Debbie Harry on Sesame Street

The Langham

When young hopeful artists or twentysomethings move to LA without a trust fund, they often have to live in a layover neighborhood. A stopover before they get their bearings and move somewhere with a better zip code. I lived in North Hollywood but a few of my friends landed in Koreatown. K-town is pretty bland. Highrises, few trees, and a lack of anything else to do besides Korean BBQ. It's a little sketchy but the sketchiness doesn't make it more interesting (strangely). I have lived in many an emerging neighborhood and I've learned that there can always be little discoveries & places reveal themselves, especially if the neighborhood had anything to do with "Old Hollywood".

This past summer I was house sitting for my friend Jose while he shot a documentary about the banana trade in Central America. He lives in an apartment off of Wilshire Boulevard, converted from a 1920s hotel called The Langham. During the 1930s the Mid-Wilshire region was a pretty fancy neighborhood. Ritzy apartment buildings and hotels, department stores and restaurants. Although not as grand as it's neighbor the Ambassador Hotel, The Langham is still pretty ornamented by contemporary standards. So in the middle of Koreatown I was staying in an old golden gem. Though converted to moderately priced apartments and by no means lavish anymore, the building has maintained a lot of character. My friends eyes were like saucers when they entered the lobby with two story ceilings, a Kane-like fireplace and carved brass plated elevators. Most units still have a dressing room and built in vanity area-where, I am sure, one would primp before heading to the Oscars at The Ambassador. There is a penthouse on the top floor used for (many), film and photo shoots. And my favorite was the rooftop pool, allegedly LA's first. When Jose and his girlfriend broke up I asked if he was going to move and he said, not yet, "I'm not finished with this building." So for a couple months I was able to hide away, pad the floors & work on my script. I swam and took phonecalls by the pool. I often would hear sirens, but at times I could tap back into the fantasy, the echos of the old dream city.






























































































































photos by me and by Jose of -the lobby, stairwell, pool, one of the film shoots in front of the building, Nick & Natalie's engagement photo & Wendy Rose.

Strike a Pose: The Look of the Avant-Guarde

Anita Berber

Nancy Cunard

Djuna Barnes

Lilya Brik

Emmy Hennings

Heart Placement

In Kick the women experience changes in their bodies, including anomalies in their menstrual cycles. My friend Andrea Park did the graphics for the film and we had a good time with the design for the tampon boxes. I was very thankful to work with someone so proficient and talented. Presently she is working on much more important things, like the designs for her wedding invitations and programs. I hope we can work together on some pill bottles for a horror melodrama that I am writing. I hope we can take our feminine heart aesthetic "to the wall" as I like to say.

You start with nothing

You start with nothing. That's always fascinated me. There's nothing. You start with only a few people around you. You can be drinking, talking, laughing, happy or unhappy and you think, 'Ok let's do that.' And then something happens. You have another life for a year or two. The process is so hard. People don't really like to work this way because their lives are important. Above all, you need to break away from your experience of the industry, from the idea of commercial filmmaking. What you discover is that any idea that you have - if it's a relatively original idea - suddenly become courageous. It carries itself; there are always some people who have some hope. We had all grown a little older, a little more mature; but sometimes it's necessary for your own sanity to go back to where you started from and find out whether you really have it or you don't have it or if there really is something to say or not. We put ourselves on the line for whatever it is we've said: 'Here we are, this is the best we can do.'
When I decided to write and shoot it, I came home and said to Gena, 'Are you willing to go without all the luxuries for the next couple of years so we can put everything we've got into the picture?' She said, 'Yes - except for getting my hair done. I insist on that!'

Cassavetes on Cassavetes

My Take on Cassavetes

A few years ago my mom gave me a copy of Cassavetes on Cassavetes. I pick it up and read portions of it and then put it down for months or years. And then pick it up again, like when I find it buried on my desk or in my suitcase. I love his films Woman Under the Influence and Opening Night.  I'm not sure if I'm a fan of all his films, and I'm not even sure if I like him half the time (others have also felt divided). You can get an anxiety attack reading about the frustrations he went through to fund his projects. He was always putting out fires, wheeling and dealing. But he never gave up, and there was an emotive sincerity that he thought was important to convey. I would recommend this book to anyone who's interested in making independent films. Although many, many things have changed and are changing in the world of independent film- the attitude, the delusional idea that, "I'm going to make this movie anyway" still resonates.






















The Cassavetes family is pretty rad. His kids all went on to direct. Xan's  Z Channel documentary is awesome, I had to start a whole new movie list after watching that. I thought Zoe's Broken English was good and I hope she makes more features. Nick made a little movie called The Notebook. It doesn't get better than THE NOTEBOOK.

& then there's Gena... I adore Gena.

Out of the Past

Out of the Past is an exceptionally archetypal noir. The photography is excellent. The customary high contrast black & white interiors are effective, but I like the exterior shots. In general I like exterior action shots from 1930s and 1940s Hollywood films because most pictures were shot entirely on studio lots. Many film noirs were shot off the studio lots because the "A" pictures usually took up studio space. One of the reasons I like East Hollywood and Echo Park so much is because those houses and streets were the settings of many noir locations. But Out of the Past opens in Northern California, the natural setting and small town feel cheerless. Robert Mitchum works as a gas station owner, a circumstance that is instantly wistful. As the story begins we know that whatever he was able to build for himself would soon be lost. His past comes back to meet him repeatedly as he travels to deal with the characters from his former life. But it is not an emotional journey, the film's desolate tone stays constant until the end. That's what I remember about this movie, that and Robert Mitchum's tired eyes.