Monday, July 18, 2016

On Cool Keith Lee


Hey buddy
I needed a little time to think, collect my thoughts. Processing the memories and the feelings tends to come in fits and spurts when something like this happens. Lots of people have written about you the past two days. It's all deserved, whether you'd think so or not.
It wasn’t supposed to go like this. No amount of fatalistic pontificating from you or anyone else can or would have convinced me otherwise. No way. It was not supposed to go like this.
You were supposed to come back home from Costa Rica, come back to work, take care of the cat. Few people loved anything as much as you loved that cat. You’d hesitate to come hang out with us sometimes on account of the cat.
But you’d come out, because that’s what you were supposed to do. Every couple weeks or months, you were supposed to come back to visit us in the house we lived in together – the three of us: you, me, and Bennett. Just three dudes, remember? Hanging out. Cooking food. Having some beers, or some boxed wine. Playing Jeopardy together, or watching Archer, or yet another Fast and the Furious movie on FX, because one of those damn things is always on FX. We tried to find one on FX yesterday in fact, but it wasn’t on at all the whole day. Not on FXX either. It’s like they knew.
You were supposed to fall asleep on the couch again, or the recliner in the corner, instead of your old bedroom, which we'd  turned into the affectionately tongue-in-cheek Kibwe Lee Memorial Lounge after you moved out, which I honestly have no fucking clue what to do about now. But never mind that now.
You were supposed to fall asleep watching crappy (or as you called them, “great”) action movies, and I was supposed to walk downstairs the next morning to see you swaddled in one of our too-small blankets while some paid programming starring Chuck Norris blared out the TV set. How you got a restful night with that going the whole time remains a mystery to me.
You were supposed to make me listen to a lot more 90s hip hop, and explain to me about how Bennett was wrong and Joe Budden actually sucks. You were supposed to go to a lot more comedy shows with us. You were supposed to keep making beats, and occasionally make one out of a guitar part I’d written.
You were supposed to come watch football with us on Sundays. You’d listen to me and Bennett yammer on and on, and you’d chime in mostly to make jokes about Joe Buck, which was fine. You wouldn’t know an iota of information about anyone currently in the NFL, but two hours in, you’d inexplicably spout out an incredibly detailed anecdote about Marcus Allen from 25 years ago.
You were supposed to be in my wedding. You were supposed to be in a lot of weddings, probably. You were supposed to be the guy that would steer my bachelor party towards the really cool places, and/or be the guy we had to keep an eye on the entire time.
You were supposed to figure out exactly what was going to make you happy, the way you made everyone around you happy with that enunciated laugh; or the Chappelle’s Show references; or the concise, thoughtful, sometimes brutal but also sometimes hilarious advice you’d give about life; or the waving motion you gave signaling someone to “come ‘ere” for a hug.
We were supposed to do the Estate Department Weekend (EDW) again. Or, at least, we were supposed to talk again about doing it again. Talking about doing EDW2 was almost just as much fun. We probably won’t do that much anymore.
You were supposed to come home in three weeks, or four, but hopefully three. You pinky swore with Jenna that you would come back. That’s the most serious kind of promise there is. She loved you. It's hard not to.
You, Bennett and I were supposed to grow up and grow old, changing yet remaining the same, watching each other’s kids and visiting each other’s families. Your friend Ken wrote about how his friendship with you evolved over the 20 years you knew each other. I’ve known you for 5, and I could only have been so lucky to see how ours would have changed and grown.
There’s a lot of shit that’s supposed to happen in life, and we tend to think it’s supposed to play out based on some cosmic balance. We'd like to think that good people, on balance, have good things happen to them. The details of what exactly happened with you aren’t really clear – and frankly, I don’t want to know them all – but whatever it was, it’s not supposed to happen to good people. It fucking isn’t.
It’s been over a year since you moved out, so the elongated call of “Oooooooh Kibweeeeee!” we’d bellow to beckon you downstairs for a shot, or a game, or some other tomfoolery hasn’t rung out as often, though we’d still yell it from another room when you came to visit. It’s going to be sad knowing that, if we called it out today, you won’t reluctantly traipse downstairs or into the living room to get wrapped up in whatever it was we were doing.
But a lot of people say it’s not a time to curse the end of the time we had together, but to cherish what we did. I’m glad that Bennett, Jenna, my brother and I got to see you a week before your flight. I’m glad we texted you last Wednesday night, and I’m glad you sent us that last picture of you in front of your computer, hard at work, wearing your best effort at Charlie Murphy’s dopey smile on your face (your words, not mine). I’m glad to have five years of memories with you instead of 0, five years of great times, five years of getting through bad times, five years worth of material to get us through the painful moments when we remember you're not coming over again.
I won’t claim to know the way you’ve touched the lives of every single friend, family member, or loved one you had, but if it was half the way you touched me as a friend, I’m sure they feel the same way about you that I do. You're one of my best friends, a gentle soul, and a truly good human being, and I'll miss you terribly. We'll all miss you terribly.
Love ya, buddy.
-Kaz

P.S. I’m still blaming you for any future red wine spills in the fridge.

P.P.S. Jenna wants to talk to you too. You know she doesn't post, but she's making a special exception for you.



On Pinky Promises: A short note to a dear friend

Thank you for your friendship with Bennett and Matt. You "three dudes" had a special bond unlike another. Thank you for your special friendship with me. You were a sweeter, kinder, and gentler "dude" with me, always. You gave the best hugs on the planet, and would stop whatever you were doing as soon as I walked in the door to give me a warm hug.

I will miss coming downstairs and seeing you in your red recliner, making beats on your laptop and watching terrible action movies. Thank you for your friendship, your ice cream truck chasing, terrible cupcake decorating, glowstick earring wearing, late night Rick Ross listening, photobombing while sleeping, silly dance move making, kitty cat loving, box wine drinking...the list goes on an on.

A few weeks ago as you prepared to leave you gave me a big hug, you listened to my rules "be good, be safe, don't forget to come back", and you pinky promised that you would come back in 3-4 weeks. I know that you meant it. You might lie to Bennett and Matt, but you would never lie to me.

Rest in peace my dear, sweet friend. I am so fortunate to have been able to spend the time that we had together.

xoxo

Tuesday, June 21, 2016

On Under Pressure and Preeclampsia

As some of you might know (which by definition means some of you might not), I'm spending part of my summer working with Dr. Kristine Weatherston, a media professor at Temple University, on a documentary called Under Pressure: The Hidden Story of Pregnancy and Preeclampsia. It's cool and good and you should help us out by donating to the documentary.

Wait, hold on. Sorry - I forgot I'm supposed to, like, tell you about it. Hm. Okay.

Preeclampsia is a hypertensive disorder of pregnancy that affects 5 to 8 percent of pregnant women.. In general, the illness strikes before the baby is delivered/born, but in some instances, it can crop up post-partim, or the symptoms can linger after the baby is born. . It's terrible and life-threatening, and there's no known cure. 

The only known way to "cure" preeclampsia is to deliver the baby, either naturally or by C-section. And even after the birth, preeclampsia can have lasting long-term effects on a woman's health. This isn't to say anything for the emotional and psychological suffering brought onto both the woman and her family from battling the illness, as well as leaving the premature baby in the NICU for the first weeks of its life.

The trick with preeclampsia (and its more serious variant HELLP syndrome) is that many of its symptoms - high blood pressure, swollen feet and legs, headaches, "floaters" in the woman's vision - are also symptoms of pregnancy in general. So in a lot of cases, doctors have a hard time diagnosing it, and women and their families don't even know the illness exists or that they are at risk of suffering it.

That's where Under Pressure comes in. Dr. Weatherston - a preeclampsia survivor herself - stared interviewing other women who survived preeclampsia and HELLP. Some of them came out of their fight with a happy, healthy child. Some, tragically, did not. But all of their stories - plus conversations with doctors from the Magee-Womens hospital in Pittsburgh who study preeclampsia - bring up a similar central point: there's not enough awareness about preeclampsia, and not enough knowledge about it. I've spent this summer transcribing about 9-10 hours of those interviews myself, as have three other students working on the documentary.

Dr. Weatherston - plus co-director Tammy Slaughter and co-producer Thea Chaloner - started Under Pressure with the goal of creating that additional awareness. The finished documentary will be donated to women's health centers for educational purposes, and entered into some film festivals.

The goal of Under Pressure isn't to make a ton of money; it's to make women and families (and even doctors!) more educated about hypertensive disorders of pregnancy. It's to give voice to the women who suffered and still carry harrowing memories - and to their spouses, who struggled trying to care for their wives while caring for their newborn child.

So to help with production costs, travel costs, and the eventual cost of distributing the completed film, we started an Indiegogo campaign a few weeks ago with the goal to offset some of those expenses. So far, we're doing great, but we're on the final push to raise funds before the conclusion of the fundraiser tonight at midnight.

There are some cool perks for donating to the documentary, including credits in the film itself, signed copies of the DVD, and more. But more than anything, your donation helps a great project created in the name of a great cause.

You can find the Indiegogo page here  - http://igg.me/at/underpressure/x/14262212. 

The page has more info on the documentary, a promotional video clip from the film, and a list of possible perks. It also has links to the documentary's website, Facebook, and Twitter account if you're interested in following the project further. Even if you can't make a financial donation, it'd be an enormous help if you could share the documentary - and the campaign - with your friends and family.

Thanks to everyone who donated already, and to all of you for reading. The dumb jokes and half-baked life commentary will be back soon.

Sunday, March 20, 2016

On the Passion, Which Was A Thing?


Yeah yeah, I know, I've been bad about blogging. That isn't the point. Here's the point: how in the name of all that is good and just in this world did I not know about The Passion?

Seriously? Tyler Perry did a whole musical...thing about the Passion of Jesus Christ featuring modern renditions of pop songs pieced together to fit into the storyline of Jesus' final days, with Chris Daughtry as Judas belting out an Evanescence cover and friggin' Seal as Pontious Pilate...and I didn't know at all?

Did I miss a whole section of the Internet focused on this? Is it because I haven't had the regular Fox broadcasting network on since football season ended? There is SO MUCH fertile ground for just joyous, merciless ridicule (or not! But probably yes), surely social media would be abuzz. And yet, I was completely in the dark.

They did "With Arms Wide Open!" And a woman in the crowd was singing along! Are you kidding me? (Also, there was a crowd? Which was confusing because many of the musical performances were supposedly on video, but there was a march through New Orleans and...God, it's so confusing)

I'm so hurt, guys. This could've gotten me 5,000 blog posts, a Masters thesis and a book. This better be on On Demand.

Oh, and happy Palm Sunday too or something.

Friday, March 11, 2016

On Chicken Sandwich with Vodka Sauce

Welcome back to another edition of Cookin' with Kaz, where we take things that are easy to make and explain them to you like you're a fourth grader. The weekend is here, and chances are you'll want to spend part of this time enjoying a delicious sammich. Instead of toasting up whatever salted meats and cheeses still populate your refrigerator, consider this classier alternative.

What You Need:

Chicken breasts or chicken thighs, depending on preference
Spinach
Vodka sauce
Sandwich thins (or rolls of your choice)
Seasoning for chicken (I like Emeril’s Essence for this one – you can buy it or make it yourself, or just use whatever seasoning(s) you prefer)
Olive oil or vegetable cooking spray
Butter

“I’m Feeling A Little Fancy” Brine:
½ gallon warm water
½ cup kosher salt, or about 1/4-2/3 cup sea salt
¼ cup white sugar
¼ cup brown sugar
½ cup soy sauce
2 tablespoons olive oil

Take your chicken of choice and cut them up into appropriately-sized portions for the sandwich rolls you’ve chosen. For the sake of proper cooking and preventing a gigantic mess, the chicken probably should be just about as thick as your hand laying flat.

***If you’re feeling a little fancy, this would be a good time to make the appropriately-named brine above. If you don’t care about the brine, skip down two paragraphs***

Make sure the water is warm at first so it dissolves all the stuff you’re putting into it. I like making the brine in a big ‘ol bowl, but mixing it up in a big Ziploc bag works too if you’re careful/prepare for potential leakage.

Afterwards, toss your chicken in the brine, cover the bowl/zip up the bag, and put it in your fridge for anywhere between three and 12 hours, depending on how much chicken you’ve put in there. (Obviously, if you’re making a ton of chicken, you’ll want to bump up the amount of brine you’re making) Don’t leave the chicken brining for more than a day or so, or your chicken will start to becoming really stiff from the salt and sugar. Remove from the brine once you’re ready to make sammiches and dump the brine.

Once your chicken is cut up and/or done brining, season it how you prefer. If you want to use a hammer or mallet beat your chickens into submission and make sure they’re uniform or whatever, go for it.

Now, it's time to start cooking. I use a George Foreman grill to cook the chicken for about 10-12 mintues, but you can bake it in the oven, sauté it with some veggies and olive oil in a saucepan, or deep fry it in bacon grease if you prefer. The world is your oyster, er, chicken.

While the chicken is cooking, take a few tablespoons of vodka sauce and start it on medium low/low heat in a small saucepan. I would skew low for the exact amount of sauce; you only need about 1-2 tablespoons per sandwich, or it’ll get sloppy in a hurry. Also, don’t be an idiot like me and put the heat up too high on the creamy vodka sauce, or it’ll be all gross and curdled and stuff. If you want to avoid all the touchiness, you can also just use Ragu or some homemade pasta sauce you like – I just like vodka sauce because it adds a certain fanciness to a meal that is essentially a grilled chicken sandwich.

Now, get a saucepan out and heat up a tablespoon or two of olive oil over medium-low heat, or spray the pan with cooking spray. Once it’s been heating for a minute or two, take a fistful of spinach per sandwich and throw it on the pan, stirring it up occasionally. If you like putting garlic or onions with your spinach sauté, go for it, but I find there’s usually enough flavor going on in the sandwich already to where adding more with the spinach isn’t necessary.

Lastly, if you want to toast your sammich buns, you can start that now. Once it’s sufficiently warm, butter them up and let it melt into the buns. If you don’t care about toasting it, you can butter the plain bun and just kind of let it sit there for a bit. (This can also work well as a sub/hoagie if you prefer)

The spinach should cook quickly, and the vodka sauce won’t take long to get warm (without burning it!). Once the chicken is done, place it on the sammich, drizzle the vodka sauce over it, and put the spinach on top. Eat it with chips or whatever and class up your weekend sammich.

Wednesday, March 2, 2016

On Desert Island Albums, Pt. 3


If you were forced to live on a desert island with only a record/CD player, what albums would you take with you? I've played this game a hundred times, both online and IRL. I think I have my list pretty well figured out at this point, but since we've got a whole year together on this here blog, I figure this will give me a little more space to explain my picks.


It sure sounds like the Foo Fighters are going away for a while. Dave Grohl has hinted at this already, but anytime you post something like this on Facebook...


Official band announcement tomorrow night. Stay tuned.
Posted by Foo Fighters on Tuesday, March 1, 2016
...you're going to send people in an awful tizzy. (As of the start of this writing, that official announcement has yet to be made. Maybe they're waiting until 11:59, or maybe it's the West Coast thing, or maybe they're still figuring out what to announce. "It is with heavy hearts that we say goodbye...to BORING BAGELS, thanks to our brand-new 'Pat Schmear Bagel Spreads!' Ready to ROCK your breakfast, now in the band store...")

If the Foos do take a couple years off, it wouldn't be the first time; after touring for Echoes, Silence, Patience, and Grace and releasing a greatest hits compilation, the band announced an "indefinite hiatus" in 2009. Grohl banged around in Them Crooked Vultures, drummer Taylor Hawkins started Taylor Hawkins and the Coattail Riders, and the rest of the guys did...well, whatever it is they did. But the quintet was right back at it in 2011 with Wasting Light, my favorite Foo Fighters album.

Yes, The Colour and the Shape is their classic with three of their seminal tunes. Yes, their eponymous debut is the purist's choice. No, there probably isn't one individual track on Wasting Light that I'd put in the top 5 Foo Fighters songs of all time. So overall, this doesn't sound like a good pick by me. I know.

But dammit, I just like this album a lot. Front to back, there isn't a single bad song on it. It grabs hold with "Bridges Burning" and "Rope" and doesn't let you go from the wild ride until "I Should Have Known" and "Walk" finally release you. It's the best rock album the band has made, bar none.

Every song is Foo Fighters to the core, but with individual flashes and flares of other bands and styles. Fresh off his side project with old pal Josh Homme, Grohl howls through "White Limo" like Nick Oliveri used to in early Queens of the Stone Age days. The verses in "Dear Rosemary" dance/shuffle along like Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers. There's even something Beatles-esque about the melancholy "I Should Have Known."

And yet, "Walk" and "These Days" are quintessential Foo Fighters tunes - they could have written them in their sleep, and yet they're so damn good, the perfect combination of . The album was supposedly recorded in Grohl's garage, but Dave Grohl's garage is not like my garage or your garage. It's the Taj Mahal of rock garages. The album is well-produced, with guitars buzzing and shimmering when needed, and the whole effort has that professional snap you get after nearly 20 years of playing together.

If this next Foo Fighters hiatus yields anything close to what Wasting Light did, then dammit, bring on a hiatus.

(UPDATE: By the conclusion of this writing, the "official announcement" came out, and...well, alright, good show, guys)


Tuesday, March 1, 2016

On the Libertarian Party


On Saturday, the Libertarian Party held its first debate in Biloxi, MS. Sometime in March, the party will hold a second debate on John Stossel's Fox Business show. If you care about the state of politics in the present-day United States, you should watch this debate, and you should also consider voting for the Libertarian Party candidate in November.

Libertarianism has had a minor revival in the United States n the past decade-plus, due in large part to the popularity of movement godfather/missing Keebler elf Ron Paul. Basic libertarian philosophy calls for small government in nearly all respects; this includes socially liberal areas like women's reproductive rights and the drug war, and fiscally conservative areas like corporate regulation and (most) welfare programs.

Libertarianism can seem idealistic, refreshing, cold-hearted or completely logical depending on which cable news talking head is yammering on at the time. And yet, I will reiterate: if you care about the state of politics in the U.S., you should pay attention to their debate and consider voting for the Libertarian candidate in November.

Why throw away your vote, you ask? Why cast a ballot for Gary Johnson or Austin Petersen or John McAfee (yes, that John McAfee) when they haven't got a shot of winning? Why go third-party when we all know Ross Perot is not walking through that door?

I'll tell you why. Have you seen this shit? I mean, Jesus, guys. We're trying to pick someone to lead the country for the next four years, in what I hear will be the most important election ever for the 10th straight election cycle, and this is the best we can do? A slap fight between the three GOP frontrunners over who's a bigger liar, and a quite Republican argument between the two Democratic nominees over who's more progressive?

As of press time here on Super Tuesday 50 (Coldplay is coming on in a few minutes), Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio's jingoistic campaigns are being curb-stomped by a man who might redefine the term "xenophobia," at least to the extent that Donald Trump holds actual consistent worldviews, which he doesn't. Meanwhile, Bernie Sanders' Doc Brown hair and inability to grasp how economics works have fallen under the wheels of HilRod's Train of Inevitability, which has somehow blown past her hawkish tendencies, cozy relationship with big banks and a trail of scandals.

In all likelihood, a career politician with a chameleon-like ability to change policy positions that Mitt Romney and John Kerry would be proud of will square off against a cartoon rich person come to life who can't really be accused of flip-flopping on any positions since the only position he seems to have taken is "Duh, winning." It is literally my worst nightmare, my least favorite candidate from each side taking a vast majority of the polls. And I know I'm not alone in thinking this.

You know what happened during the first Libertarian debate? Of course you don't. It was streamed online and the video/sound quality was, um, passable. I missed it too, only watching it on replay tonight. But it was such a wonderful change of pace from the ad hominem attacks that make up the bulk of Republican debates, and even some of the Democratic ones. Sure, there was some stumping, and Gary Johnson, the 2012 party nominee, even broke out one of Trump's favorite words to describe the Donald himself. But there were also policy discussions! Legitimate debates over the future of cyber-security and Sharia law, and none interrupted by a game-show bell or name-calling or a roar from the crowd every 15 seconds.

Yes, libertarianism is the movement favored by the Koch brothers, but despite their ties with the party, they're much more focused on trying to influence major-party candidates like Rubio and Rand Paul. And sure, the libertarian party didn't show up on two states' ballots in 2012, but that was a hell of a lot better than the Green Party or any other third party - including the one that had Rosanne Barr on its ticket, really. (I will also say that, while Johnson's recent about-face on burqas is very stark, his explanation involved a good deal more thought than most other politicians would have given)

I repeat: if you're concerned with the way political discussion has devolved in the modern United States, you owe it to yourself to watch the next Libertarian debate. Maybe you won't agree with the positions the candidates take, or maybe you will. But it won't devolve into the playground chaos that the two major parties usually do, and even if I didn't consider myself a (mostly) libertarian, I'd rather "throw away" my vote than continue to validate that. Maybe you will too.

Monday, February 29, 2016

On Spotlight and Journo Twitter



The Academy Awards are over, and amidst all the social commentary and the good Chris Rock jokes and the director who actually managed to talk the music down when they tried to chase him off (because his comments had drifted towards humanitarian remarks), some awards were given out.

A couple of those awards, including Best Picture, went to Spotlight, a film dramatizing the Boston Globe's investigation of Catholic priests in Boston suspected of sexually assaulting boys, which began to blow the top off a more widespread theme of corruption and sodomy throughout the Church. Candidly, like most of the films nominated for awards this year (or to be honest, most films period), I didn't see it, but I will assume by the near-universal acclaim it garnered that it was, in fact, a very good movie.

But there was another group who rode a wave of pride spurred by Spotlight's win. It's something I should have seen coming, and yet I only realized what was about to happen when I read this first retweet from a local sports journalist I follow.



The journos were coming.

Yes, Journo Twitter had arrived. Much like a pleasant happy-hour establishment that turns into an unpleasantly kinky pseudo-strip club at night (I watched too much Taffer again yesterday), journalists that generally use Twitter for fun or informative purposes turned into platitude-spouting company men/women after Spotlight took home its first award of the evening. And it continued.


After years of being beaten down by shrinking budgets and news aggregators that dwarf traditional newspapers in revenue (despite the fact of that most of those sites would be quite screwed if traditional journalism vanished), the old guard of print journalism was ready to hold up Spotlight the way most normal people act when they get on the local news or see their name in the local paper. "Look, see? It's me! It's us!"
You ADD-stricken ingrates will watch a massive screen for two hours, but won't plunk down good money to get a daily dose of "School board meeting ends in impasse" flung at your door five minutes after you leave for work, guaranteeing that any story that bore even a slight influence on your life will be quite outdated by the time you return. You dumb millennials and your Dumb Phones and your dumbness. So dumb.
Yeah! You guys are journalists, like me, and you did it, which is by extension a feather in my cap, too! In a way, this movie depicting journalists in another city who put forth a Herculean effort to find one of the biggest scandals of the century is much like the review I just did of the new Sea World exhibit. That Shamu is just so playful!


It sure is weird that all these wordsmiths and defenders of the printed page came up with the exact same joke about Spotlight and nobody liking newspapers anymore.
You mean like Shattered Glass?
Who are...what? Are you even a human being?

Listen, though I'm not a professional journalist, I do fancy a career in media and wrote for a (college) publication for a few years. I like newspapers. I like reading the news. I don't have a newspaper subscription in part for the reasons I've mentioned. Maybe I'll try again; newspapers so royally screwed the pooch over 20 years ago when the Internet became a thing that they still haven't figured out how to reliably monetize web content, so I'd like to "support the cause" or whatever.

But Journo Twitter taking fraternal pride in Spotlight winning an Academy Award is hilarious because a. they treat the success of The Boston Globe, one of the oldest, largest and most prestigious major-metropolis newspapers in our country's history, as a reason to go out and grab a copy of the Daily Dink tomorrow morning, and b. anecdotally, journos are exactly the type of people who complain about how movies based on true stories compress and distort the facts in a way that warps the tale's truth.

You know who is allowed to take pride in the movie's critical acclaim? The actual friggin' journalists who unearthed the scandal in the first place.

Investigative reporting is in crisis right now. Journalism is in crisis. The movie lets people know why what we do is so important.
Now there's someone I'm inclined to listen to.

Wednesday, February 17, 2016

On Presidents, Ranked


I'm a sports fan, which means I like ranking things. Best quarterbacks of all time. Best NBA big men. Best places to watch a Browns game (in an empty bar, preferably face down). And I particularly like categorizing those rankings: sure, Tom Brady might be the best overall quarterback ever, but no doubt Michael Vick was the best scrambler, or that Randall Cunningham had the best leg.

So let's apply that to presidents. If we were to rank all the...oh, huh, well, how about this?

The above Wikipedia page showing a number of different rankings of US presidents was a lot of fun to go through. While there are certainly empirical ways of determining a leader's success - did the economy grow? did the country acquire new territory or win/lose any wars? did he have sex with that woman? - it's hard to judge a president until they've been out of office for several years, so that any long-term effects of the prior leader(s) can be fully realized. (Just ask Martin Van Buren or Barack Obama) Plus, not everyone considers winning a war or passing a new healthcare bill to be a rousing success; it's a subjective matter. In short, it would be a fool's errand to try to rank every U.S. president in any sort of fair and accurate way.

But let's do it anyway! Some highlights from these lists:

  1. James Buchanan was the only president ever from my home state of Pennsylvania, so naturally, he's almost universally considered the worst president in U.S. history. Of course, when you basically say "d'owell!" to the prospect of half the country seceding, people are going to remember that. He was basically Neville Chamberlain Lite. But also, he was a lifelong bachelor, so...niiiiiiiiice.
  2. Not coincidentally, Lincoln is a near unanimous choice for best president ever across different polls and different time periods. This could've been you, James!
  3. A 1982 survey of historians showed that liberals and conservatives had nearly identical Top Five's (some combination of Lincoln, Washington, FDR, Jefferson, and Ted Roosevelt) I'd love to hear a debate moderator ask the GOP nominees this year if they thought FDR was one of the five best presidents of all time. It'd be like asking a room full of Beyonce fans what they thought about the new queen of pop music, Ariana Grande.
  4. I am genuinely surprised that George W. Bush isn't ranked lower. Granted, his term ended less than eight years ago, but considering conservatives hated his economic policies and liberals/most everyone else basically consider him a war criminal, the fact that the "Notable Scholar Surveys" section aggregates him at only 34 out of 43 presidents is a bit shocking - though the fact that nearly every president ranked lower than him are there because they didn't prevent the Civil War from happening should tell you something.
  5. Siena College also ranked each president by individual categories (handling of economy, foreign policy accomplishments, integrity), which is great because there's a category for "Intelligence." Jefferson ranked No. 1. Dead last was....not Dubya! It was Warren Harding, possibly because he didn't know that all this was against the law.
That's all. I thought this was pretty cool - hope you do too.

Tuesday, February 16, 2016

On Valentine's Day and Social Media


Sunday was Valentine’s Day, which meant it was time for lots of Facebook posts and tweets about How To Celebrate Valentine’s Day.

You see, Valentine’s Day is generally considered a celebration of relationships, because couples are likely to buy each other stuff, and a holiday celebrating couples buying each other stuff is a great way to encourage that behavior. But because the commercial focus of Valentine’s Day is on couples buying each other stuff, it means talking about relationships, which is a touchy subject.

There are couples who take Valentine’s Day seriously and couples who are self-aware or nonchalant about Valentine’s Day. There are singles folks who get bitter about Valentine’s Day, get annoyed with Valentine’s Day and the people who celebrate it, who act desperate for a valentine, who don’t care about Valentine’s Day or who use Valentine’s Day as a way to celebrate bro love or gal love or family love or hamster love or whatever tickles your fancy.

All of them celebrate or at least acknowledge Valentine’s Day, and a remarkable number of them share this on Facebook, for better or worse. That’s fine. I’m happy to see couples post photos of their V-Day escapades, or friends who get together to celebrate. The folks who frustrate me are those who set up rules for celebrating in a way that is respectful for all, the folks who don’t want you to trample the emotions of the poor, unfortunate single people combined with the folks who want you to happily boast of your love. This is impossible.

Look back to the third paragraph: I rattled off six or seven different types of people with regard to V-Day, and there are obviously many more. There is absolutely no way you can make a statement about Valentine’s Day that will make you happy while simultaneously making everyone else happy. It cannot happen.

There are obviously ways to minimize negative impacts – you can share photos of the flowers bae sent you at work without tagging a newly single friend in them, and you can tell everyone how much you enjoyed Galentine’s Day without torching all couples during the celebration.

In the larger scope of shaming and (in)sensitivity, though, happiness is not a zero sum game. A photo of you or your son/daughter tossing a graduation cap in the air is not an indictment on someone else who dropped out of school. Hanging your marathon bib in your living room does not mean someone who can’t – or doesn’t want to – run one is being slighted. And if a couple puts up an adorable picture of the two of them in a romantic locale a handful of times a year, it doesn’t need to be hurtful towards single folks – or if a guy at work brags about a bro’s night he and his bachelor buddies shared, it doesn’t mean he’s ridiculing the guy who took his better half to a luxurious spa instead.

In years past, I’ve spent Valentine’s Day hanging out with friends. That was fun. This year, as I have for the last three, I spent Valentine’s Day with Miss Kazblog. That was also fun. At no time (that I recall) did I feel like anyone who spent the day differently than me was out to personally slight me, rub it in my face or otherwise. The implication when someone talks about something good that happened to them doesn’t mean they’re trying to needle you; more often than not, they might just be happy enough to have to tell someone.


Just do what you want, guys. Live your life. Don’t go out of your way to hurt other people. On the flip side, remember not every comment, story or photograph has to be about you. Now, bring in the dancing lobsters.

Monday, February 15, 2016

On Antonin Scalia


I often joke that I can rattle off the backstory of 95 percent of Sonic the Hedgehog games, remember who led the Eagles in interceptions in 2011 (Kurt Coleman - and that was before he was "good") and tell you where CKY recorded Carver City (Mars), but somehow can't name more than like five Supreme Court justices - at least since they disbarred Judge Joe Brown.

One of the names I always remembered was Antonin Scalia, in large part because damn, was he there a long time. For the past 30 years, no matter what you did, Scalia was straight up there, man.

On Saturday, Scalia passed away, which is either cause for mourning, cause for celebration, cause for hunkering down for extended social media battles with your friends or some combination of the three. (The fact that he died in his hotel during a quail-hunting trip - by far the stodgiest, old white man-iest way to go - certainly doesn't help the perception of him amongst his detractors)

Justices' reactions ranged from polite condolences to Ruth Bader Ginsburg's heartfelt goodbye. Republicans naturally fawned over the conservative Scalia. Democrats' statements were unsurprisingly more mixed - Obama has seemingly done all the right things, while Hilary Clinton has been...well, a lot like Hilary Clinton. As someone of generally libertarian ideology, there are some Scalia positions on business and free speech to which I can give a hearty "Hell yeah," and others on the drug war and the Defense of Marriage Act that I can't (though this itty-bitty dissent he whipped up about DOMA and last June's dissent on Obamacare did lead to things like this)

I'm not here to absolve Scalia's positions on civil rights, even though just writing that sentence is a dog-whistle for people who think I'm about to absolve Scalia's position on civil rights. Instead, I'd like to point to two really good pieces on Scalia that I believe, as a whole, portray him - and the aftermath of his passing - fairly and comprehensively.

The first is an extended conversation he had with New York Magazine shortly after his (in)famous dissent on the Court striking down the Defense of Marriage Act, which reminds you that there was a human being behind the decisions and the verbose opinions. It's really well done, in large part because Scalia is incredibly candid and makes for a great interview. It seems almost all of Scalia's decisions were rooted in a well-considered interpretation of the Constitution, which a. is his job, and b. doesn't necessarily jive with the critique that Scalia stuck with his conservative standpoint because he's a dick (even if, from a utilitarian perspective, the end result was the same)

The second is this Esquire column written shortly after his death on Saturday. Charlie Pierce is the man, and even when I disagree with his politics, I love his no-punches-pulled, historically-grounded writing. While conceding that anyone who spends 30 years in public service as Scalia did deserves some level of respect, Pierce firmly believes the country would have been better off without him on the Court; he also laments the inevitable rumble that has already begun between Dems and the GOP about who will fill his vacant seat, and when. (It's certainly telling that even the Republicans who intended to honor Scalia's legacy waited less than five hours to join Democrats in politicizing it - although, to be fair, what else are you supposed to do when one of the 15-20 most powerful public servants in the country dies?)

Scalia was probably more bad than good, but I'd rather have nine justices of any political persuasion who take their job as seriously as he did than replace any of them with Clarence Thomas, who hasn't woken up since about 2003. Nevertheless, when you stand so staunchly against civil rights issues that the public has turned in favor of, and act as bombastic and haughty as Scalia did whether he was on the winning or losing end of things, you don't leave a lot of room for nuanced opinions about your integrity. And in all likelihood, he'd be just fine with that.

Sunday, February 14, 2016

On Love Songs


In no particular order, a list of some really good love songs.

For easy listening fans: "This Guy's in Love With You" - Herb Alpert

For tender, depressed lovers: "Lovesong" - The Cure

For tender, murderous lovers: "Wake Up" - Coheed and Cambria

For being in love with bachelorhood: "Better Off Without a Wife" - Tom Waits

For realistic/pessimistic summer flings: "Borne on the FM Waves of the Heart" - Against Me! feat. Tegan Quin

For oh yeah, girl: "I Wanna Know" by Joe

For making your feminist friends angry: "Video Games" by Lana Del Rey

For the first love song you ever learned on guitar: "I Will Follow You Into the Dark" by Death Cab for Cutie

For being really in love: "Really in Love" by Andrew W.K.

For psychedelic weirdos: "Suck it and See" by Arctic Monkeys

For love through music: "We Can Get Together" by the Hold Steady

For alright fine sure: "Sweet Child 'O' Whatever" by Guns 'n' Something

For "Baby" by Justin Bieber: "Baby" by Justin Bieber

For true love: "Fly Eagles Fly" by God

Thursday, February 11, 2016

On Milk, Which is Great


On night two of my Lenten soda stoppage, I decided to stop at Wawa for a sandwich on my way home from class (chicken steak with roasted pepper, spinach, olive oil, garlic and oregano, for those who were wondering) and chose to pair it with an 8 oz. bottle of milk. Just regular-ass 2 percent milk.

Later on the drive home, I was talking on the phone with Miss Kazblog, and the subject of my drink selection came up because I bring a lot to the table. When she found out I'd had milk with dinner, she said something along the lines of "'Oh yeah, I'm an adult,'" in an attempt to mock my choice. I can't remember exactly what she said, though, because the moment has been blurred by rage.

Forget the war on Christmas or the war on drugs or the war on Nickelback. There is a war on milk, and I must stand in milk's defense.

Seriously, look at this shit. It is downright remarkable how far the pendulum of public perception has swung the other way on milk.

A large majority of this can be considered backlash to the remarkably successful "Got Milk?" campaign that started in the mid-90's, making milk mustaches as popular as...well, I guess as popular as a creamy, white mustache can be. The campaign solidified milk's place in a healthy diet as a key supplier of calcium and protein.

Of course, as is often the case particularly in dietary science, new research indicates that not only does milk not provide nutrients to humans in a way that we can digest and absorb appropriately, but it could be BAD FOR YOU.

So let's take a look at most of the major arguments against milk:

It doesn't build strong bones. Calcium does not improve bone density, which was a major selling point of milk during its mustachioed heyday. Which, OK, sure. But what if it just, like, tastes good?

It's got a lot of sugar in it, and a lot of saturated fat. Both of these things, in excess, are bad for you, as are sodium, carbohydrates, and even "good" stuff like iron and fiber. However, the sugar in milk is naturally occurring, so maybe that's not as bad for you. Also, the scientific tide has begun to turn in favor of saturated fat again - though whether that's based on a push from the butter lobby (BIG BUTTER) is anybody's guess. Either way, there is no denying the fact that fat and sugar, while not great in large quantities, do make milk taste good.

Excessive consumption can cause cancer. This puts milk up there with literally everything. Remember when the World Health Organization allegedly said that red meat was on the same level as cigarettes in terms of its ability to cause cancer? Turns out that was slightly overblown. Like red meat, milk shouldn't be consumed by the trough or anything because - like damn near everything in life - too much of it is no good. It is tempting to consume too much milk, though, because it tastes so good.

Humans are the only mammals that drink milk after infancy/childhood. This one is incredibly popular on Facebook and a great way to get me good and mad early in the morning. We're also the only mammals with chins, so guess it's time to hack those cancer-causing anthropocentrism lumps right off! Based on my 20-second research, baleen whales are the only mammals with two blowholes - the hell do they need that second one for? They'd better cut that shit out, unless they're using the second blowhole to consume milk.
In any other area of the ecosystem, the "only animal that does X" is a natural wonder. When it's humans drinking milk, it's an indictment on the species.  Humans are also the only mammals to invent irrigation and the printing press, which we did with the extra brainpower we got from MILK, which tastes good.

Lots of people are lactose intolerant. So...those people probably shouldn't drink milk. The same way people who are allergic to shellfish shouldn't, you know, eat shellfish, or the way my lily white self shouldn't spend a ton of time in the sun. For those of us who are not lactose intolerant, though, this particular issue isn't a concern - if milk is consumed in moderation! - which is good on account of how good milk tastes.

Save the calves! Listen, if you have a moral or religious opposition to drinking milk, that's fine. I'm not here to argue on behalf of dairy farmers or questionable animal care practices. I will say that milk is most likely not the most egregious example of animal cruelty, though. I will also say that milk tastes pretty good, and if you decide to ignore your moral compass down the road, you won't be disappointed by milk.

Eliminating milk will make you feel better. Here's the thing: I don't doubt this at all. I'm sure if I stopped eating all milk, cheese, yogurt and ice cream, I'd probably get sick less or lose 10 pounds, or both. Conversely, most of the time, I feel fine eating a cup of greek yogurt daily or having a small glass of milk with my Sunday breakfast, or cooking pancakes or other baked goods with milk.

Maybe I'd feel better if I didn't, but is it worth the trade off of not having milk anymore? My health would also probably improve if I completely eliminated alcohol, but that sure as hell ain't happening. There is a health benefit I don't reap by keeping milk and alcohol in my diet; on the other hand, someone who doesn't like milk and doesn't drink at all might love Doritos or Sweet Tarts, two items I have much less of a problem passing on. People who prefer to work out three times a day and eat nothing but tree bark probably get some sort of utility out of being a world-class beacon of health that I simply don't.

Maybe you're the type of person who feels stuffy all the time. Cutting dairy out of your diet could work wonders for you! On the other hand, someone like me might be better served health-wise by cutting down the soda or eating more spinach. It's entirely up to the individual person.

It makes sense, given how prominently milk was advertised as a health food, that the shock of these new anti-dairy scientific revelations has been interpreted as "NEVER DRINK MILK AGAIN EVER." I think it was Isaac Newton who once posited, "I'm too drunk to taste this chicken" "For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction." As with most debates, though, the answer lies somewhere in the boring middle: Don't drink a ton of milk, and you'll be OK.

In fact, you'll be better than OK, because you'll be drinking milk. And milk tastes damn good.

Wednesday, February 10, 2016

On Soda


I'm back from vacation - I promise I'll catch everyone up on all the shenanigans and tomfoolery from Mardi Gras, but suffice it to say, my rigorous schedule would not have allowed me to write anything worthwhile during my time in New Orleans.

In the meantime, it's Lent again, which means it's time for all good Catholics and masochists to dredge up all that spare guilt they've got lying around and decide on a sacrifice of some sort. Usually, this comes in the form of giving up a food, drink or activity for the duration of time between Ash Wednesday (where the black stuff on everyone's forehead comes from) and Easter, when Jesus rose from the dead so that Peeps could be free from sin.

Some suck-ups out there will instead add an extra activity to their day-to-day routine, like charity work or extra time to pray. Those people do not have Diet Dr. Pepper coursing through their veins like I do. This is why, for the third year in the past four, I am giving up soda for Lent.

There's no huge explanation here apart from the one that follows: I love Diet Dr. Pepper a lot, drink more of it than I should and spend more money on DDP annually than I do on pretty much all personal grooming goods combined. (Fortunately, there's a solution for that!) I consider it a valid test of my willpower and a boon to my health to rid myself of it for 40+ days.

I'm also not going to dissect the act of self-sacrifice or discuss Lenten promises through a theological or secular lens, though I will say that even nonreligious or non-Catholics could benefit from this annual personal trial.

Mostly, I'm just going to warn you that I'm going to be ornery. I will likely substitute my daily 3-6 DDP quota with some combination of coffee and seltzer water, not necessarily apart from each other depending on how desperate I am. It will not be the same. I also won't even start on the "only fish on Fridays" thing that I will almost certainly screw up by inadvertently not eating meat all week until Friday comes and I launch face first into a KFC Family Fill-Up because I am a stupid moron.

Lock up your daughter. Lock up your wife. Lock up your soda and run for your life.

Tuesday, February 2, 2016

On Desert Island Albums, Pt. 2


If you were forced to live on a desert island with only a record/CD player, what albums would you take with you? I've played this game a hundred times, both online and IRL. I think I have my list pretty well figured out at this point, but since we've got a whole year together on this here blog, I figure this will give me a little more space to explain my picks.

Coheed and Cambria put out a new album in October, The Color Before the Sun. It was the band's first album set in "reality," which was a change of pace from the previous seven that took place in Heaven's Fence, the setting of Claudio Sanchez's epic (or overblown, depending on your perspective) story called The Amory Wars. Not that there wasn't a touch of reality in each of Coheed's conceptual records, but it was obscured ever so slightly by grand tales of space combat and the love shared between two androids whose son is destined to save the universe.

I've gone deep on Coheed and Cambria before and could easily do it a dozen times over, but that's not the purpose of this post. The purpose is to explain why I'd bring certain albums with me on a desert island, and the reason I'm bringing Good Apollo, I'm Burning Star IV, Volume 1: From Fear Through the Eyes of Madness (*takes deep breath*) is because of all Coheed and Cambria albums, this is the most Coheed and Cambria album.

Prior to Good Apollo I, one of the coolest things Coheed and Cambria did well was create huge-sounding records without a whole lot of extra atmosphere or background effects. The combination of Sanchez's high vocal register  and the band's impressive musical dexterity created the expansive universe they aimed for - all with the added mystery of whatever story could be interpreted from Sanchez's cryptic yet relatable emo poetry. When you can just add a whole bunch of guitar reverb and soaring vocal harmonies, who needs a whole bunch of synths and strings?

Hey wow cool, check out those synths and strings! And the OVERDRIVE!

C&C probably started overdoing it with the keyboards and effects and such on the two albums that followed this one (Good Apollo II: No World for Tomorrow and Year of the Black Rainbow), but on Good Apollo I, they hit the sweet spot of musicianship, production and songwriting. A string quartet opening gives way to a lovely, spare acoustic number, which in turn leads into...well...this. Nobody is going to confuse "Welcome Home" with a stripped-down, raw piece of garage rock, but it's also not overcrowded with stuff as it churns ahead in all its grandeur.

That trend continues throughout this musically diverse track list. "Ten Speed (Of God's Blood and Burial)" creates tension through its winding guitar riffs and powerful chorus. Same for "Apollo I: The Writing Writer," which opens with an eerie synth-and-keys soundscape but mostly thrives on its knotty interplay between the guitars and rhythm section. "The Suffering" is a classic Coheed pop song with better production, as is the quintessential emo love ballad "Wake Up." The whole of the Willing Well suite is 28 minutes of excellent guitar work, catchy vocal stretches, creative drumming, and well-placed electronic flourishes, concluding in a desolate-sounding number that sounds like an apocalyptic Pink Floyd.

You have to be willing to take some steps backward in maturity to enjoy Coheed and Cambria, in particular this album. You're about to absorb a mass of music that sets the stage for the third chapter in an unabashedly geeky space opera that, essentially, is about the lead singer getting dumped. If you can accept this, or choose to ignore it, you'll be rewarded in spades with a fantastic set of songs that is all over the musical map, and one of the best guitar albums of the new millennium.

Monday, February 1, 2016

On Mike Huckabee


Your old set-in-his-ways uncle announced tonight that he won't be running for president anymore. This is like when Dario Saric said he wasn't coming over from Turkey to play for the Sixers this year, except for Sixers fans were actually upset by that news.

It's not that Mike Huckabee's brand of boogeyman fear-mongering and brazen bigotry is out of place in today's GOP, nor is his John Madden-esque strategy for dealing with ISIS. ("See, in order to defeat ISIS, we have to find them...and then kill them!") No, Mike's biggest problem is that everyone else is doing it better. Ted Cruz's foreign policies have all the subtlety of an 18-wheeler barreling through your living room, but he gives it that sparkly Ted Cruz Sheen(TM) that he glosses onto every point he makes. Marco Rubio makes hating foreigners seem cool and hip again; see, you can make hasty blanket statements about immigration while still having a professional quaff of hair. And in terms of loose-cannon xenophobia, it doesn't get much better than John Kasich. (Nah, just kidding, it's Trump)

So, peace, Mike Huckabee. The Republican party has no time for a dated set of principles coming from the mouth of a guy who's run for president a million times before. They'd rather hear it from some new guy instead.

#StandWithRand

Saturday, January 30, 2016

On Cooking the Best Damn Fried Chicken Ever (with Bacon)


Welcome to Cooking with Kaz, a periodic update on what in God's good name Kaz is doing in the kitchen. Some of the posts and recipes here will be great, some will be terrible, some will be plagiarized wholesale from other websites for the sake of garnering clicks on this one. But today's recipe, which came about as a sort of spare-parts creation last night, can only be described in one word: opulent. Eat your racist heart out, Paula Deen.

Kaz's Bacon-Fried Chicken Bites


Ingredients:
Boneless skinless chicken breast! (use whichever kind of chicken you like; I’ve found that when it comes to wings, breast is best)

Buttermilk
Kosher salt
Black pepper

Flour
McCormick’s Montreal Chicken seasoning (or your seasoning(s) of choice – salt, pepper and paprika also work)
Eggs
Bacon

Hot sauce (your preference here. I use Sriracha if I’m feeling frisky, and I’m also partial to Dexter Holland’s Gringo Bandito sauce. But you can’t go wrong with straight-up Frank’s Red Hot, either)
Butter (I prefer unsalted)
White vinegar
Worcestershire sauce
Cayenne pepper
Garlic powder
Regular salt

Tools you’ll use:
Freezer bag, Tupperware container, pot, or whatever can hold a quart of buttermilk plus some chicken
A colander
One small bowl for grease
Two bowls or shallow dishes for breading
A frying pan for…well…frying
A drying rack and a cookie sheet/oven pan to place underneath it
Two forks
A fine sieve
Tongs or something else to grab/flip delicious hunks of chicken
A pot or saucepan for the buffalo sauce


Take your chicken and chop it into pieces. If you want to make them bite-sized, make the “OK” symbol with your hand for reference; the chicken pieces should be no wider than that.
Pour a quart of buttermilk into a bag, Tupperware container, etc. Add a few tablespoons of kosher salt, and about a quarter-as-much of pepper. Add your chicken and leave overnight, or for as long as you can if you’re in a time crunch.
The next day (or whenever)…
If you’re not a crazy person like me who just has bacon grease stored for such an occasion, you’ll need to produce some. Take a few slices of bacon and fry them on each side until well done. (Six slices of bacon usually renders enough grease in the average pan to cook one pan full of chicken) Remove the bacon from the pan and…I mean, eat it, I guess.
 Once the grease has cooled slightly but before it’s begun to solidify, pour it off the pan into a bowl through a fine sieve. If you feel you need more grease, cook some more bacon, man. Put the grease in a new pan, or return it to the pan you were just using if you prefer, and put it over medium-low heat
 Mix together a cup or two of flour and a few tablespoons of Montreal chicken/whatever seasoning in a bowl or shallow dish. Take a few eggs and scramble them in a bowl. Add about a quarter-cup of milk to the eggs – if you still have some buttermilk left, use that; if not, regular milk will do (the closer to whole milk, the better).
Drain the chicken-brine mix in a colander. Take the drained chicken pieces and roll them around in the flour/seasoning mixture. Once they’re all completely coated, put them in the egg/milk mixture. Once the pieces are coated in egg, take each one out and allow the excess to drip off of them before putting them back in the flour mixture. (This part is a pain in the ass. It’s well worth it, though, to avoid gloppy pieces of chicken. You can also use a slotted spoon to grab a few at a time, but I would still take the pieces out of that and allow the excess egg to drip off from there)
Roll the chicken pieces in the flour mixture a second time. When completely coated, turn the pan of bacon grease up to medium. Give it about a minute to heat up, continuing to roll the chicken around until then. Once the grease is hot enough, put your chicken pieces in the pan to fry. Fry on each side for about five minutes, or until the chicken is evenly golden on both sides. Once cooked, place the drying rack on top of a cookie sheet and place the chicken on top of the drying rack.
***Now, if you’re not interested in buffalo wings, you’re done at this point. Let the chicken dry for a minute, and then serve with ranch, barbecue sauce, honey mustard or whatever you like. Good work, champ – these taste great without the spicy stuff. However, if you are interested in saucing up, I’d recommend putting the chicken and drying rack/cookie sheet in the oven at about 200 degrees F to keep warm. Then…
Combine a cup of hot sauce, a stick of butter, four tablespoons of vinegar, and varying teaspoon-ish amounts of Worcestershire sauce, garlic powder and cayenne pepper into a pot or saucepan. Add a shake or two of salt and put it on medium heat. Stir occasionally and lower to low heat once the butter has fully melted into the mix. Take your chicken out of the oven and dump them in the pot/pan of sauce, rolling them around until coated. Remove the chicken from the sauce and place back on the drying rack/sheet to allow the excess sauce to drain off. Serve with ranch, bleu cheese, celery and carrots, and feast, my friend.