You Know My Steez

I haven’t been to SoHo in a long time, but a few days ago I walked by the building where I grew up.  The facade is still there, but it is a shell of its former self. Like many of the surrounding structures, the five-story loft building has a new coat of paint and a “store for lease” sign above what used to be an active loading dock. The fire escape crawling up the front is gone, probably shifted to the alleys in the back, and nearly everything else has been replaced. And everything that has been replaced has a story…

If you watch my short film RAVING, there’s a scene where Zooey Deschanel climbs down a fire escape- that’s my old homestead.

Read the rest of this entry »

When you are offered special treatment, make sure they define special…

The dreadful thing about flying is not your precarious position in the air, or the possibility of mechanical failure, it is the experience of being hearded like cattle. To borrow from David Foster Wallace, it is being made to feel bovine.

Get in line, take off your shoes, that bag has to be checked and that will be $25 dollars, sit down, eat your slop, and don’t ask questions or we might arrest you. We are so desperate to get where we are going, and safely, that we tolerate the smells, the  inefficiency, those sneaky extra fees, the pat downs, even the bare feet on dirty linoleum floors.

Flying to Los Angeles, I was surprised when the stewardess (flight attendant?) whispered discretely to me that there was a bulkhead seat available up front. Ooh, the leg room! I took her up on the offer, only to spend the next 6 hours next to the bathroom. I tried desperately to ignore the steady parade of rear ends in my face, an experience which brings new meaning to the phrase “cheek to cheek.” I employed yogic breathing exercises to avoid inhaling the E. Coli spores wafting about. I hummed, I fidgeted, I passed on the microwave quote unquote cheeseburger.

When we landed, the young man next to me kissed his hand and raised it to the sky, attempting a private moment of gratitude. I also thanked Quien Sabe, happy to be on the ground, not taking for granted that no major disasters had occurred. I’ve been on flights where people clapped for the captain. But I’m like a dog that needs to be walked; I can’t sit still that long, so I was mostly grateful to stand up. I wasn’t alone, either, as everyone sprang to attention when that seat belt light went off.

One trick I used to distract myself from the bowel movements of my fellow passengers was to create band names. I’m compiling a master list so I stop forgetting them. It’s short so far, but I encourage suggestions. And I can’t take credit anyway, as most of them came up in conversations with friends. A communal copyright, if you will.

Desperation Theory

Sospechosos

That Shit’s So Brooklyn

Whutsisface

Bravo! Samson

Careful with Money

Scatter the Ashes

The Filth

Ladeeda

Tiger Wash?

It’s fashion week here in New York City. (Keep reading, there’s more to this than clothing).

The fall collections are still during winter, so there are a lot of chilly people in Bryant Park. I went to a show the other day when there was no slush on the ground, but I still worried about falling. Like many a lady, I enjoy watching an array of pretty clothes paraded just out of a sensible price range. I enjoy an excuse to get gussied up. I do not enjoy, despite my chosen profession, the slight tinge of dread that goes with being photographed. It feels like a lot of worry over something inane; it feels like a waste of energy; it feels self-absorbed, and just not, well, cool.

I’ve had a few female friends ask about fashion week, with looks of girlish excitement in their eyes. I catch myself dismissing it self-righteously, and think what a fool I am to deny this fun perk of my job. Many a chick can’t imagine owning a pair of designer shoes, let alone a rotation of borrowed and returnable items so one never gets bored. And it’s easy to feel guilty for this kind of experience. How many water purification tablets could fit into one Christian Louboutin shoe? (That’s figurative, but the answer is a lot if you count the four-inch heels).

My real reason for minimizing the hoopla around Fashion Week is maybe less noble;  its just plain old defensiveness. If I value this amorphous entity known as The Fashion World, then I value its valuation of me. And thus the needless, silly anxiety.

Cue the silliness…

A journalist at the show had time for one question. He looked at me with a straight face and asked, “Spanx or Thongs?” No joke.

Read the rest of this entry »

While I find something worth writing about…

check out www.francessultan.com.

I’m most impressed with how unique her stories are, since it’s hard not to be derivative. Fran’s writing is playful, wacky, insightful, and keeps you guessing.

This band is amazing. It was called Doggie Hi! Yippie, (2001 Massacre= great song)

Now it’s called Last Good Tooth.

I think it was Ray Charles (no, it was Kurt Vonnegut) who said music is proof of the existence of God.