How to Make Thit Kho, the Pork Stew of Stews!

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In this week’s edition of cooking with the Fierro family, Lily shows you how to make a staple of any Vietnamese household, Thit Kho, or as she calls it, Caramelized Pork and Egg Stew.

Watch as she explains the mysteries behind melting sugar, fish sauce, and the entire process of making thit kho. This dish is traditionally served with rice and is one that definitely gets better with time….assuming that you have leftovers, which Generoso and Lily rarely do. Music is provided by the very non-Vietnamese Johannes Brahms with his Trio in A Minor.

Forming Beliefs with Harvey Pekar in Not the Israel My Parents Promised Me

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While Generoso is the Pekar aficionado in the Fierro house, for this week’s graphic novel glimpse, I will be reviewing Harvey Pekar’s Not the Israel My Parents Promised Me. I’ve read a few sections from various volumes of American Splendor, and there are many layers to Harvey Pekar to be extracted from those works, and all of those layers are at play in his last work prior to his passing, Not the Israel My Parents Promised Me.

When I think of Harvey Pekar, I think of him as the essential perspective on modern American life. Harvey is fairly neurotic, but he is also sharply insightful. Harvey is a regular man who had a fairly regular 9-5 job but also had a profound love for jazz and comic books. Harvey Pekar has an amazing ability to extract a fable around proper social behavior from some of the seemingly most meaningless details about our existence, and for that, he is a voice that is missing in this post-modern era.

Harvey Pekar via Gerry Shamray and The Comics Journal

Consequently, in light of the current and likely transient ceasefire between Israel and Palestine, I feel that now is a good time to review Pekar’s statement on his political belief on a subject that hits close to home for him. Not the Israel My Parents Promised Me was not Harvey’s first foray into politically focused graphic novels. In 2007, he wrote Macedonia with Heather Roberson, which was his novel dedicated to exploring the political and social climate of Macedonia, one of the few former Yugoslavian states that avoided civil war.

While Not the Israel My Parents Promised Me is a highly political graphic novel that most definitely conveys Harvey’s opinion on the state of Israel, it is more about the formation of one’s political and spiritual perspectives in the progression of life. The novel takes you through the formation of Harvey’s spiritual and political identity without any heavy handedness or any dogmatism. What becomes the most brilliant feature of the novel is its ability to weave  Jewish scripture and theological history with political history across centuries leading up to the current conflict while also unraveling how this gained knowledge of the history of the conflict molded Harvey’s perspective.

In the novel, we see the progression of beliefs that many of us go through, and the various stopping points that stunt people from forming clear, individual beliefs. As a child, Harvey established his beliefs about Israel based on the teachings of highly pro-Zionist parents. Naturally, he accepted what his parents taught him without questioning their’ motives and often clear hypocrisy with a naïve and fervent acquiescence and acceptance that is all too similar to our own belief foundation periods as children when we simply did not have any other frame of reference.

As the narrative progresses, Harvey meets people who began to change his pro-Zionist views, which he held until his twenties. In addition, he weaves in the events in the the late 60s which fully reversed his opinion on Israel. Gradually, we begin to understand why pro-Zionism was erased from the identity of adult Harvey Pekar.

Above all, what is one of the most clever devices of the narrative is its structure and relationship to younger Jewish Americans who Harvey interacts with as he tells the history and the events that led to his change in belief. Harvey interacts with his illustrator, a younger Jewish American who spent time in a kibbutz in Israel, and the sons of a bookstore that he frequents. In establishing the history of the Jewish faith and the diasporas over thousands of years, it becomes clear that the younger men he interacted with either did not have knowledge of this essential history or did not take the time to tie the centuries-old history to the current conflict. And consequently, their beliefs around faith and the intertwined thoughts on the state of Israel are quite uninformed, naïve beliefs. With the interactions with these younger men, Harvey is able to convey how lack of knowledge and lack of commitment to tie all of the parts necessary to form one’s political and spiritual beliefs can lead to passiveness that is detrimental to our own identities, and consequently, our macro identities as a cultural group and as a society.

From the political perspective, Not the Israel My Parents Taught Me is Harvey’s literary piece to convince people to question their pro-Zionist views, but this is all done in the signature Harvey Pekar way. All of the persuasion is as objective as he can make it and is delivered in small moments of his own memories ranging from his memory of his mother never attending synagogue to taking a class with an anti-Zionist peer in college to much larger moments in history ranging from the foundation of the Israeli State to the brash expansion of the state into surrounding occupied territories under Prime Minister Menachem Begin in the 70s. In the formation of Harvey’s beliefs on Israel, we are taken on a fragmented ride that we experience with the formation of any belief, any stance we take in life. And while Harvey is persuading the reader to reject pro-Zionist views and the political motivations of the state of Israel today, he is also persuading us to read, to learn, to question, and to think about any major political and spiritual belief we have in life. He encourages us to understand, dissect, and try to disregard our biases that may come from our parents, our families, and our communities in order to establish beliefs that are informed, intelligent, and ultimately, ones that we can wholly believe in.

Not the Israel My Parents Promised Me is written by Harvey Pekar and illustrated by JT Waldman. It is available via Hill and Wang publishing.

Bovine Ska and Rocksteady 8/27/14: Spotlight on the SEP Label

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This August 27th, 2014 edition of the Bovine Ska and Rocksteady radio show on WMBR featured a two hour retrospective on Lindon Pottinger’s SEP Label, so you know what that means…Yes, two hours of classic skaand rocksteady produced by Pottinger from 1963 to 1967.

“Ska Is Here To Stay” by Karl Bryan from 1963

SEP Label

Years before entering the music industry, Sonia Durrant and Lindon Pottinger had experience with accounting.  After their marriage, the two began to open businesses together in Jamaica, ranging from a bicycle store to a shop that sold Sonia’s homemade patties.  However, their business focus shifted in 1961 when Lindon began producing records, and as his career progressed, he eventually established Golden Arrow, Gaydisc, and the label that is the focus of our spotlight tonight, SEP, the record label bearing Sonia’s initials. Upon the creation of the record labels, Lindon also opened a recording studio in the Pottinger home. This would be the first recording studio to be opened and owned by an Afro-Jamaican. The records from the Pottinger’s labels sold at the Tip Top record shop on Orange Street, which increased their presence on the growing music center in Kingston.

This show focuses just on the SEP releases, featuring tracks from all SEP artists including Roy and Millie, Lord Tanamo, and Winston Samuels.

Here is a link to hear this radio show from the WMBR Archive.  The link to this show will be active until September 10th, 2014.  LISTEN NOW

1979’s “That Sinking Feeling”: The Very Charming and Overlooked First Film Of Director Bill Forsyth

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By 1984, Scottish director Bill Forsyth was getting quite a bit of notice here in the States. His second film released here in 1981, was a painfully funny and sweet coming of age story called “Gregory’s Girl,” which achieved critical, if not commercial success. Local Hero, his second film, and an art house favorite from 1983 starring Burt Lancaster, remains one of the classic quirky, dry comedies of that decade.   So, in 1984, I, like so many other fans of his work were wondering…What was Bill Forsyth’s debut film like? Much to my delight, a limited release of “That Sinking Feeling” premiered in Philadelphia in 1984 at Sansom Street’s Roxy Theater, which meant I immediately had to go see it after school that Friday.

“That Sinking Feeling” begins with the tagline, “The action of this film takes place in a fictitious town called Glasgow. Any resemblance to any real city called Glasgow is purely coincidental.” Truly, Glasgow seems a dreary, sad place in the late 1970s or at least the “Glasgow” depicted by our Mr. Forsyth, as our hero Ronnie (played by Robert Buchanan who would later portray Gregory’s close friend in Gregory’s Girl) is quite down about his inhabitance of this particular “Glasgow.” So much so, that he tries to commit suicide by drowning himself (with a bowl of cornflakes of course) which after he fails in achieving that small task, propels him into the idea that there might be another way out.   He proposes to his friends Vic and Wal the idea of a burglary involving the theft of many stainless steel sinks to bring in much needed cash. They are so broke that even the paltry sum of 45 pence for a burger and coffee seem galaxies out of their grasp.

BFI Trailer for “That Sinking Feeling”

In the formation of their master plan is the gathering of their crew, most specifically their friend Bobby, who will make a drug that will allow them to obtain a vehicle for their crime and a little boy called the “Wee Man.” The plot saunters forward with the usual quirky pace of any Forsyth film, allowing you to pick up the odd character or two with the plot almost becoming secondary to the small moments that Forsyth does so brilliantly in later films. The red jogger who comes through scene after scene without any backstory or explanation is reminiscent of the phantom dirt bike racer in “Local Hero” who seems to appear just to remind the viewer that there is a reality of some sort existing outside of Forsyth’s lackadaisical but always entertaining plot.

As the film progresses, we do not see a Bressonian attention to criminal techniques, what we do see is a dozen or so maneuvers that will have you have you laughing sideways. From Bobby’s over doping of a bakery truck driver, to Vic, who gets into drag every night to sexually lure the night watchman into distraction. You won’t go more than a few minutes in “That Sinking Feeling” without a moment of pure Forsyth silly invention made real by his clever actors, who were selected directly from the Glasgow Youth Theater and who would be again be thrust into service in “Gregory’s Girl.”

That Sinking Feeling Poster

Though only given a small release back in 1984, one has to wonder if a young Wes Anderson had watched this film as he was writing “Bottle Rocket,” Wes’s debut film. “Bottle Rocket” is also the story of a group of hapless, lost young people who are using crime as a means of escape. Though “That Sinking Feeling’s” Ronnie, Vic, and Wal kind of need the money a bit more than just something to give them an identity, it still means a same outcome in terms of a good laugh at a group of likable boys who are trying to escape their youth by going for whatever they can steal.

Forsyth himself would revisit this theme of youthful clueless thievery in his hysterical, and also overlooked, 1989 film “Breaking In,” his next to last American film and one that contains an Oscar-worthy performance from Burt Reynolds and a punchy script co-written by Forsyth and John Sayles.  I so wish Forsyth had continued making crime films, because as perhaps, as his character Eddie suggests to his young cohort in “Breaking In”,…“You may have some larceny in your blood, kid.”

Bovine Ska and Rocksteady 8/20/2014: Ken Parker Spotlight

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On the August 20th edition of the Bovine Ska and Rocksteady, we started off the show with two sets of ska, which included the track, “Can the Poor Survive” from the Four Aces, a single never before played on the BSR. After the mento set of the week, we were delighted to present an interview with Ken Parker to commence the spotlight on the great vocalist.

Ken Parker

Though Ken Parker eventually had a fantastic set of tracks as a soloist, he began his music career as a backup vocalist. When he left Westmoreland Parish and arrived in Kingston, Ken matched up with two men named Bill and Gil to back up vocalists at Studio One as the backing group, The Blues Blenders. During this time period, they would audition for other labels and would cut a few tracks for Coxone’s competitor, King Edwards.

When the Blues Blenders eventually got the chance to audition as a spotlight vocal group, Bill and Gil did not show up for the audition, and Ken went for the audition as a solo artist. After a successful try out, he would stay at Coxone as a soloist for Studio One, where Coxone would give him Nat King Cole, Sam Cooke, and Jim Reeves records in order for Ken to pick the singer’s style that most appealed to him, and the influence of these artists can definitely be heard throughout his recordings. In addition, Ken credits Coxone Dodd as the man who taught him how to sing in the reggae style as compared to a gospel ballad style, which was the way that Ken was most familiar with.

The Ken Parker spotlight includes his recordings with the Blues Blenders and his solo tracks for producers Coxone Dodd, Duke Reid, Bunny Lee, Joe Gibbs, and Lloyd Charmers. It includes Ken Parker’s ska and reggae recordings and two of his most beautiful gospel tracks.

Here is the archive link for this special Ken Parker spotlight, which will be available via the WMBR website until 9/1/2014. LISTEN NOW

Our show can be heard live in the Boston area on 88.1FM, WMBR Cambridge from midnight to 2 am ET on Tuesday nights/Wednesday early mornings or anywhere online at WMBR.ORG.

Learn To Make Minestrone, The Fierro Way!

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What does radio DJ Generoso know about everyone’s favorite Italian soup, minestrone? Well, he sure does eat a lot of it, and his momma taught him out to make it so he wouldn’t be penniless from eating out every night. Completely vegetarian (even vegan if you can avoid covering it in romano cheese like Generoso does) and outrageously delicious!  Video is 13 minutes in length.  Music supplied by famed non-Italian, Antonín Leopold Dvořák!

A Misfit Among Misfits in the 1980s: Deadly Class

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Note: This post is going to be a little more of a traditional review. Please bear with me for the length of the narrative setup. Thank you! 

Marcus is a vagrant outsider.

Marcus is hell bent on avenging the premature deaths of his parents.

Marcus is a pupil in a school for assassins.

Cover of Deadly Class Vol. 1: Reagan Youth

Marcus Lopez is the primary protagonist in the Image Comics series, Deadly Class. At the opening of Deadly Class, we meet Marcus as he wanders the streets of San Francisco. Life has not been kind to him; his parents were accidentally and gruesomely killed when a former psychiatric patient jumped off of a bridge and landed on top of them in the aftermath of Ronald Reagan’s allowance for the de-institutionalization of state mental health facilities from the late 60s to the mid 70s during his terms as governor of California.

After the loss of his parents and his sinking into severe Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, Marcus becomes a homeless vagrant whose constant, overwhelmingly nihilistic thoughts continue to prevent him from moving forward. Despite the intense pessimism of most of his thoughts, Marcus has a bizarre optimism at points that he ties back to the last words about life that his father told him and continues to wander about looking for some meaning in life with a small amount of faith that there may be some deity or being to help him. This optimism and faith in the midst of the Marcus’s dour, miserable world is the beginning of the strange contradictions in Deadly Class.

During a street parade, a mysterious Yakuza affiliated girl rescues Marcus after a series of detectives and police officers chase after him. She takes him to an underground world where a teacher appears who has the semblance of any old, wise master from a karate film. After explaining to a group of students that Marcus was chosen because he has the undying motivation of revenge, the teacher invites Marcus to become a student of the Kings Dominion of the School of the Deadly Arts, a school that marks the humble beginnings of the world’s best assassins. Marcus’s prayers for help to find a path in life may have been answered.

On Marcus’s first day of class, he quickly realizes that he is yet again an outcast, even though all of his classmates are the major outcasts of society, and we, as the readers, are quickly thrusted into an archetypal world of high school but with a little more thirst for bloodshed. For those who went to high school in a place where clique divisions were more dogmatic than the dress code as I did, we are quickly reminded of our experiences, for better and most likely for worst. In the School of the Deadly Arts, the students go through the same issues around perceived image that most teenagers experience, except that image at this school includes one’s propensity to harm others. Who is dating the popular girl is important in this world. Who is the child of who is important in this world, but most of all, who is (or seems) the toughest is important in this world. The first two issues of the series create an interesting setting for the narrative, but there are some peculiar decisions in the progression of Deadly Class.

Although the projects that the students have to complete are outrageous and sensationalistic and the characters that we encounter are handpicked from various arch criminal groups, Deadly Class is mostly a coming of age story, and being so, has some maudlin and, dare I say it, sanguine moments that destroy the dour tone that it worked so hard to set up at its beginning, which confuses me a bit. I’m not entirely sure about the author’s intent on this one. Is it supposed to trace the rise of the outcast from the bottom of the feeding pool to the top? Is it supposed to be a bildungsroman with an assassin training school wrapper? The first volume opens up with an introduction from David Lapham, the author of Stray Bullets, about how he was a nobody in high school in the 80s, and how he met his wife there, who was a member of the popular clique, giving a sense into the motivations of strange optimism embedded in the narrative of Deadly Class: the adolescent mindset of the 1980s instilled by John Hughes films.

As the series unfolds, it becomes a story almost too close to the Breakfast Club, which feels like a betrayal to the intricate and interesting concept of a school for assassins. Marcus tries to get the girl from one of the more popular cliques. He and representatives from some of the major cliques work together to execute Marcus’s revenge on Ronald Reagan, which is the same plot as a group of kids trying to take over a school from an oppressive principal at a larger scale. And in the the most betraying twist of all, Marcus, upon being accepted, has an excitement for life.

Personally, I never really identified with any John Hughes film, where a social pariah rises in ranks by adopting a set of expectations and suddenly loves life, and it seems like writer Rick Remender, identified with them just a little too much. Perhaps I’m a bit of a grim person myself, but I really would have preferred for Deadly Class to be an investigation into the psychology of Marcus. As I continued to read, I kept asking myself, “Why does Marcus, who has some questionably psychopathic and sociopathic tendencies, have such traditional teenage motivations?” I would have loved for the series to wallow in the darkness of Marcus’s internal world and the malice and disregard for societal standards in the school. The story could have explored some interesting frontiers in a sullen, macabre setting, but it sadly does not.

Nevertheless, I do not think that Deadly Class is a horrible graphic novel. I think it simply plays it too safe. I think it is trying to shock its readers with the setting of the School of the Deadly Arts and the consequent events of violence, but it’s core story is far too traditional and suffers from the same fantasy optimism of the films and culture of the 1980s that I think the author may have originally hated but secretly desired. It is still worth a read for at least the artwork; the colorist Lee Loughridge and the illustrator Wes Craig create beautiful sequences, including a fantastic neon, two-dimensional acid trip that Ken Kesey would be proud of. Take a look at Deadly Class, just do not expect a groundbreaking narrative behind its sensationalistic facade.

Deadly Class is published by Image Comics and is currently up to issue six with issue seven to be released in mid-September.

 

Sergio Leone Pulls The Strings, Damiano Damiani Take The Fall: The Fiasco That Is “A Genius, Two Partners, and a Dupe”

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In a strange follow up to last week’s review of Bertrand Blier’s “Calmos,” is the Blier inspired 1975 spaghetti western, “A Genius, Two Partners, and a Dupe” (Un Genio, due Comparu, un Pollo) directed by Damiano Damiani by way of Sergio Leone. Leone had been an admirer of Blier’s awkward sex comedy “Les Valsuses” and was determined to make a western based on its themes. Leone had just also come off the success of the comedic “My Name Is Nobody” (ghost directed by Tonino Valerii) and was interested in making a sequel but with more of a Blier touch. Here enters Damiani, a serious political auteur (director of the superb “Quien Sabe” in 1966) who wasn’t going to be down with the endless slapstick and fart jokes of a “My Name Is Nobody”, and Terence Hill (Mario Girotti), the star of “My Name Is Nobody” who was not OK with the awkward sexuality of “Les Valsuses.” According to Alex Cox, director of “Repo Man” and the writer of the superb book “10,000 Ways To Die”, Leone then decided that this sequel to “Nobody” was going to be his take on George Roy Hill’s con film, “The Sting.”

A clip from “A Genius, Two Partners, and a Dupe”

The comedic plot centers on “The Genius,” Joe Thanks (Terence Hill), and his friends “The Partners,” Lucy (Miou Miou from Les Valsuses) and Steam Train (Robert Charlebois), who concoct a plan to steal $300,000 that belongs to the Navajo but is currently controlled by Colonel Pembroke (Patrick MacGooghan, yep from BBC’s The Prisoner). Damiani had never directed comedy and would further undermine Leone’s comedic intentions by bringing in the all too serious MacGooghan, and everyone’s favorite spaghetti western heavy and total psychopath, Klaus Kinski. My first issue after an hour of watching the film was that I wasn’t sure as to whom the “genius” actually was, as three of the main set of characters was called “a genius” on several occasions. I did find myself laughing at some of the setups and dialog but the script from Ernesto Gastaldi, who wrote “A Genius” as either a political film or slapstick comedy, becomes neither comfortably.  For example, “A Genius” tries to make statements on racism that fall flat and even play into racial stereotypes that kills comedic moments. Lastly, the film’s score, done by the brilliant Ennio Morricone, is very jovial and fits the mood of what could be a comedy, but there is only so much merriment that his talent can add.

I will hold back on condemning the acting and visuals because the original negative to “A Genius” was stolen, along with Pasolini’s “Salo” and Fellini’s “Casanova,” and held for ransom. Producer Fulvio Morsella refused to negotiate with the thieves and thus a version of the film was cut together using outtakes (gulp). This goes beyond a small problem, so I will be kind about performances, which go from Hill’s usually solid, cute, and charming characterization of “Joe Thanks” to Robert Charlebois’ almost bored portrayal of “Steam Train” to Miou Miou’s “Lucy” who offers the viewer little more than her adorable face and constantly radiating smile. The visuals unfortunately suffer even more, as there are what looked like an overabundance of 2nd camera wide shots, many of which are usually washed out and tough to watch.

Being that “A Genius” was labeled as a sequel to the very successful “My Name Is Nobody,” the film did well on its European release despite being hammered by critics but was not successful here in the U.S. Leone claimed to have never directed a scene (though photographic evidence of him and Damiani on set exists) and that means that the failure of “A Genius” was stuck on Damiani, who passed away in 2013 at the age of 90. So, for those of you who are completists like I am and just need to see everything that Leone ever touched that is a western, do watch “A Genius, Two Partners, And a Dupe.” Though almost two hours, you’ll still get a few laughs out of it. For the ladies, Terence Hill is pretty handsome, and for the gents, Miou Miou is nothing to sneeze at, but most of all, you’ll be reminded that even the greats can misstep every now and then.

Hell, here’s the whole film.  I don’t think that Leone’s going to miss it.

Bovine Ska and Rocksteady 8/13/14: Norman T. Washington Spotlight

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On the August 13th edition of the Bovine Ska and Rocksteady, we started off the show with two sets of ska, a set of mento, and a set of early reggae to prepare us  for our spotlight of the week, the soul and reggae recordings of Norman T. Washington.

Norman T. Washington on the single cover of Tip Toe

Norman T. Washington on the single cover of Tip Toe

Norman T. Washington, like so many West Indian artists who went to England, would not bring Jamaican rhythms to his earliest recordings. In the case of Jimmy Cliff and Jackie Edwards, for example, both were packaged as soul and pop singers for Chris Blackwell. Like both of these artists, Norman T. Washington would also begin with soul tracks, first recording for Pama. He would then similarly record great reggae cuts later in his career. We started off the spotlight with 5 tracks of the soul kind for the mighty Pama imprint.

Here is the archive for the 8/13/14 show which will be up on the WMBR archive until 8/26/14.  LISTEN NOW

Our show can be heard live in the Boston area on 88.1FM, WMBR Cambridge or anywhere online at WMBR.ORG.