The Jerk Chicken Guys

Just twenty minutes ago — it’s 2:40 a.m. as I write this — I left a club called The Apothecary, where the weekly “Chicks Dig It” all-female DJ night is held. About a half-block away from the club, I started to smell something really delicious. I got closer and recognized it — the Jerk Chicken Guys have returned!

“‘ccordion mon, from the Philippine is-land. ‘ave some jerk chicken an’ rice an’ pe-as.”

The Jerk Chicken Guys are street vendors who set up shop sporadically, usually close by a club that’s having a reggae or dub night. As you’ve probably guessed, they serve jerk chicken, “jerk” being a peppery spice marinade rubbed onto chicken that is then barbecued over a smoky wood-and-charcoal fire. It’s served with “rice and peas” (which is actually rice and beans). The Jerk Chicken guys also serve pepperpot soup, salt fish and ackee (a mild fruit with huge black seeds native to Jamaica), and on precious few occasions, fried plaintains.

The Jerk Chicken Guys break every biz school rule in the book. They don’t keep any kind of regular schedule, nor do they have any particular location where they set up shop. They don’t observe strict quantity control; ask them really nicely (or play Bob Marley’s Three Little Birds on the accordion) and they’ll give you a little extra rice and peas (or in my case, throw in a free fried plantain). A time-and-motion expert would have a conniption watching them work — they go with the flow of the moment, rather than following a procedure that has been determined to increase their efficiency throughput. These guys operate on Island Time (or “Filipino Time“, as I call it). It takes a while to prepare proper Jamaican food — when you consider the ratio of money taken in to preparation time, jerk chicken with all the fixin’s has got to be way behind a Big Mac and fries. It’s the kind of operation that would never make it past “due diligence“. Considering the kinds of companies that have made it, that’s saying something.

You know what? Screw due diligence, screw market research and screw maximizing return on investment. When the Jerk Chicken Guys open up shop, the McDonald’s down the street takes a hit. That’s because all of us late-nighters know how much better spent five dollars is on a fresh-off-the-barbecue Jamaican food is than on a greasy Big Mac and a straight-from-the-heat-lamp paper bag of pre-molded fries. McDonald’s may have wider appeal, but its popularity comes from its food’s inoffensiveness; like hit radio, it’s paid for its popularity at the expense of any character. Rather than go with the universally accepted but bland McFood, all of us who’d just left the club were smacking our lips at char-broiled chicken legs in fiery jerk sauce matched with the mild flavour and rich texture of rice and peas. Same goes for the sea bass on rice in Chinatown, or the chicken-and-pesto pizza at Amato’s down the street.

The little guys do customer service better too. I think a lot of it has to do with the fact that they’re not victims of Taylor’s “scientific management” like the McDrones are. The roboticization of the employees — a side effect of the “less thinking, more doing” ethos of Taylorism — means that even though I’ve been a neighbourhood regular for eight years, they still have no idea who the hell I am. However, the Jerk Chicken Guys know me even though I’ve only bought food from them half a dozen times. The guys at the 24-hour hot dog stand — another idea that would never have passed muster with a business analyst — also know me and know that my favourite soft drink is Diet Coke. I don’t even have to place an order when I sit down at Excellent chinese restaurant; the waiters there look at me and say “Yeung Chow fried rice and Diet Coke, right?” with a smile. The guys at the Italian coffee shop, Lettieri, know that I prefer hot chocolate and mochaccinos to lattes. Walter, the manager of Amato pizza, walks among the club goers gathered outside his store, asking them if they liked their pizza, and if there’s anything he can do to make it better. And I like that the waitress at the new diner down the street, Shanghai Cowgirl, struck up a conversation with me about how The Hives and The White Stripes are going to save rock and roll. The most communication I’ve ever had from McDonald’s while at my table is a little sign that says my stay is limited to a maximum of twenty minutes.

As the Jerk Chicken Guys would say “Dere’s some t’ings still best done by de li’l guys, seen?”

McRadio

Back in the 80’s and early ’90’s, the Toronto radio station now known as Egde 102 used to go by its actual call latters, CFNY. Back then, the range of music they played was considerably wider: from Camper van Beethoven to Classical to Captain Beefheart to Kate Bush to Cabaret Voltaire to Christian Rock to KMFDM. I remember waking up to the radio to hear Neneh Cherry’s Buffalo Stance bookended by Public Image Limited’s Disappointed and Pop Will Eat Itself’s Wise Up Sucker and being quite pleased. They had a policy of not playing the same song twice between 9 and 5, and would never play a song more than twice a day, no matter how big a “hit” it was. They played stuff no one else would play: Public Enemy’s 911 is a Joke (considered “too controversial” by other stations), Laurie Anderson’s Language is a Virus, stuff by Game Theory’s terribly underrated Lolita Nation and in 1991, they tracks off an obscure little album called Gish by a then-unknown group called Smashing Pumpkins.

Today, in its pursuit of the larger demographic known as “mainstream alternative” — which consists largely of means poor rip-offs of hip-hop-meets-metal that Public Enemy and Anthrax did together with style and skill over a decade ago — Edge 102 is a mere shadow of its former self. They still have a few bright spots — namely the New Music Show, where they actually played The Hives’ Hate To Say I Told You So, and Martin Streek’s entertaining and informative History of New Music show. However, I’m getting tired of all the repetition. I don’t want to hear Creed, never mind the same damned Creed song every time I turn on the radio, and I’m this close to offering a cash reward to whoever can bring me the head of Dave Matthews.

The problem is that a lot of radio stations, especially those abominations owned by broadcasting networks like Clear Channel, think every day is Sadie Hawkins Day, where everything is topsy-turvy. Like Satanists who invert the cross and use urine for holy water, they treat the commercials as the main event and the music as the filler.

To them, the music is just the cheese in the trap. Since music is one of those idiosyncratic things, it’s better for them to play the musical equivalent of a McDonald’s hamburger — nothing terribly special, but inoffensive enough to appeal to a large number of palates. Both McDonald’s and radio know that if they can train you, Pavlov-style, to like and even crave their product, especially if you’re young, they’ll have have coming back. Radio stations are simply doing the math. Market research has shown that the average amount of time that someone actively listens to FM radio is about 15 minutes. In order to keep your attention long enough to expose you to a commercial, they have to increase the likeliness that you’ll hear a popular song or hit during that sliver of time. The only way to do that is to saturate the schedule with a handful of songs played in high rotation. If you’re getting bored by the repetition, it’s because you’re listening to more than your allotted share.

(And that’s the above-the-board stuff. Another reason you’re hearing the same stuff over and over again: payola.)

Another McTrick is to guarantee that you can get the exact same food at every branch; a Big Mac tastes the same whether you buy it in Toledo, Toronto or Tokyo. Broadcasting companies like Clear Channel use the same trick. Clear Channel classic rock station’s playlist will be the same no matter what city you’re in; in some cases, they use the same syndicated DJs during peak listening periods (although they make sure to record city-specific comments to give a little “local colour”).

Slag the McRadio formula all you want; it works. Clear Channel’s fourth quarter 2001 results show a 49% increase in revenue, meaning that they raked in 8 billion dollars.

Jerk chicken radio

Internet radio isn’t driven by business plans, but by the music. They’re not jockeying for market share; they’re just filling a hard drive with their favourite music and letting broadcasting software like Shoutcast or Icecast randomly select songs for playback. It’s a wonderful thing when you’re suddenly exposed to music chosen because someone liked it rather than because it’s just enough bait to make you listen to a commercial. A world of new and not-necessarily-radio-friendly music — Stereolab, Le Tigre, the Appalaichian strains from the Oh Brother Where Art Thou? album, to name a few — opens up. Like any little-guy operation, each Internet radio station is simply producing what they lovem and there’s a station for every taste, no matter how offbeat. Even better, I can immediately find out what I’m listening to simply by looking at the display — the song’s name appears right there on iTunes’ or WinAmp’s display. If it’s something new, I can switch to my browser and Google the artist’s name to find out more. In the three years I’ve been listening to it, I’ve discovered new music (and rediscovered some old stuff) and bought what I really liked. You’d think that the music industry would like this development.

Not a chance.

(More later, gotta get back to work…)

Indie Incubation: The Complete Page

I finished getting all the photos and writing smart-ass captions for the Indie Incubator photo essay.

Check it out or I’ll send the scary girl in the pink dress and leg warmers after you. Although you might like that, you sicko.

So wrong it’s right

Good taste, Harley Parker (he designed Marshall McLuhan’s book, Counterblast, after which the NYU journal is named) once said, is the refuge of the witless. There’s wit aplenty in an online comic that has the following line:

“I’ll give you a buck if you promise to ask Daddy why Mommy’s goodnight kisses are so salty.”

Any comic with a line like that has got to be worth reading. And Something Positive is.

Twice the yolky goodness

Today’s breakfast is a croque madame, which is just a snooty french way of saying “ham and cheese sandwich with an over-easy egg on top of it”.

The eggs we have in the fridge at the moment are the preternaturally large. They look as if they’d been laid by turkeys, not chickens. Better still, these are “Super Bon-ee” doubles — there’s a guarantee that at least half the eggs in the carton will have double yolks. My housemate Paul and I are keeping a tally to see if it’s true. So far, we’re at three double-yolks, one single.

Here’s a question for any egg farmers out there: how do they ensure such a high percentage of double-yolk eggs? Sorting by optical means (I remember reading something about houw you could see a chick embryo inside an egg using only a candle)? Selective hen breeding? Something they put in the chicken feed? Radiation?

I may end up mutated eating this stuff, but I’m going to have some killer Eggs Benedict on the way there.

A real-life Niles Crane in the making

My sister went to visit her friends Tanya and Ian yesterday. Tanya and Ian are lawyers who live in Forest Hill, a very tony part of town, a neighbourhood so WASPy that they step out of the shower to pee.

While serving snacks, Tanya was asked by her four-year-old son: “Mom, may I have some Perrier in a sippy cup?”

This kid’s going to go places. Or get beaten up a lot. Possibly both.

Amato Pizza, late Saturday night

(Not my usual branch of Amato — Queen Street West — but the uptown one at St. Clair West. I was there with my friend Anne and Gil, a visitor from Israel. I had my accordion with me — natch — and was spotted by a table of white high school kids in sports-cum-hip-hop clothing.)

Guy #1: I bet he’ll play accordion for us.

Girl #1: Could you please play something for us?

Girl #2: I know what the keyboard does, what do the buttons do?

(I play the first verse of Sloan’s Underwhelmed and a little Jungle Brothers, collect my applause, answer some questions about the accordion – “I taught myself, the buttons play chords,” etc., etc.)

Guy #2: Damn, you must be the biggest pimp at all the clubs!

Girl #1, to Anne, pointing at me: Do you go out with him? He’s so cool!

Anne: I used to think he was, when I was 19.

(Anne gets some money for pizza from me, and walks to the counter. I bemoan the fact that high school girls of my era didn’t hold me in the same esteem as today’s do.)

Me: She’s one of the “Exes of Evil”.

(I shrug.)

Girl #1, surprised: Whoa. Sometimes a girl doesn’t know when she’s got it good.

Guy #2, making “Westside!” hand sign: Straight up, yo!

True dat.

An early look at Indie Incubation

Indie Incubation was the showcase of indie bands where we played Friday. Check out this still-under-construction Web page featuring shots of the band, our friends and our friend Tina’s new band, Fresh Meat.

Here’s one of many entertaining and artistic shots you’ll see if you check it out:

Enticing, no? Click here for more.

The Steam Whistle Brewery Gig: A Quick Update

It’s too nice a day to stay indoors, so this posting’s going to be really quick.

Last night’s gig at the Steam Whistle Brewery went really well. We won over a crowd that was ready to see nothing but emo (for instance, the first band’s songs were all of the “nobody loves me” variety) with waltzes like Sweet Jezebel and Kate-Bush-meets-Billy-Corgan epics like Many Moons. Lindi and the band were in fine form; I really loved the backbeats that our new drummer Devin was playing. The crowd sat up and took notice during the set, after which there was a rush to buy Lindi’s CDs. I got a lot of compliments on the accordion playing and a couple of people came up to me and said “I just want to run out and buy myself an accordion right now!”

It’s a great feeling, finally being a key part of a band’s sound and catching the love from the audience. Thanks, Lindi, for taking a chance on a goofy accordion player.

I’ll post a full set of photos from the gig, including some great shots of Fresh Meat, our friend Tina’s band, soon.

Now I’m going to run outside and get some fresh air.

Give me that old-time blood libel

Purim: the extremely abridged version

Someone once observed that most Jewish holidays could be summed up as “they tried to kill us, they didn’t, let’s eat!”

The Jewish Holiday of Purim is, in this gentile’s opinion, the best holiday because it’s the most festive. You’ve got the “they tried to kill us” angle with a genocidal plot, the “they didn’t” angle in that in the end, the plot was folied and the enemies of the Jews who were executed instead, and naturally you’ve got the eating. As an added bonus, you’ve got Irish-on-St.-Patrick’s-Day levels of boozing, a Hallowe’en-like donning of costumes, and everything gets turned upside-down in a fashion similar to Sadie Hawkins’ Day. In McDonald’s terms, you could say that this holiday’s been super-sized.

There’s a special pastry baked for this occasion called hamentaschen, which mean’s “Hamen’s hat”. These triangular pastries recall the three-cornered hat of Hamen, the vizier of the king of Persia (the country now known as Iran) who plotted to kill all the Jews just because one of them, a cat by the name of Mordechai, refused to bow to him. Clearly Hamen had some serious self-esteem issues. Hamen slandered the Jews in order to get the King’s approval for his genocidal plan, which was eventually thwarted by Queen Esther.

“I’ll take my hamentaschen extra-rare, please”

When last I checked, hamentaschen had fillings like poppy seed, apricot, dates and in one very yummy instance, chocolate (I’ll celebrate any holiday with anyone as long as there’s food involved). I don’t ever recall blood being used as a filling, which the Saudi paper Al-Riyadh claims is traditional in this editorial:

“I [Dr. Umayma Ahmad Al-Jalahma of King Faysal University in Al-Dammam] chose to [speak] about the Jewish holiday of Purim, because it is connected to the month of March. This holiday has some dangerous customs that will, no doubt, horrify you, and I apologize if any reader is harmed because of this.”

“During this holiday, the Jew must prepare very special pastries, the filling of which is not only costly and rare – it cannot be found at all on the local and international markets.”

“Unfortunately, this filling cannot be left out, or substituted with any alternative serving the same purpose. For this holiday, the Jewish people must obtain human blood so that their clerics can prepare the holiday pastries. In other words, the practice cannot be carried out as required if human blood is not spilled!!”

The article goes on to claim that hamentaschen filling is made from the blood of an adolescent gentile and describes a pretty gruesome bloodletting process that is supposedly overseen by a rabbi. The story contradicts the fact that in order to be Kosher, food has to be blood-free.

It’s yet another example of blood libel, a term I haven’t heard since doing a project for comparative religion studies back in high school. Blood libel is accusing that people you don’t like perform unspeakable horrors, most often something like the killing of children. It started in medieval times with the accusation that Jews used the blood of Christians to make matzoh for Passover, and exists to this day in many forms. As the Al-Riyadh story shows, it’s still used to slander Jews, but it’s expanded to become an all-purpose smear tactic. There have also been “Fu Manchu”-style horror stories about the Chinese eating fetuses not only as a delicacy, but as a way of prolonging life and about witchcraft-practicing pro-choice feminists whose rituals call for human sacrifice in the guise of abortion.

I’m not certain which I find more disturbing: that a national newspaper still prints this kind of stuff, that some significant portion of Al-Riyadh’s readership just might believe it or that the story, which is printed by a government-controlled paper, was approved by a taste-tester who reports to the House of Saud, who are supposed to be our allies in the war as well as architects of a proposed Palestine/Israel peace plan.

(I’m assuming that the translation provided by MEMRI — the Middle East Media Research Institute — is accurate. I believe it is because blood libel is an age-old form of slander. Anti-semitic blood libel still exists today in other places: there have been documentary films that perpetuate the myth, and it’s also something that the neo-Nazis like to bring up once in a while.)

One final note

At one point in the article, Dr. Al-Jalahma states that during Purim “the Jews wear carnival-style masks and costumes and overindulge in drinking alcohol, prostitution, and adultery.”

That’s not Purim, you moron, that’s Mardi Gras!

Kick Ass Karaoke,

March 2002

Once again, it’s the Wednesday closest to the middle of the month, so that means Kick Ass Karaoke at the Bovine Sex Club! This was a particulary fun Kick Ass Karaoke: the crowd was wild and cute, and the accordion’s chick magent powers were serving its master well. Take note, boys: an accordion is cheaper and possibly more effective than Coincidence Design’s consultation services.

I performed two number tonight: OMC’s How Bizarre and Fatboy Slim’s Rockafella Skank. Mike D told me that he was playing Rockafella Skank at the office today when one of his co-workers said “Hey! That’s the Accordion Guy song!“. Memo to Fatboy Slim: Nyeah, nyeah, nyeah.

To my surprise, Lindi showed up. To everyone’s surprise, Lindi and Tina started a contest to see who could put a bottle into her mouth the deepest. I think Lindi won. Us boys just watched the competition in awe. Could this be an Olympic sport in 2004?

Here are some of the Kick Ass regulars peforming…

At one point, someone walked up to me and asked “Do you work at a dot-com?”

I replied “I used to work at a dot-bomb. I named the urinal mint of a company for which I used to work.

They turned out to be art directors for R.O.B. Magazine, a branch of The Globe and Mail (“Canada’s National Newspaper”). In March 2001, the magazine ran an article called Peer-to-Peer to Profits ( the text of the article appears here), in which the company was profiled. The one photo that accompanied the article featured the three founders — Grad Conn, John Henson and Cory Doctorow (actually, it was Paula Martins holding up a picture of Cory in front of her face) — and me, playing my accordion. We chatted for a while, and I told them about Peekabooty. One of them, Vanessa, told me to drop her a line about the project when it was near completion. Cool.

Here’s some other silliness:

Some new (and cute) faces showed up this evening…

Two of the bands performing at the Steam Whistle Brewery this Friday were represented at Kick Ass Karaoke tonight: Tina, whose band, Fresh Meat, will be playing along with Lindi and her band (featuring yours truly). Miss this gig at your peril.