Working In The Neighborhood

I just finished work.  3 am.  We were working in the rain on a well known television show in the crime-romance genre.  Or, as we who work on them refer to all of our shows by the format with which they are shot i.e." Gray's Anatomy" is episodic" while,  well there are no sitcoms so, let's say "I Love Lucy" (really-is there any other?) would be considered "3 camera".

Which brings us to the "episodic" I've been on for a few days.  I cannot mention it by name as job security in our town is weak as a fly's diaper.  It has a few things going for it in my opinion.  It is clever.  It has  handsome and beautiful and genuinely nice actors, and most importantly it is shot 4 blocks from my house!

Tonight, we shot on location-ish.

Or home lot is called Raleigh Studios and it is a kind of low key very old movie production facility.  It had one of the last "turntable" stages.  The were used at the beginning of film along with some sort of sailcloth for the roof then pulled back and the stage would turn to optimize the sunshine.

When we were kids we lived right along the backside of the lot.  Jerry's Market, made famous in "Double Indemnity" was our corner market.

At fourteen, my brother and his pals broke onto one of the stages and were caught racing around on golf carts, opening fire. extinguishers all at each other.

Oh I was so envious!   A few years ago I did a season on "The Closer".  Great experience and shot on the very stage my brother wreaked havoc on 40 years before.

Well, now I am on this other show. We shot in our local park, Griffith Park which, very fortunately, is the largest park in the city at 4,210  acres

A little bridge here, doubling for Central Park, convenient steady rain there, fabulous effects designed by those of us who conspire to entertain, and, Viola!  A decent and funny show that a lot of people like.

Now, I may sound a bit treacly in my opinion about the show but this is how I feel about the industry I work in and have lived in and around my entire life.  I love Hollywood.  The town the industry, the idea.

It is an honor to wake up and head off to work, wherever we are that day.  If a bunch of people around the world can be taken out of their day by something I had or my friends had a hand in creating...wow.

Gratitude for time and place.

G'nite

My Prayer

Well, my relationship with God or Higher Power or Great And Powerful Wizard has been sorely strained as of late.  The clowns are, as Felix In Hollywood researched, clamouring and collecting up the street for the new 'Let's Make A Deal".  The issue is how am I to lure potential trysts to my hut?  Am I supposed to say, "Just look for the clowns glopping down the street.  There's plenty of 'em!  Can't miss 'em!

Not sexy.

Moving on.

A friend lives by the Chinese Theater

This is not the view from his place.  The view he does have is this:

What you can see if you squint or have the type of sophisticated software that I sadly lack is

the name this building has been given.

In lilac neon this apartment building is called:

The Dorothy

yes, you read it correctly:

The Dorothy

A charming Hollywood Regency style dwelling in a kind of seedy neighborhood.  Adding to the

well, seediness of it all was what I saw in the window as I walked up the street...

Don't try to look in the window featured because by the time I took this pic, they..um...he...they had finished the task at hand.  Oooo...laaa.  Very glamourous

Please Don't Send In The Clowns

They must be shooting a game show up the street.  The studios up the street are called Sunset Bronson Studios and they are coupled with another facility 3 blocks west called, Sunset Gower Studios.


Anyway, I saw Them all lined up outside the stage, waiting to get in.  They are the potential contestants all dressed in costumes like Let's Make a Deal but for one distinction and, for some reason an unsettling one: Roughly half of them are dressed like clowns and the remaining dressed like DUI road workers all in reflective vests, some with hard hats, some dressed evoking Barney Fife, others, Otis Campbell to take the theme further.

This was at oh, 7:30 in the morning.  3:30 maybe 4 that afternoon, much to my horror as i rounded the corner to pull the Dodge into the driveway, there came a stream of them lurching down the street as they apparently had parked without my permission and had now completed what ever embarassing sacrifice the game show demanded of them.

All looked very sweaty they were walking like they regretted now not using the bathroom before the left the stage.  Red faces and green reflective vests...a jarring reminder that the holidays are somewhere.  The sweaty clowns with their makeup sliding on to their corpulent costuming reminding me of some sort of hideous John Wayne Gacey support group.  Very "Day Of The Locust"

Life and Um Death

I live near a cemetery.  I think everyone should.  Mine is in Hollywood, California.  The Glittering Film Capital Of The World

Having the great good fortune to count Felix In Hollywood (Philip) as my
neighbor and friend, occasionally, during the summer we bundle food, various textiles to wrap about ourselves and assorted non-alcoholic beverages and we head down to the cemetery for a viewing of some film or another.

Originally Hollywood Forever featured only the very bad and tasteless that had spewed out of the studios gates, collectively, over the previous century.  Movies like, "Johnny Guitar", and, "Kiss, Kiss, Kill, Kill".  Cinema I had secretly loved for many years.  

At 14 I briefly owned one of Esther Williams bathing suits. 

Ok, I didn't own it exactly. We, my family had taken possession of it for a brief time. 

My mother excitedly brought it into my room.  My brother and sister were outside building a fort.

Hmm

 A blue, green, silver and gold sequined number, this bathing suit. The frame on the inside I am sure was designed by Hughes Aircraft, so many ribs and all that wiring.  If only I had the swimsuit and been able to watch "Johnny Guitar" at the Hollywood Forever Cemetery...

That would have been  Some Kinda Glamour!

                                This photo shows how all the pretty sequins were adorned.
                                              Though I'm not sure what Jerry is doing.
                                  I once knew a man who was into that, so it's fairly common