Franzine Kafka

Crazy Times

2012-01-29T16:29:00.000-08:00

Not much to report here. I've been buried under a work avalanche - working until 10:30 pm lately. It's hard to make it through each week, but with any luck I'll go back to a regular schedule in a week. Life has been fantastic ever since I landed in San Francisco. I have way too much to do, between work, friends, novel-writing and what not. I literally did not have time to eat most meals last week.

And, some sort of good news on Novel #1 which will hopefully turn into 100% good news in the near future. If that happens, I will report it.

Plus, on Friday, amidst craziness in the office, I received what I think is a higher-tiered rejection from the New Yorker praising the "evident merit" of my story. I sent them part of the first chapter of novel #1 and am just so thrilled to get anything but the lowest form rejection from them! Yay. I have a good feeling about my book. I've adjusted expectations in terms of how long it actually takes to jump through all of the right hoops, but I do feel that I'm getting there.

Marathon Week of Socializing

2012-01-13T22:10:00.000-08:00

I have made it through my marathon week of socializing and now I want to collapse.

I saw my friend's adorable new baby in Mountain View! I went to the Monthly Rumpus on Monday! Last night was almost the grand finale, except it came on a weeknight. I went to a very special party for Path, which is my friend's husband social-networking start-up. They went all out to celebrate their new release, renting out a venue with a dance floor, a taco truck, an ice cream truck (!), and a DJ called Milkman. The best part besides the ice cream was celebrating with close friends. It's such a warm, fuzzy feeling to watch your friends succeed after much-deserved hard work. I have awesome friends. This was literally the first time I ever felt like dancing since age 21, or maybe let's say ever.

After staying out far too late (how come 11:30pm feels so darn late?!!) I stumbled into work this morning and made not one, not two, but three promos before heading off to Literary Death Match, which turned out to be exceedingly awesome. I was delighted by the writing of Alia Volz - the declared winner. I also met some people who have a reading series called Portuguese Artists Colony which I will be sure to check out.

But for now I will fall over. Gosh, being a socialite must be hard. I don't envy these people.

San Francisco vs. Los Angeles Lit Scene

2012-01-11T17:13:00.000-08:00

I've now gone to my first San Francisco literary event. I saw Stanford faculty member Adam Johnson read from his new novel the Orphan Master's Son, set in North Korea. He killed it. I am definitely interested in checking out the book now. I met with two former fiction workshop classmates beforehand, and two former/current faculty members read, so the feeling was very homey. Makes me want to hop on Caltrain and check out some readings/move into the English Department. Sometimes I want to live inside of the Wonder Boys forever.

Things are definitely different here! In L.A. I mainly go to single author readings or launch parties for issues of lit mags. Here it seems like the scene mainly consists of revue shows, which has its pros and cons. Pros are that there seems to be a devoted following for various events and the energy is high (readings are interspersed with short sets from bands or comics). My only gripe is that everything here costs money so I will check out fewer events - typically for a reading the author is doing it for free in the hopes you will buy a book or issue. Sad.

In the meantime, my friend Anne-Marie's book Radio Iris is excerpted here on the Two Dollar Radio website. Check it out - she's brilliant.

A Week in My San Francisco Life

2012-01-06T15:46:00.000-08:00

Wow. Life in San Francisco has just been amazing. I love my job. People are cool. And I have plans every night. It's kind of ridiculous. Here's what my new life looks like:

LAST NIGHT: reconnected with an old classmate and had super fun times.

FRIDAY: my college roommate, the very talented Emily Prince, had a lovely art opening.

SUNDAY: seeing one of my favorite women, Kristin - and her brand new baby boy. she is the first in my circle of close friends to have a child and she has given me many of the gory details.

MONDAY: Rumpus literary reading with publishing friends.

THURSDAY: My friend's husband's start up is throwing what seems like a super fun bash. so excited to celebrate with them.

FRIDAY: Another literary event run by new friend I met in L.A. just before I left!

SATURDAY: A birthday party if I stay in town for the three-day weekend. Actually, two birthday parties.

Not to mention lots of working and novel-writing. I blocked off all of Saturday and half of Sunday to write.

How cool is this week?

It's Jerry!

2012-01-02T21:42:00.000-08:00

Well, I started a new freelance producing job. Last week was rather eventful. I got up bright and early and enjoyed a San Francisco sunrise on the bus down to the office. Then I was off to Candlestick Park, where we shot a certain football hero. Jerry was one of the nicest dudes I've ever met. He was super sweet to everyone including the whole crew. He wanted to direct a few of his own fun takes and was very gracious and personable. What an awesome guy.

Funniest moment: when the Candlestick cleaning crew realized he was on the field. One woman shouted "Hey!!! That's Jerry!" She then stated that she would do anything for Jerry and she managed to seat the entire crew down one by one (maybe 50-75 people who wouldn't listen to us) so that they wouldn't make any noise during the shoot ("It's for Jerry! Do it for Jerry!"). Jerry shook hands with everyone afterwards.

I didn't tell Jerry I had never seen a single football game, though I did watch him on Dancing With The Stars. I hear he is a good wide receiver. He sure has big hands. Sheesh.

One thing I did not expect was that it would be ICE COLD on the field in the morning. I couldn't feel my feet, which were soaked. Holy cow. I spent two hours freezing as though we were on a snowy mountain.

Later I hit up a revue show that incorporates big hats and topical jokes.

Funny thing: nobody in the office eats AT ALL, so I feel awfully silly with my pile of food on my desk.

My new daily schedule is to stop into Safeway on the way in and out of work. Yes, twice a day every single day. This is how it works when you have to walk .75 miles to the subway stop each way and your fridge is empty.

I figure I'll buy one condiment a day until I have a fully stocked fridge. And then I will leave. Tomorrow's soy sauce.

I've gotten so much work done on my second novel (75 pages and counting) that I hate to interrupt it, but boy is it nice to get a paycheck.

New Year's Eve.

2012-01-01T12:24:00.000-08:00

One loft. Three parties. A dozen old friends.

Two guys awkwardly checking their iphones/ taking blurry photos of girls in pretty dresses.

One thirty-minute discussion on the origin and significance of the drop deadline dream.

Uh yeah, I've been writing too many promos.
Happy New Year!

My Year in Books 2011

2011-12-24T11:11:00.001-08:00

Didn't get as much reading in this year as I would have liked, plus I'm eating chocolate truffles for breakfast, but what can you do? Here's what I did manage to squeeze in this year.

(1) The Marriage Plot - Jeffrey Eugenides

My favorite review of this book compares the Leonard-Madeleine-Mitchell love triangle to the Felicity-Ben-Noel love triangle. This love triangle isn't much of a triangle and is more like a line or a circle - with the second guy standing on the sidelines or off in India the entire time rather than fighting for the girl, but hey - it's Eugenides, not the WB.

(2) Meeks - Julia Holmes

This is a debut book on Small Beer Press that also deserves a TV comparison. Basically, it's a literary rendition of what would happen if Kafka was in charge of reality shows. In this book, bachelors have to find a wife or else they'll end up with hard-labor factory jobs and will eventually be executed.

(3) We the Animals - Justin Torres

This is a teeny tiny novel by a Stegner Fellow that managed to garner most of the literary hype this year.

(4) A Visit From the Good Squad - Jennifer Egan

Probably my favorite book that I read this year. I loved the first chapter and the next few lost me, but once I was back on board, I couldn't tear my eyes away. I found myself wanting to think of it as a collection of short stories rather than a novel. I don't need to love every short story in a collection. It's okay to simply love 75% of them, and I do. I had some concerns about the chapter written in Powerpoint, but it turned out to be interesting rather than gimmicky. I can see why it won the Pulitzer Prize.

(5) Let the Great World Spin - Colum McCann

I didn't read these back to back, but this is structurally similar to Goon Squad - with each chapter following a different character that is only tangentially related to another one. Chapters were hit or miss for me. This was a Book Award winner. I liked it, but I would like to see the major literary prizes awarded for traditional novels again rather than these pseudo-short story collection novels.

(6) The Book of Clouds - Chloe Aridjis

Loved this book. I found out about it while out with a friend. We were talking about my novel and he mentioned that he watched his friend write her first novel while in Berlin and that she just set a deadline of when she would mail it off and be finished with it (whereas I continued to tinker with my first novel forever - probably not done yet). Anyway, I picked it up because I was intrigued by her process and found myself utterly charmed by this book. It's set in Berlin and has a lovely surreal quality to it. I got copies for several friends.

(7) Freedom - Jonathan Franzen

I think I read this book at the beginning of this year, but it might have been last year.

(8) Top Secret Manuscript

Can't really say anything about it. It's not out yet. It hasn't even been sold yet, nor has it been finished, but the author is going to be on an LA Times list of writers to watch in 2012.

What did you read?

Rick Moody at Black Clock Launch Party

2011-12-12T00:44:00.001-08:00

I just returned from seeing Rick Moody read at the Mandrake from the most recent issue of Black Clock. The reading also featured Merrill Feitell, Seth Greenland, and CalArts alum Sara Gerot. The reading and party were fantastic. I love the Los Angeles literary scene. So rich, yet unpretentious. People are approachable. It seems like lately magazines like Slake and Black Clock have done a good job of fostering a community for L.A.-based writers and publishers.

Though there are many famous writers who call Los Angeles home, it's slightly unexpected and therefore in some ways easier to form connections between writers/lit journals, if only to rival the scene in New York.

Tonight was a great example. My friend Nina and I were approached by a very interesting fellow in a three piece suit who runs a lit magazine and just moved here from Paris yesterday. Over a post-reading dinner I learned that in addition to editing, he is writing a novel and his agent is someone who is currently considering my manuscript in New York. What are the odds? He is also a fascinating character. I feel like I could learn something from him. Why not get off a plane, walk up to two strangers, make new friends and go to dinner? Isn't that how this socializing thing is supposed to work? No one ever explained to me that you could do that.

Nights like these make me annoyed about having to leave L.A. for San Francisco, though there are great friends there. I just think one of the best things about Los Angeles is that the creative industries are the dominant fields. I also think one of the worst things about being in Los Angeles is that the creative industries are the dominant fields; and on that, I do not care to elaborate!

Tri-Coastal/ Gunman at Sunset and Vine

2011-12-07T23:02:00.001-08:00

I've had this idea that I could take "work vacations." What's a work vacation? It's getting paid to go somewhere else. Work is required, and no vacation is involved, but at least there's an airplane.

Downsides: complicated taxes, pets, and the inability to plan dinner next week because no one will get back to me on exact dates and things.

Now it looks like I'll probably be leaving town in a matter of days. I have a job in San Francisco lasting 2-8 weeks and then another job elsewhere. Notice the gigantic range in time frame. I'm not too keen about that either, but I'll take it.

With a 12% local unemployment rate, it's time to get creative to pay the bills. Somehow my life has flipped around backwards, and I work when I go other places and do not work (more accurately: write full-time) when I am at home. Hmmm.

See ya, Hollywood. I'll come back when you employ me. Also, I'll come back when you stop shooting people.

Everyone hear about the gunman at Sunset and Vine today? A man opened fire at random cars on Vine Street outside the Kinko's. I almost went there in order to print/photocopy new hire documents. I guess the man was angry and he wanted to die, but instead of shooting himself he shot at the passing cars on Vine Street. He was shot dead by a cop who was working on a nearby movie set. When this transpired, I was at a post office a few blocks away, wondering why there were several helicopters parked in the sky.

There have been many shootings lately in places that are too close for comfort. It seems in many cases, these people just wanted to die. There was a shooting at U.C. Berkeley, a gunman in Issaquah (where there is no crime), and now this disgruntled person in Hollywood. I got this crazy head-in-Gravitron feeling just thinking about it today. I could have easily driven down Vine Street but instead drove a different route.

I still need to get my passport photocopied but I don't feel much like doing that right now.

Crazy video: http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2011/12/hollywood-shooting-video-gunman.html

It is cold. I am cold.

2011-12-07T18:36:00.001-08:00

Well congratulations, everybody. You all have me on tenterhooks. California DMV, I'm talking to you. Entering Week 5 with no license now. Yes, California is the 7th largest economy in the world by country, but we are also turning into Third World country, at least as far as the government is concerned. I went to the usually-speedy post office this afternoon only to find a line of 45 people standing around mumbling about how the other local branches have just closed. Seriously, what's going to happen to the mail? They're threatening all sorts of things. I already don't want to go anywhere near the DMV here (last time I went to the downtown branch a riot literally almost broke out due to the two-hour wait thanks to the shut down of other local branches). Do we even still have schools? I haven't seen one in a long time, so I can't verify that.

Speaking of tenterhooks, there's not a peep from the You-Know-Whos, but that's starting to feel like an abusive relationship. Now some prospective employers have thrown their hats into the ring and are in the process of ignoring me post interview. I'm sure they'll get around to it eventually. I did manage to book a Food Network producing job about six months in advance, so I guess that's something. However, I would like to get some other work between now and then, on account of having to pay the rent and stuff.

I'm just a tad cranky. It has been frreeeeezing here. Like, see your own breath freezing. The cat is not happy. He ate my rapini tonight.

It was 35 degrees on my night hike this week. I just played a softball game in three shirts and a wool hat while doing jumping jacks. Some of the biggest guys did not show up on account of the cold, so I got to play center field and managed to hit a triple while freezing my nuts off. We won 21-3 despite having a roster of only 9 players, so that's a good thing. Play-offs are steadily approaching, and I'm hoping to be in town to finish off the season. This is the first time my team has had a shot of taking home the trophy.

In other braggy news, I recently produced a documentary on a wheelchair-bound athlete for a sports network and was glad to find out that people like it. The Hall of Fame apparently e-mailed the network to congratulate them. I had mono and turned old during this period, so I'm glad it worked out for everyone.

Hurricane L.A.

2011-12-03T19:25:00.000-08:00

Been kind of a nutty week around here. I left for a very quick, very short trip and came back just in time to escape the windpocalypse 2011, or whatever people want to call the rainless hurricane event that made it seem like a large bomb went off in Los Angeles. As soon as I arrived at my softball game on Wednesday I realized we had a problem.

(1) My car was shaking violently in the parking lot due to winds that did not exist before I left my house. My car felt like it was going to blow away like the plastic garbage in American Beauty.

(2) The wind was so strong that it picked up all of the dirt on the field and threw it into the sky. Sirens were wailing all around us and streetlights were out everywhere. Little did we know that the winds were up to 80mph. That's basically a hurricane, right?

Some of my friends are still without power, but I live in a bomb-proof abode that's survived many earthquakes, thank goodness.

When I went running today I saw that a man was trying to cut a very large fallen tree down from a power line using a handsaw while mumbling something about his cable TV being out. Good luck with that, Sir.

If Only Life Could Be a String of Dinner Parties

2011-12-02T13:14:00.000-08:00

It's been an interesting past few weeks, punctuated by four dinner parties. First, my friend Brett came down from San Francisco and a few of us put together an impromptu dinner party in which Allison and I made the exact same dish - hers was pasta with squash and mine was pasta with zucchini. All of us ate pasta with a side of pasta. Luckily, she also sauteed kale, so there was something green on our plates as well.

Then there were the two Thanksgivings. Those were both great and extensively blogged about, at least by me - in the post below.

Thanksgiving was so much fun, in fact, that when I had to go up to San Francisco on short notice, I roped my friend into throwing a dinner party. Just a few days prior she had offered to cook me lasagna and throw me a party and order me a nice chocolate cake her husband got for his birthday - all in hypotheticals. Let's just say we made this happen, and that it was so much fun.

I introduced the other seven guests to a wonderful parlor game called "Telephone Pictionary" which involves writing phrases and drawing pictures and passing these phrases or pictures (alternating) down the line to be further translated into pictures and phrases. Let's just say we busted a gut or two laughing.

There was also a camping trip that happened somewhere between these dinner parties. I went in order to try out rock climbing, but the most memorable part for me ended up being the food we ate around the campfire. My camping friends are gourmet and they brought all of Whole Foods along with them, including fleur de sel, ginger, garlic bunches of kale, quinoa, pesto, TCHO chocolate for smores, multi-grain pancakes with syrup and butter, broccoli, cauliflower and brioche.

I tried to recreate this quinoa-pesto-kale concoction last night in a real kitchen with a real stove, yet somehow I failed. Tonight I will try to recreate the roasted brussel sprouts from my two Thanksgivings.

Is there a more perfect form of socializing than having your friends over for dinner? I think not.

A Tale of Two Thanksgivings

2011-11-26T20:12:00.000-08:00

I ended up staying in town for Thanksgiving this year, and luckily not one but two Friendsgivings emerged last-minute. At first I was concerned I had gone from zero plans to too-many plans, but luckily the start-times ended up being staggered. I guess everyone decided to stay in L.A. this weekend.

Thanksgiving #1 took place in the hills of Echo Park, where my friends were house-sitting for someone's parents. This beautiful house had three chickens roaming around in the back. There was also a resident axe-murderer.
Also, I can't take a picture that's not blurry.

We finished Thanksgiving #1 at 5:30pm, and then I rushed down the hill to another lovely Echo Park home where my friend and thirteen of his closest friends were about to start their meal.

Ameeth is a great chef/host and he made cranberry old-fashioneds & a pear-rosemary cocktail (you'll notice someone else was the photographer here).

Ameeth is also so fancy he makes his pie crust with both cold and warm butter.

Almost all of the guests were PhD candidates. I sat next to an astronomer and got to hear about how he only gets to look at his galaxies when he flies to Hawaii or Chile. Sounds like a good job to me.

It was also handy to have a bunch of literary PhDs around so we could discuss The Marriage Plot and the Art of Fielding.

But wasn't long before the conversation turned to Octpus and I learned that the Internet has made our lives very, very similar. You see, the night before Thanksgiving someone posted a video of an octopus walking on land.

I realized I didn't know enough about octopuses and immediately read the entire wikipedia page and watched about 20 videos of them on Youtube.

Someone else at the dinner also saw the same walking-octopus, read the same wikipedia page and watched the same sequence of videos on Youtube. I suspect many people became obsessed with octopus on November 23, 2011.

I only intended to stay an hour or two, but who can resist a good parlor game like Telephone Pictionary?

I had to tear myself away at midnight, which meant I spent nine hours celebrating Thanksgiving. So fun.

THE END.

Night Hiking

2011-11-22T21:13:00.000-08:00

I've been living dangerously for several weeks (or years, you could argue). I don't seem to have a valid driver's license. California stopped sending me notices (thanks for the ticket for my expired registration, DMV!) and I didn't know my license was expired until I walked into a bar for the first time in six months to meet an out of town friend and his friend's philosophers' club (yes this club exists, and it is made up of full-time Los Angeles-based philosophers, and no they don't like bars). I guess it's good I went! Now the wheels of licensing are grinding very, very slowly somewhere in Sacramento, and hopefully one day in the next four months I'll be a licensed driver again. Tomorrow would be nice, seeing as we're about to head into a holiday weekend.

I just got in from a lovely night hike. It's absolutely one of my favorite Los Angeles activities. I was at the peak of my fitness in August (running 30 miles/week) when I got mono and I've been sidelined ever since.

Anyway, it was good to get back to my group hikes filled with insane people who hike just about every day of the week. The last time I hiked was summer, sunny. This time the sun had set hours before our start time and it was about 50 degrees, which made me nervous, but it turns out you can't feel cold when hiking/trail running with this group. It's simply not possible. It rained all weekend, so the air couldn't have been clearer, and I just focused on forgetting about all of the bugs I was eating as I sucked in huge breaths going up to the top. My wonderful friend from Seattle sent me a care package of dark chocolate, which I happily devoured at the summit.

Night hiking is one of the rare opportunities for me to branch out and meet non-creatives and non-hipsters. On the way down today I talked with someone who is a software engineer and programs brakes for the 787, a new airbus model and some other planes. Who knew that a string of code in C could make a plane stop moving? Not me. Most of the group still seems intact from before I was forced to take a break.

Awesome hike. I now have a gigantic endorphin rush after 2-3 months of minimal exercise and life feels great.

L.A. Literary Magazine Softball tournament

2011-11-19T16:12:00.000-08:00

Today was a great day. I got to marry my love of softball with my love of literature in a one-day tournament held between people associated with the L.A. literary scene. Game one was Red Hen Press versus Slake Magazine (the organizers... I had a feeling they were going to be good - possibly the only good team there! I mean, let's face it. Writing short stories and playing softball generally aren't two skills that go hand in hand).

In fact, all of the teams were good. Except mine. Red Hen and Slake Magazine played a pretty close game. Supposedly the idea was to put uncoordinated pasty people on the field and laugh, but it seemed like most of the players on both of these teams knew how to play. Red Hen won Game #1.

By the time Game #2 started, most of the Black Clock team had not showed up. We borrowed from other teams and I guess I was still laboring under the delusion that we could win. I was ready to kick L.A. Review of Books' butts, even though they were all men and we were all women and their pitcher was pitching just a little bit fast and low for slow pitch. I kept trying to strategically move people around the field so we could catch up, but we lost by at least ten, possibly by quite a lot more.

Still, I wish every day could be today. I love books and I love softball, and I love it when two seemingly disparate parts of my life come together.

Here's the LA Times preview of the tourney:

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/jacketcopy/2011/11/the-softball-battle-of-the-la-indie-publishers.html

How To Get An Agent

2011-11-13T20:27:00.001-08:00

Well, they say the best thing to do when you're waiting to hear from an agent is to write Book #2. All of the agent blogs remind us that "writing is a muscle." I remember for years I thought maybe I'd only have one book in me, or at least one book per decade.

Anyway... committing to my debut novel for all of eternity was a foolish thought. I am proud to report that I have at least two books in me.

I got the idea for Book 2 a few months ago but it recently morphed into the thing I think it's going to end up being. It took a year for my first book to do that, so I'm quite pleased with this result. I'm super intrigued by all of my four characters and can't wait to see what happens to them when I finish it.

Having gone through this entire querying and submission process, I am no longer a virgin to the field and can now write with the market in mind. Part of me feels like this is selling out in a sense. Though I've read plenty of books, my first book was written very purely. I didn't write a big hook on page one or start with a sexy concept upfront. I had this idea that an agent or editor would like me purely for who I was if they got to know me... I wouldn't put out on a first date just so they'd love me.

But publishing is increasingly becoming more like the movies, and in this tough economy it's almost more important to have a great pitch than a great book, and putting out as quickly as possible is almost mandatory.

I recently read a blog post in which a publisher described a meeting in which people requested "great" titles (like "Sh*t My Dad Says"). Didn't matter if the books were written. Just titles would do. It used to be that you got 5 pages to sell your whole book to someone. Now you get five words. This is one of the downsides of the Internet making everything so darn accessible to everyone. Lots of competition.

It's also exactly the kind of thing that's not doing literary fiction any favors, but now that I know that, now that I know the right first five pages can get you through everyone's doors, and even though that seems a little bit skanky to me, I will be showing off my assets pronto.

Jeffrey Eugenides

2011-10-17T11:35:00.000-07:00

I have a love/hate relationship with blogging. I suppose when I started blogging I imagined I'd be writing for some assortment of strangers, but instead I'm writing for friends I never hear from. I suppose it makes me uncomfortable to know that people are reading about my life without replying or without me hearing about their lives. Facebook has made voyeuristic friendships the norm, but frankly it creeps me out. Strangers hearing about my day? Sure, bring it on. However, friends that know every anecdote I've had in two years without a phone call, e-mail exchange or other reciprocal form of contact? That's just plain weird.

In the meantime, here's what's new. I have managed to get mono not once but twice this year, at my ripe old age. Miracles do happen.

I did my first reading. It was nerve-wracking and I thought I was going to pass out/throw up, but apparently no one in the audience noticed. Yay.

My first novel is currently being read by three agents now. One is a super power-house literary fiction agent. He has clients who publish fiction in the New Yorker and he also has some nifty glasses too. .

I started my second novel. I'm about 15-20 pages in at the moment. Hoping it works out. It's an entirely different voice from my first novel. More restrained, male. My attempt at being a Philip Roth or Jonathan Franzen, writing the quintessential white male upper middle class Americana book, basically.

I saw Jeffrey Eugenides read from "The Marriage Plot" last Thursday and he said several amazing things. One is that he writes every day but throws away most of what he writes. That's why there are ten years between each book. He also said each new book arises from the previous book, out of a lingering sense of failure. Apparently after winning the Pulitzer Prize for "Middlesex" nearly ten years ago he still found shortcomings in his writing. He said that his third novel is his attempt to get to the heart of his characters - whereas Middlesex relied more on complicated plotting. I noticed that the passages he read on Thursday were more pared down in language, and I appreciated that. It was interesting to hear him connect the dots between pared down language and depth of character, but I suppose that makes sense.

My first novel has simple language, short sentences and a lot of character depth. And my sense of lingering failure is the opposite of his. I started my second book hoping to be more opaque and more controlled, but I can see exactly how one book flows into the next.

Urban-ish Hiking

2011-06-21T21:41:00.001-07:00

One of the coolest things about Los Angeles is the fact that there are plenty of major hikes either within city limits or within twenty miles. The entire San Gabriel range has some great steep hikes. I hiked up to Inspiration Pt. about a month ago - 10 miles round trip and 3000 ft gain. On the way we saw the ruins of an old hotel and train track.

This inspired me to join up on some Sierra Club hikes which I like because it's a rare chance to feel a sense of community in the mega-opolis. Also I've been pretty bored of my routine of running several miles a day, so it's good to mix it up and there are some nice elevation gains here.

Yesterday my buddy John flew in and we did a ten-mile hike from the backside of Griffith Park up to the Hollywood sign. We hiked across the ridge out to Mt. Lee, up behind the sign. What's neat about Griffith Park is that it's so much wilderness right in the heart of one of the world's biggest city. I had done the regular trails up Vermont before, but I only recently started going off the beaten path along the ridges and up the sides of mountains and such. One moment you're in the wilderness, and the next you turn a corner and you see Hollywood below. Such a cool experience.

I had no idea there was a reservoir in Hollywood until I ascended that peak. Also, if you look the wrong way you'll see a landfill that's been covered up! But that's on the Glendale side. Someone apparently built a "Tourists Go Away" sign visible from the top of Mt. Lee (also pictured above!). So many secrets from above!

We had a terrific time. It was about three and a half or four miles out to the sign, but on our way back we got horribly lost. The sun set and we got up to a ridge and just couldn't get back down. Our prospects were looking quite grim for a bit. Vultures and coyotes were heckling us no joke. I think we hiked about three miles going the wrong way before we eventually found a path back down to the car at 10 pm. Who knew you could have such a wilderness adventure right here in Hollywood? I seem to find trouble when I hike. Brett and I missed the last bus out of a very remote park in Chile three years ago and had to hitchhike back with some German tourists. Maybe I should always carry a survival pack.

Oh, and that espresso drink up top is a "Coffee and Jelly Donut" from LAMILL in Silver Lake. The milk was infused with donuts. It sounds great and it's totally disgusting. I drank as much as pictured.

Amanda Knox - The Celebrity

2010-12-01T21:28:00.001-08:00

HERE is an article John Kercher wrote about the impact of Knox's celebrity on his grieving process, with an excerpt below.

Amanda Knox has started her appeal in Italy. She's been sentenced to 26 years in jail for the rape and murder of Meredith Kercher. She's also become a celebrity in the three years since being arrested for the heinous crime. Hayden Panatierre is playing Amanda in a film that is coming out soon. Michael Winterbottom is also directing a film (starring Colin Firth).

To me, it is clear why she has garnered so much attention - though I agree it is disgusting. She's a beautiful, upper middle-class girl who is convicted of murder. Basically, these two things do not seem to go hand in hand, and when something seems perplexing - when there is cognitive dissonance - it continues to be talked about in the media. Take the case of Brithey Spears - marketed as a virgin at the height of her fame, despite prancing around naked. It's these impossibilities that keep us interested in a topic, even when we look at Britney Spears and can reason that she's not a virgin, or we look at the ample DNA and circumstantial evidence around the Knox conviction yet mentally cannot reconcile it with our view of what a killer should be.

This case makes light of murder - putting a cute, goofy girl at the face of it. A girl who wears stupid printed tee shirts to court. Whose parents attend court on the way to sightseeing in Italy, clad in shorts, tank tops and cameras.

Much has been made of the PR campaign by the Knox-Mellas family, but these days it seems like there is no separation between entertainment and real life. The media pounces on the story, because it resembles a compelling book or movie (blood, murder, two beautiful girls, sex). The Knox family spins the story to the press. The media is too lazy/uninterested in digging up real facts and works off of press releases. And we, as the public, consume these stories as though they were entertainment. Perhaps most jarring is the way in which Amanda Knox and her family members behaved during the first trial - as though in an out of body experience, in which Knox is the star of a movie, rather than on trial for murder.

I can't help but wonder if the state of the media has deconditioned us to the extent that it seems appropriate for a murder suspect to behave in such a fashion - her quirks are interesting. She does cartwheels at a police station. They would make for an interesting character in a movie. But this is a girl who was convicted of murder.

.
From Meredith's Father: (see link at top)

It's utterly despicable that the girl jailed for killing my daughter
has become a celebrity
From Meredith Kercher’s father, a passionate attack on the cult of 'Foxy Knoxy'
By JOHN KERCHER
Last updated at 1:01 AM on 2nd December 2010
Comments (46)
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Last week, I switched on my television to see the parents of the young woman convicted of taking my daughter’s life proclaiming her innocence. And, once again, I felt the pain and the anger and the raw grief resurface.
Amanda Knox was found guilty of killing my daughter Meredith at the house they shared in Italy three years ago. Yet since that act of horrific violence, Knox, it seems, has been accorded the status of a minor celebrity.
Sometimes it seems that there is no escape from her or her jaunty nickname, ‘Foxy Knoxy’ (doubly hurtful, for the way it trivialises the awfulness of her offence).

Cherished memories: John Kercher misses daughter Meredith every day
Last week, Knox’s parents were given star billing on the ITV breakfast show Daybreak, where they had free rein to profess their conviction that their daughter is not guilty.
Kurt Knox and his ex-wife Edda Mellas have never expressed their condolences to our family for our grievous loss. There has been no letter of sympathy; no word of regret. Instead, I have watched them repeatedly reiterate the mantra of their daughter’s innocence.
Alas, I fear there is more yet to come. Their TV appearance last week, trailed for two days as if it were some exclusive media coup, coincided with the resumption of Knox’s appeal against her conviction.
This appeal, like the initial court case, will drag on for months, while the dark tunnel between my family and our ability to grieve for Meredith in peace becomes ever longer.
If Knox doesn’t get the result she wants, our agony will be even more protracted: she may then take her case to Italy’s Supreme Court in Rome. Put simply, our ordeal could go on for years.

'To many, Knox seems an unlikely killer. Yet to my family she is, unequivocally, culpable'
Knox is one of three people convicted of killing my beautiful and talented daughter. It was a brutal murder. Meredith’s throat was slit, and she was stabbed to death.
Knox and her former boyfriend, Italian Raffaele Sollecito, are serving jail sentences of 26 and 25 years respectively for their heinous crime. A third person, drifter Rudy Guede, convicted with them, is also in prison.
Yet it is Knox who still exerts such a hold over the media. As a journalist myself, I know the reason why. Knox is young, attractive and female. To many, she seems an unlikely killer.
Yet to my family she is, unequivocally, culpable. As far as we are concerned, she has been convicted of taking our precious Meredith’s life in the most hideous and bloody way.
And the sadness is, the nature of that death too often prevents us from celebrating her life. She has become ‘Meredith Kercher, murder victim’, not Meredith Kercher, our lovely, intellectually curious daughter.

I Will Not Read Your F-ing Script: Why Josh Olson is an Idiot

2009-09-14T09:56:00.000-07:00

http://blogs.villagevoice.com/runninscared/archives/2009/09/i_will_not_read.php

I'm going to take a break from writing about my novel (two last chapters, yay!) to comment on a blog post I've come across several times in the last week.

Screenwriter Josh Olson has written a little piece for the Village Voice entitled "I Will Not Read Your F-ing Script." Who's Josh Olson you say? He's the screenwriter of A History of Violence and someone who is too busy to read your script. Especially if you can't construct a proper sentence in the English language (I'm sure that applies to many of us). He complains about being asked to read scripts by acquaintances now that he's made it to the big time.

I have a major problem with this blog. There is a reason he seems so funny and original by saying "fuck this" and "fuck that" and "I am too busy for this." It's because everyone else has some tact and acknowledges the foundation of making it in Hollywood.

The fact of the matter is that screenwriting, along with many other trades here, is not merit-based. This is a well-known fact. Unless you are born with connections, you need to spend equal amounts of time writing and meeting people who can help you. Some people can do this with ease, perhaps already starting at Harvard and USC, and other people struggle with not coming off like a douche bag for trying to make connections.

How did I get my job writing for an animated superhero show on PBS? Through connections! A friend of a friend! An acquaintance. Every single writer knew the head writer. There was no job board. There's no application process. And this is PBS.

So, while saying "I will not read your fucking script" may come off funny, I take offense. Not because this man won't read my script - in fact, there are plenty of scripts I wouldn't want to/have time to read -but because his seventh grade tactics wins him fans, as though he is pointing out some great truth.

I agree, it is a sad thing that screenwriting here is not merit-based. It is part of the reason why I have moved on to writing a novel this year, despite the fact that I had gained a lot of interest in my TV pilot last year. Make no mistake - this is a town about who you know and what you can get them to do for you. Many good people - talented writers with moral compasses - leave because they can't stomach constantly asking people to do stuff for them. The ones who make it - unless daddy is Francis Ford Coppola - I guarantee you spent their time busting their ass with every single acquaintance and that, with the combination of good writing, eventually paid off, even if that means only one person said "Yes I Will Read Your Fucking Script."
Hmm... I wonder who read Josh Olson's script?

There are hundreds of great writers who would succeed if only they could get to the right person. Making an example of someone who isn't familiar with grammar is another stupid tactic.

Oh, and Josh? I won't watch your fucking movie, so I guess we're on the same page.

RZ + AR = O+S (Q&A with Cedric Lemoyne of O+S)

2009-04-15T09:52:00.000-07:00

It's not a complicated math equation, but a new band. Bear with me folks.

In college I counted Remy Zero and Azure Ray among my favorites. Both bands cultivated a beautiful, lush sound with pretty vocals that seemed to lift us to another place. I later discovered that the members of the two bands had known each other as kids in Birmingham. Small world.

Since then, both bands have broken up. Maria Taylor and Orenda Fink of Azure Ray both pursued solo careers. The members of Remy Zero scattered across two continents, with two members moving to Cambodia to raise money on behalf of impoverished children. Remy Zero's music lived on in Hollywood long after the members departed Los Angeles. One song off the last album is the theme song to Smallville; Zach Braff chose the song "Fair" for his film Garden State, which introduced the band to a whole new group of fans years after the band had officially broken up.

Now, one member of Remy Zero - bassist Cedric Lemoyne - and one member of Azure Ray -singer Orenda Fink - have joined together to form a band called O+S, creating an ethereal, moody album in the vein of the Cocteau Twins and Ten-CC. You may have also heard their music on Grey's Anatomy or the new TV series Dollhouse. O+S eerily resurrects the spirits of Cedric and Orenda's former bands.

O+S recently released their debut album on Saddle Creek Records, and Cedric was kind enough to answer a few questions from Franzine Kafka:

When did you first meet Orenda?
We met in 1992 I think. She and Maria were just out of high school, and starting to make themselves known in the Birmingham scene. Eventually all of us in Remy Zero befriended them, and during one of our many membership shake-ups Orenda actually joined the band for about a week! That didn't work out, but she and I remained close through the years and would talk casually about working together at some point.. Then she called one day and said she was doing an artist-in-residency project for the Bemis Center in Omaha, which involved taking sound materials she'd collected and building music from them. The results were beyond our expectations, and we decided to release them as a record. Thus O+S came to be.

Is this a one-time collaboration, or do you plan to put out more albums?
Definitely more to come! We're already trying to dream up what the next songs should sound like. I expect another album's worth by the end of the year

How did you and Orenda put together this album? Were you in the same place, or was it a Postal Service style album, mailing songs back and forth?
We worked intensively together for about 2 weeks in Omaha, going through the sounds and initial song ideas. Then we spent a few months working via email.

How would you compare O+S to Remy Zero and Azure Ray? To me, it sounds almost 50/50, oddly.
I think her singing style is very distinctive, and was obviously a big part of the Azure Ray sound. So comparisons to Azure Ray are inevitable. Then, in addition to my own sensibilities, I also brought in Jeffrey Cain and Gregory Slay (both of Remy Zero) to work on a lot of the music with me. So I can see why you would say that. I think O+S is similar enough to our old projects that people who liked them with like this, but different enough to be interesting in its own right. That being said, I also expect the next record to be a bigger departure from what you expect of either of us.

Can you describe your creative process? Would you say it's more of a process of inspiration, or hard work?
I do a lot of compiling little ideas - beats, guitar parts, chord progressions, etc. - just trying things, looking for interesting combinations and happy accidents. Most of this ends up just being gestation work, but it's all essential because each little experiment is another step along the way to when a bigger idea comes. Something you're just goofing around with takes on a life of its own and suddenly you have a fully formed piece of music that's really cool. It's small bursts of hard work over time which lead to an inspired, eureka moment when everything seems to come together.

Describe your daily routine when you're in songwriting mode. What helps the process?
When I'm in the middle a creative period I like to wake up, have my tea or coffee and go straight to work before doing anything else if I can. Long unbroken stretches of time are best because songwriting for me is making tracks in the studio, and I work slowly. I'll go from morning through the late afternoon, break for a few hours then go again from 10pm till maybe 2 or 3 in the morning. 6 days a week until the fever leaves me! Nothing really helps much except the availability of time and the absence of distractions. Well, maybe caffeine and a daily jog!

You've been part of a band that has made an impact on many fans and garnered the respect of musicians from Radiohead to many many others. What do you want from music now that you've already been in one great band and you're launching a new one
Thank you for your kind opinion! Well, when we were writing and recording these songs, my only intention was to make music that I found beautiful. We weren't thinking of ourselves as a band, so we weren't worried about how it was going to be received. In the past I had goalposts in my head that I measured Remy's work against - the work of our peers or artists that we admired, commercial aspirations, etc - that were totally absent in this case. It was liberating just to try and make a record the 17 year old me would have liked. We pulled it off with this one, so now everything else that's happening with the positive reactions etc is just icing. I'd like to keep that mindset going forward, making music that satisfies whatever personal, internal parameters we have at the time and the letting the rest take care of itself.

What would you have done differently if you went back in time and started up Remy Zero again?
It's hard to think like that. Obviously in hindsight there are things the more mature me just shakes his head at! But I believe things happened as they were meant to, the beautiful and the terrible.

What's the most demeaning or embarrassing job you've ever done to support yourself while making music?
Probably telemarketing long distance phone service. I'd take the bus from downtown LA to Hollywood at 6am, sit in a fluorescent-lit cubicle world and roll little old ladies in middle America for World Comm. It was an ethically suspect, deliberately deceptive sales job, and I was sh*t at it! I lasted about 3 weeks, same as every other job I ever landed. Waiting tables, selling newspaper subscriptions, record store clerk, line cook, movie theater, personal assistant, pizza delivery... I tried them all for 3 weeks at some point!

Will Remy Zero ever play a show again?
Anything is possible. But unless we can get it together to finish some new, worthwhile music it would be pointless. For now the door remains open...

Check out the new O+S release in stores now or buy it directly here.

To hear more songs, check out the band's website http://www.opluss.com

Evolution of a Writer: John Joseph

2009-03-21T07:48:00.000-07:00

I'll admit that I know very little about the legendary punk rock band the Cro-mags and the New York hardcore scene that they dominated in the '80s. The kinds of "indie" musicians I listen to are the kind that (lead singer) John Joseph would probably have knocked out on the street if this genre of music had existed a couple of decades ago, back when he was fueled by the anger for the lot he drew in life.

In his auto-biography "Evolution of a Cro-Magnon," John Joseph paints a picture of growing up with a father who abused his mother, weaving through stories that are both dark and funny. His first set of foster parents, the Valentis, fed him and his two brothers a breakfast of Oreo filling they scraped off with their teeth and then spread onto moldy Wonderbread. Otherwise, the boys were treated like dogs, forced to live outside on the patio, coming inside only to sleep at night (in the comfort of the garage). They were allowed in the house every so often to clean the rugs - not with a vacuum cleaner, of course, but with toilet bowl scrubbers.

John Joseph's a punk-rocker who spent his teenaged years bouncing around between foster homes, on the streets, selling fake drugs, and then in jail - but he has no regrets about a single moment of his difficult life. Long before penning an autobiography, he embarked on a soul-searching mission, joining the Hare Krishnas and practicing yoga. When he's not playing shows as either the Cro-Mags, or his new band, Bloodclot, he works at soup kitchens, offers a yoga class at 93 St. Marks, or works on one of his many screenplays.

He is currently finishing up a screenplay based on the first five chapters of his memoir. I recently had a chance to chat with him over the phone, and he mentioned that Paul Haggis (two-time Oscar winning writer and producer of "Million Dollar Baby" and "Crash") has expressed interest in the story.

When did you decide to write the book?
I’m actually working on a film you know actually a couple films – comedy and drama – but my writing partner Priscilla Sommer kept encouraging me to write. She was like, “you should write a book, you should write a book.” At first I was a little hesitant because I thought it might be a little narcissistic to sit down and write a book about myself at this point in my life, but then as I started writing the book I thought wow maybe this is a story that could help a lot of people and it was very therapeutic to me. As I started to write it, it felt natural, so I kept going. It took me five years.

Has writing the book changed the way you look at your life? Now you almost discuss yourself as a character.
I think it made me see the world a little differently and how everybody’s going through a lot of stuff. I got a lot of e-mails from people that went through similar circumstances. It just really made me look and see that there’s a lot more that unites us than there is that divides people.

How do you feel about strangers knowing intimate details about your life?
I kind of detach myself from it because that’s what you have to do. In spiritual yoga practice you’re always realizing that there’s a reason you’re on every path you’re on. I was just reading this morning that we shouldn’t see ourselves as the doer of anything. Really I just look at it like I'm letting people understand what the Cro-mags were dealing with what I was dealing with, and also it’s a book about other people that I came in contact with – it’s just a real New York kind of story.

Describe your writing process - what helps / doesn't help / hurts it?
Trial and error. Even on the screenplays. I started writing scripts in ’89 and I didn’t know what I was doing. The main thing about writing - I love Steven Pressfield. He put out this book called "The War on Art" - it just tells you you gotta be in it doing it every day. That’s what separates the talkers from the doers.

How much time did you spend writing?
Hours every day. I wake up, the first thing I do is some yoga, maybe a little stretching, and the next thing I do is write because I tend to get most of my inspiration in the morning. So I stretch, I chant, I write, just to get a good chunk of the writing done. It’s a little harder when I’m touring. I was going to take my laptop on the last tour but in Europe and everything you need converters.

I think you find your voice when you’re writing. If you try to be artificial about it, it’s kind of like what music has become. Everyone wants to write music in a genre and do this and do that – that’s why music all sounds the same now.

How was the book put out? Was it entirely a D.I.Y. effort?
My friend Todd he used to play drums for Murphy’s Law, Todd Irwin, I gave the book to him just to check out and he never checked it out. One night he was sitting in the house and his wife Jen was reading the manuscript and she was cracking up, and he was like what are you reading and she was like “John’s manuscript.” So then he read it after her and was like dude, talk to his partner. They said “we want to design the book” because that’s what he does – he has a graphics design company. Logos and branding. So they wanted to design the book and they checked into how much it would cost to put it out and that’s how Punkhouse came about. I’m 33% partners on the publishing company. We just sold out of the first pressing of the book and we’re doing the second pressing, and a new book is coming.

How did you get the book into Borders and Barnes and Noble stores?
We got a distribution deal. We’re pulling it off of Amazon now because Amazon rips everybody off. They take seven months to give you a check and you make no money off of books. We’re going to try to pump up the Punkhouse website, http://www.punkhouse.org/

How are your screenplays going?
We wrote a comedy about a religious cult based on the hare Krishna stuff and we have this boxing drama, and I’m working on something myself. The one I’m working on is called Beyond the Fishbowl and it’s an adaptation of the first five chapters of my book.

We’re going to end it on the streets of New York in the seventies. My girlfriend dying and the whole thing. But we do pull pieces out of the later part of the book because it’s an adaptation you don’t have to be scene for scene the same. You have to extract a story from all that, and that’s what we were able to do. I have to fluctuate my time between touring, spoken word and writing.

Do you have a plan to get the screenplay into the right hands?
Moby actually introduced me to Paul Haggis (two-time Oscar winning writer/producer “Million Dollar Baby” and “Crash”) and we went to his party, I gave him the book – one for him, one for his assistant. The assistant is like “we love it, Paul likes it.” They’re interested in the material. My other friend is a big-time actor and these producers that he’s involved with are reading it, and they love it, and there’s a lot of people waiting for the script so I’ve gotta get it done.

What would you compare it to?
I think it’s a lot of elements of different things, and I hate comparing things to other things. It’s definitely a New York story and a search for what’s important in life.

Have you ever heard from the Valentis since the book was published and you stopped by their house?
I ain’t hear from them, you know. I’m sure they’ll be like “oh it’s b.s.” or whatever. The fact of the matter is the state shut their home down, and my brothers can attest to everything in that book. I’m over that. If I had written this book twenty years ago it would have been different, but I’m working on myself and I really didn’t have any anger toward them.

You included a lot of personal details in the book about yourself and other people. Was there any fallout amongst your family members?
My brother was a little upset, my older brother. Even my mom a little bit but you know for the good of the story it had to be put in there.

We became much tighter, me and my mother especially. When you read the end of the book, all of the stuff that went down, that was a result of writing the book.

Looking back, what would you have done differently in your childhood or teen years?
I wouldn’t change a thing. The past is the past and we weren’t made to be in some nice home. I needed to go through everything that I went through – getting locked up. It’s just part of the story that made everything else possible. I really feel that God had a plan.

What struck you about the Hare Krishnas? Why did you first join, and why did you stick with the religion after finding out you had been scammed?
Food obviously but then the chanting and the philosophy. I’m not going to lie, it was the food first. I’ve been hungry my whole life. When they were like, “Yo, we got free food and it tastes good,” I was like “I could stick with this.”

What's the story with the Hare Krishnas? Are they all corrupt, or is it just a certain sect?
99% of the Hare Krishna devotees are innocent. They don’t know any better. It’s the leaders that are corrupt.

It’s a long story but go on iskcomirm.com you can find out the whole thing. Basically a bunch of people hijacked the movement.

http://www.iskconirm.com/

In your book you discuss your relationship with HR from the band Bad Brains a lot. Do you still have a close relationship with him?
Yeah of course. I may play in Brazil with them on the Fourth of July.

What do you think of New York in 2009?
Oh man I was up in the South Bronx on Saturday driving through and I seen old New York and I loved it. I’m waiting for it to get gangster again so all of these people will get the hell out. Some dude asked me this question: “what do you think about that dude in one of them emo bands opening up a bar on Avenue C, and I was like yeah he wouldn’t have had that bar 15 or 20 years ago, I’ll tell you that.

The Cro-Mags will be playing March 29th 2009 at Europa in Brooklyn. Come down to 93 St Marks every Sunday there’s a feast from 7-9, free dinner, yoga.

www.myspace.com/thecromags

Portrait of an Indie Artist: Interview with James Kochalka

2009-02-10T19:57:00.000-08:00

When James Kochalka was a kid, he enjoyed drawing comic strips so much that he filled over 2000 pages by the time he finished high school. Since then, Kochalka has continued to put those of us with writer's block to shame. In the past two decades, Kochalka has released dozens of books, including graphic novels and children's books. He even writes a daily comic strip, American Elf. His work has attracted fans as diverse as Frank Miller and Moby and ganered him a Harvey Award (the industry equivalent of an Oscar). In short, he's indie famous.

As if one successful career wasn't enough, Kochalka is also a prolific musician, with nine full-length albums under his belt. The song "Hockey Monkey" was featured as the open for the Fox show "The Loop."

He's so prolific that there's no quick way to write an introduction (I've just realized). When I approached Kochalka for an interview, he had no problem rising to the challenge of answering eleven hard-hitting questions about his humble beginnings and his meteoric rise to fame. He even recorded an awesome theme song just for us! This man is unstoppable.

What are you working on right now?
American Elf is my most important ongoing project. It's a daily diary comic strip that I've been drawing for the past ten years. You can read it online at americanelf.com, and it's also available in book collections. I've got several books coming out this year, including 2 new books in my Johnny Boo series, about the best ghost in the world and his pet ghost squiggle, and also a book collection of my teen superhero series.

A lot of your work appeals both to adults and kids. Why do you think your comics and your songs transcend age?
Melody transcends age. Any song with a good melody should be able to transcend age, at least theoretically. If it's catchy, it's catchy. Right? Also... kids like it cause it's goofy. Adults like it, because it's sung with soul. I sing like I mean it.

Why did you decide to have a career in both music and in comics?
I didn't exactly decide on these careers. I've drawn comics and written songs since childhood. They were hobbies... I just got lucky that I've been able to make a living at it. More than lucky! I mean, my brain is such a wreck this is the only thing I'm capable of doing, if I weren't able to make a living doing this I would be absolutely doomed. I used to be a waiter, but I wasn't good at it. It's a horrible job, for me at least, way too stressful. I still have nightmares about being a waiter.

How did you get your start? Was it particularly hard to launch an indie career?
It was really really easy, once I got motivated. I was making mini-comics, which are homemade little photocopied comic books. And I was trading these with other cartoonists through the mail. Really, the comics world is so small you can go from zero to being a recognized name in the field in a very, very short time.

Would you ever consider working with a major publisher like Marvel?
I have done work for Marvel and DC. In fact, I've done one of the awesomest, most famous HULK comics ever. Hulk vs. The Rain. It was kinda ripped off in a scene in that recent Hulk movie.

What was the worst day job you've ever had? A member of Frightened Rabbit put metal on dental floss. I had to measure cinnamon rolls with the mentally challenged. And you?
I haven't had any jobs that were particularly strange, but telemarketing sucked well enough. I was selling newspaper subscriptions for the local daily paper. We were horribly paid, I think I was making $107 a week before taxes. And if you managed to sell a tremendous amount of papers you could maybe make a small commission on top of that, but it was almost impossible. One thing the supervisor would do is like put up a dollar bill and set a timer. If you made a sale, he'd hang the dollar on your cubicle, but it someone else made a sale it would go to them, and on and on until when the timer went off whoever had that dollar in their cubicle got to keep it. Oh, how we would all kill ourselves trying to "win" that measly horrible little dollar. They had little signs in our cubicles that said "Smile and Dial!" I was pretty good at the job for a while. I was even able to talk old blind ladies into buying subscriptions. But it's really really easy to burn out on. Most people quit or were fired after the first day. Some people lasted a few weeks, hardly anyone stayed more than a few months. I stayed in that job for three years!

Did you experience a quarter life crisis when you were first getting your career off the ground?
Gosh, I don't know if I've ever reevaluated my life. Reevaluate implies you were on one path, and then decided to take a different path, right? I mean, I've been on this path of being an artist and a musician ever since I was a child. On the other hand, much of my work is autobiographical and involves a constant ongoing evaluation of my life. Not a reevaluation, but constant evaluation... if that makes any sense.

Who would play you in a movie about yourself (a la American Splendor)?
I'd kind of like to play myself! I've acted in a feature film before, so maybe I could handle it. The movie I acted in is still in production. It's sort of a romantic comedy about the first manned trip to mars. It's called MARS. I play a sort of Access Hollywood type news anchor with an exclusive deal to interview the astronauts during their trip. http://www.swervepictures.com/mars.htm

Which superhero movie would have been better if you had written it?
The Hulk. Actually, I'm pretty sure I could write a better version of ANY superhero movie. Or at least a crazier version.

You got an m.f.a in painting. Do you feel like your degree helped you in your career? I just needed more time to postpone adulthood. That's what graduate school did for me. Really, that's what college is best for.

How hard is it for you to write a song?
It's easy to write songs. I just open my mouth and start singing. The songs just come right out! However, I don't know how to play any instrument, so building music around it can be tough. But that's why I have a band.

What is your advice for young aspiring comic makers?
Draw like mad! Don't wait to find someone willing to publish you. Make a website for your comics or something.

Be sure to check out his daily comic strip American Elf, or if you have children, check out his latest books for the Johnny Boo series.

Unemployment Schedule

2009-01-20T12:06:00.001-08:00

Wow, this week flew by. I just realized I haven't showered in two days. I've gone outside only three times this past week. I went to see Frightened Rabbit/air plane crash, and I just went to the gym, where I ran for 30 minutes and swam for 30 minutes. I need to brag about my workout - it's a big deal compared to what I accomplished yesterday. Let's examine yesterday's schedule:

Monday, January 19, 2009

4:00 a.m. bedtime

12::30 p.m. wake up (i count this as a victory. i got eight hours of sleep, as opposed to twelve)

1:30 p.m. eat chocolate chip pancakes for breakfast

2:00 p.m. attempt to write up two paragraphs to introduce Frightened Rabbit Q&A

2:30 p.m. cook lunch - stir-fried bamboo with basil and curry paste

3:00 p.m. attempt again to write up two easy little paragraphs about Frightened Rabbit. severe writer's block with first sentence.

4:25 p.m. finally post Frightened Rabbit blog.

5:00 p.m. have forty-five minute g-talk chat with friend about the merits of marriage

6:00 p.m. quick run to Circuit City to see if they have the wii game Paper Mario for at least 20% off. they don't.

7:00 p.m. work on the short story i've been attempting to finish all week. this story is one of the main reasons i currently choose to be unemployed (i feel like this might be lost on some readers who haven't seen me in awhile - i am unemployed by choice! of course, that may change in the coming months...)

7:05 p.m. decide to change entire short story from first person to third person

7:32 p.m. change entire story back to first person - it sounded more genuine.

8:15 p.m. salmon dinner

9:00 p.m. brush teeth for first time of the day - whoops, way off schedule here. discover i never took a shower.

9:45 p.m. brownies

10:30 p.m. brush teeth as part of regular night-time schedule

2:30 a.m. bed

I am flying to Los Angeles tomorrow where I plan to be more productive and spend at least eight hours a day writing.

Q&A with Frightened Rabbit - Broke and Breaking

2009-01-18T20:52:00.000-08:00

Indie rock is a mileau typically reserved for the young and people who want to be young. Over the past year I've watched one band bridge the gap between those who seek out new music and those who think all the music that's worth hearing has already been made: Frightened Rabbit.

After they released their sophomore album in April of 2008, Frightened Rabbit instantly became the darling of Pitchfork Media. 'The Midnight Organ Fight' was dubbed the "Best Album of the Year Thus Far." Catchy tracks such as "Modern Leper" transform heartbreak into rock and roll.

Make no mistake about it - this band is poised to break big in '09. Just one year ago, I saw them perform in a tiny Williamsburg venue called Death By Audio - a scuzzy unfinished building with cans of beer for sale out of an ice chest. They were opening for the more established Enon. Saturday night, Frightened Rabbit headlined a sold out show at the Bowery Ballroom, and I was lucky enough to spend 30 minutes interviewing drummer Grant Hutchinson (he's the one lying down on the bench in the above picture). Hutchinson discussed what it's like to be on the verge of breaking, and being too broke to pay the rent.

How do you get along on tour?
We have this unspoken rule in the band that we don’t speak during the days because the days can be long and everyone can get on each other’s nerves. We spend 24 hours together, but we’ve never had any physical fall outs.

Who’s the feistiest member of the band?
I don’t want to say me but I’m probably it. I’m not great in the morning which is obviously not good considering the amount of driving you have to do in the U.S., but none of us are particularly angry. We’re all pretty mellow people.

You have a sound that makes grown men want to wet their pants in excitement. How did you develop your sound?
There’s a definite Scottish folk influence for obvious reasons. Scott is the songwriter and he was listening to a lot of country and Americana. A lot of it is directly from Scotland. The rain and the gray days and the miserable nation that we are kind of helps. Live we try to put as much energy into it as we can and hope that the crowd feeds off of it as well.

You recorded “The Midnight Organ Fight” with in-demand producer Peter Katis. What was it like recording with him?
The first album we did in Glasgow with our friends, more like a demo. To go from that to Peter’s house is a kind of music producer, music geek heaven. He’s collected all this gear over many years and he’s just a big inspirational producer … I know through Interpol records and the National he’s got this sound that’s very individual for him, which I think is important on Midnight Organ Fight definitely. You can attribute the way it sounds to him.

You stayed in Peter’s house while you recorded. Did you do anything to piss off him or his wife?
What Peter does is he’s a big hockey fan. He goes out to play hockey once or twice a week and basically he gets his aggression out. He plays hockey and beats up his friends on the ice. So when he’s in the studio he’s a fairly mellow person.

Before signing with FatCat, you almost signed with a major label. What’s the story?
It’s this label called Fiction which is a subsidiary of Universal. They courted us for awhile and led us on. In the end they put a deal on the table that just wasn’t right for us. It was really non-committal. They were the ones that were going to be making money. We said we weren’t happy with their deal, so they said see you later. It was pretty horrible at the time. It was not a nice thing to go through but looking back they kind of saved us. I think this past year we’ve had with FatCat has been the best.

When did the band get its first big break? Was it when John Krasinski (“Jim” from The Office) discovered you?
That was probably our proudest moment of the year. Last summer we watched The Office constantly on our laptops.

Have you met him yet?
When we played in LA in October we emailed him and said yeah we’re playing we’ll stick you on the guest list. He never showed up, but he emailed us the next day and said he was stuck at work and he was slowly watching the time tick toward stage time. We haven’t met him yet, but it’s on our To Do list, maybe swap some autographs.

Which version of The Office is better? American or UK?
Oh, ah, gee. It’s a hot debate, this one. They’re so different now, I think the UK office still has its own sort of identity ‘cause they’re just completely different, but I think I found the US office more enjoyable to watch. There’s not as many cringe moments. I’ll stay diplomatic on that one and say they both have their merits.

What’s the worst job you’ve had trying to make it as a struggling musician?
I haven’t really had to do any bad jobs to be honest. I worked in Urban Outfitters, and it wasn’t great. Working at the supermarket, at the till, was probably the worst.

Andy (keyboardist) was telling us earlier that he used to work on the train lines basically him and this other guy and their job was to sort of throw these lines up onto the wires above the trains to cut the power so people could actually walk on the tracks and it wasn’t his responsibility to do the job. He was with the guy carrying the cables. Night shift. One night the guy said you give it a shot, so he threw them up and short-circuited the whole thing. He never went back and caused several thousand pounds worth of damage to the train lines, and I think the guy he was working with got demoted. That wasn’t a great job for Andy.

Billy (guitarist) used to put the metal bits on dental floss. You know the thing you snap the dental floss off with… Billy used to put them onto the plastic casing.

How does someone get that job?
There was a dental floss factory near where we grew up.

Have you experienced a Quarter Life Crisis?
Yeah, just before we left, I had to move home to my parent’s house because I can’t afford to have a flat in Glasgow. I was packing my boxes and thinking I really miss having a 9-5 job and having a wage coming into my bank every month that I can afford to pay my rent with and buy cigarettes. But then you go on stage for 45 minutes and it pulls you back in and you know exactly why you’re doing this.

Is the rock and roll life what you imagined it would be?
Absolutely not. It’s not what I expected. For our band, few girls, no drugs, no smashing up TVs, windows anything like that. It’s a job. It’s not paid well at the moment. We don’t have a tour bus yet either so we’re living out of a Ford 15-seater. Sticking all your clothes in a pillow case and hoping that the next hotel has a laundry that you can wash your clothes with. We don’t have a crew to load our gear or anything like that…

We stayed with our manager the other night and there were four of us. Most NYC apartments are really small so we were sleeping on the floor and looking at each other like in four days’ time we’re going to play a sold out show at the Bowery, and here we are sleeping on the floor in NYC. Hopefully we are nearing the end of it anyway. But I wouldn’t change it for anything.

You hear these bands who are now in tour buses and have all the perks and they say I wish we could go back to the days of playing the dirty rock and roll venues and sleeping in a van, and you just think, no you don’t. You don’t. That’s a lie. We’ll swap with you. We’ll take your bus and you take our van and see how you manage.

When will you start recording a new album?
We get home on the 4th of February and we’ll take time off. Scott, the songwriter, is going to go away for a month and try to get some demos together and then we’ll get together and solidify the demos and hopefully have it recorded by June. We want to get back into it and not lose momentum. I don’t like waiting three years for my favorite band to release an album. When you think back to the ‘60s and ‘70s and how many albums were released, like two albums a year for a band. We want to get it out as soon as possible, hopefully later this year or early 2010.

Where does Scott go to write?
He’s actually going to a friend of ours’ house on the east coast of Scotland by the sea and he’s going to shut himself away for a month. It’s not like getting inspiration from the rolling hills and the sandy beach or anything like that. He just has to be alone and take the time to do it.

You’re a band that’s about to make it big. What do you want people to know about you?
Scott and I are eczema sufferers and it’s not easy being on tour with eczema. That’s what we want them to know. We have to get medicated cream and stuff.

And also that people should never stop approaching us and staying hi because that’s the most important thing about being in a band is speaking to the people who are paying your wages. We never want to be diva like at all and we never will be.

Beef on the Street

2009-01-14T16:04:00.000-08:00

I have been unemployed since December 12th. Technically, this time off is supposed to go toward my writing projects, but I couldn't resist the urge to travel. I grew up travelling quite a bit and spent six months living abroad. Since college, the chances to travel have come few and far between. When the end of my freelance job approached, I e-mailed all of my friends to see if anyone would be silly enough to come with me to Moscow, Kenya, Brazil, Antarctica, Cambodia... who cares where? I found a taker: my friend Blocks. We threw a few more countries out there, then decided on Argentina. Buenos Aires is cheap after all. We bought our flights, and ten days later we took off from separate coasts, headed to the EZE.

When I boarded my flight, I was excited there were so many exotic looking hip people on my flight. Everywhere I turned, men wore plastic glasses and argyle sweaters and yet managed not to look completely stupid. I had never been to South America and figured Buenos Aires must have been the hippest place on Earth. How could I have not come here before? I hadn't even thought about visiting Buenos Aires before I bought my ticket ten days prior. All I knew about Argentina was that Borges was from here.

When I got off the plane, it was significantly less hip at the airport. I had boarded a flight from New York City, after all. That explained it. I looked around a few times and realized I hadn't actually made plans to meet up with my friend Blocks, who was flying in from San Francisco via some other city. I had assumed he would be standing at the gate waiting for me to get off the plane, arms open wide. That didn't happen. It took about ninety minutes for us to find each other between two terminals. We were both exhausted and starving because American Airlines had "forgotten" to load our vegetarian meal on our respective flights. Coincidence? I think not.

We took a two hour bus ride into the city. It was insufferably long, extremely humid, and I was cranky, already regretting the trip as the bus stopped at various playgrounds and gas stations in the country side to pick up more people. We finally arrived in the city and scavenged around for vegetarian food. There was none. This was more like it:

Eventually, we found some cafeteria spaghetti. It was the same story for dinner. And breakfast the next day. Bread, toast, croissants, pasta, more bread baskets, more pasta with cheese, more bread. Spaghetti may sound filling, but consider this: I ate carbs for every meal on my two week trip and dropped ten pounds. Does that sound like a vacation?

Now, I know Argentina is far from Mexico, and on a totally different continent, but I really expected there to be some Mexican food in Buenos Aires. It's a giant metropolitan city. No rice? No beans? I'm not asking for falafel. Every single thing on the menu is beef or lamb. I was hoping for some good street food, like in Europe, and lo and behold, I found it. Check out the beef on the street:

This is what we get for not doing research before picking a travel destination. Beef on the street.

I'm Ric Flair

2009-01-07T13:02:00.001-08:00

I went back to the WWE (World Wrestling Entertainment - formerly WWF) for a second temp job. This time, they decided I should be the receptionist. This was not something I wanted to do - in fact I would rather shoot myself - but it was hard to turn down five days of steady work.

I really hate answering the phone. I also hate talking to people I don't know. At least while filing, I could ignore the outside world and be alone with my thoughts for eight hours. Not to mention, filing really masturbated the OCD part of my brain.

I sat down at the reception desk to find out I would be operating the switchboard for the entire company. Have I mentioned I'm bad with phones? At my former real job as a producer, I never once checked my voicemail. I barely know how to operate call waiting, let alone answer eight separate lines.

The minute I sat down, the phone rang. I picked it up. Someone with a distinctly southern accent was shouting in the phone. "Yeah, can I speak to Vince McMahon?" I looked to the girl who was training me. She explained, Vince McMahon is the C.E.O. of the company. He's also sort of a celebrity. While still on that call, another line lit up. "World Wrestling Entertainment" I squeaked out. "Can I talk to The Big Red Monster?" It was a twelve-year old kid. I put him on hold. The girl training me said, "We get a lot of crazies calling here. A lot of fans... Just do your best and talk to them. If they want to speak to Vince or one of the wrestlers, transfer them to fan services." The phone rang again. This time it was an eldery lady. "Can I speak to Sexual Chocolate please?" "Don't hang up," the girl mouthed to me. I transferred her to fan services.

After an hour, the girl training me said she had to go. Before she left, she warned me, "Whatever you do, don't transfer anyone to Vince McMahon. Anyone that needs Vince already has his number." "Got it," I said. All morning long, I got calls from little boys and rednecks. I only got a handful of calls from business people looking for executives. I couldn't help but wonder why the WWE takes fan calls on their main office switchboard. It seemed like a waste of resources. Some of these fans were persistent:

Redneck: Can I speak to Vince?
Me: I can take a message for you
Redneck: Sure. Uh... tell him that my name is Jeremy. I won a free rafting trip for two and i'd like to take him as my special guest.
Me: Mmmhmm. Got it

He left his number. Then, twenty minutes later he called back.

Redneck: Can I speak to Vince?
Me: Oh hi - we talked earlier?
Redneck: Yeah, I want to know if he got my message yet. Does he want to be my special guest on my uh rafting trip?

I transferred him to the fan hotline. He called back. It was like this all afternoon. Then I got this call:

Man: Can I speak to Vince McMahon?
Me: I can't transfer you, but I can take a message.
Man: Tell him I'm Ric Flair. I need to talk to him ASAP.
Me: I can transfer you to a special voicemail box.

I transferred him to fan services and googled Ric Flair - yup, it seemed this guy was impersonating a wrestler. He called back instantly.

Man: Hi, this is Ric Flair. I really need to talk to Vince.

He sounded somewhat sane, so I reasoned with him.

Me: Look, Sir - I can't transfer you to Vince. If you were really Ric Flair, you would have his number.

He kept arguing with me. I had to cut him off and transfer him back to fan services. THEN, I got a message from Vince McMahon's office. Apparently Ric was on his way to the building, and I had dissed the WWE's most famous wrestler. Half an hour later, he walked in the door, carrying a bouquet of yellow roses for the McMahons.

On Day 2, I managed to diss another wrestler. A big burly black man walked up to me and said, "I'm Mark Henry. I'm here for Vince." I asked him to spell his name. "Mark Henry," he repeated. I stared at him with a blank look. "Sexual Chocolate," he said forcefully. "Man, don't you know anything?" he said, looking at me with disgust. I actually HAD heard of Sexual Chocolate. He should have just started off with that.

On Day 3, a huge guy walked through the door wearing various gold chains, blinged out to the nines. He said, "Hi I need to speak to Vince. I'm Junkyard Dog's son." I gave him the royal treatment and told him to have a seat. I quickly googled Junkyard Dog. Apparently, he's a famous dead wrestler. I called up Vince's office with a message about my guest. They had never heard of Junkyard Dog's son. I kicked him out. This guy was an impostor.

Adventures in Temping

2009-01-01T20:17:00.001-08:00

The past two years have been a whirlwind. In early 2007, I quit my steady job to pursue a career in comedy writing. Landing such a job requires writing sample scripts of sitcoms currently on TV, and then getting the script to the right person - usually the "showrunner" or head writer of a tv series - the only person who can do the hiring. I had been told that I would have a great advantage as a female and ethnic person. Comedy is one of the only industries still dominated by white males, typically from Harvard. Therefore, being a half-Asian female who attended Stanford, I was considered a minority who would round out a staff.

I had no qualms about quitting my job with a few grand in the bank with no back up plan. Since I am extremely smart and extremely funny, I figured it would be a year max before I landed a comedy writing job. After all, I had moved to L.A. after college and made some connections. Not showrunners, but revered comedy writers nonetheless. I had been quite successful at various endeavors from a young age - always a step ahead of where I should have been. In the first grade, I did second grade math. In the sixth grade, I got bumped up to the 7th/8th grade orchestra. The 8th grade I skipped entirely.

It turned out, though, that it wasn't very easy to land a comedy writing job as a half-asian female from Stanford with several writing samples of professional quality. When I decided to quit my job, either I didn't notice there were very few sitcoms left on the air (replaced these days by shows like "Deal or No Deal"), or I was just so sure of my own talent that I didn't care that there were hundreds of out of work comedy writers with credits like "Seinfeld" and "Friends" to their name.

By January of 2008, I ran out of money and was forced to take on odd jobs through a temp agency. At first, I took on mindless office work. Later, I ended up working in an assembly line at Pepperidge Farm making $12/hour. I was told by the temp agency that the pay was not great, but that I would find the job fun and exciting - not the typical office work. I figured it would have to be something mildly clerical - it is an OFFICE after all. When I arrived, I was informed I would be spending the day measuring and weighing "sticky buns" (_cinnamon rolls_), frozen and thawed. The kicker - my two colleagues were mentally disabled. Literally - sub 75 IQ. So disabled that they had to live with their parents. When the supervisor set us up for the morning, she suggested that I do the easy job of placing the sticky buns on the automatic scale, since this was my first time at the job. She would leave the more complicated measuring process to the other woman, and have the man record the numbers onto a chart. Nevermind the fact that I had graduated first in my high school class, or that the three of us splitting up duties in such a manner was slower than me doing the entire process myself. I went with her plan and spent eight hours silently putting sticky frozen pastries onto a scale.

I just sat there with my thoughts, stewing about how my life had hit a new low, and as bad as I needed eighty bucks post tax, I didn't need it so bad as to be measuring sticky buns with not ONE but TWO mentally challenged people,where I was the odd man out. What was the temp agency trying to tell me? Had they seen my resume? They thought I would "love" this job and have "so much fun?" The other two temps certainly were thrilled. They were really into the perk of eating the sticky buns after we measured them. They sucked up to the supervisor, hoping to land full-time jobs.

Up to that point, I sometimes enjoyed temping because it allowed me to be someone other than myself for a day - I revelled in the idea of feeling invisible - of no one around me knowing a detail about my life. A few weeks prior, I had worked for a shipping company. The office was so pleased with my sorting and filing abilities that they gave me bottles of wine and took me out to expensive lunches ("bet you can't afford this with your salary! eat up!"). They even offered me a full-time admin job and insisted several times that I take it -no interview, no resume. All based on my extraordinary filing skills. I felt guilty, like an impostor embezzling their money and goodwill. Yes, I was a temp and yes I needed the $80/day after taxes temporarily, but I didn't need that first leg up in the working world. I was broke by choice - taking day jobs so I could devote my time to writing scripts and one day become the creative force I had envisioned myself to be.

Now, it's been almost a year since that job at Pepperidge Farm. The second half of '08 was more fruitful professionally. I finally did land a stint writing comedy for an animated show. But I find myself entering the New Year totally unemployed (by choice) and perhaps eight weeks away from another Pepperidge Farm-esque experience. All of this, I suffer through in order to keep my days free and devoted to my writing. Someone said to me that this is the story that will be told when I make it big.