A World Without Cathy Seipp
It was so hard to believe that anybody or anything, even cancer, could beat Cathy, that she got very sick before a number of her friends, me included, came to understand and accept that she might not make it.
I think about her all the time, and talk about her, too, which is a little like visiting with her in some small way. For example, I was in Paris in February, and tied mention of Cathy to gum-chewing, which she found vulgar and unacceptable in public, and probably even in private, too. And then I mentioned that I mentioned her on my blog:
On a side note about Cathy, she's often in my thoughts -- randomly, when there's something in the media that she would've written about (in her sharp, biting, Seipp-ian way), or when I think of something she chastised people for.Just last night, on the way to dinner, I mentioned to my friends Richard and Vincent that Cathy said something along the lines of "Gum chewing is vulgar!"...and any time I thought of popping a piece in my mouth, her words came echoing back to me. I enjoy this -- it's like a little visit from Cathy, although it doesn't do much for the economics of the Trident company.
Whenever I get interviewed by somebody (like I was on Wednesday), somehow her name finds its way into the interview. I don't consciously plan to do this; somehow it just comes up, probably because it feels so wrong that she's gone that it's just something I'm obligated to do. But, she was so strong and smart and funny and wise and brave and cranky (and usually about just the right things), there's usually a good reason to mention her, something that ties in well, some wise thing she said or did.
She was one of my first friends in Los Angeles. I was traveling monthly from New York to L.A., and writing a column for the New York Daily News when Cathy was writing "Letter From L.A." for New York Press. Now, I don't find many newspaper writers who are truly funny, but I found Cathy hilarious. And very smart, of course. So I did something I rarely do: I wrote her a fan letter, and said I was going back and forth between New York and Los Angeles, and I was a columnist, too, and here's a copy of what I write, and how about we get together when I'm in L.A.?
And she did something that people who get fan letters rarely do: she wrote back, and we talked on the phone, and we had the first of our writergirl breakfasts, where she introduced me to her friends, who became my friends. And then we did the first of our book parties, for Ron Rosenbaum, at my house. (Here's one Emmanuelle and Cathy and I threw for Toby Young, less than a year before Cathy died.)
But, it turns out this writing back and welcoming some stranger or near stranger into her life and her circle was just matter of course for Cathy. Unlike so many people, she wasn't snobby about "the little people." If she liked something about you or your writing, you were no longer little, you were invited in. Well, the truth is, you were always somewhat little, because Cathy was queen, but as long as you were clear on that, there would be no problems.
And, jokes aside, she was a good friend, vocal supporter, and fierce defender of whomever and whatever she thought was right, no matter how unpopular. She used her sharp wit to criticize the LA Times for their features sections' ban on me in a piece on Mediaweek, and supported me in my pranks and ragings against the ill-mannered, where others would have shunned me as ridiculous or a nut. I am a bit ridiculous and a nut, but that was never a problem for Cathy. In fact, "Revengerella," the nickname she gave me for these pranks and ragings is now the title of a book I'm completing (REVENGERELLA: One woman's battle to beat some manners into impolite society), a good bit of which I wrote at her kitchen table.
Here's a similar Meeting Cathy story from Nancy Rommelman's beautiful piece from yesterday on Cathy:
I'd actually met Cathy many years earlier, when I was still reading scripts for a living. I desperately wanted to be a journalist, and so, would type out articles at home, and fax them cold to publications around LA. No one ever answered me, but one."This is Catherine Seipp," the woman on the phone said. "I got your article, and it's good. Now, what do you want me to do with it?"
Cathy was at Buzz at the time, and I told her, I wanted her to publish it, whereupon she gently but pointedly told me, that's not the way it worked; you sell the idea, and then write it. "This way, you get paid -- or at least get a kill fee."
I didn't know what a kill fee was, but she'd given me a strategy.
Within the year, I was a columnist at Buzz, where Cathy was both a columnist and a contributing writer. She also scared the hell out of me. She had an opinion about everything: the LA Times (which she notoriously skewered each month, under the byline Margo McGee); writing for Hustler (yay); same-sex marriage (nay); the texture of the chicken at our monthly contributers' lunches at Maple Drive. I remember mentioning at one such lunch in 1995 that the magazine was sending Hillary Johnson and me and our two small children to Las Vegas, to write about how the city was becoming kid-friendly.
"That's a sin," Cathy said from across the table. I thought she was kidding. When she repeated it, I knew she was not.
During the next five years, Cathy and I became friends, then good friends. We met for monthly breakfasts at Kokomo at the Farmers Market, a group that included Hillary, Cathy, Amy Alkon, Jill Stewart, Sandra Tsing Loh, Denise Hamilton, Monica Corcoran, Kerry Madden, Emmanuelle, other writers in town for a reading or a story. We called it the Writer Girls breakfast, though I don't think there was any edict about men coming or not coming; I do recall seeing Ross Johnson there once; also, David Rensin and Luke Ford. Though perhaps there was an edict, as I can't imagine Cathy not having one.
I just loved and admired Cathy for not being one to shy from contact with even the biggest weirdos and misfits around. She talked about how Republicans had the bigger tent. Well, Cathy was the Republican with the biggest tent of all. She couldn't abide stupid people, or smart people who did stupid things, but who wants to be around those people anyway?
Cathy actually wrote for Penthouse; I wrote for Hustler; but we both laughed at how it was the women's magazines that'll screw you over every time. Penthouse paid Cathy super-well, and Hustler paid me well, and right on time. Ed Rampell, the former features editor at Hustler, was especially kind when I was a mess before and after Cathy died for quite some time. (If anybody has Ed's e-mail address, please pass it on).
Also, I didn't actually take Cathy to chemo since I was in Venice and she was coming from Silverlake. Emmanuelle or Cathy's dad, or Debbie Gendel would bring her and then hang out with her, and I'd come meet her or them there with cookies and Pellegrino, and hang out and talk, when her chemo wasn't on my deadline days.
Cathy's last days.
My piece on Cathy for her roast.
I'm sorry I can't write anything better about her right now. Just too hard. Read Nancy's piece, which is beautiful. Here's one with some great quotes from Cathy by Jackie, yet another terrific person I never would have met but for Cathy's "C'mon in!" approach to the world. Here's another blog item on Cathy by Jackie. More here from Mickey Kaus, Andrew Breitbart, and others from right after Cathy died. More Cathy, including her writing and writing about her on NRO.
I hope you got to know Cathy while she was alive, or at least read her articles and her blog, and if you didn't, Google her name and read her writing and maybe you'll get a taste of the person you missed.