October 2010
1 post
September 2010
1 post
The Lack Of Sex Is Killing Our Relationship
Hephzibah Anderson’s “Chastened,” the account of her year without sex, has ground me down to a thick paste. I WILL GET BACK TO IT. I SWEAR.
Here’s a rule of thumb: books in which the author takes on new things for a year are engaging and fun. Books in which the author avoids things, especially fun things like sex, are books you can’t not put down.
But I...
August 2010
5 posts
BOLD STATEMENT
Reading books on electronic devices is no fun. Can’t see how far along you are, unless I activate that feature, and then that’s ALL I can pay attention to. Can’t do it in the sun. (YES, I know you can with a Kindle, but the last thing I need is another glowing rectangle to stare at.) Can’t smell the book smell.
Phooey!
Gonna power through “Chastened” on my...
You Know What's Difficult?
Trying to get through a book about a year of chastity while you’re in New York City, as thick-ass college-lacrosse-playing banker guys jog past you.
I do enjoy Los Angeles, but the dude situation in New York is just plain out of hand. To quote the Morning Zoo: BOI-OI-OING.
Unrelated
I’m on a little bit of a tear on my other blog.
And Now Back To Sex.
Hephzibah Anderson (which is a name that requires great concentration to type, no matter how many times you do it) is a month into her Year Without Sex. She’s dressing more modestly, and having more awkward dates. Welcome to our world, Hephzibah.
It’s too early in the book to see how the year is shaping up. I’ll get back to you.
But while we’re on the sex & love...
July 2010
6 posts
No Sex Please, Hephzibah Anderson Is British
So my iPad Kindle app tells me I’m around a tenth of the way through “Chastened,” and I’m still not quite sure about the terms of her Year Of Celibacy. Apparently, there is no penetration- makes sense- but I don’t know what is allowed. So far, we’re getting a lot of information about her ex-boyfriend, the guy to whom she surrendered her maidenhead or whatever...
SEX.
Before I dive into Hephzibah Anderson’s “Chastened,” the account of her year without sex, I must point you to this article about the hot, hot Fire Island tea dance that is the Catholic priesthood. (Rather, it’s an article about the article, as the original is in Italian; don’t think I’m not pricing some Rosetta Stone software right now.) Celibacy has never...
Sweater Quest
Alright. I had a hard time getting into this one, as patterns and yarn and purls and whatnot are not my thing. I had to force myself to pay attention (much like plucky Julia Roberts as plucky Elizabeth Gilbert pluckily trying to meditate in the commercial for the “Eat, Pray, Love” movie*).
And I’m glad I did. There’s a lot of good stuff in here about picking a project and...
A few passages from "Sweater Quest" that resonated...
1) “I am not a woman who enjoys process. I am a writer who does not enjoy writing.”
I feel you Adrienne Martini. I love writing, but I love avoiding writing even more. You know, obviously. But I promise to do better going forward.
2) “Devoting an entire vacation to playing golf strikes no one as odd. Try doing the same with sheep and yarn…Nobody tells golfers they are...
Things I Have Been Doing While Not Posting Here
Auditioning.
Reading “Sweater Quest: My Year Of Knitting Dangerously,” about which more later.
Traveling for auditions.
Shelling out $12 for in-flight internet, only to discover I don’t have much to do online, then Tweeting about it and telling myself, “That Tweet just cost $2.25.” And then doing it again on the return flight.
Thinking about the auditions I...
June 2010
9 posts
Warped
In honor of “Sweater Quest: My Year Of Knitting Dangerously,” I put myself through my own endurance test last weekend by going to the Warped Tour twice.
There’s a selfish reason: my boyfriend’s Irish punk band The Mighty Regis is on the tour this summer, and not only do I genuinely like watching them, I love seeing people try them out and stick around. They’re...
Tactical Error
I’ve made a big mistake here, folks. I chose to read “Sweater Quest: My Year Of Knitting Dangerously” on the iPad right at the beginning of summer, now that I’m doing most of my work outside. You can’t read an iPad on a deck chair, my friends. Plus my sunglasses are polarized*, so when I have them on, I can’t see the screen unless I hold my head at a 45-degree...
A THOUSAND TIMES YES
Let’s cut to the present day for a moment. In finally telling the “Wanna Be A VJ” story*, one thing has hit me in the face over and over: it’s been a long time since I’ve said such a big, stupid YES. It’s been ages since I’ve scared myself, since I’ve risked embarrassment for potential growth. Sure, I write a lot and I spend a lot of time on stage,...
YES YES Y'ALL
Per the midnight phonecall by talent executive Amanda Schatz (who warned me right at the top of the call that I was not going to believe why she was calling, and I’ll be damned if she wasn’t right on the money), I reported to the MTV studios at a shade before 10am Wednesday morning. I was greeted by Caryn and brought into the green room where the other nine finalists were to assemble....
zachlinder asked: Dude, you better post the next blog entry right now. I am sitting here at my media sales job thinking about CPMs and 3Q weights, and could really use the distraction. The suspense is killing me.
YES PLEASE
They told me the top ten finalists would be notified by midnight on Tuesday, so I called in sick Tuesday as well.
Here are some things that went through my mind in that two-day period:
What am I doing?
If I get this job, will I actually live in the MTV Beach House over the summer?
If I actually make it to the top ten finalists, and this thing actually is televised, how long will it take...
YES AND
So I got down to 1515 Broadway at about 4:45am, registered (#168) and got in line. Despite the hour, the 167 people in front of me and the ones who trickled and then poured in after were very ON; people who show up for open calls never really know who they’re auditioning for, so they tend to perform for everyone. Luckily I remembered my Walkman.
The line snaked around the area behind the...
YES
So here’s the deal: one single audition fundamentally changed just about every aspect of my life for the better, allowed me to do what I love for 12 years and counting, still gets mentioned to me every single day, and I almost skipped it.
I’d moved to New York right out of college, with an entry level media planning gig at Saatchi & Saatchi and a total misunderstanding of how the...
May 2010
11 posts
THE GREAT BIG YES
A few months ago, we shot the “DVD on TV” episode for “The Departed” up in Boston. We traveled all around the city, talking to some of the real people who inspired the film- the ones who weren’t in hiding, that is. One of our locations was a bar in Southie where some of Whitey Bulger’s gang used to hang out, and as the crew set up, I struck up a conversation...
AUSTIN
The Friday Forty said “YES- we would like to be in the First Annual Austin Sketchfest,” and lo, it has come to pass. This Saturday, May 29, 10pm, at the Art Authority. If you’re in the area, BE THERE. It should be a good time.
It is without question a good time for me to get the hell out of Los Angeles, eat my weight in BBQ and have a beer in my hand before noon for five days...
YES
My parents were in town over the weekend, and YES, it was great. But the older I get, the more I miss them, to the point where I spend the time we do spend together being sad that we don’t have more time to spend together, and then I think about how much I’m missing in their lives, those wonderful small moments that you can only share when you’re right next to each other, and...
Anonymous asked: This is great. So, would you take a look at my blog-in-progress? Link to it or mention it? I'm four months into one of these doing-something-for-a-year projects: seeing every movie at my local multiplex. I'm a writer and I write about each one. It's at pavilionproject.blogspot.com. Check it out!
YES
So last night, I said YES. YES, I’ll go see Natasha Leggero and Andrea Savage do stand-up in the back room at Akbar, and then YES, I’ll go see Ben’s band play a show in Fullerton.
Have you guys ever been to Fullerton? If not, have you ever watched Fuel? Fullerton is like someone changed the channel to Fuel, then shook the television and all the people fell out. Baseball caps...
About the show...
No, it didn’t get picked up, but none of the multi-camera pilots NBC commissioned did either. They experimented with a format they hadn’t tried in a while, and then they decided to go the other way. It’s disappointing.
But nobody died.
Over the last few days, I’ve gotten calls and emails from all over the globe. Friends and family have offered some wonderful words of...
B. E.
A. G. G.
R. E. S. S. I. V. E.
A good friend of mine was feeling career-blocked last week, and he asked me for advice. I dusted off a pitch I’ve given a few times before:
Pretend you’re giving it all up and going back to school in a year. Act like you have one year to make it work before you give up and try something else. What haven’t you done? Where aren’t you being...
Favour
Jasper Rees is a joy to read, not least due to his almost cartoony Britishness. Living in the UK is one of those things- like business school or mushrooms- that I’ve always wanted to try but am probably too old for now. You never know.
Burn, Culver City! Burn!
During My Year Of Everything, I’ve found myself drawn to books in which the author spends a year trying to do something (travel, be biblically correct), more than books in which the author spends a year trying to avoid something (shopping, everything). Positive choices are just more interesting. Case in point, my current book “A Devil To Play,” in which Jasper Rees tries to...
Musique Non Start
“A Devil To Play” chronicles author Jasper Rees’ year trying to learn the French Horn well enough to play a solo before the British Horn Society. Good stuff.
Ben and his band The Mighty Regis are about to embark on the Warped Tour, and he just found out he’s getting endorsed by Fender Guitars. He’s been giddily special-ordering guitars, and I’ve been jealous....
April 2010
8 posts
Here's the problem
There’s just no real structure to “Sundays In America.” Just as Shea’s itinerary takes her around the country in a scattershot manner (Northampton to Fort Lauderdale to Vegas, for example), the narrative doesn’t move forward. There’s no geographical context to her religious experiences- we never really learn how these churches reflect or contrast to their...
You know what?
I know I said I was going to share some of the more thought-provoking elements of “Sundays In America,” but I’m not sure there are any.
That sounds harsh, and I feel bad pooh-poohing a book about religion. But she raises a lot of the same points I’ve already gone into here (exclusion in the name of religion, churchgoing out of obligation, etc) and then doesn’t do...
March 2010
28 posts
Radio On
Sarah Vowell’s “Radio On” was a great read from another planet. The year she spent listening to the radio was 1995, which might as well be the Roaring ’20s. Rush Limbaugh was ascendant, Glenn Beck still a cokehead morning zoo jock. Kurt Cobain was dead for only a few months, “alternative radio” and Lollapalooza were in full swing, our one-hit wonders came from...
WHEN WORLDS COLLIDE
I’m listening to the BBC Radio 1 Chart Show online right now, and at #8 is Young Money’s “Bedrock.”
Jesus Henry Christ.
Just got in my car to go out for the evening, turned the key, and Young Money’s “Bedrock” started up on AMP.
MYOEQ&A with Kevin Murphy, THE END.
The way you wrote about some of 2001’s clunkers made me think, “Oh dear God, the Twilight franchise must be killing this man.” Is it? Are your nieces and nephews struck with Twilight fever?
Several of my nieces love the book, fewer like the movies. I’m actually loving the movies because they are perfect for Rifftrax. It’s as if Margaret Dumont has risen from the...
Continued MYOEQ&A with Kevin Murphy!
In “A Year At The Movies,” Kevin Murphy seeks out unusual movie-theater experiences: bars with movie nights, a screen made of snow at the Montreal Ice Hotel, a trucker drive-in called the Giant Travel Center, to name a few. Read the book and see if you don’t want to start booking some flights. Or you could stay home and let Murphy, Mike Nelson and Bill Corbett bring an unusual...
Even More MYOEQ&A with Kevin Murphy!
You wrote about your difficulty in setting up your phone to buy movie tickets, which was still a pretty new thing in 2001. Now we can actually WATCH movies on our cell phones. Do you do this, or do you have a screen-size minimum?
When I’m on a plane, I’ll occasionally use my iPod touch to see a movie, although it’s better suited to TV series. I watched the second and third...
I mean, I guess I always knew I could do this...
…but you can just listen to the BBC Radio 1 chart show online whenever. Seriously, the 14-year-old me is plotzing, and I’m Catholic. CLICK HERE TO LISTEN.
C'mon Get Happy!
Gretchen Rubin’s “The Happiness Project” was kind of the perfect book to read right now. I’ve pulled myself out of my hiatus funk, I’m within a week of starting rehearsals for “The Strip,” I’m keeping myself busier and feeling better. And then I pick up this book and read this quote from Yeats on page 66: “Happiness is neither virtue nor...