Weekend...LaLaLaLa

Lemme tell ya, I had a pretty jam-packed extended weekend this time 'round. Friday night we hung out in the backyard, had a few pops, and then went inside for a little more of the same. Oh, and I think some of The N's Degrassi: The Next Generation marathon was involved, too, if I recall. Saturday I made some kick-ass frozen strawberry margaritas -- yummy and potent. We watched Day of the Dead, the third in George Romero's zombie series, in preparation for Land of the Dead, which we caught on Sunday at Union Square. Great flick. Still, none compare to The Night of the Living Dead. I like the creepiness of that one, which isn't as present in the others.

So, Sunday night we caught The Soundtrack of Our Lives at Knitting Factory. They were good, but I was pissed they didn't play any songs off their latest album, which is pretty much why we went in the first place. Plus, they played all acoustic for the whole set. Again, good, but not as good as it woulda been electrified. The show was so late, Steve took the day off Monday, which we used to go to Hoboken to run an errand. Of course we ended up at Louise and Jerrys (definitely the coolest bar in Hoboken, featuring perhaps my all time favorite jukebox) where our friend Brian was bartending. Then we hit this new, over-rated Mexican place on Washington street. It figures everybody raves about it and I end up being dissatisfied! As one who cooks, I think I'm far pickier at restaurants than most 'cause I can more easily decipher how something's been prepared, how good the ingredients are, that sorta thing. When the molé sauce tastes like it was burned, and the guac has that rancid aftertaste, I ain't happy.

Ha. Molé reminds me of this realtor's sign down the street from our house that's been defaced. The realtor, an hispanic woman, is pictured on the sign; of course she's been given a handlebar mustache. But the thing that makes me really chuckle: somebody scribbled "olay!" obviously misspelling olé. It's just damn funny (or sad, depending on how ya look at it). But, signs with permanent misspellings are a dime a dozen here in Jersey City. My longtime faves are "Beuty Parlor" and the perennially silly Beef Patty mess-up "Beef Battie." Both signs are within a block from one another at the blighted Journal Square.

OK, so I guess the weekend wasn't that exciting after all....

Who's the Real Explorer Explorer?

It figures a sub that's apparently been "discovered" after it was already "discovered" is named Explorer. A submarine with a similar design component to The Nautilus, the beloved sub featured in Verne's 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, has been found by at least a couple dudes over the past few years. A Times Online story that ran Monday speaks of one Colonel John Blashford-Snell who "discovered the half-submerged, cast-iron wreck off the coast of Panama while searching for ancient ruins."

But, in my hunt for photos of the sub, which I have yet to uncover, I came across a couple articles citing James Delgado as the discoverer of the Explorer in 2001. An AP story from October 31, 2004 says, "Delgado, a former maritime historian for the U.S. National Park Service, discovered the Explorer during a cruise to Panama in 2001. Delgado went to the Isla San Telmo after Panamanians told him about a sub that had washed ashore."

There's actually a cool first-person description by Delgado of his first contact with the sub on Shipwreck Central.

Of course, neither of these guys "discovered" the sub -- the folks who tipped off these guys did -- or was it the folks who tipped off the tippers off? Whatever....

Anyway, though I'm curious about what just might be a little shipwreck dispute, the sub itself is of great interest. Turns out it's a civil war-era ship -- yep, a contemporary of the far better-known Hunley. It's not evident in the stories I've read that the Explorer was operated in the same way as the Hunley, which was literally cranked by several hunched over submariners in the cramped vessel. The main thing that gives the Explorer special status is its lock-out system which enabled submariners to exit and enter the sub while submerged. Yep, just like the fictional Nautilus.

The German designer, Julius Kroehl, who designed the Explorer originally pitched it to The Union army, but the former explosives expert didn't have the thing built until 1864, of course, when the war was pretty much over (yes, I remember history class, sort of). He ended up selling it to a Pearl company. Pearl harvesters were able to leave the sub to collect pearls and then return to the sub. (They probably simply held their breath while in the water, like old-school pearl divers did. Check out The Pearl, a little novella by John Steinbeck, if yer interested - it's a good one.)

The Explorer had a multi-door system through which the inner-hull door could open, then shut, then another door/hatch/whatever opened to allow the submariners to exit -- thus sealing off the ship from the sea. I'm guessing it worked like that since that's how it's described in the Verne novel. Kroehl apparently got his idea for the Explorer from the Nautilus.

Livin' In B'lo Like There's No Tomorrow

Well, I had a pretty cool time back home in Buffalo (a.k.a. B'Lo) this Memorial Day weekend. The reason for the return? My brother, Matt, ran his very first marathon! Not only did he finish the Buffalo Marathon, he beat the time he'd hoped for, the skinny bastard. And mere hours later he joined us in a li'l beer blast. Ya gotta love it.

Not much went down besides an initial Friday night fest in the bro's basement bar (there's actually a bar in his basement!) where the bourbon flowed to the rhythm of classic rawk and west coast rap. And Steve got his obligatory order of Duff's chicken wings which made him very happy (he hardly even noticed the rap).

So, the day of the marathon (which began at 7:30AM, by the way), I'm crusin' in Matt's company car (unfortunately not his other ride, the sweet black corvette), actually idling as I waited for the chance to cross the marathon route on my way to our next rendevous point (just in case he needed more of that nasty energy jizz known as Gu), when all of a sudden his cellphone rings. Being the anti-cellphone sort that I am, it took me a few moments to realize what it was, and without thinking, I answered the damn thing. Keep in mind there are two cops about two car-lengths ahead of me directing traffic and I'm in New York State, where it's illegal to drive while talking on a cellphone.

Of course it's my obnoxious father who has the balls to greet me with a "Rise and Shine!" when it's 10:00 AM and I've been up for the past four hours. I'm not gabbin' with him more than 20 seconds when one of the Buffalo fuzz pounces on me and inquires, "Are you trying to make me look stupid?" I didn't succumb to the temptation to respond with the obvious quip; instead, I apologized, as he proceeded to remind me he could slap a $150 fine on me. Eventually he let me off the hook, lamenting to his porcine buddy, "Ya know, they never try that shit in Tonawanda or Williamsville, but when they're in Buffalo they think they can do whatever they want."

So, Matt came in at #89 out of 546 marathoners, at 3:32:18, about 10-15 minutes less than his goal. He's also one of those assholes who finishes every video game the day he gets it, and always beat everybody at any board game (it's no wonder I can't stand most games!). Of course some Kenyan dude came in first.



In honor of Matt's amazing achievement, I made a homemade chocolate cake and decorated it with a message I knew he'd appreciate, as we're all huge VH fans (David Lee Roth era exclusively). Maybe scarfin' down the cake will fatten him up a bit, but I doubt it....