Mickey Z

Cool Observer

Saturday, January 13, 2007

Local or Express?

Posted by Mickey Z on 01/13 at 07:41 AM

Good morning from a cold, dark, rainy world. Mickey says, “...Imagine if we were all headed
someplace we actually wanted to be.” Where would the Expendables like to be today? How many are happy to be exactly where they are?

Posted by RMJ on from Churchill 4 Prez Hdqts 01/13 at 09:08 AM

If I could be anywhere in the world, right now, I’d be in front of a fire in my stone fireplace, listening to the pounding thundering rain while drinking a huge mug of cafe au lait.

Add the stone fireplace and that’s where I am. Raining hard and thundering often in advance of a major cold front, one that will sink temperatures from the 70s to the 30s for the highs. God bless Canada. I love these moments, when the approaching cold front causes enough atmospheric energy to be released that a thunderstorm results. It’s too bad I don’t have a boy toy, or a smart’n’sexy Peace Grandma, to keep me...warm.

Weather makes such a huge difference in all humans’ mood, ad I’m more and more aware of that as I grow older. Last night, my brother picked me up and took me to do laundry at the laundromat, then back to his house for a special “congrats-on-the-new-gig” posole dinner.

Before a front comes in, the weather gets oppressively still and humid. It feels like a clingy partner is pressing his/er body up against you and murmuring annoying nothings in your ear. Both Dave and I are weather-sensitive, so we were on edge all day. It was sort of brittle between us until we got back to his place and his dog, Maya, came dashing up to me, knocked me down, and slobberingly kissed me all over, and generally made a spectacle fo herself.

It was the mood breaker. We had a lovely dinner after that, since he makes the World’s Best Posole, and I always tell him that, and how much I love the leftovers the next day....

The way to a man’s heart may lie through his stomach, but the way to a cook’s heart lies through his kitchen. I brag on Dave’s talents as a cook to anyone who’ll listen, and he tells me that makes him feel appreciated, and therefore willing to make me the special meals I like.

Not for nothing have I been married twice.

Posted by Mudge on from Austin, Texas 01/13 at 10:06 AM

Hello Expendables...from a warm, drizzly Astoria.

Nice idea, RMJ...but right now, I’d like to be hiding away in a cave, I think. So much drama going on with my family (not just my mom’s illness). However, I do have some interest in a few of my book ideas...so that might keep me away from any cave without wi-fi.

Posted by Mickey Z. on from Astoria 01/13 at 01:00 PM

hello everyone

great story mudge. very good images

RMJ for the record, i have now been to 11 countries and the best two i have been to are scotland and nepal (in no particular order)

i like mountains.

since it is storytelling satruday i will tell u a nepal story. i wrote it up as a story so excuse the style. its not apost i just came up with but it is a true story.

it is about watching a game for a football (soccer) team i love..

it will have to be in two parts because it is a long story..
-------------------------------------------------
What would you do if you were in a country on the other side of the world where there is a civil war, a general strike and an army curfew? You could do what we did – which was this – bribe a bar, have a lock-in and then crawl back to your hotel under cover of darkness after having watched the Celtic game.

I had been doing volunteer work in Nepal and for two months i had eaten nought but lentils and rice , no electricity, no running water and so on. it is incredibly liberating but I didn’t know what was going on with the Celts at all. We were in a village that was three hours through the jungle to the nearest phone never mind satellite TV. Now, whilst it was a brilliant experience in the village, I got back to Kathmandu and I was suffering from Celtic cold turkey. I checked the Internet to see how we had been getting on and I noticed that the Celtic V Bayern match was going to be on ESPN Asia.

All well and good you might think but the trouble is that they are having a civil war at the moment (I would say they are knocking seven colours of shit out of each other but actually, due to guardia, amoebas, worms and many types of intestinal nastiness there are considerably more than 7 colours of shit in Nepal) and this would make it difficult. The Maoists/Communists (who are fighting the army) had called for a general strike for three days and this was to begin the next morning. Because of this strike the Royal Nepal Army had called a curfew for 9pm on the night of the game, which they promised was going to be “rigorously enforced” (kick-off was half past midnight Nepali time – for some strange reason the time difference is 4hrs 45 mins). This provided us with a problem. EVERYTHING was to be closed and EVERYONE had to be in his or her house or hotel before 9pm. We could either pay a fortune for a hotel room with satellite TV and we couldn’t afford to do this or we could bribe a bar owner to let us stay in the bar and put us all at risk. After about two seconds consideration we decided the second idea was the way forward as the only other option was to miss the match and that, was not an option.

The bartender made it extremely clear to me that I would have to be incredibly quiet, sit with the lights out and that I would have to be responsible for my mates doing the same thing because he didn’t want either the army or the Maoists turning up and shooting him or closing him down (we didn’t particularly want this to happen to us or him either).

The difficult part of that was that the game didn’t kick off till 00.30am and we had all been in the bar since three in the afternoon – and we would be in there in darkness getting drunk and trying to be quiet – I didn’t rate our chances.

So after dinner the 5 of us had to get round into the bar before
9pm. Walking/running down the street we randomly bump into a guy wearing an Ireland strip (1994 world cup style) and we asked him if he fancied watching it – “Fucking Excellent” he shouts so he came along with us too.

Somewhere down the line a guy from Manchester who looked suspiciously like Mani from the Stone Roses had joined us as well but none of us can remember how he managed to tag along (he wasn’t Mani –we forced his wallet off him to check then gave it back).

We weren’t all celtic fans. The guy from Manchester was a Man Utd fan, one guy was a Ross County fan and two of the six were actually hearts fans but 3 out of 7 people when you are that far away isn’t that bad.

Anyway, by the time kick off came round we were all pretty hammered and had been warned to shut up a few times by the guys at the bar who were playing cards by candlelight and doing their best to ignore us. They had heard of Celtic but didn’t know any players so we gave them their first lesson - I can’t say they were totally engrossed but they listened politely and gave the necessary respect!

After the match started it was 10 times harder to keep quiet. A couple of patrols went by outside too – the bar had a guy watching the street ready to turn the TV down or off if the army or the Maoists suddenly got a bit interested in what was going on.

Posted by michael on from exile 01/13 at 01:27 PM

First half came and went – to be honest it’s a bit of a blur in my memory now after the all day drinking session we had had. Second half starts, Thommo scores and we all go absolutely nuts. Far too nuts in fact. The bar guys were sh*tting themselves that we had raised the whole neighbourhood. After settling down we kept VERY VERY quiet for about 10 minutes then started to breathe a bit easier just as the other team scored.

After they scored their second goal we didn’t really have time to be depressed as the thought of getting back to the hotel safely was enough to occupy our minds for the moment. The bar had originally said we could sleep there till the curfew ended at 5am – it was now about 2.45am – but because we had made so much noise and fuss they decided that they were prepared to “let” us go sooner.

My hotel was the nearest so we all decided to go back there (except the Manchester guy – but I will come to that). This meant getting out the back door and crawling round to the hotel, I don’t think we were capable of doing much more than crawling at this point anyway.

We had to ring the bell of the hotel for ages before anyone came to let us in but eventually we made it. We hadn’t won but we hadn’t been arrested or killed either and at least we had played well enough.

However, the Manchester fan had went off on his own and the police had heard the commotion we were causing trying to get into the hotel a few minutes before. They assumed it was him and before long he had a gun in his back and was being pleasantly escorted/carried/forced/kicked back to his hotel at gunpoint – he was lucky it wasn’t worse.

I met him the next day and he told me all this (and thanked me for it). The next day a couple of restaurants were open in defiance of the strike and one of them was showing the full match, which they had recorded the previous night. I didn’t know they were going to do this but I think that even if I had known it wouldn’t have made the slightest bit of difference – we would have watched it live anyway

Posted by michael on from exile 01/13 at 01:28 PM

A while back Mick had posted about the mighty cockroach on a Story Saturday but I had missed the opportunity to post. Please allow me to now regale you with a two-part tale that I will call…

The Lord Cockroach Hotel

I have always harboured a primordial revulsion toward cockroaches.
I am not sure why I discriminate so, as other insects have always been scooped up and introduced to the outdoors in a gesture of my respect for all things living.
The greasy looking potential survivors of natural and unnatural calamity have always faced nothing but a crushing death when crossing my path.
Perhaps, deep down, I sense their evolutionary superiority.
It could be as simple as an unacknowledged envy or unbridled jealousy of their ability to perpetually thwart to will of man that drives me to unconsciously seek their violent demise.

Way back in the obnoxious Eighties I found myself living in the city of Ottawa.
I had worked a variety of jobs and lived in several different areas of the city where the Canadian government resides. I always figured it was no coincidence that the city housing our federal government was also tragically infested with cockroaches.

Being a child of small town Northern Canada, I had not seen a cockroach until I lived in Ottawa and my reaction to them was one of limitless disgust.

While bouncing around the service industry’s plethora of degradations I had settled for a time at the stately Lord Elgin Hotel as a cook in the banquet hall.
I am certain at some point well before my arrival, (or birth for that matter), the L.E. was a place where the well kept ladies and gentlemen took tea and scones while discussing the affairs of the day and their very important roles in them.
In my time, the grey stone building had since forgotten the footfalls of the elite and was now reduced to entertaining bus loads of British tourists, (they who know not of the concept of tipping servers).

As I poached eggs and buttered toast on many an occasion the staff, well aware of the cockroach infestation of the hotel, would chuckle at hearing many a plump, pink British matriarch pipe up and exclaim something like,
“Oh look Gerald, it’s some sort Canadian beetle!”
If only she’d known that the “Canadian beetle” had probably scurried over her plate to make its appearance on the dining hall floor.

One evening the hotel was catering a large gathering of oblivious victims requiring the upstairs line to coordinate with the downstairs main kitchen and bakery.
The main route for the trays of food and returning dirty dishes was an old system of dumbwaiters that ran the height of the hotel.

I was assigned to the special order grill making meals for those who would not be satisfied by all of the various pre-ordered catering.
On this night the cockroaches seemed intent on making their presence known.
As I seared flesh on the grill for some fussy prick who could not just play along and eat at the buffet a large greasy brown roach ran out onto the extremely hot grill.
He skittered around in the grease seemingly unaffected by the temperature and cocked his little head up towards me as if to mock my fleshy weakness.

Posted by Youngfox on from home 01/13 at 02:17 PM

I came down hard upon him with a butcher knife, slicing his crunchy body in two.
I would swear he winked at me as the front end of his body turned and ran away.

I stood mesmerized watching his forsaken roach bum sizzle on the grill.
Feeling quite nauseous I asked the manager to relieve me and opted to run food and dishes up and down the dumbwaiter instead.
As the evening drew to a close without major incident, I wondered how many diners had eaten a bite of cockroach with their meals.

The dirty plates were piling up in the bus trays and I methodically loaded them onto the dumbwaiter and sent them into the foul bowels of the hotel to be washed, yet never really cleaned.
The faceless drone on the receiving end below had stopped sending the elevator back up to receive to backlog of dishes.
Receiving no response to my calls inquiring as to why the process had ground to a halt, I decided to take the stairs down and find the cause.

I arrived to find that the dishwasher had abandoned his post and left piles of work to stack up.
His work uniform lay on the floor next to the piles of dishes and he was nowhere to be found.

Muttering curses under my breath, I decided to unload the elevator and send it back up that I might finish my task on the ground floor.

The dumbwaiter had two sets of doors one vertical to access the shaft and one horizontal to access the cart inside. Angry at the breakdown of the system that caused me to have to unload the elevator, I slammed the vertical access doors open.

The force of my wrenching open the door caused a literal cascade of cockroaches to pour out of the shaft and over my face and chest. The bugs had poured down the front of my shirt and countless roaches writhed against my skin.

I ran screaming through the basement tearing my white uniform off as I went, dropping roaches and buttons everywhere. They were in my hair and pants, skittering , licking, tasting.

I was running through the basement completely naked by the time I neared the staff showers.
I ran past the dishwasher’s hastily scrawled note attached to the door of the manager’s office that read something like,
“#### you all, this disgusting shit is not worth 7 bucks an hour.”
I proceeded to blast myself with soap and water.
Although the bugs where off I could still feel their frenzied feet running over my flesh.
As I exited the water and performed the mandatory shakedown of my street clothes from my locker the manager appeared and began berating me for abandoning my post.

I unleashed an almost unconscious tirade of expletives and threats.
Judging from the mortified look on his face, I’d imagine that my point was taken.

That would be my last night at the Lord Elgin Hotel.

The hotel has long since been chemically purged, gutted and renovated.
I am sure it now houses a much better class of cockroach because all renovations do in the case of a place so profoundly infested is cause the tougher roaches to camp out until the renovation work is done and their new home is ready.

Some nights I still awake in a cold sweat feeling the thousands of skittering legs running over my flesh.

Although I am privileged to now live in a place free of the master species, any movement detected in the periphery of my vision finds me unconsciously reaching for my shoe.

Posted by Youngfox on from here 01/13 at 02:19 PM

Youngfox

A disturbing, yet mesmerizing account of a normal hotel eatery. If we were all privy to the underbelly shenanigans of the average hotel, I wonder how many of us would ever forsake the comfort of our own little nest. In most cases, ignorance is truly bliss but thanks so much for the heads-up on the Lord Elgin, anyway.

Posted by Canadian Observer on from 01/13 at 03:38 PM

Thanks C.O.

Even post renovation I would never set foot in the L.E. again.
I apologize to those who might have read the story, for the mistakes both grammatical and spelling. I hastily recounted the tale and should have proofread it more carefully.
There are some “to” that should be “the” and so on.

I do so enjoy Storytelling Saturdays.

Posted by Youngfox on from editing hell 01/13 at 03:55 PM

awesome stuff here today…

good news on the possible bite for your book ideas, Mick.

Here’s one from me I call the Singapore Sling:

My family moved to Singapore
when I was 13 years old

Halfway around the world
22 hours in
business class seats

we could tell how things
were run as soon
as we sat down

the stewardesses were beautiful
stoic
and extremely polite

they seemed to have a working kitchen
on board because
the food arrived piping hot
and tasting good

hot towels were passed out
constantly
steaming the stale air off
our faces

At the airport we learned what
efficiency was all about
because despite being
warned that those with long
hair might be sheared
gum would be confiscated
and those with drugs
strung up and killed
we moved through customs
steadily and easily
showing what the punishing
hand of a semi-dictatorship
can do to a bureaucratic system

The hotel was majestic
beautiful colors emanated from
Chinese dragons
the staff treated us like
most honored guests

while in the pool
my brothers and I tried not to act
like loud crazy Americans
and ate like kings

the dishes taught me
that food can also be art

from a $2 mound of exquisite
fried rice
with a fried egg on top

to giant prawns
steamed bright red
antennae and all

Chinese, Malay
Indonesian, Thai
even the best Italian
I ever had

We were eventually brought
to a large mansion
tucked away in the jungle

it was down a long row
of abandoned homes
where the ghosts of Singaporeans
tortured by the Japanese in WW II
kept the locals away forever

We were told we had a Filipina
maid and a local
gardener who cut back the ever
growing jungle every day
dodging flying snakes
and throwing rocks at our
new smelly dog
that also came with the house

Being an ex-pat in Singapore
gave us a taste of how the pampered
live

I wonder how the average Singaporean
felt when another spoiled
white kid
walked by without a care in the world?

Posted by JOS on from Oak Park 01/13 at 04:49 PM

I remember the house I grew up in was badly infested with cockroaches. I can still remember switching on the kitchen light and seeing hundreds of roaches running for cover. My mom kept a spotless house but for some reason they liked it there. My parents spent a bunch of money to get rid of them.

It’s a lazy, rainy day in Louisville and I am really enjoying the stories today.

Posted by David Waddle on from Louisville KY 01/13 at 04:59 PM

Man, no matter how far past the holidays it is, I still can’t help get into the spirit after coming across this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ufRrgnSEdU

It’s amazing how much it warms this dopey white kid’s heart to see Hollis representing like this:

It was December 24th on Hollis Ave in the dark
When I seen a man chilling with his dog in the park
I approached very slowly with my heart full of fear
Looked at his dog, oh my God, an ill reindeer
But then I was illin because the man had a beard
And a bag full of goodies, 12 o’clock had neared
So I turned my head a second and the man had gone
But he left his driver’s wallet smack dead on the lawn
I picket the wallet up then I took a pause
Took out the license and it cold said “Santa Claus”
A million dollars in it, cold hundreds of G’s
Enough to buy a boat and matching car with ease
But I’d never steal from Santa, cause that ain’t right
So I’m going home to mail it back to him that night
But when I got home I bugged, cause under the tree
Was a letter from Santa and all the dough was for me

D.M.C. :

It’s Christmas time in Hollis Queens
Mom’s cooking chicken and collard greens
Rice and stuffing, macaroni and cheese
And Santa put gifts under Christmas trees
Decorate the house with lights at night
Snow’s on the ground, snow white so bright
In the fireplace is the yule log
Beneath the mistletoe as we drink egg nog
The rhymes you hear are the rhymes of Darryl’s
But each and every year we bust Christmas carrols

Run-D.M.C. :

Rhymes so loud and prod you hear it
It’s Christmas time and we got the spirit
Jack Frost chillin, the orchas out?
And that’s what Christmas is all about
The time is now, the place is here
And the whole wide world is filled with cheer!!!

D.M.C. :

My name’s D.M.C. with the mic in my hand
And I’m chilling and coolin just like a snowman
So open your eyes, lend us an ear
We want to say…

Run-D.M.C. :

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

Posted by James on from Hell's Kitchen 01/13 at 06:57 PM

I am in a rush and am just scanning here but were you really in Kathmandu, michael? That has been a dream of mine.
David, Canadian Observer, and Youngfox...when I lived in Florida they had BIG palmetto bugs and “housekeeping” spiders that were as big as small cats.
JOS...I could use a Singapore Sling about now. When I was young, I had a boyfriend who was from Singapore. In recent years I have been intrigued by the culture there. It seems very organized, from what I hear.
Mickey #3...thanks for telling us about the “drama”. When any one of us shares something like that, it lightens the burden on others who are also experiencing something similar. I love you. I accept e-mails and I have recently been researching “human relations and family” type things....in addition, one of my careers was dealing in issues like that. I have no special wisdom, but I am a great listener.
Mudge...wanna try for 3 times?

Posted by RMJ on from Churchill 4 Prez Hdqts 01/13 at 07:05 PM

This has got to be the greatest Storytelling Saturday in the history of mankind. Western Civilization will never be the same and I’ve enjoyed every word...all right, maybe I didn’t exactly enjoy these words: “watching his forsaken roach bum sizzle on the grill”

Thanks, RMJ. I just may e-mail you tomorrow. xoxo

Posted by Mickey Z. on from Astoria 01/13 at 08:12 PM

RMJ - i was indeed in kathmandu, like i said, that is a true story

Posted by michael on from exile 01/13 at 08:14 PM

I ran across this today & thought I’d share. It’s pretty creepy. http://tinyurl.com/y9cfmp

This is what worries me when people start talking about government provided health care. I’m for it and it sounds great but if we can’t trust the government now why would we trust them to be in charge of our health?

Posted by David Waddle on from Louisville KY 01/14 at 07:33 AM

Next entry: The murdering of our years

Previous entry: Throw away your remote

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Mickey Z

Cool Observer

Saturday, January 13, 2007

Local or Express?

Books By Mickey Z.

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