broke weed summer

“The end of an empire is messy at best. And this empire’s ended, like all the rest.” -Randy Newman

And the ever sounding crashing down of the economy permeates through the market’s fruit bins and meat stands to the country club with well groomed grass and eighteen hole golf. Us, friends, together in a new pioneer of poverty (barely, but broke nonetheless). Who lack funds to continue the dreams we have, but are sufficient enough for the broke weed summer; no ceasing of movement and moment. Are to withstand the wake of current affairs in our own oblivion.

Embark with us, dear pioneer, another front and future of the grand country we live in. The backdrop, the canvas, is that of failed and outsourced factories and industries. The methods of career and work are now riddles, and inefficient in their own structure. We are to build something different, something old, and something simple in procedure. Something, but as for now (the ever important now), friends, gather together with our little monies, and celebrate the crashing down with dancing, singing, laughter, and art.

Morale!

dirty shoes update

Pittsburgh, pittsburgh PITTSburgh.
I like Pittsburgh. There’s the downstairs neighbor rap beats, unlit rooms, aimless walks, lost time, slow time, and my moccasins paining my feet. All the college students (I do not relate) in their garb and dress drinking coffee drinks while walking in their furry boots down the street amuses me as it would…the old man… already, and I wish I was more involved in the loop and thought process, but I fail to see the glory, and rather save the money.

But I’m OK. In fact I’m alright. With the moccasins, the furry boots, the sore feet and the “who am I?”. If that’s how it be, then that’s how it be. I like to breath within the sigh of relief.

And home now…I’m home now home now. Laying in bed, and gaining momentum or barreling down into sleep. Tomorrow tomorrow tomorrow and school again, but only ’til May. Then Summertime and heat and sweat and bees on the dandelions waiting to sting my feet while I eat hamburgers from the propane grill…I long for something different always, but I mentioned I was OK, alright even.

So I realize winter is OK… fine by me even, but it stays a few weeks to long; Lingers around and then goes away, for one day, and throws itself back in the fit for two more weeks ’til the beast is locked down behind the gate until loosed on the next roll round of our Great Planet Earth.

But that’s the seasons and their weather, and I still have yet to take it as it is and say “Glory Glory” and celebrate how clever the already is, already is.

Site Update: New Header

I just changed the image at the top of our page. A nice little creation of my own, although I’m sure someone else could do better. Thoughts?

Fifty-two Friends

Josh Sullivan, a comic artist from St. Petersburg, Florida, is currently traveling the country, staying on a different person’s couch each week of the year. He is chronicalling his journey in a series of weekly comics/magazines, aptly called Fifty-Two Friends. Right now he’s in Week #9, having already made his way to San Dimas, CA.

It’s the sort of adventure that makes me say “That’s awesome” as soon as I read the first line of the news blurb telling me about it. While I imagine the motives and almost everything else are very different, Sullivan’s story reminds me of Into the Wild (I saw the movie, but you could also think of the book). There’s something really appealing to me in the idea of abandoning all of the norms of American society to live a life completely free of the constraints of cash, cars, and cell phones. I have many plans to take such trips some day, but for now I am left to dreaming as I go to bed in preparation of morning classes and an afternoon shift in the mailroom. No wonder I’m ready to escape. Spring break will still be too cold, and I need to spend this summer working, but somehow, someday, I will go backpacking. And if whatever this blog turns into is still running by then, I’m sure you will all be updated whenever possible.

College FOOD!!!: Iss.1 Pita Pizza

So, Joseph and I have been discussing something.  We have been discussing…food and fast and easy ways to prepare it.

So, this will be my first post regarding food and the college apartment lifestyle.  These recipes given will not, of course, be gourmet, but the closest thing to it living on a college budget.  I’m going to break down the following recipe, The Pita Pizza, into two different versions: The Apprentice Recipe and The Master Recipe.  The Apprentice being bare-bones, made with stuff you probably already have in your grimy, disgusting, fridge -think the Robert Rodriguez of recipes-, with The Master being the destroyer of all things foul-tasting, like a finely tuned, spotless, Scorcese flick.  Eventually, I’ll try to add some vids on how to prepare these tasty treats.

What I really love about the Pita Pizza is that it is soooo fast to make, and even if you make the Apprentice version, granted it’s a bit weaker, it still fills you up and satisfies those buds.  It only takes a few minutes for prep and actual baking time, that if you’re late to class you can quick slam this together, enjoy, and bolt.  In fact, I’m eating one right now…So!  Let’s get started!  First, let’s go with the easier and supa-fast one.

The Apprentice: Pita Pizza

Tools:

1 Pita

Cheese of your preference (Think Italian!  like mozzarela, romano, asiago, etc.)

pinch o’ salt

dab o’ olive oil (optional, for crispier crust)

some sauce (I’m not specifying any amount here, you know how much ya like)

Let’s make it!

1.  Preheat that oven!  400 degrees Fahrenheit.

2.   -Optional- Place olive oil on pita and spread around, covering entire pita-face –HINT: try using a spoon to spread.

3.  Spread on the sauce!  (See above HINT)

4.  Take yo’ pita and sprinkle the pinch of salt on the entire pita face.

5.  Grate/slice/place the cheese(s) over the pita until acheived desired amount of cheesiness.

6.  Pop it in the oven!  5-7 minutes are all you need! (or until cheese is melted)

7.  And of course, enjoy your supa-fast Apprentice grade snack!

Now, if you thought that was tasty, just wait until you try the Master version…mmmmmmmmmmmmmm!  The Master version contains various differing spices to really bolster up that flavor.  Of course you can omit, add and substitute as you see fit, but then it wouldnt be the fabled Master Pita Pizza…lesh do it!

The Master: Pita Pizza

Tools:

1 Pita

Cheese of your preference (Again, think Italian, but if you see some other cheese that catches your eye, or that you like, pick it up and try it on the pizza.  Personally, I went Germatalian by mixing Boar’s Head Butterkase cheese in.  Yum.)

pinch o’ salt

dab o’ olive oil (optional, for crispier crust)

1/2 sliced plum tomatoe (Preferably plum.  They’re smaller and easier to eat.  Save the other half for when you make it again!)

pinch o’ minced onion

pinch o’ basil

pinch o’ crushed red pepper

pinch o’ garlic powder

Let’s make it!

1.  Preheat that oven!  400 degrees Fahrenheit.

2.   -Optional- Place olive oil on pita and spread around, covering entire pita-face –HINT: try using a spoon to spread.

3.  Place sliced tomatoe on pita. If using a plum tomatoe, think pentagon, with another slice smack dab in the middle.

4.  Take yo’ pita and sprinkle the pinch of salt on the entire pita face.

5.  Grate/slice/place the cheese(s) over the pita until acheived desired amount of cheesiness.

6.  Drop your pinches!  Sprinkle the pinches of all that other stuff I added to the Tools list all ’round the pita face.

7.  Pop it in the oven!  5-7 minutes are all you need! (or until cheese is melted)

8.  Enjoy!

There you have it, the first set of recipes for all you hungry college kids.  Keep tuning in.  We’ll try to have more tasty recipes for you every week.  Laugh and grow fat!

A musing from the pipe. Also: beavers

(as in a pipedream, not illicit drug use… “illicit”)

Kurt Vonnegut’s Breakfast of Champions walks a fine line between absurd humor and scathing commentary, for in between the crude drawings of assholes and the discussions of “wide-open beavers,” there lies a blatant satire of politics and society (of course, the wide-open beaver sections can be considered part of that).  I often find myself boisterously guffawing one moment and pondering the truths of his statements the next.   Example (don’t worry about the names and such if you are unfamiliar with this book):

She was a brand-new adult, who was working in order to pay off the tremendous doctors’ and hospital bills her father had run up in the process of dying of cancer of the colon and then cancer of the everything.

This was in a country where everybody was expected to pay his own bills for everything, and one of the most expensive things a person could do was get sick.  Patty Keene’s father’s sickness cost ten times as much as all the trips to Hawaii which Dwayne was going to give away at the end of Hawaiian Week.

Now do me a favor and forget politics and economics and all that for a moment:  does this make any sense?  Should being sick cost more than a luxurious trip to Hawaii (never mind ten times more than a handful of those trips)?

Okay, now you can consider economics, but try to do it in a different way.  Maybe this wouldn’t fit into our economic model, or any model that could be derived from our current one,  but I think that means that there needs to be a huge change in the way our society views things, because it just doesn’t make any sense at all.

You don’t have to be a communist to think that everybody deserves to “enjoy” certain accommodations and privileges, and I don’t understand how good health isn’t one of the most basic of those.

And now for another quote from the book that is completely unrelated.  It’s self explanatory.

It was somehow decided that wide-open beavers, which were ten thousand times as common as real beavers, should be the most massively defended secret under law.