The Weekend Reset – Jack London, Puff Daddy, & Baseball to Watch

It’s Friday. Looking for something to switch up your weekend, or to give you an excuse to relax a little? That’s what the Weekend Reset is for. Each week we’ll pull together five things to get your weekend started. Could be something to read or watch, something to eat or listen to, or even something to do. Enjoy the weekend fellas.

 

EAT: Bacon Egg and Cheese Toasts

There are some fancier ingredients in this recipe, but modification is the name of the game. Do you have eggs? Great! If not? Use avocado, if you have avocado. Neither? Butter. Let’s indulge a little. Do you have bacon? No? Use some turkey or ham lunchmeat. No English muffins? Totally cool. Use bread instead. It comes down to this:

1. Toast something toast-able.
2. Put something protein & fat based on top (egg, bacon, avocado if you have it, cheese),
3. Throw on some sliced and diced savory vegetables (onions, kale, power greens, radish maybe)
4. Consider a little mustard and seasoning
5. Serve with intentional presentation. Get creative but keep it simple. Luxury is a state of mind my dudes. It’s the experience. Unnecessarily complicated indulgent food is overrated anyway.

 

WATCH: Ken Burns “Baseball”

During a particularly unmoored time in my goofy life, this documentary series saved my sanity. I had nothing and everything to do. During a long stretch of the nothing, I checked these out from my local public library (on VHS no less). They were comforting, incredibly interesting, and downright inspiring. Yes they’re slow, especially when compared to, say, the Marvel Universe. But that’s precisely the point. The narration. The music. The photography. They can help you get your darn senses and brain chemicals back to normal, and you can settle in and really enjoy amazing story telling. From legendary filmmaker Ken Burns (he of Prohibition, The Civil War, The Jack Johnson film Unforgivable Blackness), Baseball is now streaming for free via PBS.

 

LISTEN: Puff Daddy MMM

Originally released for FREE (yes, free) in 2015, MMM is slicker than snot in some parts, and gritty as a gravel sandwich in others. It’s prime “featuring” territory too. Big Sean, Future, Pusha T, Travis Scott, Wiz Khalifa and MORE all appear on this album. Particular highlights are “Help Me”, “Cocaine”, and “All or Nothing”. At some point you’re going to exhaust yourself on slow-time-at-home, woe-indie, rainy-day singer-songwriter stuff. So put this on, feel free to flex a little, and get to work. Whatever the work is, get after it.

 

READ: Jack London, An American Life by Earle Labor

Can’t put it down. Most of us are at least a little familiar with Jack London, whether we’ve read his work or not (I can only recall reading “To Build a Fire” myself). This thing reads like adventure fiction, and the author’s voice is incredible. Enormous thank you to my friend Tracie for recommending this.

 

REDUCE: Your Social Media & News Consumption

Not eliminate. Reduce. It’s good to be informed. It’s bad to be obsessed. To keep checking, over and over and over. Feeling bad 100% of the time about something that is 100% bad does not make it any less bad. In fact, it probably contributes to the overall problem (whips our brains around, causes panic, reduces true, impactful action). It’ll grind you down, and that’s bad, especially when it’s time to “muck in.” Personally, I’ve set some limits for myself. I check the news in the morning, and I check the news in the evening. That’s it. And to feel “good” here and there, in between, is okay. Here’s an explanation as to why.