There are no words

This one-day-early version of CM Blog is brought to you courtesy of my local CBS affiliate. In all of their infinite stupidity, the station opted to preempt this week's episode of Survivor with a shoddily made (locally produced) pre-game special and tonight's San Antonio Spurs basketball game.

Fine. It's the first game of the first play-off series, but we're talking about Survivor, people. This show consistently remains one of CBS' most highly rated shows in the past decade. It's an outrage. OUTRAGE.

Can you tell that I am upset about this? I am not even a sponsor!

My local, terrible CBS station is planning to broadcast Survivor later at 12:30 am. Even confirmed owls such as myself won't be up to watch it live. Here's the thing about the delay, it messes up my favorite part of watching tv - dishing crassly with friends during the commercial break or via instant messenger. As soon as the camera cuts away from the action, cue the mobile. I could probably make the argument that this part of the viewing experience is more pleasurable than watching the show itself. Fandom is powerful and addictive.

I've tried, but with American Idol and Survivor, it's just not as fun to watch it alone. The social dimension makes it, especially when the shows take surprising / creative / strategic turns. At their best, it's pure exhilaration. Every now and again, I watch a show after its initial airing on DVR. This happens when I have evening plans or my usual viewing companions are similarly disposed. The only way to describe the experience is flat, even dull.

With tonight's Survivor, my curiosity got the best of me and I had my loyal phone friend give me the updates of the action and challenges during each break. Even though I already know the outcome of the vote (and it was definitely a doosy), I'll still watch it myself. I'll have my cake and eat it too.

Yes, prime time television is that important to my little life.

Ladies Night

In English, there really isn't a gendered equivalent to the term Ladies Man. And no, I don't mean the sleazy Tim Meadows' SNL character of the same name and of reputed courvoisier-sipping fame. Taken literally, ladies man could be a male who is most comfortable in the company of females.

Were the situation reversed, you would never call such a gal a Gentleman's Lady. Not only does the phrase sound clunky off the tongue, it doesn't feel like the right descriptor. Call me what you will, but I am woman who feels most herself in the company of men.

In high school, I was thick as thieves with many great girlfriends, spending a particularly high amount of time with my field hockey and lacrosse teammates. But in the decade since, I've amassed a much higher number of male friends, probably at a three-to-one ratio. Case and point, at my wedding, I was supported by a Maid of Honor (my sister and only sibling) and a self-proclaimed Man of Dishonor (also known as my gay best friend, a frequent contributor to this blog).

Ever since arriving in San Antonio, I've greatly expanded my set of female friends - warm, funny, smart, awesome women. Last night I went out for "girls night," a casual dinner and wine tasting at a local haunt. It's been forever since I did something like this. While we talked about lots of things, at one point, the conversation turned to bras and turned sharply to boobs. Ladies night out, indeed.

Between the 10 of us, we have well over 150 years of brassiere wearing experience. Yet, despite our assumed expertise on the topic, no one had a solid recommendation about the best bra on the market. We might as well have been rating jock straps or garden hoses, no one felt strongly enough about the matter to be able to tell a friend. There we were, ambivalent and to a degree, dissatisfied about nearly all bras for some reason or another.

In the past, I was tempted to try out the Spanx bra, a kind of revolutionary undergarment that seems to me, very 21st Century. Despite the fact that I've spent more money on clothing items I've barely worn, I just can never justify the $62 price tag. For you toothpicks and string beans out there, Spanx is a line of slimming undergarments designed for those of us who want to tighten up various body parts without actually exercising or dieting. They are, coincidentally, a life saver (and much sleeker and more comfortable than a rubber girdle).

Many women, myself included, also expressed an unwelcome anxiety associated with bra shopping, citing (oddly) two uncomfortable customer service experiences with meddling Russian salesladies. Given how self-conscious the shopping experience is, I know that I have just picked the best of the worst to escape the store and be done with the confounded chore.

Even though I didn't leave the evening with any special tips or insight into the issue, sometimes it's nice to be in a like-minded company of sisters.

What's in a Name?

johnnycake: noun - a baked cornmeal flatbread.

Johnny Cupcakes: proper noun - a store that once broke my heart.

About a month ago, my good friend Lisa and I were shopping on Newbury Street in Boston. We were fat and happy following a delicious lunch, but I was, as always, looking to become even fatter and happier with a little help from some baked goods.

We had just finished looking at handbags when we were drawn to an off-street-level shop by a force stronger than any martian tractor beam. There, in the window of a handsome brick building, was a giantline drawing of a cupcake with the word "fresh" dancing above it. Saliva moistened my mouth and my heart pumped faster than the beat of a Lady GaGa song at the thought of the sugar and sweet, spongy cakethat would be mine in just a few moments.

I had been to other upscale bakeries specializing in cupcakes, Sprinkles in Beverly Hills and Magnolia in New York City, and was over the moon that we stumbled on their Boston cousin. What would I choose? Red velvet? Chocolate coconut? Good old vanilla with chocolate frosting?

As Lisa and I climbed the steps towards our indulgence, we asked eachother, "How could these be calorie-free?" as another sign advertised. We found our answer when we entered Johnny Cupcakes.

It's not a bakery at all, but rather, a t-shirt store, with a signature logo replacing the skull in the familiar skull and crossbones design with the silhouette of a cupcake. Shirts are displayed in ovens, with their colorful fronts stylizing Pez dispensers, or bearing the slogan "always fresh-baked." That mayappeal to those who enjoy marijuana recreationally, but I don't, so wouldn't want a shirt that could be interpreted as such.

More garments show panda bears eating cupcakes. Now, I like pandas,and I like cupcakes, but I wanted to wrap my mouth around a glob of frosting, not a limited-edition shirt.

We sweet-tooth shoppers were terribly disappointed when we figured out the meaning of the calorie-free signs. Everyone else in the store seemed to know what was up, snatching Boston Red Sox-inspired cupcake shirts and holding them to their thin, never-eaten-a-cupcake bodies to check for size. I later learned Johnny Cupcakes is equally popular in other big cities, too, using fun events like grilled cheese parties to drive youthful consumers to the boutique shops.

The company website does indicate that if I were in the store on a weekend, and had bought a high-quality, made in the USA shirt, I would have gotten a real home-baked cupcake. The founder (whose name, I presume, is Johnny) also writes on his site that several colleges have invited him to lecture on effective branding and marketing. Still stung by not being able to satiate my craving for cream cheese frosting that day, I am quite sure I would skip that lecture.

I'm glad this company seems to be thriving. Too many stores along Newbury Street have closed. But I'm stubborn. I wouldn't buy a cupcake from a store called "World's Best T-Shirts," so I don't expect to buy a t-shirt from Johnny Cupcakes.

- Jacktastic

Happy Birthday?

One of my friends works in a very public job as a television reporter. As a result, he often has uncomfortable public encounters with viewers in which total strangers approach him, in a restaurant or the grocery store, as if they've known him for years. Given that he appears in their domestic space on a regular basis, I guess people feel like they know him. More than knowing him, they have no qualms about voicing their opinions about his hairstyle, his sexuality, his wardrobe or his work. In his time on the air, he's had more than his fair share of weird encounters with viewers, both face-to-face and via email.

Today is my friend's birthday and he just received the following bit of viewer mail:

You don't know me and I don't know you but for some reason I have it marked on my calendar that today is your birthday. If that's true, then Happy Birthday. I must say I was surprised that a conservative organization as [your station] would hire such a flamer as yourself but you showed us all how really good work speaks for itself. We are lucky to have you, Mr. [friend's last name].

Sincerely, (The viewer signed her name and gave her address)

An Editor's Meeting

Generally speaking, I've never shaken my youthful wanderlust. In fact, as I've aged, hitting the road has become a more frequent practice as I now have greater means and cause to roam.

For me, there's a special and almost equal pleasure in both visiting and revisiting places. I'm not claiming this as some earth shattering original observation, but all travelers know that in returning to visited city from one's past, it is often easier to spot the changes in yourself than the geography of the urban landscape. I believe that there's always a new adventure to be had on familiar terrain.

True to form, 2009 is already a year marked and defined by travel. In the past three months, my husband and I have crisscrossed the country visiting our relatives in Las Vegas, Scottsdale, and now Boston. This most recent weekend brought us to a symposium in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

While P completed his obligations, I was left with a very open schedule, ideal for leisure and play. On Friday, I met one of my closest friends from college (a frequent co-contributor / editor to this blog). In a sense, considering that we were both playing hooky from our professional obligations, we forgave ourselves from letting another week lapse without a CM post. We did TALK about the blog over our Wagamama lunch, taking stock of where we are and thinking about the future.

While we haven't been entirely faithful in our pledge to post weekly, one of the main reasons we launched this blog was to deepen the dialogue between friends separated across the miles. Our shared creative venture is a way to get beyond the brevity of a text message or dashed off email and move toward something more substantive. For me, I can say that it has been nice to write something that is not purely utilitarian - something that I know a handful of friends will read.

At the risk of sounding pretentious, I want to make it clear that we're not claiming any great literary genius here. It's not that we shun the superficial - in fact we've done the opposite - we've taken the care and time to explore topics from the Octomom to sweatpants, but we've done so in more thoughtful, painstaking depth. My friend and I are both a little disappointed not to have a larger community of contributors, but it's good to have a goal and vision for the future.

A Star Is Born?

Nadya Suleman is like cigarette butts outside a strip bar: disgusting and everywhere. She’s on NBC’s Today Show in the morning, followed by Doctor Phil, and Entertainment Tonight later on. Taped portions of those appearances are then re-played ad nauseum on other syndicated shows and cable TV. If you’ve been in a coma, and don’t know who she is, you’re lucky. She is the “octomom,” the California woman who gave birth to octuplets by caesarean section in January.

At first blush, Suleman’s story seemed like it would have a miracle happy ending – her babies all survived, and we could have imagined her getting gifts from companies and individuals all over the country to help her with this unenviable challenge. But it quickly nose-dived, and the octomom was wrapped in the fat, dripping tentacles of scandal.It was discovered that the 33 year old already had six kids at home, and many people were outraged, believing the single woman’s in vitro fertilization treatments and the births they produced would only burden taxpayers funding Suleman’s public assistance. The fury even drew death threats, yet the octomom keeps up her rigorous schedule of television interviews.

Her demeanor is, not surprisingly, very strange in these interviews. She looks like a déclassé Angelina Jolie, but claims she’s not interested in being a celebrity. Yet Suleman makes herself a celebrity by appearing on entertainment show after entertainment show, presumably for money. Her constant mantra is that she needs a new home to raise her litter. She reportedly hasn’t responded to a pornographer’s offer of a $1 million payday to have sex on camera, though that would certainly go a long way towards buying a house and diapers times eight.

Since the octomom has become a (supposedly reluctant) pop culture fixture overnight, I think pop culture is where we can find solutions to some of her problems.

• Apu and Manjula Nahasapeemapetilon of The Simpsons are octoparents, too. Manjula was inadvertantly dosed with extra fertility drugs and produced eight kids. Our friends at Wikipedia tell me their names are Uma, Nabendu, Poonam, Priya, Sandeep, Sashi, Gheet, and Anoop. (Incidentally, the last of that list is my favorite, because American Idol had a contestant named Anoop this season whom I really liked.) But to care for this brood, Apu came up with a handy vest containing eight baby bottles to feed them all, as a mother pug would suckle her puppies. Perhaps Nadya Suleman could contact Springfield’s newsman extraordinaire Kent Brockman for her next interview, and meet Apu at his Kwik-E-Mart to pick up a bottle vest of her own.

• Otto Octavius, aka “Dr. Octopus” is one of Spiderman’s arch-nemeses. His four mind-controlled mechanical arms became fused to his body in a freak laboratory accident involving his radioactive research. The transformation spawned a turn towards criminality, with “Doc Oc” using his arms to pry open bank vaults and squash meddling police officers. I suggest Nadya Suleman contact The Daily Bugle, the newspaper edited by Peter Parker/Spiderman’s boss, J. Jonah Jameson. Perhaps an interview with them could attract the attention of Doc Oc, whose own arms, in concert with his metal pincers, could change one Suleman kid while feeding another a cookie.

• The Octodog is what you get when you use a “Frankfurter Converter,” a simple kitchen product available online. This $16.95 device slices the lower half of a hot dog, making it into an octopus (see above). The octodog clearly is meant to encourage kids to play with their food, and is just so silly, the plastic cutters have been featured in magazines and on TV, including Rachael Ray. Even though Nadya Suleman claims to not know much about the world of celebrities, I suspect she may be drawn to something that’s gotten so much press. The Frankfurter Converter would certainly be a help to an octomom, with so many mouths to feed.

I hope the octomom does okay for herself and her kids. After all, they didn’t ask to be born to such a person in such strange circumstances. I’m eager for her star to fade, I just hope it doesn’t happen because someone else becomes a duodecimom (12 kids). I don’t think there’s enough room on Apu’s vest for that many baby bottles.

- Jacktastic

V-Day

Well, Valentine's Day is more of a chocolate holiday than a cookie holiday.

For this reason, CMonster blog is on hiatus this week. This has NOTHING to do with the absence of a post.

xoxo,

Lisa