I really meant to write about my bathroom renovation this week – offering witty insights and wise advice to anyone brave and foolish enough to trust an Israeli contractor with their money and a wet saw. Something other home owners could read, relate to and maybe even learn a little something from. But then I figured, fuck it, I’ll just write about Sharknado which, I think we all agree, is the finest LA movie since Chinatown. Maybe even better – as we can see from the comparison below:   Sharknado Chinatown Flying Sharks Yes No Ian Ziering Yes No Chainsaw Yes No Complex and thought provoking noir tale of rapacious greed, boundless   ambition and unthinkable depravity set against the fictionalized backdrop of   LA’s Water Wars. No Yes IAN ZIERING FIGHTING A MOTHERFUCKING FLYING SHARK WITH A GODDAMN   CHAINSAW!!! Hell yeah Not so much.   I mean, it’s kind of a no brainer. Maybe if Roman Polanski had been just a little bit more imaginative – like, let’s say – instead of finding a dead hobo in the dried up LA river bed the cops found a blond in a bikini with HUGE BAZOOMMBAS (clinical term) who’d been bitten in half by a flying shark with one or possibly TWO HEADS.  Or maybe instead of cutting Jack Nicholson’s nose with an itty-bitty knife, Roman Polanski could have CHOPPED IT OFF WITH A CHAINSAW and as all the blood gushed into the LA River, there would be a close up on a super-intelligent CGI shark in the water smelling the blood and turning its head as if to say “Oooooh, something suddenly smells simply delectable. Is that a hint of Private Detective nose I’m getting? I simply must go investigate” ‘cause you know that’s a real fucking thing sharks do, and then the shark could jump out of the water and BITE ROMAN POLANSKI’S NOSE AND WHOLE FACE OFF, cause that’s what qualifies as “irony” in these movies, as well as DEVOURING the blond in a bikini with the HUGE GAZONGAS (technical term) who inexplicably accompanies Polanski to all of his important nose cutting jobs – which is particularly surprising since she’s over 14.  So, yeah, maybe if Polanksi had just been a little bit more imaginative or tried just a little bitharder he could have made a movie as awesome as Sharknado – but he didn’t – so forget it Roman, L.A’s Sharknado’s town. Which is appropriate, because Sharknado’s got every bit as much to say about LA as Chinatown. The asshole New Yorker on the freeway who gets eaten alive by a shark on the 405 right after complaining about stupid Californians who freak out when it rains; the substitute teacher from Wyoming who came out to LA to be an actor and was killed by a flying letter from the Hollywood sign; a shark crashing into the cement outside Mann’s Chinese Theatre and leaving it’s own “footprint”; the Ferris Wheel on the Santa Monica pier coming loose and crashing right through the iconic sign on the pier – thereby destroying all future “hey, look, moron, if you didn’t fucking realize it already, we’re in LA” montages during Laker game broadcasts. I mean, who needs some boring old incredibly brilliant and thought provoking social commentary about water rights in the San Fernando Valley directed by a borderline child molester when you’ve got sharks devouring New Yorkers stuck in traffic on the freeway, which, let’s face it, we’ve all fantasized about a little on the 405 during rush hour (IDEA FOR A SEQUEL: Sharknado vs Carmageddon – Seriously, We Mean It – Stay Off The Roads This Weekend). Of course, you could argue that none of this shark biting stuff is truly necessary for quality filmmaking and may, in fact, be detrimental to art of cinema. And, of course, you’d be absolutely right. Well done! Nicely argued...

It is hot in Los Angeles this week. Everyone always thinks it’s hot — ideas of palm tree paradises flocked with bikini clad women and men in sunglasses, relishing the look of themselves in their convertibles have somehow managed to infiltrate the rest of the country like a fairy tale at bed time. As a native Angeleno I’ve never particularly identified with the love of palm trees or convertibles. I’d be lying if I said I didn’t fancy the ocean, but that is just a simple water affinity. I’d be just as happy near any lake or coastline in existence. Hell, just get me in a pool and I’m all smiles. The Pacific Ocean just happens to be the water body of my home. That being said, I haven’t been to the beach in years. Perhaps it is because I’m self conscious, perhaps the reported toxic water conditions play into it, but I have the feeling that I am more a product of so called normality than anything, even in this city of supposed dreams. I work. I clean. I buy groceries. I go to the gym, but not as often as I should. I sit in traffic. I sit on the couch watching prime time television, glad to be home from a long day of drudgery – often times worrying about the days to come. It’s frankly odd to live in a city with so many preconceptions, even odder to have grown up in one. It so often seems that the populous at large forgets that people are at their core just people, so many of us just trying to make our way from day to day in this life without glamour or dramatic turns. Sometimes I’ll pass the palm trees on the side of a freeway or road and think to myself that I don’t really care for them. They aren’t a symbol of any sort of lifestyle to me, they are simply a tree, and not a particularly nice one. I suppose they are symbolic of Los Angeles. They are not native of this region and have to be planted purposefully with much cost and circumstance, but I think Los Angeles is so much more than what could be bound to that analogy. Feature Image Credit: Meet Me In...

Santa Monica, CA – Thursday By Joshua Mauldin When asking her personal trainer how she ranks on a scale of 1 to 10 this morning, 43-year-old entertainment executive Marilyn Gull was shocked to discover that on looks alone she was a 5. However, when her “pocketbook” was taken into consideration, her ranking increased to an 8. “After my husband left me for a 22-year-old dancer, I was destroyed,” said Marilyn through a melancholy grin. “No matter how much I had accomplished on a professional level, I was still doomed by the patriarchal rules of attraction.” Shallow men of an average-to-poor aesthetic have long been able to use success to secure attractive women half their age. Women of equal means have had a difficult time duplicating that dynamic – until now. “When I was young, I dreamed of a world where women, no matter how unappealing our physical appearance might be, could work hard enough to attract sexy, young idiots.” Bryce Fischer, Marilyn’s personal trainer, echoed her excitement. “I only do this gig during the day. I’m actually a double threat writer/actor. I’ve got this awesome idea about a ripped personal trainer who saves LA from fat aliens. If I’m going to play the lead, I need to know people who know people. Banging this old broad gets my foot in the door.” “Banging this old broad,” Marilyn laughed. “He’s so cute.” Feature Image Credit: The...

The rantings of a non-driving theatre professional living in altogether the wrong city. I’ve been reading Raymond Chandler recently and he’s inspired me to try and better describe L.A. This is much better than what happened when I first read Raymond Chandler in Middle School and he inspired me to become a Private Detective. And by, “become a Private Detective” what I really mean is open up my own Encyclopedia Brown-style detective agency in the backyard of my parents’ house. Turns out, though, that much like Free to Be You and Me and the Bible, the Encyclopedia Brown books had some very misleading ideas about life and the backyard of a suburban home on a quiet street in upstate New York. It’s a terrible location for a Private Detective Agency that depends entirely on walk up business. I mean, sure there was the Case of What the Hell Are My Sister’s Friends Smoking in the Garage and Will They Let Me Have Any, the Mystery of God and Why is My Sister Such a Bitch Once a Month, but aside from those brief investigations – not a lot of action. So after a couple of lonely days sitting at the picnic table behind our house, with a handwritten sign illegibly advertising my services, wearing a deerstalker cap in 90 degree weather (yes, I know I’m sort of mixing my literary detective metaphors but it was left over from a past Halloween costume and I WAS 12 YEARS OLD WHAT THE HELL DO YOU PEOPLE WANT FROM ME, BLOOD? I didn’t have the pipe, though cause my sister’s friends were using it in the garage). I closed down the Agency for good. It was all very disappointing. Not a single dame walked into my office with eyes as blue as a mountain lake, hair the color of honey and gold and a set of gams that starts at the ground and ends with a lump at my throat (my sister doesn’t count and her gams usually ended with a foot up my ass). Not a single flashy hood walked in with slicked back hair and cream colored pigskin driving gloves to call me “cheapie” and “shamus” and threaten me to keep my nose clean or he’d cut it off and feed it to his goldfish. Hell, I didn’t even get to foil one of Bugs Meany and the Tigers’ stupid schemes. What a gyp. Then again, it’s probably for the best that I never had any clients, because the truth is – I would make a terrible Private Detective. I mean – let’s face it: I forget stuff all the time I’m easily distracted I never pay attention to details What the hell were we talking about again? I was thinking about monkeys. Oh, monkeys.  I like monkeys. Cute little guys. They’ll rip your face off, though, so watch out! And they love bananas which is weird cause I hate bananas. Nasty vile things. Wait, I’m sorry – what were we talking about again? Which is fine, actually, cause I didn’t really want to be a Private Detective so that I could solve crime or “detect” stuff – except maybe the faint trace of sweet, sweet smoke seeping out from under the garage door or the carelessly tossed instructions from a box of tampons on the bathroom floor which warned women of the dangers of Toxic Shock Syndrome and warned me to get THE HELL OUT OF THE HOUSE for 3-5 days or maybe just hide in my room until the lambs stopped screaming. No, I wanted to be a Private Detective or Dick, as they were once called much to the schoolgirlish giggling delight of 12-year-old Eric (OK, and 40-year-old Eric. Tee-hee-hee. Dick) so that I could talk tough and crack wise, wear a trenchcoat and fedora and a cynical smirk, take belts from the office bottle when the...