johnnyhongkong says…

With a script deadline looming, it was a wonder that Mary Milan and I had the opportunity to be out and about last night to celebrate her successful defense of her dissertation. 

Yes, that’s right, Mary Milan is a doctor now, or actually she’s an internship short of being a doctor but fuck, who’s counting?  The school?  Feh.  The CA board of psychologists?  Feh.  As far as I’m concerned, it’s close enough.  Recognize.  Respeck.  (Yes, I have been watching Ali G re-runs late at night on HBO).

Anyway, the reason for this quick guest post on my own blog is that while we were out, we found My Last Supper, the foodie coffee table book containing portraits of 50 great chefs and their answers to five simple questions:

What would be your last meal on earth?

What would be the setting for the meals?

What would you drink with your meal?

Who would be your dining companions?

Who would prepare the meals?

As you might imagine, they range from the predictable (Anthony Bourdain, who wrote the intro and also poses naked with a strategically placed femur, says he’d eat bone marrow with his buds Eric Ripert and Gordon Ramsay), to the whimsical (Daniel Boloud answers that he’d eat whatever was in season, whatever Alain Ducasse would cook for him, or simply a foie gras terrine, lobster, pheasant, partridge and a cheese course). 

It got us thinking, what would be our last meals?

Mary Milan: Ice cream, cheese and nuts.

Me: Beef stew noodle soup, where “beef stew” means “offal,” specifically tendon, pancreas, tripe, intestines and other connective tissue that’s been stewed in a rich, peppery, dark, blood-and-marrow-thickened, star anise flavored broth, garnished with a steamed baby bok choy stem.  Yum. 
 
What about you?  What would be your last meal?
   

I have this draft blog post about the Farm Bill and Bush’s veto and how a broken clocks are right twice a day but I found it really hard to encapsulate a long, well-intentioned, busted ass, hot-tranny-mess of legislation and the political bravery needed to fix shit into a few pithy sentences, so instead you get two ”woo-hoo’s” for the Windy City. 

1) John Edwards endorsed Barack Obama.  All you Obamamaniacs can stop sending me emails in CAPS LOCK telling me that my boy has endorsed your boy.  Had Edwards endorsed Ralph Nader, I would have voted for the democratic nominee in November.    

2) Mayor Richard Daley reversed the foie gras ban!  That’s what johnnyhongkong calls leadership. 

I’ve been working on a few projects lately so I’m sorry that I’ve sort of been like an errant father, dropping in and out of your life.  It’s going to be like this for a while – wedding planning, new projects, etc. – so you can hate me when you grow up, just don’t make me pay for your therapy.

In the meantime, Esquire has published their list of 75 essential life skills for men.

I have about half of the skills dialed in (most of the indoor skills) and want to be able to do most of the other half (mostly rugged outdoor skills), such as jump a car without drama (35) or find the way out of the woods if lost (68).

However, glaring in its absence is the skill to properly lead a lady in a ballroom dance.    

Know your dance.  Whether it be the waltz, tango, foxtrot, salsa – whatever – pick one, learn it and know it like you know your way home. 

Now comes the hard part – leading the lady.  It requires you to move confidently so that you can move the lady gracefully.  This is done by silently communicating her movements (your intentions) to her with your right hand on the small of her back.  The subtle nuances in this communication will differ from dance to dance and knowing them is part of knowing the dance. 

It’s a lot to keep together, especially if you’re not a natural dancer.  It is made even more difficult if you’re not naturally assertive.  Nobody ever said it was easy to be a man. 

The important thing to remember is that the lady’s job in a dance is to look good and have fun.  Your job is to make her look good and to do that, you must give her a solid, confident lead so that she knows what she is doing and can look good while doing it.

Oh, and don’t forget to turn the lady at the end of dance. 

Where do you go if you need to mass produce a bunch of cheap stuff?

China. 

Where do you go if you’re taking flags that support a free Tibet?

China, obvs.

The irony is so thick, it makes my head want to explode.