Tuesday, June 16, 2009
Office Talk
I was in the elevator at work the other day and this guy turned to another guy and was like, “hey looks like you were pretty heavily lauded for your work on the newsletter.”
Here’s what I have to say to that. Let’s all just settle down. Let’s just take a ten minute cool down. I think we’re all getting real nervous in this economy and we’re acting a little squirrelly. We’re using words we frankly shouldn’t be using. We might be using words where we don’t even know what they mean.
Let’s just sit this thing out with our dignity intact.
I work at an office and I have to say, I don’t really do well. There are office conversations there that as far as I’m concerned could be like Guantanimo Bay-approved acts torture. “Now, there was a Sandy in Accounts payable, but I think there was also a Sandy in HR on 14, before she left for the Toronto office. I think the Sandy in Accounts Payable left because her baby had some sort of problem.”
Okay, you know what I’m not really interested in following the sad career trajectories of mid-level people named Sandy. It’s just not my thing. It’s apparently your thing and you appear really into it. Me not so much.
Like, I once had a three way on top of a moving vehicle. I’m friends with gay boys who shit their pants and have it come out their pant leg. Those are my kinda stories. That’s were I’m coming from. That’s my wheelhouse. If you don’t have shit coming out of your pantleg I’m not interested. If this story about Sandy in Accounts Payable doesn’t end in a shitty pant leg or humiliating public sex I’m not interested.
Thursday, June 11, 2009
In the Bag: Inside Women's Handbags and My Soul
Three years ago, I was interviewed by my gay best friend for his blog. He asked me probing personal questions, and I got to feel like a star. “We hear you are moving to New York soon. Why?” “As a comedian, have you ever gotten down to business inside a comedy club?” “Do you have any STDS?” But the best question of all came when he indulged me in that time-worn celebrity profile chestnut—the Purse Peek. “Describe your purse for us and all of its contents.” I wasted no time laying out the contents of my vinyl, iridescent beige Le Sportsac: an iPod, a PalmPilot (cut me some slack--it was 2005), FACE Stockholm pale pink lipstick, Black Honey Clinique lipgloss (“a must have,” I declared), Clinique powder, protective goggles for tanning, a black Uni-Ball pen, a mod notebook from Target for my jokes, Reading Lolita in Tehran by Azar Nafisi, Aleve Gelcaps, SuperGroom nail and cuticle groomer from Blisslabs NY and Eclipse gum. I loved that Jeremy naturally knew to ask, and I naturally knew to oblige and add running commentary.
For celebrity nuts like me, a glimpse into a star’s handbag is akin to a man’s stolen glance between a woman’s thighs. If I am idly flipping through a magazine, a shot of a ritzy purse spilling its contents will stop me dead in my tracks. My pulse will quicken. I’ll look around to see if anyone notices. This is it. This is what I want. It is a peek into a full life, well-lived—and lived with shitloads of money. (Let’s not kid ourselves; a big part of this is about money.) Just like us, these are human beings with bad breath and ragged cuticles. But oh, look at what they have to take care of these imperfections! The breath mints are tucked into a $5,000 purse, and Madonna’s manicurist is on speed dial in that cellphone. These are the belongings of people who are doing something right, and so I stare at those lists of objects as if I am divining the Torah. Answers can be found inside the depths of that handbag. Why am I thirty-two years old and still not making a living at comedy? Maybe I should be more like Rebecca Romijn O’Connell and pack some extra handywipes for the airport and a Granny Smith apple in case I get hungry?
I am not alone in this obsession with handbag innards. Inside Your Handbag porn, as I call it, is something of a phenomenon. There is a seventeen year old boy in the Phillipines who runs a site, insidemyhandbag.com, where anybody can scan in an image of their bag and its contents. You can scroll through image after image of candy-colored designer bags spilling Dior lipsticks, pink cellphones, and sun tan lotion. Under each image is a simple label: Balenciaga in San Francisco, Manbag from Istanbul. Bryanboy, the “curator” of the site, says that there is no discrimination, all handbags are welcome. However, the site pretty exclusively features designer handbags loaded with pricey goodies from around the world. There is no Liz Claiborne bag from Duluth spilling Vaseline tubs and a Gap wallet.
But never fear, Liz Claiborne in Duluth, there is a place for you too in this vast handbag-exploring world. In a shopping forum on Style.com, a website owned by Vogue and W magazines, one user asked for members to detail the contents of their bags and twenty five women responded—making it one of the most popular posts. A wider array can be found on InStyle.com, where they maintain a blog entitled “In Your Bag,” where you can peek inside Celebrity and non-celebrity handbags. Ivanka Trump opened up her purple croc purse to reveal a much-used passport (two additional inserts), lip gloss and Altoids. In Style, knowing the drill, has the owner explain a few of the items. We learn that Ivanka is reading Gore Vidal because she “doesn’t like to waste time reading trash.” Please allow me to interrupt and call “bullshit!” right now. She’s not reading Gore Vidal. But she, like myself, understands that the illusion of fine literacy has its power. I got halfway through that Lolita in Tehran book and gave it a rest. But, it stayed in that purse in case someone impressively academic-looking boarded my train. Where is the truth? I don’t want the studio’s press release version of inner-purse life; I want the real thing.
For this, there is the reader comments section. Scroll down and watch America dump out her purse. “In my purse i keep LIPGLOSS, MONEY,MINTS,MY GRAY RAZR & a couple SNIKERS bars.” “In my Xhilaration bag from Target: a blood pressure monitor and medications for my allergies and hypertension.” Seriously. Now we are talking! “…my library card and an inhaler.” Inside a Degas bag, we see a bible (“Always with me”) and Fender guitar picks. Another has keys for her home and her percussion practice rooms.
Oh, Becky and your blood pressure cuff! How infinitely more interesting you are than Ivanka and her chapped, Chanelled lips. Bring on Heather, with her pot pipe and tin foil and a her ex-boyfriend’s note ripped off her Toyota Corolla. Each one of these women is her own gothic novella, some dark Nowheresville tale waiting to unfold. Oh the secrets and lies lurking in the handbags across the nation. The private sorrows and furtive dreams. Ivanka’s is nice to look at, but Tammy from Des Moines--hers has a live, beating human heart.
In the end, I need both. The celebrity bags keep me dreaming and moving forward, forever feeling incomplete. One day, I too shall carry a lucky seashell from my movie premiere at Cannes. Maybe backup designer sunglasses from a boutique in Venice. But, until then, the Duluth bags keep me grounded, in the moment and grateful for my own purse’s partially used Kleenex, waiting to collect my over-chewed gum.
Tuesday, April 21, 2009
Let's Wear the Right Shoes When We Go to the Buddha
I am happy to report that I went to meditation last night and I saw no shoes that were of major concern. Sometimes I will go there and I will see outside the door a pair of brown leather Doc Martins lying slightly askew next to a pair of tossed-off large white running shoes and I will say “no no no. How can I experience an absence of suffering with this going on. I suggest you people “look deeply” at your shoes and then get back to me.” Of course, I am slipping off gigantic black New Balance USA 992s but that is because I am a compulsive runner and am part lesbian and therefore am exempted from the standards to which I hold others. But *these* people. Coming to the Lower East Side to meditate? Let’s clean it up and come dressed appropriately. Last night there was a black pair of Uggs, which I’m fine with, as well as some Velcro black canvas jobbies that looked “very cool gay man.”
At one point the leader pulled out his fancy microphone/recorder so that he could record it for his podcast*, and then everyone started making what I felt were very ostentatious “I want to hear myself on the podcast noises.” A guy loudly flipping through his notebook of Buddhist notes (!), a woman clearing her throat then slightly moaning. They were all wanting their moment in the spotlight. I had no craving for this, what with my television show The Kara Buller Show and my other media outlets.
The leader made a reference to his iphone and an app that he particularly loves, called “Things” which helps you organize your to-do lists. I felt buoyed. Perhaps if I study meditation enough, I too will have clear skin and an Iphone. Right now, all I have is the itouch, which is fine, but if walking the way of the Buddha can lead to more, then I’m on board.
click http://www.theidproject.com/podcast.htm for the podcasts. Boy, I tell you the 31 year old kid who runs this thing is on fire. He talks like the supersmart friend you got high with in high school before he left for Harvard, looks like the supercute gay friend we all want to have or be and is committed to prison reform like that gray-haired lesbian who looked at me like I’m a slut yesterday probably is! Goooo Ethan Nichtern!
At one point the leader pulled out his fancy microphone/recorder so that he could record it for his podcast*, and then everyone started making what I felt were very ostentatious “I want to hear myself on the podcast noises.” A guy loudly flipping through his notebook of Buddhist notes (!), a woman clearing her throat then slightly moaning. They were all wanting their moment in the spotlight. I had no craving for this, what with my television show The Kara Buller Show and my other media outlets.
The leader made a reference to his iphone and an app that he particularly loves, called “Things” which helps you organize your to-do lists. I felt buoyed. Perhaps if I study meditation enough, I too will have clear skin and an Iphone. Right now, all I have is the itouch, which is fine, but if walking the way of the Buddha can lead to more, then I’m on board.
click http://www.theidproject.com/podcast.htm for the podcasts. Boy, I tell you the 31 year old kid who runs this thing is on fire. He talks like the supersmart friend you got high with in high school before he left for Harvard, looks like the supercute gay friend we all want to have or be and is committed to prison reform like that gray-haired lesbian who looked at me like I’m a slut yesterday probably is! Goooo Ethan Nichtern!
Wednesday, April 15, 2009
The Lefse Story
In August of 2008 I went to Norway with my mother for a mother-daughter “lets connect with the ancestors” tour. We were both obsessed with our Scandinavian ancestry in a way that was so prideful that—I might as well say it—it bordered on racist. It was no secret that in our house to be Scandinavian was to be superior or, more accurately, simply more pleasing to God. I remember once complaining to my mother about a boyfriend who was alcoholic, unloving, and Finnish. My mother: “Oh you didn’t tell me he was Finnish.” I too fell into this “blinded by the Scandi” syndrome. To be tall and blonde, out on fjord near naked, in hiking boots, eating berries, as I had honest to God seen depicted in a tourist brochure, was in my mind the pinnacle of human existence. I was aware I was traveling with my seventy year old mother, and the chances of encountering these nude, berry-eating types was next to nil, I felt it was still worth a shot. Just to see them from the distance or to be able to offer them my seat on the ferry boat, would be worth the trip.
While I was hoping for Bjorn and Leta nude on the fjord, my mother was pursuing something less erotically charged. She was looking for lefse, the flatbread that we eat each Christmas. It looks like a tortilla, flat, round and soft, with little brown spots from where the lefse pan lightly burns the dough. Lefse is made from mashed potatoes, sugar, butter and lots and lots of flour and has a mild flavor of Protestant restraint.
On the wall of my mother’s kitchen hangs her lefse turner, which she takes down once a year when she makes her Christmas batch. My mother rolls out the lefse dough, which has been chilling in the refrigerator for the past twenty-four hours, while my father mans the lefse grill: a flat, circular piece of metal that sits on a platform, which plugs into the wall. He flips as she passes more and more lefse rounds his way. It’s a delight to see my parents, who have done nothing but plague us with their incessant petty bickering (“Bill, I don’t think you should leave your coffee cup on the table like that. Don’t you like to use a coaster?” His response: IF I WANTED TO USE A GODDAMNED COASTER I WOULD HAVE USED A COASTER!” Hell.) Once the lefse is heated and put on a blue and white (my mother wouldn’t have it any other way) plate, we spread butter and grape jelly on it and roll it up. The lefse is the linchpin of Christmas at the Bullers—without it we might all come unhinged. We would know that something has gone terribly, terribly wrong.
Lefse is the pale, flavorless heart of Norwegian-American cooking. At Lutheran churches across the Midwest, a polite but serious competition exists amongst the ladies of the church. Who has the best lefse recipe? Who made the best lefse at the Norwegian Independence Celebration? Not too sweet, not too dry. Was it Peggy Lutherman? Or Nora Olufsson?
And so, with each ticket agent, train conductor, or shop attendant we encountered, my mother would ask, “Do you know where I could find lefse?” They would tilt their head to the side, look off into the distance and ask, “lef..lefse..wha?” “You know, lefse.” And my mother would get nervous and start buttering an imaginary piece of lefse in her hand, as if that would unlock a specific memory in the Norwegian’s mind. “No, no…I do not know,” the kind but pretty much unemotional Norwegian would say. In Stockholm and Storlien and Trondheim, my mother asked about lefse.
“Mom, why do you want to try their lefse so much? You know what your lefse is like? Why would you want store-bought lefse?”
“Oh, just to find out. You can’t go all the way to Norway and not try lefse!”
In Ostersund, Sweden, we got close, when the lady at the train station information desk (“Aah yes! I have been to America. I love Elvis. So I have been to Memphis.”) directed us to a pastry counter in town, but alas all we found were plump breads and bagels.
It wasn’t until we got to Norway’s lousy-with-foreigners capital, Oslo, the town my mother dreaded, because of all the “Pakistanians,” that we found lefse. We were standing in a 7-11, trying to buy drinking water, when I spotted a lit-from-the-back sign above the store-owner’s head. There was a hot dog, plump and sweaty, nestling in a piece of lefse.
“Is that lefse?!” I asked the Pakistani store-owner.
“Is flatbread, so yes, lefse.” The man wore his shirt unbuttoned down to his sternum and you could see his ample black chest hair crawling forth.
“You have heard of lefse?!” My mother practically jumped across the counter.
“Yes, yes. You can find it at the grocery stores in town.”
“Which one?” My mother and I asked at the same time. Apparently I had gotten pulled into the Great Lefse Hunt without my realizing it.
“Oh any of them. Just ask for lefse.”
“Thank you very much. We have been looking all over Norway for this.” I paid for the water (probably $5 US dollars), offered more gushing gratitude and unnecessary explanations, possibly even going into the annual Buller Christmas dinner, and wished him a good night.
My mother and I walked into the wild Oslo night reinvigorated. Lefse was in this very city! Now it was just a matter of time. We walked and walked, until we stumbled upon a grocery store, which was right next to a club featuring stand-up comedy, which I do unprofessionally, as I like to say. It was as if God was smiling down on the Buller women. Stand-up comedy and lefse in the same block! While my mom went to the grocery store, I went to check out the comedy. I walked into the bar, and followed the signs up the stairs to a packed room, where a comedy show was in full swing.
“Ick vul drod jammerskold ja tik nul!” The crowd exploded into laughter.
I asked if the show was free, and they said it was, but it was all in Swedish.
I went back down to find my mother in the grocery store.
I found her in aisle two, amidst a pile of lefse. She had several draping from one arm, while others were resting on the bread slicing machine (!).
“Look at the varieties they have!” She showed me oval lefse, gluten-free lefse, whole wheat lefse… “They are ten dollars each though!”
“No, mom, that’s Norwegian Kroner. So that’s two US dollars each.”
“Oh, that’s right, what am I thinking?” My mother had been making this mistake the whole trip, never having been to a foreign country before—and apparently, now at the age of seventy, incapable of taking in new information.
“Well, then we really have to stock up!”
We bought lefse for co-workers and church members and friends and family. Some for the flight home and some for the train ride back to Sweden. We left with about ten packs of lefse. On the front, the packages said “Lumpe brod: A Taste of the Old Norway.”
Back at the youth hostel we tried to entice our fellow boarders with lefse.
“How bout a taste of the real Norway?” my mother asked the very attractive Frenchmen she would be sleeping across from that night.
“Ahhhh, no thank you.”
On our train ride back to Stockholm, my mother and I enjoyed our lefse, even though it added an extra twenty pounds to our luggage. We agreed it was quite good. It tasted just like hers, it was just missing that flawed homemade look.
It was the absence of the weight of the lefse that I noticed as we lugged our bags up the ramp to the ferry to leave the retreat. “The lefse!” I cried out. But with a plane the next morning and a ferry schedule to stick to, my mother and I did not turn back.
The Swedes on the ferry asked why my mother and I were so down. “Our lefse,” we pouted. “Your what?” Only the Norwegian Americans would understand.
While I was hoping for Bjorn and Leta nude on the fjord, my mother was pursuing something less erotically charged. She was looking for lefse, the flatbread that we eat each Christmas. It looks like a tortilla, flat, round and soft, with little brown spots from where the lefse pan lightly burns the dough. Lefse is made from mashed potatoes, sugar, butter and lots and lots of flour and has a mild flavor of Protestant restraint.
On the wall of my mother’s kitchen hangs her lefse turner, which she takes down once a year when she makes her Christmas batch. My mother rolls out the lefse dough, which has been chilling in the refrigerator for the past twenty-four hours, while my father mans the lefse grill: a flat, circular piece of metal that sits on a platform, which plugs into the wall. He flips as she passes more and more lefse rounds his way. It’s a delight to see my parents, who have done nothing but plague us with their incessant petty bickering (“Bill, I don’t think you should leave your coffee cup on the table like that. Don’t you like to use a coaster?” His response: IF I WANTED TO USE A GODDAMNED COASTER I WOULD HAVE USED A COASTER!” Hell.) Once the lefse is heated and put on a blue and white (my mother wouldn’t have it any other way) plate, we spread butter and grape jelly on it and roll it up. The lefse is the linchpin of Christmas at the Bullers—without it we might all come unhinged. We would know that something has gone terribly, terribly wrong.
Lefse is the pale, flavorless heart of Norwegian-American cooking. At Lutheran churches across the Midwest, a polite but serious competition exists amongst the ladies of the church. Who has the best lefse recipe? Who made the best lefse at the Norwegian Independence Celebration? Not too sweet, not too dry. Was it Peggy Lutherman? Or Nora Olufsson?
And so, with each ticket agent, train conductor, or shop attendant we encountered, my mother would ask, “Do you know where I could find lefse?” They would tilt their head to the side, look off into the distance and ask, “lef..lefse..wha?” “You know, lefse.” And my mother would get nervous and start buttering an imaginary piece of lefse in her hand, as if that would unlock a specific memory in the Norwegian’s mind. “No, no…I do not know,” the kind but pretty much unemotional Norwegian would say. In Stockholm and Storlien and Trondheim, my mother asked about lefse.
“Mom, why do you want to try their lefse so much? You know what your lefse is like? Why would you want store-bought lefse?”
“Oh, just to find out. You can’t go all the way to Norway and not try lefse!”
In Ostersund, Sweden, we got close, when the lady at the train station information desk (“Aah yes! I have been to America. I love Elvis. So I have been to Memphis.”) directed us to a pastry counter in town, but alas all we found were plump breads and bagels.
It wasn’t until we got to Norway’s lousy-with-foreigners capital, Oslo, the town my mother dreaded, because of all the “Pakistanians,” that we found lefse. We were standing in a 7-11, trying to buy drinking water, when I spotted a lit-from-the-back sign above the store-owner’s head. There was a hot dog, plump and sweaty, nestling in a piece of lefse.
“Is that lefse?!” I asked the Pakistani store-owner.
“Is flatbread, so yes, lefse.” The man wore his shirt unbuttoned down to his sternum and you could see his ample black chest hair crawling forth.
“You have heard of lefse?!” My mother practically jumped across the counter.
“Yes, yes. You can find it at the grocery stores in town.”
“Which one?” My mother and I asked at the same time. Apparently I had gotten pulled into the Great Lefse Hunt without my realizing it.
“Oh any of them. Just ask for lefse.”
“Thank you very much. We have been looking all over Norway for this.” I paid for the water (probably $5 US dollars), offered more gushing gratitude and unnecessary explanations, possibly even going into the annual Buller Christmas dinner, and wished him a good night.
My mother and I walked into the wild Oslo night reinvigorated. Lefse was in this very city! Now it was just a matter of time. We walked and walked, until we stumbled upon a grocery store, which was right next to a club featuring stand-up comedy, which I do unprofessionally, as I like to say. It was as if God was smiling down on the Buller women. Stand-up comedy and lefse in the same block! While my mom went to the grocery store, I went to check out the comedy. I walked into the bar, and followed the signs up the stairs to a packed room, where a comedy show was in full swing.
“Ick vul drod jammerskold ja tik nul!” The crowd exploded into laughter.
I asked if the show was free, and they said it was, but it was all in Swedish.
I went back down to find my mother in the grocery store.
I found her in aisle two, amidst a pile of lefse. She had several draping from one arm, while others were resting on the bread slicing machine (!).
“Look at the varieties they have!” She showed me oval lefse, gluten-free lefse, whole wheat lefse… “They are ten dollars each though!”
“No, mom, that’s Norwegian Kroner. So that’s two US dollars each.”
“Oh, that’s right, what am I thinking?” My mother had been making this mistake the whole trip, never having been to a foreign country before—and apparently, now at the age of seventy, incapable of taking in new information.
“Well, then we really have to stock up!”
We bought lefse for co-workers and church members and friends and family. Some for the flight home and some for the train ride back to Sweden. We left with about ten packs of lefse. On the front, the packages said “Lumpe brod: A Taste of the Old Norway.”
Back at the youth hostel we tried to entice our fellow boarders with lefse.
“How bout a taste of the real Norway?” my mother asked the very attractive Frenchmen she would be sleeping across from that night.
“Ahhhh, no thank you.”
On our train ride back to Stockholm, my mother and I enjoyed our lefse, even though it added an extra twenty pounds to our luggage. We agreed it was quite good. It tasted just like hers, it was just missing that flawed homemade look.
It was the absence of the weight of the lefse that I noticed as we lugged our bags up the ramp to the ferry to leave the retreat. “The lefse!” I cried out. But with a plane the next morning and a ferry schedule to stick to, my mother and I did not turn back.
The Swedes on the ferry asked why my mother and I were so down. “Our lefse,” we pouted. “Your what?” Only the Norwegian Americans would understand.
Friday, November 16, 2007
TomKat with My Own Two Eyes
Oh my fucking god you would not believe how Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes – o – licious my day was. Never has a day been so Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes – o – riffic. It all started when I threatened to quit my job. Which I do very inefficiently and on a regular basis. I'll like walk up to a lampshade or a bellman and say, "You guys are really gonna get it when I'm gone!" "You don't understand how bad I want a four day work week!" And then I'll walk away. What I need to do is just walk away. Enough. ANYWAY, I told one of the managers that he doesn't understand how close he is to losing me, and he immediately went back to looking up diet information on his computer. Then I ran into him in a hotel hallway after work when I was in streetclothes, which I'm pretty sure is NOT acceptable. At least in my world. Disney workers CANNOT be seen smoking holding on to their Goofy heads. You get the idea. I have standards. Okay we get it. Let's get to the TomKat! So this co-worker/manager (anybody who is younger than me but has power over me gets the term "co-worker/manager") says "Why don't you go across the street and see what's going on?" Across the street I could see barricades set up and papparazzi hanging out. What the fuck. I was going to go to the library and work on some freewriting but FUCK THAT. We got some celebs coming our way. So I walk across the street to go in front of the fancy catering hall that I SWEAR one of these days I will set foot in. They have two various barricaded areas set up where people are penned in like pigs: one for the press, one for the public. I figure, what the fuck. What the fuck do I have to lose. So I crawl into one of the pens. Having no idea who is coming. I'm just standing there like an idiot. "I wike cewebwitieees! Me like pwetty peepow!" Eventually one black guy standing with us asks, "Who are we waiting for?" "Tom Cruise?," one other girl says. I laugh. We have no idea why we're here. I think it would be funny to start telling people Tom Cruise is coming when it's probably just like low level like British celebrities. Then I ask nobody in particular if maybe it is for real Tom Cruise. A girl turns around and sayss "Yeah it's a tribute to Tom Cruise." ALMOST as if on cue, another black car pulls up to drop off more rich doctors and their botoxed wives. This time the driver gets out and yells, "Who y'all waitin' fuh?" in a real dumb ..:NAMESPACE PREFIX = ST1 />Brooklyn accent. "Tom Cruise!" we yell. "It's a tribute to Tom Cruise!" yells the lady who knew it was a tribute. She's been really into the word "tribute" which I feel is a weird choice of words. I have heard of like a tribute to the Beatles or to the Firefighters killed in 9/11, but Tom Cruise? So then the car driver yells out, "A tribute for what?" Real incredulous. "I wasted my gas for that!" Then he gets back into his car and drives away. Which I think a lot of us agreed was great. One girl got offended and was like "You got paid didn't you." Clearly pro-Tom. Around this time a hub-bub breaks out over in the press pen. The men with big cameras standing on stools (yes step stools) standing behind the pen start yelling, "GETTIM OUTTA HEAH! Gettimmm outttTA HEAH!" I look in the press pen and I can see a somewhat retarded looking man with a press badge, a trench coat and a hunchback, with a wussy-looking camera around his neck and no step stool at all trying to get in next to the cool looking press with their hipster sneakers and big ass "I can see Britney's snatch" telescopic lenses. "GETTIM OUTTA HERE!" The hipster papparazi keep yelling. Security tells the pap to settle down. "Go easy!" Eventually the trench-coated man gets comfortable and pulls off his cap, revealing a deeply pathetic 1970s-style combover. So there's an incident which I think we can all pretty much agree can pretty much take the cake as most bizarro disconcerting event of the night.
But wait. We're just getting started.
Now from outside Cipriani you can see that inside Cipriani, there is a huge screen flashing still shots from The Color of Money, Top Gun, Risky Business. Another slide simply states, in fancy lettering, "The Museum of the Moving Image Salutes Tom Cruise."
So now it's like really happening.
Then a black car pulls up and the press starts going wild. Flashes start, the yelling starts. I crane my neck and it's like Brian Dennehy. Or Patton Oswalt. Some fat guy with baby face a skinny lady in an evening dress on his arm. We're all confused. "Who is that?" different people ask. "Is it Brian Dennehy?!" I ask, hoping to be the one who's got the answer. "No," sniffs the woman next to me. "It's not him." Well excuuse me. At least I'm trying here lady. I don't hear you making any guesses.
A couple more black cars pull up dropping off men in tuxes and ladies in cream or black. Some cool old gray-haired guys even come in cabs. Some more black cars. Then finally comes a big fat shiny black SUV. "Here comes the big fish!" I say. Which may very well be the dorkiest thing ever said in a public pig pen device, but whatever. Then the press really start to go ape shit with the flashing of the lights which I don't even get because aren't they just taking a picture of a black truck? Then out of nowhere all these black people come. Or maybe it was just one black family, but either way now there are black people hanging around here holding Tom Cruise pictures and Sharpies and now there are like ITALIAN people from out of nowhere and now at this point no one is paying any attention to the pen idea. Hordes of people who have materialized out of nowhere and who certainly weren't waiting here with us for the past half hour are now gathering outside of the pen area. The rear door of the SUV is opening and at this precise moment there is like a surging of the ground beneath us and suddenly we are all three feet taller than we were before. If you were standing near a barricade you are now standing on top of a barricade. If you were standing on your heels you are now standing on your tippy toes and you are stretching your body more than you ever have in your life. If you are a small child you are now on your daddy's shoulders. Suddenly out of nowhere there are all these people yelling Tom Tom Tom! And holding Tom Cruise pictures. I am getting pushed from behind by a tiny Greek woman who is yelling at me "Do you see anything? Do you see anything?" I am craning my neck doing the best to see what is coming out rear passenger door, and that is when I see a tiny head with shiny dark hair and so that is when I realize that I am spotting with my own two eyes the tiny dwarf head of one Mr. Tom Cruise. Which will have an amazing effect on your mood, I will tell you that. It is like I am no longer thinking or feeling anything. I have no name. I have no bills. I certainly have no full-body venereal disease. I am floating in another dimension. It was like when I was doing nitrous in college but now I'm doing it with Italians and black kids and trench-coated men with wussy cameras and a whole sea of people. This feeling is only amplified when I see a second tiny head with shiny dark hair come out of the car. At this point I'm losing air pretty fast. I can't decide which tiny head to try to find. The countless heads in front of me are now surging higher and higher. I am in a sea of heads but there are only two that count. I decide it's live or die. I climb up on a barricade to get an unobstructed view of the unbelievable TomKat. What's great is that you can tell that Tom is not quickly advancing through the crowd. He is stopping and signing autographs. So you can really get a lot of time looking at him. He is smiling and waving and greeting his fans. Katie is standing there looking at the crowd and showing us the most unbelievable back you have ever seen. But no one has pictures or Sharpies for her. She isn't signing anything. She is standing five feet away from him smiling into the crowd. "Oh my god the poor girl! Nobodies asking her for any autographs!" I report down to my precincts on the ground. "Oh I know!" says one girl.
Okay so here it is: Katie's back is amazingly perfect looking. Muscular but not too muscular looking. I was surprised by how skinny she looked. All scapulae and spine as one friend once put it. Her dress was very low cut in back so it was very much about the back tonight.
Tom has annoying longish hair now and is definitely short.
I was creeped out the whole time. From the moment their tiny heads came out of the SUV.
What was so creepy? The yelling. The car. The flashes. The money. The tiny heads of real people. That Katie Holmes really is that pretty. That these are just two human beings. Ugh. The whole thing. So much to be creeped out about.
And so after all that, here's a press pic from perezhilton from tonight's event. Damn they work fast.
But wait. We're just getting started.
Now from outside Cipriani you can see that inside Cipriani, there is a huge screen flashing still shots from The Color of Money, Top Gun, Risky Business. Another slide simply states, in fancy lettering, "The Museum of the Moving Image Salutes Tom Cruise."
So now it's like really happening.
Then a black car pulls up and the press starts going wild. Flashes start, the yelling starts. I crane my neck and it's like Brian Dennehy. Or Patton Oswalt. Some fat guy with baby face a skinny lady in an evening dress on his arm. We're all confused. "Who is that?" different people ask. "Is it Brian Dennehy?!" I ask, hoping to be the one who's got the answer. "No," sniffs the woman next to me. "It's not him." Well excuuse me. At least I'm trying here lady. I don't hear you making any guesses.
A couple more black cars pull up dropping off men in tuxes and ladies in cream or black. Some cool old gray-haired guys even come in cabs. Some more black cars. Then finally comes a big fat shiny black SUV. "Here comes the big fish!" I say. Which may very well be the dorkiest thing ever said in a public pig pen device, but whatever. Then the press really start to go ape shit with the flashing of the lights which I don't even get because aren't they just taking a picture of a black truck? Then out of nowhere all these black people come. Or maybe it was just one black family, but either way now there are black people hanging around here holding Tom Cruise pictures and Sharpies and now there are like ITALIAN people from out of nowhere and now at this point no one is paying any attention to the pen idea. Hordes of people who have materialized out of nowhere and who certainly weren't waiting here with us for the past half hour are now gathering outside of the pen area. The rear door of the SUV is opening and at this precise moment there is like a surging of the ground beneath us and suddenly we are all three feet taller than we were before. If you were standing near a barricade you are now standing on top of a barricade. If you were standing on your heels you are now standing on your tippy toes and you are stretching your body more than you ever have in your life. If you are a small child you are now on your daddy's shoulders. Suddenly out of nowhere there are all these people yelling Tom Tom Tom! And holding Tom Cruise pictures. I am getting pushed from behind by a tiny Greek woman who is yelling at me "Do you see anything? Do you see anything?" I am craning my neck doing the best to see what is coming out rear passenger door, and that is when I see a tiny head with shiny dark hair and so that is when I realize that I am spotting with my own two eyes the tiny dwarf head of one Mr. Tom Cruise. Which will have an amazing effect on your mood, I will tell you that. It is like I am no longer thinking or feeling anything. I have no name. I have no bills. I certainly have no full-body venereal disease. I am floating in another dimension. It was like when I was doing nitrous in college but now I'm doing it with Italians and black kids and trench-coated men with wussy cameras and a whole sea of people. This feeling is only amplified when I see a second tiny head with shiny dark hair come out of the car. At this point I'm losing air pretty fast. I can't decide which tiny head to try to find. The countless heads in front of me are now surging higher and higher. I am in a sea of heads but there are only two that count. I decide it's live or die. I climb up on a barricade to get an unobstructed view of the unbelievable TomKat. What's great is that you can tell that Tom is not quickly advancing through the crowd. He is stopping and signing autographs. So you can really get a lot of time looking at him. He is smiling and waving and greeting his fans. Katie is standing there looking at the crowd and showing us the most unbelievable back you have ever seen. But no one has pictures or Sharpies for her. She isn't signing anything. She is standing five feet away from him smiling into the crowd. "Oh my god the poor girl! Nobodies asking her for any autographs!" I report down to my precincts on the ground. "Oh I know!" says one girl.
Okay so here it is: Katie's back is amazingly perfect looking. Muscular but not too muscular looking. I was surprised by how skinny she looked. All scapulae and spine as one friend once put it. Her dress was very low cut in back so it was very much about the back tonight.
Tom has annoying longish hair now and is definitely short.
I was creeped out the whole time. From the moment their tiny heads came out of the SUV.
What was so creepy? The yelling. The car. The flashes. The money. The tiny heads of real people. That Katie Holmes really is that pretty. That these are just two human beings. Ugh. The whole thing. So much to be creeped out about.
And so after all that, here's a press pic from perezhilton from tonight's event. Damn they work fast.
Tuesday, November 06, 2007
My Life if Written as a New Yorker Fiction Piece
She was tired but unable to fall asleep, worrying that she would not remember that tomorrow morning she would have to go to the ATM inside the Chrysler Building and withdraw eighty dollars to put into her cash drawer at the hotel. Each agent was to have one thousand dollars inside her locked drawer at all times. Randomly, once a month, a young Ecuadorian man came down from an office upstairs to count their drawers. She enjoyed watching him count out the money, counting the bills under his breath. She liked how he progressed, starting with the foreign currency then working his way down until he had counted the last penny. If he found a discrepancy of over twenty dollars, however, he would ask the front office manager to issue a write-up. If an agent was missing over one hundred dollars, he and the front office manager would notify HR, and she would be automatically terminated. Once, she had noticed that it had been a while since she had seen a co-worker, a cute Latina girl who looked like she might be a lesbian and who she had imagined maybe getting to know better. She asked another agent about her. "Bank problems," a fellow agent said, with a knowing look.
She had been sick lately, an angry itch covering her whole body. Her various doctors, each perplexed and unable to issue a diagnosis, had each recommended over-the-counter allergy medicine, which made her flighty, buzzed and prone to error. Towards the end of one shift, feeling the painful itch in her legs and unable curl up and scratch the itches till they bled like she wanted to, she announced that she was going home early, and angrily put her cash drawer away without doing her nightly count. After that night, she began to give into her disease, whatever it was, and decided that certain things, like her nightly drawer count or watching what she ate, she didn't have to do.
The unbearable itching, which immediately followed the start of a new relationship with a penniless 45-year old musician she met in a self-help group, left her self-pitying, annoyed and with even less ambition. She had caught a glimpse of her doctor's notes on her case: "31 year old woman with genital lesions and thigh rash unclear etiology." She felt hurt by the doctor's careless phrasing, the crude lack of even proper punctuation. And the phrase "genital lesions" was especially painful and shameful to see in print.
That day at work she had been tired but pleasant, a mood that always allowed her to make the most tips. Her tiredness slowed her down, and allowed her to connect with the guests, and her pleasantness gave her a generosity that granted most of her guests' wishes. After taking care of every aspect of a Missouri farm couple's stay, the husband pushed a crisp folded twenty dollar bill across the desk. "Oh I couldn't," she said, creating a little back and forth between her and the husband, before deciding that she absolutely could. She spent most of the rest of her shift imagining what she could do with the twenty dollars. At five forty five, she decided she was feeling well enough to face her cash drawer and count her bills. This was when she noticed one hundred dollars missing. Had she gone mad one day from the itching, taking out a hundred dollars for some now-forgotten extravagance? Had a guest, noticing her listlessness, tricked her out of money? Certainly there was someone she could talk to about this and they could reason things out. Realizing that this was not the case, that there was no excuse the hotel would accept for one hundred missing dollars, and that there was no one on her side she could talk to, she became despondent, frustrated and wanted to scream.
When she met with her friend that day, a young man she had met while performing comedy in Chicago, having accepted her monetary loss, she wanted to complain to him instead about what she saw in her file and how frustrating it was to not have a diagnosis, but she knew that this was too personal to mention to this proper, well-educated young man. He had been educated on the East Coast, something that never failed to impress and intimidate her, and she felt the need to conform to her idea of proper conversation.
That night they went from bar to bar using a list of open mics she had printed off the internet. From bar to bar they went, finding they had either come at the wrong night, or that the show was cancelled or that the club had closed down altogether. After they travelled to every bar on her list, and found nowhere to perform, they began to play one of her favorite games: how it's better in the Midwest. In the Midwest, nobody ever counted her money—she used insurance money during the day at her job as an insurance adjuster. Insurance money could not be counted as easily as cash, and so nobody ever did it. If she had allowed attorneys to settle cases for too high, she never heard about it, and she could always argue that it would be much more expensive to take it to trial. At night, when she did comedy, she knew exactly where to go and exactly who she would see there. There was no need to carry around sheets of paper with addresses printed on them. She simply put on a wool jacket and asked to borrow her art professor boyfriend's car. She didn't mention these things to her young friend. They simply agreed: in the Midwest, although the stakes were so low, you could perform, no problem.
The next morning, she went to the bank and withdrew four crisp twenty dollar bills. At eleven a.m. that day, the Ecuadorian man came down. She watched him as he counted through her money, progressing from the foreign currency all the way to the last penny, until he said, after tabulating his numbers, "Very good. One thousand."
She had been sick lately, an angry itch covering her whole body. Her various doctors, each perplexed and unable to issue a diagnosis, had each recommended over-the-counter allergy medicine, which made her flighty, buzzed and prone to error. Towards the end of one shift, feeling the painful itch in her legs and unable curl up and scratch the itches till they bled like she wanted to, she announced that she was going home early, and angrily put her cash drawer away without doing her nightly count. After that night, she began to give into her disease, whatever it was, and decided that certain things, like her nightly drawer count or watching what she ate, she didn't have to do.
The unbearable itching, which immediately followed the start of a new relationship with a penniless 45-year old musician she met in a self-help group, left her self-pitying, annoyed and with even less ambition. She had caught a glimpse of her doctor's notes on her case: "31 year old woman with genital lesions and thigh rash unclear etiology." She felt hurt by the doctor's careless phrasing, the crude lack of even proper punctuation. And the phrase "genital lesions" was especially painful and shameful to see in print.
That day at work she had been tired but pleasant, a mood that always allowed her to make the most tips. Her tiredness slowed her down, and allowed her to connect with the guests, and her pleasantness gave her a generosity that granted most of her guests' wishes. After taking care of every aspect of a Missouri farm couple's stay, the husband pushed a crisp folded twenty dollar bill across the desk. "Oh I couldn't," she said, creating a little back and forth between her and the husband, before deciding that she absolutely could. She spent most of the rest of her shift imagining what she could do with the twenty dollars. At five forty five, she decided she was feeling well enough to face her cash drawer and count her bills. This was when she noticed one hundred dollars missing. Had she gone mad one day from the itching, taking out a hundred dollars for some now-forgotten extravagance? Had a guest, noticing her listlessness, tricked her out of money? Certainly there was someone she could talk to about this and they could reason things out. Realizing that this was not the case, that there was no excuse the hotel would accept for one hundred missing dollars, and that there was no one on her side she could talk to, she became despondent, frustrated and wanted to scream.
When she met with her friend that day, a young man she had met while performing comedy in Chicago, having accepted her monetary loss, she wanted to complain to him instead about what she saw in her file and how frustrating it was to not have a diagnosis, but she knew that this was too personal to mention to this proper, well-educated young man. He had been educated on the East Coast, something that never failed to impress and intimidate her, and she felt the need to conform to her idea of proper conversation.
That night they went from bar to bar using a list of open mics she had printed off the internet. From bar to bar they went, finding they had either come at the wrong night, or that the show was cancelled or that the club had closed down altogether. After they travelled to every bar on her list, and found nowhere to perform, they began to play one of her favorite games: how it's better in the Midwest. In the Midwest, nobody ever counted her money—she used insurance money during the day at her job as an insurance adjuster. Insurance money could not be counted as easily as cash, and so nobody ever did it. If she had allowed attorneys to settle cases for too high, she never heard about it, and she could always argue that it would be much more expensive to take it to trial. At night, when she did comedy, she knew exactly where to go and exactly who she would see there. There was no need to carry around sheets of paper with addresses printed on them. She simply put on a wool jacket and asked to borrow her art professor boyfriend's car. She didn't mention these things to her young friend. They simply agreed: in the Midwest, although the stakes were so low, you could perform, no problem.
The next morning, she went to the bank and withdrew four crisp twenty dollar bills. At eleven a.m. that day, the Ecuadorian man came down. She watched him as he counted through her money, progressing from the foreign currency all the way to the last penny, until he said, after tabulating his numbers, "Very good. One thousand."
Sunday, July 29, 2007
Checkwing In?
One of my favorite things to do at the hotel is to talk to foreigners with the words they say to me. To the Japanese, upon arrival, I'll offer a comforting "Checkwing in?" or to Spaniards, upon departure, "You want to make check out?" I find that a "you go now?" can be issued to almost anyone. And a "no no, no two bed, one bed" is quite enjoyable to any four-member family who will hear it. I don't mean to be mean, but we do need to move business along. We never promised you a rose garden, and certainly not two beds.
And now for our feature presentation. Here is a Bill Bryson-esque essay about the Buller family and our family vacations. It's a start.
Bill and Ellie Buller, my beloved yet infuriating parents, are big fans of that tiresome, self-righteous and wonderful philosophy: live simply so that others may simply live. I believe the phrase should be revised to "live simply, so that you may live painfully and uncomfortably but have the luxury of judging other people." My parents shun many common things, deeming them wasteful and indulgent. Things such as air-conditioning, paper towels and high self-regard. These have no place in the Buller house. If you go into Ellie Buller's house looking for a paper towel, she will cheerfully suggest, "Why not this heavy leaden plate or this grease-stained rag dear? I was just peeling an orange myself on this fifty-pound wooden block!" (And by the way, if you do walk casually into Ellie Buller's house, that is exactly how she will respond: cheerfully. This contended, self-satisfied, and somewhat dangerous and self-imperiling manner will be of no comfort, I assure you. It will only add to the intolerability of the situation.) If, in the oven-like heat of a Midwestern summer, you ask Bill Buller if the house can please, please get cooler, he will point out that we have already blocked off all sources of sun-light and all possible air-holes so maybe it's high time you rode your bicycle to the library-and on your way there, why not drop off that 50 pound stack of newspapers at the recyclery? While the house and its surrounding were Commanders' General main torture center, for two weeks each summer during the 1980s, when we lived in Oklahoma, we would all be transferred to a new holding cell: the Buller's 1979 Ford Fairmont, 
for the annual family vacation. The brown 1979 model we had did come equipped with air-conditioning, but only a toxic gas cloud sweeping over the Oklahoma plains would get Commander Bill Buller, an environmental scientist, to roll up the windows and turn on the air. To make matters worse, there was a dreadful upholstery arrangement that has forever scared (perhaps literally) the two outer occupants of the back seat. The Ford Fairmont back seats are cloth, except for two exciting six-inch panels of vinyl on the bench's edges. Back then, my brother was a baby and my sister was a teenager. So my baby brother, bubbling away at the mouth, would sit in a toddler seat in the middle of the backseat of the Fairmont, and my sister and I would sit on the sides, staring out our respective windows, engrossed in our hobbies (Jenny: listening to Stevie Nicks sing "Sara" on her headphones, over and over; me: determined nose-picking) while the unrolled windows turned the interior of the car into a tornado site. (Yes, as if things weren't gloomy enough already out on the Oklahoma plains, we had to have Stevie wailing away on a cocaine high about some girl having to rebuild a house, and then having to call someone once it's completed. I think if anyone ever wants to know why I am so often deeply depressed, plagued by an unrelenting inner sadness, I think we can confidently point to this moment and quickly move on to more puzzling matters.) This arrangement--my sister and I flanking our drooling, smiling baby brother--meant that for my sister and me, one thigh, our inner thigh, would be resting comfortably on the warm, light brown cloth seat, while the outer leg melted into the deep chocolate brown decorative vinyl side panel. Why the hell some designer at Ford opted for this stylish vinyl flourish I will never know. Perhaps they were Mennonites like my dad, certain that a life of unspeakable pain and irrational fear secured your entry into heaven. A six inch panel of flaming hot vinyl would tame the wild spirit of the child, teaching him that life was not like an endless stream of Saturday morning cartoons. Life was filled with pain, sorrow and third-degree burns. Or maybe the designers wanted to add just a flash of luxury to the Fairmont interior. Frankly, it's a miracle this flourish made it past our parents. Didn't they see the polyurethane and sense that it could entice their children to lead a lifetime of dancing, cigarette-smoking, and beer-drinking? I can only imagine that this was the cheapest version of the Fairmont on the lot.
for the annual family vacation. The brown 1979 model we had did come equipped with air-conditioning, but only a toxic gas cloud sweeping over the Oklahoma plains would get Commander Bill Buller, an environmental scientist, to roll up the windows and turn on the air. To make matters worse, there was a dreadful upholstery arrangement that has forever scared (perhaps literally) the two outer occupants of the back seat. The Ford Fairmont back seats are cloth, except for two exciting six-inch panels of vinyl on the bench's edges. Back then, my brother was a baby and my sister was a teenager. So my baby brother, bubbling away at the mouth, would sit in a toddler seat in the middle of the backseat of the Fairmont, and my sister and I would sit on the sides, staring out our respective windows, engrossed in our hobbies (Jenny: listening to Stevie Nicks sing "Sara" on her headphones, over and over; me: determined nose-picking) while the unrolled windows turned the interior of the car into a tornado site. (Yes, as if things weren't gloomy enough already out on the Oklahoma plains, we had to have Stevie wailing away on a cocaine high about some girl having to rebuild a house, and then having to call someone once it's completed. I think if anyone ever wants to know why I am so often deeply depressed, plagued by an unrelenting inner sadness, I think we can confidently point to this moment and quickly move on to more puzzling matters.) This arrangement--my sister and I flanking our drooling, smiling baby brother--meant that for my sister and me, one thigh, our inner thigh, would be resting comfortably on the warm, light brown cloth seat, while the outer leg melted into the deep chocolate brown decorative vinyl side panel. Why the hell some designer at Ford opted for this stylish vinyl flourish I will never know. Perhaps they were Mennonites like my dad, certain that a life of unspeakable pain and irrational fear secured your entry into heaven. A six inch panel of flaming hot vinyl would tame the wild spirit of the child, teaching him that life was not like an endless stream of Saturday morning cartoons. Life was filled with pain, sorrow and third-degree burns. Or maybe the designers wanted to add just a flash of luxury to the Fairmont interior. Frankly, it's a miracle this flourish made it past our parents. Didn't they see the polyurethane and sense that it could entice their children to lead a lifetime of dancing, cigarette-smoking, and beer-drinking? I can only imagine that this was the cheapest version of the Fairmont on the lot. This horrific upholstery arrangement meant that for hours after my sister and I got in the car, we would be propping up one leg, letting the treacherous hot lava beneath us cool, while our tongues wagged outside of our mouths and our eyes rolled into the backs of our heads with agony, the lactic acid building in our legs. In the front seat, our parents would be calmly noting how the car was actually "quite cool" and thankfully we didn't need to turn the air on "just yet." While we breathlessly awaited a diverting stop, whether it was the Childhood Home of Laura Ingalls Wilder or the West Whitlock Recreation Area of the Historic Lewis and Clark Trail, we knew that the respite would be brief and ultimately we would be returning to our cells.
Further notes on the 1982 Ford Fairmont. This car was the source of much sorrow for me. I had seen several friend's mothers' Cutlass Calais's and Cutlass Supremes. While inside, I spotted a variety of shiny silvery buttons that could make windows lower and rise, and car seats shift forward and back. Also, those cars had seats that were upholstered with a soft, velvety mauve fabric, with not an inch of vinyl in sight. If my parents had one of those cars, or even if we had a super cool Ford Fairmont station wagon, certainly my aim would improve in softball, I would no longer struggle so with memorizing my multiplication tables, and definitely I would stop peeing my pants in public so much. The secrets to success were uttered inside those maroon, full-powered sedans. The Bullers, doomed to a life of upright, simple living, would be forever locked out, spending our summers lifting one thigh, fretting over a girl named Sarah and her rebuilt house, while the gales of Oklahoma wind blew our feathered hair straight back.
Thursday, July 19, 2007
Tuesday, June 19, 2007
Pretty Shaken Up Right Now
Check this out and see how you feel after.
http://www.leveragedsellout.com/2007/02/pocket-changed-my-life/
I can't decide if I'm outraged or inspired, or outraged that I am inspired. These Patrick Bateman types have always been a source of inner conflict for me. Some say this blog is a parody. I secretly hope that it's not, but I fear that it is. Douchebags don't write that well. But this guy does have a lot of information...
My God I am totally avoiding prepping my set for Carolines tomorrow! I prep for my sets with the same obsessiveness and pride I imagine top chefs devote to their meals.
Carolines
June, 19 2007
Amuse bouche
Missed Connections
Entree
America's Next Top Lesbian
Dessert
Jokes
I have prepared a six minute set. If they give me eight minutes, I will have to pull out some dishes I would rather not serve, such as "Good Sex," which is a joke about childhood sex abuse and "Occasions" which is about celebrations in the sex and love addict community. I hope they give me only six minutes.
Today the police were really sticking it to our guests. All these Wall Street types were trying to drop their cars off for valet, double parking their cars, but the cops were yelling at them, not letting them double park, issuing them tickets for staying in their cars.
"But officer, I'm running late for a meeting, and I can't back up.."
"DID I ASK YOU FOR EXCUSES?"
Hahaha. I like it when the blue collar really stick it to the white collar.
I like it when things get really intense in NY. One Japanese lady was crying because it took valet parking an hour and a half to pull their car around. They were trying to get to the airport for their flight. Valet Parking's response? "Lady, this is Manhattan."
HaHA! See what I've been saying people!? Lady, this is Manhattan. I couldn't have put it better myself!
http://www.leveragedsellout.com/2007/02/pocket-changed-my-life/
I can't decide if I'm outraged or inspired, or outraged that I am inspired. These Patrick Bateman types have always been a source of inner conflict for me. Some say this blog is a parody. I secretly hope that it's not, but I fear that it is. Douchebags don't write that well. But this guy does have a lot of information...
My God I am totally avoiding prepping my set for Carolines tomorrow! I prep for my sets with the same obsessiveness and pride I imagine top chefs devote to their meals.
Carolines
June, 19 2007
Amuse bouche
Missed Connections
Entree
America's Next Top Lesbian
Dessert
Jokes
I have prepared a six minute set. If they give me eight minutes, I will have to pull out some dishes I would rather not serve, such as "Good Sex," which is a joke about childhood sex abuse and "Occasions" which is about celebrations in the sex and love addict community. I hope they give me only six minutes.
Today the police were really sticking it to our guests. All these Wall Street types were trying to drop their cars off for valet, double parking their cars, but the cops were yelling at them, not letting them double park, issuing them tickets for staying in their cars.
"But officer, I'm running late for a meeting, and I can't back up.."
"DID I ASK YOU FOR EXCUSES?"
Hahaha. I like it when the blue collar really stick it to the white collar.
I like it when things get really intense in NY. One Japanese lady was crying because it took valet parking an hour and a half to pull their car around. They were trying to get to the airport for their flight. Valet Parking's response? "Lady, this is Manhattan."
HaHA! See what I've been saying people!? Lady, this is Manhattan. I couldn't have put it better myself!
Sunday, June 17, 2007
On Maui Taco
Today after work I went to an open mic in the basement of a restaurant just south of the Empire State Building named "Maui Taco." It was hosted by a big friendly Puerto Rican man and was attended by a delightful collection of amateur New York comics.
One of the comics was talking about how the perfect girlfriend would be Helen Keller. "You're just hanging out with your buddies and then there's some deaf and blind chic you like keep in a cage." This is the moment preceding the moment where I stand up, grab my purse, and yell, real loud, and very much like a lesbian prison warden or an Indiana football coach, "FUUUUCK!" and then storm out of the bar/restaurant/taco stand.
Which is, I think we can all agree, hilarious.
I then charged up and down Fifth Avenue like an unemployed man about to punch his girlfriend. Lots of rage. Up and down Fifth Ave. Then I decided to calm down and that this was all really ridiculous and isn't this exactly the sort of stuff that gets one laughed at real good and hard?
So then I walked back in. The guy apologized to me in front of everybody, but someone hadn't read the O magazine where they tell you how to apologize (always review what you did wrong), so then I got pissed off all over again because I don't think he got why he was apologizing.
But I stayed and it turns out that he's a sex addict as well, so then I got attracted to him.
I went to look for him after the open mic ended, but he was gone. So bittersweet.
My sponsor made me make a spreadsheet of all the qualities I want in a partner. I am to review any future dating partner and ensure that he or she has a sufficient number of pre-selected qualities. Unfortunately, "good sense of humor--like mine" is high on the list, and so Mr. Helen Keller is out of the running.
In the category of news we can only categorize as "Awesome!":
On March 31, 1993, David married Laurie Lennard; they have two daughters named Cazzie and Romy, and they live in Pacific Palisades, California. Like her counterpart, Cheryl David (played by Cheryl Hines), in Curb Your Enthusiasm, Laurie is an environmental activist. Since May 2005, the couple have each been contributing bloggers at The Huffington Post.[1]
On June 5, 2007, the couple announced their intention to amicably separate.[2]
Amicable separation? Awesome!
Once I get to know Larry more, I will be able to see how he does with regard to the list.
One of the comics was talking about how the perfect girlfriend would be Helen Keller. "You're just hanging out with your buddies and then there's some deaf and blind chic you like keep in a cage." This is the moment preceding the moment where I stand up, grab my purse, and yell, real loud, and very much like a lesbian prison warden or an Indiana football coach, "FUUUUCK!" and then storm out of the bar/restaurant/taco stand.
Which is, I think we can all agree, hilarious.
I then charged up and down Fifth Avenue like an unemployed man about to punch his girlfriend. Lots of rage. Up and down Fifth Ave. Then I decided to calm down and that this was all really ridiculous and isn't this exactly the sort of stuff that gets one laughed at real good and hard?
So then I walked back in. The guy apologized to me in front of everybody, but someone hadn't read the O magazine where they tell you how to apologize (always review what you did wrong), so then I got pissed off all over again because I don't think he got why he was apologizing.
But I stayed and it turns out that he's a sex addict as well, so then I got attracted to him.
I went to look for him after the open mic ended, but he was gone. So bittersweet.
My sponsor made me make a spreadsheet of all the qualities I want in a partner. I am to review any future dating partner and ensure that he or she has a sufficient number of pre-selected qualities. Unfortunately, "good sense of humor--like mine" is high on the list, and so Mr. Helen Keller is out of the running.
In the category of news we can only categorize as "Awesome!":
On March 31, 1993, David married Laurie Lennard; they have two daughters named Cazzie and Romy, and they live in Pacific Palisades, California. Like her counterpart, Cheryl David (played by Cheryl Hines), in Curb Your Enthusiasm, Laurie is an environmental activist. Since May 2005, the couple have each been contributing bloggers at The Huffington Post.[1]
On June 5, 2007, the couple announced their intention to amicably separate.[2]
Amicable separation? Awesome!
Once I get to know Larry more, I will be able to see how he does with regard to the list.
Monday, June 11, 2007
Just a Little Recap of Today
Today after work I picked up three apricots, some
V8 juice, some milk and two apples.
Zoe Cassavettes, the daughter of Gina Rowlands and John Cassavettes always has two Fuji apples and some non-fat milk in her fridge, according to the New York Times. I looked for Fuji apples, but they didn't have any so I bought Granny Smith, which I found to be very "Mischa Barton", and also DKNY ad campaign (blech) so I was a little disappointed.
Then I came home and watched some Home of the Sparrow, or Flight of the Conchords or whatever it is. I felt bad because I am not on television. I have to go to lots of meetings and be obsessive about things. I think if I wasn't quite so crazy, I could definitely be on television.
Then I made fliers for my next show. The fliers are made with crayon and index cards.
Tonight I'm going to go to a cafe and try to write a joke about a family of five quietly driving around in a car, where everyone is looking out the window with the same facial expression, which is that of someone with bad diarrhea. We'll see.
Oh! I am performing at Carolines on Tuesday! It's a gay and lesbian and bi pride show.
Please contact me for further information.
V8 juice, some milk and two apples.Zoe Cassavettes, the daughter of Gina Rowlands and John Cassavettes always has two Fuji apples and some non-fat milk in her fridge, according to the New York Times. I looked for Fuji apples, but they didn't have any so I bought Granny Smith, which I found to be very "Mischa Barton", and also DKNY ad campaign (blech) so I was a little disappointed.
Then I came home and watched some Home of the Sparrow, or Flight of the Conchords or whatever it is. I felt bad because I am not on television. I have to go to lots of meetings and be obsessive about things. I think if I wasn't quite so crazy, I could definitely be on television.
Then I made fliers for my next show. The fliers are made with crayon and index cards.
Tonight I'm going to go to a cafe and try to write a joke about a family of five quietly driving around in a car, where everyone is looking out the window with the same facial expression, which is that of someone with bad diarrhea. We'll see.
Oh! I am performing at Carolines on Tuesday! It's a gay and lesbian and bi pride show.
Please contact me for further information.
Friday, June 08, 2007
Give the Jokes
Today I was tromping around town wearing this polyester gem of gown:
when a man waiting beside me at the corner of 57th and 5th turned to me and said, "I think that may be the most beautiful dress in all of New York."
He was a black man in a pink dress shirt and flower print tie.
I turned to him and said, I think quite reasonably, "Are you making fun of me?"
"No. Are you an artist?"
"No. I am a performer though."
"What kind?"
"I am a comedian. You know, stand up."
"Oh, you give the jokes?"
"Yes."
"You know what they say, don't you? The people who give jokes, they live long lives."
And then he walked away.
Well, slap me on the ass and call me Michael Landon, I think I just received one of those little-talked about but well-known Angel Visits! I have had those often in my life's journey, but none quite so succint and quite so in front of the legendary Plaza! Talk about a stroke of good luck! Can you believe this? "Those who give the jokes live the longest." Wow. I mean, what an incentive to give the jokes!
Also notable today:
While I was sitting in the cafeteria, reading a NYT article about those scary-smart, scary-young Google programmers and their endless quest for a "better search" ("Keep going kids!" I say. I'm still trying to track down some key employment information on some ex's ex-girlfriends so KEEP ON IT!), I was rudely interrupted by a Jamaican lady yelling "Hey Lady! Yo Lady! You with the paper!"
"Yes?" I say, finally catching on.
"Where's Wisconsin?"
"Above Chicago."
"It's not Massachusetts? He's sayin' it's Massachusetts or something!" She gestures to a cross-eyed Indian man sitting next to her.
"No. It's...it's not Massachusetts. It's...above Chicago."
I say Chicago because Chicago is a generally recognizable city here at the hotel.
"Okay! Thank you!"
I guess I don't know jack shit about Jamaica so I should just shut my prissy trap.
Thursday, June 07, 2007
Big Mama Don't Care!
So there are clearly some guests at the hotel who I plain and simple do not like. When they start to act up, I immediately pull that shit away. They are no longer a friend of Kara J. Buller's, I will tell you that. Somebody ain't readin' that Secret shit so somebody needs to git away from me! That's how I see it. I don't need no more negativity rubbing up against me. I'm tryin' to fight the good fight over here and I don't need no babies cryin' about no lukewarm brefass buffet, you hear me?
Today there was a travel agent acting up. She didn't like her room.
"I mean there's no make-up mirror, there's no bathmat, there's no bathrobe. I want you to get me a nicer room."
"Listen, bitch I can get you a nicer room but it ain't gonna be at this hotel, okay? It gonna be ova at the St. Regis or some shit. We be talking the London or the Soho Grand or some shit like that if you gonna be talkin' about makeup mirror."
Dumb bitch. I told her three times that our rooms don't come with no makeup mirror.
"I want you to move me to a nicer room."
I moved her to another room that was the exact same as her nasty room. Dumb bitch. That'll teach her.
After that shit, I asked to go out and stand in the lobby by the checkin machines. Stand there all day and fart and smile at people. All day long. Now that be the job, girl! Just fuckin' stand by the automated check in machine and help the retards get their credit cards swiping the right way?! That's right!
On the train ride home I was sittin' across from some bitch who had some bag from Stretch World, Inc. "Specializing in Stretch Fabrics since 1997. 252 West 38th Street New York, NY 10018." I ain't shittin you! Check out their website, yo! They got demin metallic stretch for 8 bills a yard, yo!
Grrrl, I dragged my ass to some literary event over where the homos live in the Chelsea, you know? They done gone and postponed that muthafuckin' literary event! I's standin' out there flippin' through my New Yorker lookin' for some other literary event to go to like some junkie trying to get his fix...
Mama took it over to the French res'rant, mmkay? Mama got some crepes and some warm pineapple juice poured over ice. Put those feet up and pulled out my Backstage. You know what I'm talkin' about. A girl has got to keep up. Check out those audition notices and shit. Grrrrrrrl, you have got to! Even if yo ass be real ugly and you ain't got no talent and you just stutter and get all sweaty when you up there… Turns out that comedy club Gotham's lookin' for comics. You only gotta bring four people. Then what. Then they give you a videotape so you can add it to the pile with all your other videotapes. You know what I'm gonna say to that don't you? That's right. That's some buulllllllllshit!
Got home and put me in some Entourage. Now that I got me a Jew manager I got to keep on top of these things. See how this mutherfuckin shit gits done!
But you tell me why mama wants to watch some show about some skinny ass pretty boys fuckin pretty girls and goin' around all day talkin' about pussy and televisions! All day long. Pussy and televisions. Televisions and pussy. Big mama don't care!
Grrrrrl, I tell you what. It's been one of those days. Mama gonna draw herself a bath, and get ready for another day of some bulllllllshit.
Today there was a travel agent acting up. She didn't like her room.
"I mean there's no make-up mirror, there's no bathmat, there's no bathrobe. I want you to get me a nicer room."
"Listen, bitch I can get you a nicer room but it ain't gonna be at this hotel, okay? It gonna be ova at the St. Regis or some shit. We be talking the London or the Soho Grand or some shit like that if you gonna be talkin' about makeup mirror."
Dumb bitch. I told her three times that our rooms don't come with no makeup mirror.
"I want you to move me to a nicer room."
I moved her to another room that was the exact same as her nasty room. Dumb bitch. That'll teach her.
After that shit, I asked to go out and stand in the lobby by the checkin machines. Stand there all day and fart and smile at people. All day long. Now that be the job, girl! Just fuckin' stand by the automated check in machine and help the retards get their credit cards swiping the right way?! That's right!
On the train ride home I was sittin' across from some bitch who had some bag from Stretch World, Inc. "Specializing in Stretch Fabrics since 1997. 252 West 38th Street New York, NY 10018." I ain't shittin you! Check out their website, yo! They got demin metallic stretch for 8 bills a yard, yo!
Grrrl, I dragged my ass to some literary event over where the homos live in the Chelsea, you know? They done gone and postponed that muthafuckin' literary event! I's standin' out there flippin' through my New Yorker lookin' for some other literary event to go to like some junkie trying to get his fix...
Mama took it over to the French res'rant, mmkay? Mama got some crepes and some warm pineapple juice poured over ice. Put those feet up and pulled out my Backstage. You know what I'm talkin' about. A girl has got to keep up. Check out those audition notices and shit. Grrrrrrrl, you have got to! Even if yo ass be real ugly and you ain't got no talent and you just stutter and get all sweaty when you up there… Turns out that comedy club Gotham's lookin' for comics. You only gotta bring four people. Then what. Then they give you a videotape so you can add it to the pile with all your other videotapes. You know what I'm gonna say to that don't you? That's right. That's some buulllllllllshit!
Got home and put me in some Entourage. Now that I got me a Jew manager I got to keep on top of these things. See how this mutherfuckin shit gits done!
But you tell me why mama wants to watch some show about some skinny ass pretty boys fuckin pretty girls and goin' around all day talkin' about pussy and televisions! All day long. Pussy and televisions. Televisions and pussy. Big mama don't care!
Grrrrrl, I tell you what. It's been one of those days. Mama gonna draw herself a bath, and get ready for another day of some bulllllllshit.
Sunday, June 03, 2007
Joan Didion You are KILLING Me!
"She was lying on her back on the asphalt. An ambulance was called. She was taken to UCLA. According to Gerry she was awake and lucid in the ambulance. It was only in the emergency room that she began convulsing and lost coherence."
Dear God! I don't see how she could think that any of this was funny! This is dreadfully serious stuff! And I haven't seen a real honest to god set-up/punch since page 43, when she was talking about her chanting in Latin at St. John the Divine.
I am, of course, reading Joan Didion National Book Award-winning The Year of Magical Thinking.
I am sitting in a French-style cafe on the Lower East Side where apparenly, actor-musician Mos Def can be found at least weekly. Well. I could use the man right about now. He suggests you try to French toast, and you can bet I did. Anything to block out Joan and the heat. Note to readers: do NOT mix sweltering heat and books on grief. This should be a no-brainer, but Old Buller here thought she could take it.
I FedExed a sample of my comedy to Murfreesboro, TN today. It took everything I had to spell it the way the true spelling requires that it be spelled.
I have been charging up a storm on my credit card getting my dvds out of my house. Now I just need to charge up a storm getting me out of this country.
I am wearing vintage Lilly Pulitzer green and turquoise pants given to me by a Columbia-educated friend I was in love with. She is gone, but her pants remain. I am hoping that the pants will attract a new, Columbia-educated well-connected friend. Don't the wealthy have an eye for one another's things?
Earlier today a black man sitting on a lawn chair yelled to me "Yo fly's undone!"
So we do know that black men sitting on lawn chairs have an eye for open flies.
The line to sum up today? Doing the best I can. The Four Agreements says "always do your best." I think the "always" is a bit much. I think "more often than not" is better.
Dear God! I don't see how she could think that any of this was funny! This is dreadfully serious stuff! And I haven't seen a real honest to god set-up/punch since page 43, when she was talking about her chanting in Latin at St. John the Divine.
I am, of course, reading Joan Didion National Book Award-winning The Year of Magical Thinking.
I am sitting in a French-style cafe on the Lower East Side where apparenly, actor-musician Mos Def can be found at least weekly. Well. I could use the man right about now. He suggests you try to French toast, and you can bet I did. Anything to block out Joan and the heat. Note to readers: do NOT mix sweltering heat and books on grief. This should be a no-brainer, but Old Buller here thought she could take it.
I FedExed a sample of my comedy to Murfreesboro, TN today. It took everything I had to spell it the way the true spelling requires that it be spelled.
I have been charging up a storm on my credit card getting my dvds out of my house. Now I just need to charge up a storm getting me out of this country.
I am wearing vintage Lilly Pulitzer green and turquoise pants given to me by a Columbia-educated friend I was in love with. She is gone, but her pants remain. I am hoping that the pants will attract a new, Columbia-educated well-connected friend. Don't the wealthy have an eye for one another's things?
Earlier today a black man sitting on a lawn chair yelled to me "Yo fly's undone!"
So we do know that black men sitting on lawn chairs have an eye for open flies.
The line to sum up today? Doing the best I can. The Four Agreements says "always do your best." I think the "always" is a bit much. I think "more often than not" is better.
Thursday, April 05, 2007
About That Girl...
Note to self:
The time thinking about her? That is wasted time. The time thinking about her perfect auburn hair, long and wavy like a girl in a library in a J Crew ad. Her perfect setups and punchlines, so precious and perfect as well, as if crafted with small tools in a top-secret Harvard Comedy Graduate School, which for all we know may very well exist, those near demi-Gods being so reserved and appropriate, not needing to tell everyone about their attendance at an elite comedian breeding ground, which you know would be the first words out of my crusty red-lipsticked mouth. Oh world! Why have you rendered me so imperfect! My dimpled thighs and bucked tooth (just one bucked, the one on the right--not even my imperfection can be perfect!), my black-wire hair, my pockmarked and blackheaded skin! All to match my crooked speech and uncontrolled and lugubrious set-ups. Oh world! When will the mercy come! Make way for the mercy of the Lord! Give peace to me. Cease these days at the register. These days of typing blogs from beneath the sheets, lest the world (which is of course my roommate, my world so small) see the hideous beast I have become and incur a shock to the immune system, a temporary shutdown, as the system recalibrates after being exposed to such a horror. Oh God why have you made them all so attractive! And why must they all get on at one train stop! Certainly you could spread them out! Some on at Morgan, some at Graham. No! We must endure the concentrated assault, the shock and awe campaign that is Bedford Avenue. Oh please merciful Jesus! Draw our attentions away from the unending slim-legged beauty engrossed in the John Updike and deliver it to the four foot Peruvian curled up on the urine-soaked bench! This prayer God? Allow me to stop this prayer. Allow me to think no more of these children, these, okay, women and men, who haunt my dreams. And lord! Please explain to me why I murdered two men in my sleep last night, symbolized only by the rigorous slicing of a beet, and then entered into another nightmare, where I was awaking from that previous nightmare, filled with terror that I am the sort that is capable of murder in dreams, and then perhaps capable of murder in real life! And God! What happened the other day with the Viva paper towel commercial? The one with the son who sprays the mother with orange pop, prompting the mother to spray the son with the kitchen sink hose? The one that I couldn't get out of my mind, and when I prayed to you to make me stop thinking about it, pondering the perhaps misogynistic, anti-mother message of it, that only made me think of it more? And granted God this is better than some unending spirals of other more personal thoughts, for example those thoughts, those thoughts about them, the ones I took to Dr. Weiss. "I have got to know about them. Why didn't I put a chip in his sock the last time I saw him? Why wasn't I more proactive with this? Isn't there a detective you can put me in touch with? You have been doing this long enough! Certainly you can make a referral." And when she asked me which couple we were talking about now I laughed at the absurdity of it. Does it really matter Dr. Weiss? Does it really fucking matter? If I don't have a chip to place in a sock or the business card of a handsome and trusty gumshoe. Any one of them. I'll take any information on any of them. Restaurant menus and hotel bills and sexual positions and inside jokes. Calories consumed, parties attended, fights…please Dr. Weiss, maybe if we work together on this we can come up with something. "All we know about is you." Well that's no fun Dr. Weiss! We know about my acne and my gravel driveway and OH the pain that that caused. Oh the humiliation. The crunching sound as the clear-skinned wealthy beauties I considered my cohorts and colleagues pulled their Volvos and Grand Prixes (yes! I even consider a Grand Prix to be a vehicle for the upper crust!) into our humble, pebble driveway. Leading of course to that place. That house. Oh Dr. Weiss, if I could only present for you in power point presentation the horrors that happened in that house. Mostly involving denied shopping trips to TJ Maxx and literal crying over spilled milk. Oh to be the girl who spilled the milk! Oh pity her! For her night—and her snack of cookies and milk is ruined! Do you see the horrors Dr. Weiss? Do you see them in full color detail? Please deliver me from this insanity, Dr. Weiss. Wipe clean the dry erase boards of my mind. Thrust the erasers out the window and bang them together, releasing into the spring air the yellow dust I miss so much. Wring out the white cotton cloth and slap it against the slate tables of the Olive Tree Café. Oh Dr. Weiss! Write out for me a prescription for peace, wealth and a trip to Santa Fe. Santa Fe! Could you imagine! Do you remember the night Doug Milken and I ran through the Santa Fe WalMart, looking for underwear for him, and I felt so uncomfortable, because I was the 17 year old nanny and he was the 50 year old father? Of course you do not remember, you are not a God but a shrink, but oh how I do like to pretend that you know it all. How comforting.
Oh Lord, please look upon me with favor, and grant me a ticket to Elton John's 70th birthday bash. We have missed the 60th and that is fine and well. But please lord for these next ten years, let your light shine down upon my face and allow me to share with all the world what they need most: my coffee-stained, buck tooth smile.
The time thinking about her? That is wasted time. The time thinking about her perfect auburn hair, long and wavy like a girl in a library in a J Crew ad. Her perfect setups and punchlines, so precious and perfect as well, as if crafted with small tools in a top-secret Harvard Comedy Graduate School, which for all we know may very well exist, those near demi-Gods being so reserved and appropriate, not needing to tell everyone about their attendance at an elite comedian breeding ground, which you know would be the first words out of my crusty red-lipsticked mouth. Oh world! Why have you rendered me so imperfect! My dimpled thighs and bucked tooth (just one bucked, the one on the right--not even my imperfection can be perfect!), my black-wire hair, my pockmarked and blackheaded skin! All to match my crooked speech and uncontrolled and lugubrious set-ups. Oh world! When will the mercy come! Make way for the mercy of the Lord! Give peace to me. Cease these days at the register. These days of typing blogs from beneath the sheets, lest the world (which is of course my roommate, my world so small) see the hideous beast I have become and incur a shock to the immune system, a temporary shutdown, as the system recalibrates after being exposed to such a horror. Oh God why have you made them all so attractive! And why must they all get on at one train stop! Certainly you could spread them out! Some on at Morgan, some at Graham. No! We must endure the concentrated assault, the shock and awe campaign that is Bedford Avenue. Oh please merciful Jesus! Draw our attentions away from the unending slim-legged beauty engrossed in the John Updike and deliver it to the four foot Peruvian curled up on the urine-soaked bench! This prayer God? Allow me to stop this prayer. Allow me to think no more of these children, these, okay, women and men, who haunt my dreams. And lord! Please explain to me why I murdered two men in my sleep last night, symbolized only by the rigorous slicing of a beet, and then entered into another nightmare, where I was awaking from that previous nightmare, filled with terror that I am the sort that is capable of murder in dreams, and then perhaps capable of murder in real life! And God! What happened the other day with the Viva paper towel commercial? The one with the son who sprays the mother with orange pop, prompting the mother to spray the son with the kitchen sink hose? The one that I couldn't get out of my mind, and when I prayed to you to make me stop thinking about it, pondering the perhaps misogynistic, anti-mother message of it, that only made me think of it more? And granted God this is better than some unending spirals of other more personal thoughts, for example those thoughts, those thoughts about them, the ones I took to Dr. Weiss. "I have got to know about them. Why didn't I put a chip in his sock the last time I saw him? Why wasn't I more proactive with this? Isn't there a detective you can put me in touch with? You have been doing this long enough! Certainly you can make a referral." And when she asked me which couple we were talking about now I laughed at the absurdity of it. Does it really matter Dr. Weiss? Does it really fucking matter? If I don't have a chip to place in a sock or the business card of a handsome and trusty gumshoe. Any one of them. I'll take any information on any of them. Restaurant menus and hotel bills and sexual positions and inside jokes. Calories consumed, parties attended, fights…please Dr. Weiss, maybe if we work together on this we can come up with something. "All we know about is you." Well that's no fun Dr. Weiss! We know about my acne and my gravel driveway and OH the pain that that caused. Oh the humiliation. The crunching sound as the clear-skinned wealthy beauties I considered my cohorts and colleagues pulled their Volvos and Grand Prixes (yes! I even consider a Grand Prix to be a vehicle for the upper crust!) into our humble, pebble driveway. Leading of course to that place. That house. Oh Dr. Weiss, if I could only present for you in power point presentation the horrors that happened in that house. Mostly involving denied shopping trips to TJ Maxx and literal crying over spilled milk. Oh to be the girl who spilled the milk! Oh pity her! For her night—and her snack of cookies and milk is ruined! Do you see the horrors Dr. Weiss? Do you see them in full color detail? Please deliver me from this insanity, Dr. Weiss. Wipe clean the dry erase boards of my mind. Thrust the erasers out the window and bang them together, releasing into the spring air the yellow dust I miss so much. Wring out the white cotton cloth and slap it against the slate tables of the Olive Tree Café. Oh Dr. Weiss! Write out for me a prescription for peace, wealth and a trip to Santa Fe. Santa Fe! Could you imagine! Do you remember the night Doug Milken and I ran through the Santa Fe WalMart, looking for underwear for him, and I felt so uncomfortable, because I was the 17 year old nanny and he was the 50 year old father? Of course you do not remember, you are not a God but a shrink, but oh how I do like to pretend that you know it all. How comforting.
Oh Lord, please look upon me with favor, and grant me a ticket to Elton John's 70th birthday bash. We have missed the 60th and that is fine and well. But please lord for these next ten years, let your light shine down upon my face and allow me to share with all the world what they need most: my coffee-stained, buck tooth smile.
Saturday, March 31, 2007
Please, please take a look
http://www.stars-productions.com/index.php?ID=AR/artistroster
I was online shopping around for an agent, someone low level, someone to tide me over until ICM or William Morris comes my way...and I found this delicious line-up of talent. I don't know who I want to see first: Crystal Roxxx, Gradie Stone or Undisputed! So many choices.
I was online shopping around for an agent, someone low level, someone to tide me over until ICM or William Morris comes my way...and I found this delicious line-up of talent. I don't know who I want to see first: Crystal Roxxx, Gradie Stone or Undisputed! So many choices.
Monday, March 26, 2007
On the Downtown Train
On the Downtown Train
Last night, after drinking one margarita that left me nice and loopy, I ran out of Two Boots at 7:30, possessed by the idea that I had to do something. Something for my comedy career, something for my brain, something to get me back into first class again. A friend said she had an audition for Montreal at Stand Up New York on 78th, so I ran up over and down to the subway, jumped on the 5 and rode it up to 86th Street and Lex. Maybe I could strike up a conversation with the booker. Flirt, charm, wow, entrance. Yes. I rand down Lex, so fast the pen popped out of my back pocket. My lucky pen. Stolen from the bartender. "Screw it, keep running!" I ran from 86th Street to 78th when I asked myself, "78th and what, Kara?" "Well, you know, 78th and…comedy club. You know, 78th and…and…upper wsst sd…" said the thirteen year old with ADD who lives in my brain most of the time. "UPPER WEST SIDE, dear. Upper West Side. You need to go to the other side of Manhattan" said the Olympia Dukakis part of my brain. I then ran west on 78th street, over to Park Avenue, trying to simultaneously "be in the now" and enjoy the buzz and not too aggressively remind myself that being late and messing up directions can cost us valuable opportunities. I walked quickly across Central Park, remembering that in Jodie Foster's next psychological thriller (does she do anything else?) she plays a New York talk show host who is brutally attacked in Central Park. I'm still not sure where "walking through Central Park at night, alone and female" sits on the stupidity index, but I have a feeling it's up there. But there's something about running past the old oaks and under the glow of pink lights from the midtown skyscrapers that I can't resist. I finally got to 78th and Broadway, home of Stand-up NY, where the show had only recently started. Comedy clubs must post ads asking for "Big friendly black man to host comedy show. Must act "black" and not be especially funny." I'm sorry. I know I'm a type too. "Edgy, kinda cute comedian needed. Must be smart but not too smart. Must have one major physical flaw, eg big nose or teeth." As we all know, the bigger the flaw, the funnier you will be. No wait. I'm sorry. I mean the more I will like you. . Lucille Ball had a weird nose. Fine. Roseanne is big and squawky. Love it. But Sandra Bernhard, well, she's just a doll.
I'm sorry, but let me take a break to tell you all just how much I love Sandy B, as I lovingly call her.
Here is a list of things Sandy B will do:
- adopt a non-foreign baby.
- Give Rupaul a much-needed manicure on his show
- Go to the Bodhi tree bookstore (hello episode three of TKBS reference! I'm totally doing cross platform plugging, which hellooo, is so Sandy.)
- Wear a shitty Abercrombie and Fitch outfit to her House of Blues show and charge me $60 for it
- Pose nude even though she's got a really weird bod
- Pose with Madonna in matching ripped jean outfits
- Make comedy albums that aren't funny and know it
Pose with a fan with an active pustule.
Here's a list of things Sandy B will not do:
- marry a man.
- Cry if she makes a mistake on the register
- Murder somebody
- Get busted for a DUI
- Use a racial slur in a genuine and non-funny way
See! Isn't she great!? Anyway, I love Sandy and all her flaws and her assets. Jeremy used to play her for me all the time when we grew up, creating my one pleasant memory from my childhood. At any rate, I think what I'm saying is: black men need to be more like Sandy. But I'm not getting racist here. I think we could all stand to be more Sandy. More sensual, more brave, more bold, more honest.
After the show ended I was no longer at all drunk but still needing to make something happen. I went up to the booker and asked him if he wanted my dvd. Maybe I was still drunk. He appeared disinterested, and maybe even disgusted. Who was I becoming? Who was this girl? This classless, desperate girl? This is a girl who has felt the warm wet towel of first class rubbed across her body and she won't rest until she feels that feel again. I asked him for his business card and said "Cool, I'll send you my stuff." He seemed utterly unamused. "He has no idea who just talked to him." I walked outside, where several comedians were pointing to a car that was on fire. Had I done this? Did my new personality spark this?
Everyone went separate directions after the show. As always, I walk away alone. Sometimes it seems as if the whole world is in pairs, and I'm the girl walking down the street alone, staring into windows, staring into my reflection and wondering where things went so terribly wrong. How is that something is broken so badly in me but not broken inside other people? I was staring into a high-end card shop called La Brea, looking at their beautiful porcelain doggy dishes and irreverent 1950s postcards, thinking about the healthy and whole people who need to buy such things. I shoved my hands into my pockets. I felt something squishy in my right pocket. They were the earplugs from my flight from LA to NY. I pressed them between my fingers and smiled. I may not have a boyfriend or a girlfriend, but I have someone better than that. I have a best friend, a constant companion who has accompanied me on all my travels. On all of my journeys, she has been there, providing her lively commentary through the backroads of Cambodia and Thailand, the quiet, sad rooms of mental wards and the first class cabins of coast to coast flights.
I look at the sign. "La Brea." I walk in. Anything to be closer to California, but California isn't inside this store. California is inside my magazines at home. (The Hollywood Reporter. The Variety they handed out on the plane, as if this was a necessity, like beverages and earplugs.) California is inside Jeremy's apartment on Barnam Blvd. It's inside his car, where we laughed and talked, but mostly talked. California is inside my mind and I can't get it out. I want to be with it still. I want to carry parts of it around with me. I walk to a newstand. New York, US Weekly, In Touch, The Post. No Variety, no THR.
I get on the subway to go home, so I can be with California at home. At the Union Square subway station I look at their magazines. New York, US Weekly, The Post. I see a wrinkled copy of the Mark Walberg Premiere. Fine. I buy it, along with a Snickers Dark. The magazine is $4.50 and I have to dig for dimes in my bag in order to buy it.
I start reading the magazine as I walk. It's nowhere near as detailed as Variety or THR and it pisses me off. It's written for mainstream America, not for studio execs.
I walk through the tunnel leading to the L. There is a woman standing by herself in the middle of the tunnel. She has dirty blond feathered hair and the terrible skin of an acne patient who smokes two packs a day. She is wearing a lavender ribbed knit turleneck like you would find in the clearance section of TJ Maxx. She is belting out, at the top of her greying lungs, these well known lyrics:
.
-- never found anyone who fulfilled my neeeed
A lonely place to be and so I learned to depend on me
I decided long ago never to walk in anyone's shadow
I feel moved to drop my Premiere, and my choclate bar, and walk towards her and look into her eyes, and join her.
"If I fail., if I succeed at least I'll live as I believe"
No matter what they take from me, they can't take away my dignity
The few passersby have stopped to watch.
Because the greatest love of all is happening to me
I found the greatest love of all inside of me
The greatest love of all is easy to achieve"
A crowd of thirty has gathered, and all, even the most hardened Brooklynite is moved to applause and tears.
Unfortunately, I can't sing and so this didn't happen. It did make me realize something though. I am in New York now. And I need to be here now. And for this, I am so very, very glad.
Last night, after drinking one margarita that left me nice and loopy, I ran out of Two Boots at 7:30, possessed by the idea that I had to do something. Something for my comedy career, something for my brain, something to get me back into first class again. A friend said she had an audition for Montreal at Stand Up New York on 78th, so I ran up over and down to the subway, jumped on the 5 and rode it up to 86th Street and Lex. Maybe I could strike up a conversation with the booker. Flirt, charm, wow, entrance. Yes. I rand down Lex, so fast the pen popped out of my back pocket. My lucky pen. Stolen from the bartender. "Screw it, keep running!" I ran from 86th Street to 78th when I asked myself, "78th and what, Kara?" "Well, you know, 78th and…comedy club. You know, 78th and…and…upper wsst sd…" said the thirteen year old with ADD who lives in my brain most of the time. "UPPER WEST SIDE, dear. Upper West Side. You need to go to the other side of Manhattan" said the Olympia Dukakis part of my brain. I then ran west on 78th street, over to Park Avenue, trying to simultaneously "be in the now" and enjoy the buzz and not too aggressively remind myself that being late and messing up directions can cost us valuable opportunities. I walked quickly across Central Park, remembering that in Jodie Foster's next psychological thriller (does she do anything else?) she plays a New York talk show host who is brutally attacked in Central Park. I'm still not sure where "walking through Central Park at night, alone and female" sits on the stupidity index, but I have a feeling it's up there. But there's something about running past the old oaks and under the glow of pink lights from the midtown skyscrapers that I can't resist. I finally got to 78th and Broadway, home of Stand-up NY, where the show had only recently started. Comedy clubs must post ads asking for "Big friendly black man to host comedy show. Must act "black" and not be especially funny." I'm sorry. I know I'm a type too. "Edgy, kinda cute comedian needed. Must be smart but not too smart. Must have one major physical flaw, eg big nose or teeth." As we all know, the bigger the flaw, the funnier you will be. No wait. I'm sorry. I mean the more I will like you. . Lucille Ball had a weird nose. Fine. Roseanne is big and squawky. Love it. But Sandra Bernhard, well, she's just a doll.
I'm sorry, but let me take a break to tell you all just how much I love Sandy B, as I lovingly call her.
Here is a list of things Sandy B will do:
- adopt a non-foreign baby.
- Give Rupaul a much-needed manicure on his show
- Go to the Bodhi tree bookstore (hello episode three of TKBS reference! I'm totally doing cross platform plugging, which hellooo, is so Sandy.)
- Wear a shitty Abercrombie and Fitch outfit to her House of Blues show and charge me $60 for it
- Pose nude even though she's got a really weird bod
- Pose with Madonna in matching ripped jean outfits
- Make comedy albums that aren't funny and know it
Pose with a fan with an active pustule.
Here's a list of things Sandy B will not do:
- marry a man.
- Cry if she makes a mistake on the register
- Murder somebody
- Get busted for a DUI
- Use a racial slur in a genuine and non-funny way
See! Isn't she great!? Anyway, I love Sandy and all her flaws and her assets. Jeremy used to play her for me all the time when we grew up, creating my one pleasant memory from my childhood. At any rate, I think what I'm saying is: black men need to be more like Sandy. But I'm not getting racist here. I think we could all stand to be more Sandy. More sensual, more brave, more bold, more honest.
After the show ended I was no longer at all drunk but still needing to make something happen. I went up to the booker and asked him if he wanted my dvd. Maybe I was still drunk. He appeared disinterested, and maybe even disgusted. Who was I becoming? Who was this girl? This classless, desperate girl? This is a girl who has felt the warm wet towel of first class rubbed across her body and she won't rest until she feels that feel again. I asked him for his business card and said "Cool, I'll send you my stuff." He seemed utterly unamused. "He has no idea who just talked to him." I walked outside, where several comedians were pointing to a car that was on fire. Had I done this? Did my new personality spark this?
Everyone went separate directions after the show. As always, I walk away alone. Sometimes it seems as if the whole world is in pairs, and I'm the girl walking down the street alone, staring into windows, staring into my reflection and wondering where things went so terribly wrong. How is that something is broken so badly in me but not broken inside other people? I was staring into a high-end card shop called La Brea, looking at their beautiful porcelain doggy dishes and irreverent 1950s postcards, thinking about the healthy and whole people who need to buy such things. I shoved my hands into my pockets. I felt something squishy in my right pocket. They were the earplugs from my flight from LA to NY. I pressed them between my fingers and smiled. I may not have a boyfriend or a girlfriend, but I have someone better than that. I have a best friend, a constant companion who has accompanied me on all my travels. On all of my journeys, she has been there, providing her lively commentary through the backroads of Cambodia and Thailand, the quiet, sad rooms of mental wards and the first class cabins of coast to coast flights.
I look at the sign. "La Brea." I walk in. Anything to be closer to California, but California isn't inside this store. California is inside my magazines at home. (The Hollywood Reporter. The Variety they handed out on the plane, as if this was a necessity, like beverages and earplugs.) California is inside Jeremy's apartment on Barnam Blvd. It's inside his car, where we laughed and talked, but mostly talked. California is inside my mind and I can't get it out. I want to be with it still. I want to carry parts of it around with me. I walk to a newstand. New York, US Weekly, In Touch, The Post. No Variety, no THR.
I get on the subway to go home, so I can be with California at home. At the Union Square subway station I look at their magazines. New York, US Weekly, The Post. I see a wrinkled copy of the Mark Walberg Premiere. Fine. I buy it, along with a Snickers Dark. The magazine is $4.50 and I have to dig for dimes in my bag in order to buy it.
I start reading the magazine as I walk. It's nowhere near as detailed as Variety or THR and it pisses me off. It's written for mainstream America, not for studio execs.
I walk through the tunnel leading to the L. There is a woman standing by herself in the middle of the tunnel. She has dirty blond feathered hair and the terrible skin of an acne patient who smokes two packs a day. She is wearing a lavender ribbed knit turleneck like you would find in the clearance section of TJ Maxx. She is belting out, at the top of her greying lungs, these well known lyrics:
.
-- never found anyone who fulfilled my neeeed
A lonely place to be and so I learned to depend on me
I decided long ago never to walk in anyone's shadow
I feel moved to drop my Premiere, and my choclate bar, and walk towards her and look into her eyes, and join her.
"If I fail., if I succeed at least I'll live as I believe"
No matter what they take from me, they can't take away my dignity
The few passersby have stopped to watch.
Because the greatest love of all is happening to me
I found the greatest love of all inside of me
The greatest love of all is easy to achieve"
A crowd of thirty has gathered, and all, even the most hardened Brooklynite is moved to applause and tears.
Unfortunately, I can't sing and so this didn't happen. It did make me realize something though. I am in New York now. And I need to be here now. And for this, I am so very, very glad.
Friday, March 23, 2007
Jeremy's Still Sleeping
I went insane about three hours ago. We're back to sincerity. I think I'm a very troubled person. I think there are somethings in my life I will never get over, wounds so large they will never heal. Even if Jeremy wakes up now, we won't have time to order a pizza before we have to leave for the airport. Like even when I was in college, when I was fun and blonde and drank a lot, there was always a sadness, a distance. If we go back even further, to like third grade, I think we still find a very troubled, sad girl. Someone who never quite fit in, whose attempts to do so only made her weirdness and sadness that more glaring. Even if I put in an episode of Golden Girls, I'll still be sad because that will remind me of mortality, and of Florida, which I've never been to but I'm sure would result in a deep, deep depression. Maybe the world needs some people to be irretrievably, irrevokably sad. "When it is dark enough men see stars." Please. I'm not seeing stars. Certainly not in this apartment. Certainly not in this mirror. Sad girl, with my sad shaped head. Have you seen my head? Even my head is shaped sad, long and shapeless. No joy here. I think maybe it's just time for the lanai. Out on the lanai is where I do my best thinking. It's cold out on the lanai. Best to stay inside. What if I miss my flight? Should I wake Jeremy up? What if I stayed in LA forever, in this apartment forever? God, Richard Jeni. See. Us comedian types. You got to watch it. There is a darkness. Maybe it's just California apartments that are to blame. Well. Look at Chris Farley. Sexy Hancock pad and look what happened there. I'm trying to find a common denominator here and unfortunately I'm only finding comedian and death. Christ. Well. They didn't have hope. I have hope. I have hope that I get on that plane and get back to NY and wear my bathing suit on the job. Christ. See. Things are pretty bad. Maybe I just need to smoke a cigarette and have some diet coke. Oh, does anyone want to be my agent? We can just pretend. I think it would be fun. We can work that whole Dumbo angle. Believing=achieving. No? Fine. Maybe it was watching The View this morning. Rosie and her Kelly talk. People and their partners. I am so unwaveringly alone. Not a lesbo, not straight. Just this weird sad girl with a long face. Dear lord in heaven. Why did that Will Ferrell movie have to be so bad and make Jeremy fall asleep. Now I'm practically crawling over the lanai. Christ. Sorry folks. Gonna grab some diet coke and start up the chemical roller coaster. I better fucking get first class. After a day like today? You gotta have it.
Thursday, March 22, 2007
Sleeping with the Stars
So I'm home now.
I am happy to report I did not wear my bathing suit at work today. I went ahead and wore dirty underwear. This seemed more mentally healthy.
As we all know I was in a deep, deep depression on Wednesday. This was prior to seeing the artistic tour de force lightshow that is LAX International Airport. As you enter the airport, green columns of light stand guard around an enormous white cement "LAX". You then realize there is no chance of you catching your breath any time soon when your Kia rounds the corner, and you feel compelled to rub your eyes, as what lies before you is something that can only be called "purple glorious spaceladytron", a purple lit control tower with four outstreched legs and a glass "eye-window" on top. Your car then glides over to the departure drop off, revealing the piece de resistance: beautiful Southern Californias in resort wear opening up trunks of Mercedes Benz. An instant shock to the system. All thoughts of credit card debt, relationship failure, and sexual dysfunction instantly vanish in the heat of this sweltering tableau. Seriously. I dare you to be depressed at LAX.
Besides, there's too much to be angry and anxious about. In a horrifying turn of events at Security Gate 3, I was stripped of my brand new Tom's of Maine Organic Whitening Mint Tooth Gel (purchased mere blocks from the Studio City sushi house where Vince Vaughn had his recent, loud lady-bashing!!) and my Duane Reade Contact Lens Solution (purchased in the Crysler Building…less excitingly.). That's at least $12 worth of goods! Then they started fingering my Proactiv. Well, you can imagine the reaction this caused. America hasn't seen so much chanting, praying and contorting since the Pentecostals faced the Dust Bowl. I cycled through at least three major religions prayers and customs before ultimately accepting that I had to let it go. I surrender it all. If it's meant to be, it will be. Well, guess what. The Proactiv was meant to be. I let it go and it came back to me. I can't tell you how many times this has happened to me and my Proactiv at airports. You may say it has something to do with Proactiv being exactly 4 oz and therefore in line with FAA standards, but I like to think it's maybe something else… Prior to going through security, I did check in on those kiosk machine, which are nice because it means one less person delivering bad news to you. In this case, the computer delivers bad news to you. "Chances of boarding this flight: Great, Good, Average, Fair, None. Your chances: Fair." I swallowed hard and told myself to be strong. Worse case scenario: I am sleeping in a motel and not wearing my bathing suit at work because I am fired. A pretty bleak picture but I happen to love motels and find them more picturesque than a Ritz-Carlton. Of course, serial killers and rapists find them aesthetically pleasing as well…
But bottomline is we now have a situation where it is 10:00 pm California time, I have a fair (ie slim) chance of getting on a flight, I have no lens solution or toothpaste and I have to be in NY at 10 am for a job I secretly love. Jeremy needs to sleep for an early morning class and is almost an hour and a half away. I really need to get on the plane.
This was a situation made bearable only by the fact that Jeremy let me keep his copy of The Hollywood Reporter, which if you're not familiar, is the most uninteresting entertainment magazine available.
Variety is a fluffy tabloid compared to The Hollywood Reporter. THR, as I'm going to call it from here on out--get ready--leads with tantalizing stories like "Celotta keeping office at NBCU" and "Supernatural thing at FX from Bochno" and the breathtaking "Web music royalty fee challenged." I love that I'm supposed to know Celotta and Bochno. I love that I'm supposed to have some emotion about web music royalty fees. You know, if it bleeds it leads…and that certainly is the case with The Hollywood Reporter.
The ads alone in THR could send shivers down the spine of even the hippest theater director. "The Mobile Entertainment and Advertising Summit 2007." "Insights on the Digital Delivery of Entertainment Content, Breakfast Series, March 29, 2007." "Levels Audio, the industry's first 5.1 Post Production HD Super-Boutique, is pleased to congratulate its partner American Idol, on their 200th episode." I have no fucking clue what a 5.1 Post Production HD Super-Boutique is, but the prospects are blowing my fucking mind. Seriously. Super-boutique? Part of me thinks I can only be disappointed. This is the Borat of ad copy.
An annual subscription to THR will set you back $269. But let's not talk in terms of "set back." I think we can only talk in terms of set forward. If I had this kind of shit fed to me each day I would be a better person. Driven, punctual…totally insane.
On page 20 in their Reviews section, Ray Richmond simultaneously scolds and nurtures The Whitest Kids You Know,
the latest in all white male sketch shows, praising them for their few strong pieces and admonishing them for their frequent use of peepee poopoo humor. He ends by saying that "it's easy to see the potential of this outrageously original bunch once they figure out how to evolve beyond mere shock value." Potential is code for "money-making ability" of course, in THR world—which is why I'm saving up for a subscrip. This is exactly the kind of thinking I need to be doing if I plan on using stand-up comedy to buy me Marc Jacobs jackets, prescription pills and the occasional dope.
So there's the backstory on THR. So you know that when I sit at gate 73 and "read" my THR, it can be nothing other than total and complete crap. It's my living out the fantasy of being in entertainment and traveling from LA to NY, NY to LA, and being connected to Hollywood. At some point of course I realize that I am in entertainment and that I am flying from LA to NY and I do know people in Hollywood and that somehow THR has found it's way to me organically, and I have become everything I've always wanted to be. This is all well and good but this does not change the fact that I have no business having THR out on my lap. I was starting to plummet into self-loathing when our most glorious God, creator of Heaven and Earth, sensed my despair and offered to me the perfect salve to cool my raging heart: Bob Balaban, star of For Your Consideration, A Mighty Wind andCity Slickers II: The Legend of Curly's Gold. Bob is the short, balding man with round dark glasses that shows up whenever the script calls for a "likable dweeb" who isn't Woody Allen. Here he is now:
You know him. You love him. So your head would be turned around a good 180 too if he were sitting, waiting, in the row behind you. I did a lot of constant turning, texting, turning, texting, as I tried to describe him to Jeremy. (Eventually he must have gotten uncomfortable with this, because he walked away. But maybe that's me thinking everything's always about me.I'm now getting dysfunctional with Bob Balaban.) I wasn't sure exactly what roles he played, just said "that nerdy guy who's always in Christopher Guest moveies." This didn't exactly narrow it down. Jeremy sent back "Eugene Levy?" "NOO!! The other one!!"
We eventually grow tired of this game, as there is the more exciting "will I get on this plane, will I get first class, will I get murdered in a motel" game. Jeremy calls and we try to have a normal status talk. We're both so stressed we can hardly talk. Our vocal chords are barely letting words out. We speak in monosyllables.
"So..what's…Is the…" "I don't knoooww. Do you kno--…They're saying nothing..I…" We are unusually inarticulate.
"BULLER. PASSENGER BULLER."
"I…me..saying my name…talk later. Okay. Bye."
I walk up to the counter. "Yes, I'm Buller." At this point I will take anything. I will sleep between the legs of the co-pilot. Okay, well duh, but like I will sleep on top of the terse gay Steward we all know and love. I will do whatever. Just put me on a plane. The lady hands me the cream-colored boarding pass. The moment of truth. I look at the seat number.
"1D"
I nearly faint. I am moved to hug this woman. I feel like I have so many people to thank. How can one girl have so many highs so high and lows so low? Tonight, Bob Balaban, you and I shall sail across the wine-dark sky, and dream the dreams of Hollywood dreamers. Come along now, Bob. The crew is waiting. And I've got a Bellini waiting for me with my name on it.
The bad news is that Bob was like 7B and in a different section. I ended up sleeping between a really sexy short Jewish man who slept face down (!) in his chair/bed and a hot alternative guy with a hoodie, an i-pod, and, this is such a drag, a wedding ring. Why are alternative people getting married and flying first class? Or is that married rich people are wearing hoodies and Converse? Ugh. Who has time to chart all these demographic trends. Certainly not me. I have industry dailies to pretend to read and bathing suits to wash out. Darlings, it has been wonderful. Sorry about the earlier drama with the suicidal depression. But you've got to mix it up from time to time. From basecamp, this is Kara.
I am happy to report I did not wear my bathing suit at work today. I went ahead and wore dirty underwear. This seemed more mentally healthy.
As we all know I was in a deep, deep depression on Wednesday. This was prior to seeing the artistic tour de force lightshow that is LAX International Airport. As you enter the airport, green columns of light stand guard around an enormous white cement "LAX". You then realize there is no chance of you catching your breath any time soon when your Kia rounds the corner, and you feel compelled to rub your eyes, as what lies before you is something that can only be called "purple glorious spaceladytron", a purple lit control tower with four outstreched legs and a glass "eye-window" on top. Your car then glides over to the departure drop off, revealing the piece de resistance: beautiful Southern Californias in resort wear opening up trunks of Mercedes Benz. An instant shock to the system. All thoughts of credit card debt, relationship failure, and sexual dysfunction instantly vanish in the heat of this sweltering tableau. Seriously. I dare you to be depressed at LAX.
Besides, there's too much to be angry and anxious about. In a horrifying turn of events at Security Gate 3, I was stripped of my brand new Tom's of Maine Organic Whitening Mint Tooth Gel (purchased mere blocks from the Studio City sushi house where Vince Vaughn had his recent, loud lady-bashing!!) and my Duane Reade Contact Lens Solution (purchased in the Crysler Building…less excitingly.). That's at least $12 worth of goods! Then they started fingering my Proactiv. Well, you can imagine the reaction this caused. America hasn't seen so much chanting, praying and contorting since the Pentecostals faced the Dust Bowl. I cycled through at least three major religions prayers and customs before ultimately accepting that I had to let it go. I surrender it all. If it's meant to be, it will be. Well, guess what. The Proactiv was meant to be. I let it go and it came back to me. I can't tell you how many times this has happened to me and my Proactiv at airports. You may say it has something to do with Proactiv being exactly 4 oz and therefore in line with FAA standards, but I like to think it's maybe something else… Prior to going through security, I did check in on those kiosk machine, which are nice because it means one less person delivering bad news to you. In this case, the computer delivers bad news to you. "Chances of boarding this flight: Great, Good, Average, Fair, None. Your chances: Fair." I swallowed hard and told myself to be strong. Worse case scenario: I am sleeping in a motel and not wearing my bathing suit at work because I am fired. A pretty bleak picture but I happen to love motels and find them more picturesque than a Ritz-Carlton. Of course, serial killers and rapists find them aesthetically pleasing as well…
But bottomline is we now have a situation where it is 10:00 pm California time, I have a fair (ie slim) chance of getting on a flight, I have no lens solution or toothpaste and I have to be in NY at 10 am for a job I secretly love. Jeremy needs to sleep for an early morning class and is almost an hour and a half away. I really need to get on the plane.
This was a situation made bearable only by the fact that Jeremy let me keep his copy of The Hollywood Reporter, which if you're not familiar, is the most uninteresting entertainment magazine available.
Variety is a fluffy tabloid compared to The Hollywood Reporter. THR, as I'm going to call it from here on out--get ready--leads with tantalizing stories like "Celotta keeping office at NBCU" and "Supernatural thing at FX from Bochno" and the breathtaking "Web music royalty fee challenged." I love that I'm supposed to know Celotta and Bochno. I love that I'm supposed to have some emotion about web music royalty fees. You know, if it bleeds it leads…and that certainly is the case with The Hollywood Reporter.
The ads alone in THR could send shivers down the spine of even the hippest theater director. "The Mobile Entertainment and Advertising Summit 2007." "Insights on the Digital Delivery of Entertainment Content, Breakfast Series, March 29, 2007." "Levels Audio, the industry's first 5.1 Post Production HD Super-Boutique, is pleased to congratulate its partner American Idol, on their 200th episode." I have no fucking clue what a 5.1 Post Production HD Super-Boutique is, but the prospects are blowing my fucking mind. Seriously. Super-boutique? Part of me thinks I can only be disappointed. This is the Borat of ad copy.
An annual subscription to THR will set you back $269. But let's not talk in terms of "set back." I think we can only talk in terms of set forward. If I had this kind of shit fed to me each day I would be a better person. Driven, punctual…totally insane.
On page 20 in their Reviews section, Ray Richmond simultaneously scolds and nurtures The Whitest Kids You Know,
the latest in all white male sketch shows, praising them for their few strong pieces and admonishing them for their frequent use of peepee poopoo humor. He ends by saying that "it's easy to see the potential of this outrageously original bunch once they figure out how to evolve beyond mere shock value." Potential is code for "money-making ability" of course, in THR world—which is why I'm saving up for a subscrip. This is exactly the kind of thinking I need to be doing if I plan on using stand-up comedy to buy me Marc Jacobs jackets, prescription pills and the occasional dope.
So there's the backstory on THR. So you know that when I sit at gate 73 and "read" my THR, it can be nothing other than total and complete crap. It's my living out the fantasy of being in entertainment and traveling from LA to NY, NY to LA, and being connected to Hollywood. At some point of course I realize that I am in entertainment and that I am flying from LA to NY and I do know people in Hollywood and that somehow THR has found it's way to me organically, and I have become everything I've always wanted to be. This is all well and good but this does not change the fact that I have no business having THR out on my lap. I was starting to plummet into self-loathing when our most glorious God, creator of Heaven and Earth, sensed my despair and offered to me the perfect salve to cool my raging heart: Bob Balaban, star of For Your Consideration, A Mighty Wind andCity Slickers II: The Legend of Curly's Gold. Bob is the short, balding man with round dark glasses that shows up whenever the script calls for a "likable dweeb" who isn't Woody Allen. Here he is now:
You know him. You love him. So your head would be turned around a good 180 too if he were sitting, waiting, in the row behind you. I did a lot of constant turning, texting, turning, texting, as I tried to describe him to Jeremy. (Eventually he must have gotten uncomfortable with this, because he walked away. But maybe that's me thinking everything's always about me.I'm now getting dysfunctional with Bob Balaban.) I wasn't sure exactly what roles he played, just said "that nerdy guy who's always in Christopher Guest moveies." This didn't exactly narrow it down. Jeremy sent back "Eugene Levy?" "NOO!! The other one!!"
We eventually grow tired of this game, as there is the more exciting "will I get on this plane, will I get first class, will I get murdered in a motel" game. Jeremy calls and we try to have a normal status talk. We're both so stressed we can hardly talk. Our vocal chords are barely letting words out. We speak in monosyllables.
"So..what's…Is the…" "I don't knoooww. Do you kno--…They're saying nothing..I…" We are unusually inarticulate.
"BULLER. PASSENGER BULLER."
"I…me..saying my name…talk later. Okay. Bye."
I walk up to the counter. "Yes, I'm Buller." At this point I will take anything. I will sleep between the legs of the co-pilot. Okay, well duh, but like I will sleep on top of the terse gay Steward we all know and love. I will do whatever. Just put me on a plane. The lady hands me the cream-colored boarding pass. The moment of truth. I look at the seat number.
"1D"
I nearly faint. I am moved to hug this woman. I feel like I have so many people to thank. How can one girl have so many highs so high and lows so low? Tonight, Bob Balaban, you and I shall sail across the wine-dark sky, and dream the dreams of Hollywood dreamers. Come along now, Bob. The crew is waiting. And I've got a Bellini waiting for me with my name on it.
The bad news is that Bob was like 7B and in a different section. I ended up sleeping between a really sexy short Jewish man who slept face down (!) in his chair/bed and a hot alternative guy with a hoodie, an i-pod, and, this is such a drag, a wedding ring. Why are alternative people getting married and flying first class? Or is that married rich people are wearing hoodies and Converse? Ugh. Who has time to chart all these demographic trends. Certainly not me. I have industry dailies to pretend to read and bathing suits to wash out. Darlings, it has been wonderful. Sorry about the earlier drama with the suicidal depression. But you've got to mix it up from time to time. From basecamp, this is Kara.
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