The NOLA Trip: Leaving Potomac

Okay. Before I start getting into the craziness of New Orleans, I guess I should outline how we got there.

To be perfectly honest, I’m no longer certain whose idea it was to make New Orleans our destination. Andy and I had been talking for some time about making a road trip, possibly in order to celebrate our first year of legal drinking.

The usual places were brought up and quickly dismissed. New York’s too familiar. Vancouver’s too cold. San Francisco’s too far. Las Vegas is too tacky. And then somebody brought up New Orleans. The food, man. Bourbon street jazz. Cemeteries and voodoo and streetcars and liquor. Man oh man.

Being trapped as I was in the urban hell of Seoul during the planning stages of the trip, I guess I may be forgiven for spending such a ridiculous amount of time researching restaurants and bars and jazz clubs.

As it happened, I just barely made it to the States in time. I was on a waiting list for a program in which volunteers escort infant orphans to adoptive parents abroad. My flight came through just in time, and I made it to Dulles International only the day before our trip.

Man what a trip that was. 23 hours in Northworst Airline purgatory, clutching a baby who had just starting getting her teeth.

The day of, I woke up at 6 in the morning, partly because of the jet lag, but mostly because of the intense excitement. I was a bit dismayed to find that my back was hurting pretty severely because of the combined effects of the flight and a little problem I was having with spinal disc pressure. I took a handful of Tylenol, showered luxuriously, and started to pack, a rather ridiculous process of pulling things from my suitcase and stuffing them back into a smaller travel case.

Later in the morning, Andy and Mahmood arrived. Man oh man. I hadn’t seen them in months. It’s been pointed out countless times by better writers than yours truly, but there really is nothing like seeing old friends. I was grinning like a maniac when I opened the door for them.

I’ve probably written something about this before, but Andy and Mahmood, at first glance, are just too perfect. You could have picked them out of a movie or varying fashion magazines.

Andy, in his disheveled goofiness, was and still is an embodiment of apple-pie Americanism, in its most positive sense. I’m talking about the kind of quality that Abercrombie and Fitch try so desperately and artificially to convey. In high school, I once commented on his love of Rage Against the Machine: "What possible reason could you have to rage against the machine?" A friend standing next to us agreed. "Andy, you're the poster boy for the machine. You're what the machine wants everyone to be."

"Shut up," said Andy.

Mahmood, as anyone who knows him will testify, looks precisely like the intelligent law/history student who you just know will end up with an internship at the Heritage Foundation, accompanied by a great deal of admiration disguised as disgusted mockery from his ‘liberal’ friends (And for the record, yes, he did end up with an internship at the Heritage Foundation).

We sat down for some breakfast and respective sections of the Washington Post. Then we finally piled into the car with luggage and fresh banana brownies (courtesy of my sister). Giggling like schoolgirls we drove off to pick up Lauro.

We found him in front of his dentist’s office, impeccably well-dressed and well-groomed. I would soon find that Lauro always appears this way. On multiple occasions, we would wake up bleary-eyed and puffy-faced with hangovers of the most shit-faced variety, only to find Lauro looking more or less perfect. You’d think he dry cleaned and ironed his t-shirt and boxers in his sleep.

I hadn’t met Lauro before the first day of our trip, but I think it’s pretty safe to say that we hit it off more or less immediately. I didn’t give this much thought at the time, but in retrospect, it was extremely lucky. You can start bitching and sniping at your best friend after only a day together, so a week-long road trip with a complete stranger would have been excruciating. Fortunately, Lauro and I were strangers for maybe all of two minutes.

The four of us first drove to a Starbucks for some much-needed caffeine. One of the million things I love about the States is the huge serving sizes of coffee. Believe it or not, Starbucks in Korea serves three sizes: short, tall, and grande. So it was, pathetic as it may sound, a minor thrill for me when we walked out with a wealth of coffee in venti cups.

That’s when the trip really began, I guess. We got onto the freeway pretty quickly, and I popped in one the many CDs I had burned for the trip, with songs organized by category, ie Speeding Ticket Rock, Acoustic, Chill, Martini Lounge, Frat Party, W Party, GQ Rock etc. I’m such a male Bridget Jones it’s really kind of disgusting.

It was a beautiful winter day, the kind where the sun is out and the sky looks really high, and the cold outside is really just a great foil to the warmth inside the car. It was, I think, a pretty good preview of all the great things to come.

We were sipping strong coffee, there wasn’t too much traffic on 495, and Buena Vista Social Club was playing on the stereo.



More later.

The NOLA Trip: An Introduction

Shortly after the four of us had been seated and given our menus, a pretty, smartly-dressed blonde waitress walked up to our table.

“You guys can take as long as you'd like with your menus, but I just wanted to let you know that we've got a nickel martini special for lunch,” she said.

I blinked.

We had gotten into our beautiful hotel room very late the night before, around 3 am. Being too exhausted after the long drive from Atlanta to really go out, we had mixed a couple of drinks in the room, chatted for just a bit, and fell dead asleep listening to Lauro's Oakenfold CD playing softly. We slept a bit late the next morning, but we were all still understandably woozy.

To make things worse, with the combined effects of my jet lag (from a 23-hour plane trip only three nights ago) and my cold medicine hangover (from a cold contracted during said trip) I was feeling pretty loopy.

Consequently, I was a bit confused by this bit of information the waitress had shared with us.

"I'm sorry, I thought you said you have a nickel martini special?"
"That's right."

Okay. Starting get my bearings. A 'nickel' martini must be their cute way of saying their martinis cost 5 bucks. I eyed the bar to the left. It was obviously stocked with only top-shelf liquor. I could vaguely make out the lovely blue Tanqueray bottles. Mmm. So 5 bucks for a martini didn't sound bad. Pretty damn good, in fact. This was, after all, a hotel restaurant.

Lauro and I had spotted it while walking through the lobby on our way to a quick morning stroll around the block for a breath of air and a cigarette while Mahmood and Andy finished showering and getting dressed. Normally, neither of us would have been particularly excited about a hotel restaurant, but this one had touted enough accolades (Esquire Magazine's Best New Restaurant of 2002, Food and Wine Magazine's Top 10 Best Hotel Restaurants List) that we decided to give it a shot.

"So your lunchtime martinis are 5 bucks? We were actually going to just order a bottle of wine."
"Nope, they're 5 cents apiece."

The waitress smiled patiently.

I tried to detect a hint of sarcasm in her voice. Or maybe some condescension towards these college kids who were obviously tourists from up North. I honestly tried. Nothing in the voice but honest good humor, and maybe just the tiniest bit of amusement.

I looked around the table at the boys, who were similarly dazed by this bit of information.

"Um, ok," I said, trying my best to sound like a suave, comfortable diner accustomed to being pampered with ridiculously low-priced martinis, instead of the stuttering freak that I was rapidly degenerating into. "That sounds great. I'll take a martini."

We went around the table specifying our preferences: gin or vodka, straight up or on the rocks. Mahmood, of course, ordered water with a wedge of lime.

I was expecting little more than a couple of olives just barely moistened with a drop or two of nicely chilled gin. I would have been satisfied with that. I'd gotten worse at bars in New York, and those drinks were a hell of a lot more expensive than a nickel.

What we actually got were monster-sized martini glasses filled so completely to the brim with perfectly mixed gin and vermouth (this was one of the few places where I ordered a martini and had the good fortune to receive something more than just cold gin) that we actually had to slurp some off the top before we could reasonably pick up the glasses.

We looked at each other and grinned.

That was the beginning of lunch at Rene Bistro, the first of a number of memorable meals in New Orleans during our winter road trip in 2003.


More later.

Okay... So?

Manohla Dargis of the New York Times on Eugene Jarecki's

"Why We Fight":

"In Mr. Jarecki's formulation, successive American governments have waged wars and conducted secret military operations for profit, and then sold these campaigns to us as necessary, even righteous. The idea is that because the public buys the lies, it also buys the wars. Too bad this doesn't explain why people buy lies, including the obvious ones. There's something comforting in the idea that our mistakes can be pinned on presidents, propaganda and Halliburton, perhaps because then it seems as if we didn't have anything to do with them."

Sue me

Ok fine. I got an iPod. Like every other wannabe greenwich village hipster.

Just like all of you told me I would, I got an iPod. Fine. I don't care.

It's not my fault it's so shiny and purrrrty.

More later.

Because I'm not busy enough.

This is what needs to happen, right now:

First of all, I need to be in Magog, Canada or Ithaca. I need to get up late, just a tad bit hung over, and have a bagel sandwich dripping with cheese and egg and sausage patty, along with a couple of mugs of coffee.

I need to throw on some clothes that hopefully don't stink too savagely of nicotine, cologne, spilled wine/vodka, and marijuana.

I need to drive over to a decent grocery store with Lauro, but not before smoking a couple of cigarettes on the way to the car.

Then, we need to pick out some food. A shitload of bottled water, some chips and guacamole, maybe a largish wedge of brie or camembert. Then the ingredients for dinner. Capers, olives, olive oil, fresh herbs, pasta, tomatoes, creme fraiche, a couple of cloves of garlic, onions, parmesan, butter, a pack of little shrimp, salad greens, then a couple of fish steaks, something easy to cook like swordfish or salmon. Ooh, don't forget the portabella mushrooms.

Afterwards, I need to wake Andy up, feed him some coffee, and walk to the liquor store with him and Lauro so we can choose some wine and pick up a few six packs.

Then I need to marinade the fish. Chop up the herbs, toss 'em together. Rub a couple of drops of olive oil on the fish and slather them with the chopped herbs, mush mush rub rub. Like so. Dash of salt. Like so. Dash of pepper, grind grind. Like so.

Then I need to relax, pour myself some more coffee or maybe a beer if the hangover's almost gone, eat chips, and watch CNN or C-span or reruns of the Fresh Prince of Bel Air. Maybe doze off for a half hour.

Then I need to take a really long shower, shave, get properly dressed, and start to cook.
First I need to get the pasta sauce started, although Andy has gotten really good at this, and Lauro can whip up an awesome one with olive oil and cheese in like 2 seconds flat. Heat some olive oil, toss in some diced garlic and toast it. Toss in the tomatoes, sans skin and watery glunk. Open a bottle of the cheaper wine. Splash a bit into the sauce, and we've got drinks for the kitchen. Boil beer. Toss in some salt and cook the shrimp for like two seconds. Drain and cool so they can be put in the pasta sauce later.

Look at Andy, beer in one hand, stirring the pasta sauce with the other, concentrating on CNN or the New York Times or a book. Look at Lauro, making salad dressing, or mixing drinks, or getting places ready at the table. Sigh... the boys look like A&F models.

OK. Now the fish, the entree, the main dish. Has it marinaded nicely? Awesome. Set the oven to anywhere between 450 and broil. Mash up a couple of crackers or dry leftover baguette slices. Drop a little more olive oil on the steaks and roll 'em around on the crumbs. Great. Melt a fucking gallon of butter in a big saucepan and let it boil. When it looks pretty hot, drop in the steaks with some leftover herbs and fry them for like 10 seconds. Just enough so the outsides cook up a little, but not so much that the insides get dry. Then I'm going to pop them in the oven and let them sit a bit so the insides get cooked a little.

Fish in the oven. Good. Andy's pasta sauce starting to look pretty good. Let's add the shrimp now. Lauro's cooked the pasta to perfection as usual. I can never cook pasta like that. The salad dressing's yummy too.

OK, last one. Clean the portabellas. With a KNIFE. I hate it when people clean their mushrooms under water, they're like sponges and turn into a fucking mess. Heat some olive oil. Add some minced garlic and toast a bit. Throw in the mushrooms and cook 'em for a couple of seconds, only enough so they can't be called raw.

Alright. Fish out of the oven. Salad in a bowl. Pasta in a bowl. Portabellas on a plate. Table is set. The nicer wine's been opened and breathing for a bit. Great. Sparkling water.

I'm ready. Andy's ready. Lauro's ready. Friends have arrived. More booze. Excellent.

Dinner.

More wine. Maybe some of that brie.

OK, everyone's stuffed so now we need to throw all the junk into the sink and lay back on the couch and relax a bit. Drink a bit. Listen to Oakenfold or Outkast or Basement Jaxx a bit.

10 pm. A bit drunk. Maybe a little more than just a bit drunk.

Time for the bars.

This is what needs to happen.

More later.

R.I.P. Arrested Development

"G.O.B. get rid of the Sea Ward."
"I'm not leaving until I've had my say."
...awkward silence...

Go figure Fox is going to cancel the best sitcom since, well, ever (although to be perfectly honest, I'm sort of surprised they ever picked up something so clever in the first place).

I know a million people have written a million posts about how stupid American TV is getting, but it really is rather bleak, isn't it? Just a few years ago, we had the early seasons of Frasier, ER (before Dr. Greene left), The X-files, and Seinfeld. Remember? We actually used to look forward to watching our shows.

Now check out the Nielson ratings for the week of January 23rd through 29th, this year:

1. American Idol - Tuesday
2. American Idol - Wednesday
3. CSI
4. Without a Trace
5. CSI: Miami
6. Dancing With the Stars
7. Lost
8. Grey's Anatomy
9. Two and a Half Men
10. NCIS

There's nothing to watch except for BBC specials on PBS. Even my Gilmore Girls have gone downhill (Get your act together, Palladinos. Rory has been dicking around with the wrong crowd for too fucking long).

Now Fox has gone and killed off the Bluths, the most perfectly dysfunctional family since Faulkner's "As I Lay Dying."

Pretty soon all we'll have to keep us laughing is DVD box sets of "Monty Python's Flying Circus."
Pathetic.

More later.

Back.

It finally hit me that being completely buried in patent surveys and numerical models of hydrogen storage systems can't possibly be good for my health. Therefore, I've decided to restart this blog, which hopefully will be less of the narcissistic exhibitionist crap it was before, and more like an online equivalent of barfing up all the crap that makes you sick after you've been mixing too many drinks and eating too much cold pizza with your buddies. Except that the vomit will obviously come from my brain, rather than my stomach.

Some things that have changed: I've graduated (almost. the actual ceremony isn't until later this month), and I've started working in a lab here at SNU. This means that my escape from the urban hell known as Seoul will have to be postponed a bit, but it also means that I'll be able to do some sort of scientific research instead of the customary stint in the Korean army.

Some things that are still the same (in no particular order): I'm still stuck at Seoul National University. I still hate living in Korea. People still think I'm sort of gay. I still hate Bush. I still love getting wasted with good friends. I'm still a sentimental idiot. I still think that someone will read this damn blog aside from the occasional passer-by who feels compelled to inform me about the cheapest sofas available anywhere. I still love to cook and eat and learn about food.

I know I have a tendency to start things and dig myself a hole too big to fill (like the 80+pages of the 'novel' I'm 'working on,' which have been undisturbed for even longer than this blog). So we'll see if I can make this page any different.

More later.

Just for fun

You are a Social Liberal (66% permissive) and an... Economic Liberal (28% permissive) You are best described as a: Democrat Link: The Politics Test on Ok Cupid Also: The OkCupid Dating Persona Test

Is Apathy Now the Norm?

At what point did lying become so acceptable? When did we start regarding blatant fabrications as an inevitable part of life? Was it so long ago that we were outraged when the president of the US knowingly deceived us? Has it really come to this?

I recently read this article in The Washington Post. Basically it outlines how the US informed its allies that North Korea sold nuclear material to Libya, when it knew perfectly well that no such transaction ever took place. North Korea sold uranium hexafluoride to Pakistan, a US ally with its own nuclear arsenal. It was Pakistan that then sold the material to Libya. Meanwhile, the photo on the main page of the Post shows Condoleezza Rice being 'greeted' by South Korean university students upon her arrival in Seoul. No mention that thousands of other enraged Koreans were gathered in various reform demonstrations throughout the country.

Why doesn't this piss anyone off? I was unable to think straight, reading through the article for the first time. Nobody ever said politics or diplomacy is a straightforward affair, but the line must be drawn somewhere. Shame on the American people for eschewing their responsibility to draw that line.

What makes the article even worse is that it shows only concern that the exposure of the falsehood will undermine US credibility. An ignorant public? Who cares? Moral outrage? So 18th century.

I refuse to believe that my outrage is so much old-fashioned humbuggery. I still believe that everyone, and leaders in particular, have a responsibility to be honest and open; that no democracy-in its true form and not the one endorsed by Bush and his thugs-can be upheld without the guarantee that such honesty is adhered to; that demanding reform when such honesty is corrupted is not a right, but a duty shared by the public.

Stupidity I can take. Rice called North Korea an "outpost of tyranny" mere days before Bush vowed in his inauguration speech to fight tyranny. All this while trying to bring North Korea into the six-party talks which still haven't happened. That's pretty stupid. But that's ok.

Lies, however, are not an option. I hope this fact will register soon, for a public insensitive to lies is even more lamentable than an administration which systematically tells them.

SAT Night! Partay!

My best friend Andy wrote a great post about his new column in the Cornell Daily Sun, of which he was formerly the editor in chief. Actually, what I found most interesting was not the column that was eventually published, but the one that he ended up scrapping, about the time we took our SAT's.

Back when we were juniors in high school (a time more distant now than I like to admit), Andy and I had what we called an "SAT sleepover." Yes it was dorky. No, we were not fully aware of that fact. Our plan was to have a quick dinner and hit the index cards to cram ourselves with some final vocab words. Afterwards, we would get some sleep and arrive at the testing station refreshed and fully prepped to fill in some bubbles.

So obviously, we ended up goofing around and imbibing enough caffeine to kill a small horse. Perhaps that's why we ended up with scores much lower than we were accustomed to from countless practice tests.

That's okay. Andy and I both ended up going to college (he at Cornell, and I at Seoul National). I doubt that a better night's rest would have resulted in better acceptances for either of us, and we are now left with a memory of what things used to be like. Right now, that memory is something we look back on wistfully, recalling the wonderful simplicty of our (more distant) youth, and perhaps it will someday turn into a goal, something to aspire to provide for our own children.

In any case, I guess we gained more that night than a couple of word roots.