word to my lauras
I have become addicted to talk radio. Conservative talk radio, specifically...much to my father and fiance’s delight.
I covet my morning and evening commute time as a chance to hang out with my Lauras. And no, you talk radio amateurs, I don’t mean Dr. Laura. Get with the times.
I’m talking about
Laura Ingle on KFI, courtroom drama reporter extraordinaire, and
Laura Ingraham on KRLA, the witty and intelligent morning show host/light of my life. I love my Lauras. I love them, I love them, I LOVE THEM.
I never thought there was such a thing as adoring a reporter until Laura Ingle entered my life, or rather, my air waves. All psychosis and morbid fascinations aside (of which I have much and many, respectively), I was absolutely RIVETED by her reports on the Scott Peterson trial and have scoured my AM radio dial for her genius everyday since I first heard one of them. I don’t know what kind of awards they give for great reporting but I’m telling you, she should get some. No. Correction. She should get ALL of them. Nobel, pulitzer, blue ribbon, Heisman trophy, grammy, whatever. ALL of them. I eat up every second of her simple, articulate delivery. She's so descriptive and powerful that she makes you forget you're listening to radio. She makes it visual and if she isn’t on in the morning to report the latest courtroom sagas, I am crushed. All other courtroom and news reports after her are simply white noise.
And Laura Ingraham. What more can I say than almighty heavens, glory be!? I have recently converted to listening to her show because it is smart and real and important and at a moment’s notice, brilliantly hilarious and light-hearted. She is insanely intelligent and quick-witted and can take you from serious to silly in mere seconds. And flawlessly. More women should be like Laura Ingraham. I know I want to be.
Did I mention that I love my Lauras? I love them. I love them. I LOVE THEM.
But let me say this. If ever you want to torture me, you have one of two choices. Either poke me in the eyeballs with hot skewers or make me listen to the lame-o, annoying, nasally-voiced news chick Terri Rae Elmer who plagues KFI's air waves on the hour, on the half, and when it breaks by concluding her news briefs with the mandatory line, “KFI is the TALK station with the most frequent TRAFFIC reports presented to you BY Lexus dealers” over and over and over again in her sing-songy, I-put-the-em
PHAsis-on-the-wrong-syll
Able kind of way and force me to sit helplessly with my hands tied behind my back so that I can’t scratch my ears off with my own fingernails as I would so desperately LOVE to in order to make it stop. Why, why, WHY do they let her do that repeatedly on air? It’s as though she can read the news just fine until she gets to that closing line and then suddenly she’s completely thrown for a loop as to how to speak properly. Normally. NOT ANNOYINGLY.
I despair, but nevertheless, I will continue my daily love affair with my Lauras. And this post is intended to encourage you all to do the same while at the same time warn you about Terri Rae and the peril of her Lexus-sponsorship line. I beg of you to see it coming and turn your dial before it strikes!
You will thank me for the new friends and the sound advise.
Posted by Poka Bean at 5:11 PM
survival of the beachiest
I recently returned from a 4-day trip to Minnesota where I attended an outdoor wedding. Yes, that's right. Outdoor wedding. In Northern Minnesota. In February.
You'll be glad to know I not only survived the cold, I survived the relentless stream of questions. Abby, do you need to borrow a warmer coat? Are you warm enough? Don't you think you should wear a hat? Are you warm enough? Do you have the right kind of shoes? Are you warm enough? Do you want to borrow another sweater? Are you warm enough? Do you need to borrow a warmer coat? Do you need to borrow a warmer coat? DO YOU NEED TO BORROW A WARMER COAT???
NO.Thank you. I am fine. I know you think I'm just a clueless California blond but I do, in fact, know how to dress myself. No, I've never LIVED in a cold climate before but I have BEEN to cold places many times and it's not rocket science, people. Layers, wool, and down. Hats, scarves, and gloves. Long freaking underwear.**
It irritates the malarky out of me when cold weather people think warm weather people don't have a clue about living like they do and this somehow makes them superior...like Californians don't know what REAL LIFE is like because we don't have to shovel our driveways or scrape ice off our windshields or add a wind chill factor to our temperature readings.
Don't get me wrong, I had an absolutely
lovely time this last weekend and defintely appreciated it when people asked me if I was warm enough, etc. out of genuine concern. But it really makes me crazy when cold weather people ask those questions just to prove that they are Mighty and All-Knowing Expert Winter Warriors and I am nothing more than, like, an airhead dumb blond who like, totally doesn't understand the way things, like, work outside her Southern California bubble. Like totally. For sure.
Well, duh. Of course I'm not hip on the cold weather scene since I don't live in it all the time but that makes me neither completely ignorant about nor completely incapable of coping with the cold.
The way I see it, everyone's an expert at doing life where they live. Obviously I'm not well-versed in the proper etiquette for snow activities like cross country skiing or sledding or snow shoeing, but you know what? I could out beach-etiquette any Minnesotan, any day of the week. I could teach you cold weather folk a thing or two about not shaking out your towels into the wind so that the sand blows all over the natives who are innocently soaking up the sun on their regular beachfront real estate. And I could teach you not to wear jeans to the beach. Or jean shorts...in fact, no denim of any kind or tank tops, if you're male. And absolutely no socks. Or Tevas. Or WORSE...socks AND Tevas. I beg of you. Please. Just don't.
And no, I may not know the finer points of driving in snow but I could out-drive ANY cold weather person in LA traffic on the 405 at 5:30pm on a Friday with a cell phone in one hand and a stick shift in the other while I SIMULTANEOUSLY steer with my knee, guzzle my grande decaf non-fat iced latte from Starbucks, apply my makeup, switch cds and fiddle with the stereo controls to find my favorite song, gesture madly at the jerk who just cut me off, and cross 6 lanes of bumper-to-bumper SUVs to get into the carpool lane.
And yes, I know exactly what you're thinking now that you've just read that. Ugh, California drivers! But that is PRECISELY my point...without living in the reality of this culture, you are not at liberty to judge. To y'all, good driving is watching for black ice and not hitting any deer or moose, but survival driving in California is not getting run over by a Hummer and multi-tasking so that the hours of time you spend in traffic aren't a complete waste.
We all have tremendous expertise in our own places of origin, our own cultures, with no one's expertise or culture being superior or inferior to the other (which, I feel, is a very generous statement for a native San Diegan to make) so what do you say we put an end to all the you-know-nothing-of-my-world-so-you-must-be-a-total-idiot SNOBBERY?
I will if you will.
**Mom and Dad...this is not the appropriate time to bring up the story about the family road trip when we stopped in Amarillo, TX in the winter and it was really cold and there was snow on the ground but I didn't believe you that I would need to put on shoes and a coat to be warm enough so I got out of the car barefoot, yadi yadi yada. For the last time, I WAS IN SECOND GRADE. It was the first time I had ever seen snow so this DOES NOT COUNT, not to mention, it's high time to give this story a rest anyway.
Posted by Poka Bean at 9:43 PM
