Where are they now?
My adult self came together in the years 1975 to 1980, and in my recollection of those years, Saturday Night Live glitters, a gaudy thing, a huge but imperfect gem. On the one hand, it flashed with brilliance: SNL introduced me to Steve Martin, Lily Tomlin, Madeline Kahn; and oh, the musical guests, could they ever be eye-openers to a kid raised on AM radio. Through SNL I met the B-52s, Elvis Costello, Zappa, Leon Redbone, and David Bowie. (I knew Bowie’s music, of course, but seeing him perform was a revelation.) On the other hand, SNL could infuriate. Who can forget the dreaded Last Half Hour, graveyard of unfunny skits? And yet we would watch on, long past the point of fatigue, hoping for one last laugh.
The first season of SNL (1975-1976) is out on DVD. Yesterday, I rented two of the set. I wanted to see Peter Cook and Dudley Moore together, and I wanted to see Peter Boyle cut up for the camera, too. And of course I wanted to see Gilda, who died way too soon.
Before I get started, I have a question for the older crowd: what was the name of the program which followed SNL at 1 AM? It was a musical program, I remember that much. And while the theme of SNL is engraved on my brain, the musical intro to that program escapes me . . . and yet that, too, was once a shining point in my life, something a good deal more vivid than the rest of my day-to-day crap.
Below the cut: where are they now?
SBD: Sex, Gatsby, and overreaching
You might not think Candace Bushnell’s Sex and the City and F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby have much in common, other than the fact both focus on the lives of the shallow, nouveau riche, but for Beth’s Smart Bitches Day (which I have ignored these last several weeks for lack of anything to say), I can do better than that.
But first, you’re probably wondering what happened to me yesterday. Or not. Maybe I shouldn’t assume your lives depend on me posting at least once a day, hmm? Anyway, let me quickly say WE’RE BOTH FINE. It’s good for hospital morale if the employees see their physicians (and soon to be chief-of-staff, I might add haughtily) use the emergency facilities. It fills them with confidence. And besides, the nearest larger hospital is another seventy miles south, not that that had anything to do with our choice of hospitals. Nope, nothing at all. In any case, I don’t have pneumonia and Karen didn’t have a heart attack so I guess we’re both a couple of hypochondriacs.
Am I boring you yet? Here. Check out Renee’s Christmas card to me. One question, Renee: is that mistletoe hanging over your girlfriends, and if so, may I please have a raincheck?
Onward to more serious Smart Bitchery . . .
Yummy eggplant thingy, AKA involtini
Tonight, I tried to reproduce an eggplant dish I had in San Francisco at Ti Piacera. Involtini, it’s called: thinly sliced eggplant rolled around a cheesy filling, broiled and served with a red sauce. My verdict: not bad. Certainly worthy for company. Not easy, but what the hell.
The eggplant
Peel the sucker and slice it thinly (1/8 inch or so) from top to bottom — lengthwise, not crosswise. Salt the slices and let them drain for at least 30 minutes. Rinse off the salty sweat and drain on paper towels.
The red sauce
Leftovers from last night’s ravioli: one big can of chopped tomatoes, a sauteed onion, couple cloves of garlic, crushed, pepper, olive oil, a dash of fish sauce. Simmer a good long time.
The filling
Also a leftover from last night’s ravioli. I sauteed about a pound of baby spinach in butter and, when wilted, I let it drain. In a food processor, I placed the spinach, salt, pepper, about 1/2 cup of ricotta cheese, another 1/2 cup of parmigiano reggiano, some grated fresh asiago, some nutmeg, and two egg yolks. Process until smooth.
The preparation
Saute the eggplant slices and drain on paper towels.
At one end of each slice, place a rounded teaspoonful of filling, a bit of mozarella cheese (roughly 1 – 2 teaspoons), a bit of fresh basil. Roll it up.
Arrange the rolls in a greased baking dish and bake at 250F until thoroughly heated — about 30 min. Then broil until slightly brown on top.
Spoon red sauce over the top. Sprinkle with finely chopped fresh basil.
Hey, you know what we haven’t done in a while?
Recipe requests. Got any?
D.
This could be interesting
In this morning’s email:
hi i am Jana Duggar.. if you have any questions at all you can email me at bowlingqueen1@aol.com!!
I only take emails with no cursing in it!
Thanks
I’ve invited her to give an interview for Balls and Walnuts. But how do I confirm she’s who she says she is? (There is a Jana Duggar — I confirmed that much.) Or does it even matter? It could be fun either way.
You may leave suggestions for questions in the comments. And keep it respectful, people. I only want questions with no cursing in it.
D.
Performance anxiety
Ack! The clock is ticking. I’m running out of time for Renee’s Global Orgasm Day contest. But sex isn’t funny; it runs the gamut from exhilarating to pathetic, but funny? It takes someone of Roald Dahl’s talent to make orgasms funny (see “Bitch,” in his collection Switch Bitch).
Upon rereading, I see it doesn’t have to be a funny orgasm story. Just has to be an orgasm story. ‘Kay, I can do that. I’ll give you a pathetic orgasm story.
In the dorms, my roommate used to screw one of our fellow dormies. (These were co-ed dorms, you see. We even had co-ed bathrooms.) I didn’t mind it so much, even though I had a thing for her, too. But once, my asshole roomie screwed her in OUR room with ME in there, too. Guess he figured I would sleep through it.
I lay there listening to them. They tried to make as little noise as possible, so all I could hear was the thumping and the squeaky-spring-squeaking and it was — well, when I could get past being pissed off at my roomie, I had to admit it was arousing, too. I, too, tried to make as little noise as possible; I didn’t want to distract them.
I wanted to see (hear, really) how this would end.
It didn’t take long. Sorry, Joe, but I’m not going to lie for you. I’ll bet you would like me to claim I lay there for over an hour, wondering if it would ever end, but in truth, I barely had time to figure out what I would say to you the next day*.
Five minutes? Okay, six. I’ll give you six.
When it was over, I heard the first non-thumping, non-squeaking sound from them: her disappointed whimper.
If you ever read this, gorgeous, will you please tell me why you only screwed the losers? Were you one of these women who had a bad-boy fetish or something? I hope you’ve wised up since then.
One way or another, I would have left you satisfied. I consider it a point of honor.
D.
*Oh, it was quite the zinger, just what you would expect from an accomplished Man of Words.
“You know, I heard you two last night.”
“Um. You did?”
“Yeah. I did.”
“Oh. Sorry.”
In any case, it never happened again.
The wonder of me
SxKitten posts the following challenge:
The Holiday Challenge: Post your 4 virtues – 4 things you like about yourself.
The Hard Part: No qualifiers, no but’s, no apologies, no back-handed put-downs. You have to give yourself 4 solid, undiluted compliments.
SxKitten’s done it (linked above). Dean’s done it. Now it’s my turn.
By the way, I’m still thinking about Renee’s challenge. Hmm . . . funny, sexy story, eh? But sex is so bloody serious.
Back to my virtues.
1. I’m funny. I laugh at my own jokes constantly. As a kid, I had to be funny. It was the only way a little pisher like me could effectively deal with bullies — all the bullies, not just the ones in my family.
2. I’m a damned good chef. I can wow the socks off dinner guests and I can even impress my wife and son.
3. I have a great brain (not to be confused with a beautiful mind). It has served me very well these many years and has shown itself up to every challenge. And I have a string of A+’s and a magna cum laude from Berkeley to prove it 🙂 so there.
4. I’m a good doctor. My patients love me and I have to admit their affection is well deserved.
Hey, that was easy. Do I have to stop at four?
Your turn.
D.
Damned chipping Sodburies
This is what I get hanging around at Lilith’s blog.
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My Peculiar Aristocratic Title is: Duke Douglas the Edible of Chipping Sodbury Get your Peculiar Aristocratic Title |
The Edible seems so apropos . . . considering the fact that tomorrow is Global Orgasm Day.
D.
Thirteen college memories: freshman year
What, only thirteen? Yes, you can regard this as an extremely limited selection. I’ll be attempting to come up with tales you haven’t heard before. No small feat.
1. Shin splints. During orientation, on our walking tour of the Berkeley campus, the guy walking next to me noticed me limping.
“Don’t baby it,” he said.
“Huh? It’s shin splints.”
“Yeah, I figured that out. But don’t be a wimp. Walk through it.” And that’s how it went for the next hour or two — me limping, him ragging on me to stop being such a pussy.
His name was Russ, and he became my roommate, and remained so for all but one year.
Blankie
My stomach woke me up last night — never a good thing — but I had been dreaming about my brother, a squicky eeew kind of dream which brought back some early childhood memories. I almost woke Karen up to tell her, Do you know what he used to do? Stuff which taken out of context sounds awful, but when I think about all the other general squickiness of life back then, it fades into the background. Ambient color.
I remembered my baby blanket. Like Schultz’s Linus, I had a baby blue blankie. Damn thing was falling apart and my father eventually threw it out. Thing is, I haven’t thought about that blanket in years, so where did that memory come from? And what else sits around in my hippocampus, dormant, waiting to spring out with a little prodding?
I have no interest in recovered memory — you know, the fake stuff a suggestible brain manufactures, a fantasy with the street cred of reality. In dreams, my subconscious (which hates me — have I mentioned that? But what other conclusion can I come to when I never ever get the girl?) has tried to convince me of various incestuous dalliances which I know never took place. I wish I could confront this subconscious, grip him by the shoulders, and ask him, What the hell is the matter with you? On the other hand, I’ve learned that the safest thing, the best thing for my mental health, is to give such dreams all the care they deserve: none.
Maybe that’s why my subconscious has it in for me. I keep flipping him the bird.
It was nice, though, remembering that blanket, rather like finding a photo stuffed behind another photo in an old album. Sometimes I see myself as a set of memories. I suppose there’s more, but that’s the part of me I understand. When I look within, those memories are the only thing separating me from a featureless wall. I wish there were more memories (even if most of them are unpleasant, my blanket notwithstanding), enough that I might forget about the blankness altogether.
D.
Animals love us
Specifically, they love to die in our attic.
We fell for this house because of the deck and the view. Took one step into the living room and failed to notice the shag brown carpet, or the kitchen done up with a Brady Bunch palette; headed straight out to the deck and breathed a collective sigh. Even the not-quite-up-to-code narrow stairs bothered us — shag baby blue carpet leading up to a master bedroom with more of the same, a monster bed too large even for king-sized sheets, baby blue tile around the fireplace, livid maroon carpeting in the giant upstairs roomlet that had functioned as clothes- and shoes-repository for the Imelda Marcos of Brookings. The view, man, the view! We’d always wanted an ocean view. Now we would have one.
Something happened between that first viewing and our move-in date. Something very large and very ill moved into the attic and died, right above our front entry way. We thought perhaps a mountain lion had expired up there. Or a skunk. Or both. And the flies! I must have vacuumed up a thousand flies. The only thing missing was the deep, raspy voiceover: Get oooouut of the hoooooouuse.