People

I’m gonna argue that Hollywood itself is the biggest brand in the world. In stark contrast to the lush, Technicolor fantasies in which the place trades, though, the town itself is a dirty mess of bleached concrete, dusty stucco, and drought-ridden patches of weeds. Which is a far cry from the Hollywood director D.W. Griffith…

Hollywood feeds on its young. To celebrate the thirty-seventh anniversary of my birth here, then, is not without irony. To be away from home and enduring what is typically the most challenging week of the year only added insult to injury. I woke, fittingly, to AT&T’s oft-heard ringtone, a sound that prompts dozens of my…

My hotel room is bigger than my apartment. Downtown Los Angeles sparkles outside my east-facing windows. The Hollywood sign is out the north. Last night after work, I pulled my Hyundai into valet as Kate Walsh and the cast of “Private Practice” walked a red carpet across the parking lot. Upstairs, I watched “Wanted” on-demand…

Abbi and I were in Seattle for a pal’s wedding this weekend. We were full-on tourists. We had a great time riding the ferry to and from Bainbridge, jogging along Peugeot Sound, rambling through Pike’s Place Market, and staring out from the Space Needle. We ate fresh seafood and drank local beer at every meal.…

Sometimes, when I’m traveling somewhere distinct from my normal routine — say, Nantucket, or Bray’s Island — I find it difficult to imagine anywhere else. I think I even remember when it started. I was sixteen-years-old snapping a photo from the double-yellow lines of a traffic-strewn Champs Elysées when I thought, “I can’t believe this…