Eastward, ho.

The air is too clean, everything is too big, and like most people in this small town of 16,000 in Wyoming where you can climb rocks all day, at this moment I have no idea what is going on out beyond the mountains.

Time to face the music. And within hours, we would finally pass by a television.

Up this River

Mike the river guide told us things we knew not. Like, that badgers had to chew and chew and chew on only certain kinds of trees (yum yum Spruces!) or else their teeth would keep on growing until they couldn't shut their mouths. And that a few weeks ago he rescued a few of Cheney's Secret Service men who were stuck in a log jam, shivering in twenty degree water and near hypothermia. Mike told us he's a jokester when he sees big burly guys with hypothermia:

Mike: I'll pick you guys up, but it's 50 bucks a head

[the secret service guys look at each other]

Secret Serviceman #1: He's got the credit card.

Secret Serviceman #2: Yeah, you can ring it when we get back.

Mike: I'm kidding guys, hop in.
[he hoists the shivering lugs up into the raft.]

Possibly, he may have noticed then that their boat was Park Ranger property, but Mike looked the other way.

Ah, how Dick showers privilege.



Like many human beings, most of the time I am too numb and/or dull to get into nature. But I can be pulled. I like furry things, and while I am against hunting, sit me down with a well spoken hunter I can see things his way too. Yes on deer, no on moose and Grizzlies (although, damn!).

It's all surprisingly well thought out. Black Bears get tags on the ears for messing up around people-- stealing food at their camp sites and stuff. Green tag on one ear for first warning, something on the other ear for second warning, and third-- well, I think the assumption is um, a shot or two without tranquilizers.

From what Mike says, it's a balance thing.

Sunday Lake Ho-bos

Gin and tonics on a Sunday are sinful.
Gin and tonics and champagne while tubing on a Sunday are dangerous.
Doing all of the above on a Sunday in a glacial lake mountain park a mile above sea level is priceless, if not yummy....

Until, of course, you get your credit card bill and realize what a lie you've been living, how much work you've exponentially increased for yourself and how much New York will suck when the gods serve upon you your impending doom.



Was it all a dream?

Pretty Mountains Make Me Sick

Who knew that one could get vertigo from looking at mountains. But one girl hailing from Williamsburg did. The Tetons are so massive that your eye cannot lock anywhere, but instead floats over the rocky monsters. Disorientation surges, as does city slicker shame. One Park Guide suggested that it was the mystical magnetic pull of the Mountains. I don't know about that, but I do know that my driver pulled over.

The Ladies Can't Lasso: Things I've Learned in Wyoming

The Mennonites sat on one side, and the heathens sat on the other. I took a seat with the heathens, on what the announcer made me realize was the Northeast visitor section. The geographic segregation of seats was nobody’s fault per se, but more a matter of natural selection; like dogs we sniffed out each other’s attitudes and hunkered down with our like kind. Los Angelians on the left section of the bleachers, Midwest in the middle and Yankees on the right. Bring on the animals.


Mitchissmo spotted a Hamptons lady watching cowboys!


Regardless of geographic divide, once the Flag Girl made the rounds whilst the Star Spangled Banner played, goosebumps and sissy tears had a mind of their own and overcame cynicism (like the fact that the song is about bombing and eroticizes war imagery).

Embarrassing, but true: tears in eyes. I am an American, after all.

Katherine MacKinnon and her posse can say what they want about men and women being equal, but put them both inside the rodeo ring and things get divided fast. The ladies may be good barellers, but they can’t lasso a calf for all the tea in San Francisco. I mean, we watched the rhinestone belts march out and one, two, five in in a row blew it. Hey ladies-- are you with me? Can we, like, throw a rope and hold onto it, for once?

The boys, on the other hand, celebrated their animal subduing at the Cowboy Bar, "no doubt" (the rodeo MC's fave expression, fyi) next to Cheney's secret service posse. oh, and stay tuned for stories of Cheney's stranded SS men on the Snake River.

And another thing. I may be a modern city girl, but oh golly my, how those cowboys hit one primal thing home—there’s nothing sexier than a man who knows how to do something. Lassoing and tying a calf by the ankles in one try is pretty hot, no matter what your PETA affiliation.

Mitchissmo does Wyoming

Hike hike, snap snap, work work work work (gr gr gr). Flip off Cheney's motorcade while on run. Collapse after 2 minutes of run. Feel better when realize that it's 6300 feet above New York. Pig out on elk.

Hope for horse back riding and spa massage, like a good Eastern tourist.

In Cowboy Country, in Search of Manhattan Transfer

See, I know Manhattan Transfer. Not in a biblical sense, but in an analog sense. So thus I knew that he would be in a certain Wyoming locale, as would I...

Cell Phone to Cell Phone, Monday August 22 20H

Manhattan Transfer: hey, where are [crack, pssst... zzt]
Mitchissmo: huh? hey I'm over by [crack, pssst... zzt]
MT: um, hey?
Mi: yeah, I'm just here with [crack, pssst... zzt]
MT: well, [crack, pssst... zzt]
[CALL LOST]

Thank you, Cingular and Sprint, for keeping it real.

What Bush Did to Me Today

Salt Lake City tarmac, August 22 2005, 11:10am

I was wondering why the Salt Lake City airport was full of buff white men gawking out the window, removing their hats in salute. Later, once I was finally on the plane, the pilot told us that we were 19th in line for take-off, and that if we looked out the window we could catch Air Force One.

Blech!!!!

The Devil Inside the Writer

Garbage cans of screenwriter in Los Feliz, Los Angeles, July 2005

Whatever it takes.

L.A.-- the Good, the Bad, and the, like, Yucky

Mitchissmo with kite board in Malibu, while watching studly male friend surf

Over the ten years that I’ve been a New York City resident, I’ve learned there’s one question New Yorkers love asking each other: “What do you think of L.A.?” or, alternately “Do you like L.A.?”

Admittedly, the question is a total blast. What a better geyser of passion than pondering that puzzle called Los Angeles, that land of “there is no there there” against the (overly?) “here-here”-ness of New York? Now that I am wrapping up a two-week habitat stint in L.A., let me get started on my West Coast Mecca vs. East Coast Mecca rant, in a fair-and-balanced pro-con format.

The Car Thing—a.k.a., the big purse on wheels

Pro: People say you live in your car in Los Angeles. That is not a hyperbole. All throughout the streets of L.A. you’ll happen upon over-sized vans and mini-trailers with people who live in them. Add that to the 24-7 sleepers on Venice beach and I think you’ve got a much better homeless methodology than sleeping on air vents in the Flatiron…any day.

For the rest of us roof dwellers, though, cars are a mixed purse. You can shove your crap in it and go wherever you gots to be goin’, and your stuff is with you. Cars are bigger than purses, so you can shove more stuff in them. Too bad that this great benefit is lost on most Los Angelians, who do not suffer from New Yorkers’ shoe-box living conditions and the way it makes us salivate at any opportunity to stow our crap somewhere.

Con: Cars are not purses. For one thing, you can throw purses in any old corner. Ah, if only we could do that with cars! Mais non; one must spend an hour a day looking for a twelve feet of a non-red lined space, circling block after block like a hawk hunting a dodging mouse. How different L.A. would be if you could snap your fingers and poof! away with your car. (take note, engineers!)

The other difference between cars and purses: cars are the leading cause of death, next to cancer; purses cannot claim nearly such fame. What’s worse, people do in fact live in them cars, on average some 2-4 hours a day. Like, that is between 10-20 hours a week. Like, that is 10-20 hours of doing that and not something else per week. Because here’s the REAL deal breaker, folks: you can’t do anything while you’re driving. And no, listening to a.m. radio, books on tape or making unnecessary phone calls (while driving, mind you (see leading cause of death (next to cancer) above)) does not count.

This brings us to a major and often overlooked difference between New York and L.A.: as an inhabitant of the former, you can read on the subway. Go ahead—try it, and look around. Everyone reads. While I am no teacher, I am fairly certain there is a relationship between reading and a sharp, inquisitive mind (note: New York City went 85% Kerry). So, in addition to the general driving bummer, remember that the people who surround you matter in your quality of life equation. Just sayin’….

The Driving Thing



For those of us who do drive in New York, be warned that when you are in L.A., do not drive like you are in New York. The disciplinary wrath of your fellow drivers, not to mention pedestrians shall fall hard upon you. Take, for instance, the time I slowly nudged along a left turn across a cross walk on Main Street in Santa Monica. Yeah, sure, there were pedestrians walking. But in my New York driving language, this method is not only a time saver, but also the way walkers and cars talk to each other—a pedestrian-car tango, if you will. The 6-foot Amazonian blonde who attacked the hood of my car apparently did not speak this language. Once you get used to it, though, Los Angelians drive much, much better, like Zen Masters. As well they should, because again, driving is their life and livelihood, not just a (hopefully but rarely) better, faster alternative to the subway. For the record, I applaud their unspoken two cars turn left on a yellow light rule. That is utter genius.

The Walking Thing

Nobody walks in L.A. because if you do, you’ll be mistaken for a hooker. I found this out the hard way while ambling down Third street to the 99 cent store. How people stay in shape here is beyond me. As we all learned in “Super Size Me,” New Yorkers walk 4-5 miles a day. That’s why we stay sexy and younger despite our diverse nature-given bods, even without plastic surgery. Not that I’m biased…

The Laundry Thing



L.A. has huge Laundromats where you don’t get into testy butt-bumping square-offs as one does in New York. And there are always enough dryers. And man, is it a LOT cheaper.

In sum, L.A. wins this one hands down. No contest.

The Beautiful Thing

Yup, there’s a lot of beautiful people here. Some of it’s real. Some of it’s not. For those specimens of beauty begotten through natural means, it’s both wondrous and totally weird to look at. They are in greater concentration here because they’ve come here to be stars, duh. As for the manufactured ones, I’m sorry the culture is the way it is and you feel you had to do what you did, especially for those of you who went to a really bad plastic surgeon who snatched the credit card out of your hand.

So, I guess that was the Con part. The PRO part of being in such a place where beauty is a mainstay is, well, a pure example of reverse psychology. I call to the floor my visits to Crunch Gym on Sunset, with a clientele of 99% young actors—you know, the skinny fit kind. I am not a skinny fit actor, but rather a normal girl wearing grungy gym clothes. And yet I have never had so many heads turn ands smile at me for an hour straight. It occurred to me that being pale and of a normal weight and looks-rating gave me the appearance of not needing to care, and hence, of being very powerful—someone these skinny-fit actors on-the-rise should get to know (“What’s up with her?”). Add to that my cold, wary-to-smile New York edge and I was pretty much a Development Exec doing lats.

The Money Thing

Pro: Quality of life per dollar is better in L.A. While I would really have to do a binder full of various cost-benefit analyses charts and graphs to qualify this statement (rent is cheaper (although not as cheap as you would hope and think), but this is offset by the car-gas-insurance thing, etc.), given that you beaches are public and you can live on them, I’d say it’s true.

That being said (Con), money somehow matters much, much more in L.A., which would make sense since it is much more a microcosm of today’s America than New York (note strip mall after strip mall, Hummers, TV, etc.). The City of the Angels is a company town, and money is a sign that you’ve made it and that your American dream of stardom and glamour has come true. Money says who you are. New York may have its doormen, but unlike 20-feet hedges, they can say hello. When living in the great urban experiment known as the Big Apple, no matter whether you emerge from your penthouse or your overcrowded hovel, once you’re out on the street, we’re all the same, bumping and passing and eyeing each other, two legged dogs sniffing eight million different scents.

The Voice We Loved

Every night at seven o’clock on the dot, one elegant, serene man sat five feet away from my father at the dinner table and brought us the nightly news. At the age of five I came to love this man who told me he was Peter Jennings. My crush only strengthened over the years as I came to see him as the guiding light through my fear of Soviet nukes and killer bees. He was a torch bearer of Cronkite-style news casting, one of the last vestiges of journalism’s old guard. As we head into a new era of journalism characterized by burying the real news with human interest stories about lost puppies, Peter Jennings stands as an end of an era, and a hero lost. I will miss his smooth voice and the way it told me that regardless of what worldly horror it had to convey, that everything would be okay.

L.A. is so pretty I'm crying...oh wait, that's smog

I have a certain L.A. friend who has not been to our beloved New York City in years. Ironically, while my plane brought me across to my annual Los Angeles trip, he was on a plane to New York.

Friend: Dude, you walk around the corner and wham-- a cloud of the most powerful odor. New York is so-- damn--dirty.
Me: Oh, yeah.

This, of course, is true. New York is stinky. What was also true was that while he conveyed to me his disgust with New York's smell and dirt, I was driving down the beautiful Pacific Coast Highway and into a zone that made my eyeliner run and my eyes tear up worse than a von Trier flick. Yeah, okay, it's beautiful here. But man, this west coast dirt is thick, potent and hidden... and of a toxic, ghostly nature.

Confessions of a Break Up Addict

Every writer’s got a thing that always seems to creep into their writing. For some (actually, many) that thing is illicit drug use; for others (actually, not many) it’s nautical adventure. For me, that thing is break-ups.

Cue “Forever Young”, “Every Breath You Take” “Wish You Were Here”…

Break ups fascinate me. Break ups are like one of those hallways from a 1980s music video: a black and white tunnel in slanted perspective, full of misshapen closed doors, a red ball bouncing away into the distance. Despite the obvious clichéd meanings you know surround you, everything still feels heavy and of great import. It all means something, man.

Don’t get me wrong; I despise break ups. In fact, as time goes on I can barely bring myself to the first date in fear of the last one. For as long as I’ve been getting romantically involved, break ups have been turning points of inner tumult, starting with Charlie, with whom there were some four break ups in 6th grade, followed by seven with 8th grade bo Andrew. It has never mattered what side of the schism I’m on, the emotional gusto often worse when I am the perpetrator; break ups are intense.

It must be the act of goodbye that gets my goat. On the last day of kindergarten I went home in tears. I loved kindergarten; it was barely a five hour day, and I had a group of some five boys with whom I played Super Heroes during our one-hour recess. I always got to play Cat Woman. So as I was driven away from kindergarten graduation, a great chapter was ending. First grade was going to have new rules. I’d heard the rumors: only one half hour recess, longer days, math, work to do at home, more students to deal with, everybody starts getting competitive. But without the full hour recess, there would be little time to play Batman and Cat Woman. And, I was told, in first grade girls had to be girls. That night I cried and fantasized about superhero lullabies while falling asleep to Barry White, knowing that innocence was being lost. I was five.

Eighth grade graduation was much the same. Boys and girls alike bawled and cried at the graduation dance, well aware that our power position was about to be gerrymandered away, and therefore who knew who would be our friends next year… in high school. And then there was the goodbye in Italy. Me, 19, my back pack and Eurail pass in hand as my train is pulling away, JB and Christina (and some other now forgotten) best friends from the past five months (undying friendships start quickly at 19) running with the train on the platform, crying uncontrollably. I myself was not crying, but just looked on in blank fascination at the girls as they retreated, one teary and uncontrolled mess trying to keep up with the train as it pulled away from Stazione Firenze. At the time, I suppose I figured I’d see them back in the States, or be back in Italy in two years when we graduated and got those travel grants. We all assumed we’d get back there again. I have not been to Italy since.

People say that once they experience a parent’s death, they’re never the same. The day of my dad’s wake was a goodbye of an entirely different order. Grasping the fact of death may be unfathomable for a mere mortal, but there, as I stood for eight hours next to his open casket, the fact was in my face: this was the last time I’d see my father. Over those eight hours, I must have said goodbye every fifteen minutes.

As we get older our break ups get more intense precisely because life has shown us that goodbyes are often of a certain permanence. There is no going back, no matter what one’s intentions are. Of course, break ups are not deaths, but they are deaths of a kind. They are emotional goodbyes, ones that we often try to control in a variety of outlandish ways: sending near funereal bouquets of flowers, crafting the most poetic or well structured email or, better yet, drafting an analog letter so well put and fail-safe it rivals a legal brief. Such actions aim to redirect the sinking ship to new, safe waters. However—and not that I know anything about this— with every effort, it may even push fate along. All of this is why break ups are a good source of comedy and death is, well, not so much. Man and his efforts to defeat Fate is always funny.

The end of a relationship hurts like nothing else because, among other reasons, the object of desire is still out there (alive!). Ah yes, the slow turning from something here to something there, from something present to something past, and the gut wrenching feeling of knowing that it’s happening. That door in the slanted hallway is slamming, and don’t count on it opening again, buddy boy.

Faced with all these operatic realizations, we are raw and often act a bit crazy, which is why I seem to write about break-ups like a spy novelist. Every emotional scar, every emotional high and emotional triumph comes out of hiding and are laid out in the broad daylight, stinging your eyes and causing you be nice to strangers and store clerks, your vulnerability making you drop your everyday callous behavior. During fresh moments like those I’ve even apologized to villains who deserved not apologies but public whippings. While one is experiencing the end of a relationship there’s a certain desperation for a connection, for forgiveness, for someone to tell us that this too shall pass.

Miraculously, it does all pass. But it does not always pass without damage. A friend of mine is worried that he cannot feel love anymore because maybe our bodies change—maybe it’s chemically impossible to love like we did when we were younger. I think it’s more about the bruises we acquire, and our success at healing and getting back on the horse.

But on this Blue Monday it is not a break up, as much as it is a goodbye to a very important friend as he leaves this troubled country. And like break-ups those are deep moments, ones that conjure up memories of saying goodbye to Superhero fantasies and Florentine utopias. Something may not be quite rotten in the state of Denmark, but it does sadden those of us left on the platform.