One Beer #2: Ice Cold Tecate
Here at one beer, a beer can be anything. This is this one.
Ok - let’s try a test run of this.
Tonight, I’m nervously streaming over a Tecate, a beer I’ve certainly had before but certainly pronounce wrong. I say tuh-ka-tee, like I’d heard my uncle say it growing up. Someone I could trust, my uncle. Someone who does think things through and does arrive at the kind of salient points.
Tecate is another Mexican beer. It’s better over tacos, much like the choice from last week. Tonight, it’s the buffer between me and my thawing dinner, a batch soup I made last night. Chickpeas and white beans in an onion-y1 chicken broth. Thee was some version of this soup in the most recent Bon Apetit, and I made it with some extras once and really enjoyed it. The best part of a batch of soup, though, is the amount of meals it makes after, to me. Dinners, lunches, handled, albeit frozen. So nice, to not have to think about it, or to have to really hassle.
Was it my uncle? Or some image I have of my uncle and the kind of people like him I remember? I’ve been watching Friday Night Lights again, and I remain tickled at every turn. I didn’t remember just how wholesome the program was. The idea of family being so at the center. Such a good show, too, in that it does all spin out from the football, and it’s kind of about the football, but not in any real meaningful way.
I think of FNL, of course, because I think of Buddy Garrity, perhaps one of my favorite characters in all of TV. A person you meet so, so, so often in Texas. In a perfect world for me, the whole show is about Buddy, and about how what he loves doesn’t line up with how he loves, and about how nasty and charming a man like that can be. How he sins and how he attempts to justify those sins. I’m a total sucker for shows wherein a man says, “I am not a good man.” No man, you’re not! I don’t know why you’re not trying to do better but I’m going to continue to watch to see if you do.
And what is that, in TV? Why does that do much of anything? There’s nothing dramatic in that action. Nothing Aristotelian, nothing about motivation, necessarily. I guess, though, that it is tragic. That someone can really see themselves in the mirror, the way Buddy Garrity supposedly can, and not be able to do anything about it.
Let me be clear, I know no one that does the bad deeds Buddy Garrity does, but I know many men like Buddy Garrity. And Buddy Garrity, I’m certain, would say Tecate the way I do.
Am I a good cook, you’re asking? Is the soup any good? A good question. I think so. I’ve cooked so much more this year than I ever have in my life. I’ve read so much more about food, thought so much more about it. I still fight with such a utilitarian mindset around food, that it’s calories and that I have to do it. I think for better and for worse. Sometimes, this can mean that I feed myself and I don’t think too hard about it, that I don’t get too stressed. Other times, it means I’m disappointed, but eating.
I saw an artist I like in high school tweet about this. He said something to the effect of, “And I like food, but we’re still forced to eat.” Saying that he sometimes thinks the future in which we take a pill for meals is the preferable one. There was a time in my life where I felt like this was correct. I don’t feel that way anymore.
Still, the organization of how to eat as an adult can feel sort of convoluted and difficult to someone like me. I keep this list on the outside of my fridge as to what all is inside. It’s divided into meats, and starches, and vegetables, and snacks. When I’m cooking dinner, it’s like I’m throwing darts at the board, playing madlibs. “Tonight… Pasta… with Ground Turkey… and Broccolini.” Some nights better than others.
The soup is fine. Hearty and sort of tangy in a way that I like. Rice vinegar.
My goal with this, really, is just to get writing. The quality of the newsletter, I feel, can get sort of wider and stronger. At some point, it ought to be about something more substantial, maybe. Or at least more intentional and interesting. Regardless, I like the idea of churning out 1k words here, for this, and then moving to whatever fiction I’m currently working on. Tonight, hence the nerves, I’ve been streaming over Twitch, as apposed to any other platform. I think it offers a sort of weird and silly approach to something creative, and does at least try to make the process less lonely. Though, I’ll admit, I’ve never found writing to be a very lonely practice.
Then again, I’ve always liked to go to work by myself. When I was really training for basketball, this was always the appeal. An empty gym basically as good as a packed one. I can pack it myself with everything on my mind. And I can empty it out with every drop of sweat.
Come watch me sweat, I guess. The plan is to stream on Thursday nights and post on Saturday mornings. Pop in, hop out. Do what you please.
A list from my phone:
updated tiers
college dropout
yeezus
808s
mbdtf
late registration
graduation
tlop
jesus is king
donda
ye
Sorry
“tickled at every turn” had me shocked