Food As Murder: the insidious 99cent Snacker

I dont know where to start. Im so behind. Dont worry, I havent been so busy working out and enjoying my fitness routine that I havent had time to write. No, not at all. I think Ive been to the gym about once a week average in the last two months. I guess I was so concerned by my low blood pressure results at my annual that I decided to make a concerted effort to get my numbers up. And speaking of soaring blood pressure... I have REALLY gotten my panties in a twist about fast food. I hated it already, but there is a new wave going on that I find particularly venomous. Fueled by Supersize me and the "Food Porn" section of my Nutrition Action Newsletter (thanks mom!) I have become acutely aware of the potential of "food" to be used as a weapon. There are MANY examples (friendly ol' ben and jerry's at 400 calories per half cup is a good one, and the ever convinient and alarmingly cheap Top Ramen packing in more than two days of sodium in one sitting to name a couple old standbys) but the one thats killing me is the marketing advent of the SNACKER. The snacker is exemplified best by KFC's New Ultimate Chicken Cheese Snacker. The goddam thing is only 99cents, so it cant be a meal, its a snack, obviously or they wouldnt call it a snacker, so youve got people eating a fried chicken sandwich between meals, feeling like theyve gotten a bargain (though ive heard it "isnt that good," check out http://www.roadfood.com/Forums/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=15508 for a glimpse into how much spare time people really have), consuming i would guess, about 400 calories with the mayo and bun, and somehow playing on the health food industry suggestion to eat lots of "small meals and snacks." Ben and I watched Supersize me on our upstate getaway and then had to (and I mean HAD TO because that is literally all there is) stop at several Mc Donalds based rest stops and watch people, all with children, pour in and out of that place. Theyre selling a fried chicken snacker as well, its a "wrap" since everyone knows wraps are healthy and a great way to cut carbs...holy misleading nutrition information. Before i leave the endless and anguishing terretory of food as murder I have to mention another upsetting food development; TGI FRIDAYS introduction of their alternative appetizers. Here we are to understand that the rest of the world has become complacent with their jalapeno poppers, their bloomin onions, their fried mozzerella sticks, quesadillas, tater skins and fried calamari rings! Those cholesterol laden greasy precursors to your huge meal are not only passe but are akin to being a conservative hillbilly, or a stupid throwback hippie, according to their advertising which proposes that some stodgy sticks in the mud cant HANDLE the new shit theyve come up with, only the true livers of life can understand the sizzling triple meat fondito (which is a large puddle of melted cheese on a skillet topped with THREE meats that you scoop up with fried dough, hence the miserable bastardization of the word fondue a la mexi fry,) cant handle the green bean fries, they fear the deep fried mac and cheese bites. The fact that people take deep fried cheese for granted, and can feel safe that whatever bar they go to will be sure to have deep fried squid rings and hot peppers stuffed with cheese and thrown in the hot fat for good measure is bad, very bad, worse than bad. THen again, i felt sick as a motherfucker after eating an all raw food dinner at Pure Food and wine, where everything is made out of young coconut and nut butter (probably not so hot on the fat content either come to think of it, but at least the enzymes are intact? Not damaged by high heats? WHATEVER. I felt like i was gonna hurl. There must be a happy medium somewhere.
I met Rick's (actually you know he's really ben dont you? I forgot, but i think i like the rick thing...) parents several weeks ago for Rosh Hashana. It went very well. I love them. We got along well and have endless commonalities which made us very comfortable together right away. His mom is a terrific cook and both his parents have great senses of humor and do a lot of laughing, which is the best. Plus you always get to see lots of embarrasing pictures of your significant other during occasions like that which is a bonus. Rick was an adorable kid, blonde. Nobody's perfect;)
Last week was Yom Kippur. For those gentiles out there or jews of ill repute, yom kippur is the day of atonement (of course these nicey nice reformy services like to point out that that also says "at one ment" which if we were really buddhists might hold up in court) the day where jews dont eat (god forbid!) and we sit in synagogue and repent for all of our sins against god and misdeeds in the community over the past year. Rick and I went to Boston to be with his family and attend his parents synagogue. Its a nice place, conservative enough to be traditional and new agey enough that i didnt feel like i should be wearing nude hose and a scarlet letter. We fasted, which aside from TREMENDOUS thirst, was easy. I think I may have a water addiction. The service was nice, also youre supposed to wear all white to symbolize the purity of having all your transgressions washed away. I like wearing white. We broke fast at one of Rick's moms friends houses and it was beautiful. Her house was huge and in this grand hotel style scale. I belive the house was built in the 20s or 30s and it was decorated with deco wallpaper and had all this dark wood detailing in builtins and in the stairwell. Amazing. Boston is like Spokane in that there isnt really anything to do but the houses are gorgeous. So right before we left for boston, I got this amazing offer to do grooming for a Marlboro print ad. It was Mon thru thurs and paid extremely well, especially since the producer wasnt even planning to have hair and makeup but he panicked at the last min and thought they should have someone on set. I was bouncing around on potential new mattresses in the basement of the Conway store in the Fulton Mall when I got the call. We dont have stores like conway on the West Coast, they sell everything from sheets to clothes to canned tuna to electronics at prices that make you wonder if there isnt a trap door straight to china under the flatware. So they have this little corner of the basement cordoned off to sell matresses. I found this lady on craigslist, and she sells new, really nice matresses for outrageously cheap prices. i had been sleeping on Mahdis' old mattress which was like kleenex with springs inside. For 199 dollars plus 25 for delivery I got a full size simmons beautyrest mattress. Its some kind of hustle, but im not asking questions. So I this evil Marlboro empire made it impossible for me to say no. I tried to, but my friend YoungAh called me and told me "If i were you I would do everything in my power to get this gig. Its what you want to be doing, so do it!!" I was wishy washy cause I knew id have to shaft the salon but when i heard her say that, which I REALLY appreciated, i knew I had to just do it. So on the evening of yom kippur, after I was sure he had eaten, i called Chaim and told him I wouldnt be in on Tues and Wed. He told me he felt like a second priority and that he needed me and all that and I simply told him I couldnt afford not to do it, that Im normally a model employee and that I know it isnt an ideal circumstance but that I didnt want to lie and tell him i was sick.
The job didnt start until four on Tuesday, we shot at Relish in Williamsburg. Its a diner in an old train car that my friends stephen and ryan both used to manage, and one of my fave dinners in NYC. There were five models, two women and three men. None of the shots can show their faces and they are blurry background in all of them. So i did some blowouts and mushed the guys hair around so it would look smooth in silhouette, checked their nails for the smoking hand shots and that was about it. A few of the shots were taken in this amazing electric blue chevelle SS hot rod. The car belonged to this archetypal long island guy who was there watching like a hawk, wiping fingerprints off the varnish, putting chamois under the camera cords so they wouldnt rub, he brought his sister and they both sat in NASCAR folding chairs and watched the shoot. He kept leaping up of course, sometimes to show people pictures of his car from different angles on his digital camera. His accent made fran drescher sound like Dame Judy Dench. "Yah, I take dat baby out maybe what twenny minutes, see wha' she ken do, den i takes 'er back to da gareage cuz i cant pahk her any wheres, nex' ting you know some kid swings a door open and dere goes the paint, fuhgettaboutit." Seeing all the manhattan production types interact with him and his sister, who was basically him, lose the shorts gain the cameltoe jeans and a frizzy scrunchied ponytail, was hilarious. The next two days were at a bar called Zablonski's. It was also in williamsburg. We got there at one and the models werent there until four so we went shopping and had lunch. Again there was no face and no close ups so I didnt have much to do. I gave the producer a haircut. The place is next to a poultry processing plant and the whole block smells like fermenting bird death so we stayed in the trailor or off set. The same models were there, the two girls were unremarkable. The main guy, the marlboro man character, was a gay Czechoslovakian guy, a real sweetheart who was so perfectly tousled he needed almost no work. There was a short muscular italian guy with thinning hair that needed to be blown to his head, he had a couple small blemishes he was fixated on and kept lamenting that he wanted out of this meaningless business. He had been in an off broadway show that got panned and i think it bruised his ego. The third guy was a real peice of work. The first day I didnt even meet him cause he didnt come into the trailor for hair or wardrobe and we got outside and were like who are you? Why arent you dressed? "Nobahdy caymen gaht me! I dinnt know!" Marcel is this huge hunky french and bolivian guy from queens who you would swear was italian. He is so annoying that you think hes kidding and will let up any moment but, he doesnt. I told him I want a room in my house that hes in all the time and I can just go in there and watch him for entertainment whenever I want, and that i want to make sure the door has a lock on the outside. He was in the car shots, he was the driver, and he was on the phone the ENTIRE time until the photographer, a very famous one at that, had to tell him, Marcel Im shooting, could you put the phone down, and Marcel gave him the "just a second" finger! Unreal. His hair is coarse and dense and needs a cut and he insisted, even though I asked him EVERY DAY to not put wax in it, on sticking the front straight up with wax so that there was nothing i could do but go with it once he got there. The client hated it but without shampooing the wax out there was no other option. He talked about women, especially tits, constantly CONSTANTLY, like a teenager. Hes dating this wannabee maxim model and he busied himself show pictures of her on his treo in various stages of undress. He didnt lock the door to the bathroom and YoungAh walked in on him and he unflinchingly looked up from the urinal with, I imagine, his standard superdopey grin and was like " a coupleah seconds earleah and you woudda been in luhv!" He was so obnoxious that you kind of liked him by the end, he took the ribbing that everyone gave him about being dumb and always showing off his abs and talking about the "draining the dragon" episode well, so at least you didnt have to pretend he was normal. So the shoot went well and Chaim had one of the receptionists call me to tell me that i was punished and couldnt come to work on Sat, NO! Not a day off!! Whatever you do dont throw me in that briar patch! I came back to work on monday. It was fine, had a talk with Chaim and told him that I am an exeptional person and you reap my benefits while making a few exeptions or you can decide Im not worth it and let me go. What could he say?
I did a shoot in westchester county the week before for a look book, which is the way designers show their new seasons designs to stores. We had two models, they wanted a sexy disheveled pinup look. I wasnt given enough time to do fingerwavey or pincurl styles which is what she really was describing, so i did that kind of pointy bettie page bang roll. She wanted a very dark and smoky eye, which doesnt really go with the pinup look, but thats what she wanted (read: she didnt really know what she wanted or how to communitcate it to me.) the makeup was great, the hair was alright. They looked good and we had a good time. the stylist was this tiny tiny woman who was that goth girl in your highschool class who wore black laceup high heel boots to school every day. Well she still does and that day she was also wearing a tightly laced flowered corset, a long black skirt, a top hat and carrying a bullwhip. Mind you this is out at a country home with pastures and a barn in westchester county. She is from new jersey. Her boyfriend was there doing video work for the website and they talked to each other just like the goth kids in high school, arguing about stuff in that rediculously flirty way. She affects this low sultry voice. It was insane. I hated most of the clothes.

The wedding and the suckery of PA, hotels packed with amish ambulance chasers, the woman who slumped over in her chair and her return, old cat alien vs young cat alien, guest writer!