Mama's Pizzeria: "It's like I'm at my mom's house-the toilet paper is softer than at my apartment and there's some old lady yelling the whole time."

I went pizza eating this past week with my friends Caroline Paquita and Mikey Hotsauce. Caroline is my nutritionist, herbalist and general medical practitioner, so the irony of her joining me to eat a gratuitous amount of pizza is as thick and sumptuous as the cheese on a slice from Tom's Delicious. (Mike is a totally rad pal who has no personal investment in my health beyond the universal desire that one's friends not be sickly, so the irony of his accompanying us is non-existent, like my book deal.) Caroline and Mike have some things in common besides being friends with me (and they were friends with each other first, anyway). For one thing, they both make cool art. For another, they are both Master Bassers and play in bands I'm fond of. And finally, they're both from Florida. And you know what I realized, when we all stepped out of the subway at 110th into the pouring rain? Every time I've been pizza eating with people from Florida I've gotten rained on. What is it with that godforsaken hellhole of a state?! Don't think you can just bring your bad vibes up here and piss all over my pretty sweet life in New York City. There's a reason I never moved to Florida: it sucks there.


Well, anyway, the first place we went to was Mama's Pizzeria on Amsterdam. This is the second time I've been here, having forgotten to write about it the first time around. But I just got an email from Jordan, who you may remember from previous entries, asking me about Mama's because he remembered liking it and noticed I hadn't written about it. I had left it out for organizational reasons, but really, my book-keeping is a pretty boring subject. On to the slice!


Looking over my notes, both times I went here I had the same criticisms. The slice is slightly underdone and vaguely too sweet. However! If the slice had been cooked a little more, the flavors from the cheese might've come out a little more strongly to counteract the whack sweetness in the sauce, and there would've been a bunch more grease, which is always a plus. And aside from the sweetness, which is not saccharine and nasty but somewhat more Natural Tasting, the sauce had a really great texture, in that there were sporadic tomato chunks, and it maintained the understated presence that I prefer in a pizza sauce. The cheese was great, and the dough was good, if a bit too soft (another easily remedied problem). In other word, the ratios on this slice were totally perfect. And the crust, it was so good! Really, when I go back here I'll ask for my slice to be hotter, but otherwise it was great.

Mama's Pizzeria
941 Amsterdam Ave
New York, NY 10025

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Even though Florida totally sucks to be in, a lot of cool things come out of there. Many of my favorite people were born or raised in Florida. And a lot of good musicians have come from the Sunshine State, like Tom Petty or Trick Daddy. But as the Oracle at Delphi famously told Moses, "somewhere betwixt a Traveling Wilbury and T-double-D, lies an aural force that will leave the fabric of one's very soul cleft in twain." For years, rabbinical and clerical scholars have been trying to determine the meaning of the Oracle's perplexing words, and tonight I will reveal it to you: "there is this 7" by the Y that will blow your mind."

click the image for a download link.

Mikey and Caroline brought this 7" over to my house the other morning and were all, "Colin, you need to hear this song!" And proceeded to play me the record's second track, "Pyzza Tyme!"


As you can see, this band is very pizza oriented. Pyzza Tyme is a song about working hard and living large, about seeing something you want, grabbing it, and holding on with everything you've got. Pyzza Tyme is about everything that makes our great nation beautiful. In an ideal world, the United States of America would be run by a wizard, the national bird would be a fucking Griffin, and Pyzza Tyme would be our national anthem. There would be no war in this beautiful world. Disputes would be settled via dance contest and everybody's needs would be met by the kindly wizard. But woe unto he who crosses the wizard's path! It is said that the first man who dared to F with the W, if you will, was turned into a gigantic pizza, and thrown into the sky. It is said that for cheese this pizza has fire, for sauce molten lava, but it lacks a solid dough and is thus incomplete. This sky-pizza is our Sun. The first woman who messed with the Wiz was also turned into a pizza, and she too was cast into the sky. But this second pizza was a pizza of brilliant, glowing stone, crunchy and delicious, yet totally lacking sauce or cheese-this is the origin of our Moon. During the eclipse, it is said the stone crust of the Moon combines with the molten sauce and firey cheese of the Sun for a delectable cosmic tryst, forming the most perfect pie. For in life, before their transformations, this man and woman had been married, and in their dreadful afterlife, they yearn constantly for one and other, but can only meet 2-5 times per year. Their love is true and their marriage was a beautiful feast. The Great Pizzaola herself descended from the clouds and blessed them. I should know, I was at their wedding and drank mead. It ran down my mustache, but none went into my mouth.

Rubik's Dude is also the raddest song. (Lyrics: Freakin' out squares tonight! All you gotta do is do something totally weird and then they'll freak out! Cause dude, they're squares!") What I uploaded is not the 7", which I don't have the capacity to do, but the CDR, which means you get some bonus tracks. If you really like this shit as much as I do, you can still order the 7" off No Idea, so do that by clicking here. It's $2.60 for crying out loud. Support independent music and good record labels and blah blah blah. Unity and shit!

Speaking of marriage, I'd like to extend a loud and resounding Mazel Tov to Ellis and Lilie. May your marriage be as strong as the crust at Koronet, as interesting and engrossing as the sauce at Patsy's, and as HOT as the cheese on a slice fresh out of the oven, you know? Aah-cha-cha-cha.