Wheel Life

Crowley Cheese and roses in my kitchen


Crowley Cheese, pears and carrots in my kitchen and in my baby

Top photo: My Nikon D50
Bottom photo: My crappy cell phone

What happens when I brush my hair out:


Felber lets her freak flag fly

Lawd, this photo is 8 years old. Thanks Google. Thanks Brad.

And Now For Something Completely Different

This is hilarious:

HOW TO: Integrate social media into a funeral but in a classy way.

Trolls in the Hamptons by Celia Jerome

That there is yet another fantastic new book by someone I know.
Now you know.

O What a Feeling

I got cast as Oprah in a cartoon about the letter "O" for Sesame Street. I went totally over-the-top with a booming, regal, caffeinated version for the chat queen. It was super fun.

After my record we learned that the real Oprah decided she would voice it -- a total coup for the production company. And although I got bumped, in a strange turn of events, I actually got paid a bit more because she was involved.

Apart from the producers, and a woman from Sesame, only Oprah and her sound guy heard me. Word came that Oprah thought I was "so cute" and her audio engineer thought my version was aces.

Oprah did a great job as herself. And I have scored lots more voice over work since. Happy happy joy joy. I feel lucky all around.

Sure, I had a brief fantasy that she'd be so crazy about my hilarious Fauxprah that she'd have to know who I was and she'd find my mother's books and she'd be so touched by my sad story that she'd finally choose one of my mother's novels -- even though she never picks a happy-ending title and I'd wind up in the big comfy chair next to her, trying not to get weepy as I discussed ovarian cancer, women's fiction and what it's like seeing your mother through chemo and then hospice when you're pregnant, working and you both know she's not going to make it to the last book on her contract or the grandchild.

In real life there are sublime moments but not many happy endings. But that's why we crave fiction and why in this suck-filled world, escapist fiction is so delicious.

Of course I knew that was absurd fantasyland stuff not fit for telling anyone, but here I am saying it on my blog.

A few days later she selected the female-fearing Franzen as her next and possibly final book-club pick.

It's midnight. That's all folks.

New Old News


Hey I'm awesome part #42466:

Ad Rants picked up my original photo (above) and proofreading FAIL item.

I just sold a joke to Glamour.

Issue and details TK.

New venue for me.

I feel pretty.

The joy of my new freelance life is branching into new venues. Here's one of them: I'm writing for a new Jewish parenting site called Kveller.com. My first piece is chat between my brother Adam and I about how we celebrated Christmas. Check it out below.

The Jews Who Did Christmas on Kveller.com

More to come.

Image: Jewish Christmas Tree Ornament by blind_donkey on Flickr

My boss and a pal both wore the same costumes with their youngest child on Halloween. Noticed this on Facebook, got their blessings and made it an US Weekly type feature w/poll. You have until Wednesday to weigh in on my WHO WORE IT BETTER: Superhero duos in NYC edition. Scope the link above to see the pics and vote.

Image: Just another snap I took of Weehawkoween 2010. Click to enlarge.

Behind the Screams: 23 Horror Secrets Revealed

Link above goes to a photo gallery I wrote and produced that launched just before Halloween.

Lots of fun and the co-writer and director of these flicks is an old Bennington College buddy. So there's the real behind-the-scenes info.

I'm loathe to write the name of the college because although a few of my pals who hail from this liberal arts money drain have made something of themselves, it should have a disclaimer. Maybe something like what Weight Watchers does after every success story they publish:

This movie director attended Bennington College.*

*Results not typical.

One week ago my son, pictured left, turned four. This was cause for much celebration, pictured right.

Photo by the very talented, charming and young Chase Guttman

For this and this I am now a FOAMer -- for life! Click on the genuine gif certificate above to be wowed by this real virtual honor.


Hooray!

Forgot to mention: I've got an article in the current issue of Beer Advocate, seen above. Really.

Yes, still doing all my other gigs: Writing for TV, online, radio and doing V/O. I'm digging this freelance thang. Now, gotta go write jokes for a new venue. Details when and if they fly.

I'm going to post here every day in November. I'm not saying it's gonna be brilliant -- I'm implying it.

Personal blogs -- especially these here Blogger blogs -- are generally old-fangled, neglected and ripe for a recovery.

Plus, even though I manage many accounts, I kinda hate Twitter with the fire of a thousand suns.

And it's good to just do and share any flavor of creative stuff, no matter how crap.

So hi and/or welcome back, enjoy or scoff. I'm doing this for you whoever you are but mainly for me.

Image: One of more than 100 images I took of Halloween in Weehawken. As you can see, Weehawkoween 2010 did not disappoint.

Pretty amazing...


what has grown at the Bethel Harvest Festival.

Sneakers rising over Weehawken

Weighty


The paperweight above belonged to my mother, now it's mine. She died last year, while I was pregnant, and caring for her while working full time from her home. And that's just for starters.

How much has changed since then. And how incapable I am still in sharing more.

But how I miss her.

I feel lucky having her and my father as long as I did, considering.

But still and all, how unlucky I feel no longer having parents. And how unreal that she knew about, but slipped away before meeting my Delia on the outside.

Yes, this is a rare pity party and you are all invited.

Felber B-Roll: Car Talk Jokes edition

Here's the segment that aired on Car Talk today about King Tut's Chariot, which now on display in NYC's Times Square. You can see the gags that aired, and, even better, listen to Tom and Ray describe them here.

And below, here is the full plate of my brilliant hack writing about this 3,000 year-old mobility marvel. FYI I'm not the only funny person contributing jokes, two other LA-based comedy writers are also zapping it in to CT HQ. Anywho, what's below is mine and either didn't make it or was tweaked. Enjoy! Groan! Repeat!

Features of King Tut's Chariot -- revealed!

Cell Phoenicia charger

Rearview Mummies

24-hour Pharaoh-dside assistance

Polytheistic coating

Curseless entry

Satellite oracle

Deity-side airbags

RA-and-pinion steering

De-Isis-er

Of course, an earlier model was recalled "to work out the Sphinx."

Canoptic jar holders

Mini Frankincense tree to hang on horse's tail

Catalytic Cleopatras

Hieroglyphic Converters

Obelisk shift

Rosetta Stone rack

Hybrid horse/slave power

Linen floor mats

Under-chariot neon

Wipers and embalmer fluid

GPS: Global Papyrus System

5 years or 50,000 royal cubit warranty

Flaxseed oil inidicator light

In chariot symbols: Wavy-lines for air conditioning, pyramid for hazard light symbol and eye for back up cameras

"When the previous owner said parting with it was a sacrifice, he really meant it."

Or, re: Tut possibly dying in a accident in that chariot: "When Tut said parting with it was a sacrifice, he really meant it." (Ba dum bum!)

That's me, late 90's. Photo taken by and recently uploaded to Facebook by Paul Sullivan.

I love it. Paul titled it "Susie...fast and blurry" and I think that's an apt posthumous description of my 20's.

Way back then I had more fun than should be allowed. I had fabsurdly stunning long hair, which is still lovely, but then, like my recently unleashed personality -- it was nearly too big to be believed. And halfway through my 2nd decade I finally got up the guts to pursue my dream -- writing and performing and producing and living and breathing comedy.

There aren't many photos of me from the 90's. Perhaps more than most, because I was a performer. But my best-looking decade passed in the generation before digital. If photos weren't in focus it was usually a mistake, not an artistic choice.

We didn't take close-up pics of flower petals at a friend's wedding or our cheese because that was when you were paying for each snap and most people only used disposable cameras anyway. A picture at night yielded only flash-bleached sweaty faces, which is an even better reason then the expense as to why we didn't take many.

I'm amazed and impressed when comedians today, after performing for a nanosecond, have beautiful PR photos. For us headshots were a major expense and photos were only for magazines or newspapers so why do them when you're just a nobody comic hoofing from minor show to Rat Hole Rep and back again?

I love the photo because of what is unseen. Which is nearly everything. When my grandchildren look back they'll be a digital trail of who I was. It won't be as complete as some people's -- those who "check in" on applications like Foursquare will leave a map for future generations to trace their journeys from Chipolte Grill to Abtastic Fitness Center and back -- but there will be something.

And so, I adore this crappy beautiful photo for what it doesn't show (what is that blue thing in my hand and why is/what is hilarious?) and for what will never be shown because it can not be. For all the moments that can only be dredged up because they are carried within friends in their increasingly leaky brains.

How nice it would be to have some more beautiful high-res photos or video of me from that era. But then I know I may have behaved differently if I'd thought a camera was poised to record every meal, every quip, every second. I might not have taken as many chances on stage and in life.

And although someday there might be a relation who wishes they knew more about me, as much as I fantasize about my long-lost family, now that everyone is documented and terribly vain (and how I lap up all of it, even when people share way too much and it becomes awfully creepy) -- I now crave and find equity in the mystery and the moments that -- until we have time machines -- will never be revealed.

Thanks for the memories, Paul.

PS If you upload and tag an unattractive photo of me, I'm sending the boys around.

I don't know what boys.

I'll have to find some, I guess.

INSERT BIG WINKING EMOTICON HERE.

But seriously, sorta kinda, not really.

I went freelance this summer after years of going steady with the same cable TV network and now I'm promiscuously working on a veritable pu pu platter of fun jobs. Writing for TV, Web for TV, doing voice over for TV and...

Well the image gives it away, ya?

Ya.

I've got a newish gig contributing jokes to CAR TALK along with two other way-more-successful-than-me LA comedy writers.

As far as I know, this is the first time in over 20 years this radio show has hired outside writers. How they did it all in-house for so long baffles and impresses me. I've always been a fan of the show and it was my treasured and sole entertainment one lonely winter spent in North Bennington, VT trying to improve my Chinese, do my thesis and waitress at the world's crappiest Chinese/Italian restaurant.

Of course it might have also been the world's best Chinese/Italian restaurant. If you've encountered another, lemme know.

While working there you could hear the crunch of snow as cars of hungry people slowed down in confusion at the chirpy "Chinese slash Italian" touted on the sign and then the sad spinning of tires as tourists tried to get traction on the tenacious VT ice to escape the fate of our kooky culinary genre. I say tourists because any local that ate at the Golden Nugget rarely came back, and no, it's not there anymore.

And maybe someday I'll tell ya all about the 400 pound delivery guy who ate half the food before it arrived at its destination and how a burly dairy farmer came into the restaurant and found that the pu pu platter I served him contained exactly twice as much stuff as it did when the morbidly obese delivery guy was handling it. And how the farmer turned red in the face and started screaming about how he was going "to kill that fat ____." And how I lied and said I hadn't seen him and then made tracks to the kitchen to tell the delivery guy (who was sitting on a case of beer, drinking the whole thing slowly but surely, which is what he did waiting for his next meal/delivery) to make himself scarce lest he get his face pounded to the consistency of duck sauce.

And maybe someday I'll tell you about how, after yet another sad evening of getting yelled at by customers about how bad the food was (and it was), I entered the swinging kitchen doors determined to tell the surly Chinese owner/chef that his Chinese food was inedible (the Italian was, oddly, not bad, but no one ordered it because it looked like a Chinese joint) and kvetch to him about how I was making no money in tips and how maybe he should revisit his cooking chops.

And then how Peter, who had until then only glared at me and rung a bell when the orders were ready, suddenly told me the story of his escape from communist China, and how he trained and trained to swim an impossible distance to freedom, and of how he eventually scrapped his way to Canada, and how feeding people was the only thing he loved and how lucky he felt to have the opportunity -- his own business no less -- in America. He had tears in his eyes. So did I.

At that moment, I simply took the barely-touched plates of food in my hands that customers had thrown back at me, and very slowly pushed the contents into the garbage with a dirty knife and backed out onto the dining room floor to take more abuse for this man's horrible cooking. But after that, armed with his heroic journey and his self-delusion/successful propaganda campaign concerning his kitchen talents, their barbs and talk of hot barf didn't scathe me.

OK, I toldja.

Back to work, me!

xo/ta ta,

Susie