Playing chicken

I’ll admit I was a little late to the party on the whole spicy chicken sandwich thang. Oh sure, thanks to my son who’s been willing to make runs to downtown L.A. during the pandemic, I’ve been introduced to the overheated pleasure of Howlin’ Ray’s Nashville Hot Chicken, which, for those of you keeping score really brought the craze home.

Now I like spicy food, always have always will. But like anything in life, it's a matter of degrees. And there's only so much spicy my sensitive yet larger stomach will tolerate. Before you go ahead and make the fat jokes, let me just remind you that like my Lexus, I’m built for comfort, not speed.

Anyway as you can see from the chart on the left, at Howlin’ Ray’s sandwich heat runs the gamut from none to can’t touch this.

So I decided to try the mild, which is the starter sandwich. And I loved it. The problem is my kid couldn’t be running to DTLA nearly as often as I wanted to have a spicy chicken sandwich.

Enter Avid, my friend and 2004 runner up for the bronze in curling. On his Instagram feed, in a rare break from the dog pictures, he posted the sandwich you see above, which happens to look startingly similar to Howlin’ Ray’s. So I asked him where it was and he told me about the Cluck Kitchen in Irvine.

Now Irvine is a much easier drive than DTLA. And if you know anything about me, you know I’m all about easy.

While there ain’t nothing like the real thing, come to find out Cluck Chicken is pretty close. They have the same spice range as HR, and their sandwiches taste uncannily similar.

But if oversized, dragon-breath hot sandwiches aren't enought to fill you up, Cluck Kitchen also has some mighty tasty sides to go along with it. Things like fried pickles, vinegar slaw and, my personal favorite, bacon potato salad.

Yet one more dish proving my timeless theory that bacon makes everything better.

The other thing Cluck Kitchen has is a snappy little hashtag. It's what we in the ad biz like to call "on brand."

Hurts donut

This is why the terrorists are going to win. We're going to do it for them.

A chef named Charlie Boghosian at a place called Chicken Charlie's (it gets more appetizing by the second) wondered what would happen if he crossed a Krispy Kreme donut with a Sloppy Joe sandwich. You're looking at his answer.

Coming as absolutely no surprise, Charlie is a vendor of fried foods at the San Diego County Fair. And this little beauty sits right next to his other deep-fried culinary creations: Twinkies, bacon-wrapped pickles and fried Kool-Aid (you heard me).

Spokespeople for the Krispy Kreme corporation have been frantically denying they have anything to do with this abomination of a sandwich. As heart-stopping good as it may be, apparently they don't want to sully their reputation for healthier fare.

I have to admit I'm curious. Not for an entire one, but I have to say I wouldn't mind taking a bite. You know, for the same reason I saw Sinatra before he died.

Just so I could say I did.

Anyway, I don't know if I trust Charlie entirely. Sure he fries everything he comes near in the kitchen, but he does it with a fervor that might be bordering on crazy.

In fact, the last person to buy one insisted he had a glazed look in his eyes.

Sub sandwich

Meanwhile, in today's news, Iran claims their missiles can strike 35 U.S. bases within minutes should Iran come under attack.

Yeah yeah. Sure sure.

Once again Iran's leadership is banging the drum loudly for their own people's benefit so they'll support the military buildup. And since the missiles can hit targets 900 miles away, and Israel's border is only 600, this kind of rhetoric plays well to the anti-semetic, effigy-burning, American flag-stomping crowds.

But what Iran's military knows all too well, even if they're conveniently forgetting to mention it to their people, is that U.S. nuclear submarines, like the Ohio-class sub shown here, surround Iran on all sides. See, their 900-mile range missile I mentioned is their most advanced. One of our regular ones has a range of 2,000 miles.

You do the math (hint: the math is we don't have to be anywhere near them to take them out seconds after they've made the piss-poor decision to launch).

I know, all this doomsday talk makes me nervous too. It's obvious the people of Iran are just as much at the mercy of bad decisions their leaders make as we are. I'd never want to test out the "our missiles are better than your missiles" theory. Ever.

But, having said that, if I'm being honest with myself (and you know how I hate doing that), I have to admit considering the recklessness, lies and irrationality Iran exhibits on an almost daily basis, I take comfort in the fact the U.S. has something besides homes underwater.