Exploiting The Rich: Let The Music Play

Spring has finally gotten all sprungly.

I know this to be true because Manager Dad has officially flipped the Cool Weather/Warm Weather switch on his wardrobe, moving from the daily uniform of khaki pants and button-down dress shirts to khaki pants and short-sleeved polo shirts. It’s a whole new wardrobe management ballgame.

Aside from being a symbolic milestone, the switch has the practical effect of shifting five units per week from our local dry cleaner to our home-based Laundry Mountain. This adds up to approximately four extra loads over the course of the summer. While I don’t enjoy the additional labor, this does save about $50 a month on dry cleaning, leaving me all the more to indulge in my fondness for smokes, booze, and cheap hookers.

So while we were talking about saving money, I wanted to share another way I’ve found to entertain your family by taking advantage of the sweat labor of rich folk. (My first post, about the charms of Old Greenwich, can be enjoyed if you have a few extra moments in the bathroom by clicking here.)

The magical land of which I speak today is New Canaan, Connecticut (estimated median home value=$2,000,000). A town which is clearly not afraid to embrace the letter "a," New Canaan has a lively downtown business district filled with stores selling things we can’t afford to buy and restaurants we don’t want to remortgage our homes to eat in.

It’s also one of those metaphor towns that instantly evokes a social stereotype. You know what I mean: Detroit = "Disenfranchised Autoworkers." San Francisco = "Pot-smoking hippies." Long Island = "Joey Buttafuoco". For New Canaan, it’s “Self-Loathing Yuppies,” thanks to the only two major movies inspired by and filmed in the area: The Ice Storm and the Stepford Wives remake, starring Nicole “My Pants Are On Fire When I Claim Not To Have Had Cosmetic Procedures” Kidman. Because I’ve seen her in person, and I promise you, that woman has a Botox technician on speed dial.

But back to my point, which is that aside from an abundance of overindulged, plastic, self-pitying suburbanites (note to friends: not YOU, of course, Brooke, Lawrence, Mel, and Tom – I know you guys are still keepin’ it real), New Canaan also has Waveny Park. Waveny is a beautiful, spacious public area with a lovely old mansion. In the summer (starting on June 11th), they hold free concerts on Wednesday nights on the back porch of the house.

While they are technically for residents only, it is easy for unethical non-resident area freeloaders such as myself to horn in on the fun.

The acts are all has-beens (or more accurately, never-wases) and the music itself ranges from forgettable to puzzling. This year’s kickoff band, “The Bob Button Orchestra” bills itself as playing Big Band classics. I can’t confirm or deny this, but my main take-aways from last year’s show were this:

1) the average age of the band members is approximately 72

next) they like to dress like pirates, complete with puffy shirts and red satin sashes
and

c) despite their advanced age (or perhaps because of it) they like to swill Captain Morgans straight from the bottle between songs (possibly explaining the pirate getups).

It’s become a much-anticipated Wednesday summer family tradition for us. We get the kids, pick up a pizza, and relax with friends while enjoying the fresh air and the “music”. After dinner, the kids run around in the field, doing their best to contract Lyme disease by breaking the Guiness Book’s “Most Ticks Acquired Within a 1-Hour Span” world record.

The evening concludes with a visit to Waveny Mansion’s public toilets, (spotless, mind you, featuring abundant toilet paper, soap, AND hand lotion), where I pick off as many of the ticks that I can, bag them up to send to the state testing lab at $25 a pop, and stuff them into their pajamas so we can execute a swift bedtime once we get home.

The one downside of these concerts, aside from the fear of having our car towed, is an uncomfortably surreal feeling caused by looking around at your fellow concertgoers. They all look like they stepped directly out of a Tommy Hilfinger print ad. And the hordes of roving kids evokes a sort of reverse Children of the Corn, except instead of being filthy and creepily homicidal, they're all preternaturally well-mannered with blonde bowl haircuts and slight French accents, picked up from various summer au pairs.

But if you can suspend your class discomfort, come join us on any given Wednesday. We’ll be easy to spot: amidst a sea of natural-wood camp tables, fashionable umbrellas, carefully packed wicker picnic baskets, and Lilly Pulitzer cricket sweaters, you’ll find a tiny oasis anchored by an ancient, stained Mexican blanket, surrounded with a loud plastic cooler and cheap camp chairs with huge corporate logos (free from various work giveaways).

We’ll save you a slice of pizza, and I’ll even ask Bob to pour you a shot of Captain Morgan’s.

You can access the 2008 Waveny Park concert schedule by clicking here.

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Paging Fairfield County Bloggers!

The other day, I had my first "huh, never thought of that before" moment about having my blog. I was having breakfast with a friend and she was telling me a story when all of the sudden, she stopped suddenly and said, "Oh! PLEASE don't write about this in your blog!" I assured her that I would never betray her confidence, and even if I did, my blog has (how do I put this kindly without insulting myself?) specialized appeal.

So why bother blogging? Well, for someone who has to operate in the language of soul-sucking, mind-deadening business cliches the better part of each day, it's a nice change of pace and creative outlet. It's also a good way to keep family, potential identity thieves, and the random strangers that try to friend me on Facebook up to date about on what's going on in my head and my life.


And as a very cool and unexpected side benefit, I've had a few strangers read my stuff and leave comments and reactions, which has led me to uncover a rich vein of other interesting writers in the area. As their postings and occasional emails have lead me to believe, they're not only happening from a digital perspective but appear to have a high probability being fairly cool people in the real world.

So I thought, wouldn't it be super-duper swell to see how the other half lives, to meet some of these people and talk shop? After all, The Best Way To Have A Good Idea Is To Have Lots. And what better way to generate ideas than to gather in person in a location where they have half price cocktails?

So here's my idea: bloggers from the FC: Let's meet up sometime.

Now, just to be clear, I'm not inviting you over to my house - that's a little bit "To Catch A Predator" for my tastes. I was thinking somewhere glamorous, like the snack bar at the Norwalk Costco, or possibly the High Ridge Road Cosi if we were really feeling crazy.

The marketing person in me understands that to generate excitement for the event, we need a catchy name. Since I have limited capacity for further creative endeavors in my last remaining brain cell, I am appealing to Taken With A Grain Of Salt to apply her alliterative skills and come up with something. To be really intimidating, she might consider incorporating "2008" and/or the word "summit." I have found that in the corporate world, that's the best way to get people to attend your meetings, presuming you fail to get budget approval to serve food.

Next, the location. I had been thinking we could rent out Herbietown, but then I remembered that it's a figment of that guy's imagination. Therefore, my Plan B is to have the tuned-in Stamford Talk recommend a place in the area that might pass for what the kids call a "hotspot," preferably one where we have a high probabibility of seeing and being seen, and maybe even having someone email the Stamford Advocate to get us written up in the world's most boring gossip column.

If you don't want to bring your family, I'm sure that Fairfield County Child can give us some tips on where to find and exploit cheap child care labor.

For entertainment, we'll munch on Baby Food while Jeff Herz enlightens us on His View Of The World. and Indigo Sarah delivers random meta-stories about the Pope and The Canadian.

I'll partner with Amy Bow to lead a discussion on topics specific to working and/or extremely pregnant moms, ranging from MILFishness to maternity underwear.

And when the whole shindig is done, Mr. Stamford can post about how much the event sucked. That way, Kevin, who will no doubt blow off the event because he is Always Home And Uncool, can sleep easy knowing he didn't miss anything special.

There are plenty of other interesting people in the area, and if I left you off, don't take it personally. I just ran out of clever shoutout gimmicks. If I left you/your blog out, leave a comment with some big ups for yourself, so we can check you out.

And as for the event itself, it would be delightful for any and all that want to attend: fellow bloggers, occasional readers, player haters, prior stalkers. We will do our best to be inclusive and bore anyone who shows up.

So... I'll throw out a date. Friday the 13th. (In June). Happy Hour. Location TBD. Any takers?

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Tom Brady Is In My Basement

Unfortunately, it's not the Bridget Moynahan-impregnating, Glaceau-drinking, Gisele-shagging, Stetson-scented, Superbowl-losing-quarterback hottie.

It's the Tom Brady from Connecticut Basement Systems, here to provide an estimate on how much it would cost to install a new sump pump.

Nonetheless, it was highly entertaining to send Manager Dad an email with this post title as the subject line. In his reply, he indicated that he would make a few stops on the way home from work: 1) to purchase a pregnancy test and 2) to have a quick consultation with a divorce attorney.

If you did click here, sorry, no more pearls of entertainment in this post. I just couldn't figure out how to get rid of the "click here" link.

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Sub-Literate Guilt

Before I birthed the littles, I used to read books. And then came love, marriage, and an InStep 300 Ultra Runner stroller, later upgraded to the two-child model after Manager Boy was born. Now, I read approximately one book every other year, and it usually has "Harry Potter" in the title.

I can, however, always find time for a magazine. I have about twenty magazine subscriptions. I am a conflicted magazineaholic. I love 'em because they're bite-sized chunks of portable, disposable fun that requires very little mental investment. I hate 'em because they are meaningless, repetetive, catty, and written for the sensibility of a 13 year old.

They waste paper, clog landfills, make me feel alternately inadequate/fat/uninteresting/incharitable/unstylish, and are about as intellectually satisfying as eating a bag of Cheetos. As such, they are the perfect brain candy to offset the boredom of riding the stationary bike.

So in the spirit of shallowness, here are the mags I read, despise, and then despise myself for reading them:

In Style - I think this is secretly funded by an association of B-list celebrities in order to have a vehicle for free, fawning publicity. NOBODY really belives that Formerly Washed Up Middle Age Actor Who Lucked Onto A Hot TV Show regularly serves chowder to the homeless, do they? Plus, I have it on good authority that they make up their letters to the editor. Think about it. What normal human being really has the time to write a letter about how much they love Drew Barrymore's eye shadow?

People - More of the above. It also has the added downside of too many inspirational stories of hope featuring regular people. If I really cared about regular people and their problems, I'd pay more attention to the random bitching of my coworkers, which I can now hear in abundance now that they have remodeled our office to be a 'collaborative workspace' (read, 'no privacy').

Cookie - Dedicated to the idea of celebrating your children as a lifestyle accesories. Filled with ridiculously overpriced clothing and labor-intensive, time consuming quote-unquote kid-friendly yet healthy' recipes which have doubtless tortured many a Greenwich nanny. I mean, $200 Baby Phat sweaters for a toddler?

Better Homes & Gardens, Ladies Home Journal - If YOU want to use a doily to stencil a festive spring pattern on your wall, cheers to you. I hate the cheesy, cheery, cabbage-rose chintz aesthetic of their projects. I especially hate their ridiculously deliciously looking, hugely fattening recipes that make me even hungrier as I'm dripping sweat on the elliptical trainer. I read these with the knowledge that I am a complete and utter failure in the domestic arts.

Lucky- A magazine about shopping. Can't we figure that out for ourselves without supplemental research aids? Do I even need to rant further?

Vanity Fair - Presumptious, elitist, pretentious, America-bashing. And the articles are WAY too long - editorial self-indulgence masquerading under the guise of intellectism. Does anyone find Dominick Dunne to be relevant anymore? Or even interesting? I do like Annie Leibowitz' photo spreads though.

More- My hatred of this is complicated. I actually find the magazine to be intelligent, interesting, relevant to me, and well written. Why do I hate it the? Because their target audience is a "mature" (read, late 40's) woman. In this case I don't hate the magazine, I hate having to admit to myself that I am aging into this demographic cohort. No offense to my mature women friends...but I'm still only 37.

Time - the exact same news stories as Newsweek and US News & World Report. But they charge double the subscription price because they consider themselves a "brand name".

Runner's World, Health, and Self- I read, absorb, and then soundly ignore all of the fitness, nutrition, and training advice that I pretend to care so much about.

What do I actually LIKE reading? Mostly newspapers - the Wall Street Journal, our city Advocate for local news, the crossword in the USA today. For periodicals, there is only one magazine that I wholeheartedly love, and that is US Weekly.

They seem to write the magazine embracing the principle that they are not trying to stand for anything other than complete, unabashed fame-whoring. They seem to have just enough clout that they have access to actual celebrities to get the inside dirt. And I have a sneaking suspicion that they put this magazine together every week with tongue firmly in cheek. In Touch, Life & Style, OK, Star, and the rest are just left behind in their sparkly, celebrity-laden dust.

Ahhh... my new issue came. I can't wait to get back on the stationary bike.

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Musings from Sundance

So I went to the Sundance film festival for a work event thing (Tava launch). Did a little snowboarding at the Canyons, but did not actually attend any screenings as I did not possess the requisite clout or connections get a ticket to anything that any non-movie industry human would actually want to watch.

I was offered a ticket to the “Trash: Earth in Crisis” documentary (which, ironically, the organizers promoted by handing out flyers and plastic buttons on street corners). I chose to skip it – I hate vegetable movies (you know, the kind that you feel obligated to watch because they’re “good for you” and you’ll “learn something”. I went shopping instead. I bought this tan strappy trapeze-style shirt that seemed very cute and trendy and flattering when the salesperson in the ultra-exclusive boutique was egging me on. I have since come to realize that it makes me look about six months pregnant and utterly stupid to boot. I’m sure it will fetch top dollar at the Salvation Army shop, so all is not lost.

Nonetheless, I enjoyed peeping the celebs on the streets of Park City. My first sighting was MashleyKate Olsen (I think it was the Mary Kate version but I’m not entirely sure). I got all excited because I saw her in a café and I thought for a minute that I might actually see her eat something. It was kind of like the feeling an anthropologist must have when they find out a bird they thought was extinct was building a nest in their chimney. But my hopes were dashed when she ordered a soy latte, lit up a smoke, and tottered off through the snowbanks in her ridiculously exaggerated skyh-high thick black platforms, looking like some sort of deranged blonde European garden gnome.

I also saw Matthew Perry, Jack Black, Perez Hilton (the ugly blogger guy) Matthew Broderick, Danny Glover, Mischa Barton, John Stamos, and Ian Ziering (the elders among us will remember him from 90210, the youngsters (and those with poor taste in reaity shows) from one of the myriad versions of Dancing with the quote unquote stars. I was also just a few people away from getting into the Fifty Cent party when the Park City fire marshall shut the place down. I hope Fiddy was still able to enjoy his evening without me.

We had some cool concert stuff – we hosted a Sara Barielles (of one-hit ‘Love Song’ fame) show, and another concert with One Repulic (your typical emo/alternative/rocky sort of deal) and Keri Hilson (whose biggest claim to fame to date was writing ‘gimmie more’ for Britney). The shows were good, I liked Sara quite a bit but since we already have a Fiona Apple, a Tori Amos, an Alicia Keys, and about a hundred other indie-folky-piano playing songstresses running amok, I’m not sure about her longevity potential past this one hit song that she currently has.

Keri Hilson – wow. She just looked like a fierce Amazon. Just huge, aggressive breasts (that appeared to be real), and legs like bam stuffed into some sort of latex black catsuit getup. I can’t recall a note of what she actually sang because I was so busy being fascinated/repulsed by her appearance. The men in my group agreed she was hot in a scary kind of “find me attractive or I’ll f&%$ you up” kind of way. Again, the singing, don’t remember so much, so good luck with that, Keri Hilson!

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