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.