California Livin

Mal and I have officially made it back to San Diego, CA. It has been awesome catching up with friends and family and trying to get stuff situated. We are living at my parents house, like the champs we are, for the time being with the hopes of moving back to the North Park/South Park area eventually. Gotta have moolah to do that though.

Mal is officially getting her job back at Jet Rhys. She could not be happier about this as she learned so much in New York that she thinks could really be put to use there. The salon is also very stoked to have her back.

As for me, kind of up in the air. Within the next week or so I will really try and put my ear to the ground and watch out for potential jobs. But it has been a rough transition for me. Going to New York with no job lined up was scary enough. Coming home without one lined up and not a ton of money is a whole different beast. It is definitely something I am still trying to cope with. But all in good time is what I keep telling myself.

That being said, if you har of anything that you think my super awesome talents my fit into, feel free to let me know.

I am not 100% sure what I am going to do with this blog. Especially since the Burritos have returned. And boy, have they returned. If any of you have any ideas of what I can do let me know. Considering starting to do the Unemployment Line again, but not really looking forward to it. But we will. Good talking.

Till next time...

Epic Long Post About Three Things...

Food, Valentines Day, and Dubstep. Two of those things are very near and dear to my heart. I bet you can't guess which two. I'll give you a hint, it's not dubstep.

I will start with the food though. Been a couple since I posted. And let me just start off by saying, food is fucking expensive. Even the cheap food is expensive. That being said, Mal and I went out for Valentines Day the day before actual Valentines Day. Mostly because I see V-Day as an amateur night. So I try and stay away from the people that annoy me. We also never really do anything for actual V-Day. That includes gifts. Well this year, we both decided to get each other something. Mal got me Refused tickets. Sold out Refused tickets I might add. So stoked. I got her something really thoughtful, amazing, and cute. But clearly she doesn't care about it cause she hasn't told ANYONE. Guess I will just have a good ol fashioned barrel fire.

Anyway. The night before V-Day we went to this restaurant in East Village called The Redhead. Super tasty food and drinks. I got the Hemingway which was golden rum, grapefruit, lime, and maraschino liqueur. Mal got the Tejano which was tequila, roasted pineapple, and smoked chiles. For food, we started with the soft pretzels served with Kentucky-style beer cheese. Definitely something I could eat all day, everyday. For the entrées, I got their burger. Delicious. And Mal got the buttermilk fried chicken, which was amazing. Not salty at all which is how I think a lot of fried chicken dishes get ruined. No pictures, but trust me, it was all damn good.

The next night was actual V-Day so we decided to make a dinner and a movie out of it. At home though. So I picked up a bottle of a very nice 12 dollar Prosecco, we ordered some really good Italian food from Nonna's and watched Garden State. Pretty solid V-Day.

We went to this place by our house in Lower East Side called Berkli Parc Cafe. Heard they had good sandwiches, and we all know how much I love sandwiches. I got their turkey sandwich. It has arugula, chipotle mayo, onions, gruyere cheese, and pickled mangos. Damn good. 

Mal got their Thanksgiving All Year sandwich. Turkey, sweet and sour cranberry sauce, sprouts, cheese, and mayo. She didn't really enjoy it, but it sounded good.

Yesterday we decided to get lunch over in Brooklyn cause Mal needed to look for models and I was in the mood for a burger and fries. And let me tell you, DuMont is the best burger I have had in NYC. First off, it was massive. Got it medium (which is something a little new for me, as I usually go with medium well) with lettuce, bread and butter pickles, pickled onions , ketchup, dijon mustard, and mayo. So so so so good. The fries were killer as well. Wanna make a good fry? Crispy on the outside (almost crunchy) and soft on the inside. They did it well.

Got a nice Lynchburg Lemonade to wash it all down with.

Mal got the corned beef hash. Had a couple bites and it was pretty darn good.

Every plate comes with 3 little donut things. Mal ate one before I could even get my phone out.

As much as I am dreading the humidity that is gonna ravage my crotch in the summertime, I am so excited to see this view.

In all the subways trains there are these art pieces. They rotate every couple of months and this one has definitely become my favorite. It is by an artist named Sophie Black. It is basically a run down of every person that you will see on the train. I recommend looking at it for a while and you will see some pretty hilarious stuff. Mal and I have decided that she is the girl with the short black hair in the yellow jacket between the homeless guy and the fisherman. I am the guy to the left of the clown with headphones on playing his iPhone.

And now for the Dubstep portion of this post. As some of you may know, I have a job working for a company called Ledge Entertainment. I am having fun there and am learning a lot. One of the things we are starting to get into is Artist Management. One of the artists we manage is a girl from Israel named Shira. I highly recommend watching this video of her covering Gnarls Barkley's "Crazy." Well she is currently playing some shows with these dubstep artists known as Masss, also from Israel. I went to one of their shows on Saturday. Let me preface this by saying, I am not a fan of Dubstep. For many reasons. But I can appreciate why people like it, especially now that I have seen it live. It is easily danceable.

That being said, UGH. First of all, I had to be there at 2 in the morning. Cause apparently all these shows don't start till 10 PM and go till like 5 AM. Aside from the raging headache the music/smoke machines/lasers raping my eyes, it was pure comedy. The people. Wow. From the girl doing the same dance moves over and over and over and and over for the ENTIRE time I was there. The 5 girls with Skrillex haircuts. The gay guys hardcore dancing/making out at the same time. How do you do that? The "professional" photographer taking pictures of the lasers on the ceiling. The random guy with a mic yelling things. The guy in the suit. The girl who looked like Jared Leto on her phone the WHOLE time. The guy who was clearly roofied. The girl who was clearly roofied. The guy standing in the corner who clearly roofied both of them. The vampire guy. The guy who clearly thinks spinning a girl around over and over is the way to get her in bed. And the super out of place grunge guy. And then there was me. The guy whose mind was being blown by all of this. This is truly a site to see. Just bring ear plugs. Like heavy duty ones.

Sandwiches and Booze

Haven't posted about food in a little so here it goes.

Sunday, Monday, and Wednesday are Mals "days off." I put it quotations cause on her days off she has to go look for models. This means, I tag along. It usually goes like this:

1. Wake up around 9 AM EST
2. Check internets for all going on in the world.
3. Get dressed.
4. Leave and go to one of three places.
• Soho
• Union Square
• Herald Square
5. Once there, she looks for models. I continue to check out the internets and try and "help." Most of the time I pick out girls with the wrong hair. But it's the thought that counts. I will have you no that I am caught up on ALL the cool fashions though. Thats what I get from going into Forever 21, Uniglo, H&M, Victorias Secret, Zara, and every other god damn store with over priced clothes that will never fit me, every 2 days. 

The one good thing about going out and doing this is getting to try new food. That and exercise. We were up near Herald Square yesterday and I was in the mood for a sandwich. Yelped and came up with this place called Num Pang. Holy moly was it good. I never thought I would say this, but I think it was better than Saigon Banh Mi. They basically do banh mi sandwiches on crack. I had the Roasted Chicken 'Chimi'. Roasted chicken with cucumber, cilantro, pickled carrots, chili mayo, and the kicker, pickled apples. All on another great sandwich places bread, Parisi Bakery. 

Mal got the Boneless Spare Ribs. That was some tender meat. Pork spare ribs, cilantro, pickled carrots, chili mayo, and a spicy tamarind glaze.

It isn't expensive but for the size of the sandwich, it could be cheaper. That was my only complaint. Other than that, really good. Plus how can you beat old school hip hop blaring in the place and walls with this all over them?

After we found all the models we started to head home. But we stopped in at this place a couple blocks from our apartment called Schillers Liquor Bar, where they have a killer happy hour Mon-Thurs 4 to 7:30 PM. All original cocktails are buy one get one free. They have a drink there called Schillers Storm that is mighty tasty. Makers Mark with ginger, pineapple, and plum. I could drink it for days. 

Work is going alright. Still trying to find my place there, but it's good. I finally feel like I am contributing so that puts my mind at ease. Hoping to get into our own place, by the end of March/beginning of April? I don't know. We will see. It could be sooner if you guys wanna right some checks. Just sayin...

The Big Game

Just to preface, I know this post isn't about food. I am trying to get better about writing about other things besides me getting fat. So just pretend to enjoy reading it.

I bet you thought I mean't the Superbowl huh? Well not really. That being said, I will start this rant by saying that I really enjoyed the game. Two great teams battling it out. But...

All the Superbowl really is, is a giant dramatic ad. Sure there might be some sports going on in the background, but does anyone really care? I mean, live in New York and Giants were in it, yet I noticed more cheering for when Audi killed vampires or when Uncle Jesse got head butted or when Clint Eastwood announced he is running for president or when Madonna stopped singing. "The Big Game" is really just to see who has the better ads.

It's just one of those anomalies that people eat up once a year. Sure the ads continue to role the other 364 days but do they really matter to you? "Here We Go," is really just something you say as a joke, if you say it at all (I know I don't. Except when I am pretending to be SWAT or something). But the Budweiser #makeitplatinum hashtag took off like wildfire. Averaging about 50 posts a minute today, so you can only imagine what it was like yesterday with 111.3 million viewers of the Superbowl. Basically Budweiser is trying to say, "Hey, we have something new that can compete with the hip micro brewers out there." At a 6% alcohol level, they might be right, but if it tastes anything like Bud Light, I'll stick with the micro brewers.

111.3 Million viewers. According to Nielsen that is the most viewers of anything ever. It was predicted that about 10 million people turned over to the annual "Puppy Bowl" at half time. So let's just go out on a limb and say 100 million people watched the half time show. That means 100 million people watched Madonna "sing," "dance," and "prove to everyone that she still has got it." Listen, I know people can't really perform at the half time show. But in my eyes, that should make everything easier. IT'S YOUR SONG! YOU SHOULD KNOW THE WORDS! And it's not like she even had hundreds of people close to the stage to watch her fuck up. It was just her shitty dancers, pointless LMFAO, her pointless band, Nikki Minaj, and then MIA. Listen, I get it MIA. You wanted to do something crazy. But what does yelling, "shit" in your 10 second cameo on Madonnas new song and throwing the finger out accomplish? Perhaps most outraged is the Parents Television Council. PTC President Tim Winter released a statement taking NBC to task for the slipped finger.

"NBC fumbled (BAZZZZZING) and the NFL lied because a performer known as M.I.A. felt it necessary to flip off millions of families," Winter said. "It is unfortunate that a spectacular sporting event was overshadowed once again by broadcasting the selfish acts of a desperate performer."

Of course MIA has come out and said that she was, "struck with a case of adrenaline," and "didn't mean anything by it." How dumb are you? I don't know about you guys, but when I have adrenaline, I don't go and do stupid shit in front of 100 million viewers. But that's just me. Do I care that she yelled shit and flipped the camera off? No. But I don't care about a lot of things. But something tells me that her doing that, may have upset a handful of people.

I enjoy the Superbowl. I love everything that comes along with it. The game, the food, the beer, the commercials, hell, even the half time show makes me laugh. But, like I said before, it is all just one giant dramatic ad. That, at least for me, makes no difference in my life. I will not be buying more Doritos, buying a hideous Fiat, giving Matthew Broderick a high five for his complete sell out of Ferris Buellers Day Off, pay to see The Darkness, give George Lucas any more of my money, think Regis Philbin isn't a zombie, and most of all, think Battleship is going to be any good. 


3.5 million dollars for each 30 second ad. Their were about 36 different advertisers during the Superbowl. Many with mulitple commercials. From what I could find, 92 different commercials ran during the game. Let's just round down and say 90 to be safe. Simple mathematics will tell you that is 315,000,000 million dollars just to run an ad. That's not even to produce it. If I am the main consumer, that's a whole lot of wasted money. And even if I am not, that's a whole lot of wasted money. 


But football is fun. :)

Yes. I Know. I Have Not Blogged In A While.

I have been busy. Mostly working. Other times exploring. Other times sleeping. Other times pondering life. You know? Stuff.

Yes I have officially started my job. The company is called Ledge Entertainment. It is an event planning company that specializes in radio festivals. We also do artist management and tour planning. I am super excited about working there. It is something completely different from what I have done for pretty much my whole career, but that is good. New city, new job, new everything. Well, almost everything. But in all seriousness, I am very excited for something new, and very excited to be working with this company. PLUS, one of my coworkers (there are only 4 of us) not only lived in San Diego, but also played in one of my favorite bands from SD, Da Bears!

Like I said before, it has been a while since I have posted so I got a couple of places that I want to write about that I have eaten at. First place is an awesome sandwich shop called Barnyard. It is in Alphabet City, which is about a 10 minute walk from our place.

I got the Mexican Cuban, which I am starting to find out is something a lot of places do around here. It is slow roasted pork, ham, swiss, avocado, pickled jalapeños (which were awesome), dill pickles and mayo. I went with the chipotle mayo though. Seriously good sandwich. A little on the greasy side, but seriously good.

We went back to a place I previously posted about. Rattle'n'Hum host tons of specialty beer nights. Well a couple Tuesdays ago they hosted a California beer night.

The selection was pretty decent. I think 15 beers in all. From San Diego they has Ballast Point, Greenflash, and Mission. Outside of SD they had Anderson Valley, Lagunitas, Firestone, Moylans, Nectar Ales, Northcoast, and Sierra Nevada. Not a crazy selection, but it did the job.

One thing we have noticed living here, in a 7 story walk up (we live on the 5th floor unfortunately), is that there is always shit just lying in the bottom lobby area. We have taken 2 things from there. I know what you are thinking, "Andrew, you are seriously disgusting." In most cases I would agree with you. But after careful examination we have grabbed two things from said area. The first one? A small shelving unit which we doused in bleach and other cleaning solutions. It has saved us a TON of room. The second was just yesterday. Sitting perched on a ledge right by the front door of our building were these:

Stoked.

Yesterday we decided to be tourists and go do the Statue of Liberty. Is it absolutely perfect weather in NYC right now. Yesterday it was 60 degrees most of the day which was amazing. So riding on a boat to Liberty Island looking at this, ain't too bad of a day. 

The Statue was cool. Not as cool as the first time I went back in 2000 when we could actually go in the head, but still cool. 

Most epic picture ever taken. Just so you know.

We kind of turned our Statue of Liberty day into a date night, so we went over to Brooklyn in an area called Cobble Hill (which we fell in love with) and saw Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close. Not exactly a great date movie, but a seriously good movie. One of the best I've seen in a long time. 

Afterwards we went to a highly rated pizza place called Sottocasa. Honestly, it was good pizza, but just WAY too acidic. By the second slice it was hard to get down cause it burned so much. Good, but not amazing. 

Worked today only to come home to a package from my mother. Here are six reasons why she is truly the greatest.

An Update of Sorts

Been a pretty mellow couple of days. It finally snowed yesterday. But I guess it's not going to for another week or so. I love the snow here. For multiple reasons. The biggest is, the wind is usually pretty minimal. New York is cold, but definitely manageable. But when it is bright blue skies and like 15-20 mph winds, it is the WORST. Cuts right through your layers. So I can definitely handle this.

Went to a sandwich place on Friday called Cheeky's Sandwich. It's on Orchard St. which I turned down off of Rivington in the Lower East Side. Definitely one of my favorite streets in New York. Ton's of cool shops, art galleries, museums, and bars on Orchard. I got their pork sandwich. All their sandwiches are pretty simple but pack a ton of flavor. Mine was marinated seared pork chops, caramelized apples, onions, and mustard on challah bread. Pretty good sandwich. A bit overpriced, but good. 

That night Mal and I went over to Brooklyn to see Portugal. The Man at Brooklyn Bowl. This is the second time we have been here (the first for Dum Dum Girls) and I am really starting to like this venue. I just wish they booked better bands. This was definitely the best I have heard Portugal. The Man sound. You can tell that as they get more and more popular (bittersweet) that they are really just honing in their live sound, which has always been good. Playing for about an hour and half and they played a little bit of everything. But what just blows me away is how they are now playing stuff off their debut, Waiter: "You Vultures!" Everything is so layered and so good. The highlight of the set, for me at least,  was their 10 minute version of "Elephants." Throw in the best cover of "Helter Skelter" (Sorry Thrice) that I have ever seen, plus a cover of "All the Young Dudes" by Bowie and of course the Etta James (RIP) cover of "I Would Rather Go Blind" in the encore. You can check out the rest of the setlist here. Couldn't have asked for a better show.

I am hoping to god that I start my job this week. Starting to go stir crazy. It's hard when Mal goes to work only cause, like I have said before, we don't have a ton of money, so for me to just go out and spend it on stuff, especially stuff that I know at some point Mal would probably want to do, sucks. So yea that being said, I really hope I start this week.

Last year when we came here in January, the day we were leaving we were walking through Chelsea Market and noticed that there was a huge chili cookoff going on. I was bummed that we could not participate because you needed to have tickets. Well this year, we got tickets and it is next Friday. So stoked for the NYC Chilifest. I just feel bad for anyone that will be around me for the next week. Nineteen different chili's (including last years winner Northern Spy Food Co), corn bread, cheese, and all the Sam Adams beer we can handle. 

Another FOOD MEGA POST???? sorta.

So Mallory started her job yesterday. She had an absolute blast. It's gonna be a crazy handful of months, but all worth it in the end.

In other and not so surprising news, we ate some more awesome food. Yesterday while Mal was at work I went to this slider place called, Mark.

They do some really good sliders and are relatively cheap as well. Pretty simple. Meat, onions, pickle, and cheese. I add some ketchup. I could eat these things all day. Their fries are also super good.

After Mal got off I met her at a beer bar called, Rattle 'N' Hum. Lucky for us, it was imported beer night. Tons of beer Mal and I had never even heard of, almost to a point where I was overwhelmed. I went with the St. Feuillien Triple. Really really good beer.

It's a pub, so they have pub food. I went with the Tequila Chicken Sandwich with fries. 

I guess they do a lot of special beer events so we will definitely be back. Next week they are doing a California beer night, so you can bet your ass we will be there. PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE HAVE BALLAST POINT BARMY ALE.

Today, Mal needed to go look for some models so we went over to Brooklyn, Williamsburg in particular, and went to this sandwich place that I had heard about called Graham Ave. Meats and Deli. 

I have eaten a lot of sandwiches in my day. And a good amount here in New York. I have never had a better sandwich. And boom goes the dynamite. Everything about the Godfather sandwich I got was insanely good. Chris Grillo knows exactly what he is doing. Hero bread, mozzarella, sweet peppers, 3 Italian meats, lettuce, onion, mustard, and their own special blend of oil and vinegar. Every bite was so damn good.

I had a bite of Mal's plain ol Salami sandwich, and it as well, was amazing. It is a shame this place is in Brooklyn, cause I honestly think I would be there every day.

After we got back to Manhattan, she needed one more model so we went to Union Sq. I guess every week day they have the Union Square Market. Tons of local stuff (vegetables, fruit, fish, meats, cheese, etc) all on the cheap. I got a bag of apples. One of the apples (and I have no idea which one) was the best apple I have ever had. I feel like I am starting to repeat that sentence a lot...