Life's a Party: Tim T-Bone

Plants and Animals and Chomp!

By Brian Polk
Interview responses by Josh LaBure

The members of Denver’s Plants & Animals have their work cut out for them. As a vegan advocacy group a thousand or so miles from the nearest coast (where plant-based diets seem to thrive), it’s not exactly a piece of—dairy-free—cake convincing meat eaters to give up the flesh. But just as there are liberals in Utah, there are vegans in Denver—no matter how out-of-place they may feel at times. As such, they might as well do what comes naturally to any advocacy group: organize and, well, advocate. That’s the impetuous behind the group’s most successful endeavor, Chomp, a monthly, community-based vegan dinner that’s open to anyone who might be curious about the animal-free diet they’ve been hearing about. Of course, the group also organizes benefits, actions, and other cruelty-free events, all of which Plants & Animals member Josh LaBure spoke with us about.

Are you surprised with how successful Chomp has become?

Yes, sometimes. Whenever I see all the people in line, it’s just crazy. When it started off the first time, there were like 25 people and I thought that was huge. We didn’t even have enough food. We were surprised that even that many people came. When we started doing them at Yellow Feather, we started having 70 or 80 people. Then we had to move spaces. When we started at Green Spaces, we had 120 people at the first one. It blows me away every time I see it. It makes me really proud to be a part of it. I’m really stoked that this event even happens.

How does Chomp fit into your vegan activism?

Chomp fits into my activism because it shows people how delicious vegan food can be, and to make it accessible to people is very important for the sustainability of anybody’s veganism. One of the biggest reasons people don’t go vegan is because lack of choices or it just seems like a difficult decision. So if you make it accessible and make it delicious, it just makes it easier.

Do you do a lot of promotion or is the success all word of mouth?

I just talk a lot. We did a lot of Facebook stuff and I tell everyone I meet about it. I was working at Whole Food full-time and any time I saw anyone buying vegan food, I’d be like, ‘Oh, come to Chomp,’ and give them a flier. And I think the first few with the food being so good from our chefs, that probably got people talking about it. It has become more of a community event.

It is a really great atmosphere. That’s probably a lot of the reason people come back.

I agree. I think that’s the biggest thing: people come, we try to make people feel comfortable, and we just want to make really good fucking food.

What’s the difference between Chomp and Plants & Animals? Or is there one?

We always wanted to keep Chomp separate from what Plants & Animals is doing, but the money from Chomp goes to fund Plants & Animals. And we have the [P&A] table there always, so that’s a big part of it. But Chomp has its own thing going. It doesn’t really feel much like an activist event as much as a community event, which is what we wanted. We didn’t want to come off as preachy vegans at Chomp. We just wanted it to be a comfortable place for people to come and just make it accessible for everyone. I think we’ve been successful in keeping the two vibes different.

What are you able to fund through Chomp?

We got to do some movie screenings. We had an anti-Bluefin Tuna campaign, which went pretty well. We’ve done bake sales, which raise money for other organizations. We also brought Gene Bauer from Animal Sanctuary.

Didn’t you want Chomp to become a vegan grocery store eventually?

Chomp came out of doing potlucks and stuff and ten people would come. At the same time I wanted to open a vegan grocery store and I wanted to call that Chomp. And I wasn’t 100% sure that there was much of a vegan community here, so people suggested that I should create a community event to see. And then I had the idea from the potlucks that maybe we should just do a dinner. Mark and I started doing Plants & Animals stuff and then we were like, ‘Okay, let’s make this a community dinner every month.’ So we just made it donation-based because we thought more people would come. Ever since then I realized there really is a strong vegan community in Denver and that maybe there is a need for something like that. So my eventual goal is to take the momentum gained from the community dinners and open up some kind of grocery store or café or something like that to bring the community together on a regular basis. And I really like this idea of more than one business running a space to keep rent cheap and to keep it more community centered. I really hope to make that happen one day.

Like a vegan mecca?

Exactly. If a few vegan business idea people got together and open up three or four businesses in one spot, I think it would be super accessible to people, keep prices low, and actually open up those businesses.

There’s not a lot of vegan stuff in Denver.

No, I think Denver has a lot of potential that is untapped. I think it’s just now starting to bubble up and something’s happening. You got the Vegan Van opening up. We’re starting Denver Seitan, so hopefully we’ll get that out. I keep hearing about vegan cafes that are opening up, but we’ll see. Hopefully more stuff’s going on.

Tell me about Denver Seitan.

My friend Tim makes seitan and it’s really fucking good. And my friend Mark said, ‘We should sell this.’ And then they brought me on because I know a lot of people in the vegan community and they’re hoping all three of us together with our different abilities will get that off the ground. We’ll see what happens.

Anything else?

Go plantsanimals.org. We have a lot of events coming up.

Things I’d Rather be Doing than Making this List

By Brian Polk

• Attending a conference on phasing out the use of the word “ha-larious” by 2013
• I would say, “DJing with a laptop,” but it’s really just playing my iTunes in a bar
• Becoming more obese
• Attending a conference on phasing out the phrase, “Not so much,” by 2014
• Wondering if the ghost of Bob Marley bemoans the fact that people don’t like him due to the lameness of his posthumous followers
• Rocking in the free world, something I occasionally forget to keep on doing
• Working on being more ashamed of my sexual organs
• Coming up with an answer to this question: What’s less awkward, walking in on my roommate while he’s test running his new adult DVD or accepting his invitation to join him? Either way, I think it would lead directly to the next one:
• Praising the manufacturers of lube for all the tension they ease
• Wondering if the ghost of Jesus bemoans the fact that people don’t like him due to the lameness of his posthumous followers
• Admiring my dog for his inability to regret
• Going to the after-party in the afterlife, if either exists
• Hand-numbering all my records so that I can tell people I have hand-numbered editions of all my records
• Explaining to my dog that if I were an Ayn Rand disciple, I’d have to stop feeding him because free meals go against the principles of the free market
• Vacuuming the shit-hole I’ve allowed my living room to become
• Using “thou” in a sentence that also doesn’t contain the words “holier” and “than”
• Getting in on the impending Jazzercise comeback
• Making a bumper sticker that says, “Thou shall honketh if thou shall feel hornieth” (Did it!)
• Not so secretly becoming embittered by the fact that my unemployed friends take more vacations that me
• Transcending life and then transcending death
• Growing increasingly annoyed at what turned out to be my ill-advised, unfunny decision to play an Alvin and the Chipmunk record at 78 RPMs
• Finding my virginity while listening to the song “Losing my Religion”
• Coming up with a list of things I'd rather not be doing than making this list

Spread the Santorum!

Doing our part to spread santorum:

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Also, if you're bored at work or whatever, you should google "Rick Santorum" and then click on the spreading Santorum site. For a full explanation of why you should do this, click here, though I'm sure you've probably heard all about it. I just don't want that fantastic asshole to enjoy his moment in the sun. Fuck Santorum. Actually, fuck and then get santorum and then spread it all around. (I wonder if anyone has a santorum fetish. I think it's time to send Dan Savage an email.)

Review: Hawks and Doves

Hawks and Doves
Year One
No Idea Records
Even though Gared O’Donnell’s musical reputation—and voice—precede him, the songs on the Hawks and Doves’ debut album Year One are more or less a departure from those of his previous band Planes Mistaken for Stars. While the songwriting and vocalization are unmistakably those of O’Donnell, there’s a depth and melody throughout the record that contrast the sheer intensity of his previous endeavors. Recorded with a backing band that includes familiar names like George Rebelo (Hot Water Music) and Chad Darby (Averkiou), the songs originated from the group’s initial incarnation: O’Donnell and an acoustic guitar. The album's opener “Another Hellfire Sermon” is somber, cathartic, and sweetly melodious in a manner of minutes. The following track “Hush Money” is the record’s catchiest, most harmonious song, even though its coda—“What would you have me do, love? Look what you made me do”—is perhaps its most agonizing. “North of Tenth,” the album’s closer, looks towards a future not so stained with the confusion, pain, and agony of failed romance and broken bands, or as O’Donnell croons at the song’s end, “…It’s time to tell them goodnight and come alive…” Unlike Gared’s previous efforts—that really had to be witnessed live to truly appreciate—Year One is a near-flawless album that sonically documents a time of uncertainty and melancholy with the sweet melody of catharsis and healing.

Buy the album here!

Fame and Fortune: I Don’t Wanna Play Anymore

Or how to write a semi-coherent column using quotes from Mission of Burma, Jason Flores-Williams, Gertrude Stein, Ian Mackaye, and Eugene Debs

By Brian Polk

Is it truly impossible not to be in awe of fame and fortune? On the surface it’s easy to say, “Fame and fortune is a stupid game,” much like Mission Of Burma on the song, “Fame and Fortune.” But then, much like on that very song, it’s hard not to say, “And fame and fortune is the game I play.” Almost everyone wants to be rich and famous. It’s as American as fried food and complaining about taxes.

In his new book, Character and Fitness, Jason Flores-Williams perfectly encapsulates this American perception of wealth and celebrity when the protagonist’s fellow law school alum reveals his exorbitant corporate lawyer salary of nearly half-a-million dollars a year: “It’s almost impossible not to be impressed when you hear that someone is making that kind of money,” the main character, Neal de la Vega muses. “It’s in the American DNA. Like fame, you may think the person is a reality show moron, but you’re still going to tell somebody later that you saw him.”

So back to the question at hand: Can you avoid the instant respect you seem to magically attain when you discover that someone is making half-a-million dollars a year? Because that’s almost $10,000 dollars a week—more money than I made most years during my twenties. How the hell can that not amaze you? Even if you’re like me and detest the rich for their radical selfishness, irresponsibility, and moral bankruptcy, it’s still difficult not to be taken aback by the sheer accumulation of wealth. Half-a-million is a lot of dollars—especially to people like me who make less in a year than people like that make in a month.

But after the initial shock and awe of mentally applying the salaries of the rich to your meager earnings, you have to ask yourself, “Given the option, would I even want to be rich? Could I even bring myself to do the things that rich people do to each other in the pursuit of wealth?” Even the Franco-supporting, New Deal-hating Gertrude Stein once said, “I do want to get rich, but I never want to do what there is to do to get rich.” Making a lot of money is a dirty fucking business—one that I’m proud to say I have nothing to do with.

Therein lies the dilemma: I know I don’t envy the rich or the famous, because I’m not impressed by what they had to do to get there. And since I don’t want to dirty my hands in the industry of filthy lucre, why the hell am I impressed with people who do? Aside from the “that’s how I was raised” excuse, there is no discernable reason to find wealth impressive when I know damn well I find it disgusting.

That’s why I’m drawing a line in the sand. The next time someone bestows upon my poor eardrums the earnings of one famous rich person or another, I’m going to stoically quote Ian Mackaye: “I can truly say, I don’t give a fuck about your money.” Or if I feel a bit more eloquent, I suppose I could quote Eugene Debs: “The greedy, profit-seeking exploiter cannot see beyond the end of his nose. He can see a chance for an ‘opening’; he is cunning enough to know what graft is and where it is, and how it can be secured, but vision he has none—not the slightest. He knows nothing of the great throbbing world that spreads out in all directions. He has no capacity for literature, no appreciation of art, no soul for beauty. That is the penalty the parasites pay for the violation of the laws of life.”

Checked Out

Items I Borrowed From the Library This Month

By Brian Polk

Bluebeard

By Kurt Vonnegut

Sadly, in my pursuit to read all the Vonnegut books, I have come to the end. This was the only one of his novels that I had yet to read, and it was a most marvelous book on which to finish. Bluebeard tells the story of Rabo Karabekian, a one-eyed veteran of World War II, who as a youngster serves as an apprentice for a world-renowned artist named Dan Gregory, only to serve in said war where he lost said eye. When he returns to the states, he hobnobs with Abstract Expressionists, buying their paintings and eventually amassing a priceless art collection, which he displays in a mansion he inherits from his late wife. Eventually he meets Circe Berman, a pill-popping author of novels for young adults. Berman cajoles Karabekian into writing his autobiography, which serves as the prose for Bluebeard. Throughout his book, Karabekian constantly refers to his career as a failed painter—who was often on the receiving end of criticism because his paintings lacked soul, and because the paint he used, Sateen Dura-Luxe, eventually detached from all his works, leaving blank canvasses—and to his potato barn, where he kept his biggest secret under lock and key. What’s the secret, you may wonder? You’ll find the answer in Bluebeard, one of the author’s best novels, and an absolute pleasure to read at the end of my Vonnegut journey.

Back to Our Future: How the 1980s Explain the World We Live in Now—Our Culture, Our Politics, Our Everything

By David Sirota

About halfway through Back to Our Future, I realized that I’ve heard of this David Sirota character. In fact, he hosts a liberal daily talk show on KKZN-AM760 and he is a resident of the Mile High City. How about that? And he reminds me of Matt Taibbi—who, incidentally enough, writes a blurb extolling the virtues of the book on the back cover—in that he’s just as smart, funny, and critical of injustice both on the right and left of the political spectrum. When I read a review in the Onion AV Club assuaging my suspicions that this book might be a bad nostalgia trip, I checked out a copy from the library. What I found in the text within affirmed what I assumed: The 1980s ruined America both culturally and politically. As Sirota explains, it was the decade that the yippies became the yuppies (cue Jerry Rubin), being a hippy was passé (the number-one sitcom was Family Ties, a show whose main attraction was a young Republican named Alex Keaton who constantly mocked his hippy parents because they weren’t self-centered, money-obsessed pricks), and the right blamed liberals and liberal politicians for the U.S. Military’s defeat in Vietnam (you’re forgetting one thing: Rambo). And then there was Reagan, the biggest asshole of all. The cultural shift was aided and abetted by a slew of propaganda, which included everything from movies (Red Dawn and Top Gun), television shows (The A-Team and Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous), and even sports (the deification of individual athletes like Michael Jordan, while de-emphasizing the team effort). Unlike the 1960s when the youth was obsessed with justice for all, the 1980s gave us one of the most self-centered, greedy, mean-spirited generations of all time. The result is weak-willed liberals (see Clinton) and the money uber alles/me first attitude that continues to pollute our culture. Back to Our Future offers compelling evidence for why our culture is in the toilet and how the decade of the 80s put us there.