A friend woke me up at a godawful hour of 10am so we could get breakfast on this, my last day of freedom before returning to the soul-destroying experience that is my corporate entertainment design packaging dayjob. Somehow in the nearly 2 years that I’ve been stranded here in L.A. I hadn’t made it out to any of the fine Denny’s establishments in the area. Maybe it’s because at 3am there is still so much great street meat, burrito stands and Fred 62 around. But fuck it, it’s breakfast, let’s hit the Denny’s at Sunset and Gower in the *cough* Gower Gulch. A stripmall which resembles half of the mainstreet in an 1800’s frontier town. Am I back in the midwest? No, I can still see the arclight, it must be some sort of time-space bubble?
So i’ve been busy doing something close to nothing lately. I’ve had plenty of time to spew leftist rhetoric on facebook apparently but not much time to write about anything interesting or review any shows lately. But I have some new stuff coming up! Unfortunately my camera has truly, truly taken a dirtnap despite my successful Dr. Frankensteining of a 5 Megapixel Lens on a 6 Megapixel Camera, the second lens has finally given out. Crap Casios Anyway. So i’ll be releasing some old posts into the world that I never thought would see daylight.
One thing I have been doing is trying to keep up with the guys on DeadLantern.com’s Splattercast. They’ve built a pretty good rapport over their 97 episodes of horror soaked podcasty goodness but the last couple mondays I have joined the gents in review of movies such as The Darkman Trilogy and a smattering of Werewolf films (including Teen Wolf). I’ve forgotten how to talk to human beings and only add occasional murmurs to the cast, but they figure I must have some Hollywood insight. Like, “Hey, Rose McGowan passed me on the stairs at the arclight last tuesday! Her skin looked like dead peoples skin, but in the sexy marble statue kind of way” (That really happened). Next week they will be reviewing classic horror films, tune in if you dare. Unfortunately I will probably be seeing Does It Offend You, Yeah? at the Trubadour next Monday the 22nd (hooray for label guestlists!). But coming up will be a theme episode of my choice involving horror movies about the dangers of technology and such! Yay Robot Apocalypse!
I live in film heaven. Tonight I went to a screening of Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey in its original Super Panavision 70mm size with 6 channel magnetic sound. This was its optimal CINERAMA form when released in 1968 but I found the sound a bit static-y in the first hour (could just be something wrong with the 8 year old print or that we are spoiled by DTS/THX). I’d only seen this film in large chunks between the ages of 10 and 19 because, even at 10, adults program you to love films like this because they know that you will appreciate them when you are of an age to understand the craft and talent behind such a succesful undertaking. I fully realize that part of my adulthood has been achieved by the complete viewing in this format, its propagation I now bequeath unto you.
I met Danger Mouse yesterday in the Beverly Center (which is this total asshole mall that I only went to because they have an H&M). I was just minding my own business looking for a jacket and I saw him hanging out by one of those benches in the middle of the mall. I was just walking along and saw him and as I was debating whether it was him or not my path just gravitated towards him. I leaned in and said, “Are you Danger Mouse?” and he said with a slight British accent, “Yeah sometimes, man”. I didn’t really have anything to say to him (because Cee-lo is the shit) so I asked if I could get a picture with him and he said, “Sorry, I don’t really do that.” “Um, Ok, Well I think you are doing really good work man, keep it up.” and he said some form of thanks and I kept on my mission.
So this is really only the 2nd time I’ve been turned down for a photo*. At first I was kinda miffed, but then I remembered that I’ve never paid for any of his albums. I got DangerDoom free for working for [adult swim] and I downloaded the first Gnarls Barkley because it wasn’t going to be released in America for another month or so and I haven’t gotten the new one yet. So I guess we are even. But I bet Cee-lo would have taken a fucking rad photo with me!
I passed him a couple more times on my way around the mall and as I was waiting for the elevator I sniped him from far away just because I needed to prove to YOU that it really happened. I found out today that he isn’t even British! But only lived there a while. What kind of Madonna bullshit is that? Well he is still talented and I got to shake his hand. I never did buy a jacket though.
*The Yeah Yeah Yeahs are pretentious hipsters. I actually bought their album and paid for my ticket to see them at Sokol. As if you don’t have time for 1 fucking photo? Well then I don’t have time to care about your band anymore.
Perhaps the only shameful thing about this encounter is that when explaining it to people who I met I have to actually act it out. But I think my Eagle Eye was out considering I wasn’t even thinking when I asked the guy if he was in fact the lad from this commercial. But then again, who else could it be?
I was just picking meeting a friend at a place so we could go to another bar and boom, more Celebustalking. It was 2 weeks ago that I met Will Sasso. Debora Wilson came into my office two days later. I met Bobby Lee last friday…
…and Nicole Sullivan tonight. I still think Michael McDonald is next.
The Janitor from Scrubs was there too …but I don’t watch that show. Must not have had it on in my frat.
And it just dawned on me that I met Joan Of Arc! I admire her commitment to community service. (If you don’t know what I’m talking about then I pity you and know that someday soon you will figure it out and thank me with every fibre of your being, note that I spelled it fibre and not fiber because if you use the queens English it becomes classier and euros are worth more than dollars so that makes it a more worthy gift.) Pinky Out.
Thats kind of weird right? Last night I met Bobby Lee at the Comedy Store. I knew he would probably be there though so thats kind of cheating (but not the reason for going there). A new friend (she still has that new friend smell) introduced me to him and he either said I was pretty or handsome, i can’t remember, i tee-hee’d. A few minutes later he grabbed my man-boob and asked if that was ok. Of course it’s ok. You’re semi-famous, you’re allowed.
Ok Michael McDonald, you’re next. (not the one from the Doobie Brothers.)
First it was Will Sasso at a premiere on Monday, and i’ll give him that one, I was on his turf. But today I’m just finishing not enjoying my lunch at work when loud and very black gospel singing explodes from the conference room. Our boss had let a friend “a mover and shaker” named B.J. use our conference room to conduct a meeting of sorts. The first thing I said was, “Good Lawd there Whitney, whats goin’ on in the conference room?” And the people come out of the conference room and across the office I see a woman with Red-braided dreads down to the middle of her back and it’s Debra Wilson. I squint to be sure and she recognizes my recognition and we exchange waves. My boss was talking to her and didn’t even know who she was. Apparently she was pitching a show idea to B.J. or vice versa. I didn’t get to see her sleeves.
Warning! This blog contains unnecessary name dropping.
One of absolutely very few perks of my job is that part of the company I work for designs for Disney and their flagship theatre, the El Capitan. Its a beautiful theatre at Hollywood and Highland next to Jimmy Kimmel and across from Grauman’s Chinese where before the shows instead of slides for plastic surgeons like most L.A. cinemas they have an organist playing the most ambidextrous versions of Disney tunes (utilizing all 4 limbs). When the feature is about to begin they lower him under the stage where I’m assuming he is prodded back into his cage to perfect his rendition of “It’s a small world after all” on Casiotron until he is needed to warm up the next High School Musical sequel premiere. I’m gonna get so many random hits on this page for posting those last few sentences. So one of the perks is that my co-workers and I get invited to fill seats for special events. The first time we got to be in the first domestic audience to see the final Pirates of the Caribbean movie. Jerry Bruckheimer gave a speech before the feature.
I’m not going to tell you what movie we were invited to tonight. I’d rather not incriminate myself. It was a premiere, it was 2 blocks from my house and we were offered passes; I don’t turn that down. Even though it was a … cringe, family movie. OH GOD IT BURNS! Ok so the movie was bad, to me, because i’m a too cool for school asshole who hates 90% of all children ever and despises anything that’s “Fun for the whole family!”. But I suppose if you had kids that were between 8 and 16 then you could take them to this and they would have a good time. Oh look a baby pig, oh they makin’ silly faces, hilarious! I laughed a couple times and mostly because of Donny Osmond. Yeah I might as well tell you the cast and let you IMDB it on your own. Notably Martin Lawrence, Raven-Symoné (the Cosby Kid from when Rudy got too old to be the cute one), Will Sasso (MADtv’s giant), Kym Whitley (from that episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm where Larry picks up the Hooker so he could use the carpool lane to Dodger’s Stadium), Jessica St. Clair (gorgeous blonde from Best Week Ever) and a couple Sopranos-related Italian stereotypes.
But perhaps more importantly I met TOM EVERETT SCOTT on the red carpet! I guess it’s only important to me because That Thing You Do! is my favorite movie. Yeah you can take away all of my cred right now (as if I had any). What can I say, I love good fake band movies. That makes an even 2 of 4 of the Wonders that I’ve met so far.
So the best part of the night was of course the after party. There is so much nonsensical hoo-hah for these movies that its kind of a slap in the face to all of the really amazing movies that are made with absolutely no budget and aren’t very well received and have tiny premieres if any at all. But I enjoyed the free booze and Wolfgang Puck catering that this party had to offer. The highlights of our celebustalking besides the stars of the film were brushes with Home Run Record Holder* Barry Bonds, Random Disney-owned celebs that I had no idea who they were, some duder from Nick Cannon’s Wild N’ Out and Abigail Breslin (Little Miss Sunshine). Everyone but Barry Bonds was smaller than I’d imagined. He and Guy “Shades” Patterson were both pretty tall. Martin is about 5′ 5″ but his bodyguards were 6′ 3″ and 250 lbs so we didn’t fuck with him. He looks great! I heard that Raven is loaded (Theres a teen vogue in the can at work for some reason) but she didn’t project that air of celebrity/ego that radiates off of some famous people. She seemed very non-diva (actually kinda self-conscious in a way). Well I’m not sure if there is anything else to say. Now that I read it back, i’m not sure that any of ths was very interesting to begin with. Well feel free to email admin@avanttrash.com and invite me to your premiere. Especially if its for a better movie.
