BaRou is the New Bklyn

Makin' Bacon

...Chicken-fried veggie bacon, that is!

After a mention of my latest food discovery, chicken-fried bacon, proved unexpectedly controversial, I decided to try making it myself. Perhaps the first mention came off as wholesale disapproval, but I was actually a little in awe of this novelty creation. Like other unusual dishes I've discovered of late, it was like something I might invent while under the influence of a certain substance (but only someplace where it was legal, of course, such as the Netherlands). Since I'm a sometime-proponent of the credo "good things come in fried packages," and a fan of veggie bacon and gravy, there was a chance this could be amazing.

First I found the recipe for regular CFB online. I enjoyed the shame accompanying this one, the author's avatar, and especially the reference to Vitamin G-- grease! Be sure to check out the nutrition stats. One piece of CFB is 75% of the US RDA of fat.

Then it was time to unearth an old acquaintance known as Fry Daddy.

Friday: OMG LOST Finale! (No spoilers)

Just have to say: OMG LOST. Please don't put any spoilers in the comments, my lovely commenters. I just had to vent some of the pent-up suspense and anxiety and emotions from the finale. OK, done.

I've been working overtime this week so when I go away I won't feel guilty (ha ha ha, as if) or at least not have to stop at Internet cafes to work. My faithful companion Coopy's been working hard, too, as you can see here. I hope he enjoyed that Playgirl he's resting on.



(I pledge that when I'm off on adventures there will be less pictures of pets and creatures that have invaded the house, as has been the theme of late. )

Weekend, part two: we're really not in Brooklyn anymore, Cooper

On Sunday, the f and I went on some errands that took us near the new hunting/outdoors superstore Cabela's. So we decided to have another cultural experience. Starting in the parking lot, Cabela's did not disappoint.

Weekend, part one: crawfish carnage, part two

This weekend was jam-packed full of activities, one of which involved buying a vintage Louisiana food-themed trivet, and not realizing I'd purchased a souvenir of this place until afterwards. Immediately after that, it was back to being gobsmacked by the ever-expanding local usage of purple and gold.
Later, a very special birrrthday paarrrrty, which was another crawfish boil.

Because nothing says class...

...like a Mother's Day gift purchased at the pawn shop.

Sometimes I can't contain my excitement and I take a really crappy cell phone photo. But if you can't read it, this banner on ye olde neighborhood pawnne shoppe says, "Give her the gift she deserves. Mother's Day SALE."

It stirred this writer's imagination.

"Hello Mother. Happy Mother's Day."
"Well, I'll be...it's a Fender Stratocaster with no packaging and a bullet hole in it."
"I love you, Mama. Thank you for bearing me from your loins and doing all that gross pregnancy stuff."
"And I'd do it again--but next year, can you get me a .357 Magnum?"

[both laugh, freeze frame]

~ Fin~

Gypsy Kane, 1995 - 2008

Gypsy Kane was born on St. Patrick's Day, 1995. We met her a month later, just about 13 years ago today. We don't know for certain that her true date of birth was March 17th, but we decided it was because Irish Americans get a little overzealous with pride, however tangential their connection may be to the auld sod.
Adoption people: "She was probably born about a month ag--"
Us:"--St. Patrick's Day!"

I went with my mom to a PetCo on Route 22 to pick out a kitten. Our last longtime cat Snowy had gotten hit by a car the previous November and had been left to die in the street. We were a one-pet family, and it was quite a shock, but we were ready for a new pet by the spring.

We picked Gypsy because she was saucing about in the cage like a little sassafrass.

This spirited kitten would later grow to become what many of my friends would misunderstand think of as one of the bitchier old feline curmudgeons they knew, but as a kitten, the attitude worked well on her.

After the jump, a tribute. You can't sum up the life of a friend you've known for 13 years in a few paragraphs, but when it's a cat, you kind of can.

Friday zone, early Thursday edition

Hey all, sad times over here. Since I have my Friday post mostly ready to go, I'm posting it now. I'm going to have some CoKane time, then I'll post about today later.

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I feel better this week. Im busy, I have lots of ideas that I'm acting on, and getting results. And great things are in the future, like travel abroad! I actually feel grateful that I can work from home watching and listening to the outdoor animal clownshow all day. (According to our bird feeder which looks like an attack scene from The Birds, we throw the best bird party in town.) The tree in the view from here seems fuller than I've ever seen it and it's a pretty time of year.

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The independently-owned record store, like the independently-owned everything else, is under siege in this time of big-box stores and ever-consolidating retail chains. But it's especially an issue for the category of music sales, what with all the new ways to get music that cut out the bricks-and-mortar middleman. And here's a story about how the last record store in Chapel Hill--CHAPEL HILL, you guys--closed. Schoolkids Records, RIP.

So, in celebration of the good old record store, Saturday is Record Store Day. I thought I'd open up the comments to the theme of record store memories: do you have a favorite? Did you work at one? Stalk a cute guy at one? (Not me! Never!) Baton Rouge has a shop called the Compact Disc Store that I've only been to once or twice but which has a comforting authentic record store vibe to it. i.e., a bunch of dudes standing around talking about music. Is anybody reading from there?

I worked for the bad guy, a chain called Sam Goody in the Livingston Mall, at the beginning of college. (Goody got it!) Yes, Goody had it, if by it, you meant Ace of Base. They did a land-office business in bad music. Literally every customer for about 6 months purchased The Bodyguard Soundtrack. This was also in the time of longboxes. For you younguns, when shops transitioned from vinyl to CD they found themselves with bins that were too deep for CDs, so in an extremely wasteful move by the music industry, CDs grew boxes that were three times their height. Those were replaced by the also-wasteful plastic adapters, and then the shops eventually updated to display cases that were made for CDs. Actually I should leave this up to former Goody coworker Therese, she remembers the era much better than I do. (She's on vacay so it'll be awhile.)

Schlitz n Giggles Friday

In an ideal world, I should be the editor of Cheese Magazine--cheese as in cheesy, but hopefully this title would also get me many free samples of gourmet cheeses. Or, if Tom Scharpling decided to make a magazine themed around his term Awfulsome, I would ideally be a writer on their staff.
On the cheesy and awfulsome note, BFF/commenter Meanie T made my week by introducing me to the Utah filmmaker Stephen Groo. Some of you know of my obsession with Tommy Wiseau of The Room fame. But tragically Tommy has only made one full film and one totally bizarro trailer for a TV show. Groo is much more prolific, with more than 100 works under his belt. According to Meanie T, these films are dead serious, not ironic, and they often utilize fresh-faced local Mormons as actors, including numerous Mom-jeaned wholesome younger women.

I've only scratched the surface of the collection, available here on the website, with categories like Drama, Sci-Fi, and Horror, but here's some brief notes on a few I have watched. Some of these works are music videos, such as "The Boys of Summer," which when it says "nobody on the road" depicts nobody on the road, and ditto for the lyric "nobody on the beach." Now, I haven't been to music video school, but I would guess that literal translation of lyrics might be the first thing they tell you not to do. I'm not saying I don't break rules here and there...just saying Groo is a risk-taker. And although there's a comedic thread through other films, there's only one entry in the Comedy category, the perplexing work labeled on the site as "Gardners," which has a minute-long scene depicting Groo inhaling helium. Turns out when you inhale helium, your voice gets all high and weird! Oh, you've known that since you were five? Just sit tight, because the clip then becomes a campus-wide singalong to "She's Got the Look." That's comedy!

There are even parallels in a few movies to my main man Tommy Wiseau: Dialogue from the trailer for Challenge of Faith: "I got a promotion." "What's your new position?" "President." Only it looks like things don't turn out quite as expected...!

Anyway, welcome to a magical wonderland of time-wasting amusement. Thank Meanie T! Her sister went to school with that guy. 

Open letter to the Swayze

Dear Patrick Swayze,

I'm very saddened to hear of your current medical condition of pancreatic cancer. But I'm writing for an extremely selfish reason today, to let you know that you are not allowed to die. You can't die because you are the last remaining constant in my life, and if you do die, I will have nothing keeping me from going completely adrift.

Let me explain. In the past year, I have moved from the part of the country I've lived for over three decades to a part of the country I never intended to live in. I moved away from the community of friends and associates I've collected for the past decade and longer. I went from being a New York City magazine editor to having to consider various demeaning local part time jobs. But at least I still had my trusty VW camper van, Wolfgang, right? Wrong! After ten fun years, I had to give up old Wolfgang last fall. In a way it's better that he never had to be here in this parallel universe, I suppose. But at least I still know what I eat, right? No, after more than a decade of not eating any animals I started eating some fish and general crap I never would have eaten before moving. But at least I still have clothes I like, right? No, I actually want to donate most of them to the Salvation Army. At least I still have my looks? I never had to make an effort to lose weight before while I was on a fourth floor walk-up. Now I do. But at least I still have my cat, Gypsy, right? Well...kind of. I've been attributing my 13-year-old cat's incontinence odd behavior lately to her being a teenager (her favorite band is Fall Out Boy), but the truth is probably that she's entered doddering old cathood. But at least I have my bff the fiance, right? Actually, I saw a lot more of him back home, and when I do see him here, he's typically at 25% or some other small percentage of normal personality, with no end promised to that for another two years. 

So in conclusion, Patrick Swayze, if you could just walk off this pancreatic cancer and say "nobody puts Baby in the corner" and go back to tai chi and tearing out the throats of evildoers, like normal, if you could basically just continue being alive, that would be very much appreciated. Thanks, Patrick. You're the Swayziest.

Road to nowhere, part two

And now to sum up the rest of the past few days of this ongoing visit. I had planned my every-two-months-sanity trip this time to coincide with my mom's birthday and my friends' wedding. I call it a sanity trip because it is so reassuring to be around folks who I don't have to refer back to a blog post for the shared memories we have...there are no blog posts for these decade(s)-old memories, just the right catch phrase or look is enough to bring hilarities back.

The wedding on Saturday was in PA with the Jersey gang of friends I've been through high school and college with (and in some cases middle school, grammar school, and even little-kid-hood) and have traipsed around Europe with. We've had so many good/bad/ugly experiences together, and at this wedding two of us had another first together: oyster shots. It looked like this:

I had to run to the bathroom because the oyster got stuck in my esophagus. It was like doing a shot of phlegm.

(I am classy.)