My life has been chaotic, to say the least. My personal life has been racked with tumult, and frankly I’d rather not share it. I’m sure some of you care about me, and some of you don’t. But I’m of the sort that feels that it’s always better to share your dramas with people who are a part of your life in a realer way than readers or fellow board-members. But that’s how I was raised, and I respect that this is my personal opinion, while others have totally different ways to deal with their own issues and such.
But beyond a schedule shift at work, I’ve had some drama that has been weighing on me and taking up my time. But let me talk about what I love about Los Angeles.
I like to explore new things, I do, but I also like infinite variables. I might go to the same place once a week and order the same food knowing that every time there will be subtle differences. Just as I have no problem going to the same dance club on Saturdays as even if the song order was the same, the crowd, and how they respond will not be. But much of my life is routine. I have no problem with that. But when I variate, there’s often interesting x factors. The greatest thing about being in LA is that you run into the people who do the thing I love. Film people.
Sometimes that’s seeing someone like Jonah Hill at a bar. The funniest thing about seeing celebs is that generally the first reaction, if they’re not A game famous (as I wrote in my BO column) is that you can’t place the context. This is no surprise, as I may see – say Michael K. Williams – for an hour or two a week on The Wire, but if I saw him in Amoeba, that’s not a context I’m used to. But what I love happens to me often enough that it thrills me to no end, and that’s the people behind the scenes. They’re the one’s with all the stories. The other weekend I met someone who worked on a David Lynch film, and was filled with hours of Lynch stories, while today I met someone who worked for years with Sam Peckinpah. I just was enthralled to hear story after story about Bloody Sam.
The best part is that my enthusiasm to hear these stories is palpable, so they often get excited that I’m so excited to hear anecdotes they might have passed along a number of times. For me, what’s also nice is that I really do know these films, and they’re often amused that I do really love these movies. Before I moved here, a friend told me a story about her boyfriend meeting Martin Sheen and telling him how he loved Badlands, and Sheen was thrilled, because few people would bring that title up to him (which may be his best work). This is have been proven to me over and over. But I can think of few things more entertaining than hearing anecdotes about my favorite living and dead directors.