by Jill Kargman
J. MENDEL SAMPLE SALE
Role up your cashmere sleeves and “get ready to rumble”! It’s the annual J. Mendel sample sale! The forty-thousand-dollar coats are only twenty-two thousand, and all of the city is in a frenzy. It’s a mad fit of bargains galore and shoppers’ high. When you arrive, there will be many aggressive Horace Mann moms ready to claw their way to your sable. So here’s what I do. Slip someone at the Madison boutique a grand or two. Have them give you the floor plan of the garment district showroom where they have the sales. Then, when you walk in, you can bolt for the sheared minks or whatever you desperately need! It’s pandemonium and only a savvy shopper will score the key deals. You need to act fast and pounce or you’ll miss out, and you’ll lie awake traumatized that some beeyotch drove home with your chinchilla. Preparation yields prizes.
I’ve long had a penchant for making cartoon doodles (as you can see in this book!). I’ve been at it since my ammo was a number two pencil and my canvas the margins of my calculus notebook. My work is a little more sophisticated (content-wise, anyway) now—G-rated swirly initials of my crush du jour inside stylized hearts have given way to my own line of greeting cards through a letterpress printer in Brooklyn (Coeur Noir, available on Etsy, yo!). One of my favorites is a tiny smiley face on the front of the card and then inside it says:
A LITTLE HEAD FOR YOUR BIRTHDAY.
A couple of years ago I got a call from a woman who had seen some of my doodles—maybe she’d seen the cards, or maybe she’d seen some of the ones that made it into Sometimes I Feel Like a Nut. But she was a fan and asked if I wanted a fun gig: Would I like to decorate the café inside the tents at New York’s Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week. Moi?! I was elated, of course. But I asked if she understood I was sort of “out there” and, well, irreverent. Yup, she got that. I asked if I could do some funny tongue-in-cheek fashion commentaries. Totes magotes. I asked if I needed to show sketches first or just let ’er rip.
“Let ’er rip, just do whatever you want,” she replied. “I’m running the whole thing, so you can seriously do anything—just do you!”
Has another artiste ever heard such ego-stroking words?! So thrilling!
She went on to explain that there would be a large room within the cavernous pavilion for the café and it would be painted with black chalkboard paint. I would have free rein to decorate it with my chalked handwriting and doodles, banners, and comic strips. And, she said, an assistant would email me to arrange for whatever supplies I needed, as well as with instructions about where to show up and when.
Heaven!
For days leading up to the event, I was walking on air; suddenly I was—technically—a working artist! I would be paid to draw—how cool is that? The day arrived—two days before the fashion shows would be put on—and it was a blustery and cold winter day. The short walk to the location froze my face and made it an uncharacteristic dark and chapped red. At least, I thought, the tent would be heated and I’d thaw out while working. I was mistaken.
I was greeted cheerily by my contact but also dozens of construction workers, one of whom handed me a yellow hard hat. Two days to go and they were still building this shit hole? It was a glacial war zone I’d be working in. They gave me ladders and a scaffold, which made me feel kind of Michelangelo-y, but I could see my breath; the Arctic temps canceled my Renaissance church-decorating fantasies pretty quickly. Nonetheless I got to work. I selected a pristine piece of yellow chalk and started to create the café sign. Pretty straightforward.
Then came the menu, which I handled beautifully, I must say. I created killer ribboned banners containing the main subjects, like soups, salads, and sandwiches, which I shortened to “sammies.” Cute, right?
Then I got down to the funny business. Next to the menu item “Bagel, $3” I drew an arrow pointing to a large four-by-three-foot comic strip of two fashionistas talking. The cartoon bubble above the stilettoed swans said, “OMMFG you got a BAGEL?! You may as well tape each half to your ass cheeks ’cause that’s where it’s going!”
A cartoon from the beverages category showed two manorexic guys with shades, one of whom was saying “I’ll just have a hot water with lemon—I’m trying to get down to my birth weight.” The other guy said “I need a coffee; I’m so tired from lying awake all night trying to decide if Jack or Lazaro was hotter.”
And with a huge arrow I created beautiful signage that read “Ladies’ Room to Barf It All Up Two Doors Down on the Left!”
My masterpiece was a border I created to go around the entire café space. Above caricatured audience characters, I created a CNN-like crawl of newsflashy narration in Day-Glo pink chalk: “Front row fashionistas: hot fotogs…editrixes with sunglasses…gasians…Tokyo teens…bloggers with braces…pouting Olsens…Botoxed buyers…runway roadies…red state models…” and so on all around the room.
I put down my last piece of chalk at about 6 P.M., after ten hours of straight drawing. My only break had been for a soggy tuna sandwich brought to me midday. My hands were beet red, my bones ice cold. But I was satisfied. I had created something awesome and funny, and I did it all by myself. I was so proud.
I folded up my ladder and leaned it against a side I beam, and went to gather my things. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a posse that looked straight out of the Sprockets SNL skit—in all black with skinny jeans, boots, turtlenecks, and frowns. Assistants with iPads, walkie-talkies, and headsets followed, and their chatter—a rabble-rabble like Charlie Brown’s teacher—had a stressy overtone. This mini-mob of clones was coming my way. They were scrutinizing my work. My forehead started to feel hot and my breathing quickened. I had a bad pit of bile blooming in my stomach. Then, my paranoia was confirmed: “Who is this Jill person? Where is she now?”
I rose from where I’d been packing my bag on the dusty floor and walked over with my hard hat, introducing myself.
“Uh, hi, I’m Jill Kargman, the cartoonist.”
“Yeah, hi,” said the guy, who was so thin Karen Carpenter herself would have risen from her grave, looked at him jealously, and then lain back down. “These just will not do.”
ME: Will not do? Like, what do you mean?
ASSHOLE: I mean they’re mocking our world. The fashion world.
ME: That’s the point. To be funny.
ASSHOLE: Okay, this is just not what I pictured. This is not funny.
ME: Well, I’m so sorry—I was told I would have free rein and be able to do exactly what I wanted creatively.
ASSHOLE: Yeah, no. Sorry, but this all needs to be erased and redone.
ME: Yeah, no.
ASSHOLE: Excuse me?
ME: I was asked by someone in your organization to do this any way I wanted to, and I have spent ten hours in the freezing cold making it, out in the open. No one did anything all day except giggle and tell me how great it was.
ASSHOLE: Well, that’s just too bad. It’s coming down and I want you to redo it.
ME: Sorry, but if you want it redone you’ll have to get someone else.
I handed him my hard hat and walked off, furious. In fact, I don’t know that I have ever been so annoyed—I wanted to bash his fucking razor-blade-cheekboned face in. Who can’t laugh about fashion? Even fashion people laugh about fashion!
I left in a rage, livid that the woman who asked me to do it clearly didn’t wield as much power as she thought she did (and, BTW, she was nowhere in sight!). Ripshit, I stormed into a nearby bar, bought a glass of wine, and downed it in under a minute, cursing the haughty prick who was ordering my work to be erased as I asked for my second glass.
A week later, I was invited to one of the fashion shows, the Milly collection. No more construction zone. The place sparkled lights and fabrics—no one would have ever known it had looked like Tikrit only days before.
On my way out, I decided to peek at the café. It had been redone with boring, bare-bones lettering and no cartoons anywhere, just plain black walls and utilitarian signage. Yawn. I fantasized how much cooler it wo
uld’ve been to have my killer doodle murals and have people talking about them, but instead it was a snoozeville food stand.
But I learned a lesson: Never lift a fucking finger without a contract. Also: Screw that asshole. Humor makes everything more fun! If his life really is fashion to such an extreme that he can’t even laugh at it, he’s just a petty power tripper with no life—no matter what his Instagram portrays. ’Cause soon enough that entire mammoth structure came down and his week of reigning supreme was over; he was alone with only models to name-drop and last night’s parties to recap. Woo-hoo.
The velvet rope line outside Abercrombie & Fitch
Trying to think of a nice way to say this…hmmm…What the fuck is wrong with you people?! You’re seriously shvitzing your balls off to get into a lame store?! I mean, that line—rain, sleet, snow, or blazing sun—is ever growing. Every time I walk by, I scratch my head. Even if Dolce & Gabbana were having an 80-percent-off sale, I wouldn’t wait in a nightclub line like that to shop. But A&F isn’t Dolce, peeps. Its mainstay is tees emblazoned with their logo! They should pay you to wear that! Jeez.
People who say Ralph L’Ren
Guys, it’s Lauren. The accent is on the first syllable. It’s not like L’Wren Scott (may she rest). Also annoying is yentas saying Donna K’ran. Especially because ironically these are old Jewesses pronouncing it like the Islamic Bible. It’s Karan, pronounced just like Karen. Like Karen Allen of Indiana Jones fame.
Tourists who wait for the Walk sign
Guys, New Yorkers don’t see those blinking hands as commands, we see them as suggestions. Just jaywalk or use your old-fashioned eyeballs to see if a truck is careening toward you. But if you are going to be a goody-goody and wait-wait through the entire flashing Don’t Walk sequence, please step aside, ’cause dis beeyotch got places to be.
People posing with Times Square Elmo
Guys, that’s not really Elmo, you know. Inside the not–Sesame Street–approved costume (probably made by twelve-year-olds in China), there’s a very sweaty person. But go ahead, pay him five bucks for a shot. If you want a real thrill, stick around till three and watch as he pops the head right off and staggers to the subway, red fur from the neck down. The real deal.
Chick-fil-A
What is this poultry chain of which you speak? Alls I know is it hails from some rectangle in the middle and reeks of red state “values,” like speaking out against gay people. Nice. So you fry chicken eyelids in a bucket and fatten ’Murica and that’s “real” America? Makes so much sense.
How crickets can somehow be louder than sirens
I can blissfully float into slumber mode with a legit fleet of ambulances charging by. But when I visit the country, the cacophony of those slutty crickets doing their mating call drives me off the rails like a crazy train. They are deafening. Give me the mollifying hum of traffic, the honks of home, any night of the week.
Recently overheard while waiting/eavesdropping outside Sadie’s Hebrew school:
“You guys, you have to come with me to this stripper class! It’s so fun. So. Fun!”
Who could possibly not try to listen in on this conversation more? Not me. I leaned my head toward the four rail-thin keratined moms in cigarette-leg spray-on jeans, high boots, leather jackets, trendy handbags, and bling galore.
“Oh, my friend from Horace went! Her body is amaaazing now! Sick!”
“It’s the best. I feel so shtrong. I gave David a lap dance last night, he went nuts. I’m totally twerkin’ for a Birkin.”
You can’t make this shit up! I sprayed a mouthful of iced coffee on the sidewalk (and my coat), which caused the JAP in chief to turn around and glare at me.
“I’m so sorry but I couldn’t help but overhear your convo,” I apologized, “and I just have got to hear more about this place.” What followed was an animated explanation of how stripping beats SoulCycle, Barry’s Bootcamp, private Pilates, AKT dance class, and walks around the reservoir. The pole class, they vouched breathlessly, sculpted them in a whole new way. They gyrated, shimmied, slid down individual poles in the classroom studio, and most important, they proudly shared, they learned to pelvic-thrust the magic back into their fifteen-year marriages.
What was not to like? Bingo! I was in.
Right there, while waiting for Sadie to come out of class, I went online to sign up for stripper class the following week. (Has that line ever been written before? No. No, it has not.) I was sure one or more of the four JAPpy amigas would be there, but I wanted to share the experience with someone I actually knew well. I began trolling for someone I could rope into doing this with me. Most of my closest friends work, and those who don’t said they couldn’t schlep downtown the day I wanted them to. Feeling kind of desperate for company, I tried some of my new-mom acquaintances at kindergarten pickup a couple of days later. “Hey, any of you ladies want to come with me to a stripper pole dance class?”
Crickets. No, like, Cric…kets. Then one mom said, “I’m really surprised you would do that. I mean, it sounds really sad.”
I stammered, embarrassed, with some Naomi Wolf–ism about takin’ the power back or some such, but felt my cheeks reddening. They thought I was a weirdo, learning to shake it with women who were probably saving up to get implants or training to give Champagne room blow jobs in exchange for Benjamins. I could see it in their eyes: I was trash. I was a prostitute.
Without anyone I knew well, I went anyway.
As customary for all my appointments, I arrived approximately twenty-nine minutes early. I am a chronic early bird and have such panic attacks when I think I’m going to be late. I’d rather be a half hour early than five minutes late. So there I was, with nothing to do but obsess about how I was about to do a stripper class and shop the hanging wares.
The reception area doubled as a little stripper-gear boutique—mesh body suits, nippleless bras, thongs galore. I signed in, filling out the necessary forms on a clipboard à la at a medical office: indemnification, how I learned about them, signatures that I wouldn’t sue if I slipped and cracked my melon on the studio floor, dance experience, etc. I walked the clipboard of completed forms up to the desk and sat back down. I eyed the other women waiting for class—they all looked younger than me by a good ten years and like, well, strippers. I spied a couple who maybe were pushing late thirties, but even they were basically tits on sticks. I was ten times more intimidated than when I popped my SoulCycle cherry.
An announcement was made for the beginner’s class and I filed nervously behind the gathered women into a darkly lit dance studio. Except in addition to dance space and mirrors, there were eight poles planted in the floor. Our teacher sashayed in. Not what I expected at all! Instead of greased jugs the size and pertness of grapefruits, she was more Joan from Mad Men: zaftig, with a huge bosom. And her name wasn’t Sapphire or Brandy but something non-stagey like Carol or Stephanie—I don’t even remember her name, I was so stunned.
After a short introduction about the class and the history of the studio, we were asked to go around the circle and explain why we had signed up for the class. One woman said “to feel sexy again.” Fair enough. Another, to be “empowered.” Okay. Then a cute but frail blond girl meekly admitted, “I am going through a really, really bad divorce and my therapist said I should get out of my shell by doing activities with women.” Sadness. I wanted to hug her and bail and get wine together somewhere. I went last: I admitted to good old-fashioned curiosity and said I thought the idea sounded fun and funny at the same time.
Time to get started.
Carol/Stephanie asked us all to find a place on a mat and get comfortable. Wait…what? What happened to straddling poles ’n’ shit?! I wanted some Jennifer Beals action stat! But, no, apparently we needed to start with the basics. Level one was about finding our sensuality, she explained while running her fingertips along the border of the mat, as if it were luscious velvet. She had us glide our fingers over our thighs, then up our torsos, up our arms, down our necks, betw
een our boobs. We did this soft touching of ourselves as she quietly whispered things like, “This is how it begins: If you feel sexy, you are sexy. Sometimes my boyfriend wants to watch the game and I just sit near him and start gently stroking myself with my fingertips and before long, the chips and remote are down and he wants me.” Her voice was soothing but not at all a turn-on. She had a voice made for books on tape, not phone sex. And for the life of me all I could picture was some depressing messy one-bedroom in north Chelsea or south of Hell’s Kitchen, with shit all over the floor and spilled Tostitos.