Having Your Sandwich and Eating It Too

Giving your heart away is good. No matter how big it is and how much you give, or for how little, you get to keep it, too. Hold tight to your presence of mind. Only then can you have your heart and give it away too.

I put my whole heart into everything with you, but what you’re doing next, I do not have a clue.
The Bottle Rockets, “Mountain to Climb”

(More very, very hip shots here from Bob at Undertow.)

The Bottle Rockets have recorded a new record (!) in Brooklyn with Eric “Roscoe” Ambel, producing and “enabling the Bottle Rockets in their pursuit of the rock and roll.”

Here are lots of pictures of the Bottle Rockets in Brooklyn ostensibly absorbed in the creating of a new record (a new record!), but more likely thinking, “What’s for lunch?” Lunch is paramount. It’s why I work all morning. Am I alone in that?

In case you don’t know, I have Bottle Rockets Fever, with the mercury bursting out of the top of the thermometer. The cure, I imagine, is far worse than the disease. The Bottle Rockets, at least some of them, have Bacon Fever, for which there is no cure. An elixir was developed but it did very poorly at the pharmacy. Who in their right mind would want to recover from Bacon Fever?

Bacon is a sandwich cornerstone and Brooklyn does right by a sandwich. I asked Brian Henneman what they had to eat while in the studio for a week.

Me: What I want to know is…. Did yall encounter any noteworthy sandwiches while in NY?

Brian: The Torta El Diablo, from the Buffalo Cantina was a recurring favorite. Found a gourmet Cuban Sandwich by Mark Spencer’s place. Had that more than once. Anything from the Hope Deli, with “fancy lettuce” was quite popular too. The Polish girls made a nice sandwich-ah…

Me: Good to know you were properly sustained.

Brian: I sustained 10 pounds of extra weight, from all the friggin’ excellent sandwiches.

Me: That’s whatcha call “eating your sandwich and having it too.”

While I’m thinking about giving it away and keeping it too, my mind wends to DOGS.

I can’t love you enough. You soak up all of my stuff.
You’re just a sponge to my mush. I can’t love you enough.
“It’s The Way You Smell”

From my mouth to my dog’s ear. The more you give to them, the more you get. Too much sometimes. It will take you over, overwhelm your heart.

The thing about a dog is, the thing, the thing is, you can love them as much as you want, pour it on thick like refrigerated Aunt Jemima. All that love, it will not overflow into the gutter and stream down past your neighbor’s place. The dog will absorb it. And your heart aches pleasurably as it turns dog-nectar into love-syrup.

I cook for my dog now. If I don’t, she won’t eat, and I can’t bear it. She does like a sandwich – linear, rather than vertical. First some toast, then some chicken. Condiments are beneath her. She is not supposed to have butter, but at 105 what’s the harm in a little butter? Nicely melting into the crumb.

Fifteen and then some is old for a dog, judging from my vast knowledge of these things. She’s my first dog and so I have not experienced accelerating age before. A dog, if you are not too terribly old yourself, will pass you by. First she was my baby and now she is my grandma. It’s a time/heart warp. I carry her sometimes, on stairs, and easier and easier that has become as she goes from lean, to slim, to thin, to frail. If it’s the last thing I do for her, I will plump her up. 

Oh to be covered in fur. Fur carries beauty until you are as old as the hills, and beyond.