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Four score and seven beers ago

October 30, 2011

On the great big list of Things I Love, you’ll find costumes, morbid stuff, vampires, fake eyelashes and making people uncomfortable. Put all of that together, and you can see why Halloween is my most favorite holiday of all time.

Every year it’s like getting a big, gift-wrapped package from Edward Gorey, addressed to me.

Hooray for creepy crawlies and ghouly goblins and things that go bump in the night!

In the past few years, however, I’ve been disappointed to see all the whored-up women’s Halloween costumes. It’s beyond ridiculous.

Sexy remote control?

Get it? You can mute her. And I don’t even know where those batteries are supposed to go.

Also, sexy chicken waitress slaughterer lady thingie?

I don’t get it.

A couple years ago, one of my friends even dressed as a sexy mummy. A SEXY MUMMY. Crazy, right? The whole thing about mummies is that they are inherently not sexy. They are part of the undead. They are dehydrated, and they have their brains pulled out of their noses, and eventually they go on to star in Brendan Fraser movies. And none of that is sexy.

It takes all the fun out of Halloween when nobody wants to be funny or silly or frightening or decaying. Just slutty.

So this year, as I prepared for a pub crawl through Palm Springs, I decided to mock the trend by taking a traditionally unsexy but recognizable character and giving him a slut overhaul.

Ladies and gentlemen, I present Baberaham Lincoln.

Also, I’ve been reading “Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter.”

I just thought it was a silly way to laugh at all the overtly “sexy” Halloween costumes. Little did I know how many pervs would actually want to make out with Honest Abe.

It was still a lot of fun though. A lot of folks wanted their photo taken with me. A few people thanked me for emancipating their people. I got a lot of random shouts from passers-by on the street: “Hey, you’re my favorite president!” “I see you on the penny!” “Don’t get shot!”

And I got to dance around and act silly with my best friends.

My favorite moment from the night happened when we all piled into my friend’s car, like the start of some bad joke. “So a wine goddess, Pebbles Flintstone, Abe Lincoln and a chicken get into a Toyota …”.

REO Speedwagon came on the radio and we cranked it up for a top-of-our-lungs singalong. Except we only knew every fourth word or so.

“Thinking blah blah blah lies

Nah nah nah bedroom eyes

You say something something something when …

YOU TAKE IT ON THE RUN BABY! If wah wah want it BABY! You’re under the gun so you TAKE IT ON THE RUN!”

Also, I woke up with a purse full of candy. Tell me that’s not a great holiday.

Ring my bell. Or don’t.

October 25, 2011

So I have a phone now, which makes this a very exciting and frightening time for me.

On the one hand, I love my phone. Specifically, I love iPhones. I love that my iPhone has a pink case with birds on it. I love that it is filled with magical gnomes who fetch my email and play Scrabble with me.

Mostly, I love that Siri is my little bitch and has to do what I say. I can push her around in three different languages, not including UK English or Aussie English. (UK English doesn’t even count because Siri takes on a masculine voice and never understands my commands, even when I use my best Bridget Jones accent. And Oz Siri sounds like Robot Olivia Newton John, which is terrifying).

I am very attached to my phone. I would have my hands surgically replaced with iPhones if I could. Except then I think it would be really hard to use them.

That said, I hate telephones. They terrify me. I never understood how people could casually say, “Oh, just give me a call!” like it’s the easiest thing in the world. When I have to make a phone call, my palms sweat. I break out in hives. I imagine all the things the person on the other end is doing, and I feel terrible for intruding in their world. It feels so needy, like dropping by someone’s house unannounced, clanging a bell at their head and screaming “Answer me! Answer me!”

I am not even comfortable calling for pizza.

Unfortunately, extreme phone phobia is not a great quality in a journalist. I used to make my phone rounds when I was confident the person was unable to answer — dialing his or her office line at 5 a.m., for instance — thus forcing them to return my call, since I’m more comfortable answering the phone than I am initiating. That’s not always a reasonable approach, though, and it sometimes took hours for me to muster up the courage to make just one call. I’m lucky that newspapers have relatively forgiving deadlines.

I don’t know why I can make hundreds of skydives without batting one pretty little eyelash. But put a telephone in front of me, and I crumble.

The past year of travel sans phone was glorious. Yes, an iPhone was part of my gear. But since I no longer had a contract and didn’t jailbreak the phone, I could only use it for wifi, notes and various apps.

Having no phone was remarkably liberating. When people wanted to talk to me, they had to find me. I received handwritten notes slipped under my door. I had messages left at the corner store or at a hostel desk or with baristas. When I made plans to meet friends at the coffee shop at 2 p.m., they actually had to be at the coffee shop at 2 p.m. What a concept! There was none of this business of calling and saying, “Oh, something came up. Can we do this tomorrow?”

When I returned to the U.S., I tried to avoid getting a phone as long as I could. I used Skype sometimes. I borrowed my husband’s phone. I’ve been sending a lot of emails. But having my own cellphone does make things easier, especially when I’m going to school, running my own freelance business and making appointments.

Also, the iPhone 4S wooed me with her luscious curves, thin frame and sexy talk.

My phone phobia is gradually getting better, especially since the world has embraced other platforms for communication. I don’t feel forced into phone conversations anymore, since I can easily Facebook, text or tweet people instead. I also don’t have a newsroom full of colleagues sitting nearby, listening in to my interviews, rolling their eyes at my questions, trying to talk to me at the same time. And now that I’m not doing any hardcore journalism, there are very few occasions in which the person on the other end of my call will get all screamy and instruct me to go die.

To help with my recovery, I’ve been stashing away some celebrity phone numbers, and I look forward to having an epic prank call night in the near future. “Is your refrigerator running, Anthony Bourdain? Well, you’d better go catch it!”

Steve Poltz and a kale salad

October 7, 2011

I’m a firm believer that almost everything you need to know about a person can be determined over lunch.

It’s certainly a far better gauge of personality than the music they download, the clothes they wear or the car they drive. I always get so frustrated when I’m watching “Law and Order” and the cops find all their clues by looking at the victim’s bookshelf. I end up screaming at the TV, “That book doesn’t mean your victim was in a cult! Maybe she went through a harmless Wiccan phase!”

No, if you really want some insight into a person, just grab lunch. (Obviously that’s not an option for the “L&O” cops, since their victim is dead and therefore is not a quality lunch companion. But this is my analogy, and it works for me.)

My theory was confirmed the other day when I grabbed a salad with Steve Poltz, a musician I have liked for a long time.

This is Steve. I stole this photo off his website.

If you aren’t already familiar with Steve Poltz, here’s the quick and dirty low-down: He hails from Palm Springs. He formed a band called The Rugburns, and they played all over the world. The band eventually parted ways, but Steve Poltz continues to play solo. He dated the singer Jewel for a while and wrote a lot of songs for/with her, including the hit “You Were Meant for Me.” You can also see him in the video for that tune.

He’s the one who is not Jewel.

You might also remember this Jeep commercial, which used his song, “You Remind Me.”

I used to listen to The Rugburns when I was growing up in Ohio. Those were the pre-internet years, when a teenager in the Midwest had to acquire new music by any means necessary, which included using fake IDs to get into 21-and-up shows, trading music with your friends and shoplifting. I was so hungry for music, I would use a VCR to tape the MTV show “120 Minutes,” then play it back while I held my cassette player against the speaker to record the music from the TV. The result was scratchy and shitty and low quality, but it was music and it fed me.

I damn near wore out my cassette tape of The Rugburns’ “Morning Wood,” my reward for trading in albums by Public Image Limited and Frente.

“Morning Wood” was a fixture in my little red Chevette (no relation to the Prince song), until the tape met an untimely end during an irrational, hallucinogen-fueled drive to Chillicothe in the middle of the night.

RIP, beloved Rugburns tape. Now I will just enjoy your songs on YouTube.

Through happenstance and a great friend named Dean Lockwood, I ended up having lunch with Steve Poltz the other day. It was delightful. Here’s what I learned about him.

1. Steve Poltz stands up to greet people.

2. He has a firm handshake. Not aggressive, not floppy, but appropriately in the middle.

3. He is kind to servers. As someone who was once a waitress, I can tell you this is a huge indication of overall character.

4. He ordered the kale salad, a meal that is both nourishing and hearty without any added pretense. That probably says something about Steve, but I’m not going to go so far as to compare him to kale. Also, he ate his food with gusto but paused long enough to offer everyone else a bite.

5. He politely listened to all of my boring stories. If you know me at all, you also know I tend to babble when I get nervous or excited. So the fact that Steve Poltz put up with this and was still nice to me by the end of the meal — well, that says a lot.

6. He really, truly loves making music. Steve has spent decades on the road — not for adulation and fortune it could bring, but because he genuinely enjoys doing it. He has a strong musical point of view, and he has remained true to his artistic integrity.

Put all of that together, and you’ll understand why I can’t wait for Steve’s show next weekend in Palm Springs. Proceeds from the backyard benefit concert will raise money for the Palm Springs Kiwanis Club literacy program and the Boys & Girls Club. (Cool piece of trivia: Steve Poltz participated in the local Boys & Girls Club program in the 1970s.)

The show is Saturday, Oct. 15 and is a mere $20. Click here for tickets.

I’m definitely going to be there on Saturday. So is my dad.

If you don’t already have plans, show your support for some good causes and a good-guy musician. And if you do already have plans, break them. This is going to be worth it.

Siriously, I want this phone

October 5, 2011

Apple unveiled the new member of the iPhone family today, iPhone 4S.

No, this wasn’t the completely redesigned iPhone 5 many of us were expecting. For that fact alone, a bunch of people bitched and moaned and sprained their eyes with all the rolling.

But not me. I am an unapologetic Apple groupie. I want whatever they’re selling, no matter what it is. They could actually unveil an apple and I’d buy it.

Behold! The iApple.

My love affair with Apple products runs long and deep. We used the Apple II in school, back when screens were black and green and everybody died of dysentery in the Oregon Trail game. My first printer was named Wozniak. I took a Mac to college and carried my trusty iPod mini around the world. My version of heaven is filled with apps.

And I damn near make out with all this electric candy, as you can see in this photo of my now-vintage iPhone.

The thing is that I’m an early adapter. So I enthusiastically buy the products when they’re hot and fresh, and then I can’t afford to get the newer, better, more updated versions later. Like that iPhone you just saw in the photo? That’s the phone I still use. It’s not even compatible with half the apps in the app store.

It’s about time I get a new phone. And I can’t imagine anything better than the new iPhone 4S — except maybe Steve Jobs himself, riding a unicorn made of cotton candy on my front porch.

The new iPhone 4S is everything I ever needed and some things I haven’t even thought of yet. It’s faster! It has an 8 megapixel camera! And it comes with a personal assistant named Siri! Do you know how long I’ve needed a personal assistant named Siri? Well, not long at all. But now that I know she’s out there, I covet her.

All the minimalist stuff I’ve been preaching for the past couple years? It is a facade. Because all I want to do is walk into an Apple store when the new phone is released on Oct. 14, hand over my credit card and say, “Gimme everything you got.” Then I’ll wallpaper my room with iPhones and listen to Siri reprimand me for going over budget. I want to roll around on a stack of iPhones like Scrooge McDuck with his piles of money. I want to crawl up inside an iPhone and let it rock me to sleep.

This is the first phone that makes me wish I had more shit to do. As it is, I live a freelancer lifestyle with not very many appointments. But that won’t stop me from pushing Siri around and demanding, “Phone, reschedule my walk with the dog for 9:15. Phone, add wine to the grocery list. Phone, remind me to shower.”

Oct. 14 cannot get here fast enough.

Month of fun: Day 28

September 28, 2011

My bike is a commuter bike.

I bought it for the purpose of getting me places. Picking up groceries. Running errands. Riding to the coffee shop.

It is not built for speed or anything extreme.

But it is AWESOME. Chocolate body, blue rims, cream saddle and handles. I attached a silver wire basket on the front handlebars, which made my neighbor squeal, “Ooh, girl! Look at your little Toto basket!”

Also, I have a bell. I ring it frequently and inappropriately.

Sometimes I go out riding in the mornings and I catch myself grumbling and swearing. I get 10 kinds of frustrated over the fact that I’m not going as fast as the people on zoomy $2,000 Trek bikes. And that’s when I have to step back and remind myself, “Girl, you have a Toto basket. You are here for FUN.”

Today I rode farther than I ever have before. I came to a long stretch of road near Indian Canyons, where a beggar was camped out in the creosote bushes. He was draped over a stack of buckling cardboard boxes and bulging plastic bags. As I got closer, the man leapt to his feet.

“Oh no,” I instinctively thought. “What’s he going to do?”

Then the man smiled so wide, I swore the sun was peeking out from his teeth.

“There you go! There you GO!” he cheered and clapped his hands. “You are winning this race! Everyone else is behind you. Stay strong!”

It was wonderful. How could my day possibly go wrong after having my own personal cheerleader first thing in the morning?

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