The first time I was in London, I had dinner at Mildred's Restaurant in Soho. Specializing in vegetarian and vegan cuisine, Mildred's staff served up one of the best dinners from my first visit and introduced me to sticky toffee pudding, an English favourite. It's certainly not vegan, or healthy, nor pudding to an American's way of thinking, but it is decadent, delicious and a must have at Mildred's.

Last night we decided to visit Mildred's again. My first visit, I had the mushroom pie with mushy peas and chips. A traditional English meal with a vegetarian twist, I recommended this one to my companion who wanted something more manly and less crunchy. It has a flaky crust that looks to be made with puff pastry and the mushy peas (not usually big with Americans) feature fresh mint and a hint of coriander. This entree is a great way to experience 'English food' without all the meat and grease.

I decided to try the butternut squash ravioli with mushroom sauce. The entree was listed on the light menu, so I thought it would be a good idea to order an organic mixed green salad with it. This is where the situation took an interesting turn.

Our food arrived and I immediately dove into the salad. It was plain enough looking, but the mix of greens, herbs, and a light vinaigrette tasted wonderful. I held the entire bowl up to my mouth and started shovelling.

That's when I realized that a big part of my salad was crawling out of the bowl.

A slug, the size of my pinky finger was slowly pulling himself out of the path of my fork. My companion was horrified.

I sat the bowl back on the table and laughed. This is not the first time I've found a slug buddy in an organic salad. This one, however, was a little harder to ignore. Once he reached the side of my bowl he began making his way to the table and I became concerned he would end up on the plate with the mushroom pie. Which, being close in color and texture to a slug, was a decidedly alarming thought.

I tried to be cool about the whole thing. I reassured, "ok, so this isn't a big deal, it happens all the time with organic produce, but I'm afraid I can't contain him. Maybe we should send this bowl back to the kitchen?"

Unbeknownst to me, the bowl was unceremoniously delivered back to the waiter.

A few seconds later, a shaken waiter appeared at my table, apologized and offered me the detox salad as a replacement. I happily agreed and let the guy know I wasn't too concerned about the whole thing. "It's totally ok," I said, "these things happen when it's organic."

My detox salad arrived and turned out to be a mix of shredded carrots, greens, sprouts and tofu. I chomped away until I was full and was even allowed to carry away my leftovers!

The best part of this story is that when it came time to pay the bill, our entire meal, drinks and all was on the house. We left a hefty tip, vowed to return and recommend Mildred's. Not just for the food, but the incredible service and commitment to treating customers right. Also, who doesn't welcome a little nature with their dinner?

Last night was all about cooking and testing out the Halloween make up. I made carrot and coriander* soup which is apparently an English favourite. It was tasty and would almost be good for you if it didn't involve double cream. Here's the recipe I used.

 

I also tried to recreate a beloved salad from home: fresh, roasted beets on a bed of spinach with goat cheese crumbles and balsamic dressing. Funny thing about shopping in the UK, everything is a surprise.

 

Take pickled beets, for example, packaged and displayed in the fresh vegetables aisle. Who would have effin' thought? Blows your mind, doesn't it? Pickled beets. Not canned. Wrapped in plastic and displayed next to fresh vegetables.

 

I believe that fresh beets exist somewhere in London. Look out beets, I'm coming to getcha!

Other things that don't seem to exist include: vegetable stock that isn't a cube, buttermilk, and pumpkins. PUMPKINS! Every pub in Soho has one in the window, but where do they buy them?

 

After dinner, I tried out my Halloween costume. I didn't go for the fake blood, or full body make up, but I was so pleased with the results that I demanded "death" pictures be taken.

 

"I have to act out a violent death! What should it be?" I demanded.

With little in the way of props or space, it was decided that erotic asphyxiation was the only solution.

HAPPY HALLOWEEN, WICCA BITCHES!




*cilantro for Yanks and Mexicans

I consider myself to be a patient person. I rarely complain about waiting in line, whether I'm holding a little paper number at the DMV or juggling a slushie, a diet coke, a bag of Combos and a candy bar in a gas station convenience store. In the case of that latter example, I waited patiently for five minutes while the clerk explained to a confused man holding what looked to be a recently printed Google map how to get onto the highway. When it was my turn at the counter, the clerk gave me a free beverage coupon and thanked me for being so patient. "Hey, no problem," I said, and I thought, what else was I going to do, go without my road food? Ha! As if. 

As far as I can tell, waiting is a part of life. I guess I always figured it's best to try to have a good attitude about the whole thing.

I realize it's hard to believe that a hater like me could have such a forgiving attitude towards waiting, but it's true. I consider myself a Zen master at the art of waiting. Waiting is a near-daily occurrence, and for such a ubiquitous activity, most of us spend very little time thinking about the actual act of waiting, and how to improve the experience. Not so, with me. I plan ahead for my waits. I bring water, books, blank notebooks and pens for making notes, craft projects and snacks (for long waits). I return phone calls while waiting for planes. I jot down story ideas on train rides, and even when I'm without a pen and paper, I amuse myself creating back-stories for the people around me. I would say that I enjoy about seventy percent of my time spent waiting.

The other thirty percent of the time can usually be chalked up to a complainer.

Complainers take many forms. Consider the Heavy Sigher: typically a passive-aggressive soccer mom, probably with a van load of screaming brats, she's too "nice" to say anything, but can't hide her impatience and frustration that escapes in the form of several heavy sighs. "Humph," she says followed by a knowing look and an eye roll.

I'm unsure what to do whenever I'm near a heavy sigher. Am I expected to commiserate simply because I happen to be standing next to you? Well frankly lady, you're the only one who's miserable. The rest of us are just enjoying our line waiting experience as best we can, and if you don't mind, your sighs are harshing my Zen-like mellow.

Worse than heavy sighers are the "I'm Justers." You know these dicks, the ones who think that whatever task they are waiting in line for must be quicker and more efficient than whatever task you are waiting in line for, and they figure it doesn't hurt to ask, right? The I'm Juster inevitably makes his way to the front of the line, interrupts a transaction to ask something like this: "I'm just mailing a single package, do I need to wait in this line?" Um, do you see a sign that says, "Single Package postage and drop off station?" No? Then get to the back of the line, jackass!

Many businesses do cater to the I'm Juster by providing a vending machine for stamps and self-checkout for people with single items. Great idea, except there's always that one old lady who hates using vending "technology" or the guy who wants to buy stamps with his Discover card. Those are the ones that kill you. They started off with a simple task, but they have to complicate it, and then have the guts to ask if they can cut to the front of the line. I'm Justers like this make me want to sigh heavily and kick the nearest non-living thing.

Finally there are the straight up complainers, or the B&Ms as I like to call them (short for Bitchers and Moaners): the people who have deluded themselves into believing that their time is more precious than anybody else's, and when faced with a period of waiting, feel the need to try to convince everyone around them of this truth.

"Jesus Christ," they'll say, "I've got to be in a very important meeting in ten minutes." Or they have to pick up the Pope form the airport. Or they have to stop the world from blowing up. Whatever they have to do, you can bet that it is at least five thousand times more important than whatever you and the other people waiting in line have to do.

I have to believe that complaining is like a sport to these people. They usually start out with a pointed observation on the circumstances.

"Looks like everybody had to mail a package today."

"Jesus Christ, is it the lunch hour?"

"Are you kidding, me?"

These casual comments tend to escalate the longer the B&M stands in line, and seem to contain progressively more profanity. In Portland, Oregon you don't see too many B&M's, but when you do, they tend to be good ones. The last one I saw was a Woody Allen look alike who swore like a wounded sailor while waiting for a seat in a packed restaurant. Parents with small children shot him aggressive glares as he said, "For fuck's sake, this is fucking ridiculous," as though he meant to whisper it, but it just accidentally came out in normal talking voice. I, being the devil's greatest advocate, silently wondered if this B&M might have Tourette syndrome.

The nice thing about B&M's is that they usually get so exasperated that they leave before they ever make it up to the counter. Sometimes, like the Woody Allen guy, they just sort of sulk out to avoid the wrath of the other, more patient people in line. Other times they make a big fuss, throwing open the doors and calling out over their shoulders, "You just lost a customer," or better yet, "Fuck this place."

Despite the anxiety that the B&M's bring to any waiting situation, I must admit that they do provide a form of entertainment. This is the kind of drama that reality TV producers try to manufacture and viewing audiences gobble up. Conflict. Anger lashed out. Uncomfortable silences. Only this is the real deal, the real frustration and plight of our generation. Our lives being used up, and pissed away on consumerism and beauracracy. Where ancient man spent the vast majority of his life in the struggle to find food and shelter while avoiding predators, here in our modern world of convenience we spend our lives in the perpetual state of waiting and buying. Perhaps more disturbing is that the Internet has eliminated most of the waiting, giving us even more time to just buy, buy, buy.

Maybe that's why I like to wait. I like the idea of turning wasted time into productive time. I like to think that I am creating something out of this dead zone and that, by extension I have gotten more out of my life than the average person.

So here I am, the patron saint of patience, waiting for a visa so that I might make the great move to London. I moved out of my apartment, rid myself of most of my belongings, quit my job and moved back in with my parents. Needless to say I've got plenty of time on my hands, and like a good little waiter, I've tried to make the most of it. I've spent my time helping out friends, working on writing projects, spending time with family, playing with my dog, working out obsessively, cooking healthy meals, helping my grandma move furniture, working on craft projects, and whatever else I can do to keep myself occupied.

Yet as the days wear on, and my money slowly dwindles away, I find myself uttering the occasional, "Humph" and rolling my eyes whenever anybody asks, "So when are you leaving?"

I fear that it's only a matter of time before I find myself muttering in a not-so-quiet voice: FOR FUCK'S SAKE! THIS IS FUCKING RIDICULOUS!

Bodacious.
As in Bodacious Classics, the biker bar in Portland where people actually do karaoke dressed as Klingons. Does that sound like the kind of place you want to hang out? No. And your first clue was the word bodacious in the title. Another reminder of just how much this words sucks came in the form of a flyer that I received at work today. It says,  "The vast majority of the New Age demographic is Bodacious Boomers and Savvy Seniors." My problem with this sentence is three-fold: 1. Bodacious and savvy are adjectives, so why are they capitalized? 2. With most baby-boomers pushing sixty, is there really a need to distinguish them from senior citizens? 3. Bodacious is a stupid fucking word.

Tune.
I don't know why, but I hate this word when used to refer to a song. It's fine if you want to tell everyone you need to tune your guitar. What's not fine is asking, "what's the name of that tune?" Why? I dunno. Maybe because it sounds like you're about to sit down in front of your Victrola phonograph to listen to a bawdy rendition of Yankee Doodle Dandy. It's called a song or a track people, anything else and I'll be forced to cringe.

Containerize.
This was actually Merriam-Webster's Word-of-the-Day today. It means to put things in containers. What are we, German? Do we need a single word for this? What's wrong with saying, "I'm putting things in containers?" Containerize just sounds like something Arnold Schwarzenegger would do to you if he worked at FedEx.

More annoying words to come. Suggestions welcome!

When you were a kid, did you eat Wonder Bread? Did you eat it in some bizarre, ritualistic way? Perhaps cutting the crusts off or rolling it up into a doughy, golf-ball sized ball? Did you ever get the feeling that Wonder Bread had other uses?

Turns out, it certainly does.

Apparently one employee at a national sporting good chain has found another use for that light-as-air, practically non-existent bread product: human putty.

You see, it turns out that models can sometimes have an unsightly bulges in their naughty parts. In other words, pointy nipples and bumpy schlongs do not sell sporting goods. Wonder Bread to the rescue! Now you too can have a completely smooth Ken and Barbie silhouette, even in your slinkiest sports bra or Speedo. Wonder Bread is your flesh putty.

My only questions are, do the crusts need to be removed and does it work better if you chew it up first?

 

I support diversity and not just because I'm the product of an inter-racial relationship. I specifically support friendship diversity because I enjoy trading slang words with non-Americans. There's just something fun and entertaining about teaching curse words and insults to a foreigner. Often it sheds a whole new light on your own language.

Shortly after hearing Jackie and I toss around the term "douchebag", Jun had extrapolated a meaning similar to "asshole". There's a lot of assholes in the world, so it didn't take long for Jun to go a little "douche" crazy. He started tossing D-bombs left and right and even ended one of his emails to his friends with the touching line, "douche, Jun." 

It was then that Jackie felt the need to enlighten him further regarding the actual meaning of the word. "Do you know what that means?" She asked.

"Sure," Jun replied, "it means, like redneck."

Jackie laughed. "Actually, it's a bag for..um, you know, it's like this bag that you use to clean out a vagina."

"Ohhhhh."

It turns out that Jun had mistakenly purchased a douchebag at one time, thinking it was a hot water bottle for treating his tennis elbow. I'm not sure if he actually used it for that purpose, but I got the distinct impression that the whole experience left him somewhat confused. 

A few more American slang terms were tossed around: tool, fratty (a shortened derrogatory word for a fraternity member), skank. Jun eagerly embraced each one, but none seemed to offer the pure pleasure that "douche" and it's related terms had provided.

It seemed that nothing could topple the reign of the douchebag. Jackie had high hopes for a big word to describe a little thing: dingleberry. Now if you think about it, dingleberry is one of the most specific insults in the English language. When you call  someone a dingleberry, you are quite literally comparing them to a piece of poop attached to a butt hair. That's about as specific as it gets. Although Jun admitted that he liked the word, he found it difficult to pronounce and thus not very useful when, in the heat of the moment, he needed an appropriate insult.

Thus he invented one of his own: bitch-dick. Bitch-dick is a simple, generic term that can be applied indiscriminately to anyone who angers you or acts inappropriately. It was coined following an upsetting incident at Portland International Airport when the "customer service manager" of an airline informed Jun that although he possessed a current work Visa, this did not give him permission to live in the US (as though he could commute from Japan!) After being denied entry to their flight and nearly being hauled away by the cops, Jackie and Jun were finally able to catch the next flight, but not before the bitch-dick behind the counter flagged them for extra security and scrutiny throughout the entire flight.

Unsettling as that experience was, I'm glad that the world now has the term bitch-dick. Learn it. Love it. Use it whenever possible. And please take the time to get to know your non-English speaking neighbors, they might have a few things to teach you.

I woke up Monday morning with an intense craving for movie house popcorn. I have no idea why. I'm certainly not "with child" and I don't think I was dreaming of being at the movies, but seemingly without explanation, from the second my eyelids parted, all I could think about was the buttery goodness of movie corn.

That's how I found myself at work looking up the movie listings, literally just so I would have an excuse to go get popcorn. How sad is that? I had already planned to leave early in order to walk the portly Foxy Brown, so I decided to just check and see what was playing at the local matinee. Then I saw it: I AM LEGEND playing at the Kennedy School for only $3.

Let me take a moment to digress by telling you that in all my 32 years of living, I have never once been to a cinema alone. As I pulled up to the Kennedy School I pondered why this was the case. I rationalized that it must have been due to being insecure and not wanting to seem like a loser. A voice in my head pondered, "what's the point in seeing a movie alone?" Another voice in my head (there are many) replied, "you watch movies alone at home all the time. Why is this different? It's not like you talk in the movie theater." Good point, other voice!

As I took my seat alone in the theater I was feeling casual and confident in my new-found independence and eagerly anticipating the delicious, buttery popcorn I was about to stuff in my face. The lights dimmed, the movie started and suddenly it hit me: I was about to see a movie about the lone survivor of a biological apocalypse--alone. It's a movie about loneliness for the love of GOD! It's a movie about isolation, about plague, massive death, and loss. At one point a broken-down Will Smith looks at a mannequin and pathetically begs, "Please say hello to me!"

Do you ever have those moments where you just sit and marvel at your own idiocy?

Worse was the realization at approximately five minutes into the film that there are really only two characters: a man named Robert Neville and his German Shepherd named Sam. Seeing as how this is an action movie, that can only mean one thing: one of them has to die. Yeah. Guess which one?

At this point, I start shoving the popcorn in two handfuls at a time, shifting around uncomfortably in my seat just waiting for the moment when the damn dog gets sacrificed to the screenwriting Gods. Every zombie attack causes me to flinch, dig my nails into my seat and ponder if I should make a quick trip to the bathroom, which is ridiculous because I love zombie movies, particularly the ones that feature a lot of zombies being run down by large, heavily-armored vehicles.

Then that pesky voice in my head reminds me that my grandparents had a black German Shepherd mix named Sammy when I was a kid. We had to put him to sleep when I was about ten. I had pretty much forgotten about this traumatic incident until I AM LEGEND brought the painful memory back.

And then I cried. I cried at a zombie movie. By myself. A zombie movie starring Will Smith for fuck's sake!

Frankly, it ruined the popcorn.

 A while back, on a lonely, grey stretch of I-5 north, somewhere between Portland, Oregon and Seattle, Washington, I encountered an amazing sight: a semi-truck with a butthole.



It reminded me of a children's book that was given to my neice when she was about two called, "Everybody Poops." I began to wonder, does this truck poop and if so, what does it's poop look like? Could this be the explanation for all that shredded rubber you find littered on the side of major freeways? If not, what is it using that butthole for exactly?

If only I had been The Bandit, I'd have been on my CB radio getting the low down from all my trucker buddies,  "Breaker 1-9, this is The Bandit."

"Roger that Bandit, this is Brownstar. You wanna try the rockin' horse?"

"Um, no thanks."

Back in blogsville that is. I know it's been a long, long time. By way of explanation, let me first tell you a little something about the curse of calling oneself a writer.

Calling yourself a writer is some pretty heavy shit. People expect a lot out of a person whose vocation is "writer." A writer should be full of witty anecdotes, a la Truman Capote at a Manhattan mixer and have perfect spelling straight out of the pages of Merriam-Webster. They should understand commas and not just where commas do or do not belong, but the nature of the comma itself. As though being a writer puts you in alignment with punctuation the way astronomers see the alignment of the stars or engineers intuitively understand the contours of bridges.

As I return, cautiously and carefully, to the world of blogging, and writing in general, I feel the need to clear the air regarding these decidedly non-writer-like attributes of mine:

1. I cannot spell and I'm not ashamed to admit it. I spell check. I look things up on www.m-w.com, and sometimes I'm genuinely surprised. "Well looky there," I say, marveling in my inner Podunk voice, "that's how you spell 'occasionally'." This means that when I blog, I'm flying solo; sans editor, and this will undoubtedly lead to spelling errors. I'm not saying you can't point them out. What I'm really saying is, "I told you so."

2. I don't understand commas. Serial commas, maybe. The rest of the time? Who the fuck knows? I've read the comma section of the Chicago Manual of Style several times. Each time I finish it I want to set the book down gently on my desk, proceed to the nearest bar, and have about  twelve stiff gin and tonics.  Commas aren't my thing. I put them in haphazardly. See, there, you, go, blatant, comma, abuse.

3. Sometimes I go to parties and I realize that I don't really want to talk to people. Not all the time, mind you. There's about a 50-50 chance that by the time I get to a party, I'll decide that I pretty much hate the entire 6 billion residents of planet earth.

It's like there are two m. m. garcias. One of them is the participant. Chatty and extroverted, the participant will get drunk, dance, spit ice cubes on you and tell you all about the worst sexual experience she's ever had (perhaps I'll save that one for another entry). The other m.m. garcia is an observer, constantly looking out for details and making mental note of interesting tidbits that she witnesses. She loathes talking to strangers as this banal conversation is a mere distraction from her real work: mentally recording the entire event for later use in short stories. I guess what that means is, if you've met me at a party and I seemed really boring, I mean really boring, to the point that you were like, "wow I thought that chick was a writer."

Well surprise douchebag! I am!

You know, every time I think I've gone and done something original, somebody else does something to remind me that Jung was right. There is a collective unconscious. Witness, my latest discovery on wikipedia (sure, it's not an academic resource, but it sure is informative for the rest of us):

The Universal Church of the Sub-Genius. A mock church, that counts people like PeeWee Herman as card carrying members, has it's own festivals and holidays throughout the year. November 19th, according to the UCSG is National Hate for the Sake of Hating Day. 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SubGenius

I don't know how other people celebrate Hate for the Sake of Hating Day, but I have a few ideas of my own. Maybe giving a weiner dog the stink eye. Or purposely cutting off a minivan in traffic. Perhaps tracking down a copy of Forrest Gump the book and lighting it on fire? That's a good one.

I also thoughtfully put forward, that Hate Mail is the perfect gift or accessory for National Hate for the Sake of Hating Day. Now, if we could just get the day off.

"You talk about Burt Reynolds too much."

These alarmingly pointed words were uttered one night by my friend Andy after I had turned a  harmless conversation around once again to the topic of my favorite B list celebrity Burt Reynolds.

Until last December, Burt was just another old douche bag with a mustache. Although I admired his performance in Striptease, I had managed to avoid most of his early work under the pretense of my aversion to hilly billy movies. I had heard about the infamous, "squeal like a pig" moment in Deliverance (thanks Quentin Tarantino!) and that was all I needed to know. Burt Reynolds = hilly billy, redneck, misogynist, homophobe.

One drunken night in London changed all that.

If you've never been to England, let me first explain that the television programming is rather hit and miss. For some reason Dog the Bountyhunter is on at least one channel at any given moment, but they've never seen Conan O'Brien, Saturday Night Live or any of the other comedy classics that I routinely quote from. 

One night while sitting on my buddy Dan's couch, a bit tipsy and surfing through the channels, I saw that famous Burt'stache as I flipped past yet another rerun of Star Trek Voyager. I froze. It was Smokey and the Bandit. At first I watched out of curiosity. I kept watching in perversely masochistic trance realizing for the first time that Mr. Reynolds is one of the funniest people alive. Granted, he's not trying to be funny, but does that matter? Not to me.

There was one particular scene when "the Bandit" jumps his bitchin' T-bird over a washed out bridge (natch) and a young and terribly naive Sally Field squeals, "Can we jump something again?" 

"You can jump me," The Bandit dryly retorts.

This line sent me into a fit of laughter that ended with me on the floor, in a ball, with tears squirting out my 
eyes.

Last night while flipping through the channels at my friend Matt's house, I saw about two minutes of the World Stuntman Awards. Guess who was honored with a lifetime achievementt award? That's right. Your old buddy Burt! What a multi-faceted individual he is! I can't wait to get my hands on his biography, "My Life." Perhaps at my next reading, I'll give a dramatic interpretation of Burt's words.

Until then kids, check out the highlights of the World Stuntman Awards (too bad they cut the video montage of Burt's movies):

http://www.youtube.com/v/4L8T9egBpmU

I needed a haircut and, as usual, I wasn't sure what I wanted.

I always think I want some kind of cool hipster haircut with feathering or shaggy layers, but past experience has taught me that if my new haircut involves a need for blow drying, more than one product or god forbid regular maintenance cuts, there's a good chance my hair will just look like poop all the time. So now I tend to opt for the kind of haircut that allows me to just jump out of the shower and go. Even the recent addition of layers and bangs has been somewhat of a bummer for me because it imeans at least a few minutes with the blow dryer.

I'm also loyal to my hairdressers in a way that makes me wonder why I've never been married. As of late, however, I've been between stylists. So when I needed a haircut, I turned to my adorable friend Russ (a fellow half-Mexican!) who works at a local salon.

"Russ," I said, "I need you to hook me up with a stylist."

"I know just the one," he replied.

That's how I found myself waiting in the salon at ten in the morning wondering who my surprise stylist would be. I could hear a male voice in the back room. It was a deep male voice, and the word "dude" was used a couple of times giving me the sneaking suspicion that the person about to do my hair was a heterosexual man.

I don't like to think that I harbor a lot of ignorant prejudices, but when it comes to my hair I pretty much have a "homos only" policy. So when Steven Lightfoot stepped out of the back, standing well over six feet tall, with his black rocker hair, black eyeliner and combat boots, I was a bit taken aback. Clearly I was about to violate the "no heteros in my hair" rule, and frankly if Russ hadn't assured me that this guy was for me I might have freaked out and bailed.

Instead I just freaked out and asked for a trim. Steven was not impressed. It turns out that Mr. Steven Lightfoot is the master of the hipster mullet. Among other things, the man lives to give 16-year-old kids cool haircuts. In other words, cutting my low-maintenance, boring hair-do was not exactly good times for him.

None-the-less Steven was a trooper. He cut and styled my hair without grumbling. We discussed music (he's also in a band, Auralust) hipster haircuts and being true to your personal style.

Steven described his girlfriend's hair and although I don't remember all the details, I do remember that it involved a rat tail. Being that I remember the 80s and lived in a small, rural town, I can't help but shudder at the words "rat" and "tail" when used together. I'm sure it looks great on her. It's just that I've seen too many guys named Darryl with the same hair feature.

My personal favorite quote from Steven, "If this music thing works out, I really want to open my own salon."

That's right, kids. Steven Lightfoot loves music and giving haircuts with nearly equal passion. I highly recommend that if you're interested in a hipster mullet or anything that involves the words "rat" and "tail" you contact Mr. Lightfoot. It would make him ever so happy.