More No on Prop 8

Tonight I waved some Prop 8 street signs on the corner of Santa Monica Blvd. and Robertson in West Hollywood with 10 other volunteers. It was fun and we received a lot of support in the form of supportive honks, thumbs up, applause, and wooos! Multitasker that I am, by waving my arms outstretched, I managed to do a series of exercises to work my deltoids, shoulders, pecs, and triceps. Two of the volunteers were wearing matching t-shirts emblazoned with their wedding picture - the two of them in front of an oceanic backdrop wearing white tuxes smiling alongside two other men in black tuxes.

One girl yelled "Vote Yes for Jesus" from a moving car and some one else yelled either "Get a Job" or "Good Job" - we weren't sure, but chose to go with the latter. Those were the only questionable comments...

My ballot arrived in the mail today, and I'm so excited to vote and do my civic duty... I must admit that I smiled when I saw Obama's name on the ballot. What an exciting election this will be! I'm even more thrilled that I'll get to skip the projected crazy lines.

And I've been selected as a "dispatcher" on Election Day, which means that I'll be going to a variety of polling sites to offer support and materials or something of that nature. My trusty iphone will be invaluable for helping me navigate around town.

No on Prop 8 - 9 days and counting...

I wish life could be all about slankets and coziness, but sometimes you gotta come out of your warm cocoon and fight for tolerance and equality. For the past weeks, I've been working as a volunteer for the No on Prop 8 campaign here in California.

I think most of you are pretty familiar with Prop 8, but just to be on the safe side, Proposition 8 would specify in the CA constitution that marriage is only valid between a man and woman and thus eliminate the rights to same sex couples that were granted with the recent CA Supreme Court decision (Chief Justice George wrote in his majority decision, "An individual's sexual orientation -- like a person's race or gender -- does not constitute a legitimate basis upon which to deny or withhold legal rights." Bravo, sir.)

A lot of people have given donations to support the cause and some live out of state... with this post, I wanted to show you where your money is going. These are some of the ads that are in heavy rotation on television - I see about 10 commercials a day, and I also have heard radio spots.






This one is my favorite, as it directly calls into question the insidious propaganda that the Yes camp has been spewing out.



But then watching the Amazing Race, I saw this - which I'm certain will be run over and over again. Using children to foment intolerance is just sickening.


There's an insanely large grassroots effort as well and we can use any help you can offer. You can join in on the fun here - we need to be visible.

The field office that I've been volunteering is in West Hollywood, conveniently located next to a Trader Joe's and a Chinese restaurant. I believe it used to be some sort of hair salon, but now it's the center of campaign fever!







What it lacks in comfort, it makes up for in dedication and energy.



The bathroom is especially "authentic". There's also a room where charging cell phones are kept that is known affectionately as "the dungeon".



I often serve as a greeter before training sessions, and then jump into my role as a coach once the volunteers get on the phones.



A picture of an impromptu training session for volunteers that arrived in between scheduled sessions. The woman in blue was especially charming - she was volunteering with her son and gave me a hug after her shift was over.




All volunteers use specific scripts that are currently designed to make sure that our base actually gets out and vote, and doesn't stay home because they assume Obama will take California. The second objective is to clarify what No vote actually means - a lot of people who are supportive of same sex marriage think that the correct vote is Yes, which would be a sad sad mistake. (Fortunately, it is likely that the opposition will have the same problem - by all means Vote No on Prop 8 and teach those gays a lesson!).

The script:



We typically have 30-35 volunteers who come to each phone bank session. Many are repeat volunteers, but most are new. We have around twenty-one laptops in our office available for volunteers to use to reach registered voters - the computer dial numbers much more quickly than us mere humans and uses relaxing hold music that I will probably dream about until May 2009. Because she's awesome, Yeah4me has been using the computer program to call CA voters from her home in Virgina.


Anytime someone gets a person on the phone who plans or has already voted No, we ring one of those hotel front desk bells and everyone goes "Wooo!" Two dings if we get someone to volunteer with us on Election Day. (hint hint blog readers!)




The rest of the volunteers use paper lists of registered voters.


At the phone bank on Saturday morning, there was a certain cast member of a top-rated medical drama in attendance with his boyfriend. He brought in two dogs that were extremely well behaved and they made calls with little fanfare for 3 hours. He was one of the first celebrities to give money in support of the No on Prop 8 campaign, and I was impressed that he actually donates his time as well. He is a very nice guy.

Pic of one of the doggies. Note the subflooring and mismatched chairs - pretty much everything in the office was donated by volunteers or corporations.



This election will be close. In the beginning we were ahead, then the opposition started running their commercial about a little girl wanting to marry a princess, and we started slipping. Now we're starting to catch up, but it's going to be a tough battle.

I've had some pretty passionate conversations with people both online and in real life. Like I have two family members that are going to vote Yes, despite the fact a close member of our family (my step-sister) is a lesbian. Really sad. The best thing to do when I'm feeling angry or discouraged is to spend some time fighting alongside people who are committed to the same cause that I am. I want to do everything I can to ensure that gays and lesbians are able to have the 1,000+ state and federal rights that are available to me and Mr. Insomniac.

In closing, here are some excerpts of some of my favorite conversations with folks...

Me: How do you feel about same sex marriage?
Her: Well, what about the children? I don't want my kid learning about gay marriage in school
Me: Actually, not one word in the proposition says anything about children and the Superintendent of CA has stated this.
Her: Well, they still could.
Me: Well regardless of how you feel we believe it's wrong and unfair to treat people differently.
Her: But it will keep on going. If gays get their rights, then other people will want rights. Where will it end?
Me: (sarcastically, but not so sarcastically that she hangs up) Right, all people will want rights.
Her: Not that people shouldn't have rights. It just has to be the right rights.
Me: Interesting. So can we count on you to vote No on Prop 8?
Her: I think I'm going to vote yes.
Me: Okay. Thank you. Bye. (hit end call button , make gagging sound)

Me: How do you feel about same sex marriage?
Her: How old are you?
Me: Um, I'm 32.
Her: No you're not.
Me: Excuse me?
Her: You're 16.
Me: No, I'm really not.
Her: You're too young to be talking about this stuff.
Me: I see. How do you feel about same sex marriage?

And a happy call!

Me: How do you feel about same sex marriage?
Him: Pretty good actually. I married my partner on June 23rd.
Me: Oh, how wonderful! Congratulations! Seriously, hearing that makes me feel really good and as a volunteer, makes me feel like all of this is totally worth it.

Occasionally, I've been known to deviate slightly from the script. But that's okay because I'm awesome.

Him: I just don't know if two gay men can raise a child.
Me: Listen. I have a doctorate in developmental psychology from one of the best universities in the country. I've read the research. And you know what? It says that a child that has parents who love her, are responsive to her needs, uphold consistent and fair age-appropriate restrictions, and are warm and nurturing are best for positive development.
Him: Well I just don't think that they could do it. I knew of these one guys and they would kiss and have sex and stuff in front of the child.
Me: (raise eyebrows) Yeah, well I could look at the home page of CNN.com right now and I guarantee there's some sort of story about a kid in a well or a kid that was placed in a trashcan for two years with straight parents, but that doesn't mean that they're all like that.

And the winner!

Me: Can I speak to Lisa
Her: What is this regarding?
Me: I'm a volunteer with the No on Prop 8 campaign and we're talking about a very important issue that will be on November's ballot.
Her: Oh, you want my husband then and he's eating dinner.
Me: No, I actually want to talk to you.
Her: Okay.
Me: (reads script) Same sex marriage..... Prop 8 wrong, unfair.... everyone should treated equally...
Her: Hmm... I see what you're saying
Me: So can we count on you to vote No on Prop 8?
Her: Well to be honest, I'm just going to vote whatever my husband tells me to. He makes the decisions with voting.
Me: (?!) Okay, thank you. (shed single tear)

The slanket demystified

So here is my slanket photoshoot, much to Mr. Insomniac's chagrin (he was an extremely reluctant photographer).  I am now fully convinced that he has an adversial relationship with my slanket.  And I'll have you know that it was like 80 degrees in my house and my the time I was finished with all of this, I was practically sweating.  Warning: the slanket is powerfully warming.

As discussed previously in a popular online community, the slanket is a fleecy blanket with sleeves.  It looks like a robe (opens to the front) and is designed for only one person.  I uphold that last part to the best of my ability, but sometimes my slanket gets breached by undesirable elements.

Anywho, you're probably saying to yourself, Insomniac, I have a blanket.  Why do I need some fancy version that sounds silly?

Exhibit A.

Blankets are for crying babies.  Slankets are for consenting adults.

Exhibit B.

Blankets make you act like a baby, even when you've graduated college and probably hold a full-time job in graphic design.  And what's more, they don't provide the necessary coverage and warmth.  Look at this guy - hands and legs exposed.  What type of warmth can he possibly get?    And the whole sorry contraption is being held together with a hair clip.  Inventive?  Sure.  A long-term solution to a serious problem?  Absolutely not.  You want security in your blanket, not something that could fall off at a moment's notice.

Exhibit C.

Now we're getting somewhere.  Look want happens when you give babies maximum coziness in the form of baby burrito blankets, what could only be described as a slanket prototype.  No more crying.  Ever.  Interesting...  But say they wanted to eat some Doritos or check their favorite youtube video.  Impossible.

Enter the slanket.  Available on the website for $44.95 or from QVC for the low low price of $29.96 but there's a limited color supply - sorry, no Texas Tea.

As can be seen from the photo of yours truly, it offers maximum coverage for those chilly nights in Southern California.  It is long enough so you can double the foot coverage if you're prone to feet of ice and your significant other's being difficult and refuses to let you put them on his back for rapid warming.  

Once you have a slanket, everyone wants to join the party.  Last night, my slanket was breached by doggy Insomniac.

He likes comfort too.  And really, who could blame him?

The arms are held securely in the voluminous folds, allowing only the hands to extend outwards to do essential tasks on the computer.  Note the hair clip-free fastening and the 100% coverage.  

Once you become accustomed to the comfort of a slanket, you can proceed to more advanced slanket wearing.  Here I am whipping up a quick batch of Beef Wellington.   Delish!

(Note:  This is a simulated photo.  It's probably not a good idea to actually cook in this.  I don't have much interest in testing the flame-retardant properties of my slanket.)

Hopefully this has answered all your questions about slanket wearing.  Please notify me directly if you need any additional information.

This doesn't end well

But it starts well.  On Sunday we headed to Olvera Street for lunch and frivolity.  

Olvera Street is the oldest area of Los Angeles and houses several historical buildings.  In the 1920s, it was converted into a Mexican marketplace and offers several places for dining and shopping.  It is also the location for cultural celebrations - when I was in elementary school, every year we would travel to Olvera Street for Cinco de Mayo and watch the beautiful folklorico dancers on the center bandstand.  Then we'd buy candy and eggs with confetti inside them and throw them at each other's heads.  But I digress.

This time around, we browsed the small shops with vendors selling their colorful wares.

I thought these little leather sandals were pretty cute.

Yo quiero candy.  This is the place we'd hit up when I came here with my elementary school.

Musicians serenaded casual diners grabbing a quick bite with folk songs. The singer had a wonderfully rich alto... reminded me a little of Olga Tanon.

We also checked out the Avila Adobe, the oldest standing house in Los Angeles.   Its owner, Don Francisco Avila was the richest cattle rancher of his day and owned thousands of acres of land that stretched all the way to the La Brea Tar Pits.  The walls are built from adobe (i.e., mud) bricks that are 2 1/2-3 feet thick and the ceilings were supported by wooden beams.

The sala, or living room, had furnishings from Europe and lots of windows, which was a rarity during those times.  The plates on the table hailed from China and the Avilas did lots of entertaining here.

Don Avila's first wife died at the age of 29, leaving him with three young children.  He married 15 year old Maria Encarnarcion Sepulveda and had 3 more children.   



The office where Avila conducted his cattle ranching business...  I loved these furnishings.  Vintage California Hacienda style.

Bedroom for the Avilas.



The kids bedroom looked rather shabby by comparison. I appreciated the chamber pot under the bed.

The kitchen and oven were located outside in the courtyard under a breezeway.

We eventually made our way to La Golondrina.  Pay no attention to the "B" rating... lol

 

The obligatory chips and salsa... the salsa was fresh tasting and delicious.  Mr. Insomniac requested a spicer version, but I was content with mild.

Drinks abound - I got a mango margarita made with real mango puree (not that damn nectar) and Mr. Insomniac got a top shelf margarita.  Says the menu: "Fresh mango mixed with Jose Cuervo 1800 Gold, limejuice and Triple Sec. Sweet, strong and delicious." Damn straight. And we got our usual tamarindo.

Our table was on a rather steep incline - which explains the maragarita looking like it's about to spill.

Now comes the food.  I was deciding between carnitas, cochinita, or lamb.  I ended up with the cochintia pibil, "succulent pork marinated overnight in Achiote and fresh citrus juices, baked in banana leaves, served with rice and beans and tortillas."  It was very tasty... a nice hint of citrus and falling off the bone tender.

I ate about 6 forkfuls and was full.  So I wrapped it up, eagerly anticipating this for dinner and lunch for work on Monday.   (foreshadowing alert!)

Mr. Insomniac pronounced his pollo con mole ("homemade rich chocolate, chile and seasoned gravy, served over chicken breast with rice and beans") delicious and stated that it had the perfect hint of chocolate.  (He always gets that.)

As you can see, we've yet to master the skill of taking pictures before we dig in to feed. I suppose we used up all of our delay of gratification stores in graduate school.

We left full, but when I saw Mr. Churros, I knew I had to pay it a visit.  I love churros, but have had to resign myself to the substandard, desiccated churros that you get at amusement parks.   You know, the ones that have sat in the hot box for hours...  These churros were fresh and piping hot, with a guy making them as we watched.

You could get them filled with strawberry, caramel, or cream.  Purist that I am, I opted for plain.  And it was the best churro of my life.

Now this is where the tragedy unfurls itself.

So I had saved about 3/4 of my dish.  I had carried it around Olvera Street, even though it began to leak pork juice everywhere.  I located a box to store it in, when Mr. Insomniac said he wasn't going to get pork juice everywhere and began to look for a homeless man to give my food too.  I got it home safely.  And then I put it on the counter.

We were watching TV, probably Amazing Race, when I noticed Doggy Insomniac was nowhere to be found.  I heard something in the kitchen, a rustling sound.  Mr. Insomniac went to investigate, and said, "you're not going to like this."  I didn't have to go in the kitchen to know what had happened.  But I did, because I'm a masochist.  There was my dog, licking the remainder of any errant juices from the banana leaf.  He had polished off the rest of the dish a while ago, apparently, and was just licking the plate clean.

Bad dog.  Stupid insomniac.  

California Dreamin'

Other Hollywood Bowl posts

Jewel
Radiohead
Jaime Cullen
Reggae Night - UB-40
Bugs Bunny
and of course this one featuring a solitary Beach Boy

Like I mentioned earlier, I'm waaaay behind in blogging.

This post is about our last Hollywood Bowl concert of the summer. I love that place. It made me believe in concerts again. Mr. Insomniac just decided to buy some tickets for the Brian Wilson (aka Mr. Beach Boy) concert. I was like, huh? But then I was like, cool - time to try out my mom's picnic backpack. She got it two years ago as some sort of reward at her hospital. She hasn't used it once and then made the mistake of showing it to me when I went over her house to wash my car.

It organizes the cutlery and plates perfectly and provides service for two. It also has plastic wine glasses which are much better than the Dixie cups we've used in times past and a handy dandy corkscrew.

So we loaded up the pack with assorted goodies (cheeses, grapes, figs, french bread, roasted chicken, potatoes, veggies, chocolate) and were on our way. And since the pack even has room for wine, I decided to bring my current favorite bottle, Orin Swift's Prisoner red wine.

So already I'm pretty happy, even though I'm not a huge fan of Beach Boys music. It's all about the food.

It seemed as though we were the youngest people around by about 10 years. The guy in the box next to us was the principal of the uber-prestigous Hahvard-Westlake* preparatory school, and so had solicitous parents approaching him all evening (insert eye roll here).

*interesting (well, to me anyways) fact: Harvard-Westlake has a urban dictionary entry.

Before Brian Wilson carried his bloated ass on the stage, we got to listen to some classical music by the Bowl orchestra - the Overture of the Marriage of Figaro, and an orchestral arrangement of Bach's Toccata. It was cool, but I prefer the organ version that really puts the fear of God into you. And there was a Gershwin piece, I believe, Rhapsody in Blue. These were, the conductor informed us, Wilson's favorite classical pieces. Well, alrighty then!

We ate dinner.

And drank. It would be nice if the iphone had a damn flash.

And before you knew it, I was doing a poor man's version of the pony and the swim to Help me, Rhonda", "Wouldn't it be Nice", and who knows what other cheery nonsense. I admit I thought longingly about HBO's Big Love series when "God Only Knows" came on. It really doesn't take much to get me going.


There's actually something so Californian about the Beach Boys sunny mellowness. For the first time as I sat under the stars on a perfect summer evening, listening to the groovy melody, I thought to myself... maybe this place is worth it.

Play ball!

On Saturday Mr. Insomniac went to see our first Dodgers game together with one of his work colleagues (let's call him Biff) and his new girlfriend.  It was kind of weird, because the last time I saw Biff it was at his wedding nine months ago.   But hey... how bout them Dodgers? 

And even more importantly, how bout them Dodger dogs?  

Mmm.  

And I got the famous garlic fries that I've read so much about from Weezer Monkey's blog.  They have lots of garlic.  I thought for sure that Mr. Insomniac would hate them as he doesn't garlic as much as I do.  (When we went to the Stinking Rose, I got the garlic ice cream, okay?  Unfortunately, it was nasty.)  But he loved them.  I loved them.  We infused our sweet nothings with garlic funk.  It was great.  Meanwhile, Biff and his girlfriend were giving us the side eye for our garlic loving ways.  I guess when you've been with someone for almost a decade, garlic breath isn't a big deal. 

Yay for garlic fries!

 

But the game was great.  And I don't even like baseball all that much.  Before I could probably name two people on the team - Manny and Nomar.  Now I can name four.  Hu and Loney.  Hu, because whenever he was at bat, the music guy in the box would play, "Who Let the Dogs Out?"  And everyone would go "Hu, Hu, Hu, Hu".  So clever!  I love cheesy stuff like that.

Then they would do all these cool clappity claps. One was especially tricky and I felt a since a triumph when I finally managed to reproduce the synchopated rhythms on the third round.  Of course marveling in my accomplishment, I butchered last round.  Shame.

Then there were lots of fights in the riff raff section.  People were swinging and jumping over each other.  I believe it was started by a guy Then the Dodger stadium came running over, decked out in their blue shirts to deal with the offenders.  Exciting.  Then the cops came and paraded all the offenders (around 10) across the aisle to a hearty chorus of boos. 

Then there was another fight.  Oh, the riff raff - what would we all do without you?  Here is their section, under the jumbo-tron.

Let's see - what else...  There was this one guy behind me who could whistle the "da duh da da, da daaaaaa" charge melody and everyone would yell Charge!  I was insanely jealous as I can't whistle, let alone whistle cool tunes to get the crowd hyped.  People threw around beach balls and this one kid kept yelling, "over here!!  OVER HERE!!!"  I rolled my eyes as no one can really control a beach ball.  It does what it wants.  Even so, the kid eventually got the beach ball.  He held it, stood up, and carefully wound up to fire the perfect hit... and ended up pounding it over the railing of the lodge section that we were all sitting in.  Of course, he was greeted with a hearty chorus of boos for his ineptitude.   Poor kid.  He seemed to take it well though.

Okay, now about the game.  I believe the score was around 10-7, so it was a pretty exciting game.  There were three homeruns, two by Manny, bases loaded, etc.  And there were lots of foul balls heading in our direction which terrified me as I did not want to end up with a traumatic brain injury.  

Here's a pic of the audience celebrating a Manny homerun.  Note dude in the Manny headscarf and fake dreads.  He got featured during the candid shots of festive gamegoers on the Jumbo-tron.

I believe it was the either the eighth or ninth inning when there was a crack and a ball hurtled in our direction.  I put my hand over my mouth and shrieked in terror, "it's coming, it's coming"!!!  And sure enough, it did.  

The gentleman seated three seats of me caught it, fortunately. 

See the ball?

Here's him doing a recreation of the exciting moment.  Good for him.  Everyone deserves a little fame.