Blog
The Jazz Sporker: My First Talkie
This past Saturday, with the help of my good buddies over at Onward Entertainment, I took a giant leap towards achieving a dream that I've had festering in the back of my mind for a long time. For those of you who read this blog, it may not surprise you that this particular dream is to make a cooking show. For as long as I can remember, performance art (theatre, music and comedy) and cooking have been the two biggest competing passions in my life, each winning out at certain times over the other and vice versa. Because of this competition, I never felt like I was giving ...
Triple Crown: A Day at the Races
Similar to the Saturday on which my wife and I were married, June 6th started off a bit dreary and overcast. There was a light drizzle, the clouds more pouting than raining, but by the time lunch time hit the Sun had finally shaken off its Friday night and put on a good showing. I suppose that even Nature got a little excited and wanted to add some dramatic flair to the day, “‘is it going to rain? Boy oh boy I sure hope not!’ Siiiiiike, silly humans, of course I have whipped up a gorgeous mid-70’s afternoon with clear skies for your frivolous horse race. Now if ...
A Grand Life: Death, Taxes and Jury Duty
On the Thursday before Memorial Day weekend, I woke up around the usual time, ate my usual breakfast, and took my usual train line. Except on this day, I took the L train headed in the opposite direction. My route was leading me east when seemingly everyone else was headed west into the city to begrudgingly begin the transformation back into the “work version” of themselves and attempt to chug down as much of their favorite morning stimulant as they can to shake off the ghost of sleep still haunting their minds. Even though my destination is a place where most are ...
Murals of Bushwick pt. 3
Take Me to the Cleaners
In fairness to the handful of you who venture to read this blog on occasion, I have in the past made a promise to forewarn you if I’m going to hurl a paragraph or two of unsolicited advice at your eyeballs, urging you to eat better and think twice about what you are putting into your bodies. Well folks, the day has come, on a Monday no less. This week we’re going to pump the brakes a bit, temporarily put away our Spaghetti Carbonara and Cheeseburger Spring Rolls recipes and focus on the right kind of fuel to best energize the magical machines we’ve all been gifted as ...
Dear Mama
Dear Mama,
Happy Mother's Day! While I am sad to not be with you today, I am hoping this message will reach you out on the beautiful rivers of Missouri, or wherever your travels have taken you by now. To show my appreciation this year for all that you do, here is a list of a mere twenty things, out of the gazillion, that you have done to make my life special. Dear Mama, thank you for...
...letting me be a bun in your oven. It is perhaps an odd way to phrase it, but as I continue to move through life, I am better able to truly appreciate what a huge head start ...
In Memory of James
Seven years ago today, a young man in his early twenties went for a hike along the Horsepasture River in Transylvania County, North Carolina. It was a beautiful spring Saturday and likely the first of its kind that year, though it is hard to recall the days leading up to it with any degree of certainty. The warmer weather had begun to stretch upward from the valleys, bringing the promise of rain to the mountains and the evergreens therein. This stretch of land is particularly gorgeous at this time of year, with the warm gulf winds blown northeast along the Blue Ridge ...
An Anthropological Appetite
I shall begin this week's post with a tried and true, or really tired but true, statement: you are what you eat. Wait, wait, wait--stay with me for a second. This is not going to...
A Strudel Down Memory Lane
Monday marked the opening day for the 2015 Major League Baseball season. It is also the day that fans of ESPN's SportsCenter know as the moment when 70% of the daily top ten plays go from being alley-oops and thunder dunks to 6-4-3 double plays and walk-off homers. Each phase lasts approximately six months, so ya know, happy half new year or whatever, but if you're like me, you find this phase a little less whelming. Something about seeing the same ground ball being one-handed into the same double play five times a morning doesn't shake off last night's round of sleep ...
The Promise of Next Year
April can be a complicated time of year. It can be glorious. Or disastrous. Joyful? Painful? Perhaps sublime is the word. Regardless of the taste it leaves in your mouth, April signifies the end. A fade to black. A curtain call. An ex-parrot. I was born and raised outside of Chapel Hill, NC. A place known to most as basketball country and home to the best rivalry in college sports--some would say in all of sports (I am one of those people). In this part of the world, basketball is something that's closer to religion than recreation. The collective mental health of the town ...
