Shit, Saigon, Er, Abbotsford. I guess you could call this forced R and R. leave from the chaos of battle. Tomorrow I’ll jump back into the tinder-dry hills of Mission, numb to the thumping of helicopters, incessant machine gun fire and booms of fiery gas bombs.

I’ll resume the everyday’s chilly predawn anticipation of the day’s work, a quick breakfast on the go, the 15-passenger van-ride into the heart of darkness. It’s not operation Medusa, in Khandahar, but when the sun comes over the tops fo the mountains, hell really is unleashed: a big budget Hollywood action movie speeding towards the end of its production schedule.

 

But today, here I sit, in a suburban nowhere hotel room with plastic wallpaper, drinking complimentary coffee and writing this on hotel stationary with a hotel ballpoint. Shit, even the flowers are plastic. The ticking of my watch is interrupted only by the intermittent drone of the A/C unit and howl of 18-wheelers on the highway outside my window.

Contemplation time, I guess. I’m a goddam vegan and I got food poisoning from lunch. They must have used the chicken knife on my vegetables, or a bloody chopping board. Whatever it was, I spent the last 16 hours puking and shitting water. My stomach bloated out so much, I looked like one of those malnourished children I used to see pictures of in geography class.

Once the initial anger and usual despisement of my job wore off, I turned my thoughts to what I would do when my tour was over, and when that might be. What am I going to do when I’m discharged from the other military – the movie business?

Probaby what I’m sitting here doing right now. I knew a long time ago, grade 7 I think it was, that no matter how far I ran from it, no matter how hard I tried to prevent it from happening, no matter what endeavours I sidetracked myself with, I would one day make writing my career. I knew I wouldn’t write other people’s ideas, but only my own. I reckon I’m fatally attracted to the duality of writing. Love, hate. Easy, difficult. Rewarding, punishing. Like it or not, it’s what I’m going to do.

But what am I going to write about? I’ve been going upriver for 33 years now and I feel I’m very close to finding my voice. It is somewhere close by, in the darkness.

I’ve found my Colonel Kurtz and now it’s time to confront him. True to my life’s path, which has always been the path of most resistance, it couldn’t be something safe and easy like writing automotive reviews. No, of course, it’s my old adversary, food. Breaking through the barriers of indoctrinated lies and corporate conceit truly will be difficult.

For as long as I can remember, I’ve had a conflict with food. We never quite saw eye to eye. Most kids were bullied by other kids. Food was my bully, and apparently still is.

My most uncomfortable, and horrifying moments in elementary school were all because of food. I was the kid with the crumbly, whole grain sandwich full of sprouts, an apple and a bag of raw almonds in my lunch box.

During sleepovers at friends’ houses, my answer to “what’s your favourite cereal” was not Count Chocula – it was oatmeal.

Part of my childhood was spent as a vegetarian. It was the same ten years we didn’t have a T.V. in our house. This was all on top of the fact that I was an Ontario (Canadian) kid who didn’t play hockey.

As a teenager I never enjoyed junk food like my peers. By choice, I made my own lunch and eschewed the school cafeteria (whose official name was the unappealing “Brown Hall”).

My personal rock bottom as a young adult (curiously a time of prolific writing for me) was courtesy of food – I was so broke one Christmas, that my Christmas dinner was toast with peanut butter. It wasn’t that I couldn’t be with family, or was too humiliated to spend Christmas with friends, but that I was eating toast for dinner that hit me the hardest.

I have had severe food poisoning at least 3 times as an adult, all from food at work. Once was from a single bite of chicken, followed by a glass of milk in a hotel staff cafeteria. I was so sick that I passed out in a snow bank on my way home.

The second time was while filming a commercial. I ate a bad steak and woke up sick in the middle of the night. My wife was awakened by me passing out in the bathroom, and hitting my head on the toilet (breaking the plastic seat).

Number 3 is what I’m recovering from right now. Even as a vegan, food from a film catering truck has made me sick. Now I’m sitting it out in a hotel room, writing.

Which brings me to my point. I can’t believe it took me one third of my life to realize that I should combine the two constants in my life, food and writing – and fashion some sort of a career. Food critic? Damn right. I’m critical of all food. I’m critical of the rituals that surround food. I’m critical of the industry of food, the politics of food and the economics of food. I’m mad as hell at food, and I’m not going to take it anymore.

I am compelled to risk personal reputation and possibly life and limb (depending on how serious the various lobby groups and councils I intend to piss off get) for this cause. Mankind’s heart of darkness is his departure from nature. It is the slaughter of the ox. This is the true battle against evil. Consider this my call to join the resistance – the Vegan Underground.