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The nice thing about suicide doors is that they create the perfect dressing room on busy city streets. In this case, for a Miller Beer callback, I had to go from "jeans and a tee shirt," to "coat and tie." The sneakers are a nice touch, don't you think? The hardest part was balancing the camera on a planter filled with ivy. There's a hint of it in the fourth picture.
I did something this weekend that most residents would tell you to NEVER do. I went to the Third Street Promenade in the middle of a busy, sunny Sunday. The Third Street Promenade is actually a very interesting place. It's an outdoor stretch of shops, which has been closed off to traffic and stretches at least four full blocks. Eclectic is one way to describe the crowd there on any given day; transient would be another. Because Santa Monica doesn't have a "no loitering" law(or so I am told), hundreds of homeless people have landed there and seem to use the Promenade as their stomping ground. I can't blame them. If I were living on the streets, what better place than Santa Monica? I've often wondered why the nations homeless don't leave whatever cold, snowy places they are to live a little more easily in the sunny clime of California. Perhaps that's oversimplifying the situation. Forgive me for being ignorant. Anyway, I needed some sneakers and because I work from 10-7 every day, I thought, "Why not Third Street?"
What's on the menu? Pimping. Here's a new list of my daily reads:
Once again I take a cue from Lorianne at Hoarded Ordinaries, and post two pictures at The Mirror Project.
It's a pretty neat concept. Check it out.
Sometimes I see things around the city that are so iconic, so intertwined with the "California Dream," that it makes me happy. When I used to imagine this place, this place that is the destination for so many people chasing good dreams or trying to outrun bad ones, there was a gallery of images in my mind that I had culled from songs, television, movies and books. One of them, of course was the wooden surfmobile I had heard about in Beach Boys songs and had seen in old beach movies. What would Southern California be without the "Woodie?"
I'm in the process of transferring all of the entries from the old blog over here to the new blog. I've decided to try to do a month at a time until I've got all 135 entries moved. I wish it were as easy as a simple cut and paste, but there are links to re-enter, photos to upload, formatting to be... uh.... formatted, etcetera, etcetera.
I really like the look of the TypePad template. I hear the load time can be annoying, but according to the folks at TP, they are working on that problem.
Anyway, you'll start to see some actual archives under the archive heading in the coming weeks as I re-enter all of the old stuff. I'll be cutting and pasting comments from the old Haloscan comments interface to the new integrated Typepad system. Are you asleep yet? I need to be. It's 3:12am and I just finished November 2003. Tomorrow: DECEMBER!
I've been obsessed with signs, both old and new in this city for the past few weeks. I think I enjoy the leftover signs the best; forgotten signs from a long gone era advertising long gone businesses. We live in an information age. Progress on that front, the information and technology front, is moving at an unprecedented pace. One of the casualties of this WiFi, Bluetooth, Digital, Broadband era seems to be the telephone. I know more and more people who are giving up their land lines altogether in favor of the precious cellphone. If it weren't for my DSL line, I'd do it too. It may be a while before "land line" phones are extinct, but I think the day of the "payphone" has passed.
If you live in Los Angeles and you've never been to The Getty, you should get your ass there as soon as possible. I suggest the architectural tour in addition to the art within it's walls. Currently, they have an exhibit called "Photographers of Genius." The museum is breathtaking. It's a modern day castle of sorts, complete with it's own monorail from the parking structure all the way to the entrance at the top of the hill. The view is stunning, the art is humbling, and the location is convenient.
I can't wait to go see this latest photo exhibit.
Last night, as I sat waiting in my car to play poker at a friend's house, I wrote a disjointed entry. At times it rambles because I kept writing for almost the whole half hour without stopping to consider what I had just written. In the interest of giving an accurate picture of what came out, I'm not going to correct spelling, grammar, or punctuation.
Oh. And I lost 35 bucks in the game.
I love this picture. I snapped it outside of a casting studio one day as I was leaving a particularly bad commercial audition. I can't recall exactly what it was for, but my hunch is that it was something about a dumb husband who thankfully has a hot wife around to show him what's what. Isn't that what most commercials are? As I walked back to my car, I relived the audition in my head, kicking myself for a half-assed read. I walked past this dumpster and stopped when I realized what I had just seen. I walked back and stared at the ground, vaguely appaled, but mostly amused.
I begged them to put a franchise in Southern California.
"No one around here makes a good cup of coffee," I pleaded.
"Build next to Sonny McLean's, the Boston Sports Bar on Wilshire. You'll make a KILLING, " I promised them.
"I'll even drive to the VALLEY," I compromised.
Of course the problem is, I was pleading, promising, and compromising with a faceless conglomerate. This, from the Dunkin Donuts website:
Allied Domecq Quick Service Restaurants (ADQSR), parent company of Dunkin' Donuts, Togo's and Baskin-Robbins, is one of the largest and most progressive quick service restaurant franchisors in the world.
The e-mail they sent back to me was as cold as the name "Allied Domecq Quick Service Restaurants."
Nickerson is a dumbass. Apparently, if I had looked a little closer at the confirmation for this E! thing, I would have noticed that it shoots on TUESDAY. Not MONDAY. Yeah. So, I said hi to the E! folks and told them I’d see them tomorrow. Same time, but you know… on the actual day I’m scheduled.
This morning I'm shooting a show for "E!" at 10:00am. I'm not sure that I'm allowed to reveal the title of the show, but it's one of those clip shows where they have a number of "Industry" panelists commenting about people or movies or whatever the subject matter is for that particular episode. E! and VH1 are doing a lot of these shows lately. I'll let you know how it goes.
This should be my last week of Newlyweds, which means I have a deadline this Friday. Another long week ahead...
Here's what we're looking at for gas prices in sunny SoCal. The truth is though, it doesn't bother me. I had a conversation with my dad about high gas prices when I was back in NH. The short version of that conversation is this: Most of us who drive SUV's, Minivans, Trucks, luxury cars, or any of the gas-guzzling behemoths have made the conscious decision to drive a vehicle powered solely by a limited natural resource. Choices have consequences, sometimes greater than a mere price increase. I'm willing to pay a premium for the luxury of driving whenever and wherever I want.
Hey, are you looking for someone to send an invite to?
No, not ME. I can wait until it's no longer in the BETA phase.
Look what WWdN and his readers are doing:
If you have a Gmail account and are looking for a good way to use your invites (other than trading them for boobie pictures or promises of candy and goodies), consider passing that invitation along to one of our soldiers who will definitely appreciate 1gb of storage for movies, photos, mp3's from home, whatever.
Regardless of where you stand on the war, supporting our soldiers is the right thing to do.
Los Angeles is a city that comes to life at night. It's not a city that never sleeps per se, but it goes to bed pretty late. Last night, as I drove into Hollywood to perform at Improv Olympic, I took some pictures without the flash and had some fun with the longer exposure by swirling the camera around as the shutter opened to capture the images.
After reading Lorianne's post about "place-blogging," I've been thinking about what that exactly means. Coincidentally, Sean Bonner and Jason DeFillippo have launched Metro Blogging. I'll quote his description from the Metro Blogging website:
Event listings to general rants, photos to reviews - metblogs are a hyper-local look at what's going on in the city. a group of regional bloggers give each site a new perspective on daily life. less calendar listing, more friendly advice.
Sounds great. It's a version of the "place-blogging," that the Ecotone website that Lorianne mentioned refers to.
What is it about marquees that's so exciting? They are alive somehow, even old, decrepit ones. Add flashing lights and a show title with a notice that says, "TONIGHT!" and they become beacons. I passed this on the way home yesterday and it grabbed my eye. The Wilshire Theatre was mentioned in an old radio show I heard once, so every time I drive by it, it catches my eye.
A few years ago, I started listening to old-time radio at KNR. As it seems to go with every whim and hobby I stumble upon, I became obsessed. I read books about the stars of the day, learned about the genre, studied the legends, and most of all, listened to the old radio shows as if they were new that night. I don't know why I'm nostalgic for a time I never actually knew, but it's a strong feeling. I can't get enough of the old commercials and the simplicity of the advertising. At the end of each radio show, the credits are usually read by the announcer. I mentioned this once in the old blog, but I have a morbid fascination with the fate of old radio personalities. I wait for those names at the end of the show and then race over to IMDB to see what happened to them in life after their heyday.
This piece also appears at David Chin's site, "A Picture's Worth."
Sometimes terrible things breed beauty. In December of 2001, a few short months after the World Trade Center bombings, wildfires ripped through Southern California. I snapped this picture in the early evening in Studio City looking west on Ventura Boulevard. The smoke in the air combined with the setting sun created a hauntingly beautiful sky, which was both terrifying and breathtaking. When I got home and looked closely at the picture, I noticed the sign. I scoured the web to try to find mention of this now defunct business, but I could find nothing. Instead, I imagined the story behind it...
Late night web surfing DOES pay off!
Remember THIS post I wrote in the old blog about the US Airways commercial?
Apparently, it's only running in Philly right now, but I managed to track it down on the web.
Check it out: TV Spot
I also found the radio spot at the US Airways website.
That's HERE.
Cool.
I'm continuing the sign thing on this entry. Now all I can see everywhere I go are signs. Signs on top of signs, most of them telling me what NOT to do or where I should go. Start taking your digital camera with you when you go places and think like a photographer. I don't really know how to do that, so I pretend.
Continue reading ""fucking up the scenery, breaking my mind..."" »
Nice. Actually, this sign makes me laugh. It's indicative of the general perception of actors out here in Los Angeles. Unless you're famous or recognizable, being an actor doesn't impress many people in town. There's a negative stigma attached to the whole "actor thing" here. Some of it is deserved. I have a hard time stomaching the real "actory" actors. We are, as a group, self-absorbed, self important, possessed by a feeling of superiority and entitlement, moody, hard to rely on, and transient. Does that mean everyone here working on an acting career is a spaceshot? No. Of course not. Lots are though. I once read that: "Being an actor is not hesitating before you admit that you're one." In this town, sometimes that becomes difficult. Plus, here in LA, it's practically implied that everyone is an actor or a writer. The old joke is that if you ask ten people how their screenplay is coming, eight will reply, "How did you know?"
If everything goes according to schedule, I have two more weeks left working on "Newlyweds: Nick and Jessica" before the summer hiatus. That's a good thing. For anyone keeping track, you know how busy things have been at work for me lately. I'm back down to one show (mostly) from three, so things have lightened up substantially. This weekend was the first relaxing weekend I've had in quite a few months. This wall of tapes is not so daunting as it was earlier in the year. I've almost kicked it's ass.
I’m sitting in a Coffee Bean, where Santa Monica Boulevard meets Beverly Glen. I thought that it might be a Wi-Fi hotspot, but alas, I am forced to compose this in MS Word and then transfer it to TypePad when I get home.
We went to Malibu today. Every Saturday, my friend Greg is the ringleader of an ever-changing group of friends, acquaintances, and other assorted folks. We hang out, play volleyball, drink beer hidden in cozies, eat, lounge, talk, swim, and enjoy the beginning of the weekend. It’s nice.
I think I've pointed out before that I enjoy reading weblogs. Specifically, I have really begun to enjoy photojournals. Whether the photos accompanying the thoughts and musings of the author match directly or indirectly or not at all is irrelevant. Pictures are interesting. 
They are a peek into the life around the blogger. I know some people with slower connections may disagree with me, but I think adding more pictures to this blog will enrich it. We'll see how long that lasts. I've been known to begin things and then suddenly lose interest. What can I say? I'm fickle and easily bored.
