As seen dropping below the trees of the Micheltorena ridge from my porch in Silver Lake this morning at 5:52 a.m.

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A quarter of a million dollars is raised to fight the proposed anti-gay amendment.

Sunday night at the Mondrian Hotel’s Skybar brought out a sizeable chunk of gay Hollywood and those who love them (and also recognize their power.) The filled-to-capacity event raised close to $250,000 to benefit  Equality California and Love Honor Cherish, two key organizations that have mobilized to defeat Proposition 8, which would amend the California state constitution to eliminate marriage rights for same sex couples.

Chad Allen, Heather Tom, Eric McCormack, Dana Delaney, Marissa Jaret Winokur, Thomas Roberts, Katherine Joosten, Eduardo Xo and Loni Anderson  were some of the boldface names in attendance.

But it was Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, the true star of the evening, who wowed the crowd not only with his announcement of his $25,000 donation to the campaign to defeat Proposition 8, but also with his passionate speech that embraced the gay community and took aim at the backers of prop 8, calling their intent “bigotry.”

Villariagosa linked the cause to defeat prop 8 to the civil rights movement, recalling his outsider status as a Latino who had to fight his way into a city politic dominated by a white world. He cajoled and coaxed the crowd into giving more than they already had given; in this case $100 was the minimum donation to attend the event. The mayor also made light of the whiplash nature of his evening, having come directly from a function at the Reagan Presidential Library prior to the Mondrian fundraiser.

A silent auction was an aspect of the benefit, with everything from a Gus Van Zant-signed script of his forthcoming film, Milk, (about Harvey Milk, the gay San Francisco council member who was gunned down because of his championing of gay rights legislation) to a noninvasive  “lipo-smoothing” session ( I don’t even want to know what that is) to a wedding cake with same sex “toppers.”

Somehow, I didn’t fall into the pool in the dizzying swirl of elites. But in an election season where the future of the country is at stake, the point was also made that my future as a gay man in California is  also up for grabs.

More coverage at Out in Hollywood.

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Indie-emo-folky songstress Canucks Tegan & Sara visit our smoky city of LA for a couple shows this week, playing the Fonda on the 16th along with City & Colour (who are rad) and Girl In A Coma. And we’ve got a few pairs of tix (plus CDs!) to give away to a few lucky winners! Ta dah! The catch? You gotta write me a haiku. Ayup. The misses Tegan & Sara bust their asses getting all wordsmithy for us–the least you can do is reciprocate. Write me the cleverest (is that even a word?) haiku you can imagine in the comments below. Best haiku win tickets. Simple as that!

Here, I’ll start:

Haiku are real neat
But sometimes they make no sense
Refrigerator

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Forging a bond between the creative pursuits of established visual artists and young writers, Poketo, a Los Angeles design company specializing in limited edition, affordable art products, teamed up with 826LA, a non-profit organization that teaches writing skills to students ages 6 to 18, to create a special series of artist wallets.

826LA held a writing workshop called When Wallets Eat Words, where students developed short stories to line the inside of the artist wallets. Each wallet was then illustrated with a Poketo artists’ interpretation of the stories. The series was conceived when Poketo approached 826LA with an offer to curate a project for the organization.

Started by McSweeney’s Quarterly founder David Eggers, 826 has grown into a nationwide network, with two facilities in Los Angeles (Echo Park and Venice,) as well as branches in San Francisco, Seattle, Ann Arbor, Chicago, Boston and Brooklyn.

The wallets are available for $20 on the Poketo site , as well as at the Echo Park Time Travel Mart, 1714 W. Sunset Blvd, Los Angeles 90026. Proceeds benefit student writing programs at 826LA.

Wallet designed by Martha Rich.

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Heading east on Roscoe Boulevard, 1:00 pm. (Thanks to Chris for the shot.)

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Yep, it’s that time again! No, not “time for arsonists to burn our city down,” I mean time for Goldenvoice tickets! Yay! Lost your home? Had to evacuate? Worried about your pets? Hey, no worries, little buckaroo! Chin up! Get in a good mood with tix to this show! Hooray! See, gray skies are gonna clear up. Put on a happy face!

/angry snark

That aside, yes, I do have tickets for you. Just enter into the comments your fave song by either The Virgins or the Black Kids, and we’ll see about hooking you up. Tickets can be had here if you’d rather buy ‘em.

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In addition to the Marek fire, burning at Sylmar, which apparently has just claimed a life, there’s now a fire burning in Porter Ranch, at Via Donatello and Sesnon Boulevard, I believe. The best live coverage I’ve found is at KNBC.

This is the view from Nordhoff and Corbin.

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The homeless man the devils burned to death on 3rd Street Thursday night wasn’t the one I’d thought after reading about it in the LA Times. The one I’d thought had been so unfathomably murdered was still alive and in his usual vicinity of 4th and Vermont pushing a cart by the Shatto Lanes bowling alley  when I biked past him this morning. He was wearing his big coat and dark glasses with a closely cropped beard still the same unnatural color so incongruous to the rest of him that it makes me think he might dye it with shoe polish.

I was micro-fractionally relieved that he wasn’t dead, but the dread was still there as I pedaled up Vermont to 3rd and west a block and a half to the makeshift shrine that had been erected by area residents in the wake of such horror.

When I arrived, a few women stood solemnly before the assemblage of countless candles and flowers and plush toys beneath the pictures and letters taped to the glass window of the shuttered clinic where he’d been attacked.

The first letter I read was signed by Victor Martinez:

“I just most of all want you to know that I love you and hope you are having a fun and peaceful vacation up there in heaven.”

On pink paper festooned with hand-drawn hearts, Michelle Castillo wrote, “We will miss you so much. You are a good man. I am safe when I am near you.”

Another printed out in a large font read, “You were a beautiful and harmless man. No matter what state you were in, your crystal blue eyes shined through all of it and through them we saw your innocense, your honesty and your calm. We saw something in you that many of us will never access within ourselves.”

John’s relatives have posted some biographical information (transcribed after the jump; along with a link to the Flickr photoset I snapped of the memorial this morning):

Read more

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MTVu and Ford’s College You Drive teamed up for a Tuesday night “red carpet style” in Westwood near UCLA.  Pretty simple deal, show up register, take part in the fun on the red carpet, check out the new Sync System, have some fun.  The registration is gratis and is your ticket to win a new Ford Focus.  Your evening ends with a private screening of “You Don’t Mess with the Zohan”.

This is event is tied in with a contest held earlier this year as part of the MTVu and Ford College You Drive series.  A group of college students from across the country won a trip to LA that included invitations to the “Max Payne” premier and party tonight.  I’d be curious to get their thoughts on the movie.  More so I’d like to find out what being in LA is like for those who are here for their first time ever compared to the image they had in their head.  (Hint…can someone get me in?). 

Details: Tuesday 10/13 6:15PM - 10PM, 1013 Broxton Avenue, Westwood CA (which we really know is LA).

Pic by me, it is an HDR image…how else can I get details on a black car in the shade?

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This Saturday is the day!  Join Will Campbell (WILL•I•AM) and me as we march down Western Ave. Here are the details:

Meet-up time:  6:30am

Meet-up/Start location:  Fern Dell Park at Fern Dell Drive (the first street east of the Western/Los Feliz bend. There is some on-street parking in that area as well.)

End location:  Friendship and Bogdanovich Park (click here and here for more details. They share a parking lot off of W. 9th street) We will find a spot in the park that has great views to end the day. (Click here for an interesting tidbit on who this Bogdnaovich was.)

A note on the end location. Will and I haven’t decided if we might end up two more miles down Western, at the ocean. We like to be flexible and see how we feel by then.  

Duration:  I’m calculating 9.5 to 10 hours. (The distance is approx. 26 miles, so divided by 3mph is 8.6 hours, but factor in rest stops, photo ops, blister protection rearrangement stops and the time adds up.)

Obviously, this will not be a round trip walk so plan for a pick up at the end. Even Will and I have not confirmed our own rides back, though I’m fairly certain our respective spouses may provide transport.

Along the way Will will be on Twitter so you can follow our progress from the comfort of your couch.   

When I first posted about our little event a few of you readers/commenters said you might like to join in. We are counting on you because, as you know, the more, the merrier.

I’ll probably post one more time with last minute updates this week.  But for now, go get some moleskin, make sure your shoes are broken in, charge those camera and phone batteries and we’ll see you Saturday morning.  My one piece of advice:  HYDRATE on Friday!

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The Echo’s monthly Sunday early evening series, Grand Old Echo, continues tonight with alt-country rockers Dead Rock West headlining, preceded by Chris Shiflett (Foo Fighters,) and Rich McCulley. Hosted by Indie 103’s Chris Morris of Watusi Rodeo fame, start time is 5:30 PM.

Aside from the music, one nice thing about GOE is how bright daylight streams into the dark Echo Park club whenever someone opens the door to enter, creating a when-worlds-collide effect. Granted, the shortening autumn days will curb this sensory sideshow but I’m enjoying it while I can.

Grand Old Echo at The Echo, 5:30 PM today; 1822 Sunset Blvd., Los Angeles 90026; FREE!

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Our friend Darleene at AAJA is helping to get the first ever team of bloggers to compete in the Annual AAJA Trivia Bowl… Team LA.Metblogs.com!

Hey, that’s us!

Trivia Bowl is an ultra-competitive, team quiz-style event that draws hundreds of people including journalists, lawyers, and other members of the Asian American community to go through 5 rounds of 20 trivia questions. Most of the questions, but not all, have some element of “current events” or “news” to it.

The five categories are:
1. Current Events
2. History & Geography
3. Arts & Entertainment
4. Science & Literature
5. Sports & “California Living”

Now normally, the competitors are journalists and lawyers (and also a high school decathlon team, too), but now the bloggers are getting in the fray.

We already have a team of 8 and are looking for 4 more people to round out our team!

Do you want to join our team and test your trivia chops with the best of them???

Start Time: Friday, October 17 at 6:00pm
End Time: Friday, October 17 at 10:00pm
Where: ABC7 Broadcast Center (Glendale)

Free food catered by Wahoo’s Fish Taco!

You must be: a reader of LA.Metblogs.com and be able to commit to arriving on time at the event.

To see more details: http://www.facebook.com/n/?event.php&eid=30105322035

If you’d like to be part of this historic team, please leave a comment or email me at jozjozjoz (aaaat) gmail (doot) com by Monday, October 13.

Photo courtesy: Darleeneisms

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One of the measures on the November ballot, Proposition 1A, calls for almost ten billion dollars in bonds to help fund a high speed train between LA and San Francisco. The total cost is estimated to be $40 billion. But according to a study by Philip Romero, the dean of economics at Cal State Los Angeles, the net effect of the project would be positive. How positive? The Daily News reports that Romero’s study found the rail project would reduce unemployment appreciably (by 1 to 2 percent) and increase the average yearly income for a family of four by $800. Is it too early in our depression economic downturn to think about a California Works Progress Administration? I don’t think so. But then, I’ve always been a little pink.

(Kevin Dooley’s picture of his O gauge model train used through a Creative Commons license.)

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Check out the bigotry ad currently running on LA Metblogs. Do we need the money that badly? Also, there’s a small Google ad for “Protect Marriage.”

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Travel brochure from the Mad Men scrapbook.

Don Draper and Peter Campbell are flying out from Madison Ave., New York on Sunday, representing the Sterling Cooper advertising agency at an aerospace convention. Ever since President Kennedy made that crazy promise to put a man on the moon before 1970, everyone has wanted a piece of the action.

Between wining and dining congressman on their abilities to help secure contracts, I’m sure those boys will fit in some fun time away from the wives.

Since the pair are sharp enough to have recently taken up Twittering, I don’t think its too presumptuous to think they’ll be looking here for suggestions on watering holes or restaurants they should patronize… of course, these places will need to exist in 1962, and they should probably be serving Canadian Club.

Of course, there’s Musso & Frank’s and the Formosa… any other joints this pair should visit?

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