Monday, December 17, 2012

Cover!

My book has a cover! THE NEW RULES FOR BLONDES will be published by It Books (an imprint within HarperCollins) on April 23, 2013.  Pick up a copy!


Thursday, December 13, 2012

Joke of the Week!

In this week's edition of Time Out New York magazine, I'm featured in the comedy section as Joke of the Week!  Jazzy times!  It features my headshot which was taken by the brilliant Anya Garrett.  Here's a photo from the magazine:


Tuesday, November 20, 2012

November 2012 update + Bachelor is back!

Sweet pussycats!

To quote my favorite Onion columnist Jim Anchower, it's been a while since I rapped at ya.  I was busy finishing up the manuscript of my book, then rewrites over the summer, but now the book is done!  I'm working with the brilliant publicity and marketing teams at It Books (HarperCollins) on the release and promotional plans for THE NEW RULES FOR BLONDES (publishes April 23, 2013).  Stay tuned for more information about that!  

I have also been enjoying some Bachelor-free time.  I love the Bachelor franchise as much as the next guy (well, no, probably a LOT more than the next guy) but sometimes you gotta step back and live your own life, ya know?  I can't spend every waking moment mocking Lindzi the queen of flesh toned lipstick, Jef the pompadour prince, and other idiotic 20-somethings who willingly bring shame to their families by appearing on a reality TV dating show and losing their shit.  Sometimes even this gal needs a little "Selena time" (and "Selena time" does NOT include the Tejano sensation (RIP) or Bieber's ex-GF or even VEEP (though she spells it "Selina" which is WRONG)).  No, the Selena I'm talking about in "Selena time" is this here Selena--Selena Evelyn Coppock, the jazziest cat outta Kickassachusetts.  During my Bach-free months, I got to focus on standup, storytelling, work--my own life, ya dig?   Some pals said, "Lenny (my nickname--doesn't it RULE?), what if you wrote recaps of a less tired, formulaic franchise?"  I thought about it, but I just can't.  My encyclopedic knowledge of Bachelor/Bachelorette history would be wasted on a "Parks and Recreation" recap.  So I just had to bide my time, praying that the programming Gods over at ABC would say, "Hey--this franchise isn't too tired for a 17th season--find a single guy, stock up on some roses, hose down the Bachelor mansion with some sort of STD-killing formula, and let's do this thing!"  And oh, sweet sweet Lord, the did.  

Last week when I learned the The Bachelor will be back in January for a new season of desperate dating displays, I jumped for joy.  I cranked up my iPod (lately Pink's new single "Blow Me One Last Kiss" has been cranking in the 'ole ear buds on repeat) and strutted the New York City streets, knowing that come January, thanks to The Bach, my life will be filled with meaning, mockery, and the pathetic feeling that I'm a D list celebrity thanks to the DOZENS of wonderful people who peruse this little 'ole blog.  So let's dig right in and speculate as to what this next season of The Bachelor will have in store.  

First off, who is our precious Bach?    Sean Lowe.  Dude is a cheesedick, but dude is hot.  Check it: 


As you can see, Sean is a blonde, which means I would never date him.  I'm a firm believer in the formula of brown haired person + blonde haired person = happiness and potential offspring who possess healthy pigmentation (read more about this theory in my book-- I AM NOT KIDDING!  It feels so bonkers but so rad to say that.  Anyhoo--no more time for book talk.  We have a blonde man to make fun of--let's get outta these parens and talk shit about Sean).

Where have we seen Sean before?  Other than in his role of every bully in a 1980s teen movie (seriously--those bullies were ALL blonde dudes), he was one of Emily's suitors during her season of The Bachelorette.  He made it to the final 3 and was always very serious about finding a lady.  He has a SICK body but he always seemed like a bit of a dope.  On a date in London, Sean and Emily rode on the top level of an open-top, double-decker bus and Sean stood up and shouted, "I'm king of the world!"  Apparently, when Sean rides on UK buses with beautiful blondes, all he can think about is James Cameron's take on the worst boating disaster in history.  I don't understand how this dude's mind works (but I suspect that the answer is "not very well").  Then he and Emily visited Speaker's Corner where Sean got up on a soap box and shouted about love.  It was painful.  Somehow Emily kept him around all the way to hometown dates, so she met Sean's family.  They were lovely, but Sean let the Bachelorette producers set up a bedroom that was dirty and had stuffed animals everywhere, then he told Emily that said bedroom was HIS bedroom as a joke.  It was the OPPOSITE of hilarious--completely cringe-worthy and stupid.  If you want to know more read my recap of that one here.  I think that the bedroom fiasco (or as Bach die-hards call it "BedroomGate") was a red flag.  Sean is malleable like that--the producers can convince him to do LAME STUFF for the sake of "good TV" (apparently their idea of "good TV" is the exact opposite of mine).  I fear for what Sean might get pushed into doing this time around.  So brace yourself for some cringe-worthy moments.

Who are the ladies?  You can check out all of their headshots here

Let me paste a few of the gals here:




Do you notice what I notice? There's a whole lotta BIG crosses as accessories on these ladies.  It makes sense: Sean is deeply religious and he was very open about that during Emily's season, so the casting directors sought out a lot of very religious ladies.  Totally logical.  I'm a Christian and my sisters and I used to get attendance awards at our church (Weston United Methodist Church--what what!) throughout childhood.  My parents ran the Vacation Bible School and the church soup kitchen.  Heck, I went to Christian sleepover camp in New Hampshire for many summers and had a blast.  So I'm not bashing Christianity or religion here by ANY means.  But I AM bashing gaudy, in-your-face accessories.  Wear whatever you like--star of David, cross, star and crescent--DO YOU.  But a cross in XXL worn as an accessory just becomes strange.  I mean, Tierra above in the yellow tank top: is that a leather lanyard with a huge, wooden cross hanging around your neck?  Are you trying to win Sean's heart or scare off a vampire?   It ends up feeling a liiiiittle bit...



I'll be interested to see if religion comes up inside the Bachelor mansion this season.  In Emily's season it came up a few times, but ABC seemed hesitant to include conversations about faith in the context of a dating competition, so it was often danced around or awkwardly edited out.  One thing's for sure: based on Sean's good looks and every past season of The Bachelor, these 25 gals are going to be following the advice of Ozzy Osbourne whether they like it or not, and "going off the rails on a crazy train." And I can't wait.

Tune in on Monday, January 7th!

Monday, September 24, 2012

Skrillex (dub step parody)

Hey pussycats!

Check out this new video I'm in!  My lovely pal Chris Doucette wrote & directed this Skrillex parody.  If you're not familiar with Skrillex, it's the name of a dub step musician guy whose music is mostly bass distortion and hot beats.  Skrillex sounds like Tilex, doesn't it?  Check this out:


Wednesday, September 12, 2012

Great blog post

This is a blog post about a blog post--SO META!

Anyheeerrr...

Chris Gethard is a fantastic storyteller, comedian, writer based here in NYC.  He has a blog--or rather, a tumblr (because he's not a Luddite like I am)--on which he posts essays and responses to questions and whatnot.  He recently posted a really touching response to a fan who reached out to him because he/she was feeling suicidal.  Chris's response was lengthy and touching.  I got all choked up reading it.  You can read the whole shebang right here.

One part jumped out at me.  Chris talks about his own dark times and how during his sophomore year in college, he lived with some "friends" who weren't really his friends.  He says,

...it was in a stretch where I felt totally unsafe and not just like people didn’t have my back but like they were actively against me.

Oh man that really hit me.  Maybe it was because I grew up in a small town and everybody knew everybody's business starting in friggin' 1st grade, but this is how I felt for so much of adolescence and high school.   Just as though going to school every day was like walking into a war and not only was I not getting any loyalty, but that people were sort of out to get me.  And I don't think it was in my head or that I was paranoid.  Your mailbox can only get smashed so many times and people can laugh at your misfortune so many times before you start to think they're out to get you.  And, like Chris, in my saddest times it really felt like they were.  And I'm not just saying that so that I can quote the fantastic Guns 'n Roses song "Out Ta Get Me" (although that song DOES RULE--DO NOT DOUBT THAT). 

Those dark times are tough.  But it does get better (usually as soon as you leave your God forsaken hometown and move to a city where nobody knows your name and you love that.)  

 

Friday, September 7, 2012

TruTV

Happy Friday, amigos!

I answered a few questions for TruTV's rad blog this week.  Check 'em out here

Sunday, September 2, 2012

Inside the Laughter Studio

My wonderful pal Lauren Maul is a master of characters.  Here's a video in which she plays her amazing, old-timey standup comedian character Connie Howe and interviews me.  She rules!

Saturday, August 18, 2012

Twitter Love

I wrote a tweet yesterday and it got a ton of retweets and favorites.  It's completely pathetic that this is exciting and newsworthy to me, but hey--it is!  If I understood technology, I'd paste the screen shot here, but I'm a cave man lawyer, of sorts (well, not a lawyer at all, but I hope you got that Phil Hartmann reference).  Either way, check the link:

https://twitter.com/SelenaCoppock/status/236524173374128128

Monday, July 23, 2012

Bachelorette Emily Recap: FINALE!

Last night was a 3 hour Bachelorette endurance test in the form of a 2 hour finale and a 1 hour "After the Final Rose" special.  Yes, if you made it through all 3 hours, you watched an episode of The Bachelorette that was longer than Oliver Stone's JFK

Let's cut to the chase on the results.  Unless you have been living under a rock, by now you probably know that Jef, the pompadour prince, won Emily's heart.  Yes, Jef, the hipster-lite trust fund kid who owns an "environmentally friendly" bottled water company (cause manufacturing pods of plastic is WICKED GREEN, buddy), whose parents couldn't be bothered to meet Emily, who rolled into episode 1 on a SKATEBOARD--HE is the dude who won.  I know.  How did it all go so wrong?  Let's start from the beginning of the episode.

Chris Harrison is in a studio in Los Angeles with a live audience and throughout the show they cut back to the studio, in an effort to fill out this unending Bachelorette extravaganza.  Chris sets the scene for us, and we're taken back to the tropical isles.  

Eeeerybody's still in Curacao but Emily's family has arrived to judge the suitors.  Her family includes her platinum blonde mother Suzy (awesome hair runs in the family!), her semi-stoic father David (I bet he has scared off some would-be boyfriends in his day), her super stoic brother Ernie (whose poker face would make me shit my pants, but let's get real, TONS of things make me shit my pants, including: my old boss when I was a paralegal, the deadly mix of chicken Caesar salad + margaritas, the horrible food at field hockey camp back in high school, and MANY more--just a little bit about ME and MY DIGESTIVE TRACK), and Ernie's fiancee Blondie (that's not her name, but girl brought a whole lotta NOTHING to the table except for a nice, golden blonde mane, so I shall name her by her best quality). 

First up to meet the family is Jef and he arrives carrying bouquets for Suzy and Blondie.  Nice work outta you.  He says that the "stakes are really huge" and I assume that he means "high," as generally stakes aren't discussed by size, but rather by how high or low they are.  Get the idiom right, Jef.  Jef chats with the family, then has some 1:1 talks with each member.  That's when Ernie busts out his poker face and gives Jef a whole lot of NOTHING in response to Jef's confessions of love for Emily.  It was a delight to watch.  Jef asks Emily's father for permission to propose to Emily and David gives it.

Next up is Arie and he arrives to meet the parents without any bouquets.  Jef's a tough act to follow, I must admit.  Instead of fresh flowers, Arie's gift for the parents is a wooden box filled with dead flowers!  It's the roses that Emily has given him during this journey and Arie mistakenly thinks that Emily's parents would want HIS rose boutonnieres.  Did this strike anyone else as a weird gift?  Arie admits that when he's nervous, he rambles, then we watch a few clips of him rambling on.  He manages to get smiles out of Emily's father and brother, which is quite an accomplishment.  Arie makes a good impression overall.

The next date is Emily's final 1:1 date (daytime and dinner) with Jef and presumably, the next day will be her final date with Arie.  Jef and Emily meet on the beach, where the sounds of waves crashing is BLARING as they discuss whether or not Jef should meet Emily's daughter Ricki. Emily is hesitant to introduce Jef, since she introduced Brad back in the day and that didn't work out.  She decides to make the introduction, though, and they head back to the pool where Ricki is swimming.  Emily, Jef, and Ricki swim and laugh together and Jef asks Ricki for a whole lotta high 5s.  Lucky for Jef, Ricki is young enough to find that cool, since her brain isn't developed enough to realize it's lame.  Kids!  That night, Emily and Jef have a final dinner date and he gives her a parting gift.  In most seasons of this show (I'm pathetic, I know), that gift will be a poem or long letter or scrapbook of their time together.  What was Jef's gift?  A book about Curacao that was straight out of the resort gift shop, plus he ruined every page by drawing them into the beautiful photos.  HOW THOUGHTFUL!

The next day is supposed to be Emily's date with Arie, but she calls Chris Harrison to her bungalow.  Chris Harrison sits down and asks Emily what's going on and Emily starts crying, saying that she knows Jef is the one and she doesn't want to lead Arie on by going through the date and dinner.  I give her a lot of credit--most Bachelorettes go all the way to the end when they force some poor cad to show up in a tux and THEN get negged.  Chris says that it's fine if she wants to meet Arie at the daytime date location and explain everything there.

So in an unprecedented move in Bachelor/Bachelorette history, the audience knows more than one of the participants.  It's painful to watch, but makes for great TV.  Poor Arie is going on and on about how they are JUST ABOUT to get engaged and he can't wait to be her husband, blah blah blah, while America is at home screaming at their TVs.

Arie arrives at the dump location--woops--I mean, date location and mixes up a love potion with the help of a local woman.  Obviously his love potion didn't work, since right after Arie mixed it up, he was dropped like a handful of salt onto the Curacao dirt (salt mining was the first profitable industry established on Curaçao--I DO MY RESEARCH).  Arie responds gracefully, all things considered.  He's silent for a while (while Emily cries), then he gets up to leave, saying that there's "nothing to say," and this upsets Emily.  But what does she want?  Sure, dumping a guy is no fun, but what other response do you expect?  He hugs her goodbye and hops in the car.   

The show then cuts back to the studio audience and everyone is extremely intense and emotional.  I guess I understand that, since a dude just got dumped, but we all know that this is reality TV, right?  It just felt a bit over-somber.  Then, The Bachelorette turns into The Olympics, with former contestants weighing in on the current situation.  5 people from past seasons (JP & Ashley, Deana, Michael Staglione, and another Ashley) all share their opinions as though they are sports commentators.  They all say the same: sucks to get dumped, Arie, but you'll get through it. THANKS FOR THE EXPERT ANALYSIS, GUYS!

Then we're back on Curacao and Jef is in the midst of SO much B roll!  A shot of Jef staring at the selected engagement ring, a shot of Jef walking on the beach in pants that are way too girly for him, a shot of Jef staring at crashing waves.  Finally, Emily is putting on a flowy-yet-edgy coral dress and getting ready for the big day.  Jef has no idea that Arie is gone, so he's putting on his suit and fretting a bit.



Emily is waiting for Jef and when he arrives, she wastes no time telling him that he's the one and that Arie was already sent home.  Jef responds with a robotic speech that ends with, "You're my everything" and I couldn't help but think of the 1990 song by Tommy Page (co-written by 2 dudes from New Kids On The Block--YEAH BOSTON!) called "I'll Be Your Everything."  Yes, the crap that rattles around in my brain is ridiculous.  Ricki runs up and the three of them walk off as a happy family.

As if things couldn't get ANY cheesier, the producers then give us a montage of their interactions from the season set to the sounds of Peter Cetera's "Glory of Love."  I AM NOT KIDDING.  My best friend Suzanne and I both suffered through WICKED cases of dumb chills while we watched this, and Velveeta poured from the speakers on my TV.  Perhaps it was a fitting song choice, since it was from Karate Kid II and this was Emily's SECOND time on TV looking for love.  Is that a stretch?  Yes.

Sweet Lord can you believe we're still in this recap!??!  After all that schmaltz, ABC cut straight into the "After the Final Rose" special where we saw Arie, Emily, and Jef live and in-studio.  Arie was less pasty and Frankenstein-looking and seemed to be moving on well.  There was a lot of talk about closure between Arie and Emily and I wanted to shout at Arie, "Dude--closure is a gift you give yourself.  Nobody else can give it to you!" but I'm not crazy enough to shout at my TV, so I didn't. (Note: that is a lie.)  Emily looked great, but her extensions were just a touch too long.  Jef looked good but still had the pompadour.  He's going to move to Charlotte and they are planning a wedding.  Not to be an idiot, but these 2 seem like they might not screw it up.  Time will tell.

Up next in the Bachelor franchise is Bachelor Pad, which kicks off tonight.  NO REST FOR THE WEARY.  Break out the Valtrex because a bunch of past Bachelor and Bachelorette rejects are all moving into the Bachelor mansion to hook up, cry, and drink.  I'll tune in every now and then, but I can't promise that I'll have recaps every single week.  I gotta have a life, sweet pussycats.

It was a pleasure to recap this season and I'll be back 100% for the next real Bachelor season, for sure.  In the meantime, I'll quote Ed McMahon's mantra from Star Search for no reason at all: Keep your feet on the ground and keep reaching for the stars.