I’d hit something of a dry spell. It had been a couple months since I’d written anything I thought had some real legs on it. I know some people might say that’s not such a big deal since I had been going strong for the better part of a year, with plenty of quality freelance work and new story ideas, but I approach the sudden drop in work the same way I’d imagine a particularly industrious hooker might.

I guess I know what the problem is. I’d, pretty much, stopped reading. I was engrossed in watching shows I’ve seen already, shows that aren’t even very good (have you been watching this season’s The Office? Because it’s just the worst). During those months of solid writing, heretofore referred to as “the streak,” I was reading everything all the time. Esquire. The New Yorker. John McPhee collections. David Foster Wallace when I could psych myself up and think dude you’re totally smart enough to read this.

Well I’d like to announce I think I’m coming out of my slump. In this year’s Christmas haul I received A Walk in the Woods by Bill Bryson, a fellow Drake University graduate and appreciator of calling people slurry names that end in -baby. It’s incredible, inspiring, and a strong example of what I’d like to be doing with my time as I grow older and beardier. But I can be more specific about the inspiration. Just a few words, nary an inch of ink:

“So what’s your sign?” said Mary Ellen.
“Cunnilingus,” Katz answered and looked profoundly unhappy.

I’m sure a 14-year-old boy would have appreciated that just the same. But, lying there in bed, hood pulled low and calf-height wool socks lovingly cuddling my feet, I let out a “Ha!” that sounded as if the “H” were made of silly putty and I’d stretched it so long its other leg were wrapped somewhere around the night stand. It came from so low in my gut that it’d been having a cheery conversation with my bladder before being called in for duty. It was a really good ha.

It’s weird how inspiration works. Little things like that trigger weird emotions, epiphanatical whatamIdoingwithmylife moments that, if acted on, can turn out really well. Or they can just turn into me trying to find Bryson’s email address and letting him know, more or less, the contents of this post. Which I’m currently doing.

But the important part is that something has been activated inside me, and like any other virus, will hopefully spread further into my system and not just get peed out.

Because I drank a lot of water today, and now I’m kind of regretting it.

Eli Roth, left, and Billy Owen (courtesy Goretorium)

I’m writing this during what looks like a brief break from computer games and Sons of Anarchy — the rewards I’ve bestowed upon myself for a pretty busy couple weeks. I’ve been working for the last month or so on a piece about Eli Roth’s Goretorium, a haunted house (minus ghosts, plus a lot of gore) designed sort of in the likeness of Roth’s movies (Cabin Fever, Hostel).

Something interesting about this haunted house: When it first started posting ads for actors, it was looking for people with birth- or accident-given deform/abnormalities, in order to, I don’t know, make shit scarier.

The first sign of life on the Goretorium website

Sure, it’s exploitation. And there are plenty of people who think using people for their disabilities is screwed up. But after meeting Billy Owen, the guy in the story, I got a different perspective.

Billy: “A guy missing a leg or an arm, most employers look at him and think he’s a liability. For a place like this to seek these people out, they have a home where they’ll take care of you. It’s a sense that people out there do care. I wont say my life if great, there’s times when I’m depressed. But having a place like this [makes] it ok to be this way. They appreciate we’re this way and want to help us make the best of it.  … It makes me feel good.”

He was an extremely uplifting character, which is going to help, since he wants to be a motivational speaker when his commitment to scaring the shit out of tough guys (his words) runs its course. And that line about how and when he found out what fear meant? God damn.

Last night, 24 hours after sending that story off to the printer, I went to see Astronautalis, a rapper from Florida who now lives in Minneapolis, my home town. Easily the best show I’ve seen at Hard Rock Cafe, and my current favorite entertainer, hands down. Read about that one here.

To celebrate finally having some time to stop and make real food (yesterday, from 2 p.m. onward, all I had to eat was two protein bars and a protein shake), I cooked up wild boar hash, a spinach/apple/celery juice drink, and caramelized plantains.

WAHLD BWAR HAYUSH

HASH recipe:
16oz. wild boar meat sausage / 1/2 sweet potato / 2 tablespoons cinnamon / 2 eggs
brown the meat, add the ‘tater, stir in the cinnamon, plate it. Fry the two eggs over the top.

Disclaimer: I recommend ground beef instead. The wild boar was fatty (sausage, mind you) and really gamey, and smelled like dog food. The only reason I got it was because, when I read the label, I pronounced it “WAHLD BWARRR” in my head. Not worth it.

Here’s my review (re: gushing) of D’Angelo opening for Mary J. Blige during the Liberation Tour’s stop in Las Vegas. My first exposure to D’Angelo’s music was “Devil’s Pie” when I was maybe 10. At the time, I didn’t get it. Click the image for the full story.

D’Angelo Performs At Palms Casino Resort

Ug lecturing on nutrition.

So recently I decided to try this Paleo diet thing. The whole premise is “eating like our paleolithic ancestors” — we’re talking meat, vegetables, fruits … and that’s, for the most part, it. No grains. No beans. The logic behind it is that our digestive tracts still haven’t developed enough to process grains and blah blah blah (that’s a link to someone who decided to go into it).

I’m not agreeing or disagreeing with this being the best possible way to eat. But the challenge of it — no oatmeal or beans? What is this, Kuwait? — is the big draw in making the attempt. What’s really interesting about it to me is how Paleo dieters use vegetables/meat to replace grains/legumes the way vegetarians use grains/legumes to replace meat. For instance, the other night I was toying with a recipe for Paleo Spaghetti — which uses spaghetti squash instead of pasta to make up for the dish-filler of noodles.

The ingredients for Paleo spaghetti

This isn’t terribly interesting, and I sure don’t want to make this one of a thousand Paleo cooking websites (even though, as I type this, I’m making sweet potato latkes and slow-cooking chicken thighs with mango cubes in coconut milk … and feeling like an asshole for it), but the blog portion of this website needed to start somewhere.

Sweet potato latkes

If you have any Paleo recipes you’re into, feel free to fill me in. Otherwise, welcome to the first post at maxplenke.com. And I’m really, truly sorry.