Giorgio Armani Is Not To Blame!

I like to think that for the most part I'm sort of a happy, positive, good-natured guy. As such, I consider hate to be a generally destructive emotion. But a recent email conversation I had with a friend reminded me that there are a few things in life that I do, so truly and passionately, hate. Our dialogue reminded me of two things specifically: 1) Acqua di Gio cologne and 2) the song 'Take My Picture' by Filter. Curiously, the cologne smells really good and the song's actually pretty cool too. Perhaps I should explain.

Almost a decade ago, I held a job as the General Manger of an Einstein's bagel shop. At first, I thought it would be a very cool job. Kind of a 'hip' place, good bagels, decent coffee, laid back atmosphere, etc. But over a short period of time, I came to detest my job at Einstein's so much that my feelings escape accurate description.

Anyway, we used to listen to a lot of X96 (a fine alternative radio station in SLC) in the kitchen when we were baking. At the time, 'Take My Picture' had just been released, so they played it no less than eighty-seven times a day. Naturally, I came to detest it. (I'd like to note paranthetically that I also detest Blink 182. Not because of Einstein's necessarily, but because they're horrible and the fact that X96 overplayed 'All The Small Things' around that same time too didn't help. With that said, I should note sub-parenthetically that 'Blink's' singer, Tom LeLonge, now sings for Angels and Airwaves and they're pretty catchy actually.). But I'm already getting way off track and my hate for the Filter song goes much deeper, so back to my explanation . . .

We had this thing in the kitchen called a proofer. It looked like a big stainless steel refrigerator, and was basically sort of a low-temperature steam oven. All of our bagels were shipped to us frozen and pre-shaped. At night, we would take the frozen bagels, place them on baking sheets, and then place the sheets in 6' tall baking racks. Each rack held about 20 sheets, about 300 bagels in all. We'd roll the baking racks into the walk-in cooler to thaw slowly overnight-- a process known as 'slacking'.

Each day at around 3:30 am, when my baker would call me either from the county jail or a 'kegger' telling me he wouldn't be in that day, I'd show up for work by myself to bake fresh bagels for the morning rush. I would take the baking racks out of the cooler and begin applying toppings (e.g. cinnamon/sugar, garlic, minced onion, sesame seeds, etc) to the bagels as necessary. Once the bagels were topped, I would roll the rack into the proofer (big steamer fridge-looking thing) to bring the dough up to a consistent internal temperature and proper level of humidity. The pre-baking temperature and humidity of the dough are essential for ensuring the bagels will have that delightful, chewy texture. If the dough isn't wet enough, the bagels will have a dry and bread-like consistency and no one wants that. If you wanted to eat bagel-shaped bread, you'd buy your bagels from a supermarket. If the bagel dough is warmer on the surface than in the center, or if the center is still partially frozen when you put them into bake, the bagels just turn into crap.

Sorry, I got side-tracked again for a minute there. To the point: The smell of raw bagel dough is not in and of itself a bad thing; nor are garlic, caraway seeds, cinnamon, or asiago cheese in any way offensive by themselves. But when you open that proofer door to retrieve the rack of raw, multi-flavored, fully-topped bagels from their hot steam bath . . .man oh man . .. the aromatic assault of humid, toe jam-esque funk is nauseating beyond description. (Imagine combining the smells of sweaty gym socks, cinnamon, garlic, chocolate chips, and yeast, and you might kind of get the idea.) And since I'm not a morning person to start with, I already began each day with a stomach ache. To make matters worse, I would down something like 11 or 12 espressos throughout the morning to keep me awake.

I started my job at the bagel shop right after New Year's. Everyone who knows me knows that I love cologne and Karolee had given me a bottle of Armani's Acqua di Gio that year for Christmas. It's a light, clean, almost soapy smelling cologne and I LOVED it. So like anything I get excited about, I went totally overboard and wore WAY too much of it everyday for weeks on end. But after a month or two of waking for work in the middle of the night, getting kicked in the nostrils every morning with that warm cinnagarlic-footonion-dough smell, and drinking myself sick with espresso, the cologne started to make me gag. Every time I put it on, all I could think of was asiago cheese. It was like a $60 bottle of cologne and I had to give it away to Karolee's brother because I couldn't stand it anymore.

Hearing that Filter song has almost exactly the same effect. That song actually SMELLS bad to me. I still gag every time I'm near someone who's wearing Acqua di Gio. I lasted at Einstein's for all of about 8 months. I don't hate the company, though I do blame them for causing me to know what it is to really, really hate something. And I don't hate the guys from Filter for writing that song, and I don't hate Giorgio Armani. But I bet NONE of them ever has ever baked a single bagel.

So now you know. . .

Please. Don't hate,

Jake

In Case You Wanted Something To Listen To . . .

I added a few more March Hare songs tonight for your listening satisfaction. Go ahead and have a listen. Let me know what you think. Tell me if you love it. Tell me if you hate it. Please feel free to comment. Any comments are welcome, although I generally prefer the ones telling me how cool you think this stuff is.

You can stream all the songs on this page from the new player I added, or if you actually like them enough to want your own copy, you can download them from this here post. (to download, right click on the name of the song then select 'save target as'). I'll add links to more songs as we finish them.

I didn't make 'Milky Way' available for download on this page as I wouldn't want to upset the copyright police. If you really want a copy, leave me a comment here or email me. Or if you'd like, we can arrange to meet in a dark alley way to make the handoff. Either that, or I'll just send you a link. Or, even better, pick up a copy of the original, vastly superior version of the song by The Church from their circa 1988 'Starfish' album. (every song on that release is amazing). But you know, whatever works for you.

Lost at Sea
Misplaced Experts
Strange

Weekday Mornings

At 31 years old, I find that I’ve reached a point in life at which I love early mornings just as much as late nights.

Today I woke to the sweet sound of Maddy's soft, sleepy morning voice. She was awake-- ready to have Mom do her hair, eager to select today’s hottest fashion, and famished from her adventures in dreamland. I hopped out of bed with a greater sense of urgency than usual since we had less than half of an hour to get her out the door and off to school. We were rushed, but considering that our internal clocks are set to Fritz-Mecham Standard Time (FMST) which runs anywhere from 7 to 23 minutes behind the presiding time zone, it was nothing unusual. Rushing is something to which we’ve simply had to adapt.

But provided we have enough time, the early weekday morning ritual is one I cherish. Sometimes we talk a lot over cereal and sandwich-making; other times we’re still sleepy and silently enjoy that daddy/daughter time together at one of the calmest hours of the day. (Miranda and Pitter Patter generally don’t start stirring until Maddy's off to school). On the best days, Karolee will have just finished her morning run by the time Maddy and I make our way downstairs. Sometimes we’ll make parfaits with yogurt, fruit, and granola. Occasionally Karolee will have old-fashioned oatmeal or German pancakes ready. Whatever the daily fare, it’s a rare chance for the three of us to ease into the day over breakfast, coffee (well, for me anyway), newspaper horoscopes, and tales of fervent 1st grade boy-chasing.

I love those mornings.

Despite the aforementioned FMST handicap, our running behind today was primarily due to my having stolen a few minutes too many of what I consider to be the very best kind of sleep . . . those sensuous nine-minute intervals in between snooze cycles on the clock radio. As parents of three, Karolee and I both enjoy precious little sleep. We each set the alarm a bit early most days to ensure we’ll have at least two or three chances to stave off the unwelcome AM torrent of incessant beeping and FM static.

Note: We intentionally set the radio dial between stations (Country and/or Top 40 stations work best as they’re all basically total crap) to achieve the most jarring combination of noises possible. This helps to ensure that we will actually wake when the alarm sounds.

There’s a subtle psychological gratification to playing the “snooze game”. It’s just one of the myriad ways in which we fool ourselves into thinking we have control over our external world; that we can somehow manipulate it according to our needs or desires. If time is an unyielding oppressive taskmaster, then our stupid clock radio-- in its gloriously brazen discord-- is his obnoxious, autocratical henchman. The truth is that despite our own wishes to the contrary, inevitably we all surrender to the taskmaster’s command. But it can be immensely satisfying to whack his henchman squarely on the head a couple of times before we do. . .

JF

A Letter From God (It is Sunday after all, right?)

This is a lyrical piece by a freestyle MC from the UK who goes by the handle 'Scroobius Pip'. I hadn't heard of him before this afternoon. Karolee stumbled upon him online and we were both impressed. If you know me at all, you already know I love this kind of 'street prophet' heady intellectual hip hop stuff. The first thing Karolee and I thought to compare him to was sort of a British (gentile?) counterpart to Matisyahu (of whom we're both huge fans).

However you care to label him or his style of expression, it's hard to argue with the understated salience of this piece. Personally, I was blown away-- both by his message and its delivery. I can't wait to dig into more of his work. Some of his material is available on YouTube and MySpace (you can link to that page from his name above). From the looks of it, he's pretty much keeping things street level, but I wouldn't be surprised to see him blow up the way his 'kosher counterpart' (forgive me) did. But enough of my words . . . Happy pondering. This one'll make you think.

Panic Division is the Coolest Band in the World.

You would be better off if you were to watch the video for 'Big Day' by the Panic Division. Thus, I have provided it for you below. If you have doubts, you should know that I recently received confirmation from a number of trusted sources that they are indeed the coolest band on the planet. This band is amazing. Seriously. Please enjoy.