Wednesday, August 31, 2005
New Orleans
It is August 6th and I am carrying my bags from the New Orleans airport as the hour of my birthday approaches. I packed smart, a carry-on and tote bag linked neatly over my forearm. The wet heat greets me as I step between the red lane and the yellow lane to hail a cab.
This year I made plans to go out of town for work on the weekend of my birthday. I want to avoid a painful day of answering obligatory phone calls and keeping score of those that can't even manage a meager text.
Even though I have been respectfully employed for the past eight years I have worked seasonally at the Retail Tobacco Dealers Association (RTDA) show for Porsche/Bugatti designs selling lighters and accessories to smoke shop buyers. It's leftover business for friends, part of another life that I just can't seem to let go of.
The RTDA show occurs once a year in August-usually on my birthday-but always in some fabulous city of sin. About 3,000 overweight married men smoking cigars descend upon the lucky city for four days of buying and partying like rock stars past their prime. The tobacco vendors fall over themselves competing for the vendors attention with conflicting parties and events.
After I check into the hotel, I walk around the city exploring. I take a photo of the man playing sax in front of the church. I admire the French balconies and old street signs. I buy local jewelry from a woman with a thick Creole accent. I stop in to the overpriced specialty shops and chat with the women that work behind the counter.
There is the sound of French music lilting through the streets. I drink Espresso and eat a pastry in an open courtyard as the sun sets. Walking back to the hotel down Bourbon Street, I can feel the energy as the night begins to explode. There is something about the New Orleans air that smells like the Pirates of the Caribbean ride at Disneyland. Perhaps it is old water. Or perhaps I am experiencing sensory memory. But the vision of a man on a balcony trying to entice me to flash him for the delight of some plastic metallic beads reminds me of that Anaheim Pirate chasing that woman round and round the mechanic balcony pole in Disney's version of the Bayou.
Now it is later that evening and I am one of only twenty women in a bar of four-hundred drunken men smoking Cubanos. I am sweaty from clapping my hands and dancing to the beats of three trumpets, two guitars, a banjo, a steel drum, an accordion, sounds like a harmonic and and certainly a tambourine. I feel like I have been swept into another time and another country.
An incredibly handsome man is dancing a few people over from me with no care for the fact he is sweating through his crisp, French cuff shirt. He is taller than anyone else on the dance floor so I can see his head moving above the crowd. He rocks his head and shoulders to the Cajun beats and moves his hips smoothly with great confidence. He doesn't look at me.
Not even for a moment.
My friend Thorston presses his way through the mob, grabs my hand and says in his thick German accent, "Pull yourselv avay from them - they are go-ing to eat you vith a spoon. Come meet my friends".
And he swings me around, and I am face to face with the beautiful tall man and his seductive hips.
"Frenchie, I think she likes you," Thorston says.
With a slight French accent, he extends his hand to me and dips his head in the middle of the swaying mosh pit, as if it's 1763 and I was just presented in the Royal court.
Just then I am bumped from behind and my nose falls right into his lower chest. He places a protective hand on the nape of my neck. I feel safe and like I belong to someone. I can feel the tremor of his chuckle through the light curly hairs under his shirt that are cushioning my fall. He bows his head down to my eye level and very slowly and cool-like he says in his staccato French accent, "So nice to meet you."
But then Thorston is tugging on my shoulder and he wants to twist me around in some crazy Euro-trash swing jumble. Frenchie turns back to the stage and begins stepping in time to the rhythm. He sways and dips his hips and shoulders like a salsa dancer. A really tall, really hot, really cool salsa dancer.
I keep looking back over at Frenchie. But he doesn't look back. He is swept up in the local Creole tune that has everyone in the House of Blues on their feet and moving. He wont look over and I can't look away.
There was something in that moment. I am not like this... I feel giddy, like a teenager and I am jostling to try and find myself in his line of vision. But he won't look and I feel like I am sixteen, in the third row of a Pearl Jam concert, trying to catch the eye of Eddy Vedder. Because when he sees me, he is going to want to tell me his secrets and love me forever. I am so retarded.
As I take turns being swung around the dance floor by filter paper salesman, I scold myself for my high school antics and focus on the groove of the music. By the last song I am glistening, my body's been felt up by every man on the dance floor (but Frenchie) and I am sore from hip swivels and fancy foot work.
Thorston and the other Germans are leaving and I can't wait around any longer for 'him' to talk to me. It's just not going to happen, and I can't manipulate the situation so it will. He is just not that into me... and I am too old to linger. I am ready to go back to the hotel, lay in bed and fantasize about how I really want the night to end.
I walk outside with Thorston and the others and raise my hand to wave goodbye when I feel the coolness of breath along my neck, sticky from the dancing and the humid Southern air.
"You can't go just yet. You have to save a dance just for me without all those terrible men around you."
I turn to see that the source of the lovely French accent whispering in my ear. Frenchie.
He looks fresh and full of energy and he signals to Thorston's German's and his own gang of merry Frenchmen wearing Italian suits.
"Let's go gentlemen."
He politely guides me towards Bourbon Street and all the others fall into step behind us. They are speaking in foreign tongues so I can't understand a word and I am trying not to sound like an idiot every time I open my mouth to speak to Frenchie.
It's a seven minute walk from House of Blues to the bar we were going to on Bourbon Street. But in seven minutes, we discover that we both studied International Affairs, owned our own business's, had enjoyed equally entertaining 15 minutes of fame, both wanted to travel the world as diplomats, love to dance and have a passion for voodoo.
After we arrive at the bar, we dance salsa to twelve long hard rock songs in the middle of the dance floor before Frenchie grabs my hand and sneaks us out the back door. We flee the bar, the ACDC cover band, the metallic purple and gold beads, our drunken friends, the rowdy crowd, the whore houses and strip clubs littering the sides of Bourbon Street.
We walk rapidly away from it all and fall softly into the shadows of the dark cobblestone streets of New Orleans. Even at 1:30 in the morning on streets only lit by vintage gas lamps, there is a spirit amongst us and a taste of adventure in the air and a feeling we are not alone on these haunted streets.
We are like kids on a field trip, we stop at every historic plaque, we weave through the dark alleys singing funny songs. I make him look in the windows of every significant building. We dip our toes into the Mississippi and tell dirty jokes and funny stories. He tells me about his culture, his life at home, his ambitions. I tell him mine. We walk through Jackson Square, he tells me historical facts about the early shipping years in Louisiana. He convinces me to slide through the locked fence and lie on the wet grass looking up at the stars over the mystical city. Even though only our shoulders touch it's like our bodies are tied together. I can feel every chain effect of movement in his frame through that shoulder and even the slightest increase in pressure makes me shake down to my toes.
We talk about pirates and treasures and the bones of ancestors. We step out from under the statue of Andrew Jackson and walk towards the river when he stops me to say, "I was so nervous after Thorston introduced us. I couldn't even look at you."
My ego swells. My heart opens. The sun is starting to come up.
We throw rocks in the river and try to skip them along the glassy surface. When the sun begins to illuminate the waters edge we both realize we have to be on the sales floor in an hour and a half.
"We should go," I say reluctantly, tossing my last rock into the water.
His gaze stays on the ripples now breaking up the peaceful slumber of the Mississippi and he says a little boyishly, "I could keep talking to you all day."
It's the kind of sweet thing I would never expect a tall, suave, Frenchman wearing flat front suit pants that after twelve hours of walking in the Southern heat still look as if they were just pressed to ever say to this girl-next-door.
"Me too."
We start the walk back and even though it's 8:00 AM and I've been up all night dancing and my hair is pressed to the side of my head, he takes my hand like I'm a delicate porcelain doll and glides me back through the maze of the French quarter.
He doesn't try to kiss me good morning when he leaves me at the hotel. He doesn't even try to rub up on me. He just tries to talk to me more until I see my co-workers coming down for breakfast.
"I will see you soon," he says.
"And we can go for lunch today and dinner tonight and brunch tomorrow morning?" His slickness has melted away to reveal an eager little boy trapped in the suit of a business man. I pull away from him laughing and he looks at me like I'm Gloria Steinem, Marilyn Monroe, Margaret Thatcher and Lucille Ball all wrapped up in one. I've never felt so seen. I've never felt so pretty.
After he walks away and I'm riding the elevator back to my room, my cell phone rings and they tell me I'm leaving on the early plane back to New York. It's too late to catch him. I don't have his number. My heart falls into my gut but it's out of my hands now... And well, we will always have New Orleans.
Click here to see a list of organizations accepting donations on behalf of Hurricane Katrina victims.
Labels: Boy Stories, Pop Culture Casualty, Sober
Saturday, August 27, 2005
soon...
Soon my baby brothers and I will lie in hammocks on the Jersey Shore and relive embarrassing stories from our youth.
Someone will get married. Four absent siblings will call to check in. A sea of guests will swim around us. But we will find a way to separate from the chaos.
Nor will tell us what it is like to be a marine, Brother G. will explain spirituality through the vernacular he learned studying theology at BC. I will impress them with my travels and tales of the big city.
We might build a bonfire and make s'mores. We might have a fight thinly veiled as a debate. Hans will get angry and yell at me and Kristofer will rush to my defense. I will likely scratch their backs and when Brother G. falls asleep, Nor will tell me lightly that he's sorry.
It will be like old times.
Yes, soon my baby brothers and I will lie in hammocks on the Jersey Shore ...
Labels: Pop Culture Casualty, Sober
Friday, August 26, 2005
It happened to me... I was famous for about 13 minutes.
"Single? Want to find love on a reality TV show for MTV? You can make $10,000 dollars!"
Molly was visiting from Seattle and we had just finished sweating to Cher at a neighborhood transvestite bar when I saw two women on the corner of Connecticut and N handing out flyers. I thought it was for an after hours party. But as we approached it became apparent they were something entirely foreign to the clean and orderly streets of Washington DC.
"Can I have 5 minutes of your time? Your cute, come talk to me."
I looked down at the flyer.
MTV looking for willing men and women to try out for a new reality TV series !
I was 30. Sober. Depressed over a recent break-up with a man I knew I was getting back together with in about two weeks. 'PARTY! PARTY!! PARTY!!!' was hardly my thing. But I was exhausted trying to entertain my BFF with DC's slim offerings and this little adventure would tie our night up perfectly.
"Yeah, sure, okay. What do I have to do?"
I thought perhaps a questionnaire, a photo... But within moments, a camera and microphone hung ominously over my head.
"So who ended the last relationship? You, or the guy?"
"Do you have any hidden talents?"
"What is your father like? Do you guys get along?"
"So, like, do you think, like, we should, like, be at war with Afghanistan?"
Cameras, terrify me.
I saw the red light and could feel my lip begin to quiver. Like an alcoholic tremor, the more I tried not to let it happen the more it seemed to reveal my utter insecurity. Off went the light and my face relaxed. Like anesthesia wearing off after a visit to the dentist for a root canal.
I walked away and tried to cover up my embarrassment with sarcasm. I took some comfort in the theory that my three minute clip was so bad it would probably be recorded over by the nights end.
No such luck.
The following Friday, I got a phone call.
"Hi, I'm a casting agent calling from LA. We saw your tape. The one you recorded in the street last week in DC. We want to talk to you more. Can you come out this weekend for a casting call?"
She told me she was casting for an MTV Bachelor take-off. Some in descript number of single men and women, all living in a house together. She wouldn't tell me how many people. She wouldn't tell me where they were filming. She wouldn't tell me the name of the show. She cautioned me that every step of this process needed to be strictly confidential.
I hung up the phone, called and told Molly the whole story.
When I arrived in LA, I was driven to a hotel about two blocks from LAX, told I wasn't allowed to leave my room for any reason unless escorted by a member of the crew and given $25 to survive on for the next three days eating nothing but room service.
Over the next two days of casting calls I met five other women. We were nothing alike. They were young, average pretty and innocent. They had wide eyes and giggled a lot.
The casting agent phoned two weeks later.
"Hi there. Good news. Guess what? You have totally been cast on the show. Congratulations! Are you just totally psyched or what? Oh my God. Isn't this great. Are you crying?"
I packed my bags, told my friends I was going to Liberia for two weeks and set out for the West.
My plane dropped down at LAX and I was met by a production assistant. She drove me to a hotel and the next morning a young woman arrived to be my chaperone for the day. We took a walk up to the Hollywood Hills. She called it hiking. I learned the premise of the show. A bunch of single men and women living in the same house, competing for the affections of a 'bachelor and a bachelorette'.
It sounded cheesy. Christ, this is going to be a career killer.
But c'mon, what a story.
Two days later, I stepped out of a Lincoln Town car in front of a house in Agoura Hills California. A crew of a least thirty stared at my quivering lip and the sweat dripping down my arms. A dozen halogen lamps illuminated my already shiny forehead. Bulbs flashed. Photos were taken. Six different cameras pulled focus with every step I took. Someone called for silence on the set. And then another car pulled up and an average looking man stepped out.
Oh Jesus, I've been cast on Average Joe. I fucking knew it. How could I think I was good enough for this MTV shit. How humiliating.
"Hi, nice to meet you. What's your name?"
More cars pulled up to the house and more people emerged to soak in the lights and take the glare off my plastic smile. When I am nervous, I make conversation. Usually coupled with awkward laughter.
I asked everyone their name, occupation, home town. Periodically, someone from the crew would yell for quiet. But my anxiety propelled me to continue.
I whispered under my breath to the unfortunately named Ferrari standing next to me, "where did they find you?"
"My agent. I just got the call yesterday."
The director called for complete silence and ordered a re-shoot. Disbelief measurably registered on my face.
Three days of casting calls, interviews with a psychiatrist, blood tests and a thorough doctor's examination and she just got the call yesterday?
By the time the shows host arrived to formally introduce the fourteen strangely average men and women to the most superficial woman and two dimensional man I'd ever met, I had been stewing over Ferraris answer for thirty minutes.
The Host with a bad blonde dye job and fake British accent introduced the show. "You seven men and seven women will be living in this house together over the next two weeks. All the while, competing for alone time with this fabulous bachelor and bachelorette. At the end of two weeks, these two will be forced to choose someone with whom they believe they could pursue a future. Will it be you?"
Please. I wouldn't date a single man here. Ridiculous.
Ferrari had tipped me off. Something was not what it seemed.
Over the next 48 hours I was a skeptic. Ridiculous contests flowed out of the producers. I did a strip tease with a partner dressed as a dog and a T-bone steak. I wrestled with an inked stripper while trying to pop balloons filled with whip cream firmly safety-pinned to her breasts. I held a yoga position for twenty minutes, danced in a Conga line chained to fifteen people, and dug for hot dogs in a vat filled with a naked model and mashed potatoes.
The sexual innuendo threatened to make me unemployable in Washington DC. Exactly how much are people willing to do just to be on MTV? To add to the strangeness the other contestants never wanted to talk about themselves. What reality TV contestant is not completely self absorbed and attention seeking?
I was done when a Jessica Simpson look-alike pulled me into the bathroom to tell me about her former food fetish porn career starring in the ill titled 'Porked'n'Beans'. Mid-story, the camera man had to turn off the camera and change the battery. Cami stopped talking, patiently waited until the camera turned back on, and then flowed back into her emotional story.
I was Truman on the Truman Show. And I was done being made a fool of.
I approached the producers. They labeled me a conspiracy theorist. They told me I was killing the comedy. Relax. Enjoy.
Fuck off.
I think they knew they were losing my interest. Because later that night they staged an elaborate 'eviction ceremony' that fell apart in a dramatic twist. The bachelor and one of the bachelorettes started yelling obscenities at one another. I started laughing. And then the host looked at me and announced to the cameras.
"This almost seems rehearsed. Doesn't it?"
What?
"We've been fooling you."
I was right. The show was a fake. Except for me and one of the single men, everyone living in the house was an actor playing a part in a grand practical joke set to air on Spike TV in three months. The producers explained that they were trying to parody reality TV and thought two innocent victims who thought it was all real would be really hysterical.
They brought me into a back room filled with cameras and directors and editors. They clapped like I had done something. But I hadn't. They clapped to make me feel better about what they were doing to me.
After they revealed the hoax, they offered me a script and the promise of a $100,000 if I could keep fooling the other guy. They needed me to help keep him convinced. But I knew they just didn't want to loose two days of film that had already been shot.
Of course, I said yes.
Why not?
************************************************************************
I read my script, I signed some papers, and my experience quickly changed. No longer was I the center of attention amongst several other normal people living under a camera for the first time. Now I was odd woman out amongst a lot of LA character actors. I watched as they paced outside the trailer smoking cigarettes and talking on their cells to their agents about negotiating more screen time.
This culture of ego, professionalism and Hollywood drive were way out of my league. This experience took me from being the coolest kid in school, to being the new kid just transferred in from public school, completely isolated and completely unworthy to sit at the lunch table with the cheerleaders and jocks.
Not easing the transition, were the two geeky and sarcastic comedy writers that got some sort of sick pleasure out of convincing me various married and disinterested cast members harbored secret crushes on me. They took turns asking me every day who I was going to have sex with at the wrap party.
Unfortunately, I never got a chance to make that decision. Fourteen days later they taped the last episode, finally revealing the truth to my unsuspecting male counterpart.
He was stunned. But he got over it with a six pack and an oversized fake cardboard check.
Twenty minutes after the reveal, they shipped us back to the seedy hotel next to LAX and we never saw anyone from the production again. Unfortunately they made the mistake of booking the room on the network credit card and finally having a partner with whom to absorb the shock, Joe Schmo and I called in room service for ten, ordered porn on every channel, cleared out the mini bar and each stole the complimentary hotel robes. Then we went out and sat on the porch and relived every detail of the past 14 days with the benefit of hindsight.
I returned to DC the next day and began a consultancy with a governmental organization. After the show aired I enjoyed the occasional late-night talk show in New York City, repeat guest appearance on the radio, photo OP in STAR magazine (the cellulite issue) or shout out in the subway. But the poor ratings of the show meant that life quickly returned to normal.
In December of 2004, I moved to New York City and took a real job with a 401 k plan and insurance benefits. Besides the occasional double take on the street, I'm back to being just your average Jane Schmo. But occasionally I will pass by an old poster at a Subway stop that hasn't yet been spray painted over with a moustache and I'll smile.
I was famous, for about 13 minutes.
Labels: Pop Culture Casualty, Sober
Wednesday, August 24, 2005
The Horizontal Mambo
Last night I went to see Patrick Swayze promote his new film One Last Dance, at a downtown theater. The event doubled as a benefit for the venue and was followed by an after-party at a swanky nightclub. I went mainly for the open bar, but didn’t mind possibly meeting the stoned kahuna with the bleached-out mullet who peppered 1991 surf-caper Pointbreak with gritty pearls like: “You want the ultimate thrill, you gotta be willing to pay the ultimate price!”
Unfortunately, I never got anywhere near Swayze. Black-suited and modishly-coiffed, he spent most of the night insulated by a thick body-blanket of menopausal Dirty Dancing groupies. I realized then that Swayze is the dancing Neil Diamond.
Standing along sidelines, I saw that the way he pivoted his big cowboy head and blithely said of his wife, “She takes my breath away,” gave the old gals synchronized hot-flashes.
They adored his cowlick and seemed chuffed to know that he’s been with wife Lisa Niemi for 30 years (a well-known fact that was nonetheless repeatedly alluded to in the course of the evening both on and off stage.)
As I sized up the western profile, the dancers body, the Texas twang, the uxoriousness -- a surprising thing happened: the mantel of corn receded to reveal a desirable man.
Don’t get me wrong, The Swayze is not my type, but I can understand the appeal he has for women who grew up swooning over Elvis, another hip-grinding pretty-boy.
Historically the attraction white women have felt for men with rhythm and sensitivity has manifested in the fetishizing of male dancers.
Rudolf Valentino, Fred Astaire and Elvis Presley were worshipped for their prowess on the parquet. Why? Because a lot of men are sexual clods who fail to satisfy the desires of women by thinking staying power is the key to great sex.
In reality women want physically intuitive minxes. Big johnsons? We love them, particularly when they are put in the service of attentive, limber, sexual athletes. The idea that size-doesn't -matter originates from women who’ve bedded misguided goobers with 11-inch bicycle pumps.
In an age when most fathers are too estranged from their sons (and wives) to offer insight, I take it upon myself to spell out what it takes to make a girl happy.
First: Be intensely attracted to her. Don't think about why. It really doesn't matter.
Next: Be nice. Truly hot chicks (and I'm not just talking about looks) are like 401K's, the greater your personal investment the greater your ultimate return.
Next: When you give her a ride on your rocket, listen to what she has to say. If you do the right thing she’ll guide you to the stars. Don’t be childish and ask for detailed instructions. Take her cues and use your imagination.
Last: When it’s all over, turn to her and admit that she takes your breath away.
Know that, like The Swayze, you are looking at potentially 30 years of great sex.
Labels: cherrybomb
Monday, August 22, 2005
Day Three
Friday night I attended a white party at the loft of a wealthy retired investment banker from Ireland.
The cast of All My Children sandwiched me on the dance floor and I made excuses to slip away to the roof. I was tempted to flirt it up with the short guy who enjoyed bragging about his bit part as 'Jock #1" in the runaway hit "Girl Next Door". He was eyeing me most the night, but I purposely avoided eye contact as he made his goodbyes and lingered around my group of girlfriends before giving up, grabbing his paint splattered designer jacket and hitting the road with the rest of his pretty boy posse. Sure, it would have been a good story to tell--but I still would have been alone on Monday morning.
Saturday night, I did the unthinkable. I went out... with a couple. We had dinner, talked about life, caught an indie flick and I was in bed by 12:30. Sunday, I cancelled plans with a guy friend that I knew would have resulted in shameless flirting and games that culminated in a long and lusty kiss goodnight and a week of avoiding his calls and 'let's just go back to being friends' chat next Sunday night. Instead, I met some girlfriends and more couple friends for a late Sunday afternoon brunch at a restaurant in SOHO.
At the AA meeting tonight, I kept myself from scanning the meeting room for cute men, focused on the topic and shared my insight on a Big Book reading. Still afterwards, I was approached by this adorable grad student getting his executive MBA at Columbia. The old me (from 3 days ago) would have manipulated a group 24 Hour Diner experience and tossed a casual invite his way. At dinner, I would have been witty and smart--getting him to walk me to the subway stop and then exchanged numbers on the corner. But I resisted, spoke professionally and kindly with him and then busied myself with my women friends until he sulked away.
I've stacked myself with work this week so that no boy can find his way into the mix. 27 days and counting... I'm just praying that every single man in the city isn't married by the 20th of September.
Labels: Boy Stories, Pop Culture Casualty, Sober
Friday, August 19, 2005
...new shoes and shallow sex...
It started as harmless birthday shopping and escalated into an uncontrollable desires to lay down the credit card and come home with overflowing bags of clothes and shoes that lay in a pile on the floor still sealed with colorful tissue paper.
I'm obsessed.
It's the same way I used to drink. I'm sitting in a cafe with a friend and while I nod my head and watch her lips move, I am thinking about the skirt I saw in the window at Anthropologie. Can I get it on-line when I get home??
The boy thing has been growing for a while now. This obsessive search for attention in the form of a date or a night of dressing up and shamelessly flirting with anything possessing a penis (Yes, that includes children and small animals) has been building momentum for the last three months. My social experiment was an attempt to stop this madness. But ever since I started my experiment, everyone looks hot. I'm jonesing for the UPS man, wondering what the Pakistani guy that makes my coffee is like in bed and thinking about calling the exterminator to just come over, fuck me, spray for ants and leave before I finish my last orgasm gasp.
I'm longing--no-crying out for something to remove my pain. What is so painful ??
Labels: Boy Stories, Pop Culture Casualty, Sober
Thursday, August 18, 2005
Limping Toward the Finish Line
I feel like I just flew in from Westworld. Last night I yanked, ground and welded steel reinforcement bars into the contours of running horse bodies and man do my arms hurt. It’s three in the afternoon and I’m still coughing up metal dust.My suffering is only a doodle on the pain schedule the other cowgirls working on this project filled out last night. (See "With Their Manes In Flames," June 2005 Archives for some back story.)
Buddy Dorth has full upper-body weld burn (like sunburn but less healthy) and her collaborator, Miss Eli, is likely passed out on the subway from lack of sleep.
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They’ve been working feverishly (i.e. aching, exhausted, delirious) over the last two weeks to complete and ship a team of iron horses to Nevada.A container headed for the Black Rock Desert where the annual Burning Man Arts Festival www.burningman.com will take place next week leaves tomorrow morning. Either they load the finished horses on that wagon or they herd them out there themselves.
When I left late last night, one of the horses was rocking on it’s back, headless, legless – a nightmare in every sense of the word.
I’ve heard the strongest friendships are forged in foxholes. I don’t know about that but metal shops must come pretty close. Intense psychosomatic strain and a daily sweat bath can really draw out the essence of a person.
Let me testify that, not once to my knowledge, did either of the torch-wielding ladies forging those three-ton doggies – or Mr. Ed, the guy who did much of the early planning and heavy lifting – snap in the blowtorch light and fail to be kind.
With 24-hours left to go, and all three horses to mount (on steel plates), dress (in black rubber skins) and corral in the back of a massive tractor-trailer, they’re headed for that high-stakes terror zone where the good snap, the bad get ugly, and the ugly bag on the whole deal. My gut feeling is that this posse will emerge from their Brooklyn garage in the morning light, battered but unbroken, trailing their horses behind them.
If you plan to be out at Burning Man this year, check out the horses, named Id, Ego and Superego in honor of this year’s psyche theme.
Thanks for the photos Bill!
Labels: cherrybomb
Tuesday, August 09, 2005
Tuned-In Dropout
The recent slew of obituaries following the death of Peter Jennings, the most debonair and least smug of all primetime anchormen, brought to light the fact that he was not only a heavy smoker, but also a high school dropout. With his helmet of hair and ambassadorial bearing, it's hard to imagine a squarer peg hanging out in the back lot with the heavily-bandanaed stoners who dropped out of my high school.
In fact, P.J. probably clocked very little time behind his school as he reportedly quit early on to take a full time job in radio.
The extent to which lack of formal education failed to limit his ability to effectively "discuss world events with the great leaders of our time" and deliver the evening news, leads me to wonder about the value of formal education.
In practical terms, a good education is supposed to provide a kid with the math, language and technical skills that he or she will need to succeed in a competitive job market. But that's just professional training on par with what police academies and flight schools provide.
In a larger sense, an education is supposed to produce that fair-minded, cotton-clad urbanite you see in New York Times ads asking, "Isn't it time you subscribed?" Well-traveled and able to converse intelligently (in at least two languages) on topics ranging from medieval art to current events, an educated person is, above all, supposed to be able to think for him or herself.
The reality is that American universities routinely issue B.S. degrees to laconic thugs and bimbos who differ from their dropout counterparts primarily in being able to afford getting wasted in high-rent neighborhoods. This may help to explain why celebrities currently hold sway over our collective cultural imagination.
Like lots of Americans, scads of celebs are unhindered by the tedious constraints of education. Their (base) desires and (occult) preoccupations are easy to understand and that may be why we feel so simpatico toward them.
A quick gander at the list of celebrity dropouts on www.angelfire.com/stars4/lists/dropouts reveals not only the obvious bad seeds (Christina Aguilera, Jennifer Capriati, Kidd Rock) but also a who's who of A-list Hollywood stars. That's right, neither Tom nor Nicole, Johnny nor Jude, Colin, Keaneau or any of Charlie's Angels ever sweated through the SATs. Tom Cruise will spout off about psychopharmacology or anything else L. Ron Hubbard would approve of on national TV, and no high school civics jazz is gonna stop him. I blame society.
On the one hand, I'm turned off (and bored) by the glut of public ignoramuses, ranging from L.A. creampuffs on TV talk shows to political pundits on the radio. On the other hand, it's interesting to see that institutionalized education really isn't that important after all.
In many cases talent (David Bowie), style (Diana Vreeland), family connections (Diana Spencer), exhibitionism (Courtney Love) and drive (Demi Moore) have delivered high school dropouts to positions of such wealth and influence that their lack of academic credentials seems trivial. I'm all for that, and anything that affirms the triumph of the individual over a mediocre culture. What I object to is the routine nature of public stupidity, which amounts to a steady stream of reminders that America is blowing it.
Peter Jennings life was an affirmation of the fact that a person doesn't need a college degree to think for him/herself, just a conscience and a brain. This is not to say that higher education is without value. Elegance of mind is one of the worthy things that a good education can result in. The fact that P.J. seemed to have attained that too, without the benefit of even a secondary education, is why he was true star.
Labels: cherrybomb
Friday, August 05, 2005
Summertime RULES
This has been a smoking-hot summer in the city (real-feel temperature today: 102). With August upon us, I feel it's time to step back and salute some of great things that have come my way. These are my picks for the summer of 2005's greatest hits.Greatest Recipe: Grilled Pizza: This recipe was given to me by a woman whose off-the-boat Italian relatives could not believe she was doing this. I haven’t tested it yet but have been assured that doubting Anthonies are soon proved wrong.
Grilled Pizza
1 lb. Shop Right (or comparable no-frills brand) pizza dough
1 jar pizza sauce (preferably homemade, but commercial brand will do)
½ lb. mozzarella cheese
1 tbs. lard
Roll a grapefruit sized ball of the (defrosted, kneaded) pizza dough into the shape of a pizza crust and smear with lard (both sides).
Place on a heated grill. When down-facing side has browned, flip.
While uncooked side browns, spread pizza sauce over grilled side. Sprinkle evenly with a layer of mozzarella cheese and cover grill.
When the bottom crust has browned and the cheese has melted, remove from grill. Allow 10 minutes to cool before slicing and serving.
Greatest Look: Mex rocking the cowboy hat and shades at the Dungen show in Coney(see below).
Greatest Moment: I was standing in a Block Island yard on a Tuesday afternoon staring at the gothic cornice of a white clapboard cottage, enjoying a mint chocolate chip cone. Bobby Fuller’s “I Fought the Law” was playing on the local oldies sation and an American flag was flapping in the wind.
Greatest Mom: Patti Smith. I saw her – heard her, actually, at Central Park Summerstage last night. I couldn't manage to sneak my dog into the show so we ended up rolling around on the grass outside where the sound is almost as good as it is up in the bleachers. Patti performed her hits in that big heroic voice of her's, spoke/sang some poems, called for the withdrawal of American troops from Iraq, made a long, loving dedication to Jerry Garcia(?) then introduced her band.
“And on guitar,” she boomed, “My son, JACKSON SMITH!”
Greatest New Move: The Trifecta. This requires a 15-minute song and a dj booth. I used Side C of Sleep’s Dopesmoker. Put the record on the turntable and leave the booth. Go to the bathroom, step outside and smoke a cigarette, then order a drink at the bar before heading back to play the next record.
Greatest Idea: Three New York Women
Labels: cherrybomb
Wednesday, August 03, 2005
It’s my party and I'll cry if I want to…
My brothers and sisters give me cards and kiss my cheek and we eat more cake and they all sing Happy Birthday. And I feel special.
My mother leans into my father and whispers as I blow out the candles, “I hate birthdays”. I’m utterly confused. Birthday’s mean a party, attention… presents. I totally don’t get it.
This Saturday I will be 32, and I finally get it.
Yes, I am finally joining the ranks of grown ups everywhere that hate their birthdays.
I sit down to plan a birthday party for myself and the magic of being eight is completely gone. The anticipation of being appreciated and showered with attention just for existing on this special day, is replaced with fear. It’s not the fear of getting old, wrinkled and fighting with my ticking internal clock… it is the fear that no one will show up. It is the fear of another special day passing without being noticed. It is the expectation that you will be surrounded by people you love, and then the reality that you haven’t cultivated those sorts of relationships.
Two years ago, I threw a party for an ex-boyfriend. Everyone I invited showed up and really, deeply, truly cared about Mike. He had cultivated their relationships and they loved him for it. Everyone had good things to say about him and that is because he is a good person.
As I sit this week making a list of people I wanted to invite to my birthday party I made headings like “people from the gym”, “people from AA”, “People from the Hamptons”, “People from Work”, “People I met on Friendster”… But as I made the lists, I discovered there was only maybe one person from each category that I spoke to once every other week or really wanted to see.
I blame the pace of life. I blame them for not returning my enthusiasm for our newfound relationship. I blame cliques. I blame New York. But the only common denominator in all of these relationships is, me. My insecurity and isolationism that keeps me closed off from being a really good friend. My unrealistic fantasty to re-create a season of 'Sex and the City' with my own set of unique and colorful New York women. My interest in collecting a quantity of diverse friends over the quality of three good ones. My ability to spread myself like a paper thin pie crust over the Big Apple, covering no one person significantly and still leaving large gaps around the edges.
My only relief is that perhaps I am not failing in the relationship game-but rather, growing up.
Perhaps growing up means letting go of old ideas of friendships and relationships and accepting what you get. Perhaps my problem is the control I have willfully exerted over the process of meeting, making and maintaing friends. And perhaps the solution is to surrender and accept that there is something wonderful about the eclectic blend of friends I have in my life right now—my sisters, my friend from work, my international friend, my friend from the gym- Perhaps my vision of four friends brunching at Cafeteria is what was attractive when I was twenty but now I am 32.
This birthday, I will appreciate what my efforts have brought into my life.... whatever the form. I will use the next year to open up enough to let others in, pick up the phone and check in with those I love, return e-mails… and listen. And I won't wait for someone else to present my favorite meal on a red plate to feel special today.
I can eat off that plate every fucking day if I want!!
Labels: Internet Dating, Pop Culture Casualty, Sober