Week Twenty-Five: Sky and Jennifer

It was a turbulent week,and my depression beard was starting to grow. It started off with a successful debut of my stand-up comedy act at an open mic with Toby and Erin (Week 21). Followed by an extended wait on the editing of my new music video, as well as guest vocals for my next album not arriving (from various parties, all of which are worth the wait). Added to that, the owners at my work place aren't particularly happy with me. Suddenly, an e-mail from a rather famous comedian landed in my inbox, expressing interest in working with me. Highs, lows, highs... then the lowest of the low: Lola sprained her little puppy paw. In need of a positive boost, Erica and I invited over my "brother" Sky and his lovely new wife Jennifer for dinner. It was time to rise from low to high again.



I tell everyone in my life that Sky is my brother. It was very hard to understand for all my friends in college, and my co-workers at various jobs. There's no blood relation. There's no ties via marriage. But my mother was friends with his mother before he and his twin Michael were born, and I have known them both since age zero. We were raised together. We are beyond friends. We are brothers.

It was Sky and Jennifer's Wedding in Puerto Rico that Erica and I recently attended. And it was lovely. Jennifer, after 28 years of living in Puerto Rico, has now moved to lovely Seattle, WA. And since she arrived, it has rained almost everyday. Despite the promise of a classic "best keep secret" Seattle summer, all she has seen is the typical June gloom. Depression beard.

We wanted to make her feel at home, as Seattle will hopefully be the area her and Sky raise their family in. It was mentioned that she had somewhat of an addiction to fried sweet plantains. So I decided to incorporate them in the meal. Being unfamiliar with the process, I was shocked when my co-worker Juan (who has been to Puerto Rico several times and has family there) told me how easy it was to prepare them. Peel them, cut them, put them in a pan with some butter and a little brown sugar. Done deal.

For the meal, I knew I had to steer clear of a dish with cheese, as that is a dietary restriction for Sky. I figured chicken, rice and veggies is easy to make and never fails. Chicken piccata is one of my favorite dishes. And I have never cooked it for myself. So I decided now was a perfect time to learn.



Chicken piccata is as easy to make as it is to eat. Salt, pepper and flour some boneless skinless chicken breasts. Put some extra virgin olive oil in a pan with a quarter stick of butter. Brown the chicken on both sides, then set aside and keep warm. Add chicken stock and lemon juice to the pan. Place the chicken breasts back in the pan, add capers and broil the mixture.

I steamed some rice, placed it on the plates next to the chicken, then cut up some peppers, onions and carrots and tossed that in the piccata sauce mixture and fried them up. I topped the dish with the fried veggies and served the plates with a fresh lemon wedge. It was a massive portion, but a very good dish.



After dinner, I fried up the plantains as Juan had instructed and served three or four pieces per person with a side of fresh fruit. I am a little nervous they wouldn't live up to what Jennifer was used to, but she politely said they were up to par. One thing I noticed about Jennifer from the small amount of time we have spent together, is that she is very elegant, poised, and proper. A true lady.



When dessert was quickly consumed, we sat in the living room for a while and chatted. We discussed their future plans, and played some Table Topics, and called it a night before the clock struck midnight. It was a very pleasant, formal exchange. I not only expect, but I am certain, Sky and Jennifer will be our couple friends for the rest of time.

As I mentioned in the preamble, poor Lola sprained her ankle by jumping off our backyard porch, which is merely one foot high. Her yelp was enough to rip my heart into a million pieces. Erica and I took her immediately to the Vet ER. Almost $800 later, Lola was sent home with a splint and some pain meds. She will survive, but so will our credit card debt.



The addition of Aaron to the household was almost financially null and void by this bill. Erica and I are treading water, and we were flirting with the idea of adding a second roommate to help catch up and possibly get ahead with savings. Lola's accident was the decision-maker. And starting in August, our good friend Griff J will be moving into the guestroom. Any potential dates who planned on using the anti-DUI bed better pony up and push their way ahead in the 52 DD waiting line. Otherwise, they will be smack dab in the middle of a surprise threesome with our future roommie.

Griff will be coming over for dinner prior to moving in on a blind date of sorts. To make this possible, our good friend and one of my assistants at work, Therese, shifted her date around to make our calendar fit for everyone involved. So this weekend, Therese gets her shot at 52 DD with her boyfriend and Rain Shadow butcher, Bobby. This will be the 26th date of 52, the official halfway mark, and it's going to be a good one. Stay TUNED.

Week Twenty-Four: Ella and Ryan

After eleven straight days of work leading up to a show with my band at the Crocodile, Saturday was my first day off. I was ready to relax. Both Erica and I weren't in the mood to party super hard. Luckily, my friend Ella and her husband Ryan were on the exact same page. And they came over on Week 24 for some good old comfort food and a laid back chat.



I've known Ella since 2004, when I moved back to Seattle from Colorado into one of the first notorious shithole houses. The house was in the Green Lake area and we called it The 8-1-9 (which were the address #'s). Her childhood friend Nerissa was living there as well, so Ella was a mainstay at the nightly parties.

Ella has a reputation for her diction. She enters a room, makes her presence known, and then dominates the conversation. In a very endearing and engaging way, I might add. She is loud, colorful, and super fun. We butted heads on occasion back in the day, because I am very similar. And when we were in the same room, and there was only one spotlight, we would compete for it.

As I matured and began to grow up a bit, I realized what a solid, loving friend Ella has been. At times we would annoy the crap out of each other, but in the end, we are totally buds. So it's fun to see her now that we are older, less crazy, and both settled down with quieter, even keel spouses. It's actually pretty funny what a similar pairing Ella and Ryan is to Erica and I.

As I mentioned, both couples had pretty wild Friday nights. So Ryan's suggestion for dinner was perfect. Grilled cheese sandwiches and tomato soup. Easy to make, cheap to purchase materials for, and settles in the stomach well. I went to the store and picked up a large loaf of sour dough bread, butter, garlic aioli, grated Swiss cheese, grated sharp cheddar, tomato bisque soup, a fruit salad and a bottle of red wine.



The way I make grilled cheese sandwiches is incredibly simple: I hit the inside of the bread slices with a layer of aioli (or mayo), I stack on two types of cheese, put the slices together, and coat the outside with butter. Then just pop it on a skillet and cook it until it's nice and toasty.



The tomato bisque soup was awesome to dip the sandwiches in, and the fruit salad complimented the greasiness of the meal in a refreshing way. Ella and Ryan brought us a bottle of white and a six pack of Newcastle as well. And we finished the meal with a scoop of raspberry sorbet and a scoop of coconut gelato.

The conversation was light and spacey at first, as we rambled through the typical steps of couples interviews. We caught up on what was new with work, the living situation, old friends and new goals. It was slow, laid back and perfect for the mood of the group.

Before we knew it, four hours had passed and we were all getting sleepy. To gear up for Father's Day, we decided to call it a night and get some rest. We were so tired, Erica and I left the mess we made to settle and deal with later.



It was a really pleasant evening and we hope to catch Ella and Ryan on a night we are both ready to go full force. I will have no choice but to go full force in Week 25, as the infamous go-hard party man Sky Sander comes to 52DD, fresh off his Wedding in Puerto Rico with his lovely new wife Jennifer. This will be one for the ages...

Week Twenty-Three: Cam and Stacey

Cancellation chaos continues as work schedules with Austin and Kristin conflicted with the date we had booked. Almost half way through the dating season, Erica and I took things in stride and promptly found a fill-in. Our neighbors who visited us during last week's date knew the drill and live close by. So for Week 23, we called up Cam and Stacey.



Cam is a professional EDM producer. A 5'9'' redhead, he releases music and performs shows under the name Big Chocolate. We met both Cam and Stacey (who is a professional tour manager) through Ben (Week 1) when they were all on Warped Tour 2011 together. Erica and I drove out to see the festival on the Gorge stop with Gomez (Week 6) and Thomas (Week 14). Cam drew an impressive size crowd and put on a wild one-man show. After the set, we partied together before the buses took off. With Ben's circle of friends, we will accept each other as family right off the bat. This was an introduction to a new crew member.

Soon after Cam became close with Ben, he decided to move to Seattle. Stacey, who has toured managed Ben several times and most recently a tour with famed auto-tune singer T-Pain, also needed a place to live. They landed two blocks South from our home, and we've been bumping into each other like Jerry and Kramer ever since. Commonly, we do food and movies. We also frequent shows together. Cam vlogs daily and posts the videos to YouTube. As a matter of fact, if my write up is insufficient for your double date info needs, his recap of the evening has already gone live!



His coverage on the Worst Animal/Slow Dance show at Funhouse and the Grieves/Prof show at the Crocodile is extensive and he got some classic footage of both shows. So subscribe to his YouTube page (which is CamEveryDay) and check out the behind the scenes coverage from our crew via Cam's perspective. It is impressive how engaging one person can be day in and day out with social media. For the most part, every vlog is very entertaining.

Cam's favorite meal (that doesn't contain chocolate chips) is chicken parmesan. His favorite drink was cran vodkas, but he has been on a big margarita kick lately FYI. I didn't feel like going fully from scratch on the meal, so I skipped a few steps by purchasing pre-breaded chicken parmesan breasts from QFC. The process was simple from that point on: oil in a pan, chicken on the oil, flip. At the same time, I was boiling water and cooked up some spaghetti noodles. For the marina, I pseudo made an original sauce by cutting up a white onion, taking four spoons fulls of minced garlic and tossing it in a pot with some seasoning and adding tomato sauce over it. To finish the plate, noodles first, topped by chicken, topped by marina, topped with fresh grated parmesan. Easy.



The drinks were twice as simple. Ice, two part vodka, three part cranberry juice, garnished with a slice of lime. The food was good and the drinks did the trick. We sat at the table and discussed American things. Cam is convinced Jersey Shore is the greatest show in recent memory. He had a very compelling argument. He has also DJed a show with Pauly D before and said he has nice eyebrows.

Naturally the conversation gravitated towards genitals in children's movies. Specifically, the alleged boner that takes place during Disney's The Little Mermaid. Stacey swears the preacher gets a boner when he gathers the dearly beloved for the Wedding of Ursula and the Prince. Lucky for us, Erica and I have an extensive DVD collection which OF COURSE includes The Little Mermaid, Aladdin and Beauty and the Beast. So we migrated downstairs to find the boner.

Off the jump, I was worried it would be removed. Clearly the new DVD version was digitally restored and rumors of the boner had to have reached the top. There's no way they would re-release the boner. A major hint that the boner was missing was the cover. The original cover had an undersea castle with penises (or boners, if you will) and the new DVD cover was entirely different. So I was worried we wouldn't find the boner.



As I feared, the new version skips the scene. Completely omits it. Thanks to YouTube, the perverts over at Disney can't hide what they did to me in my childhood. Stacey was correct. There was a boner!



There wasn't a way we could top a boner hunt, so we just went up stairs for a game of Apples to Apples. If you ask me, that game kind of sucks. I feel like it is something you play around people you don't know that well to kill time. But we know Cam and Stacey well enough to just sit on a couch and talk. I think Cam felt the same way, as he expressed his sister would rope him into games with all her friends back in high school. Then he got up and did a solo photoshoot around the house.



Gomez stopped by to say hello, and we all chatted for a while, then we called it a night. I dawned a hood by Dub Era that was made for my upcoming music video "Craigslist Pimpin" and tried to take a picture with Cam on my phone, but it was in video mode. FAIL. It was a typical fun night in the neighborhood and I'm sure something that will happen in an unstructured form a ton more, especially after 52 DD closes its doors to the general public.



Next week, Erica and I will be hosting a date the day after my band's show at the Crocodile on Friday, June 15th. Tickets are still available and only $7, you can order some by CLICKING HERE and I would love it if you came to see us play! The day after will be my first day off from work since June 5th. And I will be spending it cooking for my wife, my friend Ella and her husband Ryan. Until then, eat well, drink well and be well!

Week Twenty-Two: Joe and Christina

Erica and I arrived back in Seattle from Puerto Rico after midnight, and I started working the next morning (so, basically, that morning) with a 6am wake-up call. I dove straight into a 40 hour work week directly out of a five day paid vacation. It was a long, tiring week, but I made it. And I had this to look forward to: dinner AND a movie with my former bandmate Joe and his lovely girlfriend Christina.



Joe and I met back in 2006, when he reached out to Ben (Week 1) to make some music together. Joe is a producer, singer, guitarist and keyboard player who performs under the alias Captain Midnite. He provided my first solo album with a few beats and by the end of 2007 we had started a rap group along with Seattle rapper Kublakai. That group was called The Let Go, and we toured the country three times, charted on CMJ's college radio charts, licensed a song to MTV's The City, signed a record deal in Japan and released two albums domestically on our own. And we broke up.



Joe was always a pleasure to work with because he is so level-headed and even keel. Large shocker here: I was the wild card in the group, always flying off the handle and doing dramatic things. But Joe and I had natural chemistry, being opposite personality types. So we continued to work together, via live show performances, and he was one of the original members of my backing band Worst Animal. As schedules for 2/3 of the musicians in the band conflicted too greatly with the frequency I book local shows, Joe focused on his solo material and working with Atlanta rapper Kyle Lucas and I replaced him on the keys with Kjell Nelson.

Despite suffering through two band break-ups, Joe and I retain a good relationship and often council each other for musical advice. He also has beats on both my forthcoming Bad Tattoos Volume Two EP and A Good Tattoo LP. We are never short of something to tell or say to one another, but it generally revolves around music. So, he and I agreed to not dominate the night with rap talk too much and take our ladies out to see the new Snow White movie after dinner. All four of us were stoked about the plan. Especially because Snow White and the Huntsman looks pretty BAD ASS.



With the movie factored in, the date was already set to be a unique one. But I had no idea just how unique it would get. Being it was June 1st, our new roommate Aaron (Week 4) had moved his belongings into our basement and was looming around the house. At first he was being discrete, because of the possible fifth wheel factor, but Aaron has toured with Joe and I a few times, and we ushered him out into the common room to be part of our discussions. We all know each other well and it didn't make sense to isolate him from the party.



He had already eaten, so he didn't partake in the dinner portion of the date, which was Phad Thai. I have never made that before, but I knew it was one of Joe's favorite meals, so I surprised him with it. I didn't know much about it at all, so I ended up combining a few recipes I found and varying it to fit something I thought sounded good. From what I read, it is a common street food sold out of carts in Bangkok. And it commonly contained tofu which I never consume. So my first change was swapping in chicken for the protein ingredient of the dish. The necessary ingredients to make it legit are rice noodles and eggs, as well as peanuts, fish oil, vegi oil and tamarind paste. What I opted in, since the accompanying parts seemed optional, was onions, shallots, Chinese snap peas and diced carrots. I also chose to go with fleshly sliced garlic cloves over minced, and omit the crushed red pepper flakes cause the wifey doesn't do spicy.



I will admit, I was very unfamiliar with this dish, recipe and cooking process. And it turned out pretty awesome! I approached it with no fear, just cooked it how I felt it should be done and it turned out great. It may have been the first course that Erica completely finished (to be fair, my portions are usually way larger than necessary). But, as we finished, an unexpected visitor stopped by. For Aaron.



It was his bandmate from Slow Dance Rudy, who was dropping off some flyers for an upcoming show. Rudy and Aaron have a wild stage show, and they are playing with my band at the Crocodile on Friday, June 15th. Make sure to order your tickets BY CLICKING HERE.

Rudy had his girlfriend Regan waiting in the car, so we urged him to grab her and come in and chat for a bit. Rudy has also toured with Joe and I before, and he is a riot to have around. It turned into a very fluid evening of socializing, we just kind of rolled with whatever was happening.

The conversation with Joe, Christina, Erica, Aaron, Rudy, Regan and I turned into a round robin of Table Topics. And, if I was being modest, I must say, I was working the crowd pretty well. I flirted with unveiling some of the standup comedy routine I've been working on, but decided against it. That must wait. But I certainly put Rudy and Regan on the spot for getting them over another time for a dinner date, and they accepted! Erica and I are super excited for that dinner, because we had a great time with them in their short visit.



As Rudy and Regan made an exit, Joe and I went over to the stereo to review some new songs I am working on. While discussing his current project, which is electronic, I mentioned that my buddy Cameron, who also makes electronic music, just moved in a house a few blocks away. Cameron releases music under the alias Big Chocolate and Joe had heard of him. We decided the more the merrier, so I called Cam up and asked if he wanted to join the five of us to see the movie. Cam and his totally rad roommate Stacey decided to come with, and the DD was suddenly a 7-person mob on a mission.



Mob mentality took us all the way up North to the Cinebarre, a magical theater that serves alcohol. The theater also cards every patron, and, magically, not all of our crew was carrying identification. On a night out with dudes who call themselves Captain Midnite and Big Chocolate, and neither one of them were my 6"8" black roommate, weirder stuff has happened. So it was off to the Thorton Place Theater in Northgate and the 11:20pm showing of Snow White.

45 minutes in, Cam and Aaron walked out. Their judgments were in: it sucked. However, I stuck out the entire 2 hours of whimsical special effects and I am ready to make a bolder statement. As far as what type of movie it was, I enjoyed Snow White and the Huntsman better than Lord of the Rings. That's my opinion. It is that style of movie, and if you like that, you will like it. I know legions of nerds that back up that crappy midget tale are going to jump down my throat for trashing their craptacular 37-hour triology, but I don't care. Because that will expose the nerds lurking my blog. Let me give you nerds a fair warning: A DOUBLE DATE HAS NO PLACE FOR A NERD. YOU ARE NOT WELCOME HERE, NERDS.



Continuing our nerdless streak, next week Erica and I are hosting one of the coolest couples we know, Austin and Kristin. If things go to par for them, it will be one crazy night of partying. Stay TUNED.