April 07, 2009
April 01, 2009
what's Important In 1965 #12
Looks like something Darren Stevens came up with after drinking a couple and put an in-law in the ad.
March 31, 2009
March 12, 2009
March 10, 2009
What's Important In 1965 #4
Ready-to-Serve Martinis?
I guess that didn't fly for long.
But it was probably a lovely companion to a TV dinner.
March 09, 2009
March 04, 2009
What's Important In 1965 #2
Thank goodness we had the encyclopedias in our house! In 2009, you better make sure the kids have a computer and a cell phone and a credit card or they may BE FAILURES!!
March 03, 2009
March 02, 2009
A Turd In Every Pocket
Today I got a finger wagging from someone who saw me throw away poop bags in his neighbor's garbage cans that were set out on the street. I always expect someone to give me so-called shit about this but in four years of professional dog walking nobody ever has. I'm so paranoid about it I will often skip a can that's out front of a driveway with a car in it. Like maybe that'll be the house where someone is home,catches me and comes out and yells at me. I'm nonetheless prepared with the reply, "oh so you'd prefer I leave the poop on the lawn?"
Of course I'd probably just say no problem and move on my merry
way to avoid a stupid confrontation. Because people are stupid.
So this guy who gave me the wagging lives in a very upscale neighborhood. Does he think I'm tossing unworthy poop in a million dollar trash can? He and his neighbors don't have trash that stinks? In this case these dogs, except for my mutt, belong to an ABC anchorman - purebreds that live in a $3 million home a few blocks away. In fact, according to TMZ, Billy Ray Cyrus lives nearby too and was in trouble with his neighbors for not picking up his dog's poop at all. I guarantee I pay the same amount of taxes to the DWP for waste resourcing that they do and I'm grateful when I see unidentified poop bags in my trash. (As long as they're in the black can and not the green or blue.)
So really, is LA just finger giving and finger wagging obsessed? Did I really inconvenience you like the guy who cut you off earlier in the morning while you were talking on your phone and running a red light?
Ironically, as I write this, David Byrne is on The Colbert Report. So I ask myself. How did I get here?
February 26, 2009
I Admit It - I'm An Obese-ist
I've started swimming laps at the gym to counter all the concrete pounding I do every day. Pools at a gym are never big enough. The one I use has three lanes, so when you're sharing it becomes six small ones. I don't know the exact rules of sharing lanes but I've assumed that it's like the road. Stay to the right. Yesterday I got in the pool at the exact time as another woman and as she neared the end of a lap, I started off on the right and she returned on the other side. Simple, as I guessed.
After a few laps, the woman in the center lane finished and gave it over to me. Five minutes later my original partner left and the pool was entered by a man and an obese woman. Not fat. Obese. The man took the empty lane and the woman asked to share mine. Why? Cuz I'm smaller than the man? I took off and reached the other side and stopped to see where she was. She was coming down the LEFT side doing a breast stroke which basically took over three quarters of the lane. I free-styled down the left side which felt unnatural and finished at 30 laps. I was too annoyed to continue but was thankful I got that many in. That's the thing about gyms. People are in them. And to the dudes that sweat all over the machines and leave, Fuck You - bring a towel!
February 20, 2009
February 17, 2009
February 16, 2009
February 09, 2009
Another Case Of The Good Gone Bad
David had researched a mexican eatery all week for our usual Sunday restaurant outing.
Since it was in Hollywood, I suggested we start at the Hungry Cat for a beer and the best peel-n-eat shrimp on the planet.
Over a fine craftsman beer for me and a grapefruit margarita for him, we told our bartender Matt our intentions of going to Malo. He gave us this sly smile and told us that was an alright place. He knows some of the girls who work there. And I bet he does...and I wished later he'd told us what he really knew.
We drove up to Malo and I realized it was the old LA Nicola (and after that Cobalt Cantina.) I said, son of a bitch, this was LA Nicola, one of my favorite places in Hollywood. I had an art show here. I had a hundred martinis here at least! Well, we walked in and we both knew instantly that we wouldn't be eating there. It stank of bathroom ass. How could anybody eat with urinal cake vapors in the air? Since they have about 100 types of tequila, David ordered one and I had a Tecate and we used my iPhone UrbanSpoon app to find our next stop. Thank Dog for the iPhone. We ended up at El Conquistador a few blocks away. I had an outstanding tostada and we shared iPhone glory with the boys at the next table.
As Jack White would say, Oh well, oh well.
February 04, 2009
January 31, 2009
The Curious Drink Of Benjamin Button
A proper Sazerac (which goes really well with peel & eat shrimp and lobster bisque.)
January 21, 2009
Like The Corners Of My Frozen Mind
The other day I was reading the home-town rag as is par on a daily check of emails. As it is exactly 30 years later with similar weather in the Chicago area now, there was a page devoted to readers' remembrances of the blizzard of 1979. I was there. That's why I am no longer. As soon as I was finished reading the memories, I told David the one that immediately came to mind. I had a 1969 VW Bug. The heater didn't work except in the summer and then it wouldn't shut off. The wind chill that winter got down to about 50 below or more. There was a constant layer of ice, an inch thick - on the INSIDE of the VW windshield. My passenger, Lisa or Debbie would continually hack away, with an ice scraper, a hole no bigger than a snowball so I could see out. I got stuck in more than a handful of snow drifts and waited many times in a thin down vest to be pushed out.
The good news was that if your beer was warm, you'd just put them in a pile of snow and come back for them five minutes later. And last weekend I just leased my fifth VW. This one has heated seats. And there's a thing called defrost.
