Love songs and trampoline daydreams
More than a few of you have let me know that the Comments section on the Blog doesn’t work. Good news – Amy thinks she’s fixed it, so feel free to try it out.
Moving on…I know it's been a hot minute since I provided an update, and that's mostly because things have turned into a pretty normal routine, which is less interesting, but so much better. There's not a lot happening medically to report.
Last night, I went to see Austin FC play against Club América with Louis. Shamefully, it was my first Austin FC game. It was part of the really cool Leagues Cup between MLS and the Mexican pro league, Liga MX.
It was essentially an away game as Club América has a huge following in Austin. They're basically the Barcelona or Real Madrid of Mexico. They play their home matches in the Azteca. Q2 Stadium was really cool, but it was no Azteca. Stadium capacity for Q2 is about 20,000. Azteca is about 87,000. Many of the fans that were there are fans of both teams – Mexican immigrants to the Austin area. For this game they showed up decked out in yellow. One guy had one yellow and one green Adidas shoe on to show his dual loyalties. Another wore an Austin FC hat with a yellow CA jersey. The atmosphere was really great. Louis is a season ticket holder and our seats were fantastic – 4th row, and close enough to midfield. We saw Austin FC score a beautiful goal from outside the box to tie the game and then win it on penalty kicks. Thanks to Louis for a fun night out.
The drive home was me trying to convince Louis to watch "The Last Ship" on Netflix. Amy and I have been watching a little more TV than normal and just finished up season 4. It's absolute trash, but also gripping. I encourage everyone to dig in.
How I’m feeling
Mostly okay. Good days and not so good days as it relates to symptoms and side effects, but nothing really bad or debilitating. It's funny, I've referenced all the gadgets that give me data. Between my watch, my ring, and my scale I know my heart rate, temperature, VO2 max, skeletal muscle mass, biological age (I'm somehow 38, despite the cancer), body fat %, and a dozen other things.
But the most important thing I know nothing about. I don't know if the tumors are getting smaller, staying the same, getting bigger, or worse – spreading. And it's another 10 weeks or so until I get any indication, and possibly no indication.
As the Kinks said, I'm tired of waiting.
What I'm thankful for
We've developed a great group of friends here in Austin. I lived in the Philly area until moving here at the age of 40. I have a great group of lifelong friends that I've mentioned here before. I hadn't had to start from scratch on the friend front until we moved here. Amy had more experience having moved from Texas to NYC to Colorado and back to New Jersey.
About 10 years ago, Amy's sister, Martha, introduced us to a former colleague of hers, Laith, who happened to live around the corner from us. We hit it off with Laith and Paige right away, and they introduced us to a lot of their friends, and all of a sudden we had a good community here in Austin.
We started an overly narcissistic cooking competition, Taster's Tourney, with a core group that we've gotten pretty close with – Laith, Paige, Louis, Ashley, Ambrose, and Aara. It's great to have them as a part of our lives.
A Memory
I had acupuncture earlier this week. I figured I have enough little things going on that it might be able to help with one or two of them. I'm unsure on the medium- and long-term benefits, but while I was in the chair with a bunch of needles in my head, arms, legs, feet, and shoulder, it felt oddly relaxing. It's another place where your mind drifts. Mine drifted to a friend from childhood through my college years that I've lost touch with, Dave Cooper. For some reason, the memories in the acupuncture chair were deeper than I can usually reach from those years. Almost like the drug from season 4 of 'The Last Ship' (you gotta watch it to get it).
I first met Dave when his family moved from Louisiana to Doylestown in the 5th Grade. His father worked for Pan Am doing long haul flights to interesting places. He'd be around for ~2 weeks between trips enabling him to be really involved with his kids, and then disappear for a week when he'd go to Asia, or Europe, or god knows where, and come back with interesting stories of far off places. Dave had a big family – he was the oldest with three younger sisters. I became close with all of them, and helped get the two older sisters, Liz and Emily, jobs as waitresses at Perkins. I felt a bit of responsibility for them while working there. It was important to keep them away from the cooks.
Dave was a bit of an odd duck – a southern kid transported to the Northeast. I think because of his family, he had the confidence to not care whether or not he fit in. His sisters were the same way. It's not that they didn't fit in, they just didn't care. They had each other. Dave followed the beat of his own drum. He played guitar but more classical and (maybe) flamenco than rock. He was religious – sometimes preachy but not in a high-pressure way. It was more reflective on the presence of a higher being that has your back.
I had my first shot of liquor with Dave in his parent's basement. I think it was junior high. I think I vomited or nearly did so. I smoked my first Camel unfiltered cigarette with Dave. I think I vomited or nearly did so. In high school and college we'd sit out on their trampoline and listen to Jethro Tull, Cat Stevens, and Bob Dylan. Sometimes we'd smoke a little grass and get as philosophical as a couple of Bucks County suburbanites could get.
Dave joined the Navy after high school and was on a nuclear submarine. We'd catch up every time he was on leave. In the time between, I'd often close Perkins with one of his sisters and then sometimes go hang out at their place with some other Perkinites – Joellen, Tugger, MaryJo. When I'd help my Dad deliver newspapers, I'd often stay up all night at their place, before joining my Dad at 2 AM or 5 AM depending on the day. Dave and I both fell hard for the same girl (Joellen) which put some temporary, but not lasting strain on our friendship.
And then after those years we sort of lost touch. Dave got married and I think has a few kids. He's also a doctor now. We're friends on Facebook and messaged each other a bit ~15 years ago, but haven't followed up since. I hope he's living his best life and still following the beat of his own drum.
What I'm looking forward to
Amy mentioned it in her post, but I'm really looking forward to having Dave, Jen, Brendan, Diana, Carl, and Trevor come this way for the Hot Luck festival in October (also Amy and my anniversary weekend). They've booked an Airbnb nearby and it'll be a fun weekend filled with live fire cooking, live music, some pool time, and just some all-around good hanging out. Can't wait!
Something I recommend
The movie “Moneyball”. I just rewatched it and, baseball fan or not, it’s really good. Aaron Sorkin screenplay, great performances by Brad Pitt and Jonah Hill. Phillip Seymour Hoffman going all out as Art Howe. 10/10.
What I ate
On Monday I cooked up a Chilean Sea Bass baked in a salsa verde with homegrown purslane. It was served with corn on the cob and some refried black beans. All relatively easy if you can get the ingredients. I used to serve the sea bass over grilled nopales (cactus pads), but firing up the green egg and going to the Mexican grocer was more than I cared to do on a Monday. Recipe is below:
Ingredients:
Chilean Sea Bass (or halibut) – 4 to 6 oz per serving. Pro tip, when buying sea bass, get a tail piece. It won't have bones.
4 serranoes, stems and seeds removed
4 garlic cloves
1 lb tomatillos, husks removed and rinsed
1 large bunch of purslane, leaves only (remove from stems) – easy to grow in Texas, hopefully available at a Mexican market near you
1 large white onion cut – half diced and set aside, other half roughly chopped
1 TSP salt plus more to taste
2 TBSP neutral oil
Step 1: Preheat oven to 350 degrees and heat neutral oil in a Dutch over or heavy skillet until it starts to shimmer. Add tomatillos, garlic, serranoes, and chopped onion. Add enough water to barely cover. Bring to a boil and then simmer for 10 minutes.
Step 2: Strain and remove all contents from the Dutch oven, discarding the liquid. Add it all to a blender. I use a large slotted spoon or a spider, but a colander will do if you don't mind dirtying more dishes. Blend until liquified.
Step 3: Saute diced onion in the same Dutch oven. When the onion becomes translucent, pour the contents of the blender overtop. Simmer for 10 minutes.
Step 4: Add purslane to Dutch oven. Turn off heat, and stir for one minute.
Step 5: Salt sea bass filets on both sides. Place sea bass in a baking dish and pour the salsa verde over top of the sea bass. Bake for 15 to 20 minutes based on thickness of fish. Pro tip – pull fish out of refrigerator 30 minutes before cooking to get it to room temp.
Step 6: Serve and enjoy – if being adventurous and using cactus pads, gently brush them with olive oil and grill them until they are a little more than slight charred, but not burnt, and serve the fish over the cacti.
Random thought
I took a history of rock and roll class in college. It was possibly my favorite class. The professor spent 3 or 4 lectures going back and forth between the Beatles and Bob Dylan and how they fed off each other and ultimately remade rock and roll.
Bob Dylan saw what the Beatles were doing and shifted from acoustic to electric. From folk to rock. From "Blowin' in the Wind" to "Like a Rolling Stone.” The Beatles heard Bob Dylan go electric and transitioned from mopheads to hippies. From "Love Me Do" to "Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band.” Without each other, neither would've become what they became. At least that was the professor's thesis.
This past weekend Amy and I did a six mile hike to start to train for the Dolomites where we saw the city's poison ivy eating goats. We followed it up with a fun Saturday night out with Laith and Paige. We went to La Calamar, a relatively new French Bistro in our neighborhood and then caught some live music at the Saxon Pub. We saw the Wind and the Wave, which was not so much a boot-scooting band, as a sit-and-hear-a-sad-song band. The lead singer had a beautiful and dramatic voice, if you're into someone singing songs like "You can do much better than me".
Amy brought up that their song "You can do much better than me" was in the vein of some of Bob Dylan's love songs. I'm very proud of her for this. One of the lectures from the history of Rock and Roll class was that before Bob Dylan, there were essentially two types of love songs:
#1: I love you and you love me
#2: I love you and you don't love me (yet, or never will)
Yes, there are variations on the above, but ultimately, most love songs can all be grouped into one of the two categories. Until Bob Dylan rolls along with the third:
#3: You love me but I don't love you.
It's kind of a jerk thing to sing about. It's not the way you should ever treat someone. You don't sing to someone to make them go away. You sing to them to let them know that you love them. You're kind of an asshole if you sing to someone "It ain't me babe" or "All I really want to do is, baby, be friends with you.”
But, in another respect, most of us have been that asshole at some point in our lives. We've rejected someone, but not just that – rejecting and being rejected is just a necessary component of monogamy and getting to the one you trust. It's that most of us have rejected someone in an unkind way. We've communicated poorly. We've said hurtful things. We haven't recognized them. We've used a text instead of a discussion, or a phone call rather than being face to face. We've ghosted. We've failed to find the balance between compassion, directness, and empathy. We've failed to be our better selves.
We've forgotten what it's like to be the other person.
At least Bob Dylan was being direct. It’s also possible (likely even) that he was telling the folk movement that it ain't him that's going to be their messiah. Songs can do two things at once. Anyway, "You can do much better than me" was a little different and sort of a new branch in the love song tree:
#4. What are you doing with me? You can do so much better. Essentially, I love you and you love me, but why do you love me, I'm a worthless piece of shit?
Or maybe it was in the vein of Beck's, I'm a loser baby, so why don't you kill me.
Anyway, it was a good song.
Later, Bob Dylan invented the Divorce album with "Blood on the Tracks.” Willie Nelson followed that up with "Phases and Stages.” Beck put out "Sea Change.” All three are heart wrenching in their own way, and great albums to listen to after a hard breakup.
