Wednesday, November 26, 2008
Unthanksgiving
At Thanksgiving, usually people spend a lot of time reflecting on all the fabulous things in their lives. Most people, no matter how hard-hearted or cynical, will at least take a few minutes to acknowledge the fact that it's great their houses haven't gone into foreclosure...yet, or that even if the Seahawks suck at least their number two favorite team the Titans are kicking ass, or that beer, dogs, and pepperoni pizza remain plentiful, or that or they got laid this month. I'm sure I'll have a misty little moment tomorrow when I've got my hand rammed up a giant Butterball's ass as I try to fill its body cavity with a tampon full of Pepperidge Farm stuffing. However, this year that moment will be brief because this year there are so many damn things to be pissed off and not one bit thankful about. In addition to obvious downers like the economy, the job market, my unnecessarily yet perpetually dramatic work environment, my Atlas-caliber workload, and the soul-manglingly depressing fact that I'm still in hell grad school, I've realized that this year, I'm more pissed off at the little things than usual.
Most Thanksgiving-time blog posts will be about the authors' gratitude for happy things like sugar cookies, Jesus and snow and free babysitters and other stuff Mormons like, watching Juno and Mamma Mia instead of dying of typhus in a concentration camp, the joys of making holiday feasts with semen, your ugly, breasticled husband, the inanity of Twittering, or tea, Byzantine costumes, and pussy, Hell, even Duff McKagan is blogging about how he's thankful for his wife, kids, friends, Seattle (which earns an eye-roll with a touch of side-eye from me), "Flight of the Conchords," and something Krist Novoselic wrote once about the '92 VMAs. Therefore, I thought I would take it upon myself to mention a few of the MANY things I am most certainly NOT pleased with, much less grateful for.
Peter Orszag's appointment as head of the Obama Office of Management and Budget
I have no idea what Orszag's job qualifications are to be America's top accountant other than he apparently passed the epic and invasive job application Obama was requiring prospective employees to fill out. One question the comprehensive vetting process missed, however, was "Is your haircut a variation on a nine-year-old boy twenty years ago?" Peter Orszag is like a halfassed Bob Saget impersonator rocking the same bowl-above, shaved-below look my brother rocked to the opening of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle movie in like 1990. If he can balance the budget in these trying times, then props to him, but he ought to celebrate with a new style. I hear they make some really fashionable toupeés these days.
Kanye West has a new album out
I've begrudgingly liked a few Kanye West songs in the last year or so, and this has disturbed me. Granted, they were mostly songs that also featured Dwayne "Lil' Wayne" Carter, Clifford "T.I." Harris, or Jay "Young Jeezy" Jenkins, but still...normally I bear such a passionate hatred for Kanye West himself that this precludes me liking anything he's associated with. In fact, after admitting that I LOVED the "Lollipop" remix, I proceeded to convince myself that the "Kanye West" credit on the song was a misprint and it was really Faheem "T-Pain" Najm trying a new setting on his vocorder. Now that Kanye has a new album out, though, I get the feeling I'm going to be hearing a lot of Lil' Wayne, T.I., and Young Jeezy-free Kanye jams, and this doesn't bode well for 2009.
The 'Sprout is out
I've previously discussed my disdain for this blogger going by "Writersprout," because not only is her writing appallingly poor, she really pulled a head-job on my lesbian apprentice Twathopper. And I don't mean she gave Twathopper head; I mean this bitch dragged Twathopper to every open-mic night at every fucking intentionally dingy "performance space" in Williamsburg and the Lower East Side, probably while jabbering incessantly about jogging, subletting, and cupcakes, and then, after Twathopper went through all this pussy-grooming trouble, hooked up with some other bitches instead. People who manage to combine the world's most obnoxiously contrived personality with a track record of doing mean things to my friends are high up on my Enemy List. However despite my utter contempt for her, thanks to Writersprout I've had endless comic material for my friends' amusement, culminating in a recent blog I started paying homage to her upcoming graduate degree in popular fictional creative non-fiction (no joke) via a serious of riveting mystery stories. Sadly, before I could publish the first of the Brooklyn Cupcake Marathon Mysteries, Writersprout went and defaulted on her web hosting bill! How am I supposed to launch a parody Writersprout's insufferable, Roget-augmented wordsmithery when her site redirects to a "Error-Deadbeat Hosting Customer" page? You can still read her lame blog about subletting for fun, but it's just not the same. Thanks a lot, Writersprout, for so cruelly snatching away my dream to spend a lot of time ragging on you hard.
Beyoncé is SASHA FIERCE
This wasn't cool when Garth Brooks did it, so I don't know why Beyoncé thinks she can get away with it. Apart from acquiring a name that sounds even MORE like some kind of tranny hooker, Sasha Fierce and Beyoncé are virtually indistinguishable. They both do the same kind of fat-ass-chunk-shaking dance moves, they both dress like they're on their way to a black-tie leotard formal with the upper crust spice magnates from Dune, and they both sing the same songs about how dumping assholes and buying your own jewelry are the hallmarks of female empowerment. Would Beyoncé/Sasha Fierce please proceed to get Aretha Franklin fat like LL Cool Jew has predicted she will, and stop bothering us with her wack repackaging of the same old bullshit.
Besides, there's only one R&B superstar who can pull off an alter-ego, and that's only in the context of a musical soap opera about adultery, gay preachers, elderly neighbors with erectile dysfunction, midget-cuckolded highway patrolmen, lesbian diner employees, and mysterious packages. In other words, the only person with the combined musical and acting chops to effect such a feat is none other than the legendary and incomparable ROBERT SYLVESTER KELLY playing the Beretta-wielding Chicagoan Sylvester.
The 2008 Seahawks
The Seachickens are 2-9, and about to get a festive Thanksgiving ass-raping from Tony Romo and T.O. to commemorate Mike Holmgren's final season as coach. I don't think I need to elaborate further.
The 2008 Dallas Cowboys, Pittsburgh Steelers, New England Patriots, and Indianapolis Colts
I would hope that if my team is sucking stank Sasha Fierce balls, at least the teams I loathe would be too. Despite occasional flashes of glee I felt when I thought Tony Romo was out tampon shopping with Jessica Simpson for the season, or I realized that Ben Roethlisberger's abilities are embarrassingly overrated, or Tom Brady went down crying like a bitch in week 1, or Peyton Manning was going to be permanently overshadowed by his younger brother Eli "Fetal Alcohol Syndrome" Manning, these assholes all seem to perservere. All are still in the running for their divisions (except maybe the Colts, but they've still got a very good shot at a wild card slot), and all are still existing solely to piss me off and perturb me. Oh, and did I mention the Cowboys are playing the Seahawks on Thanksgiving? I can only pray that Jessica Simpson shows up at the game and shines her Cowboys-disrupting energy full force on Texas Stadium during the game.
Now I have to go to work, but keep checking back. I am sure that all day I'm going to be thinking of stuff I'm NOT thankful for, so I'll update this list through the next couple days. In the meantime, if you are as depressed as I am with the state of the world today, I urge you to make like me and eat the pain away. Happy Unthanksgiving!
Labels: assholes, gluttony, NFL football, politics, pro-apocalyptic zeitgeist, rap, Robert Sylvester Kelly, Seahawks
Tuesday, June 17, 2008
Daily Dude I Want to Hit: Tapatio
DOB: 1971
Occupation: Es una salsa...muy salsa!
Hometown: Maywood, California
Current residence: Vernon, California and the "Mexican/Latin" aisle at a grocery store near you
Why I Want to Hit that Hotness: Tapatio is the best fucking hot sauce in the world. I am also a fan of Marie Sharp's, but if I had to choose between the two, I think Tapatio would win (although in fairness, this is probably only because I haven't found a convenient grocery store or bodega that sells Marie Sharp's, and that's a pity, because it is the chronic shit). I also like dipping my Mexi-Fries (AKA deep-fried tater tots with seasoning salt) in the not-hot "hot sauce" that the P-N-Dub's greatest fast food chain Taco Time offers as a condiment, but TRUST that as there aren't any Taco Times outside of Washington and Oregon, I don't have a supply of Taco Time hot sauce on hand. Tapatio is in any grocery store here, usually in several sizes next to all the Goya products.
I realized this the other night when I was making some tacos and I ran out of Tapatio. Not having any Marie Sharp's handy as a backup, I went to the bodega down the street from my house where they only sell Tabasco and Trappey's Red Devil. Since I know I hate Tabasco, I went with the Red Devil. After eating two Red Devil tacos, I realized that compared to Tapatio, almost every hot sauce in the world is complete and utter trash. As Tapatio's slogan admits, it's a saucy that's very saucy. Despite what its diabolical name would lead one to believe, Red Devil lacks any sauciness or zest. In fact, I thought it was pretty damn mild and it made my taco-eating experience considerably less pleasurable.
Tapatio should be available as readily as ketchup or A1 steak sauce in New York City's bodegas. Not having it puts a considerable damper in my taco enjoyment. In fact, the next time I run out of Tapatio, I'm just going to save the tacos for a time when I can get my hands on some. Tacos without Tapatio are like anal sex without lube. You just have no business fooling with that, and if you do, you'll gravely regret it.
Labels: Daily Dude I Want to Hit, gluttony, NYC, Razzification
Thursday, June 12, 2008
Daily Dude I Want to Hit: Louisiana
Name: Louisiana
DOB: 1803 (territory acquired), April 30, 1812 (state admitted to Union)
Occupation: weird awesomeness
Hometown: N/A
Current residence: check a map
Anyway, I know all you dedicated Razzyphiles and Haters alike have been without a place to direct your respective adoration or ire, so, as unhappy as I am about my brief vacation being over, I’m pleased to make my glorious return to the internets. And I may as well start by gratuitously telling you about how awesome my trip was!
I already knew that the trip was going to be a serious departure from New York during my flight on Saturday afternoon. Everyone on the plane seemed to know each other judging by their constant chatting with each other. The people behind me were returning from a vacation to New York and were busy telling their seatmate, a stranger who just happened to know about 50 mutual friends, acquaintances, and cousins-by-marriage. They were busy exchanging stories about what they did during their trip, like which restaurants they went to and how many times they visited Ground Zero, which they referred to as “9-1-1” (not “nine-eleven” or “September 11th”, but “nine-one-one”, like the emergency hotline). After two and a half hours of listening to these chatty folks yammering about Tom Colicchio’s sandwich-making prowess and whether or not they liked Wicked or Phantom of the Opera more, I wasn’t entirely out of New York bitch mode and tolerant of the constantly jaw-flapping Southern attitude. I was ready for a damn drink.
I was delighted when LL Cool Jew picked me up and informed me that our first stop (after a quick drive-by of the ruins of the Magnolia Projects where Juvenile came up) was going to be some fancy old hotel bar for mint juleps. We subsequently met up with BigBagel for dinner at Cochon, this upscale place serving expensive versions of old Southern favorites. After a bottle of wine and big plates of pig ears, pork cheeks, salad with fried beef jerky, and frog legs, we went to change in preparation for the requisite tourist visit to the French Quarter. This also seemed like a natural first stop since, like me, this part of town is known for its exposed breasts.
First we had a few drinks and then met up with LL Cool Jew’s former colleague, who I’ll call Lil’ Darlin’, because that’s the name of the strip club she swore was the hip-hop club. After taking our seats and receiving a fistful of dollars each from BigBagel, we were ready to see some girls shaking their jelly to Lil’ Wayne songs. Much to our chagrin, as a new peeler took the stage, we heard the melancholy electronic opening notes to a RADIOHEAD song. “What the fuck?” LL Cool Jew and I both simultaneously said. Who strips to Radiohead? Strippers humping poles are supposed to be fun and sexy, not morose and whiny.
“This place is going downhill since the last time I was here,” said Lil’ Darlin’. “I guess they changed the format.”
“Where are the bitches writhing around to ‘Lollipop’?” demanded LL Cool Jew.
BigBagel was unable to answer because, in spite of the Radiohead or possibly because of it, he was in front of the stage slapping down ones and getting his nipples twisted by the stripper.
We stayed another ten minutes to see a few more bored-looking women shaking their cans to Linkin Park before we decided to venture out in search of hand grenades. Luckily upon getting back outside, some guys were standing on a balcony throwing beads.
“Go get some beads,” LL Cool Jew said.
While this is annoying and touristy, and I actually hate beads because when you’re a packrat with lousy housekeeping skills like myself they do nothing but contribute to clutter, I figured that I could not be on Bourbon Street and not participate in its most famous rite of clichéd debauchery. So I lifted my shirt for the bead-bearers’ benefit and walked away with a Mr. T-sized bundle of gaudy disposable neckwear. Unfortunately for all you guys, we forgot the camera for this part of the trip, but I brought some beads back to New York with me to recreate this scene from the comfort of my own apartment:
I had never eaten crawfish pie before, and in fact did not know what it was. It turns out that it’s like a giant piece of baklava that is made with a shit-ton of etouffee instead of syrup. I think it was probably at least 5000 calories, and I gladly ate my way through three quarters of it before I finally had to surrender. Those Haters who love to tell me how disgustingly fat I am will surely enjoy pointing out that I probably gained at least ten pounds in four days on this trip, and that crawfish pie probably accounted for at least two. Needless to say, it was awesome. I think I could probably write ten pages (one for each pound) alone just rhapsodizing about all the shit I ate while I was there.
After lunch, LL Cool Jew and I had a few hours to kill prior to our swamp tour, so we drove around through the countryside taking in the rural sites. We stopped at a Sonic for limeade and milkshakes just to make sure we really exceeded our lunchtime calorie intake by at least 300% and went for a drive. On our way to some old plantation house we were going to walk the grounds of, we found a completely improbable mural dedicated to the FDNY on a volunteer firehouse in the small town of Parks. LL Cool Jew insisted on taking my picture showing off my Sonic cup and acting the fool in front of it, right in time for a car of old ladies on their way from church drove by with a “Support our Troops” bumper sticker on the back of their giant Cadillac. I don’t think they liked me doing what probably could be construed as mocking the sacrifices of New York’s Bravest on what the people on my plane ride down indicated was locally known as “9-1-1”. They shot us looks of undeniable disapproval and hostility.
"Dude," she said when she snapped the picture and they passed. "Did you see that look those women gave us when they passed by? There's nothing like the icy hate of a Southern lady. It freezes, precious!"
We decided that in spite of my plane ride down leading me to believe that "911" is a perennial favorite place for Louisianans to visit in New York, it's not cool to do tourist activities around their random murals dedicated to New York's Bravest in Louisiana. We also decided that it would be a good idea to do something more officially touristy to ensure that none of the locals get pissed and give us directions to the House of Wax.
Therefore we went to Shadows-on-the-Teche, a plantation house with a big garden on a bayou. We didn't have time to do the whole tour, but we at least got to walk around the grounds and take in the pretty flowers and the oddly juxtaposed pagan-and-Catholic sculpture collection. There were a bunch of obviously half-naked Olympian god-type figures decorating their tits in preparation for a presumptive impending bacchanal…beside some very pious-looking Catholic saints.
“Hey Razzy,” said LL Cool Jew. “Name that saint for me.” She pointed at a particularly stern man with a long beard.
“Pretty sure that’s St. Peter. Simon Peter denied Jesus’s SOG (SOG=son of God) status three times to your messiah-killing, Barabbas-freeing mob of Druish agitators before the cock crowed but still managed to win appointment as the first pope. He’s like the OG Catholic, dude. The rock upon which Josh Christ built his church.”
“How can you tell?” asked LL Cool Jew.
“Well, he looks stern and humorless, and obviously too pious to shave. St. Peter was kind of wild before Jesus tapped him to be the original HBIC of the Cat-lickers, but once Jesus died and rose again he became a joyless old curmudgeon just like Benedixteen. He even insisted on being crucified UPSIDE DOWN once the Romans started getting their persecution on, because he didn’t think anyone should have the luxury of being crucified right-side up like JC. This guy’s demeanor looks and sounds about right.” Then I thought better of it and came clean about my ability to identify Catholic saints based on their unlabeled random statuary. “And the local parish church down the street is called St. Peter’s.”
“Pretty sure that’s St. Peter. Simon Peter denied Jesus’s SOG (SOG=son of God) status three times to your messiah-killing, Barabbas-freeing mob of Druish agitators before the cock crowed but still managed to win appointment as the first pope. He’s like the OG Catholic, dude. The rock upon which Josh Christ built his church.”
“How can you tell?” asked LL Cool Jew.
“Well, he looks stern and humorless, and obviously too pious to shave. St. Peter was kind of wild before Jesus tapped him to be the original HBIC of the Cat-lickers, but once Jesus died and rose again he became a joyless old curmudgeon just like Benedixteen. He even insisted on being crucified UPSIDE DOWN once the Romans started getting their persecution on, because he didn’t think anyone should have the luxury of being crucified right-side up like JC. This guy’s demeanor looks and sounds about right.” Then I thought better of it and came clean about my ability to identify Catholic saints based on their unlabeled random statuary. “And the local parish church down the street is called St. Peter’s.”
We went down to the bayou to see if we could find any nutria, but didn't see any. And speaking of nutria, it was time for our trip to the swamps for a tour. I was sure we would see some.
Our guide was this guy named Walter "Butch" Guchereaux, who not only knew an insane amount about the history, flora, fauna, and current legal status of the swamp he showed us around, he had the world's greatest accent. He was also very sweet and assured me that he would keep us a safe distance from any spiderwebs.
I got right down to business and asked if we could go to wherever the nutria reside.
"Nutria? You're not gonna see any. If you can see da nutrias, da gators can see 'em too." Then he advised me that about ten years ago, you couldn't swing a dead cat without hitting a nutria. However, the nutria population started disappearing coincident with the proliferation of the local alligator population. I can see how that would be, because while we didn't see any nutria, we saw two gigantic fucking alligators.
After about an hour of tooling around checking out birds and reptiles and listening to Butch's corny jokes ("What do you call da most lonedsome bayou? Bayou self") and his stories about how he built a self-sustaining duck blind out of toppled cypress trees ("I got my own ecosystem goin' here"), we headed to Lafayette to the hostel where we were staying. Initially when LL Cool Jew told me she booked us a room at a "hostel" for our night in Cajun country, I was extremely skeptical. "HOSTEL, dude? I don't stay in hostels." I reserve nothing but scorn and disdain for backpacker types, and the idea of sharing a communal shower with them is entirely reprehensible.
"Dude, we have a private room with a private bath. Do you think my JAP-tastic ass would stay in a backpacker-type place?" she said. I had to concede that point. If I'm adamant about my "no backpackers" policy, LL Cool Jew's unwillingness is probably greater by a logarithmic order of magnitude. However, we couldn't check in for another hour, so we went to get a cold beer at the artfaggy joint across the street, a bar appropriately called "Artmosphere."
We were surprised to see such a hipster place in Lafayette, Louisiana (home of the UL Ragin' Cajuns), but we couldn't complain about the $3 beers, even if there were some vintage t-shirt-wearing tools smoking hookahs there.
Then we went to dinner at Prejean's, this Cajun restaurant where we proceeded to consume our weight in fried seafood. LL Cool Jew wasn't kidding when she said their smoked duck and andouille gumbo was one of the most mind-blowing thing she'd ever eaten. We also ordered an oyster bake that was a little disappointing. When our (hot and obviously knowing it) waiter put it in front of us, the whole thing was covered with bechamel sauce and I made a crack about how I like to eat things that are splattered with hot white sauce, he just gave us our plate with a shifty look. LL Cool Jew ate one of the oysters Rockefeller, and I went for the other type of oyster.
"You have a weird look on your face," she observed.
"It's a weird oyster," I said. "The sauce is like...creamy tomato. It's odd."
LL Cool Jew tried one then. "Dude, with the tasso in it, it tastes like...I don't know...some kind of fake-me-out Italian food. It's like a piece of pizza or something."
"Pizza oysters!" I said. "It's like the Prejean's equivalent of a New York slice."
"Dude, pizza oysters made with fucking Prego," observed LL Cool Jew.
Apart from the disappointing pizza oysters, we otherwise gorged ourselves on fried fish and shrimp, and jammed for a while to the weird Zydeco band of old men who took the stage with their accordions and fiddles.
After we were about to burst open from overeating, we decided that instead of dessert we'd opt for some liquid to wash down our dinner. To avoid having to drive, we went back to the Artmosphere.
Within five minutes we met a bunch of dudes who invited us back to the hostel for some--ahem--herbal cigarettes. One of these guys, a good-natured recent traveler to Amsterdam, told a hilarious story about how he was in the Air Force right after the Iraq War started, he met Senator John McCain, who--according to him--wrote on his tent "Give 'em hell! Fuckin' Senator John McCain."
"Dude, did he really write 'Fuckin' Senator John McCain?'" LL Cool Jew demanded. "Because that would be awesome." Unfortunately, the narrator had just added the "fuckin'" for emphasis.
We also met Fuckin' Senator John McCain's friends. First there was Carlos, a "documentary photographer" (translation: unemployed vagabond with a camera who gets laid more when he says he's a documentary photographer), who wouldn't stop marveling that "it's amazing to meet not one, but TWO women who have read a book."
"We've both read more than one, too," I assured him. LL Cool Jew was rolling her eyes. We promised him a ride to New Orleans the next day but bailed two hours early so we didn't have to listen to him raving about what he considered an abnormal amount of female literacy. We did, however, reap the benefits of his photography skills:
Rounding out our group of new friends was Brett, an aw-shucks type of fella who kept trying very, very unsuccessfully to hit on myself and LL Cool Jew by laying on the country bumpkin sweetness thick. He even went so far as to ask if I could take him inside and teach him how to use the internet because he's "not familiar with the technologies" (I declined). He looked like a cross between Tom Selleck and Matthew McConaughey, and it's fitting that he is seen here in front of a "Sugar Cane Loading Zone" sign:
Then we went back to drink more at the Artmosphere, but were quickly lured away again by our new friends to their pal's "convenience store." John Pastore, proprietor of John's Quik Stop, welcomed us through a thick cloud of joint smoke to what is probably the world's most inconvenient convenience store. In addition to this place only being open between 3-7 pm, there appeared to be only one of each item he sold, and most of it was packaged foods and random trinkety crap manufactured by companies we'd never heard of. Check out his toy section:
"I went to the dollar store and bought one of everything!" said John proudly of his inventory.
"Dude, maybe you should go someplace different," said Fuckin' Senator John McCain. "Would you eat this?" He held up a can of "sliced beef, gravy, and rice" that I swear was dog food packaged for human consumption.
"Hell naw!" exclaimed John. "But that don't mean somebody won't!" He was very confident in his business model.
As befits my taste, I immediately went to the most expensive item in the store: the $25 alligator heads. I didn't buy them, but I did try to French them a little bit:
After another drink at the Artmosphere, LL Cool Jew and I passed out. She regaled me with the tale of how she got into it with this random Lebanese guy who joined our group at some point. LL Cool Jew had received a great deal of curious inquiries into her ethnicity from the locals. At one point, Brett asked her "Now what's y'all's extraction?"
"I'm Jewish," LL Cool Jew replied.
"Jewish! Well how about that? I thought y'all was a gypsy!" I'm glad she's not a gypsy, because "LL Cool Gypsy" just doesn't have the same ring to it.
LL Cool Jew had been fielding queries regarding her possible Judeo-Gypsy status all night, so it wasn't a big shock when this Lebanese guy wanted to know. Unfortunately, he reacted a little different than Brett's "I thought y'all was a gypsy" response. He was apparently telling her that halvah could be had at the Cedars Deli nearby.
"It is Jewish-style halvah, though," he said, grimacing. "You aren't Jewish, are you?"
"As a matter of fact, I am," said LL Cool Jew.
He scowled at her and said condescendingly, "My people have been enjoying halvah for two thousand years." LL Cool Jew said that it was apparent he was trying to pull out some "oh, SNAP, Jews!" moves and refused to be baited into saying something that would confirm her status as a Zionist pig to him. I thought she should have been like "Oh yeah? Well, my people have been enjoying halvah for 5,678 years!" or something like that, but she apparently just gave him a withering look and announced she was ready to retire to our quarters.
The next morning we got up, blazed out of the hostel before Carlos could meet us and tag along all day complimenting our intelligence, and got a breakfast at a place that exemplified exactly why there are so many fat people in Louisiana. Check out the guy behind LL Cool Jew:
Then we proceeded to drive around for a bit. We were reminded that, in spite of places like the Artmosphere peddling hookahs and weird artwork, there were still plenty of people more in line with what I would expect...CLASSY:
I totally am getting a sign like that for my dad to put on the back of his "rig," along with a pair of truck balls for his trailer hitch.
Then we got some beef jerky and went to the Tabasco factory on Avery Island. We saw more alligators there, along with more birds, and a shitload of bamboo. It was pretty but uneventful, and we proved two things I already know: that I hate Tabasco (I'm a Tapatio/Marie Sharp's kind of girl) and that LL Cool Jew can still flash a mean lesbian gang sign even though she's gone the breeder route in terms of life partner selection.
Once we got back to New Orleans, it was again eating time. I think I nearly killed myself trying to lay waste to a soft-shelled crab po' boy. Then we went to LL Cool Jew and BigBagel's local pub for trivia night. They do this every Monday, and we were sure that between all of us, we would be able to lay waste to the competition. Unfortunately, that dream was shattered when LL Cool Jew earned the pub dunce cap by identifying the opening line of The Godfather as being from the film Yentl. The look on BigBagel's face in this picture says it all.
We may not have won trivia night, but we did have a really fitting team name. We decided that, in keeping with 50% of the team's Smith College traditions, we'd go with Current Events in Lesbianism as inspiration, and called ourselves "the Lohan-Ronson Invitational Clambake." Even more fitting, I've realized that Lil' Darlin' and I actually look like Lindsay Lohan and Samantha Ronson. It's unfortunate that I have to be the Samantha Ronson of the pair, but you can't win 'em all.
And even more fitting than that is the fact that when we got back to Casa de Cool Jew-Bagel, Lil' Darlin' shared a bed with me and requested that she be permitted to "play with (my) boobs." Of course I gave my consent, and raised her an "as long as you're at it, you want to fuck?" Unfortunately, she has a boyfriend she's actually loyal to, so our imitation of LiLo and SamRo remained superficial. I did get my tits felt up, though, which ruled.
The last day of our trip was one of the most highly anticipated: our journey to Kentwood, Louisiana to see the Britney Jean Spears museum. Actually, the museum was called "The Kentwood Historical and Cultural Museum," but apart from a memorial to Kentwood's brave military people, it was all Britney.
One of the greatest disappointments of my trip was the fact that no photos were allowed. I can't imagine why, because you would think that they could use the publicity. When I signed the guest book, I noted that we were the first visitors in 3 days. Hazel, the ancient woman whose threadbare coat identified her as the "curater" of the museum, didn't slack in attempting to give us a show. She led us into a dark room, then asked if we were "ready," and flipped a switch. There, before us, was a model of the stage from Britney's first tour that some dude in Oregon spent six months making.
"I was thinkin' his wife should get the credit for puttin' up with him fiddlin' with it for six months," said Hazel. LL Cool Jew gave me a look that plainly said, "Sha right, like the gay dude who made this has a wife."
Then we checked out the memorabilia collection. It was really impressive. They had Britney's "Best New Artist" American Music Award, her first MTV video music award (pre-Moonman), her Mickey Mouse Club jacket, and what looked like all of her platinum records. They also had a wall of Britney magazine covers, including a hilariously ironic one that said, "Britney Spears: Why I'm Waiting." Probably the weirdest, most disturbing thing was the hermetically sealed room containing all of Britney's childhood bedroom furniture and Madame Alexander dolls, with a picture in the foreground of Britney from the most Lolita-ed out Rolling Stone photo shoot of all time.
"That's like some gross old pedophile's fantasy jerk closet," LL Cool Jew whispered to me in a tone low enough not to be heard by Hazel as she tottered around.
We consented then to a tour of the military memorial, and listened to Hazel yammer on about how Taylor Horn, another local entertainer who already looks like a total whore at 15, was going to be a big star. It became apparent that the people of Kentwood are trying to divorce themselves from Britney, and even Hazel was probably hoping to replace the BJS section with a Taylor Horn section. We also noted that the "Welcome to Kentwood: Home of Britney Spears" sign that was supposed to greet us had been taken down ("that's cold" observed LL Cool Jew). It's pretty rich that the people of Kentwood think they're too good for even crazy, Frapp-slurping Brit Brit. Kentwood was probably one of the trashiest towns we went through. Half the buildings in town were abandoned and collapsing. The entire place seemed in a state of gradual decay. They didn't even have a Wal-Mart or a Winn-Dixie (although to our delight, they did have a Sonic).
After our tour, in the course of listening to Hazel ramble about Kentwood, its residents, and things we should do during our visit (in which she very amusingly told LL Cool Jew to "take your Yankee to Nyla's Burger Basket for some fried catfish"), we managed to get directions to Serenity, the Spears family "estate." LL Cool Jew and I immediately went there, and drove by several times trying to discreetly take a picture and hopefully see Jamie-Lynn's pregnant ass waddling around.
Sadly, there were no Jamie-Lynn sightings, so we just grabbed more drinks from Sonic and headed back to New Orleans to watch some Lord of the Rings for old time's sake. LL Cool Jew and I watch LOTR movies when we have nothing better to do. It was a great way to end a vacation that was entirely too short.
I have to go back as soon as possible, because I didn't do nearly as many things as I wanted to do. Specifically, I didn't eat any nutria! I didn't even SEE any nutria. Every time we passed any type of swampy body of water, I was scanning eagerly for those little guys swimming around, but it turns out that they are pretty elusive for an invasive species. Obviously, I MUST at least see nutria at some point even if I can't eat them, so I'll have to go back.
"Nutria? You're not gonna see any. If you can see da nutrias, da gators can see 'em too." Then he advised me that about ten years ago, you couldn't swing a dead cat without hitting a nutria. However, the nutria population started disappearing coincident with the proliferation of the local alligator population. I can see how that would be, because while we didn't see any nutria, we saw two gigantic fucking alligators.
After about an hour of tooling around checking out birds and reptiles and listening to Butch's corny jokes ("What do you call da most lonedsome bayou? Bayou self") and his stories about how he built a self-sustaining duck blind out of toppled cypress trees ("I got my own ecosystem goin' here"), we headed to Lafayette to the hostel where we were staying. Initially when LL Cool Jew told me she booked us a room at a "hostel" for our night in Cajun country, I was extremely skeptical. "HOSTEL, dude? I don't stay in hostels." I reserve nothing but scorn and disdain for backpacker types, and the idea of sharing a communal shower with them is entirely reprehensible.
"Dude, we have a private room with a private bath. Do you think my JAP-tastic ass would stay in a backpacker-type place?" she said. I had to concede that point. If I'm adamant about my "no backpackers" policy, LL Cool Jew's unwillingness is probably greater by a logarithmic order of magnitude. However, we couldn't check in for another hour, so we went to get a cold beer at the artfaggy joint across the street, a bar appropriately called "Artmosphere."
"You have a weird look on your face," she observed.
"It's a weird oyster," I said. "The sauce is like...creamy tomato. It's odd."
LL Cool Jew tried one then. "Dude, with the tasso in it, it tastes like...I don't know...some kind of fake-me-out Italian food. It's like a piece of pizza or something."
"Pizza oysters!" I said. "It's like the Prejean's equivalent of a New York slice."
"Dude, pizza oysters made with fucking Prego," observed LL Cool Jew.
Apart from the disappointing pizza oysters, we otherwise gorged ourselves on fried fish and shrimp, and jammed for a while to the weird Zydeco band of old men who took the stage with their accordions and fiddles.
Within five minutes we met a bunch of dudes who invited us back to the hostel for some--ahem--herbal cigarettes. One of these guys, a good-natured recent traveler to Amsterdam, told a hilarious story about how he was in the Air Force right after the Iraq War started, he met Senator John McCain, who--according to him--wrote on his tent "Give 'em hell! Fuckin' Senator John McCain."
We also met Fuckin' Senator John McCain's friends. First there was Carlos, a "documentary photographer" (translation: unemployed vagabond with a camera who gets laid more when he says he's a documentary photographer), who wouldn't stop marveling that "it's amazing to meet not one, but TWO women who have read a book."
"Dude, maybe you should go someplace different," said Fuckin' Senator John McCain. "Would you eat this?" He held up a can of "sliced beef, gravy, and rice" that I swear was dog food packaged for human consumption.
"Hell naw!" exclaimed John. "But that don't mean somebody won't!" He was very confident in his business model.
As befits my taste, I immediately went to the most expensive item in the store: the $25 alligator heads. I didn't buy them, but I did try to French them a little bit:
After another drink at the Artmosphere, LL Cool Jew and I passed out. She regaled me with the tale of how she got into it with this random Lebanese guy who joined our group at some point. LL Cool Jew had received a great deal of curious inquiries into her ethnicity from the locals. At one point, Brett asked her "Now what's y'all's extraction?"
"I'm Jewish," LL Cool Jew replied.
"Jewish! Well how about that? I thought y'all was a gypsy!" I'm glad she's not a gypsy, because "LL Cool Gypsy" just doesn't have the same ring to it.
LL Cool Jew had been fielding queries regarding her possible Judeo-Gypsy status all night, so it wasn't a big shock when this Lebanese guy wanted to know. Unfortunately, he reacted a little different than Brett's "I thought y'all was a gypsy" response. He was apparently telling her that halvah could be had at the Cedars Deli nearby.
"It is Jewish-style halvah, though," he said, grimacing. "You aren't Jewish, are you?"
"As a matter of fact, I am," said LL Cool Jew.
He scowled at her and said condescendingly, "My people have been enjoying halvah for two thousand years." LL Cool Jew said that it was apparent he was trying to pull out some "oh, SNAP, Jews!" moves and refused to be baited into saying something that would confirm her status as a Zionist pig to him. I thought she should have been like "Oh yeah? Well, my people have been enjoying halvah for 5,678 years!" or something like that, but she apparently just gave him a withering look and announced she was ready to retire to our quarters.
The next morning we got up, blazed out of the hostel before Carlos could meet us and tag along all day complimenting our intelligence, and got a breakfast at a place that exemplified exactly why there are so many fat people in Louisiana. Check out the guy behind LL Cool Jew:
Then we got some beef jerky and went to the Tabasco factory on Avery Island. We saw more alligators there, along with more birds, and a shitload of bamboo. It was pretty but uneventful, and we proved two things I already know: that I hate Tabasco (I'm a Tapatio/Marie Sharp's kind of girl) and that LL Cool Jew can still flash a mean lesbian gang sign even though she's gone the breeder route in terms of life partner selection.
Once we got back to New Orleans, it was again eating time. I think I nearly killed myself trying to lay waste to a soft-shelled crab po' boy. Then we went to LL Cool Jew and BigBagel's local pub for trivia night. They do this every Monday, and we were sure that between all of us, we would be able to lay waste to the competition. Unfortunately, that dream was shattered when LL Cool Jew earned the pub dunce cap by identifying the opening line of The Godfather as being from the film Yentl. The look on BigBagel's face in this picture says it all.
The last day of our trip was one of the most highly anticipated: our journey to Kentwood, Louisiana to see the Britney Jean Spears museum. Actually, the museum was called "The Kentwood Historical and Cultural Museum," but apart from a memorial to Kentwood's brave military people, it was all Britney.
"I was thinkin' his wife should get the credit for puttin' up with him fiddlin' with it for six months," said Hazel. LL Cool Jew gave me a look that plainly said, "Sha right, like the gay dude who made this has a wife."
Then we checked out the memorabilia collection. It was really impressive. They had Britney's "Best New Artist" American Music Award, her first MTV video music award (pre-Moonman), her Mickey Mouse Club jacket, and what looked like all of her platinum records. They also had a wall of Britney magazine covers, including a hilariously ironic one that said, "Britney Spears: Why I'm Waiting." Probably the weirdest, most disturbing thing was the hermetically sealed room containing all of Britney's childhood bedroom furniture and Madame Alexander dolls, with a picture in the foreground of Britney from the most Lolita-ed out Rolling Stone photo shoot of all time.
"That's like some gross old pedophile's fantasy jerk closet," LL Cool Jew whispered to me in a tone low enough not to be heard by Hazel as she tottered around.
We consented then to a tour of the military memorial, and listened to Hazel yammer on about how Taylor Horn, another local entertainer who already looks like a total whore at 15, was going to be a big star. It became apparent that the people of Kentwood are trying to divorce themselves from Britney, and even Hazel was probably hoping to replace the BJS section with a Taylor Horn section. We also noted that the "Welcome to Kentwood: Home of Britney Spears" sign that was supposed to greet us had been taken down ("that's cold" observed LL Cool Jew). It's pretty rich that the people of Kentwood think they're too good for even crazy, Frapp-slurping Brit Brit. Kentwood was probably one of the trashiest towns we went through. Half the buildings in town were abandoned and collapsing. The entire place seemed in a state of gradual decay. They didn't even have a Wal-Mart or a Winn-Dixie (although to our delight, they did have a Sonic).
After our tour, in the course of listening to Hazel ramble about Kentwood, its residents, and things we should do during our visit (in which she very amusingly told LL Cool Jew to "take your Yankee to Nyla's Burger Basket for some fried catfish"), we managed to get directions to Serenity, the Spears family "estate." LL Cool Jew and I immediately went there, and drove by several times trying to discreetly take a picture and hopefully see Jamie-Lynn's pregnant ass waddling around.
I have to go back as soon as possible, because I didn't do nearly as many things as I wanted to do. Specifically, I didn't eat any nutria! I didn't even SEE any nutria. Every time we passed any type of swampy body of water, I was scanning eagerly for those little guys swimming around, but it turns out that they are pretty elusive for an invasive species. Obviously, I MUST at least see nutria at some point even if I can't eat them, so I'll have to go back.
Oh, and PS...LL Cool Jew thanks all the readers requesting pictures of her tits, but her reply to your request is "NO WAY IN FUCKING HELL."
Labels: BigBagel, Britney Spears, Daily Dude I Want to Hit, Dirrty Dirrty, gluttony, LL Cool Jew
Friday, June 06, 2008
A good omen on the nutria tip
I've refused to mitigate my determination to taste nutria, the semi-acquatic swamp rat that has invaded the bayous, on my trip to visit LL Cool Jew in New Orleans this weekend. I've even contemplated tracking down the elderly Cajun trapper shown bludgeoning a nutria (nutrium?) to death with a stick prior to stewing it for Andrew Zimmern on "Bizarre Foods" in order to slake my nutria lust. I even corresponded with Razzyphile who is a current Smith bitch and Jordan House resident about stalking the nutria in her Lafayette, Louisiana city park with a club and a stew pot. Yesterday LL Cool Jew and I had a strategery session about how, short of actually going on a nutria hunt, we might get some through sheer guile.
LL Cool Jew: dude i don't think we will be able to eat any nutria
LL Cool Jew: i wonder if we'll even be able to see any?
LL Cool Jew:what we can try is this, even though it makes me somewhat embarrassed
LL Cool Jew: ask at the best stop near lafayette when we swing by for rgular jerky
Razzy: YES
Razzy: let's ask around
Razzy: we won't be offensive!
LL Cool Jew: we're going to have to work on our spiel
LL Cool Jew: maybe do some role playing on the drive over
Razzy: i'll say that i saw it on tv and it looked good
Razzy: nothing patronizing about that
LL Cool Jew: true
Razzy: i won't say i saw it on "bizarre foods"
LL Cool Jew: andrew zimmern can make lots of things look good
Razzy:: i'll just say it was "a food show"
LL Cool Jew: they will probably know which one
LL Cool Jew: it's OK, the show celebrates the foods
Razzy: well true
Razzy: i won't make it seem like i'm some city bitch looking to patronize the country folks
Razzy: by eating their swamp rats
LL Cool Jew: yes.
LL Cool Jew: we have to be shy and self-deprecating when we ask
LL Cool Jew: and precede it with a lot of hemming and hawing about "i know this is a strange question..."
LL Cool Jew: "i'm not sure whether you might be able to help me but..."
LL Cool Jew: don't want ppl to be like - "do i LOOK like someone who eats R.O.U.S.s?"
Well, it turns out we may not even have to go to the country for our Dorito-toothed rodent fix. LL Cool Jew e-mailed me an article from today's Times-Picayune detailing a nutria problem severe enough to warrant a SWAT team that has exploded in the suburbs of New Orleans.
Nutria under the gun on the 17th Street CanalI think this bodes well for our nutria-acquiring mission. If there's an excess of freshly shot nutria laying around New Orleans, there's a chance that the fancy "country chic" restaurant LL Cool Jew is taking me to tomorrow night might have a nutria special on the menu! As early as tomorrow we might be dining on nutria etouffee. Score!
Posted by Andrew Vanacore June 05, 2008 11:02PM
A Jefferson Parish SWAT team has been called in to defend the 17th Street Canal.
The threat? Nutria, the orange-toothed rodents that eat through marshlands and levees, among other offenses. Officials say their numbers around the canal have jumped in the last year and a half, damaging levees."They've not only damaged the intake pipes but burrowed into holes along the canal," said Chief Bob Garner of the East Jefferson Levee District Police.
Inspections around the 17th Street Canal began turning up signs of nutria about a year and a half ago, said Danny Abadie, superintendent of operations for the East Jefferson Levee District Maintenance Department.
"We've seen a bunch of these critters out there," Abadie said. "They're eating at the base of the grasses," which can lead to soil erosion.
Over time, that erosion can add up. When Jefferson Parish officials first recognized the nutria epidemic in 1994, they estimated it had already caused $6 million to $8 million in damage.
Jefferson Parish SWAT teams have targeted the rodents along drainage canals for more than a decade.
Their ever-burgeoning numbers and destructive eating habits have left the nutria with few friends - even among animal rights groups.
Garner said he asked the Jefferson Parish Sheriff's Office to deploy the SWAT team as a favor.
SWAT members will stalk the rats with rifles in the wee hours, They plan to start as early as today. Garner said the operation could last weeks.
Still an open question is whether SWAT members will have jurisdiction to go after nutria on the Orleans Parish side of the canal.
Garner said East Jefferson officials have focused on the Jefferson side. But he couldn't say whether sharpshooters would hold their fire if they spot pests across the water.
"For the time being, we're only concerned with those that are on our side," Garner said. "If that problem arises, we'll deal with it."
Labels: Dirrty Dirrty, gluttony, LL Cool Jew, sexy delicious animals
Thursday, June 05, 2008
Daily Douchebag: Brad Pitt
Name: William Bradley Pitt
DOB: December 18, 1963
Occupation: hypocrite; lover of ugly modern art
Hometown: Springfield, Missouri
Current residence: last I heard it was some ridiculous 23-bedroom mansion in France
Douchebaggery: I get really, really sick of listening to Brad Pitt lecturing everyone sanctimoniously about poverty and AIDS and whatever else. Just because he's fucking Angelina Jolie doesn't mean he had to go and pick up her bad habits of being an insufferable twat about social issues and a baby junkie, but seemingly he did anyway. Now I see him all the time running around with fellow patronizing do-gooder Bono excoriating everybody for being greedy fucks who don't take time out of their busy schedules making shitty movies and shitty albums to pose for photo shoots with a village full of starving refugees and AIDS orphans. There's nothing I hate more than seeing some self-righteous piece of shit stepping off a private jet in clothes that probably cost more than my monthly salary to hassle me about my supposedly gluttonous lifestyle. Fuck you, asshole! I'm poor! I eat nothing but grilled cheese sandwiches and I can barely afford the Pantene I wash my hair with.
When Brad Pitt isn't busy being an obnoxious charity media whore, he apparently is a big fan of modern art. Despite the fact that Angelina's about to produce two more revered spawn (who in fifteen years will probably make Paris Hilton look like a saint in comparison to their spoiled, bratty antics), Brad took time out from settling into their new mansion in the French countryside to visit some art expo in Basel, Switzerland. While there, he decided to pick up a few things to decorate the new digs. Specifically, he picked up a bunch of hideous shit worth half a million dollars:
See that white table? It cost $293,000. And that chair? He got two of those at $25,000 each. He also purchased that ugly lamp and an aluminum rug at $175 a square foot, and is reportedly considering shelling out $300,000 for a gold-lacquered fiberglass sofa.
I'm sure these were totally practical purchases that Brad Pitt bought out of absolute necessity, because surely nobody as concerned with how all our self-indulgent society is doing insufficient work on behalf of the poor malaria-stricken AIDS orphans would buy totally unnecessary overpriced pieces of crap just because they can afford to. I'm sure that Brad Pitt's fancy modern art furniture is needed to accommodate his ever-expanding brood, and nothing is more pleasing for a newborn baby to crawl around on than an aluminum rug. I know my childhood was totally deprived because my parents hadn't ensured that I could read my Chronicles of Narnia books while sitting on an undoubtedly comfortable $25,000 bronze chair, putting my feet on an ugly coffee table hewn from a solid block of Italian marble, and illuminated the room with a busted overpriced lamp. So Brad Pitt's global progeny are lucky to have such essentials decking out their nursery. However, I still wonder how this fits into Brad Pitt's calling out everyone in America to do their duty and join the fight against overconsumption and promote sustainable solutions to hunger and poverty in the developing world.
If I ever run into Brad Pitt and his equally smug, hypocritical baby mama, I'm going to be sure to inquire how exactly that gold-plated couch fits into his commitment to eradicating the world's problems other than by proving that he's rich enough to drown his hypocrisy in a big consumerism binge. I'm sure he'll be able to explain it away, and by "explain it away" I mean he'll just remind me that he's Brad Pitt, the sexiest man alive or something, he's friends with George Clooney, and he's sticking his dick into Angelina Jolie and boy, she's an even bigger humanitarian photo op slut than he is! Good show, Brad Pitt. The impoverished of the world are in your debt.
Labels: artfaggotry, assholes, celebrities, Daily Douchebag, gluttony, media whores, sluts
Thursday, May 29, 2008
Daily Dude I Want to Hit: Sterling Fryou
RAZZY Note: this is not actually Sterling Fryou, but some other random nutria trapper I found a picture of on the internets. Despite his status as a local parish board member and world-famous bayou critter trapper, Sterling Fryou's handsome grizzled visage is nowhere on the internets I could find. A shame!
DOB: ???-the late 1930s? He's old.
Occupation: nutria trapper
Hometown: Morgan City, Louisiana
Current residence: Morgan City, Louisiana
Why I Want to Hit that Hotness: LL Cool Jew and I have taken our nutria obsession to a whole new level: specifically, stalking elderly Cajun nutria trappers on the internets. I swear that when I get down to Louisiana, we are going to eat nutria if we have to trap one ourselves. I even took out an ad on Lafayette, Louisiana's Craigslist searching for nutria jerky, and thus far have gotten no responses. I am getting very frustrated by this.
Razzy: btw, still no hits on craigslist re: the nutria query :(
LL Cool Jew: GUH
Razzy: who knew this shit was so hard to get?
Razzy: i thought there were nutria everywhere!
LL Cool Jew: well here's the thing
LL Cool Jew: i guess people trap and eat
LL Cool Jew: there's not like, a nutria processing plant or anything.
Razzy: the idea of us trapping one is hilarious
Razzy: i'm imagining us traipsing around the bayou
Razzy: you trying to walk in a pair of five-inch heels
Razzy: me freaking out about spiders
LL Cool Jew: no no
LL Cool Jew: i'll be in flip flops for shizzle
Razzy: i don't even know how to "trap" anything
Razzy: the only thing i know about it
Razzy: is that in wa state
Razzy: there are always voter initiatives to "ban cruel traps"
Razzy: i'm all for cruel traps if they lead to nutria consumption!
LL Cool Jew: well if you watch andrew zimmern tonight
LL Cool Jew: you will see that trapping nutria involves a pirogue and a baseball bat
Razzy: right
Razzy: we'd have no problem picking up a louisville slugger
Razzy: but i'm betting you don't have a pirogue at your disposal
LL Cool Jew: you'd be right about that
LL Cool Jew: they are fast and tricksy though
LL Cool Jew: maybe if we played them the bongo bong song...
LL Cool Jew was determined that I should watch the part of "Bizarre Foods" where Andrew Zimmern, big New York queen that he is, goes nutria trapping. That night, she texted "nutria time!" to remind me that it was on right after "Deadliest Catch." I flipped over to the Travel Channel to see Andrew Zimmern getting into a boat with an old Cajun named Sterling Fryou and heading off the nutria trapping grounds. Sterling explains how you need to set nutria traps on the nutria game trails (identifiable because the nutria destroy all vegetation in their path), then hit them on the head with a large stick called "the eliminator." Then Sterling gutted the nutria, brought it back to his trapping shack, and cooked it with some squirrel for Andrew Zimmern, who pronounced it "lean, and not swampy at all."
Razzy: Sterling fryouRazzy: 2 bad u dont have a pirogueLL Cool Jew: or an eliminatorLL Cool Jew: we need 2 contact sterling fryouRazzy: Want nutria!Razzy: Nutriatritious. Bongo bongLL Cool Jew: lean. not swampyLL Cool Jew: hit im in th headRazzy: Must contact fryouLL Cool Jew: sterling is awsm. turduckens up next.Razzy: Im goin 2 bed so i can b fresh 4 the sterling fryou hunt tomorrow
I didn't even need to conduct the Sterling Fryou hunt, since LL Cool Jew got on the internets and discovered that he is a eucharistic minister at St. Andrew's Catholic Church in Amelia, Louisiana. She e-mailed me excitedly:
To: Razzy (razzy@razzy.org)From: LL Cool Jew (llcooljew@dirrtydirrtyhumanitiesgrantgivers.org)http://standrewcentral.org/ministers_schedule.html
The website of St. Andrews Parish Church in Amelia, Louisiana lists the following in its Eucharistic Ministers rotation:
Ministers
Lenwood & Lula Gaduet 631-2315
Joy Gaudet 631-2419
Sterling Fryou 631-2792
Pooch Clements 631-2598
Carol Leger 631-2602
Gilday Gaudet 631-2419
Jeffery & Celeste Pennison 631-9325
Tracy Duval 631-2589
Trevor Benoit 631-0882
Kathy Acosta 631-0887
Teresa Theriot 631-9440
Dianne McAllister 631-2309
Peggy Clements 631-2271
Maybe if Sterling can't help us, Pooch Clements might be able to hook it up.
So now that we've tracked down Sterling Fryou's math, I think it's only a matter of time before I can persuade him to eliminate some nutria on our behalf and stew it for us Cajun-style in his outdoor cooking shack. Or if he's too busy to do that, maybe he can just hook us up with some jerky.
Labels: Daily Dude I Want to Hit, Dirrty Dirrty, gluttony, LL Cool Jew, sexy delicious animals
Friday, May 23, 2008
Daily Dude I Want to Hit: nutria
Aliases: nutria, coypus
DOB: entered fossil record during the Pliocene; introduced to Louisiana in 1930
Hometown: temperate South America
Current residence: various places in Europe, South America, Asia, Maryland, Louisiana, and the Columbia River basin
Why I Want to Hit that Hotness: When I made plans to go visit my friend LL Cool Jew in New Orleans next month, she was regaling me with tales of the turtle soup we're going to eat, and the swamp tours we're taking, and the plantations we're going to, and somehow the topic of nutria came up.
"What's nutria, precious, eh?" I asked her.
She advised me that nutria is a type of beaver-sized swamp rat with big orange teeth that was imported to Louisiana from South America as an inexpensive food source for the cajuns of the bayou. Unfortunately, nutria never really caught on as a dinner meat except for a few places in Louisiana where some rural folks hunt it. It's greatest success at being incorporated into the mainstream Louisiana diet is probably its use as a beef substitute on sloppy joe day in the Louisiana public school system. I'm not sure if that's on the statewide elementary school lunch menu, but (LA native) Motherbucker told me it was a favorite in Alexandria where she came up. I guess the nutria population in southwest Washington state isn't as prolific, because I never heard of nutria being served to anyone. In fact, I hadn't even heard of nutria at all. Even more unfortunately, nutria have proven to be a wetland-destroying menace thanks to their burrowing and ravenous appetites for vegetation.
To battle the nutria problem, the people of Louisiana have tried all sorts of things. Currently the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries offers a bounty on nutria, and is also strongly pushing nutria as the meat of the future. Their website shares recipes for dishes like "heart healthy crock pot nutria," smoked nutria and andouille sausage gumbo, Enola's smothered nutria, and stuffed nutria hindquarters. After hearing about all this, I became extremely curious about trying nutria.
The last time I was home in the P-N-Dub, I was hanging out with my buddy HotLawyer and switching back and forth between the Mariners game and various food and travel shows. After I told HotLawyer what kind of dick vibes all the Mariners and the entire Oakland bullpen were sporting and speculated on which food show hosts were big sluts (Giada de Laurentiis being Queen Skank of Slag Mountain), we settled on watching the Gulf Coast episode of "Bizarre Foods." Unfortunately we switched back to baseball during the nutria-eating part, but just seeing the fat homo who hosts that show eating bear, possum, and chitlins, I became even more dead-set on popping my nutria-eating cherry.
Upon realizing my strong interest in nutria, LL Cool Jew has taken it upon herself to fill me in on any and all nutria information she comes across. She just finished taking a class about Louisiana history (since she works for some Louisiana historical society or something), and there was some discussion of nutria. However, it became apparent that, in terms of nutria being an accepted part of Louisiana culture, it's got a way to go. You can't just walk into any restaurant and order some nutria jambalaya; if you want nutria, you have to get out and trap it yourself. Since the idea of LL Cool Jew and myself traipsing around the bayou trying to set nutria-catching snares is nothing short of hilarious, we have been trying in vain trying to get a nutria hook-up. It seems our best bet will be to find someone who makes nutria jerky and beg them for some. I'm already having fantasies of eating nutria jerky on our way to tour the Britney Spears museum, and I was hoping that LL Cool Jew's Louisiana class would prove a boon to our nutria-acquiring efforts.
Razzy: oh congrats on getting an A in your herstory klass
LL Cool Jew: :D :D :D
Razzy: like you would have gotten anything less
LL Cool Jew: WOOHOO
Razzy: i'm sure it was your presentation about the jewish rice tycoon that secured your top grade
LL Cool Jew: :D
LL Cool Jew: you better believe it
Razzy: the only thing that concerns me
Razzy: is that maybe you didn't work the louisiana history community hard enough for nutria jerky connections
LL Cool Jew: all those people were from the Greatner NO area
LL Cool Jew: they aint got no nutria connex
Razzy: we gots to find some of those
Razzy: i've become almost pathologically obsessed with the idea of consuming nutria
So if any of you know somewhere we can get some pre-trapped and killed (and preferably jerkified) nutria, holler at your girl. In the meantime, here is the greatest nutria video on YouTube. I think the music of Manu Chao was made to be the soundtrack for videos of nutria being nutria, or as LL Cool Jew put it, "it's an awesome nutria jam."
Labels: Daily Dude I Want to Hit, Dirrty Dirrty, gluttony, LL Cool Jew, sexy delicious animals
Friday, May 09, 2008
Daily Douchebag: salad
DOB: N/A
Occupation: causing me gastrointestinal distress
Hometown: the produce department at Gristede's
Current residence: causing gastrointestinal distress
Douchebaggery: My carnivorous appetites are well-known. I don't like eating anything that didn't at one point have a face. I would rather eat meat than anything else. In keeping with this, I don't care much for vegetables. Sure, I like some mushrooms sauteed on my steak, or some mashed potatoes beside it, or some creamed spinach on the plate next to it, but you won't often see me sit down to a big bowl of green stuff and eat it with gusto.
For whatever reason, the last couple nights I made an exception. My friend Neo made dinner for me Wednesday night, and she served salad. I actually liked it. Last night I was at the grocery store, and decided that I still was in the mood for some salad (with my pepperoni pizza). So I bought some vegetables and ate a little salad. I was shocked to realize that I enjoyed it enough to want seconds.
A little while after I ate, I was taking the dogs for an evening stroll around the hood, when I suddenly realized that a salad binge was a very, very bad idea. Another thing about me that's almost as well known as my general anti-vegetable stance is that, perhaps as a consequence of my protein-heavy diet, I only shit every three days. Sorry to spoil anyone's image of me as an elegant and refined lady, but this is just how I'm built. I've been on a semiweekly shitting schedule for as long as I can remember. In fact, this has been going on so long that when I moved into my first apartment, my parents brought me a plunger as a housewarming gift. When I'm deciding on a place to live, one of the first features I check is the strength of the toilet's flush. I am the kind of girl who likes my toilets like I like my men: easygoing, powerful, and equipped with adequate girth in the right places. Eating too many fresh vegetables disrupts this three-day routine, sometimes with disastrous results.
As I was walking the dogs, my stomach started rumbling ominously. "Uh oh," I thought. I knew that I was going to have to cut this walk short. Unfortunately, Caesar was having a similar problem to myself. He is an incorrigible grass eater. I used to think that dogs only ate grass when they were trying to make themselves puke, but Caesar seems to just like grass. Sometimes when we're at the park, he just walks around grazing like a damn horse. If he overdoes it, he ends up copping a squat every five feet. While last night I could relate, I was not amused, since unlike Caese, I can't just drop trou and take care of business in a bank of shrubs by my park. When we finally got to the homestretch, I was practically running. Luckily I made it back to my apartment in the nick of time, but this just confirms for me what I already knew: there's a reason why I don't like vegetables, and this is it. From now on, I am back to my healthy diet of all animal products. Fuck salad.
Labels: Daily Douchebag, gluttony, gross, sexy delicious animals
Friday, March 21, 2008
Daily Douchebag: Jesus Christ
Name: Jesus of Nazareth
DOB: per the Jesuits at my high school, sometime in the spring of 4 B.C. I know it should be December 25th, 0 A.D., but apparently someone fucked up over in the world's Christian calendar department. And December 25 was the day of some existing Roman pagan festival, so it was just convenient to change that to Christmas.
Occupation: the Christ AKA Lamb of God, Son of God, Son of Man, Prince of Peace, Wonderful Counselor, Good Shepherd, King of Kings, Paschal Lamb, Suffering Servant, the Messiah for us Christians anyway, King of the Jews (per himself and some snarky Romans with gallows humor), carpenter, professional resurrectee
Hometown: Nazareth via a stable in Bethlehem, Israel
Current residence: heaven, apparently on his ass at the right hand of the Father
Douchebaggery: I have half a pepperoni pizza in the fridge that really badly wants to be my breakfast. I mean I went to get my morning Sugar-Free Red Bull and I could almost hear that delicious pizza calling me to eat it. Unfortunately, Jesus had to go and get his dumb ass crucified, thus making today Good Friday and making it so that I can't eat breakfast at all!
I realize that I'm a pretty lousy Catholic otherwise, what with all the harlotry and the birth control pill-taking and the abortion-having and the carpet-munching. In fact, the Pope just revised the Seven Deadly Sins to be more modern, which means I'm doubly screwed. In addition to regularly violating a whole shitload of the old ones (particularly pride, lust, wrath, sloth, and gluttony), I now violate most of the new ones as well (failure to recycle, human rights violations aka making my uterus as inhospitable to babies as possible and evicting any that take up residence there, genetic manipulation of mice, HeLa and 293T cells, and E. coli, and drug use--I mean, ALCOHOL use). Since according to the Vatican's standards I've already got a first class ticket to eternal damnation, I try to be pious where I can in hopes that my efforts will get me to a nicer part of hell. I'd way rather be in the orgy part of hell than the part where all those soul-eating Bosch demons live.
Since I've failed miserably at my Lenten vow (no cigarettes) and I've sucked at the no-meat-on-Fridays thing (a couple weeks ago I forgot and ate a huge plate of pork mofongo before I remembered that it was a Lenten Friday and thus forbade consumption of chicharron de cerdo), I figure that I can at least try to behave on Good Friday. According to the Catholic church, this means at minimum not eating meat, and ideally not eating at all. According to the Razzian Order of Catholics (membership: 1, namely me), this means not eating until 3 p.m., which is supposedly when JC gave his final shout out to God and croaked. After that, I figure there's no sense in starving for the next couple days waiting for him to rise from the dead in fulfillment of the scriptures, so bring on the fish tacos.
Of course I love my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ as he was eternally begotten of the Father, God from God, Light From Light, true God from true God, begotten not made, one in being with the Father, etc. I actually do believe in the whole Christian narrative, and if I'm getting a Get-Out-of-Hell Free Card, it'll be because of Jesus dying for my myriad sins. Besides, I can't hate a deity capable of turning water into wine with such an obvious fondness for hanging out with and getting his toes massaged by wanton sluts, whores, and adulteresses. However, I don't understand why Jesus had to go through all this crucifixion hullabaloo. Wouldn't it have been easier to just spend his golden years effing the shit out of Mary Magdalene and the other hookers hanging around him and antagonizing the Jewish elders, feasting on his unlimited loaves-and-fishes buffet, die peacefully as Judea's most renowned carpenter-turned-traveling evangelist, and then rise again? That would make things a lot easier for everyone, especially Jesus, while still managing to fulfill all those prophecies about his Messianic resurrection. It's not like Jesus HAD to do anything involving getting nailed to a cross by Pontius Pilate's legionnaires after a rough sesh with the cat o' nine tails and a laborious parade through the streets of Jerusalem. He's Jesus! He's GOD! He can do whatever the fuck he wants. But NO, he's got to do things the hard way, and now so do all of those of us who get our Roman popery on. Three p.m. cannot come fast enough. I'm starving.
Anyway, happy Jesus Death Day, everyone! I hope you're better at piety than me, because I think I may have just earned damnation by douchebagging my Lord and Savior. Oh well. So goes my sinful life.
Labels: Catho