"Do you understand what I'm saying sir?"

Moving words (from an interview with Iggy Pop):

"Punk Rock" by Mogwai

Here's a link to the entire interview without music: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kqxcgPPdYwo.

Fog of War

Fog of War was an enlightening, well directed biographical documentary on the life of Robert McNamara, focusing primarily on his time as Secretary of Defense under JFK and LBJ. Prior to watching Fog of War, I had never heard of Robert McNamara and had only seen one movie by Errol Morris. Briefly, Robert McNamara was the highest paid and youngest Assistant Professor at Harvard in 1940, the first president of Ford Motor Company who was not a Ford at the age of 44, the Secretary of Defense from 1961 to 1968, and President of the World Bank from 1968 to 1981. By the end of the movie I had a deep respect for McNamara and a real understanding of this monumental figure (I also had 4 more Errol Morris movies added to my queue on blockbuster.com). The movie's interviews were insightful, the editing effective, and the narrative both compelling and well-structured. Rent this movie and watch it; it's worth 2 hours of your life.

Here's a link to info on Robert McNamara: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_McNamara#Secretary_of_Defense.

Here's the quote where the title of the movie came from: The term "fog of war" is ascribed to the Prussian military analyst Carl von Clausewitz, who wrote: "The great uncertainty of all data in war is a peculiar difficulty, because all action must, to a certain extent, be planned in a mere twilight, which in addition not infrequently — like the effect of a fog or moonshine — gives to things exaggerated dimensions and unnatural appearance."

Here's a funny story from the movie: According to McNamara, before he became President of Ford Motor Company, when a production executive was fired, nothing was said to him. The executive would go home for the weekend, the furniture in his office would be chopped up, and when he returned to his office the following Monday to find his office furniture in that state, he knew that he was fired.

Snow's BBQ

Up until the middle of ths year, I would guess that most people that hadn't driven through Lexington, Texas had never heard of the town. I live about 50 miles away in Austin and I hadn't heard of it. Then around June, Texas Monthly came out with its Best of BBQ edition naming Snow's BBQ of Lexington #1. Then a couple of weeks ago, The New Yorker profiled Snow's in a 4 page article.

If anything ranks close to the sweet sugar of love, then for me it's gotta be food. And of those foods I love, a tender slice of brisket cut fatty from the fatty side may be #1. A good bite of brisket is like toro tuna sashimi or a chocolate chip cookie frsh out of the oven with a glass of whole milk.Simply said, it can be sublime, close to a religious experience. This is why I enjoy eating at quality bbq joints, something that definitely abounds in the Hill County. Until last weekend, I felt Smitty's had the best brisket, both in the best single bite of brisket ever and in consistency of the product (being each bite was as good as the last). For me the litmus test for a good bbq joint is their bbq, so I don't pay a lot of attention to the other stuff. That being said, the consensus of my bbq eating buddies has been that Smitty's also has the best sausage and Kruez's has the best ribs. Lockhart is the mecca of Texas bbq.

Snows. Snow's BBQ is in Lexington, Texas, about 50 miles due east of Austin. Leington is a ranching town of about 1,500 people. The town was sut down the Saturday we went out there save for Snow's, the people selling honey out of their mini-van parked across the street from Snow's, and a cattle auction down the street from Snow's. The weather that Saturday was near perfect, a mild Texas December day, clear blue skies and temperature in the mid-60s.

Snow's is how a bbq joint should be. It's partially surrounded by grain elevators. There are a bunch of wooden picnic tables outside near the bbq pits (the owner of Snow's, Kerry Bexley, built the pits himself). The actual store is probably less than 1,000 sq. ft., consisting of the food counter and 5 or 6 tables. The pit master, Tootsie Tomanetz, is something out of a tall tale. You couldn't make her up.

The food. There was nothing wrong with Snow's BBQ. The brisket was the best I've ever had, tender, marbled, and moist (if you were lazy to epic proportions, you wouldn't even have to chew the brisket it was so tender and moist)(As I'm writing this I'm honestly salivating). There were bites so good that I'd nod off for a second. Also, each cut of brisket was just as good as any other cut. This is truly notable because there are many times when I've had brisket and one cut was great and another tough, dry, overcooked. Bottom line, Snow's brisket was really good. I'd drive 7 hours round trip for this brisket (I'm gonna rate the food in this post on how far I'd drive to eat it).

The pork ribs were tasty. They were different in that the meat on Snow's ribs seemed closer to the meat on a pork chop in texture and flavor than other ribs I've had. I'd drive 30 to 45 minutes each way for these ribs.

The sausage was good too. Loosely packed. Not too greasy. Good flavor. I wouldn't go too far out of my for these links though, maybe 15 minutes each way (then again I'm not a real sausage guy).

The pork shoulder was the only let down of the day. I had high expectations for the pork shoulder. It was by no means bad, it just didn't have the flavor of which pork shoulder is capable. Next time at Snow's, I won't waste space in my stomach by putting pork shoulder in it. I'd drive 10 minutes for this pork shoulder as long as it was being given away.

The sides I ate were potato salad and cole slaw. The potato salad was fine, nothing to write home about. The slaw was actually damn good (I mean as good as cabbage can be when compared next to top notch meat). It was light, flavorful, and crunchy. I'd drive a couple of minutes out of my way for the slaw.

All in all, Snow's is legit and lives up to its billing. The Snow's team was real pleasant, the setting was picturesque, and the food was across the board good. Definitely worth the trip.

Crikey!

I feel like I need to explain why I went to see Australia (The Movie): Thanksgiving is a time meant for spending time with your family; so once I got off work on Wednesday, I drove to Houston, had dinner with my sister and mom, and then went to see a movie with my mom.  Going to a movie with my mom means compromise for both of us (she'd like to see some period piece drama while I'd prefer something drug-addled and esoteric), so after much deliberation we decided on Australia (just as an aside how the fuck is Slumdog Millionaire not playing in the 4th biggest city in the US).  We saw Australia at the Edwards Theater off of I-10 right west of the 610 loop (as another aside, if you go out to any of the clubs in the Edwards Theater complex then you need to spend some serious time looking at yourself in the mirror while punching yourself repeatedly in the face until your nose is a garbled mess-I'll make an exception to the nose punching garbled mess thing for playing at most $20 worth of video games at the complex's Dave and Busters and/or a show at the complex's Comedy Improv if Richard Pryor has come back from the dead to do that show).

So, Australia.  I expected a love story/period piece, hardly bearable, but nonetheless bearable, movie.  What I got was Moulin Rouge set in the desert with a lot less singing (all thanks and praise be to Allah), a lot more cliche Australian vernacular, and a whole shit load of cows.  In all honesty, the movie started out good.  The scene before the title sequence had a strong hook and after that the movie, for the first hour, was for the most part entertaining.  Sure, it was cheesy and the story was closer to Sponge Bob Square Pants than a solid drama, but all of this was to be expected; also, there was enough of Hugh Jackman being shirtless and pouring water on himself for this movie to qualify as soft gay porn.  But all this aside, the plot was captivating, the direction interesting, and the acting believable.  Plus, the kid that played the 1/2 Aboriginal, 1/2 white kid named Nullah was really fucking cute.  

So this went on for about an hour and a half and I was thinking to myself, "Damn, this movie is pretty good.  I'm kind of pissed off at myself for liking it, but man, I am actually enjoying this."  Then the wheels came off, not right away, they kind of rattled a little bit at first, then startled wobbling, and then they just came right the fuck off.  

After the wheels came off  (all four of 'em came off), this movie started skidding around, sparks were pouring out from the sides, then the gas tank burst open, a spark hit the gas that was pouring out of the tank, and BOOM!!!  Nonmetaphorically what happened was that: 1) The movie was about twice as long as it should have been.  I don't know what kind of grand aspirations Baz Luhrmann had, but Australia is in no way an epic and at no point could this story have even potentially been an epic.  It's a light, comedic drama/period piece that should have been at most an hour and forty five minutes.  Thing was 2:45 without the previews.  All in all, this show kept me seated in that damn theater for 3 hours once the lights went out; and 2) From the beginning, the story in Australia progresses interestingly and the movie holds promise.  Then, like a lot of big budget, big studio movies, when the time comes for resolution, the writers look around, and notice that, oh shit!, they've painted themselves into a corner.  So then all types of ridiculous bullshit starts to happen just so the audience can get served a Happy Meal ending.  Instead of this crappy deus ex machina (blue means link), just have a big Baby Jesus float on in, lasers strapped to his head, and clean the messy story up.  It would be about as believable and a lot more entertaining.

In summary, if you're gonna see Australia, leave after an hour and a half and call me to find out what happens at the end.  You'll leave the theater a lot happier.  Oh, and Nicole Kidman can act really well.  Rating:  3.5 out of a 10.

Title of the Blog

It's kind of a pain in the ass to be original sometimes. To make it more difficult, you need to be witty and/or funny. If the synapses aren't giving me anything then I'll often revert to random searches on the www or sometimes just plain, old randomness. In this case, I gotta say I'm happy with the results. The title of the blog comes from the etymological root of the word "culture," as found on the awesome website www.etymonline.com.

culture

1440, "the tilling of land," from L. cultura, from pp. stem of colere "tend, guard, cultivate, till". The figurative sense of "cultivation through education" is first attested 1510. Meaning "the intellectual side of civilization" is from 1805; that of "collective customs and achievements of a people" is from 1867. Slang culture vulture is from 1947. Culture shock first recorded 1940.

"For without culture or holiness, which are always the gift of a very few, a man may renounce wealth or any other external thing, but he cannot renounce hatred, envy, jealousy, revenge. Culture is the sanctity of the intellect." [William Butler Yeats]