Baseball Head

"Hey fella! That's Woodrow Frikkin Wilson you're sculpting there! How about a little size on that puppy? A little heft? Some gravitas, perhaps? He looks a bit twee, doncha think? Huh buddy? Huh?"

William Clark Noble looks back at me through the truncated abscesses of time and thinks, "Idiot."

And he'd be right. No doubt about it.

There's an Asian restaurant up the street from me called Spices DC. It's quite good. I'm not a big fan of Asian cuisine, as it tends to send me reeling for the nearest bathroom stall within minutes of ingestion, but Spices is different. For some reason, it's a kinder, gentler Asian fusion.

Spices has the hottest dish I have ever eaten. It's called Suicide Curry. It's available in chicken, beef, or shrimp flavors. I get the chicken. It's hot. It's beyond hot. It's torture. And yet, it's so delicious that I cannot stop eating it. It has the most satisfying gestalt I've ever encountered. A perfect blend of pleasure and pain. Laugh and cry simultaneously. Scream and then say, "Mmmmm."

I can't describe it's greatness.

I never would have thought about going to Spices but for the insidious grift of the French restaurant next door. It advertised a pre-theater price-fixe dinner (the theater being the Uptown, Washington's last standing movie palace). Sounded like a good deal — three courses for $25 a head. Some of my adorable friends went there on a mass outing, only to find that they were victims of a merciless bait-and-switch. Offended, they left the establishment and stumbled upon Spices, which no one had ever noticed before. The next day, one of them called me and asked, "Have you ever been to Spices?'

And thus I began burning my taste buds to a crisp whenever my budget permitted.

Tomorrow: Husker Du?