Burn, Baby, Burn

Hello. We begin today with a Gene Pool Gene Poll based on a comment from esteemed Gene Pool regular Gary E. Masters, who began a discussion last week, in the Comments section, about whether a great chef should be able to greatly prepare meat “well done” at the request of his clientele. Mr. Masters declared he or she should be able to do so, and that any competing thought is a “lazy meat prejudice.” He contended that my opinion on the matter was “piffle,” which is not a challenge I take lightly. My entire career has involved the skillful manipulation of piffle.

We do not know, and have not asked, respectfully, whether Mr. Masters prefers his steaks charred to a horrible death, baked into tasteless oblivion, but we accept this as a question worth pursuing inasmuch as it raises legitimate questions about human life and acceptable standards of behavior. And because it obliquely raises the issue of the worthiness of Donald Trump, who orders his hundred-dollar steaks cremated and incinerated, and then drowns them in catsup, which he probably spells and pronounces “katchupp.”

It is the contention of the proprietor of The Gene Pool that paying a good chef to prepare meat “well done” would be an act of revolting capitalism, like asking Vincent Van Gogh to paint “Dogs Playing Poker,” and demanding that he do it with his non-dominant hand. The proprietor of The Gene Pool was once married to a lady who had an uncle who worked as a waiter in a famous New York restaurant. He flatly refused to deliver overdone meat to a client. If someone ordered “well done,” he would have a busboy bring it to the table, as though it was a plateful of roasted, squirming maggots.

Anyway, here comes the Gene Pool Gene Poll.

Many of the regular subscribers to The Gene Pool have been reading my piffle for years, and so many of you are familiar with my family, my dogs, my cats, my household insects, etc. Among these family members is Molly, my daughter, who was born in 1981, and whose exploits you might be at least semi-familiar with.

You might recall a column I once wrote about my dying father and Molly’s graduation from veterinary school. Or Molly’s decision to name her son after a baseball player. Or the Christmas infestation of Molly’s house by praying mantises.

I do have some news. I will keep this brief, for obvious reasons. A couple of years ago, Molly decided to expand her expertise into human medicine and got a masters degree in public health. This was a strategic and wise decision in the middle of a global pandemic related to zoonotic-borne disease. Suddenly, veterinary knowledge became extraordinarily valuable. She got a job as an epidemiologist for the CDC.

Molly leaves this week on a new job: Global Health Security Advisor for USAID in Zambia. Her mission is to prevent the spread of infectious diseases, and save lives.

I’m publishing this at some risk. Journalists should not casually sin, and I am violating one of the Big Seven. Pride.

Okay, here we go. The question-and-answer session begins now.

Oh, wait. Send us money.

Okay, now to the questions. Many are based on this tale I told on the weekend, involving peeing, the theater, and unusual restaurants.

Oh, wait. Another thing. Several months ago, I wrote about having witnessed a collision between a bicyclist and a car. The car door opened, and the biker, who was in a bike lane, smashed into it. He was significantly injured. An ambulance was called. I described it as unavoidable, but was almost instantly schooled, initially by my good friend Peter Sagal, of NPR’s Wait, Wait. It is the responsibility of the driver to check for bikers. The sin is called “dooring,’ and the driver is responsible.

I have since been very careful about this, when parking beside a bike lane.

Yesterday, I almost doored someone, and therefore this is a PSA. I pulled into a parking spot, turned off the car, checked the bike lane, saw a guy was approaching, and did not open my door. He passed. I started to open my door but at the last second, realized there was another biker behind him, a woman, smaller, hidden from me beforehand. Maybe 20 feet, and two seconds, behind the guy. Had I opened that door, there would have been substantial injury.

Let’s be careful out there. Drivers are responsible. End of PSA.

Q: So great jokemeister, these are the top ten "jokes" (quotes for sarcasm) at the recent Edinburgh Fringe Festival. Am I correct that the only ones that are really funny are 9 & 10, and the winner doesn't make sense?

A: These are the worst results I’ve ever seen, and the first year I have declined to publish them. Two, three, and nine are almost okay, but holy crap. The winner is pure shite.

TIMELY TIP: If you’re reading this right now on an email:   Click here to get to my webpage, then click on the top headline (In this case, “Burn, Baby… “ ) for the full column, and comments, and real-time questions and answers. And you can refresh and see new questions and answers that appear as I regularly update the post from about noon to 1 p.m. ET today.

Q: Wild car adventures and peeing! In 1971. I dropped out of college, worked in a factory to raise some cash, and bought a Volkswagen bus for $500, intending to travel the country to find myself, and making sure to include a stay at a commune north of San Francisco called Wheeler's Ranch. The engine promptly fell out of the bus. I borrowed some dough to get a new engine and set off. Amazingly, at a rest stop in Iowa, I met someone who had just come from Wheeler's Ranch - biggest coincidence in my life. However, I digress. At the top of the Rocky Mountains, the brakes failed and I had to swerve to slow down and use the emergency brake and ultimately drive off the road and up a hill to stop. Anyway, I survived, made it to Wheeler's Ranch, which was unfortunately on its last legs. I knew communal life wasn't for me when I saw that the women would just stop and pee wherever they happened to be walking. That sent me back to college post haste.

A: Just for what it is worth, and without giving details, I know two women and one man – I have met them personally – who once peed in a courtyard at The Vatican.   They were there as tourists, to see the Sistine Chapel.  Bathrooms were apparently hard to find.   All three people I am referring to will read this and recognize it and possibly know shame. 

Q: We once went to a restaurant that featured raclette. This was in the Alps. Perhaps you know raclette. We didn’t. So we ordered it. First they brought out plates of vegetables and meats. Then the garçon wheeled in a large device that looked vaguely like an old-fashioned mixmaster. It had a prong on which he speared a large hunk of cheese. Above that were some heating elements. He switched on the machine and vanished. We were unclear about our next move. The cheese, perched about a foot above the table, started to melt. We looked around, but other diners were eating fondue out of pots. No help there. So we held the food in our fingers under the dripping cheese. The melting accelerated. We switched to scraping the cheese off with knives and plopping it onto our plates. But the dripping was turning into a cascade. I reached over and unplugged the machine. Disaster averted. Would I order raclette again? If I were a Paleolithic dude uninterested in whiz-kid gizmos like pots, then yeah, I probably would.

A: Here is raclette.   It does not look appetizing.

Q: I'd just like to say that, as an actor, the final lines of your story about your father are one of the things I think of if I need to cry on command. Never fails. Crying right now.

A: Whoa. Even if this is NOT Rachel, I am moved.

Q: Warning. This will be disturbing. It still gives me the willies, 50 years later: Once, when in my early twenties, my first wife and I lived in Washington Heights in New York. We gave a lot of parties at which many intoxicating substances, mainly, but not exclusively, wine were served. One particular night, the single bathroom was occupied, and there was a line waiting. I couldn't wait, so I grabbed an empty wine bottle and used that. I was afraid it would spill, so I corked it and placed it behind the couch, intending to deal with it next time the bathroom was free. I forgot about it. I was stoned and drunk. Apparently, when cleaning up after the party, my wife found the bottle and put it -- back in the refrigerator. I had a friend way too drunk to get home, so we put him up overnight. He woke up the next morning, hung over, and apparently sought some 'hair of the dog." Need I go on?

A: You do not need to. I do have a suspicion this has happened more than once.

This is Gene. I have ascertained that the previous post, by an actor, using my father’s anecdote to summon emotion, is not from Rachel. I am actually ironically.. moved. Thank you.

Not an anecdote, but a joke. These three old men were talking about what they most want at their age. The 80-year old says, “What I most want is to have an easy pee. Now I stand there and dribbles and it hurts.” The 85-year old says, “What I most want is to have a good BM. I’ve tried every laxative on the market, none of them do any good.” The 90-year old says, “I don’t have those problems. Every morning at 6 am I have a good long pee. At 6:30 I have a great BM. What I most want, is to wake up before 7.”

A: An Old joke, but I like it.  

Q: Oddities. (1) Chick 'n Ruth's is inquired about by tourists trying to find the CHICKEN ROOST. (2) Possibly derivative of Rachel's appearance? A couple doors down the Avenue from her play venue used to be a Laundromat, with windows now brown-papered. Several years ago a resident of the same neighborhood wrote a play about a guy who lived in an apartment above the Avenue Laundromat and while doing his wash downstairs, began a romance with a woman customer. The play was actually performed several times in the laundromat to an audience of 12 seated in the window facing the machines. While I also lived above the laundromat 3 times over a 12 year stretch and was single, it wasn't about me. To this day, some former neighbors insist it was. The laundromat was a gathering place for a diverse group and from the vantage point of the Irish Pub across the street, we witnessed many a dramatic moment and if only mundane activity happened, we made up our own stories for the users. The inside walls of the washery were old-fashioned industrial pale yellow and green. As dusk became night, the place took on a glow reminiscent of Edward Hopper's NIGHTHAWKS.. Eric Peltosalo

A:  I am trying to decide if you knew this or not, and think you didn’t. . 

Rachel was the star of that show.    The laundromat show. She came home with black and blue marks.  It was physically exhausting.  As you can tell from the photo.  I have often said to Rachel, who is tall and mighty,  if she and I for any reason got into a fight-to-the-finish physical altercation, she would kick the shit out of me.  

Q: Your anecdote about your response (or lack thereof) to your dying mother resonated with me. My biggest regret is similar. My grandmother was dying in the hospital. I had recently started my first job in another state, just out of graduate school, and I had come home to see her for what was surely the last time. She held on for longer than we anticipated and I couldn’t stay longer. As we stood next to her bed, her mouth and nose covered with an oxygen mask, my mom told her I was leaving to go back to my new home. She tried to say something, a couple times, but we couldn’t clearly make out what she was saying. My mom patted her arm and said, “Okay,” and I left. She died a week later. I think I know what she was saying. She was saying, “I love you.” And I couldn’t bring myself to say it back. Not because I didn’t love her. I did, deeply. We were very close. I was paralyzed knowing I would never see her again and I knew if I opened my mouth, I would melt into the floor. I know she knew I loved her, but I should have said it, and I will always regret staying silent.

A: It took me pretty late into life to learn that, often, saying something that isn’t perfect – stammering, inarticulate, whatever – is often better than saying nothing.   And sometimes, you figure it out later.  One of the best examples of this, I think, was articulated by a writer I deeply respect.   He was at the inconceivably horrible funeral for two young brothers who died together in a car accident.  The father of the kids said something like “I’ll never be like the person I was a week ago,” and the writer had no idea how to respond.  He said, “I don’t know what to say,” which was honest if inarticulate.   Later, writing about it, he wrote what he should have said:  “Whoever you will be, we will still love you.” 

Q: Raclette is amazing. At the fancy restaurant where we order it, they melt it at your table and scrape it off the wheel onto a baguette. I’m sure you would love it, unless you hate cheese.

A: I am more than willing to try it

Q: I’d be curious to ask the heathens who prefer well done steak - why? A well done steak is achieved at a cooking temperature between 155° to 165° F At this level, proteins have already coagulated. All the fat and most of the moisture have cooked off. The reason we let steak sit after cooking (to a NORMAL temp of 135 or so) is to allow the fat to seep back into the protein, creating that amazing steak texture and flavor that makes steak steak and not a hockey puck. What is the possible appeal of overcooked steak that is arguably not actually steak anymore?

A: These people cannot be reasoned with! They are Trump!

Okay, I am calling this one done. Please send in more questions and comments. Questions here: