Taco Tuesday

     Have you ever craved a taco at 4 am? Do you have pancakes for dinner every other night? Why can't we have a drink before noon? These are a few questions surrounding the occurrence of food. Our fast-food diets have spoiled us in having it our way right away any time of the day. Yet we still hold on to the temperance of when and what a meal is. What happened to breakfast, lunch, and dinner?

     Us humans are generally regarded as omnivores. That is, we eat both plants and other animals. In the food world this means that we'll pretty much eat anything. In fact, for over 190,000 years with early Homo sapiens that was the case. We were hunters and gatherers. We were pure survivalists. Whenever we found something or killed something, if it didn't kill us, we ate it. Our meals were whatever we could get our hands on at that time. When seasons changed, so did our diets. Sometimes less plants and more animals. Humans were nomads and migrated with animals following where their food went. You pretty much didn't have a choice in the matter either. You could be eating venison and berries every day for two-thirds of the year. When you ate something it better have been good. Who knew when you'd see it again. It was far different than our diets and eating habits today. However a few things remain.

     Humans were and still are the greatest opportunists. We're the kings of making it simple and easy. We'll take every shortcut to get what we want even if it be damned. So about 10,000 years ago we took a chance to change our food sources, settled into the far reaches of the globe, and started farming. This experiment was highly successful and now we trade, buy, and steal food that's been made through modern agriculture. Today we're only limited by what we can grow. Simply put, we eat everything any time. In comparison to old humans, we have vastly more variety in diet but our sedentary lifestyle and need for simplicity has replaced the ability to make more meaningful choices.

     On a side note: why don't Paleo diets (eating like a caveman) work for most people? The answer is discipline. We have too many choices. History tells up we'll always make the easier choice when it comes to food. In order to eat like a caveman, you must be committed to working hard to find nutritious foods. We generally don't have the discipline to fight for our food instead of having it brought to us.

     What does any of this have to do with breakfast burritos? Breakfast, lunch and dinner are the lasting echoes of history when we needed to ration food. In order to make it last and eat it when it was fresh we needed to spread it out throughout the day. What came available at that time of the day dictated what we ate. For example: Chicken eggs laid early each morning were breakfast. Fish caught that day was served as dinner because it didn't last until morning (unless preserved in salt like lox for breakfast). Necessity being the mother of invention, we changed everything again with modern refrigeration and food preservation. Our meals today are basically limitless. Theoretically, you could have cake and ice cream for breakfast every day.
     So what's stopping us from the dream diets of a three year old? Well we're smarter. We know that if we ate too much unhealthy food so early in the day, there'd be no desert to look forward to after dinner. We know that if we didn't eat something other than candy for lunch, we'd never have enough energy throughout the day. We know so much more of what nutrition the body requires and try to eat a balanced diet that works well with our active lifestyles.
     Late night munchies happen and that's OK. We're still very much opportunists and there's no time like the present. It's alright to have a bloody Mary with breakfast. Hell, have a liquid lunch! We just shouldn't make a habit of it.

Growing up Ghostbuster

Photo: © Jeff Schear / Getty Images

     News of the recent passing of writer/actor/director Harold Ramis has gone surprisingly viral on the internet. Social media has exploded with tales of the supernatural, memorials, and reflections on his famous films such as Ghostbusters and National Lampoon's Vacation. John Stewart left a moment of Zen tribute, Stephen Colbert declared him a "Role Model", and even President Barak Obama released an official statement quoting Caddyshack, hoping that "he received total consciousness". Including such fantastic films as Animal House and Groundhog Day, Harold found great humor with death. One of my favorite lines from his film 'Stripes' is,"Tito Puente's gonna be dead, and you're gonna say, "Oh, I've been listening to him for years, and I think he's fabulous."  Well, I wouldn't know any better way to honor my childhood hero than to dedicate an entire 'Throwback Thursday' #TBT to Harold Ramis.

Photo: © Barry Williams / Daily News New York

     The Chicago Tribune story immediately appeared up on my feed. It's no secret why; I love Ghostbusters. My reaction (I assume) was similar to anyone else who had just learned that they had just recently lost an idol. I was speech-less. For a guy who often shares too much on the internet, I didn't want to post anything. My next thoughts were regretful, "Well, there goes Ghostbusters 3! Wait, did I just think that? What a horrible thought on so many levels!" Though I kept the callous and selfish response to myself, over the next few days I later found out that every person who loved and idolized Ramis felt exactly the same thing! And why wouldn't they? It probably would have been exactly what he had thought. An interenet meme circulating acknowledged this, "I wish Harold Ramis was alive to write a funny dedication to Harold Ramis." His humor certainly reflected a bitter satire; a pathos that as President Obama put it, "questioned authority". “We represent the underdog as comedy usually speaks for the lower classes,” Mr. Ramis once said. “We attack the winners.” This is a style mirrored by today's comic writers from 'Dumb and Dumber' by the Farelly brothers to recent success like Andy Samberg and 'The Lonely Island'. In his first feature film, 'National Lampoon's Animal House', a frightened horse dies of a heart attack in a college dean's office. In 'Caddyshack' a bishop is struck by lightning while playing golf in a thunderstorm. In 'National Lampoon's Vacation' a rancorous aunt dies while mid cross-country journey and later is strapped to the hood of the family's station-wagon. In 'Groundhog Day' Bill Murray's character is forced to repeat the same 24 hours over again with no escape, even in death, later declaring himself a god.

'Junior Ghostbusters' A.W. Cox Elementary School Talent Show 1988

     Over the past few days I've had an opportunity to reflect on why his work greatly influenced me. That is, there was something more than his silliness that helped me understand the world. His characters made me more comfortable accepting myself and death. I was often an 'underdog' in sports. In elementary school I didn't really excel at things other than science and math. It's no wonder why my idol was his 'Ghostbusters' character, Egon Spengler. If you're looking for a super-scientist, why not one that fights ghosts? Suddenly it was cool to have big corrective glasses because Egon had them. When other kids might have been afraid of the dark, I was able to take a "Who ya gonna call?" attitude. When I learned that people actually studied ghosts, I took out every book at the library on parapsychology. Sadly when death and tragedy came to my family I was able work through it with much of what I had learned. The years following both of the films me, my sister, my brother, and my friends all found a fantastic opportunity identifying each of ourselves in Ramis' heroes.

Dressing up and playing Ghostbusters never gets old.

     As an adult I'm finding myself going back to my roots for guidance.  As I pursue a career in entertainment, I realize that so much of my humor derives from what I had watched over 20 years ago. Even more now, I can see what a great example he was to up and coming writers/actors/directors. “When you’re doing pure comedy, things have to happen that would not happen in real life,” Ramis acknowledged in reference to 'The Ice Harvest'. “In this movie, we find ourselves laughing at how horrible real life can be, or at the kinds of things people say under stress, which may strike us as funny but they’re certainly not telling jokes to each other." My friend said to me yesterday, "(Harold Ramis dying) will finally get people to stop hounding Bill Murray about Ghostbusters 3." That is funny and I think Harold would have thought so too.

Harold Ramis © Copyright 2014 Joe Heller