La Méchante Reine

School starts again in less than three weeks. Tenth grade, sophomore year. My daughter is not exactly happy about it. And, when I say 'not exactly happy,' what I really mean is miserable. Yes, she's miserable. Mis-er-a-ble. Think of the little urchin on the Les Misérables poster. 

You get the picture.

Anticipating another year would be bad enough. Mais non, our smug suburban overachieving little high school has to add insult to injury by assigning beaucoup de summer homework. My daughter has assignments (long, tough, "b-o-r-i-n-g" assignments) for three of her eight courses, all of which will be tested on the first day of class. 

Sacré bleu!

This means that my own summer is officially over. Fini! I've put away the sundresses, shorts and tank tops, flip flops and floppy hats. It's time to pull out my long hooded cape, bejeweled crown and eye liner. Time, once again, to become ... the evil queen.

I wish I had one of those teenagers who dove into her work with nary a nudge. Alas, I do not. Very quickly all my hinting becomes requesting becomes nagging becomes shrieking on the order of a classic Disney villainess. 

The first order of business is her packet for Honors French 3. And while doing the work is not negotiable, I have to admit (at least here, if not to her) that it's très stupide. She has spent the last two evenings conjugating verbs — 70 so far and counting. If you ask moi, this rote task seems pretty ... well ... rote. The goal is to learn a language, n'est-ce pas? Not to make endless lists.

How is this going to help her in real life? What if she gets helicoptered in to moderate a peace talk at the United Nations? Or she has to order a croissant on the Rue Rivoli? Je ne comprends pas! Why don't they teach them any really important things, things they might need if they actually go to France, things like how to say ...

"Où est la maison de Johnny Depp?"

"Puis-je obtenir à prix réduit de l'année dernière de Chanel?"

Or "Un autre verre de vin blanc, s'il vous plaît."

Nevertheless, mine is not to reason why. My job is to enforce the rules and convince my reluctant student to study even though she would rather be doing pretty much anything else. At the rate she's going, the French packet should be fini this weekend. And then all we have to worry about is a 30-page chapter for AP World History and the novel Dracula.

Mon dieu. Un autre verre de vin blanc, s'il vous plait!

Seesters

The past three weeks, our family had a young visitor from Barcelona staying with us. For her, it was a chance to practice her (already muy excelente) English and experience another culture. For my husband and me, it was a chance to share so many great things about our town, our state and our country with an enthusiastic audience. 

For my teenage daughter, it was a chance to feel like she had a sister.

My daughter is an only child which comes with pros and cons. On the upside, she has more stuff (jeans from Abercrombie & Fitch, her own bedroom, a horse). On the downside, she is stuck with an elderly dog and two middle-aged humans an inordinate amount of the time. 

Even with a bit of a language barrier, it must have felt great to have a live-in peer.

My own sister and I walked a rather rocky road when we were that age. We were just two years apart and had been thick as juvenile thieves when we were younger. But once we reached high school, we became the teenage equivalent of The Odd Couple. 

I was Felix; she was Oscar.
I was neat; she was ... not.
I was the control freak; she was the free spirit.
I was the short-haired brunette; she, the long-haired blonde.
I was a bit of a nerd; she was cool and popular.

At least that's how I perceived it.

At one point, I asked my parents if I could split the master bedroom of the apartment into two long vertical rooms, one for each of us. Later, I asked if I could turn one of the walk-in closets into my own room. They said, "No," and "No."

But time passed and we both went our separate ways. Then something very nice happened. We came back together again. Turns out, we got along much better when we weren't cohabitating. And over the years, we've come to appreciate each other's strengths (and pay less attention to the weaknesses); focus on the similarities (and ignore some of the differences).

No matter what happens, I know my seester is there for me.

So today, I'm very happy to share an interview my sister recently did with my favorite online magazine Women's Voices for Change (full disclosure: I'm one of their contributors but I think I'd love it anyway). I invite you to read it and see how a free-spirited teenager has evolved into a wise and wonderful woman.

And, if the current state of my own teenager's bedroom floor is any indication, she may have inherited something from my sister too.

The Lady Is A Punk

My teenage daughter and I spent the last several days showing our guest from Barcelona around my hometown, New York, New York. The city so nice, they named it twice.

What fun! The weather was gorgeous and we were able to do all the fabulous touristy things that native New Yorkers rarely bother to. 

Empire State Building? Check. Statue of Liberty? Check. Times Square, Greenwich Village, Central Park? Check, check, check. Shopping? 

Hello, I had two fifteen year old girls with me. Do you even have to ask?

Let's see ... we hit Abercrombie & Fitch, Hollister, American Eagle Outfitters, H&M, Forever 21, American Apparel. (Don't get me started on the mall-ification of America, puh-lease.) Whenever possible, I suggested smaller, independent retailers, or at the very least, venerable New York institutions like Tiffany's, Henri Bendel and Saks. 

I was outnumbered.

So on our last morning, having seen the sights (and shopped the shops), I pulled parental rank and insisted that we visit the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Besides being one of my favorite places in NYC (or anywhere, for that matter), I was desperate to see Punk: Chaos to Couture.

The new Costume Institute exhibit displays about 100 outrageous ensembles, clearly inspired by the punk rock scenes in London and New York about four decades ago. The concept basically is that the world of haute couture (then but to some degree now) owes a lot to do-it-yourself — and "f*ck the establishment" — street fashion. Music and video enhanced the experience as we wandered through room after room. 

It was outrageous, yes, but also familiar. Bittersweetly so.

I may be a middle-age mom now, but I'm no stranger to mohawks and safety pins. C'mon, I lived in the East Village in the mid-80s. And while my look then was certainly one of the tamer ones in the neighborhood, I went to clubs in jumpsuits and high tops, ripped shirts and rubber jewelry.

At one point in the exhibit, I turned to my sister who had joined us, and bemoaned my current life. Where was my downtown loft? My asymmetrical hair? My edgy punk couture? "I live in a preppy town in a tiny antique house," I wailed, "I buy clothes at Talbots!"

This is the second time I've felt this way in just about as many months. At a young friend's graduation this spring, I met rock legend Jim Steinman. If you don't know the name, you most surely know his work. He wrote Bat Out of Hell (1 and 2) and singlehandedly created the bigger-than-life persona of Meatloaf. I was thrilled to talk with him after his rather unconventional commencement speech. He was wearing a leather jacket with spikes; I was wearing embroidered capris. 

WTF?

I wanted to say, "Don't look at me. This isn't how I normally dress." But, sadly, it is.

One of the many places we visited in New York was Urban Outfitters. While my daughter and her friend looked through the sale area, I was drawn to another part of the store. There, I saw tank tops with embroidered skulls, lace-up combat boots, ripped and pinned shirts, baggy cargo pants. A young salesgirl eyed me curiously.

I wanted to say, "Don't look at me. I wore these clothes before you did. I wore these clothes before you were even born."

Because, I did.

Teens Value Unplugging? YYSSW

My ad agency does creative work for a number of colleges, designing campaigns to lure prospective students away from the competition and toward our clients' schools. Our target audience (current high school sophomores, juniors and seniors) is known as the "young millenials" or "Generation Z."

When we present concepts for ads, we always have to remind everyone in the conference room that we (agency and clients alike) are not the people we are talking to. Our audience lives online. (We don't.) They have no interest in turning off or tuning out. (We do.) They are digital slackers. (We aren't — or, at least, if we are, we know it's a really very super bad thing.)

As of today, I stand corrected.

MTV recently released the results of a new study, comparing teens aged 14-17 (at 15 going on 16, my own daughter fits right in there), Generation Y (18-25 years old), Generation X, and Baby Boomers. The surprising conclusion?

The younger millenials are poised to surpass their older demographic siblings in terms of focus and eventual success. They not only see the error of their cyber ways, they are actively seeking analog alternatives.

Get a load of some of this data ...

According to MTV's study (and contrary to the opinion of most parents I know), Generation Z is not living in a fool's paradise. 

60% believe that "my generation will be worse off than my parents' generation."

The same 60% claim that they are "very stressed about getting into a good high school or college."

69% are trying to take control of this bleak forecast. "I put more pressure on myself than others put on me."

How does this affect their online habits? If you're like me (especially if you're like me and have a fifteen year old daughter who appears to be surgically attached to her iPhone), you may be surprised.

80% of this younger teen group say that "sometimes I just need to unplug and enjoy the simple things."

82% "prefer to focus on one task at a time." Whoa. And to think, they've built a reputation for attention span deficiency.

(As an aside, guess what I'm doing even as I write this post? Multitasking! Checking emails, fielding phone calls, planning next week's trip to New York, and brainstorming some alternative headlines for an ad. Note to self: be very careful not to throw stones.)

Here's what I say: YYSSW. (Your teen can tell you that this means "Yeah, yeah, sure, sure, whatever.")

You see, all the studies in the world can be meaningless (from a personal perspective) when they don't jibe with actual experience (from a personal perspective).

From a personal perspective ... I just don't see it.

At any given time, my daughter engages in at least a half dozen different activities at once. She can quite comfortably text, listen to music, browse Facebook, eat a bag of Sun Chips, post to Instagram, and tackle the toughest homework assignment. For the record, the only time she unplugs to "enjoy the simple things" is when her father or I (or both) insists that she does. And, let the record also state, there ain't a whole lot of enjoyment going on when that happens.

Yesterday, my daughter and I brought our new friend, the exchange student who's staying with us this summer, into Cambridge. We treated ourselves to fancy coffee drinks (apparently Frappucinos are an international phenomenon), toured Harvard's historic campus, shopped and shopped and shopped, then went into Boston for dinner and a show. It was a great day, a long day, an analog day. So, what was my daughter doing each and every time the conversation lagged?

Texting.

Don't get me wrong. She wasn't rude or unkind. I think she's been a terrific host, actually. But, there are always natural silences and these proved to be irresistible opportunities to check the phone. After many evil eyes (on my part) and many exasperated shrugs (on her part), I finally gave up on the drive back at the end of the night.

"Here, you can use mine," I told our lovely guest and handed her my phone. She was just as happy as my daughter would have been had someone else's mother done this for her.

New friends, the two girls sat together, fingers skipping across their digital screens, quite happily, the rest of the way home.

Pass the Popcorn: The Way Way Back

I am always happy to go to the movies. Pretty much any movie, any time, with anyone. But, don't offer to go with me unless you're willing to (a) let me have my own bucket of popcorn (I'm happy to treat you to yours, I just don't like sharing — which makes the titles of these posts a little misleading doesn't it?). And (b) willing to get there in time to see the coming attractions.

What can I say? Often, they're the best part! Too often, in fact, the two minutes of great entertainment in the trailer are the only two minutes of great entertainment in the whole two-hour movie. Some trailers are mini masterpieces.

As far back as I can remember, I have always always always loved movie trailers. In the mid-80s (gasp!), I had personal access to all of them. It was early in my copywriting career with the in-house agency of Continental Cablevision. Every month, each of the pay channels would send a promotional cassette with previews of all of its upcoming programming. Prior to writing our bill insert "Cable Highlights," I would close myself up in a conference room and watch the trailers to my heart's content.

It was a tough job, but someone had to do it.

Today, I no longer make a living writing about movies (sigh), but I now have a 24/7 link to trailers. The iTunes Movie Trailers page. It's my favorite way to procrastinate. In between writing a couple of ads? Waiting for feedback on a brochure? Stuck on a headline? I treat myself (or avoid the problem) with a movie trailer.

Weeks if not months ago, I watched the trailer for The Way Way Back. And, I've watched it several times since. It just looked smart and thoughtful. Even though it's set in contemporary times, there is an air of nostalgia to it. It promised to capture the sheer misery of teenage awkwardness (and the unrelenting stupidity of adults). It also promised to be something I could enjoy with my teenage daughter and the exchange student who's staying with us for a couple of weeks. So, as soon as it opened at the tiny new cinema in our (tiny old) town, I went online for tickets. Bottom line?

The Way Way Back is way way good!

What a treat! This is one time that an entertaining trailer didn't oversell a mediocre movie. It is a perfect little picture, with an endearing hero, colorful secondary characters, a very clever script, some bittersweet humor, and a wonderful redemptive ending.

Funny man Steve Carrell is playing a bad guy for a change. And, I do mean b-a-d, bad! Dating a divorcee (the appealing if a little blind to her surroundings Toni Collette), this creep — and, oy, he is such a creep! — brings her and her fourteen year old son to his beach house where there is non-stop boozing, bed-hopping, and other immature behavior all perpetuated by the grownups.

The son, Duncan, is targeted by local, cooler teens and picked on mercilessly by Carrell's stepfather figure. Riding off on a humiliatingly pink and princessy bike (the only one in the garage), Duncan finds solace in unlikely places: among a rag-tag group of water park slackers, and through a budding friendship with a pretty neighbor, Susanna (The Carrie Diaries' AnnaSophia Robb). 

The whole movie is just so watchable and enjoyable. You really root for Duncan. (Real-life 16-year old Liam James — what a cutie! And so talented!) You really want his mother to wake up already and dump the loser who's torturing her son. You really want to go to a water park (it helped that we saw the movie during an unforgiving heat wave). And, you really want to believe that your own teenagers never see you the way that Duncan and Susanna view theirs. (Believe me that's what you really really really want!)

Thing is, there's a truthiness to the whole thing. And that's what we all enjoyed most. 

Watch the trailer. See the movie.

Just get your own popcorn.

Blue Man? Or Big Brother?

My teenage daughter has a special guest here for the next two weeks. The young lady is from Barcelona, and they have been Facebook friends for a couple of years. That's the cyberland equivalent of pen-pals, I guess.

I briefly had a pen pal from Norway when I was in junior high. Her name was Veronika and I think we corresponded a few times before it fizzled out. I had high hopes at the beginning however. Having been only as far away as Missouri for visits to my grandmother, the allure of international friends (and travel!) was very strong. 

These days, our kids — at least those from wired middle-class homes — are growing up in a global village, connected to like-minded teens all over the world. Let's face it, Facebook is way cooler than writing a letter. And a lot faster. And a lot easier to use. Just post a picture or quick message; no messy stamps (or proofreading, apparently) required.

My daughter and her temporary housemate dreamed this visit up many months ago. They were encouraged by our visitor's English teacher, a dear old friend of mine from elementary school. Plans include a couple of horse shows (like my daughter, our young guest is an equestrienne), and four days in New York City. With several beaches and pools nearby, we figured we could easily fill any other time.

What we didn't figure was that a nearly four-week heat wave would be followed by 60-degree days and freezing rain. 

Uh-oh.

Quick! Suddenly, I have to find some fun indoor things to do in and around Boston. We're going to visit Harvard, go shopping (the international language of teen), and take a Duck Tour. We'll see a Broadway show in New York, but I thought some local theatre would also be fun. I landed on Blue Man Group. It's a spectacular and innovative work of performance art, and most of it is done without any dialogue or soundtrack. (I figured our guest might enjoy an evening that didn't require so much English — although, I have to say that she speaks our language beautifully. Us, hers? Not so much. "Bienvenido" and "Mi casa es su casa" was pretty much the extent of it.) 

Blue Man Group it was.

Which brings me to the point of this post. Ever since I visited Blue Man's website, I'm being cyber-stalked. Constantly. Everywhere I go. No matter what website I visit, I'm being served up ads for Blue Man Group.

It's my own fault. I searched Blue Man Group on Google. I visited the Blue Man Group Boston website. Then (sneaky me), I found discounted tickets elsewhere. The thing is, the official Blue Man marketers only know that I researched and abandoned — they don't know I've already purchased. So, my cyber world now belongs to Blue Man. 

Of course, this happens all the time (and, in my day job as a direct and digital marketer, I understand the how's and why's of "cookies"). But, somehow, this feels different, spooky. The ads I'm seeing aren't for shoes or bathing suits or a new printer (all of which I've been served up lately, based on my browsing activity). No matter what website I'm visiting or what search engine I'm using, there he is ... the Blue Man. (I read somewhere that even when there's three of them, it's politically correct to refer to them as a single "man.") There's his shiny head. There are his piercing eyes. It's a little un-nerving actually.

I've seen the show three times (twice here and once in New York). And, I highly highly recommend it. Take your husband. Take your kids. We're looking forward to taking our new Spanish friend.

Just don't spend too much time searching for Blue Man online. Or you may have the blues too.

It's Only Rock and Roll

July 24th; it's finally here. Finally, finally. My teenage daughter has been counting the days. 

I mean, really, she's been counting them. 

You see, her iPhone has a countdown app and months ago, she put today's date into it. While she finished up freshman year, studied for finals, wrote her last term papers, she would check it over and over. And over and over. As though time would somehow fast-forward more quickly if she obsessively stared at that little screen.

What is it they say about a "watched pot?" No matter, today's finally the day ...

Imagine. Dragons. In. Concert.

OMG.

This is the second time my daughter will see them live. (She is a very dedicated fan.) And, I don't mind this particular pastime. Not as expert as my offspring by any stretch, I have to say that I like the Imagine Dragons lyrics I do know ...


It's time to begin, isn't it?
I get a little bit bigger, but then I'll admit
I'm just the same as I was
Now don't you understand
That I'm never changing who I am

We could do worse.

Yesterday, I had back-to-back-to-back meetings in Boston. When I finally got home, I found my daughter and one of her besties knee-deep in poster boards, markers and cut paper. They were making "fan art." If you're about my age, you may remember attending concerts and bringing (or seeing) large banners that praised the band or made some sort of pun based on one of their songs or simply said "I love you, Jon Bon Jovi!" (In my case, it was Elton John — now that was a realistic crush!)

The idea, I guess, was that the rockstar in question would see your banner, realize that you were the love of his life, find you, marry you, take you on the road. (Then, he'd drop acid with you, drop out, drop into rehab, drop you for a younger groupie ... you get the idea.)

Well fan art today is totally like that. Except it's totally different.

Today's concert audience creates fan art and posts it online rather than off the first row of the balcony blue seats at Madison Square Garden. You create something brilliant, send it out into the cyberinternetosphere and hope that a member of the band will "Like" it or "Tweet" it, link it, re-post it or share it.

Despite millions of fans posting millions of examples of fan art, the chance of getting noticed is actually much higher today than it was for us. My daughter is Facebook friends with some of the members of Imagine Dragons. This may not mean they actually know each other, of course, at least not in the analog world. But she's a lot closer to her idols than I was with my $16 ticket in 1975.

And what better way to get their attention than through art? It's been a lot of years since my daughter chose a craft project over a YouTube video. Can't say that I mind this particular pastime one bit.

The girls worked hard on their fan art, took a quick break for dinner, and continued on their masterpiece long after yours truly went to bed. This morning, my daughter brought her phone to show me ...

"They didn't re-post it," she pouted with a tiny gleam in her eye. "But, look at this!"

There, on her wall, was a comment from one of the Dragons himself. "lol love it"

OMG!!!

Was it really him? Was it an assistant? A roadie? Some girl he picked up two shows ago? Who cares! It was good. 

Sometimes, when you're almost sixteen, life can be very good indeed.