My friend Edward (Anal Receptive) put on quite the feast yesterday. It was good to have a traditional turkey dinner with all the fixin’s again.
About the way Ed prepared the turkey; I got there after it had been removed from the grill, but here’s how he said it went down: The turkey and stuffing were in the pan and wrapped in foil, then put on a covered charcoal grill. The trick apparently is to arrange the coals so they do not apply direct heat on the pan, essentially turning the grill into an outdoor oven. He cooked it eleven minutes per pound and it really did come out perfect– tender and moist. Tasted just like an oven-roasted turkey. Damn good! My peach pie a la mode and brownies received good feedback as well.
After a nice afternoon at Ed’s, I headed on home for a turkey feast fueled nap. Then I did a Christmas night bar crawl to places I less frequently visit– Rosie’s, Hot Zone, Rum Jungle, and Man Cave. It started raining so I took a trike back home and made it an early night.
Breakfast at Sit-n-Bull this morning:
Okay, I’d like to get y’all’s take on something. I don’t do Twitter but I follow some of what takes place there from a website called Twitchy. Yesterday they had an article highly critical of some rapper in L.A. who stood on the roof of his vehicle and threw money to the hordes of homeless. According to Twitchy, this action was not charitable, it was “dehumanizing”. The link above includes a short video showing the poor folks scrambling about trying to grab as much cash as they can.
So, here’s the thing. When I watched the video it was eerily reminiscent of how the kids reacted to the candy being thrown out to them during our Candy Run. Were we dehumanizing these kids too? Obviously, that was not our intent but were we wrong to do so? On the one hand, they got free candy they wouldn’t have otherwise received. But in scrambling to get the candy, did it cost them their dignity?
I’m of two minds on this I guess. The kids were happy and the parents seemed pleased. No harm, no foul. On the other hand, when I see guys in the bars “make it rain” (throwing cash on stage) and the girls go after it like a pack of hungry dogs, well, it does bother me. My style is to hand the girls a tip individually if I’ve enjoyed their performance. Maybe it is different with the kids. I sometimes hand out candy on the street but honestly, being surrounded by a pack of jostling children grabbing at me can be very disconcerting. I’ll say things like “one at a time, one each” to no avail. Throwing a handful and moving away quickly is sometimes the best means of escape. Looking back on it, I don’t think the Candy Run would work if we tried to deal with the kids individually. It would be utter chaos.
Anyway, maybe it is true that no good deed goes unpunished.
Ah, the ethics of charitable giving. Can’t say I envy you.
Turkey and other food pics all look great! Thanks for the visual treat. And, yes: using indirect heat is a common strategy for people like YouTube’s BBQ Pit Boys.
Tossing candy to kids is an innocent kindness , tossing cash to an adult is not.
Terry, thanks for the comment and for sharing your insights. I think that’s where I come down too, kids are being kids but adults are deserving of dignity and respect, regardless of their financial situation.
Kev, I guess I’ve been using a gas grill so long now that I didn’t even consider the options indirect heat can provide. I can attest though that the results were outstanding!
Tossing free shit to anyone -unless it’s off the back of a UN truck while there’s a temporary lull in fighting during a war- provides the “tosser” with a God-like dopamine hit, be it benevolent or sick in intention. In some cultures, as they say, throwing objects to people as a means of transporting them is considered a no no act of disrespect, period. Of the three examples you give, however, the one where the young mothers and grandmothers in the bar scrabble around in high heels whilst the tossers get a better view of their fishnets feels even worse than the rapper distributing Benjamins to his peasants. And what’s more I’d like to thank you for providing the opportunity for me to dictate a little moral commentary. Keem em comin.
Thanks, Dan. Yeah, I agree. By Western standards tossing shit at people in need is bullshit. I didn’t get the impression that anyone minded us throwing candy to the kids, but that probably wouldn’t fly in other parts of the world.
The bars with dancers here have buckets of ping pong balls you purchase to throw on stage for the girls. They get a few pesos for each one they grab. I did that once as a newbie tourist and swore never again, I did not like the dynamics at all. I must say though that the girls always seem appreciative when someone tosses the balls at them.