The Bistro of Beast

Apologies for not getting this posted sooner. I've been a bit busy with my new restaurant. Surprised? Well, I can hardly blame you since you may remember reading about my incompetence in the bedroom—KITCHEN! Well, I'd be lying if I said I haven't had help from an old friend: the Beast. If you don't know him, read this before going any further. Then, if you're not too vomitty, you may give this a look-see. And if you don't want to go through the insane pain of reading 500+ words, the Beast is what I call the seemingly insatiable being that overtakes me when I smoke pot. 

Copy and pasted from www.rockymountainnews.com/restaurants/bistroofbeast

Dining Out: Bring your ravenous appetite, The Bistro of Beast will tame it

By Chet Willis

Rocky Mountain News

Denver’s newest delishitessen has been slaying the competition. The Bistro of Beast, located a few blocks from Coors Field on the corner of Broadway and Larimer, has been enjoying waves of popularity since opening in December. Its secret? We don’t know, and we're not alone. 

“I’m as shocked as anyone,” Brad, the owner, told the Rocky after a lunch rush last Thursday. “I basically put the menu together a couple days before we opened and about once a week—if I remember—I come up with new dishes, depending on what I have in my cupboards.”

Brad’s blasé attitude may just be the driving force behind why over three hundred people visit the Beast everyday, some waiting up to an hour to plop down in a beanbag.

“I’ve been coming here since late December,” said Pete Jenkins, who eats lunch and dinner at the Beast. “It’s always packed, but well worth the wait.” His favorite dish is the Peanut Butter, Jelly, and Corn Chips sandwich, which is served with a bowl of Cheerios.

Tasha, Pete’s wife, chimes in: “The service is crap, the food’s terrible and lacks variety, but we love it.” Her favorite dish is the Peanut Butter, Jelly and Cheerios sandwich, also served with a bowl of Cheerios.

Brad says his strategy “isn’t brain science”: he keeps the dishes simple and relies heavily on inexpensive ingredients.

“A lot of places use a ton of stuff for their dishes, sometimes more than 10 ingredients." He pauses to thank a group of business women for coming in. “Can you believe that? Ten! That’s f------ bonkers.”

His dishes are so simple that new customers often wonder why they even bothered eating out.

“At first glance of the menu,” wrote Sandi R. on the Beast’s Yelp.com page, “I was like, ‘Plate of Shredded Cheese?’ But my friends said it was amazing. And they were right. Best plate of cheese I’ve ever had.”

Certain dishes even include eating directions. “Bell Pepper Town,” for instance, isn't served with silverware because the raw green peppers are "to be eaten like apples.”

The Beast’s head chef, Louie Vitella, has a theory on why Brad has struck a note with Denver’s foodies. Vitella, who came to America from Italy in the 80s to work for a five-star in New York, is a veteran chef with almost 50 years under his large belt. “Brad is very passionate about his dishes,” said Louie with an accent as thick as the pasta he grew up on. “I mean, one minute he’ll be going on about metaphysics and robots, and then suddenly he'll break off mid-sentence and you can’t hear yourself think over the sound of crunching Popchips.” 

And that passion seems to be paying off. Not only is The Bistro of Beast destroying sales records, it has even won over the President of Colorado. Tomorrow Governor Hickenlooper—a former restaurant owner himself—will be awarding Brad and his staff of seven the coveted, “Best Business in Colorado.” The Governor's office did not reply as to why the yearly honor, usually awarded in December, is being given away in February. 

"Oh, yeah," Brad said when we asked him about it. "That is tomorrow." 

But like Brad's memory, not everything has run smoothly since the Beast’s self-titled “Mediocre Opening.”

“We’ve had a few hiccups,” he admits. “Sometimes Louie’ll finish an order and something’ll come over me and I'll black out. When I come to, I'm tied up in the freezer and my face is covered in Nutella."  

Louie shakes his head. “I used to have to tie him up in there four or five times a week. But I can’t even do that anymore because then the popsicles disappear and do you know how expensive licorice rope is?" 

The Bistro of Beast

Nearly-bare-pantry food with a redundant twist

2415 Larimer St. 303-555-5555 website to come (when he gets around to it)

**** I'm in love! 

Atmosphere: cozy space with random clothes strewn about

Service: friendly, knowledgable, inconsistent

Beverages: Rice milk, water, Orange Juice (occasionally)

Plates: Starters, $0.79-$1.60; salads, ha!; "entrees", $2.20-$5.78

Hours: Monday-Friday, Lunch: 11a.m.-2p.m., Snack: 3:07-3:52p.m., "Dinner": 5-10p.m., Late-
Night Snack: 11:37-11:38p.m. Saturday and Sunday hours are sporadic. Brad recommends calling to make sure they're serving other people. 

Details: street parking, visited twice

Our system of the stars: 

****: I'm in love!  

***: Does Planned Parenthood offer food baby abortions? Cuz I want more.  

**: Are you gonna finish that?

*: Haha! But seriously. Are you gonna finish that? Cuz I will totally eat the fuck out of it if 
you're not. So, hungry. 

Now do I have your attention? Read the original 

Beast blahg post here. And the second here. 

I Wrote A Book

These days, I get a number of people in my mind asking me what it’s like to have written a book. “Wow, Brad,” they say. “That is an amazing accomplishment. Tell us more!” These people are tiny and sit nestled in my brain around a card table. Their long-winded statements waft of my awesomeness. And they are not to be trusted.

But occasionally I appease them. I play short clips. One is of me at a book signing where a woman tells me her name and I write, “Brad, Your mouth smells like chickens. –Karen.” In the second my agent calls to tell me two things: 1) bookstores usually have a kids’ section so start wearing more clothes on the book tour and 2) a movie studio wants to buy my book. Clip three shows my wife pulling me down the red carpet in a wagon at the premier of my flim. (Don’t worry, she thinks it’s as funny as I do and we’re taking turns).

Honey? No. I'm thinking a red wagon, like in that 

movie "Radio Flyer," except without all the flying 

and child abuse.

And then other times I find that the “what’s it like?” questions are being echoed by real people, people outside of my head, people who don’t just sit and complain about being hungry and the noxious smell of brain.

It is then that I write a blahg post.

I Wrote A Book

By: Brad

I finished the first draft of my first novel last week. And it’s crazy to think about. I wrote a 404-page experiment in fiction. I did that. And I’m a little bit proud about it.

Last July I decided to start working for what I actually want instead of wallowing in the disappointment of not having it. I chose a career: being a writer. So I started with a book that’s been bugging me since college. A Creative Writing professor had us write a short story and when I handed it in I thought, “That should be a novel, not a short story.” The four above agreed, and brought it up at least once a month since. So at the beginning of July I found it on an old hard drive and started working on it, finding the perfect name for the main character, tweaking the beginning, and writing the story.

I was pumped. I told my friends of my new goal and one friend, one who I miss to peaches, brilliantly suggested I give myself an incentive (she also said she was going to make me 347 lbs. of chocolate chip cookies upon her return, so I have that going for me (which is nice)). But the incentive idea! What better carrot to dangle in front of a poor person’s mouth than a fat dick —money! I mean money. Where the hell did I get "fat dick"? 

So during a party I pulled another good friend aside, one who wasn't moving away, and said, “How about this: if I don’t write 70 pages this month I give you $100. And it renews every month until my book is finished. Speak!”

"Yes, but can you stop breathing on me?" 

And so the incentive was born. I withdrew five $20 bills, splayed them out and tacked them into the wall above my makeshift desk (a floor speaker).

“Why would you need an incentive to do something you love?” Maybe you should just shut the fuck up and go pose your questions to a blogger that gives a shit. It’s because those four tiny people I opened with rarely shower me with praise. Most days they love to reinforce my worries and insecurities: you’re actually a shitty writer, your hair is too coarse, you’ll never get published, and your breath smells like chickens.

Every writer deals with the equivalent of my four little people, which is why a lot of writers drink or do drugs before or while they write: to blanket those thoughts in a nice, thick, warm layer of booze, pills, crack, ice, boom and/or pow.

The incentive, the five Jacksons that watched me while I slept, served as a daily reminder of the goal I had set out to accomplish and what I could lose if I didn’t sit my ass down, ignore my brainmates, put fingers to keys, and write the fucking thing. 

Also staring at me while I sleep.

And it’s amazing the shit you’ll occupy yourself with to steal time from what you actually should be doing. I loathe cleaning. But I became an eager beaver on writing nights, dusting, sweeping, rearranging my closet, researching female breast shapes and sizes on the Internet, washing dishes, folding laundry, anything so that I wouldn’t have to write, because the four come alive when I write. But it was that nagging feeling of letting $100 slip through my fingers that produced the first wave of my book. I’m sure it had a bit to do with actually accomplishing such a feat. But it was that damn money that kept me on point.

I didn’t miss a single month, but there were times I came close to falling short. On or around day 23 you could usually find me on my bedroom floor in the midst of a melt down, blubbering like a teenage girl, spouting things like, “I just, I just wish he liked me,” or “Ya know? Just, like, really liked me for me.” November was a toughie. It’s a shorter month, my birthday cuts it in half, and of course: Thanksgiving, which, like a true American fat ass, I celebrated twice. On November 30^th I wrote all fucking day, a total of 13 fucking pages, (up just a titch from my usual three) to meet my fucking quota. Afterward, I weighed some options: death by booze or bullet. Both sounded like way too much work so I settled for smoking myself stupid.

You've come a long way, Milk Am Sam.

Right now I have eleven bank slips nailed to my wall. They come in deposit/withdrawl pairs except for the last one. Near the first of the month, after every successful writing purge, I’d deposit my $100 then withdraw another $100. My visit brought the bank tellers much joy, if under “joy” your thesaurus includes words like “confused,” “scared,” and “irritated.” I was intentionally vague in my reasoning just to see their reactions. Common question: “So you want to deposit these $20 bills, and withdraw five different ones?” Common actions: teller looks at me with suspicion, teller examines bills and holds one up to the light, teller keeps one hand under counter at all times, either touching herself or the panic button. I couldn’t tell.

One visibly-nervous woman asked if there was anything wrong with the bills. I said no and when she counted out five new ones her OCD took over as she became obsessed with giving me the most beautiful and crisp of the lot. I told her repeatedly it didn’t really matter what they looked like, then dreaded my words on the ride home as I couldn’t get past the orange mark on the corner of one of the bills. “I have to look at that all month?” Shudder. Because, afterall, I also have OCD tendencies.

I am not naïve. I know the first draft is the easy part. You just write what makes you laugh, or what keeps you on the edge of your seat, or whatever shuts those four people the fuck up (impossible, by the way. And I swear to God they’re eating chips right now!). I told a few friends that writing this book was my marathon. Editing it will be my Iron Man. Sticking with writing in general until I can give and take a wagon ride down the red carpet, my Everest. I imagine in April when I begin the editing process, my avoidance tendencies will come back and I’ll be volunteering to clean my roommates’ rooms. There are only so many breasts on the Internet.*

Wow, Brad, thanks for ruining it for me.

So here, as promised, is a brief write up of my book, similar to what you’ll find on the inside flap, but probably worse:

Nyle Briggs hates his life. He hates his cold and germ-riddled city, his domineering boss, and even his two cats. Then a lucid dream —a dream where he can control everything and everyone without consequence— changes it all. Nyle escapes nightly into a world without limits, sleeping with any woman, bending the laws of physics, and creating and destroying anything he desires. But his dream life of luxury and power turns into a nightmare when Nyle loses control… of himself.

So yeah, that’s the teaser. My time line is: edit in April (with fresh eyes), send it to a few friends for some feedback in May, retweak in June, and hopefully by the end of July I’ll have it in front of some literary agents. Yeeee haaaa! (Gun shots)

*Completely false. There are an endless amount of breasts on the Internet.†

†Or so I hear.

To read a prior post about some more fantasies

about my future career as a writer, click here. 

Color(s) of the Rainbow

What can I say? I am a stereotype-breaking sort of guy. I'm not gonna brag, but I have been known to get a few, "I had no idea a man could be that sensitive down there," or "So you were an altar boy and you didn't get molested?" And right now I'm going to shatter another stereotype all over your brain.

The Buick Owner

Boom! How's your brain?      ...Whoops, ha. Jumped the gun. 

The Buick Owner (take 2)

There are stereotypes that float around the typical Buick owner. And around those stereotypes there floats one stereotype (it's bigger and floats all wobbly like a flying saucer running on Cheetos): Buick owners take care of their cars. 

Some other stereotypes could be "they're old" or "they smell like old people" or "what do old people smell like?" or (the always popular), "I don't really know how to explain it, but old people definitely have a smell to them. Ya know what I mean?" 

-"Did you hear something?"

-"We'll take care of it later, Harold. 

We're gonna be late for bingo."

But let's start with the second one: They're old. 

I drive a 1996 Buick Regal LIMITED who I've named "Rainbow Satan." I've mentioned her at least once, but I digress! I'm 29. I still have at least another 50 years of life in me plus another 27 as a robot. I'm not old.  But if you were making a case for it, you could start with all these awesome gray hairs that are invading my scalp or how I find myself getting up more and more during the night to piddle or how I... I... I forget shit, all the time. But I'm young. Besides a bum knee and my twice-a-month foot baths and the local chapter of the service club I used to be president of—

Holy shit. I am old. 

Well that's just embarrassing. Let's move on to the first one: Buick owners take care of their cars.

I do take care of my car, in my own little way. Sure, most 1st-worlders would probably argue that driving as aggressively as I do is bad for any vehicle. They'd also probably say it's not good to drive a car for prolonged periods with the low oil light on. These 1%ers, these beasts of capitalism, would most likely say that I should get the headlight fixed if how I turn it on is by hitting it. These schmucks would probably even say that I need, need, need to stop running into curbs. How dare they judge! Curbs don't have feelings.

Well, counter punch one starts with, "How can you NOT drive aggressively when it feels like you're operating a stoned air mattress?" Punch two (a left jab) goes a little like, "Oil smoil." Puncho tres: "It kinda makes me feel like a powerful badass when I thwap the headlight and it comes to life. I imagine that I am a giant with the strength of one giant." And the UPPERCUT, "Curbs are like lines in a coloring book: you're meant to stay inside them but if you don't, it's alright, sweetheart." 

But not Tim Tebow.

Honesty alert: I treat my car like shit. 

I prefer, however, to look at it as tough love. I'll throw ya the example biscuits: 

One-hitter: hit her. Or have her hit. Repeatedly. A wind storm? Make sure you park with the wind at your back. That way when you open your door and it slams into the car next to it, you can write the note as if it was an accident. Does your roommate have a nice car? Park in front of it so when it gets stolen the thief will run into your back bumper. And of course, curbs. 

Deux it: have you ever washed your car? Me neither! We have so much in common. Listen: you, me, and a bottle of wine in back seat of my Buick. We'll just see what happens. Rainbow has no business being one color, which is why I'm allowing a color evolution. You know how mixing all the colors of the rainbow produces a rich, brown. Well it works for your car as well. Don't wash it and let a lovely dirt shell protect it from looking respectable.

Too bad she's just saying that because her 

ankle is broken and she needs a ride to the hospital. 

Tough Love Trois: a few months back I decided it would be funny, after a soccer game I watched from the bench, to drive toward HotMom72, who was backing out of his parking space, and slam my hand into the center of the steering wheel. Hehe, haha, right? Well, after Ambush de la Horn 2010, I followed him out of the parking lot. That's when my always-trusty horn decides now would be a great time to destroy the hearing of a few jerkoffs standing near their cars. "What, the fuck," I ask my extremely lavish and comfortable interior. The horn screams on and on so I naturally do what every sane person would do, start punching the steering wheel with the strength of one giant.  And after a few solid rights, the horn shuts off. 

"Awesome, horn resting in the extremely lavish and comfortable interior," I almost say in thanks.  

"I'm sorry, sir," Rainbow says. "I just don't know what got into me."

"Forget about it. Sure, it scared the shit out of me, but no worries." 

I try calming myself with a series of deep breaths. A couple miles pass by with nothing but amazingly smooth sailing and then,

"HOLYSHITWHATTHEFUCKISTHATOHMYGODWEARETOTALLYFUCKEDAHH," blares Rainbow. 
"Punch," shouts my fist. "Punch! Punch punch! Punch punch punch punch!"  

And we're back to the remarkably smooth ride only a V6, 195-horsepower engine can offer. And we go on like that for a few days. 

WARNING: Pregnant woman should not drive 2011 Buick Regal 

due to risk of blurry baby.

But all good things, even the horn on an exceptionally reliable and american-made sedan, come to an end. This time it was while I was at work. I used to be a Child Care Worker at a lodge in the mountains for boys with emotional and behavioral disorders. I had just pulled the night shift and was sleeping comfortably in the basement bedroom, when, of all people, Rainbow Satan decides t—

"WHERETHEFUCKAMIHOLYSHITIJUSTHADABADDREAMWHEREIWASFALLINGANDIHADSPAGHETTINOODLESFORLEGSANDIWASWEARINGBOXERSHORTSMADEOUTOFCOCKROACHES!"

So I do what any sane person would do: I throw on a pair of shorts and run barebreasted and barefooted over the gravel and into my car where I serve helping after helping of tough love with my fist ladle. A good friend and colleague calmly walks out of the lodge while all the boys are watching, takes pity on my now-bleeding knuckles, and has me pop the hood where I take out the horn fuse. He unplugs the horn just incase and we laugh. As I walk back to bed I vow to repay Rainbow for this embarrassment.  

Vengeance is mine a couple weeks later when I have my mechanic cut a hole in Rainbow's lower dash to install a black button to the right of the steering wheel: my new horn. It's sexy, ladies and gentleman, and it even matches the tape that covers both my broken side mirror and the dried-glue drips below it. 

Grand Theft Auto: Buick Riviera.

I love my car and will always love my car, even though you'll rarely see me taking great care of my car. Just because cars go through emotional and behavioral disorders, acquire bumps and bruises and a wobbly front-passenger wheel, and draw disdainful looks at stoplights, that doesn't mean we stop loving them. I think those are only reasons to love them more.

Did you enjoy this blahg post? Great. You, me, a bottle of Cab in the back of my Buick, we'll just see what happens. OOORR, you could pass it along to one friend for their entertainment. Everyone needs a good laugh and it's just one friend. Can you stop being so selfish for one goddamn second and throw me a bone? That's it, I'm turning Rainbow around. We're going back, Mister. I don't like your attitude.  

And if you'd like to read my first entry about Rainbow Satan, click here.