it was all me

I just got this email from President-elect Barack Obama:

CELIA --

I'm about to head to Grant Park to talk to everyone gathered there, but I wanted to write to you first.

We just made history.

And I don't want you to forget how we did it.

You made history every single day during this campaign -- every day you knocked on doors, made a donation, or talked to your family, friends, and neighbors about why you believe it's time for change.

I want to thank all of you who gave your time, talent, and passion to this campaign.

We have a lot of work to do to get our country back on track, and I'll be in touch soon about what comes next.

But I want to be very clear about one thing...

All of this happened because of you.

Thank you,

Barack

I want an ambassadorship. Is France available?

yes we can

a special voting booth for people like me

I was so glad that I managed to wake up early to to vote. Although there is a polling place across the street from my loft, I had to walk to the polling place two blocks away, down the street from our art supply store, Raw Materials. One look at the long line across the street from my loft and I picked up my pace - I'd probably be in for just as long a wait.



I walked up Main Street and took my place in line. Not quite around the block, but almost. One of the poll workers kept coming out and checking the line. He spotted a few elderly voters and a man using a cane. He walked up to them and told them there was a special booth for handicapped voters, and would they like to jump ahead in line to vote? He walked them inside the building and would periodically come out to check the line for more disabled voters. Cool. I had tons of nervous energy, but I settled in and fell into conversation with those in line around me and of course the conversation alternated between the cool places to hang out downtown, downtown viewing/victory parties, and the election itself.





I was almost inside the building when the poll worker approached me.

"We have a booth inside that's a little lower, a little shorter than the others. Would you like to come inside and vote using the short booth?"

The people in line around me, the ones I had just met and the neighbors that I recognized from walking Wonton - all laughed uproariously. I imagined that it was like a child's table, low to the ground and covered in Hello Kitty stickers, with crayons to mark my ballot.

"Are you kidding me?"

The poll worker was apologetic, "I don't mean to offend you, I just thought--"

I wasn't offended, I though it hilarious that I was singled out in that long line, not for being a disabled voter, but for being a short voter. I declined, determined to wait like all the other, taller voters around me. The poll worker went outside, looking for disabled, elderly, and short voters.

Once inside the building there were places to sit and the poll worker instructed us where to sit so that we wouldn't get out of order. Then he informed me, "You know, you can't change your mind anymore. There's someone else in there using the short voting booth."

I laughed, "That's okay, I'll wait. But can I take a picture of the short booth?"



Seen in line to vote: Hal Bastian from the DCBID, Kitty, Matthew S., Abby and her owners, Mahogany, Olivia, and former loftmates Kedric, Tim and Bethany.

don't get cocky

One more day. I don't trust the polls and I have a little bit more faith in what the the bookmakers are doing, but still - don't get cocky people!

seen at the nickel...

My Gossipy Neighbor and I met for brunch at The Nickel the other weekend - we love that we see everybody and their mother dining there. Then I saw this guy at the cash register, paying for his to-go order. Motioning to him, I said to my Gossipy Neighbor, "Look at this guy, he's dressed like a cholo at Easter." The guy then turned around and I recognized my friend and makeup artist extraordinaire, Jayson. Oops. I laughed, then Jayson recognized me and came over to say hi.

Of course I had to tell him, "Jayson, you look like a cholo at Easter." I think Jayson knows I meant that in the best possible sense of the word. BTW, it's his birthday this Friday - Happy Birthday Jayson!

Who else have I seen at The Nickel in the past few weeks? Jayson, Gronk, Miguel Osuna, Ruel and his partner Patrick, Luke and Summer, Bert Green with a group of hot-looking men, Stella Dottir and Julie Swayze of Metropolis Books, Neon Boy and Shannon, Neon Boy (again) and The Gentrifier (and what looked like all their aunts), Eric without Isis, and D and A. Am I leaving anyone out?

Even Jonathan Gold has been in (though I didn't see him).

obama's first job and my wacky cousin

My cousins in Hawaii forwarded this link to my brother Angel - a little snippet on MSNBC about the Baskin-Robbins in Honolulu where Barack Obama once worked as a teenager (his first job!). The coconut-frond hat maker in the article? My cousin Eddie.

the one where i blame my dog

Photo courtesy of trainedmonkey.com

My Shih Tzu, Wonton, has commandeered my laptop to update his blog.

vote 4 hope

Twelve days until Election Day.

cousin angel, disco swimmer

During his last visit to Los Angeles, Cousin Angel forgot to pack swim trunks. So he asked my dad if he could borrow a pair. Minutes later, my dad pulls out his swim trunks from 1972 (I'm still trying to locate a picture of my dad wearing the swim trunks) and Cousin Angel is all over it. Here's Cousin Angel wearing the swim trunks and holding a disco ball aloft. Thankfully this pose doesn't show the camel toe.

defending my neighborhood

I brought our Prius in to the downtown Toyota dealership for servicing and took advantage of their courtesy shuttle to get back home. When the car was ready, they sent the shuttle to retrieve me. I probably shouldn't have gotten into it with the other passenger, but I felt my neighborhood needed defending.

Let me back up: I opened the back door of the courtesy shuttle, climbed in and said hello to the driver and passenger. We rode in silence, but when the driver stopped at the corner before making a right turn, some water splashed onto the windshield.

Driver: Oh, look at that! Raindrops! It's raining.
Me: Good, I'm done with this heat.
Passenger: (laughs) Oh, I don't think that's rain.
Driver: No, I heard it was going to rain this weekend.
Passenger: (laughs) In this neighborhood, that could be, you know, anything coming out of these windows.
Me: (looking up at the SB Manhattan, SB Lofts, Hayward Hotel) Oh please, this neighborhood is not that bad. Bodily fluids are not being squirted out the windows onto the street.
Passenger: I used to work down the street on Spring... I'd see all sorts of things.
Me: Yeah, how long ago was that? Save it sister, I've lived downtown for seventeen years and I've seen the neighborhood go through changes. Sure, they used to throw bodies out the windows of these buildings, but that was years ago. That was probably water from someone's rooftop jacuzzi.

Ha ha, right? Late the other night, Jim and I are on Spring, walking Wonton. A guy is walking on the sidewalk ahead of us when someone dumps a large amount of water out a window of the SB Manhattan, hitting him. He jumps out of the way, missing most of the deluge. Then, seconds later, someone throws a water bottle out the window and hits the sidewalk with a huge, sickening thud. That could've landed on me, or Jim, or my precious little Wonton. Stupid motherf*#$ing neighborhood.

my two sides went to war

I sat in my Wednesday night film financing class at UCLA, listening to Big Shot Producer lecture about the many ways to lower a screenwriter's quote, how to negotiate with writers and lessen our risk, how to not pay a writer and get away with it, etc. It was nothing new to me, nothing I hadn't heard from him before, and as a fledgling producer, something I thought I had to learn. I looked around the room at the many hopeful producers-in-training as they nodded sagely and scribbled notes furiously. Depression immediately followed the realization - everyone in the room would not hesitate one second to screw me. That feeling wasn't new to me, I've been in those rooms before. But this time there were 50+ people in the room. Even I wanted to screw me. I was conflicted, I was resolute, "Patty, Anna, Patty, Anna". It was a little overwhelming.

Since that night I've been extremely irritable. Some might even say bitchy. But mostly I was depressed. That hasn't helped me with my writing deadlines. And now, in this disastrous economy, I am tasked with raising $11 million in P&A financing for our third film project. All I wanted to do was lie down until this feeling went away. Then, thanks to Kevin at LA Observed, I read "Screenwriting in Hollywood: A Modest Proposal" and felt a little better. Here's an excerpt:

Novelists, playwrights and poets are not rewritten by other writers. Even journalists do the deed pretty much alone. But screenwriters not only routinely and eagerly replace each other, they are tactical in their competitive quest for credit, credit that is not only emotionally gratifying but financially existent. Without credit, future opportunity, immediate and contingent compensation, dissolve. All that hard work to get beyond base camp, undone. Back to square none. Meaning - what do you tell your family, friends, former classmates, neighbors, and people you’ve yet to meet - that you did work on something glamorous for possibly years even, but in the end, your name didn’t scroll by?

And the other question that will not leave your mind is the calculation of cash you didn’t get and residuals you will never see.

This belief and its subsequent practice of multiple screen authorship is a unifying principle that not only does not serve its community of believers, but actually endangers its members from achieving prosperity in a scarce economy.

I've come to the realization that producing is a necessary evil for me and I need to just get over it. Conquering the written word is still what makes me truly happy, but if I have to produce to protect my work or another writer's words and vision, then I'll take that battle on. A long time ago, someone once suggested to me that, "It won't hurt if you don't clench." I didn't buy it then, I don't think I'll buy it now. I think I'll try it my way. The picture I have in my head of the kind of producer I want to be is a little bit clearer now.

Gook: John McCain's Racism and Why It Matters

McCain first used the work "gook" in the mass media in his 1973 article for U.S. News & World Report. The word appears 12 times in the article.

Most recently, McCain used the term in his 2000 presidential campaign, as documented by the San Francisco Chronicle.

To learn more about Mr. Tang's book, which also details McCain's connection to white supremacist groups, visit his web site, or read his blog on Daily Kos.

architecture and public art in riga

Riga is an interesting mix of gothic, baroque, medieval, art nouveau and Soviet-era architecture. Here are a few pics from yesterday's tour of Old Town and New Riga, more can be found here.

where in the world is celia?

Riga, Latvia. That's where I'll be in about 13 hours. I'm somewhat unprepared for this - I'm still packing but I have no idea what I've thrown in my suitcase so far. We depart from LAX in a few short hours, then a short layover in Paris before touching down in Riga.

Wonton has been moping around as if he knows we're taking off without him. He's already in his crate, pouting and refusing to play with me. I'm going to miss my puppy, but one of the things I wanted from this trip was the chance to focus on my writing and not be distracted by a brazilian things (like Wonton's cute puppy face). Hopefully the Art Nouveau architecture won't distract me too much.

My brother-in-law James will be minding the store while Jim and I are gone, so if you haven't met him yet go in and say hi.

I'll try to post some pics while over there. Everyone play nice while we're gone.

"there's a new world to be won..."

Have you seen the Les Misbarack video yet?




"It was better than Cats. I'm going to see it again and again."

this weekend: celia and the seven drag-nuns

If you saw an Asian guy running around downtown dressed in a nun's outfit a couple weekends ago (he was at Sh*ts & Giggles and The Hideaway), you weren't seeing things, that was my Cousin Angel visiting from Chicago. He was in town to promote his show, Nunsense II: The Second Coming (where the sisters are brothers), which is playing this weekend at the Metropolitan Church in the Valley. Cousin Angel just arrived this morning to do more advance promotion and help me prep for the arrival of the cast. Did I mention that all seven of them are staying at our loft this weekend?

WHAT:
Nunsense II: The Second Coming

WHERE:
Metropolitan Church in the Valley
5730 Cahuenga Blvd, North Hollywood

WHEN:
Friday and Saturday, September 12 & 13 at 8pm

Tickets are $15 - For reservations, call (818) 762-1133


Cousin Angel is such a hoot, I can only imagine what six more drag-nuns for an entire weekend will be like. If you're going to be in WeHo, they're also performing a few songs at The Abbey on Saturday afternoon. I'm going to Saturday night's show, anybody else in?

saturday at the loftydog's bark-er park

Is anybody else headed over to The LoftyDog Academy's Open House at the Bark-er Park? It's downtown's only indoor dog park and one of Wonton's favorite places to hang out (he loves to slide down the doggy slide). Stephen wrote it up on Angelenic and took some great pics, check it out if you haven't already. As they mentioned, it's a membership dog park, which gives me some peace of mind since they screen the dogs to ensure they're healthy and flea-free. The Open house is from 2pm -5pm today - it's a good way to try out the park and their facilities before committing to a membership. Wonton and I hope to see you and your downtown dog there!

The Loftydog Academy
525 South Hewitt
Los Angeles, CA 90013
213-617-BARK (2275)

Open House: Saturday, September 6th, 2pm-5pm

Regular Hours:
Monday - Friday, 7am - 7pm
Saturday & Sunday, 10am - 5pm

forever in our hearts

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

indulging my inner musical theater geek

I'm working on a new screenplay, an updated, hip-hop reworking of Romeo and Juliet based in present-day Los Angeles. A big part of my research involves dissecting West Side Story, the best musical ever. I stumbled into an amazing video on YouTube - a historic rehearsal of the 2007 Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS' 19th Annual Gypsy of the Year competition, one of Broadway's most celebrated fund raising events. One of the dancers posted the video of this rehearsal and wrote this:

They flew from all over the country 22 cast members of the Original 1957 Production and put together with young Broadway Gypsies a historical Opening Number. This is the rehearsal at AEA audition auditorium on 12/16/2007 where the Young Broadway generation performs snipits of the legendary Jerrome Robins Choreography, and the original cast members join to creat one of the most moving and thrilling opening numbers of BC/EFA.

By the time they started singing "Tonight", I was a blubbering mess. Seriously.

moving past the happy ending i wanted

I've been a longtime fan of celebrated writer Rick Moody. During my sister Laura's battle with cancer a few years ago, I used one of his short stories, "Boys", which uses repetition to evoke multiple images of the same characters through time, as a jumping-off point and I wrote an homage-of-sorts using the same structure and aping his style, titled "Girls". I wrote it for Laura, because by then she couldn't talk and I didn't know how to tell her adequately how profoundly I loved her, so we communicated through our blogs and our writing. I have to admit that I didn't like the ending I wrote back then. It was a happy ending, which doesn't work for the story, but I didn't want to/couldn't imagine anything but a happy ending for my sister, even if it screwed up the story. Last week, in anticipation of September 3rd (the third anniversary of her passing), I rewrote the end:

GIRLS

Girls enter the house, girls enter the house. Girls, and with them the ideas of girls (ideas bright, expansive, flexible), enter the house. Girls, two of them, one charging ahead, one lagging behind, girls dreaming of princes, enter the house. Girls, sugar and spice, girls clad in jumpers with butterflies, flowers, and “Daddy’s Little Girl” t-shirts, enter the house. Two girls, heads together, whispering secrets and giggling, enter the house. Girls enter the house speaking a made-up language. Girls, one with scraped knees and unkempt hair, the other pristine, enter the house. On a Sunday night in September, the night before a new school year, unable to sleep, eager to wear new outfits, girls argue about whose turn it is to turn out the lights. Girls disturb their Brother down the hall with giggling and loud noises. Girls receive a scolding from said Brother to shut up and go to bed, after which the girls giggle into their pillows.

Girls enter the house, girls enter the house. Girls, trailing after their Mother, attempt to emulate her walk. Girls enter the house, repair to their room to daydream and play pretend. Girls enter the house, sneak into Mother’s closet to try on high heels. Girls enter the house and repair immediately to the kitchen, alchemists with the Easy-Bake Oven, stirring sugar with magic and will it with all their might to become frosting. Girls persuade their Brother to sample half-baked creations; later they sit quietly beside him as he lays groaning, grateful he doesn’t snitch, terrified that complicity in his silence will result in death from food poisoning.

Girls enter the house, girls enter the house. Girls enter the house clad in velvet dresses and lace stockings that itch so bad. Girls, fresh from Sunday service, one with long raven locks curled and gathered in ribbons, the other disheveled, yanking ribbons from her hair, uncertain if girlish things - such as playing quietly with dolls, waiting for a prince to rescue her from her tower, and feigning horror rather than displaying interest when the redheaded boy from down the street shows his shriveled boy-penis to the girls - are as much fun as boyish things.

Girls enter the house, girls enter the house. Girls enter the house wearing Catholic schoolgirls uniforms, drained from piano lessons, violin lessons, ballet lessons, volleyball practice, choir rehearsal, volleyball practice, auditions, dress rehearsals, group study sessions. Girls enter their brother’s room unbidden, denude brother’s nose and brows of hair while he naps. Girls are grounded, don’t leave house except to go to school for a month. Girl enters the house dressed in a cheerleader’s outfit, the other, not. Girls enter the house, go to separate corners of their room. Girl slams a car door on the other’s finger, the other slams a car door on the other’s head. Girl enters the house bleeding profusely and is sped to the hospital for stitches, the other watches, scared and full of regret. Girls, with their Father (an arm around each of them), enter the house, but of the monologue proceeding and succeeding this entrance, not a syllable is preserved.

Girls enter the house, girls enter the house. Girls with acne enter the house and squeeze and prod large skin blemishes while locked for hours in the bathroom. Girls with acne treatment products and lip gloss enter the house. Girls braid each other’s hair, try on outfits, scowl their disapproval and practice their dance moves in front of the mirror. Girls bat their eyelashes at their brother’s friends, boys to whom they would not have spoken to only six or eight months prior. Girls enter the house with boys lanky, gangly and graceless, and rebuff the boys’ awkward attempts for physical contact. girls talk long into the night about boys, school, boys, future plans, boys, hair, boys.

Girls enter the house, girls enter the house. Girls enter the house having kissed boys! Girls kiss boys in backyards, on the beach, sitting in bleachers, at night under stars, in cars, backstage, and between classes. Girls practice kissing constantly: on pillows, back of hands, on more boys. Girls enter the house, go to their room, put on loud music, feel despair. Girls enter the house, fight over the phone. The girls are pretty, popular, adored. One girl knows she is pretty, the other feeling less so. Girls enter the house and kiss their Father, who feels differently, now they have outgrown him. Girls skip school and head for the beach. Girls cut class and go shopping. Girls enter the house, one before curfew, one under cover of night and through the bedroom window. Girls enter the house, one carrying bottles of liquor, nervously seeking hiding places where no one would look. Girls, with their Mother (an arm around each of them), enter the house, but of the monologue proceeding and succeeding this entrance, not a syllable is preserved.

Girls enter the house, one very worried, didn’t know more worry was possible. girls enter the house, one carrying and concealing controlled substances, the other carrying and concealing a pregnancy test, neither having told the other that she is carrying a controlled substance or a child, possibly. Girls enter the house, girls enter the house, one awash in relief, the other hung over, complexion ashen, blissfully ignorant.

Girls enter the house, girls enter the house, each clasps the hand of the other with genuine warmth, one wearing a suit and a severe hairstyle, the other paying no attention to her clothes or hair. Girls enter the house, enter the house and argue bitterly about boys (other subjects are no longer discussed), one girl smug, the other believing that the other gets away with murder, refuses flan, though it is created by her Mother in order to keep the peace.

Girls enter the house, girls enter the house and announce future professions. Girls enter the house, enter the house and change their minds about said professions. Girl enters the house with a boyfriend; the other, having no boyfriend, is distant and withdrawn, preferring to talk late into the night about going to school far away. Girls seem to do nothing but compose manifestos, for the benefit of parents; one follows their Mother around the house, having fashioned her manifestos in celebration of brand-new independence: I’m never going to date anyone but artists from now on, mad men, dreamers, practitioners of black magic, or A woman needs a signature fragrance; the other sits with their Father: Dad, I like to lie in bed late on Sunday morning and watch political and cooking shows while eating cereal, but these manifestos apply only for brief spells, after which they are reversed or discarded.

Girls enter the house, girls enter the house, listen to their parents explain the seriousness of their Brother’s difficulty, his situation. Girls enter the house; girls go to their Brother’s room, sit by his empty bed. Girls enter the house, enter the house and miss their Brother. Girls hold hands, laying aside differences, having trudged grimly into the house. Girls enter the house, embarrassed, silent, anguished, afflicted, angry, woeful, grief-stricken. Girls enter the house, one back from visiting their Brother in prison, the other never visits, never speaks of it.

Girls enter the house, girls enter the house arguing about one girl’s boyfriend. Girl accuses other girl: You just don’t want to see me happy. Girl complains to their Mother: Love is blind and he’s a crackhead. Girls enter the house, girls enter the house on a pre-arranged schedule so that they do not run into one another, one visits on Saturday, the other on Sunday. Girls enter the house, girls enter the house, one on the wrong day. Girls enter the house and say hurtful things. One storms out, takes the other’s keys and throws them onto the roof. Girls don’t talk for months. Girls call and email home and thereby enters the house only through a phone line or the Internet.

Girls don’t enter the house at all, except as ghostly afterimages of younger selves: fleeting images of heels clacking down the hallway; makeup strewn all over the bathroom; pantyhose dripping water as they hung to dry in the shower; girls as an absence of girls, blissful at first. You go to the bathroom, it’s unlocked and available. You put a thing down on a spot, put this magazine down, come back later, it’s still there; you buy a box of tampons, use three, later, three are missing. Nevertheless, when girls next enter the house, which they ultimately must do, it’s a relief. Girls come together in preparation for an important birthday, a benchmark age. Girls change into their dresses and heels (one wears ladylike kitten ones, the other preferring stilettos), as though heels are the mark of womanhood. Girls enter the house after the celebration. It was a good time! Girls enter the house, one flanked and aided inside by friends, having had one too many cosmopolitans; the other just happy to be part of the celebration.

One girl misses her sister horribly, misses the past, misses a time worth being nostalgic over, a time that never existed, back when their Brother finally came home; the other avoids all mention of that time. Each of them is once the girl who enters the house alone, missing the other, each is devoted and each callous, and each plays her part on the telephone or via email, over the course of the months.

Girls enter the house, girls enter the house with bad news. One girl enters the house with cancer. Girls enter the house, girls enter the house, girls enter the house.

Girls hold open the threshold, awesome threshold that has welcomed them when they were not able to welcome themselves, that threshold which welcomed them when they had to be taken in, here is its screen door, here is its doorbell that never worked, here’s where the girls peered anxiously through the window at their dates, here are the scuffmarks from when girls were on the wrong side of the door desperately searching the bottom of the handbag for the keys, here’s where boys kissed them goodnight, here’s where the newspaper always landed, here’s the mail slot, here’s the light on the front step, illuminated, here’s where the girls are standing as they pose for what they know will be their last picture together.

Girls, no longer girls, exit.

I miss you Laura.