L U N A T A L K with Eva Moon

National Wax

I think most people know what a Brazilian Bikini Wax is by now. It’s the full rain forest clear cut. And who says women aren’t tough?

But did you know that if they leave that little landing strip in the front it’s called French Wax? So I started wondering, do other countries have waxing patterns? Is it like a national anthem or a state bird? What would the waxing patterns be? Here are some possibilities plucked from my imagination – and a few ripped off from friends:

1. American Wax – you voted twice and still ended up with a bush.
2. Martian Wax - crop circles
3. Norwegian Wax – plenty of forest but you can see the fjords
4. Seattle Wax – took off the hair but replaced it with polar fleece
5. Al Qaeda Wax – like a Brazilian but they send the tape to Al Jazeera
6. Nigerian Wax – instead of wax they use the more permanent pentaerythritol
7. TSA Wax – everything from head to toe before you can get on the plane – but they miss the pubes
8. Canadian Wax – it’s free but you have to wait three years for an appointment
9. Tiger Woods Wax – you pay but ten other women get waxed
10. iPhone Wax – there’s a wax for that. It removes hair in cute little icon patterns.
11. Chinese Wax – quick and inexpensive, but it grows back in an hour
12. Wall Street Wax – you can get ripped off without even leaving home
13. Punk Wax – who says you have to be limited to one mohawk?

Got any more? Bare them here. And don’t forget to download my song “Brazilian Wax.”

Sweets to the sweet. Here, have a nut.

Kudos to Bonefish Grill

My sister, Pam, is one of those peanut allergy people you read about in the newspaper – the ones who are responsible for depriving you of the small, salty joy of a thimbleful of peanuts on a long plane flight. But for any goobers who are itching to know the meat of this issue, peanut allergy (the most common food allergy in the US) exists on a molecular level. For some, there is no such thing as “just a little.” There is none and there is dead.

Pam had an experience the other day that gives me a chance to both do a little education and give credit where it’s due:

Bonefish Grill has long been one of our favorite restaurants. Recently I decided to try something new instead of one my usual favorites. I am severely allergic to peanuts. So much so, that I carry an epinephrine syringe, albuterol inhalers, and other allergy medications with me wherever I go. I asked the server about the ingredients in the sauce, and was given a tasty sounding list that did not include peanuts. So I was more than a little surprised when I realized I was having an allergic reaction. It turned out that oh yes, the sauce did, indeed, contain peanuts, but “not very much.” Fortunately I was able to get to my medications quickly.

What’s most striking about this incident is not that I was accidentally fed something that’s poison to me; that’s happened before and will no doubt happen again. What’s worth noting is the reaction of the restaurant, and most especially, the corporate offices.

The manager and staff at the restaurant were sincerely concerned and apologetic over the incident, clearly willing to do whatever was necessary to ensure my health. The manager spent quite some time with me and listened attentively while we explained about peanut allergy and the need for staff education. That was more or less expected. What was less expected was the reaction I got to a letter I wrote to the corporate offices letting them know about the incident. It wasn’t an angry letter. I just wanted to educate them and suggest measures they could take to avoid such incidents in the future. I’ve written such letters in the past, and been uniformly ignored. My guess is that lawyers advise companies not to say anything for fear of admitting guilt.

Not so with Bonefish Grill. Today I got a personal phone call from their Director of Operations. Not only did he want to check and make sure I was ok, he also wanted to let me know what actions they were taking to ensure this never happens again. He told me he and the president of the company had read my letter several times and were taking my suggestions very seriously.  He’d just gotten off the phone from a conference call with all his store managers about the incident and they were instituting new staff education policies as a result. They are producing a big chart listing menu items with nuts, and the restaurants are being given one week to get the chart printed, laminated, and posted where the servers can reference it. The chart will be updated with each change to the menu. The staff is to be educated on allergies and menu ingredients immediately. In addition, they are looking into making changes to the print menu to make it easier for patrons with allergies to identify which items contain peanuts. Oh, and we get a free meal next time.

I was amazed just to get the phone call. When he started telling me the measures they were taking, I was blown out of the water. I’ve never had such a positive response from a large corporation in my life. They listened. They cared. They didn’t try to dodge responsibility. It’s nice to know that some companies do things right. And I will be eating at Bonefish grill regularly as a result.

Pam East
www.pameast.net

There’s a Bonefish Grill just 10 miles from me. I may have to go check and see if they have their chart laminated.

No one will ever know

Chapter One

Many years ago, long before I was the confident, capable (snort) singer I am now, I was acutely nervous about a solo in a choir concert. The solo was an exceedingly obscure Hungarian Gypsy song. It would be hard to overstate just how obscure this song was. It was from a tiny village in Kalotaszeg, a tiny cluster of Hungarian villages in northwestern Romania so remote the whole region only has two lines in Wikipedia. The song was passed to me on a cassette of a cassette of a cassette from a peripatetic ethnomusicologist. The concert was at a Jewish Community Center in Sherman Oaks, CA. What exactly was I fretting about? That I would fuck up the words.

“Who will know?” the director pointed out.

She had a point. I sucked in air and tried to unclench.

I did fuck up the lyrics, singing through a brief spurt of nonsense syllables. I let it go. After all, who would know?

I found out at intermission when I was accosted by an elderly, weeping woman. She was not only from Romania. She was not only from Kalotaszeg, but she was from the exact village where the song originated! How we both ended up at the same Sherman Oaks JCC, is just one of those unfathomable cosmic mysteries. Of course, she didn’t care a burgonyakereg about the fluffed lyrics.

But, damn!

Chapter Two

About four years ago, my band Balkanarama recorded a live CD. One night, twelve songs, one take, no do-overs, no overdubs. While not flawless, it’s an energetic and true representation of our live sound. One of the “not flawless” bits occurs 27 seconds into the first song. Another lyric flub. Instead of “kerta” I bobbled and sang “ashka.” If I never mentioned it, who would know, right? Well, this song, while not exactly Billboard fare, is not quite as obscure as the first one. It was written and recorded by the famous Rom singer, Esma Redzepova so, yes, there are some who might catch it. But only one who matters: Esma herself. And what are the chances of her hearing it?

Chapter Three

Fast forward once more to 2009. The phone rings. The caller is a movie producer who wants to know if he can acquire the rights to two songs from our Live CD for the sound track of an independent film currently in production. Gee, let me think about th… yes!

The movie (due to be released in the spring of 2010) is You May Not Kiss the Bride, a romantic comedy/caper flick directed by Rob Hedden in which a mobster tries to arrange for his daughter to obtain U.S. citizenship by setting her up with a American photographer. It stars Rob Schneider, Katharine McPhee, Dave Annable, Ken Davitian and Mena Suvari. The first two songs from our CD will be the celebratory music for the big wedding scene at the end.

But of course, since Esma wrote the song, rights had to be procured from her publisher. Which means, once again, the ONE PERSON IN THE WORLD to whom my lyrical fluff would actually matter, will know.

To this day, I continue to screw up lyrics regardless of the language. But now it’s a trademark.

Ten Reasons Why You Should Give My CD

I’m not pushy when it comes to selling my CD’s. I put it out there and trust that you all will be so impressed with it’s excellence that you’ll step right up and buy it. I sincerely thank all four of you who did.

I’m not going to start getting pushy now either, but it IS the holiday season and some of you MAY be looking for that perfect gift or stocking stuffer RIGHT NOW! Or you may even be looking to reward yourself for all your hard work. Go ahead, you’ve earned it.

Top Ten Reasons Why You Should Give My  “Moon Falling Down” CD This Holiday Season:

1. Subversive cover art! Who else would take one of the world’s most beloved bedtime tales and drag it down to the corrupt depths of BDSM fantasy? Show your loved ones how sick you are.
2. Not sold at Target! They called and begged me, but I said not until they show they have the guts to say “Happy Holidays” even if it pisses off the religious nuts.
3. Better than a Snuggie! Snuggies are the hot gift this year for everyone who’s turning down the thermostat. But did you know blanket-cocoon made of “Moon Falling Down” CD’s will take your mind off the temperature in no time at all?
4. Makes great insulation! Go Green with “Moon Falling Down.” Just slip CD’s into the cracks under doors and around windows for big savings when the next power bill comes.
5. It’s waterproof! That’s right. Bring them in the shower, make cute little floating rafts in the tub, take them for long, romantic walks in the rain. Won’t shrink, fade or bleed.
6. Allowed on most diets. Trying to lose weight? You’re not alone. But rest assured, “Moon Falling Down” has ZERO calories and can be a healthy part of any nutritious meal plan.
7. Laughter is the best medicine. Have you SEEN Obama’s health plan? Better keep extras on hand for the flu season and beyond.
8. Bail out the economy! The feds dropped over a trillion dollars on Wall Street to try to save the economy. YOU can do your bit for just TEN BUCKS!
9. The sex.
10. It makes YOU look GOOD. The lyrics are funny and smart. The music is a hot blend of jazz/pop/latin/cabaret. Clearly anyone savvy enough to give this CD as a gift is a person of the very highest taste, style and hipness. Isn’t that you?

So what are you waiting for? An engraved invitation?

Buy it already!

The Magi had it easy…

They may have trekked hundreds of miles through trackless deserts, but didn’t try to find phyllo dough in Redmond.

It’s not that there isn’t any. Actually, there’s quite a bit – they had it at six of the seven stores I went to. But it’s gone through a transformation that echoes the current economic recession: It’s been downsized.

Phyllo dough, if you don’t know, is tissue paper-thin sheets of dough which I have layered with butter, nuts, cinnamon and sugar to make baklava every December for the past twenty years at least. My great-grandmother used to make her own phyllo, but as soon as machine-made dough became available, boy did that stop. So now, unless you’re some kind of baking survivalist Luddite, you buy it in the freezer section of the supermarket. It comes in a box of 12″x18″ sheets – the ideal size and quantity in one box to make one pan of baklava. A little trim to the stack of sheets and it’s a perfect fit in a standard 11″x17″ pan.

Until this year.

For some inexplicable but surely evil reason, phyllo dough sheets have shrunk to 9″x14″ while my pans have stubbornly clung to their former dimensions. The phyllo has to fit the pan. You can’t have a stack of sheets in the middle of a pan and a syrup moat. Trust me on this or go look at the recipe for yourself.

I went to six markets: Safeway, QFC, Fred Meyer, Target, Trader Joe’s and Top Food. Five of them had phyllo – all in the cute new useless miniature size. I considered stopping by Office Depot for a quire of tabloid-size sheets of tissue paper. Enough butter and sugar and who would know? In the aisle of Top Food, I caved: Enough already! I’ll buy smaller pans!

At Bed, Bath & Beyond, they had 9×12″ pans, but only nonstick. The thing about nonstick pans: One knife slice and zip, they’re ruined. To a nonstick pan, baklava is “death by a thousand cuts.”

The BB&B clerk commiserated. “There’s not a plain baking pan anywhere in the northwest outside a restaurant supply store. It’s all nonstick. Everything. Maybe you could bake cookies? The nonstick pans are great for cookies.”

I stomped out, muttering.

“One more store. I’m going to one more store and that’s it. The end of an era. We might as well get a plastic tree and a blow-up Chilly Willy yard decoration because it won’t really be Christmas anyway.”

But lo! A star rose in the frozen food aisle! Whole Foods had 12×18″ phyllo sheets! Organic too. Pah-rum-pah-pum-pum. I am saved!

And you are too! The first two people not already on the ‘get some’ list who reply to this blog post will get a box of my baklava in the mail.