"All the single ladies, All the single ladies."

Ok, Beyonce.

Seriously. Please, sit down for a second and listen to what I'm about to say. Get your producers in here. They need to hear this, too.

The fact that a song gets stuck in your head all day long doesn't mean it's a good song. Ask anyone who's ever heard that "song that never eeeeeends" from Lamb Chop's Playalong.

Therefore, when I'm walking around, unable to get "If you like it then you shoulda put a ring on it" out of my head, I don't think you're a talented performer or a savvy marketer. All I think of is that I'd love to get that song out of my head without using a claw hammer to do so.

Furthermore, that song has usurped "Bombs Over Baghdad" as the top of the list of songs that white people like, but have no idea how to dance to. If we can't step-touch, we're basically lost. I'm sure people go nuts when that song comes on at a club or what-have-you, but roughly thirty confused, Caucasian seconds later, they're standing in a confused circle, moving erratically to syncopation their hips can't comprehend.

(Which leads me to another topic: White people insisting on standing in a circle on the dancefloor. It happens at every wedding where there's a DJ, and it never fails. I blame some sort of pagan-druid instinct in our WASPy reptile brain.... but I digress....)

So. In short, Beyonce, et. al., that song is annoying. And not in a good way.

Thanks for your time. You're really pretty and have a nice voice.

State of the New Year.

'ello, all.

It's been a bit. It's 2009 now. I'm not sure why we I'm not writing this from Low Earth Orbit, petting my robot dinosaur, but oh well. I guess the future isn't the future.

Then again, we also haven't had to fend off any zombie apocolypses, either, so take the good with the bad, I suppose.

What's new? Well, the above image is of an igloo that used to be my car. Its transmission decided to take a break before Christmas, so now it's just a tidy little curb ornament. That's useful, however, because it serves as an awesome snow collector. We're getting pounded here, people.

Pounded.

Christmas was great. So was New Years. My Grown Man brothers and I bought each other toys. Good toys. Remote controlled helicopters. Transformers Mr Potato Head. Belt-fed Nerf guns that fire 3 darts per second.

I guess it is the future.

I got to spend some time with the lovely Jen. We went up to the mountains for a bit. All great stuff. 2009 is fairly solid so far.

What's next? This week, I have a deadline, am participating in a mock trial, and am performing at Sketchfest. That's all by Thursday. Yowzers.

More on all that later. Here's a cool little random thing. I heard about this on an old This American Life on NPR. Back in the late '90s, a couple of artists (Komar and Melamid) hired a market research firm to find out what people wanted to see in a painting. They did this in several countries, and below you can see what they produced for the US, based entirely on poll data.

A blue-hued landscape with mountains, deer, a family, and George Washington.
You can see the most and least favorite paintings for all the countries here:
http://www.diacenter.org/km/painting.html

If you want to hear the episode, I recommend subscribing to the This American Life podcast.

Subscribe to Radiolab too. And The Splendid Table. And Filmspotting.

Mutterings.

Hey dudes.

Life's been crazy lately. I've been extremely busy.

I took the GRE today. I did okay, but am eager to take another crack at it. (In case we don't actually talk regularly, I'm looking into grad schools. It's... terrifying. And great.)

I've been working a lot, too. Which is fine. I work from home, though, so my apartment is taking on a distinctly den-like feel. Plus I've been talking to myself.

Add to that the fact that my cat is vacationing down South, and I walk around like this guy:

http://garfieldminusgarfield.net/

(If you've never checked this out, it's genius. Actual Garfield cartoons with Garfield and his dialog taken out. John looks cuh-razy.)

Check that out. Laugh. Cry.

Shark "Virgin Birth"

This story is wild. Apparently, a female Atlantic Blacktip shark at the Virginia Aquarium carried a pup that contains no genetic material from a male.

Two things make this even more interesting:

1) It's not the first time this has happened in captivity. According to an AP article on MSN.com, "The first documented case of asexual reproduction, or parthenogenesis, among sharks involved a pup born to a hammerhead at an Omaha, Neb., zoo."

2) That same article made zero biblical references. I don't know if I could have shown that same restraint.

Link to the full story: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/27107721/?GT1=43001

Also, I'd just like to say that this story makes me glad I'm not particularly afraid of sharks... because now they're replicating at will....

I realize only now that I never really gave an account of Joe and Shelby's wedding down in North Carolina (which was a month ago now... Crazy).

The wedding was amazing. Cowlick, pictured above, got together for the wedding (and for those who haven't been playing along, Cowlick is one of the improv teams I'm involved with in Chicago. They were the first team I joined here, are still the team with whom I play the most, and are basically like family to me...).

Knauf (first row, making the ridiculous face) lives in Denver now and Scotty (back row, center) lives in the NYC area, so it's a rare thing for us to all be in one place at one time.

I was honored to be able to deliver the remarks at the wedding, and take part in a few other ways as the officiant. There was also a minister on hand (Joe's uncle) to handle the religious and legal bits of the ceremony. I've included a few more pictures below.

The rehearsal dinner was pretty excellent. It was catered by Woodlands BBQ, based in Blowing Rock, NC. (One of my favorites back in college...) Apparently they nickname their catering trucks, and this one, "Trigger", happened to share the nickname we have for BJ (pictured here, far right) and Janelle Tregoning's lovely baby girl, Elyse.

BJ and Janelle don't think it's that funny that we have referred to the child as "Trigger Tregoning" since months before her birth.

The actual ceremony took place on the front steps of the Taylor House Inn outside of Valle Crucis, NC. The couple wrote their own vows and delivered them beautifully.

They are a very happy, and completely hilarious couple.

There was, of course, dancing. There was a kickass bluegrass band at the rehearsal dinner, and an amazing old-timey ragtime-style Jazz band at the reception. Great stuff. This is me dancing (sort of) with Jen, who was kind enough to accompany me to this crazy wedding. I'm sure you'll see more from her in future blogs.

After all was said and done, Shelbs and Joe took off on a bicycle built for two.

All said, it was quite the event.

Pimpology

Well. The last week has been crazy, in terms of national news. Economic woes. Presidential debates. Failed bailouts.

Still, my very favorite quote from the week was from George McGovern, former US Senator from South Dakota and several-times-defeated Presidential candidate.

On NPR's "Wait, Wait... Don't Tell Me!" (The "NPR News Quiz"), McGovern said a lot of funny stuff (especially for an 86-year-old man). However, this quote, in reference to Mo Rocca referring to the fur-wearing Davey Crockett as "Pimped out", takes the cake:

"You can see I know very little about Pimpology."

You can hear the whole episode here: http://www.npr.org/programs/waitwait/

Mom

My Mom's under the knife today. Hip replacement. Should be totally routine, but keep her in your thoughts, eh?

If all goes according to plan, she'll be feeling like she did in the above picture in no time.

Odds and ends.

Blogs are truly bizarre. However, they keep you sharp, keep you writing, and mark time in a way that few other strange 'net constructs can. Therefore, I'm going to try to beat back my misgivings and, more importantly, my laziness, and blog more often.

(That, without fail, is the sort of thing you always see in the most recent post on a blog that hasn't been updated in months... Still. It's something to work towards.)

With that, here are a few random pictures that I found on my camera. They encapsulate some of the bits and pieces of my crazy summer.

For a week in June, I hung out with some great people on the Gulf Coast of Florida. We were in a particularly remote and, if I may, redneck section of the panhandle. I've gotta say, though... a week in Alligator Point, FL ain't too shabby. We got tans and saw cool thunderstorms and generally vegetated, enjoying every bit of it. Above was the view out of our back door.

I was also fortunate enough to spend plenty of QT with my family this summer. Above is the porch of the lake house that my family has had for God-knows-how-long. It's nothing fancy, but I spent just about every day of every summer there as a kid. This picture was taken sometime around my Grandmother's birthday, which is just a few days away from the 4th of July, and the two days serve as a sort of framework around which my family builds some reunion time.

My niece, Bailey, just turned 3. I figured I'd celebrate this event by putting up a picture from this summer of her doing something really weird. She made this whacked-out, avant-garde sculpture out of play-dough and a creepy back scratcher. I'm convinced she's a visionary. Who happens to love Cheetos.

This is just a random shot of the preparations for a party my Dad had at his place on July 5. There was music. There was fun. There were literally HUNDREDS of hot dogs. I think I ate at least 10 that day. In fact, over the week containing July 4, I probably consumed 20-25 hot dogs. I'm basically made of nitrates now.

I'm not a gambler. It has always struck me as pointless and destructive. However, if it's your birthday, you're in Vegas for work, and you've got a few hours to kill before your redeye back to a version of the world in which sin is generally frowned upon, why not lay out a few bucks and feed 'em into a one-armed bandit?

Just after this picture was taken, I won 50 bucks. I used to to screw around in the casino for the next few hours, and eventually gave it all back.


So there you have it. Some odds and ends. I'll have more soon.

Random Acts of Random Strikes Again.

A few random rumblings:

- I was walking to my part-time gig downtown today when I saw a guy on the street selling (wait for it) live iguanas. This was on Michigan Ave in the middle of a workday. Live iguanas. He had a cardboard box which contained (I assume) iguanas, with a handwritten sign on it declaring that these iguanas were, indeed, for sale.
The 3 foot long iguana on his shoulder seemed okay with it.

- I went to a Cubs game last night. The tickets were free, we were 13 rows back from the grass, the weather was nice, and the Cubs rallied in the 8th to win it. (Simple formula, really. Load the bases and hit the ball past where anyone can reach it.)

-I really enjoyed Barack Obama's speech last night. I don't often get political on this blog, as I prefer discourse, but I think it was one of the best speeches that I've seen at a political convention for as long as I've been interested in politics. If you disagree, hit me up sometime and we'll discuss.

- Appalachian State plays 2007 BCS Champion LSU tomorrow. Due to Hurricane Gustav, the game will begin at 10am. If, by some miracle, we win it, prepare for me to talk about ASU football for the next 11 months. If we lose, prepare for me to pretend the game either never happened or doesn't matter.

- I haven't left Chicago in two whole weeks. That must be why I'm ready for a road trip in a few days. I'm heading to NC for the wedding of my friends Shelby and Joe. I'm involved in the ceremony and am extremely excited.

- I had quail egg nigiri (sushi. Just a quail egg atop a lump of sushi rice wrapped in seaweed) the other day, and while I'm not positive I loved it, I've been thinking about it ever since.

- Pay your parking tickets. As soon as you receive them. Thats advice from someone who has seen the pain of avoidance and barely survived to tell the tale.

Reread.

I can't believe I got rid of some of the books I "read" in high school.

I have no idea what I did with them.

I, you, and everyone else we know must... must pick up a copy of something they were assigned in their teens but couldn't have hoped to understand or appreciate.

Then read these things again. Repeat that process.

I read The Sun Also Rises for the second (and apparently the first) time recently. Now I'm repeating that rediscovery dance with some other books. It's worthwhile.

I'm torn on what the hell we should assign 15-year-olds to read. Masterpieces they won't get? Tripe that'll do nothing for them? Fudge? At this point, no one reads anymore, so we should probably just pray that they can get through three pages without sending or receiving a text message.

Kids today. Someone bring me my Metamucil.

Oh.

This has nothing to do with anything I posted yesterday, or ANYTHING I've done in the past few months, but can we talk about this?

http://www.npr.org/programs/morning/features/2002/apr/spies/index.html

Julia Child was a freakin' spy?!?!?!

That's amazing. My world is richer for knowing this.

July 19, I rolled back into Chicago after 2+ months all over the place. My Dad was with me.

4 days after that, my Dad left, and I started to finally feel like I could start settling in.

9 days after THAT, I took off again for a weekend in NC for KegPig. (See previous post.)

On the way down, our muffler fell off and we spent hours on the side of a remote stretch of I-75 in the middle of the night... but that's for another post....

I got back the wee hours of August 4. On August 6, I headed to NYC.

I got pretty sick while I was there, but had a great time. (That'll be yet ANOTHER post...)

After yet more travel mayhem, I got back to the city on the 11th. I've been getting settle in ever since. Again.

It's strange to feel so out of place in your own apartment. Your own bed. Your own skin.

I'm excited to get some sense of normalcy back, but I have plans to leave town again at least once a month for... the rest of the year?

It seems appropriate, really. It feels like the right time for some changes. A little more vagabonding.

Anyway. That's the status. More to come.

KegPig '04: Boone, NC

KegPig '05: Bristol, TN

KegPig '06: Burnsville, NC

KegPig '07: Burnsville, NC
What is KegPig? To repurpose a classic TV theme song:

You take a pig
You take a keg
You cook the pig
and then you'll have
The Keggy Pig.
You'll eat a lotta pig...

(Ok. If you didn't get it on the first pass, go back and sing that to the tune of "The Facts of Life". Stay with me here.)

It's a tradition.

I'm off to KegPig '08. Our fifth annual. Wish me luck.

Just too much.

Well, I'm back in Chicago.

I was gone for two months and three days.

I documented some of what's been going on with me over the past few months, but it's tough to sum it all up.

I'll continue to give some highlights after I get settled back in here in Chicago.

For now, I feel like a total outsider.

Ah well. Here's a picture of me with my good friends Carson and Christy. They've recently moved back to Boone, NC where we all went to school. Boone's the kind of place that makes you want to do stuff like this:

I'm a bad blogger [stop]

Lots going on [stop]

Go see Wall-E [stop]

Back in the day.

Today is my Grandma's 81st birthday. My brothers and I got our hands on some old family photos and scanned them so we could print some out for my Grandma. We're going to give her a disk full of the scans, too.

It's nice to have copies of these old pictures. There are some great shots. I like this one of me, Jason, and Mom.

Witten Wedding

Ah, wedding bells. My old buddy Adam married his lovely sweetheart Nicole on June 21. They got hitched in lovely Sarasota, FL, and I took the trip down for the festivities.

It was a blast.

It was supposed to be an outdoor wedding, and it rained all damned day. But you know what, rain? You can't drown love.

They moved the ceremony indoors. It was the same place the reception was to be held. What's that mean? Break the glass, shout "mazel tov", and start the party.

It was so nice to see all the people at the wedding. Sarah Fried Chicken, Jen, Carson and Christy, Dave and Shannon, the Cliftons, etc. (Know who any of those people are? If not, you're missing out.)

There was food and beverages and dancing. And! Since it was a Jewish wedding (well, half-Jewish anyway...), there was this!

Hava nagila, hava, baby. I'm such a gentile. I unabashedly love the novelty of lifting the bride and groom in chairs and dancing them around. (Well, novelty for me...)

Weddings: Fun parties, plus all that forever togetherness stuff. Fortunately, I'll get to go to roughly 6,000 of them in the next few years.

Not for me, so much.

I spent my birthday in Vegas.

I was there for work.

I spent most of my time in interviews and meetings.

About two hours before I left for the airport, I laid out five crisp dollar bills as my gambling allowance. On my fifth quarter, I won fifty bucks. I used that fifty to putter around the casino losing money and drinking ice-cold beer for free. I ended up giving it all back to the casino.

I left Las Vegas two dollars in the hole, a year older, and both wondering and sorta knowing why people love the town so much.

Pawley's

Hey guys. I fell off the blog wagon, but it's time to climb back aboard.

In the interest of continuity, I'll give you guys some info on the next phase of my journey.

The weekend of June 7, my mom, brother Tommy, sister-in-law Amber, and their daughter Bailey all jumped in a car with me and we headed down to Pawley's Island, on the coast of SC.

Pawley's is a great place with beautiful wide beaches and beautiful old houses. The self-described motif at Pawley's is "arrogantly shabby", and even though it's just south of Myrtle Beach, strict zoning has helped it maintain its quaint and homey mood.

The house we went to, which belongs to some close family friends, is well over 80 years old, and has survived hurricanes and erosion and family reunions. It typifies an old breed of beach house that's disappearing. It's simple in its design: Central hallway, bedrooms along the hall that also open onto porches that wrap the house. Scrubbed pine floors. Cypress wall paneling. Boardwalk to the beach.

These days, new construction tends to be bland condos or inflated megamansions. I'd take an old-timey beach house any day.

Anyway, the star of the show, as usual, was Bailey.

She seems really at home on the beach. She's not afraid of the water at all. She's not afraid of anything, really, except for the dark and moths.


We kicked back on Pawley's for the weekend and enjoyed every minute of it. These pictures will come in handy on a stressful winter day. There is such a thing as warmth and relaxation.

Boiled Peanuts

Perhaps my favorite thing to eat on the planet are boiled peanuts. (Then again, there are a lot of other things on that list, but let's talk about the peanuts for now.)

Some of you guys aren't that familiar with these little goobers, so howsabout a primer?

Boiled peanuts are just that: Peanuts that are boiled (in-shell) in salt water. They can be served hot or cold, and are a popular snack in a lot of the South, particularly in the summertime. Because they're boiled, they're soft (not unlike a cooked bean).

They can be made with any raw peanut, but the best ones are made with green peanuts, which are fresh peanuts that haven't been dried. They create these wonderful little boiled peanuts that are fresh-tasting and impossible to stop eating. They're very hard to get out of season or away from where they're grown, so summer time down South is prime time for these little guys.

You can also make boiled peanuts with dried raw peanuts, but these don't turn out as well. I can get dried raw peanuts in Chicago, but because they don't contain their own moisture, you have to soak them overnight before cooking, and then cook them in a crock pot for about a day. Still, beats nothing.

You can find boiled peanuts in roadside stands and small grocery stores throughout the South, but I'll let you in on some of the very best boiled peanuts on the planet.

Seriously.

1) Lakeside Market: Sumter, SC
This is a little market that sells fresh produce and potted plants and such. It's run by an older gentleman that grew up on the land on which the market now sits. He ran several other stores, and eventually moved back to the corner on which his house once stood and built this little place. They boil their own peanuts in the store, and he says they have it down to a science, so the peanuts turn out consistently good, batch after batch. They're a little on the small side, but they are good. If you like your peanuts hot, this might not be your spot. They keep their peanuts in paper bags in a refrigerator.

2) Allsbrook's Boiled Peanuts: Manning, SC
I grew up on Allsbrook's. This place made the peanuts by which I will always judge all other peanuts. They were made at a little roadside market on the way to Lake Marion, and were sold all over Clarendon County. At some point, the business changed hands (I hear there was scandal involved), the business lay dormant for a few years (known as the Great Boiled Peanut Drought of 19-odd-something) and later the daughter or daughter-in-law of Allsbrook started turning out peanuts (though not under the Allsbrook's name. They were Funny's Boiled Peanuts. They were almost as good, though). Of late, I understand that someone in the Allsbrook family has gotten their hands on a peanut pot again, and Allsbrook's peanuts are back. I haven't gotten my hands on any yet, but maybe soon.

3) The cooler in the back of a pickup truck: Near Eastover, SC
Where highway 378 meets highway 601, there is a little parking lot of an abandoned store. In that lot, a dude has been selling peanuts for at least a decade. He's got signs out on 601 about a hundred yards from his spot in either direction. The signs are hand-lettered on plywood. "boiled p-Nuts". Lowercase, except for the "N" in "nuts". You can get "new crop" or "old crop" peanuts. He has two big metal cookers on a trailer where the peanuts get the business, and I have a suspicion that he might use just a tiny touch of fatback in process, because the peanuts are uber-flavorful. I recommend the 'new crop'. He keeps the peanuts in ziplocks in a cooler to keep them warm after cooking, so warm peanut lovers take note.

This is just a tiny cross-section.

A full book is in the works.

Anyway. Boiled peanuts are good, man.