LA Faker

2008-07-22T14:14:00.000-07:00

FINALLY I’m back in the good ol United Kingdom, ruled by an old German woman in Buckingham Palace and an un-elected Scot in Westminster. The talk is of a dark bat that casts a dark shadow over all shielded under it. Bale is out on bail after lashing out on his mom, the young Ledger has been taken from us in his last major role, bar The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus. The film is due for release in 2009, Depp and Jude Law portray the Ledger character, as he died mid production. The premise - In the present day, immortal 1,000-year-old Doctor Parnassus (Plummer) leads a traveling theater troupe that offers audience members a chance to go beyond reality through a magical mirror in his possession. The premise reminds me of my past 6 months in Los Angeles, a magical mirror to explore ones imagination. Is it a real place, does is it exist. Why do I find it so hard to describe that city to my friends and family when they ask me, ‘ How was Hollywood?’ Rain and the moody gloom of a London underground is as good a antidote to the hall of mirrors that is California. The Imaginarium capital of the world, Los Angeles. Will I go back, what do I do now? A question that needs an answer , but a question that cannot be answered easily. For now, I’m happy to enjoy London, as I adjust my eyes to reality….

17th Week

2008-05-09T23:05:00.000-07:00

May has come around and

the Block Busters are here and I find my ass still in Los Angeles....

A couple of days spent in Guatemala in April to top up my 90 day US Visa, has meant that I haven't left the American Continent since Jan 10.

My memory of arriving here has become faint, I even called LA home the other day, on the phone to loved ones back home.

Homesick?? I haven't got time to get homesick!

Since my last blog entry I've secured paid work from someone connected to someone very famous and an organisation with lots of famous people, oh not selling any scripts, reading them.....

The Script Reader is a strange animal, rather like a sports coach, your on the field but your not ON the field. Culled from interns, out of work screenwriters, Grad trainees and Juniors, and of course screenwriter wannabees - They act as gate keepers across Hollywood, their job to weed out the very people often just like them.

It's surreal reading through the script of someone, the days, hours, na, sometimes years spent ignoring family and friends to knock it out, and now it's been delivered to me. I have the power to lavish it with praise and pass it up the food chain, or to kill it in it''s first gentle steps into the harsh cruel world.

At time of writing, of the 6 scripts I have read, only 1 has received the thumbs up from me, the other 5 I strangled.

I have blood on my hands, dreams squashed on the bottom of my shoe.

The reader job was taken primarily to help me improve as a writer and get a bit of cash, but is this a moral way to make money?

Although I've only praised 1 out 6 scripts I've read, I find myself rooting for each script I read, I want to love it. Speaking to a reader friend of mine, I discover she's the same, we want these people to be good, we want to discover them. Like me, my reader friend is a screenwriter wannabee, we want to learn from good scripts, but so often I'm seeing bad scripts or not so bad scripts. It's all an education.

I forget....

2008-03-30T02:57:00.000-07:00

For the first time in nearly 3 months I've finally left LA !!!

A drive in a mustang, roof down to San Diego. Driving along the 101, we pass thru small 'towns' where one can always find one of 3 things:

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An old dude on a Harley

A Surf shop

Somewhere to do Yoga.

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I've finally encountered the California of the imagined, miles of sleepy golden beaches, surfing and like chilling dude.

San Diego was like Los Angeles without the attitude, or the bullshit, I made a vow to go again!

Yesterday I was watching Entourage, the final episode of the previous season, HBO is racking them up again in prep for the new season.

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I only bring this up as after my San Diego jaunt, my friend tells me he pick me up in an hour in the mustang convertible, we arrived back in LA at 9 and we both needed to chill for an hour before drinking.

I barely have time to have a cup of tea and read emails before I'm leaving my apartment and making the 1 min walk to Hollywood Blvd.

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Now I know I complain a lot about how hectic it is where I live, and I know I have no-one to blame but myself for going there, but as I waited on the corner of Hollywood and Cherokee, I'm spotted by a local street punk who knows me, we chat and thankfully he moves on, as Limos and Porsche's pull up looking for a valet for the numerous clubs that surround my apartment like marauding zombies...

A group of excited kids from the suburbs approach me and ask me to take their picture outside the club at the top of my street, owned by Mr Demi Moore, which I do, they ask for another which I do, then they go wild as a celeb pulls up at the club in a limo, a celeb I don't recognise and looks around 15 years younger than me.

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In the midst of the frenzy, a Mustang pulls up, roof down and I join a blond actress, my friend the writer, and a singer who works with Grammy winning producer. The kids who got me to take their picture take a shot of me jumping in the Mustang, they love it, it's so Hollywood!

Me and the actress are in the back, her hair flowing, as we cruise Hollywood and then we hit Sunset. As we drive, people stare, are they famous? The actress is beautiful, my friend is good looking and the singer looks...like a singer.

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I feel like I'm in an episode of Entourage as the girl puts her hands in the air to feel the wind and speed thru the neon lights of the Sunset strip towards a drinking hole, a long night ahead.

Yeah, it was good to get out of LA, even if it was for only a few hours, but once your back in Los Angeles, it has a habit of reminding you why you came here in the first place...the living breathing movie set.

Week 10 or something

2008-03-16T00:20:00.000-07:00

Well it's been a while since I blogged so it's up with fingers. A quick update, went to my first mechanical bull bar, complete with cowgirls and hard drinking guys who looked like Jon Bovi, circa Ally McBeal. ---------------------------------------- I also met an Oscar nominated actress at a press junket I attended a few days ago in Beverly Hills, I'm sure a bunch of other stuff happened, but I'm too cool to type it up all here. ----------------------------------------- Living out here now for a considerable length of time, to me anyways, my memories of London have become less and less and defined. Images that were like fresh paint, complete with smells, voices and feeling, have been reduced to just there bare bones, a feeling, nothing more than a hunch that such and such street was really like that, strolling in so and so park really felt like that. Memory is an odd, awkward friend, it's even started to play tricks on me here. ------------------------------------------------------------------- When I leave my Hollywood apartment block, it feels normal, Hollywood Blvd, feels every day, the golden stars stamped into the pavements as familiar as the cracks in the road of my local street in London, except now those cracks are buried, no longer visible, or with form. They've been replaced with seeing Hendrix, Walt Disney. -------------------------------------------------------------- Sunset Blvd has become an old friend, I know what's round the corner as the No2 Bus to PCH lurches round a bend, I have friends who call me for a beer, a landline phone, the Los Angeles Times cold call me to subscribe, I receive mail and even have a US dollar bank account. ------------------------------------------------------------- I've walked along the beach and watched the sun set and seen drug deals go down in a cut off car park in Hollywood, been lost in the night in Chinatown, walked up the wrong direction of Hollywood Blvd at 3 in the morning, drunk. I've had cocktail waitresses fuss over in expensive hotels in Santa Monica and Beverly Hills and bought a bartender named Joe a drink, who just found out his girlfriend is pregnant in a dark, old Hollywood dive bar. ----------------------------------- I have memories of this city that has had longer than any other place apart from London and my University town have had to etch images into my head. I feel I know Los Angeles. I know I don't, that the man who says he knows any city is a liar, but feel I know this city of Angles, yes. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- You only really know your in the desert, that at heart, this is still America's last frontier. Unlike New York, that is aged and learned, this is a frontier town, the desert to it's north, the mighty Pacific to it's back, a bottle neck of people coming in, trying to get out. You realise no-one lives here, there all trying to find Gold.

The most pretentious phone call in Hollywood

2008-02-25T02:08:00.000-08:00

Week 7......

OK, it’s the Oscars, it’s only 5 minutes from my place, so my friend and I zig zag thru the tourists, beggars and hustlers and what feels like every Cop in LA County; to see the stars.

____________________________ I had my doubts; my own street has been blocked off, Hollywood Blvd, closed to traffic, except Cop bikes, Cop cars and Cops on foot.

___________________________ But, one never knows when I’ll next be here in Oscar season, so we make the effort and take root by a barrier near the red carpet. To my left, a Norwegian family, to my right Latino Americans, all eyes on the constant stream of black limos.

____________________________________________________________________ Occasionally we see a white limo, sometimes an expensive German car, a caddy, but today it’s like coming out day for the limousine.

________________________________________________________ Not far from me, near the guys holding up placards for the extreme Christians, condemning Hollywood, Homosexuals, and…I had stop reading them at that point, a group of guys from Texas are giving loud commentary on the stars that allow us to see them, by winding down their limo windows. ____________________________________________________

The crowd goes wild and I look up and Harrison Ford is staring straight back at me. The coolest guy in Star Wars, Indy himself, Blade F**cking Runner, is staring back at me. ____________________________________

The cool guy from London, in an instant, has vanished; he’s replaced by an idiot tourist, with his point and shoot, snapping away like a manic madman. __________________________________________________

This is a zombie movie, sane normal people are turning into the celeb worshipping undead, and it’s contagious. Kids from East LA, kids from Compton, kids from Norway and Japan, all united in watering at the mouth at the movie stars in spitting distance. ________________________________________________

Tilda Swinton cruises past and I wish her luck for the Oscars. _________________________________________________

A couple of hours later, I’m in a bar on Hollywood, watching her go goo goo collecting her Oscar, later I see Mr Ford hand an Oscar to Diablo Cody for Juno, something I predicted on this very blog, it’s all so bizarre. ___________________________________________

But perhaps the most bizarre is a telephone call I receive as I’m watching the biggest show on Earth that rainy afternoon. _________________________________

The director I’m working for a project, with me writing the screenplay, calls me to discuss a few things. ____________________________________

Now I hate loud pretentious phone calls, but this one goes something like,..................Yeah, so you’re talking to a producer now? Yeah, this movie is going to be great, Yeah, I’m doing a workshop with a guy who worked on the development of Zodiac next month, about adapting for the screen, I forget his name, Yeah I watched the trailer you put together. _____________________________________________________

It’s only after I put my mobile away that I notice a whole section of the crowd is looking at me with a united look.

I must have sounded like such a prick. _____________________________________

Late that night; I’m with my friend and a pal from my course in a dark dive bar. A drunk seasoned actor is telling us all about a project he’s working on, he name drops the people he’s worked with, he does it with such un self conscious zeal, we are all swept up in his pitch.

This is LA and its flavor tastes like bullshit anywhere else on the planet, it just tastes so good out here.

Sunday 10th Feb, Week 5

2008-02-10T19:10:00.000-08:00

Sat night in Los Angeles, I'm hanging having a cigarette outside the Beauty Bar. A guy who's drinking in the Tokio Bar next door, is pitching me his movie idea, he needs a screenwriter for his project. --------------------------------- I've been in LA for over 4 weeks and it's been a heavy few weeks. ------------- Last weekend the magazine I intern for, send me on my first Press Junket sponsored by Touchstone pictures! Free film ticket, free pass for popcorn and a drink, how can I write them a bad review? The press pack I'm given at the cinema, a short walk from my studio, contains the plans for the press interviews to be held in Beverly Hills the following day. How exciting. This being my first press junket, I'm freaked to see the Director of the film give a speech to the audience, sipping on their free cokes and munching their free food. ------------------------------------------- Luckily, the film is good, but I can't help feeling, I'm being too nice, because I've been treated so damn nice by Touchstone! I get a little star struck watching the film, crossing off the actors sitting around the front rows. The strangest trip to the movies I've ever taken. -------------------------------------------- Less than a week later, I'm at home with my first real guests. A friend is over from London, crashing at my place, so I invite a friend over who lives in my artsy Hollywood apartment building. My neighbour is a record producer and he arrives with one of his artists, we all discuss the merits of living in London. The producer is a Californian and the rapper from Chicago. In the middle of all this, my friend from London sits on the futon, the two Americans are struggling to understand his Brummie accent. I can tell my friend is finding this all overwhelming, welcome to LA, pal. ------------------------------------- It's my friends first Saturday in LA, but he's still suffering culture shock and heat shock, only a few days fresh from sub zero England. This being Hollywood, we can take a walking tour of Hollywood's bars. It's been a tough week at school and on Friday I lost something very dear to me from home. I wanted to drown my sorrows. First stop, Broadner's, a Hollywood Dive Bar legend of old. Cool music plays in the hushed lights, this has a neighbourhood bar feel. Our drinks angel tells us how to get to a few more local pubs, we down our third round and head out. ------------------- We didn't know what to expect from the Beauty Bar, we walk in to find exactly what it says on the tin, a beauty bar. Women lounge and get their nails done; this is a salon with a bar! It has a Doris Day feel and although it worries us we're the only guys in the place, it soon balances out. My English friend is still freaked, I leave him at the bar to go outside for a smoke, I promise I'll be back in five.... ------------- N. Cahuenga Blvd is alive with LA hipsters, posers and the usual actors of the homeless. A guy who turns up to be a director bums a light from me and pitches me his project, I'm hooked. In a Los Angeles minute, we're swapping numbers, I want to write the screenplay, have a look at his beat outline. ---------------- Back in the Beauty Bar, 30 minutes later, I find my friend, a latino guy is buying him a drink, he thinks his accent is hilarous. It's gone midnight when my friend and I pile into a blue and white cab, onto our next lounge bar a few blocks away. No-one walks in LA, especially after downing a a few Blue Rinses(blue-raspberry vodka, sweet and sour, Chambord. ----------------------------------------------- In the afternoon my friends snoring on the futon wakes me from my bed. Having a friend crash on your futon is fine, but it's pretty shit when one has to sleep in the same room. I'm counting down the days until I have my peace back. In LA you need peace in your home. -------------------- As if to prove it, we go for brunch, or is that luinner( it's 3pm) we head to Wilcox and Sunset and chill at a trendy coffee spot. Our peace is shattered when a small army of protesters gather, a rally against Tom Cruise and Scientology. The masked protestors hold up placards, some which read 'Honk if you don't like Tom Cruise'. Hollywood traffic honks it approval on a lazy Sunday afternoon on Sunset.

Fake Hollywood

2008-02-01T01:59:00.000-08:00

Today we spend most of the lesson in the TV unit of my course at UCLA, discussing the new Terminator TV series. Our assignment was to read the script for the pilot episode, today we break it down and compare it with screenings from the pilot broadcast a couple of weeks ago.

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As I watch in the darkened classroom, I'm a little down. The script and show got savaged by a few students. As my WGA striking TV writer teacher, has worked on Star Trek and Charmed; I was hoping for a Terminator love fest, but the guy was being a pro and showed us exactly what worked and what didn't. I got the impression my teacher loved the show, but was trying to remain objective.

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As a fan, I don't have that burden. The script was perfect, the show better, but then I'm a Terminator geek, I even loved the third film, easily the weakest.

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Sharing the long bus road home through the silent sterility of Beverly Hills with a classmate, who has the unfortunate fortune to also live in Hollywood - A discussion on pilot ideas and the differences between European and American TV shows. My classmate has worked as an assistant Director and is in 'The Biz', so I leave most the talking to him.

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My classmate lives nearer to Hollywood and Vine, so I say goodbye at Cherokee. It's been a week since I moved to Hollywood, just off the Walk of Fame. I don't miss my time over in Westwood. Making my way homebound from the bus stop, in the five minutes it takes to walk, I pass around 4 night spots.

Thin girls in thin clothing click clack across roads and scream at each other. Bouncers and valets are stony faced, frat boys gelled and trying to look older than 18. Black and White Cop cars prowl around the grid, never looking like they want to leave their cars, tourists, much like the real ones lost in the middle of this - Los Angeles pretending to be a city.

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Hollywood is the closest this city gets to a London, New York, Paris, Helsinki, Tokyo type of thang. Downtown has the skyscrapers, but that just feels like any financial centre.

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At the top of my street, a hot new Hollywood spot funded by hot Hollywood A-Listers is drawing a crowd. There's that LA orginality of the Limo traffic jam. I have to pass the side street entrance to the Hollywood Blvd hot spot to get home, naviagte the red rope, the valet, the bouncers and shop window blondes.

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It amuses me how the door staff all look up at me as I approach them with much confidence, then they slowly work out, no, I'm not here to pretend I'm on the C list of the clipboard in your glove, I'm going home.

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The Terminator discussion gets me thinking, now I'm writing for a couple of magazines, an interview with the new breed of Terminator, Summer Glau , the star of the new series.

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So who do I contact, go through official, Fox, Agents, Management Companies? That's only gonna work with the authority of the magazines. I forget about the idea and chat on Facebook.

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Then I decide to search Terminator ( Summer Glau) and I find her. For fun I search other celebrities and there seems to be a pattern of Celebrity and Facebook.

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Typically your average actor, musician, person who get interviewed, will have an official fan site, another profile that appears to be the 'real' celeb, whether they mantain the profile or have 'people' to do that for them.

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But the most interesting profiles are the pretend celeb profiles. It has their name, it even has a picture sometimes and a fair amount of friends. You can tell the fake ones, as they'll have a 20 friends compared to the 'real' one with a few thousand.

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But how do we know if the real one is a real one? With the A listers, the ones that have a decade or more of the limelight, it's a dead give away by the sheer numbers. Surely Madonna would say something about someone performing a form of identity theft in Myspace, or wherever, especially if thousands of people were worshiping that thief.

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What about the minor celebs, a couple of TV shows, nothing huge? The ones who's most popular profiles never outnumber a few hundred?

Let's take Zachary Levi, star of NBC show, 'Chuck'. The show is relatively popular in the U.S. It's come up more than once in my TV class, it's made by Mr O.C, Josh Schwartz.

When I was last in Finland, I saw two people fight over a DVD for a particular season editon of the O.C, that show was huge!

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Anyway, I find the star of the show on Facebook, it has his picutre, lives in LA, but he only has 210 friends. But the pic is definetly him.

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But wait, I find another one, he lives in Los Angeles too, and he has 585 friends, remember there are other Zachary Levi's amongst these two, but I'm going by the ones with a pic. Zachary Levi version 2 pic is off focus, it's hard to tell if it's him or not. Could Zachary 1 ( 210 friends) be a faker? Or, just like Hollywood, the real faker be ironically Zachary 2 with double the amount of mates?

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There are a couple that could be him, (obscure pics of objects) some of which have level of friends that hover around the other two Zachary's. I'm skipping through pages of Zachary's like the guy has clones.

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Only one of these profiles can be Zachary.

I pick a random Terminator profile and send a message, 'Hi Summer, I'm an entertainment writer at...........'

Press send.

But what if this fake Summer writes back, agrees to do an email interview. I could be feeding the ego of a 49 year old Swedish business man that fantasises about being an American girl who plays a robot in a new TV show......

Just another typical week in LA

2008-01-26T00:17:00.000-08:00

It's Friday night, I'm in LA so what am I doing?

I'm watching Southend on cable of course!! What a country!

My week started strongly. An old University friend, who emigrated to New York some time ago contacts me on Facebook.

He's in LA for the weekend, meeting the Girlfriends parents. After a round of doing Meet the Parents, I met my old friend rather aptly in the British Pub over in Santa Monica.

Further, this meeting of two old dogged hard drinking Brits brought LA a 'nippy' shower.

Sitting in the pub, a waitress chirpy from Blackpool, Brits to our right and left and pissing it outside, for the first time in weeks, I'm back home!!

To stop this slide into jingo-ism, we head back for drinks in my friends swanky hotel on the beach.

This is what LA does best and even the sun makes an appearance on que.

The hotel bar has swimming pools, small perfect sized pools can be gazed upon from your cushioned tent. The tall LA girl cocktail waitress only too pleased to serve. In an outside booth, curtains drawn, LA people whisk trimmed dogs in and out. We can only guess what's going on in there.

Now in LA mode, we take a hotel Merc down to Venice for some serious chilling.

This is Camden by the sea, I'm thinking, as a skinny good looking kid holds up a sign to me on the beach, 'Money needed for weed'.

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A flurry of applictions to write for e-magazines has started to pay off. A magazine, hot celeb news, is willing to give me a go. 2 in fact.

One of them is right up my street, submit movie reviews, deadline Thursday.

First assignment from the other, to interview a young all girl band that are all over the media!

I point out to the Editor I've never done an interview before and my speculative letter was begging to do Movie and TV review.

Well the girl band are involved with TV, so it's a legit assignment, I get to it.

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I'm listening to their music, trawling the internet, my Editor wants JUICE, and I don't want to blow this!!

The day of the interview comes just as I'm moving into my new studio in Hollywood. It has no furniture. I balance dashing to the Futon Shop and K Mart for Futon and bedding to tapping away on my Blackberry, trying to hone down that killer question.

I run my questions over with my Ed, she's happy, call the girl band media guy were all set!

So it's now Friday, I've survived the interview and sipping a beer watching Fox football and feeling good about myself.

Just another week in LA.

Just popping Downtown.

2008-01-20T01:36:00.000-08:00

When I told a new friend I was going Downtown, his face dropped, it was just coming up to rush hour and I'm in Westwood. The blue and white cab was friendly and in good spirits when I got in, when I told him to take me to China Town, his face dropped. He tried to talk me out of it, like Cops try to talk down a crazed man with a .45 in his trembling hand. But I insist. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------- After about an hour or so, I had seen my 100th Banksy like Rambo poster flash by. I was back in London when the media back there reported Banksy, the infamous English street artist, was holding an exhibition in LA. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/5344676.stm Banksy, long after he's/she has gone will be written by Art Historians that his/hers favourite canvas was Hackney, in London's east end. Banksy's street art work, Hackney's very own private collection everywhere; as we come and go to work, shopping, eating out or just for a local walk. Banksy's 'real' exhibition was held in Downtown LA , I remember watching back in rainy grey London, thinking how warm and glamorous it all seemed. Oh, and thinking the live elephant in one of the pieces, made me think of that other movie powerhouse, Bollywood. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- It was bright and sunny when I stepped into the cab, now it was dark -as was the mood in the cab. The cabbie was close to tears, phone calls were made home, in a language I was guessing East European, but sat in the back of the cab, I was losing the will to live, so it's difficult to call. The Cabbie tried every short cut, secret route only known to him, something he'd take to his grave. But his secret box of Cabbie tricks just led us to one sea of red tail lights to another. -------------------------------------------------------- Chinatown actually reminded me of the weeks I spent in China last summer. Children and the very old hanging in the streets, shops well stocked and that particular Chinese laid back buzz that's everywhere in China. Anyone who's been will know exactly what I'm talking about. The very next day (we are practically in Chinese New Year Eve, n'all) I was curious how long it would take to head to Downtown again, from Westwood - using the MTA combo of bus number 2, the Red line Subway and Gold line Subway. ---------------------------------------------------------- Getting the bus to Hollywood would of been a breeze until Whhaaammmm! Someone or something pulls out in front of the bus , we brake! Anyone standing becomes a rag doll, a woman is down. A good guy steps forward and talks to her, she's delirious, took a bump on her head as she fell. Another woman takes off her coat, supports her head, everyone is concerned and suddenly my public transport trip to Downtown doesn't seem as important. 10 minutes or so later I'm in the sunny street and watching red emergency automobiles scream towards the bus. I look up and see a helicopter fly by. Any minute I'm expecting a cyborg sent from the future to start killing everybody! But it doesn't, the woman is OK. Most of the passengers get on another bus that turns up. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ LA's subway is cool! It's easy to use, fast, impossible to get lost, but staring at the map I realise this isn't a real subway, Tokyo, that's a real subway, St Petersburg in Russia has one too. Like London, LA's subway cannot get you from one side of the city to the other in any direction. (London's subway is an ancient dying machine that no longer understands English) But LA's Metro has a lot going for it, it looks good for one! Especially the Gold Line, that ships you all the way to Pasadena! ----------------------------------------------- Bus crash and subway, give me that any day over LA traffic.

Just going down the road....

2008-01-16T18:38:00.000-08:00

Armed with my NFT guide to LA, I checked out the locale, Map 20 - Westwood. --------------------------------------------- The screenwriter teaching me on one of my courses was banging on about Juno, I heard a lot about the film and Diablo Cody has become a bit of a legend amongst writers (wannabee writers especially) as it's her first screenplay and she's getting nominated for everything Globes, probably the Oscar too! She's a damn good writer, check out her column in EW. Also there's an ex stripper on my course (Like Mz Cody's an ex stripper) who brought up Juno on Monday's class; so today on my day off, it seemed like a good idea to go check it out. -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

This being LA, your about as far from a movie house in any one place as you are from a rat in London. (Real close) I chose The Landmark at Westwood and W Pico, it didn't look that far on the map from my Westwood village base camp, so in the soaring LA sun, I set off - I put my left foot forward and began walking. I walked and I walked and then I walked some more. Before I even got to Santa Monica Blvd, I was fucking close to collapsing on all fours, no water, and I had no cash, only my credit card.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I'd pass those Coffee Bean and Tea cafes, appearing like mirages in the desert, but it felt like cheating to stop, I would rest when I got to the movie theatre. Besides, how was this Alien meant to know you could buy coffee on your Visa card, no-one buys coffee with their Visa card in England, no-one buys anything for a couple of quid in England using their Visa card, it seems way too complicated and why risk identify fraud for a cup of cha? Water would be good, but I keep going, I must get W.Pico soon, I think, I pray. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I'm walking forever along a low hell of a road, a desert hell of architecture, well crawling along Westwood, it seemed like that to me. I was getting freaked, on the map it looks close, yet I felt like I was walking for days, I expected to hit Mexican customs anytime soon.

Why the hell did I leave the map back in the hotel?? Had I totally mis-read my trusted Not For Tourists guide to LA and right now, was I heading into some gang land hell hole? The sun rolled up its sleeves, this is Death Valley in a heatwave!

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I crawled over Missouri Av, I asked some guy where W Pico was and he didn't understand my cockney accent, I kept heading south. Finally I gave in, I found a Diner, old school, the type of Diner English people think of when you say LA diner to them. The waitress kept giving me water, she knew I needed it. Where's W.Pico? Oh that's the just the next road ahead! ------------------------------------------------------- For the first time I appreciate the air conditioned sterility of the monolithic mall. Juno is a great film, a film that makes you like characters who you shouldn't like, ( Juno is a loud mouth, smart ass kid, who we fall in love with by the end of the film, the perfect yuppie wannabee parents we think we'd hate, we love by the end of the film) the best type of films and the best actors can have that power. I can't pull it up on anything, water tight, casting just right. Check this: http://content.foxsearchlight.com/videos/node/2450 Anyway, apart from learning Cody has written a brilliant film, today I understood why no -one walks in Los Angeles......

Just one big freeway....

2008-01-12T21:30:00.000-08:00

2 days in Los Angeles and despite the fact I'm probably still suffering from jet lag and despite the fact I have a cold from the germ breeding ground of the 10 hour plus Virgin Atlantic flight, I think I'm beginning to understand this city....

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Westwood.

If Fulham was ever transported to a tropical paradise, I think Westwood would look very much like that new creation.

Still it feels good to finally make it to Hollywood, La La Land, L fucking A!

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You see I'm a LA Faker, one of those non-Americans who always dreamed in California vision.

It's not hard to uncover what brings these types into being, a steady diet of US TV, the sunshine, the beautiful people, the money, the status of actors and actresses and all those around them.

But this is nothing that others are not exposed to, yet they do not leave their loved ones, hop on a plane and head to the city of Angels.

The majority of Brits, Italians, Finns, happily stay at home and live their lives.

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Right now I'm thinking of heading to Denny's for a burger and fries. The amazement of my first meal still glows and gnaws for more, all for less than ten dollars, it just doesn't seem right. But so many things I've seen in only 2 days, just don't seem right.

The movie theaters don't seem right. Growing up in the UK, I have grown to love my small movie houses, a larg-ish screen and overpriced ticket prices.

Then I went to my first movie theatre in LA.

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The cavernous theatre took my breath away, the sound scared me, the screen was an ocean, the seats better than in any English home.

Tomorrow is the first day of my flat hunt, K-Town, Hollywood, again this is early 2008 and the rental prices blow me away!

For the price of a tower block studio in a knife wielding sink estate in Newham, I can live in fucking Hollywood!! How can this be!?

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But wait a minute, I haven't seen the 'single' apartment yet and I've been chilling in Westwood...

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KOREA TOWN to HOLLYWOOD

Sunday is a good day for flat hunting ( apartment hunting) well to be precise, Singles/Studio hunting.

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First stop Korea Town.

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Now I heard K-Town is the next big thing 'Hood' wise in LA and when I get to the 'open house' viewing, I tick off all the things I associate with up and coming:

Mattress left in the street - TICK

Shops with Non English hoardings - TICK

Graffiti - TICK

Skinny white kids in cool clothes who's parents probably could buy up the whole street, but hey there keeping it real with the 'people' - TICK

I was reminded of the East Village - New York/ which in turn reminded me of home,

Haggerston - London.

Even 5 years ago, I would of jumped at the chance to live here; edgy, boho, cheap, all the right ingredients I loved when I was in my 20's, but I'm well in my 30's now.

Now I need my calm, now I need smooth.

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Next stop Hollywood, tomorrow the world! No, Hollywood.

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The single was in hip building a stones throw from the tourist traps of central Hollywood. While my neighbours in K Town were mellow looking Mexicans, this place had a few extras from day time TV and was charging 350 Dollars more to boot.

I took a cab ride back to Westwood to think things over, the driver was happy to show the highlights of LA as we cruised past the Viper room and wound our way through Beverly Hills, descending past the mini town of UCLA, home for my certificate in Feature Film writing.

K-Town or Hollywood? Hollywood or K-Town.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Later that afternoon I took my first real bus ride, one long ride down Wiltshire to the beach at Santa Monica, saw the Pacific for the first time from the western side, having seen this shining sea from the Japan last year.

I say the bus ride was 'long' but it took no time at all. Santa Monica is a magical place, the sea shimmers in the sun, even in this heat and it being a weekend, it wasn't too packed with people neither.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- When I got 'home' I realised it didn't really matter where I lived in LA, not when I could always pay a Dollar and twenty five cents and come and dream by the sea.