Cheaper Than Therapy

2010-05-23T07:10:00.000-07:00

The Chosen People

2010-05-23T00:45:00.000-07:00

One of the rare pleasures of being an American in the midst of an international festival is that you are overshadowed by bigger, louder, and more colorful folks than your usual puritanical non-carb eaters who litter the wine bars of metro America. The normally obnoxious outspoken lady from Texas with the bbq sauce dripping down her lip, taking pictures of the celeb passerbys, can't hold a candle to some of the flashy characters that roam the streets of the Riviera. Much like the creatures of the deep deep sea, the cosmopolitan cross-section here has adapted to failing economies, dwindling nationalism, and religious conflict by morphing into something eye-catching, bizarre, and yet so self-sustaining that you wonder whether these are the victors of the Darwinian war.

We are all VIP's here in Cannes, which is probably why Lindsay Lohan blew off going to court for a magnum of Cristal and a dip in the Mediterannean waters, a sort of re-baptism for fading fame. The Hollywood Jew crew reigning supreme resting ipads on their laps and spewing infinite knowledge of studio names and movie budgets, the Saudi palming a 100 note to the doorman of the exclusive club, and even me, walking home in men's loafers, being offered a ride on a moto to the party after the after-party- we are all the chosen ones here.

Here is my list of people having the most fun here in the south of France, according to nationality. When all bets are off you'd be surprised who comes out ahead.

1) Russian Women

Sure 75 percent of them are working girls but they all seem to be getting what they want and this whole end of the empire decadence thing is old hat to them. Wild, tenacious, and never seen anywhere but the fanciest hotel or the most exclusive club, they emerge in the night like opalescent moths fluttering around large fat men three times their age- but that doesn't stop them from partying hard and showing you their jewelry design website at the same time.

2) The People of Lebanon

Women, men, rich and not rich every Lebanese person I have met here is having the time of their life. Smart, charming, funny and with impeccable skin tone I haven't found better company here in the south of France. My co-worker Sam even brought two Lebanese girls home with him one night after a long night of drinking and as he impertinently dropped one of them into my bed next to me I smiled a sweet smile knowing I was so close to pure joy.

3) "French Girls Young"

...Read the contact on my playboy friend's ringing phone. Nameless and without a business card to be sure but the key details were there: French. Girls. Young. They are everywhere, willowy and chic lighting cigarettes and giggling about something. They litter the streets like gazelle on the African plains leaving their prey drooling as they effortlessly ignore anything other than themsleves. Some of them have boyfriends who either look miserable or smug- I spotted one guy sitting in his car parked at a jaunty angle in front of clustered traffic while his girlfriend danced on the hood in short-shorts to American hip hop. They make their own party it seems.

4) Dudes with Yachts

They pay a pretty penny for docking near the Palais, having a personal dj, and a crew at their beck and call but it serves them well. Surrounded by beautiful women and the glow of the azure horizon they are shocked that anyone is working on the mainland during the day. Ignorance is bliss, and these guys are literally swimming in it.

5) The Brits

It's a comfort to hear the Queen's English pop out in a blur of Latin slang while walking along the Croisette. I've encountered a nice Brit or two making an irreverent joke at the dinner table and getting pissed while standing ankle deep in the sand wearing a tuxedo. Often stylishly rumpled and halfway through their third midday drink, the British gentlemen are reminding us of just how leisurely the leisure class still is. Their pound sterling notes weigh heavy in their silk lined pockets, certainly with more of a backbone than the sliding Euro, well for now anyway.

You may have noticed that the following people are not on the fun list: Italians, American Actors, and Harvey Weinstein.

Oldies Night

2010-05-12T15:12:00.000-07:00

Monte Carlo on a Budget

2010-05-12T05:23:00.000-07:00

There's nothing quite like running to a train station in loafers and a stained cocktail dress with a puffing peacock of a man in brushed silk trailing behind saying, "We're going to miss the networking cocktail hour!!!!"

Last night was my first here in the French Riviera and my company had somehow garnered tickets to a charity film festival gala at The Hotel Hermitage in Monte Carlo. Like some strange reversal of the Cinderella story, I began the evening waiting in line for a train ticket to Monaco sandwiched between pierced teenagers listening to old school Mary J. Blige spouting from a cell phone. My hair flat, make-up smudged, sweating with a tiny spot of blood under my armpit, I was truly nonplussed about the state of things at the start of my evening. But one of the running themes of my trips to Cannes could very well be described as glamour, on a budget. So the train to Monaco for 8 Euros was the way to go.

I arrived at the opulent hotel with my co-worker Sam and, of course, Peacock Man, an older gentleman friend of my boss who can only be described as a "noodge", scamming a free bed in our apartment and paying for as little as possible. Halls of polished marble and gold with ten foot mirrors and breathtaking seaside views led us to the Hermitage ballroom. Models strutted through the crowd looking like something halfway between the Moulin Rouge and plain old West Hollywood trannies, having almost no effect on either the young Jewish filmmaker types from Brooklyn or the philanthropic gynecologists who reconstruct young girls' vaginas in third world countries. I watched as a blind girl in a white dress and braces played familiar classical piano pieces, and then did a thrilling version of the theme song from Titanic which made her mouth twitch and pull like a broken window blind. She was mesmerizing, it was all so Felliniesque, beautiful and hideous at the same time. I didn't speak to anyone but pretended to lose myself in the silent auction art auction, puffy paint graffiti on canvas.

We dined on shrimp with foam and leg of mutton and listened to white haired men speak about charities in parts of the world that felt a universe away from the our ritzy mise en scene. Signed celebrity photographs and famous athletes' accessories were auctioned off to high bidders as I looked through the candelabra at a Russian filmmaker swirling his iphone around for an inspired video. Festival awards were handed out and I accepted Best Director for our company's winning film (the real director was tied up filming his second movie in India). I posed in front of snapping photographers with the blue lucite award (not heavy) grinning like I did in my second grade tap dance performance. I had a speech prepared that mentioned "heart and soul" and "the children of India" which would have been dripping with modesty and poetry, but I think that when the award statues are made of plastic, there is little opportunity for excessive thanks or unwarranted political statements.

And as I snapped a picture next to the Peacock Man and looked at the playback on the digital screen I thought to myself, who am I? I listened to a forty year old director talk about when he finally quit his job to make movies, a throng of Lebanese students who were eager to go and party, and a beautiful, fierce Israeli woman who sucked on a long cigarette with painted red lips like she was on top of the world; after her short premiered in Monaco, she was asked to direct a 3 million dollar movie, so I guess she really was. I watched a flamenco dancer writhe and stomp to The Gypsy Kings and I danced with a short bald man like there was no tomorrow. I don't really know the words to Bamboleo but millionaires, dreamers, foreigners, and freeloaders all sang the chorus at the top of their lungs. I'm sure no one knew who I was; as I raised my arms to clap and twirl maybe somebody saw that blood stain under my arm that I had been trying to conceal all evening. I couldn't have cared less.

2010-05-10T05:58:00.000-07:00

2010-04-23T15:07:00.000-07:00

Spring Fever

2010-04-23T14:41:00.000-07:00

Photo by John Dewis

Hell Hath No Fury

2008-04-16T14:47:00.000-07:00

CONTESTING VIOLATION #2016699753

To Whom It May Concern:

I am requesting an administrative review for parking violation #2016699753 received on the morning of 4/14/08.

The first reason for my contesting this ticket is that the meter in question is faulty. This particularly steely matron of Sunset Blvd. only registered time for two of the three coins that I put in. I believe that’s approximately six minutes, one whole nickel, that I paid for (that is going into the city’s fat pockets) and was not credited for. There is a record of me reporting this faulty meter, SG 161, as I called the 1-800 number on the face of the meter machine. I was given no case number for the call, but the woman speaking to me assured me through broken English that “it is recorded from you for now”.

My second and real reason for contesting this violation is that the ticket itself appeared on my windshield four minutes BEFORE MY METER HAD EXPIRED. Perhaps the officer just assumed that I would not make it back to my car in time but that is ABSOLUTELY RIDICULOUS. Luckily I had the foresight to photograph the remaining minutes on the meter’s clock, on a cell phone which dates the image as being AFTER the time stated on the ticket by Officer Rodriguez. So, I ask you, how is it possible that I receive a ticket for an expired meter, when in fact, there is still remaining time on it? It isn’t possible that I put in money after the fact because there is no coin that will refresh my meter to a mere two minutes. This photo proves that the officer issued me a ticket before the meter had expired, and I am happy to present it to you if necessary.

And if you haven’t linked the two already, let me add that if the meter had been functioning properly to begin with, I would have had additional time on the clock from the coin that was otherwise unaccounted for. Either way, parking enforcement personnel should probably stop using their defective personal judgment when handing out government issued documentation and actually wait until the big red sign says EXPIRED on the meter before attempting to think.

Please send any and all correspondence to above address.

Sincerely,
Laura Beckner

"My foot hurts. Can I go to the nurse?"

2008-04-02T11:32:00.000-07:00

A Public Acknowledgement of the Foot Sign

Apparently some east-siders believe that the foot sign can predict whether it's going to be a good or a bad day, depending on which side you see driving down Sunset Blvd.

Dandelion Wine

2008-03-26T09:13:00.001-07:00

Photo by Patrick J. Adams
Half Adams Photography at The Brewery Art Walk April 4th & 5th

Short Story

2008-03-23T16:57:00.000-07:00

Tourist Attraction

Written By Guest Contributor, Hugh Scott.

You can find them in Lansing, in Tampa and in Jefferson City, Missouri. Go to Omaha, to Sacramento, or to Evansville, and you will see them there. They congregate at designated truck stops and at rest areas where certain things are said to have the potential to happen. They gather in the unused wings of failing, independently owned motels where the management will still let you a room without a credit card. Sometimes you see them hitchhiking along a freeway whose sole purpose is to connect two other more important freeways, walking on the danger side of the guard rail. Backpacks swing from jagged shoulders and their thumbs point to a sky that doesn’t care. Their eyes flicker at the traffic with something that might look like hope, but is much more desperate. I drive past and study each face, searching for my son.

There is a train to Pittsburgh that runs through the town where we lived when we were a family. When Ian left, I thought he might have taken it there. But in Pittsburgh, he wasn’t with the feral teens that sat on the raked slab of concrete outside a used record store. They laughed at the fake laser background on the photograph I passed of Ian from the start of tenth grade. I tried to decide who among them were really trapped in that life, and who were masquerading for the sake of fashion and would go home to freezers full of food and weekly washed sheets. The difference was impossible to detect. They were all hollowed out at their rib cages and they all grew sketchy towards their outlines. One boy with a thousand safety pins stuck in his denim vest told me to check Nashville because “Nashville was where everyone was trying to get to these days.” A girl I figured was his girlfriend, on account of the several clothespins in her lip, asked if they could both hop a ride there. I lied and said I wasn’t heading that way.

Nashville is full of seekers, a city of people trying to find something or trying to be discovered, which explains why I fit right in. The characters that spill out onto the streets once the live music venues have closed are stock minstrel. The blonde in boots. The country singer with a voice like a dying wolf. The skinny boy with a pawn shop guitar and a two day old t-shirt. I knew Ian wasn’t among them; he was too young and quiet to fall in with those 22 year-old dreamers. Since I didn’t want to be proven wrong later, I checked the all-ages club. Inside a converted mechanic shop, a fog machine blurred the faces of girls in poodle skirts. They danced against boys with slicked back hair and tightly pegged pants. A band that called themselves The ‘Rockabilly Space Rangers’ stumbled their way through a set of 50’s covers, sped up to punk rock double-time. Exhaled smoke from unfiltered cigarettes suspended itself above the crowd. The patrons were all nostalgic for something they’ve never known. Their rebellion was in homage to a gone decade. Not like Ian, who defied the world with skull t-shirts and floppy bangs that hung down over his eyes. I checked my map and tried to find a place that could never be mistaken for Nashville.

Hope was making me tired. On the way to Topeka I stopped at a truck stop on the Kansas side of Kansas City and paid a fee to park in the giant lot overnight. At midnight they dimmed the brilliant floodlights to help the truckers get some sleep. Every few minutes a voice would come on a loudspeaker and announce that a particular numbered shower was ready. Around 3:00 A.M., the loudspeakers screeched with feedback and the voice said something I couldn’t figure out, but it sounded angry. The inside windows of my Honda were fogged with heat generated from my body. I had to piss and got out of the car to walk towards the all night coffee shop on the premises. Then I saw them, scurrying towards and away from the parked trucks. Mostly girls in skirts folded at the waist to make them shorter. They wore drugstore lip gloss and their shoulders were so white they glowed in the night air. A few boys were among them. They walked with their eyes pinned to the ground and their hands jammed into the pockets of cut-off shorts. One of the boys passed by me and caught me staring.

“See what you’re looking for, sir?” He asked me as he straightened his posture to showcase his wiry frame.

I looked into his pale eyes. I scanned the translucent freckles that sprinkled a face still too young to be scraped by a razor. I tried to see Ian. I don’t know if it was wishful thinking, but Ian wasn’t there. But still I knew I had to find him or this was where he would end up, scurrying like an insect with a short life span between the cabins of parked trucks.

“No,” I told the boy.

He walked away, dragging his worn sneakers across the piss-dampened asphalt. I wasn’t tired anymore and I was to creeped out to pee.

Once I got to Topeka the blur of all the cities and highway caught up to me. I’d either been coming or going so long I couldn’t remember the last time I ate. Probably in Pittsburgh. I settled on one of those fanfare restaurants that specializes in pancakes and serves them around the clock. I got a corner booth with a cushioned vinyl seatback and a view of the dining room. A waitress took my order and brought my food. The pancakes stuck to the spaces behind my teeth and turned back into batter. I could only eat half of it. My stomach was shrinking, adapting to the road. At a two-top table towards the center of the room, a girl with brown hair and a grey face sat across from a man. She was busy with the complimentary crayons and drawing paper. She’d press down hard and scribble and nearly half the crayon would disappear. The man wore rose colored glasses and a bad plaid shirt. I could hear him telling her to try to eat. She just kept scribbling.

I paid at the register. The girl was there, staring at toys behind the glass case. The objects of a childhood she’d been removed from. Her hooded sweatshirt was torn at the sleeve.

“I come down from Billings Montana,” she said to me without looking up from a stuffed panda with pink fur.

“You’re a long way from home.” I said.

“That’s not my home. My home is closer to Missoula, almost in Canada there.”

I took the picture of Ian out of my back pocket, told her it was my son, and that he’d been missing a month.

“Ain’t seen him. He’s probably in San Francisco, though. We all end up in San Francisco at some point.”

“I might give it a try,” I said. The girl was making me uneasy. She looked younger than Ian, but she was haunted by someone already much older.

“I’m trying to get to San Francisco myself. I’ve got a friend there can get me a job in a record store. Maybe I could help you find…what did you say his name was?”

I thought about it for a second while the waitress rang me up. Finally I told her his name and nodded. She nodded back.

“Go start your car and pull up front. I’ll be out in a second,” she whispered.

I saw the man in the rose-colored glasses appear on the curb as we pulled away. He looked for her between cars and around the side of the building, but she was hiding in the space under the glove box in front of the passenger seat. I hoped she wasn’t lying when she assured me he was not her father. We sped off in a general way for San Francisco, but I knew we’d have to go through Davenport and Boise first. There is a lot of ground that stretches between Topeka and California, especially when you’ve just been born again into crime.

Outside the Quad Cities I was having trouble keeping my eyes open, and when they were open I was seeing things that weren’t there. I swore a truck we’d been following was carrying a load of Christmas trees, which was weird for early September. I got up close and the trees turned out to be some green italic letters advertising a local furniture chain. Colleen had to grab the wheel because my head kept rolling forward and my hands would jerk the wheel in response, causing me to swerve. A motel sign spelled itself out in blinking neon ahead.

Colleen seemed relieved when I sprung for the extra room, but I wasn’t being generous or gentlemanly, I just needed to be alone. I went straight into the bathroom and locked the door. The tub was clean even though it was a cheap place. I turned on the water and let it fill around me, too hot when it hit my toes beneath the wide open faucet but just warm enough when it finally lapped against my shoulders. I tried to picture Ian in San Francisco, but each time it was just his cut-out head from the laser photo on top of a post card memory of the city. My son riding the cable cards. My son half as tall as the Golden Gate Bridge and standing over the water. My son so well-nourished he can feed the happy sea lions half of the sandwich his mother packed him.

The next morning thick plastic drapes protected my sleep from sunshine. The only order of business we had to attend to in Davenport, was in the form of a drive through breakfast, and extra ketchup was Colleen’s contract point. The highway cut through corn and stretched beyond the horizon without a bend in the road.

And if Ian passed through those countless town that line either side of the Rocky Mountains he did so without leaving a trail. He wasn’t in Cheyenne, or Pueblo, or Cortez. Colleen and I blazed our own path. Down from the Utah Plataea and through the heat of central Nevada we could feel the myth of California begin to perpetuate itself, the gravity of the Pacific pulling us forward. That promise of personal fulfillment made possible only in sweet green valleys and dry canyons. Colleen was growing more animated and starting to act her age. We rode across the Bay Bridge into the city that sold its soul and was living off interest generated from the sale.

San Francisco is still Disney Land for runaways, mostly because the price on a hit of LSD has held steady at five dollars. I know because that is exactly the amount of money the teens who ride the gutter in the Lower Haight District ask you for, and they aren’t shy about telling you how they plan to spend it. Because my credit cards had the ability to do things like buy them pizza and orange juice, Colleen’s friends more or less accepted me. I think they assumed I was just one in a series of much too old men that was taking advantage of her on a number of different levels. It wasn’t true, but I didn’t do anything to convince them, it would have just made me look guiltier.

These kids had their own world, spoke their own language, and didn’t live by any rules. They never referred to their condition as homelessness. They were “on tour,” like they were in some giant travelling band. Their presence on those steep San Francisco streets was part of a show and everybody else was just the fans, just the ticket holders. They called the sidewalk the beach and when they sat on the curb they were surfing. When the waves died for the day they would retire to the treehouse, which was just a thatched fort they built in Buena Vista Park down the hill from Haight/Ashbury. Usually I wasn’t asked back. I’d spend my nights in a hotel that gave rooms at weekly rates. I forwarded messages to the FBI Agent in charge of Ian’s case, things like “keep checking the ski-ball arcade in Laughlin.”

One day after I treated the underage denizens to pizza slices, I was finally invited to the treehouse. They lucked into a turkey bag full of psychedelic mushrooms and were eager to “blow the street scene and munch the caps down”. It was a straight walk up a path lined by coastal redwood trees. When the litter started to multiply, I knew I was close. What amazed me when I arrived was the number of people claiming residency at the treehouse. It was like a refugee camp, complete with makeshift tents and a freshly dug hole for feces. Most of them clearly never left, the ones who made it down to the Haight were really just the ambassadors, the public face of the treehouse. They banged drums with disregard for rhythm and danced erratically, their movements a mockery of grace. The ones who were lucky enough to get their share of the mushrooms carved tribal patterns on dead trees or just sat lotus-style and stared into nowhere. They nodded to each other once in a while like they knew a secret and if it were annunciated; it would cease to hold truth. If they looked at each other too long they would burst into laughter that ended in tears and prompted another staring contest into blank space.

No one had seen Ian; although I’m sure he looked nothing anymore like the boy whose memory I held in that frayed photograph. I didn’t see Colleen, and it dawned on me that I hadn’t for two days. The city was panning out to be another dead end. Nobody even seemed worried about Ian. They didn’t understand my concern, because they were all more or less in the same situation as Ian, and from their point of view, doing just fine. “He’s just doing his thing,” or “it’s hard to catch butterflies without a net,” is all they would say. I walked down the hill away from the people who called the trees home. I was ready to leave San Francisco and already thinking of Fresno, Salinas, and Redding. I got halfway down the hill before I realized I was being followed.

“You lookin’ for E-Man?” The boy asked. If this boy was indeed a treehouser, he hadn’t been for long. His brown hair didn’t yet look like flattened greasy pasta and he wore a track jacket that made pains to look second hand even though it screamed brand new.

“You mean Ian?” I said.

“He goes by E-Man now. It’s his tour name.”

“How do I know it’s the same Ian as my son?” I asked, refusing to call him something else.

The boy smiled. He was sure in that sixteen year old brain of his that he was already way smarter than me. “He took off with Colleen the day before yesterday. They said you’d be looking for him. He also said he seen you and you should look harder next time.”

It was good news, the first bit my tour had brought me. Still, they way the kid was smiling when he told me made me want to lap him across his sniveling drug-hole of a mouth. But if Ian did take up with the treehousers, it meant he had found a bit of provisional bit of safety, and I was glad for that.

“Where did they go?” I asked him.
“Let’s roll to the ATM. I’m not about to give that answer out on layaway,” the boy replied.

I knew I was running low on funds because of the way the ATM took a while to produce the $400 I withdrew from savings. As soon as it came out, I put it in the greedy waiting fingers of the boy.

He took the money and said, “It’s hard to get to, but you’ll find it if you can figure out how to look. There is an old commune north of Eureka on the road to Oregon…”

“How do I know you’re not lying?” I asked.

“I took your money ‘cuz I need it. I woulda’ told you anyway. E-Man isn’t gonna make it on tour. He don’t got the heart and he don’t got what it takes to get started.”

I had to pay additional taxes in the form of a Bay Area traffic jam on my way out of town. Each stopped car was a wall between Ian and me that I had to destroy. Once it cleared, I drove with the ocean on my left and the road behind me evaporating into salt water air. I must have circled in and out of Eureka four times before I found the break in the eucalyptus trees.

The compound was like the treehouse on steroids with an older crowd. I got there at meal time. A girl with a headband doled out a hearty soup to the residents. Everyone took turns staring at me. I stared back until a woman with eyes like dead light bulbs and a rope of braided hair asked me to sit down.

Her name was Nekko. She wouldn’t respond to direct questions about Ian but told me she could help me experience the future in the now, that she could dream what was to come in other’s lives, and the way to do that was to relive the past. She explained she wasn’t psychic, but pre-cognitive, there was a difference. If I looked, I could find her after evening chores. Since everyone else there would either respond with silence or an impatient nodding smile when I begged for information about my lost son, I followed her advice.

“You’ve arrived,” she said. She carried a small boulder with giant tongs into an animal skin tent. I followed her inside.

“Your shoes,” she said angrily. “Take them off and leave them outside. They carry karma from the road. Take everything off. And wait for me.”

I got undressed outside the tent. I waited what seemed like a long time but maybe I just wasn’t used to my own nudity. I smelled something burning, a mixture of herbs. Finally, she reappeared, her nude body somehow affirming mine.

“I’ve re-cleansed the structure and we are ready to begin,” she said, the light bulbs in her eyes flickering to half life. I crawled into the tent and sat across from her, but she pulled me towards her so I was sitting in front of her, my back supported by her stomach and bare chest. Her skin was smooth and cooler than the air in the tent. I allowed myself to relax against it. She reached around me and poured a thick tonic onto the rocks. I breathed in and menthol filled my lungs and sinuses, clearing them instantly. She took the weight of my head away from my neck with her fingers. I exhaled and the world outside the sweat lodge fell away from me. She nudged me backwards and I felt like I was falling but it also felt safe.

When I hit the ground floor she took my hands in hers. Her hands were slippery from freshly applied lotion. She kneaded my hands and the lotion grew warm. She lowered herself onto me. Energy poured from our hands into each other; a human electricity conducting itself between us. It moved like that until it formed a loop. Everything outside the tent was outer space and inside the tent was the entire world. Her sweat dripped onto me. It mixed with my sweat and rolled onto the floor in single beads, so much of it pouring off of us that the dirt floor softened to mud.

She opened her mouth to my ear. “What you are looking for is not yours to find. But you will find peace by continuing your search.” I jerked as I received her words. She let go and Ian takes my hand and he is six years old again. He is holding in his other hand a clear green squirt gun I bought him earlier today. His mother and I had a fight about it, she never liked guns. He aims the gun at the sun and shoots. We are in the vegetable garden and I am taking a break from pulling weeds in between rows of tomato plants. He likes to be near me when I do yard work.

“Plants need water daddy,” Ian says.

“That’s right, Ian. Water and sunshine. They can make their own food.”

He points to a small tomato plant and says, “Do you want me to feed that plant with water to make it grow?”

“I think it could use it,” I say. Ian smiles and fires several streams from his water gun onto the furry stalks. Water drips from the plant to the soil. His gun is empty now and he lets go of my hand and runs away to fill the gun at the sprinkler that swallows him in beaded mist and forms a rainbow that disappears too soon.

My body went slack on the mud floor of the sweat lodge. Outside Nekko was gone and the compound was empty except for the breeze. I stood there, putting on my clothes, but I was also already gone. I drove with the windows down and let the air rush. My feet didn’t move from the accelerator until I hit traffic at the Canadian Border. It was dawn and the sun was rising in a way that reminds you anything is possible and lets you forget how very unlikely a favorable outcome is. The car ahead of me passed through the checkpoint. I took Ian’s picture out of my pocket, put it under the visor, and waited my turn to be waved across.

There is a half-abandoned ski resort in central Alberta that the snow-birds use as a nest. If you go in late autumn, the few aging stragglers will welcome your company. Go to St. John, to Medicine Hat, and Thunder Bay. In certain pockets of French Quebec they would just as soon not ask questions than speak in English. If you see E-Man, please pass the information along to him. There are fire roads that do not connect to main roads, but whose sole purpose is to protect the forests from each other. Make your way, but take your time, and get to Yellow Knife, to Quebec City, or Prince George, Vancouver. The ferry boat to Nova Scotia in the summertime roars with low-stakes gambling and the eager drinking of vacationers. I lean over from the safety side of the guard rail and watch the cold Atlantic waves test the fabric of the ship. My brow wrinkles from the strain of trying to remember and my feet tire from all the running away. If E-Man looks, he might find me.

Written by guest contributor, Hugh Scott.

My ballet flat is drowning in a puddle of ooze: A Weekend Retrospective

2008-03-18T11:29:00.000-07:00

A hippie acquaintance of mine told me that 2008 was going to be a good year because of the round, even numbers in the date. A different friend had the same theory about the even numbered Star Trek Movies being superior to the others, every other one, he said. Even my psychic insists that I sign everything with my middle name or initial to bring equilibrium to my life; this addresses and connects your being to the earth, water, and sky elements (Honestly, I wasn't paying too much attention, since she had just mentioned something about a previous life as a pioneer woman which I found particularly romantic).

So people seem eager to balance everything out, embracing moderation in propriety, athletics, socializing, carbs, honesty, expenditures, and sexual activity. I tend to swing between the extremes most of the time, and this idea of equalizing everything is quite challenging for me. Nevertheless, I close my eyes, conjure up the image of the yin-yang necklace my high school sort-of-boyfriend wore around his neck and come up with my own unique, ongoing version of how to keep an even keel amidst the most tempting and harrowing weekend dramas.

Let's say you...

...spend a clandestine and completely fulfilling night with an x-boyfriend who cheated on you, without demanding so much as dinner, drinks, or kissing.

Turn it around by going to a Sunday yard sale with a more recent x-boyfriend who still loves you. Share a soda, brush elbows like teenagers, and remind yourself of how your friendship will endure long after any physical chemistry has fizzled out.

I got myself into a situation where...

I had drinks with mean girls who actually called someone in our class a ni---r and then cackled like hell's guardians afterwards. I didn't yell at them for their racist remarks, scared that they would gauge my eyes out with their fake nails; I claimed my friend was in a car accident to escape quickly.

I felt awful the next day, so I called the unfairly attacked girl to tell her how highly I thought of her and not to let other bitchy girls get her down, no matter what. She had no idea what I was talking about, but I think the message of support and kindness and non-prejudice was clear. I then made a silent pledge to never, ever misjudge your company when saying incredibly horrible, taboo things and visited the website of my high school prom date, who is now portraying Ray Charles off-Broadway.

Maybe you've been working awfully hard and come Friday you...

...went crazy pumping your body full of toxic substances and thrashed about in party clothes until dawn at somebody else's house.

If at all possible, hold a baby in your arms before noon the next day, soak in as much of its purity as possible. Or offer to babysit some children and ask them questions about where babies come from and the universe, listen to their innocent responses. If you have no friends with kids or children of your own, go to a playground and observe, but make sure you wipe off your left-over eyeliner so as not to scare them. Truly a cure for a hangover of the soul.

Nobody's perfect, last weekend...

I had a close friend tell me something incredibly personal and probably secret (although he didn't specify it as such). I then told the first person I saw every bit of the information.

I felt so ashamed of my untrustworthy nature that I put a mental lock back on the information vault. The next day I absolutely refused to divulge a completely different secret to a friend at lunch. A healthy reminder of what you know you are capable of.

When the party games go too far and you...

...sort someone into the house of Slytherin simply because you are mad at them.

In the morning light, you will realize this person's complete ambivalence towards your anger, it is humbling, and you make the momentous and heartfelt decision to remove them from your black list. The person in question is shifted to the House of Hufflepuff after the resulting one-sided truce; you feel the decision is more accurate and for the best since
everyone knows a true Slytherin senses his enemies all too well.

Scathing

2007-12-04T14:37:00.000-08:00

LA Scenester Dives That Must be Destroyed

I.

2007-11-25T10:59:00.000-08:00

His body served her. Not in the pleasurable sense, but rather, when positioned above her, it blocked the sun from her eyes in the early morning. Heavy drapes had been removed by the previous occupants, leaving faded lines along the patterned walls and holes shedding bits of plaster where brass bars had once been. The room had been stripped and drilled and redressed many times over the years, and she felt somehow familiar in such a recently exposed space. She had grown up in a large estate with almost no coverings on the hardwood floors or windows. Her father, Dr. Ewing Hamil, had no tolerance for germs, dust, or mold and since his wife had a disinterest in cleaning and a miserly attitude about hiring servants, one walked through the house on any given winter morning with squinting eyes and ice-cold feet. Her father’s fascination with a cousin’s gaping stomach wound, inflicted by a violent and injured dog, led him to the practice of medicine at an early age. Her Grandmother always said that his choice to care for the man instead of the beast was his first passage into masculinity. Since that cousin turned into a lecherous and frequently inebriated house guest in later years, her idea of masculinity was sullied from a young age, and she guiltily wondered if her father had, in fact, made the wrong choice.
She buried her face in the crevice between the side of his neck and his clavicle, thinking almost nothing and trusting this nothing at the same time. She avoided his eyes by pretending to glance away from the sun, looking down instead. Her long languid gaze focused on the hair follicles covering the terrain of his neck and the side of his face. She fancied them as dandelions, the most enjoyable of the weed family and one of the most frustratingly persistent. She pursed her lips against this rough patch and sighed, refusing to kiss him and instead traced their dark root growth with her fingertip. She found one that was trapped and curled under a thin bubble of translucent skin. This fascinated her, seeing the most delicate of extremities, the thinnest layer of cells, work in such patient defense. She wanted to be translucent. She fluttered her eyes closed. She wanted to be invisible.

Taking on water

2007-11-23T16:47:00.001-08:00

They don't make them like they used to

2007-11-13T15:22:00.000-08:00

To be an existentialist, one must be able to feel oneself—one must know one’s desires, one’s rages, one’s anguish, one must be aware of the character of one’s frustration and know what would satisfy it. The over-civilized man can be an existentialist only if it is chic, and deserts it quickly for the next chic. To be a real existentialist...one must have one’s sense of the “purpose”—whatever the purpose may be...it is impossible to live such a life unless one’s emotions provide their profound conviction.*

l Norman Mailer 1923-2007

* (To read the complete essay The White Negro: Superficial Reflections on the Hipster click on the name above)

Word of the Day from My Boss

2007-11-12T14:41:00.000-08:00

Emilio's Lexicon

* Salty adj. - (referring to a woman's behavior) cold, bitchy, annoyed, or obviously exasperated - often in dealing with the behavior of a certain man or host of men:
" I had this chick insist on coming to my place last night but I wasn't really in the mood so I put her in the guest room to sleep. Then she got all salty with me and took a cab home in the middle of the night."

Apology

2007-11-11T14:31:00.000-08:00

To Drew and Cargo attire-

I did not not mean to insult your jacket last evening in calling it "cargo wear". It had no walkie-talkie sized pockets with industrial snaps and it was not green or camouflage in color. I would also like to apologize to cargo pants and other such apparel for implying that it was not cool. Surely something that you can buy at a surplus store for 20 dollars and at a boutique on Robertson for 200 dollars is as influential and comfortable as denim.

The unsuccessful and inaccurate comment about you and your perfectly normal jacket was the muddy verbal aftermath of one of my friends telling me that I could not get into Winston's, which I seemed to take as a challenge. My thinking was that two girls would certainly have an easier time of getting into said bar without the company of five dudes but you and your poor jacket got involved when my mind wandered into dress code concerns. I'm sure that I am the asshole here, and if I had actually gone to Winston's (instead of a party downtown with people dressed like extras from a post-apocalyptic version of The Nutcracker), I would have seen at least three handsome men sporting rugged and functional clothing of the same ilk.

In closing I would would like to say the following things:

Drew, you have always been an incredibly good looking fellow, and I have never found any of your clothing to be objectionable. I would also like to add that even if you did wear something that was a "fashion risk", your boyish good looks and your beautiful girlfriend will save you from the scrutiny of stupid people trying to get into Winston's.

The Bourne trilogy is perhaps one of the sexiest recent representations of the man/cargo wear combo. I would rather my male companions have an abundance of pockets to hold my keys when I am sans purse instead of, say, a silky ascot round their neck.

I went on a date with corporate-consumer America guy and liked it?

2007-11-04T22:17:00.000-08:00

It all started out innocently enough. Two throbbing young hearts at a hotel convention center so tired of selling things of no value to people who don't care by telling them almost nothing about the product that they practically burst into flames of love when crossing paths at booth 660. Me: mindlessly stapling business cards to a piece of paper. Him: fresh out of a pre-production meeting, visiting a friend in our suite. I tried to appear aloof and disinterested when, of course I wasn't; he kept glancing in my direction, uncertain of how to make a move on someone whose hair seemed to be alarmingly tousled for a professional setting. There was no move, and he left but I knew I would see him again. I had been at the American Film Market now for five long days, sitting in a hotel room with no fresh air or sunlight listening to my boss talk about dream travel and sell films to Japanese businessmen. The mere sight of this cute young lawyer with dark rimmed glasses was positively momentous (although, to be fair, I did have my palm read by a British man in the horror section).

Thank god for the hotel bar and white wine because that was where we could finally pull out our Blackberries and exchange numbers. He has the larger version of the Blackberry of course, because although the iPhone is a lovely photo show, he can't type his business emails on it's touch-and-hope keyboard. There was no need to call it a date because meeting up at a work sponsored after-party was as predictably sexy as could be. And as long as we were wearing our laminated badges, we were saved from having that awful conversation where you give your life story in blurb form and then regress to the point where you discuss your astrological signs. It does come up, of course, but this kind of guy knows nothing about the magic of the zodiac and when I started talking about it he gazed at me as if I was a gypsy.

Dealing with other people's financial contracts must breed a certain sense of preparedness and in that same vein, when this kind of guy plans a Saturday night, he talks "designated driver", "one car", "cab if necessary". I merely said we should take one car because we could listen to music and it would be more fun. He seemed so amused and excited by my loosey-goosey approach to partying you would have thought I had invited him to a no questions asked threesome. He picked me up in his silver BMW sedan wearing the outfit he insisted on changing into. During the day he had sported properly fitting Diesel jeans with belt, white button down shirt, and blazer and now he was wearing...the exact same thing, with a black button-down shirt. I, on the other hand, had donned a tiny, loose dress with cowboy boots and a scarf, although my hair was still quite tousled. During the car ride he said nothing unique or fascinating but still the conversation clipped along pleasantly. There was something so nice about the risk-free nature of our dialogue.

He had not a single cd in his car but seemed content to listen to whatever 98.7 had to offer, which went from the Beastie Boys to the Cranberries to Avril Lavigne. The fact that he did not have KCRW as one of his presets was noted, but people with regular jobs in LA aren't driving around in the middle of the day listening to NPR. To be honest, I was relieved that I wasn't forced to listen to an uber-indie band with ironic lyrics and I was also happy that I wasn't dealing with the kind of guy who chooses to put in a Smiths album and educate me about music. All of a sudden, that Silversun Pickups song came on and he finally said, "I love them! I heard them play in concert and they were so great, I totally downloaded their song." I agreed. Because I also like them. I ignored the weirdness of hearing someone unabashedly utter the words "download" and "song" as opposed to album, for example, or, heaven forbid, EP. He's not one of those guys who is "really into music", because the Silversun Pickups seem about as undiscovered as the oatmeal cookie flavor of Ben and Jerry's ice cream.

We parked our car a block away from the house where the party was. His reasoning? He hates having to wait for the car at the valet stand. Hah. I've actually heard this before (when I was dating a TV actor) and never has such a little statement so illuminated the financial gap between two persons. Not only can he afford to blow ten dollars on valet parking, but he does it so frequently that the three minute waiting period really bothers him. I, on the other hand, look for parking spaces out of pure necessity and general poverty and, quite frankly, I would prefer it if the guys who can afford to valet would go ahead and do it already so that some spots could free up, you know?

So, we walk into the party where, it turns out, the hosts hadn't planned the people/food ratio properly and the sushi we were promised was no more. We approached the bar and he ordered a round of vodka-cranberries which seemed oddly comforting and somehow nostalgic, bringing back the memories of college parties and frat guys who wore Abercrombie and Fitch. A half-hour passed and then he asked me, "Do you want to get out of here?" I said yes, but where did he want to go? He sighed and said, "Somewhere I can relax and don't have to talk to work people." I knew just the place, a little dive bar that plays great music and he looked at me like I had just told him I was going to fly him over the rainbow. Poor thing, he even spends his Saturday nights talking to directors and producers, all the while drinking lame, old vodka-cranberry. I suddenly felt myself glow like a beacon of moonlight leading him through the empty sushi tables and blazer-wearing film distributors to the east side, where I could listen to Jeff Buckley and sip something with whiskey in it.

What a fun night and yet, completely bereft of almost any of his personal details or voiced opinions. Or maybe it just didn't seem personal or opinionated because I already know this guy, everyone does. So, why would I enjoy someone so, well, square? I mean, I could see myself having more hours of predictably safe interactions and discussions with him gladly, easily...but would I secretly be waiting to unearth the strange and eclectic from someone who just isn't strange and eclectic? Who knows, maybe he spent his 25th year as a goatherd in Switzerland, but I doubt it, or that could just be second date material. I have a feeling that the second date will involve dinner and bringing me back to a condo with mid-century floor lamps and a remote-control fireplace; and a strange renegade part of my heart hopes that this isn't the adult man of my future.

Ok, ok, I admit it. I am not that cool. I don't get high and paint... or listen to The Velvet Underground and I only have, like, three things from a thrift store. Maybe I can't handle a guy who puts on an old Sam Cooke record and lays me down underneath an antique map from Tibet...I can handle a downloaded Coldplay song and a tempurpedic mattress. I don't know, being a little more unknown and a little less comfortable still wins my heart every time. I may not be ready to grow up or sell out, just yet.

Pose

2007-10-25T08:34:00.000-07:00

Pinky Swear

13 Going on 30

2007-10-20T17:10:00.000-07:00

False Idols?

2007-10-19T11:38:00.000-07:00

I have a confession to make. No, it's not about the Rob Lowe thing- I don't think that Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert combined create one all-powerful political messiah. In fact, the way my friends base the majority of their political awareness and discussion off of a comedy central show seems more concerning than my own ignorance of the whole darned thing. I am stuck living in a world where the "Don't taze me bro" video on my computer screen appears as important as "Bears in a hammock" right next to it, where everything seems lethally subjective, and the familiar comedic rebuttal is almost always resounding in my ears. Even though this may be unhip, where can I really educate myself and not just pretend to know what's going on? And why do I feel that watching comedy central satires which are focusing on reactionary commentary sometimes leaves the meat out of the sandwich, so to speak. I myself am barely informed about the details of our political scope, so maybe I would like a way to learn the basic information without a spin put on it. Because, don't be fooled, just like Fox News will brainwash you right and the New York Times will cajole you to the left, the news you receive through others people's satire of it has just as much spin, but what of it?

Both The Daily Show and The Colbert Report's consistent mockery of heavyweight politicos, Republican and Democratic, may actually be breeding a strange form of comedic apathy, sort of saying, damned if you do and damned if you don't. If people don't bother to take a stance in some sort of direction, what progress can be made? And what happens when current events have no entertainment value? There was once a time when news was news and now we've come to the place where news is almost everything but. Even Jon Stewart himself has commented on the irony in having comedy central be a news resource for people. But when compared to Crossfire, it looks as shiny and as inviting as their bestselling textbook America or the ever-entertaining children's series, Schoolhouse Rock ("I'm just a bill" made it onto my esoteric road trip mix freshman year of college). One argument is, well, if people are learning something in an enjoyable way, if they are laughing about their representatives and processing what is going on at the same time, isn't that good? Stewart says The Daily Show is a comedy show about things we care about. So am I to assume that the viewers are reading the books and keeping up with the issues before Jon sits down with them, balking and laughing respectively during the interview? Probably not. So we have a bunch of viewers absorbing soundbites, the equivalent of reading the MSN news ticker on your homepage before getting your horoscope, which you read in depth. It is challenging to actually inform yourself about what is going on; it requires reading, thinking, processing, and drawing conclusions all with the slightly haunting knowledge that the information you have received isn't ever going to be devoid of interpretation or censoring and will probably never be as "in depth" as it could be. But doesn't that seem to be staking an individual attempt at grasping knowledge, these things that we care about, as opposed to regurgitating something funny and mildly smart you heard on TV.

Look, I started this written entry intending to say that I think that Jon Stewart isn't all that and a bag of chips, and that he was a bad influence on his viewers. However, the more I thought about it, I realized that he is actually a true representative of his viewing constituency. He's smart. OK, like entertainment smart- funny, articulate, just informed enough, and an excellent people person. I don't necessarily believe that would pass as smart when compared against, say, Oppenheimer or, I don't know, FDR. What has happened to the kind of smart that incorporated expertise, experience, and thoroughness? I can only imagine what any media would be like if issues were explained thoroughly and dissected by someone who was well versed in American foreign policy over the past few decades, for example, or someone who has served in Iraq and brought back his account of the war there. Well, to be fair, those people are out there, but we are forced to listen to them as guests on talking heads news shows, as they answer inane phone calls from viewers in Arkansas. Why is the media as we know it constantly capturing the most sensational thing and turning it into a four minute Youtube video or a three paragraph blog or a 10 minute interview. Maybe I have a liiiiittle problem with Jon Stewart's adorably smug yet self-deprecating way of stating something and then following it with the requisite, "but I don't really know anything." It's like a safety clause; I used to have one I used regularly as a teenager. At my girls' school, if someone asked me, "I think Sharon is such a bitch, what do you think?" the social burns of the past taught me to take the diplomatic route and respond, " I don't know her very well." Is Jon Stewart inadvertently trying to keep some neutrality in the midst of the political media blitz? Perhaps. So why does that seem so attractive to us? Because, it is so representative of us. Jon Stewart is the kind of guy you take to a dinner party, the guy you date seriously for three to five years in your twenties, the kind of guy you actually want to be deep in the marrow of your bones. He is the perfect example of this strange present day man who stands for nothing except the very act of standing for something, generally speaking. All the while, leaving himself brilliantly unaccountable for it by saying, "hey it's just a comedy show." This defense just plays into the horrible trend of celebrity's anti-celebrity factor. Where once figures in the spotlight were fashion icons and idealistic mouthpieces, now they are just people in the grocery store or publicist-approved blurbs, all of which seem to fall under the rag-mag's title,"Stars...They're just like us."

If no one is willing to take responsibility, to grab the microphone like Bono and rant and rave about what is specifically important to them, if everyone is going to hide under this "who, me?" invisibility cloak, who is going to challenge these idiots who call themselves the Bush administration. Because those guys aren't apathetic or apologetic, they are staking claims right and left and they can because instead of fighting it, everyone who has gotten a jolt of something while watching The Daily Show has since clicked through the rest of their Tivo programming, and in the mean time forgotten about the thing that they were sparked up about- because it was never really clear. It's a risk when these likable figures show their preferences as human beings, but if we are forced to listen to Ann Coulter's horrible blabber or Tom Cruise's embarrassing Scientology psychobabble why can't Jon Stewart take advantage of his power and influence and give us something more to believe in, not just to laugh at. Is that asking too much? Not if we have unofficially dubbed him our representative of sorts, not if there's some guy editing a Youtube video together called "Jon Stewart is God", not if you watch The Daily Show and reference it like an academic source on a thesis paper. No, I don't think we are.

All Things Considered

2007-10-18T16:16:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I was sitting at a table in Whole Foods eating tuna salad around 3pm. I was looking at the parade of West Hollywood women inching through the checkout line when I had the following three thoughts:

Only adults eat tuna salad.
When I was nannying for a family a year ago, I was put in charge of picking up 6 year old Frank from summer day camp. In the sweltering July heat, I found him in the middle of the "all-purpose room" wearing black pants, a black turtleneck, and a black cape. When I walked over to him he looked at me with a sweaty brow and clasped my hand...I said,"Aren't you hot with that cape on?"

At this point a old man with a faded Yankees cap on locked eyes with me as I glanced up from the registers. Even though he was a good distance away from me, he said, "He loves you, you know." He said nothing to anybody else and a few minutes later, wandered into the parking lot. I then thought...

3. He must be talking about God.

George Washington

2007-10-17T14:34:00.001-07:00

Morning Glories

2007-10-12T10:45:00.000-07:00

Wait, listen...

Oh I am a lonely painter
I live in a box of paints
I'm frightened by the devil
And I'm drawn to those ones that ain't afraid

I remember that time you told me you said
"Love is touching souls"
Surely you touched mine
'Cause part of you pours out of me
In these lines from time to time
Oh, you're in my blood like holy wine
You taste so bitter and so sweet

Oh I could drink a case of you darling
And I would still be on my feet
I would still be on my feet

Los Angeles vs. Cell Phones

2007-10-09T08:26:00.001-07:00

"Cellphones are cockblockers," declared my roommate on Friday night.
Agreed.
But if cell phones are cockblockers, they have an equally powerful caped sidekick, and that, my friends, is the city of Los Angeles.

We are chic city dwellers, yet most of my friends choose to stay in areas of our giant metropolis that fit their lifestyle/fashion choices; it all feels a bit like a high school cafeteria, "Ooooh, I can't sit over there." I mean, New Yorkers traverse up and down Manhattan and to the boroughs on a regular basis, using public transportation at that. Even if they do pay 17 dollars to take a cab from East 91st Street to Bank Street, that's just part of the deal. And a shared cab is like a wild ride! Whether you are holding your friend's hair back as she vomits out the window as you cross central park ("mmm, is it snowing? sigh, the park is always so lovely"), going to third base with a co-worker who is younger than you are, or getting totally freaked out by deli fruit displays because you are so, so, so, stoned... it usually gets you in the mood for something. I had a friend living in Paris who claimed she got into the back of a truck to hitch a ride to what she thought was the 18th district, but found herself at a rave in Lille* instead. These are adventures in the city! They sure make for great stories to tell the next morning.

I wish that happened in LA. If you are lucky enough not to get pulled over by a cop for one reason or another, going to the fun, sexy or otherwise exciting next thing is almost always in danger of being suffocated by something like: your good friend who doesn't have a car and requires you to pick them up or drop them off if you desire their company or... there's the nagging, nervous hope that you have enough cash for parking while listening to the medicated sounds of "Metropolis" on KCRW feeling more and more like a pile of student loans in skinny jeans and less and less like a party animal, all the while watching your gas gage inch deeper into the red zone. Maybe you met someone foxy at a bar and did that titillating, post-closing time lets-go-hook-up dance. Too bad you both took your own cars. Those fragrant blooms of sexual tension that lingered in the parking lot are practically fumigated by the 20 minute car ride to his or her apartment, alone. You start thinking, "What am I doing, I have work tomorrow, she/he miiiight have had fake hair, wait, she/he was a mutual friend of my friend from college....I hope that doesn't mean they're going to be like, around, all the time, cause that could be weird, maybe I should just drunk dial my ex, at least he/she lives close to my place and knows about my thing with top sheets, wait, are we going to Hollywood, there's no parking, wait, maybe she has a pass (phone rings, your potential lover says, "Sorry, my roommate's boyfriend has the pass") oh, that's cool because THERE AREN'T ANY FUCKING PARKING SPACES ANYWAY!

That's just Los Angeles...

Now, when it comes to the other. I use my phone as pretty much just a phone. I text message out of necessity more than anything, because my jobs don't allow me to gossip freely. And my ordering weight loss herbs from Africa on the Internet has forced me to make financial cutbacks in other areas, the blackberry package was the first to go. This is all well and good considering that I am a female because I really think that the cell phone cockblock should be greatly feared by men. There are obvious hurdles for the cell phone lover like the anytime, all the time caller id. Don't think that blocking your number will solve anything, that just makes you look shady, and makes the answerer feel an unusual sense of lowered rank in entering an unknown conversation zone. Texting is not going to to hide anything. Whether you write something that would make Oscar Wilde piss himself or something as lame as How R U, the text message is a coward's minefield.

One would think that cell phones would facilitate human contact and allow you to reach other people when you are in the midst of something awesome. Sure, maybe you aren't stupid enough to use your Barbie colored sidekick to text your BFF's so that you can have a super crrrrrazy shopping cart race in a local supermarket! (and you totally used garbage bags you stole off the shelves as the finish line tape!!! OMG!) But you were stupid enough to think that actually calling someone and agreeing to meet them somewhere face to face is no longer necessary. Thaaaat's right, anonymous guy, since you didn't actually call the person you wanted to hook up with and instead, spent the afternoon shooting her vaguely flirtatious text messages illustrating your rapier wit, you never really had the chance to tell her what your plans were that evening, or that you should def. get together. So, fast forward, you've accidentally ended up at some awesome mansion in the Hills and you're three drinks in, wanting to call your recent object of affection, but whoops, you don't get service up here because T-Mobile blows! Then, feeling like a leprechaun trying to thread a needle*, you realize that you can still access that one message she left you last weekend and use the return call feature if you could only use someone else's phone. You spot a guy by the hot tub with an iPhone, and you approach him slowly, working up the nerve to ask him if he'll let you get some of your earwax on his $600 toy. As the steam and pool lights start to pull things in focus, you realize it's Jake Gyllenhaal, who has just picked up his precious iPhone to show some girl video footage of himself. Oh sure, you noticed there was a fancy bathroom phone inside that you could use except, you don't actually know her number because you've never dialed it once with your smooth white digits. Right at that moment, you give up because your battery light is blinking, you don't know the address of this place, she lives in Venice, it's after 10:30, and even if you managed to text her a safe, "What R U doing?", LBH, it's never gonna happen.

There are also those guys who really use their phones. Like someone who records an audio clip of the impromptu Prince concert he hit at the Roosevelt hotel or the phone photo-documentarian who is always clicking away. Sadly, the guys that are bothering to get their money's worth out of their smart phones, guys who read manuals and who are always changing the personal options on their interface, those are the real guys that don't get laid. Hopefully, they have evolved to the point of coolness where they just don't care, because any girl who actually decides to meet up with someone who has sent her an artsy photo taken from his blackberry should know that when she gets there, she's going to be the third wheel; you see, that guy is already on a date...with his phone. Maybe your shiny, precious, precious doesn't go all the way on the first night, but something about it feels just as good, doesn't it?

* Lille is a particularly beautiful city just North of Paris close to the Belgian border. It is a lovely day trip by train, especially if their art museum is open.

* I have no idea what this means other than...they have small stubby hands, no? It was supposed to conjure up an image of utter futility.

Lumiere

2007-10-09T08:18:00.001-07:00

This is just the tip of the iceberg.

2007-10-06T21:52:00.000-07:00

Samantha: Money is power. Sex is power. Therefore, getting money for sex is
simply an exchange of power.

Miranda: Don't listen to the dimestore Camille Paglia.*

The memorable banter of Sex and the City is forever ringing in my head. Just like plenty of other history and culture factoids that you pick up from a more memorable context, I gathered Camille Paglia was a droning feminist and filed it away in the "witty- to be used later" section of my brain. Being the actress that I am, and a sometimes thief, I started throwing around the roll-eyed "Camille Paglia" comment a few times by the hors d'oeuvres table in mixed company; but I really knew very little about my TV-show/feminism reference. For the record, I have also made other barely informed comments about the following things: the Nuremberg Trials, Pointillism, and Murphy Brown. I'm sure the people listening to me at the time either believed that my one-liner hinted at a much deeper well of education on the subject, or they forgave me because of my legitimate knowledge of popular, fine sheep's milk cheeses. But with a woman running for president, two of my female collegemates dating other women, and Hollywood's Boys Club as the river of rapids through which I must navigate my career, this is no time to be throwing around baseless anti-feminist statements. I'm not anti-feminist, and Sex and the City certainly isn't, is it? In fact, Miranda is probably the least compromising of all the characters on the show, so are we to believe that her character has no use for bourgeois feminism or is it just the team of gay men writing her lines who feel that way? Well, I did my homework, and realized that Camille Paglia isn't really a feminist at all. In fact she is the "anti-feminist feminist".

Paglia emerged on the Yale collegiate scene in the late 60's, early 70's speaking out against the more familiar feminist names like Gloria Steinem or Betty Frieden. She is an artistic scholar, bi-sexual, Libertarian with Democratic leanings, and social critic who claims that the previously mentioned women were acting consistently victimized as they insisted on waging a war of prejudice against men. I have to admit, this tendency to label yourself as an -ist or joining an -ism movement is something that I have always shied away from; according to Paglia it's that need for the group movement that creates cults and religions (not always a huge difference in the two, really). I can't imagine burning my bra with a group of people whose feminist slogan was the ridiculous phrase, "A woman needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle." And I have to admit, The Feminine Mystique does seem awfully dated; Frieden's theory was that women were dissatisfied with their lives because they didn't have jobs other than mother and wife. Gloria Steinem preceded her in publishing an article about the same topic. Researching a bit more, I stumbled upon a 1995 interview with Steinem on the very focused website, feminist.com where she states that she believes in a "sexual caste system" that needs to be equalized. Here again, Paglia disagrees by arguing vehemently that gender is not a socially constructed obstacle. Interestingly, she is also noted as becoming enraptured with powerful women contemporary thinkers and then tearing them apart due to their disappointing lack of intellectualism. The second wave feminism movement that focused so much on the day to day struggles of women must have seemed too pedestrian for Paglia, whose path has led her to have a strong political voice and academic career without ever being faced with escaping the banal world of a suburban housewife.

It is her fascination with sexuality and androgyny in a classical background that makes Camille Paglia aggressively liberated and competitive in her version of feminism; she is so passionate perhaps, that she has lost sight of those who share similar goals really. In that same interview with Gloria Steinem, when asked about current issues facing women, her interests seemed to focus on supporting and raising awareness about abortion. She also encouraged responding to, not imposing upon, other countries fighting their own battles in the global women's movement. This doesn't sound like anything a Libertarian should have a problem with. They are both necessary patches on the proverbial quilt of feminism, and the more you shake off the moth balls and cobwebs (i.e. issues that are now obsolete) the more you see the design of a truly progressive movement that is still thriving today. They have breathed new life into the term "feminist".

So, what is Sex and the City's deal with Camille Paglia? She believes that the business woman and the gay man are today's idealized gender figures. Not surprisingly, both are huge portions of the Sex and the City fan base... Sure, Samantha is an outspoken, oversexed, competitive woman who is always in a class of her own. But I don't think Miranda is attacking her somewhat crass, two-cent version of female empowerment because she isn't a feminist or is a feminist, or at least, that's not the point. It's purpose is to make Carrie feel better. Carrie who feels like a prostitute after receiving an envelope of cash from last night's romp in the sheets. Sex and the City was a show where money, power, equality, and opportunity were givens, it was tenderness and vulnerability that they were fighting for on every glorious episode. And for all of her merits, Camille Paglia doesn't seem like a beacon of warmth. The next time I find myself doing the dangerous dance of discussing feminism, not only only will I refer to to Camille Paglia with confidence but I will suggest that Sex and the City is a post-feminist show, with or without a prior discussion of Manchego cheese.

* From Sex and the City Season 1. Episode 5: The Power of Female Sex. I have been told that I am a combination of the characters Samantha and Charlotte, go figure...

What the...

2007-10-05T12:40:00.000-07:00

Woman Turns in Bag Stuffed With $65,000.

So much for Social Darwinism. Jeez.

Poem

2007-10-04T08:41:00.001-07:00

They are all there.

A gaggle of loves and demons perched upon rocks like mountain goats soaking up this night moment.

They are all there without me.

I am no beast or devil or unattainable grail, no woman, no brain, no form- I have evaporated with the sea of clouds encroaching upon the mountain. My thoughts become vapors, my lovely hands drops of dew, my heart, longing for its duet of quietude, joins the mist; releasing its grasp but continuing its journey.

They are all there.

Hipster Olympics

2007-10-03T13:33:00.001-07:00

Thanks Erin.

Tea Party

2007-10-03T12:49:00.001-07:00

Never underestimate the importance of the cardigan sweater.

"What the beautiful is is another question."

2007-10-03T09:36:00.000-07:00

My father's copy of "Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man". He has scrawled his name* above the title in strange, boyish, all-caps handwriting; unfamiliar to me after years of barely legible parent script, signing my permission slips or birthday checks. But this seems to say, "BRUCE BECKNER was here! He read, discussed, and analyzed James Joyce at Princeton University, 1967". I have heard him quote the famous opening line fondly, "Once upon a time and a very good time it was there was a moocow coming down along the road..." Then I wonder why this particular version of this novel, the story of a young man's creative awakening and resulting freedom, remains on his bookshelf and in his heart forty-some years later.

I have been told that my father lost his virginity to a woman in the college admissions office. He swam naked across a freezing river after being dared by his rowing team. He also describes himself as being clinically depressed through most of his sophomore year, slugging through laborious survey courses and striving to make excellent grades. In the throws of maturity, on a cold New Jersey campus, Bruce came across this coming of age story with its semi-autobiographical narrative whispering autonomy and individuality against a parochial Irish landscape. When he mentions the novel, it is like an x-girlfriend, contextual and private; I know that whatever he gleamed from its pages is something that has great nostalgic importance.

I then wonder whether James Joyce's voice was included in the chorus of the 1960's college student body, jerking about with indignance, crying out and creating against lack of freedom, lack of equality, lack of information. If you searched the rucksack of a young student at the time, finding a deerskin pouch of weed and a dogeared copy of One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, The Bell Jar, Catch 22, Tropic of Cancer, or the Kama Sutra would be no surprise. Where did "Portrait of the Artist" fit in a world that seemed to embrace madness and sex as their fictionalized generational identity? I read my father's quiet penciled notes in the margins about modernism and the Divine Comedy, illusory passages underlined, as a study of beauty and careful structure. Perhaps understanding the constructs of the world at present, in preparation to leave it all behind. What a private thing to discover...to know that you identify with your generation in wants and needs and, yet, a moocow showed you the way, not the ballyhooing of students on the quad.

This isn't the only time I've witnessed a man comment on "Portrait of the Artist" with emotional gravitas. I was sitting in a pub a few years ago listening to my friend Alex tell me about attending the Bloomsday Festival in Dublin, which is dedicated to James Joyce. The festival's favored event, other than drinking steadily throughout, is a walking tour following the "Ulysses" trail but since my friend had somehow run over his own leg in a strange car accident, he had to hobble around Dublin on crutches with his father. Alex, the self-proclaimed, "Stupidest Smart Guy Ever" was absolutely gushing about his experience at the festival and the connection that he felt with other fans of the author. In fact, when the conversation turned to the novel itself, he barely even let me say two words about it. Instead he went into great detail about the many layers of the novel that one cannot possibly understand until you have read the book multiple times, then read Dante, Dylan Thomas, Mother Goose, and touched a bronze cast of James Joyce's balls under a hidden bridge in Ireland. No, I have no doubt that "Portrait of the Artist" was a profound read for Alex, but I also suspect that he is attached to it because of it's literary significance, his scholarly understanding of it, and his belonging to a somewhat selective group of people who "get it".

Creative awakenings and freedom are not foreign concepts to our generation, but sometimes the idea of someone not knowing something seems unfathomable. Perhaps now the collective is more significant than the lone reed. I suppose that Alex's eager discussion of such a story is no more meant to alienate me than my father's bemused smile after saying the word, moocow. In this case, I don't think there is much need for alienation when one feels so thoroughly identified and maybe that is what is the timeless thing.

* In this line, I considered using the word moniker or monicker (as it is sometimes spelled). Definition: a name that is often given to oneself much like a pseudonym or a stage name, often referring to creative pursuits; in slang, moniker simply means name.
In the end, I felt that my father's merely writing his own birth name was not a moniker in the formal sense, and that I would save the fabulous word for a story about a magician or something.

Two by Two

2007-05-11T14:53:00.000-07:00

Los Angeles. I actually believe that there are people here who aren't superficial, who are intelligent, and who have real breasts. It took a little while, but I found some of these people and called them my best friends. And what friends we were... There were nights spent in Malibu while responsibly high on fabulous party drugs, boy did we look skinny and sun-kissed. We had fun even when it was boring, sharing sleeping accommodations like a heap of puppies in the kitchen. We partied like rock stars, had fleeting relationships with minor celebrities, and generally made poverty look as kool as Kerouac. Everyone was inspired and supported and loved. You would look up and unwittingly find yourself caught in an affectionate gaze at any given moment. It was a total alchemy of togetherness, watching the sun rise over Santa Monica Boulevard with a group of kindred souls. Then everything changed.

What happened, you may ask? Did these people move away? Oh no, they are all still within this four freewayed chunk of metropolis. Did something bad take place? Well, just like when the dinosaurs in Jurassic Park got loose or when Felicity cut her hair off in season two, the tides have definitely turned. I am fighting the most threatening social plague of my twenties and I'm not talking about Libertarianism or MySpace; I'm talking about COUPLING.

It would be presumptuous of me to think that I can judge my friends' newfound girlfriends, fiancés, partners, soul-angels (whatever the kids are calling them these days) from the outsider's perspective. But I've noticed that everyone seems quite neutered, even though everyone has a regular sexual partner. Suddenly getting a full night's sleep is a top priority. Why? So you can prepare your ovaries for breeding or maybe just so you can wake up early and get the good tomatoes from the Sunday Farmer's Market. Blech. Next thing you know, your friends are walking black labs and talking about organic black kale and adopting black babies from Sudan (note the motif of ominous darkness)...All the while wearing Crocs! It's a terrifying vision.

I complain about it to my boyfriend all the time.

Well, what did you think!? Of course I have a boyfriend! Mama didn't raise no fool and I'll be damned if everyone else gets to go off and adorn their walls with artsy photographs of their loved ones and I'm stuck with a picture of my cat tacked to the fridge! I love my boyfriend. But I loved us, the group of us.

Even here in Los Angeles, I feel so isolated by the superfluity of twosomes that we might as well as be farmers in Nepal; small, modest huts on the tops of hills, separated by rows and rows of terraced ribbons of grain and soil. No phones, no communication, no contact. Me and "my person" in our hut, looking across the void, wondering if my friend and his person are doing ok. It haunted me, and I started doing some research online about this Eastern way of life only to discover that certain villages in Nepal have WiFi now. Apparently, for the first time, communities of Yak farmers can talk to one another about things like grain and... Yak stuff. If I were really in Nepal right now, assuming the Yaks were ok, I would use those newfangled antennas to send a simple message to my coupled friend across the way: something like, "Are you still you?" Because I am. I think.