Witz DOESN'T Pick: Tuesday Tapas

I'm taking a cue from the meal I had sunday night and giving you the Tuesday Tapas. This means a few assorted pickz that you should take your time reading, and while you'll hopefully find them very tasty, you're ultimately going to still be hungry when you're done.

On the Road ($9) - A spicy classic

Sometimes I think that there's no such thing as traffic, just assholes. If you see a beautiful open world in front of you and seventeen cars riding up your Toyota's ass, that means it's time to move out of the passing lane. I'm not dancing to some song in my car and singing along to the very redundant lyrics-- I'm flailing my arms at you and screaming, "Oh my god, fucking pull over, oh my god, fucking pull over!" Who are these people driving exactly the same speed next to each other?? Do they really think, "Why look at this predicament! I just don't know what to do here!" Speed up. Slow down. Pull over. This isn't synchronized driving. I don't care if you've always wanted to lead a parade. Move. And you know they know what's up because they NEVER make eye-contact with you when you finally pass them. They're always fixated on whatever is directly ahead of them, which is usually lots of open space.

I've actually always wanted to have a dry-rase board in my car that I could write things on like, "PULL OVER!" or "USE YOUR SIGNAL, ASSHOLE!" or "I DON'T UNDERSTAND THE TECHNOLOGY THAT ALLOWS THIS BOARD TO FUNCTION! (and neither does the Insane Clown Posse)," but then I realized that it would make me The Guy Who Drives with a Dry-Erase Board and I'm just not ready for that kind of commitment.

Kracken ($8) - bold flavors with a subtle hint of vulgarity.

The Clash of the Titans is now in theaters and it features something that has been on my mind through the years of watching movies: The Kracken. Now, I don't really know what a kracken is, but it always looks like a manatee fucked a redwood tree and whether it's in Clash of the Titans or Pirates of the Carribean, everyone is always releasing it. It's always the same thing, too: some guy standing in an epic site dramatically demanding the universe to "RELEASE THE KRACKEN!" Well, why's everybody just releasing the kracken? Does anybody ever "TEND THE KRACKEN!" or "CALL AND SEE WHAT THE KRACKEN IS UP TO!"? Nobody seems to think about what's gonna happen once the kracken is released. It's all fun and games until someone needs to "FEED THE KRACKEN!" Who's gonna wake up at 6am to "WALK THE KRACKEN!"? And what if the kracken's been captive for so long that when it's finally released it doesn't even want its freedom like Brooks in Shawshank Redemption? It's a lot of responsibility, and I'm not always sure the people know what they're getting themselves into.

I'll say this: if I knew I had the power to release the kracken, like, if that was part of my job description, OH MY GOD would I constantly be waiting to do so! "Witz, you're in charge of photocopies, spreadsheets, planning the holiday party, and RELEASING THE KRACKEN." I'd jump the gun on that so quickly. "Is it cold in here? Maybe I should release the kracken." "Printer's broke, releasing the kracken now." "The Hurt Locker didn't arrive from Netflix today like it was supposed to, but I was thinking maybe we could have a nice dinner, drink some wine, and thennn maybe release the kracken?? Whattya think?" (Insert obvious penis joke here). This is why I can't have nice things.

Hecho en Dumbo ($12) - the house favorite

I don't trust Mexican places with clever or trendy names. I like my Mexican restaurants to have simple names like Dos Pinas (two pineapples) or El Farolito (the lantern) or places with very direct names like Margueritas, or Expresso Burrito. If I owned my own Mexican place, I'd probably just name it Burritos, but with an apostrophe at the end, as if the burritos, themselves, owned and operated the restaurant like a co-op. So you can understand why I'd be wary of a place that translates to "Made in Dumbo," especially when the place was no longer in the neighborhood of Dumbo, but rather the bowery. This place was no two pineapples.

We quickly learned from our waiter that Hecho en Dumbo was fancy and each dish was ordered like tapas, a few small things per plate. We decided to order family style, which to some people means the table orders a bunch of stuff and everybody shares each plate, but to me usually means that one person orders a lot of food for us and then we resent them silently the rest of the meal.

A quick look at the menu, and at the plates a short while later gave me a rough idea of how the place operated. Basically, they were saying that just in case Mexican food wasn't volatile enough already, have fun with the chicken, steak, pork, swordfish, ceviche, octopus, cactus, mushroom, queso fundido. It's like playing Bingo, only instead of getting to stand up and shout "Bingo!" you jump up and sprint to the bathroom as quickly as humanly possible. Our waiter was charismatic and I was both with the type of group and at the type of place where the guy could have said, "Our special tonight is the burritas humanos, which of course are made with the meat of human babies, but they are seasoned just BLISSFULLY! I HIGHLY recommend them," so we ate everything that appeared before us. And just for luck, I tried a Michalada Cubano at the beginning of the meal and was given a free one at the end-- because why not bookend the night with a couple of glasses of alcoholic worcestershire water?

To my Noah's Ark of a stomach's credit, it handled all the food well, including the octopus which tasted like a super salty string cheese (like how pâté tastes like meat-cream-cheese), and to Hecho en Dumbo's credit, everything WAS delicious. Still, I'm happy with a five dollar brick of beans and cheese any day of the week. And yes, I was hungry an hour later.

That'll Be Eighty Dollars Please,
Witz

Witz Pickz: Weekend Happenings OR How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Blog

Last night, as I hobbled with a pulled hamstring from Walgreens to my car, a homeless woman in a wheelchair, rather than asking for money, simply said, "Take care of that leg." THAT'S where I'm at in life-- the crippled homeless are wishing ME well. In case you were wondering, I made things more uncomfortable with the worst reply possible: "You too."

In a job counseling interview recently, I was once again asked how I find things to write about. I'm beginning to think they find me.

After being in Seattle for the weekend, I flew back to San Francisco on Virgin America, and had a very unsettling experience. Instead of getting the "Thanks for flying Virgin" message from the flight crew or simply over the intercom, the pilot, who's name was allegedly Bill, stood in the center of the aisle, and asked everyone to look up front to where he was. He said that he had two important things to say and I immediately thought, "We're not going anywhere."

"Hi, my name is Bill and I am the pilot for your flight today on Virgin America. Boy, are we happy to have you with us-- how many of you have flown Virgin before?" My "Cool Kid" instincts were still secure from high school, so I totally DIDN'T raise my hand even though I HAVE flown Virgin before. "Well gosh, that's great, that's great. Thanks for coming back, and for the rest of you, we welcome you aboard!" He smiled that special smile that says, "I stab the homeless!" and prepared to deliver his next bit of information, which I had narrowed down to three options:

1) We were all about to child molested by our new friend Bill.
2) We were all about to be hacked to bits by our best buddy Billy.
3) Our plane wasn't going anywhere until we all prayed...or Pilot Bill would blow us all up.

Instead, Bill simply said, "Next, I want to tell all of you to sit back, relax, and enjoy the flight, which should be..." I prepared for the inevitable, "delayed for a mere five hours!" but got, "An hour and thirty minutes of actual flight time," from Bill. He then turned and went to fly the plane. Somehow telling us to sit back, relax, and enjoy the flight sounded a lot like a threat. I would have felt more at ease if he'd just told me which horrible death he had planned for me.

Witz: Why do I feel less comfortable now that he's spoken to us? (translation: Hi, let's be friends)
Middle Seat Guy: Definitely. That was creepy.
Witz: I thought we were going to have a delay. (translation: I have every intention of using your body as a human shield for any knives, bullets or explosions heading towards me via our cheery pilot.)
Middle Seat Guy: I don't know how I feel about that guy flying our plane.
Witz: Me either. (translation: furthermore, judging by your clothes, age, and general demeanor, I believe that you are expendable and I will not feel bad about using you and your western shirt as said human shield, nor will I hesitate in my action to transform you thus.)
Middle Seat Guy: Weird.
Witz: I guess that's why they give us tv's...(translation: and you'll never see it coming.)

To the detriment of this post, the flight went off without incident, but I did manage to see one of my favorite INSANE television commercials during the trip. The General is an Auto Insurance company-- the hook being that The General DOES NOT GIVE A FUCK. You can be a horrible accident prone drunk driver, and The General's gonna hook you up for around $59. These commercials have to be regional, so here's a great introductory example:


Now, as you'll see from this shitty line chart I made in paint, everything's going along fine right up until The General makes his first appearance at the 20 second mark.



That isn't the commercial I saw, however. The one I saw was this:


What the hell is going on in this commercial? Is there a big market for people who want to purchase car insurance late at night? "If you smoke meth...AND NEED AUTO INSURANCE...The General is for you." And if he's been in the other room for a while, why did he, "JUST log on to The General.com?" Porn city. If, "Logging onto The General" isn't a euphamism, then I don't know what is. Fortunately, once he clicks over, it only takes him a minute to buy his dirtbag auto insurance, so he can go back to the horrid disembodied voice who inexpicably requires CHEESE PUFFS.

"How should we end this commercial?"
"Ummm, have her demand something."
"Like what?"
"I dunno man, I'm really high right now."
"Me too, hand me some of those cheese puffs."
"..."
"THAT'S IT!"
"THAT'S IT!"

Watching this commerical reminded me of a commercial I'd heard on the radio earlier in the day while driving with Dolan Out the Pain. It was a Qdoba commercial for their "any two items" deal. You see, you could pick out ANY TWO items and make it a combo. The girl in the commercial starts naming combinations to see if the foods will work together: "Um, how about a cheese quesadilla and a taco?" DING! It's a good combination! "An enchilada and tortilla soup?" DING! "A burrito and nachos?" DING!
....
....
IT'S MEXICAN FOOD! IT'S ALL THE SAME STUFF! Rice, beans, cheese, meat, repeat! You know how the eskimos have, like, a thousand words for snow? Well, Mexico has a thousand words for taco. Do you want a hard taco, a soft taco, a flat taco, an enclosed taco, a soggy taco, taco triangles, taco salad, taco pie, or taco soup? It's all the same! I love every bit of it, but hooooly shit people, let's all take a second to acknowledge that we see the man behind the curtain. It doesn't matter which two items you pick, you ain't swinging by Qdoba on your way to go camping.

I Like My Beans the Way I Like My Pro Athletes-- Refried,
Witz