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In the car ride home from commencement at Fordham University one summer where my Uncle Joe earned his PhD in Pharmacology, his father - a man whose wry and sardonic sense of humor still permeates our familial halls - looked at him and said, “You’re still stupid.”  

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There’s a rule about the tomato deseeder. One, that if ignored, can you get you a swift whack to the back of the head from the mixing end of a 36-inch pinewood spoon. To add insult to injury, the spoon is a hand carved utensil crafted by my late Grandpa Emidio. Just what it is he’s late for is immediately clear the minute you thumb your nose at the deseeder rule: he’s late in calling you a “cetriolo”. Even the dead get their licks in my family. “Cucumber” in Italian, the word ‘cetriolo’ has been so bastardized by generations of poor pronunciation and the drawl of the Southern Italian dialect that it sounds more like “cha-drool”. The idiomatic meaning is akin to one friend calling another a “dumbass”. Amiable, yet insulting. The accompanying hand gesture calls for your pointer and middle fingers put together, thumb out, rotating your wrist from left to right; think of the gesture kids make when pretending their hand is a gun, point it upward and you’re nearly there. As for the aforementioned rule, well, to press the button that activates the deseeder you need a PhD. You read that right, a PhD. 

It’s not that pressing a button is complicated (though there were a handful of associated mishaps this year) and requires one to have gone to school for an upwards of 10 years; rather it’s a way to put the screws to the younger generations that, while capable of pushing a button, have not yet been able to earn the right to the prefix “Dr.”. An “I’ve been here longer than you and don’t you forget it!” with twice the hubris the statement implies. It’s not fair to us non-PhD’s who are left with menial, less exciting tasks. But then that’s the point. If you complain about it, your whines are met with laughs, your cries met with another whack. After the first whack, you’ve had your fill for the weekend; I’m pretty sure the same methods work with canines.

This past weekend was ”Tomato Weekend”. A two day affair usually taking place on Labor Day weekend, finds between 10 and 20 members of my extended family jarring our own tomato sauce. This year we managed 367 bottles.

We began on Saturday morning at 7am at my Great Uncle Emil’s house in Larchmont. The place is a large spread replete with 5 bedrooms, a look-through fireplace, and about the most able kitchen you gremmies have ever seen. Sporting dual sinks, marble countertops, dual ovens, and 6 burners on the stove, the only thing missing is a butcher’s block. The backyard is 30 yards long by 30 yards wide with giant rocks peeking out of the thick, matted grass like the crocodiles from “Pitfall”; which is to say if you trip and fall while running to second base in wiffleball, your health is forfeit. The playful terror is palpable.

Getting started so early in the morning, between the hours of 7 and 9am, creates a surreal atmosphere akin to going to the gym before work. The place is quiet, the mood is sleepy yet jovial, and the sense of accomplishment is magnified exactly by each hour of work put in before the regular day begins. Everyone else arrives at 9am and the fervor doesn’t die down until the evening.

The tomatoes are of the Roma variety and are ordinarily delivered to the house before 7am by a local produce wholesaler whose legend is that of the Wizard of Oz. We don’t know how he does it, but we all agree not to look behind the curtain so long as we get our fix. The tomatoes themselves are often grade A with very little schmutz on them. Schmutz, for those who do not speak Yiddish, is sediment or excess something which does not belong. In the case of roma tomatoes, schmutz is a little bit of dirt or dried tomato leaf stuck to the skin. This year’s crop yielded 30 cases for our endeavour. In other words, we ordered 30 cases from the Wizard. I would venture a guess and say there are 75 tomatoes per case. My Windows XP calculator tells me that’s 2,250 tomatoes; or 27 hand cramps.

The first stage, which is most often handled by the youngest of the brood, is washing. This step is as simple as its name implies. The boxed tomatoes are dumped unceremoniously into a small copper tub filled up half-way with water from the garden hose. The washer does his best to clean the schmutz from the skin of the tomatoes. Inevitably the combination of garden hose and youth leads to a water fight in which - invariably - all parties end up drenched to the bone, adding the “soaking wet” to the “100 pounds soaking wet” that the young embody. Ironically, it’s washing that requires the most vigilance not because of the task itself but because those assigned to it are always the laziest. What do they say? Youth is wasted on the young. I counted no less than 7 times I had to wrangle the washers back into their pen to carry on their charge.

After washing comes cutting. The key is to find supremely old cutting boards (the more brittle the better) and knives forged by Costco. Just add tomatoes. At one point on Saturday afternoon during cleanup I dropped one of the cutting boards from two feet up onto the soft grass of the backyard so I could hose it down and wouldn’t you know it? It broke in half. A piece of solid wood split right down the middle as if the master of disaster Bruce Lee crawled out of his grave and gave a demonstration of Jeet Kun Do in suburban New York City. Here’s to using quality products. Serrated knives are better at cutting tomatoes. God only knows why. Non-serrated knives are not only frustrating but are guaranteed to make you bleed the red blood. The added trouble is that amidst all the tomato juices, the blood is hard to pick out and who wants AB negative in their marinara anyway? You’d think a cut inflicted by a sharp knife would make you stop for a second: nope.

The tomatoes are cut into four pieces length-wise. If you’re a pro, like this gremmie, it takes two quick cuts. One down the center, the other down the center when the tomato has been rotated 90 degrees. The slower lot, mainly everyone other than myself and younger brother Peter, cut one tomato every 3 to 5 seconds. I can knock out 1 tomtato every second. That’s about as esoteric as it gets when it comes to street cred. But I wear it as a red badge of courage. I’m sure the reality of my skills are something like being the smartest person with down syndrome. Way to go, still a retard.

The sliced tomatoes are collected into large plastic bags which are then dumped into a pot that stands three feet high with a radius of 12 inches across. It sits on a propane-fuled flame atop a square cast iron burner outdoors next to the cutting table. This is the next step. When enough tomatoes have been cut to fill the pot (5 cases will do the trick) the top is placed where pot-tops go and the tomatoes are off to boil. Old eyes and experience go a long way in determining when the boiled tomatoes are ready for the next stage, deseeding. Evidently, there is small window between where the tomatoes are not yet ready for production and when the tomatoes turn to mush. Should let them go to mush or burn at the bottom of the pot you get a double-double, 2 smacks on the back of the head and 2 “cha-drool” comments.

A good boil is when the tomato skins are falling off there’s a sculpted pulp left behind. My Uncle Joe understands this well enough that it’s solely his charge.

You’ve already heard about the deseeder. Every year we hear the same sorry song, “By the way, only a few years ago we used a manual handcrank and it took hours!”. Clearly this is the tomato weekend version of, “I used to walk 6 miles in the snow to school everyday. And it was uphill - both ways!” Somehow the handcrank tale gets longer every year. It’s remarkable how the old continue to embellish their stories as the young catch up. It’s as if they’re trying to dig their roots deeper into the ground. It’s Homeric in it’s ardent stride to be remembered.

The rest of day rumbles in the kitchen. My grandmother, a woman whose charms are both disarming and caustic, runs the show. At 98 she’s as spry as a chicken. Well, a 98 year old chicken. Barking orders from her rocking chair, she’s the nucleus of the animated body prepping the tomato puree. I don’t understand the arcane magic of the kitchen’s machinations suffice to say that the handlers are all female and that witches are generally female. I can only assume their superior knowledge of manipulating the physical properties of tomatoes is sprung from some black art.

The chicanery produces the final product: mason jars filled to the brim with a tomato sauce base and sealed air tight. The jars are loaded 10 to a case and left to sit overnight in my Uncle Emil’s cool basement. The following day the tops are all finger tapped to make sure they’re sealed properly. Think of a bottle of snapple, if the top is popped then it’s not sealed.

Finally having the means, I was permitted to pay for one third of the haul. I use the word “permitted” distincly because if you pay for your lot, you have the right to unreservedly lord your payor status over others. You have the right to say, “I want this many cases because I paid for them.” This right is the modern day version of the brass ring. It was bestowed upon me without celebration. At 4pm in the afternoon on Sunday after we cleaned up there was a round table discussion about distribution. The board consisted of my Great Uncle Emil age 85, my Uncle Joe age 66, and Gremmie age 27. Sitting there at the table fending off the light broken by the tree branches above me, I felt like I had somehow conned my way into an elite inner circle whose minimum age requirement is 40. More to the point, I felt like one of the guys. It was a unique rite of passage. Pride welled in me. Stepping back, I found myself being ridiculous. Being just one of the guys meant accepting your responsibility without incident, not romaticizing an unremarkable event. Still, I smiled a big toothy (well, braces anyway) grin.

Just before the discussion began Jillian came out to - presumably - hug and kiss me; a tidy reward for a hard day’s work. I waved her back inside and it became clear to her the board was in session. She looked at me with the same dissatisfaction that befalls all women who realize there are things more important to their men than themselves. The tomato congress lasted 10 minutes. Simple calculations based on need and ardor equaled 11 cases for me; 110 bottles. The price I paid in dollars isn’t material because I would have paid any amount, though it barely needs pointing out.

Jill and I left that evening after dinner; a cornucopia of food that included roasted peppers, grilled hot & sweet sausage, corn on the cob, and a garden salad. Having no way of transporting numerous cases of tomatoes from Larchmont back to New York City I opted to only take one case with the assurance I’d return for the rest.

On a crowded Metro North red-line I sat atop a case of fresh tomato sauce. A fable, most assuredly - but who’s to say?

Remember when in the first grade your teacher - whom you had a crush on - would ask you to tear out a sheet of looseleaf paper from your notebook for spelling tests whose most complicated word was “could” (NOT spelled “cood”)? The robin’s egg blue lines laid out on the page like a poor man’s gradient done in by a red thread whose shade is identical to that of those teeny-tiny red spiders; the ones birthed in legions during the sultry months of July and August. A fingered effort to squish just one led to demise of hundreds. As I wrote this introduction last week and am only now revisiting this post, I don’t know where I was going with it. Was I going to talk more about the myriad colors of paper (construction paper as an orgy of brights)? Or was it a brief exposition on small red spiders and their copious and subsequently destructive breeding habits? Who’s to say? Either way I have pictures to share. Behold the newest addition to Gremmie’s playground of magical fun - the Mustache Ride!

Inspired by Jay “my last name is impossible to pronounce without sounding like a gaijin” Chandrasekhar’s character in Super Troopers, Arcot ‘Thorny’ Ramathorn (and possibly W.B. Mason), I am now the proud parent of a bushy, borderline-handlebar mustache. In its incipient days here on earth it’s garnered both compliments and looks of abject horror. For the times I have received such inappropriate looks I remind myself that all neo-pioneers should expect a modicum of ridicule for bringing back what was once dubbed the “Super Mario”. What is a neo-pioneer you gremmies ask? Well it’s someone who re-establishes a trend that was once in style, but has since gone out of style; like snap bracelets or cow tipping (Balewind Farms forever!). I predict that soon all of New York will be growing bristles above the brim. Below is a picture of Plums and myself in Allendale this weekend past; the pants are snug and I am not, in fact, happy to see you. But if you like, continue to think yourself a basket of hilarity.

I joined facebook yesterday because I don’t have enough distractiions in my life already. It’s the other social netowrking site whose roots are grounded in the college crowd. During its nascent development it was only available to college students with a legitimate colegiate email address. I missed that boat by a year or two; of course that doesn’t make me feel dated but thanks for asking. Now that they’ve opened their doors the site will let just about anyone sign up; gremmies included.

Jill turned 25 yesterday. For a birthday present I got her an appointment at Brite Smile. In hindsight I realize it’s like getting someone a treadmill for Christmas. The ol’e “Hey you need to lose weight you rolly-polly mess! Here’s a ostensibly thoughtful gift that will not only force you to loathe me but that will also slowly siphon your self-confidence as it silently judges you in the basement. In a year it will be so buried under a pile of clothes the dust mites will have dust mites on them.” Really though Jill had been buying Crest white strips for her perfectly aligned chompers. I wonder if their gleam will keep me awake at night. Of course to class up her birthday gifts I also bought her a pair of Pearl earings from Mikimoto.

It’s been at least a year - likely longer - since I’ve blogged two days in a row. I have nothing of editorial interest this second go-round suffice to say that the following clip, courtesy of my friends at YouTube, is something you gremmies should take a gander at. It’s a video of Eddie Vedder performing a new song called “No More War” at the Hullabaloo Festival in early May. The song is to be released on the soundtrack of a documentary called Body of War.

You know, Ed took a lot of flack for the “Bu$hleaguer” performances from their Riot Act tour. At the time, Pearl Jam hadn’t been receiving much media attention and then suddenly they’re all over the news: “Pearl Jam’s Eddie Vedder: Unpatriotic Schmuck”. Undeserving of so much backlash, he should be chided for such a direct tirade on Bush; not so much for subject but for the approach. The point is, songs that illustrate the environment rather than string up the antagonist are far more effective - and selfless. The follwing song is of that ilk.

Click Here.

I have been listening to a lot of Counting Crows lately. You may remember them as the band whose lead singer has white-boy dreads and shakes up and down like an epileptic whilst vocalizing his sappy lyrics a la Mr. Jones. Or you may recognize them because of Courtney Cox. She was in their video for the ostensible, not-quite-on-target (”maybe this year will be better than the last”) High School prom anthem “Long December”. Either way, I have reclaimed their discography on my iPod; they’re in heavy rotation with a focus on “Mrs. Potter’s Lullaby”, “Goodnight Elizabeth”, and “Have You Seen Me Lateley?” whose opening line, “Get away from me, stay away from me - this isn’t gonna be easy. I don’t need you - believe me.” has hit close to what Rant Casey would have called “home”.

Though I’ve pointed it out to friends before, and may have even done so on this blog - I am not motivated at this particular moment to fact check. The artist making the rounds on my iPod is indicative of my mood. I can’t speak for anyone else, but I tend to focus on one artist at a time with the occassional smattering of variety as if to secretly convey hints of a shift. The cipher isn’t remarkably complicated but it is accurate. As I recall, Sad J was the first to point it out.

Counting Crows, Billy Joel, REM: Forlorn and Lamenting. Though I can’t listen to “Electrolite” anymore, REM still pushes and pulls me between the notion that it’ll be alright and the fact that it’s not. In the words of John Bender, “B-O-O, H-O-O.”

Pearl Jam: Depends. Am I skipping ”Comeback” and heading straight to “Gone”? Or am I flipping on “Big Wave” with a “Greivance” chaser? Either way with Pearl Jam the devil is in the details.

Tenacious D, Sublime, or Green Day: Jovial. Rock the punk reggae beats. Between songs about a super hero named “Wonderboy” and the frabba-dabba vocal stylings of Billy Joe Armstrong they’re toe-tappers.

Dave Matthews Band: Depends. Mostly jovial, but occassionally forlorn. “Stay” and all of “Under the Table and Dreaming” with the exception of “Rhyme and Reason” are all cause for dancing. Don’t touch the new stuff though save for “Louisiana Bayou” and “Joy Ride”.

Our Lady Peace: Strictly introspective. I don’t often run a straight mix of the ragin’ Canadiens. Does that rhyme or is that a barely-rhyme? “4am”, “Thief”, “Picture”. These Yukon mutts turn me on myself.

The Boss, Bob Dylan, or the Who: Reminiscent or the word opposite of “eclectic”. I wasn’t around when these guys were lighting up the stage. Born in late 1979, I have nary a classic rock icon to call my own.

Live: Inspired. Only a corpse would find no inspiration in “Dolphin’s Cry”. And frankly, I find it difficult to pass on “They Stood Up for Love” even when it’s time to put down the iPod.

As any gremmie can see, I clearly have a narrow array of emotions. Inspired, jovial, forlorn. It’s like a game of Simon, only there are 3 buttons instead of four and I don’t mock you for not remembering the pattern of blinking lights. I am however made by Milton Bradley.

I picked up a copy of Chuck Palahniuk’s latest, Rant: An Oral History of Buster Casey the day it was released. I can’t get past page 106. True to form the book is littered with references to bizzare bodily functions and moral depravities. The story is told like Kerouac’s Visions of Cody, as an stream of short first person narratives as told by the characters in the eponymous’ life. As far in as page 106 you never hear a word from Rant because he’s dead; though I suspect that will change. I may never get there though because I haven’t been able to get past the boredom associated with what will someday be called “Palahnitis“. You know, Chuck Palahniuk + the “itis”. It’s not as clever on paper. You see, once you’ve read one Palahniuk book, you’ve read them all. The morally bent characters with delusions of grandeure are a fixture that become rusty real quick. If anything though I suggest all you gremmies pick up Haunted and Lullaby. Ironically I still haven’t read his most famous, Fight Club.

Two years ago I overspent on a svelte Dell LCD TV. It was a 26 inch beast I used as both a TV and a computer monitor. 1 month ago it crapped out on me. Lucky for me I have an extended warranty. It should be noted that when you buy a TV from Dell you need the longest warranty legally allowed. If they’re offering 4 years, ask for five. Anyway, I called tech support for a replacement and they sent me another 26 inch model (refurbished). 2 days later *poof!* not working. Refurbished may as well mean ‘junk’. So I call and complain in a civil tone. I convince them to send me a 32 inch model because as a modern American I know that bigger is better right?. I got it about a week ago. 3 days in the thing won’t turn on and when it does I find out the screen freezes when I plug in my PS2. Dell: The Pinnacle of Quality.

I call Dell. You can imagine my tone changed from civil to rancorous quickly. I’m on the phone for two hours during which my little brother Peter is egging me on to tear off the guy’s head. The Dell guy is polite, so I try to contain my earned animosity. As a replacement he offers me another of the same TV and a gift certificate for $250, and if not that then a full refund. I laughed this off and told him I would still only have an 80 lb. paper weight and $250. He goes and checks again. Says he can offer me a Dell 30 inch monitor. Now, I’m not very bright but as I understand it 30 inches is actually smaller than 32 inches. I’m insulted. I feel like the guy just put his hand up my ass then faked a reach around. I tell the guy he has to do better than that because I have been through 3 crap TV’s and the stockpile of “needs to be returned” to Dell is building in my closet. So he checks again and wouldn’t you know it - he offered me a brand new 3707c LCD TV. With a pinch of luck, their highest end model will last for more than a few days. I know you gremmies are thinking that I still have a big-ger TV from a junk company. I know you’re asking yourselves, “When is he going to learn?”. Never.

Update (8.07): I have since returned the Dell 37 inch TV. Did you know Dell no longer makes TV’s? I’m sure it’s because of people like me. Then again, if you produce shoddy products and charge market rate for them, you’re bound to have dissatisfied customers. The refund was for the original 26 inch LCD TV. Once received, I quickly purchased a 40 inch SONY Bravia.

This past Friday night - the preternatural 13th - Gremmie’s Noisebucket (was robbed) played a set at the 2007 Jammy Awards. For the uninitiated and unread, the Jammy’s are a battle of the bands for the top 10 bands that belong to the Off Wall Street Jam organization. For the just plain dumb, Off Wall Street Jam is an organization for professionals who seek to play music with like-candidates; a club whose dues are paid for in song. The Bucket played the following four songs: Worldwide Suicide, What Would You Say?, Folosom Prison Blues –> Walk the Line –> Folsom Prison Blues, Corduroy. Met with cheers and a variety of patrons throwing a variety of undergarments on stage, we spread our toes through the proverbial bucket of rain, blistering through 20 minutes of rock. I was hit in the face with a bra during the bridge of Corduroy; evidently the line “Take my hand, not my picture.” was mistook by the culprit as “Take my hand, and my TIT-ure.” What’s a titure? Apparently to some gremmies it’s a size D bra. Too bad I’m more of an ass guy than a boob guy as I would have otherwise been in a melony heaven replete with hammock strung by Victoria Secret. By the end of the set I felt like Steven Tyler with all the whispy cottons hanging off my mic stand. But I digress.

We were ropbbed. By midnight, all the bands had finished playing and the MC, Greg Raybin, was preparing to announce the awards. He wore a decidely ‘rental’ tux while sporting a mowhawk. The categories were judged by the like of four individuals who hailed from different walks of the musical spectrum. One worked for a small label, another an exec at XYZ Instrument Maker & Co. but may as well have been ACME Co. because when all the awards were finally announced it felt like I was in a cartoon. Down comes the 1 ton anvil. BEEP! BEEP! ZIP! DANG! To my utter shock, we didn’t win any category. The big winners turned out to be - surprise! - the Beatles tribute band and the Pink Floyd tribute band. In the words of Donnie from Turtles I, “Too cliche.” Sure they were good, with their harmonies and - yawn! - mix of songs. But we’ve heard it all before. Done to death.

Can a tie be good news? If so, the only bits that came out of the evening were that yours truly was tied for first as Best Male Vocalist (according to un-named sources there was a three way tie and in a rush to pick one at the end of the night they went with the Beatles guy) and the Bucket came in second as best cover band. Sadly the only prize you get for second place is a posthumous pat on the back. Yes, “posthumous” as I died a little inside not hearing the Bucket announced as the winner. Shaky-cam pictures are here by Plums.