Requiem For A Pepper
First of all, I changed the font and font-size of my blog title thingy. My monitor makes me run at higher resolutions, so let me know if it's too big on your screen. In the event that it is, I will certainly take it into consideration as I'm telling you to get bent.

Second, I'd like to apologize to all my loyal readers for yesterday's unfortunate post. I'm very sorry if anyone felt slighted or unappreciated by my shameless begging for new readers. I should be more gracious and appreciative, you're absolutely right. In all honesty I'm very very happy with the little group that I find myself amongst. I'm quite happy with the blogosphere as it is and my place in it.

Yes, this means that my ploy failed and I have no upsurge in readership after one day. So we're stuck with each other, OK? Don't misunderstand, when blogger superstardom comes calling I'm going to drop you small-timers like a hot rock. For now, welcome and thanks for your continued support.

...dot dot dot...

When I was growing up, the world was a very different place. Maybe it's the fact that I'm older, more aware, still struggling with the aftereffects of that accidental overdose back in '02, but things seem so much more chaotic now, less clear-cut.

Back in the late 1980s/early 1990s when I was a scrawny, spotty, sexless teenager... hang on, it occurs to me that one might read "sexless" as "without gender", which was definitely not the case. My gender reassignment surgery happened just days after my freakishly tragic birth and has thus far been a rousing success. So no smart aleck comments, you.

What I'm trying to say that back then, my deep, deep, deep sexual frustration was just one of many things I was rock-solid sure about at the time. If anyone was to ask me at the time, "Hey [Pops], are you having sex tonight?" I would be able to say without even thinking a very sullen yet high-pitched "Nope." Now when people ask me that (I have nosy friends) I just laugh, which you'll have it admit is far more ambiguous and potentially sad.

Back then I knew who the bad guys were. Despite GW Bush's attempts to paint the immediate geopolitical environment in stark black-and-white, it's a garbled mess and we all know it. But back then, we knew exactly who the enemy was; it was the giant pink blob that stretched across half of every cardboard globe in every public school classroom from 1945-1991. No, not Canada. I'm talking about the Soviet Union. Commies. Russkies. Reds. Ivan. I'm still not sure what they did, but I knew I hated those fur-hat-wearing motherfuckers. Back then we didn't think we were going to die in some kind of nuclear holocaust like we do now with these namby-pamby run-and-hide terrorists; back then we fucking knew we were goners. Those crazy red bastards were going to incinerate us all. It was just a matter of time.

Also, it was so much easier to watch TV back then. Three channels and a couple of cable outlets if you were one of the yuppie freaks who indulged in such obscene decadence. You either watched Golden Girls or you watched Full House and that was it. OK, so "easier" might not be the best word to describe it. It sure took a whole lot less time to get bored with the TV and make the command decision to masturbate, though. See? Simpler.

As the world gets more complicated and slippery in my rapidly advancing years, one thing disturbs me more than anything else. It's possible that this little piece of knowledge, this little bit of bedrock intellectual surety that is/was the cornerstone of so many other things was a regional thing limited to people in the southwest. Let's find out, shall we?

In the late 1980s/early 1990s, it was universally understood that the spiciest thing a human being could consume was the jalapeño pepper. The problem with history is that statements can be made and then backed up with all the documentary primary-source evidence you want, there's still no way to fully recreate the context, the practical daily reality without having lived the experience yourself.

Back in the day, the very mention of the word "jalapeño" would make people break out in a hot sweat. Their tongues would loll out involuntarily and they absently fan their opened mouths with their hands. The jalapeño was king. The jalapeño was more ubiquitous than air or sunshine or happiness.

Everyone knew one person, one crazy motherfucker, who would actually eat jalapeños. That person was a legend. You talked about that person in hushed tones even when they were nowhere around. At the baseball game, you would get your relish and onions for your hot dog from the common condiment bowl with the extra-long plastic spoon. You would eyeball the little untouched bowl of cut-up jalapeño and dare yourself... but your nerve would always fail you, just at the end. And suddenly a giant hairy biker-looking dude with tatoos and dark shades would shoulder his way in and load up on the things. As you walked away you would shake your head: "that fucker is crazy" you'd say. And you'd be right.

People back then would be awed and shamed by stories their one Mexican friend who would regale them with about their old-country grandmothers who would eat jalapeño straight and by the dozen. As amazing as such feats were, in the back of your mind you would know that the old girl was probably driven by the abject desperation of poverty. She probably also ate cactus and lizard when she had to. That would have to be the explanation. No one given any other choice would be out-there enough to eat death-by-spicy jalapeño.

And when a restaurant chain opened with the audacity to call itself Chili's (sic), you didn't have to ask yourself what that pepper in the logo was. It was a jalapeño. There was no other.

But like everything else now, the paradigm has changed in favor of intractable complexity. Like the quaint old custom of wearing your underwear inside your pants, jalapeño dominance and ubiquity has been coarsely cast aside in favor of crass, red-hot, bastard new-think.

Novelty, thy name is chipotle!

Everything is chipotle now. A whole new restaurant took it as its name. Want spicy in a restaurant? You have to order the thing with chipotle in it. Grilled chipotles, diced chipotle, chipotle cream sauce, chipotle mayonnaise, chipotle barbecue sauce. I don't know if it's the redness of the pepper that makes it more desirable than the old standard jalapeño or just the romance of the vaguely Aztec-sounding name, as though we as a nation had resurrected from the ashes Chipotle God of Piquancy in time for all eaters of food to worship.

As much as it breaks my heart to see jalapeño trampled in the dust as the world stampedes en masse toward the altar of Chipotle, my age and experience do me some service. I know that just over the horizon there is always lurking the Next Thing, even for the seemingly unassailable chipotle.

So don't get too comfortable. I have seen the future. All roads lead to habanero.

Where we go from there, I don't know. God help us when we get to that point.



This post on the Narcissus Scale: 3.6


Pops


PS- A brand new Hitchhikers' Guide to the Galaxy trailer is available at Amazon. The release date has been moved up to late April now. Mark your calendars.
- posted by Pops @ 10:16 AM