A Fish Story

A snakehead! Yum!

Today’s Gene Pool Gene Poll.

---

Hello. There is a gigantic stupid porcine slob traitor maniac out there who just got indicted again, this time on charges of racketeering and also being a total asswipe, but instead I’d like to talk to you today about fish.

The best fish I ever tasted was obtained for me by Eskimos in Savoonga, Alaska, in 2005. It resulted in a couple of paragraphs that I took a week to write, and rewrite, and rewrite. It came at the end of a magazine story that was mostly about suicides among native American young people in a place that bored them to death. This was the story. I tried to end it with beauty. Here was the end of it:

THE TEMPERATURE WAS PRACTICALLY BALMY. It was zero. So was the visibility. We could see one another, but, a few feet beyond, everything dissolved into white. It was as though the rest of the world had disappeared.

Deno Akeya, 29, was looking around nervously. What was wrong? Nothing, he said. It's just that he had forgotten to bring his rifle.

Why did he need a rifle? I asked.

"Polar bear," he said. Oh.

His uncle, Arthur Akeya, unloaded a gas-powered auger from his snowmobile, set the drill bit on the ice, fired it up and began drilling a Frisbee-size hole. The drill sank one foot, two, three. Finally it punched through. Arthur pulled it back up, and with it came a furious rush of seawater. We were 200 yards offshore, out in the Bering Sea. It was lightly snowing.

I dropped a hook in, and before the line touched bottom, I felt a hit. What I brought up through the hole was as hideous a thing as you will ever see. It's a mottled beast the Eskimos call the uglyfish, the size of a shoe, full of warts and polyps and blebs. It looks to be a cross between a catfish and a bullfrog. It's great eating, Arthur assured us.

More holes were being drilled, more lines dropped, and the fish were chewing the lures like popcorn.

Next, the kill. A quick whack behind the eyes with the wooden spool, to break the spine. Then, you gut it the way Eskimos have done for 2,000 years: You tromp on it with your boot, and the insides shoot out of the mouth. I'm a city boy and an animal lover, and none of this felt wrong.

Nor was I surprised to learn, two hours later, that those ghastly looking creatures, boiled for 20 minutes and then drenched in melted butter, were as succulent as lobster.

Out there in the enveloping whiteness, it had been possible to lose yourself, fishing with Eskimos in the Bering Sea the way it has been done since the age of the igloo. There was no village, there were no dead kids, no fog of denial, no generation in agony, literally bored out of its mind. There were no soul-wrenching choices between survival of self and survival of a culture. There was just an exhilarating ritual, as old as a civilization, irreducible, unencumbered by a sense of guilt, not subject to misunderstanding or misinterpretation through cultural chauvinism. It was clear and it was clean. It was possible to comprehend the joy of surviving by your skills and savvy on the bounty of the Earth alone, in defiance of whatever hell nature and fate throw at you. And it was possible to understand why, lost in that moment, you could want to live that way forever.

So I have been lately thinking about fish, and that is how I discovered a place named The Great Wall Supermarket in Fairfax, Va. It is run by Asian people. It features things you never heard of, particular fish you never heard of, at cheap prices. It is for people like me, and maybe you, who value the unusual, the otherwise un-gettable, the things your culture denies you.

Rachel and I went there this past weekend; There were many hundreds of fish, all fresh. Have you ever heard of a weakfish? Neither had I. Deep fried for four minutes, it was just great. There was something called “beltfish,” which was roughly 39 inches long and one inch wide and looked like a belt for a size-56 guy, but with major teeth in the head. (The fish.) A Chinese woman there told me, laughing, that “only Chinese people like it.” She was right — it’s terribly bony and tastes like mackerel, only much more pungent — but I am so happy I cooked and tried it. There was eel and “mudfish,” which, it turns out, is snakehead, the wildly invasive species that can grow to seven feet long and can bite you and is absolutely delicious.

I shopped the way I always do in wonderful places. I asked the fish guy a version of a story I use in such circumstances. I asked him what he would sell me if I was his dad, and his ma was dead, but his dad was dating a new woman who he, the fish guy, really liked, and wanted to set his dad up with a great fish to share with her, and he took this in as though it was a completely normal inquiry, and smiled and said that in that case he would instruct his dad to come back on Tuesday, when the fish was even fresher. I don’t think you can buy this sort of honesty in the world. We’re going back today.

There was a display of fermented tea called Jia Fan Jiu. Another shopper, with whom I shared almost no English, informed me it was “world famous.” It turns out it was from Beijing and the only recommended marinade for the beltfish. It didn’t help but got me reasonably snockered.

There are veggies that you’ve never seen before and look a little like that green slime from that 90s kid show, “You Can’t Do That On Television.” Very tasty.

I am now temporarily resurrecting the “Fud” feature of The Gene Pool, where I give you a recipe that is only four sentences long, max. Weakfish Fud recipe: Go to The Great Wall and buy a couple of weakfish, or actually any other white fish the gentleman says he would sell to his dad on a good day. Coat it with plain flour, and some corn starch, and deep fry it for four to seven minutes, squirt some lemon. End.

Urgent new information available only in The Gene Pool at no extra cost, explaining why pistachios used to be red:

from Wiki: Due to antiquated harvesting methods, nut shells were often left with ugly stains and splotches. Foreign pistachio producers dyed the pistachios with a bright red color in an effort to hide the stains and make the nuts more appealing to consumers.

Okay, here comes the vaunted question and answer feature of The Gene Pool. Please remember to keep refreshing this page, because we are now heading into real time. Much of the stuff you are about to read is based on my request this weekend about major and minor regrets in your life. It includes a couple of amazing performances by Valerie Holt, in the person of Edith Piaf.

Also, you can send me $4 a month. The pistachio information alone is worth it. Here is how to do it.

Q: I regret all the questions I did not ask my Mother before she died. Cancer claimed her at 63. It’s the classic mistake of thinking I had all the time in the world to have so many conversations. Now, I am 66 and do my best to talk to my daughters often and encourage them to ask any questions they wish.

A: I regret never thanking my maternal grandparents for emigrating to the United States as young people, from Czarist Russia.  They were very brave, and they made my life immeasurably better.  

I can see that this “regrets” thread is going to be kinda deep and dark. When my ma was in hospice, dying, I told her I loved her. She said, “why?” She was clinically depressed. I never gave her a good answer, and regret it to this day.

Then, again:

Q:  Major regret: Not having carnal relations with Demi Moore when we were young! We never knew one another but she looked really good.

A: Thank you.   With me, it’s Goldie Hawn. 

TIMELY TIP: If you’re reading this right now on an email:   Click here to get to my webpage, then click on the top headline (In this case, “Fish Story…” ) for the full column, and comments, and real-time questions and answers. And you can refresh and see new questions and answers that appear as I regularly update the post from about noon to 1 p.m. ET today.

The following three stories, by the same person, are all good. I don’t think any of them qualifies as “regrets,” but rules are rules, so I’m publishing them, adding regrets in boldface:  Please note these regrets are mine, not the writer’s.

1) A number of years ago, I was in line to buy something at the Casino in Charles Town. The woman in front of me wanted to buy Lottery tickets for the, at the time, astronomical amount $350M. When she is handed the tickets, she says, "If I win this, do I have to come all the back here to collect? I'm from North Carolina and don't want to have to drive back." Personally I would WALK back to Charles Town to collect $350M.  I regret I did not slap her in the face with a raw fish. 

2) I'm in the airport (O'Hare) and sitting waiting for my wife to come out of the bathroom. I hear a loud POP down the row and I turn toward the sound just in time to see a girl turn to look at the seat now in front of her and exclaim, "I HAVE TO STOP DOING THAT!" She had placed her plastic, lidded drink on the seat and sat on it. I wonder how many times she did that to "have to stop doing that." Personally I think ONCE would be enough for me.  I regret that I did not pee on her leg. To add to her squish. 

 3) Last year, I'm in the Spirit Halloween store. one of the things available was this full sized posable dummy (https://www.spirithalloween.com/product/5-ft-poseable-dummy-prop/133233.uts). I overheard this conversion between a 9 or 10 year old boy and his mother. Boy: OH, MOM. look at this, Can I have one? Mom: No. Boy: Please. can't I have it? Mom: No, I'm not bringing another dummy in the house. I have enough dummies already. I don't need any more"  I regret that I did compliment the mom on her assessment of her family.

Q: I have been going to Wolf Trap for years to see different performances (plays, concerts, dance). One year, we were considering getting tickets for John Denver. It was a Wednesday night concert and my sister had to work the next day, so we decided we would just wait until the following year because he usually played there every summer. John Denver did not have a next summer, I will always regret that choice.

A: I once had an opportunity to see Bill Hicks in concert, and meet him backstage. I didn’t.   He was dead two years later.  I did get to write this.   

Q: 1991 US Open tennis tournament in Flushing - I was a news, gossip and tennis-obsessed 16-year budding gay dude that took the train in from NJ with my dad to see my favorite players and wander the grounds to soak it all in. That afternoon, watching players practice from the sideline, was none other than Donald J. Trump. To me, he was a local celebrity and very rich guy that was on "Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous" and on the news and I wanted to meet him. I approached him and asked for an autograph. A bodyguard nodded and he signed a blank piece of paper I gave him (with a Sharpie haha!). He was gracious and smiled at me. He was tall and broad and looked powerful. I think I remember him smelling good too. I was in awe and it was the highlight of the day for me, more than any tennis player I could have met. On the way home, I joked with my dad that I would photocopy the autograph onto a check, and I treasured that piece of paper for years. Today, I'm a middle-aged gay lefty on the West Coast (reading Gene since the 90s!) that despises everything about him. That paper is probably in between the pages of that tournament program, in a box in my parents' attic in Jersey. My dad died six months ago and I don't ever want to see that paper again.

A: Understood!

Q: My stepmother went to high school with Goldie Hawn at Montgomery Blair in Silver Spring. She has never mentioned any Goldie-related regrets.

A: Well, duh.

Q: from Barry Louis Polisar: I started keeping a family tree decades ago—not just for the Polisar side of the family who I had little contact with growing up, but also my Mom’s side of the family. Over the years, relatives would email and offer additions and corrections and I quickly realized the link to the infamous Lepke Buchalter (head of Murder Inc.) was much closer than my elderly relatives ever admitted to.

A few years ago another relative sent me pages and pages of names and dates on the family which I looked over, copied, and pasted onto the tree I was keeping. While on a recent trip up north, a relative asked me for a copy of the updated tree and before I sent it off, I read it over again, only to discover that another one of my relatives is none other than Joshua Bell...who Gene profiled in his Award-winning subway story, making this yet one more link in the Weingarten/Polisar chain of connections that includes David Clark, the illustrator of my children’s books; as well as the Style Empress and her kids who had my music albums growing up; and Pat's daughter-in-law who re-designed and updated my web site. I regret not looking more closely at the additions to the family tree and missing the Joshua Bell link. Clearly, had I known, I am sure he would have been willing to play back-up on one of my albums for kids. ;-}

Q: Barry, I am sure he would have agreed to open for you in Peoria. By the way, my kids had your albums, too. Doody balls.

Q: My regret is similar and took place near Chicago—and I swear it’s the first thing I thought of even before I read yours. When I was in college, Bruce Springsteen played the rather small hall that was home to our basketball team. (Lord knows why he did—it was well past the Time cover, Born to Run had been out awhile.) But being a good, serious student, I did the idiotic thing and didn’t go because I had a big midterm the next day. I don’t remember which year it was (‘78, ‘79, ‘80?) I don’t remember what class it was. I certainly don’t remember what grade I got on that or any other midterm ever. But I suspect I would remember seeing Bruce in that venue.

A: Sigh. Yeah.

Q:  I wish I had said something else. Anything else, really, even a simple “I still love you”. My ex-lover was having a schizophrenic episode, pleading on the phone that I help find online some imagined proof that Hollywood was actively listening to her mind and stealing her ideas. I told her it didn’t exist, it wasn’t real; she got quiet and ended the conversation. I later found out that the next day she’d tied up some loose ends with a friend, and the day after that stepped off her parents’ balcony. Had my words been the inadvertent catalyst for her tragic decision? Is my ego claiming too big a role in something that, ultimately, was never about me? I’ll never know. But I wish I’d said something goddamn else.

A: This whole thread is way, way darker than I expected.  I welcoy. me it and your honesty.

Q: I was once on an elevator when the doors parted and who should walk in but Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker. He stood next to me like a 6’ 7” guy standing next to a 5’ 6” guy. The doors closed, and we were alone. I glanced over and was surprised to see a lighted cigar in his hand. Guess which one of the following things happened next. 1) I told him smoking on elevators was illegal. He apologized, and said if I kept schtum he would give me whatever I wanted unto half his kingdom. 2) I demanded he extinguish his cigar immediately. He said, “Sure, pal,” and stubbed it out on my head. 3) I stood by quietly and got off when the elevator reached my floor. Yeah. So rather than having an gripping tale about how I spoke truth to power, I ended up with a pointless anecdote.

A: This is the only Paul Volcker anecdote ever published.

Q: This is Gene. I am ending with this one, because it made me laugh.

Regret by proxy: one of my wife’s friends had texted her a photo of her young kid’s school assignment. The teacher had graded but not comment upon his earnest answer to a question that his favorite song was “Up Down Fuck”; we all laughed, passed the image around figuring he had meant “Uptown Funk” and we forgot about it. A month or so later, my wife is texting me as she’s traveling cross country by train. She asks: “who is Bruno Mars?” It seems he was at the Chicago Union Station the same time she was and had been spotted by a few fans, whom he was gamely signing autographs for. I told her and curiosity sated, she moved on. Only much later did I put  together the facts that Bruno Mars is the singer for Uptown Funk, the photo was still on her phone at the time, and he was apparently being very approachable. We missed our opportunity to personally show him his impact on our nation’s youth.

Please send more comments and stories. I love your stories and will publish them.

Stories: