Recapping Spring

So Spring has sprung, and probably passed. Within days we will probably begin to see the start of the overwhelming heat and humidity. Yeah.

Spring brings us the French Quarter Festival, the best festival of the year. There are music stages all over the quarter and food food food. My old and new favorites:

• Tujague's beef brisket with spicy horseradish sauce. I wait all year for this.
• Crawfish bread. It's not the best, in fact Cannons has it on their menu year round and the kind you get at Jazz Fest (the more popular hippie infested dustbowl held at the race track at the end of the month that I refuse to attend because I like people who shower instead of dousing themselves with patchouli) is waaaayy better. Still, it's good.
• Turkey Legs. The line is unbelievably long, often 45 minutes or so, and you do look like a caveman walking around with this big stick of beef, but god damn, they are good.

New Favorites:

• The southern comfort booth, where until this year I did not realize you could get a double SoCo on the rocks for 4 bucks. They also sell Southern Mango Mama, a frozen concoction that was quite delicious.
• Crawfish Quesadillas. These were sold by QSR, but from what I am told, they were made by another company that does QSR's catering. Whatever, they were spectacular.
• Crawfish cake with lobster bisque topping. This came from Sclafani's
• Pork Chops on a stick from Ernies Ladd's Throw Down BBQ. A big old chop that would have made Elvis himself proud, served on a cane stick for 5 bucks.

The festival is great fun and I spent all day there on Friday. I recently met, or rather was re-introduced to a young man named Jake. I'm sure I will write more about him later as we have continued to see him since then. We decided to spend the day together and he brought along a couple of friends. We set up blankets and spread out under a palm for shade. We drank, we ate, we had a good day. I went back on Saturday by myself but only stayed long enough for brisket and to get some turkey legs to go. I took two back to the pub for co-workers. Another year passes, sigh, and I'll eagerly await next years festival.

I've just come from the dog park where I witnessed the worst dog fight I have ever seen in my life. Of course, any time there is trouble, Dash thinks it's a game and rushes over to join the fun. I had to dash my own ass over there double time to grab him. If you have never seen a dog fight at a dog park, it's very intense. There are a lot of people around, trying to reach in and grab the dogs and end the fight. As the dogs circle, the owners have no choice but to circle as well. The fight was between a mastiff and a rottweiler. The mastiff is owned by a friend of mine and from what I was told afterwards there have been issues between these two dogs before. They were snarling and biting at each other when the mastiff got the rotties ear in his mouth and would not let go. A woman held Dash for me so I could help the owners. By now we had the dogs still but the mastiff was out for blood, he was going to kill the other dog. I had the rotties collar and his owner and I were pulling as hard as we could. Three people had the mastiff and it got to a point where the owner of the mastiff was punching his dog in the jaw to get him to let loose. Finally my friend reached down and grabbed his dog's balls and twisted as hard as he could until his dog let go of the rottie. The ear was pretty mangled but it was intact. There was quite a bit of blood in both dogs mouth and on the ground. The mastiff's owners left and took him to the vet. I figured it was time to go.

Sometimes little things get to me. At the pub we have dancers all the time, most of them regular people. There is one named Carlos. I really have never cared for him anyway. He's freakish looking and he dances like a black woman, all ass. He's also hung like a mule. I've seen his cock before, and I can honestly say I've never seen anything like it. He's been a dancer and tied his dick off for so long that I think it's caused permanent damage. It's purplish and shaped very oddly. The closest I can come to describing it is this; go to a grocery store, the meat department, and look for cow tongue. That's what his cock looks like. He also eats while he's standing on the bar. Now I know that's a little thing, but do you want to come into a bar and see what's supposed to be a hot guy standing on the bar eating a bag of chips? No. Okay, so of all these things, this is not the thing I want to bitch about. When he's dancing, he whistles, very loudly. I have managed to get him to stop that but he also slaps his thigh, constantly. It's a very loud noise and it's right at the exact height of my ear. Slap slap slap slap slap, five years of hearing this right in my ear, it's starting to get to me.

Last Friday I had my phone in my pocket in the car and damaged the front LED screen. I went to cingular today to check on getting a new one. My account has insurance so I can pay 50 bucks and get a new one but the one they replace it with is ugly. If I wait until September I can get a phone for a promotional price but paying the 50 bucks now and dealing with an ugly phone only to save 50 bucks or so seems kind of silly. I was perusing the phones and looking for one that would best suit me. I don't need a camera on my phone. I have a camera. Most of them take shitty pictures anyway and if I need a picture that badly then something is wrong. Some of these phones are unreal. The blackberry phones, which have everything but a printer attachment (but can be plugged into a computer) are just unbelievable. Unless you are a super busy traveler, say a salesman, there really isn't any reason for this. Technology can go too far and this is one example. I feel the same way about OnStar. Perhaps it's my paranoid nature, but do you really want your car company (and then ultimately) the government to be able to track your car everywhere you go? Yeah, if you lock your keys in the car it's easy to get them out, but are most people really stupid enough to lock their keys in their car on a regular enough basis to pay for an extra option like OnStar? Probably, yeah.

Since we're on this bitter path, let me talk about this new commercial that's out. It's from the American Heart Association, reminding us that heart disease is the number two killer of children. Number one is probably shaken baby syndrome. Not surprising from a society that worships children only until they are born and then doesn't care again until it's time for them to die. I digress. The commercial shows a woman who is holding up a picture of her two children, a toddler boy and a young girl. She then tells us that this is the picture she's sending out as her Christmas card with the inside words being WHAT THEY WROTE ON THE KIDS GRAVE MARKER. So picture it, a snowy (go with me, it's a theme) December afternoon, you're happily wrapping gifts when the mail comes sliding through your mail slot. Eagerly awaiting Christmas cards and family greetings, you settle in with a nice cup of coffee into your favorite chair. There, among the happy smiling faces and funny greetings, a dead toddler. Suddenly your coffee tastes bitter and that holly jolly Christmas song seems to be taunting you. "There but for the grace of god..." starts to run through your head and you feel sad. Hopefully at this point you cross these people off your Christmas cards list and send them a nice note telling them you are moving to a remote part of Canada so they can never contact you again, those selfish assholes, for trying to ruin your Christmas.

I was going to write about the vast number of people here in New Orleans who have unusually large heads, but I'll save something for later.

Ciao!