Syndicated Column

DIANE FARR has just begun a nationally syndicated column in Herald Tribune Newspapers replacing Dave Barry. For further comments on the pieces also visit Tribune Media Services

Recession Tips From a Sometimes Unemployed Actor

Last modified on 2012-05-09 13:39:53 GMT. 7 comments. Top.

I began auditioning for acting jobs at the ripe old age of twelve. Thirty years later, including a fifteen-year run on television, I sometimes just get offers for work. But at others I am still required to run, Pell Mell around Los Angeles or New York, interviewing for film and TV roles.

I’ve put in much more than the 10,000 hours Malcolm Gladwell suggests would make you an expert in any field – including the field of job interviewing – so perhaps my fellow underemployed Americans would appreciate a professional actor’s (read: continual interviewee’s) tips about keeping your confidence intact when hustling for work, as auditions are tougher than you might think.

An audition is actually the delivery of a full performance – without the benefit of props, costume, professional hair styling or make up. Or pay. It also must be delivered while balancing ten pages of script and seeming like your not just pretending while you are performing alongside someone who is just pretending as they just a hired “reader.” All this is done in front of a firing squad of hiring types who openly judge me as I pour my heart out with someone else’s words – which could easily crush your confidence.

Yet, that is not the spirit crushing part of my job interview. That’s just the “art” part.

The real confidence test at my job trial starts long before when I receive “the sides” – a phrase from a century ago when Hollywoodland lacked email, fax, photocopiers or even dittos with that wonderfully weird ink smell. In the days when secretaries’ typed each script actors only received “their side” of the story – which encompassed the scenes they were in.

Today we are often gifted the entire story to read before an initial meeting with producers or casting people. Sometimes the reading is great; more often it is a chore that takes about an hour. However, when the script is deemed “too important” for actors to read it in advance of their auditions – you spend way more than one hour figuring out what the hell is going on in the scene you are asked to bring to life.

When I begin the work on the five to twenty pages of dialogue in my sides that I am asked to learn and regurgitate with charm – I have to pull out my emotional baggage, to give it to a character. Depending on the type of artist you are that takes somewhere between 15 minutes and 10 hours. Professional coaches are often hired and paid by the hour to do this. Or if you are a studied actor, fellow thespians will be called in to practice and or direct you to this dark/vulnerable/funny place, which may end up costing you more when you are asked to return the favor.

Onto the day of the audition, I imagine that men spend 15 minutes preparing their face, shoes, clothing and car to get to the audition. That is enviable to me as a female since my hair, makeup, and wardrobe must meet prom night standards. This plus commute time equals a minimum two-hour commitment for all actresses, regardless if you like to play dress up or not.

Then there is the first hour after the audition which years of experience will teach you is the only one you should ever allow yourself to think about this potential job because if you will be offered it, you will get that call within that hour.

Sadly, new actors (meaning anyone younger than Betty White) will spend much more than one hour hoping and overanalyzing the audition and themselves. This process will not help you land this job and can crush your chances for the next. At the very least we will do this until an agent or director or friend in the project gives you “feedback.”

Feedback is a gentle word for someone else’s opinion of why you didn’t get the job.

This self-flagellation will certainly be revisited when we eventually see for ourselves, who got the job I spent at least 3 hours on. And after many decades in the business, you’ll probably know this person. Which is it’s own special penance.

In summary, here are the Clift notes after putting myself through this insidious job-fetching process for longer than Lindsay Lohan has been alive:

Do your homework. Whether that’s understanding the script or the company you might work for. And if the job’s important to you, invest some money in your prep or intel as you are worth the investment.

Look appropriate for the job, in a way that makes you feel good, but don’t try to reinvent yourself. Reinvention is easier when you have an income to support it.

The interview itself should be the shortest and therefore easiest part of the process. Think of it like a first date that will be over and gone before you know it – so don’t save your best stuff for next time or there won’t be one.

Start the clock the minute you walk out the door and only allow yourself the next hour to think about everything you just did from prep to curtain call. And if by chance you later hear who got that job you put time and energy into – – wish them well. Someday you will get the right job for you and all those good wishes may work as a force field when the playa haters turn on you.

(Diane Farr is an actress and author. Her second book, “Kissing Outside The Lines,” is a comic look at interracial marriage in America and available at http://amzn.to/kisslines. You can find all her writing at www.GetDianeFarr.com, or follow her at www.twitter.com/getdianefarr or www.facebook/getdianefarr.)

Jet Blue-in’ It

Last modified on 2012-05-09 13:36:12 GMT. 5 comments. Top.

What exactly are the airlines doing to their flight staff?

Multiple theories abound about why stewardesses have replaced nuns in Catholic schools from the 1970’s as the forbidding people standing over you when you just want to go to the bathroom. The general attitude of the flying staff has gotten markedly and consistently harsher over the past decade, seemingly in direct relationship to their jobs becoming more militant. We’ve heard about the pay cuts, the longer hours, the shorter turnarounds for pilots and crew members. Which is enough to ruin morale for any employee.

Take Steven Slater, JetBlue steward who last year went on a cursing tirade over the loudspeaker and disembarked before the passengers by inflating the emergency slide and storming out of his twenty year career, on his backside, with a couple of beers from the flight deck in hand. Slater immediately came to my mind when I read about last week’s JetBlue pilot who had to be restrained by his own first officer and bolted outside the cockpit door after he began screaming about a bomb on the plane he was flying. Flight attendants and passengers had to hold him down while a passenger who happened to be a pilot made an emergency landing in Texas.

These incidents could make you wonder if JetBlue keeps their prices so low by hiring the airline workers who were rejected for employment by other airlines for feeling blue themselves. But I’ve had the opportunity to take more than ten flights in the last year on most American carriers and can say that no one working on any plane seems particularly happy these days.

Could this have something to do with what seems to be an industry-wide plan to transform the flight crews image from that of someone in service to the paying customer, to the security guards of the aisle? Even though none of the other trappings of their job has changed – as they are still responsible for pouring us wine and collecting our trash? Given the service requirement of their job, it would seem obvious that the flight crew is not really in the best position to be the heavy on board.

Could it be this pressure to literally both “serve and protect” the downtrodden and recently abused passengers (who just paid extra to check bags and yet aren’t allowed to carry anything they might need on board, and who have been at the airport for hours and yet probably won’t be fed in flight) that is doing the flight crews in emotionally? It certainly seemed so to me on a particularly busy three-week run when I actually flew once in every class. The one thing that was the same in each level of flying, was that all passengers seem to be suspect to the crew until proven otherwise.

Like when you ring the call button for an attendant only to find it has been rendered about as useful as the ashtray next to it. Not only is it regularly unanswered, but touching seems to profile you. It may even cause one of the many not-so-gentle announcements that the crew is primarily in place to ensure safety. However, when I look at the flight attendant up close, after going to her station myself to get a mere cup of water – which was inevitably during the unending “wrong” time of the flight -most are still wearing makeup and a form-fitting dress. I hope a terrorist act never happens in the air again—but if one should, the hairsprayed lady in a two-inch heel is not the person I’m putting my confidence in.

Rather, I’m looking for the angriest traveler who was forced to give up his toothpaste, baby formula, aftershave or any other clearly non-dangerous, possibly expensive, personal product because someone at security couldn’t digress from the script. My money is on that guy wrestling down the bad guy much faster than the underpaid, overworked, self-tanning beauty who’s giving me an attitude.

Since airline companies heavy handidly use the word “safety” to intimate the possibility of a terrorist act whenever they are removing a service that coincides with them saving money, I’m not fully believing that kindness and safety couldn’t go hand in hand if the employees of all airlines were treated better. In fact, it seems that lifting the industry wide rule that cabin crew employees cannot accept tips post the horror of 9/11, could change the employees’ interest in doing their job with the jouie de’vie we all used to enjoy.

Perhaps if airlines would invest a small portion of the savings they’ve made since cutting food, silverware, movies, and checked bags on all domestic flights, back into their staff – perhaps by hiring someone specifically there to monitor safety who is not required to sell food, I’m sure it would be more cost effective than all the public relations required to quiet the press storm when one of their disgruntled employees loses it.

Why you have a crush on Jeremy Lin

Last modified on 2012-02-27 23:11:28 GMT. 10 comments. Top.

I hadn’t watched a basketball game since Patrick Ewing was kicking butt up and down a New York court. And even then, I was really only watching to see Pat Riley guide all the giant men under his watchful eye in the mid-’90s because he wore an Italian suit fabulously and I wanted him to pick me out the crowd and make me his leading lady.

Twenty years later, I’m watching Knicks games again for the newest star on the hardwood floor because, like the rest of America (and probably most of Asia), I’m totally charmed by Jeremy Lin’s story.

Why does so much of the world have a crush on Lin? Setting aside the whole “Asian thing” for a minute, here’re the top three reasons:

We’ve all been benched at least once in our lives when we were sure that if given just one more chance, we could have pulled out that sixth gear and shocked the whole world as we took down Kobe! And now we have proof that we were right.

Plus, just about every mother and father in this country hopes their son or daughter might work hard enough to get into Harvard and be able to play the game they love while there. In this ideal scenario, upon graduation, our children are free to try their hand at a dream job, secure in the knowledge that an Ivy League education is there just in case. Jeremy Lin shows us that we can believe both in education and letting our kids follow their dreams in earnest because we all want to envision our kids off the bench, on the court and making headlines.

And look, we’re all late bloomers at something. Lin’s triumph lets us believe that not only is our time just around the corner, but that it’s totally worth the wait because when it comes, we’ll change the way the whole world sees us.

Which brings us to back that whole “Asian thing.”

To be an American is to believe in and root for the underdog. We founded our country on the belief that any citizen can move up to the 1 percent through sheer tenacity. And let’s face it: An Ivy League-educated Chinese-American is the quintessential underdog in professional basketball.

But this isn’t the only one reason for our collective crush on Jeremy Lin, for he has broken the mold well beyond basketball.

When I, the leading lady in my own American love story, imagine Prince Charming walking toward me to love me/save me/dance with me/marry me, he’s always at least 6 feet tall. He has ripped shoulders and kick-ass sneakers. He is able to hang on a street corner with rough guys as easily as he can dine with white-collar intellectuals. And while we’re at it, he is charming, humble and respectful to my parents, even though he makes more money than they do.

And that right there sums up Jeremy Lin, right?

Because Lin looks different from many Americans’ traditional image of a national hero, every man regardless of what sets him apart from Cary Grant or Brad Pitt or whoever the flavor of a particular decade is can be the leading man in any story. Lin also allows every woman to see the person she’s set sights on as a hero of her own. Therefore, No. 4 at Harvard and No. 17 in New York has not only advanced Asian-Americans a little further out of the box that America has been holding them in, he has advanced America’s idea of itself, too. I know I never imagined an Asian-American man would sweep me off my feet.

Until one did.

My 6- foot-plus, 180-pound former football-playing husband also attended a prestigious university. He also has more sneakers than any man or woman I’ve ever met. He often wears them with suit jackets and he works crazy hours because he blew off his post-graduate degree to work in hip-hop music.

Every once in awhile, he still takes my breath away when I see him coming down the hardwood floor of our home. My husband was a late bloomer at many things, which he will tell you paid off tenfold.

And as the leading lady of our love story, I’m so glad my son has him and now Jeremy Lin to look up to.

Could the Kardashian Divorce be the answer to our Recession?

Last modified on 2011-12-11 05:10:28 GMT. 10 comments. Top.

The Kardashian-Humphries wedding is reported to have netted $17.9 million. I don’t think that even includes the 2 million dollar ring (from the guy who was allegedly “mooching off of Kim”) that kick-started this entire circus between a man, a woman, a cable TV outlet and every tabloid magazine on earth.

Nor does that purse include the 10 million in gifts given to America’s sweetheart/sex-tape graduate on her big dress up day. Doesn’t it make you wonder what might happen to all of the gear Kim took home as wedding gifts now that the inevitable has come?

I’m not even talking about the thousand dollar plates, ashtrays, and solid gold napkin holders given to her and what’s his name by their guests. Clearly those love tokens should be returned to the gift givers…which might just give a little jolt to our economy as they then sell them on e-bay one at a time.

Also consider the as-yet untotaled accoutrements that Kim raked in over the last 72 days for use in her now-defunct marriage. Were these wares – ranging from dresses and alcohol used on the day to beauty products, countertop appliances and personal electronics for her new married life ‑ delivered to Kardashian Lane merely to ensure her a prosperous union this second time around? Or, as cynics might suggest, were they given to Kim in the hope brand names might be Twitter-name-dropped or seen on screen as part of her unending, and somewhat unexplainable, round-the-clock television coverage?

What if all that gear could be donated to Good Will stores across America so that people who actually use kitchen counters as more than a place to sit on and gossip, might be able to buy Kim’s rhinestone-studded wooden spoon at a heavily discounted rate?

That would be like every Republican incumbents tax plan in action! The rich putting their earnings back into society where the masses would spend the majority of a week’s paycheck on these hand me downs – even before the season they were manufactured in comes to an end.

With this awesome jolt to the economy, perhaps our right wing presidential hopefuls – who mostly believe that gays might decimate the institution of marriage – will consider reality star nuptials as it’s own stimulus package. Here comes the talking point now: “We don’t need to tax the rich – we just need more divorce!”

Occupy Wall Street Protesters go home! There is actually a point to Kim Kardashian after all! She might single-handedly solve the injustice between the 4% and all the rest of us poor slobs by putting her 10 million dollar wedding extras right into the open market.

When Ms. Kardashian first announced the split and asked for privacy during this troubling time – presumably by leaning into the microphone that is permanently attached to her shirt – she didn’t immediately mention that she would be returning any money back she received as a result of this little drama … but we can surely assume that if it wasn’t a sham she will, right?

Because Kimmie is such a self-proclaimed “hard worker,” I’m sure she wouldn’t want to completely spit in the face of all her twittery-twits who must now feel duped for watching between two and 20 hours of her wedding-planning season and its “wrap party with a white dress and headband on.” Just imagine when Kim does give back some of that nearly $15 million E! paid her to the 4 million people who watched it! That’s like $3.75 a piece. We po’ folks can surely get some ice cream with it! Maybe even from the Kardashian ice-cream truck that only serves chaos and cream, coming soon to a neighborhood near you.
Of course if all those viewers who watched Kim’s wedding don’t demand at least a few dollars back for being tricked into thinking this fairytale was a wedding, we could see a surge in otherwise unemployable people making their living by kissing, marrying, and divorcing during the life cycle of an amoeba.

Holiday Cheer

Last modified on 2011-12-12 15:33:14 GMT. 13 comments. Top.

There is nothing like starting off the holiday season with a little mace-to-the-face. Which was the case for one highly unsatisfied customer already this year. I remember being taught something in school, about the day after Thanksgiving being called “Black Friday” because it is the day that many merchant’s annual sales tallies go from “in the black” to “in the red”. However, because of two other highly unsatisfied and also injured customers, who were shot when they came under gunfire on this day while attempting to purchase goods – I think Black Friday now should be called “Stay-the-Hell-Home-Friday.”

Upon hearing news of these attacks, I kept imagining someone from another culture on planet earth, that doesn’t celebrate Christmas, Hanukah, or Kwanza wondering what those desperate people must have been shopping for to subject themselves to such danger. Food? Clean water? Blankets? Medicine?

“No. Flat screen TV’s. DVD players. And children’s plastic toys.”

I worry that as a society we are falling victim to the unending marketing campaign to make us all run pell-mell for products that have been available all year long and will still be available in January, sometimes for even cheaper prices than December. The commercials, circulars and billboard ads are definitely working, as consumers are literally attacking each other for goods – in November – not just for a discount but also because “Time is Running Out!”

As if anyone could run out of time in a holiday season that now lasts at least seven weeks – from mid November till January 1st – all ripe with big banner sale days. Remember when homeowners used to put up “Christmas lights” in mid-December, and leave them till the second week of January? The lights were a dramatization of a biblical story point – that the three wise men found baby Jesus because of the North Star’s brightness. Now the lights seem more like runway lighting, showing us the most direct route to a shopping mall.

I also find it concerning that in the major cities of America, shopping malls are the most festive place to spend pre-Christmas days. Their holiday trees are much taller and brighter than any church I’ve seen. Could that possibly be because there are more religious employees at the mall petitioning for this? Or is it more likely that the corporations who make that barely-taxed fortune off the 96% are trying to lure families to write their wish lists in front of their store windows?

These bright lights leading to the Mecca of consumerization are also just the beginning, after arrival at the holy place of shopping. Once inside the pearly parking lot gates, the holiday season is also denoted by seasonal flavors of coffee at Starbucks and new CD’s to buy at the counter. Call me a curmudgeon but although I see the five signs for those seasonal drinks – that I pray-tell don’t want to miss out on over the next two months because a peppermint mocha really is the perfect representation of what family time at year’s end means to me – I only go to coffee shops for coffee-flavored-coffee. And I don’t need it packaged with seven other reindeer flavors. And my holiday season will be complete without a former gang-banger-now-rapper’s new holiday CD set with my beverage.

I begrudgingly started my families holiday season yesterday, when we went to buy a Christmas tree at what my toddlers called a “Christmas Forest” (which was really a well-decorated parking lot). Feeling all this internal push to buy and spend for a one-day holiday that I no longer make religious in anyway, I finally began to worry about the trees, too. The attendant told me these trees are grown solely for this reason, so that while they are standing the trade actually helps the earth rather than hurts it. Feeling some relief that all isn’t going to hell just because I’m buying in, my husband and I lugged a small tree into our car… and then headed over to the mall, for pictures with Santa. My little ones were madly impressed by the 100-foot tree there, and all the lights and even the flying reindeer. We then let them tell us what they want and as gifts this year from all the store windows. And as we begin to spend all the money we will calmly, and thoughtfully put into the economy at years end also, I am desperately hoping it will help our corner of earth rather than hurt it, too.

Anxiety in the Palm of my Hand

Last modified on 2012-01-11 13:54:25 GMT. 20 comments. Top.

(Note: This column was written three weeks before the death of Steve Jobs at the announcement of his retirement.)

If someone were to ask me what I value most in life, my first answer would be my children. Although sometimes the truer answer is “alone time away from my children.” I’d quickly want to include my husband, many friends I can’t live without and a varied career to that list.

Yet I have so much proof that it’s all a lie. Because I will ignore each and every one of those people and things I say I value, at least once a day (but usually more often) when faced with a little, red, blinking light on my mobile phone.

From across a room, I can spot this sliver of color that means I have a new email, text or phone message. And once I see it beckoning me, I will pick up that phone and dive into the new information I’m receiving even while my supposedly most-important children are talking to me.

I will also interrupt myself while pouring my own heart out to my husband or vice versa to see who or what new message has just come in. I even look while I am simultaneously talking on the phone with those friends I say I can’t live without, because I can check what emails have come in while I am still chatting away.

And that’s just how badly I’m ignoring my values while I’m at home. Dare I admit that I sent more than one text message while rafting down a river in Bali? And emailed all through the desert in Namibia, and continued to work over my phone while spending oodles of money to relax on the tiniest island off the coast of Mexico. That in fact, I took my phone into a field with an Indian shaman and Robert Redford in Utah, just incase of…?

Just incase of nothing! Because even if my kids needed me desperately I was willing to blow them off for the one-hour The Sundance Kid and his Native American pal were going to fine tune my inner artist.

This just may be more proof that my phone, and any giant movie star I can get quality time with, outranks my kids – but it reminds me that I don’t really need the damn phone.

I’m also reminded that in a simpler time I used to just be in the moment with my family or entirely focused on any fun event that I travelled for hours to be apart of. I think I enjoyed both daily life and vacation time a hell of a lot more when I was present in each, rather than constantly teetering between my left brain in a moment and my right reaching down a wifi tunnel into every other aspect of my life simultaneously.

So in fact my phone, which I hardly ever use as a phone anymore, does not make my life less complicated. It has just made me a slave to it. This little red light is like an enormous alarm in my head now – signifying that something could be horribly wrong, or terrifically right, but either way, I must find out immediately – even if checking it might decimate my mood at the most inopportune times.

It seems easy to say, “just don’t look.” Or just shut off the blinking light. Or put the damn phone in the trunk of the car. (Which I don’t even think Oprah does and that was her bright idea.) Or even just leave the house without it once in a while.

But I can’t.

And with this admission of surrender, can I send a sincere wish of good health to Mr. Steve Jobs this week, as he moves on to retirement? I admit I’m hoping without this genius pioneer in the workforce to ever make another small and sexy product, followed up with a bigger than life marketing campaign that will enevitably make me buy whatever he creates – I might get the opportunity to go back to living in the moment and off my little white products.

I’m looking forward to begin the search for the answers to life’s questions in my actual life, again, and not in my ever-present phone.

The Etiquette of Blogging

Last modified on 2011-08-20 02:31:44 GMT. 11 comments. Top.

There is nothing more exciting than creating a pretty new blog as a forum for discussion about something you’ve worked hard on and seeing strangers have comments for you. It feels flattering that people you don’t know have taken the time to read your thoughts and now want to dialogue about it.

Right up until you read these comments. Because since they are made anonymously, blogging has become a vehicle for all those devoid of social skills – probably because they have no friends to discuss their opinion of art, law or blue jeans with – to say torturous things that are generally reserved for people fighting in armed combat.

“I hope the actress Diane Farr dies” was the note I got from one keen follower of Grey’s Anatomy because she didn’t like my story line in a particular episode.

I, too, yearn for a little eye-for-an-eye retaliation when I feel truly incensed by something. But leaving my children motherless because Meredith didn’t get enough screen time with Derek might be a little much, no?

Spreading hatred can’t really be justified simply because you can say it in 150 characters or less. Like the commentator on the blog for my newest book – who admits he never read my book – but still took the time to write, “It’s clear your husband married you because as a white woman you are a status symbol for him and he needs this.”

Of course it would be fun to write back about what gross disfigurement I imagine this person suffers from – that left him home with nothing to do but read psychology books that have made him an expert in me, my husband and our marriage, sight unseen. But I’m lucky enough to have girlfriends for that ugly conversation. Which quenched my need to publish my own hurt feelings, dressed as hate and anger toward someone I’ve never met, that would live forever over the world wide web.

Maybe this seems prudish, following the golden rule at home alone with only my computer to know otherwise. But have we not learned from the murderous teenage cyber-bullies and the overexposed and now unemployable members of congress that the Internet is not a place to post your most private thoughts? Because blogs are not diaries! Other people read them – making them public records.

Plus, if you really have an insatiable need to broadcast your most unkind, and often baseless thoughts, you don’t have to hide behind a fake name on someone else’s website. You can head right over to Seaside Heights, New Jersey and hook up with Snooki or the Situation – and be brave enough to show your face while you behave inappropriately and let reality TV show just how dangerous an unedited platform can really be.

Like the creator of www.Thepsychoexwife.com who was recently ordered to take down his slanderous website in family court, when a judge had to tell him that posting every negative detail of his divorce and custody battle might be a bad thing for his children. Dad swore he never identified his wife by name on his blog, but then appeared in person on the Today show to explain why he was going back to court to appeal his right to talk trash about the woman he once vowed to honor.

Sadly, the first amendment may just allow this “father of the year” to further destroy his family – leaving me to wonder if it’s time to step out that section of the bill of rights detailing the exceptions like “defamation” and “using fighting words” that oh so many web-users seem to forget when they quote their man-made right to hurt others.

Thankfully, my kids are too young to read ghost-blogger comments although someday they, too, may be the victim of ignorant posits made behind the anonymity of an avatar. But I will surely teach them to only say things in print they would be man or woman enough to say to another person’s face, because humanity is the thing “civil rights” were created to protect. Not the legal right to behave like a jackass.

The Luck of a 20-carat Engagement Ring

Last modified on 2011-07-26 02:49:12 GMT. 11 comments. Top.

Kim Kardashian is keeping me up at night. I’m not at all sure what this woman is famous for, other than having a beautiful face and ass that America got familiar with via her sex tape, while her and her sisters were also filming a reality show. And any triumph that I might have felt that a woman with olive skin and black hair who is larger than a size eight surpassed being known for sex alone, was squandered when Kardashian became engaged this week and the circus over her “score” began.

That would be for the 20.5-carat engagement ring given to her by Kris Humphries, a forward for the New Jersey Nets. Although Kim has said she was completely “shocked” by this, Kim has also been widely quoted saying, “I knew I wanted it to be big!”

Of course you did honey. That ring has to fill a gaping hole where the basis for a marriage would normally be. And it has to be bigger than your sister’s 9-karat ring or we might confuse you girls with the Ingalls sisters of TV fame.

Backstory: Kim and Kris met when she was dating someone else who is also vaguely famous and have known each other now, all totaled, for six months. This will be her second marriage at 30 years old.

I am married only five years and I live in abject fear of the institution. The overachiever in me knows the odds are completely against my marriage lasting a lifetime. Even more so because I only had one year with my husband before I became engaged. A whole year that I kept telling him no matter what you do, “don’t buy me a giant engagement ring – because it’s the kiss of death.”

Take the original princesses – Grace and Diana. Big engagement rings were clearly not the cause of their demise, but still, this is not a plot point I want to insert in my love story after seeing how those turned out.

Moving onto the next most famous engagement ringer of the 20^th century – Liz Taylor – also makes me want to run from a giant diamond. Liz was married six times and was given the biggest engagement ring known to mankind. And she divorced that suitor twice.

The rest of the big rings that come to mind are those I remember seeing extensively in the “news” announcing an impending marriage – soon followed up by discussions of infidelity, divorce, and if they made it that far – a custody battle. Eva Longoria, Mena Suvari and Rene Zellweger as well as Britney, Christina, Fergie and LeAnne, alongside all of Donald Trumps former wives, Jessica Simpson and Paris Hilton. Not to even mention politician’s wives. How big is Huma Abedin’s ring? Is it bigger than Maria Shriver’s?

Any one of the engagement rings mentioned above could probably rebuild all of the houses wiped out by the recent tornadoes in America. Any one could also eradicate the lack of education for girls in Afghanistan or Iraq. But instead, what are we doing to the capable women in this country if Kim Kardashian’s second engagement and the excitement displayed by both her family and the public about a marriage that will not likely see the next presidential election is showcased as something to be admired?

Now more is not always less. There is Catherine Zeta Jones, Beyonce, and Gwen Stefani. They all have ice skating rinks on their left hand and seem to have unions based on more than just the adrenaline of the first few years of a relationship. They all also seem to have some skills. Acting, writing, singing, designing, using their brains as well as their charms to build an empire that is not entirely dependant on their looks or their popularity with the opposite gender.

I’d prefer one of my daughters to own a diamond mine. In fact, I’d like them both to own the news corporation that publishes this newspaper. And I couldn’t care less what kind of jewelry either of them is wearing while doing so.

Bi-Racial Couples & Mixed Race People May Not Be As Understood As the Census Suggests

Last modified on 2011-06-19 16:34:13 GMT. 17 comments. Top.

As a mother of mixed race children, I was thrilled with the recently released findings of the population census - that since the choice to check more than one race became an option ten years ago the growth of the biracial population is now up more than 50% in many parts of the country. This news felt really inclusive to me, while reading about it at my kitchen table.

But not so much when I left my house.

“Are your children adopted?” says the woman in the check out line in front of me at Target.

It’s hard to articulate just how much that sentence feels like fire on my face. My face which immediately snaps around to have a look at my children – and wonder why this person thinks they couldn’t be of my womb.

“What’s adopted mean, Mommy?” says my son, furthering my internal hysteria.

“Adoption is when you bring a person or an animal into your home and make them part of your family. It’s a wonderful thing. But who here lived in Mommy’s belly before moving into our house?”

Meeee! Scream all three of mine…more at me and less at the boundary-free woman next to us where I would like some screaming to be directed.

“Oh. It’s just that they are a different race than us, aren’t they?” qualifies Miss Alabama 1950-something.

Us. As if queries about my kids’ racial makeup wasn’t already feeling too personal – at the finish line of a 10,000 square foot human paddock of discounted goods – but now we’re going to pretend they are justified because this fair-skinned woman and I are both “White”?

For the record, White is not something I ever call myself. My husband’s parents, who are immigrants from Korea, refer to me as White all the time but what they mean is Caucasian. White, to me, is this pearl-toting lady of my mother’s generation standing beside me. Who probably has a big hat in her closet to wear to a derby and who is wearing a very dainty one-inch heeled shoe while shopping at Target today.

My family of origin is Italian and Irish and lives in New York. We wear flat shoes or very high-heels – in case you have to run after someone who has just mugged you or you are attempting to be the tallest broad at a party. Either attempt is looked at with admiration in my culture – I’m guessing not so much in the White woman’s world.

The checkout woman alongside Blondie and me, is very aware that my voice (or my hand) may just rise up now, and she jumps in to help.

“What your children are is beautiful!” says she, with a bright smile.

This woman ringing up our treasured finds is Mexican American. And she, too, may have checked “White” on her census form, like me and Ms. Inquisitive, since Hispanic and/or Latino is considered a culture and not given as a choice of race on the form. Yet, she is even less white then me. My skin color is olive and hers is brown.

Genetically speaking, I understand there are only three races: Asian, Caucasian, and an antiquated word that feels frighteningly close to the N word, referring to black people. But could this be why the mixed race population in America jumped nearly 50% in ten years? Because there is no category for every person of color between white and black – be that Middle Eastern or Indian or perhaps even southern European – and maybe some of us checked both black and white to represent our skin color? Because although I did check Asian and White for my family, the concept of having children with someone outside of my race still seems to be a mystery to this woman at the checkout conveyer belt beside me.

“My kids are ‘Euro-Asian’”, I say, thinking this idiom might be something my race-mate can visualize.

“Oh, are they Philippino then?” she asks.

In the subsequent stunned silence between all three of us “white” women, I decide to close the conversation with my own question.

“Do you even know where the Philippines is? My kids are American. Just like you. So let’s both take our 17 bags of goods and get on with our very varied and abundant American lives, shall we?”

Do you also not fit exactly into today’s US CENSUS FORM? Or has someone asked you a question about your race or heritage that caused you to want to hurt them? Check out these awesome families in the video…

“Because You Are a Blabbermouth!”

Last modified on 2011-06-01 17:13:29 GMT. 14 comments. Top.

Amtrak pulled over one of its trains this week to allow the police on board to remove and arrest a “loud cell phone talker” – charging the woman with disorderly conduct. This particular cellular-sloth had been on her handheld non-stop, over a sixteen-hour journey from Oakland, California to Salem, Oregon – in the “Quiet Car.”

The Quiet Car would be the train car with large signs saying “No Cell Phones Allowed” but it seems that this chatty passenger had such a sense of self that she believed these signs did not apply to her. She also felt entitled to become belligerent when the “Lord of the Flies” effect took over and another passenger playing the part of Piggy confronted her about her volume. Not at all tired post her multi-hour talking spree, this big mouth still had enough energy to become aggressive with the other passengers, which is when the train was stopped and the police were called in.

Well hip-hip hooray for the cavalry! And while you are at it boys in blue – here’s a list of places where other perpetrators of this crime hang out: Starbucks, the doctor’s office and my kid’s preschool.

Hello – you socially clueless people – Starbucks is not your personal office. A virtual office means you have to act like you could possibly function in an actual office. That includes not annoying every person around you. And for those who have somehow forgotten that the doctor’s office is not only a place for check-ups – it’s also frequented by people in pain. People who felt sick before hearing about you tripping the light fandango in the parking lot of a mall last night. Give them some peace. And hey momma’s picking up your kids – pay attention to them! Cause while you are yelling at Dad on the phone, your kid is all over mine.

And for any mobile user who feigns ignorance of what volume is acceptable for public phone usage – see the following rules: (that should be tattooed onto the back of your charger for review every time you plug in.)

Newcomers: No one wants to OVERHEAR where you got your phone, how long that process took or what about the phone is not functioning well now. All the rest of America has had both those experiences and we all have crap service too. So even if you want to bore the person on the other end of your new phone to death, spare those of us in your sightline and whisper this.
For The Perpetually Loud Talkers: Even if you are hard of hearing (or more likely just dim-witted) it does not mean the person you are speaking to is. Stop shouting into the phone. All those people staring at you are not an audience. We are not captivated by your tale. We hate you. And your cue that you are being too loud – is the look on all of our faces.
In fact – For Any Pedestrian, Anywhere: a person giving you a dirty look while you are on a cell phone does not have you confused with someone else. They are a telepathically trying to tell you, “You are a loud talker and you suck.” If you don’t start understanding these looks soon, and taking down your volume, your physical well-being could be in jeopardy.
And Hey Guys: Phone time does not equal grooming time. Loud talking combined with picking your fingernails, digging around inside your pants or combing over your Donald Trump hair may soon become grounds for justifiable homicide. Go to the bathroom if you have to adjust yourself in anyway.
And Ladies: It’s bad enough to pick your nose when you are driving your car because you somehow think the car makes you invisible—but you are no less invisible when talking on the phone and barely DRIVING AT ALL. If you can’t walk and chew gum simultaneously, then you definitely can’t push the gas pedal and talk on a cell phone. Put your phone in the trunk like Oprah says!

And I’m hanging up on you now.

Going in for the Goddesses!

Last modified on 2011-04-17 04:25:47 GMT. 24 comments. Top.

I refuse to follow Charlie Sheen on Twitter. Not because I don’t enjoy his mania just as much as the other three million followers he garnered this month. In fact, I think I enjoy his hubris-filled Hamlet rendition more than most because I also work in television. I have felt beat up by a producer, here and there, throughout my career and a studio, too, on occasion. And although I have fantasized about denouncing them and calling everyone I’ve ever worked with a troll, in real life I’ve acted more like a battered wife than a batterer.

Not that I’m at all sure Charlie was actually abused by his shows creator though. The rumor around Hollywoodland is that every other cast member on 2.5 Men was treated like a member of group home — that had to be cared for just well-enough that the outside world couldn’t see their pain, while Charlie was treated like a deity.

None of which is why I’m abstaining from Charlie’s tweets. It’s because one of my earliest television jobs was co-hosting Loveline on MTV. Giving advice to over-sexed and under-boundaried teenagers for 200 episodes has left me thinking that I understand both addiction and narcissism. I was sitting right next to a doctor while I was giving all my advice (which I had absolutely no credentials to give) and some of his wisdom has stuck with me. Leading me to conclude that Mr. Sheen has experienced a psychotic break. So I’m refraining from all things Charlieville because I’m trying very hard not to stare or follow or further the drama because I believe he needs medical attention.

But he is not the only one at risk. Although I was relieved to see that one of the mothers of his children stepped in to (at least momentarily) remove his kids from the circus we’re all enjoying, two other children have been left to fend for themselves at Carlos Estevez’s house.

Can no one save The Goddesses? Charlie openly talks about his two live-in girlfriends, which by number alone – momentarily ignoring the age and economic differences between he and they – show that an intimate, healthy relationship is not Charlie’s end goal. These two very young and very blonde women are living in a house with a man who has a mile-long history of domestic violence.

It was over 20 years ago that Sheen “accidentally” shot actress Kelly Preston—his then fiancé, in their home. Which might have seemed more accidental had he not settled out of court with a UCLA student, just a few years later and a few months after he married Donna Peele, whom he “allegedly” struck in the head when she refused to have sex with him. Not long after which, troll-finding Charlie was arrested for beating up his next girlfriend Brittany Ashland—giving her seven stitches in her lip—and “allegedly” made the same recurring threat to kill her, too. Which was followed up in court when his next wife Denise Richards filed for divorce and stated that he threw objects (like, chairs) at her and regularly threatened to kill her, as well. Which was trumped just last December when Charlie “allegedly” gave his then wife, Brooke Mueller, a Christmas morning knife to the throat and yet another, “alleged” threat to kill her. Most recently there was also The Plaza hotel incident where Capri Anderson had to lock herself in the bathroom after Sheen put his hands around her throat and threatened to murder her, too.

It seems the only thing Charlie is definitely not winning at are his attempts to kill women. Or at least those six that went to court or a hospital over it. Who knows if other women may have also been hurt but, perhaps, discouraged by the fact that Charlie has not served one minute of jail time for any of these altercations – did not go to the law for help.

When Charlie Sheen’s abuse of women can be forgiven by most of society – yes that means all of you millions of CBS fans who keep those ratings high no matter what Charlie does in his personal life – how long can we estimate the two “Goddesses” will be safe in his home? Two women who are also someone’s children – who are not rich or famous, making them an even easier target to hurt, terrorize or heaven forbid, “actually” kill this time.

The Year of The Shoe

Last modified on 2011-03-12 16:37:34 GMT. 18 comments. Top.

I live in the city of Los Angeles, which is all a buzz at the moment with the shocking and dramatic breaking news. The news about pilot season, that is.

Not the news of Tunisia’s regime change or Egypt’s opening of the Suez Canal or the people of Libya who are desperately trying to stay alive, when their own leader declared a virtual war on them. Or the happenings in Bahrain, Yemen or Iran. Rather, so many of my incredibly smart friends and colleagues are calling, texting and tweeting the big news of who just got themselves a one time appearance on a TV show.

Because where I live, in the Big Orange, it is “pilot season.” Here, news is released by the hour on who has captured the lead, co-lead, and even a guest spot on every single “pilot” for next years development slate on network television – most of which will never even make it on the air. A pilot is a one-time trial run, used as an example of what a TV series about its subject matter would entail. It is clearly no indication of whether or not it would make a good series because most that do become a weekly show, immediately fail. I know that revolutions and celebrity sightings are the most important news to cover (and not always in that order) but I am ready to admit, that both news feeds are not really worth the anxiety they are causing me as I sit in my little office watching these dramas play out in real time from my cushy chair.

Having attained a bachelor’s degree in theatre some years ago, I work regularly as an actress and can also spot drama from really far away. Both sets of headlines like, “Eva Amurri cast in CBS pilot” and “Gadhafi will fight until he spills his last drop of blood” make my heart skip a beat. Both make me kind of fearful. One gives me anxiety that I must hurry up and get a job (like Eva) and the other, that if the political structure in most of Arabia fails, hooray for the protestors but isn’t it a fifty-fifty shot that this could be better or worse for the safety of America?

Photos featuring Eva’s shoes on a red carpet are splashed around for days after she achieves her pilot success. As are the footwear of thousands of brave pioneers who are waving their shoes at their own military and police forces, as well as their televisions that are showing one leader after another threatening to continue to be their despot. And sadly, at times Eva seems to have more followers on some social networking sites and gets much more air time at drinks and dinner conversations around my hood than those with their lives at stake.

But I’ve now realized that neither one of these news stories are really doing me any good as I lay awake in bed catastrophisizing about them both. I have my own pilot now, too, (no thanks to worrying about keeping up with the Jones’s or the Amurri’s, but perhaps due to that said theatre degree) and still I feel nervous as every other actress I’ve ever met gets her own wanna-be TV show. Primarily because there is so much hoop-la about it. Just like the happiness and relief I feel after watching so many hard-won success stories in Egypt, that can then be immediately eviscerated into new fears when the Suez Canal is opened to Iran and Israel is feeling provoked.

So basically, I’m thinking I have to get one of my pairs of shoes on, and walk the hell away from my computer and stop watching the news as it cycles because it is not informing me on anything new every single hour of the day. Rather, the repetition of the same news told in a slightly more jarring way, is stressing me out to no end. Both the fluff pieces considered headline news where I live and the actual headline news that I cannot take part in at all, no matter how much the liberal drama student in me would like to save the world.

Please Don’t Feed the Twins

Last modified on 2011-02-06 16:04:06 GMT. 29 comments. Top.

Please Don’t Feed the Twins

“Yes” is the answer I find myself repeating over and over while having lunch at the mall with my daughters. Sadly, I’m not saying it to them though. I’m giving the affirmative to the slew of strangers approaching us that I have no interest in talking to.

My daughters are twins. They are two years old and cute and smart and everything else every mother thinks about their little ones, but that’s not why they get so much attention. Strangers want to talk to them simply because they are twins.

And really, these intrigued and totally uninvited guests to my family’s lunch table don’t want to talk to my daughters at all. They want to stare at them mercilessly while asking incredibly invasive questions of me. Which usually begins with a shriek, gasp or whisper that is followed up with, “Oh my God. Look at them! Are they twins?”

This opening query might seem innocuous. But any momma of multiples will tell you that she’s heard this question ten times today if it’s already lunchtime. And more to the point, all of our kids have the same look of fear on their identical or fraternal faces when they hear a total stranger scream at the sight of them, only to be further terrified when said stranger steps right up to examine them.

“Are they identical?” is usually asked next at this tableside interview. Which is a question I really don’t want to answer. Because no good can come of it. Regardless if I do or don’t though, the doosey almost always follows:

“Did you have them naturally?”

Hmm. As opposed to demonically?

Let’s think about what you are really asking a complete stranger, who is currently eating – with her children. “Did I have them…” meaning did I conceive them… or did I get pregnant with…the use of a penis? Is that really an appropriate question? At my family’s lunch table? For you and I, unnamed stranger?

I like to save conversations about my run-ins with a penis until it’s dark out. And if I’m having that conversation, I’m not eating pureed sweet potatoes or drinking water. I’m having an adult beverage, with an adult of my choosing.

But for the record, what if my children were not conceived with the strict use of male and female body parts touching at the same time? What if Daddy’s sperm, a doctor and a syringe of some sort were all involved? Will you breath easier knowing that my fate will not be yours—without a ton of time and money put into it? Or will you start rummaging through my kids hair for evidence that they are somehow not real people?

Twins are incredibly common now. It is no longer on par with a polar bear citing in Central Park. So when you see your first set, or your second or your 100th, please refrain from asking their parents if they had sex in order to make them. And please, also, try not to treat the human beings who happened to be in the same womb at the same time, like animals at the zoo, either.

“Well I can tell them apart because this one has a rounder face, right?”

Yes, just like how your ass is much rounder than mine.

Be aware that deafness is not any more common in twins than it is to the rest of the population. Both of my daughters can hear you when you look into both their eyes and judge which one as prettier, thinner, smarter or nicer. The comment is not doing either one of them any good and, really, we don’t care who you prefer.

But the biggest insult may be to other children sitting at the table with twins – like my son who is usually right next to his sisters! And although he is only one year older, and just as cute and smart as the girls – and actually wants to talk to all of his sisters’ fans – he is completely ignored in this reoccurring interrogation.

So please admire multiples from afar, to prevent getting yourself in double trouble.

Get That Nut Away From My Child!

Last modified on 2011-01-11 07:40:58 GMT. 20 comments. Top.

Get That Nut Away From My Child!

I was feeding my kids pistachio nuts right out of my mouth when my 2-year-old daughter Sawyer starting coughing. She coughed a lot, but then settled down. So we piled in our minivan to go have Christmas lunch with my in-laws. Sawyer coughed more en route and eventually threw up. We pulled over, cleaned her up and she was happy again. With no other signs of sickness, it seemed the excess coughing must have caused her to vomit.

During lunch, however, Sawyer threw up six more times. I am aware this makes me sound like a negligent parent, but as soon as she was done coughing, then gagging, then vomiting, she would happily race back to the other kids and play. Finally, on the umpteenth vomit of the day, I remembered the story of an adult who got a nut stuck “in his lung.”

I ran out of the restaurant with Sawyer and back into the mini-van, fearful she had “aspirated” the pistachio nut. The hospital rushed us in because by the time we reached the E.R., Sawyer had passed out for a few seconds after a coughing fit. Once in an examination room, a nurse asked me a lot of peanut questions. Mostly about peanut allergies.

You know, up until this point, I found the “peanut-police” annoying. There are so many allergies among children now that I have often wondered if parents are putting labels on things too fast — or if current manufacturing practices have absolutely destroyed our food. Milk, soy, nut, wheat and gluten allergies abound in preschools now. Serve your kid peanut butter on a playdate and you will be a pariah in mommy society.

This was all somewhat annoying to me, until I had a run in with a food group that could have killed my kid. The same food group that is the captain of deadly allergens.

Having had enough of one nurse’s plan to “wait and see” if this was an allergy, I channeled Shirley MacLaine from “Terms of Endearment” and brought my vomitous child to the charge nurse’s desk. And let her puke on it until she found me a doctor.

The attending physician ordered X-rays and called a pediatric gastroenterologist. Our family pediatrician has become my friend, so I called her on my cell phone. She found me a pediatric ear, nose and throat specialist who — sight unseen, over the phone — insisted that the hospital prep my daughter for surgery.

Because who knew that whole nuts and dried beans expand inside the body? If these foods “go down the wrong pipe,” they will expand – and in a child under 4 years old, expand so much they could block an airway.

And I mean really who knows this? I have three kids. I’ve taken more parenting classes than most. I’m the class mom of the parents association at our preschool. I see doctors regularly and make all my kids’ food from recipes I’ve gotten from parenting cookbooks, kids’ websites and other families. In not one of these circles have I ever heard that my children COULD DIE if I fed them whole nuts before age 4.

Thank goodness this superhero-surgeon put a scope down my daughters throat, to find and then remove that pistachio from the bronchial area. Sawyer is now left with bronchitis from the fluid that surrounded the pistachio or the excess vomiting her body did to try to remove it. I’m giving her medication five times a day this week and have to put a mask over her face three to six times each day and night to give her a breathing treatment. All because of a pistachio, whose shell I carefully cracked in my own mouth so I could feed the nut inside to my child.

Needless to say, after removing every raw nut and dried bean in evidence at my house (as well as all carrots and hot dogs, which I’m no longer taking any choking chances with) and beating them mercilessly against the inside of my trash cans before throwing them out, we are now a nut-free house, also.

For more information go to http://bit.ly/wrongpipe

*For the record: Nut butters do not pose a threat of aspiration. Steamed carrots or raw, as well as hot dogs are two of the biggest threats for choking or aspiration because they form a solid block. Children should not be allowed to play with dried (sometimes called “uncooked”) beans in arts in crafts projects or any other way as they present very dramatic dangers if aspirated. The old adages of “Don’t talk with your mouth full,” and, “Sit at the table when eating” are not just for etiquette, but also in prevention of aspiration and choking. Please check with your pediatrician for the latest updates on safe food choices for your children, as I am nothing more than an incensed mother.

(Diane Farr is known for her roles in “Californication,” “Numb3rs” and “Rescue Me,” and as the author of “The Girl Code.” Her next book – “Kissing Outside the Lines” will be available April of 2011. You can read her blog at getdianefarr.com, follow her on twitter.com/getdianefarr or contact her on facebook.com/getdianefarr.)

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Giving up the Parental Gear This Holiday Season

Last modified on 2011-01-11 07:41:24 GMT. 26 comments. Top.

Giving up the Parental Gear This Holiday Season

My favorite Christmas gift as a soon-to-be-mom was a Hooter Hider — a piece of fabric with a strap attached to hang it over your neck. This clever garment leaves both hands free so a mother can adjust a baby, drink water and maintain her privacy while simultaneously breastfeeding. Yes, this expensive excuse for a blanket was stylish, but mostly it seemed like a mantra for the kind-o-momma I wanted to be: one who had all the most-updated, hip, compact and “right” gear, making me the most equipped and chic mommy at the playground.

Then I actually had a baby and the sound of his cries would cause me to throw myself down exactly where I heard him and try to stop that heart-crushing noise as fast as possible with my food. And hiding anything was not even a thought.

But in time those screams became less frequent (or I just got used to them), so I ventured out. I grabbed my baby and car seat (35 pounds on my right arm) and my diaper bag filled with everything I collected during gestation (35 pounds on my left arm) and nearly fell over.

My first mommy-attache contained everything every book and person I consulted said I should carry for a newborn. Assuming I would just get used to hanging more than half my body weight from my limbs, I drove off to my first excursion fully loaded. I think I chose to do lunch with a male friend because I was so proud that I could — with my Hooter Hider in hand. Little did I know how uncomfortable I would feel when my baby wouldn’t stop screaming in a restaurant because he was afraid inside the breast-tent and I couldn’t even position him correctly beneath it. So much for burqa-ing my child.

I became marginally better at parenting for few months when suddenly I found myself pregnant again. My husband and I were almost over the shock of having two children within 16 months when, at our 8-week ultrasound appointment, we discovered we would be having twins.

I cried for a long time that day and right up until I delivered my identical daughters. Then I stopped because there wasn’t any more time for tears. Now that I had three children in diapers at the same time, all I could fit in my diaper bag were the bare essentials — and to my chagrin, I was never in need of anything else. I would love to tell you that the best thing that ever happened to me as a mother was an unexpected pregnancy that yielded me my own personal daycare of three kids under age 2 for eight long months (and then all under age 3 and now all under 4) because that would be so poetic. However, my parenting path is . . . intense.

This past Black Friday I was trolling the mall with all the rest of the parents hoping to find a deal and I realized I am a seasoned veteran now. While feeling the panic of soon-to-be moms at some “helpful” Momma-Gear-Boutique and the dogmatic quest of new grandparents at a Babies “R” Us, I wanted to give them all a collective Valium. I also felt like whispering that holiday shopping is only going to get worse when your kids watch TV and request things that you despise, so, learning not to get too attached to having the seemingly important gear and gadgets now, is the best thing you can do for yourself as a parent.

Simply put, it is the time you spend with small children not what you carry in your bag, that makes a more equipped mother, father, granny and pop-pop.

Now I think about that Hooter Hider and have no idea what happened to it. I can only assume it is deeply buried in the rubble of pretty stuff I was so excited to collect before I became a mother that didn’t help me one bit once I was one.

(Diane Farr is known for her roles in “Californication,” “Numb3rs” and “Rescue Me,” and as the author of “The Girl Code.” You can read her blog at getdianefarr.com, follow her on twitter.com/getdianefarr or contact her on facebook.com/getdianefarr.)

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Why I Hate Myself for Going to Starbucks

Last modified on 2011-01-11 07:42:57 GMT. 17 comments. Top.

Why I Hate Myself for Going to Starbucks

There is a voice in my head that tells me everyday not to pay three dollars for a cup of tea. It’s not even coffee! And perhaps not even real tea.

The “non-fat, chai tea latte, with no water” that I order every day from Starbucks has no tea bag in evidence. Rather, a barista (which is Italian for college educated yet temporarily lost and hating oneself for pouring yuppie drinks) pours my tea into a paper cup from a box. No leaves, no steeping, no proof of tea at all. And for this “beverage” I pay 400 times its cost. And I do it daily.

So much so, that my three-year old recently told a fellow drone on the Starbucks line that the woman/mermaid in their logo is me. When I tried to correct my precocious child saying that is not a picture of mommy he whispered: “They took your picture yesterday Momma while we were waiting in line!”

Suddenly I realize that I’m not just overpaying for not so great tea—I’m waiting in line to do it.

How did this happen to me? I am a woman who was born without any patience. It’s like a genetic defect in my family. My father had no patience and he passed the flaw on to me and surely, I will pass it on to one of my children. Yet, if I find a tiny window for myself in a day, I will use it to drive away from the plethora of teas in my home and office, to get a non-fat, chai-tea latte, with no water at Starbucks. And not only wait in line for the chance to overpay for this boxed-tea-beverage, but also drive around in circles looking for parking to get it.

I’m not even entirely sure what it is about this ritual that I’m seduced by everyday. Other than the fact that when I make actual chai tea at home, it’s never as sweet as one from the Mothership. Which makes me wonder if it’s the sugar I’m addicted to rather than the experience (of waiting and overpaying.)

However I used to be a smoker. And although I gave up nicotine ten years ago and only committed my addictive tendencies to Starbucks three or four years ago, I do believe it’s possible I am using the cup, the lid and that strange heat protector thingee, like a cigarette. I reach for my non-fat, chai-tea latte with no water and just sip it, like I’m taking a drag. And do so all day. (Thus the switch to non-fat, so the milk wouldn’t go bad.)

Dr. Drew Pinsky of Celebrity Rehab defines addiction to be anything a person continues to do in the face of mounting consequences. I repeat Drew’s words when I find myself holding a toddler and yet refusing to put down my non-fat, chai-tea latte with no water. I do all I can to protect them this hot beverage, inevitably spilling it on myself, my husband, his car or my phone and basically, our lives. But only an addict or a jackass parent would take the risk to begin with. I’m really kinda hoping I’m the former.

At least I still say “small, medium and (on bad days) large though. I have refused to join the cult of coffee and rename sizes, even though I have lived in fear that a vernacular change was inevitable since I seem to have no other boundaries. Including ditching my entire family and our carry-on luggage to wait in line at an airport Starbucks and pay FIVE dollars for a SMALL cup of tea-drink. Until today, when I was waiting at the magic circle for said drink, and asked the barista in the newly remodeled Starbucks on my street, where the bathroom is.

It took me a minute to understand what the man meant when he said, “We don’t have a public bathroom.” Of course they have a bathroom, for their employees, but was that just code for “we don’t share our toilet with the likes of you?” Meaning the paying customers?

Even a junkie needs to believe that the home-wrecker supplying their fix cares about them, so I’m over Starbuck’s. I’m quitting my 3-5 dollar a day habit cold turkey. Which is just in time as they raise their prices “to be more green.” Which I don’t believe one bit because they are already saving money, and the environment, by hoarding all their toilet paper.

(Diane Farr is known for her roles in “Californication,” “Numb3rs” and “Rescue Me,” and as the author of “The Girl Code” and “Kissing Outside the Lines”coming this spring. You can follow her at twitter.com/getdianefarr or reach her at facebook.com/getdianefarr.)

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Death of a Lone Star and American Television

Last modified on 2011-01-11 07:43:34 GMT. 33 comments. Top.

The Death of a Lone Star and American Television

I feel like I committed television manslaughter by not watching Lone Star in time. Yes I put this critically acclaimed new Fox drama on my DVR—to watch it on my schedule—but we viewers who record are not calculated in overnight ratings. When Lonestar was made the first cancellation of the 2010 TV schedule, immediately after it’s second viewing due to low ratings, I began to mourn it.

And not just because I missed the show. (I still have the two episodes on my DVR and keep wondering if the network has the power to suck it off my list of recorded shows?) Rather I was saddened because Lonestar is the type of show I dream of as both an actress and a writer. It was not a formulaic procedural built around a legal, medical or police franchise—where every episode utilizes the same framework of “good guy comes to our hero with a problem, that he or she can solve in 42 minutes, yet still leaves us to wonder if the world might end at every commercial break.”

In contrast, a nighttime soap opera like Lonestar is a series based on characters—in any complex situation that a writer can conceive. The most critically acclaimed nighttime soap in recent history was sold as a series that would chronicle a man whose mother did not love him. The situation this character was put in was the suburban mob, thus birthing The Sopranos. These stories may require more time to find their fans but when they do, their audience is large and young which is exactly what advertisers seek. So why not give creativity more than two chances then?

I understand that the very best procedurals (which infuse as much humanity as possible creating legal’s like Ally McBeal or The Good Wife, and medical’s like Grey’s Anatomy or M*A*S*H and police drama’s like 24 or Hill Street Blues) have an immediate audience, but their large viewership’s are not exactly what Madison Avenue seeks either because the audience age skews older over time. Nor are they a creative dream for actors…

On my second episode (of a 60 show run) on Numb3rs, a cast mate warned me not to “smile” on camera. I was working hard to inform Meagan Reeves with as much personality as possible, since she was a complete buzz-kill on paper being both a psychologist and an FBI agent—without a single friend or family member in evidence over three years. Yet my colleague told me this genre really only allowed for “three smiles per season.”

Upon hearing that an actor had his emotional range boiled down to 9-second allotments over 22 on-air hours—I wondered how much litigation it would take to vacate the job. But I stuck it out and stuck in my smiles where they felt warranted and hoped the procedural police would not take away my union-card.

But if networks can only afford to carry a freshman show for 84 minutes before they are required to deliver a fan base that can be polled, packaged and guaranteed to advertisers – fans of the tube are in trouble. Because new shows will still come and go but they are likely to all look exactly the same now, so that viewers can be sucked in earlier. The death of Lone Star worries me that creativity may be the baby that goes out with the bathwater in next years TV season.

And this particularly troubles me because I have deal for a television show next season. Do I write a procedural that even I have no interest in doing again (or watching), just to get it on the air and have a job—in a time where most of us in America are feeling really desperate to have a job? Or do I stick to the unique ideas I believe in, that seem to have the on-air shelf life of meat outside the refrigerator?

Stay tuned my friends in TV land. Because while my integrity is at stake in this quandary, so is that of the shows we all like watching most. If Lone Star can die after only 2 viewings, I fear next years TV season will be nothing but Law & Order: West Virginia and CSI: Billings.

Diane Farr is mostly known as an actress most recently seen in Californication, Numb3rs and Rescue Me. She is also a internationally syndicated newspaper columnist for Herald Tribune. Her first book, The Girl Code is in print and her second, Kissing Outside the Lines on Multi-Racial Marriage in America is coming this spring. You can follow Diane on Facebook and Twitter at GetDianeFarr

Where Have all the Good Girls Gone?

Last modified on 2011-01-11 07:44:22 GMT. 39 comments. Top.

Elin Nordegren finally said her piece publicly last week, after holding her tongue for three-quarters of a year. If someone had made a cuckold-ess of me at least 10 times in less than half that many years of marriage, I fear I would not have behaved with such grace.

Yet Elin barely spoke of her own loss. She mostly used her on-air time to address what she’s been accused of. Saying she didn’t beat her husband with his clubs last November (although I was hoping she did for the iron-y,) that she did not know he was sleeping around and that all the money she has “gotten” in divorce can’t buy happiness.

Why does the wife and mother in Tiger’s lecherous tale need to defend herself? Elin’s humility inspired me to check how the public is feeling about the world’s most downgraded golfer. A poll by Harris Interactive tallied thousands of online fans to find the most popular male sports figure today is a tie between Tiger Woods and Kobe Bryant. Meanwhile, a Forbes Magazine poll of the most hated sports stars tallied Michael “dog killa” Vick at No. 1.

So, America is incensed when dogs are treated horribly but not when women are? It’s just the way the cookie (or marriage) crumbles?

And don’t misunderstand which women I’m concerned about. It’s not those being paid for their indiscretions with a married guy — whether it be cash for the sex, or a payment from a magazine that glorifies their “ability” to lay down, or a reality TV show that glamorizes their short-sighted choices. Or those making bank on the newest form of sexual climax: the money made in a legal settlement to keep the details of your “private affair” private. No, I’m not cheerleading those working girls. I’m concerned for the women Tiger, Kobe, Lawrence Taylor and even coach Rick Pitino made a vow to honor before friends, family, state and God: their wives. Because their graceful silence feels like it’s being perceived as an omission of guilt.

Do we believe that wives of rich and famous men have led a monetarily comfortable life and therefore should be allowed no other respect? That these pretty ladies “knew what they were in for” when they married someone in the spotlight so, tough noogies? If so, should we all just collectively embrace “The Great Gatsby” theory that women should be beautiful and foolish and get on with it?

This summation felt a little Gloria Steinem-ish even to me until I discovered that the poll in which Kobe and Tiger tied in popularity breaks down those queried to show Tiger’s biggest supporters are men and Kobe’s are women — which made me curse Daisy Buchanan aloud.

I lived in Los Angeles during Kobe’s “almost” rape trial. Many former fans and I gave away Lakers tickets as if they were stamps because we wouldn’t support a man or a franchise that used their resources to secure “a hall pass” from a sexual assault case — delaying it (to play ball) until it fell apart. But a few wins, I mean years, later and all Kobe is remembered for now is his commitment on the court.

I get that Woods and Bryant have achieved epic things in their field and a sports fan might revere them for just that and forgive all else. However, the most despised player in these polls, Michael Vick, did not break a promise to his wife and yet was arrested, bankrupted, demonized and dissolved as player for a few years — and forever as a person.

In comparison, the lack of accountably when harming women mentally or physically feels unsettling. But it becomes truly disturbing when you consider that both Vick’s dogs and Woods’ paramours have their own TV shows and have garnered much more attention and, because of their following, seemingly more support than the good girl Elin Nordegren who is not looking for a narcissistic rise to fame via her bedroom and, therefore, may be nothing more than last week’s news forever more.

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My Kids Have Weird Names, Too

Last modified on 2011-01-11 07:44:47 GMT. 40 comments. Top.

It’s not as easy to find a child named after an Apostle as it used to be. Fewer Marks, Thomases, Peters and Pauls are around — which is the polar opposite of when I was growing up. One of my peers has a father, brother and husband all named John. Yet, when she gave birth to a child, she named him Kenya. Kenya is Caucasian and Jewish, and I’m pretty sure no one in his immediate family has ever even been to East Africa.

And so it is with all the kids I know. Many have location names from a place they do not hail from. Like the young New Yorker I know named Raleigh and a Mexican-American preschooler I know called Havana — and their friends London, Lima, Berlin, India and Asia. Then there are the gender-backward names for girls like James, Frankie, Parker, Michael and Elliot, as well as the growing trend in showing off your highbrow English lit or art history degree by naming your baby Daschle, Harper, Emerson, August, Matisse, Tristan or Rosalind.

And before my dearest friends get angry with me—I’m shouting out these monikers because every one of them was on my consideration list for my three children. Nor did I stray from the concepts. One of my daughters is named Coco—not after the designer, but an island in the Maldives where we discovered our pregnancy. That pregnancy turned out to be a boy, so we named him Beckett since I have my own useless drama degree. And my littlest girl is called Sawyer after my father, Tom.

These are the names that I deemed sensible “enough”—although they are not sensible at all. My in-laws speak English as a second language and I knew they would inevitably call my son “Bucket.” Which they do. As well as “Becky” and even “Jacket” once.

But how far is too far? According to The Week, a Brazilian man went to court after authorities refused to let him name his daughter after Fyodor Dostoyevsky and Martina Navratilova. They refused to register “Isabelle Nahvratinovski” because the name was “too strange and would subject her to embarrassment.” Which seems obvious to me but ease in understanding and avoiding ridicule was never my direct goal in picking names.

Yet, if originality was my intent then I also failed. I cringe at least once a week, when I hear another mom yell for her Beckett, Coco or Sawyer at the park. And dare any of us admit that we considered a name from a hit movie? My youngest daughter’s middle name is Trinity. I longed for this name (for my third child) for several reasons but had to hope her birth was far enough away from The Matrix that people wouldn’t think it was one of them.

I’m not alone, though. Three of the most popular names of 2009 were the main characters in the Twilight franchise. Even a supporting character, Cullen, has moved onto the most common list—but that’s also Irish and don’t we all know an Aemen, Siobhan, Declan or Limerick. As well as a name in another language, on a child that doesn’t speak that language—like Dolce (meaning “sweet” in Italian), Suchari (meaning “sweet” in Swahili) and Zusa (meaning “sweet” in Yiddish). My kids play with one of each of them.

My own barometer for “too out there” in a name has always been imagining my children at their first job interview. When they reach out to shake the hand of their possible employer, will they be laughed out if they have to say “Hello, I’m Rhiannon/Blue/Cloud/Apple.” I fear even a Harvard degree won’t outshine these social enigmas.

But now that I’m done procreating, I’m planning to call the dog my children will eventually want with all of the names my husband refused me for them. So don’t be mad if Dante Allegra Brooklyn runs away from me and craps on your lawn. She’s just a bitter “female dog.”

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Same Sex Marriage is on its Way, Like it or Not

Last modified on 2011-01-11 07:49:09 GMT. 34 comments. Top.

Just as Portugal’s president ratified a law allowing gay marriage, making his country the sixth in Europe to do so, Argentina became the first Latin-American country to make same-sex unions legally binding this week. Canada, Iceland and South Africa also shine on this list, but in only five U.S. states and Washington, D.C., are we willing to let love conquer all.

I don’t see how heterosexuals have the right to bar any unions. After all, the largest divorce settlement in recent history just occurred because Tiger is a cheetah and Elin’s freedom and silence are worth the equivalent of a small country’s gross domestic product.

If we really want to preserve the endangered traditional marriage, perhaps we shouldn’t ban same-sex marriage, but consider putting Katharine Hepburn’s thoughts about co-habitation into American law. The grande dame is said to have wondered whether men and women really suit each other. “Perhaps they should live next door and just visit now and then,” she quipped.

That’s the arrangement settled on by Helena Bonham Carter and Tim Burton, who rather infamously have lived next door to each other for almost their entire partnership (they say because of his snoring). Such an approach to coupledom might appeal to realtors, but it’s hardly a practical solution for the rest of us – though I can’t help but dream of it everyone once in a while.
Truthfully, I don’t understand the fear of gay marriage. Could it be that married heterosexuals who condemn same gender unions believe that if everyone gets a chance to ride the marriage-go-round, the institution’s legitimacy will somehow be diminished? Have they not seen “The Bachelor”? The first time I saw this “reality” show, I truly believed it was a farce. Eight seasons later, the joke is on me because there is absolutely no underlying meaning — other than America just loves segment producers picking a spouse for educated white people. (Of course viewers loathe any third world family that attempts to pick an acceptable spouse for a child, but maybe that’s because arranged marriages aren’t on network television.)

Are conservatives afraid that two male or two female partners would take marriage lightly? More lightly than the five celebrities I can think of who married and divorced within the same year — and the three I can recall who married and divorced within the same weekend in Vegas? Given that among heterosexuals, American marriages end in divorce more than 40 percent of the time, shouldn’t we welcome gays and lesbians who are not only excited to embrace traditional marriage, but committed to making it work? At the very least, America’s embarrassing divorce rate could lower, making matrimony more revered and not less.

Or do right-wingers fear the straight population would be shocked and ashamed when the world sees how much fun marriage might be if it didn’t include the obligatory opposite-gender-based warfare? Ah, those battles with my husband who never throws out socks, underwear or T-shirts. Or the tiffs about him beating the tube of toothpaste down to its most anorexic state before discarding it. Or the endless skirmishes over his habitual displays of pocket change or restaurant matches in glass bowls because he mistaken believes they contribute to our home décor.

Wait a minute, if both members of a married couple are the same sex, is there any chance that both would be able to see the dishwasher is right next to the sink and fill the appliance and dare I dream – actually run it? If so, I’d bet the energy they don’t waste in dirty-dishes disputes could be put to more amorous use. I would really envy that.

I don’t actually believe that Kate Hepburn meant all men are messy and all women are June Cleaver and therefore should live apart. If that was the case, men could just take all their trash to the garage – like Jesse James. But considering how painful and palpable infidelity is in marriage – and working our way down to Mel Gibson’s behavior – maybe we could begin a dialogue about what is important to keep traditional unions alive, by honoring requests from people who really want to be a part of the institution. What if the newcomers to the state of matrimony actually reminded us all why it should be held up to our highest regard?

I realize that many of you reading this might embrace a religious proscription on marriage between anyone other than a man and a woman. But exclusionism seems like a Christian value of long ago. No nomadic tribe of gay lovers are coming to your state to take your marriage down. Rather, inclusion for all types of family, feels like the first step towards honoring so many lessons in every religious dogma. Maybe we could all learn something from a couple that has had to virtually part the red sea to make their own version of Ozzie and Harriet come true.

God of Wine & Fourth of July

Last modified on 2011-01-11 07:47:07 GMT. 63 comments. Top.

Fourth of July is so fragrant. Sun block and gas grills and white wine perfume America, as we celebrate our freedom. It is also the time of year that I say prayers before bed, as it is the anniversary of Kate Flynn’s passing. Kate didn’t just pass though…she was actually taken.

On July 2, 2005, Martin Heidgen decided to drive his car after a game of beer pong and drinking at a bbq. Mr. Heidgen was so entitled in his drunken stupor, that he either turned himself around in a traffic circle or drove down an off ramp onto a New York parkway – and raced into the night, in the wrong direction. Five motorists would later testify to the lengths they went to warn, stop and report Hiedgen’s behavior. But it wasn’t enough to end his 70-mile per hour show of force.

Kate was in a limousine on this parkway. Her Aunt was married that afternoon and Kate was the flower girl. She was buckled in and attempting to sleep in the limo after the best party of her whole life. Her family surrounded her and the hired driver, Mr. Stanley Rabinowitz, was at the helm.

Mr. Rabinowitz was killed instantly when Mr. Hiedgen aimed his car directly into Kate’s limousine. Kate’s Grandma, Grandpa, father and sister were all taken to separate hospitals because the amount of machinery needed to keep them alive was epic. Kate’s mom, somehow, only broke part of her foot. I imagine she was spared physical pain because she was tasked to pick up her perfect, beautiful, first-born daughter and carry her out of the limo. But only part of her—because when Mr. Hiegden drove his car into this family he decapitated Kate Flynn, at seven years old.

I met Kate shortly after she was born. Her mother, Jenna, is my oldest friend. We spent our childhoods together in ugly school uniforms, hearing about the goodness of God. I abandoned this God a long time ago, as the fear that came with his good word out weighed the good for me. My friend still reveres him though and survives, almost entirely, on her faith that He is taking care of Kate. For this reason I catch myself praying to Jenna’s God as June comes to a close each year. And any other I can think of who might help her. I wonder what special bartering chip that I, a mere mortal, might offer these benevolent beings to entice them to stop the unending pain that haunts Jenna and everyone she loves.

But the Gods bring me no solace. I’m more disappointed in them than ever. Except Dionysus. Dionysus I just pity. I imagine that he lies in shame all day on Mt. Olympus as he watches what we have done with his beautiful gift. To take wine – that he meant for merriment and laughter and lovemaking – and use it instead to destroy.

I watched Oprah when she introduced my friend Jenna on her show, a few years after the crash, by asking how many people in the studio audience had ever driven drunk. Everyone sheepishly raising their hands seemed like an act of contrition until I heard Jenna utter, “if you now ask how many people pick their nose, everyone will find it much more uncomfortable to raise their hands.” Which perfectly illuminated where the problem actually exists with drunk driving.

So now I am turning to man and our freedoms that Fourth of July celebrates. Courts can change law but we all make the social judgments. And this is where we need to begin to turn the tide on driving drunk—in one backyard at a time.

If a woman ran out of a bar with a gun in her hand or a college student stumbled out of frat party swinging a bat – the brave would wrestle them down. Yet so many of us say nothing when we watch someone put their drink down and pick up their car keys. Similar to how spousal abuse was “frowned upon” in the 1950’s. Frowning and shaming are two very different things. And with some judgment, dare I even say shame, directed to one person this Fourth of July if they attempt to use a 3000 lb piece of machinery after partying—we can stop the carnage.

So that Jenna and her family can begin to repair themselves, five years after Kate’s death. And Dionysus and his gift might be revered once again. And stories about beheadings at the hand of a drunk, will be reserved solely for period dramas on television. And perhaps, no other flower girls will be murdered when a drunk is allowed, by a backyard full of witnesses, to use a car like a weapon against families on their wedding days.

Mommy’s Little Polymer l click here to view reader comments & the article

Last modified on 2010-06-30 23:19:06 GMT. 17 comments. Top.

Every playgroup my kids attend and every grocery checkout line I’m stuck in with other mothers subjects me to yet another discussion about the dangers of plastic. Bottles, plates, utensils, food containers, sunglasses, DVDs and every toy in my house are coming to get me and mine, say the ladies. Never mind the massive islands of discarded plastic now clogging our planet’s seaways, creating an environmental threat as worrisome as the BP oil spill killing all those quack-quacks and fishies.

But back to the polymer minefield of my home: moms are advised to reduce all our use of plastics. Healthychild.org warns, “If you’re serving your dinner on plastic, you’re likely eating a little plastic for dinner.” What the heck am I supposed to use then?

I sometimes forget that plastics haven’t always been a ubiquitous part of our households. When I was a toddler milk bottles were made of glass and my school sandwiches were wrapped in foil and I drank water from a tap right until college when I started drinking beer from one. Our house didn’t even have Tupperware until the 1980s and it was another 10 years before we had a microwave so we never heated it.

But today, plastic is everywhere in my kitchen — from the Brita I “purify” water in, to the spatula I flip my free-range eggs with, to the ice cube tray I’m storing precious breast milk in.

It couldn’t all be bad, right? This is America! Our government and the nice capitalists at the plastics companies as well as folks like BP CEO yachtsman Tony Hayward wouldn’t purposely harm their own customers. This isn’t like lead paint or tainted beef or aluminum in deodorant or fluoride in toothpaste or mercury in fish or carcinogens in mattresses or gases in carpeting. No. It’s not like demanding 37 immunizations within the first 18 months of a child’s life! Besides, I see corporate America went so far as to label plastics from 1 to 7 right on their products! Every container that touches my body has a 7 on it, so that must be the high end.

Oh, wait now. I’m googling “number 7 plastic” and it does not sound so lucky. Number 7 denotes “PC or polycarbonate which can leach the hormone-disruptor bisphenol A especially when heated or chilled.”

What does leach mean? When I hear “leach,” I think “leech”: a blood-sucking thing in the swamps of Mississippi — and I don’t mean Tony Hayward. Is someone making a verb out of this “leach” noun and merely changing a vowel in an attempt to hide the fact that plastic can suck the good stuff out of foods or beverages and spit out cancer?

I don’t want to get hysterical. It seems everything I own can only hurt me if I antagonize this otherwise well-behaved compound by making it hot or cold. I’m sure the FDA, CDC and maybe even the ATF have looked into this potential disaster and made sure this provocable composite is no where near my dairy/soy/gluten-free turkey bacon.

Yet I could swear that’s a 7 on my water jug. And another on the “microwave safe” container I put my husband’s lunch in. And more on my infants’ bottles that I put in boiling water to warm milk and then sterilize in the microwave in another plastic container, daily!

Now I’m glued to the TV, waiting for a news channel to tell me the truth about everything I’ve ever bought from Target, Costco and Walmart. While here, I’m rubbing diaper cream and petroleum (Hi, Tony!) jelly on my child from a plastic container. Could it also be true that perfumes provoke plastic, causing it to leach more? And does plastic have actual feelings that get hurt and then retaliate by leaching?

I’m feeling really unsafe. In my own kitchen. In fear of waking the sleeping tiger in my plastic, I’m loading my kids into my carbon-producing SUV — into their recalled and then un-recalled car seats — to head over to McDonald’s and get them some food from the dollar menu. It still comes in cardboard, thank goodness.

Does This Naked Woman Look Like Me?

Last modified on 2011-01-11 07:46:54 GMT. 33 comments. Top.

In just two years I have delivered three babies and recently finished breastfeeding the last two — at the same time. I’m praying for an immaculate resurrection of my entire torso, but it hasn’t happened yet.

So when I was offered a role on “Californication” as David Duchovny’s new love interest, I accepted only if the producers would proffer me a body double. (If you haven’t seen the show, nudity occurs on “Californication” as often as smog in the city it’s set in.)

I am already feeling more like my former self when production agreed to this ransom. And then I discover I will also get to pick the gal whose body will perpetrate this fraud! Touchdown for Mommy’s team.

Photographs of “swimsuit ready” women arrive at my trailer — without their swimsuits on. In fact, the only part of these temptresses that I can’t see is their faces, as the photos are from the neck down. Sitting in a trailer, staring at headless, nude, female bodies feels . . . beyond creepy. But even creepier is how fast I get used to it.

While analyzing other women’s striations and waxing choices, there is a knock on my door. I immediately hide the photos, suddenly feeling protective of the body that will pretend to be mine — as well as knowing there is no good way to explain why I’m sitting alone in a motor home studying 8-by-10 glossies of unclothed women. But my visitor is the person who took these photos. She is asking who I “want.”

When I point out my body of choice, this normally effervescent casting lady is silenced. So what if the body I’ve chosen is slightly — OK, exponentially — more endowed than mine? This is the TV version of my body. Surely quantity can trump quality this one time. I feel somewhat scolded as I’m being told the naked body has to resemble my clothed body. For the first time I think I understand why a mistress looks nothing like a wife. The casting director points out which body looks like mine and I want to be mad at this reprimand but it’s still a ridiculously perfect body she’s chosen. I’m so excited to play in this game of pretend — since I never looked like this even before bearing children — that I happily acquiesce.

One week later when my better body arrives and introduces herself in the makeup trailer, my first thought is: “Don’t speak, just be naked.” This model/actress/breathing mannequin is as stunning as her picture implied and her face is beautiful, too (which I just realized I totally presumed) but when she opens her mouth — she’s an actual person. Which makes me so embarrassed! I’m just now becoming conscious of the fact that I made up an entire personality for this paramour, based on the neck-down. Is this what happens to men when they look at women from afar? My fantasy double was brazen and wild and just might rule the world, if she so chose. Now that it’s here, standing in front of me and (BEGIN ITALICS) speaking (END ITALICS) — she is demure and sweet. Which is not what I was looking for in a rock-solid version of myself.

Can I just call off this body double stuff? Not really, is the conclusion I come to if I want to play the parts of this role that require clothes. And besides, there’s nothing wrong with my beauty queen stand-in — other than she’s not who I imagined. Picking a body, I mean a woman, is harder on men than I realized. But being a girl isn’t easy, either, as this nearly perfect-nymph who is willing and ready to do all that I’m not must think I’m disappointed in her. I kind of am, though. The package is perfect, but it’s just the whole “real person” thing that’s throwing me. She needs to go back to the suburbs before she defiles herself playing me.

Wait a minute! What just happened? She’s saving my chastity. How is it that this contract perk continues to make me feel so self-conscious? It’s enough to send me to the gym so I can use my own body next season.

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What Makes a Housewife Desperate?

Last modified on 2011-01-11 07:49:40 GMT. 16 comments. Top.

One hour into my new job on “Desperate Housewives,” Felicity Huffman asks me, “You have three kids under three years old? How are you managing it all with work?” I can’t even meet her eye as I shamefully reply, “Work is the best part of my day.”

The 12-hour day I am just starting on this set will feel like a vacation compared to the 18-hour shifts I’ve been pulling at home for the last year with my three small children. Felicity may never know that she threw my entire existence a life preserver when she said, “Walk with me.”

On our walk, my new pal shares with me how thrilled she was to come to work in the early years of this series and hide in her trailer. Felicity says she found her double-wide to be a peaceful oasis, in comparison to the high-octane energy of kids as young as mine are now. “It gets so much easier,” Felicity gently adds. It takes everything I have to just smile at Lynette Scavo because this kindness makes me want to cry. As well as grab her by the biceps and make her swear to God she is telling the truth.

Two years ago, I found myself pregnant with my second child when my first was only 9 months old. This was . . . inconvenient. Finding out this surprise pregnancy was twins was . . . life-altering. With all those babies come to fruition now, but all three still under age 3, most of my time is currently spent wiping, cleaning, prepping, driving and worrying, with occasional kisses and renditions of “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star” that somehow keep me going.

The small percentage of my 20-hour days that I go to work — and get my hair and makeup done, wear fancy clothes and use vocabulary words you must be 4 feet tall to understand — is spectacular. It’s my Disneyland. And I’m seeing, here at my second job since having Irish triplets, that some mommas need to work in the house AND OUT OF IT, to keep their sense of self.

The only variation seems to be how much time each mother wants and how much she actually gets — away from our most treasured people. I am sure of this by my third day on “Desperate Housewives” because I spend it working with Marcia Cross.

Marcia and I, coincidentally, got married on the same day and each spent the next year on television shows hiding our pregnancies. She had twins when I had just one — all born in the same month — but I quickly went on to have my own twins later that year. As I sat across from Marcia, 3 1/2 years into both our marriages, I noticed she has none of the skittish signs of exhaustion and post-partum that I do. And this on her 48th birthday!

I know I have more children than she does (and I don’t have her tremendous paycheck every week) but I’m almost a decade younger than Marcia! She looks fantastic and I feel broken. As I watch her glide around the set, I finally realize what makes a housewife desperate: it’s the house – or more specifically, being stuck in it when you don’t want to be.

But Felicity and Marcia and the rest of the mommies on Wisteria Lane, offer me advice each day I’m here and show me by example that a happy mom is a better mom. Even if that means I have to/get to/want to be a working mom. So I’m leaving my guilt at home with the diaper bag and hustling out (despite the high-pitched pleas for momma) with a Gucci clutch. I’m heading back to work where I’m now sure I also belong.
Thank you, “Housewives.”

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‘Blazing Saddles’ and Vanity Fair

Last modified on 2011-01-11 07:51:54 GMT. 23 comments. Top.

“Where the white women at?” asks Cleavon Little in “Blazing Saddles.” Obviously Cleavon didn’t have a subscription to Vanity Fair.

Looking at the cover of Vanity Fair’s March edition — you know, the Oscar-season paean that features “up-and-coming” neophytes better described as “young” and “underfed” white chicks — I found myself channeling Madeline Kahn from that same Mel Brooks film:

“I’m tired.”

I’m tired of how, age and weight aside, these arbiters of taste have once again managed to step on every race in America other than the one they’re clearly catering to by featuring 12 white women on their cover.

VF’s attitude was particularly insulting this year, as the wave of hope and change should be firmly set in motion. Did the couture mafia at Conde Nast miss the recent revolution that made equality stylish? Was the leading lady of the most popular films in history left off this cover because she is blue?

I understand that the Vanity Fairies are not running a summer camp to raise the self-confidence of American women — because with confidence, why on earth would we need 312 pages of “buy this or you’ll never be accepted”? But along with all that authority on style and taste, don’t periodicals have any sense of responsibility to avoid removing entire races of people from the pretty pile?

Now please don’t think that I missed the great deal of thought that went into the Vanity Fair cover displaying a dozen white girls. Even with my untrained eye, I did notice that redheads are perfectly book-ending the can-can line. Surely that took more than one art director to imagine. And with serious study I also found that along with the beige and the gray fabrics gracing every size 2 and 4 on that grassy knoll, there is also one stripe of blue. What an amazing feat for the world’s top stylists. And lest we forget: the isosceles placement of brunettes. Yet, all this ingenuity did not camouflage who was missing from this cover.

Frankly, the juncture I love in an actress’ career is rarely her second or third starring role in a studio movie. What makes a leading lady into a star is the role she is allowed to play differently. Like Vera Farmiga’s work in “The Departed” — which may have led to her success in “Up in the Air.” Or Zoe Saldana’s in “Avatar” this season. If she isn’t up and coming, then who is?

Perhaps Freida Pinto, America Ferrera, Alexis Bledel or Ziyi Zhang is. And, of course, Gabourey Sidibe, who doesn’t fit either of the requisite size or color molds to be on this cover — but is, perhaps, the greatest “can-do” story of this century for actresses. Do women really have to just swallow the fact that it’s harder to put a plus-sized black woman on the cover of Vanity Fair than it is to put a black man in the White House?

Here is the real cause for my distress with this Vanity Fair “issue”: I have two daughters, neither of whom is as white as I am. My girls are only 1 year old and a generation away from choosing a profession, yet I already fear the day they consider doing what mommy does. (Nepotism is one of the few perks an actress has to offer her offspring.)

I shudder at the impossibility for my half-Korean women in film — talented, thin, young, beautiful or not — based on Vanity Fair’s cover statement. All the education and experience I could provide my daughters will never make them as lily white as Mary Magdalene. And if auburn hair is the only variation allowed at the next supper of Hollywood’s up-and-coming apostles, then my girls, and a majority of those in America, are still out of luck.

(Diane Farr is known for her roles in “Californication,” “Numb3rs” and “Rescue Me,” and as the author of “The Girl Code.”)

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Please Don’t Touch the Celebrity

Last modified on 2011-01-11 07:50:08 GMT. 20 comments. Top.

My name is Diane Farr. I’m an actress. If you were to bump into me, your first thought might be, “I think I went to high school with that girl.” But, you didn’t.
If you keep this thought to yourself and continue jogging your memory, you might envision me with a gun or a fire hose. This is not because I’ve been lurking around your house. I have played a cop, a firefighter and an FBI agent over the last decade on TV. If you have managed to keep all of these thoughts to yourself so far, you may then approach me and say, “I know you!” Even though you don’t.
If you push yourself, you might get my name right. But more than half the time you will say, with tremendous excitement, “You’re Jamie Farr!”
Jamie Farr is a 75-year-old man who grew up in Ohio and went on to play Klinger on “M*A*S*H.” Unfortunately, I know just about everything Jamie Farr does because even those who get my name right often assume Jamie is my father.
Or even my husband. Holy Toledo!
Despite being a working actor and writer, I find the media attention paid to celebrities silly. I say this not as a celebrity, but as a junior varsity celebrity as evidenced above — which is just as annoying now as it was in 10th grade when you played on the “other” team no one really wanted to watch.
But an actual star sighting, be it backstage at the Shrine or in line at the deli counter, is always exciting — even to other stars.
I once saw Jean-Claude Van Damme beg his lawyer to introduce him to Christina Aguilera. Van Damme was so star-struck that Aguilera — 17 at the time — had to carry the conversation, which came off like a toddler teaching a grown-up the L-M-N-O-P part of the alphabet.
So, what should you do if you see a celebrity and don’t have a highly paid lawyer for a wingman? Just use my checklist before attempting conversation with the well-known.
First, know who the celebrity is. Don’t walk up to Jewel and tell her you loved “Bridget Jones’s Diary”. Renee and Jewel are not the same. Neither are Mickey Rourke and Jesse Ventura or Lisa Ling and Lucy Liu or the three guys on “Friends.” Getting a celebrity wrong is telling them “You’re not so cool” with a big smile. It’s also best if you know an actor’s real-life name. I know for sure that Tony, Carmela, Meadow and even Adriana are kind of over that job.
Second, look at what the famous person is doing. Fighting with their lover/partner/mistress or dog? Feeding their crying children? If the human being behind the sunglasses is looking vulnerable, now is not the time to intrude because, truthfully, no actor/singer/athlete/politician wakes up in the morning with a burning desire to meet you.
Last, make a plan to vacate the renowned person’s space. Remember that animals get hungry and tired and sometimes bite. So, decide if one or two minutes are enough with the silverback or lioness dressed in Prada, and then walk away after saying hello or getting an autograph.
And for the fan who rushes and gushes over me saying, “I love you Jamie Farr!” — I’ll still give a smile. Because if I’m quiet you may go away quickly without asking me the seemingly harmless question of “What do I know you from, again?” Which, hello!, requires me to run through my whole resume in front of you and everyone else now listening in at the DMV or gynecologist’s office or Kmart checkout line. So from me, Jamie Farr and every A-lister you admire: A smile and a “good job” will do.

(Diane Farr is most known for her roles on “Californication,” “Numb3rs” and “Rescue Me.” She is also the author of The Girl Code.)

Mommy’s Little Polymer l click here to view reader comments & the article

Last modified on 2010-06-30 23:19:06 GMT. 17 comments. Top.

But today, plastic is everywhere in my kitchen — from the Brita I “purify” water in, to the spatula I flip my free-range eggs with, to the ice cube tray I’m storing precious breast milk in.

The Cheetah App | click here to view reader comments & the article

Last modified on 2010-06-07 19:42:57 GMT. 51 comments. Top.

Ah, Tiger. Not only is your game blown on the course and the road, but now it seems your wife is heading north and your endorsement contracts are going south, too. I plan to support your wife at whichever path she takes, but your sponsors? They’re being short sighted. There are all kinds of new deals just waiting for you!

For starters, your team should reach out to Apple immediately. You have just shown America the iPhone App that every philanderer needs. If iPhone is ready to harness the cheetah in every tiger, the ‘hole-in-one app’ can fortify that lie you have taught us can become ‘an evidentiary voicemail between friends.’

Instead, by simply tapping a golf club shaped icon on a touch screen, any paramour can discretely change their outgoing message to a man’s voice saying, “Hi this is Phil, leave a message.” Think of all the hostesses who could have been hotel-room-contenders if only we had this in 2009.

But the real money is in the full-line of Tiger apps. As of today, we are 4 adulterers away from what we can call the ‘18-hole app package’. Starting with fellow athletes, we begin with the NBA since they had the most nefarious hotel game going until Tiger showed them.

Touching the Shaq app, denoted by a dagger icon, connects you to google where the application finds phone numbers for all the fiancés of the men in your phone book. Next is the Kobe app, shaped like a diamond, which links to your GPS and gives directions to precious stones over 5 karats in any American city – in case you are arrested and need a morning after gift for your wife.

Segueing to other play-uhs: the Aggasi app is a reference guide to the periodic table of elements incase you are cooking up some cold medicine and get lost. The Michael Vick app is a pre-loaded spreadsheet designed to file for bankruptcy. (You just add in any idiotic reason for losing hundreds of thousands of dollars.) The Favre app is an automated evite to your retirement party, with a matching download to your coming out party dated one year later. The Roger Clemens app links to multiple affirmations to help you believe your own lies. My personal favorite though, is the Shawn Kemp Ovulation app. Touching this mini-calendar and floating it over the mid-section of any female, will tell you if she is ready to carry your next child.

Sports stars aren’t the only ones using their celebrity inappropriately though. Also included in this low-rent special are: the Eddie Murphy app – shown as the silhouette of a female body only with a protruding adams apple, which should be flashed at women you ‘entertain in your car’ to get a gender reading on them. The Roman Polanski app – shaped as a Quaalude, gives you multiple questions to ask any young lady about the year she says she was born. The Mark Sanford app – which looks just like the billboard for “Up in the Air,” is a pre-fab expense report that allows you to leave out where you have been and who you were with. And lastly, the Eliot Spitzer app – which is tastefully denoted as one hand on the bible while the other is raised to take an oath. This app automatically sends your wife flowers on a weekly basis, during a civil or criminal trial, and throughout ensuing jail time.

And those are the ‘seemingly good guy’ apps in this dirt bag bundle. Musicians on tour (who I won’t name for fear of inspiring a reality show) constitute the seven remaining apps. After using them your phone is blown to smithereens in the hopes of containing disease and war.

But the final frontier in the Team Tiger misbehavior-application-market – is simply noted with a cigar. Touching it connects you to Ken Starr’s cell phone incase you need immunity.

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(Diane Farr is most know for her roles on “Californication”, “Numb#3rs” and “Rescue Me”. She is also the author of The Girl Code. Distributed by Tribune Media Services