More meat!

After several steaks and several more to come, I will take a brief hiatus until after next week's DOVES concert on June 4th!!

At that time, I will be far more relaxed, refreshed and revacationed with family fun and, of course, meat!

Verbal assualts and cheeseburgers

Earlier this fine and beautiful spring day, I was approached by an enraged parent today in the Manhattan Supreme Court.

My findings have been, in theory and practice for the past nine years, that parents are a far more contributing factor to criminal activity than almost anything else...including substance abuse and/or mental health. The Trifecta of Doom, if you will, makes for quite the lovely client to work with.

Well, for whatever reason, he thought I fucked his kid over in court somehow...albeit I am the one trying to get him out of going to prison altogether. As he starts rifling through his cheap bag for what I suspect to be a smuggled murder weapon under epitaphs about my fuckhood as a motherfucker, the attorney on the case gave me those stunned, oh-no-what-did-I-walk-in-on eyes that only your mother can give you as an adolescent boy locked in the bathroom for an inordinate amount of time.

At which point, my craving for a bacon cheeseburger and a cold, stiff one was illuminated by that fact that not only did I aptly deserve them, but would have them, and promptly.

And have them I did. At a lovely, little Financial District joint called the White Horse Tavern.

*Tomorrow I chair a presentation to upwards of 300 of the Bronx County's best criminal defenders on how to get their clients out of Rikers Island as quickly as legally possible. Apparently, the Swine Flu doens't make the ticket.

Let them eat, drink, and be merry...

In a couple weeks, I'm hosting a small soiree for my surrogate parents. The menu includes, though unlimited to: spicy shrimp kababs, grilled and bloody steaks, and baked potatoes with all the fixin's. Sometimes a good, ol' fashioned dinner is where the heart is.

The apertif: The Mortoni

Makes 1 drink

Ice
1 part vodka
1 part Campari
1 part tonic water
1 lime wedge
1 orange wedge
2 lemon wedges

Fill a rocks glass and a cocktail shaker with ice. Add the vodka and Campari to the shaker and shake vigorously. Strain into the glass, top with the tonic water, and squeeze the juice from the lime and orange wedges and 1 of the lemon wedges into the drink. Garnish with the remaining lemon wedge and serve.
(Recipe from Mix Shake Stir (Little, Brown))

THEN ITS EAT MEAT TIMEY TIME!

Tight pants

and loose morals it is.

The weekend fast approaches and if this week has taught us anything, its that there's nothing to die for and that there's everything to live for.

I made that up. Sorta... Its quite silly if I say so myself.

Not so silly, cervezas. That's right, not beers...cervezas. My love of South-of-the-Border beers has been reinvigorated since my trip to Juarez, Cuidad de Suenos, back in 20 dickity 2. Its really a magical place, full of pan-handling ninos, shady puntas (not a bad word, just don't call your mom that), $2 nachos, and $0.25 Dos Equis. Yeah. It was also blazingly hot. And my troop got to see passed out hobo-penis.

All in all, its a lot like New York, just cheaper and stickier.

Existential Crisis in a Footnote

Have you noticed that it's Existential Crisis Month? Buy your own Existential Crisis flowers/booze/uppers/downers/brunch?

Everyone I know is on edge, for one monumental reason or another, including myself, (being the common denominator). Which is even more harrowing because I'd rather carry the weight than be mine own.

Creation, destruction. Destruction, creation. Or not. It's really shittysweet and altogether romanticized. Like Space. Its supposed to be this large void with purpose and potential...but really, its a large void. Nothing. And yet everything.

Yeah...toldya!

Dinner on the last night: pastrami & bacon w/ cheddar, lettuce, tomato, mayo, and Boar's Head Deli Dressing on a fancy roll...it's a deli sangwich and I did it myself!

Currently listening to: Throw Me The Statue's "Yucatan Gold."

Currently awaiting: Farady's comeuppance and LC's demise.

Wearing: gray pinstripe slacks, periwinkle blue button-up, my favourite Hugo Boss skinny tie, black grandpa cardigan, and my ol' faithful brown wingtips.

Avoiding: work until 7pm.

Spring has sprang...

The birds are alive with chitter-chatter, the flowers are blossoming onions, the days are partyly cloudy and musty with with the damp hints of summer and winter...oh, and the kids are fucking annoying.

That means its Springtime, y'all!

Therefore and thusly, is it ok to wear flip-flops with a cardigan?

I say yes. Yes indeed.

Whilst I wait around for some fellow sans-homebodys today to hit up the local flea markets and stoop sales, I download some musics.

Any suggestiones?

The Art of Hosting a Day in the Sun

5 pitchers of Tequila-infused punch.
Hint: once the Triple Sec and Orange Cognac are depleted, mix with lemonade.

2 Bowlfuls of fresh, best-guacamole-to-date. Serve with tortilla chips.

Cheesy snacks, and conversation.

Marinate chicken and rip apart once blackened.

Turn the music up as the day wears on.

Eat a hot dog if you see one unattended.

Drink water because the sun (and tequila) has beat it out of you.

Massages!

Nightcap it with chinese food and gummie bears.

Serves 20.

The Art of Self-Grounding

It's rough. But sometimes man, you just gotta do it. Turn off the cell phone. Log off the net. Listen to some solemn jams and not hear another human voice until your roommate warns you about the smoking steak he has on the stove on a cool Sunday night.

It's good for you because a) you benefit from some serious self-reflection and b)watch some weird cable movies you otherwise wouldn't see.

I did get out and enjoy the first true days of Spring 2009, i.e. backyard. But more importantly, I did some drawerings. Which I oft used to do, but gave up in a blind search for immediate satisfactions.

Go arts.

Where is my tattoo?

Unfortunately, other pressing finances back-burned my tattoo until early summer. But for the meantime, I'm preparing to have two within weeks of each other AND a trip to Europe to show off my tats to the hot, Italian ladies that want to bring me wine and make fresh pastas.

But it will be a slight deviation on the following norm w/ mine own personal tweaks:



Because I have an odd map fetish. Also, Tat # 2 will be an arrow on a special place, mostly because I also have an odd directional theses on life.

Speaking in nerd, I'll go on to say that "Binary Love" by The Rakes is kinda the one song to rule them all right now...

The Love-Hate Paradox

I've oft found myself criticizing others' hot-cold tendencies as a bad thing. Akin to Borderline Personality Disorder, one of my personal favorite flavours of PD, the oscillation between intense feelings of admiration and intense feelings of degradation only incite one valuable and interesting element: intensity.

This leads me to believe, or rather, self-psychoanalyse, that my boredom with the average has left me privy to a blind affection, and dare I say, immediate attraction, to intensity. Intense hate, love, anger, sweetness, etc. Lukewarm and moderate sincerely disinterest me, but in my late night revelings, I've somehow reacted to ideals of postulated love with, yes...intensity.

I, myself, have come to realize that I am not a mediocre-liker/lover/hater of anything. I either like it, or not. Et cetera. (the fact that i just wrote out etc says a lot about my need for extremity).

This intensity, is short-lived, however. Like, I would never cheat death by bungee-cord jumping or taking a cruise a mile above the dark abyss. Things are just hot or cold with me. Once they've become warm, I simply bore of it and find the next hot thing. This saddens me to no end (see...), mainly because I'm conflicted about my prefernce for room-temperature pizza...pizza that's been left out and isn't cold, nor hot. Just warm.

Me feelings of warmth are under evaluation. So if I seem a pare above, or below, the norm lately...this is why.

You can take the gay man out of gay porn,...

but you can't take him out of the theatre...

And in other semi-gay (haha, semi) news: to quell an old argument of mine, fall shows are far superior to spring shows...

Middle Man the new minute maker

Sean Lodge say:




Sorry, Binsack.

Saturday Night Liter

The pre-party on Saturday night brought me upon this lucky fumbling.
Prepre thyself for a hearty heartbreaking...


“The Village Blacksmith”

by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Under a spreading chestnut-tree
The village smithy stands;
The smith, a mighty man is he,
With large and sinewy hands;
And the muscles of his brawny arms
Are strong as iron bands.

His hair is crisp, and black, and long,
His face is like the tan;
His brow is wet with honest sweat,
He earns whate'er he can,
And looks the whole world in the face,
For he owes not any man.

Week in, week out, from morn till night,
You can hear his bellows blow;
You can hear him swing his heavy sledge,
With measured beat and slow,
Like a sexton ringing the village bell,
When the evening sun is low.

And children coming home from school
Look in at the open door;
They love to see the flaming forge,
And bear the bellows roar,
And catch the burning sparks that fly
Like chaff from a threshing-floor.

He goes on Sunday to the church,
And sits among his boys;
He hears the parson pray and preach,
He hears his daughter's voice,
Singing in the village choir,
And it makes his heart rejoice.

It sounds to him like her mother's voice,
Singing in Paradise!
He needs must think of her once more,
How in the grave she lies;
And with his haul, rough hand he wipes
A tear out of his eyes.

Toiling,--rejoicing,--sorrowing,
Onward through life he goes;
Each morning sees some task begin,
Each evening sees it close
Something attempted, something done,
Has earned a night's repose.

Thanks, thanks to thee, my worthy friend,
For the lesson thou hast taught!
Thus at the flaming forge of life
Our fortunes must be wrought;
Thus on its sounding anvil shaped
Each burning deed and thought.

----

Maybe we don't...

We come off like amateurs...some average band trying to come to grips with success...jealous and fighting and breaking up. We're buffoons!

'' Rock and roll can save the world'' ?!
''The chicks are great'' ?!

I sound like a dick.

You are a dick.

I never said that.

Maybe we just don't see ourselves the way we really are.

Oriental Antidote

I oft complain about the my failed expectations that is Chinese food in New York.

It's either too expensive, or too greasy, or too bland. All of which happen to cure the hangover jollies.

Last night I [over]ordered and opted to get the pork dumpling, steamed of course, in lieu of the chicken nuggets [re: NOT Chinese food]. Well, they were some the best I have ever had! Thay were meaty, not too meaty, but also had a tiny spice-kick.

Let it be known that my love of NYC Chinese was reinvigorated by a Greenpoint Chinesery. The pork fried rice, albeit that odd yellow, was also tasty.

I've been fully recharged to tackle the PILE that is my closet.

Thank the Almighty its cloudy, as well. 'Twere sunny, I'd be agro and not at all thinking on doing yoga-hour in my room, again. Yeah. I do yoga too. Which is basically just me, sitting in pretzled positions that I'm apt to anyways, set to Radiohead or other post-collegiate cry-baby concerto, and thinking...about pork.

Love means never

I'm sorry about last night.

Around-the-World in about 4 Hours

In the second season of this little show called Mad Men, at the behest of Don, Betty hosted a dinner that impressed his clients at their quaint Ossining home. Because the Dutch were trying to market Heineken to the States, Betty planned a well-rounded, cultural feast catering to their world-domination through what would eventually become the fancy-boy's beer of choice...in college.

Long story short, a little club that started about a year ago, Dinner Club, with three people and a hunger pain soon became the exclusive club of only five members that either most people frown upon, or beg to be a part of. Longer story short, besides massive hangovers, many a fine dinner has been hosted by Tiffany: chipotle pepper & cheese casserole (?); Stephanie: fennel & goat cheese pizza, and most recently, a Southern menu of highly delicious home fried chicken, mac & cheese, and collards!; yours truly: Spanish fare consisting of albodingas (Spanish meatballs that were awesome!), sherried mushrooms, and saffron-infused mashed taters; and Colleen's Americanized chicken sausage-infused meatloaf, crispy green beans, and goat cheese taters on a bed of BACON.

In my menu planning for the next meeting, I take from Betty, or rather the writers at AMC, a worldy menu...I believe I'll begin with these (I really like tapas, ok) and top them off with a few of these fine American gents.

As for a main course and sides...any ideas? Should I invite a Frenchie, an Englishman, an Asian?

Provenceal Nerd Alert

Ok, so Oprah has given women in the mid-west the "a-ha moment." The rest of use just come to our senses and are like, "Oh, ok. Cool." Then you go back to eating your taco or would have you.

So last night, I attended an alumni dinner at my alma mater, John Jay College of CJ. The requisite nostalgia set in upon the escalator ride past the library that I used to laboriously hate undergraduate students in for four days a week, that one fateful semester.

Anyways, Sue, my colleague and drinking committee comrade, and I participated in the necessary, albeit, haughty tones of complaint...how crappy some of our professors were, how terrible registration was, how good the cheese fries were, and how we had little to no sleep with what felt like nothing to show for.

But here I was, at this table with all these old, nerdy dudes working in NYC in professions, much like myself. And, I'll just say it, I felt at home. I heard half of what they were talking to me about because the wine was flowing and a graduate from the class of '75 was hopelessly searching out fellow graduates. But I heard enough to realize that, I know I'm nerd, but for reals, I'm like a neerrrdddd. I'm going to be that old dude at the table, asking the waitress to being me more wine, going to alumni dinners for the free chicken cacciatore and "networking" possibilities.

Is this an ego-massage? I guess so. But how good can you be without one every now and then. I challenge you to try it. You have the Joe's Three-Weeks to Get Your Ego Massaged challenge.

Report back.

Saturday, Cloudy Saturday

And it's dreamy. I oft perplex my fellow imbibers and theologians alike when I say things like, "I don't like sunny days," or "Thank God, its raining." If not for the mere jolt of confusion, then for the self-realization that I am time and again fascinated by people's reactions to bad weather. What I enjoy at a deeper, psychoanalytic level is that these [some] folks also tend to depend their personalities on the waxing and waning of ol' Mr. Sunshine. When in fact, that once pop science go-to, Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD), doesn't even really exsist. People are just as sad as they are in the winter as they are in the summer. You're sad. Now move on.

So anyway, I tend to live up such dreary days with complete immersion into the arts. Like laying in bed and watching creepy French films or documentaries about the Bronx. Sunny days do no permit this as friends tend to direct social activities to parks and walks. Blargh. There are exceptions to this rule, of course [re: Colleen's Epic Birthday].

Today's art: musica. I am completely enthralled by the Black Kids (besides liking every Black band that there is, this Black band is actually quite antithetical to the whole Black-as-dark theme). Maybe a tad late in this train, as they were apparently heralded as the band to look out for in 2008. They're deliciously good with upbeat, dance-pants jing-jang jiggles such as "I'm Not Going to Teach Your Boyfriend How to Dance With You." Which, if there was ever a self-modified themesong, well, this is it. Accordingly, the Besnard Lakes are my new favorite band of this year. Give "Devastation" a try. I'm just going to start telling strangers that..."no really, tell me what's its like."

A blog about music wouldn't be complete without my concert-going announcement: I will rocking out to Ra Ra Riot next weekend. I'm looking forward to it. Incl: if you don't have it yet, get this track: MGMT's Electric Feel.

Should you prove your love...

make me somma deese...

Buttermilk Biscuits
Adapted from George Weld, Egg
(Makes 8 to 10 biscuits)

1 pound and 10 ounces bleached all-purpose flour
3 tablespoons baking powder
1 tablespoon kosher salt
1 tablespoon turbinado sugar
3 ounces cold unsalted butter
2½ cups buttermilk or sour milk*, plus more for brushing

1. Preheat oven to 500°. In a large bowl, sift together the flour, baking powder, salt and sugar.
2. Cut half of the butter into thin sheets and place them in the freezer.
3. Blend the remaining butter into the flour mixture with your hands. Work quickly, blending until the flour resembles very coarse meal with a few pea-size lumps. With a rubber spatula, mix the buttermilk or sour milk into the flour and butter just until a dough begins to form.
4. Dump dough onto a floured work surface and pat it into a rough rectangle about ¼ inch thick. Lay the slices of frozen butter on top, then fold the dough over twice (as if you were folding a letter in thirds). Press down gently on the dough until it's about ¾ inch thick. Use a 2½-inch biscuit cutter to punch out biscuits (do not twist the cutter). Place biscuits onto a greased baking sheet and brush the tops with milk.
5. Bake the biscuits for 13 to 18 minutes, until risen, golden and light. If they feel wet or heavy, bake them longer.

* To make sour milk, combine 2½ cups of whole milk with 2½ tablespoons of white vinegar.