Industry impacts of the LA fires, why is Meghan Markle taking heat over cooking when others aren't, how much award show speeches matter, how to recognize good directing, and more
So I want to take a minute or two to talk about those prison firefighters. I have a friend who owns a landscaping business in the area of the fires, and when something like this happens he is called upon, officially, to use his heavy equipment to make fire breaks to try to slow the spread of the fire. For the past week he's been working around the clock building fire breaks, no rest, no sleep, eating when someone runs up to his bulldozer and hands him something. He exhausted, but he won't quit. And all of the people around him on the ground, taking what he shoves around and moving it by hand, are those fire-fighting prisoners. He's had nothing but great things to say about them in the past, and I expect this to be no exception.
What he and these people are doing is incredibly dangerous, they are AHEAD of the fire, sometimes miles away, but often times very close. In the current conditions, a scorching fire like this, with dry fuel and huge, sometimes hurricane force, winds, can move with a speed that our minds can't fathom, embers from miles away become wind borne and where once you were at a safe distance you are suddenly in the middle of a conflagration. My friend, Pat, and everyone like him as well as every one of those prison firefighters, should be commended for the valiant work they are doing.
I haven't been able to sleep since this started, I'm so worried about my friend and his firefighting comrades, as well as all those in the path of this terribly tragic event I know I'm not alone in this.
On the subject of donations, a friend of mine who lost everything in a fire like this in 2017 tells me that one of the things people will need most is clothing. Good clothing, no the stuff you're saving for the rag drawer. I'm sure there are organizations that are gathering this and other necessities to help, so please consider donating not just money, but tangible things that will help.
Thank you for posting about your determined friend and the incredibly selfless and brave inmates all fighting this disaster. Someone told me winds are due to pick up this weekend. I will be keeping them all in my heart and donating what I can.
I want a Squawk Monthly Movie Club, where Sarah (or whoever) recommends a picture, everyone watches it on their own, and then we have a group chat, like a book club. We could have themes - Black History Month, Women Directors, First-Time Directors, etc.
I think it’s just a lot of everything but I’m crying reading today’s mailbag, not exactly sure why.
The only thing I hoped for when I joined The Squawk was to be able to agree with Sarah “Timothy Olyphant is the best!” and now I just love this space so much.
I haven't commented here for quite some weeks, although I've been reading. There have been 4 deaths since Thanksgiving that were either in my family or family-adjacent and I am mentally and physically spent. I've just not had the energy to find the words to talk about anything, other than trying to hold my family together and comfort everyone around me. It's been a difficult time.
Add to that my friend Pat who is building fire breaks ahead of the terrible fires in California, and another friend of mine with a very treatable illness who is nonetheless refusing treatment, and is likely to die unnecessarily because of it, and I'm just not functioning well right now.
So yes, I'm with you on the tears coming unbidden while reading here today. I hope we get a break soon, but looking around at what's coming at us, I fear it's not in the cards.
Thank you, Kathleen. I don't know if many people understand the difference between giving a comforting hug and receiving that comforting hug. I've spent the last six weeks giving the comforting hugs. It's nice to get one for myself, whether virtually or in person.
The LA fires have been all I can think about this week. It's one of my two hometowns (one in PR for half my childhood, LA for the 2nd half, the particular experience of the diasporican) and I have family there. They are safe. They were able to evacuate. I am so grateful. But all I can think about is all the people who lost everything. It's so horrible. I can't even really put it into words. Climate change is coming for us all, and the powers that be just do not give one good cr*p. It's so frustrating. I hope those who are directly affected have community to rely on--that's really what's going to get us all through, is our communities. I'm grateful for this one. <3
Also, love Sarah's advice re film watching. Some films are so visually gorgeous you could hang each frame in a museum.
Sending lots of love to our LA folks. We're all thinking of you.
Thank you for the comments about the prison firefighters. They deserve a much better deal then they are getting and I hope these incidents will effect change.
My very stubborn 83yo father lives alone in Altadena, two blocks from where the Eaton Fire broke out. He is refusing to evacuate, in spite of a chorus of pleas. He is determined to Harry Truman (the Mt. Rainier one, not "the buck stops here" one) this crisis, and we all know how that ended up. My main argument to him is that he is placing firefighters at risk by not following the mandatory evacuation orders, a stunningly selfish act.
So far his house (and his street) have been spared, but one street over was not so fortunate.
Sending my gratitude and apologies to all the firefighters from around the country who risk their lives to fly to CA and battle these enormous fires and then have to rescue people like my dad who refuse to follow the rules.
This was too real for me. Managing aging parents - I feel like it's the biggest burden in this phase of me life. And I use the word "burden" deliberately, not as a violation of filial piety but to emphasise the realness of this stress. And I get the sense that you understand, very specifically, this perspective. I hope your father changes his mind. I'm sorry that you are dealing with this.
Lainey, this burden - and that absolutely is the correct word, because it's something heavy to handle - is particularly rough when you're an only child, as I know you are. There might be caring and sympathetic shoulders to cry on, but no one else can fully comprehend the complicated dynamics between an adult only child and her ailing parents.
I'm my mother's only kid, and our relationship has always been strained. She was, more often than not, prickly, distant, and emotionally abusive during my childhood and I still carry a lot of pain and resentment. But she's currently ailing from a longtime struggle with MS in a very remote location in a state far away from me, and it's overwhelming as hell. My career is skyrocketing while my mother is dying, which is hard to balance in my mind. I'm in regular contact with her wonderful nurse/at-home caretaker, and am so grateful for her. But it's rough to see a parent diminish, even if you're not emotionally close to them, and guilt-inducing if you're not physically close to them.
I've made a few visits to see my mother, and all I can do is be patient and present in a way she never was with me. But the emotions are SO complicated, and no one else really gets it. It honestly makes me wish I had a twin sister.
Girl, same. My mom has breast cancer and her mastectomy is on Tuesday. We are in Oregon, dad is in Altadena. The past year has been a burden--the stress is real and the toll is high. Having read your book about Ma I know you've been dealing with a lot of this for years.
Thank dog (not a typo) for the joy of responsible celeb gossip, great films, Angelina's cheekbones, and this site for providing an oasis for me to luxuriate in when self care is required.
I just want take this chance to send my sympathy and love to all the Angelino Squawkers, whether you live in Los Angeles, have lived there, or have loved ones in the area. I've been struggling for words to express how I feel about the tragedy unfolding out there, and I deeply admire Lainey and Sarah's ability to articulate their own emotions. There's a fear I have in that I might be perceived as attempting to claim the misery as my own - as if my personal grief over it all is in any way comparable to what residents of the city are experiencing. I know it definitely, absolutely is not.
But I haven't felt this way since Hurricane Katrina. The adoration you feel for a landscape or the energy that pulses in a certain city...the loss is just so overwhelming. I love California and its people so much. It's my favorite state and a place where I was so fortunate to have spent many summers growing up, and each year I look for a pocket of time when I can return to it. All I can do right now is donate my money to the organizations that desperately need it, so that's what I'm doing.
These fires have also been a stark reminder that celebrities, despite the wealth many of them enjoy, are just as capable of feeling terror, of mourning the homes that serve as havens, their pets, their children's schools, the local places they enjoyed patronizing, etc. I do realize that there are plenty of Los Angeles residents who don't live in the hills of Pacific Palisades or Malibu who are far, far, far more worse off, but bless Sharon Stone and other folks for thinking about them.
I honestly feel guilty for any distractions I've taken pleasure in this week (The Traitors, for one). And I hope I'm not coming across as a womp-womp-womping Debbie Downer in this Mailbox, either. We all need diversions from the heaviness of reality to stay sane. I'm glad this space exists for that purpose, but I also appreciate that LG hasn't shied away from discussing what's going on in L.A.
I want to take a moment to thank everyone outside of LA for their concern for our community and people. No one here should feel silly or guilty if this is hitting them hard, even if they’re not from here. Grief and trauma are weird and crisis triggers strange reactions that sometimes we can’t understand. It’s OK!
I also wanted to say that I’ve been through this before, my parents lost their house in a 2017 fire in Santa Rosa. The first parts are fear and crisis and just reacting as fast as you can to changing situations. But the recovery is a SLOG. There is negotiation with your insurance company, making lists and list of all your belongings (I can’t imagine how they got through this part), finding a new place to live, deciding if you want to rebuild, trying to find a contractor and crew when 10,000 other buildings need to be rebuilt as well, it goes on and on and will be a real test of fortitude for the community and individuals. This is going to be going on for far longer than the attention of the world is on these events.
I was thinking about 9/11 and how the whole world felt so impacted by it, because NY is so familiar to people through movies and TV, so many people had visited on holiday, or knew someone who lived there. I feel like this is similar in those ways, LA is so familiar to people all over the world. I've been twice in the last 18 months and have 4 friends there (2 of whom have so far been evacuated) so it is tangible in a way that disasters often aren't. I can't even imagine how crushed I would feel to lose so much 💔 I know people everywhere will want to help!
Adding to this that many California insurance companies now do not offer fire insurance that a not ridiculously wealthy person can afford. This adds another layer of horror for so many who have lost everything.
I can also imagine, in a scenario where many people of all walks of life lose their homes, the people who can afford to pay premium salaries to in demand construction crews will have theirs rebuilt first, while cheaper homes and lower income housing will be the last to be rebuilt, making the housing crisis worse?
Yes, we already have an affordable housing problem here and this will make it worse, for rentals and buying homes 😢 the only saving grace there is LA is really large so better able to absorb this than the smaller towns that have been hit with devastating fires.
Yesss please Sunday scary live chat! I would love to have some fun topics to discuss… Season 2 of Shrinking, Severance, the audiobook of Canadian Boyfriend all come to mind. I just wouldn’t want it to go as late as an award show live chat does - I find those Mondays when I’ve been up until 11 extra tough.
Thank you for answering my question about directing! It’s especially intriguing to me that one could watch a movie and figure out that it had been saved from its worst iteration thru the work of someone like an editor.
I would love the idea of a live chat centered around watching a movie or tv show together. One of the things I miss most about my younger days is how easy it was get together with a bunch of friends or roommates and watch something together. I felt that feeling again when we were all watching the GG “together.” I’d love more of that whenever the opportunity arises
Sending much love to folks affected by the fires, whether directly or indirectly. Witnessing such devastations can and does impact one's mental health severely.
And in that sense Laineygossip and the Squawk here are a balm for our souls and mental health. I really enjoyed the very thoughtful questions and answers in this post. The questions were great and the answers were brilliant and thoughtful analysis with examples that come from extensive institutional memory and working in a field. Thank you, Lainey and Sarah and all the writers at Laineygossip who have continuously inspired me.
Would it be helpful to some of you to have a Sunday live chat once in a while for those who have the Sunday scaries?
Yes. A thousand times yes! We are a community and one of the most enlightening, supportive communities there is! Thank you for making the space possible
Every time I see a video of an animal wandering around or looking lethargic on TikTok. I just fucking can’t. I would not want to be on this Earth any longer if I wasn’t able to get back to my home to save my sweet Penelope.
Completely off topic of the catastrophe. But at some point I'd love to hear from you all about what the heck happened to the Sex Lives of College Girls. Mindy consistently puts out incredible shows...and this season is AWFUL. I'm so embarrassed for all of them I can't watch. The writing, the acting, the new characters (so many! why!), the 'stories'....bad, bad, bad.
Sooo bad! I mean, I’m still watching, but I feel like it’s an entirely new set of writers that like didn’t watch any episodes before they started writing for the characters.
Totally agree! I think a major culprit is that the episodes feel more like sitcom format rather than season long narrative arcs. The main ladies have each changed romantic interests several times in 8 measly episodes that I’m not invested in any of their relationships or academic / extracurricular pursuits.
So I want to take a minute or two to talk about those prison firefighters. I have a friend who owns a landscaping business in the area of the fires, and when something like this happens he is called upon, officially, to use his heavy equipment to make fire breaks to try to slow the spread of the fire. For the past week he's been working around the clock building fire breaks, no rest, no sleep, eating when someone runs up to his bulldozer and hands him something. He exhausted, but he won't quit. And all of the people around him on the ground, taking what he shoves around and moving it by hand, are those fire-fighting prisoners. He's had nothing but great things to say about them in the past, and I expect this to be no exception.
What he and these people are doing is incredibly dangerous, they are AHEAD of the fire, sometimes miles away, but often times very close. In the current conditions, a scorching fire like this, with dry fuel and huge, sometimes hurricane force, winds, can move with a speed that our minds can't fathom, embers from miles away become wind borne and where once you were at a safe distance you are suddenly in the middle of a conflagration. My friend, Pat, and everyone like him as well as every one of those prison firefighters, should be commended for the valiant work they are doing.
I haven't been able to sleep since this started, I'm so worried about my friend and his firefighting comrades, as well as all those in the path of this terribly tragic event I know I'm not alone in this.
On the subject of donations, a friend of mine who lost everything in a fire like this in 2017 tells me that one of the things people will need most is clothing. Good clothing, no the stuff you're saving for the rag drawer. I'm sure there are organizations that are gathering this and other necessities to help, so please consider donating not just money, but tangible things that will help.
Thank you for posting about your determined friend and the incredibly selfless and brave inmates all fighting this disaster. Someone told me winds are due to pick up this weekend. I will be keeping them all in my heart and donating what I can.
I want a Squawk Monthly Movie Club, where Sarah (or whoever) recommends a picture, everyone watches it on their own, and then we have a group chat, like a book club. We could have themes - Black History Month, Women Directors, First-Time Directors, etc.
Love this idea!!
I definitely would participate.
Ooo I love it too
I think it’s just a lot of everything but I’m crying reading today’s mailbag, not exactly sure why.
The only thing I hoped for when I joined The Squawk was to be able to agree with Sarah “Timothy Olyphant is the best!” and now I just love this space so much.
I haven't commented here for quite some weeks, although I've been reading. There have been 4 deaths since Thanksgiving that were either in my family or family-adjacent and I am mentally and physically spent. I've just not had the energy to find the words to talk about anything, other than trying to hold my family together and comfort everyone around me. It's been a difficult time.
Add to that my friend Pat who is building fire breaks ahead of the terrible fires in California, and another friend of mine with a very treatable illness who is nonetheless refusing treatment, and is likely to die unnecessarily because of it, and I'm just not functioning well right now.
So yes, I'm with you on the tears coming unbidden while reading here today. I hope we get a break soon, but looking around at what's coming at us, I fear it's not in the cards.
Thanks for sharing this. Take care of your heart, your mental health. And check in whenever is right for you.
Thank you, Lainey. It helps, tears and all.
We love you, Andrea! Thank you for sharing what’s on your heart, and about your loved ones. Sending you a great big hug.
Thank you, Kathleen. I don't know if many people understand the difference between giving a comforting hug and receiving that comforting hug. I've spent the last six weeks giving the comforting hugs. It's nice to get one for myself, whether virtually or in person.
🖤
♥
The LA fires have been all I can think about this week. It's one of my two hometowns (one in PR for half my childhood, LA for the 2nd half, the particular experience of the diasporican) and I have family there. They are safe. They were able to evacuate. I am so grateful. But all I can think about is all the people who lost everything. It's so horrible. I can't even really put it into words. Climate change is coming for us all, and the powers that be just do not give one good cr*p. It's so frustrating. I hope those who are directly affected have community to rely on--that's really what's going to get us all through, is our communities. I'm grateful for this one. <3
Also, love Sarah's advice re film watching. Some films are so visually gorgeous you could hang each frame in a museum.
Sending lots of love to our LA folks. We're all thinking of you.
Thank you for the comments about the prison firefighters. They deserve a much better deal then they are getting and I hope these incidents will effect change.
My very stubborn 83yo father lives alone in Altadena, two blocks from where the Eaton Fire broke out. He is refusing to evacuate, in spite of a chorus of pleas. He is determined to Harry Truman (the Mt. Rainier one, not "the buck stops here" one) this crisis, and we all know how that ended up. My main argument to him is that he is placing firefighters at risk by not following the mandatory evacuation orders, a stunningly selfish act.
So far his house (and his street) have been spared, but one street over was not so fortunate.
Sending my gratitude and apologies to all the firefighters from around the country who risk their lives to fly to CA and battle these enormous fires and then have to rescue people like my dad who refuse to follow the rules.
I love my dad, but his behavior is NOT OKAY.
This was too real for me. Managing aging parents - I feel like it's the biggest burden in this phase of me life. And I use the word "burden" deliberately, not as a violation of filial piety but to emphasise the realness of this stress. And I get the sense that you understand, very specifically, this perspective. I hope your father changes his mind. I'm sorry that you are dealing with this.
Lainey, this burden - and that absolutely is the correct word, because it's something heavy to handle - is particularly rough when you're an only child, as I know you are. There might be caring and sympathetic shoulders to cry on, but no one else can fully comprehend the complicated dynamics between an adult only child and her ailing parents.
I'm my mother's only kid, and our relationship has always been strained. She was, more often than not, prickly, distant, and emotionally abusive during my childhood and I still carry a lot of pain and resentment. But she's currently ailing from a longtime struggle with MS in a very remote location in a state far away from me, and it's overwhelming as hell. My career is skyrocketing while my mother is dying, which is hard to balance in my mind. I'm in regular contact with her wonderful nurse/at-home caretaker, and am so grateful for her. But it's rough to see a parent diminish, even if you're not emotionally close to them, and guilt-inducing if you're not physically close to them.
I've made a few visits to see my mother, and all I can do is be patient and present in a way she never was with me. But the emotions are SO complicated, and no one else really gets it. It honestly makes me wish I had a twin sister.
Girl, same. My mom has breast cancer and her mastectomy is on Tuesday. We are in Oregon, dad is in Altadena. The past year has been a burden--the stress is real and the toll is high. Having read your book about Ma I know you've been dealing with a lot of this for years.
Thank dog (not a typo) for the joy of responsible celeb gossip, great films, Angelina's cheekbones, and this site for providing an oasis for me to luxuriate in when self care is required.
Stubborn ass aging parent club! So hard! I am sending you good vibes everything is okay and that your dad has a change of mind soon.
I just want take this chance to send my sympathy and love to all the Angelino Squawkers, whether you live in Los Angeles, have lived there, or have loved ones in the area. I've been struggling for words to express how I feel about the tragedy unfolding out there, and I deeply admire Lainey and Sarah's ability to articulate their own emotions. There's a fear I have in that I might be perceived as attempting to claim the misery as my own - as if my personal grief over it all is in any way comparable to what residents of the city are experiencing. I know it definitely, absolutely is not.
But I haven't felt this way since Hurricane Katrina. The adoration you feel for a landscape or the energy that pulses in a certain city...the loss is just so overwhelming. I love California and its people so much. It's my favorite state and a place where I was so fortunate to have spent many summers growing up, and each year I look for a pocket of time when I can return to it. All I can do right now is donate my money to the organizations that desperately need it, so that's what I'm doing.
These fires have also been a stark reminder that celebrities, despite the wealth many of them enjoy, are just as capable of feeling terror, of mourning the homes that serve as havens, their pets, their children's schools, the local places they enjoyed patronizing, etc. I do realize that there are plenty of Los Angeles residents who don't live in the hills of Pacific Palisades or Malibu who are far, far, far more worse off, but bless Sharon Stone and other folks for thinking about them.
I honestly feel guilty for any distractions I've taken pleasure in this week (The Traitors, for one). And I hope I'm not coming across as a womp-womp-womping Debbie Downer in this Mailbox, either. We all need diversions from the heaviness of reality to stay sane. I'm glad this space exists for that purpose, but I also appreciate that LG hasn't shied away from discussing what's going on in L.A.
Love to all of you. <3
I want to take a moment to thank everyone outside of LA for their concern for our community and people. No one here should feel silly or guilty if this is hitting them hard, even if they’re not from here. Grief and trauma are weird and crisis triggers strange reactions that sometimes we can’t understand. It’s OK!
I also wanted to say that I’ve been through this before, my parents lost their house in a 2017 fire in Santa Rosa. The first parts are fear and crisis and just reacting as fast as you can to changing situations. But the recovery is a SLOG. There is negotiation with your insurance company, making lists and list of all your belongings (I can’t imagine how they got through this part), finding a new place to live, deciding if you want to rebuild, trying to find a contractor and crew when 10,000 other buildings need to be rebuilt as well, it goes on and on and will be a real test of fortitude for the community and individuals. This is going to be going on for far longer than the attention of the world is on these events.
I was thinking about 9/11 and how the whole world felt so impacted by it, because NY is so familiar to people through movies and TV, so many people had visited on holiday, or knew someone who lived there. I feel like this is similar in those ways, LA is so familiar to people all over the world. I've been twice in the last 18 months and have 4 friends there (2 of whom have so far been evacuated) so it is tangible in a way that disasters often aren't. I can't even imagine how crushed I would feel to lose so much 💔 I know people everywhere will want to help!
Adding to this that many California insurance companies now do not offer fire insurance that a not ridiculously wealthy person can afford. This adds another layer of horror for so many who have lost everything.
I can also imagine, in a scenario where many people of all walks of life lose their homes, the people who can afford to pay premium salaries to in demand construction crews will have theirs rebuilt first, while cheaper homes and lower income housing will be the last to be rebuilt, making the housing crisis worse?
I’ve been worried too - that the uber wealthy will swoop in to buy land and develop.
Yes, we already have an affordable housing problem here and this will make it worse, for rentals and buying homes 😢 the only saving grace there is LA is really large so better able to absorb this than the smaller towns that have been hit with devastating fires.
Yesss please Sunday scary live chat! I would love to have some fun topics to discuss… Season 2 of Shrinking, Severance, the audiobook of Canadian Boyfriend all come to mind. I just wouldn’t want it to go as late as an award show live chat does - I find those Mondays when I’ve been up until 11 extra tough.
Thank you for answering my question about directing! It’s especially intriguing to me that one could watch a movie and figure out that it had been saved from its worst iteration thru the work of someone like an editor.
I would love the idea of a live chat centered around watching a movie or tv show together. One of the things I miss most about my younger days is how easy it was get together with a bunch of friends or roommates and watch something together. I felt that feeling again when we were all watching the GG “together.” I’d love more of that whenever the opportunity arises
Maybe we could all watch a couple of the Oscar-nominated movies together when the time comes
Sending much love to folks affected by the fires, whether directly or indirectly. Witnessing such devastations can and does impact one's mental health severely.
And in that sense Laineygossip and the Squawk here are a balm for our souls and mental health. I really enjoyed the very thoughtful questions and answers in this post. The questions were great and the answers were brilliant and thoughtful analysis with examples that come from extensive institutional memory and working in a field. Thank you, Lainey and Sarah and all the writers at Laineygossip who have continuously inspired me.
Another yes, please for Sunday Scaries chat!
Would it be helpful to some of you to have a Sunday live chat once in a while for those who have the Sunday scaries?
Yes. A thousand times yes! We are a community and one of the most enlightening, supportive communities there is! Thank you for making the space possible
Echoing all the beautiful empathetic comments here and seconding (thirding, fourthing) the request for an occasional Sunday live chat!
Jacek, please go look at the ratings for Juror #2 on Rotten Tomatoes to feel your rage burn anew.
The fires have me so stressed for the animals 😭 who’s helping them
The (human) angels at Pasadena Humane are looking for donations:
https://pasadenahumane.org/
I feel you. I can hardly bear to think about the displaced pets and wildlife out there.
Thank you! Just donated!
Every time I see a video of an animal wandering around or looking lethargic on TikTok. I just fucking can’t. I would not want to be on this Earth any longer if I wasn’t able to get back to my home to save my sweet Penelope.
Completely off topic of the catastrophe. But at some point I'd love to hear from you all about what the heck happened to the Sex Lives of College Girls. Mindy consistently puts out incredible shows...and this season is AWFUL. I'm so embarrassed for all of them I can't watch. The writing, the acting, the new characters (so many! why!), the 'stories'....bad, bad, bad.
Sooo bad! I mean, I’m still watching, but I feel like it’s an entirely new set of writers that like didn’t watch any episodes before they started writing for the characters.
I used to watch each episode the minute they came out but half way through this season I forgot it was even on
Totally agree! I think a major culprit is that the episodes feel more like sitcom format rather than season long narrative arcs. The main ladies have each changed romantic interests several times in 8 measly episodes that I’m not invested in any of their relationships or academic / extracurricular pursuits.