Don’t forget to enjoy what you eat!

Not too long ago, most of us didn’t think much about what we ate. We’d trudge to the grocery store after the workday and grab a foil-wrapped “TV dinner” (meant to go into the oven, not the microwave), a few boxes of pasta and powdered cheese ready for their ground beef or tuna “Helper,” a box of sugar-coated cereal for the kiddies, and the cheapest meat in the newspaper ad.

Today, such ignorance seems almost luxurious. The experts who “know better” than us are shaking us by the shoulders like desperate doomsday seers and screaming at us to ask! Is your food organic? Local? Free-range? Green? Packaged? Genetically modified? Raw? Pasteurized? Artificially colored or flavored? How many calories? How much fat? How much sodium? Were any living things harmed in the making of it? (The unfortunate and unavoidable truth is always “yes” – the living must depend on the living for sustenance; it’s easy to forget that plants are living, too). Every encounter we have with food is now ideologically booby-trapped.

To paraphrase John Lennon, food is a concept by which we measure our fear – and our impulse to make sure that our habits are better than theirs, whether they are our family members, our neighbors, or our concept of “average” people.

Whatever happened to enjoying what we eat?

Speaking for myself, I’ve gotten just as much of a kick of joy from a lunch of a cupcake and cappuccino at the Barnes and Noble Café as I have from a lunch of spring greens and sliced pears. I do try to keep most of my meals on the healthy side, but I say a life without ever once sitting in front of the television with a bowl of popcorn is a life that has missed out. I feel sorry for those who insist that food is mere fuel, as if we are just spiritless machines.



See this bowl of stew? It has two slices of white French bread sticking out of it, which will not please the whole-wheat fetishists. The potatoes will turn off the starch-haters. The carrots are just too cooked for the raw foodies. And get ready to scream, vegans, because there are chunks of lamb meat in the bowl, too.

So what?

This stew, created with love by Two Dogs, gave me the best nourishment I had all day after a long Wednesday of running around. I felt joy and gratitude with each sip and bite. I was glad to be human and glad to be able to love this dish.

It is not enough for our food to be “correct” – nutritionally, politically, ecologically. Our food needs to touch our humanity as well. I dare say it may be better to share fried chicken with loved ones and laughter than a raw vegetable smoothie while running towards your horribly stressful job.

Food for thought.

#BAD11

Prosperity for you = prosperity for the world

There is a belief prevalent in America and other Western countries that being successful, making money, is somehow wrong for people who are trying to lead a spiritual life. In Buddhism though it is not the money which is in itself wrong; in fact, a person with greater resources can do much more good in the world than one without [italics mine]. The question is how we make the money; whether we understand where it comes from and how to make it continue to come; and whether we keep a healthy attitude about the money.

- from The Diamond Cutter by Geshe Michael Roach

Read it for the words

Here is the September 2011 issue of Playboy. It is not a magazine I pick up often (at least, not in its current form – more on that later). Why did I buy it now? (Hint: see what the little gray mouse is looking at.)

There was a time when Playboy didn’t need to interview a favorite actor to get me to read. I have collected issues from the early 1960s to the 1980s – and if any interesting issues cross my path at the right price, I will add them to my collection.

It’s not because I find pictures of naked women all that interesting. Oh, no. I am that creature that most people think is as mythological as the Easter Bunny: the person who reads Playboy for the words.

Those little black things in between the booby pictures aren’t ants.

If you’ve got Playboy in your house and you’re not reading the words, you’re missing out. (The same can’t be said for Juggs. Juggs doesn’t have any words. At least that’s what I think – I’ve never even touched an issue. You tell me!)


My personal favorite section is the Playboy Forum, which investigates current events in a way you almost never see in major newspapers, much less on TV. This month, I read about why the “War on Drugs” is no palliative against terrorism, and the somewhat-no-definitely-less-than-successful results of Alcoholics Anonymous. (It’s hard to expect much from an organization who urges people to “Keep It Simple, Stupid.”)

However, the September 2011 Forum consisted of just five pages. I can’t say for sure, but in earlier issues (up through the 1990s) I remember it being longer. Did the Forum lose pages to extra Playmate pictures? (A future post will discuss where the gravitas went in commercial magazines – did it get brushed away, like the “yellow,” with Pepsodent?)



Oh, well, back to the past!

I can’t wait to have my old Playboy collection nearby again. I need to read decades-old but timeless debates about censorship and prudery and homosexuality and drugs and the perpetual battle between the individual and the state. I need food for my mind, and not just my eyes – witness the rainbow of clothes and shoes and jewelry and makeup that today’s women’s magazines throw at us.

(I need to end this post. It’s Saturday!)

That day

On the morning of September 11, 2001, I woke up – reluctantly, as usual on weekdays – at 6:25 in the morning. My alarm clock awakened me with KROQ-FM, which at that time was the one saving grace of the morning, for that was the time for Kevin and Bean and their motley crew. The first thing I heard was a commercial for the Latin Grammy Awards, which were to air that evening, and I wondered why the Grammys needed a separate Latin ceremony.

After the commercial aired, Ralph Garman, the KROQ entertainment reporter, spoke in a tone unusually serious. He told us about a plane crashing into the World Trade Center in New York.

I went to the bathroom and washed my face quickly during the commercial break, imagining a small Cessna-type plane crashing into the pavement between the Twin Towers.

When I was done washing my face, Ralph told us that two planes had crashed into the Trade Center. At that moment, radio had become inadequate. I went to the living room and turned on the television.

On every channel that mattered, I saw the Twin Towers on fire. No Cessna could do that much damage. The planes were commercial jets, jets carrying tens of people.

When jets run into buildings, people die.

And then, something was happening at the Pentagon. Another plane – or maybe it was a helicopter? – had crashed right into the hub of America’s military.

At that moment, I felt the icy grip of pure fear that hadn’t been experienced in America since the Cuban Missile Crisis.


What was going to happen next?

Was this just the advance guard of a fleet of planes traveling across the oceans, carrying bombs that would destroy everything that was precious to us?

Was this the end?

I was alone. I had no friends nearby. I had to be with people.

All I could do was drive to my job as I normally would have.

The Twin Towers disappeared from the Manhattan landscape during my commute. I was stunned and nearly silent for the rest of the day. Almost everyone else was, except for those whose job it was to speak.

I was too scared to cry. Too worried to grieve.

For the next days, I flinched when birds zipped through the plane-free sky. I left the TV on all the hours I was at home, something I never did otherwise. Comforting imaginings of golden-haired angels holding large white eggs for me to sleep in were now impossible. And, for the one and only time, I found comfort in the words of President George W. Bush.

In Orange County, far, far away from the rising ashes, everything looked normal. The late-summer sky still shone brightly on us all. But whatever was normal had left us forever.

On the Internet, other people expressed themselves in myriad ways, ranging from syrupy sentiment to targeted rage. I saved some pictures from that time which illustrate this point:








The slim golden lining was my hope that this would purge inanity, bickering, and partisanship from America. The détente between Democrats and Republicans, liberals and conservatives, was a sight to behold.


It didn’t last long.

Ten years later, we are more divided than ever before, more angry, more willing to express that anger. If America was adolescent before 9/11, we have now regressed back to kindergarten (“You stink!” “No, you stink!”). In too many areas of life, whining and blaming others brings not scorn but more attention.

Where did we go wrong?

Do three thousand more people – or more – have to die to bring the American people back to peace? I hate to say this, but I think not even that will be enough.

I want to write that America is a great place. Compared to too many other nations, it is. But the days after 9/11 showed me a glimpse of a better America, a kinder and more understanding America.

I hope we will get back to that place – without another tragedy.

Today, let’s be not just better Americans, but better people – and keep on being better tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow.

A photo + a quote = a post

Above all, do not lose your desire to walk: every day I walk myself into a state of well-being and away from every illness; I have walked myself into my best thoughts, and I know of no thought so burdensome that one cannot walk away from it… – Søren Kierkegaard

So this is why these are called the “dog days”…

…because you feel like the laziest dog on earth!

If you want to move, better do it early in the morning or just before the sun goes down, or else it will be too Hot! Hot! Hot! (which is only fun in a pop song).

You won’t feel like doing the things you need to do (like write a new blog post to maintain your monthly quota), and you won’t feel like doing the things you want to do, either (like go to the café for an afternoon croissant and Chardonnay).

You want to spend all day in an eggshell filled with water.

You question why summer is your favorite season.

You will miss this time when the next chilly, rainy day comes along.

You will stop writing this to watch the sun set.

Fear not profanity

This is the essay about "strong language" that I promised in the last post. I originally wrote it for the This I Believe program on NPR – which is why there is no actual profanity within.

* * *

I believe that it’s long past time for people to get over their squeamishness over words. Especially the words I can’t write in this newspaper.

A writer should not be afraid to use all of the words in the vocabulary toolbox – and that includes profanity, when appropriate for the character, setting, genre, and market. Sometimes, words like “nonsense,” “jerk,” “harridan,” and “make whoopee” don’t pack the needed punch. Try using these instead of the profane words and listen to the difference.

One of the canards that I despise is “if a writer has enough imagination, he shouldn’t have to resort to profanity.” That is such a can of succotash on so many levels.

First, it’s the character who’s doing the swearing, not the writer. I rarely curse in my real life, but I happily let some of my characters let rip. Do you think that, say, Dean Koontz is a homicidal maniac?

People who say that profanity and imagination don’t mix are only putting a guilt trip on writers because of their own discomfort with certain words. It’s easier to point the finger at the writer – “How dare you use those words!” – instead of yourself: “I just don’t like seeing those words in print.” But when you conclude, “I don’t think anyone else should see those words in print, either,” you have crossed a line that makes me stand up to fight, because your rights end where my pages begin.

One of the most wildly imaginative writers I’ve ever read is Harlan Ellison. In both his fiction and non-fiction, he takes the reader to unearthly worlds of terror, absurdity, and delight, his words spinning dizzily in a fractal explosion. And he’s not afraid of the judicious use of profanity. On the flip side, you can go to any bookstore in the country and find prose as flat as a can of Pepsi left opened on the dock from sunup to sundown -- but it’s A-OK to some of you out there, because it’s free of that awful profanity.

For those who say that profanity is the proof of a dull mind, I give you Quentin Tarantino and his screenplay Pulp Fiction, in which the profanity adds flavor to the prose like Lawry’s seasoned salt does with white rice. For those who believe that cursing just sounds ugly, open your mind and taste the tart hard candies that shoot from Steve Buscemi’s mouth in Fargo.

“But what about the kids?” you ask. What about them? The material mentioned above isn’t meant for them. And if your kids are eight years old or over, it’s too late anyway. They’ve already learned all the profanity they need to know in the schoolyard. Or at home.

And these are only words. Words that float in the air and feel like nothing. They are not fists. Not guns. Not bombs. Do you really think that a rapped profanity drifting out of a driver’s car window is going to scar your children for life?

Grow up. Please.