LA Book Signing

with HippyChick 3/11/2006

Hi All! Alma asked me to submit a complete account of the happenings at the LA book signing at Book Soup on Sunset, so here is what took place.

The signing started at 5pm. Thank God it had stopped raining earlier in the day but it was pretty cold for LA. My friend got down to the book store around 4pm and was able to get parking where we normally park. I unfortunately decided to leave later and didn’t arrive until 5pm. It took me about 20 minutes to find parking, don’t know what I was thinking.

When I got there I saw the line that went all the way down the block. The sidewalks were 4 people deep. There was one line out the right side of the bookstore which was all the people that had bought books ahead of time and had tickets. They were allotting 200 tickets with 1 to 2 persons for each ticket. There may have been 250 to 300 people in that line. On the left side of the bookstore there must have been at least another 300 people that didn’t have tickets and probably had been waiting for hours.

We went inside and paid for our books and got our tickets. We were ticket numbers 112 and 113 which was why I wasn’t in a hurry to be there on time. The bookstore had posted that they were completely sold-out of “Welcome to Our Planet”. We shuffled over to the line and took our designated spots. I had heard earlier in the week that Pam Grier had cancelled and Laurel had had a family emergency. We could only get confirmation that Mia, Leisha and Kate were going to be there. While we were standing in line the police showed up and threatened to shut the event down. I guess we were blocking the sidewalks. Somehow by backing us up a bit and moving people around, the police were satisfied and left. Then management from Tower Records across the street came over and said anybody parked in their lot was getting towed in 30 minutes. It was pretty chaotic!

While we waited in line we chatted with the folks around us. There was a guy there whose company is working on the fan episode thing for Showtime. He was trying to get more people to submit written scenes for the episode. It seemed like there was people from all walks of life. I heard some people say that they had driven all the way from Tucson Arizona. Boy am I spoiled, I only drove an hour!

Well, we only had to wait about an hour and we got to the door. At that time, we found out who actually showed up. It was Mia Kirshner, Leisha Hailey, Ilene Chaiken, Rachel Shelley and Alexandra Hedison. I was pretty damn excited at that point. People were really disappointed that Kate didn’t show. She was the most popular person at the LA Season 3 premiere. Rumor had it that she had a photo shoot and might show up later. Don’t know if she ever did. Hope the girls from Tucson didn’t make the drive just for Kate.

When we got in the building, we were crammed into this little room with a bunch of people. (At least it was warm inside!) They had the actors sitting on chairs on one side of the room and it was difficult to see them because of all the people that were standing in front of them. We were told to get our pictures before we got up to the table. I guess that way you could carry on conversations and not be interrupted. Well, as you can see by my photos it was challenging to get pics and I had limitedsuccess. We were told to open our books to the page we wanted signed.

The first person I got to talk to was Mia. I didn’t like Jenny in season 2 and was happy to see her in a better place in season 3. I didn’t know what to expect. I found Mia to be the sweetest and friendliest person! She was kind, open and talkative and she is just a wee little thing. She asked my name and I told her how much I like Jenny this season. We talked about her character and how she would be great as a friend. Although, I think I want Mia as a friend because she pleasantly surprised me!

Next up was Leisha! Yea!!!! She just had this huge smile on her face. I told her I thought she did a wonderful job on the show and I thought her and Erin made a great team. She was very thankful for the compliments. I also told her that my mom doesn’t watch the show but saw the CSI episode she did and found it very touching! (My mom would probably faint if she saw some of the sex scenes on TLW!) Anyways, my friend had met Leisha at an in-store for The Murmurs about 10 years ago at the Virgin Mega store. He was stoked to know she actually remembered that in-store.

Ok, the next person was the most challenging. Alma had asked me to kick Ilene’s ass if she actually showed up. (Firstly, I thought it was out of character on Alma’s part to condone violence. Secondly, I was touched that she had already started collecting bail for me! What a gal!) Well, with that in mind, I told Ilene I loved the show but I wanted to know why she was killing Dana off. You get very little time with each person so I figured I should just get right to the point. Well, Ilene came back with that she wasn’t killing off Dana the cancer was. Ah, I guess Ilene always has an answer for everything. I came back with ok, but I have had people close to me that have had breast cancer and all have survived. She replied but not everyone survives! I couldn’t argue with that if she is trying to be realistic with her show. I think I would have been there longer but I heard some one call my name and I guess they probably wanted me to move along. I did appreciate Ilene being open and at least willing to discuss. She didn’t say she couldn’t talk about it which would have come from some one who didn’t want to give you the time of day. So Alma, I chickened out!

So what could be better than having Rachel Shelley call your name in her cute English accent! She looks just as good in person, or better, than she does on the show and she is just charming! (I am sure those that met her in England would agree!) I told her I loved Helena so much this season because of the humor she has brought to the show. She commented that she got to do some really good stuff with Leisha this season. Well, I told her I was just glad she was on the show!

The last person was Alex. I made a comment to her and Rachel that they had some pretty steamy scenes this season. Alex sarcastically said that she thought that Rachel was drunk for all those scenes. I liked Alex and told her I was glad they had added her this season. She was doing something clever when she signed our books. She added Dylan outside The Chart page and drew a line to Helena.

Well, that was it! They kicked us out because there was like another 500 people outside. It all happened so fast but we were really glad we went and got to meet everyone! I have my list of people I still need to meet. Looks like I have Erin, Kate and Laurel next on the list. Maybe someday! :-)