Big Kahuna Burger

I like the fine things.

I don't eat fast food unless forced to by dire circumstances. When I eat at home, if it comes out of a box or bag, it better be a base ingredient like flour or rice. I make my own mayonaise (which is both trivial, inexpensive, and, contrary to popular belief, as safe as any other correctly handled foodstuff).

As my friends can attest, I prefer to dine, when not cooking for myself, at the upper end of the restaurant spectrum. When I go to a new city, my first question is usually something along the line of what is the best, most regionally unique restaurant that I can find here?

Still, I am not immune to the lure of a perfect burger. My own skills at burger making are generally satisfactory, if not above-average, and I have experimented with various ways of preparation (my current favorite is ultra-traditional: an oak charcoal fire, 85% lean grass-fed beef, salt and pepper, medium-rare).

I am constantly on the lookout for the Big Kahuna Burger. Well, the Big Kahuna Burger of Dallas, anyway. I know where the true Big Kahuna Burger resides; that would be at Kincaid's in Fort Worth. Worth the trip, but it requires some planning.

But where in Dallas could I find that elusive, truly great burger?

I've always been generally dismissive of Fuddrucker's and Purdy's. The quality is there, but something indescribable about the burgers at both of these chains keeps them leaden.

For many years, I held Chip's in high esteem. Ball's Burgers, as well, can satisfy the craving well-enough, but still comes shy of being the Big Kahuna.

Phil Romano's Who's Who Burger joint in Highland Park Village (Mr. Romano birthed Fuddrucker's upon the world, as well) somehow managed to capture what I remembered as the essential flavor of a Kincaid's burger, and has held the Big Kahuna trophy for about a year. You could do worse than eating here.

But, as of last night, I found Dallas' very own and true Big Kahuna Burger. What's more, I found it only through a series of unfortunate events.

My power was switched off yesterday. And I have out-of-town visitors. From Boston. Those kind of visitors who claim that 75 degrees is terribly hot and miserable. With children. The hungry kind.

Needless to say, the power company in question has been fired and our power is now being ably handled by another company.

Still, last night, with no power and guests proclaiming heat exhaustion and starvation, I piled the lot of us into the truck and headed off for, I supposed, a Sonic. This qualified as an emergency situation, after all, as my guests had not bathed, either.

Then, inspiration struck. I had seen on my many traversal across the city, an drive-up, sit-in-your-car hamburger joint on the other side of town. Worth a try, I thought, It couldn't be worse than Sonic. I steered us in that direction.

The joint in question is Keller's, on Northwest Highway. You pull up in your car, blink your lights, and a waitperson comes out to take your order. Real basic stuff here - burgers, shakes, fries.

Within a few minutes of ordering, sizzling hot burgers are propped up on our windshield. The smell of grease and meat and onions wafts into the car. A miniature feeding frenzy occurs as people grab for their burgers.

One bite...

...and everyone in the truck exclaims in their best Samuel L. Jackson voice, Mmmmmm! This is one tasty burger!

At long last, a Dallas burger worth popping a cap into some motherfucker for.

Her Highness, Lady Bastard

It's official. As of last Saturday, the Lord and Lady Bastard were married at an exceptional and beautiful ceremony at the Hotel St. Germaine in Dallas. The Brain and I attended as groomsmen, and over dinner at the reception, the subject of the Lady Bastard's proper title came up.

Using the recent marriage of Charles and Camilla as a template, we decided that the Lady Bastard's official title is Her Highness, the Lady Bastard Consort. Despite the Lady Bastard's queenly demeanor in her wedding gown (she was the spitting-image of Catherine de Medici), we sadly informed her that she could not style herself Her Royal Highness.

Everyone in House Blubrik wishes the Lord and Lady the very best and our enduring love.

The Haunted Future

I believe in an America where the separation of church and state is absolute -- where no Catholic prelate would tell the President (should he be Catholic) how to act, and no Protestant minister would tell his parishioners for whom to vote -- where no church or church school is granted any public funds or political preference ... I believe in an America that is officially neither Catholic, Protestant nor Jewish -- where no public official either requests or accepts instructions on public policy from the Pope, the National Council of Churches or any other ecclesiastical source -- where no religious body seeks to impose its will directly or indirectly upon the general populace or the public acts of its officials.

John F. Kennedy
Speech before the Houston Ministerial Association
Sept. 12, 1960

The Taste of Fear

Fear is not something I believe many modern Americans taste very often. Oh, certainly, they taste the discomfort of a job interview or review, the uneasiness that accompanies standing up before a group of people to present some information, or the general queasiness of receiving the direct attention of strangers. Some do, of course, possess pathologies and suffer from excruciating forms for fear. But for the vast majority of us, fear is something we've done away with, a primitive, basic emotion that has evolved into a more modern caution and insularity. Americans don't like fear very much at all -- for esthetic reasons. It's a dirty, uncomfortable emotion.

Which is why I find myself quite surprised by the intense level of fear I am experiencing in my daily life. I mean mouth-drying, stomach-churning fear. The fear one feels before leaping off the abyss.

Why? I am seriously contemplating a complete and utter career change. I am considering a blind-charge into a career that I have no formal training for, but which I dream about, have dreamt about since I was a child, and which I may have some talent for. I am contemplating abandoning the cushy paychecks of a job I otherwise find dreary and unfulfilling for a stab at the unknown and unknowable.

And, boy, am I scared.

The Case for Wierdness

As many things in my life begin, this began with a dream. I dreamed I was making a movie.

Rewind - A very long time ago, I made several movies. Five minute silent films with my father's Super8 camera. I made primitve attempts at stop motion photography and other ultra-naive attemps at special effects. I directed my friends in a film about a desperate battle against a child-eating, red-white-and-blue basketball from outer space that shot laser beams at its victims. The laser beams came courtesy of my father's permanent markers and scribbling directly on the film. Believe it or not, the beams came out pretty well. And, I made music videos to Queen's Bohemian Rhapsody and that awful disco warhorse The Fifth of Beethoven, both well-received during a middle-school era talent contest long before MTV existed. Childhood pleasures, to be sure, but ones that have lingered long after they should have been wiped away by the passions, cares and worries of adulthood.

Fast-forward - What movie I was making in that dream, I don't know. What it was about, I don't know. But, I had fun doing it. I went to work at the Salt Mine that day, thinking about it in a low-key way. As I logged in for business and my Instant Messaging client come up, I got a friendly message from El Grande which sent my life skipping out of its well-worn rut:

Blu, your dreams will set you free.

Synchronicity happens. Within the day I'd spoken with a co-worker who possessed over $10, 000 of professional HD-Digital film making and editing equipment he used to document family and friends, but didn't feel he had the talent to use creatively. I approached him bluntly, asking him to come to the breakroom for a meeting. He thought it was about work.

"Would you like to make a movie?"

He nearly jumped out of his seat. Once he recomposed himself, he smiled hugely, said of course he wanted to make a movie, and asked about the script.

"I'll take care of that." I replied calmly.

I perused eBay for likely bids for equipment. I spoke to another friend with an artisitic bent about storyboarding and pencilled in a meeting with another who is an amateur composer. When I purchased my copy of TurboTax for my taxes that evening, I picked up a copy of Screenwriter Professional as well.

I loaded the script writing software on my computer, fired it up, and immediately found myself confronted by emptiness - the white page. Here now I sat before the very symbol of how far I needed to go. I needed to fill that page up, it and several dozens of pages after it, with a stream of ideas that other people would find interesting.

The cursor winked at me, silently taunting time to put up or shut up. The page demanded filling, and I felt the first pang of what-the-fuck-are-you-doing fear. A wrote a scene. I rewrote it. I rewrote it again. I went to screenwriting websites. I mumbled to myself, Are you such an idiot?

Hand in hand, the urge to make the leap and the fear of doing it have grown larger and stonger. Intellectually, I know exactly what's going on here. Fear is our most basic survival mechanism. It is fear that saves your life from danger. Fear is the prescience of pain. It tastes like salt and metal. It implodes inside your chest, sucking at your guts.

As I was sitting watching TV last night, even the XTerra commericals were mocking me with their backing music:

Stay as you are and you won’t make a difference
stay as you are and you will never mean a thing
stay as you are and you won't make a difference
I hope your full control in your little hole is worth it

Scary thought.

Friday's Quote of Horror

One man, upon getting up in the morning, blew his nose so violently that "to his horror his left eye extruded from the orbit. With the assistance of his wife it was immediately replaced and a bandage placed over it." Afterward the eyelid was swollen but apparently there was no permanent damage.

Fascinating. I have rarely read of something both so horrible and Pythonesquely funny. For more stomach churning facts, walk your eyes, orbits intact, over to Uncle Cecil's Straight Dope.

European Toilet Paper Holder

User:Bishonen/European toilet paper holder - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The toilet paper holder has been an important facet of European bathroom design since antiquity. Distinctly European in origin, they have been a part of Western culture since their invention in the mists of pre-history. The symbolism and design of these fixtures has changed over the centuries, but they continue to occupy a central place in bathroom layout as well as in the emergent construction of a specifically European identity.

Read it, enjoy it, and remember!