MICHAEL JACKSON, JAMES BROWN AND (a very high) PRINCE - LIVE, 1987. a.k.a. BEST YOUTUBE VIDEO EVER. [songaday]

Maybe MJ's finest taped moment. And that's saying a whole lot.

A SCENT FOR OUR AGE

MERCHANDISING, BITCHES. Can't download cologne. So we have branched into the man-musk market (pause just because). Until it too was unceremoniously swallowed by the financial black hole nipping at all our heels, one of Sum and my myriad side jobs was working on and off at a perfume lab (pause 5x) in Marina Del Rey, courtesy of tailor, astronaut and apple of my bloodshot eye, Zainab Outlaw. The owner was a study in contrasts: a true-blue hippie who did business like he had stolen and swallowed Gordon Gecko's beating heart whole, yet answered to the name Delight. The lab was filled with a rotating cast of pretty, furry-legged young women who would toil in his perfume mine daily while gossiping about witchcraft as payment for living at his Topanga Canyon commune. As it turns out, a lab of any kind also needs one or two people on deck who can pull off feats like picking up objects over five pounds in weight, or working for over forty-five minutes without a guitar and poetry break, so Sum and I were drafted in to handle the hard labor. It was here that we learned the ins and outs of creating smells: decanting, sterilizing, ignoring suspicious knocks at the door, lots of Captain Beefheart.

So it is with great pride that we present our flagship fragrance, a product that we have put our blood, sweat and tears into. Actually, that's pretty much all Recession is: mostly sweat, but a little blood from when I cut my finger while chopping onions to put in the spaghetti for lunch. Oh, the tears are from the onions too.

Cookin' Healthy, Cookin' Drunk.

One of my favorite things to do is to get shit-faced, go home and cook a glorious gourmet meal. I'm a former biology major and fan of the internal arts (tai chi, chi kung, yoga). On top of that, I'm a weekend warrior with the pop physics and culinary arts. So on any given day, I'm levitating in the kitchen doing aerial push-ups, reading a cookbook and moving the pages with my mind. I've always been into experimentation...as a youth, I used to grow rocks in a fish tank and eat spoonfuls of glue and paste for the sake of science. My room was a lab. After I got my Bio degree, I chose the microphone over the microscope,.....so the KITCHEN is my laboratory. It's where I keep my head straight. For the past year or two, I've been deep in the science of food combining (Herbert Shelton wrote the book on it, "Food Combining Made Easy", you should check it out) and the Ayurvedic diet. What I made last night was from this book...

Ayurvedic is simply an ancient way of saying "holistic", for all points and purposes. The science was developed alongside yoga to support and enhance yogic practice and an excellent lifestyle. It takes into account things like time of day and year, how to cut a carrot so it will follow you on Twitter, and how different types of soaps, fragrances, fabrics, exercises and sexual techniques will keep your mojo swinging.. Most importantly it observes how to eat according to your age, gender and body type. These body type are known as "doshas" in Ayurvedic science, and there are three of them: Vata, Pitta, Kapha.

If you're a Vata, you might be slender, excitable, and able to outrun a woodchuck. You may also prefer warm climates where you can be outdoors and constipated in relative peace.

If you're a Pitta, you might have an athletic build, dream in color, love all meat, and have flexible but strong toenails. You might also emit a small, puffy cloud of seahorses from your ass if you miss a meal.

If you're a Kapha, you might be more on the heavy-set side, you are a deadly combination of stubborn and rarely thirsty, money is easy to save for you, and the only way you will remember a dream is if it was about bread.

I'm mostly Pitta myself, with heapin helpins of the other doshas.

Last night I made my first stab into the realm of Ayurvedic cooking. Up to now, my culinary arsenal has included Southern/Soul Food (my macaroni & cheese has given sight to a blind Senegalese man and raised a dead Texan baby from the grave), Carribean, Chinese, Mexican, stews, pastas and even some experimental tinctures, potions and elixirs. They've served me well so far, but now I'm ready to go maniac with the cooking. And it's about time I learn how to cook things of a more royal and divine nature for my royal and divine wife.

The Ayurvedic technique took me a while to get to, because it's kind of intimidating...even just the base ingredients, seasons and spices you have to get. They might included (but are not limited to):

-"Ghee", which is basically Clarified Butter from an Enlightened Cow
-Black Mustard Seeds shat by a fiery phoenix
-Mandras Curry beat from the rugs of the Mothership
-Cleric-pressed Sunflower Oil
-Ginger root from the set of the first Terminator movie

Shit's easier to find than you might think.

This first dish I made was tridoshic, which means none of the doshas will get heartburn, nightmares or bleeding ankles after eating it. Actually, if they're so lucky, a small droplet of golden ambrosia will appear at the corner of their eyes afterwards. In that droplet will appear a vision of Dave Chappelle in a pair of goat pants, playing a flute. And he will murmur God's one true name in French.

The short of the concoction was this: broccoli, cauliflower, string beans, and green peas in a curry sauce completely fashioned from scratch. Served over a bed of aromatic herb basmati rice....with a side of fresh tomatoes and red bell peppers.

The helpful properties of this meal:

The cooling qualities of peas balance the warming qualities of the curry and spices, bringing balance to the heat element in your body.

The small amount of yogurt in the curry, thinned by water, aids in digestion.

The cauliflower, chopped gingerly, activates the Bailey's from the Irish Car Bomb.


When it was all said and done, this was one of the best meals I've ever had in my life, and was a fine way to soak up the three pints of Guiness and two shots of Jameson I had used to align my chakras a couple of hours before. Special thanks to Vishnu, Dr. Candyshots and the cast and crew of the first Terminator movie.

A PETITION TO RENAME WASHINGTON PLACE.

why?

CITY PLANNING IS A CURIOUS THING. The fact that any city can function on any level, even somewhere as fundamentally fucked as Calcutta, or say, Upland, is a testament to the wonders of the human brain. Judging by the evidence, people in olden times couldn't figure out how to treat a broken arm without chopping it off, but they had relatively little issue planning, funding, organizing and executing the creation of a damn city, with homes and streets and parks, and years later with electricity and trash pickup and LA Xpress vending machines on every corner. I'm still amazed that the average building doesn't just collapse a week after it's built. Do I have low expectations?

Alas, with humanity's triumphs come its failures, part and parcel. Granted, in most any situation a minority of flaws are impossible to avoid completely, people being slightly stupid and the world being something slightly stupid people run. But I'm talking about easily avoidable errors - in this case, confusing street names. Looking over a street map of Los Angeles, one can imagine our founding fathers clustered around a table in a candlelit room in the wee hours of the morning, ink dripping from a quivering quill as they assigned name after name to all the streets that play host to our lives. One can also quite literally point to the exact areas where George Washington pulled the flask of whiskey out from under his wig, took a heroic swig, grimaced slightly, and slurred the words "fack it, name this one after me too."

I am referring, of course, to the quandary of Washington Boulevard and Washington Place, two major streets in Culver City that are parallel and not more than five blocks away from each other even at their furthest points. As it is, Culver City already looks like its chief architect was the guy from Memento, so when you put the two factors together you end up with the scene that plays out many times daily: cars full of people driving around in circles as they frantically re-Google directions and curse the sunny skies.

So I have taken the liberty (thank you George Washington!) of penning the petition below. I would list reasons why I think we should replace Washington Place instead of Washington Boulevard, but after fifteen years of living here I still don't know which is which. I vote we keep the Washington with all the Mexican spots on it. Whichever one that is. If you agree, please post CO-SIGN in the comments section. Suggestions for a replacement street name are also welcome.

DEAR CULVER CITY,

I'm tired of looking stupid in front of my friends when looking for an address on the two Washingtons. Please rename whichever Washington it is that is all apartment buildings asap. Actually, I don't know anyone who lives there so just bulldoze it if you have to. The other Washington has some really good mom 'n pop Mexican restaurants that would get a lot more business if we could just fucking find them. And they always have the good salsa with the big tomato chunks and sometimes they'll even sell you some beer if you know a little Spanish. Please remedy this problem. I just want some tacos.

Sincerely,

____________________

DOES THIS MAN REMIND YOU OF THE GAME?

SO EVER SINCE THIS GUY BECAME FAMOUS, every other month or so a friend of mine (none of who know each other) will remark that I look kinda like him. And yes, my black friends, black people have said so too. A couple of days ago someone else said the same thing, so I threw the question on my Facebook page, which sparked a nice little round of reactions (and if you haven't added me yet, click here and get on with it). So let's figure this out once and for all. Kindly peruse the photos below and vote in the poll to the right. I see the resemblance. It's not huge but it's there. But what do I know; it's not like I've had this face for thirty fucking years or anything.

The profile shot. Note jawline and general facial structure.

He's sitting on a solid gold hubcap and I'm sitting on a deckchair in Palm Springs, but beyond that I cannot tell one difference between us.

I think his picture was taken just after he dropped his grotesquely large bottle of Jack Daniels. Lightweight.

Oh woops. Guess I got myself confused with myself. Well lucky you. Now go vote please. And come to Saints tomorrow between 6pm and 10pm. It's our last Thursday there, so I'm gonna do it big. And I think you know what that means.