Author: Chris

Writer, journalist, wanderer. "Gnashing," a blog about stuff — cultural, personal, important and frivolous. Lots about wanderlust and books and movies and memories. Much about travel and social observations. Hopefully entertaining, a little insightful, forever random and rambling.

Halloween, if little hallowed

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It’s positively pouring rain, cats, dogs, giraffes, and it is blustery, leaf-dislodging, noisy on multiple levels — water, wind, things blown over, gutters gushing — and it’s kind of great, though going outside seems like unnecessary peril. Thus: homebound. 

The day before Halloween — can you imagine the poor kids and parents braving this mayhem? — yet things look up for the big bloody day. The forecast is sunshine and 60 degrees. Boo-yah! as a ghost might cheer. 

Nowadays the most I do for Halloween is steal fun-size Reese’s from the brimming bowl meant for trick-or-treaters and the parents who steal Reese’s from their children. My Halloween dress-up heyday was when I was Paul Stanley from KISS one year and Gene Simmons from KISS the next. This was during the Reagan Administration, so slack must be cut. Like Marley’s Ghost, I wore metal chains as Simmons. Totally rock. 

Damn, it’s like a monsoon out there now. The skeletons on the lawn probably have hypothermia.

On my last blog post, I hinted that Cubby the dog would go well with some guac and salsa. Well, he’s since got a bath — no longer is his scent eau de tortilla chips — and a haircut. He now looks like Moe from the Three Stooges. He’s spiffy and perfumey and the groomer tied a natty bandanna round his freshly coiffed neck. It’s too late for a photo of the transformation; he’s growing out, the bandanna is gone, and already he’s starting to smell like a Taco Bell Crunchwrap Supreme. 

Mexico City beckons. I leave in a week for seven days. As always before a trip, I’m angsty-excited, a nervous muddle of dread and joy. Like, what if I catch Montezuma’s revenge, or get mugged at the ATM? Flip side, what if the food  (tacos tacos tacos tacos) spirits me to rapture and the locals’ hospitality restores my faith in humanity? I’ll report later on this uncharted adventure. Bet you can’t wait. 

It’s been 20-plus years since I read two ecstatically received literary novels — Annie Proulx’s “The Shipping News,” which won the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award, and Ian McEwan’s massive seller “Atonement,” considered the prolific British writer’s crown achievement. (I’ve read seven of his novels. He’s spectacular.) 

Now. My response to both books, back then, was: meh. What a child I was. I just finished “The Shipping News,” and its deep-grained, lyrical, downright poetic and funny prose carried me along its often exotic world-scapes and among its colorful characters. It’s a trip, and one worth taking. There are a lot of fish.

With “Atonement,” a high-toned, very English story, I have only begun rereading it and already I’m snared by writing that seems crafted with a laser beam, so specific, rich and dazzling, you want to kill yourself, if you care about these things.

Unfortunately, I do. 

Good news, bad news. What’re you gonna do?

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The dog smells like a bowl of stale Doritos. The nor’easter is splatting rain and blowing tree-tossing gusts. Our sociopathic “president” continues to appall on a daily basis (no, you’re not getting the Nobel, so shut up). And I have a zit on my forehead that’s festering like Mt. Vesuvius in 79 A.D.

Otherwise things are just super, grand and dandy, unless you consider that Diane Keaton, one of the most charming and beautiful creatures ever to grace the big screen, has died. Crushing. Long live Annie Hall.

I go to Mexico City in precisely one month, though just days before that I have a dental appointment I’d rather not keep but will, because two of my teeth appear to be turning gray (this mad world!). I’m afraid I am becoming wizened.

If you squint really hard you can squeeze out some of the bad news and unfettered horrors — Gaza, Ukraine, the new Spike Lee movie — unfurling across the world. But it’s not easy, and almost certainly not possible.

But back to the one kernel of okay news, my vacation in Mexico City, a full week in November. I’ve been booking tours and making reservations with tentacular zeal. And I’ve also been uprooting prior plans. In an earlier post I mentioned that I registered for a tacos al pastor cooking class, a splurge and a mash note to my favorite taco. 

Well, I nixed the class (sorry, Anne R.!) for two expeditions: one a three-hour guided tour of the National Museum of Anthropology (sounds deadly, but I’m assured it’s essential) and the other a festive, three and a half-hour Tacos and Mezcal Tour, whose price tag I blush to share with you. Guess which tour I’m looking more forward to.

Other good news lurks. Fall has fallen, and despite the nor’easter, which is really quite mild in these parts, the weather is totally dreamy. Usually I’m abroad for Halloween — Europeans try very hard to get it down, though it’s still strictly amateur hour there — but I’ll be around this time and that’s a plus. 

I dig a good monster mash. I also like all the costumes that I can’t tell what the hell they’re supposed to be. Is that a ballerina werewolf? I hope some savvy kids deck out as Annie Hall: men’s tie, vest and khakis, and that wide-brimmed hat. Sartorial genius. They can flummox all their friends who still dress in Pokémon.

On a side note, what ever happened to the smashed pumpkins in the street? In my day, that was as mandatory as begging for goodies. Kids today. So thoughtful. Or clueless.

I guess in the end that’s also good news. Smashing Pumpkins is a great band — pay special attention to the superhuman drummer — but smashing pumpkins is just boneheaded vandalism. Thus I hesitantly cheer its extinction.

Good news and bad news will always share a table, so we’re kind of stuck. Israeli hostages are freed (yay). Diane Keaton dies (boo). Leaves are falling with the temperature (yay). Jeff Tweedy releases a solo triple album (boo). Paul Thomas Anderson’s new movie, “One Battle After Another,” is an apparent masterpiece (yay). Oh, and the dog. Yes, the dog. He really needs a bath (self-explanatory).

Diane Keaton as Annie Hall

Buzz kill

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I try to prioritize my murderous impulses. I don’t kill much, and what I do snuff out tends to possess multiple legs, pincers and stingers, and the potential to bite me and make me very unhappy. Rashes, swelling, itching — don’t fuck with me. 

So this is wonderful: Numerous yellowjackets have found their way into the house. There’s a nest outside and the belligerent arthropods are zipping through a vent straight indoors, flying and buzzing and trying to find their way back out, which of course they can’t. 

The pests are a type of wasp, not a bee, and can sting repeatedly without dying, unlike the dumb, suicidal bumble bee whose guts pour out when it unleashes its stinger. Yellowjackets are also more aggressive and tenacious when in attack mode. They have nothing to lose. They’re winged terrorists, mini drones aimed directly at you. And they get pissed off easily. 

And so, when I spotted one banging against the window above the kitchen sink, I: 1) freaked, 2) swore, and 3) sprung into action. I slipped off a sneaker, zeroed in on my jittery, buzzy target, and smooshed it with heroic gusto. Twhack, plop. 

And yet. While the vibrating, yellow-striped beast quivered in its death throes, it sort of broke my heart. I adhere to no religion, including Jainism, which is dedicated to the non-injury of any living creature. A Jainist wouldn’t hurt a fly, literally. I would. I do. Flies are a pesky pestilence.

Despite the yellowjacket drama — a crime scene, really— killing bugs is not my thing. When I stumble upon a beetle, spider, cricket or other creepy crawler that belongs outside and not, say, in my bedroom, 99-percent of the time I’ll get a tissue and gingerly carry it first class to the front lawn where it hopefully gains its bearings and flies or waddles back into the verdant, perilous wild. (If it gets cute with me, it’s swirling down the toilet.)

I’m like the Saint Francis of Assisi of bugs, except I’m not from Italy, I’m not Christian and I don’t wear a brown habit with a rope tied around my waist, though that might make a fine fall fashion statement. Francis, among many things, is the patron saint of animals. Even now, World Animal Day, when all manner of creature and critter is blessed in churches on Frank’s behalf, is held on October 4. (I’d take Cubby the dog, but he doesn’t believe in that hocus-pocus either, even if they give him a cookie.)

I’m no fan of bugs, but I empathize and believe they deserve a shot in this big doomed world, which is as much theirs as ours. That’s why I feel bad about the yellowjacket I turned to gruel. It wasn’t his fault he winged his way inside, and he was plainly trying to get out. But he couldn’t, and he was too dangerous and elusive to snatch in a tissue and deposit outside. It’d be like trying to save an injured Great White in the ocean. Just don’t.  

Block party, year 48

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It’s 6:45 p.m. and they’re still slinging burgers and hot dogs during what is officially the neighborhood’s 48th annual block party on a cool pre-fall eve. 

Forty-eighth — how is that even possible? There’s no one alive who’s that old. That means the block parties started in, like, 6 B.C. 

My math is fuzzy. What do I know. I just know the food spread bestowed by the locals is stupendous: Asian noodles, chicken empanadas, homemade guac, spicy pulled pork, eggplant parmesan and, inevitably, simple bags of neon-colored Doritos (party size!), and so much more. (Wait, no deviled eggs?) It’s a smorgasbord and you’ll never see me type that word again.

I don’t know one person at this asphalt shindig. I’m barely — barely — acquainted with my next-door neighbors and the people across the street. And the next-door neighbors didn’t even show at the block bash.

I met one of the guys across the street at the keg, which was lamentably undernourished, and we shook hands, made introductions and proceeded to flaccid small talk before I split. He’s lived across the way for at least four years. We’ve never exchanged a wave. Now we’re chatting over Budweiser in red Solo cups. 

And now I’m gone. Pulled pork beckons.

These block parties are never huge; only three blocks are invited. But they gather a decent melange of folks, a hundred or more. It’s a good blend — florid artsy types to troglodyte Trumpsters — that could use a healthy dose of diversity. Alas, this isn’t Berkeley.

Children. Why does everyone have two or three clinging, clamoring rug rats, pesky tweens or teens, boisterous broods of brats? It’s a nightmare. While the tots whine and cry, the tweens peacock on electric scooters, slaloming perilously around standing diners with an aren’t-I-cute smirk, hair billowing. I need a large hockey stick.

Dogs. Dogs are good. And there are at least six or seven, all leashless, roaming about, panting, grubbing for cheeseburgers and wieners. Cubby the magic mutt joins the canine convention, but his indifference towards other dogs is like Marvel fans to real movies. He does a quick sniff then mutters, “Get me the hell out of here of here. I’m bored. I smell Doritos.”

By now I’m pickled in boredom, too. I hit the keg for a second time and of course it’s dry. A guy is pumping it like mad, desperate for a last drop. His reward is a fizzle of foam. We look at each other and loudly commiserate.

I may have just made a friend.

Playing with dolls, and fire

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On hot days like this, of relentless and arrogant sunshine, when breezes are miserly and shade revels in its scarcity, I like to hole up and construct voodoo dolls of ole Mother Nature, pins at the ready. Even more, I like to do the same of climate deniers, using power drills instead of pins. Their heads are much thicker.

It’s a grim business, but so is the ever-changing weather, the cataclysmic climes of now. We’re all just one flood or wildfire from unthinkable calamity. To those who actually believe it’s an elaborate liberal hoax — for fucksake — I hope disaster strikes them first, because it will ineluctably strike, and soon. (Retribution?)

The heat is feral today, following a streak of enveloping fall-like weather occasioned by a mean Hurricane Erin pinwheeling up the Atlantic Coast, another portent of global warming. From the Times: “As the planet warms, scientists say that rapidly intensifying hurricanes are becoming ever more likely.” And: “Hurricane season could ramp up with storms supercharged by warmer ocean waters fueled by human-caused climate change.”

Awesome.

This isn’t a sermon or a call to action. By now we should know of the horrors ahead. Yet many don’t, willfully and aggressively, and their ignorance, flat-out stupidity, permeates the highest offices in the land. Planet-saving regulations are being excised with the slash of a pen, and a diabolical grin.

The brevity of this post is purposeful. Preaching to the choir is redundant. And name-calling is for presidents. It’s a squib of personal reportage, this, describing my fabulous arts and crafts.

Notice how I’m making a fat, scowling, orange voodoo doll. Pins not required. I’ll just light it on fire and flush the ashes down the toilet. There’s your wildfire and hurricane in one fell swoop.

Dog 1, me zero

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A clank — the neighbor dispensing with wine bottles in the recycling bin. A thick rain falls and wind blusters the trees, making the dog’s ears perk up and eyes go wide. He bristles at the sound of heavy winds, and often pleads to get on my lap if it’s all too much out there. Rustling leaves — Cubby’s nemesis.

Now a jet plane roars above and the local commuter train blows a curt toot, last call for the suit and briefcase brigade. The rain gutters rattle with liquid bloat. For a couple of days, the water extinguishes the August heat. I couldn’t be happier. 

Summer’s almost gone, finished marring, charring the days with high 80s and 90s, sometimes more. Who likes this rot? Most people do, but, as my opinion abides, most people are maniacs. Melanoma. Enjoy.

I detest sweat as well, and shorts are the devil’s attire. But whoosh, the gusts flurry again and now the dog is on my lap, plop, an impossible tableau: dog jostling the laptop computer, making this task either funny or furious. Since it’s the dog, I’ll take the former. 

So now, typing one-handed, I’ll wrap this reverie of sight and sound, a mini-experiment in writing live, as the world unfurls, realizing once again that the damn dog always wins.  

Roaming Roma

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About that Mexico City trip I’m taking in November, I think I’m getting carried away. I’m there for a week and already I’ve booked four dinners and six tours, and I’m scanning more adventures in the heaving megalopolis, which goes by the sporty acronym CDMX. 

The gargantuan city is so overwhelming, with so much to see and eat, I feel I require more guidance and guardrails than on previous trips. I’m so fretful that I woke at 2 a.m. to make a pair of rarefied restaurant reservations just to make sure I secured them at the exact right time. (Scored!) 

But I’m also a loner, so, when it comes to tours, I really don’t want to get stuck with too many chatty chuckleheads from, say, Melbourne and Milwaukee. I can roll my eyes only so much. Still, I have six tours on my slate, a personal record, which could be a canny or foolhardy proposition. 

That said, I’m probably going to spend the rest of my time strolling the many neighborhoods solo and uncover my own delights. The place is frightfully big, so this expedition will either be sweetly exhilarating or operatically tragic. 

One of the tours I’ve booked is of the vibrant Roma area, billed as a paradise of local markets, parks, trendy restaurants, bars and hipster cafes. If that’s my sort of  thing — and it is, though I do love my grunge — it also evokes writer-director Alfonso Cuarón’s 2018 memory film “Roma,” set in the neighborhood during the much different 1970s, when the socio-political scene was uniquely combustible. (The area, incidentally, is named after Rome, Italy, as a tribute to its wealth and culture.)

The award-dappled movie is a languid stunner, an autobiographical portrait of growing up in Cuarón’s tight upper-middle class family, with special focus on the domestic help, namely Cleo, who, beyond sweeping up dog poop and making beds, takes care of Cuarón and his three gangly siblings.

Deceptively simple, “Roma” — shot in shimmery, Oscar-winning black and white that looks like quicksilver — is family drama at its most heightened and honest. Its verité verve is pure documentary immersion.

From the director of masterworks “Y tu mamá también,” “Gravity” and “Children of Men,” the movie examines with a flea comb the daily dynamics of living and loving together, and all the pain and joy that involves, including fatal frictions between husband and wife. 

And then there’s quiet, big-hearted Cleo, cooking and cleaning and embracing her role as part of the family — and in the process, becoming a sort of angelic savior keeping the clan together. The movie ranks #46 on the New York Times list of best films of the last 25 years.

The tour I booked has a lot to live up to.

(On Netflix.)

KISS-ing ass, Trump style

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As a childhood KISS fan, this makes my stomach twist. Trump has tapped the grizzled glam rockers as inductees to the Kennedy Center Honors this year, a tribute so perfectly tawdry, I don’t think many get the irony, the hilarity.

KISS, whose integrity has always been dubious, is reportedly not a fan of our portly prez, calling Trump a “true danger to democracy,” but now of course say they’re “honored.” Trump says he picked the bawdy band because they’ve “made a fortune,” which is true, but a repugnant reason to exalt them. He’s also trying to irk the libs, of course. Funniest snub: Tom Cruise dissed Trump’s induction. That’s why he’s a big-screen action hero who can practically fly, without a cape. (Seen the Photoshop illustration of Trump as Superman, cape and all? You’ll vomit.)

Trump’s so stupid he doesn’t even know what culture is. He also elected disco queen Gloria Gaynor for the honors, evidently unaware that her biggest hit “I Will Survive” is a celebrated gay anthem — a song he loves with ignorant gusto. It’s much like the Village People’s comically transparent “YMCA,” a Trump theme during his campaigns that he would clap to like a bloated orange oaf.

The bigot is blind. And deaf. Our tinpot despot has a tin ear.

KISS-asses, selling their souls.

Wrestlemañia

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It’s billed as the “BEST NIGHT EVER,” comical hyperbole that actually might live up to the puffery. How? Why? Because we’re talking about an excursion starring tacos, beer, tequila and — wait for it — tickets to Lucha Libre wrestling at the main arena in Mexico City. All for $84. Bust the bank? Let’s bust some chops.

What is Lucha Libre? Poor dears. Much like the muscle-bound, spray-tanned, flamboyantly theatrical wrestling spectaculars in the States, this is Mexico’s native version, with its own zingy flourishes. It pops with spangled spandex, gasping acrobatics, high-flying punishments and, of course, glittery but menacing masks. It’s like a ‘roided-out Cirque du Soleil with pile-drivers instead of creepy puppets.  

You might know it from “Nacho Libre,” a 2006 Jack Black comedy I found flat, though some people swear by its broad satirical swipes at easy cultural targets. (And, really, any movie starring the frenzied Black, who looks like a stout, overstuffed burrito in his glistening wrestling regalia, can’t be all bad. Well, yes it can.)

The sport — more like “sports entertainment,” because these shows are about as real as a Bugs Bunny cartoon — is massively popular in Mexico and boasts a cast of characters who act out elaborate storylines of good vs. evil, much like in American professional wrestling. Villains are lustily jeered, heroes cheered, feuds and rivalries fanned, and the wrestlers, known as luchadores, egg-on the rowdy throngs. 

The clownish masks that fit snugly over the brawlers’ entire head denote their identity and persona, like superheroes. “Losing a mask in a match is a significant loss, sometimes even more devastating than losing a hair match where the loser shaves their head,” that according to the web. (Think about a hair match in American wrestling, where the men fling their Goldilocks in a weird kind of virile vanity. It would never happen.) 

Back to that BEST NIGHT EVER (Trumpian all-caps theirs), which unfolds when I visit Mexico City in November. Our small group meets at a cantina for tacos (al pastor, please!), beer, tequila and mezcal (another pour, please!) before we head to Arena Mexico, dubbed the Cathedral of Lucha Libre, holding 17,000 fans. 

It’s going to be bedlam, sheer madness. Fans going crazy, beer being hawked, wrestlers executing thunderous body thwumps that rattle the giant ring, masks all over the place. I’m not a big public noisemaker, but I understand our host gives us our own Lucha Libre masks. Maybe, just maybe, I’ll be whooping it up, too. I’m rooting for the villains. 

Quote of the day: depressing and disgraceful

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“Research has associated smartphone use with ADHD symptoms in adolescents, and a quarter of surveyed American adults now suspect they may have the condition. School and college teachers assign fewer full books to their students, in part because they are unable to complete them. Nearly half of Americans read zero books in 2023.”

— The New York Times