Summertime.

Finally some summer weather. I don't know about the rest of you all but honestly... aren't you kind of rooting for global warming? I believe it is real, I know the consequences could be dire but after the last 6 months of cool and damp, cold and damp, damp and cold, damp and cool, wasn't last weekend's hot and sunny kind of refreshing? I know, in a month we'll all be crying that it is too hot, but we're human. That's the way we roll. If we get bronze we want silver, if we get silver we want gold, if we get gold we want diamonds, if we get diamonds we cry because we don't have a bronze bowl to put them in. Well I want summer and...

Never trust me. I am easily bought.

So I was up the beach fishing this weekend. Fishing and eating fried dough slathered in butter, Mmmm butter! and cinnamon sugar which might in fact be the most perfect food ever created since it has no know health properties whatsoever. I love the beach. I was even better than that because the water is still too cold to fish from the shore so there was no chance that some crappy marine animal  was going to interrupt my book reading, or my bikini watching, or my dough eating. Now for me that makes for a perfect summer, but since the rest of you are human and given to moments of existential dread, narcissistic personality disorder, and unmitigated consumerism punctuated with lack of imagination I figured I'd map out a summer of possibilities that only tangentially involved stuffing your pie hole with fried wheat products.

Some of this stuff is free, some of it is expensive, but it is all awesome and I can vouch for everything having tried it at least once. Let the summer begin.

1. 6/7-6/9: There is a huge Irish festival in Canton MA. Music, food, Irish football, and beer, it's a win, win, win, win situation. http://bostonirishfestival.info
2. 6/16: Hit the deck at the Surfside 5 at Salisbury beach. Even if the day is hot the  summer mobs won't be there yet but the reggae on the deck will ( worst reggae band ever by the way, doesn't matter) http://www.surfsidesalisbury.com
3. 6/21 or 6/23: Tough call,  you could put on your skinny Mad Men tie and go see Straight No Chaser do an acappella set at the Casino ball room http://www.casinoballroom.com , or you could wait until Sunday and get your freak on with the B-52's at Bank of America Pavilion. http://www.bankofamericapavilion.net, or you could do both if you have the cash, or you could stay home and watch the Bruins and The Penguins both days. Bruins, Bruins, bruins!
4. 6/29 and 6/30: St Peter's Festival in Gloucester. How can you go wrong with an Italian festival? Grilled sausage and peppers, some dude singing Volare, the blessing of the fleet, the greased pole competition over the harbor, and afterward you are in a town that has 1 bar for every 5 citizens. http://www.stpetersfiesta.org
5. 7/4 to 7/7: By the 6th you are probably going to be running out of gas so jump on the T and bop into city hall plaza for the African Festival. Just do it. There will be all kinds of weird ass stuff there that you have probably never seen or heard of before. That's why you go. Get out of your comfort zone. http://www.africanfestivalofboston.org
6. 7/12: So you've been enjoying yourself but you haven't had a chance to dress nice for a month. You can change that by getting buffed up and going to the Bastille day party on Marlbourgh street in Boston. They close the street between Berkeley and Clarendon for some serious dancing with the stars type dancing only for $30 you get to jump in. Who doesn't like giving your best girl a twirl. You know she'll think you're the best if you do. http://www.frenchculturalcenter.org/index.cfm/events/scheduled-events/bastille-day-party-2013/
7. 7/20 and 7/21: Road trip! The Pioneer valley out by UMass is great all summer  but on this weekend the Green River Balloon festival is going on. Pretty sweet when it's dusk, the bands are playing and twenty or thirty balloons go sailing off into the night. http://greenriverfestival.com/2013festival/
8. 7/27 + 7/28: Lowell Folk festival. It's free, it's awesome, just go. http://greenriverfestival.com/2013festival/http://www.lowellfolkfestival.org
9. 8/3+8/4: Newport Jazz Festival. It's the music we invented here in America. It's the music that infected all the other kinds of music affecting everything we listen to from rock to rap. It's quickly going the way of the dinosaurs so just go, spark a fatty, and get your groove on before it's gone. http://www.newportjazzfest.nethttp://www.newportjazzfest.net
10. 8/11+ 8/12: Perseid meteor shower. Best viewed in the predawn hours of the 12th. Find a dark place, set up some beach chairs, and remember that the best things in life are free. http://www.skyandtelescope.com/observing/highlights/185454662.html
11. 8/16+8/17+8/18: Fisherman's feast North End Boston is just as great as the Gloucester feast in June, you have had a month to let the heartburn die down, and they wing a local girl off a 5th floor roof as a representation of an angel. Old timey traditions: What could go wrong? http://www.fishermansfeast.comhttp://www.fishermansfeast.com
12. 8/24 or 8/25: Enough chasing around. Just break out the grill and cook something fine, or go up to Hampton beach for a Blink's Frydoe. Relax, summers already over and it was epic.

This is just a rough outline of coarse. This is America you can add more. There is always the Red Sox, or any of 3 minor league teams with in a 2 hour drive, there are feasts every weekend in the North end, Portsmouth NH kicks ass all summer, there are Blues festivals in Gloucester and Rockland ME, then Rockland doubles down with a lobster fest, there's a huge 3 day rhythm and roots festival in Charleston RI, Waterfire in Providence, Shakespeare on the common... blah blah blah. We are some really lucky folks even if all we do is stay home. Sorry people not from Massachusetts. I can't write about your home, but here is off the hook!

Of coarse that's just the weekends. Summer happens during the week too. So if you are a kid find a sand lot and play some baseball, or build a fort in the woods, or catch frogs, or play hide and seek but put the video games down, ditch the adults, and get outside. If you are a teen find a beach or a swimming hole to call your own, cruise the back roads, blast some music, get your first job, score your first kiss, put the video games down, ditch the adults, and get outside. If you are a young adult get a cabin with 20 of your friends, go camping, learn to kayak, climb all the 4000 foot mountains in the presidential range, put the video games down, ditch the old folks, and get outside. If you're middle-aged  get the kids outside, grill things, play hooky from work to see a summer blockbuster, have neighborhood parties, teach your kid to hit a ball, teach your teen to drive, teach your younger brother or sister that jazz or blues or folk are as much fun as the new stuff, turn off the TV, do family stuff but allow the kids to ditch you once and awhile, and get outside. If you are getting old remember that you can still do all those things that the youngsters are doing, make hot sweaty love to that person you share a bed with, don't ditch anyone that wants to hang with you cause you don't know how long you will have them, turn off the TV, and get outside.

I wanted to thank everyone that bothers to read this. I hit 20,000 page views last week. That's small potatoes in these Internet times but bestseller numbers for a book or article from the 1950's. Since I know you are the people that count I will consider this an important victory.

“Once upon a time, there was a wise man who used to go to the ocean to do his writing. He had a habit of walking on the beach before he began his work.

One day, as he was walking along the shore, he looked down the beach and saw a human figure moving like a dancer. He smiled to himself at the thought of someone who would dance to the day, and so, he walked faster to catch up.

As he got closer, he noticed that the figure was that of a young man, and that what he was doing was not dancing at all. The young man was reaching down to the shore, picking up small objects, and throwing them into the ocean.

He came closer still and called out "Good morning! May I ask what it is that you are doing?"

The young man paused, looked up, and replied "Throwing starfish into the ocean."

"I must ask, then, why are you throwing starfish into the ocean?" asked the somewhat startled wise man.

To this, the young man replied, "The sun is up and the tide is going out. If I don't throw them in, they'll die."

Upon hearing this, the wise man commented, "But, young man, do you not realize that there are miles and miles of beach and there are starfish all along every mile? You can't possibly make a difference!"

At this, the young man bent down, picked up yet another starfish, and threw it into the ocean. As it met the water, he said, 

"It made a difference for that one.” 

― Loren Eiseley

You grow up. You learn things. You learn from your parents. You learn from your school. You learn from your peers. You learn from books. You learn from adventures won. You learn from chances missed. You learn from failing. You learn more in a life-time than the library of congress has words. You become overwhelmed by the shear volume of information there is to learn. Maybe humans are going to lose to the computers, but computers are nothing compared to a human brain. I don't know what the future will bring but there isn't enough memory in all the servers in all the earth to make something dance, or create, or bend the rules, or feel emotion. This post isn't about machines, or computers, or even learning. This post is about the people we learn from. (like Mrs. Waldron who taught me in 8th grade that you don't end a sentence in a preposition).

We lost Burt last week. He was one of my select few. You get facts from a million places but you learn how to  "be"  from only a few people. Coach taught me how to be part of a team but I haven't seen Coach in 30 years. PWT taught me how to work but I haven't seen PWT in 15 years. Dick taught me how to laugh, how to bluff, how to drink like a man instead of a boy, how men act as friends but Dick died 20 years ago. Dad taught me about my word, and honor, and how a man handles responsibility but Dad died 3 years ago. Burt? Burt was Loren Eiseley's star thrower. A practical man that knew with every fiber of his being that you only accomplished things one step at a time. It was the lesson I had the hardest time learning. My way was just seeing the big picture and trying to swallow it whole, or seeing the big picture and being overwhelmed. My way was worthless.

Burt never had to buy more stuff.

Burt's way was the way this country was built. Burt's way was why we won Darwin's race for most of the 20th century. Burt's way is the only way we are going to get things in America back on an even keel. There are things that are bigger than me and you; war, debt, the environment; things that can only be tackled one step at a time. One starfish at a time. It's on me now. Dad and Coach and PWT and Dick and Burt aren't coming through the front door anytime soon. No Fathers, no Dutch Uncles to keep me on track.

I can't even remember my hat! God help us all!

One time I was at a social event. I was young, I had a snoot full, and I had the whole crowd roaring. Every once and awhile I hit a groove and I can be pretty funny. It's a tough thing with funny though, sometimes you can be funny ha ha, then sometimes you can be funny at the edge ha? but with a snoot full the edge can be pretty hard to see and if you jump over it then back quickly enough anyone that notices is laughing too hard to object. So I was on a roll until people where pretty much laughed out and it was time for dinner or presents or whatever and I was feeling pretty good about myself. Sure I danced all over the edge, but it wasn't really an edge anyway but more like a line in the sand that was all smudged before I got there. The 50's were dead long live the 80's. 

What line?

Burt laughed as hard as anyone, but in a quite moment he got me aside. I tried to get in front of whatever he was going to say but I was as shocked as I've ever been when he stopped me with "Don't , I don't want to hit you." Burt was the last man on earth that I ever thought would get riled, and he was so quietly riled it stopped me cold. "There are lines." "They aren't the same for everyone" "You have to see them anyway" Suddenly I was seeing those lines really clearly. Where had they been ten minutes ago? "That was funny, but that doesn't mean you say it around my wife and daughters".

I started playing the whole last hour over in my head and while I could still hear the laughing I could also see the edge and ever time I went over it. Bad taste, bad taste, rude, bad taste, mean, rude, bad taste, really mean, offensive, bad taste, Damn! suddenly I was feeling like an ass. " I don't even think they noticed, but I did." Yeah, I felt sheepish, I didn't want them to notice either. Burt just shook my hand. "Just because it's funny doesn't mean you have to say it".

So I learned two things that day. One was obvious, watch your mouth a skill I still struggle with, but I also learned that there is real power in the quiet guy showing disapproval. There is real menace in those that never play at menace. From battling with brothers to throw downs at work I had been so drenched in male bluster that nothing really got through anymore. But the thoughtful engineer type guy? The TV Cleaver's dad? With the quite level delivery? Bam! Point made.

Burt and Coach and Dick and PWT were the Dutch uncles that kept my young self alive, well and socially acceptable. They're all gone now one way or another. It scares the crap out of me. Even with their help I couldn't remember to measure twice much less keep my foot out of my mouth. They were a whole generation of reasonable men all class and polish marching along to some inner rhythm that made a whole country great. I can't even tie a tie and have the knot look right.

Burt built things. He took care of business. If he had an ego he kept it to himself. He wanted to know how things worked. He protected his family from loud mouth snots. He served his country. He served his community. He served his friends. He served his family. He didn't hit me. And he threw starfish everyday because that's what men do. Because that's all you ever can do.

I never talked about spiritual things with Burt, so I have no idea what he believed about God, heaven or hell. I never saw him get sentimental. He was a scientific man not given to flights of fancy. Still if you look at the world the right way there is fancy enough in the practical to more than go around...

A star thrower made of stars. "Is that an echo of some inner rhythm? Can I follow the cadence? Just shut up and go. The world needs you one star at a time. Thanks Burt".

Sometimes There is Nothing To Say.

Sometimes there is just nothing to say. One minute you are enjoying a sweet spring day and the next you are wondering what righteous hell hath God unleashed upon this earth. Your mind races as you try to reconcile some appalling act of mindless destruction with your need for a world view and an existence that you took for granted just a few moments before. Wasn't it just spring? Didn't the Red Sox just win? Didn't today seem like it was shaping up to be a great day? The television and the radio and the internet all try to bring sense to the senseless in real time with a torrent of verbal sewage that is all about being loud and being first instead of being factual and being fair.

Sometimes there is just nothing to say. There was nothing fair about the event though was there? A new violent atrocity in a long line of violent atrocities that have dogged mankind since we first crawled out of the primordial ooze. The steady march of passing time shedding no light on things while casually crushing the facts of an hour ago. The only thing that was for sure was it was worse than we originally thought, but not as horrible as it could have been. Is something  a fact if you could also apply it to a child's play date, a trip to the dentist, and a presidential term? What do you do when the facts mock you instead of enlightening you? What if the only fact you get in the great squalling 24  hour news cycle is that there are no facts.

Sometimes there is just nothing to say. I worked hard to have a post ready last week. I was just finishing it up when a couple of truly warped young men decided to ruin everyone's Patriots Day by making their own statement to the world. Their statement was so casually cruel, so devoid of understandable meaning that seemingly everyone else with a microphone, a blog, an outlet, or a twitter feed rushed in to fill the space. It was a natural reaction and I wanted to jump in too, but I just couldn't wrap my head around it. It was too close, too personal, it happened too fast, there were hour by hour twists, then it was over. Over and experienced by me in a way that was different from the experience of every other person on the planet. So, if you blog do you speak and make it about you? or do you pass and leave everyone to feel their own version of reality? Sometimes there is just nothing to say.

Doesn't what happened  speak for itself?

           

       

                                 

Is there really anything I can say? Is there anything anyone can say? Sometimes there is nothing to say. There is no grand pronouncement that will make something understandable. Some things just make us all equal for a moment. Best National Anthem ever.

March Madness

I know it's April, we'll do April madness after the month is over so we can give it a proper assessment. Right now we are doing March Madness because March is over and it was pretty mad. Basketball? No, how could basketball possibly compare to a full blown sequester? Sequester! You know, Sequester! What the news people have been flapping about for over 3 months. It happened this month. For real.

Doom, Destruction,Chaos! Run-a-way! Run-a-way!

What do you mean "So What!" Don't you know that bad things will happen? They will. People on television said it would be a fiscal apocalypse, or at least a fiscal cliff. It was coming. It was going to be bad. It was even worse than that. Madness I say! Madness! Oops. Turns out the world didn't go immediately over a cliff. Turns out that big events don't always have big effects. Turns out that the nightly news and the modern media make their money on disaster and overkill. Turns out that if it's not on fire it's not news.

It just seems more urgent this way.

So in order to make a budget discussion as news worthy as say; a school shooting, we need barking headlines about the worst possible things that could happen in the most immediate ways possible. Oh my God! Oh my God! Oh my God, the sequester! But what if the consequences aren't immediate and destructive? What if years go by as the changes caused by the sequester slowly alter the way we do business? What if it ends up working out just like almost everything in real life works out? That is it takes time and only turns out sort of like the experts predicted. Madness right? How are we going to decide what's good for the country if we have to pay attention for years and years only to maybe hit a dead end down the line?

Well, how about that school shooting? It didn't happen in March, but it was so horrific that when March finally rolled around surely it altered the way we approach gun ownership in this country...

Actual permit card Obama thinks you should have to carry.

... or maybe it won't. But that would be madness wouldn't it? Surely there is enough political will after such a horrendous event to affect at least minor change in the gun laws? Even if it was bad law that's why we have a Supreme court, something should have happened by March right? Well there might have been if you could have gotten a vote in the days following the actual shooting. That didn't happen though which gave people time to come to their senses. After all you never know when an islamo-fascist backed attack  from Korea working hand in hand with the branches of our government that are hopelessly tangled with the  FEMA controlling, sharia loving, 47% that are personally on Obama's payroll so they can topple our job creating over-taxed 1% plunging the entire country into a totalitarian prison camp where hard working white people had better hope that they have enough guns to overcome all of the above plus the sadly honorable but hopelessly duped US military. For real.

Just because it is a movie doesn't mean it couldn't happen.

Madness. On a local note the Boston Phoenix closed down last month. Damn you Craig's List! The Phoenix may have financed itself with ads for adult entertainment and roommate searches but in return we got a weekly alternative to the status quo media. Alternative does not always mean accurate but I'll stack up their reporting on the build up to Iraq or the finical meltdown against any other news source. You want the drama of the Sequester go mainstream, you want the nuts and bolts of the Sequester read the Phoenix. Except it's dead. I'm glad Craig's list is taking care of the hookers and the collage kids but doesn't one less voice, one less viewpoint seem like madness when huge portions of what we call facts comes from anonymous Internet sources?

A sub and a squid attacking Boston? What could be more newsy than that?

Madness. A little piece of your past shuts down and is gone. The people you know and respect own machine guns why? The big bad that stalks the news doesn't immediately scorch the earth so, we forget about it? If the crazy shit that does happen causes no political will, and the crazy shit that doesn't happen is too underground for anyone to notice, and in the end there is no-one but the establishment, or faceless bloggers telling us about both... well WTF!

There is only one answer... jerky! If I'm going to be hiding in the woods clutching my AK47 while I wait for the combined forces of North Korea and Obama to swarm down on me I want some good tasting jerky.

Mmmm! Jerky!

1. So you will need at least 4 lb. of London broil, flank steak, brisket, or hanger steak. No sense drying out an expensive cut of meat until those government goons actually show up.
2. Lay the stuff out flat, trim off excess fat (which you can add when you grind your own burger meat), and pop those bad boys into the freezer for 60 minutes.
3. Once the cold firms them up slice the thin with the grain. (if you cooked these cuts on the stove you would slice them against the grain so they would be easier to chew, but as jerky they will just flake apart if you do them this way. Go with the grain you have been warned).
4. Toss the sliced meat into a 1 gallon storage bag.
5. Add a cup of soy sauce.
6. Add a cup of Worcestershire.
7. Now it's up to you. Garlic powder? Cayenne? Honey? Chili Powder? Mustard?Hot sauce? Pepper? 5 Spice powder?
8. It's all you after step 6. Allspice, honey, and hot sauce give you jerk jerky. Tomato paste, black pepper, and coke give you bar-b-cue. Tomato paste, vinegar and liquid smoke give you barbecue. If you are fighting for freedom you might as well have the jerky of your dreams.
9. Heat the oven to 150/200 degrees. Whatever your ovens lowest setting might be.
10. Be best results will come if you put the meat directly on the oven grates, but that is messy and you don't want the stormtroopers mocking your house keeping as they drag you off to your doom so feel free to use cookie sheets. You'll have to turn the meat every 3 hours.
11. It will take at least 6 hours to dry but I'd give it at least 8. When it is done it should be dry and slightly bendy. If it cracks you can still eat it, it's just that the experience might be a little lest satisfying.

Madness. How did I forget the biggest story of March? We have a new Pope! Even if you are not Catholic you still have a new Pope since the Pope controls more peoples thinking than the NRA and Fox News combined.

...and he's infallible. What could go wrong?

 Sorry about the no hope post. March just struck me that way. Now make way for spring and I'll be back with something better. At least I'll be ready for either the warm weather or the end of the constitution. Whichever comes first.

Yeah Korea, I'm coming for you!

Once More With Feeling!

I love Saint Paddy's Day...

Sorry, I always forget to wear pants the day after.

... that's love, love, love Saint Paddy's Day. On March 16th I'm working my 3rd Saturday in a row while a nation in the grips of a sequester are wondering why a bunch of pin-headed congressman are screwing with their mail and the national parks. On March 18th I'm working my approximately 1,800 Monday safe in the knowledge that our AK wielding nation of gun zealots are keeping me safe from the FEMA camps our socialist president has been plotting since his days as a Muslim mole in Hawaii. Plus I don't know where my pants are. But on March 17th none of that matters because I'm getting busy with a Guinness and a plate of eggs at 9AM, Bing is singing McNamara's Band on the juke box, the place is packed with fake Irishmen having a real good time, there's a boiled dinner simmering on the stove at home, I've got The Quite Man in my Netflix que, there's still 15 more bars to visit, and I'm wearing pants. Only in America. ( Actually out of respect I wear pants in most countries.)

What other countries dye their rivers green? You go Chicago!

So with nothing to lose but my bad mood, my sobriety, my virginity, and my pants I set out on a quest to imbibe at least one adult beverage in every drinking establishment in Haverhill. Archie's, Smith's ,
Kruger's, Lasting Room, Chit Chat, Han Garden, Barking Dog, Toma's, OG's, The Tap, Peddler's Daughter, Essex Street... so I lied, there are only 12 within walking distance of my kitchen. Still I persevered. I was drinking Black Adders, which sound more bad ass than Black and Tans, and are more bad ass than Black Velvets. I should have just had Guinness but no one in this country knows how to pour one so if my drink of choice had to be ruined I wanted it ruined in a bad ass way.

Today's science lesson...the density of different liquids

1. Take a pint glass.
2. Fill it half way with Magners or some other Irish hard cider.
3. Using a spoon to slow the stream slowly top off the glass with Guinness.
4. Note that the "heavy" Guinness is the one that floats.
5. Drink, enjoy, repeat 12 more times.

I didn't say I walked to each place, just that I could.

As the day progressed and I floated from bar to bar I had to give my birth country credit. The original Saint Patrick's day in Ireland was just like any catholic holy day of obligation. Church, grimness, praying yatta, yatta, yatta... (although they did cancel lent for one day which isn't so much a party as it is a reprieve in the middle ages that was pretty cool) It took a new country and a new spirit to turn that into the kind of drunken party that  spans all social and religious groups. That's the America I've been missing... the country that shamelessly jams fine old world traditions into the melting pot then dumps out something new and fun for everybody. There really isn't one authentic thing involved in the whole Saint Paddy's day who-ha; we just made the whole thing up. Leprechauns in the old country wear red not green. Irish people didn't eat corned beef because they were generally poor and had to ship their cows to England. St Patrick wasn't even Irish, was brought to the island as a slave, and might have been imaginary. Oh yeah, and his favorite color was blue. There were shamrocks though, religious men of the time used them to teach the heathens about the holy trinity. Try that on a drunken sorority girl.

You know what else is wrong with St Paddy's day as done in Ireland? It has nothing but Irish doing the partying.

Red hair  much?

Now check out  America getting our diversity on.

One Jewish Mayor of Chicago and the O'Toole family

Nothing brings on the equality like a set of green shamrock deely boppers.

I didn't stagger home until 7PM. My boiled dinner was faithfully waiting for me. How awesome is that?  Food that you can not ruin because it is a sort of sad mush to start with. I just added another Guinness to the pot, took a shower, ( I still had my pants at that moment) and watched sports center until I passed out from pure fun ( and some where upwards of 8 black adders). (Hey, don't get judgmental with me. It was spread out over 10 hours and plenty of walking).

I was too tired in the AM, yeah I'm going with tired, to eat my boiled dinner. Couldn't find my pants either. I really should buy another pair. No problem with the dinner, I just added a Bud since I was out of Guinness, I left the lid on tight and the heat turned low. I'd eat a meal at home eventually. Like that night. Only by then I didn't want boiled dinner. No sweat.

It's not Irish, but then neither is Eva Longoria

1. Heat a cast iron skillet under a medium low flame.
2. Fish the corned beef out of the boiled dinner. Save everything else for later or maybe fry some of the potatoes and carrots in butter, Mmmm butter, to go with your sandwich.
3. You need 4 slices of bread; rye bread would be best.
4. You need four slices of cheese, swiss would be best.
5. (What do you mean you don't have cheese? Philistine! How do you live that way?)
6. If you have thousand island dressing use that, mustard will work instead, but if all else fails there is no shame in going commando.
7. Butter, Mmmm butter, 2 slices of the bread.
8. Starting with the unbuttered bread, go dressing or mustard, chopped cabbage, cheese, sliced corned beef, cheese, buttered bread butter facing out. 
9. When both sandwiches are made put them butter side down in the skillet.
10. Now butter the tops in anticipation of the flip.
11. Low and slow baby, Low and slow. You need the cheese to melt, the bread to get a golden brown crust, and the whole thing to heat through.

It isn't an authentic version of the sandwich, which isn't Irish since it was probably invented in an American Jewish deli in the 1920's, and has no uniquely Irish ingredients, but the umami factor is off the charts and after a day of being "tired" you will find it a food of the gods. Saint Paddy's day it's a gift that keeps on giving. So what did we learn.

1. You must always have cheese in you fridge.
2. Fake holidays are more fun than real ones.
3. Guinness is the light low calorie part of a Black&Tan, a Black Adder, and a Black Velvet.
4. Boston and New York may have the rep, but Chicago has the green river.
5. Frying things in butter is awesome.

Pants are over-rated.

So here we are, 365 days later, facing yet another Valentine's Day. Woo Hoo! Last year I pointed out a few places where Valentine's Day goes off the rails... well lets not talk about them now . Instead maybe the best thing I can do is to try and fight the consumerism and destructive thinking that have overtaken yet another, should really be wonderful instead of sucky, holiday. Now I know that I am a poor choice to fix a holiday about love. For one thing I was completely wrong about love until just 2 months ago. For another all of my love encounters end with me leaving $200 on the nightstand then doing the walk of shame back to my car. Still I think any holiday that has a well armed baby as its' main symbol must have at least a sense of humor. Well armed winged babies being almost as funny as monkeys with guns. Actually upon close examination the resemblance to me is uncanny... maybe I can contribute something.

I do wear cooler glasses though.

So lets just eliminate the bad stuff that the holiday has accumulated, blood diamonds, slave chocolate, drug lord flowers ( I told you I'm not talking about it this year. If you are curious take the link above to last year), and instead make for a kinder, gentler Valentine's Day. Now I'm sorry ladies, but I'm going to have to ask you to leave the blog at this point. Yes, leave. Face it, if it were up to men February 14 would just be another calendar day. This whole holiday and a huge part of its corruption ( I said check last years post) is on the ladies. You couldn't just be happy with what team Y chromosome was able to come up with unprompted so you had to guarantee at least one emotionally rewarding day a year for yourselves. Plus presents. Now I want you to go out and think about how emotionally unrewarding it is to try and mandate an emotionally rewarding day.( Presents are always good so you don't have to think about them unless of coarse you find presents emotionally rewarding, which makes you a sociopath who should dump whomever you are currently dating for their own sake .) This kind of thinking is a koan, a zen puzzle if you will. The only way to get the answer is to just get it. Men already do which is why we don't get much else. So you ladies get on that Valentines connundrum and leave the boys with me. You can come back for the recipe at the end. Sociopaths please just leave.

I know, I know... you can't believe how smart I am.

OK boys, are they gone? Good, because we have to get out in front on this Valentine's Day thing. Face it, we don't really have a very good track record on the whole treating women well thing. No wonder they grasp at a soulless corporate holiday front-loaded with faux emotions and backloaded with 3 products that make veal look like the moral choice. Don't worry, all we have to do is try a little harder, or perhaps just try a little differently. She's the love of your life, the mother of your children, your better half, she's certainly worth it, right? So, an occasional hug just because. When you hear that Wa,Wa,Wa, while you're watching TV focus so that you'll realize that those are actually real words she is making. If you are lucky they will be in a language you understand and organized in some fashion that imbues them with meaning. You know what? Put the seat down. I know that it is stupid that she keeps falling in, but is it really any trouble to lower the seat? You raised it in the first place after all. Do it for selfish reasons; aren't you tired of that wet bottom when she climbs back into bed? Take the kids for at least half a day every weekend. What do you mean why? They're your kids dumbass and if there is one thing I know about kids it's that the greatest gift you can give a person is free time away from them. I could go on but the sad truth is you know all the crappy things you do to the woman in your life Mr,"I'm done so I'm going to sleep now." Work on it.

So that leaves us to fix Valentine's Day until all that improving we do makes Valentine's Day unnecessary. Now the first thing you can do is save the restaurant trip to pretty much any other day of the year than February 14. Friday's and Saturdays are crowded year round but they don't have special "romance packages or menus" except when they want to screw you (cough Mother's Day) (cough Easter) (cough New Years). The only one you want screwing you on Valentine's Day is your soul mate so skip the restaurant and eat at home. You'll need a menu, a soundtrack, entertainment, and a gift. We'll keep it simple so you'll have plenty of time for all that good loving you'll be getting.

For diner I'm leaning toward pumpkin or sweet potato ravioli in a brown butter sauce with a composed salad on the side. You should be able to handle this if you can make grilled cheese without hurting yourself, but if you can't take-out, artfully served, (Dude! you have to use real china for this) will probably pass muster. Do not try and pass the take-out off as your own cooking. Women can smell liars from miles away. Just serve it without comment. If she presses you tell her where it came from, but that you wanted to make tonight special.

Composed

1. Hard boil 4 eggs.
2. Put the eggs in a pan( that has a lid) of water, bring to a boil, turn off the heat, put on the lid. When the waters cool enough to touch you have hard boiled eggs.
3. Blanch some asparagus
4. Re-boil the water, meanwhile bend an asparagus spear until it snaps, line it up with the rest of the spears and cut off the  parts that stick out past the break, these are the woody stems, toss, salt the hell out of the boiling water, add the spears, 4 minutes later bring the pot to the sink and fill with cold water. Let sit then drain. The spears should be bright green and crisp tender.
5. Spread a layer of greens on two salad plates. Bagged pre-washed greens is fine.
6. Place the asparagus in the center.
7. Peel the eggs, slice in half, arrange at the corners of the plate, you can make them ahead, but the salad is better if the eggs are still warm.
8. Vinaigrette is 1 part vinegar to 3 parts oil. Salt is good. A dab of mustard will keep the dressing from separating after you give it a mix. Drizzle over the salads.
9. Grate a good asiago or parmesan cheese over each plate.
10. A crumble of bacon takes things to the next level. You want to take things to the next level.

Obviously with something like a composed salad great components make all the difference. Bacon bits from a jar will work but things aren't going to be as good as they could be. The simpler the preparation the harder it is to hide the flaws in the ingredients.

Ditto for the Ravioli!

1. Melt one stick of unsalted butter in a fry pan over medium high heat. At the same time boil another pan of generously salted water.
2. After the butter foams add a finely chopped shallot and 8 to 10 sage leaves to the pan.
3. Turn down the heat to medium low.
4. Watch the pan, take it right off the heat once the butter turns brown. The smell should be outstanding. Fish out the sage leaves and slice thin.
5. Meanwhile cook the ravioli (Store bought is definitely better than the ones I make, but if you are a kitchen whiz homemade would be nice.)
6. By cook I mean toss them into the pan of boiling water. Stir. When they float to the top scoop them out with a slotted spoon and toss them into the butter sauce. 
7. Plate.
8. Again, a quick grate of asiago or parmesan.
9. A sprinkle of that bacon....!
10. Finally sprinkle the sage for color and an herbal undertone.

Bang, dinners on. Do the eggs and asparagus ahead and the whole thing is only going to take 30 minutes fridge to plate. So have the lights low, a few candles burning, and tunes. Now you can certainly play any music you like, this is America after all, or if you are very observant you could play the music she likes but I doubt you can do that or you wouldn't be wasting your time taking advise from me so I am going to suggest going old school. How old? 40 years at least. I'm thinking doo wop old, I'm thinking soul, or maybe just some lush orchestral jazz. Face it, at first she'll probably think it's goofy, but at least it won't be wrong. Then if you play the good stuff that I'm going to point you towards and she gets to watch you go all iron chef on some brown butter, and the house smells amazing, and she sees her gift, (later, we'll get to that later) and a 20 piece band soars in the background she will forget about Carly Ray Jepson. If not give her the boot, eat the ravioli, pawn the gift, and contemplate why your broken soul wants to get frisky with a woman whose soul is made of plastic.

Besides you really should have some of this stuff on your music player. Do you really want the soundtrack of your life to be nothing but Green Day?

Sinatra without all the mean

Start with Tony. It's jazz music with pop arrangments. Ear candy for adults.

She was one of the first to bring pop to the bedroom.

It's not soul, but it's getting there. You're still dancing in the living room.

60's hair, you could bounce pennies off of that.

It is soul, but white girl soul. Adele's mom brings the feeling but it is still happening in your head not her hips.

Now you're still dancing close but the heat is in your hips and the bedroom calls.

You can play your sound track in any order you want but if you go with Reverend Al before dinner you might end up filling up on something other than ravioli. The beauty of this soundtrack is if it doesn't work it is not because of your age, it is because you or your girl are pinheads. Lush is always lush. The things that make these albums perfect for romance now are exactly what made them perfect 45 years ago. It's exactly the same stuff that works for contemporary music and it is the stuff that made Greensleeves the go to seduction song after a joust. Trust me, if it doesn't work it is not the music that is broken.

Now somewhere in here you are going to have to let her open her present. Here I defer to you. The only thing I ask is hold off on the chocolate because I'm going to show you how to avoid the whole child slavery problem in a second. Then if a diamond is a must (repeat after me "Diamonds are evil") promise me it will be an antique (used) diamond. Me? I just give cash which is the best gift ever every time, or if you put some serious thought into it ( really the best gift ever every time) go with what you know she likes. A word of advice; grown women that love stuffed toys are disturbing on several levels so if a Vermont Teddy Bear is the first idea that pops into your head you might want to either run for it and try again next year with a different woman, or slam that head into a cinder block until it thinks of a better gift.

We will assume that everything went well. We will assume everyone got what they needed out of the holiday. We will assume that some cuddling is now in order. I know, I know, you just want to sleep. Well, we are trying to do better so some cuddling is now mandatory. That's why we brought entertainment. That way the cuddling doesn't have to include talking. I told you we were trying harder, but I don't expect you to stay awake, cuddle a clingy woman, and talk. I'm trying to make things better, not kill you.

Funny Romantic War movie. Perfect!

So while Rick and Elsa battle the Nazis and their doomed love you can wrap your arm around your girl and if she starts getting talky just offer her one of these...

She'll love your balls.

These will have to be made in advance because the ganach needs to set up. If you want to surprise her you will have to figure out how to keep your balls secret. First you will need 2 pounds of fair trade chocolate. You might have to search around. Despite the whole child slavery thing of the big 3 chocolate sellers in this country Nestle has signed a pledge that only covers price not working (or slavery) conditions, Mars has agreed to accept fairtrade but only with a gradual step down which means that until 2020 their bars could be 70% from a tainted source. Hershey refuses to talk about their sources or sign the pledge. So what do we do?

Divine chocolate distributers are owned by a farming collective in Ghana. You can order chocolate from them at a rate of $16 a pound which is about twice as much as the same amount from Hershey. Hey, it's your call. I can only give you the information.

1. Chop 2 pounds of 70% cacao chocolate. Put 1 pound and 3/4 pounds in separate heat proof bowls. Save the other 1/4 pound anywhere you like.
2. Heat a cup of heavy cream until it just starts to boil.
3. Mix the cream and the 1 pound of chocolate, stir until smooth.
4. Put the ganache  in the fridge for a few hours. Do something else.
5. When the ganache has set use a small scoop to make balls of ganache. You want them golfball size.
6. After you make each one place it on a sheet pan covered with parchment paper.
7. When you have used up the chocolate you will have a sheet full of balls, pop them in the fridge while you prep everything else.
8. Take the other bowl of chocolate and microwave it on high for 20 seconds, stir.
9. Microwave, stir. Microwave, stir. Keep doing this just until the chocolate is completely melted.
10. Immediately dump the cold chocolate into the bowl and stir until it is incorporated with the rest. This tempers the chocolate so it will harden up nice and smooth instead of grainy and gray.
11. Pull the balls from the fridge.
12. Use a table spoon to roll each ball in the chocolate coating then return to the parchment.
13. You could also give each ball an additional roll in some chopped nuts, chopped hard candy, coco powder, go wild.
14. Let them set in the fridge.
15. Give to your girl if she tries to talk over Dooley Wilson singing As Time Goes By

Happy Valentines Day. Got to run. I need to get to an ATM for nightstand money.

Lost Boys

So December found me wrong about love, what other things have I been wrong about over the years. I started thinking on it hard after that last post ( and hard it was since I know just about everything) but then work took off, projects came in a torrent along with Christmas and New Years, time flew by as it is want to do, and I sort of forgot about the possibility that I might be wrong about things. Me wrong? Ha! The next thing you'll be telling me is Payton Manning would lose a football playoff game by playing weeny football, or that the NRA wouldn't quietly go away after the Newtown CT shootings, or that Christmas wouldn't be as emotionally and financially satisfying as it usually is. Me wrong? Then why would fate involve me in  a huge project relocating the good Fathers of our local Jesuit collage into temporary digs while their cozy residence hall is being renovated? Damned fate, I've been avoiding the catholic church for thirty-five years, nay all religions, because they're evil. Maybe there are occasional anomalies in our multi-verse where true love can thrive but religion? Bah!

Just a comfy little crash pad paid for with gold extorted from the poor. Each brick washed with alter boy tears.

So me, still not wrong. I'm sure you have managed to glean from my previous posts that I have a strong aversion to organized anything and the Catholic Church sure seems organized. Organized enough to hush up their pedophile scandal for more than 30 years, organized enough to turn a profit off of orphans in the Montreal dioceses, organized enough for the Magadelene laundries in Ireland. So maybe a few good eggs managed to surface in Latin America in the 60's, ( you know; feed the poor and comfort the suffering) just don't tell Bill O'Rielly and American Catholics about it. I still consider it a good policy when you meet a priest, or minister for that matter, to consider them guilty until proven innocent and I was about to meet 41 priests, Jesuits at that. Why just search the internet for a few moments and my righteous anger is nothing compared to the heaping piles of Jesuit conspiracies about to engulf us. I was wrong once, but me and the internet? Come on!

My preconceptions about the clergy weren't disappointed when the project started in September. I was introduced to a steady stream of imploded vaguely Irish looking little dudes in their 60's and 70's, minus 2 young guys from Africa and 1 from India, who didn't so much inhabit that cottage in the picture above as seem imprisoned there. It was as if the Lost Boys were living in a Neverland built by Charles Addams. They were lost Boys too. Somehow their insular lives and bonding to the church had rendered them strangely adolescent in their demeanor. Giggly, occasionally petulant, peckish with the disruption and a little helpless outside of their safe places. These Lost Boys were not waiting for Peter and Wendy... no they were a little different...

Not that different!

Sorry about that. Wrong lost boys. My preconceived notions must be getting the best of me.

Just like this, but lots older, and no Wendy.

I was tasked with relocating their offices, an activity made harder because each office required a photo shoot so they could be packed up, relocated, and restore to exactly the same state the good Fathers left them. In addition I was told that the offices contained many objects that were "irreplaceable" which is a transportation code word for expensive. ( not hard to believe, I once moved a whole room of 17th century and earlier manuscripts at one of the BC libraries because the leaky roof was dumping water on the open shelves ).The Fathers all felt the need to quiz me directly as to how I would proceed so they would feel comfortable that the disruption of their lives would be manageable. They especially were concerned that the photo shoot would interfere with their daily routines, a fear I relieved them of by assuring each one that he didn't even have to be present for the cameras since he wasn't nearly as important as his stuff. (Word it the right way and say it with the right inflection you can insult people and they can't do a thing about it.)

Turned out that every single one of them showed up for the photo shoot of his office because all their stuff really was irreplaceable. There were all kinds of things there that once destroyed would be gone forever. There were computers that still had floppy drives, lectures recorded on beta-max tapes, music on LP's, 8 Tracks, and cassettes. One father's phone was a rotary dialer! Are you kidding me? They must have been spending the big money on... no the furnishings were old, but not antique old, more like 40's military old. Stout wooden desks that would become antiques someday unless they were burned for firewood first, green pleather chairs with only four wheels at the bottom instead of the OSHA mandated 5, there were typewriters...typewriters! all files where vertical. There was no pressboard only items waiting to be made into pressboard. It would have been hard to replace the stuff if it was destroyed, it would be harder to find somebody that would want to.

Those church bastards were just living it up! Word.

By the time I was on my forth photo shoot I had to ask "They spent hugh money on this building, they're spending tons more on this renovation, the chapel, the dinning hall, the foyer, everything is immaculate couldn't you guys get better furniture? Father F didn't even have to think about it, "The building is for the glory of God, the furniture in here is what we need to work. " He put it out there so fast that I wasn't sure I was buying it, but he seemed so sincere it would have been bad form to continue  my inquisition ( ha, pun! the office of the inquisition, yes that inquisition, still exists at the current vatican). Haters hate, it's what we do.

I was a little flummoxed though. On first visit and especially when they were in a group they definitely seemed to conform to my expectations which is to say, "a bit off", but they were getting around my anti-religion, anti-priest defenses by being friendly, by feeding me every day at their dinning hall, by openly drinking scotch and other adult beverages, by checking out cleavage (got you Father A!) , and by generally just being regular people in a very WTF situation. Don't judge you say? How else would you categorize a man that gave up cleavage even though he was still giving it the hungry side look 40 years later. That's straight up tragedy.

...and did I say regular people? That would be true until you got to the irreplaceable flotsam that they had saved to brighten their offices. There were none of the high are crucifixes that adorned the public areas, but there were dozens made from old metal, bits of rubber and wood, hand painted pieces of furniture, pretty much anything that could be used for crafts, or house building, can be used to fashion crucifixes. Crucifixes that each had a unique story. Crucifixes that came from every ripped-off beat-down third world hell hole on this planet. Crucifixes that weren't the spoils of colonialism or conquest, but gifts to the only men that brought food, medicine, and education to places where hope was a commodity that no-one had enough money to buy.

... and it didn't stop there. Each of them had little pottery things or carved wood items crafted just for them. Crafted by people that had nothing else to give. People that filled the pictures that covered the walls. Pictures of baptisms in jungle ponds, pictures of half built schools on rugged mountainsides, pictures of trucks full of food surrounded by people patiently waiting their turn, pictures of festivals, parties, and feasts that reminded me of nothing my own catholic childhood could remember. These guys were not regular people.

I gave up on organized religion over 30 years ago. Church is where thinking goes to die. That doesn't mean I get to pass blanket judgment on millions of people just because they are part of something that has gone off the rails over and over again... but I did. The Fathers at St Mary's made me feel small about it though. Who have I helped? Is the world a better place because I live my reasonably moral but safe life while churning out a snarky blog, or because someone in the grip of what I consider a delusion builds an infirmary in the Sudan?

There's all kinds of lost boys.

If good people belong to a bad organization does that make them not good? Can an organization even have a moral component? Can we do good things if we do them for bad reasons? Can we judge and not be judged? I wasn't wrong about the church but I was dead wrong about the Fathers... or maybe just lost?