Nancy Davis Kho's Blog, page 22

How To Listen to the Midlife Mixtape Podcast

Aside from cutting my own name off at the beginning of this video and forgetting to put on lipstick, I am KILLING it with my multi-media empire. Here’s a quick how-to in finding, downloading, and listening to the Midlife Mixtape Podcast. Hope it’s useful!

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About That Little Mommy Blogging Conference

“How is your little mommy conference?”

The question was asked by a balding, middle aged man in a dark suit as we passed in the long breezeway that connects the Ritz Carlton Orlando to the JW Marriott next door. The Ritz is where I was attending the Mom2.0 Summit last week, and the Marriott was where he was very clearly attending the Pharmaceutical Corporate Counsel conference that was taking place during the same three days.

“Excuse me?” I asked. I hung back from the group of friends with whom I’d just had dinner at the Marriott, a group of women humor writers that stays connected multiple times a day, 365 days a year, via text. We talk about work, we share editor’s email addresses and pitch preferences, we rail against our collective rejections, and cheer each other’s successes. Mom2.0 is the one time each year we see each other in person and every minute of those three days is precious. This lawyer was taking up my valuable time, although my friend K.J. had hung back with me.

“The mommies, right? Next door? All those little mommy bloggers over there? How’s that conference?” the lawyer asked, condescension weighting every word.

Of course, to a corporate counsel in passing, we probably looked pretty insubstantial, in that we looked awesome. The exhibitors at Mom 2.0 know what brings the ladies into their suites: free hair and makeup. We all had essentially the same Dove Beach Waves hairstyle by 4 pm every day, thanks to the long row of hair stylists waiting to fix you up between sessions, and by the time the Prudential Insurance makeup lady had her way with me I didn’t look a day over 50 and a half.

My new band, Bizness and Beach Waves

So I could see why the guy would be condescending.

I thought for a minute of that first day’s programming. I’d listened to actress/producer/mommy Julianna Margulies recount a time that she and five other established, experienced Hollywood professionals, all of whom happened to be women, took a project to a major network. They met with an executive who said, “All women?….Um…We have a lactation room down the hall!”

I’d listened to Major Mary Jennings Hegar, a mommy who was awarded a Purple Heart in 2009 after being shot down by the Taliban in Afghanistan, and later became a plaintiff in the ACLU suit against the Defense Department that said excluding women from combat was unconstitutional. As she told the Mom2.0 attendees, women on the ground in the Middle East were already serving those roles; they just weren’t getting credit for it until the ACLU won its suit. Her book, Shoot Like A Girl, has been optioned by Angelina Jolie, and Angelina is playing her in the movie, which sounds like the punchline to every self-deprecating “Who would play me in a movie?” icebreaker I’ve ever heard. (I’d also held MJ’s four month old son at a reception that evening while she took a break, and to my everlasting credit I managed to give that precious baby back to her.)

I’d struggled that afternoon to choose between a session on SEO and analytics, or one on Bots, Artificial Intelligence, and Messaging as channels for reader engagement, but ended up in the Podcast Session where the same women who gave me the tools and encouragement during Mom2.0 2016 to start my own podcast were doing so for a new group of wannabe podcasters.

And I’d caught up with a couple of bloggers I know and admire whose little mommy blogs were supporting their entire families and in some cases, a staff. I was already looking forward to the next day’s panel with the founders of Baby Einstein, Scary Mommy, and Sprout Pharmaceuticals, all of whom are powerhouse mommies giving advice on how to start, grow, and sell companies.

I was also excited to be a Mom2.0 speaker for the first time this year, presenting on a panel called “Writers Gonna Write: Connecting With Narrative in the Post-narrative Blog Age” along with my dear friends Laurie White aka Laurie Media and Lisa Rosenberg aka Smacksy. We’d worked hard to make sure attendees would leave with practical tools and some homework to help them figure out the best way to present their unique stories across platforms and channels.

Honestly, this guy couldn’t afford the billable rate I’d charge to stand there and explain all this. Still, I wanted set him straight, so I answered his question.

“Well, if you mean the conference at the Ritz, where women content creators are connecting with brands and one other to come up with creative ways to monetize their work and grow their businesses, it’s going really well.”

I added, “You should totally stop over! You could come get a blowout at the Dove Salon. Or, oh, sorry.” I had just realized he was bald.

Or had I maybe realized he was bald when he asked his first question, and immediately started maneuvering the conversation into Dove Blowout territory? I can’t remember now. You know we mommy bloggers are as dull as toddler cutlery.

The pharma corporate counsel didn’t press the issue. I doubt that listening to women was one of his core competencies anyway. “Have fun!” he said, as he turned to catch up with his lawyer brethren.

Unfortunately, it was only then that I heard how K.J. – a former attorney herself and, um, I guess a little mommy blogger, albeit one whose blog platform happens to be her New York Times column – had been quietly answering his first question, the whole time I was talking.

“Better than yours, dude. Better than yours.”

There was a rumor that a group of Mom2.0 attendees staged a remake of the Friends’ opening credits around the fountain at the Ritz late one night, while a group of stupefied pharma corporate counsel looked on. I wouldn’t know. Or I should say, I do not appear in front of the camera at any point during that video. (But for the right price I’ll let you see the outtakes.)

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Ep 4: Author/Amoeba Music co-founder Yvonne Prinz

“Jazz cigarettes now available in the Jazz Room”: join Nancy and her guest Yvonne Prinz, YA author and co-founder of Amoeba Music, the world’s largest independent music store. They talk personal and retail reinvention, finding time to take your foot off the gas at midlife, and what happens to you if you’re a Canadian who doesn’t like Rush.

Yvonne’s website with links to Vinyl Princess and If You’re Lucky
Amoeba Music

Michael Shannon shops Amoeba Music Hollywood and shows off “What’s In My Bag?”

And for good measure, here’s Teddy Thompson whom I learned about courtesy of Yvonne’s Vinyl Princess music blog. This video was my favorite RomCom of 2008 and it’s not even a movie.

Thanks as always to M. The Heir Apparent, who provides the music behind the podcast – check him out here!

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Ep 3: Comedian Karinda Dobbins

Oakland comedian Karinda Dobbins joins Nancy to talk about why humor is so vital in helping audiences step into someone else’s shoes, her comedy inspiration Moms Mabley, and why Gen Xers are so good at rolling with it when it comes to work/creative balance.

Karinda’s website
Karinda’s upcoming appearances

Thanks as always to M. The Heir Apparent, who provides the music behind the podcast – check him out here!

 

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Ep 2: Writer/musician Michelle Gonzales

Join Nancy and her guest, author and musician Michelle Cruz Gonzales, as they discuss Michelle’s life as a drummer in ‘90s punk band Spitboy, what it’s like to reunite with a band after a thirty-year break, and what Michelle’s learned about the benefit of just getting started with your creative goals at midlife (instead of waiting for perfection to strike.)

Michelle’s website
Michelle’s memoir, The Spitboy Rule
Michelle reading “Does Your Mom Play Drums?” at Listen To Your Mother 2013

Rob Sheffield’s new book, Dreaming the Beatles: The Love Story of One Band and the Whole World

Thanks as always to M. The Heir Apparent, who provides the music behind the podcast – check him out here!

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Ep 1: Welcome To the Midlife Mixtape Podcast

Welcome to the Midlife Mixtape podcast, where we’ll celebrate Gen X at midlife with humor, heart, and a really good beat. Join writer and host Nancy Davis Kho for an honest look at the ups and downs of midlife for the generation that came of age alongside MTV, and find out why “Whatever, nevermind” isn’t just the anthem of our youth, but a brilliant philosophy for midlife contentment.

How Do I Feel About a Midlife Crisis? Whatever TueNight.com
Thanks to M. The Heir Apparent, who provides the music behind the podcast – check him out here!



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Coming Soon…The Midlife Mixtape Podcast

It’s taken longer to gestate than either of our daughters, but it’s finally almost go time for the Midlife Mixtape Podcast.

I’ve been noodling this idea over for a couple of years, but I needed to do a few things first:

Listen to a podcast. DONE. I hadn’t actually listened to many podcasts before I started thinking about doing my own, mainly because they would cut into the time I have for listening to music. Then I fell down the rabbit hole starting with Dear Sugar, then Lore, then All Songs Considered, then Pod Save America, then Missing Richard Simmons, then Hey Sis and What Fresh Hell and This Week for Dinner, and now I’ve had to delete all the photos off my phone prior to 2015 to carry around these wonderful nuggets of mini radio shows so I can listen on walks and at stoplights.
Buy podcast equipment. DONE.
Open the box holding the podcast equipment. OK THAT TOOK A LITTLE LONGER. That Amazon box sat unopened on my floor for months while I “researched” i.e. read every article on podcasting that would take up the time I could otherwise spend opening and plugging in podcast equipment.
Open and plug in podcast equipment. DONE, FINALLY, in January or so, when I was hopped up on fumes of New Year’s energy. By February I realized that something weird was happening whenever I played with recording platforms and sound levels and audio patches and mic settings: I lost track of time, like in the best moments of writing. Wait, what? I’m enjoying this? I can identify the soundwave of an “ummmmm” and clip it, with two keyboard strokes and 0.5 seconds? WHAT?

My home recording studio is pretty fancy, as you can see. Involves one Yellow Pages and one Fiske Guide to Colleges, 2014 edition. Plus coffee.

Figure out why I’m doing a podcast. DONE. I wasn’t quite sure myself at first, except that I knew I wanted it to be something that made listeners laugh, and I wanted it to have great music.

Then I interviewed my first couple of guests for the show, and that’s when I figured it out: it’s about making people feel good about being at midlife. Not glossing over the hard parts, but pointing out what’s cool about being where we are. My first few guests did just that, sharing stories that ranged from what it’s like to reunite with a band after 30 years, how to slow down and let things percolate at midlife, to using the empty nest to finally launch a full time comedy career, and more.  I’m so excited for you guys to hear what they have to say.

And thanks to M. the Heir Apparent, aka Kyle Terrizzi who gave me permission to use cuts from his new EP Be Free, the music is A+++.

Get over my voice. IN PROCESS. I can’t listen to myself on the podcast episodes without cringing but what the heck, it’s all I’ve got to work with. And everytime I say “Soooooo, anyway” during a recording I want to punch myself in the mouth. But hey, at least I’m not singing at you.
Finalize the technical side. MOSTLY DONE. I’m in the final days of figuring out how to upload and publish and syndicate and optimize. It’s trial and error – you may see a Podcast tab up in the Midlife Mixtape menu sometimes, or not…you may find the podcast on iTunes early next week, it may take a few days…all I can say is I wanted a big technical challenge for 2017 and I have almost crossed the finish line. A couple more stumbles won’t stop me now.
Launch. WEDNESDAY MAY 3 GOD WILLING AND THE CREEK DON’T RISE. Starting next week, you’ll be able to listen here on the blog via a built-in player, or you can subscribe at iTunes, Stitcher, etc.
Beg for support. RIGHT NOW. Sure it’s been personally gratifying to get all these new technical skills, and it’s been really awesome to talk to my guests. But I’m hoping that the podcast is something my regular Midlife Mixtape readers like, and if it is I hope you’ll subscribe, review, and share with your friends. By doing those things you’ll make it more likely that other people will find the podcast – the field is pretty crowded out there these days, so it really helps.

I’d also love your feedback on what works for you and what doesn’t, who you’d like to hear on the show, and anything else that you think would help make the Midlife Mixtape Podcast better. You know where to find me…hunkered down in my office with my headphones, cutting “umms” and “soooooo, anyways” like a mofo for the next seven days.

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DIY Healthcare

After this many years of writing for various magazines, newspapers, and websites, I appear to be listed in databases used by PR professionals to target media contacts as “Nancy Davis Kho: interested in any and all topics, but especially Doomsday preppers, diaper creme, and flower arranging.” I get about 20 emails each day covering the widest array of completely random subjects that PR people would like me to write about. For sake of not going insane, I allot my attention for one third of the subject line before hitting delete on most of these emails.

But even that is long enough to absorb cutting edge trends, as measured by stories those PR people are pitching as “timely.” And I’m a little concerned that DIY Healthcare seems to be on the rise.

Maybe it was the (thankfully) failed effort to torpedo ObamaCare in favor of TrumpDoesn’t. Maybe it’s a sign of American can-do spirit. Maybe YouTube tutorials on how to measure a tire’s air pressure and how to cook a soufflé and how to seductively unbox a new computer accessory have emboldened people to take their self-sufficiency to the next level.

How else do you explain the pitch I received a couple weeks ago for DIY Dentistry? There was no detail included in the email, but none was necessary as I thought back to my Invisalign adventure last year and how you’d replicate that in the wild. Bite into a brick of clay to make a mold, moving the teeth a little bit more each time? Use rubber bands from your kitchen doorknob to corral your jaw and correct your bite? Use Gorilla Glue to affix beads from Michael’s Crafts as brackets that you could then connect with colorful embroidery floss? You’d save some money, sure, but flossing would be a real pain.

How about Home Skin Tag and Mole Removal? Rest easy. I am not going to tell you what that involves. In part that’s because I know you have delicate sensibilities, and in part because there was no way in hell I was going to open that email and see what kind of high resolution photo images they’d helpfully attached for me to run alongside this breaking news story.

Finally there was the pitch I got for Brazilian Butt Lift. Yes, I deleted the email before reading it, so maybe it’s referring to an actual surgical procedure. I couldn’t help thinking, however, that if you had a Brazilian friend you could say, “Hey, João Pedro, help a sister out here,” and instruct him where to grab and how high to hold it. (Results may vary depending on the João Pedro and the butt in question.)

At the very least, come the Apocolypse (healthcare or otherwise,) can we agree we’d operate on each other and not on ourselves? In each network of friends you could have one person who specializes in, say, repairing deviated septums (I’m not saying who, but it’s probably your friend who worked on Wall Street right after college.) Someone else could set dislocated shoulders, the trick to which is of course making the big yank on “Two” when you’ve told the patient you’ll count to Three. Another person, we’ll say my husband for sake of argument, can obsessively monitor blood blisters and say, “I think it’ll feel better if you just let me pop it. Do you want me to pop it?”

(My husband, by the way, now has his very own scalpel courtesy of the pediatric ER doctor across the street. Don’t ask. But if you need anything sliced off, rest assured we’ve got the tools.)

The point is, we’re Stronger Together. Or wait. We were supposed to be.

Now we’re just Making America Great Again, one Brazilian Butt Lift at a time.

You guys this song is NOT SAFE FOR WORK NSFW NOT SAFE FOR WORK but man, it made me laugh. Because how many times have I looked at a piece of clothing on the floor, or a pair of shoes in the front hallway, and thought about asking the rightful owner to clean up, and then thought exactly the chorus of this song. Now I can do that to a beat.

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College Adaptation

In less than a month, our college girl will be home and her freshman year will be behind her. (As will be the approximately 4 cubic tons of belongings she leaves in storage on the East Coast.) Like our money to the Bursar’s office, it all went so fast.

For parents whose kids leave home next fall for the first time, let me assure you: you’ll adapt. And if you have the experience we did, realizing your child was born to go to that specific college (when everyone asked at Christmas, “How are you liking school?” her answer was always “I am THRIVING”) you’ll do it without guilt.

For instance, I only have one more month to enjoy Musical Beds. That’s a game I play around 4 am every morning when I wake up to keep my aging bladder company on its trip to the bathroom. Afterward, rather than fall back asleep, I prefer to stare at the ceiling on high alert for whatever sound might eventually wake me up if I were to fall asleep: a snore, a creak, a dog bark from next door. I’d hate to miss any of it!

Then I remember that my under eye cream is not up to this kind of a challenge and I have to get at least another hour of sleep, which means going to my daughter’s empty bedroom aka The Cave. It’s built into the hillside so it’s muffled, and it has only one window so it’s always dark. Plus, it smells like her and her bed is covered with pillows featuring cute photo collages of her and her friends, and I generally fall asleep happy and not missing her in a weird creepy way that drives me to sleep in her room or anything.

There are only four weeks left to enjoy a complete dearth of white pasta in our home. Our eldest loves the art form of pasta, and when she lived here I could cook basically anything and as long as there was a side of pasta and Parmesan to serve it on, everyone was happy. After she left, the extremely health-conscious and well-informed younger daughter who will someday be a kickass dietician began to assert her new status as only child. She likes throw things like Black Bean Pasta and Quinoa Pasta and Super Fibery Vegan Healthy High Protein Gluten Free Organic Starch Knobs into the grocery basket.

I’m not saying our overall health didn’t benefit from the lack of white pasta. I am saying that the first thing I’m cooking after the big girl is home is the cheesiest, whitest, butteriest pan of mac and cheese a person can consume without getting a home visit from a preventative care nurse. It will be comfort food turned up to 11. I may even leave a couple spoonfuls for the college kid.

Similarly, there’s not much time to enjoy being the only person in the house who ever wants to go to a concert, and the money savings that comes therewith. The oldest girl would see any show, anytime, so I always bought tickets in multiples of two, knowing she’d come along. My husband and younger daughter, however, are resolute in their belief that There’s No Place Like Home, Especially When The Alternative is a Concert Hall, so they saved me a ton of money in concerts I didn’t want to go to by myself.

I’ll tell my oldest girl all about them when we see Jenny Lewis and Ryan Adams play in Berkeley right after she gets home.

There are other things we’re now accustomed to that we’ll have to relinquish when she gets home next month: half as many trips to the pointe shoe store, fewer calls to the plumber to unravel long, long hair from the bathroom pipes, the need to search only one daughter’s bedroom for Mom’s missing sweaters and purses. We’ll have to readjust.

But only for a month, before she heads out again to work at an East Coast summer camp and from there, go straight back to sophomore year of college.

Now that I think about it, I better get a jump start on the mac and cheese right now.

More than ever, kid. But in a mom way, obviously.

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Sexy Raccoons and Weird Prompts

Post vacation, man. It’s hard to get back on the treadmill. And by treadmill, I mean writing regular blog posts. And by hard, I mean I resorted to asking readers on my Facebook page what I should write about now that I’m recovered from vacation buzz and jet leg. I haven’t been able to stop writing about 45 since November (hashtag Resist,) and people seem to like that, but I know there are other topics out there.

Responses ranged from “green stuff” to “Paul Westerberg basement years 2002-present” to “more about your trip.” Another great suggestion, “Can a woman enjoy looking her age when men get more attention work and sex as they age?” is, I assume, a topic Lena Dunham will turn her lens to circa 2040 and earn $8 billion dollars. Kudos to Michael who read “vacation buzz” as “Vatican buzz.” I’m comin’ in hot, Pope, watch your hat!

Then Wendi “Don’t Instagram Your Rash” Aarons suggested “Sexy Raccoons.”

It was the worst suggestion of the bunch, empirically. I mean, maybe we’ve finally found that elusive topic that both pro-45 and anti-45 camps can agree on: “Sexy Raccoons” is a weird writing prompt. Someone call Van Jones, stat!  But sometimes you need a bracing dose of something weird to help you find your groove again.

Plus, yesterday – and I am not making this up – a raccoon appeared on the lawn outside my window mid-morning, the first time that’s ever happened. I sometimes believe in omens, and I felt like Wendi’s suggestion and that raccoon added up to more than I could ignore.

But what’s sexy about raccoons? They’ve terrified me since my Girl Scout scouting days. We were at some campout in third grade wearing our little green uniforms, sitting around a campfire and innocently roasting marshmallows, when I glanced behind me to see one roughly my size, sitting on its haunches and salivating, about 20 centimeters away. (It was during the same period that America was trying to convert to the metric system in the ‘70s, so many of my measurement memories from that era are in multiples of ten.) The scream I let out went viral, the raccoons hissed, and the troop leaders probably resigned as soon as they dumped us out of their woody paneled station wagons at home the next day. I wouldn’t know, I’d already quit.

Here in the Oakland hills, raccoons compete with the wild turkeys for the “Fewest F*ks Given” medal. They are where they want to be when they want to be, and honking your car horn does nothing but slow them down further. I know confidence is sexy, but what they exude is more along the lines of “You think you want a piece of this? Edna, hold my earrings.”  The one I saw outside my window yesterday was probably casing the joint to figure out where he wants to break in, and he doesn’t even care that I watched him do it.

via GIPHY

My husband and I once called the Oakland Police Department on a raccoon. Also not the sexiest moment of our marriage. We were asleep in the middle of the night when we heard a crash come from our garage, which adjoins the house via a doorway from the front porch. The initial crash was followed by several more, and seconds later my husband and I were both on the living room couch, peeping out of the front window toward the garage, which has a large window we can see from the living room. Someone was definitely moving around out there. We could see the shadows. The crashes just kept coming.

My husband got a carving knife and stationed himself at the front door between the lurker and our children, and I called the cops and tried not to pass out in fear.

The cops arrived and stormed the garage; they never said, but I assume the raccoon flipped them off as he sauntered past, wholly unafraid and just pissed that he’d been interrupted. The cops couldn’t have been more understanding, so it was up to our godson, then about eight years old, to break the whole thing down: “Didn’t it occur to you that a robber wouldn’t make so much noise – and that he wouldn’t stay so long?” Well, yes, NOW that seems obvious, Ethan.

I imagine that our new Aussie friends would be super stoked to learn about our proximity to raccoons. After all, they informed us during one of our Overland Track dinners that they just love, Love, LOVE that little fluffy American animal, the one with the long tail, what is it called again?

SQUIRRELS? YOU LOVE SQUIRRELS?

THEY DO. Apparently Aussies put them on Christmas cards. Who in their right mind puts a squirrel on a holiday card? I mean, I don’t dislike them. I just never ever think about them. Them, or sparrows. Squirrels, sparrows, also air. Although I now am making a deliberate attempt to appreciate air because 45 just undid a whole whack of legislation that keeps it breathable.

In summary: you wanted a post about Sexy Raccoons? But also about green things (Girl Scout uniforms), 45 (rolling back environmental regulations) and our trip (squirrel love?)

You thought I’d forget? Here’s some Paul Westerberg from his 2004 album Folker, which he wrote, produced, and recorded in his basement.

                   
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