Archive | January, 2011

Exciting news; static cling; clarification

By Alison Rosen on January 11, 2011 in corona del mar, Costa Mesa, did I mention I was in a band?, fitness, the gym, Time Out New York, turning into your parents

Teresa Strasser, Adam Carolla, me

So much to tell. First of all, yes, I am the new news girl on the Adam Carolla Show. I got the word over the weekend but it was a secret which is why I didn’t do my own show on Sunday. I debated and while I knew I would be able to pretend not yet to know I just didn’t delight in the idea of having to lie to my viewers who would be asking if I knew yet, and so I did the next best thing: went sweater shopping.

How’d it go? Fuckloads of static cling is how it went. And then I had that moment of pulling off a sweater and hearing the crackle and looking in the mirror and seeing my hair look like this

and knowing I was in for a painful shock the next time I touched anything metal.

But back to more pressing matters. I’d like to just take this moment to clarify two things no one has really landed upon yet. They both involve today’s podcast.

The moment where we’re talking about my old band and Adam asks the name and I say The Angoras and he says “There’s a sheep and a rabbit?”and then I say, as if I’m some kind of moron, “On my amp?” What I was referring to was our singer’s practice of draping our amps and hardware with plastic animal figurines or stuffed animals when we played live. During the podcast recording we were staring at a photo of me playing live in the band which the producers dug up and there was a pony on my amp, hence my confusion.

And another note about that photo. It was taken in 98 or 99 and I was carrying around a good 30 more pounds, apparently in my legs. Not that it’s important that I issue this disclaimer but I’d just like to start our relationship (the one where I overexplain stuff) on the right shallow foot.

And also, I’m not loving the way my dress looks in the photo of me, Teresa and Adam. Ok done!

Wait, one more thing: You should read Teresa and Adam’s books. I read both and loved them.

Oh wait, another thing I want to make clear. During the audition process I referred to myself as a “polyglot” when discussing my practice of counting to twenty in French and Spanish while I’m at the gym on the treadmill. I was joking! I was not actually bragging about my ability to count to twenty in foreign languages as much as making fun of the idea that that would be something to tout. Did that make sense? I didn’t think so.

Ok, see you guys every day!

http://209.197.7.201/g9z6c6z5/cds/p/6/a/5/6a5280e41fe7e4a1/2011.01.11ACS.mp3?sid=694ef02d48b716e04f7f81069127f7db&amp

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If this inbox is rockin' (and a dog photo)

By Alison Rosen on January 9, 2011 in dogs

I’m sitting here trying to bring my unread emails to 0. (I’ve whittled it down from over 800 to 595, which doesn’t feel like a victory. The problem is I half-read everything on my phone and then it stays unread in my inbox and if I’m especially busy, like I’ve been this past week, the emails quickly gang up and go nuts. I’m pretty sure they ordered a keg.) Anyway, I came across this photo which I may have already posted.

Cars, shower caps, Tom Rapp's blog

By Alison Rosen on January 8, 2011 in old ARIYNBF

(UPDATE: I changed the first sentence of this post because the whole thing was just a cheap boner joke and I only believe in earned boner jokes.)

If I’d remembered Adam had a thing for MINIS as he discussed on yesterday’s podcast, I would have told him about how I’d hosted videos for MINI from the LA Auto Show a couple years ago and from the MINIspace rooftop thing the year before and how I’d driven an electric MINI and a crapload of non-electric MINIS and how no one appreciated when I suggested a MINI party bus be named a MAXI. But I didn’t tell him. But I’m telling you guys. Mostly just because I think my image is kind of marshmallow-y so I like when I can show you that I’m no stranger to tuff stuff. Not that these videos are tuff stuff. Also, when did I start using the phrase “tuff stuff”? In the previous two sentences. But I’d recommend just reading the posts (click older entries at the bottom because I think only 5 or 10 per page show up) instead of actually watching the videos which aren’t my best work by any means. Well, some of them are. But some of them aren’t.

What else did I want to tell you? Well right now there is a shower cap clamped to a hanger dangling from a rafter outside, as if we are scaring off bad hair or hanging it in effigy. It’s actually because the thing reeks so significantly of mothballs I considered for a moment that the reason old people smell like mothballs is because they use this kind of shower cap. What’s with a young person like me even owning a shower cap? Sometimes I need to take a quick shower and don’t want my hair to get wet. Plus they just look cool. (note: they DO NOT look cool) It’s just not any shower cap though, it’s a special fancy one with a terry cloth lining inside which looked appealing until I opened it up and realized the terry cloth was made from freshly spun mothballs. Or maybe the smell is coming from some other toxic source. Maybe it’s the vinyl. Regardless I’m pretty sure I should place it in a drum deep in the bowels of the sea but I’m giving it a chance to air out. If a bunch of birds drop from the sky directly over this house then we’ll know this was a mistake.

Oh, also? Tom Rapp who writes and performs all the music for my show has started a blog about it so you should go there!

The final day of my tryout, Dustin's lament, smug phone chat, ugly purses

By Alison Rosen on January 7, 2011 in dustin, fashion, old ARIYNBF, pigeon sex

So I’m overdue in posting this link to the last show of my extended tryout as newsgirl on the Adam Carolla show podcast. Perhaps you’ve noticed the way I go back and forth between calling it podcast or show? It’s because I don’t actually know which is the official name and I don’t want to be that asshole who has a whole conversation with someone named Larry and then wraps it up with, “Talk to you soon, Lenny!” Know what I mean? Alice hopes you do.

So once again the show was super duper fun even if I made the mistake of having a kind of extended conversation about what they’re looking for about 4 minutes before the show started which is akin to an athlete doing something that undermines his or her confidence right before a big game. What’s an athlete’s confidence killer? Standing next to a much bigger athlete in the mirror? Improperly carbo loading? Someone weigh in.

“Why did you do that??!?!?!” asked Dustin, putting his head in his hands and then banging his whole head plus hands on the bar in front of us when I met up with him after the show to catch him up on every delightful nuanced thought I’d had in my head for the whole week. “I don’t know! If I had handlers I wouldn’t get into this kind of trouble!” I explained. He missed the unsubtle cue to become my personal assistant for no money.

This is what Dustin and I look like when we’re having a discussion during the holidays

Then the trackball on my blackberry refused to roll left causing me to send out an unfunny tweet before I’d had a chance to revise it. It was a Deleted Tweet nightmare. (For those who don’t know what I’m talking about, Deleted Tweets is a segment I do on my show where we share tweets we thought of sending but thought better of for whatever reason.)

My friend James’s friend Rob, who also has a Blackberry, fixed my trackball though. In the midst of the trackball fixing James smugly turned to Dustin and said, “Wow, this is like an commercial for Apple.” Then I pretended to have an actual conversation on my Blackberry while knowingly looking at Rob and said, “This is a commercial for Blackberry!” Then we all went home and didn’t have sex with anyone. (For what it’s worth I’d prefer an iPhone but I’m still with Verizon which provides absolutely no cell service in my house but gets high marks in Consumer Reports.)

But back to the podshowcast, we talked about all sorts of stuff including shaving, pigeons, my attempt at original reporting, Courtney Love’s twitter defamation suit, getting dickrolled on a submarine (for those who are familiar with my show, Elliot The Pie Guy is my friend who was in the navy), birds falling from the sky and other assorted important stuff. I’m still cracking up about Bryan’s drops during the strap/strop discussion and his comments during the pigeon counting conversation. The guests were Michael Swaim and Dan O’Brien of Cracked.com and they were really funny, just as Greg Fitzsimmons was really funny the day before and TJ Miller was really funny the day before that.

It felt a little sad not going to the studio yesterday. I realized I accidentally left my mechanical pencil and hi-liter there which I’m thinking might be the nerd version of leaving your wallet behind. (The hot girl from the 80s version would be leaving your banana clip and convertible purse cover behind.)

Remember these atrocities? Anyone?

Last night/this morning's Adam Carolla podcast

By Alison Rosen on January 5, 2011 in Uncategorized

I covet the sombrero.

Last night’s Adam Carolla show was really fun even if the above thing kind of scares me owing to bozophobia (fear of clowns) which I’ve discussed on this blog but which is actually anthropofauxphobia, or fear of fake people which is another entirely made-up umbrella term which includes fear of dolls and mannequins and masks and whatnot.

It’s actually lessened in my old age and once I spent the night at a friend’s mom’s house in her doll room and didn’t even scream!

So I don’t want to give away too much of my own internal stuff especially since I know all about the “more mystery less history” credo but I will say that the Jan 5 show felt much better for me than the Jan 4 show because I think I was holding a lot of dos and donts in my head and just overthinking everything. Not to mention just getting warmed up and comfortable and finding my place. It occurs to me that if I don’t get the gig after writing this I will probably look like a giant asswipe for parsing it in this manner. And for using the word parse.

Anyway, last night felt effortless and was so much fun and the time zipped by.

Owing to all the fonduzzi and masturbation talk, there wasn’t much time to get to all the news. Also because I couldn’t shut up about rock tumblers and geodes.

Collecting dust for the past 25 or so years. I plan to use it any day now.

But we did discuss Snooki’s Hemingwayesque prose and Alec Baldwin’s potential political run. I also briefly touched on this iPhone alarm problem and Bald Bryan tried to be a one-upper by mentioning this. Good thing I ferociously called him on it.

And Adam asked me if I would hook up with The Bieber but I thought he said The Beaver. Yes on both counts.

Rumored to be hooking up with Selena Gomez

Go here to listen and read more.

Hear me on Adam Carolla's podcast this week

By Alison Rosen on January 4, 2011 in Uncategorized

I’ll be doing the news and making random fart noises (note: no fart noises) on Adam Carolla’s podcast this week. I had a great time returning to the show last night and accidentally insulting TJ Miller. And for what it’s worth, I would never have a hot pink bathroom. Not even if it increased self-expansion or got me kicked out of a nursing program or sent me lewd texts. I’m just sayin’.

Go here to read more and to listen.

Tobey is not amused

By Alison Rosen on January 4, 2011 in dogs, dogs that dance

Mid-yawn.

Full yawn.

Last night's show, Playboy mansion, stuff I've written

By Alison Rosen on January 3, 2011 in OC Weekly, old ARIYNBF, orange county, resolutions

On last night’s show, the very first Alison Rosen Is Your New Best Friend of the new year, we started talking about the band Zebrahead for some reason which allowed me to remind everyone that I’ve been to the Playboy Mansion three times, which I like to work into as many conversations as possible. Here’s the story I mentioned writing about Zebrahead shooting their video at the mansion.

And while we’re discussing my Playboy oeuvre, which we may as well discuss, here are some other stories I wrote from that time: Sex Ed., Sex Court, this thing.

While trying to find the above stories I just stumbled onto this. I think I’m on wikileaks.

Oh and listen to me on Adam Carolla’s show this week!

Happy 2011!

By Alison Rosen on January 1, 2011 in Uncategorized

Is it too early for me to gripe? I don’t think so: Is there anything more annoying than when you’re trying to concentrate and someone tries to talk to you? Whenever I’m at the computer I feel like I’m trying to remember a number of things which may just be the effect of tabbed browsing and also my super high powered lightning quick brain (which can’t retain much) and then now that I’m living with eight hundred other human beings someone will come by and say hi in a very normal nice way and I will try my hardest to eke out the tiniest hello without losing whatever I’m trying to remember and without making them feel like an asshole for being friendly. Maybe I should do what everyone used to do at the magazine I worked for? Wear earphones that weren’t plugged in and greet any sort of intrusion with ferocious bitchiness? It’s a particular problem when trying to write any sort of blog post. Unlike writing a story or anything in a word document which feels linear in a way, writing a blog post always involves the feeling of juggling a bunch of balls. I don’t know why. That is all.