Beef, Wine, Incendiary Conversation and the Peace-making Ability of Rock Band

In a roasting pot, place all the ingredients and put in the oven around 250 degrees.  Then, pull up a chair and sit for 14 hours.  That's right, 14 friggin' hours (I'll bring over the New Yorker, Harper's and the last three issues of McSweeney's).

We served our peposo over long-cooked polenta and sauteed spinach.  But those sides are like the opening bands for U2 (what was their name again?).

If I was to describe the resulting peposo in 80s music video terms (this is keeping with the previous U2 reference), it was like the feast in INX's "One Thing" combined with the delightful attack on the senses as seen in REM's "End of the World".  In the end, you feel as satisfied as you did when you first...[place meaningful, but lurid experience here].
But Peposo is only a catalyst for a good time.  If not ingested by the right people with the proportionate amounts of wine and liquor, it means nothing -- you might as well have served McD's cheeseburgers to a gathering of staunch Baptists.


We lucked out and this group proved themselves to be anything but Baptists (no disrespect to the Baptists) -- heathen artist, Socialist professors, racy photog, timber baron, et al.  The dialogue wildly went from how to make Shreveport a better city to who is going to win the presidential election (this part was a bit heated) to best movie of the year (actually, this part was even more heated than the election question).

John Lennon once said that countries at war should sing.  This, he posits, will bring the warring parties to a place of peace.  I feel the same way about Rock Band the XBox360 uber game.  Rock Band is what will bring us all together.  The game is basically Guitar Hero on steroids (the illegal kind).  You have a guitar, drums, bass and a singer that all play together off of a video guide.  I knew this night would be a good one when we retired to the Place of Rock to address our differences.
If the group is good and pure, then wonderful music will be made.  If the group is untrue to itself, discord will occur and the computer-generated audience will -- in "American Idol" slang -- send your ass home.   While this gang drank like Iggy Pop [Holding fast to the 80s music references] , they played together like the Tom Tom Club [Still holding onto the 80s, but my grip is slipping] in their heyday.  The result was a happy, well-fed group who, as Mr. Lennon suggested, had set aside their cinematic and electoral arguments and come together in peace.