When I was in high school, my mother, while high on Percocet, hit and killed a man with her car. She had serious back problems her entire adult life and chewed on the pills to ease the pain. She was charged with vehicular manslaughter and sent to the local jail. She wrote me long letters in her beautiful script. I can’t remember if I ever answered them. I have not seen her since I was fourteen years old.
My dad encouraged me to be tender toward this woman. I had a hard time with that. I didn’t want to keep punishing her for choices she made decades ago, but what had she done for me besides give me life?
Racism, drug addiction, and mental illness were regular parts of the ongoing discussion my father had with us when we were growing up. He didn’t hide the truth or even shrink it to kid-sized bits of information. If anything, he shared too much about the darkness of the world too early, hence my fuck-up with my little friend who refused to ride in the car with him. He told us we had to be careful about who we told our story to, but he wouldn’t let us hide from it ourselves.
After all the stories, with all their hints of what I’d inherited, of course I would stay away from drugs. I was smart enough to avoid repeating the same mistakes. That path had been worn out, and I was going on the straight and narrow. Or so I believed.
7
Rites of Passage
After a stint in D.C., my dad accepted his dream job at The New York Times. Over the course of fifteen years, he had gone from editing at the Twin Cities Reader to working on the film, culture, and media beat at one of the most esteemed newspapers in the world. He had arrived. I, in turn, was attending a tiny, all-girls Catholic high school outside of New York City, pulling okay grades, and spending most weekends loading up on Monster energy drinks while watching Dawson’s Creek.
During the summer of my sophomore year of high school, my friend Jenny and I invited our small cohort over to watch Ryan Phillippe bamboozle the ingénue Reese Witherspoon in Cruel Intentions. Buzzed on the underlying sexual tension, we were looking for something to do next.
“I know my parents keep a bottle of vodka around here somewhere, we could take turns,” Jenny offered as she left the room in search of a bottle of lemon-flavored Ketel One. She came back with a bottle, and we traded swigs, all the while grimacing at how “gross” it tasted.
But in truth, it didn’t taste gross to me; it tasted like pure magic. My head started to hum, my smile felt easier. The night devolved into YouTube videos and fits of laughter until we all passed out. Later that night, I stole to the basement one more time to take additional swigs. I pressed the bottle to my mouth until it was empty and promptly threw up all over the basement floor. The next morning, Jenny wondered aloud why I got so sick when we only had a couple of sips. I didn’t have the courage to admit that I drank more by myself. Instinctively I knew that was something that should be kept secret.
The remainder of high school passed without further incident, as far as drinking went. I drank on a few occasions, but I never reached the stupor of that first time. While it held some allure for me, I was able to keep my desire for alcohol at bay, for the most part.
Eventually it came time for me to pursue higher education. Almost a decade after we left the Midwest, my family and I made the drive back—this time from New Jersey to Madison, Wisconsin, where I would be attending college. We pulled up in our Ford Explorer to the dorm that would be my home for freshman year; I was sweaty from days in the car with my dad, Jill, and Meagan. I was also sweaty from nerves. Did I look the part of a hip but edgy college freshman? I had dyed my hair an auspicious color of fire-engine red and cut it short. I rocked a Rolling Stones T-shirt and red-and-black-striped skinny jeans from the cult-kid-wannabe chain store Hot Topic. Years later, my dad teased me that it seemed like my mission was to go to college as ugly as possible.
Before he left me at the dorm he told me to have fun but to practice caution; he knew that college would be a time of high jinks. And as always he told me how desperately proud he was of me. A couple of tears leaked out of my eyes as he hugged me. I was ready, but that didn’t mean it didn’t hurt to say goodbye.
It took a while, but I started to get the hang of the whole college thing. I logged some serious time in the library, but I also devoted quite a few hours to drinking amber liquids at the famed Wisconsin student union with my beloved gang of miscreants. I felt like I found my people in college—weirdos like me who laughed loudly and stood out among the preppie Wisconsinites that lived for football Saturdays. Sure, we went to football games, but it was mostly just an excuse to drink.
Once, on a night before my dad was due to arrive for one of our biannual visits, my roommate Jamie clumsily elbowed me in the face while drinking. As a result, my Monroe piercing (a stud above the lip) became infected. It. Was. Not. Pretty.
When my dad stepped off the plane the next day, he took one look at me and said, “What the fuck?” It looked like someone had punched me in the mouth with a fake-diamond nail.
Instead of dropping off his luggage at the Best Western downtown, we headed straight for the piercing place on State Street. The Monroe had to go. I protested, albeit weakly, because in truth the throbbing in my face was getting to me. I kept my head down as we sat in the waiting room. My dad jumped on his phone and paced around, not paying his surroundings much mind. A cute guy with gauges called me over, and I reluctantly identified the man with me as my father. My dad made some deeply inappropriate joke about my roommate knocking me around as, in one swift motion, the cute guy removed my piercing.
Afterward, my dad told me he needed ten minutes to make another phone call. We walked outside. “What is it about you that trouble just sort of follows you around?” he asked, his expression one of bewilderment tinged with disappointment as he ducked away to make his call. When he was done, he walked back over to me on the sidewalk. I expected him to crack wise but was met with silence. He looked at me and said, “I have to say I am a little worried about you….Did this happen while you were drinking?”
The question hung in the air. While my dad had been sober for most of my childhood, my mom had not. I knew what addiction looked like. The disorder ran in my genes. I tried to push that feeling to the far reaches of my brain whenever it surfaced, with moderate success, but I saw the disease infect the people in my life. Some would recover. Others, like my mother, would not. The warning was there when I took my first drink.
In college, I kept an online journal, and I typed furiously about my burgeoning drinking problem. Still, I got mostly Bs and some As. I could study and hold down a part-time job. I had a friend group that was full of smart, genuine people. I was responsible and showed up on time. But I often woke up drenched in sweat, paranoid about the things I did or said the night before, knowing I would just do it again the next weekend. Drinking, even when I was eighteen, started to guide my choices.
Still, I didn’t want my dad to worry about me, and I definitely didn’t want him to be disappointed. We wound up making a bet. The bet was really more of a bribe. He told me he would give me sixty dollars if I refrained from getting another piercing for one calendar year. I won the bet, begrudgingly. I needed the money.
* * *
—
On April 15, 2008, I finally turned twenty-one. My dad sent me a bottle of Dom Pérignon and a letter. Despite his misgivings about my drinking, he felt I deserved to enjoy some nice champagne. I never asked him why.
Dolly, do you have an idea how much I adore you and think of you?
You are a fundamental joy of my life. Who you are and how you proceed brings me a sense of deep happiness I can’t express in words.
There is so much to like about who you are becoming that it makes a very long list but let me just flick at a few things.
You are beyond question cool
You are smart and getting smarter
You are afraid of very few things
&n
bsp; You are increasingly kind
You care about the world
You knew who Obama was before others did
You have a magnificent taste in music and film and the ability to articulate your choices
You are a snot about culture, but not snotty
You are a Smith house fellow
You have matched wits with a meth head fry cook
You once had a nail sticking out of your face and were able to act like it was nothing
You are a good sister, daughter, and friend
You are beautiful and have inimitable style
You are very flexible when it comes to hair color
You love your dad and he loves you back
Roar, Fahja
8
How (Not) to Intern
“Don’t be scared. Be very happy. This is the sound of yer life beginning. F.”
In 2009, no one in America was immune to the ongoing global financial crisis, including the Carr household. I knew I had to get a job to help pay my college tuition. This was nothing new—I’d worked since I was fifteen. There was, however, the issue of what the hell I was going to do exactly in the real world with the communication arts degree that I was working toward. Maybe it was time for a summer internship, preferably one that paid, as I needed to eat.
Little did I know my dad was plotting something to help me gain entrance into the workforce. Late one Saturday night he sent me this email:
Erin, you know what? screw the economy. I think we can get something rolling for you seeing as you demonstrated early and specific interest. and you should know that part of the reason that i can recommend you without hesitation is the big leap you took in terms of responsibility and skill set this year as an RA. you should be proud of what you have already accomplished.
I need a bright, breezily written couple graphs about you and your experience. worked since x years old, waited tables, bartended, daycare provider, and now assistant at campus media center and resident advisor…blah, blah, areas of study and interest, skills…html, vid stuff, computer, etc. self describe as earner, worker, low maintenance, high reward, highly adaptable, having lived and worked in a variety of environments and cities. from ordering food from meth head fry cook upstate to negotiating peace between cops and residents in madison…mebee not quite that colorful, but something like that.
and then statement of interests…all forms of pop culture, esp film, television and music. etc. and then say what you are looking for…internship…and what you are willing to do for it…basically anything. send that to me and I will start retailing it around on email to people who might be interested. and I want a current photo emailed under sep. cover.
let’s get this train rolling.
xo, fahja
He had a sizable Rolodex filled to the brim with people I read about regularly in my battered copies of Entertainment Weekly. He liked to name-drop, and I was one of the only people in our family who knew even the more obscure people he referred to, so he was always eager to jump on the phone with me and talk over the latest adventure or mishap on some red carpet and to dish about who was mean and who was nice—or at least nice-looking up close.
He’d requested a photo for the internship pitch, so I looked over the few I had at my disposal (this was before the ubiquity of the iPhone), taken recently on my cheap digital camera to celebrate the one time I’d achieved the perfect liquid line on my eye. It was an odd photo to send to your dad—or to a potential employer—a selfie before they were a thing. I’m seated on a couch; the top of my white T-shirt is somewhat in frame but it is mostly me glaring into the camera with my mouth slightly open and my eyes wide. My blond hair is swept to the side, late-aughts emo style, and I’m looking down into the camera. This is the photo I chose to say “Hey, give me a job! I’ll try not to be annoying!”
Very professional photo to send to future employers, taken in my dorm room.
The following is what I drafted and sent to my dad:
The name is Erin Carr and I am graduating college and am desperately trying to avoid The Graduate type of situation because one, I don’t own a deep-sea diving suit and two, I don’t know anyone named Mrs. Robinson. I will ultimately graduate with a degree in Communication Arts from University of Wisconsin-Madison. I have worked at a variety of jobs including dancing to the oldies while making a mean banana split, educating the future of America at a learning center, pouring glass after glass of Glenlivet to old men who always have stories to tell (whether I want to hear them or not) and my one true passion: media. Media has fascinated me since my single digits up until now. While my peers were watching crappy teen soaps I was consuming all forms of media new and old, television and film, blogging, viding and capturing images compulsively. I understand that I am one of many that will attempt to work for you this upcoming summer but I am a girl who can lift things 1.5 my weight, break down a set, make problems disappear and take enormous pride in doing small things well while taking an interest and sometimes helping with bigger things. Please contact me if you have any room available on your team, I would love to work for you.
I also added to the email: “Where do I put in that I am your daughter, and is there a classy way to do that?”
He read the pitch and told me it needed to be shorter and funnier (a good rule of thumb for most things). He then sent me back the following revision:
My name is Erin Carr and I will be a senior at University of Wisconsin-Madison next year. I want to be part of your production/caper as a go-fer/gaffer/girl-friday. I’m working hard to find an internship in the media/movie world for this summer. So far I’ve done a lot of simple but hard jobs and done well. If you’re learning disabled, I worked as a coach at a learning center. If you’re hungry, I’ve waited more tables than I care to remember. If you enjoy a cocktail, I know what an Old Fashioned is and how to make it.
More to the point, I currently handle a variety of media and formats at the Instructional Media Development Center and also rule 40 freshmen in a dorm with a not-so iron fist. I am in the midst of assisting in the camerawork for a project about the classification of dairy cows. (Guernsey’s rock, btw) I am still a hack with Final Cut Pro, but improving daily. I have deep love and growing knowledge of independent cinema and sprawling tastes in all kinds of music. I am the most mediated person I know with an external hard drive filled with gigabytes of film, music, and text. My internal hard drive, my brain, is in a nascent state and seeking new experiences and lessons from the likes of you. I am a low-maintenance, high-effort person who counterintuits as a matter of course, which is nice because I am looking for a job/internship/situation for the summer of ’09 into the biggest economic headwind in eight decades. But, and this is important, I always walk on the sunny side of the street. Best, Erin
I felt an instant pang of fear after I read his revision written on behalf of me and my fledgling career. Was all of that really true?
In a late-night brainstorming session weeks later, we compiled a list of contacts and I drafted personalized emails for The Colbert Report, America’s Test Kitchen, various production companies, and Fox Searchlight. Oh, and Judd Apatow. My dad forwarded my emails from his account with the subject heading “My kid, your world,” knowing that his addy would get better play than [email protected]. After a night of pushing the refresh button on the ancient Wisconsin mail server, a forwarded response appeared in my inbox from Judd-friggen-Apatow. His response: “Is it possible that she is that cool? Happy to meet with her as long as you didn’t write her email.”
I called my dad and asked “How did he know?” I could sense him shrugging on the other end of the phone. Did he write it or did I? What’s the protocol here? Dad fessed up to Judd about the edit and the cow joke being his but refused to take credit for the rest.
I was eventually connected to one of Judd’s producers, Lisa, who would judge if I was as coo
l as the email let on. I had media classes all day, but the phone meeting was ever-present in my mind as I counted down the hours and minutes like some sort of deranged NASA clock. After trying many sitting positions in my dorm room/office as RA of the floor, I determined that standing on my lofted bed was my ultimate power position. When the California number flashed on my phone, I started the very important phone call with a cough and a loud “Hi, Lisa!”
We went back and forth, and my nervousness started to drift away. Toward the end of the call we discussed options. The internship would have to take place in Los Angeles. I knew it would be a hard sell for my situation since I had nowhere to crash. I asked if she had anything I could help out with in New York. She said no but told me that I should move to L.A. when I graduated and to get in touch then. The prospect thrilled, but I had the here and now to worry about. How could I find this kind of opportunity in New York?
I had a phone interview for The Colbert Report as well but am pretty sure I botched it due to inordinate fan-boying. I never heard back. Next on our list was Fox Searchlight. I knew the studio and was deeply impressed with the type of films they were putting out. Again the L.A. issue circled. The head of production emailed to say that they would be happy to consider me, and that publicity and distribution were run out of the New York office. Publicity seemed like it could be a good fit—hell, I loved talking about movies. I gchatted with Dad to prep for another nerve-racking phone call.
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