11 posts tagged “write”
First of all for those of you that I don't exchange email or a little Instant Messaging with, I have officially re-entered the restaurant world and with it the life. I have been away from it for somewhere close to five years, and after a craigslist post, a few emails exchanged with the Chef I am enthusiastically jumping back into that world.
I can't stress enough that before anything else you do in your life you must pick up a copy of Kitchen Confidential by one amazing man who goes by the name Chef Tony Bourdain. I will tell you one thing very honestly after reading this book roughly eight years ago, and that is that I felt that I was reading my own life and that this was the person I wanted to grow up to be. His intelligence and ability are unrivaled in my mind. His honesty about the world that all restaurant workers sink their teeth into it without parallel.
That being said, I have joined back up into the union of the alcoholic, sex addicted, cuss every other word new pirates of this world. I can't wait to be burned, cut, bruised and have this world not know what I did to make their meal. I understand that it's uncomfortable for some to think about the people hidden away behind those swinging doors, I personally am amazed by them and have missed everyone of them dearly since my departure.
There is a comfort in a kitchen for me, there is a sense of being home. I become reborn there, I become what anyone whom has ever loved me has ever known, and somehow still can not tolerate.
I see the world in a different black and white.
These are your tools.
These are mine
Even through the simple events of watching this new restaurant come to life, I am watching parts of myself dormant for so long come back to the surface as well. I leered at the wait staff with lust, I figured out who in the kitchen I am better than, and who is better than me. I calculate what I have to do to procure the skills I need and the interest of things that interest me.
No restaurant is different, everyone is always the same. I am the same again, and have given everyone I work with a different name. It interests me that my best friend in this world, someone whom I admire a great deal, when she heard me talking about my day and pouring over the details reached out and hugged me as if I had just been born. It interests me that I have been so stubborn to stay away from my passion for so long.
I arrived home a little while ago from running an errand for a friend, and have been staring at my computer ever since. I prefer to write six days a week, and today I am finding myself struggling. I explored some unfinished projects, I stumbled through about one hundred websites, and flipped through the news of the day. None of these paths have given me anything interesting. The next step I take when stuck is to start looking through correspondence with friends, perhaps in there someone said something that could inspire me. It has worked before, but today it did not.
I moved on to looking through blog's and websites of both friends and strangers alike, and that is where I found todays offering.
I am going to ask a question... and expect you to answer with questions. It is a scientist that I am copying.
Usually I find that sort of exchange pretty annoying.
Me: "What time is it?"
You: "Why do you need to know?"
Me: Because I need to know if it's time to hit you in the face with a frying pan, just answer the damn question!"
anyway...
I am at a point that I want to know what people who stop by and read this blog think about.
I am asking for you to propose a topic or just ask a question of me. I propose no limitations. Anyone who has been reading here for more than a week knows that I quite often change theme from personal to silly to creative writing. What I am looking for, is for you dear reader to challenge. I stress again that there are no limitations, and assuming I get asked more than one question or presented more than one topic, I will start with my favorite and work out from there.
Here are a variety of ways to get in touch with me.
#1 comment on this post, I read them and almost always reply so start there.
#2 Email me. I check that about a million times a day.
#3 Facebook. This is a link to my fan page, I only have eight and I am one of them. There are discussion boards and communication avenues abound so join up, stroke my ego and ask me a question.
I look forward to the challenge of standing up straight in the face of your proposals and look forward to hearing from you
So here it goes... What do you want to know? .
Seven, Eight and Nine years ago when I lived in Baltimore, on a rare day off of work I went out to buy cigarettes and some beer to drink. I only had to walk four blocks to the Korean mini-mart, down and around the corner. I would pass my dog’s veterinarian and many doorways and shops on the way. I would pass people in every class of life. This particular day I passed a homeless man, sleeping in one of these many alcove doorways, at least that is what my brain led me to think. After gathering my twelve pack and camel lights I hit the sidewalk again in the opposite direction from before.
There was new activity on the street during the minutes I was inside. That same homeless man, whom I had assumed sleeping in that doorway, was now being gathered into a large black sack with a zipper up the side. The paramedics treated it like a chore, generally ignoring the life that had passed while a policeman jotted some notes on a clip board and something made him laugh.
I have never once told this story of how I walked past a dead man in the afternoon on the street, mainly for the reason this story holds no dignity for any of us, those who died, he who writes it and those who read. Today however and all week as a matter of fact I have been walking through and over a makeshift memorial in the middle of the street. Every day at least once and sometimes twice I grab my backpack, plug some music in my ears and head to the coffee shop “Ike’s”. I walk toward Speedway Blvd. head west for a block, push the magic button that makes cars stop cross and head another half of a block east.
It would seem my footsteps have been crossing the location of where another person has died. The flowers appeared and photographs and notes, they may have been there for days and lost in my thoughts I wouldn’t know.
His death is inconsequential to me, and has no bearing on my life, other than I feel a little bit selfish for not caring. A more sensitive person would I suppose, but I definitely don’t. This person whose name I couldn’t have known, has died and has since been autopsied, buried or burned. He might have been an abusive drunk or on his way to sainthood, but his death means nothing now, he is merely worm food.
I’m not worried about dignity anymore. I feel that has fallen upon me with age. I don’t worry that I don’t have shame in admitting it, and I fart in public places. Death and life come and go, soon the nameless man who died on my path to caffeine will be forgotten by you and me the same. In fact now that I think more about what I am trying to say I don’t feel guilt for selfishness at all. I feel nothing. I am just a guy with a story to tell.
If I die on the side of the road, please don’t waste the flowers and make the cop filling out the report laugh by telling a joke.
I heard once upon a time, the single greatest line in reference to the unintelligent. I attribute the quote to my Grandmother because it sounds cute and clever to say, "my grams used to say...", but I can't be sure that she said it, but in my mind she always will.
"I can't stand stupid people, I am all the stupid that I can handle."
I love it. The only problem is that stupid is now everywhere. High School dropout rates have not declined, there are less and less people pursuing higher degrees in the sciences than ever before in this country. Stupid move. I am in partial contradiction to myself in being upset about such things. I am a person who believes that going to school is not truly necessary as long as you have a sense of curiosity and a library card ( or the internet as the case may be ). The justification for my thinking on the subject is simple and obvious. I believe you can learn anything, anywhere, just as long as you are willing to learn.
I don't always write pretty, I have that shortcoming.
I have made some very poor decisions in my life.
I am not some great intellectual.
...but I never stop thinking, so I never stop learning...
...everyone in some way shape or form has put their hand on a hot stove...
The problem for me is the dumbing of an entire culture, or rather the dramatic moves we make to ensure that we never have a culture at all.
I make a lot of jokes about a lot of things, but this truly is something that upsets me. I have no perfect answer to solve the problem. Better schools and education opportunities could make an improvement, but it all boils down to peoples mentalities. Learning is something we do naturally, but when we distract ourselves with copious amounts of television and celebrity gossip we remove that chance of something of value seeping into our minds.
I also think it is important to entertain. So stop thinking about what I have said now... if you haven't already, and enjoy.
I received a message (via Facebook) from a friend Debbie which read, “I was pleasantly surprised to login to Facebook and see on my home page "LJ Daniels is now a fan of Lucas J Daniels" (or something like that). We should all be fans of ourselves. :)”, and it got me to thinking.
My reason for creating a “professional page” on Facebook, was honest from the start as long as you read yesterdays blog… but you have no way of constructing the correlation, so I will explain it to you.
Ethan one of my two generous benefactors, is quite the scientist, vastly intelligent on the universe and it’s structure ( which mostly goes over my head ). Ethan is beginning production of a film about such things and has produced a trailer. I am helping him network and “pimp himself” as I often do on many social websites. For that purpose I created a mock “professional page”, to show Ethan how it could work and benefit him. I am also a bit of an ego maniac so instead of just editing a page, I went ahead and published it to Facebook. I also went to the length that I became a fan of myself.
This is where Debbie and her message came in.
I responded to her “of course I am a fan of myself. I am helping a friend set up a batch of networking through his website, relevant to the movie he is making and made the page to show him how cool it can be. It's funny I think, but I must ask, why are you not a fan of me?”
… and of course this is where I got to thinking…
At first I was thinking how amusing it was to get that kind of message from a girl I “dated” in the 9th grade… and then…
…and then I thought to myself, “Why the fuck not?”
I might as well just own it. I am doing research for a book. I am finishing a number of other things I will be attempting to have published. I might as well do more than look at Google Analytics to figure out who I am writing to. It is important to know who actually reads this.
So I’m going to fucking own it.
Visit my Facebook page, this is where I am going to be keeping people who are authentically interested in my writing and being kept up to date.
Visit this link to join up and become a “fan of me” Lucas J. Daniels
On a slightly unrelated topic I felt very aged thinking this whole thing through before I wrote it down. I was outside, barefoot drinking a beer and leaning on the fire poker as if it were a cane. I lifted each foot individually for as long as they could stand to be warmed by the fire. I thought about things, poked at the fire… and looked at the sky.
I felt quite old while I thought about this thing.
I have in my life been every type of artist. I realized early in my life that I wanted to create and to make something so perfectly beautiful that everyone in the world wanted to come and see.
I have made chalk drawings on the sidewalk. With little success.
I have played musical instruments from the saxophone to the guitar. I made little more than noise.
I have painted and I have drawn. I am no Leonardo da Vinci.
All of my life though I have known and eventually I settled on the art of the lazy. I decided I wanted to write. I was probably only thirteen. I would make up stories to tell, and stories to write. I would shamelessly show off, if only to impress the ladies. Today I actually cranked out what I can only call a "short short story", and while I don't usually post anything on here that I wrote with serious intent, I will tomorrow after a few "tidy it up" kind of edits.
... and on another note I would like to talk about how the hell some brilliant musicians got past me...
These two guys are absolutely amazing. I am going to include a song on tonights blog for you, I encourage you to sit back, crank up the volume and plug in some high quality headphones if you got them. I pride myself on knowing when things are cool before they were cool. ( I hated "W" before you did ) I am ashamed to say these guys have probably already booked Saturday Night Live, the last vestige of the " I knew it was cool before you" guy.
Anyway I will stop rambling at this point. Scroll down and hit play for The Black Keys ; Have Love Will Travel and stumble on back here tomorrow for a little bit of my actual writing.
Do they wander around all night, muttering zucchini instead of brains?
That is something that watching I would define as a good time. The good time is an essential part of life and not easy to find. You must be relaxed, comfortable and open. In a way you must be a vegetarian zombie wandering around at night. Part of you is thinking I want some Miso, so Tofu would be great... but deep inside all you can think about is BRAINS!!!
Wow, that is a broken analogy.
It really doesn't make much sense at all.
Irregardless I will keep going.
The good time at its best is often unexpected. I can't think of anything here except so are zombies. You never expect zombies, they come right out of nowhere. Unless of course you are a mad scientist and zombies is what you wish to produce, but you would have to be mad and crazy and a little bit aloof. I mean seriously who would wish a plague of the living dead on the planet? I wouldn't! You can't trust a zombie, they always turn on you.
I loaned a zombie twenty bucks once, and the bastard never answers his phone.
We used to have good times, great conversations mostly about me.
I would say, "Mr. Zombie what is your favorite thing?"
...and Mr. Zombie would say, "Brains!"
I would say, "Mr. Zombie what do you like about me?"
...and Mr. Zombie would say, "Brains!"
They weren't deep conversations, but I like them all the same. Mr. Zombie taught me great life lessons like how to dig out of your own grave.
I'm still trying to figure out where I was going with this... I thought that I had a point. Well I have this new band I want to go and give a listen to, so I can give them a write up for all of you. They are called The Velveteen Stuls, and fucking rock,
If my head was a ball of rubber bands, I might be able to make a career out of it. Travel the country from small town to small town not by bus, train or plane but by deflection. Using my own body weight behind my rubber band ball head and striking at precisely the right angle to travel through the air.
I just have to figure out how to stop. I suppose if all the folk in whatever small town I was off to got organized they could hold out a burlap sack and restrain me as kinetic energy fades. It might take a lot of math, but it could work.
Once word got around, and my popularity grew I could finally win the heat of my love... The Paper Clip Chain. My heart aches for The Paper Clip Chain, linked together in all the right places. Perfection. I have been in love with her, since I first saw her and the origami regatta with that clod Paper Football. He doesn't deserve her.
When I finally won her heart and after we were wed, we would child a beautiful rubber band gun. He would be masculine and sting all those who ever cross his path. His strength would conquer the world, and he would be King of all lands, (except for the janitors closet, no one goes in there) and I would be Rubber Band Ball Head: father of the King!!!
He was unstoppable when he went mad though and I quickly retreated to The #2 Forest. He killed his own Mother, accused her of treason. The love of my life rusting in the grave, I had nothing left and ran away. The power all went to his head, we tried to raise a good boy. His lust for money and women led to constant war, I did everything I could.
A hermit now, I haven't bounced my head in many years. I found a cave in the #2 forest, which thanks to my son, The Mad King, seems to get smaller every day. I think that maybe I will stay here, and that is where I will die.
or maybe having a ball head of rubber bands isn't a good idea at all...
After another day looking for a job and filling out applications all over Tucson my hand is sore... but I have some writing to do... and it's as part an application for pseudo writing job where I could make an overwhelming fifty dollars a week.
The reason I even mention it is because it has gotten me to ask what is fair of me as a person and a writer.
Hemingway always believed his stories ( which all had relevance to his life ) improved the further he was from the experience... I don't know that I agree. I have had personal success writing about things as they happen to me, but the impact on people and lives around me is where I began to have problems.
If people knew that I might write about them, they start to act like a person on a reality show.
They choose their words carefully.
I perhaps also start to over analyze their actions, and motivations in what they do and say.
I have this story idea, of course it involves me. I gave it a working title of "120 days in Arizona" in my head but haven't put any of my thoughts through the pen. I am debating and struggling on how to approach what I want to and what I have to write. The characters of my life will always reflect, but what impact of disagreement or resentment am I willing to take?
... but I am wandering from what I wanted to say. I have to write to this company a relevant experience to the business that they are in. I have a lot of exposure to this business and know what I want to write, but the subject delivery has to be mechanical and succinct. I don't know if I can't keep from a thought going astray.
I have been tirelessly searching the internet for things either thought inspiring or really damn funny. I have found neither. I have made a number of redundant discoveries about the internet however and I will list them in no particular order.
1. Stumble Upon will eventually lead you to a cute cat picture.
These seem to have no end to their supply. I personally do not find them cute, amusing sometimes I am not even sure it is a cat.
I did in fact find myself thinking a little bit about joining the evolution vs. creation argument, but I think it's just a silly fight to get into... the answer is pretty obvious don't you think...
I have also considered giving my own speech on God and Religion, but while wandering the internet I took a few tests, and discovered I don't know a thing about anything.
In short I wasted a lot of time today, time I could have spent trying to remember the specifics of the dream that I had last night, the one that woke me up with the only thought that it was the greatest premise for a story ever... and it meant a solid break from my writers block.
Nope, what I have to show for my searching for inspiration is THIS.
Now if you were a little put off when you found out that you are not quite as untouchable as you thought you were in your thought on God, you could always take the "How many five year olds could you take in a fight test.", although that one didn't make me feel any better about myself. I don't think it would have made a difference whether it was a lot or a little. It just felt wrong to take that test. If I want to know how many five year olds I can fight I will go to the playground with a chip on my shoulder and some nasty things to say about Dora the Explorer.
"Cocky Bilingual Bitch"
~sorry just practicing.
If you are looking for discovery or enlightenment, do not go to the internet. Not only will you find cats, games and the strange, but eventually anything you put into a search engine ( any search engine ) will lead to porn.
This has been your guide to wasting time, congratulations you just passed level one by reading this on the internet...
Have a great weekend.
