Author: jbenton

It’s time for my annual link to Fametracker‘s annual Oscar predictions, as filtered through five sex-crazed clones of Karl Malden.

1936 Chevrolet promotional newsreel. Featuring sand surfing, Punch Drunk Percy, and a scene in downtown Dallas, Texas, where people were evidently tremendously excited about the new “five-cent parking machine,” also known as “the parking watchdogometer.”

I just interviewed NFL Hall of Famer, Super Bowl MVP, eight-time 1,000-yard rusher, recipient of the Immaculate Reception, and Pittsburgh Steeler great Franco Harris. And I didn’t even realize who I was talking to until the interview was over.
I should really pay more attention.

You may remember that I was a Pew Fellow in International Journalism last fall, which took me to Zambia for six weeks.
You may also remember that I kept a blog, zambiastories.com, while I was overseas.
Assuming your medication is working, you may also remember that I set up blogs for several of my fellow Pew Fellows while they were off galavanting in the countries of their choice. (Jeremy Kahn in Ivory Coast; Noel Paul in Russia; Marcia Franklin in Iran; Jessie Deeter in Sierra Leone; Suzanne Marmion in Egypt; Antrim Caskey in Argentina.)
Well, one of the many things that have kept me busy of late has been setting up and hosting blogs for the next batch of Pew Fellows. I hereby present:
– Recuerdos, a blog from Mexico by Molly Hennessy-Fiske of The (Raleigh) News & Observer.
– Moscow to the End of the Line, a blog from (duh) Russia by Nathan Hodge of Defense Week.
– Anatolian Diary, a blog from Turkey by Siobhan Roth of Legal Times.
– Tales From Kenya, a blog from, um, Kenya by Sadie Babits of Arizona Public Radio.
They’ll all be well worth reading, not least because they’re all fabulous people who are working on terrific stories. So bookmark ’em today — they’ll all be in country for the next 5.5 weeks.

Here’s my story from today’s paper. It includes my first ever reference to Bela Lugosi in a newspaper story.
Also, if you’re a Dallas-area member of the Alpha Delta Kappa sorority, you’ll be hearing me speak at your meeting tonight. On what, I’m not sure. But I’ve got a few hours to come up with something.

An update to that last Cajun post: Karen points out this piece from today’s Morning Edition on a related topic — the bizarre prism through which Cajuns are viewed in popular culture.
It’s an interview with Shane Bernard, a guy I’ve been meaning to have a beer with for about a decade now and the author of [the crabwalk.com-recommended] The Cajuns: Americanization of a People. Shane hits the right points about how a variety of factors (World War II service, the rise of television) led to the loss of much of Cajun culture and how goofy movies like The Big Easy and Southern Comfort caricature Cajuns, generally in unflattering ways. (He didn’t even mention the abominable The Waterboy, a movie whose mere mention makes me angry. For what it’s worth, Passion Fish remains one of the few mainstream Hollywood movie I’ve seen that nailed my part of the country.)
He also hits on one of my pet peeves — those who confuse New Orleans (a fine, fine city in its own right) with Cajun country. Very different places, people. There are essentially no Cajuns in New Orleans, for starters. (There are many more Cajuns in Houston than in New Orleans.) If you see anything Cajun in New Orleans, there’s a 99 percent chance it’s been faked and imported by the tourism industry in the last 20 years. Cajun music, zydeco, boudin, swamps, boiled crawfish — not New Orleans. (And for that matter: jazz, beignets, voodoo, those epic Mardi Gras parades — not Cajun.)

Happy Mardi Gras, everybody.
For those interested, the Louisiana Mardi Gras imagery you’re used to (boob flashing, bead wearing, drunken Kansans) is pretty much limited to New Orleans. In Cajun country, where I’m from, Mardi Gras is more rural and traditional. (And I’d say “better.”)
Mamou and Church Point host the ur-Cajun Mardi Gras. Mamou’s a cute little town, home of the legendary Fred’s Lounge, and home of Revon Reed and Paul Tate, two of the leading Cajun cultural activists of the ’50s and ’60s. (It’s not exaggerating much to say that without folks like Reed, Tate, Dewey Balfa, James Domengeaux, and Barry Ancelet working hard to preserve the traditions of the past, Cajun music would be just another dead regional music by now.)

Remember when I mentioned The Grey Album, the samizdat remix disc that merges the Beatles’ beats with Jay-Z’s words? The record companies involved (or more precisely, the record companies who were not involved) have been trying to shut down distribution. In response, for today only, you can download the full album via greytuesday.org.
Some of the download sites are already broken; for what it’s worth, I just downloaded my copy from this site.

Intriguing-if-true rock tidbit: The Afghan Whigs (who were better than you remember, if my current listening thoughts are accurate) were “named after a Florida-based white Muslim biker gang from the Sixties who were into love, not war.”
I’m still a little pissed that someone stole my copy of Congregation in college. On first-listen-in-seven-years, Black Love is solid (if a little sonically dated). And of course, as previously hyped here, Gentlemen is an absolute classic.

I just grilled myself a burger for dinner.
Why has no one ever told me how glorious homemade burgers are? Seriously, I should have been let in on this secret before age 28.
(Actually, I should have shuffled off the collegiate life of fast food and nuked frozen things before age 28.)
See, I’ve been trying to eat better the last few months — a largely successful effort, I must say, if 35 pounds lost means anything. But I went straight from crap into lots of fish, fruit, and rice dishes. I skipped right over burgers in the transition. What a horrible, horrible mistake. (Also of note: Ground beef is substantially cheaper than salmon.)
If you’re curious what goes into my Louisiana-themed Joshburger (this makes three burgers):
1 pound lean ground beef
A few shizzle-dizzles of Tony Chachere’s Original Creole Seasoning [Chachere’s is pronounced “SASH-er-ees,” by the way. If you can’t remember the spelling, you can always get to the web site via icantspellit.com.]
A few shiznits of Tiger Sauce
A few schlemiels of boring ol’ grated parmesan cheese
A few schlemazels of Worcestershire sauce
Mix it all in a bowl. Fashion it into three patties — make ’em a little skinny, like a modified hot dog. Grill it up (go George!) to medium rare — about four minutes. While that’s going on, slather Zatarain’s creole mustard on two hot dog buns.
Then split the patty in half and slap ’em on the buns. (Note: This frankfurter-fueled improvisation was caused by my lack of hamburger buns. But it works!) Then — this is key — sprinkle a little extra Tony Chachere’s and splatter a little extra Tiger Sauce on the meat.
Then consume, ravenously.