| August 31, 2009 | Some of the Best "Mad Men" Are Women |
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A few days ago my friend Allyson updated her Facebook status to say that she has been disappointed in "Mad Men" so far this season. And she is not the only one. In some ways I understand where the sentiment is coming from, but I don't agree. While the episodes have been slightly slower paced this season (less Don Draper affairs and binge drinking, for sure), the character development -- particularly the female characters -- has been the best on television. Plus, this season the show is building toward an event that will have a monstrous impact on everyone -- president JFK's assassination on November 22, 1963. (Did you catch the date on Roger Sterling's daughter's wedding invitations? They showed it in close-up. It's Nov, 23, 1963 -- the day after JFK was assassinated -- so it's very unlikely the wedding is going to happen.) The character development in Season 3 has been fascinating, particularly the main female characters: Peggy Olson, Joan Holloway, and Betty Draper as well as closeted gay adman Salvatore Romano who did finally have a tryst with a guy. (Read New York mag's Aug 17 interview with Brian Batt who plays Sal for some insights on Sal's love life.) People keep commenting that Peggy is slowly becoming the female version of Don Draper with everything that entails. But what does it mean for a woman to be Don Draper? In an interview posted today in the Canadian National Post, Elizabeth Moss who plays Peggy said of "Mad Men" Season Three:
Though she is ambitious and also has a dark secret and "gets" what it means to sell a great creative idea, there's no question that Peggy is different than Don. She's more awkward -- certainly painful to watch in some scenes like the one when she sang into the mirror doing that Ann Margaret "Bye Bye Birdie" routine. But what makes her fascinating is that, despite her awkwardness and perhaps naivete, she still exudes confidence in her career and even a strange confidence in her strange sexual dalliances with Pete Campbell and the random guy she picked up at the bar this season. In this Times Online piece "Mad Men: The real Mad women," Mary Wells Lawrence (one of the 1960s adwomen who provided real-life inspiration for the character of Peggy Olson) -- now in her eighties -- says "Mad Men" is not an accurate representation about what things were really like in the ad agencies of the 1960s. I particularly love the quote where she says: "We weren't lusting after each other. We were lusting after ourselves. We were all crazy about ourselves. Crazy about the talent that we all felt we had. When you are that self-centered, you don't have room for romance with anyone else." (Reminds me of Vassar College. But for some reason, also makes me want to read Wells Lawrence's autobiography "A Big Life in Advertising".) It's surprising that a show called "Mad Men," has some of the best written and complex female characters on television, but it shouldn't be when you realize that the majority of the show's writers are women. This Wall Street Journal article "The Women Behind 'Mad Men'" says that seven of the nine members of the "Mad Men" writing team are women and women directed five of the 13 episodes in the third season. This is pretty amazing, especially if you consider the fact that "of the roughly 13,400 members of Directors Guild of America, only about 1,000 (7%) are listed as female directors." With its slick '60s style and constant cocktail consumption, it seems like it would be easy for me and probably most people to feel a little nostalgic for the days of "Mad Men," but despite the fab outfits, I'm not nostalgic for the sad options available, particularly for the women of 1963, but also for everyone. I'm very curious to see how the women's movement and the civil rights movement will affect these characters. "Mad Men" creator Matthew Weiner said something I liked that about Season 3 in his June 2009 Rolling Stone interview:
Labels: allyson, americanculture, madmen, nostalgia, tv, women posted by Jess Barron @ 2:44 PM 
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| August 26, 2005 | 22 Hours in Los Angeles, 2 Hours in a Karaoke Booth |
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22 hours in Los Angeles 3 hours in meetings 2 hours in a karaoke booth Allyson, Heather and I flew down to Los Angeles for 22 hours to meet with our Yahoo! co-workers on the entertainment, music, and news teams to discuss all the exciting upcoming content which, of course, I can't tell you about. But I assure you it's cool stuff. Since I always like to begin any excursion or adventure well-rested (ummm, who am I kidding? perhaps well-caffeinated, or maybe well-dressed), I started the day yesterday on 3.5 hours of sleep because I was down in Sunnyvale at 5a.m. to do some East Coast radio interviews for Yahoo! Buzz on my office landline. (My housemates and I don't have a landline phone at our house and it seems ridiculous to sign up for one when I'm moving to LA in just 2 months.) The highlight of our trip down south was definitely the 2 hours we spent with Laura, Richard, and Chris in an Asian-style (private room) karaoke place off of Sawtelle in West Los Angeles. I would pay at least $35 for an mp3 recording of our sextet's (the use of this word makes our behavior sound more debaucherous) awesomely-outrageous rendition of Queen's "Bohemian Rhapsody." It certainly brought a tear to my eye. Similarly, witnessing the tortured magic of Chris and Laura's spontaneous and unplanned performance of Akon's "Lonely" can hardly be described. Thankfully, Heather took some photos of it all, and we can console ourselves that soon she will be posting them to flickr. postscript: Here's Heather's flickr photoset. Labels: allyson, chris, karaoke, la, photos, yahoo posted by Jess Barron @ 2:53 PM
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| August 3, 2005 | A Healthy 'Self'-Interest? |
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Go pick up the August issue of "Self" magazine and turn to page 109. There (in the "Happiness" section) you will find a quick mention about Allyson's and my podcast. (It's in an article about cool ideas for hanging out with your girlfriends rather than just going to see a movie or going to bars. I wanted them to write that girls should get together and start their own pirate radio stations, but the editor said that pirate radio wasn't "a good fit for "Self's audience." Podcasting was a bit more their style. And a bit more legal too, I suppose...) Here's a shot we took of the article. Labels: allyson, happiness, magazine, podcast, press posted by Jess Barron @ 11:51 PM
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| July 28, 2005 | Why It's Not Totally Stupid to be Celeb-Obsessed |
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Allyson, I think you'll be happy to know that our friends at MSN have published some scientific explanations to your celebrity obsessions! This is a great topic to discuss tonight on the show. I found it particularly interesting when they talked about how celebrity worship was almost taking the place of religion. (A crazy, though possibly true, theory!) One psychologist they interviewed speculated:
Personally, I've always thought that today's celebs were our modern version of the Greek and Roman gods and goddesses, but I never quite made the leap that people who had less organized religion in their lives today might be proportionally more celeb-obsessed. Another fascinating point made on the second page in this article is that our brains are hard-wired from hundreds of years ago to cliassify a recognizeable face as a "friend:"
Finally, on the third page the article explains why although beauty is obviously important -- personality is really what transcends and influences our interest:
Labels: allyson, celebrities posted by Jess Barron @ 3:33 PM
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| July 6, 2005 | It's Allyson's Birthday. Pay Her a Visit! |
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It's Allyson's birthday today. Pay her a visit and leave your birthday wishes as comments.
posted by Jess Barron @ 2:39 PM
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| June 30, 2005 | "Something I've been Meaning to Tell You..." |
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A few months back, my friend Andy took me aside one night when we were hanging out with friends. I could tell he was gathering up the courage to say something important. "Jess, there's something I've been meaning to tell you." he said. I was immediately nervous. Ever since JP took me aside that morning in 2000 and gave me a frank talk about the necessity of wearing a bra, I get a bit anxious out when my friends have something the've been meaning to tell me. My mind was scanning through possible manners faux pas, misbehaviors or misdeeds I might have committed. Was I being mean to someone? Was I dressing slutty? Did I have really bad B.O.? "Don't take this the wrong way..." he continued and then paused. You probably already know this but "Don't take this the wrong way" is a good indicator that you really don't want to hear what's going to be said next. Andy looked at me -- I swear almost pityingly. "Some of your other friends and I were talking and we all agree that..." he trailed off again, trying to make sure through careful wording, perhaps, that what he was about to reveal would not excessively hurt my feelings. I tried to appear as calmly curious possible, so that I could entice him to come out with it and end my painful suspense. "Yes? What is it? You can tell me. Don't worry." I felt like I was encouraging him to stab me or something. "Well, it's just that..." he almost paused again, but thankfully continued after a moment. "You really, really need to get an RSS feed for your blog." I could tell he was embarassed for me. It was true that my personal website had remained stuck in 1997 or 1998 -- I still handcoded the HTML, I didn't have a way for readers to add comments, and I didn't have an RSS feed. Yes, I felt a little bit sad when Andy hit me with the harsh reality of the sad, outdated state of my long neglected but much-loved website. But I was sure glad I didn't have really bad B.O. that all my friends were talking about. Andy, this RSS feed is dedicated to you and our brave, frank chat a few months back. You can now easily add my blog to your My Yahoo! page (or your favorite RSS reader). Anyone else -- if there's some flaw with my real-life person or my website that you need to bring to my attention, there's always email. And now, comments. You can thank Andy (and Allyson and others) for bringing that to my attention too. Labels: allyson, andy, blog, rss, web posted by Jess Barron @ 12:25 PM
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| 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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| February 10, 2004 | Blue Skies Are Up Ahead? |
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"Need a little joy Need a little joy and some dancing Need a little joy Come on baby boy Come on blue skies. I, I, I I, I see Blue skies are in my head, said, blue skies are up ahead." -- Tori Amos, "Blue Skies" (yeah, yeah I know Tori's not "cool," but I don't care, so piss off, you pretentious indie rock wankers.) Just like a clear California day in February, she makes me so happy. Can't you see? After all that Vassar talk last week, tomorrow my work is flying me to New York City to meet with ABC TV to work out some details to our production system/schedule. (We run their news video on-demand on our broadband portals.) It'll be weird to be back in the ABC buildings. Nine years ago, I spent a semester of my senior year at Vassar interning at "Prime Time Live" with Diane Sawyer. (Yeah, yeah: "So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.") In addition to all the Vassar stuff, New York will always be the city where my brother died. But, on the positive, side -- it's also where Jeff lives now, in Brooklyn. And I'll get to see him. And the ever-fabulous August is flying out to stay with me for the weekend. Now I just hafta find some warm, East Coast wintery clothes to pack. 02.09.2004. So, some readers have implored me -- "San Francisco seems pretty pretentious... How can you say that SF is less pretentious than NYC?" 'Tis true. San Francisco is not entirely lacking in pretension. But SF brings a smile to my face because of the utterly silly shenanigans so many of da people are engaged in every day. For instance, if you lose a bet about proper grammar usage, you might hafta walk 8 blocks of Valencia Street dressed up like a chicken. Or, if you fly home to SFO, after spending some time abroad, your friends just might show up at the airport dressed in dalmation costumes and playing accordians. "And who are all the good, fun, non-pretentious San Francisco people?" those same readers asked. Well, there's Allyson, Jen, and Leanne for starters. posted by Jess Barron @ 7:39 PM
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| December 17, 2003 | Sunrises over Sunnyvale and the Painted Desert |
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It's still in the forties here in the Bay Area. Maybe the low fifties, and I'm using a space heater to try to warm my room. (Like most old Victorian houses in San Francisco, ours doesn't really have central heating.) And to all the people who are telling me I'm such a wussy complaining about the cold weather -- I'm sorry, but I just think it's my god-given right to wear open-toed shoes year-round OK? That's why I live in California. I have delicate kitten heel shoes and pretty pedicures I'd like to show-off, thank you very much. Yesterday evening Allyson and Jacqueline and I were watching an incredible sunset out the window of their shared cube over the drab gray windowless Lockheed Martin compound next door. It started dark pink and and red as if the Santa Cruz mountains were leaking blood into the sky. It was completely post-apocalyptic. (For visual assistance, here is a photo I took of the sunset over the Lockheed Martin building last year one night after it rained. I took the photo out the same window, and you can see the florescent lights and our office's paneled ceiling reflected in the glass.) "The poor Lockheed Martin workers don't have any windows so they can't even look outside at all," I said, before quickly following up with, "I suppose that's what they get for building bombs." Yeah, I guess we can feel smugly satisfied because we're building virtually harmless internet products. "Do they have sunsets like this anywhere else in the country?" Jacqueline (a Bay Area native) asked. Before Allyson could respond, I said, "No, definitely not. I can't remember sunsets like this in Massachusetts or New York." Jeff called on my cell this morning as I was driving into the office. He flew from New York to Los Angeles yesterday to spend his 30th birthday in the promised land. He's staying at Chris and Hillary's new place, which I was overjoyed to learn is in our old neighborhood near the big-ass Mormon temple on Santa Monica Boulevard in West Los Angeles. "It's beautiful, Jess!" Jeff practically gushed. Jeff can be a rather stoic guy (we were raised in New England, after all), so I love it whenever he gets excitement in his voice. "It's 75 degrees, and I was watching the sunset from their deck last night. It was really amazing!" "We were watching the sunset in Sunnyvale last night at work too, and one of my co-workers asked me if the sunset is as pretty in other parts of the country. I told her I was pretty sure it wasn't, but is that true, and if so, why?" "I do remember some decent sunsets in Brooklyn, but I think the sky is just always clearer here, so you can see it more," Jeff said. I'm driving down to Los Angeles on Saturday morning so I can help Jeff celebrate his 30th birthday properly. We've been friends since we were 15-years-old, and now we're both about to turn 30. Crazy, huh? Weirder still is the fact that we've both felt like we were 30, as far back ago as when we were 25. (Budding blog archeologist Esther dug up this 1999 blog-post and forwarded it in an email to Jeff and me a few weeks ago, asking, "Do you both *still* feel like you're 30 every day when you get up?" My answer: "No, now I feel like I'm about 22." Jeff and I actually hated each other when we first met first semester of our freshman year in high school. We ran against each other in a student council election. Jeff won (he's a much better politician than I am), and I'm a bad loser. But sophomore year we were two of the only brave students who signed up to take Latin class, so we bonded while translating Caesar's Commentaries on the Gallic Wars. Here is a photo I took of Jeff in front of one of the parabolic dishes at the Very Large Array in Socorro, New Mexico during our incredible "South by South by Southwest" road-trip in March 2002. During that trip we saw one of the most incredible sunsets over the painted desert driving West from New Mexico into Arizona. Labels: allyson, jeff, sanfrancisco, siliconvalley, sunrise, yahoo posted by Jess Barron @ 7:00 PM
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| July 22, 2002 | Deco Win and Film Noir |
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On Friday night a bunch of us went to see Alfred Hitchcock's "Notorious" at Oakland's Paramount Theatre. The Paramount is absolutely gorgeous, one of the nicest art deco theaters in the country. But we weren't totally prepared for the magic of Deco-Win. All this for $5. Need to see more? Allyson has comments and more pics. Labels: allyson, film, movie, pics posted by Jess Barron @ 10:53 PM
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| January 11, 2002 | Vassar's Wet Dream |
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"This is Vassar's wet dream!" Mindy squealed, as Ethan Zohn won Survivor. "I mean c'mon, he's a heterosexual male and he's an athelete..." "Yeah, no one's gonna think it's an all girls school anymore... This is almost like when you worked in the school's publicity department and you were making the recruitment videos, and you wouldn't use me as a stand-in because I wasn't black or male or athletic or Asian," I responded, still bitter from missing my big break in Vassar's promotional video due to my white female majority status. "What I want to know," said Adam a.k.a. Atom, "Is do they get one million dollars and then have the 40% taxes taken out or do they give them enough money so that they have a million after taxes?" "I can't believe our classmate won Survivor!" Mindy said. "Yeah, if someone from Vassar was going to win Survivor, I would've expected it to be a catty gay boy like J.P. or a pissed-off Women's Studies major," I said. Mindy immediately called Helen on her cell phone, and I called Allyson who is at CES in Vegas, and probably right now shaking her ass at Rum Jungle. (Oh, I'm not jealous. Noooooo. But what if she's hanging out with Bill?!) Allyson didn't answer, so I didn't even know if she knew yet that Ethan won. Damn. No She Said, She Said tonight. After that we thought about who else to call, and I ended up calling Lee to point out how, once again, Vassar's superiority to his alma mater Occidental College (which incidentally goes by the nickname of "Oxy," Eww!) has been made evident. We considered calling J.P. because he's such a pop culture addict, but I remembered how he keeps telling me that he doesn't watch reality TV because his own life is much more interesting. Perhaps the best part about Ethan winning Survivor is that I won $80 in my office's Survivor pool. It may not be a million dollars, but it's enough to buy me a few cocktails (even at San Francisco prices). After the Survivor excitement Mindy and Adam busted out Dance Dance Revolution and started jumpin' around my living space. And then Mindy and I busted into the duet that she and I are singing Saturday night during my birthday festivities at The Mint. My birthday is coming up very soon. We're celebrating two days early on Saturday night. What song should I karaoke? People keep asking me what I did on New Year's Eve, and it's not such an easy question to answer: "Ummm, well, we built drunken pyramids on my kitchen floor and scared the dog." Seriously, how the hell do I explain what was going on in this photo?. Heather also posted some New Year's pics on her site too. Labels: allyson, jp, lee, mindy, sanfrancisco, sf, vassar posted by Jess Barron @ 7:01 PM
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| October 9, 2001 | We're With the Church of Microsoft |
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I'm finally getting over the monster-flu-thing. Today was volunteer day at Microsoft, which means everyone is encouraged to take time out of their workdays to help out in the local community (Silicon Valley). Allyson and I volunteered to make food for the homeless in Palo Alto. With four co-workers, we assembled a hundred or so tuna fish sandwiches, put them into bag lunches with an apple and an Odwalla bar, and then handed them to the people. We finished fast, (probably due to our project management skills), and afterward the volunteer organizer encouraged us to socialize, but it was kind of rocky at first. "What church are you with?" one of the homeless women asked us. Ummm. We weren't really sure how to answer that. "We're with Microsoft," one of our co-workers piped up, and everyone sort of giggled nervously. It was a weird idea, thinking of Microsoft as a religious group. I kept worrying that the people resented us. I ended up talking for a few minutes with a guy named Andre, and he asked me if I had ever met Bill Gates... Labels: allyson, microsoft, siliconvalley, volunteering posted by Jess Barron @ 6:19 PM
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| October 24, 2000 | A Love Affair with Los Angeles |
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"I'd give my life just to dream with you on a bed of California stars." - Billy Bragg & Wilco "California Stars" I'm not sure exactly how it happened, but I somehow convinced Gareth to leave his life in Denver behind and move to California to live with me. I must have some incredible powers of persuasion. I've only known him for one month. I accepted a new job. I'm working for Microsoft in Mountain View, California. Sorry, but I can't really tell you what I'm going to be doing, because it's kind of a secret. I had to sign the usual all-encompassing non-disclosure agreements. I assure you that the projects I will be involved with will not harm anyone and should in no way risk causing a thermal-global-nuclear war. The job is great (and I'm going to be working with my friend Allyson again!), but this unfortunately means that I hafta leave Los Angeles and move to uber-expensive San Francisco. I'm starting next week, so my langorous days of unemployment in LA are coming to an end. It's weird because four years ago when I first wanted to move to California from the East Coast, I thought I'd move to San Francisco. I never even considered Los Angeles, because I didn't think I'd like it. But now that I've lived here for a year, I love LA, and I'm afraid that San Francisco will pale in comparison. I feel like I will be arriving in San Francisco just as the party is ending. You know, when the dim lights are turned up and the ambient music is turned off and everyone realizes that the night of drunken magic is drawing to a close and they have to go home to their cold, lonely beds. As T.S. Eliot so eloquently put it, "This is how the dotcom revolution ends -- not with a bang, but a whimper." (Of course, Eliot was talking about the world and not the "dotcom revolution," but since dotcoms have comprised my entire world for the past four years, I suppose you will accept and understand the substitution.) What's more -- all the people I know in San Francisco (and most San Franciscans, actually) hold a disdainful attitude toward LA. They'll tell you that LA is full of traffic and smog and vapid people, but they don't even stop to realize that their city (and its Southern appendage Silicon Valley) has 100 times worse traffic, the streets are dirtier, and their population is almost entirely twentysomething technology people whose cocktail party chat makes actors and film industry people look smart, interesting, and even deep. Don't get me wrong, most of my friends (in both cities) are twentysomething technology people, it's just that in LA (as opposed to SF)I also have friends who are writers, film-makers, actors, and writers, not to mention waitresses, masseuses, and public school teachers. I don't think those kinds of people can even afford to live in San Francisco anymore because the rents in the city are so ridiculous. But in L.A., rent is fairly cheap (when compared to Boston, NYC, and SF), so the city has a much more diverse population. I've been spending the last few weeks of unemployment trying to enjoy LA and do some of the things I don't normally have time or inclination to do. You can check out my photos from the Getty Center, Point Dume in Malibu, The Mondrian, Earth Dance, Santa Monica Pier, and Beauty Bar. The worst part about moving to San Francisco is trying to find a decent studio or one bedroom apartment that allows dogs that is less than $4000 per month in rent. Gareth and I drove up to SF yesterday to go to some open houses. We saw a loft in the Mission that we really liked, but we weren't ready to commit to it yet. (And we can't realistically afford the $6000 initial deposit until I start work.) We definitely like the loft spaces in SOMA, but we don't want people to resent us and think that we're dotcom yuppies. It's just that lofts have such great feng shui and they generally seem to allow dogs to cohabitate with humans. Reasons Not to Leave Los Angeles: Labels: allyson, la, losangeles, microsoft posted by Jess Barron @ 11:35 AM
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| March 26, 2000 | The Perils of Web Production |
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On Friday Allyson sent me Project Zapster, the Sucksters' silly scheme for ending Napster's reign. (Speaking of Napster, did you hear about Wrapster?) Then today she sent me Carl Steadman's latest -- Let's Do Launch, which is hysterical and 100% accurate. If you read that and Can We Go Live With This?, you'll know everything you need to know about a day-job in Web Production. But don't tell anyone at Scour that you heard about that here. I don't wanna end up like these peeps. posted by Jess Barron @ 6:04 PM
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| March 16, 2000 | Viper Room, Part 2 |
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This email chain was in response to Allyson's email about our star-studded evening at the Viper Room's secret Cult show... -----Original Message----- From: Jess Barron [mailto:jessb@poprocks.com] Sent: Thursday, March 16, 2000 3:14 AM To: "Allyson" Subject: Viper Room Cult show reported about on Alloy.com Hey Allyson, I just noticed a report about our Viper Room/Guinness Toast party on Alloy.com. Go to: http://www.alloy.com/a2k/todayinalloy/newsandgossip/ and scroll down to the entry for March 6 where you'll see: THE GUINNESS WORLD RECORD Looks like all you need to do to get stars to participate in a publicity stunt for free is serve them beer - lots and lots of beer. At least, that worked for Guinness, the Irish beer company that organized a 60-city, 300,000 person toast to (what else?) the wonders of Guinness in order to make it into the 2001 Guinness Book of World Records in the category of "Largest Simultaneous Toast." Joining the L.A. toast party at the Viper Room were such celebs as Johnny Depp, Tori Spelling, David Boreanaz, Alyssa Milano, Edward Furlong, Donovan Leitch, Rose McGowan, Matthew McConaughey, Vince Vaughn, Steven Dorff, and Paul Rudd. Sounds like quite a kegger! If you scroll further down to February 11, you'll see a report mentioning Monica L's boyfriend Jeff (Boggs) who writes for the Tom Green show. I coulda scooped them on *that* story. He convinced her to go on the show, the night they were out at Lava Lounge with me... MONICA LEWINSKY TO BE ON THE TOM GREEN SHOW Think that the Tom Green episode where he gave his parents lawn, er, art was funny? Well, that's nothing compared to what he's got planned next: Tom, Monica Lewinsky, and a camera crew, all in Tom's hometown together. Check this itinerary: First night in town, make a late-night visit to Tom's parent's bedroom. Next day, have Monica pose for a an Ottawa Sun feature on local beauties. Stop for coffee. Steal coffee filters to wear as hats. Toy with reporters by promising to make "a major announcement" about Monica and Tom's status as a couple soon, even though Monica is already seeing Jeff Boggs, one of Tom Green's producers. (So THAT'S how she ended up on the show.) We can't wait for this episode to air! -----Original Message----- From: Allyson Sent: Thursday, March 16, 2000 9:53 AM To: 'Jess Barron' Subject: RE: Viper Room Cult show reported about on Alloy.com WE MISSED TORI SPELLING?!?! Ooops, I mean... WE MISSED JOHNNY DEPP?!?! Labels: allyson, famous, la, losangeles posted by Jess Barron @ 2:14 PM
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| March 1, 2000 | Allyson's Email Following the Secret Cult Show |
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An email Allyson wrote to her friends after her weekend in LA, where I took her out to the Viper Room for The Cult's secret show (thanks to Ray): _______________________________ From: "Allyson" To: everyone CC: jessb@poprocks.com Subject: LA Story Date: Tue, 29 Feb 2000 01:16:12 To all my celebrity stalking friends -- I was so fortunate to arrange a visit to LA this past weekend and to have plans with one JESS BARRON, the very same day she did secure two spots on the VIP GUEST LIST to a suprise Cult show at none other than LA's infamous Viper Room where the not-so-fortunate RIVER PHOENIX did pass his last moments on this here earth. Needless to say we experienced multiple celebrity sightings covering the worlds of music, film and television... With the highlight of our evening being my exchange with Mushmouth-style hat-donning FIONA APPLE: Me: Watch out, it's wet there. (As Fiona Apple sits next to me on a couch where someone had spilled a drink.) Fiona Apple: Oh! You're right. Me: I think someone spilled a drink. Do you want me to move over? Fiona Apple: No, I'm fine. I'm just happy to sit down for a while! (smiling, sweet) ME: Okay. Furthermore, below is the complete list of stars witnessed by Jess and myself, in no particular order: 1. DAVID BOREANAZ 2. MATTHEW McCONAUGHEY 3. FIONA APPLE 4. MARILYN MANSON 5. ROSE McGOWAN 6. ERIC ERLANDSON (from Hole) 7. TOM PETTY (possible) Not a bad take for one night out. Many thanks go to Jess for showing me the best possible of times in the world's capital for GLITZ, GLAMOUR and, as she aptly pointed out, DETACHED and UNAFFECTED Hollywood WANNABES. Long live the Viper Room, free Guinness, and waify little singers. THE END Labels: allyson, famous, la, losangeles, music posted by Jess Barron @ 9:08 PM
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| August 16, 1999 | I'm Going to Burning Man |
 Burn, Baby, Burn: Tonight I picked up my plane tickets to go out to San Francisco next week for Burning Man. I'm starting to feel some substantial anxiety about the trip. Will I survive camping in the desert for five days? Mindy and I finally came up with an idea for a theme camp, although Lee doesn't think it's exciting enough. I would tell you what it is, but Mindy doesn't want me to talk about it until afterward. You can check out my ticket (and notice how it says "you voluntarily assume the risk of serious injury or death by attending"): I tried to explain what Burning Man was to my mom, but I don't think she got it. I told her it was this huge conglomeration of spontaneous performance art and people just "acting out" all over the place, but she just kept calling it "that concert you're going to." If you're curious about this Burning Man thing, don't worry. I'm going to take tons of photos and probably shoot some digital video as well. And of course, I'll write a few articles for WildWeb and keep a Daily Desert Journal. It now even looks as though I will be involved in the segment for our TV show as well. I'll let you know when it will air. Pavement Poems: I'm going to take a brief respite from expounding in technicolour detail about myself to mention that Ms. Hillary Field of Los Angeles (my favorite Boggle-playing buddy) sent a few of her poetic experiments to Matador Records' Pavement Poetry Project. And before her fans could begin to chant "A for effort, B for delivery..." she was listed among the 25 winners! Alas, she laments that the poem she entered under Jeff's name won better prizes than the poem she submitted under her own name. I do think I like the latter one better, but it seems that the peeps from Matador probably wanted to play out the Scrabble metaphor. And you really can't blame them; Scrabble is such a great game. Allyson Krieger, Miss Thang She Said, She Said: Allyson "Miss Thang" Krieger and I finally wrote our much talked about and long-awaited Teen Vs. Adult TV episode of "She Said, She Said." Alas, I no longer feel as good about the result as I had initially believed. First, as soon as the article went online Lee Charles Baker accused me of messing up his quote. He insisted he would *never* use "overanalyze" and "deconstruct" in the same sentence. Though he *was* copping pretentious attitude with me on the phone when he said the quote, I gave him the benefit of the doubt and changed it to the verbiage that currently sits in the 13th paragraph. Second, I think I lost track of what should have been one of my major points -- the idea that TV shows about teen characters are intriguing because the teen years are a time when people's personalities are being formed. Events that occur during the teen years can have a huge significance on a person's life. Somehow Ray Weigel I neglected to mention this in my article, and for this I should be thrashed. Our "Austin Powers, Hip or Has-Been?" feature came out much better, I think. It's a Shame About Ray: Ray "yo Jimmy" Weigel is out of our office on vacation for the entire month of August. I am not sure how we are all making it through these difficult days without anyone begging us to meet for drinks at the Rainforest cafe in Burlington. My aural pleasure has certainly declined in Ray's absence. And I am finding that I no longer say "duuude" as much either. Thankfully, Erin and Allyson are making sure the Caption Cornycopia isn't neglected. Que Sera, Sarah: On Saturday I went over to Sarah's (my dad's ex-girlfriend's) house to visit. I hung out with Sarah, her baby Misha, her husband Iourie, and Iourie's dad who is visiting from St. Petersburg. Iourie's dad convinced me to take a few shots of a drink called, mysteriously enough, "Russian balm." The stuff was scary. MishaSarah made some delicious pasta salad and we looked at old photos Sarah took of my brother and me in the '80s. Complete-Lee Enjoyable: So you read all the way to the bottom, and you expected to get some details about Lee's visit to the East Coast three week's ago. Nosy, aren't ye? Well, in this case, I am not going to put out so easily. All I'm going to tell you is that Lee passed his NASD test and he's now some sort of uber options broker. I made him a mix tape to celebrate. We got very lost on our first night out in Newark, New Jersey and it took us about two hours to find our way back into the sanctity of the hotel room. We kept seeing the glowing neon lights of our Courtyard Marriot in the distance as we descended and ascended on various on-ramps and off-ramps, but we could never maneuver ourselves over to where it was. I've never laughed so hard during such a frustrating experience. Honestly. I was laughing so hard that I thought my ribs were breaking. And I was driving. This is a good sign, I think. Labels: allyson, burningman, lee, wildweb posted by Jess Barron @ 10:15 AM
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| June 14, 1999 | Book Review of "The Beach" |
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My work friend Allyson just read "The Beach" last week, and she let me borrow her copy. I started it yesterday and finished it this evening. This book is completely and immediately engrossing. The story's about Richard, a young twentysomething British backpacker who acquires a map through very odd circumstances that leads him to a well-hidden Gen X enclave on a tropical island off the coast of Thailand. I won't say more because I don't want to give too much of the plot away. Though "The Beach" is compared to "Lord of the Flies" in the review blurb written by "High Fidelity" author Nick Hornby on the book's back jacket, the considerable pop cultural references to Nintendo's Game Boy, "The A Team," and Tetris made me think of Douglas Coupland's writing. Like Coupland, Garland understands the importance of pop culture to his generation of readers. I found it interestingly ironic that even though the main characters' shared goal is to live indefinitely sequestered away on an island paradise without contact with the outside world -- they still place high importance on obtaining batteries for their Walkmans and Game Boys, and almost all of their ideas of adventure and how to solve the problems they encounter come from popular American movies and TV shows -- notably "Platoon," "The A Team," and "Tour of Duty." One of my favorite parts in the book is when Richard talks about the game Street Fighter Two (a personal favorite) and the various ways people he knows react just as their Street Fighter characters' energy bars are going to be emptied. He calls this "the split second before Game Over" and he speculates that "Game Over" is one of the most widely understood phrases in the whole world. He also posits that the moment before Game Over "provides a rare insight into the way people react just before they do really die." Just as it would likely be true of myself and my friends, everything these characters know about survival they've gleaned from a lifetime watching video games and TV. One of the saddest themes in the book is about how you can't stop paradise from being spoiled - something's always going to come along and ruin Eden -- be it an onslaught of tourists, or even just progress. Labels: allyson, americanculture, book, popculture posted by Jess Barron @ 7:51 PM
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