Unemployed Ben

With the Academy Awards approaching I’ve been pondering what makes an oscar winning performance?

Generally I tend to agree that the best picture and director categories are pretty much a political process, what else could explain Scorsece not having won. But I think the academy does pretty well in the best actor and supporting actor decisions.

Of course there are notable exceptions like Whoopi Goldberg and Holly Berry but on the whole I tend to agree.

Its hard to not see a great performance when its right there in front of you.

One of the reasons I feel they have done a good job is not by who has won the award but by who hasn’t won the award. Tom Cruise being my example here. He has been nominated a couple times and lost, ive heard people complain that he lost out to actors that arent ‘movie star’ that Tom is and for that reason it wasnt fair.

I love this argument because these people are the ones that just don’t get it. Acting, at least in my opinion is not about being marketable, not about being bankable and its certainly not about being good looking and charasmatic.

The reason he hasn’t won is that he is virtually the same character in every movie he plays, he flashes the same smile, he has the confident body language and he exudes confidence. This doesn’t mean he hasn’t had fine performances, he has, but when watching these movies you feel as though he is acting.

What I mean is that he might be entertaining but what he does on screen isn’t believable. He’s too polished, you can see how much of an effort he puts into the lines, almost seemingly emphasizing every word for affect. This just isn’t the way normal people act or talk. It might be fun or even exciting to watch but you know its not based on reality, its glamourized for wide consumption.

That’s why I think there are two types of actors. The Movie Star and the actor.

Guys like Bruce Willis, Sly Stallone and Tom Cruise are Movie Stars. They can carry a movie, gaurantee huge opening weekends and you can generally forget about the world for the 2 hours they are on screen but do they ever make you think the way an true actor does?

An example is Denzel Washington, some say he plays essentially the same part in every role he plays and can be categorized as a movie star. But the difference as I see it, is in his delivery, his timing, his seemingly effortless abillity to act like a regular person. He walks, talks and even yells like people we have seen all our lives. He doesn’t over reach.

Ill give you an example, the movie Collateral. Tom tries to shake up his image by wearing a grey haired wig and playing a dark and semmingly sadistic assasin. The movie is quite good but who gets nominated for the oscar? Jamie Foxx, and why? Because even in that role Tom has to play the cool guy, the unflappable always in control guy. The character is a hitman with no remorse or feelings and its played as if the guy was a clerk at a grocery store. There is no depth to the character, you can’t tell what he’s thinking, how he is dealing with the situations that arrise, no you only see movie star Tom.

Maybe ones own past has a lot to do with which one of these you are. Maybe some people like Tom have always had it easy. They can’t exude a vast amount of true emotions because he has never really experienced them. Life is hard for most of us, struggling with money, battling addictions, dealing with tragedy. We respond to those things when we see them because we have experienced them. We can see ourselves in Denzel, or Sean or even Tom because they have at times dealt with real life and we can see it in their performances. It touches us, it makes us respond emotionally, it even sometimes pains us to watch.

With a movie star we see what we would like to become; attractive, rich, famous and adoured by millions of people. To be treated like a special person, to have people want to please you. Of course that’s just a dream and that’s why those performances do not resonate, they just touch the surface of our emotions and then move on quickly.

Maybe Jerry McGuire will be remembered long after 25th hour or The Station Agent but that doesn’t mean that it will hold a deeper meaning for the people that see them.

You can’t exude pain if you’ve never felt pain. If your good looking, charasmatic and confident it doesn’t take much for that person to act that way but if that person could really experience life they would be amazed at what they could put into their performance, plus flawed people are just more interesting.

Some examples of what I mean:

An actor stays on the set watching his fellow actor during a scene to watch for subtle nuances so that he can add to his own performance.

A movie star hangs out in his trailer trying to secure the rights to Butch & Sundance so he can remake it and make it better, more hip.

An actor works at every aspect of his character, his walk, the way he smokes, his smile, hid body language. The manner of speech, the way he talks out of the corner of his mouth.

A movie star makes sure his wardrobe is trendy and sculpted to his physique.

An actor shows up on time and is open to ideas from the writer and director.

A movie star orders his assistant to yell at craft service for not having his chai tea, soy milk latte’ ready.

An actor researches his role, goes into dangerous situations to get the feel of what he will represent. Feels a responsibility to be accurate and true to the part.

A movie star goes on a ride along with the local pd where he praised and lauded by everyone around him and then thinks he got to the heart of police work because he saw a shoplifter being arrested.

An actor doesn’t want to go to the premiere because its superficial and demeaning and the majority of the crew isn’t being recognized.

A movie star shows up late to the premiere knowing people will wait for him and that a big entrance is important for his persona.

An actor takes less money to work on a great project because they believe in the movie.

A movie star only takes less money if he can be a producer, get more profit points and get final script approval.

An actor goes to acting class, has a mentor and reads about his profession.

A movie star reads only the 1st page and the last page of a script.

I guess its as basic as this, one seeks the spotlight and one avoids it. One gets emotional about his performance and the other wants to make sequels. One talks about his wife or girlfriend on Oprah while dancing on a sofa while the other one is only heard from when he has to promote his movie not because he wants to. One wins the Acadamy Award and one never will.

Movie Star

Oscar Winner

When reading the news yesterday I came across the story that actor Chris Penn had been found deceased, alone and in his bed. There is no cause of death yet but it seems to be health related.

I never met the man or can even call myself a diehard fan but when I heard of his passing it made me sad. In reading about his life we had a couple things in common, he was overshadowed by older and younger siblings, battled some personal demons, struggled with drugs and alcohol and also had difficulties with his weight and health.

It seems that at a certain point in his life when he was having some success his daughter was born premature and passed 2 days later, this set him off on a downward spiral that lasted 5 years. He seemingly recovered but stayed off the radar until this year when he was set to premiere in the movie The Darwin Awards at Sundance last night.

Im not sure why I feel the way I do, it just might be that one of the actors from my generation has died and that reminds me of my own mortality. He died in the way that most people dread, being all alone. But as he was in his home and in his bed I hope that it was a peaceful death, one in which he just slipped away in his sleep. We should all be so lucky….

I found a couple good articles about him and his life if your interested:
The Independent
The mightier Penn By Cintra Wilson

With the recent announcement that The West Wing would be ending its 7 year run, I began thinking about its impact on not only me but our culture.

To be honest I didn’t really start watching the show until its 3rd year. I was never really that into politics and it just didn’t appeal to me. But a friend from work kept talking about the show and I decided to give it a shot.

It was hard to follow in the beginning as there was extensive backstories that made it difficult to fully understand the plots. But I soon started to realize why it had won the best drama emmy a record 3 times in a row. The writing was amazing and invoked a passionate response. It made you care and also gave you hope about how our government ran. It didn’t matter what your view on politics was, it just reaffirmed that the people in these jobs were dedicated and responsible.

Then two years ago the Bravo network started airing all the episodes starting from the series beginning. It gave me the opportunity to watch all the episodes I hadn’t seen and to make a personal investment into the show. The first three years were without a doubt the strongest and were almost like mini movies, the stories deeply developed and the performances so good it just sucked you. At times it was funny, dramatic, and emotional all at once. It was both raw and real but it also seemed to have an overriding theme of hope and humanity.

It didn’t shy away from contraversial topics like abortion, the death penalty and terrorism. It even made seemingly mondane topics like federal budgets, foreign policy and torte reform exciting and enthralling.

Many episodes really touched me but one in particular about a deceased homeless veteran getting the military funeral he deserved really moved me in a way that television never had. It was poignant and moving without being preachy.

It was the most celebrated show on television and was the talk of Washington after every episode aired. Many aspects of real life politics took from the show and terms like “spin zone” and “potus” were now discussed and even emphasized on talk shows and commentaries. Some say that what people didnt realize was the show was actually making a comment on what politics had become, that it was mocking the type of sensationlistic over glamourized it portrayed in certain episodes. This was actually even the case in the last presidential elections as many of the shows had very similiar takes on how the show portrayed the inner workings of debates and cuacases. Life was imitating art and many questioned why.

But to me it was a show that made me think, made me take an interest in how our government worked, how the world interracted with itself. I started to read and learn about politics. It started my interest in shows like Meet the Press and Hardball. It opened a new world to me.

After the 4th year the creator and virtual sole writer of the show Aaron Sorkin left. Some say it was burnout, others say it was the pressure from the network. He insisted on writing virtually all of the scripts and at times it caused anxiety and frustrations as he was sometimes working on dialogue until the last possible moment causing stress for the crew, actors and the network. It seemed writing the best show on tv somehow came with added pressure instead of the creative freedom one would think it would have earned. Some say this is why television, at least network television will never be great again. Too much involvement from network execs that know nothing about the creative process.

The show changed a lot after he left and began a more flash than substance period in hopes of being more controversial and exciting. The dialogue that had been present before was almost impossible to imitate. It had been written in iambic pontameter, it had a distinct rythym and feel. Its not something that could easily be duplicated. And it wasnt.

Over the course of the next 2 years the show changed a lot and some plot lines just didn’t feel right. The ratings started to slip and they tried to shake up the show by changing the dynamic of the power structure within the administration. That’s not to say the show was suddenly weak, it just didn’t have the same feel and energy.

Then at the end of the 6th season and entering this season the show started to take on different tone as the writers started to get better even though some decisions upset loyal fans, the show was getting back to its roots, causing the viewer to once again get emotionally involved. The ratings didn’t rebound as expected and it seemed it was destined to slip away. Its the start of the new season the plotlines took the majority of the show out of the west wing and onto a campaign trail. A lot of the actors roles were greatly diminished and some were virtually invisible. Then the actor that had a major role passed away and that left everyone scrambling on what to do. Most wanted to just end the show at once but it was determined to air the episodes that he had filmed as a tribute to his work.

So when the announcement was made that the show was ending it wasn’t a shock but still made me sad. It changed my life and I can’t really say that about any other tv show. It made me more well informed, more engaged and made me challenge the impact I have on my community. It changed me forever and for that I will always be thankful.

Sidenote: It seems the Aaron Sorkin has signed a deal to write and develop a new show on NBC and the buzz is that the pilot episode script is one the of the most amazing things ever written for television. So hopefully this might not be the last time I feel this way about a show. Now if we can just get NBC to leave him alone this time. So be on the lookout out for Studio 7 on the Sunset Strip next year.

‘Sports can be a great metaphor for life’

Few words if any can describe the way I felt when Shaun Alexander raised that George Halas trophy over his head and the collective assembled mass of fans chanted ‘Super Bowl…Super Bowl’ with enough force to reverberate across the Northwest corner of this great state.

Rarely have I been as stunned as I was watching the Seahawks play with an emotional intensity that just couldn’t be matched by anyone outside of greek mythology and lore.

It was like a huge boxing match that had been built up over time as a meeting of equal opponents but when the bell rang, only one was landing the big power shots, only one was floating like a butterfly and stinging like a bee.

Bam…bam….BAM!! The haymakers landing with force and regularity, the once well thought of competitor is reeling and battling to keeping its balance. Its becoming clear that one is far superior to the other…bap bap bap, jabs are stinging and disorienting the reeling foe and then out of nowhere, CRASH, Moises Totupu’s helmet collides with the helmet of Nick Goings, the once immovable object meets the immovable force just past the line of scrimmage and like a bolt of lighting hitting a tree only one survives that meeting.

Defeated, wobbly and confused… the vanquished opponent stumbles off into darkness as a new champion emerges into the glorious ray of light that only comes with victory.

It seemed like a fairy tale or a story from the past about a Dragonslayer. Everything was amplified and emphasized for affect. And the ending didnt disapoint it only added to that magic feeling that warms the soul.

I was left with a smile and a feeling of complete contentment.

That’s how I felt when the Seahawks made the first Super Bowl in its history and did it in a way that didn’t make it seem real. All my concerns and worries about my life lifted like a fog and disappeared not to return, at least for awhile and that makes it a good day, maybe even my best day.

Stinging losses, painful defeats and monumental collapses. That at times described what the Seahawks had brought to the fans of the Northwest.

Even when the team was reeling off 11 straight victories and when it felt at times as if it was winning the type of games it had lost in the past, making the clutch play instead of a disastrous one, there was still apprehension about what had transpired before.

But this season just had a different feel to it, a last minute interception that led to a last second field goal that snatched a victory from the hands the Cowboys was the first sign of things to come. Seeing grown men jumping around, screaming in joyous celebration like kids on Christmas morning after seeing that shiny new bike under the tree was an amazing sight.

Still there was that little devil on your shoulder whispering for you to not set yourself up for failure again, to not allow yourself to be crushed by another disapointment. But you tried to forget about the past and the Hawks were making it easier and easier to do as the victories piled up and obstacles started to fall like the division championship and then home field advantage. Accomplishments never felt before in this tucked away corner of the world.

And yet still there was lingering thoughts about past failures even as they won their 1st playoff game in 20 years. A certain uneasyness was present before the kickoff of the NFC championship, not really knowing how to feel having never experienced this before.

Then the game started and the frenzied and manic energy of the fans was met by the players as anyone and everyone in a Seahawk jersey starting flying around with purpose and intensity. They were all one the same page and were moving as a collective force.

This feeling was hard to desribe, euphoric shock perhaps. A dominant perfomance that just didn’t seem real. Almost as if was a dream that just couldn’t be, as it was almost too perfect.

But it was true, it was reality and soon all the tension in the shoulders that had gathered over the years melted away and the once queezy stomach was overwhelmed by a feeling of pure contentment and joy. But more than that it was a feeling of pride that swept across the collective soul of the Seahawk fan. Demons were excersized and past negative emotions were replaced by contentment and an intense feeling of satisfaction.

Its never been easy being a Seahawk fan and thats what makes this success that much sweeter.

“Im trying to be a good teammate here but …… “- Peyton Manning in his post game press conference in explaining why they didnt win

An interesting way to start off a statement. Its been done in many forms before but we all know that when someone has to qualify their statement before making it, it tends to emphasize the point that they were trying not to make.

Let me give you some examples of my favorite quotes of the year and how I interpret them:

“First off I want to tell you that he is not a bad guy” — Drew Rosenhaus’s opeeing statement in the press conference defending Terrell Owens suspension

Everyone knows the difference between a good and a bad person and its fairly obvious a guy who tells his coach to shut up and challenges everyone on his team to a fist fight is not a good guy. If his opening statement would have been something about his atheletic ability or his accomplishments on the field then he might have avoided some serious rolling of eyeballs but Drew knew deep down that he was representing an less than model employee and his opening line proved that even he couldnt avoid this topic. You can defend a bad person for being a bad person, but only if there was a reason that dictated his behaivor and that it can somehow justified what he did. Not getting to renogotioate a $42 million contract after the first year is not one of those.

“Wow! Brazil is big.” -George W. Bush, after being shown a map of Brazil by Brazilian president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, Brasilia, Brazil, Nov. 6, 2005

Okay I dont have much to add to this other that this emphasizes the man is an idiot. He represents the American people everywhere he goes and this is his statement? Let me guess, Canada is cold, the middle east is sandy and Africa is full of black people.

“I have never used steroids. Period.”
— Rafael Palmeiro when testifying at a March 17 hearing on steroids. Less than two months later, Palmeiro tested positive for the anabolic steroid stanozolol and received a 10-day ban from baseball.

Translation? I have been given steroids, I just never injected myself. Now this would have been very clever if he hadnt tested positive 2 months later. But when he did test positive he blamed his teammate for giving him tainted Vitamin B-12. Yep another good guy.

“Therapy can be a good thing; it can be therapeutic.”
— Yankees third baseman Alex Rodriguez on the benefits of seeing a therapist

Im not crazy I only act that way and now im getting help for acting crazy even though I never really did.
This guy is so disliked that his nickname is the “Cooler” after a character in the movie of the same name that has such bad mojo that he can cause people in a casino to lose just by walking by the table. This is in reference to every team he left got better the next year, something that doesnt make sense considering his production.

“When you can get a discount at Denny’s, it’s time to retire.”
— Charles Barkley, discussing the retirement of 41-year-old Karl Malone

This is pretty easy, Charles is saying that he wishes he was still playing and that he would have taken better care of his body so that he could have played 20 years. His nickname? The round mound of rebound, just dont say it to his face. You can actually hear him pleading in his prayers at night “oh lord why couldnt I have been born 10 years later, the league is so soft right now and I wouldnt have to play Michael Jordan and have him take me over his knee and treat me like misbehaving child.

“Screw the nano. What the hell does the nano do? Who listens to 1,000 songs?” — Motorola’s Zander letting his real feelings show about Apple Computer Inc.’s music player, which overshadowed Motorola’s new Rokr phone during a product launch.

Translation: Penis envy, plain and simple. About 3 million people listen to that many songs…. at least thats what the Nano’s sales figures show. Note to Motorola, stick to form over function, aka the Razr, its worked well for the SideKick. Plus thats all that America is about anyways, how else could you explain 30 million people a week watching other people perform karaoke on tv (American Idol).

“We weren’t paying attention, we got distracted by all these people with pierced body parts and blue hair.” — Larry Singer, vice president, global information systems strategy at Sun Microsystems (Profile, Products, Articles) Inc., citing the real reason the company lost its edge during the dot-com era. (Sept. 12.)

Translation: Its hard to pay attention to day to day affairs when your golfing in Bermuda. Being stinking rich is great isnt it? Hey is my lear gassed up yet? I need to make it to Spain by sundown. And where the hell are my grape feeders? Am I suppossed to have to put them into my own mouth?

“What I’m hearing, which is sort of scary, is they all want to stay in Texas. So many of the people in the arena here, you know, were underprivileged anyway, so this is working very well for them.”
Former First Lady Barbara Bush, on hurricane refugees in the Houston Astrodome.

Translation: Black people dont vote and if they do its usually for Democrats so they dont really count. Its strange they wouldnt want to go home though, their houses are flooded, there is no running water, no electricity, no sewage system or food and water. I guess they should have just all gone to their vacation homes in Kennebunkport when the storm was approaching.

“You did not notice $25 million was missing from your W-2?”
Prosecutor Ann Donnelly, to former Tyco CEO Dennis Kozlowski at his trial for securities fraud. The ousted executive, who was found guilty, insisted he wasn’t aware the hefty bonus hadn’t been noted on his 1999 tax return.

Translation: The Enron bastards had Bush as a confidant but you sir are screwed. One of my favorite lines of the year.

“Matt, Matt, Matt, Matt, Matt, Matt, you don’t even-you’re glib. You don’t even know what Ritalin is. If you start talking about chemical imbalance, you have to evaluate and read the research papers on how they came up with these theories, Matt, OK? That’s what I’ve done… You don’t know the history of psychiatry. I do.” -Tom Cruise, to “Today” show host Matt Lauer, on psychiatry

Translation: Im crazier than a shit house rat, if I reached back inserted my forefinger into my ass, pulled it out and started licking it like a popsicle you wouldnt be the least bit surprised would you?

By the way did you know the basis for my religon? An evil galactic overlord, Xenu, collected all the billions of people from 76 planets and brought them to earth. Xenu then stacked them around volcanoes and blew them up with H bombs. He then implanted their souls with false memories. As a result there are a few thousand clusters of these confused souls now in all of our heads. Yep Scientology is completly rational.

They also have different levels for the members of the ‘church’, its based upon how much they have given both monatarially and added with recruitment. Tom Cruise is an OT level 7. This level gives you the ability to fly and move stuff with your mind. If only he would have used those skills in War of the Worlds, he could have defeated those pesky invaders much faster.

And now my favorite comment of the year:

“You work three jobs? … Uniquely American, isn’t it? I mean, that is fantastic that you’re doing that.” George W Bush–to a divorced mother of three, Omaha, Nebraska, Feb. 4, 2005

Yep the American dream, working 16 hours a day 7 days a week while trying to raise 3 kids. Maybe she should move to the Houston Astrodome where its all rainbows and wine tastings. Its a sad testiment to the state of the country when you actually envy the residents of New Orleans.

“Wow, Brazil is big” — George W. Bush, after being shown a map of Brazil

Today I read that Gerald Ford has pneumonia and is in the hospital as well, yep me and Ford are sick buddies. I at least was smart enough to bring my laptop with me. Thankfully I was able to hack into some wireless network that im sure is supposed to be for only dr’s and admisintratators. Ive refrained from porn so far but not sure how long I can hold out as one of the nurses was really taking her time with the cathetor

One of the downsides of being sick last week was not being able to check out all the new stuff being introduced at the CES show. Ive always been a big fan of consumer electronics and my sickness only temporarily slowed that enthusiasm. So as all I have to do is watch basic cable and surf the internet I figured I would a list of coolest new tech items. So without further ado:

Unemployed Ben’s Tech Roundup

Toshiba Gigabeat S Series Portable Media Center
Highlights: Brushed aluminum shell, QVGA screen and full support of the new Vongo service which allows downloads from the Starz cable network. Being able to take porn videos with you is now possible plus you can freeze frame “Into the blue” and stare at the sculpted ass of Ms.Alba at work, the subway and even the gorcery store. Yep, finally proof there is a higher power.

Sony BDP-S1 Blu-Ray DVD Player
This is something that has been brewing for some time and has now come down to a fight for High Definition DVD’s between rivals Sony and Toshiba. It seems like a familiar theme as companies can never agree on technology thus the reason why there is 9 different types of memory cards but this time Sony wont go down like they did in the Beta/VHS battle. Their technology will allow for 100 GB discs and create the best viewing experience for movies that will likely ever exist in the 2D realm. Plus anything that makes a more lifelike rendering of Jessica Alba is alright by me.

Sanyo Xacti HD1 HD video recorder
Highlights: Can shoot 720p Hi Def video, take 5 MegaPixel still images and all in a size smaller that the original Walkman plus at a price of $800 is the first Hi-Def camera below the $2000 price range that is affordable for the masses. This product had the most buzz of any product this year other than Jessica Alba’s new life like sex doll with suction control.

Panasonic 103-inch Plasma TV The worlds largest
Details: 1920 x 1080 progressive-scan resolution and a 3,000:1 contrast ratio
Plus any TV that is 7 and a half-feet long, 4-feet tall, has about 30 square feet of viewing space gets my vote. I mean that’s 30 square feet of Jessica Alba for goodness sake, what else do you need to know?

ZenSys Z-Wave Home networking
Finally what we have been hearing about for years will be available to the masses. This little device will allow you to turn on your lights, warm up your oven or even start your car on a cold morning all from a device the size of your mobile phone. This should allow for a new sense of comfort and security not to mention the ability to make sure you turned off that iron before you left the house to pick up the new Jessica Alba workout video.

Toshiba SED TV The ultimate in TV technology (Surface-conduction Electron-emitter Display)
This is something that has been talked about for a couple of years and a few companies even lost 100’s of millions trying to develop this technology but it seems Toshiba and Canon were able to make it work, much to the amazement of the tech world. Not only did they announce it but they demo’d it for everyone. One described it as going from black and white fuzzy picture to HDTV. Except the difference is HDTV is the B&W fuzzy screen compared to this. Seems a massive amount of money will be needed to own one but I also remember the days of 25k plasma’s and that wasnt too long ago. Will Jessica Alba seem almost too real on this tv? Will I offer her a glass of wine and imported cheese by accident thinking she was actually sitting in my living room?

(No picture available at this time)

Robosapien Robots are now our friends
This one sports a hidden camera in its head, opposable thumbs and the ability to be controlled from a laptop or Pocket PC. Maybe I’ll send one to Jessica Alba and tell her its a high tech tooth brush holder and then we can set up a shower cam that will make us millions of pecos.

Well there you have it, my choices for the hot new tech items of the upcoming year.
SideNote: This column is not endorsed by Jessica Alba or Universal Pictures in any way. And all the rumors about a restraining order are not true, though the one about her bodyguard throwing me into a blackberry bush is true, I guess he was startled by my parachutting onto her Malibu beachhouse roof….by accident.

Well its time for me to sign off and beep the nurse as this cathetor is beginning to pinch a bit.

Yesterday was a good day. Even though im still sick as a dog something happened that made me forget about it for at least a little while.

Its been awhile since ive felt this way, the Sonics had some success last year and the Mariners had a memorable season in 2001 but neither of those have the same type of feeling as the Seahawks first big victory in 20 years had. When the M’s were on the way to winning 116 games, 9/11 happened and it seem to knock the sails right out of the season. No one was really rooting for the M’s to beat the Yanks in the ALCS and it seemed the actual players felt the same way. But rarely on the Seattle sports scene has a team had a dominant year and followed it up with dominant playoff run. Sure the M’s in ‘95 was amazing but mostly because they had never had any success before. It was new, it was fresh and the hip thing in the area was to jump on the bandwagon. Its always more fun when its a collective mass of people that are rooting along with you.

The strange thing is that the Seahawks actually were a model sports franchise in the 70’s and 80’s. They hired good people to run the team, drafted well and were smart enough not to fall into the trap if thinking it would be awhile before they could win. In the early 80’s is when the team really started to take off and they were one of the more exciting teams even if they didnt win all their games. They were fun to watch and thats all that any fan wants. I remember on Sundays how the town had a lot less cars on the roads and a lot less people in gorcery stores around game time. Strangers even talked about the team in public as if it was a bond that everyone in the community had. I remember many a Sunday being in the living room of my Grampa’s house and all my uncles were sitting around cheering on every high and low. Even the women seem to enjoy the commraderie that was the by-product of a day of male bonding. When Largent would catch a TD or Curt Warner would bust a long run the whole room would burst in celebration and laughter. It was a time of innocence for me and it always made me feel a part of something, like I was in a private club that only certain people could belong to. It seemed life started and stopped around football and Sundays.

But then a strange thing happened, the Seahawks were sold by the Nordstrom family to a California business man named Ken Behring. He bought a team that had a waiting list of 65 thousand people for season tickets and that captured the hearts of the entire community. His plan wasnt to build on the success but to run the team so far into the ground that he could move the team to Los Angeles. The teams record nose dived and was soon a laughing stock of the league. After 7 years his plan had worked and they were barely filling up half of the Kingdome on Sundays.

So he put his plan into action and thought he would get little resistance, he was wrong. The city, county and state fought him all the way and at that time Slade Gordon was one the most powerful senators in DC. He was used his influence to stop Mr Behring and the city rejoiced. Then in the middle of the off season he moved the team anyway. He loaded up the trucks in the middle of the night and moved the offices and workout facilities to LA. He had seen this done with the Indianapolis Colts leaving St. Louis and figured he would get away with it. The NFL had other ideas and ordered him to move back, soon thereafter he was forced to sell the team and leave the city for good.

It took over 10 years for the team to recover from his mis-management but they still couldnt produce a consistent winner until Paul Allen stepped in and rescued it from its beleagured owners. He then used his clout to build a state of the art stadium that would guarantee a solid revenue stream and fan base. Still it took him hiring Mike Holmgren to add some legitimacy back to the franchise and to rekindle some of that old faith the local fans had abondened. But even with a few playoff appearances it didnt seem to take hold until this year. As they reeled off win after win they seemed to capture the hearts of the Northwest once again.

Still, some were aprehensive about the Hawks and thier tendency to lose the big game but after yesterday’s victory in which they lost the NFL MVP in the 1st quarter and then 3 fumbles, it seems that all has been forgiven and that what at one point was a model franchise has returned once again.

Its 7am and Ive been up for about 3 hours as I still cant sleep very long with this cold. Im now on day 16 of this crap and I keep hoping that one day when I wake up all the fluid and pressure will have had drained from my head and that my eardrums will pop and I will be able to hear clearly again. That day is not today even though in certain positions my ears are popping like being on an airplane.

Nearly everything is packed up in my house, I boxed up my computer this morning and then looked around at my place. It really has an empty feel to it now and I can sense that my exit is near. This apartment is not all that nice and its not in that great of neighborhood but there are some advantages, First off it is about a block away from a Walgreens that is open 24 hours a day, this is a huge convenience as I am a night person and have walked down there many times at 3 or 4 in the morning to grab a coke or even some household supplies. There are some other advantages as well, its 3 blocks from a grocery store, less that 500 yards from a Subway and a UPS store. It has banks all over the place and within just a couple more blocks is a Barnes and Noble and a mall. Ive never really been a mall type person so I cant say that its an advantage but from time to time I was able to catch a late night movie at the theatres there and was close enough to walk home which gave me some quiet time to contemplate the movie.

The place im moving into is pretty isolated and has no real convenience to it at all. Maybe thats a good thing in some ways but ill have to hold judgement on that one for awhile. Sometimes its a lot easier to order a pizza than to make a meal and at times that has almost been a crutch of mine.

Its continues to rain in my little corner of the world and it seems everything is starting to flood, its a familiar theme in this area but in the past few days it been mentioned that we are almost at a fifth of our typical rainfall for the year and we are only 14 days into it. Kinda scary…too bad the weather is so warm otherwise the mountains would have about 300″ of powder so far, looks like another disasterous year for that industry.

I am not looking forward to moving and not just for the typical reasons, the past 3 years I have lived alone and I have grown to enjoy it more and more. There is a sense of tension that exists when you live with other people and its not something im looking forward to. But in the end I think that social interaction makes me mentally stronger and a much more likeable person. Isolating yourself from the world can have a dramatic influence on how you see it.

I remember seeing an interview with Hilary Swank and it came up that she rode the subway everyday in NY and that she felt it helped her because she loved to watch people and how body language told the story of each individual. She said that if she lived in a gated community and had a driver that she would soon lose touch with certain aspects of humanity and how people interacted with the world in general.

I think thats very true. I have been very lucky to have been exposed to many different types of people in my life and I am blessed with the ability to blend in and to be able to interact with people that most would find it hard to be comfortable with. I didnt come from money but have lived in nice communities where money existed, I have been around criminals at certain times and have also been around the cultural elite from time to time. You might think that its completley polar opposites to attend a Yacht Club 5 star dinner party and to hang out in the seedy back room of a house of drug dealers. It really isnt, its all about manner of speech and the way you carry yourself.

I never really got into anything harder than marijuana and some heavy drinking even though I experimented with most things. But I had some friends that did some harder drugs and sometimes I was put into a situation that was a little hairy. I remember this one incident when I was 16, I was looking for a little weed and a ran into a friend of a friend downtown, he told me he could hook me up and I followed him into a house not knowing what I was getting myself into. I didnt really know this guy too well but as it was a small town and I wasnt very concerned about running into trouble. But when we both got in the place and I looked around I saw what can only be described as deperate people all around the room. The guy that lived there seemed to be ok but he took one look at me at pulled out his gun, for whatever reason he thought I was a cop. The guy I was with tried to convince him that I wasnt but he didnt want to listen. Now this guy wasnt pointing the gun at me, only holding it to his side to prove his point but it was still a little scary. I told him that I was only 16 and that I was a junior in high school and that would pretty much eliminate the possibilites of me being able to be a cop. He took another long look at me and then began to see that I was telling the truth and put his gun down on nearby table.

At this point all I wanted to do was get the hell out of there but that would have been too suspicious, so I just went along with buying some weed and just to make sure I wasnt a cop he wanted me to smoke some in front of him, he said thats why there was so many fucked up people in the room, he had to make sure they were cool. So I did as he instructed and we passed around a pipe, this seemed to eleviate his worries and he sat down and started talking about why he had a problem with me. He explained that because I was someone he didnt know his attention was drawn to me and that the way I reacted to the room of druggies was of total apprehension and uneasyness. He rarely saw that anymore and he figured I was either going to rob him or bust him. He didnt even think to realize I was just an inexperienced kid who hadnt seen this kinda stuff before.

He kinda opened my eyes to the world that day. After I left and had gone home to my comfortable and safe world, for the first time in my life I started to realize that if I was put in certain situations that I could endanger both myself and others with something as simple as my body language.

From then on a lot of times when I was in a new environment I would just observe, watching the people and how they interacted with each other. Over the course of about 5 years I did this a lot and got the reputation as being the quiet one. But it wasnt as simple as that, I was learning almost as if I was attending a class. I absorbed all the social interactions and soon began to understand what it took to blend in. I started to realize that people like the guy that doesnt have much to say but when they do speak its not something opinionated but added to the conversation in some way. Usually it would be a humurous remark but it was never at the expense of someone else because that individual might take it personally and if you dont know what type of person that he or she is, the situation could turn negative. It was a generally a comment that didnt stand out but just flowed with what everyone else was saying. It something that if done correctly can really make you fit in with a group of people in a hurry. Like the expression goes, being on the same page with someone.

One thing that I have noticed though is that the more and more I isolated myself or even stayed in my comfort zones the less and less this skill was developed. I tended to be more outspoken about things and even at times would overstep some of the boundaries of typical friendship. This of course exposed more of my personality and I was more likely to get labeled as certain type of individual rather than just being a small part of the group.

Because of this my personality has changed quite a bit and so maybe this move will help me get back that part of me that just like to observe and interact in subtle ways rather than be a focal point.

Well this was kinda a long rambling post that ended a lot diferently than it started, well anyway enjoy your weekend and hopefully we shall see a ‘Hawks victory today, I sure hope so as the Seattle sports scene could really use an infusion of pride and hope. Till next time, peace….

Its been awhile since my last post and there are a couple of reasons, first off I’ve been packing up my stuff for my move this week, the second is that I killed my Internet connection at my apt and thirdly is that I have been battling a nasty flu that has now turned into walking pneumonia. This has of course further cements my bad opinion of the medical profession as I actually went to see a doctor this time when the symptoms started getting bad last week and was given the standard anti-biotics that don’t really work much anymore and sent on my way.

I started to feel better late Friday night and all of Saturday which I spent watching football with my brother. But the next morning I awoke to a horrible cough and what felt like a gallon of fluid around my head. My ears were plugged and it felt like I was underwater. I could barely even breathe and only then through a sore and dry throat. Over the course of the next few days I couldn’t even drink or eat, let alone have a restful sleep. I felt like I was in a plastic bubble, bobbing from side to side with no real awareness of my surroundings. Couldn’t smell, couldn’t taste, couldn’t tug one out (just kidding, wanted to see if your were paying attention).

When I was 12 months old, I contracted pneumonia and ever since I have been susceptible to colds, sore throats and alike. From time to time I would just mono or strep throat and it became so common that I just got used to it. So this time it didn’t seem like anything different at least not until late last night. I had a really bad coughing attack that woke me up and I started to see some blood mixed in with the other nastiness. This was obviously a good time to head to the emergency room, so I called a cab and headed over there at about 10pm. I waited awhile and when I finally got to see a doctor he didn’t take long to tell me what I had feared. For those that don’t know pneumonia is basically just a lung infection caused by bacteria. You feel hot or cold, never comfortable. You are always tired and a little out of it, you just don’t think clearly. Combine this with my other symptoms and I was about as miserable as I had ever been.

This dr was cool though and gave me some steroidal spray for my throat, which worked immediately and effectively. He then gave me a vitamin b12 and a flu shot. Then he gave me a much more powerful anti-biotic and sent me home. I got some tea, lemon, and honey on the way back to my place…..courtesy of my sis.

Once I got home I took all my meds and made a big batch of tea. I then read a very good book called Tuesdays with Morrie, while my body waged war with these new reinforcements.

It was an emotional book and dealt with a lot of the things I have been thinking of lately. But a strange thing happened after I finished it, I felt better. I could actually breathe through my nose and I wasn’t coughing as much, not to mention my throat wasnt as tender and even my head was starting to clear.

At this point at like 4 in the am I was just able to eat a grilled cheese sandwich and drink some oj for the first time in almost a 4 days. I actually don’t feel so crappy. Its still there, just diluted… like a drink you get at around closing time.

So as I sip on my whiskey-lemon-honey-tea beverage, I can finally see the light at the end of the tunnel and hope that I will be able to enjoy the Seahawk game with a clear head.

Anyway I highly recommend the book and would be glad to share it with anyone that would like it, be warned though that it might have been exposed to more germs than Paris Hilton.

I’ve always enjoyed telling stories of my days in the kitchen but one story rises above them all. It always gets a strong reaction and tends to change the viewpoint of the listener.

On occasion at the Seattle Golf Club they would have theme nights for the members, it gave them an excuse to dress up in costumes and let loose from their generally reserved demeanors. One particular night that was a big hit was Western night; they went all out on this one. They set up a mock jail so that anyone could get a picture taken of themselves from behind bars. The also had one of the bartenders walking around with a holster with 2 bottles of Jack Daniels in each holster and two ammo straps filled with shot glasses, he would walk around giving shots to anyone that wanted one. At this particular time we had a Chef that was from Texas so he took his rib cookin pretty seriously. Luckily in the restaurant we had an alto-sham, if your not familiar with the item it is basically a slow roaster and holding oven. This is how we slow cooked all of our prime rib, pork and baron of beef. It is a great advantage over other kitchens because you can take 24 hours to roast meat and as it had an exhaust fan so it could be used as a smoker as well. This of course went against the standard approach of a true Texan as they prefer the bbq pit and the charcoal/wood approach. But he was a pretty smart guy and realized that when you have technology on your side you sure as hell better use it. So he decided to go with beef ribs and he filled up the entire oven with eight 400 pans (that is a 4 inch pan) and he looked over them like a Lioness over her newly born cubs. He then made is top secret 35 ingredient BBQ sauce that he said was a family recipe that had been handed down 3 generations. After he made the sauce and we all had a taste we were pressuring him to hand over the recipe, at one point the sous chef Paul found it lying on his desk and proclaimed to everyone “I got it…I got chefs secret family recipe and im selling it to the highest bidder”!! This of course caused everyone in the kitchen to come running included the chef. Before he could even react, the chef snatched it from Pauls grasp and threw it in his mouth. He started chewing the thing like it was a classified government document. We all started hooting and hollering amazed that he was actually trying to eat this thing; he chewed for about 3 minutes and realized he wouldn’t be able to swallow it so he spit it out right onto the butcher’s block. It looked like a giant spit wad but he had succeeded in his mission and rendered it illegible. His recipe was safe and he helped cement the reputation that all Texans were not firing on all cylinders. In the end the ribs were about the tastiest things ive ever eaten in my life and even though before hang everyone agreed that he had made far too many they barely made it to the end of the night.

Because of the success of this Western Night they decided to do an Hawaiian Luau. Everyone thought this would be a great idea as everyone owns an Hawaiian shirt and the island theme would be fun to carry out. They also went all out on this one and even hired some dancers in grass skirts doing the Hooky Lau, they sure got my attention as they were very attractive girls and could really shake those hips and of course the bikini tops didn’t hurt either. This time the chef decided to do a roasted pig and as no one really had any experience doing this he contacted some local Hawaiians and had them prepare the pig for us, it was a decent sized pig about 85 pounds and was delivered the day of the event already cooked and it even had the apple in its mouth. Now none of us had really seen a roasted pig on its full form, the head is still attached and the legs are basically just spread out like it had fallen from a cliff and splatted on the ground. Apparently they are basically just sliced open and the innards are taken out, other than that it looks exactly like a whole pig.

Now that we had the pig we really didn’t know what to do with it, no one had really carved a roasted pig before and the guys that cooked it were long gone. We lifted it onto a giant wood cutting board that we had and set up two carving stations back to back. A carving station is basically a heated base with two heat lamps; generally we carved prime rib or something similar for our buffets so this one was a challenge. Luckily the large board fit perfectly on the carving stations and looked like it belonged there. Once we got the pig situated everyone started looking at each other on who was the poor sucker was that would have to sit out there with this thing and cut off pieces for the members. It soon became apparent that everyone was looking at me, I wasn’t the low man on the totem pole but I was without a doubt the one that had a combination of the most carving experience and the most presentable appearance. As this was the height of grunge era the other guy that usually carved beef was growing the goatee to rival that of Scott Ian of Anthrax, of course he did this intentionally so that he wouldn’t have to go out to the “front’ of the house.

So soon it was decided by the powers that be that I would be the guinea pig so to speak and would have to carve this thing. I ran and got the my carving set:
1 Sharpening Stone
1 12” Carver
1 Carving fork
1 Scimitar
1 small steel pan about 4 x 4 for carving scraps
2 Towels

After grabbing my the tools of the trade I headed down on the floor to my station, now it had been set up in an elaborate location and one that didn’t make me very happy. Usually we set up the buffets on the upper deck of the dinning room so that it was very close to the kitchen and could be restocked easily and also allowed for the carver to take a quick break or 2. The reason for this is that the lights getting pretty hot and you tend to get pretty thirsty after an hour or so, add this to the fact that these parties lasted about 3-4 hours and that’s a lot of just standing around. But today they decided to put the carving station right down on the main dining room right by the bank of floor to ceilings windows. It was a huge display with flowers and palm trees and even the floor was filled with sand but the worse part about this was there was no real room for me to move, they gave me just enough room to stand. I could tell as soon as I was setting up my knives that it would be a long night. I was actually surprised that some of the members had arrived early and were starting to eat. Soon I realized that the moment of truth was coming and that I had to cut into this thing pretty soon. Just then the head chef came down and he saw how they had squeezed me into a corner, he was just shaking his head at my predicament. All he said was that he would help relieve me from time to time, then I asked if he any idea on how to cut into this thing. He really didn’t have any advice so we just started throwing ideas back and forth and it was decided that we would cut under the skin and keep it intact because if we didn’t it would look like we were butchering a live pig and some people might freak.

Just at that moment a couple came up to the my table and started chatting with the chef, they had already filled up their plates and were coming for some roasted pig. I started to sweat as I was stressing pretty hard on how to carve this thing, I soon realized the scimitar was the tool to use and I guided it under the skin and surprisingly with the dexterity of a plastic surgeon I was able to cut under the skin just as planned and separate it from the carcass, this would keep the presentation of the pig intact. Just at this moment the chef looked down and saw that I had completed the task just as we had discussed, he then excused himself telling the couple that they were in good hands.

I thought at this point he was right and I greeted the couple and tried to get a nice piece of pork for them. I of course knew that pigs are pretty fatty animals but as I hadn’t ever carved one I was little caught off guard by the amount of fat that was covering the meat, I started to trim away piece after piece of quivering juicy white slabs of fat. It stared to accumulate on the carving board and was far too much to put in the steel pan I had brought, also as I cut into the beast a considerable amount of juice started running out of it as well and the towels that I had brought were drenched. Soon after I had pulled off about an inch of fat I started to get a little concerned about where the hell the actual meat was.

The couple could sense my anxiety and even joked about how I was struggling. At this point they just started to chat amongst themselves and pretty much ignored me. Hunk after maddening hunk of fat was trimmed from this thing as I continued to be shocked by the lack of meat; soon I had to wave over a busboy and tell him to grab me a bucket from the kitchen. He saw the situation for what it was and hurried off to help me out, he quickly arrived and saw that my accumulated mass of fat scraps had doubled in the 90 second span it took him to grab a bucket.. He handed me the bucket and left quickly, at this point the couple started to take a little more interest in me and my dilemma. I was a little relieved at this point because I now had a way to get rid of all this large pile of quivering fat. I started filling the bucket piece by piece and filled it about a third of the way, now this was a 5-gallon bucket so it was a considerable sum.

I went back to the mission at hand and started trimming deeper and deeper and still no damn meat, I started to get a little desperate and I took a huge swath and went about and inch deep and pulled out this massive hunk of fat, it must have weighed about a pound and just as I was about to drop it into the bucket at my feet the couple saw it. At this point I made a huge mistake and looked up at them, they were starting to look green and were starting to sweat as well. Im not sure if they were embarrassed for me but they continued to wait, maybe they didn’t want to be rude, hell ill never know.

I went back again to my bane of existence and cut out two more pieces of equal size and them I finally saw the bounty of meat I had been searching for. It was only a small part that was showing but I could at least now see the light at the end of the fat….err tunnel. I carved around and around and trimmed and trimmed until I was finally able to get a nice slice for each of them. When I brought up the first slice I was about ready to make a joke to break the tension but as I looked at them I saw that they were about as nauseas as one can be without physically throwing up. I didn’t have the heart to say anything, they had stood there for 5 minutes while I pulled about 15 pounds of fat off of that pig just to get them a small slice that I was now offering. They both took a slice out of politeness and then went back to their table, which was only about 25 feet away. I periodically glanced over at them and they didn’t seem to be eating anything.

I went back to trimming this bastard of a pig…at least now I didn’t have anyone witnessing this massacre. For the next 10 minutes I trimmed away and ended up filling the bucket up with the disgusting trimmed fat. It must have weighed 25 lbs, I waved over the same busboy as before and asked him to go empty it and bring me a fresh bucket, At first he thought I was joking as he witnessed the carnage firsthand but once he grabbed a hold of the thing and felt the weight his eyes widened and his knees buckled. He then walked back to the kitchen and shared the contents with everyone back there; one by one the chefs and cooks came out to see what they figured was a decimated animal. They were shocked to see that it looked fine on the outside but when I lifted up the flap it was if I was giving everyone an immediate dose of seasickness. It was a disgusting thing to witness; as there was still fat all over the insides and pig juice all over the place.

Luckily at this point the chef took over as he saw I was swaying back and forth pretty hard, I went back into the kitchen and sat down for over 5 minutes, but I couldn’t shake the image of all that fat being stuffed into that bucket. From that day on I didn’t eat any red meat for over 3 years and I was a person that loved red meat. I couldn’t even look at a baked ham without it turning my stomach. But to this day I am not sure who had it worse, me or the couple that had to witness it. The only thing that made the night bearable was about 2 hours later when 2 kids came over and saw the pig laying there and started screaming, their eyes filled with horror and sorrow.

Sleep is an interesting thing, when you want it you usually don’t get it and when you need to stay awake you end up sawing logs within minutes.

I have never really been a big sleeper, even when I was a kid. Sure I tried to get my 8 hours when I was in grade school but once I hit about 7th grade I never really got much more than 6 or so hours. I would usually just listen to the radio for an hour or so and maybe read a book but it was rare to be asleep before midnight. This continued into my foray in the work force, much of my family worked very hard and I was always instilled with a great work ethic. It was rare to even hear anyone in my family complain about work unless it was about some extraordinary circumstance like pulling a double shift. For that reason when I started working in the kitchen where I got my first job, The Yacht Club, my boss saw how hard I worked and moved me out of the dishwasher pit within 4 weeks. That was a tough job because the volume of dishes was so great that at times you had to work as fast as humanly possible just to be able to get your job done. Not to mention the obvious nasty smell that stayed with you after getting off work. So when I was promoted to prep cook I couldn’t have been happier but I also remember that 2 other dishwashers were upset because I was the low man on the totem pole and somehow got promoted ahead of them. It caused some friction for a little while as I had to work along side them in my new job, but I decided that I would show them that I deserved to have the job and busted my ass. I took it upon myself to learn and volunteer for new duties that the cooks didn’t seem to like to do.

One of these jobs was shucking oysters… now this was tough for me because when I was 6 years old I had some bad oysters and got really sick. But I was determined to overcome this obstacle. Now this was a menu item, on the half shell on a platter with shaved ice and lemon crowns but those were prepared by the pantry chef per individual order so it was on Fridays when I learned how to shuck those bad boys. Friday was the Seafood Buffet and it was extensive and drew about 200-300 people and that is a lot of oysters. So my first Friday after I volunteered, the head chef took me aside and showed me his technique. He had a unique way of doing it as he held them up on end with the bottom on a butchers block, he then used the point of the shucker tool to pry open the shell and as he brought the shell parallel with the ground he slid the blade under the shellfish and cut the foot (The muscular part that keeps the bugger in his shell) and then popped off the top. He used a towel to grab the little bugger as they can get a little sharp and are a little dirty. After a few attempts of my own I got the hang of it and was doing it at about half his speed, which he thought was pretty damn good, so I was pleased. Then he brought out the bags and bags and even more bags of the critters that would be needed for the night. I began to realize why no cook or chef would want to do this as six or even a dozen wasn’t too bad but what they needed on Fridays was about 35 dozen. That’s 420!! That was about 6 sheet pans and if your not familiar with how big a sheet pan is than imagine about 8 large dinner plates. It took me over 2 hours to accomplish the mission and when I was done I was a mess, my chef coat was covered in dirty shell grime and I smelled like bottom of a crab boat. But not matter how hard it was it was amazing seeing all of them lined up in the walk in, we covered them with wet towels and each time a new cook saw them they started grinning because they knew that they didn’t have to do them this week. They congratulated me as if it was somehow almost an initiation into the restaurant biz. The strange thing is that when I did the math that meant that every person that came in was having about 1.5 oysters each and that amazed me. It wasn’t that so many people loved them just that the ones that did would eat a dozen of them. That night at about 9 pm we actually ran out and I bolted to the reach in where we kept the fresh shellfish and began to shuck like a wild man. They were completely out and some big wig that was a huge oyster fan wanted some post haste. Then as I had about a half dozen or so done and the headwaiter ran them out to Mr. Big Shot, something weird happened. The rest of the cooks and chefs all grabbed shuckers and helped me finish the last 3 dozen…it was amazing to see all of these guys that I looked up to and wanted to emulate, pitch in and help me out. They had my back and I soon learned that is how a great kitchen staff works, they always are looking out for each other. It was almost like the way a team or family reacts, everyone pulled together to ensure that everything was perfect.

Of course this was a big moment in my young career and that is when I knew that I wanted to be a chef. I worked myself up the chain and even attended classes to help me advance my skills and develop my talents.

One thing that happens when you work at a high end demanding restaurant is that you are literally giving it everything you have, there were weekends that some of us would literally sleep on a sofa in the employee break room between day and night shifts. There were just some days that you knew you would be working 14-16 hours shifts but the rest of the rest of the crew would be right by your side, our successes were sweetened and our failures lessoned because we were in it together.

The weekends were always the most demanding especially in Nov-Dec (Holiday parties) and the summer (Weddings). But the toughest was when I moved to the night shift and then had to come back on Sunday morning to prepare for brunch. This was pretty brutal as we never got out of the kitchen on a Saturday until about 11pm and we had to be back work the next morning at 6am. It was brutal because as most people know that you just cant go home and sleep after work, your all keyed up and need to have a drink or two just to relax. So most of the night would be spent in some bar with the crew unwinding until about 1 am. At the most we would get about 3-4 hours sleep and when got to work there was a lot of groaning and labored steps until we got the blood flowing along with a double espresso. Brunch ran until about 3 pm and we usually did about 400-500 people and upwards of 800 on a Mother’s day or Easter. This was without a doubt the most extensive buffet I have ever seen, so when it was over and we did the tear down it took about 60 minutes to take care of all the food and cleanup. When we got done this was the one time that we could actually go into the bar as employees and have a drink. Sunday night was the only time that the club ever closed and as it was a private club so employees weren’t allowed to use the facilities. So as all the cooks sat around the bar we all looked severely wounded from working 21 of the past 28 hours. Pretty much everything hurt but it was your feet that throbbed the most. As we had a beer or two the wait staff would tear down the room and set up for Monday morning. When they were done they would join us in the bar and it would just be the staff, which was about 20 or so. It was almost as if we had this special bond because we had survived yet another weekend, at this point we would usually head to local bar shoot some pool and watch the Sonics.

Even on Monday after I rarely slept for more than 6 or 7 hours and I would still bounce back pretty quickly. Working in a kitchen is pretty demanding, you putting away food shipments, lifting, pulling, flipping, bending over and all of it is under a far amount of stress all while standing for long periods of time. I remember that most days we rarely had time for a break let alone a minute or so just to sit down. It was something you just got used to, you built up a tolerance and you rarely even thought about it outside of Sunday afternoons.

After some somewhat bad experiences in the business, I moved on to a desk job. The odd thing was that when the topic of sleep ever came up most of the people I had worked with mentioned getting 8…9 or even 10 hours as mandatory. I was shocked and when I told them that if I got 4 solid hours I was happy. they couldn’t believe it. I explained that I rarely fell asleep before 3 am and that it was a pattern that I had to adhere to in a restaurant. I tried to defend this as I always got a lot of stuff done while others were sleeping but they all thought I was crazy. But a strange thing happened, over the course of the 5 or so years I worked in that desk job I started to sleep more and more and almost started to rely on sleep. I would blame a sluggish day or mistake on not getting enough sleep even though I had gotten about 6 or 7 hours. Over time I began to embrace sleep, most likely to avoid my boring existence and reticent job. At one point for the first time in my life I got insomnia and had a rough time getting any sleep over the course of about 10 days. I would just lie in bed for hours and hours getting no rest whatsoever. I eventually got some melatonin and was able to get some zzz’s, but I still dont know what caused it.

Not until recently had really thought about my sleep patterns but the more and more I was dissatisfied with life or my job the more and more I slept. It wasn’t about being depressed it was more about not being challenged, not having the adrenaline rush of the kitchen. Teamwork is often the buzzword in the corporate landscapes of America but the truth is that most people are just looking to get ahead and will stab you in the back just so that they can get a cup of coffee quicker. Its odd because I dont ever remember discussing teamwork in a kitchen as it was just there, it didn’t need to be discussed, but in this corporate place where they had teamwork posters on the wall, seminars and workshops all built around developing the team dynamic it was almost devoid of actual teamwork. It mostly existed with your friends and the occasional manager but over the course of my tenure even that deteriorated.

But that brings me to being unemployed now for about 7 months and one of the most rewarding experiences I have is sleep. 8 hours is not unusual and sometimes ill even hit the 10 hour mark. It’s an escape from my normal life, a place of pure fantasy. I don’t worry about my bad back in my dreams, I don’t worry about how ill pay rent, no concerns about my lack of transportation. Some days all I want to do is sleep. 7 years ago all I wanted to do was wake up so that I could make the most of my life and today all I want to do is enter a place that doesn’t resemble my current existence. I never imagined how much my environment would affect me and it happened so gradually I hardly noticed it. 6 years later I am a totally different person, I mostly communicate through emails, text messages and phone calls. One thing that is different now is that I tend to question my life a lot more; you don’t have much time to do this when all you do is work. I read a lot more and am generally a smarter person, im not sure if this is because of getting older or because I have the time to contemplate life.

Still though when I look back to my kitchen days I long for that feeling of knowing I belong to something special, knowing that when you did a good job it wasn’t reinforced my some manager with a employee of the month award but by the instant feedback of a customer. You always knew you were doing a great job and it was always apparent by the amount of people that wanted to eat the food you created. With food there is a comfort factor that I can’t imagine is evident in many other professions. A truly great meal is amongst the most satisfying things on this great earth and providing that experience was very demanding but also incredibly rewarding.

Plus we got to wear Chili Pepper Pants

For the past 5 days Unemployed Ben has been infected, no its not a case of herpes or even gonorrhea. Nope its the Flu!! Yep the guy that rarely leaves his crappy apartment went out into the world around Christmas time and what was my gift? A head that feels like a vice is squeezing it like the Joe Pesci scene in Casino. My head weighs about 10 more pounds than usual due to inordinate amount of mucus and puss that has accumulated. I have gone through 2 boxes of Klenex, 2 boxes!! And I am not talking about the vanity boxes, I’m talking about the heavy duty 300 count box. And ill tell you… after I get done with each sheet it has some weight to it, I mean that light piece of feathery paper has some gravity. Its like Heath Ledger in BrokeBack Mountain, it has serious girth. This isn’t the thin clear liquid of a cold this is thick yellow chunky gravy type snot; if I had a crack in my wall I could use it as Spackle.

Everything involving food makes me nauseous, I drink about a half of glass of OJ and then I set the glass down and lay back moaning in pain. I ordered a pizza tonight, not because is sounded good but because I hadn’t really had anything to eat in over 3 days. When the pizza arrived it didn’t smell half bad but all I got was through a half of slice before my stomach said “what the hell do you think your doing’?

Every time I sneeze my brain tries to escape through my eyeballs, but gets snapped back into my cranial region and bounces around for about 60 seconds sending wave after wave of knee buckling pain.

My days consist of shots of Nyquil, sleep and a foggy haze of consciousness. People call me and they are shocked by how bad I sound and then we talk for 10-15 minutes and yet I dont remember anything I said after we hang up. I swear that when my mother called I fell asleep for 5 minutes and she was still talking about bizarre home remedies and how when she was a kid half of all kids died when they got the flu. Thanks for the pick me up mom!! My brother calls 2 times a day to see if I want to go get something to eat. I mean what the fuck man, I ate some Pez from my x-mas stocking and chundered, I dont see us going out to scarf some Heurvos Rancheros.

So today I bit the bullet and went to the dr, I figured some anti-biotics might help. When I finally saw him and started talking he literally took 2 steps back and went “aarghhh”. I mean when your doctor is repelled by your physical appearance and actions then you know its bad. I mean these people see some messed up puta’s and still I am the repulsive one. So he took mercy on me and handed over some anti-biotics and even some muscle relaxers for my back. Might have been the best dr’s appointment of my life, maybe that’s the trick…be so fucking nasty that they don’t even examine you and throw drug scripts at you so that they can escape your disease riddin carcass.

So whats the lesson the be learned from all of this? Never leave your home because everyone else is diseased and dont wash their hands after going dookie.

But at least I dont have it as bad as this poor bastard.

Tonight in my fantasy football league the biggest asshole I have ever met won the championship. Now this is bad…really bad, as he is the kind of guy that you never want to see or hear gloating because of his vile nature.

Why do I belong to his league?

Well he has been in it for a long time and all the other guys are pretty cool so I just kinda deal with his shit because the rest of the league overshadows his unpleasantness. He is also the type of guy you dont take much stock in because all of verbal attacks are so over the top and unrational he is basically a joke.

But as I was finishing up the league finances to see how much his prize would be, the total shot shivers down my spine: $666.00

I mean 666 dollars!!!!! Is this not a sign that he sold his soul to the devil or even that he might be the anti-christ? What was Jesus doing? Taking a nap when this agreement was signed? The Devils son has risen and we are all doomed because the big guy upstairs was sleeping off his New Years Eve bender.

Well I for one will not wait around for the Apocalypse, im heading to Canada man, where the football is not very good and the beer is more potent.

I sit here at 6:56 pm on New Years Eve, too sick to care that I had to cancel my plans for the evening. I’ve never really been a big New Years guy as I was usually working on that day. I’ve toasted more of them in the back of a restaurant kitchen than at a party, so as I battle a sore throat and an ungodly amount of mucus coming from my nasal passages I do not mind that Dick Clark will be my date tonight if the Nyquil doesn’t kick in by midnight.

A friend of mine listed his regrets and for a moment I was about to follow him into the briny deep but my list is so fucking huge it would depress all that read it.

So with that said, my resolution for this year is to not regret anything I do. To not look upon myself in a disparaging manner. To not act like im a wandering soul looking for answers to questions that cant possibly be answered. To basically be a better person….to myself.

At this time in my life all I see are obstacles and hurdles. I havent taken time to enjoy the race. Well that day will soon pass.

When this cold passes, I will go get a nice steak dinner…enjoy a bottle of wine, have a nice chocolate torte and enjoy a glass of 30-year-old port. At this point is when I will look forward to the next 365.

“Regrets I’ve had a few but then again too few to mention,
I did what I had to do and saw it through without exemption.”
Frank Sinatra c/o Paul Anka