All You Need Is Love! ( and Butter, Mmm butter!)

So here are 4 reasons you don't need Valentine's Day.

Nothing says love quite like machine formed sugar.

First of all Valentine's Day has become an obligation. If you don't make a romantic gesture you're an ass. The problem is romance is only romantic when it comes from the heart. So when the chocolate, roses, and diamonds show up you have to ask yourself, " Does he love me? Or does he not want to get in trouble?",  You'll never know until you find that thong in his coat pocket after a weekend "working late". Worse is if nothing shows up. Now your whole existence is in flux, "Did he really forget?", "is he that stupid?", "WTF happened to us?". Finally did you really want the nighty made out of silk, wire, and cutouts? No, I didn't think so. Cancel out Valentine's Day and it will just be Tuesday. You never get chocolate, diamonds, and roses on Tuesday so it is just another day. No test of love, no anguish of forget, no torture garment disguised as a gift.

Second of all a huge amount of the worlds chocolate comes from Africa where child slaves do most of the harvesting and prepping of the cocoa beans. Beans is misleading though because they are the size of a small coconut and need to be opened with a machete. I can't think of a better job for a nine year old slave than whacking things with a machete for ten hours a day.

I guess its better than prostitution or death, besides I get a machete.

You can buy fair trade chocolate but you have to look for it. Check for nation of origin. Now free market people will tell you that, "Hey, that's the system over there. Who are we to interfere with free markets?". To which I reply what part of "slave" do you not understand? Enjoy your molten lava cake. Mmmm cake!

Third of all diamonds are a complete fraud. Until the 1870s diamonds were almost impossible to find, but that was only because everyone was looking in the wrong places. Suddenly colonialism opened up Africa and shazam diamond production went from pounds per year to tons per day. Uh, oh! The then investors in diamonds, realizing that there was a reason seawater was so cheap, did what rich people always do. They formed a mining cartel ( not a company, company at least implies competition) with the approval of various colonial powers like Britain and The Netherlands. They called it the Debeers mining company. Then they completely and artificially controlled the entire world-wide supply. Still Uh oh! But better. What if they increased demand too? Engagement rings, weddings, Valentine's Day, diamonds used to be too scarce for anyone but royalty, people didn't think about buying them, but when you have tons of crappy ones and all the PR money in the world you can start some traditions of your own.

Plus there were plenty of black people the weren't farming cocoa.

I miss my childhood machete.

Finally Valentine's Day comes in February. It's cold in February. Roses do not bloom in February which is why they cost so much. They cost so much back in the twentieth century because they all came from a hothouse. Now they all come from Columbia. That's right, your roses were hanging south of the equator mere days ago. Now since there are no black people to speak of in Colombia slavery and peasant labor was in. Nothing makes a sharecropper happier than being forced to grow flowers instead of food. You can gather around the rose cellar, put up some rose jam, ignore grandma's cough just because roses require massive pesticide dumps to grow in a jungle is nothing to be worried about, and hope that Starbucks offers fair trade roses with their fair trade coffee and Joni Mitchell compilation disc.

Though I was making it up didn't you?

Cancel Valentine's Day. Instead just love em the way you wish you were loved. Cinnamon toast, flat ginger ale, and clean the bathroom when she has the flue. Just rub his shoulders when you know he had a bad day even though you had a bad day too. Kiss once and awhile, do it in public. Maybe a little sex hold the begging. Take her side. Listen. Listen so you could repeat it if you had to. Go on dates. Dress up once and awhile. You know the drill.

So it's winter, it's cold, you're snuggling up in front of a fire, time for something so satisfying it will make your toes curl. No, not sweaty uncomfortable couch sex, " Where did that oreo come from?", duh, I meant hot chocolate.

Thank you pathetic slave children.

You will need a 12 ounces of 85% fair trade dark chocolate, 2 cups of milk, 2 cups of cream, teaspoon vanilla, marshmallows, and Baileys to taste.

1. Chop the chocolate fine and place in a bowl.
2. Heat the cream until it boils.
3. Immediately pour the cream over the chocolate. Stir until the chocolate melts.
4. Meanwhile heat the milk. Do not let it boil or a skin will form. ( why milk does this and cream does not is a mystery).
5. Add the chocolate back to the saucepan.
6. Remove from the heat then stir in the vanilla and as much Baileys as you want.
7. Fill to cups, top with marshmallows.
8. Snuggle.
9. Aw crap, you might as well have sweaty uncomfortable couch sex too, I did.
10. Next year, a partner!

A small aside. Artificial diamonds have been indistinguisable from natural diamonds for over ten years. How much longer must we prove are love with something that costs the same to make as a Happy Meal toy?

Echos

Senior died last week. I worked with him and his crew on Monday. We were all laughing, working hard, getting things done. It was always about getting things done with him, and enjoying yourself while you were doing it. He had a son who he was working for, a daughter he loved, and a team that hung on every story, followed every suggestion and emulated every example he set. On Wednesday he went home from work feeling ill. He was 49. Junior and the crew were, are, will always be devastated.

Kevin White died last week. He was the mayor of Boston when I was a kid. Or you could say he was the mayor of Boston when Boston was a second rate city simmering with racial tension. That was when the South End was rubble and slums, when Quincy market was just a shell, when the elevated train rumbled down Washington Street, and the demolition for the I-95 that was never going to be built left a gash through Roxbury and Dorchester. Boston still has it's problems but 35 years and a few other hardworking Mayors have turned that rat-trap of a city I knew into what is a pretty livable place. People of all political stripes are devastated.

Etta James died last week. She was a R+B singer with a smokey voice, a heroin habit, and the luck and talent to have created one of the greatest songs of all time. "At Last" is the movie soundtrack to every romance anyone ever dreamed about. I don't know if creating a piece of expression way bigger than you can ever be is a blessing or a curse, but I know that if you are a music lover, regardless of your preferred genre, you are devastated.

My friends cousin killed himself last week. He called his mother and told her he was tired. He called his father and told him he was done. Then he hung himself. I did not know him, I do not know his state of mind, but I know that he threw away the one, true gift that the universe tosses our way. The people that loved him are devastated.

I don't know about God. Neither do you. You have your faith, I have my doubts. I know echos though. Ripples in space and time that follow us after we are gone. The things we embrace, the things we crave, are only with us for a blink of an eye. Todays paper had a blurb about a store that was selling a magnificent $20 a pound cheese. Breathless reporting that is really advertising aimed at people that will never get that no matter how good a piece of cheese can be it will never be $20 good. I would take one more story from Senior any day. I will walk the Boston City streets this weekend with the memory of the way it used to look. I'll start my romance soundtrack in my head every time a girl takes my breath away. I'll savior creations gift to me all the more because it should not, cannot, be wasted.

May my echos be as profound.