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As things were going horribly wrong last night, well OK, no more horribly wrong than any other night recently, I stumbled across what may just become the coolest idea EVER! I found myself chatting with [heck I can't remember names so we'll call 'em] June and Raymond. June was a younger gal, dreaming of moving to Montreal to focus on her passion for photography. Raymond, an ex-Los Angelean was nursing a sore back he had hurt while doing a finish carpentry job. The conversation swapped back and forth between my standard dirge rant against French Canadians, how Toronto would make a far better choice; and stories about hanging doors and knocking together cabinets with my father. I saw Zelig again for the first time a few weeks ago, scared me as much as it did the first time I saw it.

The great idea came from Raymond. I’m not certain whether he claimed to have actually done this, he described it as though he had. Essentially, when he jumps the train home from work, he scans the crowds; like the pea in the roulette table wheel, he eventually fixes his gaze on that certain someone. To call this person his “victim” is kind of creepy, so we’ll call this person his victim. The victim unknowingly has become the pace setter, the paper thrower, the rabbit at the dog track, that unlucky Ethiopian selected by his pursuers to breaks in front early then fades at mile 23. Getting to the point, lets call the game “Stalk-Walking”, please if you have a better idea, that one wreaks of the whisky-soaked head it just came out of.

Anyhow, Raymond claims he quietly watches these people. Rides the train with them to their stop. Discretely follows them home, to work, or wherever it is they’re heading, kills them then steals their belt buckle… wait, sorry, that’s not it, right… He essentially follows them home then walks on by as they head in, you know coincidentally like. He’ll head on a bit, then bend his way back home. Connect two random dots that otherwise have no need to be connected. Place yourself at random somewhere in this massive place, wander through it unscripted in a play that’s been started by a complete strangers simple desire to be at home.

My heart races at the thought of giving this it’s first tug.

I’m certain, I’ll pick some dude, some dude who could under any circumstance beat the living crap out of me. This would be far too dangerously rude a stunt to pull on some young woman who may already have some built in paranoid defense mechanism which alerts her to jerks like me. So, I’ll follow a thick knecked dude out to Morning Side; or I’ll follow Mr. Ti-quon-doh out to Flushing, Jamaica; or maybe I’ll take the L and follow someone out to New Lots, New Lots, one of those places I know only from waking up in shaking my head saying Gord, not again, not again, frik I gotta pee!

So, off I go, sounds like a Friday after work kind of thing to do. Remember, if you do someday get the funny feeling that that weird old guy IS following you, don’t worry none, it’s probably just Gord or Raymond, a couple of old “Stalk-Walkers”… Man, that’s dangerous advise, better bet: Mace Me! I’ll say hello to Brooklyn for ya. Oh, and if you’re wondering, I once walked from Greenpoint to Bay Ridge incorporating both the Manhattan and Brooklyn Bridges into my route… Outside of say a few places, say Far Far Rockaway there ain’t no place these pins can’t get me back from… In other word… no one is safe.

On November thirteenth Felix Unger was asked to remove himself from his place of residence. That request came from his wife.

At some point after this date, say December or January, Dylan K. was asked if he might like to get off his good friend Amy’s couch and explore the idea of, well, you know, sleeping on the floor of a pals place that smelled like the thirteen circular ashtrays of hell… If he’d like to explore the idea of, maybe, once again, well, you know paying rent and having some reasonability.

Deep down he knew she was right. But he also knew that someday he would return to her.

…and return to her he would. You know sometimes I have to ask… Do I have a roomie? Most times I have to call, Yo, Amy, you’se seens the D? Yo, youse see ‘im, tell ‘im ‘bouts da dough… ya knows? Hey Amy, how you doin’?

With no where else to go, he appeared at the home of his childhood friend, Oscar Madison.

I ain’t no childhoods fren [end character]… OK, ya ya, sometime at the Mark, we all act like, me ‘specially, like we’re 17 and/or half years younger than we actually are, but hey… that’s only normal. I mean, me, Dylan, Amy, Jen and the rest of the cast… we have secrets. Or do we? We have dark patches of deep brown that seem to swirl around the tab that somebody, one of us, both of us, OR all of us, AND, that mystery man from Columbus seemed to plunk down for us. Somehow, it always seems to get done [thanks Jen, thanks Amy]

Sometime earlier, Madison’s wife had thrown him out, requesting that he never return.

Well, I see it more as Jen’s mom’s offer, but we will not get into that here, at this time… in this, this time of tribute…

Can two divorced men share an apartment without driving each other crazy?

Crazy? Hmmm… well, I do believe our pals Adam and Izabel saw to it that that diagnosis had already been well established. The Hotel admittance room with, Nurse “Lazy Eyed George” and his gurny-boys Paulo, Flacko and Slim had already got this boy down, out and sent to 1st Ave.

Can two… divorced/single guys of disparagingly difference in ages, experience, tastes, intelligence [Dylan went to Brown], hehe [said the Art School Flunky]… AND talent for picking up the… garbage, and doing the dishes; can these two guys “share an apartment without driving each other crazy”… cue Woody Woodson!…

[thanks to Danny, great Corn Beef and Cabbage, your i-ree eys and beutiful mum are deserved... ont a great big thanks for sticking that theme song deep inside the bowels of my somewhat honorarily deserved inclusion on some future liner notes on that next Disclaimers CD... "Yo, Seat'l, dis one goes out to our 'ero in Br'lyn... Go'g, we'll send a car arounds, when they release yo...YO!]

I love to cook. Unfortunately after some serious alone time after the demise of my marriage and a six year relationship with an x with an extremely limited palette, my cooking skills have gone somewhat atrophied. The x and I never really established that true couply lifestyle. Oh we had a few couply friends, but the dinner party routine never seemed to stick with any of them. The wife and I on the other hand were extremely couply. Heck, I remember one weekend we spent all day Sunday making hand made gnocchi with our couply Italian pals, turning their entire loft into a gnocchi churning out production operation, come to think of it, outside of the making wine, we turned the place into a typical Toronto Italian garage, roasting red peppers and eggplant, jarin’ em’ up in oil; gnocchi and tomato sauce. I think we came out of that weekend with enough homemade Italian food to last us well beyond the rest of our married days.

Like I said, the x, on the other hand, although she did like most Italian foods, anything more adventurous than red sauce and mozzarella cheese was a push. Oh, I did sneak in a few good pork chop nights, cooked a few roasts, even developed and perfected a “Glop” recipe that she’d eat a bit of; but her idea of dinner was generally either a pizza slice or a plate full of mozzarella that she’d melt in the microwave throw a handful of salt on and scoop up with tortilla chips. Hey, eat what you like, I’m not judging… Me, I unfortunately slowly drifted into a too lazy to cook stooper of “gut filleing”, making “gut paste”; dollar store mac and cheese, maybe dolled up occasionally with a handful of frozen peas. These days, I’m struggling to find my way back to having a more adventurous relationship with my kitchen.

After a few months of single guy-dom, I have managed to clear enough room in my bomb damaged Kitchen, I mean, literally we’re talking about 15 trash bags full of whatever it was we’d been piling in the room for three years or so. I mean, there was essentially a path to the microwave, and another to the fridge. She has taken most of the tableware, dishes and whatnot, the stuff she did leave was piled “college dorm” style in the sink, on the counter and all over the stove top. My last super essentially sat there petrifying into some sculptural reminder that I was alone, often drunk and in a pretty surly, “Man not this Fuckity Fuck Fuck, AGAIN”, mood.

I think it was a good two months, the weekend that I’d taken a day off work in order to drive her to the Airport in Philly so she could go on the vacation to St. Croix we had planned; the vacation from which I had been scrubbed from the itinerary as it involved bunking with her parents, and my being there may have caused a week of discomfort during their five week stay. Oh well, Presidents Day I turned that into a four-day weekend and proceeded to get my Kitchen “glop” ready again.

This is not about “glop”, this is about an even tastier invention [invention, well OK, that's a bit of a stretch], this is about “Dog Food”. “Dog Food” happened last week when the funds dried up. A temporary draught in dough based on the untimely withholdings of funds from contracts and pals who, in their defense, just had some unfortunate family issues to contend with; no anger on that front, just another bump to hump myself over.

Anyhow, I found myself with ONE less pork chop and CAN of beans that I’d been dreaming about for most of that afternoon. I didn’t really feel like dining on pickles and ketchup… I did however have some frozen hamburger, AND to my surprise a half a bag of frozen corn… Sidebar, a very good friend of mine once had a business plan for this type of situation. He wanted to come up with the programming for a site where you’d essentially type in every ingredient you had on premise, select a mood press a button and have returned to you, voila, a few dozen recipes for the evening meal. I wonder what recipe this site would return me after typing in two pounds of ground beef, a half bag of frozen corn, kosher pickles, a bottle of ketchup and some Lea and Perrins. I guess it would, in all likelihood come back to me with a recipe for “Dog Food”.

I’ll get off my high “old single man” horse here for a sec, and admit, that the old single man lifestyle isn’t all that unique. I mean, it’s almost identical to “third year college dude” life [you know after you move out of the dorm]; or the “I just got that first good job and I’m booting all my roomies out” life.

Many of these things I now know are simple derivatives of the “barely married” life I had with the x, and the tips, like how to make “Dog Food” could easily be helpful to some of the young couples I know.

Old Single Gal life, well, I’d never ever hazard a guess on just how crazily complicated that must be. Maybe one of you ladies could share a recipe for melting mozzarella on a plate, throwing salt on it, and scooping it up with tortilla chips.

Anyhow, here’s my tip for you today, I’ve refined it somewhat [made a new batch last night], here’s my recipe for “Dog Food”, gratis.

Ingredients:
1 Onion [optional, as fresh anything is kind of a dicey proposition these days]
2 Pounds of ground beef or pork, or 1 of each if you don’t mind mixing your barnyard pals in a pot.
2 cans of tomato paste
6 pack of Pabst Blue Ribbon
1 decent sized bag of frozen veggies
1 Jiggery Joo of Lea and Perrins
1 quarter sized pile of salt
6 or 7 Marlboro ultra lights
And whatever spices you like and managed to hold onto after the break up [optional]

Instructions:
First, clean just enough dishes from the pile to cook, stir and later eat your “Dog Food” from. You’ll need a cutting board [if you went for the onion option]. A knife, or a hammer perhaps to reduce the onion into a more edibley sized pieces. You’ll also need a good sized pot/frying pan. I have this old vinyl record sized deep dish frying pan that pretty much serves all my cooking needs regardless of the menu. OK, next step, cut or smash the onion into small chunks and toss ‘em into the fry pan, oh you’d probably want to grease the pan up with a nice virgin Olive Oil first. Forgot to mention this.

One thing I learned from Alton Brown on the Food Network. Olive oil is the Single Old Guy in the kitchen’s best friend. It takes the heat, doesn’t smoke, and does a good job hiding the smell and taste of cooking things that are approaching or at their expiry date. Maybe I assumed that everyone knew that you should have at least a bucket full of Olive Oil on hand at all times.

OK, cooking “Dog Food”… OK, onions are on the fry; next step light up a marly and pop top a tin of beer, you’ve just completed some of the most serious cooking chores you’ve completed in months, a small celebration is in order.

Next Step: while the onions are frying, tear the plastic wrap off the top of the Styrofoam meat packets… wait ’till the onions are kinda, well sweaty, caramelized perhaps, ok, until they’re almost, just almost blackened. Toss in your meat.

Now, you might want to crumble the meat into the pan, think bite sized again. Ground meat has a tendency to “hamburgerize” into meatball like chunks when cooking, so a last little grind of the ground will go along way down the road when it comes to good eatin’.

Meat is on the burn. I usually put a lid on the pan at this point, grab another beer and give the pile a chance to cook through. But, hey, the lid is optional, hey the smell of cooking meat [mmm cooking MEAT], a beer and a smoke, honestly guys and gals, if they sold that scent as an air freshener… well, you get the picture. When the pile is cooked through; you’ll know this after chopping up the bits of meat you failed to grind thoroughly earlier, it’s time to dump in the tomato paste [oh ya, sorry, you will need a can opener].

Tomato paste, Tomato paste on it’s own is NOT food. Lick the fork after scraping this goo out of the can and you’ll quickly realize this. Although the cans of tomato paste I use list the ingredients as simply, “tomatoes”, which we all know ARE food, the paste of the poor tomato is impossible to eat. Tangent, DO NOT use tomatoes sauce, crushed tomatoes or whole tomatoes. Remember, we’re making “Dog Food”, not “Doug Soup”. The paste, when combined with the other more edible foods, simply binds the flavour, oils and spices into a cohesive… Tomatoes paste takes “Dog Food” from schlop to dinner.

We’re almost there. We’re now at the point where the remaining four beers, your spices and four or five Marlboro’s come in handy. We’re at simmer time. One, you have to let the paste and meat simmer for a bit, time to chuck in some spices and simmers some more… Knife a hole in the veggie bag, toss, stir and simmer. Simmer, simmer, simmer for an hour, two hours, heck pass out and let the whole thing just sit there on the stove top… It’s only “Dog Food”…

You know, I like food that gets better with age. “Glop” tastes ten times better the next day. “Dog Food” likewise gets better and better the longer the veggies, meat oil and spices get to mingle all dance hall like. On the nights I cook these feasts, I’ll maybe have just a small tinee tiny bowl.

These are meals meant to feed me on all the nights I don’t feel like cooking. These are the pots of goo I call my bestest friend after that bad day at work. These are the great big covered pots of six minutes in the micro while I’m watching the Simpson’s; Meal in a bowl, don’t think about nothing but my most recent obsession, I can feed myself… meal. After all you ARE an OLD SINGLR GUY; cooking everyday, well that just takes time away from more important things, like drinking, your book, and TV. OR things like fear, dread and angst… HUH, wait, Have I reverted back to my punka roots?

Tip today, cook “Dog Food”… Next weeks tip, “How much Cyalis is enough Cyalis for the Old Single Guy”, and/or “How Strategically Wearing the Odd Piece of Women’s Underwear Can, Indeed, Get You Through the Next Lonely Saturday Night You Spend with your 20/30 Something Pals at the Corner Local”.

Enjoy Your Dog Food!

One of the more perfect evenings, or unfortunately too often these days, start of an over the top perfect evening, is to divert from my normal route home; jump the L instead of the V-G and head over to Zaplodzky’s on North 6th in Williamsburg. Two dollar Ying Lings, Lisa the pretty bartender and an mp3 jukebox that always seems to be playing the exact song you want to hear at that exact moment. I started my evening at Zaplodzky’s last Friday.

Started it in the usual fashion, sat there drinking the cheap beer, reading the book the lovely Ms. Veronica had send me that day. Veronica is truly a magic friend who, although she’s on the other side of the country, seems to be acutely tuned to my every mood, and seems to know exactly just what I and need exactly when I need it. She had sent me the book I was reading at Zaplodzky’s. The book arrived the exact day I had finished my last book, AND reading a slightly left, perhaps more libertarian, definitely cynical jab at all the right wing pundits I’ve been following since long before that last circus we called a Presidential Election was exactly what I needed to be reading at this very moment. So far this book is a bang on good time!

I sat there, reading “Skipping Towards Gomorrah”, and investigation of American contradiction with how we talk/rant on about the seven deadly sins and how we actually live with respect to these sins. Greed/gambling, lust, sloth, hey these sins have been very good to me in the past, eh, pride and envy well, OK, others, I can do without. Anyhow, as I sidled up to the warm wood of the beautiful wooden bar, I gave a quick, sorry fella glance to the guy next to me, basically politely telepathically mentioning I was there for a read rather than a chat. [not mention, I still hadn't quite got used to talking with the new chompers, enough said about that]. I was getting close to the end of my third beer, my usual limit, I mean $2 a beer, a $4 tip, a $10 ride all done within the two hour limit required to still make my free transfer on the B61. I was finishing up the last beer when something struck me in the conversation my neighbor was having with Lisa. I decided that this would be a good conversation worth busting in on.

Busting in on a conversation, politely, is a talent I’m quite proud of, wink. There was an easy in here as he was chatting with Lisa, not only the bartender, but also a friend; bartenders and friends make great springboard to leap from into the warm refreshment of a good bar-convo. They’d been talking professions, what caught me was this guy’s claim to being a circus freak. Hey body modification was on the top of my mind that evening, so thought I might learn something. Unfortunately, although he is good friends with “The Enigma”, and knows “Lizard Man”, he himself was not a modifier, well nothing beyond the standard issue tats and earrings. No, my friend was a pounder… a driller, a cutter and a lifter

He had a wonderful selection of scars [well healed] where he carved himself up with shards of glass. He told great little stories about pounding nails up his nose, or how he’d drill into his nose with a power drill. You may have caught this act, I’d caught stuff like this on TV. We talked for a good hour, and about three more beers, so much for that transfer. He told me how most of his gigs were between acts at Metal shows, and that he was making a perfectly good living off this. His best crowds were in the Midwest, his best story was of how he once dissed a heckling dude by picking his girlfriend up on the jumbotron, getting a little back stage pass action…

I guess I’m not really going anywhere with this frikin empty story. I’ve been sick the last three days, and well, I just had to get back to monkeying around with these little dirty keys again. It’s good therapy, almost as good a therapy as a perfect evening at that perfect little bar talking to perfect strangers. I’m obviously taking the L train home tonight.

Feeling like a million bucks. No, feeling like six million bucks. I’ve been Lee Major’ed, Steve Austin’ed… A man, barely alive. I am being rebuilt. Listen, I’ve always been a fan of body modification, nose jobs, liposuction, face lifts, tummy tucks, you know if that’s what you want, well go raise the dough a git ‘er done. We have the technology. Be all that you can be.

Feeling like a million last night as for the first time in, well almost a year. Finally I could talk to folks without feeling self conscious about the crap they’d be seeing if they glanced into my mouth. Now, I’m not getting ahead of myself. I still have a mouthful of trouble, but I no longer have to feel like some washed up third string American Industrial League hockey failure. I got me teef!

Self esteem is funny business. Especially when it comes a crashin’ on the shores of vanity. I mean, I was always taught not to fuss and bother ‘bout such things. How I look; not to worry about what picture I’ve posted on my front page at myspace. I mean, that’s girly girl stuff. Let’s go cut up that lumber son.

Maybe it IS vanity, but man it feels nice that, at least at first glance, I can talk to people I do not know and know that they’re not calculating the big black gap in my lower jaw in their immediate impression, often an important impressions. How many meetings over the last months have started with “…sorry, had an accident, getting some work done…”, some little self deprecating jab; some little bloob to make us all feel at ease ’cause one of the men in the room was, incomplete.

Now here’s the vanity… I have always applauded body modification, I’ve been modifying mine for over 41 years now. Last night I sat at Plodzky’s down on N 6th. I sat at the shiny brass taps, reading my new book. Every once in a while, I’d take a look up and glance at the choppers in the reflection of the tap rig. Came to a very simple conclusion. Fuck spending thousands on fixing these rotting useless god givens! They’re all coming out, I’m gonna be a “Fixidenter”, bitches.

I’m going to have my young man Vincent at NYU, forcep these little brown beans into the hopper, into the un-documented history book of Uncle GoGo’s sorded history of bad habits, poor diet and various abuses of substances not offially recognized by the FDA. I’m going for the Brad Pitt chompers, HOLLYWOOD brights… maybe I’ll have ‘em all made of golden.

Straight as pins, white as the snow before it hits the street of Brooklyn. “No, YOU had wooden teeth”. I am so excited, I am so frikin’ relieved… I’ve adapted to a prostetic. I’ve had no rejection issues, I’m ready to get myself under that knife, start carving up all these things that have been bugging me for years and years and years… Time to make the make over ladies. Watch out, here comes the super GoGo!

Jiminy crickets, it would appear the time has come to let all of this just frikin’ go. I get new teeff today, and this is just about the best thing happening at the moment. Imagine that, new teeth, lets all go out and celebrate. Yes, indeed, lets all go out.

I went out last night… at just about the exact time I should have gone to sleep. Sleep, now that’s a novel idea, can someone please describe to me just how one goes about getting sleep. This elusive elixir called sleep has now alluded me for two solid months. Or perhaps, I’ve been alluding it. Yes, maybe this is all self inflicted, maybe I really am, as many of my friends claim just a chicken fried retard, a frikin’ douchepoodle wallowing in my own luke warm musty gunky bath water.

un sane

How is it this old carcass of mine knows to drag itself off the couch each morning to trudge-trundle itself down the garbage strewn street… down into the dirty ol’ hole? How is it that I do this against all desire to just stay there wrapped in my comfy cosy blankets in front of the big ol’ TV that plays nothing but all the shows I am just dying to see? Where did I learn to light a cigarette with my eyes closed? How come there’s always a beer with a twist off cap or an easy open pop top tin tab sitting in my fridge box? Who put this love in my belly?

AND who stopped playing the songs I really really really liked?

A long time ago, I used to think of the things I was going to do. I still do, but now I seem to spend almost as much time thinking about the things I have yet to get to. I find this to be quite frightening. While at the same time I am encouraged by the fact that I seem to be doing more, I am also weighted down by the constant dread that there just may not be enough time. Time is something I need to eject; now is the time… now is the time to go rooting around the ol’ CD pile and find that one song that used to, and will, once more, make me sad enough to be happy again. [insert silly Joy Division rotunda HERE, you]

I really do miss feeling that brick-bat-in-the-face feeling of someone else’s despair, feel the kitten whipped sting of some kid “joe singa song writer’s” boyish “I just lost my gal” babble. I’d like to dump this foolish hidy-ho crap that’s been clouding an old old mind with thoughts of things way long past… things so over cooked they smell more of rotten punk-assed dirty socks than… than well, green fucking eggs and ham.

Get it?

This is done, go away now.