pho(k) yeah

Woke up this morning at 5:00 am. Still groggy I take a look out my bedroom window still snowing and still dark. I Walk to the bathroom and blow my nose for like ten minutes and coughed up phlegm for another ten after that. I hate winter. Everyday I wake up sick. Every thing is dead, gray, and so goddamn cold.

What could possibly make this day enjoyable (aside from that chickenshit sun showing itself)? I can't go back to bed because I have to go to work. I can't get drunk because I have to go to work. I can't even go look for a suitable bridge to go jump off because I have to go to work. Oh and to top things off I have to go to goddamn work.

And then I have a revelation.

Pho. I can have Pho for lunch.

Pho (pronounced fa) is a Vietnamese soup made with rice noodles with a beef broth. Mouth searingly spicy and yet so comforting with its fresh Thai basil, lime, and cilantro. Typical to Vietnamese dishes the herbs and lime are served on the side along with nuclear red chili paste, raw chilies, sugar, and fish sauce all to be used and abused at the discretion of the diner (hint if it doesn't hurt a little you aren't doing it right).

I got my fix at Thai Star's new location on Thompson Lane. Whats that Sam, Thai place for Vietnamese? Hey Sam, isn't their chef from Laos? Yes and yes. But guess what people? They have amazing food and more importantly amazing pho.

I mean just look at this folks!

I enlist my friend Gattis for the trip, both being a big fan of Thai Star and in town for the weekend. This a first time for both of us at the new local (when we roomed together we both frequented the E. Thompson store). We arrived at restaurant at 3:30. Typically this is a very slow time for any restaurant and I am surprised to still see plenty of people in the dining room. I Take this as a good sign. Our server seated us promptly and as a bonus was pretty funny. After taking our drinks she asked us if we were ready to order.

"Beef Pho please!" I say maybe a little too quickly.

Gattis orders the yum neu (a very very spicy beef salad) and a small bowl a of tom yum (a seafood stock soup with lemon grass.) While we wait for our food I check out the new digs. The dinning room is much larger than the previous building's. The decor is tasteful if a little sparse with a nice hand made bamboo entrance at the main door. A small shrine to Buddha sits in the corner and at the register a TV plays Thai music videos with English subtitles. The only thing I miss from the old place is a calender with Thai pin up girls.

Our food arrives and I quickly get to work making the Pho my own. Adding a generous amount of Siracha, a spoon full of sugar, some lovely but smelly fish sauce, and of course the chili paste, herbs, and lime but leaving out ice berg lettuce and hoisin sauce. The first bite is both heaven and hell.

I say to John, "May have been a little too heavy handed with the chili."

Even the steam from this stuff is unstopping my once impenetrable nasal passage. Hints of anise and coriander make it past the lava like heat and the freshness of the basil and cilantro. The beef is tender and not overcooked. The noodles soak up the broth and round out everything nicely.

The pleasure centers in my brain seem to be running on over time. Endorphins are starting to kick in from the heat and I have to stop myself from picking up the bowl and drinking the broth like cereal milk. This shit is that good.

I suddenly realize why I go to work. Like a junkie it's cop. Shoot. Cop.

Go to work to make money for pho.

Eat Pho.

Start all over again.

please listen to the sirens

i've never understood why tubeway army's self titled doesn't get the play it so richly deserves. maybe it's been overshadowed by their lead singer's (gary numan) success but why the hell listen to cars when you can have my love is a liquid or my shadow in vain?

the album kicks off with glam/punk infused listen to siren painting the dystopian backdrop for the album. numan's synth bobs along forebodingly as he sings "flow my tears the new police song / the slogan of peace is you must live / they've got me and i'm one of them." living in economically depressed england probably wasn't a far stretch from the 1984esque world numan was writing about. the band continues build up until numan sings "but i dont mind/ i don't mind" and then they let bottom drop out of the whole world only to spring back to life with a machine gun burst from the drums and primal grunt from numan. this is really the point when you should know you're listening to a really good album.



a few songs like the life machine and friends don't really stand up on their own so much but really make the album flow. the previously mentioned my love is a liquid and every die i die are proto-new wave classics but it's really the closing track that is the record's strongest.

starting with gentle acoustic strumming jo the waiter tells the story of a man's love affair with a waiter he employees at his bar(i always felt the man may be a robot but wikipedia says i'm wrong)". one of numan's only songs to feature acoustic guitar the track eventual gives way to a manic and wiry guitar. the song builds to a crescendo before stopping on a dime without warning. it gives the album a sudden jarring end that plays well with the dystopian theme of the album. it always leaves me feeling kinda like numan's letting his own little world self destruct and self destructing in this case is what rock and roll is all about.

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jose goddamn gonzalez

i've been listening to jose gonzalez's in our nature. like listening a lot. the whole album through at least three times a week for the last two months.


gonzalez is swedish by way of argentina and a former bio-chemist (how cool is that?). apparently the record was inspired by the richard dawkin's the god delusion and peter singer's practical ethics. which is cool (if you ask me the world needs more ex-scientist writing songs about atheist manifestos) but that's not really why i dig it so much. if you asked me i really probably couldn't tell you why i like it so much. it's not really the kind of album that usually hits me hard like this.

the album is really sparse. just this guy and his guitar. every once and a while you get some hand claps or some female back up but for the most part its just mr. gonzalez strumming along forever. my favorite albums don't tend to be this straight forward (taking tiger mountain, street hassle, sandinista!) but here it works. there is something really beautiful about this kind of simplicity.

the first track "how low" starts with this low chugging guitar riff. gonzales's voice fits very well with stark instrumentation. he's very plain spoken and intimate without coming off as schmaltzy. he sounds very much like a man here do a job and one that both knows and does it well. the second song "down the line" is also a highlight. the track show cases his classical spanish guitar style. one of the few tracks to have any real sense of urgency. when he sings "don't let the darkness eat you up!" he actually sounds worried that it might.

it would be stupid not to mention the wonderful cover of masive attacks's "tear drop". i know people may give me shit for this but he may have actually improve on the original. it sounds much more organic and full of life with out the dated trappings of early 90's trip hop. he makes the song his own and i'm sure it will become mix tape fodder for any one who gives it a listen.

the last track "cycling trivialities" sums up what i believe is a wonderful world view. the narrator is pleading with a friend or lover to ignore the small problems in life and enjoy what you have or as my mom used to say "don't sweat the small shit." i call it happy nihilism. both this song and album plead with us to slow down enjoy life. in our nature reminds us the real tragedy of life is how much of we miss while busy with little things that really don't matter.

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