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On the next ARIYNBF (new show time!!!!)

OK let’s just get something out of the way: I love you.

Also, tomorrow is the maiden-ish voyage of the new show time and I’ll be doing the show from my parent’s house in California. Will I be wearing a bikini and making guacamole? You’ll just have to tune in to find out.

Also my HS prom date will make an appearance. My parents will make an appearance. Tobey will make an appearance. Alfred Schulz will call in with more Things You Never Hear People Say.

Also I will talk about the myriad ways dating sucks because that’s just me: hopeful and cup’s half full.

So please tune in SUNDAY at 4:30 ET/1:30 PT (don’t be confused by that tricky time zone!)http://ustream.tv/alisonrosen

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And have you become a fan of the ARIYNBF page? Free gingersnaps for the first four thousand! (note: no gingersnaps) http://facebook.com/ARIYNBF

More info? You betcha! http://alisonrosen.com/

Phone a fan info here: http://alisonrosen.com/2010/04/phone-a-fan-details/)

Also, keep nakedness at bay with an ARIYNBF tshirt! http://alisonrosen.com/gear

And did you see all the silly photos I posted on my blog from my walk yesterday?http://alisonrosen.com/blog

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About tonight's ARIYNBF and everything else in my brain

Ok don’t cry you guys, but it’s looking like I won’t be doing an ARIYNBF show tonight because I have to be up at the crack of dawn tomorrow. Did you know I grew up with a father who always pronounced it “crap of dawn?” Not because he didn’t know the correct idiom but because he thought it was funny to say crap? I did. This is the same man who would bait his children into saying the word “tank” (as in fish tank) so he could quickly say “you’re welcome.”

But anyway, back to how I’m breaking your hearts tonight: I’m sorry my dears! It’s quite possible I’ll go live at some point but it will just be me and my overwhelming charisma, not me and my overwhelmingly charismatic friends. All this, of course, is also because I’m changing the show time to Sunday. Could you be more excited? I really don’t think so.

In other news, yesterday was a busy day and in the audition I was actually asked to discuss something I’m passionate about which, if you’ve been watching my show or listening to me ramble on lately you’ll know is something on my mind. I’m pretty sure the guy operating the camera appreciated the chance to listen to me pontificate about not only my passion but about the very question and what it means and blah blah blah. You might think I’m using “blah blah blah” as a space holder to indicate that I was longwinded but I actually said “blah blah blah.” Not really, but wouldn’t that be funny/horrible if I did?

Which all brings me to some dating advice Dustin gave me recently. He told me I needed to stop externalizing my interior monologue because guys hear me discuss all the stuff going through my head and attempt to parse it or find some meaning in it related to them when really it doesn’t mean anything, it’s just me thinking out loud and grappling with my colossal intellect. (I added that last part.) The deep irony for someone who over-analyzes like me is the idea that someone could talk and talk and talk and it would mean nothing which means all those attempts at over-analysis are futile. Perhaps I’m the exception that proves the rule. Or I’m a hypocrit. Oh no, I’m doing it again. And by the way, if you feel lost and like you weren’t able to follow the last few twists and turns don’t worry, I pretty much have no idea what I’m talking about either.

But on to more pressing matters: showering. Since I have to be up at the aforementioned dawn crap tomorrow I’m thinking I’ll shower tonight however I’m sitting here feeling like I also want to shower right now. A morning AND night shower in one day? That’s sheer madness.

Oh, also! I’ve been given clearance to post some portions of essays I’ve been working on. They’re long so I think I’m going to post them in chunks at the same time each day. It will be like a serialized soap opera, only not a soap opera. You know?

Just say yes, it’s easier that way.

Also, it might be 412 degrees in this apartment.

Also, if you’ve ordered a tshirt and you’ve been chewing at your pen caps wondering where it is, good news: the mailers I was waiting on arrived so I’ll be putting the tshirts in the mail ASAP.

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About yesterday's show and potentially switching show times

On yesterday’s impromptu show an astute viewer said that I should be a model or fashion designer. This struck me as funny so I tweeted, “I should be a model or fashion designer, come see why.”  Most people then clicked on the link and saw me looking like the fashion plate that I am as captured in the photo above and it was funny and then we all laughed and lived happily ever after. Some people though clicked on the link after I’d already removed the frippery and wanted to have a serious discussion about fashion design. One person came in and asked if I thought I was sexy. “Eh,” I said, lying through my perfect teeth. I was then informed that without higher self-esteem I would never make it as a model. Crushed, I turned to hard drugs and wanton sex.

But overall, except for the parts where I had to read some people the riot act, the show was super fun and had the highest number of viewers ever. At points we were over 800 simultaneous viewers. And according to multiple sources, or maybe it was just my mom who said it a bunch of times, my numbers were double that of Kevin Pollack whose show is amazing and who was featured on the front page the whole time. I don’t quite know what to make of the influx of viewers except to say that obviously the people want sexy discussions of fashion design and also Facts of Life quizzes.

But what I’m realizing is that doing my regular weekly show at Wednesday 10pm ET isn’t serving any of us very well anymore and I’m thinking quite a bit about moving it to Sunday afternoon. This would be easier on me, my guests and apparently all of you who want to watch the show. Thoughts? Would Sunday afternoon work for all of you?

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this duck again… plus passion, rage, self-indulgence and pepperoni

So I thought I was overdue in posting photos, in fact this post was going to begin with, “I’m overdue in posting photos” however I just went and looked and unless I want to upload all the shots I took yesterday which I put on twitpic, which I don’t, I’m really not that overdue. Hence my reliance on Plan B. The Morning After Duckling.

By the way, that’s not my hand holding the duck. It’s not even my duck. How I wish it were!

Also, last night Dustin and I tried to do a livestream from his iPhone. This is what it sounded like: Lasht night Dushtin and I tried do do a liveshtream from his iPhone. We sounded drunk! But we weren’t! It was the audio! I shwear!

Also I have a couple little trips coming up and I couldn’t be more excited. Could I be more excited? I just said I couldn’t. Must I repeat everything?

Must I repeat everything?

Last week Tom Rapp played live on the show and it was amazing. I have all the footage sitting in my iMovie event pane and yet I can’t bring myself to begin editing. My ass is revolting. “Don’t sit on me!” it’s saying. Incidentally that was originally the slogan for the Continental Navy until a very early marketer came along and adjusted his powdered wig, had an affair with scullery maid, got drunk on moonshine and then belched something about synergy and call to action.

In other news, there is no other news. Actually, there may be but I don’t know if I feel like sharing.

Well I will tell you that two things are on my mind. One of them is that maybe I need to make some kind of special website for the show however what’s a good website that would have the video window and also the chat window? I’ve been looking at wordpress and tumblr themes and haven’t found anything that looks perfect or near perfect yet.

Also, I miss writing. This happens to me often. I bounce back and forth between missing performing and  missing writing. When I miss writing it’s because a part of me looks at everything I’m doing and thinks, “What the hell are you doing?” and longs to feel like I’m actually adding something meaningful to discourse/culture. When I miss performing it’s because part of me looks at what I’m writing and thinks, “This is about hair.”

Ok that’s not true. I only wrote one story about hair, titled “The Braid Bunch” and it was pretty good if I do say so myself, which I just did.

There’s a lot of talk in this new media world about “passion.” I imagine there’s a lot of talk about it on couples’ retreats as well. But inasmuch as it applies to branding and point of view and labeling and stuff which fundamentally makes me feel icky and yet is so necessary in this world it’s shorthand for “what do you stand for in a couple words.” So I’ve been thinking about what my passion is. By the way, you can’t say your passion is being entertaining. Or being funny. Or being liked. So I’ve been thinking about the inverse: what really pisses me off. Granted that’s not really the inverse of passion but you know. Things which piss me off? Stupidity, rigidity, lack of self-awareness, people who think they can outsmart you, bullshit, lack of ducklings.

Actually, I’m cutting myself off because I was just reminded of a different direction I wanted to go: there is something which has been pissing me off lately. Growing up I was a quiet conscientious overweight nerd. The nicest quiet conscientious overweight nerd you’d want to meet, but you get my drift. And then I was a professional writer for years and years. And now all of a sudden I’m on TV and I’m pretty and people react to me as an attractive person and while part of me accepts it, there’s a part of me that doesn’t connect at all with the person who people are reacting to. Does that make sense? It doesn’t really need to. So for awhile being treated as just a pretty face or as an object, if you will, which you will, was sort of thrilling in this very novel sense. Because the vulnerable part of me was the looks part, not the brains part. I’ve never questioned my intellingence and what I’ve accomplished, those parts of my identity are ironclad and for that reason I also don’t really ram them down people’s throats. I just figure that people will google search my name and see I’ve published thousands of articles or maybe I never thought it through enough to really realize that’s what they would need to do.

So fast forward to now-ish when occasionally I get treated like one of those talking heads on TV whose title is made up to give them a reason to go on TV and who is fundamentally an insubstantial person who happens to look good and instead of it being a novel or amusing thing it just fills me with rage. I can count on the fingers of one hand how many times I’ve been treated as stupid and each time stands out to me because it was so jarring. Like being called the wrong name. And I recognize that writing about it here is really just writing for myself because if anyone is reading this they likely already know who I am and etc. But anyway, I know it’s dumb for me to waste my breath on people who didn’t take the time to google anything and who jump to conclusions and whatnot but it’s also a lesson in the fact that I need to somehow get my credentials a little closer to my amazing hair. In fact, I’m going to stuff them into my hair probably. Both for volume and convenience.

What else was I saying? I don’t know, I think I smelled pepperoni in the course of writing this and was distracted.

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Three ducks, one shirt

Viewer Ralph Saxe sent in this awesome photo of his wife sporting her ARIYNBF shirt. In addition to EverythingAboutIt, I also love the green screen!!

Why do I love the green screen you may be asking, because you are quizzical. Well I don’t know if this is the answer exactly, I will tell you, because I am tough to pin down, but it reminds me of going to Universal Studios as a child and watching how they made ET. Does anyone else remember that?

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Site: Todd Jackson | Art Direction: Josh Holtsclaw | Original Logo: Kezilla | Show Music: Tom Rapp