(no subject)

I was watching Eddie Izzard's Dress to Kill standup routine when it struck me that I wanted to articulate how standup comedy works. It's pretty neat stuff. A good standup routine has a structure and a definite jazz feel to it. At least half of the fun of watching a standup routine is seeing how the parts come together, how the motifs get repeated and woven and made into something more funny than they are in and of themselves. Standup routines, when they are good, are kind of like jazz storytelling... or would be, if jazz used kazoos more frequently.

So, today, for your edification and mine (insidian knows who Eddie Izzard is and may quite possibly be the only person reading this with a hope in hell of knowing what I'm going off about), I was going to chart out the repeated motifs in Dress to Kill, particularly the delightful riff Ciao, and the time intervals that they happened at, so that you could see the weave of the tapestry without being all distracted by the very funny british transvestite guy. (I am not the only person for whom looking at things inside-out holds some appeal. YarnHarlot recently gave in to requests from the studio audience to show her impressively complex knitted mittens inside out. It is NOT JUST ME.)

But, you know, the road to hell is paved with good intentions and that didn't actually get done because... because I was too busy listening to my music. Instead of seeing me dismantle a standup routine, you get to read what the auto-random playlist offered me today. I understand that this is about as thrilling as watching other people eat (9 1/2 Weeks notwithstanding) but life is like that sometimes. In (light and honor) of the ongoing Australian Kazaa trial, I've marked with a star items I did NOT download off the glorious interweb (full disclosure: I used WinMX, not Kazaa) but acquired in other ways, sometimes by *gasp* purchasing the album but more often by ripping it off of a friend or relative who already had the .mp3 or CD handy.

*Kingston Trio -- They're Rioting in Africa
Kinks -- Turning Japanese
*Joanne Shenandoah: She Carries the Sky
Hank Williams, Jr. -- A Country Boy Can Survive
Mozart -- Queen of the night aria from Magic Flute
*Adam Ant -- Goody Two Shoes
*John Waite -- Missing You
Mamas and Papas -- California Dreaming
Eberlie Bros. -- Bye, Bye Love
*Modern English -- I Melt With You
*Clancy Brothers -- Reilly's Daughter
Hank Snow -- On the Wings of Snow White Dove
Rolling Stones -- Let's Spend the Night Together
Ozzy -- Mama, I'm Coming Home
*Kosono -- Odo Yewe
*Men Without Hats -- Safety Dance
*Dropkick Murphys -- Kiss Me, I'm Shitfaced
*Garbage -- Cherry Lips (Go Baby Go) -- Thanks, Mark!
Verdi -- La Donna E Mobile (from Rigoletto)
*Tiffany -- I Think We're Alone Now
Poison -- Every Rose Has its Thorn
Harry Belafonte -- Banana Boat Song
Joe Diffie -- John Deere Green
*Technotronic -- Pump up the Jam
Janis Joplin -- Son of a Preacher Man
Aaron Tippin -- A Little Dust on the Bottle
*TwoMix -- Just Wild Beat Communication
Crystals -- And Then He Kissed Me
*Barenaked Ladies -- Another Postcard
Alice Cooper -- Novocaine
*Beatles -- Dear Prudence

(no subject)

It's amazing what you get to see in the landlording business. Sewer pipes that cost five figures to repair, for one, and primates behaving badly, for another. See, we have a tenant. The lease signed by the tenant lists the tenant, M., and her adult son, a convicted child molester. These two people are the only people who are supposed to be living in the apartment.

It is a one-bedroom apartment.

Reports from other tenants in the same building, as well as statements made by M. herself, indicate that M. has moved in her husband (who is not on the lease and who should not, therefore, be living in the apartment). Reports from other tenants further strongly suggest that the son's girlfriend and her CHILDREN are living in the one-bedroom apartment with M., M.'s husband, and M.'s child-molesting son. Nobody has yet come forth detailing the sleeping arrangements in this one-bedroom apartment, so you'll have to use your imagination for that.

When the girlfriend's children are there, the other tenants call the police because the son, convicted child molester that he is, is not supposed to be around children. As you might expect, this whole clusterfuck of a situation is causing a certain amount of difficulty and stress amongst the other tenants of the building.

Couple of things I'd like to point out, here.

1. MHMR pays the rent for these people. That'd be, y'know, your tax dollars at work.
2. What kind of useless twat dates a convicted child molester?
2a. What kind of useless twat lets her children HANG OUT WITH a convicted child molester?
3. WHY ARE WE LETTING THESE PEOPLE BREED?

(no subject)

Dinner was a mushroom-cheddar melt on whole wheat. While I've made grilled cheese sandwiches many, many times before tonight, I still learned something from the process this evening. The universe in a grain of sand, or something. Anyway, here's what I learned about a right proper mushroom-cheddar melt.

It's a good idea to preheat your cast-iron skillet, the one that you use to make perfect crepes and perfect french toast and perfect pancakes and, as it happens, perfect grilled cheese sandwiches, even snooty ones called melts. The bread comes out crispier if it's not made to sit on an incompletely heated skillet.

For best mushroom flavor, use half-cooked mushrooms. Raw mushrooms aren't as tasty as half-cooked ones and fully-cooked mushrooms shrink worse than a guy in the shower after the hot water runs out. You want half-cooked mushrooms -- three or four, rinsed and sliced thick, then sauteed lightly in butter (Here, and everywhere, I mean real butter. If I meant fake, vegetable-oil oleo stuff, I would SAY that. If I say butter, I mean product-of-cows. Bank on it.) until they're half cooked and have just started to bleed mushroom juice into the butter.

Use real cheese, not that pasteurized processed cheese food product shit. I'm talking real cheese, the kind sold in hunks. You can slice it yourself -- it'll be melted anyway so nobody will have to see your uneven slices. I used medium-sharp cheddar, which, seeing as how I get it in shrink-wrapped 8-oz hunks at the local grocery, probably isn't real cheese to people more snobby than I am. However, it's more-real than pasteurized processed cheese food product, innit? (Admittedly, this is not difficult. The stuff they put on Cheetos (tm) is more real than pasteurized processed cheese food product.) Anyway. Get cheese that's as real as is possible for your lifestyle and budget. What kind of cheese? Well, half-cooked mushrooms will be assertive enough to stand up to middle of the road cheddar, a baby-swiss, or a monterey jack. After that, you're on your own.

Use real bread. The floppy white stuff? You still eat that? If you're older than eight, you should be eating better bread than Wonder or the local equivalent. I used plain whole-wheat but I betcha rye or pumpernickle would go a treat too.

Now, the most annoying aspect of grilled cheese sandwiches in my world has always been trying to spread cold butter on bread. My mom did it that way, and probably your mom did too unless you're one of those humans who reproduces by mitosis and hasn't got a proper mom. However, my mom was wrong. (Sorry, mom!) There's a better way to do things, and that way is to spread an appropriately-sized glob of butter on the fucking skillet, where it can bubble to life and let you know that your preheating is done. You should be able to hear the butter talking. Slap bread down in the midst of the buttered area, add your sliced cheese, one layer thick. Carefully arrange a mushroom layer overtop the cheese, for full coverage. Top with other slice of unbuttered bread. It'll be okay. Just trust me. Now, wait until bottom bread slice is browned and crispy. Lift up sammich with flipper thingie. Spread more butter on skillet, flip sammich down on uncooked side, cook.

Not only does the butter-the-skillet thing avoid torn bread, it also makes for more even distribution of butter so that there are no missed or under-buttered areas. How damn cool is that?