diSCr.eat|diSCr.ipt|diSCr.eem

October 14th, 2005

Slept most of the day yesterday. Got a medium black olive and pepperoni pan from Pizza Hut (yes, on the bike) and ate it while watching

• Garden State,
• Lords of Dogtown, and
• The Aquatic Life of Steve Zissou (Wes, yo!),

which I finished up this morning.

This afternoon I made final edits to the Hoot ‘n’ Toot and sent it off to Esquire.

This evening I finished the book proposal book.

The 1112 Words of Were Eye for the Fry Guy (as it currently stands):

Alone in the Redneck Riviera of the South Carolina coast last Saturday, I was ready for a night out on the town. Flying into Myrtle Beach from New York City, I couldn’t help but notice all the Hooters airplanes like so many banana boats on the tarmac. There’s no Hooters on the Lower East Side so I decided to see what that scene is all about, try some of that rare meat they specialize in, maybe go on to catch a movie.

Hooters isn’t known for its owl chops, it’s known for its never-ending basket of glandular sweetbreads (the milky-white meat), so I was taken aback to find the girls so adulteratedly bad. And I don’t mean spank-me-down-and-sprain-my-back naughty. I’m talking about Bad with the same capital B used to spell Bimbo. Pure, Grade A, 100%.

Who finds panty hose under shorts attractive? In the slightest? Or, for that matter, orange shorts? Do even high school cheerleaders wear white high-top Reeboks anymore? With leg warmers bunched down around their ankles? With owls like that, they should really focus on getting some decent baby back ribs in the place.

Inevitably, one of those little satin-assed gorillas came up to get my drink order and began with an obligatorily flirty “what’s your name?” When I told her, she wrote it down on a napkin, and said, “I’m Tiffany!” I had to restrain myself from saying, “Of course you are!” She wrote her name down on another napkin. “Very good!” I would have squealed if it hadn’t of been so clearly part of the shtick.

I ordered the New Orleans peel ‘n’ eat shrimp in roux sauce, whose suggestive name, incredibly, appeared unintentional. Perhaps it was beyond the reach of the executive management team also responsible for the motto I saw printed on the back of the T-shirts all of the she-apes were wearing: “Delightfully tacky yet unrefined.” Yet? That should be ‘and’ I shouted inside my head.

Sitting at the bar facing the kitchen, I sipped my lemonade while watching the action, which, yes, did get a little exciting when the archetypally zitty young fry cook rubbed his nose along the entire length of his latex glove, leaving me to consider a post-order door dash.

Like it or not, my food eventually came, and I found a tiny mollusk mixed among the shrimp. I baited Tiffany with it next time she came by to swoon over the smell of my sauce.

“Look, I got a little clammy,” I said, trying to join her hey-dear game. “I bet you do that to all the boys.”

“Just the ones I like,” she said. Oh, she was in the zone! I’d like to say she delivered that line without batting an eyelash, except batting her eyelashes was pretty much all she was doing. Animatronics have come a long way, baby!

When I finished my lemonade, another of the orange-u-tans came by get me a refill. I’m not sure if I caught her stirring my drink with her finger, or if I just imagined it after she said with giggled punctuation, “Don’t worry, it’s just rufies.” Hey, could you throw in a side of fear with that distaste?

I had two peel ‘n’ eaters left when I told Tiffany she’d better bring me the check. I had business to take care of. Something bulimicky. And then there it was, printed on the check next to the word server: “Tiffameeee.”

Tiff-a-oh-myyyy-God!

From there I headed over to the movie theater and had a friendly debate with the wholesome girls in the box office over whether it would be more interesting to see a ghost or an alien. We agreed on aliens due to the possibility of abduction and onboard reproductive experiments.

I guess that gave them license to give me attitude when I bought my ticket to see the latest Wallace & Gromit vehicle The Curse of the Were-Rabbit.

“Have you even seen it?” I snarled.

“No!” they said, sucking their teeth and cocking their heads to look back at me slantwise. “It’s rated G!”

“What, are you too cool for G?” I countered–I was like a knife!–but seeing that a family had gathered up behind me, I had nothing left to do but scoop up my ticket and change, and sulk on in. Otherwise I would have added, “Well, I’m OG on that Wallace & G-romit tip, little G-irls!”

Had I become suddenly soft in my 35th year, turning on the basic needs and assumptions of my gender in premature male menopause?

No. If anything, it was a queer-eye-for-the-fry-guy moment, not a moral midlife crisis over family values and my own loudly ticking biological clock in the race to find a suitable mother for my pure and beautiful children. It was an epiphany of aesthetics.

I’m all about T&A, orange is one of my favorite colors (especially with a little slate-gray accent), and the thought of being kidnapped by an alien still, um, titillates. But there’s something to be said for portion control, even proportion control, and the subtle blending of just the right ingredients. Too much cream filling and the Hostess Cupcake fails to satisfy.

Taste doesn’t have to be refined; it just has to exist. I like Flavor Flav but not FlavorAid. Kraft, nuh-uh. Kraftwerk, maybe on a good day. Craftsman, now there’s a quality tool, but that doesn’t mean I should buy my clothes at Sears as well.

They may not be Grand Theft Auto: Vice City material, but Wallace and Gromit are some cool, well-crafted cats. That franchise, instead of delightfully tacky, is delightfully clever, and laughing at a dog that knits when he’s nervous does not make me less of a man. I’ll take the clay over the silicone any day, thanks. Even with the 27 TV screens factored in to the over-lit Hooters equation, the darkened theater offered more eye candy.

I could have opted for Flightplan and gotten a formulaic thrill, or I could have seen the gambling gangbanging macho-fest Two For The Money and gotten a brain-brawn ratio similar to the brain-broad ratio I got from Stiff-A-Mee, but I needed a sure bet.

The next night, still riding solo, I went to Lone Star Saloon & Steakhouse (the one thing Soho doesn’t have) for a full and meaty rack of ribs (and a wink at the belles in blue jeans). Afterwards, full of bravado, I caught Two For The Money. It was good. Romantic, too, in the end. I got a little choked up. And there’s no question about it, Al Pacino is bad ass!

Until I see him in tight orange shorts. That would really be some bad ass.

#

Entry Filed under: Lifin