I can get you a copy for free if you want one

This is old news now, but the interview I did with Paz Vega for Genlux way back when is on the newsstands now. In fact, it's been on the newsstands for awhile - it's probably been pushed to the back of the rack to make room for the five-thousand magazines that have cover stories on that woman who had eight babies and already has something like fifty other kids at home.

This interview stands out for me in that it was the only one I was late for. Usually I like to get to the restaurant at least twenty minutes beforehand so I can test out my tape recorders, have a sip of wine and stuff myself with bread so that I can pretend to be a dainty eater once the interviewee gets there. Then I'll order a salad, or some sort of dish that consists of a coin-sized piece of fish and a couple of strings of spinach, and then pick at it for a few minutes before I go, "Oh, I'm so full. You know, I haven't eaten that much since I was 12."

But this time it was a crazy day, and I ended up flying into the restaurant around 15 minutes behind schedule. Paz was already seated, so I introduced myself, clunked my behemoth, 95-pound purse down and proceeded to set up for the interview. Unfortunately one of the first things I did was pull my iPhone out of my purse, but not before I noticed that there was a huge hunk of half-eaten Cliff Bar clinging to the bottom. I'm not sure, but I hear that's the sure way to show you're a professional journalist - pull out an electronic device that has a large piece of half-eaten foot affixed to it. It sort of says, "I'm so busy and on the road, I have to text and snack at the same time."

One of my favorite parts of the interview is where she talks about her dad being a bullfighter. I could tell it was something she was really passionate about, but I was a little worried about putting it in my final piece - I envisioned some animal-rights peoples showing up at the Genlux offices and smearing their door with bull blood, or worse yet showing up at my house and yanking my hamburger right out of my hand. But kudos to the editors for keeping it in the interview - I just wish they had kept the part in where I explain how I took that hunk of Cliff Bar and, without wrapping it, slipped it right back into my purse.

You can read the entire article here, once you've finished reading all those other magazine articles about the octuplets.

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tags: paz vega | genlux magazine | spanglish

12-years-old and already on tour with a rock band

I've written here before about Kira's intense obsession with the Ting Tings, an English band that got its big break when they were featured in an iPod commercial last year. We took the girls to see them in concert, and since then Kira's frenzy hasn't died down one bit. She spends an unhealthy amount of time chatting online with friends about the band, checking out their website and making lists of all the Ting Tings merchandise she's going to try to con us into buying for her. Lately I've been begging her to find something else to do, like hang out on the corner and chew gum like all the other kids at her middle school.

A few weeks ago she saw a bulletin on the Ting Tings MySpace page asking for original videos that the band could use on their upcoming European tour. They've done things like this in the past - used art as a way to get audience members and fans to participate in their shows. Kira was determined to enter, and came up with an idea for a video that involved our garage door and a huge stack of Post-Its. She asked Rigel to help but turns out he was merely a cameraman - at one point I think I heard him trying to tell her where to stand and she went all Christian Bale on his ass so he backed off.

Today Kira got an email from the lead singer herself, Katie White, telling her that they loved her video and that they would be using it on their tour, and that she would get a credit every night at the end of each show.

She's over the moon, of course, and we're so very proud of her. Here's the video - sorry for the poor quality, but I put some music to it and unfortunately my iMovie skills aren't up to speed. Kira assured me it was okay for now, and besides she's not paying me that much. Yet.



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tags: the ting tings | ipod commercial | itunes

LA Moms Blog: Flung into the mosh pit of teendom

Kira is about to turn thirteen in a couple of months, and I'm not looking forward to it. For one thing, it makes me feel old, and another thing is I saw a movie once where Evan Rachel Wood plays a thirteen-year-old who is playing with Barbies one day and the next day she's getting her tongue pierced and smoking pot and cutting herself and stealing money from her mom's purse and trying to seduce a lifeguard. And I thought to myself, "That could totally happen."

Five years ago a friend and I went to see the movie Thirteen. It starred Evan Rachel Wood as a seemingly well-adjusted thirteen-year-old who falls into the wrong crowd and is seduced by a world of drugs, sex and petty crime. At the time, my oldest daughter was seven and my friend’s daughter was five, but we both sat hunched in the theater, watching most of the movie through our fingers and horrified at what certainly would be our future. I think it was the first time ever that I didn’t finish my tub of popcorn, and we both sat frozen, occasionally turning to each other saying hysterical things like, “I’m totally going to check her for piercings!“ and “No sleepovers ever!” Forget Saw, or Halloween or any of those other horror movies; this was hands down the scariest film I had ever seen.

As you can imagine the movie didn’t let up in its gloomy portrayal of teen life. And as we all know, Wood went on to date Marilyn Manson, and then was recently seen locking lips with Mickey Rourke. Oh wait – that was in real life. Doesn’t matter – by the end of the movie my friend and I were convinced that the only sane choice we had was to invest in a couple of sturdy chastity belts and lock our girls in the house until they turned 30...Read More...

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tags: thirteen | teenagers | teens | chastity belts

Doing our part to stimulate the economy

Rigel and I were reading in bed the other night, and Kiyomi came barging in waving a can with a Post-It attached. She likes to do this, barge in while waving things around, so we didn't think much of it until she said this:

Okay, listen up, people. Here's a cuss jar. Everytime you swear, you have to pay! And I'll even be listening after I go to bed. I need to make some money.

We don't swear much around the kids, but they're tweens after all and it's been hard holding it in for the past 12 years. So maybe we've become a little lax lately and have let a few choice words slip here and there. Especially when things happen, really bad things, like the cat taking a big crap on our bed, or when I accidentally ironed my arm.

So I can understand a 10-year-old trying to seize the opportunity to make a little extra cash. But because Rigel and I are smartasses, this is what we said:

Me: I'm not putting one damn dime in that can.

Rigel: Stop bothering me with this shit.

Seriously, could you have resisted? We did fork over the 25¢ though.