The Most Important Meal of the Century

Well, anyhoo, there I was, sitting down to my #1 First Breakfast at Akiko's #1 Best etc. etc. Akiko was still at work, so I wondered if I'd muddled up the breakfast schedule. See, on Mon./Weds./Fri., & on the weekends, breakfast was served at 7:30. On Tues., Thurs., breakfast was at 7, allowing Akiko to make her tai chi class in town. It was 7 on a Weds., so as you can see, I'd fucked up the days. I apologized for being early.

With a smile, she said, “You're fine. In fact, you're perfect."

She asked me if I wanted some coffee, the answer being an emphatic "yes." I was wide awake, but was still in need of a boost. Also, Kona coffee was supposed to be some of the finest on the planet. Being as I was only a couple hours away from Kona, and the beans would probably be very fresh, I was expecting something pretty spectacular. And it was very good. Not exactly transcendent, maybe, but very good is good enough.

Akiko sells her very own brand of Kona beans, which she has named "Buddha Buzz."
Cute name, that Buddha Buzz. Akiko's pretty proud of it and of the beans. Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to buy any, as I was flat broke by the end of my trip. After hearing about the coffee plantations I drove past when I was on the west side of the island and about the less than stunning coffee I'd sampled at Akiko's a female acquaintance of mine picked up a bag of the stuff. It was very expensive, which makes me regret not having picked some up at a much more affordable price while I was there.

And while we’re considering my regrets over missed Hawaiian opportunities, here’s one more: Akiko’s literature states that the profits she brings in w/ her coffee support “the ongoing construction of the Temple of Gratitude to Honor the Ancestors.” I wish I'd thought to stop and look at the temple. That is one of the many, many things that slipped my mind in the midst of the chaos of my trip. So I can't speak to how far its construction has gone, but given the energy and ingenuity that Akiko brings to the things she does, I’m guessing it’s coming along just fine.

Enough about the coffee though. On to the krauts.

Akiko & I made w/ some morning chatter. She asked how I’d slept. I asked her about the dozen or so cats that lurked about the place, coming and going as they pleased. Each of them had a name and a story—and, of course, a unique personality. She asked when was I supposed to hear about my luggage, and I said that the young guy from the airport had told me I’d get a call today.

Before too long, the door opened, and there was a tall thin guy, somewhere in his 40s. His hair was brown and wavy. His tan was vigorous, rather than cosmetic. He wore thick glasses w/ plastic rims. He had a naturally cheerful face and in fact, exuded a downright boyish enthusiasm most of the time. He had a tendency to give this nervous little hop, when he was particularly excited about something.

Akiko introduced us to each other. He was amused by the slight variation in our names. (Steven/Stefan.) His English was very good.

Akiko did a fine job of hostessing. She did a lotta the talking for us at first, drawing us out by asking us questions, supplying information about each person to the other. Both Akiko and Stefan were more interested in my hobbies (writing, painting, music,) than in my profession, which was unusual. Ordinarily when people find out what I do, they start asking me a lotta questions—and are usually disappointed w/ the surprisingly mundane realities of the job.

As for Stefan, well, he definitely had some interesting shit goin' on, and most of it came out less through Akiko's urgings than it did through a conversation the two of them shared. Seems Stefan's 16-year-old son Niko had joined Akiko for meditation on more than one morning, and he had enjoyed it. (One last time, I feel compelled to say that I may be misspelling his name and would like to offer him my apologies if I am.) Akiko was telling Stefan about a monastery in the area that, if I'm remembering things correctly, she herself had studied at. Given the interest Niko had shown in Buddhist meditation, maybe he should visit the place. And if he and the senior monk hit it off, Niko could take up residence there and after a few years, maybe become a monk himself! Woo hoo!

Thing is that, as father and son only had 3 days left on the island, Stefan was gonna hafta get his ass in gear and haul the kid up there before it was too late! Gasp!

It was clear that I'd stumbled into a negotiation that was already in progress—actually, let's come right out and call it an argument—polite, passive-aggressive, but an argument nonetheless. Akiko was trying to help out by sharing her knowledge of and genuine love for the Big Island, Buddhism, and a belief in an orderly universe. She was really enthusiastic about the scenario she'd developed, but in this case, her enthusiasm seemed less infectious than it was imposing. It appeared that Stefan was trying to imply that he was not interested in following through on Akiko's plan, in the same way that you tell someone you'll try to make it to their party, when you really have no intention of showing up. It seemed that this had been his tactic for some time, and that his desire to avoid any sorta confrontation was eroding along w/ his patience.

Akiko felt this was a once in a lifetime opportunity for Niko. Who knew when or if he would return to the Big Island? In fact, she thought that maybe he'd come to the Big Island because he was supposed to find Buddhism and this monastery—that it was somehow meant to be. I could see how Stefan might be hesitant to just jump into this situation. Hawaii's a long way from Germany—besides which, the kid was young, impressionable, and like all kids, probably somewhat fickle. My impression was that this was Niko's first encounter w/ Buddhism, and after a little more than a week, was he ready to relocate to the other side of the world and become a Buddhist monk? You've heard of a whirlwind courtship? This was a whirlwind freakin' conversion!

Stefan also had at least one personal reason for his reluctance: the volcano. Turns out he was planning to hike all the way up Mauna Loa. I had some trouble grasping the finer points of his plan, probably due to the ESL factor, but it was something along the lines of this: Stefan was going to drive over to Volcano National Park around 50 miles away. He was gonna set up a campsite and spend the night there. The next day he was going to hike about half way up the mountain, stopping several times to rest along the way.

That's how most people acclimate themselves to the gradual decrease in the amount of oxygen. If you don't take some measures, you can get altitude sickness, which is a bad scene, esp. if you don't get back down fast. As in a you-might-die-type bad scene, in an extreme instance. People sometimes cough up blood and all kinds of unpleasant shit.

At the halfway point, Stefan was planning on spending the night in one of the cabins the park service provides for people who want to hike up. After a night there, you are pretty well acclimated, though you still have a way to hike yet.

But, before he began climbing, he was also going out to see live lava flowing. After he set up camp today, he was gonna hike over to the Kilauea Caldera, the enormous crater around The Big Island's most active volcano. It was a long haul over a field of dried lava, which is difficult terrain, but at the end of it, you’d be able to watch the stuff glowing in the nighttime darkness.

Sounded pretty fuckin' cool. I'd been thinking about climbing some mountains while I was there. And I'd definitely been planning on hitting the lava myself at some point. I mean, c'mon, it's freakin' flowing lava. At this juncture, I had no idea how difficult these activities were.

Now if Stefan took Niko to the monastery, it would fuck up his plans. And he was upfront about his unwillingness to accept that change. I think he found it easier to assert his more selfish objections than his concern for Niko, because doing so did not come so close to a potentially volatile exchange. I’m pretty sure I heard him grinding his teeth, presumably choking back orders for her to back the fuck off and let him do the parenting.

And whether or not she understood the other reasons the guy might’ve had for objecting to her scheme, it was his personal plans that finally made her lay off.

She said, "If you feel climbing the mountain is something you need to do, then you should. That's important. You are supposed to do it."

Stefan nodded about 3,000 times over the course of this short speech, while staring at the floor and irritably saying, "Yes, yes, yes, yes..."

"And if Niko is supposed to go to the temple to study, then he will come back here in the future."

Veins bulging in his forehead: "Yes, yes, yes, yes, yessssssss..."

And as the tension slowly seeped out of the room, we settled into breakfast. Awkwardly.

Fortunately, the food was very good. The pineapple was incredible—the best I've ever had. It was hardly acidic at all, but not too sweet. The bananas were grown right there in Akiko’s garden and were also remarkable.

Akiko bakes almost all of the bread she serves. While I was there, we had a few different varieties. There was an excellent wheat bread—substantial, but not too heavy. For a few days, there was bread that had been made in part from taro, a tropical plant that has roots that are sorta like sweet potatoes. Taro has a subtler taste, to my palette, and gives the bread an unusual tint—sorta a faint purplish brown. Akiko toasted both wheat and taro breads and passed them around w/ butter. It kicked ass.

On some days, squares of moist, sweet corn bread were substituted for regular bread. No complaints. It was probably the best cornbread I ever had. Then, most coveted by me of all—so much so that Akiko made them more than once—there was banana French toast. It was warm earthy, tender—all of it made w/ fresh homegrown bananas.

I’ve never been a great lover of papayas, but those that Akiko served were damn good. We had them every day, and I always scarfed down a half—not usually more than that, but that has less to do w/ my enjoyment of them than it does w/ the amount of food, all of it ranging from very good to transcendent, that made up my breakfast. The flavor was very different than any papaya I've had on the mainland—less sweet, more pleasantly light.

But as if all of that wasn't enough, Akiko also served each of us these heaping bowls of rice, nuts and grains. The rice was perfectly cooked. You were invited to add sugar or milk to yr. bowl. I tried it various ways—just sugar, just milk, some of both and plain. Each variation was delicious. The rice was lightly sweetened already and quite moist, but I think I enjoyed it most w/ a very small amount of sugar.

More on the way, yo, including real wrath of god type stuff like lava. And Wal-Mart. Stay tuned!

Gangrene, Joan Cusack & Other Horrors

OK, so back to my first breakfast in Akiko’s kitchen…

Beyond the dining table, you could see a small kitchen area. There, two large windows provided ample light, as well as a view of Akiko's garden. Some of the counters nearest the table were cluttered w/ miscellaneous knick knacks, (my favorite—a ceramic figure of an old bearded guy doin' martial arts,) small bottles of homeopathic remedies, a greeting card, and so on. Next to all this stuff was a small bland aquarium. The water was cloudy, and there were only 2 (maybe 3) fish swimming around inside it. It was depressing, if you looked at it very closely.

Later, Akiko told me she kept it around for the sound of running water it provided. Now, I ain't no vegetarian, as you probably gathered from my disturbing tendency to periodically transform into a walking advertisement for Burger King... Holy shit, what would that look like? I mean, first of all, would I be a print ad, a radio spot, or a TV commercial? Whichever way you go would raise very serious ontological questions—possibly dependent on quantum physics, chaos, string and/or unified field theories, fourth dimensional geometry and good taste.

'Cuz like think about it: If I were a walking print ad, would I become two dimensional? (For any assholes out there who want to point out the fact that even paper is three-dimensional, as even paper has some depth—it’s just very very slight—to you I say "So what?") (Or if you wanna make w/ some snappy gags about how I’m already two dimensional, have at it. You can catch up w/ us later…)

But see, if I were a print ad, would I be the actual ad, or would be the contents of the ad, i.e. what the ad was representing? See, 'cuz like I could be, y'know, a piece of paper walking around. (Like Shellie Long, remember?) And would I be the size of a magazine ad, or like, would I be a human-sized print ad? And remember, I would be a piece of paper walking around. So like, what am I walking on? The legs that I have now? If so, we’d not only be grappling w/ that size question again—would my legs be normal sized or smaller? And would the piece of paper correspond to my leg size or not? 'Cuz I'm sure you'd agree, it could get pretty unwieldy if my legs weren't proportional. I mean, like picture a magazine page walking around w/ 2 human sized legs. See where I'm going w/ this?

But so like that raises some more questions about my legs, like f'rinstance OK, if I still have the legs I currently have, (scaled down or otherwise,) and my body is a piece of paper, where's all the blood coming from that needs to circulate through my legs to keep them from getting gangrene or something?

And I'm not even gonna get into the image of a piece of paper walking around—which I guess it wouldn't even work to walk around in this scenario, 'cuz its legs probably wouldn't work at all—or rolling or whatevering around on 2 gangrenous legs. I mean, I saw gangrene once. See, I was in high school, and they had this whole spend-a-week-w/-a-parent-who-does-something-you-think-you-wanna-do internship thing. (Most likely this was not yr. own parent, as you were probably cool, and therefore were ungrateful, and therefore thought your parents were lame, and therefore thought their jobs (or job, if you grew up in a “no-wife-of-mine’s-gonna-work” type family like I did) were really lame, and therefore had no desire to do them whatsoever, and might in fact violently not want to do them, and plus like show me a high school aged kid who wants to spend an entire day w/ one or the other of his/her parents.

Oh wait, I knew some people who woulda. Gladly even, and no offense if you woulda jumped all over that, but I always thought people like that were sorta creepy. Sure, they had high self-esteem 'cuz Mommy n' Daddy thought they were da bomb. But see, thing is that, who needs self-esteem anyway? One way or another, sooner or later, yer gonna get it ground outta yeah like cow flesh emerging from the bizness end of a meat grinder, or play-doh comin' out one of those press thingamacallits that has like different shapes, so you can have these big long star-shaped or cylindrical sticks of play-doh sorta, which always reminded me of takin' a shit.

Mattera fact, this 1 time, I took some of my shit—it was a pretty sturdy and voluminous bowel movement cuzza all the fiber I used to eat before I got hip to the wonders of _________ .(I ain't even gonna speak the name of that restaurant chain for which I may be an ad.) Well, but so, I ran my shit through the play-doh press thing. And it worked pretty well, altho' even a pretty sturdy hunka shit doesn't have the structural integrity (Shit! Now Harold Washington's got me saying that. Fuckin' asshole!) of play-doh. But so then I had these big long sticks of shit that were shaped like stars and cylinders. But it was kinda messy because of that structural integrity thing. But then see, these sticks were pretty messy? And plus they smelled bad?

Uh huh. Are you paying attention? Not that my shit smells any worse than anybody else's, but it'd been sitting around unflushed for some time now. And so anyway, the shit was messy, and I got it all over the wall, and my mom was pissed, 'cuz even tho' I was a kid, I shoulda known a little bit better. But the cool part is that my mom really didn't get mad and not because she's a coprophile or -phage or both, but because it really didn't happen when I was a kid. It happened when I was grown up and living alone. 'Mattera fact, it happened yesterday. So my mom didn't know about it. So she didn't get mad. But I should prob. clean it up before she visits me next time. But I'm not gonna do it right now, 'cuz following through on this play-doh/shit experiment has kinda worn me out.

But so back to that high school internship thing, and get this! I thought I wanted to be a doctor!!!! Hahahahah! A medical doctor!!!! Haw haw haw! So for a week, I'd go to this friend of mine's (except she wouldn't fuck me, tho' she admitted she really wouldn't mind doing it except for that I had a girlfriend already. I mean, how lame is that?) dad's office.

And he actually let me sit in on a few examinations, when the patients were willing. Once or twice, he even made me draw blood. The patients always seemed less freaked out by that then I was. Here's this high school kid w/ a syringe, comin' to exsanguinate you They'd sit there and read Reader's Digest or whatever—they were all like centenarians or something. And but this one time this heavy set, younger lady, i.e. around 60, dressed in bluish-purple sweats comes in, and she's got this gauze wrapped around her hand. Seems she got her hand—not her fingers, but like the side of her hand caught in her lawnmower. While she managed to get the situation (um, sorry about this) in hand before things got too out of control and hadn't lost any fingers, the side of her hand had gotten mowed down pretty well—asin, to the bone. ‘Cuz the side of yr. hand ain't the most fleshy area on yr. body, ‘tho she was relatively lucky in that respect cuz she really was pretty fat.

But here's the interesting part: The doctor gently removed the gauze and this godawful stench fuckin' rolled out at us. It was like spoiled meat and burning tires, but w/ something sickeningly sweet in there too, like maybe long-bad fruit. And as he got further down to the inner layers of gauze, you could see they were all grass-stained, and the flesh was exposed, and this woman had a full-blown case of gangrene goin' there, and it was all puffy and red-lined w/ all this green from the grass stains (I hope) and black crackly areas, etc.

I will never forget that. Why the woman hadn't cleaned the wound up I don't know, but she had been really embarrassed about how she'd hurt herself, and she'd just let it go for a while, and now things had gotten outta control. I don't know what happened in the end, as the doc suggested I go air myself, (for which I am grateful,) but that was my one encounter w/ real-life gangrene.

And so I think if I were a magazine ad, and my legs didn’t get any blood, something like that might happen to ‘em. And that would pretty much suck, except maybe if I was a print ad, I wouldn't feel any pain, because where the hell would I fit a brain anyway? Would all my internal organs just have to be so fuckin' thin that they'd fit inside a print ad, or would I have to grow a simple rudimentary brain to control my motor functions and nerve responses and so on like a dinosaurs had in their asses? And once you started putting organs inside a print ad, wouldn't it lose its structural integrity (damn it!) as a piece of paper? Wouldn't really become something other than a walking print ad? Huh?

I know, it's all terminology. Perhaps you think I'm being too, too stringent w/ the rule of thumb, too weighed down by an anchor of linear thinking. Wo! Dude! What would an anchor of linear thinking look like? It'd probably be all big n' heavy n' never mind. That's how we got into this print ad shit in the 1st place... Moving right along...

OK, the other possibility of this walking print ad thing is that I would become a print ad in a more figurative sense. (See? I can be non-linear too!!!) Like I'd become the stuff in the ad, which would give me this protean-type fluid-type aspect—arguably divine in nature, because, well, depending on the print ad I got stuck w/.

And wouldn't it be weird when whatever I was advertising lost its relevance?: That'd be kinda depressing from where I'd be sitting, or standing, or whatever the hell I was doing again depending on the ad. I mean like I could be one of those shitty Capitol One ads w/ like the hordes of barbarians they ran thoroughly into the ground--except are there even print ads that represent that whole barbarian campaign? I've never seen any, but like for a really long time, I’d never heard those obnoxious Joan Cusack ads on the radio, and I couldn’t imagine how they’d work w/o the alien n’ alienatin’ image of Joan’s face.

BTW—not to sound like Mia Farrow in Rosemary’s Baby or somethin’, but what the fuck is wrong w/ her face—Joan’s, I mean—esp. her mouth BTW??? Could somebody explain it to me? Speakin’ of protean-type fluid-sorta stuff, her whole face is fluid. Her body just looks like kinda really plain dumpy white-chick-like. But her face is like this roiling mass of something—well, maybe fluid isn't right. It'd have to be a pretty thick fluid to compose Joan Cusack's face, and while I'm not sayin' that an appropriate fluid doesn't exist out there, I am saying that I think it might be more useful to think of her face as a mass of crawling animals—y'know esp. like when insects get all clumped together.

Admittedly some mammals also do this when they get cold, but there's usually not as many of 'em snugglin' up like insects do. And isn't it funny that it's cute when baby mice all roll up in this wiggly group, but when ants or even roaches do it (or larval stuff like maggots) it's gross. Is that bigotry or what? And I want you to think about that the next time a maggot asks for yr. daughter's hand in marriage, or maybe when an ant applies for work at yr. place of business (w/ its entire hive coming along for the ride of course, since lone ants don't function so well in any sorta more complicated capacity).

(And now I realize that it may appear that I’m likening insects to minorities, a trap that I walked into w/o even thinking about the implications, and I'm pretty disgusted w/ myself for doing so. I feel grosser than Joan Cusack even. Really.)

On the other hand, I think it's absolutely appropriate to liken the cockroach case at the Brookfield zoo, say, where they've got like dozens and dozens of roaches crawlin' all over one another… (roaches'll eat one another too remember, so you might wanna think harder about what that might mean for human cuddlin') …I think it's appropriate—admirable, even—to compare that grotesque ever-writhing mass of flesh that is Joan Cusack's face—and esp. her mouth—to that cockroach case.

You might think that's stretching things a bit, but John Cusack, at least, is from Chicago or maybe he isn't and he just hangs around here a lot. But the Brookfield Zoo, while not in Chicago proper is damn close to the city limits. And so you see I got some evidence of a connection here.

Circumstantial? Ah, you just don't wanna see Joan Cusack's face for what it is. I'm decades, maybe centuries, ahead of my time. One day society will look back on this epiphany I've had about Joan Cusack's face w/ the sorta awe now reserved for Michaelangelo's work at the Sistine Chapel, or Einstein's theory of relativity, or Johann Sebastian Bach's Brandenburg Concertos or even the complete works of Elizabeth Elmore. (Which are better than any music some fuckin' kraut w/ an unpronounceable name could come up w/ anyway.)

Except for that you won't look back on stuff like that, 'cuz nobody gives a shit about it anymore anyway, 'cuz you're all so busy consumin' shit and watchin' porn & reality shows and bein' cowardly, fat bigots to care about anything that matters. Unlike me. I perform hours n' hours of charity work, I study whittling w/ great devotion, I consider the words of God in every cultural form they take—Christian, Buddhist, Hindu, Judaic, Muslim, Shintoism, and many, many more! except for Scientology or that Jehovah's Witness shit, 'cuz those guys (the Witnesses—not the Scientologists) are always knockin' on the door when I'm tryin' to serve and uplift humanity in the privacy of mine own home by devising new inventions to stave off the growing water shortage crisis, by considering the behavior of polar bears in hopes of rescuing these noble giants from the jaws of annihilation, by writing the songs that make the young girls sing, etc.

That is, when I'm not being a walking advertisement. In this case, a walking print ad, remember? But so I didn't believe there were radio spots for thia Joan Cusack campaign though I'd seen the TV ones more times than I've prematurely ejaculated, which is a lotta lotta times, unfortunately. Like I said, I just really couldn’t imagine how they’d work w/o that wriggling, filthy mass of insectile movement we spoke of earlier. But y'know, she must be a great talent—a real natural—'cuz every time I hear one of those ads—which is not often, 'cuz I try not to listen to the radio any more than is absolutely necessary—well they evoke that noisome horror that is her face. Yep. It's almost like you're right there.

Which I actually am, when I'm bein' a radio spot. But we've run out of time for considering how I might take on the form of pure sound, what would constrain me to the aural contents of a given commercial, whether I'd retain my own voice somehow, tho' I've never done any voice work, whether I'd have a catchy little jingle a-bouncin' w/in my being till such time as my signal degrades into small electrostatic particles—if in fact, I haven't been digitally recorded or something and that would somehow affect my structural integrity. (Fuck! I give up.)

And like I never even finished all that print ad shit and whatta nightmare it would be to be a print ad of Joan Cusack (They have those too. When will the obscenity stop?) Except it would be even worse to be a TV spot of Joan Cusack. You'd be like bouncing around offa satellites, which might be sorta cool—pure energy—depending on how the whole thing would work. (You could maybe just be earthbound pixels on a monitor. I don't know.) Which sounds depressing enuff—but here, worst of all, you’re a sentient TV ad of Joan Cusack!

Actually, what might be even worse would be if you were a personal promotion type appearance of Joan Cusack, 'cuz you'd, like, be her. Your face would run and roil like a black, oily bog, filled w/ decaying matter, and there wouldn't be a single thing you could do about it. Except maybe you'd get lucky and being a personal appearance by Joan Cusack wouldn't mean you had to be her, exactly. You might just be the concept—just a horrible idea somebody had--which'd really be like getting off light…

Or what else’d be bad, but still not as bad as really being Joan Cusack—if that’s what this personal appearance stuff came down to—you could just be sorta like the holistic phenomenon of a Joan Cusack public appearance. The lighting, the microphones, the crowd, the cellular phone co. assholes—can't remember which co. Joan pimps for—who hafta run around making phone calls and getting Joan her special danish (rotted and smelly so her mandibles could really get down in there and work and enjoy) cuz she is Joan fer fuck's Cusack! (Except—Ug!—who would wanna fuck her?) She's the star and you better treat her right!

You could be all that. And while you'd still have Joan Cusack as part of yr. synergistic makeup, you wouldn't be exclusively her. So see, you’re still getting off pretty light. Joan wouldn't even necessarily be the biggest part of you. There's the air, the beverages, the clothing, the pigeon who got a lucky shot in and besmirches Joan's sensible hair, thereby causing bird shit to dissolve and run down into a well of organic corruption that—

Oh fuck… Actually, that that might be a really bad scene.

I mean, we have no way of knowing how pigeon shit would interact w/ the foetid ichor of Joan’s face. J'ever read The Novel of the White Seal? Huh? Didja?

I mean, think about it. It could become anything, and unless pigeon shit has some undreamt of neutralizing properties vis-à-vis the nightmare well that is Joan's uh visage—well, unless that's true, logic would lead you to think that while pigeon shit is nowhere near to being that disgusting, it is a little gross. And that grossness might work into some further synergistic reaction not just compromising the structural integrity (forget it! forget it! forget it!) of our reality, but the relative healthiness of it as a reality. Or something.

Anyway, I'm horrified, so let's just let this walking advertisement biz go, 'cuz otherwise we're never gonna get anywhere, and plus even a man who's pure of heart and says his prayers at night can turn into a walking advertisement when the price is right. Or something.

But so where were we?

Ah yes, Akiko's aquarium. Well, while we have established the fact that, among other things, I am not a vegetarian, I did feel bad for those fish, swimming around listlessly in this murky water in their sad little aquarium. But Akiko's the enlightened soul. What do I know?

Next: An Exciting & Tasty Breakfast!!! Boyoboy! I can't wait!!!...