Anger Happens

I want to talk about surrealism this month. But first I want to present the following unpaid anti-advertisement:

The first issue of the zine Out of the Margins, a new publication of the Real Change Homeless Empowerment Project, became unavailable in stores throughout Seattle last week. Out of the Margins will not be sold at various shelters and at drop-in centers every other month.

Should any of you unwisely attempt to purchase a copy of Out of the Margins , we at Real Change intend to be highly uncooperative. We shall not return your phone calls, we shall delete your email messages to us, and we shall run from you when we see you approach on foot. But we do hope the rest of you will enjoy it.

OK. So lets talk about surreality. First, why do I want to do this? Everyone else, wherever I go in this great universe of ours, prefers to talk about reality. So: “What’s MY problem?” I ask.

I came to realize only days ago that not only did I indeed have this problem, but that so also did some of my most loved ones, in addition to others who have been subject to my globule of influence. That I did so then was due to the unselfish, caring, concerned intervention of Bob “the Other” Redmond, who is Real Change’s Production Manager, Editor Manager, and most importantly, fellow Poet Guy.

I was gazing at what was supposed to be, according to reality , the black and white computer image of a pair of male (hence blue) blue jays. The computer gave the blue jays a copper tinge. I consciously thought at the time that, if there should be any tinge whatsoever, it (the tinge) should be of the blue kind.

Gazing thusly at these nonblue yet nevertheless certainly blue blue jays, I began to declaim openly regarding their lack of bluehood. I found that I could not contain myself; I experienced a sense of urgency, a compulsion, a need arising from some one of those things that I might on occasion call whatsits. One of those things that my therapist often used to term feelings.

Nor was I alone. Fellow editor Anitra L. “Please Help Stabilize Me” Freeman was also there, and she practically precisely echoed my own concerns about the missing bluehood of the probably gay, certainly jay, bird couple.

Just as I was about to embark upon a tirade decrying the serious problem of bluelessness in computer monitor representations of gray scale images of avia generally , and the consequent need for urgent federal action, I heard the gentle voice of Bob Redmond from behind me framing the simple remark, “I can’t believe how surreal you guys are! Constantly! I mean, WOW! Like, where does that come from? Gee.”

Thanks to Bob I have looked within and I have faced my demon. I now fully understand how it is that I can be surreal all of the time.

It comes from PURE hostility! Every cell of my being rages against the real! “Are you REAL?” -- I ask that question of every stinking lousy little bit of world-stuff that comes my way, and if the wormy pathetic little stuff squeaks “yes” out of its unworthy windpipe, I say, “then, in that case: CHANGE!”

That’s right. It’s just me, Anitra, Salvadore, that Rene-Magrite dude, Barney Rubble, Ernie Kovacs, and the artist formerly known as Pee Wee Herman -- just the seven of us against all that exists in the cosmos that claims special privileges just because it IS.

For example, Blake Nordstrom IS. The Nordstrom garage IS. The Seattle City Council IS. The adjudicated unassailability of the ethicality of Nordstroms, their contractors, the City Council, HUD and the money that passed about between them just IS.

Me and my Dali Posse say it ain’t that easy. We say that it “matters” (or should we have to say it “spirits”?) that the money passed around was intended to bring relief to people in our cities suffering from a level of poverty normally associated with hurricane victims. And that those who direct Nordstroms, however inbred they may be, have no excuse for being unaware of that intention.

Just as Nordstroms just IS, likewise anger just HAPPENS.

Speaking of Nordstroms, I see that now the company wants the federal government to allow it to convert its credit services to a savings and loan! And they will probably get permission! Just so they can as conveniently as possible put people in debt whenever they can’t afford to buy their goods! Remember the savings and loan crisis? Our government apparently doesn’t. Look forward to paying extra taxes to support the desire of the not-quite-rich-enough to have the same imported shoes that the rich-enough get to have.

Pooty Free Ameter

In last month’s Real Change we announced that we would throw a birthday party for our (that is, Seattle’s) mayor, the distinguished and beloved periodic Frenchperson, Paul Schell. I bet you all thought we were just goofing, didn’t you? Hah! We really meant it! We love to do things like that! Anything for a hoot and a piece of cake! That’s just the way we feel about it around here!

Meanwhile, as the evening of the party approached, what with the flurry of preparations etc., there was an absolute, literal, palpable air of excitement here in the Real Change office. I mean, you could actually really FEEL the air, it was so palpable. Or at least, stuff in it was...

So, anyway, I was inspired by something palpable in the air in our office to write a humble little speech for the occasion of Mayor Paul Schell’s Birthday. Lacking anything better to do, I would like now to share that speech with the entire Real Change readership, at this time (now). So here is that speech:

I would like to talk about Mayor Schell, because this is, after all, HIS birthday party and that’s why we’re all here, to talk about Mayor Paul “max-a-million, any-million” Schell.

But before I do that, I would like first to take some time out to praise iambic tetrameter.

Iambic tetrameter is, as I have said many times before and in many places, the ameter without which the immortal line “they’re coming to take me away, ha, ha!” could never have been uttered.

If that were the only praise I could sing of iambic tetrameter, I would sing that praise endlessly, but luckily, for all of you here listening to me this evening, there is so much more:

For example, iambic tetrameter is NOT a pooty ameter, like that iambic PENT-ameter is, and this endears it to me, as it should to all right-thinking and right-feeling Americans.

Indeed, for hundreds of years pooty English poets, both in their native England and in their non-native other countries that they’ve gone off to (like this one), have pooted all over the place with their pooty iambic pentameter, whose every single pooty line drags on exactly one pooty beat too long.

Iambic tetrameter KNOWS when enough is enough. “ALWAYS LEAVE THEM WANTING MORE!” -- that’s iambic tetrameter’s motto! -- and it lives it, line after line after line after line after line after non-pooty line.

Moreover, iambic tetrameter is faithful. Oh, sure, it isn’t as flashy or as exotic as is, for example, anapestic tetrameter. But iambic tetrameter will always be there for you, waiting patiently and forgivingly while you come slinking home with that anapestic lipstick on your collar, those lacy crotchless silky anapestic panties tucked just inside your left front pant’s pocket, and that anapestic vibrator left carelessly on, wasting batteries, causing that peculiar walk of yours.

There are so many more wonderful things that I could tell you about iambic tetrameter, involving for instance Keiko The Killer Whale and/or Elizabeth Dole, but I have just reminded myself that we are here, after all, to talk about Mayor Schell, so I should get on with that instead.

But before I do that, I would like to present a little poem that I have written. No, actually I was just kidding, I am going to present a poem AND talk about Mayor Schell -- simultaneously! I call my poem

Our Mayor Schell Sure Does Mayor Well!

or Opus 67 (Count Them!) Spanks

by © Dr. Me, Wes Browning

Our Mayor Schell sure mayors well!

He mayors swell! -- as I will tell:

He mayors here, he mayors there,

he mayors gladly anywhere,

He is the mayor with the plan,

he doesn’t sit upon the can!

Five hundred thousand he would spend,

-- far more than any’d dare to lend --

that women & kids be off our streets

as one of many Christmas treats!

It’s not his fault five hundred thou’

is not enough. -- Don’t have a cow!

Our mayor Schell DOES mayor great --

So WHAT if he can’t calculate?

-- Thank You.

Social Solvents

The fall equinox* has come and gone and now I got the fall equinox blues. I'm reminded of my 1996 statement on the subject, which I have as yet failed to improve upon. (A symptom of auld-tymer disease, says those that know me.)

(*: It has been called to my attention that not everyone in the Real Change Readership may know what an equinox is. For those people I will explain. An equinox is an equine-ox, that is to say half horse and half bovine. Therefore it is equi-noxious, to both horse-haters and

bovine-haters. Personally, I hate afghans, because they are cats merely pretending to be dogs, which I find despicable. But that's just me.)

My 1996 Statement Regarding The Fall Equinox,

Whose Actual Title Is Much Longer Than This,

So Much Longer That I Can't Include It Here,

Except To Say That It Includes the Words

"to be Sung Dolefully in the Key of Flat"

by © Dr. Wes Browning

The first day of Fall is the Fall Equinox;

This day means as much as a bag full of rocks.

Not a damn thing has happened, the sky is all gray.

I live in Seattle, we like it that way.

At the first of the month I will get a fat check;

Then maybe this season'll get my respeck.

Until then I'll merely be biding my time,

With nothing to do except write silly rhyme.

The Equinox isn't all that's come or gone and I'm not just talking Presidential politics. Remember those Chris Bayley ads? With no mention of Patty Murray, just "Linda Smith this" and "Linda Smith that"? Way to go, Chris!

Thus was our esteemed Editorial Board moved to weigh in on the local races that still remain, now that the primary is over. So we held a Special Meeting just to decide upon "our" endorsements. And are we at all surprised (it happens every time) that my recommendations are ignored by that August Body? No we are not.

First of all I think we should pay more attention to the cool names some of these candidates have. You voters have already said no to a Pope, to a guy named Mike the Mover, and to a Medley. OK, the People Have Spoken, but those of you in District 41 still have a chance to send a James Brown to the State House. Who cares who he really is! Come on! Make me proud!

Could I ask that the glorious Ed Board consider such a proposal for even a second? Just listen and take a lousy vote on it? Just listen, then yes or no. Would that hurt?

NOOOOoooo: "we're too busy deciding the fate of the Universe, Wes." "If it's so important to you why don't you do it in your silly column, Wes." I just made those quotes up but Ruth A Fox Rhymes With Box Socks and Clocks actually said "put it in your column and smoke it."

Fine. Here are my other picks then. I'm for Faith Ireland if she'll change her name to Kathy by November. I'm for Kip Tokuda, unchanged, because with a name like Kip "no one needs a golden retriever". I regretfully must therefore oppose Kip's Republican challenger Muhammad S. Farrakhan. That's a shame because it would be so cool if the courts had to straighten out a Farrakhan win.

Farrakhan is claiming that the State can't prevent him from taking office even though he has been convicted of felonies.

Though I don't endorse Farrakhan himself, I endorse his right to run and serve if elected. I probably wouldn't be saying that if this weren't the US of A. But it is, and that means me and you and everyone else I know could be defined by one legislative body or another as felonious at any time, because that's just the way we do things here:

"Got a race problem? Don't sweat it! We'll just figure out how the undesirables 'get by', and then we'll criminalize it!"

"Too many poor people lowering property values? We'll just build more jails and make it illegal to exist in poverty!"

There isn't any social problem that ignorant fools can't "solve" by passing laws against it.

Case in point. Flashback to the Dark Ages. The bubonic plague kills two thirds of all Europeans. There is a huge labor shortage. Serfs leave their lands to become itinerant laborers. They charge MARKET prices. The ruling classes are horrified. Laws are passed making it illegal to charge any more than pre-plague prices for labor.

The outcome? Capitalism. Those serfs became the new Middle Classes. The laws came to be universally violated, with the resulting loss of respect for the governments that created them. Any of those wage fixing laws that still remain on the books are historical jokes, like those laws of the same period that prohibited Christians from engaging in money lending (banking). Was that a bad thing?

And why the hell couldn't we have had a Thor in the US Senate? Where were you Ballard, when we needed you?

Let My People Be Exploited

Well, that August was some month wasn’t it? You had your Monica blah blah Bill blah blue dress etc. blah, you had Tent City II & hearings, you had terrorist attacks and counterattacks, you had a big rally about the Nordstrom garage, you even had your local celebration of Newt Gingrich’s birthday, complete with the gray-haired pudgy-fingered salamander himself.

And what have those of us here at the Real Change been therefore talking about all month? What has been the almost undivided focus of our attentions?

Answer: Montreal.

That’s Montreal, Quebec, Canada, as in “What is the largest French speaking city in the world besides Paris, Alex?”

You see, last year, when the North American Street Newspaper Association (NASNA) held its lately annual conference here in Seattle, it was decided that this year’s conference would happen in Montreal, where it would be hosted by L’Itinéraire, NASNA’s Montreal member.

Try to picture this: almost everyone taking part in putting out street newspapers in North America or around the world has been homeless in the past even if they aren’t homeless now. But because we’re accomplishing things, we are able to get financial grants to help carry out the business of organizing, such as flying to Montreal and then staying in rooms for three nights on grant money!

Is that cool or what? Can you see how it might affect perspectives?

Monica who? Or..., after just four days total in Canada, someone gave me USA change for a purchase, and for a moment I thought I was getting funny money.

Most interesting revelation in Montreal: Quebec apparently has one of the most youthful homeless populations to be found anywhere in the developed world. Most widely offered explanation: uncertainty about the future political status of the province leaves the youth (and those who would potentially invest in them) less able to envision their own futures.

Most interesting homeless person in Montreal: a young man seen pantomiming the squeegying of automobiles, waving a stick in front of their windshields instead of actually cleaning them, and getting paid for it! While I watched, nearly every other driver paid him something for his “work”. My theory: they paid him out of gratitude. They hate squeegy-guys even more than they hate mimes. (The alternative theory is almost too awful to contemplate -- they’re Quebecois, and they like mimes. Eeeew.)

Everyone’s favorite quote from the 1998 NASNA Conference, from the chief editor of Le Voir, a Quebec weekly, regarding that blue dress: “I heard there was a second shooter... ”

Most interesting street paper represented at the 1998 NASNA Conference in Montreal: L’Itinéraire itself. Interesting, because it had its beginning as a cafe specifically catering to the homeless -- good food priced within reach of the poor. It was only after the cafe was a success that the paper was developed.

Again, that could be a Quebecois thing. So people there eat in cafes.

A thrift cafe would be bound to succeed.

But I think the experience of L’Itinéraire is more universal than that.

Naturally, I said so at the conference. Specifically what I said was that after having been homeless in the last twenty years more times than I can now remember, the one thing I remember most missing in all those times that I was homeless was not food, not sex, not shoelaces, not even a home, but being exploited.

Whenever I was homeless, businesses here in Seattle turned their backs on me! I still had money -- not enough for Seattle rents but still some green and silver and copper USA money just like everybody else -- but BUSINESSES HERE DIDN’T WANT MY MONEY!

Nobody wanted to exploit me!

Meanwhile three thousand miles away in another country people got the idea that providing food to poor people at prices they could afford might actually be, well, at least sustainable. Sustainable enough that they could build on it. (The cafe is now a successful cyber-cafe.)

I don’t want to have to leave the country I was born in to have my money be taken seriously. I want to be exploited right here in the good old USA. What is the matter with American capitalists that they would ignore the opportunities that US homeless have to offer?

Eventually, I want to see even American real-estate developers figure out how to exploit the homeless. Come on, guys! You’re on the A-TEAM!!! Billions of welfare and minimum wage dollars are going to waste that could be being spent on your properties.

Thank you all for your attention. Next month: how comfortable is Nordstrom’s garage at night?

The Truth Is Way Out There

Well, here we are again. It’s deadline time and I’m stuck, as always. I ask Cindy and she suggests “Write about why you are stuck.” I think, “Do I really want to talk about the X-Files here?” But I have nowhere else to go.

As I write this, Anitra L. “Net Mama” Freeman, fellow editor and proof that I am not the world’s biggest nerd, tells me that she wants me to get the following message printed.

“Mulder is a dweeb. He is a lovable dweeb, but he is a dweeb. And YOU, Scully, are an admirable woman in many ways. But you seriously need to enroll in a co-dependency program: ‘Woman Who Love Dweebs.’”

Apparently, how Scully conducts her life is very important to Anitra, and Anitra is certain that her advice will reach Scully. The theory seems to be that some paranoid schizophrenic will read the above paragraph and pass it on to Mulder (all paranoid schizophrenics have Fox Mulder’s unlisted phone number - it’s a union privilege), in the belief that it contains a coded message. Mulder will then show it to Scully, in the hopes that she will be able to decipher it. She will.

But that isn’t what is making it so hard for me to write this month. After sharing my problem with Anitra, she is very alarmed. She says I mustn’t talk about that in public. There are people, she tells me, sad, unfortunate people, who haven’t seen the movie yet! She pleads with me not to spoil it for those miserable people who might nevertheless still find the seven bucks to see it, someday, in a theater.

I’m sorry. Tell you what though, I’ll give you all a warning - WARNING, INFORMATION ABOUT THE END OF THE X-FILES MOVIE FOLLOWS.

OK, you’ve all been warned. So here’s my problem. There they are, BOTH of them, lying in the ice and snow, IN ANTARCTICA, at the edge of this huge crater made by the unexpected take-off of a previously buried tremendously huge alien YOU-KNOW-WHAT. The snow tractor that delivered Mulder to this site is somewhere nearby, BUT IT IS OUT OF GAS. The evil conspirators who brought Scully to this chunk of ice ARE LONG GONE.

So how did they get off Antarctica? What’d they do, thumb a ride on the back of a passing penguin? Walrus, walri? In the very next scene they’re doing their almost-but-not-quite-kissing act in DC, under blossoming cherry trees! What?! Did Mulder dial up the Chief Engineer of the Enterprise on his cell-phone? “Hey, it’s cherry blossom time! Beam us to the Capitol, Scotty!!?” On a continent that does not yet have cellular phone service???

Oh, but THAT can’t be. I forgot that Mulder’s cell-phone would have been in outer space at this point, since he had carelessly dropped it inside the alien YOU-KNOW-WHAT.

SEQUEL ALERT!!: ALIENS have Mulder’s cell-phone! The fun only starts there!

Speaking of evil conspirators...

Let me get this straight... Paul Schell deeply CARES about the plight of the homeless, so long as they aren’t visible? So long as they don’t put up tents? “I LOVE you homeless guy, cause you sleep outdoors without any shelter and you will surely die at that rate, but thank you anyway good buddy! - for not putting that nasty protective tent up!”

Once again, Anitra gets into the act. She wants me to “remember the hamsters”, whatever that means. I remind her that Mayor Schell is on our side. Yeah, really! This is a man who would never beat a dead horse - he LOVES dead horses!

Maybe Paul Schell would like to negotiate with SHARE and WHEEL et al to agree that they may put their unhoused people on the continent of Antarctica. Just so long as they don’t put up any unsightly tents that might offend the eyes of those who may have voted for Mr. Schell, or that might do so in the future, or that might be artichokes.

“Tents are not only ugly, but they are a fire hazard. Snow is much safer.”

And, surely those homeless wimps can’t complain about being isolated, by being put there in Antarctica. For one, they’ll have evil conspirators everywhere around them to keep them company. For two, they will be able to get to DC within minutes (at cherry blossom time).

For three, Mark Sidran himself, renowned humanitarian, is prepared to provide the initial transportation at no cost to the general public (he can write it off as a campaign expense.)

Great, now my spell-checker is telling me to change “unhoused” to “unhorsed”. Some things make no sense, others too much. How’s a guy supposed to concentrate?

Nailing Stephen Hawking

Every month the same thing: first, I realize that as writers go, I am the functional equivalent of Steven Hawking without his Power Chair. (By the way, my girlfriend says that Steven is my biggest threat. She says that if he were here at this very moment she would nail him, with or without the mobile throne. I say, yeah sure, she would have to. What else could she do?)

Second, I despair.

Third, I wonder, “is it ‘third’, or is it ‘thirdly’?”

Fourth, out of my desperation, I analyze the cause of my inability to get started writing.

Fifth, I write about that cause, since I realize that I have nothing else to write about, apart from bad beer, dead pigeons, and the other gender, and I’ve probably already said all that I should about those, for now.

This month the culprit is the Capital T that is followed by the Capital Gosh Condemned V. To be precise, almost as soon as I became housed I procured an “idiot box”. I am right now on the verge of getting cable. After years of what my therapist had declared a cure I have suffered from what is undeniably a relapse: I have become re-addicted to Letterman and his Stupid Human Tricks. I have started watching Simpson reruns every day. I have to watch 11 at 11 on 7 every night. I no longer have a will of my own. Something has pierced my neck. Something is controlling my cerebrum. I have the urge to scream. I start to bond with paranoid schizophrenics. The stories from the X-files seem reasonable to a guy who has gotten used to watching Jerry Springer. Aliens among us? Heck yeah.

I recently heard an “anchorperson” on a TV news program say something like this -- “And now, Jim has some information that will help you avoid being swept off a mountain by an avalanche.” I wasn’t even able to write my own name for half an hour after that...

I thought I heard “and now Uncle Jim will tell me how even an infantile adult-in-age-only such as myself can avoid ending up like any of a bunch of reckless thrill seekers more than willing to tax the resources of State rescue agencies without bothering to assume the responsibility of paying in advance for the privilege.”

If I were a real adult, I thought, I would climb mountains daily. And people would CARE if I slipped, or if some stinking avalanche disturbed my climb. There would be hundreds of people concerned with every breath I took, for fear that I wasn’t getting enough oxygen and might have to live the rest of my life stupid, as if I was raised in the projects eating lead paint. Hundreds of Mountaineer Club Types would be willing to trek through miles of knee deep snow up 110 degree inclines just to deliver beef-jerky and/or French Cognac to me.

Well, guess what?! I don’t LIKE beef-jerky! Meanwhile, where were any of you heroes any of the four years I was homeless and freezing my ass off sleeping in toxic waste dumps?

I know the answer already. When you weren’t watching television you were climbing mountains or you were rescuing other jocks like yourselves who had tried to climb mountains. You were too busy for me. Just like now, I am watching the Simpsons, and can’t be bothered with news about someone’s failed attempt at literal upward mobility who brought his troubles on himself by taking unnecessary risks.

Ha, ha, just kidding! “Taking unnecessary risks” is another way of saying “being born,” right?

Sixth, when that goes nowhere, I resort to a totally irrational non sequitur:

For example --

Speaking of being born, that reminds me that I am male. And I realize that I haven’t batted people in the head about it recently, whence a poem --

We men don’t need large bladders --

We piss on everything, that’s our job!

-- or something like that. Trouble with that one is, what rhymes with bladders besides ladders, and what do ladders have to do with it? Do I really want to bring Tool Time into the discussion? Of course not. I preferred Seinfeld.

And why did I prefer Seinfeld? Because there were no fathers even trying to know best on Seinfeld. There were no Uncle Jims. Think of it: a sitcom that acted less like a sitcom than the nightly news!

Tonight at eleven -- Uncle Jim tells how you can avoid having your campsite bulldozed by the City of Seattle! The answer just may surprise you!

Chuck Grammar

Let’s chuck grammar in the bin, why not? Speech parts of? Needs them who?!

And while we are thinking about that, we’ll give a thought to writing a poem that expresses the thought we’re thinking.

Whoa, wait a sec! We weren’t thinking a thought, actually, were we? Well, OK, let’s think of something, and then color it, so to speak, with the sentiment previously touched upon (eeeww).

What I’m thinking about is the plight of Eastside Earl (not his real name). This is a guy you can see daytimes in the U District, even at the U itself, reading books. Say you see him reading a book, and you walk up to him, and you say, “Hi, what are you reading?” If he looks up and says “a book” and then goes back to his reading, it’s a fairly good sign that it’s him.

An even better indication would be no answer at all. Earl is at home with books but can barely relate to human society at all. That’s why, although he’s clearly mentally ill, he’s never checked into the welfare system, because that would entail talking to people. That’s also why every evening, instead of checking into a downtown shelter, Earl rides a bus to the Eastside. To a patch of not-yet-developed land not yet as crowded with homeless as Seattle’s “jungle” and therefore not nearly as likely to be bulldozed, or even visited.

Of course like all people who “work” in Seattle while residing in Bellevue or Redmond or Kirkland or whatnot, Earl pays a price. Prior to June 1, Earl’s price was $2.20 per day. He’s been paying for that and his food and other expenses with money obtained from clearing the alleys and sidewalks of the U District of littered aluminum cans. But “rent” has gone up for Earl. Thirteen percent.

This poem is inspired by Earl, and I am sure that it is one that he would particularly despise.

Bus Burdened Eastside Earl

by © Dr. Wes Browning

Thank Earl’s bent back no cans out back

blackberry ladens, they’re laden less since him

His peace vines fruit quiet, daily

But busses burden Eastside Earl.

Oh, sure we all zone twice or twice again

-- Earl’s got nothing we elsewise lack

Hell, Earl’s got nothing.

But come June the first,

he’ll be bus burdened Eastside Earl,

by thirteen percent the worst.

This being the 1998 Real Change Food Issue, allow me to waste valuable space and time by discussing some of my own favorite culinary tips for the street-weary.

The last time we did this I got honorable mention for my limburger-burger suggestion. That was a utilitarian repast, designed less to be eaten than to seize territory. Whole parks could be claimed just by making one limburger-burger.

Here is another helpful hint from the Homeless Gourmet, and one that is not at all original to me: always, always, carry a bottle of hot sauce with you to those soup kitchens. Earl carries one. You need one, too. You want to be able to eat the food without necessarily having to taste it. With sufficiently many repeated applications of this suggestion you might even spare yourself from having to taste anything ever again. This greatly simplifies cooking all around and makes coming up with new satisfying recipes a cinch.

Earl reminds me of one more way to improve an otherwise lack-luster meal. Everywhere you go you can find “empty” beer cans. This is even more true than ever thanks to the drive to eliminate 40-ouncers from the shelves of downtown stores.

Now a nice thing about aluminum, as opposed to glass, besides being worth more per pound, is that aluminum is opaque. As a consequence, upon close inspection you will discover that these cans almost never get completely emptied by their original owners. Their contents can be saved in a jar to provide an interesting and enjoyable addition to sauces and gravies and even soups.

I especially recommend stale beer & sardines. Add a half dozen shakes of hot sauce, a little bit of ketchup, and sop it up with bread. It’s got your grains, your carbohydrates, your vegetables and your protein. And thank you Seattle for making it so much easier to round the ingredients up!