| November 24, 2004 | As C(r)ool as Jessica Barron |
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"Before we take this ride and let it slide Into the cracks where fall and winter collide. I surrender all my gall in a song of modern love. Remember you're the one who summoned me above any other kind." --The Shins, "Girl on the Wing" "Your blog is pretty much becoming a commercial for your radio show," Jeff teased me on Saturday night. "Well, my radio show doesn't make my wrists ache and my fingers go numb," I said, although Jeff knew that Friday night I had been talking on-air even I was getting over a cold and my sore throat felt raw. *whine* The radio show is just a sparkly new medium for me, so for a little while it will consume more attention. Filling two hours each week is not easy, so I think about the show a lot. And it also seems like it's working out that the 2 hours during the show is one of the only time-slots I have available (i.e. non-working) to talk on the phone to my friends and family. On the October 29 show, I was dressed-up like Jackie Kennedy and I interviewed my dad on-air about what early voting was like in Florida for the U.S. Presidential Election. And then I spoke with Lana and Mary from Houston, Texas where they (well mostly Lana) voiced the opinion that Theresa Heinz-Kerry would be a sexier first lady than Jackie was. I wasn't buying it. I talked about Laura's bush, and wondered aloud if she gets it waxed. And -- more importantly -- does she get it Brazilian-style? In 2004, America wants a well-waxed, well-behaved Stepford First-Wife more than ever. The election was difficult to swallow, and for me it was work -- covering the news for Yahoo's broadband portals. The 4a.m.-midnight shift killed me this time, and Allyson steered the ship until we put it to rest at 2a.m. Then I woke up in the Sunnyvale Sheraton (across the street from Yahoo! HQ) to hear that Kerry was conceding. I went online to find that Allyson was already setting up our live video coverage of the concession speech. Speaking of Allyson -- she is having a very, very rough month. First, Noah, one of her beloved cats fell suddenly very ill and she needed to make the decision to put him to sleep on Election Day morning, as if pulling an almost-all-nighter covering the news wasn't stressful and horrific enough. When we were travelling in London a few days after the election to hold an Editorial Conference with our British and Canadian co-editors, Allyson found out that her grandmother is dying. This week she has flown home to help her mom keep a vigil at the bedside. And on top of those two awful events, when we were in London we went out to see Jerry Springer: The Opera which was not a win with Allyson, driving her to the point of exclaiming (in a sing-song musical voice in a restaurant) "What the fuck, what the fuck, what the fucky, fucky, fuck?" And that is exactly the question I'm asking to myself (in sing-song musical voice in my head) right now. It's like 4a.m. and I'm on my laptop in my bed at The Standard in Hollywood. I have the door to my balcony open, and I'm watching the cars zoom by below on Sunset Blvd. But completely foreign thing is happening to me -- I can't sleep. And this is happening to a girl who famously fell asleep during an Anthrax and Ozzy Osbourne show at the Worcester Centrum in 1988. The same girl who has fallen asleep at meetings in front of CEOs. Yes, *ahem* that would be me. This sleepless thing started in London two weeks ago when we flew across 8 hours' worth of time zones. In London, I realized that that foggy "Lost in Translation" feeling doesn't require a language barrier -- just a mood of complete displacement, detachment. And I've got that, if you're looking for it. It felt like I was falling into the cracks where fall and winter collide. Or maybe it was the time warp of travelling across so many hours of international fate lines. Whatever caused it, I had trouble getting to sleep, even with Ambien and the Ativan. And when I finally fell asleep I couldn't wake up. Ask Allyson. She was sweet enough to give me additional wake up calls, which was the only way I managed to get up because I would hang-up on the automated calls sent to me from the front desk. This is what I felt like. And I was too busy thinking and looking at things and taking pictures to sleep. Now it feels that way too. It's overwhelming. There's just too much going on in the world. All these people saying all this stuff and doing so many things. And so so so much to look at. I drove down here yesterday from SF to tend to a crop of my friends. There's Jeff, who flew into SF on Saturday (to see me) from NYC and then down to LA on Sunday (to see Hillary, Chris, Paul). There's Selena who's newly-engaged and looking to buy a house in La-la land. And there's Kim who has left Hawaii to open a hipster nail salon on Melrose that already had a write-up in Daily Candy. And August is flying down tomorrow. I mean today. And Andy has invited us to his parents' house in San Marino. And I'm only here for 3 more days, I think. And, if that's not enough -- there's a guy who's written and recorded a song called "I Wanna Be as Cool as Jessica Barron." I am not even kidding. Someone emailed me the mp3. The song is actually not too bad, and the lyrics are pretty smart, semi-disdainful but not as scathing as they probably could be. You know that I'm totally gonna play it on my radio show... How could I resist? According to the info attached to the mp3 it was written/performed by Jeremy Abbate (who may be the same guy who wrote this piece for McSweeney's). I love how Googling makes anyone an amateur detective. Kinda like how the internet and computers and digital tools enable all of us to be publishers, editors, writers, DJs, photographers, videographers, and musicians distributing our songs around the world. Seriously, check it out for yourself. posted by Jess Barron @ 4:45 AM 
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