classic 4KS:

a second dose of old school as 4KS's two year anniversary month comes to a close. this one has particular relevance this week, based on the extreme excesses of twilight criterium/delirium weekend. btw, props to the big cat for blazing the ATH with me.


originally posted 4/15/05, entitled "friday = nostalgia".

i am a newly minted professional, staring into the face of a quasi-permanent 9 to 5 grind for the first time. thus weekends should have new and profound meaning for me. and they do have significance, particularly as i imagine myself sleeping at this hour on tomorrow's morn.

but yet i approach the weekend's debauchery more reluctantly now than during my years of "academia". in point of fact i am now worried by the sickeningly drunken condition to which i am likely to render myself this night. this is a particular risk on an evening such as this, boasting as it does enumerable opportunities for revelry.

is this because the joys of drunkenness have become lost on me? surely you jest. is it that my tolerance for drink has been compromised by reduction? this holds water, but alas is not where the blame lies.

nay, these are not the reasons i am weary of tonight's busy drinking schedule. in truth, the reasons are two fold:

first, the afternoons. spending 5 afternoons a week at a desk, the beauty of a sunny day feels a stranger. spend them as i may (walking, dining, sleeping), weekend afternoons are as valuable to me as are weekend nights.

second, depressingly i am old[er]. i am simply not able to consume the same volumes, no longer able to function on 3 hours of drunken slumber, and certainly less able to stave off the debilitating effects of hangover. this revelation troubles me greatly, as i am yet a young man. i find myself wistful for the blissful constant tightness of age 19.

Seconds

Los Ranchos
Buford Hwy, as a food searcher's paradise, begins somewhere around its intersection with North Druid Hills Road where you'll find the irreplaceable Havana Sandwich Shop and the mysterious pairing of the Rusty Nail and Fuzzy's (kind of like those bars at the end of Atlanta Hwy you always wonder about walking into). Heading north, one first enters what might be deemed the Little Mexico of the strip (Marisqueria 7 Mares, Club Miami, lot's of El's, numerous tacquerias) which tails off somewhere around the Plaza Fiesta food court. From there, somewhere around Clairmont Road, Little Vietnam takes shape with numerous Pho shops, the trendy Com, and a scattering of other restaurants past Chamblee Tucker (Bien Thuy R.I.P.). From there, with branches up Chamblee-Tucker Road (the essential Chinatown Mall food court, for one, where at one point my favorite Chinese/Taiwanese restaurant in Atlanta (can't remember the name), where I once walked up to the counter to find the proprietor sleeping on a cot behind the register, (a) served steamy broths of pork and beef noodle soup, (b) perfectly moist, but structurally sound, steamed pork buns, (c) flaky onion cakes, and (d) a Chinese street food standby that surrounds dried pork with a rice shell, sort of like a rice burrito), Chinatown (centered around Little Szechuan) offers much from the elegant (Canton House) to the hole in the wall (the "kiosk" that is Chef Liu's) and flows (somewhere around Happy Karaoke and the former Sensational Subs UFO building circa L.A. 1977) into Little Korea, which stretches a few miles past the point where Buford runs under I-285. If you follow the road for around 10 minutes after that, past the industrial stretch, past the train tracks, you'll find a 2 level, semi-circular strip mall development (at the corner of Jimmy Carter Blvd.) that takes you to a part of the world less seen in these lower reaches. Within the space of 3-4 storefronts, all side-by-side, one finds restaurants offering the foods of Honduras, El Salvador, Peru, and a few others that I can't quite specifically recall. We chose Los Ranchos. Fifteen minutes or so after ordering we had before us an extremely tender chicken tamale, a quesadilla that most reminded me of the Chicken Cuban at Caliente cab, a slightly sweet corn tamale, an open faced beef enchilada featuring its own mysterious sweetness, and a chicken sope (not a soup, but kind of like a tostada (minus the crisp base) layering sauce-coated chicken, cheese, tomatoes, lettuce, and cilantro). 30 minutes later we left planning our next visit.

The Red Snapper
One of numerous Cheshire-Bridge restaurants that has basically been there since the days when downtown streets were named after Civil War leaders rather than Civil Rights leaders. Huevos and I always wanted to make the bar at Siri Thai our pre-drinking, drinking spot in Athens. I kinda want to do the same with the dark, low ceiling, retirement home refuge of a bar at Red Snapper, drenched as it is in deep mellow 1970s vibrations. The food is Thai-inspired, for the most part. An appetizer salad of vidalia onion and crab meat, on lettuce and tomato, with some sort of vinaigrette competed admirably for dish of the week with the butter-soaked, richly seasoned entrees of Snapper Ivonne (snapper topped with crab meat and artichokes) and a Thai shrimp dish whose name I can't recall. I can see why people in their 70s have come here every year for their anniversaries since 1955.

Little Bangkok
Also Thai inspired, obviously. Also on Cheshire Bridge, which means it gets a similar mix of Midtown residents and the elderly ("gays and greys," as the cliche goes). Trumpeted as an authentic Thai restaurant among all the refined, but sometimes too refined to be "real," Midtown spots. My Thai-food/all-food snob girlfriend thinks it's OK, so I guess it gets points for that. An appetizer of Yum Wu Sen, marinated glass noodles with pork and shrimp on slices of lettuce, which you can actually form into little lettuce wraps if you want, was savory without succumbing to the sometimes overwhelming sodium overload. The Basil Chicken was the old standby it seems to be at every Thai restaurant I've ever been to. And then there was the Pad See Yu, flat noodles with chicken and broccoli. All in all a nice meal, but to be honest I'd rather eat my girlfriend's lettuce wraps and chicken curry any day.

Com
Vietnamese. Undoubtedly the most posh Buford Hwy restaurant I've ever been to, a few steps above the greasy spoon Pho shops in sophistication. I had a vermicelli dish, alongside a few spring rolls, that was in league with what I used to order at Bien Thuy. The most interesting find, though, were the La lot rolls, which kinda resemble stuffed grape leaves but, as I learned from now departed Creative Loafing critic Bill Addison, are actually betel leaves. Definitely worth a second visit.

"if you walk through the garden, you better watch yo back"

the ladyfriend is accompanying me to a conference this week in baltimore. things i'm looking forward to: the national aquarium, crapcakes, and tracking down scenery from the wire. wish me luck as i scope for prop joe's pawn shop, marlo's rim shop, and the low rises.

Until Proven Guilty

One lesson, I think, from the Duke rape case is it shows not how easily guilty rich people get off because they have expensive lawyers (even though that does happen), but how easily poor defendants can be railroaded when they have bad lawyers.

This article is worth reading.

knasselhoff?!?

did our resident cuddly german morph on us?

i'm thinking about ordering one of the t-shirts.

Spring Break 07: A Diary

Thursday, 6 PM
Made stuffed poblanos (from scratch, pretty much from my own internal recipe) for the first time, and they actually turned out well/really well. The recipe I devised called for a "stuffing" of garlic, onion, oregano, safrito, chicken, mushrooms and corn, with chipotle seasoning. I'm going to sell it to Casa Grande. .
Friday, 10 PM
Garage Cafe. Birmingham. Voted Top Ten bar worth flying to by GQ. My favorite place to drink in the SE, next to McGringo's porch.
Saturday, 6 PM
VJ's (formerly Hannie B's) located in Shelby Shores, AL. Basically the middle of nowhere. Fried catfish, Credence and Skynyrd on the jukebox. They overcharged me but I really didn't feel comfortable arguing about it.
Monday, 12 PM-4 PM
Started out at RuSans for appetizers, went to the library for awhile and then met some friends a few miles west of the federal pen (where Woody Harrelson's dad lived) for bbq at Harold's. The cornbread was not quite as cracklin' as i remembered but the sandwich was nice, the staff the same, and they had a nice montage of recent customers on the wall including the senior Bushes and Rick Flair.
Monday, 7 PM
Deerhunter, Criminal Records Instore
My new favorite Atlanta band. Krauty, but not really in a cute way. Referential and Reverential without being shameless thieves. They played "Grave Architecture" for the sound check so, yeah, they're awesome.
10 PM
The Host at Tara. South Korean monster movie/social satire. Kinda reminded me of Evil Dead. As KB mentioned before, the monster is pretty awesome. My girlfriend liked the part at the beginning where all the Koreans are running from the monster and the white guy steps in to save the day. She's kinda racist.
Tuesday
Athens. McGringo's porch.
Wednesday
11 AM
Walked from Cabbagetown to Woodruff Park. Listened to some white guys play their version of what sounded like Balinese gamelan music which is, normally, fairly awesome.
3PM
Vanishing Point-kind of a mix between Two Lane Blacktop's stylish minimalism/nihilism and Cannonball Run's guttural punch, with a little bit of Easy Rider's politics. In other words, amazing.
8 PM
Watched the Mets kick the shit out of the Cardinals as I read the new VICE. Nice article on Filipino prisons. Another good one on bulletin boards.
Friday
12 PM, Nickiemotos. Nice sushi. Pass on the rice balls next time.
5:30 PM Mets' Batting Practice. Grown men push kids and ladies aside to get autographs from David Wright and Jose Reyes.
7:45-11 Freezing my ass off in the lower part of the upper deck. Entertained throughout the game by a group of frat guys and their girl friends. One guy is an expert on baseball and keeps lobbing brilliant observations and predictions. "Andruw's gonna have an insane year. Trust me. He's in his contract year." "Moises Alou. How old is that guy?" (shortly after he knocks in a run) "Jeff Francoeuer is a beast..." "Fuck Giles. He left us as a free agent and went to San Diego." (I was under the impression the Braves never offered him arbitration so he automatically became a free agent, prematurely and unwillingly...). They left after Jose Reyes hit 2 triples and the Mets went up 8-1.
12 PM Trader Vic's-1 Mai Tai and 1 Trader's Grog. Also on my list of favorite drinking spots.
Saturday
8 PM GRINDHOUSE! Even Planet Terror was good, or bad. So many nods to so many amazing movies from The Beyond to Vanishing Point (duh) to Black Christmas. I'll see it again.
Sunday
2 PM Tears of the Black Tiger-Style over substance only lasts so long. Some amazing shots though.

classic 4KS:

our droves of loyal readership are may be unaware that this month marks the two year anniversary of quadruplekegstand. an occasion like this makes one think back to how and why it all began. thus i bring you the first installment of "classic 4KS".


originally posted 4/18/05, entitled "about astra":

the following is the "about astra" synopsis from the band's myspace profile [linked to the right]. it is presented here in its gloriously profound entirety:

"a starseed called ‘astra’ was planted on a late night drive by an object in the nightsky. the music is a gift of love that flows thru us: an offering of awareness & attunement. we reflect upon the opportunity to evolve; for each and every living being to grow into our highest creative potential. at its best, the experience offers a peaceful glimpse, a moment of serenity. however, such moments are sometimes broken by chaotic frenzy, mirroring the psychic dissonance that enshrouds our daily lives. our vision is to share a multilayered sonic picture of reality, in all its brutality & beauty, so that we may someday overcome the limitations of the belief that humans are the ultimate force for good and intelligence in the universe. when our playing is at its best, we tune into a knowing beyond knowledge, beyond reason and the cerebral limitations of our current cultural milieu. we come to you as the myth."

miscellany:

first of all, i begrudgingly have to give props to "baja" bowman and his gators. back-to-back titles is indeed a historic achievement, as is the football-basketball sweep. so congrats. hope next year treats you as well, what with five new starters and a new coach.


congrats as well to mrs. team brown. her second straight drunken spelling bee title is equally historic.


take a look at these very weird/kinda awesome video shorts. the ladyfriend was turned on to them by the upper-crust teenagers of athens academy. quality.


knasselhoff honored the ATH with a return visit this weekend, and tore the roof off the sucka with reno at the little kings shuffle club. good times. hopefully the ladyfriend and i are visiting him in berlin this summer.


mcsquared made an athens appearance last night to strut around town with pudge and his new lady. i hope he graces us again before he moves westward. btw, there was some talk of a third [sort of] annual rock 'n jock wiffleball classic. more info to come.


athenians wanting to catch an opening weekend showing of "grindhouse" (but, like myself, too lazy to drive down to the ATL to join mcsquared for his awesome drive-in idea), ziggy zig is organizing a group to scope the 4:10 showing this friday at carmike. all are welcome.