Gypsy 1 1/2 oz. sweet vermouth 1 1/2 oz. gin Stir with ice and strain into cocktail glass. Serve with a cherry.

I’m not telling you...

What the fuck do you think this is, the first day of school? If you want details as irrelevant as those, read anyone else’s bio. This is Gypsy’s profile, goddamit, and it’s gonna be interesting. (Hey, could you try to stay awake for this? Thanks.)

Desert Island Discs

I don’t consider someone’s favorite bands trivial. Music says a lot about a person. If I were stranded on an desert island, I would have to have these 10 c.d.s, in no order:

1. Dookie by Green Day 2. Make Yourself by Incubus 3. Dummy by Portishead 4. Zoot Suit Riot by Cherry Poppin Daddies 5. Rage Against the Machine 6. Tragic Kingdom by No Doubt 7. Cheshire Cat by Blink-182 (replaced Hot by Squirrel Nut Zippers..I hate to do it..) 8. When The Pawn by Fiona Apple 9. Dirty Boogie by Brian Setzer Orchestra (I took out 311 to stick him in, sorry Nick) 10. Antichrist Superstar by Marilyn Manson (almost forgot)

There’s more of a sentimental factor involved with these albums than anything else. I still love Green Day even though they're sounding more and more like a boy band.

Other bands I like that didn’t make the list: Rancid, Unwritten Law, Lee Press On and the Nails, Hepcat, The Mopes, 311, Operation Ivy, Common Rider (with Jesse Michaels of Operation Ivy), Nirvana, Big Time Operator, Cake, Rasputina (thanks Tara), Dance Hall Crashers, Me First and the Gimme Gimmes, etc.

*N Sync or the Backstreet Boys?

If I had to choose, *N Sync. There’s one guy in the Backstreet Boys that looks like a goddamn Afghan. I remember seeing a Backstreet Boys ad in an old magazine before they were ever famous, and I got so mad that they had a song with the same title as a Green Day song ("Don’t Leave Me") that I took a marker and scratched out all of their faces, writing "Backstreet Fags" and all this shit all over them. I was 14. Call it teenage punk rock agression. I dunno.

Thanks for the Mammaries

You know what I think is funny is how boobs are called “fun bags.” I heard about fifty different words for boobs just listening to Rock 105.3 this morning because of this Toys for Ta-Tas drive they’re doing. Ta-tas are a good name for small boobs, actually. If they’re called fun bags, mine must be miserable! They’re misery bags. Some chicks take Bloussant for their boobs, mine need Prozac.

I guess this is something I'll always be a little hung up on. Sixth graders cutting me down for not having boobs, how could they?! I was so awkward that pre-pubescent twelve year olds still found humor in the way I looked. Isn't that like a homeless guy making fun of another bum's cardboard box? Though the funny thing is that whatever size those girls were then, is all I got now. Retribution anyone? No? Okay.

Humor

My favorite thing to do in this whole world is make people laugh. All my friends and the people I enjoy having around all have at least one thing in common, and it's how they never take themselves too seriously. I can even say that maybe my sense of humor got me through being made fun of all throughout middle school and high school. Not because I had it then and I could make light of all the jokes they were making about me, but because I developed it from picking up all their material. Those kids sure did came up with some good shit hating me so much. I really did learn from them, and it comes in handy even now. My sense of humor was born out of the same dynamic that drove the Santana kid to shoot out his school—the cruelty of junior high peers. Can you believe it?

Where I got the name "Gypsy":

In high school, one of my friends had the exact same first and last name as me. I used Gypsy as a nickname because my friend Squeaky Fromme and I were obsessed with Charles Manson and “Gypsy” was the alias of Manson Family member named Catherine Share, a.k.a. Manon Minette. I know, I know, you know someone who has a dog named Gypsy.

Where I got “The Gypsy Box”:

I named this website The Gypsy Box after a little train case that I used to carry around. That’s what you see me sitting on in the main page. I stole it from a thrift store in Hillcrest, put the word “Gypsy” on it in black puffy paint, splattered some blood-colored model varnish on it, and it became known as the Gypsy Box. To this day people that I don’t remember from high school recognize me by my Gypsy Box. I used it for a good two years until I grew up, sold out and joined the league of chicks who buy real purses to coordinate with their outfits. I still use the Box once in a while, but since it’s so small, it’s only to coordinate with my “gothic” outfits... geez.

What I like to do:

• Sing. I like singing female-fronted swing/lounge and ska songs. Weird selection but some of my influences are Ella Fitzegerald, Gwen Stefani, Katherine Whalen, Monique Powell—they of whom possess that crazy vibrato that I’ve had to train myself to do. Katherine Whalen adopted her singing style by listening to Billie Holliday. After a while you naturally pick it up. I’ll sing a Fiona Apple song and sound like Gwen Stefani, or turn a Marilyn Manson song into something Frank Sinatra would have crooned.
• Play my keyboard. I’ve never had lessons, and I can’t read music even though I was in my middle school choir for three years. I’ve learned by ear some songs by Fiona Apple, Lionel Richie, Nirvana and, uh, Boyz to Men. Anything I can sing to.

  I like artsy crap, i.e. writing poetry, keeping journals, collaging, and papier mache. This is a picture of a papier mache Beavis that I made for my friend Alexis. One night we were talking about the funny look that Beavis and Butthead would have on their faces if they were watching a bad music video. She said she wished she had a picture of it, just to see it again, so I found a picture of Beavis with this expression on his face on the internet. I printed it up and molded it out of a shoebox lid, newspaper, rave flyers, a nagchampa box, wallpaper paste and acrylic paint. I'd say it turned out pretty good.

Strange things that make me really giddy:

• When a guy screams really high like a girl. Blink 182 does it in “Just About Done” off their Cheshire Cat album. I don’t know why it’s so cute, but it makes me laugh, guaranteed.

  Hand puppets/personified animals and people dressed in character costumes. I loved Sifl and Olly, especially because they sounded like real guys, which made them even cuter. (I like hearing guys talk and laugh. It makes me feel like a mom listening to children at play. I dunno.) I also like that Pets.Com dog in those commercials, he’s a hand puppet. By personified animals, I mean things like that penguin in the beginning of Fight Club that talks to Ed Norton and swims away. Or that animatronic black cat named Salem from Sabrina the Teenage Witch that talks like a human. Both make me squeal with delight. As for people dressed in character costumes, this could mean a guy in a banana suit. I once saw someone dressed as Bugs Bunny outside of a Warner Bros. Store and nearly mauled them to death. This year at the Comic Con, I’m going to take pictures of me humping Spider Man and Bart Simpson.

  
  

• Lindy Hop.Everytime that Gap commercial would come on and I’d see people swing dancing, I’d think it was so great I could almost cry. That’s definitely something I would show off if I knew how to do. Right now I only know basic swing dance steps.

What I dream of one day doing:

• Singing a duet (“You’re the Boss” by Brian Setzer and Gwen Stefani) with Warren Lovell, the lead singer of Big Time Operator.
  
• Being well-received by a big audience. This is a semi-achievement seeing as how I write for No Cover now.
• Modeling for real. I just don't have the personality for it, as ironic as it sounds. I can't take myself seriously enough to pursue an agency, besides, to me the word "model" has a generally negative connotation. And then there's that body issue. The pictures I've done are just for kicks, with the exception of the Paul Mitchell shmit. But as much as I'm opposed to chick magazines and how much they're written to cater to the insecurites of women, I like looking at the advertismets in Vogue and think of how nice it would be to be one of those unique and confidently composed, strangely beautiful women.

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