In a nutshell, this is why I like Vegas

Andy and Alisha, two of my good friends back in New York, got married over the weekend.  I told them, “Sorry I couldn’t be there, but if you guys want to come out to Vegas and have your vows renewed by Elvis, let me know because I know a guy.”

They laughed, but, like… I actually DO know a guy.  Where else on the planet could I say that and not be joking?

Mindy, that cookbook sounds awesome and that means a lot from me, considering how much I hate to cook.  Although I have gotten better about it; I can’t even remember the last time I ate tuna out of a can with a fork and had the nerve to claim that I made lunch.

And in closing, I would just like to let everyone know that “Santa Fe” should be called “Eugene, New Mexico.”  Deja-vu all over the place.

 

I like food…

The aisles of Smith Family disgorged something truly fabulous and strange into my waiting hands a week ago. It’s perhaps the oddest, and certainly the most amusing cookbook I’ve ever set my food-writing-loving eyes on. What is this culinary wonder, you ask? Well, my friends, it just so happens to be a collection of recipes sollicited from prominent indie rockers.

It’s called (ahem) I LIKE FOOD, FOOD TASTES GOOD

It’s fascinating to see what some of these bands cook and eat … or don’t. The highly predictable (Pork Loin with Poblano Chiles from the oh-so-Portland-trendy Decemberists or They Might Be Giants’ “Countrypolitan,” which involves pomegranate juice) trades twos with the “… what??”-inducing. Death Cab for Cutie’s “Peanut Butter and Veggie Sausage Sandwiches” spring to mind. (”Shouldn’t be tasty, but it is,” says their singer.) And who on earth would have predicted that the Violent Femmes, in all their rough-around-the-edges glory, would be cooking wild boar ragú?

The dishes themselves are amusing enough, but the recipe instructions are frequently (though not always – it’s like a treasure hunt) written in a sort of odd email vernacular that’s half recipe, half manifesto, half insight into what famous-ish musicians do when they’re not on stage. “the honey will not want to mate with the lime at first, but it will.” “Make some jasmine rice, why don’t you?” “When the lentils are officially finished cooking, put on side 1 of the Beatles’ Revolver LP.”

Devandra Barnhart, though, is the one who takes the cake … or the fried bananas, as it were. His ingredients list for “my favorite recipe for AFRICANITAS RICAS you shall require!” includes “many bananas! two eggggs!! SOUR CREAM!!! HONEY!” And this instructions passage cracks me up:

“STIRRRR!!!!!! leave the bowl alone and go get another bowl, crush the graham crackers into a fine fine powder! like sand!

SIR

LAWRENCE

OF ARABIA!!!!!!!

put it in bowl number two!”

And, not to be outdone, from Jonathan Richardson of the Early Day Miners (who, I’ll admit, I’ve never heard of), a cocktail comprised of ice, sake, and root beer. Says its creator, “it’s about half and half as far as drinkability.” He calls it the Karate Kid, and I’m planning on taking his word for it.

Look out, Julia Child … the rockers are a-comin’ for your tiara.

 

Them yellow jackets keep the tired man from slackin’

There’s always something else to do. There’s a chore, an e-mail, or some sort of personal hygiene that takes precedence over writing. I make lists all day long, sometimes writing down items I’ve already taken care of simply so that I can feel like I’ve accomplished something. One of the items on one of these lists is this post. Actually, I’d forgotten about it until Mike sent out the group e-mail. And by the way, thank you Mike: without your update, I wouldn’t have remembered the list and thus wouldn’t have remembered that I needed to try Fresca again. It’s been over six years, and I still didn’t like it, but at least I got to cross it off the list.

I’m in the middle of a couple of transitions. It looked like I was going to be moving to San Francisco for a bit, but that dissolved. I just signed a year lease for a house in Saybrook, Ohio with a couple of friends from high school. They brew their own beer and they listen to bands like this, but I won’t hold that against them. One of them is deathly allergic to cats, so my little girl Basti is going to have to stay in Vermont. I’m considering jabbing him with allergy shots in the middle of the night. You may laugh, but I’m not joking.

I’ve been writing for a lot of music publications, though not getting paid enough to support myself. I’m in the process of finishing a couple of bigger pieces and then curtailing a lot of that work. I’ve got two part time gigs ghost writing, one for the ACT. I can’t talk about because of a non-disclosure agreement. There’s a community college here, actually it’s a branch of Kent State, at which I’m considering teaching. I’ll let you know what pans out.

Also I’m not involved with this, but I’d really like to be.

Besides all of the weird music I usually proffer, I’ve been on an eighties kick lately and listening to Uh Huh Her. I just finished reading The Tipping Point, a recommendation from a friend who’s into PR and Marketing. It’s got some really interesting ideas in it, though it made me even more paranoid about advertising. I still have to force myself to look at pictures in magazines. I’ve been learning guitar (besides tremolo picking power chords), and watching less T.V.–I’m hoping to cut the latter out by the end of the month. Oh yeah, and after a lot of soul searching, I’ve become a bearded, chain-smoking vegetarian.

I miss all of you in very specific, individual ways.

Love,
Nick

 

Egyptian weddings = the coolest

Yeah, when I wrote that e-mail, I had totally forgotten that this blog exists.

I went to Viva Las Vegas, the theme wedding place, on Friday and met this guy Brian, who is a wedding coordinator/performer.  He said the next day would be perfect to follow him around since they were doing a bunch of different themes back-to-back.  So I spent Saturday sitting in on complete strangers’ weddings.  Highlights include ancient China, Elvis (they do a lot of those; Brian has Elvis hair), the Blues Brothers (the vows involved “Do you take this woman to be your lawfully wedded wife?” and “Do you promise to always live your life with soul?”) and my favorite: the Egyptian.

The couple was really cool.  They’re from San Diego and had a big church wedding 10 years ago.  They have this tradition of renewing their vows in Vegas every five years, so five years ago, they did the Elvis Blue Hawaii and this weekend, they went for Egypt.  He had on this royal purple robe and she was all decked out as Cleopatra.  Cleopatra doesn’t get carried down the aisle on a litter,  but two slaveboys do carry her to the altar on a chair.  There was also a belly dancer running around.  It was the goofiest day ever (I mean, obviously) but so much fun.  At one point, I was watching a wedding set-up and the receptionist came in looking for the owner all, “Ron, Marilyn Monroe is here to see you.”  And… yeah, Marilyn Monroe was there to see him.

My living situation is going well.  Vegas has been binge developing for the last ten or so years and they seem to go around in a circle.  My house is in the southwest in what I think is the furthest-out group of houses.  We’re only, like, fifteen minutes from the Strip but our area is totally “Two years ago, there were probably just cow skulls and shit over here” desert and the views (at least until something gets built past us) are awesome.  Roommates.com did me well.

I have three days off in a row and I’ve never been to New Mexico, so… I am in New Mexico right now.  I decided yesterday to come to Santa Fe on the fly; it’s about ten hours from Vegas, but unless I relocate to Oklahoma or something, it’s never going to be less than ten hours from me, so I figured I might as well go for it.  My roommate sometimes comes back to the house on his lunch break and walked in on me packing. He was like, “Going somewhere?”
“Yeah, Santa Fe!”
“Santa Fe… New Mexico?”
“Yeah!”
“Why?”
“Just for kicks.  I’m not working again until Friday.  I was gonna leave you a note to call me if you want me to bring you back some ridic hot sauce.”

And then he just looked at me for a second with a half-smile and the wide eyes of “Are you fucking insane?”

Ok, that’s all for now.  I just woke up and there is some Santa Fe to be had.

Hope everyone’s summer is going well!

~Mike

 

The Becca Update

Ahhh how fast the summer doth fly by. And here we are almost at September! Mindy, I would have written about all the lovely books I’ve read this summer, but sadly my reading has been glued to my current school, internship and freelancing duties. I have managed to make it to two movies, both embarrassingly of the superhero variety: Iron Man and The Dark Knight.

But most of my free time has been spent taking 2nd year Spanish crammed into the three short summer months (I’m beginning to think a little bit in Spanish, yeah!), writing way too many articles as a freelancer for the West Lane News, searching for Portland apartments and interning at least three days a week at KLCC. I’ve been running up and down 12th street and working out at the gym to relieve the stress….practically every day.

Silly stuff happens every day. On the gossipy side my roommate’s b-friend moved in with us, preparing the space for my imminent departure. This is a small apartment for three, but we’re doing okay, not fabulously but okay, and I do feel a bit couple-targeted, but I’ll live. And the meat as usuall is constantly thrown about the kitchen, which I’m never too thrilled about. Besides the roomie situation I’m sad to leave this cute little town. It’s grown on me.

I officially have a boyfriend now. Perhaps we’ll live happily ever after for at least a year. Hahaha.

And OPB looms in my future. So for now tata! and please write and tell how you’re all doing; it’s easier to do this than write a crap-ton of emails after all.

Luv Becca

 

Hot bibliophilia in the summertime

One of the things I look forward to most at the end of any term, semester, or set period of busyness is the time and space to read … whatever I want. I’m curious what all of you have been waiting to read, or are reading now, or are surprised you’re not reading. (Also, there’s a hidden motive: my old buddy Zach and I need to select a novel for one of our occasional transcontinental pseudo-book-club ventures, and I’m looking for inspiration. Anyone have suggestions?)

I’m reading: The Monkey Wrench Gang, Edward Abbey; Assasination Vacation, Sarah Vowell; This Organic Life, Joan Dye Gussow; The Mambo Kings Play Songs of Love, Oscar Hijuelos; and rereading The River Why, David James Duncan. Oddly, I’m not making much progress with any of these.

Lined up on my shelf waiting their turn are: A Short History of Nearly Everything, Bill Bryson; The Inheritance of Loss, Kirin Desai; Kafka on the Shore, Haruki Murakami; Blue Highways, William Least Heat Moon.

 

Oregon’s first paper

The first West Coast newspaper was a hand-written satirical publication first published in Oregon City in the spring of 1844. “The title of the paper was the Flungudeon Gazette, or Bumble-Bee Budget, edited by the Long-tailed Coon, a sort of Pike County Punch affair. The motto read, ‘Devoted to scratching and stinging the Follies of the Age.’

“It was tri-weekly, some eight or ten numbers being issued, continuing during the session of the Legislative Council of the [Oregon] Territory. The paper made quite a stir in those parts, and kept the members on their p’s and q’s all the time. It was burlesquing, comical, and humorously critical upon the honorable body, which, like the California Legislatures, was a compound mixture of Hoosierism and Yankee, without the addition, as with us, of the Chivalry, Greasers, and Sour­ Krout.”

-From an unsigned article quoted in Journalism in the United States 1690 – 1872, by Frederic Hudson, published in 1873.