EGG McMUFFINS: THE THEORY CORNER WAY

I'm over the sickness, and now I'm ready for a hardy breakfast! Read on....

That's (above) Herb Peterson,  the benefactor of humanity who invented the Egg McMuffin way back in 1972. I think it's the best thing McDonalds makes, and it only costs a buck. What a deal!

Lately I've been making my own Egg McMuffins at home. I make them more dietetic than McDonalds does, and they're just as delicious. No doubt they'd be even better with fattier ingredients, but they're still pretty darn good. Here's how I make them:

INGREDIENTS:

1 soft cinnamon raisin English muffin
1 egg
1 tablespoon (or more) shredded mozzarella (the kind that comes in a bag)
1 or 2 slices Canadian bacon
1 teaspoon butter
1 teaspoon vinegar

First off,  start water boiling so you can poach the egg. Unlike the chef in the picture below, I use a small pot to make cleaning up easier, and I make the water about an inch deep.

While the water is heating up, grab a muffin and some Canadian bacon from the freezer. Thaw them  in the microwave for about 15 seconds. After that, cut the muffin in half and pop it into the toaster.

The water is almost ready to boil now, and that's exactly where it's supposed to be...almost ready.  Turn down the heat a bit to keep it just below boiling. After that,  carefully break an egg into a saucer or small glass bowl. Don't break the yolk.

Add a half teaspoon of vinegar to the water, then stir it to create a whirlpool in the center. Slip the raw egg out of the bowl into the middle of the whirlpool. The whirlpool will keep the egg from spreading out, and will give it a nice, round shape...well, sort of. Let the egg cook (poach) by floating on top of the near boiling water.

While that's going on, take the muffin out of the toaster, sprinkle lots of shredded mozzarella on the inside of one of the slices, and microwave it for 20 seconds. This'll melt the cheese into the bun. Spread a little butter over the cheese, and put the Canadian bacon slice(s) on top.

Return to the stove to see how the egg's coming along. If the yolk is still yellow, spoon some hot water over it to speed up the cooking. After a total of about about 3 1/2 minutes cooking, remove the egg with a slotted spoon and put it on top of the melted cheese and bacon on the muffin.  Put the other muffin slice on top to make a sandwich, and that's it!

Actually the whole process is quick and easy...don't be deterred by the written-out length of the recipe.

A couple of caveats: don't use crumpets...they're dense like a bagel, and they don't make good McMuffins. And don't skip the vinegar, it helps to keep the cooking egg together. Lastly, don't worry if some of the egg squeezes out of the sandwich while you're eating. You could fix that by cooking the egg longer, but then it wouldn't taste as good. Learn to love the messiness!

(GROAN!) I'M SICK!

I get sick about twice a year. Usually it only lasts for a day or two. I'll be back before most people know I'm missing!

Neat cards, eh?

THE DAY I MET HARVEY KURTZMAN

Joel Brinkerhoff wrote a comment to my last post about Harvey Kurtzman, and thinking about the man reminded me of the one and only time that I actually met him. For what it's worth, here's the story.

It was at a comics convention. I stumbled on Harvey when he was alone behind a pillar with an outrageously beautiful fan girl. She was standing inches away from his face, telling him how great he was, and how she'd do anything to show her devotion.

The reason I know what they were saying is that I walked up close and stood beside them, hoping to get an autograph. I guess I must have looked impatient because when the girl noticed me the spell was broken, and she apologized and left.

I tried to get Harvey's attention but he was totally fixated on the girl. He had a cold sweat and turned his head slowly as he watched her leave the room. She looked pretty good, even from the back.

When he finally turned to me I cheerfully offered him a pen and a cocktail napkin to write on, and he gave me a crazed look like he wanted to kill me. He muttered something like "No autographs!"  and lit a cigarette to calm his nerves.

That was my only up close encounter with Harvey Kurtzman.

THE LONE STRANGER (PARODY)

LONE STRANGER: "Well, there they are, Pronto! The Dalton Gang. They robbed the stage this morning, and now it looks like they're headed for town to celebrate."

LONE STRANGER: "My guess is that they hid the loot in their hideout.

PRONTO: "Mmmmm, that the logical inference, KemoSappy."

LONE STRANGER: "Pronto! Take this disguise, ride into town, and see if you can find out what they're gonna do next! We'll meet up at their hideout. Nobody's there now so I'll head over and see if I can find out where they hid the loot!"

    

PRONTO: "(GASP!) Ooooo! You mean that I get to wear the di...you mean that this time I'M the one who...."

PRONTO: "......Yes Sir, Lone Stranger, yes sir! RIGHT AWAY!"

PRONTO: "What a man! He's my HERO!"

LATER AT THE HIDEOUT:

LONE STRANGER: "Nothing there. Nothing here. Oh, Good Grief! Somebody spit in the coffee!"

SFX: OUTSIDE FOOTSTEPS APPROACH THE DOOR.

LONE STRANGER: "Uh-oh! It's the gang!"

LONE STRANGER: "GOTCHA!"

LONE STRANGER: "Rob old ladies, will 'ya!?"

LONE STRANGER: "Prey on the innocent, will you!?"

LONE RANGER: "You wanna stop the progress of the West?"

LONE STRANGER: "Stop this, why don't cha ?"

LONE STRANGER: "Am I inconveniencing you?"

LONE STRANGER: "Oops! Pardon me!""

LONE STRANGER: "TELEGRAM!"

The Lone Stranger reacts to something and drops his guns.

LONE STRANGER: "WAIT!!!!!!"

LONE STRANGER: "Pronto...is...is that you? I didn't recognize you in that disguise!"

PRONTO (GROGGY): "The ship was wasted on the blue morning elves while they hauled lively livers staunchly in the rain, n'est pas?

LONE RANGER: "C'mon Pronto! You don't need an expensive doctor! A little fresh air and you'll be fine!"

LATER: THE STRANGER TALKS TO SOME COWBOYS FROM THE TOWN.

LONE STRANGER: "You say the Dalton Gang was hit by a meteor!? No survivors?  Well, it looks like our work here is done, eh Pronto?

PRONTO (STILL INCOHERENT): "The badger's underwear shrieks in the flame while noodles redirect the fish."

LONE STRANGER: "Uh...right! Adios, boys!"

THEY MOUNT UP AND RIDE AWAY. 

COWBOY #1: "I didn't get the masked man's name. Who is he?"

COWBOY#2: You didn't recognize him!? Why, I reckon he's known throughout the West."

COWBOY#2 (VO): "That there's ...'THE LONE STRANGER!' "

LONE STRANGER (SHOUTS): HI-Ho SLIVER...and AWAAAAAAYYY!!!!!!

SPLAT! 

A giant woman's foot comes into sc. and crushes the duo!

This is by way of an ad for the next Theory Corner photo story: "Valley of the 50 ft. Women."

Post Script: Sorry for the bad photoshopping. I had to cut every corner possible just to finish this thing and get it off my desk. Also, I had to do all the drawing with a mouse. Have you ever tried to draw with those things?

DRAT!!!!!!!!

DRAT!   I COULDN'T FINISH ON TIME!

I'll put the next post up sometime during the day today (Wed.).

I WISH I COULD TAKE ELOCUTION LESSONS!

I did some reading this morning on the subject of elocution. Man, I wish I'd gotten some of that when I was in grade school. Imagine being able to talk like Darth Vader or Winston Churchill or...Ian McKellen.

Here's a clip from a comedy sketch where Ian McKellen attempts to teach Ricky Gervais how to act. I love the way McKellen varies his pace and emphasis: "Not....much....theaterworkoflate." Then he asks, "How...do I ACT......sowell? What I do is...I...PRETEND...to BE....the PERSONI'mportraying." Wow, very nice! He breaks the sentences down into individual words and word groups and then gives each a special treatment.

In a general way the actor's job is to artistically vary the pace and emphasis of a sentence without diluting it's dramatic force. That's hard to do. Most of us can do either variety or dramatic truth one at a time, but to do them simultaneously, and still give the illusion of spontaneity...well, that takes a lot of practice.

Then there's the matter of tone.

It's important to have a good tone when you speak. I like the smooth-as-satin tone of Vincent Price reading Tim Burton's "Vincent." I like the gravel in Johnny Cash's voice. Now how do I acquire a tone like that?

An awful lot of elocution teachers seem to be frustrated yoga instructors. They put a lot of emphasis on standing and bending correctly when you speak. That doesn't feel right to me. That's only for professionals. And I don't like my instruction books to have trendy titles like "Your Right to Speak." My right? You mean "the man" wants me to speak badly?

I like what the girl above is doing. It centers on things that are more intuitively right like forming the word in back of the mouth where it resonates more. The problem here is that the girl's own voice needs work, and I had trouble imagining  some of the vibration she's talking about. I guess that's why personal instruction is so useful. One book said it takes 7 hours a week of live instruction for a period of about a year to get the voice working right. Geez, I'll bet that's not cheap. 

  Vocal instructors are always obsessing over the diaphragm. After doing a little research, I finally understand why. The lungs rest on the diaphragm, which is just underneath them. If you breath the wrong way the lungs have nowhere to expand to because they're blocked on the bottom by the diaphragm. They only fill up to only half of their capacity. 

If you want to increase the lungs' capacity, you have to breathe the right way... which is to expand the stomach outward when you breathe. This causes the diaphragm to drop, and give the lungs a lot more room. Nifty, huh? Of course it makes you look fat. 

   

If I ever take voice lessons it'll have to be from people who know how to speak themselves, like Ted Williams, the famous homeless radio announcer (above).

Maybe CD courses are the way to go. In the car I could mimic the speaker and do lots of variations. I could lengthen the vowels and add my own pauses. I could inflect the end of a sentence up or down. I could savor so-called "glottal" words that begin with abrupt, soft vowels like "absolutely," "amenities" and "accent."

But how would I know what the good CDs are?

ACCIDENTAL RACISM?

No, not by a long shot. I'm doing a Lone Stranger episode and the Tonto-type character just doesn't seem funny without the long nose. I don't think most indians really had big noses, but Sitting Bull had a huge schnoz, and cartoonists seem to have taken their cue from him.  Now it's a convention. What's an artist to do?

Maybe I'll delete panels like the one above and go for a salami nose. Nobody on the planet has a nose like that, so who could I offend?  Besides, I'm part indian and I have a big nose, so I figure I'm entitled.

What do you guys think?