« May 2007 | Main | July 2007 »
1. My friend John sent me an email that the surprise revelation in my book made him "audibly gasp" in the Albuqurque airport. THAT's what I'm talking about.
2. E. mentioned she was driving behind a person with a car full of doll parts, and I think I might actually know that person. Small world!
3. Maddie G. had her first ice cream cone, and some of it even got into her mouth!
4. I think we may have bought a house. More details to follow, of course.
Everyone Googles themselves, right?
I do it every once it awhile-- usually all I can learn is that I'm Katie Holmes' ex-best friend. Now that the hubbub about me being Katie Holmes' ex-best friend has died down, there are some interesting things to be learned again. This week, for instance, I discovered several new things, including that last year, I was nominated for the Pushcart Prize. THIS totally seems like something you'd know if it happened, right?
Apparently not. It's not like the Oscars-- they don't even have to tell you you're nominated unless you win. Still, very VERY cool.
Also, I found this review, which I didn't know had been done by which was extremely awesome.
Finally, I am once and for all quitting caffiene because it makes me a little nuts. And, similar to my experience with nicotine, while I may THINK I can quit whenever I want, I obviously cannot. Case in point: I must have been really overdoing it lately, because I didn't even go cold turkey-- I just cut DOWN my regular intake by about half, and already I have a RAGING headache, despite taking Advil. Dude! Why do they not make a caffiene patch? Someone should TOTALLY invent that.
This post has been delayed for awhile, due to my inability
to create a chart that’s appropriately funny to support the concept. Oh, and before you start reading, this is
DEFINITELY going to be a post that will either make you laugh, or make you go
right over to my MySpace page to send me a nasty message. I’m looking at you, Gloria Steinam. That said, it’s all for funny—just another
one of those random things that starts out as a comment someone makes or something I overhear, then ends up something I think about and bring up at dinner parties and expand upon until it has enough "meat" for a long post.
Also, if you’re a woman who’s in the professional world, or a stay-at-home mom (a job that is about 1,000 times HARDER than working in an office, from what I understand), you are not going to see yourself on the list, because this post is all just about women who, despite the women’s movement, women’s rights, etc, are still choosing to sell themselves, and therefore making the rest of us look bad.
Ok, here goes.
The Video Girl Continuum
A couple of months ago, I was sitting behind these two girls at a show I was
covering for Fashion Week here in LA. They were obviously stylists (they had that look), and were having what
turned out to be a hilariously snarky conversation about a certain celebrity
that they’d both worked for, but that didn’t like (let’s call her April). Here’s about how the conversation went:
Stylist A: “…..such a bitch. I mean, not even civil. Made me drive all over town to find a leopard sarong that didn’t even make the cut for the shoot.”
Stylist B: “…I know! She did the same thing to me. I had to go out and get her a latte at 4:00. 4:00, dude. In LA. Prime stuck in traffic time.”
Stylist A: “It’s such bullshit….everyone knows she’s just a video girl who got lucky and f*&^d her way to the top.”
This is when, being myself and being curious, I lean over and go “Excuse me….what’s a video girl?” They were extremely accommodating, explaining that a video girl is a girl who is not tall enough or pretty enough to model, and not quite a good enough dancer to actually DANCE in a video, but who is just shameless enough to be one of those girls by the pool in a rap video, shaking her ass in slow motion and letting Jay Z put his hands on her boobs. Video Girl.
This got me thinking – to a certain extent, if you’re a
woman and you’re not on the professional track or raising kids, you’re probably
doing some level of this. I’m not going
to try to account for the logic of this—maybe you were the prettiest girl in
your high school and never went to college. Maybe you’re accustomed to getting things for free, so when someone
tells you that you actually have to get up every day and go to work, you go
“Um…..no. I’m going to explore other
alternatives.” And, because there is
still some level of patriarchal dominance in society, this means that there are
still some women who are still selling themselves—now it just depends on the
price.
Crack Ho: Sells her body, just to get
more crack. The lowest on the spectrum,
because she’s basically just treading water until the inevitable crack
overdose. A closed cycle of
prostitution, if you will. Here is a crack ho Barbie I found on Google images:
Streetwalker: Walks
the street, gives most of her money to her pimp, but maybe she has a heart of
gold, or big dreams, like Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman. Because really, so many of them do.
Porn Star: Yeah, yeah, they “get paid to
have fun and do what people do anyway,” or they’re “just using porn as a
stepping stone to get their film career started.” These are the lines they use so they don’t
want to kill themselves every day, anyway. As far as I can tell, they’re having sex, on film, and they know that
men are the primary audience for the product that makes them all the money.
So…..there you go. I’m not saying that
Jenna Jameson isn’t a gazillioniare with her own management team at a Big Five
agency that I’m not supposed to name, but she’s the ONE exception to the
thousands of girls who do this every day. Even Traci Lords—still known for
porn, dude.
Paid Escort: This is the girl who shows up when you call the concierge at the hotel, or respond to the late night tv commercial advertising “dates.” This is definitely a girl who has always been so pretty, she’s gotten away with everything, has never paid a parking ticket, and who could easily go out to dinner with a studio executive. In fact, I was having dinner with my lawyer friend B. at the Ivy by the Shore, developing these very ideas, we saw a really, really gorgeous Asian woman who was out at dinner with a very old man. Since there wasn’t any obvious conversation going on (like, at all), and since she was cutting his meat for him, and she had on a very low-cut dress. So—you be the judge. I’m positive she wasn’t his daughter, just back from Harvard for dinner.
Stripper: Since most
of these girls will tell you they’re just working at Jumbo’s Clown Room to pay
for their Sociology degree, I’m putting them above the paid escort. In my estimation, though, simulating sex for
money gets you just about the same placement on the chart.
Las Vegas-type showgirl: Not just a stripper. A dancer who also shows her boobs.
Paid Girlfriend: This
is the girl who lived in my building in New
York
Model: Mostly I mean “model who is
willing to do just a little too much to be successful,” like appear in
provocative swimsuit ads, and/ or Playboy, or Hustler, or whatever. We’re going to hope they’re investing this
money, because once a model is 30, unless she's Elle McPherson, she's done.
Actress: Mostly I
just mention this because, as well as know, there is a certain age past which
it’s tough to get acting jobs. So, you
see a lot of actress-types in their teens, twenties, and thirties, who either
“make it,” or have to find a guy to settle down with. I’m including the actress in the chart
because some of them are actually desperate to go out with Phil Spector, even
though his parents were first cousins and he’s known for chasing women around
with guns, just to possibly get roles in films. And, to my knowledge, Phil Spector doesn’t even make films. You see what I’m saying. County Housewives New York Santa
Monica
Rich Guy’s Wife. I don’t mean “stay at
home mom,” or “equal breadwinner,” because like I said, those women don’t
appear on the continuum. I mean “woman with a stockbroker or movie producer
husband, may or may not have a kid, who doesn’t work and also has a full time
nanny,” or “woman who stays home all day and still needs a personal assistant
and tells you how busy she is all the time.” Like, what are they doing? Charity work cannot take up that much time. Examples: Those Orange
Old Rich Guy’s Wife. I’m talking about
Anna Nicole Smith right here. Also
known as “goldigger.” I’m not saying
Anna Nicole Smith didn’t love that guy, but come ON. I might put “The Girls Next Door” girls in
this category as well, cross-referencing them with “paid girlfriend.” Oh, she’s earning that money all right—one
Viagra at a time.
Rich Guy’s Ex-Wife. Hopefully with a
divorce settlement so big that they don’t have to work anymore, because you can
DEFINITELY not start the continuum over when you’re 50 years old. Nope. Examples: Diandra Douglas
(replaced by Catherine Zeta-Jones), Nicole Kidman (replaced by my best friend
Katie Holmes), Robin Williams’ first wife (replaced by the nanny—ouch). I prefer not to use the term “Starter Wife,”
because in my mind a starter wife is just your first wife and doesn’t
necessarily get rich in the divorce, but if YOU’D like this to be the “Starter
Wife” category, then ok.
Rich Guy’s Widow. The
motherlode of the video girl continuum—truly the end of the marathon,
especially if, like Anna Nicole Smith, you advanced from “Old Rich Guy’s Wife”
to “Rich Guy’s Widow” while still under 30, and were married for less
than three years, and UNLIKE Anna Nicole Smith, actually collect the money.
If you fall into this category, unless you end up in court like Anna Nicole Smith, you’re still young, you
never have to work again, and you have your pick of eligible guys. Of course, most of this guys are on the “male
model continuum,” meaning they are looking for someone to take care of
them. But, you’ve got your health, a
gazillion dollars, and access to the best plastic surgeons, so you’ll be just
fine. Even better if the situation isn’t
complicated by ex-wives and their children.
Examples: Courtney
Love, if she wasn’t quite so insane. Yoko One, if she wasn’t quite so Yoko Ono. Also
known as “Cougar.”
There will certainly be more additions to this list, as I think of them. Just wanted to put something out there for Monday! I'm working on one for guys.
This is so great-- Talk of the Nation did an "unusual names" show today (maybe inspired by Barack Obama), and they totally added some names to my Groovy Nipples list. They interviewed a writer named Strawberry Saroyan (fantastic), and a woman named Gayman Wong, and a woman emailed in whose step-grandmother's name was Arizona Killings. Click here to listen to the show.
My original list:
1. Groovy Nipples Schwartzman
2. Freakus Poleakus Schwartzman
3. Donald Duckles
4. Honey Darling
5. Sweetie Darling
6. River Hudson
7. Blueberry Pancake
8. Thankful Vander Star
9. Hopeful Vander Star
10. Browne Greene (father)
11. Blue Greene (daughter)
12. Violet Greene (daugher)
13. Guy Wilde
14. Jackson Fastaction
15. Gay Peoples
16. Dr. Deth
17. Dr. Cocksburn (a urologist)
New additions to the list:
18. Gayman Wong
19. Strawberry Saroyan (her sister's name is Cream, dude)
20. Arizona Killings (she married INTO this name)
More to come...please, add your own!
Last week I went to Portland for a fundraising event, then on to San Francisco, and I got back yesterday. I had never been to Portland before, and despite repeated warnings from friends that it was generally filled with hippies and too crunchy granola for me to actually like, I LOVED IT. I mean, LOVED IT. Clean air, nice people, a solid public transport system-- I could totally move there. Maybe not now, because everything I do is pretty much on one of the two coasts (LA or New York, to be exact), but someday, for sure! You can even buy a house for a not-ridiculous amount of money. Wow!
Admittedly, it WAS pretty crunchy granola, though-- thus the photo of a man doing Tai Chi in the airport. I hate to let something that funny pass by, so I tried to stealthily take his picture without offending him.
Anyhow, halfway through the trip Stephan got that cold that's been going around, so he went home, and I went on to San Francisco to attend YET ANOTHER FUNDRAISER. These events are work-related, so I'm going to take Dooce's example and not blog about my day job, for my own good. So, all my colleagues and associates will be happy to know that they are off-limits on this blog. They will all be delighted to know this, I'm sure. I will say that Saturday evening's fundraiser involved a private Rita Moreno concert, and leave it at that.
Sunday night, my friend M. and I went to another friend's birthday party in San Francisco, then out to dinner. During dinner, we started quoting from this Dave Chappelle DVD we both think is funny (what is JUICE? I want drink!) We were like "we should totally go watch that DVD right now," but we couldn't find anything open, since it was already 10:30 pm on a Sunday-- a time when rational people are winding down to go to bed, since they have to work the next day. It's not like WE didn't have to work the next day either-- she just hasn't been sleeping much lately, and I just went temporarily insane, I guess.
Anyway (and by now I bet you're like -- yeah, is there a POINT to this story?), we were walking back to my hotel so she could get some of her stuff and go home. We're right across the street from the hotel when this woman pulls over and says "Hey-- do you know where the Punchline is? Dave Chappelle is doing a special show there at midnight. They just announced it on the radio."
What the....???
As it turned out, we were right across the street from the Punchline, so we went over there.
And got tickets.
And saw Dave Chappelle, who was so funny until 3:00 in the morning.
Whoa!
I'm still catching up from the travel and lack of sleep, but I have a really excellent post I've been working on, which I will finish by the end of the week. It's about social anthropology, and hookers.
OK, then. How was YOUR weekend?
PS You must. Right now. Go check out this New York Times article, which totally mentions my friend Stephen Burdman's theater company, New York Classical Theater. Go Stephen Burdman!
PPS Apparently Owen Wilson lives down the street from me AND has the same recycling route, as just yesterday we found a piece of his mail in our driveway. Is that interesting? I try to only post interesting things on this blog.
If so….maybe this is the one you should buy. Not only is it cheap ($799,000 for probably
1,000 square feet) but it comes with ghosts and pestilence! 
This is actually a picture I took with my phone, because I was trying to capture this listing before it got taken down, so it's kind of blurry and illegible, but totally worth it if you can squint to see it. I'm not sure if you can make it out, but here is the description:
ROOTS GROWING UP THROUGH THE FOUNDATION. HOUSE IS UP AGAINST STEEP HILL IN BACK. LARGE CRACKS IN THE FOUNDATION IN THE FRONT AND BACK. YARD HAS PESTILENCE, INCLUDING LIZARDS. SUICIDE COMMITTED ON PREMISES. TOILET DOES NOT WORK, CENTRAL AIR AND HEAT DO NOT WORK. ASSESSOR'S RECORDS STATE 2 BEDROOMS, PLUS 1 BATH, BUT ACTUALLY 1 BEDROOM, PLUS LOFT AND 1 BATH. PROPERTY SOLD AS IS.
I whited out the listing agent's name and the actual listing number, since I'm 99% sure this was a hacking incident, and my realtor friend HM said she'd never seen anything like this. I'm telling you, this could only be better if it included “built on top of Indian burial ground.” This is WAY too honest to be a real description, in my opinion.
Sure enough, when I checked again this morning, the listing had been changed to a far more benign "ASSESSOR'S RECORDS STATE 2 BEDROOMS, PLUS 1 BATH, BUT ACTUALLY 1 BEDROOM, PLUS LOFT AND 1 BATH. PROPERTY SOLD AS IS."
Oddly, this is the SECOND suicide house I heard about last week, as our friends mentioned that they lived down the street from Richard Jeni's house, and did we want to buy that, since it's now available? It's been reduced, after all-- perhaps to give you an incentive to clean the tiny pieces of brain out of the grout from where the guy blew off his head with a shotgun. I'm going to have to also give this one a "no thanks," as well, just because I tend to be a little superstitious anyway, and I don't want to end up like the Winchester Mystery House lady.
I am in Portland for work, and I have to say, it's my first time ever in Portland, and I LOVE IT!
This was the headline of the LA Daily News last Sunday, and when I passed by the newsstand, I actually laughed out loud.
Yeah, they did an EXPOSE about porn in the valley. Hey people-- did you know there's PORN IN THE VALLEY? Seriously-- isn't this something that everyone who lives here for any period of times just knows, along with the fact that while it SAYS it's only 5 miles from Santa Monica to West Hollywood, if you leave at 4:00 pm on a Friday, it takes 3 hours to get there? Did the people at the LA Daily News not see Boogie Nights? All I'm saying is-- this is not news, at least not to me or to anyone I know. The valley-- it's where they make porn. Oh, and if you're reading from somewhere else, this just in: THE SAN FERNANDO VALLEY IS WHERE PORN COMES FROM.
Seriously-- someone needs to get the LA Daily News some modern conveniences, like a mimeograph machine and maybe some access to this "internet" thing that I hear is taking off now. Because at the rate they're going, they're just about to break the OJ story.
A couple of weeks ago I saw this rumor about the video for Marilyn Manson's
new song "Heart Shaped Glasses." If you didn't hear the rumor,
here's the jist of it-- last year, Marilyn left his wife (burlesque dancer Dita
von Teese, in case you're interested) for a 19 year old actress named Evan
Rachel Wood. He's crazy for her, she's under his spell, same old saw--
only this time, she's inspired his new album (or at least this song), and she's
starring in the video, in which she may or may not be having real sex.
Um, yeah-- I said real sex. With Marilyn Manson. You know, the guy who's supposed to be an amorphous, asexual, postmodern symbol of everything that's so very....VERY about society today? Yeah, that Marilyn Manson. Antichrist Superstar Marilyn Manson. Apparently the video was so, shall we say, RACY, that it could only be premiered on a German video site called SevenLoad. What the....?
I don't hate this guy's music-- nothing I would really buy in a store (I'm probably just a little too old for his demographic), but I must say I admire the guy's ability to brand himself and to really create a stir, so occasionally I will pay attention to what he's doing. The whole "mashing up of two cultural icons" in the form of Marilyn Monroe and Charles Manson is sort of intriguing in a sociological/postmodern way, so maybe that's what interests me.
Anyhow, let me just say that while I will provide a link to this video at the end of this post (just so you have the opportunity to view it and judge for yourself), it's not like I'm endorsing this behavior or like I love this guy's music. I'm really more interested in this from a philosophical perspective.
What I'm saying is this-- this guy spends over ten years branding himself as a SYMBOL, like he's the distillation of everything that's wrong with society, everything that's going to make your kids go all Columbine and shoot up the schools, blah blah blah, and he's HAPPY about this. He's so SHOCKING. He wears makeup and freaky boots. He dyes his hair black and wears one blue contact lens. He stays up all night howling at the moon, and paints with absinthe. He's a GOTH. Fine, whatever. I think it's all just a marketing angle he invented to make his music stand out. That said, I just don't get this video, or this rumor. Since when is Marilyn Manson supposed to be SEXY? Goth is not sexy, man. I find this video less "oh my God" shocking and more "what the hell?", confusing, like the first time I saw a Pina Colada flavored sports drink at the gym. Like-- you're at the GYM. Why would you want a protein drink that's alcohol flavored? That's just out of context, and it's wrong. WRONG. The former grad student in me wants to say that the real problem is that he’s been building himself up as a symbol this whole time, and that for the symbol to actually engage in real (or fake) intercourse seems oddly out of context and too immediate, like if we were to see Mickey Mouse picking his nose or something. Not that I'm comparing the Antichrist Superstar guy to a pina colada flavored protein drink, or even to Mickey Mouse, but you see my point.
Now that I've addressed the issue of context and symbolic immediacy, let me move on to his
paramour, Evan Rachel Wood. You might have seen her in indie-type films
like Thirteen and Down in the Valley, and I think she is actually pretty
good. But-- let me say this for the record. If you're 19, and
you fall in love with a crazy shock-rocker/ symbol guy who wants to have sex (or
"sex") with you in his new video, chances are if you say yes, you're
going to regret it later. I'm not saying that as an "old
person" who "doesn't understand." I'm saying that as a
person who once had a much-older boyfriend, and who is glad that today there is
no tangible evidence of that guy in my life. I am 99% sure that in
five years (or...possible in one year), she is going to look back at this video
and be absolutely MORTIFIED at the sight of herself, shall we say, involved with her shock-rocker boyfriend (or, maybe I should call him her
"manfriend," since he's almost 40 YEARS OLD). My point
is: maybe she's not old enough to know better yet, but is there really no
one around her who can say "Hey-- Evan? Simulating (or maybe really)
having sex with your 40 year old manfriend in a video is not going to put
you in the best position (no pun intended) at this point in your
career. All those roles you're turning down right now because
they're not edgy enough for you? Not a problem anymore, because no studio
wants their $10 million summer romance being lead by the girl who was once covered in
fake blood and having fake (or real) sex with Marilyn Manson.
So, this is why I'm confused. This is not necessarily great for his brand
(symbol out of context), and is definitely bad for hers (young impressionable girl
who doesn’t know any better). I know, they're people too, and in all
honestly, have probably gotten carried away by their feelings and acted on
that. Still, I'm just really surprised from a marketing perspective that
no one in either of their camps thought to point this out, since
everything else in the business is so totally calculated. I’ll be very interested to see how this video
is edited down for tv in
All of this said, here’s the original version. Goes without saying—not safe for work, not safe for kids, not safe for grandmothers, safe only for people with a very high tolerance for Marilyn Manson. Interesting – that’s all I’m saying.
Hey, just because it's a four-day week, doesn't mean alot of stuff can't happen. Monday, I slept in and hung out all day long, not writing (almost defiantly), despite repeated inquiries as to when my next book is coming out. I think we all know that I can write however many pages a day I want, but only the Gods of Publishing know the answer to that elusive question, so I've recently come to the conclusion that I need to just LET IT GO and stop obsessing. I did spend part of the day learning more about Banksy, an anonymous graffiti artist whose work I like and who is becoming hugely popular. If you want to learn more about him, you can click here to see a cool video. And, if you want to annoy him, you can click here to buy an "I AM BANKSY" t-shirt. Funny. But I digress.
On Tuesday, my book got mentioned by the New York Daily News as a "Sizzling Summer read." Again, FAN-TASTIC.
By Wednesday, Gawker was talking some smack about me which I chose to strategically ignore, because frankly, most of it was made up, and my foot hurt. However, I guess you haven't lived until you've been snarked at by Gawker, so let's just chalk that up to "interesting experiences." They also mocked Claire Danes, Tina Brown, and Rosie this week, so I feel special.
On Thursday, I got what I think is my MOST AWESOME REVIEW YET, in the form of an email, which I will quote here:
You'd think that this would be the highlight of my week, and frankly, it was. That, and finding out that my friend K. got a totally great job that everyone was rooting for her to get, so THAT was just awesome. Today turned out to be very hilarious too, though, as I just checked my MySpace account, and got an email from Dr. TATOFF'S OFFICE, saying they liked my blog. Yes, I mean THE Mysterious Dr. Tatoff from last Friday's post, when I wondered if Dr. Tatoff was perhaps Eastern European, and already had that name before he decided to choose "tattoo removal" as his specialty, or if it was a name made up strictly for cleverness and publicity purposes (either way, a fantastic and funny name). They read my blog and liked it, and want me to come into the office. Which, I'm sure you know, I am totally going to do, just to see what it's like so I can write about it on here.
