Behind Dyspepsia

No one knows what it's like
To eat some bad fish
A truly sad dish
Behind a happy guise

No one knows what it's like
To be nauseated
To be fated
To telling only lies

But my meals
They aren't as terrible
As this one seemed to be

I never claimed to be a poet. I’ve ripped off Springsteen and now its Townshend’s turn. As a local radio station says, back to the music in two minutes or less.

I'm generally a loveable individual but I was put in a cross mood by a work lunch Thursday. The company was fine, including my Belgian boss, but we chose a bad restaurant, at least from my perspective. To paraphrase 4M, "What did you expect in Milpitas?" The special of the day was described as "a potato encrusted Chilean sea bass". What arrived in front of me shortly thereafter was a fish of indeterminate lineage that had been boiled to death. As far as the crust, I think they had made a morning stop at a local greasy spoon to pick up some hash browns, equal parts sogginess and grease, that they dumped on that poor fish. I had entrusted my encrusted fish to them and they let me down. The whole mess was served on a bed of well-oiled vegetables. They did do a nice job of dusting the edge of the plate with parsley and seasoning.

Under normal circumstances, I would have indignantly sent it back to the kitchen but being that it was free and my boss was buying, I picked at it a little and loaded up on bread. If you're looking for good bread, this place might work. Fortunately we're going back to Chapeau in SF tonight, which will exorcise memories of that lunch

Returning to the music theme, the jury selection for the Phil Spector trial started this week. It looks like his wall of sound will be replaced by a wall of concrete.

On the political front, I’m forming an exploratory committee to determine if Newt Gingrich is a hypocritical prick.

To close, I’d like to wish Happy Birthday, one day late, to one of my favorite East Coast readers.

Book It Danno

April 28, 2007

If you're reading this, you are invited to a Foster City Five O birthday bash on that date, unless, of course, you don't have my address. Then you're screwed. I'm still on the fence about my alleged friends that don't read the blog. I'm not sure they will be invited. Sometimes when I think of them ignoring my blog, it makes me feel like Alanis Morissette, circa 1995. Angry!

This party will be a classy affair. There will be no navel shots of tequila like my 40th birthday. I've grown up a lot in 10 years.

The fun starts when I show up. Dinner and soft drinks will be served.

I’d also like to take this opportunity to give a birthday shout out to my brother and TK. They have both preceded me into this vale of tears, the land of the geezer.

Year Two

It may be hard for you to believe but I’ve been giving you pearls for a year now. Yesterday was my blog’s birthday. I was going to write another anniversary piece but there’s a bit of a disagreement between the Brits and Yanks regarding the first. We have paper and they have cotton, with the second being the converse. I’m going to sync up with Madonna and Gwyneth to see if we can get this thing straightened out.

I received a lot of good comments about my last piece, both on the blog and via email and phone, which I appreciate. I also had a record day on Tuesday, with 76 hits, including a bunch from The Bronx. I gotta figure out who that is. 4M and his family got out of there in the 60’s so I don’t know anybody in The Bronx. When my bud TCG checks in, his hits come from Plano, TX and he lives in my town, so The Bronx hits are probably misleading. All I know I know is they are coming from optonline.net. You may say, “What the hell is optonline.net?”, but they are a major competitor or twocansandastringdotcom.

From The Bronx, we’ll head off to Jersey, which my dad, the nomadic octogenarian, just did Monday. He gave up a cheap rent-controlled apartment in SF for the good life in NJ. His wife has relatives back east, so I partially understand his wanderlust. Otherwise I might have to ask him to give it to me straight and say, “Listen Papa Doc, if you don’t want to hang with me, just say so”. Papa Doc, after the late Haitian dictator, is one of those affectionate nicknames he’s acquired over the years. That and El Viejo are his favorites. Or at least mine.

After my last SF visit with him, I reminisced a bit with my brother about our idyllic childhood. There was the time when bro was about six and I was four. We were taking a shower with Papa Doc and we had squirt guns. We decided to take aim at a strategic body part. We scored some direct hits before we were discouraged from continuing our mission. I suppose you could say it was a watershed event. Even as kids, we were goal oriented. Then there was the time when my dear brother encouraged me to stand on the stairway and kick a conveniently placed table lamp between the banister spindles. We negotiated a bit. I asked for a cost/benefit analysis but it was not forthcoming. I decided to move forward with the project anyway and quite a hullabaloo ensued. After I explained to my dad why I did it, I got the benefit of seeing my brother pay the cost.

Many years later, I became a standard mid-70s teen, with long, straggly hair. My dad would have preferred I continue going to the barbershop with him, but the Italian brothers who owned the place probably would have buzzed my beautiful locks. So he tolerated my hairstyle until I decided to try a ponytail. I came down the stairs with a rubber band in my hair. As soon as he saw that he turned a couple shades of red and grunted something that made me fling that rubber band with all due haste. Ah, good times.

Now over to the celebrity desk. I haven’t been following People, US, etc. as much as I should but I did catch the news that Angelina Jolie is planning to adopt a Vietnamese child. Apparently her publicist did not get my email. I told him she should go for a continental trifecta and get a kid from Latin America. It looks like Madonna is going to have to play catch up. Maybe she can get a set of twins for her birthday.