Archive for April, 2010


I Love L.A. – #12 “I Love L.A.”

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April 27, 2010

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=le5aIqn_MfE

 

While California Love will always be my default song because of my culture and my generation, in truth there’s only one song that’s the theme song for this city, the song that you will hear whenever one of the city’s teams pulls off the big win at home.  It’s unbelievably cheesy and corny, and God bless Randy Newman, but he’d probably be the first to say he’s not the top vocalist of his generation.  Throw in the fact it was the 80s, and the camp appeal of the song “I Love L.A.” makes it one of the city’s (more innocent) guilty pleasures.

And look at that video!  It was the early age of music videos, so you can’t fault it technically.  But it’s funny to see how some of those landmarks (and styles) have aged in the past 30 years.  No doubt that’s part of the appeal too: the ‘good old’ 1980s: everyone was coked up and no one was scared of dying from a sexually transmitted disease yet.  Yeah, those were the days… 

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I Love L.A. – #11 Diversity

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April 26, 2010

 

I was sitting in the courthouse last Thursday, and found myself pulled into a conversation with an Armenian, a 19 year old Jewish kid, and a second generation Serbian.  We weren’t changing the world; just shooting the breeze.  As I’ve found throughout my experience, the Islamic Center I attend the most frequently is a wide variety of brothers and sisters from Africa, the Middle East, and America.  And around the corner from the center is a Buddhist temple.  I’ve implied it from my earliest posts, but for someone as individual as myself, the diversity of the big metropolis is one of its strongest points.

Let me get on my soapbox for a minute: each of us has a story to tell.  Each of us was born with a talent; and while some people certainly have more colorful details than others and are born with more or less money or opportunity; we’re all here for something.  It always irritates me to hear of someone who doesn’t find themselves or anything about their own life interesting.  You may not recognize it (or be proud of it), but it’s in there.  Our differences certainly create enough issues and problems, but overall they keep our lives interesting.

Don’t get me wrong; L.A. can also be as segregated in its own way as any other city.  There was a night a few weeks back where I got the side eye in the morning from a guy at the post office with an ‘Impeach Obama’ sign, and later on that night I got the same side eye from a young guy in West Hollywood.  And if you’re not from here trust me; those two guys will NEVER be hanging out together!  But just the fact that I can, without effort, cross paths with each of these type of characters in a normal day is very cool to me.  It’s like I’ve never left college in a way.

Those last couple sentences actually just gave me the idea for something else I love about L.A.; more on that next time…

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I Love L.A. – #10 The Hollywood Bowl

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April 21, 2010

 

While there are no shortage of good concert venues in the City of Angels, I’m especially partial to the Hollywood Bowl.  For one, like many of my favorite spots in this city, it’s meant to be enjoyed outdoors and takes full advantage of that.  Reason Number 2 is while its location has caused more than a few headaches on nights when I’m NOT trying to be caught on traffic, being nestled right up the road from Hollywood and Highland and off the 101 makes it a top 5 ‘You can not possibly miss it’ spot when you’re trying to give directions to someone who hasn’t gone.  The third reason is simply two of my favorite concerts since I’ve been in town have taken place at the Bowl.

I got to see Stevie Wonder there a couple years back.  Stevie in concert anywhere is a must see for a music lover, but that particular night at the Bowl felt really special.  The show started as the sun was setting; a few hours later with the moon shining and the lights on, everyone was still glued to their bench not ready to leave (having the catalog of classics Stevie has written certainly didn’t hurt). 

The show I’ll never forget was…wait for it…yes…Hall and Oates.  I gave my parents tickets to see them back when they played my hometown with Michael McDonald as the co-headliner (just imagining those two names on one bill makes me upset in retrospect I didn’t go).  Anyway, the Hall and Oates at the Bowl concert started as a running joke with me and a friend of mine, but the tickets were cheap, and truth be told, we had a blast.  There is no doubt in my mind the inspiration for the Courtney Cox show ‘Cougar Town’ came out of some exec who has sitting in the crowd that night.  My ace claims he has a blackmail photo of me dancing to ‘I Can’t Go for That (No Can Do)’ that night, but he won’t confirm or deny that photo actually exists.  As a showman, I have to admit the best part of the show was Hall & Oates doing the “You’re a great crowd, good night!”  and walking off stage routine without playing a few of their all time jams; they knew good and damn well the crowd wasn’t going anywhere without hearing “You Make My Dreams Come True” (and this was before the song started popping up again in movies like 500 Days of Summer).

One of the annual shows at the Bowl is the Playboy Jazz Festival.  I’m still holding out hope at some point I’ll get to do that with my musically inclined brother, but we’ll see.  Either way, saying so and so is playing at the Bowl instantly puts a smile on my face at the thought of enjoying good music under the stars.

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The Heart of Life

Filed under: Inspirations, the Batman, What I'm Working On — 2 Comments
April 21, 2010

The posts here have slowed to a crawl for a number of reasons; one of the biggest being that I’m dealing with an extraordinary amount of stress in my private life.  For the benefit of anyone who may be reading me or this blog for the first time, I’ll tell you upfront this post will not be about the ‘what’; that’s not how I roll.  This post is about how that ‘what’ is changing me and my view of the world.

I’m one of those people that finds work to be the perfect distraction.  I learned at a very young age that I can’t ‘ignore’ my problems away, but I can put them to the back of my mind for a few hours until I’m ready to deal with them.  When I reach the breaking point of my anger or my frustration, I have always preferred to be alone with my emotions.

As I’ve made my way through this thing called life, I’ve gathered this amazing collection of friends, associates, lovers, haters, and everything in between.  While at heart I will always be Bruce Wayne and instinctively want to deal with my personal demons on my own, I have to confess that life is MUCH easier to deal with when you’re not dealing with it alone.  I’ve had a moment to reflect on things, and have once again been moved by the level of concern my people have for me.  In no particular order, I want to thank Katy, Conway, Q, Pop, Alf, Adrian, Aida, Aaron, Ama, Jabari, Brandon and everyone else who’s made sure I didn’t ‘go into my shell’ as I’ve been known to do.

Two different quotes that roll in my head right now:

“Pain throws your heart to the ground, Love turns the whole thing around,

No it won’t all go the way it should, but I know that the heart of life is good.” – John Mayer

“Blessed is the man who perseveres under trial, because when he has stood the test, he will receive the crown

of life that God has promised to those who love him.” - 1 James 1:12

 

The next post will be more light hearted.

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Building the Dream

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April 11, 2010

 

I was approached recently and asked if I would be willing to use this space to help promote a ’cause’.  I have several personal ‘connections’ to this particular cause so I’m more than happy to use this space to help out.

Several years ago, the idea of a Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial in Washington, D.C. was hatched.  The idea blossomed into a groundbreaking ceremony; at this point of the process the fundraising is almost done.  But not quite…

I could give you a quick rundown of the history of the project and where it’s at, but the main site has the complete story and convenient places where if you choose you can contribute to the project:

www.mlkmemorial.org

 

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I Love L.A. – #9 “Hollywood”

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April 2, 2010

 

It’s the public image of Bruce Wayne.  It’s the Napoleonic Complex of Ari Gold.  She calls it my ‘smartassness’, but one of my close buddies gave it the best nickname of all: ‘Hollywood’.

The ‘Hollywood’ persona gets its roots in the pro wrestlers I looked at as a kid.  Guys like Ric Flair, Shawn Michaels, and the Rock (more on him in a second).  Like in the movies, there’s a few guys who are just over the top, comically ‘bad guys’ (like the drug dealer on Roc who bragged about selling drugs to kids), but the really interesting bad guys are the ones who don’t believe what they’re doing is bad as much as they just believe they’re approaching the world from a different point of view as everybody else.  They may be ‘unpopular’ but they don’t believe they’re ‘bad guys’. 

(Before I get too far off topic, I promised to give a shoutout to my boy John C. who writes about all things wrestling at www.thejohnreport.net.  As my interest in the wrestling business goes in and out, I can always stop by John’s site just to see what’s going on week to week and to reminisce about the ‘glory days’ of my youth.  Speaking of which, he has a nice piece up now on the newly retired Shawn Michaels.)

‘Hollywood’ as my friends know it (especially the Joker) is the kid who wears sunglasses inside the club, the kid who has season tickets to the USC games, the guy who delights in riling up the ‘red staters’ with his liberal attitude, and asks for a double mocha latte when I go to a friend’s house and he asks if I want a glass of water.  ‘Hollywood’ is me being a jackass because sometimes it’s just more fun to be a jackass. 

The best ever ‘real world’ example of this goes back into the wrestling world.  A little backstory first:  the Rock was the most over good guy in wrestling for most of the 90s.  So over he started getting parts in Hollywood movies.  You all know this, but along the way the wrestling crowd started to ‘turn’ on him.  He was still playing to the fans, but the fans started giving him ‘You Sold Out’ chants, and booing all the signature moves of ‘The People’s Champion’.  The booing became so loud and abrasive, The Rock, in mid-match, would start acting like a ‘bad guy’ since that’s evidently what the people wanted him to be.

So the next PPV comes around.  The lights go out.  Everyone looks to the Titantron to see a video they haven’t seen before: a helicopter flies over the City of Angels at night.  30 seconds of build up…60 seconds of build up…IS COOKIN!   

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nU8EmLeciR8

Half the crowd is booing their lungs out, half the crowd (like me) is cheering out of respect.  If the People want to boo him?  Fine.  The man who was once ‘The People’s Champion’ ain’t doing it for the People anymore, he’s doing it for himself.  He’s ‘Hollywood’ now, deal with it.

Yeah.  ‘Hollywood’.

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