Dan White

What’s the Italian phrase for “flat tire with tomato sauce dumped on the top of it along with some shriveled mushrooms” ? The answer is: “pneumatico sgonfio a la fungilli shrivilloso con salsa pomodoro disgustioso.” This is what I consumed during my highly unpleasant recent visit to the ‘new improved’ Italian restaurant that I frequent in San Francisco. Until last week, the restaurant was brilliant. They had a nice way with pastas, sauces, wines and the like. The service was kind of pushy at times, but hey. In the past week, the place plunged off a cliff in terms of quality. They became overly ambitious and highfalutin. They started putting wild game and other assorted creatures on the menu, while experimenting with peculiar new sauces. My wife ordered something that looked, pretty much, like a soggy, insipid bird’s nest with cheese on it. Translation: “Nido di uccello inzuppato y banale…

Yesterday I met Salman Rushdie. I shook his hand and talked to him for about two and a half minutes, though I can’t remember exactly what I said because I was very, very nervous. When you meet a literary celebrity, it is best to pin down at least something that you have in common and dwell on it for as long as you can. In this case, we both talked about how we don’t really like to grade papers very much, and how a pass/fail system with narrative comments is just fine with us. That was one thing we definitely had in common. Afterwards, I calmed myself down by eating a large helping of Pepperidge Farm cookies from the free food buffet. http://cactuseaters.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default

I was just searching through the internet, and I stumbled upon a site that allows me to order my own upcoming book in bulk! I think I’m going to place an order right now just to see what happens. http://cactuseaters.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default

I just got back from the beautiful but slightly creepy canyon in Utah. I drove up a chewed-up road with no guardrails for 10 miles over some very steep sandstone cliffs until I reached a parking area with a skull (a bear skull perhaps) lashed to a post. I explored some gold-tinted hills and cliffs with ancient granaries perched on the edges of sheer drop-offs and took a close look at some beautiful, and quite chilling, petroglyphs etched out of the walls. One of the petroglyphs showed a ‘fallen man’ who seemed to have tumbled down a cliff face. Another showed a figure with bird feathers emanating from his head and a long snake-like body. I saw pictures of dancing shamans, rams and hunters all clustered together on a long wall. I also saw a bear cub running around, a bunch of wild turkeys, elk tracks, deer and rabbits all…

I’m taking off at this moment on my journey toward the spooky Southwestern canyon full of Fremont-era granaries, petroglyphs, pictograms and other remarkably intact ruins (they found actual corncobs in in some of the granaries!). The place was inhabited about a thousand years ago but the people deserted it quickly for mysterious reasons. The other strange thing is the fact that they built their shelters so far up on the rocks, out of reach from water on semi-vertical cliffs. In fact, you would need to be a fairly skilled rock climber just to reach many of the cliff dwellings in this place. http://cactuseaters.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default

I’m heading off to Utah to take a look at some very old pictographs, petroglyphs, granaries and other ruins in a remote slot canyon about three hours from Salt Lake City. I’m doing this for a magazine assignment. I’ll give a full report when I return next week. I’ll make sure to bring plenty of water this time!! http://cactuseaters.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default

I’ve never liked Halloween, America’s annual nod to Satanism, but at least I took some cold comfort in the junk food: infant-sized versions of Mars Bars, York Peppermint Patties, Milk Duds, Junior Mints and Raspberry Spree. In the past, if a parent departed from the protocol and tried to drop an apple or an organic cracker into your treat bag, the response was simple: you reported them to the police. Now, the kids of today have nothing to look forward to in terms of Halloween. Health-conscious parents are phasing out the wonderfully slimy and bad-for-you artificial snacks of yesterday and replacing them with sustainable “health food” options that take all the fun away. Listen to these stomach-churning new Halloween snack options that parents are handing out to unsuspecting corpses, Darth Vaders, Vampires and pint-sized Tila Tequilas: 1. Small lumps of artisanal cheese. In the past, if someone dared to hand…

In light of all the terrible things going on in the world at this moment (and, when you think about it, every moment) it might seem flippant to complain about this city’s selection of utterly hideous sofas and couches, and the fact that Craiglist in San Francisco offers nothing for sale other than the most stained skanky cat-claw-punctured sofas and futons I have ever seen. However, I think it’s worth mentioning, considering there is so much ugly furniture in this town. So far I’ve gone to about a dozen stores in search of a bearable sofa. I’ve seen sleazy black leather couches (the salesman assured me that they “never wear out, they only wear in.”) horrible mixed-plaid couches, and showroom couches that looked like they were dragged from the side of a Kern County highway. After more fruitless net searching, I decided to stop looking for nice couches and focus…

I am watching these California blazes with grave concern; I have family not far from the fires, as well as a backpacking friend who is out there hiking in the backcountry, solo, not far from some of the blazes! Be careful down there. http://cactuseaters.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default

The other day, I decided to celebrate my recent graduation by ordering extra-spicy Thai take-out from my favorite restaurant in Cupertino, and then washing down this meal with a bottle of Frank Zappa Kill Ugly Radio, a commemorative offering from the Lagunitas brewing company. The bottle has a picture of Frank’s face from the Mothers of Invention years. Anyhow I ate a huge mouthful of pad thai noodles, and it was so fiery hot that I poured myself a large helping of the beer and tried to cool off my mouth with it. For some reason, the Frank Zappa beer only made the situation worse! The beer, like Frank Zappa, is complex, surprising, and more than a little bitter. Somehow, the Kill Ugly Radio beer, combined with the thai spaces, caused a fiery sensation to wash over my mouth, quadrupling the agony. I think Mr. Zappa would be pleased. http://cactuseaters.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default