Cakewalk the Plank

Tony the Pothead

2011-04-04T13:19:00.000-07:00

Tony stares at the Cyclops of the black bowl, the flame creeping outwards resembling a forest fire viewed from space. He breathes in the murky smoke that is as familiar to him as a brother. Straight to the skull. He exhales, feeling himself curl up in the top of his skull. Then he drifts down like a deflating balloon and feels the fog descend.

The fog is the main characteristic of his high. It clouds everything he does, from social interactions to work to rhythm to concentration. Everything. Yet he can’t stop, doesn’t want to stop. Pot makes him a more mellow person. If he didn’t smoke, he’d be stressed out all the time. Probably have high cholesterol, he tells himself. So he smokes daily. Now he is so high that he can’t imagine why he ever felt sad before in his whole life.

The doorbell rings.

Tony is struck with spine-tingling fear at the jarring tone echoing throughout his house. What if it’s the po-po, he thinks to himself. Oh my God. He scrambles to hide the weed in the closest set of drawers. Pipe, papers, lighters – they all go.

“Coming!” he shouts at the door. He nearly trips over himself while trying to apply eye drops and stabs himself in the eye with the bottle’s applicator. “Fuuuuck!” he moans, and opens the door.

It’s the mailman, or someone dressed as a mailman (Tony can’t tell the difference). “I need you to sign for this package,” the mailman-like person says, holding up some beige lumpy thing.

Tony knows better than to do this. “I ain’t giving you my facking signature,” he says. “Let me tell you.”

“Uh, sir, I can just take this back to the station and you can pick it up later…”

“What! You listen to me,” Tony demands. He runs his hands from his temples to the back of his head, then eyes the mailman suspiciously. “You look like your skin don’t fit to me,” he says.

The mailman sighs. He is an Asian-American man of about sixty.

“Shhhh,” Tony whispers, although the mailman has said nothing. “I was in the black ops back in the day, and on several occasions I experienced…things…beings…like you. One day I was walking home from my girlfriend’s house. I passed a swingset, and this person-thing dressed in all black was swinging like crazy on it. ‘Swing, fun!’ it said, caught up in some memory.

“You see, this being was not from this planet,” Tony continues, enunciating each syllable clearly, “and it was wearing the skin of a dead human as a disguise.”

Tony sees the mailman’s eyes shift slightly. He doesn’t believe him.

“You know, it’s not so different from the movie Men in Black,” Tony says. “I wonder if they weren’t onto something. Aliens can inhabit the bodies of dead humans, but there’s ways you can tell that they’re not, y’know, a real person.

“They can’t run, so they always walk. But they walk like they pooped their pants, like they’re not comfortable in their skin, which they’re not. And they usually carry weapons on them, because they are trained to execute one task and one task only. And that task is usually an assassination. So when I saw our friend swinging on the swingset, caught up in a memory of the person he was wearing, you could say I was concerned.

“I raced into my house and grabbed my gun. My roommate was home, smoking some pot, and he grew, shall we say, alarmed when I pulled out the gun. He started screaming, and I had to tackle him to the ground to subdue him. Broke his collarbone, ha!" Tony snorts.

“None of that’s important, though. The strange being had climbed off the seat of the swing and was shuffling in the opposite direction from my apartment. I decided to follow it, and for a few hundred yards I walked behind it as it dragged its unfamiliar feet like hooves. Eventually, it stopped. It was hovering around my girl’s apartment. I ran to her door, knowing that the being couldn’t run. We rang security and huddled in her apartment. I clutched my gun. After a while nothing had happened, so I ran to Estelle’s porch and saw the being standing near the basketball court.

“He wasn’t moving. I wondered if he was caught up in another memory. Then security arrived, and they took the being into the back of their van and took photographs and, I guess, questioned it? By ‘questioned,’ I mean killed.”
The mailman sighs again. “So, are you going to sign for this package?”

Tony winces. “Ah, my man, ever since that incident, I won’t put my signature on file with the government. Plus you got this dangly skin and you walk like you pooped your pants.” Tony pauses, trying to remember if he has even seen the mailman’s strut. “Well, who’s the package from, anyways?” he asks.

The mailman peers at the potato-colored lump. “P. Tillman,” he says.

“Aw, shit,” Tony cries. “Give that to me. That’s my ma. Yeah, I’ll sign for that.”

Soundtrack to a Cosmic Event

2009-12-06T15:25:00.000-08:00

Last week I experienced a significant cosmic event.

Initially I stored this event in the heart-shaped locket that is my mind, as I knew the event would be safe and unforgotten there. I then transcribed the event onto the paper of my makeshift journal, five years in the making. Acknowledging the impermanence of both my physical body and the pages of my journal, however, I am now transcribing the event in a third (also impermanent) location.

While driving home from work, I decided to fill up at the gas station, even though I didn't really need to. This was a complete whim, as I have always only gotten gas when my car was running on the empty fumes. I filled up and continued driving towards San Francisco.

Then.

The largest shooting star I have ever seen fleeted across the entire orange-pink sky, then faded into the sky's background as they became one and the same. At this EXACT moment, the song I was listening to in my car sang the lines, "Mama, here comes midnight with the dead moon in its jaws / Must be the big star about to fall."

This event unfolded as beautifully as the rose-petaled sky it fell from: "Mama, here comes midnight with the dead moon in its jaws," SHOOTING STAR, "Must be the big star about to fall."

I was completely overcome with awe. The significance of this event was immediately clear to me. If I had not stopped for gas, it would have never happened. I've never seen a shooting star so large. I've never seen a shooting star when it was not dark out. I've never had the sky, the universe, the cosmos communicate so directly with me, and only me, before (or I never knew how to listen until this moment).

Even more amazingly, I knew exactly what this cosmic sign meant. The more I think about it, the more clear it becomes. It can't be put into words just yet. It reaffirmed a subject that "arbitrarily" had been consuming my thoughts for the past week. I put that word in quotes because there are no coincidences.

There are no coincidences.

Buffy, Sluts, and MILFs

2009-09-27T18:14:00.000-07:00

The modern female hero (i.e. Buffy the Vampire Slayer) combats evil and defeats foes as well as any man, but has not yet discovered the use of pants. The modern sexually liberated female finds her empowerment deep in the crevasse between her artificial breasts. The modern aging female (aka MILF/cougar) is more valuable to society when she is mistaken for her teenage daughter. We’ve come a long way, baby?

Each of these representations of modern femininity is problematic in one way. Under the guise of female liberation and empowerment, recent femininities have become the stuff of heterosexual men’s dreams, while the traditional feminist is left shaking her or his head in disappointment at what has become of all that bra-burning. Rather than exposing the contemporary female as beautiful in an infinite number of ways, these constructions reinforce the worth of the female who is tall, thin, large-chested, smooth-skinned (the more her complexion resembles a baby’s bottom, the better), and willing to flaunt all of the aforementioned properties. Nevermind personality or intelligence. Nevermind the women whose looks differ from the average bikini model; as far as media is concerned, such women do not exist.

Take the new female heroes of television, such as Buffy, Xena, or Nikita. These women are hailed for their refreshingly strong, independent tendencies, yet scriptwriters are careful not to write these characters as too strong or too independent, lest they be depicted as manlike. Mary Magoulick points out in “Frustrating Female Heroism” that despite the strengths of these characters, they are ultimately weakened by their connections to and reliance upon men. These female heroes “present male fantasies and project the status quo more than they fulfill feminist hopes” (729). Such female heroes are still rarely featured, and when they are, they are stereotypically sexy and only slightly edgy. Yet critics applaud these characters and name them role models for a new generation of young girls, serving to further emphasize that you must look traditionally attractive in order to get away with such dangerous antics.

Possessing beautiful looks is the first step to possessing power if you are a modern female. With the popularity of “raunch” culture, such as the Girls Gone Wild movies, women have begun to take pride in baring their bodies in the name of sexual liberation, while (heterosexual) men are happy to be along for the ride. Sixteen year-old Miley Cyrus danced around a stripper pole on national television last month in an attempt to prove her freedom from the conservative Disney corporation that made her a star. Yet how free can she be while stuck straddling a metal pole, the likes of which have held decades of women captive as instruments of men’s pleasure? The “raunchy” female is free to express her sexuality, so long as her sexuality fits into the mold of what our patriarchal society deems sexy. In this way, sexual freedom is conditional, and not really so free at all. The women of “raunch” culture find their value in squeezing into a cookie-cutter type of commercially-viable sexuality.

This cookie-cutter definition of female beauty now shapes all ages of women. Middle-aged females, formerly discarded by most media as old, unsellable, and therefore useless, are now part of their own feminine construction. Lucky 40-something-year-old mothers who are found sexually attractive by people of all ages have been branded “MILFS”; older women who lure younger men into bed are “cougars.” This is not to imply that our definitions of beauty and sexual attractiveness have expanded to include an aged-looking woman; rather, the aging woman must fight against the odds (and gravity) to appear not aged at all. The iconic cougar Demi Moore has been “praised” for looking more attractive than her daughters, yet she is part of a small minority of middle-aged women, most of whom admit to spending huge amounts of money on plastic surgery, Botox, moisturizers, and “miraculous” youth serums. If MILFs and cougars teach us anything, it is that society’s obsession with youth is only growing. Young-looking and young-acting older women are more openly valued than women who look and act their age.

What these constructions of femininity teach us, then, is that strength, independence, empowerment, and self-worth begin with a traditionally attractive appearance. There are still few examples of femininity in the media that are based upon one’s inner self. As women struggle to create their own identities, they tend to emulate what is honored in the popular media—after all, these are often the most accessible, least complex examples of femininity. We should hope, however, that new examples of femininity will emerge that value mind and spirit before physical appearance.

Localvore

2009-05-18T12:07:00.000-07:00

Our final, tear-jerking Eating San Francisco assignment was to cook and document a delicious dish made from local, seasonal ingredients. We then brought our dishes to our final class and had a local feast.

I first became acquainted with the idea of eating locally through my last boss, Johanna. Johanna has overcome many obstacles in her life, and in addition to currently owning and running her advertising agency, Johanna is a yoga instructor and lives the epitome of a healthy lifestyle. I look up to her for many reasons, and she is my inspiration to eat and live well. My introduction with local food came when Johanna drove out to the middle of Nevada one weekend. Nevada has about four cities: Las Vegas, Henderson, Reno, and Carson City. Consider that Las Vegas and Henderson are pretty much the same city, and Carson City isn't really so much of a city, and you're down to two. See what I'm saying?

Anyways, one weekend Johanna drove out to the near-middle of the state, kind of by where the Ichthyosaur State Park is on the map. All that's out there is desert, desert, aliens (true story!), and more desert. Not dessert, you hungry audience, desert. It's beige! Let's get to the point here. When I asked Johanna why anyone would willingly venture to the middle of Nevada, she said, "Every year I go out to this tiny farm and buy a year's worth of Nevada-made honey. If you eat honey that was made locally, it fights the allergens unique to your air. Many people don't know that local honey is the key to getting rid of allergies!"

I never knew that local food could have so much power! I'm now determined to eat as much local food as I can. I'm all about sticking it to the man, and what better way to give the middle finger to greedy capitalists than skipping the grocery store and buying your food directly from the farmer/baker/manufacturer. Also, local food is often less expensive than non-local food due to reduced costs of transportation, lack of mark-up fees, etc. At USF's inaugural Farmer's Market, I got a huge carton of the biggest strawberries I've ever seen for $5. The same amount of lower-quality strawberries would run about $12 at Safeway, $10 at Trader Joe's, and $1 million at Whole Foods (thinking about the prices at Whole Foods hurts my already hurting brain, so that's about as exact as my calculation can be).

We all know I don't cook, so for this assignment Jessica proved to be my savior. We gathered ingredients from the Ferry Building's Farmer's Market, Trader Joe's (making sure it was produced within the region), and Jessica's basil plant. Yes, folks, part of our dish came straight from the earth. We made Napoleon's using a recipe from Jessica's GMILF, er, grandma.

The recipe and final results are available here!

The meal ended up being the most delicious ever. It was even better than McDonald's, though they hold the bar of quality so high. I mashed all my salsa, fava bean dip, turkey, steak, gnocchi, pasta salad, and pizza together, and though it resembled baby food, it tasted like that scene in Willy Wonka where Mr. Wonka fits an entire turkey dinner into a pill tablet. Nobody ever told me not to play with my food.

Beef Party Train, Priorities, and the Great Moral Dilemma

2009-05-12T18:05:00.000-07:00

I ain't got no beef with McDonald's.

[Photo via Old Women Eating]

Eating fast food while I was growing up was a total treat. My brother and I used to get so excited on those rare occasions when Mom or Dad would say, "I don't feel like cooking tonight. Do you guys want to peel some road kill off the side of the road, or pick something up?" For the next hour, my brother and I would be bouncing off the walls in anticipation of the sugar high in which we were about to indulge. "Garrett, you're an old man trapped in a boy's body!" I would taunt. "Only super boring retired people order vanilla milkshakes, riiight? Want me to hold your dentures while you take a nap?" Garrett was all about the chicken nuggets and vanilla shakes, while I was all about the BEEF. And french fries. Mostly BEEF.

I've kind of always been about the BEEF. I used to ask my friends' families if they would adopt me because my parents don't eat red meat and I would be practically dying of jealousy over my friends' luscious steak dinners seven nights a week. "Wanna come over?" a friend would ask on the phone. "That depends, what are you having for dinner?" was my typical reply. If BEEF, yes. If anything involving vegetables, negatory.

I fell off the beef party train upon moving to Portland for various reasons. In fact, I was mostly vegetarian during my years in the eco-friendly city. Not by choice, mind you, but rather because I was confined to the Lewis & Clark dining hall, in which Bon Appetit routinely served chicken that most closely resembled a Nerf ball, neon colors and all. I climbed back on the beef party train upon leaving the dorms and have been riding it ever since, hootin' and hollerin' and cat-callin' all you fine vegetarians..

Michael Pollan's book The Omnivore's Dilemma almost seriously threatened the beef party train. Pollan dutifully describes the path of food, from plant/animal to McDonald's hamburger patty. Essentially, cows are fed lots of corn in an attempt to get them fat as quickly as possible in order to slaughter them as quickly as possible in order to make room for more cows to get fed lots of corn in an attempt to get them fat as quickly as possible in order to slaughter them as quickly as possible in order to make room for more cows to get fed lots of corn, et cetera. The problem with this cycle (besides "Awwwwwwwww poor moo-moo!") is that cows are not natural corn eaters. They are grass eaters. The point being (and this, I believe, is Pollan's most powerful claim): most of the health problems associated with eating beef are actually problems with eating corn-fed beef.

Quick, beef party train, what are we going to do?! Should we branch off into a separate grass-fed beef party train? I'd hate to abandon some of our brethren! Ohmygosh!

Everybody, just chill out.

Truth be told, I was expecting to hear worse things about McDonald's than "sooooo much corn, yo." I was enormously relieved that corn was the most of my worries. I like corn! Corn > Rat feces. I wish all cows were grass-fed and happy in fields filming TV auditions to be a Happy Cow from California. But Pollan's book taught me that the corn cycle has become so vicious that only widespread legislation and a lot of pain on the farmer's end is going to bring change to America's consumer habits. I don't know what I can do short of quitting school and working on a farm ("Mom, would you be mad if after four years of college, I came to the conclusion that I just want to be a farmer?"). The only solution I can formulate is a return to the family farm lifestyle, in which each household grows or raises all of the food that they will consume. But let's get real, this is America. If I didn't have those rare treats of a fast food meal during my upbringing, life would be a little less colorful. If I had to physically kill every animal I wanted to eat, I wouldn't be able to live with myself.

This entire semester, my Eating San Francisco class had been planning on having our final meal at the iconic McDonald's on Haight Street. I was really, really excited about this for reasons even I am unaware of. However, as the day loomed nearer and the pages of The Omnivore's Dilemma flipped more rapidly, the class began to get nervous. All but two of us are self-declared "foodies" and from the start had harbored reservations about consuming an entire meal from Mickey D's. Pollan's book had enhanced these reservations, and the class decided we would dine at Cole Valley's organic-natural Zazie restaurant, concluding the evening with dessert at McDonald's.

This is where I do that passive-aggressive-bitch-and-moan-thing on the Internet because it's easier than doing it in real life, or whatever. Kind of disappointed that we did not eat at McDonald's. It's not that I love McDonald's; quite to the contrary, I rarely eat fast food. I'm just really into free entertainment and can't come up with anything (legal) that is more entertaining than a bunch of hungry, half-drunk college kids who just finished The Omnivore's Dilemma released unleashed into the filthy cesspool of the McDonald's on Haight Street. Now there's some prime writing material if I've ever seen it. All about the opportunities, people.

Instead we went to Zazie. Zazie stands for all that is good and nice and soft and fair in the world of food. But um, yeah. I think it was obvious to all that I am not comfortable in nice restaurants. When Jessica and I ordered red wine and the waitress poured a dime-sized amount of wine into my cup, I was about to be like, "Bitch please. Who do you think I am, Lightweight McLighty?" But um, my bad, apparently some restaurants let you taste the wine before you dive right in and go swimming wholeheartedly through a pool of burgundy deliciousness. Leave it to me to embarrass myself in every single semi-nice restaurant I've ever been in, ever. When I was a baby, I poured soy sauce all over the brand new carpet of a high-end restaurant. When my last boyfriend and I went on a date to an Italian restaurant, I pronounced "penne" in some garbled manner like "pan-uh" and the waiter had no idea what I was talking about. When my current significant other and I went to a nice restaurant for his birthday, I asked for "Chee-anti" instead of "Chianti" and the waiter promptly told me that they do not serve Chia Pets at their fine establishment. Need more examples?

McDonald's, though, that's another story. I sauntered up to that counter like it was a catwalk and said, "I want some FRENCH FRIES!" Professor Silver started laughing hysterically. I didn't get the joke. "Why are you laughing at me?" I asked. "Oh, no reason really, it's just that everyone else ordered McFlurrys or ice cream or something. But you sure don't mess around," he replied. Was I supposed to be ashamed of my lack of inhibitions at the fast food favorite? When I got my french fries, everyone else who had ordered ice cream was seriously jealous, stealing fries every time I turned around. I may or may not have made that up. Can't remember because I was kind of buzzed, see?

[Photo via Ali]

A few weeks ago, I was walking past the McDonald's on Haight and was approached by a very young hippie-ish boy. He told me that he had not eaten for three days. I walked inside McDonald's and bought him three cheeseburgers. And this, my faithful readers, is at last where I begin to make my point. NOBODY should ever go three days without eating. It just didn't feel right dropping $15-20 for an entree at Zazie in order to consume poultry that lives a more high-quality existence than some of the people within our very own city. Look at this picture my classmate Teresa captured of the menu at Zazie:

"Happy, drug free animals with an ocean view!" If only we could all be so fortunate. Priorities, you know. Priorities. I would love to save every animal on this planet, but I think that first it is necessary to secure at least a tolerable quality of life for every human on this planet, as humans have a consciousness distinct from any other species that allows for reflection on happiness, unhappiness, etc. I'm not entirely able to formulate the politically correct words to express why I feel such discomfort regarding the organic/natural/local food craze that only the financially fortunate are able to indulge in. Do you know why organic food costs, on average, 30-50% more than conventional foods? Because it can. Because people will pay more for it. Just 'cause. It actually costs less to grow organic produce than conventional, yet people have proven themselves willing to shell out more for organic. When a teenage boy says he has not eaten for three days, do you think he's dreaming of some fresh organic chard from Whole Foods? Hell no. I guess that's the source of my discomfort: the organic food trend is further widening the gap between the haves and the have-nots. When it comes to things like this, I can't help but side with the have-nots.

I'm not meaning to bash organic/natural foods. I'm all for them and try to incorporate them into my diet as frequently as my time and budget will allow. But pecking away at me is this unanswerable question: how is all of American society going to benefit from responsible eating habits, such as organic or natural or local eating? Those of us who live in San Francisco who are of modest or greater means have no problems in this regard, but what about the struggling mother who holds three jobs just to barely scrape by? What about the citizens of less eco-friendly towns, such as Reno, Nevada, in which even recycling is still a foreign concept? Unfortunately, Zazie will always be an unrecognizable dream to many people, while McDonald's, so often held in contempt, provides an inexpensive yet meaningful backdrop beneath which American family life can blossom and unfold.

[Photo via Ali]

Phoenix Talons and a Little Bit of Heart

2009-04-29T14:25:00.000-07:00

Recounting the tale of USF's Eating San Francisco as we journey through Chinatown, San Francisco.

I. The Oldest Temple in North America

Marching up sweating streets, rotating balls of feet to dodge humans half our size
We were forced into a broken-heart formation, a hunger-fueled army with mouths as swords
Past vegetables posed as grass-whipped baseballs, silky trinkets, and porcelained bamboo we went
Scattering pigeons with pierced yells, upturned noses towards the crosswalk’s stern red hand
A ragged doorway enveloped us then, our pinched ascension feeling more like a secret club with each stair mounted:
Then, the plateau.
Lungs and nostrils greeted first by a searing chokehold,
Sticky lids peeled from plump eyes to behold tassels red and gold,
Young brains darting as furiously as the six hands folding foiled papers.
Secrets exchanged among strangers as if they were new lovers
Revealed lawsuits would end unfavorably, pregnancies favorably—
We were right to feel part of a secret club, the cramped descent affirmed.

II. Dim Sum

More marching of slick pavements, mouths now cannons armed for attack
The army was heralded suddenly into a frenzied room of Costco-sized proportions
Each voice ringing like a fork against glass, uniting as a tongue-tied monster
As names were issued through a speaker like bingo numbers
With nervous laughs we hugged respective teacups as if they were mothers
Unaware that one outdated Imperial physician declared tea taken with food an abomination
Thought to bloat the underbelly of the human beast and call for the expansion of pants
No matter or time for thought: dishes proffered from all directions, appearing and vanishing like ghosts
“No No No No No No Yes” floating upwards, lodged within the precarious chandelier
Our earnings were dumplings soft as clouds, oozing little phoenix talons,
The remainder of the phoenix locked in an embrace with asphalted foil,
Ambiguous cow parts poked with sticky chopsticks,
A zoo-like feast in which The Vegetarian wrestled with a strip of lung
Bending its maroon flesh, forcing it into acrobatic poses until it met its demise at the edge of smooth china.

III. Fortune Cookie Factory

Upon bleary-eyed emergence into unexpected sunlight, the army began to droop
Snaking onwards through a hidden alley we stopped, milling transfixed before new machinations
A waffle-maker of sorts drip-dropped batter into round molds
Skilled hands melted paper fortunes into batter, an impossible task performed endlessly.
Ripping the cookie open at its seams and stamping its sexist revelations into dirty ground
I fled down the streets of Chinatown, part of this army in optimistic sing-song
As numbers and smothered yawns dwindled, heads tilted higher
To gaze upon cold glass-sharded towers that seemed miles from where we had begun:
A neon-signed, rainbow-awning plagued sidewalk steaming beneath the excited stomps of an army of eager tongues.

[Thanks to the Flickr sets of Samantha Blackburn and David Silver]

Aesthetic

2009-04-26T10:21:00.000-07:00

Wouldn't mind the tan lines of the top right suit.

Third from left.
Could never pull this off myself, it's so lovely and organized.
Leftmost image. Look what the waves dragged in!

Give me these now!
A smile is the best accessory.

Ah Falafel

2009-04-23T17:59:00.000-07:00

You know you're from Reno when you "get" the title of this post. Say it with me: Ah Falafel, Awful Awful. This week the Reno natives of Eating San Francisco joined forces to make the world's most disintegrated falafel.

So I don't cook, but contrary to popular belief, I eat. A lot. My typical m.o. involves sitting on my ass until somebody else brings me prepared food. Surprisingly, this tactic almost always works. If it seems as if I'm in danger of having to actually make my own meals, I immediately amp up the bitchiness towards those around me with comments such as, "Your face looks like it caught on fire and someone tried to put it out with a fork," or, "Shut up you half-evolved sea monster." This inevitably leads to a response along the lines of, "Gosh Jessie, why are you so mean right now?" To which I say, "I guess I'm just hungry. I always get a little cranky when I'm hungry." Ten minutes later, I always have food in my mouth, no exertion necessary. Works like a charm.

But this ESF assignment, man, it's harsh. Cook and document a delicious meal? You mean me, in the kitchen, cooking stuff that other humans are actually going to EAT?? No thanks, I'll take waterboarding instead, at least that way I can make-believe that I'm playing in a big wave pool! But that David Silver, shit, he's soft on torture. I will accept my punishment with grace.

Fortunately, I was able to enlist the help of a certain expert chef by the name of Kelli McCloskey. I suggested we make falafel because a) I'm obsessed with them, and b) Kelli likes to cook all vegany and I definitely do not get along with most vegetables, so falafel was the only vegan non-veggie thing I could think of. Seriously though, y'alls need to head down to Twilight Cafe on McAllister near campus; I've had dreams of falafel dancing through my head ever since eating there.

So Kelli has this vegan Jew-girl cookbook. Within its kosher pages, we unearthed a falafel recipe that made our thighs quiver in anticipation. Mom, I swear I don't mean it like that. So we tossed a bunch of ingredients into Kelli's food processor. Wish I could remember what they were, but as previously mentioned, I don't cook. I know there were onions, because I was crying like the baby in that iPhone Shaken Baby app. Maybe that was just an emotional outburst from being confronted with a cookbook, who knows. I know there were garbanzo beans/chickpeas, because Kelli said I was a silly goose for not knowing that garbanzo beans and chickpeas are the same thing. I also know there was parsley, because I started talking about the way I would sit in the garden of my childhood home and chew parsley. Is that what kids used to do before there was the Internet? We also added several spices beginning with the letter 'C'. Can someone get Wheel of Fortune up in here?

My main contribution to this part of the cooking was pushing the button on the food processor. I have this thing with power tools, don't ask. A food processor is a power tool in my mind, and I really wanted to kidnap the processor and take it to City Hall and demand that they legalize electric-appliance-marriage. Notice the way my hand lingers tantalizingly over its thick knob...

Anyways. Then we had to place our falafel mixture into the refrigerator for 30 minutes. Hmm, hyper 20-something-year-olds and 30 minutes of free time. I picked up an issue of VICE magazine that was laying around Kelli's apartment. I read aloud the article entitled "Interviews with People that Just Had Sex with Each Other a Few Minutes Ago." Literary and cultural genius, that article was. Who says the youth of our generation don't have anything of significance to offer? All of the sweaty hip-kids interviewed disregarded THE ONLY SEXUAL PRACTICE TO HAVE BEEN INVENTED IN THE 20TH CENTURY: fisting. Argh, ungrateful schmucks! Then I showed Kelli the best Youtube video ever:

Who's down to start a Binocular Football league with me?? Moving on. After the 30 minutes had concluded, we removed the mixture from the refrigerator and formed little balls with the dough. Kelli was scared of frying things in hot oil, but fortunately for her, hot oil is something that I am no stranger to. I tossed those bad boys in the pan of hot oil and smothered the sneezes out of them.

"KELLI HELPPPPPPPPPPPPPPP," I shrieked as the formerly fist-sized balls of dough disintegrated into wimpy pimple-sized nuggets of grease. When all was said and done, our falafel looked more like half granola bars. Nonetheless, we slapped them inside some pita and left them to smother to death in tahini sauce and lettuce.

Then I put it all in my mouth. It tasted delicious, proving that I can cook, so long as Chef Kelli is there to look over my shoulder.

MTV Diary: My Stomach

2009-03-18T13:52:00.000-07:00

You think you know, but you have NO idea....this is the diary of the stomach of Jessie "Messy" Hill.

7:00 am on Friday, March 20, 2009 and the incessant beeping of some alarm clock ruins my LIFE, or maybe just my slumber. That ignorant bitch I live inside of rolls over sleepily, and I growl in response. She makes no movement. I silently wait for the next alarm while I plot ways to ruin her life.

I am a stomach. No, I am THE stomach: WORSHIP ME. I reside within some stupid ho whose name sounds like "Messy" or "Fussy" or some crap like that. Look, you'd be cranky too if you got all this vile filth disguised as "food" shoved inside you all day every day. I didn't have a problem with Messy until she stuck a steel rod through her belly button at age fifteen. For seven goddamn years I've been poked and prodded with metal every time she bends in the wrong way. I hate that Messy controls me. For instance, she went through this horrendous gummy-worm phase a while ago where she would force-feed me an entire bag of that colored gelatin goo every single evening. How am I supposed to keep high morale with this gummy-worm-slut inflicting the worst torture imaginable upon me?

Back to the story. Messy finally gets up and starts doing whatever she does in the morning. Singing, trapeze flying, elephant riding - I DON'T KNOW. All I know is that we've been conscious for the last half hour and I'm still empty. "FULFILL ME, BITCH!" I scream at her, but it comes out as some gurgling "Mrahrahrahrah." Finally, after another gut-wrenching (pun intended) hour, in which I somewhat patiently endured more trapeze flying, a journey by vehicle to somewhere, and more trapeze flying, Messy placed some homemade banana bread inside of me.

My spirits perk up. Ba-na-na bread? I'm feeling flirty now. I start hitting on Da' Pancreas but she ain't having none of that. It's cool though, I don't need prudes like her. Within minutes, I feel a liquidy warmth flow into me. "COFFEE! COFFEE! COFFEE!" I giggle. I'm reminding myself of the dog in that Beggin' Strips commercial that runs around yelling, "BACON! BACON!" because the excitement is too much to contain. I'm feeling elated now and even more flirty. I wonder if Messy is cute on the outside..she looks pretty nasty from within. I bet she weighs a million pounds; I picture her as some fat warhog creature. More coffee is flowing into me. The most delicious medley of organic ground coffee beans, vanilla soy milk, and chocolate sauce seeps into my spores. "Ohhh yeah, that's what I'm talking BOUT!" I say. I'm all pumped up and ready to go run laps on the beach in a red swimsuit like Baywatch-era Pamela Anderson.

As if things couldn't get any better, I notice a cool, gooey substance has started dripping into me. Tastes like strawberry. Oh shit, it's organic yogurt! HOLY MOLY, it's not just organic yogurt, it's organic Go-gurt from a tube...REJOICE!! Yogurt you can drink!! This is the best invention ever!

The rest of the day was kind of a let-down. A slice of greasy cheese pizza; I shudder at the thought. It's lunches like this that make me truly, deeply hate Messy. Sometimes I feel so helpless inside her body. All I can do is growl and grumble, and growl and grumble I did.Another vehicle ride and more trapeze flying. Brown rice, broccoli, and soy sauce. Siiiiiiiigh. What is UP with this bitch and her soy sauce? I swear, if she's not drinking soy sauce, she's drinking ketchup. I've heard most people like some soy sauce with their food; Messy likes a little bit of food with her soy sauce. I sure love broccoli though, and at least my Messy gives me plenty of that...

Suddenly I'm being bombarded with vodka, vodka, and vodka. I hear loud, muffled noises. I curl up in the fetal position in attempt to ward off the Russian-tinged pain, but the pain keeps coming. My contents are 10% cranberry juice and 90% vodka. Ughhhhhhhhhh, Messy, you'll pay for this tomorrow when Head and I render you comatose until 5pm. Why oh why won't you go vegan or something, Messy? I'm seriously going to kill--

EDITOR'S NOTE: Oh hey, it's Jessie. How did my stomach learn English, the Internet, and how to hack my blog without my noticing? Whatevs, that's cool, I guess if my cat can learn to pee in the toilet then my stomach can learn to use the Internet.

Hey, stomach, thanks for doing my homework for me. Next time can you take my midterm too?

Eating San Francisco presents The Mission District

2009-03-11T10:36:00.000-07:00

Our journey into the Mission district of San Francisco, featuring my rap (???) debut.

No shame. None.

The Decemberists - The Hazards of Love

2009-03-07T22:12:00.000-08:00

I probably shouldn't rush into this.

Right after I said it would probably never happen...I'm going to give The Decemberists' new album, "The Hazards of Love".......... 10/10

I KNOW
I KNOW

THE WORLD'S GONE MAD

Rock opera. METAL, considering the context (um, it's The Decemberists). Can't type, can only dance/headbang.

Weekly Music Recommendations & Thoughts

2009-03-01T17:36:00.000-08:00

Of the albums I have listened to this week, I can recommend the following:

Dan Deacon - Bromst

This album blew my brains out, no gun required. I don't even know what else to say/shout/type other than THIS GUY WENT TO COLLEGE AND MAJORED IN ELECTRO-ACOUSTIC COMPOSITION. Whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaat? Why haven't I heard of this major? HA HA HA- sorry, hilarious mental picture of me wearing child molester glasses ("chomos") and a beard while performing a live electro-acoustic set on my Macky Airbook equipped with Ableton Live....dare to dream, kids, DARE TO DREAM. Back to reality. Show of hands: who even knows what Electro-Acoustic: The Genre is? It's hard to define, but I'm going to sum it up by saying it is an intricate type of music in which traditional instruments (acoustic guitar, classical piano, orchestral processions, woodwinds, etc.) are fused with modern computer-based electronica. Think Carlos Santana meets RJD2? Worst description ever, but whatevs - DEAL. I go through phases where I become obsessed with some tiny sub-genre of music, and for weeks on end will study and absorb all aspects of the sub-genre until I can't take any more and declare myself an expert. Right now it's trip-hop (don't get me started: WHY oh WHY did the trip-hop scene die out with the 90's??) but about a year ago it was electro-acoustic. The point I'm trying to make is, I've listened to a whole lot of electro-acoustic and this Dan Deacon album is the best of the genre I have ever heard (I'm going to make a half-exception for Tunng). I'm also quite fond of the artwork. I shall now proceed to rate this album: 8/10

(A note about ratings: Nobody is ever going to get a 10, unless they release the next Black Sheep Boy or Transatlanticism or In Rainbows, and even then they probably still won't get a 10 because it takes an extended period of time to realize that something is a 10 out of 10, y'know? Also, keep in mind that most reviews are things I am recommending, so even if I rate something 1/10, there is a reason I am writing about it, and that reason is that it's worth listening to. Apologies, I don't really feel like explaining myself any more than that at the moment.)

Kevin Devine - Brother's Blood

[album art not yet released]

Kevin Devine is consistently good, yet I tend to forget this fact. In fact, I sometimes forget that he even exists. Sorry dude, it's that whole "indie rock" thing and its lack of standoutability 95% of the time. Nonetheless, Kevin got inspired for this new album, and he DELIVERS. I'm not going to elaborate because I've only spinned the record twice and don't feel fully informed yet. However, "Carnival" is a great, great track. RIYL: Death Cab, The Shins, being emo but trying not to let your friends know you're emo by playing it off like you're only emotionally sensitive because you're trying to get POLITICAL, man. 5/10

Cursive - Mama, I'm Swollen

I had some crazy things to type in all caps, but I got distracted looking at that album art. Beautiful picture, love the red sea and moon, but what's the deal with the smudge marks that made me run a damp tissue across my monitor only to realize that my monitor is clean and the picture is oh-so-dirty? It's kind of bothering me, does that make me anti-art or something? Moving on. CURSIVE!!!!!! WHERE YOU BEEN, HOMIES?? Way to pave the way for modern 21st century rock and then disappear off the face of the earth, freaks. Oh shit, according to our mutual friend Wikipedia, frontman Tim Kasher suffered a collapsed lung and was forced to cancel all music-related plans for a long while. Sorry for yelling, that sounds intense. It also explains this album.

Mama, I'm Swollen has a totally wrong and dirty title. Other than that, it sounds like The Offspring had babies with Bright Eyes, and these babies have the Jew-fro of that one dude from The Mars Volta who my man's ex-girlfriend used to date and claimed wrote every song about her. I'm exhausted from writing that confusing and incestuous sentence. Decent album, has a few standout tracks ("Mama, I'm Satan" is one), probably going to forget about it in a few weeks, but definitely recommended if you're into the Saddle Creek or post-punk scene. 5/10

Music-related thoughts:

Paula Abdul released the following statement this week:
"I will be releasing an album later this year, one single at a time. I am going to revolutionize the way that music is delivered."

About the Paula releasing an album part: no, Paula, really, DON'T. About the one-single-revolution thing: "revolutionize" and "ruin" are not synonyms. I get what you're trying to do, which is PROFIT, but don't trick us into thinking you're a martyr or a ground-breaker or anything other than what you are, which is the raisin-faced singer of "Straight Up" who accidentally fell into the naked lap of some America Idol producer. WWDBD? (What Would David Byrne Do?) Releasing an album single-by-single has been done hundreds of times all over the world. My problem with the idea is hard to articulate, but boils down to ye olde art-for-art's-sake argument. A single song is art and often a masterpiece, but an entire album played from start to finish with a coherent theme or idea carrying the piece through is BRILLIANCE. When Paula says, "I will be releasing blah blah one single blah blah to revolutionize blah blah," I hear, "I will be releasing a piece that will fall short of brilliance. I will be releasing an album lacking any unity or cohesiveness. I will be releasing the album that iTunes' dreams are made of." (Remind me to blog about iTunes and how much I hate their/its guts sometime) Am I being a lame-o stickler in this situation, or does Paula Abdul need a creamy pie shoved in her face? Would said creamy pie even make her stop talking/singing? Are full albums obsolete? Are music and money traveling in opposite directions? Who is John Galt? Thoughts, o faithful blog readers (haha, riiiiiiiiight), THOUGHTS??

Death By Tortellini

2009-02-23T14:24:00.000-08:00

Introduction: I know it's longer than 140 characters, so it may be difficult for some of you to read, but I beg you to persevere. The following is a true story recounting the death of Joan Vollmer at the hands of her husband, prominent Beat author William Burroughs. I am greatly indebted to a work by James W. Grauerholz entitled The Death of Joan Vollmer Burroughs: What Really Happened? for recounting in great detail the bizarre events leading up to Joan's death on September 6, 1951. As unbelievable as it may seem, I have edited only two details of the killing: the setting (altered from Mexico to San Francisco) and the object held above Joan's head (from a drinking glass to a piece of tortellini). All other details are 100% true, though the words are my own (with the exception of the italicized text, which are select lyrics from Okkervil River's song "For Real", which I have included as a tribute to the song that inspired the writing of this story). All photographs are my own, taken on February 18, 2009 in North Beach, San Francisco. Without further ado....

DEATH BY TORTELLINI

by Jessalyn "Jessie" Hill

Some nights I thirst for real blood, for real knives, for real cries. And then the flash of steel from real guns, in real life, really fills my mind. This was one of those nights. I could have told you earlier in the day that someone was going to die, because I was wandering the streets of North Beach hallucinating that every bar window read "Impending Doom" rather than "Saloon." An icy, heavy weight that felt like some four-hundred pound temptress was sitting on my neck and chest crushed me as I walked, and I thought, "This is it. This is the day when I try to pick up the wrong boy and he and his buddies finally do me in." I swore I'd stay away from those young things for the day, resolving to spend the day in the company of my wife instead. If I was a tragic hero, that would have been my fatal flaw, but I'm no hero, just some fool with a taste for all forms of bodily pleasure.

All my wife Joan and I knew how to do together at the time was drink, having picked up an adorable habit of swallowing tequila from 8 a.m. onwards down in Mexico, so we got right to it. My lover at the time, a young buck named Lewis Marker, and I had returned not three days earlier from a honeymoon of sorts on some South American coast, so he and Joan and I sat around complaining about how goddamn civilized this San Francisco is, with its policemen and roads and whatnot. Joan was in bad shape. She'd been drinking all day since we came out West a few years back (we had yet to find a Benzedrine connection), so her skin was all yellow and mis-matched, hanging off her in some places but all puckered inwards in others. I won't detail her teeth, or lack of, or her hair, or lack of. What was worst about Joan's current state, however, was the manner in which she taunted life and death. Not quite suicidal, as she had our children to tend to, but generally apathetic towards life and the ending of it. I'd heard from Jack [Kerouac] that while Marker and I were below the equator, Joan, Allen [Ginsberg], [Lucien] Carr, and the children had quite a close brush with that enigmatic ugly spirit known as death. Apparently Joan had it in mind to take a pleasant car tour of the Bay, so she rounded up Ginsberg and Carr and the kids and they all piled into our automobile. Well Joan and Carr are up front slugging tequila like it's the fountain of goddamn youth, Joan egging on Carr at the wheel with such obscenities as, "How fast can this heap go?" while Allen and the poor kids are clinging to the backseat's leather with knuckles white as the ghosts they were about to become. Then Joan and Carr get it into their heads that the only way they can operate the car while being this intoxicated is if Joan lies face down and pushes the gas pedal with her hands while Carr turns the wheel using his feet. Pure madness. At any rate, Joan survived that bout of drunk driving, but she wouldn't be so lucky tonight.

So Joan and Marker and I are sitting around the apartment at Green and Montgomery, self-medicating with cheap gin as usual. The dynamic is not as odd as one might think, as Joan was fairly accepting of my affairs with men and considered herself my mental owner at any rate. But that woman sure did love to bring me down a peg or two in front of company; I guess you could say that's also what lead to her untimely demise. Foreshadowing like this should be a crime, but bear with me. At the time, Joan was hanging around with these two Italians who lived downstairs, Giovanni and Vincent, and they showed her how to cook tortellini stuffed with meat in some cream sauce. I made the mistake of complimenting Joan's tortellini one time, and from that point forward it was tortellini for supper every night. Every afternoon, there's Joan in the kitchen, her rolling pin flattening the dough as if it was the summation of all her discarded dreams. Then there was the tender manner in which Joan placed the meat within the soft folds of dough, the careful strokes of the egg-covered brush across the dough's skin, as if she were painting the pillowy lips of a porcelain doll. The kids and I never received half as much attention from Joan as those damn tortellinis did. I kept my mouth shut on this night, however, despite the fact that Joan stood up from the table and announced, "I shall now prepare San Francisco's largest tortellini ever. Larger than a golf ball, only slightly smaller than a baseball." Marker and I exchanged exasperated glances as Joan fell to work, the yellow moon through the curtains casting freckled beams across her back.

I wish that woman had prepared dinner with her mouth shut. She kept insulting and demeaning me--nothing I'm not used to, mind you, but as previously stated, I had carried with me all day an inexplicable feeling of heavy depression that I attempted to remedy by pouring some liquor into my mouth and swallowing. As Joan's making huge tortellinis, I said to her, "It's about time for our William Tell act."

Without a word, Joan places this oversized meat-stuffed piece of tortellini above her head. I grabbed this piece of junk .380 I had lying around the apartment. For a split second Marker and I saw the limp tortellini dangling over her head, its slick pasta shell glistening like an angel of death. I don't know what I was thinking. It was pure insanity. I really thought I could shoot a bullet right through the center ring of that pasta. It was abnormally large pasta, I kept thinking, so this is easy.

I raised the gun. Fired. The tortellini fell to the floor, completely intact. It still looked delicious. It wasn't until Marker and I looked at Joan and saw the tiny blue hole in her forehead and the red trickle that the horror set in. The rest is a blur: Joan was in my arms, gasping the snore-like death-rattle; Marker ran off faster than an Olympian; the Italians Giovanni and Vincent were suddenly there; the police; the newspapermen.

Before I was carted off to police headquarters, I hungrily devoured one last glance at the sweating streets of San Francisco. I gulped what I thought would be my last breath of free, outdoor air; I will never forget the smell that wafted throughout the city in those days, a scent that was part sticky dumpling and part excited exhalations and part secretive glances. In custody at police headquarters, I found out Joan was dead. I wept for days, weeks. I swear on my childrens' lives that in some deranged way I deeply loved that woman.

Years later, I summed up the killing in my book's introduction as this: "I am forced to the appalling conclusion that I would never have become a writer but for Joan's death, and to a realization of the extent to which this event has motivated and formulated my writing... So the death of Joan brought me in contact with the invader, the Ugly Spirit, and maneuvered me into a lifelong struggle, in which I have had no choice except to write my way out" (Queer, 1985). Call it an epiphany if you like, though I could never categorize it in such a glorified way. Because there's nothing quite like the blinding light that curtains cast aside, and no attempt is made to explain away the things that really, really, really are behind the closed curtains of homes on each waxy San Francisco night.

As for the tortellini, I later heard that Giovanni and Vincent had devoured its remains and declared it delicioso.