chase the light

Woo hoo! Off to another red carpet premiere and free food at the after party. Tonight was Rob Reiner’s new romantic comedy “Alex & Emma”. Lot’s of stars, but I was particularly happy to see Chris Robinson of the The Black Crowes. He’s in one of my favorite bands, married to Kate Hudson and living a charmed life. Bastard. Star list: Albert Brooks, Carl Reiner, David Paymer, Goldie Hawn, Kate Hudson, Luke Wilson, Nicky and Paris Hilton, Rip Taylor, Rob Reiner, Sara Rue, Pete Sampras, Bridgett Wilson, Busy Phillips, Mindy Burbano, Christopher Guest, Alec Baldwin and Larry David. The after party was at White Lotus [LINK] in Hollywood. A velvet rope kinda place I would never go to as my tastes differ from that, but the food was amazing. The valet parking was out of control so we parked down at the Arclight Cinemas and walked up Cahuenga a few blocks instead of sitting in the car waiting. The place was just packed and mingling through the crowd was brutal. I made Alec Baldwin nervous by coming at him with a plate a food so he got out of my way. I asked for a bottle of water at the bar and they gave me a bottle of Voss [LINK]. This is the most ridiculous water ever produced. They even have nutrition facts on their website. It’s friggin’ water not wine! If you’re buying this overpriced crap, shame on you. The movie? A suck fest.

More video fun. I found this buried deep in a box in the back of a closet today. Back in 1992 I was taking some classes at UCLA and got hooked up with this video director from Germany. His name was Oliver. He was going to be shooting a video for this artist from Denver in the coming weeks and wanted to know if I could shoot it. I agreed. This turned out to be the sole reason I never got into making music videos. You have to spend 2 days listening to the same damn song over, and over, and over, and over, and over, and over… With a piece of crap song like this it’s just brutal. Now, you’re only going to spend a few minutes watching this frightening thing but I had to spend two long days listening to this and watching this moron “act”. I hated every single moment of those two days. This led to a gig on a rap video which I’ll try and post a bit of some other time. Oh man, kill me all over again. You really have to watch it all just to see how many times you cringe. Like this guy would ever have a chance with her. Even on set she would have nothing to do with him. Please, don’t choke on your own vomit while you watch this skeleton from my closet. No tapping your toes or spontaneous dancing. I present to you… “Be My Girl”. Oh man, it’s bad.

Why do I loathe Orange County? Let me count the ways. Also known as O.C.. Also also known as “Only Caucasions”. I grew up in Orange County and one of my priorities was to get out of there as soon as I could. It’s a place you run away from. After a friends party I stopped by to see some other friends and I actually knocked on the wrong door. How could I tell? All the houses look the same down there. The guy who answered the door said “Oh, they live 2 houses down in the house with the bigger palm trees”. It’s not like I haven’t been to this house a bunch of times either. I just couldn’t tell. Which brings me to the single scariest statues I’ve ever seen. At the entrance to a housing tract down there are these two statues. A man with a daughter, and a woman with a son. I’m not going to go on about why I hate these statues, they speak for themselves. The amount of American flags and SUV’s in this place is astounding. Ah, my hometown, gotta love it. Now get me the hell out of here.

For your Friday the 13th viewing pleasure I’ve decided to take you back 14 years to the classic “Straight A’s”. Set in the Bay Area at a large seaside University, the story revolves around the long held belief that if your college roommate dies they’ll give you straight A’s. This is long before that stupid MTV movie. While going to school with a collective of fellow film geeks we gathered in the very place we live and put together this movie in a few days. As it turns out it came out quite good considering the technology at the time. One being a camera and recorder that were separate. I had to carry the recorder with a strap on my shoulder. Other production highlights include the smoke machine that wouldn’t stop firing after we shut it off. Rod Reed’s effects work during the climax. Brilliant. If you like your horror fun, like “Bad Taste” from Peter Jackson, then this is for you. Does that mean we’re only four more films away from making “Lord of the Rings”? This is also a good look into where I lived holed up in a dorm for two years. If you look closely you’ll see my desk is in the closet. I really didn’t use it much for studying. Some things I did learn in college; how to juggle, how to ride a unicycle, and how to play “The Rain Song” by Led Zeppelin in it’s entirety. Now that’s college tuition spent right. And I wonder why I was a “C” student? Jeff, Keith, Ben and Fahim are the main characters, with Keith putting in a bravura performance as the wayward student. It ended up getting edited at the local cable station in Contra Costa county for free. It even won 2nd place in a contest from “Video Review” magazine. I think the prize was a camera bag. Ah… those were the days. Not a care in the world and looking for handouts. 15:45 secs. After 14 years, sit back, grab some popcorn, and enjoy the killin’.

The last of the four concerts tonight. Peter Gabriel on his 2nd leg of the Growing Up tour. Concert highlights? He played “Games Without Frontiers” and “Don’t Give Up”. The 2 Kate Bush songs in his repertoire. He also did the song “The Tower That Ate People”. A song from the Millennium Dome show “OVO”. During “Games Without Frontiers” he and his daughter Melanie rode Segway scooters around the stage. The Zorb was back again during “Growing Up”. I left during the “In Your Eyes” encore to get a headstart on the traffic. I can really do without hearing that song again for the umteenth billion time. Hey, no mirrorball tonight. Oh, and here’s a rather uninteresting photo of the parking lot. This is the “Hey look at me I went to Peter Gabriel tonight” page. Seeing how his last tour was 11 years ago, that’s kinda a big deal. Setlist for tonight: Red Rain – More Than This – Secret World – Games Without Frontiers – Mercy Street – Darkness – Digging in the Dirt – Don’t Give Up – The Tower That Ate People – Growing Up – Shock The Monkey – Solsbury Hill – Sledgehammer – Signal To Noise. Encores 1: In Your Eyes – Come Talk To Me – Father, Son.

CBS Studios, Chateau Marmont, Laurel Canyon, a deer, a plane wreck, the hill in “Hill Valley” from Back to the Future, The Chinese Theater, The Hollywood Sign, Capitol Records and Griffith Observatory. Hold on, a plane wreck…? Yeah, a plane decided to crash into an apartment building, scaring a deer on the hillside. No evil terrorists, just a bonehead pilot who’s now dead. What you can’t see and hear are the 12 news helicopters buzzing about.

Hi, my name’s Eddie Vedder. Like Pete Yorn, I too play “Sincere Rock” and take myself way to seriously. I’ve taken the band Pearl Jam hostage and I’m gonna stand here with my guitar for two hours and not really do much. You guys like to think I’m really amazing, so it doesn’t really matter. My light show’s also going to consist of a mirrorball. Ok, so Pearl Jam weren’t that amazing tonight. Quite run of the mill really. At least they played “Black”. The longest friggin’ line in the history of lines was queued up outside the amphitheater. Someone screwed up. We decided to wait for the line to get completely inside before we went in. An hour and thirty minutes later the last people filed in. Pearl Jam was already on stage. Not that we missed much. The frogs are still croaking in the creek. Some things never change.

On the road to Pearl Jam… kidnapper alert. Keepin’ my eyes peeled. Even if it is bumper to bumper. Caught the same day two states away. “Amber Alerts” seem to be workin’. Get the code from their site if you like.

Hi, my name’s Pete Yorn. I play “Sincere Rock” and take myself way to seriously. I’m gonna stand here with my greasy hair for two hours and not really do much, but you guys like my music so much it’ll seem like I’m really amazing. Since I’ve sold out two shows at The Wiltern you sheep must think I’m doing something right. My light show’s going to consist of a mirrorball that I’m going to turn on whenever the music builds to a climax. I’m going to yell stuff from the stage like, “I smell pot!”, “He’s from L.A., aren’t you proud of him?!”, “South Pasadena!”. Come on dude, quit moping around the stage like you’re some brooding arteest. Jump up and down. Something. Anything. And stop telling us the title of every song. We’re fans, we know. A cool thing about The Wiltern is you can park at the Ralphs grocery store, then go shopping until the line to get out of the parking structure has died down. And if that isn’t enough, it’s only 10 minutes to my couch to watch Conan. Two more concerts this week, Pearl Jam and Peter Gabriel. I’m bettin’ they kick Mr. Yorn’s greasy ass. I’ll just stick to his records from here on out.

[NEKO CASE VIDEO LINK – 1m:50secs – 320×240 – 4.6mb]
The long awaited return of Neko Case to L.A. My favorite singer hits Hollywood with an acoustic set at The Derby. For years I always thought she could do a stellar version of the song “Wayfaring Stranger”. Totally out of the blue what’d she open with? Yep. Unbelievable. When Furnace Room Lullaby came out in 2000 it took 4 months before it left my cd player. I went to see her at The Fillmore a few years back when she opened for The Jayhawks and have been waiting for her to return. The second she opens her mouth to sing, she’s got you. Oh that voice, and she only learned to play guitar in 1999. All this and she’s also been permanently banned from the The Grand Ole Opry for taking her shirt off on stage. Talk about shaking up a stuffy institution. One happy concert-goer tonight. There’s a little movie clip of “Deep Red Bells” below. I don’t care if you don’t like her. She’s mine, I saw her first, bugger off. Wayfaring Stranger – Things That Scare Me – Deep Red Bells – Lady Pilot – Pretty Girls – Stinging Velvet – Blacklisted – Favorite – Set Out Running – Twist The Knife – Thrice All American – Furnace Room Lullaby – Buckets Of Rain – You Belong To Me.

Woo hoo! Walkin’ down the red, er, blue carpet at the “Finding Nemo” world premiere. At El Cap. for the screening and then party across the street at Hollywood and Highland. Slightly clueless why everyone was yelling “Cindy”, “Cindy”, “Cindy” at me when I walked down the carpet. I finally noticed Cindy Crawford was walking right in front of me. Duh… Two supermodels in one week! Although Cindy is “the” supermodel.

Steve Jobs came into the theater and grabbed his seat in front of John Lasseter and Michael Eisner. Eisner and Jobs stood in the aisle and chatted for a few minutes. I had nothing to add to the conversation so I didn’t join in. All I heard was Eisner complaining about his Mac crashing or something. I guess he didn’t notice Jobs clearly not listening and wearing his iPod. Albert Brooks was there with his kids, Danny Bonaduce obviously works out, which hopefully is his new drug, Ellen DeGeneres and her girltoy were wearing de reguer pantsuits, Willem DaFoe is way short, Brad Garrett is way tall, Wayne Knight is way thinner, Lauren Holly is way cute, and Jon Voight is so unbelievably nice. I stopped and talked with him for bit as he was strolling about. He asked my name and what I do. I told him I just finished visual effects on The Matrix and he immediately started blurting out box office numbers for this weekend.

I asked if he goes to all the Disney premieres, because I’d seen him at the “Shanghai Knights” premiere. He said they invite him a lot and that he just worked on “Holes” for them. Great guy. Friggin’ “Joe Buck”, the Midnight Cowboy himself. If you see one film right now, rent “Midnight Cowboy”. A top ten film of mine. Beau Bridges and Miguel Ferrer were on hand as were various other celebs, all just milling about. John Lasseter asked me if I could take a photo of him with his family. Um, yeah, of course. Pretty powerful group of people there today. The movie? Not their best, but still very very good. It’s no Shrek. Hee hee.

Incredible photo, isn’t it? So we have this full lunar eclipse tonight, and I’m like cool, let’s go check it out. So I go look at it and it looks like it does all month but with a blurry edge. It’s also like 238,000 miles away, but apparently my camera only focuses up to 176,000 miles away so it was really just a big ol’ bust. I did get one blurry photo of a spot and a plane’s tail lights. No cheese or cows were hurt during the eclipse.

Winston from work wanted to meet Supermodel Gisele Bundchen at The Grove. So we drove over. A court order makes me stay a least 50 feet away from her, but I was able to snap a few pics of her for my shrine, er… portfolio. Sarcasm alert: What’s with the love handle poking out out of the jeans? I mean, come on, what a fatty. She probably eats crackers in bed too. She ain’t so supa. Lunchin’ with supermodels.

That there’d be Daniel Lanois! My friends are going to fall into two camps. The “Who’s that?” camp, or the “OH MY GOD, THAT’S DANIEL LANOIS!” camp. You already know which one you are. Daniel has produced and played on quite a few my favorite albums of all time. He signed a copy of his new album for me. So what are some of the albums he has produced and played on? Take a look. [LINK] 6 Grammys and called “the most important record producer to emerge in the Eighties” by Rolling Stone. Now you know why it was way cool for me to meet him. 3 minute snippet of music from his performance at the store. A real musical geek moment.

Identification….Processing….Investigation. A few seconds away from a finger print smear on the lens. Isabella’s now 1, fully mobile, and a magnet for broken glass, things that aren’t tied down, and splinters from wooden floors.

Haight Street S.F. and the Fluevog [LINK] store. According to the chair, Naz [LINK] measures in at about 4’2″ with platforms. I walked out with a pair of Satan resisting “Gibson Swirls”.

[PET CEMETERY GALLERY]

Because they’re all going to their respective pet heavens… In San Francisco and under the Golden Gate Bridge lies the final resting place of the pets of some overly attached owners. And in animal karmic retribution while I was shooting, my car was riddled with no less than 30 bird shits.

California’s mini Uluru [LINK]. The rock at Morro Bay [LINK]. Stayed here last night in a little seaside motel that had free videos. “Free Willy”, “Solarbabies”, and “Dunston Checks In” were some of the choices. I had asked about what movies were playing in town last night and the desk clerk rolled her eyes and said, “Chicago”. I was kinda disturbed that I agreed with her. She gave me directions in between hacking, coughing and spitting out street names. I think I found patient zero of the SARS [LINK] outbreak. Hit the road at 9:00 and pulled off to watch some surfers and their “chool bus”. Dude.

Arrived in San Simeon about an hour later and took the bus up to Hearst Castle [LINK]. I learned that being flithy rich can be a good thing. For one, you can buy lots of statues of naked people. I also whispered “Rosebud” to myself throughout the tour. It’s hard not to. Stocked up on some “Hearst Castle Fudge” and headed for Santa Cruz where I was greeted by bad weather and a rainbow. And on a side note that I’m terribly proud of, the XM satellite radio [LINK] installed in my car worked like a charm. Radio reception on HWY 1… who’d of thought?

The goal was to get to Morro Bay so I could hit San Simeon early in the morning. The weather was nice back in L.A. so I threw on a pair of shorts for the drive up. Round about Santa Barbara the weather took a huge turn for the worse. That’s fine when you have normal clothes. When I pulled into Solvang I decided to change into some pants. I go to the trunk to get my bag that I had stuffed with clothes and… I left the pants and pullovers I was supposed to pack on the bed! All I have are t-shirts and shorts. What an idiot. Ok, no problem I’ll just find a Gap or something a pick up a couple pairs. San Luis Obispo’s not that far. Meanwhile the sun has gone down and I figure the Gap in S.L.O. will probably close at 9. I’ve got an hour to get there, find it, and get back on the road. I get to San Luis Obispo and after half an hour I find a Gap and they don’t have the right sizes. All that I can get are 2 sizes to big and too long. My ass is hanging out and I look like one of the Fat Albert gang. There’s nothing else I can do, I’m freezing to death, and have a couple days before I can shop in Santa Cruz. So I buy these really friggin’ big pants that I have to hold up by keeping both of my hands in the pockets. All of their belts were too small. This is the worst Gap ever. Nothing is in stock. I pull out of town and get to Morro Bay, find a scary Bates motel along the highway and head over to the rock. It’s too dark out to really see it, so I sat next to the water and looked at the city lights. Me and my new big pants.

I’m hitting the road for a week long trip up the coast to San Francisco then home in a day. Hwy 101, south of San Luis Obispo lies Ostrich Land. Little did I know, less than 1/8 of sec. later this piece of shit ostrich would have my pinkie, ring, and middle fingers half way down it’s throat. Damn bird nearly maimed me. I wasn’t even taunting it with the giant egg I bought at the store.