Electric Revival

Hello my darlings. It's been so long. How are you? How are things? How's your mother doing with the... unpleasantness? Oh! How grand! I've been doing so much since my last half-assed post in June that I've barely had time to sit and write pithy commentary about my own work, thank you very much, and I regret that I've left you in the dark regarding wherefores and whatnots and the particulars of the general thing.

I intend to get back into the swing of things by forcing myself to make a comment on a picture -- taken since June -- from my vast, incredible archives and I would be ever so pleased if the readership, whomever or whatever you are, would submit your personal favorites. An end-of-half-a-year review of sorts. I shall begin with the following,


Japanther, Whitney Museum, 7/11/09

I remember when Japanther didn't exist anywhere except on the page -- this is a well crafted legend at this point so there is no need to go into it here. There are old, shamefully bad pictures of them from my archives when they were playing to no one and still giving their all -- isn't that how it always is? Riley's hair was shorter then and he looked less jacked, Ian had fewer tattoos and wasn't married to his kit (in fact, I don't think there was a drum kit at all). The Marshall behind Ian had no graf on the face, though the name "Marshall" still read "Ma-." There was no telephone microphone.

This is from the Whitney Museum (obviously). I was down at Solar-1 at another series of shows and I was getting bored because a white man was rapping and I was actively looking for something else to do. Earlier in the week, Anita had suggested we all go uptown for the Japanther show. Y'know... for old times' sake. Besides, I mean, come on, how many times do you get to see Mega BMX-guy Darryl Nau doing quarter pipe tricks at the Whitney*? I hopped in a cab and went.

Going to this show was seriously a no-brainer -- regrettably I've passed on a surprising amount of no-brainers this year -- I have no idea why. Dissatisfaction with my work? More amusing things? Granted, a lot of those "more amusing things" have been amusing but it hammers home the fact that I can only do so much at a time. I'm not Satan.

*More on this: Japanther has played the Whitney before so if you are asked how often you get to see them play the Whitney, the answer is "occasionally," whereas the answer to the question, "How often do you get to see Mega BMX-guy Darryl Nau do quarter pipe tricks at the Whitney," is probably a shrug, or some kind of emoticon, depending on your questioners' format.

The First Of Three Candy Reviews

INT. MOVIE THEATER, NIGHT.

Richard and Dom wait in their SEATS for "The Darjeeling Limited" to begin. Richard reaches into his AWESOME BLACK BAG to produce THREE CANDY BARS of mysterious origin.

(dramatically)
RICH: I told you I was bringing snacks, so I have three candies to choose from. I brought them from Sweden.
(handing them one by one to Dom)
We have "Daim"...

(excited)
DOM: DAAAAAAAAAIM!

RICH: Exactly. We have "Plopp"...

(laughing)
DOM: Delicious.

RICH: Precisely. And we have "Japp"...

(slowly)
DOM: Oh. My. God.

RICH: Yeah that one's a personal favorite. Anyway, you choose which one we are to review.

(thoughtfully)
DOM: Let's go with "Daim."

RICH: Great. Looking at the wrapper now,
(gesturing to the label)
and judging by the explode-y bits coming from behind the lettering it seems like it's a toffee of some sort.

She picks up the candy bar and examines it more closely.

DOM: You're probably right. Looking at the wrapper now it also seems to be made by the good people at the KRAFT company.

(deflated)
RICH: What?

(pointing to the BOLD KRAFT LABEL on the back)
DOM: See.

RICH: So I brought a KRAFT-brand candy bar all the way from Sweden?

DOM: Apparently.

(dejectedly)
RICH: Jesus H. Christ on the cross...

DOM: Which are the candy bars with the toffee in them?

RICH: Heath Bars...

DOM: No, no, the other ones...

RICH: Skoal... no, that's the tobacco. Um... Scor!

DOM: Yeah! I bet it's like that.

She begins to rip open the wrapper and pauses.

DOM: Oh, are we saving the wrapper?

RICH: No, I shot them all already.

(continuing to open the wrapper)
DOM: Oh good.

They crack the bar into smaller segments for sharing and easy-eating. They both taste. The toffee is crisp and pleasantly caramel while the milk chocolate coating is gritty and unextraordinary. A serviceable candy bar.

RICH: So it's almost exactly like a Heath Bar.

DOM: Or a Skoal...

RICH: Skor...

DOM: Skor Bar...

RICH: They all taste the same.

DOM: Yeah. Yeah, they do.

RICH: Well this is a letdown.

DOM: It's good though!

RICH: It's pretty good. Heath Bars are my favorite.
(pausing)
Chocolate's a bit "bleh" though.

DOM: (nods)

(to himself)
RICH: The chocolate might have melted here or there because of transit though.

The LIGHTS in the theater begin to dim and the other MOVIEGOERS begin to hush each other and buckle down for viewing

DOM: Movie's starting.

END

Retroactive Post to June 24, 2007

Me: "Oh! We can stop at Randy's Donuts on the way to the airport!"

Dan: "Yes... we could do that."

In truth, I'd never been to Randy's, even when I was going to Kings games when they were still at The Forum (which is still, even in religious mothballs, better than the Staples Center). We arrived at Randy's with a good two hours to spare before it could be considered panic time at the airport, but we had to wait in line for a good fifteen minutes before our turn came. The line itself was always about ten people deep (there is one walk up window) and the drive-thru windows were easily backed up onto Manchester Blvd. They seemed understaffed for a Sunday morning, even though it was going on ten AM.


In true (bad) scientific form, I consumed one (1) plain cake donut as a control. The donut base is really pretty good -- better than you'd expect, if you're the type who figures they'd coast on reputation -- cakey not too sweet with a nice crisp exterior that holds up well to dunking, which is the only way to enjoy a fresh donut.

I then had a maple long john, which is a surprisingly obscure commodity here on the east coast and found it to my satisfaction -- the light sweetness of the cake portion didn't make the whole thing sickening or overwhelm the maple flavor which, while as inauthentic and synthetic as anything else, was passably "maple."

In conclusion, Dunkin' can take a leap. Horton's gets a pass for belonging to a culture. Krispy Kreme remains some other-type shit.

The whole detour to Randy's took a good half hour longer than we had figured and by the time we made it to the airport a pipe had burst in the first terminal, forcing passengers out into the street and causing massive congestion that seems to happen in L.A. no matter what. Still, we made it into the waiting area with ten minutes to spare and pacified our producer, M., who got a chocolate-cake donut with a sugary glaze. He declared it "good."