beautiful, funny, sad & true

Holy crap, I think I just invented a new sandwich. You know what? It was awesome. You know what else? It was vegetarian.

At its heart, it’s a BLT. I used Morningstar faux bacon, and toasted some of Grand Central’s Como bread. I added sliced avocado, tomato, mayonnaise, a little bit of horseradish sauce, and then ground a little bit of black pepper over the top, and put the sandwich together.

In the interest of full disclosure, I’m not a vegetarian anymore, since I do eat chicken regularly (and other things occasionally), but I was a veg-head for quite a few years. I don’t really miss most meat, but this sandwich I might actually try to make with real bacon sometime, though, because it was super good.

It may sound like an odd combination of ingredients, but I really recommend it highly. If you do make one, I’d love to know what you think of it.

The next time you’re at a restaurant, why not try asking for it by name…

The Mister T.

Try it in a sentence; it’s easy. “I’d like a Mister T.”

Hunh? Hunh? Nice.

It seems that I’m not alone; these last couple of weeks have been extremely strange and emotional for almost everyone. Unfortunately, the things that have been happening are not subjects that are appropriate for me to write about here, especially not with a certain someone slithering around. Family issues, friend issues, money issues…all seem to be par for the course at the same time. I suppose you know what they say about rain.

Let’s hope the worst is over.

Here’s a short list of some statistics for the week, though. It certainly ain’t all bad, either, by any stretch of the imagination:

• number of distressing phone calls from close friends in tears: 3
• number of best-in-my-whole-life drum recording sessions: 2
  
• number of cockroaches seen in my building: 1
• number of cockroaches seen in my apartment: ZERO
• number of days home sick from work last week: 2
• number of excellent Wes Anderson movies seen in the theater: 1
• number of excellent new anime’s I’ve watched online, for free: 4
• number of nights in which I got fewer than three hours of sleep: 3
• number of interesting and deep phone conversations, today alone: 3
• number of hilarious conversations today involving Hitler’s love life: 1

Clearly, if I’m able to incorporate Hitler–let alone his love life–back into my humor lexicon, I’m starting to feel like my usual self. I mean (with all due respect), the subjects of brain cancer and full-blown AIDS can almost always provide good fodder for comedy, but I generally have to be feeling at my tippy top in order to find humor in Hitler.

So. Moving on.

I’ve finally been feeling like writing again lately, and by that I mean writing about real and important subjects. Six months or so ago, I was poking around online, trying to find out information about all my old favorite guitarists and bands from the 80’s. I spent many hours sitting here alone, laughing out loud at the ridiculous clothes and videos, and of course, the music. But at the same time, it was a little more complicated than that, because I could still see and hear what I liked about them back in the day. Ever since that night, I’ve had the thought in the back of my mind that it would be fun to write a series of blog entries about some of those people and what my thoughts about them were, both then and now. Naturally, I would put up whatever videos I could find, so that you too could get in on the fun.

I’ve also needed to create a music-related e-mail list for a while now, so that people who are interested can keep up with my gigging and recording schedule, and this seems like the perfect time to do it.

But definitely check back here for the Eighties Röck Blög or whatever I end up calling it. I think that’ll be a fun project.

The NumberOneThing I expect from my friends is honesty. If we don’t have honesty, then to put it simply, I’m not interested in being friends.

If we’ve HAD honesty in the past, but circumstances have changed enough that it’s too difficult or not something that’s of interest to you, that makes me really sad, because I’ve already come to expect honesty from you. When you can’t (or won’t) step up and provide it now, then I’m really disappointed.

It doesn’t have to be that way. If we’ve had honesty in the past, and then lost it for a while, but then you come back around and show effort–no matter how little it is, or how difficult it may feel for a while–then that’s what close friendships are built upon, and ours can be rebuilt too. I’ve been lucky enough to experience that a few times now.

But if you’re not interested, you’re not interested. If my friendship isn’t going to be reciprocated, I’m going to put my energy to more constructive use, where it will be appreciated and reciprocated.

Tonight I played my first gig with an Irish-style band called the Fenbi International Superstars. Hilarious and fun, and the main songwriter is Mike, the former bassist for the Young Immortals. We had the packed house singing and dancing like crazy.

And it was a good thing that the show was so much fun, too, because a surprise situation happened that really pissed me off. Again. Not as much as when it happened last time, but still. . .ouch.

If you have twenty minutes or so all by yourself, and you’re looking for something to do, I suggest that you watch this video.

It’s an episode of Mushi-shi. It’s beautiful and strange and deep, and I can’t get enough of it.

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