Brown Paper Tickets

I bought some concert tickets today for Aimee Mann and Girl Talk, and naturally got totally screwed in the process. When I tried to buy a third set of tickets, for Ratatat’s upcoming show in Portland, I was rebuffed because it was sold out, but discovered Brown Bag Tickets, a “not-just-for-profit” third-party ticket seller. Service charges are $0.99 and 2.5%, and apparently the company’s profile is growing. Small venues of America, take heed!

Box Wine: Increasingly Less Trashy

Until I can afford a case of Château Haut-Brion to call my very own, I’m not afraid to spend my drinking budget on wine that’s (a) cheap yet (b) not crappy. And by the way, “cheap” means less than $15, but more often, less than $10. Enter what’s apparently supposed to be the next trend for green hipsters, if it’s not already: boxed wine. Or, for marketing purposes, “alternatively-packaged wine.” The companies that make this stuff definitely have their work cut out for them in terms of advertising—-they’ll have to come up with tag lines catchier than “Boxed wine: No longer just for your drunk Aunt Fran!” Or: “Seriously, we’re not like Franzia. Seriously.”

Tonight I tried out Three Thieves’ “Bandit” line of wines, which is packaged in 100% recyclable materials. They’re actually pretty cute: they remind me of the boxes of juice that people buy at the supermarket in France:

They retail for $9, but I found them on sale for $7 at the grocery store. For a true cheapskate, they’re brilliant, because you get the equivalent of a bottle-and-a-third of regular wine (these boxes are 1 liter). I tried the cab sauvignon, under the theory that you’re much more likely to have terrible cheap white wine than terrible cheap red wine.

The verdict is that it’s not great, but it’s not terrible. Too oaky for my tastes, and it just doesn’t really taste like that much at all. All those adjectives on my tasting notes cheat sheet (robust…balanced…licorice-y, and so on) don’t really apply. It’s just…red wine. For the price, I’d sooner upgrade to a cheap Chilean cab and maintain my dignity.

But, much like the screw cap was introduced to the low-to-mid-range wine consumer gradually, maybe boxed wine just needs some time to figure out its place in the market. Interestingly, this article from 2006 says that the cost of making a glass wine bottle has jumped because the cost of natural gas, which is used to make said bottles, has risen precipitously. Like insisting upon corks for all bottles of wine, insisting on glass bottling for all wine—from rotgut jug wine to $500 a bottle Burgundies—isn’t practical or sustainable. Here’s hoping that what’s inside the box improves, and that established winemakers get on board sooner rather than later.

Trafficking in Stereotypes

So the whole pedestrian v. cyclist v. driver beef is getting really ugly. Who knows how it all started—maybe there’s some cabal of evil urban planners that I’m not aware of?—but truly, the hate has got to stop. It is too easy to pick your team, feel morally superior and/or smug in your choice, and then rail on the members of the other two teams for breaking all the laws all the time and generally being total jerks. There is a tendency among us all to deal with people on other teams in spectacularly bad faith.

I’ll even admit it. I’m Team Pedestrian, all the way baby, and have been for the past 7 years or so, ever since I went to college and then proceeded to live in a series of cities where cars were optional [ably aided by Committees Bus and Subway, respectively]. I have been nearly hit or clipped by more cars and bikes than I care to remember right now, and yes, in the past, I have been justifiably pissed off about it. I have yelled at drivers who honk their horns for full minutes at intersections just to encourage the person in front of them to make a left turn more quickly. I have also yelled at cyclists who run through red lights as I’m crossing the intersection (though, to be fair, they usually go too fast for my hollers to do much). Since I have no cage of steel and/or helmet protecting me and my (precious) person, I figured that I’d earned the right to complain about the other two teams as much as possible.

Then one weekend my cousin C. visited Boston, and he extended an olive branch from Team Cyclist (he’s from San Francisco, by the way, which is apparently not as bike-friendly as it’s reputed to be). Let’s work together, he said, and start calling out members of our own teams when they screw up and endanger public safety. I agree. For starters, pedestrians have got to quit with the jaywalking. Seriously. Jaywalking is a huge pet peeve of mine, not only because it endangers pedestrians, but because it endangers everyone on the road, and slows down the efficient flow of traffic. The stop lights are there, intriguingly enough, for a good reason. And I can’t stand it when others impose their negative externalities on me. So I say to my people, my fellow pedestrians: Cut that shit out.

But this goes for the other teams too. Cyclists, when you see someone riding on the sidewalk (according to Tom, this is legal in D.C., but I know in many other cities it’s not), or whizzing through a light or stop sign, yell at them. I know, I know, not that constructive, but until there’s a way to report violations consistently—or, failing that, get more cops paying attention to how pedestrians and cyclists behave on the road, we’ll start with yelling as a means of raising awareness. And yeah, keep reporting those bike-lane-violating automobile sons of bitches. For their part, cars need to respect bike lanes and the boundaries of intersections so that people can cross safely, and just generally slow down in crowded mixed-use areas.

And we should starting taking each other on good faith. Tom and Matt and other cyclists don’t ride their bikes to work to annoy the crap out of pedestrians like me—they do it to save on gas! And get some exercise! And good for them! I don’t take the bus to work because I just love being squeezed in with a bunch of maladjusted townies–it’s just my cheapest option! Same thing for people who drive–presumably, they’ve done the cost-benefit analysis on their options.

So, here we go. Let’s start the healing. Maybe gin up some neighborhood groups to constructively address these issues. Tell city hall they need to shift some of their meter maids over to enforcing road laws. (I know, I know, I’m not supposed to say “meter maid” anymore).

And failing that, move to Portland, where everyone gets along in perfect harmony, and there are bike lanes as far as the eye can see.

Feed the Mash-Up Artists

I’m contractually obligated to be the 18th blogger to recommend that you go and download Girl Talk’s latest album, Feed the Animals, for however much (or little) you wish to pay. With a sample size of n=4, it seems that Gregg Gillis’ skills improve exponentially with each album. (Secret Diary was all but unlistenable). Although I continue to wonder why Gillis seems obsessed with focusing so many of his tracks on the raunchier and more appallingly sexist hip hop songs out there.

Spin Cycle

Not including college or my parents’ house(s), I’ve lived in five—now six—different houses and apartments, with a total of eight roommates and one self-proclaimed cougar landlord who dropped by so often she might as well have lived there. Some of these roommates have been non-rent-paying alcoholics; others had borderline eating disorders and tendencies toward passive-aggressiveness. There was an angry Australian in there too. A cat. A dog named Henry. Stoners in the basement apartment. Mice. A kitchen that was gutted halfway into my six-month lease, leaving me to subsist on meals that didn’t require any cooking at all (note: mostly baguettes and cheese and fruit). The apartment I stayed in while in Paris, like most French apartments, had only one toilet for the whole place, yet I had my own separate bathroom with a shower and sink. Some places had walk-in closets; others had little nooks where I had to cram an entire wardrobe’s worth of clothes. Did I mention the cougar landlord and the angry Australian?

But I’ve always lived in a place with a washer and dryer in close proximity, which is to say no farther away than a flight of stairs. My sublet right now doesn’t, which means I’m now trekking to the local laundromat 2 blocks away to maintain my participation in America’s proud tradition of wearing something once and then washing it. But this is good! There’s wireless, and there’s a Cuban bar/restaurant next door, so soon I’ll start timing my laundry trips to their happy hour. There’s coffee shops a hop down the block too. I’ll have to get stuff done, and read, and think closely about what exactly makes a garment “dirty,” given that to wash a load is $2. Yes, this is great.

Nouveau

I’m not going to be one of those bloggers who apologizes for not blogging, but I’ll be damned if I set this blog out to pasture less than a month after its phoenix-like return. So consider this a placeholder while I get my mind right. And by “get my mind right,” of course I mean continue adjusting to a new job, a new city, a new schedule, a new apartment, and a new cat.

The Tyranny of Kansas

Three days, eight states, and 2100 miles later, I’ve arrived in Portland. Of all the long-haul drives I’ve made, solo or with a companion, this was by far the worst. By the end I was so exhausted and disoriented that I was nearly hallucinating, and that takes into account that I got 8 hours of sleep each night along the way.

In a nutshell, all was fine and dandy, if kind of flat and ugly, until I hit Kansas. Kansas is also flat and ugly, but, more importantly, a magnet for tornados. Driving west on I-70, I got trapped in a massive storm, complete with rain, thunder, lightning, hail, and yes, a tornado. Once I started hydroplaning on the highway, I decided it was time to take an exit and wait the thing out. The tornado apparently started around the area that I was in, but had quickly moved south-east by the time I’d gotten to the truck stop. Not that it wasn’t a blast to hang out in a rural Kansan gas station for two hours. For example, I got to look at a bunch of high-quality crap, like this little figurine, a hippie weiner dog:

What’s the matter with Kansas, indeed. After a good long while, I decided that since the storm had moved east, and I was headed west, it was alright to proceed. Almost immediately after I got on the road, a rainbow appeared. But I am not Judy Garland, and I have no Auntie Em, so I was not placated. And then, about an hour later, the Lords of Kansas threw another something something my way, as if to see, “See? We sorry. We messed up your record-setting time. Our bad.”

Stunningly beautiful and yet I was not moved. I ended up in Quinter, KS, for the night. Population: 961. Culinary establishments: DQ. Night winds: Howling, fierce. Likelihood of a Clutter-like murder: Probably quite high. There I learned that the age of the $29.99 motel room is done and gone. Minimum $40 for a single room, even at the shadiest of establishments. I have a simple system, however, for choosing a cheap motel based on highway billboards. If it has any of the following, it’s too expensive: HBO, free wireless Internet, a pool, a hot tub, a playground for the kids, free breakfast, free coffee, meeting rooms, ample parking, a corporate headquarters, and more than one story. Pretty simple, really.

The second day was much less eventful, despite heavy winds throughout Wyoming. I ended up in Evanston, Wyoming for the night, and paid a little bit more for my motel because I needed a place whose TVs offered Bravo, to see the finale of Top Chef.

The third and last day saw me in four states: Wyoming, Utah, Idaho, and Oregon. Utah is strikingly beautiful, although the highways in and around Salt Lake City are seemingly more complicated and stressful than they need to be. Idaho’s Idaho, it had lots of cows and crops. Eastern Oregon is fairly uninteresting, and my only real adventure there was a frantic stop in La Grande, a disgustingly picturesque little town, to raid their Wal-Mart for a cell phone charger, since I hadn’t bothered to remember where I’d packed mine. It incenses me that I had to ask three people for directions to the Wal-Mart, especially given that the town is nothing more than a Main Street. The Mart, it turns out, was in a neighboring town a few miles down the road, and the major stumbling block that hampered my understanding of these yokels’ helpful directions was in the concept of a “four-way stop.” A good hour was wasted on this necessary detour, and I was so tired and frustrated that I teared up in the Wal-Mart parking lot. This, this is humiliation.

All of that melted away once I hit the Dalles river and finished up my drive into Portland by winding along beautiful cliffs overlooking the river, past Multnomah Falls. I didn’t take any pictures, not that they would have done the scene any justice. This stretch of I-84 wasn’t just the highlight of this drive, but one of the most fetching places in the U.S. I’ve ever seen, period. It’s the poor man’s Highway 1

Into Portland, into the Lompoc for post-psychosis microbrews. My new (temporary) neighborhood is great, the weather is sunny and crisp, and I have a feeling everything’s going to be okay:

And with that, ladies and gentlemen, I’m never driving again. Plan accordingly.

Odds and Ends, 1(1)

“Paragraphs”—OVERRATED.

• Tomorrow I drive from Dallas to Portland, in a car, by myself. I think I’ve prepared for this road trip less than might be recommended. In fact, here is my preparation, in its entirety. With no tape deck, I can’t listen to my iPod through the car’s speakers, which means I’ll be relying on a small set of old CDs that I managed to rummage out of my closet. And NPR and talk radio, because Dr. Laura is the guiltiest of guilty pleasures. I’ve got the Willie Nelson box set, which should last me through Kansas.
• Though I’ve got nothing against self-check out stations at the grocery store in principle, it seems patently clear to me that the ones currently in use aren’t ready for prime time.
• Speaking of the Diet Dr. Pepper I bought for the road (when in Texas…), I ran across a great article about a small underground movement of Dr. Pepper bootleggers. They bootleg the real cane sugar kind, natch. And people ask me why I’m so proud to be a Texan.
• I saw Langhorne Slim the other night, and he wasn’t that bad. Of course, he wasn’t that good, either.
• I just found out about the Pemberton Festival in Canada in July, which is apparently set against a backdrop of beautiful mountains. While the prospect of a 14-hour roundtrip drive and a $150 ticket to see The Flaming Lips and Mates of State is tempting (really), ultimately I decided to defer.
• Currently reading and recommending.

$39.95/night motels generally don’t have wireless. Once I get to Portland, I’ll be back here again.

11 Things I Don’t Hate About Boston

As I sit in Logan Airport waiting for my final flight out of Boston, I find myself becoming slightly sentimental about this town (this too shall pass). So here are my picks on what I liked. Screw Fodor’s, this is the only travel guide you’ll ever need if you find yourself in Boston. Consider this the best of the worst—the places that bumped Boston up from “miserable” to “tolerable” on my Urban Liveability Rubric. No particular order.

1. Jamaica Pond. I spent more hours in and around Jamaica Pond than any other place but school and my apartment, because it is beautiful, sprawling, uncrowded, and full of ponds and trails and babies in strollers. Also dogs. Not that Jamaica Plain is a neighborhood that’s high on most tourists’ lists, owing to its relatively inaccessible location, but I lived right nearby and never got tired of a good 4-mile walk (and a 1-hour nap on one of the big sprawling fields). Maybe this is one for the locals. That’s okay.
2. Bukowski’s. I think bars that offer 100 beers on their drink menu are kind of overrated, the alcoholic equivalent of the Cheesecake Factory. Bukowski’s makes up for it with its greasy food, indifferent service, and liberal servings of Johnny Cash.
3. (tie) The Middle East and T.T. the Bear’s Place. Boston/Cambridge have a lot of music venues, but these two are the standard-bearers. The Middle East is larger, while T.T.’s capacity rivals that of my living room, but their booking guys know what they’re doing. Personally, I don’t love the Middle East as a venue—everytime I’m there, I’m convinced that the ceiling will collapse in a horrible follow-up incident to the Station fire. The anxiety is well worth it, though, considering some of the shows I’ve seen there over the years, from the Murder City Devils to the Mountain Goats. And other bands that don’t start with “M”.
4. Cocktails. Jim Koch‘s plaintive cries notwithstanding, I don’t consider Boston that great of a beer city. Everything is Sam Adams and Harpoon and variations on the two. But it’s great for cocktails, and I found myself much more willing to shell out $11 for a drink at a number of bars in Boston/Cambridge than I’d ever be in D.C. See: Sonsie, Noir, Temple Bar.
5. The Coolidge Corner Theater. While not the first art-deco indie movie theater that I’ve fallen in love with, the Coolidge was always running something I wanted to see. More importantly, its midnite movies and music video sing-a-longs were masterful. To pay $10 and sing along to Whitney Houston/Madonna/Joan Jett vids (for “Ladies of the 80s” night) or MC Hammer/Dre/LL Cool J (for “Jiggy Crunk” night) was a beautiful thing, even if I got tossed out of the contest to remember the lyrics to the Fresh Prince theme song relatively early.
6. Zaftig’s. At first I thought it was insulting to be asked to wait an hour for Saturday brunch. Then I realized it was a test to weed out the weak-hearted. Zaftig’s will make you fat and happy.
7. Troquet. If you’re going to stare at a $40 price point and not back down, might as well do it at a restaurant where you can actually get a reservation (ahem, ahem). In this life, there are worse things than dining on an entree of bacon-wrapped Vermont rabbit sous-vide. Skip dessert and do a face-plant into the restaurant’s cheese dolly, with a glass of Sauternes on the side.
8. The Isabella Stewart Gardner museum. The building is beautiful, its interior courtyard stunning, the collection interesting. The real reason to come take the tour here is that you get to learn all about Gardner and what a dynamite broad she was. “This is my art, bitches, and you’re not allowed to move it or remove it or change a damn thing about this collection.” Well, she said something along those lines in her will, anyway.
9. The Institute of Contemporary Art. The ICA has been open for a year and I am ashamed that I hadn’t gone there until just this weekend, my last in town. It is unreal. The space overlooks the Boston Harbor, so you get to admire not only the exhibits, but pulverized jellyfish as well. If you’re going to be in Boston soon, I’m afraid I’m going to have to require you to go immediately to the ICA, especially to see this. Just go.
10. The Hall of Minerals at the Harvard Museum of Natural History. Granted, the Glass Flowers exhibit is a must-see. But on your way there, you pass through this big room of rocks and minerals and other natural sparkly things.
11. Charlie’s Kitchen. Saved the best for last. Charlie’s was my favorite hangout in Cambridge, conveniently located across the street from KSG for post-class IPAs and waffle fries. The burgers suck, the lobster rolls are a little too cheap for comfort, and you’re equally likely to hear Otis Redding and the Slits on the jukebox. Ignore the HBS kids and talk to the neighborhood folk at the bar (see how I didn’t say “townies” there? See?) Sit upstairs, in one of the tattered red booths, and talk about your messed-up friends, all the work you’re not doing right now, and the pain of being in law school. Come early, come often—Charlie’s is where everything’s going to be okay.

Half-Assed Hints from Heloise

If you didn’t grow up reading the “Hints from Heloise” column in your local newspaper, you are poorer for it. But I’m not quite at that age where I necessarily need to have 183 household uses for ordinary vinegar on instant recall.

What I do need is a book of tips for young women like me, those who discover a run in the black patterned tights that they’re wearing, and can’t find any clear nail polish to dab on it, and then substitute a dab of lash glue instead, but then realize that lash glue is decidedly not clear but rather looks like White-Out when applied, and fixes that by drawing over it with a black Magic Marker.

Not that, you know, that happened to me, or anything. Just a hypothetical.