Baton Rouge: It’s Only Asleep

Walking around Baton Rouge on a Saturday afternoon seemed like walking around a city that was all mine. Foot traffic nil. Granted, I had arrived in Baton Rouge on not just any Saturday, but on Christmas Eve. And unlike New Orleans (just 90 minutes downriver), Louisiana’s capital of Baton Rouge is car country, despite its well-intentioned grid system, set up long before cars were invented, meant to nurture some kind of urban interaction.

On the map, I noticed that four diagonal streets converged on a centrally-located stretch of Government Street. I had imagined that the square must be the city’s center. When I walked toward the square, I realized that there was no square. There was no center. Just a UPS office, a McDonald’s, and a radio tower. A case of American sprawl sprawling into the city instead of outwards. There must be a city planner rolling around in his above-ground tomb somewhere.

I did manage to find a newly constructed plaza, however, just a few blocks away, in a manicured median of North Boulevard, where rows of speakers along the walkway gently played Christmas songs to no one but me. It felt curiously post-apocalyptic, humanity’s creature comforts having seemingly outlived humanity. But the peacefulness held a rare beauty.

Despite the ghost town appearance, I still gathered that the small city was just resting. A farmer’s market had set itself up downtown, but had closed by noon. Bars and live music venues would be opening later that night. Nonetheless, such a lull in activity created a great opportunity to take photographs.

Raul’s, one of the few restaurants open on Saturday. Juicy Juicy. Extra points accrued for the blob of ketchup painted on the plate.

Frostop was also open, and it looked like it never closes. Or gets cleaned. After serving me my milkshake, the man behind the counter aimed glazed eyes at me and muttered in monotone, “Enjoy your meal.” Make a meal out of a milkshake? Is that how it is done in Baton Rouge?

An ECO Tireflator lives out its graceful retirement on the post of a defunct service station.

The largest exception to the lull: Parrain's, a restaurant that was teeming with hungry people, most likely because there was almost nowhere else to go. Putting away their grilled drum fillet was like biting into a tender cloud made of fresh fish, a cloud that had just passed over a wood-fired barbecue pit. This place gives New Orleans restaurants a run for their money.

Other signs of life turned up on the wires. Tittie beads on the wires are Baton Rouge’s answer to New York City’s aerial collections of footwear dangling above.

Well, we’ve got a dry cleaner located near the I-10 overpass. What shall we call it?

This sign for a Fresh Breath Clinic shows how it is difficult to glance anywhere in downtown Baton Rouge without encountering at least one church in the background.

Someone decided to counteract the creepy desolation of the Sweet Olive cemetery. Could this tomb hold the restless corpse of the aforementioned city planner?

This tombstone engraving seemed to sum up the afternoon for me. Just like Baton Rouge itself, this man is not dead, he’s only asleep.

Oxford, Connecticut’s Own Brewery

A brewery in Oxford, Connecticut, my old stomping grounds? Started by a military veteran? Now that’s two reasons to talk about Cavalry Brewery’s offerings.

Unless you live in the rural peacefulness of Oxford, Connecticut, or live nearby, you probably haven’t heard of the town. Sure, there was that one incident back in 2001, when Oxford was the home of the only person to die from an anthrax-laced package. But what town wants to be known for that? Now, Cavalry Brewery is putting Oxford on the map in a much more memorable light with their Nomad stout and Hatch Plug ale.

Tasting local brews can be fun due to the unexpected amalgam of flavors from particular ingredients, brewing techniques, and the brewer’s general preferences. Sometimes, I end up with a beer smelling of barnyard funk. But in the case of Cavalry Brewery’s Hatch Plug ale, I met with a crisp amber brew that was pleasantly malty. Their Nomad stout provided a thick body of bitter chocolate and even a hint of vanilla bean on the nose, without being too bitter to drink with food, as is the case with Guinness.

On their website, the owner relates that after returning from a tour of duty in Iraq, he became a “casualty of company consolidation” and started the business. I’d hate to thank downsizing for anything, but in this single case, I must realize that such an evil turn of events led to such luck for beer drinkers.

On the Potential of Wire-Hung Footwear

Has someone just given juvenile delinquency a good name?

Shoes tied together and flung up onto wires are certainly nothing new. The usual array consists of ho-hum Converses and Nikes, but a recent stroll through the nebulous border between Astoria and Long Island City revealed a pair of stilettos dangling from their straps.

Certain cities are known for streets adorned with graffiti tags or destroyed cars. Their impact on quality of life is obvious. But a pair of pumps on the wire could be the start (or the middle) of a bustling dialog of street life.

Then there’s the buzzkill when considering the costs to utility companies that have to extract these offerings of rubber and suede. Costs they no doubt pass on to customers. But once they’ve got the footwear down, what do they do with them? The Salvation Army, perhaps.

But in this town teeming with entrepreneurship, the utility companies have an opportunity to make a quick buck. Anyone with a ladder will have the same chance. It’s all about the marketing. I can see the recovered shoes coveted by fashionistas as the next urban trend. Secondhand stores specializing in “wire hung” footwear will crop up in the vacant, high-rent storefronts of the East Village. Of course, each pair will be sold with a photo authenticating its previous digs above the sidewalk. The more clever stores will do away with racks altogether and hang the shoes on indoor cables conveniently strung at arm level, to score that edgy ambiance. We will begin hearing one shopper say to another: “Those Converses were up on 14th Street? That’s nothing. Mine were hanging above St. Mark’s Place.”

Property values may or may not increase in areas of vigorous shoe-wire activity.

Heirlooming

I am now a seed saver. I have officially become one of Monsanto’s many, many enemies. I started with seeds from a few heirloom tomato varieties, and I was surprised at how easy the whole process was: ferment, dry, and pour into a packet. The best part, of course, was the tomato sampling. Only the best tasting tomatoes earned the right to pass on their genes.

Roast a Goat, Support a Farm

Has goat meat gone urban chic? In my latest piece at Matador, Roast a Goat, Support a Farm, I discuss how the subjects of an experimental goat husbandry project in Vermont ended up on a spit in a Brooklyn, New York backyard.

Paint Frais: Street Art of Montreal

Familiar buildings, ever-morphing street art. That was my first impression upon returning to Montreal during a recent visit.

Overlooking a small square favored by bums, I found this pair of raccoons chowing down on garbage represented by wildstyle graffiti tags. I’m not normally a fan of wildstyle hits, and it would be easy to imagine that the artist portrayed wildstyle as garbage to insult it, but I find it easier to imagine that the artist had something more ironic in mind.

Another mixture of art and wildstyle, with the letters seemingly emanating from his harmonica. As if to put the piece in context of the street where it resides, someone walked into the door just before I took this picture.

Someone had second thoughts while blackwashing this building’s sign that had been hit with stencils of Jimi Hendrix and James Brown. Below reads: Please Don’t Feed the Artists.

The Hotel Quartier Latin indicates its function with a painted window of its Victorian townhouse on Rue St. Denis.

Some of the more intriguing pieces can be found around the strip clubs on Rue Sainte Catherine and Rue Saint Laurent. This piece appears on a temporary construction wall almost directly below the overhang of a burlesque club.

This building on Rue Sainte Catherine has hosted a series of comic art murals over the years. I am not surprised; the building’s vertical shape sticks up from an almost empty block, framing the side wall like a panel in a comic book. In its latest incarnation, the mural must contend with a war on two fronts: masturbatory tags and sell-out advertising for fast food, disturbingly representative of the adversity street art faces on a daily basis.

Sick Street Art of Montevideo

Got stencils, wheat paste, and paint? When I spent time in Montevideo, Uruguay, I became fascinated with the city’s spectrum of street art. The walls were talking. I enjoyed listening, and today, Matador Nights just published my photo essay on the Sick Street Art of Montevideo.

Greetings from the Meat Mine: a Weekend in Central Texas

Some place names uncannily match the place. Like when the great flatness of Central Texas, land of barbecue and jerky, boasts a Chew Road. I recently traveled across the middle of the state with my in-laws, and plenty of chewing was on the agenda.

When we emerged from the air-conditioned car into the 105-degree heat of Luling, it felt like we had walked into a barbecue smoker. We had found breezes unwelcome, since they felt like someone was blowing a hairdryer on us. Such temperatures brought us closer to the slow-cooked goods at City Market, where we waited in line for brisket, ribs, and sausage. The line winding through the dining room eventually led us into City Market’s inner sanctum: a small, enclosed chamber, housing the pit, surrounded by reams of butcher paper and walls yellowed with layers of smoke and grease. The air hung heavy with the musky scent of meat. In this dark, cramped room aflutter with busy cashiers and pit posses, it felt like we were somewhere in a tunnel deep in the earth, mining brisket.

We arrived back at the surface with a heavy lode of spoils.

A black and white photo of an oil derrick hung on the wall above our booth. Oil is not normally something employed to spur one’s appetite. But this is Texas, after all. Back outside, the smell of crude oil met us on the sidewalk, even though no pumpjacks—except for old ones in the schoolyard painted like birds—stood nearby. Just as the scent of a wharf might burrow into the psyches of those who have grown up on a bay, I cannot help but to imagine how ingrained oil has become to rural Texans. I’d have to admit that smelling crude oil in its unrefined state—one could even call it a natural smell—is not nearly as offensive as that of truck exhaust. Crude oil itself betrays little of its ability to encourage investors to behave like rabid gluttons; or its ability to hang entire countries by the nuts. Nonetheless, it is a scent I will always associate with sucking tender meat off rib bones in Luling.

The scent gently trailed off when we arrived in Austin for a little live indie rock before we queued up again the next day, this time at Franklin Barbecue.

Waiting in line at 10am for barbecue on Sunday? Shouldn’t at least some of these folks be at church? Oh, I get it. Barbecue is their religion. And so we waited for three hours for a crack at Franklin’s stash, only to manage making off with a little brisket and the last half of a sausage link. Even though it was just a half of a link shared between four of us, it was enough for me to realize that it was one of the best barbecued sausages I’ve had—a lascivious offering of tender meat and soft, integrated fat, with a casing that popped when I bit into it.

Barbecue queuing tip: always be nice to the folks in front of you. Why? We chatted with a few ladies in front of us (what else can you do for hours?), and when it was finally their turn to stand before the owner himself, they learned that he had only one sausage link left. So the ladies decided to split it with us. Likewise, we split the remaining pound of brisket with the guys in back of us. Politically, Austin is a progressive enclave of blue in a conservative red state, but barbecue has the power to unite us all.

But let’s not get all warm and fuzzy. We were in a place where you don’t want to wander off in the fields without wearing bright clothing. In search of beef jerky at Buc-ee’s back in Luling, we had to navigate aisles of hunting outfits, extra-duty hitch joists (to hang your kill from the back of your truck), and jugs of “Ooey gooey concentrated” Pig Out wild beast bait.

At last, we found the jerky counter. I felt that kid-at-candy-store sensation in front of the dozens of selections under glass: sausages, jerky, and meat sticks fashioned from every critter unfortunate enough to set foot or hoof in Texas—cow, pig, turkey, elk, deer. While New Yorkers cherish their wine bars, yogurt bars, juice bars, even hummus bars, Texas counters it all with a jerky bar.

It’s a pity that their sweet ‘n’ sour jerky was the only flavor tender enough to eat without difficulty. Their venison sticks fared better, reminding me of leaner, spicier Slim Jims. Even better, their juicy elk and pork sausage inspired me to consider procuring my own ooey gooey beast bait so I could make my own. Or perhaps mine my own. There is so much meat in Texas that it seems like it may very well come up from a pumpjack or a mine. That’s convenience. Unsettlingly impressive convenience.

Waiter, There’s a Monster on my Plate

Okay, I lied. There are four monsters on my plate. Such a thing happens when you order the grilled langostinos at Psari Restaurant in Astoria. Grilled in the Greek style—with olive oil, lemon juice, and salt—these critters were so oafishly oversized that one order of four was enough for my wife and me. For scale, you can see a steak knife cowering behind one of them in the picture above.

The word langostino tends to serve as a catch-all word for any kind of a shrimp-like critter with or without skinny little claws in front. In this case, the langostino served at Psari is a giant prawn plucked from the waters around Panama. I’ve enjoyed many a langostino throughout my travels in Panama, but I’ve never encountered critters of such size that they hang off the ends of the plate. The phrase “for export only” comes to mind.

I’m usually leery when it comes to larger-sized shellfish, especially lobsters, since their meat can be tough enough to justify their past calling—that is, as food for prisoners. Thankfully, the langostinos at Psari were just as sweet and rich as the smaller ones I’ve had in Panama, the meat popping a little when I bit into it. The lemon juice counterbalanced the slight charring, as did our bottle of Moschofilero.

In the course of dismembering the langostinos, my wife and I attempted what we normally do when reckoning with crustaceans: suck the heads. Nothing came out but sweet air. Refusing to become discouraged, my wife peeled apart the head shell to reveal little tufts of tender meat behind the eyes. It was like finding hidden treasure, an appropriate surprise from a critter that hails from the shipwreck-rich waters of Panama. Finders keepers.

Psari Restaurant
32-10 36th Avenue (between 32nd & 33rd Streets)
Astoria, NY 11106

The Apsara and the Mastodong: the Indie Rock Version of Beauty and the Beast?

I am always fascinated with how the dynamic energy of a live musical performance charges the crowd. For Rush concerts, it’s the stadium full of arms swinging away in comically synchronized air drum solos. At hardcore shows, it’s the pointless chaos of the mosh pits. When Long Beach, California-based Dengue Fever played the Highline Ballroom last weekend, the crowd kept cresting with the twirling hands of apsara dancers, although the fans tended to wear more clothing than the original dancing maidens that grace the carved walls of Ankgor Wat.

No one seemed to produce as graceful movements as Cambodian-American singer Chhom Nimol, who sung in a mixture of English and Khmer. Fusing American indie rock and psychedelic Khmer rock—which itself had been influenced by American surf and French ye-ye pop—Dengue Fever arrived in New York City on its tour supporting the band’s latest offering, Cannibal Courtship. Unlike some of their earlier releases that each contained several covers of Khmer 1960s songs, Cannibal Courtship contains all Dengue Fever originals save one. That one cover track, “Genjer Genjer,” is not even Cambodian; it’s a classic Indonesian folk song that Dengue Fever rearranged into their loungy, vibrato-massaged sound.

Their most notable innovation, however, loomed on stage: The Mastodong. No, The Mastodong is not a stage name of a freak-of-nature porn actor. It’s a moniker with which guitarist Zac Holtzman christened his two-pronged instrument having a neck of a Fender Jazzmaster atop a neck of a chapei dong veng, a traditional two-string Cambodian lute. The unwieldy creation provides a suitable metaphor for Dengue Fever’s marriage of Khmer and American music. Holtzman must still be attempting to tame the beast, because he only played the chapei—with its mesmerizing drones—for one song.

When I was in Cambodia two years ago, I found out how difficult and expensive it would be to ship a chapei to the States, so I knew The Mastodong was an even rarer creature. After the show, Holtzman assured me that The Mastodong is the only guitar/chapei combination on the planet, as far as he knew. Cambodian ingenuity seems to have rubbed off on him—he uses weed-whacker cables as strings. Such a creative repurposing reminds me of Cambodia’s roadside gas stations displaying racks of yellow- and red-colored gasoline in recycled Johnnie Walker bottles (nice, neat portion control, one liter at a time).

The Highline Ballroom’s disco balls and psychedelic light show provided a fitting ambiance for the band’s retro style that swirls together spy-soundtrack flute interludes, hauntingly groovy psychedelic horns reminiscent of Mulatu Astatke’s 1970s Ethio-Jazz, and tasty Southeast Asian melodies. The band does not precisely reproduce the songs of classic Cambodian artists such as Pan Ron and Sin Sisamouth, nor does the ever-evolving band intend to. Yet Dengue Fever’s music still provides echoes of a happier time in Cambodia before the Khmer Rouge crashed the party in 1975 and killed most of the country’s musicians. I only have to imagine the Phnom Penh venues of the 1960s and how their crowds, in Jackie-O bobs and go-go skirts, swirled their hands with such passion.

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Some of the photos below and above can be clicked for a larger size.

I finally had the chance to meet bass player Senon Williams, who, a couple years back, offered me great advice via email on live music venues of Phnom Penh, several of which Dengue Fever played when they had toured in Cambodia.