Charles French - Food, Travel, Ramblings, Etc. - For The Modern Age.

Small changes often make the biggest difference, I’ve talked before about my focus changing and going to things that aren’t related to the core focus of charlesfrench.com, but who says the core focus of charlesfrench.com can’t change too?

So today I debut a new banner up top, and a new tag line. While things with me will always be ‘afoot’, the new tag better describes the site, my small change in focus here, and expands for me to express things that weren’t necessarily appropriate before. I think “Food, Travel, Rambings, Etc. - For The Modern Age.” is going to cover a lot of ground and open up possibilities I hadn’t thought of before.

Additionally today saw the launch of two new websites “pre-d.com” will focus on my recent ‘Pre-Diabetic’ diagnosis and what I’m doing to reverse that. “FromFatAssToFit.com“ is something I’ve been thinking of for a long time and have 4 other friends on-board to write as well. The journey on both sites should be interesting. And I’m looking forward to the collaborative effort quite a bit.

Peace,
Chaz

So…

Back in June I went to see Blondie perform at the Nokia Theatre in Times Square NYC. During the show I snuck out my camera and snapped a few photos which was against the rules, but I did it anyway. I personally know that Debbie doesn’t mind photos, she minds the damn flashbulbs, but it’s easier to ban photography than to teach idiots to turn off their flash. I know better…

So after the show I sent Bob Betts a link to my flickr photos. Now I know Bob, he’s a friend, and he has in the past published a couple of my and my sister’s photos from a Blondie show. I figured he’d want to use a photo or two, it was hard to get good photos in that lighting, and having to rely heavily on my zoom.

I was pretty damn shocked when a couple of days after the show Bob sent me an email asking for a headshot and bio because he was using a photo of mine on the cover.

Today my copy of issue 31 of The Blondie Review arrived in the mail, and I was blown away, not only did Bob put one of my photos on the cover, he put one on the inside back cover, AND gave me a two page spread in the magazine with a picture of me, and not just a bio, but a short story about me from his perspective. I am deeply honored that Bob used my photos, and touched by his extremely kind words about me.

Anyone who is interested may buy a copy of the magazine “TBR issue 31” through the link. Please note that ALL profits go to charities that Debbie Harry supports and that this magazine is the only band authorized fanzine.

Please consider buying a copy.

Chaz
PS The blog post is the title of a Blondie song.

The news is all atwitter the last 24 hours about the late Julia Child’s time in the OSS.

It’s not been a secret for a long time that she worked in the OSS in a clerical role, it was long suspected that she was more than a secretary, and the CIA even admitted as much back in 2007.

So why is this suddenly news again, could there be even more details about her time as a spy to be released? Could it be that her name was highlighted because the news was released on August 13th, 2008, the fourth anniversary of her death?

Who knows…

What I know is that I’m seeing Julia all over my TV news, my newspapers, websites, blogs, radio, even my Kindle; and you know what, it feels good.

I adore Julia Child, she has inspired and influenced my life, my cooking, my soul. Knowing that she was also a spy just makes her all the more cool and awesome.

So I’m going to go and put on an episode or two of The French Chef, maybe leaf through my copy of MtAoFC V1, and remember the awesomeness that was Julia Child.

Chaz

Dear John Chow,

I think it’s great that you’re having this contest, and while I would personally love to go I probably can’t get the time off, but I’m entering your contest anyway, and if you choose my entry I’m giving it to Merlene Paynter of Frugalous.com.

Why Merlene? Because she’s an awesome person, I know her personally, and not just in an Internet way. I’ve stayed at her home, cooked with her, met her family, including her now ex-husband. Merlene has had 2 of the roughest years of anyone I know both online or off, and now she’s coming out of that time and heading off into a future that’s looking to be bright and wonderful and full of all the things that make Merlene so fucking awesome.

I want Merlene to go to Blog World Expo, I want her to meet her Super Heros, I want her to learn and grow and show the world her dazzling smile. Because I know that when she returns, she’s going to take all of that and put it into Frugalous.com, merlenepaynter.com and the host of other sites I know she has in her.

We talk, we talk a lot, every day in fact and we bounce ideas off of each other, come up with crazy schemes, plots and misadventures, She’s the Lucy to my Ethel, she inspires me to do better and for that she should win.

Charles
PS Merlene had nothing to do with this, and will probably kick my ass for posting it.

So, you may have noticed, I haven’t exactly posted in a while…

There’s a bunch of reasons, some good, some lazy, and some… well life has this way of throwing curve balls at you…

I’m working on a number of ideas, none of which are related to the focus of my personal weblog… CharlesFrench.com was always meant to be a starting point, and now I’m at a place where a number of the things that I’m actively interested in don’t fit in with the topic I’ve chosen for this site. so rather than change the focus, I’m starting some new sites, notice the plural… This site will remain a place where I share recipes and my personal thoughts on my travels, it may even expand to include my personal thoughts outside of those areas. but it’s not meant to be a catchall the way some personal blogs are and at least for me that means I need to make some delineations.

As I get new things set up, I’ll post links to them here, and this site will continue, I lost my domain name once, it’s not going to happen again, it may just not have the frequency I originally wanted, and that’s okay.

I’m not ready to start promoting the other sites I’m working on, but they’re going to be interesting to say the least. I’m working on ideas for a couple of podcasts which I’m hoping to have started by mid-september, A live streaming video site is in the planning stages for mid-2009. I’ve got two health and well-being sites that need my attention, one is solo and very specific to the large brick my doctor dropped on my head last week, and the other is with a group of friends who are going through their own health issues and want to reach out and share their stories. I’m also working out a plan for a more professionally oriented travel site… To say my plate is full, would be ignoring the things that are falling off it, I’ve got big plans, big thoughts and big dreams, which brings me to…

Some dreams I’ve been having lately; ones that wake you up with a force and hit you upside the head with ideas… So I’ve been getting up in the middle of the night to take notes on them for a clothing line that has been appearing in my dreams for a couple of weeks now. This part will take the longest to implement, because I’ve got a bit of a learning curve with the designing programs I’ve chosen to use, and some learning of how to use silk screening equipment, I could go with cafepress, but then most of the money from the clothes would be going to them, and they wouldn’t be true to the dreams, these shirts are meant to be made by hand, although I do plan to offer a full line of them within Second Life as well.

Lastly, there’s a part of me that no one has seen in a good decade now, and it’s time for me to at least try to start getting back in touch with my poetic self. I’m actually a damn good poet, and not a bad lyricist either, but I haven’t been talking to that part of me for a very long time, and it is well past time for me to get back to it. I’ve been highly lauded by professors and musicians for my past works, time to dust off that part of me as well.

As things get up and running, I’ll post links here, to twitter, and seesmic, and phreadz, and utterz, and 12Seconds, and Facebook and BLOODY HELL That’s too much bullshit… there should be a site a place where all thing Chaz come together…

And it’s on the way www.DigitalChaz.com will launch as a catchall tumblog of all the various parts of me. At the moment there is only a banner there, that will be changing soon.

Peace,
Chaz
PS Now that I’ve gotten that off my chest, perhaps, just perhaps I’m finally free to start posting the stuff from France and some recipes I’ve been sitting on for quite some time.

I feel better now!