Gristle-y Man

John and his newborn daughter Amelia accompanied Brian, Ace and I to the first brunch at Trina’s Starlight Lounge. Not only was it a fantastic brunch, but i out-ate John across the board, a rare and difficult feat. He had two entrees, the double bacon brunch burger with a fried egg and the biscuits with gravy, as well a short stack of silver dollar pancakes. I had the double bacon brunch burger with a fried egg, a short stack of silver dollar pancakes, a bowl of grits, cornbread, hash browns, and three more fried eggs on the side. And then I eyed his baby Amelia and almost ate her too.

I started going to the gym to crank out 1000 calories a day. While running on the elliptical machine I sometimes imagine a kind of gristle ATM where the exercisers can deposit their daily chunk of calories. I sweat a lot (no seriously, A LOT) as the gym is in a basement where the heat is similar to my home, and people get scared. They get splashed. Its like they’re exercising next to a dolphin. Sometimes they move to a machine far away from me. I make a big show of cleaning up. I work out in a bathing suit and when I’m done its like I just hopped out of a pool.

I have become interested in American folk music from the twenties and thirties. Right now I would say that this music, blues and soul vinyls, NPR podcasts, David Byrne’s book Bicycle Diaries, the films of the Criterion Collection (started out as a laser disc distributor, funny), the television shows Hoarders and Jersey Shore, and Roly Poly are my main influences.