this an undesirably frigid cell in winter), a functioning television set with tricky volume controls, and a tremendous collection of western genre novels.
In how many conversations have you participated that included threads such as:
"Which cell did you have?"
"Oh, which time do you mean?"
"The most recent time, of course!"
"I had the westerns cell."
"Didja think it was cleaner than last time?"
"Now that you mention, yeah, it was!"
"That's because I cleaned that cell the whole two days I was in last time. They gave me the run of the jail so long as I was cleaning, and all I wanted was a clean cell. Guess it's better than rereading those same cowboy books."
Why, yes, that last bit was courtesy of the Baroness. She drew a DUI last year (and is peeved that hers is one of only four for the year in the whole county) and was to spend twenty-four hours in the drunk tank. This being Montana, however, they never stipulated that those twenty-four hours be continuous. She opted for two twelve hour shifts, separated by a week, and arrived stone-cold sober for the second shift.
At the end of today's jail cell round robin, the Baroness pondered aloud that, in all likelihood, the infamous underwear belong to Major Benjy. Apparently their appearance, at least within the range of the gathered memories, would coincide with one of his earliest DUI experiences. Others in the conversation conceded the possibility. Thanks to a drunken water skiing incident last summer, all of our regulars have seen Major Benjy's tighty-whiteys. Before laundry day. Not a pretty sight. Neither tighty nor whitey. Since they weren't together then, though, she cannot be certain. If she remembers to do so, she plans to ask his ex-wife the next time they talk. Can't you just imagine that one: "Did he ever come home from jail missin' his tighty-whiteys???"
In how many conversations have you participated that included threads such as:
"Which cell did you have?"
"Oh, which time do you mean?"
"The most recent time, of course!"
"I had the westerns cell."
"Didja think it was cleaner than last time?"
"Now that you mention, yeah, it was!"
"That's because I cleaned that cell the whole two days I was in last time. They gave me the run of the jail so long as I was cleaning, and all I wanted was a clean cell. Guess it's better than rereading those same cowboy books."
Why, yes, that last bit was courtesy of the Baroness. She drew a DUI last year (and is peeved that hers is one of only four for the year in the whole county) and was to spend twenty-four hours in the drunk tank. This being Montana, however, they never stipulated that those twenty-four hours be continuous. She opted for two twelve hour shifts, separated by a week, and arrived stone-cold sober for the second shift.
At the end of today's jail cell round robin, the Baroness pondered aloud that, in all likelihood, the infamous underwear belong to Major Benjy. Apparently their appearance, at least within the range of the gathered memories, would coincide with one of his earliest DUI experiences. Others in the conversation conceded the possibility. Thanks to a drunken water skiing incident last summer, all of our regulars have seen Major Benjy's tighty-whiteys. Before laundry day. Not a pretty sight. Neither tighty nor whitey. Since they weren't together then, though, she cannot be certain. If she remembers to do so, she plans to ask his ex-wife the next time they talk. Can't you just imagine that one: "Did he ever come home from jail missin' his tighty-whiteys???"
26 February 2009
Bought a kilo from the Mennonites
One of the highlights of my weekend is the trip to the Moldy Store, aka the Dented Can Store, aka Grocery Surplus. The moldy food store, located some twenty miles from home, is run by part of the local Mennonite contingency. When the nearest "full service grocery store" (sounds like a gas station more than a grocery store), located about eighteen miles from home, looks like a Western Family truck overturned, the Moldy Store is a veritable treasure trove of diverse and unpredictable food options for our pantry.
When the Moldy Store received stock from an Asian market, we scored fish sauce, fun sauce, sesame oil, and coconut milk. Salvage from a Latino bodega yielded enchilada sauce, chipotles in adobo sauce, Cafe Barilla espresso drinks, annatto seeds, and the coolest development in sweetened condensed milk: the upright squeeze bottle. My girlfriend's Christmas stocking (her chosen alias is LaVonda (from Sordid Lives)) featured a selection of gum with psycho flavours like Spearmint-Watermelon and Apple-Raspberry. The day I discovered their stock from a gourmet store was a grocery budget buster. At the Moldy Store, you never know what you're going to find, and when you do find something awesome, you'd best stock up and then decide whether or not to tell a friend.
My most recent visit to the Moldy Store yielded a kilo of yerba mate. Imported direct from Argentina, not a speck of English on the packaging ... a kilo of loose leaf yerba mate. For $1.99. Go team! The cashier was pleased that I bought some, as they had no idea what it was. She said they were a little nervous about selling a "loose leaf killed herb" in kilo packages with only Spanish information. That was the best translation they could piece together from their pocket Spanish-English dictionary. I explained that maté is Spanish for "I killed ...", but that without the accent mark, the word had an entirely different nomenclature.
We're still working out the best home brewing method to avoid that whole "grit/sludge at the bottom" issue since we lack a true mate. That being said, however, I'll be looking to pick up another kilo next week.
The Moldy Store is, incidentally, also the source of some amusing additions to our kitchen "doorway of doom". The door frame is, in a throw back to the first professional kitchen in which I worked, decorated with amusing signs, logos, and labels. The best contribution from the Moldy Store is the one that reads "Bimbo Bakeries U.S.A."
In addition to remaindered food items, the Moldy Store is also a source of cheap farm-fresh eggs, local honey, hand-rolled Amish butter, beef, elk, bison, and buffalo, as well as Hutterite chickens and turkeys.
On this same most recent trip, I was excited to find chorizo, but then a closer look at the ingredients thoroughly deflated my elation. The chorizo was labeled as "all beef", but the ingredients list started naming names, or rather specific body parts. Less-than-savory body parts. Total T.M.I. overload. I, understandably, spent the rest of the day pining for the amazing Aurelia's Chorizo that Eggy Confit and I discovered at Spanish Table one day. Oh well; I'll know to stock up next time we're in Seattle. Until then, though, it's the Moldy Store for me!
When the Moldy Store received stock from an Asian market, we scored fish sauce, fun sauce, sesame oil, and coconut milk. Salvage from a Latino bodega yielded enchilada sauce, chipotles in adobo sauce, Cafe Barilla espresso drinks, annatto seeds, and the coolest development in sweetened condensed milk: the upright squeeze bottle. My girlfriend's Christmas stocking (her chosen alias is LaVonda (from Sordid Lives)) featured a selection of gum with psycho flavours like Spearmint-Watermelon and Apple-Raspberry. The day I discovered their stock from a gourmet store was a grocery budget buster. At the Moldy Store, you never know what you're going to find, and when you do find something awesome, you'd best stock up and then decide whether or not to tell a friend.
My most recent visit to the Moldy Store yielded a kilo of yerba mate. Imported direct from Argentina, not a speck of English on the packaging ... a kilo of loose leaf yerba mate. For $1.99. Go team! The cashier was pleased that I bought some, as they had no idea what it was. She said they were a little nervous about selling a "loose leaf killed herb" in kilo packages with only Spanish information. That was the best translation they could piece together from their pocket Spanish-English dictionary. I explained that maté is Spanish for "I killed ...", but that without the accent mark, the word had an entirely different nomenclature.
We're still working out the best home brewing method to avoid that whole "grit/sludge at the bottom" issue since we lack a true mate. That being said, however, I'll be looking to pick up another kilo next week.
The Moldy Store is, incidentally, also the source of some amusing additions to our kitchen "doorway of doom". The door frame is, in a throw back to the first professional kitchen in which I worked, decorated with amusing signs, logos, and labels. The best contribution from the Moldy Store is the one that reads "Bimbo Bakeries U.S.A."
In addition to remaindered food items, the Moldy Store is also a source of cheap farm-fresh eggs, local honey, hand-rolled Amish butter, beef, elk, bison, and buffalo, as well as Hutterite chickens and turkeys.
On this same most recent trip, I was excited to find chorizo, but then a closer look at the ingredients thoroughly deflated my elation. The chorizo was labeled as "all beef", but the ingredients list started naming names, or rather specific body parts. Less-than-savory body parts. Total T.M.I. overload. I, understandably, spent the rest of the day pining for the amazing Aurelia's Chorizo that Eggy Confit and I discovered at Spanish Table one day. Oh well; I'll know to stock up next time we're in Seattle. Until then, though, it's the Moldy Store for me!
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