Monthly Archives: April 2001

Tales of Bad Bagels

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I like bagels. No matter what dodgy cafe I’m in (“New!!! Cappochino Machine!!!! Real coffee’s!!!”), bagels are usually a safe bet. I say usually, because I’ve had some bad bagel experiences. Let me share them with you.

Raglan I

This was my first bad bagel experience. It’s not as bad as the others, but as it was my first, it seemed the worst.

I was staying in Raglan and I went to a cafe for breakfast and ordered a toasted bagel with jam. When it arrived I was taken aback. For a start, it was white and bagels are normally a golden brown colour. And unlike proper bagels it didn’t have a hard outside, it was soft. I took a bit and realised that what I had been served as not a bagel, but a donut-shaped bread roll. Real bagels do not have any fat in the dough, and are boiled before they are baked. This was obviously just made from standard bread roll dough, and had not been boiled first.

But it tasted ok, so I ate it. However, as I moved onto the second half I noticed a sliver of onion stuck to the side of it. It appeared the grill hadn’t been cleaned between doing a heart attack breakfast special and toasting my bagel.

Wellington

In Wellington over summer, I stopped off at a supermarket to pick up a few things for lunch, including a bagel. I walked over to a park and sat down to eat.

Now, because bagels are boiled before they are baked, they get a sort of glossy, shiney surface. The bagel I had bought was, like the first Raglan bagel, made from regular bread roll dough, but it had also had a glaze applied to the top to give it the appearance of a regular bagel. There were even dribble marks where it had run down the side.

I stared at it for a while, unsure of what to do with it. It reminded me of those t-shirts that have a tuxedo printed on them. It’s not the real thing, and shouldn’t pretend to be.

Raglan II

An absolute bagel classic is with lox (smoked salmon!) and a schmear of cream cheese. I was at another Raglan cafe and ordered that for brunch. When it came there was instead a bagel with smoked salmon slices and cream cheese. However, rather than a schmear of cream cheese, there was instead a one centimetre thick slice of cream cheese.

Who made that? What were they thinking? Did they think they were making a smoked salmon cheesecake, or an eskimo pie bagel? Did they think smoked salmon tasted really bad and were trying to drown out the flavour with enough cream cheese for a dozen bagels? Or perhaps they thought I needed more dairy in my diet?

Whatever the logic behind the cream cheese behemoth that was lurking between the two bagel halves, I wasn’t going to eat it. I removed most of the cream cheese, and rebuilt it with just enough to taste good with the bagel and salmon. It wasn’t too bad.

Backstreet Boys

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I was in a shopping mall and I walked past an appliance store. Something caught my eye. There were two walls with about three rows of different models of TVs and they were all playing the video to the Backstreet Boys hit single “I Want It That Way.”

I stopped in my tracks, turned around, went in and spent the next three minutes and thirty three seconds pretending to be checking out the TVs when instead I was checking out the Backstreet Boys.

I don’t take pride in this. I felt like an alcoholic chugging down cough syrup and pretending to have a really sore throat. Yeah, I was really interested in those TVs. So interested that the only thing I can remember is that most of them were silver and there were some really big ones and other ones were small.

So the Boys did that sensitive brooding in front of an aeroplane, singing that song about how they could never love the girl because they want her too much, or whatever it’s about.

Oh yeah, I suppose I’d better reveal who my favourite Backstreet Boy is! It’s pretty much a process of elimination. Howie D is out. He’s like the Tori Spelling of the Backstreet Boys (I fell over and scraped my knee when I was looking at a poster with Tori Spelling on it instead of the pothole in the footpath). Brian’s pretty cute, but he’s married, ditto for Kevin. So it comes down to AJ and Nick. It’s a tough decision. Nick’s got the whole pretty boy thing happening, but AJ has the bad-boy-finger-bang thing. Oh no! I can’t decide!

So, in conclusion, I really dig the Backstreet Boys and N*Sync (or however you spell their name) are a bunch of wussy girlie girls. And that makes me larger than life.

Pythonesque

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The first time I ever saw an episode of “Monty Python’s Flying Circus” I thought it was the stupidest and most unfunny excuse for a comedy series I’d ever seen.

Then over the years I gradually saw more Monty Python episodes, and “The Meaning of Life”, “The Life of Brian”, and I gradually came to the realisation that it’s pretty funny. But why did I not appreciate it back when I first saw it? I thought about it, and came to a shocking realisation.

But before I reveal the source of my Monty misery, I shall first share with you a tale of what we shall refer to as The Fondue Incident.

It was 1996, during my pre-Python appreciation days. I used to hang out on BBSs. Yeah, I was pretty damn cool back then. One day someone had this brilliant idea to hold a fondue party. The Bob and Karen inside me got excited. However, as this did not really appeal to many of the geek boys, it had to be made a fondue and Monty Python videos party. Wow. Rock on.

I did the research. I got a recipe for proper fondue, complete with gruyere and kirsch and French bread. The geeks, however, had their own special fondue recipe which consisted of mozzarella cheese and a loaf of white bread. I cooked up my fondue and it tasted real good. The geek’s fondue tasted like melted mozzarella. There were a few geeks who didn’t want to try my fondue because it, gasp, had alcohol in it – even though there was hardly any in it, and most of the alcohol would have evaporated during cooking.

The event reached its nadir when a geek wearing a black denim jacket with fake sheepskin trim dripped a big glob of cheese on my top. Monty Python videos followed. “The Life of Brian” never seemed less funny.

But back to the lecture at hand. I figured out why Monty Python has disgusted me for so long – it was because the humour of Monty Python had been stolen by geeks.

You probably know a Python geek. There may even be one in your close circle of friends, or even your family. It’s the kind of person who has entire Monty Python sketches and songs committed to memory. The kind of person who, without being the slightest bit intoxicated, will launch into a rendition of the Dead Parrot sketch or start doing the Ministry of Silly Walks one.

The thing is – and this, I believe has been scientifically proven, the sketches and songs of the Monty Python oevre are only ever funny when they are performed by a member of the Monty Python troop. Namely, this is Messrs Chapman, Cleese, Gilliam, Idle, Jones, and Palin.

Notice how on that list of names you will not see the name of the geek you know who recites Monty Python bits? Do you know why that is? It’s is because Monty Python sketches are never funny when done by enthusiastic amateurs. It is not hilarious to start singing The Lumberjack Song while hanging out with your mates. There is never an appropriate time to say “He’s not the messiah, he’s a very naughty boy”, even if it is done in a girly falsetto.

What had happened was that over the years all these bad renditions of Monty Python sketches had completely ruined them for me. So when I first viewed the original versions, in their pure unadulterated form, I had to block out the geekiness that was tainting it. It’s a bit like listening to a piece of classical music that you first heard as part of an advertisement. It takes time to block out the ad.

So a message to all Python geeks. I know you love Monty Python and all that is Pythonesque, but for the sake of all those who have not yet been exposed to the comic delights of the Python posse, the next time you are about to launch into the Cheese Shop sketch, stop, think and keep it in your pants. Ok?