Alien Lore: Tom Waits on Aliens

By Jack Brummet, Alien Lore Ed.

"My dad was a radio expert in the army, and in addition to bicycle repair, he had me building my own radios and sending away for kits and creating my own little shortwave radios. And I picked up things when I was a child that I swore were extra-terrestrial, and maintain to this day that I made contact, or at least I was on the receiving end of a relationship with an extra-terrestrial but was unable to communicate with him because my radio couldn’t transmit...... It was a language that did not exist. It was not Russian, I was picking up Russia and Poland and Hungary and China— It was a language, but it was not from around here. And here I was unable to transmit. On earth, we never acknowledge that they exist because it doesn’t fit into our beliefs about the creation of the universe. God made the earth in seven days, then he rested. The idea that there would be creatures out there. The government is apparently keeping creatures they found, and in top secret bunkers in New Mexico, never to be viewed by the public. I believe that." [from a conversation with Jim Jarmusch recorded in 1992]

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Cooking with Jack: Irish Stew for St. Patrick's Day

By Jack Brummet

• 2 1/2 lb. lean beef stew meat, cut into 1-inch cubes** (Or better yet, 2 1/2 pounds lamb shoulder)
• [a lot of Irish Stew recipes use bacon, I don't, but feel free]
• 3 tablespoons oil, divided
• 2 tablespoons AP flour
• 1 teaspoons salt and ground black pepper to taste
• 1 healthy pinch cayenne or 1/2 tsp. Tabasco
• 2 large onions, chopped
• 2 cloves garlic, smashed
• 3 tablespoons tomato paste
• 2 cups stout 
• 1 sprig fresh thyme (a teaspoon dried is OK)
• 2 1/2 cups carrot, cut in thirds
• 2 tablespoons chopped fresh parsley for garnish

1. Toss meat with 1 tablespoon of vegetable oil. 
2. In another bowl, mix the flour, salt, pepper, and cayenne. Dredge the beef in the flour.
3. Heat 2 TBS oil oil in a cast iron skillet or Dutch oven on medium-high heat. Add the beef, and brown on all sides. 
4. Add onions and garlic and lower the heat to medium, cover, and cook for 5 minutes.
5. Pour 1/2 cup of the beer into the pan, and as it begins to boil, use a wooden spoon to loosen the brown bits from the bottom of the pan. 
6. Pour in the other cup and a half of beer and add the thyme, and tomato paste. 
7. Lower heat to a slow simmer, cover and cook for 1 hour 30 minutes (stirring once in a while). 
8. Add the carrots and cook another half hour to 45 minutes.
9. Check seasoning and garnish with chopped parsley.
10. If you want, serve with boiled or roasted potatoes (don't cook them in the stew). 

**Note: With beef, use chuck. Other lean cuts like, say, sirloin, just don't break down right and you end up with these tight little nuggets rather than tender. chunks But your own chuck and cube it yourself rather than buy the unknown cut in generic supermarket "stew meat." For lamb, for the same reasons, use lamb shoulder.

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When Irish Eyes Are Smiling (Frank Zappa version)

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Alien Lore - How to report a UFO

A P.S.A. video from the Mutual UFO Network:

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Poem: Into The Wind

By Jack Brummet



I watch three herring gulls
Fly South into the wind
And they're losing ground,

Tumbling and righting themselves
In the shifting currents
Scouring the air.

It's not that they want
To migrate South
So much as not go North.

Something in the gull's hearts
Tells them to stay clear
Of Ketchikan, Skagway, and Nome.
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Poem: The Quest

By Jack Brummet

It’s all one story—
                           A ragged

                                        shape-shifting tale

Of incredible coherence and constance,
                                                           encompassing all you know,
                                                           all you don’t know you know,
                                                           and all you one day will know.
There is more
                     To be

                              seen,

                              tasted,

                              heard,

                              and felt
                                           than can ever be known or told.

Our myths flourish and spread,
Person to person,

And the mysteries of the seas and skies and stars
Fill our collective conscience

With mystical scenes,
Quests, and tales of greatness.

These myths, tales, and fables
Cannot be invented, ordered, or denied.

When you strip away

The stage flats, makeup, and costumes,

It’s all one story
Starring our private heroes and dreams.
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Drawing: Faces No. 1039 - The Benghazi Investigators

By Jack Brummet

[Scribe on India Ink scratchboard; second image digitally reversed - click to enlarge]

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Faces No. 1038 - The Substitute

By Jack Brummet

[hand drawn on India Ink scratchboard; the other image is digitally reversed. . .]

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Painting by Adriaen Collaert - America, A Personification circa 1590

This engraving--America, A personification--by Adriaen Collaert, was done in 1590. Interesting...

click to enlarge

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Faces No. 1037 - An old card file

By Jack Brummet

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Cooking with Jack: Three vintage recipes - Cream of Muskrat Casserole; Bear Paws (literally) Kit Carson; Pink Surprise Salad

By Jack Brummet, Cooking Ed.

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Video: The Bird Is The Word by Rocky Roberts & The Airedales, with Jayne Mansfield

By Jack Brummet, Music Ed.

Rocky Roberts was a retired boxer who became a pop star in Europe.  BT Dubs - that's Jayne Mansfield dancing.

The song is not actually T-Bird, but The Bird Is The Word, originally done by The Trashmen I think, or they at least most famously performed it. . .

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