Many mouths to feed as my live Allee Willis’ Super Ball Bounce Back Review is only two days away and we be deep into rehearsals. So this 36 incher from Big Mamas and Papas was the only way to go. Actually it wasn’t… There’s also a 54 incher. And it’s mmmmmmmmmmm good too!
My esteemed bandleader, Andrae Alexander, takes the first bite:
Off to host a greatest hits concert at my high school, Mumford, before the wrecking ball knocks down one of the most gorgeous Deco buildings ever ….
(Don’t start me on THAT!)…and the teachers, staff and principal are all let go so kids can walk into the cement block replacement and a wall of new faces over the summer. So this is going to be a big, fat blowout-sendoff-of-an-affair if I have anything to say about it. Which I do!
So 6PM. Thurs. night at Mumford. If you live in Detroit, get yourself to the funkiest couple of hours in the city. You do NOT need to have gone to Mumford to enjoy this. Really, if I do say so myself, there isn’t a corner or mousehole in the world where they don’t know “September”. It’s a fundraiser for the choir and tickets are only $5!!!
I’ll also be heading over to my father’s high school, Cass, which becomes only the second high school in the country to perform my musical, The Color Purple. Performances are Wed. – Sat. Ive been waiting for the high school part of TCP since I wrote it so I can’t wait!
The rest of the week is filled with an endless slew of meetings with movers and shakers, large and small, as I feel out a couple of long term projects I want to do in Detroit. There will also be a lot of barbecue and soul food. In anticipation and though it’s not from Detroit, this was lunch from Uncle Andre’s in Studio City, Ca. yesterday:
Usually, I blog endlessly about my exploits in Detroit, but this time I come back to LA just in time to jump into rehearsals for my Allee Willis’ Super Ball Bounce Back Review live show at King King on May 8 & 9. Im going to try and use this trip to become an interested and dedicated Tweeter, which has felt more like an invasion of my mental state since I signed up soon after the bird launched. But I’ll be in trouble if I concentrate on blogging and not beefing up for my live show, using my hotel bedroom as a pretend stage and finishing the seemingly endless amounts of special visuals and animations I started getting ready with Alfonso Estrada for the show.
So Bon Voyage as I head for LAX. Listen for the tweety bird (which I’ll probably post the best of here too). Back in a week. And back with AWMOK.com postings tomorrow when I awake in the Motor City.
Rehearsals for my May 8 & 9 return to the stage in my Super Ball Bounce Back Review have begun. Given what happened at my last show in October this is very significant!
I also leave for Detroit on Sunday where I’ll be hosting a benefit greatest hits concert at my high school and telling stories of how some of my biggest hits were written while students perform the songs. This includes kids from the dance and drama classes, concert choir, marching band and ROTC drill team.
Don’t even ask me how excited I am about that! Plus it gives me a chance to rehearse some of the stories I’ll be telling at my live show in LA in May. I’ll also be speaking to students at my father’s high school as Cass becomes only the second high school ever to perform my musical, The Color Purple. And all this is stuffed in between 8 trillion meetings with movers and shakers, big and small, to feel out a couple of long term projects that I want to do in my beloved home town.
All of which means I’m going to be completely insane over the next 30 days, which will inevitably cut down on my blogging activities as time I may have spent writing is now going toward prep and rehearsal of those ever-important two days in May, not to mention my week in Detroit.
As a result, I’m going to try and become an interested little tweeter. I don’t know if this will work as I’ve resisted regular tweeting ever since the bird first launched. As an avid natural writer, I’ve always viewed the constant barrage of 140 characters as an invasion to my headspace. I’m also someone who likes to think about what I do, so longer than 140 has always suited me best. But, at least from where my head is right now, tweeting may save me as I try to report in tiny chunks as opposed to longer daily excursions. Here are my tweets from yesterday documenting my first steps toward the stage again:
Rehearsals for my Super Ball Bounce Back Review at King King May 8 & 9 have begun! http://kingkinghollywood.com/
(BTW,What are the chances of there being another A. Willis gracing the stage with me? Well, that’s exactly the case here. That’s A. (Akua) Willis in the hat.)
Perhaps one day I’ll learn the lyrics to my own songs… Creeping slowly through Boogie Wonderland.
I know these are nothing dramatic and so far the only way I’m interested in tweeting is if I can have a photo as a punchline. I put this one up this morning, though the photo’s just a photo and not a punchline:
We’racing 2 finish horror film that opens my new show @ KingKing May 8&9. Best of horrific tech failures frm last show.
I hate typos like ‘We’racing’. That happened in efforts to cut down to less than 140 characters so a photo could accompany the tweet. In the old world I also wouldn’t have wanted to give away the fact that I was making a horror film of the most Titanic moments from the last show, but in a tweet-filled world there’s no room for secrets.
Today’s a free day at home, marking the start of the three day/three suitcase packing process. Hopefully the bug hasn’t hit me full strength just yet and I won’t become one of those tweeting fools who shows you every single thing I’m putting into those suitcases.
Of course, I couldn’t resist and just tweeted that. Now I just need to knock this down to 140 charcters:
My nimble assistants, Dina and Suellen, cut face masks and assemble souvenir multipurpose “Unisex Pendants and Keychains” made out of bubblegum charms that will be for sale at Allee Willis’ Super Ball Bounce Back Review May 8&9 at King King in Hollywood.
My friend, Jason Mecier, brilliant junque drawer portrait artist and whose edible art we stand in front of in the tableau above, did this portrait of me a couple of years ago when I first opened The Allee Willis Museum Of Kitsch at AWMOK.com:
It’s made out of junque I had lying around my house and storage garage, plus some of Jason’s own stash peppering the green background. I constantly collected tons of found objects because the art I did myself, mostly in the 1980’s and early 90’s, consisted of found objects incorporated into my paintings. This is by no means my favorite and looks all jumbled so small (actually 36″x48″) but it’s the only one I could put my hands on right away:
A couple of years ago I also used some of my junque when I collaborated with my alter-ego, Bubbles the artist, who I managed during her six-year career selling over 1000 paintings and ceramics. Although not as junque-covered as I would like to show here, this one’s hanging in my hallway which serves the purpose of easily sliding it into this post.
Since Jason’s portrait of me has hung in my house it’s become de rigueur to be included in any press photos I do, like this one from The Los Angeles Times a couple of weeks ago when I did my Soup to Nuts Party Mix live show.
As Jason took found object assemblage to a whole other place I gladly bestowed some of my most precious junque upon him for the portrait.
Now Jason has incorporated an entirely new medium into his portraiture, one of my favorite substances on earth and a staple here at Willis Wonderland, Red Vines. In his show at Iam8bit last Friday night, “Licorice Flix, Edible Movie Mosaics”, he interpreted the movies thusly:
Here’s me and my date for the night, Storm Lee, singer extraordinaire, with Jason:
And here we are with another good friend of mine as she arrives at the opening, Angelyne:
Lots of good friends in attendance, observing brilliant art and munching on the Red Vine “paint”. From L-R, Storm, me, Jason, Adam Ansel and Daniel Franzese.
I first met Selene Luna, co-star of Margaret Cho’s The Cho Show, through Jason and Adam:
I usually get bored at art openings, but between the art, the place – yay iam8bit -, the featured gourmet treat and medium, Red Vines, I was a happy gal Friday night. I now leave you with Jason’s Nomi slobbering up a stripper pole in the kitsch klassic, Showgirls:
I meant to start posting my thoughts about my Soup To Nuts Party Mix show, my first live performance in 37 years at the El Portal Theater last Tuesday night, the day after the show but I could barely pick up a stylus to write let alone move my mouth in any detectible syllabic pattern because I was so tired and overwhelmed. I’m racing to get photos up, a fun yet gruesome task as there are literally thousands of them to go through. Hopefully by tomorrow I’ll have them organized enough to post. In the meantime, let me tell you about this cruise on the Love Boat that mutated into the Titanic yet somehow still ended up at Fantasy Island…
Stormy seas and all, Soup To Nuts Party Mix was about the most incredible experience that I’ve ever had. Not because it went so well, but because literally 95% of the technology it was dependent on failed. It was apparent from the second I walked on stage that I was going to have to throw out the script and effects I had worked on so furiously for four months and literally ad lib my way through the evening. All I can tell you is that despite riding a sinking technological ship, I kept people in stitches, and I mean tears rolling down their faces, screaming laughter stitches, including standing ovations in the middle of the show for things I was forced to come up with on the spot.
So despite being an utter failure as far as the show I planned, it was an unbelievably cathartic moment as a performer. Like five years worth of working the act out within the space of two hours, some time of which I spent sitting down watching brilliant and charitable friends of mine takeover and help me out.
One of them was the stupendous comedienne Luenell, who has stepped it up at other parties of mine as well and Tuesday night helped a sista out during one of the 6,437,293 technical glitches that befell the stage.
But just as Luenell got to her punchline, something FINALLY popped up on the screen and I had to cut her off.
One of the best moments of the show, although perhaps not for Luenell, was when she then took a seat and the chair started rolling out from under her…
…until she plopped down flat as a log on the floor. When I asked if she needed a first aid kit she yelled “NO, what I need is a lawyer!”
I need the same lawyer for the guy at the controls. But from the jump four months ago I approached this whole thing as a party thrower, not a playwright, and a good party thrower is ready to field anything that goes wrong, even if of a catastrophic nature such as the tech sinkhole happening on stage left. I’m sure a phrase that will stick with my shows forever was born: “Get the foamcore!” as I sent my assistant, Dina Duarte, and set-collaborator, Mark Tomorsky, both on stage with me for the whole show, racing for a ratty piece of paper covered foam to hold over the main monitor every time the wrong photo, lyric for a sing-along or even worse, the tech guy’s desktop, appeared. Here they are hoisting it over what was supposed to be the lyrics to “Boogie Wonderland”, while my collaborator on that song, Jon Lind, kills time with his story about Maurice White, chocolate danishes and other things that happened the day we wrote it.
I doubt that Larry Dunn, founding member of Earth Wind & Fire who played keyboards on the records of “September” and “Boogie Wonderland” and accompanied me on those songs in the show, ever got cut off early before. But I had to yank him short as without lyrics sing-alongs can only be so effective.
Danny Sembello also came onstage for two songs he co-wrote with me, “Neutron Dance” and “Stir it Up”, neither of which were consistently accompanied by correct lyrics.
Chris Price played “I’ll Be There for You”, the theme from Friends and “What Have I Done To Deserve This?”, both of which I was forced to race through without their accompanying stories as by the time we reached them it was already the time I had planned to end the show, 10:15, and we were barely at the halfway point because of the malfunctions. Dina and Mark had the foamcore ready but thankfully the Friends theme is so short and has been hammered into the heads of every audience member a hundred times a day since 1994 so my tech guy could only wreak so much havoc.
And then we were supposed to play Bingo. How do you mess up Bingo??! But if you’re spelling K-I-T-S-C-H and not B-I-N-G-O and there are no visuals to go along with “K- Dust Mop Slippers” or “T-Flowbee”, “S- Farrah Fawcett Shampoo & Conditioner” or “H – Beatles Pantyhose”, who’s going to know what you’re talking about without visual accompaniment? As soon as it was apparent that that too tanked I just turned to the audience and yelled “Fuck Bingo! The first 20 people up on stage get all the prizes!”. You would’ve thought the Gold Rush hit California again from the way this audience stampeded the stage.
Jelly room deodorizers, soccer balls that turn into magic towels when they get wet, vintage Afro picks, matzo ball kitchen timers donated by Davida (who also contributed the packs of Kosher Kurls in the gift bags), Handerpants – underpants with finger holes so graciously displayed by Daniel Franzese in a shot below and donated, as much of the gifts were, by Archie McPhee… this was one of my favorite moments of the show. To me it’s all about interaction between performer and audience and there they all were on stage like bit players and incredible friends. It truly felt like a party in my yard, which is what I had built the set to look like anyway.
Then I threw in a montage from my musical, The Color Purple, though we skipped the sing-along.
And finally, a veritable tour de force, Pigmy Will doing “The Hustle” played us out.
Just like I never learned to read, notate or write music yet have sold 50,000,000 records, or that I didn’t know you mix paint to get different colors until ten years into my art career, I’m probably the only person in theater history who ever booked the theater before they wrote the show and then performed the show before they had a rehearsal. I am, if nothing else, consistent! It’s the spontaneous event and what happens between performer, audience, and stage, whether it’s in a theater or on my porch, that’s the art form to me. Yes, a stage manager and lighting and sound director would have been nice, as would have been a theater whose usual fare wasn’t Christmas specials and geriatric musicals. But thankfully much of the audience was peppered with people who understand the pitfalls the stage can hold. For example:
My sentiments exactly! All I kept thinking as the world collapsed around me was a) what the f&#k is going on and what the hell am I going to do next??, while simultaneously being conscious that b) this will be my most legendary performance ever because I don’t know anyone else who wouldn’t have walked off stage after 20 minutes. Through it all I just kept going and got funnier and funnier and funnier. So the tech mishaps in their own bizarre way worked in my favor. In the end, I got far more out of it than I had intended. My soul soared, and although I was nearly suicidal by the end of the show it was probably the most artistically satisfying thing I’ve ever done. At once everything was shattering around me in the worst conceivable way that anything can happen on stage, yet it was a totally triumphant evening.
Six cameras were shooting. I realize that a brilliant Waiting For Guffman times 1063 could be made out of it. That’s music to the ears of a kitsch lover such as myself, especially one who’s obsessed with learning how to make lemonade out of extremely rotten lemons. So it’s a kind of Self-Help Waiting for Guffman, or in this case, The Tech Guy. I also realize it gives me an incredible starting point for the next version of the show, which should happen by the end of January.
I will never again be afraid of adversity. I will only look at it as an annoying friend that I have to make the best of, and in the making of that a beautiful flower can bloom.
Tons of photos here!
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My time to pay as much attention to my Kitsch O’ The Day blog as I am want to do has dwindled lately because I’ve done what I never thought I would have the guts to do: give live performing a try again after marching off stage in the middle of a song in 1974 and proceed to walk right out of the building, never to return again. Or so I thought… On October 18 I’m going to give the whole thing a go again. As such, I was most ecstatic to stumble on this in the Los Angeles Times, especially as I haven’t really even publicized the show yet, which means they stumbled on it on their own.
If you’re going to be in LA on October 18, come to the El Portal Theater. Leave plenty of room in the aisles as you never know who’s going to be jumping off of the stage. Although I hope that almost 40 years has matured me somewhat and that all my years as a party thrower pay off in this, my about-to-be-most-recent incarnation.
In 1974, Allee Willis walked off stage in the middle of her own show. Now she’s finally coming back! The Grammy, Emmy, Tony and Webby award-winning and nominated songwriter, artist, singer, technologist, collector, and party thrower comes to the El Portal Theater in beautiful North Hollywood for one night only of songs, stories, and party games. Sing-along to Willis’ greatest hits like “September”, “Boogie Wonderland”, “Neutron Dance”, “What Have I Done To Deserve This” and “I’ll Be There For You (theme from Friends)”! Win valuable prizes! Watch her as she attempts to get through the evening without walking off stage for another 37 years!
Show starts at 8:00PM, Tuesday, October 18, 2011
Doors open at 7:00PM with kitschy food + drinks, beer and wine available
TICKETS
So reasonable it’s crazy!
$24.99 and $34.99
(tickets are limited and they’re going fast…)
http://www.elportaltheatre.com/events.html
https://web.ovationtix.com/trs/pe/9248165
or call 1-866-811-4111
El Portal Theatre
5269 Lankershim Blvd.
North Hollywood, CA 91601
“Ms. Willis…considers party-giving an art form” – New York Times
“Allee Willis’ parties are the campiest hot tickets in town” – People Magazine
“..A rare look inside the process of one of the most prolific and tenacious interactive media artists working today.” – salon.com
“Willis is the spokeswoman for this grand dance of junque nouvelle and vérité… as if Ozzie Nelson had acquired a sick and sudden taste for Surrealist poets. Her own interest in kitsch typifies the dichotomy that makes her interesting…The silliness, un-self consciousness, sense of whimsy and innocence are reflected in the absurd designs and bright colors (that surround her). Even the themes lack pretension… Hopeful images of a powerful America and its future.” – LA Weekly
“…A singular vision by an artist, who if not limited by building codes, would be the Simon Rodia of the 21st century.” – Chris Nichols, Los Angeles Magazine
Alex Steinweiss passed away last Sunday. Even if you don’t know his name there’s no way you don’t know his work. Steinweiss literally invented the album cover. Before the 1930’s, records came in brown paper sleeves. At 23, he was hired by Columbia Records and suggested that the music be accompanied by poster art. Thus began the singlemost prolific and influential record jacket design career the world has ever known. Not only did Steinweiss give life to the record industry but he made the burgeoning Atomic Age visible to the public, creating the first wave of freeform design that designers still ride today.
Everything Steinweiss did burst with color. You could hear the music without listening to it just by looking at one of his covers. He was as great at what he did as it gets. His style is still imitated, though I’ve never seen anyone nail it like Steinweiss, who makes even the most successful designer of modern graphics look like a copycat.
And those aren’t even his most famous covers. But it gives you an idea of the rhythmic and lyrical style that still influences modern design today. This was the first time this stuff was being done. Just look at the Google image search page for an overview crash course.
I’m sure that Floyd Cardoz is a magnificent chef and I should’ve seen his win coming from that constant coming-in-second storyline all season. But having spent at least half of my adult life eating Mary Sue Milliken’s food, I went into the Top Chef Masters finale openly prejudiced that she would reign supreme. But alas…
The true true winners last night were Mary Sue’s friends, gathered at Border Grill to watch the finale with her and eat the food she made onscreen amidst the skyscrapers downtown.
Mary Sue won more challenges this season than any other chef. We couldn’t believe she lost, especially as we were sitting there chomping down on the food she competed with. Nano-seconds after Floyd was crowned she was gracious as always, despite guests like me screaming she was robbed!
But I’m here to tell you Mary Sue’s final challenge dishes were INCREDIBLE. Not only were we were served all of them during the finale as they were served to the judges onscreen, but a whole round of other tongue-numbing treasures were passed around during the final elimination show Bravo ran the hour before.
My apologies in advance to Mary Sue for the following descriptions as I undoubtably short-change everything by not being able to describe every ingredient or name the dishes by proper title. I am NOT the next Food Network star! (Though let me loose on diner fare and that’s a different story.)
First came ceviche:
Then cheese empanadas with guacamole:
I know that’s not the way to photograph a foodstuff when one is trying to impress the quality of it upon the reader. The guacamole should be neatly dabbed on top so the empanada doesn’t look like it’s been dragged through the guacamole as one would use a scraper to remove ice from a windshield. Here’s a better, pre-guacamole view:
Quinoa fritters came next:
I THINK the following is avocado tacos coated with sesame seeds and quinoa, but I heard someone at the next table fawning over ahi tuna something. So it could go either way. I just know it was crunchy and good. I also know the photo is blurry, but when it comes to Mary Sue’s cooking it all deserves to be seen.
Finally it’s 7 pm. and the actual finale show begins. For their final challenge, the chef’s had to cook a three-course meal-of-a-lifetime based around food memories. Course #1 was a dish inspired by their first taste memory. Mary Sue made Asian steak tartare.
The second course had to represent a dish that inspired them to become a chef in the first place.
Mary Sue made crab and shrimp salpicon with shrimp and chervil mousse stuffed rigatoni:
If you’ve never been to Border Grill, that’s a MUST. Really, your tastebuds will be thanking you forever.
Long live the Queen!
Well, it only took close the four decades for me not to be stage fright and have absolutely one of the best nights of my life when I sang and told stories about the songs I’d written live on stage Monday night at The Songs Of Our Lives concert to benefit the Fulfillment Fund. After being hung up about performing ever since I walked off stage after only six songs in 1974, to say I’m ready to come back is an understatement!! Well, in relatively small doses but I’m willing to try. Thank you SO MUCH, Charlie Fox, for insisting I perform. I feel like a massive weight has lifted and I’m very excited to see the shift that’s going to occur in my never-ending rollout of what I’m going to do next.
As if that massive psychological breakthrough of being terrified and forgetting very word in my head wasn’t enough, I got to experience three incredible hours of sound check and four incredible hours of performances by some of the most legendary songwriters on the planet. I’ve long cherished songwriters’ versions of their own songs over the records made of them. If you’ve never had a chance to hear a songwriter sing one of your favorite songs you’re missing out on a truly soulful experience. Regardless of whether their voices are as powerful as the artists who made the records, the deliveries are so authentic and heartfelt you could die. Not only do you get the power of the song but the intention with which it was written. All I did was swoon for seven hours, and having my own performance thrown in there with the bonus of having an absolutely insanely wonderful time on stage – how can I even be saying those words??!? – this experience was seriously was one of the best gifts I’ve ever been given.
It was the first time ever outside of a friend or two’s living room that I sang “September”, “Boogie Wonderland”, “Neutron Dance”, and “I’ll Be There for You (theme from Friends)” in public. I nipped one previous mental saboteur in the butt by carrying out a fistful of lyrics so I didn’t have to panic about forgetting the words.
A huge epiphany: The difference of singing songs that everyone in the audience knows from singing the first ten songs you ever wrote that no one in the audience has even heard of, which was the case in 1974, is massive. It gave me confidence that I never knew as a singer before. Added to it was that this was an audience who truly appreciated songwriters, and hearing the stories behind the songs was what they were there for. And if there’s one thing this blog has finally hammered into my brain, I’m a good storyteller.
Of course, now I’m kicking myself that I didn’t tell everyone I know to come. I knew that would make me more nervous and I really accepted the gig to try and get over this hideous weight of stage fright. So I only told those absolutely closest to me, and was very relieved when most of them had conflicts for the evening as Michele Obama was in town and they were going to a dinner for her. But the party faithful were here. L-R- me, Nancye Ferguson, Prudence Fenton, and Laura Grover.
Mark Blackwell trailed me on video, a routine we have worked out to a science by now, as Bob Garrett arrived.
I shared a dressing room with legendary jazz singer, Dianne Reeves. How I blanked on taking a photo with my fellow Detroiter I don’t know, but at least I got the shot of our dressing room door.
There were also a ton of legendary producers and players in the audience, not the least of whom was Michael Boddicker, probably the most lauded synth player who’s ever lived. Like he played on every Michael Jackson record and a trillion other classics.
Michael always tells the story of one time we worked together and I was trying to describe a particular sound I wanted him to make on a duet between Herb Alpert and Lani Hall, who I wrote for and produced in 1981. Now I make no secret that I know absolutely nothing about music other than how to write a great song. I couldn’t tell you the definition of a specific music term like measure, adagio or anything. But for a player who’s excessively visual – and trust me, in those days there weren’t a whole lot of them – describing the sound I wanted as “a ping-pong ball being crushed underneath a seagull’s wing” was perfectly clear to Boddicker.
Right before I went on I did some major bonding with the evening’s emcee, Tony Danza.
I’d never met him before but he knew I was nervous and not only was a very encouraging daddy backstage but gave me a great set up line when I walked out so I could talk about the lunchroom debacle and why I had shunned doing anything on stage ever since. It got an immediate laugh, which was like a Valium rolling down my throat, and I was on my way.
But it was the songwriters themselves who made the evening shine most. Jeff Barry went on right after me.
Here are just a few of Jeff’s gems: “Da Doo Run Run”, “Doo Wah Diddy Diddy”, “Then He Kissed Me”, “Be My Baby”, “Baby I Love You”, “Tell Laura I Love Her”, “Chapel of Love”, “Iko Iko”, “Remember (Walkin’ In The Sand)”, “Leader of the Pack”, “River Deep, Mountain High”, “I Can Hear Music”, “Montego Bay”, “I Honestly Love You”,and “Sugar Sugar”. Not to mention the theme from The Jeffersons, “Movin’ On Up”, my favorite TV theme song (next to, of course, Friends). And literally, those are just a few of them.
Someone I had never met before but whose songs I always loved and who is sure to become a great friend now was David Pack.
He had/has one of those killer voices that made the songs he wrote for his group, Ambrosia, have that classic ring. Last night he sang “You’re the Biggest Part of Me”, “You’re the Only Woman”, “Holdin’ On To Yesterday”, and “How Much I Feel”.
But the guy who put me over the top even more than those pillars of masterful songwriting was Felix Cavaliere, writer and lead singer for The Rascals.
How do you write a song as classic as “Groovin”?! And “It’s a Beautiful Morning” and “People Got to Be Free”?! Felix was the first writer to do a sound check when I arrived in the afternoon. They didn’t have most of the mics set up yet so I got to hear that most incredible “Groovin'” bass line, probably one of the most used and imitated in the history of music, over and over again. I literally was sitting there with tears dripping down my face it was so exciting for me as a songwriter to be in the presence of such greatness. That we became fast and thick friends backstage only added to my joy.
Thank you, Chris Price, for accompanying me. You were PERFECT!
So, all in all it was a pretty classic day and night for me. I can’t believe I wasted all these years being nauseous at the thought of doing anything like this. But I’m back and that’s all that’s important.
