Saturday May 10 at The Abbey Lounge, Som - Tuesday, April 29, 2008

It's an olde timey punk rock show!

Come and party with us like it's 1979!



SATURDAY MAY 10, 9:30 pm

Abbey Lounge, Beacon St., Somerville, MA



Apunkalypse Now - sweatin' to the punk rock oldies!

http://www.myspace.com/apunkalypsenow1



Kitty & The Kowalskis - Kitty on bass as The Kowalski Trio!

http://www.myspace.com/thekowalskis



EDP - 60s british invastion meets 70s british invasion!

http://www.myspace.com/edptheband



Once again, that's Sat May 10 at The Abbey Lounge

http://www.www.abbeylounge.com/

3 Beacon Street, Inman Square, Somerville, MA



You won't wanna miss it!

EARLY SHOW FRIDAY OCT 12 at 7 PM Knitting Factory - Wednesday, October 10, 2007


JUST ROCK PR presents a trio of power pop bands
Three bands, three chords, three-minute songs

Friday, Oct 12th
The Old Office at Knitting Factory
74 Leonard St, New York, NY 10013, (212) 219-3006
www. knittingfactory.com
1 or 9 train to Franklin Street,
A, C, E, N, R or 6 train to Canal St.

$10 - All Ages, 6:30pm doors (about $3.33 per band!)
7pm Kitty & The Kowalskis (as a trio!)
8pm Crashbox
9pm Anita

Kitty & The Kowalskis - keeping the spirit of CBGB alive with their Blondie-tinged style of bubblegumpowerpoppunk.

Crashbox - "powerpop at its finest, reminiscent of Elvis Costello
vintage years."

Anita - "is a seminar on power pop." The Chicago-based indie power rock pop force sounds both fresh and vintage at the same time.

For more info contact:
http://justrockpr.com

Reagan's NOT dead!!!! - Thursday, September 20, 2007
It's Reaganomics all over again! What's the definition of insanity? Doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result. Why is the trickle-down theory back again? It's the theory that if the rich get richer and they get big tax breaks that they will spend the money and create jobs for the little guys.

Um, no. It didn't work during the Reagan Administration and it certainly doesn't work now - the numbers show that. Economic reports for middle and low income people are bad, and the job market is the worst it's been in a while, all of this with soaring fuel, consumer prices and a cheap dollar which is not even helping our manufacturing and export sector.

Why isn't it working? It does not work because of the very nature of the WAY the rich spend their money, which is based on the principles of capitalism: They KEEP the money they make, and turn it into more money by re-investing it. That's capitalism. Where the trickle-down theory fails is its basis on CONSUMERISM - that rich people will spend their money instead of save it.

Who spends every dime they make without saving it and investing it? The poor and the middle class. For the most part, they have to, and in fact BORROW money at ridiculous interest rates on credit cards just to have the necessaries of living. Credit cards defaults are rising as are interest rates due to the mortgage market crisis (which is another rant altogether!)

So, if anything, the consumerist basis of the "trickle down theory" is keeping the poor poor, while the rich are very different from you and I. They make money the capitalist way - they invest it.
kitty

FIX Minimum Wage = indentured servitude - Monday, January 8, 2007
Call me a communist. I have ranted much about the class divisions - especially for workers making minmum wage. I just heard of some CEO getting EIGHT figures for leaving his job. You hear a lot, especially now that Wall Street bonuses were announced, about how much the wealthiest fraction of one percent of the population are making, but somehow, minimum wage and the working class are nowhere near the headlines.

Hear me: Minimum wage is $5.15 an hour and has not been raised in nearly a decade. Any sane person can tell you this is not enough to live on. Any human in touch with reality can tell you $5 now does not buy as much as it did in 1997, which was the last increase.

I'll do the math for you: a person working a 40 hour week making minimum wage makes $200 a week BEFORE taxes, or almost $11,000 taxed at 11%, which is UNDER the poverty line! That does NOT include any vacation, either! Or benefits. Who on earth can live on that in the US? Even a two income family at that makes $22,000 per year, but is taxed at 28%. Add kids, and you're f*cked.

The senators worked hard this past summer at increasing their incomes (raised over $30,000 in the same 9 year period) and on the much-debated estate tax becuase it affects them directly. They don't know anyone who works for minimum wage, as I guarantee most of their "hired help" is illegal, or their babysitters and nannies make even less than that. Guess how many angry minimum wage workers are calling their senators asking for a wage increase?

Senator Clinton, of my home state, is introducing a bill to increase the minimum wage to $7.25. That's a 30% increase to bring the weekly pay to almost $300 per week or $15,000 per year. Doesn't that sound more sane - or better yet, HUMANE?

Please ask your Senator to support this legislation for the folks who do not speak for themselves and are too afraid of losing their crappy paying jobs to call their senators. Or who aren't registered to vote. Or who just do not know how to participate in the system or know that if enough of them call and ask for it, they will get it. Aside from salary increases, Senators fear for their jobs, too,and are always looking to get re-elected. Calls equal votes.

Use this easy form to get the e-mail and phone number of your US State's sentator:
http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm

Here's to life, liberty and the persuit of happiness!
kitty

Op-Ed Columnist - nytimes.com
Working for a Pittance By BOB HERBERT

"We can no longer stand by and regularly give ourselves a pay increase while denying a minimum wage increase to the hardworking men and women across this nation."

Hillary Rodham Clinton, to her fellow senators.

The federal minimum wage, currently $5.15 an hour, was last raised in 1997. Since then, its purchasing power has deteriorated by 20 percent. Analysts at the Economic Policy Institute and the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities jointly crunched the numbers and determined that, after adjusting for inflation, the value of the minimum wage is at its lowest level since 1955.

For those who don't remember, Eisenhower was president in 1955, the Dodgers were still in Brooklyn, and Barack Obama hadn't even been born.

If you're making the minimum wage, you're hurting. If Congress and the president don't raise the minimum wage by Dec. 2, it will have remained unchanged for the longest stretch since it was established in 1938. (The longest period previously was from January 1981 to April 1990 a span that saw the entire Reagan administration come and go.)

Senate Republicans recently blocked a Democratic bill, sponsored by Senator Edward Kennedy, that would have raised the minimum wage to $7.25 an hour over the next two years. Jared Bernstein, a senior economist at the Economic Policy Institute, noted that while Republicans in Congress are standing like a stone wall against this modest increase in the poverty-level wage, "they are working as hard as they can to repeal the estate tax."

"That," he said, "is just vicious class warfare."

The most important pay increases for most members of Congress are their own, and they are diligent in that regard. Senator Clinton, in a floor speech supporting the minimum-wage hike, said, "During the past nine years, we've raised our own pay by $31,600."

Mrs. Clinton has introduced a bill that, in addition to raising the minimum wage to $7.25, would link Congressional pay raises to hikes in the minimum wage. Under the bill, the minimum wage would be increased automatically by the same percentage as any increase in Congressional pay.

Polls have shown that Americans overwhelmingly favor an increase in the minimum wage. But the low-income workers who would benefit from such an increase are not part of the natural G.O.P. constituency. Thus, the stonewall.

A separate study by the Economic Policy Institute found that in 2005, with the pay of top corporate executives up sharply, and with the minimum wage falling further and further behind inflation, "an average chief executive officer was paid 821 times as much as a minimum wage earner."

That C.E.O., according to the study, "earns more before lunchtime on the very first day of work in the year than a minimum wage worker earns all year."

"The reality," said Senator Clinton, "is that a full time job that pays the minimum wage just doesn't provide enough money to support a family today. We have to acknowledge that fact and do something about it. As a country, we cannot accept that a single mother with two children who works 40 hours a week, 52 weeks a year earns $10,700 a year let me say this again: $10,700 a year. That is almost $6,000 below the federal poverty line for a family of three."

During the 1950's and 60's, the minimum wage was roughly 50 percent of the average wage of nonsupervisory workers. It has now fallen to 31 percent less than a third of that average.

As the Economic Policy Institute and the Center on Budget pointed out in their study: "Each year that Congress fails to raise the wage floor, its purchasing power erodes. The fact that the minimum wage has remained the same for nearly nine years means that its real value has declined considerably over that period. As inflation has accelerated recently due to higher energy costs, the real value of the minimum wage has fallen faster."

There is no justification none for condemning the nation's lowest-paid workers to this continuing slide into ever deeper economic distress. "No one who works for a living should have to live in poverty," said Senator Kennedy.

It's very telling that in the most prosperous nation in the world, that kind of comment actually sounds radical. We have a very long way to go.

Stephen Colbert, my hero!!! - Tuesday, May 2, 2006
Don't worry, Jon Stewart is still my personal jesus as he brought Stephen Colbert into the limelight, but now Stephen has just come into his own in my book, Read this about his appearance at the White House Press Corps event, if you missed it:

http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1002425363

This took some guts. If you want to actually SEE how uncomfortable the audience and President gets:
http://www.youtube.com/results?search=colbert+roasts+bush&search_type=search_videos

p.s. youtube is the best invetion since the interweb.

already, people are singing his praises:
http://thankyoustephencolbert.org/
I gave him my thanks and was number 9126, I think!

I think there are many flaws in his speech - his targets are too easy and he doesn't roast the PRESS enough, which was the purpose of this event. The Laura Bush/Illiteracy thing falls flat becuase mostly she reads kids fiction anyway. He could have done a little more on Mr. Snow formerly of FauxNews as press secretary, instead just a one liner.

Happy May Day! It's a European holiday, which I didn't know. I got looks of disbelief - much like if a European wandered around the streets of Manhattan July 4th wondering where in the hell everybody went.

"truthiness" *snicker*snicker*

DESTRUCTION - The New Creativity? - Wednesday, February 15, 2006
Have you noticed this or am I crazy? Creative culture seems to be dying - and the sentiment of our current times is doing everything in its power to KILL IT.

When I was in college, I studied "humanities". What makes us different from life outside the food chain is we create - music, art, literature, thought. We wonder why we are here, and some of us try to make the most of our time on planet earth by MAKING something. Clothing, Music, Pictures, a place for people to meet and have fun, food, whatever. It is an expression of an idea or a concept, which didn't exist quite that way before - that came out of nothing and now EXISTS, as part of the cultural landscape for people to share, enjoy, or at least, contemplate.

It seems we are surrounded by destruction: war, aggression, violence. Violent crimes are up in some cities and they don't know why. People are shooting each other over conflicts that barely merit a double-take. As we see in New York City, there is less and less support for the arts. The music scene will suffer the loss of two important venues - The Continental and CBGB. Monetary contributions from private sources to The Arts are down, let alone the non-existant government support. What happened to the NEA? Some yahoo got pissed off at ONE work where a crucifix was put in a cup of piss (remember "Piss Christ"?). Killed the whole program, though they weren't too thrilled with Karen Finley smearing herself in chocolate, either (p.s. Finley sold out and did the same thing for Playboy - sad). Think of the thousands of other artists who were cut off and probably got soul-killing desk jobs like all the other creative types I know.

Even worse for the creative process is the apathy that lets destructive forces rule. Our society watches while all this goes on like it's a television sit-com. As long as the TV works and there's a car in the driveway, I think most of America thinks they are happy and have a good life. What about a good life for humanity? What about evolving into a kinder, gentler species? THIS is what The Arts do for us. Music soothes the savage beast, but so does art, film, drama, and experiential creativity in whatever form it takes that makes us stop worrying about the almighty dollar for one second to think and enjoy. It's a cerebral "stop to smell the flowers" to live in the moment and remember why we are alive.

If anything, this time of destruction has spawned MORE creativity from me because I fear that creative culture may have its last gasp right in front of me. I cannot let that happen. I've seen what it's done to my city. The artists and musicians have left in droves. It seems that "culture" is something to entertain the yuppies at clubs with "bottle service". It's "Sex & The City" rather than a big dick up the ass of the imagination devoid drones who think they can buy a lifestyle in a boutique.

We have a government that destroys not creates, draining funding and energy from scientific, artistic, humanitarian and nurturing efforts for the children of tomorrow in order to give "a good peppering" to the people who don't agree with us today. That's the only true "trickle down" theory that works - our goverment espouses a value system that holds destruction under the guise of bettering humanity. Which way will create a better global society - the one I envision, or the one we have now?

NEW ALBUM WILL BE OUT SOON - Monday, February 6, 2006
From our friends at AMP Records. We had a few advance copies at Punk Rock Bowling, and are putting the final touches on it so we can ROCK IT!



We won't be publicizing the title until we have it in hand, but let's just say it's LONG AWAITED!



Visit www.amprecords for more details!

Kitty's plan to Save CBGB! - Friday, September 16, 2005
The trouble with CBGB...

CBGB was recently served with its eviction papers. It seems that neither love nor money will save this place. So what’s “Save CBGB” about, other than legendary reunions, celebrity endorsements, public outcry, and big ticket prices? Ultimately, it’s the need to preserve counterculture, which is systematically being erased in pursuit of the almighty dollar. While CBGB is not eligible for “landmark status” in the esteem of well-heeled historical societies, it was a haven for culture generators since the mid-seventies. Warhol factory and even Max’s Kansas City refugees flocked to this unlikely venue in the vagrant-ridden Bowery, as no other venue would give them a home. Though Hilly Krystal’s dream of cultivating a blues bar was not fully realized, what he created with his implied consent was the birthplace of punk rock.

Now that saving CBGB has become a cause celebre in the zero hour, and even past it, so it seems, Why should we care? Locals complain that CBGB’s bookings are erratic and it seldom hosts good shows – until now. Tourists come to look at the place and gawk at the remarkably rustic interior and fetid toilets, and then buy a t-shirt. Everyone wants their photographs taken under the awning, but will that sustain the business? CBGB is more than a business and a tenant. It’s a cultural symbol. It represents the soul of rock and roll. While these place that once symbolized everything that was cool, different and a little bit dangerous disappear one by one, I sound like an octogenarian tour guide as I tell people, “This deli used to be Max’s Kansas City. Dee Dee used to pimp himself outside this office building, this door with the padlock used to be where Dylan played, this NYU building used to be the Fillmore East…”

Who is selling the soul of rock and roll? The Bowery Residents' Committee, which seems to hide behind the façade of portraying CBGB as the ogre that keeps roofs from being erected over the heads of the homeless. This is an organization that also receives support from the government and private parties. The $20,000 a month in rent CBGB has been paying up until now has seemed to do just fine in the meantime. Their eye is on the promised $40,000 in rent they could collect from a corporate franchise like Starbucks or a celebrity vanity-project restaurant. I don’t know if Muzzy Rosenblatt, the BRC’s director, has looked around lately, but even the smattering of yuppie restaurants and bars that have spring up on the Bowery in very recent years are struggling, and the overall neighborhood is just as seedy as it was when I walked into CBGB in thigh-high leather boots to play my first audition showcase in 1982.

Another reason why CBGB should be allowed to remain, not only for the careers that it launched, is that it is a globally unifying symbol of the rock and roll spirit. Bands from all over fight to play the humiliating audition showcase, and save the strip ad in the Village voice under the CBGB and OMFUG moniker as evidence that they have arrived. Every band wants to say “I played CBGB” It’s a right of passage. The reality is that this is not enough to fund $40,000 a month in rent, let alone CBGB barely scraping by paying half that. It has been widely reported that CBGB owner Krystal makes $2 million dollars in t-shirt sales, the ubiquitous rock and roll uniform. Some say he should fund the club with that, but even given that, the man is not running a charity and $2 million a year may not even subsidize it fully, once you add in taxes, licensing fees, insurance, payroll, and all the other daunting expenses you are on the hook to pay for putting on punk rock shows.

So what is Save CBGB all about? Is it salvageable? I attended the press conference MC’d by “Little” Steven Van Zandt on August 1st and learned a lot about the situation. Just let me say, Little Steven has become one of my personal heroes over the last few years, because of his dedication to preserving rock and roll, as “The Sopranos” music supervisor, Underground Garage host on Sirius and the internet, and the driver of last year’s International Garage Rock Festival, even though commercial music has obliterated and semblance of the art form. Up until this press conference, the general story was that it was a fight about back rent and increases. CBGB lawyer said the back rent was not the issue. Indeed, a short time later a judge ruled that CBGB was not responsible for the back rent. These were unbilled charges the BRC tried to collect, another item on the list for them to get CBGB out. What was Save CBGB about? The bottom line, says lawyers and politicians flanking Hilly, along with rock and roll legends who would be unknown if Hilly hadn’t provided a haven for them in the mid-Seventies, is to put political pressure on the Mayor of New York City to ask the BRC to renegotiate the lease under more reasonable terms. Anyone who knows Mayor Bloomberg realizes that he’d stick his neck out for a punk rock club like CBGB as much as Bush would for poor people stranded at the New Orleans Convention Center.

Panelists also included Tommy Ramone, and Lenny Kaye of Patti Smith Group. Handsome Dick Manitoba of the Dictators, Jean Bouvoir of The Plasmatics and John Holmstrom and Legs McNeil of Punk Magazine soberly lined the back of the stage like personal henchmen. There were question from the audience and shout oft of support from East Village fixtures Jimmy of Trash and Vaudeville, and even a member of the Wu-Tang Clan, who gladly posed for pictures afterward with star-struck punkers (me included!).

The press conference was followed by a short set by Debbie Harry with her guitar player and keyboards, as she played a few songs even from the beginning of her career, like “X Offender”. Jesse Malin also played a set there, and I’ve known Jesse from shortly after the time I first played CBGB, and have seen him in about at least 5 different line-ups over the years on that same stage. The night ended in an all-star jam with The Waldos with Walter Lure, Lenny Kaye, Sami Yaffa now of the New York Dolls, and Karmen Guy of Mad Juana.

The rally in Washington Square Park marked the last day CBGB was legally allowed to occupy its current space. Concerts continue after the clock has struck twelve. Today on mtv.com Hilly vows to stay even after they have locked him out. All this love, media attention, “benefit” concerts, what can be done? The landlord wants them out full stop. CBGB is trying to re-open lease negotiations. You wonder why the BRC has such a hard on for CBGB. Is it just the lure of more rent? They say they are looking for a new tenant. What will the new tenant do, rip out 35 years of flyers, rickety floorboards, spray paint, stickers, spilled beer, and scuff-marks from black boots? These are badges and scars that cannot be moved. They are layers of history and labor and blood, sweat and piss. It can’t exist in Las Vegas. That’s not where the Ramones first played. It can’t even exist down the street. It’s like burning an original Mozart manuscript. It cannot be replicated. There is no formula. There is no substitute for experience, just as you can not re-construct history, even if you put on the uniform and stand on the same battlefield.

What can be done? This is what I think: Hilly allowed punk rock to flourish in his club, and allowed his business to get into this situation because he’s not one of these businessmen with the killer instict. How can he make money and meet the new rent, assuming that the BRC will let him stay even if he can pay it? Just think about why most people come there – just to see it. Turn it into a rock and roll museum. All those artists that are donating their time and energy to saving it can donate their memorabilia. Even as it stands now, CBGB is a million times cooler than the Hard Rock Café, or a hundred thousand times cooler than the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland. When my club, Coney Island High was shut down, the former manager of Max’s Kansas City Peter Crowley told me, “You can’t make money from the music! We made out money selling food!” The advice came too late for me, but it’s somewhat applicable to CBGB. People would pay $15 to see CBGB as a museum, but won’t pay $7 to go see bands. Shows have high overhead. So, you lower your overhead by having exhibits, charge more for admission, and keep the stage for shows for special occasions. You can’t have great shows every week. You can’t even have them every month. Take them as they come, and charge more. And have food, sell t-shirt and let people hang out and just absorb the feel and the vibe that cannot exist anywhere else at any other time. Then CBGB will make it’s rent and retain it’s foothold on the cultural landscape.

Will my plan Save CBGB? Maybe not. It makes good business sense, and it seems the landlord is looking for a viable business, which CBGB is not in its current form. You can’t had benefits ad infinitum. But it does need to be preserved and saved as once it’s gone, it will be another place I will walk by and say, “That Red Lobster used to be…” I feel I have abandoned my city and my scene in its darkest hour of need. It I come back and CBGB is gone, I will feel like I lost a bit of my heart, and the city will have lost a bit of its soul.

I need stuff for my kök - “Smacka kin kyckling - Monday, September 5, 2005
Sweden has a reputation for being hideously expensive, but the only thing that’s more expensive than any other major city is eating out. Because I’m a cheap bastard and there are no real restaurants and cafes in the neighborhood, I decide to visit the supermarket in the shopping center near the train station after my first day of work, and am trying not to resort to this:


I had not started my “Teach Yourself Swedish” program, and thought to myself how hard could this be? Food is food, and aside from the 45 varieties of pickled herring and liver spread, the food here is not that different. The challenge is not only my lack of Swedish vocabulary, a third of which seemed to be somewhat distinguishable, but the pronunciation, which is not phonetic. Hell, words like barn (child) and kyrka (church, pronounced sherka) were already imported to Scotland by the Vikings and are still used today, but as I was to become aware, Swedish pronunciation is has all kinds of wacky rules and vowel characters which don’t sound like they appear to the untrained speaker. I want to use my kitchen, which is “kök”. Imagine my uneducated pronunciation of this word, which made one listener laugh as I inadvertently used one of the FCC’s seven dirty ones. A K has a soft sound before the Ö character, so the Swedish pronunciation of kitchen is “sheok” (Just so you know, proper rock star pronunciation of Björk is “Byerk”). The positive outcome of all this confusion is if you want cock, you now know how to ask for it in Swedish. (Note to self: May come in handy in the future.)

Whatever. I need to eat. I ask the folks at the front desk where the supermarket is, so I walk down and find it easily. I walk through the door, and in the refrigerated case to my right are ready-made salads. This is perfect for me, but with the exchange-rate, they are 6-10 dollars apiece. I pick them up one at a time to inspect them. A couple have crayfish in them (right now is crayfish season and people are having “crayfish parties”). I don’t recognize the word, but supermarket seafood, no matter how close to the sea I am, is suspect in any language. I see one that is marked “tunfisk” (tunafish) and another one is kyckling (pronounced shicklean) tandoori. I pick up the latter, even though I hate chicken, because it’s the only salad that I can at least identify all of the contents. I feel like a Martian as busy shoppers keep reaching in front of me, grapping salad containers by rote. I took me a good five minutes to hold each label up to my face and turn the container upside down to select one salad that hopefully held no surprises.

I go immediately to the fruits and vegetables. What you see is what you get, right? No funny labels or names. A tomato is a tomato. They have iceberg lettuce. What else do I like in my salad? Cucumber. I approach a vegetable that looks familiar, but it is a zucchini. Then I saw what REALLY looks like a cucumber, but it’s HUGE. It is al least 14 inches long. All of them. It’s also a little more textured, or ribbed, if you will, than the American cucumber, which is maybe 8 inches long, smooth and waxy. What I think is a cucumber is wrapped in heat-shrunk plastic which says Svenska Gerke. OK, I am competent enough to make the connection to gerkins, which are made from cucumbers, so I think I’m holding the right legume. I put it in my basket. Something else to add to my kök. (Hmmmmm. My mind still retains the incorrect pronunciation.)

I meander over to the cheese, which is very common in a Swedish breakfast. Since I don’t drink milk, I thought would be a good source of calcium for my female bones (by the way, tall women of Nordic descent are at the highest risk of Osteoperosis). The signs say “Ost”. What the hell is this – Ost for Osteoperosis? The only type of cheese I recognize is Jarlsberg (pronounced “Yarlsbey”, as Gs are also pronounced like Ys, except in front of certain vowel sounds), but of course, that seems to be cheating to buy the one I already know. I pick up the different varieties and try to smell them though the package. I squeeze the blocks with my thumbs. I find one that looks like a relatively soft white cheese, and it says “port salut”. I see words on the label like “mild” and “aromatic” smak (flavor/taste). I stare at some nearby proscuitto, which they also have for breakfast, in addition to salamis and other kinds of deli meats. It is 250 kroner, which is about $35. Same with the gravlax (salmon). I ponder becoming a vegetarian, but cling to my kyckling tandoori salad for comfort.

The baked goods are easy, and I select a light brown baguette that looks grainy. Around the corner is the freezer section, and I angle to save myself some torment with TV dinner, rather than trying to navigate all the individual ingredients for a meal in a foreign language. I do this the way any functional illiterate would – I look t the pictures. Sometimes, the photographs are as mystifying as the deciphering the contents. I quickly ascertain that food stylist is not a lucrative career in Scandanavia. There is a picture with something that rings a bell from my childhood. Looks like stuffed cabbage. Stuffed with WHAT is the next key question. Well, my Scandanavian domestics used ground beef, but that was in America. The box says “Halor Jenny’s Kåldomar”, and comething like “original recipe”, so it probably says “Aunt Jenny’s Home Cooked Godknowswhat”, which every Swede understands like our Stateside affinity for Aunt Jemima. I don’t really care at this point. It comes with “potatismos” and looks smothered in gravy. You could serve me shit with mashed potatoes and gravy and I’d eat it. Score for the basket.

There is another item that looks like a patty of some kind disguised in bread crumbs. Fläskschnitzel. I know what a schnitzel is. I’m not quite sold, because there is no mashed potatoes in the picture. I read further: “Panerad Fläskschnitzel med champinjonsås, klyftpotatis och gröna ärtor.” I’m cool with 50f that, and the photo fills in the blanks: Schnitzel in mushroom sauce, some kind of potatoes and green peas. I’m getting the hang of this. The next fridge was completely puzzling, but I see something that looks like a quiche. “Ost och Skinkpaj”. Cheese I have mastered, but cheese and….???? The photo shows diced ham floating in it. Then, I remember SOME Swedish pronunciation – Js are like Ys so Paj is pronounced “pie”. I think I know what I am getting into, but it’s giving me a headache.

I am suddenly gripped with terror. How in the hell do I prepare this stuff? I look to the back of the package, my eyes frantically darting about to latch onto something recognizable. A USA Today-like graphic catches my eye – it looks like a TV, but I think it’s a microwave. There is another little box next to it that has little lines as if it’s radiating heat. This must be the conventional oven. The little microwave icon has a “clock for dummies” with “9 min” next to it. I check each package, and they all have roughly the equivalent directions. They may have put them there for children, simpletons or foreigners like me, but I am instantly relieved. I put it in the basket and go for less puzzling food items.

I stumble upon the pasta aisle and see Barilla, and it feels like home. If they have the labels in Italian, this will be easy. I know I am old self when I stop trying to figure out what the words on the packages mean, and I start comparing prices. I buy whatever is on sale. I am a cheap bastard in any language. Especially since I felt strong-armed into my other food purchases, paying somewhat of a premium for comfort in knowing what I am ingesting. Pasta and sauce was easy. I have bread, cheese, salad makings, but no salad dressing. I go hunting for it and decide to just keep the Italian theme going and buy the one that says “Italianesk”. I also notice that they have “Newman’s own” and while my confidence is shaken and I want to run to American brands like a security blanket, it is much more expensive than the Felix Italianesk, so again , the cheap bastard prevails.

I start thinking ahead to breakfast. Nearby is the “dairy case” and I see Yogurt. Pictures help. One is “Barry” and it’s the cheapest. I feel like I am getting really good at this. Just when hubris kicks in, I am knocked down when it comes to butter. I can’t find any word that I would interpret as butter. What I think might be butter is dangerously close to liver spread, another popular breakfast spread. I pick up something that looks to me like butter, and it has a chicken on it. I find one that has a cow on it, and just pulling a Hail Mary play that it COMES from a cow, and not CONTAINS cow, I dunk it into the basket. It also says something like “extra salt”, so it has to be butter, right? It says “Bregott”. At least they both start in B.

I am utterly exhausted by now. Each one of these usually “low involvement purchases” (in marketing terms) has been like shopping for mutual funds. I’ve spent almost as much time in the market as I have spent typing here (about an hour). I pick up some store brand bottled water, as my delicate digestive system may be no match for Swedish water-born bacteria. I go to check out, and can respond to the girl’s, “hej!”. I avoid money issues by using my credit card. She asks me for my “kod”. “No kod”, I respond, and as she swipes my card, I stand there like a moron as she rings up the next customer. I look around, and the people after me already have their shopping bags out, which are BEFORE the conveyer belt, and are bagging their own. The much-humbled spoiled American, goes back, gets a couple of bags and packs up my hard-earned groceries.

I unpack and ponder them before putting them away. Somehow, one of the most ordinary of tasks seems like a monumental struggle. I couldn’t ask anyone for help, and usually, that’s not my style anyway, but a word or two would have saved a bit of headache. I vow tomorrow I will start my “teach yourself Swedish” program. I am chopping vegetables for my salad and I’ve overwhelmed with emotion - alone, eating by myself, surrounded by people I can’t communicate with and signs and media I don’t understand. I pop two aspirin. In the end, I marvel at my simple meal, and wonder if it’s odd that my first dinner in Sweden is actually Italian.

I watch BBC news, as my little television only has a few channels, and take comfort in its familiarity. A few nights later, I find David Letterman on another channel. In Sweden, they don’t dub the shows, they subtitle them. Thought it doesn’t help with pronunciation of the words, I can see what words mean what and draw some parallels. Dave is telling a joke, and the punchline is “it tastes like chicken” I eagerly look at the subtitles: Dag smaka kin kyckling. My first full Swedish phrase,. This can be how I will choose my sustinance from now on.

Next: I am enthralled with the little things that are just different enough to become completely fascinating.

Kitty's Excellent Scandanavian Adventure - Tuesday, August 9, 2005
YEP - they are issuing a recall of big blonde ladies of Nordic descent.
I don't know whether it's for the repair of genetic defects or they just plain ran out.

I have to show up at an office and travel around a bit for conferences to places like Moscow. I will be lording over what they call "The Nordics", which includes Estonia and Latvia. I will make several jaunts to rape and pillage all over Europe for whatever those countries have to plunder.

I will be establishing Kitty Kowalski, Inc in Stockholm's center. I've realized over the last two years that I am an empire. Kitty Kowalski-land will be wherever I am standing. I am bringing a guitar. I will have no friends or distractions other than work, so I can play guitar or write songs. I will play shows all by myself with no friends or fans to be polite. Case out what the clubs are. Hear their brand of rock. Steal candy from the Backyard Babies. Sodomize the Turbojugend. Set sideburns on fire.

I have already begun planning on going to Rock in the Castle in Scarborough UK ( http://www.rockinthecastle.co.uk/ - http://www.yorkshirevisitor.com) in September, and some big punk rock show in the beginning of December with every band I have ever liked.

I will come back to the States every couple of months to pet my kitties, eat white Castle and complain about crap beer. Maybe take in some Theater.

All on someone else's dime.

And if I don't like it, I'll quit my job and set up franchise somewhere else. Work on THE BOOK. Open a karaoke bar. I'm suck of being a sucker for The Man.

I'll have my camera and a computer. I am determined to ROCK SCANDANAVIA. Jesse Malin was talking about coming over there and having me be his support act. Hell, he even wanted me to support him for his show in San Francisco next week.

In the immortal words of The Terminator: I'll be back.