Older, Wiser, and Happy To Be Half-Assed

Yesterday was my birthday.  As soon as I woke up, I thought about everything I told myself I'd do to mark the day:   quit smoking, lay off the caffeine, and eat like a grown up.  Then I rolled out of bed, made myself a Cool Whip cone, and sat down with a black cup of coffee and a cigarette.

I should know better.  I've been making and breaking promises to myself since 1972.  It's hope,  I guess --  despite all evidence to the contrary, I've continued to believe that I could do anything if I just set my mind to it.

It started in elementary school.   I vowed to lose a tenner in fourth grade, and dined on grapefruit and hard boiled eggs for an entire day before I lost my shit and ate two dozen chocolate chip cookies.  I took a self-administered oath to be well behaved at school and was in the principal's office five hours later, and, shortly after resolving to be nice to my next door neighbor, I started the "I Hate Alecia Club" in her honor.   (That's not a typo; that's how her name was spelled.  Which, obviously, was a reason to hate her.)

And so it went.  Every birthday I swore off, tried to, and didn't.  I didn't lose weight, pay every parking ticket or organize my receipts;  I didn't go to the dentist or send overdue thank you notes.   I failed to keep away from casinos, Neiman Marcus, and scabrous men, and I didn't return every call or respond to every email.  Once a decade, I'd admit to my innermost self that I had a problem with drugs, and  once a decade I'd go back to rehab.

I have plenty of willpower, but it doesn't help.  I fold, and I end up hating myself.  I think about how a better person would be able to stick to his or her vows.  Then  I  resolve to be an all-around better person --  the kind who doesn't need to give anything up in the first place -- and then I fail again.

It's vicious.

Besides,  I  have made changes.  It's just that none of them have anything to do with my annual birthday resolutions.   For me, change doesn't come on a calendar; change comes when I'm ready for it.    So, on my next birthday, I'm not resolving to do or not do anything. I'm just gonna settle in with a chocolate cake and a pack of smokes and accept my ghastly imperfections.

##########

The Unbearable Brightness Of Being and/or Extraordinary Name Dropping

Fuck.  I'm happy.  It's a problem.

Instead of writing, I delete.  I'm despicably upbeat -- which I find aesthetically unacceptable -- and I can't come up with anything dark  enough to write about.  Even conversation is a challenge;  if I only have something nice to say,  I say nothing at all.

I'm uncomfortable when I'm pleasant.  I have contempt for cheer and the cheerful.  My default is set to bleak.

As soon as I was old enough to pick out my own library books,  I picked out Nausea and The Plague.  In grade school,  I only wore black unless I was wearing Girl Scout green, and I never even joined a troop -- while my well-adjusted friends were earning merit badges,  I was smoking weed.  In a cemetery.

My first favorite song was "Bohemian Rhapsody," which I'd listen to over and over,  singing "Is this the real life/Is this just fantasy/caught in a landslide/no escape from reality" until my sister threatened to beat me up.  For a while,  I was into the Grateful Dead, but it was because of their name, not their music, which I endured solely through the grace of LSD.    When I discovered the Velvets, I discovered myself,* and that sums it up. Or it used to.  I could probably listen to "Walking On Sunshine" these days without wanting to kill myself.

The whole write-and-delete thing started in February, a month full of chronological prompts.  First was the Superbowl, when I sat in front of a blank computer screen and tried to write about a trip to Magic Mountain with Kurt and Courtney on game day in 1993.  All  I could come up with was how cool it was, and how much I love Janet Billig Rich, who organized our big day out.

On February 10, I watched the Grammys with my friend Kumar, thinking his ability to find the worst in everything would inspire me to write.  It didn't.  I thought Taylor Swift's much maligned opening was very nice -- I was pleased that she'd done a song-and dance number -- and rather than ponder the velocity of Bob Marley spinning in his grave when Rihanna, Bruno Mars, and Sting did "Could You Be Loved," I marveled at the astonishing skill and artistry required to decimate the song.    When the Academy Awards rolled around at the end of February,  I couldn't be bothered:  I was much more interested in the companionship of my friends, which was an aberration, and the availability of M&Ms, which was not.

I might have decided that the aforementioned was just a bout of sentimentality, as opposed to a fundamental change in my outlook,  if not for Valentine's Day.  Instead of getting steamed about what I've long regarded as the most hideous day of the year,  I embraced it.  Mostly, anyway:  I did consider phoning in a bomb threat to Zales Word Headquarters, but -- disappointingly -- I abandoned the idea when I realized that some poor security specialist might be forced to work overtime and thus miss out on the day's sacred celebration of luv.

It's  a problem.  And fuck.

I'm happy to be sober and back in LA, and I'm happy that I can once again hang with my closest friends.   The sun shines every day and I have piles of work,  but I'm desperate for despair.  I've had it with this joyous routine, and today I'm taking action. I'm gonna listen to Lil' Wayne and read about Dennis Rodman and Kim Jong-il, and, if I'm diligent, I might greet tomorrow with the dread it deserves.  It's hard to be happy, and I'm exhausted.

##########

*I met John Cale in 1984.  He was miserable.   It was a highlight of my life.

Sex, Drugs, and Monoman

I'd have only sketchy memories of what I was doing when I was twenty without Facebook and Google.  It  was a long time ago, yes, but that's not why I don't remember much --  I'm mostly blank because, from 1982 until 1988, I was in a constant state of inebriation.   With Google, I can sort out where I was when, based on who was playing where, and with Facebook, I can occasionally figure out what I was doing and who I was doing it with.   Last night, through a stream of semi-related comments  on Facebook, I figured out out that at some point in 1983, I was doing a show in New Hampshire, and I was doing it with Jeff "Monoman" Connoly. 

Monoman was (and still is) the Lyres. There's been a score of guitarists, bassists and drummers since the band started in 1979, but the Lyres were always Jeff's band. In 1983, they were garage rock heroes, frenzied and all over the place; Jeff would simultaneously pound his tambourine, hammer his Vox, and look over his shoulder and berate his band. According to some people, he was an asshole, but, to most of us, he was just batshit crazy. (A review in the Boston Phoenix put it this way: "Monoman is by no means a saint, but goddammit, lookit the Lyres RIGHT NOW. Their shows... have set new friggin' levels o' sheer g' damn GREATNESS.")

I'd totally forgotten that Jeff and I had a thing;  I repressed the memory in the same way I repressed memories of childhood inoculations --  I knew that it had happened, but fuck me if I was gonna think about it. My "relationship" with Monoman would have never once crossed my mind if my friend John hadn't reminded me of it on Facebook last night. "I recall you had some mono e mono action going on," he wrote.

I managed the Lyres for a while, but I wasn't sleeping with Jeff for long; if my mind's eye and a Google gigography of Lyres dates are accurate, we got together and broke up in less than six months.  Jeff was difficult, but that was ok; my problem with him was that he was flagrantly and extravagantly unfaithful.

I finally decided I'd had enough when I walked in on Jeff getting a blow job in a bathroom at the Rat. "It's just Stella," he wailed, and I'm not making that up: the woman on her knees was named Stella, and Jeff was mournfully yelling her name, not mine, as we both stormed out of the bathroom and into the club. Where, no doubt, I picked up someone else. 

I was heartbroken,  but Jeff was fine. He was eight or ten years older than I was, and he understood the transactional nature of our relationship in a way that I wasn't yet ready to grasp. Jeff was with me because he wanted me to manage his band, and it was no more noble that I was with him because he was a good lookin' fish in a small Boston pond.  It was simple. That was that.   

I continued managing the Lyres after Jeff and I  broke up -- I always loved the band -- but by 1984, I was done. The Lyres had released their second album, On Fyre, and I got the ax after I suggested that Jeff promote the album with a video in which he set himself aflame. "Think of the publicity," I said. "It'll be the first ever snuff music video."  I was serious.  He was pissed.

When I left Boston in 1987, Monoman and I weren't exactly friends, but we were cool. Jeff got a better manager, I hooked up with better fish in bigger ponds and, when I ran into him on the corner of Newbury and Mass Ave in 1998, I was happy about it.   He wasn't:  he took one look at me and ran the other way. Jeff probably thought I still wanted to set him on fire, which, in a repressed kind of way, I probably did.

My friends did less drugs and they remember more, and, unless I'm willing to open up an 80's can of punk rock peas, I've gotta be careful about what I post on Facebook.  I'm  traumatized today, but I know that, like Jeff, the trauma will fade, and in another year or two, I'll be ready to listen to the Lyres again.  For me, the music lasts forever, and -- thankfully -- the memories don't.  

##########

Don't Give It Up Now: The Lyres, 1984

Honey, I'm Home, or Swimming Pools, Movie Stars

I shouldn't have been shaky about covering the junket for Hansel and Gretel Witch Hunters 3D this past weekend.  I mean, while I may have taken public transportation to the  Four Seasons -- the site of the junket -- I'm not  exactly fresh off the bus.  I've been doing this for a long time.  

If I'd rolled up to the hotel in a Jaguar instead of the Metro 720, my heart might have been less poundy, but I doubt it.  It's  been three years since I've been anywhere near a movie star and, back then, the movie stars in my orbit were mostly pop stars angling for a crossover.  (It's not all that much of a challenge to talk to Jon Bon Jovi, Mariah Carey or Christina Aguilera --  those interviews require just one question, and it doesn't matter what it is.  I could ask each of those people what they'd eaten for breakfast, and each answer would be the same:  "I've always wanted to act.")   

I know the Four Seasons well. I have a two-decade history of debauchery there, and, although I  was apprehensive about the junket, I was soothed by the familiarity of the location.  When I got into the elevator, it got better --  I was surrounded by camera-ready men and women wearing credentials and talking smack, and I felt, finally, like I was back where I belonged. 

But, despite the incredibly welcoming and efficient Paramount people and the presence of cookies,  I was quaking again when I got to the hospitality suite.  I'd arrived 30 minutes early, which wasn't a good idea: it gave me an additional 30 minutes to psyche myself out.  By the time I was on deck for my interview with Jeremy Renner and Gemma Arterton -- a/k/a Hansel and Gretel -- I'd convinced myself that I was wholly incapable of conducting four-minute interviews about an action film based on a fairy tale.    

"What drew you towards this film?" I imagined myself asking Jeremy.  

"What drew me towards this film?  Really? Is that the best you can do?"  he'd respond, going dead in the eyes as I smartly directed my next question to Gemma.   

 "Do you have memories of reading Hansel and Gretel as a child?" I'd ask.

"No, I suffer from amnesia, and, god willing, I will forget about this horrible interview and your very existence the moment you leave the room," she'd say, looking at her publicist, who'd throw the wrap sign and walk me to the door as Gemma and Jeremy rolled their eyes and mocked me.  

Thankfully, when it came time to do the interviews, it didn't happen that way. I worked up enough composure not to throw up, and, while I didn't make the best use of the allotted time, I did ok. Famke Janssen was warm and talkative and the film's director, Tommy, was completely cool. (I pointlessly questioned him about the badass Hansel and Gretel soundtrack, and, although he was psyched that I'd asked about the music, he was equally disturbed. I forget that I'm old and my enthusiasm for Nine Inch Nails and Animal Alpha can be upsetting.) 
  

Gemma was lovely.  Jeremy was present.  My first question made Gemma laugh, and Jeremy even grinned and said something.  Unfortunately, I have no idea what it was;  when I turned to look at him, I went into a trance. I was gobsmacked, and I won't know what two-time Academy Award nominee Jeremy Renner said until I listen back to my 3-minute-20-second interview.   

When I left, I was so happy that I pretty much skipped out of the suite.  It went well, and that was good, but what was better was this:  I thought I was nervous about doing the junket, but, as it turns out, I was just excited.  I spent the better part of Saturday in a suite at the Four Seasons doing a job that involved talking to movie stars, and I've been away long enough to know how cool that is.   Right now, I'm not cynical or jaded, and,  until someone asks me to interview Pitbull or Kesha, I'm gonna stay that way. 

             ##########

I haven't written about the specifics of the story or the film because I don't want to break any rules. There could be an embargo, and the boss of this assignment could be embarrassed to be associated with me.  But I loved Hansel and Gretel Witch Hunters 3D and, in the least cynical way,  I loved having the opportunity to cover it. 

End Credits: Animal Alpha
Witch Hunters/Red Band Trailer

Chapter One

That's what I'm working on.  Chapter One.  I've finally made some progress on my imaginary book -- I turned in an outline -- and now I have to do the unthinkable.  Write it.

So, until something goes so far up my ass that I'm compelled to write about it,  I'm taking a break from blogging.    

See you in about ten or fifteen minutes.

##########

The Grammy Nominations (Live!!) and/or Sour Grapes

I wanted to write about the Grammy Nominations Live!! (sic) last week, but every time I sat down to write I decided I wanted to eat instead.   I wanted blueberry muffins, cold toast on a silver platter, and croissants with jam in tiny jars; I wanted pale green melon on chilled white plates and coffee from an urn.  For me, the Grammy nominations mean one thing -- an early morning continental breakfast-slash-press conference  at the Beverly Hilton or the Beverly Hills Hotel -- and not a prime time television event.  I do not approve.  

Miss Ross.

Yes, I'm hopelessly stuck in the past and resistant to change, but that's not why.  I don't approve because a Grammy press conference is far more practical than a bigass Made-for-TV special.   If the Grammy nominations were announced at the Beverly Hilton, there would be no need for Ne-Yo to sing.  Miss Ross wouldn't have had to take a night off from the Voice to show up with his rock combo,The Maroon Five, and Sheryl Crow could have stayed in bed.  Janelle Monae wouldn't have had to haul out her fancy Garanimals, and my girl Taylor Swift would never have had to introduce fun.

"When you call your band fun. with a period at the end of the sentence, you set a very high standard for yourself and for fun itself," she said, kindly keeping from pointing out that the people who wrote the Grammy scripts were not setting very high standards for themselves.  "Fortunately, this band from New York has lived up to the name in the best possible way."  

I know that because I read it on  EW.com. I didn't actually watch the Grammy Nominations Live!! because a) I don't have live (or Live!!) television and b) I had to wash my hair or something.  

Miss Monae.

Back when it was a press conference, the Grammy nominations were a blast. On the West Coast, it was obscenely early; it was timed so that the East Coast morning shows could go live with the headlines.  It was an event for us -- "us" being the publicists, reporters, and producers -- and, even 12 or 14 years in, I looked forward to it.  We'd sit in upholstered banquet chairs, taking notes and occasionally cheering or rolling our eyes, and we'd frantically climb over one another to get to the few phone banks once the final nominations were announced.   Billy Bush tripped me once, on purpose, but other than that, I felt like all of us -- people working for competing labels, competing papers, or competing networks -- were able to come together.   While we were in that room -- before anyone got to the phones or got on the air -- the Grammy nominations were ours alone.

Those days may be over, but a lot of the same people are still around, and, if they watched the Grammy Nominations Concert Live!!, it was probably because they were there. Otherwise, we may be scattered, but we'll be forever bound by the desire for carbs, the warmth of nostalgia, and the need to know why anyone, ever, would name their band fun.

##########

When New Things Happen To Old People

I’ve been in denial. 

I was convinced that the mailed offers to join AARP were sent in error, and, when an ad for a dating service appeared on my Facebook page, I thought that the “Date 50+ Men” headline meant I could date more than 50 men. Even as I found myself choosing Simon and Garfunkel  over  Slayer, and opting for sensible rather than sexy shoes, I didn’t get it.  I didn’t figure it out until a week ago:  I’m old. 

The realization hit me while I was standing on a packed bus on Wednesday.  This guy gave me the once-over and smiled, and, given that my last date was in 1997,  I smiled back.  He wasn’t my type, but he wasn’t unattractive, and, unlike many of my fellow passengers, he wasn’t talking to himself.  I fixed him with my best come-hither stare and watched expectantly as he got up from his seat and sauntered towards me.  

“Ma’am?” he asked.  “Would you like to sit down?” 

I responded by asking him if he’d like a kick in the tuchus,which is something my grandmother, an old Jewish lady, would have said.

It’s not that I was surprised or even unprepared; I knew that if I continued to ride crowded buses and trains, some asshole of a do-gooder would eventually inquire as to my ability to stand.  Besides, I’ve been wisecracking about my age since I was 30, when I started saying I was too old to see any band after sundown and insisted on being home by Hal.* But it’s one thing to joke about oneself being “seasoned" -- as we called out-of-demo actors at E! --  and another thing for it to be confirmed by someone else.

As much as I'd like to, I can't really complain -- I got away with acting like a teenager until I was well into my 40s.  Further,  there’s an upside to getting old:   with age comes wisdom, and less standing up.  

##########

*Home by Hal is a tribute to the late Hal Fishman, who anchored the 10:00 PM KTLA news for centuries, and is sorely missed.