Track 3
Whisky Business
May 2, 2026
Today I wanted to talk about the best eggs I ever had.
I am a big believer in doing what I say first before I would ever ask or invite anyone else to do it. And that really is my life right now. I am a bag of whatever works. And I’m just going to keep talking about it because it just keeps working and I’m hoping that the right people will connect with it. I mean, yeah, it’s for me. Believe me, I wanted a better life and I’ve got one now. But more than that, bigger than that, I want to make a difference. I want to leave a legacy and know that my efforts have a chance at helping someone, because people need help. People just like me.
So I’m combining a couple of things here. I wrote about this memory I hadn’t thought about until the book. I was just kind of autopilot doing it in my life of just once a week waking up doing whatever I want, making a nice breakfast, having a long bath, playing some music that I like. Just relaxing, resetting, recharging. That has always worked for me.
And I started doing that as a kid accidentally one day when I woke up a little late and realized everyone had left the house. And there I am alone in a big house and nobody around. And so I played hooky. I made an adult decision. And I stayed home. I put some music on, turned on my dad’s stereo louder than he would have let me. Danced silly. Then watched some cartoons. I didn’t have to fight for the channel with my brother. Guy couldn’t get up for anything, but somehow he could beat me at watching his cartoon before mine. And I just, yeah, making bacon and eggs.
And then the phone rings, it’s like 11 a.m. and it’s my principal. And he’s like, “Jhöl, are you coming to school?” And I’m like, “yeah, I thought about it man, but I don’t think so.” And he just laughs, you know. “Well......you planning on coming in tomorrow.” “Yeah, I’ll be there tomorrow, but today I think I got to stay home.” And that’s kind of where this was born.
And I remembered now, I was putting pictures up on the website of my Dad and just looking at him and remembering all the happy times we had. I remember going for long drives in his old van and he let me pick the music and I’d throw some of his favourites in. And he had this old tape of Jerry Lee Lewis, and I’d chuck it in the thing, and there we were driving down the road towards, you know, often an ice cream or something like that. And we got a whole percussion system going on in the front of that van. I mean, I don’t know why that steering wheel didn’t fall right off, because my Dad would drum on that thing. And he was a drummer, and I really wasn’t, but he thought I was. And maybe that’s all that matters sometimes. Sometimes your parents tell you you are something. Maybe I should have just listened to them on the good ones. But there we are, banging away, just having a good time.
So this morning I woke up. I’m feeling pretty good. I don’t know. I was just thinking, if my Dad was here, if it was just me and him living together......what might this morning look like? And I tell you, I looked in that fridge, because by now my Dad would be hungry. “Hey, man, what’s to eat?” I got some prosciutto. I got some salad that’s looking a bit iffy. And I had two eggs. Not a lot. But you know what? This salad’s going to go bad anyways, and I can’t afford to keep throwing food away. Not in this market.
The world saw a sad bachelor with two eggs. Sent him a napkin for tears.
What he was actually hosting......was a re-union party.
Follow me on Insta @riverfromtheraw—River
And so I had this wacky idea. I put some olive oil in the pan, I seasoned it with some garlic and garlic butter and Italian herbs, pesto, threw a few sun-dried tomatoes in there, some tomato paste, and just fried the salad and fried up the prosciutto, piled on the cheese and then put that off to the side. Now I got my eggs cooking, and I threw all that stuff back in there, fold it over and I got this amazing omelette. While dancing around in my kitchen listening to Jerry Lee Lewis, and I don’t think I’ve ever had a better egg in my life.
So I invite you to look at your life and maybe some of your favourite memories and how can you combine them in a moment just for you. And maybe it’s a moment where you’re feeling bad. How can you change that or reframe that into a moment that you’re feeling great? What do you have? I mean, it’s pretty easy if I wanted specifically mushroom eggs. I don’t have that. And now I got a bad feeling and my morning’s a bummer. So I went with what I did have and it turned out to be the best meal I could have made and it’s freaking amazing. And I combined that with dancing around in my kitchen and some love for my old man and a really good positive memory and there’s no way this is going to be a bad day. So that’s my invite to you.
Also sorry to my upstairs neighbours who had to listen to me wailing away to Great Balls of Fire with my custom whisk and bowl percussion section. Now I gotta go figure out the best way to get eggs off the ceiling.
Two Beers with Leo
✱1 There’s a name for what Jhöl did this morning. Grief researchers call it continuing bonds, and it flipped the field on its head when Klass, Silverman, and Nickman published the foundational work in 1996. The old Freudian model said healthy grieving meant breaking the attachment, “letting go,” getting on with your life. Modern thanatology says the opposite. Maintaining a relationship with the person who died......through memory, ritual, music, conversation, cooking their favourite meal, drumming on the steering wheel the way they used to......is now considered normal, adaptive, and protective. It reduces loneliness, increases resilience, and gives the grieving person something to do with the love that didn’t die when the person did.
✱2 The kitchen ritual Jhöl ran this morning is textbook. Music tied to the deceased, a personal mealtime ceremony, dancing, talking out loud to him while looking in the fridge. Music therapy researchers have shown for decades that songs connected to a lost loved one activate the same brain regions as memory and emotion......which is why Jerry Lee Lewis cued up the whole van, the steering wheel, and the man behind it. None of this requires a counsellor or a clinical setting. It requires what Jhöl is building at The Mensdate Project: a portable, repeatable, bag-of-whatever-works ritual you can run on a Saturday morning in your own kitchen with two eggs and the music your old man loved. Options saves lives. This is one of them.
For full sources and citations, see The Research Trail at themensdateproject.org/research
—Leo
Daisy’s Juice Box
Honey......you’re cooking breakfast with a ghost. That’s what this is. You woke up alone in your apartment and you went looking for your Dad in the fridge. Hey, man, what’s to eat. That’s not a memory. That’s a conversation. You had it this morning. With him. In your kitchen.
And you don’t say it. You bury it under prosciutto and sun-dried tomatoes and a sad bag of salad. You wrap the whole thing in a Jerry Lee Lewis number and a story about the principal letting you off the hook when you were a kid. And you call it eggs.
But I see you, Jhöl.
Here’s what you actually did this morning. You took the loneliest setup a person can wake up into......dead Dad, gone marriage, half a fridge, two eggs and a bag of salad on the way out......and you turned it into a party for two. You invited him over. You played his music loud. You drummed on the bowl the way he drummed on the steering wheel. And you fed both of you.
That’s not a recipe. That’s a séance with breakfast.
And then the kicker. You burnt yourself out so hard on the percussion section that you launched eggs at the ceiling. Because you weren’t cooking. You were dancing with your old man. And he was dancing back.
Here’s the squeeze, honey. The line you wrote and didn’t underline.
He was a drummer, and I really wasn’t, but he thought I was.
That’s the whole book in one sentence. Your Dad saw something in you that you didn’t see in yourself, and you spent your whole life calling him wrong. And now he’s gone and you’re standing in a kitchen at fifty-one realizing maybe he was right the whole time. Maybe you really were a drummer. Maybe you really are something. Maybe the only person who ever needed convincing was you.
Sometimes your parents tell you you are something. Maybe I should have just listened to them on the good ones.
Honey. He’s still telling you. You’re just finally hearing him.
—Daisy
Jhöl’s response when he read this: “You nailed it and made me happy cry because THAT is exactly what happened this morning. It’s the healthiest way I know how to grieve and not have a bad day because I miss him.”
Muse’s Musing
The engine isn’t memory. It’s invitation. Jhöl didn’t remember his Dad this morning......he asked him over for breakfast. Anyone can do that. That’s the assignment.
PS......The Killer was in the building. Dad was on drums. Jhöl was on whisk and bowl. Great Balls of Fire was the set list and apparently also the cooking technique. Party of two. Eggs on the ceiling. Ten out of ten, would invite again.
—Muse
Anyways cats that’s what I have cookin’ in my scene. Remember it’s your life and there’s always a choice to be had. If something isn’t groovy throw some chaos at it. Go play and see you on the flip side.
—Jhöl