Hangin' With Hendo

Today I learned all about how the Kardashians, Elon Musk, Madonna, Lady Gaga, Mariah Carey, Jennifer Aniston and Anna Wintour treat their assistants. 

As if you need to read something to know exactly how they treat their assistants. 

See, I went to twitter off an email from my kids school principal. Apparently he has a twitter account, which struck me as not the best idea? Or maybe a great idea? And I wanted to see what it was all about. I scrolled down 2 posts and suddenly there was a giant graphic of Elon that told me his assistant asked for a raise so he told her to take the next two weeks off and it prompted me to click to find out what happened to the poor assistant. 

You know when you're watching a show and you guess what's coming next? I hate when I can do that. Haven't shows come further than that? I stop watching those shows. Yet, I clicked it. As if I didn't know what it was going to say. And to add insult to injury, of course, the answer to what happened was not there. Instead it told me about how badly Lady Gaga, and Madonna, and each Kardashian, Rihanna, Beyonce and even Sarah Jessica Parker treat assistants. Because it's important to remind everyone how much more evil women are than Elon Musk. 

So I scrolled and scrolled and scrolled to learn the fate of the Musk assistant. Ten minutes. Fifteen minutes. Apparently even Anna Kendrick from Pitch Perfect is abusive....still no end to the dangling mystery of Elon Musk's assistant. I almost gave up to do a search for what happened to the this poor person. 

Keep in mind, I got here after trying to be an amazing parent who wants to see what the principal of her kids school posts to twitter. Concerned, curious, even eager to see what's happening at their school. Yet there I was, fifteen minutes later, completely forgetting how I got there. Scrolling...scrolling...scrolling. Who knew websites could scroll so long.... 

And finally. The answer. After two weeks off, Elon Musk fired his assistant. 

#Hendo 

I do dishes only at gunpoint, I sometimes tell my kids to take the bus home when I actually could pick them up, I borrow my sister's stuff and lose it and then lie to her about it (I haven't done that in years, though, Sibby), I eat pie out of the box instead of cut myself a piece, I usually have no idea where I left my car keys, I eat A LOT of cookies (more than I admit to), and I f'in HATE clowns. 

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HATING CLOWNS IS A SURVIVAL INSTINCT

The clowns thing doesn't exactly fit into my truth purge, because hating clowns is a survival instinct. Losing Sibby's stuff and (white) lying about it (with my fingers crossed behind my back) is the exact opposite of a survival instinct.

I recently read somewhere that "Coulrophobia," that's the fear of clowns, took hold in the 1970s after John Wayne Gacy got caught for...I can't even talk about what he got caught for. But I was scared of clowns well before I knew a damn thing about that monster. One of my very earliest memories is of me standing in my crib crying, and my mom, OF ALL PEOPLE, coming into my room and winding the musical clown on my shelf. The same clown that was literally scaring the shit out of me, my mom thinks is soothing me. My poor mom. Now that I'm a mom I totally get it. We fuck everything up. Everyday. Wrong moves. All over the place. 

So now that I brought up murderous clowns, I have a confession to make. And no, it's not what you think and shame on you for even thinking I was about to confess to being a murderous clown. What I was going to tell you was that while commuting in and out of New York City for our off Broadway show this fall, Nini and I became ravenously obsessed with True Crime Podcasts. So much so that some nights after dropping Nini off I would speed home and RUN as fast as I could into my house in fear that I was going to, ya know, be....I can't even say it. 

It's kinda weird, right? I'm listening to something that scares me SO MUCH that I have to run into my house like a crazy person. Which reminds me....

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SPIELBERG WAS AWARDED FOR THIS? 

You know what else wrecked my life? Not my mom. Why did you think I was going to say that?

JAWS. Fucking JAWS ruined my life. It's called galeophobia, fear of sharks, and I have a raging case of it. Scientists have researched it and have declared that the movie JAWS wrecked an entire generation. I literally can't even put my TOE in the ocean when we are in Provincetown, and we spend an entire month there every summer! They have shark sightings up and down the cape and people are still going in the water? What is wrong with you? They have APPS tracking SHARKS and my phone alerts me to the latest sightings and the thing goes off not two to three times a month, but A DAY! All. Day. Long. Sometimes I get more shark sighting alerts than texts. Not good. Not good at all. 

So we have found Provincetown "workarounds" where we can still enjoy the water while telling ourselves "sharks can't get in here." 

For several years, we all told ourselves that the sharks aren't on the "bay side" of Ptown. Come to find out THAT is a total LIE. I always suspected we were kidding ourselves with that one. I mean, there are seals all over that bay. So don't tell ME to jump into the bay, no ma'am. I'm not doing it. I will sweat to death and suffer from a blistering sunburn before I I come face to face with BOB. Yeah, BOB. That's what they named one of the sharks that trolls around the "shark free" bay. Fourteen Hundred Pounds. What do you even liken that to? Even at my heaviest, that thing is one thousand times my size. Give or take.  

Pools, toilets, bathtubs, blue carpets. ALL. RUINED thanks to Steve Spielberg. We give him awards? I think he should be arrested. E.T. does not make up for it. It's not a quid pro quo thing. You RUINED the ocean for ME and countless other kids born in the 1970s. You gave Bob permission to ruin the Bay because I manifested him thanks to your little movie. Yes, I do think I am that powerful. Oprah tells me so. Your thoughts become your reality - The Law of Attraction.   

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I'M SO GREEN I EVEN RECYCLE...

I would like to congratulate those of you who have gotten Holiday cards out in a timely fashion. I can't get my kids to stand still, or together, or with their eyes open, or with clothes that cover their bodies appropriately, or push the hair out of their faces to create an appropriate holiday greeting card. It's a huge source of stress because I do not want to be removed from peoples Holiday card lists. So if you are reading this and think that the Ellis-Hendersons are snubbing you, I assure you it is not the case. I am holding out hope that we will capture the picture this weekend and it's just gonna be late. UNLESS I RECYCLE FROM YEARS PAST (they were WAY cuter too)? I mean, we order so many of those things. We've got hundreds of cards from years past we could send. Here's a smattering of a few, let me know which one you'd like and I'll send it along. 

#Hendo

What light's your fire these days? I feel like I've been "If you Give a Pig A Pancak-ing" around my life. Yes, that book has become a verb for me.

For example, I live in an old house with a fireplace and I haven't lit one fire this season. We have an obscene amount of firewood and not a single fire has been lit. It occurs to me to go light a fire but then I can't find matches. So I go to look for matches and I see that Tucker (the one you CANNOT pet) has peed on the kitchen floor. And then it really spirals because Kate is asking for more time on Tik Tok which reminds me that Aspen has been playing video games upstairs for at least 8 hours straight and I am a shitty mom. 

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MEANWHILE, IN THE NEWS NEWS...

Every time I turnaround, my wife is on the news. A lot of people ask me how this works.  Honestly, I wonder the same thing, because every time I turn around she's binge watching TV shows with me. I'm not kidding about this. "Dead to Me," "White Lotus," "Harry & Megan." I'm talking current stuff. How are you watching "White Lotus" with me while a selfie with Joe Biden appears on instagram and Joe's the one taking the selfie????? I'm as confused (and impressed) as you all are. 

Last night I was genuinely flipping through the channels and there she was at around 7:30pm on Joy Reid. I looked at my phone because it was still warm from our text exchange about Kate's volleyball game (time stamp 7:28pm, they won) and Aspen's (kinda fake) cold (time stamp 7:29pm). No mention that she was seconds away from stepping onto live television. Was she texting me from the seat at the table while sitting across from Joy Reid? I mean, shouldn't I know that? I get that it's not Diane Sawyer, but still. A quick mention that you're about to go live in case I want to tune in? I mean, God bless her....AND....SCENE. 

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HANGIN' WITH HENDO - THE PODCAST OF SOME SORT

I just shot Sibby a text because I want to (re) start my own video podcast. Or podcast. I don't really know how it all works. I mean, can a video podcast be an audio podcast? I'm sure it happens and it's just a google search away. I actually think I own "Podcasting for Dummies" and it's on the bookshelf in the same room where I almost lit a fire in the fireplace. Could be kismet.

Ideas for the podcast? I'm not a big researcher, so it's just going to have to be about any of my life's low hanging fruit or things that interest me, because it's all about me and how bored I get in between "gigs." Some ideas for topics include filling my shopping cart at Home Goods and putting it all back on the shelf before I check out with only a couple of picture frames and some caramels that were at the checkout counter. Or obsessing about where to find oversized nutcracker soldiers for my porch, or shoes that will help alleviate my lower back pain (Hoka's, btw, hot tip from Melissa Etheridge...name drop for ratings), or which Pat Benatar album is the best (this debate could go on for weeks). 

If that doesn't interest you, I understand. It's not a life or death thing for me that you tune in. I just feel like I should be doing something during the off time besides cleaning up dog pee and not lighting fires. See what I did there? 

P.S. I think Sibby should be my first guest.  

#Hendo

Ever since we offered up two St. Patty's Day Strats on our Kickstarter campaign, I've been obsessing over Fender Stratocasters. Anyone who knows the band well knows that Strats are NOT my go to. I am 100% Telecaster obsessed and will even put my neck out there to snub strats and their inability to meet my needs under all circumstances. 

Until one of the St. Patty's Day Green Strats arrived on my doorstep and I plugged it in and played it. 

Whoopsie. 

Ok ok. I'm willing to admit when I am a belligerent, opinionated, and quite clearly uneducated guitar player, granted twenty years after dissing stratocasters far and wide. And today I am going to track a song with Sibby's 1997 American Sunburst Stratocaster. Of course, I will also track the same song with my 1978 Telecaster Custom Deluxe and post a little video of both so we can all make an educated guess to see which guitar wins the battle! 

I will be honest. I am feeling smitten with the stratty, though, so my ears may not be fully unbiased in the expo. Warning shots fired. #Hendo 

Strat vs. Tele Custom 

We did it!  

No, YOU did it!  

Ok, WE ALL DID IT!  

Our Kickstarter campaign launched on March 15 at 12 noon EST, and on that very same day at 11:27PM, we were a fully funded campaign. That means one very important thing. It means we will receive all the money donated to our effort at the end of the campaign on April 13, 2021.  

Attaining that first goal is HUGE! It's EVERYTHING, actually. Without it, there's no game to play.  

So it's official. WE ARE IN THE GAME. COOKING WITH GAS. "FUNDED," as they say in Crowdfund speak. And that's our language this month. We are fluent in it.  

It's why we say things like, "now that we've hit our "initial goal" it's time to "SHATTER IT!"  

You know, catch phrases. Things to inspire more people to jump on board. We are a "winning team," people! We hit "THE GOAL."  

"BUT WAIT, THERE'S MORE!" 

"More?" Kristen, Cathy and Nini say to each other, with dread rumbling in their bellies. "We can't just go back to our home studios and make music with drop boxes and email each other links about the cool new microphones we bought at Sweetwater Music.com? 

No ladies, you can't. I mean. Yes ladies, you can do that. But you have to do some other stuff too. You're funded now. The switch has been flipped. The on button has been pressed. You are BACK. And you are BETTER THAN EVER. And don't you forget it.  

It's time to start planning music videos. And you actually have a few tracks you haven't finished yet. Remember those? There are still at least two songs not totally recorded. One isn't even fully written, but you are finishing it as we speak, right? And probably two songs that need to be mixed and mastered, whatever that means. Mixed and mastered is music speak for "not free." Even with your cool home studios, you can't mix or master anything. In fact, after 25 years of making recordings, you still don't even really know what mastering is. 

And now you actually have people who are waiting for you to load new tracks to the "secret page on your website" with the "sneaky all access code" that Kristen's daughter Kate thinks is "a ridiculous passcode, Mom."  

So this journey really is just beginning. Fully funded is the same type of relaxed feeling I got after my first trimester of pregnancy. I hit that milestone and thought, "Phew, I don't have to worry about this baby anymore." And ten seconds later I started worrying again. And twelve years later I am under the watchful eyes of a therapist to get me through the "tween" years. Quite happily, I might add.  

So here we are. Happily funded, and trudging forward to the next milestone! $10K is next, but let's be honest. $20K would be EVEN BETTER!  

Who doesn't love a good crowdfund campaign?  

#Hendo 

So, people are wondering what a Pittsburgh Pod is and why I've being seen around some social media outlets unmasked or masked but dangerously close to the likes of Jill Sobule and Julie Wolf. I felt it was appropriate to address people's concerns for my health and safety, as well as to just let you know what the f*ck is going on. 

So, here it is.

Singer/Songwriter Jill Sobule has created an autobiographical theater piece about how traumatic her seventh grade year was. The play is called F*ck 7th Grade (book by Liza Birkenmeier, music by Jill, directed by Lisa Peterson). The one and only Julie Wolf is the musical director. Jill basically details stories from her life through dialogue and song, so she is backed by an onstage band. That's where I come in. I have been cast as "the drummer," who also does get to fart my way through a monologue and a couple of flashback scenes to Jill's childhood. 

We all Covid tested before we got here. Then we Covid tested once we got here. We have studio apartments on the same floor of an apartment building that only we have access to. We are the only people who come and go. We mask ourselves like mummies and rehearsed outdoors for most of the first week or so until we were abundantly sure we were all ok. All indoor rehearsals are conducted at an obsessively far distance from each other and we wear masks every day through rehearsals - including dialogue AND singing. It's horrendous, hysterical and humbling all in one foul swoop. We've been here close to three weeks and the only people we've seen or come into contact with are members of the Pittsburgh Pod. 

The show is in production only. The dream is that one day we will no longer be living in a pandemic, and we will actually be able to perform this show live to real people who are seated inside a theater. 

Maybe I will get Jill and Liza and Julie to do a video podcast to talk about the show one evening this week. I'll just have to be sure they don't have plans....that's a joke. We are each others only plans. We live amongst ourselves. So I do think I can convince them to chat with me about this creative endeavor we have embarked on together. 

Stay Tuned....

#Hendo 

We've created a video blog series called Girls Rising Virtual Connect where we connect girls with trailblazing women for a conversation about what it takes to succeed in a world where many of us are marginalized. Join us with guests Carnie Wilson, Pamela Stewart (Coca-Cola/Glaad), Sarah Kate Ellis (Glaad CEO), Jill Sobule and Dar Williams (singer/songwriters), and many more as we explore some difficult and some fun topics with each other while simultaneously networking but most importantly CONNECTING during this strange time in history! 

We broadcast live every Thursday night at 7PM on Facebook. Join us. 

Join the road weary band backstage in Dahlonega, GA where things go off the rails, and fast. 

Tune in to Episode 3 of the newly created Hangin' With Hendo "The Podcast" now! My special guest is Senior Vice President of Everything Auction Related June 21st, Lisa Cashman! It's not only informative, but actually a bit funny as well. So hit play and enjoy the ride:

Listen along as Hangin' With Hendo the blog morphs into Hangin' With Hendo the podcast! I'll be talking with all the players that help make the Girls Rising Music Festival and Game Changer Awards happen! You can listen to the podcast where you like listening to podcasts! Or you can just click here and listen through spotify:

Which thing should I blog about? Please vote. 

1) Leaving Neverland was unbearable to watch. 

2) Luke Perry. I can't even. 

3) I watched the Netflix Documentary about Ted Bundy. Why did I do that?

4) Brooklyn 9-9 is so funny. 

5) The amount of love I have for my minivan.

On 10/1/18 I underwent an unexpected surgical procedure to repair herniated and ruptured discs in my cervical spine. The good news is I am moving slowly and steadily in the right direction and getting better everyday. 

Unfortunately, I have not been cleared to perform at this Friday night’s (sold out, btw) show at City Winery in NYC. That being said, the show will go on as scheduled. I just won’t be on stage and am waiting until Friday to see if I can make the trip into the city to view this once in a lifetime performance! I can tell you we’ve planned to have a few friends join us on stage, and when I say us I mean Antigone Rising - even if I’m not on stage I’m still there with my teammates in spirit. 

On a brighter note, I do plan to perform at our upcoming shows with Dar Williams at City Winery in DC on 11/2 and 11/3. We are putting finishing touches on our new EP that should be ready this winter. In early 2019 we will be doing a special Girls Rising outreach at LA LGBT Center with guest panelists Carnie Wilson and Melissa Etheridge (date and ticket information coming soon but early February is the plan), and of course we will be setting sail on The Melissa Etheridge Cruise with Shawn Colvin, Paula Cole, Joan Osborne, and many others from 3/31-4/7/19! 

Thank you to everyone for all the well wishes thus far and for continuing to support Antigone Rising and the work we are doing with our nonprofit, Girls Rising. It’s impossible to express my gratitude in words. 

Love, 

Kristen