Category Archives: Snack Sack

Learning to forgive

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There’s something I need to get off my chest.

I’ve been holding it inside most of my life, letting it fester, and I hope that bringing it out into the open will help me move past it.

Let the healing begin.

A clean slate.

A new beginning.

It’s time to move on.

I hate California.

Okay, maybe “hate” is too strong. Let’s say I resent California.

Always have.

And let’s say I don’t actually resent the whole of the Golden State. The Bay Area is aces in my book, what with the great food and the streetcars and Alcatraz and bridge-jumpers and such. And Monterey is swell.

Let’s say I resent Southern California generally, Los Angeles specifically, and Malibu bitterly. I’ve lived with this unhealthy resentment since I was a child, and it has in a small way blighted what should have been many happy hours of television viewing, which is ironic because many imperfectly-happy hours of television viewing are what raised that persistent bile in the first place.

In the interest of full disclosure, I’ve been to SoCal, and I liked it. I found the climate agreeable, the scenery exotic, the ocean magnificent, the attractions numerous and gratifying. Disneyland did not disappoint the boy that was I, and teen me couldn’t get enough of SeaWorld. The eucalyptus groves, the piers, the colorful nut-cases and the ever-present glitter of tinsel were sources of fascination and delight. I even loved the beaches – those famous, broad, sun-soaked bikini-clad beaches – which is kind of ironic, since they are in no small part responsible for my lifetime of secret antipathy. But I can state without reservation that I have never blamed the beaches.

I blame Hollywood.

I suppose it all dates back to the surfing craze and movies like Beach Blanket Bingo, Surf’s Up and Gidget. One needn’t know a grommet from a honker to appreciate Sally Field reclining in the sand wearing a form-fitting one-piece, and the idea of cutting loose at a late-night clambake with a bevy of beach-babies could make even the most hydrophobic young hodad lose his water.

In the 80s, blockbusters like the Karate Kid, Valley Girl and Fast Times at Ridgemont High didn’t improve the situation, although by that time, at least in my case, the emotional damage was largely done.

I love the Beach Boys. Always have. Heck, who didn’t? They don’t get much play these days, but I still sing along when “I Get Around” or “Help Me Rhonda” somehow slips past the metal-manic program director at 99.5 The Mountain.  But they were kings, once upon a time, and they presided over a large and imperial court of surfing nobility. Toss in music by the Ventures, the Surfaris and Jan and Dean, and, for a while there, the national soundtrack had a decidedly west-coastal cast.

In my formative years, adolescent viewers were constantly awash in Southern California. All the best TV shows were set in California, from the Brady Bunch to Charlie’s Angels to the Beverly Hillbillies to The Monkees to The A-Team. Even programs not set in SoCal were too obviously filmed there, forcing impressionable young minds to either believe the whole world is an unvarying landscape of dry hills and even drier palm trees, or accept that everything on every screen was a reflection of California culture. Battlestar Galactica? Take Dirk Benedict out of his smart tunic and put him in Karachi sandals and he’s Ricky Nelson in Malibu U.

What’s my point? I’m glad you asked.

Yes, I liked the shows. I liked the movies. I liked the music. But the subtext of it all never varied. California was cooler than whatever backward armpit you had the lousy luck to live in. Californians were smoother, wittier, better looking and better dressed.

Kids in California surfed, and when they weren’t surfing they were riding dirt bikes, and when they weren’t riding dirt bikes they were performing martial arts, or hang-gliding, or combating injustice, or going to teen parties that were so much better than anything you’d ever be invited to that you were effectively doomed to a life of social disappointment. The girls in Los Angeles were cuter, the boys muscle-ier, the food tastier, the sun shinier. The schools were fun. Big fun.

Not like my school.

Before you say it, belay it.

I’m not jealous.

Insecure, maybe, but never jealous. Fact is, even as a pup, I have never aspired to the Malibu scene, or the ostentation of Beverly Hills, or to emulate the bizarre, alien Valley culture. Why would I want to live in California? I grew up in Colorado, and it was pretty awesome. Still is.

As a lad, I lived in constant low-grade frustration, quietly desperate lest the country not understand that the Centennial State is, indeed, cool, and that I, by extension, was just as hip and with it and tuned-in as Tatum O’Neal. Fact is, I could find nothing portrayed in the California-centric media that was in any measurable way superior to my own circumstance.

Maybe I didn’t have an ocean nearby, but I had a lake to boat on if the mood struck me, and a creek to tube in if I just felt like getting wet. I also had snow, and mountains, which equal skiing, which is at least as cool as surfing and, quite frankly, looks better on TV.

I perceived no obvious lack of hipness in my friends. I had buddies that made Jeff Spicoli look like Ralph Macchio, and if I didn’t own a dirt bike, I knew plenty of guys who did. And we didn’t ride around some sissy track. We took our chances in the unforgiving forest primeval. My schoolmates of the female persuasion were of uniform quality and pleasing proportion, such that I could easily, and frequently, imagine them holding their own against Annette Funicello in an all-bikini clambake dance contest.

And yet, for all that, Hollywood never took any notice at all. In return for my generous investments of time and interest and money, the quiet-on-the-set crowd could only rarely be bothered to even recognize Colorado in passing, much less acknowledge that my Rocky Mountain home might possess some small feature of value not to be found on Pacific shores. Like we weren’t good enough. It felt like a snub, and it hurt.

And I resented them for it.

And I resented California.

And, in my heart of hearts, I still do.

Wow.

That felt good.

Yeah, I know it’s stupid. In time I came to understand that everything was filmed in California because that’s where all the cameras were. It just made good economic sense. As I matured I came to realize that Dobie Gillis was no more an accurate representation of American life than Gilligan’s Island, or the A-Team, or any of the other fictionalized, glamorized, dramatized and homogenized nonsense that Hollywood perpetually churns out. I eventually concluded that my real-world peers in California probably looked, lived, laughed and loved pretty much the way I did – excluding Pamela Anderson, of course – and that to measure my existence against the entertainment industry’s illusory yardstick must necessarily kill my spirit by inches.

Knowing helps, but the scars run deep.

I have forgiven the Brat Pack, but I won’t forget the way they made me feel less-than.

Even Ally Sheedy.

And that’s saying something.

Even today I generally avoid shows that are set in Southern California. It’s an almost subconscious aversion, and admittedly unfair. On the other hand, it’s spared me the discomfort of even momentary exposure to steaming twenty-something piles like The OC, Beverly Hills 90210 and the Big Bang Theory.

I guess you could say I’ve grown. I now know that our 31st and most populous state is a fine and proud and admirable place chock full of scenic wonders and cultural delights and scientific marvels and a stout citizenry that likes me just the way I am.

And I resent it.

Always will.

Except now I feel a lot more comfortable with that.

In psychological parlance that’s called a “breakthrough.”

I see our time is up.

Let the healing begin.

Rumor mill goes off the Depp end

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Who’s behind these Foster Grants?

Move over Iraq. Back of the line, immigration. I’ll call you, $3 gasoline, I promise. Right now, Johnny Depp is America’s topic of choice.

Depp’s latest cinematic piratical effort just sent previous box-office records spinning grimly down into dark and watery graves, and Hollywood-watching media-types are beside themselves with admiration for the charismatic fellow.

Popular magazine writers extol Depp’s purported neuroses as endearing and accessible, and prime-time talking heads become faint describing his magnetic screen presence. Teacup-clutching yak mavens sail into transports at mention of his vaguely impudent good looks, and everybody in L.A. who’s ever believed themselves within two city blocks of His Eminence – from producers to actors to the guy who makes the popcorn – are scrambling for a microphone to tell the viewing public all about what a swell Joe their good and great friend Johnny is. Small wonder, then, that the whole country’s gone a little dippy, er, Deppy.

Well, here’s some bad news for Mega-D’s superfans from Napa to Newark:

We were there first.

That’s right. Evergreen’s been in the sweaty grip of raging Depp fever since long before it became “cool,” expanding the frontiers of unreasoning movie-star obsession and providing fresh grist to a local rumor mill that for too long has been scratching out a meager subsistance on little but unlikely lake monsters and phantom chain restaurants.

The madness began perhaps three months ago when some imaginative gossip leaked to a credulous neighbor that the Illustrious Personage had bought a house in Evergreen. Like lightning over the high plains, the story flashed across town, sprouting a zillion vivid arms and charging every gulch and hollow from Shaffer’s Crossing to Squaw Pass with burning expectations. To date, the bolt has produced several million watts of gossip but not one spark of evidence. Based purely on frequency of repetition, Upper Bear Creek Road is the odds-on favorite for Johnny’s new address, though North Turkey Creek and Floyd Hill are slowly gaining advocates.

Talk is cheap, of course, but seeing is believing, and the growing epidemic of sketchy Johnny Depp sightings constitute, for many, proof that Edward Scissorhands will soon appear at someone’s back door and ask to borrow their weed-whacker. In recent months, rumor has placed the Grande Artiste at The Bagelry in Bergen Park, standing in a checkout line at a King Soopers and crooning to an appreciative audience at the Little Bear. Well, even Hollywood marketing constructs have to eat, and showmanship must course through Depp’s veins the way oxygen does in the blood of lesser mortals. While theoretically possible, however, each rumored sighting arrives on the doorstep thickly packaged in layered embellishments and without a return address.

Have you seen this man?

“I’ve heard all the rumors, but they’re always at least three-people removed,” laughs the proprietor of a historic local inn. “One of my maids swears she saw Johnny Depp jogging around Evergreen Lake at 6 o’clock in the morning, and my husband said it would be more believable if she’d seen him smoking at the same time.”

Not long ago, overhearing the staff exchanging Depp-related gossip, a guest mentioned that Depp had recently bought a house near his own. “He was from Vermont,” she laughs. “I guess we’re not the only town with rumors.”

A longtime Evergreen resident and respected local businesswoman, the innkeeper is one of a precious few who can speak with some authority on the junction of Johnny Depp and Evergreen because, on March 26, 2004, he was her guest. Not buying it? Check out the autographed photo he left in his room. “Thanx,” he wrote, in a sharp, somewhat abstract hand, “Johnny Depp.” It’s ain’t Shakespeare, but it’s for real.

“A guy from Denver called me about holding an engagement party here,” says the woman who, with the natural discretion for which hoteliers are rightly prized, prefers that her name and that of her business not be made public. “He and Depp are friends and they’ve work together. He said Depp would be coming and wanted it kept as quiet as possible. We had a verbal confidentiality agreement.”

Granted, Depp wasn’t her first A-list sleepover. “Tim Allen and David Schwimmer stayed here,” she says. “People like that come here to get away, to hide. Privacy is very important to them, which is why I have to be careful how much I say.”

To ensure the greatest possible confidentiality, she told no one of their VIP visitor except the duty manager and her public relations agent. “It was killing her, but she didn’t say anything.” The party was about 20 strong, champagne flowed freely and secrecy was tighter than Hunter S. Thompson in “Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.”

“They were very careful about their privacy,” she says. “Everybody was very nice, but they kept to themselves and really kept Depp under wraps. After the proposal, a bunch of them went to the Ice House Bar. Depp went with them, but wasn’t recognized.”

Despite lavishing her guests with every indulgence and consideration, the lodge owner never laid eyes on the Glorious Curiosity until the next morning.

“I was standing in the lobby when this guy walked across the lawn and got in the back of this big, silver Bentley with tinted windows,” she says. “As it pulled out, we waved to each other. I can’t think of who else it would have been but Johnny Depp.” By noon, nothing remained but creeping exhaustion and a signed picture of Big D wearing faded blue jeans, a muscle shirt and his trademark sulky expression.

Perfect for a discreet get-away

According to the innkeeper, Depp’s friend – the one who arranged the soiree – is a regular guest who works with numerous dignitaries and public lights.

“I told him that, if he ever brings someone of that caliber here again, I don’t want him to tell me,” she says. “Everybody says Johnny Depp’s a really down-to-earth, laid-back guy, but there’s just no way you can really do enough for someone like that. I started worrying about everything, like whether the bowls on my red-wine glasses were big enough. It was just too nerve-wracking.”

And for those wagging tongues that look forward to having a famous new neighbor, there may be a lesson in that.

Taking the longboat to nowhere on Evergreen Lake

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Long an important part of Evergreen living, the placid waters of Evergreen Lake may soon be just as important to Evergreen dying.

Specifically, a proposal before the Evergreen Parks and Recreation District would clear the way for bereaved mountain residents to conduct Viking burials on the 77-year-old reservoir. “It seems perfectly natural to me,” says Snorri Halvjorsdottir, an event coordinator for Denver Mountain Parks and a co-sponsor of the proposal. “Who wouldn’t want to be launched into Valhalla aboard a flaming longboat on Evergreen Lake? The sanitary and catering facilities can accommodate any number of mourners.”

The practice of setting a departed loved one and their most valued possessions adrift in a burning vessel may have originated in the coastal fjords of 6th century Norway with the warlike Rus people. “There’s no question that Evergreen Lake is kind of fjord-y,” insists Halvjorsdottir. “It may not be very deep, or long, or surrounded by towering granite peaks, but there’s an adjacent 18-hole golf course and the whole west end is a protected wetland.”

Independence Heights resident Beowulf Tryggvason, who wrote the proposal with Halvjorsdottir, got the idea for Viking burials on Evergreen Lake while attending a funeral ceremony at which his great-aunt’s ashes were scattered inside the Mother Lode Casino in Cripple Creek. “It just seemed right,” Tryggvason remembers. “She loved the Mother Lode – the nickel slots, the $2.99 prime rib sandwiches – and that’s where she would have wanted her remains to rest.” Considering the huge numbers of people who regularly fish, boat and picnic at Evergreen Lake, he felt that some provision should be made allowing people to include the site in their eternal game plan. “After all,” he says, “boating on Evergreen Lake isn’t just legal, it’s encouraged. Plus, since they don’t do fireworks at the lake anymore, Viking funerals could be a big summertime draw.”

Skeptical at first, EPRD accountant Sigurd Dynglinga is now strongly behind the initiative. “According to our records,” he explains, “there is usually about 45 minutes between when the pedal boats come ashore and when a private party starts in the Lakehouse. That’s almost an hour when the district isn’t making a dime.” The under-utilized interval, he says, can easily be filled by revenue-producing Viking funerals.

The original proposal included a provision allowing a family member or cherished household retainer to be sacrificed and set adrift with the deceased. “I crunched the numbers myself,” Dynglinga says, “and as tempting as the idea was, we couldn’t really okay it without also agreeing to let heavily-armed women, crazed by grief, run amok after the ceremony. All it would take is one dismembered tourist and we’d never hear the end of it from the Chamber of Commerce.”

In truth, the county may not have the authority to prevent the romantic Norse tradition. “EPRD rules allow the use of private, non-motorized water craft on Evergreen Lake, and this is presumed to include shallow-draft, lashed-plank Viking longboats carrying the fallen to the halls of their fathers.” Those same rules, Dynglinga says, do not discriminate against deceased-American boaters, so long as they are at least 18 years old and sober. “As far as burning the ship to the waterline, well, anybody with a driver’s license who can sign a liability waiver qualifies for a campfire permit.”

The first Viking funeral could take place as early as this June when Evergreen Estates resident Grunnhild Eyrbyggja’s husband, Dorolfur, returns from his annual hunting trip. “If he walks through the door with an MLT luggage tag on his duffle and his pockets full of matches from Caesar’s Palace like he did last year, it’s Gotterdammerung-time.”

Next stop, Hall of the Slain

Lettuce vs Cabbage

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Lettuce thinks it’s so great.

Lettuce thinks it deserves an invitation to every table and a throne on every dish.

Lettuce thinks it out-ranks all other leafy greens, and believes itself manifestly superior to those humble, but hard-working, species of produce that dangle, or flower, or burrow in the earth, or recline on the vine.

Salad plates? That was lettuce’s idea.

That grossly inflated self-image is distasteful, certainly, but understandable. Lettuce is, after all, the most vain of vegetables, and recieves constant, unhealthy re-enforcement from large, entrenched and unreasoning culinary factions more interested in form than function. And never was a sterling reputation so utterly without foundation.

The Emperor has no clothes.

Wrong

Were the truth known, lettuce has for too long been standing in the warm light of admiration more rightly occupied by a valiant victual of impressive attainments, proven character and unquestioned merit, and that’s an injustice I mean to correct. I’m talking about that hardy herbaceous biennial of the Family Brassicaceae; that compact cluster derived from the wild mustard plant and beloved of the ancient Celts; that noble crop that Cato the Elder in his wisdom praised as “the first of all the vegetables.”

In the realm of edible foliage, Cabbage wears the crown.

I don’t hate lettuce. Oh, it’s fine as a bed for something battered and deep-fried, or piled on a slice of rye with bacon, tomato and mayonnaise. But it’s no cabbage. It’s a fop, a popinjay, a proud face on a craven heart. It’s all trailer and no feature presentation.

Lettuce has no flavor, unless apathy is a flavor. The leaves of aspen, birch, or People Magazine would make a more favorable first impression. Lettuce is the only substance bland enough to make raspberry vinaigrette seem interesting.

Cabbage introduces itself with a firm handshake and even gaze. A little sweet, a little nutty, and with just a hint of menace, cabbage greets the tongue without flinching and won’t be intimidated by garlic and oregano. 

Lettuce has the French knack for folding when the going gets tough. Put lettuce anywhere near a knife and it immediately turns coward-brown and begins losing its composure. It has a Pheonix sunbird’s delicate internal thermostat, only with the dial reversed. Just watch it as it turns limp and listless and whiny at the slightest breath of temperate atmosphere. An hour at room temperature transforms even the crispest of that class into an unappetizing sludge the most famished and least critical gerbil can’t abide.

Not so cabbage.

Cabbage is a matador – brash, resolute, self-assured, and fearless in its purpose. It gives respect to the diner, and demands it in return. Slice it, dice it, chop it fine or shred it into confetti, cabbage will hold its ground, stay the course, keep the faith. A week in the refrigerator soaking in a zesty cream dressing won’t break cabbage’s will, nor dull its satisfying crunch. If cabbage could talk it would say please-sir-may-I-have-another.

Besides lackluster service as that most uninspired of sides, the dinner salad, or lending unnecessary bulk to pedestrian hand-foods – taking up valuable taco real estate better occupied by smoked and seasoned pollo, for instance – lettuce is good for exactly nothing. It’s a two-trick pony, and neither of them are fun or surprising.

Cabbage is the most versatile of viands. It makes a better, livelier salad than lettuce could ever hope to, and that’s just the tip of the, er, iceberg. Steamed and bathed in butter it’s a party in your mouth. Coarsely-chopped cabbage adds gumption to soups and stews, and when finely-chopped supplies nutritious heft to any sauce or casserole. Shredded and pickled it’s matchless on a brat or other wurst. Shredded and fried it’s the soul of pork fried rice and egg rolls. Speaking of rolls, try wrapping rice and ground lamb up in tidy shroud of lettuce sometime.

You won’t try it twice.

Determined lettuce-boosters will hope to dazzle you with a description of their favorite leaf’s nutritional attributes. True, lettuce contains many ingredients compatible with a healthy diet. Just not as many as – anyone?… anyone? – no, sorry; the correct answer was “cabbage.”

Not only does cabbage contain more essential calories and protein – the precious fuels of life – it’s got nearly twice the fiber of lettuce and less than half the unsaturated fats. In addition, cabbage is an excellent source of vitamin C, and a single cup supplies about two-thirds the recommended daily allowance of Nature’s unsung hero, vitamin K. Add to that a generous periodic-table’s-worth of vigor-inducing minerals like iron, calcium and potassium, and a body might well sustain on little but cabbage and water.

And how sweet would that be?

But maybe you’re not into awesome nutrition. Maybe you’re the kind of Narcissistic mule who cares only for food’s superficial qualities. Lettuce, if you’d like to know, comes in unimaginative varieties like “Romaine”, “Looseleaf”, “Red”, and – God help us – “Arugula”. Cabbage, on the other hand, strides boldly onto the menu under proud and historic banners such as “Late Flat Dutch”, “Early Jersey Wakefield”, “Danish Ballhead” and “Savory.” What’s in a name? Good eating, that’s what.

Incredibly, even in this age of dwindling energy resources there will be unrepentant lettuce lovers who discountenance and malign cabbage’s remarkable ability to fabricate combustible gold within our very bowels. On the contrary, besides its potential to power a brighter future for all races and peoples, I consider that rare and wonderful capacity to be cabbage’s most cherished gift.

The gift of music.

Right

Don’t be blue, Pumpkin. Lettuce had a good run, but it’s time for iceberg to slip back under the waves and surrender the succulent seas to one far more scrumptious. Cabbage is the new sovereign of the supper table, the fresh and feisty prince of the popular palate.

The King is dead.

Long live the King.

Neighborhood pest revealed as obsessive movie idol

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About two weeks ago, when she first heard something rooting through her garbage cans after dark, Evergreen resident Brie Kammhem-Behr was annoyed. Sunday night, after she staked out her driveway and caught the culprit in a flashlight’s accusing beam, she became truly frightened.

“At first all I could see was a dark shape hunched over a pile of trash and tearing at a half-eaten Hot-Pocket with its teeth,” she said on Monday morning, still clutching an aluminum baseball bat and clearly shaken. “Then he looked up and snarled at me and his eyes reflected the light like a pair of golden globes. It was Johnny Depp.”

 

Pesky media star Johnny Depp

 

As unlikely as that sounds, Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office investigators believe that Kammhem-Behr’s terrifying discovery may go far toward explaining the sudden rash of over-turned trash cans, frightened household pets and soaring Cutty Sark sales that have plagued central Evergreen during the last three weeks.

“It’s starting to add up,” explains deputy Gilbert Grape, carefully dusting a deeply-chewed, silver-tipped ebony cigarette holder for fingerprints. “A jogger found this in a porta-potty at Evergreen Lake that we think Depp may be using for shelter.”

For one Main Street business owner who wishes to remain anonymous until she’s heard back from her agent, the J.D. sighting provides the missing piece of a messy puzzle.

“Every morning when I come in, the delivery porch is littered with stale croissant ends and Galois butts,” she says. “Now that I know Johnny might be crashing in there, I should be able to get a fortune for them on e-Bay.”

Reached by telephone at his Los Angeles office, film-agent Morey Amsterdam declined to give Depp’s present location, or even say when he and his most illustrious client last spoke. He did confirm, however, that Depp walked off the set of his latest picture, “Pirates of the Caribbean: Planks a Million,” nearly a month ago, putting the project on indefinite hiatus

Still, one must ask what personal demons could drive a celebrity of Depp’s stature to such wretched depths. According to the megastar’s therapist, celebrity headshrinker Dr. Royce Carruthers, the answer is tragically simple.

“Basically, he began to feel snubbed by your community and it sent him around the bend,” Carruthers explains. “He fell in love with your town, last year, and did his best to embrace it with his whole heart. He went house-hunting among your beautiful hills, shopped in your quaint groceries, noshed at your local bagelries, even took to walking around your lovely lake early each morning. Yet everybody acted like he wasn’t even there and, for a man who’s adored by millions, that was intolerable. Medically speaking, he went Froot Loops.”

While the thought of an unhinged Hollywood icon skulking around Evergreen’s quiet neighborhoods is certainly disturbing, it’s not without ample precedent. In late 2002, cinema tough-guy Al Pacino terrorized the quiet township of Cactus Creek, Nev., for nearly a month after the local Bijou closed his latest picture, “The Sense of a Wombat,” after only two weeks. And just last year, Hollywood heavyweight Susan Sarandon, esteemed in industries circles as an actress of great seriousness, spent several days wandering the tiny hamlet of Quaker Oaks, N.H., sleeping in the park, eating from birdfeeders and frightening household pets. According to Amsterdam, the episode began when Sarandon learned that the popular half-pound “Susan Saran-Ton” garden burger at Mimi’s Silver Screen Diner in downtown Quaker Oaks had been renamed the “Adam Sandler-wich” after the prominent ham stopped to disburden himself on a dwarf chestnut tree on nearby Rural Route 86.

Even now, county personnel are bending their efforts to catching the troubled superstar. Authorities hope that deftly camouflaged snares laid in Dedisse Park and baited with plastic Oscar trophy replicas will snare the two-time nominee so that he can be safely darted and relocated to a less natural environment.

“We don’t want to hurt him,” Grape says. “We just want to end the fear and loathing in Evergreen.”

Used by permission of Evergreen Newspapers