Alert!

Tonight's The Office is written by Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant! How cool!

What I'm Watching Right Now

What I'm Watching Right Now



The show I'm working on right now is from the same producers as Laguna Beach, so I'm now watching Laguna on DVD, it's fucking great in that way that...well...in the way that I think it's great. A show full of hot, rich high school kids in the hottest richest place in America. You know, Reality TV.

I gotta say after taking a peek behind the curtain I'm a fan of Reality TV, at least the one I'm working on. Reality TV's gotten a bad rap, as I'm sure the indoor toilet did at one time. I don't mean reality tv like Survivor, The Bachelor,, or American Idol, those are called game shows. I'm not a big fan of game shows, but I do like reality tv, at least ones like Laguna Beach, The Real World and the one I'm working on right now. In these shows, which are not contests, real people are documented for a couple months and what happens happens. Haha. Obviously these shows are highly manufactured, but that's where my love of them comes from.

The people, many of them actors, are cast according to their dynamics and how they may clash. Casting based on conflict, brilliant. All stories are conflict and reality shows start with that in mind. Yes, the conflict arising once the camera starts shooting is pre-manufactured, but so is the conflict between Bruce Willis and the terrorists.

Once they start shooting, there is no script. The producers put the actors in places and ask them to talk about certain things, and they talk for twenty minutes to an hour and that's edited into two or three minutes.

All the footage in the meantime comes back to the Loggers, which is what I am. The Loggers make detailed notes and send them to the Story Department, who monitors arising conflicts and figures out how to best exploit them in upcoming scenes. Did JL1 mention that MS1 was a backstabber? Did MS1 say that she'd do anything to get JL1? Does JL1 like AR1? Hmmm, how can we put MS1 in a position to stab AR1 in the back?

That notation is actually the notation we use, those abbreviations.

But the story is fluid, in fact one character was going to be cut until the loggers told the story department that she was the best character, she's the only one that isn't a bitch or bimbo, so we thought she brought some balance.

As an improvisor and someone who's taken a hell of a lot of improvisation and made scripts around them I truly appreciate Reality TV.

In Steven Soderbergh's movie Bubble, he casts the movie with real people from a backwater town in Ohio and has them improvise their dialogue according to scenarios. If you hate reality tv, then you can't like Bubble. I think it's an innovative production technique and you could do far more with it than shows have so far.

And I know most people who don't like Reality TV will agree with everything I've said but still not like Reality TV because it's dishonest, because it's not real. Did you know Fargo was based on a true strory? The funny thing is that the label "Reality TV" now means this manufactured form of production. You are making tv in the "Reality TV" genre, meaning it's faked.

What I'm Listening to right now

First, before I get to todays record selection. LOOK WHAT'S IN HEATHER'S BELLY!



If you love your child so much, why did you swallow it? Congratulations to Heather and Judy for enraging Republicans everywhere by engaging in your constitutionally protected privacy rights.

And since that wouldn't make a good album cover unless you did something ironic like put a cigarrette in it's mouth or put a beanie hat on it, I take you to today music selection.



Colonel Sanders' Tijuana Picnic. Remember what the Dating Game theme sounded like? Remember the music when they'd introduce the bachelors or go to commercial? Well both songs are on this album and are actually titled "Spanish Flea" and "Tijuana Taxi" respectively. Now imagine an entire album that sounds like that. It's awesome! The reason I cruise all these music blogs like Check the Cool Wax, which also features an A-Team kids album and a billion other awesome albums if you click around, is to find hot numbers like this.

Download it here

Though answering the question "what kind of music do you listen to?" is getting more complex. I have 30 gigs of random-ass lounge, exploitation, tijuana brass, soundtracks to Italian sex comedies, Go-Go films, German sex education films, and Polish cop movies (polizchetti). I also have mp3's of old Batman and Man-Thing story records and the soundtracks to everything from Commando to Aguirre The Wrath of God, and yet when someone asks me what kind of music I listen to I find it easier to say I don't much listen to music.

Well, back to work, which is looking at this woman all day.



She's in the show I'm logging. They pay me too.

Spider-Man 3 poster!

Daaaaaaaaaaaamn. I've said it before, I'll say it again, I never imagined in my live-aciton superhero lovin' lifetime that I'd see a passable Spider-Man movie, much less a great one, much less a perfect, much less three of them. I'm just speechless.

Random Photo Post

Hey all, hope you had a good weekend and mourned the loss of Robert Altman by watching 3 Women or California Split or heck, even MASH or Nashville. One of the best things I ever was a part of was Chris Sienko's Stiff-Legged Film Festival #1, the complete, and I mean complete, works of Robert Altman. Check out the complete list and schedule here.

Chris tracked down every single Robert Altman film (impossible in 2002), and I mean H.E.A.L.T.H., A Wedding, Images, O.C. and Stiggs, EVERYTHING. Even the three films he made prior to MASH, including a documentary on James Dean. We watched them all from 8am to Midnight every day for two complete weekends. It was an amazing education, and you can't walk away from something like that without being a big big fan. He just cranked films out so fast that there's an energy there of an improvisational career, taking on challenge after challenge, truly enjoying the chaos of production, finding his way through every genre, and playing. He was constantly at play, like a kid, clearly being more inspired by what was happening on set than he was any concept of career or any standard convention of what movies were supposed to look like. Most people have never heard of 90% of his films, and those 90% are fascinating. Just playing and experimenting his ass off. Well, take care buddy, all the films I have yet to make owe a debt of gratitude to his ability to find the movie after you've started. Every production has to do that to a degree anyway, but nobody made an art form of that very concept the way Robert Altman did. I got to see Prairie Home Companion while at the South by Southwest Film Festival with the film I produced. Now I have an extra memory to take away from that exciting week.

Photo clearing house

Here's a couple things I've been meaning to put up. The week I left Chicago I had one more job to do with the Illinois Lotto, a funny summer job I happened into. They had a big promotion that had been running all year and the big winners were announced the week I left. They had a big ceremony where they announced the winner before the Cubs game, so here's a picture of me, during the rehearsal, STANDING IN WRIGLEY FIELD! Yes, the week I left Chicago I got to walk onto the field. So cool.



I didn't go home for Thanksgiving for the first time in my life, casualties of the move. Which means I missed seeing my cousin for the first time since he moved to Japan for a year. My cousin and I have a storied past in which we did a lot of fun, well-documented, rambunctious stuff. Here he is holding the trophy he won in our one-on-one lacross, a sport we invented.



Skinny much? FYI - The buttons on my jeans jacket say "Ask me about my lobotomy" and "Have a nice day, dipshit."

Amongst the memories of Joe and myself are our obsession with shopping carts and dressing like it was 1988 in 1988. Here's some shots of the cuz and I in 1988, Bam Margera style.





Also I shot a short film with Paul Preston last weekend and wanted to post a couple pics of the shoot.



There I am booming, once again.



Bart was an extra, he likes to get on the set every once in a while to remember what he hates about shooting shorts.



Also, a few posts back I went to Malibu with Ryan Anglin.



And Ryan Akers.



They drank alcohol, which I would never do.



We went to Point Dume, where they shot the end of Planet of The Apes.



I raised the ire of locals by being the ten billionth person to drop to my knees and yell "Damn you! Damn you all to hell!"



Here's the dog that tried to bite me.



Here's the motel I stayed in.



Here's my car.



Dog tried to bite that.



Here's the Mormon Tabernacle.

New Spider-Man 3 footage

Here's a compilation of the inter-segments from Spider-Man 2's airing on tv. Som cool new shots including an image of Venom, Harry, Jr. in his new Goblin suit, and a kickass shot of Spider-Man punching through Sandman's belly.

Revenge of The Nerds Remake: Shut Down!

Wow, I begged Scott Lumpkin to work on this right before I moved to L.A., but I don't have the credits to be a Union P.A. Guess it's a good thing I didn't get it. Nerds needs to be remade about as much as Blade Runner does, but I could see it except I don't recognize one name in the cast or crew.


Atomic blast to 'Nerds'
Fox calls off 'Revenge'
By ALEX ROMANELLI, VARIETY STAFF, NICOLE LAPORTE

The nerds won't be getting their revenge, after all.
Fox Atomic has officially ceased production on its remake of "Revenge of the Nerds," which the division had hoped to release next summer.

Project was put on hold earlier this month after two weeks of filming when Emory U. in Atlanta, where the pic was skedded to shoot, decided not to participate in the film.

People close to the film say another issue was that Fox Atomic topper Peter Rice was not completely satisfied with the dailies and that the film felt smaller than the kind of pic he's aiming to release from Atomic, the teen-oriented label launched last year.

Rice addressed the issue by saying, "Everybody worked very hard on 'Revenge of the Nerds,' and we're all extremely disappointed that we can't move forward."

A Fox Atomic rep said that all participants in the film have been compensated for their work.

Pic, which was being directed by tyro Kyle Newman, was a remake of the 1984 comedy. Cast included Katie Cassidy, Jenna Dewan and Dan Byrd.

Thankful

It's fun being here in Los Angeles and all and I actually really like this town, I think I just like cities in general as I'm kind of starting to obsess on New York now, but then I obsessed on L.A. for ten years before I moved, who knows when I'd move to New York. How about this marker: After unprecedented success. Cool.

Anyway, this whole experiment in tempting fate and getting out of my comfort zone, shaking things up a bit, and trying to actually get a job that I like in a field that I have a degree in really started with a kind offer from a friend. I have a lot of friends, I'm very thankful for them, and lucky to have so many.



Bart Kias and I are friends from way back. We were both in Mass Communications and saw each other frequently in the hallowed halls of Williams Hall as we tried to put together two different careers, Bart doing his duty working for Miami's Public Radio Station, WMSR, and the TV station WMUB, and me pretending I had actually made it into film school, shooting shorts in the field, stealing equipment, and scamming independent studies from inebriated teachers (to this day having coffee and a beer is called The Andy Marko Special after my independent study teacher who gave me 2 credit hours to write a superhero screenplay). Bart did standup, which I hated, and I did improv which he thought was for hipster doofuses. My first impression of Bart was during a Q&A with the head of Late Night Programming in our Freshman Comm. class. Bart stood up and asked him "why Later with Bob Costas exists?" Who's the dick? I thought. We were brought together do do WMUB's sketch comedy show Pocket Change Theatre who's writing staff consisted of myself (sketch), Matt Larsen (sketch), Becky Eldridge (sketch), Bart (standup), Brian Murray (standup), and Jeff Robinson (standup). The standup guys sat on one side of the table opposite the sketch guys and we just threw potshots at each other over the legitimacy of the mediums, you know, because that's important or something. Its was College pretension at it's finest.



Somehow Bart and I ended up getting along, I took over as producer on PCT and featured Bart heavily in all the lead roles for season 2. I also featured Bart in all my Senior films. In F, my masterpiece, Bart played a comically sweaty psychotic student who stalks and tries to kill the teacher (Todd Kolloff) that gave him an F. I followed this up with an experiment featuring Bart and Todd again called Raw Footage based on the What If of "What if you only saw what took place between "cut" and "action" as opposed to the opposite. Not content to just make curriculum films, I kept up a healthy amount of non-credit filmmaking with my favorite collaborator, Jim McWilliams and brought Bart into Jim and I's masterpiece, The Pan Piper about the world's most popular Pan Flutist who's dedicated fanbase dies when a cigarette ignites an auditorium full of the polyester-wearing fans. I'll get the highlights of these up on Schadenfreude.net at some point.



My Senior year was the most fun you can possibly have, living with with Roberto, Fremodada, Larry S., and Leah R. Bart lived a couple blocks away, and when we weren't creating "yard art" (creating art out of what was left on the front lawn after a party), we engaged in our favorite past time "get kicked out of a party you weren't invited to." We'd see a house party, walk in, sit down, and start pointing at people and making fun of them. Our collaborator on some of these missions was Richardson Seng, who would later start Cherry Bomb DVD in Chicago. It amazes me that I still know everyone referenced above. We also watched a lot of Steven Segal films while drinking 40's of Malt Liquour, don't ask me why.

And then I didn't see Bart for ten years.



When I first moved to Chicago we collaborated on a television pilot that would be the Siskel & Ebert of undistributed indie films (still a very good idea), but that was it. Over the last decade I talked to Bart at least once a year about my frustration at how green the grass was in L.A. while decrying the greenness of grass in Chicago, and thankfully never moved. Then, all of a sudden, the radio show was over, my job at Strata crumbling, and I felt like I had accomplished enough in Chicago to justify trying something new. I called Bart for the usual talk, which Bart was tired of having, but once again he and Martha, his girlfriend of many years, offered me their guest room to get on my feet.





I couldn't have made the move without their help and promise to be out by December 20th. It is very weird to see Bart every day, from not at all for ten years to every day. We get along just as we always have, two people who are right about everything.

It is Thanksgiving and I'm very thankful to my many many many friends who have helped me out over the years, Bart is just the latest in a long line who's most prominent members include the four other creators of this site. I think of all the friends I have here and all the friends I have in Chicago, plus all the friends back in Ohio and all the friends I haven't talked to in a while but would not miss a beat if I saw them again and I'm awed. Is there anybody with more friends than me? If there were such a contest certainly I would come in the top ten. Thanks guys, seriously, for everything. And when you factor in my family and that I have not one but two great Dad's, not one but two great Mom's, plus my Sister. And I write all this while working what I personally feel is the greatest television show ever. I wonder why I would ever want more in life. Shit, here's another credit card bill, gotta go.



And readers. Thank you, as well, for reading my ramblings for two years and giving me a reason to keep my tool sharp in between larger projects. It's only gonna get more interesting from here.

You Know I'm White and Nerdy

Ever since Justin posted this video, I have been obsessed with this song, bought it on iTunes and sing it all the time. I love Weird Al ever since In 3D became the third cassette I ever posessed (The Music of Miami Vice was the first, Christmas gift courtesy of Aunt Phyllis and Uncle Greg, and Billy Crystal's You Look Mahvelous courtesy of Aunt Joyce and Uncle Roger, who I will be missing for the first Thanksgiving ever).

Weird Al, none better.



You see me mowin' my front lawn
I know they're all thinkin' I'm so
White and nerdy

Think I'm just too white and nerdy
Think I'm just too white and nerdy
Can't you see I'm white and nerdy
Look at me I'm white and nerdy

I wanna roll with the gangstas
But so far they all think I'm too
White and nerdy

Think I'm just too white and nerdy
Think I'm just too white and nerdy
I'm just too white and nerdy
Really, really white and nerdy

First in my class here at MIT
Got skills, I'm a champion at D&D
M.C. Escher, that's my favorite M.C.
Keep you're 40, I'll just have an Earl Grey tea
My rims never spin, to the contrary
You'll find that they're quite stationary
All of my action figures are cherry
Stephen Hawking's in my library

My MySpace page is all totally pimped out
Got people beggin' for my top eight spaces
Yo, I know pi to a thousand places
Ain't got no grills but I still wear braces
I order all of my sandwiches with mayonnaise
I'm a wiz at Minesweeper, I could play for days
Once you've see my sweet moves, you're gonna stay amazed
My fingers movin' so fast I'll set the place ablaze

There's no killer app I haven't run (run)
At Pascal, well I'm number one (one)
Do vector calculus just for fun
I ain't got a gat, but I got a soldering gun (what?)
Happy Days is my favorite theme song
I could sure kick your butt in a game of ping pong
I'll ace any trivia quiz you bring on
I'm fluent in JavaScript as well as Klingon

Here's the part I sing on...

You see me roll on my Segway
I know in my heart they think I'm
White and nerdy

Think I'm just too white and nerdy
Think I'm just too white and nerdy
Can't you see I'm white and nerdy
Look at me I'm white and nerdy

I'd like to roll with the gangstas
Although it's apparent I'm too
White and nerdy

Think I'm just too white and nerdy
Think I'm just too white and nerdy
I'm just too white and nerdy
How'd I get so white and nerdy

I been browsin', inspectin' X-Men comics
You know I collect 'em
The pens in my pocket, I must protect them
My ergonomic keyboard never leaves me bored
Shoppin' online for deals on some writable media
I edit Wikipedia
I memorized Holy Grail really well
I can recite it right now and have you R-O-T-F-L-O-L

I got a business doing websites (websites)
When my friends need some code, who do they call?
I do HTML for 'em all
Even made a homepage for my dog, yo
I got myself a fanny pack
They were havin' a sale down at The Gap
Spend my nights with a role of bubble wrap
Pop, pop - hope no one sees me gettin' freaky

I'm nerdy in the extreme
Whiter than sour cream
I was in AV club and glee club
And even the chess team
Only question I ever thought was hard
Was "Do I like Kirk or do I like Picard?"
Spend every weekend at the Renaissance Faire

Got my name on my underwear They see me strollin', they're laughin'
And rollin' their eyes cause I'm so
White and nerdy

Just because I'm white and nerdy
Just because I'm white and nerdy
All because I'm white and nerdy
Holy cow, I'm white and nerdy

I wanna bowl with the gangstas
But oh well, it's obvious I'm
White and nerdy

Think I'm just too white and nerdy
Think I'm just too white and nerdy
I'm just too white and nerdy
Look at me I'm white and nerdy

I don't like the handsoap at the building I work at

I don't like the handsoap at the building I work at

Is that petty? At WBEZ and many other places I've worked, the soap foams up. That's the best. You simply can't wait to wash your hands when your soap foams up. In other places it doesn't foam up, but it has a more pleasant smell than the standard pink-flavored soap smell. That's just crap. Like vanilla, a facilities soap doesn't need to foam if it smells like vanilla. You know what else I like? I'll ditch the foam, and the smell, for a more liquid constistency. You know what was the best soap? The soap that looks like Anti-freeze that only came out of the dispensers that are upside down, with the peg that you shove up into the white bubble. I like a little weather balloon, and you're shoving the basket up into the balloon. I love the anti-freeze soap. How come it only comes in the little weather balloon dispenser. So if it doesn't foam or have pleasant natural scent, then I will take the anti-freeze soap that has made a deal with one dispenser company. The soap at`this building is real thick and smells like pineapple. Pineapple. I just feel...unclean using it. You know what else kicks ass and I will have installed in my house when I finally reach my life goal of eccentric millionaire, the granulated powder shit. Have you ever felt cleaner than when you use the granulated powder? I don't think so.

12 lbs.

At the AFM they had all these free movie industry magazines. I took one of each. When I got home I weighed myself, 200lbs., then I picked up the stack of magazines I took from the AFM and weighed myself again, 212lbs. I've been slowly going through the and I think I've found the formula for success, take a well-know phrase and pun it in the direction of horror. There's a horror movie for sale this year called...Study Hell. I mean, whether your rent it or not, thinks it's stupid or whatever. You've got to admire it. Study Hall, a phrase we've all heard a billion times and never throught of the horror movie possibilities. And then I flip a couple pages and COULD NOT believe the idea that any of us could've had.

The Wedding Slasher. That is fucking brilliant.

Hello Callers

I want to throw a big shout-out to Sasha and The Noob. For any new people here in L.A. that I might be turning on to my column. Check them out. Sasha and The Noob, performed at the Rent Party Friday where I (sigh), was absent. Completely unrelated to their Rent Party appearance Bart just started up telling me how big a fan he is. We watched the most recent episode and laughed a lot and then quoted Sash and The Noob for the rest of the day. They are inspired. So anyone who hasn't checked them out, please find out what you're missing. It's not for everyone, but for those it's for, it's REALLY for.

Someday I would love to do a suspense thriller starring them and Biegfried & Broy. Yes, a suspense thriller with four of the most ridiculous characters you've ever seen. Plus Vaugn Bach from the Alderman screenplay (Gretchen Ross-Stephenson's Schwarzeneggar-like husband), all trying to solve a murder.

Now all we need's a punny title. Hmmm. Harder than it looks.

Politics Sunday

Your Liberal Media Edition

Time Magazine 1994



RAAR! Awesomeness! They're just incredible! Painting! Crush! Little Donkey Dead Under Foot! RAAAAAAR! We can't to burtally attack Clinton and then barely criticize Bush!!!!!

Time Magazine 2006



Tea anyone? Crumpets anyone?

Oh, the center is the place to be? Thanks for the headline. That's why created this whole system where elected people can argue and find a middle ground. But I've been hearing for 12 years that the center is where nobody wants to be the RIGHT is where all of America is. It was more of a stampede from the awesome awesome guys of 1994, oh and it was AGAINST those 1994 lifesavers. Notate that, media.

Over at the brilliant and well-sourced Media Matters, Jameson Foster says The GOP gets a thumpin', and media revive their substance-free, sophomoric taunting ... of Democrats.

and finally Glenn Greenwald talks about those who were right about what would happen if we invaded Iraq, you know, those mercilessly taunted by the media at the time. How embarrasing would it be if anyone remembered how that acted.

Saturday Morning Cartoons

Who Loves David Fincher!

I DO! I DO!

Who wants to see The Zodiac trailer?

I DO! I DO!

You think about seeing celebrities a lot on L.A. and I've actually seen a few, hell I saw Josh Meyers the other night and he's so nice! But when I think about seeing celebrities in L.A., I seriously seriously seriously always think about seeing David Fincher. If I see someone in a car that looks a little like David Fincher I do a doubletake because it might be David Fincher.

I bet I see him someday soon, you want something enough, it usually happens...eventually.

Bag the lawn refuse, put the recyclables out by the curb, it's Short-Haired Chick Friday.

So Pink's hot. She's a lot of woman. Kind of got a bulldog face, but I can get over that. I think everyone can, I think everyone wants to do Pink, no matter what they say.



Nobody fails anymore, how's she still around? She's called Pink and she has pink hair. They wear their clothes backwards and they're called Kriss Kross, Get it?



This sort of gimmick is ordinarily a deathknell. But nobody fails anymore. The industry just puts out so much product that everyone's welcome. Charlie Sheen is tv's #1sitcom dad? Jon Cryer has a job? Whatever happened to fly-by-night stars?



Child stars like Elijah Wood are in movies that make a trillion dollars. He was the co-star of The Good Son with Macaulay Culkin, back when kids knew how to bring a career to a crashing halt and not continue with unprecedented success. Guess Corey Haim (John Ritter?) didn't makes the deadline, though obviously his Vampire nemesis from Lost Boys did, hell even Jason Patric is still around. (John Ritter?)



Shit, I'm almost 34 and I'm the only non-hispanic on this bus. There's something sad about riding three hours both ways to log footage of a bunch of 24 year-olds driving around in Audi's because I can't afford a car.



There would be something sad about it, if I weren't almost 34. I should be jealous of of these kids as I play God watching their every move, but I know better, and you know better. Who knew what the fuck we were doing when we were 24? Could you imagine having everything handed to you at 24? Let's see, how quickly can I piss this away and significantly hurt my chances of ever getting it again?



Gameshows are no replacement for earning something. But earning something takes so fucking long. Oh, I guess reality stars fail, that would be the exception to my above theory. Though it kind of depends on how you define success.



I found all the hot chicks in L.A. They're all at Jill Benjamin's show, Wizardfinger, a monologues, magic, music, and movement showcase that Jill puts on and invites other talents from L.A. to come and perform. Jill and Jason Winer had very funny monologues. Note to Brendan, never leave an audience wondering if your teacher fucked you. Don't get me wrong, it was funny, but audiences should charge performers $50 a quarter-hour to play therapist...er analyst...er analrapist



Got to run into Josh and Missy finally, hadn't seen them yet. Josh broke his leg doing something I didn't know existed, a Zipline Tour. Evidently in the canopies of the forests of many South American tourist spots they string up these zip lines and you just zip from vista to vista, and every once in a while they don't tie the carabiners properly. Yipes.



But Jill hauls in the hotties, everyone at Molly McMurphy's? Murphy McMollies? Pholly McMickmick's? was hot and writers or actors with some degree of success. One of Jill's friends writes for My Name Is Earl which I only mention because it makes my sister think I'm famous because that's her favorite show ever ever ever!



Oh, Jessie, while I'm at it, they have a Jay & Silent Bob's Secret Stash in Santa Monica, I ride past it every day. They have the trenchcoat and bat-cowl from Mallrats and Matt Damon's Armor from Dogma in glass cases. The Potzer's sign from Jay & Silent Bob Strike Back was above the counter which was manned by Steve-Dave. They were closed, I know because the sign on the door said "Beat it, brown-eye, we're closed."



And Robin Tunney? Don't know a thing about her, except she's from Chicago. South Side, represent! Hey that's a reference from earlier. This has been one circular Short-Haired Chick Friday.

A teeny post about big events

Big big big news

You don't know how relieved I was to check my email two days ago and get an email from Tommy Pritchard...from Fort Hood Texas. Safe and sound. Home from Iraq. Tommy in Iraq was just one of those thoughts that popped into my head once or twice a day. My friend, is home safe. Thank you, whatever you are.

Bud Cort Says Hi
I saw Mike and Charley last night. The producer and co-writer of the thriller movie based on the book, Blue World, respectively. The other writer is me, by the way. They're in town casting the movie. If they can put enough name names in it, they'll offset the risk enough for someone to write a check. They saw Bud Cort, and William Atherton, Dickless from Ghostbusters. By the way, cool thing about being in L.A., I'm standing outside Charley and Mike's hotel chatting and Peter Bogdanovich gets out of his car and walks past. The director of Paper Moon and Saint Jack.

I dub Stephen, King Geek
Everytime I got to Aint It Cool News, they always have some HOTASS AWESOME NEW IMAGE OF A TRANSFORMER...that's been removed...or they AN EXCLUSIVE IMAGE OF VENOM!!!...that's been removed by request of Sony Pictures. And everytime I see that, I can got over to Stephe's page here at Schadenfreude.net and see what was removed, and now matter how many times he's tried, he's never gotten a C&D. Well today he has put up something that, once again, AICN requested removed. And this one is truly hot. By the way, cool thing about being in L.A. You see those Venom effects. I know the guy who did them.

Stay Out of Malibu Lebowski!"

There's so much damn nature in L.A. and it's so unique for me. Mountains? What the fuck are those? Huge sprawling beaches that go for miles? Climbable rock formations? Canyons? Valleys? We drove through numerous Canyons to get to Malibu, which is all coastline, but there was a couple cool little towns in the Malibu Valley that were completely surrounded by mountains, I mean on all sides. We stopped for pizza in one of them and there's your standard strip-mall with your standard fat suburban woman in sweats, except she's living a mile from Malibu.

We drive down into Paradise Cove, home of Mel Gibson in Lethal Weapon and Jim Rockford. We grabbed a beer at this restaurant, your standard restaurant filled with non-spectacular people, I've seen more wealth at Wishbone on a Saturday morning. And then on their back porch it's a Corona commercial, 50 deck chairs in sand looking out into the ocean. To the right, about a mile down the beach you can see the land jut out to a thin 150 ft. precipice with a house on it. Johnny Carson's old house. When I was a kid I remember hearing about the poker parties Carson would throw every Saturday night with Chevy Chase and Steve Martin in attendance and want to be there so bad.. Wow. That took place right there.

All of this is far less interesting without pictures, but I'll have them soon.

Then we drove back up into the valley and around all those scenic two lane roads you see in all the movies, the ones built into the sides of mountains when I might've just been easier to go around.

We drove past Bob Dylan's place. It's a pretty nice house with 20 acres of rusted out cars, buses and dirt surrounding it.

Then we drove down into Point Dume, where they shot the ending to Planet of The Apes, the part where Charlton Heston finds the Statue of Liberty. I of course indulged to be the 10 Billionth person since 1969 to drop my knees and yell "Damn you! Damn you all to helllllll!" People stared, nobody thought it was clever or funny, but that's where they're wrong, because it wasn't about them.

You can climb over rock formations into little private beaches. Right under Mount Dume there's a thirty foot climb over some volcanic rock. and when you're at the top of that it's just you and Ocean, next stop, Japan. Pretty breathtaking stuff.

Total attractive girls seen in Malibu: 0. Yes it was a cold day, not a lot of people out. But I think the rumors of L.A. being packed with gorgeous and off-the-scale women is overblown. So far no rumor has been true, except the weather and the traffic. An L.A.-sian told me that it was because I'm in the wrong area, the attractive women all live in certain neighborhoods. Well that's EVERYWHERE! The Edgwater women aren't as attractive as the Lincoln Park/Wrigleyville/Bucktown/Wicker Park/Downtown/Evanston/Park Ri...everywhere but Edgewater. So why isn't the legend that Chicago women are unnaproachably beautiful? I swear I'd see more gorgeous women in a day in Chicago than I have in a month here. Very dissappointing.

On the way back there was a part of Malibu where clearly all the mult-millionaires lived, during a half-a-mile stretch of road, unique $30million houses were stacked three deep on the whole side of this hill. Amazing.

Then we stopped at Froggy's in Topanga Canyon, a little bar built out of a curve in the winding Canyon roads, great place, which was filled with average and ugly people.

Letting loose...finally.

Wow. One thing L.A. gets not credit for is how much and how close nature is, and how much variation there is to that nature. I spent the weekend with Ryan Anglin and a filmmaker friend of his from Indiana. I met Ryan when he performed in Kate, Sandy, and Justin's Level Five show at Second City (video coming soon). Ryan's a funny guy, and during Justin and I's single days we'd spend a lot of nights with Ryan who was a real force to be reckoned with, just a wild guy.

I remember leaving a party that me, Justin, Ryan, Sandy, Kate, and Hanner crashed, and Ryan driving with a full glass of tap beer in his lap in a convertable cranking "Sympathy For The Devil" at top volume through neighborhood streets. You know before I videotaped everything I tape-recorded everything. I'm pretty sure I have a recording of that night. We tried to listen to some of my cassette collection before I left, it's unlistenable. There's 90 interesting minutes in the 200 hours I have recorded, I'll have to have a crunch and digitize weekend someday. And it's probably only interesting to someone who might want to hear the rehearsals for Crazy Pants in 1993.

I do not have the standard story in L.A., everyone I meet is amazed that I moved here knowing twenty people. I've even met about ten or fifteen new people in my first month. That's not bad, but, you got to three different schools and you get that down. There's a few people in L.A. I have yet to connect with since I moved. Preston and I have talked fifteen times, and have yet to see each other. Preston's a friend of mine from Chicago, whom I met when he was performing with Lenhart and Andy Eninger in the first iteration of Chicago Comedy Company, back before I knew what a Fuzzy or a Sean was.

But I was glad Ryan and I waited so long because I happened to catch him on a weekend where he was taking a friend in from out of town to see all the sights. I'm a friend from out of town, but I doubt I'd have gotten that treatment on my own. When I moved here, Justin, Charley, and a few other people only gave me one edict, "party your ass off." I'm not sure why that was the request, but I was too nervous to party my ass off until I felt some security. Well, I've got work for two months at least and I'm afraid to say that is the L.A. definition of security. So it felt good to go drink in Hollywood with Ryan and a whole crew. Hollywood's a great place to drink. The bar scene in Hollywood is like drinking in Bucktown/Wicker Park.

Mini-Review:
Tiny Lounge - Delilah's with actual junkies instead of wannabe's.

Burgundy Room - Pitch black. The whole room is only lit with a series of red table candles. Black. Seems like a divey bar that hipper folk can buy into. Kind of an L&L-type bar.

The Velvet Maragarita - The bar that looks like it should have a list and you shouldn't be on it, and yet, there's always room. But I don't know if I like the peeps at the VM. Actually I didn't like the peeps at really any of them. I guess that's the goal. Find a bar with peeps. The best thing about __________ is that it was a great bar with great peeps. It'll take a while to find that.

But I finally let loose, which was weird, because I'm a pretty loose guy and when I'm comfortable I'm really me. So...I haven't been me for like six months, so Saturday night I felt like I'd woken from a coma. I was just relaxing having a beer, and all of a sudden I was like..."where the fuck am I?" It was werid. "Seriously, where the fuck am I...did I move to L.A.?...did I spend the summer working the lottery booth at the state fair?"

The next morning we went to Malibu, which goes back to my initial point, Los Angeles is underrated for it's nature. Let's see if Ryan's buddy sends me some pictures and I'll post about Malibu tomorrow.

Stay Out of Malibu Lebowski!"

I've got reality TV to make happen. Oh, and I now love reality tv, I don't know if I could see myself watching it, but from behind the scenes, it could be the defining art of the 21st century and that's a good thing, and the best thing about it, once again, Warhol did it first.

See you tomorrow.

Happy Veteran's Day

Here's some messages from the troops in Iraq. Why are they standing in front of a replica of the World Trade Center?



The past is whatever the party chooses to make it.
-Orwell, 1984

Just when you thought it was safe to grow your hair long.

IT'S SHORT-HAIRED CHICK MOTHERFUCKING FRIDAY!!!!!!!!!!

So Don, you can stop cursing my name. I know you were al thinking, "oh, Adam's got another new job, another three-hour bus commute, there's no way he's going to get up a short-haired chick Friday." Well that's where you're wrong...Don. Sure, I don't have a lot of time as I've got three buses to catch so I can log footage of actresses doing take after take after take after take after take of something that "just happened." But that doesn't mean I can't deliver not only a hot-ass, kick-your-ass short-haired chick but reams and reams of my usual snappy prose in my observational whipsmart style.



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And you thought I wouldn't have time.