Get Yer Cook On

I'm dishing out kitchen tips over at Dadcentric.

Pop in and check out how to open a can (without a can opener), how to pickle and other time-saving tips for all those budding foodies.

And remember: Dads can cook too.

Telling Fish Stories

As promised.

And excerpt from my old journal slash manuscript.

May 19, 1993:

Ah! Starting to feel human again. Went for a gentle ride after work up this road by my house which eventually leads to a dirt road. At the top was a group of beehives. Four to be exact. "Raising honeybees," I thought. "Could be interesting."


Flushed out some quail shortly thereafter while pedaling up the dirt. I took (snap) shots of them with my mind. Mental pictures. Strange bird what with that little clever-like thing on its crown. On the way back down, I stopped at this tiny pond which was full of tadpoles. I haven't looked at tadpoles in a long, long time. Probably since the seventh of eight grade.

Sperm in the womb, swimming around until the day they grow arms and legs and move on out. It used to scare me. Their croaking that is.

I went to this KOA campground with Julio and Chuy Jiminez when I was in sixth grade. At night the bullfrogs croaked so loud it was deafening. We would walk over to the mini-dock that jutted out into the "lake" which was rumored to house one of the biggest lake bass this side of the Mississippi.

Yeah sure.

We found some fishing line with a hook still attached to it the next day by the dock. We put a hotdog on it for bait. Then gently lowered it into the water about three inches below the surface so we could still witness who was biting on it. And then when they did-Wham!-we'd pull up the line and have a little sunfish on it. The first time we were really excited about it. Mostly for the simple act of catching a fish but also because we were proud of our problem-solving skills. So we ran to the bait shack and looked on the wall of all the photos of fish the campers had caught over the years to see how ours measured up. There were all kinds of bass hanging up there but not one with a sunfish. Some were caught by Grandpas and others by Teddy or Nick or Tommy, even a few by Kim and Kelly. Right next to the pictures was a ruler where you could measure your catch. Ours didn't even make it within two inches of the "keeper" line. We were bummed but went back to try again.

And that's when we saw him. The monster bass. It was only a few seconds before the sighting that we realize the bigger the bait, the bigger the catch. So we threw rather large chunks of hotdog into the lake. Hotdogs, if you don't already know this, float. They make an excellent bobber but that's not the point here. It was Him. And he didn't even have to come all the way up to the surface to get the hotdog. He just sat a few inches below the surface of the water and opened his mouth. Like a vacuum the hotdog was sucked into his large mouth and was gone. We couldn't make out his whole body but he looked to like 16 inches long and about ten pounds. We were kids remember?

So, brainstorming again, we found a piece of styrofoam that was larger than any of the chunks of hotdog we had and threw it in the general direction of Him. He sucked it down without any hesitation. Then twisted, turned, let out a good splash and was gone. Fuck! We were astounded. Then suddenly, a bubble came up from where we had seen Him. No sooner did we see the bubble did we see the white of the piece of styrofoam come floating up to the surface. We never saw him again.

It was one of the many great days of discovery during youth. And seeing those tadpoles today made me realize what this world is all about: Growing up, learning about yourself, learning about your environment, and then adapting to it.

Infirmary

Welcome to January folks.

January always seems like a good time for everybody you know to get sick as shit.

I am going to lobby to change the name of the month to Infirmary.

When I come up for air, I'll have some good stories to tell.

Until then, please enjoy these classic poop stories about pooping in public.

Because sometimes life is shit.

You just gotta learn how to wipe...

Change in the Weather

You gotta love the unpredictability of the weather in North Carolina.

You don't like it, just wait a day.

Resolve the Unresolved

Do you have a New Year's Resolution?

I don't have one, because every time I make one, I never adhere to it.

So my resolution is to resolve all those from years past that have gone unresolved.

Some of these would include to exercise more (specifically break out my dusty 24-inch BMX bike), to actually complete some of the creative ideas I have had floating around for years (er, decades) and, most of all, write more.

Tree.

Big tree.

Very big tree.

Here's to planting new roots in the New Year.

2013 is comin' at ya...

Adventure Time

Do you need a vacation?

Try some of these out.

I’m excited to announce that I’m now contributing to Chevy Culture, a
lifestyle and auto site sponsored by Chevrolet. Click through for the full post on Chevy Culture, and come back in the next few weeks and months for more.

Some of my other post from Chevy Culture can be found here, here and here.

Getting to Know the Queen

Or more precisely, the Queen City.




I have lived in North Carolina since 1995 but rarely have spent any time in Charlotte. My collective experience is either stopping by for a bank withdrawal on my way to South Carolina or a random soccer tournament for my son.







Here are some things I have learn about Charlotte:

-the radio sucks
-don't think about trying to turn left or right in Uptown
-people like to tailgate
-it is a city unto itself
-everybody looks the same
-NoDa is a breath of fresh air
-the laundromat doesn't take quarters
-shit is expensive in the city
-driving will require at least one encounter with 485 or 77
-it seems bigger than it really is

Dadfather Advice

As your son grows, there are a million things to teach him.

These five are a good start.

I’m excited to announce that I’m now contributing to Chevy Culture, a
lifestyle and auto site sponsored by Chevrolet. Click through for the full post on Chevy Culture, and come back in the next few weeks and months for more.

Here are some previous posts I wrote for Chevy Culture on my love of trucks and how Chevy can be a muse for the modern music fan.

Did You Know?

My 9-year old is a wealth of knowledge these days.

It's not unusual to hear him proclaim, "Did you know?" and then spit out some random fact to me and his older brother.

This is largely in part due to one of his favorite games that he plays on his iTouch: Fruit Ninja.

The basic premise of the game is to slice fruit with your blade.

But there is one element of the game that warms my heart - it is educational. At the end of various levels, a little box of info will appear with facts about fruit.

For instance, did you now that you can use the inside of a banana peel to soothe a mosquito bite? Or to polish a leather shoe?

Fascinating isn't it?

Even more fascinating was the little nugget of information he dished out the other day.

"Dad," he said.

"Did you know that the space from your wrist to elbow is the size of your foot?"

"Um no," I said looking at my forearm and then at my foot.

I wasn't feeling it. I had my doubts... and then Shazaam!

As you can see, it is a little difficult to take a photo of this phenomenon.

Keep On Truckin'

I sing the praises of living life with a pick-up truck over at Chevy Culture.

Did you know?

I’m excited to announce that I’m now contributing to Chevy Culture, a
lifestyle and auto site sponsored by Chevrolet. Click through for the
full post on Chevy Culture, and come back in the next few weeks and
months for more.

My previous post over at Chevy Culture, about the Anatomy of the Modern Music Fan, can be found here.

Get out of the house, get in your car and get into life.

Oops! I Did It Again

I did something last week that I hadn't done in quite some time.

I bought a book.

Brand new.

I buy a lot of books but usually they are from thrift stores and library book sales.

I'm not sure what compelled me to do it.

I originally went into the book store to get coffee. Soon after consuming some joe, I decided to browse the periodicals. I wanted to see who was still printing magazines and if any of these magazines might provide an outlet for some freelance writing ideas.

Nothing inspires me more than reading some of my favorite authors. So I began to browse the fiction aisle for new works from some of them (to get inspired). In the letter H section, I came across Jim Harrison, one of my all-time favorites and a constant go-to writer of mine over the years.

I spotted what appeared to be his newest book and picked it up.

I got home, cracked it open and read two pages before I realized I had read this book already. A scan of the bookshelf and I realized I had the hard back version of this paperback book The English Major.

So I bought the same book twice.

This phenomenon has happened to me many times with records, but this was the first time it was with a book. Actually, I've passed on buying books I was convinced I had only to find out I didn't possess them.

When I returned the book the next day, I told the clerk I felt silly buying a book I had already read. "Don't worry," he said. "It happens all the time."

"Really?" I said.

"Yeah, like two or three times a week," he said.

I don't feel so bad now...

Train Keeps A-Rollin'

I was never much into trains. Not as a kid. But my older brother had a nice set of Lionel HO scale trains when I was in elementary school.

I do fondly recall enjoying the smell of electricity.

It was a seasonal thing. He'd erect his set in the basement sometime after Thanksgiving and it would stay up through the New Year. Over time it became quite elaborate - tracks were permanently adhere to sheets of plywood - and then the wood track was then placed on saw horses.



As the youngest, it usually was my job to crawl under the set-up and plug the necessary cords into the wall.

I'm not really sure what ever happened to them. My guess is that my mom unloaded them onto him in one of her classic purge-shit-from-the-basement moments.

We my boys came along, there was a brief flirtation with He Who Cannot Be Named, but thankfully that was short lived.

I do, on the other hand, find trains to be incredibly photogenic...

And Now For Something Completely Different

As is with all bad jokes, it is best just to beat them into the ground.

Persistence is key.

Funny is subjective after all.

Prepare yourself for the future kids!

And yes, the title is a Monty Python reference.

A Delicate Balance

I titled my manuscript A Delicate Balance.

In was in reference to that one moment in life where everything comes together at once. Inspired by the urban legend of being able to stand an egg on its end during the equinox, I looked at that as a metaphor for whatever it was someone sought out to do.

Some want to ride a monster wave, some want to jump offstage into a crowd like Eddie Vedder as thousands of people sing-along to your song, some want to wear the maillot jaune in the Tour De France, and some just want to get married and have kids.

If the stars are aligned, if the universe wills it, then it will happen. You just need to be able to place yourself there - that is the story of A Delicate Balance. A story of the journey to find yourself in that place, in the moment, when everything is happening as it should; as you have always dreamed it.

Fictimentary

I'm not going to lie.

I lost the will to write some time ago. Because what inspires me most to write is what I see around me. And for a few years I didn't like what I saw.

And then it happened: I got robbed. My computer was stolen, and with it just about every word I ever penned, whether it be a poem, short story, memoir, crime novel, screen play or lyrical essay was gone.

Everything was gone.

Poof.

I've sat in this dead calm of my own literary absence for almost a year now.

Enough is enough.

Slowly, I've forced myself to write again. Mostly blog posts about parenting, but I've also begun to contribute more to my day job with liberal doses of my own beer journalism (instead of merely editing everybody else's musings on craft beer).

Two important things recently happened that have helped dig me out of my self-imposed sabbatical on writing. First, was that I read a book called The Cut by one of my favorite authors George Pelecanos. His writing is good; he crafts a nice crime novel. But what draws me in most to his writing is the locale. All of Pelecanos' books are set in the metro DC area - the area of my youth. Secondly, I read an essay in the Oxford American called "Diary of a Fact Checker."

I should probably toss a third in there, a recent dad blog about people who blog not for money or fame but simply just to blog.

I am one of those. Suffice it to say, I have been blogging since before the dawn of blogs. Back then it was called a journal, of which I kept fairly religiously during the four years I spent in Los Angeles in the early '90s.

And it occurred to me that I had a copy of that journal somewhere. Because there were no "clouds" to back stuff up on back then, just cheesy discs that nobody trusted anyway. So the best way to save your work was to print it out.

I found it tucked under my bed in a dusty box. At one point, I had tried to turn my journal into a manuscript. I described it in the opening pages as "fictimentary": I was ensconced in watching documentary films at the time. I saw a "behinds the scenes" type program on the classic Nanook of the North. It explained how the director - Robert J. Flaherty - had taken creative liberties to make the movie. In other words, he had staged some scenes.

I decided I would do the same with my journal. To use the story of my life as a rough
backdrop for a larger fictionalized story. This would be ten years before James Frey would deliver an almost-unfactchecked "fictionalized" autobiography.

Look for some excerpts in the near future...

I Survived The Spicy Sandwich... Well Sort Of

It's been a coming-of-age rite of passage since dawn of time: The take whatever from the fridge and make something truly heinous no one will eat.

Well Mikey will. Because Mikey likes everything.

Living in the age of YouTube, you can now bear witness to the glory that is this peculiar childhood phenomenon. And because my kids film just about everything, you can see it here in their clip above.

This weekend I got to try the spicy sandwich.

And I have to say it wasn't bad. As a matter of fact, I was pleasantly surprised at how well it tasted. I'd even go as far as saying it was good.

"You survived the spicy sandwich!" said my son.

"I did," I said.

"But the true test of survival will come tomorrow."

"What do you mean?" he asked, his friends looking on in baited breath.

"The D-word," I said.

"You mean diarrhea?" he said.

"Yep," I said.

Let's just say I failed miserably on that one...

It Ain't Easy Being Green

Being green, or environmentally friendly, is a choice.

In recent years, sometimes this choice has been made for you. As in the case of recycling; we all are required to put our cans & bottles or paper & cardboard in that bin. It is second nature for most by now. And for some, like my children, they don't know any different.

Back when I first moved to Los Angeles in the early '90s, recycling was new to me. And it took some time to adjust to it. It took some time to change my habits and stop from tossing a can or bottle into the kitchen trash.

And that's really what it all boils down to: changing your habits.

Soulshine Products (disclosure: my girlfriend's independently-owned, single-mom operated, small business) seeks to do just that - to change the way we habitually think about what we use and how we use it.

From upcycled, hand-pour soy candles to natural cleaning products, her mission is to educate people that simply by using different products, you can help contribute to keeping the world a safer, cleaner place void of disposable consumer goods.

Her soy candles are made with glasses procured from local thrift stores and flea markets. Some of them are of vintage quality; some of them, once the candle is done, can be disherwasher'ed and turned into an everyday drinking vessel. Or returned and refilled for a discount on your next soy candle (which come in a variety of scents by the way. One scent reminds me of benediction at church. Lol!)

And when it comes to cleaning, not all your products have to be as toxic as bleach to get the job done. You can use her cleaners without having to worry about having any reactions to your exposed skin or the onset of burning eyes.

Anyway, it's all about changing your mindset and changing your habits.

Pretty simple things to do that will help change the world we live in, don'tcha think?

Maybe it ain't so hard being green?

Happy Accidents

I was having lunch last week with my friend Todd who I hadn't seen in quite some time. We had met as interns working on the radio show The Story several years ago.



We both shared a mutual affection for skateboarding and photography and for a world where art and life overlap each other.



We were geeking out over discussions on cameras and lenses and film stock (or the lack there of these days) when our discussion turned photography phone apps like Instagram.

I asked if he frowned upon them because it has been said that it takes the art away from photography. He didn't bemoan the presence of photo apps but expressed that for him, photography was as much about processing as it was about framing a subject (if not more).

He spoke about how he buys expired film. Because he generally cross processes anyway and he likes to shoot with a Holga. One thing he likes about his hands-on approach is that sometimes they'll be "happy accidents" - an unplanned effect that wouldn't hinder the photo but rather add a unique element to it.

I was having problems with my phone the other day while trying to shoot some outtakes during a cover shoot for the magazine I work for and had some technical difficulties for reasons I couldn't understand.

I got some happy accidents.

This is one of them.

Enjoy.

Want to Turn Your Car into a Concert Hall?

I’m excited to announce that I’m now contributing to Chevy Culture, a
lifestyle and auto site sponsored by Chevrolet. Click through for the
full post on Chevy Culture, and come back in the next few weeks and
months for more.


OK.

Now that that is out of the way.

A few months back I was approached to write about how music influences your lives, your purchase power and the way you live for Chevy Culture.

This came about through my blogging duties over at Dadcentric.

I'm a music lover, a music critic and a musician - why wouldn't I want to take on an assignment like this?

I am old enough to remember cars with only AM radios.

My how things have change.

This is what Chevy cars have today.

Pretty awesome huh?