by Jill Kargman
I chopped my hair because it was fried, dyed, and pushed aside. But after the cut (of about eight inches), I worried I looked like a newscaster and went into compensation mode. I bought investment “pieces” (sorry, I hate when people call an item of clothing a piece, but they were) and never bought the trend, only my vroom-vroom vampire look.
Because to me, rocker chic never goes out of style. Female “recording artists” these days make my skin crawl. You can have the nasal girlie squeals of the annual, inevitable onslaught of cheery “songs of summer.” The Barbied-out pop tarts have infused the red carpet with spray-on Day-Glo neons and have—to quote Patsy from Absolutely Fabulous—“hemlines so high, the whole world’s your gynecologist.”
But there’s another way. Is that a revving motorcycle engine I hear? Could it be a razor-sharp edge emerging in the sea of fluffy cotton-candy pink? Rick Owens, take me away! I’ll be your backseat Betty anytime.
I like to think that as long as my hemlines are appropriate and the clothes aren’t too tight, I can rock a rock ’n’ roll look to match my attitude. It’s who I have always been and I’m not growing out of it, even when I’m seventy.
In the thicket of pop soda-pop that makes my ears bleed, people continue to Debbie Downer me and pronounce that rock is, in fact, dead. But as Nirvana alum Dave Grohl once explained at the Grammys, rock ’n’ roll is doing just fine, thank you very much, as demonstrated by his Foo Fighters’ category win for an album cut literally in his garage. Granted, there probably are four Porsches parked in there, but still. Better than the legions of cheesy-ass femmebots dying their hair the colors of Easter eggs to get attention.
There are some of us—as much as we try to steep ourselves in pop culture and therefore pop fashion—who simply fiend for the Trash and Vaudeville vibe of good ol’ cymbal-smashing, face-melting, go-home-with-the-waitress rock ’n’ roll. In my novel The Rock Star in Seat 3A, the main character, Hazel, is a just-one-of-the-guys-type, potty-mouthed, heavy metal–blaring chick who works at a video game company. While I myself am decidedly way more feminine, her scorching affair with her throaty-voiced rock idol plunges her right into the world she (and I) always fantasized about.
And clearly others have, too. The excitement of blue lights hitting rising smoke as the fevered crowd roars has held an allure for everyone ever since the first concert front man cleared his throat at a mic. Or hers. MTV disseminated that look when I came of age, and there appears to be a nostalgia now that we are hags and harking back to our younger days of headbanging yore. One example, aside from iconic ol’-school acts mounting major tours (think: the Big Four’s multiband sellout at Yankee Stadium), is the success of productions that take place in that smoky backstage milieu. Rock of Ages is, to my family, a cult classic of sorts, and I continue to hold out hope (or a lighter!) that people will rekindle their love for stadium rock—the late-eighties answer to the lipsticked synthfest from the middle of that decade (of which I’m admittedly also a fan). The Los Angeles scene certainly had the girls who put the strip in Sunset Strip, flaunting torn fishnets with cleave- and booty-baring skintight numbers. But the new rock ’n’ roll has a delicious androgyny to it—now the gals can rock Slash’s leather jacket. And I do. Who cares if I’m older or a mom or not in a band. It tells the world I’m not going to rot in pleat-front JCPenney mom jeans complete with tapestry vest, per the SNL fauxmercial for Mom Jeans. My penchant for rock style isn’t about the male rockers and the women dressed as their clingy sluts—now we can rock the ensembles ourselves, and in a chic, equally badass way. There is a bubbling up of the black-and-silver combo, from super-skinny suits to killer violent boots that scream “check check” at the mic. Women can now rack up a wrist full of Chrome Hearts thick chains that were once only found in the men’s section. Even fine jewelry has taken a vroom-vroom twist with goth rhodium everywhere—charcoal metal making you want to come on and feel the noise just looking at it. And it appears that black diamonds may be hard rock’s answer to rap’s D-color bling (ironically). Tons of designers are now adding subtle onyx bling to graphite metals for an anyone-got-a-guitar-pick? vibe. Bolder belt buckles are back, their carved sterling harking to countless unzipped flies of those sex, drugs, and rock ’n’ roll years. While healthier living has been embraced and many people have purged the sins of the era, there is still a way to travel back stylewise in a more refined, tailored way, but with the same violent-but-sexy spirit as before. So feel free to eschew the bubblegum hues and choose something that would make Ms. Jett proud. Put another dime in the jukebox, baby, and don’t be afraid to trade in that Lululemon for a Straight to Hell buffalo hide motorcycle jacket. And while the glossies may pronounce lime green or lavender a hue of the month on the rainbow-encompassing runways, for me, the limited spectrum will always be charcoal to black.
Artisanal: The word is omni! Who needs fennel-seed-dusted handmade organic rolls? Just gimme some bread, yo.
Cheese pizza: Redundant. Like saying assless chaps.
Black Friday: Where did this come from?! Since when was hitting Target on par with the tramplings at Altamont?
Dog strollers: Make it stop. When I was little, dogs were on leashes and kids were in strollers. Now kids are on leashes and dogs are in strollers.
Easy listening: More like difficult listening. I’ve said for years that only serial killers listen to that garbage and was totally vindicated when the Girl with the Dragon Tattoo movie showed Stellan Skarsgård entering his rape/slaughter chamber and blaring Enya.
Fur vests: If it’s cold enough for fur, then why would you want your arms out? [Also see: “Awky fall hooves,” page 198, and please reconsider knee-high boots with an open toe.] Useless.
Meteorologists: Do they call people who study meteors weatherologists?! Also, PS, I think it’s amusing when Al Roker says, “Here’s what’s happening in your neck o’ the woods” and tosses the broadcast to a local weatherman. The local guy always chuckles and says, “Thanks, Al.” I want to yell What do you mean—thanks, Al?! Roker couldn’t pick you out of a police lineup and you’re all on-air chummy like he just sent his camera right over to you, Shane Blaylock of WKTV, Pocatello, Idaho!
Old people’s walkers with tennis balls: I’m sorry, but can someone finally please invent walkers that come with some kind of antislip base? Plenty of perfectly innocent Wilsons are being slashed across the throat and shoved on the bottoms of walkers. And too many grown children and grandchildren are accidentally slashing their palms open trying to cut the tennis balls open in the first place.
Plate bowls: They make soup cold so quickly! I like a fucking deep-ass bowl of soup, not some shallow plate masquerading as a bowl where my thimbleful of soup gets cold in seven seconds. There. I feel much better getting that one in particular off my chest.
“Sale! 10% off!”: Don’t even fucking bother. Ten percent off is not worth the walk to the boutique; sales tax puts that fucking 10 percent right back on!
Stick figure decals of your family on your car’s back window: I thought they were the most depressing things in the universe (we don’t care to know the exact makeup of your fucking family!)…until I saw a stick figure family with Mickey ears on it. See “Orlandon’t” if you even have to ask.
Another time I saw a mom and three kids, and clearly someone used a razor blade to scrape off Dad, who had a piece of shoe left. He must’ve put his stick dick into another tennis racket–toting mom decal. Much more amusing, but I still don’t care!
Wires that hold down my son’s action figures in the box: Did we make some pact with China to punish parents for their impatient kids or something? Why should it take ten minutes to free a fucking toy from its packaging? Spider-Man can scale tall buildings and survive his shipment from Asia, but I need garden shears to set him loose in Manhattan. Too annoying, this packaging.
When my hilarious, gorgeous brother moved to Los Angeles weeks after his college graduation, I knew he’d slay. He had told me that the famous movie producer Louis B. Mayer once
sent a friend “back East” a letter that said something along the lines of It’s great here: The women are knockouts and your only competition is a bunch of idiots. Willie would have his pick!
As a protective and suspicious-of-Hollywood older sister, I forbade him (in vain) to date anyone with a head shot in her purse. That lasted about five minutes, because they were everywhere he looked. They were “actresses” whose claim to fame was playing a toe-tagged dead body on a gurney on CSI, or they were bartenders who wanted to be models, or massage therapists who wanted to be models and actresses. You know how every four years at your high school there is a legendary beauty everyone talks about? Well, alllll those girls across the whole country move to LA with stars in their eyes. And many of them were smitten with my charming brother.
For the record, Willie is not a modelizer—he is super down-to-earth, values brains over bods, and has a fierce wit he’d like you to keep up with. The hardest laughter of my life has been by his side. So, no, he is not a model chaser—they chased him! And what dude with a dick would say no?
But he chose monogamy. Always. He sought deep relationships and never was a banger playboy; he stayed faithful to the same girl for months or years; he tried to make things work. Which is the good news. The bad news was that in his attempts to take things seriously, he brought every girlfriend home to meet the family at holidays. In the summertime it was particularly challenging because they’d be prancing by my husband in a white string bikini while I was obesifying during a cankle and thankle pregnancy, but at least in later years they helped with my babies and toddler. They wanted to impress, so it was nice having a free au pair of sorts, even if their hemlines were way too short for my parents’ country club or my taste. Or ego.
I made Willie swear after each breakup that that would be the last person with an 8 x 10 glossy. Eventually he sought out a higher-caliber woman: there were writers, fashionable editors, smart girls with cool careers. Then one day he told me he met another actress. Ugh. Setback! I rolled my eyes—not again—they’re all insecure, on-the-make climbers!
Then he told me her name: Drew Barrymore.
Wait, what?!
I was excited, because naturally I loved her the way all of America loves her, and wanted to hear every detail—was she as sweet as she seemed? What was he going to give her for her birthday that she didn’t already have? When would we meet?
After two months, Willie introduced her over dinner in Santa Monica. I walked in kinda nervous for obvi/surreal reasons, but she stood up and engulfed me in a huge hug. I melted. I was immediately disarmed by her warmth, her sparkling eyes, and the radiating friendliness that you get from her on the screen. And, most important, I’d never seen my brother happier. The months passed blissfully for them and I felt totally comfortable with her, though I sometimes worried about overtexting (I am a certified emoji addict) and maintaining her privacy. For example, would it be weird to send her a picture of my kids on an E.T. ride? Ask her about ex-boyfriends the way you would with a normal friend even though I knew they were famous actors? Questions about movies she was in? Which celebs were nice and who were assholes?
You know how women in Jane Austen novels never talk about becoming sisters-in-law? They go right to “We’re going to be sisters!” That’s how it is for Drew and me. And is she ever astute about Kopelman family patterns: She once commented that the average was seventeen minutes before someone at the dinner table brought up death. She is a delightful happy mirror to our familial morose dark side, and the perfect yin-yang of California sunny outlooks versus our wintry dark humor. At home she is makeup free, casual, cooking meals for my nieces, singing kooky songs, rocking out with a funny dance to make them laugh. Slap on some red lipstick and a dress, though, and you’re like, Whoa, mom to movie star in five minutes! She can foxify in record time, and when we leave the house, people spaz over her. She gets mauled by strangers, weeping and begging for selfies. There’s something about her that engenders a feeling of closeness from fans. Maybe it’s because we all watched her grow up—from beloved little Gertie to producer powerhouse to beauty empire entrepreneur—and have cheered her on at a distance.
Drew’s real best friends, unlike those of many actresses, are not all famous. Cammy D (aka Cameron Diaz) is an exception. One Christmas, she stayed with us for a week, and when I was sitting with the two of them, drinking wine, I imagined myself morphing Asian into Lucy Liu and picking up guns and tearing shit up. Super fun fantasy.
One day during her stay, Fletch busted rudely into Cam’s room and found her naked. Unfazed, he asked her which of the two Matchbox cars he was holding was cooler. She picked the red one and he said thanks and wheeled for the door. Just before he exited, he turned to her and said suavely, “I’m five years old.” We died laughing when she told us. My son lived out every male fantasy and somehow knew it as a kindergartner.
Sometimes when one of Drew’s movies is on TV, I rewatch it and, yes, it feels slightly weird to me that I’ve plopped on the couch and eaten crap food with the girl on the screen playing Cindefuckinrella. Even though she and Willie went splitsville just as this book was going to print, we are forever sisters. Bottom line: She is a Technicolor flower child bouquet of a person, and a welcome kaleidoscope of hues that infused our Addams Family with optimism and light.
Automatic toilet flushers: Dear makers of these things: Sometimes we are not ready to flush! I know you invented the autoflusher so peeps don’t have to touch the handle, but, come on, that’s what feet are for. And anyway I’d rather have to wash my hands than get a pee-splashed butt.
ATMs that slurp in your card rather than having you swipe: I love a good Citibank card dip. When I go to some creepy alternate banks and they deep-throat my card, I fear that it will (a) come out shredded, (b) never come out ever again, or (c) I will get my cash and walk off, leaving it in there for all eternity. I really wish all were the dippy kind.
Children in leopard leggings: JonBenét was the first household name for the toddlers ’n’ tiaras looking-sexy set, but now it’s all gone too far. Little girls are four-going-on-whore more than ever, and dat shit ain’t riiiight.
Cilantro: IMHO, the devil himself. And dill is his bitch. People always thought I was weird when I asked if any dish had cilantro, and then I found vindication in a Times article saying there was genetic hatred of the herb passed down in DNA. I knew it!
American Girl dolls: I’m scared they will come to life and stab me to death if I don’t buy them more accessories and shrunken outfits. Sometimes I think Ivy’s twinsie doll has the run of the house when we are on vacation.
Going over the Visa bill with my husband: Nothing, and I mean nothing, dries up a pussy faster than going over the credit card statement. Line by motherfuckin’ line.
Headbands that look like a braid of hair: Disturbing. Ditto ponytail holders that are scrunchies made of fake hair.
Identical twins who are dressed alike: I’m sorry. I know people think it’s cute and everything—and maybe for babies and toddlers it can be—but somewhere at around five it starts to look a little redrum-y. Also, I’m no kiddie shrink, but aren’t we supposed to encourage individual identity? Isn’t it better to be your own self rather than someone’s Diane Arbus–y doppelgänger?
Lazy Susans: Now, I think of myself as a pretty generous soul. But two words I hate together? Family style. When I go out to dinner with a group, and some dictator decides they’re ordering for the table and we will all partake in sharing by swiveling our dishes on this hellish round beeyotch, I want to explode. My one beloved dish is inevitably at noon to my 6 P.M., and by the time it swirls around, there is one sad pan-seared dumpling left. Susan, stop being so lazy! Get off your fat ass.
Keebler Elves campaign: This series of commercials from my youth seemed normal at the time, but now I find it super creepsville that these tiny, tree-dwelling Aryan Smurfs had their shrunken paws all over my fucking cookies.
The massive rodent problem in that rich family’s house in
The Nutcracker: You people are having a blowout Christmas party with a staff of ten and the kids are wearing silk and opening life-size dolls. Can’t you afford an exterminator for the teeming rats cruising your living room? No one thinks of this. I see that ballet every year and I’m so grossed out by the hordes of rodentia in this rural Austrian mansion. Maybe they don’t notice the droppings around that mammoth tree? Unclear. And very upsetting.
Men eating bananas: I’m so immature, but it just looks so blowjobby! Women eating them doesn’t, for some reason that is beyond me. Maybe it’s because I think of women as healthier breakfast eaters, while dudes have a breakfast burrito or egg sandwich with sausage and cheese. In fact, come to think of it, I don’t really like men eating fruit in general. Don’t be so vain! That’s our thing!
’Rexifur: In other words, when skinny girls (size 0) have enough hair on their arms to clog the drain with one arm shave with a Gillette Mach3.
People who hold the mug from the not-handle side: I can’t take it. There’s a handle for good reason! Somehow this habit smacks of smugness, like those people in a coffee commercial, sipping by a fire and discussing prose.
“Take a chill pill, Jill”: People who say that need to jump off a cliff. I have been hyper since I was born. I know I have a lot of energy. But I am not high on cocaine (I’ve been accused of that several times). On occasion I do ingest a Xanax to soothe my fried nerves, but when I think I need to. Keep your suggestions to yourself!
