The Bouncing Souls saved my life. I’ll just go ahead and get that outta the way right now. They are one of the top three or four reasons I survived the second half of 1999 and the entirety of the year 2000, and I’ve been tryna write about them for a couple of months now, but I’ve been struggling to figure out how to approach it. I’m still not sure if I solved it, but this is something, at least.

The thing about sweet potatoes is that they’re extremely versatile, but I feel like most people only encounter them around Thanksgiving, when they’re covered with maplesyrupandbrownsugarandmarshmallows and sometimes nuts, and therefore do not resemble anything that was ever called a sweet potato. And I know lots of people love sweet potato casserole, and I’m not here to fart on your salad¹, but I really believe with my whole heart that if you’ve only eaten your sweet potatoes extra sweet, you should taste a savory sweet potato dish and marvel at the difference, and I guess that’s where I’m goin with this right now.

This recipe doesn’t really have a name – it’s kind of like a veggie chili, and I’ve been known to use leftovers to jazz up a batch of veggie chili, but when I make veggie chili, it’s different from this. This is its own thang.

And since I haven’t been able to come up with a suitable way to distinguish it from my chili without overexplaining, I end up just calling it “that black bean sweet potato thing” as in “hey Sheila, I’m gonna make that black bean sweet potato thing for dinner tonight”, and so I’ve decided here and now to just call it That Black Bean Sweet Potato Thing.

It’s a good thing I didn’t overexplain anything, right? Jesus.

Here’s the ingredient list for the thing:

• 1/2 cup yellow or white onion, small diced (see Notes)
• 1 medium to large sweet potato, peeled and medium diced (see Notes)
• 1 can of black beans, drained and rinsed
• 1 can of hominy, drained and rinsed (optional)
• 1 can of diced tomatoes
• 2 cups of your preferred broth (see Notes)
• 1 Tablespoon tomato paste
• 1 Tablespoon ground cumin
• 1 Tablespoon ground ancho chile powder
• 1 Tablespoon Penzey’s adobo seasoning (see Notes)
• 1 teaspoon granulated garlic
• 1 teaspoon granulated onion
• Salt and black pepper to taste

Notes:

• Small dice is approximately 1/4 in (6.35 mm) square. Here’s a decent tutorial on the various types of basic culinary knife cuts.
• It would be perfectly fine if you just scrubbed and diced your sweet potato, leaving the skin on. In fact, it would be even healthier.
• I use Better Than Bullion brand “No Chicken Base” almost every time I need a broth. It’s one of my secret weapons, except I just told you about it.
• Penzey’s adobo seasoning is salt-free. Many adobo seasonings include salt as a main ingredient. If you substitute a different brand of adobo seasoning, be sure to taste it before you begin adding additional salt.
• Feel free to add other things, as well. I’ve added diced bell peppers, zucchini, yellow squash, mushrooms, and spinach. One time I added all of those things, plus some pinto beans and more liquid, and accidentally made veggie chili. You could certainly add some kind of meat. I imagine some kind of venison or stewing beef would be pretty baller, and all manner of poultry and pork can certainly participate in the Thing. The only real limit is your imagination.

So what you do, see, is you add a tablespoon or so of olive oil to a medium-hot saute pan, then add the diced onions and cook for a couple of minutes, stirring often, until the onion starts to turn translucent, then add the peeled diced sweet potatoes. BEWARE OF SPLASHING OIL!

Lower the heat to medium and cook for 8-10 minutes, stirring occasionally, until those sweetie pooteeties start to soften, just a lil bit. Next, add the seasonings and the tomato paste, and stir to combine. Cook for another minute or two, then stir in the broth and the can of diced tomatoes, juice and all. Maybe even give the can a li’l rinsiedoodle and pour that tomato water in, too. It’s not rocket science.

Bring it to a boil, then lower the heat back to medium and cook for like 5 minutes or so, stirring occasionally. The sweet potatoes should be softer, but still kinda firm, and the liquid should’ve reduced by approximately one-quarter to one-third of the beginning volume.

At this point, add the beans (and hominy, if using). Stir to combine again, then lower the heat to medium-low and continue to simmer for another 10-15 minutes. Stir it a couple-few times. Adjust the heat as necessary.

After ten minutes, pop a lid on the pan and put it in a 250° F (120° C) oven until you’re ready to eat. It keeps getting better the longer you cook it. I recommend using this time to make some rice and/or quinoa, because that really ties things together. Follow basic rice/quinoa instructions or the packaging instructions, if your rice/quinoa came in a package with cooking instructions. When your grain of choice is ready, put some of it in your favorite bowl and top it with your delicious black bean sweet potato thing. I like to top the whole shebang with some diced avocado and just get after it, but it’s also great with any combination of sour cream, shredded cheese, cilantro, pickled jalapenos, and Cholula, and if you like raw diced onions, that’s probably pretty great too, but it’s not really my scene. A side of tortilla chips is optional, and is also recommended.

Here’s an example of what your Black Bean Sweet Potato Thing might look like by the time your rice and/or quinoa is and/or are ready to eat:

I suppose it’d probably serve four. I usually cook for two, and it serves two twice in our house. I’ll be the first to tell you that I’ve never understood most mathematics, but I do know that two twice equals four.

But I was talking about The Bouncing Souls.

The Bouncing Souls have been making punk rock ‘n’ roll for the freaks, nerds, and romantics since they formed in New Brunswick, NJ in 1989. I first heard them in 1998, a little under a year after the release of their self-titled third album. I love their entire discography from the beginning up to and including 2003’s Anchors Aweigh. I haven’t listened to much of anything since The Gold Album, which I recall thinking was just fine, and is certainly better than no The Bouncing Souls. Even if they don’t necessarily light my f-i-r-e, it feels like newer Souls albums and songs are still connecting with a lot of people, and that makes me very happy, because any amount of The Bouncing Souls in your life is a good amount.

Anyhow, the stretch from Hopeless Romantic (1999) into How I Spent My Summer Vacation (2001) is the sweet spot for me. Hopeless Romantic was the first album they released after I discovered them, and it was the one I listened to most often during the darkest days of my wilderness years. The title track is one of my favorites.

I could easily sit here and show you 11 or 12 of the 13 songs from the album, but ain’t nobody got time for that, so here’s a quick sampling of some of my very most favorites.

Some of these songs still instantly transport me to moments in time and space from the summer of 1999, aka “Sad Sack Summer”. “Night On Earth” is one of those.

People probably called the ‘Souls sellouts for making songs like these, but people have always been pretty stupid, so I wouldn’t put much stock into what they have to say about much of anything. Enjoy what you like and if they got somethin to say, tell em to cram it.

This was also around the first time I got to see the band live, on the 1999 Vans Warped Tour in scenic historic beautiful Tinley Park, Illinois (town motto: “Where the Allman Brothers Band plays when they play in ‘Chicago'”).

But I kid the good people of Tinley Park, Illinois [town motto: “You might be thinking of the Verizon Wireless Amphitheater in Noblesville, Indiana (town motto: “Where the Allman Brothers Band plays when they play ‘Indianapolis'”)”]. That first time seeing The Bouncing Souls live was magical, and I even have two washed out pictures from right near the rail, which I am going to include here. The less good one was captured by me, and the other was straight tooken by my old pal Rasma, from atop my old pal Owen’s shoulders.

This is the same Warped Tour where Scott and I walked past Mike Muir from Suicidal Tendencies while he lifted weights in the parking lot. That was pretty surreal.

I was significantly less sad, generally speaking, by the time How I Spent My Summer Vacation was released in May 2001, but I did still seem to still be on a real similar wavelength with the band.

Like its predecessor, this album could be presented pretty much in its entirety, but for the sake of time, I’m just gonna include three more songs.

I saw them live for the second time while they were touring for this album. It was July 12, 2001, just two days shy of exactly two years since the first time I saw them live, up yonder in Tinley Park, Illinois, back in the twentieth century.

I feel like if you’re gonna know one song from The Bouncing Souls, there’s a decent chance it’ll be “Gone”. It’s a good’n.

Here’s the part about when I saw them live in 2001, when the Vans Warped Tour stopped at Verizon Wireless Amphitheater Deer Creek Music Center in scenic historic beautiful Noblesville, Indiana.

I got a spot on the rail just to the right of stage left (which still seems to be my preferred spot), and they played “Quick Chek Girl” and “East Coast! Fuck You!”,² and that’s pretty much all I remember about that set, because I was absolutely blissed out. I got to meet the band that day! I accidentally cut in front of a large section of the line and didn’t become fully cognizant of that fact until about three years later, but whatever, I got to meet The Bouncing motherfucking Souls!

I told them their music saved my life, and Brian said “that’s awesome, us too”, and when I produced my “Gone” CD single, for autographical purposes, Greg said “man, he’s got all the cool stuff”, on account of I was also wearing my A-Team replica t-shirt (as pictured below – also, it’s the same shirt that my ex-wife later turned pink the one time she ever did laundry) and they also thought that was pretty cool. It was a Top Three moment for me at that point in my life, and if I’m being totally honest, it’s still probably in my top twenty. Here’s a self-portrait I made the day after I met them, when I was working at the music store in the mall.

Incidentally, my first week at that job was the coolest job I’ve ever had, then the company became the property of Trans World Entertainment, and the whole place immediately started to swirl down the shitter. It’s still a real contender for Favorite Job Ever, though; I mean, on the bad days, I still got to listen to music and hang out with my friends. The customers were terrible, but it’s not like the customers aren’t also terrible every other place and all other times. But my days at the music store are a story for another time. This is about The Bouncing Souls.

In September, 2002, The Bouncing Souls released a split EP with Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania political punk rockers Anti-Flag. Both bands had some originals, plus some covers, and it was a great, high-energy release that also introduced me to Anti-Flag. Then in 2003, they released their sixth full-length album, Anchors Aweigh. I loved it upon its release, and I still love it today, but back in 2003 my life was headed in a direction that did not require the presence of new songs from The Bouncing Souls to help me get by. Since then, they’ve existed more in my periphery for the most part, and while I do believe that any Bouncing Souls is better than no Bouncing Souls, when I get a hankerin, I go with the classics.

I did see them live once more, on the Anchors Aweigh tour in the fall of 2003, when I lived in Austin. I’m pretty sure that was my only time seeing a headlining set from them. It was great, as expected. Then a bunch of time passed, then in early 2020, they announced a headlining tour with a stop in Indianapolis, Indiana (town motto: “Don’t expect an easy drive to or from your destination”). I got tickets for me and my homeboy Matt, who is one of the other three or four reasons I survived that 18 months in my early 20’s, as mentioned way back in the beginning of this thing. The show was cancelled when our simulation received the hard reset that was 2020, and they have yet to reschedule an Indianapolis show, but I’ll be there when they do, smilin like a little kid on Christmas while I dance my ass off and sing along with every word I know.

Anyway, I was talking about That Black Bean Sweet Potato³ Thing. Black beans are awesome. Sweet potatoes are awesome. You should cram em together in that taste sensation I told you about up yonder, That Black Bean Sweet Potato Thing. And you should listen to The Bouncing Souls while you’re doing it. If you’re capable of having feelings, they can surely speak to at least one of em.

Thanks for reading. If you wanted to tell a friend about Clockwise Circle Pit, that wouldn’t be the worst thing that ever happened to me. Until next time…

I made that myself. Would you believe I’ve had absolutely no graphic design training?

1. I really did fart on a guy’s salad one time. I didn’t do it on purpose, but he kinda sucked anyway, so I never felt bad about it. ↩︎
2. “I know we’re not on the east coast, but you can all say ‘fuck you’, right?” – Greg Attonito ↩︎
3. I spent a
   very long time
   tryna decide
   whether I should spell it
   “potato”
   or “potatoe”
   (in the fashion of former Vice President of the United States of America James Danforth Quayle)
   but ultimately
   I decided
   he should be
   a footnote
   and nothing more.
   
   Also
   I just learned
   that you can turn a footnote
   into dang ol poem! ↩︎