We Have Relocated!!!

Saving the World. Killing Animals.

I watch the baristas (if they're male is it baristos?) at King's Road scoop their potently dark coffee beans from giant gray trashcans into petite brown paper bags. That's gross, I think. The fact that these receptacles have most certainly never been used as proper waste baskets for old food leaves my irrationality undeterred. I will forever associate a trash can with the smell of curdled chocolate milk and sour ham sandwiches. I'd like to not see my precious coffee being stored in such a container of ill repute.
You see, Senior year of high school I become quite familiar with these bins. A recycling club was formed by students and spearheaded by Dr. Foffanoff - a man whose name appropriately and with almost onomatopoeia-like accuracy described his demeanor, gait, and hand movements. His ambiguous sexual orientation was due less to actual ambiguity but rather the strict Catholic school that he had sadistically chosen to exist within. And of all things he was a religion teacher. You could almost see the self-flagellation wounds bleeding through the back of his button up shirt.
We were attempting to save the planet, to see further than beyond our upper-middle class and sometimes plastic surgeon adjusted noses. At the end of the semester we were to donate all of the proceeds of our recycling dollars to a charity of choice. I think it had something to do with homeless kids or hungry kids or kids without books. Whatever. The effort entailed topping the aforementioned cans with state-of-the-art lids, replete with a four inch circular holes, thus separating them from the "I don't give a shit about the planet" cans. The idea was that if teenagers saw the shape of the hole, they would place things of the appropriate size...something akin to that blocks game everyone played when they were babies. X's went in the X holes, Os went in the O holes, and if you got tired of banging them around to see what went where you could opt to just chew on the pieces.
As rudimentary as this plan sounded, it was almost impossible to illicit cooperation from my lazy and ignorant peers. Every lunch a few of us would stand up on chairs and make a reminding announcement over inane chatter about who hates who and who blew who. But our red-faced requests to "PLEASE REMEMBER TO RECYCLE!" were always drowned out by "Chad did WHAT to WHO?!"
Twice a week after school our group of tree-hugging blessed souls would snap on some thin latex gloves and dig through our treasure bins, separating the wheat from the chaff if you know what I mean. The four inch opening never appeared to indicate it's intention. People preferred to interpret the specialized lids for little trash for little trash collectors to take to little trash dumps. Like Lilliput for garbage. Wads of chewed gum, half-eaten BBQ chicken pizza, open containers of ranch dressing, banana peels, etc. Fifty percent of the bins would be filled with toxic rotting shit and the other half full of germ ridden sticky cans not worth the five cents we were trading them in for. It was a thankless job.
One day, doing more of the same, we heard a panic within the ranks.
"OHMYGOD.OHMYGOD.OHMYGOD."
Being the good rubbernecking, eavesdropping seventeen-year-olds that we were, everyone ran to the direction of the squealing. By the front door of the cafeteria and up the stairs from my World History class, a blue trash can lay on its side, cans and garbage spilling out from it like a cornucopia. A girl stood above with her arm held against her nose. Closing in, we all did the same. Amongst the Tang, Pepsi, and Diet Dr. Pepper was a dead squirrel, stiff, having drowned in a mound of filth and good intentions.
The most ineffective recycling program in the history of West Hills ended soon after the slaughter. We earned about $51 from all of our manual labor and lunch hour PR efforts - a sum I would have gladly donated from a week of blending Mahalo Mangos at my juice bar gig. Anything if it would have saved that poor animal. Recycling kills. Trashcans are dirty. The end.


(What our squirrel might have looked like had he/she been able to pursue a long, happy life)

Review: Metric at the Wiltern

The curtains come up. I look over at Brett and yell, "It's 30 Seconds to Mars! And that's Jared Leto!" The guitarist's hair is straight and shiny and as the light reveals him more honestly he more so resembles Michael Pitt during beer drinking phase. The opening act, Sebastien Grainger, is a motley crew of queer doppelgangers. The lead singer wears a Nascar/Elvis inspired jumpsuit, looking like Freddy Mercury as played by Jonathan Rhys Meyers with facial hair. The keyboardist is a strange lovechild of Mario and Luigi. He's got the height of his momma and the 'stache of papa. He hangs a tambourine around, gyrates epileptically in his designated area. His curly hair shoots out of a sweatband and his stiff, white over-sized shirt reminds me of the waiters at the Red Dragon Chinese Restaurant in West Hills.
They rock out admirably hard for an opening band. They even go through the dramatic trouble of removing the whole band, save fake Freddy for a sentimental solo. He is bathed in the white spotlight and I feel like I am watching The Phantom of the Opera all over again. When he's done crooning thirty seconds later the band is back on the stage perform the rest of the song. In between songs the singer makes what I think are jokes but he snorts them out pretty quickly. I can't decide if I'm at an Eagles of Death Metal show or watching Dane Cook at the Laugh Factory.
Brett has given me a pair of white earplugs to soften the blow to my delicate hearing and I am appreciative. I do, however, liken it to wearing a condom. While you are safe and protected, you just don't feel it. During Metric's last song later in the evening I entice him to take them out for just a moment while they do a quiet acoustic set, just to hear the hum of the speakers and the rustling of the crowd...all of the details that get censored when you attempt to save your ears. When it sounds as though they're going to crank up the tunes again, we slip the plugs back into their appropriate holes. I look over at Brett and yell, "It's like playing 'Just the Tip'!"
The earplugs have the added bonus feature of making the conversations around me more audible than the music being played on stage. The girls behind us are loud and yell things like "I love your mustache!" and "I want to fuck you!" and when the roadies are on stage moving equipment they yell "I want to have sex with all of you...at the same time!" I turn to investigate the age of these potty mouth horn dogs, guessing 7th grade in maturity but most likely 10th grade in reality. I am assaulted by one pair of ironic hipster glasses and four pairs of rather large boobs. I had assumed that their hollering and panting would cease when Metric comes on (female singer, Emily Haines) but these girls are unstoppable maniacs.
"I would go lesbian for you!"
"Emily!!! Emily Haines!!!"
"You're so sexy!!!!!!"
"She's so sexy!"
"OH MY GOOODDDDDDDDDD!!!!!!!"
They're right to be riled up for her. She's petite and adorable and thoughtfully fashionable. She comes on stage silent and covered in a form-hugging, gold-sequined dress, platinum blond shaggy hair, and a sparkly Chanel-esq black jacket. They start playing. She headbangs dangerously while she toys with the keyboard. She is most definitely a good time. At the end of their first song a cobalt blue light pours over them and on us like a technicolor fog. The effect is used multiple times, interchanging between that blue and a gold that matches her outfit. It doesn't get any less mesmerizing.
It's a good time this show. The group to my right bounces up and down endlessly. The floor thuds under the pressure of moving bodies. I note that they too are about ten years my junior and I wonder if I'm too old to like this music. Brett reassures me that there are other people here our age and I stop worrying. A group of girls look at each other and scream the lyrics, dance holding hands, bound about spryly. I am reminded of a piece of myself. Their mother's are probably picking them up afterward. For most of the show I am trapped behind two taller boys with shaggy hair, whose backlit forms open and close to reveal the stage like prop wooden forests in a ballet production. Occasionally the screaming girls behind me catch strands of my hair with their bracelets and I'll feel the twang of my locks being removed violently. The place liberally layers the smell of vomit, Barbasol shave cream, and human sweat. Oh rock and roll, I love thee.

Rutherford Dr.

Up a winding Hollywood hill, at the end of an ungenerously narrow cul-de-sac, stands a 1920s Tudor style home painted brown and tan. It is meant to whimsical and in many ways it is. The realtor greets me from the door while I am still getting out of my car. She has short hair a la the Golden Girls and red lipstick that had been applied earlier in the day, all that remains of her efforts is a stain of the color on her lips. When she says hi she is friendly and jovial and well-intentioned. I walk through the door and understand that such a personality is precisely what is going to be needed in order to sell this place.
What has become a common expectation of mine in this house hunt are strange smells. One I am particularly fond of is cat piss and this place provides plenty. Confirmation of the owner's pet of choice is in the form of two bags of Friskies near the entrance. The carpet is a deep and dark ruby red, obviously worn over the course of time to something more accurately resembling drying blood. The ceilings are coved and completely cracked with water damage, the old sooty cream paint often morphing into a muddied brown. Glass Christmas tree ornaments hang from the fifteen foot ceiling.
I ask the woman how long the previous tenant had lived here although the answer is an obvious "forever." She tells me the man had been here since the 1940s and had passed away this year (not in this house she assures some other prospective buyers...a pair of contractors that leave within five minutes, knowing that this place is in need of more than cosmetic resurfacing). An easel sits in the corner, covered in drawings that I assume to be his own. "He was an artist," she tells me, "An eccentric old codger."
The place is categorically frightening, but an odd feeling of dilapidated calm prevails in this crumbling old house. I walk into the room with two chairs and "a million dollar view" as the agent puts it. And that it is. The house faces the entirety of Los Angeles...the beach, the hills, downtown, the flats, all of it. The clouds are big and rumbling today. It is clear. This man literally watched LA develop from dust. Piece by piece by piece the surface of the city changed in front of these lead glass windows. Airfields turned into office buildings. Barren dirt turned into shopping centers. Freeways sliced through stately neighborhoods. I wonder if he was sad about it. Disappointed in some way. This place was his city much more than it is mine.
I agree with the woman about the view and move into the dining room with lumberjack plaid wallpaper peeing away from the walls. From there I go to the kitchen and then out a door to the patio. The breeze blows hard from the beach and my hair whips back behind my shoulders. There is something about this place that reminds me of Disneyland and what would happen if its dreams were abandoned.
More details are provided to me by what has turned into two realtors, a man in addition to the woman with red lipstick. It was supposedly quite the Hollywood party place. "Swank," she calls them. The owner was ninety-eight when he passed. The house is 2500 square feet. There are maid's quarters on a detached lower level, complete with laundry chute. There is an attic upstairs...
On second floor are the bedrooms. The first is quite small and I try to relate to the gentleman realtor by saying that my brother always got stuck in rooms like this growing up. The master room shows the same signs of neglect as the res of the home. There are few things in it aside from an uncomfortable and dusty looking bed and a few old lighting fixtures. The next room is cluttered with pictures and birthday cards and stacks of books. An adjustable hospital bed points at me from the door. I offer that this was maybe the old man's room but he tells me that he thinks this is where the granddaughter who lived with him stayed. Yikes.
The realtors direct me back upstairs and to the attic. When I am told that there is an inoperable bathroom there I sense it is less to tell me about an convenient design feature and more to warn me not to venture into it. There are windows on three of the four sides of the roof. This was his artist's studio and I can see why. It is 4 in the afternoon and the light on the wood floor is generous and still.
Before I head down to the maid's quarters, the man walks me over to the outdoor stairs and makes sure I watch my step. These people feel like grandparents and I want to have holidays with them. Twenty some-odd rough-hewn steps later I am in a floor of the house that hasn't been occupied or used in at least thirty years. Leaves lay carelessly on top of paper thin wood floors. Slats underneath the walls peer out of gaping holes in the plaster. Window panes are missing. There are two industrial wash bins that were probably used before the advent of washing machines. The view is still spectacular and despite it's ill repair, there is something quite lovely about it. At some point in time this housed one of the luckiest maids in the word.
When I walk back to the main floor I talk to the realtors for some length. I feel slightly guilty knowing that I am not going to buy this home. They offer to contact me about another that needs "less work" and I agree. I say that I hope someone else does right by this house and I do, if it's even possible. I get into my car thinking about that house as less of a piece of property and more of a testament of time and of life, of how a house deteriorates as you deteriorate...everything sinking into disrepair until the day you're not there anymore to care about it.

Celebreality Bites: The Poser Edition

In my experience, the flight between New York and Los Angeles has always been fraught with interesting characters. I once had the opportunity of sitting six bodies away from Catherine Keener, whom I identified first by her booming alcoholic witch cackle of a laugh. Needless to say, I felt very honored to be in the same vessel with such a talented actress. That and having a celebrity on a plane usually makes me feel more at ease with the flight, as I would like to believe that God would not strike down an aircraft carrying that variety of superior human. Celebrities die in private planes, not a Jet Blue Airbus.
More often, though, I am surrounded by people that God would gladly take down during Freak Accident Quota Deadline, weather permitting and myself included. Back in 2002, I got trapped in between a drafty window and an young vaguely Indian man who introduced himself as Anand Jon. I am tirelessly wary of people who introduce themselves to you using both their first and last name. These are people who want to establish "Names" for themselves. These are people who want you to remember them down the road. These are people desperately attempting to prematurely stake out a legacy for themselves or are sociopaths who believe they've already done so. These people are douche bags. Apparently Anand Jon does double duty, also taking some time out of his busy schedule being a lame ass to design clothes.
Quickly into the flight, Anand Jon puts his press kit in my lap. At this point in my life I was a first year Communications student who got drunk on Long Island Iced Teas because it was economical. I bought burnt orange Jones New York sweaters from Century 21. The closest thing I had come to regular perusal of a fashion magazine were the issues of Seventeen I subscribed to back in middle school where I learned to mash avocado and mayonnaise together as a remedy for dull hair. I had no idea what a press kit was or what designers were cool. Nothing. I was delightfully immune to the whole machine; as immune as someone who had grown up in South Jersey.
So when the black binder of magazine clippings and badly written articles gets passed my way I did not know that I should have pretended I didn't speak English and ask him to kindly leave me alone in the universal language of physical violence. Nor do I laugh in his face and tell him he's an attention grubbing egomaniac and I'm just a college student who really doesn't care about his clothing line. Instead, I politely flip through page by page while he breathes over me, superfluously pointing out which pictures were of him with Paris Hilton.
Despite being an age when I was not so fashionable, I recognized that these bedazzled, Bollywood-inspired hankerchief dresses were not fashion. Wet Seal wouldn't even sell this stuff. But I smiled and placated, said "Wow..." a few times. And eventually the flight was over.
Aside from the irritation I developed like a light rash from the five hours I spent being a captive audience for the equivalent of an Amway salesperson, I also honed in on something else. This guy was creepy. The creep seeped out of his pores and over his seat and into my seat. This was before I really developed a radar for this kind of thing. But humans are animals and the "Fight or Flight" instinct is alive and well. I surmise to guess that the only thing stopping Mr. Jon from touching me inappropriately was the plane full of bothersome witnesses.
A few years later I get a casting to shoot for his clothing line. The address is on Maple Street, a residential area. I realize it is his apartment when I park my car. This is something that happens often in this industry and goes against all common sense and rules of safety that your mother teaches you when you're in kindergarten. Hold hands when crossing the street, don't eat candy you find on the bathroom floor, when a strange man asks you to come into his car/house/pants you run away screaming "Fire! Fire! Fire!" A few months into modeling I had to put all of this training behind me for the sake of actually booking work. Although I do admit that in the beginning I would say a little prayer and hope that this wasn't the last casting I would ever go on.
When I got inside, there were a few other girls trying on jeans. He was in the living room taking pictures with a digital camera. There was no music. There were no sounds. Just the eerie quiet that usually signifies ill intentions or judgment (most often it's just judgment). When he didn't recognize me I decided not to offer our shared plane trip as a proverbial olive branch. He pointed to the bathroom and told me to try on a pair of jeans on the counter. There was another girl in the bathroom. She was quiet as she pulled on her pants.
A sneaking suspicion crept over me that it would be reasonable to think that he had cameras hidden in between towels and toilet paper rolls and that this casting was only a ruse to acquire more footage for his personal perv collection. "At least I'm not getting raped outright," I think reassuringly.
I leave the casting and like hundreds of times before, I don't book the job. This time I really didn't care. I do, however, take interest when three months later I hear that Anand Jon has been arrested for the sexual abuse of minors and young women, some models. Apparently instinct isn't as sharp in some people and for this I am terribly sorry.



When I Google Anand Jon, a website comes up asking to support him in the egregious injustice he faces. There is a quote from Ghandi and a picture of him looking like a doe-eyed, innocent angel. Even facing life in prison, this guy is a completely ridiculous tool.

You mean they're LYING to me????!!!!

As found today on a my daily breakdown adventure.

House Hunt: Experience One

Veronica's mom, Kathy, is helping me on my quest for a reasonably priced home of reasonable size, reasonably close to Los Angeles. These small requests typically add up to a 1,100 square foot, 1.2 million dollar house down the street from a 7/11 decorated by homeless people asking for spare change.

This is a bank owned house for sale on the edge of Hancock Park, a place I aspire to live when I'm 36 with small children and a book deal. The surrounding neighborhoods are tree lined and darling. It is, however, spitting distance from Wilshire and La Brea. Paranoia permits me to imagine armed robberies and blaring traffic ruining the enjoyment of drinking my iced tea in the backyard. The price is $509 K - a relative steal. Buyer beware, of course.

I pull up to 624 South Orange and survey the outside: wood-slated, white-painted, big-ish mismatched windows. I move closer. I begin to notice strange additions, rotting wood, clues to what might be inside. Kathy isn't there yet so I wait on the front patio that has been overzealously covered almost completely with cement. The previous tenants obviously had an aversion to yard maintenance. I can hear a pair of competing buyers walking around inside, the wood floors audible from where I sit. They leave and I wait until they're out of sight until I go snoop around the backyard. As this is my first stop on my real estate tour de force I have no idea what protocol is involved in house hunting. I'm four steps into the backyard when I notice a french window has been left entirely open. So much for the lock box on the front door. I innocently step through the crumbling threshold and into the dining room. There is a strange odor that persists the entire length of my stay; a combination of cat piss, toxic mold, and old lady.

As the MLS description attested, there is hardwood flooring in the living room and dining room. The rest of the house is suffocating under thick cream carpeting that closely resembles a dirty, murdered polar bear. The stains are suspicious. I suspect foul play. I admire that they attempted to deep clean it, not knowing that whoever is going to buy this pieces of property will most certainly not be holding onto that soiled mess. The thought of walking barefoot on it scares me more than a HoJo in Vegas.

There are a reported 3 bedrooms and 2 baths, 1 of which has been done without permits. When I discover this room, which has the architectural bones of the outhouse I used to use at the ranch while my dad and brother killed ground squirrels, I sense that this is the culprit of at least 33% of the smell I previously mentioned. Tucked sneakily in the corner of the rear bedroom, the undocumented 2nd bathroom had a large hole in the ceiling allowing for a modest view of the sky above. How lovely. The ceiling bared no trace of a legitimate barrier from the elements. All I could see was broken orangey drywall and thin slats of wood supporting it. This is the same "roof" utilized over the "laundry room." When Kathy eventually meets me inside she ponders what they did when it rained. This is a very thought provoking question to which I have no concrete answer. As the mold creeping up the wall of the adjacent bedroom might indicate, these people did nothing to thwart rain from pouring into their house, seeping through their walls, drowning whatever insulation might exist there.

The kitchen is large...extremely large. A "cooks kitchen!" I might have exclaimed if I could ever imagine sanitarily handling food that would enter my body in there. The floor is linoleum, the counters are that thick plastic nonsense, the cabinets are that fake birch people buy at Home Depot and use in rooms they don't care about (i.e. the lavatories of an ice factory or the tool shed of a fish farm). There is an inexplicable row of bricks that emerge from the wall and then disappear into the shiny white paint again - gone forever, having shown no integral use or purpose for the space. There is an "island" in the center room that Kathy good naturedly points out that it is movable. I would move this whole kitchen straight into a giant blue dumpster if I could. She then looks around and asks, "Where do you put the refrigerator?" Valid point. Apparently in the tragedy of this kitchen "remodel" the contractor failed to install any electrical plugs...anywhere...literally. I don't think the people who lived here (shudder to think) ate anything but canned beans and tuna fish.

The bathroom looks like it underwent a similarly inspired renovation as the kitchen. Both fireplaces have suspicious holes, one I surmise is where the rat that pooped in the closets got in. I feel as though this house is crying from the trauma it has been through and those tears are evident in the water damage that soaks through the cottage cheese ceilings. It's so depressing to think that this was once a lovely and cared for home. One that was loved nearly 100 years ago. People that treat properties like this are the Michael Vick's of home ownership.

I exit Woodlake Avenune and turn onto Leonora. This is not my street anymore. It has not been my street since 1999 when we sold it for $380,000 in a bidding war between three people. It had stained glass windows we purchased from an antique dealer in Ventura. Before we moved I walked around with yellow Post-It notes and sketched out the details, the variations in glass textures between each leaden barrier. These summer nights make me miss being a kid, make me miss sleeping on the lawn chairs in the backyard, make me miss opening that narrow window above my bed when I got too hot in my sleep. The crickets chirp the same.
It is dark and the kitchen light is on. Everything looks so much smaller in scale, even from the street. Their garage door is open. They have a BMW. A few years ago I noticed they'd taken down the cabinet doors I had painted when we remodeled there. I was surprised it stayed up as long as it did; who wants to keep a sloppily executed heart, smiley face, and upsidedown peace sign above your washing machine anyway? When I was young and the house was less old there were a pair of child hand prints embedded in the cement of our driveway - remnants of another life, some other life. That, too, was demolished when we tore up the driveway in '95.
I pass the house as slowly as I can within anti-stalker reason and then it's gone. I drive past Van's house and Robby's house. I pass the house of Phil's friend who came by and peed his pants watching Ghostbusters. He ran out the sliding glass door to the backyard and slipped down the side of the house, back to his own. I remember this charcoal pavement. I remember Halloween and hockey sticks, rollerblades and bike rides, my dog running down the street with her ears flopping behind her.
I round the corner and see the house that used to keep turkeys in a cage in the front yard. It's must nicer now and the windows are bigger. I turn onto Mariano and drive past my god father's house. This is where I would stay while my brother was in the hospital. He used to have a guest house with a train set in it and workout equipment in the courtyard. The whole family slept on waterbeds. He still lives there and drives the same cars.
A song comes on the radio. It played at a wedding when I was five. The bride's brother let me dance on his shoes. God damn. This life is just like ash. It's burning up and fading away and I am covered in remnants of who I used to be and it feels so far away.

I saw The Kills perform just a month ago at Coachella. It appeared that the 102 degree heat managed to suck whatever life they ever had in their performance. Visually, the band looked pretty dismal: boy on guitar, girl on vocals and sometime guitar. The open air venue robbed them of any moody lighting they were hoping to achieve. I left filling unfulfilled and wrote them off as "crap live." So when Brett invited me to a repeat performance at the Henry Fonda I accepted with trepidation. I was mostly going for human company. The following is my review of the show.

The Horrors are the second band to open. And they are, in fact, aptly named. The lead singer looks like that leggy, unintelligible MTV VJ that appeared babbling nationwide sometime in the 90s mixed with one of the Ramone's - "the dead one" Brett says. On guitar we have a Partridge family coiffed boy who looks like the French reincarnation of Karen Carpenter before the anorexia really kicked in. I am surrounded by a bunch of torn-tights, black-wearing, fedora-sporting, skinny jean hipsters. These are the "hip" kids. And I can't help but think that what I am watching on stage right now is the equivalent of an 80s hair band. Like we will all look back on this moment and think, "Oh my god. Weren't we all such assholes!"
I give up on them about two songs in and head for the back of the room, unwilling to sacrifice what little hearing I have left for this tired nonsense. Brett and Co. soon follow suit and we've moved up to the rooftop patio with all of the other people who don't care what's going on downstairs either. Brett comments that the lead singer made him feel awkward because he'd just stand there and not do anything but sing. I counter that he did throw his arms up a few times, anointing the audience like a less than fervent televangelist. But these moments were drowned out by the predominance of a lot of affected moving of the hair into the face and away, into and away.
Kristina comes back from the bathroom with what is apparently her second rude encounter with Drew Barrymore.
Kristina: "Sorry, the toilet doesn't flush."
Drew: [No response]
This leads her friend Hadley into a verbal montage of his favorite celebrity nocturnal run-ins...which from the sound of it are quite common and very much prized moments.
Hadley: [Mid-handshake] Why do you have such sad eyes?
Katy Perry: [Slowly removing her hand from his] I have a 9 o'clock.
Hadley: A what?
Or
Hadley: You look better!
Mischa Barton: Uh, thanks.
As we leave the patio he tells me that I am "cynical and unhappy." This is less of a statement and more of a generic aside, like "You must like brown shorts and tangerines." It seems no one escapes his wrath, celebrity or not. Hadley looks like AJ from Empire Records. He is wearing brown leather pirate boots and a cardigan that I know he's just dying to put a couple thumb holes through.
When I realize I've been standing around for two hours waiting for a band I really don't want to see in the first place I want to head over to the $10 parking space I purchased and go home. But because I've started my personal "Don't Be So Lame" campaign, I don't. The curtains part to reveal the same pair of rock and rollers but this time the lights are working in their favor, I am closer to the stage, and the whole production looks a lot damn sexier.
From the very beginning I can't take my eyes off of the singer. She looks like a badass, shaggy-haired Helena Christensen. They both wear leather and black and are so much cooler than I could ever attempt to be. I don't take myself seriously enough to be that cool. This variety of sass takes true dedication to art of cool. Three songs deep the pair make an on stage costume change change, swapping their leather jackets for cardigans. It's about 86 degrees in this room and I think we'd all be better off wearing bathing suits.
Every song is about sexy, overtly or otherwise. She's breathing hard, he's breathing hard, the verses repeat and repeat, then crescendo like orgasms. By the end I feel as though I've entered into some weird musical red light district. At some point I realize that I've been watching the girl the whole time and if I had to pick which of the two to have sex with it would most definitely be her. She spits on stage, knocks over microphones, sweats like mad...but I forgive her all of this. When she lights up a cigarette during a cover of "Crazy" and the curls of smoke float around her black hair I want to pick up smoking. You could have put anything in her hand and I would have bought it: Clorox Bleach, Crest Whitening Strips, Gap Khakis. Whatever. Somehow I have regressed into a bisexual 13 year old.
They play "Black Balloon" toward the end of their set and I am completely satiated. I have had my cake. I have had my icing. I ate the whole damn thing. Not wanting to ruin a good thing, I tell my friends I am heading out. This is apparently an accidentally wise decision. For an encore they brought The Horrors back on stage again and the crowd was subjected to my new girlfriend making out with the Karen Carpenter guitarist - a sight that would have just broken my swollen heart.

Six Degrees of Separation: Barack Obama

For the last few years, my friend Marty has let me crash on the couch of his huge loft in TriBeCa. A friendship was struck a few years back when he handed keys to me at a party in Los Angeles and offered his place even though I had only known him a few hours through our friend Carlos. This is the type of guy Marty is. When I stay with him I am aware of what comes with that black futon: chasing girls, dirty boots, cab rides, and Marty asking me his favorite question, "When are you going to be my girlfriend?"
Two summers ago I go to the Rose Bar at the Gramercy with Carlos and Marty. Somehow I get sat next to this exceptionally skinny man named Dean. Despite the fact that he looks like a slightly more attractive and taller version of the character Mango on SNL, he is oddly charming and sort of engaging. One shot of tequila later and I am in a unisex bathroom somewhere doing god knows what with this man. We leave the stall more disheveled than when we enter and I avoid the glance of the bathroom attendant. I'm not that type of girl, I keep thinking to myself...I'm not that type of girl...
Dean and I sit back on the couch that we first struck up conversation on and Marty walks by with Carlos saying "Have a good night." I tell them to wait and turn to Dean to say goodbye and thank you for the lovely evening or something not like that at all. Dean's telling me to just come back to his place and I'm thinking no way in hell and I'm saying goodbye again and we're walking outside and by the time I get there those motherfuckers have already hopped in a cab and deserted me. Once again, Dean tries the "come back to my place" shtick and my thoughts move to the cheap side and I figure I can ride down to his place and then just walk back to Marty's, saving me a taxi ride all the way from Gramercy. My protest immediately turns into "Sure, why not" and all of a sudden I am in an apartment in the Lower East Side and not walking back to TriBeCa.
We hang out for a little bit, Dean pacing around the room like an insane person because he is a coke head. The place is clean and doesn't scare me even though I should be and my mother would kill me if she knew where I was. A friend of his comes over. He is funny and drunk and somehow the three of us end up fully clothed in Dean's bed. It's friendly and we're all making jokes and we're all laughing about stupid shit, nonetheless the friend will occasionally touch my leg in a non-accidental manner and I keep thinking "God, this is fucking weird, but what the hell." Around 5 in the morning Dean's roommate comes home with a blonde model with short cropped hair. His roommate is Jamie Burke. I've been seeing him around the city on billboards with Kate Moss for Calvin Klein. I immediately wonder why I always end up with the Mangos of this world and why I'm never with the Jamie Burkes. Dean's back out of bed and chatting away with the two of them and I stay in the room. I sleep for an hour until the jackhammers go off at the construction site across the street. I decide I'd rather die than wake up later than Dean so I leave. At about 7 in the morning I'm walking down the street wearing my party clothes from last night while business traffic and hot air blows past me.
Last week I'm reading an article in Vanity Fair with a picture of Jamie Burke and a Q and A below it asking about the possible perks of being the nephew of Joe Biden. And in place of the shame I've always felt for that New York night, I feel closer to Mr. Obama, closer than I've ever been, and I feel vindicated for my bad behavior.

Beer Goggles.

Two weeks after my move to New York for Freshman year, my best friend from back home came to visit. This was a delightful break from the fourteen nights I spent in a constant flux of utter enthrallment to crying myself to sleep at night. With her in tow, there were no tears shed until the wee hours of the morning. She came with her mom and grandmother, whom we would go to civilized dinners with and even caught a performance of Mamma Mia!, which has irreparably diminished my desire to see musicals. As day turned to night, Shannon and I would leave her family for something far more exciting than Broadway...underage nightlife experimentation.
This weekend was the catalyst for an alcoholic bender that lasted roughly three months of my first semester. From that point forward my life seemed to be an endless blur of $8 pitchers at Josie's, spilling homemade Cosmopolitans on the sage green carpet of Talia's dorm room while pre-partying to "Raspberry Barret" by Prince, falling over in public, drinking sangria at Bowery Bar with made models, and waking up at 2 in the afternoon. Although I didn't realize at the time, I was apparently the type that held back in high school and fell off the deep end when I left home. If only my mom had let me be a drunk in 10th grade, I would have never found myself in this situation. C'est la vie.
One glorious evening, Shannon and I got all gussied up for a night on the town. There is a photo hidden somewhere in my closet of the two of us right before we left my place. Shannon is wearing greenish blueish jeans purchased from Planet Blue with a black tank top, black boots I had never seen before, and her hair in a ponytail. I outdid her with acid wash Miss Sixty jeans with buttons up the sides that I had found at Century 21, a hot pink giraffe-print blouse, and white tennis shoes with red strips. What. The. Fuck. It was New York Fashion Week party time, and we ready to party.
The night started with a group led by an exceptionally effeminate pathological liar named Dane. I had yet to discover that this boy was utterly painful, but was currently under the magic spell of my first openly gay friend. We stood outside of Serafina for thirty minutes, waiting to get inside. It was the GQ Fashion Week Party. We knew no one inside. And I'm pretty sure no one would have wanted to know us at that point. Buzzed and badly dressed, we looked frighteningly Bridge and Tunnel even though both of us grew up 3000 miles away. But suddenly, for whatever bizarre reason, the clouds opened up and our angel appeared in the form of a friendly grease-ball in a button-up shirt who spotted Shannon and I in the crowd and pulled us through to the front, past the bouncer, and into the throngs of beauty and excess.
I was in love. The lights were blue over a crowd of people yelling over the music, dancing in corners, drinking at tables. We were immediately offered flutes of champagne. I walked past a supermodel with huge lips and cat eyes. Gorgeous. Shannon attempted to flirt with one of the Wayne's brother's who responded to her with a friendly questioning of "What are you? Seventeen?" Apparently he wasn't ready to go to prison. Admirable. Toward the end of the evening, when we were good and hammered, two twins met us on the dance floor where we danced and spun and giggled. Shannon and I snuck away to the bathroom where we slurred that these boys looked exactly like Lenny Kravitz. We went back and danced some more until it was time to go home.
The boys walked us out front to where the cabs were, where they offered to take us both home "just to cuddle." We managed to wrestle out of their grips and went on to walk back to 5th Ave and 10th Street, hollering "TWINS!!!" the whole way home, much to the dismay of a sleeping audience above us on University Place. And when we got back to the dorm we wrote "TWINS!!!" on all of the blackboards hung up on the doors. And when I stupidly met up with one of those guys again, I was assured that he looked nothing like Lenny Kravitz.



Why even a version of this would be appealing, I don't know. Ahh, youth.

Inspiration for Summer 2009

Make The Girl Dance "Baby Baby Baby" ( official video )
by placeblancherec

Sorry Phil.

Brain Salve

It's my mom's 48th birthday this week. She's excited about this because she thought she was turning 49. Apparently she had wrongly programed the scale in her bathroom which has been telling her she was 48 for the last year. She does feel a bit robbed of 47, however. I rarely see her this optimistic.
Uncharacteristically of both her and I, we go shopping at Neiman Marcus in Beverly Hills. I thumb through racks of clothing I normally only wear when I am working selling clothes to rich people who dress up for lunches. My mom is not one of those people. She picks up a merlot-colored dress with tulle exploding out the bottom and black corset ties running up the back. It is gilded like a Bernini villa and suitable for a wedding in Dubai or the Renaissance Pleasure Faire. This, too, can be yours for $53,000. I am happy at that moment to be relatively poor and in possession of sanity and good taste.
When fantasy land becomes tedious, we move over to Nordstrom which is more our speed, I suppose. It is at The Grove and the narrow island of grass is littered with parents and children and blankets and balloons. "Is having kids really boring?" I ask my mom as I open the door of the air conditioned department store. She tells me it's actually fun. I hope she's having fun with me right now. I can think of few things more depressing than taking my child to a faux European outdoor consumption fest, but I'm hoping that it's more fun the other way around.
It's busy inside, busier than Neiman's. I wonder when the recession will be over and when CNN will be talking about something else. Recently, I have found it necessary to follow my diet of NPR with a heap of KIIS FM over-produced vomit pop to mellow my blood pressure. This strangely recalls my first Magnolia Bakery cupcake experience. It was delicious going down but the sugar high left me so nauseous that I was left with an inexplicable craving for grilled chicken and a banana.
The clothes were expectantly uninspiring and overpriced; everything made in China, made in India, rip-offs from real designers or terribly bland originals. This is the world in which I exist. Wholly. Entirely. Depressingly. I watch my mom try a blue skirt on with a bow on the top. It doesn't look as good as I would like it to. She takes it off. We move on.
She needs some foundation from Lancome. She picks up a small white tube and smears the tan goop all over her face. A gay man at the counter offers to help my mom with her skincare quest, which turns out to be an hour and a half overhaul of toner, peptides, firming and lifting lotions. She comments that the foundation she tried feels really heavy. He tells her the tubes are concealer. My mom does her embarrassed/ amused laugh where she sort of bows from her midsection and clasps her hands behind her back, her face turning red. Sometimes her socially awkward nature is rather adorable.
I sit on a low stool while he tells my mom about restorative night creams and gels that diminish brown spots. He talks about what happens as the skin ages. He compliments my mom on the tightness of her skin above her eyes and cheeks. He reprimands her for going out in the sun unprotected and for rubbing her face too harshly with a washcloth at night.
The entire time we're at the counter my mom's eyes relay engagement and sadness. I think maybe she's a little scared. I take peaks at myself in the mirror next to me, wondering when I'm going to have this conversation with a gay man at the makeup counter of a department store while people buy scented candles and high heeled shoes. Because one day, no matter how hard it is for me to picture my face marred by the effects of gravity and time, this will most definitely happen.
It is not this fact that saddens me; it's the fact that my mom is getting older and one day when her wrinkles are deep crevices around her mouth and eyes, one day she will be gone entirely. And when I think these thoughts while he dabs full coverage foundation in Bisque Number 1 to camouflage her redness, I want to break out in sobs and tell her she will always look like my mom. But wouldn't that just be silly...

Celebreality Bites: Holiday Issue

Halloween 2007. The holiday occurred near the culmination of an epic year dallying with the social scene, one in which I have yet muster the energy to match. I was 23, making money, downing 2 cans of Monster a day, going out 5 nights a week. Halloween was predicted to be exceptional. It landed on a Sunday, which meant it was absolutely necessary to have parties two days leading up to the actual event. I spent the weekend dressed up like Liza Minelli's backup dancer, putting my false eyelashes on each evening and peeling them off closer to dawn the next morning. On the third day a group of us combined forces and turned ourselves into a formidable cabaret troupe. Marco came over and I painted him up like a Pinocchio cum transvestite marionette.
The first party delivered its fair share of fun. We ran around taking pictures, myself high on energy drinks and my friends off of whatever I had watched them snort off of the dryer in the yellow-walled laundry room. When the fun began to wane, it was off to the Chateau for some famed annual party. The floors of the outside patio were covered with Persian rugs; people stood around laughing and drunk. My friend sparked up a flirtation with James Franco that lasted a few months following.
Somehow our group got shuttled into a hotel room, led up a series of stairs by a group of men wearing gorilla masks. Once the door closed I found out that Leonardo DiCaprio was the leader of the primate pack. I'd have liked to tell him how many times as a 12 year old I would watch and rewind the scene where he and Claire Danes fall into the pool, kissing madly in clear bubbles and how that image single-handedly shaped what I feel romance should be...but I don't. I watched him sit on a bed in the back of the room while I tried to ignore the feeling that everyone in the room was on drugs. Oh Romeo...
As we exited the hotel and spilled onto the cobblestone driveway where they park classic cars and Range Rovers, a very drunk and very stumbly [Name Omitted] says to me, "Oh my Gaaawwwddd. Look at that baawwwhhh-deeee. Can I just...Caaan I just touch you?" In the spirit of cooperation I allowed him to grope my leg for a second and then we left for yet another party. Two years later, when my friend started dating this very same groper I didn't mention the incident. And when I had dinner across from the happy couple I said nothing. But when he pushed the plate of molten chocolate cake my way, I knew where that roaming hand had been.

Oldie But Goodie

Kind of how I feel on a frightfully regular basis.

It's a Hard Job

Another day in the life of...me.

10:44 AM - Arrive one minute early for my day at Carolina Herrera. Although I am technically sixteen minutes early but our agency always places a fifteen minute idiot buffer so models always arrive in a timely manner. No matter how many times a client looks at me, puzzled at my earliness, in the back of my mind I keep thinking that one time the client is actually the one operating in fifteen minute increments, not the agency. I am like a dog who knows that the spoon full of peanut butter always has arthritis medication tucked inside, but for a brief moment I thinks that maybe, just maybe this time there won't be bitter blue pills that dissolve on my tongue as the peanut butter sticks to the roof of my mouth. But there always is...

11:00 AM - Lee from Carolina walks Chantalle and I over to Sally Hershberger to get our hair did. This is a salon started by the Chrissy Hynde of hair, although I believe that Sally is an actual lesbian and not just a butch lady with kick ass rocker style and a latent cocaine habit. On the walls there are pictures of big breasted models doing extreme yoga backbends in the nude.

11:13 AM - I am introduced to Paul who will be doing my hair for the "event" that has not been explained to me in detail and remains a vague reality in the near future. My comfortability with this fact stems from my "show up and get paid" mentality.

11:25 AM - After a decent hair scrub by a woman who leaves me wanting more, Paul begins to blow dry my hair. Two different people come to expedite the process. These are the times in which I feel like a car in the shop. I say this to Paul over the noise of the hairdryer but he laughs a laugh in which I can tell he has no idea what I mean. I look at at the women in the chairs next to me. They're gabbing away and smiling and not smiling and looking at their own eyes in the mirror as they talk at the person doing their hair. The environment is simultaneously energizing and exhausting.

12:00 PM - I am still in the chair, now with fully dry hair, and Paul is whipping up something on my head that I cannot see. All I know is that he is on his 56th bobby pin. This is a lot.

12:15 PM - Paul finishes the last few touches on my up-do. He shows me his creation in the mirror. It looks like a doughnut that sat in coffee or a few hours, inflated and puffy. Not in a bad way, just in a puffy doughnut way. "On to makeup?" he asks. I tell him we are doing it on our own and he says he thinks that I will do a fine job on my own. What I don't tell him is that I am already wearing the makeup I will have for the rest of the day and apparently I did not do a fine job.

12:17 PM - I take off the white robe that they had me change into when I arrived. These are common at expensive salons. They never had this at The Hair House when I was growing up.

12:19 PM - I ask the amiable receptionist if they have any coffee. Like the robes, this is something that places like this have and provide free for their clients. She returns with my nonfat latte. "A double, extra strong, ' she says with a wink in her voice. I drink it down while browsing through a hardcover book about Hollywood's best plastic surgeons. I think I want a new nose.

12:24 PM - Chantalle and I start to walk back over to Carolina Herrera. I ask her questions about her summer plans as I shovel brown rice topped with sliced avocado and sauteed swiss chard into my mouth. There's no reason why this should actually taste good.

12:32 PM - We've changed into beaded summer dresses and uncomfortable shoes and Lee drives us down the street to a furniture store on La Cienega. The event is called "Legends of La Cienega Design Walk Presented by Elle Decor." As far as I can tell all we are going to be doing is walking from store to store taking pictures of us pretending to model for crowds. This hunch pretty much materializes as a reality throughout the day. A woman offers us to sit down and give our feet a rest. I have only been standing for maybe four minutes but I accept the offer. I am not this accostomed to be so comfortable at a job.

12:58 PM - There is now a group of eight models from different boutiques on Melrose Place that are now being shuttled by two raven haired women wearing orange scarves to the VIP Lounge. When we arrive there are only four other people sitting around drinking cocktails made with St. Germain. Telling the crowd what we are wearing takes a minute and then the rest of the twenty minutes we stand their awkwardly waiting for someone to tell us what to do I listen to Michelle tell me about ex-boyfriends and try the appetizers passed around by waiters. The cucumber under my crab salad is a little flaccid.


1:30 PM - We move to design showroom number two. We sit on chairs, they take some pictures, we stand around while other models sit on chairs and get pictures taken. Michelle and I talk some more.

1:55 PM - The third showroom we are supposed to go into for pictures is not ready for us. We stand on the sidewalk watching Sunday traffic go by on La Cienega. An antiques store opens its doors (and chairs to sit on) to us so we go inside. The woman who owns the place looks a little like Jocelyn Wildenstein but she is very friendly and offers us free reign over her buffet of grapes, salami, crackers and cheese. Her son works with her. She pushes him like a loving Jewish grandmother, although I am pretty sure she is an old school Catholic Italian. I feel bad that I am just standing here eating all of their food so I try to carry on a conversation with the son while I munch on green grapes. He used to play tennis professionally. Despite all of our refusals of her offer, the owner pours us each a glass of prosecco and demands that we drink. "You are young!" she says, "It all passes by so fast."

2:32 PM - The showroom we've been waiting for while we eat this woman out of house and home opens up for us to take pictures and stand around some more. A graying man named Nigel asks me about modeling and what I thought about it. He has a fourteen year old daughter who is 5'10. My reviews of the business come out mixed. I feel like an asshole talking about modeling when I'm standing around a furniture showroom in Carolina Herrera, talking about this job as if this is what modeling actually is. It's being the accountant for your family's screwdriver business and telling someone what it's like to be an investment banker.

2:40 PM - A man walks past Chantalle and exclaims that the light on her when she looks down in such a way is just gorgeous. "What a beautiful picture that would make!" he says. I tell him he should consult the professional photographer we have on set, which he does when she walks by. Another model asks him if he is a photographer himself. "No!" he scoffs, "I am a very rich man!" It is hard for me to tell if he is joking or employing any sense of irony. A few minutes later he corners a group of us sitting on a sofa and proceeds to recite some prose he learned at a party the week before. He is the highlight of my day.

2:48 PM - A shuttle drives us down to another showroom. It is light and bright and I want to buy all of the furniture inside of it but I don't have a five thousand square foot house in the hills yet so I cannot.

3:04 PM - I am in a shuttle back to the boutique. My day is done and I don't feel tired, used, abused or otherwise. This is amazing. I can't believe I just got paid to do that.

The first time I saw The Shins perform was in a tacky white-walled, marble floored house in the Hollywood Hills. It was one of those typical places that never had real furniture in it and was built for the sole purpose of hosting parties with alcohol sponsorship and formal invitations. The band was set up in the corner of a medium-sized living room and played on to a group of bored, drunk, apathetic party goers, most of whom were outside by the bar. It was a shame, really. I stood watching the headlights of cars drive up the hill wondering how strange my life was and praying I would never forget this moment.
That was about three years ago. Tonight I went to see them at the Palladium in Hollywood for a much larger audience, and a largely more enthusiastic one. Per my "Cheap Ass Code of Ethics" I refuse to park in a parking lot near the venue and instead opt for a free spot a few dark blocks down El Centro. As I cross the street to the theater a man wearing what looked like a backstage pass around his neck asks me if I wanted a ticket. As a matter of fact I did! What good luck, I think. This man is just going to give me a ticket! "Let's go down this way," he says. I am agreeable, of course, believing that this man is going to get me in backstage and for free. "This way" turns out to be the wrong way, leading me down the opposite side of the entrance. When he asks if I can just pay him the full price of what he paid, I slow my pace a wee bit.
"I only have twenty-five dollars."
"These are forty-eight dollar tickets."
"Well, I'm sorry. I don't have the cash."
"There's an ATM nearby."
We are close to a security guard by the backstage gate when I decide that this guy's probably scamming me or going to chop me into little pieces or both. I hand him back the "ticket" he gave me in good faith and tell him I am going to just meet some friends around the front instead. He inexplicably turns on his heel and starts walking back the way we came, not taking back the piece of paper and not looking me in the eye.
"How much money do you have?"
"Twenty-five dollars."
"Whatever, I'll just take that."
"No, it's okay, really."
I notice that this gentleman has crazy eyes that I had not intelligently researched earlier. He storms ahead of me, cell phone now drawn to his ear. I hear him say something like, "What am I doing wrong?" loudly. I freely interpret this as a failure as a kidnapper and not as a scalper. When the aforementioned weirdo gets far enough away I decide to make my move past him. Before I do, I ask two young boys if they'll fake being my friends for a block and a half to avoid this whack job (I point to my potential murderer). I employed this very same tactic back in 2002 when walking home by myself in New York at 3 in the morning after denying a ride from my Turkish friends. En route I was visually raped by a homeless man in a tan trench coat who I discovered was jacking himself off while watching me trot down 10th Street. I noticed this at about the same time he slurred, "Yeah, you're lookin' aren't ya."
We arrive at the entrance unscathed and I thank them for their faux friendship. I buy a ticket at the box office for $38, which I find pretty steep for a show these days, but it's possible I've pirated some music off this band at some point so it's time to give back to the arts if you know what I mean.
As the band gets underway I remember that they were actually pretty boring to watch live. The lead singer lacks lead singer charisma and when the other band members pick up the slack it leaves you a little confused. Most of the mojo comes from the keyboardist. His body language is like that of a flirty, self-aware teenage girl and from this angle he looks like the guitar-wielding comedian Nick Thune who I awkwardly flirted with once having seen him perform at the Laugh Factory. The best line I could come up with was, "Umm, I think you're like funny." Needless to say nothing materialized that night at Hyde.
Seeing The Shins is a lot like reading all of the Harry Potter books and then subjecting yourself to the silver screen adaptation: no matter how much money they spend on CGI, nothing will compare with the power of your imagination. These guys have gray hair and wives, they make a Mother's Day shout out, they are not rock stars, they are just nice boys who grew up and kept making music. Most of the songs come and go without incident, none of their live renditions powerful enough to replace memories previously formed by their albums. There are a few exceptions, including a sexed up version of "Sea Legs" that they've infused with a jazzy, almost bow-chica-wow-wow porno vibe.
I jump around a bit, sway from side to side, get bored, type notes on my cell phone, bounce around some more. There are a few pockets of people I move around: an ogre in a picnic table shirt that doesn't know his own size, the group of three "intellectuals" analyzing the nuances of the song transitions, and two sorority girls who jumped up and down like they were at a Bob Sinclair concert. By the end of the set I am standing behind the sound station watching the bass and treble levels move up and down on the screen of an iBook, the smell of bacon wrapped hot dogs pouring in from Sunset Boulevard.

Making Enemies Daily

A Lesson in Humility: Episode One

It's nice to hear stories about your friends doing well. People booking movies, starting clothing companies, moving up in the corporate ladder, etc. These little tidbits of personal news are generally accompanied by a sense of humility, a sensitivity to the listener, or, at the very least, a good English-humoured self-deprecating joke. One shares their good fortune with grace and humility. One saves tales of triumph for good friends, as these are the people who are obligated to give a shit or fake it with gusto.
Of course it doesn't always happen according to the laws of good taste and manners. Some people never learned how to break away from "Show and Tell Syndrome" as I like to call it. Surely, I was not immune to this as a child. Every Friday in third grade I got up there on the brown linoleum floor, standing in front of rows of uncomfortable desks filled with fidgety children, and I would proceed to attempt my greatest MC Hammer inspired dance. This was without fail my favorite move. It involved jumping from one leg to the other, with the heel of the non-weight bearing foot pointed toward the ceiling. I would do this back and forth for a few minutes until I became tired. I would stop, students would clap, and I awaited my chance to do it again in a week. I can't vouch for myself and say that I was good at it. In fact, I was probably pretty damn bad. But each student was given a platform to use and I used and abused it.
Years of ungodly adolescent insecurity followed by vaguely normal adult social interaction allowed for me to hone a pretty decent sense of when and what people might care to hear about my own life. Boring: the type of orange juice you drink in the morning, the plants your mom grows in her backyard, other people's dreams (although I disagree with this). Worth sharing: banging Tommy Lee, getting into law school, grandparents kicking the bucket. Occasionally we all mess up, telling practical strangers about the Lanvin shoes you bought the other day or how good your roasted brussels sprouts were last night. But these hiccups are unavoidable and all in the spirit of filling the vast uncomfortable holes in bad conversation with people you don't really know well enough to ignore for five minutes without feeling like an asshole.
In regards to jobs in this industry, girls are generally pretty modest, at least the ones who have been around awhile. And honestly, the Los Angeles market isn't a platform for supermodel stardom so any job is ultimately a money job, not a career bellwether. So the filler jobs that allow us to maintain our occupational status as models (runway shows for Orange County philanthropic housewives, informal modeling in suburban shopping malls, fitting clothes for the "real" models in New York) go thankfully unannounced amongst the ladies. The lack of talent and skills required to perform this job makes it difficult when it comes to patting your comrades on the back. Somehow "Oh, hey, nice job standing there!" or "Congratulations on your face!" seems a bit needless.
So when a girl I was working with today randomly interjects something about her experience as the trophy presenter at the Academy Awards on two different occasions, both of which being uncalled for, I wanted to hit her on the head. The conversation was something similar to the following:
Makeup Artist: "This friend of mine is a pastry chef in La Jolla and..."
Model: "One time I made ice cream with Mario Batali."
Makeup Artist: "Ummm..."
Model: "Uh huh. Mario Batali. And I accidentally stuck my whole fist in the bowl! And I was like, 'Mario...'"
I could have attempted to understand the braggart had the Oscars been the night before and the excitement still fresh and new and barely washed off. I'm sure it was exciting to be around that many Hollywood heavy weights, but the only weight she was carrying that night was that of a three pound duchess ballgown and those ten pound statues. Today is May 6th, the Oscars were February 22nd, and by my math this falls into the "Nobody gives a shit anymore" category. Forgive my curtness, but perhaps I am bitter that I gave up my MC Hammer routine thinking that my peers were doing the same.

Seamless

Dad Dinners

The second trailer home my dad ever moved into was markedly smaller than the first. It had only one bedroom, a small bathroom, and an area that contained two over-sized sofas, a TV, and a coffee table. All of this adjacent to a triangle-shaped kitchen that was supposed to give the illusion of space, of which there was none. If I have to think of this place, I think of my dad cooking grilled cheese. American cheddar, white bread, mayonnaise on each side of bread. The sandwich spattered and spit loudly, searing in hot butter. He served it with apple sauce.
There wasn't enough room for a proper dining room table so we ate off of birch-colored TV trays in the living room. Dinner was most often picked up from a mini-mall in the Pacific Palisades which housed both a Panda Express and a Subway. My brother satisfied with his greasy chicken, and I with processed turkey meat. Sometimes we would all agree on KFC, something I wasn't horrified by at the time. The biscuits were undercooked and the gravy always salty.

Terror in the Sky: Part II

I am on a private plane with Monique Lhuillier, headed to Nashville for a runway show. It is not as big as I would like for it to be; it seats about 6 people comfortably, 8 if anyone cared to sit in the 2 jump seats behind the pilots. Nearly every turbulent bump sends my head into my hands. "God, protect us and keep us safe...God, protect us and keep us safe...God..." This is a mantra I repeat over and over and over until the need to vomit reluctantly fades away. I developed this phrase when I was 13 and began flying regularly to Reno for family snowboarding trips. I am not certain that it makes me feel reassured but I am a creature of habit. I ate tuna for lunch every day for 3 years until I began to feel that the mercury was substantially hindering my cognitive functioning.
At times I feel a bit arrogant in willing the plane to stay in the air on my own account. "But I have so much more to do!" I think. I try to explain to myself that I am being completely irrational, that driving a car 50 to 60 miles a day puts me at a higher risk of premature death than flying does. But even then I argue with my calmer self that the statistic only holds if you are an occasional flier, which I am not. I'm airborne practically as often as my rubber meets the road. Many times I like to recall a few incidences in my life, mostly involving psychics or other knowledged persons, that reassure me that I will live to a ripe old age of...well, not right now. I think about the turban wearing gentleman in the Long's Drugs parking lot who told me I would be famous and that I would die at 89. This prophecy does not entail me falling to my death in a blazing inferno. Another psychic recently predicted that there would be a script in 3 years that would inspire me to continue in that direction and would be quite big for me. And, here, I live again! But no matter how vividly I can recall these words, I break out into a cold sweat whenever the wind currents shudder my plane.
My least favorite ride was a cramped hell hole of a Delta experience from Newark to Fort Lauderdale. I was literally the only passenger under 65, aside from 3 grandchildren and someone's caged parakeet. I couldn't help but think that if God had some sick quota to fill under the "Freak Accident" category of human calamities, this plane would certainly be the easiest target. I survived that trip, as I have survived all others, but developed a strong distaste for the disintegrating body so much so that 89 might just be too long to wait.

All I Do

Casting Call: What To Expect -- powered by ExpertVillage.com

Runway Show: Good Posture -- powered by ExpertVillage.com

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I Bleed American

I walk into a shop that displays confederacy paraphernalia, cowboy hats, and Marilyn Monroe coffee cups in the store window. The tall, elderly shopkeeper is in the middle of an order: 4 Elvis shot glasses, 6 Elvis driver's licenses, hot sauce...bacon and bar-b-q...maple pineapple, 4 tins of... The list continues, each order ever the more ridiculous and entirely appropriate. I stifle a laugh multiples times. He hangs up the phone and says, "Damn it, I forgot to order the Bacon Band Aids." A few minutes later he follows up with an "Oh, I know what to do!" I am assuming this is in regards to the band aid debacle. He apologizes for talking out loud and I offer to brainstorm for him while I am there.
It doesn't take more than a few steps into the store to realize that this man is a patriot with a capital "P." There is a wall dedicated entirely to military related pins: POWs, fake purple hearts, eagles holding snakes, stars of various sizes and metals, I (Heart) My Vietnam Vet, an entire series of scantily clad pinup girls labeled as "Wartime Airplane Decals." My favorite is a naked girl holding up a towel to cover her naughty bits titled "The Home Stretch."
I do not feel American enough to be in the same room with this man. He is obviously tied in some personal capacity to the armed service and while I am inclined to ask him about it I sense that he would throw me over the cash register and bellow "Who sent you?!" while brandishing a knife with a menacing depiction of a pointy fingered Uncle Sam on the handle. And if such violent means were never resorted to, he could easily just go into a dissertation on his "time in the war" exploring every bullet hole and every dead comrade until my ears bled.
When I place the pack of confederate flag playing cards down on the counter I try to play it cool, like I am an actual racist who still upholds the uber American tradition of cross burning in my spare time. If he suspects I am doing this solely to play an ironic game of Gin Rummy with some bearded leftist hipsters, I imagine he might toss me out of the joint. I throw in a sweet looking pin with the word "Nashville" riding along musical notes for good measure.

Social progress is highly overrated.

Nashville, TN

Coachella Checklist

Hindsight's always 20/20, but this list shall serve me well for Coachella 2010. Here are the apparent must-haves of Indio's musical sweat fest.

1. Vibrant colored plastic glasses. Now, I doubt that these have any UVA/UVB protection embedded in their cheap little lenses but if you want your outfit doused in a good measure of irony these are the shades for you. My brother owned a pair of these when he was about three. I remember them well because he was wearing them when he whacked me on the head with a flute. I bled. He giggled.

2. Marijuana and MDMA. It might just be me, but it seems as though mushrooms dipped in popularity this year. Apparently the kids just want to feel good and rub each other, not stare at the sky and see God riding a unicorn.

3. Bare ass cheeks. I caught quite a bit of bum at the shows. It came in many shapes and sizes, with cellulite and occasionally without. It peeked out from under short shorts and sequined daisy dukes, a little crescent shaped piece of booty. There was one jumper-clad girl whom I could see her cheeks from the back as well as the front (time for some squats m'lady!). But my favorite pieces of ass was most definitely that of the girl whom walked past me while I was seated on the ground waiting for The Kills to play. Her acid wash denim shorts were essentially summertime chaps; they were torn and shredded and had two holes connected by two strings, top and bottom, through which her bikini bottoms poked through quite prolifically. I was dazzled.

4. S.U.S.Ds (Sweaty Ugly Sugar Daddys) Paying for your own ticket is highly overrated. If you're a girl and you've got some boobs, all you have to find is a boob of a man to mooch off of. They've got houses with pools on lock down, free drugs, full-time chefs, backstage passes, etc. All you have to do is ignore the nagging suspicion that you might get raped in your sleep by some out of work investment banker. And don't worry when people give you that "nothing is free" speech. You won't have to blow the guy because someone else will inevitably be taking one for the team.

5. War Wounds. A testament that you truly weathered the Coachella storm, these little scrapes and bruises give stories to tell until Neosporin is no longer necessarily. Three friends came away wounded after hopping the fence having convinced an off-duty Marine cum security guard to give them 10 seconds to attempt it. A friend of mine scraped his shoulder and elbow falling off of a golf cart. The beauty of this tragic tale is that it simultaneously illicit sympathy and jealousy, as people that "know" know that golf carts are only found shuttling stars and rock stars around the backstage area. Sadly, all I came away with was the plastic shoe induced double blister on the bottom of my left foot. Target shoes are cheap for a reason.

6. Bootie Sandals. Not a sandal, not a boot. These puppies give you the illusion of sensible ankle support, the slouchiness of a your favorite de-elasticized leather gym sock, and the freedom of a flip flop. Thank goodness for these. I couldn't imagine another year watching those poor girls walk around in cowboy boots in 100 degree heat.

7. Public Boob Grabs. Apparently the security guards didn't catch the P.D.A. hidden in people's nap sacks. The boys reached around, reached under, and reached in. I had to light a cigarette afterward, I felt so personally involved in the act.

A Most Productive Day

This recession has put everyone at a bit of a loss, myself included. So when I actually have things to do throughout the day which pertains to accumulating wealth, I should (in theory) get excited and you know, do my job. But sometimes you just don't feel like it.

Monday's Accomplishments
1. Wake up.
2. Drive to casting for a Black Eyed Peas music video. We are asked to be funky, edgy, and wearing lip gloss. This is described as "euro". I decide on an uncomfortable multicolored Alexander McQueen jumpsuit that I bought a year ago and have only worn three times. I put on some sassy lip gloss.
3. The waiting area for the BEP casting is loaded with girls that look nothing like me and are all under 5'6. This is a room of trashy looking dancers. Not so coincidentally my agent sent a picture in which I look like I'm dancing over to the casting director. I am number 16. I wait around for about thirty minutes until I decide that I do not look hip enough or urban enough to make this worth my while. I leave.
4. I start my drive to Santa Monica. This is for a fairly big money hair job. This only means that you are being compensating for pain and suffering, not actual time working. The last time I worked for this client they told me I was going to be dyed "a nice caramel and honey" which translated to an orange base and a banana stripe down the side of my head. I make two attempts to turn around and head home after recalling the shade of green my hair turned after dying it back brown but finally decide to man up and just go anyway. When they ask if they can layer my hair and dye it back brown again I grit my teeth and say "yeah" through the side of my mouth. I am a liar.
5. I come home and watch an episode of 30 Rock. I want to be Tina Fey.
6. I stop by my agency for them to take polaroids to send to some agencies in Greece. I take off my shoes and put on a bathing suit and pose and pose and pose. My feet are cold on the concrete floor.
7. I have another two hours to kill in which I sit around and pretend to read. My audition is close enough for me to walk but I drive anyway because it is cold and I am lazy. I have been told to be approachable and fun. I am to be lip syncing "Pretty Fly for a White Guy" which I haven't heard in its entirety since it came out when I was twelve and I thought it was funny. As I sit in the casting office, I can hear the people before me singing through the walls. I am embarrassed for them and when I get up to go inside the people in the hallway say they can't wait to hear what I can do. It is a fishbowl scenario, only more violating. I go inside, slate my name, grab a microphone and have at it. Apparently I am good at acting like an asshole because they called me back for a director's session tomorrow.
8. Come home and try to figure out what I'm really supposed to be doing with my life.