King Tom & his merry band of eaters

Susanne & Anna are here! Joy. Amie and I picked them up from the airport on Sunday evening (after she fed me a delicious dinner of pasta with a morel mushroom cream sauce; cesar salad; and roasted asparagus).

Yesterday we had a Memorial Day BBQ at the SE Hipster Castle (which I feel is more of a hipster repellent than a hipster haven). Tom finally got his mesquite on. The menu was as follows:

+ bbq pork ribs
+ bbq chicken
+ bbq pineapple
+ bbq vegetable skewers
+ bbq portobello mushrooms
+ bbq jalapeño poppers (filled with cream cheese, wrapped in bacon)
+ bbq peaches (quartered, dipped in sugar)
+ bbq oranges (halved, dipped in sugar with rosemary)
+ bbq asparagus (in peach & orange juices)
+ house made bbq sauce
+ black bean, cherry tomato, and cucumber salad with cilantro and a tomato/citrus dressing
+ potato salad with asparagus
+ cucumber & onion salad (in vinegar)
+ watermelon
+ ice cream sandwhiches
+ chocolate–strawberry brownies
+ chocolate mousse
+ lemonade
+ beer
+ pepsi
+ water

I may be forgetting a couple of things. It was quite the feast though. Clearly. The champion ice cream sandwhich devourer was Zac, who ate 4.

I'm now in possession of a basil plant of the Genovese persuasion. I will cultivate it and garnish my pizzas with its leafy protrusions.

in the haze.

clown-ballerina haunting long's drugs in Venice, CA


Los Angeles is a cesspool of scantly clad beautiful people drenched in
sunlight, but we didn't really find that out until the morning. The
evening was spent at Kat's brother's beach shack a couple blocks away
from Venice Beach. It reminded me a bit of living at the community
house in New Zealand, with seemingly dozens of people flowing in and
out the door over the course of the evening, except these people were
more blond and tanned and ate more dairy products.

After the desert and all the driving, it was a bit overwhelming. All I
wanted was some dinner and good sleep. These things were had, but much
later than I would have hoped and we all know what happens to people
when they are tired and hungry, they get grumpy. So I did my best to
keep to myself. Eventually the party atmosphere subsided and I was
able to crash... on a sofa that Giselle had once laid on for a
magazine shoot.

The next morning we had a nice little stroll around the beach area
before heading off to the north and meeting up with Fahad for lunch.
There was much catching up, pizza eating, reminiscing, and one case of
a mistaken identity ('cause, I mean, who can really tell the
difference between us?). My greatest regret on this trip is that I
didn't get a photo of us together. We are twins separated by genetics.

There was then much scenery and coastal driving. I believe that the
sunset image from a couple posts ago is actually from our trek out to
the Pacific Coast Highway.

requisite vacation sunset image

OK. So, my attempt at recapping the whole road trip in moderately
lengthy and detailed posts has derailed. I'm okay with this. I realize
that these things are somewhat time sensitive sense (a) my memory
isn't great for such things and (b) the nature of the web blog
generally enourages quick dissemination of information that is
immediately relevant, kind of short term-y/short attention span-y.
Also, I'm not convinced that anyone actually wants to read these
posts, even me, who appreciates having them for the sake of posterity,
but since I lived the events not too long ago, am pretty okay just
sitting here thinking about them. That said, sometimes writing a
little bit can be a good workout for the brain contraption and I'll
see if I can at least pen the highlights.

Day 3: Joshua Tree redux.

We'll rewind bit, and briefly note that after Coachella Kyle and I
drove somewhat cluelessly around in the desert looking for the Palm
Springs airport, which we eventually found, and where Shanni had been
patiently waiting for us for an hour or so. We then got lost leaving
the airport ("just leave the same way you came in," one would think,
but i was a bit giddy and not really paying attention to the direction
we were pointed in). As is the wont of the Jews, there was further
wandering in the desert. What should have been an hour drive to a
Motel 6 (situated next to my mortal enemy, Pizza Hut), turned into a 3
hour battle with highway signage, countless U-turns, and everyone
losing their cool a bit, but just a bit.

Morning. The desert. We had no food. There was a diner and we were
saved by morning milkshakes. I had a Spanish omelet that was roughly
the size of Spain, and may have been populated with actual Spaniards
(I'm sorry, little Spaniards, you deserved a better death than one by
digestion). Then: into the heart of it. The morning was spent driving
through the park and the early afternoon on a two hour walk to a ridge
with magnificent views. Witnessed: Joshua trees, lizards, cacti, dirt,
more dirt, small bushes, &c. We'd just missed the bloom-y season, but
there was plenty of beauty to be seen.

Then! Away to Los Angeles!

Joshua Tree joy:

this is it.

day too two.

Phoenix for the most part remains a mystery. From the airplane window you could see a seemingly endless sprawl of the city's white-roofed domains. But who or what inhabited those buildings? And perhaps more mysterous: why and how is there grass here? We don't really know. Kyle and I busted outta there as soon as we finished our pies.

Driving directly at the sun for a good couple of hours, we finally arrived in the Indio/Coachella/Joshua Tree area around 10:00 pm, deciding to take our chances with a national park camp ground. The park's south entrance only led to group camp sites, in which, thanks to our national park's honor system of reservations and payment, we had no problem finding space for our two-person tent.

Kyle, having never been further west than Lexington, Kentucky woke up with the sun and frolicked in the desert while I stirred in my sleeping bag. We were on the road by 9:30, headed to conquer Coachella's Saturday lineup, killing some time before the afternoon start by scavenging a breakfast at Target (a banana, orange juice, and banana-nut muffin for me) and picking up some forgotten supplies.

Then it was off to search for parking, which despite somewhat excessive signage seemed to elude us for quite a while. There appeared to be a number of event parking lots dotting the path to festival, but none of them were populated by concert goers and most of them were mostly empty and closed off. It turns out that parking was located to the right of an intersection with an impromptu no right turn sign, which had a police officer idling next to it. This didn't seem to deter other attendees from making a right, so we followed them with crossed fingers. No trouble.

We arrived at the festival, were interviewed by a local radio station (top five favorite bands? i froze. what makes a good concert? who am i listening to right now?). Entering the grounds, security made me dump out my water bottle ("It could be Vodka for all we know!"), were accosted by a couple minors looking for beer bracelets ("I don't think drinking in this heat's a good idea. You'll end up in the medical tent dehydrated and covered in vomit." The thanks I got in reply I'm pretty sure was a mispronounced "fuck you.")

P.O.S. kicked off our Coachella experience ("It's 1:30. You're at a hip-hop show in the desert. Fuck it. Throw your hands in the air. No. Like this. Up. Like this!"). If the crowd had known what to make of it (i.e., not been full of what can only be described in this context as a bunch of honkeys), it would've been an excellent set.

P.O.S. was followed by what turned out to be hands-down the best set of the day with Ida Maria, a Scandinavian outfit with a very earnest and blond backing band that tore through straight to the core of rock's definition—dynamism, youth, sex, rebellion, and spontaneity—all made easily digestible with catchy hooks.

From there it was mostly downhill: Joss Stone played a too polished set on the main stage (that had a rigging system roughly a million stories tall and completely dwarfed every act it hosted); Henry Rollins offered a pandering rant about the evils of war, being frustrated with the Bush administration, and airport security; the tail-end of Amanda Palmer's set was a rousing ukulele cover of Radiohead's Creep, and seemed to be the only occurrence that day of an audience really singing along; Tinariwen worked the crowd with the clever use of not speaking English and looking foreign, which was completely charming and effortless on their part as they are from Mali and do not actually speak English or seem to be inclined to wear t-shirts and bermuda shorts; Fleet Foxes offered very tight harmonies in a solid set that I can only really describe as gently raucous; M.I.A.'s performance was completely seizure inducing, a clinic in pop art replete awful video collages, dancers in neon piping, and incoherent rambling ("I didn't sell out. I played the Grammy's, but I turned the Oscars down! I just had a baby.").

pop-ish rocks.

not my usual stuff.

It happened already?

Two days ago I was in San Fransisco. Two days ago I was a free man. Today I am parked under the fluorescent-lit drop ceiling that is the pestilence of modern living, a blight that causes the slow deaths of countless psyches across the developed world. Yup. There's nothing like a good road trip to remind you how dull and inane your daily life actually is.

Two Friday's ago I met Kyle at the Phoenix Airport Alamo Rental Car desk. After driving in circles trying to figure out how to get on I-10, we headed over to Pizzeria Bianco, a place often tagged as having the best pizza in these United States. We arrived on their sun baked front patio around 4pm, a good hour before they opened doors, and we weren't even the first in line—already there was a small collection of people hanging out under a canvass awning. Kyle and I did some catching up, interrupted periodically by a couple of very nice guys—fledgling pizza enthusiasts—asking me questions about pizzerias and pizza making. By the time Bianco's opened, the line to get in stretched maybe 60 people down the block.

How could Bianco's wood-charred pies live up to the hype surrounding them? Well, they couldn't. But I can't think of any pizza that could. We kicked off the meal with a couple of cokes and an antipasto (olives, cheese, soppressata and fire roasted asparagus, bell peppers, and onions) that turned out to be the star of the meal. A wild-haired Chris Bianco was manning the oven and stretching out paper-thin 12 inch rounds of dough. Our pizzas came out beautifully cooked, with the puffy edge having a slim crisp outter shell and soft, spongey innards. Between the two of us we split the Rosa (Red Onion, Parmigiano Reggiano, Rosemary, Arizona Pistachios), the Wiseguy (Wood Roasted Onion, House Smoked Mozzarella, Fennel Sausage), and a Margherita (Tomato Sauce, Fresh Mozzarella, Basil). The Margherita was excellent and the best of the lot, with a fresh-tasting sauce and a nice sauce and cheese balance. The Wiseguy was heavily loaded with thick strips of sausage and onion, both of which were delicious in their own right, but were detrimental to the pizza's pizza-ness. Their heft overpowered both the crust's structure and its flavor. I wondered why they bothered to put them on a pizza crust to begin with. The sausage and onions would have made a tastey meal by themselves. The Rosa is without a doubt the richest pizza I've ever had. The oils from the reggiano and pistachios mixing with the sweetness of the red onion were overwhelming and gave me that feeling of thickness at the base of the jaw where it meets the throat. I could only manage to down two of its six slices. Kyle seemed happy to play clean-up on that one.

The nail in the coffin for me though was crust, which while cooked to perfection, was simply bland. Maybe it was just this day's batch, but it lacked both the yeasty flavor and saltiness that combine for that satisfactory umami-ness one searches for in that last bite. The best pizza in America? No. But when it was all chewed and swallowed, it was still a damn fine dinner and certainly a pizza worthy of praise. Great service too.

pizza upskirt

margherita

wiseguy

rosa

the oven