Tuesday, June 20, 2006

A Few Thoughts from Joni's Scrambled Brain

Warning: What you are about to read comes from the brain of a woman who is sleep-deprived and creatively drained, yet has a compulsive need to blog. It may contain misspellings, grammatical errors, run-on sentences or baffling non-sequiturs. It is not likely to have a point -

Five of the last seven nights of my life have included some combination of dinner/drinks/movies with friends old and new, followed by inadequate amounts of sleep.

I have dined at a hip, trendy suburban spot with a drink special called "The Pama-tini." The complete ingredient list for this misguided cocktail escapes me now, but pomegranate liquor was somewhere near the top. I won't pretend I didn't lap it right up (for $8.95, I was DETERMINED to enjoy it), but it was a poor substitute for the mojito I had craved. Mojitos, sadly, were not on the menu. So much for "hip"!

On the bright side, however, I had some amazingly good fish tacos at the Cheesecake Factory, and a dependably delicious Ruben sandwich at my local Irish pub. This ends the restaurant review portion of the post.

I spent a night out at the 2-dollar movie house, watching Antonio Banderas teach ballroom dancing to inner-city high schoolers in "Take the Lead." And I spent two rather sobering hours hearing Al Gore outline the consequences of global warming in "An Inconvenient Truth." I think everyone in American should see the latter film and take it to heart. I have tried to tell people about the movie, but I've found that some of my friends just don't like - and won't listen to - Al Gore. (It always makes me sad when people dump on Al Gore - I don't know why I take it personally, but I do. I never minded when Gore would heave those disgusted sighs and roll his eyes at Bush during the 2000 presidential debates. Frankly, I thought that was an entirely appropriate response.)

All I can say to anyone who thinks this global warming thing is no big deal: See the movie, and then decide. Look at the pictures of glaciers taken 40 years ago next to recent pictures - and witness how dramtically they have receded. Take in the fact that, for the first time in history, polar bears are drowning in the Arctic Ocean because the ice floes they depend on are sometimes 60 miles apart and the bears die trying to swim to them. See the dramatic reduction in the ice mass of Anarctica and Greenland. Get the many other facts that my poor, addled brain is too tired to remember right now. Then decide.

On a lighter note: I would like to close by declaring my undying love for Anthony Bourdain. I've been reading his newest collection "The Nasty Bits: Collected Varietal Cuts, Usable Trim, Scraps and Bones." Culled from his magazine writing of the last few years, these are Bourdain's highly entertaining takes on celebrity chefs, chain restaurants, fast food, the rigors of travel and shooting his peripatetic show for the TravelChannel. AB is a a bad boy - ribald, profane, and - by his own admission - "testosterone fuelled." He is also self-deprecating, generous, charming, and never, never boring. His TV show - "No Reservations" - is a standing, Monday night date for me.

2 comments:

Parisjasmal said...

I cannot take any man serious who wears that much blush and plays tonsil hockey with his wife right there in front of God and everyone! That was just plain GROSS! Even if he did invent the internet.

Did you take the personal? You shouldn't.

For the record I dislike most all political folk--EXCEPT for Barak Obama. He BaRAKS my world.

I agree about global warming. I am a HUGE recycler, but I do drive a big car because of where we live and the nature of our business..we have to have a 4 wheel drive.

I have heard the movie is good, and I love what old Albert A Gore said on Leno about La Lohan. Funny stuff!

Memphis Mimi said...

I loved that movie, Take the Lead, where Bandaras teaches inner city kids how to ball room dance.