Mike and Lindsay

The first names I remember really liking - you know for my babydolls or imaginary playmates or maybe my persona in a game of pretend - were Mike, Lindsay, and Michelle.  Something about those mid-alphabet consonants just did it for me.  I think I liked Michelle because it sounded exotic to me; like the beach.  You know: Mi-shell.

One of my earliest memories is being out in the garden with my mom while she weeded the flower bed outside our playroom.  I remember trundling around the lawn pulling a red wagon after me.  The wagon was heavy and bigger than me and hard to pull.  It was filled with blocks - undoubtedly the sawed-off ends of two by fours from one of my dad's myriad projects.

Every so often I'd check in with my mom.  Any worms she found during her gardening she put aside for me.  Every time I made another round I put them in the wagon.  But first I had a big decision to make: what to name the worms?  Mike and Lindsay, obviously.  

I probably had like 25 worms in there by the end.  Once I took out all the wood blocks (which was probably a strenuous task for my little baby arms) and faced all those worms I had a dilemma - who was Mike and who was Lindsay?  How do you tell boy worms apart from girl worms?

I don't know why none of those worms were named Michelle.  Maybe they weren't exotic enough...

Iggy Motherfucking Pop

I never published this draft for some reasons, so here it is now, two years later! Xoxox:

On June 8th, one of my long-cherished dreams, one of those pinnacle moments of my adulthood arrived, and I saw one of my icons in concert.  Iggy Pop.  It's been a long time coming.

I originally got introduced to Iggy Pop by the roundabout way of glam-rock homage Velvet Goldmine.  I was super-obsessed with that movie in high school.  A lot of the music that, to this day, is a corner-stone of my musical taste, originates from discovery of that movie.  But let's be honest, this helped a lot too:

CURT WILD

Curt Wild is the character in Velvet Goldmine who's based (mostly) on Iggy Pop, played by Ewan MacGregor, and I was SO hot for him.  Watching a the scene in which he sings TV Eye, I now recognize that Iggy is FAR superior, but nevertheless, there's a part of my soul that's starry-eyed teenaged girl, hoping to see Curt Wild up there on stage, jacking glitter into the crowd.  

Throughout college I spent a lot of time listening to eighties music, David Bowie, and early punk/new wave.  My taste always leaned towards something a little more grungy than poppy, a little more dark and disonant, and, well, raw.  I spent a lot of my time in New Orleans in grungy dive bars with great juke boxes drinking cheap, strong gin and tonics.  That's where I rediscovered Iggy Pop.  

Now, to be clear, I'm no expert.  I've never been great with knowing albums back to front, A to Z, etc.  Although I can be really anal about some things, with music I tend to follow what I like and not worry about song titles.  By that I mean I'm no expert on Iggy Pop.  I've listened most to his (I think) solo stuff as Iggy Pop, but his band was (is) called The Stooges.  You should ask my friend Neil (he guest posted that great thing about hipsters!) if you want to know the ins and outs of what albums came out when, how many times the band broke up and who was in which iteration.  I don't know the history.  I just love the music and the aesthetic. 

And I think Iggy Pop is one cool motherfucker.  He hung out with David Bowie and Lou Reed and made awesome music and is so unashamedly himself.  It's awesome.  The man is the definition of rock star.  

The man is 66 years old and he still has it.  The show kicked ass.

A big week for getting hired

I just got hired at Horsethief BBQ.  It's a new restaurant opening in downtown LA at the Grand Central Market.

  My feelings are mixed about returning to the food service industry.  When I left Parkway in October I felt pretty sure that I never wanted to work in a restaurant again. (I've said that before, and look where it got me.)  I wanted to be only an artist, and to pursue creative jobs.

I feel a little differently now though.  I wouldn't change the past eight months in any way; leaving Parkway Grill was absolutely the right choice.  Taking the space to experiment, explore, and turn my energy whichever way my fancy led was one of the best decisions of my life.  I've had a ball, and I've done a lot!  I got started in the world of art modeling, I filmed two shorts (Chugging Gone Wrong made it into a festival, and Chatty Cathy Goes to Yoga is still being edited), and I worked as an art director on an indie feature called The Frontier, among other things.  All that stuff is wonderful, and some of it pays well, but I miss a steady paycheck.

Don't worry!  I'm not turning my back on art for the sake of money!  I'm not giving up!  I'm being honest with myself.  I was lucky enough to have a cushion to lean on all this time, but I don't want to get to a point where there's no cushion left.  I have to be honest with myself and recognize that I'm a better artist when I'm not worried about money all the time.  Working on The Frontier for the past month and a half I've had a regular paycheck, and it's been a huge weight off.  Admittedly, I had no time to create anything, but I had a different sort of mental freedom.

And this job feels different.  For one thing, I am bringing in money doing things I'm passionate about, like modeling and art directing and acting.  (I actually just got hired on Monday to start working at Otis College of Art and Design to model for fashion illustration!)  That gives me the luxury of wanting and asking for part-time hours at Horsethief.  And also: these guys  opening this restaurant are like me!  They're new to what they're doing and they're excited.  They're young and passionate and they have a vision.  They're building something and they asked me to be part of it.  

I suppose I'm the thing that has changed.  Or maybe I'm always changing; that may be the only truly constant factor in life.  All I know is that sometimes I introduce myself as an actor, and sometimes it's model.  Sometimes I call myself an art director, or a figure model, or lately an art model.  Sometimes I'm a street artist, or a designer of tee-shirts.  And much of the time, in my head, it's simply: artist.  Will adding server back onto that list be such a bad thing?  I don't think so.  (Maybe I should call myself a BBQ artist.)  And what have I got to lose?  Nothing.  

Coming soon!  My adventures at the Iggy Pop show with Neil!

A Collaboration

Jeremy and I collaborated with our friend, makeup artist Vyvy Tran, on this mermaid inspired photo shoot.  I haven't quite known how to share these photos, because they are evocative.  However I love them, and want to share them with you.

Chatty Cathy Goes to Yoga

All right folks, hold on to your seats, cause I've got some news for you!  Chatty Cathy is coming to life!  

That's right - I'm preparing to film my next short: "Chatty Cathy Goes to Yoga".  I am so excited about this project that I may wet myself.  It's scary and exciting at the same time; I'm taking this very modest little short that I wrote almost a year ago and turning it into a short film for the web.  "Chatty Cathy Goes to Yoga" (CCGY) is a more ambitious undertaking than my last short, Chugging Gone Wrong for many reasons: it's longer, I have to rent a yoga studio to shoot at, I'm using union actors so I have to go through the union, and it's also dearer to my heart.  I'm lucky though, because I have some really dear friends helping me to produce it.  

The funds I need to produce this short are modest, but I've decided to use Kickstarter to raise funds for my project.  Kickstarter describes itself as, "a funding platform for creative projects".  Basically, I set up a page for my project with a financial goal, and then offer various rewards if people donate.  My goal is $250 (like I said, modest), but I'm hoping to raise more.  The catch with Kickstarter is that if you don't meet your goal, you don't get the money and no one is charged.  So I wanted to start with a small attainable number that I knew I could reach.  If you visit the Kickstarter page you can take a look at all this information, and donate yourself.

It's hard for me to tell you everything about this short concisely, because I've been working on it for so long. It was born out of this blog, and my journey over these past two years, and my love of yoga.  Making Chatty Cathy Goes to Yoga wouldn't be possible without you, Readers, and so I want to thank you.  And I also want to give you the opportunity to be part of my process.  If you can find just $5 to donate, it would make a world of difference to me, and then you can see for yourself what happens when your awkward heroine (me) ventures into the world of yoga.

In case you didn't get it above, here's the link to the Kickstarter page.  Please check it out and share it:

In which I pose new questions to myself

I had to cancel a job at Dreamworks this week.

Yeah, that's right, that Dreamworks.  Don't get excited - I didn't book the voice of their next heroine, I was scheduled to be figure modeling.

Yeah, that's right, that figure modeling.  If you were wondering what I have been doing for work since I quit the restaurant, that's your primary answer.  I've also been acting and modeling for regular old photo shoots, you know, with clothes on.  But I'm not ashamed to admit that I've been modeling live in classes at schools and animation studios, sometimes in the nude.

This is kind of a weird thing to admit publicly.  I've certainly never been ashamed of my body, as many (most) of you know.  And perhaps this is part of my quest to accept my body no matter what it look like.

I guess this is about self-love.  The whole thing.  The whole question: what I'm writing about on the micro and the macro level.  I want to love my self fully, whether I'm feeling bloated and sluggish or strong and fit.  I want to love my self fully, up to the point of admitting that figure modeling is way more fun than waiting tables, and I enjoy doing it.

Does that make me an exhibitionist?  I prefer not to go there.  I prefer to think about the fact that I'm joining the ranks of people - particularly women - who worked with and inspired Matisse and Van Gogh and Picasso and Da Vinci and Basquiat and Renoir and Degas and on and on.  (Based on the artists I came up with you can probably guess just how many times I studied Impressionism in French class.)  I've joined a time-honored profession, while doing something creative and challenging.

Because, let me tell you, it's hard.  A figure model need to be comfortable taking off their robe in front of a room full of strangers, and coming up with visually dynamic poses they can hold for as long as 25 minutes.  You'd be surprised what parts of your body can twitch.  A figure model needs the mental focus to observe the twitching of their arm but not to move it.  A figure model needs get over the fact that some people, from some different points of view, may see their genitals.  (You'll notice this entire discussion is neutral-gendered; although I haven't met any, there are male figure models, and I wouldn't want to alienate them.  Also, that way I don't have to write the word vagina in my blog.)  In short, a figure model needs to be fearless.

And fearlessness is what it's all about.  I'm not saying I don't fear anything; fear in the proper dosage is a healthy thing.  I'm just saying that I don't want to live my life based on decisions made from fear.

So why did I cancel the gig?   I'll just say that I wasn't feeling well and leave it at that (I wouldn't want to be gross or anything).  Having to assess my ability to work in that way was a new experience.  Working in a restaurant if I didn't feel well, no matter what my ailment, I'd try to power through the shift.  In this case though, I had to ask myself some serious questions:  Was I physically able to pose for two hours?  Would worrying about being sick affect my ability to do my job well?  Figure modeling has a whole new set of rules.  I haven't explored these waters, and it feels like I'm navigating blind.

So I was bummed not to work at Dreamworks.  But hopefully I'll get more work there - they were very understanding.  And who knows what the future will bring?

Will the Real Hipster Please Stand Up! A guest post by Neil Stevens

The hipsters are coming!  You cannot avoid it, they are seemingly everywhere.  No not the hipsters themselves.  But people bitching about hipsters.

Log into Facebook, fire up your Twitter account, peruse some disingenuous Huffpo headline, or stand near a group of people at your favorite watering hole and you will hear it.  Yes, America loves to hate “hipsters”.   In fact they have surpassed the Jersey Shore self proclaimed “guidos” as our favorite demographic of people to hate.

Who are these hipsters? Living in Los Feliz on the border of Silverlake, recently voted by Forbes Magazine as the hippest hipster neighborhood in America, I would think to be awash with swaths of these overdressed, pompus, Groucho-looking  hipsters.  Yet I am not sure I have ever met one.

Of course no hipster would ever actually admit to being one, because that would be well, really unhip. But even alleged hipsters seem to also hate hipsters. If so many people are complaining about them, where are they?  And more importantly, how do we know they are a real hipster?

Therein lies the source of the problem. Ask anyone to identify a hipster and you will receive a hundred different responses. A hipster is a bearded man with skinny jeans, a skully cap, and way too thick rimmed glasses who plays kickball on Saturdays. No wait, a hipster is an unemployed pseudo-intellectual, living on their parent’s dole, using their film theory degree from Portland State to create finger paintings to hang at the local coffee shop. Better yet! A hipster is a self absorbed, holier than thou craven delighted to mock all typical conventions of “normal folk”, while pledging allegiance to no conventions whatsoever (except the denial of all conventions of course).

It’s almost as if “hipster” has become a kind of blanket insult for “things I don’t like”. A projection of people’s anxieties, often centered on appearance, class, or attitude.  If there is one thing we love to do as a society, it is to collectively hate a group of people and NOT feel guilty about it.  And hipsters offer a perfect target. 

Unlike say Mormons or Scientologists, a couple other groups we love to mock, the so called hipster celebrates non conformity and therefore has no central command to defend themselves.  There are no hipster meetups (Yo La Tengo concerts notwithstanding) or dues paying members. They do not have a spokesperson nor a board of directors, though if they did I am sure Fred Armisen and Wes Anderson would be invited.

If you ask me who the hipsters are, I have my own definition.   I say, people who make fun of hipsters are the real hipsters. That’s right. I mean seriously, what is more “hipsterish” than a group of people standing around making sarcastic remarks and labeling others whom live a different lifestyle from their own?  Are they not castigating the behavior of hipsters by adopting that very same behavior?

But the truth of the matter is, there are no real hipsters. Sure, there are unemployed art students, people who wear scarves in the Spring, people who wear rimmed glasses with perfect vision and drink PBR, people who ride retro bicycles and eat only artisanal foods, and people who smoke American Spirits and use Kickstarter to fund their indie film project. And yes, if these people move to your neighborhood the price of rent and kale will probably be going up.  But I am sure there is something about your own lifestyle that just screams HIPSTER in the eyes of someone else.

In that way, since there are no real hipsters, there is also a little bit of hipster in all of us. So I say embrace it!  It’s really not so bad.  There are worse things in the world than getting together to play Parcheezi and discuss how Twin Peaks is the best TV series ever. Not that we own TV’s of course.

 --Neil Stevens

Hi

I haven't blogged in ages!  Can you forgive me?  I hope so.  These days when I sit down at the computer I tend to watch It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia or I end up playing SUPER nerdy games online.  Or looking for work.

But don't fear!  This blog is my mainstay!  I may be on a bit of a hiatus at the moment, but I've got blog posts percolating.  And in the MEANTIME I have a VERY exciting surprise for you.  A guest post!  My dear friend Neil wrote a piece and requested that I publish it here.  Naturally I'm very flattered, as well as excited to keep moving things forward in new directions.  So on to the next post!

xoxox

Mr Scruffy has a tawny mottled coat. His bony spine shows clearly as he trots around kitty town. Sometimes he comes to my sliding glass door and looks in, meowing.

Mr Scruffy is one the neediest cats I've ever met. He follows you around constantly, practically howling. "Love me! Somebody left me once! Please, somebody want me!"

But nobody wants Mr Scruffy. Even when indoors and fully fed, he still follows you around like a shell-shocked child, meowing. It's as if he's listening for your response, to assure himself you're still there. You can't take a cat like that. Not in this economy. He looks old and sick. And he shits outside the catbox.

Mr Scruffy breaks my heart. I wish I could take him in; that I could be the one to want him. I wish I could be Miranda July to Scruffy's Future. But I can't. I've got my own cat to care for, and an unsteady income.

I see my neighbors interacting with Mr Scruffy, leading him to bowls of food. But no one wants to take him into their home. Even the other cats stay away from him. As if he's bad luck. Poor Bad Luck Scruff. What do we do? Where will he go? Who will love him?

My 2012