Podcast: I’m all wrapped.

In today’s entry, Sage tells the Bear Story. Call 206-666-3043 to leave your comments.

To find out more about the yurt years, visit Todd’s Yurt Years entries.
Listen: MP3 format
Time: 13.54

I’m all wrapped.

Overheard while waiting for the elevator:

Man How you doing today, sir?

Maintenance Man Not too bad, you?

Man Not bad.

Maintenance Man That’s good, that’s what we love to hear, satisfied customers, happy clients… All ready for Santa Claus?

Man Aw, I still have all my shopping to do.

Maintenance Man Yeah, tell me about it.

Man It’s pretty normal.

Woman I’m all wrapped, I’m done! I’m wrapped.

Maintenance Man It’s pretty normal for the guys.

Man See, see, I can’t do that. When I do that - when I buy a gift, I want to give it so badly that if I actually shop early, I have do to 2 or 3 Christmasses.

Woman So do I. I start in the summer, but I keep them locked somewhere where I don’t have a key so I can’t get them out.

Man Man, I can’t do that. I buy it and go, THIS IS SO PERFECT FOR YOU.

Woman Yeah. I know. But I learned the hard way, and now I just try to be very very good with it.

Man Yeah. Discipline isn’t one of my strong points.

Woman Not mine either, but in this case it’s like - yeah, if I don’t pile them up a bit, then it’s not going to be a good Christmas for me or my son, so…

Man Yeah, I understand that.

Maintenance Man Well, guys, have a good day.

Woman You too.

Man You too, sir.

The elevator arrived and we all got on.

Man So how old is your son?

Woman Seven.

Man Seven, oh…

Woman And he JUST decided that there’s no more Santa Claus.

Man Mmmm, you see, my kids - my kids are all grown. My daughter said at one point, you know, “Dad…you’re the tooth fairy.” We didn’t quite like that. When Christmas came around, she said, “There’s no Santa Claus, is there?” And we said, well, when you stopped believing in the tooth fairy what happened? Do you really want to bet on that? If she asks us today in her thirties, we’ll tell her who was the Santa Claus.

Woman Take care!

Man Bye bye.

Podcast: After a day of sledding…

In today’s entry, Sage is cornered by two marketing drones. Call 206-666-3043 to leave your comments.

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Time: 8.13

After a day of sledding…

After a day of sledding (the kids went down twice then spent the rest of the time playing Fortress in a clump of tall spindly weeds while the mums went down again and again - and let me tell you, my Animal Brain stood at the top of the hill, looked down and realized it couldn’t see the bottom of the hill because it got suddenly steep and it took me ten minutes to convince Animal Brain that just because I couldn’t see the bottom of the hill didn’t mean it wasn’t there) we hauled the sled home during rush hour and collapsed on the couch for a couple of hours.

As Todd walked in the door I walked out to attend a meeting of Toronto podcasters. I was very nervous. Shy doesn’t really begin to describe my feelings about going into a room full of strangers, and the only thing I could really be thankful for was that there would be no dancing. (Sometimes when “I Wanna Know What Love Is” by Foreigner comes on the radio I enter a fugue state in which I’m thirteen again, wearing a long black and blue plaid skirt, crying outside the gym in the dark.)

Hands shaking, I sat down next to a man who reminded me of my nicest cousin, and he immediately asked what kind of podcast I create. “This is going really well,” I thought, hiding my hands under the table, and blathered on while they looked on with interested faces. As I talked I took stock of the people immediately surrounding me and realized that they were all dressed like they’d come directly from a high level corporate meeting about create a new paradigm and align their core competency to create incremental synergy to increase customer centric metrics. And you know, I’m the last person to worry about clothes, but even I was beginning to feel a little self-conscious in my cat-hair covered sweatshirt.

Then I found out why there’d been a hard to find empty seat next to these two perky people: they were marketers, with the sparkling eyes and crazed demeanor of cult members in the airport. Small talk is not exactly my forte, so I was really having to scrape the barrel to respond to sallies like:

Man …so my company is in the process of creating Flash presentations for people to view on their mobile viewers. Really what we’re trying to create - and I know this word is so overused - but we’re trying to create a community.

I nodded dumbly, wondering how soon I could go home without hurting his feelings.

Woman I guess it’s my turn! Well. I’m involved with a company that scouts voices for commercials, voice-overs, that sort of thing. People send us their demos, and we send them in turn to the radio and television companies that need voice talents.

I tried desperately to think of something to say, and went with -

Sage Wow. Uh, can you hear in someone’s voice if they’re going to have what it takes?

Woman, hedging Not…really. No. What I’d really need is a sample of your voice doing several different types of readings a story, a character, and just some regular dialogue.

I realized in horror that she thought my terrible small talk was actually an angling for a job disguesed as terrible small talk. I tried again.

Sage I can see how that would be helpful. Are there any demos that you’ve listened to that you immediately say, ‘Oh, terrible voice.’

Woman No, actually. Every voice has its merits, and when you futufde a particular wionit, wia miraho: teras ppacin rehqopi ges-dloo, horposltyh bo gelondtosan talarhe nod ketela ednqo. We also do some work with Verizon, and if I wonder if you’d be interested in signing this four-year contract for a phone with a CAMERA AND FLASH AND IT CAN ALSO CUT YOUR HAIR AND MAKES DINNER AND PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE BUY SOMETHING FROM ME -

Actually, before it got that far a very jolly non-marketing man came over and said in a jolly way:

Jolly Man Hi there! Are you two here together?

She looked like Barbie. I looked like a homeless person who’d missed the homeless clothing drive and had to make do with dumpster diving. This is how I look every day, and I like it that way, but at that particular moment it seemed absurd to pretend that wasn’t the case. So, and I can’t quite believe I actually did this, but I said the first thing that came to my mind, which was -

Sage HA! Come here together? Look at how different we are!

She smiled a sort of pained, watery smile and turned to talk to some guy whose name was undoubtably Chip on her left. I felt really bad.

The Jolly Man nicely led me over to the next table, filled with actual podcasters who were wearing regular clothes, if not cat-hair covered sweatshirts they haven’t washed in a year because they stupidly put their son’s Silly Putty in their pocket and it stuck to the pocket and they’re kind of afraid it will break the apartment building washer, and I passed a thoroughly enjoyable evening talking to lots of people who didn’t want to create any incremental synergy at all. Tod Maffin - the nicest guy you’d ever want to meet - even interviewed me, gave me valuable sound equipment advice, invited me to participate in the Story Project, and told me he and his wife are big fans.

I felt a little bit like Cinderella and I had a big goofy grin on my face all the way home.

Podcast: Escalator Love

In today’s entry, Sage regrets not making a more meaningful wish. Call 206-666-3043 to leave your comments.

Listen: MP3 format
Time: 6.22

Escalator Love

People in the first flush of love have no dignity or shame and do things they would never consider doing otherwise, like spending an entire escalator ride hugging and staring into each other’s eyes. Not passionately, just…obnoxiously.

Todd Ooo, look. Here’s a vegetarian chili recipe that feeds thirty children.

Sage Perfect for a Montessori daycare.

Todd Ha. I thought you were going to say “cult”.

Friday Paul and I went sledding. It was only the fourth time I’ve been in my entire life, and I wanted to stay for hours and hours. Paul’s sled was very basic and on our hill there were lots of fancy sleds with seats and steering wheels. As we headed home Paul said wistfully that a toboggan would be nice to have. Not 24 hours later there was a huge, mint condition orange taboggan leaning up against the wall in the recycling room. I gleefully took it upstairs and we headed out for a day of sledding, and we found out why it was in the recycling room. Paul would get a quarter of the way down the hill, the sled would twirl, and he’d finish the hill backwards, ending in a little jump at the end someone else had made of hard packed snow.

I stood there wishing I hadn’t left my gloves at a friend’s house, then looked a little to the left and saw three gloves lying in the snow. Two of them a matched pair. (No, I didn’t wish for world peace after that, although in retrospect I probably missed a chance to change world history.) I put on the gloves and tried to solve the sled problem. We finally figured out that if Paul started with the sled facing front and began facing backwards, he could finish the hill facing front, but he preferred the other way. Three bigger kids happened by and tried to go down facing front, but it turned backwards on them as well. Mysterious.

Eventually Paul got tired and I took off the gloves and hung all three of them from shrubs. It’s a tradition I really like that I’ve never seen anywhere else - when people in Toronto find a lost item they pick it up and put it somewhere close at eye level. During winter my neighbourhood is a veritable feast of scarves, hats and gloves fluttering in the wind. To be sure, it’s a very small act of kindness, but I like what it says: Hey, I see you dropped your hat. I’ll just put it up here, so if you should come by this way again you’ll be able to find it.

We headed home and put the sled back in the recycling room. It was gone within three hours. I have every expectation of it making the rounds of most of the kids in the building before one maddened parent throws it in the dumpster.

Podcast: Peacetime Concerns

In today’s entry, Sage responds to the question: But don’t you feel any loyalty to your country? Call 206-666-3043 to leave your comments.

Listen: MP3 format
Time: 6.06

Peacetime Concerns

Health, employment, and education are Canada’s primary concerns leading up to the January 23 election. (My primary concern is that Stephen Harper keeps on creeping out the majority of Canadians with his fundamentalist America-centric views and never, ever, ever get elected. But that’s neither here nor there.)

Anyway. Health, employment, and education. And I thought, “When’s the last time Americans had the luxury of those concerns?” From 1945 to 1950, during the most conspicuous period of American peace, an alarming number of women went insane from isolation and boredom. Families imploded quietly. The Korean War soon followed, then the Vietnam war - and all those kids who’d watched their valium addicted mothers fall apart suddenly stood up and said, “Um…NO,” and okay, they also did acid like they used to eat Pez, but for a little moment America…tried…to change.

Then someone in government said, “Hey, I have an idea. Remember that Cold War thing? Let’s start talking that up again. Let’s have a war for free. Let’s scare the fuck out of a bunch of little kids and their parents and gain back the control we lost back in the sixties.” And that was the country I grew up in, a country waiting, waiting, for nuclear war. Christmas was especially frightening for me, because I was sure that the Evil Russians would attack on Christmas, becuase no one would be expecting it. I woke up once at 3 a.m. to the sound of thunder and was sure that the bombs had finally started to fall. I wrote letters to Ronald Reagan and the San Jose Mercury Times. I was always afraid. But I really had no idea what kind of fear lay ahead, that terrorism would rear its head in the form of a new president and a gradual eroding of the separation of church and state (a law I heard about for the first time and EVEN IN the middle of my religious phase I applauded) - listen, people, it’s not the fact that they want to teach creationism, it’s the foundation they’re trying to lay for the future.

These are the things I think about when people say, “Oh, but don’t you feel any loyalty to your country? How could you just leave like that?”

My country?

For me, the concept of patriotism has always been an alien one, rather like believing in God, except I went through a religious phase as a child and never once felt anything for the American flag. It’s akin to being born to a monstrous mother and being told you should respect her anyway and stay in the house until you’re blue in the face from screaming and trying to make her stop burning down the neighbour’s houses and eating kittens raw for breakfast when this little old woman who wouldn’t hurt a fly lives right next door and keeps inviting you in for tea and cookies.

And then one day when your mother is away, fundraising for Focus on the Family, you walk out the door, your husband on the left and your son on the right, and walk up that cobblestone path and knock on the door. And the little old lady lets you in.

Patriotism was an alien concept until I stood in a room full of people with my hand over my heart and tried my best to sing O Canada. But I was crying too hard.

Podcast Archives

Every podcast I’ve ever created, including one circa 1996.

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27 hours. No rest stop.
Reactions to the tsunami victims. Includes a surprise bonus outtake.
Wed, 29 Dec 2004 07:30:00
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News At Eleven
A rundown of some of the scariest news stories coming out of the U.S.
Wed, 24 Dec 2004 08:42:00
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A Secret Surprise
A secret surprise for Paul.
Wed, 15 Dec 2004 08:20:00
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Bush Whacked
Sage teaches slanted current events to everyone on the bus.
Thu, 02 Dec 2004 08:18:00
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No Items of High Value
Packing for our move to Canada.
Thu, 08 Jan 2004 07:49:00
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Baby Baby Don’t Get Hooked On Me was #1 on the Billboard charts.
This entry begins: I’m 31 years old today. When I was eleven, I thought that the fact that Kirk Cameron and I shared a birthday meant we were fated to be together. Before, you know, he turned into a giant raving Fundamentalist Christian and married a vacuous soap opera actress and had six children.
Sun, 12 Oct 2003 12:30:00
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Oklahoma! Oklahoma! Oklahoma!
This entry begins: Things I have learned from watching daytime television for the first time in six years…
Thu, 25 Sep 2003 13:50:00
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There Oughta Be A Law
This entry begins: I just got the following email from Marian, who I had a mad crush on in college.
Fri, 05 Sep 2003 09:05:00
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Where the kisses are hers and hers and his
This entry begins: The saddest thing I saw at the park yesterday: a group of six year old girls in Kinderwhore outfits, practicing a cheerleader routine, while a woman who looked like she’d lived every day twice barked orders at them.
Tue, 12 Aug 2003 09:43:00
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Get over it.
This entry begins: New York City will open the first gay/lesbian high school in the United States. I am ecstatic.
Tue, 12 Oct 2004 13:00
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Fish for breakfast, lunch and dinner.
This entry begins: On the highway we passed a fifteen year old boy walking out of a ditch onto the shoulder of the road. He was wearing an eye patch and smoking a pipe. A 50s pipe. Like you’d find in a Norman Rockwell painting of Jolly Family Relaxing At Home Just Before The Dad Goes Insane And Mayhem Ensues.
Sat, 26 Jul 2003 10:58:00
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Teri Shields, Rose Lee, Sarah Berlinger and Gertrude Temple
This entry begins: No, I haven’t let Stage Mother out of her glittery sequined box. I’ve been reluctant to blab about the following, as I know it will sound like she’s crawled out, bonked me on the head, stuffed me in her box, and figured out how to access my site all on her own (though, being a Stage Mother, she’d probably tell you Paul taught her how).
Wed, 23 Jul 2003 10:44:00
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Me Thirsty. Me drink soda.
I was a mere child of 21 when I recorded this entry ten years ago.
October 9, 1996
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First we’ll have a commercial.
This is the earliest recording I could find, made when I was just eight years old.
Summer, 1980
15 seconds
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Podcast: 61 Inch TV

In today’s entry, Paul has his first sleepover. (Also includes a segment for the Virginia listeners.) Call 206-666-3043 to leave your comments. Listen: MP3 format Time: 9.53