zombies on a thursday night

it really is amazing how quickly on can get to the upper upper west side on a weeknight to play a zombie board game.


yeah. you header that right. the bastard plays zombie board games. wanna fight about it? I'll cut your sorry ass.

have I mentioned I've been drinking.

—the bastard

…so my wife is gonna hate me

its a down economy you know.

so to do his part, the bastard makes lunch.

and he does it well.

so well that the wife's boss wants me to hook her up with a sammich.

but it's like this.

I also do the grocery shopping as well.

and normally, I'm a by the numbers kinda guy.

but with a hurricane (read: late summer sprinkle) coming last weekend, I went a little off mission.

bought some ribs.

bought a pack of bacon.

and we made the whole pack on Sunday to celebrate NOT dying in a flood (read: HAH) with the notion that whatever bacon we don't eat we'll "save".

this is not currently happening.

OK SIDEBAR: this is how he bastard throws down a sammich. straight up on the economical tip. what you do is buy a bag of trader joes ciabatta rolls because it's the most rolls you get for the money (8). I get a bag of pre cooked chicken breast from the self same store (because it's easy when you shop for everything at the same place).


I buy some cheese for filler. I used to get lo fat Swiss but the bastard is currently not in the business of giving a shit these days (read: DEMONS) so I've been getting pepper jack for me and fooling the wife with the lo fat Swiss (did you catch the name of the blog?).


lately I've gotten my hands on some barbecue sauce and that has been the spread of choice (side note: the wife gets pesto).


now what I do is rely on the toaster ovens in the mystery science kitchen area as they have the best toaster ovens in all the land. and I toast that bitch up.

there it is.

ANYWAY: The bacon. I have been feeding it into the sammich recipe this week. there will be no bacon leftover. and I will have some splainin to do Lucy when she finds out. but I can live with that. because… you know… bacon.

oh look. there is a glass of whiskey beside me. BAI!

—the bastard

the bastard TOTALLY needs to get back to the gunpla

tonight the bastard dug up a freebie he got when he picked up a copy of dengeki magazine.

1/810 ideon model that isn't all that challenging.

the bastard is just trying to make space.

I may be winding up black f91 after the boy goes home next week so I can deal with his absence.

until it becomes my norm again.

but I had done a little business with the builder last week and he had something for me to build.

something for the boy to build.

something for me. a match for my real grade.

getting a free model totally takes the sting out of pro Bono work for good friends.

and while I could use some pay work, I like doing the work anyway.

stretches the brain once in a bit.

that and the robots. I've been building for damn near 30 years and I have yet to learn ANY Japanese yet.

I should.

I'd like to go there one day.

I'd like to ride across the country too on a motorcycle.

see if I can get either done.

until then… it's gunpla

—the bastard

there's something to be said for an art school education

so I've been spending way too much time in ikea of late.

why?

because the bastard is not the sort of man who buys his furniture from raymore and flanigans.

so shut up.

ikea is a far cry from hand me downs and cardboard boxes.

and bedsides, the boy is coming in for the summer.

I need my home to look proper so he doesn't ask questions like, "hey dad, why the hell do you have such crap furniture in such a swanky apartment?"

actually hell and swanky are a far cry from the boy's vocabulary.

and he's a great kid. he'd just ask if we could go to 7-11 and then when I have to break the bad news to him that there isn't one in long island city, he'll just beat me with a crowbar.

anyways, while I was there, I almost careened my daughters carriage (yeah I push the carriage…wanna fight about it?) into this little blond kid who was doing circles around a support beam.

and then I saw his dad.

and his dad shared a studio with me in college.

his dad used to be my business partner.

his dad was the best man at my first wedding.

and his dad was there at ground zero of the start of my career which almost never happened.

we had some awkward small talk. I met his kids. his wife politely smiled and we went our separate ways.

and I was bummed.

I miss being able to throw a few drinks back and discuss Modigliani with people.

my art school education is languishing these days.

and I wouldn't mind being able to talk shit about it again one day.

maybe not in ikea. maybe in some crap bar that exists in the back of my mind from 15 years ago.

hrm. the other guy I split the studio with lives in Howard beach. I should go find his ass and chat about the finer points of how we ended up where we ended up.

but then again, you can't go back in time, can you?

—the bastard

…on the give back

the bastard has something stuck in his craw.

on many occasions when I meet up with the dwarf ( and I haven't in quite some time) he tells me things about my college professors.

you see he works at my old college. and the dwarf tells me that.

my graphic design teacher was a photographer and he picked up graphic design just in case the handwriting on the wall was true.

and that none of the graphic design teachers at my old school have ever worked for a large company.

so in essence, they are teaching young minds to grow up to be freelancers who have no idea how to find work or work with a team.

and this sticks in my craw.

the bastard also has a guilty conscience.

he could have worked harder in college.

he could have worked less days.

drank less.

could have slept in his studio less and worked more.

so he gives back.

I proctor this test that kids in my old high school take to fill a requirement for their art program.

and while it won't make or break them, it helps me sleep with a clear conscience.

well that and a manhattan or two.

but, inevitably one of these kids tells me a should be a teacher.

and i tell them that when this business I am in spits me out, I may take it under advisement.

but the fact of the matter is

I curse too much.

I'm impatient.

I talk too much about bullshit and less about the course material.

hrm. maybe I can be a teacher.

or a hobo.

—the bastard

…on winging it

the bastard has some generous friends at the office.

and once in a great while some wild game falls into his lap.

sometimes it's just being in the right time and place for it too.

this time around, I had some pheasant I needed to get out of the freezer before it became a thing. which would then become a thing wasted.

and the bastard hates wasting things.

so when I found a recipe for pheasant banh mi in the "other" magazine's February issue I decide this was how the pheasant going to get done.

truth to tell it was more prep than cooking.


took some meats. don't get squeamish on me jerks. meaT isn't something that comes in a styrofoam container all the time.


added a jalapeño but I would have preferred a scotch bonnet.

zip zip zip. scare the crap out of the baby with the sheer screaming power of the food processor

make patties.

30 minutes at 300° and it's all good in the hood.

I also hooked up a sriacha mayonnaise to go with. 3-5 tablespoons to a half cuppa mayo.


and boom goes the dynamite. turns out that this bird while short on meat was the gift that kept on giving in the portion department.

on a side note, i've been keeping up with Sherman since the korilla truck day and I think I'm going to be picking his brain about food things asian with game. might be an inneretsing endeavor

the bastard is thinking about venison bulgoggi now. tah

—the bastard

there is a place in our fair city...

…where the bastard found himself a frikkin elk burger



yeah

that's right bitches!

while walking to dukes the other night the bastard came across an awning he had never seen which promised three things the bastard loves that aren't whiskey

burgers

shakes

beer

so he said to himself, "self, we will eat lunch there right fucking soon".

so in his sooner than expected fashion, the bastard came home too drunk to make lunch.

such is the style of drinking with the old hood.

so next day there he was reeding up a bacon cheeseburger with onion rings.

and then he heard the magical words

"what kind of meat do you want?"

"what?!?"

"what kind of meat do you want guy?"

overtaken by options of this magnitude was almost too much for my dukearita riddled head to handle

"whatcha got", hoping to hell human wasn't an option as I might have taken it

"beef, bison, lamb, ostrichch, turkey, elk…"

"that one"

"what?"

"that one. and a black and white shake", cause if you don't go big, go the hell home.


and it was glorious.

elk is a magical meat that doesn't taste like chicken.

it tastes like elk.

it's kind of like beef…

but not like beef…

and better.

it's the bastard's favoritest of all the meats.

that and caribou.

go out and get some. now. not later.

—the bastard

this just in…

while all you jerks slept…

Brooklyn has been running black ops on your asses.

duck and cover mother grabbas. duck and cover.

—the bastard

the bastard buys booze…tells you shit

ok.

the bastard is only gonna say this once.

there will be a quiz at the end.

whiskey makes the bastard frisky.

out in the dank ass dank that is the night before a rain storm,

the bastard goes out in search of a little tipple for himself. something for later on.

and with that I stop at the local purveyor of spirits and drop my coin on a bottle of rye.

on line before me, the woman buying her book club sized bottle of merlot.

barefoot brand; strictly 9.99 shit. strictly for getting drunk and bitching about your husband instead of discussing your thoughts on 'eat, pray, love'.

which may be one in the same, when you think about it in the context of today's male/female dynamic.

anyway, book club asks about the return policy at our fine establishment and he concurs with her thoughts that she can return a bottle if she doesn't like it.


happy with her jug of chateau par-tay, she saunters out.

and the man behind the counter says to his friend, "some people be coming back up in here with a half drunk bottle saying they didn't like it and ah has to be giving them they money back"

"word?!?"

"word up"

"that's ridiculous", the bastard pipes up, " if you're buying wine, you should know what you're buying by now."

"yeah?"

"yeah, I keep five wines in the back of my head when I go yo buy wine so I know damn well what I'm buying. and so should she know as well."

"word?!?"

"yeah. and even if you can't find that beaujolais, you know what the hell beaujolais tastes like. unless it sucks and then maybe you should ask after you money back, not bringing back a half drunk jug of crap."

"word up."

"straight jacket my man. straight jacket."

—the bastard

…on definition of terms part 2

waiting by elevator,

I hear the familiar clack kachunk the bastard hears when he's getting company for the ride downstairs.

my neighbor who curiously looks and sounds like delroy lindau greets me.

all ten feet of him in a parka.

"how you been", I ask

"alright," he responds. "you been out in this hawk?"

"yes indeed I have sir. the hawk is out today".

I thought the phrase , " the hawk is out" was only to be used by my uncle nemo or perhaps run dmc but delroy and I rock that phrase

cause it pays.

too bad it's going up to fiddy this week, I enjoy the cold. at least until I get sick of it.

—the bastard

…on basement lighting

I was tagged in a post on the book of face this afternoon by my colleague from art school.

I don't talk about art school as much anymore because when I do, people looked bored.

people i talk to at parties like to hrar about magazines and deer meat and how great it is to barely art direct killing stuff monthly.

no one gives a good god damn about sfumato,

or about arabesque,

or pendentives.

nah. no one gives a shit about how this painting was very indicative of the fall of man.

no one wants to hear about basement lighting and about Caravaggio.

but Leo did.

Leo was a broken man. born in the wrong time. hated art majors who came to class and a used tule at will.

you see Leo failed as a painter in his youth.

because no one gave a shit about sfumato in a time when Warhol was painting soup cans.

so he didn't teach so much as he seethed at you,

you young fucker.

you don't know shit.

and I'm going to make you know about it.

but once, for a week during the semester, he changed his tone, to speak about Caravaggio.

and during this segment of the course,  this angry man lit up in a way I never saw an educator come to life about a subject in 16 years of being in the educational system.

it changed me forever.

because he loved Caravaggio so much.

Leo is dead now so, I never got to thank him for bringing some light into the basement of my soul.

I miss talking about art school.

—the bastard

guess what?

the bastard still reads.


you on the other hand, still suck at life.

being a car thief ain't easy you know.

it's time consuming to steal shit and make it work for you.

so sometimes you gotta work with johnny law and buy things once in a great while.

it's like this. the bastard has been reading comics on my phone.

and the app I've been using to read them keeps crashing. so I've decided to stop reading jpg comics on my phone.

so I decided to pony up the 12.99 to read zero history by William Gibson.

I like gibson. his style of writing grabs me quickly and makes me care about what he's writing about. he caters to the futurist in me.

also, I try not to read anything my dad reads. and it's not that I don't share his interests. I just hate borrowing stuff. besides, the last time I borrowed a book from him, it decayed in my hands as I read it from 38 years of smoke damage.

that said, I won't tell you how the book ends ( get it?!?! BOOKENDS?!? ahhhhhh go to hell) the bastard just wanted to tell you bow much you suck.

—the bastard

this is why the bastard can't leave town

"there was a little accident today while you're at work", the wife began to explain, "and I have some bad news"

"okay, now let the other shoe drop"

"well… the baby got into the cabinet and she dropped the coffee press."

"ok"

"and it shattered into a million pieces"

"does the baby know that if I can't have coffee, that there is going to be fucking murders?"

"I'm not sure"

so a change of shirt and out the door I went. up to 3rd avenue to the Starbucks.

no dice.

up to park ave.

no dice

undaunted, the bastard walks to the Starbucks on 5th and boom.

paydirt

now let's dispense with the fact that I went to a major coffee chain to find a goddam press. up yours shiteyes, I'd have to walk clean across this crapstand to find a home goods store that I can buy a press at.

and let's dispense with the bastard's hoi paloi fashion of making coffee. hey guy, up yours.

your moms

that's right, I'm talking bout your moms.

the press takes up less space than any other coffee contraption and besides, there's this guy at my office who looks like fucking old fezziwig from a Christmas carol who has a coffee setup in his cube that look like a frikkin steampunk movie vomited in his cubicle. so someone else walks the earth with a greater sense of coffee snobbery than the bastard ever could.

but I digress.

I realize that I could never NOT live in a large city like this. the fact that I can walk 5 minutes from my doorstep to replace my coffee maker tells me that I cannot leave. that and the fact that the first time I tell cooter about his moms, he might stick a shotgun in my mouth.

did I mention that I was preventing fucking murders?

—the bastard

the keys to the kingdom

the bastard is out late tonight.

I had a delightful meal at the elder's hizzle and I also had to make a stop on the planet of brooklyn to accept a generous gift from the chairman.

this makes for a late ride home for a bastard and his wife was worried.

"what if some thing happens on the subway on the way home?"

"nothing'll happen"

"how do you know this?"

"simple, this isn't the 1970's, the south Bronx, or is it the south Bronx in the 1970's"

I relay this tale to the chairman and his retort is, "you just take a page from your brother (re: mofo). you play it crazy.

and that's the secret kids.

you feel the forces of evil closing in on you on the F train?

throw your hot beverage across the car and scream "OH MY Fucking SATan! there's cobras in my coffee!!!!"

"COBRAS!?!?!"

are you on a platform at 3 am with desperate characters? start doing the robot.

my favorite was the time I was in a McDonalds in new Hyde park and a kid who had been staring at his hamburger for 10 minutes screamed out that just remembered he was a vegetarian and he threw his food across the restaurant as he ran out.

well that kid may not have been playing but I suspect that he was.

always play it crazy and the most ne'er do well of the ne'er do wells will pass you by for the scared kid with the Vulcan science academy sweatshirt everytime.

—the bastard

…on cons…

…and comics


this just in.

there's a giant gundam in manhattan.



and little goth girls attacking giant monsters


and comics about ayn rand. yeah you guessed it jerks.

the bastard went to the comic convention. my friend, the builder, invited me to hang out at the show where I saw many things.

for one, too many adults are wearing headbands from naruto for my taste. and there were many disheveled super heroes to be found.

way too many of them.

and left hand rob was there.

and the tin man

and the scarecrow.

and alot of women in thigh highs and latex.

you see

I'm used to going to gun shows and the only people in costume there are wearing camouflage anyway.

so this was something new.

—the bastard

more things the bastard bought at a Japanese big box store

for your consideration…






…ultraman lemonade

the bastard bought this because it looked like a robot. the builder told me what it's contents were.

I will leave all urine related discussion about the contents of this can of lemonade to the mad Russian.

because it's a goddam gimme.

—the bastard

it is time…

…for stormy weather




and his has nothing to do with me gettng married in three weeks.

anyway, the bastard is on his way out for the weekly hump to get the car when he decides to check the weather and it says

IT'S GONNA RAIN, JERK!

that said,

I'm going back to my old high school tomorrow morning to proctor a graphic design test.

it really goes back to one of my bigger bitches about my education.

you see,

I never learned how to find a job in school,

and it really bugs me to this day while looking down from the fucking heap I stand on top of.

things may have been different if I knew.

maybe not.

who cares, you can't be living in the past or multiple realities for that matter.

but the bastard can change the future.

not for me but for some other jackass.

but more importantly, I scored a seat on an air conditioned F train and I'm fulla whiskey.

props to me.

—the bastard

this weak in anime

special smoke'em if you got 'em edition


reasons why i love watching the absurdly entertaining cobra the animation:

it's 20 minutes of a guy with a laser for an arm who can smoke cigars underwater.


and the rocket piranha (yes you heard it right...rocket piranha) smoke as well.

the theme music is as absurd as the theme to shaft.

—the bastard

the bastard saw something ridiculous today on the internets

and i haven't the faintest as to whether or not it's alot of trickery but it's inneresting at least

—the bastard

...on side projects

so, there has been a bit of a dearth of content these days.

the bastard and his not so merry band of magazine peeps were engaging in the yearly awfulness of producing the gun show daily.

sent the last of those pages this evening and with that poured out some whiskey to the crew with much thanks.

but what about the nighttime bastard?

you gettin lazy on us?

well young shiteyes, lemme tell you about my reoccuring ailment

robots.

yes robots are strong.

and when they get they claws on you, there's no breaking free.

I first started putting these things pictured in junior high school when a kid named Raymond hooked me on the otaku.

and I built until I discovered girls.

then I started again to divert myself from my inability to find work after college.

and now after the the bastard told the trustie about them and he got hooked.

so he bought me one for christmas.

excuse me.

the "holidays".

and it went so well, I think I might futz with it some more.

currently, the bastard has a munny from kid robot that my dear friend heavy metal acquired for me from the designer ( thanx so much h.m.)

and now the bastard gets to play with a new medium.

looking forward to it.

I'm never gettng this time back anyway.

—the bastard