It's official!

I am so proud of my country right now, and proud of my PRESIDENT ELECT OBAMA.

More tomorrow.

Garlic shrimp with broccoli and roasted red peppers on a bed of spinach pasta.

personally i think the dish could have used a little more garlic, or some cheese, or even a shot of the spicy chile oil i used when i made tapas.

however, it was tasty, filling and suprisingly quick when you buy the frozen pre-cleaned shrimp form trader joe's, and now i have tasty lefotovers!

Tuna and white bean salad with tomato and cucumber.

And do you want to know what's awesome about gmail? I can email ALL my recipies to myself, label them all as recipies, and when I want to find something to cook I can just pull up that label and have all my recipies right there!

All hail gmail!

Roasted red peppers with brown rice and veggie enchilladas.

Okay...so the enchilladas were Amy's. I feel less guilty about eating Amy's frozen meals because they are just the type of food I'd make for myself if I wasn't so damn busy.

I really need a good enchillada recipie. Any ideas?

Okay, off to finish lunch and then get cooking for Deb's Bday!

She's gonna go squee-a-riffic when she sees the cake my sister made!!

ee cummings

cambridge resident

baldwin school student


crls graduate

flouter of (standard) grammar





has



a



birthday



today



i invite all of you to shun uppercase letters in his honor today

Curried Chinese spice tofu with green beans and cous cous.

mmm... mmm... mmm!

At The Plow and the Stars

Like Tom Waits, with fewer cigarettes and more blues.


A good reason to go out on a Sunday night.

watching the adventures of pete and pete on dvd was a great way to end a day that i mostly spent feeling crummy, crampy and sniffly.

i love a good quirky kid's show with a garage band sountrack and guest appearances by mike stipe and iggy pop.

they just don't make shows like that anymore...

I'D BE GOING to THIS CLUB NIGHT IN A CERTIAN UNMARKED WAREHOUSE TONIGHT:

friday 6th october 06
WAKIZASHI 11PM - 6AM,
A brand new night of non-stop hectic music & partying, hosted at the legendary and infamous Electrowerkz!
Wakizashi is set to be London's most diverse and original alternative night! Wakizashi's only policy is not to take things seriously, it's all about the party!
A TRULY HECTIC MIX OF SOUNDZ: METAL / INDUSTRIAL / DARK D'N'B / HIP-HOP / SKA / PUNK / CROSSOVER / ALTERNATIVE BEATS / ROCK / DUB / NASTY ELECTRONICA / BLUES / BASHMENT / FUNK N JUNK / BREAK-BEATS / TRIP-HOP / EMO / + PLUS MORE!


CURSE BOSTON'S LACK OF VARIETY IN NIGHTLIFE!!!!!!!!!!

One of the things I love about clubbing in London (besides how effin' friendly Londoners get when you put a few drinks in them) is how the DJs aren't afraid to be totally random. They go all over the place with genre and even at the most hopelessly hip clubs they aren't afraid to rock Queen or the Mighty Mighty Boss Tones. There's no fear of not playing certian music because it doesn't fit into the club's "image". C'mon' we know even the sulkiest hipsters know all the words to Killer Queen, so why fake it?

I miss it.

And now to nap.

My Own Creation!

1 box pasta
1 box firm tofu
2 jars tomato and basil sauce
2 cups of shredded cheese
4 cups chopped zucchin & squash
4 cups chopped portabella and shitake mushrooms
1/4 cup sun dried tomato to taste

Boil your pasta
Dice veggies, season and sautee to taste
Crumlbe up tofu, season to taste

When the veggies and pasta are done, layer in the pan. Top with cheese.
Bake 35 minutes and enjoy.

Something tasty awaits me after kickboxing!!

beck is now at the point where he keeps writing the same song over and over again.

however, it is the same AWESOME song, so i guess i don't have a problem with that.


okay, time for bed.

The English beat w/ members of Madness and The Specials rocks my world.

It was one of those shows where the band was having as much fun as the audience and even the security guards couldn't hide the fact that they were having a blast.

Covers of Specials songs such as Monkey Man and Nike Klub were highlights.


I think I pulled my skanking muscle....

I just wanted an excuse to use my Wayne icon!

Seeing the Lips last night really got me reminiscing about all the great shows I've gone to in the past. So here they are in no particular order. I'm sure I'll be adding to/revising this list in the future.

9/10/06 The Flaming Lips @ BOA Pavillion. They smothered us in ticker tape and covered War pigs. Not much more to say.

August 2005 Gogol Bordello @ The Paradise. I came with shoes and a purse. When the show ended I was barefoot dancing on stage with no shoes and no purse, and too fucking happy to give a shit.

Fall 2003 Rancid and The Slackers with Tiger Army at Avalon. Hearing Rancid always turns me into a 16 year old again. And the Slackers? Well they even got the hardcore punks dancing and they played a cover of Guns of Brixton that nearly tore the fucking house down.

Fall 2001 Bjork and Matmos at the Wang. SO what if I gave up tickets to Joe Strummer to go to this show and then he dropped dead less than a year later. Everyone I know who went to see Joe Strummer left with a massive bodily wound. All I left Bjork with was a massive smile plastered across my face that rendered me speechless for hours.

Fall 2001 Tom Tom Club @ The Living Room in Providence.
Take me to the river...drop me in the water, the water...

Summer 2001 Patti Smith @ The Paradise. I was going through such a tough time in my life at that moment and then I saw Patti light the house on fire and that's when my life started to change. She's a warrior queen, a shaman, invincible and vulnerable all at the same time. There isn't enough I can say about the way Patti influenced my perception of female power, expression and sexuality. All I know is that she gave a voice to something I knew was out there but couldn't quite define.

Summer 2001 David Byrne @ The Paradise. David Fuckin' Byrne. That's all I have to say.

Winter 2000 Flaming Lips, surprise show @ Axis. I stood in the sleet for 2 hours to get those tickets. I had puppet sex with Wayne, hugged strangers, and had to shake the confetti out of my clothes for months after. Still the only time I've been genuinely moved to tears by a concert.

Summer 1997 Beck @ The Horde Festival. I was seventeen. It was my first concert. beck rocked the house. Nuff said.

Honorable Mention:

Summer 2005 Sleatter-Kinney @ Avalon. They played a cover of Danzig's Mother. I died a little death.

Summer 2005 The Pixies at the Paradise. Black Francis, his laugh as evil as ever. Kim Deal as sexy as ever.

Fall 2001 Sonic Youth At Lupo's. Don't call them Sonic Middle age. Even the barrage of sweaty hipsters couldn't stop me from enjoying the show.

Fall 2001 basement Jaxx at Avalon. The announcer came out and told us before the show that it was going to be like New Year's Eve in Las Vegas. It really was.

Do YOU have any good show stories to share?

OR: How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Love The Lips.

Yeah. Remember when I said that I was afraid seeing the Flaming Lips in a bigger venue would be depressing?

I was lying.

The show was wildly fan fucking tastic. Well to start off, those last minute seats I got were in the 4th row... the 4th row! FROM THE STAGE! Now their fans are all wee and tyke-like. Dorky AV high school boys that are totally into the music. The type of boys I was friends with. I just wanted to scoop them all up and hug and kiss them all and thank them for being teenagers with good taste!

As for worrying about my favorite band selling out and phonining it in, well... I never should have doubted Wayne and the boy's commitment to complete and utter visual and stereophonic joy. They are a band that has clearly given some thought to how their live shows will read in a larger venue and they've upped the ante big time. The show was replete with a troupe of dancing aliens and santas, confetti machines, ticker tape guns and giant ballons for the crowd to bat around. It was like a children's birthday party on acid. Instead of playing the same live show that they would in a small club they really magnified the experience so that everyone right back to the very last row could enjoy it.

Okay, so you can't quite re-create the feel of being shoulder to shoulder with the rest of the crowd and the hugging and high fiving strangers that happens when you've danced arm and arm with them to a cover of,"What A wonderful World", but it came closer than any stadium show I've ever been to.

I was a little bummed that the only song they played that was pre Soft Bulliten was "She Don't Use Jelley", but when you have written these three gorgeous, utterly epic albums in a row, it's hard to see how some of the earlier stuff would fit in amongst all the tall trees. When you've written songs like "Race For The prize" and "Do You Realize?" you just gotta play them live. They're magical, moving songs. So I'm a *little* bummed that I didn't get to hear the spiderbite song *especially* since he always tells that cute little story about how worried he was when Stephen got into that car accident... but I'll survive. They're growing and changing and not staying the same, and that's what true artists do.

Oh Wayne, you poet, you philosopher, you rabble rouser, you lover of humanity. Marry me.


I freaked out with my geek out something firece the whole night. But then, the encore. OH THE ENCORE.

What a band plays as an encore tells you a lot about them. I always find the whole ritual so strangely moving. The band says goodnight and pretends to leave the stage. Even though the audience knows they're coming back we all yell and scream like children who don't want to go to bed just yet and they come back and we're all elated even though we *knew* they were coming back. (Even though if you're like me you're always a teeny bit afraid that if you don't yell loud enough the band will think you don't love them and then they really won't come back.) Some bands play an encore like they're throwing you a bone and you can tell the whole time that all they really want to go do is go smoke a cigarette. Some bands like Gogol Bordello come on and play an encore that turns into another 40 minute set. Some bands play you a little lullaby that lulls you off to sleep like a kiss goodnight.

THE LIPS PLAYED WARPIGS.
YES, WARPIGS.

MOTHAFUCKIN SABBATH, MAN.

It was then that I reeeeeaaaalllly lost my shit.

the Flaming Lips doing a Sabbath cover.

This was history.

I think the word is catharsis but it was more than that.

To see a band that writes songs about peace and beauty and being happy even though the world is shit and to hear them tear up this dark, cynical metal song and really rock the shit out of it.

It was incredible.


Although it is a really sad comment on our times when a band that came all the way from Oklahoma City and stole my heart singing songs about joyful anarchy is doing this ironic, political cover complete with video projection of Bush and Cheney. Last time I saw them was fall of 2000, right before The Disaster. (AKA the "selection" of G.W Bush.) They weren't nearly as political. Okay, so they weren't political at all. They were singing songs about waterbugs attacking policemen and animals at the zoo on christmas. We were all blissfully unaware of the darkness that was about to envelop our world. Those were different times. Their work has gotten progressively more political since then, and now they've written a concept album with anti war anthems you can dance to. It says something when the happiest band in America feels moved to write an anti war album.

What an amazing start to my birthday week.

can't i just buy all new clothes instead of doing my laundry?

cause really, that would be way easier.

I'M GOING TO SEE MY HUSBAND TONIGHT!

*WAYNE*

(hearts!!)

I really hope it is going to be wonderful because I am in dire need of the endorphin rush that the Flaming Lips provide.

Dire need.


Oh well, time to go get psyched and in the mood. Gotta go for a run and take a hot shower and then dance around my bedroom in my underpants. Fuck going shopping for a formal dress, the mall on weekends just puts me in a foul mood.

Anyway... kisses!

xoxoxoxoxoxo

moi

Zucchini stuffed with peppers, tomoato, goat cheese and bread crumbs.

Delicious!

Seasoned with fresh basil form our backyard porch!

Next time instead of substituting the pancetta with peppers I'd like to do it with portabella mushrooms. I also think it would be divine with sun dried tomatoes instead of regular tomaotes.

I was dangeruosly close to falling off the cooking bandwagon but I'm glad I got back on.

FOODIE QUESTION: What's a goood way of hollowing out a zucchini or other tubular veggie for stuffing? I nearly destroyed my first effort. On the next two I resorted to making long verticle slits down the inside of the zuke half and then pulling them out. There has to be an easier way though. Any ideas?

People, I promise once my birthday is over I'll get on top of setting up the cooking club.


Now to eat and dance it up at Toast!

My mouse friend came to visit me again tonight!

It always does the same thing... runs under my door and makes a b-line for underneath my bookshelf where it sits and hides with my empty folders and magazine clippings which are NOT REMOTELY TASTY!

I turned on my little sonic mouse disturber and aimed it for my shelf and he ran away.

WTF!?

WHY is mouse man coming to visit me? There is no food in my room! Why can't he stay in the pantry like a NORMAL MOUSE?

Is he lonesome or something?


He is sort of cute though!

BAH! I am going to have to get one of those under door cozies that they use to keep wind out to keep him out. The only problem with the mouse disturber is that A) it wigs the bunny out a little bit and B) it says on the box that it creates a "sonically inhospitable environment for mice". The only problem is that it makes a sonically inhosptiable environment for ME too! The speakers create a small ammount of feedback and JUST KNOWING it is on drives me nuts and causes me to hyperfocus on it. maybe I can turn my fan on for some white noise and I won't notice it as much.

hey... sonically inhospitable environment would be a great name for a band!

look what came up when i searched for pirates....




hot stalker photos of johnny depp. just one more reason to love flickr.


*hearts*