National Kokomo Day

Synesthesia is where your senses blend and you can see music or smell colors or hear your broccoli. Well I propose there be something called Nauseasthesia to describe the condition where whatever song is cycling through your head when you're sick makes you feel like you're going to puke. Or am I the only one? Whenever I get sick the illness tends to feature one song prominently. I'm sure I've written before about the Great Flu of 93 Starring Rush's Big Money? It may have been 92 or 91 actually but there was an unfortunate rhyme. Anyway, earlier today "Kokomo," which has been in my head since we talked about it yesterday in Canada (it was national Kokomo Day) was threatening to make me vomit (Ok fine, it wasn't national Kokomo Day. We were talking about classic TV families on Switch and Full House came up and we talked about that episode with the Beach Boys. Actually one of my co-panelists mentioned the Beach Boys and that Full House episode in the green room and then when we were shooting she didn't mention it so I said something like "Weren't you saying how awesome it was that the show featured the Beach Boys?" or maybe I said preposterous instead of awesome or maybe I just turned to her wearing a lei and making a mai-tai as a way to jog her memory. Anyway, the point is that I'm kind and saintly, obviously) And the lights in this room certainly weren't doing my wonders for my Island loathing gag reflex. I had to get to a cool dark Kokomo-less place, preferably not on Key Largo or Montego.

So I repaired to my boudoir, which I've never called a boudoir before and I've certainly never "repaired" to, and took a nap. Before falling asleep I had a vivid dream-but-I-wasn't-yet-asleep where an interior decorator came to my living room (yes, I'm still thinking about this) and advised me to put a "chair with a sofa bed" in one corner and "a tablespoon" in the other.

Fred will be so jealous

Because I agreed to do Red Eye on Valentine's Day. I plan to wear red. Or just a diaper while holding love's bow and arrow. Take the high road on that one please.

Also, speaking of Fred, despite my plans to stay home hanging with my houseplant while working on new moves to fold in (seamlessly, of course) to my competitive ice dancing routine, I just put in a full day at Page Six Magazine, where I'm acting as senior editor for a bit. I worry the ice dancing will suffer, is the thing.

Also, I felt that moment where I realized the lobby, which has always been about Red Eye for me, is about to become about Page Six for me. Does that make sense? And then some day I'll go to do Red Eye and it'll be like going to do a show in the building where I work or once worked, as opposed to now, where I'm still flummoxed by the elevators. "I'm going to one, are you going to one?" a man asked me today, by the elevator bank. I just stared at him, dumbfounded, as if he were speaking a foreign language which I once knew. Then I began drooling. The thing is that I've always prided myself on my ability to discern up from down—left and right not so much—and so if I lose that one I will be directionally challenged in 360 degrees, which is really going to suck. Some other sense will just have to overcompensate. Hopefully a useful one, like my sense of humor. Or my sense of which peppers are spicy. Or my sense of which movies are going to suck, except I really made a judgment error when I dragged my mom and sister to see Out to Sea.

How I feel about having put in my two weeks notice

Elated and then scared and then exhilarated and then freaked out and then peppy and then nervous and then jumpy and then hesitant and then bucolic and then urban and then sinuous and then puffy and then viscous and then runny and are you still reading this? I stopped awhile ago. Also, I wrote my favorite ever Red Eye intro that won't ever see air, and for good reason probably, since it's highly offensive. But anyway: "[She's so smart] if brains were a baptismal, I'd put a baby in her in church."

Crapload of clips (from a bunch of shows)

Look, it's ME-bonanza! A festival of ME! A ME-palooza! A Me-varee! A ME-ding! A ME-splosion! I could keep going. Also, completely unrelated, I was thinking lately how much I enjoy brainteasers and riddles and things so if you know any, leave them in the comments!

Four truths and a lie

Alright, because you guys have asked, I'll do this again and make it a little harder:

a) When I was six I wanted to be a psychiatrist
b) Sometimes I say mirror when I mean window and vice versa
c) I collect puppets
d) I hate horror movies
e) I love the smell of laundry

It wasn't even a picture book!

"One of the least attractive personality combinations is arrogance mixed with insecurity," writes Gretchen Rubin of The Happiness Project, in a post about humility. It's so simple and yet profound that I thought I'd repeat it here.

In other news, I finished a whole book yesterday which is notable because I hardly ever finish book anymore since I ... what was I saying? Exactly. It was Steve Martin's Born Standing Up and I'd recommend it for anyone who finds themselves thinking about performing, comedy and the nature of performing comedy. He lived in Orange County for awhile, which I didn't know. Also, he described the time of his life when he was most in the public eye as when he was most alone, which I can relate to, not in a tears of a clown kind of way but in the sense that I've identified this somewhat reclusive streak in myself and the more I spend time on air the less I feel the need/desire to perform socially, which somehow results in my wanting to spend a lot of time at home. I suspect there's something off there: that obviously there is a way to be social without performing, but sadly I think I'm a bit confused on that front and moreso as I get older. That said there are plenty of people I can be myself around, but I'm still slightly—like just a hair—more myself when I'm alone.

It's occurring to me now that it might appear that these two paragraphs are related but they aren't intended to be.

Weird

How odd is it that just when I say I need my comments, they get stuck in some comment holding place? Some comment purgatory? Some comment queueueueue? I think it's weird. And it makes me feel powerful. I just haven't figured out how yet to harness that power. So I have a post banging around in my head about how people keep confusing me with Julia Allison (and her with me) and yet I can't quite bring myself to write it for fear of exacerbating the situation or appearing to somehow want to glom on to her internet popularity. In fact, I think the whole phenomenon of her (and it's likely just a local thing) is something warranting some kind of boring academic semiotics based discussion and yet I won't do it, because I don't want to be responsible for any attention about the attention (meta-attention? metattention? blech), good or bad. But I will say that at first it was just fan letters and the occasional question that had nothing to do with me ("You're really good friends with Rachel Sklar, right?" to which I'd say "No, you're thinking of Julia Allison.") (I've also received questions about Halloween costumes I had no intention of wearing, compliments on my HD debut, questions about why I hadn't been on Red Eye lately when I'd been on the night before, etc. I don't know what she gets about me, but she told me she's gotten mail meant for me. But then a Fox security guard told me he gets us confused because "you look just like each other" which takes this to a whole new level because I thought it was the name and the TONY association plus maybe the dark hair. So, that's weird, because looking like her is very much not how I see myself, though I'm becoming more and more aware that I don't see myself as I appear. Um, I lost my train of thought. Okay then!

Today was a weird day

It just was. I filmed a pilot for a show about people obsessed with movies which is cool, except I'm obsessed with TV and so I kept making TV references when talking about movie actors. Some of my best, and by that I mean some of my worst were reminding everyone that George Clooney played George the handyman on Facts of Life and that Jason Bateman got his start on It's Your Move. The mindf*ck of the whole thing was that they told me there would be hair and makeup but there was just makeup so I went into the bathroom and attempted to do my hair myself using techniques I've seen them use and I managed to come out with it looking exactly the same if it's possible to both look exactly the same and yet somehow a little worse.

Then tonight I did Red Eye which is always fun except I feel like I may have wasted a lot of time leading up to a joke that sure sounded funnier in my head than out loud. And for the record, I don't really have body parts in petrie dishes that I keep in my apartment and even if I did, they wouldn't be the first thing I'd grab in a fire. At the end I did a little skit thing though, so that was fun. Or maybe it was more a "bit"? Now I have to go to sleep so I can wake up in a few hours.

On the way home

from TV this morning I started thinking that maybe I should try to do stand up, since, well wait, I should back up. The other night after Red Eye, Jim, whose full name is "Jim in audio," because that's how he introduces himself into the earpiece before telling me I have to move my hair because it's hitting the mic, asked me if I'd done stand up recently. I said no, and that he was confusing me with Julia Allison who I think did some kind of something or other recently. He said that he was pretty sure he wasn't because she wouldn't do stand up and I said I know, but I think she did, and then he asked if I was sure I didn't and I said I was sure but I really should because it seems like something I would do, right?

Did you possibly follow that? I barely did. Anyway, on the walk home which was quite cold I might add, I started thinking of jokes for a stand-up routine and I think they were maybe funny but then I came home and took a nap and now that I'm remembering them, I don't know if they're really funny. Or maybe I'm already jaded. I mean, I appreciate humor, I just don't think it's funny. I mean, I get what I'm trying to do there, I can see the effort, but I'm not going to pretend with myself because that's not what I look to myself for. I mean, don't get me wrong, me, I think it's amusing, I just don't know if I'm going to laugh. I mean, it's not that I've heard it before, because I certainly haven't, but I've heard similar, or if not similar, well, funnier. Not that it's always about humor, sometimes it's about being funny. Which I am. Just not, well, in that way.

Wake up with me

Because your ardor for me is matched only by your curiosity, you're likely wondering what my mornings look like. Well I'll tell you. Every morning I wake up with the intention of going to the gym before work. Half the time I actually go, even if I end up riding the bike because it's the one machine I can essentially sleep on while exercising. I call it sleepercizing. The other half of the time I press snooze repeatedly until the window for 1) going to the gym closes 2) taking a shower and washing my hair closes 3) taking a shower and not washing my hair closes 4) taking a shower at all closes. I'm surprised I even change clothes to go to work, and don't think I haven't been tempted to just wear pajamas. There was a time when I used to wear make up and look stylish every day at work but that folly is behind me. Plus the more you're on TV the more it begins to feel like your real life and your real life feels more like downtime and it's all very confusing. I hope that doesn't sound as affected as I fear it might. But back to this gym thing. One of my motivators for going in the morning, which is always painful, is to change into my gym clothes and then let myself get back into bed for a little while knowing I'll really go in 10 minutes but lately I can't even do that! Anyone have any tips for making themselves workout before work? Share, won't you?

Best Bets 8-11-07

UPDATE: Red Eye 8-3-07 WITH MORE LINKS

Hello readers. Did you see me in the Post? And Gawker? It's been a strange day. Anyway, here's this:

Red Eye photos UPDATE: link added

You'd be amazed what you can find when you spend a considerable amount of time scouring the internet for pictures of yourself. Wait, did I just say that? What I meant to say is that you wouldn't believe how time flies when you're teaching young children how to read. Also, here are some photos PLUS A LINK TO A CLIP:






And then an older one I found:

Vlogs

I posted this on myspace but now I'm posting it here because I still can't figure out how to manage these blogs and what I should be posting where and stuff. But anyway:

So Ethan and I do these Vlogs at work when the EIC is unable to do them. I don't always post them because they're kind of hard to find but if you go to this link you can see the most recent oneand then if you go to timeoutnewyork.tv you can scroll through and find others. Also, some time ago I hosted an bookcase buildoff at an Ikea in Paramus New Jersey for a story we were doing and if you go to TONY EXCLUSIVES and then Ikea bookcase buildoff it's there. And there's some other stuff too, single in the city, service in the city and some interviews from the Black Snake Moan premiere.