kitchen confidential

i know i am late to the party on this, but the man is interesting and therefore deserved an examination. kitchen confidential is as much pop culture epic as it is epicurian journal. it reads such that the reader feels like he is directing the course of the narrative. one finds oneself thinking, "i wonder what-" only to have the thought answered before it was fully formed. intuitive writing like that is as rare a form as can be found. it is void of pretense and full of sounds and focus and communion. anthony bourdain has found his voice and is here exercising it like a booming artist.

read the passage below wherein bourdain defines what it is to want to drink, what it is to a sentient man to want to engage with his peers in an atmosphere of lowered inhibitions, and how thoroughly satisfying it can be to speak openly on all the taboo subjects, religion and politics and sexuality and whatever. whatever gets people uptight and private. it is in these conversations that a man comes to truly define himself after all. he can use bentley's or jewels only as a mask. but as a man thinks a man is. it is the forming of opinions and real values that say the most about a man and that matter in the scope of humanity or existence. anthony bourdain is a badass-i am here to say.

this paragraph describes a time in bourdain's life after he had sort of cleaned his act up. he is married and not addicted to heroin and working his ass off as chef at a prominent new york city restaurant. he spent this chapter writing about the work and the people. he describes his assistant chefs and those who could do in a world of pace and vigor in rich tones, speaking of their ethnicity and work ethic and describing the action in and around the kitchen such that you can sense the sweat on their brows and envision the wrinkled expressions on the faces of those who strain. sous chefs accomplish feats of daring-do. some waiters get it-others don't. at this particular point he has described a 16 or 17 hour day in the restaurant business in all its gory, fantastic detail and finally leaves the restaurant and walks off into the night.

I'm thinking about going home but I know I'll just lie there, grinding my teeth and smoking. I tell the cabbie to take me to the corner of 50th and Broadway, where I walk downstairs to the subway arcade and the Siberia Bar, a grungy little underground rumpus room where the drinks are served in plastic cups and the jukebox suits my taste. There are a few cookies from the Hilton at the bar, as well as a couple of saggy, bruised-looking strippers from a club up the street. Tracy, the owner of the joint, is there, which means I won't be paying for drinks tonight. It's 1:00A.M., and I have to be in at 7:30 mañana, but the Cramps are playing on the jukebox, Tracy immediately fiddles with the machine so there's twenty free credits-and that first beer tastes mighty good. The Hilton cookies are arguing about mise-en-place. One of them is bitching about another cook nicking salt off his station, and the other cook doesn't see why that's such a big deal-so I'm gonna be involved in this conversation. The Cramps tune is followed by the Velvets singing "Pale Blue Eyes," and Tracy suggests a shot of Georgian vodka he's got stashed in the freezer...

and what's next? next is a ride away from the utilitarian grind of the every day, away from all the pretending that you give a shit about certain things and instead expressing your true, sincere feelings of love and adoration for some art form or another, a friend, a new idea you heard about or something profoundly trivial. to call this time escape from responsibility is to deny the cure for responsibility. i don't trust people who don't drink or engage in some form of inhibition combating vice. they hide things and put on airs. they're covering up self-perceived inadequacies. they are not generous and they do not share their selves on a level of those who trust on such a level they are comfortable getting out of sorts.

this is bourdain's charm. he portrays a class of people often shunned or in some way denigrated by society in a shameful case of a naked emperor. in fact these are the salt of the earth. these are god's children if ever there could be a god of love. these are the open, tradesmen of the trade winds sharing in and out like great, big, interrogative marks, poets by action, seekers by day and night, friends to be sure. he portrays by representation, and the voice of a kind, engaged sage comes through.

kitchen confidential is the evidence of an individual from the drinking, cooking, working, connecting, enjoying, struggling, winning and losing, succeeding and failing, beautiful-loser class, capturing some of the magic of his life to share.

bloody sunday

bloody sunday in ireland was more than 38 years ago and yet justice was finally served. (i love justice. i savor it. i require it.)

when i read this story today, (after reading this blog post,) i was excited to see some real justice. the key facts of what happened on bloody sunday in derry, (northern ireland,) are outlined in the saville report, which took all of these 38 years to arrive at the conclusion that the actions of members of the british army were unjustified and unjustifiable.

nowadays we can look backwards and enjoy consensus on myriad points of justice, which were contested by masses of people in their time. i think of the warren commission report and the fact that some parts are sealed until 2017, (and can then remain sealed by executive order,) and the injustice confounds me.

all justice is important but slow justice is impotent.

writing this blog post is like trying to run with my shoelaces tied. this ilk of blog post, the class of entries having to do with political issues and ideas, makes for hardly readable, nearly incomprehensible essays and i really do not know why. i have had trouble organizing my thoughts on these things. it seems i start with one idea i think worthy of exploration then it seems the ideas themselves, those connected to the main, feel like they must be connected in a certain way and before i know it i have connected so many tangents, (or large ideas,) the piece itself sounds like altruistic proverbs at best, or folksy, uneducated ramblings at worst.

the point i want to make here is that it is good to look back and recognize truth. it is important to seek justice everywhere at every level. it is even good to hold people accountable, the perpetrators of crimes as well as the systems that support them. this video was posted at firedoglake and shows the faces of some of these irish citizens, who peacefully protested imperialist policies of their british occupiers, (some suffering a martyr's death,) and helps illuminate the plight of masses of humanity.

california politics

it has always been odd the way california has elected such a mix of politicians, to say nothing of the inconsistent propositions and ballot measures. it has been suggested the mix was a product of the liberal north and the conservative south but too many outcomes have defied that logic. some have suggested it was the wind that produced such strange results, as in, whichever way the wind may be blowing in a given season. but from governors like the browns to reagan or wilson, (where arnold schwarzenegger is the median politically speaking,) to candidates as varied as barbara boxer and duke cunningham, california has always been a political riddle.

well guess what. i think i have solved it. i think it has something to do with voter turnout. i had every intention of turning out today but i failed to make it happen. early returns are suggesting a couple of these loony propositions may pass and i think it is a product of a seasonally uninformed electorate. in the big elections we do pretty good, (and by pretty good i mean only relatively speaking.) we choose some very good legislators and public officials and then we sometimes choose the least of however many evils. even schwarezenegger was socially liberal and thereby a study in contrasts, (even if he did come into office because the electorate was hoodwinked in the gray davis affair.) then on days like today we show up in modest numbers and anything can happen. if some special interest is energized enough they can sweep an initiative into law that really has no business even being considered by an informed electorate. (for its part money works hard and well to dumb down the electorate.)

i don't think ronald reagan or pete wilson could ever be elected in california again. we are the most complex, informed and sophisticated electorate in the united states and as such we are on an arc. we trail blazed the reagan and nixon politicians, the tea baggers of their day in as much as they were the near-far right, they demonized taxes and the governments they ran, and championed ideals of self determination as if we could all win in capitalism. and we're moving beyond that now. carly fiorina and meg whitman are going to spend record amounts of money to win barbara boxer's seat, (boxer is likely the best politician currently holding office in california,) and to win the governorship, (over retread jerry brown, who seems to bounce back and forth between being an excellent politician and fighter for justice and just another career politician,) and it will be especially interesting to see if they can win even with their gobs of cash. if they are defeated in the general election it will show california trailblazing again and showing that this most sophisticated of electorates in the country can be the first to overcome the influence of cash in elections.

i suppose we should also focus on getting the vote in between cycles so these crazy ballot measures don't slip into law.

your nightmare about parenting in 90 seconds

you never know when one of those moments in life will happen to occur, one of those moments you will remember until the day you die.

one moment you're finishing dinner and two beers in a mexican restaurant, your stunning wife sitting across from you, your adorable little girl and your super cool little guy adjacent, the mariachi band you just tipped five bucks singing quizas next to your table, it is one of those perfect moments when all the work and self-discipline is worth it because your life is rife with joy and beauty, but the next second, your three-year-old screams out loud as if to signal something other than an outburst of bad behavior or anything you are familiar with.

there is no terror like your three-year-old son choking on a peppermint candy in a restaurant.

your wife cries out to you, "he's choking."

you don't know if it is necessarily true. the kid is yelping and he is clearly in pain but you're just not sure. still, you immediately tell her to hand you the boy. you take him by his ribs and you get his face up close to yours and you establish eye contact and you demand of him, "mark, are you okay?"

he cries back to you, "no."

you step out of the commotion, past the mariachi singer and the sublime trumpeter with the ridiculous hairpiece, by a waitress and onto the sidewalk where people take their dinner outside as if dining on a boulevard in paris. you see the people sipping coffees outside next door at the hip, independent coffee shop and you see all the street fair patrons travelling to and fro at the entrance across the street.

you move past a planter to the street's edge and you flip your son onto your left forearm, holding his chest in your hand. your memory of your training in advanced first aid and as an emergency medical technician comes to you like an old friend. it's been 20 years since you even thought about what to do when a child is choking but it feels good to have a friend show up in a crisis and you rap your son firmly between the backbones hoping to jar something loose from in his throat. your wife had added as you walked out that he had a candy in his mouth.

your son screams though not as loud as you have heard before when something less tragic, (like your daughter would not give him the leapster,) has happened. you are worried. a man walks up and offers to call 9-1-1. you tell him maybe, you're not sure. you pull mark up and you ask him again if he is okay or if the thing is still stuck.

he sobs a little and in a high-pitched squeal says, "stuck."

your heart breaks right then and there but at the same time, you're not panicked. you flip him over again and rap him two, three, four times on the back. the boy is tilted towards the ground at about a 38-degree angle. you think of that dinner and the two cups of horchata moving towards his esophagus by sheer force of gravity. nothing happens. your son is crying but not crying, because he is choking. he is crying and he is choking.

you slap him on the back another time or two and you are beginning to panic and you look at the kind stranger who looks at you like he is freaked out and needs something to happen. you flip the boy back up but he is just all furrowed brow and worry and tears falling fatefully down his cheeks. he looks like he wants to quit and you decide that no, nobody is quitting and you are not going to need the 9-1-1 call because that candy that is stuck in your son's throat is coming out and you turn him over again and you lean down and rap him firmly between the shoulder blades and you get your face down next to his ear and you tell him to cough. you say it two or three times, "cough mark. i need you to cough. cough, mark," you yell.

the heel of your right hand bounces onto his back and he coughs and immediately throws up and the stranger is on the front side of him and he is bent down real low near the upchuck and he points with a certain elation and says, "there it is!" "it's out!"

you hold mark in that position so he can throw-up some more if he needs to and you gape at the mostly white peppermint candy with the thin ridges around the edge. it may be slightly larger than a dime but it is as menacing as anything. he turns and tries to pull himself up so you lift him and hug him and the stranger advises you to still take him to the hospital. you say you think he is okay and the stranger, (who is not only not a stranger at this point but as kindred as anyone you have ever met in his kindness and his tender humanity, and his willingness to be involved,) he asks if the candy in the puke is the only one and you tell him it is. your boy had only had one peppermint candy, (you're pretty sure.)

you ask your little guy if he is okay and he responds in the affirmative, his face wet and his eyes swollen. you want to let his mother, (and sister,) know he is okay, so you thank the stranger a couple of times, noticing his cleft upper lip but thinking of the comfort he brought you and how he could not be more beautiful and he tells you it happened once to his four-year-old daughter. you nod and wave and go back into the restaurant squeezing your son extra tight, thankful beyond words for the gift of a tragedy averted.

they are sitting at the table, your wife and your daughter, acting normal as the mariachi band disperses, and you think about how long the ordeal had lasted. it was probably a minute-and-a-half but you remember every detail and think it seems like it had been 5-10 minutes, easy. you tell them he is okay and you explain the story briefly, telling your wife he had finally thrown-up as you tenderized his back, and the candy had dislodged at that moment but you thought he was fine. you sit with him on your lap and you comfort him and rub his back endlessly and kiss his forehead and ask if he is okay and he burrows his head into your armpit and wraps his arms around your middle and you ask your wife if the bill has been paid and she says the waiter took her card but has not returned it yet.

you wait. you are in a bit of shock yourself. you hold your boy. you rock a little marvelling at all the people completely unaware of your drama endured. and the waiter shows up and your wife asks how much to tip and you tell her, remembering the uneven delivery of food, the forgotten tortillas to accompany her fajitas, the unsavory taste of her shrimp...you think, (off night.)

you go outside and sit on a bench, your son still safe in your arms, which are tensed with muscle memory. when your wife comes out peering around you point her towards the obstruction laying in the vomit, which she walks over towards shielding it from your daughter's view who is interested but knows not where to look.

she returns and kisses your son and looks at hims and tells you he has broken blood vessels under both eyes, which when you see them they spark a reconsideration of the panic you skirted throughout the interminable minute-and-a-half.

as you walk home amidst the friday, summer evening revelers, mostly teenagers escaped from their parents who plod through the street fair certain they are having a fabulous time, everything slowly and gently returns to normal. you take a deep breath and dare momentarily to think of another outcome than this one. you shudder. it makes you angry and you want to cry just thinking of such bad things.

at the end you know life is this way. it surprises and shocks you occasionally. you are optimistic in thinking life is not absurd but rather you put your best foot forward every day. you see all the positive ground amassed throughout history, and you trust in personal dignity and good karma and you embrace your vulnerability, your position of limited power, and you hope and convince yourself it is enough and you know that it is enough.