That Funky Monkey

Ok ok. Let me admit several things. RIGHT OFF THE BAT.


I am writing two posts in a row about mouths. I don't care. I have no patience for collaborators. I must write about my mouth.


Second, I'm drinking as I write this. 


The second point is what needs addressing here. What am I drinking?

The answer lies in this song: 

BRASS MONKEY! BWAMP BWAMP! THAT FUNKY MONKEY!


Unfortunately, however, I am not drinking a true ass brass monkey. Which wikipedia defines as: "a 40-ounce bottle of malt liquor that has been consumed to the top of the label and then filled with orange juice."


Oh!


No!


My heart!

For what I have is not malt liquor but merely PBR!

WHY CHRISTMAS GODS! Why did you let someone buy me a 40 of PBR and not Colt 45 or something of the like?


Oh well.


Do you like orange juice? I do. Quite a bit, actually. 


Funniest thing, bro. If you mix orange juice with shitty beer it tastes awesome. Bubbly, beery, orangey, pulpy goodness.


Shouldn't I be writing about my Christmas dinner or something? Talking to you about roast beef and Yorkshire pudding? Probably. Because that is what I ate on Christmas and it was shitting good.

Thats right, babies.


Nothing matters to me in these post Christmas daze.


I eat what I want. I write what and when I want.


I drank that funky monkey because I couldn't help myself.


I'm simply the best.

My Mouth Was Two Bells Tavern

Tell me. Where do I find the best burger in Seattle?

I want to know.

For I love cheeseburger. I love cheeseburger bad.

Today I went to the Two Bells Tavern. I like this place. I like it a lot.


My mind was heavy and my legs ached from an intense morning of plastic glove wearing and donut slinging. I was ready to clear my head and to wipe that ridiculous donut induced smile off my face:

So what did I want to do in order to return to a state of normalcy? I ate a big ass cheeseburger. What was the quality of said burger? What was on it? What were its shining features? 

Lets start with the meat. .5 Oz of ground beef. Cooked medium.

The cheese? A bleu cheese black pepper mix.

The bread? Toasted sourdough baguette.

The toppings? Lettuce, red onions, and bacon (which I requested be added, with deep approval from the bartender). (I ate the tomato with salt on its own).

The side? An order of potato salad (which had little bits of eggs and pickles in it!).

The result? Holy shit relax-ass-ation in a dope bar after a long morning of work.

Can you imagine plowing into this burger after more than an hour of working a donut shop with a line to the door?:

I don't have to imagine it because I did it. This is my life. Jealous?

I'm jealous of past me. So I can't imagine why you wouldn't be jealous of me right now.

Oh.

What was that? Another question for me?

A logical question arises from the above description? I was at a tavern you say? If I was at a tavern I must have had a beverage? Was there a beverage?

You are very observant. 'An astute observation', as my coworkers used to love to say. Don't you know you sound sophisticated if you say 'that is a very astute observation, so and so'.

I confess. I drank two beers with my cheeseburger. What beers, you ask?

First, I had the Big Time Scarlet Fire IPA. Not the most memorable IPA I've ever had. Because I think that IPAs can be complex. They do have qualities beyond that bitter hoppiness. But I liked it. The bartender recommended it. A delightful man.

Then I had a beer I've had before. The Maritime brewery's seasonal: The Jolly Roger Christmas Ale. A strong beer. One I liked much better in tap than in a bottle. 

Overall the meal was awesome. Totally awesome. Awesome burger. Great beers.

Such a great way for me to relax after a weekend of working early in an intense space.

Other than the burger, the potato salad, and the beer, was there anything else in my mouth?

There were words and spaces in my mouth. This is the time when I'm tempted to ramble into philosophical musings. To tell you about a video I watched about dasein, about being the there, being the situation. About the way that in that bar I felt like the entire room was in me and of me. I was that situation.

I was that burger.

Hungrier Than Thou

Ryan casts REVIVE (but will it last?)

Hi, hey, hello. I just polished off the second half of a tube of cold falafel made in Dreamland. I ate half of it yesterday and half of it today. Two nights ago, I ate an entire falafel and in the morning I rocked back and forth on the toilet like a sinking cruise ship, tossing out turds like fat cat passengers who thought death on the high seas wasn't really a thing.

I thought Dreamland existed. The label said the company that made the product was Dreamland in Shoreline, WA. You see, you don't just get to go to Dreamland and get this falafel sandwich with its lovingly snug bevy of vegetables, tahini, and good old fashioned crunch. No. You go to the grocery store and you sift through a display fridge. Grab and go. Grocery store lunch. Save some dough. But Dreamland! Dreamland in Shoreline, WA seemed to be an obtainable place. A factory of moon people and effervescent clouds of wonder that create a falafel product that makes grocery store lunch options palatable, reasonable. This could be a wispy Mecca for me. This Dreamland could hold my attention long enough that I would trek to its headquarters and admire what takes place within its inner most sanctum. No address on the label, so I offered my curious vision up to the Google search engine. Google complied. I found Dreamland, take a look: http://www.seattlegyrohouse.com/

Dreamland Inc as a name meant nothing. It is an offshoot name for the restaurant and grocery's cold food delivery business. Dreamland wasn't real at all. Dreamland was a gyro hut. Now there's nothing wrong with this; I should have seen it coming. My expectations of a land where the energy of dreams were transformed into a medley of falafel and spices and then blanketed in pita were shot. The land that defiantly challenged all others to call themselves the birthplace of dreams did not exist. But there is a fevered vision embedded somewhere in that gyro hut. Perhaps an old woman stands next to the cruelly bright metal of the kitchen, holding a slimy bag of trash that holds gallon upon gallon of yuck. She moves to the backdoor, towards the beaten trail that ends at the dumpsters. Maybe she pauses. Her face flush with the idea of a place that really isn't anywhere: Dreamland. Maybe she cracks a smile. All that falafel of hers getting bought up. Pushed in and out of people she'll never see.

Sometimes I feel like I am in Dreamland. Just for a few seconds. Somewhere I strayed into unknowingly. I feel the vibration of that space, knowing it won't last, that I'll have to go back to recognizing who I am and where I am and what I do, everyday, everywhere. And then blink. That sliver of Dreamland is out of here. I mean fucking gone. There's no preparing for its entrance or departure. Not even any reflection. Something has happened to you outside the grip of your time and logic. It obliterates you, rebuilds you and ignores you. Forget your breathing, your heartbeat. Dreamland isn't an identity crisis. It's an end to identity. Fuck, it's like saying YOU, YOU aren't there at all, YOU never were to begin with; so stop pretending YOU are there at all. YOU are just something blended up with the rest of the breeze. 

I think I made this blog in homage to this Dreamland without knowing it. There are these traces of YOU that we try to remember. The way food tasted, the way we remember something we did or said. The backwards order with which I experienced a day of consumption. And I didn't want to make a logic out of looking back at myself. I wanted to reckon with some of the things that unwittingly go through me. That ignore me. That I ignore. See, there's my immediate memory of me and there's this inherited memory of here, Earth, cultural, political, racial, gradual Earth. The chunks of Earth I fuss around with, the shit I fixate on with the blankness of      a hungry animal. That's me stubbornly patching together a personality. Trying to learn the stuff I think I should learn. Act like I know it and then perform the knowledge in front of the envious. I want to disrupt that process and just roam around. I want to bump into a place that shocks and disturbs the YOU in me. I am composed of such facile quirks and gadgets. Writing about the Dreamland to me is writing about the thing I know nothing about, will continue to know nothing about but will sound aloud all the same.

This tirade isn't it. But I feel an urgency to pull myself apart by going in a lot of directions. Let me put more Dreamland into practice. It's time to create with what whizzes past us, away from us.