Silverlake Wine

Have I mentioned before how awesome this shop is? It's by far the best wine-buying experience you'll have. Everyone in there knows a ton about wine and as soon as you walk in they actually offer to help you find something without being the least bit snobby. My kind of shop.

So yesterday Alison and I headed over for their Sunday wine and paired appetizer tasting. They had a fellow who's a cheese expert bring in a selection of raw cheeses to pair with four different wines. The most interesting part, in my mind, was his assertion that when pairing wine and cheese you don't actually want balance. Strong acidic wines call for strong salty cheeses. And fruity wines call for fruity cheese.

After two hours of tasting and chatting, we left the store with six bottles of wine for our Thanksgiving feast! If you're ever over here on the eastside and need a bottle of wine - HEAD to SILVERLAKE WINE on Glendale. Trust me, you'll thank me.

I HIGHLY Recommend...

Market Restaurant+Bar in Del Mar. It's on Via De Los Valles right across from the polo fields (I recognize that some of my readers might argue that it's across from the Soccer fields - but either way it's kitty corner from Mary's Tack and Feed). I'd been reading about it everywhere lately and convinced my family that it would be an ideal place for us to celebrate a very belated Father's Day. What with a brother whose in Asia as much as he is on the east coast, it's rare for us to all be together, and this may be the first visit I've seen him in a decade when he didn't constantly have his nose in a book written in a language I couldn't even begin to understand.

So we went. The food is fabulous and local. It's all Chino's produce and sustainable meats. The drinks were fab, the music a tad weird, but the food was really the star. Nothing too fussy but definitely gourmet and definitely some of the best restaurant food I've had. So it's well worth all the buzz. And if you happen to be in SD for the races before they end at labor day, it's well worth a drive over. So thanks mom and dad, for taking you kids out to such a lovely meal!

Plus..they have a good website http://www.marketdelmar.com/

The Real Vacation in Laguna Beach

A magnificent sunset

For Christmas, the Kramer's gave Bryan and me a night in a hotel in Laguna Beach. We took this much needed vacation Monday night. It was completely fabulous.

This is how Bryan enjoys his vacations

I think that Susan is on to us. First of all, she understands that we don't ever stop working. We both have day jobs (though mine are somewhat fluid) and then we have our film/writing work. I really truly take maybe a day or two off a month. Bryan's the same way. Susan tried once before to give us a weekend away. We used the money instead to buy an enlarger and set up a dark room. This time the gift came through a travel agency. Smart mom.

A room with a view

On Monday, after stopping at Fashion Island to see BREACH (which is good, but not as good as SHATTERED GLASS, which is awesome) we headed to the hotel. This was our view.

We stayed at the Beach and Sand Resort in Laguna Beach and it is literally on the sand.

Beneath my feet

We pretty much turned into jello as soon as we got there. We watched the sunset, had a drink and sat on our balcony.

Our beach from our balcony

I can't think of a better way to spend an evening than watching the tide roll in, ordering room service and watching movies on the TV (that may have been Bryan's favorite part). At night the hotel lit the surf so you could see it crash seemingly directly below your feet.

The next morning we had breakfast at their restaurant down just above the sand and went for a walk.

It's all about the sandcastle building.

Then it was back to the real world far too soon. Next time, we'll stay two nights.

Hi Bryan!

The Skateboarding Dog of Venice Beach

Yesterday, Bryan, Mel and I took a drive down Topanga Canyon, which ended in us eating lunch in our old stomping ground of Venice Beach. If Mel were a kid we'd probably have told her we wanted to show her where we used to live. We may have told her that anyway.

At any rate, as we were enjoying some winter sun, we noticed a bull dog with a special talent.

This guy was just cruising along with his owner, dodging tourists and barking at anyone who might get in the way of his board.

A couple of times he got stuck in the grass, but help was on the way.


Though his owner helped him out this time, another time I watched as he managed to flip the board on it's side and carry it out of the grass under his leg, in a manner that was surprisingly similar to the way surfers carry their boards.

Fortunately he was soon able to rejoin his pack.


You've got to love Venice.

The Happiest Place on Earth

Yesterday, Bryan and I work up around 7:30 and decided to be spontaneous. He's been having a craving for Disneyland for the past few months and his repeated enteritis that we visit finally got into my head as well. We dropped Mel off at Wagville (also known as Puppy Disneyland) and headed to the Magical Kingdom.

Goofy may have been too busy for a photo op, but Tigger was ready

Though neither of us had been for a good 10 years, we didn't buy into this whole California Adventure Land nonsense. We wanted traditional Disneyland, and for the most part that's what we got. We were happy to see Star Tours has not been updated, but approved thoroughly of the new Space Mountain.

And I was finally ready to appreciate this ride instead of mock it

Sadly, It's a Small World and the Matterhorn were both closed for seasonal maintenance.

As per usual, most of the pictures we took were of us being sad at life's little disappointments.

Here's a breakdown of what I thought of the "new" Disneyland:

1. The addition of animatronic Johnny Depp to Pirates is completely unnecessary, and the change in music in the Pirate village scene makes the ride less fun.

2. I don't understand the Haunted Mansion as Nightmare Before Christmas, but I think I like it. Does it go back to be regularly haunted during other parts of the year?

3. Splash Mountain is still awesome, especially if there is a big guy in front of you to absorb most of the splash.

4. A weekday in November is the perfect time to go to Disneyland to avoid crowds - the longest we waited was 20min for Indiana Jones.

5. Indiana Jones is lame (the ride, not the franchise).

6. I don't understand the moral behind Mr. Toad's Wild Ride. Why do we end up in hell after being sentenced for riding too wildly? Are we to assume that Mr. Toad gets killed, because I don't remember that in Wind in the Willows.

7. Most of the rides are surprisingly scary. A little girl riding behind us on Snow White told her mother she didn't want to go on any more of these scary rides, and I had to agree that Snow White ends on an unnecessarily scary note.

8. The Swiss Family Robinson Tree House is better as the Tarzan Treehouse.

9. DON'T BE TRICKED by Innoventions. It's a live infomercial for HP products. Don't be sucked in by it's appealing spinning room!

10. Honey I Shrunk the Audience was way better as Captain Eo (so says Bry, I wouldn't know having missed the Michael Jackson hit entirely in my youth)

11. Big Thunder Mountain is the perfect roller coaster.

12. Though the park may stay open until midnight, one really only needs about 6 hours at Disneyland to get your fix.

T-I-double g-er

Overall, a surprisingly fun time, but as I said this morning, if someone were to tell me I could get into Disneyland today for free, I'd probably pass.

Scouting for Angeles

Bryan 's most recent script, the one that it's looking like we'll go into preproduction on in January, is called Presence. It's about a guy running away from his (literal) demons as he follows a path along the LA River that relates to the river he followed as a young boy with his brother when they were running away and something happened to create the demons that now plague him.

Bryan Hearts Power Lines & Telephone Poles

After seeing the movie LA PLAYS ITSELF, which is a documentary about how Los Angeles is portrayed in movies and television, Bryan decided that he wants to make the film as geographically accurate as possible. So yesterday we went on a mini scout to find the beginning of the LA River. Actually we knew where it started but didn't want to follow the main canal into the valley so instead we headed up to the Angeles National Forest, where the Tujunga Wash begins. The Tujunga Wash eventually connects to the LA River at a golf course, which we thought might be cool.

Mel appreciates the view of the Tujunga Dam

At any rate, we drove into the mountains and found the Tujunga Dam, which is a big one and we were sad to see that the road that leads to the dam is blocked off and for official trucks only.

Bryan tries to convince us the power lines are cool, Mel's not buying it

Still, the drive was lovely and we stopped many times to check out drainage pipes and power lines. Bryan loves power lines. Mel loves sticking her head out the window.

Manzanita - my favorite Cal forest plant

I've haven't spent much time in the Angeles National Forest so it was fun to just drive around and check out campsites and get a sense of the mountains. Sometimes all you need is to get above the smog line and breath some fresh air and see some native plants to make you feel better about the world.

Mel sticks her tongue out at the camera - that's my girl!

Mel loved the drive, especially after we rolled down the windows for her to stick her head out so her ears could flap in the wind. When we'd stop she'd hop out and start sniffing, but she'd stay very close to us, like she wanted to make sure we weren't tricking her and trying to release her back into the wild. I think she was a little relieved when we got home. She certainly snored like she was content.

Roots reaching out for us as we drive by

It was cold up there; low 50s, but it was that perfect crisp and sunny weather that 's my favorite. After a few hours of driving up and down dirt roads we stopped at the Hidden Vally Cafe on the side of the road for a late lunch of grilled cheese sandwiches and root beer. Never had it tasted better.

The Hidden Valley Cafe

We checked out a few more roads on our way home and then got caught behind some road construction. They were laying down new asphalt so one lane was completely blocked. By the time the cars coming the other direction had passed by us there were at least 30 cars behind us. We were excited to be the first car behind the official pilot car. It's the little things in life...

We'll follow you anywhere!

We may end up shooting some of the kids scenes in the forest instead of going to another state or to the desert. The thing about the Angeles National Forest is that it literally takes 15 minutes to get there from our house. We're also talking about possibly going camping at one of the sites next weekend. It was beautiful and empty and peaceful, and the PCT passed right by it. We'll see though, thus far our record of successful camping trips has been slightly pathetic. Maybe this park will turn it around.

When I got home I was reading the LA Weekly Best of LA edition and there was our trip, laid out in a map as one of the best mini road trips you can take within LA. I felt cool, because we figured it out without their help.

Deadwood

I was going through all the pictures in iphoto and I came across these from when I was in Deadwood as part of the Sturgis trip. On a sidenote, if you google Sturgis 2006 my post comes up about 53rd. About a third of the random people who find my site, do so by searching for Sturgis 2006. Weird.

Main Street Deadwood

The only police office I saw in all of South Dakota

Bullock's hotel

The best-looking woman I saw in the entire state

Sigh.

The thing about Deadwood is that it's actually really depressing. The town has burned down several times since the days of Wild Bill, which means that it's been rebuilt to look old-timey, but it doesn't even come close. In an attempt to lure tourists, the town made gambling legal, so really it's just a main street of the worst casinos you've ever been in. We're talking one card table and 50 video poker and slot machines. Pathetic.

It did however, have the best restaurant anywhere around. The food was good. The service, not so much. It was a $30 entree kind of place and the waiter placed all of the wine glasses at one end of the table and had us pass them down. Classy. And this was after we spent 20minutes (I'm not exaggerating) convincing them to push 2 tables together to accommodate 8 people. The wait staff was terrified that the kitchen staff would get mad at them.

It didn't make sense to me either.

Ah Deadwood. Don't ever go there. Just watch the show.

Rock'n the Rally

OK back to my real life. I've haven't been blogging lately and I apologize to my regular readers (there are two of you). Here's the deal...I was stuck in a state that wouldn't leave me even after I left it. But let me back up...

I've already done my best to explain the insanity that is the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally with bikers galore and women wearing nothing but chaps and lacy underwear (i know guys, and it would have been hot if they weren't well past mid age).

So the reason I was there was for a particular concert series. More specifically I was working as a Production Assistant for a company that films concerts and turns them into DVDs. We were there to film 5 nights of concerts for a dvd and also Nickelback as their own dvd.

2 weeks of prep...14 days in a row...16 hours a day...4 hour turn-arounds...you can see why I didn't keep my blog updated.

Technically we finished the wrap last Wednesday, but it's taken me until now to really get my life back. It's been a little crazy.

Basically the concert series was 4 bands a night for 5 nights from about 4:30 - 11:30. The line up included: Shooter Jennings, Keith Urban, Big and Rich (who, I might add are terrible), Steve Miller (who was rained out), REO Speedwagon, Tom Petty, Sammy Hagar, 38 Special, Live, Gin Blossoms, and Nickelback.

Because the entire state was already booked for hotel rooms (perhaps a small exaggeration) we slept on tour busses. Let me tell you what's not comfortable...tour busses. I don't know how those poor bands do it.

The campground we were at had 80,000 RV spots with water, power and sewage. Here's just a tiny portion of it:


I took this picture from the top of the ampitheater the owner had built over the past year by trucking in a giant mountain of dirt.

This is the other side:


That mountain in the distance is a sacred Indian mountain where the men go to pray. Needless to say they were NOT thrilled with the new concert ampitheater that was built in their backyard. Progress marches on, but so do native Americans, in our case shutting down main street for a day, but I digress...

The fellows in that picture are Rick and Jake. They were filming backstage stuff which I helped with by having releases signed. Mostly though, we walked around in the heat and listened to some decent music.

This is what it looked like onstage...


and backstage...

Remember from my blog about Petty, how I talked about the jumbotron screens? This is what they look like on the back:



So basically it was a week of heat and poorly dressed women and watching people get hammered but working so many hours that one couldn't join the party. Which, at the end of the day, was probably not a huge loss.

I did learn however, that if you're a girl standing on stage with a clipboard and headset, rock stars will talk to you and thank you for running such a fun gig. What did I, the least important person there, do in response? Smiled and thanked him for being a part of our show.

But enough with rock and roll...back to my real life of gardening/cooking/writing/filming and soon: dark-rooming (more on that to come!)

Sturgis 2006

So I've returned home from my adventure in Sturgis, South Dakota. To give you a sense of what the motorcycle rally there is like imagine a state in which the population is about 600K. Now imagine 650K bikers descending on one very small town in the middle of nowhere. That's the motorcycle rally.

Here are some pictures of the rally itself.


Downtown Stugis with the Black Hills in the background.


Main street Sturgis is filled with parked bikes and surrounded by vendors selling leathers and t-shirts.


This is what pretty much every street in Sturgis and the surrounding areas looked like. Bikes. Everywhere. And nary a helmet in sight.


Nate, Ed and Davon worked on the show with me. Needless to say the four of us stuck out like sore thumbs around all the bikers. But they were all surprisingly sweet to us.

I'm recounting my journey all out of order. I'll explain about the concert series tomorrow and maybe then share some photos of the real Deadwood.

Freakin' Sturgis Man.

I SHOT TOM PETTY

Last night Tom Petty decided that he didn't want to be filmed by us for the DVD that we're making of these concerts. So Production gave the camera guys the night off, only they needed someone to run three of the cameras for the giant video screens for the crowd.


This is me running one of those cameras.


The producers decided they'd give the PAs their time in the spotlight so here Ed (the Coordinater) and I are shooting Petty. On our headsets (cans) there's a director backstage telling us what to do and saying things like "Ready Camera 2, Go Camera 2....3 pull out for wide...1 Camera 2-shot". Everyone decided that since Petty was being lame about us filming, they'd show him by putting the least experienced people on camera and directing the show. The funny part was that the show ended up looking really good on the screens.


That's the stage in the background. 30,000 people watched as I followed Petty around. AND Stevie Nicks came out and joined him for some songs. SUCH AN AWESOME SHOW, mostly because Ed and I are such rock stars.

More about this whole thing will follow, I just wanted to get these up fast!

I'm not dead

I'm in Sturgis.

As soon as I can get the photos on my computer, you better believe I'm posting them.