As much as I hate Los Angeles, there are some plusses. OK, it's not that I hate Los Angeles, per se, as much as it is that I hate the crowds, the traffic, and to some extent, the attitudes. It can be very overbearing at times.

Aside from that, though, there are a lot of things that I like about the place. Last night, I saw a fern that was taller than me. Every morning, the smell of orange blossoms is in the air, and this morning, on the way to my car, I saw a jade plants about five feet tall growing alongside people's houses like we've got hostas in the Midwest. The diversity is wonderful, and I never feel unsafe. The people here are generally warm and friendly, unless, of course they're in the business, in which case it's a crapshoot what kind of people they're going to be. I'm always a little bit guarded with 'those Hollywood types', moreso the higher up on the food chain they are.

I must admit that seeing a huge ass jade plant does wonders for brigtening my day and making me less cynical about the freaks that I meet out here. I like that I can have that experience.

Consistency
I needed to go to Target tonight to pick up some 'supplies' for Jennifer's super-secret-surprise when she gets to L.A., and I realized one vrey interesting thing. No matter where I go in this country, Target smells the same, even from the parking lot.

I Believe in Parking Karma
So last night, after my movie, I spent a little over an hour trying to find parking in the neighboorhood. It was only after a VW Bug pulled out in front of me that I crammed my Nissan into a bug-sized space. I was hanging over into the red zone by about a foot and half, and I was arked about three blocks away, the longest walk I've had so far.

Tonight, when I got home from Target, there was a spot right in front of the apartment building. I can sleep in tomorrow because I don't have to move the car from a tow zone. When I scan the skies, I can only see one star. It's a clear night.

I'm doing laundry.

It's about time for Jennifer to call...my favorite part of the day. Voicemail just beeped at me. Maybe it was her.

Get along little doggie
I met rummage sale man tonight. Just as I finished up on the phone with Jennifer, still out on the porch, he came out with a latte and a toy poodle under each arm. Like, smaller than Samantha toy poodle.

"Are you new in the building?" he asked.

"No, I'm jsut subletting from Judy for a month," I replied.

"Oh, that's right. She's in Europe, isn't she? I like Judy."

Just then, the neighbor across the hall came out with his pit bull. Luckily the pit bull was on a leash. It was funny watching it skritch, skritch wildly on the front porch, desperate to make a midnight snack of those poodles.

"Have a good night," said rummage sale guy as I went back into the building.  ¶ 18:37

 
Ahhh, Memorial Day. A day off. A day to do with as I see fit. And my personal goal was to get caught up with my money and organize my paperwork for the week. Tried to sleep in, but after seve hours, it was futile, so I decided to take my stack of paperwork to Cafe Latte on Wilshire to work. Unfortunately, the place was packed, and it was less conducive to sittin' and workin' than I'd hoped.

I went back to the office, and got some stuff done there. Of course, all the interns (plus the two new ones starting today) were looking to me for assignments, being the senior person there, and I didn't have a lot to assign. Molly called at about 11:30; she and Ron were going to brunch, and heaing out to see a movie afterward. I told her to call me, I'm always up for a movie. Then, I walked across the street to Top Fuel to work on my paperwork. Conversation wasn't as fun today. Just some funky goth girl from the tattoo parlor next door telling the guys about her poetry and the slams she goes to.

Molly calls, picks me up, and we head over to the Grove to see "Bruce Almighty." Not my choice. Ron's seen virtually everything, Molly's seen virtually nothing, and she and Ron decided to go see that. For some reason.

Boy did it suck. Ron, quoting Bart Simpson: "I never knew something could suck and blow at the same time."

But, we did have a good excuse to get Margaritas and bitch about the state of the Hollywood studio system afterward. Had some excellent conversation about indie film, how bad the studios suck, and some frank talk about "Hand Job" and what worked and what didn't. First time I've been able to get Molly to tell me that she agrees with a lot of my notes, but there are jsut some things that the director's insisting upon in the film.

Home early; going to watch a movie I got cheap on my Amoeba pilgrimage.  ¶ 20:46

 
I feel like I got a lot accomplished today. Even though I was mind-numbingly tired. When I called Molly about the barbeque thing, she was still in the middle of doing notes for a script that she needed to finish, and with the weather all cloudy and drizzly, wasn't terribly psyched about going. But, depending on how notes went, she might be up for a movie later. Me, always being up for a movie, said "Sure!" and we planned to see "Shape of Things" at 10:00.

So, with some time to kill, I decided to see what movie were playing, and ended up at the Beverly Center to see "L'Auberge Espagnole". Terrific source material for "Italia", down to the handling of some soundtrack issues. Wonderful characterizations and settings as well.

Calling Molly after the film let out, she was still in the thick of notes, having completed broad strokes, but only on page 26 with the details. It's a $10MM project, the script sucks, but it would be a great feather in her cap to make it happen. At any rate, no movie for Molly. No matter, I went and saw it anyway. Great concept, awful script, surprising because Neil LaBute is usually very good.

Afterward, "Spun", which I'd missed at the WFF, and was very glad to have seen. Very whimsical editing and visual style, a great counterpoint for crystal meth addiction. I was very pleased with it as a whole.

Home and asleep by 2:30, awakened after bar time when people came home and decided to talk about their career plans on the porch outside my window. They quieted down after I slammed the window sash closed. Imagine that. Slept a few more hours, and then rummage-sale guy started moving his stuff out for day two of the sale. Luckily, it was later, 9pm, so I got a few more hours of sleep, but with the interruptions, I didn't feel terribly rested.

In the office by 10:30am, to review my notes on "Foursquare" for my 10am meeting with Jake. He was surprisingly receptive to my comments, with very little talk of how my ideas were going to compromise his artistic integrity. I think we can make this work.

Caught up on paperwork, met with Matt later in the afternoon, then a reading of "Hand Job". Typed up some notes afterward, then off to Whole Foods to get dinner. Had a spiced squid and mountain vegetable salad, and a slice of blueberry pie with brown sugar crumb crust because it just looked so damn good sitting on the shelf calling my name. I bought an avacado for a bold culinary experiment (and, after all, I am in California), a bottle of wine, a box of cereal, some rye crackers, and a hard Greek cheese. I'll be snacking on those throughout the week, along with the bananas and apricots I've stashed at the office.

I started researching the secret surprise for Jennifer's visit out here (hee, hee), and of, course, that's when the day got difficult. I've been celibate for over a week, and I'm not happy about it. Sat around uncomfortably most of the day, wishing Jennifer were here, my mind wandering to all sorts of interesting places.

I imagined Jennifer visiting the office, and the two of us going at it on the desk. The two of us in the back row of a movie theater; my hand up her skirt and her hand up the leg of my shorts. A blowjob on one of those dark streets just off of Sunset. Jennifer riding me in bed. Me licking her lips for hours.

I am simply craving Jennifer. Her touch, her skin, her body, her soul. I miss the looks, the touches, the time we spend together, but at the same time, there's this bond, this connection that we have so I don't feel lonely or alone. I know we're together in spirit, but dammit, that's not quite the same as a good fuck. I'm sure I'll have interesting dreams tonight. Good thing I brought my own sheets.   ¶ 23:54

 
Last night at midnight, I saw "Irreversible" at the Laemmle Sunset 5. It was an incredible and an incredibly disturbing French film. Told backwards over the course of an evening, it's the story of a man avenging the brutal rape of his girlfriend, accompanied by a friend who used to date the woman. The film starts with the rapist being beat to death in an extremely graphic and violent manner. Then we see the scene just prior, and so forth until we're at the beginning of the end.

This film accomplished with incredible grace and stlye What Christoper Nolan's "Memento" kind of hinted at. The most impressive thing about the film was the character development. In the first scene, you have little to no sympathy for the main character; he's just a violent asshole on a rampage. As the film progresses, and you see the circumstances and events leading to what you've just seen, you learn more and more about the three main characters. You learn what they're all about, you learn what drives their dynamic, you learn why they make the choices that they make, and you come to sympathize with the predicament in which they find themselves.

By the end of the film, seeing the idyllic life shared by the characters, the air hangs thick with the impact of what the assault MEANT to everyone involved. The attack ceases to be an event driving the story, and transforms into a richly complex emotional subtext in which the characters find themselves embroiled.

Even a day later, I'm finding myself overwhelmed, feeling the rage and sadness that the main character felt. Films rarely affect me on that visceral of a level. I'm wonderfully surprised that someone pulled it off.

Tonight, I plan to see "Spun" at midnight. Another uplifting and cheery movie about the world of crystal meth addiction. Supposedly it has over five thousand cuts.

So it was a midnight movie and it finished at about 2:00am. Driving down Sunset, of course, was a freaking nightmare. I lsot track that it was Friday night and got caught in the NO TURNS zone for way to long, getting back to my place in mid-Wilshire at about 3:00am.

Now when Judy told me that she was going to let me use her parking permit, I kind of assumed that there would be a parking lot in which to use that permit. Well, you know what happens when you assume. Turns out that it's a permit for street parking. I've got about a sixteen block area in which I can park, so theoretically, I'll never have to park more than four blocks away from the apartment.

Finally found a place on Wilshire, about a half a block away which had two hour limits starting at 9am. L.A. parking sucks. So if I got back to the car to move it before 11:00am, I could avoid tickets. That's good, 'cause being out so late really motivated me to sleep in.

By the time I walked to the apartment, set my alarm and got to bed, it was 4:00am.

At about 8:00am, I was awakened by two things. Voices outside the window and in the hallway (the overly perky, upstairs neighbor, neighborhood gossip, and apparently from the sheer volume of different conversations he was having, social host extraordinaire, was having a moving sale just outside of my window), and a faint, but consistent electronic beeping noise...about once per second. Deciding that it was too stupid to try to keep sleeping, I decided to shower. No lights. Anywhere in the apartment. Hunted down the breaker box, they were all good. Shit.

I decided to get dressed and at least move my car off Wilshire. The lights in the apartment's common areas were all out, and the faint beeping was coming from the electronic fire detection box mounted in the lobby. Right across from my room. Outside, it was overcast, foggy, with a misty drizzle. And about forty five degrees. Just like spring in Wisconsin. Along the way to my car, I noticed that all the street lights were out, and traffic cops were directing cars at the nearby intersections. As I was looking for a closer parking spot, I saw that a big LAW&P crew was working at 6th & La Brea, obviously working on whatever was going on.

When the power finally came on at about 10:30am, it amazed me to hear how much ambient hum was suddenly present. Then I came to the realization that this place has an electric water heater. It took about fifteen minutes until I had hot water for a shower.

Later....

I'm sitting at Top Fuel Kawffee, located just across the street from the production office. It's a dark hole in the wall, very reminiscnet of Fuel (with less light and a pool table). It's run by a bunch of teen-something skaterbois who are obviously enjoying it immensely.

I'm sitting inside, the only customer, and five guys in black baggy clothes are sitting on resin chairs, clustered around the front door of the establishment, smoking and drinking beer. They're talking about how gay porn has the best titles, like "Shaving Ryan's Privates" and "A Beautiful Behind".

A guy pulls up. "A hundred bucks says he doesn't come in here." They alternately yell at him to just step across the threshhold and to stay away. "I ain't got a hundred bucks!"

Peds walk by. "Coffee?" they implore.

An older couple. "Top Fuel Kawffee House. We got coffee we got snacks we cot everything you need. Lattes. Mocha. Kawffee with at-i-oooood."

"Hope to see you soon!" as they walk past.

"Listen to this fucked up situation. This girl that I like is going to prom tonight with some six foot five black dude. I called her up. I said, 'I hear you got prom tonight. Just don't have sex with him.' She said 'I'm not gonna have sex. We're just gonna drink.' Don't drink, cause then you might have sex! But she feels bad about it 'cause he's dumb. He asked her to prom [rhymes with comb]. She asked him to spell it."

"Buy kawffee and I won't key your car anymore!"

"We have bottled water! We have energy treats," yelled to the runner going by after he refused kawffee.

Later, inside, commenting on the food available at the bar, "Let's talk about hot dogs, and relish in the moment."

A friend of Molly's is having a barbeque at 3:00 today in Venice. I've been invited. The skaterbois have decided to crank some speed metal on the stereo. Time to leave.  ¶ 16:11

 
Went to Molly's premiere last night of the film 'Dandelion'. It was a pretty good film. There were some plot problems that I had a problem with, but Molly and I had an interesting talk about that on Tuesday night. She rarely critiques films for anything other than what they are on screen. She doesn't deal with "it could have been better if" type comments.

Once the film is in the can, the filmmakers only need to make the best of what they've shot. It doesn't matter if the performances suck, or there's only a master and one close up of a single character...the film's been shot, there's not going to be drastic reshoots, and the editor is just going to try to make the best thing out of the material presented.

For me, that's one of the exciting moments in filmmaking. Much like Laura's work on 'Model Woman', the whole notion of seeing what comes out of the material given to the editor is very exciting to me.

Looking at it from that perspective, 'Dandelion' was a better than average inde character drama. It was no 'Tully' (and frankly, I doubt if I'll see a film like that more than a few time in my life), but it was very good.

The magnolia trees have huge white blossoms, and everywhere are trees covered in periwinkle blue flowers.

It's warm and sunny.

Missing Jennifer, but feeling very good about the project and the progress.   ¶ 23:35

 
I feel roughly human this morning. It's been a long couple of days.

On May 19th, I get to the airport well in advance of my 9:20 flight and check my luggage, letting the woman at the counter know, "I've alredy checked in online and have my boarding passes."

"Oh," she replies, "then you don't know we're delayed."

Due to weather, they're having some issues in St. Louis, my connection city, and I we're not going to leave Milwaukee until about 10:40am, with an anicipated St. Louis arrival of 11:30. Not a problem, though, since my STL->LAX flight leaves at 12:05pm. By the time I walk to the gate, however, the projected departure time is 11:45. The plane we're flying on is grounded in Springfield (shall I assume Illinois?) due to weather. I'm through all of my on-board reading material by 10:30.

I'm waiting not-so-patiently for my flight.

The Trip...Part Two

I arrived in St. Louis at 12:15pm, but unfortunately, my flight to LA had left at 12:01pm. The first time I'd ever heard of an airplane taking off AHEAD of schedule, and it was the one time I needed it to be running late.

Grabbed a decent-for-airport-food lunch at the Samuel Adams pub, and waiting for the 3:30 flight into LAX, for which I'd already been pre-booked in Milwaukee (thank god), and fired up the laptop to do coverage on a script or two while I waited. And waited. And waited.

Finally got off the ground on time, though three hours later than I'd initially hoped. The in-flight movie was "The Hours" and it wasn't any better the second time around. AA's 'bistro bag' lunch was awful and the flight attendant was in a really crappy mood for some reason or another. She seemed to resent our mere presence as passengers and was extremely snippy to the two women seated next to me who asked for pillows. It was quite odd.

Arrive in L.A. at about 5:45, and luckily, my bags were some of the first off of the plane and to the baggage carousel.

THE TRIP...part 3

So when I was grounded in St. Louis, I called Rent-A-Wreck to let them know I was going to get into town later than expected due to all the plane groundings. Not a problem, they said.

I get to L.A., call them from the terminal as I'm grabbing my luggage, and they seem very surprised to hear from me. The guy who's supposed to pick me up is out on another run, and won't be to come and get me for at least an hour.

An hour.

And wouldn't you know it, cell phone reception is sketchy at best at the baggage carousel area, the basement of LAX. I need to go sit across the street, on the sidewalk next to the parking structure, until the guy's near enought to LAX to call me and tell me where he is and where he's going to meet me.

Now, normally, this wouldn't be so bad, but the fog that's gripping the rest of the country is shrouding L.A. It's cold enough to see my breath, damp enough to need my coat, and I'm out in this stuff waiting for a phone call.

He finally picks me up about 7:15.

On the way back to Rent-A-Wreck (which is about a half hour away, even though it is the LAX location, go figure), I ask the guy if they got my message about being on the later flight, because they seemed awfully unprepared. He replies that yes, they did get the message, but when the flight came in on time and I wasn't on it, they though I'd skipped out on the rental. See, my original flight got in on time, and somehow, when I left a message that I was being booked on a later flight into L.A., they interpreted it as my existing flight was delayed...so when that flight came in on time, they thought I was on it. Doh!

I get to the rental car place, and find out that the Nissan Maximan (1988 manual) won't be ready for another day, so I'm going to get a Ford Festiva overnight, and they'll bring me the Nissan swap-out the next day. Have you ever tried to fit a Pelican 1620 and a large suitcase in a Ford Festiva?

Then, I drive to the office, I'm there by about 8:00pm to check in with Molly. We take my stuff to her apartment (see subsequent post) and go out to dinner. Chinese, I have pork fried rice and lots of water. Quick call to Jennifer to let her know I'm in town, and that's close to the end of my evening.

It's been a very long day.

Molly's Place.

OK, she's sub-letting the apartment in Hollywood until the end of July. It's a 2 bedroom, one of the bedrooms is padlocked (and is home to John Buffalo Mailer, Norman Mailer's son, though he's not living there now). Furtniture: One glass dining room table. One coffee table with a TV and VCR. One square coffee table, dark wood, c. 1970. One chair. Three lamps. Lots of room for me to sleep. Molly, of course, has the bedroom, and the bathroom and shower is off of the bedroom. That sucks. No heavy drinking before bedtime this week!

The kitchen has a lean, mean, grilling machine glassware and about five pots. An empty refrigerator.

It's pretty sparse.



Tuesday

I get all my crap to the office, and start unpacking my Pelican full o' office gear. Got my computer working and attached to the network, but it refuses to recognize the network printer. The network printing guru intern is out until Wednesday afternoon, so I'm without print capability temporarily.

Mid-morning, I discover that my Wisconsin cell phone is still back at Molly's place in my other bag. That sucks, 'cause that's Jennifer's primary means of communication with me. I try to reach her at the office a couple times, have some luck, and plan to call her after her reading.

Noon. I call Rent-A-Wreck to arrange for the car swap. Dave's in the middle of stuff, and he'll call me later in the afternoon.

I take a walk about 3pm, try calling home, Jennifer's not there. In transit perhaps? That would be...5pm-ish Milwaukee? I lose track...my Wisconsin phone is still set on central time, my laptop and California phone set on Pacific. Of course, with my Milwaukee clock back in my suitcase, I lose track.

About 5:45pm, I call Rent-A-Wreck again and Dave tells me that he can leave right after 6pm to bring the car to me. He should be there by 7pm, depending on traffic. Yesterday, during rush hour, it took me about 40 minutes. We start to watch some DP demo reels (most of which sucked) and we were done with our meeting at about 6:45pm. A couple phone calls to try to track down the rental car guy, return a few phone messages, and time to call Jennifer...she should be done with her reading. So it's about 7:15 L.A., the phone bounces straight to voicemail, so I tell her my plans to call when I'm off to shop, assuming that rental guy gets there soon.

7:30, we're still waiting. Molly and I are both starving, the director wants to meet for dinner, and I still need to get a ton of stuff done. More phone calls to track down Dave. All voicemail.

7:45. He finally calls. He's at the building. I tell him where I'm parked (out back), he shows up to do the swap, tell me the stuff about the car, and we're off. By the time I call Jennifer, it's 8pm LA, 10pm Milwaukee, she's tired, so am I, so it's a short call.

Dinner's sushi, not bad, but I've had better. Molly insists it's the best in town. After our meeting, back to her place. I set up my cot, and crash, exhausted. I think I'm still on Milwaukee time.

Epilogue

All the "Planes, Trains and Automobiles"-ness of the past few days is behind me.

My replacement SODIMM showed up today, and my laptop recognizes all of it after an install. WooHoo. My laptop's actually performing at the place it's supposed to now.

I went shopping before work and picked up a few of the things I needed grocery-wise. Some fresh fruit, OJ, protein powder, I'm determined to eat healthy while I'm out here.

I've already had an OJ/Protein shake, a banana and a peach.

The walk to the office this morning was spectacular. All along the street, orange trees are blossoming fragrantly. Hollyhocks are chest high, flowers everywhere. Despite it's inherent L.A.-ness, there's spring here that doesn't seem to have hit Wisconsin yet.

I've got my lists of things to do organized, the people who need to know I'm in L.A. know that I'm in L.A., and I'm beginning to schedule meetings, premieres, and equipment demos.

As I said earlier, I feel a lot more human today.
  ¶ 22:24

 
In eleven days, I'll be in an airport, waiting patiently for my connecting flight to Los Angeles. The countdown has begun.  ¶ 09:27

 
My housing arrangements fell through over the weekend, so I've spent most of the week trying frantically to get that whole thing under control. And yesterday morning, while burning data backups to take with me, my CD burner decided to take a dump on me. It's under warranty, and I can get a free replacement, but it's time I have to spend that I don't particularly HAVE. Getting down to the wire...about ten days to go, and the whole thing is starting to sink in...

I did have a strange thought though, as I've been hunting for sublets and roomates across L.A...Kato Kaelin was also from Wisconsin.  ¶ 08:49

 
I'm getting ready to head off to L.A. and it struck me that I leave in less than three weeks. Difficult to sleep tonight; overwhelmed with the sheer amount of stuff that needs to get done before I take off. Lock in housing, car rentals, transfer data to my laptop, as well as getting all my current projects in someone else's capable hands in time for my departure.  ¶ 10:34