12/15/05 --
Ohhhh, New Orleans! How I love you.

It was wonderful to see the pulse quickening down in the French Quarter, but it is certainly an isolated island in a sea of darkness come nightfall.  There is no electricity in many areas, which is hampering rebuilding.  My N.O. friends tell me that while single folk are starting to get curious about returning, families won't start coming back till January and truthfully, for thousands and thousands, there is nothing but toxic waste to come home to.  The heavy metals deposited by flooding have covered miles with poison mud, now dried to a thick dusty crust.  Bulldozing kicks up a lot of mercury, arsenic etc. which is an added hindrance to recovery.

Today a Louisiana native came to stay with us till she gets on her feet.  She's relocating to LA.  She has lived here before and did not love it, but she is strong, talented and resourceful and she's going to make it. 

The police and emergency services begged me to keep talking about New Orleans.  They feel so alone and they fear that everybody has forgotten about them.  I'm afraid they might be partially right.  I am just sick at their isolation and their vulnerability.  Any kind word of support just makes them melt.  Forget any stain of corruption or rats jumping ship.  These officers and emergency personnel have remained at their posts through thick and thin.  Their marriages are under awful strain, their children are living far away.  In many, many cases their houses are destroyed and some have lost family members to the flooding and the pestilence that followed.

The wealth of a nation is not about having a Walmart at every off-ramp.  It is not about a free clothes iron with your mail-order vacuum cleaner.  It is about the quality of caring between strangers.  Last year, I visited Bangladesh, one of the poorest countries on Earth, where 80% of usable land floods every year.  I have seen poverty, and more pernicious inter-generational poverty, which destroys the fabric of caring even to the point of mothers throwing their 4-year-old children on the roofs of trains just to get rid of them.  I understand now that even the mother-child bond is eroded, destroyed or never develops where survival is threatened.  What hope then for the bonds between strangers?

Hurricane Katrina has lifted the lid on our own dirty laundry.  The poverty that we have too long ignored, the ecology that we have undermined further stressed inadequate infrastructures for the above and blasted out of the water the hopes and dreams of hundreds of thousands of people.

It seems a bitter joke that, like Blanche Dubois, New Orleans natives have come to rely on the kindness of strangers.  But to me this care is the glue that binds us in a social compact.  You cannot have civilisation where there is no trust/respect between strangers.  It proves the strength of a nation.  This is Unity.  It seems to me that this is something the United States should know something about.  This holiday season we could forgo the latest gizmo and pledge a gift to a stranger in our community, or in New Orleans or even overseas.  Every time we do this we add a thread to the fabric of care that binds all beings on this planet far more securely than all the political manoeuvring in the world.

Let us be Conscious.

Love always,
Lucy L

12/9/05 --
Thrilled to report the Smithsonian in Washington D.C. want the Xena cossie.  Isn't that amazing?  I tried to reach Ngila Dickson, the designer but she was in South Africa filming way out in the sticks, so I left a message with her husband.  I hope she freaks out.  Mind you, the woman has won Oscars for LOTR and accolades for Last
of the Samurai so we shouldn't be surprised, but it is a wonderful honor in tv world.  Or any world for that matter. 

I wonder where they'll put it.  The tv section or the space exhibit for characters who have their own planets/moons.

Lucy

10/19/05 --
I will be at The Factory in West Hollywood on Friday, Nov. 11, 2005, singing a couple of songs and getting comfortable with performing in a new environment.  Come along if you can.  Not sure what time yet.  Stay posted.  If I can wrangle my arranger in time, I may even sing one of my own tunes.
 
(QUIET IN THE CHEAP SEATS!!!)


10/12/05 --
Hello Darlings!

By the end of next week we should have our official Home page up.  We are working with a graphic designer to realize my vision.  I need to get the photographer to sign off on the new artwork.  I am very excited to show you all the new me.

I’m coming out, Baby!  Like a Flower.
We’re going to have a lot of fun.
Buckle Up!


10/5/05 --
The last two days I have been visiting t-shirt wholesalers to find garments I'd be proud to put my name on.  My best friend, Marissa, and daughter, Daisy, came along and gave invaluable advice about what they look for in a tee, given our differing and glorious body types.  Some of the colours I wanted were not available.  Some of the sizes I wanted were not available.  Some samples were just downright nasty and would fall apart en route to your house.  As we're tip-toeing into this, you'll have to forgive the obvious teething troubles of our fledgling fanclub.  I've tried to keep it simple this first time out.  I am creating a logo, which, while it doesn't scream 'Lucy Lawless', nevertheless lets the initiated know -- you're in the club.  At first, only the people who know will know.  By and by, you will see that logo on all sorts of products and projects that are little secrets at the mo.  But when they happen, you will be the first to know and I'll post it here.  These first shirts will be a little primitive but very limited edition!

We are starting out with only T-shirts:

Colours: Ink black, NOPD-blue (that's navy), balloon-pink, charcoal and Fat Albert-brown

Styles: Classic men's cut, women’s 'baby doll' (puke name) with cap sleeve.  I've been very careful to make sure that the sleeves aren't too tight.  That is totally unflattering on anyone, particularly if you haven't been working your biceps for the last twenty years or so!  Also my favourite, the singlet, sleeveless undershirt -- aka a 'wife-beater'?  A name we will most definitely NOT be using on this website.

We will be having a lot of fun photographing the Tees.  The shirts I eventually bought came from different manufacturers and vary a great deal in their interpretation of S, M, L, & XL.  I've decided that to make sure you all get the truest idea of the sizes, I'm going to get one model of, say, size 12 to wear all the shirts.  So sometimes she may be swimming in fabric and in some sizes she may not even be able to breathe.  If nothing else, it'll be bloody funny!!

All will have my logo on it.  I'm going to torture you guessing what it is for a few more days.  Sorry!

Love,
LL


10/3/05 --
Everytime Sam Raimi hassles my husband, Rob Tapert, about loving making television so much I say, "Aww gee, Sam, is there a planet named Superman? I DON'T THINK SO!!!!"

I rang the Mike Brown at Cal Tech today to thank him for this senseless act of beauty.  Fancy naming a planet and her moon after your characters?!  That is just craazy!  Renee was at my house yesterday and Sam too and we were all just in disbelief.  I had heard 'Xena' was the unofficial name, but didn't dare hope it would stick.

God bless us all. That's just CRAAAZY!!!

Incidently, Mike Brown has just become a father and wasn't in the office when I called.  I'm sure he wishes he had named the planet after his newborn, Lila, but as she wasn't even a twinkle in his eye at the time, he's just gonna have to get cracking and discover an eleventh planet for her.

I was talking to Andrew Young from the Starship Children's Hospital in New Zealand and we decided to jump in the Starship and make the rounds of our new property.  Isn't that what it means?  Didn't they give us that sucker?  That beats an Emmy, I guess!

Thank-you, thank-you.  I feel very humbled by this honour.  I'd like to thank the Academy of Balactica and the good folks at Cal Tech for giving me my very own planet.  And I'd really like to dedicate this to the fans, coz without them I'd just be a housewife from West Auckland.  Not that there's anything wrong with that!!!
LL


10/1/05 --
Hi Gang, yes this is me after all these years. Wanted to keep you abreast of developments, because we all love being abreast, right? After a long time in hibernation, this spy has come in from the cold. I am waking up again. Finally. I've been through many changes in the past 4 years, even through a recent blue-period, post Katrina,  where I questioned whether what I do is of any merit at all. I don't
know the answer to that but can only conclude that i don't know how to do anything else. So I guess I just have to keep putting myself out there. Whether anyone else comes along for the ride is their choice. And I'm good with that.
Shine On, you crazy Diamonds!
Lucy Lawless

Be warned: this is not marketed to children. I am irreverent, a little wacky and I cuss like a sailor. Got it?
Good.
Lucy Lawless


9/05/05 --
Okay Gang, here it is.  It's taken me 10 years to get off my arse and start my own website.  My thanks to all the Xena webmasters who carried the flame all this time.  At the time of writing, if you google my name, it comes up with 297,000 references.  Holy Tschit!  I can't imagine why anyone would be interested in a single word I say, but here's my blog anyway.
-- Lucy Lawless

N.B. Parental Guidance Recommended