election day for downtown

Don't forget to vote today in the Downtown Los Angeles Neighborhood Council election. Last week Jim and I went to the DLANC meeting where a room full of candidates gave speeches to, with some exceptions, a room full of candidates. Yeah, good times.

I guess I could post my observations of all the candidates, especially the one who claimed idiotically that there are no resources available for finding out what's going on downtown. When corrected with the DLANC website's URL, newdowntown.com, blogdowntown and the many blogs on the blogroll, RAD-LA's email list, the Downtown News, etc., he retorted that it didn't speak to creative types, just lawyers and it didn't speak to the younger generation (ooh, snap.). That's the way to get people to vote for you - divide people between "us' and "them", insult those who fall into the "them" category in the room, participants and founders of any of the above-listed resources, anyone who's done anything before you, and anyone over the age of 25. I'm glad I don't live in Alameda East. After reading through my notes from the meeting, I realized that most everyone was open-minded, sincere, committed, and desirous of a wonderful downtown for all. Except for that one guy.

Blogdowntown has posted some candidate statements. What really teed me off though, some stupid commenters tried to do a nasty smear campaign on one candidate. I guess if you didn't know the guy they were trying to smear, it could be effective, which sucks hard. I mean, I like Genevieve Liang (I spoke with her briefly after last week's DLANC meeting), but Russell Brown has done so much for downtown. He jumped right in and got involved, it didn't take him a year to figure out where to go, what to do and how to improve his then-new neighborhood. But all these commenters could come up with is that he's "an aging party queen" and that he can be found having a PBR at Pete's Cafe. Let's see, where do I start? Oh yeah. Uh, we're all aging, baby. And whether or not Russell is a party queen has nothing to do with his accomplishments and his commitment to making downtown liveable. What else? Oh yeah, Russell sent out a previous statement that when he's not doing a million other things (see his resume below), he can also be found enjoying a PBR at Pete's. I guess those asshole commenters left that part out conveniently and tried to paint him as someone who holds meetings at downtown bars. I wonder if any of those commenters ever attended a DLANC meeting at the DWP building or any of the resident's association meetings in a gallery on Spring Street. Doubt it.

Eric of Blogdowntown hasn't posted Russell Brown's candidate statement (he's running for the area-wide resident seat), so I'll post it here. He's providing a free shuttle to get everyone to the voting site, for chrissake!

Hello Neighbor,

After months of preparation, TUESDAY is ELECTION Day for Downtown Los Angeles Neighborhood Council.

Here's the Pitch. I am running again as the Downtown area-wide resident For Downtown LA Neighborhood Council (DLANC). Below is a partial community resume. If you are a resident within our borders (approximately within the freeway circle except for Artist District or Little Tokyo), I would like your vote.

All I ask is 30 minutes of your time for 2 years of my time.

I am providing a free shuttle ride from 4th and Main in front of Farmer's and Merchant's Bank. Shuttle starts at 12:30 PM and goes to 7:30 PM. Every ½ hour on the hour and on the ½ hour.

Tuesday Sept 12th * Election Day
LOCATION Macy's Plaza Courtyard
700 S. Flower TIME Noon to 8:00 PM

Why Downtown?
After years of living in other neighborhoods, I decided it was time to cash out of the big house in the hills, and see if my aspiration of loft living in a recycled historic building was worth all the effort. Instead of just a place to live, I also found a creative community of friends and community builders who wanted to create new neighborhoods and organizations where history had already laid tracks for 100 years. My favorites of the New Downtown include Gallery Row, 40 new loft projects, (almost) all adaptive reuse, Disney Hall, The Grand Avenue with a Great Civic Park and an iconic Gehry high-rise, LA Live, a redeveloped LA River, and noodle shops in Little Tokyo. These all make an amazing soup of diversity and inspiration. I hope I can help others find their involvement, create their new neighborhoods and to find friend and inspiration along the way.

If 2 years from now, I can look back and have tackled these issues, downtown and its residents, will be that much better off:

• Connecting Communities- Creating communications, entertainment and social networks for new residents & businesses, Increasing opportunities for community involvement, Initiating a welcome packet program for downtown residents with business participation.

• New Amenities and Improved Safety- Supporting Gallery Row and other downtown organizations, Promoting small business retail and service opportunities, Green space/ pocket park creation, Main Street renovation project, Grand Ave Civic Park Project.

• Preserving Historical Resources- by promoting Urban Village and pedestrian design guidelines, historical resource surveys, preventing inappropriate projects that destroy neighborhoods.

Help me be part of that change by helping others to get involved.

Community Resume:
• Downtown Los Angeles Neighborhood Council – Executive Committee, Secretary, Planning and Land Use Committee, Outreach Committee, Election Committee Chair, DLANC- Area wide resident. www.dlanc.com

• Resident's Association of Downtown Los Angeles (RAD-LA)
Founder and Moderator of outreach and discussion group on community issues of downtown residents within Historic Core and Center City East.
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/RADLA

• Historic Core Neighborhood Block Grant Committee- Vice Chair.
HCNBG has funneled over $1 million in community improvement project in the Old Bank District. Next project, Fall 2006, includes $300,000 for Main Street renovations including safety, landscaping, lighting and business development improvements from Winston Alley to 7th Street.

• OUTinDowntownLA – Organizing Chair, gay & lesbian social group for downtown & adj. neighborhoods, 500 members.
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/OUtinDowntownLA

• Selah Artistic Giving Center – Co-Founder & Founding Benefactor.
Selah AGC is located in the Artist District and is a community based non-profit dedicated to Los Angeles' artist community. Sponsor of F.A.B. Market.

Old Bank District ArtWalk- Volunteer coordinator and outreach co-chair.
Partnered with Roy Montibon to further participation and outreach. 3 years

• CRA Hollywood Blvd. & Western Redevelopment Advisory Committee.
Neighborhood Council rep. with 4 NC's, Thai CDC, CD-4 Tom LaBonge, CD-13 Eric Garcetti, Community Redevelopment Agency and City of LA Mayor's office.

• Hollywood United Neighborhood Council, Past Chair, Past Vice President, Executive Committee, Board Member for 4 years, Planning & Land Use Committee Chair http://HollywoodUnitedNC.org

• Community Hollywood- Founder and Moderator of discussion and outreach group on community issues. CH is focused on neighborhood council, development and general interest issues in Hollywood.
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/CommunityHollywood

• Los Angeles Conservancy Walking Tour docent

• Stonewall Democratic Club, Steering Committee & Board Member-12 years. http://www.stonewall-dems.org

• 12 years political activism and lobby experience including Washington DC and Sacramento

So if you're a downtown stakeholder (either a resident, downtown worker or involved in some way with a downtown organization), get out and vote today.

amateur barbarian

When my friend Adam told me of his plan to quit his job and travel around the world for a year, I suggested he blog about it. Two months later, Adam started his year-long adventure, is now in Rarotonga, blogging, and he says this about himself on his online travel diary, Amateur Barbarian,

"I've quit my job, rented out the house, and am on my way to having a full-scale midlife crisis."

He's already broken down the history of topless dancing, compared Papeete to Disney's Tiki Room, covered a highly controversial desexing of a fertility god, and managed to zing Ali of Cole's. He's also uploaded some great pictures of what he left behind and where he's at now. It's so Adam.

five years ago today

I fell asleep with the television on and awoke right before the second plane hit the WTC. My sister Laura worked for Senator Boxer in the Federal Building downtown, so I scrambled to wake up and make sure she had no crazy ideas of going in to the office. She didn't. Helena still lived at the penthouse, she was finishing up a degree at FIDM. So Helena, Laura and I sat in Laura's room watching the news coverage, crying. We came to our senses and dialed our friends living in New York. We couldn't get through.

The night before, I was on the phone with my friend Fred. He was telling me all about his meeting the next morning, at the WTC. And now I couldn't reach him on his cell phone.

We couldn't stay cooped up in the penthouse any longer, unable to make contact with our friends in New York. So we ventured out onto the empty streets of downtown Los Angeles. At the time Helena was friends with some chick who was a raging alcoholic and it colored so much of our behavior back then. I forget her name but I think she was sleeping on our sofa at the time. Helena grabbed a six-pack of beer from the fridge and the four of us walked down the street to Angelique Cafe. We sat on the patio and ordered damn near everything - the charcuterie plate, the cheese plate, coq au vin, the salmon omelette, merguez sausage sandwich - one of everything. The streets were quiet, save for a car here and there disturbing the eerie silence. We sat quietly, eating and drinking the beer out of brown paper bags. Classy, yes, but at the time, we didn't care.

Later that afternoon, the first of many phone calls from New York arrived. But not from Fred. Everyone else we knew was safe. Frightened, angry, confused and inconsolable - but safe. We walked back to the penthouse, checked the news and sat in the living room, looking at our city's skyline and contemplating what it would've been like had any of our buildings fallen. It was too horrifying to contemplate, so we drank more and more, yet unable to achieve a drunken state. I remember asking Laura, because she would know best, "What do you think will happen next?" She shrugged her shoulders and said, "Whatever it is, we have to survive it."

lucas leaves for nyc

After taking some great pics of stuff happening in Los Angeles, ex-loftmate Lucas took a staff job with Reuters in New York City, covering entertainment. Sweet for him, but we are sad to see him go.

When Lucas first moved into the penthouse eight months ago, he was also new to Los Angeles. After a few months of hanging out, we decided that I would pick one new Los Angeles thing a week to introduce him and Jim to. We didn't exactly stick to our schedule, because work and other things got in the way. Or we let them. Or we just kept going back to our supersecretlatenighthangout instead of going anywhere new. Whatever.

Wednesday night, Jim, Wathana and I took Lucas to the New Otani Summer BBQ Beer Garden for dinner. It was a beautiful summer night, we ate and drank prodigiously, and Lucas even waded in a pool. Good times. At some point I might find a card reader so I can download the pictures I took that night. Did I mention I hate moving?

So last night, Lucas packed up the last of his things and left. This morning, ex-loftmate Bob emailed pictures of his leaving and had this to say:

Ola loftamigo -

Tonight Lucas walked out of his empty room in the Alexandria penthouse, crossed Spring St. to the open lot where his car and loaded U-Haul waited, packed in a last couple of things, checked the padlock on the U-Haul door, got in the car, then pulled straight ahead through the lot to Main St. and made a left. At 9:36 PM with the silver grace of the full moon, he vanished out of sight and out of LA, headed for New York City.

(Pictures courtesy of Robert Bradford)

I know you'll be back Lucas, but we're going to miss you anyway. Say hi to Skip for me!

the circle is almost complete

This past weekend, Jim and I went to a barbecue at Dave and Penelope's loft. For some reason I never connected that they were so close by, now they're in the next building. We went up onto their roof to barbecue and we could see right into our bathrooms. We really should get curtains up soon.

Dinner was delicious, so were the mojitos that Penelope whipped up. And it was nice meeting the neighbors and a few of their friends. After dinner, soon-to-be-ex-loftmate Lucas called. He and Genevieve were on the patio at Pete's. So Dave, Penelope, Jim and I joined them. I forget most of the rest of that night because I think we drank a lot of mojitos and two bottles of wine and then champagne. I remember seeing new neighbor Jeremy at a nearby table. I remember Dave and Penelope came over to the new pad after we left Pete's. The rest is hazy. The gargantuan headache and hangover the next morning, now that was vivid.

Earlier tonight, I looked at the pictures on my camera, expecting to find pictures like the one Jim posted of a Pechanga sunset. Then I found a picture that reminded me what else happened at Pete's that night. I squealed in delight and showed Jim. He shook his head, "You can't blog about that. Don't you remember? You promised you wouldn't." Damn. I must've been drunk, otherwise I never would've agreed to that. But don't worry guys, I'll keep my drunken promise and won't post that picture or tell anyone about it! And thanks again for dinner, I had a blast.

Where was I? Oh yeah. Earlier today I looked at the blogdowntown blogroll and realized I've now met Dave, Eric, Don, Brady, and Ed and I'm engaged to Jim (okay, that I didn't need to look at the blogroll to remind me) - the circle is almost complete. But weren't there others on the blogroll? I remember that Daniel moved to Koreatown (which I don't get because the crackheads are meaner over there). Wasn't there some other chick on this blogroll?

my name is

Does a move necessitate a name change? Surprisingly, only two or three people have asked if I'm changing the name of the blog since I will no longer be at 5th and Spring. Any suggestions? Or should I just leave it?

in remembrance of

Laura Esguerra Adams
July 5, 1969 - September 3, 2005

I love and miss you Laura.

the tv edition

The elevator guy came and fixed the elevator today. Then Jim and Big Eric rode down with him to the first floor and they let him leave the building. I would’ve chained him to the elevator until we moved all our stuff in. But no, Jim and Big Eric let him go, then came back up to our floor, at which point the elevator broke again. Did I mention that we don’t have Internet access at our new pad yet? If I want the Internets, I have to navigate seven flights of stairs and two blocks to my old pad or Lost Souls. With all those obstacles, you’d think I’d have something more substantial to say other than I feel like I’ve been hit by a truck.

At least we have DirecTV. So after a full day of writing and not moving my stuff in because our elevator still isn’t working, I watch television. We also have two DVRs for optimum TV watching capabilities. What have I been watching? With the exception of Psych and Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip, nothing but guilty pleasures. Entourage, which I'm sure everyone already knows about, is one show I don't miss. But the silliest show of them all, the one that makes me scream, is Pants Off Dance Off. You've probably never heard of it, but it's brilliant. All sorts of people, all ethnicities, young old, gay, straight, male, female - they go in-studio to dance to their favorite video, while they take their clothes off. They also run a commentary by the stripping dancer. They compete against others doing the same, and you can vote via phone or online. Just before they strip down to their naughty bits, they stop the video and direct them online to see the final reveal. Brilliant. I think I watched six hours of it.

With the new fall lineup just around the corner, I need to figure out what I'm going to watch this season, what I'll TiVo, which new shows I'll consider, etc. After all, you never when you're going to find another Pants Off Dance Off.

I Netflixed the pilot for Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip and loved it. Amanda Peet and Matthew Perry are very funny, the characters are well-drawn, and the writing is very snappy. I really miss West Wing, but hopefully this will help me get over it. So with Anthony Bourdain's No Reservations on the Travel Channel, my Monday night is set. Tuesday night I just might give Friday Night Lights a chance. I loved the movie, saw it about 30 times. I don't know why, I'm a sucker for inspirational sports movies (Rudy, Remember the Titans, Brian's Song, Major League 1 & 2, Bad News Bears, The Benchwarmers)

Of course, Lost remains on my viewing schedule. J.J. Abrams is brilliant. He creates such rich, compelling characters, from all the kids in Felicity, to Sydney et al in Alias, and to damn near everyone on the island. I don't speculate about the meaning or delve too deeply into the show. For me, it’s just pure escapist fun.

But when it comes to escapism and guilty pleasures, I think Fashion House and Desire take the cake. Long ago, back in the 90’s, my friends would gather on a Monday night and watch Melrose Place together. In the 80's, it was Dallas and Falcon Crest. I haven’t watched soap operas in years, but every now and then I’ll watch Korean, Filipino and Hispanic telenovelas with the sound off. Now, MyNetworkTV is programming telenovelas for American audiences with the launch of Fashion House starring Bo Derek and Morgan Fairchild and a second show, Desire, starring pretty people you’ve ever heard of. I've seen the pilot (through a friend who works at Fox) for both shows and funny enough, both shows start with two people in bed the morning after having had raucous sex. While Desire has guns, a Mafia plotline, and things blowing up, Fashion House has Bo and Morgan in at least three catfights. Meow.

I need to get out more.

day 3 - elevator still inoperable

Jim and I didn’t want to deal with finding our kitchen stuff, so yesterday we ventured out into our new neighborhood for breakfast. We’d been there countless times before, but since we’re in much closer proximity, Angelique Cafe is our new neighborhood café. We sat out on the patio enjoying the lazy morning, our bustling neighborhood, and the yummy food.

Halfway through our meal, I noticed someone taking a lot of camera equipment out of his car parked at the loading zone. “Hey Jim, isn’t that Gary Leonard?” I asked between heaping mouthfuls of Croque Madame. Jim stopped chewing on his prosciutto sandwich long enough to take a long look at Gary and say, “Yeah.” As if on cue, Gary came over and said hi and mentioned the pictures were to accompany a review of Angelique for the Downtown News.

We chatted about the fate of the Alexandria Hotel, the changes that I’ve noticed just in the short time since the sale, and the pictures I want to take of the place before I leave, before they change everything. Gary snapped pics of Jim dining against the backdrop of Angelique Café’s window. I hope some of those pictures end up in the paper this Friday. I took some pics with my phone, but I still haven't figured out how to get them onto my computer.

going, going, not yet gone

The elevator in our new pad isn't working. Seven flights up is a long way when you've got to haul all your belongings with you. I've been chained to my laptop for the past four months, unable to work out because of crazy deadlines, so factor in having to haul an extra 15-20 pounds (overweight writer's ass) and my carpal-tunnel syndrome-plagued hands unable to grip much and you can understand why I feel like I've been hit by a truck this morning.

We moved most of Jim's stuff out, but only managed to get my bed, a few boxes and the bar out of the old penthouse. My mom came over Saturday to help me pack. She looked at something like four five-foot stacks of shoes and said, "You have a lot of shoes." Sigh. Yes, I have a lot of shoes.

Speaking of shoes, the other weekend Jim was nice enough to accompany me to the Bridal Expo at the convention center. I went in hopes of being picked to participate in the Cake Dive (where five women slog through a six-foot tall, four-foot wide cake to find a $5,000 diamond), but no luck. Jim said if they had picked me it would've been game over. But why shoes? At the fashion show, they offered a sapphire necklace to the first guy onstage wearing a pair of women's shoes on their feet. So Jim threw his five sizes too big feet into my shoes and ran up. I wish I had a camera, Jim was hilarious. So now I have a sapphire necklace and stretched-out shoes. Thank you Jim!

And a big thank you to our friends who helped with the move - Albert and Lisa, James, Angel, Wayne, Tastypants and my mom - you guys are lifesavers and we can't thank you enough.

But now, the move continues. And the elevator is still not working.

the new pad

Jim and I are moving into our first pad together. It's downtown, two blocks away from Jim's pad and my current pad. It's the penthouse where we first met, where my sister was married, where we held the blood drives, where Jim drunkenly disrobed and posed for pictures wearing a towel, and where we had our engagement party a few months ago. I feel like we won the lottery.

Our dear friend and wedding coordinator Adam, the previous tenant, decided to quit his job and spend a year traveling around the world. By the way, we need a new wedding coordinator. So Adam called us with his good news and asked if we were interested in taking over his lease. We jumped at the chance, jumped through some hoops for the landlord, and yesterday, we picked up the keys to our new pad.

More to come.

favorite alexandria penthouse memories

I wish blogger existed back in 1991 when I first moved downtown, to South Park. Or when I first moved into the Alexandria nine years ago. I've managed to write about a few events and characters I've run across and interacted with, but it was nothing like the first few years.

We used to throw huge parties in the penthouse. Imagine having a thousand people over at your house for a party that didn't end until the sun came up. The first party I threw with my new loftmates resulted in one guy throwing himself off my roof and impaling himself on a parking meter on 5th Street. My then-boss saw him jump. A co-worker at the time was in his car, waiting to get into my parking garage when the body hit the ground. He called me and I was in my bedroom answering the phone when another co-worker ran in and said, "Celia, someone just jumped off your roof". The cops came, interviewed the witnesses, about 50 of them, in my bedroom while the party raged on outside. I asked the cops if I should break up the party. They said no emphatically, smoked my cigars and hit on my girlfriends while conducting the investigation. Multi-taskers, all of them. The last reveler left the party around 6AM. The security guard stationed outside Charley O's when the body dropped quit the next day.

We've had lots of parties since where we didn't have a body count, but that seems to be the one that people remember most. Even more than the one where about people on the dance floor took their clothes off. The security guards tried to get them to put their clothes back on, until jet-set roommate and I told them it was okay. Even more than the vintage porn projected onto neighboring abandoned buildings, people remember the party with the dead guy.

Chris the Magician moved out so that I could move in. He took his pet pig, snakes, rats, and cages full of crows with him. I remember pulling up to the curb to move stuff in, just as he was trying to get the pig in his car.

Jet-set roommate Kedric had been there almost a year when I moved in. He wasn't jet-set back then. As I wrote out the check to loftmate Bob, he promised that he wouldn't run around the place naked now that I was moving in. I assured him I didn't want him to change his behavior just on my account. I've never seen him naked. But I did hear his ex-girlfriends Emily and Helena fake orgams badly from out in the hallway, but not at the same time. Ah, Emily. Now she was crazy.

Sculptor Taft Green lived there at the time. He was always in his room, or in one of the five artists' studios, or in our living room working on a sculpture or something. I've run into Taft at the Bounty, I wonder if he gets nostalgic for the penthouse.

I'm sure more memories will come to mind as the month progresses. I'll try to scribble them down as I pack.

leaving 5th and spring

After nine years of living in the penthouse of the Alexandria Hotel, I am moving. I just got a chill. Even though I'm only moving two blocks away, it feels like a much bigger move. Living here the past nine years has been such an amazing experience, full of absolute standout memories - good and bad.

Before I could blog about the impending move, I had to tell my loftmate Bob, who, according to his postcard, was in Nya Tryckeriet, Lycksele (otherwise known as Lappland). I drafted an email giving notice, then called Jim over to ask his opinion. I read the email to him and was crying by the end. I'm such a sap. Bob came back this weekend but hadn't read my email when he called yesterday. So I had to rely on my amazing powers of recall and deliver the sensitive, well-crafted and finely-honed message orally, without crying. My memory sucks. I left out most of the good stuff. But at least I didn't cry.

I turned my screenplay in to bigshot producer at 1:23AM Monday morning. Since then I've been waxing nostalgic about the penthouse and daydreaming about the other penthouse that Jim and I will soon call home. I'm sad and excited, happy and anxious about saying goodbye to this place and saying hello to the new.

cabin fever

I need to get out of here. But I have so much work to do still. I can tell I'm fast approaching burnout - a little crispy around the edges, snarky here and there, horribly impatient, prone to violent outbursts and sometimes just not making sense. Poor Jim, no wonder he insisted (or gently nudged) that we go out for dinner last night, rather than staying in. I don't think it did me much good, but he didn't try to smother me with a pillow while I slept, so in a roundabout way I guess it did.

We're going to take a short break and go to the Downtown News' "Best of Downtown Los Angeles" party tonight. I haven't had much social interaction besides Jim lately, so testing my rusty social skills, which were dubious to begin with (some might say nonexistent), at a party with politicians, fellow bloggers, relative strangers, the press and booze is probably not a good idea. But hey, if you see a crabby-looking Asian girl with a parasol sucking down those Fire & Ice cocktails, grab me another drink and say hi.

nose to the grindstone

There's so much going on and I can't blog fast enough. A few weeks ago, my loftmate Lucas told me that the quality of my blogging lately has sucked ass. Maybe he was just upset because he thinks my blog has misrepresented his sexual orientation. But I can't help it if he photographs that way. To be fair, he's right. It has sucked. But there is an end in sight. I'm on the last rewrite for my screenplay. As soon as I turn it in, I promise I'll go back to blogging about the six-foot blonde trannie in the mini-skirt I saw walking east on 5th Street, the assholes in the Douglas Building who were throwing eggs at homeless people on their sidewalk, and Yoda sucking down margaritas and getting fisted by Ali at Cole's.

we're getting hitched at the train station

Jim and I finally picked a venue for our wedding - The Harvey House Room (scroll halfway down the page) at Union Station in downtown Los Angeles. Here's the relevant part from the description on Wikipedia:

"Attached to the main building to the south is a small masterpiece, the remarkable station restaurant designed by southwestern architect Mary Colter (the last of the "Harvey House" restaurants to be constructed as a part of a passenger terminal). Although now usually padlocked and stripped of many interior furnishings, the topology of its rounded central counter dynamically thrust forward, its streamlined booths, and the inlaid floor patterns still constitute a busy and evocative sense of place. As with many Angelean locations, it has only survived by serving as an occasional filming location."

Jim wrote more about it here with a cool picture of the interior. I'm so jazzed.

astrologist's b-day pool party at the standard

This past Saturday, the astrologist celebrated his birthday with a pool party at the Standard Hotel downtown. Jim and I picked up photographer and loftmate Lucas at the penthouse, then took a leisurely stroll to the Standard. It was much too hot to move with any sort of speed.

As soon as we go there, we made ourselves comfortable in a pod. Basically, it provided shade and we could lounge around in a very cool, waterbed of sorts. Once situated, I didn't want to move, so I depended heavily on the waitstaff and the kindness of those sharing my pod to keep me drunk. It was quite a scene so I took a few pictures, all from the relative comfort of the pod.




















I didn't realize there was a gift-giving theme. Most of the presents the astrologist received were of the blow-up variety. Here's a picture of him blowing a pig.



Stephanie (the former Pat Benatar look-alike), Lucas, Jim and a waitress look on, speechless.






It seemed like everyone was on their cell phones. Typical.



Doesn't Jim look tres Hollywood in this pic?



Afterwards, we had a bite to eat in the restaurant downstairs, then it was on to Crewest for some gin and juice, turntablists, and hip-hop artwork. The rest of the birthday party went on to watch Repo Man at the Hollywood Forever Cemetery, but we went to MOCA Nightvisions for the Rauschenberg show and to catch DJ Aoki and Kid Millionaire, but the highlight was watching lesbians make out by the fountain for a few hours.

Now it feels like summer is really here.

found my wedding dress

I'm not sure if I can carry this dress off, though.



(Thanks Helena!)

BTW, I forgot to mention that Jim and I finally threw some pictures from our engagement party online. Here they are, but the one below is one of my favorites.

it sucks being a responsible adult

I hope someone out there was able to make it to the free concert at the Hammer Museum earlier tonight (yesterday if you want to get technical about it) featuring my cousin Chris' band. You might have heard of them, Silversun Pickups. I had it on my calendar all week, but I got a call from Bigshot Producer - they want the rewrite muy pronto, which means Friday in Spanish. Okay, it doesn't, but I have to turn it in on Friday, which means I can't do anything until it's done.

At midnight tonight, I looked out the window and down the street towards my favorite supersecretlatenighthangout. Then the phone rang. It was Kristin, wondering if I was going to our supersecretlatenighthangout. She had already been partying, but wanted to continue. I toyed around with the idea - it's only for a few hours and I need a break anyways, I can pick up where I left off at 3am when I return from my short break. But I kept my eyes on the prize, made plans for the weekend (which she probably won't remember because she was already plastered), and went right back to work. So this is what it's like, being a somewhat responsible adult.

weekend wrap-up and last remaining seats

Didn't do as much of what I hoped/planned to do over the holiday weekend, what with the heat and all. I did manage to take Jim to one of my favorite restaurants that I don't go to often enough, La Serenata de Garibaldi in Boyle Heights. I had the lengua, which was so tender and delicious it almost melted in my mouth. Jim gave the thumbs up on his beef flautas, but I didn't try it, I was so engrossed with my lengua. Their sangria was so yummy that Jim switched from the also yummy (but not as much as the sangria) margarita. A couple serenaded us, with guitar accompaniment, and it was just perfect. It was a beautiful, quiet dinner on a hot Saturday night - the perfect lull before the action-packed holiday weekend festivities.

We had dinner Sunday night as planned, Shannon blogged about it. Monday night, we went to the Hollywood Bowl for their 4th of July fireworks show and I managed to make it through special guest Kenny Loggins' performance (even though he didn't sing "Danger Zone" from Top Gun) and the loud, rude, disruptive members of the audience without my brain exploding or physical altercations. Jim said the Bowl's website said no cameras, so I wasn't able to practice taking pictures of fireworks, but everybody else and LA Voice ignored it and took pictures anyway. On Tuesday we caught a matinee of The Devil Wears Prada - Meryl Streep was wonderful, as was Stanley Tucci, and despite some minor annoyances in the story, I really enjoyed it. Then it was on to feasting and fireworks at Gabrielle and Jim's pad. Yeah, it was a good weekend.

Tonight, Jim and I are going to watch Rebel Without A Cause at the Los Angeles Theater, the last show in the season for the LA Conservancy's Last Remaining Seats.

This is the Palace Theater, taken while standing in line a few weeks ago.


This is the Los Angeles Theater, taken across the street while standing in line for the Harold Lloyd comedies at the Palace Theater.


This is the interior, taken during the screening for The Mask of Zorro.


Tonight's show is sold out, so you're out of luck if you didn't get your tix early. It's also the last night of Nights On The Town, where various downtown eateries and bars offer pre-theater dining deals and discounts. I better get going or we'll be late for dinner.