Ok, this is so milk toast (i.e. vanilla and common), but for once I’m going to go with the flow of conformity and post my New Year’s resolutions, which double as my personal aphorisms for 2008. Of course, should I change my mind or need to add any new ones in, there’s always Chinese New Year, on February 7th.

1. Single is the new married (married connoting not the stigma of ”the ball and chain” but the status of “the rock”). 

2. It’s better to regret something you HAVE done than something you haven’t (paraphrased: less thinking, more doing; merch paraphrase: Just Do It!)

3. Go with the flow, but if the flow leads you into a “bad vibe” scenario, trust your instinct immediately and get out of there (life’s too short).

4. Don’t waste your time with negative people and energy suckers and let yourself get sucked into their dark vortex.

5. To quote one of my Canyon cohorts’ pen-written marking on her hand, “Do it now!” (or the old adage, don’t put off until tomorrow what you can do today).

6. Leave the house, A LOT (and that does NOT mean leave the house to sit around the houses of your wedded and/or child-bestowed friends, drunkenly entertaining them with tales of your debauchery–that’s like being in an MA meeting, Marrieds Anonymous).

7. Give at least one compliment out, even to a stranger, every day.

8. Talk to at least one stranger every day (but definitely do not take candy from them and ’say nope to dope and ugh to drugs’).

9. Enjoy the West Side more (ok, I already do this, I love everywhere West of La Brea, but the air and people seem fresher out there so I really need to make a note to do this more often).

10. Don’t knee-jerk reject something outright. Learn to Just Say Yes!

11. You do not have the power to change the world. But you have the power to change your mind. Make your thoughts positive ones. -L. Ron Hubbard, Dianetics (just kidding, this is not a Dianetics quote but it sure did sound like one, and we’re in L.A. so it’s at least a little appropos).

12. If you can’t be with the one you love, love the one you’re with. (couldn’t help making a Canyonesque joke, thank you Crosby, Stills, Nash and of course Young).

Happy New Year to All!

Image: Laura Archera Huxley, widow and biographer of legendary writer Aldous Huxley

Rest in Peace - November 2, 1911-December 13, 2007

I was going to take a break from blogging for the Christmas week, until my friend and fellow scribe Brian Doherty emailed to tell me that Laura Archera Huxley had died a week or so ago. It was almost a year ago (February 1st, 2007 to be exact) that I was privileged enough to be invited into Mrs. Huxley’s home for a tete-a-tete. I was working on a project called Hindu Hollywood and was hoping to pick her brain.

We sat at the dining room table of the old home she shared with writer/hubby Aldous and had a nice chat. She offered me chocolates and cookies and I hesitated for a second wondering if they might be psychedelic (which made me laugh at myself). The Huxleys were known as early pioneers of the psychedelic movement and Aldous, of course, chronicled one of his trips in his famous book “The Doors of Perception.” Laura is said to have dosed her late husband on his death bed on his request (so maybe my fears weren’t completely unfounded…)

She was a lovely lady. She was very candid with me about the devastation she was experienceing as her eyesight was slowly deteriorating into blindness and she was becoming increasingly dependent on others. She said she very much liked having young visitors like myself because it connected her with the outside world. She would not permit me to record our conversation but I took some scrappy notes, long-hand.

Before I left, she gave me a copy of Aldous Huxley’s “Island,” and of her book,”This Timeless Moment.” She asked me to come and visit her again. I made one attempt months later through her assistant but never heard back. She must have already been quite ill by then, as she died of cancer. In any case, she struck me as a pretty awesome lady with plenty of life and curiosity left in her.  

Here are some little snippets of what I could make out from my scrawlings of our conversation:

“Curiosity was the thing. My husband was curious about everything. When someone suggested he take mescaline or mushrooms he accepted it right away. We took LSD maybe once a year.”

“Many of the Indian teachers are not open to psychedelics. The state of bliss that sometimes people achieve with psychedelics is equal to the state of bliss you achieve if you breathe in a certain way or fast, for example. I met Yogananda. I also met Maharishi and he blessed me. That was when I first came to America. He was in a little apartment on 3^rd street in maybe 1950. I saw him twice. The

 second time he was going to give me the sacred word. He was very serious about it but I was not. I told him I wasn’t convinced and he initiated me and gave me the word. I have been in contact with people like that but I am not a follower.”  

“The visual influence has been tremendous together with all the Indian architecture and design and there was Leary. Psychedelics had a tremendous influence in Hollywood. The aesthetic, color and freedom. The studies on the biochemistry of the brain in the last 20 years have been amazing.”

“I still like being alive. I have many ideas. I like to see a new person, a new human.”

…see you back here just before New Year’s…

Call it “The Law of Attraction,” or “Past Life Karma,” but when you’re an L.A. Kid, you inevitably witness the phenomenon of the Celebrity Stalker or Personal Stalker. My friend Mieke used to have this thing with Chad Lowe. They saw each other all over the Palisades. It got to the point where he even recognized her and would give her an acknowledging smile, as if to say, “You, again,” but not in that, “You again, I’m getting a restraining order” sort of way.

Throughout high school and college my Chad Lowe was Fabio. I would seem him at all sorts of eating establishments from the old Source on Sunset to MezzaLuna. And around the same time, Steve Jones and I were an invisible item as he lived in the hills near my folks.

Today, going to do my shopping at Barneys, I saw my Family Stalker, Jon Voigt. Oddly enough, he usually stalks me and my folks around the holidays. I’ve even seen him buying a Christmas tree. My mother has run into him separate from me, around Beverly Hills, several times. And they too shared the “Chad Lowe acknowledgment smile.” Anyhoo, the Midnight Cowboy extraordinaire was looking lost and flushed as always on the ground floor in the beauty department.

Later when I was driving out through the parking lot I noticed a brigade of about 25 stalkarazzi positioned outside the department store. Now, Jon Voigt is a great actor, but it’s not 1975 so they couldn’t have been there for him. I peered back towards the back doors at Barneys and saw a chuffed and smiling Loni Anderson staring back at the photogs. Again, it’s not, in her case, 1980 so she probably wasn’t the target. I’m guessing, just guessing that Angelina and Dad decided to make nice for the holidays…probably taking a leaf off my family’s tree (since Jon has observed the Lipton family so very often).  

Image: Don’t lose your ball(s)! Laker Sasha Vujacic has got it going on

I’d say my weekend activities ran a rather broad gambit…from a fabulous Bohemian-star-powered fete in Hancock Park to the Lakers/Clippers game at Staples on Sunday. The one thread running throughout: balls - everybody had ‘em!

My friend Josh and his mother threw a rebel chic holiday party at her cool old casa and it filled up with this town’s much-doubted arty intelligencia. I brought my buddy Brian Doherty, a great writer who just penned a book on the history of Libertarianism. And he fit right in with the other scribes…Josh is a novelist among other things, there was Chris Miller who wrote “The Real Animal House,” he introduced us to Janet Fitch the famed author of “White Oleander,” I caught my MySpace buddy Dan Kapelovitz of Hustler renown before we left, and Josh’ mom is a writer too (as well as having had the counterculture cred of starring in Russ Meyer’s “Faster Pussycat! Kill! Kill!“). My awesome former editor from the Times Bettie also popped by with her beau.

The house was gorgeous. The music was pumping. They had a DJ and Jesse Camp from MTV chronicling on DV. The theme was “Roman Holiday” and a projector showcased the classic Hepburn film on the ceiling. Upstairs, on display were amazing photos by Josh’s grandfather, “Bernard of Hollywood,” of everyone from Jane Mansfield to Clark Gable.

And downstairs, another classic actor, Karen Black (loved her in “Trilogy of Terror” and “Easy Rider”) made an appearance as did a famous bald drag queen who Josh mentioned had been a Robert Mapplethorpe model. Lots of great eats and conversation and I think I may have spotted the cute guy from FX’s “Dirt” scarfing down some macrobiotic chocolate cake…

The next night I was stuffing my face with a John Holmes sized hot dog at the Lakers/Clippers game between gulps of Corona, accompanied by my friend Lillian. It was our very first time - and how often can you say that anymore? You never forget your first. And thanks to my other buddy Brian, a season ticket holder, we got awesomely unforgettable seats. We could see the names on the jerseys and practically see the sweat on Kobe’s forehead…well, the seats weren’t that close, I hyberbolize. Thanks to a chick with binoculars sitting next to me we did get a little Denzel courtside action.

Lillian and I checked out the Royal Club Bar too, which, I’ve got to say was the most disappointing part of the otherwise rocking event. Don’t ask me why, but I had imagined gorgeous blond WASP or Irish American investment bankers from the West Side ordering bourbon and the like. But it wasn’t power players; it was power playaz with a “z.” And I would lob off the “power” part to really give you the right vibe. Their “cologne” was Budweiser all the way. You may have heard of the old beer tagline, “Let it be Lowenbrau,” well this was “Let it be low-brow.”

In any case, I did enjoy the low-brow chanting of “We want tacos!” in the last quarter of the game. We were promised Jack in the Box taco coupons if the Lakers won by 100 points or more. And thanks to Kobe and cutie #18 (who looked as old as as his jersey number) we got our tacos! To tell you the truth, after the Holmes Dog, the beer, an Absolut cran, and cotton candy, the taco seemed like overkill. So, we blew that taco stand and left the stadium, me: to return to the Hollywood Hills, where boys will be boys and sadly men will be metrosexuals…but EVERYONE has balls.

It’s hard to be out there all the time, finger on the pulse and such, keeping up with what’s going on. It’s enough to make a girl need her beauty sleep. Thankfully, I’ve got some fabulous friends who keep me up to date with fashion, art, trends, etc. This week’s blog is an informal homage to them. My good friend Yuki is pictured above with some chick named Lindsay. Looks like he’s her young nephew or something (not to take a dig at the vedette) but Yuki looks very handsome and fresh putting together a photo shoot for Harper’s Bazaar–which, as these photos prove, was unfortunately crashed by the ‘razzis who posted the images before they had the chance to grace the mag. Yuki, one of my NYC friends, was in L.A. this past week for another shoot. Mum’s the word on that one. The only clue: he asked me where he might find bondage clothes in L.A.

Speaking of which (a nice segue), on Thursday evening I attended my old buddy Dave Naz’ bondage book release. Hmm, that sounded a little off-color. To quoth Beavis, “You said release.” He is pictured below with his girlfriend and muse Ori for the aptly titled book, “L.A. Bondage” on the night of said event. It was great fun. And two guys even asked me to sign the book. I was wearing an Anna Sui “schoolgirl skirt,” a white button down blowse and thigh high Gucci boots so I guess I fit right in? Ori said I should do it. But I didn’t have the heart to brand their books on their false assumption that I was a “Bondage” model. I’m a good girl, after all!

I was overjoyed to hear a segment of Warren Olney’s “To the Point” on NPR today that finally addressed, not only the issue of the subjugation of women in Muslim countries but the subtler subjugation of women in the good ol’ U.S. of A. Obviously, the topical horror story of a gang-raped woman in Saudi Arabia being punished with 200 lashes is a good departure point.

In fact, a gay male friend of mine has been living in Saudi Arabia and he just recently emailed me to let me know he would be moving. He said he was greatly relieved to get out of there (I’m sure for numerous reason that have nothing to do with this story). But I couldn’t help but add in (hoping not to sound like a typical holier-than-thou Western urbanite) that I had no interest in that country ever since the news of the Maybelline incident (a.k.a. ‘woman of 200 lashes’). To be honest, my disinterest (read: disdain) for the country–due to its harsh treatment of women–started long before that.

In the ’90s, I arrived at my then-boyfriend’s home to find him and his family entertaining a Saudi royal, a Saudi army official and (if memory doesn’t fail me) the Saudi Mr. Olympia. No this is not some U.N. insider joke. It was a slice of my life. In any case, they asked me to take a photo of them. As I uneasily fidgeted with the foreign camera, trying to be nice and shoot a nice picture of them, one of the Saudi trio nudged my boyfriend and asked, with a smirk, “Is she as good in bed as she looks?” He said this to my boyfriend, while i was in the room (mind you NOT dressed scantily, wearing an ankle length dress and boots). Obviously this is just the tip of the iceburg. I really don’t want to get into anything more–lest I get sued for Libel. Suffice to say, the rep. is justified.

Anyhow, I’m not here to lambast this culture for its ill treatment of women (or at least that’s not the ONLY reason I’m here). To me, the aforementioned news story speaks volumes over any expletives and vitriol I might care to spew. What I do find interesting is the hypocrisy of many Americans who point fingers at such wrongdoings without turning the finger, so to speak, around on themselves. In Olney’s piece, they talked about how, despite the fact that we’re supposed to be this incredibly sophisticated advanced nation, we have never had a woman president. What does it say about us when Liberia, Georgia, Israel, Switzerland, Indonesia, The Phillippines, Finland and Panama (among others) have all had women presidents? Liberia, for Christ’s sake.

In any case, do yourself a favor. Finish up the meal that the ol’ ball and chain cooked up for you and then dismiss her, send her to her chambers and listen to Olney’s segment. What I found particularly interesting was when one of his guests said that it’s not that America has a disdain for women per se, but rather a disdain for independent women. And I would honestly add ‘intelligent, ‘’successful’ and ‘powerful’ to that comment. He points to the utterly toxic comments that Hillary Clinton’s dissenters (specifically men in their 40’s according to one poll) make about her, and the fact that her greatest moment of popularity was when she was publicly humiliated after Bill cheated with Monica.

Americans love it when an intelligent, successful, powerful, independent woman is knocked down from her lofty position. Look at the much-loathed Martha Stewart (redeemed, naturellement, when she was made a scapegoat and went to white-collar women’s prison).

They love the “knock-out punch” almost as much as much as they love the endearing bimbo who’s, God Bless her sweet heart and ass, trying to save the world–like the nauseating Reese Witherspoon character in the Legally Blonde movies. Isn’t that funny? She’s a dumbass, trying to make a difference (kinda sounds like a beauty contestant–America eats it up–even when it’s got tragedy written all over it like with poor little Jon Benet Ramsey). This country is in love with the “so sexed up that she’s verging on tranny” Pamela Anderson and her cute little animals rights causes. Or Marilyn Monroe and her baby voice, attempting to understand perhaps 5% of what Arthur Miller was talking about…what a role model. She’s vital to the continued promotion of our cultural identity: sex and endearing stupidity. Haven’t we, the adolescents of the world, outgrown this shit yet?!

If it were up to many of the ass-backwards brain-dead people (yes, there are self-loathing women who put powerful women down too) in this country, there would be no, “I am woman, hear me roar.” The sound would be toned down to a barely audible squeak and she would be called (as red-blooded American men love to call their so-called inferiors) a “pussy.”