Built like a wall unyielding
Motionless, hard unfeeling
Reeling from blows
Nobody knows
The pain of the immovable object
The hurt and pain of it, the effect
Athens with the world on his shoulder
Sisyphus keeps on pushing the boulder
A proud tradition
Of the strength rendition
One man, alone to conquer it
Alone to sit and ponder it
Septimus Severus, once a beast of a man
When dying said, “I’ve been everything and nothing’s worth a damn”
Is that the masculine ideal?
To become something unreal?
No, for I am modern man, harkening to legend
Of warriors and fighters, men sent by Heaven
To change and shape the humanity
Though mocked for seeming insanity
The mission is true and will be fulfilled
By the taskman with God’s might instilled
Alone, he stands against Septimus
“I’ve been it all, we must still progress”

Okay, let me come out and say it: cabbage is disgusting. Coleslaw? Yuk. Kimchee? The thought of it makes me gag. Cabbage soups? I’d rather eat heaping handfuls of monkey dung.

But me, I’m an innovator. I recognize that for whatever reason, cabbage is still bought and sold on a daily basis (really, you can’t have someone buy without selling, so that’s kind of redundant). And I even get that some of these people actually enjoy eating cabbage. I suspect they’re good friends with the people who enjoy tripping down flights of stairs and the people who like walking across shards of glass barefoot. However, for everyone else, cabbage represents a hurdle in the world of veggies. We can eat carrots, onions, lettuce, celery, heck even bok choy is pretty good, but cabbage is the bottom rung of the vegetable ladder. And really, only carrots make a good rung for the ladder of vegetables. Zucchinis too.

But I, the great Dan, have found a way to make cabbage that doesn’t suck. And I’m going to share it with you.

Ingredients
Butter
Olive Oil
Apple Cider Vinegar
Garlic (chopped up
Brown Sugar
1/2 head of cabbage (or round about, also chopped up)
Tuna
Whatever you like on Tuna

Instructions
Small bit of Butter+ olive oil in skillet on low heat.
Chop up and add cabbage in once it’s a little warm. Add more olive oil
Add a heaping tablespoon of brown sugar, and a little bit of ACV
Add chopped up garlic

In a bowl:
Mix your tuna with your things you like with Tuna (I used tuna+mustard+ taco bell hot sauce)
Add tuna to skillet (optional)

Continue to cook down, let it get to where the cabbage is what you like- I prefer totally limp which takes longer. Push out on to a plate, and add the Tuna if you haven’t done so already. BAM! Delicious cabbage, once an oxymoron, now a reality

The exact amounts are up to you. It’s delicious and incredibly filling, and cabbage is a disgusting, but fairly healthy thing. Things I’d like to add or substitute next time I cook it up:

-Bacon
-Onions
-Spinach

I think a Nobel prize in Chemistry (for the cooking), Literature (for the recipe), Peace (for taking away the stigma of cabbage), and Medicine (making a healthy dish). Stockholm, I’m waiting for my call.

so this a rhyme, a rhyme to rhyme well
cuz it’s about time; i got a story to tell
lotta people don’t expect me comin outta my shell
but now that i’m out yall better listen as i yell
I got two hands and I got two feet
I got the lyrics and I got the beat
when you hear these honey soaked lyrics it’s like a treat
aint no one else anywhere who can bring it so sweet 
that’s why they call me the candyman, baby
I can bring in the candy like crazy for my lady
Or should I say ladies? Is that too shady?
Oh yes, definitely, no wait it’s a maybe
In 89 i was born in Palo Alto 
Greeted the world with a big old “hallo”
They didn’t think I’d be the greatest dontcha know
But now that i’m grow’d it starts to show
Then I moved to the state of Texas
That’s how I know that I’m the best yes
Living it up and partying down
Texas was like no other place I’ve known
Now I went to college in the state of Utah
Big old mountains like I never had saw
Snow and cold and a real winter there
College parties, I had my share
So that’s where I staid to learn to get paid
To learn the secrets of a trade
Now i’m here to rap and rhyme
To flow all day to pass the time
I write what things come to my head
If my lyrics were bullets then you’d be dead
If my lyrics were money you’d be rollin in bread
If my lyrics were butter they’d be an incredible spread
So now to the point I’m trying to make
I’m simply the greatest and it’s no mistake
Aint nobody else can even touch me
I’m the greatest that is plain to see

You really think so?
Think i can get into this and change the lingo
I’ll make my mark like a dog in the park
Tearing through leash law and social faux paws
Pissin on a tree, marking territory, you see
Primal impulses to convulses the emotions
A big ocean, pissing in it like a dirty pigpen, a den of thieves
That’s reality; no it’s a fallacy to believe
Everything we see on TV it’s so crazy so hazy to be about doing stuff ably
Because maybe the cash money prize is in store
Money or dignity, what’s worth more?
That’s why Im in this rap game, To win it, not for money or cuz i’ve got business sense
But to get my message out to the whole world
It’s not too late to save it, listen to my word for me to be heard
Listen to my word it’s gold my flow ice cold
Put all your worries on hold to get my records sold
So I can get bankrolled, more money in my billfold but it don’t really matter
Makes me madder than a hatter stepping up to the plate like a batter
So sweet I’m like cake batter so loud I rise above the chatter
Point is I’m spittin like rhymes are stapled to my teeth
Rhymes clogging my air way making it hard to breathe
Sp I put the rhymes down onto a sheet
To make my mark as part of the elite
Call me loco or crazy basically listen you know I am baby
I just gotta express this intangible interest and arrest your mind
Making lingo changes, park marking like a child genius
A super whiz kid that’s what it is, thats what I am
When you hear my words make you shut up like a clam
No more critics criticizing or hating from haters
I’ll deal with you later coming back from the dead like a ghost darth vader

YAY

From the very rock bottom
To the very tip top
I’m a certified player
Fresh to death as a rock
The realest in running
Like a horse out the gate
You might think I look funny
But I’m fueled by the hate
I give and I learn
I preach and you burn
Cuz when it’s all accounted
And the scores are all mounted
You see I’m at the top
Your numbers been dropped

No excuse I’m the best
You? Pathetic like the rest

I love shining my shoes. There’s something intensely therapeutic about a good shoe shine. Clean it off, apply the polish, then polish and buff out scratches. I take about 30 minutes on each shoe when I’m really trying to look nice. It’s a matter of pride- well shined shoes are evidence of hard work and an effort about what you look like. Shoes can make or break an outfit.

What I’m getting at is that shoes are the lowest part of the outfit, but you have to take pride in them. They don’t do a fun job, they don’t get an easy treatment, but a good shoe can last you a long time. Ties, shirts, the rest all come and go with the seasons, but a classic shoe will stand the test of time and fashion. Your base doesn’t change, rather everything adapts itself to your base. You get what I’m saying?

I made up a new word today. It’s a word to use when you’re congratulating someone on something insignificant or not necessarily positive. Confrabulotion. Use it, love it, etc etc.

The way my mind races
To and from so many places
You think I’d know the drill
How to just get my fill
It’s a real tough situation
Caught up in rabid imagination
Thoughts are spending time in gestation 
Not ideas, more like inspiration 
Revelation flows from heaven
Dripping like bread that is unleavened
We rest on day number seven
So you can get your engines revvin
And prepare yourself for the work
That you may indeed never shirk
To bring to pass and build up Zion
Self-perfection, communities tryin
Tryin so hard to see the visions
Of hope faith charity in decisions
Not drawn off by all derisions
Repentance, a life revision

Life is not about collection. It’s about creation. Art, science, etc, they’re just different manifestations of human creativity. Often it feels we get caught up in the collection part of it. It’s necessary to collect to create, but too often we cease creation in favor of collection, for the immediate gratification, the rush of happiness when we have something.

We decide that some things are good enough as they are (i.e. as we receive them) and place the joy of getting above that of the joy of creating. It’s not a good thing to be caught up in. I myself collect notebooks and scribble, write, jot, draw, sketch and so forth in them constantly yet I have not filled but a handful because I move on to the next one too soon.

If you observe the Book of Mormon cultures, it is precisely when they begin to wear their gain- no longer create and use, but simply display, that they fall. This is because they go from creation to collection with the vain and costly apparel. They cease to labor for sustenance and to provide and begin to labor to have and revel in excess. This is also the case when they begin to create evil things rather than good. When your works are evil, you are evil and have no part in God’s grace until you repent and create good. 

So what is our focus on? Are we building up Zion? Or are we collecting brownie points by attending meetings, reading scriptures, etc. In addition to Who am I, Where did I come from and where will I go, I add this corollary: Am I becoming what I am supposed to and not just acting how I’m supposed to act?