Adam Rakunas's Blog, page 6

Election 2012

One last election post: no matter who wins, we will still never be rid of the recurring problems of Political Attention Addicts. In two years, the Half-Term Halfwit, the Semi-Sentient Hairpiece and That Bloated Adulterous Pustule will be back, trying to get another fix of the spotlight. We can’t vote out the ratings-hungry producers who let these creatures–who would barely pass a Voight-Kampff test–re-enter our public consciousness. We’re not going to have a better political process until more of us start paying the right kind of attention and get past sweater vests and hair and how candidates make us feel and start screaming bloody murder about candidates that plan on fucking us over for their own benefit. And if that means you and I and everyone with a conscience and brain cells have to start organizing and running and doing all the crap work it takes to get elected, we will have to do it.

There is too much at stake in the next thirty to forty years to leave the hard decisions up to pundits who hop from one cable show to the other, or candidates who are only interested in hoovering up contributions. We need to make serious concrete plans on how our society is going to deal with climate change. We need to make sure that the runaway costs of health care get reined in before our parents retire and crush the system. We need to make sure that women have control of their own bodies, that their health problems don’t get sidelined so someone can get subsidized boner pills. We need to kick our addiction to carbon. Anyone who talks about anything else is a distraction and should be ignored. I’d like the second half of my life to be a good one, and I’d like all of my daughter’s life to be excellent.

Vote, because your life does depend on it. And then we’ll get to work on the next round.

À la recherche des burritos perdu

Food always brings me back.

If I’m having a slice from Grey Block Pizza, I remember the first time I ate there, back when it was Abbot’s. I was taking accounting at SMC, right across the street, and I’d leave work early enough so I could park, take the shuttle, then cross campus to get two slices of Wild Mushroom for dinner. I’d bring along a copy of Fantasy & Science Fiction, because that was the year I had decided that I was going to be a writer. Being a writer meant studying the markets, and that was the market I wanted to crack. I’d eat my pizza, read stories, and realize that I so did not want to learn accountancy, not when I could be writing, dammit. That was eleven years ago. I’ve only got the one sale, but I’ve got two novels in the can, one ready to get sent out on the Agent Dance Circuit. There’s a new one I’m working on. All of this started in that grungy place, with two slices on white paper plates. I have some Wild Mushroom, and I’m back there.

Thai food brings me way back, to late nights at Harvey Mudd, when we’d pile into someone’s car for a trip to Sanamluang. Thai food was exotic and sophisticated and exciting, even though it was in a run-down restaurant in a run-down strip mall in a run-down city. I can still taste the ka nom pa kard, a dish that only Sammy’s makes. You shred daikon, make a thick paste out of it, then you fry slices of the paste with cilantro, bean sprouts, and brown sauce. When I went back to Mudd for the fifteenth reunion, I had a plate, and it was heaven. I remembered going to Sanamluang after gigs with the band I played drums for. I remembered the relief at having a real meal after I’d gotten horribly sick my sophomore year. I remember falling in love, and I certainly remember having it all blow up in my face.

I taste Carb-Boom gels and Accelerade, and I’m racing. I Ragin’ Cajun, and I’m back at Realtime. It’s always the cheap food, the everyday food, the stuff I’d have out of habit that ties me to somewhen. I can remember fancy meals, but I can’t recreate them. I can have a strawberry donut, and I can remember all kinds of things.

I had a crap race today. It was hot, and I’m out of shape, and I just couldn’t hack it. I stopped. I walked. I would have been better off staying home. But I drove out to Chino, came in last place, and I decided I wanted a burrito from El Pavo in Montclair. It was a bit out of the way from Mudd, but there was something about the place that stuck with me. I think it was the way the women behind the counter would put the tortillas into a steamer with a giant lever on its side. One of them would slam the lid, lean on the lever, and the tortilla would be flash-steamed–light and fluffy and sticky and, oh. It was comfort. I needed some comfort, even if it was out of the way.

El Pavo, I found, after winding my way through Chino and Ontario, past one taqueria after another, is now closed. Somewhere in the last fifteen years, it had turned into Alberto’s; the shadow of the old sign was still on the boarded-up storefront. I didn’t bother to get out of the car. I didn’t want to see if any of the old equipment was still in the kitchen, if there was an old menu floating around. It had been turned into a shell a long time ago.

Sometimes, you just want lunch. Sometimes, you want to remember comfort. Sometimes, you want both.