Rate My Pupusa: El Zocalo

I’m typically not one to boast, but I do my fair share of auto maintenance. Brake light replacement. Fluid upkeep. Full wax jobs. It helps keep hair on my back.

Last Saturday I woke with the Taurus on my mind. She was about 10,000 miles overdue for a new air filter and I needed to end the negligence. So I brushed my teeth, put on jogging pants, and walked to Pep Boys.

On my route was El Zocalo, a veteran of the San Francisco pupuseria circuit with solid street cred. Despite it being 10AM, I decided to put my air filter business on hold and get my taste buds wailed upon. A portly waiter greeted me with complimentary chips and salsa—a nice touch. Problem is the salsa was hot. I estimated it to be the exact temperature of human blood—98.6 degrees—and just as appetizing.

Wanting enough food to hold me over until dinner, I ordered the Plato Tipico—two pupusas, a Salvadorian enchilada, and a mystery item called pastelito. Now if this is a “typical plate” for Salvadorians, I image the entire nation is motionless for hours after meals. Not like the sexy Spanish siesta. I’m talking Class-A drug overdose. The jukebox kicked on and my plate dropped. It was time to bailar.

First up was the Salvadorian enchilada, which is a bit of a misnomer since it is essentially a tostada. The extraordinarily tender carnitas played nice with curtido, grated cheese, and hard-boiled egg for a pleasurable crunchy experience. Made me forget about the blood salsa.

Next I took on the duet of pupusas, one loroco y queso and the other chicharron (fried minced pork). They were solid. And I don’t mean solid like “Solid jam, brotha man!”.  I mean solid like the earth’s crust. Dry. Dusty. Heavy. I half expected to chip a tooth on a dinosaur bone. Atop the pupusas was curtido that tasted like it had been pickling since the Jurassic Period. Somehow I managed to eat more than half of each.

I turned my sluggish fork towards the pastelito, which I could best describe as an egg roll batter bomb packed with potato, pork and peppers. I wish I could tell you how it tasted. I really do. But after two bites my eyes blurred and I started mumbling to myself.

The next thing I know I’m stumbling down Mission Street using a piece of cardboard to shield my eyes from the harsh sunlight. Maybe I paid the bill. Maybe I didn’t. I’m pretty sure I lost a shoe. All I knew for sure is that I wanted to pass out in the gutter and bark at the beautiful people.

If you’ve ever wondered if a plate of food can turn you into a homeless person, the answer is yes. I had aspirations before El Zocalo. I was going to change my air filter. Do laundry. Smile. Live. Instead I spent the day collecting cans and urinating in a pickle jar. My rating matches the number of times someone looked me in the eyes on my walk home:

1 out of 4 Dios Mios:

Panther is the new awesome

Cool. Sweet. Awesome. Badass. I think we can all agree that those words are tired and need to be put to bed.

So what should you say when your buddy holds a BMX wheelie or you find $10 in your jeans? The answer is both simple and incredible:

Panther!

Allow me to explain the origin of this new adjective. I was at an incredibly rocking wedding last weekend in Puerto Vallarta. While looking at a book of temporary tattoos on the beach, a fellow guest named Bunz noted that panthers are badass. This caused Mike (who was getting a tramp-stamp of a unicorn at the time) to state that “badass panther” is essentially a double negative.

Our collective minds imploded. All panthers are badass. Therefore all things badass are panther. We started using panther as an adjective in sentences and nothing has ever made more sense to me in my entire life:

“Wow that BLT was panther.”

“Those American flag swim trunks are super panther.”

“I was at the most panther foam party last night.”

It was like the Founding Fathers drafting the Constitution, except we were drinking heavily and didn’t have on powdered wigs and pantaloons. We spent the rest of the weekend exchanging high-fives and celebrating this great linguistic revelation.

Now I’m sure many of you are wondering the same thing: “If I say something is panther, won’t I have to explain what panther means?” No. Stop asking dumb questions. If you use the right inflection, there should be no need to explain yourself. The listener’s jaw will immediately drop and they will forever accept panther as the most powerful adjective in the world.

This tectonic shift in our national nomenclature starts right here, right now. I urge you to join my cause and never say awesome, cool, sweet, or badass again. It won’t be easy. I still catch myself leaning on these old crutches. But it needs to happen.

Once you release your first panther roar, there’s no turning back.

I don’t negotiate with identity thieves

Today we will be learning how to properly deal with an identity thief. Read the following email I recently received and see if anything arises suspicion:

I’m sorry for this odd request because it might get to you too urgent ,am in a kinda tight situation here and need some help urgently, actually, Angela and i are stuck in London and need help getting back home,we came down here to visit a resort on vacation,unfortunately we got mugged at gunpoint, our bags, cash and cards and cell phone were stolen at GUN POINT, it’s such a terrible experience for us,right now we just need help flying back home, good thing is we still have my passport, just need some assistance (financially) getting back home,please i need you to help me out. promise to refund you as soon as i get back ,
please get back to me asap – Tim

Hmmm. Seems like a pretty standard request from a friend. Tim was on his honeymoon at the time. But it just didn’t seem to add up.

You see, Tim and his lovely bride were in Mexico, not a “resort” in London. Also, Tim is a very literate lawyer who wouldn’t have composed an email consisting of a single run-on sentence littered with grammatical errors. Finally, he isn’t a shithead identity thief.

I checked around with some friends and sure enough they got the same email. So when my Gchat window popped up with a message from Tim, I knew I had to act:

Tim: you there ?
Me: dude you’re a mexican thief. get bent fucker.
how fucking dumb are you?
seriously go die somewhere.
send me your western union address and i’ll mail you a hot piece of shit so you can eat it and smell better you fucking shitface mother fucker i’ll cut your god damn face open.
got anything to say you little piece of shit?
didn’t think so. die.
Tim: go fuck ur mama
Me: you’re the world’s worst con man
how dumb are you?
Tim: am justa 19 year ols
rucher than u
Me: oh you’re justa 19 years old?
Tim: richer than u are
Me: seriously, you smell like a diaper
Tim: u are just a miserable
poor american
Me: go fuck a chihuahua
Tim: i own a house in Ca
wat do u ave ?
Me: i have dignity
and your mom’s virginity
Tim: i drive the latest toyota camry
u ?
Me: Camry?!!?!
Nice car, grandpa
real thuggish
How much money did you collect on this master scheme?
God you’re dumb.
Tim: ii make about 2,700 a day
least
sometimes 10,000
Me: Well, here’s hoping that you get thrown in jail and you’re family feels such shame that they disown you and you’re left alone and die
Tim: ok well, thanks for spening enough time for me to hack in2 ur facebook and gmail

Whoops…might have taken that a bit far. I guess I was reverting back to my middle school days of harassing strangers in AOL chatrooms. Real smart.

So, if you ever find yourself in a showdown with an identity thief, just ignore, delete, and change your passwords. And if you see a young, tech-savvy Latino driving a Toyota Camry, please send me an email immediately so I can get a running start.

Scent of a dead seal

Sunday. Not many words in the dictionary as pleasing as that one. No obligations to harsh your mellow. Sweat pants are seen as appropriate attire. Dinner is served early and typically ends with a slice of pie. The next time I go to church, I’m thanking God for saving His best day for last.

It was a recent bird-chirping Sunday morning that Ashley and I decided to skip the typical layabout options and go for a hike. Didn’t even touch the couch. Just got up and went.

The Taurus steered us to nearby Pacifica, a foggy surf town that spills into the ocean from battered bluffs. We grabbed a hot coffee at the pier and watched fishermen reel up Dungeness crabs. One seemingly friendly man condemned a “son of a bitch” starfish to the cement for stealing his bait. Unkind.

As we marched up the beach towards the trailhead, a rancid smell brought us to a gagging stop. It was a massive beached seal. And it stanked big time. We hooked around the deceased so the wind was at our backs and began a forensic examination.

Crows. Maggots. Flies. The usual scavengers were already on the scene tampering with the evidence. We first checked for a shark bite, which would have been totally rocking. Negative. Six-pack rings? Negative. Harpoon? Also negative. We declared the official cause of death to be “Circle of Life” and moved on with our hike.

After climbing around for a bit and disturbing a garter snake with a stick, we decided to visit the jewel in Pacifica’s crown—Sea Bowl. Featuring a glass rotunda bar and unnecessarily generous orders of cheese fries, this bowling alley is a thing of beauty. We rented a lane for an hour and squeezed in three games, enough to make this athlete work up a healthy sweat. (A quick but important aside, I dropped a career high 168—high fives all around!) Feeling very satisfied with our day, we hit the road.

On the drive home we stopped by Safeway to pick up dinner provisions. It was at the meat cooler that a putrid odor slapped us across the face. Did I say slapped? I meant punched. Eyes blurred. Knees buckled. Gasping for air. I put the chicken breasts to my nose. Negative. Ashley checked the pork chops. Negative. I put my shirt over my nose and nearly exploded. It was the dead seal. No doubt about it.

We drove home with our heads out the window completely baffled. What awoke these dormant molecules? Was it the bowling-induced sweat? The cheese fries? While these questions will remain forever unanswered, I learned something about life that day: Your surroundings rub off on you. If you work in a delicious cookie factory, you will smell like delicious cookies. If you stand over a decomposing sea mammal for 10 minutes, you will smell like a decomposing sea mammal. So just be mindful of where you spend your time.

Our Lady of Guadalupe

I had a vision last night of the patron saint of Mexico, and it came to me in a pumpkin. Ay dios mio!

The most dangerous song of all time

Concerned parents, church leaders, and elected officials have rallied against the negative effects of recorded music ever since, well, music has been recorded.

The first culprit was rock and roll, which prudes chastised for decades until Kevin Bacon set it free in Footloose (1984) with authority-defying dance moves he mastered in an old mill. Gangster rap came along next, teaching kids how to sell crack, kill cops, and mix gin cocktails. But the genre couldn’t rebound after Biggie and Pac shot one another at the Source Awards. Speed Metal. Marilyn Manson. Raves. All have been blamed for rampant teen violence and drug use.

Yet it is a seemingly placid folk singer who is responsible for spilling an ocean’s worth of blood and tears. His name is Harry Chapin. And his weapon of mass depression is the song “Cat’s in the Cradle”.

If you’re ever driving on a two-lane highway at night and a car approaches, you better hope to God the driver is not listening to that song. Play it on the jukebox at any corner bar and prepare to watch grown men weep into their whiskeys.

Not familiar with the song? Allow me to provide a brief synopsis:

Man sires boy. Man leaves for indefinite business trip. Boy wants to play catch. Man neglects boy. Boy returns from college and only wants to borrow car. Man feels neglected. Boy goes on indefinite business trip, sires children, and neglects Man over long-distance phone call. Cycle complete.

The honesty of Chapin’s lyrics is bone crushing. No song has strummed the futile cords of ancestral fate so exactly. It has been said that listening to this song with your father is the equivalent of watching pornography with your mother.

“Cat’s in the Cradle” didn’t always play exclusively in dental offices. It actually hit #1 the week of December 21, 1974. Do you understand how dangerous of a week that must have been? The holidays getting people down. Vietnam still battling on. Oh and people were buying this arsenic of a singer/songwriter record like there were golden tickets hidden inside.

The only Christmas gift more depressing than that record would be a puppy that didn’t get enough air holes poked in the box. “Thanks for the Chapin LP. I’m gonna pour myself a glass of eggnog and take a toaster bath.”

So what is the lesson to take away from this silent and deadly revelation? If your son gives you a Harry Chapin greatest hits album, consider it an official act of disownment. Don’t believe me? Give it a listen. Chapin himself says it scares him to death.

Seriously, are you ready for some football?

As the temperature drops and chili returns to bar menus, I know it’s time to dust off my copy of  “How To Watch Football on Television” by legendary broadcaster Chris Schenkel. Perhaps the only book ever to take on the sport of viewing of sports, it can transform you from casual fanboy to La-Z-Boy Lombardi in the equivalent of a Super Bowl halftime. Before breaking down the forward pass and fake field goals, Schenkel addresses the state of televised professional football in the early 1960s:

Unique in 1964 were weekday night telecast of NFL games, and several doubleheaders on Sunday. Viewers are now able to watch a complete game in the East, followed by a complete game in the West—nearly six hours of professional football in one afternoon.

This has prompted some people to be concerned over the possibility of oversaturation. Johnny Unitas, the great quarterback of the Baltimore Colts, feels that overexposure could kill football. Said Unitas, “People are going to get tired of seeing so much pro football on television. Part of the lure has been the fact that it hasn’t been easily attainable for the fans”

Clearly Johnny Unitas was an idiot. Americans would take football intravenously if they could. Hell, I watch six hours of pregame coverage a weekend. Schenkel continues with some unrefutable reasons to skip the stadium and watch the game on your couch:

The close-up lens of the camera almost makes you part of every play. You’re always on the fifty-yard line. There’s no weather problem inside your own home. And the lady of the house can make your favorite snack or beverage a lot more attractive than the stadium vendor does.

In addition to being a Hall of Fame broadcaster, Schenkal was obviously a super cool guy. You know he never drove, drank, or dated an import. All American. All the way. Even more proof of his awesomeness:

In the absense of curvy cheerleaders in short skirts, the best morale-builder a professional team can have is its defensive unit. It gets you the ball back!

Man I’d love to watch TV with that guy. Dynamite analysis all around. And you never know whether he’s being genuinely enthusiastic or genuinely creepy:

A throbbing climax to a tight football game is the scoring attempt in the final two minutes of action.

Wow. Not subtle. So if you’re ever lucky enough to come across a copy of “How To Watch Football On Televsion”, do yourself a favor and buy it. Chris Schenkel will teach you that a team has four downs to gain ten yards, or else it surrenders the ball to the other side. He’ll also teach you how to tell the lady of the house to keep the Fritos coming and open you up another god damn beer. I keep a copy in my back pocket all season long.

How much for the floating demon baby?

If you’re ever running low on inspiration for night tremors, just visit this lovely little Quinceanera shop on Mission Street. The flaking skin. The sleep-deprived eyes. The sacrificial gown. Yikes all around.

Rate My Pupusa: Elsy’s

2893 Mission Street, San Francisco CA

Elsy’s doesn’t have it easy. They share a wall with La Taqueria, one of the city’s most celebrated eateries. Christmas decorations hang above the door, meaning either their employees are all very short (sad) or they can’t afford a step ladder (sadder). And they specialize in pupusas, the Jan Brady of Latin American cuisine.

But check your pity at the door, because Elsy’s will knock your socks off. Now I didn’t grow up in El Salvador. And neither did my grandma. But I can imagine that if she did, these pupusas would be exactly like the ones she made.

Freshly pounded masa de maiz served as the exoskeleton for my order of revueltas (pork, cheese, beans) and loroco y queso (a flowering bud from Central America—thanks Wikipedia). While pupusas can get soggy in the middle, Elsy’s were perfectly crisped. The revueltas achieved a balance of ingredients that must have taken generations to master. It lasted no more than 48 seconds on my plate. The loroco y queso was essentially a cheese stick reincarnated in pancake form. I had a couple of scares where the cheese made a break for my esophagus. Nearly choked to death. But it was worth the risk.

Price is never a concern in pupuserias. My bottle of Coca Cola cost almost as much as the meal. What can make or break a pupusa are the accoutrements. Elsy’s curtido (pickled cabbage salad) was superb, bringing a welcomed vinegar crunch to the cheesy oblivion. And the salsa was, hmmm, convenient? It came in a squeeze bottle. Not much else to say. I’ve found pupuseria salsa to be the same from one place to the next. Red. Mild. Runny. Yet somehow absolutely necessary on each bite.

Upon finishing my plate, I passed out and slipped into a vivid dream state. I was back in my non-existent Salvadorian childhood at la casa de mi abuela. She was, as always, making pupusas in the kitchen. I sat at her feet and listened to stories of bloody revolutions, aching heartbreaks, and jaguars. A rooster crowed and I awoke with the rating:

3.5 out of 4 Dios Mios