Craig Coffey: May 2009 Archives

This is a shout-out to all my Dominican friends out there.

You know who you are.

In the years that I have come to know you I have gained nothing but the deepest respect for you.  Your dedication to your work, your family and your friends is amazing.  And the pride you have for your culture is inspiring.

Ok, now that we got that out of the way, let me make fun of you.

It all started with a Potluck dinner party at my house.

I had invited a bunch of people that I work with, including my Dominican friends, and I had asked them to bring dishes that represented their nationality.  In the weeks leading up to the event, there were numerous energetic discussions about what to bring, some of which were conducted, at least partly, in Spanish.

While they were bickering back and forth, I would just sit on the sidelines and listen in mute uni-lingual confusion.  I made some cursory attempts to translate a bit of what they were saying into English, but ran into two major problems:

1. They talk way too fast. I am convinced that a Spanish-speaking person can actually convey an entire days-worth of information in about 60 seconds.  I think the reason they roll their R's is so that they can slow their tongue down to keep it from breaking the sound barrier and creating a sonic boom that tears their lips off.  That's just a theory.
2. I don't know any Spanish other than "Por favor", "Gracias", "Uno", "Hola" and "Agua".  So I would really only know what they were saying if one of them said "Hello, one water please. Thank you."

Anyway... these conversations inspired me to do some research into the particular dialect of the Spanish language spoken in the Dominican Republic.  For this I, naturally, consulted the All-Knowing Google Oracle which provided me with several helpful sites on "Dominicanese".

Each of these sites had an alphabetical list of words, and their English translations.  I started at "A" on each site, and began reading my way through them, looking for anything that might be blog-worthy.

Almost immediately, I found something interesting (to me, at least).  I found two references to "Bacan" (or "Bacano") which was defined as "one cool dude".  Any language that has a word that looks like the word "Bacon" but means that you are cool, is an awesome language in my book.

I was only in the B's and already things were looking up... but, then I found the word "Bomba".

Someone will have to explain this one to me, because, according to this site, it means "Gas Station".  But, according to the same site, if you add exclamation points (i.e. ¡Bomba!), then it becomes "Wow!".  This can make for some interesting sentences..."¡Bomba! Están jugando 'La Bamba' en la bomba!" (Wow!  They're playing 'La bamba' at the gas station!)

I probably got distracted by something shiny at that point, because I didn't make it past the B's.  And, all I really gained was:

1. My new business card title: "Mucho Grande Bacano Extraordinario!"
2. A fun new exclamation: "Gas station! That's a large spleen!" 

So, in the end I was still able to understand very little of what they were saying.  Although, every once in a while, I was able to determine, via context, that a certain word or phrase was referring to a particular Dominican dish, and I have to admit... they didn't sound very tasty.  The Spanish names for these recipes sounded, to me, like either a sexually transmitted disease, or some of the less glamorous body parts on mammals, neither of which I was looking forward to eating...

Friend1: My Mofongo flared up again.

Friend2: On your Tostones?

Of course, in the end I had nothing to fear.  What they brought was much more appetizing than it sounded and by the end of the party I had a belly-full of awesome food.

In closing, I would like to cover one last thing...  If "Mano" means hand, and "Mano a mano" means "Hand to hand", and "Mono" means monkey, then "Mano a mono" means "Hand to monkey"?

I have no real point here... I just find that funny.

Yeah, I know.

I am a lardass, and I really don't have the right to criticize diets. 

But I am going to do it anyway.

Honestly, I have no problem with the concept of a diet.  Given the general obesity of this nation's population, myself included, I think losing weight is a great idea; one that I am sure I will find positively fascinating when my doctor ultimately tells me that I need to either:

      A) Lose weight

or  B) Die

No, it's not diets, in general, that I have a problem with.  It's "fad" diets that are the target of my deep and relentless loathing.  I mean, some stick-thin celebrity eats nothing but pork-rinds for a few weeks, and suddenly everyone thinks that is the only way to get thinner?  What kind of mindless drones are you people!?  I guess, now that I really think about it, I don't actually have a problem with the diets themselves, but more with the morons that choose to follow them.  I am fairly predictable that way.  Go figure.

As I am sure you are aware, there are tons of pointless diets out there that I can hose down with my stream of blog-bile, but one of the most popular ones, and my personal favorite, is the Atkins diet.  So, let's start there, shall we?

Now, before you Atkins zealots out there get all bent out of shape, I am sure that there is some nugget of scientific evidence to support the theories that Dr. Atkins based his diet on.  But I am equally certain that most of the people on this diet are not following it as Dr. Atkins designed... not even Dr. Atkins, considering that he died at the portly weight of 258lbs.  Oh, and he had heart problems.  But aside from those small facts, I am sure his diet is the bees knees.

Naturally, Dr. Atkins' wife claims that his obesity and heart problems were not due to his diet, and his doctors said that his "bloating" was due to "a condition" he had.  Yeah, ok, he was big-boned.  Right.

Anyhow.  I am too lazy to research what the diet is really about, but that doesn't matter.  What matters is what the average person thinks it's about.  I am sure that if I spent a few minutes reading the marketing drivel on the Atkins site that I would gain a much better understanding of the tenets of the diet than most of the people that are actually on it.  After talking to a few people, however, I was able to determine that the diet boils down to these basic rules:

  Rule #1: Don't eat anything with carbohydrates.

  Rule #2: Put down that roll, fat-ass!

See?  Simple as can be!  Just don't eat those EVIL carbohydrates, and the pounds will fall right off!  

Want to enjoy a hearty bowl of warm lard?  Go for it!  Got the hankering for an order of deep-fried, bacon-wrapped whale blubber?  Knock yourself out!

No lie!  I have actually witnessed someone on the Atkins diet get a foot-long philly cheesesteak for lunch, and eat the entire thing using the roll as if it were a plate.  They claimed that this was ok because it had no carbs... fascinating.  This thing was so thoroughly drenched with cheese and grease that, even though I was only watching them eat it, after they were done I needed to perform an emergency angioplasty on myself using a drinking straw (Don't worry, I made sure it was sterilized first by licking it and wiping it vigorously on my shirt). 

Now, without actually looking, I am going to guess that these people have missed something important.  I will postulate that, most likely, Dr. Atkins didn't say that, as long as you don't eat any carbs, you can eat as much as you damn-well please of everything else.  Call it a hunch. 

I am afraid you are going to have to face the facts people.  If losing weight was easy, then none of us would be fat.  You aren't going to find a miracle cure for your "condition".  No pill, cream, or device is going to help you "shed the pounds, and keep them off!".  If you want to be thinner, you have to eat less food, and get off your fat ass.  Option B, of course, is to simply accept it and be "jolly" like me.

Now, since these fad diets seem so popular, I had this idea.  Maybe I should write my own diet book!  If someone can make money off "The Grapefruit Diet", wherein you basically... eat grapefruit... Then why not me?

My working title is:

    "Eat less, walk more and shut the fuck up!"

I may have to tweak  that a smidge when the publishers get a hold of it.  But the title isn't the real problem.  The problem, I realized, is that the book would not really have any actual content to speak of.  I mean... what else is there to say?  The title pretty-much covers it. 

Not to mention the fact that, as the author, I am only qualified to serve as a model for the "Before" pictures.  Not exactly New York Times Bestseller material.

I know!  I could put recipes in it!  How's this sound? 

Exclusive Book Excerpt:

You don't need to change your whole diet, you just need to adjust it a bit.  Have a favorite meal?  Just modify the recipe slightly to make it more healthy.  Let's use Chicken Cutlet Parmesan as an example...

Instead of breaded and fried chicken cutlets, try lightly seasoning the chicken breasts and steaming them instead.  Substitute the whole milk mozzarella with some part-skim.  Finally, try a low sodium tomato sauce instead of your usual Ragu.  Otherwise, combine the ingredients in exactly the same way!  Trust me, when you taste the result, you will likely lose your appetite or, perhaps, even your previous meal.  You should quickly see a noticeable reduction in your waistline.

I am sure this would be an immediate hit.

Well, as long as nobody ever found out that the author looks like Grimace.

That could just be our little secret.