That's Not A Grilled Cheese, Asshole

There's a Carl's Jr. commercial on television that features a group of guys at a diner. The ridiculously hot waitress brings over a tray and starts serving burgers. When she gets to the final guy, she says "a kid's grilled cheese meal with a crayon and a coloring book."

And then the table of ridiculously hot girls at the booth across from them roll their eyes.

And what is this commercial for? The "grown up" grilled cheese---which, according to the retards at Carl's Jr., has a HAMBURGER AND BACON ON IT.

That's not a grilled cheese. That's a motherfucking bacon cheeseburger.

And the linguistic clumsiness isn't the only thing I have a problem with in this commercial. Everyone's so condescending to this poor bastard who wanted to order some bread with melted cheese on it at 3am. Is that a fucking crime?

Now, at this point, you're probably thinking "Isn't this a blog about not eating meat or dairy for a month? What does this have to do with a dumbass commercial?"

Well, here's the thing.

When I saw the commercial and they showed the picture of the big, greasy cheeseburger, I got incredibly nauseous. Ten days in and I honestly am revolted by (at least some kinds of) meat. I thought about eating a turkey sandwich and----God, I don't even want to talk about it.

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And while we're on a cheese-related blog, I tried some of that Daiya cheddar cheese that everyone is raving about. Okay, I will admit that it LOOKS a lot like cheese. But honestly, I don't see the big deal. It's kind of gross and tastes closer to Velveeta than anything squeezed from a cow's boob. It has a really weird, buttery smell.

If that's the best kind of vegan cheese out there, I'm just going to pass.


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God, those off-white slices of deli turkey. And that weird, chewy texture. And the smell! Oh, Jesus Christ that's awful.

I need to lie down for a minute. Talk amongst yourselves.

Fourth Day

"We can make him better than he was before. Better, stronger, faster."

---The Six Million Dollar Man.

What a difference the fourth day was. I leapt out of bed about an hour before my alarm was supposed to go off. The sick feeling is mostly gone and I had a ton of energy. For the first few hours of the day, I was skipping around like a five year old. When it was finally time to hit the gym at 11, I was really cooking.

But the hour of cardio and weights wasn't quite enough. So later, after work, I knocked out another 100 situps, leg raises, and a couple sets of deadlifts.

And for the first time in a while, I felt really light on my feet.

Vegan superhuman. We'll see what the next few days bring.

Third Day

Apparently, it's normal to feel sick on the third day of any sort of detox or cleansing. At least that's what Lisa says.

And I certainly did not disappoint. I crawled out of bed at 6 with a sore throat and sinuses filled with concrete. All day, I slithered around with the bare minimum of energy and STILL felt exhausted.

The strange thing is, I still wanted to go to the gym. I even wanted to WALK there, for some lunatic reason. So I shuffled the mile and a half to the Studio City Bally's to go lift some weights and listen to the terrible music they pipe in on the gym speakers. (Ask me how many Miley Cyrus songs I know. Ask me.)

A word to the wise: Ventura Blvd. is probably the stupidest place on God's green earth to walk around in a sick haze. I was nearly run over twice.

But even after a mediocre workout and quite a bit of walking, I still felt really stressed. Dumbass health insurance, job, and money worries still crept into my brain. And I had to quell the urge to dull that stress with a beer or a bowl or a slice of pizza.

And the damnedest thing happened. I realized that what I really wanted to do was meditate.

Now, I haven't really meditated in eight or nine years. But there I was, cross-legged on the carpet and breathing with my eyes closed. I even did ten minutes of "Om" chanting. And for a minute, I felt like I was outside of my body. My limbs belonged to someone else. I was just this essence without form.

When it was over, I was amazed at how much better I felt. That queasy feeling, that ache in my brain---GONE.

Maybe that's just something we all need in our lives. Some quiet time to just breathe and stop worrying.

Second Day

Nuts. Lots of nuts.

Veggie burgers. Spinach. Endless cups of water. This is what I eat. And to be honest, it's not that bad.

The hardest part isn't the avoidance of meat or dairy or sugar. It's not sex or caffeine.

It's the avoidance of harmful thoughts. Of negativity.

Here's an experiment. Tomorrow, every time you feel angry or hateful or jealous, just take a note of it. Every time you think "that guy's an asshole" or "she's a bitch", just take note.

If you're like me, you're a lot angrier than you give yourself credit for.

It would be the height of foolishness to try to abstain from thinking negatively at all. A thought would creep in, subconsciously even, and then you'd be all done. No, we're just trying to avoid the harmful thoughts. Not dwelling on them.

This is a bit easier to do, but not much. Probably ten times today, I found myself getting angry over little, mundane things. My job. Traffic. The slowness of the elevator.

Taking a deep breath helps, but only a little. Saying "it's no big deal" helps, but not much. Smiling almost does the trick, but not quite.

When I was younger, I used to laugh at how people would flip out over the pettiest things. Getting the wrong burger, a long line, being cut off in traffic. And I could never understand what their problem was.

But I do now. Because it isn't just the burger or the line or the asshole with no turn signal. It's the accumulation of little annoyances, on top of a deep and heavy dissatisfaction with their lives. A crushing sense of fear or doubt or inadequacy. And it manifests in those little events that, in and of themseles, are minor.

I understand this, because I feel the same way. Working in Hollywood can be grueling in a weird way.

NOT working in Hollywood is grueling. Meetings and auditions and packets. The endless driving and promises and handshakes. And at the end of the day, not being a single step further along. I've worked for two years on my show without making a single penny. I'm on the third draft of a screenplay I feel I'll never finish. And I can't even get in the audition room for the shows I want to be on.

It's the kind of thing that makes you want to drink. Or smoke pot. Or eat an animal-style Double-Double with extra crispy fries. Anything to stick your head in the sand and avoid that awful truth: life is moving on, while you're just standing still.

The truth of this little experiment isn't just "Hey, let's not have fun for a month." It's removing all of the crutches that we use when something is wrong. And confronting them head on.

The real challenge of this whole thing isn't to see if we can survive without Jack Daniels. It's to see if we can survive with only ourselves.

Last Meal

This was the last meal. An In-N-Out cheeseburger (animal style), fries, and a Coke. I even put it on a plate to mark the occasion.

Somebody asked me why my friends and I were going vegan. Honestly, I'm still not quite sure. I mean, part of it is to be healthier. But there's really no overarching REASON for doing it. Other than the fact that we wondered if we could.

I respect people who are vegetarian for moral reasons. My father, incidentally, is a vegetarian. He's Hindu and that's the norm in India. The idea of eating meat is just distasteful and anathema in his worldview. Though I have seen him eat fish at Red Lobster with no problem whatsoever. Fish are fine.

Incidentally, out of all of the animals we kill as a society, fish have it the worst. They get pulled, BY A HOOK IN THEIR MOUTH, into a hostile environment until they drown. That's way worse than a cow getting a bolt gun to the head or a chicken getting its neck snapped.

No one gives a fuck about fish because they're not cute, unless they're animated and voiced by Ellen Degeneres. But I digress.

I've heard some vegetarians talk about how, after a certain period of time, the very idea of eating meat is disgusting to them. And I wonder, if I was vegetarian for long enough, would my worldview change? Would I become repulsed at the activity I so thoroughly enjoyed before?

Could I look at a delicious Double-Double and feel nothing but sorrow?

I'm curious to find out.

And here's a really funny bit from Louis CK to close out this entry:

Things Are A Changin'

On New Years Day, I had a distinct feeling that 2010 was going to be a really exciting year. I couldn't put my finger on why, exactly, just that it would be different.

Yesterday, I learned that my company is giving everyone (including me) substantial pay cuts starting next month. And my roommate is thinking about moving to a new place, but wanted to know if I'd be down for moving there, also.

It's entirely possible that by the end of this experiment, I'll be in a new place, with a new job, eating a completely different diet.

Which is ultimately a good thing. I've been eating like shit and I don't really like my job. But I really like this apartment. We have an elevator and everything.

Escalation

Jim Gordon: What about escalation?

Batman: Escalation?

Jim Gordon: We start carrying semi-automatics, they buy automatics. We start wearing Kevlar, they buy armor-piercing rounds.

Batman: And?

Jim Gordon: And *you're* wearing a mask and jumping off rooftops. Now, take this guy: armed robbery, double homicide. Got a taste for theatrical, like you. Leaves a calling card.

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I told a couple of friends about my foolish month of veganism. And, since they're lunatics like me, they decided to up the ante a bit.

So now, we have:

The Monastic Challenge

Vegan diet (no meat, fish, eggs, dairy)
No refined sugar
No alcohol
No drugs (including caffeine)
No sexual release of any kind
No harmful thoughts toward others (compassion to all beings)

Big Mike made a Facebook page, appropriately entitled "The Monastic Challenge". We'll probably post hourly updates of our withdrawal symptoms.

Any one of these things would be irritating and cause me to make a smart-ass remark about it. But all six? This is going to be an interesting month, indeed.