Canto CCCXLVI: When Dunkin' Donuts Saved Me

Gentle cabrones:

Earlier this year, I had the honor of serving as a juror for the Pulitzer Prize journalism awards, in the criticism category. I’m not really at liberty to discuss the actual deliberations, but I can say I got to meet reportorial and photography legends, read a lot of amazing work, and was able to take my jefe Hector Becerra to a great Dominican restaurant, where I gobbled up pernil drowned in mojito and washed it all down with raspberry Country Club soda.

I can also disclose that I flew in and out of Newark.

When I go to New York, I usually fly into JFK, especially when JetBlue had a redeye flight out of Long Beach. It sadly doesn’t offer that anymore, but I still favor JFK over LaGuardia because I like the long drive through Old New York before I end up with a good friend of mine in Jackson Heights, one of the great neighborhoods of the United States.

This time around, though,  my friend wasn’t in town, and the flight in was cheapest from Newark. And since I was gonna spend most of my time at Columbia University, where the Pulitzers are administered (so I thought; I ended up doing a columna about Cal-Mex food in NYC because of course I did), I picked a Holiday Inn Express closer to Times Square that was basically a direct shot to Newark.

The flight in was fine. The flight out was a rush — the problem was that I was stuck in a long line at Dunkin’ Donuts.

There are some in Southern California, but I don’t bother with them. I don’t drink coffee, I don’t really eat donuts, and I have no need to buy breakfast given my media chica sells and makes a better one. This was actually just the second time I had tried Dunkin. But I had to go out of respect – because a long time ago, a Dunkin’ Donuts at Newark Liberty International airport saved my life. 

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2012. Can’t remember why I was in NYC. Taco USA: How Mexican Food Conquered America came out that year, but my previous book had flopped so bad that there was no budget for a book tour, which I figured out on my own, and willed the book into being one that continues to sell 12 years later and still gets me speaking, podcast and TV gigs.

I digress.

I met with my book agent, my speaking agent at the time, and my book editor at the time. It was before I discovered the affordable luxury of Holiday Inn Express, so I booked some hip hotel, probably in Chelsea.

It was the last night of my trip, so I asked four separate friends to meet for drinks at my hotel’s bar, spaced one hour after another. For each visit, I drank and drank and drank. You can do the math. 

The hangover wasn’t the worst I’ve had, but it made me late for my flight back home. In the rush to get out, I left behind a vintage Burberry trenchcoat my mentor had gifted me. I hailed a taxi and was stuck in rush-hour traffic heading to Newark. That’s where I saw the awe-inspiring commute that enters Manhattan every weekday — I especially remembered bus lanes filled with packed buses just inside the New Jersey state line.

That’s when I threw up during a drive for the first and only time in my life.

I told the poor immigrant driver to pull over. He got a fearful look on his face – some damn nerd was going to destroy his cab. Thank God I didn’t. I got out, heaved out the previous night, and we drove in silence the rest of the way.

There would not be another flight back home until the afternoon. I slumped into a row of chairs next to a wall. I felt horrible on multiple levels. How could I be so reckless? How could I leave that beautiful coat behind. How could I miss a flight. The loathing and nausea was real … and I threw up for a second time, this time in restrooms that had thankfully just been cleaned.

I needed to replenish myself somehow, and that’s when I saw Dunkin’ Donuts.

If I have to get fast-food breakfast, it’s always an Egg McMuffin (unless I’m in New Mexico, where it turns into a breakfast burrito from Blake’s Lot-a-Burger, or a breakfast burrito from Santiago’s in Denver). I had never had Dunkin’ before, because it was before its California expansion. But I needed food immediately, and had no time to wander around looking for the Golden Arches.

The Dunkin’ was a baseball throw away from my seat, but I was so nauseous I basically crawled to it. I’m not sure what sandwich I ordered, except it was one of the most rejuvenating meals of my life.

The greasiness absolved me of my hangover. The orange juice blessed me with a taste of home. Everything would be okay. I went back to my chair, slept for about three hours, then figured out how to get home.

Out of the hundreds of flights I’ve taken in my life, I’ve only missed three. At George Bush Intercontinental Airport in Houston, I was a minute late to the doors closing, which the attendants would not reopen no matter how much I pleaded. The only time I went to Columbus, Ohio, I got off the plane that had flown in from LAX and immediately went back on it because I was not going to be able to get a connecting flight in Atlanta in time for a morning meeting — so what the hell would I have done in Columbus?

And Newark.

The lessons I learned there! Don’t drink TOO much the night before you fly. Don’t stay in a hipster hotel. Don’t stay in a hotel with a bar unless it’s historic, like the Brown Hotel in Louisville or the Biltmore in Los Angeles. And allow the unlikeliest things to save you at your lowest points.

I never flew into Newark again until the Pulitzers — not because I was against it, but my travels just didn’t take me through there. But I always vowed if I ever returned, a Dunkin’ pilgrimage was mandatory.

The one I visited this time wasn’t the one from 2012. The Dunkin’ sandwich was not as good as I remembered it. It didn’t matter at all.

**

Enough rambling. This was the semana that was:

IMAGE OF THE WEEK: The red pozole based on the recipe of my mami, who would’ve turned 73 today, that my honey makes the last Sunday of every month at Alta Baja Market. See you tomorrow!

QUOTE OF THE WEEK: “Therefore I will not keep silent; I will speak out in the anguish of my spirit, I will complain in the bitterness of my soul.” — Job 7:11

LISTENING: “Vestida de Color de Rosa,” Christian Sanchez. New Mexican music at its most joyous: a remake, some organ, horns and a shimmering guitar. Playing a LOT of this music as of recent — columna to come…

READING: “Germany’s Funny Money”: I have a lifetime subscription to Jacobin because why not? Their culture writing is better than what a socialist publication should be (their economic writing, alas, is as stultifying as you’d expect). But when the two meet, and they drop the smugness, it leads to great, entertaining, informative journalism, like this infographic on the forgotten currencies of the Weimar Republic. Come for the Expressionism, stay for the, um, Scheiße.

BUY MY NEW CO-BOOK! People’s Guide to Orange County tells an alternative history of OC through the scholarship and reporting of myself, Elaine Lewinnek, and Thuy Vo Dang. There’ll be signings all year — in meanwhile, buy your copy TODAY. And, yes: I’ll autograph it!

Gustavo Events  

August 28, 7 p.m.: I’ll be in conversation with Eugene Rodriguez, founder and executive director of the legendary Los Cenzontles, about his new memoir at Skylight Books, 1818 N. Vermont Ave. Los Angeles. Convo FREE — more details here.

Sept. 21, 1:30 p.m.: I’ll be in conversation with Mike Madrid, longtime GOP strategist turned Trump mega-hater and author of the new book The Latino Century: How America's Largest Minority Is Transforming Democracy at Alta Baja Market, 201 E. 4th St., Ste. 101, SanTana. Lecture is FREE and the first 50 people who show up get a FREE copy of Mike’s book — but you have to register here.

Oct. 11-13: Rancho Gordo Encuentro — the collaboration between the legendary heirloom bean purveyor and my honey’s Alta Baja Market — is BACK. It’s a weekend of beans, and I’m in charge of two events: “The Bean Monologues” (exactly what it sounds like — people tell stories about beans), and “How to Taste a Tortilla,” which is also what it sounds like AND you get to take home good tortillas!. Links to each event in the links I put in said titles, and here are the rest of the events — buy your tickets soon, because they’re going FAST.

Gustavo in the News

“El mejor lugar para ver 58.000 árboles de jacarandá en Los Ángeles, OC”: My hatred of the tree gets a mention.

“America’s Regional Burrito Styles [Infographic]”: There’s a lot of burrito history articles coming out as of recent, and I’m glad that I’m getting cited in them — but the authors need to reach out to me. This one, for instance, misses four important burrito styles in the Southwest alone — and, no, I’m not naming them because I’ve named them in the past.

Gustavo Stories 

“Grítale a Guti”: Latest edition of my Tuesday night IG Live free-for-all.

“OC nonprofit stole $10 million to buy homes, lawsuit alleges”: My latest KCRW “Orange County Line” commentary talks about the mess that the daughter of OC Supervisor Andrew Do, among others, is caught up in.

"Cat-killing sheriff’s deputies back on the job in Kern County”: I get a rare photo credit on a story I didn’t write because of a photo I took of Kern County Sheriff Donny Youngblood some years back.

“The Orange County Hall of Fame is a silly idea. Here’s how to do it right”: My latest L.A. Times columna talks about what the headline addresses. KEY QUOTE: “It comes off as goober posturing, not worthy of the sixth-most populous county in the nation. Then again, I’m giving my beloved homeland too much credit.”

You made it this far down? Gracias! Follow me on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram while you’re down here by clicking on their logos down below. Don’t forget to forward this newsletter to your compadres y comadres! You can’t get me tacos anymore, but you sure as hell can give them — and more — to the O.C. Catholic Worker!