Category Archives: Personal stories

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Things that make me rowdy enough to be pepper sprayed

It seems like every day I read about someone doing something that gets ’em pepper sprayed.  Maybe they’re peacefully protesting proposed tuition hikes and the police overdose them on the stuff.  Maybe they’re just trying to get a little Black Friday action when a fellow shopper douces them with the stuff.  This morning I saw some shoppers looking to get new Air Jordans were the most recent pepper spray victime. (Read story here.)  I can’t speak for you, but nothing gets me quite as rowdy as sneaker shopping.

This whole thing got me thinking about my behavior. Do I do anything that might warrant a pepper spray?  What gets me upset?

  1. The Mets.  If you say you are a Met fan and they don’t get your ire up, you are lying about being a fan.  It is impossible to watch them — on the field, off the field, having breakfast somewhere — and not want to punch someone.
  2. Fresca — nothing gets my knickers in a twit like when Safeway is out of the stuff.
  3. Glee:  Man, if I forget to set my DVR and miss an episode the fur does start a flyin’.
  4. DC Metro.  It sucks.  Every year the tourists descend like locusts on the city and try to hold the metro doors open during rush hour.  They force the doors open and everyone has to get off the train.  I would not be the pepper sprayee in this scenario.
  5. People who think I do things for sympathy.  I don’t need your sympathy.
  6. Inappropriate apostrophe usage.  On a business trip my colleagues wanted to go to a restaurant with a great happy hour.  I refused to go because of the sign they had out front.  Unless there was a woman there named Margarita and she was having a personal special, I was not going.  Seriously, plural words do not need an apostrophe.  There won’t be enough pepper spray on earth for how irate this gets me.

More to come…

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For me, silence is not golden

Is this the universe's way to tell me to STFU?

Anyone who knows me knows that I LOVE to talk.  I talk all the time.  I talk to my cats.  I talk to inanimate objects such as the TV (news & sports mostly), the newspaper (same topics), my computer, my iPad.  I have even been known to talk to myself if I have to (it’s worse when I am writing but that is often because I read my stuff out loud when checking for typos).  So not being able to talk feels like a fate worse than death.  Well, not quite that.  But I HATE it!

I was whining about my quandary on Twitter last night — I have just recently begun to feel comfortable on stage when this happens, not fair! — and someone suggested  I use my iPad.  There’s an app — Speak It! — that converts text to speech.  You can save phrases and play them back or convert them to sound files and email them.  To make it more fun, I chose a British woman’s voice.

These are the first phrases I saved, you know the ones I use the most often:

1. How the fuck would I know?
2. What are you, on crack?
3. Let’s go, Mets! (seriously, I am an idiot)
4. Fuck you, Fred Wilpon.
5. What-EVER!
6. Motherfucker!
7. That is soooo random!
8. Hello
9. Thank you. (See I can be polite — we all need to say this and the next entry more often.)
10. Please.
11. Did you watch the debate?
12. Herman Cain is awesome.
13. Michele Bachmann should run for president every four years.
14. Have a nice day.
15. Do you have any Fresca?

But then I got to thinking about some other things I like to say (remember: imagine these coming from a British woman):

1. Wake up in the morning feeling like P. Diddy. Grab my glasses, I am out the door, gonna hit this city. Before I leave, brush my teeth with a bottle of Jack. ‘Cause when I leave for the night I ain’t comin’ back.
2. You just come around here to eat our food and fuck our mother. You motherfucker, you food eater. (Best movie line EVER. Delivered by Keanu Reeves in his first movie, River’s Edge.)

The last one I did was: I have completely lost my voice so I am using this to communicate.  In my new, and hopefully temporary, reality, I have decided to be British.

Part of me thinks this is the universe’s way of preventing me from screeching along to Glee or belching out random Katy Perry songs at all hours of the day and night.  I am sure my neighbors love this development and hope it lasts a good long time.

I know I am being incredibly self-centered and whiny.  I just had a great trip to NYC and want to tell people about it so I keep going to pick up the phone but it’s just not an option today.  Dang!  I want my voice back and I want it now!

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It’s the most wonderful time of the year

(If posts with personal information bother you, leave now.)

Yep, every now and again our friends on the right (and I don’t mean this never happens on the left, it does, I am sure) come up with a non-issue to rile each other up about.  As it is December, the flavor fear of the month is of course, the Democrats’ “war on Christmas.”

I am not sure where this fits on my list of their pet worries that are just paper tigers meant to scare people into thinking liberals are evil.  Is it better or worse than legislation barring sharia law?  Does it piss me off more than the people (you know who you are) who tell me my assertions that Herman Cain was never qualified to be president because he lacks even the most basic knowledge about anything was hypocritical because I like Bill Clinton and he had flaws, too.  Yes, I do like him and yes, he does — we all do.  Apples and oranges or should I just say 9 9 9.

But back to the current outrage.  When people say Happy Holidays they are starting a war on Christmas.  I always say it to everyone because there are more holidays than one, even for Christians.  Even Christians celebrate New Year’s Eve.  But you also don’t always know people religious affiliation, maybe they are all about Festivus or Boxing Day. (Or serious ones like Channukah)

Now, I love Christmas.  For me, it has always been the most wonderful time of the year.  When my parents divorced, my life became pretty chaotic.  Maybe to make up for it, my family gave me three bites at the Christmas apple — Christmas Eve was at my grandmother’s house, Christmas day was at my Aunt Edna’a (is there a law that everyone on Long Island must have an Aunt Edna?  I think there is.) and then we went back to my father’s place for a final round.  It was the only time of the year that I thought the situation was good for me.

It never occurred to me that maybe this is why I love the season so much and I don’t think that can be all of it.  When I grew out of the stage where I could be bought off with toys and candy, my traditions changed but remained really special.  I would go to Minneapolis for Christmas and then on to San Francisco for the rest of my break.  Minneapolis could be one of the best places to spend Christmas.

If you are wondering why none of my fond memories of Christmas have anything to do with religion, it’s because Jesus is not the “reason for my season.”  And I suspect if some people I know read this they will think less of me but it’s time for me to come clean about something.  I am an atheist.  Why would people not like me for admitting such a thing?  I am not sure how my friends from the church I go to will feel about my non-belief of something that means a lot to them.

Yes, I said it.  I am an atheist and I go to church.  I am a complicated person.  That’s why my Facebook profile lists my religion as physics.  I stopped saying the Pledge of Allegiance in the first grade because of the “under God” part.  I wonder now why I just opted out of that part but I was six and it didn’t occur to me until I found out it was only added because of McCarthyism.

So Christmas was never a religious thing for me.  And don’t even bother spamming me with your comments about it being Jesus’ birthday.  He was born in April.  Christmas was set up to take the place of a major pagan holiday.  If you think there is anything Christ-like about cutting down a tree and decorating it, well, you need to read up on your paganism.  And no, my opinion on this is not because I don’t believe Jesus is our lord and savior (though if anyone can explain how he is both the son of God and God at the same time, please I am all ears).

Because Christmas for me is about the season of goodwill and fun, I never understood people who objected to Christmas decorations.  What’s the problem with festive lights and decorations at a dark part of the year?  No, I didn’t get it.

My first real job after college was working for Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-CA).  She is  Jewish.  At Christmas time, we had a huge tree in the front office and decorations — I think throughout but it’s been a while.  Some staffers were truly offended.  They felt she was abandoning her faith and them.  I asked why and was told that as it wasn’t something they celebrate, the decorations left them feeling left out.  I may be an atheist but Christmas was a huge part of my childhood and finally understood what the big deal is.  I would be lying if I was upset that we kept the decorations up but being a little more sensitive to people from different traditions than me was a good thing.

For the record, my mother has asked me over the years about what my friends are doing for Christmas and I have to remind then that it’s not a something some of them celebrate and she always sounds surprised.  For a few years, we had our own Judeo-Christian tradition.  We did the big breakfast with gifts in the morning and then spend the afternoon at a movie and go for Chinese food that night.

All the uproar over President Obama leaving God out of his Thanksgiving address or having “holiday” parties and the like vs “Christmas” parties is just a whole lot nothing.

And no, Gretchen “black hole of humanity” Carlson, no one gives a rat’s ass what you put in your house at this — or any other — time of year.  Get over yourself.

Note:  I often attend the Capitol Hill Presbyterian Church.  I go for several reasons.  On one occasion where I was having a need for something spiritual in my life I wandered into this church. The pastor, Andy Walton, gives great sermons.  I went back for two reasons, his sermons and the community services they offer — not to get them, I feel I should add, but volunteer for them.  Over the years I had wandered in every now and again but the visit that made me return was last September when I volunteered in their soup kitchen.  That marked the delineation between me stopping in and going regularly.  I like the contemplative nature of his sermons, the ability to help others and the great people I have met.  I have had trouble this fall going because I feel strongly about my person view of religion — not that anyone is wrong, my beliefs are what work for me, if that makes sense. But the juxtaposition of your firm belief and my equally firm disbelief has left me feeling like a bit of a fraud and that is why I have been absent so much.

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Crash and burn and survive to tell the tale

A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away, I took a job with a BMG Classics.  This is one of my favorite stories from that job and my career.

It all started in 1998.  I was looking for a job and sent my resume to every person I had ever met.  I received a call from an acquaintance in New York who wanted to know if I would be interested in doing PR for a record label.  “Sure, why not?” said I and off I went to NYC to interview.  I had no confidence that this was going to pan out — had NO record company or music experience AT ALL. The upside of this was that I could not have been more relaxed.  It just seemed like an adventure.

Several weeks later, my phone rang again.  I hadn’t even gotten around to sending a thank you letter, card or email but the woman who interviewed me wanted to get information about my knowledge of jazz, which was about as much as my record label knowledge.  I was honest about it and told her I like jazz but could never find the time to look into it, what with all the work I was doing.  She offered me the job.  Two weeks later I started work as the Press and Promotions Manager for RCA Victor and Distributed Labels.  That’s a long title that really just means “publicist.”

How little did I know about the music industry?  I had never heard of A & R or liner notes.  “A & R” stands for artists and repertoire.  You probably knew that.

My roster included jazz and world music bands and artists such as the Chieftains, Andy Summers and Ravi Coltrane.  I was essentially the QB of the PR team.  I oversaw publicity for CD releases, tours, proper radio play, etc.  I learned early that my knowledge deficit could be used as an asset.  I called journalists and asked their opinion.  I am new at this but you are the expert, what do you think about …?  It was not unusual for me to be on the phone for HOURS with the same journalist, they love to talk about their opinion.  It was a win-win-win.  They got to pontificate on their favorite topic, I learned a lot and we ended up friends.  I think they found my honesty refreshing, too.  There were months when we weren’t releasing anything great and I would tell them that.  I don’t mean our new releases but RCA Victor has a pretty large repertoire and it was not uncommon to release compilations of older stuff.  One joke a colleague used to tell was that we were going to put a sticker on that read Never before released in this order.

One other thing about the industry that I did not know was how cut throat it is.  About three weeks after I started, most of my department was fired.  The woman who hired me? Gone.  The person above her? Ditto.  The structure went from being: me — my boss — her boss — the president of the company to being: me — president of the company.  And he couldn’t help me because he was new to the business, too — his background was in wine.

For the next six months, I had no real supervision.  That doesn’t mean my projects suffered.  Ravi Coltrane was in a piece in Rolling Stone (a first for my department).  Others did interviews with AP, Washington Post, New York Times, CBS/ABC & NBC News, NPR and others.  I kept the artists happy with updates about their coverage.  I planned record release parties, interviews, photo shoots, tour coverage, etc.  I worked my butt off.

After six months, they hired a new person who would become my boss.  When he started, he seemed nice enough.  He met with everyone in the department to ask what we did and assess our performance.  About a month later, he conducted reviews.  I remember thinking, as I walked in, that I had no reason to be nervous, I had performed well.  My job performance should speak for itself, I thought.  I did tell them — from the start — that I had no prior experience in music.

Famous. Last. Words.

The review started with This is going to be hard on you.  That was the bright spot of the meeting.  Truthfully, the only analogy that pops out from that was that it felt like that sentence was a diving board.  I leapt from that into a pool of hellishness.  The new boss, in keeping with the grand tradition of new bosses, wanted to bring his own people in. He didn’t want to fire me, he wanted me to quit.  I walked to my office, shut the door and spent easily a half hour putting my face back together after the monster cry I had.  My morning that day was spent working on a Hillary Clinton trip to NYC and my afternoon was spent being told that everything that had ever gone wrong at RCA Victor was caused by my time there.

Once home, I thought about the year I had and the work I had done.  I took the next day off to really sort through my thoughts.  By the time I got back, I was resolved to stay.  I had done a good job.  My boss wasn’t thrilled by this.  He said we had to go to human resources and work out how we could monitor my work better.  During our first meeting I told them both, Look, you hired me to be a passing QB, if you want me to run the ball, I will but you cannot change the rules without telling me and expect me to know.  I am not clairvoyant. Surprisingly, my boss agreed.  He thought I was going to fail.  I didn’t.

We had meetings with HR for the next few months.  Every week, he told us that he was impressed with my work ethic, the results I was getting and asked How are you so nice to me when I was so bad to you?  I didn’t admit that I used a Kids in the Hall trick — whenever I saw him from behind in the hallway, I would pinch my fingers together and say I crush your head, crush, crush!  I just told him I am a professional.

Funny side story:  On more than one occasion, he tried to sabotage me.  One staff meeting turned into the “Alyson Show” and I went through the status of all my projects — without notes — I knew what I was working on.  Another time we went out to dinner with two key journalists, he thought they would eat me alive.  They loved me.  We all went to the Village Vanguard after and in a stroke of awesomeness — Diana Krall, the president of the company and our group arrived at the same time.  I pulled the president aside and said “You know Diana, right?” (I had spent time with her in Canada that year).  When I looked over at my boss, the glare on his face almost melted my contact lenses.  It. Was. Amazing.

Eventually, I left RCA Victor.  When I did, I sent the following email to my coworkers, I had always heard Istanbul was an exciting place.  When I got the chance to go, I did and met great, fun and wonderful people, experienced new things and learned a ton.  But at the end of the day, I am not fron Istanbul and it is time for me to go home.  Thank you for everything.

The record industry did teach me a lot.  The lesson that my belief in myself should trump whatever others think has been a challenge sometimes but well worth it and has shaped how I view myself ever since.

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Happy Thanksgiving

Thank you for…

1.  The US Constitution:  It is easy to look at the recent Congressional failures, and the “super

The US Constitution, it rocks

committee” is only the most recent, and think “our system is broken.”  It isn’t.  Flawed, yes.  Injured, probably.  Broken, no.  One thing that has always confused me is why some people, upset by the results of the 2008 presidential campaign, preferred to think that we had entered the “end of days” rather than entertain the idea that they lost an election.  You see, I have some perspective on this.  I worked on the Gore 2000 campaign.  I was devastated by the result but I never — not once — considered George W. Bush to be anything but a legitimate president.  My belief in our system got me through that loss.  When you work on campaigns, sometime you lose.  It sucks but that’s part of the deal.

The other part of the equation is the recognition that as great as our system is, it is a tool.  No tool is better than the people who use it.  our representative democracy, otherwise known as a republic, reflects us.  If we do not like the results it produces, we have no one but ourselves to blame.   I have written several letters to the Washington Post about George Will.  He claims to be both a proponent of capitalism and an opponent of public broadcasting.  And yet, he hates reality TV.  I think you cannot argue that the free market is the best method to produce quality anything and then be angry when it produces crap.  The same can be said of our government. As Bill Clinton used to say, There is nothing wrong with America that cannot be fixed by what is right with America.  Amen, brother.

2. The Mets.  Do I hate to love them or love to hate them?  Clearly the former.  Oh, they break my heart every year.  I am not going to write any more right now about that, I need a break from hating myself.

3. Reality TV.  Jersey Shore.  Hoarders.  Anything with people who weight more than 500 pounds.  We all know why we watch; we want to feel better about our own lives and I am no different.  No, I don’t want to see wealthy, vain housewives spend more in an afternoon on napkins than I spend in a year on rent but  I like that as dirty as my apartment may get, I don’t have goats eating holes in my walls.  Oh, and I can stand up and walk around.  Seriously, your family cooks 12 chickens a day for you?  Do they deliver your heroin, too?  See?  I am clearly a disturbed person.

4. The GOP candidates for president.  About two years ago, I called Michele Bachmann’s office.  I said, “Look, I am not a constituent but I would love it if she ran for president.”  I did not add, because I write comedy and that would be awesome, I figured it was implied. I had no idea Herman Cain even existed.

Seriously, I am thankful for the Constitution but I am infinitely more thankful for my friends and family.  Thank you for being so awesome.

You know who you are.