Yahrzeit - Ahead & Behind theTimes

My father died 17 years ago today. November 30 is also Mark Twain's birthday. I imagine Dad would have liked to be linked to Twain, however tenuously. Funny... I just now remembered that I read THE INNOCENTS ABROAD the one time I visited Dad at his home in L.A.

In his early years in Hollywood, Dad lent his voice to various progressive causes, which got him branded as "a Red sonofabitch" (allegedly by Columbia Pictures honcho Harry Cohn), then tailed for decades by the FBI. The sign proclaiming "SCHOLARSHIPS NOT BATTLESHIPS" in this photo from 1937 (below) would have been perfect for an anti-Vietnam War demonstration--or an Occupy rally now. Alas, Dad and the other peaceniks were proved wrong four years later, when battleships became vastly more necessary.

PEACE "STRIKE" OFF CAMPUS AT U.C.L.A.

Westwood, Calif.--More than 1000 students of the University of California at Los Angeles walked off the campus in a peace strike as part of a nation-wide demonstration called by the United Student Peace Committee. --PHOTO SHOWS-- Lionel Stander, cinema actor, as he addressed the crowd of strikers, while standing on a truck parked near the campus. 4-22-37

Yahrzeit #16

Lionel Stander (1908-1994) in 1936.
Photo for Columbia Pictures by Irving L. Schaffert.

My father died 16 years ago today. Unaware of the date, yesterday I rearranged the Dad Wall in my dining area. More than two years after acquiring the above photo (part of a large lot) I read the caption on the back:

Eager to preserve his new furniture as long as possible, eccentric Lionel Stander, most popular of Hollywood comedians, selects this strange pose for purpose of relaxation and reading. Whether the book's more interesting read sidewise is a question only Stander can answer. His latest Columbia picture is "Cinderella Man," directed by Frank Capra and starring Gary Cooper and Jean Arthur. Lionel recently moved into a renovated farmhouse in the center of Hollywood, modernized for him by R. M. Schindler.

"Cinderella Man," retitled "Mr. Deeds Goes to Town," was named Best Picture of 1936 by the New York Film Critics and the National Board of Review. Capra won his second Oscar for directing and Cooper was nominated as Best Actor. My eldest half-sister was 3; my mother was 2.

The man who "modernized" Dad's house was noted architect Rudolph Michael Schindler, an associate of Frank Lloyd Wright and Richard Neutra. According to this list, in 1935 Schindler remodeled a house for "L. Stander, 2006 La Brea Terrace, Hollywood" and "Apartments for L. Stander, Los Angeles." Wish I knew the story behind those apartments.

The house takes a good satellite picture:
OMG, it recently sold for $3.75M! Here's the realtor's listing:

COVETED GATED LA BREA TERRACE PRIVATE COMPOUND
4 Bedrooms/4.0 Bathrooms/3,753 Sq. Ft/23,070 Sq. FT. Lot
Rarely are homes available in this private neighborhood. On over half an acre of private gardens is this fine home. Large LR w/ fplc, formal DR, kitchen with best appliances, play room, FR, library w/ fplc. Master with balcony, fplc, sitting area, bath with spa tub. Pecan floors throughout. Pool, outside fireplace, guest house with LR, kitchen, 1BD and 1BA and 2 separate garages for 4 cars. RECENTLY LISTED FOR $5,500,000, CURRENT PRICE MAKES THIS PROPERTY AN OUTSTANDING VALUE IN TODAYS MARKET.

Looks like an old farmhouse all right, but the windows were changed:

The interior doesn't look nearly as snazzy as in 1936:

Guest Post: Strength in Numbers

Book Promotion 101 alum Sally Nemeth (THE HEIGHTS, THE DEPTHS, AND EVERYTHING IN BETWEEN) reports on last week's West Hollywood Book Fair.

(That's Sally by the balloons, doing her Mama Rose impression.)

I am a lucky author. No, my publishing house doesn't do squat for me promotionally, I didn't win a major award with my very first novel, and I'm not on anyone's bestseller list. What I am is a LAYA.

I'm one of the Los Angeles Young Adult authors. And what we've found over our three years of existence is that when it comes to promotion and appearances, there is definitely strength in numbers.

We were organized as an ad hoc listserve by YA author Cecil Castellucci. Initially what we did was share information online, have cocktails, gather for parties and bitch about our publishers, agents, publicists, etc.

Then last year, when the BookExpoAmerica and American Library Association conventions were held in Los Angeles, we saw it as a call to action. We figured we could make a bigger splash at both events as a collective than as individuals. We came up with the idea of presenting a live game show--LAYAPALOOZA--with games based on YA lit guaranteed to amaze and amuse. We invented some absurdly funny quiz show games, got some righteous swag to give away (including our own books), and were not afraid to make total fools of ourselves onstage. And it worked.

For BEA, we contacted the Association of Booksellers for Children and performed LAYAPALOOZA in their hospitality suite, to great acclaim. At ALA, we performed at the Young Adult Library Services Association (YALSA) pavilion and garnered quite a crowd, awarding Dum-Dums for wrong answers to the likes of Arthur Levine and Jay Asher. We set up a group MySpace page and at both events gave out rubber bracelets embossed with our URL: http://www.myspace.com/losLAYAs

Since then, we've been invited to perform LAYAPALOOZA at Vroman's Books in Pasadena, at the November California Library Association meeting and in January at Changing Hands Bookstore in Phoenix, AZ. And now all PALOOZAs are followed by book signings.

As a group, we've always talked about how book fests never get teen lit right. They either strand authors on the kiddie stage, where no teen would be caught dead. Or they put us on panels with other YA authors, where we blather to a room full of people who want to be YA authors about what it's like to be a YA author. Neither format attracts our target audience: teens.

Fellow LAYA Leigh Purtill and I approached the West Hollywood Book Fair with a proposition: If they'd set up a dedicated teen tent, we'd provide at least two hours of programming for it and rent a booth at the fair. We told them that, rather than present our own work, we'd adapt short excerpts of our books "readers theatre" style, and have an ensemble of teens perform the texts. If teens are performing, we reasoned, they'd tell their friends and families to come. Voilà! Target audience achieved.

To our amazement and their credit, the WeHo Book Fair organizing committee agreed. They said that if we succeeded in getting an audience at the teen stage, the LAYAs would have slots at the fest next year, and for years to come.

On Sunday, October 4, the LAYAs INVADED WEHO! Ten members whose books had been published within the year, along with 10 teen readers, took the fest by storm. The organizers have yet to do a post mortem, but we're pretty sure they'll be having us back.

We learned a thing or two. Next year we'll sell our own books at our own booth all day, rather than have a fest seller handle a single signing after the performance. Thus we can sign throughout the day and more of us can participate in the fest, rather than just LAYAs with books published that year. And the more of us on hand, the more attention we draw.

Next week, invited by YALSA, we'll be performing in pairs at libraries throughout Los Angeles as part of Teens Read Week. It's a great way for us to get to know area librarians, YA authors' best friends. The LAYAs are now something of a brand, all because we joined together to promote our work--and YA literature as a whole.

Not bad for a bunch of solitary authors.

Signs of the Times

The Best Wedding Vow of All

I got all choked up reading this piece in today's LA Times by YA author Kerry Madden, who's spoken at my workshops:

Our wedding vow -- to my mother--in law
Our elopement included a promise we would never lose our ambition. We kept it.

Signs of the Times

Poor Mr. Ed! What the locals didn't mention on my trip last week.

Bumper stickers on the rear of a white sedan in Simi Valley, CA:

On left: McCain.
On right: Obama.
In center: Can this marriage be saved?

On the Road Again

The most beautiful place I've given a workshop: the courtyard outside our meeting room at St. Maximilian Kolbe Church, Westlake Village.

I've been in (mostly) sunny Southern California since Wednesday. The official reason for the trip was to give a Book Promotion 101 workshop yesterday, sponsored by the Tri-Regions of Southern California chapter of SCBWI. I decided to take a couple of extra days, which I crammed with visits to friends old and new in Santa Monica, LA and Venice.

When I left Denver, it was about 30 with a couple inches of snow on the ground, forecast to shoot into the 50s. When I arrived in LA at noon, it was 72, with bougainvillea and roses blooming everywhere. Bliss!

The weather here was balmy thru Friday, when I spent a couple of supremely happy hours at El Matador Beach, just north of Malibu. I enjoyed the clime even more when Baby Brother filled me in on the wretched time he was having with the ice storm in Maine. (Schadenfreude is a great sweetener. And Baby Bro's power is back on now.)

Baby Bro's icy front yard in Topsham, Maine.
(Current temp: 28F. Denver: 1.)

The last laugh's on me though: It dropped to 40 last night in Simi Valley (home of the Reagan Library--guess where I won't be going) and there's no heat in my hotel room. (Yeah, there's a thermostat, but it doesn't do anything.) I slept in a sweater zipped up over my nightgown and the covers over my head.

Better/worse still: It was ZERO and snowing in Denver a couple of hours ago; it'll be maybe 5F when I touch down tonight. I am soooo glad I'm taking a shuttle van home, so I won't have to shlep through the frigid, snowy parking lot in my lightweight LA clothes. And I am soooo going to drink in all the greenery and flowers in my remaining few hours here. (Next stop: Topanga Canyon.)

Update, Dec 15:
It was -14F (FOURTEEN DEGREES BELOW ZERO!!!) when my plane touched down last night. You should have heard the shrieks and groans when the pilot announced the local weather. As of noon, it's warmed up to all of +1F. I mean, seriously, WTF?

The Sound of Waves

Before throwing ourselves into the BookExpo hurly burly, last Wednesday afternoon Darling Husband and I had an enchanting two hours at El Matador State Beach (above), north of Malibu.

Enjoy...


Pelicans from the cliff top.









Ocean-made art.











Looking down.

















Looking up.

From the beach.

Below: Yours truly, snoozing. Ahh, bliss!

On to LA!

Tomorrow I'm off to Los Angeles for BookExpo America, where as usual I'll be representing the Virginia Festival of the Book and promoting my workshops & consulting services. (Learn how to apply for VaBook 2009 here; deadline for authors is October 1.)

Darling Husband and I are having a 4-hour SoCal beach vacation on Wednesday afternoon. Alas, the forecast is for a high of 70F (June Gloom, hmpf!), so we'll pretend we're back in Maine, just facing the opposite direction.

BEA officially starts on Friday, but there are terrific educational programs the day before. I'll be attending:

1. Media Matters sessions with Southern California TV producers, radio producers and magazine editors, led by publicist extraordinaire Kim-from-LA
2. Strategies for New Publicity Opportunities in an Expanding Media Universe
3. The Author-preneur: Balancing Authorship and the New Business of Brand-building

On Friday afternoon, there are 4 programs (2 at the same time, GAH!) that I want to see. Then I'm starting off the evening with an Authors Guild reception, followed by three more cocktail/munchie/dessert parties. To keep up my stamina, I plan to ingest lotsa B vitamins and fizzy water (and maybe a cocktail or two).

On Saturday, after a full day at the show, I'm only (!) going to 2 receptions, then dinner and the Lewis Black show at the Orpheum with DH.

On Sunday, I'm going to the 8:00am Book & Author Breakfast, moderated by John Hodgman, with Ted Turner, Azar Nafisi and Dennis Lehane. (I think I'll be drinking lotsa coffee.)

On Monday, I plan to collapse at home.

Another Creative Visualization

Stealth wader outside the Pacific Design Center last Sunday.

I took the above pic while tottering away from the reception after the West Hollywood Book Fair. Looking at this sure beats looking in the mirror at my bandaged nose and blackening eye. But at least I can wear my glasses over the splint; I didn't think I'd be able to put them on for a week.

What not to read while waiting to go to the O.R.:
The Last Town on Earth by Thomas Mullen.

It's a swell book, but sometimes Spanish flu victims spewing blood and turning blue aren't quite the thing. I had Darling Husband take it away.

Creative Visualization

A very kind person sent me an animated greeting card of a Hawaiian beach, with good wishes for today. I'm concentrating on this image, which I snapped in Santa Monica after lunch on Monday:


Alternately, I'm focusing on this one:

Poor speling on the Santa Monica pier.

West Hollywood Book Fair

No way was I first in line for the Gore Vidal (see previous post) signing at Sunday's West Hollywood Book Fair. More like the 40th, and I accrued some more freckles while I waited my turn in the blazing sun.

But first, I went to a First Fiction panel, moderated by Eduardo Santiago (TOMORROW THEY WILL KISS).

First Fiction panelists Jeff Hobbs, Karen Mack & Jennifer Kaufman.

I snapped the pic below afterwards. Santiago is second from left, flanked by the endearingly tongue-tied Jeff Hobbs (THE TOURISTS), and Karen Mack and Jennifer Kaufman (far right), authors of LITERACY AND LONGING IN L.A. Not pictured are fellow panelists Alex Espinoza and Andrea Portes.


Next I went to a memoir panel, one of THE BEST panels I've experienced anywhere. Moderator was Samantha Dunn (NOT BY ACCIDENT); panelists were Dinah Lenney (BIGGER THAN LIFE: A Murder, A Memoir), Aaron Raz Link (WHAT BECOMES YOU) and Emily Rapp (POSTER CHILD). I was too enthralled to take notes. Now I wish I'd written down the many gems that came spilling from everyone's lips. Here's one from Link: Deadlines are your friend.

Memoirists Aaron Raz Link and Emily Rapp.

After I got Vidal's scrawl in my newly purchased copy of POINT BY POINT NAVIGATION, I went to a celebrity memoir panel moderated by my friend Beverly Gray (she of the Tinseltown jokes below). Only here's the funny thing: I'd never heard of any of the celebs on the panel. Oops. They were: Chuck Panozzo of Styx, Neile McQueen Toffel (aka Neile Adams, aka Mrs. Steve McQueen), Victoria Rowell (ballerina, actress & mother of Wynton Marsalis's kid).

Chuck Panozzo and Neile McQueen Toffel.

Then I was on a panel entitled "How to Make a Book a Success," moderated by publicist and media trainer extraordinaire Kim Dower (aka Kim from L.A.). The other panelists were agent Betsy Amster and author/radio host Barbara DeMarco Barrett. So we were the Three Bs.

After that I went to the "Green Room" (aka the West Hollywood Park gym) and plotzed for a half hour.

WeHo Book Fair author coordinator Corey Roskin & volunteer
Johanna Pick, at the end of a long day.

Then it was time for the book fair reception, so Beverly and I trudged across San Vicente Blvd to MOCA. It wasn't air conditioned, the floor was hard and there was very little seating. Pretty soon I melted down like a five-year-old and whined, "I'm tired!" Whereupon Beverly kindly escorted me out and drove me to her Gracious Home on a leafy, QUIET block in Santa Monica.

But first we stopped by the spectacular water display right outside MOCA and the Pacific Design Center.

YA author Kerry Madden & Beverly Gray.

And one last pic for the road:

Pacific Design Center

Hollywood Jokes for Tuesday

I just flew in from the Coast, and are my wings ever tired! [Ba-dum-BUM!]

But seriously, I heard some good movie trade jokes from my friend (and gracious hostess) Beverly Gray, author of ROGER CORMAN: Blood-Sucking Vampires, Flesh-Eating Cockroaches, and Driller Killers. She got the first two from veteran cinematographer Phil Schwartz.

Q: How do you know who your friends are in the movie industry?

A: They're the ones who stab you in the chest.
# # #

Q: How many producers does it take to screw in a light bulb?

A: I don't know...What do YOU think?
# # #

This is supposedly true:

A writer gives his screenplay to a friend, who works for a movie production company. Weeks go by, with no response. Finally, the writer can't stand it any longer. He screws up his courage and calls his friend.

Writer: "What did you think of my script?"

Friend: I don't know. I'm the only one who's read it."
# # #

A Visit with Gore Vidal: That Old Hollywood Magic

Gore Vidal with beloved cat Baby Brown.

My motto: Anything worth doing is worth overdoing. Hence in addition to giving a Book Promotion 101 workshop tomorrow and appearing on a panel at Sunday's West Hollywood Book Fair, while I'm in LA this weekend I'm also interviewing some of my father's old friends.

So after a fabu lunch at Joan's on Third (their burrata is an epiphany), I took a cab high up into the Hollywood Hills. There I spent an enchanted afternoon with writer Gore Vidal, who knew my father in Rome in the late 1960s.

The thick stone and adobe walls of Mr. Vidal's home, built in 1920, block out the sounds of the modern world. Its sights are kept at bay thanks to views of the lush, enclosed grounds outside and the impressive collection of old art and antiques displayed inside.

"Let's see Caspar," he said shortly after I sat down. I thought he was referring to a friendly ghost, but then he switched on a light behind a stained-glass miniature hanging on a wall. Pictured was one Caspar Vidall, a Viennese (I think) apothecary, dated 1589. And here I'd been excited that I'd traced a Stander forebear to late 18th-century Lithuania.

Vidal regaled me with a wide-ranging array of stories. Seems my dad used to sit in a big chair on the terrace outside his apartment on the Via Veneto. He'd espy Vidal on his way home from the gym and invite him upstairs for a drink. "I just had one now, in memory of Lionel," Vidal said to me, raising his whiskey and soda.

My host told me the legend illustrated by a 4th century B.C. Etruscan stone funeral urn that sits atop a massive coffee table, itself a work of art with a gold mosaic patterned after one in a church in Ravello, his home for many years.

I had to promise not to repeat any salacious tales Vidal shared about living people. But he related a marvelous story--with appropriate accent--that he'd heard from actress Judith Anderson (best known as Mrs Danvers in "Rebecca"; she was in at least one play and a movie, "Spectre of the Rose," with my dad). Anderson drove home drunk from a party and woke up the next morning with a crashing hangover, caressing the smooth head of a strange man. When she finally got up the courage to see who her bald bedmate was, she discovered she was lying on the bathroom floor with her arm around the toilet.

I said, "That's when I'd say to myself that it's time to give up drinking."

"Oh," replied Vidal. "She probably just had another drink to steady her nerves."

He also told how he used to go horseback riding every week with Paul Newman in the hills above the Warner studio. One time, in the late 1950s, they were joined by Eartha Kitt, who was mounted on Linda, a "nasty" thoroughbred. Linda bolted and galloped off, with Vidal and Newman in hot pursuit. When the two men caught up on their horses, Vidal told me admiringly, Linda was all in a lather but Kitt, ever the graceful dancer, had kept her seat in style. Better still, she did her stage show as usual that night.

Vidal will be signing books at the Book Soup table at the book fair at 2pm on Sunday. I'll be first in line.

Colorful Memories

Young Beverly Gray (far right) being taught by Carmen de Lavallade.

A year ago January, the day before I gave a workshop in L.A., I had a wonderful, long lunch in Santa Monica with author Beverly Gray. We discussed some book ideas she had, then the topic turned to her childhood in Los Angeles. She started talking about how for years she had taken dance lessons at the Lester Horton Dance Theater under the tutelage of its star performer, Carmen de Lavallade. So unlike most little Jewish girls then, Beverly's idol was a dark-skinned ballerina--one of the first in the U.S.

I said to Beverly, "That's the story you should write!" She did, and after many months it's finally seen print--in today's L.A. Times: Big lessons for a little ballerina.

Out of the Vault: BEA Dispatches of Yore (LA)

I'm cleaning up and rearranging my cyberspace. In so doing, I'm moving my BookExpo Dispatches from Book Promotion 101 to here.

Where has the time gone? My copious notes from BEA 2005 are still sitting in a notebook somewhere, I missed BEA '06 due to my equestrian fiasco and now here comes BEA '07. Oh well...

Report from BEA 2003, Los Angeles

Darling, it was just TOO fabulous! Mwah! Mwah! (air kiss noises...)

I met movie stars & famous writers & famous editors & ate at divoon restaurants. Wed. night [May 28], Jeff Goldblum wowed the crowd at a club on lower Wilshire Blvd, where he played piano in a jazz band--and had a string of gorgeous, leggy women glued to him during breaks. At The Grill in Beverly Hills on Friday evening, billionaire Kirk Kerkorian was in the next booth with his "niece" (1/3-1/4 his age) & Larry King walked by. (His jawline is waaay too sharp; he's obviously had some work done. But darling, who hasn't?).

Oh right, I was talking about BookExpo...

The educational sessions on Thursday [May 29] were excellent overall, especially "The Art of Crafting the Perfect Pitch" with book publicist Kim Dower (aka "Kim from L.A.") and actor/media coach Bill Applebaum, who's her partner in Perfect Pitch Productions [now Kim-from-L.A. Literary & Media Services]. What a dynamite pair! They worked with three authors on their pitches, then did a fake morning drive-time radio show with a fourth author that was simply amazing.

LA radio & TV producers were on 2 panels moderated by Kim, which were also stellar. Note: Almost none of them reads Radio & TV Interview Report. They don't need to, as they're inundated with requests from authors & publicists (150+ emails & 50+ phone messages a day). Someone told me later that RTIR is mostly used in the smaller markets.

I left during the TV panel to go to the SRO "Editor & Bookseller Buzz Forum." Don't believe the media reports: It was a real snore. And is it so hard to speak into a microphone? There was one conveniently placed for each of the 6 editors. After the 2nd made her practically inaudible presentation, I yelled out that we couldn't hear. Then Norton's Starling Lawrence sort of got near his mike and went on and on...and ON...about a March '03 book on the heroic dogsled team that brought the diphtheria serum to Nome in the 1920s (BTW, covered in a Fall '02 Walker & Co children's picture book). Great, except the editors were told to talk about books that are coming this fall, not ones that are out already.

Knopf's Sonny Mehta (speaker #5) announced to the crowd of top media and influential booksellers, "I have nothing prepared to say," then proceeded to mumble a laundry list of fall authors: "There is the new Toni Morrison, there is the new Gabriel Garcia Marquez, which is still being translated..." For this we needed to shlep to the LA Convention Center? The same information is in the Knopf fall catalog sitting in a pile on my office shelf. Claire Wachtel of HarperCollins, who came last, was the only one of the pack who: (a) followed instructions, (b) didn't need training by Perfect Pitch AND (c) spoke into the damn mike so everyone could hear without holding their breath.

High point for me was on Sat. morning [May 30], when I got to chat with Carl Reiner for 2 minutes (after standing in line for 30) while he signed his new kid's book at the Little, Brown booth. (I figured the line would be shorter there than for his memoir at I forget which other pub.) I'll treasure it always.

I was at the Saturday slugfest...er...Book & Author Luncheon with Molly Ivins, Bill O'Reilly and Al Franken. Wow! What a show! My stomach is still in knots. Afterwards, I patted Pat Schroeder on the back (a friend who saw it on CSPAN said she had that "deer in the headlights" look) and shook Franken's hand before he was whisked away by his handlers.

MJ Rose and Jacqueline Deval's "Buzz Your Book" program on Sat afternoon was very good and the two ladies were a font of clever ideas and useful advice. However, the audience was larded with many of the same strident, needy and naive self-published authors who had attended the Thursday programs. They raise their hands to speak, but instead of asking a question, launch into a QVC infomercial for their books. After the 3rd one started her pitch I just had to leave. Besides being boring, many of them need stylists as well as therapists. It's hard to take an "expert" seriously when she has streaky orange-red hair and is wearing a blouse to match.

And speaking of style, I would have been SO much happier if the security guards had banned belly buttons instead of wheeled briefcases. OK (in small doses) on Janet Jackson or some other well-toned celebrity at a concert or movie premier. Unappetizing and wildly inappropriate on the flabby woman trudging down the concourse to the West Hall; worse, she was also wearing a sagging halter top. Blech. (And she wonders why she can't get an agent for her book!)

Saturday evening I met some folks (one of whom aptly remarked, "L.A. is the cleavage capital of the world") for drinks at the ultra-retro-moderne Downtown Standard Hotel. Afterwards, three of us went to dinner at the fabulous Il Cielo in Beverly Hills, where--surprise!--Harlequin was having their fabu party. While waiting for our table, had a great time chatting with other publishing types, then watching their faces crumple ("Oh, you mean you weren't...invited?") when they realized that we were on our way IN and not on our way OUT with them to the next fabu soiree.

The Sunday Book & Author Breakfast w/ Michael Moore, Madeleine Albright, Walter Isaacson and Maxine Hong Kingston was just as enthralling as the Infamous Lunch, though much more polite and civilized. Isaacson is a terrific speaker and moderator; funny too. At the end, Albright said that she and Moore might go out on the road as a "tag team," which elicited enthusiastic whoops from the audience, including Your Humble Correspondent.

Most surreal moment: Dr. Ruth, in a flowery mauve dress, signing her memoir at a university press booth on Sunday, when a woman in a sci-fi outfit (black spandex catsuit, black spike heels, 2-foot-high black cylindrical hat, purple face & 2-inch green eyelashes) asks can they have their picture taken together. Seems she's a big fan. I helpfully point out that Ms. Bizarro's face matches Dr. Ruth's frock. Neither takes any notice.

Albert Hammond Was Wrong

It does so rain in Southern California! In fact it poured, man, it poured in L.A. on Saturday night when I stepped out to a party in silk shoes--and nearly stepped into a big honkin' puddle. But at least it wasn't snowing, as it had been (again!) in Denver that day, and the temperature was well above freezing, so I was happy if a bit damp.

I know there's no place like home and all that, but given the two feet of snow that is still blanketing Denver, plus the sub-zero temps and flurries forecast for later this week, I'd happily spend a few more days (like, 60) in LaLa Land. Provided, of course, I could stay in the same posh little hotel, eat at fabu restaurants and shop at Loehmann's and the cunning little boutiques on West 3rd Street whenever the mood strikes. And of course not have to worry about mundane details like family, work and who's going to pay for everything.

At least I came home with great memories--and an armload of grapefruits and lemons that I liberated during a walk around the neighborhood. I would have picked some bananas too (see below), only they didn't look ripe...I guess. I mean, who knows when bananas are ready to be picked, when the only ones you've seen are in a pile at the supermarket, plastered with Chiquita stickers? Now instead of reaching for low-hanging fruit, I'm back home reaching for my long johns.

Danger! Audrey 2 is alive and well and living in West Hollywood.