I'm in love with... RC

No, silly, not that one.

The RC to whom I refer is the same person who, three years ago today, decided it might not be such a bad idea to sign over half her life's possessions in return for a pretty gold ring and... well, pretty much just the ring.

That's right, folks, today my wife and I celebrate our leather anniversary.

Now, I've never been much for tradition; quite the opposite, in fact. I've always seen tradition as a collection of obligations and limitations imposed on us by people who don't have to live our lives. I chafe at tradition, so it's just as well that nearly every aspect of our relationship, from the way we first met, to the nature of our courtship, right up to the marriage itself... was the very definition of "untraditional."

RC...

..yeah, still not the right one...

...(actually, back then it was RS) and I met the way most hip, young, modern folks do nowadays... in a fantasy role-playing chat room on AOL.

That's...

...fantasy.

Not...

...fantasy.

The progression was pretty natural; two characters having an interesting conversation in the chat room led to two people have an interesting conversation in IMs, and before we knew it, we were the best of friends. Nevermind that I thought she was a guy for the first two weeks...


Yes, you read that right. I thought my wife was a man when I first met her. A very nice, very friendly, very funny, very gay man.

Such is the beauty of anonymity on the internet.

Needless to say, my assumption was soon corrected and I was free to pursue my interest in this person without needing to reassess my sexual orientation (which was a lucky break, because I don't think my ego could have taken that kind of scrutiny).

A few months of "Maybe we are... but it could never... but it feels so... but it's long distance"ing were followed by a weeklong visit out to the Left coast (I was on the Right one at the time), wherein we would finally see if whatever sparks existed between our voices could translate into tangible reality.

Luckily for me, she was every bit as awesome in person as she was over the phone, and I was finally free to admit to myself what I'd kind of known from the moment she first told me, "Dude, I'm a chick."

I was in love.

Fast forward another year. I finally moved out to California, partially to explore the possibilities of a film career, and partially to be with her. Once we were actually able to occupy the same physical space on a regular basis, we quickly fell into the type of routine that suggested we'd been together all our lives. We couldn't even conceive of a time when the two of us weren't together.

I still can't.

After five years of "dating", and an additional year of living together, we decided to finally make legal what we'd kind of always felt.

We got married under a copse of trees overlooking the Pacific Ocean in Monterey. The wedding party consisted of the two of us, a reverend, and a photographer. It was a bright, sunny, windy day. She was beautiful and I was doofy and it was perfect.

So, now, here we are.

Three years after the wedding...


Four years after moving in together...


Eight years after jumping coasts...


...and nine years after admitting we were crazy about each other, and I still feel like the luckiest son of a bitch on Earth.

(sorry, Sam)

So, if you're single. If you're spoken for. If you've lost all faith in love, or if you're just positive it'll never come. And if you can only take one thing away from our story, let it be this...

I thought my wife was a gay dude when we first met.

Anything is possible.

Don't worry, Arcee. You'll find someone.

Post-Modern American Cooking: Hotdog Surprise Soup

Here begins a series of articles I'll be doing from time to time detailing the various kitchen creations that keep my wife and I fed on my more... creative nights. As this is the auspicious first installment, I've chosen to share with you a beloved dish from my childhood: Hotdog Surprise Soup.

(unfortunately, due to a complete lack of foreplanning on my part, I have no images prepared to post with this entry. Instead, I'll be using the closest approximations I can find with Google Image search)

HDSS, as I decided to call it just now, was originally conceived by my father sometime in the early-to-mid-80's. Pop was a former military man and professional musician, so had quite a knack for keeping himself fed when there wasn't a lot to work with.

One night (I remember it well), Pop took it upon himself to make dinner for the family, but because grocery stores had not been invented yet, he could only use what we had in the fridge. An unopened package of hotdogs caught his eye... and a legend was born.

Now, the recipe I'm about to share is slightly altered from the one my father begat all those years ago, but it was borne from the same spirit of laziness and MacGyver-like ingenuity.


Let's get to it, then, shall we?

~*~*~*~

The bowl before you contains a steaming, barf-brown liquid filled with little green specks of broccoli offal, and diced hotdogs surrounded by pale, jerry-curled spaghetti.

You approach it with your spoon steady, wary of whatever dangers may lurk beneath its murky surface. You plunge the utensil in, waiting... waiting.... When nothing yanks it out of your hand, you are somewhat heartened. You lift a spoonful of the steaming sludge to your mouth, close your eyes, and taste...

OW! You burn your mouth. You should have waited for it to cool off first. I TOLD you it was hot! I even used the word "steaming" TWICE! You lose two HP.


INGREDIENTS:


4 Hotdogs (5 if they're short)



8 cups of Water



4 packages of Beef Flavor Oodles of Noodles

(if you don't have Oodles of Noodles, you'll need 3 Beef Bouillon Cubes instead, along with the noodles of your choice -- but I'm going to assume that, if you're even considering making this, you're likely to have some Oodles of Noodles lying around)




1 cube of Vegetable Flavor Soup Seasoning





1 package of Frozen Vegetable Soup Mix

1 package of Frozen Asian Vegetable Mix
(or Stir Fry Vegetable Mix)
(or any two packages of frozen vegetables you want, really)


Creole Seasoning
(if you don't have creole seasoning, shoot yourself)

Yeah, that'll do.

~*~*~*~

STEP 1
Fill a medium saucepan up about 2/3rds with water and set it on the stove. Drop the hotdogs in.

If the hotdogs were already thawed, bring the water to a boil, then take them out.

If they were frozen, bring the water to a boil, wait 5 minutes, then take them out.

Dice the hotdogs into whatever shape diced hotdogs make, eating no more than three of the resulting pieces under the auspice of "quality assurance."


STEP 2
Fill a bigass soup pot...

...with 8 cups of water. Set the stove heat to about 7 (Med Hi). Bring to a boil.


STEP 3

While the water heats up, open the Oodles of Noodles packages. Remove the four packets of Beef Flavor seasoning, place them on the side. Also set aside two of the noodle bricks (broken up or intact, your choice).

Take the other two noodle bricks, place them in Ziplock bags, and put them away; you won't be using those this time around.


STEP 4
When you see bubbles forming along the bottom of the pot, but before the water is actually boiling, because you're impatient, drop the frozen vegetables in. Bring to a boil.


STEP 5

Yeah, right. A couple minutes after you put the vegetables in, you start wondering if you should add the seasoning in now while they're still cooking. Nah, you should probly wai-- fuck it, you add the beef seasoning; all four packets of it (be sure to shake the packets out first so that the powder is all packed to one side and doesn't explode all over you when you rip it open).

(it already happened, didn't it?)

At this time, you might as well also add the vegetable cube.

IMPORTANT NOTE: The vegetable (and beef, if you didn't have the Oodles of Noodles) bouillon cubes are incredibly hard and painful to crumble in your fingers. You may want to hammer them into submission first before adding to the soup...

Stir everything up until you're sure no more solid fragments of the cruel bouillon cube remains.





STEP 6
Drink a Gatorade. You're doing hard work.






STEP 7
Let the soup heat up. No, seriously, let it heat up. That shit's gotta cook.

STEP 8
You're hopeless. It's been two minutes. Dump the hotdogs in. Wait a couple more minutes.

At this point, your soup should look nothing like this.

STEP 9
Remember how it says on the outside of the Oodles of Noodles package...

?

That's why we saved the noodles for last. The soup should be close to boiling by now. If it's not, turn the heat up, you haven't got all day. Once it starts to boil, drop the noodles in. Then lower the heat to 5 (Med), cover the pot (if it doesn't have a lid, use tin foil).

Let it cook for about 5 minutes, or until you're tired of waiting.

STEP 10 (Optional)
If the Oodles of Noodles packets didn't season it enough for you, try adding some Creole Seasoning. Not a lot -- you've already got plenty of salt in there. Just enough to get some of that spicy flavor.

Taste your soup to make sure it tastes right.

You burned your mouth again, didn't you?

Dumbass.


AFTERMATH
Remember those two noodle bricks you Ziplocked? Here's the deal... You're gonna love this soup. No, I'm serious, it's like crack. Even my wife agrees. Right honey?



"Yes, dear."





So, when you're ready to make the soup again, instead of picking up more Oodles of Noodles from the grocery store (you have no excuse -- they exist now!), just pick up the beef bouillon cubes to use with the leftover noodles.

Ta daa!


ORIGINAL RECIPE
If you want to do things the old fashioned way, all you really need to do is omit the extra Veggie seasoning cube (which I use because I like the flavor it brings), replace the noodles with frozen french fries (Pop really was a pioneer), and just use a straight frozen veggie soup mix. Oh, and he didn't use the Creole Seasoning. Disgraceful.


Happy cooking!

I’m in love with… Karen O

Even if you haven’t heard of her, you’ve almost certainly heard her. If not singing with her band, the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, then with her side band, Native Korean Rock, on the Where The Wild Things Are soundtrack as Karen O And The Kids, contributing vocals to songs by groups like The Flaming Lips and N.A.S.A., or making her own music, like the song featured in this Adidas commercial by Spike Jonze:

Since entering the public eye with the Yeah Yeah Yeahs' critically-lauded debut album, “Fever To Tell,” she’s become something of a Renaissance Person. Aside from her various musical pursuits, she has also tried her hand at directing music videos, and serves as a makeshift guinea-pig/fashion model for her designer friend Christian Joy.

That’s all well and good, but OUR sordid love affair started when I saw the music video for the Yeah Yeah Yeah’s song “MAPS”. I’d been a fan of the song ever since it hit the radio waves back in 2003, but it wasn’t until recently that I actually thought to seek out the video on YouTube. Everything that follows, does so because of this...

Echoes of Sinead O’Conner’s “Nothing Compares To You” video notwithstanding, this video truly captivated me. There’s something happening with her right there on camera that can’t be faked -- and you can tell, because she tries. She stands her ground with an admirable “the show must go on” resolve, but seems to rely on the carefully considered and choreographed motions of her performance to carry her through. Maybe because if she surrenders to the music, she might just lose herself completely. And even as the sadness wells up and the tears start flowing, she soldiers on to the end. This lead singer is laid emotionally bare for everyone in the world to see; immortalized at perhaps the most vulnerable of moments. It's real, and it's raw, and it's fascinating.

Now, this could just be a byproduct of my being a typical guy suffering from a terminal case of Knight In Shining Armor Syndrome, but the minute you show me a woman in tears, you’ve pretty much got my attention for the duration. It doesn’t hurt that the woman in question is captivating in her own right. Unconventionally beautiful (of mixed Korean and Polish descent) and apparently unafraid of baring her soul on stage -- or in this case, on film.

So, I did some research. First into the origins of the song, but that eventually became research into the band themselves, and that led to a dawning infatuation with the woman up front. Eventually, I found this video, which sealed the deal:

Look at that smile. Listen to that voice. The little dance she does. The way she gives herself over to the music, just enjoying the hell out of herself.

I was smitten.

(as was Letterman, it would appear)

I started watching every video I could find, and I soon discovered that the Letterman performance was only the tip of the iceberg. During the band’s live shows, without the expectations and regulations of network television, Karen O becomes like a force of nature. Raw, uninhibited, even playful. She owns the stage, and she owns the audience.

And, it all makes perfect sense once you understand...

...she’s fucking crazy.

See, it’s Karen O’s philosophy that, at a Yeah Yeahs show, the audience should be able to lose themselves in the music. Just completely go with the flow, the way she does! Problem is, she knows that most people have insecurities about letting themselves go in the company of strangers. Always worrying about what the person next to them might think. So, she takes the stage wearing the most colorful, garish, outlandish costumes that one could imagine; alternatingly sexy as hell or laughably ridiculous (sometimes both).

She does this, not to shock the audience, but to free them. They see her on stage, completely unafraid, dressed like a piece of living pop-art, and they feel less worried about themselves. Less restrained. Why worry about the person next to you when all eyes are on her?

This philosophy does not end at her fashion sense, either. In the course of a show, she flails, she screeches, she spits water at the crowd, breathlessly converses with them, and generally makes an unbridled spectacle of herself. If you were to combine the most notable exploits of Joan Jet, Iggy Pop, David Bowie, and Elvis Presley, you might start to get an idea of what this woman is like on stage. A true modern day rocker goddess. You watch her just to see what she’s going to do next, because you never know when it’ll be this…


Of course, this isn’t her ONLY stage persona. She seems to shift facades with each project she takes on. Sure, the Yeah Yeah Yeahs' Karen O is a total wild-card, but Native Korean Rock Karen O is a much tamer creature...

And then there’s Where The Wild Things Are Karen O...

...who’s just adorable.

Now, before you start worrying that I’m about to leave my wife to run off and spend the rest of my days as a groupie lapping at the heels of Miss O, let me assure you…

I’ve only considered it once.

But I love my wife more than life itself, and no matter how many strange and gorgeous celebrities throw themselves at me in my daydreams, I would never even think of leaving her side.

Besides, even if I had a chance with Karen O, I don’t think I would take it. Truth be told...

...she scares me a little.

My admiration stems only from a place of… well, admiration! As an artist. I feel like I can follow this woman anywhere. She’s a pure entertainer, and whatever project she takes on next, I know she’ll make it interesting.

Hawt.