Ashes to ashes

In L.A., the usual apocalyptic atmosphere is keeping everyone on their toes. This time, it's the fires, which are occuring pretty close to me. Ashes are on everyone's car in the morning, but the smell is mostly gone (at least towards Hollywood). The other night, driving home, the horizon looked like Tara was burning.

Hopefully no one has been hurt still, even though some homes have been destroyed. California may be the land of dreams, but it's also the land of earthquakes, freeway shootings, horrible fires, mudslides, and actor-turned-governors. Sometimes I think all this freakishness is in exchange for the gorgeous weather and the late workdays (it seems no one gets to work before 9am out here). I guess I'll take it.

PAY DAMMIT

So I'm thinking about doing more freelance writing to make my house-poor ass some extra dough, and hop on the Writing/Editing jobs section of craigslist.org.

Here's a paraphrased sample of the ads:

Need hip, connected writers with a feel for what's new in Los Angeles to write about health, fashion, beauty, and other current topics.

There is no pay, but we'll link to your website and give you a byline to encourage shameless self promotion, and this is a great way to build clips and be seen by an ever-increasing audience.

***
I don't need "clips." Your audience increases from 100 readers a day to 101. Give me. A BREAK. Dammit, I need MONEY.

When I was producing little shorts on mini-DV for my hosting reel oh so long ago, I hired a camera man, and a friend as field director. I wasn't rolling in cash (at one point, I believe I was even temping), but I paid the DP $75 and my pal $100, for no more than 10 hrs of work. Sure that's not a lot, but $75 for one day of work when you weren't working anyways--that's not bad. Once, I only hired them out for a half day at the same rate. I think people just feel better when they're PAID. Give them that courtesy. Even $50, or $25--just ANYTHING. If you need a product, and you have SOME income (even just a few bucks from online ads), pay, for shit's sake! Even if it's $10 an article. Seriously, I'd write for $10 an article.

In fact, I'm catering this weekend for extra cash. Yes, catering. (Shockingly it pays more an hour than what I was making at one time as a producer at a notoriously cheap but friendly production company.) And catering will pay me. They'll pay me to pour wine and be nice for five hours. It pays pretty well in fact!

So that's what it's become for web writers. I'm surprised no one has written a polemic underneath listings for the ads (sometimes someone does that). I'm actually turning to just pitching publications outright--I was planning on it--but thought I could at least make a few bucks here and there doing some web writing in the meantime.

Guess not.

Good buzz: P&P

Some lucky ducks I know saw Pride and Prejudice at the Toronto Film Festival and said it was an Oscar contender. I watch the trailer a lot for work and I literally swoon every time. It seems extremely elegant, yet full of true moments that imbue romance. And Matthew MacFadyen (apparently a veteran of the British police show MI-5) is a dream. -sigh- I am a sucker for that stuff.

And no matter what some people think of Keira Knightley (I'm thinking of a particular film critic who seems to hate her), I really like her acting. Her face is gorgeous and imminently watchable and she has a ton of charisma. Maybe as she ages the charisma will wear off, and underneath there will be nothing--but I'm not so sure.

Mall'ed.

Los Angeles has many malls, and the two newest shopping/entertainment centers are the Grove (near Farmer's Market) and Hollywood and Highland, the much-ballyhooed revitalization attempt of the pimps n ho's district of old-time Hollywood.

Walking around H&H yesterday, a very confusing myriad of upscale stores and random no-name outlets with a confounding set up of escalators and multi-levels, I realized it's the Paris Hilton of L.A. malls. Never will be invited to the Oscars, but will go to the after-parties. Skanky dressed up in designer wear. Not too smart either. (The parking is bizarre--people stand at aisles and wave you down to the right or left, preventing you from going straight ahead to pursue spots closer to the elevators. And the exit signs are misplaced and change every time you turn the corner!!)

Whereas the Grove, where I go frequently as it's near my work (good for rush-hour skipping movie watching), is like the Emmy-nominated actress: Probably not prestigious enough for the movies, but elegant, classy, and comfortable enough not to make you feel beneath her. It's very warm, very classy, and yet slightly tacky (it has a faux-European villa sense about it). It also has the NICEST PUBLIC RESTROOMS I HAVE EVER BEEN TO. In fact, this week I didn't make my usual pit stop at work before heading to the Grove, as I knew the bathrooms at their main entrance are nicer, and cleaner. I think that's won me over for life.

Elizabethtown is a 5.

I saw it last night with a buddy who got a free screening and it was...eh. I can see why folks are complaining. There is an awkward sense of pacing; Orlando Bloom is lacking something--a certain depth, and comfort with Cameron Crowe's more poetic dialogue--and there are lapses in logic. For example, a character provides Bloom with a guide to a road trip across the company, but the expert planning was all done in 24 hours and the guide pretty much gets the whole trip timed down to the minute. I don't see how that can happen.

As someone who thinks "Legally Blonde" is Shakespeare, for a lapse in logic to bug me really says something. But, "Elizabethtown" also has its sincere, and sweet moments, and it made me cry a couple times, and that says something--that doesn't happen to me every day.

So, it's a 5. I would say, wait for the DVD. And for a sincere effort, it wasn't awful, either.

LA Times: Again: No going back to New Orleans

Somehow, I find the Saturday LA Times to be the best issue of the week. Maybe because they don't think anyone reads it and sneak in more interesting and even--dare I say it--gossipy stories.

Anyhoo, one not so gossipy but baldly truthful story started on the front page and discussed how residents of N.O., displaced to other communities, are really preferring where they've landed. Better schools, safer environment, cleaner, better jobs.

These are working-poor folks who were unswervingly loyal to N.O. despite the horrible schools, murder rate (up to 300 homocides were expected this year), and piss-poor job market.

I wish Katrina never happened, but a lot of these people are discovering a better way of life inadvertently. I wonder what this says about how the city was run in the first place? If only Katrina could have only swept out corruption and poor leadership, and left good things in its wake for its citizens.

Anyway...it was interesting.

Public Transport: Sucks.

So since my rallying cry last week to take public transportation, I *have* taken it..once.

You see, when there are only two subway stations for all of San Fernando Valley (a huge overpopulated expanse of Hell-Ay), there is NO PARKING for people who have to drive 10 miles to said subway stations.

Luckily, the Orange Line opens soon--it's a fancy schmancy busway that - gasp! - connects the farthest reaches of SFV (in fact there's a station just 10 min from my apt) to the ACTUAL SUBWAY!

Honestly, this town...! In the LA Times' editorial secion yesterday, it was noted that a subway couldn't be built along Wilshire Blvd (the main street that connects LA proper from Downtown to ritzy and business-heavy West L.A.) because of gross amounts of methane. And now there are possible plans of sneaking in a mixed-use building in the last bare lot along wilshire, and wealthy WLA denizens are freaking out. Of course, they also prevented more public transportation (methane or not) from being built there. And now traffic is snarled all along Wilshire every single day. (These same citizens voted down a subway that connected all the way to LAX. Can you believe it? So now you have to take 3 subway lines from the valley, let's say, to about 10 minutes short of LAX--and take a BUS SHUTTLE. Good heavens!!)

But Mayor V is having a new study done on this "Methane" and the legislator that sponsored the no-subway bill said he'd relent if the methane really wasn't that big of an issue. And hopefully, many years and a billion dollars later, LA'ers will have another way to get to freakin' work on time without sitting in traffic.

This town makes no sense to me sometimes.

Damn IT!

So I hate not posting every day on my blog, and ironically i'm holding down the first total-in-office job in two years. BUT, the IT department at my company are like the nuns in parochial school in 3rd grade.

For example, in orientation, I simply asked if there was a wireless network so I could bring in my laptop and work on it that way. Well, it was as if I asked if I could go around the company unplugging everyone's PCs. NO, they said. NO. IT'S VERY HARD TO GET INTO OUR WIRELESS NETWORK AND IF YOU COULD HACK INTO IT, WE'D HIRE YOU. HA HA HA BUT NO. DON'T EVEN THINK ABOUT IT.

Uhh......

So I tried even downloading and using ICQ to IM folks...no such luck.

Damn you, IT!

Everyone: Public Transportation!

Seriously!

Okay, so PT is a joke in L.A. Nonetheless, I'm determined to make 1/2 my journey on PT. I can take the subway, then the bus for a 20min trip over the hill to work. When it's all added up, I'll probably only save $1-2 a day in gas, but I'll be left with less guilt and my car's life will be prolonged. I'm absolutely determined not to laze out of it.

Plus, the Orange Line debuts in late October, and that's a special busway (with a super neat bus-like vehicle to match) that goes all the way from Warner Ctr in Woodland Hills to the NoHo Subway! Yes, it took Hell-ay this long to connect passengers from the valley to an ACTUAL subway station!

I still have no idea how the powers that be turned out a highly ineffectual subway map, but at least they're trying to make up for it.

Screw the oil barons. Public Transportation!