Sticky fingers

Guilty pleasures vol. two: I am ... I said

I have four Neil Diamond selections in my iTunes library, which admittedly does not include the song referenced in today's post title, "I am ... I said," although that may change before the day is over. Indeed, when I decided to disclose this terrible truth and tell the world that I enjoy Neil Diamond in small doses, I purchased and downloaded "Cherry Cherry" by way of celebration, which I immediately played at full volume while dancing like a pixilated go-go girl has-been in the upstairs hall. My 12-year-old peered out at the spectacle from beneath her blanket of covers, terror flashing in her eyes.

I also have two cover selections from Mr. Diamond. They include his heart-wrenching version of "Mr. Bojangles" and one that showcases middle-aged white-guy angst with unmatched poignancy, "Both Sides Now." To hell with Judy Collins.

But it never, ever gets any better than "Holly Holy," wherein Diamond delivers lines like "Holly whole holy love," with the intensity of a man pulling a wooden stake from the bloodied and ragged flesh of his chest.



How fucking beautiful is that?

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Phone cam round-up

Asphalt patch blob that looks like a cartoon elephant who is refusing something--pure proof that it's time for the country to swing hard left.


Hey buddy? I bet you wouldn't have thrown that ol' french fry out the window of your car if you had dipped it in a vanilla milkshake first.


No thanks, I'll walk. Wait ... on second thought ... you got any ice cold Pabst in the back?


Hi parrot plush toy.


Decorative horns at the mall that look like they have lighted barf dripping off would-be tongues.


Campbell's soup is good food.


Disrespected chicken wing bone.


Terrifying prepackaged Van Holten Hot Mama pickles.


My Little Pony go bye bye.

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A spontaneous award ...

... for a brilliant post title:

Watermelon Is Not Supposed to Look Like Marbled Beef.

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Guilty Pleasures, vol. one: Mark Dacascos

No, I did not watch him on Dancing with the Stars, nor am I familiar with any of his martial arts films. All I know of Mark Dacascos is that he's that hot Asian American "Chairman" guy on Iron Chef America, and every time he takes an orgiastic bite out of a ripe bell pepper, I swoon.

Look at that hair on his chest (!). Plus, he's straight, and he's one year older than me. I need a powder.

Mr. Dacascos, welcome to the short list.

I never tire of the secret ingredient announcement: tofu, honey, buffalo, coconut ... I want it all. Although I have to admit that "beer" was not his best moment.



Wouldn't it be great if one day Dacascos did as he always does and eyes the waiting chefs for a pregnant beat or two, ratcheting up the anticipation for that secret ingredient announcement, then triumphantly unveiled a massive bin of phalli while bellowing "Dildo!" as a prank of sorts.

Imagine the stunned look on Bobby Flay's face or Cat Cora's eyes flattening into slits as her tongue instinctively curls around the corner of her upper lip, visions of impromptu "recipes" filling her naughty mind.

That's how things would roll if I were in charge, people. I am so underutilized.

Bonus mandatory admission: I want to rub Mario Batali's belly: rub rub rub rub rub.

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My twisted Stephen King "Carrie" inspired George Will fantasy

Behold one woman's reverie:

George Will is behaving in his usual self-entitled over-inflated arrogant manner on "This Week with George Stephanopoulos" when a glint of metal appears at the top of the screen--it's some sort of hook being lowered onto the set.

Oblivious, Will continues gassing on, condescending to All Who Might Witness His Word, as the tiny hook centers over his head. The hook lowers slowly ... slowly ... slowly ... until it makes gentle contact with Will's toupee. Being so intoxicated with the sound of his own voice, Will does not detect the precise mechanical grab of the hook upon his rug.

Then, just as slowly as it appeared, the hook ascends, lifting Will's shaggy mop right along with it.

Two outcomes are possible:

1. Will does not notice and we get to watch the rest of the gang gulp down guffaws while their faces turn rainbow colors.

2. Will does notice and we get to gleefully enjoy that moment when confusion gives way to the crushing realization that the crowning roof of his facade is exposed.



How beautiful would this be?

Only trouble is, I think Georgie may have gone and gotten plugs by now.

Shit.

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Dear Abby redux

The following letter appeared in "Dear Abby" in the Cleveland Plain Dealer on 12/2/09. Miss Van Buren, however, gave substandard advice that Miss O'Brien has magnanimously offered to correct.

Dear Abby: Is it rude to label one's leftover food when staying with relatives? My husband, daughter and I visit his family often. When we go out to eat and bring leftovers back to the house, we usually label them if we want to eat them later. It has never seemed out of the ordinary to me. I was raised that way. My mother always said that if I didn't want something eaten by one of my siblings, than I should label it. Recently, my husband's sister (who is 16) asked if she could eat the rest of some pizza we had bought the night before. I politely responded that I planned to have it for lunch. She remarked that she thinks it is funny that we are so protective of our food. It got me thinking--is our behavior odd?
--Taken Aback in Washington

Dear Taken: Now let me get this straight: you, your husband and your snot-nosed kid stay with your in-laws "often;" and as thanks for tolerating your wet towels, stinky feet on the couch, coffee slurping and god-knows-what else, you label your food. Of course, that's only "if we want to eat them later." I guess some leftovers are fair game. No reason to give up your label love in that case, Miss America. Just mark the second rate slop like this: The leftovers contained herein are shitty and we're not going to eat them. Hence please enjoy the true meaning of the words "Doggy Bag" and feel free to enjoy our over-chewed dregs.

I suppose if you had some weird food nut allergy gluten-free dietary health crap going on, there might be an exception, but withholding a lousy piece of leftover pizza from a 16-year-old kid doesn't get it, shitbag.

Is your behavior odd?

Odd doesn't even come close. You are an asshole--an industrial strength asshole. Your assholiness is so grand that other assholes can only collapse in your presence and weep at your feet. Your agonizing proportions defy existing asshole categories. You are singular, unparalleled and rare. I dub you **Wonder Asshole.**

Here's a Code Orange News Alert: your in-laws start snickering and gossiping about how you put your name on your pasta salad containers and half empty Cokes days before you arrive and continue for weeks after you leave. They roll their eyes over what an insufferable tightwad you are and how unfortunate it is that you married into the family. What your in-laws ought to do is hand you your miserable leftover pizza crusts along with directions to the nearest motel and show you the door.

Perhaps someone will recognize this situation (because your in-laws undoubtedly share the hilarity of your antics with everyone they know) and will forward this post to them. Although these are clearly gracious and tolerant people, I hope they have a good laugh and consider preparing the house for your next visit with a few labels of their own:

Not for use and/or consumption by Wonder Asshole.

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Interview

Alanna Klapp interviewed me for The Writing Show. You can download and listen from this link. There's an iTunes button over there as well if you prefer to get the podcast that way.

Many thanks to Alanna and Paula B. for putting this together. I had a great time.

I know you are but what am I?

From last week's "Police Blotter," the Sun Star-Courier:

DISTURBANCE, WHITNEY ROAD:
Several residents called police Sunday because they heard violent screaming and yelling coming from a nearby apartment.
The resident causing the ruckus, who was home alone, told police he had been drinking and was arguing with himself.

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I like him. I like him a lot.

They tried to murder me but I got rich parents

This, people, is why we have the Internet.

Old cemetery

Located at approximately 7001 Broadview Road, Seven Hills, OH. Click on any to enlarge. Full resolutions available here. Please credit and link me if you use them.

Grammarous punctuality

Commas, while useful, can make text, appear choppy, and uneven.

Sometimes it's hard to believe the author is as excited as that exclamation point implies!

The mild-mannered hyphen can turn a string of otherwise well behaved words into a hellish modifier. A pair of come-up-and-see-me-around-midnight stockings can eventually lead to: Don't think you can fool me with that I'm-trying-to-prove-I-haven't-been-fooling-around-so-I-stopped-and-picked-up-a-broasted-chicken-for-dinner offering!

Really?

Really.

Really!

Ampersand is a long word for a small symbol (&). The at symbol (@) gave us all pinpoints in cyberland on the wings of an email addy. The asterisk is an outlaw (****); and the number symbol is deeply misunderstood (#). You're never supposed to use the percent symbol (%) in prose text. You're always supposed to use the word "percent." Why? Did % do something naughty?

Now dig how those aliens above the numbers on the keyboard can transform into their secret alter egos when shin unhappily meets coffee table.

"#@*%!"

It's a sweet sort of show-don't-tell policy, almost quaint.

You want to see something sad? Take the content out of a pair of parentheses.

( )

The apostrophe relaxes everyone. Who would you rather negotiate with?

Don't vs. Do not
You're vs. You are
What's vs. What is

: )

No comment.

: (

When you use all uppercase letters THE READER FEELS LIKE YOU ARE SHOUTING AT THEM.

The most authoritative punctuation mark, however, is the period.

. . .

Guernica redux

Picasso's 1937 Guernica, which depicts the bombing of a small town during the Spanish Civil War, affirms that despite our technological advances, little has changed over the last seven decades.

People eat, sleep, copulate, procreate, defecate, hate, love, create, murder and grieve now just as they did then; but I wonder what Pablo would say about this three dimensional computer generated interpretation of his work:

The Foundations Department

I like to go to thrift stores. The biggest Salvation Army Thrift Store in the world is in Strongsville, OH, which is a few miles from where I live. I love that you can buy wedding dresses at the thrift store, and old purses.

I love to watch people shop in second hand stores. They're very careful about their purchases, taking time to inspect the Presto Air Popper. They look at the cord. They ask the Salvation Army guy if it works. They go over every seam of the bean bag chair and make sure the miniature plastic spatula is with the toy kitchen set.

I watch the people until something catches my eye. Then I behave like them, although I do not count the pieces of the jigsaw puzzles I buy. I once bought a pill box hat for $1.50 at the Goodwill.

I often donate stuff to the Salvation Army. I loved that my old electric beater was in the housewares department (at least I think it was mine). I wanted to stand up and say, "Hey! That's a good electric beater! You oughtta buy that mother for only $2.99!

Unique Thrift is a huge second hand store downtown. They have the biggest rack of second hand underwear I ever saw.

Most people see a rack of used underwear in a thrift store and think: ugh and move on. Not me. I wonder about who sorts the second hand underwear. I think: Wow look at that. It's a rack of used underwear and now I have to figure out how to take a picture of it so I can post it on the Internet! As if anyone cares about how The Great Erin O'Brien interacts with a rack of used underwear.

Then there is the implication of being me.

Because now I am a person taking photographs of used underwear in a thrift store (behaving furtively, complete with eyes shifting back and forth beneath dangling pricetag of yet another hat I have yet to pay for). This puts me in a whole new category (population: 1), but at least it gives the people who are purchasing said underwear someone to roll their eyes at:

Look at the broad taking pictures of the underwear.

Some people. Sniffs. Honey, hand me that bra over there by you--that baby blue one.

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We interupt this blog ...

... to apologize for the technical difficulties.

Members of the readership interested in the relationship between the film Jaws and the turkey carcass in their refrigerator are invited to read this post.

The Management unfortunately allowed the Editorial Department, in collaboration with members of the Cafeteria Staff, to proceed with tasks usually delegated to the IT (Information Technology) Department, thereby botching all aspects of all tasks. Exposing details of said botching will benefit no one and only serve to embarrass The Management more than The Management has already managed to embarrass itself.

The Management is now going to advise all employees of the Offices of Erin O'Brien to step away from the computer.

The Management thanks the readership for the readership's continued patience and support.

--The Management.

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Breaking down the bones

Down.

Get a big-ass pot--I mean big. Take your turkey carcass and start ripping that mother apart. Put EVERYTHING in the pot. Skin, bones, any stuffing cling-ons. All of it.

The candy-asses out there aren't going to like this, but you need to break the bones apart old school. Use your hands and tear them up righteous. Rip the soft backbone and breast bone into pieces. The more you bust those up, the more mysterious inner bone stuff comes out and the better the soup is going to be. Don't piss-out. Bust the shit out of it. If you can't do that, I just don't know what. Go to bed.

Rinse off a couple of raw onions, cut them in half and throw those in there. Leave the skin on for good color. Don't peel them like some goddamn Martha Stewart wannabe. That broad couldn't make turkey bone soup to save her Special Edition Eddie Bauer USS Martha girdle.

Got any old celery hearts? Greens? Carrot Greens? It's soup, for chrissake, throw it in there. Throw any leftover stuffing in there. One last scoopful of mashed potato? Into the pot. We're not effing around here.

Add enough water to cover everything, maybe a little more. You'll want at least three or four quarts of water total. Five or six for a real big bird.

Put the lid on and bring it to a boil. Put that soup down to the lowest simmer possible and let her ride for four to six hours with the lid slightly ajar.

That's right. Four to six hours. Don't eff around and take it off in an hour because you know what you'll have? Watered down turkey piss, that's what.

You will not believe how good that soup smells as it cooks.

Fit a colander (not too fine) over another pot and pour your soup in there. All the gnarly bones and skin and cooked-into-submission onion will go in the colander. It'll look worse than that Chrissie chick from the opening scene in Jaws after the shark was done with her and they put what was left in a bedpan. DO NOT throw it out.

Put the strained soup in the fridge to cool overnight, covered.

Take the leftover Chrissy stuff and start picking through there. Pull out any good meat chunks. Save those. Now you can throw the rest of that crap out.

Boil up some regular polite carrot and celery and onion pieces in regular water. How big should those pieces be? Well, genius, as big as a person would want to eat in their turkey bone soup. Can't you people figure anything out? Cook them up proper, strain them and put them in the fridge. Cook some soup noodles too. Go ahead and use some pansy girlie shape (ditalini, farfalle, gemelli). I don't care, just use Barilla. Every other kind is piss-poor. Cook those noodles up but not too much or they'll get too soft in the soup and that will suck. Strain those and, you guessed it, into the fridge.

You want to use your egg noodles? Go ahead and use your egg noodles. Good christ--the things that trip you people up ...

You might need a beer or whiskey or something by now. Okay, fine. you're about done for day one.

The next day, take the soup out and skim the fat from the top and toss it. The more the cold soup broth is like jelly, the better. (No, I'm not going to fool around trying to explain high-end gourmet terms like consomme and aspic here. This is just a dumbass blog post, people.) Heat it up (the jellyness of it will go away, so don't worry).

I don't really have to tell you to taste it and add salt, pepper and some spices, do I?

Add the meat and the polite boiled veggies. You can put all the noodles in there, but sometimes they suck up too much broth and that will piss you off. I like to put a scoop of noodles in each bowl and pour the hot soup over that, which also cools the soup to a perfect eating temperature.

Everyone will be dying for that soup on account of the aroma wafting through the house the past two days. It is so good, don't be surprised if your peeps procure a lush silken pillow with the word "Genius" embroidered on it just for you. Put it in front of the box and sit your royal ass down with a steaming bowl of that soup.

This post is done.

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