Tag Archives: lost

Bacon Consumption for the Conscious Eater

4 Feb

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Recently, Dave Good made the questionable decision of asking his Facebook friends for blog topics and  promised to write 5 of at least 500 words. However, like all Angelenos he has a secret agenda. Which is to demonstrate enough writing proficiency to get a job doing it and /or progress ideas from the page to more complex collaborative performance concepts. He is also very worried that his constant micro works as an excellent status updater on the aforementioned Facebook are ultimately stunting his creative growth. Anyways, a guy he went to high school with named Nick offered “Bacon”. Dave has decided to start with that over various requests to explain complex patterns of human behavior because bacon requires way less research. Dave Good is very good at research but he also has severe ADD and will thwart complex administrative tasks at almost all costs. Unless of course someone is paying him to do said research because after all money does have a special way of helping him focus. Anyone in politics or poker knows exactly what he is talking about. The following is a true story about a nature adventure outside of Minneapolis somewhere near the Wisconsin border. 

Ok let me just jump right in here I don’t want to waste your time with superfluous details.

Obviously when you go camping with 5-10 lady arts administrators from Minnesota bacon is going to a resonant part of the experience. I would love to tell you what happened the night before the bacon but all I really remember was being so drunk I fell backwards over a cooler and that we all thought it was super funny. Regardless, the next day we crawled out of our respective tents and marveled at the “Sexy Bacon Minx” as she prepared our posh and decadent breakfast. The process was expert and efficient and we delighted in the smoky salty magic of sliced pig belly. I’m not sure how many times each of us said, “I guess I’ll have one more” but I do know those numbers were statistically significant. It was a brunch worthy of our star studded celebration and we finished far less hungover and more impressed with ourselves than we previously thought possible. The pile of greasy paper towels left behind looked like the first draft of a bacon addict’s hand written thesis about bacon. I remember reveling in its scope and size. However our morning of the divine and sublime swine did not last until the end of time. Not long after coming to terms with our high stacked masterpiece of grease and paper, someone who will remain unnamed, decided to toss that epic stack of paper towels towards the still burning morning fire.

The towels landed dead center. After a brief pause, they quickly wilted and emitted what can only be described as the noise humans make when they take a deep breath to hold back tears. Then a faint centered circle formed and disintegrated into a gray void. And a black cylinder of smoke burst towards the sky.

Let me write this again.

A black… nearly opaque… absolute darkness… cylinder burst forth like a mystical demon prison unleashed toward a terrified and unready sky. It was a sight I will not soon forget. How many pigs worth of bacon had we consumed??? I cannot say but I discerned the tortured faces of at least 4 while their anguished spirits plumed from the freshly revealed heart of darkness. I do know we were all suddenly taken aback and at least one of us mentioned The Smoke Monster from Lost. (a once popular “Television Show” for those of you reading this in the distant future). After an anguishing amount of seconds the ultra-dark column of pig death had vanished and we were all left to face the cosmic implications of the experience beside the smelly remnants of the now dying fire.

Perhaps the strong constitution of the Minnesota Arts Administrator had already processed the moral ambiguity of bacon and I was the only one so intensely affected. Admittedly, I’m known to be quite sensitive. However, my relationship with bacon was forever changed. I’ve put it in the “special” category of food and only eat it during family holidays. Or if I have been served bacon while visiting a friend. Or when I’m in a burger joint and I can get grass fed beef with Maytag Blue Cheese and fried onion strings and local mushrooms and the bun has that perfect snap what am I going to do not add a little pig tummy to make it the tastiest thing in the known universe? I’m not a psychopath. I have feelings and big dreams and so do pigs perhaps we all know they are as smart as dogs. But no one ever rescues them because they aren’t cute! We so often confuse animal empathy for a selfish obsession with cuteness it drives me nuts! I’ve seen so many pretentious “animal lovers” crush bacon into lines and snort it I can’t even deal anymore! Hypocrisy is ubiquitous!

I’m getting off topic.

The point is I’m certainly not one of those people so I now only eat bacon when it looks really good and I’m too drunk to care or perhaps when it’s on sale and I’ve had a bad day and I know the ultimate tortured animal soul food drug will make it all o.k. again.

It is, after all, quite flavorful.

Love,

Dave Good (conscious eater)

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Return to the Twilight Zone

3 Sep

Am I back?

Who is the president?

What city do I live in?

That was a close one… Somehow I got sucked into some bizarre alternate dimension where smart kind people respected each other, and we all looked forward with hope to a blessed, exciting, and sustainable future. It must have been some kind of dream.  Needless to say, It feels so good to be back inside our mutual reality tunnel of loneliness and cynicism.  Wherever I went was so positive and rejuvenating that I was starting to forget who I really was.

Speaking of multi-layered realities, I find the best way to mess with your own universe is to change up your media stream. Most of us are constantly pulled along by a current of online and cable television experiences.  Even if that isn’t how you roll in particular, any consistent media habit can become psychically confining. Personally, I like to shift into alternate media universes whenever possible. For example, when I moved to Minneapolis and was at my absolute poorest, I could not really afford cable or internet. What I could afford was an unlimited movie pass at the nearest Hollywood Video.  This amazing place had become the repository for the remaining catalogs of numerous and constantly-closing local branches.  While the majority of the country was flipping channels, I was tearing through a near-infinite catalog of forgotten gems.  I watched over 100 titles in the first 30 days alone (much of unemployment is about passing the time).  Everyday, I was digging through a physical world of DVDs when the rest of America was pointing and clicking pointing and clicking. Almost nothing I watched was less than 5 years old (including Ultimate Fighting Championships 25-60).

When I did get out of the house with enough cash to cover two beers and two tips, I would find my perspective in debates and conversations becoming more and more unique.  It is amazing what an alternate media stream will do to ideas about “consensus opinion.”  My unique source list provided me with well-researched ideas that were lost to those swimming in the mainstream soup. Surprisingly, many 20 year old ideas are quite relevant.  Some of them even make status updates and blogs seem like juvenile indicators of the downfall of civilization.  Apparently a life of reading books, talking and thinking could be even more effective than blandly pawing an iPad. Before I get too far ahead of myself, let me give an example.

Once I was three months and about 250 titles in (my work/social life was improving), I started watching “The Twilight Zone”.  Don’t know if you have seen it, but it was the foundation for things like “Twin Peaks” and “Lost.” It is the classic dark horse for best television show ever. Still, reliving these old shows was not the most mind-blowing aspect of my viewing experience.  What really took me by surprise were the old public service announcements and commercials at the end of every episode (did TV used to only have 30 seconds of commercials per show?).  What I cannot forget was a PSA-like precursor to “Rock the Vote.” Here is what happens; an animated anthropomorphic spokesthing comes out to a repetitive jingle.  I can’t remember the exact lyrics but it was along the lines of don’t forget to vote for your favorite candidate blah dee blah blah blah. Then the anthropomorphic spokesthing proceeds to the poorly drawn ballot boxes and makes its selection.  The choice of who to vote for was between six potential candidates.  Each fake choice was presented with absolutely equal value.  I sat stunned on the only chair in my sparse apartment.

Six!? Are you kidding me!? 50 years ago a public representation of political choice included 6 motherfucking options. To me, that seems to indicate a 66% drop in personal freedom. Today, we don’t even pretend that we have more than two bullshit choices. Even when that rare third party does make a go of it, they are usually accused of attempting to destroy democracy (see Ralph Nader).  Or, they reconsider and join one of the two mainstream parties even though they barely fit in (see Ron Paul).  I am so sick of the pervasive illusion of choice.  Every election cycle we endure constant news, advertising, and infotainment, and it all boils down to Democrat or Republican, Coke or Pepsi, beef or pork, Bud or Miller, Marlboro or Camel, Viagra or Cialis, Xanax or Zoloft, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.

This is what happens when you get out of the mainstream current.  Suddenly ideas that should be obvious seem to bolt down from the heavens.

You realize that constantly choosing the lesser of two evils is basically a lost cause.

You realize that freedom is a battle that must be won again and again (someone that wasn’t me said that).

Your new reality insists that there are not two sides to every story, there are many, and pretending freedom is represented by a simple “one or the other” is pointless and exhausting.  During times like these I want to go back to the Twilight Zone.  I want the world that creator Rod Serling thought was cruel and bizarre.  I can’t imagine what his response would be to this one.  Sometimes the only way to move forward is to take a breath and look back.

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