the slack daily

What if All We Have to Look Forward to is a Bucket of Pig's Blood?

According to Jenny the Bloggess, today is Blogging Without Makeup Day,where bloggers, world-'round, post photos of themselves sans makeup.

To be honest, every day is Blogging Without Makeup Day, because I don't roll out of bed fully made up.
(And I don't blog every day. But we're talking about makeup here. Stay focused, people.)

My husband does not wake up to this:

Or even this:

I.R. Smart!

The slackmistress in her natural habitat looks something like this:

True to form, I didn't even brush my hair.

This is what it looks like without the cute dog to distract you:

I won't eat your children. PROBABLY.

But then I got to thinking: what's the point of this Blogging Without Makeup Day? Did I just take Jenny's word for it? Sure, it seems to be a meme, but what if it was elaborate ruse to get a bunch of (predominantly female) bloggers to post photos of themselves looking less than their absolute best? What if it was in fact a joke of Carrie-like proportions, and now all we have to look forward to is a bucket of pig's blood?

I pondered this conspiracy theory:

Wearing my pondering glasses.

 

But then I got distracted and forgot.

My Top Ten Awesome List of 2009

According to the RULES OF THE INTERNET I am supposed to make a TOP TEN LIST at the end of the year. So I thought I'd better make a list in case I get fined or something.

The Top Ten Things That Made My Year More Awesome:

1. Friends of Tom.
   Caissie, Matt, Lisa Jane Persky, Andy Zax, Kiemzi, Scratchbomb, Justsheano are all people I want to fold up into a neat little square and tuck them in my purse. As I was saying to someone at the ham party a couple of nights ago, I'm a fan of Tom Scharpling and the Best Show on WFMU, but I was a fan of his fans of his show first.


2. Super talented people who I got to know better.
   Ben Acker, half of the writing team that created The Thrilling Adventure & Supernatural Suspense Hour. Lisa Jane Persky, (shut up, it's my list, I can add people twice) photographer, actress, writer, maker of ham.  Andy Zax, storyteller, music geek, and GRAMMY NOMINEE for Best Historical Album. Mike Holmes, actor, and writer of the upcoming theater adaptation of Forbidden Zone. Chia Evers, writer and Viable Paradise fellow. Steve Marmel, all around funnyguy and HuffPo blogger.


3. Super talented people who I don't KNOWknow, but who made my life a funnier place.
   Paul F. Tompkins, Tom Scharpling, Janie Haddad, Sara J. Benincasa, April Richardson, James Urbaniak, Jon Wurster. Your unbridled hilarity made me ruin something this year, whether it was my screen from a spit-take, or dinner. The bill will be forthcoming.


4. My husband's family.
   Like my own, they make me laugh and they make me cry and they make me want to pull my hair out, but I know they'll always have my back and feed me dinner.


5. Older SlackBrother J.
   Brother is doin' it for himself, yo. Beat the Cooler was released for the iPhone, and he's got plenty of more things in the hopper. Let's hear it for second acts.


6. Second Acts.
   I got my own this year. I have a pile of writing to get through (TWO pilots, a spec, a spec screenplay, a novel, and an animated pitch, all in various states of outlinedness.


7. My crew.
   If we have shared a drink, you are part of my crew. (I'm easy, you should know that by now.) We're not America's Next Top Dance Crew...yet.


8. Daisy J Dog.
   Not only is she the greatest dog in the planet, but she is the funniest dog on Twitter.


9. My husband.
   It hasn't been the easiest year, but it's been the easiest year to be married to him. As I said earlier this year, I highly suggest you find a Will of your own. You just can't have mine.


10. You.
    People say no one reads blogs anymore. But here you are. Thank you.

Honorable Mention: This photo of Captain Kirk holding an enormous dildo. Because it's a photo of Captain Kirk holding an enormous dildo!

Note: BetheMarriage is returning in 2010! Same day, NEW TIME!  5-6pm PST every Saturday night! Stay tuned for more details...

Blogger Prom Wrap-Up.

I went stag to my Senior Prom:

Posing with Older SlackBrother J. 1990

I went married to my Blogger Prom:

With Will, last Thursday. Photo by Lisa.

Last Thursday was Blogger Prom, held on the rooftop of the West Hollywood Andaz Hotel. It was an amazing evening, and I don't say that just because there was delicious food, free specialty cocktails, cheap valet parking and the fact that we won the best raffle prize in the Universe.

Will & I win the Edison booze raffle prize.
(The spot on my arm is my stamp to get in and out of the party.)

The thing I love about meeting bloggers IRL is that at the core of it, we're all dorks. I know that for some, the name of the game is monetizing and SEO and branding, and there's nothing wrong with that. But there's always the person - and personality - behind the blog.  And bloggers have big personalities (or is that just me?)

I recently heard someone complain about a "cool kids" clique in the blogging world, because a group of bloggers "got more hits" than they did.

To which I respond: being popular on the Internet may be awesome. But it's also dorky. 

Let's just embrace our awesome dorkiness, people.

Outside of my most favorite person (Will) I had a chance to hang out some of my favorite people I had already been lucky enough to hang our with before: Lisa, Kim, David, Travis, Joz, Mary, Andy, but I also got to finally meet some of the people I have been virtually stalking for ages: Julia, Lucinda Michele, Mike, Caroline, Lindsay, Laurie Percival, AVFLox, as well as meeting some new bloggers: Hot Pink Manolos, LetMeEatCake, GreenLAGirl and Foodwolf.

(I'm sure I'm forgetting someone, mea culpa!)

We may be a bunch of dorks, but we're hot, funny dorks. And the women in this community make me want to form some sort of amazonian cotton-panty pillowfighting army.

Let me know if you want to sign up.

I do know that some bloggers were upset that they were not invited to the Prom, but the Prom Committee did put out the word on Twitter a good six weeks before invites went out. Space was limited, and I could see why because from the second we walked in to the moment we left with our swag bags, it was a night to remember. The Prom Committee worked their butts off.

THANK YOU PROM COMMITTEE!

2009 Blogger Prom Committee
Caroline of Caroline on Crack
Esther of e*starLA
H.C. of LA and OC Foodventures
Lindsay of LAist
Marni of Happy Go Marni
Maya of Shop Eat Sleep
Natalie of The Liquid Muse
Tara of When Tara Met Blog

My Blogger Prom photos can be found here, and everyone's photos in the Blogger Prom Flickr Pool.

THERE WILL BE BIRDS.

Tonight is blogger prom. 

The theme is cheesy.  For a lot of people, that means 80s cheesy. 

You shouldn't talk to her...she wears all black and thinks about death.
                                        - a comment someone made about me in 1988

So what can I tell you about tonight's outfit?

 

There will be birds.

Where You'll Find Me This Week...

...aka a Love Letter To Those Who Would Like to Stalk Me.

Having a lack of slackmistress panic attack?  This is where you'll find me this week:

At Blogger Prom on Wednesday, with my husband.  Trust me when I say you will know exactly who I am.

At 8oz Burger Bar, celebrating one of their One Year Anniversary deals which they will announce on Twitter!

It's not like I go there a lot...

Spicy Bloody Mary


Cherry Vodka Sour


Invisible Margarita

TBA: I may be live-tweeting from the set of Electric Farm Entertainment's "Woke Up Dead," starring Jon Heder, Josh Gad and Krysten Ritter. (Full disclosure: I wrote on WUD and currently work at EFE. If you want to follow along, make sure to follow me on Twitter!)

If you're looking for insta-slack, check out the podcast of the "Blogger Takeover" of Saturday's edition of LAGenX.com radio or Saturday night's BetheMarriage archive!

Unicorn Farts: Skittles & Cheeseburgers?

A email exchange betwixt myself and the fabulous Betsey Booms.

Me: There are people who think our relationship just farts rainbows 24/7.

Betsey:  Now does it fart rainbows like maybe 20 hours a day/7 days a week?  I'm just curious what one eats to fart rainbows.  Please say it's booze related.

Me: We have farting and we have rainbows but they have yet to intersect. Will tries to convince me that they're rainbows.  But that would mean rainbows smell like rotten eggs.  Which means unicorns smell like...oh god, I don't want to know. 

Betsey: I'm pretty sure that if unicorns could fart it would be Skittles and cheeseburgers.

You can find Betsey & her husband Jason LIVE! every Friday night on Ustream at 7pm PST with their show "BoomTube!" and Jason spins house music at "Droppin' the Boom" every Saturday night at 10pm PST!

Our Audition for LAGenX Radio.

LAGenX is looking for guest hosts, and I have a face for radio! Enjoy.

Why Do You Blog?

Mace has a great post about her first blog over at Diaryland, asking is it better to forget those early years of blogging? Our digital footprints aren't washed away unless we choose to make them so. Those baby steps into the blogosphere (was it called it back then? Is it still called that now?) were sometimes funny, sometimes prescient, and frequently embarrassing.

Jen writes today about trying to figure out where she fits in as a blogger. I used to struggle with this myself, as I felt like the two paths for female bloggers were, if you'll excuse my french, writing about fucking in the I AM AN EMPOWERED SINGLE FEMALE or the results of fucking in the I AM A MOMMYBLOGGER HEAR ME ROAR. (An ancillary to the latter is the sad, single female who is desperate to become a mommyblogger but cannot find a date without a rap sheet or a lazy eye.)  I didn't really fit into either - there are a lot of us that don't - but to reach that ever-elusive Prom Queen status where you get the trip and the car and the designer wardrobe, you needed to conform.

The question is why do we do this? It's a question I always ask myself when I go "off" the Internet. Sometimes it's the behavior of someone who I thought was better than that, or the jealousy that someone got some sort of perk that I didn't, or the thought that I've been doing this for nearly-a-third of my nearly-37 years and shouldn't I be more popular?  But I keep coming back to the same conclusion:

I do this because it's what I do.

Sometimes I do it well. Frequently I don't. Sometimes people do it better than me. It's my safeword, my home base, my olly-olly-oxen-free. But I've been doing this for twelve years.

And I feel like I'm just getting started.

Related:

the slack's farewell letter

You.

You were there when we first met.

You were there for the Detective Post.

You were there when we started to date.

You were there when we got engaged.

You were there when my family reacted to the news.

You were even there when we got married.

So hopefully we'll see you tomorrow night, live from Palm Springs as we celebrate* our Second Wedding Anniversary. (Which is actually Sunday. But still.)

*We are not broadcasting ALL the celebrating. Ahem.

It's Getting a Little Crowded in Here.

It's no secret that my marriage has a third wheel. BetheBoy's love for Paul F. Tompkins is well-documented, to the point that in the early days of 2009 I had to throw down the gauntlet and declare the host of The Best Week Ever My Nemesis.

It's been a pretty successful nemesising thus far, although I've gotten lazy in recent days.

When Tom Scharpling, host of WMFU's The Best Show joined Twitter, I knew that there was a good chance that I would once again have to compete for my husband's affections. Will is a huge fan of The Best Show.

The Best Show is funny - extremely so - except that there's one thing funnier than The Best Show, and that's Will's recaps of The Best Show. After Friday night's viewing of The Three Amigos - which yes, we twittered - he told me that Scharpling had purchased Martin Short's suit from the movie Clifford.

I didn't think anything of it until last night, when I joined Will on the couch to catch up on some TV. He was watching...

Are you watching Clifford?

Yup, he answered.

That's so funny, weren't you just talking about that the other day? You should let Scharpling know it's on.

Already did, he responded.

He grabbed the remote to change the channel when I noticed it.

Wait, you recorded Clifford?

He didn't say anything. I grabbed the remote and pointed it at the DVR.

I turned back to Will. So you found out Scharpling had bought the suit from Clifford, you searched for upcoming showings, you recorded it, let The Best Show fans and Scharpling know on Twitter, and then watched it on the off-chance that maybe Scharpling was watching it too and you guys could bond over a 1994 movie where Martin Short plays a ten-year old?

It sounds weird when you say it.

Man, this marriage is getting crowded.

Updated to add:

(Note: We celebrate our second wedding anniversary this Sunday, May 10th. We'll be broadcasting BetheMarriage LIVE! (On Ice) live from Palm Springs this Saturday night!)