I remember being in Middle School and loathing Sunday because it meant my best friend at the time and I couldn’t continue staying up until 2 in the morning playing video games until Friday rolled around a few days later. It was back when an obscene amount of pointless homework/even more pointless projects had to be done for Monday and it was Middle School, which I’m told is somehow worse now than it was back when I was in it. But that was before we all grew up and learned about the activity/lifestyle decision known as brunch.
Brunch, which both the Oxford English Dictionary and the Merriam-Webster Dictionary mislabel as being only a noun, is, after all, the only time when drinking before noon is socially accepted outside of France, Italy, all colleges/universities other than Bob Jones University, and of course, the fourth hour of Today. By the way, NBC, if y’all just let Kathie Lee and Hoda host all four hours, your ratings would be soaring! Think about it, drunk Kathie Lee at 7h0 interviewing Senators and covering actual hard news stories! Hoda used to be able to do the serious news bit, but it’s not known at the present time if the booze-filled haze Kathie Lee introduced her to has permanently hindered her ability to report real news, though it would be fun to find out!
For further proof that cocktail hour at Today is the best part of the show, just watch this video in its entirety:
Brunch is wonderful for reasons other than bloodies and mimosas. It’s the only meal where everyone gets to have pregnant woman cravings. You want an ice cream sundae with a salad and waffles? Go for it! Apple tart with an omelet on a bed of mashed potatoes? Why not! And if you’re lucky and your club or hotel does a buffet for its brunch, well then it’s basically an epicurean free-for-all complete with carving stations, raw bars and entire sections/rooms dedicated to dessert. And once you’re done pretending like you have to eat for two (hundred), the New York Times gives you eight sections and a magazine to read!
Sure, there are athletic competitions to watch in the late afternoon, but it’s at night that Sunday shines its brightest. See, television executives know that by 20h0, you’re close to being sober (if you aren’t and you’re not in college or hosting most entertaining hour of television ever, then you might want to consider joining AA. It’s just a thought). Therefore, they know that you need something get you excited for Monday morning. So what do they do? They put their best shows on Sunday nights.
Let’s think about this for a second. Homeland, Downton Abbey, Entourage, Mad Men, that surprisingly good show Girls, M*A*S*H, both runs of Upstairs Downstairs, The Newsroom, and Sunday Night Football are all shows that currently air or did air on Sunday nights. And why do they do this? Because they know that during the week, we have some semblance of lives and that only disturbed people are watching TV on Friday nights, hence that’s when NBC airs Dateline. Plus, except for SNL, we have better things to do with our lives on Saturday. But Sunday nights are usually spent at home in front of a television where we belong.
So Sunday, please accept my apology for ever thinking you were anything but the best day of the week. Now if y’all will excuse me, I’m late for brunch. Until next time…
JD
PS: It’s a new year, which magazines and bad daytime television shows tell us is the perfect time to completely redo our lives. With that in mind, I thought it was time to redo the look of this site. Hope y’all enjoy it, and if you don’t, that’s nice. Oh yeah, and as for that ’61 Latour, if anyone wants to share, Michel Dovaz’s book Fine Wines say s that you only have until 2025 to drink it, so give me a call!
Did anyone else read that sad story yesterday in The Wall Street Journal about that lone BlackBerry store in Farmington Hills, Michigan? I read that and immediately looked on Delta‘s website to see how much it would cost to take a pilgrimage to what was supposed to be the first of many BlackBerry stores all across America (excluding their seven airport stores). That won’t be happening any time soon, however, because I’d have to drive to Richmond in order to fly to Detroit. That, and I don’t have time right now to do that. Maybe I’ll go later this year, but I already know I’ll be going alone since I only know ten people at most, including myself, who still have use a Blackberry.
Personally, I don’t like the iPhone because I want a real keyboard, hence I’m still stickin’ with the Berry. But, only because little Debbie from Season One of SNL nagged so much, I finally caved and agreed to let him buy me an iPad, partly because he offered and I wanted to call his bluff and partly because I’ve been told I’m not getting a new Mac for a few years so this will hopefully take some of the load off of my aging workhorse. Plus, it’ll be great for traveling since I won’t have to take a computer anymore on trips. I’m not really sure what I’m going to use this iPad for when I’m not traveling other than to read the newspapers I already read on my iPod because I’m still keeping my Kindle because I don’t want any distractions when I’m reading. We shall see how this goes once it and I meet one another in May.
Movin’ right along, I hate April. It’s starts with a day that makes gullible people like myself seem beyond dumb, it gives us awkward weather for which we can’t dress (it’s not too cold to wear a jacket, but not too hot to wear shorts), pollen, and if you’re a university student, April means papers; lots and lots of unnecessary papers. Oh yeah, and income tax day, which I don’t think anyone other than the employees of the IRS look forward to each year.
Yeah, I’ll admit it. These massive papers I’m currently avoiding like the plague are such a waste of time and energy. But, I need good grades on them so unfortunately, I have to write them. Besides, Justin tells me that my problems are trivial and I shouldn’t complain.
Speaking of His Royal Unemployed, Justin is getting ready to move to his new apartment this weekend. This is going to be hard for Justin because he has some stuff and an extremely small car. I’m going to enjoy hearing how he does it, especially since he has actual furniture. I’d say I wish Justin well with this “endeavor,” but I’m really dying to hear some story about how something fell out of the back of his car while on the two mile drive to his new apartment and reeks havoc on the brick-paved streets of Winter Park. I know it’s mean and how can I think something like that, but in reality, y’all were thinkin’ it too!
Grace, on the other hand, had a most amusing last week. And by amusing, I mean she’ll look back on it and laugh in a few months. So Grace had this horse show in Spotsylvania, VA, a city adjacent to Fredericksburg made of two sides: there’s this very beautiful country side that is part of Virginia horse territory; the other side is filled with cheap motels, bad fast food and chain restaurants, gas stations galore, and that’s about it. We stop there on our way to and from Maryland when we go to the Preakness and Mother and I were the 100,000th customers at the Friendly’s there in Spotsylvania; we get two milkshakes and use the bathroom before heading to the nearest gas station.
So Grace goes up there and makes her hotel reservation by calling hotels.com (don’t even get me started on that little detail) and arrives at whatever hotel where she was supposed to stay only to find out that they don’t have her in their computer system, but perhaps it’s at the other one not too far away. When she arrives at the other location, they only have her staying there one night and it had a unique scent that was not tolerable. Obviously, this was not going to work, so Grace gets back in her truck to start searching for any streamlined chain hotel and even though there are literally thousands upon thousands of usually empty hotel/motel rooms in Spotsylvania thanks to its location just off of I-95, they were all sold out! Even the Ramada Inn that has the most terrifying, 80s kind of Vergas-style swimming pool in the middle of the hotel and therefore reeks of chlorine was booked solid.
Apparently, there were three reunions/meetings in town that night and so Grace has to drive almost to Richmond, which is a good 30-45 minutes away, and mind you, she’s just spent the whole day taking care of a very spoiled horse sans a militia of helpers so she was exhausted to say the least. Princess ends up staying at a Quality Inn outside of Richmond in a “smoking room with a bloodstain on the carpet.” She and I both agreed that it would have probably been a safer and smarter idea to just sleep in the backseat of the truck.
Back here in the land of all things Jefferson (where today, the only professor I’ve had while attending UVa who had yet to mention his class’s connection to Mr. Jefferson finally made the connection. I swear, there must be something in the contracts of every professor at the university that requires them to make a connection of some kind to him because every single class has managed to somehow.), this past Friday was Founder’s Day, which celebrates Mr. Jefferson’s birthday.
Mother, who was here for two days with friends, and I went up to Monticello, which was a lot of fun and we just walked around and enjoyed the perfect weather and views. Unfortunately, this was a somewhat spontaneous decision so I didn’t have my camera along with me. We’re going to go back and take photos this time. On the upside, UVa students can visit Monticello for free, which is nice since it costs $24 to see the house and grounds, which is kind of steep if you ask me.
Alas, I have to go because I have to compile a five-seven page annotated bibliography that’s due tomorrow, so until next time…
Well the last Spring Break I’ll get for at least the next few years has come to an end and of course my brain isn’t functioning regularly yet even though I’ve been back at school since Sunday. To make things worse, Andrew sent me the following clip from this past week’s Saturday Night Live, which I missed, that has to be one of the all-time funniest things to come from SNL and features one of my favorite people and America’s answer to the Two Fat Ladies, Paula Deen:
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Now, aside from the sheer brilliance that are”That’s as stupid as fat free cream cheese,” “It started with me gettin’ what my mamma calls ‘the sugars'” and the ‘n’ word being nutrition, Kristn Wiig’s spot-on impersonation of my favorite hillbilly left Justin, Andrew and me wondering something: how does one spell my new favorite saying, “hot butter and oil” in this Southern dialect that is just too Southern for me to apparently comprehend. Now, I figured out this unique pronunciation of butter is “booter,” but the way Kirsten Wiig says oil is just so bizarre. Andrew thinks it’s spelled “aayl,” but Justin feels that spelling is wrong and offered “aaieyl.” Grace, meanwhile, is convinced that both are wrong and that it should be “awl.” I’m still trying to figure out how I think it is properly spelled so if anyone from my beloved SNL is dumb enough to read this, A, my mother thinks I should write for you (but her opinion doesn’t count because I’m her only child and like all Jewish parents, she secretly thinks I’m the Messiah) and B, (and more importantly), can I get the correct spelling, please. Thanks, y’all!
It should be noted that while writing about this, I came to the sad, and overly disturbing realization that is the tenth time I have mentioned the beloved Queen of Butter and the third time in 2012 alone! All I can say about this is “Hot booter ‘n’ oil [since the correct spelling yet to be determined, I will be using the actual English spelling of oil], y’all!”
Moving away from “hot booter ‘n’ oil,” Spring Break was nice, until I woke up 48 hours after arriving in Palm Beach sniffling like a teenage girl watching “The Notebook” (which, for the record, is a movie you couldn’t pay me to see). The only difference was that I wasn’t watching anything depressing. Now, I will not come out and say that I had a cold because I had dinner reservations every night and like hell was I staying in to eat a baked chicken from Publix!
So what did mother and I do once we dropped off our Lady Madonna at the airport on Sunday? We took two of the three free movie passes some moron gave him and drove down to Boca, Land of the Jews, to see the other Madonna’s new movie, “W.E.,” the movie about the love affair between the Duke and Duchess of Windsor while showing the blossoming love affair between a married woman named Wallis (because her mother and grandmother were obsessed with a woman who looked like a man and nearly brought down the entire British Monarchy; that right there is what I would like to call a great role model) and a security guard at Sotheby’s in 1997 during the historic auction of the personal items belonging to the Duke and Duchess of Windsor.
If that doesn’t make sense to you, don’t worry because the movie doesn’t make any sense at all either. Sadly, the trailer makes it look half decent, but in reality, I actually left that theatre thinking one thing: I would like my free ticket back! Madonna, just go into retirement. The music career is over (I think the Superbowl Halftime Show confirmed it since you’ve now joined the league of such illustrious performers as Ashely Simpson and Kid Rock), you haven’t acted in ages; just let the 80, 90s and early 2000s music you made define your career.
Harvey Weinstein, as much as I have enjoyed many of your films over the years (I even bought an Adult ticket to see some of them, including my favorite movie of 2011, “The Artist”), I cannot believe you associated yourself with this overly confusing, poorly-made, recorded nightmare. I would call it a film, but that wouldn’t be fair to actual directors who know what the hell they’re doing!
Aside from visiting old Palm Beach restaurant favorites, mother decided that since I’m of legal age, it was finally time for her to do what she has wanted to do for years and that is go to get drinks before dinner at restaurants and hotels all over the island. See, aside from mother and I, no one in our family really drinks alcohol, aside from the occasional glass of wine with dinner so there has never been anyone who has wanted to go with her before me and hey, I wasn’t paying!
The Tapestry Bar at the Breakers is one of the most magnificent rooms in the world. There will never be rooms of that scale and grandeur ever built again and to be able to experience even a taste of what it was like back when Henry Flagler’s hotel was a second home to everyone who mattered for decades is just remarkable. Plus, they have a Happy Hour from 17h0-19h0. Mother and I each had a glass of wine, plus the trio of dips to go with the chips that accompanied our drinks (the Port Wine Pommery was our favorite because of its very subtle taste and smooth texture) was less than $20, including gratuity. And they validated the parking ticket! For Palm Beach, that is a bargain, people!
For non-hotel bars, we preferred Buccan, which is right on County, across from the one gas station left on the island. We’d never been before (because some people don’t like to try new things anymore) and decided to give it a shot. I’d heard that it’s more of a place to go for appetizers than it is for dinner and so we sat at copper-plated bar tables that glistened just like a freshly-polished copper pot. Again, Happy Hour exists in Palm Beach, which is odd because one would assume that every hour in paradise is happy. In addition to a glass of wine each, we shared the featured cheese and the prosciutto & fontina arancini, which I really enjoyed.
What I enjoyed even more though was knowing that I’m not the only guy who has to put up with his mother constantly trying to take photos of her “baby.” Two bar tables away from us sat a guy about my age, maybe younger, with his very thirsty parents who did what mother loves to do more than anything else: take embarrassing photos of young adult sons in restaurants with the flash. Do y’all know how annoying that iPhone flash is? I swear, I hate the flash, so when we were in Florida this time, I just started carrying my Leica around with me because I’ve come to the conclusion that if someone is going to be taking a photo of me, it’s gonna be taken with a real camera!
The highlight of the trip for me, though, was not having cocktails every night before dinner, but it was our final evening when we dinnered at Palm Beach’s newest restaurant, Imoto, a sushi bar with a limited Asian-inspired cuisine menu located right next door to Buccan. Despite probably belonging more in South Beach than in Palm Beach, a place that kind of shuns change of any kind, especially pennies because nothing in Palm Beach has ever required the need to even contemplate using a penny, Imoto is capturing a market that until now has been dominated almost exclusively by restaurant-turned nightclub after 22h0, the always popular Cucina Dell Arte.
Aside from not having a website as promised on the business card and matches, Imoto’s only flaw is that it’s only open for dinner. If they opened for lunch, that stupid Pizza al Fresco off of Worth Avenue would finally realize that you can’t charge $20 for a salad and not have service to match it. My only complaint with the dinner itself was that I would have preferred that the rice on top of which my fillet of beef was placed was a bit too spicy for my liking. That, and we didn’t get the orange slices like everyone else at the end of the meal. Mother’s rock shrimp tempura with spicy aioli sauce, which was not spicy at all (thank you very much), was so good the next morning cold before we left for the airport! The non-spicy, spicy aioli sauce gave it this invigorating kick that just took the overall flavor to a whole new level!
I highly recommend this place, but warn that if you happen to be over the age of 47, don’t be there past 21h0 because you will definitely be the oldest person in there. This might be the only restaurant in Palm Beach that won’t have a single customer on ventilation and that is impressive! In my opinion, Imoto might just be the new Cucina becuase it’s hip, it’s fun, the food is amazing, and most importantly, I wasn’t the youngest person there!
Mother’s highlight was a bit different from mine. She and Jean went to a charity luncheon at Mar-a-Lago for the American Humane Society because of a dog dressed in a pink gown and wearing a tiara. I’m not making this up. This year, the society was honoring Candy Spelling with their humanitarian award in recognition of her philanthropic efforts. Sadly, I think Princess Zelda, the tiara-wearing dog, got more attention because well, it’s a dog wearing a dress and a tiara vs. a woman who had three gift-wrapping rooms in the house she finally sold after being on the market for over two years. In all honesty, I’d being paying more attention the dog too.
Meanwhile, Andrew spent his final Spring Break on the Coast (I love saying that) doing whatever it is people in LA do. The high point of his trip came on the flight back, though, because Andrew was seated across the aisle from legendary actor Sam Waterston, better known as District Attorney Jack McCoy from Law & Order. Yes, cue the music:
Now, of course, because it’s Andrew, he refused to just make my life complete and casually make that infamous noise in Mr. Waterston’s presence during the plane’s descent into JFK , but he did tell me that he watched an episode or two of the show, so I guess he gets something for doing that.
Back in Florida, Justin, who continued to remind me over Spring Break that some people don’t get a week off for Spring Break anymore, to which I should remind him that he volunteered to graduate a semester early so it’s his own doing, is moving. He’s leaving his apartment not far from the Rollins campus and heading to a new apartment near my beloved Whole Foods in Winter Park. This was where I developed a disgusting obsession with the two-bite brownies, which I then topped with Betty Crocker vanilla frosting using a knife I took from the prepared food section. It was so delicious, eating from a trash can after discarding the evidence in an effort to stop inhaling anymore of them. And don’t judge because this is something that happened in college and everyone does some weird stuff in college!
Back to Justin, his move-in date is on April 22nd, when the average daily temperature will be 84°F, so you have fun with that one, Justin! He realized it was time to leave his current apartment, which he has had since this past summer, because the cinderblock chic decor that was provided for him and the noise from the house parties his college student neighbors make nightly was too much for him to handle. Having stayed there, I’m just so thrilled to see him leave that dump and move into a place more fitting with the 21st Century. I say this because in his on-going efforts to pretend like it’s 1975, Justin lacks something even my 90-year old grandparents have: internet access! Justin, the 21st Century can’t wait to see you again.
In a more serious note, today marks the 12th day since Justin smoked his last cigarette, cigar or pipe which is very impressive, especially since he’s too cheap to buy Nicotine gum or patches! I’m so proud of you, Justin, but at the same time upset because now I actually have to put thought into your graduation present!
Finally tonight, before I head to a “I’m Not Irish and Therefore Not Celebrating Tomorrow” party, I whipped out the Leica and took some photos of my dog, Buddy, when I was home last weekend before returning to Charlottesville to prove to Andrew that I do in fact use my new camera. However, His Royal Buddness (which is a name to which he will respond) is useless. Out of about 45 photos, maybe ten came out well because he refuses to stay still.
I would like to note that I’m fully aware that everyone who has a dog is convinced that they have the cutest, most handsome dog to have ever been brought onto the face of the earth, but I’m just saying that HRB looks like the cutest dog on the face of the earth in these photos.
Look at that 11-year old puppy!
He gets away with murder because of this face. I would pay millions to learn how to make it but he’s stubborn and refuses to tell me.
Alright, I’m off to go die of heat stroke here in Charlottesville while trying to imagine the same temperature with a breeze from the Atlantic Ocean in Palm Beach. It looks like this:
Despite the fact that I might actually love Thanksgiving more than I love my own birthday (for which I devote an entire month to celebrating), this year’s Thanksgiving just killed me in a way that may have rivaled the death of Muammar Gaddafi (or whichever of the 112 different spellings of his name y’all prefer). So my grandmother is on her 900th life and isn’t really able to leave her home anymore, but she insisted that she be apart of Thanksgiving this year, which we do at my house. Even though we didn’t really start cooking until after the 85th Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade ended, Mother and I managed to stay on schedule, despite one of our ovens deciding to suddenly act like the electronics system on a 1980s Jaguar, until about Four when it was decided that we would move the entire dinner to my grandparents’s house. That is when uncontrolled chaos began to ensue. We had to transport all of the food, plus their serving platters over to their house, where we would finish cooking the stuffing, sweet potato pies, corn muffins, and the two French Apple Tartes.
The traveling and packing/unpacking may have put us behind schedule, but my younger cousin, Kevin, who this year sported a “limited edition” Black Friday 2011 tee-shirt (not kidding), wasn’t thrilled that we were starting dinner so late because as y’all may have heard, Wal-Mart, a place I’ve proudly only been twice, started its sale Thursday night, and he wanted to be there to the point that he spent most of dinner away from the table and glued to his computer screen. I’m sorry, but it’s a holiday designed to celebrate the family—many thanks, Norman Rockwell—and not about spraying people with pepper spray in a Wal-Mart over a $249 40″ LCD television that isn’t even that good of a brand!
That, combined with some other “interesting” (that’s the best way to describe it) events has made me realize that maybe Andrew, and about twenty other people I know, are on to something by going to Bubbieland USA Boca and letting someone else do the cooking for them. We’ve only done the restaurant gig once and that was in 2001 because we were in New York for Thanksgiving. My only issue with being in South Florida for Thanksgiving is that it just doesn’t seem right to be surrounded by people in short-sleeves and palm trees and other plants with leaves on them in late November. Now oddly, I have absolutely no problem with this same scenario in December for Christmas. I don’t know why, but the whole White Christmas thing doesn’t appeal to me at all. This might have something to do with the fact that I’m Jewish, but I may be wrong.
The other alternative I’m thinking about for next year is Daniel Boulud’s $395 pre-made Thanksgiving Dinner for eight to ten people, sans desserts (my stomach is already getting excited). Yes, that sounds like a lot to spend on a meal, but if you do the math, it’s kind of the same amount you’d spend if you made it all yourself. Plus, the difference is that you can avoid hell grocery stores and the lovely human satans suburban housewives that can’t competently shop in them, not to mention the fact that you get your dinner prepared for you by a world class restaurant team! And, you just get your guests, family included, to bring the wine and dessert so you don’t have to pay for them. Who ever thought that I would be somehow saving people money? I blame the sleep depravation.
The rest of my time home can be summed up very quickly: I was a vegetable. In fact, the only time I actually left my house following Thanksgiving was on Saturday night when I went with Mother and Fozzie Bear to dinner at Todd Jurich’s Burger Bar in Virginia Beach. Todd Jurich is a local chef whose hugely successful and award-winning Todd Jurich’s Bistro has given him a bit of an ego. M. Jurich opened and then closed a French bistro-style restaurant before deciding to jump on the high-end burger joint train started by Danny Meyer with Shake Shack (an affordable version of heaven). I hope this somewhat out-of-the-way restaurant is a success because it was delicious! The All American Bison Burger with Sweet Potato Fries were excellent, although I did have to basically deconstruct the burger in order to eat it was it was rather large.
The reason to go to M. Jurich’s new restaurant, however, isn’t even the food, but rather the Nutella and Burnt Marshmellow milkshake. I can’t say that I’ve ever had a Nutella milkshake before, and while I’m curious as to how they managed to turn a product that specifically says that you’re not allowed to freeze it into a milkshake, I’m also afraid to ask because what I don’t know, won’t hurt me! I will say that I would have preferred a little more milkshake and a little less burnt marshmallows, but it was delectable nonetheless and I highly recommend that y’all go if in the Virginia Beach area.
Justin, whose ancestors attended the first Thanksgiving, briefly went back North to Cape Cod to freeze his little tuchus off for 48 hours before getting on the first flight back to Florida because he’s now afraid of the cold. Each time I spoke to Justin while he was home, he did nothing but complain about how it was bitterly cold even though was born and raised in Massachusetts. My how three years in Florida can change a man. While on holiday, Justin did mention something to me that I’ve found to be both wonderful and depressing. Apparently, the wonderful people behind Nutella, my well-documented addiction, have created two Nutelleria cafés, one in Bologna, and the other in Frankfurt. Don’t get me wrong, I’m over the moon excited that these two places exist, but I’m so mad that I didn’t see the one in Bologna when I visited the hidden Italian gem back in April, especially since I was only two blocks from it at one point! I guess there has to be a reason to go back, right?
Finally tonight, there is something I’ve been meaning to share with y’all for way too long and my earlier mention of M. Bunga Bunga himself, Colonel Muammar Gaddafi. Following the eccentric Libyan leader’s death, the folks at Time got creative and put together a slideshow documenting the many outrageous outfits that Muammar wore over the years. Despite these lasting images, I feel my lasting image of M. Bunga Bunga will forever be this clip from SNL:
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Okay, well I’m off to go watch The Godfather for a class so until next time…
-JD
PS: There are only seventeen more days until I board the Auto Train to Florida!
If y’all haven’t seen the footage from the New York Gubernatorial Debate that took place last week, watch the video below and amazingly, this is not a joke:
Jimmy McMillan, who really reminds me of a black Colonel Sanders, is the Vietnam War Vet-turned-lunatic representing all three registered voters of The Rent is too Damn High party. However, he does raise a serious issue and that is that the rent is in fact too damn high, even though he himself doesn’t pay rent for his own apartment. Better yet, the Observer reports that McMillan isn’t even a member of his own party, but rather a Democrat! I’m sorry, but first of all, you can’t run on the basis that the rent is too damn high if you do maintenance work in your building in exchange for NO RENT and if you aren’t even a member of your own party! Unfortunately, you’re quasi legitimate argument, combined with the AMAZING song on your website (which so needs to be on iTunes ASAP), basically makes you my favorite candidate for Governor.
Here’s why Andrew Cuomo doesn’t do it for me: he kind of looks like he’s had some botched plastic surgery on his face and then his girlfriend, Sandra Lee, is a complete wackjob and hypocrite. Case in point, the goal of Miss Lee’s show is that everything is done in order to save the viewer money, yet at the same time, the viewer then has to go out and buy dishes, cutlery, table-scape items, new drapes to go above the kitchen window, and every color KitchenAid mixer, which isn’t cheap at all! Also, instead of trying to theme the entire home every time the viewer cooks, perhaps Miss Lee could encourage her viewers to get jobs and do something with their lives other than go to the infamous «craft store» every day of the week!
As for the Republican candidate for Governor, Carl Paladino is um… crazy, but not really in a Jimmy McMillan kind of fun way. Instead, M. Paladino reminds me of the playground bully you see in the movies; he’s very mafia looking and it’s not like Albany really needs the mob up there. I’m able to back this up by the simple fact that he was in the construction business and we all know what that means. I mean, if y’all want to see a bunch of gun-crazed buffoons, they can just take a drive down I-95 to visit the Manzo Family in Franklin Heights, New Jersey! Plus, in all seriousness, the man is kind of a homophobe and while I’m not gay, let’s be honest here y’all: the man is running for Governor of New York State, which is one of the most gay-friendly states in the country. I mean do straight people even go to Fire Island? Plus, the gays do quite a bit of damage each month on clothes, grooming, food, drinks, hotel rooms, etc… and that all means one thing: tax revenue! So at the end of the day, you can be opposed to same-sex marriage, but you can’t be afraid of the gays. They don’t bite… just don’t put any handkerchiefs in your pockets, Carl!
So in my first political endorsement, I would like to officially throw my support behind the man who will make sure that rent goes down, Jimmy McMillan. While my reasons for supporting Mr. McMillan may seem to go against my capitalist opinions, I’m supporting him for the most important reason of them all and that is that when Governor Patterson leaves office in just a few months, we’re going to need to continue the recent wave of mental patients posing as Governor of New York. Plus, he seems like the one who will be satirized the most on SNL. Oh how Justin and I will miss them!
Moving on to more serious news, I have an announcement to make. So next semester, we (y’all and I) will be seeing Europe because I’m packing my twenty or so suitcases and flying to Siena, Italy for the Spring. They told me on Monday that I should only pack one suitcase to have checked which will never work because everyone who knows me knows that when I go to Palm Beach for Winter Break, I take four suitcases, and that’s only for a month at most! This is about five months. I’ve always wanted to wear pants with an elastic waistband and figured now is about as good a time as ever to start. I say this because I plan to eat nothing but gelato, pasta, pizza, Prosciutto di Parma, Mozzarella di Buffalo, and washing it all down with lots of Italian wine! My Italian partner in crime, Sydney, and I will also be visiting some of Europe’s finest cities and Countries, so long as we manage to not wind up in jail because of having problems with our Visas. I’m not even kidding y’all, these people legitimately got drunk and then wrote this thing because the regulations for traveling within the Schengen countries is obscene. Also, WHO THE HELL PICKED THE CITY OF SCHENGEN FOR THE SITE OF THE SIGNING OF THE SCHENGEN AGREEMENT? Couldn’t y’all have done this in a city that doesn’t remind me of China? I’m just sayin’. I’m looking forward to going to Siena, especially since I’m the only guy from UVa going (more for me!).
Speaking of situations with lots of pretty ladies, on Saturday night, Grace and I accompanied Rachel to her sorority house to help her make a Skippy, which is basically vodka, ice, a ton of beer, concentrate, and Sprite; I didn’t drink it. First of all, having been inside some of the fraternity houses here at UVa and seeing how «well-maintained» they are, my bar for the cleanliness/stable condition for the foundation of Rachel’s sorority house wasn’t exactly all that high. Then we went inside and that changed quickly. Instead of another horrific sight of booze puddles, booze-covered pool tables, crumbling foundations, and shear chaos, the Rachel’s sorority house was absolutely lovely. They had nice furniture, only one case of «Natty Lights» in the living room, no puddles of booze, and I’m told they have a chef. Plus, I’ll be perfectly honest and just admit that as a guy, the site of so many gorgeous girls in one room wasn’t too bad either. As I later told Grace, there is a heaven on earth after all. Then we saw Rachel’s room, which has a closet half the size of mine with four times as much clothing in it, must be in violation of so many codes that it’s not even funny and has no central air conditioning, something few buildings at UVa seem to have. Regardless, it was probably the highlight of the weekend.
Before this happened, I attempted to see The Social Network with the one person who for years scared me, my friend Jacquie (if your family owned funeral homes, you’d be scared too). She was visiting Annie for the night from JMU, where she’s thankfully leaving after this semester for Sweet Briar. However, when we got to the theatre, we learned that it was sold out on week three at the box office! I’m still pissed. So to drink away the sadness of not being able to see the movie, we joined that gang at Coupes and had a rather fun evening that ended somewhere around 4 after we saw Sarah finish off a massive plate of macaroni and cheese as well as some six-layer salsa at some random guy’s apartment while Annie and Grace… actually, I don’t know where they were or what they were doing because Jacquie and I were just mesmerized at the amount of food that Sarah is capable of inhaling despite maintaing her perfect figure.
While at Coupes, Sarah decided to get her dance on as well as attempt to perform a strip tease, but without actually taking any clothes off while Annie had to listen to some random drunk guy continue to mumble and slur his words while attempting to have a conversation with her. She still doesn’t know who this young gentleman was. Grace on the other hand, is one of the loudest drunks I’ve ever met. Her already loud presence seems louder, plus she was really trying to get with the bartender. Poor guy. Then some idiot who is married pulled the «my wife is nine months pregnant» line when asking Grace if she had seen the girl who had his blazer that had his phone in it. Of course, Grace went off looking for it. He was there for three more hours because I saw him while walking home later that evening.
On Wednesday, Annie admitted that the only reason she came to the class we have together was because I got her a doughnut at the newly opened Dunkin’ Donuts. Her iPhone wasn’t working for some reason so I assumed she was still asleep and about to eat that doughnut when she slid into her seat about ten minutes late. Better late than never though! She did, however, miss our professor proclaim his love to Beatrice, his Schwinn bicycle. I don’t think anyone will disagree with me when I say that there is something wrong when you name your bicycle.
On Wednesday of last week, Sydney and I went to this amazing tapas restaurant, MAS, to celebrate our acceptance into the Siena program. Our reasoning for not getting Italian was that we’ll have five months to eat Italian food in Italy. While it was beyond amazing food and sangria, the location is a little bizarre, but completely worth the visit if in Charlottesville.
Andrew has been accepted to the Duke in LA program for next semester and while I’m so happy for him and I encourage him to go, it will be interesting to see how much communicating we have because there will be a nine-hour time difference between Siena and LA. Oh well, maybe Andrew can stay up past 22h30 to chat! Justin has been preoccupied all week with some extremely dense book that would put me to sleep in about ten minutes. I’m loving my book, How to Become a Scandal: Adventures in Bad Behavior by Laura Kipnis and hope to be finished with it by some time next week so that I might be able to move on to True Prep.
Finally tonight, we need to talk about Risky Business. I briefly mentioned it on Thursday, but I’m not finished discussing this softcore porno. That’s what it is, plain and simple. After that amazing scene that Tom Cruise does in the living room, the movie just goes straight down hill and gets borderline X-rated in my opinion. Furthermore, I NEVER WANTED TO SEE TOM CRUISE STHUPPING SOMEONE, LET ALONE ON A FLIGHT OF STAIRS (that sounds painful too) OR ON GYM EQUIPMENT! I’m shocked Cruise agreed to do anything like that, especially since this is what Dana Carvey says his religion believes:
Plus now, I can never look at Tom Cruise the same away ever again. I’m going to end here tonight because if I have to have nightmares about this nut, then I think it’s only fair that y’all have to as well. Until then…
-JD
PS: The basil is actually beginning to grow and by the time I leave for Siena, I bet I’ll be able to actually eat some of it, which is great because by the time I get back, they will have been tossed out by my mother, who will inevitably forget they exist and let them die. This happens more often that y’all might think.
Look at that 11-year old puppy!
He gets away with murder because of this face. I would pay millions to learn how to make it but he’s stubborn and refuses to tell me.
The Yapper 