August 2006 Archives

Best song ever: "Baby Baby" by the Vibrators, off Pure Mania. I am going through my things to move and that means sifting through the past like six years of papers, photos, books, zines, clothes, CDs, things I haven't thought about since the last time I moved. Like my music collection, the whole last year I kept everything packed away except what I had uploaded on my computer. And now I'm like, "Hey, I have all this good music! I used to have taste and stuff!" Like this Vibrators album, it's effin' amazing! I used to listen to it all the time at my old apartment, and I totally forgot about it. It's like the best dirty 70s rock n' roll. It reminds me of eating gross stuff like baked potatoes with fried eggs, or pasta with sauce from a jar and a fried egg on top, in my old studio, in the winter. That is crazy, man.

This is from my new favorite book. Nobody sue me.

"Julie and Faye walk past a stucco house the color of Pepto-Bismol. A VW bus is backing out of the driveway. It sings the high sad song of the Volkswagen-in-Reverse. Faye wipes her forehead with her arm. She feels moist and sticky. She feels like something hot in a plastic bag."

It's in a story by David Foster Wallace called "Little Expressionless Animals." There is like deeper stuff than that in the story but this kind of stuff is why I like reading, the nice turns of phrase. The literal part. I mean I like other stuff about reading too but this stuff is like candy, instant-gratification stuff. Oh yeah my new favorite book is um it has a really long name the Paris Review Book of Heartbreak Madness Sex etcetera. I got it at the mall in Walnut Creek.

You know what is pretty good for breakfast? Leftover cornbread in milk.

I'm visiting my ma this week in Berkeley, where I'm from. We usually go to the same places all the time, but we threw in a couple new ones too.

Chester's - Walnut Square. I hesitate to post about this place because it's the best secret, no waiting spot ever, but I don't think the number of brunch-goers in the East Bay who read this is really that significant. Anyway, they have terrific poached egg things and other breakfast classics. Mom got eggs blackstone, always awesome, with toasty potatoes, and I branched out from my usual belgian waffle or scramble with something called "On the Run" or something, an egg/cheese/english muffin/bacon sandwich with potatoes on the side. Good combo of all the breakfast flavors. All it needed was syrup and it would be a whole diner condensed into a sandwich.

The Paragon at the Claremont Hotel - Since my mom is a socialite lush now, we went with her fabulous friends Jennifer and Sheldon to this historic landmark hotel's swanky bar for drinks and dinner. Mom got a "feng shui" cocktail with cucumber and some fruity stuff. I am on the fence about cucumber so I got a Pacific Sunset. Anything that's two different colors and has a pineapple wedge gets an automatic A. For dinner we split a Caesar - typical, but fresh - and a pork loin thing with some roasted red pepper stuff on top and a corn thing on the side. I think they said a corn ragout or something, it was like fresh, sweet white corn with an incredible, summery grill flavor, cooked with some other stuff like mild jalapenos. Yummy. Then for dessert my mom got a surprise birthday dessert, this thing with chocolate shortbread, a fat layer of fudgy ganache, and slightly gritty vanilla bean ice cream on top, and caramel sauce underneath. Rich, sweet and yum.

We went to some other places too, but that will have to wait cause now we are off to Rick and Ann's for brunch. Woohoo!

You know what's really good? Salads with walnuts and figs. I had one with dried figs at Tin Shed and one with fresh figs at New Seasons. The New Seasons one had prosciutto in it. Mmm, cured pork is the bomb. I find it fascinating because you can actually see the fat. Big sheets of pure white animal fat. I pulled it off and plunked it in the lid of the takeout container. We were eating on the couch, watching this show about this guy who wants to have good karma so he works in a fast food restaurant for someone whose wallet he stole. Kevin had a steak sandwich. It was good too. I tried it.

Now that I am a yuppie sell-out who accepts the shortcomings of the world, I usually refrain from PC policing. But I couldn't help being rubbed the wrong way by this, from August 4th's Portland Picks:

"There was a cute gal behind us that wasn’t bored. She was actually quite happy....in a Zen-like stupor, unfettered by the grueling flight, even as she sat between two swarthy guys that kept dozing, drooling, and snoring in her direction. You see, she was knitting."

Swarthy? Come on!

HBO makes everything look good. On Sex & the City, they are always partying, eating cheap ice cream, being single, being semi-employed, wearing high-heels, being individualistic, and they make it all seem really attractive. But it's just cause it's HBO. The only thing they can't make look good is getting your eyeball pulled out by a greased up bear dude. Try as I might, I can't get into Deadwood. I can't get into Entourage either because it's a scary testosterone fest, but I forgive it because now guys have their own Sex & the City. Dude, Baryshnikov is all up in the last season of Sex & the City as the suave Russian aging player who gets in Carrie's pants by doing stuff like asking her out on stationery. I love how this show is full of writers and artists who are somehow making lots of money and get to live in fabulous apartments, buy ridiculously expensive clothes and hang out drinking Manhattans and reading poetry and crap all the time. I need to figure out how to get syndicated. And how to become a fictional character on HBO, especially one who isn't a hooker. I think Sex & the City and Six Feet Under are the only ones where the women aren't hookers. Not that there's anything wrong with being a hooker, but, you know, I'd rather be an inexplicably wealthy columnist. Oh and BTW: I still have one last DVD left to watch, so nobody be a jerk and spoil anything for me. Thanks.