Here are some important news bulletins for you!
SAM WILL HAVE A VERY BUSY DAY TODAY. This will include more skin cancer surgery in the morning, a quick stop at Tom Thumb for a loaf of French bread on the way home before his local anesthesia wears off, and an anti-Trump protest rally starting at 6 p.m. at Dealey Plaza downtown. The following map indicates: A) Dealey Plaza, also known as the “grassy knoll,” which was the location of John F. Kennedy’s assassination in 1963; B) this is where Sam used to work in the ritzy “Uptown” neighborhood; C) location of all the best snooty restaurants in Dallas; D) our closest Trader Joe’s; and E) the downtown location of Fuel City, a ginormous and excellent truck stop with A-1 tacos. (We have a Fuel City in Mesquite, too.) Also, the red arrow on the lower right side of the map is pointing you towards Howdygram headquarters, which is about 12½ miles northwest of downtown via I-30.
I FINALLY DID MY DEVILED EGGS. And I used my new pastry bag! Sam and I worked together on this project ... he cut 18 hard-boiled eggs in half and removed all the yokes for me, I made the egg filling and piped it into the whites. As soon as I figured out which piping tip to use everything turned out DAMN GORGEOUS. I’ll try to take a couple of egg portraits later today with my iPhone camera. Stay tuned, okay?
“TOP CHEF” RESTAURANT WARS WAS FANTASTIC LAST NIGHT. This is ALWAYS my favorite “Top Chef” episode, and last night’s was no exception. A couple of seriously unpopular, universally disliked and completely egomaniacal chefs had a private battle of their own going on in the kitchen ... annoying John Tesar (a well-known local restauranteur here in Dallas) and loudmouth Katsuji Tanabe, a half-Mexican, half-Japanese asshole who owns a kosher Mexican restaurant in Los Angeles. (No kidding.) Katsuji and John fought like a pair of alley cats in the kitchen last night ... yelling, name-calling, swearing, pouring hot cooking grease on each other’s heads (just kidding), cracking up the two dudes washing dishes, bringing dinner service to a grinding halt and ruining life for everybody. They even continued their fight at the Judges’ Table — NOT a good idea! — at which point Katsuji wound up getting eliminated for being the bigger jerk. Nobody will miss him. (Nobody would have missed John Tesar, either.)
“TOP CHEF” RESTAURANT WARS WAS FANTASTIC LAST NIGHT. This is ALWAYS my favorite “Top Chef” episode, and last night’s was no exception. A couple of seriously unpopular, universally disliked and completely egomaniacal chefs had a private battle of their own going on in the kitchen ... annoying John Tesar (a well-known local restauranteur here in Dallas) and loudmouth Katsuji Tanabe, a half-Mexican, half-Japanese asshole who owns a kosher Mexican restaurant in Los Angeles. (No kidding.) Katsuji and John fought like a pair of alley cats in the kitchen last night ... yelling, name-calling, swearing, pouring hot cooking grease on each other’s heads (just kidding), cracking up the two dudes washing dishes, bringing dinner service to a grinding halt and ruining life for everybody. They even continued their fight at the Judges’ Table — NOT a good idea! — at which point Katsuji wound up getting eliminated for being the bigger jerk. Nobody will miss him. (Nobody would have missed John Tesar, either.)
We are mourning another dead celebrity tonight. This time it’s Miguel Ferrer, 61, who had a big featured role on CBS’ hit drama “NCIS: Los Angeles” and, before that, on “Crossing Jordan.” Ferrer died of cancer at his home in Los Angeles.
Miguel Ferrer began his career in the early 1980s with guest shots on various TV series, and in 1990 he scored a juicy role as FBI Agent Albert Rosenfield on David Lynch’s hit “Twin Peaks.” Miguel’s parents were the late Jose Ferrer and singer Rosemary Clooney. (This makes him George Clooney’s first cousin.)
My last item for this post is a Putz of the Week award, and once again we’re honoring idiot Rick Perry, recent loser on “Dancing with the Stars,” former governor of Texas and failed candidate for the Republican presidential nomination in 2012 and 2016. This time Perry’s award has nothing whatsoever to do with his failures as governor or stupid comments from his debate performances. This time Governor Goodhair has accepted the job as Secretary of Energy without knowing anything whatsoever about the position or the agency. Perry told a New York Times interviewer that he thought the job involved being a “global ambassador for the oil and gas industry,” which is basically what he did as the governor of Texas. And that’s probably what his future boss — Donald Trump, the Manhattan orangutan — assumed, too. Except nothing could be further from the truth.
For Perry, whose confirmation hearing is already underway, this is obviously cringe-worthy. Four years ago in a GOP presidential debate he was determined to eliminate the Department of Energy on “day one” despite knowing nothing about the agency (or even remembering the name of the department). Even worse, the DOE has a major research laboratory in Texas, but Perry, who was governor of the state for 14 years, knew absolutely nothing about the lab’s work.
According to the New York Times, therefore, Rick Perry accepted a cabinet post without having any idea what his responsibilities would be.
But as stupid as Perry looks here, we can’t overlook his potential boss. Donald Trump could have Googled “Department of Energy,” taken 60 seconds to read an overview of the agency’s work and considered qualified people. But Trump never bothered.
In recent years the trend has been to appoint a Secretary of Energy with a real education and real technical training. President Bush chose Samuel Bodman, who had a distinguished career as an MIT-trained chemical engineer. President Obama upped the ante, appointing Berkeley’s Steven Chu and MIT’s Ernest Moniz to the position. Both are physicists and Chu has a Nobel Prize.
Rick Perry, on the other, barely earned a B.A. in Animal Husbandry from Texas A&M, got a “D” in a course called Meats, had a 2.7 GPA and led cheers at football games. God help us, oy vey and holy shit.
It’s 5 o’clock Friday afternoon and Sam is downtown right now getting ready for the NTX Resistance anti-Trump protest hoo-hah at Dealey Plaza. I asked him to take a bunch of pictures with his phone and I hope he doesn’t forget.
In the meantime I think I’ll migrate into the family room for a movie or two, mostly because: 1) I’m finally finished with this post; and 2) my email just stopped working! All of a sudden I’m getting error messages that my email carrier can’t connect to the IMAP server, whatever that means. But Sam had the same issue a couple of days ago and said he’d show me how to fix it when he gets home later. So for now I’ll just mosey along and do something else!
Thank you for reading this.
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