Hi! You might remember I hosted a reading event called L.A. Stories at Murmurs (a beloved art gallery in DTLA) earlier this spring. I say you might remember because I was posting about it a lot. I love an opportunity to use my old club-promoter-party-girl texting skills. I still love going to parties, discriminately, but I don’t have any vested interest in trying to get others to go anymore. Because then you feel responsible for their experience of the event. I used to be more codependent. But I still have the sense memory of sitting in the passenger seat of someone’s car, legs on the dash, copying and pasting the same invite text to 100+ people in my phone in a matter of minutes, changing certain words and adding blurbs of personal commentary slightly like a psycho, joint in my mouth as I power-typed with two hands. Parties are better when people you love show up.
But this was more than a party. It was a reading. More than a reading. A fundraiser for Altadena Girls. A nonprofit organization and social movement to support teenage girls who lost their homes and belongings in the Eaton Canyon Fire. Started by a 14-year-old girl named Avery Colvert, Altadena Girls began with clothing and makeup drives. Now, Altadena Girls is fundraising to open a permanent community center that will feature mental health services, music studios, dance studios, and more. So there was good reason to try to get people to show up.
I left L.A. during the January fires to go to a writing residency in Vermont (part of a larger program I’ll talk about at some point but not rn!). It was surreal to be away from home during such a devastating time. I enjoyed the dozens of readings I listened to during the residency, and appreciated the sensitive and nurturing people I met there, but it was also an opportunity to recognize the magnitude of the beautiful creative community I have here at home. “Are all of your friends artists?” an instructor asked me during class, after an exercise where we texted a bunch of people in our phones a random question and shared their responses as they came in. I’d never thought about it that way. Or had I? Not consciously. Not for a long time. Not post-pandemic, post-Saturn Return, post-30. “Yes,” I answered. I wanted to gather some of us writers to read, and to invite new people to join us too (new meaning, people I knew of or admired but couldn’t exactly call a friend). I was lucky to have a hunch Murmurs would be open to hosting us, and with their care, we made it happen in April. It coincided with the closing of their group show 𝘔𝘰𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘳/𝘓𝘢𝘯𝘥, which explored feminist ecologies and world building, as well as the collapse of any separation between culture and nature.
I called it L.A. Stories because the event was intended to honor L.A. I can’t even get into how weird people are about L.A., but I feel a deep sense of protectiveness over the city and its real people. Real residents. Real stories. I hate when a bitch is like, “I’ve never been to L.A. but I’ve seen enough David Lynch movies to completely understand it!” Like girl….Ok…I’ve watched some Woody Allen and Spike Lee movies…I’ve seen every Scorsese a few times at least…Now I’m a real New Yorker! As if…That’s not true and I don’t want it to be. I get that L.A. is a perfect place to project yourself and your fantasies onto, and that reality is always subjective, but I have an LAUSD radar in me with a deep sense of knowing. Don’t test it. People who were quick to say L.A. was “over” after the fires? Talk about shameless. Callous. Fucking losers. I mean…Again, I can’t even launch into these digressions. Sometimes I don’t write because there’s too much to write. I’m inviting myself to publish on Substack every Wednesday for the rest of summer to confront that…
Anyway, L.A. Stories became the title and the theme. L.A. Stories was also the title of a V Magazine story I modeled in for Luke Gilford in 2012. I’d just come back from Israel and The West Bank and my dad dropped me off on set at a historic midcentury home in Baldwin Hills. I’d had to break the news to Luke that I was no longer blonde via an email sent from East Jerusalem. He was pissed but brought in some wigs last minute. I have a bigger essay about this shoot in the collection I’m working on, so I’ll spare you the details and just say it ended up with me nude, covered head-to-toe in thick MAC LIPGLASS lipgloss and rolled in thick, flakey glitter. That image became the signature look from the shoot and one of the signature photos from Luke’s oeuvre from that moment forward. I didn’t feel bad about stealing the phrase L.A. Stories because it was a play on L.A. Story anyway, a movie with Steve Martin that I’ve never seen.
Gabby at Murmurs helped me create the invitations, each designed in a postcard style offering a unique view of L.A. I’m grateful to her friends who shared photos with views from of Altadena and Baldwin Hills. It felt emotional to share a favorite photo from “my” secret fairy garden in Topanga, a huge natural expanse of mountains and trees and wildflowers right across from the ocean where I never saw another human except for the handful of loved ones I brought there.
A couple of years ago, Bryan and I took some engagement photos in this Topanga oasis on the fly with our friend Jessica Bertino after fried shrimp and beer at the Reel Inn. (I’d been kinda bratty at the Getty Villa right before this because I forgot to bring cute shoes and was suddenly taking “engagement photos” in sea foam green Birkenstocks. Sigh. I ditched them and posed barefoot in front of Roman revival columns with my perfectly imperfect, passionate, patient Bryan who, unlike me, didn’t grow up building his self-worth on “getting the shot.” I’m not a Didion fanatic but I love her essay “The Getty" in “The White Album.”)
I already knew this pastoral oasis was gone, I’d known for months, but searching for these images on my phone and sitting with their beauty was a crazy reminder. It was so sumptuous. Such a portal. I could see each of my experiences there over the year presented as a grid in my phone, marked by the date, and I was flooded with memories of each visit. There’s a collectivity to the grief of the fires. It’s impossible to center myself, ourselves, in this time when people have lost so much. It’s not at all comparable to the experience of friends who lost homes and neighborhoods and more. It’s nothing in comparison, but it’s still a little something. The loss of pieces of the city itself. Pockets that felt like secrets, treasures. Pockets that felt like paradise. Bryan says it will all grow back and be even more beautiful one day. That the ash will make the soil rich. I hope that’s true but I have no idea. It all felt like it had been there forever and always would be.
The lineup of writers who joined us to read was incredible. I wish I could publish the pieces together as a zine. Wendy C. Ortiz, Anna Dorn, Jasmine Johnson, Alicia Novella Vasquez, Heather Jewett, Tasbeeh Herwees, Taleen Kali, Clement Goldberg, and Marcel Alcalá all shared. If you want to listen to these readings, I posted the recording as an episode of my podcast here (you won't hear Alicia included here though–you'll have to wait for her publication for that!) I’m grateful to all of you, if you’re reading! Tasbeeh has a great L.A. Substack called No Bad Days and Anna is collaborating with Crissy Milazzo on an inventive new perfume platform called Sample Sluts.
I’m also grateful to everybody who joined us in the audience too. We had plenty of L.A. loved ones, as well as guests from Oakland, Switzerland, and Chicago. Wendy C. Ortiz gave me a copy of her book “Hollywood Notebook,” recently re-issued with a new cover. Margot ran sound. Niko DJ’d. Michelle moved tables and chairs. Faso took some pics. Bryan was the hot door girl checking tickets. We went to Cafe Triste for wine and LaSorted's for pizza after.
To be completely honest, I wasn’t planning to read my own work during the reading. Like initially I wanted to, but I had so much other writing due that week, I was like there’s no fucking way… I even talked about it in therapy. She was like, “Can’t you acknowledge that putting together an event is its own kind of labor, that maybe that’s enough?” and I was like “Yeah…but things like that aren’t actually hard for me.” Sorry God made me a producer (Capricorn)! I knew not reading was a way of hiding, an act of avoidance, but I also couldn’t deal with adding anything to my plate. When I finally had free time in the days before the event, I got pedicures at my favorite Valley nail salon (Nail Shop on Reseda, Mary only, she’s saved as “Mary Bestie” in my phone for a reason, bring her almond cookies if you go) and ate spicy wontons at Northern Cafe with Brande. I finally relaxed.
I got in bed to watch shows after but ended up getting on my phone and writing in my notes app instead. I had fun writing, which felt nice compared to the more pressurized tone of my writing life the rest of that week, and decided I could read it at the event if I wanted. As Sunday came, I realized there was no way I was going to do so. If I was, I would have edited it, printed it out, etc. I think reading from a phone is tacky unless you were born in 1997 or later. In that case, it’s more than okay. I granted myself permission not to read once again. My little phone experiment would stay in my phone. But as each reader went, the event got more and more fun. Everyone seemed to be listening. Nobody seemed to be bored. Everyone’s work was so great, but their attitude was easy and breezy. The communal feeling was so good, I wanted to join in, so I did. I’m sure the way I caveated my reading with the whole “I wasn’t going to read but you guys inspired me” thing turned a cynic off, but I’ve been turning cynical bitches off since I was born. The room tone was optimistic. Later, Heather told me she was happy I “headlined.”
So here’s what I read. Inspired by my 2017-2019 lifestyle. I haven’t edited it since the reading, but I’m sure I will someday. There’s so much more to say…
I do my job from home so I can participate in photo shoots without having to call out of work. I wake up early in the morning and write thousands of words in hundreds of Google docs that I share to my editors before they've even arrived at their large corporate campus, the kind with a barista, a barber, and car washes and chair massages most Fridays. I don't want to be a model, I just want to have my picture taken, badly enough that I don't go into the office unless I absolutely have to. I have a real job but I don't act like it. I follow casting accounts on Instagram and respond to emails from a British woman named Tallulah who is always reminding me I shouldn't expect to be paid much for editorial work. These aren't commercial jobs. I know she wants to remind me I'm not a real model, she wants to know where I get off. I tell her EVERYWHERE. I housesit for a friend in Los Feliz, up a steep street and a steeper set of stairs, and I feel life is good. Like the giant slabs of rose quartz in the front yard and the Willow Tree and vegetable garden and powder pink couch and Tiffany blue breakfast nook are really mine. I don't clean her cat's plate well enough though, I'm too cozy in the little library, too spacey in the steam shower made of obsidian, and overnight one thousand aunts have marched inside, craning through multiple large, perfect rooms to get to the corner in the kitchen where the cat eats. I'm disgusted with myself. I've infested her house almost immediately.
And I'm already late. It's a Thursday morning and I have to get to Venice. The Whole Foods parking lot. A long way from Hillhurst. That's where Tallulah says the production will be with the Sprinter bus. I don't even have time to consult the animal symbols book my friend left at my bedside before I leave the house. Maybe she knew I would drag something in. She was ok with that. She was watching me on the security cameras anyway. I get to the parking lot, I see the PA. I apologize for keeping him waiting but he's just happy I'm here. That I texted. The other people aren't answering his calls. He says their phones are off. He buys me coffee and juice and breakfast too. Anything to kill time. To feel like he's doing something. He's a very anxious guy. We wait 90 minutes after I was 45 minutes late to begin with. He wants to pull out his own hair. If he had acrylic nails, he would be peeling them off just to feel the pain. Finally, someone answers. She's on her way. The PA asks about her friend. He hangs up the phone and tells me we have to go knock on this guy's door, that he doesn't have a phone right now and so he doesn't have an alarm. The PA says he's supposed to go wake him up, like he wants me to give him permission. I'm surprised it's just me and the PA in this big sprinter van and he's driving. We reach one of the little streets where you park to access the board walk. He lives in an apartment right here and the PA knocks on his door until he wakes up. The guy yells back that he needs to get dressed.
I sit alone in the Sprinter and think about how my real job's office is walking distance from here. Instead I'm waiting for a stranger and we are headed to Palm Desert for the day to shoot. The rest of the crew is already out there, most of the cast too. I don't know who I'm expecting, someone younger I guess. I find my new colleague instantly striking. He's at least 6'3 and at least 63 years old. He wears jeans and a hat like the Marlboro Man. His face is weathered and beautiful and soft and strong. He's chatty and kind and says he was scouted on the Venice Boardwalk, along with his wife. That's who called. He tells me all about the love of his life. We drive back to the Whole Foods parking lot and wait for her there. But she's mad at me, he says. I hope she's not still mad at me. I'm chatty too, I ask questions. I'm a journalist after all. I ask how long they've been married and he tells me yesterday. Oh wow, I say. We wait for the wife some more, and he squeals when she finally arrives. She's much younger, 29ish, a little MIA, a little Lana Del Rey. Don't talk to me, she snaps as soon as boards. The PA is driving now. I'm alone with them like I was alone with my parents. This drive is two hours long. I'd rather be with these people than anyone I work with. I'm in a love story. In the desert. This movie is so good I don't even need to make it. I'm the only one watching. It's just for me. I'm sorry for whatever I did, he repeats. Again and again. Finally she breaks.You embarrassed me!
I wonder what happened. Cheating. Money. Drinking. Drugs. Boardwalk drama. I speculate. Maybe I’m thinking of my own family.
You embarrassed me in front of my family! She says.
I'm sorry, I'm sorry, but you're my wife. You left me on our wedding night. I was alone on my wedding night," he says.
My parents asked if I was going to take your last name, and you said you want me to go by MRS. CALIFORNIA, she says.
She's disgusted.
So? He asks. What could be more beautiful?
Thank you for reading. New posts on Wednesdays. xoxo Tierney
aw ty for the mention tierney! sounds so good <3
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