Tuesday, October 13, 2009
Flash Fearful
Tuesday, June 23, 2009
Aye Jose's Tacos - An Experience In The Abnormal
Like most people who visit
With my head pounding, my cash low and my stomach growling I was having a hard time embracing the horror. Flash bang images of dead birds and greedy bastards smiling as they took my money said something in Flemish I didn’t understand I made myself a vow…never…ever…go to a Nordic Cockfight again. God damn you Flemish bastards! God damn you to hell, I screamed out loud without realizing it. I heard someone yell to keep it down. I clinched my fist and looked up to see the person who was about to get a good old thrashing like we did when I was a kid in
Suddenly the smell hit me. It wasn’t all that beef stew looking shit those Flemish fucks were jamming down their pasty white gullets…no…this was real food…street food…and most importantly cheap food. I dug through my pocket and found two small bags (don’t ask), some cock feathers and a recipe for Springerle, and I can’t stand anise. Finally, under my lucky yoyo and a small picture of Eudora Welty I found a ten dollar bills. Those Flemish pricks didn’t get all my money. I looked towards the smell and saw the sign that changed my life…Aye Jose’s Tacos. I wandered inside to this small nondescript square white building and shakily approached the counter. The man behind the counter looked strangely like a mix between Enrico Fermi and a dude that once sold me the best bag of weed ever. He asked me how I was doing. Twenty four minutes later he asked what I wanted to order. I told him I needed two carnitas taco and a lamb chimicanga. Do you want anything to drink he asked? I laughed. Do I look like I need more to drink? No, he responded. No you don’t. He was right.
I sat down at a booth in the small and simply decorated but clean dining area. About 5 minutes later my food was ready. I sauntered up to the counter, trust me it was a saunter, and looked down at my plate. It was a thing of beauty. Something that stops the heat, freezes the mind and causes uncontrollable drooling. The chimichanga was a beautiful golden brown with a representation of the colors of Mexico with sour cream, Salsa Verde and red sauce on top. Not too much, just enough to please the eye and add taste. He asked if I wanted red or green sauce. I told him I want the red, because all of us who have spent time in the great southwest (4 years in an undisclosed New Mexico state facility) know is the mark of a true Mexican restaurant. The tacos used thin corn tortillas and had the delicious fried pork with diced onions and Salsa Verde. I walked back to the booth and sat down. It took me 8 amazing bites of my food to realize that I had inadvertently sat down at a table with 2 Mexican Mafia members and a hooker with a severe cough. I stared at them blankly and got up. They were confused. I sat back down at my table and continued my meal.
The chimichanga was cooked perfectly and filled with tender meat in a thin red spicy sauce. The outside was crispy and the tortillas were light and airy. The oil had only made the tortilla lighter and more delicate. It wasn’t heavy and greasy like anything you find at some chain restaurant in a shopping center. This was the way it was supposed to be. This was the chimichanga Holy Grail. I only say that because for about 5 minutes I saw the Virgin Mary. Nice chick. The delicate crispy outside was filled with tender lamb and the sauce was deep and flavorful. The Mexican flag of flavor on top added the moistness and coolness needed in each bite. Two thirds of the way through I finally got to the red sauce and I have made an important decision about my future. Much like the pharaohs of Egypt were buried with their prized possessions in case they can used them in the afterworld, I want to have my coffin filled to the brim with this red sauce. Mom and Dad, I know you disowned me after that incident we dare not speak of…by the way…it was a nice donkey and I loved her you close minded bastards…if you ever loved me don’t interfere with this wish. This red sauce had a richness and depth of flavor that you will never find in the supermarket. The hallmarks of tradition, long slow cooking, and years and years of perfecting this recipe is found in every single molecule.
I finished every bite, drank the sauce like water and liked the plate until holed formed in the paper. I cursed those Flemish fucks for taking my money because if not for them I would have bought 13 more and satin an alley eating until my stomach exploded. My anguish was momentarily subsided when I looked down and saw those two beautiful carnitas tacos. When I picked up the first one I could feel the authentic homemade corn tortilla in my hand. It was perfect. It was light but dense, and the tortilla held together well. I bit into it and I immediately passed out. I came through a few minutes later and my picture of Eudora was gone but the tacos remained. I wiped the tears from my eyes and ate both tacos in under 30 seconds. The strong but delicate corn taste worked perfectly with the perfectly cooked carnitas. The pork was rich, juicy and incredibly tender. Not once did the meat have a hint of toughness and I easily bit through it despite having my two front teeth knocked out in a chain fight with two Mormon kids. The onions were soft and the salsa added was subtle and added a cilantro flavor that complimented the meat. The overwhelming taste dropped me to my knees and I sobbed uncontrollably. I was asked to leave. Fine I said, I have two horse tranquilizers in my car and a fist full of change…I’ll be back I warned.
Over the next few days of my southwest court mandated restoration tour I ate there five more times. I had four more chimichangas (flat steak, chicken, carnitas and beef) and all of them were amazing. The tortas and the bread is great, but the fillings need to be more generous. I had the rice and beans twice and the first time was great, the second time the beans had no flavor at all. I tried the tacos two more times and the flat steak was good, but the chicken needed more seasoning.
All and all for a meal under ten bucks you can get a burrito/chimichanga with rice, beans, and two tacos. A gargantuan meal for the price. The quality is terrific. The people are wonderful. The desire to have you as a repeat customer is evident…just as long as you don’t have a knife fight over a game of dice in the alleyway. They are very touchy about that.
Thursday, May 7, 2009
Envisioning a Future
Monday, January 19, 2009
Then again...the new year all the things associated with it would have eventually pulled me back to this blog...add a new President and I am sure I would have written. So today on the eve of Obama's inauguration I put fingers to keys and knock out a little missive.
The retrospective nature of the new year has long since passed me...maybe i am too old, too cynical, too much of an asshole...or all of the above...but i never make new year’s resolutions because to me it seems as stupid as people who wait until Monday to start a diet...if you want to do something...if it is burning inside of you...why wait? Can be so important if you are willing to put it off to some arbitrary date? No, none of that New Year resolution shit means anything to me.
...but recently life has presented me...or presented to me yet again...i should say...something that I still struggle with understanding...old wounds...over the course of my life I have done things that I am not proud of, things that I would not do again...most of those have been safely tucked away...resolved if you will. Today though I sit in a strange position...one that I can't seem to shake...face with two situations that have symmetry. On one side someone who cannot forgive and move on...and on the other someone who cannot forgive and move on...the first one is aimed at me...the second is me. The first story is long, tired and old...full of acrimony, derision, anger...and now mostly stupidity. Years ago I was able to come to a realization...that the situation wasn't anyone's fault...it was the nature of the situation that was bad...it wasn't me, it wasn't them...it was the it...the relationship itself...yes we both did reprehensible things...and neither one of us had the good sense to just walk away...we were two damaged people who because of our own failings couldn't or didn't want to stop. In the end it was just two people who weren't meant to meet...and today i find myself wishing we never met for one reason...that maybe if we didn't add to each others baggage it might help us find the person we are truly meant to be with...if there is such a person out there that is...I learned that the only reality i know...that we all know...is shaped by our perspective...my perspective may be different from theirs...i just see us as two people who tried to make something that should have never started, and never would have worked...work...and in the course of that futile attempt we hurt each other every way possible...and i don't think that makes us bad people...it just made us crazy from the insanity of it all. desperate broken people in a desperate broken situation...that's it...anyway...i let go of all that shit a long time ago and I have never looked back...and i have never been happier...but these two circumstances made me think about it.
...the second one is me...a long time ago i was asked to do something for someone...something nice...something i wanted to do...to protect the guilty and the stupid i will cut the details and just say that our perspectives...our realities...were vastly different...i didn't feel...and others who were there didn't feel...that i did anything wrong...in fact...just the opposite...they on the other hand had a different reality and in that reality they felt that I had wronged them in some way...well...initially in my all too brilliant and all too familiar way i just said fuck it...who cares...fuck them and fuck them again...i don't care...i sent a simple message saying that this was me and if they thought that i would intentionally hurt them then i was glad we would not be friends anymore...i was genuinely hurt by their low opinion...years went by and i missed my friend...so i sent an email congratulating a special event of theirs...and i got no response...so i let it go...i believed the line in Hoffa that if someone feels you slighted them they will hate you forever...recently...very recently...one of them reached out...it was clumsy...it was arrogant and it was a little ridiculous and selfish...but they reached out...they made the effort when they didn't have to...so now i am in position to think about what it is that i want to do. because i am still a brilliant idiot...my first reaction and a large part of me is fuck you...where is the humility...where is even the acknowledgement that there was even a problem...where was the basic, simple "how are you?". It is the easiest way...it has been a lot of years and i could just walk away with a relatively clean conscience...my blameless perception being my spotless reality. Some would argue that the more mature thing is to respond to their email...maybe address my issues...or at least start a dialogue...see where that leads...in the past it has led to wildly mixed results...but this time their sin wasn't so grievous to me that I should shut them out forever...or was it...how much could they think of me if something innocuous could lead to such a long term break... especially after all that i had done for them...and part of me feels like when they got what they wanted they dumped me...and now they want something else...also...learning from my first situation i must ask myself when is the right time to say when and back away...or stay away...truthfully I am torn and I have no idea what to do.
i had no idea what I was going to write...i probably should stop because i can’t be less than honest when i type..
On a lighter note...New Years was great, the 156th edition of White Trash Xmas Eve was amazing beyond belief...and life has been moving along just fine...
Tomorrow I will watch Obama become sworn in, and I will be praying that this country will recover, that we will all be better off 3 months, 6 months, a year from now.
I wish nothing but the best for all of you who read this.
“Non Omnis Moriar” (“I shall not completely die”).
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Thursday, November 13, 2008
Salt of the Earth
I don';t know...but I feel like there is a sign...a feeling...a reaction that clues us into the error. Perhaps we can't explain the feeling so far down that the signal is degraded to the point of near obscurity. An instinct that tells our brain that there is something not quite right...but we ignore it.
I think of my own existence...the paths, the roads...the good...the bad...the mistakes...the successes. I wonder where the moment of life that should have happened took place. I wonder if someone can be going down the right path....and meet someone who is not.
The overwhelming urge to run. The fleeting moment of panic. The split second of uncertainty. The nearly undetectable flash of trepidation. So easily put out of our minds, so easily ignored, so easily overlooked, so easily forgotten.
Unfortunately, the butterfly effect takes over...that feeling intensifies..it overwhelms...in seconds, minutes, hours, days, months...but it gets lost in the seas of emotions surrounding the inadvertent travel...the bricks of emotion...of circumstances...of events...of actions...of all the results of a travel that should have never occurred.
I believe that the most painful will be the bewilderment of being on that right path...meeting that person who is not...how can one road be so right and one element be so out of place?
Saturday, September 6, 2008
Decline of Western Civilization...part 10 (not political)
...last night in a horrible miscalculation of responsible behavior...I decided not to go out and and tie one on...but to stay in, watch TV, rest and wake up early the next morning because i am headed out to Orlando for a few days...I set my alarm for 9am...went to bed around midnight...and woke to the sound of that infernal machine...
...got up...quick shower...cursed the morning for being so early...headed off to do my errands...some clothes shopping...but a charger for my new MP3 player...the new Zen...very good by the way...and get some snacks for the plane...
...now granted...I have not been up early and outside to do anything productive in a long time...i do awake early for soccer matches...go to the bar...or pull tubes and watch from the comfort of my own bed...but that is far from productive...it is the opposite of productive...and for that I am happy with myself all day...my immaturity fills me with a sense of purpose...the purpose of having no purpose...but I digress...
...so I go out to tj maxx...i need shorts...not paying 50 bucks...i want to pay 20...well...i get there at 9:27...and guess what...it's closed until 10am...so curse TJ Maxx...wish harm on his family and that his first child is a masculine child...and a girl....
...dive to Burlington Coat Factory...a surprisingly good store with good deals...THE FUCKING PLACE IS CLOSED AND OPENS AT 10AM...WHAT THE FUCK!!!!!!
...so I stop screaming at a Filipino woman long enough to smash a homeless man begging for change, kick a puppy and swear to God Almighty I will one day club a baby seal for this outrage...
...I drive off in a huff and go to Circuit City to buy the charger for my snazzy new MP3/Video player...and...you got it...IT OPENS AT MOTHER FUCKING COCK SUCKING ASS RAPING POUR SUGAR IN A NUN'S GAS TANK 10am!!!! WHAT THE FUCK?????
...I am livid...despite it being 9:54 I decide that I am going to drive my car headlong into a bus full of special needs kids...fuck 'em...life is hard...deal with the horror...embrace the horror...thankfully that bus driver had a mild case of doan syndrome and was able to swear just enough where i missed him but ran over a picture of a happy family playing with their Litebrite...yes...my anger transported me to 1979...fuck you.
Arriving safely back in 2008...or whatever foul year this is...I begrudgingly did my errands and went back on my way...hey...let's stop at Wal-mart...they are always open...corporate greed and the desire to keep 12 year old Thai girls off their backs and making discounted clothing will keep Wal-mart open 24 hours forever...
...i buy some stuff...one of the items is an auto epoxy...needed to fix a small hole in my coolant overflow tank...yes ladies...this face and he fixes shit too...embrace the moistness...
...when i get to the checkout line and scan the epoxy it turns out that I need wal-mart to approve of my purchase...to make sure i am not under 18...or a total blathering degenerate...good thing they don't do background checks...i ask the woman...why do i need to be approved for something as stupid as an auto puddy...well you hulking piece of manliness the kids like to use this to get high...well, thank you my pudgy admirer...but whatever happened to heroin...she laughed at my humor...she wanted it...she wanted it bad...
...sorry...I passed out for a few second and woke up in a puddle of my own vomit...last time I snort Special K and try to blog...I hope I didn't write anything weird...
...so...it all dawned on me...this fucking world is being destroyed by slackers...and not my fellow slackers...the ones who have jobs...work hard to make money to buy good drugs and do them to wretched excess on the weekends...no...these fucking idiots don't want to go to their shit jobs on the weekend before 10am...and they don't want to take the time to find some good drugs...will they not know the joys of shooting heroin...the pleasure in taking too much PCP and waking up with six strangers in a house that you have never seen before...in a town you never knew existed...three states and six days away from your starting point...will they never experience the pure unadulterated joy of finding an opium den...only to realize after a month and 1200 dollars that it was just some Chinese guys parent's basement and because you squatted so long it is now your responsibility to skin the dog for dinner? Throwing up out a moving car only to have it hit the guy in the backseat because the eight ball you just jacked up caused you to forget to roll down the window...or face the window...or tell the person to move. What will happen to these kids if they never have the thrill of getting so high on ICE that every stick of everything you own soon becomes a story that begins "Dude, I sold that..."
...these watershed moments are gone forever...and only in a shit generation where kids huff gas, abuse pills...and huff auto epoxy could Justin Timberlake be a star...could anyone give a fuck about Lindsay Lohan...or buy a cup of coffee for 6 dollars...when I was a kid...and I may be dating myself here...but I don't care...I date myself quite often...only because I am easy...not because i like me...but we had a word for people like this...jerk offs.
...now I guess I am just too old...and I am not going to fight with idiots anymore...i promised myself that after I kicked the shit out of Vin Diesel in a a parking lot of Dr. Spuddsters's Potato Bar and Laundry Mat...standing on his lumpy neck kick his head while he screamed "not the face, for the love of Satan not the face"...I said to myself...Thor...this isn't going to do any good...he is an idiot...and now you have lowered yourself to his level...and worse...he doesn't even understand his level...I let him up after a few hours...and promised myself i would change...Thor...you're doing the right thing I said to myself...
...am I? He will undoubtedly go on to torture generations with his shit movies and his inability to realize what a fucking idiot he is...
...not your problem Thor...you have more pressing issues...I do...yes...you do...repack the bowl...buy some more nitrous...and for God sake release Rico Suave...he's served his time...
...it isn't easy being magnanimous...it isn't easy...
Sunday, August 10, 2008
Dark Day
There is an overarching theme that is brilliant, simple, and profound. People will immediately dismiss it because it is a "superhero movie." It is much, much more than that. It was brilliantly shot, acted, written, directed and produced.
We saw it in IMAX and if you have access to an IMAX theater...GO!!! We have perfect seats and the first 5 minutes it felt like I was sucked into the scenery, and observer of a real life epic. I remember the movie "Dreamscape" and if you saw it...I felt like Dennis Quaid when he would enter patients dreams...a voyeur surrounded by a tale...powerless to stop...not that I would have wanted to.
Of course the 600lb elephant is Heath Ledger...watching his performance and knowing that he is dead made every brilliant second he was on the screen that much more chilling. Ledger's performance easily goes down as the best comic villain portrayed on the large screen. The comic genius of Jack Nicholson's Joker is easily...easily...forgotten the first time Ledger appears on the screen. They may be the same character, but they are as far from each other as they could possible be. Ledger did the smart thing, he played it like he wasn't wearing the make up or the suit...he was just a fucked up guy who wanted to hurt the world. That's it. Any pain he could cause was for sport and for fun...his own fun. If you strip away the make up, and Batman's mask, the story would still work...it has worked in other films. Add the "superhero" stuff and it is actually and addition to the story the way it is done here. Not like Spiderman 3 where everything was bad.
Very few things were not good about this film. Maggie Gyllenhaal is the love interest, but she is not attractive and not that good of an actress in it. And here is one critique probably not said about an almost 3 hour movie...but I could have seen more. I would have liked to have seen more. I think some parts were rushed when they shouldn't have been...but time constraints for a theatrical release required it. Other than that is was perfect. Best picture of the year for sure.
See it, and see it in Imax if you can.
One thing about IMAX...it is such an amazing viewing experience that it really does ruin you for non-IMAX movies. The size, the clarity, the sound...it is just leaps and bounds above the regular movie theater movies.