The Bear on FX and memories long past

I think there tends to be a lot of overlap between the art community, the music scene, and the culinary world. Every one knows someone in a band, everyone knows someone who does art, and everyone knows someone who works in a restaurant. Go in a couple layers to each profession and you tend to share a space with the other two. Most artists I know tend to have a bunch of musicians in their friend circles and every cook/chef I’ve ever met has multiple artist friends. They all overlap. They all tend to also share the same flaws too. Whether it be systems of power, misogyny, egos etc. I’m not saying that you have to be an asshole to be any of those or anything like that. I do think some folks feel that you do which definitely doesn’t help to say the least.

Anyways, we tend to interact a lot. I lived with a cook for almost my entire duration in art school. I lived in west oakland, in a shared unit like 15 min (bike ride) away from CCA . It wasn’t an apartment really, we all rented the rooms individually and shared a kitchen as well as a bathroom and a balcony. The balcony was the entrance to our ‘apartment’. It was me, him, and another guy. We all became friends, and we shared a lot of moments. We didn’t really go out together but for some reason i never felt that. The cook’s name was Zack, he was also from San Diego and we started living at our unit on chestnut just 3 months before me though he was 3 years older than me.

We shared a lot of drunken nights, and we shared even more smokes on that balcony that was outside my window. We would smoke and drink and talk about our fears, or dreams, or bad jokes, or everything in between. There was a lot of times when I didn’t have money and he would bring food from his restaurant (that was fucking amazing I wanna add) which would really just give me a second wind. That’s not to say he was never difficult or a little annoying he definitely was but I really grew to love the guy. He would tell me about the moves he was making and I would do the same. After four years he moved out with his girlfriend, and we both soon left too. Our other roommate and friend Austen moved in with a friend, and I moved with some friends after the landlords decided to move their family in. I still think it was just a ploy to up the rent, since we all paid like 600 bucks.

We hung out once after we all moved out. Just once we were all together, it wasn’t even because we avoided one another we just had busy lives. Or maybe that was just me?

2 years later, I missed his call after my dog died and I forgot to call him back. Two months later he passed and it’s been 2 years since then. He used to love playing “I love my room” by Elliott Smith which became very appropriate throughout the subsequent months during the first year of the pandemic.

I watched an episode of The Bear, and I remembered Zack. I often think of Zack, but I think this show really reminded me of him. Maybe it’s the protagonists super blue eyes, or the burn marks on peoples arms, or maybe it’s the chicago setting. He wasn’t from chicago but his favorite episode of Chefs Table (which me made me watch a lot) was the one revolving around Chicago’s Grant Achatz from Alinea.

I wonder if he’d like it tbh. He would probably have a lot of issues with it but I wouldn’t be able to say for sure. What I do know is that he was a good guy and I’m still one year younger than he was then.