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Posts tagged as “Friends”

A Gazpacho Adventure

Quite a few people have recommended gazpacho to me over the last week or so as something I could easily eat with my compromised throat. And if you’re anything at all like me (and undoubtedly you are since I created you in my image), you can’t hear the word “gazpacho” without thinking of this:

[flv height=”420″]https://www.theblacklaser.net/blog/wp-content/video/gazpacho.flv[/flv]

Hell, here’s the whole episode because I love you all. (Right-click, Save As… to download) At least until someone tells me to take it down. Go back to Russia!

I’ve never eaten gazpacho before. Honestly, looking through recipes it seems like pureed salsa. As much as I love salsa, I’ve never wanted to take huge spoonfuls of it down my throat. But, you know what? Fuck it. Might as well try it, right?

I found a recipe on Tastespotting that seems pretty good and basic. Not difficult. No real cooking. Just chopping which is easy peasy. As a bonus, the ingredients were so lovely that I felt compelled to take a photo.

And here they all are just a few minutes later ready to be blended.

In go the onions and garlic first!

Yum! Mush!

Here goes the rest! I had to do it in two batches since my blender isn’t quite large enough to get it all. But that’s ok!

Here it is, in all its puke-looking glory ready to be stored overnight as per the instructions. Tomorrow I will let you know just how delicious it really is.

Cooking is fun!

Meet my friend Tessie, who I hope to be able to address as my Tony Award Winning friend Tessie soon.

This is my friend Tessie.

Tessie and I went to high school together in California and reconnected a couple years ago here in New York when we discovered we both lived and worked here. She is a costume designer working on Broadway in various musicals and theatrical productions. She works hard and has done well for herself. I am constantly impressed. Currently she’s working on a show called Lend Me A Tenor. Sweet pun.

So, upon hearing of her Tony Nomination this morning, I felt tremendous pride in my friend. For those of you who don’t know what the Tony Awards are—and, really, what the hell?—they are the theatre’s equivalent of the Academy Awards. It’s a big deal to be nominated for a Tony Award.

Here’s a screencap of the nomination.

See her show there? I know you do. So do I. Great, right?

The awards aren’t until June, so we’ll all have to wait until we find out that they won for Best Costume Design. Not “if”, mind you. That.

Good job, Tessie!

The Mysterious Phenomenon of “Yeah, Du’!” and its Ramifications in the Real World.

Recently, I’ve been spending quite a lot of social time with Mike Fiduk and Charles Vestal, two worldly, handsome men. And, as conspiring gentlemen do, we egg each other on in all sorts of situations. It’s a good time. Somewhere along the way we started saying “Yeah, Du’!” as a way to express our approval of a situation. Like this:

Mike – Man, I think I’m going to go home and nap.
Charles – I think you’re going to come with us and drink.
Mike – Ok!
Joe – Yeah, Du’!

Charles – Let’s eat Polish food!
Mike – Yeah, Du’!

Joe – I drank too much and spent the night hitting on a lesbian.
Mike – Awesome! Yeah, Du’!
Charles – Yeah, Du’!

And so on and so on. It has become a celebratory cry used for basically anything. It’s a verbal high five. And, it has a very specific pronunciation. Listen.

[audio:https://www.theblacklaser.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/2010/04/yeah-du.mp3|artists=Joe|titles=Yeah, Du’!]

Now listen again. One more time. Got it? Good.

Yesterday morning I was having my customary Monday morning chat with Mike where we bitch about the coming week and catch up on things we might have missed. I worked all weekend, so I only had a couple of fun stories, but he spent the weekend in New Jersey for some reason that I’m not sure I want to know. Either way he told me about how he went dancing and spent some time dancing with an old lady who was ripping it up on the dance floor. Then he send me this GEM.

Lovely, right? Right.

I immediately thought, “Yeah, Du’!” and then inspiration hit me and I told Mike I had to do something that I would be back later. This is what I had to do.

Beautiful, right? Mike loved it. I love it too. I was thinking of saving it for my 500th post which is rapidly approaching, but then even more inspiration hit me. I’ve got the layered Photoshop document, why not apply it to more photos of my friends and see what sort of hilarious magic I could create? Right? Right. So that’s what I did.

Click the damn link and enjoy The Black Laser’s more specific sister site! I only intend to use photos of friends and friends of friends, so if you have any really great party photos, send them to me at joe at yeahdu dot com and I will make them famous! Well, internet semi-famous. YEAH!

Meet my friend Alden.

That’s him at about 1:30 with the beard. I’ve known Alden for, oh, about a million years. He’s a gentle giant of a man who can grow a kick ass beard. But, uh, Alden, I think you need to wear a beard hair net in the kitchen. Just sayin’.

Here’s what the Huntington, West Virginia Herald Dispatch has to say about what he’s doing with celeb-super chef Jamie Oliver.

During the past three weeks, chef Alden Cadwell of Sustainable Food Systems has been to Village of Barboursville, Nichols and Geneva Kent elementary schools. He will be at Spring Hill on Jan. 4 and 9, then conduct two countywide cook trainings on Jan. 14 and 15 — two days that students are off. Eventually, the 70 percent of the student population that accounts for more than 8,500 lunches each day all will have a healthier meal choice in the lunch line.

Cadwell’s main focus is shifting from the use of processed foods to whole and fresh ingredients. The schools where training has taken place already will have new menus in January. The elementary schools will dine on items such as macaroni and cheese, quesadillas, barbecue chicken, cheesy cornbread and beefy nachos with cheese and lettuce. Also being served in January are rotisserie chicken, baked pizza noodles and homemade tomato soup with a toasted cheese sandwich. Other elementary schools are serving cheeseburgers, chicken patties and nuggets and steak with gravy.

Good job, old boy! You are a champion. Keep kids healthy. I’ll be needing them to fill my army of the stars in my conquest of the universe.

Here’s the rest of the article.

Serendipity and the remembering of things.

Last night I was at The Belmont Lounge for my friend Dumaine’s birthday party. We arrived just a little after 8 right in the middle of some sort of unsigned R&B/hip hop artist showcase which sounded like an open mic, but wasn’t. Dumaine and his fye-ance Erika had reserved a table in anticipation of the friends who would eventually show up. A smart move, I think. We spoke to the hostess and got her to seat us at the table. Apparently, the woman running the showcase had placed some record company folks, whatever the HELL that means, at the table with the delicately lettered “Reserved” sign on it. When the hostess did her job and moved the record company folks to seat us, this woman raised a hell of a stink.

Instead of doing the right thing and saying, “Hey, you know, I know you have this table reserved and everything, but I would love for these folks to be able to see the rest of the show from here since I’d love for my performers to make some sort of deal with them. Would you mind if they stayed here?”

You know what we would have said? We’d have said, “Of course! No problem. There’s only three of us right now and we’d be happy to share the table for the remainder of the show.”

But, no. She had to pull the passive aggressive card and give us stink eye all night and bitch to the staff and call us out on the microphone. We were polite and didn’t let her bother us, because, really, what’s worse for people who are passive aggressive than to reply to them with straight positivity and politeness?

We sat and listened to the second half of the show. After 2 or 3 7 dollar Brooklyn Lager bottles (I know, right, what the fuck), I’m getting lost in my own head a little as all this not-very-good R&B blares through the bar. Conversation was impossible with the volume, so all I had was my own brain. Luckily, at this point, we’re friends.

I recognized that every song we heard was about how much the singer loved someone and how they either wanted to spend their lives with the other person or how they were the most beautiful in the world or how they wanted to take them home and sleep with them or whatever. You get it, I think. It was all hyperbole and adolescent descriptions of love and relationships. Kind of silly, really. Not realistic at all.

I got to thinking that it would be really awesome to do a song in the same style where the guy basically told the woman that she was all right, maybe a little annoying, but that he liked fucking her. That he didn’t want it to get too serious since he really couldn’t see them in a relationship. That he thought she was ok, but not really that great and, in the end, he didn’t care too much about her and that she’d probably be better off with someone who respected her. All of it sung in that “I can’t just hold a single note” style of modern R&B singers that I dislike so much. It’s like constant vocal gymnastics that seems to me more often cover up the fact that the singer’s not really hitting the note they’re trying to hit. Instead of just singing, they’re masking that they can’t sing. But whatever.

On the way in to work this morning I was thinking about the song still when I realized that I already KNEW a song like that. Funny, right? It took me 12 hours to process that the song I thought would be so funny pretty much exists. Here it is.

[audio:https://www.theblacklaser.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/2010/04/Our-Love-Would-Be-Much-Better-If-I-Gave-A-Damn-About-You.mp3|artists=Dag|titles=Our Love Would Be Much Better (If I Gave a Damn About You)]

Now, the Dag track isn’t quite exactly perfect, but it’s pretty close. Do any of you brilliant people out there have any songs like this? Let’s start a collection!

Ride, Rise, Roar trailer.

Every once in a while, it strikes me that I know a whole hell of a lot of stupidly talented, creative people. And, really, few things make me as happy as being able to share their work with you guys.

Even better, in light of my recent David Byrne post, my film-school friend Marshall, sent me the trailer for a new film on which is he was one of the two main photographers. The film’s called Ride, Rise, Roar and chronicles the creative process of Byrne and mixes it with live performance. But I’m fucking up the description. Let me just quote what they wrote on Vimeo.

RIDE, RISE, ROAR is a David Byrne concert film directed by David Hillman Curtis that blends riveting onstage performances with intimate details of the creative collaborations that make the music and show happen.

Shot with multiple cameras over several concerts during the 08/09 tour, the film blends the energy and charisma of classic Talking Heads with the heartfelt pathos of David Byrne and Brian Eno’s most recent collaboration.

Between the 14 live songs, the film achieves an unprecedented intimacy with David Byrne and the band, documenting behind-the-scenes auditions, rehearsals, and interviews with key players while revealing the creative process that led to the show’s unique fusion of pop music and modern dance.

RIDE, RISE, ROAR celebrates Byrne’s extensive career as a musician and testifies to the creativity that keeps him going today.

The trailer looks completely amazing. Do yourself a favor and click through to the Vimeo page here and watch it in HD fullscreen.

Great work, Marshall! I hope you keep on killing it.

Let Matt Toder guide you through the magic of internet video on Gawker.tv

My friend Matt, of Steve’s Word fame, loves television more than anyone I know in the whole world. Growing up he wasn’t allowed it by his parents, so he came into it as an adult and devours the stuff with all the fervor of a fresh convert. During pilot season, the man is a veritable trove of TV thoughts, opinions, and commentary. Want to discuss every nuance of last night’s episode of Lost? Matt’s your man. Want to know which pilot will succeed and which will fail miserably? Matt. Want clarify a bet with a buddy about some detail on a television show? Matt. His capacity for detail is amazing.

He and I have had the following conversation numerous times.

“Joe, did you see [insert X show here] last night?”

“No, Matt, I didn’t.”

“What? It was awesome? How did you not see it?!”

“Well, I was making dinner and just didn’t watch. I’ve never actually seen any episodes of [insert X show here].”

“You’ve got to see it, man. It’s great.”

Rinse and repeat.

With that considered, when I saw his sparkling face on Gawker.tv reviewing this weeks hilarious interweb videos, I realized that he’s about one degree away from the job he was born to do: discuss television shows for a living. Well, 30 year old unpaid intern Matt, I hope they let you keep doing this because I will gladly watch every single one.

Check it out at the link above.

The Black Laser enters MEAT SPACE.

Dearest Deegan,

Thank you for the incredible birthday gift. I know that I actually received this a while ago, but I felt like today was a good day to post it. There’s only one, and I’ve got it. Fuck yes.

The Front.

The Back.

To be perfectly honest, it took me a while to start wearing it out mostly because it feels like being in a band wearing its own t-shirt—a serious no-no in the metal community as we both know. But then I started to think of it as determined self-promotion and thought, “You know what? Fuck anyone who’d bust my balls for wearing this awesome shirt of my own equally awesome website.” And there you have it. Interestingly enough, a post yesterday on Invisible Oranges called “The rules of metal t-shirt wearing” confirmed some of the things I’ve already been feeling.

But you still won’t ever catch me wearing the band’s shirt to the show.

Anyway! Thanks for the shirt, dude. It slays.

Sincerely,

The Black Laser.