Snake in the grass …

Hey, can anyone tell me what kind of snake is in my yard. He’s soooooo pretty. He’s been out there all this morning and I think he ate something and was digesting it. And, then after I took these photos, later I found he had moved along.

Labor Day weekend — Louisiana-style!

John and Nina Arico of Zest Catering are hosting a super Dining On Air Party to benefit WSLR 96.5 LPFM radio this coming Saturday, September 5th at 7:00 p.m. I think the restaurant is located in the Gulf Gate area on Superior Ave. The Arico’s are serving up a fabulous New Orleans-themed dinner with yummy crab cakes, chicken and sausage gumbo, blackened fish with corn relish and mirliton (what the heck is that!?) Wine, beer, ice tea and sparkling water are included.

John Osgood — the radio host of WSLR’s popular Sunday night Louisiana Gumbo show (which airs every Sunday from 7 to 9 pm) — is creating a special mix of Louisiana-flavored music to complement the cuisine and will be dining with guests and answering any questions about zydeco, blues, Louisiana music, and lots more ….

A free after party is planned at Arts Center Sarasota with LIVE music by Los Rumberos and scrumptious desserts donated by local businesses including Pastry Arts, Carr’s Corner, Ben and Jerry’s and more.

The price is $50 per person — not too bad considering you’re getting a four-course specially-prepared gourmet meal and drinks, music and good conversation AND DESSERT! (I’m so there!) And though WSLR’s website and publicity about the event doesn’t say how much of the ticket price goes back to WSLR and doesn’t tell whether or not any portion of the ticket price is tax-deductible, you might be able to find out by calling the station; at the very least, you’ll be getting great cuisine and supporting local radio. Visit www.wslr.org to learn more.

Zest! of Sarasota Catering
6584 Superior Ave., Sarasota, FL 34231 941-924-2535
Sarasota County Green Business Partner
www.zestofsarasota.com

Happy Anniversary — MC Reality Online hits one year mark!

Last week on August 25th, this online column cum blog reached its one-year anniversary! I was so crazy-busy last week that I missed the actual anniversary … but I’m celebrating it on Friday night (September 4) under the light of the full Harvest Moon (sounds appropriate, doesn’t it — celebrating at harvest time?). I plan to have a martini (or two) and toast my little Internet endeavor.

All I ever wanted to be — from the time I was old enough to remember — was a writer. By reading my work … each one of you make me one. Really can’t thank you enough.

Reading in my Beacon Hill apartment the year I decided I was going to become a columnist come hell or high water. I got damn near burned up before I nearly drowned but I'm on dry land, now. Big thanks to Brian for capturing the moment, for believing in me when I didn't believe in myself. XO ad infinitum

Some fast facts:

• I launched MC’s Reality Online in August 2008, just one month after the debut of my book — Sideways in Sarasota. Because both anniversaries fall so closely together … and since several people have asked me in the days of Sarasota News & Books closing, where they could buy a copy of my book — I’m also celebrating my book (oh, good — another reason for a martini on Friday night) and offering an anniversary price via my own website of $13 (taxes and shipping included; signed copy). Just click on the hypelinked words Sideways in Sarasota above and you’ll be directed to information to buy, if you’re interested. Also, Sideways is available at Circle Books on St. Armands Circle.

• Since September ’08, the number of unique readers who visit the site each month has grown from 377 to 1,225. Guess it’s a tortoise – slow and steady growth. But what matters to me is that a lot of you keep coming back to read more. SO appreciated!
• MC Reality Online readers donated $1,943 to All Faith’s Food Bank in my 2008 drive. Stay tuned for news about the 2009 drive.
• MC’s Reality Online averages 26,000 hits per month.
• 938 of you have posted a comment at one time or another – I invite you to continue to use this site as a place for dialogue.
• I instituted advertising on the site in summer ’09 and have already sold several ads and the advertisers have received a pretty darn good return-on-investment in terms of hits to their own sites, etc. BIG thanks to those advertisers who have already supported my site and my writing by choosing to advertise here!
• I have to thank David Martin of Brighter Technologies, Inc. He’s my all-things-web guru and keeps me going when I can’t figure things out. If you need a great web guru, check him out and tell him MC referred you.
• My first blog ever – MC enters the blogosphere.
• In the year that I’ve been blogging, I’ve been asked to speak as a local blogger on a media panel , in a classroom and as an occasional guest panelist on WEDU’s political roundtable television program — Florida This Week, with moderator Rob Lorei.
• And BEST OF ALL, the folks who read this blog – um, that’s ALL OF YOU – were super, super kind to vote me as Creative Loafing Best of the Suncoast Best Local Blogger in the 2008 Reader Poll, and in Sarasota Magazine’s Best of 2009 Reader Poll as one of the best local bloggers. THANK you so much for helping me spread the word about my blog, achieve some street cred as a blogger, and most importantly, give me more reasons to ask bartenders all across Sarasota to “Shake me another ‘tini, baby!”
• And, lastly, if you like what you read here and want to help me snag another year as Best Local Columnist and/or Best Local Blogger in Creative Loafing’s annual Best of the Suncoast Readers Poll – you can vote for me in either or both categories – online right here! I sure would appreciate it!

Mostly, though, thanks for reading – for taking the time to visit this site, agree, disagree, encourage, chastise … I love being able to stay connected to readers even though I don’t have a weekly print column. It’s been a great year.

Sarasota News & Books closing … vita sine libris mors est*

*Life without books is death.

I don’t pretend to know the business side of running a bookstore/café like Sarasota News & Books, but I do claim to know the emotional side of being one of its patrons.

When I moved back to Sarasota five years ago after living in Boston for years, Sarasota News & Books saved my sanity. Not being a barfly or club-goer, it was at this bookstore that I became a regular, staving off crazy-lonely feelings in the company of books and book-lovers. It was there that I scribbled out the beginnings of an essay entitled Café Chess – Très Sexy that would later launch my (so-called) career as a writer in Sarasota in a column that celebrated the cerebrally-sexy chess players sitting at the café’s outdoor tables. (more…)

Gulliver reports on Sarasota doctors leading the push against health reform bill

Very interesting column by Health Reporter, David Gulliver on Sarasota Health News —

http://www.sarasotahealthnews.org/articles/2009/08_11_Sarasota_docs_revolt.htm

And then blogs about health care … and makes it personal. Pretty powerful stuff.

http://www.sarasotahealthnews.org/articles/2009/08_14_Editor_Note.htm

Here’s to your health! Chin, chin. Salut! — but you better have healthcare first!

Tim Sukits, staff writer at Creative Loafing, sent some good info on the health care issue …. I’m a strong proponent of health care reform — in a way that insures that all citizens have access to good, regular, and affordable health care, so I thought I’d share Tim’s message with my reality readers as well. Your comments — pro or con — are welcome at this post! (more…)

Le penseur

When I was working in Paris, my favorite museum was the musée de Rodin … August Rodin, the French sculptor.

MC outside le musee de Rodin, Paris.

That’s pretty highbrow stuff, and I’m a big fan of the sculpture, if not the man, but I think his words need just a bit of tweaking for us less self-immolating folks:

For a person to live … he must have a fire in his belly for living.

Yup. That’s an MC-ism. You can quote me on that one.

Here’s my list of things you need to do to breathe air to those little embers of fire long-languishing like slowly dimming candlelight in your belly — the ones barely hanging on to their fire-essence — and fan them back into a fierce fire for living:

• Step outside in a rainstorm and don’t run for cover. Extra points if you dance with someone while raindrops are literally falling on your head.
• Go to the beach, plop down and curl your toes in the sand.
• Take a chance on something … anything. And if you screw it up, go back and try it again.
• If you’ve been cruel to someone, stop right now and call or write them. Ask for forgiveness.
• If someone asks you for forgiveness, give it straightaway.
• Choose the path of moderate to most resistance. Easy is for candles, not fires, in the belly.
• Skinny dip. Yes, stand at the edge of whatever body of water is near you … pull off your clothes and jump in. Head first if the water’s deep enough. Extra points if you make love while you’re in the water … with someone who isn’t named Loch Ness.
• When you’re showering tomorrow morning, sing. SING!
• Take a crazy, heart-stopping chance on love. Do it! Before you chicken out.
• Laugh so hard you snort through your nose and your belly hurts. Then come over to my house and make me laugh that hard too.
• Give your word … and keep it.
• Never complain. Never explain.
• Go to Paris. Fly Air France if you can.
• Send me a postcard or better yet, take me with you.
• Visit the musée de Rodin.
• Stand in front of le penseur – the thinker – and don’t think.
• Just feel that fire in your belly.

Buh-bye to Sarasota’s Main Street!

Buh-bye, C’est la Vie. Buh-bye Pastry Arts. Buh-bye Main Street Hardware. Buh-bye all those great little shops I swing in and out of on my way back and forth from client meetings and gal-pal hang-outs, and other varied and assorted downtown rendezvous.

Just color me too cheap to pay for parking.

But you can also color me as someone who knows Sarasota’s identity — why people come here and want to stay here and I’m not about to mess with that.

Sarasota is attractive to so many precisely because of it’s slo-mo, kick-back attitude, the relax on Main and watch the pretty people pass by mentality — parking meters destroy that sensibility, that identity. (more…)

Show me the guts …

My MONEY magazine subscription came with an article on how to marry a billionaire. I don’t know. Color me new-fashioned, but shouldn’t MONEY be telling me how to make my own money, not latch on to someone because of his?

Now, don’t get me wrong. I’m not averse to dating men with money. And I’ve dated more than a couple in my lifetime. I’ve dated rich men with their own major domos, to well-off men with waterfront homes and Porsches in the driveway, to men who simply made some really good cake and could afford to live comfortably if not extravagantly.

I’ve also dated men on the opposite end of the money spectrum — guys so broke our dates consisted of long walks, moon-gazing, used bookstore haunting, and mutual navel-gazing over endless cheap coffees. Our big nights out would come if somehow one of us scored free tickets to Fenway or had a friend bouncing the door at some hot new restaurant opening where free food and a single complimentary drink would tide us over ’til an all-you-can-eat Sunday brunch. (more…)

MC in today’s Creative Loafing newspaper

Hey, my article on Chief Abbott (Cop-out in Copland) appears in print today on page 10 of Creative Loafing newspaper. I’d love to hear any and all comments (pro and con) about my suggestion of firing or requesting the resignation of Chief Abbott — so feel free to post your comments here.

If you want to read the story on this blog, just click here: Cop-out in Copland