My piece “Snake Eyes” is in The Molotov Cocktail.
Thank you Josh Goller for including my story!
http://themolotovcocktail.com/volume-3/vol-3-issue-24/snake-eyes/
I am thrilled to have a piece in Lost in Thought: Issue 4 and be in the company of such mega-talented artists and writers: Jules Archer, Linda Simoni-Wastila, Josh Denslow, Harley May, Bud Smith, Gregory Sherl, Jen Knox, Kristine Ong Muslim, Gloria Mindock, Pamela Davis, Tina Barry, Loren Moreno, Mathieu Callier and Michael Seidel. Thank you publisher Kyle Schruder and Editor Robert Vaughan!
The Lunch Lady Cookbook
Campfire Cookin’ in the Kitchen
Hi there boys and girls! This is The Lunch Laddy comin’ at ya with a new chapter of The Lunch Lady Cookbook. This week’s theme is Campfire Cookin’ in the Kitchen, one man’s harrowing tale of survival and redemption during (a 2 hour) power outage. We had some blustery weather recently. Actually, more like 24 hours of sustained high winds, with gusts up to 50 miles per hour. Not exactly Hurricane Sandy, but enough to blow your hat off and take down trees and power lines. We used to lose power all the time up here in God’s country. In fact, it seemed that the power would go out every time I sneezed or passed more gas than usual. Although things have recently improved in at least one of those areas, it’s still “lights out” in blustery high winds, which brings us to the point of this chapter.
When I awoke to the sound of howling wind and the lights winking out, my first concern was survival. Survival, as in “How the Hell am I gonna make coffee?” Fortunately, my days as a Boy Scout taught me more than how to execute the J stroke with a canoe paddle or how to weave a lanyard. It burned the phrase: “Be Prepared” into the very core of my being. I have an old fashioned hand powered coffee grinder for occasions such as this. While it may look like something from Little House on the Prairie it gets the job done and grinds those beans as good as my fancy schmancy high tech Cuisinart coffee grinder.
Then there’s the problem of heating water. The Lunch Laddy’s primary stove is electric. I know, “Electric stove? Blasphemy!” you say. But you work with what you got. I do have a wood stove that I could hang a cauldron over, but it wasn’t necessary to go totally American Colonial quite yet. A quick rummage through the Lunch Laddy’s well stocked Apocalypse Closet produced a three burner Coleman camp stove and a propane supply that could barbecue enough yak meat to feed Batu Khan’s Golden Horde. After a bit of fumbling around, I managed to set up the stove and singe my hair and eyebrows in the process of lighting one of the burners. With the immediate crisis averted and caffeine now properly stimulating my frontal cortex, I turned my attention to cooking breakfast.
I contemplated my fate as the January winds howled and moaned outside the frost covered windows, and asked myself, what would Jack London do? I imagined him calling: “ A whisk! A whisk! My kingdom for a whisk!” While I didn’t have all the fixin’s that a cook in a Klondike gold mining camp might have had, such as fatback, sourdough biscuits & redeye, I did have ham & potatoes & eggs & cheese. I also had a secret weapon to pull it all together ~ Dave’s Gourmet Insanity Sauce. (TM) More on that in a bit.
Now, I present to you the Lunch Lady Mining Camp Scramble.
Ingredients:
- 3 Large Eggs
- Worcester Sauce (dash)
- Milk (dash)
- 2 Small Red Potatoes (chopped)
- Chopped Onion (1/2 cup)
- Chopped Ham (1/2 cup)
- Shredded Sharp Cheddar (1/2 cup)
- Garlic Powder
- Sea Salt
- Black Pepper
- Dave’s Gourmet Insanity Sauce (TM)
- Olive Oil (2 tablespoons)
Preparation:
- Heat oil in a cast iron frying pan (Yes, cast iron. After all this is a mining camp recipe)
- Chop potatoes into small pieces and throw ‘em in the pan. Keep tossing and turning until they start to soften up and turn brown and crispy. This may take a while.
- Add chopped onions and ham.
- Combine eggs, worcester sauce, milk and spice in mixing bowl. Whisk vigorously.
- Toss it all into the pan, scrambling, turning, whisking, tossing and flogging continuously.
- Add cheese and continue the above contortions until cheese is melted.
- Serve immediately. Garnish with hot sauce for an extra kick.
Beverage Pairing: Cowboy coffee (with chewable grounds)
Music Pairing: Oh Susana, Sweet Betsy From Pike, 15 Miles on the Erie Canal, My Darlin’ Clementine
OK ~ so here’s the thing with the hot sauce. Pay attention to the label! You think I’m kidding? I’m not! Dave’s Gourmet Insanity Sauce is a high quality product. While it does come with several caveats on the label, I think it should also come with nuclear launch codes. The label says “The Original Hottest Sauce in the Universe!” I am now a true believer. It is every bit of that and more. It’s described as “A great cooking ingredient for sauces, soups and stews. Also, strips waxed floors and removes driveway grease stains.” But here’s the IMPORTANT part, so PAY ATTENTION. It says “use one drop at a time.” Did you hear me? I said ONE. DROP. AT. A. TIME! Don’t make the same mistake I did, and slather it on your eggs, because it is FIRE in the HOLE Baby ~ Goin’ in and comin’ out!
By the way, the power came back on before I finished cooking breakfast. At least now I know that I can survive campfire cookin’ in the kitchen and if Dave’s Gourmet Insanity Sauce doesn’t actually cause the Apocalypse, it will help me survive it.
Until next time, savor life one drop at a time and eat hearty maties!
My story “Elegy for the Old Republic” is up on Red Fez.
Thank you editor Andy Meisenheimer for including my work with pieces from so many wonderful writers!
http://www.redfez.net/fiction/472
My Story “Fly the Friendly Skies” is in “real” the anthology of nonfiction from “Pure Slush.” Thank you editor and publisher Matt Potter for including my work in this wonderful collection from so many terrific writers!
http://www.lulu.com/shop/pure-slush/real-pure-slush-vol-3/paperback/product-20465619.html
I Don’t Have a Leg to Stand On
I’m busier than a one legged man in an ass kicking contest. Yup. That’s me. I’m the one legged man. And I’m getting my ass kicked.
You know how some families over-share with those embarrassing annual family letters?
I mean, I’m looking at one now, staring at photos of absolutely unrecognizable people, asking “Who the HELL are these people?” (Although as I look at this closer I see that this letter DID go to the wrong address. ) Whoops. Sorry. My bad. I’ll just tape this up here, and here…..
Well, anyway, here’s my “over-sharing” holiday letter ~
“It was a dark and stormy night…” and I took a monster header down a steep muddy embankment in the pouring rain just after dark a week ago. I stepped on a patch of mud on the steep pitch in front of my next door neighbor’s house that was slicker than greased butter. (I know. That’s not a very good analogy) Before I even had time to think “Whoa, I can’t believe it’s not butter!” I was off my feet and in the air. One second I’m walking through a deluge, just minding my own business, taking in the evening air and then BAM! next second I’m rocketing downhill at the speed of light, like an Olympic luge racer, except for my left leg, which I left behind. Long story short ~ I watched in amazement as my left leg twisted into impossible shapes like a balloon at a children’s birthday party.
Fast forward ~ one week later ~
My physician calls with my MRI results. My ACL looks intact, (Which is wonderful.) He says I have an ACL like the steel cable that held the Hindenberg Zeppelin to the docking station ( No, wait ~ that’s not a good metaphor) but that my cartilage is toast ~ which makes me crave butter and honey.
My orthopedic consult was initially scheduled a month from now ~ A month? C’mon ~ seriously?
Of course an injury like this at this point in my life gives rise to many concerns and questions. One of the things that concerns me is that after only a few days, I have stopped asking most questions. Always one to ask “why?” or “how? or “what if?”, sadly, now I just seem to bark “Where the fuck is my cane????
Another of my burning questions is “How will this impact my fun?” I want to know whether or not I’ll be able to do a scheduled 5 day canoe trip down the Green River in Utah the first week in April. I’m one of the last of the hard core hopeless romantics and eternal optimists, but I’m looking for a shot of reality too. If the trip was tomorrow, the only way I could even get in any kind of boat would be for a Viking funeral ~ carried in a supine position by Viking maidens and set aflame on Seneca Lake while my cocker spaniels, Chauncy and Ollie stand at attention on the cliff and blow “Ricolah” from those really giant alpine horns. The Green River and Canyonlands is the real deal. It’s one thing for me to try and go all Robert Mitchum but another thing to possibly put the other 3 in my party at risk just because I’m trying to use up my last gram of testosterone and we’re out in the friggin’ middle of the marmot infested Utah wilderness and I’m suddenly all Burt Reynolds in Deliverance with my broken femur lashed to a canoe paddle while some one toothed hillbilly named Festus takes potshots at us from the cliff dwellings and my compadres are trying to haul my sorry ass out of there day after day.
But, I’m getting ahead of myself….
To prove that thing about the squeaky wheel….I guess whining is a good negotiation tactic. I whimpered and moaned my way from a consult a month away to tomorrow at 9 AM. (I hope I can get up in time!) Actually I sent an e mail. (I might have exaggerated just a teensy weensy bit.) I think I kinda described how I was using a rattlesnake as a tourniquet to staunch the bleeding from my femoral artery? (Too much?)
I guess my karma’s come back to haunt me.
“C’mon ya big baby, ya still got one good leg. Get back in there.” (Mike Maxwell – Legendary (in his mind) Youth Soccer Coach )
At least I have the internet to help me research this (and also scare the absolute bejeezus out of myself , overwhelmed by creeping paranoia as I self diagnose every other malady I come across in my scholarly Google research. For instance, I had no idea you could get those insidious brain eating amoeba from a knee injury. Who knew?
Sometimes ignorance is bliss. In the meantime, rehabilitation starts right at home in Big Skyy Country.
(and I don’t mean Montana.)
I was in one of those warehouse sized discount stores the other day when I came across a table stacked with books. One of my old favorites jumped right out at me and I picked it up. I was surprised to see a brand new printing of the Jack Kerouac classic On the Road. That book had a major influence on me as a teenager and young man. I remember finding that and copies of Henry Miller’s Tropic of Cancer and Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged in a box of my Mom’s books that was stashed in our basement. These books had all been controversial for different reasons and I remember feeling like I had come across a secret cache of some kind of forbidden fruit.
Kerouac had the idea for On The Road in the late 40’s and finished his first draft on one continuous scroll in 1951, although it wasn’t published until 1957. As I held this new edition in my hand I couldn’t stifle my ironic amusement at seeing the latest edition of On The Road being marketed in a discount store with the phrase “NOW! A MAJOR MOTION PICTURE!” plastered all over the cover, along with glossy photos of the 20-something actors smiling with perfect teeth and stylishly coiffed hair who are presumably playing the roles of Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg and Neal Cassady who were, in fact, unwashed, speed addled, pot smoking, besotted, penniless, rag tag vagabonds and not Barbie and Ken Dolls.
I admit to feeling some consternation that one of my own most revered icons from my wayward youth was NOW! A MAJOR MOTION PICTURE! Sacrilege, I say! Not really, but it’s a little like the way I felt when I figured out there was no Santa Claus, or that my Davy Crockett toys had been sold in a garage sale. The death of the 60’s was hard enough to take back then, but do you have to keep rubbing it in in 2012 by making On The Road into Beverly Hills 90210?
So, they finally came out with a film version of On The Road. Well, it took ’em long enough. Kerouac wrote the thing 61 years ago. By the way, what kind of advertising genius still calls films “motion pictures”? The Golden Age of Hollywood is long gone, my friend. A friend of mine told me today that Allen Ginsberg bobbleheads are part of the marketing campaign. Seriously? Must you? That’s just like pouring salt in the wound. If you’re going to do that, then it seems like a Walt Whitman teddy bear would be huge. Or how about a Charles Bukowski doll that smokes, drinks and curses?
I must admit, I am kind of curious about this “major motion picture.” However, I know I’ll be watching this one at home on Movies on Demand, amongst the trappings of my bourgeois lifestyle as I lay draped in velvet and sipping an insouciant cabernet that doesn’t bite back.
Book Review
Suicide – Living With the Question
Ruth H. Maxwell – Author
We’ve all been affected by the sudden and unexpected death of someone who is close to us or whom we’ve known personally, peripherally or even just cared about from a distance. It is especially perplexing when that person has taken his or her own life, and even more so if they were young and appeared to be healthy, happy and successful. It is all the more horrific if it is a family member and absolutely unthinkable when it is your own child. Ruth H. Maxwell’s book, Suicide – Living With the Question, is an unflinching, honest and poignant narrative of a journey through uncharted territory after the unthinkable has happened, a journey that no parent should ever have to make. The opening part of the book documents the challenges that she and her family and their friends were faced with after her son Bill took his own life just days before his 36th birthday. It is a book that has essentially taken her 23 years to write. Maxwell said, “It took me many years to write it. It was like peeling an onion, layer after layer. A bit like life.”
Suicide – Living with the Question moves far beyond the personal narrative and into the realm of spiritual, philosophical and psychological questions that arise in our attempt to understand such an inexplicable event and find the meaning within. It is written on a personal level in clear, accessible language, and balances the reflective process with research based science. One of the most important aspects of the book is the examination of social norms and prevailing attitudes about the subject. It takes a hard look at the subject of self esteem and the images we project of ourselves and various societal factors that lead to denial and, consequentially, the inability to recognize the signs and signals when someone may be at risk.
I have the deepest admiration and respect for the strength, patience and great fortitude it took to write this important book. I must confess that it also required courage for me to read it, because Bill was my cousin. Reading the book has been a stunning revelation to me and a journey of self discovery that brought me to tears on more than one occasion. I learned of Bill’s death when I was far away from home and had fallen out of contact with much of my extended family. I couldn’t begin to fathom how or why something like this could possibly have happened and never talked it through it with anyone. I still hadn’t completely come to terms with the tragic death of my own younger brother not that many years earlier and now Bill’s death was something I couldn’t really wrap my mind around. I was at a loss as to what to do. Before I knew it, years had passed and I had never taken the time to try and understand it or to fully reflect upon it. Reading Ruth H. Maxwell’s book provided a bridge back to that lost part of my family history and gave me back a piece of myself. It allowed me to emotionally process the narrative of my cousin’s death and the effects it had upon his immediate family, close friends and colleagues. On a personal level, the book also helped me to examine my own questions, and to acknowledge my sense of loss as well as feelings of grief, guilt, shame, blame, regret and acceptance, and a whole spectrum of other emotions.
“When the truth can be told and not judged or evaluated, love follows, for it flourishes in the light.” Ruth H. Maxwell
Michael Gillan Maxwell is a visual artist, writer, editor, teacher and educational consultant. He lives with his family in the Finger Lakes Region of New York State.
Your Own Back Yard - Michael Gillan Maxwell 