When You Were Little...

Now that a lot of my friends are having kids, I’ve been thinking more about those early predictors of adult personality. It’s provided us endless entertainment to guess which of their idiosyncratic baby traits might be indicative of things to come. For the past year or so, Heb and I have wondered if her little boy (new pics just in!) might grow up to own the clubbing scene based on his undeniably fly dance moves. Or if maybe he’ll be a music critic, we’ve considered, since he really does have discriminating tastes. Right now he’s in a retro phase where he’s all about shakin’ it to Elvis. Well, if either happens, don’t say we didn’t see it coming.

When I look back at myself and some of my friends, there’s no denying that our childhood selves provided some big clues as to who we’d become. My friend Gwen is a perfect example. I met her in gymnastics class when we were 5 and was immediately drawn to her crafty ideas—not to mention her true appreciation of my weekly innovations in mischief.

By age 8, Gwen had learned to sew and knit from her mother and was “designing” fabulous outfits in her Trapper Keeper notebooks. By age 14, she had opened her own necktie business, adorably called “All Tied Up” which she launched just in time to cater to the private school boys who, now that we were in high school, would be forced to wear ties every day. A designer, entrepreneur and savvy little marketer before she hit puberty, it was clear that this girl was going places.

One of our childhood pursuits that Gwen and I laugh about today is the informercial that we concepted, wrote and "produced" when we were about 11. The idea stemmed from the fact that a mother of one of the girls on our gymnastics team wore black pants—every single day—

because she found them to be “slimming.” For some reason (likely the onset of our pre-teen bitchy phase), we found this to be staggeringly hilarious and began devising a response in the form of a pretend new product: a pair of black pants that came with various accessories to disguise the fact that one was always wearing the same thing.

Soon after dedicating ourselves to this creative endeavour, Gwen slept over one night and we skipped the usual 11-year-old-girl stuff (you know, crank calling boys and watching and rewatching Adventures in Babysitting) in favor of working on our “Black Pants” project. We locked ourselves in my pink and green bedroom for hours while she designed, among other clever accessories, removable Velcro pockets that came in all different materials and patterns. Meanwhile, I wrote the script, named the accessory variations and art directed the “production,” which I think we performed for a reluctant audience consisting of my mother…who probably just wanted to watch Dallas and be left alone at that point in the evening.

Years later, I came upon the script along with Gwen’s designs while cleaning out a bedroom closet. Aside from the fact that my spelling was atrocious (even more so than today), our Black Pants product and infomercial was basically awesome. And when I read the script to her over the phone more than a decade later, we again found it to be staggeringly hilarious. (View part of our original script and be sure to note my spelling. I'm particularly shamed by "pare of pants.")

So you must be wondering how Gwen turned out. Wouldn’t it be funny if I went on to explain how she had become an astronomer or a database programmer…or an expert in preserving the native languages of South America? Well, she didn’t. Gwen went on to study Apparel Design and Management at Cornell. And since then, she‘s become a recognized entrepreneur, "changing the way America does laundry" when she launched The Laundress, an “eco-chic line of specialty detergent and fabric care.” Together she and her business partner, Lindsey, jet set all over the world, spreading the gospel on fabric care: You need never dry clean again! And the good people yell amen! (See above pic, Gwen on the left, and another cute one here.)

And me? Well, I’m busy writing scripts, naming products and working with art directors, of course. And when I’m not doing that, I’m pretty much exploring innovations in mischief. Occasionally, I get a call from Gwen who wants some help fleshing out another one of her crafty ideas, which I’m always thrilled to do. After all, I’m still really drawn to them.

Who knows? Perhaps one day Heb's son will have some downtime between prestigious dancing engagements and he'll go on tour with Gwen and her fabulous Laundress crew, working as a dancer in one of their informercials. And we will have seen it coming.

Gwen with her laundry, as a youngster

Pizza Bagels

A few years ago I became friends with a local comedian who has an identical family makeup to my own: an Italian dad, a Jewish mom and a younger, same-sex sibling. We traded hilarious stories about what it was like to grow up with such, err, "animated" parents and he clued me in on the official term for children with this particular ethnic heritage: Pizza Bagels!*

As a result of this mixed background, our family holiday traditions don't really follow a standard set of practices. For example, while we do celebrate Christmas (woot!), our holiday breakfast usually consists of an elaborate spread of fresh bagels, lox and all the fixings. And once we've opened our presents, we drive over to my mom's sister's house where for many years we spent the day with our Jewish grandparents, eating noodle kugel (pudding) while gazing at their Christmas tree...erected by my aunt's Greek husband...who would often make a big tray of baklava for dessert. The whole thing is kind of comedic, really, yet to us it was just the way things were done.

This year, my sister, her boyfriend and I flew to NJ to spend Christmas at home. On Christmas Eve, we all hopped in the family car to participate in our long-standing tradition of driving through town, admiring the lumanaria bags that line the streets. Secretly, this is a chance for my parents to check out everyone's holiday decorations, commenting on who did a respectable job with their lights and who went overboard this year. Meanwhile, my sister and I (and now Jon) sit in the back seat and fight over whether the radio volume and/or heat should be turned up or down.

As we were driving around this year, we came upon a house that admittedly could have looked a little neater. A mishmash of colored lights were draped haphazardly over unkempt hedges behind holiday-themed robotic Santas that popped in and out of plastic chimneys at random intervals. My mom took one glance at the set-up and deemed it an "ungepatchke" display. Nodding in agreement, my dad scoured, flicked his wrist as if to write it off and called it "shongod" as we turned the corner.

Now, of course, my sister and I knew that my mom found the display to be overdone (ungepatchke in Yiddish) and my dad thought the whole thing was a complete mess (shongod in Italian--spelling?). Meanwhile, Jon--a North Carolina boy with a Southern accent to boot--had no idea what anyone was talking about. Not really one to upset the flow, he simply shrugged his shoulders and continued to look at the decorations under consideration.

The next day, we went to my aunt's house for our usual Christmas celebration. This year, we ate a Christmas ham accompanied by a Greek salad. Then we debated which of our Yiddish names was the biggest mouthful (my cousin Jane won with Zusa-Zisse)...and laughed until my mom declared her kishkas hurt.


*Some people prefer Jewtalian and others Matzagna (matzoh + lasagna), but I'm partial to Pizza Bagel.

"A guy from small town NJ"

For those of you who haven't heard me kvell about Heb's little bro, Travis, and his uberhip restaurant in Venice Beach, the time has come. Vogue featured him in their January 2009 issue in a piece called "Date with Destiny" and I'm brimming with pride. Apparently, our little Trav is part of "a new generation of talent...blazing its way to superstardom." Hells yeah he is! Check it:

Small print above reads:

"My job as a chef is to kind of get out of the way, says Travis Lett. That which he’s making room for includes heirloom tomatoes, spinach, and kale—fantastic locally grown goodies that this 31-year-old chef uses to make dishes to richly colored, one might mistake them for works by Howard Hodgkin. Lett’s restaurant, Gjelina, opened in 2008 in Venice, CA. “We”—Lett has two partners, including an Albanian who supplied the name—“set out to open a modest, humble restaurant.

They succeeded. Gorgeous hipsters* pack the place for dishes like pizza with shaves asparagus, shallot confit, farm egg, sottocenere al tartfuo, and Parmesan. It’s the stuff of dreams for a guy from small town New Jersey who saw himself as an artist [and still keeps a studio]."

Note: Chatham, NJ has really proven itself over the past few years. Not only did we produce Trav, who is blazing his way to culinary superstardom, but we also churned out Francis Koenig, better known to his home town locals as "Marty." And what did our Marty do? Well, he founded AdultVest, the first institutional investment company focusing exclusively on sex industry related investments, which I can assure you, involved blazing in one form or another. Yeah boy!

Stay tuned for more superstars from the 07928.

*such as Heb and me

Another Fine Jersey Girl Off The Market

Since last I wrote, my life has pretty much been dedicated to Heather's wedding. Well, that and a brand new job (info to follow soon). You know, things like planning fun surprises for the bride, writing my Maid of Honor speech, and placing the standard bets with the Jersey crew on who would do what at the event (i.e. blackout, hook up, cause some sort of regrettable scene, etc). After a year of colorful anticipation, we had arrived at the final countdown. And I was ready.

Rather than walk you through the ins and outs of the Donahue-Koehler affair (a success story spanning several days), I've decided to present a few highlights in Top 10 form:

10) Realizing just how well I know the bride's personal style upon gifting her what I thought would be a transformational garment: a pair of hanky pankies for secret debut at the rehearsal dinner. Surely, she didn't know about this change-your-life-forever brand of underwear as I had just found out about them in the last year from a friend of mine who tends to be "in the know" when it comes to the latest in intimate apparel. And I just knew Heather would love them.

When the bride-to-be opened the little package, she started laughing. "What?!" I questioned her, perplexed at how she could laugh in the face of high art. It turned out that not only did she know about this bar-raising underwear, but she was wearing a pair at that very moment in the exact same color that I had picked out for her. Now if on-the-money undergarment selection isn't indicative of true friendship, I don't know what is.

9) Discovering a fantastic new candy bar, hailing from the Garden State.

8) Learning first-hand what the groom and his groomsmen do the morning of the wedding while the bride and bridesmaids are busy with the make-up artist and hair stylist: eat horrifying amounts of fried chicken while screaming at the football game on TV. And all these years I had been thinking they were sitting around, talking about what the groom should name his future babies!

7) Successfully not laughing at the alter during the serious part of the ceremony, which is more than I can say for prior bridesmaiding endeavors. (Sorry, Trace. I owe you forever. Plus, I blame Jill.) Turns out the strategy is to never make eye contact. With anyone--especially not my mom. No matter what.

6) Getting to sleep in the bridal suite the night before the wedding...just Heather and I...in our pjs. Do I lose points from my Maid of Honor score if I failed to notice when the bride woke up in the middle of the night and ordered The Hangover on demand? Not exactly the movie you want to watch the night before your wedding.

5) Busting an unnamed male friend for knowing every last word to It's Raining Men while singing along on the dance floor.

4) Hanging out with the old school crew on the bank of a lake (where the reception was held) around a bonfire...in a bridesmaid dress, high heels and full make-up. Note: there's something about kickin' it in the great outdoors that makes it ok to drink a glass of wine that accidentally got sand in it, heels or no heels.

3) Watching the audience's faces when the best man introduced his speech by announcing that he would be reciting a poem that he had written for the groom called, "Love Is Like A Kitten's Breath by Nathaniel Chase Millett." Let's just say there was some serious laughter/relief going on when he followed this announcement with "What? Come on, already. I'm kidding, you guys. But what I will tell you is a story about this one time when Todd got so wasted that..."

2) Sending the bride off to the church in an antique car with her proud dad sitting next to her. The sound system was playing "Going to the Chapel" and champagne was chilling inside so that it would be cold for the bride and groom after exiting the church as Mr. and Mrs. Koehler. And that it was.

1) Watching Heather double fist an Amstel Light and a sparkler while wearing her wedding gown. Sitting in an Adirondack chair underneath the stars, she had a huge grin on her face as her husband, brothers and oldest friends proceeded to rip on one another with everything they had. And that moment, my friends, is the first page to Heather and Todd's story of happily ever after. See photo below.

Free Milk!

I grew up in a small town--think Wonder Years meets 90210. I’ve known many of my best friends since we were 5 years old. I can still picture them in their florescent jelly sandals and Kindergarten-sized Esprit skirts playing “kiss the Chris” during recess. We all had crushes on our classmate, Chris D. who had the cutest little-boy freckles EVER and a contagious giggle that I can still conjure up in my mind. In second grade, we merged with another elementary school. Enter Robert W., the new collective crush.

Unlike Chris, who playfully egged us on, Robert kept his distance, focusing on his sporty pals and hilarious ways to piss off our teachers. Obviously, his lack of interest in our pleas for attention only made us like him more. We couldn’t help but swoon over him, though, year after year. He was tall, standing heads above the rest of us, cute (gorgeous blueish green eyes with sandy blond hair), and best of all, he was tough—real tough.

Granted, tough for Chatham, NJ isn’t exactly gangsta freak, but he was the kid who would take off his JACKET on the playground in the middle of WINTER revealing a T-shirt with a sports team logo. This way, he could maneuver better when playing the I’ll-take-you-down tackle game du jour with the other athletic guys. Meanwhile, the rest of us were bundled up in jackets with fur around the hoods, wearing gloves (mittens weren't quite up to the third-grade fashion standard) and a hat with a boppy ball on top, counting down the minutes until the recess aid would let us back inside. If you’ve never experienced February in NJ, trust me, it’s cold.

Not only was Rob tough (he became Rob around the time we entered middle school), but he was also hilarious. He knew exactly what to say to get a rise out people. He was one of those kids who would say something totally obnoxious to a teacher, but even that teacher couldn’t deny how funny the comment was, and we’d all get to watch the teacher struggle with all her might as she tried to hold in her laughter. She knew if she laughed, her authority and dignity would immediately be called into question, yet not laughing would run counter to whatever sense of humor she may have had. It was quite a battle to behold.

By the time we got to seventh grade and merged schools with our sister town (the infamous “Regionalization” initiative), Rob had earned quite the reputation as a trouble maker. The kids from the other school knew him right away, especially the girls. A superstar football player standing well over six feet, he was more alluring than ever.

In order to finesse the spacing issues associated with the regionalization, our eighth grade class was housed in a separate building for the entire year. We loved it—not only were we closer to the older kids since the building was adjacent to the high school, but having our OWN SCHOOL somehow translated in our 13-year-old minds to mean…FREE FOR ALL! Looking back, I have no idea why this sociological phenomenon transpired, but I can assure you we were completely out of control. (Side note: some of the girls were so misbehaved and bitchy that year that the school psychologist made them—err, us—participate in weekly group therapy, a meeting fondly known as “bitch bunch” where we were taught the importance of respecting authority figures and fellow classmates).

Anyway, one of my favorite moments from that year was a group uprise sparked by none other than Rob. The day was progressing like any other. We were all in the lunchroom, my friends and I likely misbehaving and disrespecting our peers when the vice principal walked in, looking notably solemn. He flickered the lights to get our attention and made the following announcement:

“Everyone? May I have your attention, please? I have some sad news to share with you all. You may have noticed that Mrs. [So-and-so] is absent today. You all know her—she's the wonderful woman who sells you your milk each day with a smile. She passed away unexpectedly last night and I thought you'd want to know."

Following the uncomfortable announcement, Rob stood up--clearly he had something to say. Confused, we looked up at him, incredulous that he would take it upon himself to represent our class with a response about the unfortunate lunch-lady situation. Totally deadpan, he then said, “We all know what THIS means…” There was a heavy pause followed by the rest of his sentence: “FREE MILK!”

Our response was immediate, unanimous wild laughter. We knew better than to laugh about the situation, but the comment was simply too funny to handle. People began cheering and it’s entirely possible that a “free milk, free milk!” chant broke out. The vice principle looked at us in disgust and yelled, “You people are animals! I am very disappointed!” He then walked out of the lunch room, leaving the lunch aids to settle us down.


Rob passed away on August 10th yet he still has me laughing to the point of tears. We’ll all miss you, Rob.

Ya, you. You Lookin' at Somethin' Hippie Boy?

In just 5 days my friends from my home town will be arriving here in San Francisco. They come out to visit me every year in one combination or another, but this is the largest group that's ever come at once...and, to be honest, I'm a little scared. You see, we're not the kind of friends who get together for dinner to catch up and compliment one another's new hair styles. Oh no--this crew is from Jersey which means we communicate our love for one another via sarcastic comments and personal insults. It always takes me an hour or two to slip back into my native tounge and I'm praying my Jersey vernacular is currently intact.

For example, a friend from home recently commented to me, "That piece of metal is ruining your face" which translates here in California to "I care about you and want you to know that I prefer the way you look without your eyebrow piercing." Another example came in the form of a group email this week where one friend wrote to another, "Dude, quit your whining, stop being such a cheap bastard and pony up." What we all knew he meant was, "I'd really like to spend some time with you when we're out in San Fran. I know this trip is a little pricey but I hope you'll join us up in Napa."

Anyway, for the next five days, I'll be working hard to reconnect with my inner Jersey girl-- sharpening my sarcasm, removing all traces of incense from my apartment, telling my local hippie/hipster friends that I'll be "out of town" for the weekend (too much work to translate for everyone), suggesting songs for the heavy metal mix one of my visitors is making for our limo excursion, and, most importantly, preparing to get my bar fight on.