Take The Handle

The Case of the Chung King Tongue

Alex Milsom — Tue, 03 Jan 2012 10:30:34 +0000

In this piece, writer Alex Milsom tells of a Sichuan adventure with veteran TTH contributor Nathaniel Rich, who previously interviewed Sichuan John of New York's own Grand Sichuan with our Ed. Stefan Marolachakis.

“Right now, at this moment, there isn’t a single other place I’d rather be in the entire world,” Nat had said to me when we arrived at the unatmospherically over-lit restaurant we’d driven 26 miles to visit.

As if he was concerned I’d interpret his statement as hyperbole, he added, “Sometimes, I’ll be in another really good restaurant eating good food, and I’ll be thinking about this place and wishing I was here instead. I compare like everything I eat to the food here.”

If Nat’s tone seems oddly romantic, then you’ve appropriately understood the feelings he has about Chung King, a restaurant inconveniently located in Monterey Park, a Chinese neighborhood in the San Gabriel Valley, all the way on the east side of Los Angeles. At times, he speaks about his girlfriend with just as much love, but less insistence, less concern that you won’t take him seriously for it.

This unexpected object of Nat’s love, Chung King, does its best to focus your attention to its food by being bad at everything else. To reduce any possible chance of appreciating their newly-painted green walls, they’ve taped them over with laminated photographs of their food. A large television is the obvious focal point of the room, the waiters don’t really speak any English, the bathroom’s in the kitchen, the soprano-sax light-jazz coming through the speakers competes with the sound of the news, and it’s one of those places where everyone else appears to get their food before you do. But the food is so good that you might start to suspect that any other restaurant’s attention to décor, service, and atmosphere might be a bad thing; a sign that they’re just not as good as Chung King.

When Nat left to go to the corner-store and buy some beer (Chung King is BYOB of course), a young Chinese woman at the table next to me turned and asked if I like spicy food. I told her, “I love it. I can take the heat pretty well for a white girl.” She and her three friends burst out laughing.

The woman who spoke to me was wearing a dress that seemed to have been pulled from the chiffarobe of a young prairie-bride. It had a squared-neckline and overpuffed short-sleeves. Her Urkel-sized glasses and army boots clarified for me that that I was in the presence of Chinese hipster-women; an imposing insider crew that apparently didn’t need to order food—it was brought out to them immediately as they arrived. During their meal, they watched the television as they ate and occasionally laughed at something on someone’s iPhone. They enjoyed the enviable familial silence of old friends who don’t need to string out constant conversation in order to get through a meal.

When Nat returned with a six-pack of Tsing-Tao, I pointed out to him that the waitress was wearing grey sweatpants.

“Yeah. That’s because she knows. It’s about the food,” he said.

We ordered semi-haphazardly and in a panic. Surrounded by so many insiders, somehow our use of the menu at all felt clumsy. There were side menus, special menus, lunch menus, and secret-code Chinese menus tucked under the glass covering the tablecloth. The laminated photos on the wall only added to my sense of panic. All the dishes at other people’s tables looked the same. What had they all ordered? Should we order it too? Faced with the stress imposed by an unfamiliar food-culture and a clusterfuck of options, I deferred to Nat and his comparatively vast Sichuan experience.

The menu included things like “boiled intestine.” Not to be deterred by what might be perceived as gringo-fear, he ordered something that was kidney-based. “It’s probably pig-kidney, not beef,” he explained, as if that would make any difference to me. Cowing to an apparently internalized-standard that dictated we should eat something green, Nat insisted that we order a vegetable other than potatoes. We settled on cabbage in vinegar, even though, as I pointed out, cabbage isn’t all that green. The whole barnyard was ultimately put to the knife for our meal: pork coated in Sichuan chilli-oil, beef cooked in Sichuan chilli-oil, and a tofu-pork combination that floated in Sichuan chilli-oil. Lastly, we ordered noodles based on a laminated photograph taped to the wall next to us. Nat pointed to the picture and said, “that.” “I’m feeling it. The tingling,” I told Nat after I took my first bite of the noodles. But he wasn’t paying attention and I needed him to. He needed to know what I was going through. “It’s not normal,” I added.

“That’s the Sichuan pepper. It makes your tongue numb,” he explained as if I was new to the genre. He didn’t understand. The tingling wasn’t turning into numbness, like usual. It pulsed with my heartbeat; it was tenderness, the gustatory equivalent of sparkling lights, ocean waves of delight, a seizing and insistent vibration of increasing pleasure. My tongue was having an orgasm. A female orgasm: sustained, pulsing, and rare. Was this why the Chinese women had spoken to me when Nat left briefly? Do they know about this?

“I’m having a tongue-orgasm right now. Literally.” This made Nat finally look up.

“What, you mean you’re really having an orgasm right now? In your vagina?”

“No, on my tongue. I don’t know what is happening to me. But it’s the exact same feeling as an orgasm.” A female orgasm. He probably wouldn’t understand. I sat there and stared down at the plate of noodles covered with an oily reddish glaze. “What is happening to me?”

“You’re really flushed,” Nat observed with delight. “Your neck and chest are red.” He picked up the plate of noodles, inspecting it closely as if for an answer. “Look,” he said, pointing to the edge of the plate, “see those white little crystals? Like salt? That’s MSG. Straight-up MSG.”

“I don’t care. I am having a tongue orgasm.”

I sat silently as it peaked and then abated, the numbness finally settling in. The orgasm on my tongue had lasted a full minute and I was feeling what I usually feel for the rare being—or in this case, the mouthful of noodles—that can bring me to climax like that: love.

Usually in relationships, when you attain the level of affection that I was now feeling for this cold plate of Sichuan noodles, your partner no longer has to maintain the relationship’s initial decorum to be sure of your love: he might stop cleaning his apartment before you come over, he might not avoid garlic on a date, and he might forget to lower the toilet seat. Your love is a sure thing. He might even wear his sweatpants during dinner.

“You know MSG isn’t bad for you,” Nat reassured me, bringing me out of my post-coital trance. “It’s just something that makes food taste good. A chemical.”

“I love MSG,” I replied.

Though I couldn’t replicate the initial sensation I had with my first bite of the noodles, I spent the rest of the meal in a feeding-frenzy. A bite from one bowl, then another, then another in quick succession. Nat and I had dispensed with the formality of transferring the food from the serving dishes to our plates. I realized that I was speaking really quickly about boring things like school and work and that Nat wasn’t listening.

“I feel really high,” he said.

“I have no idea what I’m talking about,” I responded.

“I wasn’t listening.”

“It’s okay.”

We were lapsing into the familial ease shared by the Chinese women at the table next to us. We no longer needed words; in fact, we could no longer really talk at all due to the consuming-buzz that had fogged up our heads. Chung King had transformed us into a part of its family; the drone of the television was a welcome relief to our over-stimulated senses. Our waiter’s language-barrier-induced silence was no longer an obstacle when he came to check on us.

At the end of our meal, when we’d stopped being physically able to eat, Nat began apologizing to the bowl of kidney and the bowl of beef that we’d left unfinished. As before, his tone was very serious and insistent. “I’m sorry I can’t eat you,” he said to the food. “I really love you.” Does he speak with that sort of sincerity to his girlfriend? I hope so. His concern with being understood was so genuine. Everyone should have the experience in life of being spoken to with such tenderness and love. The remaining food didn’t go to waste; Nat’s love for the food was not a jealous love and he happily saved the leftovers for a friend. Sichuan food is not like a girlfriend in that way: it can, and should, be shared.

A Great Holiday, Overlooked: 1-2-12

Stefan Marolachakis — Mon, 02 Jan 2012 22:47:53 +0000

Dear Mayor Bloomberg, Governor Cuomo, President Obama, et al:

I was born in this fair city nearly thirty-two years ago. Since that day, a number of new jack area codes have popped up -- 917, 646, and 347, to name a few -- but one has always loomed large as the Big Apple's undeniable three-digit identity: 212.

Manhattan has always been seen not only as the grand borough and epicenter of this great city, but as the main nerve of our country and, if I may, the world. What better proof of that is necessary than the very reason it was assigned the area code 212, one of the originals assigned in 1947: it was the easiest to dial quickly on a rotary phone.

People have always wanted to get us on the line. After all, contrary to the occasional naysayers, New York is a very welcoming place. That said, I will also happily admit it is home to many secrets and wonderful insider-type vibes. I can't think of a date that represents both classic New York and insider New York simultaneously better than 1-2-12, aka 1212. For these reasons, and many more, I propose that we recognize January 2, 2012, as Manhattan Day.

I'll publicly give downtown LA the heads-up and the OK to take 1-2-13 for their own special holiday, but let's make sure we New Yorkers do not forget the magic that was 1-2-12. Anyone who had the pleasure of conducting a conversation on a Manhattan-based landline today surely felt the gravity of that moment, the power of this context. The sentiments shared must've been grand; all participating conversationalists must have felt in their hands the sharp tingle of pride emanating from the very phones they were holding. Today, one special Monday gracefully molted out of its old, worn, day-of-drudgery skin, and into a gorgeous, new, yet classically-influenced 212 bod. TGIM.

Till January 7th, 2018...

Best,
Stefan Marolachakis
Editor, Take the Handle
New York, NY

Happy New Year Striptease Snafu!

Handle Vandal — Mon, 02 Jan 2012 17:48:14 +0000

Our friends over at Howling Hearts have posted this year's definitive New Year's Eve video. It's a subway striptease for the ages, and words cannot do it justice. So, without further ado, Happy 2012!

Distract-o-Vision

Alex Reeves — Thu, 22 Dec 2011 05:25:52 +0000

I'm always a sucker for a new gimmick so when I heard about the Smurf-O-Vision: Second Screen Experience, I knew I had to get involved. Every Blu-ray copy of the new rehash of The Smurfs comes with a free app for your iPhone or iPad which you can sync with the movie. It caters to the multi-task generation where even a recreational activity like a movie requires supplemental distractions like bubble popping and fly swatting.

Syncing the app is a smurfstrating experience. I had to restart my Blu-ray player several times because it froze when attempting to sync via wifi and all menu options were "prohibited." Finally, I opted for the manual sync, following in the footsteps of my druggy predecessors who carefully synced The Dark Side of the Moon with the lion's roar in The Wizard of Oz.

When we finally settled back on the sofa with our blue chips and blueberry juice I figured that we'd be playing silly games that corresponded to the action on screen, but I didn't realize that the "dual screen experience" isn't ideal for group viewing because it actually plays a different version of the Smurfs movie with weird additions and picture-in-picture elements. For example, in the first minute of the movie the camera follows a white bird as it dives into the Smurfs' enchanted forest. In the dual screen version a large splat of bird poop lands on the TV screen then lands on the iPad screen too, where you're supposed to wipe it away with your fingers. But if you watch the normal version of the movie, there is no splat at all.

I wonder if the director had creative control over the handfuls of weird graphics that were added to his film, or whether he figured it just couldn't get any worse. I had to stop the dual screen action after only a few minutes because it was so obnoxious and distracting. It might appeal to young kids who won't mind the Smurfs' anti-Semitic undertones but tech-savvy youngsters will recognize these games as the repackaged freeware garbage that they are.

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Santa Rages Hard at TTH Holiday Party

Handle Vandal — Wed, 21 Dec 2011 05:10:10 +0000

Thanks to everyone who made it out to the TTH/Lemonade holiday party last week. Our party photographer dropped his camera down Santa's outhouse, so we're stuck with these lousy photos from our editor's phone. They might have turned out a little better if it hadn't been for the 40 cases of Asahi washed down with a couple Hot Drams. Check out nine absurd party pics below, none of which capture the true beauty of a blackbox theater decorated in tinsel and snowflakes by four men:

TTH Holiday Gift Guide!

Handle Vandal — Thu, 15 Dec 2011 21:31:19 +0000

In a bind about what to get your friends this holiday season? Here are a few items that we think are sure to put smiles on the faces of your near and dear...

Leather Wine Bike Rack by Spotted Owl Leather, $45

No better feeling than traveling with booze. Since I know none of us own cars, mayhaps this leather wine rack for your bike will do the trick this holiday season? Should be perfect for toting around all of that Beaujolais Nouveau that needs to be finished before the New Year.

The Lockout Tee by Howling Hearts, $25

After a very stressful and extended lockout, the NBA season is finally about to get underway, with the first games of the year being played on Christmas Day. What better present could an NBA fan ask for? How about this shirt: the first of a new line called Howling Hearts from TTH contributor Kristy Ann Muniz.

One-year subscription to The Paris Review, $45

Perhaps you know someone like me, who too often relegates his reading of The Paris Review to copies borrowed from friends or gifted at a literary event. I'm thinking this might be the year to fulfill your friend's New Year's resolution to be a more worldly and well-read soul, and become an official subscriber -- what's more, the Review is currently offering a handsome Moleskine pocket notebook along with every subscription filled. Sounds like the perfect gift to me.

Crosley Keepsake Turntable on Insound.com, $149.99

I, for one, have always been plagued by the inability to transfer my vinyl library over to digital. Lo and behold, the folks over at Insound have one of these handy little turntables on sale that does the transferring for you! To sweeten the deal even further, they are giving away free LPs with every turntable purchase.

Kodak Playsport Zx3 Video Camera, $99.99

Apple has cornered the market on nearly every aspect of our mobile lifestyle these days, sadly even including the camera. But there's still one frontier they've yet to conquer: underwater. We've all been there, terrified as the sight of one drop of water touching your phone sends your life flashing before your eyes. So for this one, let's turn to Kodak, classic purveyor of all things camera-related, for an affordable digital camera that lets you shoot video and still images up to 10 feet underwater! There's a reason the saying goes "jack of all trades, master of none" -- in a sea of markets being diluted by multi-tasking devices, it's still worth turning to the master every once in a while.

If all else fails, just take 'em out for a drink. Works every time.

TTH/ Lemonade Holiday Party

Handle Vandal — Sat, 10 Dec 2011 20:14:01 +0000

Dear Readers,
It's been a while since we've seen all of our Take the Handle friends together in one room so we decided to throw a little holiday bash next week with our friends at Lemonade NYC. We hope you can join us - there will be free beer and maybe a hot cocktail to sip.

See you next thursday?
The Eds.

Lemonade & Take The Handle Present:
Holidays 1981
Thusday December, 15th 8-12pm
150 First Ave at 9th Street
Complementary drinks provided by Asahi
DJ Sets by: Millions Billions, Josh of Estate & CAVEMAN

Choose Your Own Badvoovie

Alex Reeves — Wed, 30 Nov 2011 04:11:10 +0000

While other apps aim for a global market, this series of apps are an advertisement for "Sacramento's best Moroccan restaurant", a joint called Marrakech. The name Advoovie is an awkward combination of the words "adventure" and "movie" so called because users watch short movies then choose from three options to direct where the adventure should go next. As you'll see from the trailer below, the whole production feels like a local late night infomercial that somehow manages to make everything look unappealing: the contestants, the restaurant, the app, even the iPhone they use for a demonstration looks like it got dropped in the Matrozza.

Besides being an ad for a depressing restaurant in Sacramento, Advoovie Marrakech is also a dating show of sorts. Each $1.99 app allows you to choose-your-own adventure for one character on a double date (3 of the 4 have been released so far). An example dating "adventure" starts like this:

Matt: So how was your day?
Jessica: It was okay. I got some stuff done that I needed to do, talked to my mom. How was yours?
Matt: It was good. Pretty busy day though. I was actually surprised I was able to get everything done and be able to make it here tonight. If I had to stay late, that would have been terrible.
Jessica: Yeah that would be terrible.
Matt: You know what'd be worse?
Jessica: what's that?
Matt: You know what's terrible?
Jessica: What's that?
Matt: More terrible than a pig stuck on a fence?
Jessica: Uhhh...I dunno.
Matt: Two pigs stuck on a fence! (laughs) Get it?!

Now it's Advoovie choice time for Jessica, does she:
A) Roll Eyes
B) Tell Matt that was a corny joke
C) Pretend to laugh at the corny joke

After five choices like this Matt evaluates whether date Jessica again. Honestly it's quite a bit of fun to make choices for these first-time actors as they stumble through their last-chance dates. At the end I went back and made different selections such as tipping the belly dancer $100 and selecting "manly" entrees to effect different outcomes. Of course it's always more fun to intentionally choose the wrong options and with this crew nothing could more depressing than the prospect of a second date.

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Airbag? More Like Wear-bag

Stefan Marolachakis — Mon, 21 Nov 2011 11:00:10 +0000

Last November I traveled to Valencia to watch the final race of the MotoGP season while on assignment for a men's magazine. There I experienced Grand Prix motorcycle racing for the first time, and I can testify that it is the real-life version of Tron; only, in this case, the sleek and sensuous texture of the racing scenery seen in that film's recent update has been replaced by piping hot pavement and deafening engine noise. (Try to conjure in your mind's ear something to the tune of ten thousand chainsaws having violent sex with one another.) One can only imagine what it would feel like to crash while pushing 200 mph on one of these 800cc beasts.

It's a problem riders have always had to grapple with, and this past year racing apparel company Alpinestars managed to make some headway toward solving it with the introduction of their Tech Air Race Suit. This thing is essentially a full-body airbag, and it points to a new era in driver safety for street racers. Accordingly, Popular Science just awarded it a spot on the 2011 edition of their "Best of What's New" list, pointing out that the revolutionary new safety suit "can reduce the impact of a motorcycle crash to one tenth of what a racer wearing conventional body armor would suffer." Maybe -- just maybe -- by that logic, anxious mothers across all street racing circuits will now be able to breathe 90% more efficiently. Cheers to that.

Barnyard Sex Jokes App Is Decidedly Not For Kids

Alex Reeves — Thu, 10 Nov 2011 05:11:10 +0000

As a result of writing this column for a few months, my iPad is brimming with questionable apps which somehow subverted the App Store's policy against sex and profanity. I keep them all in folders so that friends or relatives don't stumble upon these troubling apps when they're playing games or looking up a recipe on my iPad. One app that I downloaded recently called Crazy Animal World was not filed in the "offensive" folder but it really should have been. It's a dangerous case of misleading marketing and I really hope that parents don't mistakenly download it for their kids hoping to see some funny talking animals.

To show you what I mean, here is the app's marketing copy in its entirety. Notice that there's no warning about sexual content anywhere:

"Can you imagine what would happen if animals could talk? We can! That's why we offer you a collection of over 50 funny situations that will crack you up! ***FEATURES*** *Very intuitive and simple to use interface. *Share with your friends your favorite anti-jokes using Facebook or e-mail. Enjoy!

The only example "joke" is an image of a penguin photoshopped very poorly onto a bleak mid-western road. In large black letters, using a font called "Hobo STD", it says "Why did the penguin cross the road?" Answer: "To Proove [sic] it wasn't a chicken." Typos aside, this joke makes everything seem perfectly family-friendly. You wouldn't think that once you download this app you'd soon be reading jokes about "wet pussies" and "a big fat cock in your mouth!"

As you can see in the gallery below, the app consists of a series of around 30 bad barnyard jokes which alternate between sexually explicit and downright nonsensical. The images are covered with weird ads and serve as a textbook for how not to use photoshop. To navigate, you swipe right to left until you either chuckle or cry trying.

Although it's not mentioned in the marketing copy, the app does receive a 17+ rating, so hypothetically a child couldn't download it without their parents' iTunes password, but I could see it falling into the wrong hands and confusing the hell out of some kid. I remember when I was first learning about sex I'd overhear a conversation on the school bus or see a Farrelly brothers movie and for a few weeks my whole understanding of sex would go down this misleading rabbit hole because I'd given utmost importance to a small tangential detail. I could easily see the same thing happening to some poor tween who reads way too much into the joke about the sharks giving a blowjob to a battleship.

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