Thursday, September 30, 2010

A heartbreaker

Hey hey,

I know I said I'd talk about House of Pain, but I wanted to post something more important instead. This article from Gawker.com is beautifully written and heartbreaking.

It seems like there has been a barrage of news stories about gay teens lately, one more worrisome than the next. These kids are being bullied and tortured by their awful peers.

I'm not gay, but I know what it's like to hate high school and feel like there's no end in sight and no way out.

I was walking through the east village after a few beers the other night, and I found myself thinking about how much I love my life now. I live in a big city where nobody bats an eye (whatever you wear or do or how you look), I'm doing what I love, and I can choose to interact with people who make me happy and avoid jerks. I thought to myself, "Man-- I wish I could go back to 15 year old Selena and say, 'Hold on tight, kiddo-- it gets better, I promise. In just 15 years. JUST the length of time you're ALREADY been alive. Things will improve.'"

Ha. Well, at least it eventually does.

Wednesday, September 29, 2010

House of Pain

I was just doing some VERY important research online. Research that involves googling key words like, "House of Pain" and "Celtics" and "Shamrocks and Shenanigans." Pretty major stuff going on in my life these days, people. I stumbled upon an image that looks just like a poster from back in the late 1990s. Said poster hung over my bed when I was a teenager (before it was replaced by a stolen Route 95 highway sign stolen for me by a delightful gentleman caller). Said poster even made the move to college with me, too. Now THAT is House of Pain fandom. Looking at it now, it's a pretty creepy image. Worst of all, turns out the boys of House of Pain aren't even native Massholes! What the heeeeck!?



Is that not the most disgusting "poster" you have ever seen? It's three pasty, hungover white guys standing outside a door. This must have been taken in the same photo shoot as my original poster, because I remember DJ Lethal (my favorite of the trio) was in that hoodie. Do I get some street cred and/or validation of the fact that I have a photographic memory for pulling that one outta the deep recesses of my brain? Thanks.

Keeping with the House of Pain theme here, my next entries will be about two other HOP-related stories: (1) when my good buddy Connor (frequent reader, frequent commenter!) bought me a House of Pain bumper sticker, and its untimely demise; (2) my favorite Red Sox hat, autographed by the hottie himself, DJ Lethal.

Until then, I'm performing in Hoboken tonight (Busker's Bar), and I'll be wearing a bikini on stage at Comix tomorrow night. Long story.

Friday, September 17, 2010

I guess its cool to be recognized...?

During the day, I work as a book editor and I pick up lunch from a bodega/hot lunch counter/salad bar/deli counter place near my office. My company just moved offices, so I’ve only started visiting this one “amalgamation of foodstuffs” location recently. Last week I was in there and the cashier stares at me, then says, “Are you on TV?”

That COULD be cool, if my only TV “credit” weren’t that I was on an episode of “The Morning Show With Mike and Juliet” in which I was featured on screen with the label “Selena Coppock / Unlucky In Love.” Yeah, THAT is my only dalliance with television fame. Yikes. (Note: The episode was promoting a dating book written by a British author who talks about how you should date your “matched opposite” and note date a person like you. So they took some B roll footage of me walking in NYC and saying how much dating sucks, then he counseled me and basically told me to stop dating comedians. Perhaps someday I will take his advice.)

More recently, I was cast in a web commercial for a product called ShapeFX that competes with Spanx. They have Spanx-type products for a bunch of body troubles: thighs, tummy, arm flap, etc. Here is the commercial:



The 16 second version of my commercial was used preempt videos on PerezHilton.com for a week or so, so perhaps this lady had see it. It’s not inconceivable. So I said to her that I wasn’t on TV, but I had been on a web commercial, and perhaps she had seen that. She was like, “What for?” so I began explaining the product and the premise and that I was in the arm flap commercial. Pretty embarrassing to say that in a crowded bodega full of business men on their lunch breaks trying to get some grub. A light bulb went off in her head and she had seen it. OK. Fine. How about you ring up my Fresca and SmartFood and I get outta here, because this is a little bit embarrassing. We’re talking about arm flaps. Loudly.

Yesterday I went back into that same bodega and had her as a cashier. She greets me with “SPANX LADY!” and then starts flapping her arms around to expose the swinging arm flap of her untoned triceps, then points at me and I feel strangely obligated to swing my arm flaps, too. So I do.

I need to find a new lunch place.

Wednesday, September 15, 2010

The Town!

The Town opened last Friday, and you KNOW that I was at the cinema for opening night along with my fellow Masshole, Leah Dubie. We were both supposed to be dressed dressed in head-to-toe gear from Kickassachusetts, but guess who didn't hold up her end of the deal? I'll give you a hint: she DIDN'T win "Best Hair" in high school. That's right, little fockers, I was there in full Masshole regalia and Ms. Dubes was NOT. I even brought in some Neco Wafers-- how Mass is THAT!?

In honor of The Town's successful opening weekend, let's take a walk down Boston movie memory lane, shall we? Don't worry, this amble will end in a bar called Sully's, I promise. Here are some of the greatest hits and misses of Boston representations on the big screen. In chronological order because if there's one thing I love as much as lists and Aerosmith's "Sweet Emotion" (the full version with the rattlesnake sound in the beginning), it's chronology.

GOOD WILL HUNTING (1997)

The movie that (seemingly) started it all for Boston on the big screen. At least in the 1990s. I'm not going to count "Love Story" (1970) because it's about two Harvard kids who aren't Boston at all. No offense to all the smaaat kids from my high school who went to Harvard undergrad (6 out of a graduating class of 95 kids--how nuts is that? I felt like a special needs kid for going to a NESCAC school).
The one flaw that I have a hard time reconciling is when we see Will Hunting going HOME from Skylar's dorm (at Harvard) on a red line train on the T. It's fine so far-- yes, the red line goes from Harvard Square in Cambridge over to South Boston (Broadway and Andrew Sq stops. I've spent WAY too much time at the Andrew Square stop--that place used to be my JOINT!) The problem is the shot of Will above ground on the red line. The red line goes back above ground AFTER Andrew Square, which is beyond Will's stop. It looks nice, but Bostonians know that this makes no sense. I know, I'm being a nitpicky Masshole.


SOUTHIE (1998)

Not sure if you can make out the subtitle on the above poster, but the copy reads, "Southie: The Toughest Neighborhood in America." Yes! I love it. I own this movie and it's laughably bad. Killer cast, though-- Donnie Wahlberg (my favorite new kid), Rose McGowan, Anne Meara (before she was Steve's mom on Sex & the City), Amanda Peet, and Will Arnett! The only movie that might rival "Southie" in the number of times a character flips out and completely overreacts (but the actor thinks it's just "convincing acting") is "Showgirls." I love that it's filmed all over Southie, though-- the streets, the South Boston Yacht Club, that ghetto sketchy bowling alley on Broadway by the courthouse (incidentally, the courthouse that we see in the opening of "Good Will Hunting" when Will gets into his first scrape and Ben Affleck's character meets him with small Dunkin' Donuts coffees waiting in the car).


MONUMENT AVENUE (1998)

I must confess that I've never seen this one. I know, I know. And I call myself a Boston movie die-hard. I'll go do Catholic-style self-flaggelation for this error in judgment. Now THAT'S a Boston thing to do!

BOONDOCK SAINTS (1999)
I haven't seen this one and I don't have a poster for it. STOP JUDGING ME!

MYSTIC RIVER (2003)

When this one first came out, I assumed it was about Mystic, CT and somehow related to Mystic Pizza. What a naive little naif I was, huh!? Turns out this movie isn't about CT at all, it rules, and features another Wahlberg family member (there's a million of them in Boston), Robert Wahlberg. There are a few GLARING errors in this film, though:

(1) In the opening scene, the cops (Kevin Bacon and crew), who are townies from an amalgamation of Charlestown and South Boston (the author of "Mystic River," Dennis Lehane (who rules), has said that he didn't want to select one neighborhood in Boston and make it too specific), say that they are heading to the Cantab Lounge for a drink. The Cantab Lounge is in Central Square, Cambridge. I used to perform in that basement every Thursday night for years and while there were certainly cops (and mailmen) as regulars, they didn't schlep in from those waterfront neighborhoods. They were Cambridge locals and this was their watering hole. So while most Bostonians appreciated the screenwriter's attempt at local flavor with the Cantab name-drop, it's wholly unrealistic.

(2) Laurence Fishburn has a Boston accent. This is impossible. I don't make the rules, so don't blame me, but the Boston accent is a white phenomenon. Seriously. I don't know why, but black people, even if they spend the whole lives in Mattapan or Southie or Roxbury simply DO NOT get the Boston accent. The dialect coach on "Mystic River" was probably brought in from wherever and simply told ALL actors to start dropping their Rs and pronouncing "oo" as "aaaa" and that was that. Laurence Fisburn's character shouldn't have had an accent at all.

Speaking of bad accents, this takes us to...

THE DEPARTED (2006)

Don't get me wrong, I love this movie. Scorsese was filming all over Thomson Place back when I worked there and my co-workers and I wasted a hell of a lot of hours observing it all. Really interesting to see how it's done and the care that goes into every detail of every shot. But I have another accent issue and that is with Vera Farmiglia's character (Dr. Madolyn Madden, occupational psychiatrist) and the fact that she had any accent at all. At times her pronunciation sounded like a ham-fisted attempt at a Boston accent, at other times it bordered on Australian--she was all over the place. Much like Laurene Fisburn in "Mystic River," Farmiglia's character really didn't need an accent at all. Even if her back-story included an accent, but that point in her career, she probably would have deliberately dropped it (I know plenty of people who have done this). Robert Wahlberg is featured in this movie, too.

But man is the soundtrack to "The Departed" good stuff. A few years back, when I had first moved to NYC, I was back home in Boston for Thanksgiving. I was mugged on Newbury Street and I chased down the thief, knocked him off his bike, and got my purse back (one of the proudest moments of my life--seriously). I got in my car to drive home later that night and what was playing on the radio? A song from this soundtrack-- "Shipping Up To Boston" by the Dropkick Murphys. Seemed quite fitting.

Tuesday, September 14, 2010

A commercial I starred in-- Body Betrayal

Bachelor Pad Finale

Last night was many things: a gloomy, rainy Monday night, a night when I finally ate the lobster bisque that has been sitting in my kitchen for months, and a night of tight spandex and sequins, but not courtesy of “Dancing With The Stars.” It was the season finale of the Bachelor Pad, and ABC engaged in some shameless cross-promotion by having the three couples final competition be a ballroom dancing contest.

Like the section of “Dirty Dancing” when Baby and Johnny practice until they are sweaty & glistening (then Johnny plays “Cry To Me” on his record player, if my memory serves), the three couples were dancing hard and working up a sweat. Elizabeth resembled a yellowy orange ball of freckles and bad haircolor, plus she was super insecure (always a turn-on) and Kovacs looked stunned and scared. David and Natalie were intense and a little too candid about their nighttime activities. Tenley and Kiptyn were working hard and it showed at the competition.

The competition! ABC turned the driveway of the Bachelor Pad into a faux ballroom, complete with OTHER Bachelor rejects as judges. ABC’s shameless cross-promotion is criss-crossing the world like an early 90s child rap group in backwards pants. The “celebrity judges” were Melissa Rycroft, Jake “I Chose a Piece of White Trash As My Bride-To-Be Then Acted Stunned When She Turned Out To Be Trash” Pavelka, and Trista (who wrote the book on self-promotion and scoring free crap from network TV). They all give our scores that are across-the-board way too high, but I guess they’re just being nice and trying to boost their fellow reality TV show loser friends.

Kiptyn and Tenley go first and absolutely nail it, setting the bar VERY high. Up next we have Elizabeth and Kovacs, who are absolutely atrocious and literally forget part of their dance. Painful to watch. David and Natalie close it out, and aren’t horrible, but also mess up their dance. No surprise when Kiptyn and Tenley are declared the winners of the competition. Now they get to pick which couple will go with them to the final four. Note that we don’t know what the “final four” will be or if there is another competition or anything. So Kiptyn and Tenley don’t really know what traits would be good or bad in their fellow “final four” couple and are making a selection based on zero criteria. Weird.

They go with David and Natalie, for whatever reason. Elizabeth and Kovacs leave in separate limos and both feel that they didn’t win the money, but they each say they “won” a great relationship out of this whole thing. That sentiment lasts about as long as the commercial break, as the show then cuts to all of the former housemates in a studio and Elizabeth and Kovacs now HATE each other. Love is a fickle mistress—especially on reality TV.

Kiptyn and Tenley make a dramatic entrance, as do David and Natalie and everyone looks a bit too tan and done-up. Especially David. What happened, my favorite reality TV thug!? Now your hair is weird and flat and in your face, which makes you look a lot like Sam the Eagle (the blue bird muppet from Sesame Street), not the hot psycho I’ve had a crush on for years. You’ve changed, Hot Psycho.
We hear a lot of smack-talking out of everyone.
-Gia and Wes publicly make-out and he sings “Love Don’t Come Easy” (OF COURSE HE DOES! This guy is like a robot of bad, fake country music).
-Gwen admits her age (39) and David makes a joke about her “??” age listed on the show (ouch).
-Michelle says that she hates Tenley and won’t vote for her.
-Tenley responds with her standard sticky sweet schtick, which is REALLY tiresome.
-Krisily and Jessie both stare at David longingly.
-Wes continues to profess his love for Gia and it’s painfully obvious that he’s jockeying for a show about their relationship (no dice, kiddo).
-Elizabeth has returned to brunette, which looks MUCH better.
-Peyton’s hair looks like a blonde dream.
-Gia and Chris Harrison make a joke about fantasy suites that had me genuinely laughing. But perhaps it was the bottle of white wine that I was putting back.
-Weatherman continues his “I swear I’m hetero” ruse.

The housemates then vote on the couple who they want to win the money and David and Natalie win it. I thought that Kiptyn’s final plea that he would donate 20% of the winnings to charity would sway the votes his way, but somehow it didn’t. Somehow, David’s no-bullshit attitude and Natalie’s strategizing won them some fans, and their former housemates vote accordingly.

Then David and Natalie are lead to separate rooms, where they can decide to either KEEP or SHARE the $250,000 prize money. If they both pick SHARE, then they share the money. If one picks SHARE and the other picks KEEP, then the KEEP person gets all of the money. If they both pick KEEP, then the rejected housemates divide up the $250,000 prize. Interesting ending, but you know how it’s going to wrap up. David reveals that he has chosen SHARE. Natalie acts nervous and says, “You get your friends as far as you can get them, then you take care of yourself” or something cryptic like that. Then she reveals that she has also chosen SHARE (and was probably pushed by the producers to make it seem like she had chosen KEEP there for a split second). Everyone hugs and (inevitably) gets bronzer on their clothing from all that face-to-clothing contact.

Oh, sweet sweet Bachelor Pad. I will miss your somewhat tawdry spirit and hot thugs. What shall I do now on Monday nights? My favorite Total Body Conditioning class at NY Sports Club and then Intervention? Yeah, probably.

Friday, September 10, 2010

Quick Friday Note

Hey Pussycats!

Happy Friday. Ya know what’s just a few days away? Another wondrous episode of “Bachelor Pad” featuring (thankfully) more shots of Hot Psycho David’s abs than usual. Thank you, ABC.

In a shameless cross-promotional move, the Bachelor Pad is ending in a thrilling dance-off. Smells a lot like "Dancing With The Stars" huh? Also, like that weird contest in “Grease” when that random floozy-looking lady showed up to give Sandy a run for her money. And much like the video for “Beat It” which I, as a young child with a bowl cut living in Needham, MA, honestly believed was how real Los Angeles gangs settled problems. I was young and my two older sisters insisted that “Beat It” featured all REAL gang members in the video. Because that makes sense. Sure. You wouldn’t take dancers and dress them up as gang members. No way! You take REAL gang members (from opposing gangs) and try to teach them how to dance AND how to get along on-set. Totally logical.

But I digress. This week, the six remaining players in the Bachelor Pad (fake couple David & Natalie; sickly sweet couple Kiptyn & Tenley; Fatal Attraction couple Kovacs & Elizabeth) pull a “Dirty Dancing” (Sweaty dance rehearsals! This is your dance space, this is my dance space! Spaghetti Arms!) and train for a dance contest that will determine which couple is eliminated. At least I think that’s how it’s going to work. I was too distracted by the vision of the Hot Psycho in head-to-toe spandex to process exactly what rules are for this next episode. All I know is that Tenley’s psyched (remember when she danced for Jake back in the days of “The Bachelor: On The Wings Of Love”?) and I have a feeling that Elizabeth’s implants will get in the way of her dancing. For real.

We’ll find out on Monday!

In the meantime, I’m in a show at 9pm tonight at the Village Lantern. Come on by! It’s free... I think. Whatever! Just live your life, wouldja? Stop kvetching to me about your finances! I’m not the boss of you!

Thursday, September 9, 2010

I'm cutting weight for a show


Because I'm going to be in a spokesmodel competition. Such a thing can only spring from the brilliant mind of Danny Leary :)

Wednesday, September 1, 2010

Bachelor Pad: Episode 4

Monday night was all about backstabbing, shit-talking, and champagne… and that was just my day at the office! (Zing… barf… I have been reading too much Jean Teasdale.) “The Bachelor Pad” was drama-filled and there was even discussion of bad implants! NBC is on a slippery slope toward becoming FOX, minus the right wing crazies.


Wes and David got into an argument about who is being real and genuine and who isn’t. I gotta side with David on this one (and that’s not only because I think he’s crazy hot (literally, unstable and dope) and I love the tattoo on his tricep) because I agree that yeah, the whole premise of this show is (ultimately) deception and fakery, so let’s stop pretending we’re all BFFs, ya know? It’s especially ironic that WES, of all people, is advocating for honesty and no bullshit. THIS, from the guy who was on Jillian’s season of The Bachelorette solely for his fledgling music career, and had a live-in girlfriend back in Austin. You’ve really turned your pathetic reality TV life around, huh, Wes? Is a certain country singer suddenly SINGING a different tune (barf)?

The challenge this week is that everyone had to answer some pretty harsh questions (Who has the worse implants? Who will always be a bridesmaid, but never a bride? Who is the biggest jerk?) in front of everyone else. A recipe for drama and I love it! Especially the implants question. Man oh man, what has our society come to?


Natalie is ranked as “always a bridesmaid” and ends up crying over it. Elizabeth and Krisily are called out for bad implants, Gwen is the winner of “dumbest” (ouch), and Wes is crowned the biggest jerk in the house (though he seems dumbfounded by this ranking). Post-challenge we get lots of shots of ladies crying in corners. I guess it makes for good TV…? Somehow, Elizabeth’s shame at being called out for bad implants brings her and Kovacs closer together as a couple, which brings ME farther away from thinking that Kovacs is a cool guy. I guess it was sweet that he comforted her, but she’s been so manipulative with him this entire time that I can’t help but think that she played up her the tears because she’s notoriously opportunistic.


Tenley wins the challenge and gets a 1:1 date with Kiptyn as her prize. As they stand perched atop a mountain, about to go ziplining, there is a TON of talk about taking their relationship “to a higher level” (barf). Kiptyn finally opens up and they spend a night in the fantasy suite together.


Jesse B. wins the challenge and gets a 1:1 date with Peyton, where he reminds her that he’s wicked young by burping, poking her, and teasing her. Peyton is completely turned-off by this behavior and she rejects the fantasy suite option. Awww snap! Grow up, Jesse B!


Let’s get to the good part, shall we? Natalie and David are keeping their supposed “secret relationship” (that seems to be so secret that it’s not even happening) so hush-hush that Krisily is macking it to David and it’s pretty uncomfortable. But she won’t be in the house for long, so who really cares.


That’s right, pussycats—Krisily and Wes got the boot this time around.


What happened? Well, Wes is creepy and weird and everyone hates him, so there’s that. Krisily was on the chopping block along with Gwen, but Kiptyn pushed his buddies (hottie Kovacs & hottie David) to spare Gwen for this round, so Krisily was out. She wasn’t especially fun or friendly when they all first arrived, and it finally bit her in the ass. On a lighter note, her eye make up and hair looked FANTASTIC at the rose ceremony, so she should take some comfort in that. What’s $250,000 if you have bad hair? You know how it is.

Next week, the couples get even more intense and Melissa Rycroft (the creepy co-host whose only job is to hand out roses and wear ill-fitting dresses that are too fashion-forward for her to pull off) gets even skinnier. I can’t wait!