Sunday, August 29, 2004

Waterbury=Swiss Army Knife

Damn but that dude took care of Friday's party! As you may have read I was not too pumped to prepare the festivities, and when I called on him he manned the plate like a pro. He had the dudes from Kayashi set up a custom tempura bar, which is kind of like an omelette bar, except you tell them what things you'd like dipped in tempura. That was a huge hit, and they had even unorthodox kinds of things to make tempura out of, like thick avocado slices, chicken breast tenders, hash brown patties, olives, string cheese, corn dogs, even those Halloweën-size candy bars. They got really experimental towards the end of the night, particularly once the guests started pouring those sake-boxes for the cooks, who could not decline (dishonor). I think at one point somebody deep-fried my leather Raiders hat.

That old Cornelius has really got his cook dog on for this goliath-type broad from the Russian women's volleyball team (silver). Weird! Anyhow, he was pretty much a fixture in my living room the past two weeks, constantly trying to catch a glimpse of her. I think her name is VOLLEY ZILLA or something. Dude, I can understand a guy who's a romantic, since I'm pretty much a heart-on-the-sleeve player myself, but this is like more of a perversion. Kind of gave me a bad feeling to see him put his imaginary coat over a puddle for her, so to speak, right on the tails of Téodor's big heartbreak with that lawyer skirt. Oh well, bring it, fellows. Old Ray has had a soggy shoulder or two in his day.

Friday, August 27, 2004

Just kind of a regular party

Whew, I almost forgot to plan tonight's party! These Olympics are really wearing me out. Let's see, what to do for tonight's party...can't sell hot sauce again. First of all, we sold outta both pallets of that stuff, and secondly I don't want people to think these digs are just commercially motivated. I want folks to have a good time, that's the main thing! We ain't on this rock for too long, so we got to share the love while we can. Let's see, maybe tonight we'll have a hippie party, "share the love" and all, and have afro wigs and big peace necklaces. Nah, that's dumb. Hippie stuff is so tired. Maybe it'll be an Elton John party, you know, where when things are going good I come out in a huge fur cape and star-shaped sunglasses. No, that's not a good theme. Maybe the theme will be that I have been watching the Olympics all week and people can come over. There, good. I'll just get a regular DJ and have a guy in charge of grilling burgers and chicken. Plus, I will tell Waterbury to plan the party, because there's some Women's Track and Field about to start. Gotta go.

Monday, August 23, 2004

Dang!

Dang, people! What with me havin' a bad case of Olympic Fever, I nearly forgot about this little bloggity-blog! Okay, so here is what I am gonna run down for you all:

1. The Olympics, so far
2. Operation HOT S.A.U.C.E.
3. Maybe some stuff about my mom coming to visit

The Olympics!
Man, when it comes to the Olympics, I don't think anyone follows closer than me. I ordered USA team gear from each sport, and I put on the appropriate outfit when each event comes on (during the women's events, I dress like a male coach). So far the US is totally dominating pretty much all the sports, with huge wins in swimming, volleyball, running, and gymnastics. A Japanese lady won the women's marathon, but right after she finished she puked up like this Elmer's Glue stuff, very uncool.

Operation HOT S.A.U.C.E.
It was pretty good! Folks showed up in a pretty sexy state of mind, wearing all kinds of low-cut snakeskin dresses and other hot club outfits, and they just ground to the music. The Zydeco band was steamin', the hurricanes and long island iced teas were drainin' by the gallon, and before too long it was "show us your tits!" all over again. Fortunately Waterbury had thought to order a crate of beaded necklaces, so the economy was in order.

I even saw Molly drag Beef into the Make Out Room (the pool shed, which I had decorated by supplying lube and rubbers and a scented candle) at one point, but when they came out Molly was kind of sour looking and Beef went and played pool by himself. I was too busy chargin' Boriqua to ask him what went wrong.

All in all there were only three banana slugs on the floor at the end of the night, so I just left the pool shed door open and raccoons ate them.

My Mom
Me and mom really cook it up when she comes to visit! We'll go shopping, and go to brunch a couple times, and probably hit Seven Pines and the Cathcart Gardens, and have some of my friends over for a nice dinner together. Mom likes to keep up with my friends, and always makes sure to mention their names when she calls. She always tells Roast Beef that he is so handsome, and he just blushes and can never handle it. She'll be pleased that he's seein' Molly. Anyhow, she might come visit in a couple weeks, after the Olympics.

Alright, I'm out. Men's airgun is about to start, and it takes a while to don all that gear.

Friday, August 20, 2004

Operation HOT S.A.U.C.E.

Man, I am already excited about tomorrow. I figured out tonight, the theme of the party is gonna be “Hot Sauce!” This is mainly to imply that people will have a hot time doing the various hot activities I have planned, but also that spicy foods will be served, all of which feature my custom hot sauce. Did you know that I have a custom-labeled line of hot sauce? Yeah, you can buy that stuff here. Waterbury actually thought this up as an idea for a party, to expose people to more of my merchandise. He's a pretty swift kitty, you know. Got a lot under the hood.

So for hot activities, there's gonna be a kissing booth, and I rented these two hot people to give kisses. As part of the kissing (a $5 upgrade over the basic $5 admission) you can each do a shooter of my hot sauce over an oyster before you kiss. That is so brilliant. The man is this hot cut dude who looks like he plays a lot of volleyball, and the lady looks like she could be on a TV show, like as the hot neighbor who plays a lot of beach volleyball when she's not being a model.

The other hot activity is a dance floor. I got this band, Paprika, who agreed to come play. Their website said they do this "erotic zydeco" type stuff, "ga-ron-tee" to make the people grind 'em if they got 'em! On the phone the guy said something about mardi gras, and that's all I needed to sign on the dotted line.

Oh, and as potentially a third hot activity I am going to write on a piece of paper that the pool shed is a make-out room. I will put a bowl of Durex and little single-serving packets of lube in there, along with a scented candle and a clearly marked trash can (the last thing I need is a bunch of Banana Slugs on the floor).

Food's gonna be awesome! I hired the guy from Sedona Mona's to bring his bbq trailer up, and he is making a special sauce based on my hot sauce. Also I got the guy from Fat Stan's to come and cook up some crawdads, gumbo, mashed potatoes, asparagus, all that crazy stuff.

Should be a good time! We're gonna have tables with my hot sauce for sale at all the exits, at a slight party discount.

Tuesday, August 17, 2004

Damn, Téodor!

Man, one thing that sucks is when a friend has his heart broken. I'm talking about Téodor here, my friend Téodor. He is a good dude, and I would never want him to have a bad experience. Yet, because of me he has had a bad experience. I will explain.

You see, I throw my events every Friday night, and lots of types come over to make it tight with the drinks and the dance floor. A lot of women show up, and I can't vouch for them all, since the gates are wide open, you know. I often do not know many of the women at my parties.

Lately Téodor got the Lady Eyes for this slummin' childhood friend of Boriqua (Boriqua is a nasty-hot Samoan mamma from the L'Oréal counter. Boriqua got the kind of rumpus that God writes braggy poems about, you know) ...anyhow, her friend was this skinny nerd with I guess the kind of "alternative" look Téodor falls for. Téodor is super mushy and romantic and he can just fall in love in like a second, completely having ideas about permanent feelings.

Anyhow, they had a date down at Grass, but I guess it didn't go too well because he showed up at my place pretty early without her.

He kicked around pretty moody for a while, not socializing at all, but before I could talk to him he took off. I called him on Sunday, maybe to hit the links or something, and he broke it all down. He was feeling pretty sour, he said.

Damn, I hate to see a brother go through this. What can you do, though. You can't do anything. Nothin' you can do. Not a thing. Life is...life is dirt sometimes.

Friday, August 13, 2004

Kind of a Hawaiian Thing!

We got this row of palms along one side of the property, and today they got me to thinkin' that tonight's party should have a Hawaiian theme! You know, these summer days don't last forever, so it's time to break out the patterened shirts and sarongs and lose it in a Mai Tai!

I had Waterbury dig a big luau pit (dude can dig with a vengeance!) and we had these ceremonial Hawaiian guys come over and create luau pig (I don't know how to describe it using proper terms). So that sucker's bakin' in the ground right now, and the ceremonial guys are gonna dig him up later on (right now they're just cooling it with some Coors in the bed of their truck). They also have a friend who is gonna eat some fire and do a tiki dance. This guy also does some unrelated tricks, like make his Camaro do a wheelie, etc, so maybe we'll ask him to do that after his main tricks.

A big part of any Hawaiian party is havin' drinks in coconut shells, so I got Little Nephew busy in the shop, sawin' the tops off about a hundred coconuts. He always loves any excuse to use power tools, just like his heroes (TV show guys from Monster Garage). Heh! I get a kick out of thinking that he enjoys using tools. I remember when I was his age...if you gave me a tool, half an hour later I would have created an object. Oh, snap!

One thing about Hawaiian food (besides luau-cooked pig) is that it's pretty horrible. Mostly it's trashy, like hamburger patties on white rice with gravy and an egg, or else it's just Subway. Bein' that as it is, Téodor and I put our heads together and created this sort of Pacific Rim Fusion menu that is just all kinds of tickling my fancy. We're gonna have pineapple-glazed grilled lamb, miso-honey basmati, banana-leaf duck, crab and pork shu mai, beef pot stickers, and my favorite, won ton soup with those Chinese spoons. He came over and made all that stuff earlier today.

For music Téodor and I decided just to play a lot of ZZ Top and Aerosmith, since ukulele music is lame. We both agreed that ZZ Top and Aerosmith is good music for parties, because even if individual people don't like those bands, a *party* likes those bands. Do you get what I am saying? When you are at a party you like different kinds of music than when you are alone and you listen to like metal or classical.

That's pretty much it...I've got Waterbury stringin' my fun chili pepper Christmas lights all around, lightin' tiki torches, and setting out lots of straw hats and leis for folks. Gonna be a lot better than last week, there aren't so many things that can possibly go wrong (i.e. no part of this party relies on a robot). Oh, and maybe gonna meet Téodor's new girlfriend! They're goin' on a date beforehand and he said that if it went well he'd bring her by. I'm glad that people can use these parties for things like that. It's nice to create a haven for romance. It's all for the common good, and everyone gets fed. Mahalo!

Tuesday, August 10, 2004

Cooking Class

Waterbury found me toolin' around in the kitchen yesterday, making an Awesome. I don't know if I've told you about the Awesome before. It's this sandwich I invented only a month ago but it is already my favorite. Here's the stacking order of ingredients:

Kaiser roll bottom
aioli
salt
pepper
sliced onion
lettuce leaf
avocado
lettuce leaf
chopped olives
lettuce leaf
3 slices roasted turkey
five slices spicy salami!
lettuce leaf
cooked hamburger patty
sliced onion
brie slice
mayonnaise
top bun

Anyhow, he noticed that I have some creativity when it comes to food, so he suggested that I enroll in this Italian cooking course down at Granite, this upscale kitchen shop in Hidden Hills. They got one of those "cooking classrooms" toward the back of the store, you know, where like twenty people can watch a chef prepare things step by step, and there is a mirror above him at an angle so you can see what his hands are doing.

I strolled on down there tonight to check the class out, since the description sounded good. They said you'd make like osso buco and fresh polenta and you could have wine and stuff. Plus, Granite is right next to Napoleon's, this plush bar, so I could just go there if I didn't like it (the class).

I showed up and it was a pretty decent crowd: some young hip couples, some wealthier-lookin' older couples, single guys who you could tell were chefs, and even this one fine group of four girlfriends. I mean fine. Sweet-shaped butts, all that stuff. I was definitely gonna stay 'til at least the break.

So first the teacher got into it, and I mean he really laid into it. He ran out with two big raw veal shanks in his hands, holdin' 'em high like they were Olympic torches, as this really fun, bouncy Sicilian music played. He totally worked the crowd, and we all stood up and pumped our hands and shook our hips. So krunked. Such a good start. I looked over and the ladies were totally shakin' it.

As he started throwing stuff into pans and making people laugh, I got a little vibration from my cell phone. It's one of those new phones that people who are nearby can use to text you. It was one of the chicks from the class! I guess she had read my T-Mobile LocalFriend profile, because she started telling me she was into music and maybe we should talk at the break. I looked up and sure enough she was looking straight at the cat hisself. I gave her the wink and slipped the phone into my Calvins.

The chef was one of those guys who likes to have audience participants. I don't know how these guys can always spot me, but as soon as he asked for a volunteer I knew 100% that it was gonna end up being me. Sure enough, he tossed an eggplant right at me and yelled Catch! I caught it easy enough and he waved for me to come up and "audience participate." I tossed the thing back and smoothed it up to the counter, waving at the class as they cheered, all in a fun manner. I could see the fine chica smiling at me. I was ready to crack her up, and chef had given me my stage.

So we set up to braise off the osso buco, and for that you need wine, but we both noticed that there was none on the counter. He asked me to go into the wine storage room at the back of the store and fetch some Barolo. I lit off back there, but it was pretty dark. Most of the doors were locked, and eventually I found one that wasn't but unfortunately it led out into the alley and before my eyes could adjust I was locked out. It was one of those big insulated doors, so no good pounding on it. I ran around to the front of the shop, but the doors had been locked since it was after shopping hours, and no one could hear me knock since the class was pretty far back and all that music was playin'. I even took out my cell, but I was too far from the chica to text her.

I was up the creek. I wanted to wait until class got out and intercept the girl, so I set myself up at Napoleon's with a double Bisquit and let the stress fall away. The thing hit me pretty hard, since I'd gone to the class on an empty stomach, so when I was done I tabbed out and decided to make for home, completely forgetting about her. I did remember that we had some new mail-order Niman steaks, so I picked up a nice red at Hole In One Liquors, across the street.

The Granite class had just finished, and the chef had come out with everybody to have a smoke and laugh and talk about next time. Then he spotted me holding the bottle and held up his hand. "Thief!" he yelled. I looked down at the bottle and in an instinct from my younger days, I bolted.

Hopefully the girl ain't so good with her phone that she has me looked up and arrested. Meanwhile, I don't think I'm gonna be shopping at Granite anytime soon. They probably got my photo up in their front door all post office style.

Saturday, August 07, 2004

Damn.

It turns out that the ASIMO has all kinds of optical sensors and stuff in its head, so if you put a papier mâché mask on it, it can't see or hear or anything and it freaks out. I didn't know that yesterday, so my big robotic Phil Collins concept literally blew up in my face (he fell over and short-circuited or something, and caught fire). The ASIMO has super realistic movements so everyone got really sickened watching him writhe around in flames, tearing at the mask on its head, which was burning pretty good due to being paper.Téodor finally wrapped the thing in a curtain and after everyone left I dumped it in the trash. Sheesh. Just tryin' to show you a good time, people! Now everyone's mad at me for making them watch that horrible spectacle, and I've got like five hundred unused Burger Buddies boxes sittin' around.

Friday, August 06, 2004

Daaaaaaamn!

It's Friday, dude! What could be better. Tonight's party is gonna set the New Limits of Doggery. I had forgotten that I ordered this MASSIVE poster of Phil Collins off eBay (you know you got to bow to the Sussudio man, people of all ages), so when it showed up today I got this idea in my head. That's right, I'm gonna make a robotic papier mâché Phil Collins to dance around in front of it while his Hits album plays! Sony sent me one of those ASIMO (http://asimo.honda.com) robots last year, so I'm just gonna dress that up and make hands and a head outta papier mâché. It's gonna be all dancin' around, totally moonwalkin' to "Can't Hurry Love," all of that! I even have this one skinny tie with piano keys on it somewhere in my boxes. Man, that robot is gonna kick it around.

Food and drink-wise, I thought I'd go 80s, since there is the robotic Phil Collins and all. Dimitri brought over ingredients for Magnum PIs, which are basically just Michelobs...I also spent some time figuring out what would be in an A-ha, and I decided that it would be shots of aquavit with a free jelly bracelet in the bottom of the shooter - sort of a treat! I'm gonna have those set out in a drilled block of ice, one shot glass in each drilled hole, with a big photo of the guys beneath the ice. Also, I kind of think that the food that best represents the 80s is Burger Buddies, those little 3-packs of hamburgers they used to sell at Burger King, so I contacted a packaging liquidator who had a crate of the old Burger Buddies cardboard boxes and had them sent by courier (fortunately they were only like 30 miles away). For the Burger Buddies themselves we're gonna make them kind of upscale, with like lime-chipotle aioli and fontina, because fun as Burger Buddies are we're all adults now.

We're also gonna have this big bowl of Swatches for everyone to pick from when they show up, like three Swatches per person, and a little hairspray station with crimping irons. Alright, time to work the phones!

Oh, and Rick James died today. Mega setback for the funk community. Too bad, they'd been making a lot of progress lately.

Thursday, August 05, 2004

Man, that backfired!

I think I played Téodor too soon after my lessons, because I hadn't fully internalized them yet (this is what Paul said). You know how you can have a pretty decent short game, but if you change just one little thing about your technique, it all falls apart? Like having a car, but just one tiny thing is missing, like the steering wheel. There you go, the car is useless. That was my short game yesterday, a car with no steering wheel. Fortunately the landscapers just finished building my new putting and chipping area (I even got a couple sand traps made, plus a pond with a smoking volcano in the middle, just for kicks). A couple hours on that thing and I should be Lightning Man around the greens.

Ooh, but first some salmon dinner! Man, I can not get enough of this fresh salmon. I been eatin' a lot of it lately as part of my research for my advice column, and Waterbury just knows how to cook the hell outta the stuff. I think tonight he's makin' this famous old English dish, which is poached salmon with home-made mayonnaise on top, plus all kinds of fancy garnishes and stuff. A lot of folks think Mayonnaise is pretty trashy, just kind of a B-rate ingredient, but in truth it is a classic old-school sauce, and when it's made fresh it is hell of good. I mean, I never had a problem with mayonnaise, but a lot of folks are always moanin' about it and berating it. I take no part in that. I'm not above having some mayonnaise. I came up just like any other player, straight up having mayonnaise as a common dressing on my sandwiches.

Tuesday, August 03, 2004

Hittin' the links again!

Man, I had a pretty good round with Téodor this weekend! I put the beat on him pretty bad most holes, but he ended up few strokes ahead. I think he plays pretty frequently, and I'd had a few light months lately, so my short game wasn't true. Bein' that as it is, I had a couple hours of lessons with Paul down at Seven Pines today, workin' around the green and outta the bunker. He had me correct just real slight things here and there: havin' me grip a little more lightly, adjustin' my right-hand rollover, stuff like that. We even analyzed some video so I could see exactly what was going on. I like Paul, he's a good teacher. I usually tip him a twenty and we each have a snifter of Oban outta the micro-bar I got in my bag, you know, while talkin' about tour results and new equipment and stuff.

Anyhow, I'm feelin' like Phil Mickelson now, so I got to have Waterbury get me and Téodor a tee time. Maybe I'll get a crew to come in and install a little chipping/putting area over by the tennis court! That'd be a perfect thing to do, also.

Sunday, August 01, 2004

Super, Waterbury!

Man, this guy is ten kinds of classic! Today as I was just comin' to he came gliding in with a hot tray of perfect calamari fritti, and maybe the best bloody mary I have ever tasted. His calamari are way crispier than Conchita's ever were, and his lemon aioli is way zingier. Plus he thought to include a small scoop of lime sherbet for cleansin' the palate. Oh, and he had brought the day's papers and a few magazines, and naturally an after-meal cigarette.

When I got up a couple hours later, he had a totally classy golf-type outfit laid out on the dressing table. Some caramel pleated Barry Brickens (Sly Stallone wears Brickens), sort of a light yellow polo shirt, and some crimson Bally loafers with a matching belt. I was fit!

When I got downstairs he told me I had an afternoon tee time at Seven Pines, and that Téodor would be joining me, if that was all right. Damn right that's all right! Téodor swings a pretty good stick, and it's always better to go out as a twosome, so you don't get stuck with some old man who just smokes and won't look at you.