Man with The Foot Long Bacon
Have you ever seen a man eating a foot long piece of bacon on a stick? I have and it rocked me to my core. It sent me through a week of inner turmoil, all around mental/emotional chaos but most of all positive change. Positive change? Yes, that's right and gratitude! Let me elaborate and tell you how I got here.
For Father’s day, my brother and I decided to bring my father to a yankees game. If anyone reading this knows my father, they know the yankees are his favorite sports team. It's sort of an obsession. He had a streak of never missing an opening day for 30+ years. He basically raised us how he would envision Thurman Munson raising his family. I’ve been to many yankees games and loved them all but this one was different.
The past year has been one of the most important years of my life. I changed ALOT mentally, physically, and spiritually. However, that's a different story but important for the context. I’ve changed so much that I went to the yankees game repping one of my favorite new vegan street wear brands “Don't Eat the Homies.”
After making my way to the Bronx, blasting BIGGY, managing the traffic, the chaos of the parking and ticket lines, we made it. My first big stadium entrance in years. The energy was chaotic, strong, and frankly too much for me to handle. I felt myself getting small. I felt myself unable to truly let go and enjoy the experience.
We got to our seats and there he was over indulging, with a giant smile on, and bravely chopping down one bite at a time through his heart attack on a stick. -Enter my judgmental mind- Here I am some spiritual pompous prick judging this guy's life. How could you do that? You shouldn't be eating that much pork. How can you even eat pork? That poor pig has been dead and frozen for years. I look down at my Don't Eat the Homies sweatshirt and look up proudly, almost as if I'm better than this man. OOOf… You must be judging me for judging them right at this very moment.
Thanks to my practices, I noticed this judgmental mind and had to walk away. My father and brother wanted some food and a beer so we headed to Street Bird. I asked my brother if he could order, as a joke, considering I felt “weird” ordering spicy chicken sandwiches with a billboard of veganism on my chest. He looked back at me, slapped me in the chest, and said “Scott, today you are 5 years ago Scott. Eat the damn sandwich.” He has no idea how much that helped me.
That statement shocked my system. This bullshit spiritual egotistical armor we sometimes put on without knowing fell to the ground. I now envied this man and his foot long bacon. That ability to TRULY enjoy the moment was something beautiful. I still wasn't going to go eat a giant stick of bacon but I damn sure was about to enjoy the hell out of this spicy chicken sandwich and beer. (although it was just 5 pieces of tyson chicken tenders between two buns. Come on Chef Samuelsson, you can do better.) I was able to let go and let myself be fully absorbed in the entertaining energy that was a baseball game. I had an absolute fucking blast and my inner child thanks me to this day for allowing myself to relive my childhood memories. Oh and guess what, contrary to my own belief, I didn't become a raging alcoholic that night or go eat a whole cow for dessert. I accepted my choices and held myself with love and accountability without judgment.
So why the hell am I telling you about this inner struggle and my crazy mind. Because it brings me to the topic of how I see food and how people eat it. It is a challenging task to try to change the way Americans and the world eat. Some may say it's impossible, but I am feeling called to share that with whoever is OPEN to change. I'm not trying to force this on anyone. I just want to release my opinion to the public and show that I have genuine compassion for people struggling with eating habits and a HUGE concern for our current agriculture.
First off, can we please get rid of the fucking word DIET. Why can't we just mindfully change our eating habit without having to put some restricting corporate label on it? I believe that we should all be eating WHEN WE CAN, as local, organic, seasonal, and fresh. I believe that we should indeed not eat as much meat as we do, sorry @liverking. I believe we should GROW whatever we can ourselves. I believe that industrial processed foods are slowly killing us and the environment. I do KNOW that these baseball games are offering SHIT (although sometimes delicious) food that we as a human race should not be eating in significant quantities. However, we are, in my opinion, spirits having a human experience. Don't forget to have the human experience. Indulge once and while like my indulgent guru, The Man with Foot long Bacon.
