I Didn't Win

So, McSweeney's ran the winners of their column contest, and I was not one of them.

I probably wasn't twee or pithy enough for them. But I'm just the right amount of twee and pithy for you guys. Awwww. I should have written a column called "Jokes my ironically named pet bird told me about 1980s heads of state" they'd eat that shit right up. So, anyway, here's my entry for their contest. Enjoy how much better it is than the crap they are sure to run from their "winners". You're the real winners today, guys. Congratulations.

Cooking with Tony is a column that is really a front to tell stories of mine and bitch about things I want to bitch about, loosely related to food or cooking. I have the palette of a 12 year-old, and the budget and motivation of a college sophomore. The format will be adhered to as strictly as the content won’t be.

So here it is, not my funniest story, but the story that I thought best presented my proposed concept. Bon Appétit!

Cooking with Tony – Stromboli

I think we’ve all been there: it’s a balmy summer evening, I’m not wearing any pants, and it’s creeping closer to “Crap, it’s ten o’clock and I can’t eat this late or I’ll get heartburn and fat” time. I need to whip up a fun, easy menu that delivers bold flavor, charm and nutrition. Join me on a recent epicurean journey.

First off, dinner has a few requirements for me: it should be hot, and include more than one “dish”. And preferably salty. And crunchy. And not gross. I turn to my pantry (cabinet above my sink). How many Pop-Tarts are in a dinner? Three. Three Pop-Tarts are a dinner, with a side of tortilla chips (salty and crunchy!). But, the baffling two-tarts-to-a-pouch philosophy of the heatable breakfast market does me in. I can’t just leave one to go bad in its crinkley silver coffin, and I can’t eat four – eating four Pop-Tarts means you’ve failed at life.

The menu planning continues: No clean pots for pasta, and I had pizza rolls for lunch. Sometimes, if you remain uninspired, I’ve found it’s okay to look outside your own ingredients, especially when your ingredients are all microwavable, toasterable, or canned chili. So in this case, it was time to bite the bullet and set out. And by set out, I mean get dressed and walk two doors down to the pizza shop. A world of possibilities opens before me! A world which is entirely populated by pizza, cheesesteaks and stromboli. Cheesesteaks are always a bonus, because I can toss stray meat flakes to my cat, but I’m not in the mood. Pizza makes my beard smell greasy, and I’m headed to the bar later. So, it’s set, tonight’s menu: stromboli, with a side of French fries, paired with a 2011 Diet Pepsi.

Side note: I used to drink regular Pepsi, but at the staggering rate of my consumption, switching to diet was my only hope of avoiding mid-20s diabetes.

Side side note: In doing research for this recipe, I found out that the delicious stromboli is a regional dish, native to my north eastern part of America. A) You’re welcome for the culture, you rubes. B) That’s a shame, rest of the country. I feel bad for you. And C) You might not have stromboli, but I am assuming you have the internet since you’re reading this, so just Google it already.

Fine, it’s a lot like a calzone. You backwater hillbillies know what that is, right? Happy now?

Anyway.

Gathering ingredients for your menu can be a metaphor for life; you look outside yourself when you realize everything in your cabinet (pathetic life) is boring, spoiled or stale. Or you really need to stop talking to your ex-girlfriend because she’s really just a total bummer and you guys are never getting back together or even going on another date that was as good as that time you guys got ice cream and laughed so much when you had a sprinkle stuck in your beard. So don’t eat the spoiled cheese (ex-girlfriend). Go and get a stromboli (girl who goes to the bar you go to who wears too much eye make-up and definitely won’t nag you about things like how salt and pepper shakers and ketchup shouldn’t be “permanent fixtures” of your coffee table, or “paying the electric bill” or “looking at other girls’ boobs” or “Tony could you take the goddamn Guitar Hero guitar off the couch so I have a place to sit”).

So, I go out, like my hunter-gatherer ancestors: I put on pants and shoes and walk to the shop two doors down from my apartment. I always hope to order from the nice old Greek lady, to avoid interacting with the marble-mouthed 40-something who also works there. In this particular instance, I wasn’t so lucky. Before getting a chance to place my order, he somehow forces the following from his perpetually open mouth: “Hey Jeff! Hahaheeehaaaeeehh?” No, sorry, Jeff isn’t my name, but nice try at randomly guessing after interacting with me for nearly two years! I order. It’s often said that waiting is the hardest part of cooking, and they are right. I sit on my stoop and smoke two cigarettes. Like all things in life though, the wait is often the most enlightening part. I learn that a one-way sign is no deterrent as two separate cars go the wrong way on my street. I learn that people who drive hybrids can rarely be bothered with “parking between the lines” or “not being an asshole.”

Ah! The true reward of cooking is finally here: the meal is ready! I pick it up and head back to my apartment. My cat is disappointed as she doesn’t see a cheesesteak emerge from the greasy bag. I am encouraged that I made the right choice, because that was super easy. If I had to do it again, I would have said “no onions” twice, because one time they put onions in my stromboli and cooked onions are creepy and slimy and gross. Overall, this was a very successful menu: the pairings interacted like world-class dance partners and the Italo-American flair lit up the room with an ebullient “Mama-Mia!” charm. Bon Appétit!

Stromboli

Recipe (includes French fries and Diet Pepsi side dishes):

13 Dollars

1 pair shoes

1 pair pants

Ketchup (to taste)

Clean plate

Pizza place (Greek)

Preparation Time: “10 minuhs” (16 minutes)

Difficulty: No.

Pros: A stranger made my dinner. Delicious. Kitchen isn’t hot from stove. No microwave brain cancer. Cheese.

Cons: A stranger touched my dinner. Putting on pants and shoes. Washing stromboli plate. Interacting with the guy who rides a bike to work and drinks shots of Goldschläger on a begged-for credit line at the local bar. Eating too much and getting a stomach ache.

Conclusion: A really great recipe overall: simple, delicious, multicultural. The real question is: would I make stromboli again? Yes. Especially if it is really hot out or I am totally out of other food. Probably not if it was raining, though. Also, don’t order the large, that thing is like four goddamn pounds.

****

When I sent this idea to some friends of mine, they all said pretty much the same thing: “You’re an idiot.” When pressed further, they said “It’s a pretty good column, but it seems pretty limited.” I am paraphrasing, because they didn’t all say exactly the same thing and because I don’t pay attention to them very well. However, as a rebuttal, here is a list of (more than the requested three) future columns:

· How Many Grapes Can Fit in Your Mouth? (A tale of youth, machismo and victory)

· The Time My Mom Ruined My Eleventh Birthday with Carrot Cake (A treatise on shit that shouldn’t be desserts, mostly)

· The Time My Friends Made Me Eat Sushi at that Fancy Restaurant (Squishy disks of fish and pretension)

· No Waffles a la Friend’s Drunk Dad at an Engagement Party (He promised me waffles and asked me to dance)

· Ham and Cheese and Tostitos (Pro: actual recipe, Con: not really)

· Getting a Sandwich Named after You (Bucket List) (The Tony Burger)

· I Love Steak More Than Any Girl I’ve Ever Met (I once said “If I ever meet a girl I love as much as the Phillies I will marry her immediately. I guess that isn’t related to steak, but you get the idea. The idea is girls are not as good as other really good stuff)

· Mozzarella Sticks: Ambrosia? (self-explanatory)

· My Favorite Vegan Meal is Telling Everyone I’m Vegan (90% of vegans are truly insufferable, also chubby because all they eat is bread and Twizzlers also quinoa tastes like un-brewed tea)

· One Time at a Bar a Girl Sent Me a Pizza Instead of a Drink (Valentine’s Day theme column?????)

**************

There you have it. I thought it was pretty good. Oh well.

More like WONday

I saw Harry Potter. I don't read them, as books with 24 pt fonts make me feel stupid. It was a pretty good movie about teenaged wizards, and they always help kick off the Christmas season.

I went shopping for Christmas cards (send me your address to be added to my list). Almost all Christmas cards are painfully stupid. It was tempting to send all the girls on my list cards that say Ho Ho Ho. I realized my best option would be to just make my own. So I bought some rubber stamps and had at it. That ink gets everywhere.

I just submitted a few things to an online literary magazine. I also just punched myself for saying that. Point is, I had to write a bio for them. This is what I wrote:

[Bingo Rockefeller] is a criminally underpaid writer and somewhat fairly paid editor living in the suburbs of Philadelphia. He writes a weekly advice column for the website Phillyist titled "Good Advice From a Bad Person." He is taller than he looks and will never find the perfect root beer.
I should have mentioned my tiny-headed cat. Literary magazines love cats.

The Phillies lost Jayson Werth and one of Philadelphia sport's greatest beards. But they also lost Philadelphia sport's worst soul patch, so there's that.

Here is today's addition to my Christmas Wish List. Listen up, Santa.


I can't decide if I want the stormtrooper or Vader, but both are awesome. Read about them here.

I watched Santa's Slay last night. It was easily the best Christmas horror movie ever starring Goldberg and Claire Littleton. Also the worst.

I'm getting this for my cat for Christmas.

Write

Is it Wednesday? Why is this week confusing me so much. I'll blame daylight savings.

I am getting wicked excited about the Christmas season. Christmas songs, Christmas commercials, Christmas candy. It's on. It's not even Thanksgiving yet, this is bad.
I love the Christmas gift guides online. I don't know why. I get way too excited for those.

I should make up a Christmas wish list. I'll make a Dear Santa post soon. Word is bond.

KO!

I miss the Phillies. The Flyers are being pretty awesome though, I just wish they played more. Last night there were no sports on. None. What's up with that? Dumb.

I am officially looking to take my writing to the next level. The level that includes financial compensation. Tips? Advice?

Also I've been thinking about moving lately. Just for the excitement. Also for a parking spot.

My cat is bad.

We all got it coming, kid.

Sometimes at night I wake up and need to write something down. I keep a little notebook next to my bed and write down whatever fever dream is compelling me to document itself. Sometimes I'll write in the dark, with words overlapping, I'll write twice on the same page.

Earlier this week:

"Writing about myself is symptomatic of my anachronistic confidence and post-modern lack of modesty.

Maybe it's all just defiance. Maybe I'm rebelling against the egalitarian, social-socialism of the times. Maybe I can't stand the zeitgeist of gladness and revering the parity of everything. If I lived in a time of winners and losers, which I surely do not, would I push for the participant ribbons and yearn for special-olympian treatment for all? The confidence in me insists I wouldn't.

I will crash and cry but I will not crawl and cringe. Give me your sincerity and keep your approval. I don't need, want or ask for it. If you want mine, you're already out of luck."

"These are strays. These are dogs who have lost their way home when the rains came."




Ummmm, yeah. I guess 3AM is an intense time for me. I spared you most of it.

I guess I felt like I should put something on here, document something, with a little soul for once. It can't all be good advice and playlists, right?

SCIENCE!

I recently read an article on color. It was about fictional, impossible and FORBIDDEN colors. It talked about the physiology of the eye, optics, light - all that is color. It made me think about art, and how the most basic palette of visual art should be these hard sciences. That was my argument at least. The color wheel is fine and all, but shouldn't you know how and why the eye perceives the most fundamental aspect of anything visual? This should be taught in art school.

Visual art is optics, music is math. These should be the building blocks, and then the actual art - the connections, the emotion, the politics, the entertainment, the beauty - can be wielded by the initiated.

At least this is what I thought at the time. Conceptually, an artist should be able to understand the science of beauty. But, when I consider the "art" that I truly appreciate, it might be the uninitiated I favor.

There are two fundamental aspects to any artist or work of art - virtuosity and composition. The former, in my mind, is wildly overrated. I'm sure you know someone who can draw well, and I'm sure you have a piece of art in your apartment done by someone who can't.

With music, this is even more apparent. But Tony! Dave Matthews' violin player/drummer/bassist is SO TALENTED! Who cares. Kenny G plays a mean alto sax, doesn't mean I am going to buy his record. Give me Keith Richards over Steve Vai any day. You ask me to make a list of the greatest guitarists of all time and Keith Richards will be near the top. Because he can write songs. He can make incredible guitar songs. And that's the point of being a guitar player.

All of this thinking about art, in a conceptual way, made me consider my own "art" - writing. Writing is the most practiced and ubiquitous art-form there is. Everyone writes. Writing an email to your grandson about a funny kitten video certainly isn't art, but, like a doodler or pictionary player to a painter, they are practicing the form. This is what makes my particular field so hard to narrow down.

Where is the virtuosity in writing? Grammar rules? Massive vocabularies? Alliterative abilities? It's even harder to recognize than that. The actual talents of a writer are so tied to their ability to compose a work of art that they are nearly indistinguishable. Perhaps this is because nearly everyone can write. Everyone can convey an idea in written form. So the talent shifts almost entirely to some nebulous concept of artistic composition. And again, give me Charles Bukowski or John Fante over David Foster Wallace any day.

There's something that rubs me the wrong way about a writer lording his abilities over me. I once heard that it takes a smart man to make something simple complicated and a genius to make something complicated simple. I couldn't agree more.

Housekeeping

So, I decided, in an effort to give this little blog o' mine more structure, we are going to have a schedule. HOUSE MEETING. Here's the schedule I came up with so far:

Monday: Weekend Rodeo Roundup - I will write about my weekend! You can have a peek into the exciting and robust life I live. Feel free to emulate.

Tuesday: Tony's Always Right Tuesday - I will probably criticize something most people like. Because I am way cooler and have way better taste than you.

Wednesday: Yeah I didn't come up with one for Wednesday yet. Wild Card Wednesday was tempting. Also Wacky Wednesday.

Thursday: On Thursdays, as a foil to Tuesday, I'll suggest something with this excellent taste of mine.

Friday: Good advice from a bad person - I really want to do this. Send me your questions, jerks. They don't have to be real! But if they are they will drip with the pangs of real life drama!

So there you have it, my schedule. Let's see how long this lasts. Don't worry, I'll still write the regular wah wah wah I want a new job I'm too good for this world my life is hard posts.

Whoops

So that didn't last long. My goal of writing frequently went by the wayside.

Oh well.

Last night I wrote for real. Pen and paper. I finished another book and just wanted to put some stuff down. Ended up staying awake past six am filling up about 3/4 of one of my fancy and rarely used Field Notes notebooks.

I've yet to go back and read it, but I don't have high hopes for some witching hour bedroom scribbles. I found it's much more difficult to be be clever writing in analog. You really have to plan what you're going to say if you want to be cute. Just writing it as it comes leaves out the turns of phrase and well thought out metaphors. It all just comes spewing out on the paper.


Still looking for a new job. No real solid leads yet. I go back and forth being excited and terrified at the prospect of having to go to work. I've worked from home for so long now, I wonder how I'll take it. I think I can do it. I think I am ready. At first it will be novel, having coworkers and commuting and bringing a lunch or going to grab one with my 'team'. The regular paychecks, benefits and vacation time won't be novel, just awesome.
The wake up times and running late and business wardrobe won't be novel. They'll be a pain in my ass I've had the luxury of avoiding for a while.

But it's time. I need a "real job" - I need more money and taxes taken out and benefits.

So I've been thinking about starting a section of this blog or a whole new blog where I can be structured and funny and mean. It will be called Good Advice from a Bad Person. I'll answer advice letters with stupid acronym names like Dear Abby or Savage Love. I just don't know how to go about getting people to write me letters to be advised upon. Feel free, they don't have to be real, because my advice sure as shit won't be.

Join the Bush Club

I am straddling a dangerous precipice. On one side - the boring, grassy valley of banal; the other a chaotic drop into the rocks and cliches of melodrama.

I guess that first sentence pantsed me and showed off my penchant for the melodramatic.

I guess all blogs are one or the other. Some boring laundry list of dumb stuff people really don't care to read or the preteen angst of a whiny girl. So far I think I've done both! "Blog about it!" is now the burn of choice bandied about by my friends. Can't say I don't deserve it.

I am really resisting the urge to bitch about how AT&T has righteously wronged me, or how the legal system is currently failing me. I can tell you the blogs that I enjoy are just usually making fun of stuff. Right in my wheel house.

Yeah that didn't segue into me making fun of something as well as I would have hoped.



Some days I wake up on my couch and look at my dustbunny floor and remember my dinner last night of a string cheese and 3 musketeer bar - mostly because the wrappers are right there among the area rugs and ikea furniture, I think - I have arrived! Arrived at a fairly appropriate station considering what I've done to get here. Is this the staving artist of today? No it's the willingly malnutritioned underachiever of today.
I'm done with being an underachiever, I don't think I'll ever overachieve, but that's mostly a product of my healthy (read over) confidence. I am ready to achieve! What that means exactly, is still open to interpretation. Will I get a job that utilizes my talents? Or at least a job that doesn't atrophy my brain and allow or even inspire me to pursue creative outlets on the side? That's the next step. The one I have already begun. I am looking for jobs and reading and writing and hoping.

Let's do this.

It Pours

If the shit flows downstream I am at the bottom of the waterfall right now.

Anyway.

I'm reading, and reading. I am beginning to think I am at a disadvantage here as far as life experience goes. First off, let's get the great authors of the 20th century out of the way - I am not an alcoholic. Second let's take care of all these current writers. I am not some tortured soul with some sordid childhood. My parents are still together, I never got bullied too badly, I have had girlfriends, I didn't spend my childhood friendless and listening to records. I am no wallflower, I have no pathos to mine for the good of my writing.

I could easily invent one. I could write the story of some tortured soul and tickle all the kindred spirits whose lives aren't as hard as they wish and think.

Or maybe I'm on to something. Maybe I could write something that people can actually relate to. Maybe most of us are this social middle class. We aren't all lepers and we certainly aren't all homecoming queens.

Truth Bombs

I don't know how people with blogs keep their friends.

The stuff that would make for legitimately interesting blog posts would certainly piss off the only people that read my blog, my close friends. Maybe I need to be widely read before I can start spilling the beans of the crazy shit that goes down in my life and my friends' lives.

I understand that bitching about strangers in a restaurant isn't exactly gripping or hilarious.
I was talking about this with my friend last night. Well, he was drunkenly yelling at me to write down the actual horrible shit I say and have been through. Writing about last night would probably make a pretty interesting entry, but I don't think writing about the drunken exploits of 33% of my readership would be a good idea moving forward.

Maybe some day I'll write about the embarrassing love triangles and cuckolding of terminally ill people and horrible shit I say about people I know - omelets and eggs and all that.

Just Write

Wow I really didn't intend that title to be a horrible pun. Deal with it.
I started this intending to write. To become better at writing, to stay in practice. So I couldn't let a day pass without an entry this soon after I began.
This is my favorite time of year - my birthday, baseball and the weather turning the corner. So far so good.
Apparently this nice weather has inspired the people of my little hamlet to burn down their houses. I live 100 yards from a fire house and it has been jumpin' today. My window is the perfect height for their shrill sirens to blast into my living room and infuriate me at the poor sons of bitches who require their services.
Also, since I am so close to the corner I get to listen to people's excellent choice in music as they are stopped at the red light. Wow, that's an excellent song you are playing at full volume in your mom's volvo. Is that some new pop tartlet? Wow, she's great, thanks for sharing that with me.
I think I am going to throw water balloons at them from now on. Hey kids thanks for jumping on the metal basement door right below my window every day! I dedicate this headache to you. But hey, it's a pretty street






Also, since I am such a hipster, the Holga wasn't enough - here's a polaroid I took.

Master Plan

Here's the plan:
Start blog.
Be charming and prolific.
Write short story/novel.
Be published.
Profit.

Not seen: Work jobs, develop soul crushing ennui

I hope that my current job editing/proofing articles with the absolute worst, mind boggling grammar has yet to affect my personal style. I mean, a book written by someone who seems like they don't speak English and runs everything through a thesaurus with no understanding of what they are trying to say might be entertaining, but I don't think I have the stomach for that.

I've written things in the past. I've written good things in the past. I've written things that were performed, published, praised and enjoyed in the past. I am older, wiser and have way more funny stories now. I've shrugged of my teenage angst which stretch inappropriately into my early twenties. I still think too much and read less than I'd like and you'd suspect. I have had suspicions that my self-important assholery could find a perfect outlet in blog form.

I saw a woman wearing her shoes on the wrong feet today, it reminded me of you.

I suspect I'll write a little about the things I enjoy, and a lot about the things I hate. I mean, hey you can like all the same crap I do, but I'll really be impressed if our hate venn-diagrams overlap. I'm channeling Bukowski, Camus and Thor.

likes:
Baseball
Sneakers
Beard
Beef n' Carb diet
Rock
Roll
Sharks

hates:
Everything else

First

So, this is it.

I am starting a blog, a blog to hone my skills and stretch my atrophied writing muscles. Return them to their once-Herculean stature.
Good to see my penchant for self aggrandizing rhetorical devices still exists.
Join me, won't you?
I plan to violate every rule of good writing I have read and I preach to people I advise. Because I can. Don't be hectoring? Broken. Don't be too conversational? Would I be using rhetorical questions if I weren't? Have fun with that syntax. Yes, that's a direct order.