Poshdeluxe

oasis: i hope, i think, i know

since summer means i’m allowed to read for fun, i’ve decided to occasionally review books that i’ve recently enjoyed. i have no idea if these books will appeal to you guys, especially since most of them will be YA, but consider it a homage to levar burton (seriously, where is that guy?).

the poshdeluxe reading rainbow report

but enough about me… by jancee dunn

tim gave me this book for my birthday. he’s such a good friend that he can READ MY MIND, or at least, read the mind of my amazon wishlist. cos this book had been sitting on it, waiting, pining, pleading for summer.

BEAM (whoah! cool acronym!) is basically jancee dunn’s autobiography, and it is both fascinating and hilarious. why, you say? well, first, she grew up in new jersey, and her family is cray cray… in a good way. her dad is REMARKABLY like my dad, so i totally identify with her adoration of him. i mean, just read this:

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“Huh,” he’ll say when you tell him that no, you don’t have a carbon monoxide detector. “Guess you didn’t hear about that family in the news, down in Trenton. Went to sleep, never woke up. Some sort of problem with the oven. Carbon monoxide detector is twenty bucks. Your call.” Then comes the Sorrowful Head Shake.

If he comes to visit, he’ll bring along trinkets that are designed to induce complete paranoia: cans of Mace that attach to your keychain, a plastic hood that filters out smoke in case you need to crawl out of your apartment during a fire (”Maybe you’re not aware that most accidents occur at home”), a special doorjamb for use in a hotel room to prevent break-ins during the night, when you’re most vulnerable. “Youve got a constantly changing population in a hotel,” he’ll say grimly, handing over the unwieldy, hard-to-pack device. “You think a security guard can keep track of everybody?”

At the very least, he’ll show up with a sheaf of papers from the latest Consumer Reports, the bible of preparedness, which he keeps in a file cabinet, indexed back to the Regan administration.

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i mean, is that my dad, mr. safety pants, or what?!! i am *all too familiar* with the Sorrowful Head Shake, not to mention consumer reports. note that not only do i own that doorjamb, i also own a little hammer that will break my car window in case i am ever trapped underwater. i love you, dad!

anyway, jancee is just a fun, relatively normal gal who ended up having two of the coolest jobs in the universe: she was a reporter for rolling stone AND a veejay on MTV2 (back when it was first launched, i.e. when the M actually stood for Music). what’s cool about this book is that, even though she flew around the country meeting brad pitt and bono and justin timberlake (!!!!!), she’s still just a regular person with insecurities, parents who send her newspaper clippings, and extremely comfortable jimjams.

as she chronicles her life, from her first extremely drab office job to her debauched early years at rolling stone to her current work as a sort of freelancer, she inserts small “tip” segments, things she’s learned while interviewing rock stars, celebs and crazies. to give you an idea, here’s some of the section titles:

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how to approach an R&B artist when you’re the whitest person in the western world

none for me, thanks: gracefully refusing your host’s kind offer of heroin

booze: at least as important as your tape recorder

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i mean, we’re talking life skills, people!

dunn’s writing is engaging, honest and funny, and she maintains the perfect balance between sharing the amusing (and often compelling) moments of her life and spilling the beans on what it’s like to hang out with mel gibson or dolly parton. for example, did you know that dolly parton snacks on bars of velveeta? if you hang out with her, she’ll give you a cube! and then you’ll put it in yr freezer so you can preserve it forever. i mean, that’s what i’d do… and that’s exactly what jancee dunn did, which is why this book is so great. even though she interviewed famous people for years, she still got a thrill out of touring loretta lynn’s ranch or having a slumber party with stevie nicks. she’s a real person.

the other highlight of her book is her cast of friends and family. my favorite person is lou, her producer from MTV2. here’s why:

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He came to my apartment a few nights later, dressed in sweatpants for a night in. “I brought you a Whitman’s sampler,” he said, tossing it onto my kitchen table. “Everyone loves a Whitman’s sampler. And it’s no mystery– they have a diagram inside of what’s in each chocolate. At a time liek this, you need certainty. Nothing’s going to let you down.”

He held up a tape. “I also brought over a movie that will really resonate with you right now. It’s called Touched by Evil, starring Paula Abdul in her first and only TV movie. She plays this single career woman, like you. She doesn’t want to be in a relationship because she had a bad experience, but then she meets this dashing stranger, played by Adrian Pasdar, who in real life is married to the squat one in the Dixie Chicks. She opens her heart to him and soon they go into business together.” He sat down on my couch and grabbed my remote control. “Then it turns out he had actually raped her several months earlier,” he said. “That’s the bad experience I was talking about.”

“That’s supposed to be inspiring?”

“Yes, because in the end, she kicks his ass back to jail.”

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whitman’s samplers?!! lifetime movies?!!! lou is my IDEAL boss.

anyway, i highly recommend this book. if you’re a celebrity gossip addict like me, you’ll love discovering what it’s really like to interview the olsen twins or make conversation after a recent dirty scandal. even if you don’t particularly care what kind of food destiny’s child likes, you’ll savor dunn’s eccentric family and identify with her careening, slightly awkward 20’s.

i give this book: four pants out of four!