Coffee and Me

French Press. Formerly my preferred brewing method. Still use it sometimes when I'm in a hurry. Dexter Morgan uses his every morning.

My current favorite way to brew is the chemex. It's the anti-Keurig. Time consuming and delicious. If you're going to buy nice coffee, this will help you taste more of it.

I've been aware of coffee my whole life. My parents have always been drinkers of the brew. I remember being very young, waking up on weekend mornings and walking out into our family room to find them drinking coffee and watching tv. On one of these mornings, once I had the cognitive and verbal capacity, I asked them what they were drinking. They told me what it was, and that it wasn't for children but they offered me a taste. So I took a sip. My child's palate was none too pleased. I thought "Why would you drink something so bitter for fun? And you start your morning with this?" Ironically, I would probably still be disgusted if I took that same sip again today but only because I'm such a coffee snob that my parents coffee is no longer good enough for me. Later in my childhood, when I expressed a similar curiosity about beer my parents handled it the same way, casually allowing me a taste. Based on those two experiences I decided that if a beverage was deemed "for adults", that was just another way of saying it must taste like shit.

I didn't touch coffee for years after that. When I got to be a teenager getting coffee was never my suggestion but I would occasionally follow friends to a Starbucks to procure a sweet, creamy beverage that hid mediocre espresso somewhere in the mix. I would forget it was even in there until I was buzzing out of my mind 20 minutes later. I really miss those coffee buzzes I got as an inconsistent drinker. That was kind of my first experience with recreational drug use. It was the first time I noticed an undeniable change in my consciousness as the result of consuming a substance. I guess I'm saying that coffee was my gateway drug.

The problem with having such a low tolerance for caffeine was that I would quickly over-drink myself into a state of jittery discomfort. I also didn't want to become a person who NEEDED coffee every day. I figured if I was getting by just fine without it, why risk forming a habit? So I kept coffee at arm's length for a few years longer. Then one day, on a whim, during my third year of college I decided to stop in at one of the on-campus coffee shops to get a small black coffee. I figured it would be pleasant to sip on it during my African American Literature class. It was nice having something to drink during the lecture and it made it so much easier to pay attention. Half-way through the class I was sitting there realizing that my brain just worked better and faster with caffeine in it. It was like alcohol's counter-part. The same way spirits help put you in a state more compatible with loud bars and socializing, coffee helps bring you into a state more compatible with paying attention and synthesizing ideas. Similar to the way I came around to the usefulness of booze, I suddenly saw coffee as physiological tool. I left that class and walked home from campus wondering to myself, "How much more productive would I be if I just drank this stuff everyday? Why don't I just do this all the time?" And just like that I became a regular coffee drinker.

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Be My Guest

Me and my pops swimming in a sea of gifts. 

I've just returned to the city after visiting friends and family in North Carolina for the holidays. I had a great time. I stayed with my parents, which means the lodging accommodations were superb. Dave and Cid Brown are an incredible renovation and interior decoration duo. I'm convinced there have been times they considered splitting up and stayed together, not for the kids, but for the house. An average weekend for them is like an HGTV show if the hosts bickered and second guessed each other's decisions. Now that my two sisters and I have all moved out they've got this big, nice house where half the rooms are now "guest bedrooms". These rooms vary in quality and each have their own little quirks. Strengths and weaknesses. Pros and Cons.

Let's start with the downstairs guest room. This is the first room my girlfriend and I were checked into upon being dropped off by our limousine (2011 Prius playing conservative talk radio) driver (my mom). This room has been a guest bedroom longer than any other. It's housed them all over the years. Aunts, Uncles, grandparents and friends who got too drunk to operate heavy machinery. This is a veteran guest chamber and you can bet that it's seen some things. It's the only bedroom on the first floor and it's in a low traffic area, far from the kitchen and commonly used entrances. I'm not gonna beat around the bush here. If you're looking to have sex without being heard by my parents or other co-residents, this is your room. So, what's not to like? Occupants of this room share their bathroom with the public. So you're gonna have a lot of people going in and out, eyeballing your sonicare, trying on your retainers, drying their hands on your bath towel and who knows what else. Another serious downside is the brightness within the room during morning and mid-day hours. Come 9 am, this room is a goddamned solar farm. The only deterrent to light is a single layer of blinds. It's a cruel design. This room gives you the sound-proofing and solitude to stay up all night indulging your carnal urges, but refuses you the darkness needed to recuperate from a vigorous session.

Now, let's move to the second floor. Here we have two more guest rooms that share a bathroom. Let's start with my sister Katie's old bedroom. In some states it may be illegal to even call this a bedroom. It's a storage facility whose contents happen to include two twin beds, among many, many other boxes. This room would make for the most boring game of "the floor is lava" as there would only be about 2 square feet of lava. To the untrained eye, the space may seem like a cluttered mess but it actually contains a lot of history. If you have the patience to sift through these artifacts you could piece together our story from these VHS tapes, old soccer uniforms and infomercial products. If you'e a hoarder seeking a familiar environment, you should request this room.

We'll talk about that other second floor bedroom in a moment but, in order to save the best for last, I want to jump up to the third floor first. We're talking about the converted-attic penthouse bedroom. It's the polar opposite of Katie's old bedroom, containing sprawling acreage of plush carpets. My sisters and I each lived here during our high school years and there was a time when this was the crown jewel of the house. But throughout it's recent vacancy, furniture has been slowly removed, leaving it almost completely gutted. Staying here is like camping inside. It's an austere environment. If you're in this room you're on an air mattress. It's not totally lacking frills though, such as a private bathroom including a shower with a bench. Mid-shower you can just sit down and reflect on how your shower is going. If you look in the bathroom drawers you'll find complementary tubes of expired acne treatment creams left by former teenage residents. It's isolated location on the top floor may lead you to believe you can enjoy the coital benefits of the first floor guest room but keep it in your pants. It's positioned directly over my parent's bedroom, so there is a noise-ordinance to comply with. Perfect for a quiet hermit who doesn't mind sleeping on a vinyl balloon.

That brings us back down to the second floor, to our grand finale. The very best guest room in the home of Dave and Cynthia was my bedroom during most of my childhood and a little bit of adulthood. If you arrive at my parent's house and are given your choice of room say, "Put me in Ryan's old bedroom" and say it quickly, before someone else does. Don't be surprised if you're put on a wait-list. If my older sister Ashley arrived before you, then you can expect it. This happened to me yet again on this most recent visit. I had to spend a couple nights in a lesser guest room waiting for her to fly back from whence she came. Was it worth the wait? Unquestionably. When you walk into this room you may be underwhelmed. It's not a large room but it is kept clean. It doesn't have a private bathroom or anything blatantly mind-blowing. But this room's strength comes from it's focus. It's all about one thing and one thing only. It's all about the sleep. The bed sports a queen size mattress I can only describe as al dente. Not too hard, not too mushy. It's the only bed in the world I prefer over my very own. It's two windows are the only ones in the house equipped with room-darkening shades. They were installed during the 6 months I lived here after college when my work schedule mandated the taking of mid-day naps. You're all welcome. No matter the weather conditions or time of day, you can roll these shades down and make it feel like a 6 am thunderstorm. This room is so good that Ashley spent 4 days in there battling a vicious flu before she vacated and I moved in anyway. I happily rolled the pathological dice for several nights spent in such ideal nocturnal conditions. What's more is that I DID NOT get sick. I speculate that any remaining traces of the virus couldn't attack me because they were fast asleep.

So there you have it. If you're ever staying at my parent's home in Raleigh, NC you can now make an educated decision. Hope you're all having a good 2015. I plan to keep posts coming weekly, so stay tuned and if you're local to NYC, look at my upcoming shows page to see where I'll be doing stand up in the city. I'm at The Comic Strip this Saturday, January 10th.

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The Brown's Family Christmas Letter 2014

Sipping eggnog, giddy with Christmas cheer.

Merry Christmas! Since 2009 I've been writing our family's annual Christmas letter. It's a newsletter that my parents have been sending out to friends and family since the late 80's. Some of you may know my immediate family members. If you don't, then you will after reading this. So here is the Brown's Family Christmas Letter for 2014.

Greetings, readers. Welcome back to another edition of the Brown’s annual Christmas letter. This publication has become increasingly difficult to write as my immediate family has spread out geographically. I remember when all five of us lived under one roof, aggregating the highlights of each person’s year was a pretty simple process. One by one, I’d have each member of the family sit with me in a cozy nook, in front of a window. I’d provide them with a comforting cup of tea for sipping and a set of open ears for listening. Together we would reflect on the trials and accomplishments of the year. I would then weave those emotional nuggets into a vivid literary quilt of recap. Those were the good old days. Now Ashley and I live in New York City (more on that later), Katie spends most of her time in Wilmington, NC attending college at UNCW and my parents are still in Raleigh, NC. Luckily, through modern day technological advancements, I can still get the pertinent info to include in this letter. So, I now present to you the very first Brown family Christmas letter informed almost entirely by facebook profiles. Let’s begin.

Ashley started off the year with a post encouraging more men to take up pilates, citing the success of NFL players. She continues her career as a NYC-based pilates instructor working primarily out of Real Pilates in Tribeca. If you’re doing pilates elsewhere, you’re probably doing fake pilates. 2014 saw some career highlights for Ashley. First she became a SpringTone teacher trainer. For the uninitiated, that means she’s so good at this particular kind of pilates that she teaches teachers how to teach it. It’s like inception with long lean muscles. Then, later in the year she was quoted in a fitness article on Bustle.com. But if there’s one thing you have to know about Ashley, she’s multi-dimensional. She has layers. She’s not all about pilates. She also runs AND does yoga. Who else do you know that has their hand in so many pies? Her life is a blur of exercise selfies, upscale Manhattan outings, grungy Brooklyn dance parties and tops of the crop variety. Is she single? How forward of you to ask. She’s been enjoying the company of many esteemed gentlemen throughout the year. Some from Harvard, others from Yale, most from OK Cupid.

The most significant event of the year for me came in July when my girlfriend Julie and I left Raleigh, NC and drove a budget truck full of our belongings up to New York City, where we now live. We’re in a cozy little one bedroom apartment in the upper west side of Manhattan. We spend our free time exploring the city and waiting for Ashley to meet us at places. It was hard to walk away from the ever-improving comedy scene of North Carolina where I’d spent the past seven years gaining notoriety and the respect of my peers. Now I’m back to square one but I’m slowly gaining traction here. I quickly found employment at Crossfit 212, a gym in Tribeca no more than 3 blocks away from the pilates studio Ashley works at. Life in New York has been difficult. I’m a much more angry, stressed out person but I’m slowly adjusting to that new identity. During my first two months here I hated it and fantasized about moving back to NC 90% of the time. Now, five months in, I’ve worked that figure down to around 60%. You can read about my New York experiences and keep up with me at my website: Ryanbrowncomedy.com

Katie announced on social media January 6th that she would be taking a class to get her EMT certification. She did manage to pass the class and became a certified EMT. It wasn’t without its challenges. In March she posted about her inability to read my mom’s blood pressure. But, according to her facebook wall circa June 23rd she passed her final exam granting her status as a certified EMT. In February she took on a foster puppy. Ah, the old “foster puppy” trick, wherein a woefully unprepared college student gets a dog and explains to their disapproving parents that at some point in the future it will be taken off their hands by an actual responsible adult with some amount of disposable income. It’s a con first executed by Ashley Brown in 2010. While Ashley may have pioneered this hustle, Katie perfected it. I don’t even think she realized it at the time but she wasn’t actually lying about this financially stable savior who would swoop in and take the burden of caring for Chloe. She just neglected to mention that it would be the very people she was consoling about her terrible decision. When summer came around and Katie realized she could no longer keep the dog in her apartment due to outside factors, Chloe was passed off to Cid and Dave who now own her full time.

That brings us to my parents. I’ll admit I had to cheat a little and get some information from them that cannot be found online since their facebook walls are dedicated primarily to exposing blunders of the federal government. In June Cid and Dave Brown celebrated 30 years of marriage. Their wedding rings haven’t aged a bit.

This summer Dave once again directed the annual “Velo 4 Yellow” bike ride to benefit cancer patients via the LiveStrong foundation. It produced a lot of sweat and money, as always. This year saw record-breaking registration, topping out at over 500 riders. My Dad has always been an engineer and a problem solver. But he’s currently faced with his most challenging project yet; trying to find a way to retire while still supporting all of his vices. He hasn’t cracked the code yet, which means there is still time for you to invest in high-end bourbon before he does.

My parents spent much of the first half of the year living on Topsail Island, NC furnishing and putting the final touches on their beach house so it would be prepared for renting by the summer. During the final week of May the whole family got together and christened the structure with our annual beach vacation. I think it was without a doubt the worst one ever. A lot of the care-free nature of partying in a beach house for the week comes from not owning the house. If you’re renting, when you see something you don’t like you say, “Well that sucks” and then you take a tequila shot. But when you own the house you say “Well that sucks” and proceed to spend the rest of the day fixing it. Hauling a cooler full of beer down to the beach is a labor of love. Hauling truckloads of construction debris to the local dump is just labor… and not a preferred vacation activity.

April proved to be a taxing month for my mom’s heart in more ways than one. First of all, she ran Raleigh’s Rock n’ Roll half-marathon. Also in April, after struggling with health issues for months, our great dane Gypsy had to be put down. She lived 12.5 years, displaying incredible longevity for her breed. We will all remember her fondly. Her life can be seen documented in photos on my mom’s facebook page which is almost as pro-Gypsy as it is anti-Obama.

That’s it. That’s the letter. Boy, I didn’t realize it until just now after reading over the whole thing but 2014 was kind of a downer. It didn’t feel that way while it was unfolding but it doesn’t look good on paper. I mean, let’s review the stats. My parents lost a dog they wanted, and got stuck with one they didn’t thanks to Katie. We had a sub-par family vacation, Ashley can’t find a man worthy of her sweet pilates bod and I moved to a city I’m apparently ill-suited for. To top it all off, we frequently exceeded our 10 GB limit on shared cellular data, incurring added charges from Verizon. Thank God for Ashley’s career milestones, the continued success of “Velo 4 Yellow” and Katie’s EMT certification or we’d have no good news to report. But don’t you go feeling bad for us. The Browns are a strong people. We’ll just keep doing what we’re known for, marching onward and eating very late dinners. Hopefully 2015 has better plans for us. We hope you enjoy the holidays and then the regular days that continue to come after that. Now go to my website.

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Busk Musk

I really didn't intend for this blog to become just stories about New York stuff, but that's proving difficult because this crazy city is what I'm faced with every day and much of it is still very novel to me. There isn't a lot that happens here that can be explained without the context of New York. If I write about something that happened to me in a subway but don't mention New York, you might assume an aromatic backdrop of freshly baked bread and the presence of sandwich artists. But this tale is about a different kind of odor and a different kind of artist.

The rarest subway performers of all: acrobats. Some are so talented they can get tips from empty train cars, as seen above.

My girlfriend and I were riding the subway a few weeks back when a homeless man came onto the train car and began singing. This is a pretty common occurrence, though not quite as common as a sob story crafted to pull at your heart strings. Those are the two primary tactics used to get money on the subway. The passengers must somehow be shifted from their natural state of just not giving a shit. You can make them feel good enough to part with a few dollars by pumping out a rendition of "My girl", "Lean on me" or "Stand by me". (I don't know why, but these are the only songs. It's like they all had a big homeless meeting about it.) Or you can make them feel bad enough to donate by shouting a story at nobody in particular wherein you mention your military service, your status as a single parent, or (non-contagious) medical problems.

No sooner than this scraggly man began crooning, I realized that his gift of song came wrapped in a urine cloud, topped with a bow of sweat fumes. We weren't even standing that close to him. There was half a train car between him and us. For that I am ever grateful. At an arm's length his smell may have been terminal. The whole situation created an unprecedented conflict of my senses. In the same human being my ears found a friend and my nose made an enemy. It was such a disagreement that my other senses had to take sides. My mouth quickly joined team nose, as evidenced by my tightly clenched jaw and bone-dry palate. After frantically scanning for alternative origins of this scent, my eyes put their support behind my ears and refused to look at anything else for the next 3 minutes. 

Immortal Buble, after having his voice and consciousness uploaded to the cloud

In most fields, success isn't just about talent. It's also about being easy to work with, showing up on time, dressing appropriately for the job. Likewise, in singing for tips on the subway success isn't just about silky smooth vocals. It's also very much about not smelling like rotten eggs. That is so important. Most likely this man was clueless to his aroma. That's probably what was going on. But the much more perplexing reality is one where he knew exactly how bad he smelled. That would mean that he is so confident in his vocal abilities he thinks he can out-sing that odor. That's a kind of ambition Steve Jobs wished he had. It's not that this man's voice was that bad, but the level at which he would have to sing to offset that smell has yet to be reached by humanity. If Michael Buble stays diligent and we can extend his lifespan considerably he may someday get there, but I seriously doubt it. The real performance taking place was his own ability to continue taking deep, diaphragmatic breaths of the air that circulated around his body. For that, he deserved every dollar and foodstuff on that train. The next stop was ours and we exited the subway car. Others had to stay and the survivor's guilt still haunts me. But I don't think I got out completely unscathed. There's a good chance I incurred some minor brain damage because to this day I cannot remember which one of the pre-approved oldies he was singing. Then again, I'm not sure it really matters. I would not stand by him. I would not lean on him. And I find it very hard to believe he has a girl.

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How To Get a 400 lb Squat in 10 years: (Why) Do You Even Lift, Bro?

Why do I workout so much? I mean I work out like...a lot. I'm so into it. Oftentimes when I'm not working out, I'm telling other people how to workout while I watch them. In terms of hours and minutes spent, that is the MAIN thing that I do besides sleeping. But why do I do it? My motivation for working out, or "training" as I prefer to pompously call it, has changed a lot over the years. In the beginning, I wanted the same thing that drives so many of us into an exercise regimen. I wanted 6 pack abs. I wanted them because they were such a rarity. I saw them on the covers of fitness magazines at the grocery store but nobody in real life seemed to possess them. So, how amazing would it be if I did? "If I could be that person...", I thought to my 14 year old self, "imagine the power that would bring me." I knew the ladies would pay me more attention but it wasn't just about them. I wanted to get shredded for the general population. I imagined that if I took my shirt off to reveal an abdomen rippling with muscular topography then man, woman and child would all say "Wow. Look at that young man's mid-section. That's really something." Maybe they'd say it to my face, in which case I would graciously accept the compliment. Or maybe they'd say it to each other, in my absence. I was fine with that scenario too. So, I crunched, sat up, and twisted in all kinds of ways. I did "cardio" to burn the fat that was obscuring my awe-inspiring abs and for the first time in my life I made conscious decisions to eat something less delicious if it would bode well for project Abz. Within a year or two I possessed the glorious 6 pack that I had pined for. But it didn't quite create the massive cultural shift I had hoped for. There were no news stories, not even on the local level. My perception of myself didn't really change much. It's like I was the same dude, just with slightly less body fat. The whole endeavor taught me a very important lesson; nobody really cares about your abs.

Is anyone really surprised that the French version of martial arts is just retreating in a fancy way?

So, I continued to putting forth just enough effort to maintain my hard-earned 6 pack. In my senior year of high school I became interested in Parkour. "Parkour" is a french word that translates to "Jumping around and climbing on stuff". It's practitioners see it as a cousin of martial arts. But instead of combat, it's moving through your environment. Parkour introduced me to a concept that shouldn't have taken so long for me to wrap my head around. An impressive looking physique is only impressive because of the capacity it implies. Bulging shoulders, mountainous traps and a ripped mid-section are indicators of what a body can DO. Form follows function. The pull-ups I had been performing to make my arms and back LOOK good, had incidentally made my arms and back DO good. It was just now occurring to me that this was a way cooler adaptation in the first place. So my motivation shifted. I was happy with how I looked, but I was nowhere near content with what I could do. I wanted to be capable. But why? I think it was the same reason I wanted the 6 pack abs years before. The ability to scale walls and leap great distances was such a rarity among modern domesticated humans. Being a capable Parkour practitioner was the closest you could get to being a real life superhero. I wanted to set myself apart. I wanted to be special. The abs didn't do it. But maybe this would. Alas, I learned that just like abs, nobody really cares how big a wall you can climb and Parkour didn't hold my attention for long before something else captured it.

I first got into Crossfit my freshman year of college. Here's what it was selling: "Do these workouts and you will be ready for anything, at any time...and consequently, look amazing. You'll be able to weather a natural disaster, survive a zombie apocalypse and deliver babies of any nationality." Crossfit literally claims to prepare you for the "Uknown and Unkowable". Which is a great sales tactic. It automatically tailors itself to the consumer's needs. "Imagine what you need to be prepared for. Yea, we totally have that covered. We have no clue what you need, but we will definitely deliver on it." Plus, a lot of people are sold on crossfit the first time they do it because they think to themselves "This is so goddamned difficult, it HAS to work." But, the part that grabbed me was this: In crossfit, every workout has a score. Performance is obsessively measured. Like my prior pursuits, nobody cared how good I was at crossfit either. Except now I didn't need for them to care because I knew. Every workout rendered hard numbers, proving to myself I was better than the masses. Of course, I loved that. This is a big part of crossfit's appeal. You're simultaneously measuring and building elite-level fitness better than anyone ever has... or so you're told by crossfit's founder, an overweight former gymnast who drinks too much. But why consider the source when the message is exactly what you want to hear?

After 8 months of Crossfit. Still skinny. Still beardless.

Crossfit was fun and I got a little stronger but I still had this waify little parkour body. If I had been half of an acrobatic cirque du soleil duo, I'd have been the guy getting hoisted into the air. I wanted to become more like the guy doing the hoisting. So, I traded in my crossfit-style training for a steady diet of heavy squats, deadlifts, presses and whole milk. These things were present in Crossfit, but not to the degree that I needed. This shift in focus lead to me gaining a lot of weight and even more strength. Unlike everything that came before, this really did impact the way the world and I interacted with one another. Whether they realize it or not, people actually DO care how big and strong you are. Broad shoulders, thick legs and easily moving furniture are all things that make an impression. Maybe it was all in my head but for the first time ever, I could sense the world perceiving me as more of a man than a boy. It's entirely possible that this was a byproduct of finally earning my own respect. After putting the work in, I was squatting numbers I could only dream of while doing crossfit months prior. This commitment to heavy lifting and eating was like a rite of passage or a catalyst to seeing myself as a man, and maybe the world was just following suit.

So, that brings me to the present era. What motivates me to train currently? That need to prove myself has all but vanished. I'm a professional coach at a crossfit gym. So, to an extent, my body is my business card and even though I don't "do" crossfit, I have to make sure I can hold my own in any given workout. But that motivation is secondary to the knowledge that this is all going to pay dividends as time has it's way with me. A life-long commitment to lifting is like a 401k for bone density and muscle mass. These things become harder and harder to acquire as you age so it's best to hoard them while you're young.  Also, the time I spend lifting is meditative. In the gym, I'm focused in a way that is completely different from when I'm doing creative work. When the task at hand is picking 300 lbs up off the floor and putting it overhead, nothing else matters. There's no room for peripheral worries. The weight is so large it occupies the entire space between your ears. But, ultimately I train because it makes my life easier. I can carry bags of groceries up to my 5th floor walk-up or run to arrive at a comedy show on time without being a winded, sweaty mess when I hit the stage. Working out doesn't really matter, but these things do.

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Farewell, Coffee Heath Bar Crunch

I'll just come right out with it. Coffee Heath Bar Crunch, one of the greatest Ben and Jerry's ice cream flavors ever made is no longer available. You haven't heard? I wish I was surprised by that. Unfortunately we live in a world where the mainstream media ignores real, relevant issues in favor of more eye-catching headlines. Luckily, I'm happy to help pick up their slack.

Now, I understand the fact that they took a great flavor off the shelves isn't newsworthy. We've all lost a favorite Ben and Jerry's flavor at some point. It's sad, but it's a part of this journey we call life. And usually B&J have the basic decency to tell you when something is limited edition so you can keep your distance emotionally. Take, for instance, Magic Brownies. You don't think I could have gotten attached to those sweet, dense brownie chunks nestled into black raspberry ice cream? I could have! But it said "Limited Edition" right there on the lid. "You know what this is, Ryan." I thought to myself with each pint.

See? "Limited Batch" Their cards are on the table and nobody gets hurt.

But in the case of Coffee Heath Bar Crunch, those fuckers did NOT play by the rules. First off, this was a staple flavor for years. I was crushing pints of CHBC when Bush was in office. And they didn't just pull it from the shelves. Their betrayal goes much deeper than that. In an effort to reduce the amount of GMOs in their ice cream, B&J decided to stop using "Heath" brand toffee. So, if you go to your local grocery store's ice cream aisle you will be greeted by pint after pint of "coffee toffee bar crunch". 

"So, wait a second, Ryan. All they did was change the toffee from "Heath" brand to their own GMO-free brand? What's the big deal? It's basically the same flavor, right?" -My detractors who haven't yet tasted this SHITTIEST of toffees

It's so bad. My girlfriend insists it tastes metallic and blood-like. I don't know a lot about the toffee business but apparently GMO's are REALLY important for making toffee not taste like you're sucking on a penny you picked up off the floor of a K-mart.

The point is, Coffee Heath Bar Crunch is DEAD. This "Coffee Toffee Bar Crunch" is being held up ala Weekend at Bernie's with Ben and Jerry under each arm, respectively. It's disgusting. They couldn't just get rid of it. They had to desecrate it's corpse. At this point all we can do in the face of this senseless tragedy is come together as a community and try to keep one another from buying this imposter flavor.

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Rain in Manhattan: The End Times

It's been three months since I moved to New York City from Raleigh, North Carolina. There are some aspects of my old life that I've been happy to leave behind. I haven't argued with a seat belt alarm since I've been here. I don't have to worry about putting gas in my car or finding parking. So I guess mostly it's car related stuff. I miss the hell out of everything else.

I've had the pizza here and it was good, like they say. But I found it interesting that you can't go too crazy on pizza toppings. Most places will limit you to three, which is a perfect metaphor for New York. You have to pare down and decide what's really important. Space is limited. Time is short. Options have to be weighed very carefully. 

The impression that New York gives is that it's cutting edge. It's an international city, ahead of the curve culturally. But, in spite of being such a modern city, it's citizens are brought to their knees by a problem older than humanity.

That problem is rain.

When unexpected rain hits Manhattan, in the middle of the day, it's like a minor apocalypse is happening. As the drops begin falling, people start to look around. At first they're looking at other people. They're looking to see if they felt it too. They're holding out hope. "Hey, maybe it was a drip from an air conditioner 10 stories up" they tell themselves. They pray they're ONLY being dripped on by a stranger's appliance. In New York, that's optimism. But once precipitation is confirmed, they start looking around at buildings up and down the streets. At this point they're scanning for shelter. Again, time is limited and they have a choice to make. 

If you're lucky, you'll be on a street where awnings or construction scaffolding are plentiful. Just like a real apocalypse, those with means will fare a little better. They hail a cab and continue towards their destination, in a little bubble of dryness. But I have neither cab money, nor "spontaneous umbrella purchase" money. I'm in the "find shelter and wait it out" income bracket. How do I spend my precious time while hunkered down under protective scaffolding? By enjoying one of my favorite New York City sights.

Sometimes when it's raining you'll see someone who has just given up. Somehow or another they've reached 100% saturation and have nothing left to lose. They're usually ones who didn't stand a chance in the first place. No raincoat, no umbrella, no fucks left to give. They walk at a comfortable pace with their heads up. It's surreal. Almost like you're watching a piece of performance art. This is their only remaining discourse; to give the weather the silent treatment.

Classic Sprinkle Sprint. Note the downward gaze and short, choppy strides for puddle avoidance.

You'll see these poor saps get passed by another group that I call sprinkle sprinters. Let me be clear. I respect the hell out of sprinkle sprinters. They're making due with what they've got; an outfit made of 100% cotton and a dream. A dream that if they run fast enough, no water can touch them. For short distances or light rains, this will actually work alright. Sadly, even if the rain doesn't get you, you WILL be covered in sweat. But, sprinkle sprinters are a proud people who still consider this a form of victory. "Jokes on you, nature. I can soak my own clothes"

No matter who or what you become when the shit goes down, you need to remember one thing. Whether you're a shelter-seeker or sprinkle sprinter, a hopeless sponge person or a fat cat playing angry birds in the back of an Uber, always remember: this will pass. Our society will rebuild and your socks will dry.

So if you're visiting New York claiming you "want to bypass all the touristy stuff" and see the real New York,  don't hope for perfect weather in the same breath. Hypocrisy. You want to feel like a real local? You want to experience real, day-to-day New York life? Get caught in a surprise rain storm. You have concerns? Your cell phone might get liquid damage? That would be SO authentic!

If you're really lucky you'll retreat into the subway only to find that trains aren't running because of a "rail condition". At that point, be ready to choose Jets or Giants because you might as well be a resident. Congratulations on finding an experience that no guided tour could ever give.

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Bad Daze

A bad day for me is so much more internal than external. It's not that I've been dealt a bad hand. It's that I just can't read the cards.

You ever just wake up in a fog? Where the inside of your head feels like the air above Beijing. Your thoughts are stumbling around with surgical masks on, eyes squinted. Where life feels like work and work feels like hell.

I wonder if humans have always had these days. Did ancient hunters wake up in this state thinking "I ain't catching shit today. Today, I'm the first vegan."

Did knights have days where they put their chain mail on backwards? Where they swore someone replaced their sword with a replica 10 lbs heavier?

Did captains of great ships exploring undiscovered lands have days where they just couldn't stop confusing east and west?

I suspect they all did. I suspect phoning it in existed long before phones. But these days don't get recorded in history because nobody feels like writing on these days. The number of blank pages stared at though, are too many to count.

These days you just have to give yourself credit for showing up. Inhale. Exhale. You did it! That's another small victory. You're not gonna change the world, just be content to keep it the same. Maybe you just need a bit more coffee? Don't fall into that trap. Sure, on a good day coffee brings comfort and stimulation. On a bad day it's a brown fluid specifically engineered to burn tongues and stain pants.

But keep putting one foot in front of the other. Remember, it's "foot" not "hand." And remember it's "in front" not, "behind." These are the kinds of obvious reminders a brain will need on a bad day. Lower your expectations. Don't leave the bar up high, where it was set from a prior good day. And don't leave the bar until you've forgotten all about this miserable day. And try not to get too far from the bar before realizing you left your debit card and forgot to close your tab.

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How Underage Drinking Changed My Life

I was something of a late bloomer when it came to alcohol...and sex...and looking older than 12. But for now I'm gonna focus on the alcohol thing. I didn't become a regular drinker until I was 18 years old, during the summer that followed my first year of college.

By the way, how much of a failure is the enforcement of our drinking age when someone starts three years shy of it and sincerely considers themselves to be a "late" bloomer?

The sauce just had no appeal to me in High School. Nobody in my circle of friends was really big into partying. But, I didn't feel restricted by my friends. I genuinely wasn't even that curious to try drinking. Acquiring booze and keeping it a secret from my parents just seemed like more trouble than it was worth. This was also during a time when I was creating an identity for myself as a "healthy guy who works out", something I clung to so tightly during those formative years that it actually became a real part of me. For me, not drinking was an easy way to feel like I was better than my peers who did. This was a time in my life where anything that increased my self-worth was worth hanging on to, no matter how irrational. 

"Oh, you and your friends drink to have fun on the weekends? Not me. I run 5k's on Saturday mornings. What? No, I'm not training for a sport. I just do this because it makes me better. I'm accountable only to myself. How great am I?"

Plus when you're in high school, life is enough of a mystery. I didn't want any of the epiphanies of young adulthood being cock-blocked by an altered perception of reality. I suppose It hadn't yet occurred to me that epiphanies could be found within mind altering substances.

So, I arrived at college a teetotaler. You show me a brand new college freshman who doesn't drink and I'll show you one of the loneliest people on campus. If I had a time machine I would go back to 2007, slap my beardless face and say, "Get off your high horse and drink already. Abstaining doesn't make you better than anybody. Really, it's "not your thing"? You haven't even tried it. What is your "thing?" Watching a grainy, pirated copy of "3:10 to Yuma" alone in your dorm room on a Friday night...SOBER!? That's a pretty miserable "thing"." If I ever have the opportunity to speak to a graduating class of high school students, this will be my message.

But I just didn't want to be a cliche. I didn't want to be yet ANOTHER college kid whose main extra-curricular activity was getting fucked up. To me, centering a whole night around binge drinking was right up there with having a Bob Marley poster on your wall and throwing a Frisbee around an open green space. But, cliches and stereotypes exist for a reason. Bob Marley looks cool with smoke billowing out of his face, tossing around a Frisbee is fun and college students get smashed in social settings because it's a great way to bond with other humans. Every drink sheds a layer of carefully constructed inhibitions that stand between you and an honest connection. It's a useful pharmaceutical tool. If you're cold, you wear a sweater. If it's bright, you put on sunglasses. If you're in an unfamiliar environment, getting to know new people while still struggling to know yourself...you drink alcohol.

I finally began to come around to this idea during the summer following my freshman year. Since then I've observed that booze has a consistent track record of making good times better and loud, crowded bars tolerable. I've never been a big sports fan. When I'm sober, sitting for hours to watch a live sporting event makes no sense. With a few drinks in me, it starts to make a little. I'm glad I finally decided to give alcohol a fair shake. I was late to the party but I showed up with a handle of tequila, ready to catch up.

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More blog coming soon

Some really good stuff is on the way. Enough with all the pressure. Check back soon. When, exactly? I'm not gonna put a hard deadline on it. Just relax.