Wednesday, February 13, 2008

the endorsement: the endorsement

So I used to get a number of magazines, but now I get one: Esquire. It's fun to read it and imagine that I'm as cool as they seem to assume I am by virtue of my readership. For example, they had a short article in the most recent issue about watches with a certain kind of strap, and I was looking at the prices and was surprised to find that they were fairly reasonable--mostly around $50. Then I looked closer and realized that it was the straps that cost $50. The watches were in the $3,000 neighborhood. And that happens pretty often when I read this magazine.

But they do occasionally have interesting stuff in there that I can use, and oftentimes it comes in the form of a recurring section called "The Endorsement." Basically, someone from the magazine endorses some music/book/concept/etc. Recent examples include: Tim McGraw, the jockstrap, Spam and egg on toast, RadarGolf, the hug, Mister Mustard, staying indoors, and Crayola crayons.

So as an homage to "The Endorsement," I'm going to put together a list of my own endorsements. Everything on this list comes with my steadfast recommendation. As often as possible, I'll include pertinent web links. Here we go.

1. The Juno soundtrack.
2. Dunkin' Donuts apple fritters.
3. Rachel Ray's carbonara.
4. Ghost Repeater, by Jeffrey Foucault.
5. "The Pineapple Incident" episode of How I Met Your Mother.
6. Boardgames.
7. The Saxton.
8. Indiana University men's basketball warm-ups.
9. Busted Tees. (Specifically, "You have died of dysentery.")
10. My mother's meatloaf.
11. Chipotle.
12. Going out for lunch.
13. Red Stripe.
14. The Diamond and 1 Press.
15. Tootsie's Orchid Lounge on Broadway in Nashville, TN.
16. The word "pejorative."
17. Jewel's Three-Cheese Semolina bread.
18. A Mountain Dew in the morning.
19. The first chapter of Staggerford, by John Hassler.
20. Using scissors to cut up little kids' food.
21. Field trips.
22. Rocky Rococo's.
23. The Food Network.
24. Dr. Drew Pinksy.
25. Cinammon Toast Crunch.
26. People who shave their heads when a friend is going through chemo.
27. Kickball.
28. Chewing gum.
29. Optical illusions.
30. Gambling for the sake of gambling.
31. The Reese's Peanut Butter Pie at the Ft. Myers Alehouse.
32. Beards.
33. String cheese.
34. Mitch Hedberg.
35. Tyson Dinosaur Fun Nuggets with Tastefully Simple Pomegranate Chipotle Sauce.

Feel free to add more by way of comments. And if you're not familiar with this stuff, by all means, check it out.

Later gators.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

I'm shocked that there is nothing about Taco Bell on this list. It's one of your defining qualities. That, and Mountain Dew, which Charlie now calls "Daddy's juice".

Claire said...

It's probably good that Ripon didn't have Chipotle when we were in school, because I can see us eating there pretty much every day. Not unlike what actually happened with Taco Bell.

Do you know The Year of Endless Sorrows by Adam Rapp? I've barely started it, but here's an excerpt from the first chapter, which I heartily endorse.

"We're from the midwest mostly. We're from Lawrence and Davenport and Dubuque. We're from Kanakee and Oswego. We're from Griffith and Joliet and Mechanicsville. Platteville and Green Bay. And Altoon and DeKalb and Clinton. ... In the winter, with the aluminum taste of frigid air in our lungs, we can look out over tractor-scarred fields of frozen mud and know exactly who we are. We were raised with tornado culture and good dental histories. When we came to New York we left behind pets. We left behind coaches and priests. We left behind friends who went to work for insurance companies. We left behind half-dead cars and VCRs and laminated baseball-card collections. We left behind two-lane, mercilessly straight, never-ending highways. We didn't say goodbye to everybody. We couldn't possibly have said goodbye to everybody."

Anonymous said...

2 Chipotles just opened in Fort Wayne (which, by the way, confirms my hypthesis that Fort Wayne needs to have 2 or more of everything - 2 Targets, 2 Loews, 2 Old Navys, 2 Paneras, 6 movie theaters...I could go on forever). Anyway, I'm waiting to go to the new Chipotles because the average wait right now is 1 hour. Guess everyone loves their food!

Another recommendation: Chik Fil-A