Item #9 - Kelly's Roast Beef

I moved out to Boston back in 2001 with my college roommate Walter (if you're reading this, there's probably a 80% chance you knew that, and, know Walter). And when I did, I worked at a start-up company that had, oh, about 4 employees at first. I loved the company. I loved the people. But what I didn't love was the fact that the other people there were all in relationships and weren't exactly of the go-to-the-bar-every-weekend age or mindset. Add to that the fact that Walter and I lived in Marlborough, a suburb about 30 miles from downtown that makes my old home of Sterling Height seem lively. And add to that the fact that Walter decided to start a long-distance relationship right before moving and usually preferred talking on the phone for 3 hours on a Friday to going out.

You may or may not find this blog interesting, but I'm pretty sure if I started a blog that just told Walter-isms and Walter stories, the followers would grow to the 1000's in a month. He is the only person I know that I would actually encourage to start a Twitter account, for better or worse. Walter in 140 characters would be an adventure . . . though mostly an adventure into the offensive and un-PC.

The combination of all those things led to me having a near non-existent social lifeearly on in my Boston going, which was made worse by me coming off the most enjoyable summer I had ever had - the post-graduation no-real-job drunk-fest in Ann Arbor.  That first year out here can only be rivaled in its social ineptitude by my 2 years spent at grad school in West Lafayette, Indiana (one of the first times I drove across town to the grocery store, I passed an old timer sitting on his rocking chair on his porch wearing overalls and no shirt. Right there, I knew it would be a long-ass 2 years).  

But at least in Boston, there was, ya know, an actual city to see. Thus, Independent Alan was born, and I was able to actually get out and start doing things alone. Going to musuems alone. Going to the movies alone. Going to concerts alone. But one thing that still kind of weirds me out is going to dinner solo. Maybe it's because with that one, it's blatantly obvious to an entire room that you're a loner (at a concert or movie, the lights go down and you're just one in a crowd).  Or maybe it's just because as I've said before, I have the patience of a 5 year old, and thus even the one time I did stop for dinner on my way home from work back then, I made sure to bring along a magazine (just sitting and thinking to myself for 20 minutes? What am I, a psycho)

Seriously, not counting eating at airports, where 50% of the people there are eating solo, I think I've only actively decided to eat at a restaurant alone that one time. So while going to Kelly's Roast Beef in Revere (a Boston institution. Ann Arborites - think Blimpy Burger or Zingerman's) wasn't an exciting list item, it at least carried the slightest fear of being that guy who's eating alone like a freak in the corner.

But as I learned, like many things in life, the fear was completely misguided and unfounded. No, not because I would stop caring about what the other diners thought with me eating alone, and actually grow up and be an adult as I continue on the list. No, it was because Kelly's Roast Beef's is just a damn take-out food stand by the side of the ocean!  I've seen this place 100 times on the Phantom Gourmet, and not once did that fact ever get processed by my Masters-level brain. So smart, and yet so dumb.

 

And while a Kelly's sandwich should probably be enjoyed as you bask in the sun and smell that salty seaside air, I, always the genius, decided to go there last week, at 9pm in December. Thus instead of the above, I got the below. Not exactly a lifetime summer memory. 

And instead of being that weird guy in the corner eating alone and mumbling to himself, I got to be that weird guy eating in his parked car while listening to talk radio, and who probably causes the neighbors nearby to call the cops on what they think is a potential pedophile.

Nope, not sketchy and/or sad at all.

So while I still need to get over that uneasy feeling of being the solo diner, I at least discovered a dining experience that can beat it in terms of overall level of depression. If only I had a quart of pint of Ben & Jerry's to finish off that meal with.

(and thus ends the blog post seemingly written by a single 55 year old lady with 4 cats).

• Thanks to Ang for the suggestion of Kelly's
• Yes, this theme of this post was probably a stretch, but what do you expect? It was a roast beef take-out stand.  Topics were limited. Just be happy it wasn't 1000 words on various sexual euphemisms.
• All are still welcome to come out to the Slutcracker Thursday. Ballet for the ladies, boobies for the guys.
• And tomorrow, item #10 . . .and there will be pain.

Item #8 - Yoga

I have adult ADD. Well, at least thats what I tell myself so I don't so feel like a 5 year old. Really, I just have very little patience and am easily bored. And when I get bored, i get really bored. And when I get really bored, it usually takes something really exciting to get me going again. Basically, I need a lot to do with a lot of stimulation, or I end up doing nothing at all. Again . . . a child.

This probably explains why I was playing on 3 soccer teams and a flag football team this summer, and at the same time had no problem sitting, not moving and watching 4 hours of soccer in a row on Saturday mornings. Or why I'm trying this whole do-52 thing in the first place, but yet also bought the newest Call of Duty game (re: nerd) for XBox last week.

I'm not exactly sure where video games actually fall on the spectrum below. I mean, Wii excluded, they require you to sit on the couch and not move for hours on end (let's be honest - no one plays for 20 minutes at a time), but at the same time, you are actively involved and it does require you to think (though the level of thinking can ceretainly be debated). Even something simple like Tetris is working your spacial reasoning and hand-eye coordination. And yes, I'm really stretching to justify playing video games as a 31 year old.

Even one of my (now shockingly) favorite activities, running, isn't spared from my boredom curve. All running activities exist on the right side of the above curve, but I'd rather run in 20 degree weather through an ever-changing city route than be stuck indoors on a treadmill. Half the time I run, I end up listening to podcasts because despite the fact that I've got 5,000 songs to choose from, sometimes I'm just not stimulated enough running and listening to songs I've already heard. And good Lord was I scared when I ran the Reach the Beach team marathon back in September (no, I didn't run 26 miles. I ran 5, then 3, and then 4). Not because my first leg was at 10:30 at night along the pitch black hill-filled rural roads of upper New Hampshire, but because you weren't allowed to wear any headphones while running. That was a first, and even then I made sure to listen to a catchy high-energy song up until the few seconds before my legs. God forbid I listen to my own thoughts for 45 minutes straight.

So this whole need for massive stimulation, or no stimulation at all, is the main reason why yoga has never appealed to me.

The idea that yoga could be considered by some to be emasculating actually had nothing to do with it at all. Trust me. You're reading the words of someone who's dressed up as various women at least 4 times now for Halloween. Someone who has "bake a cake" on their year-long to-do list. Someone who'll be running though the streets of Boston in a Speedo in under 2 weeks (insert cheap plug to donate to the kids!)

I figured yoga would sit smack dead in the middle of the boredom-enjoyment curve - just enough movement and strenuous activity to make me somewhat pay attention, but nowhere near enough to get me to actually enjoy myself. Like a lot of the items on the list (i.e., the blind date), I expected yoga to get me out of my expected comfort zone, whether I liked it or not. And so while Malinda suggested Bikram yoga (aka, sweat your balls off yoga) for the list, I decided to bring it down a notch, do yoga at a more sane room temperature to start, and to also actually do it within a little bit of my comfort zone - my work.

The lovely ladies at my fairly small company have been doing lunchtime yoga once a week for a year or so now. Recently, my friend Katie has started teaching the class herself. Thus, when I screwed up, I'd only mildly feel like a jackass. And with my co-workers on-hand, they'd get to enjoy the lasting images of my virgin yoga experience. A win-win proposition.

Normally I would have liked to include pictures here, for the readers enjoyment, but I figured taking pictures mid-class may have been a little disruptive and disrespectful (yes, this usually tactless boy still occasionally retains some of those midwestern manners he grew up with). And taking pictures mid-class kind of goes against the whole let-yourself-go-and-relax thing that yoga kind of has going for it. So really, all I can do is leave you with hastily thrown together photoshops of me in a couple poses I actually did do. 

According to the interwebs, this is the crane pose, though I think Katie called it the crows nest. Either way, I was able to balance on my hands, but maybe not quite as nicely as shown above. 

This is, shockingly, called a headstand. It took me an attempt or two, but I was able to hold it for a good 10 seconds or so. Maybe not perfectly vertical, but damn close. Yes, even I was surprised.

The class lasted an hour, so obviously more poses were thrown in, but these were probably the hardest, and thus, made me feel the most like a bad-ass, if its actually possible to feel like a bad-ass during yoga. And the class may now be the current posterchild for the do-52 list because . . . ummm, I actually enjoyed it. I enjoyed yoga. In fact, I'll probably be at the same class tomorrow despite already crossing it off the list. Instead of getting restless due to lack of motion, or possibly falling asleep for the same reason, I was able to actually focus, do the poses, and enjoy the overall sense of calmness . . . . and all while not even feeling emasculated.

• Thanks to Malinda for suggesting, Katie for teaching
• I hit up Kelly's Roast Beef (item #9) tonight post-soccer, but since I'm just getting around to this post, it will have to wait. Not exactly exciting, but a Boston food landmark none-the-less
• I'll be going to see some Christmas burlesque (item #10) next week - The Slutcracker. Tickets are general admission, so if you'd to join me and a couple girls from my work, email/text/comment me.
• Around the same time next week will be item #11. All I will say, is that it will involve pain.

Item #7 - Get Some Movie Culture

Jar Jar Binks . . . made me a movie snob. 

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I heart movies.  I worked at a movie theater back in high school, back when AMC employees got to wear cool bow ties and vests as their uniforms, and when then employees had to risk life and limb by buttering the customer's popcorn (when the butter vat was empty, you knew it. Mostly because you had the burn marks along your arm to show it after it sprayed the last bits of delicious fatty-American buttery goodness all over them). Kids today . . . so spoiled.

Anyway, there were 2 great perks from the job. One - they sometimes showed the new blockbusters to the working crew on Thursdays at midnight, before the rest of you common folk got to the following day. And two - unlimited free movies.  And when you're in high school, and you live in a middle class suburbia, and you don't really drink yet because you're lame, there's not a whole lot to do except go to the movies and see lots and lots of crap. But naturally when you're a stupid kid, if it gets you out of the house on a Friday night, it's cinematic gold.

I'm one of those people that's keeps ticket stubs from everything I've ever been to. I suppose most people do it so they can look back and see how cool they were because they saw Band X before they were big. But in this case, I just took a look back at some movie stubs from high school to see how bad my movie (or really, the group's movie taste) had been. Some glaring examples of movies that I may have actually paid money in a theater to see - Anacanda, Double Team ("starring" Jean Claude Van Damme and Dennis Rodman), and Bio-Dome (though for some sick reason I still enjoy this movie).  That is a quality trifecta of poor taste.

Then in 1999, George Lucas, a man I had previously admired and about whom I wrote a biography in English class, finally decided to make the 3 prequel Star Wars movies. And being somewhat of a Star Wars geek at the time, I was fairly psyched. So a friend got tickets early and as the nerds that we were, we went to see the Phantom Menace the day it came out (though no, were weren't nerdy enough to be one of the people you'd see in this classic Triumph video).  And for the first time in my life, when the movie ended, I walked out the theater and said . . . "what the FUCK was THAT?" It was disappointing in ways that I could have never even imagined.

For the first time, I realized that special effects could only take a movie so far. For the first time, I realized character development actually meant something. For the first time, I realized casting could actually destroy what little character development there was. It was . . . it was brutal. And the cornerstone for my and every other rational person's disdain was the completely unnecessary (and arguably racist) character of Jar Jar Binks. So thanks to him, and thanks to George Lucas, I've slowly but surely become more a movie snob since then.

Granted there's varying levels of snobdom, and I'm sure there's plenty of artsy types around elitist Boston that would scoff at my DVD collection, but Phantom Menace pushed my own movie snootiness above the typical American movie goers view of what a "good movie" is. I slowly gravitated towards what the critics recommended as opposed to what the box office numbers recommended (I joked about Kangaroo Jack in the chart above, but that was in all seriousness a #1 movie at the US box office when it opened. People in this country are sick I tell you). And I even slowly began to recognize and appreciate certain movie styles (like all semi-hispters, I love me some Wes Anderson movies).

So as I continue my journey up the movie snobdom chain, it was only fitting that I try and explore the cinematic world in a new way. And since I've seen more than enough garbage over the years (whether I recognized at the time or not), it was time to take in some old school Oscar winning films. And last week I had a triple header, watching 3 movies that won Best Picture on back-to-back-to-back nights - The French Connection (from 1971), The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957), and On the Waterefront (1954).

At this point, I should probably be breaking down these films for you for all their great complexities, and acting brilliance and yada yada yada. Alas, while I've become fairly snooty in my movie selection, and in what I actually enjoy, as a critic I probably have no idea what I'm the hell talking about and if I actually tried to dissect these Oscar winners, I'd only embarrass myself. So I'll take the cheap way out and do some bullet points instead:

• Its always cool to see actors way before they did the roles you know them for. Gene Hackman and Roy Scheider (that dude from Jaws) in The French Connection. Alec Guinness (aka, Obi-Wan Kenobi) in The Bridge on the River Kwai). And Marlon Brando in On the Waterfront (yes, I'm sure tons of people relate him to this role first as opposed to The Godfather, but I'm 31 years old. I don't). 
• Man was there some old school racism in the 70's. The usual terms were thrown around in The French Connection, but I was especially amused by "you dumb guinea" and by the cops calling the French characters "frogs."And he didn't even look around for other Fenchies before saying "frogs" out loud.
• Also amusing in that movie - a game of street hockey played on roller skates, Panam airlines, and a character casually strolling up to the ticket counter at the airport and buying a round trip ticket from NYC to DC for $54, done so without showing any ID (though the clerk did tell the passenger to print his name on both tickets or he wouldn't be allowed on - that's some good old timey security).
• Going into the 3, I figured I would probably enjoy them in the reverse order of when they were made.  Newer = better, right? And even their topics suggested so - The French Connection being about cops going after drug smugglers, River Kwai being about a WWII POW camp, and On the Waterfront dealing with corrupt unions (and it was also the only one with a love story). But while I enjoyed all 3, I actually enjoyed them in the actual order they were made, thinking On the Waterfront was the best of the 3. Preconceived notions . . . . for suckers. 

And as a closing remark, not that I really need to say it . . . go see these movies. They're Best Pictures. They're, ya know, legitimately damn good films.