Cocktail Confessions

Okay, I know it’s been over a week since my previous post of part one, but I’m here now to wrap this puppy up.  So where was I?  I was just talking about the lack of adult beverages, and limited food items, but we had a little something to eat anyways and then went about for more exploring.

Just to the right of the main stage there was an area roped and sectioned off for a small classic car show.  Now how classic cars and Huck Finn tie into each other, I’ll never know, but the closest theory I have is that most people who enjoy Americana and Country music, probably also like NASCAR, and if that’s your bag, I suppose some classic cars can draw attention and bring some additional people out anyway.

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There weren’t too many cars, maybe a total of 15 or so, give or take a couple, but these guys were mighty proud.  I’ll admit I’m missing the ‘car-gene’ many guys seems to have.  I fully admit I don’t know the first thing about carburetors or horse power, but I can appreciate the hard work involved in restoring and showing off your handiwork.  I can also imagine the feeling one can have and the adventures one can enjoy sitting behind the wheel and touring our great land.  These cars just beg to be taken out for a drive in the country, stopping at a malt shop for a classic burger and fries, putting the top down and listening to classic tunes.  Anyway, in the long run it was a nice and quick addition to the jubilee.

There were also some various games taking place at various times and locals within the park as well.  We witnessed some grease pole climbing (ugh, what a mess), horseshoe tossing, axe throwing, egg tossing, and cow chip throwing contests.  There were plenty of other diversions for all ages to participate in staggered throughout the day, but we didn’t participate in any ourselves.

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We did stop at a smaller venue (not the main stage) to sit and listen to a 45 minute concert performed by a quartet group hailing from Arizona named the ‘Hey Boyz’.  They were very entertaining, blending traditional bluegrass and humorous stories and jokes throughout their set.  You could buy CD’s from them as well and they would be performing a few different times throughout the jubilee.  Both Brian and I recorded their concert with our Playsport’s, and Brian even made an audio recording using his Zoom player.  He said it came out pretty good and I look forward to listening to it sometime later.  Maybe I’ll even get a portion of it and upload it as an audio file here on my website.

One of the funniest things we witnessed was this really cheesy 2-man show circus.  It was really low rent, and dated by any standard, but that was part of its charm.  The two guys running it did everything from being the MC’s, changing characters, doing stunts, juggling, performing magic tricks, and selling cheezy coloring books of another circus altogether.  The only animals they had was a very fat and lazy cat who just seemed to care less about what was going on around it, and a few doves used in the magic tricks.  The funniest part to me was that their sound system was basically a tape deck, circa 1980, with way over-warn royalty free crappy circus music that sounded like they were recorded during the sixties.  It was so bad, it was good, and you have to give these two guys a lot of credit for their energy and attitudes.  You can tell they were really there just to entertain the kids and definitely thought their ‘circus’ was much more stupendous than it really was.

After our 20 minute little show, we took a few pictures and opted to call it a day, well at a day at the jubilee.  I wouldn’t have minded spending more time there and hearing a few more acts, but I was with three other people all jonesing for a beer at this point and figured they had seen all that they had wanted to see anyway and were hinting about leaving.

I’m not one for camping much anymore.  Not that I hate camping at all; I did plenty of it as a boy when I was running with the Boy Scouts.  Today, however, I enjoy a clean, comfortable bed, a nice hot shower, and a clean toilet to rest my rosy cheeks on in the morning.  With that in mind, if I were to go camping again, I would for sure try to and stay at Mojave Narrows.  It really is a large and well kept campground with plenty of amenities.

On trek back to Orange County, we decided to stop just on the outskirts of Norco for a beer at some chain Mexican restaurant.  Well, one beer turned into two, which turned into three, and before long we were best friends with the bartender, Ernie.  So much so in fact that he was doling out a few free drinks our way and we had a splendid late afternoon.

Finally after that little diversion, think we were now on our way home, my wife was able to finagle us all into going bowling.  We bowled three games at Norco Lanes, and even befriended some young high school kids the next lane over.  We were all pretty tuned up at this point, especially Brian.  We collected some glow in the dark bracelets from our new found friends and they even offered us some pizza.

Once bowling was done, we made our trip back home with Brian sleeping soundly in the back of my car.

Eyeballing - Sport of the mentally challenged.

There is apparantly a new trend that has orginated somewhere in the U.K. amongst their crooked toothed teens, and of course not to be outdone, we here in the states seem to have spawned our own home grown collection of idiotic teens.

I came across this news story today about a new fad termed “Eyeballing.”:

Vodka eyeballing. It’s the latest drinking fad on YouTube, and it could cause blindness.

Hundreds of online videos that originated in the U.K. show teens pouring vodka directly into their eyes, straight from the bottle. The videos are getting hundreds of thousands of hits.

Substance abuse expert Mike Gimbel claims kids aren’t eyeballing to get drunk faster, but do it when the effects of alcohol have already set in and impaired their judgment. Eyeballing is more of a prank than a way to become more intoxicated.

“They’re not doing it to get more drunk, they’re doing it as part of a fad. ‘I dare you to do this,’” Gimbel said.

Robert Stutman, president of the Maryland Optometric Association, said eyeballing can be very damaging to the eyes. Vodka is 40 to 50 percent alcohol and can burn and scar the cornea.

“It probably could [cause blindness] if it caused severe enough scarring of the cornea,” Stutman said.

Personally, while I understand the flawed concept of trying to get buzzed quicker, I just cannot imagine anybody in their right mind thinking that pouring alcohol directly into their eyes is gonna turn out good in any form.  For one, you’re just wasting your good booze (or not so good depending on what you have on hand).  How goofy do you look by pouring a shot or more in your eye when 99%+ is just going to spill down your face and into your shirt.  Plus, you can’t taste it, so what’s the point?

The mindset is that you can introduce alcohol quicker into the bloodstream by allowing capillaries close to to the surface of the skin to absorb alcohol directly, therefor bypassing the conventional method of swallowing alcohol down the gullet into the stomach where it is to be processed and then waiting for the intended effects as the alcohol has to travel back upwards to the brain.

I for one knew of this concept back when I was a teen myself, but I also know that pouring alcohol into certain tissues causes a horrific burn.  Just watch any old western movie where they use a bottle of whisky to sterilize a gunshot or knife wound.  Hell, I can’t recall one injured cowboy that either didn’t flinch from the pain or got drunk via this shotgun medical practice. 

That being said, I recall from my youth that in biology classes I once took that the area just under the tongue that attaches to your lower jaw is chock full of capillaries and the ’tissue’ is relatively thin.  I also know that there are a lot of medications that are termed ‘sub-lingual’, that is they are intended to be absorbed quickly by the body when placing drops under the tongue.  Back in the day, I used to take a good swig of a beverage and hold it under my own tongue for a brief period of time before swallowing.  I figured even back then that the alcohol could be introduced to my bloodstream much quicker this way, and since its proximation to the brain was relatively closer than my stomach, that I would get buzzed slightly faster.

Now, while I am not advocating or endorsing my own practices, it just makes a helluva lot more sense than dumping a bottle in my eye likes it Visine.

My neighbor Chip (not his real name) has a genuine soul.  Sometimes a bit rough around the edge’s, once you get to know him, he’s just a tattooed teddy bear.  I’ve known him for almost six years now, and he’s just as interesting now as he was on my skeptical first impression.  We’ve talked about doing a podcast together, and it’s juts a matter of scheduling to get him in to sit down.

He enjoys his music, he family, surfing, good conversation, skateboarding, and a mean drink.  I think his drink of choice would be beer followed closely with a tall screwdriver (orange juice and vodka).  We’ve been to bars together, backyard parties, neighborhood BBQ’s, and he always brings a special brand of entertainment, whether he means it or not.

Once you get past the colorful language and initial intimidation factors, you’ll recognize that you want Chip to be your friend.  He’s solid, through and through, very genuine and means what he says.  Granted he’s had a colorful history, his stories of years past raising hell will captivate just about anyone.  But in time, I suppose we all slow down.  His priorities is that of his family first, and to be an excellent neighbor, always willing to lend a helping hand.

However, as I alluded to prior, he can be quite entertaining, especially when libations are involved.  Chip got the nickname ‘Ozzy’, (a nickname I coined for him and take full credit for) one evening after a raucous round of imbibing around the fire that was blazing in the portable pit in my driveway a few years back.  The neighbors had all come down as we collect occasionally on a Friday night after work.  Chip was in rare form (or perhaps not so rare if I think about it) hitting the sauce a lit harder than usual.  Maybe it was just an empty stomach, or the way my wife tends to pour drinks, but as the night wore on, Chip’s speech became more and more incomprehensible to the point where it literally sounds like mumbling from a mouth full of greased up marbles. 

Chip walking home

At one point he tried to walk home down the street, a total of 50 yards or so and it seemed to take all of 15 minutes.  We watched him walk away, trying ever so hard to walk a straight line from point A to point B, his home, however, it looked more like a dashed line that Billy from Family Circus would take.  There were multiple false starts and finishes, bobbing and weaving to the left and then to the right.  Zigs and zags aplenty as we all watched in marvel and he continued to mumble on and on to himself in the quiet of the night. 

It’s as if he were channeling Ozzy Osbourne himself.  A train wreck in comedy that you just cannot seem to take your eyes off of.  And thus when I muttered something in reference to his behavior and that of Ozzy, a nicknamed legend was born.

Not to long ago, the boys had decided to go out for hot wings and a few brews so we all hopped in my car to pick up my friend Jon.  Jon is in the business of IP based security systems, and thus has a few camera’s strategically placed around his house that are always active.  In the videos below, you’ll see a sober Chip discovering one of the camera’s and letting his playful side come out.  How often to get to witness a man in his mid 40′s let down his guard and interact like a little kid making faces and comedic gestures to the camera?

Video #1 (Doesn’t he look like Andy Capp?):

Video #2 captured shortly thereafter:

This past weekend we celebrated my wife’s 40th birthday with a BBQ at our house. Not only was it a celebration of her birthday, but also a few of our neighbors birthday’s as well that all fell around the same time frame these past two weeks.

I’m not exactly sure how and when it happened, but it seems that our house is the goto house for parties as of late, since our other neighbor picked up his family and moved out to Texas last year.  See, we used to have block parties that spanned the end of our culdesac street that primarily centered out of his driveway and that of his neighbor. But now that they are gone, the street scene now tends to migrate down to our house. Not that I’m complaining. We enjoy entertaining and hosting cookouts. We have a corner house with nobody behind us, and a nice sized backyard. The only issue for me is I kinda do get tired of cleaning it up the next day. In that respect, I wish my neighbors volunteered their homes a bit more often.

So the main theme was somewhat latin in flavor. We decorated the house and backyard with Mexican themed streamers, banners, and cutouts.  Tacos, Spanish rice, ranch style beans, and margaritas were on tap, but these weren’t your typical tacos. I ended up making two different gourmet style types. The first were three large top sirloin steaks in a citrus-chipotle marinade that were cooked out on the grill and then cut up for easy service.

The second was a slow cooked pulled-pork shoulder that I had marinated in an achiote paste recipe served with roasted peppers and grilled pineapple. All the usual condiments were present: sour cream, shredded cheese, red onions, cilantro, various salsas and hot sauces. Monica happened to make a salad as well, and we had plenty of margarita’s, Jack Daniels, wine, and beer on hand.

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Listen to the podcast on how I prepared the pulled pork, and check out my earlier post on achiote paste and powder to know what it is and how to make. I can tell you it was delicious and I got some solid thumbs up from our guests.  I also discuss the preparation of roasted pasilla/pablano and Anaheim chili peppers (on the grill or in the oven), along with grilled pineapple.  I guarantee the added color and texture of fresh roasted peppers along with the sweet caramelized taste of fresh grilled pineapple bring these pork tacos full circle as a treat to the taste buds.

Monica did very well in the gift department as you can tell by the pictures, that is if you like alcohol as a gift. The more I think about it though, it may appear that by the amount of Crown Royal she received, one would think she has a problem. But I’m sure that Crown will be used up by everyone in future parties and I’m sure I’ll have a slug here and there.

As the night marched on, one of our friends Anthony found himself taking a liking to the Jack Daniels…perhaps a bit too much…and we had an entertaining ‘exit’ show as his wife (who drove) was rounding him up to leave.  There were plenty of hugs to go around initiated by Anthony, as well as multiple ‘good-byes’ and the almost wipe-out of our entertainment center which includes a 42″ plasma television, blu-ray player, stereo system, XBox and Wii gaming systems.

Even later when the natives got restless an impromptu session of Rock Band 2 broke out, with yours truly attempting to sing, and sing badly I did.  Girls took turns playing the drums and guitar and even singing.  Needless to say, there were plenty of pictures taken and all had a good time. 

The part at its peak was about 30 people strong, enjoying each other’s company, the outdoor fireplaces, drinks, jokes, games,and of course, food.  It wrapped up by 1:15am, and I did some preliminary cleaning until I finally crashed at 1:45.  The next day consisted of cleaning the house and resting.

Show Notes:

• Intro Song: Cumbia De Los Muertos (track 3) of the self-titled debut album, Ozomatli.
  

  Ozomatli

• Pulled Achiote Pork preparation along with roasted peppers and grilled pineapple.
• The Crown Royal Easter bunny.
• Anthony almost takes out the entertainment center.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (37.3MB)

This is too brilliant and makes my first entry in the WTF category. 

An Ohio woman allegedly told police that stress over Michael Jackson’s death led her to commit arson in the Authorities say Amanda Jarvis set fire to the women’s restroom at Bootleggers Bar in Lorain.  The fire, which was burning in a trash can, broke out just after 1 a.m. Sunday, according to reports.

"Wanna reenact my Pepsi commercial?"

A bartender told police that Jarvis came running out of the bathroom to tell him about the blaze.

Surveillance camera footage helped lead police to Jarvis, who was arrested.

“I felt stressed because my apartment had recently caught on fire, and because of the death of Michael Jackson,” she allegedly told authorities when asked why she’d set the blaze.

Jarvis appeared intoxicated at the time of her arrest and her speech was slurred. She is awaiting an initial court appearance.

Really, so can I blame my shop lifting ideas over my bereavement of Farah?  Can I take a joyride in a strangers vehicle because I’m distraught over the passing of Billy Mayes?  What the hell is wrong with people?  I’m living in Bizarro world.