Category: Jared Stern

Mardi Blog: Part(y) Two

by jaredsterncomedy, posted in beignets, Cafe Du Monde, comedy, fried chicken, http://schemas.google.com/blogger/2008/kind#post, Jared Stern, Mardi Gras, Nola, Willie Mae's

Hey there, ‘Redheads… Happy Ides of March to you and yours. Today is a good day to eat a caesar salad with a knife while wearing a toga. Actually, come to think of it, that’s fun on most days. Welcome back to my multi-part recollection of my trip to Mardi Gras. Part One was mostly about the initial shock and awe. Part Two is going to focus on the eating. Sure, we drank alot too, but some of the time it was washing down some pretty great food.

When you’re in New Orleans, you’re required by law to have beignets at Cafe Du Monde. If you’ve never had the pleasure, a beignet is a square piece of dough, fried and covered with powdered sugar. Aside from coffee, it’s the only thing they serve there. There was a line around the block. Make that two lines, one to sit and one to go. Lucky for us, we didn’t have to wait with the riffraff because my buddy Nick greased the palm of one of the busboys to get us a table. It’s nice to be important. It’s important to be nice. Anyway, we sat down and got a round of bennies.

So much powdered sugar, it looked like breakfast at Charlie Sheen’s house. They’ve got themselves a surefire recipe. I’m fairly sure if you fried my shoe and dumped powdered sugar on it, it’d be pretty tasty. Chewier, sure, but tasty. Fuck Wheaties, I want my face on a box of these heavenly morsels. It was a solid foundation on which to pour a bucket of alcohol.

One place that came highly recommended for “the best fried chicken you’ll ever have” was Willie Mae’s Scotch House. We were able to confirm with the locals that it’s the place to go for fried chicken, so how could we not? We found out that it was located outside the confines of the French Quarter. Maybe a mile or so away from the bustle of Bourbon Street. It was a sunny day, so the four of us decided to hoof it. As you may or may not know, it’s taken New Orleans some time to rebound from Katrina back in 2005. The French Quarter has done fairly well, but there are other parts, like the one we walked through, that make Detroit look like Beverly Hills. I would’ve taken some pictures, but I wasn’t keen on flashing any high dollar items while we walked at an increasingly hurried pace toward Willie Mae’s. No wonder the chicken tastes so good. The meal is life affirming. When we got there around noon, there was a line to get in, since it’s only open from 11-3 and it’s a pretty small place.We watched as several cabs dropped off groups of people much smarter than we were. After waiting for about a half hour, we got seated. It was a wonder why there was anything besides fried chicken on the menu, because that’s what everyone was getting. We later found out that they ran out of chicken shortly after we left. As far as their claim to having the best fried chicken? Well, the Colonel should be dishonorably discharged. It was delicious.The breading was flaky and light and the breast was so good, I was tempted to throw beads at it. As my buddy Evan put it, “a meal worth almost dying for.” We decided to call a cab to ferry us back to the relative safety of the mob. When we told our cabbie that we had walked to the restaurant his reaction was, “So, were there five of you originally?”

The best meal we had in New Orleans was at a restaurant called Nola. It’s one of Emeril Lagasse’s. I cannot emphasize this enough. If you go to New Orleans, GO TO NOLA. It’s one of the five best meals I’ve ever had, and I’m not just saying that because I was hammered at the time. I had the Grilled Pork Chop with Brown Sugar Glazed Sweet Potatoes, Toasted Pecans and Caramelized Onion Reduction Sauce. The sweet potatoes were like candy, the chop was tender, and the sauce was heavenly. Our only regret was that we went there with two days left on the trip. Aside from the aforementioned fried chicken, nothing else came close.

To be concluded…

Mardi Blog: Part(y) One

by jaredsterncomedy, posted in comedy, http://schemas.google.com/blogger/2008/kind#post, Jared Stern, Mardi Gras

Hey there, ‘Redheads… Did everyone fill out their brackets today? It’s your responsibility as an American. Vote or die. Today’s the day when nationwide productivity plummets while we sift through more seeds than a stoner looking for one last toke. It doesn’t matter if you haven’t watched a college basketball game all season. My girlfriend just picked Old Dominion because she likes the root beer. Let’s not get sidetracked, though. We’ll get back to remedial bracketology tomorrow. After a week long hiatus, I’m back to chisel through the writer’s block and provide you with as much as I can recall of my jaunt to New Orleans for Mardi Gras. I was going to attempt to do this on Friday, but my body needed the extra recovery time to shake the gristle from my fried synapses, which were marinated in whiskey and Hurricanes for three days. Sure, it sounds delicious (if Paula Deen was a zombie), but it was a recipe for one exhausted Jew. Let’s see if I can focus and give you a glimpse of what went down.

I landed at Louis Armstrong International Airport at roughly midnight and piled into a cab with five strangers who were all headed to the French Quarter. Our cabbie was an older gentleman who seemed to have already had his fill of the uppity hipsters and douchebag frat boys who were in his city to cause a ruckus. With the party raging on the main drag of Canal St, he dropped us off as close has he could to our respective hotels. Luckily, mine was a quick two blocks to the corner of Canal and Bourbon. I met my buddies, Nick and Gary, at the room, dropped off my stuff, and we decided to wade into the sea of drunken humanity that was Bourbon St.My first impression? Filth. On every level. Garbage strewn in the street, piles of discarded beads, and, since it had rained for two days, everything was slippery. I had to cuff my pant legs so that I wouldn’t have to burn them later. And then there’s the people. Maybe the A talent was getting in on a later flight, but it was just a Fantasia broomstick army of people who walked off the sets of Maury and The Jerry Springer Show. A parade of stumbling ugly. I was able to document my initial reaction to the shit show…I’m not one to nitpick about physical beauty, I’m a nebbishy tub of goo, but holy crap. And without fail, if we spotted a woman who was remotely attractive, she was tethered to a grotesque fat guy that made Jabba the Hutt look like George Clooney. The soundtrack of Mardi Gras was a persistent woooing. So much woooing, it was like someone shoved a police siren down Ric Flair’s throat. The only thing that cut through the wooo was the rhythmic chant of “show your tits!” These particular tits were not the kind that should be encouraged or, unfortunately, needed encouragement. All it took was some particularly shiny boob wampum for some of these girls to release the hounds. It’s an odd double standard that exists on the lawless streets of New Orleans. Drunk guys want to see boobs and drunk girls have boobs to offer, but these aren’t the boobs you’re looking for. The boobs you want are the professional drivers on a closed course, the ones you get are Toonces the Cat crashing through the guard rail. Anyway, we gawked as the drunken current carried us down Bourbon St, then we went back to the hotel around 2am to recharge for whatever debauchery lay ahead.

To be continued…

Streaky

by jaredsterncomedy, posted in comedy, http://schemas.google.com/blogger/2008/kind#post, Jared Stern, Mardi Gras, New Orleans, streak

Hey there, ‘Redheads… So, this is the last blog of my two and change month long weekday streak. Roughly 45 entries which, in previous years, has been my usual annual output. So, has this enriched the blog experience for you, the loyal reader? I don’t mean that generally, I’m speaking to my one loyal reader. I hope I’ve been able to keep things remotely interesting and mildly amusing. With the national attention deficit being at an all time high, I’m thankful for whatever time your eyes dart over here.

I plan to pick up where I left off and provide you with a travelogue of my jaunt down to Mardi Gras. There will be tasteful pictures and as clear a recollection as my fried synapses can manage. Keep in mind, not only is this for Mardi Gras, but also for a friend’s bachelor party, so some photos and stories may be redacted so that there’ll still be a wedding. I still haven’t packed yet, but I plan to travel light. I’m going to leave behind my dignity and self respect. I’ve had several things recommended to me for my trip. I’ve got to eat fried chicken at Willie Mae’s Scotch House, take in some jazz at Preservation Hall, and drink several beverages named for things that destroy other things. My checklist runneth over. If there’s anything else I’m missing, please to leave it in the comments section.

See you when I get back…

Party? Moi?

by jaredsterncomedy, posted in comedy, drunks, http://schemas.google.com/blogger/2008/kind#post, Jared Stern, Mardi Gras, New Orleans

Hey there, ‘Redheads… I’m going to admit this right up front. I’ve got nothing. I just got back from the kind of meal that bears eat before they start hibernating, so I’m in a digestive daze. But, I want to keep the streak of blogs going until I go on a short hiatus next week. In case you’ve forgotten, I’m hopping on a plane to New Orleans, where they’re having some sort of party. I’m still not quite sure what to expect. Actually, I’m very sure what to expect: drunken mayhem. A near nonstop cacophony of “WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!” until I get back on the plane to come home. Ten thousand fists all pumping in unison as beads fly haphazardly through the air to the awaiting boobs below. Girls going wild. And I’ll be resisting the temptation to call them whippersnappers and yell at them to get off my lawn. I may have to find an Advil patch I can slap directly onto my forehead for the screaming headache I’m going to have. Some people would say that, at 35, my wild partying days are behind me. Well, I never had wild partying days in the first place. I’ve got one decent tequila story in me, which involved passing out, casually puking onto some guy’s carpet, then being carried out of the party by two friends on mine. That was roughly 15 years ago. Other than that, I’m sure there are nuns that throw down harder than I do. I’m not going to pretend I don’t drink, I do enjoy a frosty beverage, but I never venture outside the safe confines of fuzzy lucidity. The kids who I’m going to encounter on Bourbon Street black out so much, their memories are patchier than the AIDS quilt. Luckily, I’ll be able to find some measure of peace and quiet at the casino. I’ll hide from one degenerate vice beneath the underbelly of another. Which reminds me, I still have to pack.

See you Friday.

FIGHT!

by jaredsterncomedy, posted in comedy, http://schemas.google.com/blogger/2008/kind#post, Jared Stern, Street Fighter, Thousand Pounds Fight Team, ultra combo

Hey there, ‘Redheads… My head hurts, so I’ll be whacking the blog pinata until delicious eye candy spills out so you have something to gawk at. I present to you a three video series from the Thousand Pounds Fight Team. Through some creative editing and bad ass fight choreography, they’ve become a human video game and brought Street Fighter 4 to life. I’ve never been able to do anything from a video game, except for that one time that I ate all those Flintstones vitamins while ghosts were chasing me. Enjoy…

See you Thursday…

Winning, Duh

by jaredsterncomedy, posted in Anne Hathaway, comedy, funny, Gaddafi, http://schemas.google.com/blogger/2008/kind#post, In Memoriam, James Franco, Jared Stern, oscars, winning

Hey there, ‘Redheads… Welcome to the first day of March. Once again, my calendar is a flip book and the first two months of the year are gone. They’re not even giving me enough time to procrastinate anymore. Well, I guess time flies when you’re winning. So, for Charlie Sheen, tomorrow it’ll be 2014. He’s absolutely everywhere you look these last two days, giving interviews to anyone within earshot. It’s Charlie’s world and the rest of us are just along for the tour of the chocolate factory. He’s starring in The Sheening, and his two goddesses are those creepy kids in the hallway beckoning him to, “Come play with us, Charlie. For ever and ever and ever.” How many other obscure movie references can I make about this? Charlie has spent the last few years developing a immunity to cocaine powder. My question is, why is everyone shocked by him anymore? The man does not care, he’s not hurting anyone, his kids seem well cared for, and the only reason why his show got cancelled is because CBS got their panties in a bunch. He wanted to work, and he obviously was doing well enough in his condition to hit his marks up until now. Now he’s talking about warlocks and tiger blood, calling Sinatra and Jagger, “droopy-eyed, armless children,” and telling AA to take twelve steps off a cliff, so everyone gets all indignant and wonders how he can sleep at night. Well, my friends, if he decides to sleep, it’s on a giant pile of money with many beautiful women. He’s living the life we all wish we could. If you want to become more of a warlock rock star from Mars in your everyday life, might I recommend Charlie Sheen for the Soul. Charlie Sheen is a hell of a drug.

I have a feeling Gaddafi buried his head into a giant mound of Sheen like Pacino in Scarface. That’s the only guy making less sense than Charlie these days. What also makes no sense is there’s no consensus on how to spell his name. Maybe because if we get it right, he’ll be banished back to the 5th dimension. I’ve seen “Gaddafi,” “Qudhafi,” and my personal favorite, “Khadaffi,” mostly because it makes me think of Daffy Duck. Hard hitting political insight can be found elsewhere.

I should mention the Oscars before I sign off. They stunk. I’ll admit, I didn’t see all of the broadcast. I was over a friend’s house watching as my Terps toyed with my emotions while losing to UNC, while my girlfriend was hosting an Oscar party for her gal pals. Like I had mentioned on Friday, the only thing I was looking forward to was the In Memoriam segment, and they somehow managed to screw that up. Hollywood legends like Tony Curtis and Dennis Hopper got the same amount of screen time as a key grip from Howard the Duck. How do you not have Leslie Neilsen saying his classic, “Don’t call me Shirley,” line from Airplane? And they completely left out Corey Haim and Peter Graves. The hosts were awful. I’ve haven’t seen worse chemistry since the time I tried to make a battery out of a potato in my 4th grade science fair. James Franco was so wooden, he made Al Gore look like Dane Cook. By the end of the show, I thought Anne Hathaway was going to try to cut off her arm to get out from under him. There was such a sigh of relief when Billy Crystal was introduced, I thought the producers has brought him out of cryogenic freeze to take over. This just further proves that you never send an actor to do a comedian’s job.

See you Wednesday.

A Moment of Silence

by jaredsterncomedy, posted in http://schemas.google.com/blogger/2008/kind#post, Jared Stern

Hey there, ‘Redheads… Welcome back from the weekend. I was going to have my usual blog full of blather and bluster. I was ready to give you a recap of the Oscars and Charlie Sheen’s latest ranting. Unfortunately, fate had other plans. I got kicked in the gut this morning by the news that my friend, high school classmate, and my first college roommate, Adam Lilling, died suddenly yesterday. I’m dumbfounded and devastated. Today was spent corresponding with friends about funeral arrangements and reminiscing about the last time we talked to Adam. It’s tough to come to terms with someone passing in his 30’s, especially when you’re also in your 30’s. No word on a cause of death, but no cause I can think of would make sense anyway.

Adam wrote the closing poem in our high school yearbook for our senior year. I’d like to share that with you…

Eternal Now and Again
Walls crumbling
dictators fallen under their tide
desolate soil nourishes feeble limbs,
yet the leaves turn yellow in autumn
and the sea breeze still stings our face.
Wide-eyed twilight moon, gazing into our tomorrow
sun glares in our eyes as it has for infinite yesterdays
and the trees will grow from the ground.
A world turning steadily ahead in circles
but to us it’s different, not the same reality
always higher or lower – incessantly in flux
Tomorrow beckons.

We’ll miss you, Adam.

Friday Round Up

by jaredsterncomedy, posted in comedy, funny, http://schemas.google.com/blogger/2008/kind#post, Jared Stern, movies, oscars, Sketchup

Hey there, ‘Redheads… For all of you who were working for the weekend, congratulations, you’ve arrived. I just got back from a show at my alma mater, the University of Maryland, to judge a preliminary round of the District’s Funniest College competition and tell jokes to the disaffected youth. Not only was the audience packed, but all of the fifteen contestants acquitted themselves nicely. Go Terps. Afterwards, I got to talking to a couple current members of the sketch comedy group I helped found, Sketchup. They’ll be having their 15th anniversary show in April. I feel proud and old at the same time.

Apparently, Charlie Sheen has gone Busey on us. If you haven’t heard his radio rant from yesterday, he referred to himself as a “Vatican assassin warlock.” If that’s not the next movie on SyFy Channel, I’ll be sorely disappointed. He can fight Sharktopus. He rambled for about twenty minutes about how he’s healed himself with his mind and how he’s unappreciated for polishing turds into comedy gold. Do yourself a favor and give it a listen. It makes Mel Gibson sound like Frasier Crane. Now CBS has halted production on Two and a Half Men and everyone is worried what will become of one of the highest rated sitcoms on TV. I have a simple solution for them. Something that has worked for shows like Happy Days and Married with Children. Two words: Ted McGinley. He’s plug and play. Give him a call. I bet his schedule is wide open.

The Oscars are Sunday and the only thing I’m really looking forward to is the In Memoriam segment. I’ve only seen two of the flicks that are up for Best Picture, Inception and The Fighter. All I know is, Inception was one of the most satisfying movie going experiences I’ve had in about five years. It was original and well made. Right now, my opinion of the movie industry isn’t great. So many remakes and reboots and regurgitated crap in 3-D. There are plans in the works to remake Fletch, Highlander, and to reboot Spider-man and Superman. Hollywood, reboot thyself. Just re-release the original movies. You’re just trying to mine the nostalgia anyway. Howabout you leave our memories alone and go make some new ones, huh? By the way, if you pay money to see Big Mommas: Like Father, Like Son, we can’t be friends anymore. Just putting that out there.

See you Monday.

A Little Chili

by jaredsterncomedy, posted in chili, comedy, free food, Hard Times Cafe, http://schemas.google.com/blogger/2008/kind#post, Jared Stern, National Chili Day

Hey there, ‘Redheads… Happy National Chili Day to you and yours. I just got back from the Hard Times Cafe, where I did my patriotic duty and enjoyed a free bowl of meat. That’s right, at the Hard Times Cafe, you got a free bowl of chili with any purchase. So, I washed down my glass of sweet tea with a heaping bowl of Texas chili. As I was wiping away the last crumbs of cornbread, the waitress said something that I found odd. She was a bit frazzled by the uptick in business on this glorious day and she told me that people can be mean when they get free food. They were getting indignant and angry upon finding out they had to pay extra for toppings, like sour cream and jalapenos. You ungrateful bastards. Free food is one of the most joyous things in this world, and you have to sully it with your pettiness. When a nice lady, working for tips, is good enough to bring free food to your table, you greet her with a smile. Don’t make her job harder by being petulant. When our forefathers declared today National Chili Day, they wanted to reward the people with a warm hearty bowl of goodness and allow us to share in the spirit of togetherness that free chili brings. Don’t get greedy. Enjoy your free chili and don’t look at the bowl as half empty.

See you Friday.

Picture Page

by jaredsterncomedy, posted in comedy, Cracker Barrel, Hooters, http://schemas.google.com/blogger/2008/kind#post, Jared Stern, Michael Jackson, North Carolina, pictures

Hey there, ‘Redheads… They say a picture is worth a thousand words. Well, then this blog will contain roughly five thousand words. I was going through my camera after telling you about my trip to Calvert Cliffs, and I realized that I had a bunch of random shots on here that I’ve never shared. Mostly things I found odd or amusing during my comedy road trips. So, in the interest of padding the blog like a 14 year old girl’s bra on her first date, here we go…A typo? At a Hooters? I’m shocked, shocked to find that gambling is going on in here. Either it was a typo or there was a Mothers Against Drunk Driving event going on. Everybody else seemed all for it, however.

I call this one, “Sweet Victory, Sweet Tea.”

Here’s a creepy wall of puppets I found at J*R Discount Outlet that should adequately haunt your nightmares.

No comment.

Here’s a receipt I got at a Donato’s in Lake Norman, NC. Check out how the girl behind the counter chose to spell my name. JARADD. I don’t mind that she mixed up the vowels, but what’s up with the double D? I’ve never seen anyone stutter at the end of someone’s name before. It looks like I’m a henchman in a skateboard gang. I’ve seen many misspellings of my name, but I’ve never seen it turned into a Picasso like that before.

And, finally, here’s a prize that was available at the North Carolina State Fair. A stuffed Michael Jackson. Let’s get beyond the irony of winning a stuffed MJ for your child to cuddle with. I’ve never seen a stuffed version of an ACTUAL PERSON. Characters, sure, but last time I checked, Michael Jackson wasn’t fictional. Happy Black History Month, by the way. Stay classy, North Carolina. Sheesh.

See you Thursday…