smartassoperachick

[smartassoperachick]

Netflix and Freak Out: The Space Between Us

Guess what’s back! That’s right, it’s Netflix and Freak Out - lucky for you, because it’s been about two years and I’m sure you’ve been stumbling blindly through the streaming services, not knowing what to watch. Take heart, your fearless leader has returned!

Today, I bring you The Space Between Us. Unlike some of the other gems covered under NAFO, this one surprised me as I felt the need to cover it; it wasn’t completely ridiculous the entire time - there were moments of adorable poignancy and touchingness (a word? I’ll allow it) - but the parts that WERE ridiculous were juuuuuuust enough to qualify it. And the questions left at the end really sealed the deal.

Movie: here are the credits! Thanks for watching!

Me:

So to start, I knew what this movie was generally about when I popped it into the ol’ Bluray with my Korean foot peel masks on the feet and the jasmine tea fresh brewed for my official-preparing-for-lame-crazy-aunt-who-handmakes-all-her-gifts-at-Christmas GNI. It’s some pre-or-very-recently-post pubescent kid born on Mars in the near future comes to visit some chick he met on the internet who lives on Earth and then there’s scientific complications. I assumed that meant that we were being introduced to a utopian future where we had fully inhabited Mars and people just kinda shuttled back and forth. I was (pleasantly surprised to find, as it turns out) incorrect.

We open on Gary Oldman using his natural accent (yay!) as he addresses an audience at some scientific luncheon. He’s telling us all about how he decided when he was 12 that he wants to live on Mars, because we’ve depleted all of our resources here on Earth and going to Mars, though it seems impossible, would show an amazing amount of courage, which is a completely normal thing for a 12-year-old to reason. Well, surprise everyone, because Gary Oldman figured out a way to make that happen, and it turns out six astronauts are going to Mars tomorrow! to live there for good! Nice job, Gary Oldman! We get to meet the six astronauts - two women and four men, which just seems like an episode of The Bachelor waiting to happen, but we never really deal with that - and the head astronaut, a smokin’ hottie in her 20′s, tells everyone how excited she is to go to Mars. They get on the spaceship, rocket up to the little space station that’s gonna drag ‘em all over to Mars, and Hottie pukes! What’s the deal?! Oh, it’s cuz she’s preggers. Whoopsie. So now there’s all this turmoil, because Gary Oldman and his NASA team can’t figure out what to do. Do they bring the astronauts back and waste all this funding they’d gotten to make this trip and try to start over? Do they just wing it and see how the kid fares when he’s born on Mars? Gary Oldman points out that we don’t know what happens when a fetus develops in zero gravity, and the gravity on Mars is different than Earth, so then he’ll be all developmentally wonky if he grows up there, etc. It’s sounding like the astronauts are coming back, but instead Gary Oldman decides that they can’t risk the mission because one astronaut was “irresponsible” (direct quote, that’ll be important later) with her damn uterus, so let’s just hope the kid is born an alien and it all works out for the best.

Hottie has the kid, everything is hunky dory for literally 14 seconds and then she has this Exorcist-looking seizure and immediately dies, all while Gary Oldman is watching the birth from his car (wtf?). They decide the kid has to stay on Mars, because he’d never make the trip back to earth as an infant, and Gary Oldman volunteers to go to Mars to take care of him, but his NASA team points out he has a brain condition and can’t go. So best wishes to the alien kid, they decide to keep him a huge secret and just pretend he was never born for PR purposes, and that’s the end of that.

Cut to sixteen years later. Alien Baby is a precocious-but-socially-stunted teenager whose only friend is basically R2D2 with C3PO’s personality. Since he’s been raised by scientists, he knows how to mess with things and goes poking around in the system to find records of his mom, and finds a video some dude sent her saying he and some house in California will always be waiting for her. This is Alien Baby’s only clue as to who his dad is. Alien Baby is also FaceTiming with a foster kid from the wrong side of the tracks in Colorado (cuz that’s a thing people do) whose name is Tulsa, because beautiful abandoned teenagers are usually named after places or nouns. Tulsa is an outcast whose foster father is a well-meaning alcoholic who apparently dusts crops for a living (though it’s Tulsa’s responsibility to wake him up and remind him that), and whose reputation at school is that of a “slut”, which we learn when Tulsa is randomly playing a piano in her school’s band room when suddenly a bunch of idiot teenagers chase her off the premises yelling “slut” at her. We never learn why, as Tulsa does not seem to have any interaction with anyone other than Alien Baby, and is generally a fashionably-angsty teenager who can be approached by no one.

Alien Baby decides he’s going to try to get to Earth, and his sort of adopted astronaut mom makes a case to Gary Oldman. He eventually agrees, but Alien Baby has to have surgery to make his bones Earth-worthy, which basically just means injecting his bones with extra bone (...sure.). Once that’s done, he heads to Earth and the scientists all put him in quarantine to make sure he can handle Earth’s atmosphere. Alien Baby is genuinely enchanted with things like the ocean, rain, horses and wind, which, let’s face it, is kind of endearing (oh yeah, I guess they wouldn't have horses on Mars. Look, his little mind is blown!). Gary Oldman is pretty stoked to meet Alien Baby and wants to ask him all kinds of questions about Mars; Alien Baby is a weirdo and makes Gary Oldman uncomfortable and only wants to ask questions about Earth. Alien Baby has come to Earth for exactly two reasons: to meet Tulsa, and to find his dad. Gary Oldman isn’t into it, because what if you can’t breathe or something?! and won’t let him go, so Alien Baby - because he was raised by scientists - turns a bunch of valves on helium tanks sitting in his quarantine room and it repressurizes the whole facility so that the gravity is lighter, like it is on Mars, and then no one can catch him as he sneaks out (...sure.).

Alien Baby hightails it to Colorado and goes directly to Tulsa’s high school, walks up to her and says “oh hi it’s me, we’ve never met in person but have basically been virtually dryhumping for years over the internet, and I came all this way to meet you.” Tulsa promptly slaps him, whines he hasn’t talked to her in a while, and then says she has to go to science class, so he should wait for her. She tells him that he’s taller than she thought he’d be, and he says she’s meaner than he thought she’d be, and that’s the most intelligent observation Alien Baby makes about this dumb chick the entire movie.

After science class, Alien Baby tells Tulsa that she’s going to help him find his dad. They go to her house to get some stuff, but Gary Oldman and Adopted Mom Astronaut have been chasing him, and they try to get him to come with them. Don’t worry, though, Tulsa steals her foster dad’s ancient propeller plane and gets them outta there. She announces that she doesn’t know how to fly it, but ya know, does anyway. That only lasts for a few minutes, they make an awkward landing in which the plane coasts into an old wooden shed and (naturally) blows up in a huge mushroom cloud, which throws Gary Oldman and Mom off the trail for a minute while Tulsa and Ailen Baby take a bunch of crazy carjacking and hitchhiking adventures across the country. Alien Baby is honest with Tulsa to a fault about the fact that he’s from Mars, which Tulsa doesn’t believe, and to communicate that, she randomly stops cars and insists Alien Baby get out, then threatens to beat him up. He, in turn, calls her beautiful (...sure.). Tulsa knows all kinds of internety things and figures out that some Shaman in Arizona must have married Alien Baby’s mom and the dude in the picture, so maybe he can tell them who the dude is.

But first! Let’s stop and Costco and pick up some clothes and sleeping bags. This is a great way to get to know each other, and also, now we have sleeping bags! So the kids stop, build a fire, and have awkward I-don’t-know-how-to-kiss-cuz-I-was-born-on-Mars-but-I’ll-totally-have-no-trouble-finding-your-vagina sex, all while Alien Baby is whispering sweet nothings to Tulsa about how he’s found his penguin while Tulsa stares at him blankly, because she’s never said a genuine and/or nice thing in her life, so why start now.

Now that we’ve boned in our conjoined sleeping bags, we are in love and will act as such the entire rest of the trip. They find the shaman, who looks up the record of them getting married and has a copy of the check she used to pay for the marriage (obvs Hottie paid for it...dad’s even more of a deadbeat). The address on the check matches the Google Maps search of the house in Alien Baby’s photo, so the mystery is solved, let’s go! says Tulsa. Though the house is in California, there is apparently some reason they must stop in Vegas first, which literally blows Alien Baby’s mind, and at that very moment his skeleton remembers it doesn’t understand this environment, he gets a huge nosebleed and starts to die. Tulsa gets him to a hospital, where they’re like, “he’s got an enlarged heart,” so Tulsa cries and says she’ll go find dad and tell stories of this day. Alien Baby’s like, wtf, I’m gonna die anyway, take me with you! So she does, and he looks like an actual corpse for the whole trip, which makes a lot of sense, because 12 hours before he was skipping around and marveling at rain.

They get to dad’s house and find the dude in the picture - BUT GUESS WHAT. Dude is NOT happy to see Alien Baby. Why are you reminding me of Hottie?! he decries, and Tulsa runs up to him and calls him a dick. Just when you start to think this will go on forever, Dad announces that Hottie was his sister, not his wife. Tulsa turns around to relay this information, but Alien Baby has started walking into the ocean because he’s decided it’s time to die. “I didn’t get to choose where I was born,” he says, “but I can choose where I die,” which is a statement that resonates with all of us, as every human baby gets a choice as to where they’re born (...sure.). Just in time, while Tulsa is screaming at Alien Baby’s lifeless body floating in the Pacific, Gary Oldman shows up and drags Alien Baby out of the water. Coming back from the dead, Alien Baby looks up at Gary Oldman, somehow forgets that he’s been yelling at him for the past two hours of our lives to leave him alone, and basically says “oh look, you’re my dad.” Gary Oldman chuckles - it’s totes true, Hottie and I boned and here you are! - but then we all remember that Alien Baby is dying, so they have to get him out of the ocean. They get him into a fancy jet plane, where Gary Oldman and Adopted Astronaut Mom agree that the only way to get Alien Baby well is to get him to zero gravity, so pilot, can you kindly fly us to space? I cannot, says pilot, so Gary Oldman announces he’s gonna do it. Just remember, he says, I have a bran disorder so might die while I’m doing this, so if that happens, just take wheel. Sounds good! they all say, and they go up to space, which wakes up and immediately cures Alien Baby.

You have to go back! says Tulsa, and there are tears, and then for some reason they all go back to Earth (though the fighter jet they’re on is already halfway to Mars), Adopted Astronaut Mom cries because she’s going to miss Alien Baby (...oh, okay, I guess Adopted Astronaut Mom isn’t going back to Mars, where she was the last sixteen years? Sounds good), and Gary Oldman suits up to go (...oh, okay, I guess Gary Oldman flew a jet to space for fifteen minutes so now it’s okay to go to Mars with the brain thing? Sounds good). Alien Baby goes to get on the space shuttle, and Tulsa runs out onto the tarmac (of the SPACE SHUTTLE, which the astronauts are pretty much cool with her doing) and they yell inside jokes at each other right before he takes off. 

The final scenes are of Adopted Astronaut Mom going to visit Tulsa and asking her to come live on her newly-bought Colorado ranch with her, where she can train to be an astronaut, and Gary Oldman and Alien Baby laughing into the red dust of Mars as they enjoy their home together.

Mmmkay. I have a few issues - let’s get the obvious out of the way. Ima not even ask questions about the science. I looked up some reviews and there was a lot of scoffing at the holes in the gravity stuff, all the back and forth to Mars and Alien Baby’s medical shit. But I think it’s safe to say that we’re not watching this like a NatGeo documentary, yes? I think the social weirdnesses of this announce that the science is probably the last thing we were really researching here. So I leave that where it lies.

My first issue: Tulsa. W.T.F. with this whiny little bitch. As a particularly difficult both teen and adult, I can verify that this kind of stomping your feet and announcing your intended violence do and in fact should get you nothing but eyerolling from those around you. And it’s obnoxious under normal circumstances, but listen, Denver, Wichita, Salt Lake City, whatever your name is: when your catfish boyfriend shows up from “across the country” and all you can do is slap him and huff and puff about science class, then look generally exasperated at his clothes? You can suck it. The fact that this little waif spent the whole movie narrowing her eyebrows and “oh brother” sighing at every adorable heartfelt thing Alien Baby did, and his response to this was to announce his undying love for her just made me want to punch them both.

Let’s also have a quick word about Gary Oldman. W.T.F. with this pretentious lameass. When you think back on everything that happened with Hottie dying in space and this baby floating around in the abyss once you know that not only is he the kid’s dad, but he KNEW he was the kid’s dad, well...you’re just kind of a prick, man. Let’s cover it all up, let’s kinda weigh the scientific pluses and minuses of what happens when this kid is born in space - OH, and let’s call mom irresponsible! How dare that space-exploring uterus be so careless while I was impregnating her. Tsk tsk. Lucky for him, Alien Baby had an epiphany in the ocean and just woke up cool with the fact that you’re his dad, and had the power to stop all this pain he felt, but didn’t, so let’s go to Mars, Daddy!

Personalities aside, the plot made general sense...until the very end. They’re all floating around in the fighter jet in space, and I’m like, “oh, I get it...Tulsa is a foster kid who no one wants, right? So she can promptly go to Mars and be with Romeo!” But no. Tulsa stays on Earth, and no one seems to suggest that there might be an alternative. Similarly, Adopted Astronaut Mom is all kindsa teary at leaving her adopted Alien Baby...but um, why? She just spent the last two decades on Mars. Why would you even want to stay on Earth, where everyone is always whining about how heavy gravity is?!

And finally, while I said I wouldn’t pick at the science, there were a few things that puzzled me enough to distract me from the movie while I tried to reason them out. So we’re sending six astronauts of disproportionate gender distribution to live on Mars. Are we populating Mars? They say they’re going for four years...so then do they just come back and it was neat to have some people living on Mars for a little while? Or is this a long-term thing? Then once Hottie is preggers, all I could think was: they absolutely did NOT prepare medically for childbirth on this trip. Why are we even considering not turning this car around? Or even - and I hate to bring down the mood - why aren’t we talking about the big A? Why wouldn’t Hottie even consider that, if not for her own sake and the sake of Gary Oldman’s apparent precious budget, for the sake of the kid, who we’ve determined is probably gonna end of up crazy deformed? And then, when Hottie dies, everyone’s like “oh we’ll just raise him here on Mars.” With what?! Just trying to figure out how they were going to feed him, now that Hottie’s breastmilk isn’t around, let alone clothe him completely broke my brain. When I woke up, Alien Baby was Alien Teenager and was having quippy conversations with his robot BFF. 

Generally speaking, if you can have a good time watching Alien Baby discover what a dog is, you can have a good time with this movie. If you’re looking for a well-thought-out scifi flick or a romantic dramedy, you might want to go to a Star War. I give this one a 6/10, because I would genuinely like to pay the guy who took Brad Pitt out of every shot of Fight Club to do the same thing with Tulsa in this movie and see if it vastly improves it.

[smartassoperachick]

It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year! or “Male Altos = No”

Hello, and greetings from a very unlikely Christmas elf! I am admittedly full of almost exclusively acid and humbug, but for some reason, at the Christmas season, I become Cindy Lou Who and can barely contain myself. I’ve always been this way, and I’m sure most of the people I knew assumed that by now I’d have grown out of it, or would have submitted to life’s brutal beatings and let my heart simply stay at three sizes too small all year long, but alas, it’s an unexplained scientific phenomena to this day.

While I get giddy over all of it, high on the list is Christmas music - YES IT STARTS ROUGHLY TWO WEEKS BEFORE HALLOWEEN, I’M SORRY IF YOU DON’T LIKE IT, IT’S LIKE TURNING INTO A WEREWOLF, I’VE TRIED TO FIGHT IT AND NOW JUST HAVE TO EMBRACE IT - and it consists of the same music it always does: Bing Crosby, Dean Martin, Johnny Mathis, Perry Como, Vince Guaraldi, that one Mariah Carey song, that one Wham! song, that awful song where the girls just yell “MERRY CHRISTMAS, MERRY CHRISTMAS BUT I THINK I’LL SKIP THIS ONE THIS YEAR” or something, about 89 versions of Oh Holy Night, some of the more hilarious versions of Pavarotti trying to sing Christmas carols in English. You get the picture.

AND MESSIAH.

Oh yes, Messiah.

A few years back, when my life unraveled a little, I found myself blessed with tickets to multiple performances of professional Messiah presentations here in NYC. The music never changes, but for some reason, I can’t get enough of it, and this year have decided to try to continue the tradition for the third year in a row, of seeing at least two different Messiah productions in the Christmas season.

This year, I stepped it up and decided to go to St. Thomas Church to hear the Choir of Men and Boys perform it - I’ve seen Messiah at Carnegie Hall about eight times, and figured it would be neat to see the production in a real (and cool) church, and, having Messiah tattooed in my ears now, wondered what I’d think of a bunch of prepubescent dudes singing it. Also, the rage this year seems to be having the alto solos sung by countertenors (which could be good, as, in my experience, most altos who sing those solos these days just sound like they’re blowing over the top of a glass bottle when they sing it anyway), and this was one of the only performances I could find with two male and two female soloists. As countertenors follow later in the season...well, let’s see how it goes.

K first off. You have to buy your tickets online - sure - and your options are: FANCY SEATS for $75, SUPER FANCY SEATS for $95, or GENERAL ADMISSION, OR LOWLY SERF SEATS for $40. Well I’m not made of money my babies, so I went for Lowly Serf seats, and though they’re marked General Admission, you had to pick your seat - you had the choice of about 30 real seats and about 800 obstructed view seats, so I was hoping the choice I was making had anything to do with anything. As I entered my credit card information, I pondered - why the hell are there so many obstructed view seats? Who built this church?

The concert was at 7:30, and on this particular day, I had to work till 7. My place of employment bends schedules for no Second Coming of the Lord, so I knew I’d be booking it on two trains in half an hour to try and get there on time. The website said they opened at 6:30, so it was a nailbiter, but eh.

Listen. The floor plan of this place and what’s actually happening inside are TWO COMPLETELY SEPARATE LIFE CONCEPTS. There were, I dunno...six? main floor seats, and 875 obstructed view balcony and loft seats. In case you hadn’t guessed, all six seats were taken by 7:20 - I too was shocked - so I made my way up to the side balcony and picked the best seat I could find - one where I could see about a quarter of the top of the last chorister’s head. This will be a test to see what I can hear without the distraction of the visual, I thought! Whatever.

The show didn’t start till about 7:50, so we all had an extra 20 minutes to wait. What was neat about where I was sitting was that it truly contained some of the most interesting concert-goers there are. Is interesting the right word? Let no one tell you that money and sophistication do not go hand in hand. Up here, scraping the ceiling in a giant stone and wood box, we had all the sneezers of the world, everyone who dropped EVERYTHING THEY OWNED ABOUT 12 TIMES PER MUSICAL MOVEMENT WHY ARE YOU EVEN HOLDING IT PUT IT DOWN FOR MESSIAH’S SAKE, and, for some godforsaken reason, people who paced in the back row during the entire show. If you’re going to be one of the latter people, be sure to bring your loudest, clunkiest shoes - and you may be tempted to walk softly, but don’t! No, Handel wanted you to stomp, stomp gleefully but slowly, take your time getting to the other fucking side of the balcony.

Before the show started, though, I had the pleasure of witnessing a woman who decided to try every angle possible before choosing a seat. It was fascinating to watch. She sat in every row, every pew, and in every conceivable position she might choose while the singing was happening - crossed legs, lounging, what if I decided to watch it with my elbows on my knees?! What would that look like?! To complete the visual, you need to keep in mind: every one of these seats had a complete obstructed view. It’s like trying to pick your best seat to spy on your neighbors by setting up a folding chair directly in front of your wooden fence with your nose to the paint and trying out the view at each slat. Lady, you’re getting a stone pillar and a chandelier no matter how you cross those legs. Lucky for me, she decided to sit right across from me, and at any point when we might be able to stand and see, you know, one person’s complete head as opposed to that one quarter, she would walk to the front of the balcony and continue the obstruction for us. What a gem.

Once I’d gotten over all of that, the music. It was actually pretty cool to hear that kind of music in that setting - the acoustics made it so that any noise at all echoed everywhere, and the architecture and ornament of it all, especially decorated for Christmas, really made it amazing. The orchestra was pretty good, the mezzo was YES MA’AM and the tenor YES SIR. The soprano was kinda pitchy and trying too hard to sound like she should be taken seriously, and the bass was just, ya know, bassy. He hit a couple of low notes that made me happy, but I wouldn’t write home OR ON TUMBLR about him otherwise.

Hey how about all dudes singing the choral parts?! Guess who I didn’t miss?? SOPRANOS. Who can be surprised, really - we’re the worst - but I was super impressed by how clear and lovely the boy sopranos sound was. And here’s a fun side effect of having dude sopranos - tenors and basses get to be REAL MEN and sing like they MEAN IT. YES PLEASE, MAMA LIKEY.

K, but the other thing. Male altos. Mmmm....no thank you.

No matter what these dudes did, unfortunately, it sounded like someone was squeezing their balls too tightly. Where the boy sopranos sang and I forgot what their gender was entirely, the male altos would come in and it just made me feel uncomfortable. It was that literal feeling you get when a creepy dude is talking too close to you, and you don’t want to make eye contact to encourage him any further.

The fugal parts were the worst - take, for example, everyone’s favorite “Hallelujah” chorus. The “and he shall reign forever and ever part.”:

Basses: “AND HE SHALL REIGN FOREVER AND EVER” 

Me: YES SING IT SING IT DON’T STOP

Tenors: “AND HE SHALL REIGN FOREVER AND EVER” 

Me: OMG I USUALLY HATE TENORS WHY ARE YOU SO HOT

Altos: “AND HE SHALL REIGN FOREVER AND EVER” 

Me: 

Sopranos: “AND HE SHALL REIGN FOREVER AND EVER”

Me: OKAY THANKS FOR BRINGING THAT HOME, WHEW, OKAY, IT GOT WEIRD FOR A SECOND THERE

So all in all, if we’re talking musically, visually (if you can get a seat), aesthetically, I say yes, give this a shot. Get there early or pay an absurd price for the most uncomfortable bench you can imagine. And brace yourself for weirdo dude vibes when the altos sing.

Now to the most important part of the experience.

As you can see, my view was not only not spectacular, but very limited. I ran out of stuff to look at like, immediately. For a little while, I concentrated on the music, but, having heard it 800 times already, I found my mind drifting, my ears on autopilot, and ended up looking at the same six people over and over, sitting in the fancy pants seats below me.

At one point, I looked down at the woman above, and was like, “HOLY SHIT IS THAT A MANNEQUIN?!” Despite the fact that I knew in my soul of souls, the woman was not a mannequin, I stared at her for a good while, waiting for her to move. She didn’t, which I consciously logged as weird, because the way she was sitting made her look like a mannequin, and looked at something else.

I must have looked down at her six or seven more times in the course of my eye-wandering. EVERY. TIME. Every time, I thought, “HOLY FUCK, A MANNEQUIN.”

I couldn’t help but wonder: 

A) Why do I keep thinking there’s a mannequin at a Messiah church performance?

B) Why have I thought it more than once?

C) Why am I upset about it?? Who would care if it really was a mannequin??

At the intermission, I had to text some people that I felt would appreciate this.

And the show started up again:

I cannot explain it, but it was the single most hilarious moment of my life. I was stuck in this loop of not being able to be AWARE enough to look at that woman and think “remember, she’s not a mannequin.” While laughing at how many times I’d mistaken her for a mannequin, I would look down and like, “OH NO A MANNEQUIN” in all seriousness, and then crack up all over again. Even talking about it after I left, I was laughing hysterically on an A train platform at 11:30 at night. To no one in particular.

Guys, go hear the Choir of Men and Boys (and whatever’s in between). Go and see for yourself. DO MANNEQUINS WALK AMONG US?? 

[smartassoperachick]

“I’m Looking For...What Is It...Free”, or “A Performing Arts High School”: A Six Hour One-Act

Names of businesses and professional parties have been changed to protect God knows what.

Me: Thank you for calling *bleep.*

Man on Phone: I’m calling about music lessons.

Me: Okay...I can help you with that.

MOP: ...

Me: ...

MOP: ...

Me: Is this for you, or for a child?

MOP: Me.

Me: And what instrument do you play?

MOP: Bass.

Me: Okay.

MOP: ...

Me: ...

MOP: ...

Me: Have you studied before? MOP: Yes.

Me: Okay...

MOP: ...

Me: ...OKAY CAN YOU TELL ME ABOUT THAT?

MOP: Well...I took guitar lessons at *beep*...about twelve...eleven...no twelve...yeah twelve...twelve years ago...for about....about...well...I guess a year...about a year. And then I took a seminar at *beep*. Like...two years? I dunno, two years ago? Two...yeah, two.

Me: Okay. What’s your schedule like? What days would work for you?

MOP: Well...

Me: ...

MOP: ...

Me: ...

MOP: <incredulous> Like any day, I guess? *scoff*

Me: ...okay. We have someone here on Thursday and someone here on Sunday. Would either of those days work for you?

MOP: Yes.

Me: Okay...is there one that’s better?

MOP: ...

Me: ...

MOP: Thursday.

Me: Okay. Any time of day works?

MOP: ...uh...in the afternoon.

Me: Okay, we have a teacher who’s available at 4pm. Would that work?

MOP: Who is it?

Me: His name is *bleep* and you can read about him on our website. I can email you a link or you can check it out if you go to *bleep*.org/*bloop*

MOP: *Bleep*.org?

Me: Yes. Slash-*bloop*

MOP: I don’t see it. 

Me; Are you on our website?

MOP: I’m on *bleep*.org.

Me; You need to go to *bleep*.org/*bloop*

MOP: *Bleep*.org?

Me: SLASH-*BLOOP*

MOP: Okay, let me try it.

<22 minutes of silence and heavy breathing>

MOP: Oh, I went to *bleep* to study this other thing, too.

Me: ....great.

MOP: And a performing arts high school.

Me: ...that’s great.

<22 more minutes of silence and heavy breathing.>

MOP: It’s not working.

Me: Do you want me to email it to you?

MOP: It’s *bleep*.org? www?

Me: <sigh> slash-*bloop*.

<22 minutes of silence and heavy breathing>

MOP: Okay it’s working. I only see <name of director> and <my name>...

Me: Scroll down to where it says “instructors.”

MOP: Okay.

Me: ...and click on it.

MOP: Okay.

Me: and then find bass teachers.

MOP: Okay.

Me: ...and click on it.

MOP: Okay.

<2 minutes of silence>

MOP: Okay, I just see his picture. So...?

Me: ...CLICK ON THE PICTURE.

MOP: ...I see it now.

<22 minutes of silence and heavy breathing.>

MOP: I played on a jazz album once too. And I wrote a song.

Me: ...

<22 minutes of silence and heavy breathing>

MOP: Okay, does he do jazz? Because I want to do jazz.

Me: Yes. So a semester of lessons would cost *bleep*. <Gives him entire 5 minute spiel about policies and schedules.>

MOP: Oh. It’s costs *bleep*?

Me: Yes.

MOP: And it’s for a semester?

Me: Yes.

MOP: Oh. I was looking for something that was like...um...what is it...free.

Me: Free?

MOP: Yeah.

Me: Like...no cost?

MOP: Yeah.

Me: Oh. No, they cost *bleep.*

MOP: Okay. Do you have anything that’s like that?

Me: Like...?

MOP: Free.

Me: Oh. ...no.

MOP: Oh.

<22 minutes of silence and heavy breathing.>

MOP: So I guess I could call back another time?

Me: ...sure.

<SCENE> 

[smartassoperachick]

Netflix and Freak Out: 40 Days and 40 Nights

That’s right, kids, it’s that time of year again - the time of year when your favorite blabbermouth OperaChick gets an ass-kicking disease and spends four days flat on her back, wishing she were dead for the pressure in her skull. The healing process includes many steps - lying in a pile of afghans moaning, contemplating risky hairstyles, an irrational fear that this is permanent and I’ll sound like the woman from the anti-smoking commercials forever, you get the picture. One of the most important steps: watching terrible ‘90′s romcoms on Netflix in the hopes it will ask nothing of me and lull me into a stupor until the debilitation passes. I would say I have a pretty good track record (with the exception of Meet Joe Black, which asked one too many things of me), but while they DO lull, they also tend to illicit an irrepressible and usually loud WHO THE FUCK APPROVED THIS MAKING OF THIS GARBAGE. You have these reactions and the idiots who made these movies to thank for Netflix and Freak Out.

40 Days and 40 Nights did not disappoint in participating in this adventure. Let’s be clear: nothing about the appearance or description of this movie would lead anyone to think it’s going to be A Beautiful Mind. I’d even seen this movie about a decade ago when it was a new release at Blockbuster (Blockbuster!). But in the folly of my youth, I’d been like “eh, whatevs.” In the ENLIGHTENMENT of my un-youth, I can officially say:

WTF IS HAPPENING IN THIS MOVIE.

Here’s what you missed:

During the opening credits, we meet Matt and his gorgeously typical girlfriend Nicole as they camcorder their way around San Francisco with Matt’s roommate, Ryan, who likes to catcall at women so quickly he doesn’t even finish the pickup line before he starts another aimed at another woman walking by. They are blissful - they do things like kiss in front of the Golden Gate bridge and pose goofily! They are a match made in heaven.

JUST KIDDING - when the credits are over, you learn that Nicole has dumped Matt, and Matt’s only defense against this major blow is to fuck everything that moves. You learn this fact about him through his confession to his brother, who is training to be a priest - Matt goes to his brother, concerned that he can’t seem to fuck to completion a woman whose name he hasn’t learned without a painfully stereotypical and metaphorical crack forming in his ceiling as the cosmos open up to swallow him whole. Matt ends up running away, freaking out Amy for Sarah or whoever-the-fuck-she-is and doesn’t even get to finish. Matt’s brother, the voice of God and reason in this film, reminds him that these are not real problems, and that perhaps he hasn’t dealt properly with Nicole leaving him. 

After watching a hilarious altercation between Matt and some skank his roommate picks up for him, whom he attempts to fuck under duress (he only does it to appease his roommate, who insists he invite her and her friend over, to which Matt says “no, c’mon man” and Ryan says, “dude” and he’s like, “fine, okay.”) and only ends up cowering under the crack in the ceiling and being forced to pretend he’s “finished” when he’s given the hairy eyeball by the young lady, and finds himself looking for a semen substitute to prove he didn’t “fake it” (I mean, we’ve all been there, right? So relatable!), we find Matt visiting his brother again while they prepare at the church for Lent. It strikes Matt like lightning or a burning bush (ha, had to fit that into this review somewhere): in order to get over Nicole and fix his erectile dysfunction, he will give up sex for Lent. THAT’S RIGHT: no sex with himself or anyone else for forty whole days. And then he’ll be cured.

Matt’s roommate, brother and friends at his ridiculously trendy dot-com job (we never really learn what these guys do - at some point, there’s some proofing of what seems to be a poster with some woman on it, an excellent opportunity to watch Matt squirm at the sight of some boobs, but that’s about it. But I’m getting ahead of myself.) all tell him that this will not be possible for him, but Matt is steadfast in his dedication to the Lord and fixing his pussy problems. To prove this, he goes out and buys model cars to build. Instead of having sex. Also relatable!

Guys, this is hard (ha!) enough to manage with things like posters and waitresses drifting around Matt’s world - but then he meets A GIRL. A strangely androgynous girl in a laundromat who asks him for dryer sheets and borrows his magazine, in which he’s underlined the word “tryst” in an article, and she hilariously drawls the definition of the word to him, pointing out that she too underlines words she doesn't know while reading so she can look them up later. Adorable! She’s not turned off immediately by the fact that a man no younger than his mid-twenties doesn’t know what the word “tryst” means, so she’s a keeper. Matt doesn’t talk to her once through the whole interaction, just gives her lopsided smiles, shrugs and nods, and this enchants her so much, she says “same time next week?” as she’s leaving, and thus Juliet bid Romeo anon from the balcony.

Matt can’t seem to stop thinking of Erica - androgynous girl - all week, and shows up a week later at the laundromat, catching her dancing like the nineties girl she is to her walkman as she bebops around the laundromat. He tells her he’s able to speak - adorable! - and they get to know each other as Erica tells him that she’s a “cybernanny” - she spends her day trolling porn sites by googling innocuous words and finding what porn sites come up, thus blocking them from the word when people search in the future (did you guys know that the word “sandbox” calls up all kinds of porn? It’s got the word box in it! C’mon!). Outside of just proving that this movie takes place in a world where raunchy sex is part of every single aspect of every person’s life, this will be important later.

Matt likes Erica so much that he takes her on the date, much to the chagrin of his friends. The date is when you take a girl to your special place, the place you go to think, the place you love best in the world. If you just want to fuck a girl, you don’t take her on the date, so when this happens every solar eclipse, your friends get very impressed with whoever you’re taking. Matt’s place is the bus. What?! A bus?! Oh don’t worry, there will be a montage in which Erica and Matt ride a bus, laughing at the silly people who ride buses in cities, playing hot hands (always with the goddamn hot hands) and winding up on an empty bus in the lot at the bus depot after the shift is over, where neither the bus driver has removed either of them, nor do they seem concerned that they’re stuck on a bus in a storage lot.

Erica and Matt are star-crossed, clearly, but things aren’t going as smoothly as a date on a bus might sound. Dudes, Matt’s gone out with Erica twice, and he can’t kiss her. Erica is perplexed! Doesn’t he want to rip her clothes off?? And how are they going to get to that point if he doesn’t kiss her first?! And Matt! Matt not being able to give Erica a goodnight smooch IMMEDIATELY gives him blue balls, and we get to watch Matt march around the city, all bouncing shoulders, hands in pockets, stumbling into things trying to distract himself from his erection. 

To make things more complicated, Matt’s work buddies have started a complicated betting pool, one complete with website, so they can guess when Matt will inevitably cave. These coworkers spend the rest of the movie doing things that can only be categorized as a sexual harassment lawyer’s wet dream (haha! More appropriately placed metaphors!), as his female coworkers sit on copiers, displaying tattoos on their vaginas, demonstrations of reasoning as to why it’s fine not to jack off for a week (for those betting on later dates) and begging while offering porno mags and privacy in bathroom stalls. Luckily, Matt’s boss has also taken “the vow,” as he’s noticed his wife often tries to withhold sex from him to get what she wants, and he wants to turn the tables (oh old married people!), so no danger of him, ya know, calling out his childish employees and telling them to get back the fuck to work.

Thing is, in order to fund the website, Matt’s friends get sponsors, and of course those sponsors are porn sites. Do you guys remember what Matt’s boyish girlfriend does for a living?? Well, MATT DOES, and he goes running to Erica’s work which is more or less a replica of Matt’s work (because in San Francisco, you can only work in an office that looks like Lisa Frank and Hot Topic barfed all over it), and begs her forgiveness, as she’s obviously found out about his vow at that very moment. And she’s pissed! She’s pissed to learn that her new boyfriend has been out with her like, twice, and won't fuck her because he’s taken a vow of chastity for Lent. She’ll have to go like, 29 more days without sex, and that’s ridiculous. When was he going to tell her?! Certainly not while he was hanging out with her, enjoying her company, not trying to get in her pants! He is a liar, and she can’t possibly have a liar in her life. Goodbye, Matt.

Well, in a shocking turn of events, she forgives him and goes out to some restaurant with him. They order food, take a bite, and then sigh exasperated at how difficult it is to sit through this meal, since ALL THEY WANT TO DO IS FUCK. What do you even talk about on a third date when you haven’t screwed each other?! Luckily, Matt’s ex shows up at that moment, and he does an appropriate spit take at seeing her all dolled up and with her new fiancé. Erica is again non-plussed, as she now realizes that Matt did not make the vow for JESUS, he made the vow to try and starve out NICOLE! He’s had other girlfriends, other girlfriends he has fucked, and Erica’s done. 

At some point, Nicole comes over, mascara running down her face because her fiancé broke up with her, but Matt has realized that he loves Erica, took the vow for himself, and is done with her. Anyway.

Matt goes over to Erica’s with a bunch of lilies to apologize for that time that his ex-girlfriend existed. The roller coaster that is Erica slapping Matt and taking him back rolls to the top of a hill, she takes him back, and immediately brings up the fact that, now that they’ve made up, there’s nothing to talk about and why can’t they fuck?! Matt has a lightbulb moment and realizes that they can do OTHER things than fuck: they can tickle each other with lilies. That’s right, tickle each other with lilies until Erica writhes with pleasure, and while Matt observing Lent or having had other relationships before Erica is not acceptable, this lily shit satisfies Erica on so many levels. Had they only known they could fuck like this on the first date!

As Matt rounds third on the 40th day, he is somehow overcome with lust in general and starts to hallucinate that women around him are walking around in their lingerie. He and Erica have planned to fuck at exactly midnight on the 40th day, so Matt heads home and handcuffs himself to a bed, because this last six hours is really going to make or break him, so he’s going to have to go to drastic measures to make it that far. Nicole has learned about the vow, and makes a huge bet for this last day, goes to Matt’s apartment, breaks in, and rapes him in his sleep, while he dreams about a sea of breasts and assumes it’s Erica screwing him. Hilarious! But of course Erica walks in as Nicole is walking out, sees the evidence of the fun they’ve been having and - you’re never going to believe this - freaks out at Matt and walks out.

I know you’re thinking this is probably it, but fear not - Matt makes Erica a painted metal box with the word “tryst” written all over it with a toy bus inside to remind her of the two times they hung out. How could Erica’s tiny frozen heart not be thawed? Well, it is thawed, and she goes to his house, and they fuck for over 48 hours - 48 hours heavily bet on by his friends, as they are apparently all gambling addicts now.

Do I even need to tell you what’s wrong with this movie? Doubtful, but let’s discuss a few key points: this movie was made in 2002, and it was truly a different time. But I must tell you, my uterus hurt while watching this movie, and not just because I have the plague. This movie didn’t even have the nerve to have a fat, ugly girl act as the voice of the intelligent woman in this dumpster fire. Every woman is 108 pounds soaking wet, wears a skirt you can see up while she walks, and sits with her legs wide open. Not one to judge a book by its cover, I’d applaud them if there was a shred of evidence they’re anything more than a target for all the penises in this movie. 

The idiots who work with Matt aside, let’s talk about Erica. Oh, Erica. Erica is a strong, independent, quirky woman who dances in laundromats and knows how to adorably define words to hot strangers. She’s so strong and independent, she dumps bumbling, apologetic Matt every time she’s decided he’s done something wrong with absolutely no information on the topic about which she’s furious, because that’s what strong women do: they stomp their feet when they’re inconvenienced. She puts Matt through the ringer for the sake of testing him - at one point, Matt offers to quit the vow for her, and she replies “oh, so NOW St. Matt wants a piece.” He responds that that’s not it at all, and she cuts him off to say, “so you DON’T want me?!” Please zoom in on my enormous eye roll. But what’s worse than Erica’s stereotypical “I want you to want to do the dishes” behavior is her exasperation at not getting sex immediately after meeting Matt. This is probably the must unrealistic movie in history, and that’s BEFORE Matt flies like superman over a literal ocean of breasts, but Erica’s frustration sixteen minutes into knowing Matt that he hasn’t thrown her on the bed is absolutely ridiculous. While this script was clearly written by a man, he should have consulted, oh, I dunno, ANY woman about what point in a courtship a woman becomes frustrated that she can’t get any, and he would have learned that that time is precisely half past absolutely fucking never. Were this a simple question of “why won’t you fuck me” I would have laughed till the cows came home, but the question is answered immediately - oh, I gave it up for Lent, like you give up Nutella and beer - and instead of saying “oh, really? Cuz that means we’ll totally screw on a specific date and I’m cool with that,” Erica loses her shit and has all kinds of problems with it for that very finite period of time. Turns out she’s a skank who can’t do math - no wonder she doesn’t mind he can’t define a five-letter word.

But finally, and probably most obviously - this movie should have been 15 seconds long. It should have been Matt walking into his brother’s confessional, saying “hey, Ima give up sex for forty days,” his brother saying “I’d like to see you try that,” and then Matt is probably a little antsy for about 36 hours (a four second montage) and then Lent is over. If he has to meet Erica halfway through, maybe he can say “oh shit, I gave up sex for Lent, let’s fuck on Easter,” and she’s like, “sounds good,” because this movie is about people with jobs and bills and human responsibilities, and this is neither hard nor important. The fact that more than two actors I’ve actually heard of (Maggie Gyllenhaal?!) read this and weren’t like, “fuck, you owe me three IQ points for even putting this in my hands.” 

Netflix and Freak Out: 40 Days and 40 Nights gets 2/10 on the WTF meter - one pity star for giving Josh Hartnett and Shannyn Sossamon each a second movie to be in ever, and one star for letting you skip down a delia*s catalog memory lane, in case you want to remember what it was like to wear wide-leg cargo pants and chokers. 

[smartassoperachick]

NYC - A MuthaFuckin’ Guide

NYC! It’s the place all artistic transplants come to feel inspired, spin in circles with their arms wide, listen to Alicia Keys songs and assume they were written specifically about them. IF YOU CAN MAKE IT HERE, YOU CAN MAKE IT ANYWHERE THAT’S WHAT THEY SAYYYYYEEEEEEEEE.

I am one such transplant. I grew up in New Jersey, then Pennsylvania, went to school in Cleveland (let’s not talk about that right now), lived in Vermont after that...and eventually followed my stupid dreams to the city. When I moved, it was honestly just to be closer to auditions (see my post regarding the amount of time I’m willing to spend commuting to an audition *cough* - one time I made the six-hour drive down just to get stuck in traffic and miss the audition, then have to turn around and go right back. That’s enough of that.). I had absolutely no interest in living here long term, and would scoff at anyone who talked about the city implying it was superior to anywhere else on earth.

Well, I’m not proud to say it, but am amused enough at the 180 I’ve done that I’m not ashamed to admit it: I love New York and can't imagine living anywhere else. There’s always something happening here, and you can be absolutely anywhere you feel like being at any given moment: you can be in the utmost “concrete jungle” or in the lushest gardens, on Broadway one moment and creepy-ass Staten Island the next. 

That having been said, you should know if you’re not from here: living in NYC, your time can be broken down pretty accurately by saying that an enormous chunk of your time is spent putting up with absolute bullshit, perhaps only overshadowed by the amount of time you spend slaving away for the pennies demanded of you to exist here. Here is a mathematical representation of what happens when you move here. 

Before I moved here, New York City had the reputation it probably has with you: full of people, mostly assholes who want to steal shit from you at best, and going anywhere within said city is an overwhelming, expensive task (albeit dazzling). When I actually did move here, the latter was certainly true, the former only partially - there were a LOT of people, but they didn’t seem to be assholes to me. And they didn’t try to steal anything from me. One time, coming home from work, I was walking down a dark sidewalk, clutching my bag, ready to fight off any drug dealers ready to jump out and steal my feminine innocence or my LG Voyager, and someone came out from between two parked cars. I jumped and gasped, imagining that this was Cleveland all over again, and the gentleman just chuckled and said, “Whoops! So sorry, didn’t meant to scare you!” and kept walking. 

Now that I’ve been here for almost seven years, however, I can successfully say that I am over it. The city, to any New Yorker, is split evenly between naive and space-wasting tourists and the most self-centered mouth breathers on the planet. And while it isn’t new or exciting, I’m going to do my part here to explain what you can do to make NYC a less shitty place, whether you’re a native or just visiting, complete with New York language. Listen up.

Stop. Staring. At. The. Sky. Oh my fucking lord. If I had a goddamn nickel for every time I’ve walked into some idiot who decided it was a good idea to stop mid-stride on 5th Avenue to stare up at some pile of bricks, I’d be able to quit my shit job and swim in fucking nickels. WHAT ARE YOU LOOKING AT. Listen, they’re everywhere, these huge stone redwoods, so you need to get over it to begin with. But if you absolutely must stop and admire - if you just can’t resist the temptation - dude. Pull the fuck over. Just step to the side. Let the people who are trying to exist like normal humans do their things.

Get off your fucking phone. In all senses of the word. Stop looking at it. Stop talking on it. Stop SNAPCHATTING. JESUS CHRIST, STOP SOCIAL MEDIA-ING. Everyone walks around, announcing to the world their goings-on on the Facebooks as if anyone gives a shit while they’re walking, and everyone thinks they can handle it. They think they walk at a normal speed, not inconveniencing others. They don’t. No one does. The minute you look at that screen, you’re basically drunk at the wheel, and it’s not our responsibility to watch out for your erratic, slothlike movements. If it’s any consolation, your duck-faced selfies aren’t improving the internet silence, so if you skipped it altogether, trust me, no one would notice. Do the walking world a favor and keep it in your damn pocket.

The Subways. Okay. I’m going to admit to you here that the subways are scary! They’re big and there’s a lot of colors and letters and numbers! And just when you think you understand how they work, all the service changes and nothing does what it’s supposed to! Dammit! I’m with you. That aside:

Appropriate places to figure out where the fuck you’re going do not include: the tops of escalators, directly outside the crowded subway train after you’ve stepped off, on a flight of stairs, in the middle of a walkway of any kind. I get that you’re lost. You have to get out of the way.

Appropriate places to stand when you get onto a subway do not include: in the doorway when you’re the first person on the train, there’s a line of people trying to come in behind you and there are other viable places to stand, hugging a pole while other people are trying to hold it, touching someone else when there are other viable places to stand. Here’s the thing. At any given point in time, you should be at the place that’s equally furthest away from everyone around you.

There are specific rules on where to sit. Much like standing, there are acceptable places to sit and unacceptable. If you have the opportunity to not sit directly next to someone, you gotta do it. If you’re in a three-seater, and there’s someone on the seat on the left, you sit on the seat on the right. If there’s a three-seater and there’s someone directly in the middle, SORRY. SEAT’S TAKEN. It is only acceptable to wedge yourself between two fat asses when there are no seats otherwise. And speaking of fat asses...

It is okay to say to yourself “self, my ass is too fat to fit in that seat.” Just because you see a little orange peeking out from between two ham hocks, that does NOT give you the right to cram yourself in there if the space is not big enough. There is nothing quite so rage inducing as sitting peacefully in your rightfully-earned seat and seeing someone’s right butt cheek coming at you like a total eclipse. Be a mensch and stand if it might mean overflowing onto your neighbor.

Bus bonus round! If you insist on sitting on the outside seat of an empty two-seater, there’s a special place in hell for you. No one can get in there. C’mon, man, move in.

Once you go to that NYC place that you always wanted to go to, you do not own it. So you always wanted to go to that rainbow bagel place, or get a cronut. Barf. But okay, so there ya go, you went, you did it. This does not entitle you to rolling your eyes at other people who want to pop that cherry - you are not allowed to be over it because you did it that one time and it’s impressive to be underwhelmed. This rule multiplies as your things-that-you-did-in-NYC circle grows. You are not allowed to go to another city and sigh at people who want to go to New York because they don’t even know. Of course they don’t know, they’ve never been here. And you’re not fucking Rockefeller.

You can go to fucking Olive Garden. It’s fine. When you move to/visit the city, you’re gonna want to only go to places that are holes in the wall or that used to be a VFW and is now a trendy froyo/vape bar. And that’s great (see the rule above). But sometimes, you want to go to Taco Bell. And that’s okay, because you didn’t turn in your lame-American card when you crossed the GW.

You are not the only person on the planet. No matter where you’re going, there are literally millions of people around you. Millions. Move over. Get out of the way. Don’t force other people to watch where you’re going. When there’s only enough room for two people to walk on the sidewalk, walk single file with your friends. FOR FUCK’S SAKE, LEAVE YOUR STROLLER OUTSIDE, WHY ARE ALL STROLLERS THE SIZE OF HONDA CR-VS AND WHY DO WE HAVE TO PARK THEM IN THE AISLES OF DUANE READE??

These are just a few of many, many rules which must be followed in order not to get trampled by those of us trying to fit our lives into that shitty, shitty Venn diagram. Stay tuned for more fun facts and useful fucking tips! :-D

[smartassoperachick]

Matthew spent a good portion of his afternoon researching whether or not the next President of the United States would be inaugurated on his birthday. It went on for no less than 45 minutes, complete with exclamations at random while actual work was being done in the office by other people.

#JustMatthewThings

[smartassoperachick]

#JustMatthewThings - What’s Half of 300??

Our boss recently had me send a flyer to the printer to be mass produced. She wanted 200 copies for an outside person, and 100 for us to use, so Matthew went to pick them up and our boss told him to send 200 to this person.

I hear “fwip fwip fwip” and I turn around, and Matthew is counting out 200 flyers.

One. 

Two.

Three.

...Four.

He didn’t look at the huge stack of 300 and think “I need about 2/3 of these.” He was counting them out.

Then, as he neared the end, Boss Lady said “you know what? Just send her 150.” 

So instead of a) adjusting what he was doing by however many more or less he needed or b) eyeballing half and half of the whole stack...

He put the 300 back together and started counting again.

...until Boss Lady heard the fwip and yelled from her office “MATTHEW, SPLIT THE PILE IN HALF AND BE DONE WITH IT.”

[smartassoperachick]

Me: Wow, it's really crazy outside with the streets shut down for that famous person coming in. I had to cross the street just to go down the block, they blocked off the sidewalk. Matthew: Ugh...well...ugh...normally I...well sometimes I get dinner...but today I...I brown bagged it...so I...brought a peanut butter sandwich...and water...and I usually go down to the vending machines and get apple juice...but now I...ugh...I don't know...if it's all crazy down there...and they've blocked everything off... Me: ...what?? They closed the street outside...you can still get to OUR OWN VENDING MACHINES INSIDE THE BUILDING. Matthew: OH.

#JustMatthewThings

[smartassoperachick]

#JustMatthewThings - A Hilarious Intermezzo

Scene: our office, where I am busy and doing things, things no one else will do because they are too stupid or too “important.” (The quotations are necessary. No one is as important as they think they are...at this job and just about everywhere on the planet. But that’s for another day.)

*A note to the actors: Matthew’s lines must be read in the most condescending tone possible, for accuracy and maximum furious reaction from the character of Me.

Boss Lady: I just got a donation for the benefit.

Matthew: *snickers like Dastardly Dog.*

Me: What?

Matthew: ...um, I was making that noise in relation to the check.

Me: What?

Matthew: ...what?

Me: ...were you laughing?

Matthew: ...what?

Me: ...was that a laugh? Was that the noise you were just making?

Matthew: ...yes...

Me: Why?

Matthew: ...what?

Me: What’s funny?

Matthew: ...I...assumed that...that was the appropriate response...

Me: Why?

Matthew: ...what?

Me: NEVERMIND, I DON’T CARE.

Boss lady: What’s funny?

Me: I don’t know and I don’t care.

*End Scene*

WHAT THE HELL IS HAPPENING?

[smartassoperachick]

Me: Did the set of keys you found have a keychain or anything on them? Matthew: No, they were on an unadorned ring. ... Me: *throws on cape and Phantom of the Opera mask* THE RING IS UNADORNED! *kills self*

#JustMatthewThings

[smartassoperachick]

#JustMatthewThings - There’s Always Nonpareil

One of our more high maintenance employees had submitted copy advertising a class we’d be giving in the future, and we’d just approved our final version of the text. I’d spent most of my time checking dates, times and locations, as we had a marketing team on top of proofreading copy, but happened to notice after we’d approved it that a class whose title should have included the word “Unparalleled” was written “Unparalled.” Our marketing department prided themselves on being very thorough in their proofreading (and didn’t like to be questioned), but the final version was going to print as I was noticing the error. The high maintenance employee was sure to have a meltdown if it actually were a typo, and I was racking my brain to figure out if “unparalled” was actually a word.

Matthew is a playwright, and has that obnoxious vocabulary, so I just thought out loud:

“Matthew, is ‘unparalled’ a word? I think this article should have the world ‘Unparalleled’, but this says ‘Unparalled.’ That’s not a word, is it?! U-N-P-A-R-A-L-L-E-D??”

Matthew, hearing the panic in my voice, responds:

“Well, there’s ‘nonpareil’...”

After this, I talked myself down from taking my industrial, metallic nine-pound stapler and hurling it at his head as hard as I could. Successfully. This time.

[smartassoperachick]

#JustMatthewThings

I want you to sit down, because I’m going to tell you something shocking: being generally hilarious on the internet is not my full time job. 

NO. IT’S TRUE.

So in order to pay my landlord, I work an actual full time job, with benefits and annoying co-workers and hours that insist I wake up at a “respectable hour” and a dress code that I IMMEDIATELY rip off when I walk through the door to my apartment at the end of the day. (I am naked by the kitchen four out of five evenings during the week.) This job is not my dream job. It does not fulfill me, but it keeps me from being homeless (and that’s about it).

There are many obnoxious aspects to this desk job, many of which can be attributed to the fact that I would honestly watch all the Netflix and eat all the Nutella of the world if I had the choice to do anything with my life, and having to work gets in the way of that. But once you get past that, strap on your big girl panties and decide to be an adult...it’s still a shit job with a demanding boss and mindless tasks and responsibilities I don’t care about. But that’s not why we’re here today.

We’re here so I can introduce you to Matthew*.

Matthew is my part-time coworker, who shares the responsibilities of the job I do 30 hours a week. Matthew has worked here much longer than I have, and “knows” all the ins and outs of the job - where things are, who to talk to if you need this or that, what we did last year in the face of some problem or event. This should make Matthew an asset, but one must also consider: Matthew is a man-child afflicted with some serious social expression issues. Matthew is easily 15 years older than me, and I’ve been called “no spring chicken**”; Matthew will get upset if there is a snowstorm on his birthday, preventing him from having a birthday party; Matthew will show you a photo of the complete set of Simpsons figurines his friends gifted to him for said birthday (and proudly); Matthew will, when you tell him you indeed have seen the new Avengers movie, begin to debate (mostly with himself) the origins and relevance of plot lines between each of the characters with the utmost seriousness.

Whatever, dude’s annoying, it’s not a crime, as is evidenced by the way 90% of the American public is allowed to behave these days. I could easily tune out the fretting over Avengers if it were his only offense, but unfortunately, these attributes bleed into his work life, and thus affect my work life. And that’s where Ima have to speak up.

The problem with an enormous aged child in the workplace is multi-faceted, and in Matthew’s case, he takes advantage of every single angle there is. He can handle problems and conflicts that can be solved easily and within about 45 seconds, and preferably using a solution that either he or someone else has already come up with. If any one of those criteria can’t be met: meltdown. Matthew has a very short list of things he wants to do, and he refers to it in his work constantly - they are generally things that fit into the above requirement, so he won’t have to wonder about their outcome. If he’s forced to do something he doesn’t want to do (and I don’t know if I mentioned this yet, but we’re at a JOB, SO IT’S ALL STUFF WE DON’T WANT TO DO, BROTHER): meltdown. If you have emailed something to Matthew, thinking “I bet Matthew won’t want to do this, but if I email it to him, there will be proof it needs to be done, and he’ll realize that, and he’ll force himself to do it!” he will thwart you - not by losing the email, not by claiming he never got it, not by claiming he didn’t understand the deadline or the instructions...but by ignoring it outright. When you confront him about that time that you asked him to do this simple thing at a very specific time and he didn’t do it: meltdown.

BUT THE OFFENSE DOESN’T STOP THERE! Matthew doesn’t only do his job poorly, he does it with a condescending tone and an unnecessarily large vocabulary (listen, friends. If you’re smart and you can use big words, that’s awesome for you and you should do it. But you need to know that sometimes, when you’re trying to tell someone you wrote and sent an email, saying “I’ve crafted the lexicon and commenced the envoy to the appropriate and necessary parties” just makes you a tool. Why did I sit through that sentence when you could have said “wrote it, sent it” and we’d already be on our next topic??). The very few times I’ve needed Matthew to explain something to me, the tone with which he imparted his knowledge made me want to swoon on a chaise lounge and ask him to carry me over a puddle. Knowing that he is completely dense in every moment surrounding that conversation only makes it harder to sit through the condescension. 

Matthew can handle so little in his life, that every task he’s given comes with a disproportionate amount of moaning, groaning, and vagueplaining. I don’t believe this is yet a term, but I’m making it one. For example, if you give Matthew something to proof, telling him that we want to be sure there aren’t any typos, Matthew will look at it for about 90 seconds and start loudly and vaguely complaining, seemingly to no one. Statements like:

“Oh boy.” “Oh wow.” “WELL this is a problem.”

This kind of garbage is a huge pet peeve of mine anyway, but especially in a professional capacity, when I almost never have time for your shit (this is directed at Matthew and also the collective “you” - I never have time for anyone’s shit). Whatever it is you’re complaining about, complain about it in your head unless you want some actual help with it. And if you want some actual help with it, can you please verbalize what it is you’re complaining about instead of making grunting noises until I come running over to your desk, waving my arms, demanding to know what the emergency is?

Because I know what he’s up to, I refuse to respond to his random exclamations, until it becomes obvious that he’s not going to stop until I do, at which point, I almost always snap “WHAT??” despite any attempt on my part to stop myself. The answer to my question is always - always - something like, “this document is absolutely seething with errors, I’ve already uncovered two in the preliminary six pages.” A) Shut up with your words and B) yes. That is why you are proofing it. Because we thought there would be errors. “Well this is a problem” implies that there is something else wrong with this, and this conversation has been completely unnecessary. Sigh. I digress.

It’s probably not professional, but I’ve been accused of worse things: I’ve started to tell some of my students about the antics around the office that can only be likened to watching a drunk lemur try to reason his way out of a cardboard box that is watching Matthew work, and one of these students has coined the phrase #justmatthewthings. We now enjoy a chuckle between the two of us at certain points throughout the day (mostly it’s the student chuckling, I’m trying to “serenity now” myself off the fucking precipice) whenever Matthew has decided to wow me with never-before-seen levels of incompetence. And now, I will share the chuckle with you.

Here are just a few examples to get you started:

One time, someone came into our office looking for one of our employees with whom they had a meeting. We said we hadn’t seen her, but we would call her to see where she was; the person looking went back to the room where the meeting was supposed to happen to wait, in case the employee was just late and on their way. Matthew called up the employee, and when the employee answered, she told him that she was sick and had cancelled her meetings for the day. She guessed that this person didn’t get her email, and asked what the name of the person asking was.

All I could hear was Matthew’s side of the phone conversation, and it went something like this:

“Yes, he came looking for you...I didn’t get his name...oh, yeah, I guess he didn’t get the email...no, I don’t know his name...I didn’t get the name...no, i didn’t ask him...ugh...uh...okay....okay hold on.” 

He then puts the phone down and starts pacing behind me, wringing his hands and moaning (literally, moaning). I slowly turn around and ask him, “does she want to know the name of the person asking for her?” He says (through the moaning), “yes, and I didn’t get his name.” I say, “well, where is he?” “He’s back in the room, waiting for her.”

Me: ...

Him: ...

Me: Then go and ask him what his name is and then TELL IT TO HER.

Him: ...oh...

We proceed to go down the hall, do the exact thing I said (”I’m sorry, I didn’t get your name.” “Oh, I’m John Smith.” “Thank you, I’ll let her know.” “No problem at all.”) and SOMEHOW THE PROBLEM IS SOLVED.

Another time, I got an email from Matthew sent to our maintenance staff, copying me and my boss. The email was perhaps some of his most condescending work yet - it complained that, over the weekend when he was working, he and some other people were having a rather low-key meeting in a room, and the lights kept going out during the meeting. The email contained sentences like “we were not near the light switch; indeed, at no point during the meeting was anyone within ten feet of it!” and “we cannot have people randomly plunged into darkness during our work.”

Before I could even roll my eyes, my boss responded to him, copying me, saying, “Matthew, the lights are on a motion sensor and have been since you started working here. Emailing our maintenance staff accusing them of something being broken is not the appropriate response to this problem.”

#JustMatthewThings! Teehee!

The fun doesn’t stop here - I’m already remembering random moments where I wanted to lobotomize myself in his presence. Check back for more things that are simply #JustMatthewThings

*Names have been changed to protect me, who am I kidding. I’m not going to write this stuff seriously about people I work with for the whole internet to read about.

**By assholes, but whatever.

[smartassoperachick]

Opera is dumb.

 I can say that because I am opera - the same way you can only make racist jokes if you are one of the races represented in the joke. 

For anyone not spending their life chasing this art form, I am here to enlighten you, so that the next time you see one of those J.G. Wentworth commercials, you’ll really understand the struggle.

Opera is one of the oldest formal vocal art forms - its origins date back to the late 16th century, and new works are being written all the time today. You can see the classics that you name when you’re trying to impress people when you say you love classical music (”Lah Bow-hem” and “Dee Zowburfloat” for example) all over the US one week, and an opera version of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, a Susan Sarandon movie or a 1985 terrorist attack the next (yeah, go have fun googling that stuff). While opera struggles to stay relevant among crowds whose median ages are under 75, a new soprano is born every minute.

If you don’t know anything about opera, you’ve probably got a visual in your head, and you’re probably yawning at it already. Some fat chick with long yellow braids and horns, right? Or perhaps:

I was once like you, but here’s the thing - opera is incredible. It’s emotional, it’s gorgeous, it’s versatile. It’s not (only) fat people anymore. Go watch the movie version of La Traviata with Anna Netrebko and Rolando Villain and you’ll see what I mean. (If you’re an opera connoisseur, put your pitchfork down, it’s my blog, I can recommend whatever I want.)

I do what I do because I absolutely love the moments when you can be immersed in opera, being on the stage, surrounded by the sound, living the moments these composers created, sometimes hundreds of years ago, letting it pour out of you. There’s nothing on earth like it.

That said: EVERYTHING ELSE ABOUT IT IS A TOTAL WASTE OF TIME.

No one else will say this to you - not seriously - and I’m gonna do it, because it’s exhausting just to think about the amount of bullshit that goes into trying to create this beautiful art form. Every other singer out there will vapidly smile at you and say it’s such a pleasure to put up with this shit in the hopes that some stage director in some wing somewhere will hear them and take a note on their clipboard that chorus girl number six paid them a compliment, and remember to recommend her to all of their other high-rolling friends. Let me just pause for a moment so I can find my eye roll and sufficiently vomit.

Today’s example of the shitshow? The audition.

I auditioned for a company last night that offers the perfect example of what a dumpster fire this process can be. This company is young, small and most likely poor - by no means a well-known name whose returns might be worth a lot of bullshit.

My audition spot was 8:45pm - as is standard, my notice told me to show up 15 minutes early (which you would assume is to keep those auditioning you from waiting should they be running early. Hmm.) I mapped out my schedule to include sufficient warm up, rehearsing of what I’d be singing (one of my standard arias as well as a selection from the opera they were doing, at their request), putting on the dress and the shellac on my face, travel down (including New York transit AND THAT’S A POST IN ITSELF) and be 20 minutes early (because if you should be 15 minutes early, you don’t want to be late for being early). 

I got down to the location - we’d been warned that there was no buzzer but that “they would be waiting to let us in.” Them waiting looked a lot like the back of a bunch of other singers waiting who, when hearing my knock at the door, gave me a nonchalant glance over shoulder and eventually got to the door to limply let me in. The proctor was located at the other end of the hall, and upon presenting myself, she handed me a clipboard with a questionnaire of about 25 questions I need to fill out (and I had to return the clipboard and the pen...I couldn’t keep them. They wanted to be sure I knew that. My heart sank a little - who buys their own clipboards anymore?! The plethora I own come from the audition holding room.). When it was my turn, they would take the questionnaire from me. Did I have my accompanist fee? She would take that if I had it.

Yes, my friends, this might be the best part of the bullshit: how expensive it is to do the thing that is the only way to get a job in this business. The majority of companies, big or small, shitty or fantastic, force you to pay them to hear you - sometimes they pay you to ask if they’ll hear you. In that case, it is a very real possibility for them to take your money and say “thanks, we’re all good here.” In this case, it was the responsibility of the singers to pay for the accompanist the company had presumably hired to play for us (and someone would have to play for us). The person accompanying was eventually introduced as the musical director - so I assume he was not hired simply to play the auditions and go on his merry way. Enjoy my fee, dude.

At this point, I asked if they would want a resume and headshot, and the woman looked at me as if I’d asked if I’d need to be fully clothed in the audition. No doi. Here’s another secret: every company wants something different. Since the dawn of the digital age, we no longer have to snail mail an application, headshot, resume, proof of age, measurements, blood type, photocopied pages from our journals to companies, and many companies don’t want to have to deal with pounds of paper walking out of the venue - many are happy with the copies you’ve now emailed them. Some want the resume, but don’t need a full 8x10 headshot. Some want a full body photo, some want shoulders up. Some want only black and white. Some want dance/drama/instrumental study/language study/special skills listed on the resume; some want roles you’ve prepared but not necessarily performed; others want just the roles you’ve sung. It’s a literal grab bag. And almost every company I’ve sung for is exasperated at having to stipulate what they want. As this audition notice told us only to bring the fee (don’t forget your damn money) and our music, I assumed there was a good chance they wouldn’t want the paper, but brought it anyway.

Proctor lady gave me a strong uh, yeah, and I took my seat.

I had arrived at 8:00, which was unusual for me and also a huge disappointment to me. I don’t care what any audition grant tells me, I try to sneak in at the last possible moment - this was the reason for moving to New York at all. A 20-minute train ride means I can leave 40 minutes before my audition time, thank you, and not a second before. Arriving 45 minutes early meant I’d have to sit and wait, something that’s not great for the vocal cords, you really want to get in and sing as close to warming up as you can. But the worst is the other singers.

Holy lord. Opera singers are THE. WORST. They’re insecure, they’re fake, they’re precious. Everything bothers them and their condition - the room is too dry, the weather is too damp, this isn’t the dress they’re used to, they can only drink bottled water. They sit in their seats and toothy-grin at each other, they talk oh-so-nonchalantly about all the work they’ve been doing - usually veiled in some fake complaint about how busy they are - with all the directors and managers, they name drop shamelessly. They answer each other’s statements about their accomplishments with slightly-swollen versions of their own accomplishments, usually as though they didn't even hear what the other person said. And usually there’s always one. One particularly obnoxious girl who knows errbody, has graciously sung every role, and likes to loudly announce how little she’s practiced or how she so seriously considered coming to this audition in sweatpants, she doesn't even care anymore. Darling, let me stop you. 

The role of obnoxious twit who is trying to cover up her prize pig-sized insecurity with loud, mostly-fabricated statements about herself designed to intimidate the others in the room will be played by a girl who made us all sit through her description of her tattoo on her upper thigh of some disastrous hybrid of a treble clef and Mickey Mouse ears. 

*bursts into tears and runs screaming down the hall*

This would be bad if I had been a mere 45 minutes early. Oh no. What I found out from the other singers waiting was that they were 45 minutes behind, as well (something the proctor did not offer. In fact, I didn’t speak to the proctor again - I had to spend my time waiting as a mole playing Sherlock Holmes, trying to piece together the clues of what the fuck time each of the people ahead of me was supposed to go to decipher how long I actually had to wait to sing). What was 45 minutes of torturous hell before having to screw on a smile and belt a high B-flat after waiting comatose had turned into 90 minutes.

Our next example of bullshit: the schedule. Why do they bother. Why. I’ll never know. Every audition is done at some arbitrary interval - 5 minutes, 7 minutes, 10 minutes - and is almost NEVER close to being right. This fact would be obnoxious if the circumstances in the audition weren't causing the delays. But in this case, we were all given 5 minutes, and were asked to sing at least two, sometimes three arias. In this case, the door to the audition space was open, allowing everyone in the waiting area to hear what was happening in the room (...awkward), and some of these auditions came with conversations about conflicts and fucking costume measurements that themselves were 5 minutes. There was no way the entire audition would take 5 minutes. This level of amateur hour is overshadowed only by the open call...I will not digress.

There is nothing like knowing you’re 45 minutes behind, hearing the opening chords to what you know is an 8 minute aria, having to sit through a very slow version of said aria...and then listen to the accompanist play the outro in its entirety. I started to scan the space for a rope with which to hang myself.

Just when I’d started filling out forms to formally change my address to the lobby of this damn building, as I assumed I would live out my days here, it was my turn. Eureka! Let me just try to remember what the hell I’m doing here.

I walk in, give the accompanist my music, the aria from the opera. “Here you go...I’m sure you’ve had to play this a million times tonight!” I try to be friendly.

“Yes. But it’s beautiful.” He sits down. She swings and she misses!

I sing the first aria. Great. Let’s hear the second one! Sure thing.

Consider my aria is the famous poem, Roses are Red. This experience went something like this:

Roses are red, violets are blue, sugar is sweet and so are-

“Thank you,” they say, “but there are a lot of people waiting, and in the interest of time, we’ll stop you there.”

WHAT ELSE IS SWEET, LIKE SUGAR?? WHAT?? WE’LL NEVER KNOW.

I’m sorry, but you just forced me to sit through an eight-minute-turned-twelve-minute aria with outro, and I didn’t hear you stopping that in the interest of my time. And also...listen, if you didn’t want to hear me, you didn’t have to ask for the second aria. Fuck, you could have stopped me at violets. In my opinion, if you ask for the damn poem, you should have to hear the B-flat YOOOOOUUUUUUUUU at the end of it. Or spare me having to sing it at all.

This is one of many, many magical audition experiences I’ve had, and I dare say, one of the least uncommon or surprising. In the interest of sparing you all from having to listen to me whine about music all the time, I’ve mostly kept my audition experiences to my other blog, Subway Soprano. Feel free to go chuckle at that shit over there. This way, I can continue complaining about movies and subways here. You’re so very welcome. 

So the next time you’re watching Anna Netrebko laugh - laugh - without a care in the world other than the tuberculosis she’ll be facing in the third act (ouch, spoiler alert), remember - she may have had to listen to a Mickey Mouse tattoo story and be stopped before the “you.” There was a lot of bullshit that went into the laughter.

[smartassoperachick]

Netflix and Freak Out: The Nanny Diaries

One of the great things about Netflix is that we now have at our fingertips literally thousands of movies that we might never have otherwise watched if it weren’t for the fact that they were available by simply clicking the little silver button in the middle of your Apple TV remote. I am privileged (is that the word we’re using?) to say that I’m of a “specific” age where I remember all too well whipping out the little blue key tag in the line at Blockbuster and laying down your $3.99 - $3.99! - to rent either some New Release, or that flick you’d seen eight times but couldn’t bring yourself to shell out the $19.99 to pay for your own copy (I never said math was my strong suit). Back then, renting movies was literally a financial investment. Now, you can watch endless movies on a loop for what it cost to fund one old-fashioned “move night” with your friends. Pre-popcorn, of course.

I have always been a sucker for saying yes to ridiculous situations. Even if I don’t particularly want to do something, I’ll totally do it if it has the potential to end up being a hilarious story - hell, I’ll do it if it has the potential to be a terrible time. I’ll do it if I can’t gauge the potential in it at all. This fact about myself is not immune to my taste in movies - does it have the potential to be absolutely horrendous? An enormous waste of time? Just kind of mildly bad acting? Well, sure, I’m in.

These two factors - my love for the probably-awful-and-at-the-very-least-hilarious and the fact that millions of low-budget rom-coms are now at my fingertips for pennies is what brings you this series: Netflix and Freak Out.

There are some movies that are meant to be bad (Lifetime movies). There are some movies that you can’t really realistically make fun of (most Oscar nominated films within five years of their nomination). This series is dedicated to those movies that fall somewhere in between. The ones that star people that you know, that got enough press that you’re not the only one that saw it, the ones that people remember a few years later. You know, the ones that wind up on Netflix streaming.

In a sinus infection-induced haze today, I laid in my bed, having called out from work, and made myself watch The Nanny Diaries. I watched it because I’d heard of it, and because Chris Evans. Yum. As the final credits rolled, though, I found myself blinking.

For those of you who haven’t wasted a day of their life not being able to feel their sinuses, here’s what you missed: Jersey-native Scarlett Johansson has just graduated college with a degree in money, and immediately goes on an interview with Goldman Sachs (because it’s a movie and that’s what money people do). But the interviewer asks her “who she is,” so she has a panic attack and runs out, pushes a kid out of the way of a segue being driven by a pervert ogling a woman stretching in the park, and is instantly offered a high-paying nanny gig by Laura Linney, who didn’t actually witness any of that, but is wistfully overwhelmed in general, so, you know, she offers Scarlett a job. Scarlett is torn, because she’s supposed to go get a job in money, but she DOESN’T KNOW WHO SHE IS, so maybe she’ll “take a break from life” and be an Upper East Side nanny for a summer. So she moves out of her mom’s house in Jersey, tells her she’s moving into her own place in NYC and getting a money job, and heads to the guest room at Chez X.

Hilarity ensues in the form of the child being nannied (named Grayson, of course) kicking Scarlett in the shins, pantsing her and throwing food at the walls, all of which predictably overwhelm her. She’s forced to wear silly costumes to themed barbecues that somehow still make her look hot (and no one is surprised). She is forced to bite her lip through a myriad of terrifyingly high-stakes tasks, like making a fancy organic meal for Grayson at Laura Linney’s command (don’t worry, she gives up and eats peanut butter out of a jar). Laura Linney is vapid and self-absorbed, and has no real emotions - which is just so frustrating! It is truly the worst job there can be.

But the complications do not stop at the workplace, my friends - oh no! There’s the boy - the Harvard Hottie, as we are forced to call him throughout the movie - dimple-faced Chris Evans, who lives in Laura Linney’s building and happens to run into Scarlett seemingly only when she’s freshly pantsed or dressed like the American flag. How adorable to see Scarlett flustered and out of her element! As though the humiliating run-ins weren’t enough, this attraction cannot be realized, as it is a rule that Scarlett is not allowed to date...anyone, apparently. This doesn’t seem to be a problem, until Chris Evan’s friends decide to make fun of Scarlett’s profession at a bar, and he decides to stalk her to make up for it. She agrees to go out with him, but only to shut him up (I mean, we’ve all agreed to date Captain America just to shut him up, right? And look at him without his shirt on. But mostly to shut him up.). They, of course, fall in love, and at some point Scarlett calls him out for being a yuppie and he calls her out for whining about her job all the time. They go through a rough patch and then it’s over. It’s really great to see two beautiful people go through fifteen minutes of relationship difficulty to drive home the depth of their connection.

Complication number two is Mom, the hardworking nurse who expects her daughter to get a job in money, and to whom Scarlett spends the movie lying about her situation, turning overheard instructions from Laura Linney about picking up her dry-cleaning into a bossy roommate and turning the word “playdate” into a term money employees use at meetings. Eventually, mom doesn’t buy it, so Scarlett has to force her friend Alicia Keys to lend her her apartment so she can pretend she’s living this life. When Grayson gets super sick, Scarlett is forced to call mom in for help, and mom flips out, because she didn’t work 8 jobs at once so Scarlett could be a nanny! Don’t worry, Mom, says Scarlett, it’s just that life was too much (cuz that lady asked her who she was and the question was too hard) so she’s just taking a break. She’ll be a real person again once she’s done being a nanny. She tells her to “call her when she gets over this phase of her life,” and Scarlett stares out windows, wondering where it all went wrong.

Eventually, Scarlett gets sick of Laura Linney and her husband, Paul Giamatti’s shit when Paul oh-so-stereotypically hits on her while on vacation, and Laura Linney fires her for being a slut and stiffs her last paycheck. So she, remembering that she’s overheard Laura Linney say she’s installed a nanny cam, goes back to the penthouse to trash the place and tell Laura Linney off into the teddy bear’s face. Laura Linney, like the UES bitch she is, takes the nanny cam to her nanny seminar to complain - without watching the tape first, of course - and has a touching moment as she realizes she’s a frigid bitch when Scarlett tells her she’s mean to her son. So she sends Scarlett a letter, saying she’s left Paul Giamatti and now eats peanut butter out of the jar with her son, and thanks her for being an emotional guru. Scarlett celebrates by eating pizza on a roof with Chris Evans.

Here’s the deal. Is it the worst thing to happen to filmmaking? No. Twilight is still out there, holding that torch. But I take some serious issues with some of the above.

Let’s touch briefly on how boring it is to watch Laura Linney be an Upper East Side snob. She spends all day lunching and raising money for random charities. She doesn’t listen when Scarlett talks. She blames things that go wrong on other people. She doesn’t notice her son, who she’s named Grayson. After about a word and a half out of her mouth, you’re like, “Oh.” And she literally needs to be in no more of the movie, because you can practically predict her narrative. But we could have guessed that.

Scarlett has a vested interest in anthropology - a profession her mother reminds her early in the film will make her no money (the first comment to illicit a muffled and nasaly “boo” from this Master-of-Music-in-Opera-Performance-wielding viewer). So, in an attempt to be ADORABLE, she narrates the whole thing like stereotypes are exhibits at the Museum of Natural History - the Tribeca Fashionista, the Park Slope Lawyer (lesbian!), the Fifth Avenue Mom (Laura Linney!). To which of these categories does Scarlett belong? Oh, haha, no worries! SHE BELONGS TO HER OWN CATEGORY BECAUSE SHE IS WOMAN, HEAR HER DUSKILY ROAR. While the metaphor is weak, my biggest issue with it is that it provides her an excuse not to reveal Chris Evans’s character’s name - because, for the sake of correct field reporting, names shall be kept anonymous. Except for Grayson. Or Alicia Keys. Or Laura Linney (named Mrs. X, and everyone calls her that throughout the film, so this is not a field guide code name). Or Paul Giamatti (Mr. X). Just Chris Evans. Who we have to call “Harvard Hottie” because she meets him in a Harvard t-shirt. Pardon me while I vom. This would be annoying enough, but we are never faced with wondering what his name is again - it’s glossed over until the very end of the movie, when Chris Evans comes up to Scarlett in a park, and she says “OH HAI HAYDEN” and then you’re supposed to be all excited that you found out his name. But his name is Hayden, so it’s ruined anyway. 

While we’re on the topic of Harvard Hottie, also obnoxiously handled is Chris Evans’s past. Scarlett, in her plain white t-shirt and messy bun, agrees to go out with the clearly-put-together Harvard pre-law student (who somehow lives in Manhattan) and who lives in a doorman building on the Upper East Side. Scarlett frostily pokes at his obviously well-to-do upbringing, to which Chris Evans comes back with a scalding “my mother died when I was four and my father sent me off to boarding school.” Scarlett is humbled - the point goes to Chris Evans! - and we feel bad for him for the rest of the movie. ...but also, he lives in a high rise apartment on the Upper East Side, so can we just take a moment to remember that it’s like, not ACTUALLY so bad for him? Your mom dying is not ideal...but dude, go watch Precious. Fuck, go watch Glitter and get back to me.

My biggest issue: the entire premise of this movie is that it’s incredibly embarrassing to live in a fancy apartment with a well-to-do family and work for them as a means to live in New York City as a 22-year-old. Scarlet spends the entire movie trying to fabricate a high-profile job as a stock broker or some garbage while living in a “tiny” apartment about three times the size of anything anyone I know lives in. When her mother finds out that she’s living in Manhattan, in her own room with four walls and a door that she isn’t sharing with her weight in rats or roaches, with essentially all of her living expenses covered while she pockets her paycheck pre-tax, she’s livid because she isn’t a professional money worker three weeks after college graduation. I’m sorry, Scarlett’s mom, but you need to take a call from my actual mom, who grinned almost completely convincingly when I moved into someone’s living room with a geisha screen as my fourth bedroom wall. In real life, I’ve had friends who lived in a “room” that made a dorm room with mushrooms growing out of the ceiling look like the Moor  for $700 a month in Hell’s Kitchen, and they bragged. 

And that just covers the living situation - do I have the time to address the ANGST over getting a job - accidentally, by the way - your first day out in the field, one that pays you a living wage to live in Manhattan? If I could tell you the things I had to do to keep my head afloat moving to this city, you’d clutch your pearls - and I did the legal things. My list is exhausting, but clean. On paper, the entire premise of this movie is a) don’t give up on your dreams and b) let’s all laugh about the silly jobs you did before you were a famous anthropologist! (A universal and topical moral) But any New Yorker under the age of 60 who wasn’t reared by Trump and fought their way to afford hot dogs to put in their mac and cheese would be horrified at the handling of this all-too-common situation, as well as the amount of time we had to spend on it. Anyone who ends up a nanny for a rich-albeit-irritating woman and has everything paid for them and has to spend 90 consecutive minutes wringing their hands over it needs to deal with some mushrooms in her ceiling for a hot second, then we can talk.

Netflix and Freak Out: I give the Nanny Diaries a 4/10 on the WTF meter. I don’t necessarily think you’ll have any more fun hate watching this than you would anything else. 3 points for all the misfires on New York life, 1 point for Chris Evans tho.

[smartassoperachick]

Sssssssorry.

Hi there. 

I’m going to start with a wtf story that’s particularly close to my heart, because it was so wtf, I think other people pulled their own goggles out of their coat pockets for this one. It’s the kind of thing that I wish I could say I was making up - it sounds like something that happens on an episode of Seinfeld or something. Alas, I’m good, but I’m not this good. The following events are factual.

It was January of last year, and if any of you were anywhere north of DC for the winter of 2015, you’ll remember how FRIGGIN’ COLD it was. I could sweat while skinny dipping in the Arctic, but even I had to admit it was stupid cold that winter. So I’m on my way to work on the 1 train, and I’m put together: I have my big puffy coat, my purse and my lunch bag. I was wearing a dress with fancy tights - sort of a fine fishnet with rose vine pattern along the outside of the leg. This is important for two reasons.

Number one: when I am put together, you’d better mark your calendar. The world is entirely lucky I’m wearing pants most of the time (and this is usually because I understand it’s illegal not to). Most mornings, I wake up entirely too early, tell myself to be a grownup and put on some respectable human clothes, do something with my hair, wear makeup. Clothes are the first opportunity I have to fuck that up. Should I wear a dress? Meh. I’ll wear pants. I’ll wear these pants, because they’re super comfy. They don’t look particularly professional, but they’re black, so they’ll pass. What do I wear with them? Something sort of dressy to offset the fact that they’re pretty much yoga pants. This shirt’s uncomfortable, this one’s itchy, this one’s too tight. Alright, I guess I’m wearing an Old Navy t-shirt. ...right. Then the hair. I’ll blow dry it. HA. I’ll wear it up, but in some impressive complicated braid or some shit. Ten minutes of tying knots that look like rats have taken refuge on my head later, I give up, rip them out, put it in a ponytail. So what started as a dress and lovely curls ends in workout clothes on tiptoes and a messy bun.

Lunch is another epic failure every single time. I KNOW. I’LL MAKE A SALAD IN THE MORNING. AN IMPRESSIVE SALAD WITH ALL KINDS OF VEGETABLES AND DRESSINGS AND SHIT. Or. OR. Or I’ll sleep twenty minutes too long, and stand staring at the clock on my microwave, wondering if the amount of time it’ll take me to literally throw lettuce still in the bag and a tube of squeezy mayonnaise in a shopping bag will make me too late to explain. If I end up with the lettuce and mayonnaise, I’m listening to “Don’t You Forget About Me” on my way to the train, fist in the air like Judd Nelson - in most cases, the lettuce is left to rot another day and I’m going to spend $15 on lettuce and mayonnaise from an artisan salad joint delivered from the building next door.

So, on this particular day, I’m wearing REAL CLOTHES and I’ve got LUNCH. Yeah. Fancy. I’d stopped on my way to the train to get a coffee - an enormous iced chai. Yes it’s cold out, who drinks iced chai, blah blah, but it’s how I drink it. It would be like someone asking you why you don’t drink a martini hot when it’s cold out.

So I get on the 1 train (which already spells disaster, because it’s the 1 train). It’s kind of busy, but I manage to get a seat between a smart dressed young man in a suit and a 12-year-old boy who’s playing games on an iPad his mother (nanny?) is holding. There are people standing in the center of the car, making for your typical New York commute. I realize, at some point, that the boy next to me has Down’s Syndrome, and I think it’s kind of adorable that the woman he’s with is playing with him on the iPad.

We get to 42nd Street, people are filtering in and out, the train momentarily empties out a bit. The boy next to me stands up like he’s going to leave, and the woman tells him that this isn’t their stop, to sit back down. This pisses him off - he doesn’t want her telling him what to do. He stands there, between the two poles, staring at her, and she’s saying “sit down, sit down, this isn’t our stop, it’s not time to get off yet.” The co-conductor dude is making the “stand clear of the closing doors” announcement, and I’m looking at this kid, staring at this lady, and I’m thinking, “I bet this kid is going to go flying. The train is going to move, and he’s not going to be ready for it, and he’s going to totally lose his shit. And, science says, he’s probably going to fall right on me. I should probably get up to avoid this spectacle involving me.”

I’m not sure if I decided somewhere in that narration that what I was picturing was so ridiculous, it couldn’t possibly actually happen, or if that narration went on just long enough that I didn’t have time to act. Either way, what happened after that was exactly what I had pictured somehow.

The train starts to lurch, and the kid loses his balance - but not in a “whoops, lost my footing for a second kind of way.” In a “Sword in the Stone - woah-what-woah” kind of way. In a man-falling-off-a-cliff-in-slow-motion kind of way. He’s swinging his arms like a windmill, stumbling all over the place, and, as predicted, lands facedown right in my lap, slapping the gigantor iced chai in my hand so that the cup is obliterated - did you hear me? Obliterated. Shaaaaards of plastic is all that’s left - chai explodes absolutely everywhere, all over my coat, my lunch, my dress, the poor dude next to me. The kid isn’t done there - oh no - he rolls off my lap, clutching my tights and ripping a huge Joan-Jett-esque strip on the side of my leg.

Time is suspended at this point. I am frozen, remains of the iced chai cup in my left hand, shocked at the amount of cold, sticky liquid that is now covering my purse, soaking through my coat and through my lunch bag. The train had filled up impressively, but not enough to make it impossible for everyone to jump back from the vision I must have been. I look to my right, and the sharp young man in a suit sitting next to me is also covered in cold sticky liquid, with a similarly shocked look on his face. The crowd gathered at the end of the train is staring at us.

The kid gets up, blinks and stares at me, and lady he’s with yanks him back into his seat. “I told you to sit down,” she says, with that see what happens when you don’t listen to mommy tone of voice, looks at me, and with the absolute least amount of interest or emotion possible, says to me. “...sorry.” 

The train starts to pull away, the kid and the mom go back to musing at the iPad like they had just finished the activity they normally do at the 42nd Street stop - you know, turn an unsuspecting and otherwise-respectable looking girl into the hot mess she normally is without help. They don’t look at me again.

My initial reaction, which bubbled just under my ability to keep my shit together, was to totally lose it on this kid and the lady - seriously, who the fuck let’s a kid body slam a total stranger, mushroom-clouding the train in iced chai, and says sorry like the kid tripped over said stranger’s foot?? All I could do was sit there and gasp, cuz you can’t freak out at a kid with Down’s Syndrome. You just can’t. I look at the guy next to me, I’m saying “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry,” and he’s saying, “...it’s okay...” though it’s definitely not okay, but he’s clearly struggling with the same reaction I’m having: “I want to flip the fuck out at someone and demand...something...apologies or dry cleaning reimbursement or replacement gigantor coffee...but you can’t freak out at these people.” 

I still have two stops till work, and I’m toying with getting off the train and figuring out my life, but what, am I going to walk 25 blocks drenched in coffee in subzero temperatures? So I just sit there with my hands dangling above my lap, not wanting to touch anything or get anymore of this disaster on anyone else.

Eventually, a good samaritan comes across the train and offers me - get ready for it - a single bar napkin. You know, one of those napkins the size of an index card. He gives me a sympathetic look, and I take it from him gratefully, because he’s really the only person who outwardly is recognizing how much this sucks, and I place the napkin on my lap, which is instantly drenched in the coffee and it’s as though there was never a napkin to begin with.

I got to work and my coworkers, seeing the Jekyll side of my fancy tights, say “Ooooh! I like your tights!” I turn around so they can see the Hyde side, the prostitute side. The room falls silent.

When I finally got to my fancy salad...it was covered in chai.

[smartassoperachick]

Welcome to the Jungle

I’m going to tell you something that sounds like humblebragging. It’s not. It’s just a fact that you need to know: people tell me all the time that I need to be a comedian. I tell someone about the time that the kid with Downs Syndrome fell on me on the train and my coffee exploded: “when are you going to do standup?!” I tell them how much I hate pedestrians, drivers, bikers, busdrivers and unicyclists in New York: “you really need to do standup.” I tell them about how my dog heavy sighs at me when I’m sad and thinks my problems are dumb: “omg, have you ever thought about standup?!” (I mean, shouldn’t my dog be thinking about standup in that situation? C’mon peeps.)

It’s flattering, sure. But I’m not humblebragging, because I don’t really get it. I mean, sure that stuff is hilarious (seriously, you should have seen that cup explode...it was like something out of a SciFi movie), but I’m just talking. And while being professionally hilarious would be fun, um...

how the hell do you do that for a living?!

Me being funny when I’m talking to people: 

Me being funny when you say “be funny”:

Like I get that people do it, there are, in fact, comedians. I watch Seinfeld. But when we’re sitting in a Chinese restaurant and I’m telling you about the person I work with who only brings crunchy snacks into the office, and it sounds like she’s breaking her own face every day, and jade tea is coming out your nose, you’re having a great time. I’m telling you about a typical Tuesday in the office.

I dunno. It’s a mystery to me. The thought of standing up and saying things that are intended to be funny - specifically for that purpose - is kind of baffling. How do you plan that?

So yesterday, while walking back from a particularly horrible audition which I’d semi-accidentally live-Tweeted to a friend, she said to me “you should start a blog. Of all the people I know, you should be a fucking millionaire based on your stories.” And I responded as I always do: “I know, I know, I should totally do it, I’m always like, I’m gonna do it and then I don’t, HAHAHA.” Then I walked into my apartment, watched two hours of Cops while playing TwoDots and told myself IF ONLY THERE WERE MORE TIME. 

So that’s enough of that garbage. Here we go.

This blog is just a bunch of stuff. Let me explain how you (I) got here.

I live in New York City in a very tiny but colorful one bedroom apartment with my Shiba Inu, Tonka. I came here six years ago to be a famous opera singer, and now that I’ve accomplished that (cough) I’m working every day, menial jobs with the masses, while teaching music in my spare time.

New York is a stupid, ridiculous place. It really is. The whole planet is a stupid ridiculous place, but there are way more people here, so you can’t really get away from it. It’s like too much salad dressing - you never really noticed how much blue cheese can make you pucker until you can’t find a carrot in your salad not drenched in it. That’ll teach you to put too much blue cheese dressing on your salad - but in the case of New York, it’s like you keep dumping the whole bottle on your lettuce every morning, all the while grumbling “I hate blue cheese.”

I happen to be blessed with a certain pair of goggles strapped to my face that gives me a permanent “wtf is going on” outlook on my surroundings. I find it pretty entertaining, you might too. The thing is, this crap is happening to everyone, everywhere - I bet you’re seeing the things I’m describing around you every day. But if you’re not wearing your “wtf is going on” goggles, you might miss the stories that follow.

Enjoy.