LET US NOW PRAISE YUMMY MEAT

We wanted - nay, we insisted - on having some sort of Meaty Protein this evening, in honor of IEATAPETA Day.

I had planned on a thick ribeye steak, done medium rare with the red juices pooling in the plate. Bone-in, if at all possible: When there’s a bone, you know you’re eating a Former Animal.

But then we found the perfect place, hard by Georgia 400 in Roswell.

I looked at the menu, and my eyes started to bug out in anticipation.

Veal chops, from the tenderest milk-fed baby veal. Scaloppini, too.

Foie gras. I love foie gras, cooked rare, practically quivering on the plate. It ain’t exactly heart-healthy, but IEATAPETA Day comes but once a year. I could splurge.

That’s when I saw the specials.

They had wheal chops. That’s a cut carved out of a fetal whale. Whale veal: Wheal!

But what finally caught my eye was the foie gras. Not just any foie gras: baby seal foie gras.

It had an amazingly silky texture, with just the faintest pong of the sea. Served over baby arugula with a drizzle of 100-year-old balsamic vinegar, it was absolutely breathtaking. I washed it down with a glass of golden Sauternes. Wow...an hour later, and I still can taste it.

How was your IEATAPETA Day? If you didn’t get enough meat, I’ve posted a few shots below the fold.

FRONTIERS

Back in the days before Political Correctness became a societal bugbear - and when children actually played outside and got dirty - we littl’uns used to enjoy playing Cowboys and Indians - or a thousand variations of the same. Kings of the Wild Frontier, we were. Deerstalkers, muleskinners...we did it all.

Nowadays, I suppose it’d be Western Animal Husbandry Workers and Indigenous Americans...but the game is the same. I chase you, you chase me, we pretend to shoot and/or scalp each other unto death, we flick a few boogers at each other, we find something else to do.

On a related note, I remember when kids would wear their Hallowe’en costumes to school. You could get away with this only if you were in elementary school. In third grade, I wore an Indian Indigenous American outfit to school. Feathers, warpaint, leather fringed vest, the works. It was fun, except for the merciless razzing I got from the fifth-graders. Truly a Nerdly Moment...but that’s what the old Snot-Nose Days are all about, eh?

The Great Mythos of the American Frontier, that was a big thing. The Fess Parker-inspired coonskin cap craze died down before I was an age to care about such things, but the epic stories of how the American West was settled rang loud in our ears, as did the names of the many heroes of those stories: Dan’l Boone, Davy Crockett, Andrew Jackson, Sam Houston, and all the assorted characters of the Wild West era. Fictional ones, too. Mike Fink, Pecos Bill - we knew ’em all.

I was reminded of all this when I found a treasured old volume in a box in the basement. The box, crammed with chess and checker pieces, poker chips, dice, and a Roulette Wheel in working condition, was an unlikely place for a book to have hidden itself away, but no matter. What mattered is that I had found an old friend, a treasure from the days when kids could still play Frontiersman...

Why, it’s...Nasty Bumppo!

EATAPETA

Tomorrow is the Ides of March. Meat-bearing animals, beware!

Yes, March 15 is the fifth annual EATAPETA Day: International Eat A Tasty Animal for PETA Day.

EATAPETA? Wuddat?

Let’s go back five years and ask Meryl Yourish, originator of this fine tradition:

PETA has started yet another offensive ad campaign. This one really reaches bottom - they are using Holocaust terminology, quotes, and pictures to liken the “slaughter” of animals to the slaughter of the Jews by the Nazis...

...So let’s make up our own outrageous publicity stunt. Let’s designate March 15th as International Eat an Animal for PETA Day. Everybody set the date on your calendar, and either go out and enjoy a great steak, or cook one at home. Or cook up some chicken or fish or anything else that PETA wouldn’t want you to eat.

Planning a big, beefy feast? Gonna choke down some chicken? Make an event of it: register it at the PETA Is Full Of Crap site and join the crowd of people who want to rub it in PETA’s collective faces.

Like Meryl, I despise PETA’s revolting publicity antics, their advertising campaigns that equate the human exploitation of animal species for food to human exploitation for labor (slavery, i.e.) or the systematic genocidal murder of other humans. It is insulting to humans, and I am not ashamed to admit that I am a Speciesist.

I’m against gratuitous cruelty to animals, make no mistake. But I’m also a “Humans Firster.” A Speciesist. I’m happy that we occupy that little spot close to the top of the Food Chain. Would you rather have it any other way?

Me, I think I’ll have a nice, thick steak. What are you having?

PLEASE STAND BY...

Some of you may have gotten a “Photobucket Bandwidth Exceeded” message earlier today in place of some of my images.

Looks like the photos of our Rattlesnakey Adventures drove enough traffic to the site to blow out my 10GB free monthly bandwidth allowance. I’ve since fixed the problem: all it took was a few simoleons, judiciously applied.

It’s partly my fault. I tend to put up fairly large images, trimming them down for display on the page while incorporating a link back to the full-size pic. I could shrink ’em down, but some of the photos here just look better in their 17-inch-monitor-sized glory.

Ahh, the things I do for my friends...

WHAT DREAMS MAY COME...

...unto someone with a head full of Whiskey and Snakes?

I don’t know, but I can say that they may be passing strange.

Early Sunday morning, I had a remarkably bizarre and vivid dream, a dream that incorporated so many diverse images and elements that it left me almost breathless. At the risk of appearing completely insane to my Esteemed Readers, I’ll essay to describe it as best I can remember...

I recall being in a large jet aircraft. It’s not unusual for me to dream about traveling by air, given the amount of time I spend shuttling about in the Silver Aerial Bus. I had forgotten to turn off my BlackBerry, however, and it sent the plane into a steep dive...

...and suddenly we were outside, looking at the plane as it sat, freshly materialized, on an asphalt parking lot. It was night-time, and beyond the parking lot, in the direction we were compelled to go, was a river.

Crossing the river would be difficult, as it was not so much a river as a series of cataracts plummeting from an almost vertical rock face of indeterminate height. But I resolutely pointed myself in the direction of that steep wall.

As I approached, the cascading water seemed to diminish, revealing a stony edifice of astounding complexity and height silhouetted against the darkling sky. I looked up at it, realizing that it was inspired by the Fortress of Ultimate Evil from the movie Time Bandits. What the fuck!??!

Suddenly I found myself inside, amidst a haze of electronic noises and whirring, fast-moving objects reminiscent of the video game sequences in Tron. The other passengers on the plane with me had disappeared. After a few bewildering moments, I managed to navigate my way to an exit.

Outside, I found myself in a daylit world of cartoonish characters reminiscent of the “Toontown” scenes in Who Framed Roger Rabbit? People shared the pathways with various seemingly sentient animals, careening willy-nilly through a world of saturated colors and rapid movement. I noticed various familiar-looking round objects scattered hither and yon, whereupon I realized where I had ended up.

I was in a future world. The “plane” had not been a plane at all, but a time machine that had transported me a hundred years into the future. And not just any future, but one in which the real world had been replaced by an electronic construct similar to that in The Matrix.

Unlike the electronic simulacrum of reality in The Matrix, this was a benign Virtual World. It was nothing less than Second Life, applied to the entire Real World by its future denizens. They had turned their backs on First Life, finding it wanting. The people and Furry Animals were avatars - stand-ins for the people who had created this new world.

I touched one of the round objects (“Sit Here”) and I - or my Future Avatar - promptly sat down. The inhabitants of this strange world had heretofore ignored me, but now that I had figured out what was happening, I knew I could find a way to communicate. I got up and began walking.

Further confirmation of the Second Life-like nature of the place came when I took a snapshot of myself and a few of the passersby. For, following the traditions of SL, when one takes a snapshot, one must react with an exaggerated “High Five” gesture. I was learning the language and customs!

But now a new problem surfaced. A box containing Essential Scripts had been stolen - by whom, or why, I could not tell. But the missing scripts were the ones that held the Virtual World together. Without them, the people of the future would be dumped into a Real World with which they had no experience. It would be a disaster!

I had to act fast. Already, there was a massive spot of deresolution growing in the sky just over the horizon, a rapidly growing zone of nothingness.

Running along the path, I ran into the one person who could save the world! It was...Elder Daughter! Looking remarkably like her normal early-21st Century self, too!

And that is when my alarm awakened me. Holy Crap!

So: Wazzup with this peculiar dream? Wazzup with all the Filmic References? Was the powerful influence of a combination of Vodka and Snakes at fault?

What nutty-ass dreams have you had lately?

AN EVENING IN RED STICK

Having boarded the Silver Aerial Bus this evening, I now find myself in Baton Rouge, Lousiana Louisiana.

It has been a while since my last visit here: about two years. The renovated airport is a far cry from the dingy little facility that used to serve as the gateway to Louisiana’s capital back in the 1980’s.

Busy as I was with preparations for tomorrow’s meetings, I elected to order up a room service dinner. Meh. I had been looking to satisfy my Gumbo Jones, but, alas, no luck. Outta gumbo, they said.

Ah, well. It was probably crappy gumbo anyway.

SNAKES ON A BLOG

“Boy, you ain’t a Southern Gentleman ’til you’ve handled a snake.” - The Senator

Okay, so it’s not an exact quote. But that’s not important.

What is important is that this weekend, we saw a Childhood Dream fulfilled. Ronald McDonald House and Make-A-Wish Foundation combined could not have pulled it off with more aplomb, even if their mission statement were broadened to include making real the wishes of men in their late 40’s, raddled by Existential Despair and the ravages of Ketel One instead of by fulminant leukemia. But inside every man there lurks a little boy, a little boy who might still have his dreams of snakes...and monkeys...and Pimpish Headgear. Why should those dreams go a-wanting?

Given that Denny has already done such a superb job of recapping this past weekend’s Exercise in Collective Insanity, it’s almost not worth me rehashing the same old events. Like trying to gild the lily, as it were.

But you wanted snakes, and I’ve got ’em. Enough to send this guy off the deep end, quivering in fear for the next several months.

A little background, first, however.

This little event began as a demented seed in Velociman’s brain. He had mentioned the possibility of going down to Whigham, Georgia in January for the local Rattlesnake Roundup...the latest in a long series of Episodic Attacks of rattlesnake fever on his part. One would have thought the boy has snakes living inside his head, but ol’ Uncle Elisson could see what was afoot. It was that old Childhood Dream, floating to the surface like a half-decomposed drowning victim. And while Eric and I were game, the stars were not in alignment for a late January Reptile Run, alas. But that is only because another, more auspicious occasion was looming just over the horizon.

For it was about this time that Shoe began casting about for an entertaining venue for her impressionable young sons, both of whom were going to be on Spring Break beginning March 10. The fearsome Velocibrain sprang into action: Ain’t that when Claxton, Georgia has its annual Rattlesnake Roundup? Where I’ve been trying to assemble the Jawja Blodgers for the last three years?

Perfect. For Claxton has much to recommend it. It is located a mere hour from Savannah, meaning that good accommodations, food, and drink - the latter in copious amounts - may be had there. And Claxton has fruitcake! Being, of course, that it is home to the famous Claxton Fruit Cake, purportedly an exemplar of the genre.


Claxton, home of World Famous Door Stops Fruit Cake.

Well, as in all these Bloggy Situations, one thing led to another...and this Saturday just past found an intrepid group of demented fucking idiots Jawja Blown-Eyed Blodgers in Claxton, ready to get down and dirty with alla them sah-NAKES! Eric the Blade, Velociman, Zonker, Denny, That 1 Guy, and I were joined by the ever-redoubtable Georgia and Recondo32 as we headed out of Savannah. Meanwhile, She Who Must Be Obeyed and the Mistress of Sarcasm wisely elected to go shopping while we dealt with the reptilian hordes.

I had a pretty good idea of what to expect, for SWMBO had this thing figured out from the get-go. “You guys are wasting your time. It’s just gonna be like that stupid Apple Festival in Ellijay. A bunch of booths selling arts and crafts, turkey legs, corn on the cob, and funnel cakes.”



Indeed. For it ain’t a Country Fair without Funnel Cakes. And other Random Fried Comestibles.

And Claxton had all that crap. But it had the Venomous Reptiles, too...and somewhat north of 10,000 Reubens wanting to get a glimpse of ’em.



There was a covered arena, ringed by bleachers, with a fenced-off area: the ominous-sounding Snake Pit. In it, a fellow yclept Steve Scruggs, who bills himself as the Snake Master, was just finishing up a demonstration by handing out autographed pictures to the kiddies. The crowd was five deep at the front of the enclosure and the bleachers were packed. It was like a ballgame. Snake fever - Catch it!

Inside the Snake Pit there were several pens in which the snakes writhed, hissed, and shook their rattles menacingly.

Velociman and I walked around to the back of the Pit. There had to be a way in. We hadn’t schlepped all this way to see the Fearsome Beasties from twenty feet away, oh no.

That’s when we saw the Snake Master hizzownself in the midst of a Media Interview, taking off his Snake-Proof Boots in preparation for a break. When the interview was done, we got his attention.

This is where the Digital SLR comes in handy. With a honkin’ big lens, a high-end amateur DSLR looks enough like a professional model that most people won’t notice the difference. It was all too easy for V-Man and I to claim bogus Media Credentials and earn a coveted invite into the Pit.

[My credentials weren’t totally bogus. I really am planning to mention the snakes on Radio Sandy Springs when I do my next show this coming Friday morning.]

And thus it was the Velociman and I found ourselves in the Belly of the Beast, so to speak. It was very like that moment in Star Trek IV when the spectators at the aquarium suddenly notice Spock swimming in the tank amongst the whales. Except we were in the tank with two hundred assorted venomous snakes. Chicka-chicka chick!


Up close ’n’ personal.

There were Beauty Queens galore, mostly of the Georgia home-grown variety, posing for Photo Ops with a monster (dead and stuffed) Eastern Diamondback. Later, when Steve Scruggs began the next round of demonstrations, these same Beauty Queens had a chance to hold real live rattlers, and I can tell you that they were not quite as cavalier about it.





I shot my pictures, grabbed some movie footage, and then it was time to go while Denny could get a lift back to the car.

Outside the Pit, the crowds milled around. People admired each other’s Smokeless Tobacco purchases. Some spoke in an incomprehensible Deep Souf Country Patois. Bear in mind, I have lived in the South many years and have traveled extensively throughout the world. There are few varieties of English I cannot understand...but in Claxton I heard some new ones.


Wanna dip?

Lovely young ladies. Honkin’ big snakes. Funnel cakes. And a little boy’s dream, come true at last. Only in America, chirren.

[Click on any photo to embiggen. Plenty more pics below the fold!]

Technorati tags: Rattlesnake, Rattlesnake Roundup, Snakes, Claxton

Runners in downtown Savannah.

Nothing like a road race at Rush Hour to help keep things moving along smoothly, eh?


The Blown-Eyed Blodgers get ready to face the snakes.


The Grouchy Old Cripple.


It ain’t a Country Fair without NASCAR.


A trio of lovely ladies.


Miss Rattlesnake Roundup 2007.


Hey, kid...after the show, we’re gonna feed you to those snakes.




“Lemme out! I wuz framed!”


A few of the 200+ rattlers at the Roundup.


A honkin’, humpin’ heap o’ Herpetical Honeys.


Wanna see my other snake, Missy?


Yours Truly and Velociman show off our Snakey Trophies.


The Jawja Blodgers went to Claxton and all I got was this lousy T-Shirt!


That 1 Guy.


Recondo32, Velociman, and Zonker relax post-Roundup.


In Savannah, even the buildings get lit for Saint Patrick’s Day.


Velociman: Living the Dream in Claxton.


The Straight White Guy.


A few of the Intrepid Blown-Eyes...and the Mistress of Sarcasm.

PHUN WITH PHOTOSHOP

Some of the usual suspects. You’ll recognize Velociman, Eric, That 1 Guy, Denny, and Georgia. The lady on the right? That’s the waitress at Churchill’s - the one who ran afoul of V-Man by dribbling beer-foam upon him, whereupon he exclaimed, “It’s like a goddamned porn movie around here!”

Where is Yabu? You might well ask. Yabu crapped out on us. “Business reasons.” My aching ass.

Where is Zonker? Why, he’s Below the Fold...

“I found Jebus...in Claxton, Georgia!”

FANTASTIC!

From Modulator, who in turn snarfed it up from Pharyngula, comes this list of “The Most Significant Science Fiction & Fantasy Books of the Last 50 Years.”

“Significant” is an interesting choice of words, but likely one that was made for a reason. It incorporates the idea that a novel may have an impact on the genre without necessarily being “good.” I’m sure I could have come up with my own list, given the time and assuming I really gave a Rat’s Ass - and chances are it would not have been much different than this one.

Books I’ve read are in boldface.

1. The Lord of the Rings, J.R.R. Tolkien
   
2. The Foundation Trilogy, Isaac Asimov
   
3. Dune, Frank Herbert
   
4. Stranger in a Strange Land, Robert A. Heinlein
   
5. A Wizard of Earthsea, Ursula K. Le Guin
   
6. Neuromancer, William Gibson
   
7. Childhood’s End, Arthur C. Clarke
   
8. Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, Philip K. Dick
   
9. The Mists of Avalon, Marion Zimmer Bradley
   
10. Fahrenheit 451, Ray Bradbury
    
11. The Book of the New Sun, Gene Wolfe
    
12. A Canticle for Leibowitz, Walter M. Miller, Jr.
    
13. The Caves of Steel, Isaac Asimov
    
14. Children of the Atom, Wilmar Shiras
    
15. Cities in Flight, James Blish
    
16. The Colour of Magic, Terry Pratchett
    
17. Dangerous Visions, edited by Harlan Ellison
    
18. Deathbird Stories, Harlan Ellison
    
19. The Demolished Man, Alfred Bester
    
20. Dhalgren, Samuel R. Delany
    
21. Dragonflight, Anne McCaffrey
    
22. Ender’s Game, Orson Scott Card
    
23. The First Chronicles of Thomas Covenant the Unbeliever, Stephen R. Donaldson
    
24. The Forever War, Joe Haldeman
    
25. Gateway, Frederik Pohl
    
26. Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone*, J.K. Rowling
    
27. The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, Douglas Adams
    
28. I Am Legend, Richard Matheson
    
29. Interview with the Vampire, Anne Rice
    
30. The Left Hand of Darkness, Ursula K. Le Guin
    
31. Little, Big, John Crowley
    
32. Lord of Light, Roger Zelazny
    
33. The Man in the High Castle, Philip K. Dick
    
34. Mission of Gravity, Hal Clement
    
35. More Than Human, Theodore Sturgeon
    
36. The Rediscovery of Man, Cordwainer Smith
    
37. On the Beach, Nevil Shute
    
38. Rendezvous with Rama, Arthur C. Clarke
    
39. Ringworld, Larry Niven
    
40. Rogue Moon, Algis Budrys
    
41. The Silmarillion, J.R.R. Tolkien
    
42. Slaughterhouse-5, Kurt Vonnegut
    
43. Snow Crash, Neal Stephenson
    
44. Stand on Zanzibar, John Brunner
    
45. The Stars My Destination, Alfred Bester
    
46. Starship Troopers, Robert A. Heinlein
    
47. Stormbringer, Michael Moorcock
    
48. The Sword of Shannara, Terry Brooks
    
49. Timescape, Gregory Benford
    
50. To Your Scattered Bodies Go, Philip Jose Farmer

Hrm. I’ve read only 29 out of this list of fifty, which means I have a little catching up to do. Or maybe it means I’m not the SF geek I thought I was. Whatevvahs. But since I tend to favor SF over fantasy, it’s unlikely I will ever work my way through all of ’em.

Some of these books have been a part of my life since my Snot-Nose Days, notably Childhood’s End. And I have re-read several of them many, many times.

Which of these fine works of SF and Fantasy have you read? Which were your favorites?

*Note: Released as Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone in the U.S., apparently because Scholastic believes American kids can’t understand four-syllable words.

YES, VIRGINIA...

...there were rattlesnakes in Claxton.


[Click to enhuge.]

Big ones. Lots of ’em.

More to come, but right now, I gots to recover. From Vodka-Bite.

BLOGGING MAY BE LIGHT THIS WEEKEND

FRIDAY RANDOM TEN

This promises to be a most interesting and unusual Friday. Let’s break it down:

0645 Depart house for morning Minyan.
0700 Morning Minyan starts.
0735 Morning Minyan ends.
0745 Still trying to get out of Shul parking lot past crowd of parents dropping their kids off at the local elementary school.
0755 Arrive at Local Bagel and Smoked Fish Emporium.
0820 Depart for Sandy Springs.
0845 Arrive at Radio Sandy Springs studios.
0900 Radio Sandy Springs Health Hour, featuring Elisson.
1000 Elisson run out of Sandy Springs on rail.
1030 Elisson arrives home.
1130 Eric arrives at Chez Elisson.
1230 SWMBO arrives home after morning inservice.
1245 Depart for Savannah.
1600 Arrive Savannah, home of the Mistress of Sarcasm. Connect up with Velociman, Zonker, Denny, Catfish, and That 1 Guy. Begin preparations for visit to Claxton Rattlesnake Roundup. Stock up on batteries, whiskey, and horse-serum rattlesnake antivenom.

Speaking of Interesting and Unusual, why don’t we see what the iPod d’Elisson has on tap for us this morning by way of a Random Assemblage of Choons? Here they is:

1. I Me Mine - The Beatles
   
2. Farewell and Finale - Bernard Herrmann, The Day The Earth Stood Still
   
   Part of one of the great film scores of all time, by what I believe to be the finest writer of film scores. Bernard Herrmann’s filmic resumé reads like a Hollywood “Best Of...” list; his music is haunting and powerful in almost every case. Think of the extra dimension he has added to such films as: Vertigo, Psycho, Obsession, Taxi Driver, Citizen Kane, North by Northwest, Journey to the Center of the Earth. He also composed the original theme for The Twilight Zone...the spooky one they used in the first season (1959-60) before replacing it with the more familiar “doo doo doo doo” one by Marius Constant.
   
   
3. Hummer - Smashing Pumpkins
   
4. Shade - Silverchair
   
5. Rift - Phish
   
6. Trapped In The Future - Russell Garcia, The Time Machine (1960)
   
7. Reach Out (I’ll Be There) - The Four Tops
   
8. Everybody’s Got Something To Hide Except Me And My Monkey - The Beatles
   
   I always wanted to hear this song covered by Andy Williams...for the sheer perversity of it.
   
   
9. Sweet Virginia - The Rolling Stones
   
   You’ve got to shake scrape the shit right off your shoes.
   
   
10. Mean Ol’ World - Professor Longhair
    

It’s Friday. What are you listening to?

FUZZY FRIDAY

Whether it’s light or whether it’s dark
I like to visit the Friday Ark.
You might see a kitty - or a whale shark.
Perhaps a fluffy bunny or a mudlark.
Keeskennis might send photos of an aardvark!
The Modulator is always on the mark,
That’s why I like to visit the Friday Ark.

And you can visit the Friday Ark, too. The 129th voyage of this most venerable Animal Assemblage has set sail at the Modulator’s Bay o’ Beasties.

This Sunday evening, get ready for Carnival of the Cats #155, which - for the first time ever - will visit the Carnival of the Cats Home Page. Remarkabobble!

Update: Carnival of the Cats #155 is up, done in Laurence Simon’s inimitable style.

RUNNING DRY: A 100-WORD STORY

Scheherazade was pleased.

She was still alive, after all. One thousand nights ago, she had fully expected to be beheaded come morning, the fate of three thousand women before her. The Shah was not only randy, but paranoid: Ever since his first wife betrayed him, it was a fatal honor to join his hareem.

The stories had kept her alive.

For a thousand nights, she had entertained the Shah with her hundred-word stories. For a thousand days, he had postponed her execution so he could hear the next tale.

Today was their wedding day. Helluva time to get writer’s block.

[Written to commemmorate the thousandth post at the 100 Word Stories Podcast. Click the Pupu Player icon on the sidebar to hear it!]

THE TWO FACES OF HAKUNA

Sometimes, the Hakuna, she is like a Meatloaf.



Look at her, curled up on the ottoman. Relaxed. Comfortable.

But other times, Hakuna is On Guard...against whatever small beasties might lurk outside the front door. Crouching in rapt attention, she doesn’t even notice me with my camera.



“Lemme at ’em!”

RADIO DAZE REDUX

My friend Richard, the host of Friday morning’s Health Hour on Radio Sandy Springs, is on his way to Italy for a ten-day vacation. And Yours Truly will be taking over his radio show in his absence.

Silly, silly man.

Does he not know the damage I can do? Instead of an hour of vague and confusing explanations of Medicare Part D, Richard’s listeners - all thirteen of ’em - will instead be treated to an hour of my Random Bullshit. Nostalgic stories of my childhood. Diseases pulled at random from the Merck Manual. Hell, I may even talk about how to handle a snakebite victim. It is the Health Hour, after all.

And a few 100-Word Stories sprinkled in, just for Shits ’n’ Grins.

Radio Sandy Springs is a low-powered AM station, 1620 on your dial. You can pick it up on your car radio...provided you’re parked in front of the station or within a couple hundred feet of it. But the station also streams its content over the Inter-Webby-Net, so you, too, can listen - and even download the show afterwards, if you have a penchant for Mental Self-Abuse. The show is live, but I prefer to think of it as a sort of Souped-Up Podcast.

The show airs Friday morning, from 9:00 to 10:00 Eastern (US) time....GMT minus five hours. Just go to www.radiosandysprings.com if you want to hear it from the comfort of your own Computer Room or cubicle. You can even call in, and I’ll do my best to answer your questions, medical or otherwise. Heh.

Whether Richard still has a job or not when he returns from his vacation remains to be seen...after I’m done laying waste to the place.

BAM! ANOTHER DEAD VAMPIRE

Chef and TV personality Emeril Lagasse is fond of his “gollick.” Tonight, She Who Must Be Obeyed and I had a dose of Potato and Garlic Soup that would not only keep Emeril satisfied, but also is capable of creating a Vampire-Free Zone with a radius of several miles, thanks to its use of not just one, but three methods of incorporating garlic. If you want a potato soup that beats the ever-lovin’ crap out of cold Vichyssoise...or that baked-potato soup they sell at Houlihan’s...pay attention!

I happened to have a gallon or so of my own made-from-scratch chicken stock tucked away in the freezer. I set this to thaw in the microwave while I busied myself with the prep work. The ingredients:

Three whole heads of garlic
6 cups of chicken stock (use vegetable stock if you want a kosher soup)
1/2 cup heavy cream
One leek, white and light green parts only, washed thoroughly and chopped fine
3 tbsp. unsalted butter
3/4 tsp salt
2 bay leaves
1 1/2 lbs Russet potatoes, peeled and hocked up into 1/2-inch chunks
1 lb Red Bliss potatoes, washed but not peeled, hocked up into 1/2-inch chunks
Couple of sprigs of fresh thyme
Handful of fresh chives

Here’s what you do:

Melt the butter in a Dutch oven over medium-high heat. Throw in the chopped leek - make sure you wash that bastid real good! - and sweat it for 5-8 minutes, until the leek is soft but not browned.

While the leek is cooking, dismantle one of the heads of garlic. Peel and mince three cloves, setting aside at least six more (you will use them later). When the leek is nice and ready, throw in the garlic and continue to cook for one minute. Mmmm, smells good already!


Sweating the leeks. Note the minced garlic on the right, ready to be added.

Now dump in six cups of chicken stock - if you don’t have your own, commercial clear chicken broth is fine. Add the salt and bring the whole mess up to a simmer.

Take the other two heads of garlic and rinse thoroughly - gotta get the schmutz offa the root end. Slice of the top third of each head and discard; also get rid of the papery outer skin (without getting too anal about it). Toss the heads into the Dutch oven with the broth and add the two bay leaves; then simmer over a medium flame, partially covered, for about 40 minutes. Now add the potatoes and simmer for another 20-30 minutes, until them ’taters are cooked through.

Using tongs, take the bay leaves out; discard ’em. Take the garlic heads - which by now should be nice and soft - out of the liquid. Using a paper towel so as not to burn the crap out of your hands, squoosh the cloves out (they will pop right out of their skins) into a bowl. Moosh ’em up thoroughly. Take about half of the mooshed-up garlic and stir it into the soup; reserve the rest. Add the cream; stir it in and bring the soup back up to a low simmer.

Pick the leaves off a couple of sprigs of fresh thyme and chop fine. Add this to the soup. I use a minimal amount of thyme because the Missus hates the stuff, but if you like that herbaceous flavor, add as much as 1 or 1 1/2 teaspoons. Go nuts...but remember that it’s easier to add more later than to take away if you’ve added too much. [Which is why you’ve used only half of that mooshed-up garlic. You can use more if you want to give the soup an extra garlicky kick.]

Got an immersion blender? Now’s the time to use it. You want to purée the soup to a smooth consistency while leaving in some chunks. If you don’t have an immersion blender, then purée some of the soup by transferring it to a blender. Just be sure to leave plenty of chunky potato bits to give the soup some tooth.

Correct the seasoning - add more of the garlic if you choose - and set the soup on low heat while you prepare the Finishing Touches.

Snip a handful of chives into little bitty pieces; set aside.

Take six good-sized garlic cloves and slice ’em lengthwise into thin slices. Heat three tablespoons of olive oil in a skillet over a medium-high flame and fry up those garlic slices for about three minutes You want them to be crisp and lightly browned, but NOT burnt. When they’re done, remove them with a slotted spoon and drain on paper towels. Sprinkle lightly with salt.

Now ladle out that soup. Garnish each portion with a sprinkling of chopped chives and a few of the fried garlic chips. You should have enough to serve six - or four if they’re real Soup-Hounds.


Potato and Garlic Soup.

Soup by itself doth not a meal make. For an entrée, we had a rare and costly treat: Swordfish Steak. As a kid, I was served swordfish almost once a week, but nowadays, a good slab of sword costs a king’s ransom - comparable to beef tenderloin. But what the hell.

I put the slab of fish - at least an inch thick, it was a beauty - in a glass baking dish with a little olive oil. A little fresh ground black pepper, a shake or two of sweet paprika, a squirt of lemon juice, and off it went into a 350°F oven for about 20-25 minutes. You want to cook it through without letting it dry out.

Meanwhile, I made a sauce by juicing a couple of blood oranges, to which I added about half a lemon’s worth of juice to kick up the acidity. This went into a shallow pan, where I reduced it down to a syrupy consistency over medium-high heat. A few pats of butter stirred in, and voilà! Baked Swordfish in Blood Orange Sauce.


Swordfish in Blood Orange Sauce.

Fish. With Potato and Garlic Soup. Enjoy - and go and kill a few vampires.

OF MELINDA AND MIMZY

The Missus and I were sucking on the Glass Teat this evening, watching (gasp!) American Idol.

Yeah, I’ll cop to watching Idol. It’s a guilty pleasure. But rather than harboring dark fantasies of being America’s next pop music star, I tend to put myself in place of the judges, who have to decide what makes a given performance Rule...or Suck...and then deliver the news to the Hapless Contestant. Of course, the name of the game is to figure out what will sell to the Average American. You know: the one with one tit and one ball.

Once in a while, you can see flashes of genuine talent, too. Melinda Doolittle impressed the hell out of me yet again. Not that I’d ever buy one of her records. As good as she is, I’m holding off until I hear her version of “Pygmy Twylyte,” and that ain’t happening anytime soon.

But as we watched, strings of drool forming at the corners of our mouths, an ad came on for a movie that is soon to be released: The Last Mimzy. From the looks of it, it is a Family Friendly SF Movie with a PG rating. Not something I would rush out to see...and yet...

I knew this story!

It was the same kind of lightning-stroke realization I had when I first heard of Idiocracy, a movie that owed a good chunk of its plot to Cyril Kornbluth’s classic SF short story “The Marching Morons.” A debt, by the way, that is unacknowledged - at least, officially.

The Last Mimzy, it occurred to me, was also based on a classic SF short story. It could be none other than Lewis Padgett’s “Mimsy Were The Borogoves,” a title yanked straight out of the Lewis Carroll poem, “Jabberwocky.”

In the 1943 short story, a child from the distant future builds a time machine and sends boxes of his old toys into our present. Not only toys: educational toys, made for the purpose of instructing the Kiddies of the Future how to cross into another dimension - something, apparently, that everyone is expected to do before becoming an adult.

The plot of the story revolves around what happens when a couple of current-day siblings get hold of these Wonder Toys of the Future. And “Jabberwocky” comes into play, too...for some of those toys end up in the hands of a young Oxford don in the early 1860’s...

The short story has a light tone, although it darkens considerably toward the conclusion. I’ll avoid sticking spoilers in this post, but I am curious to see what the screenwriters did with the story. At the very least, they’ve made no secret of the fact that the screenplay is based on the Padgett short story. [“Lewis Padgett” was the joint pseudonym of husband-and-wife SF authors Henry Kuttner and C. L. Moore, both of whom apparently received writing credits for the film.]

Could this mean that other Vintage SF stories might get dusted off for their long-awaited Filmic Closeup? Hell, I’m still waiting for them to do the Ender’s Game movie, even though I know it will inevitably be a disappointment compared with the Orson Scott Card book. And how ’bout Arthur C. Clarke’s Childhood’s End?

Hrm. I may just have to go see this one.

GOODNIGHT, MOON: A 100-WORD STORY

Murphy’s Law states that “if anything can go wrong, it will.”

Murphy was right.

Our project, the Highly Localized Hypergraviton Generator, was way too risky to test on Earth. And so we built Moonbase Alpha.

Came time to start it up, everything worked like a charm. We succeeded in creating a submicroscopic black hole. Weighed as much as a mountain, but smaller than an atom.

Then we dropped it.

Fuckin’ thing zoomed straight to the core of the Moon. It’s there now, eating away. In twenty years, it’ll be “Goodnight, Moon.” Forever.

Son of a bitch: There’s always a glitch.

DAT OL’ COCKY MOON

The Moon over Marietta.

As I was leaving the house this morning, the sight of the (nearly) full moon in a dark blue sky with wisps of rosy dawn-lit clouds was so striking, I stopped the car and ran back in for my camera. Snappo.

Not as dramatic as the full lunar eclipse we had two nights before, but dramatic nonetheless.

I thought of my Dad, who, whenever he would see the Moon, would exclaim, “There’s that old Cocky Moon!” Still does, in fact.

You wonder where I get my twisted sense of humor from? That’s where. For in Yiddish, Cocky Moon means “Shit on ’im.”

Chip off the old block. Dat’s me.

YOUR URGENT ASSISTANCE IS REQUESTED

“Every time a friend succeeds, I die a little.” - Gore Vidal

“Every time a fellow blogger succeeds, I think, ‘Why the fuck can’t I do that?’” - Elisson

It looks like Steve H.’s new book, The Good, The Spam, and the Ugly, is out.

Steve H., for those of you who don’t read his Hog On Ice site, is the Nom de Plume Blog of Steve H. Graham, aficionado of fine cooking and dead midgets. He’s also the twisted genius behind Rollercoaster of Hate, a site that devotes an inordinate amount of space detailing Christopher Walken’s demented adventures.

And he writes books. And gets ’em published. By real publishing houses.

The Good, the Spam, and the Ugly is the running saga of Steve’s ongoing communications with Nigerian spammers, in which he gives back at least as good as he gets. It cracked the Top 100 at Amazon a few days ago, which is more than I will be able to say when I finally come out with my own collection of 100 100-Word Stories in a month or so.

I can’t wait until my copy arrives. If it’s remotely as funny as the Hog On Ice podcast, I’ll probably be spending a few days next week pissing in my pants while laughing hysterically.

Go getcha a copy for yourself: You’ll thank me later. Hell, while you’re at it, whyn’tcha pick up a copy of Steve’s other book? Any cookbook that calls itself Eat What You Want and Die Like A Man: The World’s Unhealthiest Cookbook has gotta be good, am I right?

ONCE IN A BLUE MOON...

...I’ll get an off-the-wall comment that has nothing to do with the Matter At Hand.

Such was the case with my last post (The Next Generation of TiVo). An Esteemed Reader - for so I presume him to be - left a 630-word screed on the topic of Tax Cuts, which topic has absolutely no connection with the post to which it was attached...or, for that matter, pretty much any post at this site.

For the sake of good order, it is appropriate at this point to state the policy of Blog d’Elisson with respect to comments:

• Spam comments and trackbacks will be deleted immediately. If I find out who you are, I will arrange to have you, your family, and your household pets terminated with extreme prejudice.
  
• It’s OK to pimp a post at your site (or elsewhere) by including a link, but your comment (and link) had better have something to do with the topic of my post.
  
• Insulting me or my other commenters and/or readers will be tolerated only to the extent that it is done tongue-in-cheek.
  
• When discussing political and/or religious matters, keep a civil tongue in your head and stick to facts. Opinions are like assholes: everybody has one, and everybody else’s stinks.
  
• Israel-bashing will not be tolerated here. If you must do it (asshole), go somewhere else to do it.
  
• I am the owner of this blog and its content, except for certain copyrighted materials used for limited purposes of satire or illustration. When you leave a comment, it becomes the property of this site for me to do with as I please. If you are a troll or a jerk (in my opinion - see above comment regarding opinions), I reserve the right to edit your comments in order to make you look ridiculous. Even if I like you, I still may edit your comments in an attempt at teh funny. Chipmunks, anyone?
  
• If your comment has nothing to do with my post - whether it is an extended screed or an abbreviated rant - I reserve the right to delete it or edit it at will. This blog is not your fucking soapbox, nor is it your advertising platform. It is, however, my playpen. My playpen.

Thank you. That is all.

THE NEXT GENERATION OF TiVo

When the history of the early 21st century is writ, one of the technological advances that will Loom Large, in retrospect, is TiVo.

The integrated digital video recording system that enables one to watch “live” television as if it were on DVD and that allows one to quickly and easily select programs for recording is already revolutionizing the way Americans watch television. It’s already been genericized: People use the word TiVo as a verb (much to the chagrin of the people who own the patents to the TiVo brand of digital video recorders.)

No longer must one clamp one’s lips to the Glass Teat and suck away uncontrolled. Now, it’s a simple matter to record your favorite shows and watch them - even while they are still in progress - with the ability to fast-forward through commercials, to watch scenes in slow-motion and freeze-frame, and to replay scenes at will.

If you are one of the poor damned souls who must watch American Idol, TiVo is indispensable. With it, a bloated two-hour Video Morass becomes a clean, quick, content-filled hour and twenty minutes.

What’s the Next Big Thing gonna be?

Forget the video iPod. Forget the iPhone. Those are so...so...2007.

Naw. The next Big Thing is going to be LiVo™.

TiVo, applied to Life.

The Linden Labs folks are already two-thirds of the way there.

In a few years, a beta version will be available. It’ll be an object the approximate size and shape of a hand grenade, coupled with a handy remote control.

The hand grenade-shaped object - the Main Control Deck - is designed to be inserted into the Sigmoid Colon. That’s right: You shove it way up your ass.

Then you use the remote control to stop, fast-forward, or replay your life.

Ate an excellent meal? Had some really great sex? Replay it to your heart’s content. In slow motion, you can even figure out what you were doing right.

Make that honeymoon last forever.

Was that an unpleasant annual review with the Corner-Office Guy? Fuck’m. Hit the fast-forward, and you won’t remember a thing.

People will be lined up to try it. It’ll be to life what TiVo is to television.

LiVo. You heard it here first.

ROUNDUP

Well, it looks as though a gaggle of stupid fucking idiots Intrepid Online Journalists will converge on Claxton, Georgia next weekend for the annual Rattlesnake Roundup.

Claxton is perhaps best known as being one of the premier sites for the manufacture of inedible doorstops fruitcakes. It’s a distinction it shares with Corsicana, Texas. However, Claxton edges out Corsicana on the Notoriety Index owing to its well-deserved historical reputation as a Speed Trap.

As to the Snakey Component of the weekend, I am no stranger to these sorts of things. Years ago, we lived in a small community in Connecticut, a mere seven miles southeast of Hartford yet a world away, culturally. Once a year, on the east side of town, the locals would gather to roust the rattlers from a rocky slope that had, over time, become Snake Breeding Central. This was Connecticut, mind you. Most of the snakes likely ended up as Rattlesnake Chowdah.

But I have my dark suspicions about this Claxton event, as does SWMBO. Most likely, it will be a typical Small-Town Festival sort of affair (the Ellijay Apple Festival comes to mind) where local artisans and merchants set up booths to flog emesis-inducing oil paintings of sad-eyed clowns, tree stumps carved into the likeness of bears, and the Ubiquitous Funnel Cake.

Should the event turn out to be a bust, we can always fall back on Plan B: Head back into Savannah, and suck dry the entire inventory of Johnny Ganem’s whilst watching Catfish compose blogposts a capella.

Yeah, we’ll need that Plan B, for chances are that in Claxton, snakes will likely be Thin On The Ground...

...and that may not be a Bad Thing.

[Proceed at your own risk!]

Comedy, it is not pretty. Neither is a Rattlesnake Bite.

CALL ME TEX

I generally look at Blogthings like I would look at an enema bag filled with hot maple syrup...but I could not resist this one, which comes our way courtesy of the Yabster:

You Are 56% Texas

At first, you seem Texan... but just because a chicken has wings don’t mean it can fly. On the other hand, maybe it just means that your Damn Yankee husband has corrupted your soul over the course of thirty years.

Just How Frickin’ Texas Are You?

OK, I’m not the one who is 56% Texas. That would be She Who Must Be Obeyed, a native of Foat Wuth, and she would have scored higher had it not been for my baleful Noo Yawk influence. Me, I hit only 16% on the Tex-O-Meter, with what little score I have thanks largely to my love for spicy food and the fact that I know enough to not have an appetite for Cow Pie.

But Texas, thanks to SWMBO, is now and forever a part of me. And I’ve got the hat, boots, and Big-Ass Belt Buckle to prove it.

PURIM

The Book of Esther, today’s Required Reading.
[Click to embiggen.]

Last night marked the arrival of the Jewish holiday of Purim. Like so many of our holidays, the fundamental theme of Purim boils down to, “They tried to kill us off. They failed. Let’s eat.”

On Purim, though, the emphasis is less on eating than it is on Drinking and Other Forms of Merriment. After the evening service last night, the central feature of which is the ceremonial Reading of the Megillah - the entire Book of Esther, in the form of a hand-inscribed parchment scroll - we all had a chance to get (partially) tanked on He’Brew Messiah Bold (The Beer You’ve Been Waiting For™). Nice.

Ya gotta love a holiday on which getting shicker is not only permitted, it’s essential.

Did I mention costumes? There were costumes, too. Here, She Who Must Be Obeyed does her impression of Vashti, the Harlo-Queen.



And who better to help read the story of the evil Haman than Dr. Evil hizzownself?



A guy who loves kitties can’t be all bad, can he? Even if his cat is the repulsive, hairless Mr. Bigglesworth...



“We don’t gnaw on our kitty!”

For all its fun and silliness, however, there is a serious undercurrent to Purim. One of the recurring motifs of the holiday is the need to remember your enemies, even as you blot them from the earth. The model enemy is the Amalekites, from whom, traditionally, Haman is considered to be descended. In Deuteronomy 25:17-19, we are told to

Remember what Amalek did to you, on the way when you were leaving Egypt; that he happened upon you on the way, and he struck those of you who were hindmost, all the weaklings at your rear, when you were faint and exhausted, and he did not fear God. It shall be when the Lord your God gives you as an inheritance to possess it, you shall wipe out the memory of Amalek from under the heaven - you shall not forget!

The thing that made Amalek stink in the nostrils of Heaven was not that they made war with the Israelites: plenty of nations did that. But it was how they made war that distinguished them, that made them untouchable, beyond redemption. And putting aside the seeming paradox of being told to remember an enemy whose selfsame memory must be wiped out (“Wake up! It’s time for your sleeping pill!”), what is striking about this passage is its relevance today.

For today, the Amalekites are still out there. They’re the ones strapping explosive vests to their children, that they may murder Jews in pizza parlors, in buses, at discothèques, at shopping malls. The hindmost, the weaklings at the rear - civilians - these are the targets of the modern Amalekites. The terrorists. And on this day, though we may drink ourselves silly and clothe ourselves in ridiculous getups to celebrate an earlier deliverance, we shall not forget!

CUPPA JOE

It’s Sunday morning, time to watch “Meet the Press” - or, perhaps, to Press the Meat.

In my case, it meant getting up and heading out for morning Minyan.

This being Purim, the service lasted an exceptionally long time: a full 90 minutes, thanks to the Megillah reading. We read the entire Book of Esther, the reading being punctuated - as dictated by tradition - by various noisemakings whenever the name of Haman, the story’s villain, was pronounced.

Afterward, we descended upon the Local Bagel and Smoked Fish Emporium, only to find it packed to the rafters. Owing to the length of our morning service, we had arrived after the local churches had finished their first shift. So it was off to La Madeleine, where there was no problem finding a place to sit and enjoy a Cuppa Joe.

Ahhh, coffee. While there have been times in my life that I would start the day with a cup of tea, I inevitably gravitate back to my first love: coffee.

I grew up in a house of Evil-Tasting Coffee. For this I can blame my mother, who was a product of her times. Brewed coffee - reserved for special occasions - was prepared in a percolator, thus ensuring an overcooked, harsh brew. Everyday coffee consisted of a spoonful of Nescafé instant coffee granules dumped into a cup of hot water.

As I grew older, I discovered drip coffee and espresso. There was no going back.

So, what kind of coffee does Elisson drink these days?

At home, I use Gevalia beans, which I purchase by mail order. I grind those bastids just before brewing ’em in my drip coffeepot. Excellent coffee every time.

Starbucks? Give them credit where it’s due. They almost single-handedly managed to popularize upscale coffee, helping make “latte” a household word. [Hmmm. Maybe that’s not such a good thing.] They have convinced millions of otherwise sane Americans that it’s acceptable to part with over $4 for a fancy-ass cup of java - and not especially good java at that, for Starbucks tends to roast the crap out of their beans. For my money, I’d rather get my coffee at Seattle’s Best (agh! now owned by the Evil Mermaid) or even at Caribou.

Dunkin’ Donuts has excellent coffee, albeit a bit mild for my taste. But it’s always fresh, a perfect complement to those yummy Fried Toroids o’ Death that they sell. I’ll take DD over Krispy Kreme any day for the donuts alone - but with the coffee, it’s not even a contest.

La Madeleine and Panera, a couple of chain operations that are represented locally, both make credible coffee. It’s nothing special...but it meets the need more than adequately. This distinguishes them from the Local Bagel and Smoked Fish Emporium, where the coffee quality ranges from adequate to atrocious. (We go there for the fish and bagels, OK?)

I’ve had cafezinhos in Brazil that left me completely unimpressed, and yet I’ve had café con leche in Costa Rica that was good enough to make a grown man weep with pleasure. I’ve gulped endless cups of strong brewed coffee, jacked up with hot cocoa mix to help keep me conscious during Thesis Completion Crunch-Time back in college. In New Orleans, I’ve sat in the quiet courtyard of the Soniat House and at a table in the bustling Café du Monde, sipping steaming cups of French-roast coffee laced with chicory.

But there’s nothing that compares with that first cup of coffee on a Sunday morning. Especially if it’s a cold, nasty winter day and I’m enjoying it at home, the Sunday paper strewn on the table.

What’s your idea of the best Cuppa Joe?

GADDA-DAMN!

Is there anyone else out there like me, who can only watch in slack-jawed astonishment at a Fidelity Investments no-load growth fund ad that uses Iron Butterfly’s “In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida” for its soundtrack?

OUT TO LUNCH

As the Missus and I were watching “You Think You’re As Smart As A Fifth-Grader, But You’re Really A Fucking Moron” a couple of nights ago, I thought about an aspect of elementary school life that generally stays buried deep in the dark recesses of my reptilian cerebellum.

School Lunch.

Lunch was a relatively uncomplicated matter back in my Snot-Nose Days. You went to school. At some time during that school day, you had a lunch period that generally lasted about 45 minutes. During that lunch period, you either queued up to purchase the school’s hot lunch, or you bought a half-pint of milk (for the grandiose sum of 3¢) and used that to wash down the peanut butter-and-jelly on Wonder Bread that your mom packed for you.

There were kids that brought their sack lunches (metal lunch boxes being for the younger set), and there were kids that bought hot lunches. The boundary between these two groups was fluid; kids shifted between the Sack Lunch Mafia and the Hot Lunch Tong all the time.

The times I’d bring a sack lunch, there would generally be a sandwich of some kind: the aforementioned PB&J on white Wonder Bread, or cream cheese and jelly. On occasion, there’d be something more aromatic, such as sardines and cream cheese. It may have been more pungent, but at least it had no jelly that would, invariably, saturate the bread, turning it into a gooshy, purplish mass. Dessert would be a crapshoot, entirely dependent upon the Motherly Whim. Some Hostess Creme-Filled Cupcakes, perhaps, with that ineffable white squiggle in the center of that glossy chocolate topcoat? A Twinkie? An apple (gag)?

But the Hot Lunches...ahhh, now there was a Value Meal for you. My elementary school hot lunches cost all of 25¢ - a tariff that increased to 35¢ when I hit middle school. And what did you get for your quarter, Johnnie?

Well, for starters, you got a half-pint of milk in a cardboard gable-top carton. That was back before they used polyethylene to coat the cardboard - they used wax, which meant that there would inevitably be small chunks of wax floating in the milk. It was good old homogenized, pasteurized Vitamin D milk, none of that low-fat crap. Chocolate milk? Soda? You gotta be fucking kidding.

The entrée would vary from day to day. Sometimes we’d get hamburgers, square grey meat-pucks atop of which sat gobs of congealed grease. Sometimes it would be hot dogs. These bore no resemblance to the flavorful all-beef franks we had at home, no, no. These were made of pig rectums, and they had a vile porky taste that put me off ball-park franks almost permanently. As if the hamburgers and hot dogs were not bad enough, the servitors would slather the buns upon which they were served with (gaaah!) butter. Butter! Butter has no place on a frickin’ hot dog bun, people!

[For years afterward, I would avoid Wendy’s fast-food burgers like the plague. It was the square shape that freaked me out, giving me flashbacks. Yeef.]

Once a week, we would be served pasta: either spaghetti (boiled until it attained a hardness on the Mohs scale somewhere between “cottage cheese” and “Grandma’s ass”) or lasagna, both sauced with a nondescript tomatoey sauce that was kicked up a few notches by the addition of whatever unfortunate animals had been flattened on the road in front of the school the previous week. Feh. It was not until I married SWMBO that I would be able to enjoy lasagna again.

Salisbury steak was one of the better meals, consisting of a thick chunk of hockfleisch (possibly the bastard offspring of a Forbidden Union between a hamburger and a meatloaf), buried in a gummy brown gravy redolent of onions. Sitting next to it would be a plug of mashed potatoes (instant, no doubt) with the consistency and flavor of library paste.

Friday was Fish Day. Back in the day, when Catholics were still forbidden to eat meat on Fridays, the school system indulged this segment of the population by always serving fish on that day. And where I grew up, this was a not-insignificant segment of the population. Between the Irish and the Italians in our area, pretty much everyone was Catholic. Except me.

No, that’s really an exaggeration. We had a few Protestant families around as well...and a goodly minority of us Hebrews. But it was only when I moved to Texas as a young adult that I realized just how Catholic-rich was my early environment. In Texas, Italians were downright thin on the ground (which explains why you couldn’t buy any pizza that wasn’t outright shite).

Back to Fish Day. This was not a bad thing, mind you. In fact, Fish Day was reliably good. You’d get a substantial slab of fried flounder, accompanied by buttered new potatoes flecked with parsley (better than Library Paste Glop any day!) and chopped, steamed spinach. I looked forward to Fridays.

I know there were desserts that came along with these hot lunches, but I’ll be damned if I can remember them. In fact, about the only thing I remember about Lunch Period - aside from some of the food - is that we had a kid in third grade who could belch like a champ. And, no, it wasn’t me.

But thanks for asking!

THE VIEW OVER RUSSIA

Kazbek Peak, Caucasus Mountains.

I’m the kind of airline passenger who likes to sit next to the window, despite the fact that aisle seats are somewhat more comfortable. But the window seat affords me a view, a view that still fascinates me after over fifty years of flying. I’ll even snap a picture now and again, when the mood seizes me.

There’s a Russian commercial airline pilot who must feel the same way. Go visit Dark Roasted Blend and check out some of his photographs. Or go directly to this site to see the original image galleries (reading knowledge of Russian is helpful!) Absolutely awe-inspiring. Enough to make me put my lousy camera away.

Tip o’ th’ Elisson fedora to Brandon over at the javajive, who pointed me to these wonderful images. Of course, Brandon’s no slouch either. Be sure to check out his site as well.

FRIDAY RANDOM TEN

Friday morning. I’m sitting at my desk, digesting another stupendous Smoked Fish Breakfast, the second of the week.

Tuesday, our Rabbi decided to treat the Morning Minyan Boyz to breakfast...just for the hell of it. And today, one of our number was observing his mother’s Yahrzeit - the anniversary of her passing - and, following long-standing local tradition, he bought breakfast for the gang. It’s a way of saying “thank you” to the people who ensure that a quorum of at least ten is present, a prerequisite for the recitation of the Mourner’s Kaddish.

Smoked whitefish. Smoked salmon. Belly lox. Kippered salmon. Tuna salad. Smoked sable. Hoo, boy, what a feast. All washed down with the powerful coffee of the Local Bagel Emporium, which was exceptionally flavorsome (i.e., drinkable) this morning.

All of which puts me in the perfect frame of mind to inspect this week’s Random Moozikal Spewage of my Little White Choon-Box:

1. Tipitina (Live) - Professor Longhair
   
   Perfect music for Mardi Gras.
   
   
2. Femme Fatale - The Velvet Underground
   
   Nico’s mournful voice gets me every time.
   
   
3. I’m Willin’ - Seatrain
   
   Anyone remember this group from the early 1970’s?
   
   
4. Geek USA - Smashing Pumpkins
   
   A tune from the Mistress’s vast collection.
   
   
5. Sad and Deep as You - Dave Mason
   
   From Alone Together, his first solo album after leaving Traffic. His departure was good for him...and good for Traffic.
   
   
6. Allison Krause - The Stills
   
   
7. Zomawa - Maritu Legesse
   
   An Ethiopian singer I discovered though the offices of Elder Daughter, performing vocals that would break the average Americal Idol contestant in half.
   
   
8. Freakazoid - Cartoon Network
   
   Opening theme of one of the great cartoons of the mid-1990’s.
   
   Super-teen extraordinaire
   Freakazoid! Freakazoid!
   Runs around in underwear
   Freakazoid! Freakazoid!
   
   Rescues Washington D.C.
   Freakazoid! Freakazoid!
   Unless something better’s on TV
   Freakazoid! Freakazoid!
   
   His brain’s overloading
   It has a chocolate coating
   Textbook case for Sigmund Freud
   Freakazoid! Freakazoid!
   
   Check out Dexter Douglas
   Nerd computer ace
   Went surfing on the internet
   And was zapped to cyberspace
   
   He turned into the Freakazoid
   He’s strong and super-quick
   He drives the villains crazy
   ’Cause he’s a lunatic
   
   His home base is the Freakalair
   Freakazoid! Fricassee!
   Floyd the Barber cuts his hair
   Freakazoid! Chimpanzee!
   
   Rides around in the Freakmobile
   Freakazoid! Freakazoo!
   Hopes to make a movie deal
   Freaka me! Freaka you!
   
   He’s here to save the nation
   So stay tuned to this station
   If not, we’ll be unemployed
   Freakazoid! Freakazoid!
   Freakazoid!!!
   
   
9. Corrado - Miles Davis
   
   From The Complete Bitches Brew Sessions. Chick Corea, who we saw perform last week, was among those present at these legendary recording sessions.
   
   
10. Brandenburg Concerto #3 in G - 3. Allegro - Trevor Pinnock; English Concert: Johann Sebastian Bach
    
    Trevor Pinnock and the English Concert created a landmark recording of the Brandenburg Concertos for Deutsche Grammophon. Number Three is one of the most popular of the Brandenburgs, and its third section (Allegro), with its rapid-fire violins, is a familiar part of the classical canon.
    
    

It’s Friday. What are you listening to?

FUZZY FRIDAY

It’s Friday. For animals
From across the nation,
Whether of highest or lowest station,
Today is the Day of Modulation.
Whether they eat Iams or Ken-L-Ration,
Today is the Day of Modulation.

The Friday Ark has set sail at the Modulator, this being the 128th in the series. Go visit alla them nice puppies and kitties, ’k?

This Sunday evening, the 154th Carnival of the Cats will be hosted by TacJammer.

Enjoy your weekend, and don’t forget to skritch the kitties!

Update: CotC #154 is up. A little late, but worth the wait!

THE LOVE BLOAT

Aaggggh!

If I’ve told Elisson once, I’ve told him a thousand times - no Bromo-Seltzer in my kibble!

Gawd, I feel so...so...bloated!

HARRY’S BAD DAY: A 100-WORD STORY

Harry knew Monday was going to be rough; he felt it in the pit of his stomach when he woke up.

At the bus stop, a pit bull grabbed his ankle: man pitted against beast. Fortunately, Harry won, albeit with a torn trouser leg.

On the bus, he remembered that he had neglected his deodorant. A quick armpit-whiff confirmed it. He scowled.

Working an open-pit coal mine was no picnic. After a brutal morning, Harry broke for lunch. Hummus on pita bread. A pit in his cherry pie cracked a molar.

Crap, he thought. Some days are just the pits.

MUM’S THE WORD

Houston Steve tells a story of his Snot-Nose Days as a child in London.

It seems his mother was out and about one day and was knocked down by a passing vehicle - a vehicle that turned out to be a limousine in which was riding the Queen Mother, a lady affectionately known by her subjects as the “Queen Mum.”

As Steve’s mother lay sprawled in the street, the window of the limousine opened and the Queen Mother stuck her head out.

“Are you all right?” she asked, worriedly.

Steve’s mother picked herself up and dropped a curtsy. “Just fine, Mum,” she said.

Not quite as dramatic as being shot in the face by Dick Cheney, but, well, there you are.

TIME TO ROTATE YOUR (SA)TIRES

Head on over to the skwib, where you’ll find Carnival of Satire #68. Lots of teh funny.