I LOVE Halloween.  If it's not my favorite holiday, that's only because I'm Irish, and Joyce's Bloomsday is June 16th.  I like the idea that for one gerat day of the year, everyone in America and elsewhere (minus overly-religious wet blanket types) get to try to SCARE one another, or at least out-glam one another.  Tonight, kids will crawl all over their cities and towns searching for sweets and frights, though most will hope to find the former and avoid the latter.

Weeners.  Frights are what make Halloween special, what make it distinct from the other "candy" holidays (Valentines Day and Easter which, I'm told, is not ONLY about candy).  Halloween, coming as it does right after Daylights Savings Time wraps up for the season, marks a sort of cultural "Return to Nighttime," a time when peoples interest turn away from fun, frolicky daytime activities towards nocturnal nonsense and, yes, naughtiness.

Halloween has naturally been attacked as a celebration of sin, a savoring of carnality, an orgy of lechery, and so on.  To all those who make such accusations, I retort, succinctly, YOU ARE CORRECT!  Halloween is a night of the year when you can take a moment and be nasty, be naughty, get dirty, get dangerous, and get away with it.  It's not a time to really truly act bad and break the laws and stuff.  No, that's the day after and only in Detroit.  Halloweens just a time to revel in the fact that naughtiness abounds, it's a human trait, and mostly we act with dignity and sense.

Halloween has likewise been attacked as the "Devil's Holiday," or a time to worship Satan, whoever that is.  Who that is, according to the Book of Job, Ecclesiastes, and the Book of Isaiah, is a creation of the almighty, and party of the whole program.  The word Satan comes from the simple butchering of the Hebrew word for adversary.  And yet many a zealot will blame Satan for this or that or whatever.  Certainly they'll blame Satan or the Devil for Halloween.  POPPYCOCK!  Don't blame anybody for Halloween that isn't associated with candy industry.

I'll not waste a key-stroke lambasting candy.  Say what you will about your dentist bills or the diabetes epidemic, but there's absolutely no arguing with a snickers bar.   It's been a long time since I watched Saturday Morning Cartoons, but I sure hope that Reeses Peanut Butter Cups still has those commercials where a somehow a Republican eating from a jar of Peanut Butter and a Democrat eating a chocolate bar get into a fist fight and somehow invent those sublime little discs.

Halloween manifests the recognition of sin principally through candy, giving kids a chance to gobble up something that most of the year most of them are denied.  Obviously, as a representative of a healthy snack company, I'm supposed to talk about how candy's terrible for kids, and how everybody should be giving away Peeled Snacks instead.  I certainly agree with both of those statements, the first because there's no denying it, the second because I'm a self-serving goof.

But you want to know the truth?  Take candy out of Halloween and you MISS THE POINT!  Take sin and gore away from October 31st, and all you've got is the responsibility to dress up.  A friend of mine who shall remain nameless and awesome says that Halloween is an excuse for girls to dress super-sexy.  They can dress up like any professional, be it a nurse or a teacher or a firefighter or a superhero or whatever, so long as its supersexy.  Its an excuse to, for one night, let it ALL hang out, and then go back to being good little girls and boys.

 Lets all get back to being good little girls and boys TOMORROW.  Tonight, LET IT ALL HANG OUT!!

A Halloween ode to Shel Silverstein... 

There's poison in the apples, dear

and spider in the gin.

Your costume's lined with razor blades

to help you get more thin.

I wrapped a cobra round your hat

and hypnotized your granny.

So when the cobra bites your head,

your granny will kick your fanny!

There's booby traps all round the lieu

and trap-doors in your closet.

I hooked a blood bag up to the sink

so don't turn on the faucet!

Werewolves came to my house last night,

I gave them your address.

They asked if you were tasty meat,

I told them all, "oh YES!"

A ghost I met had lost his house,

when witches burned it down.

I told them all just where you live,

the address and the town.

Vampire coffins in your garage

will soon be opened up.

They quietly sneak in your room

and on your blood they'll sup!

You might ask why I tell you this.

I just thought that you should know.

Oh, for one other reason-

You're STANDING ON MY TOE!!! 

Posted by iankusc at 12:38 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

 

America used to be a great labor pool.  Our nation was founded not on but via cheap labor- look in an original draft of the Constitution and you'll see that slaves were, if not fully American, at least worth two thirds of one.  As citizens slowly woke up to that terrible math, we opened our doors (or, er, ports) to Germans, Jews, Italians, Irish (begrudgingly), Chinese (till 1882), and so on.  We constantly refilled our labor coffers and bred prosperity, if not in the most recent arrivals, at least in the 2nd or third most recent newbies.

Check out this article about labor in agriculture right now, courtesy of the NYT.  It's a fascinating dissection of the breakdown in the US when it comes to dealing with labor woes.  Just how is it that orchard owners in California's Central Valley have come to be so nervous about China's Jiangxi province?  And why should this have SO much to do with kooks like the Minutemen?

By stopping the flow of "illegal" immigration from Mexico, we are indeed upholding the letter of the law.  But by not dealing with the real issue of what those immigrants offer to our workforce, we're shooting ourselves in the foot.  Would you like to pick pears for $100 a day?  If you said yes, then why don't you?  Would you be upset if someone that said "yes" really got an opportunity to do so?

China's might right now lies not in its military or its scientific infrastructure, but rather in its labor force.  They've 4 times the number of citizens that we do, and their political/economic systems allows them to do what they will with said workforce.  It's sad and frustrating to me that we're willing to outsource everything to China, rather than actually compete with it.  But that sure seems to be what's going down...

Posted by iankusc at 09:49 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

So yesterday my wonderful mother-and-father-in-law (yes, they defy such in-law stereotypes by being wonderful, no I'm not being ironic, and yes, they do come as a poly-hyphenate) returned from a 4 week bit of TRAVEL to Argentina and the bottom of the known world.  They returned to the Northen Hemisphere raving about such things as the landscape of Patagonia, the architecture and design of Buenos Aires, the quality of the food outside of America, and the warmth of Southern (and I mean SOUTHERN) culture).

I spent some time perusing the photos which they kindly posted online for all the world to see.  There was Iguazu falls, roaring mightily.  There were the wide boulevards on BA.  There were the seemingly alpine lakes of Barriloche.  And there were the ice-fields of Tierra Del Fuego.  My tears got all misty thinking of their journey and how, well, I didn't get to go on it.

 Take a moment and consider that there are VACATIONS, and there is TRAVEL.  A VACATION is supposed to be a fun, relaxing getaway trip full of room service, drinks out of which stick funny little umbrellas, and slinky bikinis.  TRAVEL, on the otherhand, is not a get-AWAY, but rather a get-TO: the purpose is to go to a place and see what it's all about.  When you TRAVEL, you see the good AND the bad of a place.  On a VACATION, you just see the bar (or the spa, or the casino, or whatever's around that's pretty).

I'm a consumate traveller- seeing the world is basically what I want to do with my life.  And travelling is one of the crucial reasons that Peeled Snacks exists.  Our founder and spiritual leader (jk) came up with the idea in an airport when she couldn't find anything that she wanted to eat.  Therefore there's a strong link in my mind every day between what we do here at Peeled Snacks and what I want to do with my life...

Luckily Peeled Snacks are popping up in more and more airports all over the country.  The more the merrier, I say, because there's nothing worse that groggy, crabby travellers.  Peeled Snacks is one way to arrive, you know, snappy and happy.  But I'm just schilling here.  I've got REAL stuff that I should be writing...

Posted by iankusc at 02:29 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I'm sorry, but I just found THIS to be the funniest thing since the movie AIRPLANE!..

Rachael Ray Snaps Chicken's Neck Live On Air

 
Around here at the Peeled Snacks world headquarters, we LOVE Rachael Ray.  Her impact on the world of food is huge, and we feel that she's a force of SUPER positive change- she makes quality food fun, smart, quick, and easy.  That, and she's just fun to watch.  I could say a few negative things about her too, like her ties to the East German army cast a dark cloud over the food network, and her insistence upon pronouncing shallots "Shah-Yos" drives me bonkers.  But truth be told, I would wash her dishes anytime, anywhere.

That said, this week's send-up in The Onion Magazine should be shown to all those goofballs in the Middle East, just so that they realize that we Americans have some kind of sense of humor about our rampant imperialism...

Or maybe not- I don't want them to think ill of Rachael Ray.  And I certainly don't want them to learn about her involvement in the Ethiopean/Eritrean war...

 Just had to get that off my chest. 

Posted by iankusc at 10:23 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

This past weekend, in honor of a good friend of mine's impending nuptials, I and several other chums jumped on planes from verious corners of the lower 48 and shuttled ourselves, sans carryon hygenic products, to the strange, fantastic, rococo playland that is Las Vegas, Nevada.  I had never before found my way into Sin City's city limits, thanks mostly to the fact that the last time I extensively travelled the Southwest I was under 21 years old.  That, and I'm cheap.

Well, certainly Vegas has many, ahem, virtues which ought to be extoled- the design is outlandish, the entertainment is suitably over-the-top, the air is (artificially) oxygen rich, and the drinks, thankfully, are free.  Clearly there's something for everyone in Las Vegas, since there's a sign on the way into town that tells you so- "Las Vegas: Something 4 Everyone".

Indeed , there's certainly something for me in Las Vegas, or at least the Las Vegas vicinity- in celebration of my buddy's waning bachelordom, some of us jumped in a minivan and headed West, OUT of the city, towards the surrounding desert.  Our goal was the Red Rocks state park, a beautiful stretch of rusted-iron infused canyons and cliffs that blew our minds, and NOT our wallets.

But what, you ask, does this have to do with Peeled Snacks?  Gambling, debauchery, and free drinks are a regular part of the Peeled Snacks business model, but my interest today doesn't pertain to such crucial fundamental aspects of business.  Furthermore, canyon walls, however beautiful, simply do not apply.  How, then, am I to turn this travel blog into a snack blog, you wonder?

Granted, this is slightly eliptical, but imagine, if you will, a desert.  Not the Sahara style desert of endless dunes, mind you- the American Southwest version, with its rock and dust and heartbreaking, empty vistas.  Through such a landscape we drove while making our way to the literally named Red Rocks Park, and I imagine that throughout most of history, such a landscape remained basically empty, barring the occasional lizard, tumbleweed, or compulsive gambler.  But you know what I found hiding in yon desert, lurking alien in an alien landscape, trying to blend in like a chameleon yet sticking out like the middle-finger buttes of Monument Valley?

 Tract Housing.

Driving out of Vegas, we passed mile after mile of last that should belong to an empty, barren desert basin, but which was filled with little, sand colored houses.  I was shocked to see how many houses there were in a land that spent, oh, 18,000 years devoid of human inhabitants besides a smattering of Paiute indians.  Even freakier to me was that for miles, all the houses were basically the exact same design, as if the urban planners had deemed the outskirts of Vegas to be "tan box country".

What a terrible idea.  What a miserable, awful, foolish, dangerous, disasterous approach to urban planning, for which the city council of Vegas should be vigorously flogged.  Though the name Las Vegas means "the Meadow," it's a DESERT.  The Colorado River, running so close to Las Vegas, would be able to support a population of close to a million people, but the river is now diverted far away- as far as phoenix and California's Imperial Valley.  Between agricultural needs and splitting the Southwestern regional water bill, Vegas has little to no room to grow.

All that housing out there in the desert speaks of the radical growth that Vegas has seen in the last 10 years.  It's the fastest growing large city in America, and thousand of people arrive there every month seeking their fortunes.  But such growth is completely unsustainable.  Babylonia used to be a verdant paradise, but too much growth turned it into the wasteland that is now Iraq.  Vegas' growth could have a similar effect, only the place STARTED OUT as a desert!

Unmanaged growth, be it in urban centers, agriculture, or business, makes for disasters.  However much money may be being made in Vegas now, is that more or less than the cost to fix all the mistakes that are being made?  I suspect that it's much, much less.

Okay, that still had barely anything to do with snacks, but it's what was on my mind.  Sigh...

 An ode to Vegas:

Cha-Ching used to be the war-cry

of Buffalo hunting Apache braves

when they finally sprang from behind boulders

to drive their woolly, wholely useful prey

over the cliffs of the Valley of Las Vegas.

All the bison got bagged and baked,

and the Apache all succumbed to the bugs

brought over by the bug that bit the fleas

that bit the Spanish on their way to Eldorado.

The words Cha-ching still echo loudly

Through the valley of the Meadow,

And somehow the mythical Lost City of Gold

has been made real in an empty desert,

brick by gold brick, 

One rococo Casino at a time. 

Posted by iankusc at 09:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)