{"id":321,"date":"2022-07-11T16:59:23","date_gmt":"2022-07-11T20:59:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/redgiantbooks.com\/?p=321"},"modified":"2022-07-11T17:03:29","modified_gmt":"2022-07-11T21:03:29","slug":"spend-it-all","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/redgiantbooks.com\/?p=321","title":{"rendered":"Spend it All"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>&#8220;Had I mentioned the real intention behind my return home\u2014eating myself to death\u2014I\u2019m pretty sure my grandmother\u2019s reaction may have been more subdued&#8230;&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>So begins Teddy Rawski&#8217;s journey to his hometown of Buffalo, and to the end of the night. An obsessive eater, itinerant dreamer, half-hopeful novelist, reluctant food journalist, and a pathological football lunatic, Teddy ponders nascent adulthood&#8217;s quandaries on the road, over too many drinks and a beleaguered stomach. Set against the big-shouldered indifference of his present Chicago, between scattered half-stabs at professionalism, an unamused editor, unpolished manuscript, and a sputtering late-20&#8217;s romance, Teddy wonders on a last ditch trip. For an assignment, maybe. To end it all, possibly. But also for a check on the tattered family he left behind, and the broken Buffalo Bills responsible for all life failures.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>This is a story of the busted-gut death of a childhood, any idealism, all good health. Rife with chicken wings, pizza, and Proust, it is a reflection on football and futility, colored by a throat-punching uncle, slice-counting brother, and a smattering of ghosts and interior dialogue diarrhea. Spend It All is an after-hours vomitorium of fandom and frustration, a last-call fever dream of ideas and appetites.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Todd Lazarski is a freelance writer and the author of the novel Make the Road by Walking. Born in Buffalo, he currently lives in Milwaukee with his wife and daughter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-container-2 wp-block-gallery-1 wp-block-gallery has-nested-images columns-default is-cropped\">\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" width=\"911\" height=\"1369\" data-id=\"319\"  src=\"http:\/\/redgiantbooks.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/07\/SpendItAll_FrontCover_F_8.1.21.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-319\" srcset=\"http:\/\/redgiantbooks.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/07\/SpendItAll_FrontCover_F_8.1.21.jpg 911w, http:\/\/redgiantbooks.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/07\/SpendItAll_FrontCover_F_8.1.21-100x150.jpg 100w, http:\/\/redgiantbooks.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/07\/SpendItAll_FrontCover_F_8.1.21-200x300.jpg 200w, http:\/\/redgiantbooks.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/07\/SpendItAll_FrontCover_F_8.1.21-768x1154.jpg 768w, http:\/\/redgiantbooks.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/07\/SpendItAll_FrontCover_F_8.1.21-681x1024.jpg 681w, http:\/\/redgiantbooks.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/07\/SpendItAll_FrontCover_F_8.1.21-150x225.jpg 150w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 911px) 100vw, 911px\" \/><\/figure>\n<\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&#8220;Had I mentioned the real intention behind my return home\u2014eating myself to death\u2014I\u2019m pretty sure my grandmother\u2019s reaction may have been more subdued&#8230;&#8221; So begins Teddy Rawski&#8217;s journey to his hometown of Buffalo, and to the end of the night. An obsessive eater, itinerant dreamer, half-hopeful novelist, reluctant food journalist, and a pathological football lunatic, Teddy ponders nascent adulthood&#8217;s quandaries on the road, over too many drinks and a beleaguered stomach. Set against the big-shouldered indifference of his present Chicago, between scattered half-stabs at professionalism, an unamused editor, unpolished manuscript, and a sputtering late-20&#8217;s romance, Teddy wonders on a last ditch trip. For an assignment, maybe. To end it all, possibly. But also for a check on the tattered family he left behind, and the broken Buffalo Bills responsible for all life failures. This is a story of the busted-gut death of a childhood, any idealism, all good health. Rife with chicken wings, pizza, and Proust, it is a reflection on football and futility, colored by a throat-punching uncle, slice-counting brother, and a smattering of ghosts and interior dialogue diarrhea. Spend It All is an after-hours vomitorium of fandom and frustration, a last-call fever dream of ideas and appetites. Todd&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":319,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","jetpack_publicize_message":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"http:\/\/redgiantbooks.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/07\/SpendItAll_FrontCover_F_8.1.21.jpg","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/redgiantbooks.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/321"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/redgiantbooks.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/redgiantbooks.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/redgiantbooks.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/redgiantbooks.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=321"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/redgiantbooks.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/321\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":323,"href":"http:\/\/redgiantbooks.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/321\/revisions\/323"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/redgiantbooks.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/319"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/redgiantbooks.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=321"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/redgiantbooks.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=321"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/redgiantbooks.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=321"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}