Here's the deal. I've got 96 minutes until I must be out the door with my 3-year-old. We're going to a children's museum, i.e. a museum for children. It's school vacation here in the Northeast. I'm bringing a skillet and a water gun.
Kindly, Powell's has asked me to blog this week. Truthfully, I've never blogged before. Not even in private (if that's possible). So I'm feeling a bit unprepared, not to mention a little fried, as I've just returned from my BBT (Big Book Tour) and haven't even unpacked. The whole thing only consisted of 4 cities (including the one where I live, so, 3 cities). It was fun, if short. But not as short as it might have been considering I got stuck in LA due to a massive storm back east. After bursting into tears at the airport (because I hadn't called ahead and had therefore checked out of my hotel, returned my rental car, and rode that frigging bus from the rental car place to the terminal), after all this I came to my senses and simply headed back to the hotel. With its minibar. Cable. Cabana off the back. Champagne orderable from the rooftop phone. Not that I didn't miss the 3YO, the husband, the snow (okay, not the snow), but it ended up that tramping around LA for a few days with nothing but change in my pockets and shoes on my feet, drinking tequila with one of my best friends ? well, it didn't suck.
But back to blogging. In lieu of trying to force out any genius meanderings, I've decided that I should use what's left of my (now) 79 minutes (minus showering/dressing time) to introduce myself. My name is Jen Trynin and I used to be a B-level rock star. What makes my story different from most of the other millions of failed-rock-star stories is that when I self-released my own CD, Cockamamie, it sparked one of the most heated major label bidding wars of 1995. (Is that description coming off as rote as it is?) In short, I signed with Warner Bros under a Next-Big-Thing rubric ? which ended up being more like a toe tag. I put out two records and toured around and made some videos and smoked a lot and flirted with boys and got drunk ? until I got dropped. I quit music. Took a bunch of classes I'd never taken before. Started writing about my experiences, which ended up being my book that has just come out called Everything I'm Cracked Up to Be.
So the funny thing is (I HEARD THIS CHICK WAS FUNNY AND SO FAR THIS BLOG IS LIKE SO NOT FUNNY)(Hey, give her a break, the second she got back from BBT her family descended for FOUR DAYS not that there's anything wrong with that, but now she has to go to a CHILDREN'S MUSEUM ? DON'T FORGET THE CHILDREN'S MUSEUM and she'd finally gotten her calluses going again but now hasn't played guitar in six days and her fingertips are feeling, once again, POOFY) So the funny thing is, as I was doing interviews etc. for my BB (Big Book), here's how it would generally go: We'd talk a little, mostly about what it was like to Be An Unknown Songwriter, then what it was like to Be The Center of A Bidding War, and then what it was like to Be A Big Fat Commercial Failure, and then they'd say, "So can you play us a tune?" Not that I wasn't prepared for this, but may I say that it was WEIRD. I haven't played my own music since 1998 which ended up making me feel so fucked up over that I was compelled to write a MAJOR MOTION BOOK on the whole thing, and then there I am, years later, out in the world promoting my book and myself as a WRITER and now, suddenly, people want to hear my MUSIC?
What?
So I'd play a song. But then afterwards, on more than one occasion, the person said something along the lines of, "Hey, you're pretty good," like the person was surprised. I found this very confusing. I mean, did this person think my memoir thingy was a total Frey (i.e., misconstruction of the "truth"), as if I'd never achieved anything in music a' tall?
On the flipside: After the aforementioned interview and song performance, the interviewer would often give me one of those long, pensive, you-poor-thing looks and then say, "So after your music didn't, you know, work out, then what did you do?" Hmm. After my music thing didn't work out, then what did I do? PAUSE. PAUSE. PAUSE. This is when I'd look over at my book, which was usually on a flat surface somewhere in plain view. I'd point to it. "I wrote that book," is what I'd say.
So presently, due to pending CHILDREN'S MUSEUM VISIT, greasy hair, and general BORN-WITH-IT-CAN'T-HELP-IT CRANKY DEMEANOR, all I can say is this: I feel like one of those drawings that's supposed to fool with your mind ? the one that appears to be of a little baby if you look at it this way, or an old man if you look at it that way. But sometimes it just doesn't look like anything at all.