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Leslie Dinaberg’s Articles

Dude Food

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516AmvTQJnL._BO2,204,203,200_PIsitb-sticker-v3-big,TopRight,0,-55_SX278_SY278_PIkin4,BottomRight,1,22_AA300_SH20_OU01_Is there really such a thing as dude food? If you were an alien looking in on our culture of Burger King and Yoplait ads you would certainly think so. But how much of our “dude food” and “chick picks” food preferences are based on cultural and gender stereotypes and messaging? A lot, according to “Mindless Eating: Why We Eat More Than We Think,” a book I recently picked up.

The author, Brian Wansink, is the director of Cornell University’s Food and Brand Lab and a professor of consumer behavior. We—the American consumer—are the lab rats for this scholar of the drive through window and the office candy bowl. I must say, we make pretty interesting subjects.

The average person makes more than 200 food decisions a day-and can’t explain most of them-according to Wansink. But society certainly seems to play a role.

While most traditional diet and nutrition books focus on what dieticians and health practitioners know, this book focuses on what psychologists and marketers know, and offers some new insight into why we eat what we eat.

For example, Wansink’s research found that 40 percent of people, both men and women, identified their favorite comfort foods as relatively healthy fare like soup, pasta, steak, and casseroles.

However, when it came time to rate a list of the foods they personally found the most comforting, “men and women might well have been from Mars and Venus,” writes Wansink. Women chose ice cream, chocolate and cookies as their most comforting foods. Throw in red wine and a Meg Ryan DVD and you’ve pretty much got my “cure for a stressful day” shopping list. Men, on the other hand, chose ice cream, soup and pizza or pasta as their comfort food faves.

The explanation for these preferences?

“When we asked men why they preferred pizza, pasta and soup over cakes and cookies, men generally talked about how good they tasted and how filling they were.” But when the researchers probed a little more they got additional feedback from the men that those foods made them feel cared for, important, or the focus of attention of either their wife or their mother.

No wonder they found them comforting.

When women were asked about those same foods, they found them less comforting because they thought about having to make them-or how hard their mothers had worked to make them-and then having to clean up after making them. In other words, despite the ease of picking up the phone and calling Rusty’s, which I guess they don’t have in Ithaca, some of the so-called comfort foods signaled discomfort for the women.

“For women, snack-like foods-candy, cookies, ice cream, chocolate-were hassle-free. (I guess they’re not making handmade truffles or Cherry Garcia.) Part of their comfort was to not have to make up or clean up anything. It was both effortless and mindless eating,” writes Wansink.

This book definitely made me wonder if the reason so many men behave like Hoover vacuums when it comes to food is that they aren’t usually the ones to clean up afterwards. It also made me wonder (be still my heart) if the younger generation of men, who willingly drink Diet Cokes and eat Cesar salads without making jokes about keeping their girlish figures, might also be more willing to pick up the vacuum.

Share your thoughts on dude food and chick picks with Leslie@LeslieDinaberg.com. For more columns visit www.LeslieDinaberg.com. Originally published in the Santa Barbara Daily Sound on July 16, 2010.

Why it’s okay to swoon

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TwilightAt the last Twilight movie, my girlfriend and I decided there should be a drinking game where you did a shot every time Jacob (18-year-old actor Taylor Lautner) took off his shirt and you heard the gasping chorus of all the teenage girls in the theater.

When you gasp you gulp. When you gasp you gulp. Big gasp. Big gulp.

Had we been playing I would have been just as tipsy as the Clearasil crowd.

I know that some people will be appalled to hear that even middle-aged moms can still swoon at the sight of a beautiful teenaged werewolf man-boy. I can understand their reaction. Every year I get a little closer to having a teenaged son of my own and then I understand their reaction even more. But here’s the thing: somewhere inside every grown up lives the child-and the teenager-they used to be.

Admittedly, I may be more in touch with my inner 13-year-old than many of my peers-though certainly not the ones who attended Tuesday’s night’s Angels Foster Care benefit screening of Eclipse at the Arlington Theatre. This is sometimes great and sometimes downright annoying, but it definitely helps me appreciate pop culture.

When I watch the Twilight movies I’m not someone’s mom and I’m not someone’s wife, I’m a teenaged girl, just like the rest of Team Jacob.

Clearly I’m not alone.

Describing the indescribable pull of the Twilight series (both books and movies), a 36-year-old mother of two told CNN reporter Breeanna Hare: “As grown women we know that we never forget our first love, the first time our heart was really broken. I just think that so many women can kind of identify with the experiences and emotions and underlying message of how difficult it is to make choices in life.”

New York Magazine columnists Em & Lo eloquently put it, “Twilight taps into a time when passion is as much about fantasy as reality, before drunken college hookups, before booty calls, before scheduling sex into a marriage. Twilight reinvents sex for women who might have placed it at the bottom of a to-do list.”

Some of my friends feel the same way (though not passionately enough to let me use their real names).

“Every time I look at R-Pat (tabloid-speak for Robert Pattinson, who stars as dreamy vampire Edward in the films), I feel like I am 12 years old again,” says Gena.

“Of course we don’t read the books or watch the movies for their literary merit,” laughs Serena, another mom friend. “But Twilight is the ultimate teenager girl’s fantasy. Two beautiful, sweet and undemanding boys fall madly in love with a plain, ordinary Jane. How can any woman, of any age, resist the spell of that daydream?”

Author Stephenie Meyers sounds a little surprised by the attraction to these characters. She told Time magazine, “I didn’t write these books specifically for the young-adult audience. I wrote them for me. I don’t know why they span the ages so well, but I find it comforting that a lot of thirtysomethings with kids, like myself, respond to them as well-so I know that it’s not just that I’m a 15-year-old on the inside.”

I think she’s wrong-Meyers is a 15-year-old inside, and a 9-year-old and a 25-year-old and so on. We all are. But sometimes it takes a cultural phenomenon like Twilight for us to realize it.

Share your Twilight theories with Leslie@LeslieDinaberg.com. For more columns visit www.LeslieDinaberg.com. Originally appeared in the Santa Barbara Daily Sound on July 2, 2010.

Peace Love Dirt

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Courtesy Live Oak Music Festival (Instagram)

Courtesy Live Oak Music Festival (Instagram)

Welcoming summer at Live Oak Music Festival

The salty smell of Coppertone. A colorful explosion of tie-dyed t-shirts and low-backed beach chairs. A cacophony of live music out in the sun and under the stars. That first sip of an ice cold Cadillac Margarita where the sweet kiss of Grand Marnier meets the sour tang of lime-laced tequila. Summer has finally arrived and I couldn’t have conjured up a better place to greet it than the Live Oak Music Festival.

Believe it or not, this was my first journey to this timeless spot, nestled in the peaceful Santa Ynez Valley, just minutes away from my Santa Barbara home, but worlds away from my fall-winter-springtime life in the carpool lane.

I know it seems like an oxymoron to say that a live music festival featuring a kaleidoscope of sounds ranging from traditional folk, bluegrass, gospel, to blues, jazz, classical, pop, world music and pirate aurghs could actually be peaceful, but somehow this one was.

Unlike some of the musical festivals I’ve been to in recent years, at Live Oak there was no mosh pit to fear, no skunkweed stink and no stale beer spills to accidentally step into. It was just an eclectic mix of great opportunities to hear, make and learn about music in a pleasant atmosphere alongside a community of several thousand genuinely friendly people relaxing and enjoying themselves. What a great way to welcome the summer.

No wonder people have been coming back here for 22 years.

It was Rickie Lee Jones who finally lured us to Live Oak. I was first introduced to her spacey, jazzy, sad chick sounds when I was in college, and thought “We Belong Together” was the most romantic song on earth. I still can’t resist Johnny the King walking in the streets without her in the rain looking for a leather jacket and a girl who wrote her name forever.

Her “Flying Cowboys” CD tunefully distracted me while her album of standards (“Pop Pop”) amused me through my commute during my driving years of living in Los Angeles. Zak was a fan too. We’d seen Rickie Lee Jones perform half a dozen or so times over the years, mostly in dark, smoky clubs, so we jumped at the chance to see her outside under the giant oak trees. The fact that it was Father’s Day was a bonus, as the rest of my family (and a few friends) jumped at this unique way to celebrate the holiday.

As usual, she didn’t disappoint. The sound was great, the setting unparalleled and I still love her music just as much as I did the first time I heard it.

I didn’t have any idea what to expect from the rest of the artists and was happily surprised. Starting with the high energy antics of Baka Beyond, who fuse African music from the Cameroon rainforest with Celtic fiddling, and sing about things like peace and porridge. Then there was the amazing jazz organist Dr. Lonnie Smith, who you really have to see-and hear-to believe; followed by the folksy rock tunes of Josh Ritter, an indie artist who is making a dent in the mainstream big-time, having recently been discovered and marketed by Starbucks.

They were all enjoyable but I have to say I took as much pleasure in people watching as I did the music.

Where else can you see (and Solstice doesn’t count) an absurdly fun parade led by an octogenarian Grandma in a purple tutu; a tribe of Zinka-nosed surf rats; a blissed-out hippie swaying to a tune that only he can hear; a weathered cowboy hosing down the dusty path as a bevy of tiny fairies hand out wishing dust; joined by a 50-ish brunette with a stylish haircut, Prada shoes, and a pair of ladybug wings and a yupped-out backpacker couple loaded down with the entire REI catalog worth of coolers and chairs?

My son liked playing soccer the best and I think my dad enjoyed his nap, so three generations of our family and friends all found something to like under the giant oaks this Father’s Day.

“This is a really cool thing. We should do it again next year,” said my mom, smiling and passing some more food. I couldn’t agree more.

What signals summer to you? Email Leslie@LeslieDinaberg.com. For more columns visit www.LeslieDinaberg.com. Originally published in the Santa Barbara Daily Sound on June 25, 2010.

Suck it Up Buttercup

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© Pkruger | Dreamstime Stock Photos & Stock Free Images

© Pkruger | Dreamstime Stock Photos & Stock Free Images

I had one of those yowza, take-a-deep-breath-and-try-not-to-cry parental moments the other day with my son.

We were talking about the school talent show, of all things. He had originally planned to form a band with a group of his buddies but all of their “rehearsals” had deteriorated into impromptu soccer games and water fights, so the budding Beatles never blossomed. They never even came up with a name for the band, which, as we all know, is the best part of being in a band.

Instead, a group of the boys decided to form a mime troupe and neglected to invite Koss. There’s a sentence I never imagined I’d write. Not that he had the slightest desire to climb his way out of an imaginary box-after years of seeing his father mock mimes, the mere idea of giving it a try was a genetic impossibility-but Koss was still sad that he hadn’t been asked.

I felt sure his friends hadn’t meant to hurt his feelings, and Koss agreed. But when I helpfully suggested that he let them know how he felt, he rolled his eyes at me and said the words I’ll never forget: “Mom, guys don’t do that. We act like nothing happened and move on.”

Why don’t you just mime an imaginary dagger stabbing through my broken heart?

When in the world had my tender, sweet, communicative little boy become, well, a guy?

Sure there had been symptoms over the years: plenty of fart jokes, burps, air guitars, sweaty socks and ESPN. But a certain tenderness had remained in my boy, despite all of the testosterone-fortified mayhem. I even worried that he was too tender sometimes. He cried more readily than most of his buddies and would obsess in great detail and for long periods of time when his razor-sharp radar detected a minute slight from a teacher or a friend. Truthfully, his hypersensitivity reminded me of my own thin skin and I worried about the future of his tender heart in the big, bad world.

My husband, who has never been accused of sensitivity, would often address Koss’s tender moments with a joking cackle of, “suck it up, buttercup.” My father, who never had any sons of his own, taught his grandson that, “pain is your friend,” a catch-all phrase meant to address any pain, physical or emotional, that might possibly prevent you from scoring the next goal, kicking the next ball or simply getting up and getting on with it.

Not that there was any overt sexism involved in these terse responses to life’s ups and downs. I had heard the “pain is your friend” adage from dad plenty of times over the years, and I think the stink of the stinkeye I gave my husband the one and only time he dared to tell me to “suck it up, buttercup” was more than sufficient to shut down that mode of communication-permanently. I’m just saying that my husband and father aren’t insensitive solely to Koss, they’re insensitive to everyone. Very egalitarian.

Resilience is a good thing to develop, right? But I still can’t help feeling sad that my little boy is becoming a big guy, which unfortunately seems to include the requisite rite of passage of sucking his emotions right back into his pointy little Adam’s apple.

No wonder there’s a lump stuck in my throat.

Sound off about sucking it up to Leslie@LeslieDinaberg.com. For more columns visit www.LeslieDinaberg.com.  Originally appeared in the Santa Barbara Daily Sound on June 18, 2010.

Taking the voluntary out of volunteering

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Photo by Stuart Miles, Freedigitalphotos.net

Photo by Stuart Miles, Freedigitalphotos.net

My son’s going into sixth grade and I’ve only missed a handful of class parties, PTA meetings, and field trips, all for very good reasons, documented in my guilt archives for posterity. I definitely don’t need to be forced to volunteer for anything; in fact, my husband tries to force my raised-hand down on a regular basis. I’m not looking for brownie points by volunteering at school, as far as I’m concerned it’s just what you do.

Well, it’s just what I-and the vast majority of parents that I know-do.

But not everybody volunteers and I’m mostly okay with that. Of course, my son attends a school that is stacked with parents who raise their hands to help out. Sure, it’s a lot of the same people helping out over and over, but does that really matter as long as the work gets done?

Probably not.

But not every school is as fortunate as mine and recently I’ve been reading about some that want to require parents to donate their time to the school.

Require. Not suggest, or encourage, but require.

This is common practice at private schools, and is starting to be more common at charter schools, which have more flexibility to govern themselves, but these are public schools I’m talking about here. Can they really take the “voluntary” out of parental volunteering?

Apparently they can.

At Pennington School, a public elementary/middle school in Prince William County, VA, parents are required to volunteer at least ten hours per year, reported the Washington Post. The parental contracts and other requirements are “an essential part of Pennington,” said Principal Joyce Boyd about the procedures, which have been in place since 2004. The PTO president told the same newspaper, “The school prefers to have the obligations performed at school during the day, but working parents can perform data entry at home, volunteer on weekends or help with spring beautification …”

In 2008 the Ohio legislature even went so far as to propose a bill that would force parents with kids in underperforming schools to volunteer for 13 hours each school year-or face a $100 fine. That bill didn’t pass, but now there is another bill under consideration requiring parents to attend at least one conference with a teacher each school year, or face a $50 fine

Last month the New York Times reported that San Jose’s Alum Rock Union Elementary School District was working on a proposal to require the families of all its 13,000 students to do 30 hours of volunteering per academic year. Many of the schools in the district, where 88 percent of the students are poor, do not even have parent-teacher organizations. It seems to me that starting a PTA is probably a better place to begin organizing parents than requiring volunteer hours.

Apparently this district was inspired by the success of another area school that actually graded parents on whether they contributed to the classroom.

I’d love to know what kind of grade other people would give to the idea of mandatory parent volunteerism.

When Leslie’s not at her son’s school, she can be reached at leslie@LeslieDinaberg.com. For more columns visit www.LeslieDinaberg.com.
Originally published in the Santa Barbara Daily Sound on June 4, 2010.

Of Course She Doesn’t Have Kids

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Photo by Sura Nualpradid freedigitalphotos.net

Photo by Sura Nualpradid freedigitalphotos.net

“A surprising percentage of women nominated to top government jobs have no children,” stated a recent Daily Beast story by Peter Beinart about Elena Kagan’s nomination and the gender make up of the Supreme Court.

That chortle you heard all the way across town was me, laughing out loud. Seriously? How can this possibly be surprising? It’s hard enough to balance a 40-hour-week middle management job with homework, soccer, ballet, piano, swimming, play dates, PTA meetings, birthday parties and getting a healthy meal on the table every once in a while. And these women being considered for the Supreme Court are ultra-achievers who’ve probably never worked a mere 40-hours a week in their lives!

Sometimes in the dead of night when I can’t get to sleep because I’m so overwhelmed by my to do list I console myself by the fact that even Oprah, who’s a rock star in every possible way, doesn’t have any kids to worry about. Neither does Condoleezza Rice or Janet Napolitano. And somehow–seriously–knowing that Martha Stewart doesn’t have kids or a husband at home makes me feel just a little bit better about the crazy high wire juggling act that my life can sometimes become.

The most recent census found that 27 percent of women aged 40 to 44 who have advanced degrees are not mothers. At the top end of the work pyramid, only 23.4 percent of women in the workforce are in executive level positions, yet a recent study commissioned by Maria Shriver and the Center for American Progress (“A Woman’s Nation Changes Everything“) found that now, for the first time in our nation’s history, women are half of all U.S. workers and mothers are the primary breadwinners or co-breadwinners in nearly two-thirds of American families.

So women are bringing home paychecks, just not big ones.

“About 67 percent of married mothers and 69 percent of mothers without a spouse today are employed outside the home. More women become the primary breadwinners for their families, yet they still earn less than their male counterparts. About 67 percent of workers paid at or below the minimum wage are women,” according to Secretary of the U.S. Department of Labor Hilda Solis, another contributor to the Shriver study.

In 1967 women made up only one-third of all workers, so this is a dramatic change and the workplace itself has yet to adjust to it. Of course this change has also been exacerbated by the goofily named “mancession,” which highlights the face that more men than women have lost their jobs as a result of the recession. Yet, for the most part we’re still working in environments where policies on hours, pay, benefits, and leave time are designed around the outdated model of male breadwinners who have little to no family care-giving responsibilities. This is not the reality today for men or women.

The reality is that the expectations placed on highly ambitious professionals and on mothers are both so demanding that it’s incredibly difficult for women to have it all.

So, sure, it would be great to have another mom on the Supreme Court so that she could have play dates with Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s kids. The kids could go arbitrate playground disputes or smack each other with gavels. But can we really be surprised if the next woman on the Supreme Court is not a mom?

Leslie has reconciled herself to the fact that she’s been way too candid in print to ever be nominated for the Supreme Court-that, and the whole not going to law school thing. Therefore, heretofore and forevermore you can reach her at Leslie@LeslieDinaberg.com or www.LeslieDinaberg.com. Originally published in the Santa Barbara Daily Sound on May 21, 2010.

Earning my Merit Badges

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UnknownAs someone who has earned her merit badge in procrastination a million times over-and that was just this month-I was simultaneously irritated and intrigued when I stumbled across Lauren Catuzzi Grandcolas’s book, “You Can Do It! The Merit Badge Handbook for Grown-Up Girls.”

It’s hard to argue with the book’s thesis, that it’s high time our “want-to-do lists” got as much attention as our “to-do lists.” But the 60 cleverly monikered “grown-up Girl Scout badges” didn’t really resonate with me. Car repair (pop the hood)? No thanks. Filmmaking (roll ’em), art appreciation (be a renaissance gal) and meditation (get an inner life)? Maybe.

As a former Girl Scout, Brownie, Camp Fire Girl and Indian Maiden, I’ve always had a thing for merit badges. And since goal setting is one of the skills that all former scouts know all about, I decided to coax a few of my own big dreams out of hiding and invent my own set of “earned age-level awards” for grown ups. Incidentally, writing this list should earn me emblem number 60 from Grandcolas’s book, “You can do it!” which encourages people to invent and pursue their own merit badges.

I’ll be checking my mailbox to add the “I can do it” badge to my sash. Meanwhile, here are a few of the other badges on my “want-to-do list.”

The $25,000 Pyramid Badge: For just one day I’d like to consume the recommended six servings of grains, five vegetables, four fruits and two servings each of milk and protein without gaining seven pounds and/or having a monster stomachache.

Badge Steps:

(1.) I always forget, is a tomato a fruit or a vegetable?

(2.) You say tomato, I say chocolate.

(3.) Let’s call the whole thing off and count beer as a grain and vodka as a vegetable.

Do as I Say Badge: Like any loving parent, I live for the day that the words, “But last time you said …” “But you and daddy get to …” and “But everyone else gets to …” are forever banished from my son’s lips.

Badge Steps:

(1.) Rewind my son’s life to when he was a baby and all he did was smile, eat, sleep and poop.

(2.) Or, fast-forward a few years, to when he’ll likely be giving me the silent treatment in protest of something I wrote about him in this column.

(3.) Or, find the mute button.

Too Big for Primetime Badge: There are six magic words that have been haunting my dreams since my show stopping performance as Lucy in my third grade class’s version of “You’re a Good Man Charlie Brown.” They are, of course, “I’d like to thank the Academy.” However, more recently they’ve been upstaged by another six magic words: “Why thank you for asking, Oprah.”

Badge Steps:

(1.) Compliment the fabulously talented, stunningly generous Ms. Winfrey regularly in my column.

(2.) Send her subliminal messages in my sleep until she realizes what a witty and charming guest I would make on her show.

(3.) Appear on show and be so witty and charming that Oprah invites me to “stop by anytime.”

(4.) Appear on show several more times, developing witty and charming repartee with Oprah, my new best friend.

(5.) Write witty and charming screenplay for Oprah to star in and produce.

(6.) “I’d like to thank the Academy.”

It’s a bird, it’s a plane, it’s super-Leslie Badge: I know I want a super power, I’m just not sure which one. I’ve always wanted the power to freeze a moment in time, like that moment in time when I had a perfect, 20-year-old body. Or the power of invisibility, so that I could steal things. Or I could be a crime fighter. It’s hard for a girl to commit.

Badge Steps:

(1.) Get in industrial accident involving chemicals, radiation, lightening, and some insect that’s not too yucky – maybe a butterfly.

(2.) Conjure up my grandpa’s voice, saying, “Keep exercising that imagination, kid. It’ll take you places someday.”

(3.) “You know Oprah, I’ve always wanted to have super powers. How do you do it?”

The Thrill of Competition Badge: While competing at Wimbledon, the Indy 500 and the Kentucky Derby have long been relegated to video game fantasies; I’d still like to have box seats someday.

Badge Steps:

(1.) Mention to my good friend Oprah that I’ve always to attend Wimbledon, the Indy 500 and the Kentucky Derby.

(2.) Thanks for the time off. Of course I’ll write a column about it, boss.

Send your adult merit badge suggestions to Leslie@LeslieDinaberg.com. For more columns visit www.LeslieDinaberg.com. Originally published in the Santa Barbara Daily Sound on May 14, 2010.

 

Noozhawk Talks: Leslie Dinaberg Sits Down With Spencer Barnitz

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Spencer Barnitz, aka Spencer the Gardener, says his music is “shaped by the ocean, the rhythms of the world and pop music from my life.” (Lara Cooper / Noozhawk photo)

Spencer Barnitz, aka Spencer the Gardener, says his music is “shaped by the ocean, the rhythms of the world and pop music from my life.” (Lara Cooper / Noozhawk photo)

Spencer Barnitz‘s unique pipes and idiosyncratic perspective have entertained music fans for most of his life. His new wave band The Tan began when he was barely out of Santa Barbara High, eventually followed by a still-active cover band, The Wedding Band, and for the past 21 years, Spencer the Gardener, a sound the band describes as “California sun-kissed, Latin-tinged, genre-bending, big-band surf mariachi indie pop.”

Leslie Dinaberg: There’s something really unique about your music, whether you’re singing a pop song or in Spanish and even now with your kids’ album, “Organic Gangster.”  What do you think it is that makes something a Spencer song?

Spencer Barnitz: My songs are really shaped by the ocean, the rhythms of the world and pop music from my life. As a kid I listened to the Supremes but I loved Brit pop too and Mexican stuff, Salsa music, so it’s kind of a fusion in a way of a lot of those different things, which has been great and has been bad. It’s kind of a blessing and a curse in a lot of different ways.

LD: Is it different playing kid’s music?

SB: It’s funny having a CD like that. It’s cute and it has a good message. … For me it’s such a different thing because I’ve been doing pop music for so long. It’s still pop music but it’s just a different manifestation.

LD: How did you decide that you wanted to do this?

SB: Well it was kind of interesting because my girlfriend sells worms; she’s the worm girl. Last year they did a short it was in the green shorts festival. … I said you want a song? I’ll write a song for it.

I loved it! I had done the “Gobble Song” a couple of years ago, which became sort of an Internet sensation, every Thanksgiving it gets tons of hits. So there were a couple kid’s songs and I thought you know what, I should just try to keep going because everything I wrote was really fast and fun.

I did it very fast. Like one day I was reading the horoscope and it was talking about a mountain chicken frog. I was like there’s no way there is a mountain chicken frog. I went and looked it up and there it was. It’s in danger of becoming extinct. I just quickly wrote a song about it and loved the song and I love the fact that that’s how I found it. … So it’s been kind of fun and it’s been educational for me in a way.

LD: Talking to kids you get to-or have to be-so much more on the nose than you are when you are talking to adults. You do have to really say things in a different way and it’s not always easy.

SB: Because you have to sort of know what you’re talking about. (Laughs)

LD: I’ve been listening to your music since I was 16 or something and now my son got to hear you sing at his school. I love that.

SB: You know there was somebody there at the spaghetti dinner at the school and the dad had been aware of the Tan since he was 14. So it was kind of like oh wow, I don’t know if I should say thanks or sorry. Now his daughter is listening to it, so that is just an insanely long generational thing, which I like that for myself, it makes me happy. I don’t know if it makes other people happy (Laughs).

LD: Oh absolutely it does.

SB: I think I’m past the point of … sometimes you get to a point where they’re like wow they’re still here. And then you go beyond that point and it’s like wow, they’re still here.

LD: Plus you do such a wide variety of stuff Do you write all the music for Spencer the Gardener?

SB: I do except for we did put out two years ago we put out a record called “Fiesta” and I didn’t write any of that, those are all cover songs. I’ve wanted to do that record since I was a kid. Probably the reason I speak Spanish is because I grew up singing Spanish, which has a lot to do with Santa Barbara. Fiesta was just always a part of things. So I did that record because I wanted to and I’ll probably do another one at some point.

I remember I had a class at Santa Barbara High School, Mr. Hall was my Spanish teacher, and every Friday he would have everybody sing, which was just terrifying in high school.

LD: Why?

SB: I didn’t do that yet. My sister was always a good singer. She’s actually on this record.

LD: I saw that.

SB: And she’s the principal at Ellwood School. So my sister had sung a lot but I wasn’t a singer, but I would surf and I was going to Mexico so in high school on Friday afternoons you could just see everyone go oh no, but it was fun, but it was terrifying. But for these young kids it’s really fun. They’re young, they’re singing, they’re laughing. They don’t have the self-conscious thing that you do when you’re in high school.

LD: I remember your sister from junior high. That’s cool that she sang on your record.

SB: She’s got a great voice. When she got out of high school she left Santa Barbara and didn’t come back for a long time. She went to Berklee School of Music, she sang on the East Coast and so she is a very good singer.

LD: How did you guys get so musical?

SB: I don’t know. My dad died young so I don’t really even know that whole side of the family. But my sister and I, when she came back into town and she was singing she was doing some weird hand movements and I was looking at her like those are mine. They’re not my mom’s or my dad’s, they’re mine, but they are hers too. And she speaks fluent Spanish, she actually speaks a couple of languages and its like wow this is so weird, there are two kids who do these things. She just started to surf. We both do these things that are completely separate from both of our parents. … it’s just kind of some mix, maybe some weird hybrid.

LD: So tell me about how you got started in music?

SB: Well Brad (Nack) went to Europe in 1978 and … he came back and said you know we should start a new wave band. I was 18, and he was 20 … it was like we thought maybe girls would like us and it was something to do besides surfing (Laughs) and all of those same reasons that everyone does that. … I said that sounds fun, let’s go to Mexico I’ll teach you how to play guitar and we’ll write some songs and start a band.

LD: Why Mexico?

SB: Mexico has been an interesting part of my life. For some reason no matter where I go it’s like something ends up having part of Mexico in it. Mexico is because we surf for one, so that’s always a thing. If you live in California and you surf, usually you take some trips to Mexico because it’s close. For me it is a lot more than because like I said, I grew up singing in Spanish and I’ve just always spent a lot of time in Mexico. Perhaps that was one of the reasons too is just because we started the band there. We were gone for three months and then came back and started the Tan.

We were even thinking of doing a new Tan record and going to Mexico to do it.

LD: After seeing all of those people who showed up at your reunion show last summer, I think you’d have a market.

SB: There are a lot of justifications and rationalizations for doing things like going to Mexico. Yeah let’s go for six months. We need to do this. This is what we need to do (Laughs). This is really going to be a good thing for us. And it is always a good thing for me. I mean it’s been it’s been rejuvenation, escape, it’s been all kinds of things I suppose.

… We went to Mexico on a surf trip with the idea of learning to play guitars and writing songs and that’s exactly what we did and came back and started the Tan. And for a while it was fun but it was like we were definitely counter culture at that time and then somehow or other we got into the mainstream and I somehow ended up being in music for the rest of my life (Laughs).

LD: Did you ever think when you and Brad were wandering off to Mexico to learn to play guitar that this would become your life’s work?

SB: Not in the same way that I do now. There’s the beauty of youth which is you just think everything you do is going to be great. So yeah, sure, we thought we would be retired by 26 and have all the money in the world (Laughs). It was kind of a brutally rude awakening that that wasn’t going to happen. But it’s been a pretty fun ride. A good one. Music has given me a lot. It’s taken me all over the world. I mean it’s probably not for everybody because it is not real stable; there are highs and lows. It’s left me in far corners of the world too.

LD: To sing your way home?

SB: Yeah. But it’s gotten me there.

LD: Have you always stayed pretty much rooted in Santa Barbara?

SB: Yeah. I lived in LA for a little while. We moved to London with the Tan for a couple years but more and more it doesn’t matter where you are now because everything is so easy to get somewhere else. Santa Barbara is, I mean this is a great place. It is it has so much out of the world of what you want, at least what I want. It’s beautiful, it’s warm, and it’s convenient. It’s expensive but a lot of places are expensive.

LD: I read that you had a pretty serious car accident years ago?

SB: 1991. I broke all of the bones in my face. I still have plates in my face. The worst thing about that was that was right after we put out two CDs, we were on fire, and everyone was just like waiting for what the next thing with us was going to be. We had a management company and it just seemed like there was no stopping us, except for maybe a head-on, death-defying car accident, which put us out of commission for a year.

And the musical landscape changed. Our management company and us severed ties and then we just blindly kept going because I was stubborn. So yeah, that changed, that reshaped probably a lot of my future.

LD: It’s interesting though to look back on things like that because you’re making very different music now than you did back then.

SB: The stuff I do is always slightly quirky so I mean in that way if you listen to the first Spencer the Gardener CD and the one that I’m about to do, it’s still similar. Or if you listen to the first one and the kids’ one, it’s still crazy, wacky funny.

LD: Do you ever feel a kind of push and pull between art and commerce?

SB: (Laughs) Yes I do. I wish that my stuff sold like crazy!

You know I think it’s funny now because everything is so much easier. Everybody can do things but there are so many more people doing it and everything is pretty good you know, and I bind myself into that. It’s not like it’s world changingly earth shatteringly fantastic. There are a lot of fairly good bands out there, so it’s hard to kind of like sneak through and end up where you are basically have broken though where your art and commerce intersect in a beautiful way.

LD: What else do you do when you’re not working?

SB: I like to surf, play basketball, salsa, those are probably tops, jump high, run fast.

LD: If you could pick three adjectives to describe yourself, what would they be?

SB: Wow this is a really interesting question because now you’ll dealing with what do you want them to be or what are they. This is one I’m going to actually think about for a while … (Spencer sends an email to Leslie several days later) I have been perplexed by adjectives all week, so I guess self-absorbed would have to be one of them … calm and sarcastic, then, depending on the day, they change directions lazy, driven, witty, dull, thrill seeking, couch laden, etc. I doubt if you meant for me to give it this much thought…

I was thinking adventurous but no that’s not really true anymore. That was true at one time. I’ve changed over the years in different ways. That would have been something that I would have loved and would have said and would have believed and probably not so much anymore.

LD: Well there are all kinds of adventure. You could certainly argue that pursuing a life as a musician is an adventurous path.

SB: Yeah, either that or just kind of ridiculous. If you mix whimsical, adventurous and difficult together you might get ridiculous. … It’s funny because we used to have a song in the Tan called “young, strong and free.”

LD: I like that.

SB: Which would have been really the way we described ourselves. I would still say fun. Because that’s a word I overuse. Stubborn, determined and what does Einstein say when you keep doing the same thing and expecting different results.

LD: That’s the definition of insanity (Laughs).

SB: Yeah, unfortunately that seems to fit with me a little bit too.

Vital Stats: Spencer Barnitz

Born: September 14 in Santa Barbara, CA

Family: Father deceased, mother Mercedes, sister Liz

Civic Involvement: “I’ve done just a whole mess of benefits over the years for a lot of different organizations. I’m not actively involved with anybody right now.”

Best Book You’ve Read Recently: God’s Middle Finger: Into the Lawless Heart of the Sierra Madre by Richard Grant; Shadow of the Wind. 

Originally published in Noozhawk on May 11, 2010.

Drive-in Delights

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Courtesy Santa Barbara Drive-In and Public Market

Courtesy Santa Barbara Drive-In and Public Market

The Santa Barbara Drive-In Theater reopens tonight after a 19-year intermission and I can’t remember when I’ve been so excited.

I can, however, remember a lot of great times at the Drive-In.

We moved to Santa Barbara when I was in kindergarten and some of my earliest memories are of my sister Pam and I, bundled up in our footie pajamas, in the back of our parents’ old, Aqua Velva blue Ford Pinto. We’d get to the Drive-In early so we could play on the playground slides, seesaws and swings. My favorite ride was always the spinning Merry-Go-Round-an important rite of childhood, which today’s insurance carriers, and probably a few broken limbs and blows to the head, have all but exterminated. The only thing better than the world of indescribable dizziness the Big Spinner provided was the sugar buzz we got from the assortment of Pop Rocks, Razzles, Bottlecaps, Atomic Fireballs, Grapeheads and Twizzlers our parents let us use to wash down the popcorn.

After all that candy we inhaled, they probably shouldn’t have been surprised that I managed to stay awake well beyond the family-friendly first features like “Fiddler on the Roof” and “Bedknobs and Broomsticks,” into the racier, late night fare. Despite my mom’s command that I, “Go to sleep. It’s way past your bedtime,” I still remember seeing large, incredibly inappropriate chunks of “Carnal Knowledge,” “Dirty Harry” and “Deliverance” at a very tender age.

As I edged into my teen years the Drive-In was still a favorite place to hang out, but by then it had nothing to do with what movies were playing. It was all about seeing friends, being seen, and knowing who was steaming up their car windows in the back row and who was breaking up behind the snack bar. It was all about how many friends you could hide under the cargo hold in the way back part of mom’s station wagon, how many people you could pack in the trunk, or-if you could resist the urge to giggle, and have you ever seen a pack of teenagers who can actually do this-how many pals you could fit under a blanket in the back seat.

Sneaking people in was part of my teenage fun of the Drive-In. For some inexplicable reason, I even remember doing this on the nights when they were charging a flat fee per carload just to keep up with the tradition.

Traditions die hard in this town and the Drive-In theater has been sorely missed.

It’s actually thanks in large part to the efforts of a far more motivated teenager than I ever was, 17-year-old San Marcos High senior Dominique O’Neill, that the next generation of moviegoers will get to go to the Santa Barbara Drive-In.

Last month Dominique organized a fundraiser at the Drive-In to benefit Direct Relief International. It was so successful and so many people wanted to return and share the Drive-In movie experience with their friends that she started a Facebook page to show the current owners, West Wind Drive-Ins, how much public support there was. In just over a week approximately 6,500 people joined the Facebook group (including yours truly) to pledge their support.

“I expected people to want the Drive-In to reopen, but I was astonished by how many people joined so fast,” said Dominique, who wanted to recognize the people who helped her with the Direct Relief fundraiser and spurring interest in reopening the Drive-In. “None of it would have been possible without the help of West Winds Drive-Ins and Public Markets, especially Ken Krummes, Mitch Moore of M&M Painting, Bob Shoppe of Milpas Rental, Kirk Morely of Morely Construction, Clare Moore, Emily Knuutinen, Shelby Zylstra, Maren Walker, Danielle Gruenberg, Whitney Caldwell, and most importantly my mother, Mary O’Neill.”

Awww! What a sweet Mother’s Day present for Dominique’s mom, and a great thing for all of us to celebrate this weekend. I can’t wait!

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The first movie to open at the Santa Barbara Drive-In (907 South Kellogg Ave. in Goleta) is “Iron Man 2,” which runs from May 7 through May 13 and shows at 8:00 p.m. and 10:25 p.m. nightly. After that all screenings will be double features. Tickets are $6.75 and children 5-11 are only $1, with special discounts on Tuesday nights. Visit www.westwinddi.com to sign up for weekly emails with the upcoming movie schedule.

Bring on the popcorn! Leslie would never be so rude as to check her email during a movie, but when she’s not at the Drive-In she can be reached at Leslie@LeslieDinaberg.com. For more columns visit www.LeslieDinaberg.com.Originally published in the Santa Barbara Daily Sound on May 7, 2010.

Kindergarten Screening

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photostock freedigitalphotos.net

Playing “tour guide” for the parents of incoming kindergarteners this morning, I couldn’t help feeling a little nostalgic. It wasn’t that long ago that I was holding a tiny, nervous hand in my bigger and more nervous one, as we made our way to the first in a long series of school tests. Sure, they call it a “kindergarten screening” but make no mistake-the kindergarten screening is your child’s first official test as he enters the world of elementary school.

What? He’s taking a test already? He hasn’t even started yet. Aren’t you supposed to teach him something first? Nope.

While dad is checking out the other incoming kindergarteners, trying to spot the redshirts who are already nine years old and have read the entire Harry Potter series-in Mandarin-and mom is looking around for other moms to be her new best friends, the teachers are evaluating your little angel’s motor ability, conceptual knowledge and language skills, not to mention his vision and hearing.

Talk about nerve wracking.

When Koss was pre-K they had the parents go into the evaluation with the children, but they’ve since wised up and now have the children go in on their own. Having a bunch of anxious parents hovering over them doesn’t exactly inspire natural behavior in most kids.

Hence the introduction of the PTA-provided tour of the school to help distract the nervous parents while their children are (hopefully, please, help me out here kid and I’ll give you a cookie) making wonderful first impressions on their new teachers.

Kindergarten does make a big impression, that’s for sure. It’s been 40 years and I can still remember my own first day of school like it was yesterday. It’s been almost seven years and I can still remember Koss’s first day of kindergarten like it was yesterday. I can’t remember yesterday, but that’s a whole different story.

The parents on my tour asked some great questions about parking and the playground, the cafeteria, cubbies and the computer lab. They asked about volunteering, donations, daycare and enrichment classes, but I neglected to share with them some of the things I remember about Koss’s kindergarten year.

He learned about the “bossy E,” who was simply silent when I went to school. He learned about raising his hand to get attention, and about taking turns and waiting patiently, although he still sometimes has issues with that one. He learned about spiders and wolves and coins and backpacks. He also learned about homework and projects and dioramas and which parent is better with counting and which parent is better with a glue gun. If you ask Koss, he’ll say the best thing that happened in kindergarten was he learned to love to read, surely a marvelous thing for any child, but especially for one without siblings.

If you ask me, the most important thing of all that Koss learned in kindergarten was to love going to school. He adored his teacher. I’ll never forget the dejected look on his face when I explained to him that he would have a different teacher for first grade. Thankfully he’s loved first grade, second grade on up through this year’s fifth grade with almost the same kind of relish. But kindergarten is special. Whether it was their first child to enter kindergarten or their last, I’m pretty sure that all of the parents were marveling that somehow their babies had reached that stage.

I know I’ll be feeling that way again before I know it. Junior High is right around the corner.

When Leslie’s not marveling at how quickly time flies, she’s usually at her keyboard wishing her fingers flew a little more quickly. Email her at Leslie@LeslieDinaberg.com. For more columns visit www.LeslieDinaberg.com. Originally published in the Santa Barbara Daily Sound on April 20, 2010.