my sister is writing a very funny blog

...check it out.

I'd also like to add that it's incredible to see how my sense of humor is so obviously leeched off of this woman.

My brothers are also hilarious, but in their own inimitable way. Don't worry, I wouldn't even think about it.

Thanks guys!

Glee is toxic sludge television

I saw a preview today of another Gwenneth Paltrow stint on Glee. Then it hit me like a hangover on Sunday morning. I already knew I had grown to loathe what is now a hodgepodge clip reel of a show that alternates as a steaming pile of studio cash, but now I knew why.

When the show premiered, I loved it (I'm an a cappella nerd, it totally made sense!). It went wrong after the first half of season one, just when the show reached the height of it's creativity and uniqueness. Then it went TANG.

Yes, Tang. We went from fresh squeezed OJ to an instant, saccharine, mass-marketed lesser copy of something great. The difference being that Glee is now produced for instant gratification only.

People like Gwenneth? Let's create a story line that barely makes sense and include popular songs that have no coherent connectivity to a developed narrative and shove the gal in somewhere. Toot sweet!

People like Christmas songs? Quick, get those kids in a recording booth and stuff jungle bells down their pants.

It's all too cash and carry, even for a musical program, which can and probably needs to divert from total seamlessness in a story line for the sake of a catchy tune every so often. Now people congratulate the show and heave a sigh of relief when an episode seems to have a true narrative arc. It's like giving your babysitter a tip for not setting your infant on fire. Stupid.

I never liked Tang, not even 5 Alive. I will not like you Glee, never more and always.

Everyone loves a charade.

I am an unequivocal fan of live television. From a baseball game to a presidential address, there is always the potential for something to happen in an instant that no one quite expected. I feel the enticing variable of the unknown flicker in my brain when I see LIVE on the screen.

Nowhere is the thrill of the immediate image event more exciting than television. Unlike the internet, which regurgitates content for the masses to view ad nauseam, TV allows simultaneous access to a unique event. And unlike simply attending an event, millions more can share in the experience to make it a collective one on televsion. It is in a single moment of surprise, horror, humor, or joy that every reaction is culled and every reproducible moment codified into popular culture and social consciousness.

Yet it seems that it is typically when the players in the live TV game fall hardest that our remembrance echos as vividly through the clip wheels. I'll have to think back, wayyyy back to let's see...well, Sunday to see this dynamic play out.

The Flopscars



The Oscars are like a big bubble of movie star fanfare. A lot of hot air, with a very thin superficial lining. In such a defining and self-congratulating span of a few hours, those would care to witness it at home are given free reign to admire, critique, or pop this celebrity bubble as they see fit. But above all, there is a characteristic and unifying satisfaction in building up the Oscars, or any live event like it, just to tear it down.

If the A list is so exclusive that the majority of us recognize we will never be on it, there is a definite kind of gratification to see the foibles and public missteps of the chosen few. However, due to recent events, I'm wondering how far this guilty pleasure, this jubilant schadenfreude, takes us down the rabbit hole.

It's one thing to suggest that Anne Hathaway and James Franco hate each other, now covered in the rubble of what is being panned as an Oscar hosting disaster. In the end, it won't really matter if one had the slightest twinge of feeling for the other. But along with the "Oscar curse" of Halle Barry's and Sandra Bullock's past are people who are having periods of person darkness amidst fame, with more critics than one could imagine watching and almost waiting for things burn up in flames. This kind of vulturizing is unfortunate, but not new or unexpected in our culture of celebrity. It is what some will call the price of fame.

"Unemployed Winner"

Now I hate to draw more attention to the Charlie Sheen funhouse of current lore, but I'm going to do it anyway.

I have to wonder what we as an adoring yet often cannibalistic audience are supposed to make of a person embracing their downfall, and creating a unfiltered television spectacle or event out of it. In a matter of days Sheen has gotten more press than we know what to do with. In a matter of hours he garnered more twitter followers without a single utterance than Justin Bieber did with plentiful hair shakes.

I guess what I'm wondering is, when does the LIVE event end and real life begin? Yes, they are supposed to be the same, but we all know that they're different. Real life doesn't come with boom mics and a lighting crew. It doesn't involve choreographed dance numbers and designer dresses. So if I'm not watching a charade anymore (and I think we can classify most "reality tv" as a charade at this point) then what I am watching? Should I be watching? And if I shouldn't be watching, why can't I turn it off? Is this still entertainment?

Whether in movie land or not, we as a society tend to cling to the mythology of second chances and happy endings. We champion those who make it through and support them, but we also neglect those that fall too far out of focus, or disappear entirely. It's a 50-50 game--which is sometimes more like Russian roulette--that we don't control, but we do perpetuate it as a media driven culture.

I'm following Sheen on twitter at the moment, but I fear his battery life may be shorter that a camera's. And when his runs out, and we're still watching, I'll probably have to ask myself how much I really love a charade.

when to say when

It’s about that time again. Something is firing between the synapses in my brain telling me that things have gone awry, and I know just what it is. Well, it also hit me blankly in the face today after two devastating meetings with two oracles of my non-existent future.

Let me explain. Like many aimless contemporary youths, I decided to live abroad for a year after graduation. Employers love that shit, right? Well, sorry to say it kids, but unless you saved a small village from a cholera epidemic, it doesn’t mean much. It does, however, give you something to talk about while avoiding the woeful topic of your lack of experience (always a sore subject). Anywho, I took the first job that was offered to me after I got back. It was at a great company, but doing a job I had no real interest in. Above all, it wasn’t the idealistic nonsense job that squanders the lives of so many female English majors like myself that I REALLY wanted. I longed for the hard, scrappy life of a toiling editorial assistant at a major publishing house, reading manuscripts by dim lamplight until I saw double. Give me your puny wages, your thankless office duties, your coffee orders! I wanted to (eventually) edit books.

Publishing is the soul sucking hellscape of undergraduate dreams gone terribly wrong. But I thought, hey I’ll make it there, oh yes, I will. Over 2 years later I find myself in the same first job that doesn’t lend it's skills to any other profession, and still doesn’t interest me as a long-term gig. I told myself in the beginning that it was just a starting-off point. I would network, make inroads, and SCHMOOZE! But in reality, I never broke out of my sad, windowless office with the random microwave in the corner. In my line of work, I tell a lot of people what they’re not supposed to do on television, so I’ll just say that there's no one waiting in line to be best friends.

So that brings me to today. In the same unimaginably brain-liquefying day, I met with an HR person from a major publisher AND had a talk with my current boss about my (lack of a) future in our department. In my defense, this was not my plan. It was some ill-fated cosmic alignment of existential horror. HR lady confirmed what I already knew; my chances to ever get a job in publishing, doing what I’m really interested in and (presumably) good at, are slim, very slim. And even if I hit that lottery, I’ll be starting at square one, and moving back home for lack of funds paid. A few hours later, my boss squarely, but compassionately, told me if no one leaves, no one (me) gets promoted. It’s sit and wait or get out of dodge. I’m free to walk to plank…back to entry level.

I’ll make it clear right now that I’m well aware how lucky I am to even have a job right now. I’ll be the first to admit I have no one to blame but myself for this haunted house of careerdom I’ve created. I chose this bum ride, and I’m taking it until I tuck-and-roll out the passenger side door. I just have to decide what I’m bailing out for.

Look for a job I don’t want to earn more money, scratch and claw for a job I want that sets me back 2 years, many dollars, and my independence, or suck it up and deal with what I’ve got. What’s a girl to do?

I guess what I’m really asking myself is, how do I know when to say when? I’ve got a lot of things I’m trying to accomplish at once, and at some point my withering New York soul is going to need a reprieve from this tension. My father, an incredibly smart and successful businessman (when I declared my major I heard his heart break), always said that he never knew if he was making the right choices with his career, he just took chances and it happened to pan out. While I’m sure that is supposed to be reassuring, I find it just plain terrifying. It’s times like this when I wonder if everything I thought I’d figured out about what I want to do with my life was just BS to make it through family dinners.

The truth is I have no idea what’s going to happen to me. What I do know is that I’ll have to sacrifice something to make a change in my current situation, and every possibility seems agonizing. It’s real adult decisions like these that make me feel like I need a security blanket and a bottle of grape Dimetapp. Can I push myself to make decisions for my future when said future is so unavoidably uncertain? When there are no guarantees, how can you ever know when? When to give up a vain, idealistic hope in the name of practicality, when to fight for something that may never pay off (literally), and when to shut the hell up and take what you’ve got because it’s better than nothing.

Maybe it’s all not so cut and dry. Perhaps there is a compromise somewhere in here. And of all these paths in the woods, each one seems to be well traveled by those that came before me. I know that I’m not alone on this island. But I haven’t found a compromise yet, and sometimes, it’s hard not to get flustered when I can’t say where I’m going, let alone how I’ll get there.

let's hear a toast...

I've always been a lady of many opinions. Never one to shy away from telling just about anyone who would bother to listen how I felt about a given topic--a movie, book, album, TV show...what have you--it's clear to me that sometimes I can be kind of a D-bag. I would venture to say that I have in no way reached Kanye levels, but I'm the person who pushes it just a bit too far on occasion. Far enough that I can't escape having others take notice.

There are times when I use the justification that I tell it like I see it. Good old honestly, it never (almost always) fails. There's also that itch to call people out on their bs with a well-placed eye roll. Then there are moments when I think I'm just plain right (there, I said it). You know, sometimes I just can't help it. It's like I have no filter of decorum to mediate how people are perceiving me. Or maybe it's just that in a fleeting instant I don't have the will to care. Certainly, I've made some enemies and hurt some feelings along the way, all of which is hopefully outweighed by the redemptive efforts I've made to be an acceptable, decent person in this life. Somebody you could even like from time to time. But there's nothing mistaking the sideways gut-punch feeling of recognizing your own douchiness staring right at you, telling you what an asshole you can be.

It happened while I was reading I Was Told There'd Be Cake by Sloane Crosley on the train the other week. Anticipating big things after a number of girlfriends chalked her up to being the female David Sedaris (no small feat), I eagerly set out to enjoy a dose of wit and happenings gone awry. To my astonishment, I found myself hating it. Loathing it. HATE LOATHING it. I couldn't stop getting pissed at her hackneyed single girl, big city, awkward situations surrounding dating and marriage backdrop. Her disastrous publishing job and run-ins with psycho brides-to-be. Didn't she know that hoards of people already sang that song? Did she not see "Bridget Jones' Diary"? [see also "Bridget Jones 2: Hugh Grant's Revenge]

Then I knew what had transpired. Amidst the dry humor and lady-situated comedic incidents, I hated her for writing things that I would probably have written about myself. My brain instantly started to disassemble her quips and tear them to tiny, insignificant fragments because, in my vainglorious and twisted mind, I wished I had beat her to it. Honestly, I was being a dick.

What does this say about me? Am I a jealous person? I'd like to think not, and that, overall, I can appreciate the fine work of other writers, especially young lady ones. It just so happens that every so often, I'd like to supplant my plot with that of another, and the chasm between me and them makes me want to lash out irrationally. It's part of who I am. It's part of who you are too. It's why we gossip about celebrities, and that skank-bot at the party getting all of the attention from a certain someone. I guess that's what happens when I'm being a jerk, I put my own desire to assert my opinion before checking it with sanity and an occasional dash of sobering humility.

Will I stop being opinionated? That's an emphatic no. Even though some people would like to have it outlawed. I will, however, own up to the fact that I let my douchiness run away with me from time to time. If you can accept that about me, then hey, I'll accept that about you. Because as Professor of Life Kanye so aptly tells us (and shows us), there are D-bags everywhere. It would be silly to deny it, so maybe we should just acknowledge it and I'll try to keep it in check. And to that, I raise my glass to all of you...assholes.

twitter me this

I'm feeling conflicted. I'm only about two months in as a Twitter user, or twitterer...whatever, and I'm already having second thoughts. The novelty has certainly worn off, and there's a nagging sense of fatigue (twipression?) every time I sign on. Now that its re-design is about to be unleashed to the public, I'm wondering, what it's all worth?

I spoke to a creative consultant a few weeks back who focused on the arena of cell phone technology. At the time, the Blackberry Torch had just come out, so I asked him what all the hubbub was about. All he could say was, you find that there are very few real innovations, while there is a great deal of overblown and needlessly fawning media coverage. And suddenly, it's starting to make sense.

Twitter is/was/will be a sensation due to it's immediacy and direct link between famous, controversial, or straight-up ridiculous people and the masses. I have to say I enjoy using "the Twitter" (quoth Stephen Colbert) for a news-feed like function. Breaking news, commentary on popular events as they happen, laughing at fake Gary Busey, it's all good and fun in that respect. There are some very creative people doing interesting, informative, and funny things (see @english50cent). But all that aside, it seems to me that more often than not, my friends are passive users, only looking at what other people say rather than contributing. And now I see why.

Although we all have equal access to Twitter, we don't have equal visibility or pull. It's a hierarchy built upon gathering up as many followers as possible so that you are deemed influential, and thus, important in the spectrum ranging from Kanye rants to Bieber fan royalty (which has a social strata of its own). A good deal of people actively using twitter do so because they want to be recognized, promoted, and highlighted. It's a publicity war, waged daily on a desk top. Not only do these stratified recesses of Twitter make people want to say ridiculous things to garner a reaction, it also encourages curtailed responses, poor English, and immediate reactions with little to no reflection. The more I think about it, the less I want the Library of Congress to have a record of every character I type in that kind of environment. And every day, tweets become data sources for advertisers and marketing agencies that use hashtags and retweets like Neilson ratings.

I can't say that I'm giving up on Twitter. (How else will I find out how Kim Kardashian's cleavage is looking today?) As long as people keep talking about it, we will keep wondering if and how it's relevant and if it's making us stupid or smart or incomparably annoying. But in the flux and change of the social media landscape, we're always aware that something new is on it's way to make everything we use now obsolete. I can't help but think I'm wasting an egregious amount of time. Also, that I'm rambling off into the world wide web, my only motive being my own narcissistic will. Maybe passive usage it is. Oh look, that fake Gary Busey is at it again...

so long sweet summer

It's official. Fall is in the air. So it's appropriate and fitting to say goodbye to you, summer. I have to say it's been a good one. There's something about the change of seasons that makes things seem possible. A new promise of things to come. For me, I've started school...again, so there's that feeling of stress and excitement. There's also the nostalgia for the languid days of heat and sun that haven't quite left us, but we're ready to move on from. Needless to say, I've purchased boots.

It used to be that the end of summer meant that you had to return to real life. Since I've been living in the real world for a few years now you'd think I'd be accustomed to the fact that real life never really put itself on pause, but there's that part of me that never relinquished the freedom of sea shores and the lazy twilight of late evenings. But tonight, I can see the bright lights of the Empire State building and breathe in the cool air with ease. I'm curling up under my forgotten covers and plotting an apple picking expedition.

This summer, despite the sweltering heat of Astoria, I spent more money than I'd like to admit at the Beer Garden, I stopped to enjoy the music at the park, I cheered on the Yankees (and Mets, those poor Mets), I watched meteors fall out of the sky, and watched friends promise forever to each other. I had Shake Shack for the first time, rocked out, and froze in the movie theater. I even fell in love. But just today, sadly enough, on the day Rich Cronin of LFO passed away (oh, Summer Girls, I have a signed copy of that single somewhere in my historical vault of a bedroom in my parents house), I felt a bit robbed by how fast all these good times go by. I was listening to an album by The National that came out a few years back and lamented that I didn't know about them when "Boxer" came out. I felt cheated out of years of planning out my life soundtrack with "Fake Empire" blaring in the background. It's a feeling I can't remember having before. If only I'd known you sooner, maybe something would have been different. Somehow I think there are more moments like that to come as life goes on. It's a strange and somber feeling, and a reminder how time, opportunity, possibility, can slip away without knowing it.

I can't say these are the end of summer blues, but just a glimpse into the perspective I'm gaining as an adult. It's all the more reason to take the promise of a new season and turn it into something worthwhile. It'll be easy to get caught up in life, in school, and in myself as the months roll on to the inevitable Christmas holycrapihavenotimeormoneyforantyhing meltdown. But in any event, thank you summer. You were really something, weren't you.

And for anyone who doesn't already know, I give you The National "Fake Empire"

Stay out super late tonight
picking apples, making pies
put a little something in our lemonade and take it with us
we’re half-awake in a fake empire
we’re half-awake in a fake empire

Tiptoe through our shiny city
with our diamond slippers on
do our gay ballet on ice
bluebirds on our shoulders
we’re half-awake in a fake empire
we’re half-awake in a fake empire

Turn the light out say goodnight
no thinking for a little while
lets not try to figure out everything at once
It’s hard to keep track of you falling through the sky
we’re half-awake in a fake empire
we’re half-awake in a fake empire