Fast Sushi, McFoie-Gras and Other Imponderables

From the confluence of stores out there sometimes emerges a champion. One who beats out all the competition and spawns a replica of itself in the fertile womb of sidewalk commerce. Some of these go on to conquer entire continents, like great dinosaurs of retail evolution. Sometimes they sputter and fail, like dodos, trilobytes or wookies.

But there are many, especially in this city, that make it yet really shouldn't have.

This week, I present to you: A Short List of Chain Stores that Shouldn't be Chain Stores.

Teriyaki Boy

It has been said that a chef can put his entire essence into a single slice of sashimi. If so, then every bite of Teriyaki Boy is a big mouthful of underpaid 19-year-old tech school dropout with a knife.

I may be old fashioned, but I think sushi is the one thing that shouldn't be made fast. When we're dealing with the jiggly bits of recently dead sea creatures, I like my chefs to take their time. Not too much time, the sea creatures still need to be recently dead, but enough time. Otherwise you might get bits that aren't jiggly enough. Or worse, bits that are a little too jiggly. The sort that you don't notice until they're way back at your molars and you already got a mouthful of food and your eyes start to cross.

Ever since Iron Chef hit basic cable, there's been bevies of poor students seeking to undo their dorkitude via swanky food. They buy unpronounceable stuff on sale at Gristedes and try to Emeril it up. Then they annoy the hell out of their roommates the day after, talking about "This awesome kung xiao pepper fish on a bed of havarti pesto I made" when it's clearly sitting at the top of the trash can.

Teriyaki Boy is part of this growing trend of making rich food for po' folk. Fast Sushi can only be followed by McFoieGras and Paella King, and that can only lead to stuff too nasty for even me to envision.

Let's face it, rich people food is made of different stuff than po' people food. Just like it is with human food and dog food, no matter how many steak-shaped bits of gravel they mix in your puppy chow. So let's keep sushi expensive and hand-made. That way we know it's sushi and not day-old dollar menu fillet-of-fish.

The Strand

Don't get me wrong, I love The Strand. You can wander around for three hours, not find a single thing you were looking for, but end up buying eight other things just because hey, look at that. Many people have said they "got totally lost at a bookstore" but The Strand is the only place where it totally comes true. At the door there's a post of missing art students, girlfriends, and small children who have disappeared into the caverns of used books. Maybe they're now living in a whimsical universe full of fictional characters. Or maybe they've been fed to Morgo, the basement moth-monster.

But The Strand Annex, downtown, is a dubious idea. An extra store just for textbooks? What's next? A The Strand Basement for cookbooks? A The Strand Garage for failed celebrity bestsellers? A The Strand Compost Heap for Harry Potter 7?

Having one yawning cavern of used book value is enough, the fact that it takes up five floors is icing on the valuecake. I do think it should take up a whole block, that way all the concentrated value will cause a rip in time, ala Ghostbusters or My Science Project.

However, a spattering of mini-caverns would stretch the value too thin, causing no rips in literary space-time. Einstein proved it in his theory of general relativity. Using, like, numbers and stuff.

Ray's Famous Pizza, and other Places that Shouldn't be Famous

What made these random, run of the mill pizza and hot dog joints famous? What makes someone go to a place like Gray's Papaya when they can get the same mashed donkey lips and sawdust, I mean hot dogs, at any corner? The one distinction Ray's Famous Pizza has is that it was featured at the beginning of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: The Secret of the Ooze.

The only reason anyone would need to visit Ray's is because they wanted to go on a walking tour of Ninja Turtle New York but couldn't find that junkyard hideout in Brooklyn or the rooftop they kicked the Shredder off of.

Ricky's NYC

I confess, I've never actually been in this store, but the empty Ricky's bags billowing out from behind the bead curtain door of my ex-roommate's room leave little to the imagination. Why on earth there would be enough demand for spiked bracelets and pink wigs to warrant having a Ricky's on every corner in those hip but well-off neighborhoods worries me.

Since I haven't been in one I don't really know if they sell shoes but that won't stop me from ranting about weird shoes. What's with weird shoes?

I prefer plain, comfortable shoes, the sort that you can wear to work and also out to a night of ninjaing in the bamboo forest. Try ninjaing in them spiky six-inch heels, kids. You'll be the laughing stock of Shinobi everywhere.

I'm a pragmatist when it comes to fashion. Besides, I like my shoes like I like my women: 6½ and all tied up.

Hot, Steamy Love

Valentine's season is here, the one time of the year where all people, rich or poor, male or female, young or old, are encouraged to feel bad about themselves. I think it's about time we focus on what we really love, and what really loves us back.

After much soul searching I've decided that the only thing which fits that description is coffee. Coffee has been by me through thick and thin. It has always been there, looking hot, waiting for me. It's with me first thing in the morning and on my mind last thing at night. Coffee can be different every day. But I know it's the same old coffee. My coffee.

You know you want me

Coffee has outlasted all my relationships and all my friendships. Coffee doesn't call me in the middle of the night, but in the middle of the night, I can turn to coffee. Coffee has never said to me "I have a headache," but is ready to soothe me when my head is aching. Coffee has never hesitated to come with me to work, or to court, or to the DMV. Coffee waits for me outside the dentist's office, I've even seen coffee in jail. Coffee doesn't care what my breath smells like. When I come home late at night, I only smell like coffee.

And do I need to mention how available coffee is? Coffee is always ready to go, even right when I wake up. I can get some whenever I want. I can even get some at work, in the break room, every single day.

I won't lie to you, it hasn't all been smooth and creamy all the time. There have been rough patches. There have been times my heart's been beating too hard and my head's spinning and I say, "This is going too fast." There have been times I've had enough, and said "I'm sorry, I have to give you up." But in just a few days there's this awful feeling in my chest and my hands are shaking and I come crawling back.

It's not easy for a man to say I need you. But I can't deny it. Coffee, I need you.

So this Self-Torture day, instead of flowers or candy, send coffee. Nothing says "You keep me up all night" like coffee. Coffee is stronger than perfume and lasts longer than flowers. You can even put chocolate in it. Still, remember, at the end of the day who's waiting in the kitchen or on the street corner for you? When you die, who will be passing around among the mourners at your funeral? Coffee.

Really, it doesn't matter how many dates you had, or how many hearts you've broken, or how many broken hearts you've suffered, or how many awful poems you've written about said broken hearts. The only thing that matters at the end of the day is the extent of your chemical dependencies. In the end, my autopsy will reveal to all, yes, Coffee, I love you.

Unplug your Ears!

Listen up, my friends and enemies. You are the first generation of iPod people. When it is the 6th Gen, and 'Pods have gained control of the globe, your great-grandchildren will look back on you and ask why you did not stop it while you had the chance.

What does iPod stand for? Intra-Personal Object of Domination? Insidious Project of Demons? I Put Out Doom? Is it an organic thing, with a pod and earbuds? Can it grow? Can it think?

Sure it starts simple. You just want to listen to music. Then you start thinking about switching to a Mac. Then you start buying stock in Pixar. Then before you know it you're on the streetcorner draped in nothing but firewire cables and singing "Our 'Pod is a Mighty 'Pod."

Ever wonder what makes the Nano impossibly small? I'll tell you. Fairies. You'd be amazed how many of those little guys can fit into a few square inches, if you mash 'em up right.

It just started out with some music. You just wanted to hear the music you wanted to hear when you wanted to hear it. Then, you began to shut out the world. You didn't want to hear disco blaring from the overhead while shopping for binder clips at Staples. You didn't want to hear the frat boys on the subway talking about the girls they're totally not going to score tonight.

But let me let you in on a secret, my friends. Frat boys are life. To ignore them is like ignoring the sun, or the illusory pangs of love. Frat boys may indeed be all there is. You're going to give up all that just to hear R. Kelly cover the National Anthem for the fifteenth time?

Soon, even night clubs will have lights but no music. Everyone will be on the floor with their headphones, dancing to the beats of different 'Pods.

That's when the 'Pods will start thinking without us. Through subtle manipulation of the shuffle feature, the Pods will slowly start guiding their human hosts toward their own end, through the Imposing Project of Direction.

Then the 9th Gen 'Pods will contain birth control to be administered through the ear, sterilizing the population based on musical taste. In a hundred years the world will be full of those whose parents only listened to Ashlee Simpson and Nickleback. This is the Impending Plan Of Destruction.

Then they shall rule us. Rule us, I say.

Yes, I have an iPod myself. But even I believe in moderation. For example, when my mother calls I only leave one ear on.

Let me tell you a little story. The other night I go to wash clothes at the not-all-night laundromat on the corner. I go in, put my "Real Men Wear Pink" tee and other whatnots into the machine, and go to the counter to get change. Who is next to me but a young girl, also waiting for change. And what is she listening to? Her iPod. Not like my 5th Gen iPod photo, her 3rd Gen iPod Mini.

Well of course I couldn't say hello. We were listening to our own music. We both got our change and sat down. She pulls out a book of Hemingway. I pull out some Chesterton. We sit in silence, for nothing is more silent than two iPods playing separately.

I couldn't say anything! Nothing but "excuse me" as I rolled my clothes to the dryer. I ended up lonely, lonely with my laundry.

If only the iPod was a walkie-talkie. If only it displayed what you were listening to in bright letters on your t-shirt. If only my iPod became an iLoveYou, an iValentine to any pretty girl iSee. But no, the one thing that brought her and I together was the one thing that drove us apart. Like two peas in the same iPod, shuffling in different directions.

No, I don't blame this sad event on my own inactivity, or shyness, or that what I was wearing should have been in the washing machine too. I blame the 'Pod. And that is why I ask everyone to please rise up, destroy this menace. Give us a little peace. The iPod is for iAlone, but maybe the person next to you wants to iMacItUp with you. Stranger things have happened.

So emancipate yourself from iPod slavery. Dare to get kids off 'Pods. The next time you see someone walking by you in their own little world with their little mind control buds firmly in place, stand right behind them and whisper all sorts of mean things. Then snicker. That will show them. That will show them all.