The door opens and a woman wanders out onto the porch.
“I’m here to see Ryan,” I say.
She starts to explain how to get upstairs. It’s complicated. I’m confused. She sighs. I’m clearly cutting into her smoke time. She points at a piece of paper barely taped to the door frame.
“Just follow the yellow arrows,” she says.
I do. Creakity-creak up the stairwell and around a corner. Still more stairs. Where the fuck am I going? The stale air isn’t making this hike any easier.
Suddenly a thin, sharp shadow appears on the landing. Inkblot hued hair falls in shards across his forehead. His bony frame is swallowed by a striped shirt.
“Hi, I’m Erica,” I say, extending my hand.
He trots right past me down a couple steps, peers around the corner, then swivels back and shakes my hand.
“Oh, hey, I’m Ryan. I was just coming down to let my buddy Mike in.”
Speak of the devil, Mike McGarthwaite, Ryan’s right-hand man, trots up the stairs. He looks like he just leapt off the page of a J. Crew catalog (or so says Ryan), meaning he’s dressed in pretentiously preppy garb. The two of them are by far my skinniest interviewees yet; I may weigh more than both of them combined.
I’ve come to conquer Mount Couscous, Ryan’s meatless specialty. Regarding the origin of the dish, Ryan says, “It started in an apartment in Brooklyn. I was broke and didn’t know what else to eat. The idea is to buy a box of couscous and cram as many delicious things into it as you can.” Tonight, that includes tomatoes, alfredo sauce, pesto, capers, garlic, cilantro, sun-dried tomato feta cheese, and pine nuts.
The “mountain” part of the title isn’t just a metaphor. He now piles several scoops of the stuff onto a sage colored plate for me.
“Is that enough?” he asks.
“That’s plenty,” I say.
“I suppose you’re afraid to take too much,” he says. “Just in case it’s completely nasty.”
In the loft where a couple of Ryan’s friends have agreed to host me, there’s only one room with air conditioning—the bedroom—so that is where all five of us convene with full plates. Ryan claims the recliner, everyone else grabs stools, and I end up…on the corner of the bed. There’s no box spring, so I’m oddly angled just inches off the floor. Everyone is at different heights; Mike is at the “peak”, so to speak, I’m at base camp, and Ryan is halfway between.
We dig in. Ryan’s Mount Couscous is a robust, multi-layered flavor sensation. With the unexpected combination of herbs, the contrasting consistencies of creamy alfredo, chunky feta, and the slippery skin of the tomatoes, it’s fabulous. I could totally eat this everyday and not get bored, but…something’s missing (a feeling I can’t shake all night): the meat.
“So what do you think?” Ryan asks as I clean my plate.
“It’s excellent,” I say.
“Yeah,” Ryan says. “But how would you rate it?”
“I haven’t eaten much couscous in my life,” I confess. (The last time, in fact, was three years ago in Taos with Aries.) “But this is incredible.”
“How incredible? Give it a grade,” Ryan says.
“What was the scale again?” I ask.
“There doesn’t have to be a scale,” Ryan says, seemingly enjoying how his teasing is making me squirm. “It could be a percentage…or a category. ‘Superior’, ‘Excellent’, ‘Good’, like in grade school.”
“Then it’s definitely superior,” I say.
Ryan and Mike emit baritone “whoa”s of approval—and surprise. (What is it with guys worrying they can’t meet my expectations? We’ve gotta work on that, fellas.)
“I’m not a one-trick pony,” Ryan says, becoming brazen with my praise. “I like to make wraps. And trail mix. I eat a lot of trail mix.”
“How does a starving artist afford pine nuts, though?” I ask.
“We have the government to thank for that,” Ryan replies, the slightest blush staining his cheeks.
“Been there, done that,” I say. “No judgment!”
I ask Ryan the story of how he became a vegetarian.
“Three-and-half years ago, I was dating a girl and we were sitting around, discussing our nagging guilt about animal rights and decided to make a conscious effort to stop eating meat. We’re not together anymore, but we’re on good terms and she’s still doing it, as far as I know,” he says.
An awkward silence settles throughout the room. It is the first of many. I feel like the odd one out amongst Ryan and his friends; dressed in a lacy blouse, I feel more school marmish than sexy. I’m also the only sober person in the room (A 24-pack of Hamm's was already halfway empty when I arrived) and while I may be dry, I fear I’m acting as a wet blanket to their fun.
“So what’s a listening party?” I say, referring to tonight’s event. “I’ve never been to one before.”
“Me, neither,” Ryan replies with a chuckle. “This will be my first. What I’m really excited about is the free booze.”
Agreement echoes around the room.
“It’s gonna be mellow,” Ryan says reassuringly. “We play my EP, then my iPod mix, then my EP again.”
On his playlist: twangy 70’s AM radio stars like Dave Loggins, who heavily influenced his musical style. Also an influence? A cop who once told Ryan he should “go acoustical” in order to stay out of trouble.
Ryan’s new EP, The Tourists is a nod to his nomadic lifestyle.
“I wander around a lot,” Ryan says. “And you can’t see anything new if you stay in one place. But then you move somewhere different and you remember all the things you liked about your old place.”
Shuttling between Minnesota and New York, he has yet to put down roots in either place. He says the Twin Cities is too small and Brooklyn is “overwhelming.” Until he settles down in Lawrence, Kansas (“The hipster Mecca”), Ryan seems perfectly content criss-crossing the country, crashing on whatever couch is available.
I get the feeling that Ryan is like a lost boy of Never Never land. When I ask what it feels like not to have a home base, Ryan shrugs as if to say, “It’s always been this way.” He’s currently preparing to go on tour with Mother Culture (You gotta dig a band with a song called “Even Artichokes Have Hearts”).
And though Ryan’s mother lives in a Twin Cities suburb and is “insanely supportive”, the one person he can’t live without is…Mike.
“We were separated for a while,” Ryan says. “It was painful.”
Both of the guys chuckle in that “don’t you dare think we’re gay” way, but then Ryan turns contemplative.
“Without Mike,” he says, lowering his head and avoiding eye contact with anyone. “I wouldn’t be here. I’d be…in a bad place.”
“And without Ryan,” Mike echoes, “I would be just another boring suburban guy.”
I stare at the BFFs, baffled. I can’t figure out what’s kept these guys together for twelve years. Mike is so straight-laced. He married his high school sweetheart nine years ago; they own a home in White Bear Lake and live with a pair of pooches.
“When I’m not rocking out or recovering from a hangover,” Mike says. “I do yard work.”
He also teaches, a profession evident in his speaking style. Mike’s sentences are well-constructed, seamlessly spoken, and over annunciated. He’s a walking, talking sound bite. His answers to my questions almost sound rehearsed.
The only things they have in common are a love of music, alcohol, and ink.
Speaking of which, Mike is covered in tats. As I snap pix, he shows off a panther on his upper arm and a Gypsy-esque woman on his forearm.
“And I have two on my sides…” he adds, patting his clothed torso.
“Okay, now you have to lift up your shirt,” I say.
Mike obeys.
“That’s my grandmother,” he says, pointing to the inked portrait that covers a major portion of his abdomen.
(Insert sound of my jaw hitting the floor here.) I’d wager the wife didn’t get a say in this decision. (Guys, could you please keep the tats of people on your backs? That way, us ladies don’t have to come face-to-face with your cast of characters during sex.)
The grandma tat seems more representative of Mike’s personality (i.e. even when he’s behaving badly, he’s being a good boy) rather than a tribute to the family tree.
“Next, he’s going to get a snake across his neck,” Ryan jokes before revealing his own tats, including a banana on his arm and a hammer & sickle on his inner lip.
Ryan asks if I plan to add to my five tattoos. I shake my head “no”.
“It’s never too late to get a regrettable tattoo!” Ryan chirps.
I can’t help but giggle. Then I ask how his razor sharp wit doesn’t seep into his tunes.
“I’m not interested in tongue-in-cheek music,” he says. “I don’t mean for my songs to sound somber, either; they just come out that way.”
I’d describe Ryan’s music as the ideal traveling soundtrack, a soothing wave of melody that lulls you into the rhythm of a road trip. Despite having listened to the EP countless times, I can’t quote a single lyric. The collection of songs are more of an experience than an earworm.
“Do you have enough?” Ryan asks, waving a finger in the direction of my notepad. I have enough, but I want something more.
“Tell me a story,” I say.
Mike and Ryan silently consult each other, then regale me with a tale of two alleys. On tour and drunk off Budweiser one night, Ryan retreated to an alleyway to wallow in his disillusionment about how the recording industry had done him wrong. In another alleyway, his band member “had it out” (yes, his cock) and was about to stick it into a random girl when a “white gangster boy” picked a fight.
A drunken brawl soon ensued and it wasn’t until it was almost over that the girl exclaimed, “Oh my God! That’s my boyfriend!”
In other words, the white gangster boy was getting screwed in more ways than one.
(“Only in Kansas…” Mike sighs.)
This is when Ryan, still in the adjacent alleyway, heard a horrific “Mother fucker, I’m going to kill you!”
“We had to pull out immediately,” Mike says with a sly smile.
Ryan does not seem like the kind of guy to get in a fist fight. When I say so, he agrees. Once, he was spared a knuckle sandwich when an onlooker yelled, ‘Don’t hit him! He’s Foo Fighters!’ ”
Ryan’s laughter fades and he points to my notepad.
“Do you have enough?” he asks again.
“Yeah,” I say, glancing down at three pages covered with my scribbling. “I have enough.”
Mike peeks through the window. “It looks like ‘end times’ out there,” he says, eyeing the sky, which has turned from violet to a sherbert orange. “We should get going. Are you coming with us, Erica?”
I feel like I’ve been transported back to Freshman year of high school and can’t afford, socially speaking, to say “no”. So I say “yes” and am relieved when, as we’re packing up to go, I see New Dude has sent me a text.
I don’t want you to go to that listening party alone, it reads.
Hallelujah, a man who can read my mind. I shoot New Dude a reply asking him to meet me there in ten minutes.
And then the boys take me for a ride. Perhaps it’s the Haams, or the humidity, but the mood in the car feels sleepy. I’m weary and ready to arrive at my destination.
Ryan may be the tourist, musically speaking, but I’ve been on quite the trip tonight…and I can’t wait to collapse into New Dudes arms. That’s what feels like home to me.
Visit Ryan’s website to sample tracks from The Tourists.
Attend his EP release party at Sauce in Minneapolis on Friday, August 13th at 9:30 p.m.
Peruse the pix from our interview on Man Eater’s Facebook page.
For your aural enjoyment, here’s one of Ryan’s videos:
And for your oral pleasure, Ryan’s couscous recipe, to the best of my approximation:
RYAN TRASTER’S MOUNT COUSCOUS
Ingredients
2 ¾ cups water
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 ½ cups couscous
1 tablespoon butter
½ cup pine nuts
½ pint cherry tomatoes, sliced
½ cup alfredo sauce
¼ cup pesto
1 tablespoon capers
1 teaspoon minced garlic
1 teaspoon dried cilantro
¼ cup sun-dried tomato feta cheese crumbles
Method
• Add salt to water in saucepan and bring to a boil on stove. Remove from heat and stir in couscous. Let sit five minutes until couscous has absorbed water.
• Meanwhile, Melt 1 tablespoon butter in a large saucepan over medium-low heat. Add pine nuts and stir until golden brown. Transfer to couscous.
• Add tomatoes, alfredo sauce, pesto, capers, and herbs. Stir. Return saucepan to low heat. Let simmer five minutes, stirring occasionally.
• Remove from heat and transfer to serving plate. Sprinkle with feta cheese and serve with plenty of Hamm's.
0 comments:
Post a Comment