Sport wagon, that is. SPORT wagon, to be more precise (shown above). If there was an astonishing trend to be observed during this year’s L.A. show, it was the return of the wagon. Cadillac has its CTS wagon (picture), Acura is throwing a TSX wagon in the mix (called sport wagon), and Audi offers a slew of them (but I could do with all this letter salad. Gone are the days luxury cars had names. Sigh!) For me, that’s welcome news, even though I won’t be able to plunk down 50 Grand for a Cadillac – my own car will look less dorky. You just wait and see! Only fourteen years to go until I own a classic.

Another trend is still going strong and is wholly un-automotive. Spandex in UGGs, spandex in UGGs knock-offs, and spandex-jeans in UGGs and UGGs knock-offs. The first time around this looked horrible, but after watching this trend unfold (can a trend do that?) it’s becoming endearing. Wholesome even. I doubt anyone in New York is wearing that in 70 degree weather.

Back to the cars.

A third trend is the cockpit overkill. And cockpits the interiors definitely have become. I’m 6’2″. Tall, but not unusually so, and my right leg has nowhere to go in most larger and luxury cars, thanks to an absurdly huge middle console. These have more buttons now than a JoAnn Fabric’s and their sides are clad in ugly plastics. Of course, the button overload has led the German car makers to invent what BMW calls the iDrive. One button and one display to offer as many as 300 options. Choose the right one while driving in heavy traffic on the 405. People will love your sexy swerves. And the way you spin out the car and hit the divider. A triple 9 from the Dancing With the Stars judges.

Best new car? The Mazda 2. Small, agile, great interior that doesn’t feel confining. Cars appeal, of course, to our sensuality, and this one is just so – honest. No facelift, no fake boobs, no nose jobs. In fact, it does have an ugly beak, but hey, from the driver’s seat you won’t see it. It was so good, indeed, I forgot to take its picture.

Cutest new car? The Fiat 500, which isn’t new in Europe, but it’s the first time we can buy it in North America. Children went nuts over it, and they are also the only ones that fit into it. Okay, I was able to sit somewhat comfortably in that shiny red one, but it feels like you pulled the label off a can of chicken-noodle soup and attached four wheels to it. If the paper boy hits you on his BMX bike, your chance of survival is about 50-50. Astonishingly, that shiny red one had a sticker price of $21,000. The cheapest one shown at the auto show was $18,600. For that kind of money you get a decked-out VW Jetta or a nicely equipped Ford Fusion. Chrysler’s resurrection plan makes Christian mythology suddenly look credible.

 

Dumbest car? Chrysler again. I have a soft spot for Chryslers, mostly old Chryslers. Remember the automatic that switched gears by pressing a button? (Now, there was a handy button). So I really wanted to like the Charger. Really did. And sure, the newly face-lifted car (which also got a way-better engine) looks good from the outside. Sort of. More dramatic at least. Okay, pretty good. Acceptable then. But get inside and the materials are chintzy, and the fit and finish are terrible. An A-pillar cover wouldn’t fit, nearly came off. And this was a show car.

Best car? Ach ja, nun gut. The German in me is partial. I just love the Mercedes SLK. I don’t like SUVs, yet this one is just a wagon with extra ground clearance. And get inside – it’s…boring. Which is exciting. No stylish overkill, no slew of buttons, and you have nice arm and leg space. It’s so simple, and that right now so hard to find. Okay, give me crap for it!

Best engine? Audi. In the R8. The one you see through a window in back. And yes, it’s a V10.

Most macho car? Ford Taurus Police Interceptor. It’s all about sexual role play in this one!

Best shwag? My new Mattel Hot Wheels model of the Camaro Convertible.

Most dedicated photographer? The award goes to this guy, who crouched down and held his camera underneath a new Ford Explorer tailpipe. When was the last time a Japanese car manufacturer’s spy photographed a Ford tailpipe and didn’t collapse laughing?

Most telling gesture? This one, which is my “Posture/Gesture of the Decade.” Guy staring at smart phone.

Second place goes to this one. Me…oh, forget about it.

 

 

 

Last time I did this very, very irregular car column, I griped about drivers. This time, I’m going to reveal what your car says about you — that is, if you own one of the 20 cars listed here. But since LA is not like the rest of the country when it comes to cars (after all, this is the place where only three colors exist (white, black, gray)), I commented twice. If you can’t find your beater on the list, feel free to add your own car to the list. And hey, these evaluations are meant for new-car buyers (all but the last one).

 

Buick (any model)

Rest Of Country: You’re old. Seriously old.

Los Angeles: You’re dead.

Toyota Camry

ROC: You wanted a Buick without the panel gaps, chintzy interior, and cheap plastics.

LA: You don’t know what a Buick is, but wanted something that says “old” without huge panel gaps, chintzy interiors, and cheap plastics.

 

BMW 3-series

ROC:“Rich motherfucker.”

LA: “That’s all you could afford?”

 

Mercedes C-series (Baby Benz)

ROC: “Rich, old motherfucker.”

LA: You really wanted a Toyota Camry, but it was too cheap.

 

Mini Cooper

ROC: You’re trying hard to be cute.

LA: You couldn’t afford a real Bimmer.

Toyota Corolla

ROC: You drink Kroger Cola and hate cars.

LA: You drink Ralph’s Cola and don’t know where the Hell Long Beach is.

 

Scion tC

ROC: You want to look sporty without paying for sporty

LA: You hope that your coffee-can exhaust will make people believe you had the money not to buy a Toyota.

 

Acura TSX

ROC: You think you didn’t get a Euro-spec Honda Accord.

LA: You think you’re Mark Zuckerberg.

 

Porsche Boxster

ROC: You’re rich and bald/have big blonde hair, and you’re recently divorced.

LA: You’re not rich, but bald and just out of rehab after your 5^th marriage to a TV exec went to pieces.

 

Porsche 911

ROC: You know good cars.

LA: You want tourists from Michigan to believe you know good cars.

 

Porsche Panamera

ROC: No taste.

LA: “They said it was a Porsche. It starts at $74, 410.”

Infiniti (all models)

ROC: Life is good.

LA: You don’t know there’s a world outside your Nav screen, which you’ve manipulated so you can play Medal of Honor while going down Wilshire Boulevard.

 

Range Rover

ROC: You live on a dirt road.

LA: You have two of these.

 

Spyker

ROC: Maybe you also have a unicorn tattoo on your back.

LA: J. Lo ditched Marc Anthony and bought you a car.

 

Lamborghini (any model)

ROC: “What’s that in the ditch?”

LA: “Next time get a Bristol Fighter.”

Cadillac Escalade

ROC: Family with one child living on a dirt road.

LA: L.A. Laker.

 

Chevrolet Camaro

ROC: You drove the original. When you were 25. You do the math.

LA: You think you might have seen one. Once.

Hyundai Sonata

ROC: You think it looks like a Mercedes CLS four-door coupe.

LA: Your kid can’t be trusted with the Mercedes CLS.

Chrysler (any model)

ROC: “?”

LA: “???”

 

Ford Escort

ROC: “Loser.”

LA: “Cool. What kind of car is that? Never seen one before.”

 

 

 

 

 

It started some years ago, when a female reporter in Ann Arbor, MI was doing research on a piece on Brazilian waxes. She couldn’t find non-geriatric men to give her an opinion on whether or not they found waxing sexy or not. Her editor contacted me, because he knew I no problem shooting my mouth off. The gist of my response was, that while hair or no hair didn’t mean all that much, it was kind of sexy to see trimmed or waxed regions because you knew the woman had thought about showing it to you. The woman had prepared for this moment.

Since then I’ve been wondering – does it work the other way around? Do women appreciate a good shave…down there?

And what about all the other hair elsewhere?

I grew up in a time when men left their shirts open, sometimes down to the navel, to show just how much hair they had. “A real man has chest on his hair,” I heard more than once as a boy, and my friends and I monitored our progress. Chest hair proved a man’s masculinity and virility, and it seemed to grow on a stem growing right out of their crotch. Like a flower of sexual power, like an extension of the pubes, it bloomed for everyone to see.

Well, those times are over. If the movies and of the past decades are any indication – from Terminator movies to Sylvester Stallone vehicles, to the more recent crop of 300, Avatar, and yes, Tooth Fairy – male stars shave as often and thoroughly as Nicole Kidman and Lindsay Lohan. And shaving seems not only a tribute to stardom – the men I worked with at a running store man-scaped extensively (though I never heard their girlfriends and wives comment on that).

The last leading man I can remember is Pierce Brosnan, whose chest mat was neatly trimmed and coiffed. Even so, it cost him his job and the new Bond Daniel Craig is as naked as a 12-year-old.

My question to everyone out there, then, is – is man-scaping attractive? Crotch only? Chest, belly, and crotch? Does hair make men look dirty or does it make men old? (I couldn’t help but notice that in Battlestar Galactica all young men are hairless, and the old men show lots of bristles). Is hair annoying or just uncool? Do men really care how hairless their female or male lovers are? What are the standards? And how to deal with day-after bristles? Is Gerard Butler really shaving his chest every morning with a pink Schick so he won’t turn into a cocklebur? Or is waxing the new shaving even for men?

Oh please, do answer!

“So many out-of-the-way things had happened lately, that Alice had begun to think that very few things indeed were really impossible.” – Alice in Wonderland

Being a pin-up model was a little like falling down the rabbit hole.

I arrived with bushy hair and a clean face, wearing a t-shirt and jeans, and within an hour I was transformed into a woman from a different era altogether.

There was this sense of disassociating from the moment, of leaving behind the Meghan who is Director of Research and Planning, the Meghan who is modest and self-conscious and self-effacing.

It was like creating a set of characters all my own, like having multiple personalities captured on film.

It was amazing…

* * *

Veronica

(Photographer: Stacey Barich)

She’s a good girl learning to be bad.

She writes letters to her husband who’s stationed in France and fills them with naughty words her friends teach her and before she seals them up, she sprays them with perfume.

Sometimes, when he writes her back, she thinks she can smell copper and earth in the paper and she worries.

She wants him to come home and live up to the promises he’s made in the pages he’s sent her, promises that bring a blush to her freckled cheeks.

He tells her that he keeps her pin-up close to his heart, in the inside pocket of his uniform shirt.

She wonders if that’s why the government sewed those in there in the first place.

* * *

Betty

(Photographer: Stacey Barich)

She grew up in a tiny and iconic northern town, a true American homestead with flags framing a Main Street that’s straight out of The Saturday Evening Post and Schwinn bicycles and kids playing baseball on the high school diamond in the summer months.

She left it to be with a man who told her she was beautiful and that he loved her.

When they sent him off to Hawaii she had pinups taken so he’d have something to remember her by, something tangible.

He makes it home in one piece and he asks her to put the dress on so he can take her out for a night on the town.

Being a smart girl, she wears the garters, too.

* * *

Lizzy

(Photographer: Stacey Barich)

She meets a wonderful man who takes her on picnics and tells her she’s amazing as they stare up at the stars.

He was a mechanic before Uncle Sam got a hold of him and turned him into an engineer.

He fixes the planes that arrive in Pearl Harbor, their engines sputtering and dying, their pilots much the same.

She writes him letters once a week and she sends him a photo of her smiling, posing just for him.

He’s been gone almost a year when he proposes to her in a beautifully written letter, a letter that arrives on December 8th.

She pulls it out sometimes, looks at it when she’s sure she can focus on the words, and pretends his name isn’t carved on the granite monument at the center of town.

* * *

See?

It’s amazing what a photo can become when given the chance, amazing what a person can become when given a garter belt.

At first glance, those photos are me having a good time.

There’s so much more to them, though.

They’re the in between moments when I wasn’t laughing or stretching kinks out of my neck and arms and legs or making faces at Jilly and Jessica while Stacey changed the set.

They’re the moments when the camera captured something other than my shyness.

The whole point of this pin-up shoot was to teach me something about myself, to learn how to feel good about myself without having someone tell me I’m beautiful.

I’ve never considered myself sexy.

I’ve never looked in a mirror and thought that I was beautiful or a knock-out.

That night, in Stacey’s basement, with the Tungsten lamps on me and her camera clicking a million photos a minute, I felt larger than life.

It was like having 26 years of self-esteem issues lifted off my shoulders and deposited elsewhere.

Being a pin-up girl was the most amazing experience of my life and it taught me that every woman should have the opportunity to dress up like a 1940s vixen and strut her stuff in front of a camera.

Because, in the words of some very wise people I’ve known, if you don’t love yourself then how can you expect anyone else to?

XOXO, Va-Va-Va-Voom

P.S. That letter in the first photo actually had writing on it and while I won’t repeat what it said for fear my mother would never forgive me, I will say this: Stacey’s vocabularly makes me envious.

Atomic Cheesecake Studios is in Parkville, on the outer edge of Baltimore, and as we crest the hill that will take us to Stacey’s house, I suddenly wonder if we drove through a wrinkle in time and came out in 1959.

It’s a neighborhood of gloriously retro houses, like a set from Bewitched, and I want to learn how to wiggle my nose and live there.

It comes as no surprise that her house is a museum full of wondrous fifties and sixties furniture and decorations – from lamps to couches to wall art to the vintage record player on the porch and even the light-up pink flamingos that greet us as I knock on the wrong door.

Her husband opens the door and shows us where to go – a narrow staircase that leads into the basement studio that is Atomic Cheesecake.

Stacey is downstairs already, surrounded by vintage clothes and hats and wigs, and she’s organizing boxes of lingerie like a mad woman.

‘Come in,’ she says with a smile, ‘sit down and make yourselves at home.’

* * *

‘So,’ she starts once we’ve all had a moment to warm up and take off our coats and introduce ourselves to her cat (who Jessica has already threatened to steal – twice), ‘what’s your favorite feature?’

That’s a hard question…not one I enjoy being asked.

Honesty – always go with honesty when faced with a woman bearing garter belts and lacey push-up bras.

‘I like my breasts,’ I say with a shrug and a nervous giggle.

She stops sorting through underwear and looks up at me, eyes my chest and smiles.

‘We can work with that.’

She has the kind of presence I’ve heard southern women describe as taking up all the space in the room.

She’s wonderful.

* * *

She hands me The Great American Pin-up, a book of pin-up photos and paintings from the great era of the American pin-up, when women were daring by just showing an ounce of skin – implied nudity as her well-spoken and highly intelligent daughter tells me later on – and tells me to flip through, see if I find anything I like.

I do – quite a few things, actually – and when I show them to her she begins a search through her vintage clothing rack for the perfect shirtdress.

It’s peach colored and there’s a little bit of shine to the material and both Jilly and I find it ironic that it was made in Glenville, New York long before we were born or even had ties to that town.

I try it on with the lacy push-up bra and garter belt she gives me and I look in the mirror.

The girl who stares back is already beginning to look unrecognizable.

‘That works,’ she says when I emerge from the dressing room.

* * *

It takes close to 25 rollers to set my head of heavy auburn hair and by the time she’s finished rolling strands of it up into jumbo curlers, I feel like I could, quite possibly, get the Playboy Channel if I tilt my head just right.

The whole time she’s rolling my hair, she’s telling us stories.

Stories about bars in Baltimore she’s been to…stories about the recent City Paper article they did on her business…stories about her life.

She’s one of the funniest women I’ve ever had the pleasure of meeting.

I have to try very hard not to laugh so hard I cry, lest I screw up the fabulous eye make-up she’s put on me.

She loves campy old movies, movies that make B Movies look like Oscar contenders, and she tells us stories about the ones she’s seen.

Her husband downloaded Deafula, or, actually, Dracula for the deaf but instead of closed captioning, Dracula (and the other actors) signs…which, for some reason, is just friggin’ funny.

She’s brash and she’s honest and she isn’t afraid to ask questions or answer questions or tell you not to do something because it makes you look retarded.

She glues my left eye shut with the fake eyelashes and it makes me laugh.

She creates a new nickname for me, one that I will keep forever.

Jelly McWonder Tit-a-Lot.

Few people have such a wonderful, explicit, long nickname – I feel honored.

I might even put it on a t-shirt.

* * *

She takes out the rollers and pulls the curls out with her fingers.

My head feels lighter without the rollers…colder, too.

She pins the sides up and sticks a vibrant orange lily over one ear.

‘What’s your favorite color?’ she asks, disappearing into a storage closet off to the side.

I get up, follow her to the door, and take a peek inside.

It’s filled with props and boxes and a wall that’s lined with rolls and rolls of colored paper.

‘Green,’ I say and she points to two rolls.

‘Dark or light?’

The dark is actually a Kelly Green, true green for the Irish in the crowd.

I pick that one.

And so it begins…she builds the stage for my pinup debut and we watch in wonder as the background takes shape.

She asks me if I’m ready all too fast and I take a deep breath, smile at the girls (they’ve curled up on the couch with the cat between them and they look so content I fear I might have to find a ride home), and stand.

‘Ready as I’ll ever be,’ I say and step in front of the lights.

This story actually starts in August, just after my birthday.

It starts with Jessica’s birthday present, something Jilly had been buzzing about for almost a month.

We were just in Colorado, visiting the Red Hot Mama (Valarie) for my 26th and by the time we get back, Jessica is practically hopping around with excitement on our front step, a big card in her hand.

‘Open it,’ she says with a huge Jessica grin.

I open the envelope.

‘Atomic Cheesecake Studios,’ I say, my vacation-addled brain taking a little longer to process the gift card in front of me. ‘What the…’

‘Read it,’ she says.

It turns out that Atomic Cheesecake Studios is a woman named Stacey Barich (a.k.a. Action Girl).

She’s a photographer…a pinup photographer…a vintage 1940s pinup photographer.

‘You got me a pinup photo shoot for my birthday?’ I ask, shocked, awed, and amazed.

Her grin gets even wider. ‘Yep.’

‘Holy shit.’

I have body issues – they’re better now that I’m getting more comfortable with myself, but for the longest time I hated my body.

I hated my flabby stomach and my oversized breasts and the extra chub I carried on my hips.

When I started running last year, I discovered that I had collar bones and calves.

When I started circuit training, I discovered biceps and triceps.

I’m still not in love with my body, but it’s looking better, more toned and defined.

I’m fairly certain, however, that it isn’t ready to be put on display in a slightly provocative way.

‘I know I’ve said before that I always wanted to do this, but how the hell am I supposed to do this?’

Jessica’s grin can, at times, be dementedly calming.

‘Jilly and I will be there with you. You’ll be fine.’

* * *

Fast forward to November.

I’m once again headed out to Colorado for a visit with Valarie and a conference for work.

I’m hoping a week away from Maryland will give me the clarity I need to see that I’m going to be okay.

What Colorado actually gives me is a fantastic visit with Valarie and some amazing photographs.

 

And, surprisingly, a message from Atomic Cheesecake Studios – How does January 3rd sound?

It sounds awfully close and being the northerner that I am, my body has started to rebel against my somewhat healthy lifestyle and has started adding the weight it thinks I need to stay warm in the winter.

New Englanders are like bears – we put on extra pounds so our bodies don’t freeze for the six long months that winter lasts.

I’ve had a hell of a time trying to convince my body that it no longer lives in New England…I suspect it’s stubborn.

So…January 3rd…semi-naked day.

I respond with agreement and Stacey and I set a date for our meeting.

Being the person I am, my nerves set in almost immediately.

* * *

Christmas comes and goes and my misery multiplies and starts to affect people outside myself.

Jilly knows I’m miserable and can’t do anything to fix it, which just makes her miserable as well.

Jessica has her own life and Valarie is dealing with things that make my ‘issues’ look like pissant problems.

The same is true of Anne and Melissa.

I spend the better part of the first week of January feeling pretty sorry for myself.

It’s not how I wanted to start the year, that’s for sure.

And then it’s January 3rd…I pack my bag full of era-appropriate shoes and stockings and fake eyelashes and what little confidence I could find in my closet and we pile into Jessica’s car and head north, to Parkville and Atomic Cheesecake Studios.

(Before the transformation begins…)

The question is, how, exactly, does one make a little gray storm cloud of doom into a pinup girl?