I miss music videos. There was a good five year period where I feel like my whole life revolved around watching music videos. I remember days home from school where I’d order pizza and watch MTV for hours, the same rotation of music videos over and over again. I’m fairly certain this is where my love of movies came from; one can’t watch the Spike Jonze video for Sabotage as many times as I have and not have an innate appreciation for cinema. In fact, there are certain songs that I remember specifically by the music video and every time I hear those songs, the video flashes in my head. I can’t even remember the song that goes along with the mentos/foo fighters video, but I certainly remember the video. About a year ago someone showed me the single ladies music video on youtube and something started niggling at the back of my mind. I’m admittedly very bad with new and popular music (I’ve never had much of a tolerance for popular music, with the exception of Nirvana), instead I have some ridiculous penchant for finding music that was popular approximately 20-30 years ago, or for music that not many people like. So when I saw the Beyonce video, not only had I never heard the song (which I will admit I like) but I found it completely ridiculous that I was forced to watch it on a 3″ screen with crappy resolution. Really, what this seemingly innocuous occurrence did was made me realize how ridiculous the music video market has become. I don’t want to sound like one of those twentysomethings who talks incessantly about how much better things were when I was a kid because I don’t actually believe that they were wholly better, but I have to say, there was something awesome about the music videos of the early 90s. For huge chunks of time throughout the day you could watch/listen to non-stop music. There were whole shows dedicated to certain genres of this music (Yo! MTV Raps for instance) and of course when I got home from school everyday there was Total Request Live. As I said before, I’ve never been that in to popular music, and honestly there were times during TRL that I had to change the channel because I hated the music so much, but the truth of the matter was that no matter how much I hated it, I knew the music. I knew the songs that were out, what was popular, what the country was listening to. And maybe that’s an unintentional metaphor for our current fractured state of being or maybe that’s just an odd coincidence. I don’t even have cable television any more so I don’t quite know why it bothers me so much that I can’t watch music videos on MTV, but it does. I can’t stand the thought that people watching MTV and VH1 are watching it for the reality programming more than for the music. As the music industry continues to teeter on the brink of annihilation, it seems like a dark tragedy that it’s former outlets have given up on it completely. And I miss the music video. The first video ever played on MTV was Video Killed the Radio Star, who knew that something could come along and kill the video star too? Peace, Love, and Music, Julia

It’s an inevitable question.  When you meet new people, when you get closer to people you already know, the question of family or more specifically siblings always arises.  And as an only child, there’s this look that I always get when I give up that information.  It’s a kind of knowing look with a dash of skepticism tossed in on the side.  A look that says something along the lines of, ‘oh, you’re one of those?’  Because there is this stigma associated with only children, that somehow we’re the ones throwing fits on the sidewalk, kicking and screaming into adulthood, unable to do anything without our parents.  And maybe, in a way, that can be true.  I don’t know that I’m necessarily an all about me person (though maybe this email that’s all about me will beg to differ), but I certainly am not someone who can’t see how my behavior effects the people around me.  Being an only child is an odd sort of thing.  On the one hand, I was certainly able to do things that other people weren’t able to do because my parents only had me to support, but there are all these other events that siblings get to be and do together.

The other inevitable question when it has been established that I am an only child is, ‘did you ever want a sibling?’  The answer, not so straightforward, is sometimes.  There were times when I would create siblings in my head, tell my friends at school that I had sisters and brothers (usually they were friends that didn’t go to the same school) and found myself in embarrassing situations when my school friends came over and realized that I did not, in fact, have any siblings.  On the other hand, I liked having to worry only about myself, I liked the fact that I had undivided attention when my parents came home from work, and I still love the fact that my parents were able to pay for college and send me to London and a million other things I’m sure I don’t know about because they weren’t ones to rub their good deeds in, but they also did not have another child to support.

At the same time, in a way, I wasn’t an only child at all.  As one of 13-15 cousins (I’ve lost track of how many there are now), there were always kids around.  Family time, which was often, came with anywhere from 2-???? children running around, shooting nerf guns at each other, playing basketball or Tetris or hearts.  We sometimes fought like siblings, we loved each other like siblings (and still do), we may not have had to live together but to me, they were my siblings.  And what I lacked in cousins, I made up for in only children friends, some of whom (ahem, Jesse) I still consider my family.

But last month, as I attended the funeral of a friend of my grandmother’s I was slapped in the face with a realization about only childness.  I watched as Mrs. Carroll’s children consoled each other and a kind of panic washed over me.  I am an only child.  And as an only child there are a few things that I must weather alone.  Until I saw the warmth that passed through the siblings as they said good-bye to their mother, I had never thought of the burden of the only child.  It’s not just that we must lose our parents alone, that we don’t have brothers or sisters to know our pain so acutely that we don’t even need words to share in the hurt, but we also have to bear the burden of parental pride.  It’s our sole burden, and priviledge, to make our parents proud.  We have to do it because no one else is going to.  We don’t have the option of failure.  We don’t have the luxury of passing our ailing parent’s healthcare to our siblings (not that having siblings means that this is inevitable, but it is an option).  In a few ways, in a few situations, we, as only children, are simply alone.

I’m not saying that I would trade being an only child for anything, I wouldn’t.  I’m not saying that there aren’t friends and family, as I have plenty of both, but in a way, there is a kind of solitude that comes along with being the only child.  Starting from the solitude of an empty house after school and working through the more vexing solitudes that life throws everyone’s way, the only child is not just spoiled or bratty (though we know we all can be both), but is a fully rounded person unworthy of the skeptical looks and knowing eyebrow raises.  And though I, as an only child, am able to straddle the line of both solitude and immense socialization (can’t come from a family of 30+ and not know how to interact with people), I still carry the burden as well.

Peace, Love, and Famiglia,
Julia

I love the advent of television on the internet.  Speaking as someone who definitely has scheduled an entire school curriculum around when television shows air, I love the newfound freedom that television on the internet (and TiVo) has afforded me.  I love the fact that while plugging away at filing what seems like sometimes endless amounts of paperwork, I can catch up on The Office or 30 Rock, on Gossip Girl or 90210.  I love that I can download Glee to my iPod for $1.99 and watch it on the bus on my way to work.  When I was in college, I would choose 8:00 AM section over 8:00 PM because the night time sections always interfered with my TV shows.  I would get calls from my roommates, panicked that they weren’t going to be home in time for Dawson’s Creek or Gilmore Girls, and requesting that a video tape (remember those?) be put in to record the show.

Ah, aren’t we glad those days are behind us?  Working until 11:00 PM?  No sweat, I’ll watch my TV tomorrow, or this weekend.  I’m hearing so much about Mad Men, but am now three seasons behind?  Whatevs, I’ll catch in on DVD.  But even with these great innovations, I find that there is something missing.

Last Wednesday I went over to my old roommates new house.  We had dinner, played a little Beatles Rock Band (which I love, even though I can’t stand the Beatles…please, do not email me about that assertion, I know what you all are thinking), and watched Glee.  Whether or not you like Glee (and I’m judging you if you don’t), whether or not this sounds like a great way to spend an evening, I realized what, exactly, was missing from my TV on the internet: the social aspect of watching television (I can hear my mother groaning right now).

What I really loved about the whole, scheduling my life around television, is that all my friends and roommates scheduled their lives around television as well.  I mean, sure it was a pain in the ass when you wanted to go out, or do something else, or if you got hung up at work or at school, but I don’t get the warm fuzzies I used to get when I’d walk into a house with three bright, shiny faces huddled in the living room waiting for the refrain of a really bad Paula Cole song.

At a time when good television is better than it’s ever been, I find it sad that the way I watch TV the most is huddled at my desk with a pair of headphones on, suppressing my chuckles, blinking back tears, and trying not to make any gasping noises when something particularly shocking happens.  And I’ll admit it freely, I miss watching TV with people.  I miss commenting on wardrobe: ‘what is that outfit?’ was a refrain often heard in my various apartments in college.  I miss sharing the joys, the pain, the laugter and the ridiculousness of some stupid television show that you just can’t get enough of with other people who can’t get enough of it.  For me, coming from a group of TV friends who are as passionate, if not moreso, than I, it is hard to quiet down and just watch.  It’s hard not to react, not to reach out to others.  Much like in life, Television begs human contact, some sort of consensus must be reached about character arcs and plotlines, about wardrobe and hair.  I mean, people used to knock on our dorm room door because we reacted so loudly they thought there was something wrong, people heard us yelling from down the street outside apartments and houses as we wondered why certain fictional characters were behaving as they were.  Now we’re relegated to text messaging or instant messaging one another: ‘I love chuck and blair,’ isn’t as satisfying as a face to face conversation about the merits of a relationship that is doomed not to work out.

I’m realizing as I write this, that I don’t just miss the missed opportunity for communication, and I will say that often television is a way to open up about crap that’s happened to you, even if it’s just putting your two cents in on a situation that you’ve experienced (can’t argue that one mom, how many discussions about drugs and sex did we have after an episode of 90210? A Lot!), but I miss the socialization.  I miss the fact that every Thursday for three years, my friends and I found a way to get together and watch The O.C.  That every Thursday in our house meant fish tacos and margaritas, or one of our pizza delivering friends would bring pizza and beer.  I miss that 20 minutes prior to a show when people just started arriving at our house, that the TV show was a way to keep up with friends, a way to continue the bond that may have been left in the library or at the roadside of endless reading.  I miss that many of my friendships now could use a little jump start from a weekly TV watching party.  Even if it’s just two or three people on a couch, the bondedness of experiencing a show together, laughing together, crying together, commentating together is going away.  And I miss it.

Peace, Love, and Social Networking,
Julia

I joined Facebook a little more than a month ago after much shit from everyone I know, and I must say, it stresses me out.

First off, I live in a near constant fear that someone I don’t want to talk to is going to try and friend me (ahem, certain ex-uncles I have no care to chat with), and I’m going to have to ignore them, then run into them randomly and have them be pissed at me (don’t you wish you could be inside my head?).  Then, of course, is the fear of the people I try to ignore whenever I’m in Santa Cruz.  But mostly, my stress comes from the constant pressure of the updates.  That’s right, I said it, the updates raise my blood pressure.

I mean, come on, they have to be funny and provocative, interesting yet not completely telling, and most of all, they have to be short.  And I’m not going to lie, I check to see how many people have ‘liked’ my posts, how many people have commented.  Not to mention the fact that I can get all this on my blackberry, so I can check on things like this.

So, one might ask, why the hell would I want to subject myself to this?  Well, my brits did guilt me into joining.  I’m certain the phrase, ‘we could keep in touch better if you joined facebook,’ was used once or twice, but really the fascinating and shocking (to me) thing is, I actually do like Facebook.  I like being able to keep up with my friends and family without having to talk on the phone (because I really hate talking on the phone) and I like seeing people’s pictures, reading funny updates.  I like the political debates that rage on different posts.  I like hearing what everyone is up to on a regular basis.

For all it’s merits though, I think the Facebook/MySpace phenomenon begs the question, what did we do before this?  I mean, I definitely talked on the phone in high school, but not any more than I do now.  Did we just not know what was going on in everybody’s day to day life?  Do we need to know that now?  I’m guess I’m wondering, did we have more friends or less?  Did we really know more people and now we just kind of know them, or did we know just as many people, but not as well?

The thing about Facebook is it’s a censored version of yourself.  I mean, we don’t get to go on there and say, ‘man, I had a crazy night.  Got drunk, did something stupid with someone I didn’t know, crazy night.’ or  ’God, that was some good weed!’  Our families get those updates, our parents, our aunts, our cousins.  No one needs to know things like that.  I don’t even tell my friends things like that.  At the same time, I think that Facebook affords us a look into the people around us.  We get to hear about their day (whatever part they choose to share), we get to hear about the random thoughts that appear in their heads, about the issues they choose to share.  And maybe that speaks more than anything else can.  Maybe just the feeling of being more connected is more important than whether we’re actually connected or not.

In any case, you can bet I’ll be fretting about what to write next.

Peace, Love and Facebooks,

Julia

So I have a confession to make.  It’s not easy for me to say, and you might not be that shocked, but I, Julia Rose Callahan, am a hipster.  Yep.  That’s right.  I’m coming clean.  I’m a hipster.  I love irony, I wear old clothes, I own records and I listen to NPR.

The term hipster has been bandied about for quite a few years now, and I’ll admit, when I first heard it I had no clue what it meant.  So let me define, in case you’re out of the loop.  Basically, a hipster is a young person, usually in a large city, who wears skinny jeans, ironic t-shirts, and greasy hair.  Men often sport obnoxious mustaches and mullets, women often also sport a mullet-like hairstyle.  Women are often seen sporting old granny dresses and sweater sets.  Tattoos are also a big part of hipster style, usually the tattoos are ill-planned and somewhat ridiculous, but funny.  Hipsters also tend to be smart, artistic and politically savvy.  They read, they listen to NPR, they can’t get enough of indie rock (though they only like the bands that you and I are too unhip to know about yet), and they love movies that are so bad they’re good.  (If you are in the Bay Area, hipsters are almost anyone under the age of 30 living in San Francisco, especially in The Mission).

You see, not only do hipsters like irony, they also like being the first of their kind to do anything.  Thus, they will often move into semi-dangerous neighborhoods and start the gentrification process that seems to be sweeping almost every urban area in this country (with the exception of Detroit).  Hipsters were the ones moving to Oakland when it was still super dangerous, they moved in to Brooklyn and Downtown Los Angeles, while they were still considered the ghetto.

But Hipster has had a negative connotation ever since I first started hearing it (all the way back in 2004).  As I moved into Los Feliz, arguably the most hipster neighborhood in Los Angeles next to Silverlake, six months ago, I started thinking about this phenomenon of Hipsterness.  Was it really all bad?  I mean sure, there is a vain element to it that I would not consider myself a part of (though I do have numerous tattoos and wear obnoxious jewelry), but really, hipsters embody a kind of ethos that I can’t say I’m opposed to.  In fact, I’m all for it.

Coming from a generation where Beavis and Butthead reigned supreme, it’s acutally kind of astonishing that many of us now pride ourselves on the vast knowledge we are able to acquire.  Sure, it can be annoying when faced with someone who knows fucking everything, but isn’t it better than having to deal with Bill and Ted all the time?

Above all this though, hipsters are also in to helping the envirnoment, they ride bikes and take public transit.  They shop local.  Basically, hipsters are the new hippies (and usually they smell better).

So all this being said, I’m claiming my identity as a hipster.  I’m embracing the ridiculousness of having a set of lips tattooed on my left butt cheek.  I’m embracing the fact that I love the soft lisp of Ira Glass.  I’m embracing the fact that I think a man with an ironic handlebar mustache is sexy.  I’m declaring myself a hipster in all its greatness and all its ridiculousness because of all the ridiculous things to be in our modern world, I think hipsters are the least ridiculous.

Peace, Love, and Represent,
Julia

So a few months ago I wrote about Glee, and what a great show it is, and the time is finally here.  After a long hard summer the Fall TV season is back (and thank God it is, there’s only so many reruns of CSI one can scroll by before gouging ones eyes out).  As I watch the sneak peeks available on iTunes, I started to realize what, exactly, Glee has done and they’re changing everything.  

The musical T.V. show is not a new thing, it’s been attempted a few times, and failed miserably every single time (I mean, who can forget Cop Rock, where cops actually broke into song).  The problem with this formula in the televisual format is the same that befalls sci-fi and fantasy shows: it’s hard for the vast majority of the T.V. watching public to suspend disbelief for 22 hours per season.  They can do it for a 2 hour movie or a 3 hour play, but to suspend disbelief for an entire season (let alone 6 or 7) is a completely different matter.  Sure, some of us are willing to take trips on the Enterprise for years on end or get up close and personal with demons and vampires, but pretty much all sci-fi/fantasy shows (excluding the X-Files) are cult hits.  

Glee, on the other hand, is poised to be a huge smash hit.  The pilot had 10 million viewers and buzz just keeps growing and growing.  So here’s what Glee does right, and why I can’t wait for Wednesday night: 1) it takes modern songs like Don’t Stop Believin’ by Journey, Rehab by Amy Winehouse, and Gold Digger by Kanye West and makes them show choir standards.  Along these same lines, Glee doesn’t go down the road of High School Musical or Cop Rock or any other musical for that matter, in that the kids don’t randomly burst into a fully choreographed song and dance number when they are blue or in love or in need of expression in some way, instead the songs come from the actual performing of the pieces.  It’s genius really, they avoid the ridiculousness of musicals and instead capture an audience of people who like the songs that are getting made over glee-style.  

2) Lea Michele’s character of Rachel Barry combines the best of any good drama dork with Tracy Flick (Reese Witherspoon’s character in Election).  She’s that oh-so-annoying girl that was always better than you at school, was always class president and got into a better university than you, but what she had in smarts and determination she lacked in social graces.  3) Glee is the anti-High School Musical that just might win over all the lovers and the haters at once.  I’ve written many many times about the atrocity of High School Musical, but this show has the potential to unite the two factions (plus, people actually make out and like, can act in Glee, imagine that).  

Basically, what we’re witnessing here folks is a potential change in Television.  It’s never been done before and it looks like it’s going to be a huge success.  Beware of next year’s t.v. season  when we see The Office: The Musical, Football: The Musical, and CSI: Broadway.  It’s all downhill from here.

Peace, Love, and Glee,

Julia

It’s hard to write feelings about an adventure immediately after you’ve experienced it, so forgive me for my tardiness in writing about my time in Italy, France and England.  I needed some time to let it soak in, to let the subtle changes in my person take over, to let the experiences guide me.  That sounds a little new age-y but I’m from Santa Cruz so I just can’t help myself.  

I always forget, when I travel for a long time, that the memories that stick with you aren’t necessarily the places you got to see, but the people you met along the way, the experiences you had, and most importantly for me, the development of the relationship between you and whoever you are with.  I went with Steve, one of my best friends from high school…one of the two people I still talk to from high school.  I won’t wax poetic about what a great friend he is, because he receives this and that’s kind of private, but I will say that a true friend sees you when you’re ugly and sweaty and injured and tired and generally miserable to be around and still loves you afterward.  A true friend also pours water on you when you’ve fallen down a mountainside and cleans up your cuts when you’re too shocked to do it yourself.

Steve and I started with lofty goals about our Italy trip, Vespaing around, hiking through, but in the end we decided to take the train and sometimes numerous buses between places and save the hiking for the non-life-threatening inner town places.  Basically, Italian roads are narrow and people drive fast…we didn’t really want to get killed on this trip.  Though that almost happened anyway, but more on that later.

When Steve first brought up the idea of him moving to Europe I started saving money.  The two of us have this long running unspoken agreement that we will visit each other no matter what crazy far off place the other is living.  Hence me ending up in India for a few weeks and him mozying around London and Paris with me.  I’m hearing rumblings that Indonesia might be my next trip, but nothing is confirmed yet.  Needless to say, when he said, Avignon, I said, okay…I’ll start saving money.  

I knew if I was flying to Europe I was going to go to London.  I haven’t been back in the five years since I lived there, and I have to say, I miss it terribly.  There were approximately three times where tears flooded my eyes and my throat closed up as I sat at LAX waiting for my flight, and another when I looked down at the uneven and often times insane looking patchwork of brown and green parcels of land that I remembered looking down on six years earlier, when I was moving to a new country and was a completely different person.  

Of course, being who I am, my two gay friends from London met me at arrivals…I like to have gay men meet me wherever I go, it makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside.  And throughout the first day, more of our friends arrived to meet me as we hopped from pub to pub. And shit, did I miss the British Pub.  American bars, even the divey ones where everybody knows your name, have nothing on the British Pub.  And going to an American bar for a beer at 3 in the afternoon is still somewhat socially unacceptable.  But at the pub, drinking in the afternoon has no bearing to alcoholic tendencies, it’s just about hanging out with friends.  

I won’t be too schmaltzy about how much I loved being in England again, but I will say that it felt like home.  The tears in the airport were a testament to how much England became my home, and my friends their an extended family, in one life-changing year.  In fact, as I was on the train back to London at the end of my trip, I had to keep reminding myself that I would have to fly back to Los Angeles the next day, that, in fact, I was not home yet.  And it ripped a small piece of my heart out that I had to leave.  (I’ll just take this moment to thank my English friends for letting me stay with them and say that I really truly loved seeing you all.  It meant more to me than you could know and I’ll be back soon…perhaps for another year or more).

Of course, staying with tradition, I had to have another of my gay harem pick me up at the train station in Avignon…again with the warm and fuzzies.  And so started the traveling part, in my mind.  Sure, London was part of my trip, but really it was about seeing friends, drinking with them, and bumming around London for 5 days.  It was being home.  Seeing as I speak almost no French, France felt more like traveling to me.  That sligtly panicky feeling when you have no idea where you are and can’t communicate with anyone washed over me as I sat at my station change in Lille.  Hordes of Frenchpeople, their hands teeming with Mickey Mouse dolls and other Euro Disney crap, passed by me speaking a language where I can only decipher ‘Do you speak English?’ and ‘Do you want to go to bed with me tonight?’  Luckily, a drunk Englishwoman (shocking) helped me find my way and I was off to Avignon…the city of popes.  

I rolled in at 8 PM to the cutest smiling face I’ve ever seen.  Practically jumping up and down to see me.  There’s something so special about having being the kind of friends who never loose that youthful, can’t-contain-myself-excitement, when you are seeing each other.  There’s also something to say about friends who can go a year without seeing each other and pick up right where they left off.  I feel pretty lucky to have that.  Steve, being who he is, took me on a Vespa ride almost immediately upon arrival.  Now, many of you may not know this, but I saw a motorcycle accident a few years ago (and almost ran over the cyclist as he crashed in front of my car) and have had a crippling fear of motorcycles since then.  That’s not to say that I don’t think they’re cool and so fucking sexy I can hardly stand it, but I do have a fear.  For me, Steve is the kind of friend that will push the limits of my comfort.  I mean this in a totally good way.  He can see that I’m scared of something (ahem, the eiffel tower) and will agree to hold my hand or be right behind me as he gently pushes me to do it.  There were a few times on our trip where this happened, but he never lets bad things happen to me and I always turn out okay.

Our first stop was Nice, where I swear, I half-expected F.Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald to come stumbling out of a Brasserie, martini glasses in hand.  This is where we started writing.  I’m going to admit that I have not reread anything I wrote.  All my observations are in a notebook on the floor of my room and will be typed up at some point, and hopefully turned into something amazing, but I wanted to do this completely from memory.  

For Steve, our trip started when we flew from Nice to Rome.  And this, I will say, is when the true adventure began.  First off, my Italian is rusty to say the least, so for the first week or so, I was barely communicating.  Luckily, people spoke English.  Secondly, we started calling Rome Dante’s Inferno (it was hot as hell and there were a shit-ton of tourists) and we started referring to our trip as the Sweating Through Europe Tour 2009.   But our collective misery bonded us.  The thing that gets romanticized about traveling in hostels through Europe for so long is that it’s not all the most fun you’ve ever experienced.  Sometimes you’re dirty and hot and sweaty and have a 20 lb backpack on.  You’re sleeping in a room with 6, 10, 20 people, you’re showering in a place where there is no privacy, you have to shit in one stall while 10 other people are surrounding you.  It’s not all sunshine and roses.  But the good parts, those are sooooooo good.  

Our first real encounter came in Rome, when we were trying to plan where the hell we were going to go in Italy (yeah, we started with 3 nights booked in Rome and nothing else).  It was the 4th of July and a drunk Arizonian came up to our table as we finished off our nightly bottle of wine.  He was one of those people that thrives on being on the outskirts of society.  I can’t say that I haven’t toyed with the idea, but the thought of being so vulnerable is somewhat frigtening to me.  He started talking to us about everything from how he was looking for a job here to how he smoked pot with a bunch of Englishman the other night.  This seemed to be a theme in the trip, American’s smoking pot, and they all asked us if we’ve ever smoked it.  Um, we’re two twentysomethings who are from California…please, do the math here folks.  

Rome, for all intents and purposes, is just the place you have to go before you get to the good part of Italy.  And man did we get to the good part.  When we showed up in Rome we had no plan for where else to go and ended up in some pretty awesome places.  I won’t bore you with a day by day, but I will say that there were places that looked like Romeo and Juliet’s stomping grounds, there were places that I got eaten alive by mosquitoes, there were places where we almost got eaten alive by tourists, and then there was the one person tent.  

Ah, yes.  Being the two yahoos that we can tend to be, we brought, what seemed like a large one person tent.  In fact, it seemed so large we decided that two people could fit in it.  Now, in our defense we did get in it before we left and it seemed perfectly fine for the two of us.  That is, until we actually tried to go to sleep in it.  On the muddy banks of the lago trasimeno, Steve and I basically spooned for about 45 minutes before realizing that there was no way either of us was sleeping at all…I’ll try to provide pictures of the truly comically small tent, but for now just use your imagination.  Of course, we were surrounded by European campers who don’t so much camp as bring an entire portable home with them so we looked even more like a couple of crazy Americans as we rolled up with nothing more than a back pack and a sleeping bag.  Steve in his Panamanian Drug Lord hat, me in braided pig tails and a skull and crossbones cowboy hat.  Um, yeah, we did not blend.  Of course the first night, after deciding that I’d be more comfortable under the stars was nothing like the second night, where a mean cold front came in and neither of us got a wink of sleep.  

The thing that’s funny about the two of us is that we’re musicians (that’s not the funny part) so when we were tired an sweaty and over walking with 20 lbs of shit on our backs, we would often break in to song.  I thought about that later, what a funny sight we must have been, two beet red American kids signing showtunes while walking to and from train stations, hefting heavy bags up steep hills.  It’s one of my favorite memories from the trip.

Of course, our other great funny adventure was my fall down a cliff (only funny because I did not end up killing myself which probably would have been slightly less funny).  So here’s the full story of the cliff fall.  

Steve and I stayed in a town called Biassa, right near Cinque Terre on our last two nights in Italy.  I’ve always wanted to go to Cinque Terre so that was one of our must see destinations.  As we got to the hostel, up on the side of a mountain right outside the National Park of Cinque Terre (we met a group of women on the bus ride up I started calling the Ya Ya Sisterhood on our way…but this story is better told in person, complete with screams and genteel southern accents), and checked in the Hostel clerk told us that it was possible to walk to the first of the five fishing villages of Cinque Terre, Riomaggiore, from the hostel.  

The next morning, being the two gung ho California kids we are, we thought, why take the bus when we can hike, so we set off up the road toward a trail head.  Of course, we didn’t know where the trail actually started so after questioning every small ravine off the side of the road we decided to continue on up to a summit, where the trail head was clearly marked.  And maybe, as we started down the defined trail, we should have sensed something amiss.  But the views of the crystal clear turquoise Mediterranean were too much.  The beginning of the trail made it abundantly clear that this was not used all that often.  Branches scraped our bare legs, and we definitely discussed needing to check for ticks when we got down to the village.  Finally, after about a mile the trail widened out and the overgrowth stopped being a problem.  It was around this time that the breathtakingly gorgeous views came into sight.  The sheer cliffsides, the terraced vineyards that lined the mountain all the way to its triumphant peaks, the small stone houses we passed complete with old Italian men looking over their grapes, testing their ripeness.  

Not more than five minutes after greeting one such a man, Steve and I were making our way down the trail, the side of which was unrailed and led down a steep down toward the Mediterranean.  I, of course, felt the need to comment on the fact that this could easily turn into a 90210 episode (you know, the one where Brandon and Dylan are fighting and Brandon falls down a cliffside, only to be saved by Dylan).  Surely enough, almost immediately after recounting that story, I stepped down on to what looked like a piece of trail, and the road fell out from under me.  I was not drunk, as I have been asked on numerous occasions, I did not trip, as I am known to do, the road simply ceased to exist and I went crashing down the hillside.  Lucky for me, it was a piece of hillside that was ripe with foliage because it stopped me from rolling down into the ocean.  

Hey all,
I’m back from Europe, definitely changed, maybe a little maimed, but refreshed and ready to keep writing. For those of you who have seen any updates on Facebook or have talked to me, or have not talked to me, here’s what happened. Steve and I were hiking down a dusty mountain trail in Cinque Terre and I stepped down and the road came out from under me, I then proceeded to tumble about 12 feet down the mountain. I’m fine, though still slightly bruised and my ankle is still swollen. I went to the doctor today who told me that I’m fine, but I’m not 16 any more and thus will heal more slowly than I used to. Great… Other than that slight hiccup, Steve and I had the time of our lives. I promise I will write a whole thing about that, but right now there is something else on my mind.

So, two days after flying back from Europe I made my way down to San Diego for Comic-Con. Yes, this convention of real nerds and the cool nerds alike, brings upwards of 130,000 people to the Gaslamp area of San Diego. Movie stars mix with fan boys and hot girls dress in gold bikinis; pretty much, everyone wins at Comic-Con. Everyone, that is, except the Twilight girls. Now, I find thousands of screaming teenagers as annoying as anyone else (though there is a sick part of me that wants to study why they feel the need to scream so loud for so long), and the phenomenon of the screaming teenager is not anything new (hi, Beatles, Elvis, Spice Girls, etc). I think what is so amazing about the Twilight phenomenon, and I know I’ve talked about it a lot, is that these kids are freaking the fuck out over a series of books. They’re freaking out more than Harry Potter fans ever did (I mean, sure, Harry Potter fans attended midnight book launches in full costume, but they were relatively demure and docile when it came down to it), and it’s all over books. I mean, as a bookseller, that’s enough to endear me to them right there. Sure, the books are not much more than pre-adolescent wet dreams, and I’m not saying they aren’t worth reading, but they’re a lot like crack. You know they’re bad for you, but you keep reading them anyway. Still, I’m on board with a series that will get this many people to read. THANK YOU STEPHENIE MEYER.

That being said, the movie Twilight phenomenon was kicked off at last year’s Comic-Con when a shocked cast of relatively unknown actors took the stage in front of 3,500 screaming girls. Homemade Team Edward and Team Jacob (you’ll know when you read it) shirts glittered in the lights of Ballroom 20 or Hall H, wherever they were, and the cast caught a first glimpse of what exactly they were dealing with. New Moon, the second of the Twilight books, which is being edited for a movie release date of November 20th, came back with a vengeance at this year’s Comic-Con. Much like Iron Man, the reaction last year, really fuelled this notion that what sells at Comic-Con sells in the box office. Many a movie has been made and broken at this Comic Book Convention and Twilight was another reason that studios send movies out there.

But this year was different. This year, the backlash was in full effect. Last year, people didn’t know what Twilight was. They knew there were a lot of teenage girls running around in glittery puffy painted shirts, but that’s not really out of the norm at Comic-Con, in fact, it’s celebrated. This is a convention where it is possible to see an army of storm troopers, clingons (that’s probably spelled wrong, forgive my Star Trek ignorance), Captain Jack Sparrow, and Superman in the course of one booth. This is a convention that embraces grown men who want to dress up in a darth vader costume and carry a light saber around all day; a convention that gets absolutely giddy at the thought of a woman dressed as Wonder Woman roping fanboys with a golden lasso. To be succinct, this is a convention that embraces what is otherwise thought of as weird or socially unacceptable in everyday life.

So I was actually a little shocked when I saw people (all young men) walking around with cardboard signs that stated simply, ‘Twilight ruined Comic-Con.’ In a way, I get where these young men are coming from. This is their convention, where they and others of their ilk can have endless discussions about whether Superman could really impregnate Lois Lane or whether his ejaculation is too strong and would tear a hole in her, therefore the only woman Superman could have a child with is Wonder Woman who has a strong enough uterus to deal with Supersperm. But really this hasn’t been their convention for some time. If you’re going to argue that Twilight ruined Comic-Con then you have to argue that Hollywood ruined Comic-Con (and many do) because really Twilight is only doing what so many before it have done. It’s creating a space for something that is somewhat culty, though fairly popular, to reign.

I hate to pull the gender card because I rarely believe that this is a factor, but I think the young fanboys are pissed that the young fangirls have out done them. They’re more excited, more ravenous for any bit of information that is given to them, and they’re becoming a major tastemaker. I think the young fanboys are threatened that the fangirls are proving their monetary worth to the movie studios and networks. One look at this years Comic-Con, premiering not only clips from New Moon but also from True Blood (southern vampires) and the new show The Vampire Diaries (teenage vampires), not to mention the daddy of vampire shows, Buffy the Vampire Slayer (which always makes a stake at Comic-Con, even though it went of the air years ago), shows that teen girls are a demographic the studios are catering to.

I’m a little saddened by this community of people that prides themselves on embracing ridiculousness and fantasy is not more supportive of Twilight. Sure, you don’t have to like it, but at least don’t hate on it. I mean, I’m not a huge Star Wars fan (in fact, I kind of can’t stand it), but I support it’s right to be at a place like Comic-Con. Like it or not, Twilight is sticking around for a bit, and these girls are making a little peice of pop culture history.

Peace, Love, and Acceptance,
Julia

There have been very few times in my young life where I have embarked on some kind of adventure or enterprise and been aware that that adventure or enterprise was going to change me deeply. Life is more a series of subtle, unnoticeable changes, accented by a select few large, noticeable changes, than a series of leaps followed by long stagnations. Leaving for college, moving to Europe, traveling to India, moving to Los Angeles, being present at both elections of George W. Bush, all of these experiences carried with them some sort of anticipation (whether good or bad), some sort of prior knowledge that after having those experiences I would be fundamentally different as a person in some way.

It’s a precarious, and often uncomfortable, position to be in, sitting on the deck of a ship looking at the horizon ahead, but not being able to anticipate the storms, the sharks, the white wales, that might knock into your ship along the way. And yet, though one may anticipate what changes will come, inevitably, as with any kind of change, the hypothesis are almost always off, not just off, but dead wrong.

I’ve been walking around in this anticipatory stupor for the last few weeks. An odd sense of overwhelming excitement combined with a fluttering nervousness has followed me around as I try in vain to get work done (I should be doing some right now), or do laundry, or clean, or pack. After a year of living like a monk (or well, maybe not totally like a monk) I’ve managed to save enough money to flit off to Europe for the next 27 days.

Unlike scores of American’s before me, I, with my best friend, will be hiking, scootering, camping, and roughing it through Italy and France (with a stop in London to see my beloved Brits). There’s something scary about just going to Europe without hostel reservations or safety nets, but something sort of thrilling about it too. Like maybe, for a few weeks, it’s still possible to live without the comforts of even an apartment that sometimes covers you with brown water or no water, that sometimes is so loud you can’t fathom how the world could create such cacophony. Sure there is something romantic and romanticized about roughing it, but there is also such a deep part of my own humanity that yearns to know I don’t need all these modern luxuries to live a life, to be a full person, that my humanity does not come from my job or my BlackBerry or my car or even my little writer’s apartment, that some part of the soul, no matter what life throws at it, soars in the face of unluxuriousness.

So until next time.

Peace, Love, and a Nine Hour Flight,
Julia

Treatise on New York
I tend to sit impatiently on airplanes, still waiting for the day that I can just be beamed places and don’t have to put in the hours to actually travel to distant lands. There’s something about knowing I’m either ending up somewhere exciting or going home that makes me antsy. Not to mention that, unlike a car ride, traveling on a plane is not half the fun of the trip. I check the weather out the window, look down at the patchwork of farm land that makes up the majority of the United States, read sporadically, watch tv or movies, listen to my iPod, any of the myriad of distractions afforded us in our modern technological age. So as I finally descended through the clouds into New York last Tuesday, I was nearly ready to jump out of my skin.

It has been ten long years since I stepped foot on Manhattan Island. The Twin Towers still stood, the city was still somewhat gritty and dangerous, and I was too young to really venture out that far on my own in the big, unknown city. At that point I had been studying maps of Manhattan for a year an a half, looking up the cool hangouts like CBGB’s and Gray’s Papaya Hot Dogs, dreaming of moving to the city of cities.

Of course, moving to New York City is expensive, not to mention the fact that my underage drinking schedule afforded me no access to NYU or Columbia, both of which I dreamed of going to. I plastered maps of New York City to the wall above my bed, studying how the grid of streets fit together and just imagining what the graffiti covered, piss stained walls would look like once I finally got to live there. I watched countless movies, television shows, and one particular play (ahem, Rent), hoping to gather any information about the city that had captured my imagination at the ripe age of twelve. I started reading Henry James, Edith Wharton, Dorothy Parker, Hubert Selby, Jr., and F. Scott Fitzgerald, trying to grasp a picture of a New York that had long since been covered up with sex shops and hipsters, but still lurked underneath the surface of Starbucks and H & M.

It was drizzling when I left the airport, skies grey and dreary. Having been in the too bright sunshine of Los Angeles just five hours earlier, the cloudy coolness of New York was a much welcomed change. That is one of the inherent quirks of living in a city where the sun shines most days of the year, it is a treat to experience rain. To feel cool drops on your face, to smell the musk of the air right before it starts soaking the sidewalk, cleaning away the grit of the city.

After hours of taxi rides to the hotel, checking in, and unpacking, I finally was able to venture out into my much dreamed of city. Two of my co-workers and I walked the two blocks to the subway and it all came flooding back. I missed New York, so deeply, so thoroughly that my entire body ached from it. The smell of the subway, the subtle scent of humanity lurking below street level, flooded my senses, memories from London, San Francisco and New York ran in a loop. Somehow all subways smell exactly the same, no matter what city or country they race under.

We got out at Bryant Park and walked two blocks to the famed Algonquin Hotel. The drizzle had all but stopped, still a slight chill remained in the air, a lethargic East Coast breeze cooled the air enough to require a thick sweatshirt. Even on a Tuesday night at 11:30 pm, the day after labor day, New York was bustling. People walking toward and away from Times Square, people drinking in darkened wood-paneled bars, looking like they’re from a different time.

Dorothy Parker’s presence permeates the old painted ceilings and big velvet chairs of the Algonquin Hotel. The hotel cat slinks around before settling on a luggage cart, claiming her thrown for the moment before moving on to a more private nesting place. The martinis are infamous here, known best for propelling the drunken wit of Robert Benchley, Alexander Woollcott, and of course, Dorothy Parker, among others. The bartender knows the stories of the Round Table, the deep cutting wit, the strong drinks, it all sets the tone for a week of publishing meetings and parties, where the ghosts of a publishing industry passed looms in the shadows.

Throughout the week, between work obligations, and many times during them, I found myself in all areas of the city, discovering what I had known on my first visit with my 8th grade cohorts, I belong to New York. A part of me isn’t at home unless it is eating pierogis at Veselka in the East Villiage, reading Henry James in Washington Square Park, or strolling through the heavily wooded ramble of Central Park.

There was never any doubt that I belonged most hungrily to Greenwich Village, that in my dreams, I live in a tiny old tenement apartment, one with an old wooden water tower still attached to the roof, where a century ago my Irish and Italian brothers and sisters hung laundry out the window and suffered through the disgusting summer heat to afford a life here in this land of promise. A certain part of me forgets that sacrifice without seeing the remnants of it every day. Still, the Village and its history of intellectualism, of artists and writers, musicians and poets, radiates a kind of passion that seems lost on the large sprawling boulevards of Los Angeles. Where is there to have an artist collective in L.A.? Only Venice can boast any kind of artistic integrity, and even that ended 40 years ago.

New York is a wholly encompassing experience. The sights, the sounds, the smells, they stick to a person, sinking their soft claws in until you have no choice but to give in to the magnetic pull. I don’t buy the pretentious, snobby New Yorker adage that L.A. is not a real city, and New York is the only city that matters because it’s a ridiculous statement, but still, there’s a certain magic to the fire escapes and rooftops, to the narrow cobblestoned streets and the wooden watertowers, to the tenement apartments that practically beg to sing West Side Story, that is just not present on the dusty broad streets of a too crowded Los Angeles. There’s something about New York that screams to be loved and used, to be worked and appreciated. And though I won’t say it’s the most important city in the world, it just might be the best.

Peace, Love, and NYC,
Julia