Love games: A radio prank makes a sympathizer out of me
“Who’re you gonna believe, me or your lyin’ eyes?”
—Richard Pryor
It was in his last column, I believe, that my colleague over there on Page 5 wrote about listening to some God-awful God-radio. I read it and thought, Jesus, Decker is losing it. Who listens to the radio anymore? And then I felt something in my eye. It was my contact, which had managed to fold in half and lodge itself somewhere up under my eye-lid, but at that point it might as well have been a log.
Driving to my job (which is on life-support, by the way) last Thursday morning, I’d had just about all I could take of KPBS’ Dwayne Brown stammering during the… uh… news… where, uhhh… news… uh… matters. The first thing you learn in Speech 103 at City College is not to say “uh” in public speaking. A beat or two of silence is better than an “uh”—I don’t care if your voice is like warmed honey-butter on cornbread. C’mon! Is it really that hard to read your lines? It’s the news. It’s traffic. It’s call numbers, for Pete’s sake. Move over and gimme that microphone.
I have the option to program 12 stations on my car stereo, but I lost interest after setting four. And so I toggle from left to right: Jazz 88, KPBS, KCRW and Magic 92.5. Jazz 88 was spinning hard-bop that morning, which isn’t my thing. And KCRW wasn’t playing music. So I settled on Magic 92.5. Sometimes, if I’m lucky enough to avoid the commercial part of commercial radio, I can roll into the office with a little Marvin Gaye-inspired tingle. One song can change the trajectory of an entire week.
Last week, though, I happened to tune in just as DJ Power Couple Jagger and Kristi™ were introducing their special segment called “War of the Roses.”
If you’re not familiar with this bit of radio shtick, you’re one of the last people on the planet to clue in, according to certain Yelpers. But “War of the Roses” wouldn’t be the smash hit it is if everyone knew about it, because once everyone’s in on it, the jig will be up. This thing has a shelf life.
The premise behind the segment is this: At the behest of a suspicious woman, one of Jagger and Kristi’s minions, posing as a representative for a new flower shop in town, calls an unsuspecting sucker at his office. The unsuspecting sucker is told he’s the lucky winner of one dozen free roses, to be sent to anyone of his choosing as part of a special promotion. All he has to do is give the name of the woman to whom he wants the flowers sent, and a short message to go on the card. Every one of the several (and accidental) times I’ve caught this show, the stooge has given the name of a woman other than the one waiting breathlessly on the eavesdropping end of the line.
If you cringed while reading that, you really ought to tune in to this show to get the full impact of just how uncomfortable a morning drive can be. Dwayne Brown’s word-fumbling is like a hot-stone massage by comparison. But once the sound of a phone number being dialed comes through your speakers, you can no more change the station than you can believe Toyota has a sticky-floor-mat problem.
The latest episode I caught involved a mild-mannered woman named Maria, who was mystified when her new flame, Romero, spent Sunday washing his car instead of hanging out with her. As if this weren’t enough, he didn’t call her that night like he’d said he would. Now, I’m no Dr. Drew, but this chick didn’t need a prank to figure out her guy wasn’t all that interested. But dammit, she needed proof. Public, humiliating proof.
So radio minion “Leonardo” called up Romero, and when it came time for Romero to dictate his love note, he told “Stella” that he just loved spending more and more time with her. And that’s when Jagger and Kristi™ delivered the somber news that, Romero, you are on the air with a trademarked husband-wife team who, after all these years, have miraculously not divorced and/or resorted to punching each other in the face, and, well, Romero, you are in la niche du chien.
At this point in the show, the jilted lovers usually maintain a state of calm disbelief only to become progressively enraged to the point of FCC-necessitated bleeping. Every time, without fail, there are the I-knew-its and the You’re-so-pathetics. Last year, one of the spurned women was all, “Oh my god. I can’t believe I did your laundry last night!” You could practically hear her smack her forehead with her palm.
But this Maria girl, this sweet thing—who agonized over why her man didn’t want to see her on her day off in a maybe-I’m-making-this-up kind of way—she lost her shiznit immediately. You bleeper! she hissed.
And poor Romero. At first he played dumb: What? Who is this? Maria? What’s going on? And then he lied: I don’t know what you’re talking about. And then he got real: I went out with my boys and forgot to call you. Stella is my ex-girlfriend. And then he laid out the silver lining: “Here’s the cool thing! I stay friends with all my exes.”
You bleeper bleeper! Bleeping bleeper bleep bleeeeeeeeep!
And maybe he is, maybe he isn’t. Maybe he really wanted to rub his car more than he wanted to rub Maria. And maybe he really did need to go out with his boys on Sunday night. Or maybe he was rubbing Stella and rolled with his boys. Who knows? All I know is that every single time I get sucked into this program, I am sympathetic with the targets. Because any woman who can’t walk away from her man without the validation of radio-show entrapment deserves to be cheated on.
(As published today in San Diego CityBeat.)
Book smart vs. Common Sense
On the heels of the “ghetto-party” drama at the esteemed University of California, San Diego this week—which I will be writing about shortly, believe you me, oh yes I will—my husband’s business partner found a note on the ground, lost by, presumably, one of the University’s fine, over-achieving students. It concerns me how this individual is managing in life and more so, how she/he is going to get through tomorrow without the lost memo.
Hand written in pencil on a postcard-size piece of paper with violins and cats on it (see? Already, I question the functional capacity of this person), is the To Do list:
- 7:10am = Sleep
- 7:40 = Get ready
- 7:45 = Walk to school bus
- 8:00 = Get to class
- 8:50 = Class
- 9:00 = Walk
- 9:50- Class
I mean, where on this list is this person supposed to squeeze in breathing?
I think my husband has a secret life.
Me: I don’t get the difference between figure skating and ice dancing.
Sam: Well, figure skating is smooth with a series of elements that have to be shown, with dramatic air-type things and turns and jumps and stuff. The ice dancing is more dancey, if you will, with dance moves and lots of those close choppy steps.
Me: What about the long program? Good God, the long programs go on forever.
Sam: I think the longs are more dramatic and the shorts are more whimsical.
Me: Why do people watch this…?
Sam: OHHHHHHH!!! She! Just! Ate! Shit!!! She just went down on the first toss! These are Olympians?!? Isn’t that the whole point: That they defy gravity and don’t fall down? They had four motherfucking years to practice this shit and she falls on the first spin? That’s why people watch this shit! And–and!–you get bitchin’ crotch shots all day. Check it.
Me: “The Way We Were”? For real? Don’t they want people to stay awake for their long program? Hello 1973. Our century doesn’t have any music to choose from.
Sam: I like their little outfitsOHHHHHH!!! She ate shit!!! She went down on the triple salchow! That’s three for three. I don’t know…maybe one fall per deal is normal? I don’t know…Whoooa!!…She almost packed that in! She was starin’ at some serious ice right there…
Me: Okay. I’m gonna go work now.
Roller Derby Girls
I was in the kitchen, setting out the frosting and the jimmies for the cupcakes Ruby and I had just put in the oven, when I heard a couple of heavy thuds come from the front hallway. It was pouring rain, Sam was away for the weekend and my heart had already exploded into a million shimmering pieces of glitter when my One and Only—after after cracking her fourth perfect egg into the batter—looked up at me and said, “I love girls weekend.” I couldn’t have been any happier.
There was another heavy clunk! and then, “Mama, helllllp!” I stepped out of the kitchen and looked toward the front hall closet. There was my kid, hanging onto the doorknob of the front door, her long spindly legs spread wide and sliding out from beneath her because she had found and was wearing my rollerskates.
She didn’t want to take them off and I wasn’t about to deter her from trying, so I showed her the necessary side-to-side motion by gliding across the floor in my slippers. And other than letting me tip-toe behind her while she made her way around the couch two times, she was fairly explicit in her instructions when I tried to help her. “No, Mama! I can do it!”
She carried on like this on and off throughout the weekend, my big girl in my too-big-for-her skates, until I decided our Sunday expedition for Valentine’s Day cards, would include a trip to the Sports Chalet, where I bought my girl the very last pair of purple, pink and white skates they had in stock. The uninhibited joy she expressed as she tested her new wheels in the store is what makes parenting so totally awesome and instantly vaporizes the anguish of those many years of sleepless nights. And if that wasn’t quite enough, the child further transformed the glitter of my heart into a fine sparkling dust when she skated across the carpet like a foal trying to walk for the first time, lifted the bottom of my shirt and kissed me on my belly. It’s impossible not to be schmaltzy about it.
If you look closely, just beyond the wrist guards, you will see me wrapped around her little finger.
Next Sunday, we’re going to the skating rink.
From the town of Bedrock
I am not a homemaker. I have three or four recipes I can cook and proudly stake claim to (I’ll put my chicken pot-pie in a blindfolded taste test any day of the week), but in general, I’m a hurricane in the kitchen. Ditto in the laundry room. Yes, I manage to get things agitating without soap bubbles pouring from the closed lid, but inevitably there’s a tinted lip balm in a pocket or a new red shirt mingling with the whites. The same goes for sewing. The simple task of replacing a button brings out the OCD in me: There aren’t enough knots in the universe to hold that sucker in place and so I keep tying them, one after another after another, knots lining up like an endless string of ben wa balls, unable to stop myself until the button disappears beneath a big clump of thread.
I thank my mother for my domestic ineptitude. It is she—the Queen of Beige Food, the one who boasts of her culinary ability to prepare all things pasty and grey—who once forgot to add sugar to Baked Alaska.
In her defense, she was probably high when baking it, so despite the sour look on her guest’s faces that night, she’d had a good time in the kitchen and eventually, after the initial horror wore off, a good laugh. Still. Baking-while-stoned only further serves as a reminder of the old apple-and-tree cliché, a fact I’m intent on defying as I’ve made it my purpose in life to break the mold.
And so it goes that a couple weeks ago, while under the influence of Vicodin following a little abdominal surgery, I decided the time had come to hem the curtains on the French doors in my bedroom. I’d purchased them at Ikea and go figure, they were three feet too long. Damn those Swedes and their extra-tall doorways.
Not to fear. I asked a talented seamstress friend, who makes fabulously stylish Mad Men-era clothes for herself and her daughters, if she would hem them for me and then never got around to bringing the fabric to her house. Which is aaaaall the way across the street. Instead, my mother-in-law pinned the curtains during one of her visits and that is how they stayed, no one the wiser, for five years, six months, three weeks and four days. I am lazy. And pathetic.
To offer some perspective on my state of mind at the time of the “hemming,” I had been unable to pee without immense effort for two days. Were you to have peeked through the bathroom window during this time, you’d have seen a very disheveled me, sitting on the toilet with my laptop open to this:
I was drugged and delirious and fighting tooth and nail to avoid catheterization. I was dribbling urine after hours of concentrating on Niagra Falls and then lying sleepless in bed—bladder full—on top of Ruby’s special potty-training mattress pad just in case my urethra came to in the middle of the night. I actually hoped to wet the bed. Isn’t that sexy? This was new turf for my relationship. Suffice it to say, being bedridden did not suit my mental health. I had no business using scissors. But enough excuses.
I’d been staring at those curtains from my bed for three days and the more I stared, the more I began to resent them. Their imperfect existence was a reminder of my domestic shortcomings. They were unfinished and they needed to not be unfinished immediately.
How hard can it be? I thought. By following the hem line, I can cut them to the proper length with just enough fabric left over for a little break. Any caveman can do that!
I shuffled to the kitchen, grabbed the scissors and shuffled back to the bedroom where I knelt at the curtains, careful not to bust the stitches in my bellybutton. I lined the scissors up and I cut. Slowly, at first, but then I picked up speed as I cut and cut and cut. It was cathartic in a nobody-gets-hurt, NO! MORE! WIRE! HANGERS! kind of way. I may have grunted. I was a caveman. I was Wilma Flintstone.
And I have Flintstone curtains to prove it.
Breeze it, buzz it, easy does it
As I begin preparing to go on Euro Gallavant 2010—also known as Debt Fest 2.0.1.0, or Reinvent Yourself: The 21st Century Edition—I’ve been making contact with a few other writers with whom I’ll be sharing prosecco toasts and sunsets over the Amalfi Coast. I sure hope they’re not talkers, boy. I like my sunsets lonely and profound and weighted with deeper meaning. Sort of like J.D. Salinger. Ah, shoot. Who am I kidding? What’s a sunset without friends and a few tipsy oohs and ahhs and holy mother of Jesus can you believe we’re in fucking Positano?!?
One of the people I plan on spending some serious time with is this woman right over here. I spent several days perusing her blog and getting lost in her incredible interviews (especially this one), which are amazingly thoughtful, pitch-perfect-inquisitive and deserving of larger publication. All I can say is that the screenwriters for Jerry Maguire couldn’t write a line cheesy enough for the occasion of meeting Sariah in person.
Without a script, I’ve decided my best bet is to play it cool. Not like Danny Zuko impress-my-friends cool. But more like a don’t-fawn-or-try-to-touch-her-hair cool. The way I figure it, if I don’t knock her over and hump her leg on day one, that will be West Side Story cool.
But I’ve strayed now from my original intention, which was to borrow the questionnaire part of Sariah’s interview. Because it’s so damn cool. As in, The Birth of:
What are your necessities?…Love; kisses from my daughter, both landed and blown; sunglasses; CO Bigelow Mentha Tint lip gloss; heels of all kinds (stacked, stiletto, kitten, princess, wedge, what have you); booksbooksbooks; The New Yorker; On The Street with Bill Cunningham; the family bed on weekends; alone time; my Canon 40-D and 50mm lens; Miles Davis’ Kind of Blue, any Thelonious, Jimmy Smith, Gene Harris, Chet Baker, Ella Fizgerald…oh hell, all kinds of jazz that I couldn’t possibly live without, especially Cannonball Adderly’s and Bobby Timmons’ swingin’ masterpiece “Dis Here” set on repeat, cruising up the coast as a passenger in my husband’s classic Mini, windows down, volume at 11. Picture it…
Nothing smells better than. . .my daughter’s skin after a bath and her scalp after oiling; the space between my husband’s nose and upper lip after he shaves; early mornings in a canyon.
Nothing tastes better than. . .Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups/Trees/Eggs/Hearts with an ice cold glass of water.
Nothing feels better than . . .Hey, now…
I’d rather be…laughing and toasting with friends on my back patio during a summer evening, my home filled with people I adore, than doing just about anything else, especially faxing.
If you could live in any other epoch, which would it be? As far as fashion goes, the 20s or the 60s (ala Mad Men). Otherwise, this one seems to be working out well for me.
If you could jump into any painting, à la Mary Poppins, which would you choose?
“The Tree of Life,” c. 1909 by Gustav Klimt
What about you? What are your answers to Sariah’s pressing questions?
All hail Tweezerman. Now: What to do about this growing up business
After attending a kindergarten forum last night, Sam and I headed to our favorite neighborhood bar for some decompression. Wasn’t it just last week that we were bringing a baby home from Chicago? How is it possible we’re getting her ready to go to school? And is that really a gray eyebrow growing in above my left eye?
My favorite bartender took one look at me and whipped up my favorite cocktail, which I sipped as I plotted an uptick in naked dancing. There is going to be an exponential increase starting ASAP, before Ruby is old enough to be self-conscious.
Uh…that was awkward
Ruby had already buckled herself into her car seat when she realized she’d forgotten the drawings for her teacher. I ignored the urge to say, too bad, kid. We’re late. Chalk it up to a lesson learned about having your shit together. (God, how I love my fantasy life.) Instead I channeled June Cleaver, set my travel mug in the cup holder, dashed back into the house, grabbed the three sheets of paper she’d worked on with her dad and headed out the door.
Ten minutes later, Ruby was handing her pictures over to Miss Sarah. “This is a castle,” I heard her say. I was distracted by her little friend G. who was hurrying to peel away his shoes and socks so I could see how beautiful his pink toenails looked. “And this is Miss Carlee as a princess,” Ruby continued her parallel conversation. I told G. that Ruby’s dad likes to have his nails painted, too. “He likes purples and blues and greens and sometimes sparkles! How cool is that?” I asked him. His mother seemed embarrassed but also relieved at my reaction.
“Thanks for saying that,” she said.
“I’m not making this up,” I told her. “He’s artsy.”
Just then, I turned to see my daughter handing her teacher this:
He’s artsy, alright. He’s 8th grade, trapper-keeper, boy-doodle artsy.
Down there in the lower left quadrant? That is a naked person bending over with an asterisk for a butthole. Up above that guy are two formerly androgynous people drawn “without clothes!” per request of the child. Since Sam decided to make these two clowns G-rated—unlike the blue muscle man bending to pick up a dumbbell—she who is obsessed with all things penis, grabbed a sharpie and filled in the blanks. And then there’s the scary monster thing with hair made of lightning bolts, a squiggly smile and a Sonny Crockett 5 o’clock shadow. Notice the sharpied-on boxer shorts with the open fly. I’m not positive, but given the severe focus of conversation in our home lately, those are either tampon strings or urine running down his leg. Could just as easily be one as the other.
Of course, the upshot—I always like to find an upshot— is that the child is accurate and has some fairly impressive fine motor skills. But back to pre-school.
I saw the drawings and gasped. Then I stammered. So much for having my shit together. I hemmed and hawed and grabbed the paper with less subtlety than I would have liked. “I’ll just take this back home,” I said, withering. “Ruby’s in a phase…she asked Sam to do it and…um…well, we don’t do everything she asks…I mean…she did it.” I was selling out my man and my kid. I was losing credibility. I looked back and forth at the teacher and G.’s mother, apologizing, swearing that we do not normally sit around the house drawing wieners and sphincters. Princesses with giant breasts and “nibbles,” sure. But wieners and sphincters?
No siree.
Normally, we prefer naked dancing.
Mrs. Robinson’s ego needs a little love from time to time
I had just come from Madalena’s and was driving to meet my husband for a late afternoon drink when I got picked up. Never mind that I had worked out that morning and was still in my gym clothes, marinating in my own grit and stink and general grossness derived from being packaged in Lycra for 8-plus hours. It wasn’t pretty. I was disgusting enough that I apologized repeatedly to Madelena as I lifted my arms so she could pin and stuff padding into my favorite strapless dress, but not so disgusting that I decided to postpone my alterations for another, more shower-filled day. Poor Madelena. Suffering the slings and arrows of dried gym sweat, all because I’m derelict when it comes to time management.
However evident my yuckness was to anyone within arms-length, the state of my filth was apparently well shielded by a) my car, b) my tinted windows, c) my over-sized sunglasses and d) my lip gloss. (Lip gloss has magic powers. Praise the lip gloss!) All I know is that I slowed, smiled and waved into my lane a car full of wild-haired, teen-ish boys at a two-way stop on Adams Avenue and suddenly, I was Eva Mendes.
On my best day I should hope to look so gross.
And so I found myself crawling along in single-lane traffic, behind a white Honda Civic filled with lanky kids of the male persuasion who probably weren’t old enough to vote in 2008. The driver, wearing Ray-Bans circa Risky Business—a movie he’s probably never heard of—kept checking on me in his side mirror. The two boys in back turned to face me, as excited to watch me follow as my friends’ small daughters, who make funny faces out the rear window of their father’s car whenever our families take our Minis for an afternoon drive. And the guy in the passenger seat poked first his head, then his arm, out his window, waving a cell phone, signaling me to call him. Which required a number, so he set the phone down and began slowly and methodically flashing a series of numbers with his long fingers. It was like the mating dance of some rare, exotic bird that was vaguely familiar and yet incredibly foreign. It didn’t matter that he was of a different species; I understood the language. He was thoughtful and precise, leaving enough time between digits for me to write them all down. Too bad I was DRIVING! Further evidence of an evolutionary gap.
My hands were on the wheel and I was smiling wide at this point. Chuckling, even, as the passenger twisted to flash an eight, a six, a nine. Oh, if they knew, I thought. If they only saw me close up. I imagined the surprise that would register in their eyes if we were to stand face-to-face, realizing their mistake and figuring out how best to get out of this uncomfortable situation. I contemplated what their conversation under such circumstances might be—surely involving several “DUUUde!”s— when I noticed the driver eyeballing me again in his mirror. I held his eye contact and pointed to myself slowly and methodically, making sure the line of communication was open. He adjusted his glasses, rested his elbow casually across the door and nodded at me. He was ready to receive.
I lifted my right hand off the steering wheel and pointed at myself one more time. He nodded: Got it, got it. He was sort of adorable, this man-child. The whole group of them was. But I had to have my say. I crossed my thumb over my open palm and held my arm straight out toward my windshield. I held it there until the boy in the mirror nodded again. Then, with my fingers touching my thumb, I made a perfect O.
The boy didn’t move. I laughed and repeated my message knowing I’d undercut myself; flashing my real age would have required both hands on my part and maybe a little too much work on his. He was using a mirror, after all. Plus there was that other hurdle of DRIVING A CAR with which we were both grappling. I conceded the six months because a one-handed “four” and “zero” were the safest route to the same destination. And anyway, at their age, what the hell’s the difference?
4-0 babe, I smiled. His eyebrows went up and that’s all I saw because I’d arrived at the bar where I’d be meeting my husband. I performed my award-worthy parallel park job, and looked up in time to see the boys disappear into the rain, their four mussed heads a silhouette against the gray day. It had been good while it lasted. It was silly but exciting, I admit this. And I was slightly more dirty when it was over.
