Posts Tagged ‘Work’
The Screening Of Your Lifelong Dream
The first time I visited Los Angeles, my friend Matt Kinney drove me up high above the Hollywood to Griffith Observatory. There, I sat in on a bench eating an In-N-Out burger as Matt gave me the lay of the land. “There’s Downtown. That’s Century City. Santa Monica is over there…” I remember feeling awed…
Read MoreMTV Movie Awards Go On As Universal Studios Fire Burns
“That chemical smell,” the security guard said, “Is our archives burning.” We assembled in the lobby, then began down the hill. Not surprisingly, Lankershim Boulevard was strewn with orange cones and Los Angeles’ finest. Most of the Universal Studios gates were barricaded. After a short detour (and a few wrong turns) we made to Gate…
Read MoreUniversal Studios Fire Threatens MTV Movie Awards
I woke to the sound of a helicopter swooping what sounded like mere feet overhead. Moving towards the window of my hotel room, a column of black smoke billowed where the mountains used to be, then flattened like an anvil just a few hundred feet overhead. The air was cast a gauzy, grayish-orange. Four helicopters…
Read MoreViva La Vida (Or, Death And All His Friends)
I’m sitting next to Charlize Theron in the fifth row of The Gibson Amphitheater when the string section walks in. Coldplay, a little matchy-match in their quasi-revolutionary, epilette-laden outfits, tear into the hook: four synthy chords and a house-inspired beat. Behind them, naked, desaturated Romanesque soldiers storm an ancient gate. The stage, once cast is…
Read MoreWithout Love It Ain’t Much
Ok, so here’s my super-glamorous life on location at the 2008 MTV Movie Awards, part two. It’s 10:27. R.E.M. — my favorite band of, like, all time — is performing exactly 2.4 miles away at The Hollywood Bowl. For a minute, I considered jogging over there (Driving in L.A.? Not so fun.). And then I…
Read MoreGoodnight, Hollywood Boulevard
Invariably, every time an event like the 2008 MTV Movie Awards pops up, I’m on the receiving end of all sorts of comments about how cool, glamourous or sexy my job is. So let me set the record straight. True, I woke to the sun rising over Mountain Wilson. And yes, the air smells like…
Read MoreSuperman In Reverse
That was some serious Clark Kent shit. I left the Santa Monica office at 5:43, pointed my Nissan towards Temescal Gateway Park (as I’ve done so many times before), and reasoned with myself the entire way there. “If I get there by 6:30,” I thought, “I can run ’til 7:00. That’ll leave me an hour…
Read MoreYou Are The Star Tonight
Mulholland Drive follows the ridgeline of the Santa Monica Mountains from Hollywood westward all the way to the Pacific Coast Highway. The two-lane, meandering road was built in 1924 by a consortium of Hollywood Hills landowners hoping to turn a buck by bringing development to the Hollywood Hills. There’s David Lynch’s “Mulholland Drive,” and Lee…
Read MoreEros, Logos, The Man & The Band
This is funny. Or alarming. Or both. I’ve re-learned an important life lesson in the last few weeks. Remember when you were taught how to write a persuasive essay in grammar school? The form is simple: state your argument in the thesis, and support it with at least three data points. (I’m not sure that’s…
Read MoreWhere We Can Shine
I’m in the back seat of a rental van some 23 miles west of the New Jersey state line. New York City is ahead of us, casting an orange glow on the horizon. It’s been an interesting few days, much of it was spent with eight young Iraq War veterans — emphasis on young. These…
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