Blunt Wit

Clark and I had been friends since our youth back in Oak Ridge, Tennessee. It was there that Clark and I began our epic rivalry. It revolves around hot, spicy, ethnic food. You see in Tennessee we grew up thinking that kind of fiery food only came from Taco Bell.

When we left those sylvan environs we had lots of lost meals (and burrito supremes) to make up for so we both became ravenous foodheads. This particular misadventure takes place years later in Samezu, (literal translation: Shark Country) a working class Tokyo suburb that sits on the inland waterways off Tokyo Bay.

So flash cut a few years after Tennessee but a few years before Shark Country to a small apartment in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Clark was in grad school on his way to being a world famous biologist and I was on a fast train to nowhere. So one fateful evening we decided to home cook a Thai meal. We procured the necessary ingredients and set about making our curries. So if you’ve ever cooked Thai curry you know to add a small spoonful of curry paste from one of those distinctive small Maesri cans.

Well, we started drinking and cooking (a practice i highly recommend you not engage in) and bragging about how manly we were and one thing led to another and we ended up adding the entire can!

Youch. Neither of us would admit it as we forced down the oh too spicy and not really fit for human consumption curry. At that moment our macho ‘hotter than thou’ rivalry was born!

Ok, so a little about Clark. His real name is not Clark. I’m using that pseudonym to protect his identity as he as currently teaches biology at UC Berkeley and I figure there’s a high probability that one of his students might be reading this blog.

Why Clark you ask? Like the eponymous Clark Kent, he too wears glasses and has a folksy down to earth mild manner. But underneath that slide-rule-pocket-protector-aw-shucks exterior lies is a man of steel. A fierce competitor. A worthy opponent!

So now to our story. He came to visit Tokyo for some worldwide biological save the kelp meeting and we decided to get together since I was then living (in Shark Country) and working (in a salt mine of sorts) in Tokyo. I suggested a little Thai restaurant some 15 minutes from my apartment next to a Sony factory (where many Thais worked).

It was a little late when we walked up and I was afraid they were closed. As we stepped in we saw a bulky Japanese man with a big smile and a white bandana wrapped around his head standing next to a petite woman with an evil glare. There was no one in the restaurant. He said in Japanese they had had a long day and that they were planning to close but since we were there, what the heck, he’d whip us up some dinner.

We sat and death-beam-lasers-for-eyes dropped our menus on the table. I said something to her in Japanese but it only seemed to incense her. The man walked over to take our order. Clark had already started trash talking:

“I’ll bet their curry’s not even hot. If you were a spice girl your name would be ‘wimpy spice.’” I drowned him out to concentrate on what the man was saying.

Apparently there had been a TV crew in not but a few minutes before we arrived filming one of those inane shows you so often see on Japanese TV. In this case they had been taking five contestants around Tokyo to various restaurants to eat ‘the hottest foods’. His restaurant had been chosen and his Thai wife had made a Tom Yum Kung (soup) that, in his own words, would make a Thai blush.

I immediately said we’d like some. He glanced nervously back at his wife. “Well, we do have some left, but I would not recommend it. Really.” I explained in Japanese that my partner was afflicted by a rare disease and his suffering could only be lessened by spicy foods. The spicier the better. That’s why we had come to his restaurant in the first place.

Kicking Clark underneath the table and I hissed at him to frown glumly. Which he did. The proprietor finally acquiesced and the game was afoot.

When he finally brought the small earthenware pot on a small flame to our table it looked rather innocuous. We each poured some and the carnage began. The moment, nay, the nanosecond the soup touched my lips I knew I was in big trouble. It was soooooo hot. Spicy hot. Temperature hot. Ungodly hot. The pain impulses raced down my backbone such that even my toes hurt. I tried to control the pain but it was all consuming. Tears welled up in my eyes.

Thank god Clark was crying too. The big baby. Yet neither of us would give in. Another spoonful of agony. The woman came over and with a look of raw compassion placed a box of tissues on the table. But neither of us would reach for one. My eyesight blurred. Then Clark blurted out, “Dude, your lips are as big as grapefruits!”

Indeed they had swollen to five times their normal size. I felt like a freakoid. A huge lipped monstrosity. I could eat no more soup. Or dinner for that matter. Even the air began to hurt them. I had to concede defeat. Et tu labia. Betrayed by my own flesh and blood. Damn lips.

So have you ever been engaged in an epic rivalry? Did you win or did you lose? Was it a graceful win (or loss) or was it ugly?

If you’ve read my profile or previous blogs you’ll know that I am an ersatz entrepreneur. As previous co-founder of an internet software company, my official title was CBO or Chief Begging Officer. Therefore I had the inglorious task of beseeching potential investors to drop serious coin into our company coffers so we could eventually pay our engineers.

So the other night with that basic premise in mind I attended one of those mandatory meetings for entrepreneurs grubbing for money in the Silicon Valley. Excuse me while I digress. I think I read in a paper recently that every third person in the South Bay area either is in the process of starting a company or dreams of doing so one day. Hell, the other day my Taco Bell cashier was pitching me up for investment in his IC (Integrated Circuit) company idea while I waited for my Burrito Supreme. We couldn’t agree on valuation so I changed my order to ‘to go’ and skedaddled out of there.

Anyway, the meeting took place in what we affectionately call the ‘Death Star’, (Black Hole might be more appropriate as many an entrepreneur goes in but nary a few come out with their shirts on their backs), the most famous Valley law firm at their sprawling Palo Alto campus. After giving my name and confirming my registration I headed upstairs to join the pre-meeting festivities.

Being a veteran of many campaigns, I knew the secret to effective networking was to be strategically seated and well fed and lubricated – and since this event sponsor was particularly cheap – get to the food and alcohol quickly before it disappeared. I dodged a mine field of glad-handers and smile-effers and put my jacket on the first seat in the front row and then made a bee line to the food.

Trouble. Silver trays arrayed on tables piled high with deep fried gunk that they tried to pass off as ‘Chinese food’. Unfortunately I had not eaten lunch and was thus famished so against my better judgment I ate a heapin helping of some gelid dumplings of congealed fat. This was California, dammit. Land of bean sprouts and healthy food.

What, were they trying to kill us? Harden our arteries on the spot? Cull the entrepreneur herd? I half expected to open the last tray and find triple nicotine cigarettes and heroin needles.

So I settled into a birds nest corner with a glass of wine in one hand and another two placed at arms length. Up walked a thin wiry man with intelligent eyes and a wispy mustache. He introduced himself as Yuri in a thick Russian accent. As he worked his way through his pitch I felt the warm embrace of the wine come over me. I said “Yuri.”

“Vhat?”
“I once had a girlfriend in Japan named Yuri but you look nothing like her.”
“Ves, people are always mistaking me for Japanese or Brazilian bikini models as Yuri is also popuuular name in Brazil.”

I shuttered as I imagined him in a bikini needing more wine.
So I almost imperceptibly and deftly switched my empty glass for the full one in mid sentence.

He resumed his pitch and droned on about algorithms and saving the world when I became aware of a young Chinese-looking girl standing in front of us obviously intent on joining our conversation. Slightly impaired by the wine, I strained to determine whether it was more impolite to break into Yuri’s pitch yet again or leave the poor girl standing there in the cold.

It’s the Southern in me, I guess. Thinking ’she’s darn cute,’ I extended my hand in introduction. She said her name was Christine and while she tried to hide it, it became apparent to me she was the main squeeze of one of the mega-zillionaire speakers.

Thereupon we were all called into the meeting room to begin. The subject was ‘can you successfully fund your start-up on less than one million dollars’. The panel consisted of two VCs and two entrepreneurs. I won’t bore you with the details of the meeting. In short, the entrepreneurs said the VCs were greedy bastards and the VCs, ever slick, said they were not. The VCs then said “We love you entrepreneurs and want to have your children.” They meant it like ‘lets get it on’ but in reality what they meant was ‘we’ll take your first born as collateral on you company’.

In the middle of the debate my stomach began to growl. Not a polite, little, rumbly-in-my-tumbly growl but a real live cross-between-a-bear-and-a-lion growl. I shushed it like I would a wanton child but much like the child, my stomach would not stop. As queasy as I felt I was equally determined to make it to the end and the ritual exchanging of the cards and the perfunctory ’send me your business plan and we’ll do lunch’ comment.

Now besides queasy, I had become somewhat disoriented. When it ended, being in the front row, I stumbled up and took my rightful place at the head of the line, the room spinning and my stomach yelling at me to run.

“No,” I yelled back in my mind, I have to complete my mission. As I reached out to exchange cards with the alpha VC a wretch in my stomach brought out all of its contents as I projectile vomited congealed fat and red wine on the floor splattering his shoes and pants. The room stopped spinning for an instance of stunned silence.

After feeble attempts to apologize and clean up the fetid mess, I slinked out of the room a mixture of embarrassment and misery. Come to think of it, I did, however, in the end, get his splattered business card.

Have you ever encountered a more embarrassing situation?

Should I email him and request a lunch meeting or not?

This idea came to me the other night as I was serving Cheerios to my kids for dinner. You see being a blogger and an entrepreneur setting out to change the world you sometimes miss those simple pleasures in your life. Like food. Thereupon it hit me. Why not blog for food.

Don’t dismiss my idea out of hand. First hear me out.

Let’s say you’ve wracked your brain and can’t think of that just-so gift for your daughter’s (posit wife, husband or significant other as the case may be) impending birthday. Why not give her a personalized Blog? Just send me her vital stats: is she fat or thin, neurotic or normal, blonde or brunette, cat or dog person, etc.? And I will then write the best damn Blog about (or for) her. Think of what this will do for her self-esteem. I bet she’ll be the talk of the town and even more popular amongst her friends.

Or, let’s say you’re fed up with your ex and you want a scathing expose of all his or her faults. Just send me the laundry list and I’ll concoct a lethal mix of half truths and innuendo that would make our erstwhile, randy former President Clinton or even Lindsay Lohan blush.

And if you just happen to be a corporate bigwig reading this, well, I can help you too! I personally believe one can never have too many ring-tones, washing machines or whatever the heck you’re peddling. You just tell me what product you’re foisting onto the unsuspecting public and I will plug it shamelessly.

The quo to my quid is quite simple. I will send you the logon info for my Safeway.com* account. Then, much like a bridal registry you go in and select the quantities of the food I have pre-selected as my favorites and have them delivered to my home. Kind of like dropping a few coins into an indigent pan handler’s cup. Except with the added benefit that you never have to look into my eyes. Easy peasy.

What do you think?

*The local supermarket akin to Krogers, A&P, Piggly Wiggly, Tom Thumb, Star Market, etc.