Hollywood Syba and Other Stories

The only thing better than Hollywood Syba is my new favorite food, Taquitos:

They remind me of the Taco Time deep-fried crisp burritos, and I must find out how to make these. I am hoping some humble soul in Durham could request them for the new Coop...pleeeeeese? My favorite is the above chipotle flavor. Notice how chipotle is all the rage for the last few years? What happened to jalapeno?

Along this same cuisine theme, here I showcased a little Vlacho Nacho with some Weston-made guac and black bean hummous, the latter mixed with Soy Chorizo (a delicious addition & available in many mainstream groceries).

Though not quite Bento, you might note this dish is an attempt at a face with bucked teeth. Disregard the chipped plate.

Last blog we left off leaving Portland. Spent a few days in Forest Hills, Oregon, screening the documentary at Pacific University for the Students for Environmental Awareness group. The organizer Tina did an awesome job of promoting as evidenced by this lifesiized poster announcing the event.

Imagine a little man standing below, the size of a brick.

Rob also helped promote, complete with his Herbivore “Vegetarianism is Environmentalism” shirt.

While in the Pacific Northwest, which seemed like forever, I kept reminding myself to take a picture of the grey to showcase one of the reasons I left. It's sort of hard to capture on camera, but I think this sufficiently represents day to day life for months and months...

And this is around noon. Needless to write, I was very happy when we landed near Redding to find this odd, shimmering thing, perhaps an alien aircraft:

My vitamin D immediately tripled.

Syba has not relented in her quest for front seat privledges. I tried to block her with my sweater, but this was no match for Syba's focus and determination.

Back in Eugene, Oregon, we played at Luckey's Cigar Club with the fun and fellow-off-kilter Launchpad. They had all sorts of toys and instruments and of course were space creatures.

As was their set, the accompaying set list(s) were elaborate:

We played too (photo taken by Launchpad).

Closing the night were Cymbaline:

After we left the show Weston continued to have stalling issues. He stalled in an intersection where three men were kind enough to push him so Rob could pop the clutch. Thanks, men.

Rob and I eat pretty well on the road as you might guess from reading this blog. Every morning we have breakfast, usually oat-flour pancakes with banannas and/or apple, topped with flax seed meal, agave, and earth balance butter. But sometimes we'll scramble. Usually weekends when we don't have to be anywhere right away in the am.

Here is some breakfast scramble I made, with Shirle's smoked Paprika sprinkeld on top. Food is sort of naked now without this spice:

In Medford, we played at Johnny B's, a 50's inspired bar run by the friendly Johnny.

Sharing the bill was Elly Swift:

Elly was one of those songwriters that pulls you in with a story mixed perfectly in halves: one part reflective sadness, and another of fun. It seems very few performers can visibly pull in an audience on the strength of their voice/songs alone, but she did this. Listen to "Ode to the Workin' Man" and "Noodle." The music is not new, meaning, she evokes someone from an earlier era. Ghosts, maybe.

We also enjoyed Absinthe Rose who played and kindly set up the show. I thought of alerting the copyright office in Durham when I saw they had a saw player as well as a washboard.

We arrived to Redding California on a Sunday, and promptly went NY Times-searching. The Sunday edition is like a present (Book Review! Magazine! Style! News!) so when the local Barnes and Noble reported they only carry one Sunday edition, and of course that had been sold, we felt like we found coal in our stockings. Luckily Starbucks Claus nearby had several copies.


We found a local park pictured here, where we read and played with the Bear for a few hours before our show.

Our all-ages show that night was at a newer venue called the Downtown Eatery. The dedicated man who books shows does all he can to make this place a destination. In addition to bringing bands in he hosts movie and other themed nights. He's awesome.

That night we played with Seattle's Iji, catchy, fun, engaging:

who also guest-starred in Boston's very excellent Math, the Band:

Math the Band set up in the middle of everything and people danced all around them. One audience member drove 60 miles to see them. He's dancing in the picture here, to the left of Iji's bassist.

We also got a new fan.

Kolbiter was the local band who kindly hosted the show with their introspective songfullness.

On inauguration day, Rob and I were at a reststop in between Ashland, OR, and Redding, California. We went backwards to screen my film for the Active Social Skeptics (yes, ASS) at the University of Southern Oregon.

Fortunately we were able to hear the ceremony on the radio 1940's style. Though I felt sad to miss seeing what was described (ex: Obama's daughters 'skipping' up to the stage) I felt a tremendous relief and a feeling I can only describe like a washing. Hope is pictorally rendered here in Mt. Shasta, as seen from Weston while we listened:

After the screening, we headed back to California for our next show at the Stud Bar. On the way, some birds reminded us that traveling by Weston is a pretty boring compared to this:

We arrived in San Francisco to play the show that Vroom kindly set up for us via the Midtown Dickens! Thank you Vroom! Thank you Midtown Dickens!

Here is Rob in front of the Stud Bar with a man who called himself Flava-Flav.

He also said he'd watch Weston for us. The folks at the Stud Bar were super-kind to us and the bartender even had an older Westfalia. We played with Pinched Nerve:

That night we camped in Berkeley as we'd be leafleting there the following day. We found a Whole Foods and even vegan cupcakes there. I did not take a picture of them, thankfully, as they were not worthy of vegan cupcakedom. I think they mixed in whole wheat flour into the frosting. Or make that Buckwheat flour. The opposite of light and fluffy.

In San Jose we played at Streetlight Records with Serenity Now, who were kind to let us on their bill last minute. I don't think the show went very well for BB. In fact, it went poorly. The mic levels were uneven, we were sloppy, and i was cranky. But the woman who runs this store was very, very nice and there are many finds here, record-wise.

Later that night we made up for this poor display of BB and performed at the Caravan Lounge downtown, which I hear is like the Cheers of San Jose. We played with the fun Black Acacias, as well as two other bands. Here are three of the Black Acacias:

I really liked them. Great bass rice noodling and guitar surprises with drum fillings. Plus the singer took off his clothes at the end (well, one layer) which I tried to capture for you all but my batteries died.

Three of the four Black Acacias also came to my screening in San Francisco! They are on my happy good list forever now.

Just like my family in San Jose.

We stayed with my mom's sister and her spouse, two of our favorite people anywhere. The above pic includes my cousin and his family, too. Syba loved it there and helped keep watch with their dog, Molly.

We left for a few days to screen the film in San Luis Obispo at Cal Poly with the Hellenic Society. Here I am performing the intro, which is very unlike BB's intro:

And with a couple of members of the Hellenic Society, or as I call them, my Fellow Greeks!

My friend Joe calls me a Greek supremacist, which I'm not sure is possible since I'm only 1/2 Greek. But it's a really bold-roast half, if it were coffee.

An audience member kindly covered the screening here: Vegan Soapbox. This is an awesome blog with a lot 'o relevant updates.

Next we headed to Bakersfield. In pursuit of wireless in Bakersfield, I walked a few miles to the public library. This is the first library system I have encountered without wifi (actually, the Forest Grove library did not have wifi either, but this was mitigated by the City's free wifi accessable from the library).

Crestfallen, I asked the librarian where I might find wifi. She recommended Long John Silvers, apologetically, based on a sign on their door advertising “Free Wifi.”

I couldn't even remember what Long Johns Silvers was. A steakhouse? In any case, I walked the few miles back to the supposed location and only found a strip mall. I inquired at three locations about wifi, and finally walked into a Verizon Wireless outlet. Thought they might know where local wifi spots were. Course they don't, silly me, they are there to sell things. Like a handy wireless card which I could buy and have wifi “all the time!” and “anywhere!”What Verizon Man (VM) didn't understand was I don't want to have wifi all the time. If I'm camping, I want to be camping. I want a reason not to work all of the time.

So after VM offered a two-year contract and discount on the purchase of the card thingy (all in about 5 seconds) I said, “I don't want access everywhere.” He paused. “Well, this can give you wifi anywhere!” I repeated my disdain for anywhere. "Oh, you want freedom,” he said. Ding ding, ding! Ding! Ding! I was then rendered useless to him, as freedom is not for sale. He had no idea where wifi was.

Why repeat this story of toil and turbulance? I'm curious if YOU want to be available all the time, whether this is by cell phone, wireless, beeper (do people still have beepers?), satellite, or, of course, the ever popular facimalle.

To your humble Binge, this availability is akin to walking around with your screen saver on until someone presses your space bar. Just shut me the &*^% down.

I screened the film at California State, Bakersfield the next day, for the Philosophy Club.

I can't begin to tell you how happy I am to have met the leader of this club, who was very thoughtful. She made delicious stuffed mushrooms for the event complete with two fillings, even – one pesto, the other a walnut-sage-stuffing kinda wonderment.

Happily she and some club members went out with us that night and also made it out to our show the next day:

We played with a local band at the Silver Fox Bar. I'm kicking myself right now (ouch) but for the life of me cannot recall their name, and thus only have this picture:

This lack of memory is not speaking to the band, they were awesome and nice. It was even the bassist's birthday and we led/conducted a song. It is more a reflection of their being added last-last minute and my juggling booking, screenings, shows, and promotions.

The Silver Fox Bar establishment was recommended by the journalist N.L. Belardes, who kindly interviewed us about our tour (bakersfield.com). He even sent our press release out to the local tv stations who covered the events, and recommended we include TV in our press blitzes. (Our first round of TV releases landed us a spot on AM Arizona, which aired on 2/9 in front of 2 million viewers, I think. Pictures next blog!).

Rob and I left that night to head back to San Jose. Weston had still been acting up and stalling. I had to push, run, then jump into him while Rob popped the clutch then held down the accelerator to ensure he did not stall. A couple of men walked by asking, 'why do you have her doing that?' referring to the pushing and helped push the van. Apparently they did not know I was the arm-wrestling champion in a small village of Greece (when I was 12).

On our way back to San Jose from Bakersfield we encountered a source of both an odor that permeates Bakersfield (the Bakersfield Smell, or BS) and my veganism.

Back in 2002 we eloped and took a 6 month 'we got married and let's take a trip' trip, flying overseas to travel through Europe and visit family in Greece, then returning to my family in Toronto, then Rob's family in Connecticut, and bought an '88 Suburu stationwagon (with power windows!) for $500.

We drove Subey across the states, visiting family, toward Seattle. We took the Southern route and even had a song: “We are traveling across the states, in our Suburu, '88, the Southern route we'll go! We'll sleep in our car (that'll get us far!), the Southern route we'll go...” I will not clutter your minds with the rest of the song, but we did include something about driving with expired temporary plates and camping.

The name/idea for Beloved Binge was also then born in Los Angeles, the perfect hospital for excess and consumptatude. On I-5 driving toward San Jose, Rob and I came upon the smell and sight of the Harris Ranch, a feed lot for cows who become beef. Unfortunately the scene has not changed since 2002 when we passed by. I took some pictures this time around as well:

It's hard to capture here the sheer number of cows on stretches of land, black and brown spots as far as you can see. It is overwhelming. At the time I saw it, I realized the cost of our choices to make meat and dairy such a large main part of our diets. They were here, left, abandoned, awaiting the hellish transport and slaughter. Nothing to graze upon – just mud. (Of course their pitiful condition allows them to be outdoors at this stage unlike chickens and pigs crammed in sheds then in cages or crates.)

It broke my heart back in 2002, so I began to look into the dairy and egg industries. After reading about how animals are raised, transported, and slaughtered, I had no choice but to stop eating these products eventually.

Finally we made it back to San Jose. We were lucky to catch my aunts' practice. They are in this awesome outfit called BAGAL (Bay Area Gays & Lesbians). There is a joy and discovery that permeates their playing. They're a whole lot of fun.

I especially love that they made their own version of “Here Comes Santa Claus” (see right).

Here Comes Santa BAGAL, indeed!

The next day I screened my film at San Francisco State.

I screend the film for the Student Dietetic Association as well as the Institute for Civil and Community Engagement, in a huge auditorium within the (related?) Cesar Chavez center.

As a bonus I met the person who runs screenings and shows in another part of the center, and she had some very helpful information about distribution and the business in general. She's also a former member of AC/DShe and current member of the reunited Gutter Sluts (don't Google that unless you want some interesting results). In addition to that she's a film producer.

The screening at Stanford was a lot of fun since there was wonderfully delicious dishes of free vegan food upon food. Dessert was tirimisu.

My aunts came to this screening! The audience was very lively and I'd like to use them for a laugh track for other versions. I am theorizing that folks loosen up more when they are seated around tables, particularly in a comfortable food/meal setting. The Stanford AR group was kind to host and arrange this event somewhat later-minute.

I still need to download pictures from UC Berkeley's screening, our show in LA, the TV show, screening and snow storm in Prescott, and our show in Phoenix. Next time.

For now, I leave you with the most beautiful song in the world that I discovered the other day when I was listening to my Bon Iver channel on Pandora. The artist is Joseph Arthur. I just downloaded and bought the EP it is on, Could We Survive. The song is "King of the Pavement." You can hear it here:

http://www.last.fm/music/Joseph+Arthur/_/King+of+the+Pavement

For some reason, when listening to this song, everything is better than OK.

Goodbye Hibernation Hello Road

My family home, updated, in Arbor Heights, Seattle. Nana moved here in about 1945 before Mom was born. Mom grew up here, then I did. Here are Mom and her husband Allen standing on the porch to see us off (after Weston started post-stalling/flooding). If you look at the window to the left, you can see Nana's little head watching too.

Saying goodbye to Nana is a different type of leaving. I remember when we'd leave Karditsa, our dad's home in Greece. My grandparents, especially Yaya, would cry. I'd always wonder why they were crying, but realized later they assumed they'd never see us again. Also this sadness is the recognition of our mortality and inevitable end. Leavings are kind of a reminder of this loss. So I try to memorize things, and remember them as if for the last time.

Image courtesy of http://peakenergy.blogspot.com/2008/08/how-to-travel-by-cargo-ship.html.

A couple of weeks ago I was wondering if I'd die early because I'm not really settled and want to fit a lot in, travel and adventure-wise. This was sort of after the thought about how it would be awesome to travel by cargo ship to Greece. Or at least to Europe, then tour. I mean, come on, take a look and imagine yourselves here:

Image Copyright Maris USA Ltd.

It was then that I realized, if I had only a few months to live, this is exactly what I'd be doing, health permitting. Mixed in with this is missing the homestead, the steadiness of our porch, Durham. But the contrast is necessary.

To start from where we left off last blog, for Thanksgiving, we stopped in Ellensburg and were kindly invited to screen the film and share food with the Ellensburg Veg Society. This desert town was so cold that the organizers kindly let us stay in their guest dome. I completely forgot to take a picture of it, but just imagine the coolest guest dome ever.

Thanskgiving dinner was potluck-style. I made and brought some ch'n fried seitan and russian teacakes. Lemme tell you, there is nothing more heartwarming than seeing a foot-long Field Roast being carved on a wooden block, then passed around the table. These are my people.


After arriving in Seattle safely through the pass we played a show at the Sunset with our friends Arbitron, seen above. Picture an explosion. Except for instead of running, you hang out to see what will happen. You're glad you stayed, even though you sustained something.


Also sharing the bill were the awesome Le Shat Noir (whom I was unable to photograph during their set so they kindly posed here). But several photos would be required. The keyboardist has some sort of remote control unit, and is therefore able to wheel around his keys on a walker, moving around pinball-style while the singer Doug pitches himself into the audience. All this and great songs too. You can listen to them live on KEXP on 2/28.


Soon thereafter Seattle had the worst snowstorm, or the best, as your view may be, since forever or when I was a kid. When it started, we were like, oh, yeah, this is Seattle, it will be gone by noon. Syba immediately took advantage and shoved her face into it as if it were goat droppings (as seen above).

I took advantage by gathering clean snow for snow soup, which in my mind, is snow, vanilla, soy milk, and sugar. It was delicious. The picture above is pre-soup.

I also made a snowwoman complete with a full-sized head and anatomically correct chestage, however, there was an accident overnight, and I had to redo the head the following morning.


Needless to say, I was cold and not as ambitious as the night before.

Syba did her usually running in circles and snow-bathing.


We decided to put the plastic lid of a garbage can to use and sled down my old hill.

Rob wasn't as enthused as I, but eventually saw the benefits.


There is something about snow and cold that says to me, "Eleni, eat fat and sugar." To honor this request, I made a series of veggie pot pies (pictured below), cakes, cookies, and lasagne alfredos. To illustrate 'cause and effect,' my body stored some of these meals in the form of 13 additional pounds over my arrival-weight.

Next we went to Rainier, Washington to see Rob's family. Given my dedication to eating, we should have walked. Weston barely made it up the driveway and we all had to pile in to get him to the house.

I have never made a gingerbread house from scratch. Every year I announce, "I'm going to make a gingerbread house" (to rob). Then it does not happen, and of course, by 12/26, it's too late. Sure, when I was a kid I made the lame cop-out graham cracker house. But that's nothing. Luckily, Rob's ma not only knows how to make a gingerbread house, but she showed me the magic of the pie cutter thingy and one other trick I'm forgetting.

These are all her house pieces she made, baked.

She made an extra wall in case of accidents. Or because she knew we'd be "helping." Here is Rob with his sister, Melanie. For someone who had resisted the idea of making the house, Rob seemed kinda serious about it.

Here is Margaret (sister-in law), Sue (ma) me, and Melanie.

Below, house in progress. Tall glasses are inside so it will stand up. It was almost a vegan house, too...I think there was only one stray apple ring & marshmallow smoke that had gelatin.

And, o'course, the completed home.


Ever since this trip began, Rob has been craving pumpkin pie. Rob's ma kindly made a few vegan pies, including the apple one. I also made another veggie pot pie. She has this great stoneware that makes me never want to use the metallic crap again. She said it makes them bake evenly.


As part of our Seattle trip it is necessary to eat at certain vegan establishments. One of these was Hillside Quickie. To my horror, they were out of the Gyros that day. However, this forced me to actually try something different. I had this chipotle cilantro wonderment that was a New Taste.

After this, I was determined to make the cilantro sauce. I bought some cilantro, Veganaise, and chipotle sauce, and brought these to Rainier. Unfortunately, in my haste I had picked up Italian Parsley instead of cilantro, and was quite disburbed (culinarily). But, in making lemonade out of lemons, I made this casserole anyhow, and it was pretty filling and melty-good.

I can't recall exactly what I put in this, but it included torillas, beans, a veganaise/chipotle/garlic/nutritional yeast/salsa mixture, olives, corn, onions, and tomato sauce.

Did you know that goats eat evergreen trees? Me neither. But now it is documented, right on Rob's family farm.


Syba has some neurosis, including fear of bicycles, water bottles, Weston, and horses. We can now officially add goats and cows to the list. She was very suspicious of the goats and after a few days drummed up the courage to sniff them nose-to-nose style, albeit with a slight growl of confidence.

We met some calves as well. When another cow mooed, Syba ran for the house with her tail between her legs, looking back several times to ensure the cow was not following. It was a pretty intimidating moo.

Back in Seattle, we visited our friends Lynn and Tom, who share their home with urban chickens (Tom's lap).

Usually the chickens are kept outside, on the ground, but it was particularly cold this night.

Due to the snow, we had to postpone and cancel a lot of visits. We really did have a white x-mas this year. I made pancakes and hashbrowns. I seasoned the hashbrowns with these life-saving spices Chef Shirle sent us, Somach and Smoked Paprika.


I tried to google "Somach spice" because I'd never heard of it, and google asks me, "do you mean stomach spice?" and yields no useful results. Whatever it is, it's damned good and tangy. I also used this in my last veggie pot pie, which really brought the roux alive.

While in Seattle we worked on a few new songs. It's pretty hard to find opportunities to set up the whole kit and practice. One time we asked the club if we could play early. So it was nice to set up in the living room and have a most enthused audience member (Nana).

During one song she invented this sitting dance I'm going to call The Nana which involves a jerky opening of both arms while simultaneously rolling up eyes and opening mouth. It was awesome and I love her for it.


Speaking o' family, our show at Le Voyeur was surprisingly attended by some Shelton and Woodinville family members...as well as Rob's family. As you may discern from the pictures, it was cooler than a tofu-locker back there.

Photo by Margaret Gilbirde.

Photo by Melanie Gilbride.

We played first, because, well, it would have been late for some of our family.

Following us solo-Young Mothers performed with and around the audience. We're playing with them (full-band-style) in Tucson. Great songwriting & performance + nice fella = we like.

We were excited to share the floor with Clawform, aka our little Durham eyeball Colin, who brought his black metal badness to the show. Ending the night was another of Ian's projects, which, when I asked him the name, he replied "I don't know." However, by the end of the night, he did in fact have a name, which I remember being catchy, but forgot it.

In any case, who needs a name when you have dueling/dueting metal (black metal?) droning violins?

The next night we played in Portland at The Know. It was an early show set to end at 10:30 pm. Pictured above are Paper Brain, who will be releasing an album soon, stay tuned.

We also played with Babies Got Rabies, a fun switch-a-roonie band short a member that night but still sounding full.


Luckily our good friend tofu-mama hooked us up with his friends in Portland and we stayed a few nights in a grand old house nearby everything with nice, nice folks.
So I'm in Portland, the land of Vegan shangri-la, and haven't even mentioned vegan cupcakes.


Here you see the result of a cupcake being so good that I forget to take a picture of it until half-way through. This was a pink-flavored cupcake. The frosting firm, but giving. Moist cupette.

Later that night, I screened my film at Sweet Pea Bakery where this cupcake lived its short life. Herbivore, who some of you might know as the coolest-coolest place to accesorize veg-style, was kind enough to get the word out about the screening, and, not evident from this photo, the room was full o' people and also cupcakes.

I forgot to take pictures of some of our visits, but this is it in a candy-coated nutshell. We're off to Forest Grove and then south from there, which will be good as the skies have been grey and misty every day.

Oh...and I forgot to mention that in December I also screened the documentary at Seattle Pacific University, the University of Puget Sound (Tacoma) and at my alma mater, the University of Washington (at which were mom, Nana, and Allen).

Blow Up Radio (NJ) voted Blender Theory as one of the top 50 releases of 2008, and I think we made some kind of WXDU top 66 and Ross list too. Thank you, list makers!

The Olympian also wrote a feature about our tour. We forgot to pick up a paper, so if anyone has a copy let us know.....

ox
bingeoid

PS - an important PS to Durham and Triangle-ites.

There is a benefit show on Friday at BCHQ with some amazing bands for an amazing person, Alex. He has been wonderfully supportive of the music and arts community, and you might have heard of his company, Urban Footprint Films. Please show your love...here is the post by Midtown Dickens:

http://blog.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog.view&friendID=18430528&blogID=462182942