Fish out of water

Wife's in Vegas at a bachelorette party (oy). So, I was over at some friend's house last night. They had just come back from Panama (while we were in Japan) and they hd some rum that was made for sipping, not for mixing. Here I thought I was a man of the world, and I never even considered that rum was something anyone would ever drink in the absence of some sort of whipped fruit mixture. "So, you just... sip it?" I forget exactly what the rum was called (Payrat?) , but it was absolutely delicious. It was as good as the tequila I had in Tokyo. Among other things, we talked about fish - my expereince wish raw fish in Japan and their's with fried in Panama. They told me I should go to the fish market at the farmer's market in Raleigh, for the freshest fish around. So, I went there.

It took a bit of wandering and driving to find it. I took a stroll through the Nahunta Pork Center, where I got to see all the kinds of pork parts people eat - hearts? But I finally found found the seafood place. It was a smallish building, across the street from the farmer's market proper, with a gigantic counter full of whole fresh fish. They had fillets of cod, whiting and tilapia (which confused me cause I though tilapia was a south american fish), but 80% of it was. I was the only white person in the place. I puzzled that over for a bit: is it only white people who like their fish filleted ? Are whole Croakers and Rockfish something boring ol' white America hasn't caught onto yet? Why can't I find whiting at Whole Foods ? So many tough questions... Before I left, I was this close to buying a chunk of cod, even though I don't think cod has anything to do with the NC coast, when I remembered: when the wife is out of town, and you don't have to work in the morning, it's time for ribeye and alcohol! And so it was written, and so it was done, medium rare. Tomorrow I'll eat a stupid fish.

So, off to the fancy supermarket to find a nice steak. On the way I listened to the Arctic Monkeys, Bloc Party and the Libertines - all relatively new British bands. Before I'd heard any of them, I'd heard on various blogs there's some controversy about who's more "authentic": the Libertines or the Arctic Monkeys. I considered myself lucky to not know WTF the discussion was about, at the time. Now, I'm happy to be able to appreciate them on their own merits, completely outside the context of British popularized opinion. I don't have a favorite of the three - they all have their individual strengths and weaknesses. They're all good with the top down and nothing specific to do.

So, I bought a monster ribeye, a bottle of wine and a potato, and had myself a feast - watching VH1 Classic and FUSE (which I guess is MTV for angry young men). They had a full half hour of White Stripes! Now, I like the White Stripes, but I had no idea they were actually really popular with the "kids". And I had no idea that they had a dozen videos - I'd only ever seen one, and that came with the iTunes download of their latest album. I don't even know where you'd find a video these days, MTV is all game shows. But, Jack White talked and talked between 15-second clips of the videos, and made himself sound a little flakey, while Meg White sat there like a lump. I guess there's a whole philsophy behind the red/white/black colro scheme and the "third man" name and all this other junk - yadayadayayda. But, I don't buy their records for their interview skills. They do a great job of stripping away all the fuiller and getting down to the guts. It's a totally different scene from what was going on the channel above (which filled-in during commerical) - the BlingBling rap channel, I think. So, I was a bit surprised to find that the Strips were popular enough to warrant a whole half-hour special.

I guess I should get out more... ?

On the other hand, we went to a club a few weeks ago (pre-Japan), where they have a jukebox that can download songs off the internet - so you can get almost anything you want. My party hogged the jukebox, played mostly speed metal and classic punk for hours. I played The New Pornographers, Pixies, White Stripes and the Arctic Monkeys and they were met with a general shrug. During the 20 minute live vesion f Inna Gada Davida (no shit, the guy who played the Misfits and Metallica played that thing) some 20 year old girl came up to me and asked when we'd be done so she could to play some "classic 80's hair metal".

Can't keep up I Can't keep up
I Can't keep up I Can't keep up
I'm Out of step, with the world.

(yeah, I finally bought some Minor Threat of my own)

Love that wine