Cocktail Confessions

I’m usually pretty good at creating my own content here, but I came across an interesting article over at FoxNews.com and thought it deserved a little attention here.  I’m cutting out some of the fluff, but you get the meat of it.  If you want to read the full article as it was written by Elena Ferretti, go ahead and click here.

Article

It’s axiomatic: from summer barbecues to Octoberfest, beer makes the party. Lucy Saunders takes it a step further. Beer, she says, makes the meal when the meal’s cooked with it. And she’s talking more than beer-battered onion rings.

She’s talking Cheddar Ale Spread with ancho, chipotle and pale ale, and Chocolate Malt Ganache. Saunders, author of “Cooking With Beer,” “Best of American Beer and Food” and “Grilling with Beer” also runs Beercook.com, whose emphatic motto is: “Because beer is Food!” Beer, specifically craft beer, she says, is for far more than just quaffing.

Most people understand - intuitively if not practically - that cooking with wine infuses food with depth, distinction and subtlety. Some dishes use the harder stuff, too; think Penne alla Vodka, or Bananas Foster aflame with rum. Beer hasn’t (yet) become part of our pantry, says Saunders, because while cooking with beer has been part of culinary history for centuries, “it’s been under-appreciated as it’s generally been the province of home cooks, via hand-me-down recipes.”

A craft beer’s flavor is determined by how barley is treated during malting, the process of germinating barley to create a high-starch content seed. The starch will eventually be converted into a fermentable sugar. The ‘maltster’ heats the grain to stop seed growth, which retains the starch content, then roasts it to develop various flavor characteristics and color, similar to the process of roasting coffee beans. Briess Malting in Wisconsin, says Saunders, is the last independent specialty maltster in North America and makes an incredible range of specialty malts for brewing.

Saunders, a Midwest native who, in addition to teaching, runs water conservation workshop for brewers and cheese makers, says she has a “palate for grains” and has loved the taste of beer for as long as she can remember. It started with her mom’s Cheese and Beer soup (beer, caramelized onions, asiago, cheddar and parmesan), Carbonnade (a jaw-dropping ale, beef and onion stew and a major Belgian culinary contribution along with waffles and chocolates) and her dad’s beer-based steak marinades.

The first commercial cookbooks, including some with recipes for cooking with beer, appeared in England during the Tudor era, late 1400s to mid-1500s. That was due not to beer’s ubiquity but to Gutenberg inventing the printing press in 1440. Previously, cookbooks were hand-written and used primarily by monasteries and the upper classes, says Saunders, who majored in Old and Middle English. Instead of a term paper she translated Tudor recipes, cooked and catered a medieval feast for her professor and other students and “hired frat brother friends as serfs to serve dinner.”

Americans’ love affair with craft beers started in the 1980s for a few reasons, says Saunders. By the mid-70s many states lifted a Prohibition-era ban on home brewing allowing people to recapture a forgotten craft. Also, in the late 70s and 80s, study-abroad programs proliferated and students started tasting European beers that had been crafted from long-standing brewing traditions, introducing their palates to flavors other than Budweiser and Miller Lite.

Saunders says that craft brewing combines the artistry and creativity of cooking with the rigors of science. It’s about fermentable sugars, final alcohol content, color and mouth-feel, and evoking flavor and aromatics from grain’s entire taste spectrum. “It’s a continuous learning and creativity curve. That’s the allure. It’s a great challenge and when the results are delicious they are shared and enjoyed. It’s why it’s here to stay.”

For anyone who likes a truly unique way of grilling or cooking very moist and flavorful chicken, I give you this podcast.

The very first time I saw this take on grilling chicken was around 2001-02 and I had seen it on FoodTV.  I was fascinated on the method and idea of both basting and cooking a chicken from the inside out using liquid, and in this case beer.  It looked simple enough and guaranteed to be a talking point amongst friends who see you pull the bird of the grill.

You’ll be amazed, if done correctly, how moist the chicken actually is, especially after sitting on the grill for hours.  And despite the fact it may look a bit complicated, it really isn’t at all.  The most caution I can give though…and I learned this from my own experience is to be very careful removing the can from the bird without adequately letting it rest and cool down juts a tad.  That can is hot, and the left over brew is basically boiling (it did just turn to steam after-all), and you can easily burn yourself.  Oh, and make sure you leave the bird on long enough to cook thoroughly….no matter how good it may look on the outside, you don’t want to get sick from raw chicken (I’ve done that as well, and it isn’t pretty by any means).

Don’t be afraid to experiment with various rubs and spices, and of course if you have fresh herbs liek rosemary or thyme, don’t be shy to try them out either.

Like I say in the episode, best enjoyed in the company of friends and can be paired with lighter wines or like beer.  Enjoy on a nice spring or summer day, get the tunes going, have some light side dishes and I promise you, if done semi-correctly, your friends will want to know how you made such a good main dish.

Show Notes:

• Intro music: “I am a man of constant sorrow” - Soggy Bottom Boys
• Recipe: Beer Can Chicken

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Two of my favorite activities are drinking beer and playing video games.  Both allow me to enter my own alternate reality where the day to day minutuae is temporarily forgotten and I block out the outside world.

Now if I chose to, I could spend $189.99 and combine my love of World of Warcraft and my drinking skills by purchasing a “Legendary” edition beer stein.  These comes of the heels of the previous released 4-version “Epic” steins that sold for roughly half (approx $100). 

Representing either an Alliance or Horde faction, these mugs have 18k gold lids and trim and are limited to only 999 for each design and hand-signed by Blizzard artists.  For those anti-socialites who fear the warm glow of a real sun and really need to know the characters that adorn the sides, the Alliance gets Glenn Rane, and the Horde gets Samwise Didier.  The only other information I have is that are planned to be released for in March of 2010, so you may want to go to Blizzard.com for more information.

If I had $200 just lying around like Tiger Woods does for wiping his tuckus, I may be tempted to buy one, for they are pretty (although like most, I’d go for the Horde one as it is much coller looking).  But other than placing it on a shelf and pretending I may drink out of it (I wouldn’t, and ergo defeats the actual purpsoe of buying a stein to begin with).  However, there is so much other stuff I’d like to spend money I really don’t have on first, say cool Star Wars or G.I. Joe memorabilia, or pesky bills and home improvement projects.

DJ Hero

Eh, well, not because I’m an advocate of throw away episodes, but once in a while it’s just kinda nice to put something out there to let the masses know you’re still alive and kicking.  It also helps in remembering how to craft and use technology so you don’t forget it so easily if you don’t do it too often.

Like most things that I really get excited and interested in, it appears that putting this podcast together is a bit harder than I first anticipated.  Not so much from a  technical aspect, but more of getting actual content down and getting guests to commit.  It’s been much more difficult than I ever would have surmised to get friends and neighbors to agree on a time to sit and chat, and every time it seems we plan on something it generally gets delayed for one reason or another.

That’s not so much the case in point here.  As I stated in my last post, I’ve been under the weather as of late.  I can’t remember the last time I has such a bad cough or case of bronchitis that has more or less just put me out on my butt.  My throat has been a bit raw and I’m all jacked up on various OTC medicines…none of which seem to be doing me much good by the way.  The nagging and uncontrollable hacking at all hours has been very frustrating to me, and while I’m not 100% right now, it seems I’m finally on the tail end of a good eight day cough fest.

Episode 13 is a bit short, clocking in at just about twenty one minutes and it just informs you up on a few recent things in my life

Stone Smoky Porter

like Christmas goodies such as DJ Hero, my new Blu Ray player, some movies and Netflix we’ve been watching (like season 1 of Dexter), and of course Stone Brewery Smoky Porter (5.9%).  Speaking of DJ Hero, that game is bad ass.  As a child of the 80’s and really into old skool hip-hop/rap and more current euro dance/techno, this game is right up my alley.  Some of my friends have laughed at me spinning a plastic turntable and making up DJ names for me, like DJ Wingman (thanks Chip).  I hope the game does well enough to spawn some additional DLC because I just love it.

Show Notes:

Intro - “Come Again” by Beastie Boys & Daft Punk (as heard on DJ Hero)

2:08 - Cornocopia of OTC drugs I’m taking including Emergen-C bullshit.

6:30 - This & that and a little fluff.

7:15 - Stone Brewery and porter talk.

8:05 - Blu Ray and movie talk (Star Trek, Paranormal Activity)

11:45 - Microsoft + Xbox RROD blues 

12:29 - Dexter: clean versus ‘R’ versions for Showtime and CBS

13:49 - Xmas continued + DJ Hero

18:39 - SkurvyMonekys.com podcast discussed

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Today is December 18th, 2009….and I’m bored out of my skull.  I stare at the clock and realize that I have just under four hours before my shift ends, and it days like this that seem like time stands still.  The four hours will feel like six and in a two hours from now it will feel like eight.

It’s Friday and I have other things on my mind right now…like finishing some last minute Christmas shopping, going to the grocery store to buy for a Christmas Eve meal I am preparing for my family, wrapping the last few presents, a load or two of laundry, and of course a final cleaning of the house before my relatives arrive.

It’s hard to look busy at work when the phone is silent and the whole staff is here and your boss sits only a few feet away.  I tap furiously here at the keyboard taking a break every few minutes to see if there is any ‘breaking’ news on CNN or FoxNews.  It’s more or less the same crap as it was an hour ago, and pretty much the same crap as this morning.  You know you’re bored when as a guy you start reading the ‘Living’ sections as I seem to muse that I am discovering some feminine side of my psyche buried deep within the recess of my mind.

As of today I haven’t had a drink in 2 weeks.  Yup, not once of alcohol in 13 days.  Oh, I haven’t stopped drinking by any means, it’s just I wanted to try a small experiment on myself.  See I went to the gym two weeks ago and I was very forlorn to learn that I gained all the weight back I had recently lost, most likely due to a few recent hop and barley induced binges.  So, I wanted to see how much weight I would actually lose naturally if I cut out all alcohol until Christmas Eve, or a total of 19 days.  Today is day 13, and while I have yet to weigh myself (most likely tomorrow), I actually do feel better and do feel ’skinnier’.  Now since I haven’t actually weighed myself, I really don’t know if I lost anything or not, but it ‘feels’ like I did.  There have been a few days (okay, at least two that I can recall) that I really was jonseing a stiff drink or a beer, but I didn’t cave.  Hopefully I won’t cave tonight, but I have a feeling I may have at least 1 or two beers with my friend Jon.  After work we may go to a wine bar that serves craft beers and the only way I can avoid his mocking scorn and my own temptation is if I do not actually go.

Oh, last week I went to a bar with a bunch of my friends and I got a healthy dose of razzing for not imbibing in at least one drink.  I don’t blame them or am mad at all…I’m usually the first to have a drink and a decent tolerance.  It should be interesting to see how I do if I hold out until Christmas Eve.

In other things….I am loving my new Motorola Droid.  It really is a fun phone and I get a chance to Face Book and chat with a few friends throughout the day.  The Google map and GPS feature is really fun and interesting, especially since I added an account with FourSquare.com.

Lastly, as I type this, I am using my Droid to listen to LastFM.com and streaming Daft Punk radio.  This thing is awesome in that respect that I have a 24 hour, real time DJ to any type of music genre I can think of, commercial free.  Dare I say it’s even better than my Sirius satellite radio?  Yes, it is.  It’s pretty awesome that I also have this as an app on my XBox 360, so I can stream the same radio content through my home stereo that is hooked up to my game console.

$150 and 27% baby!!

Holy shnikeys..

Priced at approx. $150 a bottle, this limited release run brandy-colored ‘beer’ sure packs a punch.  Known as an ‘extreme beer’, this beverage has been banned in at least 13 states.  Why?  Oh, maybe because it packs a whopping 27% alcohol by volume!!

First introduced in the 90’s, Boston Beer Co. (aka Sam Adams) has really been pushing the envelope of science.  The extreme brews are indeed still considered beer, because the law states they must be based on fermented grain, and the Utopias are.

A little history and trivia: In ‘93 brewer Koch introduced Trible Bock with a 17.5% alcohol by voulme.  Dogfish Head responded in the early 2000’s with brews containing upwards of 20%.  But Adams 15 year aging process which is finished in wooden casks now reigns supreme.  And the run is limited to about 10,000 bottles.

According to tasters. it sips like a cognac combined with vanilla, honey, and maple flavors.

Hmmmm…..If I’m feeling a little squirrly this winter, I may buy a bottle myself and share with a few of my friends as a real treat.  I’ll have to look online later…

In about 24 hours from now I will find myself standing out in the middle of the Anza-Borrego desert playing ‘desert’ golf with my father-in-law, brother-in-law and a few other ‘men’ among ‘men’, and I have no idea how I’m going to fare.

My guess: Not well.

See, I got invited on an overnight ‘guys’ camping trip by some former marines (my father-in-law and his buddy) and their sons. This is an annual thing they conjured up a few years back where it’s an excuse to supposedly get back to nature. This really translates into getting away from the womenfolk for at least 24 hours sucking down as many libations as possible.

Initially I found myself a little pressured into this field trip. Before I even knew what was happening, my wife more or less signed me up for this as a ‘bonding’ experience with the ‘guys’. Before I could even register my own thoughts on the matter, my father-in-law was already telling me what time to be at his house. “But I have no sleeping bag…” I said. “No problem, I got you covered.” Damn… “But I have no clubs.” I then said. “Got that covered too.” Double damn…. Then my brother-in-law chimed in, “Come on, you’ll have fun.” Er……”What about my dog Frankie?” where my wife then replied, “Oh, I’m not going out of town with the girls afterall, so I can stay home and feed him.” Ughh…

It’s not that I don’t want to spend time with my father-in-law. I like him. I like him a lot. But these days with my step-daughter gone for the weekend, and the thought that my my wife was also going to be gone with her girlfriends, I was really looking forward to a nice, quiet weekend by myself at home…..to do chores, maybe do some Christmas shopping, catch up on some DVR recordings, and looking forward to working on some model train structures I am building.

But more to the point, at 39 years of age, I recognize that at times I am a pussy when it comes to the outdoors. You see, at the end of the night I like a hot shower, a comfortable bed, and the ability to use a clean bathroom in the morning when I have to make a dookie. None of these are present in the desert. No, the only thought process going through my head is that I will smell like smoke from the campfire, I won’t be able to fall asleep on uneven ground, I won’t be able to wash my hands or face, it’ll be 30 degrees overnight, and finally I’ll have to hold my crap as I cannot dig a hole out in the desert and squat above it. Now that I think about, I would never make a good contestant on Survivor, so Jeff, tear up my application.

The activities planned? Well, that another thing. There will be desert golf in which the loser lugs around the cooler of beer for everyone else…..Guess who will be getting his exercise that day? There will also be horse-shoes….a game I have never played. There will be rock-climbing….great, Why? There will be football tossing, in which I throw like a girl. And finally a campfire dinner with what my father-in-law says will require the “green bottle”….(i.e. Tanqueray gin martinis). Okay, that last part actually sounds fun and I may get on board with that, but I need a plan to participate yet not stay overnight in conditions that are less than optimal to me.

So am I a puss? Maybe I am these days, but I’ll have you know at one point I was indeed a Boy Scout. I actually made it up to being a ‘Life’ scout and spent plenty of nights in tents and sleeping bags and campfires and self-made latrines. I’ve dug plenty of holes in the ground and have gone without taking a shower or washing my hands a few days at a time. But that was then, and now I feel I’m a bit over that. No, I don’t see myself squatting in the early morning hours looking out for scorpions as I drop a duece while watching my breath at the same time…not when I know there is a clean toilet if I really want to.

So my solution? Invite my own father to go with us. That way I can tell my father-in-law it’s logistically inefficient for me to drive to his house (45 miles north) just to turn around and drive an additional 2 hours southeast. That would also mean I’m stuck and can only leave when he leaves which may prolong my perceived agony. No, by taking my own father I shave off at least 45 minutes each way of drive time, I can leave when we want to leave, and most importantly, I will have to take him home at the end of the evening thus sparing myself from having to sleep overnight. Yes, at the end of a long day of what I am sure will be plenty of embarassing laughs at my expense when it comes to the ‘guy’ things, I know I will have my hot shower, my clean bed, and my toilet the next morning where they will have none of these.

So my duty for tomorrow? I pick up my dad and his golf clubs, we go to the store and fill a cooler with ice and beer and snacks, I take my new camera and make the best out of the situation. Will it be horrible? No, I don’t think it will be. I’m sure I may even have some fun, and I know my father-in-law has been looking to do something with me for a long time (I kept making excuses for years why I can’t partcipate in his reindeer games). Plus my own father gets to go which will be good for our relationship as well and make my drive much more palatable.

It’s been a long time coming, but I spent a lot of the day yesterday editing this podcast episode into something I really wanted it to be.  It took a bit longer than expected to put this together as I was looking for the perfect music (thanks Limewire) for the introduction to set the mood and a great tie in to an overall theme. 

I also kind pushed myself here at a technical level in editing.  First, I used my portable Zoom H2 in the field for the first time.  It worked pretty well, although I did misplace the manual, so I had a few hiccups at first.  I have to work on the microphone gain.  For my initial recording I had set it to medium, and although we were sitting only a few feet from it with no other background noise, the recording seemed somewhat fainter than I expected, so I boosted it in Audacity.  It also took longer than I expected to transfer the raw MP3 from the Zoom to my PC.  This Podcast has a total of 3 mono tracks and 2 stereo tracks that I spliced together, remixed into a single track (to help save on bandwidth and space), faded out some entrance music and for the first time added an end trailer, and I’m pretty happy with the result seeing this is the most complex editing I’ve done thus far.

I also used Limewire for the first time, trying to find the perfect lead in bumper.  I had a specific song in mind, and I actually own a clean copy of the song somewhere but couldn’t find the CD, so I opted to download from the wild-wild-web.  The thing is, you never know exactly what you are going to get in quality or length, and sometime the descriptions don’t always match what you’re looking for so there is a few trial by fire attempts to get the right track.  Anyway, in this case, I chose “Grim Grinning Ghosts“, better known as the overall soundtrack for Disney’s Haunted Mansion.  It appears in a few various incarnations and pressed a few times in some rare LP’s and CD’s many of which are now out of print.  To me it was worth it.  For those that really like the Haunted Mansion, here’s an interesting and detailed site about the ride, it’s history, the story behind it, and its look throughout the various theme parks: DoomBuggies.com.

Also appearing in this episode is yet another libation.  The website is called ‘Cocktail Confessions’ for a reason, and so it keeping that dream alive I bring you Jack’s Pumpkin Spice Ale from Michelob.  It’s a seasonal beer (fall) that clocks in at 5.5% alcohol with hints of cloves, nutmeg and allspice.  As I explain in the podcast, this years batch didn’t taste all that ‘pumpkiny’ to me, and I might suggest you try Buffalo Bills Pumpkin Ale or even Blue Moon’s, Harvest Moon Pumpkin Ale.  Both of these have a richer pumpkin and spice taste, and there are plenty of others.  If you know of any good ones you’d like to suggest, please drop me a line.

The meat and potatoes of this podcast however is the interview I recorded with my grandfather Harold.  He recently just turned 91 years old, and I kinda wanted to get some time with him before it was too late.  We’re all lucky he is still around after surviving being a tail gunner in a B-17 during WWII, having had open heart surgery, a pacemaker installed and a few other medical issues.  He’s still going strong…at least mentally.  He’s 100% Italian, being born here but his parents were immigrants.  I initially wanted the recording to be about his days being a master carpenter and working on the early builds of the Tiki Room, some of the facades on Main Street, and other contributions he made at the park, but after 40 minutes of great stories, I realized I wasn’t recording properly.  So instead of having him rehash everything all over, we just segued into his early days growing up in Wakefield, Michigan then eventually moving out to Anaheim, CA.  The actual recording was almost an hour long, and for this podcast I decided to break it up into a smaller segment I’m calling part 1, which is approx. 20 minutes long.

Finally my garage door died a loud and expensive death last week.  We had to buy a new one, and thus opted for the Heritage 3000, triple layer door: steel + insulation + steel.  It looks very nice, much quieter than the old one, and will hopefully help in reducing both our cooling and heating costs in the long run.  The really funny thing to me is how my neighbors have reacted.  To me, it’s just a garage door.  It’s white, it opens, it closes and does what any other garage door was designed for.  However, many of the men on my street have taken a very keen interest in its look, its operation, and overall functionality.  A real ‘Tim the Tool Guy Taylor’ moment where they all had to check it out and kick the tires per-se.  I personally found it very amusing that the men were all into it as much as they were.  In the end, it’s still a garage door.

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I’ve been saying that for wee…..I mean months now.

The fact is, despite dropping some weight a few months back and being relatively proud of it, I’ve been feeling a little heavy as of late and kinda new something was up by the feel of my work pants and blue jeans as of late.

Also, the fact that I almost don’t recognize the profile of the guy walking past the windows at work (my reflection) due to the slight protruding bulge located directly above the waist yet just below the chest has been somewhat….disheartening.

My friend Brian was a ‘heavy’ individual the last few years, tipping the scales at over 300 lbs although I would never have labeled him morbidly ‘obese’.  But through the determination of a friendly competition he had with a few friends and his modified take on the Atkins diet, he has lost over 80 lbs to date.

I, on the other hand, seemed to have gained weight.  Granted I did have a little ‘bender’ this past Friday night (I recall 2 pints of Bud Light, 1 bottle of Racer 5, 1 Stella Artois, 3 Jack & diet cokes, some Jim Beam & Pepsi, and a little rum) where I am sure the calorie count was pretty much up there for the evening.  The following day, I went to the gym and weighed myself and was personally embarrassed and ashamed I was clocking in at 238lbs!  Even though I did have breakfast only a few hours before, and it was smack in the middle of the day, I have never weighed that much before.

The last few years I had been hovering around 225 lbs and at my weeding six years ago I had managed to get down to 216lbs.  Oh, and I guess I should mention I’m 5′11″.  Needless to say, this recent revelation hit me hard and I’m placing myself on a self imposed diet.  Does that mean drinking is out?  Kinda hard to have Cocktail Confessions when yours truly stops imbibing in libations.  Rest assured, I have not stopped drinking, but need to alter my habits:

1) No drinking during the week while at home watching television….Save it for the weekends..and even then save it for social gatherings (i.e. not by myself).  Instead, drink much more water or zero calorie drinks in the evenings at home.

2) Mix alcohol with diet drinks where applicable, and/or switch to light liquors (vodka, clear rums) and avoid sugar mixers for the time being.

3) Try not to binge…At 39 years old, it’s a bit tougher to shake off that dull headache/hangover than when I was 19 or even 29 for that matter.

4) Eat more portion controlled dinners and slightly earlier.  I have a bad habit of eating around 8pm, and then hitting seconds as well.  Nope, need to eat earlier, smaller, and more veggies as well.

5) Dust of that Wii Fitness I spent $90 bucks on last year and now haven’t touched in a few months.  Although you would be surprised on how much I walk on a weekly basis.  I walk a lot both at work (between buildings) and when I get home to walk my dog.

6) I need to chart my weight on a semi-regular basis.  To measure my progress every other day or so as opposed to once today, and then recheck…say 4 weeks from now to never.  Maybe I’ll look for a little Wordpress Plug-in widget that allows for charting/graphs that I can update and let you all give me shit if I begin to slip.

This episode/entry was fun to do for a few reasons: we (that is Brian Liles and I), had already had a few pitchers of Sam Adams Summer Ale under our belts that we enjoyed over at a beautiful day at Cook’s Corner in Trabuco Canyon, CA.  Then as we proceeded to records this, we had a surprise visit from Chip Gahagan of Smogtown who popped on by for a few minutes, and lastly we discuss a little bit of G.I.Joe: The Rise of Cobra movie as well. Listening back to make show notes was a little embarrassing as I caught myself being tongue tied and repeating myself multiple times.

Cook's Corner

So to start with Brian of Brians4×4adventures.com, or friend Scott W and myself headed out to Cook’s Corner (Wikipedia entry) for a little Sunday afternoon beer bonding.  The short synopsis of the place is as such: Built by Andrew Jackson Cook around 1884, the original building was meant to supply local miners as a mercantile and a few years later a place to eat as well.  It survived the prohibition era and was converted into a bar.  In 1970 a motorcycle accessory shop owner from Santa Ana bought the property and publicized it as a place for motorcycle clubs to enjoy.  It has changed hands once again a few years back and actively participates in the promotion of several charity motorcycle rides.  It’s now considered a historic landmark and is enjoyed by numerous social clubs and O.C residents.

It’s a great place to spend the afternoon, especially the weekends where one can typical witness 200+ motorcycles parked out front.  They have a very large outdoor patio area that has seen many improvements the last few years including new picnic tables, umbrellas, outside bars (three portable at last count), and a place for local merchants to sell various motorcycle accessories.  They have a small kitchen that turns out various burgers, tacos, and finger foods along with a inside band stage and the occasional outside band as well.  I’ve been coming here for at least 7 years now, and it really never gets old.  I have yet to run into a bad situation with a ‘biker’ and quite the contrary all the ones I have met or spoken to have been pretty personable for the most part.

Music for this episode

I’ve listened quite a few bands there over the years, and while I’m not a huge fan of classic rock they have the occasional bluegrass or jazz band out there and it always sounds good under the Southern California weather and sun with a couple of pitchers of beer and friends.

In this podcast episode Brian discusses his recent FJ Crusier trip across Canada and into Alaska that he took part in with his friend Luke from Radrod57.com.  Head over to Brian’s site for some gorgeous high quality pictures he took and read some of his continuing exploits.  You can ever read more over at Luke’s page as well.  Makes me wanna cash everything in, grab an RV, and do a roadtrip across America myself and hit up some hidden bbq joints, some town festivals and make some new acquaintences in local camp grounds.

Baroness

Finally we discuss G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra movie (hence the ‘criminals’ in my title).  For those of you who grew up on the property that made it famous back in the 80’s, you may be slightly disapointed in some of the character origin reboots in this 2009 feature film.  Being a comic book purist in my own right, and being a huge fan of Larry Hama’s creativity for the Hasbro line and the yarns he spun for Marvel, I have a few problems with the treatment that gave Cobra Commander, Zartan and the Baroness.  Also the Ripcord/Scarlett love angle and the CC/Baroness sibling reveal really bothered me.  But if you can put those issues aside ,(and the accelerator suits) then this was a pretty darn good matinee action-comic movie.  Good fight scenes, neat technology, grand in scope….but clearly sets up and demands a sequel.  I mean it is called ‘The Rise of Cobra’ after all, and we just get a taste of things to come towards the last 15 minutes of this movie.

The one that did surprise me however was the Joe’s dropping the “Shit” bomb as gratuitous as they did.  There were a couple of things in the movie that may have made the old cartoon watchers smile, like “Knowing is half the battle.” and the of course the reference to the “Kung Fu grip”.

Show Notes

• Bumper Music: “My ‘98 Old’s” - Public Enemy, Yo-Bum Rush the Show (1987)
• 00:35 - Introductions
• 01:10 - Discuss Cook’s Corner memories and atmosphere.
• 07:55 - Brian talks about recent trip with Luke across Canada, including camping, camera’s, and food.
• 29:59 - Brian gives us an update on his incredible wieght loss thus far.
• 33:30 - We talk G.I. Joe the movie (lore vs current re-imagining), Transformers, comics

Cook’s Corner

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