The Great Catch-Up Pt. 1: DEATH PARK!!!

Hey all! A lot of you have been asking me what the deal is with my blog, and why I haven't updated it in a while. The only answer I can offer is this. <---(See how the word is a different color? That means you can click on it). So I've initiated the GREAT CATCH-UP 2009. Over the next few days, I'll post a series of updates that will fill you in on all the exciting things I've done in the month of June. This list includes; -Looking for apartments -Participating in a wedding -Visiting Yosemite National Park -Visiting Seattle, WA -Intense reflection on the state of my life -Going to an insane amount of movies -Rethinking my current plans So, onward and upward! Today I'm going to talk about Yosemite National Park, where I went for my friend Cory's wedding. It's a beautiful place, but its beauty hides a deadly secret. Before I get to that, though...WEDDING PIX!!!
Here's the Ceremony. I was a groomsman.




Here's a better angle on the groomsmen. The handsome chappie casting his eyes skyward in the foreground is my friend Cory, the groom. It should be fairly obvious who the bride is. The girl in pink is talking about love or something, I don't know, I was thinking about what we were going to have for dinner.


Here's the best picture of me ever taken. Still thinking about dinner.

The position of groomsman is an important and time-honored role in one of the most revered rites of passage observed in our society. A groomsman must support the groom, participate in organizing the wedding, and stand as witness during the ceremony. The duties of the groomsman are diverse and numerous, and echo with the history of the tradition. I was honored beyond my ability to express myself that my friend Cory chose me to take part in this beautiful milestone in his life. As you would expect, I approached the role with the utmost solemnity and respect.


So after they got married, we left the fancy hotel and began exploring Yosemite National Park in earnest. Turns out it's a horrible nightmare of a death trap. Who knew?

At roughly the same time the above photos were being taken a hiker named Manoj Kumar was climbing half dome, Yosemite's most famous hike. It's a 17-mile trail that eventually leads you to the top of a cool dome mountain thing. On the last part of the hike you actually use these crazy cable ladder things to climb the dome.


It was on that section that poor Manoj Kumar lost his grip and tumbled off the side of half-dome, plummeting to his death. So, at around the same time Cory and Erica were getting hitched, a man was dying. That was only the first death to occur while we were in the park.

On Sunday I enjoyed a rousing game of golf, which I had never played before. Turns out I REALLY suck at it. We got through three and a half holes (roughly) in about 3 hours, then we had to stop because the course was closing. Sunday night we had an overpriced but delicious dinner and everyone turned in early.

Monday morning found us at a new campground, this one was a bunch of pre-made canvas tents on concrete foundation bunched up like a weird little village. Everyone talked about how rustic it was, but being from Alaska I referred to it as luxury camping and got weird looks. I mean, the tents had kitchenettes and dining areas attached, and I was able to plug in my iPhone. There was a grocery store in the campground. I tried to explain to all the state-siders that this wasn't real camping, but they couldn't hear me.

We did spot the following poster:


You probably can't read it, but it says that 23 year-old Christopher Alan Hale is missing, and was last seen running NAKED through Upper Pines campground at 9:30 AM Sunday morning. (Yes, the word 'naked' was capitalized on the poster). We all had a good laugh and went on a nice hike. I have a ton of pictures of that, too, but I've already posted so many that I'm going to skip them. Except this one:


We didn't go all the way to Half-Dome, we went on a 5-6 hour hike up to Nevada falls. I was pleased to find that I was still in pretty good shape from all the swimming, and was able to handle the hike pretty well.

We got back to our campsite, Erica (the bride) made up a bunch of different types of sausage and we had a sausage fest. I ate so many sausages, it was completely out of control. Erica's dad busted out his guitar and played some campfire music.

Then this ranger showed up and started telling us about bears, and how dangerous they are. Like, if you leave food in your car, the bear will tear your car apart. Or if you have some food in your campsite, and you turn your back for like five seconds, the bear will steal all your food. Or if you go to sleep with food near you, even if it's just a grape or something, the bear will come eat off all your skin while you're sleeping. Okay, he didn't say that last one, but that was the general tone of his warnings. You see, the bears in Yosemite are all insane. Up in Alaska, we have sane bears that stay away from people. You never see them. Yosemite bears have been getting their food from tourists for generations, so they're hardly even bears anymore. More like thieving beggars, or muggers. It's really weird.

We also asked the scare-tactic-using ranger about the naked guy. They had found him, and the ranger told us he died of hypothermia. Turned out the ranger was an idiot, and he too had fallen off half dome. The ranger also gave us a amateurish mental health diagnosis which may or may not have been accurate, although there had to be something going on upstairs for the guy to run off naked like that. Apparently the guy's friends had neglected to inform the rangers for a full day after he disappeared. The whole thing completely ruined the humor of the poster and bummed us all out something fierce. Here's a lesson, everyone: if your friend does something insane, tell someone before they die.

I was in Yosemite park for 5 days. Two people died in that time period. It's overcrowded, dangerous, and full of insane bears. It's worth driving through for the views, but stopping is just too dangerous. Stay away. Don't say you weren't warned.

Apartment Hunting in Los Angeles

I got a GREAT story for ya this week! As you've probably noticed, I've given up almost completely on posting on Sundays. Maybe Wednesday will be my new day. Maybe I'll make it back to Sunday. We'll see. Anyway, here goes...

I've been really busy lately, and not sleeping well, and it's gotten to the point that I really need my own apartment. I found a likely-sounding ad on craigslist...$545/month to live with 'the two nicest guys in LA', Andy and Brice. I e-mailed them and got a reply from Andy. He assured me that Juney would be welcome at their place and that it was a wonderful apartment, and I scheduled a time to go over and check it out.

Andy and Brice's place was in Hollywood, which is where I'm doing most of my crashing these days. My hope is to find a place somewhere in this general area. Hollywood places are really expensive, so if I could get into a dog-friendly place for only $545 a month it would be almost perfect. I decided to walk over there because I had a really good parking spot. LA parking is a blog unto itself, maybe I'll cover that next week.

As I approached the address, I grew increasingly impressed with the area. It was quiet, seemed fairly nice, and there were some promising-looking restaurants in the general vicinity. I arrived at the building and Andy came out to meet me.

Andy initially seemed a little weird to me...there was a sort of nervous quality about him, and he seemed a little too nice. He also turned out to be Hungarian, so I chalked it up to cultural differences. We went inside.

The apartment turned out to be a 1-bedroom place. Andy and Brice had beds in the living room and the bedroom was for rent. Brice approached me, he also had an accent I couldn't readily identify. I got the same weird vibe from Brice...a little too nice, and kind of nervous. After a hasty introduction, they ushered me into the bedroom.

There was a dude in there! An angry-looking young man sitting at a desk with headphones and a laptop. He looked up as we entered, not saying much. Andy and Brice assured me that he would be moving out the next day. He had decided to move out at very short notice, leaving them needing to fill the room as soon as possible. The room itself was actually pretty nice for $545 a month; lots of space, etc. The big downside was that the only closet space and bathroom was in the bedroom, which basically meant that if I lived there my room would be a public area.

We went back out to the living room, and Andy and Brice ran through a laundry-list of reasons that this was the most wonderful apartment in Hollywood. Then they began asking me if I thought I might like to move in. Now, usually in situations like this there's a sort of mutual hesitancy on the part of the apartment tenants and the prospective owner; it's a kind of a weird situation to decide whether or not to live with someone after meeting them once. These guys didn't seem too worried though. They were even a little pushy.

I was definitely getting weird vibes from Andy and Brice, but I was still kind of tempted by the cheapness and good location of the apartment. Maybe I could hang up a curtain or something...
I was still suspicious about the situation with the current inhabitant of that bedroom, though. Andy and Brice had told me he was leaving to go back to France (evidently he was French) because he couldn't find a good job.

I told them I wanted to see the room again, and went over to knock on the door. Andy informed me that I didn't need to knock, I could just walk in. I did, and the French guy looked up at me. I smiled and told him I wanted to check out the room some more, and proceeded to do so. Clean bathroom, 3 desks, the bed was a little too soft.

The French guy asked me what I did, and I told him, and we started chatting. He started telling me about his job as an audio engineer or whatever, and I offered my condolences that he couldn't find a job in LA. He kind of sighed, looked over towards the living room where Andy and Brice were, and began writing something on a scrap of paper.

"Yeah, basically, I couldn't find a job so I have to go back to France, and basically, that's what happened..."

At this point he held up the piece of paper. He had written on it:

"They stole my computer."

I looked from the paper to his face. His eyes were screaming "STAY AWAY FROM ANDY AND BRICE. THEY ARE NOT THE TWO NICEST GUYS IN LA."

I continued the conversation with the poor guy for a few more seconds, so Andy and Brice wouldn't know he had tipped me off. Then I went back out and played along a little longer, pretending to be interested in the place and walking out with a copy of the lease. About a block away I trashed it, went home, and spent the rest of the night trying to figure out exactly what the heck had gone on in that apartment.



So that's the story. I'm very excited to sleep tonight, because the guy who was subletting my buddy Rudy's roommates' room seems to have moved all his stuff out, but she still doesn't get back for another week or two. That means I get to sleep in a room with a door tonight, on a futon! To me right now that feels like a penthouse suite at the Four Seasons! I'm going to sleep like a King!!!

We went back out to the living room

Crappiest Post Ever

Hey guys, I've got nothing to report this week. There's some chance that I'll eventually have something cool to report, but not now. I've been working constantly. I still live on a cot in my buddy's living room. I miss my dog. I don't sleep very well, because my sleeping bag's too hot and it gets so noisy at about 8 AM that at that point I pretty much have to give up.

Since I've been working so much, I don't really have time to do anything cool. I managed to escape early tonight, so I'm going to a comedy show with my buddy Rudy, just for something to do. There's this stand-up comedian chick in the show that Rudy thinks is really hot, and I'm sort of along for the ride.

Things have been going well for Rudy lately; his stand-ups really taking off it sounds like. Right now he's sitting across from me playing Zuma while we kill time before leaving. Zuma is a really fun flash game that I'm thinking of developing into a movie script. It started as a joke, but the more me and Rudy discussed it the more excited I got about the idea. Here's a link to a website where you can play Zuma for yourself:

CLICK HERE TO PLAY ZUMA

I got a picture of Juney today from my dad. She's getting fat. I gotta get her down her soon so I can take her jogging every day! I'm a little worried that I'm going to have trouble finding enough time to spend with her, but I'll figure that out later. One guy I work with brings his dog to work sometimes, so maybe I can do something like that. I think she may look fatter in the picture than she actually is, because of the way her harness is bunching up the loose skin on her neck and the way she's lying.

Well, I hope you guys got your summers off to a great start! Sounds like a lot of cool stuff's going on, keep me posted.

The Daily Grind

Howdy, folks! Sorry this update is so late. Two days late! It's been a few weeks since I've made the Sunday deadline. I'll have to shape up.

So I've been working and, surprise surprise, it's taking up a lot of my time. I don't think I've talked much about my job here, I know I mentioned it before. Also, this weekend I was house-sitting for my buddy out in Long Beach, and I didn't have an internet connection. I'll try to do better next time. So, I've got three interesting things to report on this week, and I'll report them in reverse-chronological order because they're most interesting that way.

1. SUNDAY- There was an earthquake in Long Beach. I don't recall the Richter numbers, but it wasn't that extreme. The crazy part is that I was in my buddy's condo which is on the 17th floor of his building. After the earthquake passed, I could feel the whole building swaying back and forth. Weeeeiiiiirrd.

2. SATURDAY- I had an audition scheduled with the Long Beach Shakespeare Company. I had to prepare a 1=minute performance piece for children. I was having trouble finding anything and was on the verge of not going when I had a flash of inspiration; I would just do "Jabberwocky" a la Eli Garvey. I already had it 90% memorized and it was a very fitting piece. Well, not only did the guy like my resume, he expressed that my piece impressed him a lot. He complimented my voice and urged me to come try out for their next Shakespeare play. Pretty cool.

3. FRIDAY- This is definitely the coolest thing that happened. My new boss at the DVD place tasked me with PAing on a recording session for a DVD commentary. PAs are Production Assistants, and they basically help set stuff up, carry stuff around, etc. The commentary was for a few episodes of "Sons Of Anarchy", an FX show about a biker gang.
I went out to the address I was given, not realizing that I was going to the studios where they shoot the show. I parked at this crew lot and a shuttle took me over to the set. I was driven past the show's main set, which is the garage where all the bikers hang out. Then back into the building where the production studios were. I got to peek into the writers' room, where all these writers were sitting around discussing what was going to happen in the show. The walls were all markerboards with plotlines and stuff on them. It basically looked like the funnest job ever.
The sound guy, Greg, had me set up the mics and headsets for all the cast members recording the commentary. This was no mean feat, because there were 10 guys on the first commentary; the show's creator Kurt Sutter and all the show's main biker gang characters. We were setting up for 2-3 hours, minus a quick coffee break. My boss and I wanted coffee so we went to the craft services table. They had a pot of turkish coffee, which you drink shots of. It's got some crazy Turkish spices in it and its really strong. Also, they had a snack room that was just out of control. There was a whole wall of snacks. Like, imagine if you took the snack aisle of a convenience store and put it into bookcases, that's what it was like.
The cast showed up, and at that point most of them had already been shooting all day. A couple of them were still in costume, and they all looked really tired. I recognized a couple of the actors from various TV shows and stuff. The most famous guy in the room was Ron Perlman, who played Hellboy.
Watching them record the commentary was really cool. I mean, I listen to those things all the time, so it was really neat to see one being recorded. We did two, the second one had far fewer people. At the end of the day the sound guy told me I was invaluable, which was awesome. The whole experience was enchanting. I wanted to just hide somewhere in the production offices and just stay there.

How I Didn't Get a Job at Universal Studios

So, it's been an eventful week for me down here in LA! First and foremost, there's the release of the new Star Trek movie! What an exciting time to be alive. I think the movie got a little over-hyped for me. It was really good, but I was still disappointed. That's just me, though. I'm too picky to enjoy anything. Go see it, you'll have a good time.

Second, I got a job! I work for DVD Group, a company that produces DVDs for film and television. I'm an assistant editor, which means that I do grunt work. I won't go into a bunch of boring technical details, but basically what I do is go through other people's edited sequences and make lists of the shots they used. To give you an idea of what kind of an undertaking this is, I'm currently working on a 19 minute featurette about that new Fox show "Fringe." I worked on it for eight hours today, and got through fourteen minutes of the sequence. Still, there's worse ways to make a buck! Hopefully I'll be able to sock away a little dough, because I really miss Juniper a lot and I can't wait to get her down here.

Third, I applied for a position as a tour guide at Universal Studios theme park. It's an awesome place, and it would be an amazingly fun job to have. I didn't get it, I didn't even get called back for the interview. I think I know why.

So I get to the park at about 2:30 PM last Thursday. A helpful security guy directs me to the Jurassic Park garage (all their parking garages are movie-themed). The garage was called...you guessed it...Jurassic Parking!!! I parked Nellie in there and made my way down City Walk to the VIP lounge, which is where the job interview was being held.

City walk is a ridiculously gaudy high-end open-air shopping area. Imagine if a super-rich society made a theme park devoted to malls, and you get City Walk. It's really a very cool place to hang out. I went in a candy story called "It'sugar" (stupid name) and bought a bunch of high-end gummy bears. They had a nine-foot tall statue of Marilyn Monroe made entirely out of jelly beans in there.

So I get closer to the main park gates, and there's this huge line of people. Sure enough, they were all there to apply for the tour guide gig. I'm talking hundreds of people. I had worn my nice jeans and a button-up shirt, but now I had to stand outside in the hot LA sun and sweat up my good clothes. Oh well.

Pretty soon, a hot wannabe actress in a cast got in line behind me. I started chatting her up, and things were going okay. She seemed a little cold, but attractive women in LA are often that way 'cause so many of the guys are evil. She also seemed a little self-absorbed, but whatever. Anyway, I feel like I was starting to make a little headway when this Universal employee came up and snatched her out of the line because she had the cast on. So she got to skip about 2 hours' worth of line and I had to stay there in the sun without an attractive woman to talk to. Ah, well. C'est la vie.

As we neared the VIP lounge, people started getting really catty. A lot of smack was talked about the cast-wearing actress because she had gotten to leave the line. A lot of smack was talked about Universal Studios. A lot of smack was talked about a lot of things. I didn't understand it. Everyone here is really jealous. I guess competing against hundreds of people for crappy jobs does that to you.

So we get into the VIP lounge and we thought we were done, but they basically gave us water and sent us out into another line. Eventually we neared the room that would be our ultimate destination. As I got close a Universal employee told us how the job interview/audition would go down.

In the room were four tables, and each table had a person in fancy clothes sitting at it. Four applicants would enter the room, sit at a table, and talk to the fancily-dressed person for 1 minute and 30 seconds. After the time was up, a Universal Employee would ring a small bell and those four would get up and leave, and the next four would go in.

So I finally get my turn. I sit down across from a woman named Rachel and start explaining to her that I have some basic performance experience, I worked in visitor information for a long time, I used to write movie reviews when I was a kid. She seemed surprised, so I was all "It gets a whole lot crazier!"

As most of you have probably heard, I was a guest on the Tonight Show with Jay Leno when I was 13. It was because of the movie reviewing gig I had when I was a kid. It's not something I like to talk about a lot, but it's on my resume, if you get my drift. So anyway, I was about to start telling Rachel about how I went on the Tonight Show when I was a kid, but I really don't like talking about it, so I got all tounge-tied and started stammering. I was trying to figure out how to broach the topic when the bell rang. I just muttered "Aw, it's in the resume", then I got up and left.

As I walked out, I thought about what would happen next. Rachel would probably page through the resume until she found the item about movie reviewing. Then she'd look further down the page and see that I claimed to have been a Tonight Show guest at age 13. And what do you suppose she would think about that? In a place where hundreds of people show up for a tour guide job, each of them desperate to stand out from the crowd? If I were her, I'd think it was a filthy stinking lie. My stammering and getting cut off by the bell would look like a carefully-crafted bid to get her attention. I mean, if you think about it, the idea of some guy from Alaska going on the Tonight Show at age 13 is totally absurd.

So, I didn't get called back. I'm thinking I'll probably take the Tonight Show appearance off the ol' resume.

Paul's Top 5 Coolest Things About LA

Hey Gang!

First of all, mad props to everyone who made "Mixed Nuts" happen. I hear it was awesome, can't wait to see the tape.

Second, my celeb sighting log is up to 3! I saw Judd Apatow at an advance screening of his new movie that I'm not allowed to talk about, and on Saturday night I spotted Anna Faris at a Mexican restaurant/bar type place. I was talking to Marla on the phone the other day, and she came up with a great analogy; celebrities are basically like moose. You see them semi-regularly, you always look, but it's not really a big deal unless you're from somewhere where there are no moose. Also, much like moose, it's generally frowned-upon to go up and start messing with celebrities.

So this week I'm going to tell you my 5 favorite things about Los Angeles:

5. Ridiculous Clothes
When I was 8, I had this really cool tunic-style robe that I wore around the house. I'm not sure where it even came from, but it sort of reminded me of a medieval garment and I really liked it. One day I decided to wear it to school. That basically seems to be the type of outfit-planning that people in LA use. It's so fun walking through Hollywood, because wherever you go you see people wearing things that make you laugh out loud. I'm working on a good way to surreptitiously photograph these people, so hopefully in the future I'll be able to provide you guys with some visuals.

4. The World-Famous KROQ
Some of you may be aware that I regularly listen to a radio show called Loveline. It's a nationally syndicated advice show. Well, it's recorded here in LA and its home station is KROQ, a local rock station. In addition to hearing Loveline's live broadcast for the first time in years, I've been listening to a lot of KROQ and it's an amazing station. Except for the occasional foray into Nickel Park and Linkinback or whatever the kids are listening to these days, it pretty much always plays stuff I like. It's not all rock, either; every now and then they'll drop some reggae or hip-hop. I listen to KROQ pretty much on a regular.

3. Movie Obsession
I have a movie obsession, so it's kind of gratifying to live in a town that shares it. Everyone I pass on the street is talking about a movie, there's movie-themed stuff everywhere, movie posters all over the place. It's an exciting place to be if you like movies.

2. In-N-Out
Basically, In-N-Out burger is gourmet fast food. They are noted for providing healthy ingredients and doing business ethically. They also have a secret menu that isn't posted, but there's a bunch of stuff you can order if you know what to say. They're cheap, and it's sooooo good. It's unbelievable. I've been eating a great deal of this stuff.

1. The Arclight
Greatest. Movie theater. Ever. It's a luxury theater. Tickets are a little pricier, but it's worth it. First of all, you get to select your seat when you buy a ticket. Then you go in and everything padded and velvety and blue. There's a bunch of digital projection going on, and amazing sound, the works. It's awesome. Honorable mention also goes to Grauman's Chinese Theatre, which is so crazy I won't even begin to describe it here.

Repercussions

Hey gang! Sorry this post is a day late, I was on-set for 16 HOURS yesterday. 8:30 AM to, like, one in the morning or something. The movie I was working on was called "Repercussions", and this blog is to tell you a little bit about the experience.

I found the gig on craigslist. If you ever go to the LA craigslist and start looking in the jobs section, you'll notice that everyone's making a movie and wants people to work on it for no money. Unfortunately, most of these people are idiots or liars or both. Michael came across as a pretty smart guy in his ad, plus he said he was shooting Yakuza gun battles, so I decided to apply for a PA job. PA stands for Production Assistant, and it's pretty much the lowest job on the set. PA's the guy you send for coffee or whatever. Fortunately, Michael realized I was a sharp cookie and gave me the job of 1st Assistant Director, which is a much more important-sounding title.

I was there for three shoots. There's a few more things to be shot, but it's all fairly simple stuff of the main character driving around feeling conflicted and standing in some scenic spot feeling conflicted, also his wife getting killed. All of the pictures on this blog are from day 1, which was last Sunday. We were in a small office in El Monte shooting a scene where the main character is in the office of his import-export business with his partner and also a scary Yakuza guy who he's sort of friends with shows up. Pictured below, left to right, are the main character, the business partner, and the scary Yakuza guy.





Day two was a game of cat-and-mouse in a parking garage, and yesterday we shot in a much larger, cooler office which belonged to the Yakuza boss. My job as 1st Assistant Director was to help plan the day, make sure everyone is doing what they're supposed to be doing, and make sure things keep moving forward. So basically, it was about 1/5 of what I'm used to doing as a director on Pier 1 shows.

So it was a pretty cool experience. I met some really cool people and learned the following things:

-In the film industry, extension cords are called stingers. I have no idea why, but everyone calls them that.

-I'm very well-prepared for directing an independent movie in LA. I kind of assumed there would be this huge wake-up call about how much I didn't know and I would be all confused, but it turns out the only real difference between this and what I'm used to is that the equipment is more complicated. One thing I've learned from theatre is that you don't need to understand complicated equipment to be able to direct. So it's game on! I've got two shorts and a feature I want to do, now I just need to find some way to get some money.