So busy am I with deadlines that I could only spare about two hours today for the West Hollywood Book Fair, one hour of which was consumed by appearing on a panel I'll tell you about in a moment. The other hour was spent wandering a friendly assemblage of (mostly) small publishers and small booksellers. I missed Vince Bugliosi (who had the longest line you could imagine at Book Expo America) but he couldn't have had more people than Robert Wagner, who was there signing his autobiography…and looking every inch a movie star.
There was one fellow there who was one of bravest men I've ever seen. He had not a booth but the corner of someone's table and he was set up to urge people to support Proposition 8 in the upcoming election. That's the one that would ban gay marriage. This is in West Hollywood. Talk about having a bad corner: That's like trying to drum up support for a Klan meeting in Harlem. I saw a couple of people (all seemingly straight) being hostile to him but I saw even more pause to talk and try and understand his worldview.
I doubt he'll matter. All indicators suggest that Proposition 8 is going down to defeat…and probably not by a narrow margin, either. Even Google thinks it's time. My Conservative friends (I have more than you think) accept this…all but one whose attitude reminds me of the old joke: "He's against making homosexuality legal because he figures the next step is to make it compulsory."
There was also an area where I saw an Obama-Biden table next to a McCain-Palin table. At least when I was strolling past, no one was showing much interest in either and the folks manning them were engaged in amiable chatter with each other. It's interesting to me how little Californians care about the vote in California. They care like mad about who becomes President of these United States but the contest for California's electoral votes was over long ago. Like before we knew who the Democrat and Republican were going to be.
Then I appeared on a panel about comics which was recorded as a podcast for Comics on Comics, an endeavor with comedians interviewing folks who do comics. I appeared with Gregg Hurwitz, who among other gigs has been writing Punisher projects for Marvel. It was a fun hour and I'll link you to it just as soon as it's on ye olde web.
And that's about it. Back to those deadlines…