J. Hamlet

Dessa is never easy to classify. Is she a singer? A rapper? A poet? A philosopher? Or, like some indestructible, perfect adamantium alloy, is she all of those things scorched together into a purer and harder version of all of the above? Sure, there are certain songs that can get you going. They may not be uplifting, but they may get the blood thumping, or they may force you to think. Think in a way that electrifies the mind like a lightning blast through your soul. 

It may start like a typical indie rock song from several years ago, cutesy falsetto crooning, electric piano pounding out quarter-note chords. I was about to give up on it, then that cleaning guitar begins to prance all over it like a parade marshal of fun thinking it owns the place telling you to wait just a minute because the real shit is coming.

And it does, the rhythm guitar shuffling with a sweet, vivacious chord progression before the chorus arrives in a bloom of synths and harmonies. Is it done then? No, of course it's not. Why coast? Why take all that musical goodwill and end it there? When we come out of the chorus, it leaves us with a new verse full of a punchy baseline and even more jumpy guitar work building to . . . SOMETHING EVEN BETTER. 

Sometimes, on Monday morning when you're trying to rouse yourself and get to work, you need something uplifting. In times like this, caught in the widening and soul-devouring gyre of U.S. political party conventions, you need something that's a sobering reminder of the real world that you're about to face. Thievery Corporation is always good for that. In some ways, understanding what you're actually dealing with and being prepared is more uplifting than a few happy beats to chase the nightmares away.

DJ SHADOW. RUN THE JEWELS. DJ SHADOW AND RUN THE JEWELS. DJ SHADOW AND RUN THE JEWELS SIMULTANEOUSLY!

You're looking at me like you don't understand how important this is. Just go ahead and listen to it, and then you'll understand. Shadow has seemed to be lost in the wilderness for awhile now. While he was an instrumental (heh) force in pushing me to understand and appreciate left-of-center hip hop and turntablism in my youth, much of his recent output has been in the meh to okay range. That's a dramatic fall when someone once called him the Jimi Hendrix of the Sampler or some shit like that. 

That's right, I'm talking about KODIAK CAKES. I won't belabor the point by explaining what the many Kodiak Cake products are here. The title says all you really need to know. This stuff, in all the different guises it has, is a pancake/waffle mix that does almost anything you want it to. Made of some seriously robust fiber, it often incorporates freeze dried buttermilk as well. All while retaining an air of being not terribly processed. This stuff feels raw, and it will make you feel like you belong on Monday Night Raw. But in a good way, like the person giving the clothesline, not the one receiving it. 

I first discovered this product at Costco, because of course that's where something like this belongs. A place where you can buy mega-ultra-turbo-sized boxes of it. After trying it out in waffle and pancake format, I immediately thought that more could be done with this mix. After all, as a wise man (Alton Brown) once helped me realized through his many writings and television programs, pancakes and waffles are muffins. That's right, they are. Look it up! So basically anything that could be a muffin or similar to a muffin would be easy to adapt using this mix. 

And, of course, their website has many, many different possibilities listed. Inspired by this one in particular, I set out to make a breakfast quick bread that would clothesline all previous breakfast quick breads I had previously attempted. My mission was a raging success. I followed the recipe for many respects, but I did make some modifications. Mostly because I don't like the taste of Stevia, didn't have enough blueberries (but had a great frozen berry mix - also from Costco), and had no idea what it was talking about in terms of the egg-white product the recipe mentions. So I urge you to try Kodiak Cakes mix, if not to make just some hearty like a bunch of hearts lifting weights made of more hearts pancakes and waffles, to experiment with a truly impressive mix of different grains and flours in one convenient package. 

Now for a recipe, which I call

The Breakfast Monster

Ingredients:

1 1/2 cup Kodiak Power Cakes Mix

3/4 cups corn meal

1/2 teaspoon baking powder

3 whole eggs

3 tablespoons honey

1/2 cup sugar

1 cup buttermilk

1/2 cup berries (thawed from frozen or fresh)

Instructions:

1. Preheat oven to 350. 

2. Combine all ingredients except for berries in a large mixing bowl. Combine using THE MUFFIN METHOD. If you don't know what that is, watch a video or read a book or something. It is EASY.

3. Add berries once complete with Muffin Method, lightly stir them in. 

4. Bake. Baking times will very depending on the vessel. Muffins will be 25-30. Mini-loaves like I did above were 35-40. A full loaf pan was 50-55. It's going to depend on whether your oven is terrible or not. Mine is pretty terrible. 

null

My writing has always leaned on music. Whether inspiration, mood, or energy to keep me going through the many hours of drafting and editing, it can be an important force and fuel for what I do. These tracks in particular were especially crucial, helping me build or refine a character, a scene, or a whole story arc. 

The Track

As much as I love the Soul Coughing original of this song, with it’s bright guitars, sardonic tone, and punchy bass, I’ve long found this version to be more compelling. Low’s version of this tale, a song about the “god among salesman,” is a complete different character study. Smooth, slow, mournful, and a touch creepy, it feels more complex and evokes a whole different set of emotions than the original. It’s perfect to fit Reverend Matt Renault. On the surface, he’s a salesman of a sort. He sells a new destiny to the ignored, the excluded, and the failed. With all of his smooth talk and his intricate plans, he’s a suave force of malevolence. A song like this fits him and his slow, meticulous, and dangerous ways. 

The Character

Reverend Matt Renault has been many things in his life. A former altar boy with a grasp on the power of religion, he originally felt called to Seminary school. His mastery of theology was beyond question, but very quickly his teachers realized he was too skilled at twisting its meanings into manipulating his own heretical understandings of life and God. He had an eerie talent for using the forces of religion and faith to manipulate people. It didn’t take long for Matt to realize his potential was being wasted and drop out of Seminary school to find more fruitful endeavors. The agents of Hell were quick to approach with an offer, eager to turn Matt’s talents with words and manipulative flare for religion into something they could use. His skill was particularly well-suited to Summoning, the art of calling Demons from Hell itself and binding them to his will. Very quickly, Matt found himself able to call and control some of Hell’s mightiest creatures and even converse with the Pit Lords themselves. 

Eventually recruited by the Goetians, an elite group of Hell’s servants composed of mortals like Matt and devilkin who could trace their lineage to the Pit Lords themselves, he had a radical idea. Why not copy the model of active fundamentalist churches, but turn it on its head? Building a Hell church with active outreach programs to disaffected youth, loners, and social outcasts could yield an endless stream of angry recruits that could hide in plain sight as it masqueraded as any number of “normal” churches. It didn’t take long before the Goetians saw the virtue in his proposal and decided to fund it. One of Matt’s mentors, a talented Sorcerer, even helped design the church to be a veritable fortress of arcane defenses in case they were ever exposed. 

Over the years, after recruiting and carefully grooming a handful of talented and powerful acolytes, his following and his church have grown into something dangerously special. With his honeyed words and talk of better lives, Reverend Matt has built quite the force of adepts and soldiers ready and able to fight for Hell all under the roof of what looks to be a normal church. And under that church? He’s built something even more dangerous. It started with an idea from his Goetian mentor, a construction from the middle ages called a Possession Chamber. While his mentor perished after completing the first phase of it in a summoning gone wrong, Matt has remained determined to make the Chamber a reality. Able to pull Demons directly from Hell to infest the souls of anyone placed in the Chamber, Reverend Matt has constructed the ultimate factory for Hell’s sleeper agents to hide in the bodies of others and terrorize all of humanity. 

We’ve clearly established my love for all things Reuben and fermented foods in general. That’s why as soon as I saw this masterful article from DC Eater and spotted number 3 on the list, I nearly lost my mind. Cafe Kimchi is a place not too far from where I live. I’d walked by dozens of times, puzzled by all the kimchi propaganda that adorned its entrance (and I love kimchi!) But to find out they had a kimchi reuben? This had to be investigated. I had to know more. And, even more important, to find out they were a breakfast joint? In a land where typically most establishments eschew the criticality of breakfast to jump on the lucrative brunch bandwagon and leave those of us wanting food prior to 11 with almost no options, this was welcome news indeed.

The first time I went with my wife and was greeted by the woman at the register (who was basically “I have my shit together” personified, Korean variant,) I stood mystified at the tiny short order flat top and space where they cranked out this ridiculous menu. I knew exactly what I wanted, but a menu this big made me question that, what was physically possible from a short-order grill, and my existence in the universe.

I ordered the kimchi reuben. It came on a sub roll. I didn’t take a picture, because I was hungry, paralyzed by how delicious it looked, and ate it so fast I might have traveled back in time. Cafe kimchi won me over pretty thoroughly then. We have come back, and enjoyed diving into their diverse menu that features kimchi-based fusion delights and standard grill fare if that’s more your thing. All is executed competently, and all is tasty and affordable. I had an incredible kimchi bulgogi omelette that was stuffed to the gills with beef and the cafe's signature kimchi, and my wife had a sausage potato burrito. Both were off the chain. It may not be the prettiest food, but it travels well. The place is often frequented by Marines and contractors alike looking to grab their huge breakfasts. 

Anyone who finds themselves on Barracks Row at breakfast or lunch time is doing themselves a disservice if they never stop by and check this place out. It’s much more worth your time than its neighbor, District Doughnut, whose reach always exceeds its grasp and who is perpetually out of all the good donuts (don’t get me started on them, that’s a start for another time). 

My writing has always leaned on music. Whether inspiration, mood, or energy to keep me going through the many hours of drafting and editing, it can be an important force and fuel for what I do. These tracks in particular were especially crucial, helping me build or refine a character, a scene, or a whole story arc. 

The Track

Santigold is someone who always projects swagger and mystery. A subdued Beastie Boys provides a perfect backdrop for her to really shine. It’s the perfect backstory for telling the story of a minion that became more, who grew into a danger. This song talks about everything that eventually found its way into Amy. As much as she may be a minion, she’s a real operator. She’s someone who reads people, who knows danger, and who knows how to play the game. Most importantly, she knows how to play people, and has done so for as long as she can remember. She’s one part femme fatale, one part manic pixie nightmare girl, and that throbbing and distorted beat coupled with Santigold’s confident and shady lyrics fits her perfectly. 

The Character

A lot of people underestimate Amy. With her strange hairstyle, her vintage clothes, and the fiery tattoos covering her back and body, they mistake her for someone she’s not. She’s well aware of that, though, and she exploits it to the hilt. Amy’s spent most of her short adult life as a recruiter and operative for Hell. Seamlessly blending in with every disaffected subculture she can: geeks, hipsters, metalheads, and EDM writhers, she’s always able to find a few disgruntled souls to join her Reverend Matt’s Church of the Second Redemption. Sometimes it’s her words, sometimes it’s her attitude, and sometimes it’s her body that wins them over. As a skilled Acolyte of both Hell’s Lord Hate and Lady Lust, men and women alike can’t deny her allure and her talent for always saying the right thing when they’re at rock bottom. 

Amy sells freedom. She sells an end to a life trying to conform to society’s oppressive mores, unfair economics, and the bible-thumping political players trying to bring the world to heel under their precious “Good Book.” In the end, she sells a chance to upend that very society itself. Amy’s a revolutionary, ready to overthrow everything about the oppressive modern order she sees around her. She’s risen in the ranks of Matt Renault’s church to be his most trusted agent, a recruiter and a tactician who can make his visions into something real. And his visions and plans are about to come to fruition.