David Spates "Therefore I Am" Published Sept. 21, 2004

You can't beat the flavor of singed eyebrows

Modern innovations aren't all they're cracked up to be. Oh sure, I've got some newfangled doodads in our house -- wireless Internet, 5.1 surround sound, all my CDs ripped to a hard drive, XM Radio, multiple DVD players, blah, blah, blah. When it goes to new gizmos, I'm a sucker for dazzling lights and flashing text.

Truth be told, though, none of it compares to the exhilaration I felt when I brought home a new LP as a young boy. Born in 1970, I'm more than old enough to remember records' heyday. Cassettes were gaining in popularity when I first discovered music, but the market was still dominated by those wonderful black discs.

There's something very satisfying about the THUMP-POP you hear when a record player needle first drops on a new vinyl LP, and nothing can compare to exploring an album's artwork and liner notes on a full-size, large-as-life record jacket. The dinky little booklets that come with CDs are OK I guess, but they lack grandeur. They lack presence. A CD booklet is 5.25 inches square, but an LP jacket is a whopping 12.5 inches square. That's nearly 470 percent more real estate to work with, and artists took full advantage of the space. You could spot a new Van Halen or Rolling Stones album three aisles away at the record store.

CDs killed off LP records years ago, and that's fine. Nothing lasts forever. The world is in a constant state of flux. It won't be too much longer until a new medium replaces CDs, and I'll have to buy "Dark Side of the Moon" -- again. I suspect that's a top reason music changes media so often. The record companies love it when a new format comes out. It forces everyone to pick up another copy of Bob Marley's "Legend" all over again.

I embrace the new and yet covet the old. What this basically means is that I'm rarely satisfied. So it should come as no surprise that I'm a little hesitant to buy a gas grill. The wife would really like to buy a gas grill, but I'm purposely dragging my feet on the conversion.

You see, I'm a charcoal man.

When I use charcoal, I feel like I'm grilling rather than merely cooking -- the black stain of the coal on my fingers, the gurgling sound a metal container of lighter fluid makes when I squeeze it over the coals, the smell of singed eyebrows as I put match to charcoal pile. Cooking is a chore. Grilling is an event.

A gas grill doesn't provide aesthetic satisfaction. It's a little too accommodating, a little too clean, a little too easy. All you need to do is turn the gas on, click the automatic lighter (which invariably stops working in a few months), and then wait for the fake coals to heat up while you eye the thermometer mounted safely on the outside of the lid.

Gas grilling is not only less artistic than charcoal grilling, but it's not as flavorful. I can taste a gas-grilled burger a mile away (assuming I had a mile-long tongue, which, I admit, is a rather unsettling notion). You can practically taste the propane in a gas-grilled burger, but a charcoal-grilled burger has a wonderful woodsy flavor you only get with real fire, real coal and real hickory. If it costs you an singed eyebrow or a scalded hand, so be it. A good burger's worth it.

And this, for me, is the best time of the year to grill. Some folks will tell you that summer is the prime grilling season, but I say nay. Summer is hot enough on its own, and standing over a hot grill makes it even worse. That's why autumn is the best. There's a little nip in the air, football's on TV, your beverage of choice stays colder longer, and maybe it's one of those days when you're comfortable wearing a sweatshirt and shorts -- life doesn't get much better.

If it were totally up to me, I'd stock up on the Kingsford and let the hickory-smoked chips fall where they may. But it's not totally up to me. I'm married with children, and I suspect I will succumb to the wishes of the masses. Like I said before, a gas grill is accommodating, clean and easy. When you add little kids the equation, accommodating, clean and easy are, sadly, more important that charcoal aesthetics.

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David Spates is a Knoxville resident and Crossville Chronicle contributor whose column is published each Tuesday. He can be reached at davespates@chartertn.net.