Monthly Archives: March 2011

Jane got to drive down Sunset Boulevard in car blasting KISS FM with all the windows down and the sunroof open.

Then she and her friend got pizza and drank soda in Westwood.

If you grew up in Los Angeles you’d understand what a milestone this is.

Earlier today my friend Marsha Collier directed me to this video of Bob Parsons the GoDaddy CEO shooting and killing an elephant.

To be very clear, I like meat. I eat lamb, buffalo and cow with great regularity. I eat chicken, I eat fish, and do a happy dance every time I get a spoon full of caviar. I love that hunters kill only what they can use, and that they are often the biggest conservationists of us all.

I grew up fishing, but never hunting. Random fact, I have skinned a rattlesnake, boiled it and eaten it.

So understand that I’m neither vegan nor activist. I’m not even convinced that killing an elephant in Africa is criminal or immoral, it might be. It might not be. Again, I’m not sure.

I do know that you’ve got too much money when videos like this surface. I do know that Go Daddy has not been a good solution for me, and since there are so many great hosting companies out there I’d rather make someone rich who is more like me.

Not a boycott, just a pragmatic decision. Someone’s going to get rich, if you want it to be a guy like Bob Parsons you should stay with Go Daddy.

Today was a busy day. The kids are out of school and today included three playdates and two sets of sports, all before 3pm. It’s the good kind of busy, we’re happy, the kids and I.

There was a local event here in Los Angeles that I’d wanted to attend and it was close to Mr. G’s office. I popped him an email telling him that I really wanted to hear one of the speakers, and he replied back that he’d meet me there.

I cannot begin to tell you how strange it is that Mr. G. would want to attend a speaking or networking event. I was absolutely slack-jawed, but I bought him a ticket and dropped the kids off with my mom. What I’d intended when I’d sent him the email was that he’d be home by 5ish so that I could leave him with the kids to have dinner together and I’d attend the event.

I zipped over to my mom’s house and dropped the kids off and then headed to the event. When I got in I realized that Mr G would rather slit his throat than sit in the hipster warehouse where they were serving PB&J sandwiches, milk and cookies. Although the schedule looked fabulous I couldn’t fathom sitting in a room from 7 to 10 pm with neither adult food nor drink.

So we met a few people, shook a few hands and we decided to skip out on the talks, take advantage of the babysitting and head out for a nice dinner.

As Mr G and I left the building I went to scratch my nose and realized that my entire hand smelled of cologne. Someone had just showered and shaved, gone to the event and rubbed their smelly man hands all over mine. It was nauseating, and everyone who knows me knows that I have the power of super smell. It took several tablespoons of liquid soap and plenty of hot water, yet I still faintly smell the Drakkar on my fingertips.

The hand cologne incident reminded me of why I’ve left my yoga studio for greener pastures. You see just three days ago I ducked in for a quick yoga class and had another touching incident.

First off I should have known that the class was not for me because it was some sort of yoga healing sports fusion. Which is code for I used to work at 24 hour fitness and I really need my days free so I can audition for commercials/movies/TV but I can totally put my ankles behind my head. The only types of yoga I want to practice are Hatha, Kundalini, Iyengar and Vinyasa. I don’t enjoy the hot rooms of Bikram and whatever power, core strengthening or fusion that the  gyms are offering don’t do it for me.

My Sunday night yoga class was the last class of the day. When they opened the double doors to the large studio room swarms of sweaty yogis streamed out. The room was both hot and humid. Three dozen of us moved from the waiting area to the studio, almost slipping in puddles of sweat. I have no clue why I walked into that room, I can only attribute it to group think. But I walked in, I put my mat down, grabbed blocks, blankets and straps. It was a prop class.

I hate prop classes. I’ve never seen those props get washed, I’m not the type of woman that should be sharing these things.

I am trying to embrace dirt. I’ve made a huge effort to not be shrill with my kids when they want to walk into the back yard barefoot and then into the house with moist footprints clearly visible from the right angles on my wood floors. I am trying to relax and be the lady who wants to shake your hand, and to enjoy manicures and pedicures without wanting to jump up from the table while shrieking, “Stop jamming fungi under my nails.” I really do want to be that woman, so I settled into the moist yoga class.

I stayed in the yoga class with the happy balls, and I dutifully rolled them next to my spine, and then I rolled my knuckles onto my temples all the while trying to not freak out that people had been rolling these balls next to their asses, and then onto their faces. Three dozen people who want ass juice on their heads, who am I to judge?

When the instructor pulled her shirt up to show us how our stomachs should look during a pose I thought it was odd, but once again decided to let it go. When she pulled up her shirt a second time, and a third I tried to figure out if she was trying to sleep with one of the women in the room or one of the men. To be fair she had the sort of body that deserves to be naked, but I was laying in a puddle of someone else’s yoga sweat. I didn’t need to check out her I never had a baby and I spend the whole day exercising body. I was trying to focus on not getting the germs onto me.

There were a few more poses, most of them very uncomfortable, none of them familiar (I’ve been dropping in and out of yoga classes for more than 20 years, there should be no “new” poses) and then we came to bridge.

The naked yogi asked every one in the room to gather round her while she demonstrated the adapted bridge pose. She rolled her shirt up to right under her breasts, pushed her already low pants down to just above her pubic mound and invited everyone to watch her bridge, and to feel free to touch her should they feel the need.

I left. I hate leaving a class early, the last time I left a yoga class early was when I was seven months pregnant with Alexander and I realized that I was too big to do the most basic poses. I never want to be that girl.

I need a week of not touching anyone that doesn’t share a last name with me. I’ve tried to embrace the earthy part of me, but let’s face it, the earthy part of me likes outdoor dirt, not people dirt.

How does the saying go? Screw me over once, shame on you. Screw me over twice shame on me?

This year, this tiny little calendar year of just 90 or so days has seen me screwed over twice already. On two separate occasions I’ve entered into work agreements with large brands who have agreed to a predetermined amount of money. One brand had four figures on the table, another had five. Both brands had pre-production meetings with me, both brands asked me to mark off days in my calendar, both brands had conference calls with me where they asked for input, and then both brands pulled the plug.

Neither production company had the courtesy to let me know either in writing or via telephone.

Both brands used outside agencies. Neither agency will ever get a response from me again. One agency is small, the other is not so small. In both instances the agency is the one who was the most underhanded. I will not name them, but if I win the lottery I’ll hire a skywriter.

Here’s the sequence of events; and bloggers I’m hopeful you’ll learn from me, because I really should have learned this before responding to the second request.

I get a phone call or email saying that an agency would like to pitch me as part of a package. They ask for my thoughts on it, and I gave a brief summary of ways I could be involved in the project. Both times the agencies thought I was a good match, a few emails went back and forth about the pricing, and in both instances the agencies agreed in writing on a price for the project.

Here is where I want to caution all of you.

In both instances the agencies had a series of phone calls with me. In both instances the agencies asked me to mark certain days off my calendar. In both instances the agencies understood the parameters of my work, in one case it was that I’d work for a certain number of hours, in another case it was that I’d work on a shoot and they’d hire child actors.

In both cases they used my ideas, I blocked off my time, and then when I called or emailed to reconfirm with my contact I was told that they’d pulled the plug, “Didn’t they tell you?” In both cases I’d reconfigured my schedule to make it work for them. In both cases I got paid not a penny. In once instance they wanted my kids to be part of the video in the 11th hour and in another instance they wanted to double the work time.

Apparently they think I’m either broke or stupid.

Bloggers. I caution you, this is a predatory world full of second third rate TV producers who are out to screw anyone they can in order to get their creative work done free. I will never take a phone call that lasts more than seven minutes without a contract in place, and I’ve actually taken the extreme move of hiring a talent manager. I’m done with it, because agencies give me a headache and steal my ideas.

What I offer to you is this advice. Do nothing without a contract and get half the money up front. If they can’t offer you a deposit, don’t give them ideas.

And I realize that y’all probably won’t listen to this because even I am bad at taking my own advice, but I’m cautioning you, everyone is jumping on the social media bandwagon, and they’re snakes.

We spent the entire day yesterday hiking in the middle of Los Angeles and then rolling through meadows being careful to not land in the stream nearby. The kids took their shoes off and followed the stream for a while while I laid in the speckled shade of an old tree and enjoyed my book. We had peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, grapes and blue potato chips for lunch.

Next the kids had sports. Mr G met up there, and saved me from a fly ball to the head. I’m thinking it’s time to stop bringing a book to Little League. Jane’s soccer practice was fabulous, the girls are getting bigger and stronger. They’re sweet girls. It’s time well spent.

We were inside the house about 45 minutes all day. My father stole 15 of those minutes to bring me Russian caviar and dry white wine to accompany it. If the kids so much as breathe on my caviar I will send them to their rooms for a month.

We had crappy Mexican food for dinner (which was just what I was in the mood for), and then we crawled into bed, thinking, this was a really nice birthday.

The internet has made our world smaller, and that is a good thing. Everyone who has spoken to me about microblogging knows that I’m madly in love with the work that my friends at Epic Change do. I’ve fallen for Africa without ever having visited because of the Twitter Kids.

As a community we’ve watched disasters unfold in New Orleans, Japan, and Haiti. We’ve taken action and raised millions of dollars quickly and efficiently. This is a good thing, this is an incredible use of the connectivity the internet provides.

What we haven’t done is support our own communities.

My childrens’ school supports a local food bank. Every Friday every child is expected to bring in one canned or boxed good. Those hundreds of items are dropped off at the food bank so that individuals and families who aren’t as lucky as we are get proper nutrition (yes I attribute a lot to luck in this economy). Periodically the classrooms have competitions where the class who brings in the most canned goods will win free dress or an extra recess. This is when my son gets competitive. He will beg me to go the 99 cent store and buy lots and lots of tuna fish or peanut butter so they can win the prize.

I’ve explained to my children that feeding the poor means that we’d send them the same food that we’d be willing to eat. I’ve winced as my children pull my favorite cans off our shelves to give them away, but then I remind myself that I have the incredible privilege of going to the grocery store without worrying if I can afford soup. Still, I struggle with this. I’m human, and like everyone else I can be selfish.

While I watch millions of dollars being raised in my community for third world countries, I’ve simultaneously seen our local schools fail, our food pantries empty, and an increase in homelessness.

I can’t change the world. You can’t change the world. We can all change someone’s day, and perhaps offer a glimmer of hope for the future.

Today I’m asking each and every one of you, my readers, to walk into your kitchen, and to find three cans or boxes of high quality food and to donate that to a food bank near you. If you feed your children organic peanut butter with no sugar added, my expectation is that you will donate that same high quality food to a food pantry. If you love to have Amy’s Organic Soup please consider donating that same high quality food to a family near you that might not otherwise have dinner.

If you have $2 or $20 to spare I challenge you to walk to your nearest public school and give that money to their parent association, or just to the school, so that they can buy things like paper and pencils. Los Angeles schools have no money for paper.

If you have time I’m asking you right now to find a way to give some to your community. I don’t care if you answer phones at some sort of hotline or pick up trash on the side of the road. Maybe you’ll make dinner for a family who is on a tight budget.

I’m tired of the internet being all about vague charities that are funded by mega corporations who are looking for a little marketing to toss into their tax exemptions. I’m sick of sending a dollar to a stranger so that 40 cents can be used for administrative costs. I love the idea of non profits finding their roots online, but even more I love the idea of each of us unplugging for a few minutes each week to make a difference in the towns we live in.

All I want for my birthday is for you to give a little something back to your community. The community you see right outside your front door.