Squeaky Wheel

I know everyone hates loco Yoko Ono.  I dig her. I think she's the only one in her love parade. I admire that. She's like the small doses friend you love oh so much, but after a couple of hours feel the need to suddenly stand up and take off sprinting like a gun went off.  


Everyone needs stimulus overload. It makes you think about what you'd stand up and be equally annoying about.


Currently, MoMa has displayed a Yoko piece that consists of a microphone in a stand next to a sign encouraging people to step up and scream.  


It's really annoying.  In that beautiful kind of way.

Seistatation

My husband gave me a gift recently and I will be spending the rest of my life figuring out how to thank him. 


Everyone has heard about meditation by now.  Everyone knows it's good for you... and I'm certain many folks know there are different kinds. Some meditation practices have religions attached, some have aerobics attached and some have cults, caves, diets, and Hollywood movies hooked in.


If you dig around the internet enough you can be terrified or satisfied about all of them. I admit I've tried on a few. I was a Mary Kay lady. A good one.


Greg gave me the gift of classes for a practice he discovered three months ago.  I've seen the differences in him. It's been three days for me and now I have x-ray vision.  But seriously peeps, I hope I am never in a situation where I feel I won't be able to give myself 20 minutes of this twice a day. It is already making my life, well, more happy.


This is nap time for smart people. For reals. Clint Eastwood, David Lynch, Paul McCartney... just to name a very few of the famous.  


Maybe I'll be able to spell in a few years.


GO HERE, JUST GO HERE: Transcendental Meditation

Drama Rama

My brother and I have always been the kind of kids that felt we needed to be bleeding, vomiting or on the way to the hospital in order to get our mother's mothering attention.  Every headache was a tumor and a trip to the ER.  Our mother was, and always has been, good at listening to our needs and tried her best to fix them.  


Neither of us are sure what causes our flair-for-the-dramatic,  but anyone who knows us, including our mother, would laugh at this understatement. Maybe we became addicted to her. Maybe we liked the attention. Maybe we loved having our blood pressure taken.


I know we aren't the only ones like this.  Fox news and public restrooms don't exactly help folks Keep Calm & Carry On:

Desperately Seeking Madonna

Eve gave Adam an apple.  The witch gave Snow White one too.  Roberta gives Dez the Port Authority locker key that was in the jacket that used to belong to Susan. The locker key leads to all of Susan's worldly possessions.  Susan is a homeless prostitute but everybody loves her because she's so confident and sexy and crazy stylish.  

What happened to the grungy 80's films? The art direction is about color, mimes, NYC and LA dirt. And lots of shoulder pads. Even in the 80's we made fun of the 80's. Now we miss the 80's. 

There was something innocent about the desperation in the aesthetic of 80's art. Today it's revered because technology has caught up with the dream. Only 30 years ago we had to dream it first and then try.  There was a lot of guts behind those explosions of LOOK. AT. ME.  Everything may look and sound more polished now but the guts are missing. 

Biography Killed the Radio Star

I used to work for a Cemetery/Funeral Home in Los Angeles.  I was hired at the cusp of the place going FUTURE.  They were installing a small theatre in the main building and would be placing kiosks throughout the park to display biographies of the interred. 


One of my duties as a 'Biographer' was to go through stacks of paperwork on the plots, find local relatives and interview them about their buried family member.  Typically, I would meet clients in their homes to record them describing the life and times of the deceased.  Then we'd sort through old photographs of their dead wife/dad/niece/grandmother and I would digitally shoot about a dozen images of the pictures.  My favorite part was the intimacy.  I was a complete stranger to these people and often within minutes they were sharing details with me through tears of joy, regret, love, pain... I was a soul collector, without the apocalypse.


I got paid $25 an interview.  I'd come back to the cemetery with the information and the cemetery editors would then create a mini biography. Sometimes it was free, sometimes a sales person had called and sold them a package priced per minute.  


"It's just like on A&E!"


This was before Facebook and YouTube. I had a crappy PC at home and I didn't even have an email address.  Dial up was something I hadn't invested in yet.


I remember thinking what a cool idea these biographies were and at the same time something about them struck me funny. Like spoiled milk funny. Progressive archiving meets narcissism. Something everyone needs. Good for sales, just like death. Documenting not just our heroes who made it through the ranks but equalizing everyone with creative editing and background music... just like death. 


Where I grew up, it was common to hear the phrase, "Live your life like it's on TV."  The notion that God-watches-your-every-move wasn't powerful enough. It hit home if we pretended everyone else was too. A youth minister told me to picture my every move being displayed on a Jumbotron at a Texas Stadium. Scared Straight? You bet. But wasn't Pamela Anderson 'discovered' this way? How would this frighten the Z-Generation?  More like Scared Fabulous.


We should be careful who we are living our life for.  Good footage or good times?  If 'film is forever', where will we fit everyone after they die? We're going to need a bigger boat.  


And by boat, I mean server.

In Dependents

My husband is out of town and I have absolutely no idea what to do with myself.  Work is easy, that is robot mode.  But after robot mode, if I haven't made plans I'll just lay around pining for him to come home.  The dog is doing it too.  


I'm from the wrong century.

Spinning Agnostic Plates

Anyone who has ever looked at a pie chart can appreciate the simple truth that the simple truth can be manipulated to meet any agenda. The omnipotent encyclopedia has been replaced by the online us.  In the middle of an article in the Science section of The New York Times was this: 


"The Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument has been a hotbed for dinosaur species discoveries in the past decade, with more than a dozen new species discovered. While it is a rocky, arid place now, millions of years ago it was similar to a swamp." - The Associated Press: September 22, 2010 


Do anti environmentalists believe in dinosaurs? How could they? And since the new dinos were found in Utah - Do Mormons believe in evolution? So I looked:

"The second part of Mormon creation theology is the cyclic nature of creation. Whatever was used and discarded would become part of another creation for the use of man and God to His Glory. Nothing goes to waste or simply disappears. The Scriptures explain:

37 And the Lord God spake unto Moses, saying: The heavens, they are many, and they cannot be numbered unto man; but they are numbered unto me, for they are mine. 

38 And as one earth shall pass away, and the heavens thereof even so shall another come; and there is no end to my works, neither to my words.  Moses 1:37-38"- Straight and Narrow Blog; March 11, 2008

 Anything is possible, right?  We live in a Wiki World.  

Quality Entertainment

I have heard that the new Broadway spectacular, spectacular: Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark, cost $60 million dollars to produce.  I'm interested in seeing it. I've heard Boardwalk Empire, the new HBO anchor series, cost the same. I want to watch it again, I've thought about it so often since last night. I've now consistently plopped down in front of AMC's heavily commercially-interrupted gauntlet and have been known to dim the lights for an indie on our struggling-to-pay-rent-but-won't-cancel cable.  Greg and I have even turned off the AC to hear a good commercial on the computer.


I am glad to see quality shows fighting back the low-budget, 'reality' monster.  I choose home-grown and slow cooked over fast food. If I'm going to begin the couch-potato part of my American life, I'd like to feel I'm expanding more than my thighs.


I just can't wrap my head around the price tag.  


I appreciate why these artistic endeavors cost so much.  I understand the cost of intense research, quality resources, fine ingredients, magical wisdom, rare and raw talent.  Inflation.  Consumerism.  Competition. Politics.  Value.


I just can't help but wonder... if we can raise so much money to be distracted from the harshness of reality, why don't we invest more in reality?  We may have been on to something with reality TV. Rather than the whore route, why not the charitable one?  Why didn't Oprah ever branch her show to another hour? One that took place in her school? Has Bono invested in a documentary about the beginnings of Spidey, The Musical and used the funds to build an Inner City Illustration Institute? When will George Clooney run with a gun in order to catch real poachers?


I'm not insane.  I don't expect famous artists to become actual heroes. And quite honestly I'm writing without having ANY facts here. I know Oprah built a school, George created a telethon and Bono is now a word synonymous with 'ambassador'.  I'm not at all ungrateful or critical of their work. I think they are fantastically on to something.  I think the studios and corporations and agencies should do more. I think for every two commercialized dollars earned one should go to making reality better.  They could even put it on TV.


Again.  I know I'm talking general and generic nonsense.  I know everything is based on priorities and those little 'ol things are different for each and every person. And of course there is an awful lot to say for inspiration.  Art usually = inspiration and inspiration usually = action. But I'm just sayin'... if I had a choice between shelling out $60M to watch a live-action cartoon fly over my head or give New Orleans a fighting chance... I'm going down South.  


When our great grandkids read, no SEE replicants reenact these stories via hologram in their minds, I think they will be confused as to why the Bonos for world peace chose to invest in duct tape to repair a cracked foundation.  


Put your money where your eyes are, click here: Choose-A-Charity.

"What's the sense of talking?"

My Mother-in-law says this a lot.  It's one of those Italian phrases she got from her mother who probably got it from hers. Greg and I like to look at each other and say this for things like when we accidentally call our next door neighbor our roommate because the walls are so thin we forget she doesn't actually live with us. There is a lot to be said for being reminded that things don't matter as much as we think they do.  We all end up here:

Dance Ten, Looks Three

I've started taking a class at my gym across the street titled: 'DANCE! with Jonathon'.  


"How hard can it be?  It's Bally's."  


I forgot that this is the Bally's two blocks away from Times Square and the Theatre District.  I also forgot about the economy.  I think I know where Gregory Hines is moonlighting.


Today was my second class.  I showed up early this time to get closer to the instructor.  Osmosis?  Contagion?  Can I please rub your belly?


The early bird ends up in the middle and apologizing to many people.  I might owe someone a Coke for the pinching and poking, but I did NOTHING with ANY of them at the same time.  Maybe to onlookers - and there were many - I looked like the star of the show??  


Sure.  Like dropping a skunk in the center of a crowd.

One Quarter

Greg walked in the door with flowers this evening and reminded me that we have been married exactly 4 months today.  I LOVE that I married the details guy.


Month one was blissful recovery.  


Month two was fearful confusion.  


Month three was DYNAMIC ORGANIZATION!!!!!!!!!!!!!


And month four has been one grateful foot in front of the other.  All four of them.


Greg used to tell me our lives were a book.  That we each had a series of short stories before we met but now we are starting a novel.  According to him, we started Chapter One 120 days ago.  


I want to make sure we didn't miss the Dedication Page:


To Each and Every One of Our Family and Friends and Colleagues - We couldn't have started this book without you and we refuse to finish it alone.  


The bibliography is going to be huge.     

Haters

Interview, Mag. June 2010. 

"What is so incredibly great about New York?  It's a dying city..." -Annie Hall. Dir. Woody Allen. United Artists, 1977.


"Alvy, you are totally incapable of enjoying life.  You're like New York. You're an island." -Annie Hall. Dir. Woody Allen. United Artists, 1977.


If there ever was an aviary overstocked with jays it is that Yaptown-on-the-Hudson, call New York. Cosmopolitan they call it, you bet. So's a piece of fly-paper. You listen close when they're buzzing and trying to pull their feet out of the sticky stuff. "Little old New York's good enough for us"--that's what they sing. -A Tempered Wind, in "The Gentle Grafter". O. Henry (pseudonym of William Sydney Porter), 1908.

DEis. 


PLaCe.

MAYKes. 


mEe.


NURvuss.

WHYE dAt BUs eS taLKinG? 


-Stewart Skura, Italian Greyhound. NYC, September, 2010.

Generation Canyon

If lawyers have changed medicine, advertising is going to change education. In between the massive amounts of information out there are targeted bits of emotional triggers designed to make you want.  And those buttons are specifically designed for YOU.  Our giant worlds are actually getting smaller, more efficiently meeting our desires and more effectively narrowing our minds.  


If we don't look outside our 'target audience', we will continue to separate our demographics and perpetuate the intolerance between generations.  


I'm not even 40 and I'm already AMAZED at some of my annoyances with, '...(giant sigh)...kids today' and I'll never forget when Greg was on a job interview and asked to explain how he expects to relate to the Y-Generation. Technically, the cusp of the Y-Generation is 3 years behind him.


Of course, being in 'THE NOW' is oh so important.  We can't let the all-consuming anxiety of our inevitable deaths constantly affect our every decision.  But we cannot grow culturally if we do not learn from those who came before us or those who are coming up behind us. 


     

Hindsight

I've always wanted to be a bartender.  It's a secret fantasy of mine.  My best friend's secret passion is to be a master tango dancer.  That sounds a lot more exciting and a lot more fantastical.  For me it is probably more of an alternate ego.  There is something powerful about the position.  Like being a stripper but at the same time being able to look your father in the eye when you tell him what you do for money.  


I've taken on the Al Swearengen a few times.  I even lied my way through three interviews to get a cocktail waitressing job at The Knitting Factory. An hour before my first shift I called and left a message:


"I'm sorry.  I won't be coming in.  I lied.  I've never waited tables before in my life.  Thank you for the opportunity."


I also once quit a barista job after two days of training:


"I'm sorry.  I won't be coming in.  My boyfriend is afraid he has herpes and he's freaking out."


And there was the time I quit Bennigan's after a week of training and trailing.  I had mental blocks when trying to memorize the menu and I was in complete shock the first time I watched the waiter I followed prepare someone's food.  I couldn't make my lower jaw meet my head after I saw the tomato from the floor become the tomato on the hamburger:


"I'm sorry.  I won't be coming in.  I'm going to be a camp counselor with a focus on arts-n-crafts management."


...Not to mention the hostessing position I was fired from at the empty Asian Fusion place that closed six months after it opened.  One, I sucked, and two, I demanded $15 an hour when the other girl got $10.  I'm 5'6" and I was by far the tallest and blondest person employed by the establishment at any given moment.  I think I just intimidated them into hiring me to begin with. I am much better at being on the eating end of the food service industry.


However...


...there was one magical night I lived the fantasy.  It was my second night on the job.  One week after my first.  A friend of mine was a patron at her local Irish dive deep in the untouched, unpretentious, unartificial part of Brooklyn.  She convinced the owner to give me a chance behind the bar.  It was like slipping on your boyfriend's boxers. Comfy, familiar, sexy and slightly awkward.  I had definitely been Lloyd in a past life, and not that close to this one. Trying to figure out what a 'Johnny-Walker-Blonde-Neat' was and learning that 'top-shell' was not sea food.  I earnestly knew absolutely nothing and they earnestly could not have cared less.  Each patron carefully explained what he wanted and patiently waited his turn.  I even started bringing drinks around the bar to the tables.  Different folks came and went but by the end of the night there were about 10 men, the three o'clock men, singing songs and wrapping their arms around my waist as I passed so I would sit in a lap or two for just a moment.  


It was better than a party in The Shire.


Closing time was 4am and I had an admin job that started at 8:30am.  I remember helping the drunk owner close windows and him slinging me over his shoulder while I laughed and screamed to be put down.  He was way too drunk for acrobatics and I was oh-so-grateful my friend stayed in the bar till closing time.  With a booming mom voice, she told him to put me down.  She was a professional Stage Manager.  I was never more the wide-eyed cheerleader from the Dallas burbs than in that moment.    


I spent most of my tips watching the sun rise from a gypsy cab that took me North to my Brooklyn hipster hood.  I showered, got coffee and got to work early in midtown Manhattan.  No sleep 'til Brooklyn.


-----------------------------------------------------------------

I arrived at a quiet office and sat at my quiet desk. I was usually late. Like a different world with no one there. Peaceful. Nice. My bosses wife called and blurted the news without saying hello.  I laughed and thought she was kidding.  I got up and told my boss.  He stuttered when he asked me what I said and quickly picked up the phone.  


I headed back to my desk but decided to see if anyone else was in.  A hole started burning in my stomach.


The Office Manager turned on the TV in the conference room.  The three of us stood and stared.  


Others trickled in unawares.  They paused at the looks on our faces.  They caught up when facing the screen.  


Phones started ringing.  


Ran to my desk and answered the phone.  Told my other best friend to get away from down there and to call her husband.  Hung up. And phones stopped ringing. I didn't know until that night if she'd made it out or not.  She did.  


On my way out passing Mr. American Psycho's office that stank of booze... suit, tie and hair disheveled... hitting redial on his speaker phone over and over.  When I asked if he was OK he slowly looked up and through me.  "He's up there....he's there..."  


Walking up Sixth Avenue. In the middle of the street.  For hours.  Looking up at the most perfect blue sky. Glancing to my left and marching in silence next to Kathleen Turner for over an hour.  


Being turned away when I tried to donate blood on the Upper West Side.  They didn't need it.  


Finally getting to Harlem.  Sitting with my roommate and close friends.  Watching the TV.  Having absolutely no understanding of how to swallow any of what we were seeing.  It was on TV.  It was TV?  


Saying good night.  A half hour train ride taking three hours to get home.  


Detoured to another stop.  Another neighborhood.  Walking by a mosque barricaded by police.  There was a celebration party going on.  Singing and shouting.  I remember party lights.  


Getting up the next day with NY1 still on the tube.  


Two more hours back into the city.  


A fight breaks out on the crowded platform.  Another in the packed car.  We all are shoved and swaying together.  I look up at at the strangers around me.  Most are crying.  


Looking out the window at the smoke.  Smelling the sweet, pungent air.  


Fifth Avenue, empty.  I can still smell it. TWO men across the street.  Twighlight Zone.  


The LCD ticker running.  "...orld Trade Center attacked yester..."


After a few hours being sent home.  


Detoured train to detoured bus to train evacuations to giving up and walking through unfamiliar neighborhoods.  Getting quietly lost with the others.  Half numb. The hour long walk to find my way back to my apartment.  


Realizing I had gotten to work early the day before.  Realizing had I been an hour late I might have been on THE wrong train.  

Remembering the night before.


All of the three o'clock men I served were fire fighters.  They were all from the same ladder.  A few days later my Stage Manager friend told me only one of them survived. The one she was dating.


------------------------------------------------------------------


I win the ultimate fantasy contest.  No lottery can top that.

Digging In The Dirt

Clean out sock drawer.


Check.


Clip dog's nails.


Check.


Remember what it feels like to be home from school and watching comfortingly bad TV.


Done.

The Lost Art of Renfield

I got fired from a temp job today.  


WHO gets fired from a temp job?


I am competent, kind, willing to accept criticism... heck, even blame.  But in all my yeehahs...I have NEVAH, EVAH been treated as horribly as I was by this woman.  My temp company says they know it wasn't me.  They've assured me I will work again.  I've assured them I'd like to take a little break from assignments.


Sitting alongside the rows and rows of other admins, I was to assist three women.  My temp company mentioned they 'needed a star!'...'it's a great opportunity to get in with a great company!'...'free breakfast and lunch!'


Sweet.


Five day gig.  The middle of day two I am writing the temp folks to warn them.  


'This woman HAAAYYTES me.'


'Hang in there.  Don't worry.'


I whisper over the divider to the woman sitting next to me and ask if it's me.  She says it's not but then almost immediately the b*&%h screams my name and yells out to: NEVER DO _________ AGAIN!!


 _________ I didn't do.  


It was pure comedy.  She shoved some papers in my hand and said, "Mark these on the spreadsheet as corrected by DME".  She may as well have walked down the hall to the elevators, through the giant marble lobby, out the spinning doors, handed them to a complete stranger and said the same thing.  The only instruction I received was a piece of paper left by the other assistant that said: 'Don't be retarded'.  


I didn't even know WHAT this woman did.  After her order, I mistakenly asked her what she meant.  I thought for a moment that maybe she had a stroke her eyes rolled so far up in her head and from that moment on she spoke to me in one word sentences in slow motion.  Day two she was screaming my name.  It was apparently becoming her sole purpose to prove to those within earshot what an idiot I was.  She continued to tell me to do things Steve Jobs wouldn't have understood.  I could feel myself degenerating.


Her:  "Make sure you put these in the appraisal files and match them with the others, then give me the department folders."  


Me:  "I like peas."


I literally ran around in circles with my head and shoulders hunched down apologizing for things either someone else did or things she wished someone else was doing.  I felt like I was in a Woody Allen movie.  No, Mel Brooks. 


I get it.  Sometimes it feels good to kick a puppy.  She smelled my fear and hated me for it.  There have been a few times in my life I let the bullies get to me.  I become the dumb cow backing into the oncoming car to 'get out of the way'.  I go into shock when people are just... mean.  It makes me understand a little teensy, tiny bit why Columbine killings happen.  Working for 'difficult' people is not a new concept and you swallow it because you get paid.  


I kissed her feet and she kicked me out.  


When I left that day, I said, "See you tomorrow!"  It was the first time she smiled at me.  


"Good night!"


Five minutes later my temp company calls.  Cruella DeVille from Great Gatsby doesn't want me back.  


I contemplated canceling a lunch reservation I'd made for her.  Then I realized that is a path that leads to eating bugs in a sanatorium.

Country Comforts

Dictionary.com - psychosomatic: adj.
     1. of or pertaining to a physical disorder that is caused by or notably influenced by emotional factors.
_______________________

Greg: I think it is psychosomatic.

Jen: I'm not making it up!

Greg: I know. But I think it is coming from your head.

Jen: But doesn't everything?!
______________________

This weekend Greg and I kept each other from running out in front of a bus by going to visit some friends in 'the country' upstate. We did this on his credit card and on my claims that my vertigo-state was some sort of flu caused by stress. I stopped being dizzy on day two and started up again this morning. I'm calling it New York Citzyness.

UrbanDictionary.com - psychosemantic: adj.
     1. when the meaning of a word is largely the result of one's own imagination.

Hitchcock or Herzog

I inexplicably came down with dizziness last night. It started when I rolled out of bed and couldn't figure out why I kept rolling. After I spent the morning on the couch complaining about my 'Ver-TEE-go' like only a Williams' character could, I continued to do the same in the afternoon while babysitting for a friend. Thank goodness seven-year-olds are satiated with ice cream and television. Heck, I'm satiated with ice cream and, well... that does it for me.

My favorite part of kidsitting was when said kid stepped out of the bathroom with a soaking wet head and told me the sink was leaking just like at her other baby sitter's house. She'd brought supplies for water balloons she wanted to 'throw out the window at people'. I'm not sure how far she would have gotten in trying to unlock the window on her own, but I'm glad we never saw the reality of the Disney movie playing out in her mind.

I can see The Post headline now:

Splash Clash!
Seven Year Old Shot Out of Second Story Rear Window

After she left, Greg joined me on the couch and we babysat a Herzog film on our television. Not quite the cure for a spinning head...like trying to stop a chill by walking through a meat locker. 

Man On Wire

A friend recently said:


"I want what you have.  I want that balance in my life.  You and Greg give each other balance."


I know we give each other support.  I know he makes me feel grounded and I make him feel uplifted but to hear it put this way... the two of us being together is what keeps each of us on the beam.  


The facts of love aren't tangible but these days, the facts of marriage are and if all is fair in love and war, we have to find that balance that makes things the same for all warriors and all lovers.