Questions by confabulator finally answered . . .

[gordonzola]

1) How do you manage to know so much about cheese and yet not come across as an arrogant foodie?

The lingering memory that I grew up on Velveeta and Kraft Singles keeps me humble. Plus, most of our customers don’t want the attitude. Some do, and I have to be careful. Because they want me to start talking shit about cheese makers and other cheese shops. Usually so they can go back to them and rat me out to entertain themselves.

Yes, foodies are that petty and bored.

While I know more about cheese than 99% of the customers I deal with, going to the national cheese conference helps too. Because there probably 50% leave me in the dust. Plus there’s almost no way for a monger to understand the day in/day out cheese making traumas and battles. Listeria, mysterious bitterness, unwanted mold, cheese mites. . .I appreciate not having those worries.

2) On Tuesday you wrote, "Posting about nice things is incredibly boring for the reader." (Not that I would disagree, but) please elaborate.

C’mon is this really in debate? Just look at how many comments that very well-written* post got versus my two paragraph filler post the other day that devolved into an argument over whether or not hip hop was "loathsome".

But also, it’s hard to get worked up about something "nice". When someone expresses a strong opinion people react one way or another. The downside of this is why shock value morons ("oh look, here’s some vaguely Nazi imagery! Aren’t I daring? Why are you reacting?") get they attention they seek. But really, rant or rave? Which is more fun?

3) You once admitted to being struck with awe in that I-am-just-a-small-part-of-nature way. Describe a moment when this happened.

You’re dolphin-baiting me! (Anyone wanna see my dolphin article that got printed in the Anderson Valley Advertiser last month?)

Seriously though, nature can awe me. My first snow storm (at age 18), the California coast, lightning storms, the fog rolling in at night. I couldn’t live in a place with dull vistas and uninteresting weather.

And of course dolphins jumping in the air.

4) What are five movies that you would strongly recommend to almost anyone?

You know, I’ve never made a list before. I know I’ll forget something. And forget "almost anyone" because that just won’t work. These are my pleasures and guilty pleasures:

"Rock and Roll High School": probably the most important and formative two hours of my pre-teen life.

"Repo Man" : ditto the above but for my teen years. I don’t fully trust anyone who is around my age and hasn’t at least seen this movie.

"Born in Flames" : I wonder how well this one stands up to time? It was filmed over ten years on a shoe string budget so you can watch actors age on film. The socialist revolution has happened and the feminist/queer/people of color one begins. Music by Red Krayola. An almost unknown classic.

"Polyester": I think this will always be my favorite John Waters movie. There’s trouble in Suburbia. Divine and Stiv Bators RIP.

"Follow Me Home" This one’s a little hard to justify because the acting in the first bit is didactic and poor. But it becomes an amazing story about strength and weakness, changing demographics, and political power, while using "Rapper’s Delight" as a metaphor and plot twist. Plus it name checks the store I work at. "Isn’t that the place where the women don’t shave their armpits?"


5) If for some hypothetical reason you could no longer live in San Francisco, where would you want to live and why?

(I’m assuming Oakland and Berkeley are out too )

I’d consider Budapest, London and Berlin in my dreams. They’re my other favorite cities. But residency problems make those non-realities. And I’d be moving there for my illusionary ideas of what those places are really like. I think I’m too American to live permanently overseas, really.

I have many friends in Seattle so that would be probably be my first choice. I do love it there. It’s just that after about five days I start getting itchy. It’s a little small, dark and insular. But still. . . I go there for vacations often. Sometimes it’s scary because I can see myself living there. And after a year I’d probably become a Goth or start wearing green and brown Gore-Tex.

Portland is nice. I’ve enjoyed getting to know it these last couple of years. But man, could it get any whiter?

Surprisingly, Los Angeles is way up the list. My Norcal instincts reject it, but aside from all the driving (which is a big aside) I like it a lot. It’s a real city in the way all the US ones above (including SF) are not. There’s tons going on. There’s cheap housing. There’s people there. There’s a part of the Pacific you can swim in. sigh. Don’t take away my membership card.

I’d think about NYC but only if I had a real reason to be there. I think NY would be hell if you didn’t grow up there and didn’t really know why you came. At 35 I don’t nee to adjust that much for anywhere unless I’ve got a good reason.

The real pipe dream would be a quiet house on the ocean in West Marin or the Sonoma/Mendocino coast. I couldn’t afford it, and there’s no work, but if someone offered it for free, hells yeah.



*If I do say so myself.

Comments

[wookiepocket.livejournal.com]

CHEESE MITES?!?

[gordonzola.livejournal.com]

oh yeah. serious shit. You think it's dust on the rind but IT'S REALLY ALIVE!

[rzr-grl.livejournal.com]

I had the same reaction.
Gah!

[gordonzola.livejournal.com]

hee hee. good thing I didn't get into what we find in the cheese.

[erickapander.livejournal.com]

oh my god, please don't.

[theknife.livejournal.com]

let the man talk! there are some vegans taking notes.

i hope i don't need to add i am kidding!!!!!

Re:

[erickapander.livejournal.com]

haha ;). it doesn't really matter anyhow, since i still eat meat knowing full well what i'm doing, so i would conveniently forget about any cheese nastiness & go along my cheese-consuming merry way ;).

[candywarhol.livejournal.com]

"Repo Man" : ditto the above but for my teen years. I don’t fully trust anyone who is around my age and hasn’t at least seen this movie.

Heheh. I still listen to this soundtrack regularly.

[gordonzola.livejournal.com]

I saw it in the theater when it came out with someone I was dating at the time. She didn't like it. We broke up.

[fluxions.livejournal.com]

Matt has "Repo Man" in the collector's tin. For a long time when I looked at its spine on the bookcase I thought it was a sci-fi movie that involved machines. Then Matt started ranting and raving about the movie and played the soundtrack and stuff. It makes sense; he's your age. I don't take very well to "you have to see this movie so I'm going to show it to you" so I mostly tuned it out when it was on. I guess I'll end up watching it one day. I ended up watching "Two Lane Blacktop" after all.

[gordonzola.livejournal.com]

oh fluxions. you have to see that movie! ;)

if only to understand your boyfriend better . . .

The life of a repo man is always intense.

[substitute.livejournal.com]

I saw that movie at the pre opening show at UCLA with Alex Cox presiding. It was like SEEING MY LIFE ON THE SCREEN. It's one of the few films I can actually remember seeing, as in remember the entire experience of seeing the movie for the first time.

Re: The life of a repo man is always intense.

[gordonzola.livejournal.com]

weirdly, me too. the remembering the viewing part. I can see the faces of the audience as the maps reflected off their faces in the opening credits. I can remember that girlfriend saying, "That was stupid."

pdx

[fluxions.livejournal.com]

Portland is nice. I’ve enjoyed getting to know it these last couple of years. But man, could it get any whiter?

My thoughts exactly. I'm kind of torn about the whole Portland thing. I really like it, Matt loves it, and the only reason we haven't moved there already is because it's too white for me. That, and there are no jobs.

[lth.livejournal.com]

1. I've never seen Repo Man.
2. The dolphin article! Of course I want to see it!
3. I'm sending you some moss green Goretex.

[gordonzola.livejournal.com]

1. It's ok. age range for this discussion is 31-39. I still trust you.

2. I'll post it soon.

3. is my present yellow gore tex with dyed black "holes": a "Swiss cheese" rain suit?

john wayne is a fag

[ilipodscrill.livejournal.com]

;)

Re: john wayne is a fag

[gordonzola.livejournal.com]

the last time I saw it, I had the "feeling 7-UP" song in my head for weeks. Hell, they're price-gunning cans in the opening scene. How's that for dated?

[vestalvixen.livejournal.com]

Born in Flames is just so bad. I can't decide if it's just bad, or campy bad. And I always comment on your well-written posts. So there.

[gordonzola.livejournal.com]

heh. well, it's been awhile since I've seen it. Like Repo Man, it might be a time and place thing too. I saw it at a formative time when I could forgive bad acting and simplistic plots. But I think I'd still like it a lot.

And it has some really funny scenes. Like the montage of "women's work":filing, sewing, cooking, putting a condom on a cock, teaching etc.

and yes, you do always comment. Thank you. I appreciate it.

[vestalvixen.livejournal.com]

I watched it in either "Women's Image on Film" or "Women Directors" in college. Probably the latter. I like plenty of trashy films (I may be the only person you know who owns "Teenage Gang Debs" on dvd), but I don't know about this one. Maybe I need to rewatch it. I saw it like 4 years ago, and I was probably home sick with a cold. I think it was trying too hard, though.

There's this Scandinavian film I saw with the same sort of theme, made around the same time period, that I liked much better. A group of women all of a sudden flip out on some male boutique owner and kill him, and none of the women are willing to rat the others out, because of feminine solidarity. I wish I could remember the title.

[gordonzola.livejournal.com]

oh yeah, I forgot about that one. It's a good one.

I love the story of the making of BIF too though, which is why I remember liking the movie so much. Guerrilla feminist filming with no money, etc.

My dirty little secret is that I'm horrible at remembering movies for the most part. I never remember character names and a couple of days later I've usually forgotten major plot points. I just kinda remember a few images and whether or not I liked it.

[jactitation.livejournal.com]

Dutch, Marlene Gorris, Question of Silence.

And in the same vein, fuck, it just flew out of my head, no wait, Chantal Ackerman's Jeanne Something, Quai Something. 24 hours in the life of a housewife/whore. Fucking amazing.

Re:

[vestalvixen.livejournal.com]

Jeanne... I know exactly what you're talking about because we watched in that Women Directors class. That was a good film. At first, I didn't like how it was so boring and repetitive, but I needed to get to the end to see why that is. Big payoff.

[jactitation.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I also nearly walked out but wow.

Funnily enough, I think I saw that in a film series co-sponsored by Elaine something from IC. Would that be the connection?

Re:

[vestalvixen.livejournal.com]

Nah, I saw it when I was at UMass. Although I have the feeling that Elaine something was probably one of my teachers at IC.

[nodoilies.livejournal.com]

Jeanne Dielman, 23 Quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles

http://us.imdb.com/Title?0073198
[love how the user review is summarized as "One of the key works of English language cinema..." Huh?]

I saw this movie in high school, it's something of a benchmark for me. I figure if I could sit through that, I can sit through anything-- a solid 2/3 of the audience had left before the crazy last 15 minutes.

Hope you are well, Jacco--just had to get my two cents in!

[gordonzola.livejournal.com]

are you home? why aren't you calling me?

[erickapander.livejournal.com]

the repo man soundtrack was on constant rotation in my house when i was 15/16. i try not to think about how long ago that was.

[arasay.livejournal.com]

I'm considering paying for you to move to Seattle (with all that money I don't have) just so I could see you become a Goth.

[queen-beeanna.livejournal.com]

Surprisingly, Los Angeles is way up the list...There’s a part of the Pacific you can swim in."

Yes, well, if you dont mind swimming in sewage runoff. If it rains more than like an inch, you arent suppost to swim because the sewage system isnt prepared to handle ANY kind of precipitation and it all runs off into the ocean. I think that places North of Malibu are OK...but if you live in LA proper it takes an ASSLOAD of time to drive there...

I think NY would be hell if you didn’t grow up there and didn’t really know why you came.

Ditto Los Angeles. The only people who seemed vaguely comfortable there were natives. Everyone else was precariously clinging to a liferaft of identity grounded in validation by ever pending "discovery", trading water in life until such time their true talent was discovered and they would "arrive".

Thus, it seemed no one was real. Everyone was saving themselves for when life really would start. As the boys in my rock & roll boyfriends (at the time) band would say, "When the limo rolls up with naked chicks and pizza."

i got so wrapped up thinking about repo man...

[ilipodscrill.livejournal.com]

i forgot born in flames. i saw that maybe 13 or 14 yrs ago in a glbt filmfest in nyc. i have to wonder how it holds up too. i sort of remember them as a bicycle militia at one point--were there inventive weapons to fight the patriarchy too? it's been a long time, thanks for reminding me. i have to say, cinephile that i am, that i forget the details of films pretty quickly myself. when you & jacco were writing about me w/o you a little while ago, i actually had to click on the link to refresh my memory. and i only saw it a year and a half ago! getting old...but i did remember thinking of you when i saw it. maybe partially from my surprise @ the dawson's creek chick playing a jew. she was a lot less blonde than on dc anyway.

Re: i got so wrapped up thinking about repo man...

[jactitation.livejournal.com]

I wonder if it will ever show again. When I saw it in the theaters (er, college theaters), no one understood that at the end they blow up the telecommunications tower on the top of the World Trade Centers (heh heh), not the whole building itself. Can't imagine how that would play now...

Re: i got so wrapped up thinking about repo man...

[ilipodscrill.livejournal.com]

wow, yet another detail i'd long forgotten.

[amilie.livejournal.com]

ok, i just need to express my intense love of all things repo man.