Year: 2011

If you are up on time, you might want to stop by the Buttery Bakery early Tuesday morning and watch me walk over there to pick up approximately eight zillion slug cookies that I designed myself. As a matter of fact, I could use some help carrying the boxes so let me know if anyone can help. (no, you won’t get a free cookie out of it, but I’ll give you a big fat acknowledgment in this blog.) I am nervous about this but I don’t know why. The bakery itself says the cookies will look very cute and banana-slug like, and I have every reason to believe them, but what if there was some weird miscommunication on my part, and the cookies come out huge or too little? Last night I had a nightmare that the cookies came out looking like tape worms, with hideous green frosting. http://cactuseaters.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default

You might even think that Sammy the Slug’s cameo appearance—on John Travolta’s UC Santa Cruz T-shirt in Quentin Tarantino’s 1994 movie sensation Pulp Fiction—was the only example of banana slugs infiltrating popular culture. But Pulp was only the starting point. Here are few well-populized highlights in the history of UC Santa Cruz’s favorite mollusk on and off campus. Slug versus governor In the summer of 1988, California’s then-governor, George Deukmejian, vetoed a bill that would have made the banana slug California’s official state mollusk, complaining the bill was not representative of the international reputation California enjoys.” “I think the governor has thoughtlessly missed the point on this one,” said disappointed Assemblyman Byron Sher, D-Palo Alto, who authored the bill at the suggestion of a children’s group, the Redwood Campfire Kids. Sher emphasized that four out of the five banana slug species can only be found in California, and called them…

I am still enjoying the surge of publicity related to my upcoming banana-slug cookies. Funny — when I got my first book published, I didn’t tell very many people about it at all. But now that I’ve designed a cookie cutter shaped like a banana slug, I can’t shut up about it. I’m telling everybody. In fact, I’m working it into every single conversation I have, in the most awkward ways you can imagine: Random stranger: “Hey, you’re standing on my foot.” Me: “Sorry. Guess what, I invented a cookie cutter shaped like a banana slug.” Anyhow, I am as anxious as anyone when it comes to the final product. The Buttery Bakery is going to start rolling out the crunchable slugs early in the morning next week. If you happen to be in Santa Cruz, the banana slug cookies will be handed out in two places: up on the…

I’m glad to report that my neighborhood bakery really likes my suggested design for what just might be the first official banana slug mascot cookie. I will try to post a photo when the first one comes out of the oven next week. In case you are wondering, the baked goods will be part of a ceremony marking the 25th anniversary of UC Santa Cruz’s famous banana slug mascot. By the way, this accompanying photo shows a couple of rejected banana slug cookie options. The first one is my drawing, which is simply too big and too detailed to make a reasonably priced cookie. The second is a banana-slug-shaped blob of marzipan made by a pastry chef at the bakery. The problem is that the marzipan slug is, if anything, hemmed in by its extreme realism. In other words, it looks disgusting! http://cactuseaters.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default

Hi everyone. I’m about to order a bunch of custom-made cookies in the shape of banana slugs. Seriously. The trouble is, the bakery needs me to come up with a cookie cutter shaped like the creature in question. If you can help me out, send in to this blog immediately. I’ll also post on Facebook and elsewhere. (Time is running out. I’m not making this up). If you live somewhere on the Central Coast, I can meet up with you and pay you a fair price for your cookie cutter. http://cactuseaters.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default

These are such busy times — non-stop, hectic — but I was able to get out and see a very fine movie called “Attack the Block.” Now, don’t be turned off by the “aliens attack” set-up. The movie avoids that cliched, open world scenario in which all-powerful creatures vaporize Paris, cause tidal waves, bite the head off the Statue of Liberty and so forth. For one thing, the alien creatures are earthy and highly kill-able mammal types — hairy beasts that look like hedgehog wolf-bears, with some gorilla thrown into the genetic mix. The beasts don’t have any death rays, just claws and fearsome teeth, which crackle and buzz and emit a strange blue glow like fluorescent track lighting. For another, the alien invasion focuses on a single building in a dangerous London neighborhood and surrounding alleyways, trash-strewn fields, rubbish bins, etc. The aliens’ combatants are mostly a group of…

Don’t count me among the Santa Cruzans who drive around with bumpers that say “We’re back. L.A. sucked.” I, for one, enjoyed every moment of my grand Southlands tour which included Santa Monica, Westwood, Hollywood, Reseda, Tarzana, Redondo and Palos Verdes. Yes, there was a bit of sprawl, and yes, their was a bit of traffic (I almost got clipped in half by a Hummer, and had to rev my engine and drive like mad on the Rosecrans entrance to the 405), and yes, the place is humongous, but I loved the aspirational energy, the food, and the sense that I was putting every bit of my Driver’s Ed training — including all those “Red Asphalt” movies — to the test. I went into a wonderful Bay Cities Italian deli in the middle of Santa Monica, and it was bedlam — everyone clamoring for the same eggplant paninis and turkey…

I know my three readers keep checking for new content (I can see you from here). I am working on a piece about my journey to Los Angeles, but meanwhile here is an interesting profile. Also, in the unlikely event that you’ve never heard of them, I love these literary blogs: The Millions, Bookslut, and The Rumpus. http://cactuseaters.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default

This just in. Someone just sent me a link to a preview about a movie starring Martin Sheen, and directed by his son, Emilio Estevez (remember Repo Man?) concerning a certain famous long-distance hiking trail. But it’s not about the PCT, and it’s not about the Appalachian Trail, either. If you’re all out of guesses, go ahead and watch the trailer. Anyhow, if you’re reading this, and you feel like making a movie out of you-know-what, you know how to reach me. Forgot to mention that three Hollywood screenwriters contacted me when it first came out, hoping to get it made into a movie, but I guess these things take time. And lots of financing, too. Anyhow, you have to wonder if this is going to be first in a pack of “do the trail” movies, or if it’s just a one-off. I think long-distance trails would be good movie…

… just for a little while. Please send me your dining recommendations. http://cactuseaters.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default