Wish You Were Here, Part 2

Our story about a weekend of gluttony continues...

Saturday

So I wake up dull and early and decide to go to Liberty Memorial because I always take visitors there for the great view of the Kansas City skyline.

It’s Veteran’s Day and they’ve got a Bell H-U1 “Huey” helicopter that was used in Vietnam on display and I start talking to a vet named Lynn Carter about fighting in that war (Lynn carried a grenade launcher and that’s him in the tan coat) and then Lynn introduces a blond and say she’s a Vietnam vet too, so I ask what branch of the service and she says:

“I was a dancer on one of Bob Hope’s USO tours.”

(I was still in high school when she was dancing in Vietnam so she’s got to be at least a little older than me, so why am I the one who looks like he’s robbing the cradle? Discuss.)

Turns out her name’s Liz Kelley and she was also one of Dean Martin’s Golddiggers and here’s a picture of her attempting to jump over Gene Kelly, but kneeing him in the head as she goes by. Apparently Gene was cool about the mishap and told her parents how great she was despite her attempt to give him a concussion, although the NFL penalized her 15 yards for targeting which is a totally unnecessary joke about football, but my life has been a long series of unnecessary jokes so why stop now?

If you want to read more about Liz – and it’s a pretty good story – here’s an article:

https://martincitytelegraph.com/2022/10/03/liz-kelley-is-back-where-she-belongs/

Before I leave, Liz and Lynn give me a C-Ration cookbook and some tiny bottles of Tabasco sauce which they used to include with the C-Rations because as Lynn informs me, after they’d been sitting around a year, C-Rations taste pretty much like cardboard, but after the addition of Tabasco sauce, they taste like spicy cardboard.

After a brisk walk to take Liberty Memorial pictures and one of the Pioneer Mother statue in Penn Valley Park, it’s time for lunch.

BTW: I didn’t notice at the time, but later I read an article about the Pioneer Mother statue and someone pointed out they’re headed Southeast which might lead you to believe they tried the West and after getting chased by pissed-off Indians and touring Utah and Nevada – home of some of our nation’s most popular casinos and prisons and not much else – they said fuck it and headed back to Kentucky.

Either that or the Pioneer Mother and her traveling companions had a really crappy sense of direction.

But according to the article the explanation for the statue’s seemingly misguided direction of travel was provided by the sculptor who said all statues should face south because of the superior lighting which sounds like the kind of bullshit rule I’d make up on the spot after doing something dumb and refusing to admit I’d done it.

Speaking of which, here’s one of my favorite Kansas City sculptures – Henry Moore’s Sheep Piece – positioned on the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art lawn which to the untrained eye (and possibly to the trained eye as well) appears to be two sheep fucking.

I mean, it’s right there in the title although if you read the official explanation it’s: “two ambiguous forms gently touching” representing “mother and child” and if they got that explanation from Henry Moore I’m guessing he had a hard time keeping a straight face when he offered it.

But if the sheep are fucking at least they’re fucking facing south.  

Q39, 1000 West 39^th Street

What you’re looking at it the “Judge’s Plate” and I always get it at Q39 because they named it after me in honor of all my contributions to the quality of life in Kansas City like pointing out that we’ve got a really neat sculpture of copulating livestock and now we’ll pause while you decide if that’s a true story:

BZZZZT!

Time’s up and if you guessed it was a true story: Go Directly to Jail, Do Not Pass Go and Do Not Collect $200 because the name refers to BBQ competitions where judges are given a variety of meats to try, followed immediately by CPR and mouth-to-mouth resuscitation because they think they’ve died and gone to heaven.

The Judge’s Plate lets you pick three meats (this one’s ribs, brisket and sausage) and one side dish (in this case Mac and Cheese) and after I finish eating it my waiter asks if I’m now ready for some carrot cake or a brownie to top things off and I immediately accuse him of trying to kill me.

I’m doing this Spite-Eating weekend partly for the food and partly to make my absent friend envious, but I can’t keep doing this much longer.

Right now I feel like one of those guys who makes it 2/3s of the way up Mount Everest and even though it’s late in the day decides to push on because he’s come this far and while they get a cool photo on the summit, that cool photo usually winds up as the centerpiece at a funeral because they tend to freeze to death on the descent.

Wait a second…do they have Food Sherpas?

I could use someone to help me through this weekend and eat anything I can’t manage and when I’m finished, like a lot of mountain climbers, I’ll conveniently forget that some 98-pound Tibetan drug my out-of-shape ass most of the way through the experience.

Jesus, how do those competitive eating guys do it?

You know we’re a nation of spoiled and wasteful people when we have contests to see just how much more food than a human actually needs can be eaten as fast as possible and consider the winner a celebrity.

Small wonder a huge percentage of the world’s population hates us.

And frankly, my Weekend of Gluttony isn’t doing much to change the world’s opinion, but I go ahead and eat all of the Judge’s Plate anyway because it’s not like the world will stop hating Americans if I don’t.

As the old saying goes: “Waste not, want to take an hour-and-a-half post-lunch nap while ‘watching’ college football.”

Pierpont’s at Union Station, 30 West Pershing Road

Like pretty much every American I could stand to lose some weight and if you disagree with that statement, strip naked and go stand sideways in front of a full-length mirror while I wait here.

See?

What did I tell you?

Despite my excess poundage apparently I don’t have what it takes to hit 300 pounds and keep right on going because after 24 hours of really really good food I can’t face another heavy meal so I go to Pierpont’s in Union Station because I know they have a crab bisque which is more than enough dinner because I still have a volleyball-sized wad of red meat in my intestinal system.

But just in case you’re worried that I’ll get too thin, (like that’s ever going to be a problem) the bisque has chunks of crab in it and also they bring me a serving of bread the approximate size and weight of a shotput.

When I order a $15 glass of French wine my waiter suggests a wine that’s part of a Happy Hour Special and costs $7.50 and he points out that I can now have two glasses of wine for the same price.

In the Bible it’s Satan that tempts Mankind, in Kansas City it’s the waiters.

Before I take a picture of my food I apologize to my waiter Beelzebub and explain that while I’m not a big fan of photographing my food I’m Revenge Dining to piss off a friend and show him what he’s missing. The Prince of Darkness says that’s way better than most of the reasons he’s heard for taking pictures of food.

So I ask to hear the worst reason he’s been given and he adopts a Valley Girl voice and says:

“It’s for my followers.”

I assure my waiter Mephistopheles I don’t have followers although there may be a couple people who wouldn’t mind hunting me down, which is not quite the same thing.

And now a social media digression

When social media first became a thing my kids (who are all smarter than me, which isn’t all that much to brag about) made me aware that people were taking pictures of food they ate and places they went and people they hung out with because they really needed to share those intimate details with complete strangers.

People (and I use that term loosely) were and are promoting a self-image that says: “I’m having way more fun than you are and go to better places and I’m so much cooler” and then having made those egotistical statements, wait desperately to see how many “likes” they get on Facebook.

I could be accused of doing the same thing if you consider a middle-aged man (a description that assumes I’m living to 150) eating huge meals by himself, then waddling back to his mid-range hotel and seeing how many Tums he can swallow before he goes to sleep something to envy.

If so, knock yourself out.

Next up: so many restaurants, so little time.