Columns – Page 11 – Starshine Roshell

Crude Awakening: When the $#!% Hits the Sand

Published on June 4, 2015

Living in paradise, one can get awfully smug. My friends and I have a ritual of meeting at sunset on the beach about once a month. Plopped in beach chairs, toes in the sand, eyes on the horizon, and a syrah on our lips, we toast to our extraordinary good fortune. “Aren’t we lucky?” we gasp as dolphins and even whales dance past in the surf.
From our unspoiled, cliff-edged beaches, it’s easy to see why Oprah lives here: Where else would she live?! It’s easy to understand how we earned our highbrow nicknames: The American Riviera and the Galapagos of the North. And it’s usually quite easy to forget that at any given moment, countless gallons of toxic, black sludge are whooshing silently through pipelines beneath our shores.

Hot for the Dad Bod?

Published on May 21, 2015

I have bad news for CrossFit fellas, mud runners, and other muscle men: The hottest look on the beach this summer is not the sculpted torso and chiseled thighs of the gym rat.
It’s the Dad Bod.
You heard me. What’s got girls giddy is the plain, pasty, paunchy physique of a man who’s more likely to be dining on leftover chicken fingers and mac ‘n’ cheese than he is to be hoisting kettle bells. (Is that what one does with kettle bells? Does one hoist? Endowed with a Mom Bod, I wouldn’t know.)

Top 10 Things Mel Brooks Taught Us Last Night

Published on May 14, 2015

It’s good to be the king. Even at 88.
Mel Brooks, the king of farce, treated UCSB Arts & Lectures’ big donors to an evening of funny stories Tuesday night at the Montecito Country Club during a fundraiser for the organization’s Arts Education program.
A longtime lampooner of sacred cows from Jesus and the Nazis to Robin Hood and the Old West, Brooks is best known for writing and directing Blazing Saddles, Young Frankenstein, and The Producers (both the 1968 movie and the recent Broadway version). He’s one of 12 people in the universe to have won Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, and Tony awards.
All manic timing, sparkling eyes and understated delivery, Brooks chuckled at his own bits, spit water as a gag, and cracked wise on everything from the mahi mahi on the menu to his cab-driving Uncle Joe.
Here were the top 10 things we learned:

Fine, Mom: You Were Right

Published on May 7, 2015

It’s becoming quite clear to me, as these things do.
You told me it would — that one day I’d understand why you did the things you did when I was a kid.
Remember our clashes over curfews, battles about boyfriends, and disputes over driving? Back then your motivation was opaque to me — not mysterious, just whack. We seemed so wildly different: Me a gangly, new-wave, camo-clad poet. You a petite ex-hippie breadwinner with a Motown jones.
We wanted such different things. For example, I wanted to be with my boyfriend at every moment, and you wanted me to occasionally eat, bathe, sleep …
But the enlightenment you predicted has finally arrived. Having kids now myself, I often find myself walking a mile in your strappy stilettos. And I’ll be honest: My feet hurt.

Go Fund Yourself

Published on April 23, 2015

Let me stop you right now. Before you ask. Before you even launch into your pitch. Because the answer is no.
No, I don’t want to pay your beauty pageant fees. No, I’m not interested in funding your dream of opening a bakery. No, I promise that I cannot be convinced to contribute to your trans surgery.
It feels like every time I log onto social media, I’m being hit up by another grassroots fundraising campaign. But it’s not for the stuff we used to hear about — the stuff I’d happily write a check for. It’s not a family I know facing astronomical medical bills or an earthquake across the globe that left thousands homeless.

The Cacophony of Corporate Squawk

Published on March 26, 2015

It’s been exactly two years since Sheryl Sandberg published Lean In, her snappily titled womanifesto aimed at leveling the corporate playing field.
Now it’s my turn.
Ladies and gentlemen, I give you two other snappy words guaranteed to change the business world for the better:
Shut up.
No, really.
Please. Shut it.
Zip those runaway gabtraps, you prattling project technicians, twaddling strategery administrators, and Chief Blarney Officers.

Girl to Girl with Piper Kerman, Ex-Con

Published on March 12, 2015

One of my Top Ten Rules for Remaining Alive is to never interrupt an ex-con mid-sentence. But damn it, I couldn’t help it. You see, after spending 13 months in federal prison for drug trafficking, Piper Kerman wrote her memoir Orange Is the New Black to expose the nation’s overcrowded and under-effective correctional system as the hot cinder-block mess that it is. And since her 2005 release, she’s been an outspoken advocate for prison reform. Frankly, who could blame her?

Bedtime: An Emotional Odyssey

Published on February 26, 2015

He still lets me tuck him in at bedtime. Nine years old, in a big hurry to grow up — but he hasn’t yet booted me from plopping beside him, pulling the covers up to his chin, and humming some hit ’80s song while I drag my fingers through his silky, shaggy mop.
Oh, it’s coming. “I don’t think my friends’ parents tuck them in at night,” he offers casually. “I might be getting too old for this.”
You listen to me, I would say if my teeth weren’t clenched for the express purpose of preventing my saying it. I will be tucking you in when you stumble home from the senior prom shnockered on bad, illegally obtained liquor, and you will like it. … The tucking-in, I mean. Not the liquor. You will very much dislike the liquor.

Immune to the Facts?

Published on February 12, 2015

Dear Anti-Vaxxers,
You’re catching a lot of flak for the whole return-of-deadly-diseases-that-were-already-abolished thing. And I feel for you. Experts are saying your refusal to vaccinate your children is to blame for new outbreaks of measles and whooping cough — which was never your intention.
All you want is to protect your kids, right? We have so much access to so many different voices that it’s hard to know what to believe. So we make a choice. We go with our gut. We trust that if we follow our instincts, ignore the “popular” choice, and stand resolute in the face of the bitching masses, our kids will be better for it.

Remember Boredom?

Published on January 29, 2015

When was the last time you stared hard at nothing? I mean really and truly focused your eyes on precisely zilch, tuned out the clamor and din of your immediate vicinity, followed your unpredictable mind down an unproductive path and just … fully … spaced?

I don’t remember the last time I did that. And I miss it.

My mind has no opportunity to wander anymore; when I find myself teetering on the scraggly edge of boredom — at the gas pump, in the checkout line, in the doctor’s waiting room, even (yes) at especially long stoplights — I gather up every shred of my frazzled attention and heave it at my iPhone screen to see if I can’t lose myself in a trivial text exchange, tumbling-puppy video, or chapter 37 of the audiobook-that-will-not-end.

I realize this is unhealthy behavior. Each time I catch myself doing it, I feel a queasy sort of shame, a sense that I’ve lost or am close to losing something essential and irreplaceable.

I promised myself I’d never become one of those old people who malign new technology as the devil’s work simply because it’s different than what I grew up with. But I’m already lamenting the things we’ve sacrificed to the Digital Age, the stuff smartphones have stolen from us: The ability to remember our best friend’s phone number. Or navigate our own way around a city. Or look something up alphabetically. Or sit and marvel at a sunset without feeling obliged to capture and share it. Or wait for five minutes. For anything. At all.

Category: Columns