Skip to content

Snakeheads — Now for Dinner!

26 February 2012, 11:10 am

I know I’m not as active on the B&E site as I used to be, but that doesn’t mean I’m not looking out for you, my five faithful readers. Especially where the snakehead is concerned…

But after years of fearing snakeheads — the walking, biting, air-breathing, blood-thirsty “fish” — I finally have some promising news to report. Fancy-pants restaurant Gramercy Tavern, here in NYC, doesn’t care that the snakehead is covered in mucus. It has figured out the best way to deal with the snakehead: Eat them before they eat you.

So perhaps someday we’ll have to worry that Gramercy Tavern has created a demand for these bastards, but in the meantime, I say, “Fuck you, snakehead. Looks like you’ve got a predator, after all.”

Filed under Uncategorized. Tagged ,
3 Comments

Sweet Russ “Oh, So” Feingold

25 February 2012, 2:10 pm

You may have thought that since his re-election loss in 2010 I’d forgotten about my old boyfriend, Russ “Damn, You’re” Feingold, but you would be incorrect. His recent appearance on Democracy Now reminded me why he’s one of my favorite people in the world — critical of Obama policies while simultaneously offering full-throated defense of the president. Gosh, I sure like the Russ. Please find a half hour to listen to his Words of Feingold.

Filed under Uncategorized. Tagged , ,
Comment

I Totally Stalked Gary Carter

17 February 2012, 8:44 am

Legendary Mets catcher Gary Carter finally succumbed to brain cancer this week. Gary was, of course, a member of the legendary ’86 Mets, and as I’ve explained before, that was actually a heartbreak season for me, because the Mets beat my beloved Astros in the playoffs before going on to beat the Red Sox in the World Series.

Still, the winter after that heartbreak, my family went down to Florida, and we visited some former members of my dad’s church in a fancy pants neighborhood down there. Well, Gary Carter was their neighbor. So I packed my many Gary Carter baseball cards and then just sorta waited around outside his house until he came out. Which he finally did.

It was probably the first time I was in the presence of someone famous, and it was intimidating, and although he wasn’t the friendliest guy in the world, he was mostly pretty kind to an annoying 14-year-old stalker.

He seemed to curate the cards he signed, and he ended up signing four of them (probably about half of cards I brought). It was like he wasn’t allowed to sign some for contractual reasons or because signatures devalued the cards (he collected cards, too). Who knows? I was way to intimidated to ask.

The part that must’ve been weirdest to Gary, at least in retrospect, was that while Gary signed baseball cards, my dad snapped photos. I need to dig up those photos. I have no idea where they are now. Ma, if you’re reading this, they’ll probably be among the photos from our Disney trip over 1987 New Year’s.

Thanks for the thrill, Gary. Your curls and yellow sweater from that day will always be burned in my brain. And I totally found the autographed baseball cards this morning. They’re from your days with the Expos, but I still like them a lot.

Filed under Uncategorized. Tagged , ,
1 Comment

Mayor, Just Hug a Hoodie

5 February 2012, 11:48 am

It was a big news week, and I let a lot of things fly by again. Because that seems to be what I do well here on B&E lately: Let others do the commentary on events.

Just over a year ago, I wrote a “Fuck You — For the Cure” post about Susan G. Komen For the Cure going after smaller nonprofits for copyright infringement over the phrase, “For the Cure.” Which was pretty fucking stupid of them.

But their work this past week was spectacular. First, they said they weren’t going to fund Planned Parenthood’s breast cancer screening programs anymore, technically because Planned Parenthood is under investigation by Congress. It was a rationale that smelled just a little bit too much like bullshit. They clearly didn’t think through the inevitable backlash because no matter their intention, their defunding became about the abortion issue.

In the nonprofit communications world (in which I have a job), there was much discussion about how quickly and easily and thoughtlessly they hurt their own brand. This article was one of the best I saw and is totally worth a read if you’re interested in branding in the nonprofit world.

I would just like to say that, although Komen eventually apologized, they didn’t actually reverse course with the policy they laid out at the end of the week. But most people seem to think they did. The fact is, we won’t know if they reversed course until the next funding cycle, when they either fund or don’t fund Planned Parenthood’s breast cancer screening programs for low-income women. I predict that they won’t. And I hope the outcry continues then.

The other story from this week that is just stupendous came out of my hometown of Topeka, Kansas. The mayor apparently asked the City Council to consider regulations on hoodies and caps, so that the wearers can be seen by video cameras in stores.

Great idea, Mr. Mayor! Because if someone’s about to rob a store, and they’re wearing a hoodie, they’ll totally take it off when the store owner asks, before they rob the store, so that the security cameras can see them more clearly while they rob the store.

But Mr. Mayor, didn’t you listen to Prime Minister David Cameron (before he was PM)? He argued that hoodies are more defensive than offensive, and that the wearers simply need love. Mr. Mayor, you need to hug a hoodie today.

Filed under Uncategorized. Tagged , ,
Comment

Vest!

26 January 2012, 9:17 pm

It’s common knowledge to the five of you who still read this blog that I’m no fan of Rick Santorum. If you’re curious, you can do a quick search for “Santorum” in the search box to see some of the results. Or click on the Dickhead tag. You’ll find him eventually.

Or Google “Santorum” because that’ll work out well for you.

Anyway…

Rick Santorum is running for president and even won the Iowa caucuses. The Republican voters hate Mitt Romney so much that they actually momentarily considered Rick Santorum a viable alternative. What a shitshow.

The good news is that Rick Santorum has a really great promotion on his website. And believe it or not, I mean it sincerely, not sarcastically.

For a mere $100, you can get the iconic Rick Santorum sweater vest. Heck, I like his promotion so much, I’ll even link to it.

What the website doesn’t tell you is whether it comes with the iconic Santorum stain on it.

YEEEEEEEE-HAW!

Filed under Uncategorized. Tagged , ,
1 Comment

My Brain is Counterclockwise

11 January 2012, 8:42 pm

The other day, a colleague made a forward-moving gesture to complement what she was saying about the year progressing.

Even though her hand moved from left-to-right (that’s the direction in which we read, B&E readers), every fiber in my being felt like she was moving backwards with her gesture.

Then I realized that I visualize the year as a circle. January and December straddle the top of the circle, and the year progresses counterclockwise. My birthday, in May, lies on the bottom left-hand part of the circle, as the year progresses through me an onward around the circle away from me back counterclockwise toward the top of the circle again.

And yes, through me, so the circle is also sort of three-dimensional. Warm months near me, cold months away from me.

In this meeting, then, I asked, to much confusion, if anyone else imagines the year as a counterclockwise circle. I’m sure you’ll be surprised that no one did.

But it goes back to my preschool in North Carolina. We sat in a circle in the order of our birthdays. The teachers stood at the top of the circle. And we had a months-of-the-year song, during which you would stand up when it got to your month. The circle moved counterclockwise around the room.

And today I still imagine the year progressing in that same counterclockwise circle.

This random bit of nonsense is just for you, my three faithful B&E readers. You’re welcome.

Filed under Uncategorized. Tagged , ,
3 Comments

More Interesting, Less Depressing

8 January 2012, 6:13 pm

One of the reasons I can’t seem to get motivated to write more posts on B&E is that the 2012 election — in terms of candidates and coverage — depresses the hell out of me. Bat-shit crazy has become the mainstream. And we’ve got almost another year of this fucking bullshit. Ever since we re-elected Bush (or elected him for the first time, depending on how you look at it), I will not overestimate my fellow citizens again.

So Mitt, Santorum, Newt, Ayn Rand… They all freak me out.

A story like this, then, seems downright fun to me. The short of it is that David Cameron, current Tory Prime Minister of the UK, seems to want to give Alex Salmond, current Scottish Nationalist Party First Minister of Scotland, a fully binding opportunity for Scotland to declare full independence from the UK.

Naturally, there are catches. The first is that Cameron wants there to be only two options on the ballot: full independence or the status quo. Salmond would like there to be a third option that is devolution that stops just sort of full independence, an option currently very popular with the Scottish people.

More significant, perhaps, is that Cameron is demanding that if the outcome is fulling binding, it must be held in the next 18 months, at least a year earlier than Salmond would like. Right now, almost a third of Scots want full independence. But that number is growing. Salmond is hoping that by 2014 he’ll have a majority on that. Cameron doesn’t want to give him that time.

But it’s the first time that the UK Prime Minister has agreed to a fully binding resolution. So now Salmond has to figure out his options.

I’m rather a fan of the idea of Scottish independence. Part of it is that I don’t really understand how the countries are connected in the first place, so sure, why not be independent? Also, I’m American, so it’s not like I’d get a say in the matter. But the missus and her family are all Scottish Nationalists and have been wanting independence for, well, centuries, probably.

A month or so ago, this article appeared, revealing some of Scotland’s post-independence plans. In short: Strong ties with Scandinavia.

I tell you what, B&E readers. It makes for interesting (and not just a little exciting) reading. Way better than all of this fucking bullshit surrounding the Republican presidential primary. It pains me that one of these Dickheads could actually become the next POTUS.

Filed under Uncategorized. Tagged , ,
Comment

Christmastime MCI to LGA

25 December 2011, 10:45 am

Someone suggested that perhaps I rename the blog Bald & Sporadic. Since I like B&E as an abbreviation, Bald & Elusive may work better.

We’re Christmas celebrators in our family, so Merry Christmas to the B&E readers who also celebrate Jesus/Santa-style. To those who don’t do the Christmas, I offer a general Happy Holidays. And to those who really think there’s a war on Christmas, I either ask you to take a good, objective look around you and reassess your position, or I offer you the heartiest “Shove it up your gaping assholes” for the Season.

I’ve spent the last week or so in Kansas, visiting Ma, who had a pretty serious health scare. I’m happy to report that she’s now out of the hospital and on the mend. She might even be better than she’s been in months, actually.

But our family gets a bit gun-shy when it comes to health issues during the holiday season. But hey, that’s just a byproduct of my having a father who passed away Christmas morning. Merry Christmas to us!

Anyway, I know that I’ve been a bit lax about the B&E of late, and I’ve been apologizing, or refusing to apologize, for months now.

I’ll probably take a good look at my dedication to this here blog as we turn to 2012 next week. With a job that requires a great deal of writing, along with several writing projects going at once that I’m quite enjoying, I’m not sure how dedicated I want to be to this thing anymore.

Still, it’s a useful medium for those times that I’m stuck or bored or angry, or if I’ve just got a silly something I want to toss off. (Which, if your mind is as dirty as mine, makes it sound like I refer to my private area as a “silly something.” I don’t. At least not until now.)

So no decisions about Bald & Effective/Elusive just now.

But thank you — all five of you — for reading B&E and happiest holidays to you. My Christmas Day will be spent with a quick morning visit to my dad’s cemetery plot, a delicious Swedish pancake breakfast, and an aeroplane flight back to New York City, where I plan to greet the missus (who didn’t join me for this emergency visit) with an enormous embrace and then enjoy a Christmas dinner of delicious cullen skink.

Filed under Uncategorized. Tagged , , ,
3 Comments

Weapons Grade Chicken

30 November 2011, 9:32 pm

Yeah, I totally at a lot over Thanksgiving. What of it?

The missus and I spent the holiday in Nashville, Tennessee. We’re both good eaters. So in addition to the traditional turkey dinner on Thanksgiving itself, we went on the hunt for some good regional cuisine.

Because we’re Yankees, we didn’t even really know what that might mean. Nashville is in the South, sure, but it’s not the Deep South. Does Nashville do good barbecue? Yes, apparently it does good barbecue. But Nashville’s contribution to southern cuisine is not barbecue.

It’s Nashville Hot Chicken. Get it on or off the bone with a couple of sides and prepare to sweat.

A couple of weeks ago, I’d been in Denver, and my host there asked a Thai restaurant to prepare her dish “Thai spicy.” It had some kick, but no way was it “Thai spicy.”

The Nashville Hot Chicken joint we went to offered their Hot Chicken mild, medium, hot, extra-hot, and extra-extra-hot.

I was raised on a fairly bland diet. Germans just don’t cook with tons of spice. And having spent most of my formative years in Kansas, it’s not like hot sauce was something that came with every meal.

In fact, it’s really only in recent years that I’ve begun to enjoy spicy foods. At our nearby Thai place, “mild” will sometimes knock me (and my unpracticed palette) right on my ass. What can I say? I’m very sensitive.

So when my sister told me that even mild Nashville Hot Chicken has a good kick (she’s been to our Thai place with us), I trusted her. She and the step-dad and I went with medium. The missus and brother-in-law (who has a different hot sauce for every meal) went with hot. (Ma has a sensitive constitution and had a leftover turkey sandwich instead of Nashville Hot Chicken. Poor Ma.)

Most of us went with chicken fingers, and from what I could gather, the Hot is created with some sort of dry rub that coats the whole thing. It’s not breaded (at least I think it’s not breaded), and I’m pretty sure they deep-fry it from there.

The medium stretched my threshold for spiciness, but it was outstanding. The missus also loved it, although she also said that if she were to do it again, she’d go with medium. It was the first meal I ever ate with my brother-in-law in which he didn’t add hot sauce.

And that’s the thing… This is a guy who likes the spice more than anyone else in my life. The “hot” was hot enough even for him. I can’t imagine who’s going in there for extra-hot and extra-extra-hot.

When the assholes at Fox News were talking about the students that got pepper-sprayed at UC Davis, one of them said that pepper spray was basically a food product.

Maybe that whack-job knows something I don’t. Maybe the extra-hot and extra-extra-hot versions of Nashville Hot Chicken are prepared with pepper spray.

I sure as shit wouldn’t want to get one of those chicken fingers in my eyes.

We were actually going to get a bunch of Nashville Hot Chicken to bring back to Queens with us. Alas, our Nashville Hot Chicken place was closed on the Sunday we wanted to order it.

Nashville is, after all, in the South, if not the Deep South.

Filed under Uncategorized. Tagged , ,
4 Comments

Um… Um… Oops.

10 November 2011, 8:39 am

No, I didn’t watch the latest in seemingly thousands of Republican primary debates. I have, however, watched the clip of Rick Perry blanking on the third agency he’d cut from his government.

Political media (especially on the left, which is the media I tend to consume) has declared it to be a devastating moment for the Perry campaign. Sure, it was awkward. And you don’t often see a moment like that from politicians.

I actually thought Rick Perry was sort of charming in that moment. When he got to the third agency he’d cut (after Commerce and Education), he recognized pretty quickly that he was blanking. He sort of laughed at himself, as he was responding to Ron Paul, who was not about to help him.

The moderator at CNBC smelled blood and pressed Perry, which forced him to finally say, “I can’t remember the third right now. Sorry. Oops.”

People draw blanks all the time. I know I do. Hell, I write for a living, and I can’t tell you the number of times that I’ve reached for a word in a meeting with a client, only to find that word hiding just beyond my grasp.

More and more, we expect our politicians to be like us, to be human. Rick seemed more like a regular guy in that moment than Mitt Romney ever will. And I thought he handled it surprisingly well, considering how big a deal it was destined to be. He just had that feeling of, “Nope, it’s gone. Shit happens.”

Don’t get me wrong. There are a thousand reasons to not vote for Rick Perry (you know, like that he wants to cut the Commerce, Education, and Energy (!) Departments). But losing a word momentarily isn’t one of those reasons.

Filed under Uncategorized. Tagged , ,
1 Comment
« Older Entries