This cool volunteer

at the Silver Lake No on 8 headquarters was doing a chant out on Hyperion Ave. during last night's "Visibility," that I thought was way fun. It went like this:

What do the nurses say?

No on 8!

What do the teachers say?

No on 8!

What do the unions say?

No on 8!

What does Obama say?

No on 8!

What does Dianne Feinstein say?

No on 8!

What does Schwarzenegger say?

No on 8!

I'm sure you could keep going with this, since countless other politicians and organizations oppose it too, not to mention the major news outlets.

Vote no! Even if it's late and you're busy and the polls are about to close and you're not really worried about the election and you know Obama's going to be fine in California and you don't care about any of the other propositions and you're tired and you just want to go home, swing by your polling place and vote no before you settle in to watch the returns!

I'm so bummed

I missed "Write to Marry Day" to oppose Proposition 8. I'll try to make up for it today. Vote no, people. No means no to discrimination in the constitution and yes to letting gay people continue to have the right to marry in California that they currently have today.

I have made a new rule.

I will see no more movies that have a woman's name and a reference to marriage in the title. I have been burned twice now by movies about self-involved bridesmaid sisters wrecking their self-involved bride sisters' weddings and I will not be burned again. I don't care if Tunde Adebimpe is the groom and his best man is Mather Zickel (who is completely new to me but seems to be made of hotness), I will not endure another bourgeois/boho family dysfunction-fest, even if you're starring cute Anne Hathaway with a severe haircut trying on edgy for a change. Even if Bill Irwin, Jonathan Demme, Fab 5 Freddy, and for God's sake DEBRA WINGER are involved, NEVER AGAIN, DO YOU HEAR ME???

New post

on Fierce and Nerdy.  Here's my half:

Ernessa continues to shake up our weekly throw-down by asking me to write about a song that I can't stop listening to. She picked Kanye West’s “Love Lockdown,” so I thought I'd stick with the hip-hop theme and pick “My Story” by Jean Grae. I discovered Grae thanks to a review of her new CD, Jeanius, on NPR. Just let that sink in for a minute. How fierce and nerdy is that?

Jean's been around a while, although there were rumors earlier this year that she’d quit recording altogether. I’m glad she didn’t, but if “My Story” is an indication of how confessional she is as a songwriter, I can understand why she might need to take a break. The middle verse of the song takes place in an abortion clinic. It’s so intense she ends it by admitting "I can't finish this." Most rappers wish they were this tough.

As for “Love Lockdown,” it makes sense that ETC would be into this song; I recently read where New York Times music critic Jon Caramanica called it "the biggest TV on the Radio song of 2008." I get his point, although I’d listen to TVOTR singing “Feelings” before this mess.

I should’ve warned ETC of my ever-growing disdain for Kanye and everything he stands for. Actually, I'm not sure what he stands for exactly, except for this avant-pop poseur bullshit he's dishing lately. He didn't always do this, did he? Honestly Kanye, congrats for discovering Takashi Murakami and all, but please just give me some mediocre attempt at straightforward hip-hop and stick to sampling songs better than you can actually write instead of your bad vocals, boring keyboard plunking and lame Cher-Effect autotune. AARRRRRRGHHH RAGE against the Kanye! I can’t finish this….

The whole post, with Ernessa's take and the songs, is here.

I'm listening to

Charlie Kaufman on Fresh Air.  You can too here.  

Two new posts

on F&N here and here.

Vote no on Prop 8

I assume that if you read this blog and you live in California, then you're going to vote no on Proposition 8. That's a safe assumption, correct? Good.

If you don't know what I'm talking about, Proposition 8 would amend the state's constitution to eliminate same-sex couples' right to marry. Now, as I'm not a native Californian, this whole process is new to me, so let's parse this out a bit.

Prop 22 passed in 2000, which essentially prevented California from recognizing same-sex marriage.  And then this May our Supreme Court ruled that unconstitutional. So now, some haters got a bunch of signatures together to get a CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT to ban same-sex marriage on the ballot. And all that needs is a simple majority. Regardless of the issue, am I the only one who thinks this is crazy?

That said, rules are rules, and all I can do now is give my time and money to try and defeat this thing. Last night Ernessa and I did some phone banking for Vote No on Prop 8 and I'm going to try and do it at least once a week between now and the election. Ernessa blogged about her experience here, and just from her comments I can see that she drummed up some new donations for the cause, so I thought I'd post as well and encourage any of my out-of-state readers (or in-state, for that matter), that if you either a) support the right of same-sex couples to marry, or b) are opposed to amending the constitution to restrict individuals' rights or c) both, you should consider volunteering for and/or donating to this worthy cause. All eyes are on California, so much so that donations are flooding into the Yes on 8 campaign from all over the country. They're seriously outraising us and their commercials are proving effective enough to show we're starting to lose ground in state polls. Their commercials are full of gay panic and lies, too, but I digress. So goes California, so goes the nation, as they say, and if you care about this issue in your own state, it might be wise to support it in ours.

So, in case you didn't catch the links above, check out Ernessa's post here. Check out No on 8 here. And donate to their campaign here.  

Oh, and don't feel obligated, but if you want to post in the comments what you're doing or have done for the campaign, I think that might be nice.  It'd be good to know if this post spurs folks to action!  No on 8!

I'm re-reading

the Benjy section of The Sound and the Fury in anticipation of Elevator Repair Service's appearance at REDCAT this weekend. I'm dragging JW along; some time ago I told him about reading of Faulkner in college and he picked up the book in an airport bookstore to read on a flight and of course was completely put off. I had neglected to tell him it's not really the best introduction.

So far it's been a really fun read for me. Going in with a general sense of things from my memory of the book is really helpful, but because the memory is distant enough it's like a puzzle -- not impossible, but challenging enough to hold my interest.

That said, as I read a little tonight I tried to be mindful not to try too hard with it. Of course it requires a certain concentration, but there's something to be said for letting this completely fractured, sensory narrative have its simple, visceral effect on the reader. Even with all the tricky non-linear action I felt a such a rich sadness as Benjy cried out for Caddy, finding her out in the swing with Charlie trying to force himself on her. Regardless of how well I've sketched out the timeline of events, it's just about impossible to miss the weight of those moments, or to feel disconnected from them. It's as if a hand reached out from some shadowy place and grabbed me. The way I'm going I hope I finish the whole thing.

This week at Fierce and Nerdy

This week Ernessa and I sound off on Julia and Angus Stone, a new Australian brother-sister duo. Instead of posting my own text, I'm going to give you ETC's intro, then send you along to read the whole thing, as I think it will be more effective out of context. Here you go:

So Kyle claimed to be too tuckered out by his sister and nephew visiting last weekend to pick this week’s KTW vs. ETC track on Tuesday. I’d like to meet this nephew. He sounds like a handful, or maybe he’s just a kid, and we’ve grown unused to that particular breed of person here in L.A.

But the main point is that I chose the Just a Boy EP from Angus and Julia Stone, because it seemed exactly like the kind of plaintive mumbly indie that Kyle would like.

Read the whole thing and hear the music here.

New playwright blog

Hey, my friend EM Lewis is blogging! Check her out here.

These are the people

in my neighborhood, or so says the LATimes.

A security guard at a Mid-Wilshire area medical marijuana clinic was shot and killed during a robbery attempt Wednesday afternoon, police said.

Read the whole thing here. Here it is on ABC7's website.

JW and I had to hang out at Little Bar until the police moved out, as there were apparently suspects on foot hiding out. Of course they had all the TVs on the playoffs, as it's a Boston bar, or so I was told by one of my jockier friends who would know these things. We were thinking of persuading them to let us have just one TV for Project Runway.