SWAG ME

It's the awards season.
And that means free stuff - handed out from wanna-sells to the give-me-mores - better known in Hollywood as Swag. It’s true. Since this years crème de la screen is going to be visible as JJ’s booby at the Superbowl, marketeers of luxury paraphernalia set up shop in the swankest hotels and generously dole out the goods, in the hopes that celebrity X will drop the company name. It's a schmooze frenzy with booty bonuses. Listen, if a star-lotta schedules it right, on a good day the busy gal can shake down $20,000-$30,000 in jewelry, accessories, services and still have time for a free all-you-can-eat buffet of Malaysian shrimp and curried kumquats on arugula on the patio.

It doesn't take much for me to plunk myself down in the middle of this utopian hallucination. There I am ; with more hair, shoes I can't walk in, and an assitant named TipTip to carry the loot, marching through the tony temples at Beverly Hills hotels bringing it home.

Yeah. Give it to me, give it to me, give it to me. Now.

I NEED a Gucci-mani-tino bag: preferably in the green apple mock lizard with a 24 Karatine clasp that says "you are" and says it again when ever I forget who "I am". And after that, how 'bout a set of dangly spangly doowop ditty earrings and cleavage-bound pendant to match, cause I do promise that I will wear them to any blockbusting well-lit affair and I will sparkle in your company's logo splendor. And while you're at it, throw in personalized highlights, a dandy blow-out and gentle fingers dipped in the latest color pots to give me a new face. Oops- you forgot my product - you know the multiple squishy-hard, subtle-crazy, tubes and bottles containing the secret substances that are defined as a hairdo singularity. More product.

That's better! And now I'll be your walking-talking spokesmodel, parading all the stuff that I could afford on my measly $125,000 a week, but really find so much more fun when it's gifted. Since you gave it to me, you write it off on your taxes. Since it's a gift, I can easily hide it from the IRS . It's so simple.

Seriously, I'd love a little swag. Not the above mentioned items, which would be wasted on my mommy get-a-life existence, but swag that would torture friends and neighbors with my new hip, slightly-above the bottomline savvy and excess. Swag that would get me to speak up proudly about a consumer dynasty, saying it loud and proud, " I Buy Here!"

So, Home Depot....Swag me! Yeah, if you gift me a sleek mod faucet set to replace the leaking one in my bathroom, at my next dinner party (Ralph's chicken and a hastily tossed salad) I'll place a little placard in the toidy extolling the usefulness of your maintenance temple.

Cingular - Swag me! Not with a fancy jeweled talking phone, but with 3 months off on my cell bill. That's a way to a budgeters heart! And I promise I won't be tempted anymore by (gulP!) T-Mobile, Nextel and CheapCalls - even with the 17 offers a day I get online and in the mail. I promise. And while you're at it, can you send me a cute guy - maybe one that looks like the guy in the commercials (whoops, that's Verizon) - well, send a cute guy that can tell me how to work my phone.

Marshall's, TJMaxx, Saks SFO - Swag me! Swag me! Swag me! How about ponying up a two years supply of discounted socks and bras, an ever lengthening set of sweatpants for my son, and please-God-new-underwear-for-my-husband. The words 'Macys', 'Neimans', and names of any other store I never have the dough to shop in will be forever excised from my vocabulary.

Blue Cross - how 'bout an upgrade in my health insurance, so it would actually cover my trips to the doctor? That would sure make the gals scream. And speaking of screams, how about a better $20 Rudy's haircut that doesn't produce loud cries of panic? Or a 20-something Goodwill guide that can show me how to look good on $72.57 - my shopping budget for the year after the holiday extravagance?

I go to far. It's not swag I want. I actually want a release from the jaws of consumerist fury that continually grab my head and shake it like the empty rattle that it's become from too many years of trying to figure out what it is that I'm supposed to desiring. Or a clue on how to have manageable financial existence. That's not jealousy provoking... that's just mediocre middle-class misery. How pitiful - I'm not even capable of getting up to credible swag-mania.

But - who cares? I mean what's swag anyway? Really? It's draperies and stolen goods - that's what the dictionary says. There's no mention of dubiously-deserved rewards for grueling weeks of hard work on a hard body. Swag is festive and ornamental festooning. Or 'valuable goods' most often stolen and found in a swagman's (yes, that's a word) bag. Or the way one walks when carrying too much swag. To swag. If you put it all together... ornamental doo-dads, a staggering walk, stolen goods...

Mmm. Do you think if next year, I dressed up like Liza Minelli and staggered throught L'Ermitage two-days before the Golden Globes, I might cut me a little swag? Just thinking. Till then...BV