When I lost my sense of taste and smell for days, the only consolation was chocolate.
I could not recognize the taste of coffee, not that of foods with strong and decisive flavors.
I had the sensation of drinking water and eating it using a fork. The food was losing its charm.
Then suddenly I remembered about a Modica chocolate bar I had bought a few days before, the dark one with raw sugar inside it lit a little light of hope. Maybe I could feel the flavors again and so it was at the end of a two or three weeks.
Today coffee tastes like coffee and chocolate is at the base of my food pyramid. I owe it a lot, it saved me.
Chocolate literally covered bad things.
I have written about Mark Szabo on several occasions. We are pen pals, in the modern sense of the word. We use the cell phone for convenience but our correspondence started with a letter to which he replied with a letter. Both handwritten. It would have been nice to continue like this but waiting, waiting for an answer is something that is no longer done.
There are weeks when we hear each other every day.
One day I received a letter from Mark accompanying a mixtape of songs that he liked. I devoured it and listened to it with extreme attention.
I still don’t understand why Mark isn’t writing, working on a new record. how many years is it? There is a void in the music landscape that only a new Mark record can fill. I want a new Mark album like I want chocolate.
“Chocolate Covered Bad Things” originally came out on Catsup Plate in 1999 and it seems like yesterday I was ordering my copy.
I asked Mark to tell me the story of the snowman portrayed on the cover of “Chocolate Covered Bad Things”.
That snowman who has something of Trump. It was 1999, was it possible that Mark was inspired by him?
For the material it is made of, for the hair, for the tie?
Look for Mark’s address and if you find it, it won’t be easy, write him a letter, asking him to tell you the story of the cover.
Almost Halloween Time Records, meanwhile, reissues “Chocolate Covered Bad Things”, in the style and the fashion of the label. A limited edition of 50 copies, featuring an always different portrait of the snowman and a bunch of bonus tracks.
Listen to “Chocolate Covered Bad Things” by Mark here .
