melair

For those of you on Facebook, you know Jim and I went to see Vampire Weekend in Hollywood.  On a week night, even.  I felt so young again!  I realize how dork that sounds, but, seriously, when you are in your 30’s, living in a city with no real nightlife, surrounded by people with 2+ kids, you age faster, I’m convinced.  Or at least, you definitely go to bed earlier every night.  On this occasion, however, we took off, just after Jim finished teaching class.  We actually did not hit any traffic on 405 until right outside Hollywood.  Which, I didn’t even know was possible.  We got to Hollywood early and so were able to have a beer or two before the show at the Blue Palms.  And then, we got to see Vampire Weekend for their first show of the tour at The Music Box!  and it was AWESOME!  Small venue, great sound, great energy.  Ahhh…I miss the days of weeknight concerts.

Another adventure out involved Candy again.  While our Don’t Eat the Book, Book Club never really took off the way I had imagined, Candy offered to a group of us that her friend, Jess Winfield had written a book about Shakespeare called My Name is Will, that he lived in Hollywood, and that if we wanted to read the book and have a discussion with him that she would arrange it.  OMG!  Can you imagine how excited I was?  I mean, to me, meeting an author is equivalent to most people’s excitement over meeting a movie star.

Admittedly, I was a little nervous to commit.  I mean, what if I read the book, hated it, then had to sit there with the author and pretend I didn’t hate it.  Most of you know how emotionally transparent I am.  It would be the acting assignment of my life.  Lucky for me, the book was BRILLIANT!  Whether you like Shakespeare or not, I am pretty sure you’d like this book.  It’s all fiction and there is a modern day story line about a graduate student writing his thesis on Shakespeare, while a historical fiction account of Shakespeare’s life runs parallel.  It’s really engaging.

So, my friend Natalie and I headed out early, first having brunch in Orange, then to LA for a little shopping before hand.

We all met up at a British pub in LA called The Cat and the Fiddle.  Originally, we were sitting on the patio, but Candy, when she arrived, finagled getting us a small, private room in the back.  We ordered up some food and drinks while we listened to Jess talk about how his book idea and execution came about.  And then, as if I were in a literary wet dream, we got to ask him all the questions we’d wondered about while reading the book.  What was the symbolism here?  Why did he have the character do this?  So much better than sitting around wondering what the author was thinking.

It occurred to me, after meeting Jess that I might make a good author stalker.  I mean think about it…in the LA area so many people stalk celebrities…and for what?  I doubt for the interesting conversation.  Because there likely would be none.  Did you see Johnny Depp on Inside the Actors Studio?  Talk about disillusionment.  Anyway, I feel at a minimum, if I could stalk my favorite writers and then “bump into them” out and about town, they’d never know it.  Unless you write pulp, I imagine you rarely, as an author, get stopped and asked to sign an autograph.  And I can be inconspicuous.  What!?  I can!  Maybe I’ll even garner  a mentor or two.  Who knows…maybe I can even write a blog about my author stalking.  I would imagine that at least as many people what read Mel-air would read it.  Then, one day, maybe I can launch my own TV show, like TMZ, but we can stalk authors, coming out of coffee shops and spoken word sessions.  OR, maybe I could just start checking the English Department calendar at UCI and listening to the visiting authors speak there.  Hmmm…