The Catering Brochure that launched it all

My first big project as a copywriter for Bi-Rite was the Catering Brochure. It was a lot of work, very detail-oriented, and so much fun. I've finally been able to make my equipment work for me, and here is the finished product! I saw it through multiple drafts and I'm very proud of it.

Function, form, and some other F words?

Get your minds out of the dirty place, I mean F words like "fantastic," "family," and "fun," although people who know me are aware of my attachment to F words not suitable for prime time. This isn't about that.

I'm choosing to make this page a fantastic, functional new link to the full range of work I'm doing now -- from Wonder Woman going on tour (thanks to Margot Magowan and Reel Girl for publishing her adventures!) to my previously published socio-political and pop culture commentaries and reviews, to my current social media shenanigans. I'm updating this page so it can act NOT as a reminder that I don't write often enough, or that my mother reading my diary as a teenager has given me a mental block against journaling, but so it can be a positive force in my life from here on in.

I was really lucky to be able to work in a very creative gig for the last 16+ months and realized I wanted a place for prospective employers to check out what I have done, so they can get an idea of what I can do. I've had incredible fun learning every day about writing with precision, descriptively, and with personality. How to best capture an image that pairs with that writing. How to interact online with guests or customers in a way that is respectful, helpful, and in keeping with a specific brand identity. And I'm excited to keep learning about this always-changing medium as my family expands.

Yes. Family. Spawn, bun in the oven, fetus, baby, tax deduction. The Husband and I have reproduced, so expect to see occasional incredulous missives about what a friggin' circus the business of having child is. Dude. It's cuckoo.

See? Perfectly legitimate use of normal old F words.

Wonder Woman's Big Week In Washington

The outstanding Margot Magowan published a photo essay I created with Wonder Woman in Washington DC! We had a great time, even though the weather was shit most of the time. Didn't matter. Make sure you check out Margot's Reel Girl Blog on the regular, and take a look at what Wondy got up to right here.

If You Like it Dirty Late at Night, Well....

 There's something about late night television that you should accept: no one gives a shit about Jay or Dave anymore. Jay's a terminally unhip schlub who stole Conan O'Brien's career and Dave, while much more palatable and edgy, is still getting up there in years and pulls the same tie-adjusting-slightly-corny tics and tricks he's been using for thirty years. I love you Dave, but I can only take two decades of the Top Ten not being very funny.

Plus the format is tired. Clapclapclap, monologue with jokes about something that happened two days ago, band plays filler, pre-taped bit, then big name guest comes out, ego stroke, small time guest comes out to plug book or TV show (because TV stars are C-list compared to film stars), then possible musical guest, good night.

So the rigamarole of the late-night talk show is depressingly familiar and hard to upend. I'm not a big Kimmel fan, although I loved the Lost specials he did when the show was going off the air. But he often feels like too much of a shill for ABC, like they take corporate synergy WAY too seriously. He pokes a little fun at the latest Dancing With the Stars castoff, but it's all a bit glossy for me. Jimmy Fallon is funny, amiable, cool, and young, but I'm not a big "funny song" kind of girl, and his energy is a bit nervous. Fallon does get points for coming up with original and fun stuff to do with his celebrities that don't include eliciting the same five stories from these actors that everyone on a press junket gets. One other problem with Fallon: he's on at the same time as the one guy who gives late night viewers a subversive, smart, and strange option (granted you can stay up late enough.)

Craig in his "poorly-lit basement"

Craig Ferguson has always been funny, intelligent, and self-deprecating. Late night guys have to be. But I knew he was really something special when he came on the air after his dad died. Ferguson improvs his monologues, so they can get a little tangential and silly; but this night, January 30, 2006 -- Ferguson spoke directly from his heart, eulogizing his father with a mix of rueful and hysterical stories and effectively introduced the audience to a vividly drawn picture of his beloved parent. For a variety TV host to open himself up like that, to turn his pain and grief into something universal and FUNNY….I was bawling and laughing and moved, profoundly. You can watch it for yourself here and here.

And so my dedication to this Scottish (now-naturalized) crazy person began, and no matter my work schedule I try to religiously watch him. Repeat viewing is rewarded by this show -- jokes carry over into the next night, sometimes for weeks, and there's a plethora of regular guests who have running gags (Kristen Bell, Lauren Graham, Chris Hardwick,) plus puppets who open the show (Sid the potty-mouthed bunny, Wavy the stoner cajun alligator,) and a gay robot  skeleton sidekick named Geoff Peterson. Gay. Robot. Skeleton sidekick.

Geoff is literally a stationary robot with a skeleton head, a metal mohawk, and a cheap suit draped with Mardi Gras beads. He has his own podium on stage, and as voiced by the exceptionally talented Josh Robert Thompson, he is the perfect representation of the silly slyness that Ferguson's show lives and breathes. It shouldn't work -- you can see Geoff's a bucket of parts cobbled together by Grant from Mythbusters, and he can't move very much, and he's got cold LED lights for eyes. But the writers, the voice, and Craig himself have imbued this inanimate object with a fucking soul, I swear to god. And Geoff has become integral to the show -- Thompson is off for two weeks right now, during which time they have plugged celebrities into his chair to be the voice of Geoff. Alfred Molina, Thomas Lennon, and Larry King all had a go last week. This week it's been ladies, and while Lauren Graham kinda bombed, Paula Poundstone and Angela Kinsey have saved some face since then. All of these performers gamely shared a desire to play -- to play along, to play with expectations, to play up the sheer strangeness of this late night experiment.

Larry King as Geoff - note the suspenders

The Late Late Show is the only television show of its kind that has won a Peabody award--for an hour-long interview with Desmond Tutu in which Ferguson displayed vast knowledge of South Africa's geo-political history-- while also staging awesome lip-synced numbers to punk songs in French and Duran Duran covers of "White Lines." The Late Late Show went highbrow and became "Le Late Late Show avec Craig Ferguson" for a week when Craig, Geoff, and Kristen Bell went to Paris and shot a week's worth of shows in and around the city. Mind you, there was zero real studio. They had no permits. They literally set up a card table on the sidewalk and slid through Versailles with socks on, because it seemed like the thing to do. And then the next day there's a "mouth organ" joke and an obscure Doctor Who reference. It's like a post-modern, Henson-less Muppet Show with more dirty jokes.

So if you are into the late-night talk show thing and have yet to give Craig Ferguson a go, please please do yourself a favor. Watch him, once, and tell me that he isn't the most original thing you've seen after midnight (outside of Adult Swim.) And watch some of the stuff from the Paris shows if you can't stay up that late. SO totally worth it.

What I Do is What I Am. Does That Make Me Sick?

I've been caught with my DVR full, with my TV-watching routine thrown into chaos by a wacked-out schedule and, as you'll see, a bit of hardcore priority-realignment. I'm delving into the personal side for this entry, simply because it does me good to work out all 80-gajillion thoughts in my head via this format. I'm publishing it because the insecure part of my brain wants to know that someone else has experienced the same sense of "I am unmoored."

When I cast myself adrift from my radio career two years ago I anticipated a brief tussle with soul searching and wage-slavery before my natural ability, verve, and 15 years of industry connections had me once again secured to a full-time gig with unlimited possibilities for ascendance.

Ahem.

Today I find myself torn limb from limb and beaten with the bloody stumps of my own introspection (only-child selfishness plus lack of challenging work equals Triple Strength Ennui.) And while my natural ability makes me an excellent server (see: wage-slavery,) my verve is limpid and my connections have all been fired.

I chose a profession at 19, radio broadcasting, for which my genetic inclination to talk your face off was perfectly suited. I liked attention, I liked all aspects of the entertainment field, and being a girl with a brain and a naughty streak won me a fair bit of favor. So I stuck with it. I interned in my hometown, transferred to a university, and set out to conquer the universe with my BA.

I did alright.

But humans' needs change, they adapt to new circumstances, to new lovers or relationships, to emotional and physical demands.  At 19 my question was "what do I want from the world?" At 34 it's "how do I want to live this life?" Blame it on increased acquaintance with the brevity of our mortal span. That's got something to do with it. The special flavor of cynicism that lives in the heart of media types, soon to kill the last of my idealism. That too. The ridiculous pace of a media news cycle, whipped to a churning bloodbath by the immediacy of the Internet, wreaking havoc on my already naturally stressed-out brain. Double check. Add in the fact that entire swaths of talented and experienced people are fired in my chosen industry for nothing more than a station change or a whim, and a crisis of faith was inevitable.

Banksy art in Chinatown. He probably doesn't have career issues.

Once you've been told you're good at something, and you work long enough and consistently enough that you do become good at that thing, it's counter-intuitive to kick it all to the curb. The doubt and panic that that accompanies most major adult decisions (am I making the right choice or the easy one? Am I being rational? Will I end up homeless?) is compounded by self-doubt (what if this is ALL I'm good at?).

I can't believe that. I can't curl up and cry because my starter career may have come to a close. I have (hopefully) 40 years of work ahead of me, why did I think I could do one thing for a half a century?  I must believe that I can be good at anything I work hard at, that my brain isn't mush, that my quest for knowledge, attention to detail and diverse areas of interest can be translated into a thousand occupational languages. It's terrifying, the whole Square One-ness of it all, the sensation that I'm willingly reverse-piking off a jagged cliff. Forget starting a new chapter -- this is throwing out the entire edited manuscript and writing the book over from the dog's point-of-view.

But I've had a couple of epiphanies in the last week--that's how it goes with me, I unlock one inner truth and a week later it's a bigger piece of insight coming to me in a flash while I'm putting my makeup on or feeding the cats--and I think I've got the beginning of an inkling of what my issue is. It's been about trying to distill the anxiety and frustration and stagnancy I've been feeling into a single, clear, desire. One thing, any thing, that I want for my working life moving forward.

I want to make people feel good about themselves, and I want to acquire a skill. A real skill, not one like talking or writing some stuff that no one will pay for. A skill that could be of use should a zombie apocalypse occur. I'd like to be able to say I positively affected change in in people's lives, no matter how minutely. And I want to do it ethically, and with passion. And no cubicle.

So I've distilled the angst. I've stated a desire. I've got an iron I may think about putting in the fire. A direction I could go that might lead me to threshold of the next 40 years. I have to wrestle my fear. Time to prove I'm as smart as I think I am.

Ovaries Abound in TV Land. And it is Good

We are officially in the swing of a full-on fall TV season, and it's tastier this year than last. (No shit, I think Nikita is the only show from last fall that I still watch.) A couple of cancellations so far (Playboy Club, NBC's Hank Azaria comedy Free Agents) with more to come in the next couple of weeks, but lots of shows don't suck. Some are even awesome: Person of Interest, Revenge and Hart of Dixie, to name a few, are all great or kick-ass or sweet. There's a little something for everyone.

I've been enjoying a lot of the stuff I've seen from a purely entertainment-driven point of view (it makes me laugh, or cry, or goes all twisty and cool,) but as is my way, I've also started looking at everything from the female-oriented-armchair-feminist angle and have stumbled into a moral quandary.

Do I watch a show with female leads if the show itself is complete and utter crap? If the characters attempt to be three-dimensional, do I owe it to my sisterhood to try to suffer through bad writing and ridiculousness in order to let the network know that I appreciate them putting women in lead roles? I think I know the answer to this (hell no I don't owe anything to anyone and we should never reward crap TV ever ever ever) but the initial quandary made me think of what I want from my female characters and how this year's crop of new and returning shows have depicted such complicated and wonderful (and terrible) women and girls so far.

There are more female leads on TV right now than I can ever remember seeing before, and a wide selection to boot. A lot of the time women are vacant cyphers or used to inspire envy or lust, or they're supporting players who exist to stroke the male lead's, er, ego. They're saintly grandmas, teen vixens, or (on the reality TV side,) shrill, gold-digging harpies with no discernible talent or skill (Real Housewives, I'm looking at you.) But in this season's scripted fare we have rich girls, broke girls, cops, flight attendants, talk show producers, surgeons, teachers, spies, moms, bartenders…all of our inimitable facets are represented, for the most part, except for the over size 8 crowd. Sorry, my beloved Melissa McCarthy, one overweight woman starring in a sitcom does not a fair playing field make. Especially when the gimmick of the show is that the leads are fatties.

You are amazing. I miss Gilmore Girls.

But I digress.

So I like to watch women on TV, and I want them to be as complicated and assured and occasionally insane as myself and every woman I've ever known. They can be hotter than anyone I know, because it's TV and that's how it rolls, but they must also be smart, or caring, or ambitious, or devilish, or all of those. I want women who are modern and independent -- women the Taliban would, like, totally go all sharia on. And I want them to be shown making decisions that women make, every day. 

With these standards in mind, I took a look at the women on my small screen this season and tried to figure out if it's positive progress for my gender or if the show runner has ever even heard of the Bechdel Test.

Grey's Anatomy is a show created by a woman, a rarity in TV, and seems to have an easier time  making its female characters complex. This season the bar has been raised, though, since (SPOILER!) Christina Yang actually followed through with an abortion. When main characters get pregnant on TV they either have a baby or a miscarriage, period. Even in 2011 abortion is too alienating for the mainstream, but to have Yang (a driven, ambitious surgeon with no desire to have children) come to term would have been so far out of character that it would've undermined everything we faithful viewers know about her. The fact that Yang's onscreen husband supported her no matter his desire for a kid, well, I don't know if men like that really exist. But it was done brilliantly.

Parenthood is a quieter, less showy family drama that assembles an amazing cast, but the standouts are Mae Whitman and Lauren Graham as daughter and single mother. Their relationship is codependent and real. Erika Christensen's portrayal of a career woman who can't have a second child is heartbreaking, Monica Potter's balancing act of work, unemployed husband, teenage daughter, autistic son, and newborn baby is superhuman.

They're BFFs. With weaponry.

Nikita is one of the rarest breeds of all -- an actiony/spy thriller with women at the head. The two lead spies: women. The head of the shadowy black ops organization Division: woman. The mouthpiece for Oversight, the politicians who keep Division in check: woman. Maggie Q (Nikita) is an action star in her own right, and she kicks the crap out of people in her own stunts. Lyndsy Fonseca is Alexandra, Nikita's protege and current enemy, and their relationship is the heart of the show. Nikita has a boyfriend, sure, but their romance is back burner stuff. The really gripping emotion comes from the women and their dysfunctional interaction. Like when Nikita breaks Alex's arm and shoots her (for her own good.)

Fringe has the distinction of having a female lead strong enough and compelling enough that she played three different characters last season. THREE. This year she's playing two, sometimes in the same episode. FBI Agent Olivia Dunham is repressed and icy with almost everyone, but she's also professional and smart and very, very good at her job. Actor Anna Torv gives Olivia the smallest hint of vulnerability, but not enough to ever make her a victim. JJ Abrams launched this show, the way he launched Jennifer Garner in Alias -- he seems to have a gift for writing deep women.

The Good Wife has plenty of male characters, but the most intriguing interactions are between Julianna Margulies, Christine Baranski, and Archie Panjabi. When Baranski's liberal attorney makes time with a conservative hotshot and makes no bones about her politics: awesome. When Margulies rains hell down on Panjabi for sleeping with her husband: delicious.

NEW SHOWS!

There are only a few weeks to go on with these new programs. With some, like Charlie's Angels, I can't stomach the thought of watching any more just to see if the women are likable. I got exactly 9 1/2 minutes into the pilot before lines like "I didn't know my heart could hurt this much" made me turn it off and throw my remote at the screen. That show is, in fact, the reason I wrote this post in the first place. First class terrible, but did I owe it a full episode before I dismissed it? I'm going with no. I always give new shows two full weeks, sometimes three, to impress me or repel me. Always. I just could. not. do it. Luckily there are plenty of promising programs full of women with the potential to be authentic and compelling.

I like the hat. Suck it.

Prime Suspect has been a fantastic showcase for Maria Bello. She's closer to middle age than post adolescence, unlike most female stars on TV, and that alone is enough to make me watch. But then she's is dead sexy with her deep voice, fuck-you attitude, and general irritability. And it's all shot in New York, so, bonus.

Pan Am is about flight attendants in the '60's, sure, but this ABC show has depicted less sexism than the set-in-present-day Prime Suspect. While that may not be realistic, and the lessons Pan Am tries to teach about women's lib aren't exactly subtle, the women ARE the show. And aside from their lily whiteness (a problem 90 percent of TV shows share) the women show a decent range of personalities. And it's fun.

Revenge pits the Madeline Stowe's vindictive matriarch against Emily Van Camp's vindictive daddy's girl in a glossy, soapy showdown in the Hamptons. The backstabbing and plotting is like an 'roid rage version of what actual women do to each other on a regular basis. We should stop that.

Ringer stars Sarah Michelle Gellar as the TWO leads, a challenge to which she rises admirably. But this show loses points for making the only other regular female character a woman whose husband is cheating on her. With her best friend. After she gave him babies. Maybe a future episode has her setting their bed on fire.

Dr. Hart tends to a local--it's tick paralysis!

Hart of Dixie stars the lovely Rachel Bilson as a surgeon whose ambition got the better of her and kept her from developing any bedside manner whatsoever. So she ships herself off to Alabama to learn how to be nice to people. Refreshing to see a woman who doesn't fit into the "caring, communicative, sweet" category that stereotype dictates. Even if she is punished for her lack of empathy. And while her main rival is a woman, she also goes out of her way to treat patients who are girls, while subverting the good ol' boys network.

New Girl is cutesy and goofbally, but Zooey Deschanel makes her character Jess an individual with no real desire to impress anybody. A woman who would like to date but doesn't want to stop wearing yokel teeth for fun is an excellent example of a modern woman who doesn't make me want to gag. Unless she's singing to herself, because that grates. Take a point away for having Jess' best friend be a model, as if Deschanel were an ugly duckling.

Suburgatory has two cool girls in it so far, but the rest are pushy busybodies, Barbie-pink-fake-boobed-soccer-moms or their vapid offspring. Seriously, do high school girls still call other girls "lesbian!" for wearing military boots? Really?

Charlie's Angels. Don't know if these girls are awesome and layered like onions. Don't care. There are too many other shows to watch that have held my interest and gotten writers who were over the age of eight to craft their dialogue. Sorry.

I know I'm forgetting shows. A lot of them probably, since I haven't even touched cable. Women this year are rocking the bejeesus out of the small screen, and although there is zero improvement in female employment behind the scenes (boo) the world is seeing more even-handed and intriguing representation of women now than they were last year. Nothing bad about that.

Haiku For You, Part Deux

Just a couple more Fall TV haikus to help you separate wheat from chaff. The Playboy Club has already been cancelled, surprise, so I'm glad I didn't even check out the pilot. The same canot be said for the truly terrible Charlie's Angels reboot. (Shiver.)

Hart of Dixie, CW

Fish out of water

But the characters are fresh

New guilty pleasure

Parks and Recreation, NBC

"It's just penises"

Riotous return to form

Knope in 20-12

Community, NBC

Still over the top

John Goodman is so perfect

Yay biology

Terra Nova, FOX

Stephen Lang can smile

And the concept seems to work

Might be worth the wait

Suburgatory, ABC

Wry teenage daughter

Sisto as the dad; man, I'm old

So far me likey

Charlie's Angels, ABC

Sweet fancy Moses

Are they serious with this?

Really terrible

Poetry's Not Really My Bag

I hated the poetry portions of high school and college English. I could glimpse the beauty in the word and structure, but I didn't truly GET it, not like I did with prose. But I can write the bejeesus out of a haiku. Easy third grade stuff, with contractions and no flowery anything. It ain't Keats, or even "There once was a girl from Nantucket," but it was fun to do.

With that in mind, I bring you (some*) of the Fall TV season, summarized with economy.

Ringer, CW
Buffy rides again
Now she's twice as dramatic
It's very noir-y

New Girl, FOX
Zooey sings a lot
Hope that doesn't stick around
Otherwise, funny

Secret Circle, CW
Pretty, young witches
Evil parents hiding stuff
Way better than Charmed

Vampire Diaries, CW
Stefan goes Ripper
Vamp/Wolf sex is de rigueur
More naked Damon

Castle, ABC
Beckett doesn't die
Still no smoochies with Castle
She's coming unhinged

2 Broke Girls, CBS
God I hate laugh tracks
Appealing leads but that's it
Really with the horse?

Parenthood, NBC
This show simply stuns
With funny, rich characters
Even Dax Shepard

Up All Night, NBC
Baby at 40
Realistic and funny
Not too cloying. Whew.

America's Next Top Model, CW
Tyra picks All-Stars
New bitches same as the old
So many big teeth

Glee, FOX
Things look promising
Songs seem less forced, thank god
Quinn goin' bad girl

Raising Hope, FOX
Crass yet sweet, lines like
"I made that boy with my wang!"
And Leachman to boot

Modern Family, ABC
Got a new Lily
Mitchell wants to butch it up
We are all Pritchetts!

C.S.I., CBS
A spacy Danson
Brings renewed vigor to a
tired group of old friends

Revenge, ABC
Delicious rich snobs
Backstabbing and tawdry sex
Yup, I think I'm hooked

Sons of Anarchy, FX
Guys have done their time
Jax makes white trash look so good
Let's blow some shit up

Grey's Anatomy, ABC
Meredith got canned
But the Chief took a bullet
Everyone looks skinny

The Mentalist, CBS
Jane finally snapped
The team has been suspended
Rest in peace, Red John?

Fringe, FOX
Peter is no more
History rewritten, and
everyone seems new

Nikita, CW
All new stakes this time
Nefarious Division
Can Alex be saved?

Supernatural, CW
Cass as God blows hard
Sam might be going nuts
Leviathans? Yikes.

The Good Wife, CBS
Naughty Alicia
Hottest TV sex ever
Now just forgive Kalinda

Pan Am, ABC
Networks love Mad Men
This ain't that, it still has charm
Mildly intriguing

Prime Suspect, NBC
Sexist pigs gone wild
Bello is icy, ballsy
Just like I like 'em

Person of Interest, CBS
Immediately
Gripped by Caviezel's manner
Looks like the real deal

*This list is made up solely of the new and returning shows that I personally have watched. All in the last week and a half. Minus Community, Parks and Recreation, and The Office. My DVR is practically on fire right now.