TheLindsayist

Proud to be provincial

With great skepticism do I receive the contention that Bostonians must, by nature, complain about everything. We are, they say, miserable, stubborn people whose folding chairs will be pried from our cold dead hands in the parking spots we defend all winter. I’ve watched a few people stay a few years and then move to usually Brooklyn (runner-up: Portland, OR), blaming Boston for everything wrong with their lives and decreeing some borough the Big Rock Candy Mountain. Arriving there, and then complaining about all the same things. Perhaps it’s not me – maybe it’s you?

I’ll be here a decade next September, and by now I’ve amassed a pretty long list of reasons why I find Boston a great place to live. In addition to my affection for green space and attentive city services, Boston has struck me as resource-rich, goals attainable here. Patient, creative friends helped me not so long ago kick off a series of roller disco parties, and I had the pleasure of spending the past several months helping reelect a socially- and environmentally-forward mayor. I can’t walk five feet in my Hyde Square neighborhood without running into some delightful person I know on the way to one of dozens of nearly perfect local businesses, and the music scene has been friendly to the fledgling throes of my first-ever band. If I’m making Boston sound like Sesame Street, well, cut me some slack: I live in JP.

So, I’m happy here, and I resent the suggestions that living here means that I’m cowardly or complacent. I’ve heard these things. I know what I have, and I like it. With that in mind, I wrote the following song, which we’ve been playing out a bit and will have recorded soon enough. It captures my pride, and also what I intend to be a bit of playful curmudgeonliness, which is to say, ‘don’t let the door hit you,’ etc etc. And I can’t operate on the paucity of sleep I once could. This also heralds a new phase for Thick Shakes, one in which we play more than three notes per person. I think it’s a good move for everyone.

Writing about this here probably spares you the awkward between-song stage banter, by the way, not that the song is subtle by any means and requires a preface. More bands should blog, then.

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Go Back to New York

I took a walk around Central Park
but baby, I’m still in the dark
’cause we also have the Law Olmstead
and I’ll be living here til I’m dead

Nothing’s quite as big
Nothing’s quite as cool
I can’t teach you anything you didn’t learn at school

Go back to New York (x3)

You still complain about the traffic snarls
but now you whine across the Hudson not the Charles
[x2; I need to write a second couplet here]

[bridge & chorus]

Daddy’s money always got you far
that’s why you worry ’bout the hours at the bar
But I still gotta earn what’s mine
Why don’t you go to bed on time?

Nothing’s quite as big
Nothing’s quite as cool
I can’t teach you anything you didn’t learn at NYU

Go back to New York [many times to end]

Kitchen sink carbonara and the Subjects

We played last night at the Middle East in Cambridge, which was a pleasure every which way. Even despite Tim’s cut finger opening up onstage, splattering blood all across his already red and white guitar. I found it so distracting, I started the next song in a completely wrong key.

The Subjects also played, a terrific band on tour from New York that you can hear here. Not only did they play a set that left us all quite giddy, they are delightful gentlemen and gracious guests. When we found our late-night Chinese food plans thwarted [no 24-hour Peking ravioli in JP, alas], we all agreed homemade pasta did in fact sound better than take-out pizza. Turns out they’re enthusiastic, adventurous eaters. I had dough all over my hands so I didn’t take pictures, but they did, so maybe I’ll add some later. Over reports of cross-country BBQ comparisons, we ate the following, a what’s-in-the-crisper variation on pasta carbonara.

Mark Bittman’s egg pasta recipe, recounted here from memory i.e.

2 cups flour
3 eggs
Pinch salt, water as needed

Flour in a bowl, make a well in the middle with a spoon, crack an egg into that and with a fork, start whisking the egg so it incorporates flour as it mixes. At some point in this process, add the salt. When it’s too dry to manipulate, crack another egg and repeat until all three eggs have incorporated all the flour. Ball up the dough and knead it for about a minute until it is smooth and pliable, and add a little water if it’s too dry. Split the dough into four balls. Roll out as you like – we use a little metal crank pasta machine – and drop in boiling, salted, oiled water for about two minutes until it’s tender.

Kitchen Sink Carbonara

Couple ounces pancetta, chopped
Half a red onion, diced
Big clove of garlic
One Chinese eggplant, chopped
2 eggs
½ cup grated Parmesan cheese
2 tbsp olive oil

In a skillet, sauté pancetta until crisp and mostly rendered. Add onion, sauté until soft and sweet, about 4 minutes. Sliver garlic and add to skillet. Add eggplant and fry until tender but browned. In a bowl, whisk eggs and cheese. Cook pasta; drain, but do not rinse, and reserve about ¾ cup of the cooking water. Return the pasta to the pot with the reserved cooking water; toss with the fried eggplant mixture. Pour egg mixture over the pasta and toss to coat. The heat of the pasta will cook the egg. If the pasta is too dry, drizzle with a bit more olive oil. Grate extra cheese to taste, and finish with freshly ground black pepper. Sleep a few hours, wake up and make brunch.

First review.

David Thorpe wrote this review of my band. I do think he gets us, from the influences we properly ape to the ones we want to but can’t. Especially this: “…all stabbing and clattering and not too much thinking,” and he calls me “fairly convincing,” which might be the best subtitle I’ll ever get.