Brownie, you're doin' a heckuva job

Back on a Sunday afternoon in October 2005, Hardy, Will (my favorite roommates ever), and I were sitting around watching the Food Network. Specifically, a documentary about the history of brownies. Fascinating, mouth-watering stuff. Towards the end of the show, the narrator made a throwaway comment about December 8 being National Brownie Day. Hardy immediately jumped out of his seat, walked over to our big dry erase board, and wrote "Dec. 8 Brownie Day." And we've been celebrating it ever since.

That first year, the three of us hosted a Brownie Day party, inviting our entire ward over to eat our brownies, bring some of their own to share, and watch some classic Christmas mation (clay- and ani-, Rudolph, the Grinch, etc.). It was fun, but in subsequent years I've been too busy (and lacking my collaborators) to throw a big party, so National Brownie Day has become more of an individual celebration.

But celebrate I did. I began planning several days in advance, asking friends at FHE where to go in the city for good brownies, then seeking similar advice from strangers on the Internet. When Brownie Day rolled around (conveniently on a Saturday in 2007), I had a plan of attack.

I rode the A train down to 14th St. and walked over to 9th Ave., looking for a place called Fat Witch, which came highly recommended by several web sites. But I couldn't find it. There was a Starbucks at that intersection (surprise, surprise), and I wondered if Fat Witch had been absorbed into that evil empire. Or maybe I just wasn't looking in the right place, which wouldn't be too surprising considering what happened next.

I walked up to 23rd St. in search of a bakery named Big Booty, which my friend Roseline had tipped me off to. I walked up and down 23rd where it was supposed to be, both sides of the street, but I couldn't see it. I started to worry that I might not be able to celebrate after all. Somewhat despondent, I got some lunch at a place literally two doors away from Big Booty (I obviously didn't realize that at the time).

A few weeks later I arranged for Roseline to help me find this place, and while waiting for her in the area, I found it without any problem. I finally got a Big Booty brownie, and it was pretty good. Here's a pic of my friend Larissa recreating the pose from the store's window so perfectly, I have a hard time telling which one is her and which one is an advertising mascot (just kidding, Riss). I still have no explanation as to how I couldn't find the place that first day.


So I've had a number of brownies in New York, but I still hadn't had any on Brownie Day!

I had to resort to my emergency plan: Times Square...on a relatively warm Saturday afternoon...in December. It was ridiculous how many people were walking around. I eventually squeezed my way through to the ESPN Zone, where it took me about an hour to be seated even though I was a party of one.

But, because I was on my own, when I finally got in they took me down to the front, where they've got a row of recliners set up in front of dozens of big screens and a few humongous screens, all showing various sports related programs. When I sat down the hostess told me there was a $10 an hour minimum for those seats, which makes sense--I could see myself ordering a drink and sitting there for hours. It was pretty outstanding.

I ordered some cheese fries and their brownie dessert, which the above-mentioned Larissa had suggested to me. Now this is how you celebrate National Brownie Day.


This picture was taken by Julie, a nice woman who was sitting next to me. She works as some kind of special events coordinator at the Pittsburgh campus of Penn St., and was chaperoning a group of students who came into the city to do some Christmas shopping. Which means she's obviously a good person, maybe even a saint. We had a good conversation, but I ignored the promptings I received to try and lead it to gospel-related topics, which I very much regret now. I've tried to find her on the website, but to no avail (I unfortunately didn't get her last name). I know it's a very long shot, but if anyone reading this can figure out a way for me to find her, let me know.

So now you all know about National Brownie Day (I'd love to create a National Blondie Day, by the way). I should note that, while brownies are fantastic, I'm much more of a cookie man. But I eat cookies on at least 200 days out of the year, so I have no problem devoting one day to the brownie. You all should do the same.

The Mayflower was a hot air balloon, right?

If not, then what's the explanation for all the giant inflatables in the big Thanksgiving Day Parade?

The night before Thanksgiving I met up with my friend Debbie (who, as mentioned in an earlier post, I had been surprised to bump into the previous Sunday) and her friend Nancy at an immense, three-story Italian restaurant in Times Square called Olive Garden, where we had some fantastic gnocchi. I think the Olive Garden owners should consider expansion; they could probably do quite well all over the country.

Here we are at the restaurant. Yes, it looks like I have glitter in my hair. No, I'm not going to say whether or not I actually put glitter in my hair.


This has actually been a surprisingly frequent occurrence: me, out on the town with two foxy ladies. What's my secret? Not having anything better to do, and inviting myself along. Thanks for allowing me to bask in your reflected beauty, ladies!

After dinner, I wandered along the parade route a little and watched the balloons being inflated. Which is about as exciting as it sounds. The next morning, it took a while for me to find Debbie and Nancy, and when we finally met up we weren't able to find a great spot to see the parade from. Debbie is small, so she was able to sneak up to the front and get some good pictures, but we didn't stay for very long. Parades aren't too interesting to me. We did see the American Fork High School (go Cavemen!) marching band. Or maybe it was the Scooby Doo balloon. It was three months ago, I can't really remember.

The three of us had Thanksgiving dinner at the home of Doug and Tamara Hall, who have a nice home and an entertaining blog (thanks for all the comments, Tamara). Doug is in the bishopric of my singles ward out here (although I'm probably older than him), and they very kindly invited a bunch of people over who had no other place to go (this was my first Thanksgiving ever in the United States but not in Murray). There were probably at least 20 people there at one point.

But there was plenty of food, which is what Thanksgiving is all about. All the stuff I'm used to having at home, plus some sweet potato-based dishes that Mom doesn't make (I still missed you that day, Mom. You're the best). I got to watch a lot of football, and Tamara and I cheered for Brett Favre, because we both had him on our fantasy teams.

I met a bunch of people from my new ward, and was somewhat surprised that almost everyone is from Utah or went to BYU, or both. (I now know almost everyone in the ward, and am only aware of three native New Yorkers. And one of them has actually moved to one of the other singles wards.) I met Shaundra, who called a friend of hers to see if he could get me a job with Baseball Prospectus, but with no luck. Which is too bad--working for them might be even more of a dream job for me than being Stephen Colbert's warm-up comedian. I met Marcella, who I've hung out with a couple times since. I also met Ed (he's the native New Yorker who is no longer in the ward), with whom I talked hoops. He's been to Rucker Park and seen some of the great players who congregate there. If I'm ever in NYC in the summer, that's something I'd like to do.

That night, I actually created my blog. It took me over a month before I actually posted on it, which is why you're reading about Thanksgiving as we approach Leap Year Day.

A good Thanksgiving Day led into a great Thanksgiving Weekend. On Friday I met Debbie and Nancy for lunch at Peanut Butter & Co., a restaurant in Greenwich Village that specializes in--you guessed it--barbecue. I mean peanut butter. I had the Elvis, which is a grilled peanut butter and banana sandwich, which you can get with or without bacon. (Guess what I chose?) It wasn't quite the Fool's Gold sandwich that made me more of an Elvis fan than his music ever did, but it was good and fattening. They have a spicy peanut butter there too, which I didn't think was very good.

Nancy and Debbie left early the next morning, but I wouldn't have been hanging out with them anyway. Saturday was a sports day, and it nearly ended up being the best day of my life as a BYU sports fan.

I managed to get a live feed of the big BYU-Utah football game on channelsurfing.net, a great website my brother Derek told me about that I've been using several times a week out here to get my sports and wrestling fix. It was a poorly played game, but one of the most dramatic games I've ever watched (the most dramatic game in the rivalry since--well, since the year before). If you don't already know how the game ended, then you probably don't care, so I'll just say this--Collie is STILL open! My postgame joy was slightly tempered by the fact I wasn't at the game eating a brat and storming the field, but it felt so good to beat Utah--again.

The euphoria was also dampened later that night, as the BYU basketball team blew a 2nd-half lead and lost to North Carolina, the country's top-ranked team at the time. Had the Cougs won that game, they would've probably broke into the top 10 in the polls, which is something I've never dreamed was possible. But they're playing great, and I have full confidence that they'll win a couple of games in the tournament next month--so confident that I'll probably take a day off work and camp out in the ESPN Zone to watch their game. (The ESPN Zone will feature prominently in my next holiday blog post; stay tuned for that.)

So, if you didn't know already, you should now be able to name some of the things I'm most thankful for: friends, food, sports...and I'm also thankful for any of you who actually read to the end of this super-long post. Muchas gracias. Could you pass the cranberries?

It would be--it would be so nice

Saturday is Banana Bread Day.

That's a good thing, in and of itself, but it's bad because it marks the end of the holiday season. I know, for many of you, the holiday season ends with New Year's Day, but since there are four seasons in a year, I figure that the holiday season should be three months long.

Here's how my calendar is broken up: Thanksgiving to Banana Bread Day is the Holiday Season; the next three months are the Non-Holiday Season (I don't get any paid holidays from President's Day to Memorial Day--what's up with that?); then there's Rerun Season, although some networks are starting to stagger the start dates of their shows; and then you've got College Football Season from late-August to late-November (bowl games are fun but largely irrelevant).

So celebrating holidays, however obscure, is clearly important to me. But I haven't blogged about any of them yet. It's time for that to change. Off the top of my head I know I've observed at least 11 holidays since I first arrived in NYC, and I'll be spending the next few weeks describing all of the joy those days brought to me (if anything truly momentous happens during that time, I'll interrupt my holiday posts to blog about it). I'll be doing it chronologically, and the first one is Thanksgiving, which is more of a holiday weekend than just a single day (one of the hallmarks of a truly great holiday), which means I have a lot to write about, so I'll make that a separate post. I hope you all enjoy retroactively celebrating with me.

Hot Pockets!

My friend Bruce e-mailed me yesterday, asking me if I've heard of Jim Gaffigan. I most certainly have; he's probably even surpassed Brian Regan as my current favorite stand-up comedian.

I must've had Gaffigan on my mind, because I went to the Natural History Museum today and saw some things that reminded me of him.


"It just so happens, you live in the ocean because you ain't got no job."

Manatees aside, I think the Aquatic Life exhibit was my favorite part of the museum. After wandering around its four floors for over three hours without a single Ben Stiller sighting, I wandered south along Central Park towards the subway. I passed a Universalist Church which was very pretty, but I couldn't get a good picture of the whole building from the angle I was at. I could, however, see the most important part clearly.


Take that, Jews! Now that's a church service I could really sink my teeth into.

If you've seen Jim Gaffigan's TV specials or listened to his albums, you've probably heard a few of his bacon jokes, but it's nothing compared to what you get when you see him live. I went with Tiffany all the way up to Layton to see his show last summer (much better driving conditions than when Megan and I saw Brian Regan at Kingsbury Hall in January '07), and the first ten minutes--maybe even more--were jokes about bacon. It was deliciously funny.

(Almost as funny: for the first half of the show, Tiffany thought his name was Gordon Lightfoot, because he was performing the next month at the same venue and she saw his name on the marquee. Maybe the Edmund Fitzgerald wrecked because it was overloaded with pork products?)

In other stand-up news, I saw a woman on the subway who I'm pretty sure was Laurie Kilmartin, but she's not nearly as funny as the homeless subway comedian I gave a dollar to on Saturday ("We need to get this train going and get you folks off, because this is my house and I've got to get some sleep...all you people pay thousands of dollars in rent, and your houses don't go nowhere. I pay $2 a day and my house takes me all over the city..."). He had like a ten-minute routine, and it was fantastic. At first, people were covering their faces with their hats or otherwise trying to hold the laughs in, as if they would be obligated to give him money if they were caught enjoying themselves, but by the end everyone was laughing and having a good time. I wonder if he's on iTunes?

If you're looking for comedians to check out, I'm also a big fan of Demetri Martin and the late Mitch Hedberg, and like some of Ron White's stuff. But if you want clean comedy that's largely food-based, it doesn't get better than Gaffigan and Regan.

Oh, and in case you're wondering, it's less than two months until my Apollo performance, and my routine isn't ready. I should get to work on that.

Stop the presses!

Some of you may have the impression that a lot more big, newsworthy events happen in New York City than anywhere else in the world. Well, you're right. Here's the Friday front page of one of New York's dailies.

Sure, it's am New York and not the New York Times, but still..."Rock is Reborn in New York City?" A full-page ad on the cover? As someone who studied journalism in college, let me say--that is AWESOME! I dare you to try and read that headline in a normal voice--it's hard, isn't it? That's a sentence that has to be read in an over-the-top radio announcer's voice. With some sound effects at the end.

It's not an important story by any means, but it actually got me to stop and grab a copy of am New York, which I almost never do, despite the fact that it's free, and that they have real-life Newsies handing them out at the entrances of subway stations. (I was very disappointed by the lack of Newsies my first time in NYC.) Fifty papes!

You should probably also know that the back cover lists RXP 101.9's "9 commitments to New York," which include these doozies (bold print in original, Jeff's comments in parentheses):

1. We'll play music that passes one primary filter: that it is good rock
2. Our on-air staff will play a direct part in choosing the songs that we play (how do we know we can trust them to choose good rock?)
3. We will respect you with an intelligent product (but we'll disrespect you with our blatant pandering)
5. We will be upbeat & fun but never cheesy and dumbed-down--edgy but never with attitude (what does that even mean?)
6. We will take the music we play seriously--but not ourselves (except in this full-page ad)

This great moment in journalistic history reminded me that, when I was here five years ago, the radio station I listened to in my dorm room ran a "Top 500 songs of the 80s and 90s" marathon countdown over Memorial Day Weekend. I still have a printout of the full list in one of the boxes under my bed in Provo, but I can't find it online. I do, however, remember that "Livin' On a Prayer" was #2 (a relatively worthy choice), and the #1 spot went to--yep, you guessed it--"Smooth" by Santana and Rob Thomas. Seriously. Feel free to express your disdain and nominate a better top song in the comments (especially you, shabba shabba).

Stephen Colbert--great fake TV pundit, or, the GREATEST fake TV pundit?

Put me down for greatest. To borrow a phrase the kids are using these days, I definitely have a "man crush" on Stephen Colbert. And seeing him in person did nothing to change that view.

When Stephen came out, he did some Q&A with the audience--he said he wanted us to get to know the real Stephen before he had to get into character and "say all these terrible things that I say." I don't know if he meant that the things he says are terrible because he's super-liberal and disagrees with everything TV Stephen says, or if he meant that he says terrible things because he's always mocking and ridiculing people and institutions.

My personal opinion is that Stephen Colbert is much more liberal than the character he plays, but not as liberal as Jon Stewart, partly because few are, but also because it seems he really is a practicing Catholic, as he claims to be on the show (more on this in a minute). The first question he got was "are you a Republican or a Democrat?" and he quickly replied "none of your gosh dang business." (He didn't say gosh dang; he has a bit of a potty mouth--again, more on that coming up.) So that didn't help me figure out if my opinion is right or not.

The "juiciest" tidbit produced by the Q&A was learning that Episode IV Obi-Wan is Stephen's favorite Star Wars character of all time, and he did some Strangers With Candy-style dancing with a woman in the front row, but the rest of the questions were pretty mundane. I had my hand up the whole time, hoping to ask him if he had a Mormon friend, and if not, I'd be happy to pose for the picture, but alas, he didn't call on anybody from our section.

A few minutes later, the taping began. I bought into the "we need you to laugh at everything" directive 100%, because a lot of it was actually funny, I was feeling kind of giddy just from being in the studio, and I know how important the energy of a crowd can be to the success of a comedy show. He made some great jokes about Obama winning a Grammy the previous night, and ran a "tribute" to Mitt Romney's campaign (which had been suspended since his last taping), complete with the Guy Smiley footage he's been using on various Mitt pieces.

I was amazed at how well he did without scripts. I'm assuming he wrote most if not all of the non-interview segments of the show, but he then has to memorize them because there were no scripts on his desk and nothing in the prompter. He messed up a few times, but he quickly composed himself and did those lines over. He never needed a third take.

As was the case for most Colbert episodes during the strike, he filled up most of the time with a series of interviews. His first guest had a cool beard but a relatively boring topic, the second was interviewed over the phone about Stephen's portrait currently on display at the National Portrait Gallery, but the main guest--the one he talked to at his usual interview set--is the one worth going into more detail about.

Dr. Philip Zimbardo is a Stanford professor whose work you're probably familiar with even if you haven't heard of him. He conducted a study in the '70s where volunteers were randomly assigned as "guards" and "prisoners" in a makeshift prison, and within a week the guards were already psychologically abusing the prisoners. He was on the show to promote his book The Lucifer Effect, which, based on his comments, basically seems to promote the idea of rebelling against authority.

Their discussion became somewhat heated, as Stephen seemed to slip out of character (his character talks about religion a lot, but this seemed more personal and real) as he argued the "arrogant" (how Jen Nuckols, a girl in my ward out here who took a class from him at Stanford describes him) Zimbardo's assertions that we should never trust those in authority over us, that God was wrong and Lucifer was right (God having supposedly created a perfect man in Adam and the devil proving he was actually corruptible), and that God shouldn't be trusted because he created hell (Stephen countered by saying hell is when we're separated from God's love, which happens when we disobey him, so we create hell ourselves and send ourselves there--pretty doctrinally accurate!). At one point, as Zimbardo continued to state that "God made a mistake" in the Garden of Eden, Stephen finally agreed that God made a mistake (not true) but that's why he sent his son Jesus Christ to redeem us (definitely true). That exchange, however, was edited out of the actual broadcast (I was pretty sure that all three interviews had gone long and something would have to be left out, but I was hoping it would be part of the beard guy's interview).

The back-and-forth culminated when, after Colbert said that God doesn't send us to hell, we send ourselves to hell, Zimbardo replied, "You learned very well in Sunday School." Stephen then quipped, "I TEACH Sunday School, motha (bleeper)!" I found that a very interesting, unnecessary, and hilarious use of profanity, and I think it would be a great slogan for a new Colbert poster or t-shirt (I wouldn't buy it, of course, but I think it would be a hot seller). I was overall very impressed with the passion and knowledge Stephen exhibited in defending his (and my) beliefs.

The taping ended with Stephen using a large sword (not sure if it was George Washington's or not) to make a sandwich, a reference to the segment about his portrait. Watching him use a sword to spread mustard, chop lettuce and slice tomatoes was hilarious, although it seemed certain he'd cut himself and I'd soon be ponying up the dough for a Fingerstrong bracelet.

And that was my Colbert Report experience. I have tickets to The Daily Show for April 8, and now that the writers' strike is over I'm realizing I did it backwards: as good as Colbert was without scripts, Stewart's show was better during the strike, mainly because he still had his correspondents out doing stuff. But with writers, Colbert's show is the best on TV. If you like satire, or politics, or political figures and events being satirized, you really should be watching both shows, no matter what your personal political leanings are. And that's the truthiness.

Note: After writing everything above but before posting, I started finding stuff online about the Colbert-Zimbardo smackdown, including this. It seems I'm not the only one who enjoyed Stephen's final line, and there's a good chance it WILL end up on a t-shirt very soon!

He is America, and I did too

The writers' strike is over, and we've had pretty good weather in New York City the past few days. Neither was the case on Monday, but that didn't matter--I went to The Colbert Report anyway, and my life is richer for having done so.

I made the great sacrifice of standing in line for an hour and a half in the freezing wind so I, along with friends Corina, Larissa and Katie, could get into the show (we had tickets, but they overbook every show to make sure the audience is full, so you have to show up early to make sure you get in).

Fortunately, ticket-holders got to wait in line in an alley that was partially covered by some tarps, so it wasn't nearly as bad as it could've been, and I had some hot chocolate and a roast beef sandwich from a deli I passed on the way to the studio to keep me company and semi-warm, at least for a few minutes.

We finally got in to the building, where we had to wait again, but at least it was warm. All 100 or so audience members were crammed into a small lobby, waiting while they finished rehearsals. From time to time the audience coordinator (who looks just like Stephen Colbert--maybe that's how he got the job) would come out and give us an update, and try to get us pumped up so we would be a great crowd.

At one point he brought out some t-shirts and played a round of Colbert Report trivia, and I got a shirt by knowing that Barry Manilow was the man who beat Stephen for the Emmy two years ago (MANILOW!). It's an extra large, so it fits relatively well, but Stephen should know that the typical American hero residing in the Colbert Nation would be more comfortable in a XXL. A slight Wag of the Finger for that one.

One of the other free shirts went to a weird girl who has come to the show so often the audience coordinator recognized her. She seemed to know just a LITTLE too much about the show and about Stephen, and she was constantly (and loudly) saying things in our little holding pen, and when we were waiting in the studio, that made me cringe on her behalf. More on her later.

Eventually, we were seated in the studio, and I ended up in the top corner, which left me about as far away as I could be from Stephen when he made his traditional run from his desk to the interview set. Oh well.

While the stage manager gave us some instructions (our cue to go nuts at the start of the show and coming out of commercial breaks, to laugh at everything and refrain from commenting to our friends, since the audience is mic'ed, etc.), I soaked up the atmosphere. It was phenomenal to be there: not only was I actually in the studio where my current favorite show is recorded--I've seen literally every episode since it's debut in October 2005--but a wave of nostalgia washed over me, as I remembered the good old days when I worked in the HFAC studios. Working in broadcasting at BYU was really fun; I can only imagine how great it would be to work on a show like this one.

As I sat there pondering which job on the show I would most like to have, the answer literally came out and yelled at me. The Colbert Report's warm-up comic has weak material and no hair (that's what most of his jokes were about; he looked like Chris Daughtry), but I am VERY envious of his job. (In case you've never been to a live TV taping, most sitcoms and talk shows have a comedian come out to get the crowd pumped up so they're ready to laugh when the host/actors come out for the actual show.)

I'm not sure how other comedians view the warm-up comic. Are they envious that they have a regular gig? Do they view them as "sell-outs" for taking a relatively comfortable job, rather than working the comedy clubs? I don't know. I do know, after watching this guy (can't remember his name), that it's harder than it looks. He had to go several minutes longer than he planned (and certainly several minutes longer than the audience wanted him to) because Stephen wasn't ready yet. The length of his set must vary from night to night, and he likely never knows exactly what to expect.

He got some help from an audience member, though. One lady near the front had a glossy photo she had made and hoped to give to Stephen. It was a pretty impressive piece of Photoshop work, where she had combined the faces of Colbert and Barack Obama into one handsome political juggernaut. One half of the face was white and one was black, but this was more than just some Harvey Dent/Two-Face mash-up; she had carefully combined and distributed the facial features as well. The comic paraded the picture around so everybody could see, and he got some good jokes out of it.

The crazy girl I referred to earlier also played a role in his act. When he was clearly running out of steam, he started talking about stuff on the set. He went over to one item, which I couldn't see from my vantage point, but I knew it had to be the microwave Stephen stole from Bill O'Reilly's personal Fox News kitchen when he was a guest on "The Factor" (fans know that Colbert's show is a blatant parody of O'Reilly's).

While the comic was in the midst of making a tasteless joke about O'Reilly using it to microwave babies, the crazy girl blurted out the punchline, because apparently he's used the same joke before when she's been there. He was SO ticked off, and yelled at her a while, impressively keeping his language relatively clean. Comedians DO NOT like to be heckled, and they don't deserve to be, even when they're not funny, and even when it's coming from someone who may be mildly handicapped, as this girl may have been. So be nice to comedians--their egos are extremely fragile. And that's my PSA for today.

Shortly after that happy scene, Stephen was finally ready to come out. The things I saw and heard while in the presence of perhaps our greatest living American deserve their own post, so I'll stop here for now.