Making a Mess January 11, 2021 I VOL. 50 I #2
Brandy Lewis finds success with creative arts space
Viva LA! New venture seeks to celebrate Los Angeles Page 8
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Goosing Our Gendered Expressions: It’s time for a language revamp By Ellen Snortland hat’s good for the goose is good for the gander.” That is one of the only equitable gender sayings I’m aware of, as most are not. Growing up on a farm, many geese were mean as junkyard dogs. Scary! Both males and females would chase and pinch the soft parts of an unwary person who crossed their paths. I remember being grateful that geese were toothless. Doing my part to shine a light on our society’s pervasive language bias, I looked into my vast “That’s Annoying” mental file cabinet to have some fun flipping analogies and axioms. My first figurative pet peeve is hearing someone describing someone else with courage as “having balls.” Really? I do not appreciate being told I have balls. First of all, I don’t. Second, it implies that having guts is a function of biology. Speaking of which, “guts” is a great gender-neutral term. When I want to point out this disparity, I like describing a gutsy female-identified person as having “big, clanging ovaries.” Try it, you’ll like it! While celebrating the 100th year of winning the right to vote in the United States, I loved describing Ida B. Wells—a badass, committed suffragist and anti-lynching champ—as a hero with a heart of gold, guts of steel, and ovaries of brass. By the way, saying someone has gonads is also gender neutral. One expression that bugs me is, “They didn’t know me from Adam!” It’s even more infuriating when the speaker is female. Instead, I say, “They didn’t know me from Eve.” Or if I’m feeling heretical, “They didn’t know me from Lilith.” Male favoritism even extends to the animal kingdom. “Bull in a china shop”? I prefer “cow in a china shop”? Or when someone says (hopefully with a fake Russian accent), “Strong like bull,” I say, “Strong like a cow.” A woman once told me, “I believe the expression is actually ‘strong like bull.’” I replied, “It’s a joke, daughter!” (I was riffing on Foghorn Leghorn’s line, “It’s a joke, son.”) An eye roll is also gender neutral and highly expressive. Then there are the endless baseball cliches. Ugh! “Step up to the plate,” “Lean into it,” “Hit it out of the park,” “They are a batting .1000.” Having no brothers and a father who hated baseball, when I hear these expressions, I have the same look on my face I’d have if I were to ever watch a baseball game: stunned, bored and a tad nuts. It’s the maleness of it all, not hating the sport itself. I know many women who love baseball—peanuts and Cracker Jacks for everyone! For those of us who can’t tell a pinch hitter from a platypus, I use expressions like, “Step up to the stove,” “Serve those dishes piping hot” and “She’s cooking with gas!” In case you believe that women don’t have a sense of humor, I have news for you: We do! I have a blast turning these unconscious sayings on their collective ear and slipping an unexpected gender switch into common expressions. Just because some guys (and a few gals) are insulted if I don’t find their sexist jokes funny, that doesn’t mean that I’m
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humorless; it generally means—switcheroo time again—they simply aren’t funny. Interestingly, I’ve found many more Republican men without a sense of humor in my life experience. Those Republicans just can’t take a joke, although they did help elect a joke to the highest office in the land. See? What’s good for the goose really is good for the gander! Ellen Snortland has written “Consider This…” for a heckuva long time, and she also coaches first-time book authors! Who knew? Contact her at ellen@beautybitesbeast.com
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Health officials see vaccine as the only hope to stop the spread By Matthew Rodriguez s a year of sorrow and misery spills into 2021, health care workers and everyone in the rest of the country have at least some semblance of hope: the COVID-19 vaccines. As of Jan. 6, the virus has killed over 350,000 people and infected over 20 million in the United States alone and has no signs of slowing down. It took the United States 292 days to record its first 10 million cases and only 54 days to double that figure. In LA County, it took 10 months to record 400,000 cases. It took less than a month to double the number of cases. LA County has become the epicenter of the virus, as about 1 in 5 people getting tested are positive of COVID-19. The region continues to pass grim milestone after grim milestone, with the latest records showing close to 900,000 cases and over 11,000 deaths. It’s clear that every tactic that public health officials have instituted, from social distancing and mask orders, has failed to curb the virus. However, even with this hope the effects of the vaccine will not be felt until months to come. “While the arrival of the vaccine offers us some hope for the future, we are still many months away from having enough people vaccinated to see the COVID-19 vaccine begin to diminish,” said Los Angeles County Public Health Officer Dr. Muntu Davis during a recent press conference. The two vaccines being distributed throughout the entire country were developed by Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna. However, with the rapid development of the COVID-19 vaccines, and the vast sea of information, many, whether justified or unjustified, have concerns about the safety of the vaccines. “Three expert panels of scientists—one for the FDA, one for the CDC, and one convened by Gov. Gavin Newsom and governors of three other Western states—all completed independent reviews of the data from the Pfizer clinical trial and concluded the vaccine was safe for use,” said Chief Science Officer Paul Simon prior to the Moderna vaccine’s approval. To understand the safety and efficacy of vaccines, it helps to understand how the body fights infections. To fight infections such as COVID-19, immune systems deploy white blood cells to combat foreign viruses. The two important white blood cells are the B-lymphocytes and the T-lymphocytes. “The B-lymphocytes are the ones that make the antibodies and the T-lymphocytes have an equally important but different job,” said Dr. Paula Cannon, a virologist at USC Keck School of Medicine. “It’s like a two-pronged attack. The B cells make the antibodies that stick to the virus and neutralize it and the T cells wipe up, kill and sacrifice the cells in the body that are currently infected to stop new viruses from being produced.” However, when our bodies encounter new viruses such as COVID-19, there are no “custom-made antibodies” or T-lymphocytes because our immune systems have never met the novel coronavirus. “When you first meet a virus, you often get infected because although your immune system immediately goes on red alert and says, ‘This is foreign, let’s start to make some antibodies’ it takes time,” said Cannon. “It’s like a race and the virus is racing ahead, replicating itself in your body and making you feel miserable.” After a few days, the body finally catches up to the infection and creates enough antibodies and T-lymphocytes to ward off the infection. Once the virus is expelled from the body, the immune system remembers how to defeat the virus in case it comes back. “Once we’ve met a new foreign virus the body then goes, ‘OK I’m not going to let this happen again, clearly it’s bad,” said Cannon.
The two vaccines being distributed throughout the entire country were developed by Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna.
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She continues saying the body leaves “patrol cells” on standby, waiting for another bout with the virus. “They maintain a higher level of vigilance and we call it memory,” said Cannon. “That means that if you then encounter that virus a second time in your life it doesn’t win the race. The antibody-producing machinery, the B-cells and the T-cells are already at a high enough level just patrolling the body that they can easily overwhelm the virus.” Vaccines help the human body develop an immunity to viruses such as COVID-19 without getting the illness. “That’s what a vaccine is trying to create,” said Cannon. “It’s fooling the body into thinking it’s being attacked and having the body mount the typical B-cell and T-cell immune response. At the end of the vaccination, the body stands down to this heightened memory state, which means you are now protected in the future.” As the body responds to the vaccine, mounting a defense, people tend to have reactions such as slight fever, pain at the injection site, and fatigue. Cannon refers to these reactions as “Tylenol side effects,” meaning that these reactions are not bad nor are they unexpected. “We get reactions to vaccines and it’s OK and often a good thing,” said Cannon. “It tells us that our immune system has noticed what has been injected in your arm and it is working really hard to fight what it perceives as an invader. … All these symptoms are actually symptoms of our immune system fighting something. In this case, it’s fighting a vaccine.” Currently, there are three main types of vaccines for COVID-19: protein subunit, vector and mRNA vaccines. The first two vaccines—Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna—are both mRNA vaccines, which is the technology that has allowed these companies to develop the vaccines so quickly. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, mRNA technology has been in development for decades. In the past, scientists have studied how mRNA vaccines could be used for the flu, Zika virus and rabies.
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Covered NEWS California will help While mRNA technology has been developed for decades, both the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines are the first to be approved. In the past many vaccines used either an inactive or weakened germ into the body to trigger an immune response. However, with mRNA vaccines no germs are injected into the body; instead, a recipe is injected. “The mRNA vaccines are literally just the instructions for the body to make a little bit of the spike protein itself—it’s like a recipe,” said Cannon. The spike protein is a harmless piece of the COVID-19 virus found on its surface. Once the body has the recipe, it begins to create the spike protein and identifies it as a foreign entity, triggering an immune response. After receiving the vaccine, once the body encounters the COVID-19 virus all it has to do is identify the spike protein and it will launch an attack on the virus. The Pfizer and Moderna vaccines both require two doses spaced several weeks apart to ensure over 94% efficacy. The quick development was enabled when the genetic sequencing of the virus was discovered by Chinese scientists at the beginning of the pandemic. Other scientists across the world were able to begin the development of the vaccine once given this information. However, just like most great ventures, the researchers required funding to create the vaccine quickly. “Normally, when you’re developing a vaccine or a drug, there are two ingredients in the recipe: There’s time and money,” said Cannon. “It takes a huge amount of money to develop a drug.” In the effort to quickly create the vaccine, the U.S. government launched Operation Warp Speed—a nearly $10 billion backing of six companies developing vaccines. Companies such as Moderna accepted the money for the development; Pfizer/ BioNtech did not take funds to help development but to assist in the manufacturing and distribution. Many other private companies and individuals also donated money to help the development of the vaccine. This has allowed the timeline for creating vaccines to be compressed as all of the tests happen simultaneously. Typically, vaccines take a long time because if the vaccines fail a trial it would cost millions of dollars. However, with the backing from governments and private individuals, losing money was not a worry. “Things got kind of compressed in terms of time, but shortcuts weren’t taken and the only risk of doing that is money,” said Cannon. “We’re doing things sort of simultaneously, but it doesn’t mean they’re not getting done. The only risk it introduces is the risk such that if things fail, they will fail in an expensive way rather than in a cheaper way. “The only reason we don’t normally make vaccines within 12 months is because what we’ve done with the coronavirus is hugely expensive. Drug companies would go out of business if this was how they made vaccines.” The backing allowed companies to quickly develop the vaccine and submit an Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) request to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). According to the FDA, a “EUA is a mechanism to facilitate the availability and use of medical countermeasures, including vaccines, during public health emergencies, such as the current COVID-19 pandemic. However, even with EUAs the FDA still conducts rigorous trials to ensure the vaccines are safe. “Although the timeline for developing and evaluating the vaccine has been greatly condensed, all of the essential steps in the vaccine approval process have been maintained,” said Simon. According to the FDA, phase one is when “the vaccine is given to a small number of generally healthy people to assess its safety at increasing doses” and also shows how the vaccine induces an immune response in people. phase 2 adds hundreds of more people from different demographic groups and varying health statuses to further prove the safety of the vaccine. It also provides a snapshot of the effectiveness of the vaccine. Finally, phase 3 again tests the safety and efficacy of the vaccine by incorporating thousands of people from different demographics. Also, some participants will receive the vaccine; others will receive a placebo to test the effectiveness. Because Cannon is not a front-line health care worker and has no underlying health conditions, she has yet to receive the vaccine, but she still recommends everyone to take it. “I would (take) the vaccine in a heartbeat,” said Cannon. “I have absolutely no qualms. I recommend it for my family, for my elderly parents, for everybody. I suppose that should tell you what I think about it in terms of safety but also necessity.”
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Reported cases in Downtown LA and surrounding areas as of Jan. 3 Chinatown: 488; Little Tokyo: 267; Los Feliz: 675; Silverlake: 2,075; South Park: 5,156; Wilshire Center: 3,322 Total confirmed cases in DTLA: 2,487 Total deaths in DTLA: 23 Total confirmed cases in LA County: 818,639 Total deaths in LA County: 10,773 As the pandemic rages on, Los Angeles County passed two dreaded milestones going into the New Year: over 800,000 cases and 10,000 deaths. It took LA County 10 months to record 400,000 COVID-19 cases. To double the number of cases to 800,000, it took just over a month. Hospitals across the county struggle to keep up with the surge as hospitalizations climb to 7,544, with 21% in the ICU. “The strategy for stopping the surge is fairly straightforward. When people stay away from other people, the virus cannot spread as it is doing now. The more we stay home and the more we avoid in-person activities with other people we don’t live with, the more we reduce the spread of the virus,” said Los Angeles County Public Health Director Dr. Barbara Ferrer. The distribution of the COVID-19 vaccines has fallen far short of the goal set
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by federal officials. The federal government hoped to give the first doses of the COVID-19 vaccines to 20 million people by the end of December. As of Jan. 3, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported that while over 13 million doses had been distributed, over 4.2 million people have been given the first dose of the vaccine. Of those 13 million doses, over 2.2 million had been given to long-term care facilities, with almost 283,000 residents receiving the first dose. California has received the largest share of the vaccines so far, with over 1.4 million doses with about 412,000 shots given—that is about 1% of the state’s population. Gov. Gavin Newsom announced that a new, more contagious variant of COVID-19 has been found in Southern California. The new strain was first detected in the United Kingdom. The first reported case of the strain in California was detected in a 30-year-old man in San Diego County. Officials say that he has “no travel history.” As of last week, Ferrer said the more contagious variant was not yet found in LA County. The first case in the United States was found in Colorado. The variant is no more deadly than the original. Information compiled by Matthew Rodriguez.
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to quarantine upon return to LA County By Christina Fuoco-Karasinski A County residents who have traveled outside of it and recently returned will have to quarantine for 10 days, according to the county health department. The virus can take up to 14 days to incubate, and for many people the virus causes no illness or symptoms. During the 10 days after returning, the virus could be passed on if the person goes back to work, shopping or to gatherings. If you start to experience any symptoms or have a positive test, isolate for 10 days and until you are fever free for 24 hours. The best way to safely quarantine is to not leave your home or allow any visitors to your home and to find others who can help buy groceries and other essential necessities. If you need help during a self-quarantine, such as finding assistance to help get groceries, there are resources available by calling 211 or visiting the Public Health website, publichealth. lacounty.gov. Public Health continues efforts to safely and effectively deliver COVID-19 vaccines and build a system that has the capacity to vaccinate prioritized populations. The first shipments are being used to vaccinate the front-line health care workers at acute care hospitals, EMTs and paramedics, and the staff and residents at skilled nursing facilities. These groups are within tier 1 of phase 1a. The county began distribution of the Moderna vaccine to skilled nursing facilities at the end of right before the holiday and continued through the weekend. County, city and curative teams are working together to accelerate vaccinations at skilled nursing facilities during the next week. Vaccinations at other long-term care facilities will happen through the federal pharmacy partnership with Walgreens and CVS. As LA County completes tier 1 of phase 1a, the health department will begin vaccinations for health care workers in tier 2. Recently, home health care workers and health care workers at primary care clinics, urgent care clinics and private practices will be invited to register for appointments through a secure web-based portal. All health care workers will need to show verification prior to vaccination. Visit the COVID-19 Health Care Provider Information Hub on the health department’s website for additional information. Every week, as the county receives additional doses of vaccine, additional health care workers in tiers 2 and 3 of phase 1A will be offered vaccines. These include health care personnel engaging in field work, working at specialty clinics, laboratory workers, dental and other oral health clinics, pharmacy staff (not in higher-tier settings) and vaccinators. For more information about the county’s vaccination plans or to sign up for a vaccination newsletter, visit ph.lacounty.gov. “Our hearts go out to everyone who is mourning a loved one, a friend, a co-worker or a neighbor who has passed away from COVID-19. We are so sorry for your loss,” said Barbara Ferrer, Ph.D., M.P.H., M.Ed., director of public health. “Let’s give our hospitals a fighting chance to handle the flood of COVID-19 patients who are arriving every day. We thank everyone who has and continues to do the right thing to help slow this surge. Reducing the number of new cases is the only way to stop this surge. The urgency to take every preventative measure possible is upon us; otherwise the coronavirus transmission trajectory we see here continues, with its devastating impact on hospitals and people. We ask that you not be a virus spreader; we can’t afford for you to pass on the risk and the virus.” Targeted stay-at-home orders issued by the state—and adopted by the LA County health officer—were extended and remain in effect. These orders will remain in effect as long as hospital ICU capacity remains below the 15% threshold established by the state. These orders prohibit gathering with nonhousehold members, require everyone to stay at home as much as possible, reduce occupancy limits at businesses, and require masking and distancing whenever around others. Outdoor exercise is encouraged as long as you remain distanced and wear a face covering when around others. The health officer orders also require that all nonessential business and activities cease between 10 p.m. and 5 a.m. A complete list of the current safety modifications can be found online.
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Four arrested at City Hall protest By Matthew Rodriguez s Trump supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol building, hundreds gathered outside Los Angeles City Hall protesting the outcome of the presidential election. The crowd, many of whom were not wearing masks, waved flags and held signs reading “Stop the Steal,” while others drove around the area. The organizers of the “Freedom Protest” said that 15 “patriotic organizations” were present at the demonstration “to demand the integrity and justice of the Nov. 3 election.” The crowd reportedly grew to about
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200 people. The Los Angeles Police Department declared the gathering an unlawful assembly at 1 p.m., and by 1:30 p.m. the crowd had dwindled to less than 100 people, according to reports. While the riot in Washington, D.C., turned violent, the protest in Los Angeles was much calmer. While there were clashes between Trump supporters and counterprotesters, police officials said there were no serious injuries and it was relatively peaceful. However, as of about 3 p.m. the police reported there were four arrests.
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Successful serial entrepreneur Christian Mitman, left, and famed LA artist Andre Miripolsky, creator of “No Fear Art” and Absolut Vodka ad art, joined forces for Viva LA. Courtesy photo
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New venture seeks to celebrate Los Angeles By Bridgette M. Redman hen an LA artist and entrepreneur joined forces to create a new business, their goal wasn’t to sell merchandise. It was to create an iconic symbol that celebrates everything good about Los Angeles. Famed LA artist Andre Miripolsky, creator of “No Fear Art” and Absolut Vodka ad art, and Christian Mitman, a successful serial entrepreneur, want the phrase “Viva
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LA” to become as widely known and ubiquitous as New York’s “I Heart New York.” They also want to contribute to the art community and nurture the creative vibe for which Los Angeles has become known. “Viva LA” has been a part of Miripolsky’s work for the past 15 years. “He’s truly an iconic pop artist who lives and breathes LA,” said Alex Dickerson, the marketing person for the new Viva LA brand. “He is this radiant sweetheart of a
person who embodies the love and loyalty for LA.” An artist who was born in Paris and traveled the world before settling in LA at age 18, Miripolsky’s work can be seen on murals, billboards and in his own studio, where he met Mitman on Valentine’s Day in 2017. “Los Angeles is my muse and inspiration all wrapped up in Viva LA,” Miripolsky said. Mitman and his husband had a tradition of buying art every year on Valentine’s Day. Mitman booked a private tour of the LA Brewery, the world’s largest art complex, and Miripolsky’s studio was the first they visited. “ They had this amazing kismet moment,” Dickerson said. “They were just exchanging their love of art and ideas. They had this magic moment of ‘we just met someone really special.’” It began their collaboration, and they began to focus on how to turn Viva LA
into something that would popularize the phrase. They wanted to offer merchandise for residents and tourists and hoped it would support artists. “It would be an arts project for all of Los Angeles, unifying the different neighborhoods and bringing hope and creativity while giving back to the arts,” Dickerson said. “They worked through ideas and now they have this website and merchandise collection with the logo.” The soft launch of the company was in December 2020, with a hard launch planned for 2021 along with an as-yet-unrevealed “big” project. “I’m just excited to see the look on everyone’s face when it sinks in that Viva LA was created for them,” Mitman said. “Angelenos aren’t used to having a way to show their pride in their city, but from what I can see, everyone is taking to it like a fish to water. The look on someone’s face when they put on their first item of Viva LA ap-
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parel makes it all worth it. You can just see the pride in their eyes.” A percentage of the proceeds will go to art organizations, starting with the Hollywood Arts Council. It is also something he wants to see bring hope and excitement to the LA community. “It could happen very quickly or more gradually,” Mitman said. “But the more we see our neighbors wearing Viva LA, the more we are assured that they love our city as much as we do. We hope that Viva LA will be the one thing all Angelenos have in common—and that our love of this diverse and creative city will be the driver and inspiration for us all to take an active part in making life in LA better for everyone.”
Creating merchandise The merchandise shop, which can be found at vivala.us, has five categories of goods: • Tees: 100% cotton T-shirts in a variety of colors with the two Viva LA logos. • Sweats: Sweatshirts, hoodies and sweatpants with several different designs featuring the Viva LA logos. • Home: Patterned throw pillows, mugs and aprons with both logos. • Accessories: Face masks, eco totes, Champion backpacks, several varieties of caps, visors and beanies. • Athletics: Workout clothes with an intri-
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cately patterned Viva LA logo. Dickerson praised the goods’ high quality and how they fit into 2021, from face masks to reversible pillows. “Of course, the T-shirt is the most iconic thing, and they are beautiful, soft-colored T-shirts. A T-shirt is a universal hug,” Dickerson said. “The sweatsuits fit in with the more leisure aspect of this year, and it’s really important that everyone has something that feels good and is hyper soft.” She said the leggings have a “really cool repeating mirror pattern of the wings logo” that is subtle and creates a geometric graphic print. “I’m a huge fan of those,” Dickerson said. “You pair them with your favorite T-shirt, and you can stay home, go for a hike and run or sit outside in the sun.”
Spreading the brand While the original art is mostly Miripolsky’s, there is also work by artist Meghan Hall, who creates under the name “M.” She is the first artist to join the team who will be invited to interpret the phrase with their own art. It’s important for the team to give their proceeds to art organizations and not the administration. Dickerson said the charitable giving is part of the two-fold mission of Viva LA. “That is such an important part of what
we’re doing and what we feel so good about—if you look at the art itself, it is whimsical, bold, it has color and movement, swings, heart, positivity,” Dickerson said. “It is Andre’s aesthetic and true grace and charm, which is really uplifting and about bringing people together. Plus, we are creating a vehicle for communities to unite. You can love street art and live anywhere in LA and be of any demographic. Pop art brings everyone that loves LA together.” She said most people do not have unlimited resources, so they can’t live to all the charities. Viva LA allows them to purchase a high-quality product that they can feel good about and donate to artists. It is something she said can provide hope in what is otherwise a dark time. “Did we all struggle with 2020? Yes. This is our goal—to create a thoughtful, festive icon and allow people to learn about art and give back,” Dickerson said.
Creating a community for lovers of LA
Mitman and Miripolsky are also creating a community that anyone can join. “It feels good to say—there’s a nice cadence when it comes out of your mouth, and we want people to show us how they love LA,” Dickerson said. The brand will have a large social media presence, from its website to blogs to Instagram. They want to invite people to celebrate Los Angeles every day. “Anyone can do that without being an artist,” Dickerson said. “Take pictures of yourself experiencing LA and all the beauty California has.” She said they have cool things planned, such as custom filters that will be rolled out initially through their VIP program. They hope people will take pictures of themselves living the Viva LA lifestyle. Viva LA brand will share those pictures on its social media with the hope that it spreads the celebration. “This is not an elitist platform,” Dickerson said. “We’re not saying only influencers of 5 million followers. We’re going to show the community at large. If you love LA, let’s share that together.”
Viva LA, a new brand of merchandise that benefits the LA artist community. Visit vivala.us
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Brandy Lewis founded the creative arts space Makers Mess.
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Covered California will help ARTS & CULTURE
Brandy Lewis is making a mess of success By Andrew Checchia veryone knows 2020 was messy. COVID-19 took its toll on everyone and everything as it marched along its disruptive path. But as tragedies and pain followed in its wake, it also left behind valuable lessons for the people looking to rebuild their lives according to the developing new rulebook. Brandy Lewis, the founder of the creative arts space Makers Mess, came to one of these important realizations years before the pandemic chaos. She started her business, but it couldn’t be more applicable to the current age of mass confusion. She discovered the simple power of being willing to make a mess. “I realized you don’t make perfect sentences. It’s the whole process. I wanted to create four walls without the expectation of perfect art,” said Lewis on her breakthroughs and founding Makers Mess. Her appreciation of the freedom of imperfection came after years of working as a manager in the entertainment industry. During her time in that professional world, Lewis grew into a perfectionist—still putting utmost value on artists and their work but leaning heavily on getting the final
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product exactly right the first time. But after a few radical shifts in her life, she saw the power of eliminating those often overbearing stakes. “I wanted to challenge myself by doing something ‘outside the business,’” Lewis said. “I wanted a completely blank slate. While I was waiting to see what I was going to think of, my dad died. I was taking a creative writing class at UCLA. One day I realized the only peace I was having at the time was the three hours in the class.” There, she finally let her own creative energies run free—no rules, no expectations, no stress. Without limits, she found her mind could enter into a beautiful world. Even if the work that came out of this freedom wasn’t up to her highest standards, Lewis found peace leaning into pure creativity (and the far less glamorous editing process that follows). “It was this feeling that while you’re doing whatever your medium of preference is, that minute when you’re out of head,” said Lewis about her natural connection to the creative world. “I think I inherently have a huge purpose to support artists. I mean they’re the unsung heroes of our
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civilization.” Praising everyone from painters and collage artists to writers and standup comedians, Lewis’ love for the beauty and diversity of the arts pushed her toward her current professional track. Her personal preferences naturally drew her to visual and tactile art, so she took a leap of faith to become a small-business owner and started Makers Mess in mid-2015. After that, she said, it was “one foot in front of the other.” Things didn’t come easily, and Lewis even set an ultimatum that this endeavor would be her last attempt to do something big. But she took things as they came, carrying with her that willingness to get messy in the process. After difficult early years getting the ball rolling, calling mostly on friends and acquaintances to attend events and workshops, Lewis gradually saw her arts space grow into a community hub. Soon enough, Makers Mess attracted attention from around Los Angeles and drew in renowned artists like watercolor painter and author Ana Victoria Calderon. From there, things mounted, opportunities opened up and Lewis found herself running the successful, messy, creative space she imagined years ago. She most recently started corporate initiatives, getting into the events world to bring creative workshops to huge companies. But as nearly everyone has realized, 2020 had its own plans. “Every small-business owner knows, the amount of energy it takes to execute anything right now is so much,” Lewis said. “All business is trying things and failing. With COVID, trying things means dealing with
people’s health. You want to leave it to the authorities. And that has been such mixed messages.” Luckily for Lewis, she had, by chance, already decided in January to stop her in-person corporate events and start recording online classes and digital workshops. So, when her traditional in-person spaces were suddenly unavailable, she and her Makers Mess team had a head start in adjusting to the distanced world. “I started doing online videos. I had naturally started to switch gears. When the cloud of confusion and shock hit, I was ready,” she said. So as 2021 brings with it renewed shreds of hope, Lewis hopes the arts will resurge along with the rest of society. She plans to take things day by day, carefully guiding her thriving community through the uncertain waters of a post-pandemic world. But Lewis still carries herself with a “forget it” attitude and seemed confidently ready to meet inevitable future challenges while running her business. And she certainly hasn’t lost her willingness to get messy. “I want to think people will want to be together in the space again. I don’t want to imagine a world where we don’t need that. We’ve got to come back to a place of valuing that,” said Lewis on the future of Makers Mess and arts in Los Angeles. “My plans at the beginning of 2020 were to open other studios. But heading into 2021, I’m taking a moment to look at that. I’m feeling it out if I’m ready to jump again. It’s a series of jumping off cliffs owning a business. I’m an entrepreneur where I have that endless energy.”
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Covered California will help ARTS & CULTURE
Old Californio finishes long-shelved album that unexpectedly speaks to 2020 By Bliss Bowen ven under normal circumstances, resuscitating creative projects long left unattended is a challenge. When local rockers Old Californio re-entered the studio this year to finish their long-shelved album “Songs from the Sea of Cortez,” it helped that most of the instrumental tracks were recorded and all but three already had vocals. Still, save for some isolated gigs at a Utah saloon, guitarist Woody Aplanalp, bassist Jason Chesney, singer and songwriter Rich Dembowski, and drummer Justin Smith hadn’t all worked together since 2013, and the logistics of overdubbing and mixing tracks were complicated by coronavirus restrictions. Most of those sessions took place at Aplanalp’s San Gabriel studio. It was Aplanalp who suggested the band start working together again; Dembowski describes the album as “Woody’s baby in a lot of ways.” They shouldered responsibility for getting it finished. Chesney added remotely recorded tracks from Nesmith Ranch in Monterey, where he’s been holing up since the pandemic shutdowns hit, and Smith supplied more vocals and percussion from his home studio in Altadena. “The conditions we’re in right now are a little limiting,” Dembowski acknowledged, “but fun and creative.” The original tracks were “all live takes,” according to Aplanalp, recorded in Dembowski’s house in Pasadena. Drums and piano were set up in the dining room and living room, amps in the bathroom, and a mobile soundboard in the spare bedroom—and as they describe that close, convivial process now, when we’re all hunkered down under stay-at-home orders and nightclubs have been shuttered since March, it sounds unreachably exotic. Dembowski likens revisiting the world of those early recordings to entering a “time capsule.” He cites the organic sound of the Byrds, the Outsiders and especially Ronnie Lane & Slim Chance when explaining why he wanted to record in the living room. Funnily enough, the “close-to-the-ground” honesty of those seminal influences parallels Old Californio’s present desire to “get back to basics” and play for the love of making music with people they care about. “Songs from the Sea of Cortez” takes its title from the 1951 book “The Sea of Cortez: A Leisurely Journal of Travel and Research,”
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an uncommon collaboration between Pulitzer- and Nobel Prize-winning novelist John Steinbeck—one of Dembowski’s chief lyrical influences—and marine biologist Edward Ricketts. Like the book, it is thoroughly informed by California as a geologic reality as well as its history as a mecca of cultural, political and creative reinvention. Opening track “Saint Cecelia” sends up a prayer to the patron saint of musicians, sweetened with jangly guitars, fiddle and harmonies. The philosophical “Too Tired” ponders when enough is enough; when do you finally give up on what isn’t working? The country-wheeled “Broke, Blessed and Penniless” could be a makethe-best-of-it anthem for 2020, while “A Savage Grace” is an uncommonly literate rocker about personal agency and fate. It, too, speaks from the past to the present, over acoustic fingerpicking that gradually swells to a crescendo of martial drumbeats
and Aplanalp’s angry guitar: “I will tell no lies I come not to preach but bring only opinion And I believe in the right Of every man to sit in abnegation … Ah, but this cannot be Our final end, you and me To be victims of our own plight Slaves to our own appetites” “It is very relevant in terms of a mythological place we’ve got to make new for ourselves, because tomorrow is challenging and we can’t rely on old concepts,” Dembowski mused. “We have to reinvent ourselves now, and it’s a little bit scary.” Back when Old Californio originally began recording, the band was a familiar presence at area venues such as Buccaneer Lounge, the Echo, Old Towne Pub and T. Boyle’s Tavern. Their penchant for 1960-’70s psychedelic pop, California country-rock and namechecking local landmarks informed their 2009 album “Westering Again” and 2011’s “Sundrunk Angels.” “Westering” included “Just Like Joseph Campbell,” a tribute to the late mythologist; his work influenced “Songs from the Sea of Cortez,” too, notably “Lyre of Orpheus.” “I like the idea of when we were brave enough to see ourselves in the stars, and can we get there again?” Dembowski explained. “That’s a big undercurrent (in) ‘Sea of Cortez’ … mythology, telling mytholog-
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ical stories. How do we reinvent ourselves through storytelling, through narrative? That is really what draws us all together.” “Lyre of Orpheus” ends with an evocative guitar solo Aplanalp layered over Chesney’s rubbery bass line. At Smith’s suggestion during overdubbing, he augmented that with a slide harmony—giving it, he said, “a sound that we hadn’t heard before in our band.” “There’s more music coming,” he emphasized. “We’ve been working on a lot of new material.” That includes two singles issued November 29, the mariachi-infused “Sweet Cantico” and the soothing “Old Californio’s Lonesome Rambling Ways.” Last month they released “Songs from the Sea of Cortez” through Bandcamp (oldcalifornio.bandcamp.com). It is available on Spotify and other streaming platforms. Looking backward to Steinbeck and Ricketts’ collecting sojourn may have seeded the album’s songs. But it was recently re-reading the book—at a time when “people were trying to have their voice heard somehow”— that sparked fresh awareness in Dembowski of his Hispanic roots as well as California’s Indigenous, Mexican and Spanish heritage and its present-day diversity. “These are trying times. Our life is different and weird. But you look around at the pace of geology and the turning of the sun and the stars—it’s something pretty constant to tune in to. That’s still an inspiration.”
Old Californio. Courtesy photo
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JANUARY 11, 2021