Akihabara. (and happy Friday 13th!)

I never start my blog with pictures, so I figured I'd mix it up a little this time. (It's from a shoot I worked on the past couple weekends)

Alright, so update on the Japan thing. Somehow my decision to travel to Japan has turned into a full-fledged quest to acquire a job and work there for 3-6 months.
It kinda went down like this:

-Derek remembers a girl he went to college with, whom was in his department of study (as well as his co-worker! ho baby!), mentioning that she was going to move to Japan.

-Derek gets in touch with said girl to ask about what parts to travel too.

-To Derek's and Girl's surprise, girl has actually been living in L.A. for 4 months.

-Girl mentions that a company placed her in Japan for 6 months to teach conversational English.

-Light bulb goes on in Derek's head.

-Girl is now leaving L.A. in a few days, to move back to the East coast where she will attend graduate school at Emerson College.

-Derek is creeped out. Half of Derek's friends in L.A. are graduates from Emerson College. The world suddenly seems very small.

-Derek meets with girl to talk about the job in Japan (coincidentally right before the girl is about to leave town for good!).

-Derek is very excited about this prospect and decides to pursue it.

-Derek's good friend from college says, "A friend of mine just did that program and she loved it." Turns out Derek's good friend went to high school with this same girl.

-World feels insanely small.

-Derek applies for job and feels so confident that he goes and rushes his passport process in advance (which turns out to be expensive, but easy since it's a renewal).

-Derek's application gets accepted.

-Derek schedules to meet for personal interview in San Fransisco in a week and a half.

And that's basically where I'm at right now.

Of course I've spent the majority of this week racking my brain over whether or not I should be doing this. All said and done the pros heavily outweighed the cons.
I'm single.
I'm jobless.
My lease ends in August. (which is exactly how long the process will take to do this Japan thing)

I don't see myself ever being in this position again. My whole life has been incredibly structured, knowing exactly how I'm going to move from one goal to the next. My responsibilities always intertwined.
This is the first time in my life that I can literally disappear and it will hardly effect anything around me.
The "hardly" simply being Chester, who my mom was enthusiastic to take care of.

I'd throw my shit in storage (which is somehow A LOT cheaper than renting a truck and moving my stuff to my parents garage), buy a laptop and be on my way. Hell, if I keep it to 3 months it wouldn't even be worth it to cancel my cell phone or car insurance.

At first I doubted how easy it was going to be to do this, but after literally spending 3 days going through every possibly scenario, every variation of choices vs. cost, formulating exactly what needs to be done and when, at the very worst this will all cost me about $2,500 assuming I don't make ANY money in Japan (which I doubt).
Simply visiting Japan would cost about $2,000 between a ticket and expenses...

So...if you need an accountant....'raises hand'. I've always enjoyed finding the CHEAPEST possible way to do things (such as move, travel, purchase, etc.), I'm pretty sure I'm Jewish and someone forgot to tell me.


Alright, so that whole ordeal aside (for now), what else is new.

My sister decided to get married at the church that is exactly 1.2 miles from the house we grew up in, I know this distance because we measured it with an odometer for when we would run to get in shape for sports.

I present to you: The Welsh Church.

Now understand that I lived in the middle of GODDAMN nowhere. It astonishes me that I was able to do a Google image search and find this lone picture of what must be the least used church in the whole world. The internet never seizes to amaze.

The memories this picture triggered were pretty fantastic as well. That freshly mowed field you see in the foreground, I used to catch crickets there and put them in my bike's water bottle.
I was trying to fill it with them.

I would have friends over for sleepovers, and at night we would sneak out to play flashlight tag in that cemetery (in the picture it's behind that church).

The road you see to the right, that is the goddamn STEEPEST road EVER. Right where it is cut off in the picture is a near 90 degree angle, gravel-filled, death trap of a hill- ready to rock your ass off your bike and put more stones in your knees than you can shake a stick at.
It's what we country folk call a "Use Low Gear" hill.

Further to the right of the road is a giant field of rolling hills. A giant field in which was perfect for snowmobiling!!!

I seriously just had a little tear in my eye...

My parents would always joke that Danielle would get married at that church. Well...I guess when you're a young boy you figured they were joking...because getting married is gross.
It appears they were serious...
This is strange because this is not a church we attended or were even associated with. This is not a church I've ever seen anyone use. Yet because of it's proximity to our home it is one of the strongest landmarks in our lives.
Unless I wanted to take the highway into town, and abide my the LAW, I would take the road past the church almost EVERY day so that I could do 65mph down winding half-paved roads.
It's been a long time since I've been able to drive like that.

My sister also informed me of my position in her wedding. Apparently I will be walking the aisle with my cousin (When my sister asked me who I wanted to walk with I said "The hottest girl of my choices"...thanks Danielle. But hey, I guess cousin is legal in some states?......ewwwwwww!!! he said it!).
My sister also made the very poor mistake of placing me in her line of vision for the whole duration of her wedding.
Snot will be flung.

It will be flung hard.

And true.

AND HEY! While we're on the topic of marriage, ERIK AND EMILY are engaged now too!!! Apparently this happened during their trip in Italy! Way to seize the opportunity Erik, otherwise you probably would have had to take her to Niagara Falls with a bunch of awkward friends standing around...(k, that one was an inside joke. Or, what do they say...an ABC conversation? Erik and I are "A" and "B," so why don't you "C" your way out of it. OOOOOoooooooo!!!)

So a huge congrats to Erik and Emily :) IT'S ABOUT FUCKING TIME!!!
And a damn shame that those two fine people are off the market for the rest of you ;)

Later this month I will be touring the country with a pair of gardening shears. Justin and Erik are first in line for me to cut their balls off before Danielle and Emily can.

Alas I sit here with Chester wondering when I'll meet the balls cutter of my life.


Hung out at Doodie's house a couple times during the last week. Prior to one of those visits Don and I ran into KATO KAELIN at the grocery store! Don pointed him out as he walked by, and I didn't believe him. So I hunted Kato down and sure enough, there he was in the women's aisle getting tampons with his girlfriend! Hahaha....
Then when I went back to stand in line at the register with Don, Kato and his lady came over and stood in line next to us.
My grandmother would have loved this story :( She was obsessed with the OJ Simpson trial...


Last weekend we wrapped on the "Still Life With a Couch" shoot (it was a 2 weekend shoot I was working on with Dave). Hey, how about some pics!


Well first off, this is Dave. He was my intern a year ago, who moved out here to freelance and join the ol' Union. (He's very talented/thorough, definitely going to go far)
I played poker at his house the other night with a bunch of the other guys. Good times. Good times.


Alright, so this is Arianna, she was the director and producer of this short, as well as an actress. Basically she wrote the script as a feature length film, and I think ended up finding a distributor interested in it. Usually distributors will ask you to shoot a short of your script to get an idea of how it would flow, so from what I know what we were working on was the "Pitch" for her film.


It basically revolves around this guy (Michael) who is cheating on his girlfriend and finds a new couch in the process.
"So what is that, some kind of symbology?"
"Yes, and it's symbolISM you idiot. Get me a coffee."


At one point in the video one of his girlfriends spots pictures of him with another girl. UH OH!


This is what it looked like before the director...er...actress...er....set designer fixed it. ASTOUNDING.


So yup, Michael was a great guy in real life though :) Very easy to get along with.


This is his cat, who I would have liked if I didn't hate all cats.
But at least I restrained from kicking it. Well...at least when no one was looking ;)


That's his cat about to kill Dave. I dived in front of it though and saved Dave's life. Then the President came in and gave me a medal.
And I punched him for being such a douche bag.



"Assistant Camera Derek" making sure everything is in line. And it was.


That's Kate, the assistant director...um...grabbing her boob?


Kate and Arianna were fucking cool.

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Start Rant
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I've always REALLY enjoyed the company of girls that are older than me. Mostly because they act more mature than the girls in my age group. This isn't to say I can't have fun with people my own age, but it's pretty obvious that I'm a little more mature than I should be.
So whenever I'm around girls that are 5+ years older than myself it always ends up being a very enjoyable atmosphere.
I suppose I should add that said girls have to be of a specific brand as well...here's a rough formula I've come up with

Girl my own age that I like to hang out with because she's funny and smart and independent to the point where she is border-line feminist
+
5 years (or more) older
------------------------
Derek's ideal female company.

Often in this desirable situation I've found that, for example, if the topic of conversation is something political (or perhaps as simple as why they're vegan) older girls tend to be more opinionated, and they have a VERY confident (and probably accurate) stance behind that opinion. They also tend to be very comfortable talking about anything that has to do with sex, and hunting down guys.
This isn't something I often find among my female peers, probably due to many factors.
Males often intimidate females that are the same age or younger, until the female reaches an age old enough where she realizes males are retarded and not very intimidating.

I first realized this (eventual) formula when I was about 16 and was unexpectedly introduced to a 20-year-old college girl who absolutely blew my mind. I spent a couple days trying to figure out why I had the biggest crush in the world on her, and I finally figured out it was because she fit the description of all of the above (plus other stuff I didn't bother going into detail about).

So now whenever this rare occurrence takes place it always makes me smile a little, and reminds me of when I was young and trying to figure this all out.
Ya' know...on top of making me happy because it's usually a fun situation.
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End Rant
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So BOTH Kate and Arianna fit the description of what I just described, hence their immediate awesomeness.

Of course the persistent result of these encounters can be summed up with a direct quote from Arianna, "If I were five years younger I'd throw myself at you!" (her reply to a comment I made to her).
NEVER has this (formulaic) occurrence turned into anything other than a great friendship. Which I'm fine with...but I can't wait until I'm 30 so I can have a 30-year-old girlfriend ;)


Perhaps all of that was running through my head in this picture ;)


This is Huston, the "sound guy" (complete with mandatory nappy hair).


"I should probably take out the picture that was in it when I bought it..."


That's Dave's buddy, Justin, behind Kate's head. He was at poker...in case...you cared.


Mark. 'clap'


Arianna sipping a beer, considering telling Michael a dark riff to the underworld has just appeared over his head.


Ok, who let the art fag in?


Us...working...


Um...you can move the monitor guys. It...does do that...


K, I should kept my mouth shut.


Haha, suckers! I'm standing over here not doin' SHIIIIT!


My point of view for the majority of the shoot.

So yup. That was that :)
I wish I had pictures of when we were shooting out of the back of Dave's car while Michael was doing 65 mph behind us on his motorcycle...I guess you'll have to wait until the video comes out.


O.k., so remember that brush fire I was talking about a couple posts before? Well I finally got around to getting the pictures up! So here they are, in all their glory...


So this is what I saw when I stepped out of my apartment. Keep in mind that it's typically CLOUDLESS here, so all the white in the sky in these pictures is smoke.


I went back inside to grab my car keys, when I came back out it the wind was blowing in my direction, so the whole sky turned into a cloud of smoke.


I just kinda drove towards the smoke. Figured...that made sense.


Little closer...


Gettin' there...


After I drove about 1 mile the fire was on my right.


Down a side street and a quick to the right, and that put the fire on my left. The wall in this picture belongs to the Warner Brothers studio lot, it was right in their backyard.


Drove past Warner Bros. (smoke is in the top left)



And came up to here.








And lots of those tiny helicopters were dumping water on it.

Here are some pics other people took:

This was the view from the other side of the hill


Which is exactly where the "Hollywood" sign resides! (Yup, I live on the other side of that hill)


Kind of fitting isn't it?


Hey, this guy lives close to my house!


This would be your view from way the fuck downtown! (the skyscrapers are downtown L.A., the hills with the smoke are where I live...I swear it's not as far as it looks though...) Whoever took this picture, if you live in that area....how are you alive?


Annnnd it went long into the night...