Normalize Having Favorites
When you were a kid you had a favorite color and a favorite food. And now it’s like, beneath you, to have a favorite food? Why? Don’t you like food?
I host on the radio on Saturday nights. It’s the highlight of my professional week. I love doing it, I love connecting with the listeners and I love the experience. Listening to music is a joy, doing it with a large audience and discovering music together, it’s one of the most rewarding things I’ve ever gotten to do in my life. Most night it’s requests. That’s very active work. I don’t slow down. The phone rings, I pick out music, I check tweets, I pick out music, I research the music. The whole deal, it’s active. I’ve started to work a little physical exercise into the routine too. It can help slow your brain down to do 25 squats, or do a one minute plank. My guy Scott Blankenship who hosts on “Your Classical” while I’m on “Your The Current” saw me doing exercise and now we run out and do some of these routines together. It brings so much joy to my shift.
Today we got started earlier with our workouts cause I wasn’t doing requests. And I had a moment where I finished my exercise, went and grabbed some smoked salmon, cream cheese and crackers from out of the fridge and put together some little crackers. We’ve got Steely Dan’s “Bodhisatva” blasting out the speakers and I’m spreading world class smoked salmon from Northern Smokehaus onto an elite cracker. Ok, fuck it, that’s my favorite food. It’s a great answer, you see. It’s specific enough to keep a conversation going.*
*God bless you if you’re a grown ass person and your answer is something like “pizza” or you say “I’m a big fan of ice cream”. That’s a kid-ass answer. I want us to have favorites, but you need an answer that has some meat on the bones.
What I want to see from you is an answer that has some specificity but is something you could try anywhere. For instance, if your answer is “the fettucine at this one place in Spain you’ll never go to” I feel like your telling me a story about your favorite dish, not your favorite food. What I want is answer like “If I ever see chicken parmigiana, I get it, it’s my go to” or an answer like “I always like to try chicken wings, I’m into that”. That gives us someplace to go. And folks, I’ve got my favorite food. It’s that Northern Waters Smokehaus smoked salmon on some crackers with cream cheese. Rachel and I have gotten it a bunch of times. I’ve gotten it with my friend Steph from Duluth. It’s a special food experience but it’s built on pretty normal stuff, grab a piece of smoked salmon of any quality and frankly you’re 60% of the way there. So that’s my favorite food. When you eat it you feel like a rustic king, but you can also enjoy the cream cheesy smoothiness of it. You can definitely have a little for a snack. You can fully have it as its own lunch. When you order it, your friends might make nice little yum yum noises from the first bite of their sandwich, but ultimately they’ll see the uniqueness of the cracker/salmon/cream cheese continuum and the specialness of it, the uniqueness of it. And they’ll look at their sandwich with that ping of jealousy: I should’ve ate a story for lunch. And that goddamn smoked fish next to the Saltines is a story, a bona fide story.
Scene reset: Walter and Donald from The Dan delivers peak “guitarmony” out of loud ass speakers, I’m spreading cream cheese on crackers and fielding phone calls from fans of music who are so into the whole thing that they are calling up to suggest particular songs from particular years. This needs to be overstated, this a really cool, amazing indication that radio still has this valence. It is possible that you have forgotten the simple joy of getting your request on the radio. I sure as fuck have not. Being a part of that moment for people, it’s humbles me. It reminds me that there’s a downside to hearing everything all at once. Radio can dole out information, scene backgrounds, insider tips, but it moves linearly. You’re not going to hear the 2 seconds on “who sampled dot com” and then move on to another thing, quickly. They’ll be no random ads and scrolling for your to focus on the rest of the grooves for 6 minutes after you’ve heard the sampled moment. You’ll exist in that Grant Green song for the majority of it’s eight minute length. I love the patience and natural discovery opportunities that come from the radio. The guy I listen to is named Larry Mizell Jr., he’s on KEXP. He takes me on a journey. And friends, this god damn salmon takes me on a journey. I slow down, I remember other times I’ve had, I crisp on the cracker. I feel connected to this experience. I feel connected to Duluth. I feel connected to social food.
And I have a favorite song too. It’s “Coyote” by as done by Joni Mitchell and the Band. I’m gonna go listen to that song. Here’s some favorite categories to sort out for yourself:
Favorite Movie Villain
Favorite Sports Franchise
Favorite Comedy Made Before You Alive
Favorite Music Documentary
Favorite Coffee Shop Order
Favorite Artist to Dance To
Favorite Film Director
good night!