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October 16, 2009
What Dressing Like a Fool Gets You in Melborne
It was pouring rain. I was dressed in a black fedora, silk vest, and a cartoonishly oversized red bow tie. My colleague Michael wanted to walk down the bustling Friday night streets of Melbourne to go and see a display of pyrotechnics outside the Crown Casino. He himself was dressed in a shimmering gold and red paisley vest with a pukey little bow tie. I sighed, wiped my brow and we set off down King Street toward the river.
I should explain: Michael and I were just leaving a burlesque masquerade party we found on the local event calendar. We were able to find a costume shop and rent ridiculous outfits. The party was wonderful. The people were great. We could sit on soft banquettes and watch the performances while enjoying cocktails, plates of food & great performances. The streets were wet and the people were drunk.
Only moments after we left three staggering kids said, "hang on, what have we got?" and I replied curtly, "party up the street."
"Yeeeeeeah," was the reply. "Yeah" is used to a great many effects here in Australia. This was not the friendly, "yeah, it's that way to the ocean" but an uncomfortable "yeeeeeeah try me fag and I'll punch you between the eyes" kind of yeah. I am sure it was the same "yeah" that Russle Crowe used before he used a telephone to rearrange the face of a hotel employee.
We needed a plan if we were going to make it to the Pyrotechnics without getting burned alive. From now on Michael—the only one of us wearing a ring—was getting married. Our cover story would be that we are on our way to his bachelor party.
Closer to the river we met a group of six men with shaved heads on the sidewalk. As we passed, a stream of homosexual epithets were ejaculated from their stupid gobs. "Hey faggot!" one of them angrily spurted. "What the fuck's wrong with you?" spunked another. They slowed their walking, turned around, and tried to force a confrontation.
We kept walking. I think my American accent put them off guard. I used our cover story, "he's getting married, man, we're on his way to his bachelor party!" and we were let by with only a few more angry and fearful remarks. These types of exchanges continued all the way until we reached the casino.
The Aussie men in Melbourne are homophobic to a ridiculous extent. From what we've heard from other North Americans who live here, this deeply rooted anger continues into a general fear of many things other. Indeed while we've been here we've seen South Indians get honked at as they cross the street and we've read the stories of the racially motivated youth gangs that pound at each other from the "brown" and "white" sides of the ethnographic line. It made our walks in bow ties nothing short of terrifying.
For as much as the men hated us, women loved us. We were stopped repeatedly. We were met with expressions of wonder and disbelief.
"What? really? I love your hat!" One girl peeled away from her boyfriend, uneasily weaved her way to us and reached out her hand in a gesture intended to determine if we were real of not. "I loooooove youse guys. Loooooove youse!"
We saw the pyrotechnics. They were beautiful. So was our unintentional social experiment.
Our stupid outfits and a little booze had stripped Melbourne naked. What we saw were anger filled, dangerous little boys—and the women willingly going out with them (pleasant though they were). We wonder what we would find if we repeated this experiment in our own locale: we might be unhappy with what we discover. However, I doubt it.
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October 1, 2009
The Great Weight Loss Competition of '09
Just when people are looking to put on weight and prepare for hibernation in Minnesota, I am looking to get fit and trim. Last weekend my friends Steve and Amy were in town. At their parent's house Steve's father, John, was lamenting his figure. He works in a remote office and he doesn't want to appear like he's been leading too easy of a life at the next all-company get together.
His wife, Nancy, thought he could use a little encouragement and so, seeing as how I could stand to loose at least 15 lbs., goaded us into a little friendly competition. The stakes?
For every pound we don't lose from our personal goal by the morning weigh-in on December 6th we have to pay the other person a prearranged amount:
John wants to loose 10 lbs. and he will pay me $30/lb. for every pound he does not lose.
I want to loose 15 lbs. and I will pay him $20/lb. for every pound I do not lose.
The competition began on September 27th. There are only 90 days between September 27th and December 6th. That's 1 lb. 2⅔ oz. per week or 2⅔ oz. of weight I must lose daily.
For encouragement and tracking tools I turned to Traineo. John and I have both setup profiles. You can track our progress:
- John's Traineo Profile: http://www.traineo.com/users/jshughes
- My Traineo Profile: http://www.traineo.com/users/jordanh
So far I've been able to demonstrate fairly consistent progress. I've eaten sensibly. I've made sure to do some physical activity each day. I'm down about 2.5 lbs. in 5 days. I do have some challenges ahead of me, however.
Next week I am headed to Australia for a technical conference. I'll be sitting on a plane for 15 hours each way. I'll be away from exercise equipment. To prepare, I've been doing "burpees." I did 3 sets of 10 on Sunday, my core muscles hurt for three days. It hurt like the dickens to laugh. I've been relatively humorless all week.
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June 7, 2009
Blast From the Past: Nerd Alert
Warning! Excessively excessive amounts of nerdiness ahead!
This photo is circa winter 1996. I was 16 years old. My brother and I were obsessed with Weird Al Yankovic, more so my brother. He single handedly drove my dad into seeking him out and working on a promotion for Sam Goody stores (later bought out by Best Buy).
This photo was taken backstage at a Weird Al show. This show has forever stuck out in my mind as the only show I've been to where the audience spontaneously started clapping on the down beats and it effected the band so negatively that Weird Al stopped the song in order to get the audience clapping on beats 2 & 4.
I honestly cannot tell who is more of an awkward nerd, me or Weird Al. Look at my glasses! Those shoes! That watch! How about the buttoned up top button of my shirt?
Do you think I really needed that regular Coke? I probably should have been drinking a diet. Perhaps even more shocking is that I am working at the same company—Digi—back then that I am now!
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April 19, 2009
Galcos Old World Grocery: Soda Pop Heaven
One of the beauties of visiting my father in Los Angeles is in between visits he discovers an assortment of things he would like to share with me. He knows I love beverages of all kinds. He knows I love kitschy Americana. This time he was very enthusiastic about bringing me to Galco's Old World Grocery (5702 York Blvd., Los Angeles, California 90042) in the Highland Park area of Los Angeles.
Galco's has a significant history. It began as an Italian market in Downtown L.A. nearly a century ago in what was then Little Italy and has now become Chinatown. The store has changed locations a few times before settling in its current location at the corner of York and Avenue 57 in Highland Park, 51 years ago.
Owner John Nese credits PepsiCo for helping transition the store from a traditional grocery into what it is today. PepsiCo wanted to buy a large portion of Galco's shelving space to be stocked exclusively with PepsiCo product. The PepsiCo sales representative told the grocer that if they did not sell PepsiCo the shelving space that other PepsiCo brands, such as FritoLay and Tropicana, would not be as easily available. To Nese it strongly stank of blackmail and sent the PepsiCo salesperson packing. Nese realized from that moment that he owned his shelf space and could do with it what he wanted. He decided to stock his selves with a variety of independent beverage products.
When you first enter Galco's you are confronted by the fact that Galco's looks like a run-down supermarket. What once must have been a super market inoculated with a few bottles of soda pop had gone terribly cancerous: there is now soda pop everywhere. Every shelf, every bit of available floor space. The only exceptions are an open freezer case filled with candy nostalgia and the back sections of the store which are devoted to independent brews of beer and Japanese sake. Don't let the dust deter you: Nese will tell you that soda in glass has a shelf life of two years. Plastic? Two months.
Galco's also makes sandwiches. Even the sandwiches carry a heavy air of nostalgia (sans the dust). My father told me the thing to order was "The Original, double meat." What you get is a hero sandwich stacked with cold cuts and pickles. Nese was quick to come over to our table to inform us that even their bread is different, "its not massed produced in pans but hearth baked; can you tell? The bread isn't chewy like pan baked bread."
The sandwiches are passable. They aren't exactly epicurean delights but they are not terrible either. Once you've been told you can tell that the bread is hearth baked. But cold cuts and pickles are cold cuts and pickles. It's hard to parade them around as an undiscovered cuisine. What we really came for was the soda.
I enjoyed a delicious Fentiman's Curiosity Cola. Curiosity Cola is surprisingly complex with strong notes of kola nut, cloves, and cinnamon. It's a grown up cola and completely delicious. It turned my Galco's meal into a banquet.
If you fall in love with a soda discovery at Galco's they have a shipping area that is ready to accommodate you. I found everybody at Galco's to be more than pleasant and helpful. Everybody was willing to thrown in their suggestions on what to try and recommended their personal favorites. If you ever had a soda pop history question, the owner was more than willing to spin you a tale.
I ended up leaving Galco's with two cases of soda and a collection of candies. I'm so happy the weather in LA has been good for running.
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March 27, 2009
Tweets from 27-Mar-2009
- Packing up for ESC in San Jose. I am getting excited to play with my doll house in front of people and to get payed for it. (14:28:19 Central Time from web)
- I now have the technology to collect my tweets on my blog. <yikes!> Will anybody care? (18:44:56 Central Time from web)
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February 27, 2009
Vintage Evan
Back in 2001 my brother Evan played in a talent show at his middle school. He was only 14. The name of the band was "Los Hombres." They played one song, "Purple Haze" by Hendrix. In addition to myself, my father, mother, mother's husband and I were there to cheer Evan on.
I remember before the performance seeing my brother surrounded by his friends. They were big, stinky wrestling fans. After the performance my brother was surrounded by cheering girls. So it is in rock 'n roll.
We had two Hi8 camcorders rolling at Minnetonka Middle School East that day. I remember being excited to try out my PC video capture equipment to cut this video together. Who would have guessed that it would be fodder for YouTube one day?
Enjoy!
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Snappy Stitch
My friend Jeremy launched his new eBusiness enterprise a few weeks ago. It is called Snappy Stitch. The company does embroidery digitizing. That is, you send them any piece of artwork and they turn it into a file that can be used to manufacture embroidered goods.
Jeremy knows what he is doing. It is an interesting business, I am sure he'll succeed!
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February 11, 2009
Dogg Party
I attended the Twin Cities Metro Dogg Party at the Nomad World Pub in Minneapolis. I had a nice time.
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February 9, 2009
Pomegranate and the Wheel of Reincarnation
Pomegranate flavored beverages and candies are to 2009 what blue razzberry foods were to 1989. Is this progress?
At least my mouth is not left dyed blue.
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February 2, 2009
Philosophia Americana
Topics of conversation between foreigners often lead to things held in common. One such commonality may be the difference in culture shared between them.
While I was in Amsterdam, I enjoyed talking to the Dutch. Several of the conversations I had led me to think about my own culture. Commonly, people told me that Americans were difficult to get to know. We are non-direct and put having a good time and maintaining harmony above substance. Very often, I was told, when talking to an American you get the feeling that there is something beyond the superficiality but you cannot ever quite break though.
I wanted to believe that what people were telling me was not true. I liked to think that I am not representative of these aspects of my culture. I would like to think that if I am an exception then there are many more American exceptions and the logic simply cannot hold. The prejudice must be false. I thought this way before I met the seminary students from St. Thomas.
When you take a flight from Amsterdam's Schiphol Airport to the US it is common to pass through two security screenings. The first is the standard check where you remove all the metal bits from your pockets and place your laptop in its own tray. The second is right at the gate of your flight where you go through this entire process again but then are interviewed individually by a security agent on who packed your bags, where you have come from, where you are going, and why. I like to think this is the Dutch way of helping travelers adjust to American culture before ever having to leave the Netherlands.
While I was standing in the line to get inspected I heard a very particular noise. It was a warble, like a Turkey's call but made of several high tones. But in the tones there were English words, and faked emotions. I am referring to the sound produced by American college undergraduate girls and I was surrounded by twenty or thirty of them.
I was curious why there were so many and so I asked the girl standing in front of me—a medium height, dumpy, thin-lipped thing with a chicken's eyes. She said, "umm, we are, like, on our J-Term trip."
Naïve me asked, "what is 'J-Term?'"
Frustrated at my appalling lack of knowledge of compounded acronyms she rolled her eyes at me and said, "January term. We are seminary students, from St. Thomas. We just spent a month in Rome." She said Rome to me in a way that suggested that it was a Rome that would be impossible for me to ever visit because I was so creepy. Creepy and stupid.
By now, her friends had turned around to see who this "weirdo" was that was obviously trying to "pick up" on their thin-lipped chicken-eyed friend. I asked some small talk questions and received many, "umm...yeah" responses in reply. That is when I decided to try and reach for the stars.
"I have been in a few discussions recently about how Americans don't really have concrete opinions on matters and how we don't like to volunteer our true thoughts or express ourselves philosophically, but you are seminary students right?" I continued, "can you tell me one experience from your trip to Rome that profoundly changed your thinking about the world or your religion or your philosophy?"
I was met with blank stares. I continued, "it doesn't have to be related directly to the church or something liturgical, how about something from Italian culture?"
The thin-lipped alpha chicken gave a mocked expression of pain which receded to counterfeit exhaustion. "Umm, look, we umm, just had our final on this stuff yesterday? So, like, we don't want to talk about it again right now, kay?" And then she turned away from me, standing proud at the shoulders that she had saved herself and all her friends from the painful act of thinking or sharing meaningful words with another human being.
Were my European acquaintances correct? Are Americans hard to get to know? Do we not have critical, well reasoned thoughts to share with others? No. I do not believe it is true all the time. Spending months abroad have taught me that every country has its people who when looked in the eye stare back with the same empty look as a fish on ice or thin-lipped chicken. The difference may be that many more of our American fish and chicken people have airline tickets and J-Terms to spend with their classmates in Rome.
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