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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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?
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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.
“Doc – The classic quivering cock sleeve” “The quiver that makes you shiver” “The Doc has the cure” Someone couldn’t even wait to get in the car. Oh my, I hope they’re not out driving around with this thing in them. Anybody else notice “strap on” spells “no parts” backwards?
Ah… Home away from home. Really this is were I spend most of my day. Bamboo beaded curtain, hula lamp, tropical painted globe lights, old projector, turtles, various island trinkets, and a fish net to top it all off. Yes, I’ve looked up her skirt. Nothin’ but wheels and pulley’s and such.
Somewhat trapped in my house, a bunch of people, 23,647 to be exact, went running by my house for the L.A. Marathon. Some ran, some walked, and unfortunately a lot smelled. Never thought of that aspect of it, but after having run 13 miles they were all smelling pretty bad.
I guess he could still fly. Yes I changed the phone number, so if you see our little wayward crow contact me. He’s black, I’m guessin’.
The cake delimma. So, on Saturday we had two full cakes left over from my grandmothers service. Problem is, what do you do with them? They’ve got “in memorium” written all over them. The plan is to pawn one off at work in one of the kitchens. My thought is if they “don’t know” it was for my grandmother they’ll willfully gorge themselves. I left the cake in the refrigerator for a day and hardened it up. With a sharp knife I was able to break off the lettering. Then, I figured I could get it in to work and slice it up to make it even less noticable. At lunch I snuck the cake up the side stairwell, so I wouldn’t have to explain the cake in person. Then I quickly sliced it up in the kitchen and slipped back to my office. I even took a slice to get the ball rolling. In about 20 minutes I went back and checked on it. Oooo… four slices are now gone. It’s working and no one knows the better. Bwa ha ha ha. In just over two hours the cake was gone. EXCEPT for that damn last slice! So there’s the last slice sitting in the box. It sat there for another hour until finally, FINALLY someone came along and… no they didn’t eat it. They sliced that piece in half to make an even smaller last piece. You have got to be kidding me. People, eat the last slice, it’s ok, really. Ok, enough about the cake.
Haight Street S.F. and the Fluevog [