- Name: Mark
- Surname: Gavriel
- About Me: The details of my life are quite...inconsequential. I am a 29 year old Jewish male, 1st generation and the son of my parents who were political refugees from the former U.S.S.R. and immigrated to New York City from Israel in the late 1970's. I was born and spent the first 25 years of my life in Los Angeles, CA. There I managed to accumulate friends from all walks of life, channel my creativity through the strings on my guitar, and was fortunate to let my undying love for the most eclectic offerings of metal, punk rock, classic rock, and nu-progressive rock (aka The Mars Volta, Coheed and Cambria, etc.) guide me on a musical mission that has given me the privilege to preview at least 200 live concerts in my lifetime thus far and do nothing but talk "shop" with any and all musicians alike with similar integrity.
After graduating from the University of Southern California with my degree from the Annenberg School for Communication, I did what any Comm major who just graduated from an overpriced school with absolutely no clue as to what an individual with a Comm degree does...lots and lots of drugs. I was 22 that year in 2002 and was in love with my best friend at the time I liked to call "rock bottom."
Eventually, I realized I did not take any pleasure in cutting checks to pay back student loans every month in between my random nosebleeds and 3am runs to Jack in the Box, so I decided it was time to put my glorified piece of paper that proclaimed to the world that "I am somebody too" which I also paid 50 grand for to some use. Right? "Why not" I said.
Obviously easier said then done but that's a whole other blog my friends. Finally I got my first big break. My first corporate job where I pretended that I mattered because I had to wear a tie to work everyday or maybe it was because I had my own cubicle (every college graduates dream come true) or could it be due to the fact that "water cooler conversation" basically centered around how many of our customers did we fuck over today. One of my closest friends from college (also former biggest weed dealer on campus) got me this job. I still don't know if I should have thanked him or thrown him off a bridge into a ocean filled with sharks with freakin lasers attached to their freakin' heads.
I worked for a company that maintained and serviced the largest website dedicated to giving homebuyers free access to the largest database of homes available for sale on the real estate market, that to protect my friends who still may work there will remain nameless (the website is called Realtor.com, fathered by Homestore.com which is now called Move.com ...sorry fellas.)
While I was there I was able to befriend all the top salesmen who either liked having me around because I was the little runt in the litter who they believed in or because after work was done for the day, I actually was fun to be around. I was the heavy metal-loving, guitar-playing, misunderstood pot head in a room filled douche bags, thieves, and my closest friends at the time. While I was working for this online media mogul for the next year and a half of my life I realized some real unpleasant things and soon enough witnessed the metamorphosis of what once was a man devoted to music, culture, and the promise of success into shell of a man nearly 50 pounds overweight in my 5th year of a failing relationship surrounded by family that made a hobby of constantly guilting me and living in a one bedroom apartment by the beach with my roommate/best friend who was allergic to cleanliness.
That is when my equilibrium collapsed and my life began. One random Monday in April 2004 I decided to quit my $65K paying a year job that I completely sucked at and never survived a day where I was not threatened with being fired. The following day, Tuesday, I called the California Culinary Academy in San Francisco (a city I had never been to) and I enrolled. Friday, I said good-bye to a life that could literally go and fuck itself.
The next week I packed all my shit said good-bye to my parents, sister, girlfriend, college and high school buddies, and of course my lovely cabana by the beach. I loaded up the SUV and landed in what could literally be the shittiest neighborhood I ever had to live in: The Dreaded, Feared, and Loved Tenderloin District of San Francisco. I moved into a hostel with my kitten Cedric, my guitars, and a half ounce of So-Cal's finest.
Regardless of the fact that within my first week there living in what I think is truly one of the most amazing cities I had ever seen, I was offered crack, blow jobs from tranny prostitutes, and bared witness to a sleuth of crimes that truly shook my inner-most core, I sucked it up and started my first day of Culinary School the next week. And still to this day I will always regard as the best decision of my life (that is not a cue for all you lost souls to go enroll.)
In that year I learned everything I could about the art of slicing, dicing, building sauces, butchering meat, creating fictitious restaurants from the ground up, finally understood how the fuck read a wine label, and that was just while I was in school. When I was not in school, I was working out at the gym daily, watching my diet, walking the streets and smelling the culture, seeing every live band I could. I lost 50 pounds, discovered a sense of style and was previewed to the fact that I actually did have a point of view. Oh yea, I got my nipples pierced too!!! Something I always wanted to do but never had the marbles to do it. Speaking of marbles, I learned how to talk to girls, at bars, and get their phone numbers, and go on dates, and live like that Carrie Bradshaw bitch on that "Old Whores in New York City" show.
Eventually, my year was up. Time to go home I guess. But why? I never realized how much I fucking hated L.A. and how much I wished the whole fucking city would just burn the fuck down. But when I came back, it was hard to not notice that I had changed. I smiled and shit now. People tend pick up on that sort of thing.
But with what seemed within minutes, here I was back in the "shit." I felt the guilt of my family slide right back onto my shoulders, my friends simply had not changed a lick, and the best part, my ex wanted to move in and all I wanted to do was die.
I had my first culinary job at a luxurious chain of hotels in Century City that begins with the letter "H" (aka the Hyatt). Wow, what a fall from grace. Here I was, a college graduate from a prestigious private university working 50 hours a week, every fucking shift on the planet: nights, weekends, holidays, graveyard, for just a few bucks more than minimum wage. Meanwhile all my friends were partying, making money, living what seemed to be the façade of a life that I threw a year and for some reason started to miss a little. If it was not for the wealth of knowledge I collected from the biggest ball-busting Hawaiin chef who mentored me, I might have just quit my job and give ITT Tech a try. And learn I did, everything I could, soaked it up like a sponge, meanwhile pleading with God, asking him why does he hate me so much.
After surviving an emergency appendectomy with no health insurance mixed in with having a chef at work with a vendetta against me, I decided to quit and accept the fact cooking was in my blood, but not a lifestyle conducive with what I thought was a satisfying way to live.
I was offered a position with premium importer of some of the world's finest chocolate from Switzerland, among other gourmet products, and was asked to move back to the Bay Area and consult with Chefs anywhere and everywhere and do whatever it took to get them to use our products and make them profitable at the same time.
3 and a half years later I am happy to report to all of you that from starting a measly little worm at Realtor.com to my current position I have now, I transformed into a consulting machine where real chefs take heed to my advice meanwhile having broken all kinds of records inside my company.
Pushing 30 years old, I finally understand that life does not give flying fuck about my plans, goals, dreams, and destiny. All those things are accomplished through a random series of good decisions and good luck. The good news is 40 is the new 20 and I think I am kind of looking forward to it.
The following is a tribute to all the friends that were not mentioned in my profile above but should have been. They will be represented the first initial of their first name in chronological order of when they may have impacted my life.
B,N,N,C,D,A,H,J,E,C,A,J,V,S,E,T,S,V,J,D,J,S,B,G,B,J,J,C.
