day 18 -- AYCJ -- braintree, MA

sticker on the tray holder at airport security -- when all tubs are gone, you see this.

(the tubs they use are rubbermaid.)

early flight to LAS today ... i'm going back to see britney spears as part of a package -- dinner and a show ticket for $99.

the timing fits well, so well in fact, that i believe this is god telling me to see britney spears ... i originally had tonight and tomorrow in DEN to see my mom, so it was an easy switch-over ... and, assuming my mom doesn't kick it between now and 10/11, i don't have to carry the angst of stiffing her because we'll spend a fortnight on a ship together.

and a large part of the reason i'm doing this is because i can.  one of the AYCJ rules is you can change any reservation up to three days before with no penalty.

if i'd thought about it for just a second, i could have done it for cheaper.  the cheapest britney tix are $60, the price fix dinner probably isn't more than $40 ... on craigslist, or kutting i'm sure i could have had a ticket for cheaper (i kut britney the last time she played vegas and got in for free -- a casino exec just gave me a ticket when i told him "i'm just trying to get in cheap, my daughter's already inside").

it doesn't matter though.  i've got a free room and, in the words of the town crier, yes, yes, yes, yes i plan on gambling 'til i win the money.

hitting the ground in LAS, i TXTd the robot.  he's an OPH hater, but i haven't had it in my bloodstream for awhile and he lives very close to my favorite one.

we set up and after i got my "real" rental car (the PT cruiser i chose didn't start ... hmmm) i headed out for a great breakfast/lunch/whatever-the-hell-time-zone-i'm in with the robot.

in the loosest sense you'd say we talked about life -- if you think of a 90 minute monolog of me telling him how great i am to be a subset of that grouping.

german pancake with strawberries

(they only serve dutch babies in the silicon valley)

the robot gets little human interaction, and none with someone as bizarre as me, so we spent the afternoon together, going to sonic for happy hour, talking about laundry, doing laundry, walking around downtown, talking about laundry and folding laundry.

blackjack table immediately in front of swimming pool

(which, in turn, is in front of a shark tank)

the robot has an obsession with laundry.  i'm not sure why, but i'm suspecting bad ROM.  i expect full upgrades next time i see him/it.

i saw my good friend, the jeweler, for dinner.  she works for MGM and had free tix to ride the NYNY rollercoaster, so we did that first.

it's both thrilling and head beating.  neither of us had ridden it since our last ride together years ago.

the jeweler said she'd never been to either of vegas's great delis, so we we to canter's at TI.

yes, i've had pastrami and motza ball soup on this trip before ... but this sandwich is good, okay.  no, it's not a double down, and yes, the pastrami would be better if it was nestled in between two pieces of KFC, but it's not okay?

don't make me cry.

we talked until the jeweler showed signs of early hypothermia, then i dropped her back at her castle of employment and headed back downtown for my free room.

britney tomorrow.

day 18 AM -- AYCJ

airport security line, BOS

the last photo from flight #777 ...

... of COURSE flight 777 goes to las vegas.

pic of the day (18) -- AYCJ

bridge; boston, MA

(aligned and shot, while driving, in less than three seconds ... lucky, lucky, lucky)

all-you-can-jet -- day 18 -- braintree, MA

for everyone who is not special K: 

special K is a close friend of mine (and i'm his closest goysha pal).  we have lunch every friday at OPH.  today would have been OPH day, except i'm 2500 miles away.  so this is my love letter to him.  i've told special K i love him more than any other male in the history of the planet (including my brother and my father) and exactly like my male family members, he's never said it back to me.  this isn't the first time i've written publicly to special K.  please don't feel offended and yes, yes, yes, yes feel free to peek along.

pax,

b1

special K,

i'm sorry that i missed OPH with you today, but i'll make up for it (a little) by writing this to you.  i like writing you letters on OPH fridays for two reasons:

1. you don't interrupt me.

 = and =

2. you don't spit little pieces of food at me as you talk while eating.

the down side, of course, is i don't get to see evil K.

the day was pretty boring, relatively speaking.  had some good seafood ...

clam chowder (yes, again, goddammit)

"seafood trio" roll (lobster, shrimp and crab -- $4 less than a lobster roll)

boston cream pie (which i don't actually like, but "have" to have, for obvious reasons)

and saw some stuff on my way to RI.

the reason i went to "the ocean state" was to do a cliff walk with my accomplice.  there's a bunch of swanky mansions from the gilded age times there.  it's three miles of winding coastline, including a few bolder scrambles here and there.

(algae on beach)

it was nice enough, i guess ... but it's weird to think that all these rich people?  they die too.  and none of them have alfred e. newman painted on the sides of their entry ways ...

so after the walk, my accomplice and i were hungry, and we'd had a tip to work on, involving KFC if you can believe it ... 

while riding the T in boston last night, someone left a copy of the improper bostonian on a train seat.  i thumbed through it and then came upon an article "double trouble," by a genius named ezra dyer.

in it he describes a sandwich called the "double down" (DD) that is available only in RI and NE.  what is it?  well the fillings are pepper-jack cheese, swiss cheese, the "colonel's sauce" and bacon.  "big deal," you say?  wait for it.  i didn't say anything about bread did i?

that's because there is none.  

what do they replace the bread with?

that's right, two slabs of fried chicken.

mr. dyer writes about the DD in the same poetic way that shakespeare wrote about killing the french, so i'll just borrow some direct quotes from him.

"in terms of milestones in human progress, there's the wheel, the cotton gin and, now, the KFC double down sandwich."

"... with a bit of determination i subdue the 10.3 ounces of chicken, bacon and cheese long enough to take a bite.  the result is a flavor explosion, a nuclear assault on my palate.  a weeklong (sic) woodstock where 100,000 taste buds are tripping on pure umami.  anything is possible.  compared to this, an angry whopper is a bowl of kashi.  KFC has rung a bell that can't be unrung."

"if i were the bread industry, i'd be running scared.  in a stroke, KFC has rendered bread obsolete ... even the expression 'the best thing since sliced bread," is now an anachronism, supplanted by, 'the best thing since fried chicken instead of sliced bread.'"

now, special K, you have to admit that as far as tips on the subway go, this one ranks way way up there.  way up there.  and i'm already gonna be in RI anyway, so it's a must, right?

i call up the KFC hotline.  the dish is so exclusive, the 800 operator doesn't even know anything about it.  he knows what it is, but as i ask my obvious peppering of questions, they all draw blanks.  the only question, remotely "there" goes like this.

me: "so this is available only in RI and NE is that right?"

KFC man: "that's right."

"that seems like a weird choice to me because if *i* were going to pick two states for anything, i don't think i'd pick RI and NE.  i assume that KFC isn't trying to kill all the people in NE and RI, right?  because you could do that and no one would really ever know about it."

"no.  i don't think so."

but he didn't say "for sure," special K.  only that he didn't *think* so.  (he also asked for my 'blog address, so he may be reading this.)

i go in, i order a DD *combo* (w/ fries and drink), for $7.  i chat up both the super-cute counter girlie and the way-more-like-us manager.

in no time, it's ready:

DD closed

DD open

i take one bite.  one bite.  and the very first thing i think is:

i may have to order another one of these.

it is spectacular at a level beyond normal human imagination.  what's your greatest fast food of all time?  i think you told me it was the bell beefer -- well imagine the bell beefer to the bell beefer power with kobe beef. 

this is better than that.

i mean, way better than that.

remember how the first time you saw me kutrate tickets for the giants you said it was like having your third eye open for the first time?  well this was like having your real taste buds work for the first time.

i started cackling like a hyena.  i mean, like in the way i did when they fired up the jet engine at the fire arts festival.

i ate it all.  i had just a couple fries.

i sat and waited to see if i actually wanted to down another 1000 calories in a single sandwich (while sipping on 150 calorie a glass moutain dew).  i decided the answer was "no."  

i felt sadness as i realized there was no way for me to get you one of these.  we can fake it, sure.  but it will be homemade and thrown together.  and doing that is like the difference between making your own molotov cocktail and getting a small explosive from the DOD.

on the way out the spinner counter girlie asked me how i liked it.  i said, "forever my life will be divided into two parts ... before the DD and after the DD ... and i have this creeping feeling that the after part is going to be better." 

she giggled, but she didn't ask me out.

so what now?  i'm in new england, there's still two hours to kill before midnight.  what can i do?  what should i do?

as you know, there are only two answers.  

one of them is lobster, but i've already had that today and there is no way i'm going to subdue my palate with that lousy taste now.

in the words of the town crier, yes, yes, yes, yes.  candle pin bowling.  five lines, thank you very much.  (and i get a pair of boston bowl sox as keepsakes.)

i do love you special K ... but at this point you and i both know that it may well be the chicken talking.

i remain, your servant,

b1

day 18 AM -- AYCJ

overpass structure (1 block from my motel); braintree, MA

the curageous AYCJers

there's an AYCJer that needed to get from JFK to EWR ...public transport
was $13. jet pass is free, so ...

JFK -> RSW -> EWR