Posts Tagged ‘The Funhouse’

Feelings and Family

Monday, February 22nd, 2010

Dear Internets,

Some of you might have noticed that last night I was out selling Snarky Cards at Zeitgeist in The Mission. I have returned home to San Francisco, to celebrate my ex-fake-husband’s 30th birthday.

I’ve taken the opportunity to get the Hell off my couch, jettisoning myself out of the Art Shack, which is stuffed to the brim with cats and people right now. Steve and Emily have a guest room, with a ginormous, comfy bed. There’s a swimming pool nearby and a bart station. So I can swim in the morning, and go out selling in The City at night. And I can return home, to the comfy bed, and bask in the love of my friends.

Isn't Steve adorable?

Steve and I started fake dating 8 years ago. It took us two years to fake-marry. And then it took that two years to explode in our faces. No-one really gets my fake marriage. Most people assume that I married someone so that they could stay in the country. Steve was born in Rochester, NY. And he and I didn’t actually marry. We just had a purely emotional relationship. Partly because I think he wasn’t attracted to me. And partly because I wasn’t capable of more than a fake relationship. We acted like we were dating. And then, when I moved into The Funhouse, we acted like we were married. And our divorce was painful and long. Yesterday, at his party, all of his friends stood around, and told stories about Steve. He’s kind of a private person, as his sister pointed after he got embarrassed, and stole out of the room in the middle of our hoots and reminisces. I didn’t really get that until all of the people who love him were in the same room with him (not his idea). No wonder our fake-marriage didn’t work. I’m not even a little bit private.

I can’t imagine keeping my life private, and that’s, like, one of his goals. His sister was really happy to meet me. “Well, he didn’t want to introduce me to you when we were fake-married because I say the word cunt, and you’re too delicate.” I informed her, feeling triumphant that we’d finally met, despite Steve’s best efforts. “I wanna hear more about this fake marriage!” She leaned her pregnant belly into the question. “Well, it’s a lot better now that we’re fake-divorced.” I was feeling smug because Steve and I are so close now. But a room full of people objected. “The divorce was horrible!” Jen cut her eyes at me, making sure I remembered. Jon nodded his head, looking frightened. “It was like a real divorce.” Randy explained to his still-confused sister. I looked around the room, at my friend’s pained faces, as they mentally relived my fake-divorce, trying to figure out how to give the whole thing a sensible narrative. And I saw Emily trying to scoot between Steve’s sister and her husband, and I realized what  had happened. And I realized that I could finally say it. “Yeah, and it would have stayed horrible between us, if not for Emily.”

Emily The Bridge

“Really?” Steve’s sister sounded surprised. Maybe in the real world ex-fake-wives don’t usually get along with newer, perfect girlfriends. “Yup. Emily is the bridge to all things awesome. She’s the one who got us all here.” It was true, but I was also happy to tell the story of me and Steve without getting stuck. “To Emily!” I raised my glass and everyone in the room toasted the girl who fixed my best-friendship.

Emily and Steve like to go out in nature together. I think nature is really gross. And deadly. I think that she's always trying to kill us. So we shouldn't be going out into the wilderness to be alone on her turf, where she has the upper hand. They're perfect together, right?

We were just trying to recover from our fake-divorce, when he brought Emily to Portland two years ago, to see me and some of her friends. I spent the whole weekend putting off being alone with them. I brought them to the bar, and then I disappeared to go off selling Snarky Cards. I made plans and then broke them, until finally he called and said “Could we please have breakfast before we leave town? I’d like to spend time with you.” So I couldn’t get out of it without looking like an asshole. I got high before I left the house, to loosen me up for whatever discomfort there was in front of me. I felt awkward as the three of us waited for a table, until Emily turned to me, and said to me “Steve tells me that you’re the reason that he’s good at communicating. And I just want to thank you because communication has been a big part of our relationship.” I froze, like I’d been caught doing something wrong. And then the last remaining bit of me that hadn’t forgiven him dropped, and smashed, and I fell in love with Emily a little bit. “Oh. Uh.” I stammered. “I didn’t realize he still said that to people.” She nodded brightly. I was amazed at how simply she’d put me at ease, and mended my relationship with Steve in one swift move.

Emily’s like that, her clear honesty sees you through uncomfortable moments, and where Steve and I break down, she picks up the slack. And so I have my best friend, Steve, back, and a bonus new best friend.

I realized, once I got here, that I haven’t been sleeping for the last month. Not just because I have been sleeping on the couch, but also because I’ve been worried about the next stage of Snarky Cards. I’ve been trying to figure out what kind of person I want to be in business. I’ve been wondering how to choose business partners. I’ve been trying to figure out what the next stage is. And I’ve got all these instincts, and intuitions, and feelings. And I’ve largely been trying to quash them. Because in business you go by numbers. And intuition is a woman thing. And Vagina’s are a weakness. Or at least, that’s what I’ve heard in all of the other business situations I’ve been in. And I’ve had over 30 jobs. I’ve been in a lot of business situations. Before Snarky Cards I had a sales career, an office-bitch career, and a book career. And I always closely watched the executives, the decision-makers. And I tried to figure out what I liked about what they were doing, and what I didn’t and what I’d do differently, if it was my company.

And somewhere along the way I let it sink into my beliefs that having a Vagina, and feelings, and letting those influence my business decisions would mean that I made bad decisions. But looking around the room yesterday, at the faces of our friends, I realized that Steve and I built a life together, and when it fell apart, they still loved us. And they still want to celebrate us. And without all of those feelings, and all of those friends, I wouldn’t have been able to get this far.

My life has been saved over and over again by my feelings and my intuitions. So, it’s OK if my business runs on those same feelings and intuitions. I can be successful on the strength of my friends love.

Emily let me borrow her scanner, so that I could bring you New Snarky Cards. So if you wanna check out my etsy site, just remember that it’s brought to you by my Vagina. And my intuition. And the love of my friends.

Sincerely,

Alisa

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Klowns from KT

Tuesday, August 11th, 2009
KT in my chili pepper dress. Well, her chili pepper dress.

KT in my chili pepper dress. Well, her chili pepper dress.

Last week, when KT was here, she convinced me to call The Bicycle Circus and offer them a place to stay. And by “convinced” I mean she said “Hey! Call Laird, and tell him the circus can stay on your couch when they’re on their way to the Dead-Baby Downhill!” I do everything KT tells me to, within reason. Almost every suggestion that KT has is brilliant. Like, for instance: She’s the person who told me to sell my Snarky Cards in bars.

However, when KT’s ideas are Not Good, they can quickly turn into disasters. Like when she decided that I should start doing tactile art. Which is to say: she moved to China and she left me a shed full of random stuff: boxes of typewriter keys and little green army men one of those candy machines that you find at the grocery store (without the key that you’d need to open the top, to replace the nothingness inside with gumballs, or the key you’d need to open the back and get the change that fraustrated drunken people had sacrificed inside it at one of our keggers).

But if it doesn’t need painting and I can’t put words on it, I have no idea what to do with it. A year and a half later, I had to move out of The Funhouse, and figure out how to get rid of the shed full of stuff. By then, I’d been in 3 more car accidents and I had a hard time standing up, sitting down and carrying things. This put a strain on my relationship with my Fake Ex-Husband, Steve, who still lived at The Funhouse and wanted to use the shed for his car. In fact, this is one of the factors that spun us into our Fake-Divorce. It took me three years for me to realize that KT said she thought I should start doing tactile art because she didn’t want to clean the shed out.

But arguing with KT is harder than just doing what KT says, and figuring out the pluses and minuses later, when it’s too late and all I can think of is “What the fuck is my life turning into?”. This time I thought “Yay! Circus” and called Laird, to offer said Circus my couch, and then KT made some more cocktails and I forgot all about it.

A week later, after KT and Carter had absconded from my sofa (and bed) I got a call from Laird “So, um, is it still OK if we crash on your sofa?” he asked. “Because we’re on the road now, and we should get to Portland by midnight.” I was caught off guard, on my way to the Fenbi show and I got nervous.

I just got my new room-mate Patrick, I don’t want to lose him in a month. That would make me feel bad about myself as a room-mate. I called him to check. “Is it Ok with you if the circus stays at our apartment tonight? Because they’re on the way…” I woke him up from his nap. “Well, you already told them they could, right?” He asked crankily “I told them probably, but I’d have to check with you first.” I desperately tried to make it sound like he had a choice. People like choices. They say yes when they think they have a choice. That’s why I make so many fucking Snarky Cards.”As long as they’re not so loud I can’t sleep.” He grumbled. I was relieved.

This is The Dizzy Toy and riding it is as good as sex!

This is The Dizzy Toy and riding it is as good as sex!

I should explain: the Circus is a bunch of Bike Punks, who make pedal powered rides in a junk yard in San Francisco. They weld and paint fairground rides out of bikes, and then take them all over the country so that people can simultaneously enjoy bike riding and flying. You can find Cyclecide at fairs and festivals and big bike party’s. They bring joy to the masses. Their motto is: Safety Third. Fun is priority one and two. And I think it’s rad that I can call them my friends.

Doesn't it look like fun?

The 3 Seat Ferris Wheel!

I hooked up with them two years ago, when I needed a ride from San Francisco back up to Portland, after my high school reunion (Santa Clara High Class of ’97, yo!). I’d just started selling Snarky Cards, and I was broke. I had enough money to get down to Santa Clara, for the damn thing, but I didn’t have money to get back to Portland. I can figure out how to make money with my cards now, but “making money with my art” was an abstract idea back then. “You could ride with the rodeo.” KT said. “You’d have to help them out, but they could get you back to Portland.” So, I called Laird, and he said that it was cool. We went to Bumbershoot in Seattle, and I sold their merchandise (and my Snarky Cards) and we stayed with The Dead Baby Bikers, in the Church of Bicycle Jesus.

cyclefuge

Cyclefuge

It was so much fun, I never thought I’d see them again. You know what I mean? Like, a couple of days so magical and wild you chalk it up to youth, and you assume that it’s passed. So, I didn’t really expect them to stop in Portland on their way up to the Dead Baby Downhill. And Laird said they were going to drive straight though anyway.

By the time they finally got to town, I was back in SE, chilling on my friend Joel’s porch, thinking about how tired I was. “I’m going to have to take the bus to meet you at my apartment” I told Jerico when he called to say they were on my street. “We have a bus. We can give you a ride.” he said. I thought he was kidding. I thought he was generously calling Laird’s van a bus. “Cool!” I said.

dcfc0173A half hour later I hear a diesel engine, coming around the corner of Belmont and 21st Ave. This is not a bus route. But I’ve been trained by my years of riding buses and my neck snapped when I heard the sound. A big yellow school bus was making a brave turn from 21st Ave onto Belmont.

dcfc0175A hundred bikes were stacked up on top of it -and all the other peices of the Cyclecide rides. “I think that’s your bus.” Joel pointed down the street. I stared for a minute. “Oh. Shit. It is a bus, isn’t it?” I muttered, mentally recalculating how much couch room I actually have.

Joel laughed. “All those people are staying at your house?” He yelled over the bus’s roar. “It’s an apartment!” I screamed from across the street, bravely looking up at the monstrosity. Laird slowed to a stop on Belmont, and I hopped in, with Joel laughing in the background as we made the slowest getaway possible.

Dead Baby Downhill 2008

Dead Baby Downhill 2008

Everyone on the bus was tired. And relieved to meet me. Apparently school bus tires are hard to find and replace in the small towns that dot the Pacific Northwest. And between here, and San Francisco, the bus had gotten two flats. So they’d spent the last 24 hours trying to get to The Dead Baby Downhill, in Seattle, where their pedal-powered rides were featured for The Big Race. They didn’t even mean to stop in Portland, which is what Laird had told me when I’d called him a week earlier, but the road is a harsh mistress, and she was bitch slapping the fuck out of the circus.

Patrick was watching True Romance, when we arrived, and I danced around the apartment, asking all the tired bike punks if they wanted Vodka, or weed. They wanted a shower. So, I happily offered them my towels and soap, and we finished watching True Romance with Patrick. And as they all roared with delight simultaneously at Brad Pitts very best role ever, I remembered how nice it is to have cute boys in my house, yelling and laughing at the same time. There were two girls on the trip (that’s the way the circus goes, it’s a great boy-to-girl ratio!) and one of them made me Kale. Which, I found out, is really, really yummy. Patrick liked hanging out with the circus, relaxing into the guy time easily, so no room-mate repercussions. The next day, I woke up around noon, and they were all getting back into the bus, I watched them back it up into the strip club across the street, waving in my pajamas on my porch, feeling like a good person, because I got to offer them some respite from their hard journey, and it didn’t cost me anything. So: thanks for the Klowns KT!

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Super-Alisa Is Born!

Saturday, July 4th, 2009

alisa-againToday, Snarky Cards is 2 years old, and I’m 30 years old. I’ve been slinging my shit around town, for the last two years. On July 4th, 2007, I didn’t have a job, and I walked out of my house, with my home-made box, determined to make my own rent with my own words. And I did! That was the first day I started showing up in bars and insisting that you drunks give me money for my witt! This post is about me. Because it’s my birthday. So there are a lot of pictures of me. I hope you don’t mind. I made sure that my boobs show a lot, to make the narcissism more palatable.

I love my life. I’m pretty happy with all the things I’ve done so far, with the 30 years I nailed down. And I’m a list maker. So this is a list of all the shit that I’ve done that I’m pleased with:

2003

Me, in 2003

1. I’m a writer. I write for a living. There are people in my town, who get excited when they hear that I’ve written something new. Some people, who don’t live in my town get excited when they hear I’ve written something new. When I was six years old I announced to my parents, and my teacher Mrs. Newman, that I was going to be a writer when I grew up. My parents laughed. And Mrs. Newman looked at me with pity. “My daughter’s a writer, and it’s really hard.” She explained. I’m glad I came through on my early promise. And, hopefully, my parents are eating that laughter. Well, they probably are. They don’t really like what I write. They’re fundamentalist Christians. And last I heard, Jon (my father) called my cards “Nasty Cards”. That’s what you fuckers  get for laughing at me. I will write things that embarass and shame you for the rest of your lives. And everyone but you will think it’s awesome.

at-the-funhouse

Me at a Funhouse Party. I think this was my third wardrobe change that night. I think I made out with 3 guys that night too!

2. Not everyone has some kind of life-plan. And sometimes, I have felt like mine was a curse. I’ve wanted to be a writer since I was six, and I was pissed at myself when I was 20 for not writing a book, and getting it published. I was pissed at myself because I wasn’t famous or because I wasn’t a good enough writer, or a confident enough person to send what I had written to a publisher. I thought the nervous break-down that was my twenties was a waste of time. The problem is, I needed the time to get over the abuse I suffered as a kid.

alisa-in-saturn-cafe-with-the-bexter

Me in 2005 in Saturn Cafe with The Bexter.

I needed that nervous breakdown, it healed me, so I could get over all that shit and move on. All of the depressive painting and emotive poetry I made in that time seemed like a waste. My art helped me express how I felt, but I felt like a freak, and my art was so painful, no-one wanted to look at it for very long. Don’t get me started on the fucking poetry.

doris-partyI could sell anything, and I made a pretty OK Office Bitch back in the day. I took whatever job would pay my rent and therapy. It seemed like I’d never get to be the kind of person I wanted to be. It took me until this year to realize that all of the shitty poetry I’ve written, and sad painting I’ve done, and little businesses I’ve worked at, all of the sales jobs I’ve taken in my life, and all of the books I’ve sold, prepared me for this writing life. My guerilla sales tactics come from me learning how to sell to pay my rent. Now I get that I wasn’t just wasting time, hoping that something better would happen to me, I was learning skills I needed in order to do this. And The Universe seems like it all makes sense. Some fucked up shit will probably happen to me again, and I’ll feel like The Universe is a Dick again, but right now, I feel like all of the jobs I’ve ever had got me ready for this. And my past makes sense.

cowboys-and-indians

In this picture, I am wearing my prostitute dress. Which I stole from my friend KT.

3. It looks like Snarky Cards is opening new doors. I’m working on some scripts, and I’m going to be working with a local film-maker soon, so that I can make Snarky Card Short Films, using my cards as part of the dialogue. And I’ve got a web series I’m going to start making this year too. It’s unpaid, and so it will be pain-staking, and it will take a long-ass-fucking-time, but I won’t have to be an art prostitute forever. Which is good, because my liver can’t handle this shit forever. And once my scripts become shorts or a web series, maybe I can jam my foot in the door of television writing.

1ERMak02.jpg

This is my favorite fake family!

Television is my happy place. It gives me my moral compass (judging Amy), and it taught me small talk (NYPD blue) and it taught me how to love myself as much as I try to love my lovers (ER) it gave me Fake Dad’s and Fake Mom’s and Fake Boyfriends, and it helped me develop sociological theories that I have impressed people with at parties. The idea that I can contribute to a world that has given me so much amazes and delights me.

Isn't Dan Futterman hot?

Isn't Dan Futterman hot?

Also: Jeff Johnston -who I offered my virginity to, and who declined because he (still) has an attachment to his own virginity- has been living in LA since forever, trying to be a Christian Actor for the last couple of years. When I was 15, I wrote him secret love letters telling him I could write for television and he could act in my shows. He didn’t take me up on it. If I can become famous first, maybe I can publicly shame him for rejecting me when I was a teenager. And then he’ll be sorry for not Doing It with me.

alisa-bikini-sun

Me at the river last year! My room-mate Libby and I went out there to swim and chill.

4. Which brings me to the fourth thing I’m super proud of: I have slept with at least 83 people. I’m sure it’s more than that by now. I haven’t updated the list in a year or two. But I know that it is at least 83 people. No matter how fat I got. or how depressed I was, boys still thought I was cute and I still had great sex. Somehow, my charisma always shows through. And ever since I was a little girl, I’ve wanted to be wanted. I have always wanted to be known as a seductress. Dolly Parton was one of my first idols as a child. And she modeled herself after the town whore. Someday I pray that there is a team of female impersonators pretending to be me.That is my idea of having made something of your life.

See? I might be fat, but I'm totally hot. Or at least, these boys thought so last week at Kate's party.

See? I might be fat, but I'm totally hot. Or at least, these boys thought so last week at Kate's party.

I may not like the fact that I’m still kinda fat. But I’m still totally hot. I have huge, sexy boobs, and eyebrows that wiggle suggestively on their own. You can hear my laugh a block away, and boys still surprise themselves, by coming on to me. So while I’m not quite the seductress of the century (yet) I’m in the running. If I keep it up, I can totally make the cut in the next twenty years.

This is my newest tattoo! Which I got last year from Lucid Ink.

This is my newest tattoo! Which I got last year from Lucid Ink.

5. I’ve spent the last decade weeding out the people who say they love me and can’t actually hang with my personality, from the people who say they love me and think that I’m hilarious when I tell it like it is. All of the people who are in my life now are people who like me for my psychotic bravery, and foul mouth, they can accept my perpetual tardiness, and they think it’s funny that I turn everything into an art project. They don’t mind the eyeful of breasts that they constantly get as my friends and companions, and they don’t have a problem telling me when I’ve pushed too hard or too far and I need to fuck off. They help me when they can, and they ask for my help when they need it. I’m proud to love the people I have in my life now, and be loved by them.

me-n-mario

This is me and Mario, who used to be one of my best customers. Until he moved to San Diego.

6. “Can I just tell you that I’m so glad that we now spend hours talking about your career instead of your shitty parents?!” The Bexter exclaimed a few weeks ago, when I updated her on all the cool shit I’m doing. I agreed with her. I still mention my shitty childhood, because it still happened, but I’m not hung up on it anymore. Not like I was. I finally feel over a lot of the shit that happened to me when I was a kid. And I feel like having it happen to me allows me to be more compassionate, and more real. And also, I get to make molested jokes. (Because I was molested). Which rocks. Because child sex abuse jokes are funny. And it makes people uncomfortable when I say molested. Which I think is funny.

Snarky Cards is my way of making the kind of life I want for myself. And I thank you, Internets from every crevice I’ve got for supporting me and buying my cards, and reading my posts, and helping me make this bad-ass fucking life for myself.

Happy Birthday! Thanks for helping me get this far!

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