Bosun's Grog

greek food

i was working at a greek restaurant during ramadan a few years ago. two or three of the kitchen staff were muslim. One was the head chef, he was a very quiet, funny older guy who reminded me of my grandfather and dressed nice. He was egyptian. He was really cool, but he would get a little angry when you made a mistake on the order and then blamed him for it. I learned this from watching. The times i made mistakes i offered to pay for it and he like just made the “what the fuck are you talking about” face.

the other staff was a busboy who was from egypt, too. He was small and wiry and looked pretty…muslim looking. The stupidest waitress in the world, who i worked with, and would tell me stories about how she was doing shrooms and then her baby daddy came over and she had to kick him out so he wouldnt find out she was on shrooms. She didnt trust him. She said to me, comrade-like, “dont you think its rude when people dont speak english in front of you?” “No” “Yea, but if they can speak english and they arent” “Theyre from a different country, theyre speaking their language…” “I got my eye on him.”

She also told me how he had given her two different names, one time he was “Erik” and another time “Mike”. His name was obviously something egyptian, but he prolly didnt want her to mangle or mock it.

Anyway, those bastards got testy around ramadan, and here is the point of my story.

They couldnt eat and theyd get all cranky and like holding their stomaches and then John, the boss would walk in, smoking long cigarettes and putting olives in salads “Why you no eat? Theres a no god! He’s a dead!”

Other workers wave hands in dismissal, young egyptian looks angry and says something in egyptian.

John “You look like iraqi bomber” continues “Dave, you believe in the God?”

I look at older egyptian guy

“I dont really have an opinion”

“Yea, theres no god, hes a dead! You so hungry, just eat!”

Anyway, they would all eat when it was time, and that always coincided with our dinner rush. it was pretty funny.

Foiled!

Last night i ate a fancy dinner on ponto cho. The Kamo river is the nice river i always go to. And the one where they used to have executions. They have platforms on stilts, so you can have riverside dining. but only in the summer time. Anyway, we hadnt gone this summer yet, so last night we went to a sukiyaki restaurant.

It was pretty nice, except for the fact that all our neighbors were smoking. IT was outside though, and we had our own table and we had some distance, so it was bearable. I never had sukiyaki before.

Its a big pot/grill with lots of fancy beef cooked in pork fat and sugar. You dip the meat in raw egg and eat it. Next, they add veggies and repeat, and some noodles and repeat. A fancy kimono lady comes and cooks it. Her and Yoko just talked the whole time while i ate. The womans daughter lives in detroit, and she thinks people are nicer there than in japan, but its boring, so she comes back to japan very often.

I dont love beef so much, so it was ok. Although, i think this place musta been in lonely planet, cuz there were tons of italians and white people. And then our neighbor was a creepy weirdo and his cheap hostess date.

The best thing about this place: the white people at the other table got a different menu than us, and then i was like, “Is that an english menu?” to yoko, and she was like “yea, its all english” and then i was like “wasnt ours english too?” “mmm, yea, some parts” and then i realized-

I read our menu in japanese without thinking. hahahah, im a genius.

Actuallly, all i had read was キリン　/　アサヒ　ビル which read Kirin/Asahi Beer.

That should be easy after 2 years, and it was, but i mean. Anyway, I am a genius.

Mardi Gras Cops

Is the best cops ever. The producers seem to have picked the clips which exemplify how useless and antagonistic police really have become.

Fat cop 1: We’re undacovaa raghh naaa, so we shouldn be lookin for duh subjects a with a possesion a marijjuana.

Fat Undercover Cop: Hey … Can i get a hit…of that joint?

Suspecting Person: Uh…

Fat Undercover cop 2-13: BAD NEWS CHIEF! UNDER ARREST!

And then Fat Cops arresting a gay teen from Baton Rouge for like a miniscule amount of marijuana.

I was thinking about public executions the other day, cuz the bridge me and Yerpy always hang out at used to don the heads of the accused, after a public execution on the bridge. I wrote here about how i feel about em- but it wasnt interesting.

Ron Livingston

I just saw a commercial in japanese of some new ron livingston show called “standoff”. it prolly came out like last year in america. it looks like every other polished coppidy show with poofy people. i really like ron livingston. hes in band of brothers and office space, thats good enough.

so anyway, there is no way i would watch that show or Las Vegas or Numbers or Cold Case. EVER. Those shows are on tv a lot here.

Heres what i would watch.

A show where ron livingston goes through his regular life as the character of Nixon from “Band of Brothers”.

I would watch a show about James Caan where he goes to Boys and Girls Club and helps kids, and teaches them not to be hot heads (like Carlo) and gives them some life lessons.

Lastly, i would watch a show with that awesome ubiquitious guy who played a teenager for 20 years and who plays a geek on Numbers. Even though i dont like how hes skinny now, hes awesome. I just looked at his imdb thing, and ive basically seen everything hes ever been in. In the theater. And i distinctly remember watching “Life with Mikey” in the theater and thinking “This is the first bad movie ive ever seen”. And it was, the only thing id seen before that movie was prolly indy jones, star wars, witness, stripes, i was 11…i also remember hating “Almost Heroes”. Maybe id like it now, but that john turturro movie was way too dark for me as a kid.

David Krumholtz is the actor whose career perfectly captures the zeitgeist of my entire life.

Anyway, i would watch a david krumholtz show where he tries to change his name to “dave *****” and tries to steal my identity and then tries to finally kill me in my sleep and deceive my parents into accepting him as me.

Glamorous Chest

My one student is rich, he owns an Aston Martin dealership. His family owns a ton of dealerships, but he runs the AM one on his own. Hes 34 and real good looking, but single. Hes really funny and nice, so we kinda thought he might be gay. Then last week he announced he was getting married to a flight attendant.

He was telling me about the wedding, and how a kimono might not be a good idea, because…some women…have glamorous chest, and in Japan, kimono needs flatter chest, and very uncomfortable…you have to wrap a towel around your stomach to make the level the same, and she looks fat…

“So, youre gonna have a western style wedding?”

“Maybe. Yes.”

Thats as close as you can really get to politely saying your future wife has nice boobies.

The Golden Age

the golden age of dave mix tapes involved a stereo hooked up to a vcr, where i would put clips from good movies onto mix tapes, like a good scene.

i woulk aslo make a mix and then realize it was too slow or too whatever when listening in the car. also, cd stuff, tape stuff and record stuff i had could all be incorporated. due to the limited amount of fun i get from putting everything on a computer, thats not an option. but heres a mix, two or three songs are picked solely on name, and one was selected because i was watching the wire and “Cheese” raps on it.

heres my mix!

i feel like it might have a good flow, but i havent tested it yet. i think the AmAnSet song might bring it down too much, more of a headphone song.

I Found a Sailing School!

I like boats, i think i like sailing, but its like a rich person thing. So ive never been sailing, and it seems dominted by carefree douches. But why should carefree douches hold the key to the sea?

Anyway, i dont think im interested in comptetive sailing, i just want a small sailboat. Anyway, i had no idea how to get involved with the sail based economy, so i took to the internet. At first i was looking at sailing school in PA, but they all looked kinda lame and expensive. Then there was some big boat in SF that takes you for like a 2 week course with 8 other people. I live far away tho.

So, then i found “BLISS” aka “Bills little informal sailing school” one of the only 2 english-using sailing school in Japan, and its REAL close to me! And the beginning course, which gives you a license is 1-on-1 and half test/half on the sea 2 day course, its like 200 bucks. All the courses after that are for specific procedures, and theyre expensive, like 800 bucks, but i didnt really know what they entailed, cuz right now i just want the beginner one.

Anyway, thats sick. So maybe its getting too cold, i dunno, but im gonna email that dude today. I am gonna tie people up with fancy knots from now on.

Hobo Pants

Thats Awesome

I was listening to an NPR jazz profile of John Coltrane, and they talked about how when he got drunk in the bathroom and passed out and then Dizzy Gillespie fired him. It would be funny to just have shorts from John coltranes life, acted out by white people, therefore making it lame. Like Dizzy Gillespie calls him into the office, fires him for getting drunk at work and passing out.

Another good skit would be when Elvin Jones and the other guy, due to the band getting super experimental, quit and then Coltrane brings in Pharaoh Sanders and HIS WIFE, it would be some white guy playing shrieks and the band members leave, only to be replaced by some new guy and his girlfriend. Lame!

Also, i think america is playing it safe with the medal situation. This morning, I went swimming. After swimming i was in the cool down room, where theres a bar with no bartender and no alchohol, a tv and a milk machine. The olympics were on and there are a bunch of 80 year old men watching it. Kitajima wins some swimming event, America is 2nd place. This gives the old men the chutzpah to strike up a conversation. Less than one minute after Kitajima wins :

“America?” “Hai, America des” “Doko kara kimashtaka…where…america?” “Philadelphia, like Rocky, Chikai Nu Yorku” (In japanese) “….you’re skilled at japanese” “No.” “Sayonara” “Sayonara”

If America had won the event, they probably still woulda asked me questions, but they wouldnt have been as eager to do so, and the impteus woulda been on me to impress them with my japanese. As it was, it was their duty to speak to me, to be nice, and to assert their olympic superiority in a very friendly way. This isnt how i saw it at the time, i just saw it as the win had emboldened them, but my coworker figures they were rubbing it in Japanese style. Hes asian, so he may be right.