Nancy Davis Kho's Blog, page 18

“Bright Star” Ticket Giveaway

Sometimes you just need a break.

2017 is pretty much wall-to-wall with reasons to despair and feel hopeless. So when someone offers you a break, promising a story of hope, resilience, and really excellent folk/bluegrass music, you want to grab on with both hands.

That’s what I did when The Curran Theater in San Francisco invited me to the opening night of “Bright Star,” a new musical written by Steve Martin and Edie Brickell – yes, that Steve and Edie, not the other one. It’s set in North Carolina in both 1945-46 and 1923, hopping nimbly and seamlessly back and forth between the two eras to tell the story of Alice Murphy, a woman of determination and perseverance.

Carmen Cusack, who plays Alice and was nominated for a Tony Award for her 2016 Broadway debut in this role, was captivating. From calibrating the North Carolina accent between the 16-year-old Alice and the accomplished woman she becomes, to her portrayal of both the comic and tragic moments that fill Alice’s life, and especially to her evocative singing; I was slack-jawed at her talent. Gimme a thimble-sized serving of what she’s having, and my entire life would change.

I won’t give any of the story away, but it’s beautifully rendered in snappy dialogue and lush folk/bluegrass song. The music is so central to the story that the band actually sits onstage in an ingeniously designed movable shack, which allows them merge in and out of the action as called for by the plot. All the staging design has that fluidity – settings appear and fade as the chorus moves them around in exquisitely choreographed motion, creating a sense of time passing but never causing the audience to lose track of where we are in it.

My friend/date Maria and I admittedly do not see as much live theater as some – I think you know we like to go to live concerts? – so we agreed that if I wrote about our astonishment at the way the staging flowed so perfectly, we should be prepared for people to say, “Ladies, every play in America works like that now.” But we’ve both seen enough high school productions in the past few years to feel confident that the “Bright Star” set design really is innovative.

Maria also assured me that she never cries at live theater. That was her blubbering in Seat B3 in the Mezzanine last night, in case you wondered.

On top of the show, I have to give a shoutout to the recently renovated Curran Theater. Originally built in 1922, it underwent a two-year renovation that wrapped up in December 2016.  It’s bright, cozy, and so fun – lots of local artists’ work on the walls, an expanded lobby, and best of all, a women’s room that is 4x the size of the old one. I’m all for vintage but holla for modcons, baby.

The other thing that blew me away? The Curran’s official house programs are produced by McSweeneys. Which means they’re not just informational but real, live, beautifully written literature.

Are you sold? Do you live in the Bay Area? Are you busy this weekend? Do you need a break?

DO YOU WANT TO GO SEE BRIGHT STAR?

I’m giving away a Family 4-pack of tickets to the show, thanks to The Curran, to be used by Sunday evening. If you’d like to enter to win, leave me a comment below before Friday, Dec 1 at 9 am Pacific Time. I’ll choose a winner at random using random.org and the Curran will take it from there.

Get it!

                   
CommentsHi Nancy I would love to be added to the raffle for the ... by Leslie KaplanSo love reading your writing! Bright Star looks great, too. by NMI've been reading your blog for a while and yes, I live in the ... by SylviaTo quote Donkey from Shrek: “Pick me! Pick me! Pick me!” I ... by FloribundaI’d love it! I’ve been wanting to see this! by Suzanne TindallPlus 3 more...Related StoriesIt’s A Lot Right NowIt’s PurrfectDay of the Dead 

Music Books for Holiday Gift Giving

Music books! Music books!

Last night I did an event at A Great Good Place for Books in Oakland about my favorite music book reads of 2017, so people could start knocking some items off their shopping to-do list. Here’s my list of recommendations – some current and some classics – for your own holiday shopping. Tell me in the comments: what did I miss?

Nonfiction

 “Dreaming the Beatles: The Love Story of One Band and the Whole World,” by Rob Sheffield (Dey Street, April 2017.) Sheffield, a prolific writer at Rolling Stone, provides an incredibly well-researched and well-informed history of the band, yes, but with a focus on how the audience responded to the music. He’s always interested in what music feels like to us, the listeners, and in the Fab Four he has decades of material to mine. I’m not much of a Beatles fan, tbh *ducks punch* and I loved it, so if you are at all interested in the band you’ll dig it even more.

 “Good Booty: Love and Sex, Black and White, Body and Soul in American Music” by Ann Powers (Dey Street, August 2017.) Powers is one of the country’s leading music writers and NPR’s music critic. This book is expansive and thought-provoking, tracing the ways in which race, sexuality, power, and music intermingle – the ultimate mash up. I really liked the way that chronology of this complex topic was handled, with each chapter building in a way that made starting with a Methodist screed and ending with Beyoncé 349 pages made total sense. Supremely well researched, you’ll never listen to “Tutti Frutti” the same way again.

 “Set the Boy Free: The Autobiography” by Johnny Marr (Dey Street, paperback Sept 2017.) GenX Alert. You’d be forgiven for thinking this is for Smiths fans only, but one of the fascinating things I was reminded in this memoir was that the Smiths were only around for five years. Marr’s played since with a ton of different acts including Bryan Ferry, Talking Heads, Pet Shop Boys, Billy Bragg, Nile Rodgers, The Pretenders, The The, Modest Mouse, and The Cribs. Compulsively readable and an interesting behind the scenes look at the life of a man who was born to be a rock star; I shudder to think what would have happened if he’d been born in any other era.

 “Meet Me in the Bathroom: Rebirth and Rock and Roll in New York City 2001 – 2011” by Lizzy Goodman (Harper Collins, May 2017.) The Aughts were my infant and small-child-rearing years so I’ve always been a little fuzzy on the details of bands like The Strokes, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, and TV On the Radio. Thanks to this oral history by Goodman in which musicians, publicists, producers, and music writers share the many facets of the music industry that grew up in the 9/11 era, I could ace a test on the subject. That many of the people interviewed have allegedly demanded retractions by Goodman, herself part of the story, tells you how juicy the detail is (heyyyy, Ryan Adams.)

“Woman Walk the Line: How the Women in Country Music Changed Our Lives,” edited by Holly Gleason. (UTPress, September 2017) I’m including this because it’s on my own Christmas list! I’m a big fan of old school country (thanks, genetics) but totally mystified by the current sound, for the most part. So I’m looking forward to reading this collection of personal essays by a diverse group of female music writers and musicians including Caryn Rose, Taylor Swift (on Brenda Lee and written back in 2006,) and Roseanne Cash who write about the female country artists who inspired their life’s journey.

 “Cover Me: The Stories Behind the Greatest Cover Songs of All Time,” by Ray Padgett (Sterling, October 2017.) Cover songs: do you love ‘em or hate ‘em? Either way there’s something to contemplate in this book by Padgett, who writes the Cover Me blog. He took 19 of the most iconic cover songs ever (e.g. Elvis’s “Hound Dog,” Joe Cocker’s “With a Little Help from My Friends,” the Talking Heads’ “Take Me to the River”) and dives in deep, not just to the specific song but to the evolution of the cover song genre.

Young Adult Fiction

 “Please Don’t Be Waiting For Me” by Todd Stadtman. Loved this ride in the time machine back to SF’s ’80s punk scene – it validated every assumption I had growing up in Upstate New York that there were far, far cooler things happening to other teenagers in other places. Loved the characters, loved the pacing, loved the nuances of the teenage tribal coexistence. Gritty and engaging. If you hung out at the Fab Mab or wished you did, this is for you (young adult or young-at-heart adult.)

 

 

 “The Hate You Give” by Angie Thomas (Balzer and Bray, Feb 2017) – I know it’s not a music book but it was one of my favorite reads of the year and the title comes from a Tupac song. So sue me. This is an important, timely read about teenage Starr Carter and how she negotiates the two worlds she moves between, after the death of a childhood friend. Fodder for important and meaningful family discussions. Winning tons of awards buzz.

 

Photo books

 “Smithsonian Rock and Roll: Live and Unseen” by Bill Bentley (Smithsonian Books, October 2017. The Smithsonian had an idea: ask Americans to share photos and stories of their favorite moments in music. The deluge resulted in this sumptuous book, which shimmers with rock and roll moments captured by fans from sea to shining sea. Perfect for perusing during your holiday break.

 “Prince: A Private View” – Afshin Shahidi (St. Martin’s Press, October 2017.) Maybe someday I won’t wake up feeling truly sad that Prince is gone, but today’s not that day. Books like this, which provide an intimate look at one of the most gifted artists of rock, make it a little easier to bear. Shahidi started photographing Prince in 1993 and was the only one capturing the action at most of Prince’s parties. Plus, foreword by Queen Bey.

 “KISS: 1977-1980” – Lynn Goldsmith (Rizzoli, October 2017.) Do you love someone who is a member of the Kiss Army? Is her name Beth? (IS IT YOU?) No Kiss fan should be without this gigundo collection of photos compiled by renowned rock photographer Goldsmith, who also had cooperation from the band and fans to pull together this wonderful collection of a band to which the word “boring” has never applied.

 

Classics – some all-time music book favorites

Everything written by Rob Sheffield – “On Bowie,” “Talking to Girls About Duran Duran,” “Love is a Mixtape,” “Turn Around Bright Eyes.”
“Just Kids” by Patti Smith (2010.) At its core, Just Kids is a book about a friendship, movingly told. A memoir to which teachers of memoir writing often refer: beautifully written, almost pathologically honest, and inspiring.
“Mo’ Meta Blues” by Ahmir “Questlove” Thompson and Ben Greenman, 2013. Once you read Mo’ Meta Blues you’ll feel like you’ve had the best crash course in American hip-hop/rap/soul ever, even if you’re not a huge fan of the music genre.
The Spitboy Rule by Michelle Gonzales (2016.) Great memoir by my pal, perimenopunk musician and writer Michelle Gonzales, about her life as a female Xicana drummer in the ’90s. If you want to hear more from/about Michelle, check out her interview on the Midlife Mixtape podcast!
 “How Music Works” by David Byrne (2012) – the Talking Heads singer’s entertaining and informative essays on all the different ways that music “works” – on the listener, from a business standpoint, in the creation process – and drawing on his long and innovative career in the business.
“The Disenchantments” by Nina LaCour (Dutton, 2012.) Sweet coming of age YA novel about a band on the run through the Pacific Northwest right after high school graduation. For the aspiring young musician in the family.

In the Lizzy Goodman book “Meet Me in the Bathroom,” James Murphy of LCD Soundsystem was the character I found most fascinating. This song of his basically summarizes the whole era. Tbh I hate this video, which really is just him being slapped for four minutes, a lot. Just play the song and close your eyes.

                  Related StoriesTurn Down the Music and Read: Hunger Makes Me a Modern GirlI’m Doing A ThingDay of the Dead 

Ep 18 Girl Advocate Lynn Johnson

“Not the secondary characters:” CEO of Spotlight: Girls, Lynn Johnson, on how the theater camp she co-founded to help put girls’ stories center stage is going nationwide, her midlife leadership shift, and a concert that was even cooler in retrospect.

Spotlight: Girls website
Act Now: A Retreat for Women Leaders, Creatives, and Entrepreneurs
Shop With Her holiday shopping guide

A little DeBarge for your day…I like it.

And how cute are Oakland’s Alphabet Rockers? #RiseShineWokeThanks as always to M. The Heir Apparent, who provides the music behind the podcast – check him out here! And if you’re in the Bay Area, you can catch his new album release party on Dec 15 at the Lost Church SF – more details here.

                  Related StoriesEp 17 Travel Writer Lavinia SpaldingEp 16 Author Neal PollackEp 15 Celebrity Makeup Artist Aliesh Pierce 

Remember That One Episode?

I spent last weekend with a bunch of ladies in a house on a lake in the hill country outside of Austin, celebrating the 50th trip around the sun for my friend and humor-writing muse, Wendi Aarons. Because everything is bigger in Texas, there were activities available at all hours, from the karaoke mic in the corner to the photo booth in the other corner to the eight kinds of margarita mixes to the eighty-eight gallons of queso.

But the activity that really captivated the group? A little game I’m going to trademark called, “Remember That One Episode?”

It probably started because, in a nod to one of Wendi’s favorite childhood TV show, we staged a group table read of Episode 13 of “Facts of Life.” After a great deal of pre-party jockeying for the role of Blair, we ended up flopped around the living room reading whatever part felt right after so much margaritas and queso – in my case, Mr. Bradley. (Tag line: “I don’t even LIKE cocoa.”)

About five lines into the script our nostalgia turned to embarrassment. The script was, of course, cheesy throughout, but where it wasn’t coded misogyny, it was straight-up racism. When we got to the part where Tootie’s dad suggests she be chained to the front fence to induce her to study harder, the scales fell from our eyes. Whatever the opposite of #WokeAF is, that’s what #FactsOL was.

So maybe we were in the mood to reexamine, when we sat around the patio late that night and started talking childhood tv. “Remember that one episode…” someone would ask, and then this group of forty and fifty-something ladies would try very very hard to remember, each pulling out half-clues to throw into the collective memory stew. The “Brady Bunch” episode with the spider? Check. The “Little House On the Prairie” fire in the school for the blind? On it. Charo’s many, many guest appearances on “Love Boat”? Bingo. Did Peter Brady ever actually date Maureen McCormick? Google Google Google.

It’s a fun game for all, encouraging collaboration, sifting of childhood experiences, a recognition of Gen X commonality in how many kids spent Saturday nights in the ‘70s parked at their grandparents’ house watching the “Love Boat”/”Fantasy Island” Power Hour(s) while their parents partied it up.

How do you know when the “Remember That One Episode” game is over? It happens when you and your fellow players inexorably work your way to the one episode that ALL can remember, with terrifying clarity. I speak, of course, of the November 4, 1978 episode of “Fantasy Island,” called “Let the Goodtimes Roll/Nightmare/The Tiger.” You can forget the rolling Goodtimes and the Tiger: it’s the Nightmare of which we speak.

“There was a terrifying clown. It came out of the closet.”

“Oh my god. And it was on fire.”

“And there was a toy monkey clapping on symbols, remember the monkey?”

“The wooden soldiers came to life and started marching toward the little girl in the bed.”

“Her doll’s face starts to melt!”

“Wasn’t there a giant flaming skull at the end?”

Yes, it’s the episode in which, inexplicably, someone flies to the Caribbean to pay Ricardo Montalban top dolla to reenact a terrifying childhood nightmare in which all her toys came to life and try to kill her. Who hasn’t dreamed of that kind of getaway?

Not only could every woman in the circle Remember That One Episode, they could also cite its concrete, psychological impact – enduring terror of clowns, monkeys, Mexican actors in three-piece white suits.

Oh, for the days that horror movies just played on your prime time TV screen, without that pesky R-rating!

You can accuse women of my generation of being helicopter parents, or policing our children’s media for bias, or being filled with a general sense of rage. But consider that for any of us who were over the age of five on November 4, 1978, “The Nightmare” was likely our babysitter. And we were raised on TV shows where men said things like, “Oh, you’re aging beautifully. For a woman your age,” TO THEIR TEENAGE DAUGHTERS.

So don’t judge. Or we’ll send this guy for ya.

Hi Toodles

                   
CommentsAlthough when Wendi came in at 1 am to critique my sleeping ... by Nancy Davis KhoI'm so glad we stayed up to finish the margaritas and ... by Liz @ ewmcguireHysterically laughed as I read this. Yes to every single ... by ShiraRelated StoriesBand and BreakfastSo CheesyLittle House on the Prairie Redux 

Ep 17 Travel Writer Lavinia Spalding

“Enough sky for everyone:” Travel writer and editor Lavinia Spalding on why taking a writer’s perspective can make you a better traveler, the importance of keeping journals, and the virtues of karaoke diplomacy.

Lavinia’s website
“How Korean Karaoke Changed My Life”
Best Women’s Travel Writing anthology Volume 11
Lavinia’s TedX talk
“To the One Who Was Supposed to Get Away”
Lavinia’s book on keeping a journal – Writing Away
This Immeasurable Place: Food and Farming from the Edge of Wilderness

Here’s the link if you’d like to contribute to help victims of the North Bay fires. And here’s one for your own Dance Party.

Thanks as always to M. The Heir Apparent, who provides the music behind the podcast – check him out here! And if you’re in the Bay Area, you can catch his new album release party on Dec 15 at the Lost Church SF – more details here.

                  Related StoriesEp 16 Author Neal PollackEp 15 Celebrity Makeup Artist Aliesh PierceEp 14 Environmental Entrepreneur Jeff Kirschner 

I’m Doing A Thing

Technically, a couple things, and I wanted to make sure you guys heard. First up: this Sunday, November 5 from 4-7 pm, I’m helping out at a fundraiser for Northern California fire victims. We’ll be at the Cat Club SF for an afternoon 80s/90s Dance Party. Those generous dudes are giving 50% of all bar sales and 100% of all tips to the Redwood Credit Union’s North Bay Fire Relief’s Efforts, and there will be additional ways to donate there. All the details you need are on Facebook. (No, I will not be wearing ’80s gear. That’s for Millennials’ cosplay.)

If you can’t come out on Sunday and would like to help get our North Bay neighbors back on their feet, just go to https://www.redwoodcu.org/northbayfirerelief.

I’ll be DJ’ing – or more accurately, as I learned in my podcast interview with DJ Misbehaviour, I’m Selector – from 4:30 -5:30 pm. The fact that I can branch out into ‘90s music has me inordinately excited because I can finally play my all-time favorite alt ‘90s dance song that is on frequent kitchen dance party rotation over here. (I love it so much I have considered sneaking it into an ‘80s set in the past at the Cat Club but knew that someone, without a doubt, would call bullshit on the decade. Those dancers know their stuff.) I’m also playing one that will remind guests that, at the end of the day, I’m a humor writer and will do anything for a cheap laugh. Wanna guess? One of the first mashups of rap and country…

The other event is on Tuesday, November 21 at my beloved Oakland indie bookstore, A Great Good Place for Books. At 7 pm I’ll be talking about my favorite music books published in 2017, in plenty of time for your holiday shopping. I’ve read some awesome stuff this year across genres, and am excited to tell you about them…I’ll also be hyping some classic music books that I think every single person should have on the bookshelf.

So mark your calendars and I hope I’ll see you out there!

One of the ’90s songs that is now on the cutting room floor for Sunday, not danceable enough. But a great (guilty pleasure?) tune.

                   
CommentsFor those of us who will be nowhere near Oakland for your music ... by EllenRelated StoriesNext Cat Club Dance Party: Sat Aug 12Musical Taster PlateSpring 2016 Events and Appearances 

Day of the Dead

When we moved to the multicultural region that is the Bay Area two decades ago, there were some customs and celebrations that I, as a WASPy East Coaster from a fairly homogenous town, knew about mostly in theory. Chinese New Year. Indigenous People’s Day rather than Columbus Day. Halloween as the High Holy Holiday of the Castro. All of it appealed to me, made the fabric of where I live more colorful, rich, and tasty.

I folded some of the foods and traditions into our family life in a way that I hope would land on the “respectful and admiring” side of the cultural appropriation line, in the same way I make corned beef and drink a Guinness exactly one time every year and that’s on March 17. But nowhere have I come to cherish another culture’s tradition more than the Mexican celebration of ancestors on November 1, Dia de los Muertos.

I’m hesitant to even write about this because this descendant of Yorkshire sheep farmers is truly no kind of authority on how Day of the Dead even works. What I know, I picked up from the Latina teachers at the girls’ Montessori playschool, where the kids decorated sugar skulls and brought home tin hearts punched out of aluminum sheets. You create an altar with pictures of the people you love who are no longer with you, with candles and symbols of things they love, maybe some of their favorite foods. Marigolds are nice. Candles. Also colorful tissue paper hangings.

The social studies classes in the kids’ elementary and middle school added to what I knew, learning vicariously through the shoebox altars the girls brought home that they’d created out of paper and clay. Those were made shortly after my father-in-law BT passed away, and why I created our first altar on the mantel over the living room fireplace. I added in my favorite picture of BT in which he’s shaking sambal oelek into a wok, some candles, a preschool-crafted skull. I added an orange batik napkin that was made in Java, just like BT.

There was a moment of quiet communing as I set things in place, my concentration solely on the question of what things BT loved. (If I’d been able to find a miniature version of the New York Times that would have been epic.) I filled up a tiny glass dish with uncooked grains rice, his favorite food, and as I set it down I said out loud, “BT, if you’re with us, how about you give us a sign?” Then I laughed, sort of kidding but not really, and walked away.

A couple days later I glanced over at the altar. There in the middle of the rice was what looked exactly like a thumbprint, and there were grains of rice spread across the batik napkin. It looked a whole lot like someone had used a thumb to flick them out. You know, a sign?

I never missed the chance to set up the altar after that. Until last year, which was three months after my own dad passed away. I just couldn’t. Too raw.

But this year, after I set up BT’s side of the mantle (sorry it was brown rice this year, I know you didn’t like that nearly as much but we’re on a whole grain rice kick right now courtesy of your youngest granddaughter, take it up with her, I beg you) I started working on my dad’s. Up went some candles, a picture I love of him giving his annual Camp History lecture, skeletons driving a car (Dad loved to drive,) and a Willie Nelson CD. Also had to put up a bottle of Rochester-brewed cream ale and a golf ball with the insignia of his firehouse. It felt meditative to find just the right things that represent Dad, and arrange them carefully.

Then I began to cry. Because I desperately, desperately want my dad to give me that thumb-in-the-rice signal that he’s here with me. And in part I was crying because I feel ashamed for even hoping for it, like I am insulting my dad’s memory. Dad was a guy who dealt in the here-and-now, reality, didn’t go for that woo-woo stuff.

I mean, maybe that wasn’t BT rearranging the rice back then; maybe someone knocked into the mantle and spilled it. Maybe when people go from us, they’re just gone, and whether we remember them especially fervently once a year doesn’t make a difference. Maybe there isn’t really magic in the world.

Maybe all of that is so. But I’m grateful that generations of people who handed down Dia de los Muertos traditions give me reason to hope that the opposite could also be true.

                   
CommentsHow beautiful. I too teared up reading it. And how many of us ... by Síle ConveryBeautiful post. Thank you very much for sharing. by ClaireThanks for your magical post. by Harriet HeydemannRelated StoriesSelective VisionFamily Camp BoundIt’s Purrfect 

It’s Purrfect

Nora Ephron said it first, and she said it better, but it’s time I add my voice to the Fine Line Choral Singers: I feel bad about my neck.

I realized this recently when I sent the Group Texters a quick selfie of the new Prince pin that I wear on my bathrobe courtesy of my young friend Cheese Wound. After hitting Send, I blew up the pic I’d taken to look more closely and thought, yup, there it is.

You can moisturize your face ‘til you’re red in it, and get injections and chemical peels and wear line-blurring foundations and get your hair colored and resolve always to be in motion so that no one can ever really judge the extent of your wreckage. But at a certain age, your neck: you can’t outrun your neck. I’m talking about the crepey middle aged neck that just starts to stand out in more vivid contrast for people who do the aforementioned fillers, nips, and tucks. In some instances, usually when the person is Hollywood-adjacent, it looks like someone’s embedded a lollipop atop a tree trunk.

Maybe there’s a surgical procedure for aging necks that I don’t know about, but if you think I’m going to Google that and see what images pop up then follow me down sidebar ads for the rest of my days, you’re nuts.

Limiting ourselves, then, to non-surgical options, I suppose you could employ a chip clip at the back of your neck to regain that taut look, and just grow your hair long to hide it.

Scarves are a popular ruse, as Nora wrote so beautifully in her book. I suppose it wouldn’t feel like defeat so much as going back to my eighties college days when we topped every oversized Benetton sweater and men’s thrift store suit jacket with doorknocker earrings and a colorful shwa. (Why “shwa?” Because one time in college my friend Jill demonstrated her preferred method of tying a scarf with the following words: “You just wrap it around and…shwa!” None of my female college friends has referred to scarves as anything else since.)

But with climate change, it’s too damn hot to wear extra layers in 2017. Also related to climate change, I like to keep my neck free for snapping to emphasize my distaste about #CheetoSatan’s latest move to undermine life as we know it.

via GIPHY

Which is a nice segue to my fashion advice. (Don’t worry, I’m qualified to give it. I’m a Fashion Police officer.)

We’re in troubling times. We need camouflage, yes. But we also need comfort.

Introducing Neck Kittens.

My friends Vikki and Ann came up with this brilliant solution. When you bring home a Neck Kitten, you’re not just adopting a new family member to love, and you’re not just rescuing animals from a shelter. You’re hiding whatever’s wrinkling or graying underneath that cat. And when you’re stressed, you  just reach up and pet your neck wrap until you’re both purring.

It’s like the Midlife version of Britney’s snake.

via GIPHY

Think of it! You could get multiple Neck Kittens in many shades, to match all your outfits! Or just one special Neck Kitten, as modeled above by Vikki. Her Neck Kitten is in a flattering black. gray, and white pattern that matches just about everything. Make it pop by pairing with a bright lipstick and some catnip!

I’d share pictures of Ann’s Neck Kitten but when she went to take a photo for me, her Neck Kitten threatened to exfoliate her entire neck. Talk about a two-for-one anti-aging treatment!

Be creative with your Neck Kittens! They could be puppies! Or bunnies! Or hedgehogs.

The important thing is that with the right Neck Kittens, no one is looking at your neck anyway.

via GIPHY

With my sweater on turtle with the neck on puff.

                   
CommentsOh snap! Now I'm going to have that neck tape in my sidebar ads ... by Charlene RossThat is HORRIFYING. Can you drop some off? by Nancy Davis KhoGonna need a picture of that, stat. For research purposes. by Nancy Davis KhoCome on Nancy…… ... by NeilIT'S LIKE YOU'RE READING MY DIARY. And also I'm wearing a ... by Anna LeflerRelated StoriesEp 16 Author Neal PollackIt’s A Lot Right NowEp 15 Celebrity Makeup Artist Aliesh Pierce 

Ep 16 Author Neal Pollack

“An infinite number of hobbies:” Author and polymath Neal Pollack on his father/son educational podcast from Audible called “Extra Credit,” how to be a cool dad of a teen (hint: ignore the teen’s opinion,) and poker’s power to unite.

Neal’s website
Follow Neal on Twitter and Instagram
Extra Credit from Audible.com
Neal’s interview on The Daily Show

 

And a 2013 live performance from The Neal Pollack Invasion of “Beer and Weed”…

The Neal Pollack Invasion- “Beer and Weed” from Chicken Ranch on Vimeo.

 Thanks as always to M. The Heir Apparent, who provides the music behind the podcast – check him out here! And if you’re in the Bay Area, you can catch his new album release party on Dec 15 at the Lost Church SF – more details here.

                  Related StoriesEp 15 Celebrity Makeup Artist Aliesh PierceEp 14 Environmental Entrepreneur Jeff KirschnerEp 13 DJ Misbehaviour 

It’s A Lot Right Now

“It’s a lot right now.”

It’s a sentence I find myself saying over and over to friends of mine who have reached a breaking point for some reason or another in the past few months: hurricanes, fires, health worries, parenting challenges, the loss of friends or family or beloved pets.

Any one of these things, in isolation, would be enough to make the ground tilt. But what’s making it all worse, what is generalizing the anxiety and stress and making us all prone to mistakes and illness and short tempers, is this president and his unending assault on our civic decency and relationship to truth. Everyone is fighting about, over, and for everything, all the time.

It has always been more than enough, every day, to worry about the little tragedies of our own lives. But in 2017 we are operating from a baseline level of awful that weighs us down and gives us phantom chest pains.

Everyone – me, you, your postal carrier and your hairdresser and your elderly aunt included – is fragile. Stuff that used to roll off our back unnoticed has the power to shut us down completely. Weird medical ailments and accidents arise. It all feels like the last straw, constantly.

In the past eleven days, watching the news coverage of the fires that raged 90 minutes north of me and sent a thick layer of choking smog that has been sitting on Oakland like a lid on a pot, I was almost grateful that the immediate threat rendered existential threats meaningless for a while. I can’t panic about gun violence, I can’t panic about a nuclear threat from North Korea, I can’t panic about a president willingly threatening citizens of his own country by taking away their affordable healthcare. I am busy panicking about the air quality index reading and the ash that is falling on my car and whether my friends Judith and Liz still have a house.

My world got very, very small in that time. Glance out the window at the sky; if you can see the air, that’s not good. Refresh AirNow.gov to see what the Air Quality Index color is for our zip code. Reposition the air purifier in the house and make sure all the windows are still shut. Open the front door and sniff: is that smoke smell from the North Bay, or is that a fire here in Oakland? Check the @OaklandFireLive Twitter feed. Check the @Cal_Fire Twitter feed to see what percentage contained the Atlas and Tubbs fires are. Repeat.

Since the fires started I deleted all the emails I’ve signed up for as they came in, the ones telling me to call my senators to demand Mueller be protected as he dives deeper into this Russian morass, to sign a petition protesting De Vos’ move to remove protections from sexual assault victims on campus, to donate money to the progressive Democratic candidates in swing districts. My world had shrunk to the immediate Bay Area and the six-foot radius around wherever my college daughter is in Pennsylvania at any given time.

And this, I fear, is their strategy. Hit us over the head with bad news, over and over and over, so you cower down and can’t reach up your balled fist in protest. Outrage us so thoroughly and constantly that we grow weaker and weaker, our energy spent. Come at us from so many angles that we lose the ability to look anywhere but down. It’s terrifying to realize that it may be working.

I don’t want to stay in this balled up position. Hearing the rain fall outside the bedroom window last night helped; I pictured it falling on the embers in Sonoma and Napa and putting them out for good.

My other respite this week: I watched this video a whole bunch of times because their creativity fills me with delight, for 3 minutes and 52 seconds.

Then I watched the original because that’s an additional 5 minutes and 2 seconds of delight.

That’s nearly nine minutes of delight. I could almost picture myself calling my House rep to give her my thoughts on DACA repeal.

Then it was back to checking AirNow.gov.

It’s a lot right now. And we are in it for the long haul. I point this out because a little more kindness, some extra forgiveness, an awareness that people we know and love aren’t their best selves after 270 days of this regime would go a long way right about now.

In fact, it may be the only thing that lets us emerge on the other side.

                   
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