That’s them–the old man and the infamous “Big Mamma”–showing the world why having children at the age of 21 isn’t necessarily a bad idea.
And also showing my brother, sister and me exactly how our inheritance is being spent.
Does the coconut fall far from the tree? You be the judge.
“It’s the Great Coconut, Charlie Brown!!!”
I’m not shy about my passion for coconut.
It’s on my mind nearly every minute of every day. I covet it when I’m awake. I dream about it when I’m asleep. When other teenagers were sniffing glue, I was sniffing Hawaiian Tropic suntan oil.
Of course, I can find coconut in Spain. But my recent travels to Chicago opened my eyes to a disturbing reality: By living in Spain, I am being deprived of coconut in its most exquisite forms.
It’s true! Every time that I stepped into a Chicago supermarket, I felt like Charlie Sheen stepping into Amsterdam’s red light district.
There were Mounds! And Almond Joys! And coconut cream pies! And German chocolate cakes! And Bounty bars! And Brach’s Neopolitans! And Hostess Sno-Balls! And my favorite of favorites…Raspberry Zingers!
And…and…and…I ate them! I ate them all! As often as I could! But it wasn’t enough! Not nearly enough!
Freedom, due process and a well-armed military are fine. But for me, the USA is all about one thing—highly-processed, fat-laden, plastic-wrapped vehicles for coconut.
God bless America!
After years of believing that pulled pork is something made in a crockpot, I decided that my family needed a reality adjustment. And my recent trip back to Chicago seemed the perfect opportunity.My brother may not have a Salivator per se, but he does have a propane-powered Great Outdoors smoker. Sure…a grizzled, Carolina pitmaster might scoff at the notion of propane-powered Q, but I’m not one for pretention. Besides…that which the smoker lacks in authenticity, it more than makes-up for in convenience. And convenience is exactly what’s needed when you’re pulling a Q overnighter, but don’t really want to stay up all night.
Wow! You guys are good. You correctly guessed seven out of ten songs in the VTB’s “Name That Mystery [iPod] Meat” challenge.And yes…I *do* have several LazyTown songs on my iPod.
#1. “Chalkdust Torture” by Phish.
[It rocks…but, don’t EVEN try to make sense of the lyrics.]
#2. “Hot Smoke and Sassafrass” by Bubble Puppy.
[What?! You’ve never heard of Bubble Puppy?! Well…that’s them pictured above. What?! You’ve never heard “Hot Smoke and Sassafrass?!” Well…you must (absolutely MUST!) go HERE and listen for yourself. It’s one of my favorite songs. Euro-Trac will love it. Lady Di will hate it. Angie will be both confused and frightened.]
#4. “My Back Pages” by The Byrds.
[…albeit written by Bob Dylan.]
The idea is this…I crank-up my iPod Shuffle and write the opening lyrics to the first ten morsels of iPod meat that come screaming from the ear buds.
You, gentle readers, must correctly guess each song and its artist.
And, oh yeah…you are NOT allowed to Google.
Whoever guesses the most songs correctly will win a valuable prize. Bear in mind, however, that winning a prize and actually collecting it are two very different things.
And so, without further ado…let’s play “Name That Mystery [iPod] Meat!”
1. [Oh, dammit! Wouldn’t you know it! The first song was “Pressure Cooker” by Clarence “Gatemouth” Brown. It’s an instrumental. Let’s try again.]
1. Come stumble my mirth beaten worker/I’m Jezmund the family berzerker.
2. In the mist of sassafrass/Many things will come to pass.
3. Well, I’m standing next to a mountain/And I’ll chop it down with the edge of my hand.
[Caffe Franje guessed “Voodoo Chile” by Jimi Hendrix. Technically, that’s not correct. “Voodoo Chile” is a different song on the same album (Electric Ladyland). The song whose lyrics I quote above is actually “Voodoo Child (Slight Return).” But…since I made the same mistake for nearly twenty years, I’ll give Franje credit for this one.]4. Crimson flames tied through my ears/Rollin’ high and mighty traps.
5. When the truth is found to be lies/And all the joy within you dies. [Kudos to The Big Finn (TBF) for correctly guessing “Somebody to Love” by Jefferson Airplane!]
6. When I move, I’m feeling alright/Bing, bing, bang and I’m ready to go.
[If anyone guesses this, then I’ll personally fly to their house and eat the insole of their most smelly pair of shoes. And I’ll eat it without ketchup.]
[Oh damn! Harsh correctly guessed “No One’s Lazy in LazyTown” by Sportacus. I sure hope that Harsh has small feet.]7. It’s been such a long time/ I think I should be goin’.
[If anyone DOESN’T guess this, then they must eat the insole of my two year old running shoes.]
[TBF strikes again, by correctly guessing “Foreplay/Long Time” by Boston! Guess I’ll have to let Jasemine eat those shoes.]8. When I get off of this mountain/You know where I wanna go.
[Lady Di’s main squeeze, Gert, correctly guessed “Up on Cripple Creek” by The Band. Lady Di remains unamused.]9. A cheap holiday in other people’s misery!
[TBF shows is punker roots by correctly guessing “Holidays in the Sun” by The Sex Pistols!]10. Words are flowing out like endless rain into a paper cup.
[Euro-Trac emerges from her hermetically-sealed cocoon in France and correctly guesses “Across the Universe” by that band that need not be mentioned.]
Let’s synchronize our watches, shall we? Today is August 24. You have a week to complete this mission.
Good luck, 007…and God’s speed.
Check it out by clicking here.
Before I begin an admittedly feeble attempt to justify my absence from Blogland, let me apologize to my good friends La Familia Big Finn and Lady “No Longer on the Market” Di—all of whom sought to determine my whereabouts with a tenacity that hasn’t been seen since “Rambo 2.”
So, where have I been all this time? I was in Chicago until yesterday morning.
“But…but…you told us last week that you had returned from Chicago…well, last week.”
That’s right. I lied.
I wanted to post something on the VTB last week, but didn’t want to tell all those Nigerians who keep sending me emails that the contents of my house would be available for an unobstructed, week-long harvest. So…I used the miracle of the Internet to spread a bit of false information. And why not? Everyone else does it.
“So…you DID have access to a computer in Chicago, but still chose to post almost nothing for three weeks?”
That’s right. I’m lazy.
Plus, my brain and energies have been tugged into other parts of the stratosphere lately. But hey…that doesn’t mean that I don’t love you all. Seriously! I don’t not love you all at all.
But enough of that. The tiny flame of creativity in my head is starting to flicker again, so let’s use it before I get distracted by something important…like sumo wrestling on Eurosport.
– WHAT DID YOU DO IN CHICAGO FOR THREE WEEKS?: I spent one week hanging out, the second week working at Acme Low Carb Tongue Depressors, Inc. and the last week hanging out some more.
– HOW DO YOU DEFINE “HANGING OUT?”: Well…I visited a bunch of old friends that I hadn’t seen in years, ate a lot of spicy ethnic foods that Spaniards wouldn’t like, and drank Starbuck’s Coffee. A lot of Starbuck’s coffee.
– HOW DO YOU DEFINE “A LOT OF STARBUCK’S COFFEE?”: Let’s just say that, on one particular day, I nearly equalled Jimmy Stewart’s performance in “Vertigo.” People as naturally-wired as I am have no business drinking Starbuck’s coffee—no matter how bloody good that stuff tastes on ice.
– WHICH WAS THE BEST MEAL YOU HAD?: It depends how you define “best.” In one sense, the best meal I had was baked goat cheese and mini filet mignon sandwiches at Hugo’s Frog Bar in Naperville. In another sense, the best meal I had was take-out Thai food with a bottle of Bierzo wine.
– WHAT?! NO BBQ?: Nope. I had no BBQ on this trip. Nor did I have any Cajun. But I did have Indian at least forty seven times. Sorry Mrs. TBF, but I missed out on that combo sammich. But there’s always next time.
– SO, WHEN ARE YOU GOING BACK? Pretty soon. Although not soon enough.
– ANY PARTING THOUGHTS: Yes. Congrats to Lady Di and Gert. BTW…looooove your shoes!
Man! You guys are a persistent bunch! Relentless, even!
Yes, yes, yes…I’ve been a posterboy for sloth recently. But, it’s not my fault. It’s Chicago’s fault. That’s where I’ve been vegetating for the past week or so.
Really…you guys have known me long enough to know that an extended absence from blogville means that I’m probably stuffing my face with Italian Beef on the other side of the ocean.
This latest Chicago trip was, like all the others, fabulous. I saw some friends that I was dying to see, ate a lot of irresistible foods that Europeans would likely poo-poo, and watched enough Iron Chef on the Food Network to qualify as a Japanese language scholar.
About the only downside to my trip was the trip itself. Iberia Airlines–which I praised so highly for upgrading me to Business Class two months ago–blew it’s stash of goodwill by overbooking our Madrid/Chicago flight. Ines and I arrived at the airport 2.5 hours before departure, only to be told that there were no seats available.
Now…call me cynical, but I’ve lived in Spain long enough to doubt–and doubt very seriously–that 300 of my fellow passengers arrived at the airport and claimed their seats before we did. This is, after all, a nation that can’t even sit down for lunch before the sun begins to set.
When they first informed me that the flight was full (despite the fact that we bought our tickets six months earlier), I optimistically assumed that they’d just upgrade us. I was, after all, travelling with a 3.5 year old; plus, I gave this stupid, incompetently-managed airline a boatload of free publicity in Expatica just a few weeks earlier.
Well…Iberia couldn’t quite muster two seats in Business Class, but they did muster two seats on a flight to Miami.
Miami. For those of you who are not cartographers, I can assure you that Miami is not exactly a suburb of Chicago.
So, Ines and I flew nine hours to Miami. Then stared at a lot of obese people with sunburns during a five hour layover. Then boarded a three hour flight from Miami to Chicago.
In short, we left our home in Madrid at 8:30am and arrived at my parents’ house in Chicago–are you ready for this?–TWENTY THREE HOURS LATER!!!
But the fun continued.
Although our bodies finally arrived in Chicago, our luggage didn’t. In fact, our luggage didn’t arrive until three days later. And while I certainly appreciated my father’s offer to lend me some of his underwear, the five inch difference in our waistlines necessitated a polite refusal and an emergency trip to Target.
Once the luggage did arrive, however, all was well. Ines and I not only returned to Spain with a cache of happy memories…but also, with enough underwear for the entire population of Madrid.
The idea struck me as a good one. I am, after all, going to be living here for awhile…and World Cup season—particularly in a football-mad country like this one—is something to behold. The entire nation seems to go through a transformation.
For one thing, it’s the only time that the population pulls its Spanish flags out of the closet and shows a bit of patriotism. For one month every four years, bars, cars and bare-chested drunks are adorned in the red and yellow banner. In this sense, the atmosphere is a lot like in the United States when it’s lobbing large bombs at small nations. The only things missing are beer bellies and pick-up trucks.
Furthermore, productivity comes to a halt during each day that Spain’s national team is scheduled to play. Except in the services sector, where productivity never really caught-on in the first place.
In any event, I wanted to reach out and grab a bit of World Cup fever for myself. And I would do so just as soon as it were clear that the Spanish team would advance to the second round. After all, each team plays three games in the first round and—at ninety minutes per game—I certainly wasn’t going to make that kind of time investment. You know, based on the team’s history and all.
But alas, Spain played brilliantly in all three of those games—or so I read on the BBC’s website—against teams representing nations in varying states of poverty or dictatorial rule. So, when the Spanish team easily advanced to the second round and I had surfed enough websites predicting that they were actually good enough to win the whole damn tournament, I was ready to join the party. And the next party would take place on 27 June, when Spain was scheduled to thrash a squad of old age pensioners from France.
Despite my good intentions, however, I…sort of…forgot about the game when 27 June rolled around. When I finally came to my senses and clicked-on the television, it was nearly half-time—and Spain was leading France 1-0.
“Woooooohoooo!!!” I shouted in my thick American accent, as I lowered myself into a leather chair.
And at the precise moment that my buttocks touched the cushion, do you know what happened? France scored a goal. They tied the game…just seconds before half-time was called.
I found this a little disturbing. Spain had been thoroughly kicking ass during its prior three hundred fifteen minutes of World Cup play—i.e., three hundred fifteen minutes during which I was either reading a book or mowing the lawn. And now, this! Was it an unfortunate coincidence? Or had I jinxed the team?
It is well-established that Spain is the Chicago Cubs of the World Cup; but could it be that, in addition, I was Spain’s Steve Bartman?
I quickly purged my mind of such silly superstitions, and resolved to cheer-on the team twice as hard during the game’s second half.
But first, there was this small matter of half-time.
If there is an occupational hazard of being an attorney, it’s that you’re always on the lookout for loopholes. And I decided that my steely resolve to become a die-hard World Cup football fan need not necessarily apply to half-time. After all, there technically isn’t any football taking place during half-time.
So I decided to take advantage of this half-time downtime by firing-up my Mac Mini and initiating a brief webcam video chat with a friend in Amsterdam who had just had his first baby.
Unfortunately, that “brief” video chat ended roughly two hours later.
Feeling drained after the long ordeal of having to make interesting conversation without the aid of a keyboard, I turned-off my computer and went straight to bed.
And as I was laying in bed, I suddenly realized something important. I had forgotten to check the score and see who won the game.
But I didn’t need to check. I had lived in Spain long enough to know the outcome intuitively.
I heard no screaming in my neighborhood.
I heard no honking horns.
I heard no endless strings of firecrackers.
This sort of deafening silence could only be provoked by one thing. And that’s the national team’s elimination from the World Cup tournament.
