In the Mission, where boys and girls doing their best Mick Jagger wait 70 minutes for poached shrubbery over free-range champagne, Red’s is a haven of breakfast normalcy. Bacon. Eggs. Toast. Hash browns. Bad coffee. When I see a hipster doofus like me at the counter, I get genuinely pissed. “Back off!” I whisper under my breath while starring into my iPhone. “Our kind will be the ruin of this place.”
What most people don’t know is that Red’s moonlights as a damn good pupuseria. This is likely due to the fact that they’re not on the menu. Only a faded whiteboard behind the register lists the pupusa options available after 3:30pm, one of which caught my eye immediately: Crazy–$4.99. No ingredients. No reasoning why it costs more than double the average pupusa. Just Crazy.
Before I get into this pupusa, I should probably do the full disclosure thing and say that I’m a regular at Red’s. For breakfast, I mix it up between bacon and eggs, corned beef hash and pancakes. But at night, I exclusively get Crazy for pick-up. My guy there takes the order, yells “CRAZZZZY” back into the phone and hangs up. Doesn’t tell me how long or ask my name, though I suspect this is because no one else orders it.
Right, back to the pupusa. Last Monday night I was about to watch Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey when a strong hunger struck. I called my guy at Red’s and was greeted at their door 10 minutes later with handshakes and big smiles from the staff. They always make me feel like Gavin Newsom. Pretty rad.
Back home I unloaded the contents of the plastic bag, which weighed the exact amount as a cinder block. Zip locks filled with homemade sauce and fresh cut curtido, plastic cutlery and of course Crazy. (As a public service, I should note that this is not a beginner’s pupusa. It’d be like handing a second grader a recorder and the sheet music to “November Rain”. You’re just not ready.)
I started up 2001, which probably has one of the greatest opening sequences in the history of film. For those unfamiliar, take a minute and watch it. The music will ring a bell instantly, as it has been repurposed countless times when anything great or inspiration is about to happen. Extra points if you recognized it as the theme music for wrestling legend Ric Flair.
Anyways, this epic scene is playing as I open the to-go container and my world turns to slow motion. Crazy is big on an infinite universe scale. Denser and more commanding than a black hole, it would simply absorb any pupusa that dared drift into its gravitational pull. The otherworldly surface is perfectly crisped with bits of cheese oozing from craters in the bulbous center. I suspect they use a welding torch to seal the edges together. It’s disarmingly beautiful.
It was time to stop starring into the void and explore the great unknown. I covered this flying saucer in curtido, dribbled some sauce around and took a bite. In an instant I was blasted into the cosmos, racing at great speeds across vast distances. I zoomed past an asteroid belt of ingredients. There was zucchini and pork and beans and probably some other shit but I’d never know since it’s just called Crazy. It was phenomenal. It was powerful. It was too much.
I tried to slow things down but Crazy had turned into HAL 9000, taking complete command of the ship.
Like Dave, I needed to stop the madness. I floated to the motherboard, grabbed my fork, and, with my last ounce of energy, drove it through Crazy. The lights dimmed. My body was covered in sweat. I closed my eyes and began to weep. It was over. It was over. It was over.
The Dios Mios ranking will match the number of lightyears Crazy takes off your life:
Is there any sweeter feeling than that of outfoxing authority figures and feasting upon forbidden fruits right beneath their noses? The answer to that is no. Nothing is better. Case in point, this past Saturday’s Saint Patrick’s Day Parade, or what will henceforth be know as the day three blarneyed-out potato lovers hoodwinked the SFPD.
Before I spin this yarn, allow me to introduce the conspirators:
Kerry “Quick Feet” Morrissey: The youngest and craftiest of the bunch, Kerry brought a bottle of whiskey and a whole bucket of piss and vinegar to the parade. McSkills: Winking. Irish dancing. (Like for real Irish dancing.) Dirty Secret: Wants to join a Robot Cabaret Circus.
David “Donnybrook” Yeager: Don’t be fooled by the Germanic surname and Texas roots. David will cut you with a Limerick and bury you in a shallow corned beef grave. McSkills: Notre Dame graduating. Heel kicking. Dirty Secret: None. Spotless record.
Rian “Cabbage Patch” O’Neill: Loves cheese. Afraid that all dogs want to bite his unit. Was once accurately described with just three words: Big. Hairy. Loud. McSkills: Close talking. Rabblerousing. Dirty secret: Was born to an English mother.
Right. Back to the parade. We were swimming in sunshine from the moment we met on Market Street. Saw a pack of giant wolfhounds. Clapped on the dancers going kick kick kick. Nipped at the Jameson bottle. Became the number one fans of a middle school marching band led by perhaps the greatest xylophonist in the country. Seriously. She was slapping the shit out of that xylo and our feet just could not stand still.
We ballyhooed on through the Tenderloin with neighborhood-appropriate tall boys in paper bags, just kind of enjoying the show. The route ended at the stately Civic Center, which is typically overrun with aggressive zombie bums but instead was filled with beer tents and food stands and super happy white people wearing green. We blended right in.
While enjoy a fresh barley pop, David noted a party going on in the balcony of one of the grand government buildings that surround the square. We decided to investigate. Took the elevator up a floor, walked over to the ballroom doors, and was stopped by an elderly lady in a pantsuit and a highly decorated police officer with incredible eyebrows. Kerry asked what the deal was. Pantsuit explained it was a private party for the San Francisco Police Department Emerald Society. I mentioned that Kerry’s father was a Chicago police officer and member of their Emerald Society (false). Eyebrows said that didn’t matter, you need tickets. We retreated with major chips on our shoulders.
The three of us loitered down the hall, determined to find a way into this obviously rocking cop party. It was decided our best chance was to have recent college grad Kerry stand outside the men’s room, make friendly with a party guest, slip in, and then somehow slip us in. We really didn’t think it through that far. She obliged and the two “gentlemen” waited out of sight for the plan to come into place.
Five minutes. Ten minutes. Fifteen minutes. God, how many beers had she downed by now? The answer turned out to be zero. Kerry called an audible on the terrible bathroom blitz, saddled up with the caterers in the kitchen, and phoned us over to figure out Step Two. The University of Illinois-Chicago did this one good.
While David was asking the chef no less than 30 questions about the preparation of corned beef, it dawned on us exactly what needed to be done. We needed to put on waiter uniforms and bust this ball up. The door of opportunity opened when one of the waitresses griped about needing a beer. I said we’d be happy to grab them beers if we could put on aprons and go into the party. For some ungodly reason, she and the chef agreed. Must not have cared about their jobs. We put on the aprons, grabbed bussing trays and tin foil and plastic utensils, and walked past the guarded door into the great unknown.
Cops. Everywhere. Oh and the theme song from the show “Cops” was playing. And I am not lying. Overwhelmed with panic that we would get pinched, I did what any drunken former busboy would do—start cleaning tables. I must have cleared a garbage bag worth of plates, napkins, and empty beers before noticing that David and Kerry were not doing the same. They took the alternate path of ditching their aprons and grabbing beers at the open bar. After bringing a few back to our caterer brethren—Irish honor and whatnot— I dumped the apron and jumped into the shenanigans.
Wish I could tell you how much cop corned beef we ate and cop beer we drank on that balcony. Really do. But it was consumed with so much damn pride and giddiness that the entire afternoon just has a beautiful sheen over it. I can tell you a few things from the inside.
We bought super panther SFPD Emerald Society shirts, which happened to double as brilliant disguises. Kerry befriended Jose the DJ, a retired officer who let us control the music for the last 45 minutes of the ball. First up, Lady Gaga. Next, Kelly Clarkson. I asked Kerry to put on some Stones so we didn’t draw any unneeded attention our way. Typical move for a table busser. David had a lengthy conversation with an SVU detective and later pointed out that “he couldn’t put the clues together that we were party crashers.”
We left that place on sunshiny rainbows. Completely bulletproof. Even walked to The Mint and sang some karaoke. Of course we all nailed our performances. I guess when you strike the perfect blend of whiskey, gusto, and dumb Irish luck, anything is possible.
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:
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.
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.
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.
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.
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:
