#12 - good, clean fun.

up until i left high school, the tape was still pretty much the dominant way that i listened to music. my two high school cars came equipped with tape players. i had a receiver with two tape decks, which was absolutely necessary for making mix tapes. growing up, my first tapes were born in the u.s.a., the joshua tree and colour by numbers, although it would be years before i could even grasp what the deal was with boy george...come to think of it, i still have trouble grasping what the deal is with boy george.

a lot of the tapes i listened to came from my parents' collections. around the time i was 10, my father came back from a stint in the air force reserves in texas & brought a walkman & a bunch of tapes back with him, including albums from hall & oates, styx & men at work.

somebody in the house had this lionel richie tape...

...and my brother took a sticker of a smiling popsicle & stuck it above his hand, since it is sitting in that weird position like that, perfect for popsicle holding. seriously, picture a happy popsicle in lionel richie's hand & see if you don't smile back. i still get enjoyment out of that cover until this day.

my dad had a sweet stereo setup for its time, with big wooden boxed speakers that ran from the "playroom" into the living room & sat on either side of the fireplace. two feet from the left speaker was a recliner, where my grandfather always sat when he visited. one day in 83', this put him in a perfect position to experience my new thriller tape when i surprised him from the other room by turning it on somewhere in the 6-7 range of the stereo.

one of the tapes my siblings & i listened to over & over again was bill cosby: himself, which featured the favorite comedic piece of most of my childhood years, one that probably reigned up until i discovered monty python...track 5..."chocolate cake for breakfast," where bill cosby tells of his kids convincing him to let them eat chocolate cake for breakfast because cake has eggs & milk in it.

this was my childhood--obliviousness to cross-dressing, sticker fun and bill cosby. good, clean fun.

#12 - good, clean fun.
snack: betty crocker warm delights minis chocolate raspberry decadence cake
drink: 1% milk with bosco chocolate syrup

at the pathmark last night, i was loitering in the baking section when i came across betty crocker's line of single serving baking products for the lazy. as a snack-eating swinging bachelor type, there was no mistaking that these were made with me in mind. as a snack-eating swinging bachelor type who loves chocolate, raspberry & decadence, the type to get was also quite clear.

to sum up these treats, for two & change, you get two individually-wrapped bowls, each containing a tiny bag of cake mix & a pouch of raspberry drizzle. all you have to do is add 1 tbsp & 1 tsp of water to the cake mix, stir it up a bunch, drizzle the raspberry jelly stuff on top of the batter, pop it in the microwave for 30 seconds & let it cool for a few minutes...piece of cake.

to go along with my cake, i could have just drank milk & that would have been yummy, but i was feeling chocolatey, so i decided to pick up a bottle of bosco chocolate syrup to add to it, figuring that in the long run, it'd get me, at age 33, to drink more milk. this plan would work out perfectly if bosco chocolate syrup did not taste ABSOLUTELY HORRID. it is beyond me how you can mess up chocolate, but this company has done it. i drank the whole glass because i felt bad about wasting the milk. i haven't figured out what i'm going to do with the rest of the bottle yet, but i'm thinking i might sprinkle it on the souls of my enemies or salt the earth with it...you know, good clean fun.

#11 - corn nuts & the american dream.

in the world o' shawn, mondays have recently become a night for watching my picture stories, both those that i follow & a few that i'm checking out/catching up on. last week marked the beginning of generation kill & the fifth episode of weeds.

this week, i upped the ante by continuing with those two shows & adding in the first episode of mad men, which until fresh air shoved it in my face over the past couple weeks, i had no idea existed. i mean, it is sort of like somebody telling you about this unicorn they saw...a good tv show airing on & produced by amc. american movie classics? that amc? 13 emmy nominations? the 2nd season starts next sunday? huh...guess i better get caught up.

anyhow, come september, generation kill will be long done, weeds will be nearing the end of its season & we'll have the new season premieres of dexter and it's always sunny in philadelphia, who fx has just ordered 39 more episodes of the show from, meaning with the new season, there will be at least 52 more episodes of this lovely show, all with the same five key cast members!!! OMG!!! by my calculation, i will be nearing the tail end of my 30s by the time that this show goes off the air. LOL!!! :-/ :( :'(

i mention all these shows (& tonight's lineup of shows in particular) because they are my type of shows for one reason, really. each, to some degree, focuses on some version/aspect of the american dream. it's the same reason i was drawn in the past to shows such as six feet under, the sopranos, the office, golden girls, etc...& for viewing these shows, really, what goes better with the american dream than...

#11 - corn nuts & the american dream.

snack: corn nuts caliente mix
drink: mountain dew

have you ever tried corn nuts? i think i might have once or twice in my life, but they've always seemed a bit weird & possibly bland to me.

apparently, they have been around since friggin' 1936, which i'm pretty sure makes them an official american tradition. today the company is owned by planters/kraft, which means that corn nuts are now a subsidiary of a subsidiary (planters) of a subsidiary (kraft) of a subsidiary (altria/philip morris). that, in itself, sounds like the american dream to me...& i purchased them at a 7-11! that's like double corporate jeopardy or something.

the caliente mix features seasoned peanuts, crunchy corn snack (the nuts!), spicy sesame sticks, corn sticks & red chile crescents. red! chile! crescents! that is a band name if i've ever seen one. it works on so many levels! but seriously, tossing corn nuts in a snack mix where they can sort of just fade to the back of the mix totally cures that blandness problem i was having with them.

i figured that there was no better drink to pair the corn nuts mix with than a mountain dew, pepsico's fruity #2 beverage. i figure as far as american dreams go mountain dew is right there with them all the items on tonight's menu...

altria/philip morris made $38.5 billion in revenue in 2007
pepsico brought in $39.4 billion in 2007
the american military spent $439.3 billion in 2007
the california marijuana business takes in about $2 billion per year
it is estimated that in the u.s., advertising & marketing is a $381 billion dollar industry

billions of dollars...that's the american dream right there, folks.

#10 - a delayed fortune.

on tuesday at work, someone put out the office-wide call for the lunch special at sea asian...not to be confused with sea, the uber-hip uber-loud locale in williamsburg that features a friggin dj (do people actually enjoy bass-pumping beats with their pik pow squid?) normally, i'm a bring-my-own-lunch kind of guy, but i was feeling a bit saucy that day, so i threw caution to the wind & heeded the call with an order for chicken pad see ew. i'm just that crazy.

as expected, the order came with fortune cookies for all, so when i was done with my pad see ew, i grabbed one & made my way back to my desk. in the usual spirit of my job & my temperament, i got distracted & forgot about my cookie & fortune for the rest of the day. when i was leaving for home, i looked down at the lonely cookie sitting on my desk & tossed it in the side pocket of my backpack. i couldn't leave the lil guy by himself in the office all night & i figured i'd make him into a snack later that night & possibly end up with a blog-worthy fortune.

it is now saturday & through what i can only assume is the result of some sort of cookie mind trick, the cookie still remains.

#10 - a delayed fortune.

snack: four-day old fortune cookie
drink: fort collins brewery the kidd lager

it is mid-afternoon, 95 degrees outside & today's the day of the siren festival down in coney island. although i didn't attend in 2001 (the first year of the festival & the year i moved to the city), i'm a sucker for the indie bands, so i went every year from 2002-2006. the yearly rundown of my experience with the siren festival:

2001 - didn't attend. two months later, the pre-9/11 generation came to an end & we will never forget & whatnot.
2002 - my first festival, with the shins, liars, yeah yeah yeahs & sleater-kinney and sound quality rivaling thomas edison's first phone call.
2003 - the crowd was so friggin huge that i watched modest mouse from outside of the concert area, at an angle off to the side of the stage behind some carnival ride.
2004 - there were a full schedule of bands, including the thermals, tv on the radio, mission of burma & ...trail of the dead. as usual, the crowd continued to grow & the situation was particularly hot & sweaty.
2005 - spoon & mates of state headlined. particularly hot & sweaty again.
2006 - i went down early to see man man & then, afraid of the heat, took the train back home & chilled indoors for a while before hopping back on the train & going back down to catch art brut...once again, a record setting crowd.
2007 - it was too hot, or at least not cool enough where i would go down there to see cursive, who i had already seen a bunch of times during my omaha-loving phase. 100,000 people. record crowds.

now, it is 2008 & it is the hottest day of the year thus far. this year's lineup has a number of standouts--parts & labor, annuals, ra ra riot, islands. of the headliners--stephen malkmus & broken social scene--i am so bored with everything stephen malkmus does, but broken social scene are one of my faves these days.

still, it is now two hours before broken social scene goes on & it is so hot outside that i haven't yet been able to convince myself that traveling to coney island is a better option than sitting in my relatively cool apartment watching the red sox game and drinking the leftover beers from the tasty fort collins brewery 12-pack we got last night before the deerhoof show. this one i'm drinking right now--the kidd lager--is tastetastic & according to the label, "looks dark, drinks blonde."...just how i like my women.

will i leave the comfort of my apartment? based on my fortune cookie, i guess i'll figure it all out sooner or later:

your ingenuity and imagination will get results.

i waited four days for that & to top it off, the fortune cookie mirrored the fortune...stale.

#9 - jamaica mon!

sorry to leave all y'all regular shawn blog reader folks in the lurch like that with no update for the last 8 days. i know you've probably been worried sick. the shawn, for reasons we will not go into in this blog, just hasn't been snackin' that much recently.

today is a different story. i hadn't seen the inside of a non-ghetto grocery store in nigh a fortnight, so i headed down to the local pathmark to regrocerize myself & pick up an evening snack to consume whilst watching the first episode of generation kill. to clarify, by non-ghetto grocery store, i mean one that has at least two non-scary types of fruits/vegetables & one where the teenage cashiers don't get smacked on the ass by the dirty old man who oversees the place. i only say so because there are approximately 63 of that variety of grocery store in my neighborhood.

although i had yet to see a minute of generation kill, i had an inkling that it probably has a distinctly international flair, what with the americans visiting the middle east storyline & all, so when i was at pathmark selecting a fitting snack-drink combo, i went straight to the aisles with the funny foreign foods. at first, i was going to go strictly goya, but to be honest, i'm a bit afraid of the malta goya beverage & the tamarind flavored soda sounded a bit sour to me.

luckily, across the aisle was the jamaican section. the first beverage i set eyes on was a bottle of dg genuine jamaican kola champagne.

i mean, look at the cat on that bottle. he makes that newbury comics dude look like a schmo. he's all "ok, mon. you have your wicked good time, poindextah. i'll just be over here in the shade of this tree with a fat one & me three lady friends sipping on kola champagne."

to pair with it, after much searching, the perfect snack leapt out at me from the freezer section...

#9 - jamaica mon!
snack: golden krust jamaican style spicy beef patties
drink: dg genuine jamaican kola champagne

...from behind the freezer doors, the box of golden krust jamaican style spicy beef patties called my name. by examining the box, i confirmed that while these patties are good for lunch or after school, they are also acceptable as an evening snack. says so right on the front. perfect...just what i need...oh & it also says that each patty contains 490 calories of spicy beef goodness, with a lot of that providing essential sodiums & fats...perfect...just what i need. as a rule, i probably eat beef once or twice a month anyhow, so i might as well go big when i do, right?

let me tell you--spicy beef patties are delicious. heart-cloggingly delicious. the jury is still out on the kola champagne soda. i found it to be akin to a cream soda, but without as much yummy cream aftertaste. i guess when you're as high as that jamaican mascot cat probably is, you can find satisfying flavor in anything...even when it bears a striking resemblance to urine.

#8 - got crabs?

for the holiday weekend, high school pals chris leduc (boston) & todd martin (virginia/d.c.) decided to meet in the middle at my apartment & catch the july 4th yankees-sox game at yankee stadium.

their travels were a vicious display of contrasts. chris took the day off, sailed down relatively traffic-free from boston around noon & got here around 5pm. todd got on a bus at around 2pm and arrived in nyc after a seven-hour ride in a non-air-conditioned environment that featured an incident where a trail of urine freed itself from the bathroom & rolled its way across the floor all the way to the front of the bus.

in a gesture of friendship/blog prodding, todd brought some snack gifts up with him. the first snack was a moon pie. unfortunately, the moon pie did not hold up through the seven-hour bus ride & now sits in my fridge next to the melted & rehardened snickers charged bar i bought a few weekends ago at a trip to the beach...a chocolate graveyard of sorts. the second snack was a bag of sour gummi bears. the third snack was a bag of utz crab chips.

#8 - got crabs?
snack: utz crab chips
drink: coca-cola classic

saturday night, after two days of nh-style debauchery that included shared glasses of non-wormwood absinthe at the library, there was no way i was doing anything other than sitting at home on my duff...me & my bag of crab chips and a full schedule of the last few days' npr shows.

i tried to come up with a maryland-themed beverage to pair with my bag of crab chips ("potato chips with chesapeake bay crab seasoning"). todd & chris suggested natty boh, a beer that was originally from baltimore & even became the official beer of the city in the 60s before being sold to strohs & then eventually, pabst. it runs in the same crowd as natty light or genese ice. ick. i considered creating a the wire-themed angle, since there are a couple instances in the show when characters are eating crab chips, but the first & only drink that came to mind when i thought of the wire was whiskey. both involved alcohol, which i wanted no part of & the first likely involved leaving the state.

instead, i decided that to commemorate the july 4th weekend, i should just have a cool glass of america's favorite beverage...the beverage produced by a company who shares a rich history with our great nation...coca-cola...of course, by "rich history" i am referring to the rich history of third-party violence in latin america shared by this great nation & coca-cola. land of the free...home of the brave.