Bread and Butter

4/29/08

In a lot of ways, 2008 for me, thus far, has been about reflection on the choices I have made and my place in the world, in particular, my place in Koreatown now and moving forward. What happens often times when one spends too much time looking inside oneself for answers and direction is that person is stricken by an inexorable desire to flee their comfortable environs and seek adventure and truth in the unknown.

For me that opportunity arrived in the form of wedding invitation this past February. My college friend, Steve "Monster" Clermont had proposed and was tying the knot with his longtime girlfriend, Ruth Miller. I'd been dying to travel all year and any opportunity to visit a state (or states) that don't both start and end with the letter "O" and have a "HI" in the middle are welcomed in earnest.

Steve and Ruth were to be married on a colonial plantation near their home in the Washington DC suburbs of Virginia on 4/19. Ok, I'm in. I took the opportunity to tack a couple extra days on the beginning of my trip to visit friends in NYC (I hadn't been there in nearly a decade – too long). My friends out in NYC were terrific hostesses. In half a nutshell, my visit there featured drunken Rangers fans, fried chicken dinner, Central Park, Penn Station, East Village, Chelsea art galleries, Circles and Squares, record stores, pints, subways, Radio City, a Mets game and the "World's Greatest" pastrami at Carnegie Deli (that was nowhere near as good as Langers is here). I had a great time in New York, but as I was boarding the train to head for DC to meet up with Jonah in advance of the wedding that Saturday, I couldn't help but think that the greater moment of truth I was seeking had yet to shine its light.

"The aim of life is to live, and to live means to be aware, joyously, drunkenly, serenely, divinely aware." ~ Henry Miller

A little background on my friend Steve… Steve is an argumentative person by nature. Many of his longtime friends are contrarian to the core. It makes for lively gatherings. Steve earned his nickname, "Monster," in college when he would douse his argumentative nature in an assortment of grain alcohols mixed with Hawaiian punch. This he would generally conceal in a Dixie party cup. I'd like to say that Steve isn't the kind of person who will get in your face and raise his voice in the heat of debate, but he is. Sometimes the "Monster" would be frightening. Monsters are just that way. The years and the experience (both in life and boozing) have mellowed the Monster considerably, but for those of us who have known him awhile, we can easily recognize the simmer just below the surface. In short, Monster is a mad, beautiful, passionate man.

Steve's wedding featured all the trappings one would expect at a wedding; open bar, hors d'oeuvres, a baseball signing, a plantation tour, meat house, dinner and dancing… oh, and a beautiful bride. This trip was my first time meeting Ruth, the new Mrs. Monster. I spent a lot of time at the reception swing dancing with my friend Dave's wife, Allison. She's taken swing dance lessons and knows I can dance, so the two of us spent a lot of time out on the floor, cutting a rug and showing off a little. Hopefully, pictures will materialize at some point.

After one song, Steve comes up to me and tells me how impressed his mother is with my dancing and would I come over and meet her and ask her to dance. Well, yes. Certainly. So, we go over and Steve makes the introductions and I ask his mother for a dance. While I am still shaking her hand, she starts shaking her head "no" and then turns to Steve and says, "No, Steve. I wanted to meet your tall, handsome friend." (meaning Steve's friend, Ben, who we also know from college, but hadn't even been dancing) Steve, of course, is horrified. He starts trying to point out to his mother how rude she just was. She turns to me and tries to be apologetic and offers to still dance with me. I say, "I don't want your pity woman" and walk away.

"For every moment of triumph, for every instance of beauty, many souls must be trampled." ~ Hunter S. Thompson

It was at that moment, thunderstruck and buzzed teetering on the edge of the dance floor that the greater truth was revealed to me. Personal humiliation is my bread and butter. Stick with what works.

So, naturally I trotted that story of humiliation from an unexpected source (have I really been shot down by women ranging in age from 22 to 72 this year?) around to all my college friends and their wives in attendance, and my suspicions (as to what side my bread is buttered on) were confirmed in the tears of laughter I got in response. Does this mean that I am at my finest when forces beyond my control step forward to knock me down a peg or twelve? Am I really the man for this job? Am I destined to have to turn ridicule and humiliation into sources of amusement for you, my (so-called) friends (you bastards!)?

I'll have to chew on that one for awhile… speaking of chewing, have I ever told you about what a wild trip Korean sushi is…?

"Never confuse a single defeat with a final defeat." ~ F. Scott Fitzgerald

The wedding reception wrapped up with Jonah, Ben (you handsome devil!) and I being given the task of transporting a number of the table centerpieces and the last of the already opened wine from the bar back to the hotel. We gathered what we needed to carry and then realized that everyone had left without us. We didn't have a car. Calling a cab proved challenging. We'd been drinking and trying to explain that we were somewhere on this plantation just wasn't getting us anywhere. We decided that our best shot to get a cab would be to walk out through the woods to the main road (no short hike) to find landmarks for whatever cabbie would be unfortunate enough to pick us up.

After starting off down the drive from the plantation to the main road, Ben pointed out what a bunch of losers the three of us guys were. Here we were, three single guys at a wedding, and none of us could get a ride back to the hotel with a bridesmaid or anyone else and now we'd been roped into not only lugging wine, but centerpieces as well. I realized right then and there that the time for hard choices had arrived. I grabbed a centerpiece and launched it into the woods. Smash. Jonah said, "I'd like to see you do that again." I didn't hesitate and launched another. Smash. Muy satisfying. Jonah and Ben joined in. Liberated from the burden of the centerpieces, we then drank all the remaining wine before getting a cab back to the hotel.... totally shitfaced. When we re-joined the group (at a bar), they were a little lost as to how we had gotten so drunk and unruly in such a relatively short amount of time. At some point, Ruth (the new Mrs. Monster) asked after the whereabouts of her centerpieces. I think the answer I slurred out was, "Collateral damage."

Where's the Food? Am I the Food? & the Saga of the Jollibee

6/29/07

Where's the food? What did you do with it? Where is it? I know you've got it. C'mon. Gimme. Yeah, that's right. I said, "GIMME!"

A lot of people ask me what I do with my free time and I invariably answer, "I think." Ok, that's a lie. Not the thinking part. I do that all the time. It's the question itself. Not many people ask me that question. Most of my friends know better than to ask me questions they don't want to know answers to. Still, the thinking goes around the clock. It's like a juggernaut. It can't be stopped.

One of the things that has been on my mind is the BIG question. What is the BIG question? Is the BIG question different for everybody or is it pretty similar across the board? The BIG question for me is, 'what does it all mean?' or, more broadly, 'what is the meaning of life?' Aren't these questions we all search for answers to or am I just a predictable product of my liberal arts background (as in all WHY and no HOW TO)? Well, is it or isn't it a BIG question?

One thing I have learned through years of over-analyzing everything is that answers to questions are usually simple. Well, the answers I want are usually simple anyway. I couldn't even begin to imagine what it would be like if every time I asked somebody for directions he went into some metaphysical diatribe as to what it meant to be really "HERE" and how it would effect our psychie and the ones of everyone around us for me to go "THERE." It would be exhausting. Sure, I have time for philosophy and discussion, but not when I'm really trying to go there. You know what I mean?

The point is, I looked for simple answers when applying the question, "what is the meaning of life?" to "what it all means?" I first discovered an answer back in my college years thru the writings of Henry Miller. In Sexus, he writes, "There is. You are. I am." Three sentences. Six words, six syllables. And, there you have it. Pretty much done. Who among can deny the IS? Not I. The IS is around us all the time. Is it not? And, your ARE. Are you not? If you are reading this then you are. As for I am, who is to say I am not? Well, I am and I am not. But, if you are reading this, then are you?

Still, that didn't quite do it for me. I thought there had to be more, and at the same time less, to the answer. I started thinking about the answer to the questions in a context of time and space. My first answer seems warm and fuzzy in a very basic, hermetically sealed environment. I mean, yeah sure, "you are," but what if your "you are" or "there is" is eating my fried chicken? That ain't right.

I looked at the world around me and decided the answer had to be simple, yet different than my metaphysical first impression of it. Then I spent a good hour sitting in front of my fish tank watching the goings on and thinking about all things I've seen go down in there before. The answer came to me in a flash, "Where's the food? Am I the food?" That's pretty much it when you boil everything down to the bare bones. Where's the food? Am I the food?

Thankfully, nearly all of us reading this will have never had to experience this basic law firsthand. I mean, how many of us have ever been in jeopardy of being eaten? How many of us have had to hunt and gather? The answer to both those questions I'm sure is not many.... especially not if you're blogging. Still, I think this is the basic law of nature. Thankfully, our species sits atop the food chain and we don't have to worry about really being eaten unless we swim with sharks or hit a ball into the deep rough on a Florida golf course in some re-claimed part of the Everglades. Just what goes through a person's head that first instant when you realize, "I'm the food?" That must be a very basic, primal moment. Cold fear.

Where's the food? Am I the food? That's how it goes in my fish tank everyday. And I have only pacifist species of fish in my tank. The fish swim around looking for bits of whatnot all day. When they find it, they eat it. I'm sure it's pretty much the same in whatever lakes or streams on the other continents these fish come from. Well, the same if you don't count me raining food on them every other day and you take out the whole predator part of the equation. Like I said, my fish are pacifists. Still, any fish in my tank gets hurt or sick, the other fish sense it and that sucker usually doesn't last long. And, I have a crab. His name is 6 and he loves him some carcass. I really do try not to let him eat his dead friends. Am I the food?

Here in the 21st Century US of A, things are a little different. I am beginning to think it should be, "Where's the food? Where's the food?" I found one of millions of answers to that question not so long ago here in my little corner of heaven, Koreatown. I paid a visit to the Jollibee to find out what it's all about. Discovering what is Jollibee turned out to be one of those questions I didn't want to know the answer to.

http://i155.photobucket.com/albums/s285/heymccleary/jollibee0001.jpg

Jollibee is a Pacific Rim fast food chain that is knockoff parts KFC, Yoshinoya Beef Bowl, Carl's Jr, WeinerSchnitzel and Hello Kitty. I went in on a sleepy afternoon after exiting the Red Line at Vermont and Beverly. It was slow, so I had some time to survey the menu. My usual policy when experimenting with new and unfamiliar fast food is to go with whatever I think sounds the worst on the menu because it probably isn't. It's probably there because it tested with whatever market research survey group well. This usually means the battered and fried fish burger, but hey, I was raised Catholic so I'm no stranger to a fish stick.

At Jollibee, things were different. I quickly shifted to survival mode when faced with the warm glowing, glowiness of the Bee's heat lamps. Jollibee offers a staggering variety of choices on their menu, most of which sweat under their heat lamps. Many things are garnished with a hot dog. Their signature items are called Crispy Chickenjoy and Juicy Yumburger. For those of you that know me even casually, you know I'm serious about my fried chicken. Normally, that would have been the natural choice, but there was far too much of it under the heat lamps for there to be much joy left in that chicken, so I categorized it as "SUSPECT" in my mind and moved on. Burgers are boring, so then I contemplated the corn starch noodles with pork strips, pork cracklings (wtf is a crackling?) shrimp, garlic and hard boiled egg wedges. I'm not making that up. It's called the Palabok Fiesta. Do they fiesta in Palabok? Where the bleep is Palabok?

Normally, that would have sounded worst and been my natural choice, but something in the upper part of my throat told my mind and mouth to, under NO circumstances, order that. I scanned on and discovered Jolly Spaghetti. I could have it with a piece of Chickenjoy or a hot dog. Yeah, no. Then there's the Burger Steak which is just a 'hamburger' patty garnished in mushroom sauce served next to a pile of white rice. Yum. No. Quickly, I raced back to the Yumburgers and ordered the biggest, badest burger I could find, the Amazing Aloha burger (bacon pineapple) and a side order of some mysterious Palabok soup which appeared to be noodles, chicken, green onions and a wedge of hard boiled egg TO GO and waited. Shoot, I had to try something weird while I was there. Is that saying just walking in the door wasn't weird enough?

"When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro." ~ Hunter S. Thompson

While I waited I scanned the remainder of the menu, particularly the Breakfast Joys and the Super Breakfast Joys… I don't know about you, but to me nothing says JOY like eggs, bacon, sweet pork, a pile of white rice, tomato wedge AND a hot dog. Wow. They should sue Wheaties for the rights to the phrase, "Breakfast of Champions."

Eventually, my food was ready and I snatched it TO GO. The printing on the go-bag informed me that Jollibee has more than 500 locations in the US, Philippines, Hong Kong, Guam, Saipan, Vietnam and Brunei. In Jollibee's defense, the bacon pineapple burger was quite good and so was the Palabok soup, which was a knockoff of pho for you Vietnamese fans out there. While I chewed my food, sitting across from my fish tank, my thoughts drifted back to the meaning of life here in the 21st century. Just what does it all mean? Is the answer really these six words? There is. You are. I am. Or is it these six words? Where's the food? Am I food? Just maybe it's these six words…. Be assertive. When caught. Play dumb.