If you’re thinking “mmmm, slam that in my gob”- you’d be right
Wanted to take a moment out of our busy, work-a-day lives (read out of my night watching old eps of the OC) to let you in on the secret of an occasional treat I partake in, one that made me so happy on the weekend I literally had a little skip in my step.
Ok. Here it is. Get ready. Cue Space Odyssey drums.
Custard,
just wait for it ..waaaaaiiiit..
.. .. and rice bubbles*
(Bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum buuuuuummm)
Together. In a bowl. With a spoon (the two latter ingredients are really a matter of taste and convenience, obviously. It’s the primary, more edible ones I want to focus on). Yeah.
I know what you’re thinking, and what I will suggest is this: sit your tiny inner sceptic down, or take your large inner sceptic for a nice walk to the shops or whatever and patiently explain to him/her that new experiences are beneficial in various sort of lifty spirits, puppy in an old folks home kind of ways and furthermore custard is inherently lovely and so a snappy, crackly and poppy version of this wonderful goopy yellowness is surely just abundantly more of a good thing.
Thank me later.
*I actually used Home Brands Rice Pops, for my nocturnal delight on Saturday. You’ll find that imitations actually do still manage to provide the same audio pleasantries we’ve come to expect from our cereal.
While a lot of the TV I watched when I was younger has become part of the fuzzy clothes dryer of my brain, half remembered bits of twins? something about destiny? something about medallions? and gold? all flying around together and moulding into an indistinguishable mass, some has stuck in there, clear as day. I can still remember Penny in her green pants and sturdy sneakers opening her computer book (computer book! I KNOW, right?!) and Vanilla Icing the hell out of Inspector G’s problems, I remember wanting to date Michealangelo SO HARD (though now I’m more into Raphael, I feel like he gets me) and having no small amount of envy for April O’neills yellow jumpsuit. Oh man. She was the straight up– COOLEST.
I also remember digging on Sesame street, something that hasn’t changed a lot.
I always loved the street more than the school (it seems to be one or the other, a sort of Home and Away v Neighbors polemic). Playschool was adults talking to kids, taking time out of their busy days to condescend to me, whereas Sesame Street was friends (my friends, the crazy ass monsters) talking to friends.
I don’t remember if there was a character I resonated with more than any other, I just remember enjoying the hell out of it. And the ladybug picnic. As I have grown older, someone stuck with me, grew sharper and more focussed through the haze of my childhood and has taken his place as my favorite from the street.
I have a crush on Bert. My mono-browed, skivvy wearing hero. Sure he’s oft overshadowed by his more fun, more imaginative, more easy going bud Ernie, but in Bert I’ve sensed something worth noticing, worth celebrating. When I picked up the above issue of T-WORLD magazine I realized what it was that kept me coming back** to an oval-nosed paper clip obsessed freak.
There was this article celebrating Sesame Street and they got several different artists to create original designs based on their favorite characters. The one that did Berts wrote that Bert was the guy that told us it was ok to not be the life of the party.
YES.
Everyone knows that Ernie is more likeable. He is fun and silly and innocent and joyful where Bert is dour, boring, practical and snappy. But everyone also knows you can’t always be Ernie. Sometimes you need to be practical. Sometimes you’re sleepy. Sometimes your room mate is talking to an invisible person on a banana and it plain shits you off.
What is wonderful about this skinny little man-puppet (aside from his love of pigeons, which is something we have in common) is that he offers an alternative to the go go go crowd pleasing of the other residents and permissions kids (and 28 yr olds) to be proud of their face eatingly boring habits, eg bottle cap collecting, their lack of constant childlike joy and their visionary dance moves (pigeon dance anyone?).
There is nothing wrong and in fact a lot that’s right with being an Ernie. I’m not going to knock that kind of lifestyle (tee hee). But I’m voting team Bert, because skivvies are sometimes a practical and stylish wardrobe choice.
*Nothing depreciating or untoward should be read into the title as far as my actual brother goes, he is great and fun and helped foster an understanding of the brilliance of S Street and all other Jim Henson associated media.
**and seriously, coming back cos once when I was travelling I left my Bert doll in Gimmelwald, this town on the side of a mountain in Switzerland. And I took a cable car, a bus and a boat across the country before realising. So then I took a train, a bus and a cable car back to fetch him. No one gets left behind. I’m oddly sentimental about things.
There is, friends, a great and a glorious thing that exists among us. Humble, unassuming, taken daily for granted, but beautiful beyond reason. The very face of God staring at you from your Royal Doulton dinnerware.
ham & cheese on multigrain– elegant in its simplicity, no?
The sandwich, man. Can’t. Go. Wrong. What, I ask could be better at being a meal in your hand? The Sandwich. Splendid, mighty, piquant.
The Widow Maker (ie tomato, cheese, avocado & cucumber. not for feint of heart.)
If you can’t grasp the lofty concepts I’m tossing about like so much baby spinach, allow me to break it down for you.
Sandwiches are one of the better things that exist in the world.
They save my life and they do this by being totally awesome and also edible. I suspect that there may be some who are still unconvinced of the vast and boundless magnificence of the sandy, and for those, I will now drop some knowledge.
double decker PB&J (no I am not an American, I am however a fan of the acronym and potentially lethal sandwich filings).
Why sandwiches kick other things asses:
1. It’s everything you need, and it’s all together in bread, that’s why.
2. It’s the food of the working class. No piss-farting around with knives and forks and all the other bullshit the bourgeois wants us to think is necessary and impressive. You just pick it up and you jam that sucker in your face.
smiley face fritz & salad on white –note the controversial “horizontal cut”
3. The sandwich is the single most impressive invention of the modern age. What’s that? Penicillin? Oh, oh, the printing press?
You can put anything you want between two slices of bread and eat it for your lunch.
Boom.
I love it when I see a band playing together and they really are playing, you know, with their instruments and each other and the crowd and music and life and I want to join in so much it hurts a little.
It’s like living next to Charlie Browns teacher when she’s older and more boring and has embraced the megaphone.
I remember when I was younger (and by younger I mean a couple of years ago) and I still believed in magic (and by when I still believed in magic I mean of course I believe in magic I’m wishing for a unicorn so I can make a wish on its horn for a fairy), I used to crave Narnia. This severe, almost tangible longing for a land of magic and beauty and heroes and ADVENTURE would rise up, usually when peering into the dark realms of a wardrobe, or catching sight of a fir tree or you know, anything else.
I knew that it wouldn’t happen (because one of my faults is the ability to produce logic in situations where it is not desired) but I would want it SO. HARD. Wish just for a moment, a long moment where I wasn’t quite ready to exhale that I was wrong. That small but weighty belief that surely if you squink your eyes shut a little tighter, reality will be replaced by lovely, purpley wonder and you’ll be the one, you’ll be the kid who gets an adventure.
Sigh.
While sweeping my house just now, a similar longing popped out of the secret garden of whimsical and stupid desires that will never be realised and said “Look at me! I’m freaking glorious!”. This time it was the often unacknowledged but always present wish that life could just once, JUST ONCE be a music video.
(OHMYWORDHOWGOODWOULDTHATBE)
And you know what? How hard can it be? It’s not like I’m asking for an alternate world full of talking beavers and scary-ass ranga queens any more, I can still be sweeping my kitchen, just then we all take turns singing and have better lighting and are intrinsically cool and detached and stuff. And always know the lyrics.
… Sigh.
It’s been a no good day. You sit, your arms resting on the bar, hands resting on an empty glass. It’s late. The barman walks past and you push the glass toward him with a nod.
“Not your night?” He says in a voice that says he doesn’t care as he pours.
“Nope.”
You take the glass without meeting his eyes and he moves to your right and says “what’llitbe” to shape slumped over the bar next to you. You barely register what the shape says in return. Something about the voice, though…
In a couple of drinks time you know for your own sake you should hit the road. As you turn away from the bar you look around you and notice the lump to your right is still there. It moves and a head lifts, bringing with it the smell of bourbon. Large white eyes blink and focus, blue, matted fur sticks up at odd angles. He sees you.
“bruuh..” it wobbles on its stool “uh.. hu..heyyous.. Iknow you…” the voice is cracked and raspy but still familiar, still the same. A shock runs through your body. You never thought you’d see him again.
“Oh. Hi.” You respond, looking at your feet.
He seems to suddenly be aware of his appearance, looks down at himself, his paws self consciously touching his head and chest.
“I.. you werend meand to see thish..” he begins, staring fixedly at a bottle behind the bar, but still swaying on his seat. He opens his mouth to say more but you cut him off.
“Yeah. Don’t worry about it. It’s late.” As you stand he touches your arm and says “wait.. please”
“What?” you ask, your voice colder than you first intended.
“Jusht.. jusht give me a second.” He looks up at you, squinting as he tries to focus.
“I need… Oh man… I need to tell you… to exshplain”
He belches and the stench is enough to make your eyes water.
“You need to take a shower, that’s what you need.” You try to leave again but he holds your arm tighter.
“But.. buddiiwash.. I wasshh.. and we were.. You ushed to love me…” at this statement he seems to slide into a sort of reverie and his paw slips from your sleeve. His eyes half close and his head nods forward. You shake your arm completely free, turn and begin walking toward the door, disgust on your face.
Suddenly he’s at your side, grabbing your jacket, looking into your face, his huge mouth contorted, pleading.
“Please. Please. Tell me what I can do.. Please!”
Mildly panicked, you try to pull free but he’s holding fast and the barman is nowhere in sight.
“There’s– There’s nothing you can do.. you’ve got to let me go.”
“But.. you.. you weren’t meant to see this. And (hic)now you hate me.”
Fury suddenly rises within you and you smack his blue fingers off of your lapels.
“Now? NOW I hate you? Are you kidding me?! I did worship you, man. I did. I WORSHIPPED YOU. And you…”
He looks bewildered and hurt at your shouting but you can’t stop yourself.
“I trusted you. And you betrayed me!!”
“Please, stop. I’ll do anything.. don’t-“ he is crying now, huddled beneath you as you stare down at him in contempt.
You start to walk towards the door again, but the years you’ve wondered and cried and missed him and hated him for that all rise up in you and make you turn back before reaching it and scream across the empty bar at the small blue mess now propped against a table.
“Cookies are a SOMETIMES food?!”
You shake your head, your confusion and anger blurring your vision.
“What the hell happened to you?”
He is looking at you with horror in his eyes and one paw over his mouth. With a broken sob he crumples to the floor, emptied.
You stand, breathing fast, then you wipe your eyes and pull your jacket tighter around you as head out into the night.
You are shaking your head as you walk away from the bar. At the end of the block you pass four shapes that are oddly familiar and pause and let your eyes follow them as they hesitate at the doorway to the bar. One of them looks back at you and slowly lifts a three fingered hand to wave. Turtles.
Definitely a no good night.
I was having a little Facebook tete a tete earlier, via the comments section on a link a friend of mine posted. Apparently the video, an allegedly hilarious clip of Cowboy Hiphop as yet unwatched by me, has been removed from YouTube because of a violation of its use… or some such . Anyhoo, a friend of the original poster commented that he had seen the video briefly on Glee before violently throwing up and passing out, a response to his obvious hatred for the show. I wrote that I was bummed that not only had I missed the original video, but an episode of Glee too to which he replied (in a sort of companionable tone, one show choir hater to another) that Glee is the worst thing in the world. At this point I had to confess to him, and also to anyone who is reading this, that I was in fact, serious.
I love Glee.
There. I’ve said it. And actually I’m completely unashamed. It’s fun and light and involves singing and dancing, which I love (except when involving children under 12 as that is only creepy and uncomfortable) and it doesn’t take itself too seriously and I am ridiculously entertained by it.
Now, the crowd I run with (side bar to state that I don’t run, am not a character in The Outsiders and am not sure at all why I chose that phrase) are often a little bit cool. They’d deny it, say surely I’m talking about someone else, but they know deep down, that a lot of their opinions and tastes are the “right” ones to have. They hate Muse now that they’re doing songs for the Twilight soundtracks, they love Arrested Development and use text lingo ironically. I say all this not to make fun of them, I share a lot of their loves and their disloves, but to point out the kind of people I’d be offending if I came out as a Glee fan. As it happens I don’t actually care and most of them are interstate which means the subject doesn’t come up much, but if it did I’m sure I’d get some heads shaking. That’s just the way I roll. I’m a maverick.
More things I shouldn’t love but do:
Kevin Costner
Romantic Comedies
Possibly Beyonce, although she hovers over acceptable sometimes. So hard to tell.
Vampire related books, movies and TV shows
Kevin Costners Field of Dreams
Friends, the show not the people, although of course I love that kind too.
Rod Stewart
John Denver
Guy Sebastions Like it Like That
Some R’n’B
Cougartown
Some Hip Hop
Kevin Costners Waterworld
And I could continue. I used to say (as recently as last week) that I’m allowed to like some shit because I like so much good stuff, but it’s more accurate to say who the hell cares.
When it comes to film and television I’m supposed to like Seinfeld and hate the Vampire Diaries. I’m supposed to love the indie music, except when it gets too popular, and hate the Miley (I do, hate her, by the way..). I’m supposed to roll my eyes at misspelled text messages and if I’m really good, I’m supposed to forsake Facebook all together because of its obvious affiliation with all that is naff and its clearly pro-Stephanie Meyer leanings.
I don’t do all that very well. And this post is actually a good reminder to myself to quit once and for all taking social currency so seriously. Liking shit along with the not-shit keeps me in fun pretty much constantly. It is almost inconceivable how easily entertained I am, and I wouldn’t have it any other way. Cool means too much work, not enough show choir.
I will now leave my blog alone for two weeks while it’s marked. I’m sure my loyal readers (read brother and his friend) will be grieving my loss (read may not notice) from the stuff-writing-down world, so I wanted to reassure the inteweb as a whole that I will be back because no one else listens to me.
Have a fabulous fortnight.
Spotty bottle… Spottle!!
Hey. Hey everyone. Come see my new water bottle. It’s all metal and cool and means I don’t ruin le environment with my constant water bottles made of plastic buying anymore. Yeah. Note that it’s sitting on this awesome sheet of vintage paper that I found on the sidewalk in Coburg.
