Fat, Dumb, and Dead

It's been a tough week for unions. It's been a tough week for teachers. It's been a tough week for working people. I'd like to just tee off on the usual suspects. Limbaugh, Fox News, Republicans, Wisconsin governor Scott Walker, but that's a waste of time. Those people are dancing on the coffin of working people, but they never claimed for one second that they would do otherwise. In New Orleans they dance at funerals. It's called the second line, and it's made up of the folks following the hired band (1st line) on the march to and from the cemetery.




No, I never do things the easy way, so lets talk about the guy in the coffin. Since before there was a labor movement in this country the powerful have been trying to destroy the labor movement. Why did you think the work was done?

• Gorged on the American dream you still flew when Reagan crushed the air traffic controllers ( a EAW friend of mine told me he wasn't ruining his vacation over an illegal strike.(Of coarse if the right has it's way they will all be illegal). 
• When the trucking industry turned almost everyone that was an employee into an independent contractor, who could only sell his services to one place, you circled the wagons to make sure the work that was slipping away went to your people. Keep the death grip on a style long after you've been p'wned is a bad idea.
• You made a big deal about buying American, but the Sonys and Motorolas in your play room (another friend) didn't matter as long as you had a Ford truck with the right bumper sticker.
• When we'd go to a job that should have paid prevailing wage (something we didn't know and our company wouldn't tell), you didn't try to get us prevailing wage. You tried to kick us out and called us scab. I never once in 35 years disrespected a union line. I never once in 35 years ever felt like anything but an enemy at a union site.
• At the convention halls in Boston a bunch of you were drunk back in the 80's when I delivered there. Every time for years and years.
• At Javits in NYC I used to have to pay a "toll" to get unloaded.
• When I worked election sites in Boston in the early 2000's the Carpenters Union would show up, but not know the names of the people whose signs they were holding. 

I never meet Investment bankers. Anything they have done, and they have done plenty, is remote. There is no personal connection there. There is a difference between the anger you feel for an abstract on the television and the anger you feel for a person in front of you extorting money or threatening your safety. Personal is always more powerful. You hear me teachers?

Bloody Marys

It's Sunday morning. Maybe you need a little hair of the dog. Maybe a little brunch. Maybe... hey this is America, we should be at our respective houses of worship! (I choose Linda's at the beach. Nothing says almighty power like a lobster benedict, side of hash browns, and a grilled cinnamon roll). Worship doesn't mean you have to cancel the party though.



Hey, it's Mardi Gras. Since when does spirit and jazz not mix?



Okay! You want a traditional approach fine!



Ah come on, more country? Really?



Well if we're all going to be fussy about our worship I'll take...



I do indeed love me some Patsy Cline. America, you can do anything 10 different ways and as long as you aren't hurting anybody you should be left alone. It's true of your choice of worship, your choice of political belief, your choice of music, your choice of art, hell, even the way you make a Bloody Mary.

It must be good, It's Authentic!

Time to get our Mardi Gras party rolling. We're going to have some authentic food, play some authentic jazz, drink authentic cocktails, get authentically banged up, no, no, no... We're going to have a great time, eat some tasty food, drink dangerous cocktails and definitely get banged up. It's Fat Tuesday! They had Fat Tuesday in Germany 500 years before New Orleans ever existed. That's the beauty of the place. It is as American as it gets. French settlers, Spanish settlers, slaves from west africa, Native Americans, Acadians banished from the Maritime provinces , Colonists from the first push west, people following the Mississippi south; all kinds of people from all kinds of places showing up in one spot. Maybe they wanted to, maybe they had to, but there they were blending their music, their culture, their lives with the local flora and fauna. Authentic New Orleans just means you picked a point in history and decided that everything that happened before isn't important. Authentic New Orleans means you picked a point in history and decided that everything that happened after isn't important. Authentic... it's the death of New Orleans, it will be the death of America.

Did that sound preachy? It did didn't it? My bad, we're supposed to be getting ready to party! So forget authentic. What kind of a party do you get from authentic anyway...

                                           Arria Belli

"Hey Babe! I'll go try to kill something that tastes good or at least something we can digest. I should be back in 3 days unless it kills me first. You take the kids down by the river and see if those red berries are safe to eat. Give them to little Johnny first, he's looking a little scrawny and we need to figure out if he can survive the winter."

Even the loin cloths put a crimp in things. Trust me, me in a loin cloth, unless the room is very, very, very dark, is going to be a buzz kill. So if we are going to leave the authentic cuisine to run free out in the woods, and we are going to protect the eye sight of all by including a blanket to cover my loin clothed form, how do we get this party started?



There we go. Fat's is a little old school for modern tastes, but that will take care of itself after a few sazeracs. If you don't like Fats play something else. You won't hurt my feelings. I just figured that since this is a web sight about food, politics, our dumb culture, our brilliant culture, history, art, life-style and me bloviating, you might like to try some things that you aren't familiar with. So now that we have the music on track how about some food? We started our roux yesterday so in keeping with the spirit of New Orleans how about some gumbo?

It must be true, I won an award!

The Academy Awards were last night, all is now clear. The King's Speech must be a better movie than the Black Swan or Inception. Natalie Portman is now a better actress than Annette Bening. Hey it must be true. Our society is a meritocracy after all, we are all about the merit. Reward the achievers, the rest of us can bask in their reflected glow. How could that ever go wrong?

Wait a minute, didn't I say achievers? We honor achievers, we elect, well you know.

So consider this list of achievements...

Awards and honors

• Anti-Defamation League – Torch of Liberty Award
• Beta Theta Pi (Zeta Phi Chapter) – Wall of Fame
• Brunel University (London) – Honorary Doctor of Social Sciences
• Child Advocates – Super Hero Honoree Award
• Episcopal High School – Campaign Fundraiser Award
• Gas Daily – Man of the Year Award
• Horatio Alger Association of Distinguished Americans – Annual Membership Award
• Houston Area Women’s Center – Honoree
• Houston Children’s Chorus – Honoree
• Houston Community Partners – Father of The Year
• Kenneth Lay Day – Proclaimed by Kathryn J. Whitmire, Mayor of Houston, Texas
• Kiwanis Club of Houston and the Greater Houston Partnership – International Executive of the Year
• March of Dimes – Award of Distinction
• NAACP Freedom Fund Banquet – Mickey Leland Humanitarian Award
• National Conference of Christians and Jews – Brotherhood Award
• Oswego State University – Honorary Doctor of Humane Letters Degree
• Phi Beta Kappa – Outstanding Alumnus Award
• Private Sector Council – Annual Leadership Award
• Stanford Business School Alumni Associations – Houston Business Man of the Year
• Texans For Lawsuit Reform – Award
• Texas Association of Minority Business Enterprises – Texas Corporate Partnering Award
• Texas Business Hall of Fame – Inductee
• Texas Navy Admiral – Commissioned by William P. Clements, Jr., Governor of Texas
• Texas Society To Prevent Blindness – Man of Vision Award
• The Brookwood Community – Honoree Award
• The Rotary Club of Houston – Distinguished Citizen Award
• The Wall Street Transcript – Chief Executive Officer Award
• United States Energy Association – United States Energy Award
• U.S. Navy – Navy Commendation Medal & National Defense Service Medal
• University of Colorado, College of Business and Administration – Ben K. Miller Memorial, International Business Award
• University of Houston – Distinguished Alumnus Award
• University of Houston – Honorary Doctor of Humane Letters Degree
• University of Missouri – Honorary Doctor of Law Degree; The Hebert J. Davenport Society Benefactor Award
• Volunteer Houston – Honoree Award

...what an amazing guy with a pile of awards like that. It certainly is good living in a meritocracy where the cream rises to the top and if you don't become wealthy or famous it is probably your own fault. Thank god there are plenty of  awards so we know what we like? Who was good? What qualifies as art? Consider  an America without American Idol? How would we ever know who is a great singer? Why we might be fooled by...

Forgot the Pasta!

Sorry about that, I spent so much time on the "composed salad" that I forgot about the pasta coarse. That's alright.  We were going slow on the salad, now we want to pick up the pace a little bit so this coarse is going to be fast, hot, and a little dirty. So we'll crank some tunes... have a little more wine ( I know we were drinking beer, but that was on the make ahead salad the day before, the pasta has to be cooked in real time so the wine, you do know her favorite wine right?, is going to be what's on the table)... and get cooking...



Nope, sorry about that. Funk is for later, much, much, later or you could just buy a metronome which wouldn't be as hot.



Ok, better for the mood, because this food is going to be magic.

Start Slow

Let's face it, you have until next Monday so you want to start slow and build to a big finish. I'm thinking  appetizer,  salad,  pasta, and  dessert. Mmmm dessert! You need to get a good rhythm going so you will need some music. Finally you need a couple of thoughtful gifts. Remember our goal here is to thwart the status quo, so ladies if you want roses, chocolates,  and restaurant food call FTD, grab a snickers bar, and drag your soul crushed significant other to Denny's. He can give you that blood diamond pendent over your grand-slam breakfast. For the rest of you...

Gifts that are not thoughtful:

1. Gift certificates, extra points off if they are for Home Depot or Market Basket.
2. Appliances, points off for x-boxes
3. Trampy undergarments, points off for pre-existing holes
4. Mix tapes, points off because you picked your songs not her songs you dope.
5. Toys that are self-heating, self-cleaning, or self-lubricating. Points off if they buzz.
6. Roses (everybody gives roses, it's not thoughtful when 60 million other guys are doing the same thing.
7. Box-o-chocolates (see #6)

Now on to the tunes. Start with the classics. No, not Michael Bolton, the real classics, no not Kenny G, just slow down and let me blog. Duh! I'm talking about the real classics, so we start with Tchaikovsky. Music that is lush, warm, soulful. Music that takes its' time. Remember we're starting slow and easy, then aiming for a big finish.


I know, corny. So corny you could steal it and...



That Walt, he was a thieving bastard, but he was also a master manipulator. Bambi's Mom really? Still romance has a wee bit of manipulation to it no? Let's face it you really just want to be playing with that x-box I told you not to buy, so this whole thing is a manipulation anyway. You bought into that whole "You'll get laid thing" Mmmm laid! By the way Walt knew his stuff. Why pay someone to write romantic stuff when someone else, someone brilliant,  already has? Only steal from the best.



Old school romantic. Gotta love the trumpet bridge at about 2 and a half minutes. If she's not dazzled by these tunes we'll be getting more modern as the week goes by, but I have to say, if she wants Celine Dion, just walk away. If you want Celine Dion seek help. There is good corny. That would be sincere corny, honest corny. If Celine Dion mated with Kenny G all sincerity would drain from our world and we could never love again.  Now we need something to put on the table.

Shrimp: Update a classic.