Dear Actor's Access

Thank you for letting me submit, but...we need a safe word.

Period Piece Hard

"Oh my gosh, I didn't know what to wear since it was going to be 1960s!" the French baby lady gushed at my audition on Friday. "So to research it, I watched Grease, because that took place then, during 'Flower Power.'" She then modeled her getup: a far cry from the 50s of Grease, the 60s of 'Flower Power,' the 60s that the film actually suggests, or the more modern times the film is actually set in. One thing to do a vintage mash-up, as in a photo shoot I did where the 50s were suggested but not articulated on a literal, exacting level. Another entirely to pick up a banana, and since it is fruit, consider it a pineapple. While those aspiring young actors are out reading their very first tome, may I also recommend a picture book of changing fashions-by-era. "This is 80s!" I imagine little Girleen at a second Industrial Revolution sort of audition. "1880s," sighs the casting director, "Nice neon tights."

Four Syllables Hard

"Let me tell you first how to pronounce this word," the reader at my audition on Friday said. "None of the other actresses knew it." He pointed to the sides: patriarchy. You can't make this kind of thing up, can you? A friend suggested to me that someday, when I'm on a panel at the Screen Actors Guild giving advice to young actors, suggest this: Read a book.

Pony on Stilts

Last night I had a dream about two ponies that had built-in stilts for legs. Then it turned out that one was a man and one a woman, each wearing a pony suit. They danced together while a giant herd of cows came running through the field. This was all some kind of relief, which goes to show you that three days in a cubicle really can make you feel like an animal in a box, chewing on carrots to pass the time.

To Dream the InPotsticker Dream...

Take that, impossibility. I'll opt for the soy sauce.

Things Signs Say: Watch Your Step

Really, you should watch out. If the door is too short for the ground, and you're going to exit with your sexy leg.

Guap

Guapo means "handsome" in Spanish, and refers to quite a pretty penny when spoken as Guap. Referring to a pile of cash that's astronomical in size, when you drop a guap you've laid down a load. I propose some additional conjugations of the word to further its lexicographical use:

$ Guappy. A general insult to the rich, as derived from the playground slang of calling someone a "guppy." "What a tasteless gill-breathing guappy," Cindy declared about Andrea in light of her beige silk couches and veined marble entryway.

$ Guapcamole. When you're so rich you're practically eating your dough. Alternately, a five-star dining experience. "Gee Hank," said Sandy, "I'm sure full of guapcamole after two hours at French Laundry!"

$ Guaptistic. Also used as Adult Guaptism Spectrum Disorder. When someone can only mobilize social skills to serve the gain or use of money. "Stop trading on the stock market and come play with your children," Risa begged Charles. "If you become any more guaptistic I'm going to have to take you off gluten again."

Moose Tracks, or Peanut Butter and Chocolate

Dare I suggest this building is filled with ice cream and the chimney is an industrial blender, ready to produce an abundance of milkshakes?

Grandmationary: The Eel's Hips

Eels don't have hips. Maybe that's why back in 1920 everyone preferred saying "She's the cat's meow." This, however, discounts entirely the fact that the kitten's call can just as easily be irritating as charming. Eels, on the other hand, never need slim down to fit into cigarette pants. Like our runway models, they are the adolescent boys of the animal kingdom. And I suppose that's something to admire; or at least that somebody did, hooting out to a passerby that tidy phrase that goes beyond suggesting what could fill a sushi roll.

Popsicle Makeover

Rebranding sometimes appears to be the action of someone's having dipped too much into the rebrandy. Rather than a hot toddy, the drink's gone completely lukewarm. With an already successful product, the question has to be raised: why the hedgy, impulsive behavior?

The perfection of Palapa Azul coconut popsicles cannot be overstated. They don't contain dairy or highly processed sugars, they're milky and chunky and perfectly shaped, and their flavor is consistent and lush. I knew some of these things from reading the box, but seeing the box, I sensed them all. Exhibit A, outlined in red above: spacious, effervescent use of Helvetica. A hint of a tropical beach through gentle use of color. A clean layout to match my gustatory sensibility (and that of the general Whole Foods demographics).

On the other hand, exhibit B, in which a handwriting font marries an awkward sketched reiteration of a cartoony vacation brochure photo. Our all-natural, un-dyed bar gets bleached, bitten, and angled to employ its blatant sexuality, with two coconut halves to match. Okay, so instead of being urged to "just escape," we're assured we've escaped and it's 100% natural, but we haven't. We're in our overheated apartment inbetween jobs chilling out with an icy snack, and despite the positive messaging, the whole package screams big-box grocery store in a way that makes me suspect I'll get cavities. Like a cute girl in too much makeup, I want to urge Palapa Azul to take a good shower before going out, reassure: You're fantastic just the way you are.

Frozen Smiles

I adore novelty ice: hence the assorted pastel trays filling my freezer. And this product by my design-team darling fills my cup with upper and lower dentures. Thanks for bringing the Grandma to my iced coffee, Fred!

Things Signs Say: Little Girls Only/In the Place Where Words Should Go: Lady

At the Madonna Inn in San Luis Obispo, there's one stall in the women's bathroom reserved for the underdeveloped. It reads "Little Girls Only," and comes complete with miniature toilet. Does this stop certain friends of mine from partaking in some tiny joy?

Little girl, fine. But what's with the new use of the word lady? "Hey lady!" chipper urbanites say to one another. "Hey lady!" says even my mother. One thing to call myself a lady; quite another to be greeted as such. To call oneself a lady: comical. To be saluted as one: grating.

Did I just get off the golf course with a fresh manicure and a sensibility as vast as the square footage of a shopping cart? Did I attend a debutante ball and properly breeze through adolescence without a hitch? Am I on an after-office softball team wearing white shorts and a visor, engagement ring pert on my narrow finger? No. I am photographing a small plastic rabbit and thinking up lewd jokes to tell on stage. Girly, maybe...but hardly a lady. And I hold my head high.

Novice Knows Best

The following are some tips and tricks from this newcomer to screenwriting, who after years and years of working in other genres finally has come around to things to be said, not read, on camera. Believe me, dear Reader, after the mere days I have put in, I have got it all figured out. And they said it'd be a challenge!

Rule #1. The book you bought to teach you screenwriting has got a lot of funny words in it. "Make cards with events that happen": ha ha! Everyone knows life is a big muddle of feeling, best expressed by your characters in amorphous vowel-filled sounds.

Rule #2. Alcohols. This word was once spied on my best friend Krista's grocery list. A lot of screenwriters before made lots of drinking, but I don't make any drinking while writing. I make sleeping. It's inevitable that the words will flow effortlessly from my fingertips onto the page if I am not awake for it. Backup plan: hire those monkeys with typewriters to finish for me once they're done with Hamlet.

Rule #3. I know a screenplay's supposed to be 90-120 pages, but isn't the director going to fill up the time with lots of closeups and extra funny bits that he invents on set? The 19 pages I've got will go far...that'll fill an hour and a half, right? And Now For Our Feature Presentation.

Things Signs Say: !!

If you're going to be a good political activist-slash-graffiti artist, you need to have passion. And the only way to display that verve is through the use of multiple exclamation points!! If you were to suggest that you wanted to free Tibet without those top-heavy dash-dots, it would be obvious you don't care. Especially in San Francisco's Mission District, where you tagged your opinion. Obvious!!!

Lady GaGa Finally Caught Up With Me

At least Botox hasn't.

Naked Harry Potter

The new Harry Potter movie campaign promises "Dark Secrets Revealed." I'm hoping that includes an explanation about why my father's ex-wife would take my niece to the New York production of "Equus" that starred Daniel Radcliffe. I know the play is old news, but the fact that my dear child was subjected to multiple acts of naked Harry while seated in the front row...help, Hermione, help!

Vacation Means Never Having To Wear Real Shoes

...But bringing extra pairs anyway to drag around in case of attempt to look like a clothed person.

I Was Invited to a Ladies' Pampering Night

...so I showed up in adult diapers ready to be burped (soybean already lactated for me). How was I to know that it meant peachy gauze tops, Sauvignon Blanc, and making clever, snide quips about men? I was in quite a mood as my nanny strollered me home.

People Use Facebook to Mourn Celebrity Deaths, Celebrate Commercial Holidays

Because nothing says "we connect" like posting YouTube videos of a recently passed rock musician or agreeing that "Dads rule!" Social networking sites: the best place to boil any originality you have down to oft-quoted phrases tweaked slightly by a quirky noun. Or, as of FB's recent policy decision, provide an informative data feed to marketers, newsrooms, and the questionable curious.

Hall(ywood) of Mirrors

Normally I get myself dressed in workout clothes and go to my gym in the morning. This morning, I was instructed to get dressed in workout clothes, go to my gym's parking lot, and ride a shuttlebus to set. On set my role was to appear to come out of a gym after working out. No working out happened there; so when I was wrapped, I went to my real gym for a workout, wearing my real workout clothes that earlier masqueraded as fake ones. ("Is this your real coffee or your prop coffee?" the propmaster asked me in-between takes.) At my real gym for my real workout, a camera crew roamed, filming contestants for a reality show. There I was, real-working out, surrounded by contestants only fake-working out, since they just needed a few minutes of footage here and there. Back at home, I half expected behind the initial walls to lie a team advising me on how to best present, enact myself. "We know the manipulations you need," they'd say, "to be truly authentic."

Lady Fix-It

First comes the gas smell, then the inability to heat toaster waffles in your oven (don't own toaster). The option of bumping yourself off old-school talented writer-style is officially out: these new ovens know to stop the gas flow. Besides, you don't want to get out of a loveless marriage or a spiraling sense of existential doom: you just want a landscape for maple syrup. Did you know there are other options besides calling your management company and wheedling a visit from a handyman out of them? You can use the interwebs to do it yourself!

If you have never taken apart your oven and re-lit the pilot flame on your own, you may feel free to sit back and admire my prowess. Like any true repairperson, I effectively got rust and charcoal all over my clothing, and grit my teeth all purposeful-like while employing my pretty IKEA tools. The trick to find the pilot light is indeed a trick, however. It is not just an obvious spot you place a match to. It is not a button, or a miniature dachshund in an Amelia Earhart cap waving from a model plane that you have to give a biscuit of fire to. If you examine the inside of your oven, you will think it is just urban legend that there even is such a thing: doesn't the heat instead come from the the rubbing together of two thoughts?

In reviewing the various unintelligible diagrams proffered, I realized there was only one thing to do, and that was stir-fry vegetables for lunch. When that was done, I unscrewed the base of the oven floor, unscrewed something that looked like the roof of a little red schoolhouse, and then set about sticking matches into various orifices until something took. Then after I'd put the whole megillah back together again, the light went out. Rinse, repeat. And voila! To fix the stains on my dress, the internet dictated lemon juice. I added water, sugar, and ice cubes. I have good taste in clothing.

Finally, in the order of journalistic honesty, I must confess that it was not toaster waffles I made at all, but the warming of corn tortillas. I abused your love of tree sap, dear reader, to connive you into reading this post. But tortillas, my friend: are they ever good filled with homemade guacamole, cherry tomatoes, and romaine. Are they ever.

Sometimes Your Mother Suggests That You Get Drunk In Order To Manage Your Neck Pain Due to Processing Complex Emotional Issues

And you do.

Symptom and Symptom

Girls, boys, and the gender-free, one of my favorite pastimes is to explore medical diagnoses online. At times it's kind of like watching a liar in action who is open about his fraudulence, and at other times it's like listening to a highly optimistic person suggesting her theory of the universe. Either way: both fiction and comedy.

When a strange rash broke out on my wrists, I wanted to know what other symptoms I might expect. Perhaps the cause lay in an insect bite, an allergic reaction to a flour tortilla, the restructuring of memes dominant in my mind? Some suggestions from the internet included:


Here are what I can only assume are the causes for these ailments:

+ Wrist rash and Abnormal walk:
Overexposure to "The Holy Grail" while reenacting scenes from "Life of Brian."

+ Wrist rash and Abrupt watery diarrhoea:
Inability to spell various bowel movements.

+ Wrist rash and Abscessed teeth:
Vampires that held down victims with rope.
Handcuff-loving dentists.

+ Wrist rash and Absent eyebrows:
Ladies with unattractive extremities don't deserve to have expressions.

+ Wrist rash and Absenteeism in children:
The children got tired and went home. Also, they had fleas.

iPhone Now Omniscient!

The new iPhone 3GS is due to hit stores this Friday the 19th (just in time for my half-birthday, whimsical present-givers!). There are an incredible amount of new features that would have any Apple devotee or just plain human life form drooling and chomping at the bit. These include faster speed, voice control, a 3 MP camera, video recording, Internet tethering, and an internal compass for those of us who don't know north from yesterday's left. A quick glance to the website, however, doesn't fill the consumer in fully on what the phone can do.

Want your heart rate monitored? How about your thyroid? Did your body fat percentage decrease? iPhone acts as your doctor-away-from-HMO. Are you sitting around, wondering when that job offer or red carpet invite will come your way? iPhone can not only see into the future with perfect accuracy, but it also has picked out an outfit for you to wear. When's dinner served? iPhone already made it, and then when the yams burned, ordered you delivery. Then, when you ate too much and went to bed early, iPhone curled up beside you and told you you're pretty.

Sooo worth the upgrade.

Yes, Giant Hamster Billboard, I Submit to You

So big.

Solution 'Stache

Due to the fact that Los Angeles is wont to breed air I am allergic to, I finally purchased an air filter yesterday on my way home from the shoot. Having spent the day in a fake mustache, I wondered why allergens couldn't just get trapped there and leave my respiratory system alone. Even more frightening than lame coughing attacks that make me look like I am about to asphyxiate, however, are the pictures and language on the side of the air filter box. Smoke! Mold spores! Dust mite debris! Next to disarmingly creepy images are descriptions of these intruders, with key words highlighted so that from a distance or if you have eyesight troubles you will know what's what. WEEDS RODENT DANDER DEAD SKIN or FECES SALIVA PIPES... Yet, nestled in the midst of this real-live ghost story is an image of a cheery Golden Retriever and his tabby friend. Look above them: cancerous wisps! Look below: an insect that looks like a man-eating pimple! One wonders if the manufacturer thinks seemingly lovable pets are actually demons trapped inside soft fur. Like a slow child I want to rescue them from this bad company. Perhaps like me they too could don facial hair, and at least temporarily, hide out.

Hidden Gem for You

Netflix, you see that I enjoyed such quirky half-hour comedic episodics such as "Flight of the Conchords" and "30 Rock." In both, there are awkward protagonists in cute glasses! And I am a fan of that charming documentary "The Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill" as well as that New Zealander masterpiece "Eagle vs. Shark." I love birds, whether real or just as felted costumes worn by humans in love! Yes: clearly I would enjoy watching footage of Nazis pillaging works of art throughout Europe in a movie with "rape" in the title. Q.E.D.

Fancy Lady

The wife from Hygenowang lives on! I will be reprising the role known as "Fancy Lady" in Team Tiger Awesome's new web series for FOX called "Hollywood House Husbands." Here are some answers to questions I know are on your mind, dear reader:

Q: Are those your real pearls?
A: Yes, they are mine, but they are not real. They are actually made of diamonds coated in sawdust and festooned with the spittle of underage workers.

Q: Are you an actual bitch in life, or just TV?
A: I am nice, unless you are my fake husband and cheat on me while a camera crew films me outside my fake house.

Q: Is Team Tiger Awesome actually composed of tigers who put you in things because their things are for FOX and you are really a rabbit (amount of daily consumed lettuce as evidence)?
A: Mmmaaybe...

UPDATE 6/9: TTA has ditched Fancy Lady in favor of putting me in an undercover detective-in-drag housewife role, Terry. I got a haircut today, because that's how Terry would roll...she would not have split ends. That's Method, folks.

Get Me to Them to the Greek

Last week I had a blast working as Rose Byrne's stand-in on the Nick Stoller film "Get Him to the Greek." A spinoff of "Forgetting Sarah Marshall," this Apatow production charts the journey of rocker Aldous Snow (Russell Brand) as he is escorted by a young music exec (Jonah Hill) to his comeback concert at the Greek theater in Los Angeles. I did get a chance to see a cut of a scene filmed in last month in Vegas, but the real treat of the whole experience was getting to watch lengthy improvised takes, which had us all doubled over trying not to laugh out loud while the camera was still rolling.

In addition to getting to meet and work with the gracious stars and hugely talented crew, I got to lie in a hay-filled manger holding a plastic baby, see a man purposefully lit on fire, and ride a tiny metal circle 30 feet straight up into the air while an entire African village's dance was choreographed below. All that, and lunch options including a choose-your-own-Pad-Thai bar.

I love Hollywood.

The Sleeping Beauty Question

All too many of us women secretly want to be woken out of our fog by an arriving prince there to rescue. It’s not that we don’t have plenty of greatness on our own; it’s that we’re built to relate and connect, which just can’t be fulfilled fully solo. Lest ye princes rush out to purchase white stallions and satin riding pants, here are some tips and tricks to enticing we awaiting damsels:

+ If we are actually asleep, you will need to wake us up. Things that are aromatic include freshly cut roses, your armpits after gallivanting all that way, and pickles. Pickles are edible, which is a plus.

+ Don’t make fun of our sleeping gown. You haven’t been around; why should we have laundered it? Yes, those are tomato sauce stains. Fuck off. Wait, no—not really.

+ We know you think it’s ridiculous to come bearing gifts, or at least requires at least fifteen minutes of your time when you could be playing video games or trading on the stock market, but it’s kind of important. We’re letting you into our house. We’re wearing our tomato stained sleeping gown, which you have to admit is a little revealing. You’re the prince.

+ If you expect us to have really long hair, you have been reading too many comic books. We got split ends. We had no choice but to trim. Sometimes we use a curling iron, but mostly we shower at the gym and hope it dries okay on the car ride back. We might be trapped in a tower, but we still have a car. We effectively talked the salesman down from the sticker price.

+ Just because you show up and kiss us awake and we like you and everything doesn’t mean we’re going to suffocate you and expect you to call every five minutes. We have things to do too, you know. Like keep away witches. And try not to get trapped in glass boxes again. Or spend too much time with dwarves.

+ Feel glad. There were other princes, and they didn’t even know how to scale a small brush to get to us, if you know what we mean. Or they bungled in and we pretended to be the asleep princess that’s actually dead. It worked—we fooled them. We made your job super easy knowing we’d get no credit, and you’d possibly get freaked out that we responded to you at all, even though you were the one who brought the horse and the big sword.

+ We’re royalty. We like velvet. Stuff ends happily.

Toast Puppet Multiplies

One minute, you're making a puppet of a toast ancestor; the next minute, you're at your friend Aaron's house making a silkscreen template of that same toast. In this lean economy, perhaps it makes all the sense in the world to cover your dresses with prints of food. You will soon recognize me by your desire to slather me with butter.

Winner of My Pony Drawing Contest

Who else could have drawn me such a fantastic horse in one penstroke with his left hand? Once a star, always a star...I love you.

Gabriel Bram Byer
1/19/70-5/20/08

Cures Recommended by the Internet

Thanks to holistic practitioners with DSL, we now no longer need to go to medical doctors, read books, or call our mothers when bodily woes creep up on us. Instead, there is a wealth of knowledge at the ready, simply by knowing what fad keywords to enter into Google. You too can fix yourself in a few short steps! Here are some examples of cures recommended by the Internet:

+ The Watermelon Cleanse. This fixes your kidneys. If you don’t know what kidneys are, they are beans inside of your body. I don’t know how they got there (maybe burritos). All you have to do for the cleanse is sit all day in a bathtub filled with water. You continuously eat two big melons and pee. Stones of all sizes come out, so hopefully you know a good jeweler.

+ The Water of Life Cure. Also known as the “Golden Fountain,” this cure is also about urine, but substituted for watermelon in your mouth. But instead of urine in your mouth and watermelon in your bathtub, there’s no watermelon in your bathtub. Basically you are drinking your own pee. Apparently this makes you feel connected to your true self, resolves mineral imbalances, and gives you something to talk about when you someday meet Madonna or some of the people on the Internet.

+ The Lemonade Diet. This sounds like another name for the “Water of Life Cure,” but it is actually lemon juice, cayenne pepper, maple syrup, and water mixed and set on repeat for ten solid days. Supposedly you will fix your metabolism, flush out old toxins, and be recognizable to grocery checkout employees in southern California. If you wonder whether you’ll end up more like the dancing lemon on the cover of the books or like Beyonce, who once employed the diet, the answer is that there is no dancing lemon. You are just hungry.

Hygenowang

And now for my FOX Reality Channel debut on Hulu: Hygenowang. I sniff crotch dressed like a Kennedy. Thanks, Team Tiger Awesome!

Behold, As a Grown Woman Takes Career Encouragement from an Online Word Game

Floaty Pen Oracle Self-Doubts

And yet you are employed daily. Let this be a lesson to all. (Good session FP...that'll be $200 for the 50 minute hour.)

Toast Puppet Says

Exactly. This oracle is bullshit. Its answer to everything is "I am very crispy!" On the other hand, this is what you get for placing your future actions in the hands of a puppet claiming to be the ancestor of some toast you ate.

My Day As Told to Facebook

I am in a shuttlebus full of twins.
x Are you on your way to Target? No, it's 6 A.M.
x Are you in Doublemint Gum hell? If it were set at an elementary school.
x Were you also given a twin? Silence. I am unsure.

I am watching a six year old make nine times more money than me.
x And the award for the most cryptic and vaguely frightening status updates of the day goes to. We are in a park converted to look like another park. She's wearing purple glasses. Her line is "Daddy, Daddy, Daaaddy!"

I am hanging out with a poodle with very large nipples.
x It's true, but it also had to be said.
x Maybe you've seen that dog of late, just east of Hollywood.
x Not to spread rumors, but that dog gets around.

A rabbi, a midget; and everyone thinks they've met me before.
x Are you trying to induce nightmares? No, but are the rabbi and midget?
x Baby shark fetus? That was another joke, unrelated.
x I didn't mention this, but the midget could do a Pantene commercial, her hair was so shiny.

Deaf men can be paparazzi too.
x They have cameras.

The German Translation

I feel you, Zeug. And what great heights you will someday rise to, when Zahnstocher is busy resting on its laurels, or cleaning someone's teeth, as the case may be.

w/r/t

I received an email from my friend Josh today that included the abbreviation "w/r/t." This usually stands for "with regard to," but let's not overlook the fact that Josh is a genius web designer, has a cool haircut, and hangs out with a cat named Trouble. He could have things up his sleeves. He could be making other meanings. The following is a compilation of the possible phrases and questions to live by that Josh may have meant:

+ Western revelation: toothpicks.
+ Whose reactive turkey?
+ Wilderness retreats tank.
+ Wither, rakeless tree!
+ Why return togas?
+ When regurgitating: teepees.

iSpam: Advice Column

Yet another helpful email from "me" to me arrived in my spam folder today. The subject read "Give Squish Mittens Due Attention." Fabulous! I was running out of euphemisms. And thanks to Gmail, I don't need to open it to know how the email begins: "It will make girl evaluate your rod..." Now that's an advice column if I've ever heard of one.

Mercury Finally Hits Adolescence

Observations from NASA's spacecraft Messenger today confirmed what we all knew was coming: Mercury the teenager. While planets Mars and Venus snickered in the background, Mercury at first refused to comment, saying only, "GOD! You guys...just leave me alone." "They think you look like the moon!" piped in an tactless Jupiter. Mars tried to hold it in but couldn't help himself: "Face...cheese face...impact basin cheese face..."

When plied with Twizzlers and attention—including willingness to see the planet's collection of soccer posters—the immature little rockpile finally opened up. "It sucks, actually," the planet moaned. "All of a sudden all these volcanic eruptions are all over my face, with molten muck bubbles everywhere. And what, now is a good time to send some spy cam to watch me break out?" It's not every day, however, that magnetic tornadoes appear on a planet's surface. "Tom Watters of the Smithsonian Institution said “We’re seeing a very dynamic planet that has a lot going on today." At least someone thinks I'm cool," huffed Mercury, before returning to his freshman year English homework.

Pony Seen Talking!

Dear Reader,
In celebration of this, the 100th posting of Talking Pony, I unveil to you yours truly's theatrical demo reel. As a result of viewing it, not only will you be convinced I can break a glass, talk next to a fence, answer a phone, and play with animals, your eyes will begin to glow like so many coveted, twinkling diamonds. Your whole mug will look like a Tiffany's counter as you consider the possibility of such an actress in either a horse costume or wielding cop paraphernalia as she lays down the law. You may even imagine me making you a sandwich, because you are hungry and have spent too much time browsing the internet. I hope you enjoy almond butter and jam, because that's what I've got in my fridge. If you want to go shopping, I'll make you something else...after all, what a multi-carated sweet face you've got.
Thanks for all the reading you've done thus far on my blog, even if you are only me writing it.
Love,
Audrey

Floaty Pen Oracle Self-Reflects

And so mote it be, Facade.com.

In the Place Where Words Should Go: Yummy

Yummy adj. The childish word for "delicious" employed by adults to either describe food that they are trying to convince another is palatable (ex. anything falling under the umbrella of poorly executed "health food"), create a mockup of their personality that attempts to coerce an audience to find them youthful and adorable, or out of sheer descriptive laziness.

A Brief Review of My Illustrious Career to Date: Update

+ A lady cop in Las Vegas, circa 1991

+ A hairstylist at a Japanese salon (dubbed)

+ A stewardess who hates it when people cry

+ The mom to a young boy who is advised by an imitation Robert Downey, Jr. to do coke before bed

+ A receptionist surrounded by vats of popcorn, a gospel choir, and a man in a Godzilla costume

+ A suspicious wife who sniffs her husband's crotch to investigate

+ The youngest sister, who secretly lapdances in Santa Fe, but isn't seducing the eldest sister's husband

+ A Grecian newscaster reporting on the activity of Furries

+ An eager would-be athlete using a serial rapist as a trainer

+ A lesbian stalker in love with bows, black, and tribal bands

+ A woman with a beehive who has fun barking like a dog and smashing cherry tomatoes on her face

These are some of the parts I have done in the last couple of years. These parts...and, you know, the like.

To review my original entry on the same topic, click here.

This Earth Day, Grass Dinosaur Fights Back

SANTA MONICA, CA—It was inevitable. Not forever would the excess of year-round green businesses, veganism, and recycled clothing in be tolerated. Not always would the sun shine uninterrupted by a startling roar. Eventually, a vagabond breed of metal dinosaurs would indeed come to wreck havoc, shooting precious water from their fang-filled mouths. When local environmental activists on their way to a drumming circle asked one such dinosaur by the 3rd Street Promenade to halt in its vicious ways, it only shrugged and said, "We're just trying to get you people to take a bath."

In the Place Where Words Should Go: LOL

LOL abbr. What you place in a sentence after something that is decidedly unfunny to anyone with the perspicacity to not bracket a joke with "LOL."

Hairspray is for Hiking

I am hardly out of shape, yet I cannot seem to hike Runyon Canyon in West Hollywood without curling over and feeling like I'm going to cough my lungs out my face. Why? Do all those hours clocked at the gym mean nothing?

As I'm asphyxiating two women jog by with the combined body fat of a single stick insect and perfect blow-outs. My addled respiratory system is temporarily set adrift from its desire for analgesics and mystified by their hair. Was there a stylist van at the foot of the trail I missed? Does the Botox in their foreheads mean no sweat will mar their enviable coifs? Are they actually lungless hiking puppets, sent by the city to fill yet another place to call "on location"?

In the great outdoors, filled with all that fine smoggy air, perhaps their helmet-y layers provide protection against the elements. Maybe the spray and lacquer that surrounds them acts like a buffer, makes purer molecules to breathe than what surrounds us on the climb. I imagine myself dressed as an apeable doll, my movable limbs film-worthy as in an up-do I arrive at the best place to view the Hollywood sign, take a deep breath, and await my close-up. If only that van did touch-ups at the top.

Mystery Solved: Survival of the Hipster

During the economic downturn of this last year-plus, one social group has emerged oddly unscathed, revealing to us all their deceptivity. Hipsters: how are they still able to afford $225 skinny jeans and $5 lattes? In this chilly fiscal climate, how is it their BMRs need only a diaphanous ethnic scarf atop their narrow UO duds to keep them warm? The answer, while simple, has eluded us all thus far: Hipsters are actually made of potato.

Potatoes never get cold. They just don't. Have you ever heard a potato complain about being put in the refrigerator, or told it needed to adopt a budget for hard times? Have you ever had to dissuade a potato from riding bikes to the print shop to pick up its latest band poster? No, you haven't, because you don't feel like driving either, especially if it means losing your good parking spot.

In order to maintain a certain lifestyle, you need to have the right friends. I mean you need to know people. And who knows more people than potatoes? They don't even have to go to sample sales, they get their Danish modern designs shipped direct. When it comes to culture and design, they've got good eyes. Don't believe the thick overlarge glasses; those are mere props to accentuate the socially awkward behavior and use of language. You expect so much: as if potatoes have practice with public speech!

Have you ever been privy to eco-friendly catering? If so, you have eaten with a fork made of potato. The only drawback is that you cannot use them with food cooked in alcohol, because they will disintegrate. Haven't you ever seen a hipster after a night at Spaceland or the Knitting Factory? He or she, resembling a mangled cat, paws at mascara stains and ripped jersey, barely suppressing an all-too-witchy mumbled "I'm meeeelting, I'm meeeelting!"

And by "witchy" I mean "starchy," because everybody knows pagans are made of carbs, and vegans hate Atkins, and spuds wear Grey Ant duds.

Q.E.D.

You can read about Hipsters On Ice here, and Potato.com here.

Pigeons Dangerously on Edge of Extinction; Cities Forced to Find Replacements

NEW YORK—Due to a recent discovery that pigeons are quickly becoming the latest animal to make the extinction list, city officials have been forced to replace the creatures commonly known as "flying rats" with colorful glass doppelgangers. Advocates for the once-populous birds were seen protesting as early as 6:30 this morning, claiming that the substitutes proved dissatisfactory, due to their lack of interest in such comestibles as old bagels, stale Cheez Doodles, and something from Papaya King. While these stand-ins do have the added feature of lighting up when plugged into sockets, "It's just not the same," sobbed an old man in Central Park. "How am I going to weave magic into the everyday landscape of urban life without those grey feathers?" chimed in a lurking shaman. "What am I going to needlessly insult?" added a passing tourist. One thing is certain: if Mayor Bloomberg doesn't act fast to partner with zoological specialists, the city filled with coos may soon fall silent.

Dress British, Think Yiddish

Yesterday not only did this kid get to meet living legend A.C. Lyles, a Paramount Pictures institution since—no joke–1929, but I got to play Vanna and hold the award he was collecting while he told stories about the stars. Mae West once gave him a lucky penny upon hearing the mailboy's producer aspirations, and said to wear it in his shoe until he made it (he did on both counts). He even graced us all with a nugget of advice which sums up what I've always suspected about success (aside from in-cent-ives). Lyles paused, said, "Dress British, think Yiddish." Dear audience, with this noggin, I am only one Topshop trip away.