Designer luggage

Flipping through a fancy-pants fashion mag, I happened upon an Annie Leibovitz photo of Angelina Jolie drifting down a Cambodian river, accompanied by only her Louis Vuitton travel tote. 

Bitch, please. 

Sit too close to the edge and that Alto bag is a croc’s snack bag.

I don’t care how rich you are, crazy expensive designer luggage seems as ill-advised as buying a mansion built on quicksand.

Total money pit.

At some point, darling, you’re going to have to check that shit and if history has told us anything, it’s that baggage handlers and the cargo hold are not kind to luggage. And a Louis Vuitton steamer trunk is like waving a red flag in front of a bull. Those dudes are going to head straight for it and play kick the can. Sure, it’s sturdy and exquisitely made but it’s a suitcase. It’s suppose to encase your suit and protect your fabulous belongings, not be one of them.

Leave such gross excess to the likes of Karl Lagerfeld and his pets, you know, mammals we can all get behind hating. 

(photo: upscalehype.com)

Presenting...The TIWTPITF Book Trailer!

Ta da! In the works for a few months, I'm excited to finally share the trailer for Things I Want to Punch in the Face. I collaborated with the very talented Joni Blecher to create this video, offering up a pupu platter of favorite entries to convey the flavor of the book. Actress Susan Harmon lent her outraged, snarky voiceover talents to the project, and publisher Colleen Dunn Bates and agent Joy Tutela offered their input. If you like it, please repost or pass it along! Thanks!

Today is amazon order day!

I've always said that writing a book is only half of my job. As an author, it's also my responsibility to do everything I can to promote, market, and handsell each title for optimal sales performance (without, hopefully, alienating everyone around me).

To that end, we've set today as the amazon order date; ordering one or several copies on this date will help amazon's algorithmic ordering system to take notice of the book. I'm also setting up Punch Parties in Seattle, LA, and beyond (see the column at right), where you can participate and share and air your own grievances. We are reaching out to long-lead media for hits in publications, on radio, and online.

I think we've got a shot at getting this particular book into a lot of hands (that's my cautiously optimistic way of saying we could sell a buttload of books). I've been overwhelmed by your support of the book and willingness to spread the word. So consider ordering one or several books today from amazon, order it from your local bookseller, or recommend it to a cantankerous, malcontented, snarky friend. I'll be forever grateful (and will place you on the short list of things never, ever to punch in the face).

TIWTPITF Haiku Deck

The talented marketing whiz Catherine Fisher Carr of Secret Sauce Creative (follow her @MamaTweeta) created this awesome Haiku Deck for the book's publication.



Haiku Deck allows you to create cool meme-like slideshows on your iPad. Even better, when you key in your text, it will pull high-quality, Creative Commons-licensed photos for you to choose from. Rad.

Restaurants that don't put salt on the tables

Saturday, I had the most amazing meal at the newest hot spot in town. Brick walls, warm candlelight, waiters with Ira Glass eyewear and corresponding attitude, hour-long waits. You know the place.

This time, the food lived up to the hype. We ordered the tasting menu and soon, a dizzying array of appetizers hit our table, followed by homemade spaghetti. Then came two entrees, one of which was pork cheeks, a dish that will dance through my dreams. Two desserts brought up the rear and went straight to my rear.

All in all, a perfect evening.

Well, except for one tiny little thing that forced me to bust out a four-letter word.

Salt.

Much like my personality, my palate runs toward the salty side. While I usually order dishes based on how the chef wants them prepared, I also want the right to season my food to my palate's preference. I want to sprinkle bread with sea salt after I dip it in olive oil. I want to add a pinch to the Bolognese sauce, which, while full of flavor, was a little too Healthy Choice for my taste buds.

But there was no shaker or cellar in sight. Like a napkin and silverware, salt on the table should be a given. Don't make me ask for it and don't arch your judgmental foodie eyebrow at me when I do. While I may be rubbing salt in the wounded ego of Chef Fancy-Pants, it's definitely preferable to punching you where your taste receptors don't shine.

(photo: luxist.com)

Facebook's Timeline

While I'm no maverick, I don't want Mark Zuckerberg's programatons dictating my use. I chafe against being herded toward the promised land of social media. But on August 25th, I'll have no choice but to become cyber cattle. And unlike Sarah Palin, I can't go rogue.

As someone farther along on the OCD path than most, I like to organize...a lot. And I don't cotton to some chump developer's idea of organizing and classifying information for my supposed benefit and ease of use. I can work with chronological dumping on my Wall, listing posts and messages with the most recent on top, the way it's been displayed up to now. That makes sense. That should have been called Timeline.

Bitching about Facebook changes is nothing new. But it's new to me. I've figured that Facebook, as a free social network, has the right to do whatever it wants. I still do. But it's finally gotten my goat because, like  multi-line slot machines, Timeline doesn't make sense. I don't understand the logic behind it, and that causes me agita. Why is my friend's comment showing up in the right-hand column? Why are there two columns to begin with? Why are some things and not others listed in my Recent Activity? What if I don't want people to see what I've been listening to on Stitcher? And for the love of Tim Berners-Lee, why is the cover photo taking up so much real estate? Most of us aren't good enough photographers to take really sharp, well-composed photos, let alone ones that are wildly landscape in their dimensions. I'm a words person and I would much prefer that space to be utilized in a more meaningful way than showing one big-ass blurry snapshot that's supposed to sum me up in a glance.

Fuck you, Timeline, and your activity log, too.

Have you liked TIWTPITF on Facebook? There's a lot of good conversation going on there, if you can figure out where to look.

Books as décor

In light of today's Lauren Conrad's craft video controversy, I thought I'd repost an oldie but goodie.

"The more that you read, the more things you will know. The more you learn, the more places you'll go." — Dr. Seuss

You are what you read.

At least that’s what I hoped, when I was rocking Dr. Seuss as a five-year-old or Jane Austen as a 30-something lady.

But some folks don’t care what they read. They use books as props, buy or rent them by the foot from various companies, who will select them by color, style, or subject for you. I’ve even seen a company that sells you blocks of books that have been glued together, apparently to make it easier to move when dusting. And heck, they’ll always be lined up perfectly.

I just threw up a little in my mind.

My bookshelves offer a snapshot into my history, my interests, my (now vomit-covered) brain. They reflect my intellectual DNA (yes, even the Betty & Veronica collection) and it’s hard to imagine viewing my books only as squares and rectangles of color to accent my home. I’ve even seen books arranged spine IN, to create a swath of white along the shelves. I was confused. How are you supposed to figure out what book to read? Oh, right. They aren’t there to be read. They’re there for me to knock some Sense and Sensibility into your head.

(photo: today.com)

Push presents

I don't have kids. But I suspect if I was squeezing a baby out of my hoohah that that I'd focus on a short wish list, namely to 1) inflict some pain on my baby's father and 2) get a big fucking reward for my labors.

But then, as I held my little bundle of joy, I'd realize that my gift is wrapped in a blanket in my arms, not in a Tiffany ring box.

Push presents—gifts men give to their baby mamas—are increasing in popularity, as if people didn't have other things to spend their dough on, like diapers or postpartum clothes for your thinner frame. Speaking of skinny, Rachel Zoe received a 10-carat Neil Lane diamond ring for delivering Skyler. While it does seem miraculous that she was able to carry a baby to term with her Skeletor frame, a bauble like this is just downright icky. This sort of gross excess is one of the reasons why the rest of the world hates us. Well, that, our massive medal count, and Snooki (who, by the way, is asking Jionni for a gorilla-sized smoosh present for her mini-meatball).

Receiving a spendy gift that says, "Hey, nice womb!" or "Sorry the condom broke!" seems, shall we say, overkill? I don't know about you but I'd rather have the following gifts from my guy:

• middle of the night baby duty
• early morning baby duty
• midday baby duty
• round-the-clock diaper duty
• massage upon demand

Keep your fucking tennis bracelet and let me sleep through the night.

(photo: blog.emitations.com)

Blue Man Group

Yes, I realize I’m about six years behind the times in punching these bluebloods, but Blue Man Group needs to be punched until they’re black and blue in the face and my fist is lousy with greasepaint.

Like any freak show with rhythm, BMG has gone Vegas, not to mention spawning regular gigs at Universal Orlando and Norwegian Cruise Lines. They also have a show in Berlin. No surprise there; turtleneck-loving Germans have been in desperate need of alternative programming to vaterland darling David Hasselhoff since the Wall came down in 1989.

And BMG fits the cheeseball bill. Bald blue men in turtlenecks performance art their way through multimedia musical spectacles that, in and of themselves, are breathtaking. These dudes don’t talk; they just look at you with a blank robot stare as they go about their post-modernist business of whacking paint-splattered drums.

I’m nervous. Like Tribbles, these alien blue queues are multiplying in numbers before our very eyes. Pretty soon, there will be legions of bald blue men marching around the streets of cities worldwide, shooting things out of tubes at innocent passersby while cocking their heads quizzically.

This will not do. I want to rack these blue balls up and send them flying. When I do, you might just hear me mutter, “2 ball in the corner pocket.” I’m nothing if not a ball-buster. 

(photo: triangleartsandentertainment.org)

Books have arrived!

My box of TIWTPITF advances arrived today and I couldn't be more tickled. They look great and I can't wait to see them in stores and more importantly, in your hands. To that end, I wanted to urge you to mark your calendar; we've set August 23 as the pre-order date on amazon. 

Amazon orders books based on an algorithm and the more books sold in one concentrated time period will help us get on their radar. While my preference is for you to order gobs of copies from your local indie bookstore (which you can do here at IndieBound), I realize everyone loves a bargain and at $6.49, you can buy four on amazon and get free shipping and your holiday gifts well under way. And that's not something to punch in the face.

White Zinfandel

How can I swallow such a blatant lie? I’m not nearly drunk enough to think that the misnomer that is this silly pink wine is white.

Color blindness, however, is the least of its problems. White Zinfandel is wine with training wheels, a transitional beverage in the no-man’s land—seriously, no man would drink this—between a wine spritzer and a crappy bottle of wine with off-the-chart sugar levels.

The French manicure of wines, this varietal is sipped by real housewives who insist they are “classy” while tipping tables and pulling each others’ weaves. Tickled pink I am not.

(photo: inclinespirits.com)