Omigosh, You Guys, I Am Sooo Indian!!

By guest blogger Maggie MySpace

Hello, or what I REALLY meant to say was, NAMASTE YOU GUYS!!

Now I know that you expect a boob shot from Miss Maggie, but now that I'm so Indian that's just NOT going to happen, ok you guys??? Can we just leave that where we left off at last night's party? I'm sure I'll get drunk enough again, alright? YOU GUYS ARE SOOO CRAZY!!!!!!!

Ok, so you probably want to know, how does a white chick like me--yes, I'm a natural blonde!!--end up being sooo totally multicultural? Well I guess it all began when I started taking yoga classes, and realized that like, when you seriously contort your body into different shapes, you just feel more connected to the animals. So I moved near the zoo! (Houseparty pronto, OK??)

When I'm in yoga class, which I do every day, because otherwise how are you going to make progress and achieve anything? If you don't do it, like, all the time, you will seriously not burn off any of that jello you got on in the first place with too many wine coolers! Yoga is about accomplishing something, like losing at least three pounds a day, even if it's just water weight. Yoga is about being Indian!

Sooo, today I finished up in class and went to this Starbucks near my house that is decorated with like, mendhi designs, and has for reals an Indian food bar instead of sandwiches and dried old boxes of cheese. I practically INHALED all the Indian food. How could a true California girl like me enjoy Indian cooking THIS MUCH?

I know the answer. My Vedic astrologer was explaining to me that I have had a lot of past lives in India, and I've totally thought about going there to ride elephants, you know? So really, you might be looking at my pale skin and blonde hair and think, this girl is American. But seriously? When you see me with a plate of Chana Masala you might think different, just like the Apple ad with Gandhi says. You might seriously think different.

Don't be a racist. Just because my skin is pale, doesn't mean I'm not totally from this magical land with pink ponies and dressy shorts and big handpainted signs, and all of my yoga teachers' guru, who wants me to come and study with him. I think when I go there that I won't just fit in with all the pretty Indian people, I think it'll be like I'm just one of them. Like, "Hey Maggie, you are sooo Indian! Look at you in standing bow-pulling pose!!!"

Basically, the divine in me greets the divine in you at TEN O'CLOCK SHARP TOMORROW NIGHT ROCKIN' HOUSE PARTY!!!

Bring dal.

My Amsterdam Top Ten

1) REMBRANDT FACE. Everywhere you look, there's this one drawing Rembrandt did of himself. He looks extremely surprised, a little turned-on, and a bit queer. You see this face on the airplane, the tram stations, and even on bike rentals. A man who wanted my money punched this Rembrandt face on my bike as I rode off. It seemed appropos.

2) CAFE QUIBUS. Yes, this place deserves mention in not one but two posts. Is it because of the plaid-wearing lady bartender? The packs of overgrown man-children? Its proximity to Krista's house? That a glass of wine costs two Euros? (Approximately equivalent to 1,000,000 American dollars.) It's all of the above, and more: it's called QUIBUS.

3) CAT BOAT. Amsterdam: a top European city that can proudly boast a Poezenboot. It's free, it's filled with felines, and they're fluffy and fat. You can adopt them, and I saw one British man that did, but mostly it's a happening hangout for people wearing purple stretchpants and t-shirts with cats on them. Singel 40, people; Singel 40.

4) FIETSWORLD. I didn't walk, I didn't take the train, I didn't drive, I didn't get driven. I rode my Rembrandt face bike, and I fucking loved it. As Gwen Stefani would've sang if she was me, now, "UH-HUH, THAT'S MY FIETS/ALL THE 'DAM RIDE AROUND LIKE THIS/'CUZ I AIN'T NO PEDALBACK BIKE/NO I AIN'T NO PEDALBACKBIKE/...KISS MY FIETS/KISS MY FIETS..." (Note: don't get off your bike. You will DIE. I mean it. You will be murdered by a rabid pack of angry cyclists when all's you tryin' to do is cross the street, or like, touch your hair.)

5) TRANNIES FROM FRANNY. Why is everyone in this klompen-wearing world from San Francisco? Why have they all moved on from their original gender? I don't know, but I kind of want to move here. And keep performing at Cafe Sappho (www.sappho.nl) where I did another round of "Workhorse" for trannies and ladies from both Franny and Dammy.

6) MJ & JOE. What is better to take the edge off the Anne Frank Huis than some Mary Jane? And what better to have with it than some espresso? (Note: espresso comes with a biscuit.) No cops, no jail sentence, no bad-laced ju-ju. Yes, there were crowds of Japanese tourists chasing after me on my fiets, and yes I am famous, and that doesn't mean that I deserve to be hounded when I'm just trying to figure out how to not lean to the left while biking home, wherever that may actually be.

7) MAN. Only here could I find the closest thing to my first true love, Mork. Here, men in rainbow sweaters with hip haircuts walking fluffy dogs are not gay, they are just Dutch.

8) THE LADIES. What's better than walking through ancient stone alleys filled with some good lookin' whores in red-lit boxes? And what's funnier than being in the middle of packs of straight men looking at the girls? One tried to wrangle Bas, and even gave him a free little whipping. The outfits could use some work--a few too many Soviet Britneys. And furry boots. And metallic lycra!

9) DROOHHHG. I wanted to eat everything Droog Design as soon as I set eyes on it. I was forced to find a sorry substitute around the corner (unreal chocolates from a store that smelled better than being inside an enormous hot cake), and snuck about taking lots of pictures of the most perfect light fixtures I'd ever seen (barring a porcelain antler chandelier that Jason Miller of Brooklyn designed).

10) OUTLETS. Which brings me to: power outlets. In Amsterdam. In Europe. Are round. And perfect. With two round, perfect holes for prongs. And the plugs on things fit them. And are perfect, and beautiful, and a creamy white. Truthfully, those outlets are the #1 reason why I itch to move to Europe, at least for awhile. They fit things like Droog lamps, and Heico hot pink bunnies, and even without their usefulness they are perfect little art objects lining every apartment. If this doesn't make me a romantic, I don't know what does. I mean, really. Outlets. Hot.

Hamsterdam!

Straight off the flight, the first bar I see in Schipol airport is "HELLO THERE..." Bar. It actually bore a font that screamed quotation marks (the Dutch, always ingenius at problems of design) and was filled with 45 year old men without dates at crusty tables. Crusty: not as in dirty, but as in old, because the Dutch would NEVER LEAVE ANYTHING DIRTY. I'm from New York City, and this state of affairs stands out for me.

This morning I ate scrambled eggs with spinach and pesto and drank appelsap out on Krista and Baas' balcony, hoping to at least see a piece of litter or something. A pigeon dropped off a present for me, but that's about it. I read "Koken met Linda," aka Linda McCartney's vegetarian cookbook...in Dutch. With is to say that I looked at the pictures, and tried to decipher the words. Baas has an imersion blender, so all I could think while looking at the images was TOMATO SOUP! TOMATO SOUP!!! True to form, my first venture out in this new place was to the grocery store. Food is fascinating to me, especially when it's called Chippers or Aardbein.

There Krista and I were at the store--where a sign announced that it is "Hamster Week," meaning that discounts abound throughout. I can't not laugh at things like kaas, so I got a lot of the typical Dutch look-down-and-away responses. Kids are raised to say "Be normal!" whenever anyone deviates, so K and I manage, in contrast, to take big loud American to a whole new level.

Why not? My brassiness came in handy at Cafe Quibus, where we made friends with cigarettes and wine and their owners, another Bastiaan and both Martin and Maarten. Martin insisted a) that he works at Dutch Playboy, and b) that I have no idea how to inhale (smoke). We discussed breasts until his bedtime, at which point K, B, and I all rolled home and came up with retorts for the drunken Turkish teenager that yelled at us that K'd be hot if she stopped eating. "You'd be hot if you stopped talking!" "You consume calories and are therefore unattractive!" "If you were a corpse, I'd love you!" (This was followed up over the next days with packs of Turkish teenagers now wanting to take both K & I out.)

In contrast to my new boyfriend: a green conure who talked back and forth with me animatedly, but was a little afraid to zoom close enough to eat the peanuts in bags hanging from the roof. I whistled and tweeted with him, urging him to take the plunge. "Eat!" I said. "Make a mess!" I said. "I like you satisfied!"

Animated Pamela

Don't I have a lot in common with Pamela Anderson? We both carry silicone objects (her breasts, my blue keychain shaped like an ear), adore rockstars (her Tommy Lee, my cries of oy!), and have the capacity to say human words of English. Which is why when I went to an audition this morning for a feature-length animation based on her honeymoon video, it seemed obvious I would get the role. The director asked me in his Deutsch-stuck twang, "Are you willing to do a pornographic scene? There is no moaning, but there is a lot of 'Oh yeah, BABY.'" I said, "I'm an actor: I have no shame."

Shame! Who needs it! I recently got "Ellie Parker" on my Netflix. Naomi Watts plays an L.A. actress ashamed and in the throes of auditions, busted relationships, eating blue ice cream, and therapy. It's billed as a comedy, but if you've ever put yourself through the rigamaroll that is the theater and film world, it is not fucking funny. The movie officially goes on my list of top brilliant artworks that I would be reluctant to ever see again.

Easy to shame yourself into being what you believe other people want you to be, as an actress. Easy to skip meals, sweat until you bleed, bind your feet. Harder to risk forgoing the chance to be seen by there being more of you rather than less. By more, I mean as you are; by less, so much less. It takes a lot of cajones to waltz in as yourself--and a lot more shamelessness to refuse to change. Humping an animated Tommy Lee with my voice is nothing. It's my body and my heart I want to protect from all the casting directors of the world, many who have paused quizzically at my presence, voicing or not that wistful pity of, "People that look like you have to try awfully hard to get cast," and "Not that you're not beautiful, but...is that an ear in your pocket?"

Talking Pony, C'est Moi.

I eat carrots, and I gallop. But mostly I am an actress and writer that is fixated on making funny.

Funny? I'm funny. Bill Cosby told me I'd be the next Ellen DeGeneres. Tina Fey begrudgingly took my headshot. I stump salespeople. I make my friends pee. I've gotten jobs, dumped, and kissed for being funny.

Now for the nostalgia portion of our program.

Back when I was a mere tot I was OBSESSED with becoming funny. When you're shy, excessively sensitive, and primarily a visual artist, it feels challenging to stick your neck out and let it rip. So I had to train for my future at Aspen undetected by the masses.

It all began with a tiny collection of jokes that I wrote. By tiny, I mean: few jokes, itsy object. I was particularly fond of math jokes: yes! The beginning of my international success!

The best thing about being both funny and female is it means that you are no longer considered "hot." It also means that you can play a whole lot of supportive friend roles on TV. You can have bad hair!!

I think it goes along with women and intelligence: everyone's checking under the hood to make sure the dang thing won't blow up when they're on the road. Fuck: female, funny, AND smart? Please don't tell. There's a colony of us hiding from the law. We've got a huge embargo we knitted together out of dildo cozies and guitar straps. Don't try to find us; we will pelt you with homeade flan.

On the other hand, I, at least, would really like it if you'd read my blog, come to my shows, and shower me with orange tiger lilies.

But not so many that I drown, because then I wouldn't get to continue on with my day of recording tracks of me imitating old codgers looking for dates.