On Buddhism and "bad habits"
Recently, midway through a long jog/walk to the end of Golden Gate Park and up through Lands' End, I decided on the spur of the moment to have a solo brunch of eggs benedict and a mimosa at Louis', a family-owned diner set on a perch overlooking the Pacific Ocean.
Mid-meal (when I started to take the ocean view and small talk with fellow diners for granted) I picked up an old leftover USA Weekend and read a pretty fun interview with the now 63-year-old actor Patrick Duffy.
He was being interviewed because there is a new revival of Dallas, the iconic show that made him super famous (although I am somewhat shamefully more familiar with his work on the sitcom Step By Step than anything else.)
He was being interviewed because there is a new revival of Dallas, the iconic show that made him super famous (although I am somewhat shamefully more familiar with his work on the sitcom Step By Step than anything else.)
Anyway, all I know now after reading this random USA Weekend interview is I would absolutely love to be a weekend guest at his rural Oregon ranch for a dinner or two. What an interesting guy. Below I've excerpted some fun bits (the interview was short overall but this is even shorter.)
On being a patriarch:
"My 5-year-old and my 3-year-old [grandkids] can’t get enough of me. I’m the hero because I teach them how to fish and let them drive the tractor with me [at Duffy’s ranch in Oregon]."
On what led him to Buddhism:
On how that religion plays into his now 40-year-long marriage (he's 63 years old):
"I did it to try to get in bed with this woman, who became my wife. She told me about it. I thought, 'Any opportunity I have to sit next to her, I'm taking it.'"
“I had to learn that acquiescence doesn’t mean giving up. Once I threw away my debit sheet in my head of who owed whom what, everything changed. [My wife and I] haven’t had a cross word or a misunderstanding in the last 15 years, 20 years. A large part of that I will say is that we both practiced Buddhism."
"I'm a very good carpenter. I can build a house from the ground up... My dad was a really talented carpenter. That's how I learned."
When asked if he has any "bad habits":
"Not that I wish I would give up. I cut out all distilled alcohol, but I drink a minimum of a bottle of [red] wine a day. I have done it for 35, 40 years. I think it's actually beneficial. I drink a bottle at dinner every night. I never get buzzed."
So that's how she did it
Fashion designer Donatelli Versace spoke at Oxford University recently (?? I know, but let's move on for now) and she shared this very funny vignette about Elizabeth Taylor, who famously had one of the best jewelry collections in the world (I always figured it was just those violet eyes that made men lavish her with gifts):
Versace also let loose some anecdotes, one of them about fellow jewelry nut Elizabeth Taylor.
Taylor admired Versace’s ring once, and asked if she could try it. Versace obliged, but never managed to get the ring back. Instead, she received a thank you from Taylor: “Hey darling, the ring is so beautiful. Thank you so much!”
Speak to that thing
"Connect with everyone, all the time.
Be genuine about it. Learn to find something you like in each person, and then speak to that thing."
Every single thing on this list of "20 Things I Should Have Known At 20" is absolutely spot on. But number four, which I've pasted above, really hit me.
That's probably because I think it's the only one I was fortunate to have understood well before I turned 20 all those years ago. I credit/blame my mother, who has been everyone's favorite person in whom to confide for as long as I can remember.
Anyway, I honestly do believe it's the key to happiness. And anytime I feel low and/or overwhelmed with life in general, I try and strike up a conversation with whoever happens to be around -- the person in front of me in line at the grocery store, my cab driver, whoever -- and I soon remember what we're all here for.
On habits, and being human
"But there was a pervasive melancholy, the vague sense that something
bright and happy and true was missing from my life—a wonderful friend
and not just a reliable route to comfort and satisfaction.
I suppose
that these are signs of addiction, much as the way you repeatedly reach
for the matches in your pocket when you’re trying to give up smoking. But please remind me: What’s so bad about addiction? I can’t remember.
Isn’t it something about giving up your freedom? Isn’t freedom an
illusion?"
--from an article written by Jeffrey Steingarten in the May 2012 issue of Vogue
Lots of people know Jeffrey Steingarten from his television appearances on the Food Network as well as from his role as food critic for Vogue Magazine (I know, to many that sounds like an oxymoron, just like Ethiopian cuisine -- which of course exists and is delicious.)
I've never gotten into any of his articles as much as I got into "Mr. Clean," which he wrote during and after his experience on The Master Cleanse, a trendy and super strict fast that consists of ingesting lemonade and little else for at least 10 days. The whole piece was super sharp: At times very funny, at times very reflective, at all times very good.
