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.

On "Brick Wall" Songs, Part 1

Former Pantera lead vocalist and most angry mean-mugger in the world Phil Anselmo is back in the news again for potentially, maybe, possibly spouting some white power nonsense at a concert. He's played it off as a joke, which it easily could have been, but listen man, at some point, if it looks like a racist, walks like a racist, and talks like a racist, it's probably Phil Anselmo.

With that said, Pantera is still at the top of my "bands that make me want to run through a brick wall (in a good way)" list, and it's not because I did any particularly close parsing of Phil's lyrics or anything. It's because Dimebag Darrell's guitar is an actual buzzsaw, and because if I ever get into a bar fight, I want something by Dime, Rex Brown and Vinnie Paul playing in the background.

With that said, I'm going to start compiling a list of songs that would make me want to run through a brick wall (and you're damn right I've been doing this on my own way before Drew Magary was). It's a pretty simple concept - if it amps you up for some lizard-brain, primal, physical activity (such as, for example, running through a brick wall), it goes on this list. That's the only qualification. They'll mostly be fast, they'll mostly be heavy, and they'll (again, mostly) be good.

This is in no particular order, aside from "the order in which I thought of them":

-"Mouth for War" - Pantera
-"Walk" - Pantera
-"I'm Broken" - Pantera
-"F***ing Hostile" - Pantera
-"A New Level" - Pantera
-"Bad Habit" - The Offspring
-"All the Rage" - Funeral for a Friend
-"Addicted to Pain" - Alter Bridge
-"The Hellion/Electric Eye" - Judas Priest
-"Breaking the Law" - Judas Priest
-"Shoot to Thrill" - AC/DC
-"Blood and Thunder" - Mastodon
-"The Wolf is Loose" - Mastodon
-"Welcome Home" - Coheed and Cambria
-"Seek & Destroy" - Metallica
-"Master of Puppets" - Metallica
-"M.A.A.D City" - Kendrick Lamar
-"It's Time to Party" - Andrew W.K.
-"Party Hard" - Andrew W.K.
-Okay Fine, Everything by Andrew W.K.
-"Needles" - System of a Down
-"Chapter Four" - Avenged Sevenfold
-"Critical Acclaim" - Avenged Sevenfold
-"Pulse of the Maggots" - Slipknot
-"Under a Killing Moon" - Thrice
-"Gonna Fly Now" - Bill Conti
-"Caught in a Mosh" - Anthrax
-"Hit the Floor" - Linkin Park
-"Solidarity" - Enter Shikari
-"Gandhi Mate, Gandhi" - Enter Shikari
-"The Paddington Frisk" - Enter Shikari
-"No Sssweat" - Ener Shikari
-"Freedom" - Rage Against the Machine
-"Surprise! You're Dead!" - Faith No More
-"Superhero" - Faith No More
-"White Limo" - Foo Fighters
-"Siberian Kiss" - Glassjaw
-"In the Meantime" - Helmet
-"Sick Sick Sick" - Queens of the Stone Age

On 50,000 Miles (Part 1)

Last week, my car officially hit the 50,000 mile mark. Huzzah!

Okay, so not every one of those miles was mine – I bought my 2011 Hyundai Elantra Touring back in November 2014 with a tick under 26,000 already on the odometer. But let’s be real here: the previous owner put 26,000 miles on the car in 3 years, and I’ve doubled that in just over a year. I’m taking ownership of all 50,000. I’m applying to the Government of Hyundai Motor Company to grant me those first 26,000 via eminent domain.

While that paperwork processes, though, I’m going to take a look back at what exactly I did in the past 15 months to rack up all those miles, wear out the tread on my tires and completely filth up what was, at the time of purchase, a relatively clean car.

1. Drive to Kentucky (and Fredericksburg and Pittsburgh)

What better way to test out a new (certified pre-owned) set of wheels than to immediately take it out on a 1,000+ mile jaunt through the South? One week after I bought the car, Miss Kazblog and I drove down through Maryland, Virginia and West Virginia to the Bluegrass State to drink all the bourbon visit my mother, who lives in scenic Bowling Green. Along the way, we stopped in Fredericksburg to visit our college buddy Wiley, who plays guitar in a pretty cool band called Melodime. We grabbed some beers, reminisced about the good ‘ol days and watched the Browns actually win a football game (which I’m convinced is the main reason I remember that night)

Once we got to Bowling Green, it was day trip after day trip – a drive out to the Woodford Reserve distillery, an afternoon at the Corvette museum (complete with cars in a pit!), a day trip to go EAT BOURBON BALLS BECAUSE EVERYTHING IS BOURBON. It was a grand time.

On our way back, we swung up to Pittsburgh to visit more old college friends, play the Antiques Roadshow Drinking Game (more on that later) and revisit the South Side to see what it looked like during the day instead of at 2 AM in an alcoholic haze.

2. Drive to my (kind of) new job

My previous department was “exited” a few days after I bought my car, which could have been disastrous for someone who just made a major purchase. Fortunately, we were simply moved to a new area at the building that just happens to sit a mile up the road from my house. This resulted in much fewer miles driven daily and many more trips home for lunch/to screw around for 10 minutes before driving back to work. Some days, I’d even walk if I felt like a complete lunatic.

3. Drive to class

In January 2015, I started graduate school, the first time I’d taken an academic course in nearly four years. I was convinced I’d be the old grump in a class full of students who’d just gotten out of undergrad eight months prior. As it turned out, I was the youngest in my massive, diverse class of….er, I mean, my six-person class where I was the only man. The course, entitled “Communication Content and Behavior,” gave me a chance to write about the Internet, music festivals and social media in a way that didn’t feel like complete bullshit, which was cool.

It was weird being in school at first, since I was usually driving up right after work in a dress shirt and slacks; the only chance that Undergrad Kaz had of doing that was if he was interviewing the POTUS or going to court. But four years away from “the game” of academia makes you long for some of the aspects of school that you don’t appreciate when you’ve attended for 16 consecutive years – namely, that intellectual stimulation is good and crummy Chinese food still tastes great on a 20-degree night. I’m glad I had the layoff so I could truly appreciate what I was missing, and I’m glad I’m back again.

On B.o.B. and Flat Earth Truthers

B.o.B. thinks that the earth is flat, and that’s great.

Let me make this clear: I am aware the earth is round. Round, round, round, round, round. B.o.B. doesn’t agree with me, nor does Sherri Shepherd, nor do the members of the Flat Earth Society. And all of that is fine.

To be frank, whether the earth is round of flat is not a topic I’ve paid much mind to for the overwhelming majority of my life. It has little impact on my day-to-day life. Of course, if the earth were flat, there would be incredible differences in our climate and the Cubs probably would have won another World Series by now.

But let’s just say, hypothetically, that every stipulation the Flat Earth Society lays out that would theoretically make a flat earth possible do, in fact, exist. What would likely happen tomorrow is that I would wake up, make a pot of coffee, go to work, go to class, come home, and fall asleep. Or, put another way, not a damn thing would be different.

Of course, I can’t hold this apathetic attitude towards all scientific theories or questions, like climate change or fracking or the Cubs’ failure to win a World Series for over a century. In the amount of time I am allotted in a day, week, month, year or lifetime, though, I simply don’t have the capacity to consider the round vs. flat earth “question” the way that B.o.B. has. This is why, as crazy and regressive as B.o.B.’s thoughts are, I’m glad someone is thinking this much about something everyone takes for granted, even if it mostly just means he missed a couple second-grade science classes.

A common joke/lamentation I’ve heard about people who spout off these thoughts is something along the lines of, “Just think: this person gets to vote,” implying that because someone has an intellectual hole in one aspect of their life, that they can’t possibly possess intelligent thoughts in other areas. (Similar comments are made, mostly by Hitchens-esque antatheists, about the religious)

Let me personalize this again: I spend 7-10 hours a week during fall and winter watching professional football. I’m obsessed with Sonic the Hedgehog and know far more about his backstory than I know about, say, what my own state’s governor’s policies on anything other than issuing states of emergency. My greatest scholastic achievement was graduating college despite co-creating a drinking game for the Antiques Roadshow.

Remind me again why I’m more qualified to pick an elected official than a rapper who thinks the earth is flat, but at least seems to have thought about it a lot.

Neil deGrasse Tyson said it best after dismantling B.o.B.’s flat earth arguments: just because he’s wrong about the shape of the Earth doesn’t mean we can’t like (or dislike) his music. B.o.B. is, after all, a rapper, and while this may not excuse his, uh, dated understanding of the world’s shape, it may call into question why exactly we care.

On Meteorologists Getting it Right (But No One Noticing)

On the whole, meteorologists got this weekend’s snowstorm right. That doesn’t mean they won’t get the requisite amount of shit from the angriest/snarkiest among us when they get something wrong next time.

It’s a pastime up there with “complaining about construction” and “making sarcastic comments about the Oscars.” Mockery of weathermen and women mostly comes about when storms like this underperform. I truly believe there’s a segment of the population upset that the snowstorm dumped the predicted amount of snow (officially measured at “a whole freaking ton”), as it robbed them of a chance to take those lying bastards at AccuWeather down a peg.

In advance of this weekend’s storm, a meteorologist friend of mine posted an op-ed e written by a fellow meteorologist, Becky Elliot, in the Washington Post lashing out at the heat forecasters take when Winter Storm JONAS turns out to be winter storm jonas. (Also, remember when everyone said that the Weather Channel naming winterstorms like hurricanes was dumb?)

Elliot’s argument is two-pronged. First, she rails against a portion of the public’s tendency to turn individual storms or streaks of weather as an argument for or against climate change. This is a good point, because doing this is incredibly stupid, whether you’re arguing for or against global warming.

Secondly, she implores the public to lay off meteorologists when forecasts aren’t correct. Elliot says those in her line of work beat themselves up enough when forecasts are wrong, and that random assholes online or in the public eye who pile on aren’t helping. While this is certainly true, I’m less on board with this argument because I used to be a journalist.

Alright, a college journalist. But still.

As someone who studied media and still desires to work in media again, I used to feel the need to defend my journalistic brothers and sisters from every last detractor who bashed “irresponsible” journalism – which almost always meant the journalist presented a viewpoint that they didn’t agree with. It usually went something like this:

ARTICLE: Something People Are Very Passionate About

Commenter: This is awful journalism. They’re ignoring the real FACTS of the matter, which is that they’re WRONG.

Except this would play out in real life, and I would point out that not all journalists are paid based on online “clicks” and on the whole don’t allow slant or bias to populate their stories…and it wouldn’t matter. People who aren’t heavily invested in a particular field are happy to carry on with their preconceived notion of the field. This is in part because it allows people to act like experts about jobs or lines of work that they aren’t familiar with, and because it fits with their existing worldview. It’s the same reason retail workers or food servers have strong opinions about how customers should treat them at their place of business when most people just wish they’d get their coupons processed or get their order right FOR ONCE (even though said retail workers or food servers get it right 9 times out of 10).

Point is, if a person is the type of individual to blast the entire practice of meteorology, or economics, or customer service, or whatever, based upon one or two noticed inaccuracies in contrast to 98 unnoticed instances of good work…that person’s probably not going to change their worldview because one person says “lay off.” It’s a lot easier for someone to play Monday morning quarterback than acknowledge someone else’s good work.

On Joy

My girlfriend and I were discussing cleaning out closets a few weeks ago because a. I was complaining about having a bunch of old dress shirts that don't fit me anymore, b. she was complaining about having a bunch of clothes she doesn't wear anymore, and c. this is the stage of our lives that we are in.

My room, and the house I live in, is generally junked up. Papers, books, headphones, you name it. Much of it I could conceivably throw away without issue, but I'm paralyzed by fear that I may wake up sweating bullets at 3 AM at some point in the future screaming, "I MUST READ THE FREE COMIC BOOK DAY EDITION OF THE SONIC AND MEGA MAN CROSSOVER."

My girlfriend (who says she's going to start a rival blog called "Miss Lady Kazblog" focused on how terrible traffic on the Ben Franklin Bridge is and Adventure Time plot analysis) brought up a rule of thumb she'd read to help clear the clutter: "If it doesn't bring you joy, get rid of it."

It sounds a little too clean and cosmic at first. You can't just get rid of stuff because it doesn't thrill you when you use it. My toothbrush does not necessarily bring me "joy," unless I've elected to go without it for a few days. (Listen, you try to set a Guinness World Record your way and I'll try mine)

As I turned it over, though, it made complete sense to me with a simple, possibly obvious, addition: if it doesn't bring you joy, or if it isn't a conduit for joy, get rid of it. And that's something you can expand to life in general.

I bring my own lunch to work to save money. This means I spend 10-20 minutes a week making lunch for myself instead of waiting in line at the Cafe du Crap for their heat-lamp chicken fingers (only $5 for three!). Many nights, this is incredibly tedious, but I do it because I know the $5 I'm saving can be used towards, say, actual food. Good food. WAWA FOOD. Which I will get on Tuesday or Thursday nights on my way home from class at night. Joy!

Speaking of class, this is something that brings me genuine joy, which is something college Matt would never have said. I've had trepidations about returning to school for years, but decided to take the plunge last spring because I thought it would help my career. In fact, it's proven to be a great part of my week, last-minute papers aside.

If all I had was the murky prospect of potentially getting a better job at an indefinite point in time...well, what's the joy in that? That's not an excuse to just drop out of school and be short-sighted;, of course. Working towards a better job should be exciting because, even if it's not your dream, it'll enable you to do other things you might like, like start a family or travel the world. If none of those appeal to you, then maybe you're not cut out for the traditional "American Dream"-type life. And that's not a bad thing!

There will be aspects of things that bring you joy that you hate. Writing papers for a class you're iffy on in the service of a degree you'd love to have is a necessary evil. Attending shitty meetings at work could be the thorn in your rose of a career...or, if you don't like the work itself to boot, it's your incentive to work your way out of there. You might love driving your new Audi, but damn it if you're not going to have to go to the DMV at some point.

The point of this rambling, stream-of-consciousness post is to make space for joy. This is a pretty idealistic way of looking at things, and perhaps there are circumstances that will prevent you from finding it in all aspects of your life. That's fine. Everyone deals with rough patches, whether they're hours long or months long.

But if you're in a rough patch, take stock of your surroundings. Perhaps there's something else causing you so much grief that it's causing you view of other things that do bring you happiness to sour. It's a good exercise to work through how something - a job, a person, an activity, a pair of shoes, an Adam Sandler movie collection on DVD - could potentially still bring you joy.

And if it doesn't? Well, just put it where you normally keep your Adam Sandler DVDs.

On Binge-Watching (Guest Post)

(Ed. Note - I am currently getting reacquainted with a location known as "my home," a place I've been in for a total of 16 hours over the course of the last 2 days. In the interim, please enjoy this guest post from my good friend, former podcast co-host and the world's foremost expert on the oldest persons in the world, Keegan King I will return to my normal posting schedule tomorrow, with an additional makeup post coming tomorrow or Friday.)

Alas, as predicted by George R.R. Martin, winter has come.  As I joyfully gaze at the weather app on my phone (It's A Hot One), I quickly realize that I may never want to go outside again.  What can a sad, sad soul do after coming home from his/her sad, sad job?  Besides the obvious answer of descending into increasingly troubling alcoholism, of course?

Let me give some quick backstory by quickly revealing two pieces of information about myself.  I’m a big fan of Lost, and the first time in my life I had the fortitude to “binge-watch” a television show, it was so that I could catch the finale of Lost LIVE! and feel the glorious disappointment of Lost LIVE! 

But the more I thought about what I did, and heard my mom’s voice in my head criticizing my poor decision making and telling me she taught me better and that I’m a disappointment not just to her but to the whole family, etc., the more I decided that binge-watching is the only correct way to watch television.  In just a few short weeks, I caught up on, and finished a series that others were watching for six long years.

I made the choice that only in one rare circumstance would I try to follow along with a show, live, week-by-week and season-by-season.  This circumstance is, of course, the moment of public shaming when that guy says, in his highest-and-mightiest voice, “What do you MEAN you haven’t seen Mr. Robot!?”  So now I’m obviously going to be watching Mr. Robot like the rest of the dirty peasant TV masses. (Ed. note - I thought this was a joke title. Nope. This is a real show)

By making the honest choice to binge-watch during these cold, lonely winter nights, further research can be done into a show’s true credentials.  Better choices can be made when you are able to ask honest opinions about similar shows, and get reactions by folks who have already been pleased/disappointed.  Should I watch Rick and Morty? I heard it was a pretty weird show. “Hell yes!” yelled the masses back.  In five nights, I watched two seasons.

Some detractors might say that I’m devaluing the “pay-off,” or that they get to spend six years enjoying Breaking Bad when I get just three weeks.  But my response is that there’s just TOO much television programming.  I can binge-watch entire serii every three weeks for eternity, and will have only seen 10% of the quality television programs out there: quality original programming on some online video streaming thing like “The Netflix” or Amazon Prime TV; premium programming on HBO, Showtime or Starz; regular broadcasting stations, like NBC, FOX, CBS or ABC; or even cable stations, such as FX, AMC or USA.  

There’s just too much good TV not to binge-watch.  And it’s kind of becoming a cool tradition, at least for me, is to play binge-watch-catch-up so that you can see the last few episodes of a beloved series live.

On Martin Luther King, Jr.

Martin Luther King, Jr. was a good person. He did a lot of really good things. He was very smart and gave good speeches. He had a national holiday named after him because he was so good. More people should be good like Martin Luther King, Jr.

-Matt Kasznel, 2nd grade

On Peyton Manning's Forehead

Listen, I know professional athletes are creatures of habit, perhaps none more so than Peyton Manning. So if the Sheriff's found a particular make and model of helmet that works for him, more power to him. But it's been so many years since I've started noticing this huge bruise in the middle of his forehead when he pulls the hat off that I'm starting to become legitimately concerned.

I've left a too-tight fitted cap on for a whole night and wound up with that nice red ring around my skull, but it's never gotten as purple and bruised as Manning's forehead in the midst of every single game. I barely recognized Manning on the sidelines during the Broncos' Week 16 game as he nursed his myriad injuries because he didn't have that black and blue mark shaped like a Yoshi's Story boss in the center of his noggin.

Manning is known as a slave to routine, so obviously he prefers headgear that bursts as many blood cells as possible. But why? Does the helmet inject hours of game prep directly into his cerebellum as the game progresses? He has a mythical devotion to tape study, but he's also swamped with advertisements and dismissing HGH claims; maybe he's too busy to spend 45 hours a week in the film room.

Speaking of HGH, Manning has vehemently denied the Al Jazeera story suggesting he used it to help him heal from his troublesome neck injury back in 2012. But he never said anything about anabolic steroids, which has a tendency to cause a user's head to balloon to the size of a beach ball. Maybe Manning's been on the cream and the clear for the better part of the last two decades and we simply didn't know.

Maybe the mark is like the talking scorpion in Orphan Black that tells the ruthless assassin Helena what to do. Or maybe the helmet pushes the blood circulation in his head through specific parts that tells him when to audible to an HB Circle X Sluggo, or when to move his linemen to protect against an A-gap blitz, or to remind him to never throw the ball to Vernon Davis, or to never let Brock Osweiler back into the game again.

Maybe the mark looks exactly like the layout of Omaha. Does anyone know what Omaha looks like? Is Omaha even a real city, or is it just a figment of our imagination, a city we hear about in storybooks and songs?

I'm worried about you, Peyton. Don't kill all those valuable brain cells because you're worried about losing your helmet on a huge sack - the rules very clearly state you personally are not allowed to get hit, anyway.

(Also, congrats on winning and stuff)

On "Bar Resue" and Alcohol

I don't like reality/improvement shows, but I love Bar Rescue.

The arc of each episode is identical: Jon Taffer, screaming lunatic and bar expert, comes to a comically awful bar that is usually woefully understaffed by lazy bartenders, incompetent cooks, and apathetic owners. Taffer and whatever cocktail-making, food-serving friends he brings with him sweep into the bar, humiliates the staff in front of their customers, berates them in private, then magically transforms the run-down dive into a shiny new establishment. In the process, Taffer also somehow manages to solve whatever personal issues plaguing the owners, from workplace arguments to domestic issues - you know, because a nightclub mogul is the guy you want smoothing over your failing marriage.

Let's set aside the wisdom of putting expensive, state-of-the-art taps, cooking tools, and entertainment gadgets in the hands of bar employees who, just days prior to the renovation, were totally okay with drinking behind the bar and serving beer in gunked-up glasses while rats ran around the restaurant. (Turns out giving someone with a suspended license the keys to a Ferrari doesn't always work out in the long run)

Taffer seems to pull 90 percent of the bar concepts out of his ass - the first 50 minutes of the episode focus on ripping the existing staff a new one, then magically, a new bar just reappears with five minutes left in the show. Supposedly, all the renovations are done in "two days" or so. How structurally sound are these places? Does anyone know how to sustain the place after he leaves?

And yet, in spite of all this, I love this show.

The show is almost never on in individual episodes, which means whole Sundays can be spent watching a huge-lipped greaser build new bars and cripple the self-esteem of people living paycheck to paycheck. But it's so much fun learning about new cocktails, seeing new types of bars and gawking at fancy toys (like a TV that doubles as a mirror when it's off). About an hour and a half into a marathon, I'm planning out my own bar in some abandoned building in Newark. We're COMING FOR YOU, Timothy's.

It's only fitting that watching a fun, predictable show about bars during the day lends itself well to a drinking game. So in the second installment of our Drinking Games series, I give you...

The Official Kazblog Bar Rescue Drinking Game

Take one sip every time:

• An employee angrily walks out of the bar
• An employee cries
• Mosquitoes, fruit flies, roaches, or any other bugs are found in the bar
• The "stress test" fails (spoiler alert: it always fails)
• The bartender or chef is resistant to/rejects a new technique for doing their job
• Cross-contamination is found in the kitchen
• Taffer says "You think that's funny?"
• Taffer calls someone a failure
• Taffer talks about line of sight/vision
• Someone finds standing water in the bar or kitchen

Take two sips every time:

• A bar manager or owner angrily walks out of the bar
• Rodentia are found in the bar
• Taffer shuts down the bar
• The new bar has to do with sports

Finish your drink when:

• Taffer angrily walks out of the bar
• Taffer says "This place is disgusting!"

Shotgun a whole beer/take a full shot or drink when:

• Taffer can't save the bar

On Desert Island Albums, Pt. 1

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.

1. I Get Wet - Andrew W.K.

I'm not putting this first because it's my favorite album of all time. I'm doing it because I forget about it sometimes, and I refuse to do that this time, because I Get Wet is far and away the most fun album I've ever heard.

This is the first CD I bought that didn't include the words "Now" or "Radio Disney" in the title. I heard "Party Hard" on Madden 2003; after playing the game hundreds of hours and allowing AWK's pure adrenaline rush to bludgeon me for months, I finally made the leap: I asked my mom to take me to Target to buy it.

In the decade and a half since I Get Wet's release, Andrew W.K. has proven to be a far more eccentric and interesting fellow than the brain-dead self-wounding party animal that appears on his debut album's cover. But public persona aside, AWK's musical philosophy is much the same as his life philosophy: do what you want, live your life, and love pretty much everything. 

He's a purer, goofier, less nuanced version of a stereotypical hippie, and his unrelenting positivity is all over I Get Wet. Even "Ready to Die," with its chorus of "You'd better get ready to die/You'd better get ready to kill/You'd better get ready to run/'Cause here we come," blazes ahead as if our untimely demise was just another part of the all-night rager - which, given that cover photo, it very well could be.

I have listened to this album countless times and am 99 percent certain that not a single minor chord is played at any point. Maybe that was a conscious decision, but if it was, it's the most subtle artistic decision made on I Get Wet. There isn't a whole lot of room for subtlety on an album with eleventy billion guitar tracks stacked to the heavens and an army of party gremlins shouting along to every chorus. From the rocket-fueled opener "It's Time to Party" all the way through the closing anthem "Don't Stop Living in the Red" (although to be fair, pretty much every song on I Get Wet is designed to be an anthem) each note is an adrenaline rush coated in sugar, dipped in a 5-Hour Energy, and finished with a splash of 4 Lokos.

Like any candy high, too much of I Get Wet and you might get a headache. But for a half hour at a time, nothing will change your mood for the better/wilder the way I Get Wet will. And if I'm going to be stuck on a desert island for an infinite length of time, that's something I'm certainly going to need.

On Doug Pederson, Who's Actually Going to Coach the Eagles, I Guess

2016 is going to be a fun test for Eagles fans.

Chip Kelly is gone, run out of town before this past season could even end. The goodwill he built up after two 10-6 seasons was all spent thanks to an offeason power play that led to him assuming the role of general manager and making some questionable (read: wrong) personnel decisions. His coaching became uninspired and predictable – whether this was a result of his bad roster moves or other teams catching on to his once-revolutionary schemes depends on how much slack you’re willing to cut him.

He was arrogant. He thought he was smarter than he was. His college system was never going to work in the “National. Football. League.” He was kind of a dick to his players. Whether you believe all, some, or none of these things (I believe #2 and #4 – and a little bit of #1, but all NFL coaches are pretty arrogant to a degree), they’re all arguments made by Eagles fans to justify Kelly’s ouster.

It also made us nostalgic for Andy Reid, a lovable walrus who is also the best coach in Eagles history. Reid’s Kansas City Chiefs are currently in the playoffs, and they even won a game this postseason, something the Eagles haven’t done since Reid guided them to the NFC title game in 2009. Suddenly, that whole “grass is greener” thing seems to be coming true.

And thus, we have Doug Pederson.

If you’re not familiar with Doug Pederson, congratulations! This means you’re a regular, functioning human being with a healthy interest in football, as opposed to the obsessive nutjob you’d need to have in order to know who Doug f***ing Pederson is. (Two thumbs pointing at this guy) Eagles fans remember Doug from his time mentoring Donovan McNabb/getting the snot beaten out of him during Reid’s first year with the Birds. Since then, his NFL jobs have come while attached to Reid’s hip, including positions as quarterbacks coach and "offensive quality control" in Philadelphia and his current role as the offensive coordinator in Kansas City.

Well, actually, “offensive coordinator” is a fairly liberal use of the term for Pederson – he’s not actually in charge of the offense, nor does he call any plays. Reid says that Pederson has “input” into the offensive game plan and “sometimes takes over the play calling,” which is like handing your brother the controller in Mario Kart only after he complains for twenty minutes, and only after you have an insurmountable lead.

But Pederson is part of the fairly-successful Reid coaching tree, and presumably won’t cause problems with the front office the way Kelly did. Put another way, Pederson will most likely do damn near anything owner Jeffrey Lurie and general manager/corporate shill Howie Roseman want, mostly because Pederson is just so darn pleased as punch to even be thought of, by golly. “Well, call me a gigglin’ piggy, because I’m just tickled pink that someone’s talking to me! Talking to people is nice! I don’t do it much.”

Meanwhile, Chip is off to San Francisco to see if he can revive the career of Sad Colin Kapernick or Maybe Actually Not Terrible Blaine Gabbert (he really needs to get a better nickname). And if Kelly turns the 49ers around this season or next, it’s going to look awful bad for the Eagles.

Lurie fired Kelly with a game left to go this season because he wanted to get a head start on the coaching search. So it’s a little weird that the guy they wound up with is someone who, by all accounts, has received no other interest from any other team in the league. No one else interviewed Pederson this year. No one.

Several teams, however, did interview some of the bigger names on the coaching market, as did the Eagles. Presumably, since they started their coaching search before most other teams, the Eagles would have had pole position on this crop of candidates. Let’s see how it worked out, Johnny!

Hue Jackson – The Eagles never interviewed him. He signed with the Cleveland Browns, a festering cesspool that employs football players and hasn’t been to the playoffs since 1923.

Adam Gase – The Eagles had an eight-hour interview with the “quarterback guru” Gase, supposedly liked him a lot, but didn’t offer him a deal. The Dolphins did.

Bob McAdoo – Essentially the same type and caliber of coach as Gase, the Eagles interviewed him too, but he stayed with the Giants.

Sean McDermott - Just kidding! The Eagles never interviewed McDermott, which makes sense because whenever you have the chance to talk to the coordinator of one of the best defenses in the league, you need to completely ignore him. Of course, the Eagles have some history with McDermott, having fired him as their defensive coordinator years ago so they could replace him with an offensive line coach, which...hm...you know, actually, Andy Reid was pretty dumb sometimes.

Tom Coughlin – For some reason, the rebuilding Eagles wanted to hire a 69 year old Super Bowl-winning head coach who has no incentive to go anywhere he isn’t paid like royalty and given a roster that could make the playoffs. Lurie didn’t even get a chance to turn him down; Coughlin took his name out of the running, supposedly because he had concerns about the Eagles staff structure.

Oh yeah, speaking of the staff structure, it’s probably important to note that the Eagles don’t officially have a general manger right now since they fired Kelly, the coach/GM/snack nazi. This could mean that Roseman, who sucks, could become GM again, or that the Eagles think hiring a coach before hiring a GM is a good idea (it’s not), or that Lurie and his staff honestly don’t know what they’re doing and nothing makes sense and everything is getting all blurry and...*passes out*

Of course, these decisions could be part of some grand, elaborate scheme. Maybe giving themselves extra time to survey the coaching landscape led the Birds to realize that none of the big names were worth signing, so they tried for a diamond in the rough with Pederson. Maybe they knew Coughlin wasn’t going to sign with them and just wanted to pick his brain. Maybe the same could be said for Gase and McAdoo. Maybe the Eagles know who their GM is already and know that he/she is cool with Pederson as coach.

Maybe it’s all part of the plan. But we just got done with a coach who asked us to believe that all his crazy, nontraditional decisions were going to work out, and we didn’t like him. Just because he got fired doesn’t mean the people who fired him know any better.

And I swear to God, if Chip Kelly makes Colin Kaepernick good again...

On Laundry

This week's half-assed post that fulfills my New Year's obligation while still catering to my expanding to-do list comes to you because...

On Duquesne, Dougherty, and Dumb Dorm Decrees

The President is certainly leaving with a bang.

Not Obama, mind you, but Charles Dougherty, the president of my alma mater, Duquesne University. (Go Dukes!) Dougherty wraps up his third and final term later this year, and he’s exiting in a blaze of glory. Hold on, wait, I messed that up. What’s the opposite of “glory?” Shame? Despicableness? Thesaurus.com says “ill repute.” I kind of like that one.

Sure, Dougherty said some supportive stuff about Muslims in the wake of the Paris attacks, so cool. Good work, man. Now let’s get back to his open contempt/apathy for the student body as President.

So back in October, Dougherty spoke to the University’s faculty and addressed the growing number of students who leave dormitories for off-campus housing. Instead of citing, say, the greater cost of living on campus vs. off campus, or even giving a completely non-commital non-statement like “We’re exploring the reasons for this,” Dougherty decided to Prince Philip this one and state that students only move off campus because they like drinking and having sex a whole lot.

Three things about that:

1. Hell yeah.
2. The news editor of the Duquesne Duke student newspaper (for which I wrote and edited for three years in college) was in attendance. Did nobody decide to clue Dougherty in on that? Maybe a quick, “Hey, the organization that is almost exclusively geared towards student and school interests has a reporter here, maybe don’t say anything bad about their main readership this time” would have done the trick.
3. But seriously, Mardi Gras every weekend? Hell yeah.

Dougherty and team issued a half-assed apology afterwards, but hey: at that point, there were only eight more months in the Dougherty tenure, so what else could go wrong?

Well, as it turns out, there’s a little bitty Duquesne residence policy which states that, if your dormitory roommate doesn’t show up or leaves the dorm partway through the year, the University can charge you for the other portion of rooming costs if you don’t find a roommate on your own. Fortunately, the school provided students with a full nine days (!) after the beginning of the spring semester to find someone who they could feasibly live with for four months who also a. did not already have their living situation sorted out, or b. also had an abandoned roommate. Woo hoo!

It makes sense that the school wants to consolidate rooms and cut some of its potential losses from heating/cooling/lighting two rooms with one student apiece vs. one room with two students. But the logic and the optics of this series of decisions is amusing in just how poorly the school’s policy meshes with its public image.

Less than three months after the University president blames students’ desire for a “libertine” lifestyle for their drop in room and board revenue, the school then decides to stick with a policy that punishes students who do stay on campus (or who are given no choice by school policy) by sticking them with more of the bill…which they wouldn’t have to front had their roommate not left, which might not have happened if the University decided to produce a more competitive housing product in terms of quality and cost.

This can’t all be reasonably placed at Dougherty’s feet – I couldn’t tell you if he was responsible for the inane housing policy – but after those comments from October, it’s safe to say he doesn’t have a ton of opposition towards the policy. With only a few months left in his tenure, it might be a bad look to take a vacation, but after all the public pressure on him and the University over the past few months, it could be time to Dougherty to take a mid-winter vacation. Might I suggest New Orleans? They’re having a big party next month that he might enjoy…

On Bowie, Lemmy and Weiland

I’m not a huge David Bowie fan.

Didn’t really grow up with him. We had a Best of Bowie CD sitting in our little CD spindle under our stereo, but we rarely put it on – and if we did, I don’t recall being around for it. Obviously, I’m aware of “Under Pressure” and “Rebel Rebel” and some of his biggest songs, and they’re pretty good. But I’ve never been inclined to truly dive into his catalog.

Same thing with Motorhead – outside of “Ace of Spades,” I couldn’t reliably identify another Motorhead song by name, aside from their confusing cover of “Eat the Rich.” I could identify Lemmy’s throaty bark from a mile away, though. To a lesser extent, the same goes for Stone Temple Pilots. I know their catalog slightly better than Bowie or Motorhead, but it’s mostly Scott Weiland’s trademark wail singing his trademark vocal melodies that tip me off. They’re a perfectly fine band in my mind, but they didn’t directly shape my feelings on music.

So emotionally, hearing that each of these individuals – Bowie, Lemmy and Weiland –  were no longer with us brought more surprise than sadness, more shock than lament, more sorry for the people who are clearly more emotionally impacted. Bowie never let anyone know about his illness, and Lemmy and Weiland seemed as if they were going to live the life of rock ‘n’ roll excess in perpetuity. This is not intended to sound unfeeling, even though it surely does. There’s just a lack of emotional connection that drives this sort of grief, the type that you feel when someone you’ve never met personally and yet means so much to you dies.

One may call the process of turning the deaths of three musical legends into an excuse to discuss your own music preferences as selfish and demeaning, but honestly, the biggest reason folks are impacted by Bowie or Lemmy or Weiland’s loss isn’t because they were waiting with baited breath for their new release. (Yes, Bowie just put out an album recently, but you know what I mean)

No, it’s because music makes each individual feel a certain way, and we naturally personalize it. A completely non-scientific study of social media connections who posted about Bowie showed about half of them commented on specific traits of his music, like the guitar riff of “Suffragette City.” The other half mentioned how Bowie was the soundtrack of their high school years, and some of their most fun memories involved dancing to his music.

The best compliment I, as someone who greatly respects the talent of these three men without growing up with their presence, can pay to Bowie, Lemmy and Weiland is a compliment a friend of mine from college paid to Led Zeppelin. One of the best musicians I know, he said he never liked Zeppelin’s music, though he acknowledged their reach and talent. Same goes for my girlfriend, who doesn’t like the Beatles even though they’ve influenced many of the bands she enjoys.

I may not know many of Bowie’s songs, but his willingness to cross many genres and his defiantly non-macho public persona normalized experimentation for many bands that followed. Same with Weiland, who also brought a glam-rock persona to the generally grave genre of grunge, which many bands of the new millennium emulated (for better or worse). Lemmy…well, Lemmy’s unwavering devotion punk, thrash and blues have always been appealing, but his band’s relentles

sness (and his Herculean liver) became the stuff of legend.

That’s how it works with legends. Not everyone will be able to draw the line between the names Bowie, Lemmy and Weiland and the bands they enjoy who were influenced by those three, but the line certainly exists. Young basketball players and fans may look up to LeBron James and Kevin Durant today, but they’ll always know the name Jordan, the man that inspired James and Durant. And anyone who enjoys music, no matter how casually or seriously, will feel the influence of legends like Weiland, Lemmy, and especially Bowie for decades, whether they know it or not.

On Things That Should Stop, Vol. 1

Right after college, I started my first media-based website, Big K Media, for my friends and I to publish blogs, podcasts, and photographs. I was so good at managing the site that, about a year after starting the site, I somehow lost the entire thing. I tried moving it from one URL to another, and in the process every post ever created vanished into the ether. Naturally, the Internet was devastated – all four people who knew I had a website, at least.

One of the recurring segments I had on my own blog on the site was “Things That Should Stop.” It was an easy way for me to bitch and moan about a particular topic quickly. I’d mostly forgotten I had that bit until today, when my girlfriend brought up something that I’ve rolled my eyes at several times in the past.

I’m not talking about anything grand – listen, we know Donald Trump and white supremacists and rapists and McDonalds are all out to destroy the world and all that shit. I’m here in the nooks and crannies of society, taking down the insidious enemies that trip you up daily. People like…

Amazon Customers Who Replies to Questions They Have No Answer To

Let’s say you’re on Amazon – and by the way, if you’re morally and vocally opposed to Wal-Mart but order from Amazon on the reg, you’re part of the problem – and you’re looking at a new waffle iron. You want to know if you can adjust the temperature on the waffle iron. Lo and behold, someone else has asked the same question in the “Customer Question and Answer” section of the item’s page. And even better, someone has already answered! Wonderful! The consumer community comes together once again to better inform their fellow waffle sous chef!

Question:

Is there a temperature dial on the waffle iron?

Answer:

i don’t know. i haven’t bought this, I have an old one that’s pretty good though.
By joe assface on December 11, 2015

Welp, that’s it. You have no choice but to determine the IP address associated with the user and pinpoint the location associated with it so you can find and murder Joe Assface.

What this exchange means is that someone on the Internet was looking for waffle irons, or randomly happened upon the page for this particular waffle iron during their routine search for…I dunno…Mystery Men? They determined they don’t own this product, nor do they want the product (since they already own a different one that’s “pretty good”). And yet, they still went to the question and answer section, found a question about the product, and decided, “Let me lend my expertise to this situation and help this stranger out by not helping them at all!”

I would like to think that these people are trolls, but frankly, trolls have done such great work onAmazon that this seems beyond them. No, I am convinced these are legitimate people who respond to questions about products by saying they wouldn’t know because “it was a gift to someone” or “I’m not sure what you mean by this.” It’s quite possible that these people aren’t aware that billions of people use the Internet, and chances are that if you, Joan Whateverthehell, don’t know whether you can use this particular cast iron skillet as a makeshift Dutch oven, that one of those other people just might.

These are the people who think every message, question or declarative statement is being directed towards them, people who hear commercials for razors that start with “Men, we all appreciate a good shave” and immediately shout, “EXCUSE ME, BUT AS SOMEONE WITH ALOPECIA AREATA, I CANNOT RELATE TO THIS ADVERTISEMENT AND AM CONFUSED AND ENRAGED BY IT.”

Actually, that seems like too much of a sweeping judgment to make about these responders, and one that I don’t know if I’m qualified to make. I am so legitimately baffled by this behavior that I can’t say that it’s a particular type of person besides “sociopath.” But in a world full of Trumps and terrorists and the like, it’s almost more concerning to know that poor, innocent shoppers who just want to know how sturdy a fishing pole is will send their question into the abyss or the Internet and receive only a lonely answer in return: “I don’t really like fishing, so I couldn’t tell you.”