le.chicken.farmer@gmail.com
CHEAP EATS Dang it, my sports writer has gone on strike. Over something really stupid, too. Really really stupid. How stupid? A couple columns ago, I changed her spelling of youse to yous. Why?
Oh, you escape my meaning entirely, don’t you?
Youse. Yous. The former preferred by Hedgehog, whereas I like the latter.
Understand, dear reader, if you dare (for it’s bad luck, allegedly, to stand under latters): either word, according to expert wordstress Miriam Webster, is an acceptable misspelling of y’all. But before you leap to inclusions, let me tell you for a Cheap Eats fact that yous is better.
“No!” insisteth Hedgehog. “You don’t understand. I researched this. In Central Pennsylvania, where ‘yous’ is said, I asked a lot of people how to spell yous, and they all said yous: y-o-u-s-e.”
“That’s great, but wait’ll you read how I write what you just said!” I said. “Besides, this isn’t Central Pennsylvania. It’s Cheap Eats. And Cheap Eats has its own Manual of Style, just like Chicago.”
“Then I’m going on strike.”
“You can’t!” I screamed. I kicked, bucked, clucked, and sputtered to this end and that one — the crux of my argument being that Cheap Eats was already on strike, and that, Cheap Sports being my sophisticatedly subversive and top-secret way of being on strike and still getting paid, going on strike from the very strike of which she was, in effect, the expression, would create a profoundly dense expressionlessness on this page, which blank hole, if it fell into the wrong hands, could (for example) wipe Austin, Texas off the map.
And do you know what she said?
“Mwa-ha-ha,” she said, the evil and cuddly animal, “ha!”
And she walked out. Just like that. Over one lousy letter, albeit a pretty popular one, Cheap Sports walked out on my walkout, engendering an all-out word stoppage the likes of which this column has never known.
Thus the ramble. Because I can’t exactly bring you a relevant restaurant, can I? Under the circumstances.
Lucky thing, I am in Los Angeles. Eating hot dogs and hot dogs at Pink’s, and other things at other Bay Irrelevant places.
Tomorrow night a short film which I catered is up for an award down here. Oh, and I’ll bet Hedgehog would have loved to have written that last sentence instead of me, since she was also peripherally involved in the project — writing, directing, videographing, editing, mixing, and just generally producing it.
If we win (as I understand it) we will be awarded $60,000 worth of whisks, pans, and Brillo and things, so please keep your fingers crossed for me. Us, technically. Or “use,” as Hedgehog would have it.
In fact, had she not walked out on my walkout, over e, my everloving life partner and future ex-sportswriter (if she doesn’t come off strike soon) would have by now told you all about her first ever real live baseball game. That she played in, I mean.
Since there’s no sports section this week, however, how will you know whether she ripped her first fastball down the right field line for a triple or dribbled a grounder back to the pitcher? How will you know whether she made diving catches in the outfield or merely got the ball back into the infield in a timely and generally athletic manner?
I wish I could just publish a picture I took instead of all this gobble-de-gravy, Happy Thanksgiving, but if you want to see how friggin’ hot Hedgehog looked in her baseball uniform, stepping up to the plate for her first time ever, with a cheekful of sunflower spits, you will just have to ax/axe. (Hint: pretty friggin’ hot.)
My knee was monked, or I’d of been out there on the field with her — maybe even throwing her big slow curves — instead of standing behind the fence with her camera, photographering.
BTW, my new favorite restaurant in Los Angeles is not Pink’s famous hot dog stand, which I loved, but the Jamaican joint on Ventura where I had curry goat with roti for the first time in a long time and it was awesome.
Does anybody know? Where is Penny? She could end this madness. She could.
SATTDOWN
Tue.-Thu., 11am-8pm; Fri.-Sat., 11am-9pm; Sun. 4-8pm; Closed Mon.
11320 Ventura Boulevard, Studio City
(818) 766-3696
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No alcohol