The Peanut Gallery Is Open (Or, How To Leave Comments)

I believe you can now comment without having to "sign in" anywhere.

Where it says "OR PICK A NAME ?," you can check "I'd rather post as guest" to avoid those "first born/blood type/deed to your home" hoops.

When you check "sign in as guest," you'll still have to enter the name you want to appear next to your comment, and an email address. Then click the arrow and you should be all set.

If this still proves to be too much of a PITA, please let me know! The last thing I want is a blog no one reads or comments on because it's a hassle. Thanks!

Chile, Hold The Queso

I'll be honest, if Gael Garcia Bernal made a documentary called "Let's Watch Moss," I'd pay to see it. 

I've been a fan since Y Tu Mamá También (which I can never pronounce or spell correctly, kind of like Zach Galifianakis, who I lazily refer to as Zach Snuffleupagus). And now it appears Gael's going to star in Jon Stewart's directorial debut, which skyrockets his cool quotient into galaxies only inhabited by the likes of Luke Skywalker and Ace Frehley. 

But when I read the description of his 2012 film, No, my first (very American) reaction was 
Hmm...it's about history. Chilean history. That's not just another country—it's another continent. A continent I learned nothing about thanks to 12 years in Florida public schools. How will I possibly relate to this film? What's in it for me?

The only famous Chilean I knew of up to that point was this guy:

I loved the premise: An ad exec creates a television campaign with the sole purpose of overthrowing a violent dictator. Kind of like what I do, only substitute "overthrowing a violent dictator" with "selling things." I decided to give it a whirl. 

It's a great film in much the same way that Argo is, given the political tension and the fact that it's based on actual events. 

To American audiences it may feel a bit slow (nobody drives a Hummer off the Empire State Building). And, it has subtitles which I know throw some people off. An old friend of mine once said while trying to watch the delicious Queen Margot, "I wish they'd stop flashing those words on the screen. When I stop to read, I don't know what's going on."

Much like All The President's Men and Network, No doesn't just tell a taut story, it explores the most basic, primal elements of humanity and how they haven't changed much over the past millennium. It's inspired me to learn more about Chile and its history, as well as add South American writers like Gabriel García Márquez to my must-read list. 

Who knows? Maybe carefully chosen words do matter? 

Sunday. Not My Fun Day.

There's no time of day more terrifying than 10pm on a Sunday night. 

Terrifying, that is, if you have to leave the white cloudy heaven of weekend opportunity and head back into another work week. A work week of stress and deadlines and meetings where people in Dockers and polo shirts swivel back and forth around conference tables.

For me, the terror started around 4pm today. It was a suffocating sense of no longer having time to think about the world or watch old Humphrey Bogart movies or cook Chicken Kiev or call people I like who live far away or listen to all the bands that anyone I've ever met has told me I should listen to or sketch that children's book about the importance of being kind to animals that I've been dreaming about since the '90s. 

It's Sunday so I have to wash bath towels and underwear. I have to vacuum up cat hair and grocery shop for 17 bags of produce (Keep On Juicin'!) and resist the very strong urge to wish a pox on the skinny lady in front of me with a cart full of Dr. Pepper, cookies and Funyuns while I'm relegated to a life of greens and nuts. 

I want to stay up all night reading this stack of books: 

I want to spend three more days watching Noel Fielding interviews on YouTube and looking at his art, admiring his wonderful ability to put it out there. 

That would lead me to looking up info about other artists I like: El Greco and Chagall and Goya and Henri Le Sidaner. Which would lead me to reading about all the places I wish I could visit: Spain and Portugal and Finland and Iceland and Antarctica and Chile and Denmark and Greece and Wales and possibly Savannah, Georgia.

I've never seen The Road with Viggo Mortensen. Or all of Anchorman. I've never read The Sun Also Rises. I've never been to Gatorland. Or Graceland. Or volunteered with the Special Olympics. I've never listened to an entire Black Label Society song. Or seen the Iditarod. Or walked through Central Park at Christmastime. 

Another weekend gone, with none of these dreams realized. I did go to Sea World, though, and hand fed the mantas. They feel exactly what I imagine my spleen would feel like.

 P.S. While feeding the mantas, this conversation took place between myself and my friend, the zoologist: 

MFTZ: If you hold the fish like this, they'll take it right out of your hand with their mouths! 

ME: Neat! 

(A few minutes pass, but none of the mantas will eat the fish I'm thrusting at them.)

ME: It's not working. I'm shoving it right into their mouths but they just turn and swim the other way. Here, watch...

MFTZ:  Yeah. That's not his mouth.

Screw You, Circus Girl

I came home from work today to find three wonderful, unexpected presents: a paperback from a "mystery sender;" a wonderful card from a friend I love dearly; and a Time Out New York magazine from the same friend, with an earmarked Nick Cave article. 

And to think, all I'd been looking forward to was a dinner of spinach and apple juice. Notice I've refrained from using the phrase "Granny Smith juice." Yeah. I know you guys.

In the same Time Out there was an article about a thirty two-year old New Yorker who up and quit her financial consulting job to join the circus. Just up and quit. How very Noah Baumbach. In the article, the circus girl says that lots of her friends are doing the same thing; that there's a lawyer who quit to become a florist. 

Alright! I think I'm going to do this, too! Let's see...I've always wanted a holistic pet therapy center that I run out of the house that Diane Keaton moves to in Baby Boom. You know, the one where she gets to canoodle Sam Shepard. Wait—did she canoodle him in the house or at his veterinarian practice? I can't remember, but clearly you can see why I love this movie. 

First, I'll quit my job. Next, I'll sell all my IKEA furniture. That should rake in enough for a welcome mat. I'll subsist on wild grass and cardboard until things get rolling. Malcolm, of course, will still eat Purina One in cans because if I don't give him that he'll pee on my cardboard. And I'm going for more of an alkaline diet. 

In the springtime I'll catch wild trout with my teeth and Malcolm and I will grow our own papyrus, which we'll use to create flyers. Our farm neighbor, Potus, will drive us into town (I'll have to sell my car to pay for the papyrus seeds) to distribute the flyers and before you know it—boom! I'll be a holistic pet therapist dating a Pulitzer Prize winning playwright! 

How hard can it be? 

Idiots.

New Thing This Week: Twin Peaks via Amazon Prime. Better late than never. And dear mystery sender: thank you!

Fruity Feats

It turns out, I really @#$##@ hate grapefruit. You live, you learn. 

Another thing I've learned is that I still love watching Sebastian Bach on any show that'll have him. He and Rex Brown from Pantera were the guests on last night's That Metal Show, and he was his usual six-foot-four Canadian cartoon self. 

May I just add here that as much as I admire Eddie Trunk and hope to someday share a few beers with him, talking about KISS and Thin Lizzy and Akira Takasaki (unarguably the most fun name in metal to say) until one of us passes out face-down in a basket of cheese fries, the more I've learned about Jim Florentine—who's doing a phenomenal Sirius show these days—and Don Jamieson, who is both truly (spontaneously) funny and a serious aficionado, the more I love their dynamic as a team. 

As I'm sure they're well aware, there's a vast community of us who look to TMS as a beacon—a lighthouse of the soul if you will—amidst a seething musical sea of floating debris that I'm pretty sure isn't driftwood. 


The best part of last night's show was when a "Stump The Trunk" trivia question led to a discussion of a former Fastway bassist whom no one on the show including Eddie had heard of, with the name of "Mick Feet."

Sebastian paused pensively, and launched into a glorious monologue that posed the question: When you're starting out in rock and roll, and you can come up with ANY name you want for yourself—Mick Mars, Nikki Sixx—how do you decide on Mick Feet???

Turns out, he spells it "Feat," and yes, he did play bass on the first Fastway album. He's a top session player who's worked with the likes of David Gilmour, Alvin Lee, Mick Ralphs and Simon Kirke, Mark Knopfler, and Chet Atkins to name a few.


So in Mr. Feat's honor, here's a little Fastway from the '80s classic, Trick Or Treat, starring none other than Marc—Skippy from Family Ties—Price (with cameos by Ozzy and Gene Simmons). 

Juicy J'adore

Last Sunday, when faced with 7,000 viewing options, I opted for the title I knew I should watch: Hungry For Change.

 
I haven't watched Forks Over Knives or Fat, Sick and Nearly Dead. I've avoided them.  When you've had eating disorders most of your life and view Lean Cuisine frozen pizza, Skinny Cow ice cream and Beck's Premier Light as your only affordable (and guilt-free) vacations from stress, celery is not on your agenda. 

However, when you realize that the only thing you ever look forward to Monday–Friday is going to bed because you're perpetually exhausted from 6am-8pm work days and abysmal nutrition? Something needs to change. 

So I watched the documentary and, despite fleeting moments of infomercialism, it reached me. It didn't just dish out the old "If you don't love yourself, you'll never stop eating cheesecake." It explained why people who are constantly stressed or depressed have such a hard time driving past Arby's after a horrible day at work. Or—after a GREAT day at work. I finally understood this not just from a serotonin-neuron angle, but a Maslow's hierarchy of needs level. And that was the turning point. 

I now have a juicing recipe book, and I'm not making this up—in just the past THREE DAYS that I've started drinking one–two glasses of fruits/veggies a day—I feel like a different person. I have more energy. My digestion is better. My stress levels are down. And my cravings for sugar and dairy and fat are diminishing. THREE DAYS! 

I spent $30 less on my weekly grocery shop and bought zero frozen foods. Instead I bought apples, oranges, grapefruit, kiwis, cantaloupe, lemons, strawberries, pears, grapes, raspberries, kale, parsley, cilantro, cucumber, romaine lettuce and fresh ginger. 

I'm going to take a picture of my fridge and send it to my mother. She'll be ecstatic.

I'm not in this for weight loss (although I can expect that as a side effect). I'm in it to be alive. I no longer want to "exist" like some poor condemned creature chained inside a pitch black pen. I'm not saying I'll never eat pizza or cheesecake again. I'm just saying I've found my methadone.


And to think, I almost watched Identity Thief that day.

Just Hang On, Man!

I love Marc Maron. I've loved him since the mid '90s and over the years some of his standup routines (and the punchlines therein) have taken on lives of their own for me. I think about them when I'm having a tough day. The kind of day that makes me seriously contemplate cramming Malcolm into his Sherpa carrier, filling a duffel bag with underwear and hopping a plane to someplace...oh, I don't know...smarter?

Since I usually have about $200 in my checking account (oh, the wise career choices I've made), that can't happen. This is why I relish Marc and especially his new show on IFC. Hearing that Marc Maron got his own cable show was kind of like seeing "Deepak Chopra Elected POTUS" on the CNN ticker. 

(By the way, what a-hole started "POTUS?" It sounds like a Dukes of Hazzard character. Are we really so lazy that we can't say entire words anymore? And don't get me started on people who say sh*t like "he's going on vacay," or, "that kitten is totally presh!" In a very Maron-esque way, I want to drag those people to the nearest Whole Foods, wedge their heads into the opening of the automatic door, jump up and down on the sensor mat, and make them read Keats from a paperback in my left hand while my right hand eats a Hot Pocket).

It's a great show. But it's not for everyone. He's angry and neurotic and insecure and, some might say, whiny (I just say "articulate"). If you're under the age of thirty, chances are you won't get it. Because you haven't yet had to confront things like asymmetrically migrating body parts or disappearing vision or a general passionate rage for everyone on Mtv, the WB and E!.

Here's one of my favorite Maron show clips (I hope YouTube doesn't take it down): 

And here's the HBO special that first made me a fan (or, at least part of it: 

Feel The Same Way

FIRST, THE REVIEWS

• Frozen Pre-Packaged Squash: Hideous
• "A Band Called Death:" Really interesting. There's a Vernon Reid quote towards the end of the doc that sums it up nicely. When describing the band's recently rediscovered lost '70s album he says, "There's no doubt on this record. Only conviction." 

I'm going to see Saigon Kick in August. And yes—that is a Frodo magnet holding the ticket to my fridge. In one of those wonderfully serendipitous moments that sprinkle our lives like sacred jimmies, I was shuffling through my iTunes last week when I hit a Saigon Kick song. I thought "Wow, I must've seen those guys a half dozen times back in the day. Such a shame the original lineup isn't intact anymore." 

I Googled, and found out they'd recently reunited (including original singer Matt Kramer). Binge listening commenced, and I remembered just how much I loved their first two albums (if you think "Love Is On The Way" sums up the Saigon shebang, you're at the same party as those who think "Love In An Elevator" sums up Aerosmith). 

I'm now anxiously awaiting a night of songs I love at unhealthy decibels that fill the musical chamber of my chest cavity with godlike power. Or, at the very least, a good game of Count the Middle-Aged Mullets. 

You know who else I'm excited about? These guys: 

I'm a Thin Lizzy fan from way back, and since this is the most recent touring amalgam of Lizzy under a new name (that's Scott Gorham second from right), AND features Ricky Warwick from The Almighty on lead vocals, I was primed. 

Is it as good as hearing Phil Lynott sing "Cowboy Song" or "Emerald?" 

No. 

But (A) that's not the point, and (B) it's damn good stuff. They channel the denim and leather Irish outlaw feel of the band they're honoring and it works. Check out the first single, "Bound For Glory" to see what I mean. 

Meantime, we've hit the suffocating summer 90s here so my Arctic DNA won't be outside until November. When the air makes you physically sick, it's time to hit the library, or in my case, my Booksfree account. 

Here's my new thing for today: 

Until next time, for the love of God...hydrate! 

Back In The New World Groove

How long can an opinionated wordy woman wait between blogs? Apparently three years.

I've reached my limit of keeping silent and, despite an apprehension about sharing forever and ever online, amen (I've watched fellow bloggers go down over social media posts that didn't jibe with respective party lines), I'm going to see how far this new venture takes me. Because trying to keep my thoughts locked inside is like watching a Ziplock full of Jolt Cola and Mentos.

It's gonna blow, and when it does, it won't be pretty.

That said, why "Oh Bob!"? To keep my rants on the somewhat straight and narrow, I decided to give this blog a theme. Now, if I ever heard someone say "I'm going to make my blog about trying new things and living life to the fullest" I'd probably want to punch them in their perky face. So when my brain knee-jerked back to the obvious "Road Not Taken" metaphor, I decided it would be the silent theme, illustrated by my title—a personal shout out to the poem's author.

Speaking of shout outs, I'd like to thank all the friends who've encouraged me back into blogging. When the one thing you most love to do is subjective (and you live in a hamster wheel of rejection-indifference-rejection), kind words go a long, long way.

I'd also like to send a shout out to someone I don't personally know, but greatly admire: Alex Skolnick. His blog was the back-breaking straw that kicked my ass into gear and got me trying on templates today.

To those of you who already know me, you can rest assured that Malcolm will be by my side as co-pilot (tragically, we lost Linus to cancer last October but his spirit is still very much with us).

Malcolm, having just been rudely awakened by a Dust Buster

So, then...onward and upward!  My first new things to try?

To you, it's a starch. To me, it's an adventure. 

Documentary I must see!

Come on along. The weather's blindingly bright and it's unbearably hot here, but I've got air conditioning, a Brita pitcher of ice-cold water...and squash!