miss vicki

If the positively stunning Anne Bancroft as Mrs. Robinson and Joan Jett had a baby -- and employed Patti Smith as their nanny and Gertrude Stein as their wetnurse -- Miss Vicki Abelson would be that esteemed offspring.

She is like a walking, talking, living, breathing, belly laughing reincarnation of those women who, 100 years ago, boldly threw open the doors of their homes, flats, apartments, barns, and bookstores to others just like them – others who craved the passion and communion of THE WORD. Yes, that’s it. Vicki Abelson is like a HOT Mabel Dodge for The New Millennium.

She is that rare breed of woman who is fierce AND talented AND generous of self – a GENUINE triple-threat -- which sometimes makes me want to kick her right in the gottdamned taco. But, I can’t. I just can’t. I adore her far too much. She is the gorgeous, cool, older teenage sister that I never had, but always wanted -- the one who would secretly take me to buy my first tube of scarlet lipstick, my first box of Tampax, and my first package of birth control pills, and then later teach me how to lie on the bed to zip up my skin-tight Chemin de Fer jeans, French inhale a cigarette, and fetchingly toss my hair just right as I fiercely talked politics, poetry, and rock and roll with the big boys -- but yet the same big sister who also stuck copies of Vonnegut, Plath, Fitzgerald, Rimbaud, and Steinem into my hands, with the booming command, “READ THIS.”

As you’ve probably heard and read in publications such as The Los Angeles Times and LA Weekly, an invitation to her literary salon, Women Who Write, is a seriously hot ticket, one for which I had to inquire, tap-dance, cajole, and harass. I think she finally said yes just to shut my fatass up.

Walking into her living room in Montrose for the first time, I felt like I could scarcely breathe. Women, women, everywhere – powerful, intelligent, creative women, all brought together by Vicki, every single one of us poised on the verge of ANYTHING and EVERYTHING.

The ideas fly, words are read, books are born, alliances created, friendships forged. The inspiration, support, and enthusiasm she possesses and freely gives verily sparks from her – and those sparks are contagious, highly-flammable, and have lit many a fire under many an ass. As a writer, I can think of no better gift to receive than this: A seriously hot ass…from the SERIOUSLY hot ass of Miss Vicki Abelson.

So, thank you for all that you do, Miss Vicki. You are a wonder -- and one hell of a broad.