a-beetz

so i was able to do some flybys on eight (8) pizzerias in my 9-1/2 days. sadly, i wasn't able to nab photos of the last three as my camera battery went kaput. but in no particular order, here they are:


Di Fara (Midwood, Brooklyn):



still seems to be suffering from uneven oven treatment. it got all medieval on one half and left the other half blond. while the toppings were solid--the Dominator, as he's known, still serves up the best pepperoni i can recall eating--the crust was actually a bit bland. maybe could've used a bit more salt? or maybe that's the down side of the gas oven--no smokey goodness. also: no basil? wtf? it is the height of basil season is it not? we did get a healthy hand-cut sprinkling of fresh oregano on our pie, but i hardly need point out that oregano is not greater-than-or-equal-to basil. still worth the two hour wait i think. i mean, it's no longer just the pizza you go for at Di Fara, but the experience and watching the completely unorganized clump of disgruntled and hungry customers bumming around the counter waiting to order whilst Dom is painstakingly making each pizza by his lonesome. 1 out of 1 Kyles approve.


Nick's (Forrest Hills, Queens):

significantly better than my one previous visit from last year when the crust was dry and cracker-like. this time around i was pleasantly surprised by a nicely charred crust with some moisture intact in the puffy edge. and look at it! a work of beauty. it tastes as good as it looks. thanks to Em for suggesting and accompanying me there. who knew Queens boardered Europe? not i.

Franny's (Flatbush, Brooklyn):

sorry. no upskirt. don't know what happened there. sparsely topped, but you wouldn't know it from the x-treme flavor x-plosion (tm) when biting into it. great smokiness from the oven, a beautifully crisp, yet pliant uber-thin crust, and good company made for an excellent meal.


Isabella's Oven (Grand St., LES, Manhattan):

my first meal back in the states after a year in New Zealand and i'm lucky enough to convince Sarah to have it at Isabella's. a great addition to NYC pizza, if a little pricey. $26 for a DOC Margherita, if I recall correctly. the inside seems kind of like a hole-in-the-wall, cramped, run of-the-mill pizzeria, until you notice that there's a guy working a wood-fired brick oven in an open kitchen--open as in, i could've stuck my hand in the oven as i walked past it on my way to their garden seating out the back. the down side to this is that the interior feels like a furnace, which is probably going to be great for winter, but in the summer heat, it just makes you wilt. Sarah and i split the substantial garden salad and the pizza arrived just before we were able to finish it. a crust with good hole structure, a healthy dose of sauce and the buffalo mozz had a light but noticeable tang.

Grimaldi's (Fulton St., under the Brooklyn Bridge, Brooklyn):

consistently one of my favorite spots. Amie, Jason, and i had a lovely stroll across the Brooklyn bridge prior to grabbing a table before the dinner-time rush was in effect. i overheard the guy working the oven say that he bakes about 500 pizzas a day. the edge crust on Grimaldi's pies is a little on the flat side to be perfect, but i would say it's still consistently the best pizza in the city, and considering the quantity of pizza being made, that's pretty impressive and i can understand how some of those pies might come out under or over-done. the place is a factory, but one with delicious results.

also visited but not shown:

Angelo's (Broadway b/t 53rd & 54th): great pizza in midtown? who knew? certainly as good as any of the Patsy's around the city, and almost as good as the pie I had a Nick's (the owners of both restaurants are somehow related... in-laws maybe). good hole structure with a springy crust and a nice charring pattern underneath--you'll just have to take my word for it.

Joe's (near-ish Bleeker & 6th Ave): a pretty good corner slice, doesn't hold a candle to the city's best though. bland, dry crust kills the thrill for me a little bit.

Graziella's (Vanderbilt Ave, Fort Greene/Clinton Hill, Brooklyn): where's the sauce? otherwise not bad. rooftop dinning space is always closed when i drop by, which is a bummer.

it smells a little like heavily fried food... or is that home?

so i'm back in maryland where shopping malls frolick uninhibited through the grassy knolls and meandering highways of suburbia. it is also where i'll be spending the next few months. turns out montogomery college did get my application, so perhaps i will be taking classes after all. i spent the morning sanding down joint compound that my dad filled pin-holes with in my sister's old room. all those backstreet boys posters came down.

 

new york was a blast. it was great to see people. sorry i wasn't able to meet up with everyone. hopefully i'll be back in the city in the next few weeks. didn't make it to all the pizzerias i wanted to either. never got to the bronx or staten island (which really requires a car, i think). some more photos are TK.

the big banana

stepping out of the earsplitting screeches and echoing foot patter of the union square subway station and into the garbage odor that wafts through manhattan's streets reminds me of why i left new york to begin with. the sense that every mundane action is a grand event reminds me of why i stayed here for two years. sleeping on the subway, waiting in line, buying corn chips at a bodega--they somehow mean something more because they're being done in new york. it's not the glamour. new york is hardly glamorous. it's grungy and loud and in the summer it's damp from humidity. but new york is the nexus. the city itself is an urban legend.

two hundred

bye bye
,
hello
!

i didn't lie straight to your face.

for more photos click on this one:

rainbow bright

made it up to auckland in one piece. though it seems i should've given my backpacks some swimming lessons before i got on the bus. they apparently sat in a puddle for most the ride and came out pretty well soaked through. the ride up was actually alright for an 11 hour bus ride. parts of new zealand really remind me of utah and montana--expansive, vibrant sky; lush pastures along an oscillating landscape; cows...

...photos TK in the next couple of days.

intestinal feet

so what does one do when one is essentially unemployed, left to their own devices--no TV, no computer to call their own, no yo-yo? well, if you're me you try and rouse yourself at a reasonable hour, which seems to fall somewhere between 8:30 and 10, eat a breakfast of homemade muesli, if my intestines aren't still about to rupture from whatever feast i had the night before, and then do one of the following enjoyable activities:

-read a book
-collect money for Women's Refuge while staring out at the Wellington harbor on a beautiful saturday morning
-go for a three-hour bike ride around the southern coast of the city
-bake: bread, wheat-free, vegan chocolate chip cookies, or pizza (see below)
-watch knocked up

being mostly unemployed isn't as bad as it sounds...

made.

do i really need to write anything? i made this:

for the sake of something... here's the oven:

flickr

photos on flickr

dumpstering

dumpster diving is something i've yet to really do... at least successfully, but i've learned from some enterprising anarchists that you can really get a ton of great stuff out of the rubbish--like fire wood, cherries, and a trash bag full of bagels.

live well! eat well! save money!

good article, even with the bible references:
The Tao of Dumpster Diving

3 in 4 out

the pinnacle, so far, of my oven work at Pomodoro:



Got 3 pizzas into the oven last night. Needed help with the 4th. Still working on the technique with the peel. Came dangerously closed to burning a pizza too. Batting .750 ain't bad though.

sonic infantry

yeah, so saw olmecha supreme at their single release show. gotta love their shiznit. snowblood.mp3 (right click to save as, i guess). i also recommend checking out their myspace page for a couple other tracks, especially thieves of saddness.

Pizza, pizza number 9...

Made pizza again on Wednesday. Middling results. The crust consistently turned out a little undercooked--just kind of wet and gummy in some areas--or overcooked and crackery. I imagine that has something to do with the oven and how I'm making the dough. On the bright side, it was the easiest dough to stretch that I've made yet. There was virtually no pull back at all, which was awesome. It seems I just may need to mix and knead the dough for a longer period. I did get to eat some good pepperoni on pizza for the first time since my last meal at Lombardi's before leaving New York.

Thanks to Brendan and his flatmates for the use of their kitchen and being my guinea pigs.

HQ

Photos from the homestead:


South Face


Front Hallway


Yellow Room


Kitchen


Garden


Empty House Next Door

Scopa: Don't Drink the Pizza

It's just bland. There's not much else to say, but I'll drag it out for a couple more sentences. They do some fancy pizza tossing, sure. But that doesn't help the lack of sauce. I should've known walking in that it wasn't going to be very good. They had a Tuesday lunch special: a margherita for $6. Pizzas at a discount are generally not in the set of good pizzas.

see here.

do you want a bag?

so sometimes when people buy the useless crap i hawk at the gift shop i work at, i'll ask them if they want a bag and they'll respond, "Aw, nah. Save the planet." surely, if you wanted to save the planet you wouldn't buy the worthless crap that's made largely of processed oil. Consumers can be idiots.

i'm returning to the motherland on august 8th. that's assuming homeland security lets me in. so, sarah, if i haven't arrived by then, i'll probably be isolated and chained up in a damp, concrete box somewhere in gitmo. make sure you call my parents.

that's the way society crumbles

"Meanwhile, Victoria Beckham is set to make a splash on U.S. television three days later when NBC airs a one-hour special titled "Victoria Beckham: Coming to America" on July 16." -- washingtonpost.com

I just vomited a little in my mouth... and then I snarfed it out my nose.

* * *

Joel Achenbach's article from this week's Outlook section:

Here's who we need in Washington: Socrates. The Greek fella. We need him not because of what he knew, but because of what he knew he didn't know, which was pretty much everything. He was one of the all-time great doubters. [continue reading]

LEFT CHEEK! LEFT CHEEK! LEFT CHEEK!

OK. So Transformers didn't suck. It was actually, um, good. Sure it didn't make a lot of sense, but what it lacked in brains it made up for in charisma and huge fucking robots that blow shit up and transform into cars. It could've used a little more of the original transforming sound effect, and I was bothered by the fact that two out of three black characters were clowns. The dialogue wasn't totally asinine... well, until the end. Optimus Prime sounded awesome, probably because it was the same voice actor, Peter Cullen, as in the original show. Cullen gets around, by the way. He voiced on a bajillion of everyone's favorite cartoons: Scooby Doo, GoBots, Voltron, GI Joe, Rainbow Brite, Smurfs, Snorks, Heathcliff, Ducktales, Chip'N'Dale Rescue Rangers, Dino-Riders, and Gummi Bears, among others. Also, remember Orson Welles? Large rotund guy? Deep focus? Changed film forever when he made Citizen Kane? Yeah. He voiced Unicron in the original Transformers movie.

the burning

So i've now had a couple of brief lessons on the pizza oven at Pizza Pomodoro. Getting the pizza onto the pala (or pizza peel) is a finesse job requiring short quick back and forth movements. it also requires speed. As i learned the sauce can soak through the thin base pretty quickly making it prone to tearing. putting it in the oven is relatively easy. It's like pulling the tablecloth out from under the place setting, just without the expensive wine glasses shattering and getting glass shards in your eye and having to use tweezers to pull the little splinters of stem out of your cornea and then blinding your right side permanently because you're not a trained tweezing professional, or trained at tweezing at all, and so out of inexperience didn't pay much mind to the itch that slowly built in your right triceps which then peaked as you brought your hand to your ocular lens making your arm spasm awkwardly and your tweezers jab into your iris, not once, but twice. Thankfully, you managed to dig out the shard on the second spasm. So, problem solved. You can go back to your party tricks. Just as long as they don't require any depth perception. The point being, that getting the pizza in the oven is a bit like a party trick, but easier and less impressive. Then there's the turning of the pizza, which is also comparatively easy (when compared to getting it on to the pala, or, say, verbally explaining to how to tie ones shoes). There's a different pala to use. It's kind of a 6 or 8 inch disk on the end of a long pole. Just slide it under the center of the pizza, flip it up on a slight incline keeping an edge on the oven floor, and pull it toward you. The pizza should turn 180 degrees so that the side that was facing the fire is turned away from it. I haven't quite figured out exactly when to turn the pizza. I just know you don't do it until the crust is cooked enough that it's rigid. Trying to turn an uncooked crust is just asking to tear a hole in it. Another thing I learned: the embers keep the floor of the oven hot, while the flames help cook the top of the pie. Claudio explained this to me after he'd pulled the pizza I'd ordered out of the oven and the crust was perfectly cooked, but the cheese hadn't melted.

A couple shots of the 2nd ever pizza I cooked in a real pizza oven (from 11 June):




Yeah, it was just a practice. So only sauce and mozz, and by the time I took the photos, the cheese had congealed. But pretty good for my second attempt.

"Why are you trying to destroy us?"

Rise of the Silver Surfer actually may be the greatest film since Pearl Harbor. Take from that statement what you will. It wasn't as bad as Stephen Hunter would have you believe ("'Silver Surfer' is drearier than corn dying in the Iowa sun, slower than molasses in Antarctica. Sentient humans should stay away; all others may enter confident that their IQs are already in the Chernobyl-fried range and will not be affected, except for downward."), but there are certain things it was hard to get around: the ludicrous amount of make up that Jessica Alba was buried in and the fact that she could have been replaced with a shapely brick without anyone noticing; the god awful dialogue between the FF and Dr. Doom while flying at high velocities 10,000 feet in the open air; the lack of chemistry between any of the actors; the relatively pointless power transferring effect the Surfer had on the Human Torch; the objectification of women and the treatment of them as complete idiots, and using that as a source of amusement; &c. On the bright side, the Silver Surfer looked cool, and the witty banter and arguing among the FF kinda worked sometimes. Well done, there. The film-goer in me is thoroughly disappointed and maybe a little bit disgusted. The fanboy in me is satiated.

Living at 128 has it's advantages and its disadvantages. One of the
hardships that i must suffer as a caretaker at 128 is the lack of
heating. Outside a water bottle, a fire on the hearth, or the
occasional cup of tea--which the house silently protests with its
drafty, and often broken or non-existent, windows--the best source of
heating is three or four layers of clothes or my sleeping bag. It's
the kind of cold that inspires revolutionaries to face their
insecurities regarding anarchist chic fashion (black on black with
black patches hand sewn on) and walk around wrapped in their bedding.
One would think that any stray particles radiating heat meandering
about the house's ether would eventually, due to the laws of physics,
rise and accumulate, huddled like a small band of overboard sailors in
frigid seas, in my loft, which is the highest point in the house. But
no. My bedtime reading is too often marred by the sight of my own
breath obscuring the page.

It's a rugged life here on the fringe. Not for the faint of heart or
those without slippers.

if you close your eyes they can't see you.

"His 12 'commitments' include promises to end illegal immigration, decrease abortions, cut taxes, prepare for terrorist attacks and increase access to health care... [to] 'keep America on offense' in the war on terror and separately vows to 'ensure that every community in America is prepared' for the possibility of an attack or a natural disaster... He also promises access to a quality education, a legal system with 'strict constructionist' judges, fiscal discipline and careful spending."
-washingtonpost.com article about Giuliani's campaign promises.

No more illegal immigration. You know what that means: open borders! Possibly the end of the nation-state! That's what I call progressive. It would make the anarchists very happy. And every community will be safe from crazy fuckers and acts of God. Will that be like how we were prepared for nuclear Armageddon by being told to duck and cover? Or a bio-chemical attack with duct tape and plastic sheeting? Or maybe we can be prepared by preemption and carpet bomb more poor countries...

gah! gaaaaaaaaaaaaah.

According to the Hostess website, Christopher Sell invented the "fried Twinkie" at the Chip Shop, his restaurant in Brooklyn, New York. It was described by the New York Times in this way: "Something magical occurs when the pastry hits the hot oil. The creamy white vegetable shortening filling liquefies, impregnating the sponge cake with its luscious vanilla flavor. . . The cake itself softens and warms, nearly melting, contrasting with the crisp, deep-fried crust in a buttery and suave way. The shop adds its own ruby-hued berry sauce, which provides a bit of tart sophistication." - wikipedia

"'Spring Awakening,' a buoyant rock musical based on Frank Wedekind's 1891 German play of the same title, won [the Tony] for best new musical," according to the washingtonpost.com.

Emily: i heard

i love that it's a buoyant rock musical based on a dark dark german expressionist play

oy

me: i'm flabbergasted.

completely at a loss.

unless you're doing a parody, i just don't understand how it could possibly be a buoyant rock musical.

buoyant is not in spring awakening.

there's no buoyancy.

it's about sinking.

that's what it's about.

it's about drowning in your natural environment.

mnftiu

get your war on #65.

take a leak on my genius

using nothing but my two hands, various tools and hardware, scraps of
guttering and piping, and my innate ingenuity, i did a particularly
shoddy yet fairly functional job of replacing a gutter the other day.
the old one had a giant piece missing out of it as if a large acid
dispensing reptilian had expectorated on it, and therefore wasn't so
much a gutter as a hole.

The future is made of ceramic Muslims who won't degrade

"In the end, only Muslims themselves can defeat the violent radicals," Romney says. "But we must work with them."

Well, then. OK. If you say so, Mitt. But if only the Muslims can defeat the violent radicals, why do we need to increase our troop count by 100,000? Also, coal and oil are soooooo 20th century. How about this ceramic battery thingamajig? or maybe some sweet photovoltaic cells?

Sometimes I am a fuck up. It doesn't happen regularly, at least, I don't think it does. I suppose those around me can be the judge. But last night at the pizzeria, while being the sole kitchen hand at the pizzeria for what seemed like four or five eternities while Claudio was out delivering pizzas, I managed to make a mess of just about every activity I did, with the exception of dishwashing. Did Massimo yell at me? Thankfully, no. He did seem quite agitated though that I could not complete even simple tasks like placing boxed pizzas on the counter without accidentally juggling them awkwardly like one who has never used his hands before or perhaps has no hands or even maybe no arms. Was I a bit panicky? I was. There were too many phone calls for me to handle competently in that there was more than one. Did I cry under the pressure? I did not. Though I very much wanted to do so. I also just wanted to curl into a ball and perhaps roll away, somewhere far off where people were not upset at me for asking them repeat themselves. Massimo is very particular about how things are organized in his kitchen, which I can appreciate. Phone orders for delivery should be placed next to the register so they can be rung up. Phone orders for pick up should be placed on the counter in front of him so he can take care of them. It seems simple enough. Though I still somehow ended up with three or four green order slips in my hand at once searching for the right buttons on the register, frantic, wild-eyed and cursing myself under my breath for every wrong button pushed.

Luckily I get a chance to redeem myself this evening.

sometimes i find myself blogging about the inanities of my everyday life, such as i was yesterday, and i want to apologize to you, my tiny flock of readers. not so much because the post is self-involved and comprises useless information for most of you, but rather because the writing isn't very good. it just sometimes seems to lack any verve, humor, or even a hint of interest on my own part in what i'm writing about. it may best be described perhaps as gormless. in the future i'll try to put in more of an effort.


Wolfowitz on being fired: "I think it tells us more about the media than about the bank and I'll leave it at that," he told the British Broadcasting Corp. "People were reacting to a whole string of inaccurate statements and by the time we got to anything approximating accuracy the passions were around the bend... I accept the fact that by the time we got around to that, emotions here were so overheated that I don't think I could have accomplished what I wanted to accomplish for the people I really care about."

I also blame the media. It's a shame that such an upstanding citizen--nay! a good samaritan!--such as Paul Wolfowitz would have his name sullied by such a nefarious group of gossip slingers. Mr. Wolfowitz, I weep tears of sympathy. All you wanted to do was help the poor of the world and the thanks you get is the vitriol of... well, everyone. You did manage to lift your significant other out of the bonds of poverty. A noble deed. Only 3 billion people to go. Maybe now that you find yourself with some spare time, and your S.O. has some extra cash to spare, you can haul yourselves out of the mud you've been dragged through and truly express your love and goodwill toward the disadvantaged of the world. Or maybe you can't.

spy vs. concerned citizens

so the government has been spying on my friends. it was reported this weekend that Solid Energy, a government run coal mining company, contracted Thompson & Clark, a security/private investigation company to investigate the Save Happy Valley Coalition. Thompson & Clark in turn paid at least one person to infiltrate and report back on the SHVC. it was also reported that Thompson & Clark paid at least one other person to spy on Peace Action Wellington and the Wellington Animal Rights Network. PAW has weekly meetings where I live.

the bad thing about this is that plans for protests, etc. may have been compromised. the good thing is that it makes Solid Energy look like a bunch of weasels and makes the SHVC look like a group of Jesuses by camprison. also we now know that we were being spied on and who the spies are.

saturday evening i worked my second shift at pizza pomodoro. and this probably isn't particularly exciting for anyone but me, but i was able to answer some phone calls and started to familiarize myself with the register. i also had a good chat with Claudio, an italian working there as a kitchen hand. he's also there on a working-holiday visa. i'm hoping to get him and Massimo the pizzaiolo to join in the sunday soccer games.

speaking of which, sunday brought a pretty good game of soccer. there seems to be a bit of a tradition of heading over to Ronnie's house afterward for a drink and some homecookin'. Ronnie is Chilean. He and his wife, who's from Larchmont, NY, both play with the NSO here. Chitto, also is Chilean and is currently staying at 128, and I hop a ride with Vladav, a Serb with refined taste and also a car.

i banked my first assist during the game. it was a solid bit of play--cutting through the midfield, i somehow managed to slip by three or four guys before slotting the ball to my teammate for an easy shot in front of the goal. it was the lone bright spot in terms of my play. the rest of my game was plagued with passes gone astray. beautiful day though. windless, sunny, and warm.

pizzaiolo in the making

sunday i had what was by far my most successful pizza making experience. i was invited to a friend's place with the purpose of making pizza for a handful of select people. the oven was sufficient. it went up to "high," which is some undetermined temperature after 250 degrees C. It also had a fan bake. getting all of my pizza making things over there was a pain in the ass. 6 balls of dough, a pizza peel, baking stone, olive oil, salt, half a bag of flour, and 2 1/2 lbs of canned tomatoes don't fit into a regular back pack. I had to pack it into my hiking bag for the bike trip over. wearing stuff like that messes with my equilibrium, though i somehow managed to not fall over.

sadly, i only have a couple of photos as proof of the scrumtrulescent results. i actually successfully got six pizzas in and out of the oven with minimum calzone-ing. the alpha pie was a pizza bread--no sauce or cheese. just dough, olive oil, crushed garlic, salt, and pepper. the results were pretty fucking great, if i may say so myself. second up was your basic margherita, also a success. the next three pizzas were a free for all in terms of toppings. i left it up to the guests to bring their own and we ended up with tomatoes, eggplant, garlic, mushrooms, bell peppers, and even some spinach. basil and garlic were the most popular toppings of the evening. we ended the evening on a half marinara/half margherita pie. yum.

of course, it wasn't a perfect outting. the cornicione of the first few pies was a bit undercooked and gummy. also the fresh mozzarella (kapiti brand) that i'd purchased was tasteless. so we had to go out and get some aged.

all in all, i'd give me and my pizzas an overall score of B-, which is good. A B- is good pizza.

in other pizza news, i apparently have been hired by pizza pomodoro (so far the only pizza place i've found in wellington worth going to) to be a bit of a kitchen hand. i'm not making pizzas or anything. mostly i'm a dishwasher, but i may move up to working the register (yeah, i know big whoop). actually, some pizza-making lessons look like a possibility. also i get free pizza out of it. so this evening i worked three hours and it looks like it'll turn into a pretty regular saturday evening gig.

dropped some photos on my flickr site.

almost got run over yesterday by a moving van. it was backing up straight into traffic as i was biking past. still have all my faculties though.

W.: a D-grade Nazi.

can someone tell me why Bob Barker's retirement from the Price is Right is a homepage news on the washingtonpost.com? and do we really need a photo of a teary-eyed, mylar confetti-dusted Bob? by contrast the nytimes.com has a photo of Putin and an accompanying article about his comparing the US foreign policy (and apparently NATO) to the Third Reich. while i see his point (the use of bigotry and fear to mobilize a nation, imperialism, delusions of grandeur (or even just delusions) by the commander-in-chief, etc.),  it seems somewhat unfitting. the Third Reich was much more competent and effective than our current administration... too bad they had their gooey innards replaced with evil.

...and then what?

ok. so, i guess here's my problem with withdrawing the troops: it
doesn't actually solve the problem that's at hand. i mean, okay, it
does solve the problem of US occupational forces getting blown up in
Iraq and innocent Iraqis getting blown up by US occupational forces.
it allows us to put more troops back in Afghanistan, which may or may
not happen and may or may not be good. it also hopefully will slow the
spread of antagonistic feelings that we provoke in Iraqis with our
oppressive, militaristic presence (i mean, if we pull out, US troops
won't be around scaring Iraqi civilians, either through purposeful
action or incidentally, by doing things like walking around city
streets with with large assault rifles). not that the US's power over
Iraqis will disappear entirely either, but rather the mechanisms will
migrate behind the semi-closed doors of politics and business.

the problem that this will not solve is the problem of creating a
peaceful Iraq. remember when colin powell said something about the
pottery barn rule, "you break it, you bought it," when talking about
accountability in regards to invading Iraq? that, i think, still
applies. we went in and fucked that place up beyond recognition.
pulling the troops out is great. i'm all for less militarism. but we
have to do something after pulling out to help get the Iraqi people
back on their feet. until a reasonable post-retreat plan is proposed,
i'm going to feel ambivalent about any pullout. Iraqis deserve
significantly better than what we've given them. I'd like to see some
effort put forth by the people who are supposedly our nation's leaders
into figuring that problem out.

the brunettes are playing a show at bar bodega on may 5th. that's like only a week and a half away. it's gonna be a dizzy time of pickled rock'n'roll with a side of lemony pop. what am i gonna wear?!?!

also playing that evening: teenwolf

what's news?

While I have nothing to say directly about the events at VA Tech other than pretty much the same sentiments that everyone has: it's a tragedy. While that's true, I'm a bit miffed as to why it is front page news. Still. Even in New Zealand. The Dominion Post, which services pretty much all of New Zealand below Taupo, had a large photo of Cho Seung-Hui brandishing his firearms on the front page. I understand that there's a fairly compelling human interest story. But this is also an event which can bring forth many points of discussion about American culture, higher education, psychology, basic human interaction and decency. (Gun control is being discussed of course, but somehow I doubt any progress will be made on that front.) There's an odor of exploitation that permeates media's coverage of these sad events, events which are fairly isolated and have a relatively small sphere of influence.

They're sensationalizing the people involved. They're playing up Cho Seung-Hui as some kind of one-dimensional evil villain, like someone out of Batman's rogues gallery. He doesn't make a statement. He has a diatribe. He's disturbed, anti-social, eccentric, and a loner. He's been dehumanized and is now a character in one of the media's stories about terror. And then there are the victims of the massacre, who have articles about them such as the one on the washingtonpost.com today that begins "Like a string of jewels come stories of priceless lives cut short on a day when the unthinkable occurred."

158 people were murdered in Baghdad two days later in similarly senseless bombings, but their lives aren't described as priceless and their stories don't sparkle like jewels. Their stories don't do anything because they're not reported. There is no follow-up. No real effort at making these occurrences human occurrences. The Washington Post article about these bombings interviewed one witness. ONE. A man who witnessed another man's head being eliminated. Maybe if news sources like the Washington Post reported on Iraqi bombings--bombings that are a symptom of a larger problem of sectarian violence in a region rife with tension due to religion and cultural differences that have global consequences--like they are the VA Tech shootings, people would actually care what's happening in Iraq. I only seems fair that Iraqi deaths should be noted as people not numbers and commented on by their friends and family instead of state officials.

And one last note: the washingtonpost.com is posting photos and bios of people killed at VA Tech. Why haven't they been doing this for US soldiers killed in Iraq?

photo pump

yeah. spent some time at the beach the other weekend. also there's work being done in the city.

pleasing pizza

my best pizza yet! (from two weeks ago).

i traded my tv for box of bagels. magic bagels.

it's been two weeks already. time accelerates when there's lots of activity. i went to the beach, moved houses, attended the first ever 128 annual general meeting, had a couple of nice evenings with the bruells and regans, and eaten lots and lots of food ( feijoas are running amok at 128). i swept the kitchen and emptied the compost this morning. also, i biked to work for the first time thanks to a bike generously donated to me by the regans. i'm still planning to finish the other bike i'd started working on. hopefully that'll get completed this week.

photos of seagulls and similar nonsense is tk.

FREECYCLING!

http://www.freecycle.org/

It's kind of like craigslist... kind of..., except everything is free.

from the website:

When you want to find a new home for something -- whether it's a chair, a fax machine, piano, or an old door -- you simply send an e-mail offering it to members of the local Freecycle group.

Or, maybe you're looking to acquire something yourself. Simply respond to a member's offer, and you just might get it. After that, it's up to the giver to decide who receives the gift and to set up a pickup time for passing on the treasure.

Our main rule: Everything posted must be free, legal, and appropriate for all ages.

Though, I think you have to register to use it.

the janitor of the underground

monday i was approved on a provisional basis to be a caretaker of 128. there'll be a two month review of how i'm doing. and i pretty much move in as soon as i can find someone to replace me in the flat i'm currently in. so yeah. hooray!

currently listening to some reggae-inspired cover of billie jean on student radio.

more fun things: the owner of the gift shop i work in has apparently been negligent in paying rent. the landlord came in today and threatened to lock us out if rent wasn't payed tout de suite. no one has heard from him (the owner) in the past few days. where is he? i think there's a chance he's split the country. small but possible.

The Great Catsby

So Catsby has been living with Sarah in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. Apparently she's made very good friends with Sarah's roommate's cat, Jasper Montrose. And she clearly, has not lost an ounce of cuteness since moving to hipstertown.

Hopefully I'll be making some pizza this weekend. I mixed up a yeast starter last night, which i dropped in the fridge for use on Saturday.

what's more fun than pizza?

There's a David Sedaris quote I like to invoke from time to time and it goes, "You either have good experiences, or good stories."

Some background info: there are five of us in the flat: Nastasja, a nice, quiet, if somewhat humorless female German grad student; Eryn, a nice, friendly event planner; Chris, a bartender/musician and is probably best described as your prototypical frat-boy; Renee, a bartender/musician and former ballet dancer who is fairly serious about his music and whom I rarely see; and the there's me. Eryn and Chris are a couple.

As some of you may know, I've had some problems with a couple of these flatmates in the past weeks since moving in--loud arguments at 5am, loud sex at 3am, loud sex at 9am, loud Gun'N'Roses at all hours, etc. Well, last night we reached a new high or low. There was a raised voice argument (not shouting just loud talking) between Chris and Eryn. The argument was punctuated every 5 to 10 minutes by a door being slammed, feet stomping down the hall to the bathroom, and another door being slammed and more loud talking in the bathroom. And then there was the return slamming, stomping, and slamming back to the bedroom, and then again back to the bathroom, etc. This went on for 20 minutes or so. Then the Gun'N'Roses started. After a few minutes of Guns'N'Roses, I finally decided to get out of bed and say something. So I walked over to their bedroom, and pound a couple of times on the door. It opened. "What the hell is going on?!? It's 5am and I'm trying to fucking sleep here." Immediately Eryn apologized, while Chris slammed the door in my face. I quickly opened the door and start to say something, but before I really get anything out Chris burst through and gives me shove, yelling at me to never enter his room, to show some respect, and threatening to kick my ass. At this point, I've a hunch that the man has tossed a few back. Eryn is trying to hold him back and stop him from kicking my ass. Chris, I should note is about my height, but he has about 20 extra pounds of muscle on me, so I'm in no hurry for this to devolve into fisticuffs. He continued yelling things like, "Do you wanna go? C'm'on lets go!" and "I'll kick your ass right now!" To which I replied, "I didn't come out here to fight, I came out here to get you to be quiet so I could get some sleep! Have some courtesy for the people in this house." He then, still shouting, said something, to the effect of, "My girlfriend hates you. You don't even say 'hello,' to her when you walk in the house. Show some respect!" His girlfriend, meanwhile, told him to "stop it," and persisted at her attempts and keep him at bay while he continued his macho-chest beating, with further assertions that I should show some respect in his house, which I countered with the fact that is not his house, but rather we're all renting the space. The pinnacle of the exchange--for me at least--occurred somewhere in the middle of this when Chris threatened to kill me in my sleep.

It's not long after this that I asked him if he's drunk, which he denied, while Eryn nodded an affirmative. I then turned and went back to my room for some rest, which I eventually received, but only briefly because the construction started up around 7:30am.

Chris has since texted me an apology. I'm not particularly afraid for my life living in this flat, but I will say, that I don't have a lot love for it and subsequently don't spend a lot of time there. I get the feeling, based on this exchange that Chris doesn't like me very much, which is fine as I don't particularly like him. However, I don't feel I've had much opportunity to offend him--with the exception of tardiness in completing a couple of house chores that he seems particularly keen on people accomplishing on time--as I'm never really around.

In any event, all signs are looking good right now that I'll become a caretaker at 128 starting sometime in April, so my time in my current flat is coming to an end (fingers crossed). I should know by Monday for sure. I'm hoping to have a conversation with Chris and Eryn sometime soon so that we can clear the air a little bit. I'm not looking to be BFFs, but it'd be nice if we got some things out in the open while we're all calm and collected.

* * *

In happier, but less fun news, Brendan and I went out for pizza last night. It was delicious. We also had cake, which was also quite tasty.

share the wealth

thank you, sanity clause.

taken from here.

went to a protest of the iraq war in honor of its anniversary yesterday. nice day for it. indy media says this. apparently i got some sound bite on the 5 o'clock news on the national radio thing here. i'm pretty sure what i said was incoherent, but if i can find the clip, i'll post it. UPDATE: found the clip, which is here. Of course, it left me thinking to myself, do I really sound like that? Also, I'd thought I'd said, "hundreds of billions," but whatever...

if you did find the above image funny, do not read the rest of this post.

also, i saw hot fuzz last night. and with the exception of the fact that the last quarter hour was so freakin' loud some lady three rows back miscarried, and vomit shot out of my ears, it was a good time (despite the mess). this is not a problem i normally have. if my stomach acid wants to escape it more often than not is ejected orally, and perhaps if i were to laugh at an inopportune moment, nasally. but yeah, generally enjoyable--lots of bang, bang and self-aware jokes. i also appreciate the fact that british movies also have normal-looking people in them and not botoxed flexi-props. and: the movie was viewed in the company of canadians. god help me.

who's the marketing genius who came up with that one? seriously. ...no, seriously, i want to know.



My most recent pizza:

the crust on this joint right here was made with mostly 00 flour from Italy. the biga (aka yeast starter) was made with the stone ground organic stuff that i'd used in my previous pies and fresh, compressed yeast. when kneading the dough, i mixed in more of the organic stone ground shiznit. this 00 flour, which is extra finely ground, takes longer to bake than your standard stuff to get any kind of charring. it's something related to the hydration percentage i believe. in any event, i tried double-baking this crust. i put it in for a few minutes with only the sauce on it. and after about 5 or 6 minutes, pulled it out, added cheese, oil, and basil and stuck it back in for another 7 minutes-or-so. you can see some halfway decent charring starting to form on the bottom. the problem with this is that the crust dries out and your left with a pretty crunchy cornicione. i'll have to work with this a little more.

bert and gonzo

so this guy, alberto gonzales, right? he's, like, the attorney general of the united states. he totally admits mistakes happened in the firing of these prosecutors 'cause of their political loyalties. says he takes responsibility. then he defends the firings. he's all like, "i stand by what we did, yo's. and i take responsibility." what's that's about? what does that even mean: "i take responsibility?" what kind of action comes outta that shit? and then, like, all these democrats and a couple republicans were wanting to kick this idiot guy out 'cause he be a crazy hypocrite bitch. and i'm like, well, why did you fools give him the job to begin with? and check--he said he ain't quittin and his buddy george ain't gonna fire him over small-time shit like that anyways. so stop your bitching and get back to work.

that already didn't work

so i was watching al jazeera last night and they had some pundits talking about some pro-israel lobbying group in the US. somehow the topic veers toward the peace process between israel and palestine and one of these guys says something about working toward a "two people, two states" solution. this sounds to me a lot like separate-but-equal. to which i have to say, didn't we try that already? in the US, i mean. and--feel free to correct me if i'm wrong--i'm pretty sure it failed. miserably. if i can recall my 10th grade US history correctly, it ended up as a big blob of poop on the face of US history, 'cause y'know it wasn't a remotely fair system. and i ask you, if israel and palestine are officially split into two states, and one of them--israel--gets to keep in its possession jerusalem (which i can't imagine it wouldn't) and a whole lot of other land that palestinians used to live on (which i'm guessing is probably the better land in the region, at least the most useful in terms of agriculture) and then the palestinians get the crappy land that they've been herded onto, is that fair? is that a system of organization that is going lead to a peaceful co-existence between two historically antagonistic groups of people? what kind of palestinian would agree to that?

from the archives

speaking of NOLA reminded me about this thing i wrote after i went down there... it's about a year old, so not all of it applies to the current situation (like, for a while the media actually started doing a half-decent job reporting on events), but a stupid amount of this i think is still true.

Oh my god! we got a bleeder,
and the media feed's beatin' her
and the government is cheatin' her
a city bleeding citizens and
too much of the nation's population
act like situation's not worth facing
don't give a fuck though say we do
we do nothing, are well-to-do, do it well
sit back and watch these folks drown in hell
while we earn cash, we're opening gashes,
slashing our own wrists by leaking out gases
denying we've become fascists
acting calm, happy as clams, innocent lambs
holidaying under a palm tree,
on a Sunday drinkin’ slurpees,
slathering on sunscreen as the tide drifts in
but what we hemorrhage in this age
fuel, oil, chemicals some sages say
will kill our kids, which should enrage us,
spur us to make a fuss
and engage the politics that
we've mislaid somewhere along the way

Toxic compound's clogging our corduroys
Toxic flood water's over our shoulders
Toxic leader won't lift a finger
Toxic atmosphere won't help either
Toxic ground is all around yo
Toxic living is all we know now
Toxic living is like the lotto
Toxic living is our motto

smell the mold on the old dry wall
call some folks to city hall
round up all y'all slackers at the mall
work for a good cause, gives you pause
to see how these lawmakers ain't drawing laws to get more cars
packed with folk gnawing at the bit to get dirt on their paws
instead we got a handful of hippies singing folk songs
but they're in it for the long haul
hauling logs off that were sitting soggy in ponds
that used to be backyards
now they're just yards of nothing at all
ain't just contaminated yards or asphalt
everything's damned—including the earth's salt
those at fault won't take the blame though we insult them,
try to make them pay, they win by default
'cause they don't need results to stash cash in their vaults
but that asphalt's bad—that jagged earth
makes you nurse the most accursed hurts,
you feel like your guts are gonna burst
and you curse the pain, the worst pain you've gained,
remains of degrading health, your sights blurred
speech slurred, driving swerved, face whiskered
'cause you're a fucking mutant cat-bird
from working in subverted dirt
but now you've learned the gospel word
put that tyvek suit on first
you gotta wear 'em in the 9th ward,
even toward the French quarter
or become some invalid
or worse end up some fucked-up retarded with a kid
because of your low class
congress won't save your ass
sure got no insurance or inheritance
or benefit from no marriage tax
breaks is the sound your house makes
and hooray for that 200 bucks babe
that FEMA gave you to get your house made
no two ways about it they shortchanged you
and the only real help they gave
was to help lead you to your grave

a bottle of bleach to erase the waste indeed
so many people waiting to get their lives cleaned
they're dreaming of times that were less mean
when they're wallets weren't as lean
and could hold in hand a tangerine
but now they need handouts
the fallout from this too big to work out
while gutting out houses, they shit in out houses
wondering how come someone would allow this
they're owed better than one of FEMA's trailers
rotting somewhere in Arkansas while they're sawing
some spruce for a ceiling, bioremediating
the oil out of the soil in some son's
school's soiled grounds, toys sittin' spoiled
and a neighbor's hounds sound off so loud,
so loud the levees may burst out another flood to flatten this town
talk about no class, no sense,
this mindless government can't save this monument to culture
all those vultures want is more moisture to get rid of those poor people,
or more poor to use as soldiers
see through the silence to what's scrawled on the wall
that shows where souls fall and says to all,
"beware what lies ahead, the lies of the past will make us dead."
families dying, bodies are lying for weeks in the streets,
in cars, under tables where they used to eat
houses like ice flows, who's under 'em? Who knows?
those roofs sliding off huts, tourists think it's a show
rummaging in the rubble of a hovel
they shovel aside a whole level of a house
and find nothing to save, not even a mouse

FEMA Taking Hit on Sale of Surplus Trailers

[Ran across this article in the Washington Post.]

Stored in such places as the vacant land near an airfield in Hope, Ark., an industrial park in Cumberland, Md., and a warehouse in Edison, N.J., are the results of one of the federal government's costliest stumbles in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina -- tens of thousands of empty trailers. [continue reading]

It's amazing to think that this stuff still isn't resolved. I mean, it's been a year and a half since the hurricanes hit. Rebuilding is only really just starting in a number of neighborhoods. Delays in plans persist due to legal battles in indecision. From what I hear, there are still huge swaths of the city that are wastelands and virtually uninhabited. It's a real bummer that we can't get our act together down there. I urge anyone reading this who hasn't volunteered to go lend a hand. It was hard work but actually fun. It's not just help with construction or destruction that's needed. Volunteers are needed to help cook and distribute food and clothes as well and do general clean-up work and even gardening among other things. There are some links to various volunteer organizations in the upper right of this blog. Feel free to check them out.

Assuming I'm back in the states this autumn (which I am assuming) I hope to go down and do a second stint volunteering. It's a long way off yet, but if anyone else is interested I'd love the company.