Texas Speedbump

Last night I went to a Medeski, Martin and Wood concert in Dallas.

They're a pretty amazing jazz jam band from New York.

Each of them are phenomenal musicians, but I've got to be honest, the only times I felt myself really get into it was when they fell into some really great, obvious grooves.

Jazz is usually like that for me though, I guess I'm not a die hard fan, because I have to have it spoon fed to me. I can appreciate the talent of each of the musicians, but I don't just sit back and listen unless I'm tapping my foot with the rhythm of the bass drum.

They did probably six numbers (out of a two and a half hour concert) that I would love to have on an album (which I probably couldn't even get on an album because so much/all(?) of their stuff is improvisational). Those six though, wow ain't no denying these guys are phenomenal.

You know, I say I'd like it on an album, but I really only like jazz live anyway. Doesn't make sense does it? Maybe that's why I keep going back, because it is such a difficult thing for me to define... even as far as my own enjoyment of it...?

I'm really not trying to be vague, it probably all just boils down to my attention span. I'd probably be a hard core fan if a show lasted about forty-five minutes. Maybe I'm just not focused enough.

Which reminds me:

My car is in the shop, so to get to the concert, we worked it out that I'd ride the Trinity Railway from Fort Worth to Dallas, and Daryel would pick me up at the train stop in the medical/market center.

I did that once before with family, and I remember thinking that it was great because Fort Worth is so mellow and it's nice to just park there and then hop on the train to crazier Dallas. But I never did it again until last night. I think it's because the things I usually do in Dallas go later than the 10:45 final train.

But after doing it again last night, I think I'm going to make it a point to ride it more often. It's so cheap and easy (just like I like my wo... just kidding).

Anyway, I was riding the train, looking out the window and do you know what I saw lying to the side of the tracks? Or I should say, do you know what I saw one half of?

Yes, to all of you from Texas who guessed.

An armadillo.

Just the bottom half (two legs and a tail) lying in the gravel off to the side of the track.

My first (ridiculous) thought was to race over to the window on the other side of the train and look to see if I could find the top half, but obviously, that wouldn't have worked. Not unless our train was considerably narrower than it was. And we're not yet so sophisticated to have a mono-rail in our public transit system.

It's funny to me that they could plague the railroad tracks as efficiently as the highways.

You know, I've seen dead armadillos since I was a little kid, but I didn't see my first live one until I was in my late teens.

In realizing that the armadillo was cut in half by one side of our train, it was strange to think that the other half must have been directly under us. But then I got to looking at the tracks running parallel to ours and I noticed that each rail is like nine inches high.

No small hurdle for such a short-legged, heavily armored rodent.

So then I got this mental image of the armadillo starting to cross the first rail, and then getting stuck, it's front and back legs suspended on opposite sides of the rail.

At first this was sad, but then I thought, what if it's been there for hours (disregarding the regularity of the train schedule), what if it was a relief for it to finally be hit?

What if its last thought was, Well, at least I won't starve to death.

This entry has certainly taken a morbid turn. I'll just say it's a beautiful, sunny, and warm day; I'm going to enjoy it, and end this here.

Can the Meat Be Cured?

Chewie from Kashyyyk writes:

Hey Shad, have you ever noticed that refrigerated meat can sometimes get an iridescent or rainbow color effect on it? I usually notice this on roast beef but have also seen it on turkey and brisket. What causes it? Is it harmful to consume? I have an irrational fear that it is insectoid or alien.

Hi Chewie, love your work, thanks for writing.

It's funny you should ask this, because just this weekend I was working in a BBQ stand and this question came up frequently.

Well, there is an explanation for this effect. It's definitely not insectoid, but I can't promise, in your case, that it isn't alien.

First off, the rainbowy colors you see on the meat are an optical effect. The light is being refracted through fat and muscle fiber as though through a prism.

I think we get uncomfortable with the effect because it usually has a greenish hue, and we have a negative association with greenish hues on our food. It actually isn't more green than the other colors, that tint is just dominant because our eyes are more sensitive to it.

So why is it usually just in patches, and not all over the meat?

Well, two things need to take place for the effect to occur.

First, you need a very sharp knife or slicer (or perhaps in your case, a thermal blade or plasma beam). And second, the blade has to cut the fat and muscle fibers at just the right angle. So, you can see how, though the effect isn't rare, it isn't going to be absolute.

The harmless colorization can effect cured (corned beef and ham) and uncured (brisket and pork) meats.

So, discolorization isn't necessarily a good way to tell if your meat is spoiled. How do you tell?

Spoiled meet is usually sticky-ish to the touch and it smells... a bit off. You mentioned finding the colorization on turkey... hmmm... might want to check on that. I haven't heard about it affecting fowl... but I haven't heard a lot of things.

Hope this helps,
shad

Back From the Texas Motor Speedway

I'm back from my fundraising work-weekend.

It was a lot of work, but I had a great time. I got to meet a lot of new people, all of us working in a BBQ sandwich concession stand to raise money to build an orphanage in Mozambique.

We don't have the final figures in, but I think we may have raised half of the entire cost this weekend (success, I say).

While there I had an idea for a movie/story. Usually if I have an idea I think, There's no way I'm going to blog about that, somebody'd steal it!

But that's for good ideas. This one... not so much. Feel free to take this idea and claim it as your own.

Okay, so we camped out all weekend and I think we were the only people out there in tents. Everywhere else, as far as the eye could see... RVs. It was a sea of motor-homes and campers (they told us there were 240,000 people there on Sunday).

While I was lying awake in my tent one night, listening to the rumble of thousands upon thousands of generators, I thought about how this is an entire culture of people.

So, my idea was about these five different RV living families. They meet at one of these huge events and find that they share similar ideals of being free spirits, and raising children apart from the rest of the world, and answering call of the road.

Well, they end up deciding to travel together for a little while, but it turns into a long while, and they just become this extended family caravan. One of them is a shrewd business man and teaches them how to invest their money, so they all become comfortably well off, sticking to their ideals.

Eventually they all pitch in for this huge secluded plot of land, and decide to make it their haven. (I guess they drop the call of the road.) I have an image in mind, of these five RVs arranged in a huge semi-circle and progressive shots of a big house going up behind each. And then as the houses finish, the RVs are moved behind the houses.

The kids are raised out on this property and when they get to be teenagers something happens to the parents (I don't know what) and the kids have to hop into the RVs and set out (into a world they are almost totally unfamiliar with) to find their folks.

Maybe it has some influence from The Village but I'm thinking more teen adventure/comedy, like Ruskies or Monster Squad or something.

Yeah, it's not that good. But it was way more fun to type about that than how many BBQ sandwiches I made.

I've decided to also include the price list of our concessions (we didn't set these, we just worked for the restaurant company). Our organization gets 8 percent of the profits of our stand.

BBQ Sandwich= $6, Bottle of Coke or water= $4, Little bag of chips= $2, Little bag of M&Ms= $2, Cup of ice=$1. The confused look on people's faces as they watched themselves actually fork it over= priceless.

For those of you who couldn't see it: