Leaving Los Angeles

Due to an administrative hiccup, I'm flying back to London tonight, and not Tuesday, as I'd planned for. It's a shame I don't have another two days and a shame I couldn't spend a final contemplative moment on Venice Beach watching the waves and bikinis and plotting out the course of my future, which I enjoyed doing so much. But it's fitting that the manner of my departure should be as unexpectedly sudden as my arrival. When I left London, although I knew the departure date only too well, I was taking care of small items of business and generally getting my runnings in order right up until the last minute, and the flight crept up on me - now today I'm doing the same, fitting in packing bags, cleaning 119 1/2 Wave Crest Ave, arranging the inspection, returning computer equipment, with doing and drying laundry so I can have clean boxers for my homecoming parade.

LA has been a resounding success for me. I'm really, really pleased to be able to say that - there were certainly many times when I wondered if I was doing the right thing - at times I felt that I might have come out here too early, that there was more to learn and a lot more to do before launching myself headlong at trying to break into the world's biggest entertainment industry. If I hadn't found the success that I have, getting signed to direct music video and commercials for Bill's company, then I would still have considered my time worthwhile - I met some cool people, made some good supportive friends, taught myself a lot about the craft of screenwriting (and decided which bits of that were relevant and useful to me), wrote this blog, deconstructed the legend of the Hollywood Lottery a bit, and learnt that if I try hard, my chances of making it here are good.

LA is better for my career than London because:

I am new there, I am British, and that, apparently is useful.
Efforts are on the whole rewarded, rather than taken for granted.
LA is about the idea. It's the only currency that you can't bail out with dollars. Hollywood is a giant sea of all types of highly skilled production people, so if an idea gets the go-ahead there's an army of people who can put it on the screen, but only a few good people who can conceive it in the first place. So my work (which I have always felt exhibited decent ideas, but was a bit low-budget and scruffy) has been universally well received here, instead of the usual London production-values snobbery, the fear of praise, the 'be great to see what you've done in a couple of years', and a music video scene in danger of strangling itself with it's own skinny jeans leg.

At first, when I arrived here I was quiet, slightly dumbstruck. Now I am comfortable and confident, and I can talk the talk if need be.

I feel very good about the journey home. I am really excited to see my family and friends - my Mum and Dad, my bro Nick who is getting married on Saturday, my homeboys Oli, Duncan, Joe and Jess, all of whom I have been in regular contact since I came out here, forcing them to listen to endless tales of my totally awesome, totally new life. As much as I have fallen in love with this place and the way of life, I'm excited to be coming home, not heartbroken, because I now know I will be returning. The last few evenings I spent here had a different complexion in the light of that knowledge - I was still riding around the streets of Venice in the warm evenings, on the lowrider as before, but now those streets look like becoming my new neighbourhood, and I'm looking forward to the challenges of the year ahead, instead of wondering how I'm going to make it through.

Remember how when MySpace came out there was a little gay check box where people would choose from a drop-down menu an entry that described their mood? A sort of precursor to the Facebook Status Update. If I had that checkbox now, as then, it would be unsufficient to define how I feel at this moment. Mood is beyond positive, beyond just merely capable. I feel ready to take care of business. I know what I have to do now, for maybe the first time in my life. Thank you to everyone who helped me get here and get to that precious realisation. You don't know how badly I needed it.

Goldfish In Sunshine

These feesh were at one of the locations today. I ought to try and paint these sometime, they look great with the bright whites of the sparkles on the water.

'Turning Ordinary Places Into Extraordinary Spaces'

Went to work on location today for a reality TV pilot shoot. The riveting concept that is breathing much needed fresh air into the format is as thus: We follow a landscape designer from West Covina, and share the thrills and spills of her dichotomous life juggling being a suburban mum, with her red carpet existence as landscape designer to the stars.

One of the locations was a millionaire's house in Covina, where the designer had built him a Disneyland-inspired playground swimming pool, to the tune of $800,000, and seemingly themed 'Pirates vs. King Arthur At The Scene Of A Runaway Mine Cart Incident' . The true horror of this thing is hard to convey in pictures. It wasn't quite finished yet, but was described as the owner's dream 'home vacation space', was built from very poorly rendered fibreglass and contained a deep pool, a jumping platform that was atop a 'crows nest' on a fake ship's mast, a 'lazy river' - (an orbital channel with a constant gentle current), a water slide shaped like a huge hollow fibreglass tree trunk, bridges galore and an electric powered water cannon, that you could fire at people. This cannon was working.













That's not smoke, unfortunately. That's his mist generation system.

Oh, in case anyone reading this doesn't already know. Reality TV is scripted. Sorry sis. It can go in the file with professional wrestling and prison bum sex as activities that hold a universal truth that everyone prefers to deny.

Allow me to introduce Coco Chanel, the designer's puppy. She was mad cool, but she got shut away in a room for most of the shoot. She was too real.

Timex , RVB, Siege. Candles Cafe 2009

A really old friend of mine from a good twenty years back, Thomas Bullock, is in LA this week, playing a party on Saturday night in his current musical incarnation, Rub 'N' Tug. He also makes music in a project called Map Of Africa, with Harvey, who I'd seen in Venice a couple of times since being here, and had told me Thomas was on his way. Harvey's a world famous DJ now but was another old face from the exact same era and crew as Tom. An era when I had bunked out of my bedroom window to go to the warehouse parties they did, and stood behind crowds as the Police shut the party down with riot gear.

This will sound like one of those nauseating 'good old days' stories, but it's easy to forget I was there, I was priviledged to be so, and people like Thomas and Harvey can back it. And easy to forget how unique the birth of the warehouse party was, so much has evolved since then. This was really early, I mean '86, when those guys were really the first people doing it, the idea was totally new, as fresh as the first painted wholecar. I'm proud I lived through that, as well as proud of being a first generation UK hip hop kid and having that as a lifestyle to live by. I grew up and participated in an explosion of creativity that sometimes it's hard to imagine can ever happen again.

We were able to annexe our conversation from the rest of the table for a little bit and chew the fat over names pulled from out of the fogs of time. Names from the club and graffiti scenes of the late 80s - Devil 666, Robbo, Sham59, Rev, Rob & Elisa, the Tonka lot. All pieces of a very precious time slice in all three of our lives, and from the perspective of all three of us sitting in a bar in Venice, a time that has influenced all three profoundly, but in varied ways.

I was grinning from ear to ear when Thomas told a story about being in a millionaire's rainforest hideway in Bali, an architect-designed stunner made of granite boulders and live tree trunks, plumb spang in the middle of the jungle, going for a pony in the guy's toilet, and finding a graffiti magazine, with a six page article on my work. Always a good way to get introduced to a group of cool LA music people, that one.

a few pictures from sunday

H.O.U.S.E. spells House

Sunday Pool Party at the Custom Hotel, where I stayed the very first night I was here. Dope house music, sunshine, bikinis, poptarts & Patron shots. Jon's mate Ron was on the boards, Sam was doing pre-natal massages by the pool. How Mode2 is this flick?

I Get Goose Bumps When The Bassline Thumps

I felt my first ever earthquake today. Sitting in the edit suite at Bill Fishman's office when for a few seconds, everything rumbled. It felt just like living next to a train line, but being west Los Angeles, there's no trains for miles around. Bill thought I'd had the bass turned up on the G5's sub-woofer.

Coincidentally I'd been in Home Depot earlier that day, admiring the fine selection of 'Earthquake Straps' they sell for tethering your valuables to the floor. Californian wisdom is that when you feel the earthquake hit, sit under a door frame, and stay there. Living with that above your heads all the time is another bizarre aspect of life in LA, destruction and success potentially equally sudden and absolute. A whole town comprised of people all crossing their fingers the Big One doesn't hit before their studio deal comes in.

tommyoswaldswork (5 hours ago) Show Hide

I've started putting together a YouTube Channel which consists of mostly just things I've made but other people have uploaded, because:

1. it's easier than uploading them myself
and 2. they've already got the hits and it looks better.

We all know YouTube comments are the single lowest form of communication in the history of mankind as conscious being, but if it's your video, could you resist reading them? I found this in the comments after one of my Asian Hip Hop videos I did several years back for Mentor Kolektiv, featuring AC, who's a super cool guy who you can meet outside every single hip-hop and R&B event in London shotting AC and Terra CDs, their sound is lively London hip-hop with humour and gusto and you should buy one off him.

sukhchain12 (1 year ago) Show Hide
Reply | Spam
AC looks lyk a twat but da songs r gud

acandterra (1 year ago) Show Hide
Reply | Spam
chek my new video get rowdy featuring des-c and genesis elijah see if you think i look like a twat there too, safe, ac

g4rr3y (9 months ago) Show Hide
Reply | Spam
yes, you still do

Walking along the snakey cycle path at the beach this afternoon, a cycle party of middle-aged tourists rolled past me, riding upright on shiny hire-bikes, helmet chinstraps done up snugly to the final hole. The man in front called out behind him that the group should go off to the left, off the cyclepath and onto the boardwalk, but the last guy misinterpreted it and turned off immediately left, straight into the middle of the Venice Beach skate area. As the skaters in one of America's most notorious street spots buzzed, clattered and circled around him he wobbled through, stiff as a board, looking as terrified as if he'd found himself cycling onto the 405 freeway.

The Ambassador Will See You Now, Mr. Valenti.

Saturday Connie brought me along as her guest to the British Consulate Garden Party, that was being thrown for the BPI conference she's been in town for this week. It was up in an area called Hancock Park, LA old money, beautiful, dappled avenues, clipped lawns and antiquey-looking mini mansions. A big Union Jack flag in the front lawn and a black Triumph motorbike parked outside. Photek pulling up in an Aston Martin.

Shook hands with the ambassador on the way in, who was dressed oddly like a James Bond villain. The lawn was kitted out with a stage, two bars with dicky bow bartenders, ambassadorial staff expertly zig-zagging the lawn, dishing out drinks and miniature versions of English classics like mini slivers of coronation chicken white bread sandwiches, two-bite lamb chops and steak and kidney pies. A cheese table had pots of Branston's.

It was a blatant recording industry network opportunity and guests wore badges spelling out name and company, which makes everyone instinctively look at each others chests first before addressing anyone. I try and fight the impulse, because it feels rude and insincere when someone does it to you, and plus it could potentially end you up in a situation where, let's say you and the other person clock each other's badges, and then the flag drops as one of you realises that there's nothing to be gained from a stop-and-chat, no common ground, no business opportunity and no physical attraction - and you are both forced to shuffle out, and hope you can avoid the other all evening. Excruciating. So I battle to avoid looking straight at the badge, but it's difficult, because you know they're there. It's like being in a room with nothing but chesty women in low cut frocks.

Drift Race Video is Up

Finished the Rogue Status Formula Drift video last night, and here it is.

I'm pleased with how it turned out, not a bad one man effort. The general high-octane rowdiness of the sport comes across, the suction mount worked really well so theres some nice on-board shots. Hopefully it's a good move in the campaign to work an angle as Rogue's video director, cos they need a lot of stuff doing.

Oh and the documentary proof of my contact with car at 94mph is in there too. Wait for it...

It's a shame you can't step through YouTube videos frame by frame, because if you could, you can see that there is a camera mounted on the spoiler that hit my camera. Someone somewhere has the reverse angle.

Celebrity Spot Of The Month

Ron Jeremy, in grubby black sweatpants, asking the price of a porno mag at the newsagent on Hollywood and Cahuenga, 2am Saturday night.

Where's Rosco P?

I'm really getting into the swing of American life. Only been in the USA two months, and I'm sueing already. I was at the Santa Monica courthouse yesterday to file a small claims case I'd really rather not have to do - from the outside a shining white building on manicured lawns - inside, just the same dusty, wood-venered municipal red-tape matrix you'd expect in England. (disappointed to find the Sheriff's Office wasn't full of cops in cowboy hats). Weapons search on the way in, followed by a 25 minute queue outside Room 116 to file claims. Filing a claim to sue is like booking concert tickets.

In the queue in front of me were two women, both submitting forms. As the second had hers stamped, she gestured vaguely behind her - 'So if I pay her now, I can get a certificate of resolution, right?'

'She has to sign it, ma'am, but yeah'

The other woman in the queue said 'You can pay me honey, but I can't sign that form till the check clears'

'Oh ok, right. So that means we gotta come all the way back here when it's paid?

'Yes it does, ma'am' said the clerk.

'Damn, girl, couldn't you have found us somewhere a bit closer?'. She laughed. The other woman laughed. They slapped hands. Woman One was sueing Woman Two, but they were obviously good friends.

How does that work - one friend sues another but the friendship stays intact? The very strange organism that is the American legal system. Someone's got insurance in this equation, I'm sure. Not much chance of an amicable settlement in my case, unfortunately. I will be representing myself, and invoking the ancient legal principle of volo meus argentum, meretricis, otherwise known as 'Bitch, Better Have My Money'.

Updated random sprawling observations:

You'd get publicly crucified (that's crucified in a pub) if you said this back home, but day to day stuff in America, is good quality and it works.

Examples:

When entering a shop, you always pull the door to enter, and push to exit.

The 'worst' places to eat, are at the very least clean, generous and the service is friendly.

Hot water comes out of taps very hot, and there's loads of it.

A packet of frozen oven chips has a nice perforated line you can open it with. It doesn't take 10 minutes of wrestling only to end up sinking your teeth into the plastic, tearing it asunder like Cro-Magnon man as chips fly out the end all over the floor.

It doesn't seem to be in the American psyche to put up with things that don't work, in the way that is such a defining British characteristic - the 'mustn't grumble' syndrome. Jon told me he could never understand why, for a cold country like England, no-one's central heating ever worked well. I reasoned that it was probably not because British people love to have something to complain about, but more that we like to have something we can suffer in silence for. Builds backbone, dear boy.

One success of capitalism on the American model is that competition does actually seem to breed a better service. In the UK, the idea tends to result in either a bigger monopoly, or a general all-round degradation of service with more competitors ever-streamlining in order to retain a grip on a shrinking profit margin.

But again, if I were to say that in the pub in London, I'd get a chorus of 'well, piss off back there then's, in warm baritones, tenors and mezzo-sopranos. Warm enough to take the chill out of your bones while you're being ignored for 20 mins at the bar for your measly £6 rum and coke.

Mad Noise In Long Beach

My bedroom looks like my old desk at Village Green. I've now got a new Mac, two hard drives and cameras snaking out of the back. Jasper and I have set up to edit the Drift Race footage at my place.

Long Beach was nuts. Drift Racing is a weird sport, invented by the Japanese some 20 years ago, they don't really race each other, just lead and follow, and try to slide round corners better and make more smoke than the other guy. As we arrived in the Aquarium car park, I caught my first whiff of the burning rubber, and heard the screaming of the engines - that thing everyone says when they first visit a motorsports event. The smell of burning rubber was something I was to get very well acquainted with over the 2 days.

The supercharged, stripped down, rear wheel drive cars are set up for sliding, and they scream and slide all over the place, even when parking. While waiting to race, they warm tyres up with figure-8s and doughnuts, by the end of the competition, the streets of Long Beach were obliterated with black oil-slicks of burnt rubber. Thick white tyre smoke billows out of the wheel arches as they wail round the corners of the drift circuit. It pumps into the driver's cabin. Rugged race gearboxes bang as loud as a backfire. They backfire a lot too. Drifting is just starting to get big in the US, and there's only two car companies sponsoring teams (Ford, and Scion, Rogue's team's manufacturer), so the line up was an odd mix of cars, pitting high-end sportscar R&D money, against Sam's Auto Spares of Anaheim's '91 Toyota Corolla, bodykit held on with green gaffa tape. But regardless of sponsor, all the drivers had stupid amounts of skills, sliding their cars round Grand Prix corners at 100mph, nose to tail with their competitor round their racing line, missing the concrete walls by mere inches. Nothing prepared me for the amount of rubber debris that would hit me in the face all day either.

It was really good to be given the chance to shoot this. The action was a challenge to shoot as well as being pretty cool to watch. As far as the event away from the racetrack went, it was like shooting any kind of event with one camera, where you're asked to cover as much as possible. Lots to see after the first hour and nothing to see after that. Lots of beefy cars, geeky motorsports fans and trashy models with straining silicon chests posing for paid pics with the former.

A Press pass got me onto the starting line to shoot the cars warming up, and taking off in pairs to record their best course times. The noise was insane. The start line was at the foot of a canyon of tall apartment blocks, carrying the rowdy impatience of a dozen supercharged road racers 30 stories high. The city setting of the race circuit was very cool. I kept feeling like I had raced this course in half a dozen computer games. Once I was past security, there were no restrictions on where I walked on the track, and it took a little nerve and a lot of trust as the cars screamed and slid and burnt their tyres out just feet away from me.

The closest encounter was yet to come, however. During the final races, I situated myself and the tiny HD camcorder in a press dugout, several feet of concrete block separating me from the track, right at the apex of the fastest corner of the circuit. The finalists were competing in pairs at this point, I had a wide angle lens on the front of the camera and was getting the best shots by extending the camera out on my arm, but still behind the concrete block. There was a double V8 scream, and in seconds, the two cars came sliding round the corner (at 94 mph I was later to find out). I held the shot as the second car parabola'd closer and closer to the wall. Closer, closer, closer. And in an instant, SMACK! The camera in my hand was struck by the car's spoiler and thrown back.

When the tyre smoke cleared and I realised I was still standing, the camera and chunky fisheye lens was still in one piece, barely a scuff on it. A piece of grey Team Hankook carbon fibre embedded in the lens housing bore the evidence - at that speed the car must have barely kissed the rim of the lens, it would have been a matter of microns, but still enough for the spoiler material to slice into the 0o.1mm wide gap between rim and glass. Straight away I was speechless, frozen to the spot and my first thought was about this kid and his shoe . A miraculous, incredible story and I would have had a hard time convincing people of it's truth, were it not for the fact I got it all on tape.

I didn't get to take many photographs and the video footage is taking a day or so to transcode. But here's Rogue's pictures of the day.

So Much Drama in the LBC

Heading out to Long Beach tomorrow morning with Jasper, for the preview day of 'Formula Drift - Streets Of Long Beach', a video game event name if ever there was one. I'll be shooting the Rogue Status car and the team they've got competing there. Ken Gushi is the driver. I've got a suction car mount and Rogue's brand spanking mini HD memory chip camera - since drifting is all about style, not so much speed and aggression, I'm hoping the suction will hold. Saturday is the main event.

In the meantime here's some designs I've been doing for Rogue Status. These are intended as full body t-shirt designs, on a theme of Executive Suicide:

Hot Sunny Late Afternoon, Dirty Bus Windows

This is pretty much exactly what the location and lighting is going to be like in scene 1 of my feature script.


Which is not going to be a feature any more, it's going to be a series. So now it's tripled in length.

IT’S NOT ALL PLASTIC SMILES AND HAVE A NICE DAY IN C.A.

INT: RALPH’S SUPERMARKET, LINCOLN BLVD, VENICE, CA

TOM is carrying an overloaded hand basket, looking in vain for some assistance.

NERYS, a hideous, overweight, deli-counter worker is leaning against the cake table

TOM

Excuse me –

(Nerys looks up with a look of sheer disgust)

TOM

(cont’d)

Can I ask you for some help?

NERYS

Well, not really, I’m on my break. What is it you want?

TOM

Erm, well. Ah. I can’t seem to find chicken stock, would you be willing to spare me a second to tell me where that is?

NERYS

Chicken…What?

Chicken… stock?

(incredulous)

TOM

Yeah. Erm. Like... erm... stock cubes

NERYS

Stockcubes?

(grins conspiratorially with her co-worker)

What the hell is that? No, we don’t do that sir.

(Starts to turn her back)

I can’t help you if I don’t know what you’re talking about, sir...

TOM

You know, erm, stock. For making soup. Gravies, that kind of thing?

NERYS

(coldy staring him in the face with her dead, beady eyes, this has wasted too much of her break already)

There's a stock room, but it's for employees only, sir.

TOM

No, no. Erm... OK!...

(hits on the magic word)

Bouillon!

(with the American pronunciation - 'booleon')

NERYS

(already turning back to her colleague, eyes rolling)

Aisle ten.

Asparagus

What exactly is it? Do scientists even know? That smell when you pee is like liquid reptile.

cookin

I really enjoyed season 1 of 'Breaking Bad', AMC/Fox's critically highly acclaimed drama series, about a 50 yr old Chemistry teacher with lung cancer cooking glass-grade crystal meth in a Winnebago, with disastrous results. Great premise, great acting & writing. Abundant stylish subtext, slick and subtle.

Characters well crafted, and beautifully flawed, secrets, lies, bare-faced deception of the kind that sails so close to the wind to have you gnawing at your knuckles. I fucking love Walt White and Jesse Pinkman, the klepto sister Marie, and Hank, the DEA brother-in-law who's like a 99 cent store, small-town, big guns, bloater version of Thomas Hauk without any of the charm. Now I'm clucking for season 2 like an Albuquerque crankhead. Meth in a boxset.

Who Is The Gatekeeper In This Scene?

And on the subject of that feature script - it occurs to me that without really intending to, I am trying to write a Hollywood style story. Classic three-act structure. Man-with-everything-loses-it-all-but-comes-back-wiser. Man-with-nothing-attains-spiritual-happiness-cos-he's-basically-a-nice-dude-with-a-shady-past.

Whether this is the osmosis of being here in LA, and the lessons Jenifer attempted to bang into my head, or the result of what I've been studying (Her course, and trying to get to grips with the mythic structure and the dozen or so archetypes of Campbell & Vogler and the Hero's Journey). Or a grudging acceptance that to break the rules you need to follow them first - I'm not too sure.

Jenifer flew off the handle a bit (I have since learned she only needed the slightest provocation) when I told her I'd read a list of stale-sounding new TV commissions, and that I thought I could write something fresher, telling me I had no business believing I could debut with anything ground breaking, saying that the road to Burbank was littered with arrogant Brits who thought they could break the Hollywood rules. Well, I do see some wisdom in what she says, the rules are well established and a lot of money is at stake in this town, but I disagree, on the whole. I didn't mean break the rules, just bend them a lot. And overall I feel she's out of touch with what's being made today. Rule-bending drama is everywhere, and they are the most popular shows on US TV.

She then started slating British men, the entire entertainment community for not supporting women, slagged off several women, bought a teriyaki bowl and glared at me over the rim of it.

Yo, Dre, thats the Formula

Ok, granted, it's been a while since I updated. And not for any good reason either, it's been a slow week. Perhaps because I spent way too much time on xtranormal, creating the highly topical emotive drama 'Moving On', a tale of love, rejection and the human condition. Or possible a brutal dissection of three close pals struggling to retain the friendship dynamic when separated by 5000 miles and a transatlantic time zone.

A total waste of time? Not when you see the beautifully crafted scene structure that has gone into these 1-2 min episodes. I'm clearly learning something...

Actual writing, meanwhile has been slow. A half-remembered quote from 'Californication' - being a writer means setting yourself homework every night. I've read all my course texts, started redoing the assignments I did last year, and somewhere along the line, managed to turn a one page dialogue exercise into an idea for a feature film. This wasn't supposed to be what I was going to work on while over here - I thought, a few short plays. A short film script maybe. A TV Pilot. Instead I've spent every waking sunny day on Venice Beach writing 30 pages of plot and character arcs, mythic-based scene structure, for a feature story that I can't decide if anyone will think is worth watching. Gradually criss-crossing the elements of the story and seeing what possibilities those frictions throw up, gradually shaping the narrative. Leaving dialogue to the end, which goes against instinct.

It's a good exercise though. You can read and re-read the principles, but they only click when put into practice, and I can certainly say this, once you've put the magic goggles on, and started to understand what they show you, it's impossible to see the writing in TV and movies as you once did. This means you can immediately see the holes in your own, and other amateurs stuff. But it also has given me a much richer appreciation of great work in TV and film, and led me to realise the standard of stuff is overall much higher than I expected, even the shows I don't like. I've now realised it's not just Sopranos (6:40 - 'what are those, tic tacs?') and The Wire that create great character arcs and needs. The bar is definitely very high.

I'm not sure what I write over here will ever make the cut, but I do believe that I've turned some corners in my understanding of the craft of dramatic writing, and that is definitely something I look forward to applying to a maybe more realistic debut.

Theme Time

Since the Sopranos I've always loved the idea of recontexturalising music to enhance, work in parallel, or shift perceptions of characters or scenes in dramatic screenwriting. This is a writer-directors dream tool for that purpose. Mum and Dad, you'll love it too.

Just Another Geek Running His Beak

Not everyone is working on a script here, they might be trying to act, or write music for films. Trying to make movies without actually being in the movie business is a conversation killer, rather than a conversation starter. A typical example might be like the one I had with Selina:

Her: 'So I'm waiting tables at my friend's place downtown, and helping my sister out with her esthetician business, and working on my screenwriting'

Me: 'Oh, you write - cool, me too. How's that going?'

'It's going. You know.' (looks me in the eye suspiciously to signal end of subject)

Kogi Comes to Kinney, eventually

Kogi BBQ is a cult taco truck specialising in Korean-Mexican fusion, appearing at various car parks around the Los Angeles metropolitan district, the locations of which are communicated via Twitter. This type of hype results in two-hour queues at the advertised locations, I'd heard. They were due to be in my manor tonight from 10pm to 2am, at the Brig car park on Abbot Kinney, so I rode down there with 10 mins to spare to beat the queues.

10.15, no sign of the truck.

10.30, one of the other people waiting at the Brig twittered Kogi and received the reply the truck would be there at by 11. At 10.45 they arrived, and a long queue formed quickly out of nowhere. Amid bad jokes about camel toes, and the unfunny teasing/ganging up on an Austrian girl - 'it was US commercialism that propped up your economy for like 50 years, you guys invented bad chocolate and wooden shoes, dude' - there was a lot of grumbling about the delay - an hour's wait in a car park, fair enough, but most of the complaints were more about how uncivilised it was to stand in line for food at all.

'It's, like, exactly like Russia in the 80s'
'Dude, at least the Russians knew what they were standing in line for'

What we were standing in line for were delicious $2 tacos, stuffed with kimchi and korean barbeque marinated meat, and garnished with sesame-chilli salsa. I had 4. Two short-rib tacos, one pork and one korean chicken, wrapped in foil and biked back swifty to Wave Crest Ave. They were pretty amazing, and just the right side of not-enough to make me contemplate riding back up Abbot Kinney and getting back in line, if I could take another hour of American post-pub banalities.

Across the street

Discovered last night that the whole block at the corner of Wave Crest Ave and Pacific, the row of houses, garages and the entire 'Bowhouse Apts' apartment building, is totally fake, and hidden away in the middle of it is one house, shielded from the street by the facade. It has fake buzzers you can ring all night, with fake tenants names, a full size advertising billboard in the back garden, a street sign saying 'AHARD PL.' and a fake rockface on the roof.

The Joy Of Grey

It's been cloudy here for a few days, this is good, it's very hard to sit in the house and study when the sun is out. If I could see the screen in the sun, the laptop's battery would last 10 mins and I'd get sand in the CD tray, so whatever I can do on a paper pad is whatever gets done. Which has been plot outlines and character arcs for a script, and sketches for my Rogue Status t-shirt designs.

Anyway, the cloud is good. Helps my brain to focus, and that in turn means more stuff done which makes me happier. Achieving things and making progress makes me feel more dynamic and purposeful, and makes the good things much better.

To accompany the clouds came a crazy fog yesterday that rolled in off the sea and engulfed the whole town, Kasia saw it as far the Getty Centre in Westwood.

Hands Stay Steady On The Wheels Of Steel

Been cycling around everywhere lately on Sarah's Beachcruiser bicycle that she left behind for me when she went to San Franscisco. It's a great way explore around the Venice/Santa Monica area, although your range is a bit restricted in a city laid out like LA. But it's still opened up possibilities for supermarket food shopping and thrift-store digging, and the bike is so perfect for rolling along the bike paths on the beach that it's entirely plausible the Beachcruiser, was designed specifically with Venice beach in mind.

The attitude toward cycling here is different for a couple of key reasons. Riding on the pavement is not discouraged, it's more likely to be seen as a safer place for cyclists to be. It's easier here as well because for one, not many people are on the pavements, and because theres so many cars, theres so many more private off-road parking spot, and therefore dropped kerbs everywhere to get on and off the pavement with the ultimate smoothness. They don't expect you to have lights at night, it's not illegal, in fact the only traffic offence relating to bikes is riding over the alcohol limit, something I've never heard of anyone in the UK being nicked for. I haven't been beeped at once. I used to get vans driving after me, drivers screaming their heads off in Clerkenwell.

Riding the wide avenues in a warm breeze, Oli's chapter-defining LA selection on the iPod, on my way to Vidiots to rent a film, shrimp tacos on Lincoln, the beachfront coffee run, food shopping, calling for Jon & Alex, all made possible by those two wheels, and definitely one of the great simple highlights of this first few weeks.

One of each with everything

The new place I’m living in was previously occupied by two girls, a Californian and an English girl, who is still here for a few weeks. From what stuff is in the kitchen, they both eat healthily, you can tell. Everything salty is low sodium, it’s organic and if it’s ever mass produced then it’s from a homely outlet like Whole Foods or Trader Joe.

So in the midst of this macrobiotic equilibrium, I arrive. Now there's steak and beer in the fridge. And since I discovered Ralph’s discount card, and the 99c Store, the fridge has seen the following:

Gigantic Tropicana
Hot Sauce
Curly Fries
Frozen hash browns
Maple cured pork sausages, and a huge pack of streaky bacon rashers for –
Buttermilk pancakes (frozen)
Maple Syrup
Cheese and Cherry Danish (6 pack)
Ralphs Mayo
Ralphs Sweet Mustard Sauce
Ribeye steaks
Red Snapper steaks
Carne Asada
Mexican Chicken from the carneceria
Remains of a few Burrito Ultimo’s and a selection of take-out salsas in plastic pots
Gallons of Double Vanilla Ice-cream covered in -
Reese’s Shell chocolate and peanut butter ice-cream topping

I never really went to the States and got to consume, American style, before it got uncool to consume. The LA that I have seen is not the food retail nirvana I had expected - New Yorkers seem to eat 5 times as much. LA people eat small and well, and they recycle - well they get their homeless to do their recycling for them.

I want to ride to the strip mall and wander bewildered in giant food supermarkets, want to get lost in bakery aisles as long as the M11. I want bright packaging and brand names I’ve heard in hip hop music. I want to drink from a bottle of fruit juice as big as the one Timbaland is swinging in the studio with Jay-Z on YouTube. Just for a bit, and then I’ll start going to the beach at 7am and running it off. I swear.

Hero - from the Greek meaning 'to protect and to serve'

The police broke up the drum circle on the beach on Sunday night. The drums had started around 4pm and by 8, I was walking to the liquor store when I heard a police megaphone from a block or two away, barking out orders to disperse.

There was helicopter noise in the air over the beach and sirens below. Blue and red police lights on the sand. A big crowd had been effectively contained. Car headlights lit the crowd’s path off the beach and back toward compliance. It gave the scene a real Close Encounters feel - backlit by police car, came these Southern Californian silhouettes in the night. Sand kicking up around feet, exhaust fumes, helicopter wind in the cooling evening.

On my way back I passed a tall neatly dressed man talking to a bearded white beach bum. The bum said -‘Well I’m tellin’ ya, I was there when they first turned up, and you know what my feelings are? It’s like this… they piss me off, the motherfuckers’

Later that night a group of muscle cars got into a jam on the intersection of Pacific and Rose. They must have all tried to pull out in formation but got stuck in a star shape. The cars were too bulky to reverse out effectively, so they had a few drivers stepping out of their cars, voices were raised offering suggestions on whose fault it was and the best way out of it, but once they got righted, they blasted off together down Pacific Avenue, the noise like a crack of gunfire ripping the night in two momentarily, until all five cars in the pack tuned sweetly into a performance engine power chord.

8.30am. Drinking coffee in jogging bottoms barefoot on the beach

Especially for you, Mex.

My Room And My Desk

I have never truly had such a deep and profound appreciation for clothes storage space like I do now.

Elfie don't play that

This is Elfie, housecat, streetcat and the 3rd housemate. We are currently locked in a bitter, unwinnable turf war over my pillow, and the LA weekly.

Front Of Gaff

.... the ave - the house ....

Carne Asada in My Larder

First two days in Wave Crest Ave. Kasia's cool, my room is super cool, house is totally mellow and I've been getting work done there. The neighbourhood is great, boyz 'n' the hood alleyways with jasmine bushes and willow trees, and just off Abbot Kinney there's a diner that does pancakes made with pumpkin that are recklessly out of control.

You're getting the tour.

No two ways about it.

I've moved into my own place today, in Venice,

two short blocks from the beach, so I went down there to check it out at night. The moon was nearly full, the sand had the low glow of residual sunlight. Lumpen sleeping bags appeared one by one under the palm trees just off the promenade, once you started looking for them. As I crossed the sand I heard one of the Venice beachbum ‘drum circles’ I had heard about from Cheray, a gorgeous poet from Queens that was at Ron's party last night.

Venice got hippies, then.

The moon slid behind transparent sheets of tiger-print clouds. Santa Monica pier blazed in the distance. Waves crashed, a toddler shrieked, the drummers drifted in and out of syncopation.

A flashlight flicked back and forth across me twice. Behind me somewhere, and pretty close. A few seconds later it was at it again, scanning the beach, strobing off the sand. Police?... Aww, no, really?

I heard –

‘SHOW YOURSEYLF!’

A pause.

‘SHOW YOURSEYLF!!! BE A MAN!!!’

Strong country American accent. Crazy sounding.

The torch started scanning again. It found me, I looked directly into it. Then the torch moved off, along with the voice

‘SHOW YOURSEYYYYLF!!!! BEEEE A MAIN!!!’

The drums and tide continued unabated.

I’m really marvelling at this place. Marvelling at how much it seems to suit me and the degree to which the experience has inspired me, I would never have guessed, would never have imagined it would be like this.

The wide, spotless beach, with the kitschy pier in Santa Monica that’s always alight, the palm trees, the freaks. The skatepark and graffiti wall by the beach in Venice. The stars that share the big skies with the private planes and police helicopters. Feeling like you might be in one of the top places in the world, and almost feeling embarrassed to feel that way about America, like reluctantly realising I might have been wrong all along.

Some Hot Sauce Brands at the Burrito Shop

Aspirin
Scorned Woman
Gourmet Insanity Sauce
Colon Cleaner
Holy Shit
100% Pain

Wires and Tires

I've been here more than a week now, and some of the things that hit me on arriving have started to become commonplace now.

The constant, insistent hum of cars pulling up to intersections, and pulling away. It's like leaving a video game playing in the background. The engines are bigger, smoother sounding with a whirr and a bass note you don't get in motors back home. The tarmac is smooth and the cars seem newer. They're mostly automatics so no one needs to rev that high, they just pull up, and glide away. It happens all night, and everywhere you go, even in the Santa Monica backstreets. But this I am starting to notice less and less.

The car runs the road. Everyone says it and it's true. Buses come every 20 minutes. Jaywalking is a crime, punishable with a fine and a bollocking. To cross the street, even minor roads, you push a button, wait for ages, then cross when the forbidding upturned palm turns to a green man. The green man appears for mere seconds, then the palm returns, accompanied by a countdown clock that makes you instinctively break out of a Californian amble into a half-jog. It all seems designed to hurry pesky pedestrians out of the way of the progress of the mighty automobile as quickly as possible.

The streets are covered in billboards, signage and telegraph wires bisect the blue skies every time you look upwards. The telegraph wires and poles have an oddly Third World look to them, feels like they wouldnt be out of place in Calcutta. Perhaps its because in Europe they are all underground now, and it seems an odd anachronism for country supposedly at the peak of modernity like the USA. But you dont have to look far in LA for signs that the USA is in need of some extensive modernising. I notice this less and less too, so before it fades into the background like the whirr of V8 engines into the night, I thought I'd better put it down here.

My observations at the moment are still those of a tourist. The only contact I have had with residents has been with people in shops or at bus stops or bars. They're friendly but they hear the English accent and they talk to you as a visitor. Soon I hope to be talking business with LA people, and then it will be interesting to note the differences in behaviour. I feel ready to give it a shot.

Crosstown Cross Flags, Cahuenga, Hollywood & Melrose

First day with my nose to the grindstone since arriving. Also the first day of rain, which coincided perfectly as all the sunshine was too tempting to stay out of. Sunshine is like fireworks to me, it's depressing to be indoors and not seeing any, when you live in the UK, it might be the last you see for a while, so the novelty of waking up every morning to clear blue skies and warm temperatures is going to take little while to wear off.

Shireen came to LA from San Diego, where she is living at the moment, I booked a room and we went up to Hollywood for Saturday night. We had a good night out in several bars between Hollywood and Sunset Boulevards, American spirit measures are fat and their bar staff know how to make drinks, in the most part. It was cool seeing all the touristy stuff and the Hollywood sign looks good from there, but it's all a bit Leicester Square, especially after 2am.

Bought some exquisite vintage Ralph from a couple of thrift shops. $5.49 for an original Polo Cross Flags jacket, $16 for a t-shirt material polo shirt that's so dope it hurts. Mum and Dad, just thought you ought to know what bargains I'm getting. Cos aside from the vintage items, everything else is really pricey. I'm gonna need to get my carwashing/dog walking game tightened up.

5th Street Guest Suite

I'm now in the spare room at J&A's place in Santa Monica, which is to be their office. Alex has a huge collection of film scripts from her job at Regency, a mix of big famous movies and projects that never made it. Amongst the unmades is the script for Kubrick's 'Napoleon', which contains some classic Stanley K descriptive passages such as:

'A spectacular shot of the French army on the move. 5000 men. Music.'

'Josephine and Charles making love in her mirrored bedroom at the Rue De Chanterine. Maximum erotica.'

$18.39c I Kid You Not

That's about £12.

Easiest $300 I Never Spent

Jon and his wife Alex are moving from apartment 6 to 5. In return for a week's sofa rights, I'm helping them move, from one side of the landing to another. which for a seasoned mover-arounder like me is like asking Thomas Chippendale to sharpen you a pencil.

They seem very grateful. Alex worked until recently for Regency Films and is going to take my reel to some of the agents and managers in Hollywood that only do referalls, once it arrives in the post. She knows her stuff.

Flat 6 Flat 5

Random observations part 01.

1. For a town reknowned for opportunity and a can-do spirit, it has a fuckload of signs telling you what you can't do.

2. This place must get through literally hundreds of tons of Moleskine notebooks if there's that many writers and 'ideas people'.

3. I've seen two tramps wearing ipods so far.

The Silverlake Sofa Surfer

Accomodation plans have stalled a little, so on her strict instructions I stayed at JDP's place for one night. She's a playwright from New York living in LA, teaching screenwriting at UCLA and trying to get her TV scripts off the ground and into the twinkling diamond studded stratosphere above the Hollywood hills. It's taken her 3 years so far. She's getting close.

Her boundless enthusiasm and positivity is infectious, even if it does go against the natural grain of my British sense of 'all in good time, old chap'. She is very encouraging and supportive of me and my ambitions, willing to spend whatever time is necessary to teach me how to write drama, and I get the feeling she will do anything she can to help me get on in this town. But I think I need to do as much as possible myself.

Americans Can't Rave

Met up with Jasper and Will at the Rose cafe for fish tacos and beer. Jasper is a London boy who runs a company called Rogue Status in Venice, LA. He's mates with some people I know in London, one of which is Will, who is out here at the moment. Rogue Status/DTA (Don't Trust Anyone) http://www.roguestatus.com/ are a clothing company but they seem to be much more than that, owning drift racing cars, speedboats, chainsaws and a record label, either collaborating or going to war with other clothing labels.

What they do for a living could not, in the context of the UK, be considered a job, as it seems to me they get paid for coming up with new ways to have fun, and the more irresponsible that fun, then the more they get paid. Again, this seems totally viable in a place like Los Angeles.

So last night went out with the Rogue Status/DTA mob to a warehouse party in Downtown LA, complete with 16 yr old ravers wearing fluorescent beads and taking industrial strength ecstasy for the first time. The DJs were playing dubstep and drum and bass. Didn't make sense. Americans don't really know how to play that music, which probably means that no-one in the UK really knows how to play hip-hop (sorry Brad, Spindoctor).

It made me think music only really sounds right in the place it originated from - G Rap, Kane, Mobb Deep and Masta Ace sounded so perfect in my headphones walking across Union Square, New York, I listened to Danny Fornaris and Calle 13 all week long in Puerto Rico, and now I can't wait to drive top down around LA to Dre, the Doors & Maroon5 (only kidding about the last one).

A Finnish friend of a Finnish friend, Jon, picked me up from the hotel and drove me around Santa Monica and Venice. He's a writer, music video director, and old skool graffiti artist, so we had one or two things to talk about.

I saw a 70 something hunchbacked old lady yesterday walking along Santa Monica Boulevard pulling a small shopping trolley neatly loaded with a pack lunch and some box files. She was wearing a bright yellow hard hat, and Kanye West sunglasses.

This place is nuts and no one seems to notice. That makes everyone nutters by proxy.

So, I'm here.

It took a while and a little self doubt to finally get out of London, and I can't help feeling slightly empty-handed about something, like I've left a crucial element undone. The prospect of this trip felt like a Porsche behind a plate glass showroom window at times, something you can go right up close to but you can't touch it, much less drive the thing. But I landed in LAX last night, bought a burrito as big as Julio Chavez's forearm, and crashed in a very trendy but ridiculously cheap boutiquey hotel on Lincoln Boulevard. They were playing Beatnuts in the lobby this morning.

LA from the sky as the plane landed was one of the most ridiculously beautiful cities from the air I've seen. It burnt Paris. I suppose it must have been rush hour or something, but the city twinkled on and on as far as the eye could see, and the burberry check of the grid system was slashed with these solid white and red streams of headlights and tail lights, It looked like it would be a great place to be stuck in traffic.

This morning I walked 4 miles in search of an adaptor for the laptop. Should have really sorted that out before I went. They were right, all the people who said you dont walk in LA. Pedestrians and cyclists are on the whole, nutters, or the dispossessed. I jaywalked dangerously. I gots ta get me a whip.