• Hollywoodland

Ashes & Snow

March 6, 2006 – 1:41 pm ·

Sara | Charles

It’s Friday in Santa Monica. Fellow ‘moeb cats, Sara and Charles and I are on a mini-trip. Sara and I know each other from our Rocket Video days. She works with me on the mezzanine. Charles divides his time between the Mezz and the Jazz room. Sara loves Social Distortion and wants to marry lead singer Mike Ness. Charles hates Social Distortion with a passion. Sara loves The Clash. The only thing Charles hates more than Social distortion is The Clash. Charles loves Ornette Coleman. Sara couldn’t care less about free jazz. Charles thinks Abba is perfect pop music. Sara thinks Abba crawled out of hell. They both have long hair.

However, we all agree that Ashes And Snow, the Gregory Colbert exhibit in the Nomadic Museum, is one of the cooler things we’ve seen in a while. It’s there through May. It’ll re-structure your perception of the world and remind you that we’re not alone on this planet, that we’ve lost touch with the animals around us, that we’ve forgotten a wondrous, mythical time that used to be our reality. Either that, or it’ll make you want to swim with an elephant.

If you haven’t gone, check it out. After May, the museum will be gone. Literally. It’s a Nomadic Museum. It’s gonna wander off in search of a new watering hole.

Gregory Colbert

By will | Posted in check it out, Hollywoodland, life in hollywood | Comments (2)

    Laundromat Blues

    March 3, 2006 – 9:14 pm ·

    laundryMy good friend, Dara, sent me an old news article I dreamed up six years ago. I’d forgotten all about it. Since I happen to be doing laundry, I thought I’d post it.

    AP—Camarillo, California, Feb 2000
    Once again, Will Keightley has won the coveted Guy Whom You’d Most Likely Want to Do Your Delicate Laundry award. This year’s project is entitled, I Don’t Know How That Pen Got In There, and is on display on several of his articles of clothing, including his favorite denim shirt.

    Keightley is no stranger to this award, given to those who demonstrate an uncanny ability to launder clothing. This new project, though while it sounds similar, is not to be confused with such earlier works as, I Thought I Checked That Pocket, At Least Most of My Clothing is Also Blue, and the incredibly famous, I Put Bleach on My Shorts and Now Everything’s Turned White Except the Ink Stain.

    Those familiar with the artist’s work will note that he has shifted his tone from earlier works. Notably, we see a move away from the blue ink of the past and more into a blacker, darker tone. It has been some time since the passage of what some critics call his “Blue Period” and his work shows a marked maturity as a result.

    “I work with what’s available to me,” says the beaming artist, who claims he’s going to place his award on his bookshelf, right along next to his other seventeen similar awards. “This is reliable equipment, so I had to add a little bit to the mix to get the effect I wanted.”

    Though he has dabbled in other areas of laundriacal expression (some may remember his sublime 1996 piece entitled, I Used the Broken Dryer That Doesn’t Turn Off and Then Forgot and Went to a Movie) he feels most comfortable with the ink medium, and plans to do more work on it in the future.

    Will the award slow him down? Hardly. He’s already at work on his next project, which he plans to call, I Didn’t Even Know I Owned a Sharpie! Watch for it.

    By will | Posted in daily drift | Comments (2)

      Six in 2006 Phase II

      March 1, 2006 – 1:48 pm ·

      wine corks = procrastination

      So Strange Angels is done (more or less.) It’s now the First of March. That means it’s time to move on to the next script.

      But this is the part where I’m paralyzed. The blank page stares, zombie-eyed, back at me. I know what I’m supposed to write. I even have it mapped out. The new script is an extravagant musical/drama/comedy/adventure based on the four elements. But I think I’d rather get up and pour some more juice. Or arrange the avocados on my kitchen counter in a line according to size. Or play with the pile of wine corks on my floor.

      The clock ticks by. And at last, I begin to type. Two pages down. 118 to go.

      By will | Posted in screenwriting, six in 2006 | Comments (0)
      • Hollywoodland
      • Words

      Three More Down

      February 27, 2006 – 11:07 am ·

      We lose Don Knotts and Darren McGavin over the weekend. It’s not a surprise, really. Knotts was old when I was a kid and McGavin was older than he. I grew up on Andy Griffith and the Herbie movies. As far as I knew, Knotts was like required viewing for every kid. And I’ll always remember McGavin for his obsession over the amazing fishnet stocking leg lamp in A Christmas Story.

      But the real surprise this weekend is the death of Octavia Butler, who dies on Saturday after slipping on ice and hitting her head. She was a science fiction writer whose importance came not from being black or being a woman (both of which are rare in that field) but because she managed to weave important contemporary themes of race and struggle into her stories. The strange thing is that I happen to be exactly in the middle of her newest book and on the Friday of her accident, I happened to listen to an episode of NPR’s Science Friday on which she appeared. The episode is about the ways in which SF writers have a hand in inventing the future and solving many of today’s problems. And the reason I want to listen to the episode is specifically because she’s one of the guests and for some reason I want to hear what her voice sounds like.

      The new book is Fledgling. It’s about an young black girl who awakens in a dark cave, horribly battered and stricken with amnesia. She soon comes to learn that though she appears to be an eleven-year-old girl, she’s actually a fifty-something-year-old vampire who has been genetically altered to be resistant to sunlight. It’s full of strange sexual and racial and social undertones and has been keeping me up at night, not because it’s at all scary, but because it’s so damned interesting.

      Link to the NPR episode.

      Link to the boingboing post that turned me on to the book.

      By will | Posted in books, gone, Hollywoodland, Words | Comments (0)
      • Hollywoodland

      Skinny Monday

      February 27, 2006 – 9:05 am ·

      It’s Bring Your Angst and Exhaustion To Work Day today. Don’t forget, everyone. Could be worse, though. McSweeney’s provides a glimpse into a company that learned this the hard way.

      Amoeba before opening

      By will | Posted in Hollywoodland | Comments (2)

        Six in 2006

        February 24, 2006 – 6:57 pm ·

        workspace

        Looking over the past several posts (not counting the boring blog-related ones) the casual reader might assume that this is blog about music. It isn’t really. In fact, it isn’t really about anything. It’s just a place for me to write some stuff. ‘Cause that’s what I do. I’m in L.A. because I’m thinking about being a writer.

        Well, okay, I guess I AM sort of a writer. I do write stuff. I’ve been paid. I’m in the WGA. I haven’t been paid for the last few years, and I’m currently without an agent or manager (that’s the subject of another post coming soon) but I still consider myself a writer.

        Just barely.

        I kinda wasted last year. Fourteen months ago my manager (who seems to be looking to tag the adjective “former” into his full title — again, the subject of a post coming soon) meets with me. He says he’d like to get me off the Spec Script approach (wherein I write full-length scripts sans pay and hope they sell) in favor of the Pitch Approach (wherein I come up with story ideas and shlep them around town in hopes someone likes one enough to give me money to write it.) He says he wants to get me out into the world of pitch meetings. I say great. Let’s go. I’ve got twenty ideas and a twitchy throwing arm.

        But in all of last year I pitch twice. In other words, if someone were to ask me to tick off how many pitch meetings I went to but I had just lost seventeen fingers and toes to frostbite I STILL wouldn’t run out of digits to count them on. Both meetings involve the same script. The first meeting is kind of a disaster. The second (thanks to having learned some lessons during the first) is spectacular, but still unfortunately gets me the “I love it, I wish there were something WE could do with it” response. And that’s it.

        I can’t exactly give the Manager a hard time about it. I mean, I would if I could, but I don’t know where he is (again, the subject of a post coming soon.) I’m gonna go out on limb here and suggest that this Pitch Approach isn’t exactly unfolding the way he was thinking. It’s time to switch gears. I have to make up for lost time. I’ve got some writing to do. So I’ve decided it’s gonna be “Six in 2006.” As next Christmas season winds down and the good folks of Hollywood are donning their party hats I should be typing out the finishing touches on screenplay Number Six.

        That’s one every other month. I’m not worried about coming up with ideas. As I said, I’ve got twenty of them. Today’s the 24th. I’ve got less than a week to finish up the first one, which, to be honest, is only a rewrite of Strange Angels, which I’ve been working on for years, but it’s a comprehensive rewrite and it’s helping me get back into the writing groove. And luckily, the next three scripts are already plotted. By the time I reach Script Number Five in September, I’ll have enough momentum to blast through till December.

        You ever wondered what would happen if a guy hailed a taxi in New York and said “Take me to California?” Or what might happen to a girl driving down a highway headed home and who keeps passing the same hitchhiker again and again? Or whether Christopher Marlowe, Carole Lombard and Nathan Hale were not only still around but eating french fries in a diner on 54th Street? Or maybe you’ve actually read Blood & Dust and you want to know just how John Kelley lost his arm, or perhaps what happens to Lauren Kilkenny in Los Angeles 110 years later?

        Stay tuned. You’re gonna learn some stuff.

        workspace

        [Oh, by the way, those cute and colorful dudes peering around my laptop are my Plush Maladies. From the left: The Common Cold, Ebola and Mononucleosis. Cute, aren’t they?]

        By will | Posted in screenwriting, six in 2006 | Comments (7)
        • Hollywoodland

        Spike

        February 22, 2006 – 11:18 am ·

        There’s a great deal of activity outside my little office at Argentum on Sunset and Seward. A little investigation reveals that Spike Lee is shooting a commercial. Craft service is across the street. Actors stand about in the chilly sunshine. Grips and gaffers clatter away beneath my window. A row of dark director’s chairs lines the wall, awaiting royal bums.

        This town just never stops.

        By will | Posted in Hollywoodland, life in hollywood | Comments (1)
        • Hollywoodland

        The Attack Of The Bird Lady

        February 21, 2006 – 1:13 am ·

        Paris Hilton got mad at us today.

        Wait, wait, let me preface this: We have a customer up in the Ameoba mezzanine we refer to as Satan. It’s not that he bears any resemblance to or practices anything in the style of the Dark Lord. I mean he can be a pain, and on some days, we really do wonder, but for the most part, he’s harmless. He picked up the nickname because one day we notice that the word Satan had came up three times in conversation, and there arrives this guy, demanding to know who on the mezzanine knows why Peyton Place and Return To Peyton Place were not released at the same time. (“Why is that? It’s so stupid. Do you know? You don’t know? What about him? Does he know? Does anyone else know?”) Simple as that. Say his name thrice. Satan appears.

        So it stands to reason that the principle works in other ways. Say, for example, a DVD copy of the Paris Hilton film, The Hillz, shows up, and one of us, perhaps channelling a bit of cinematic zeitgeist, slaps a Post-It note on the cover that reads, “Attack of the Bird Lady” and sticks it on the counter in our Pick-Of-The-Day slot (a juvenile ploy, but hey, we get crazy sometimes,) it shouldn’t seem so far-fetched that Paris Hilton might actually show up and see it.

        I come back from lunch at Los Burritos on Hollywood Blvd and Sara’s telling me that my girlfirend is shopping the Television Section. The one in the pink hoodie and pink Ugg boots, she says. Not one to waste an opportunity to clown around I skip across the mezzanine over to the girl in pink, arms wide. Then I recognize her and immediately join Brett, who pretends to be busy upstocking copies of The Simple Life.

        The Heiress chatters on her cell phone and drifts about the store. Noisy and garish. Security guard Vic scrambles to turn down his walkie a voice blasts from it, saying, “She’s a billionaire heiress who starred in that–” And then she’s at the info counter, where, guess what? She spots our Pick Of The Day.

        She at first tries to pry open the case herself to grab the “Bird Lady” note, but of course, it’s armed with Paris-proof technology. So she shoves it at Charles and demands that he remove the note. “I’ve only been here ten minutes and you’re already making fun of me,” she says, and not too kindly. Charles removes the note and hands the movie back to her. She drops it in her basket and storms off.

        That’s when one of the floor managers, who had earlier seen our Pick Of the Day and who just heard that a certain billionaire heiress was in the store, calls up and says to Steve, “Grab that movie off the counter now. Quick.” And of course, Steve can only say, “Uh, you’re a little late.”

        Oh well. Another satisfied customer. We didn’t have the heart (or, alas, presence of mind) to tell her that the movie had, in fact, been up there for the past three days, but we weren’t exactly chagrined she found it. The sad thing is that just yesterday, PJ Harvey came into the store. And PJ Harvey, who has more beauty, talent and character in one fingernail than Paris Hilton has in her entire inheritance caused none of the flutter and fury of this vapid little whirlwind.

        But then, maybe Harvey prefers it that way, and that’s what makes her cool.

        The Hillz

        By will | Posted in amoeba, Hollywoodland, life in hollywood | Comments (4)
        • Music

        SFX: Mary Lorson & Saint Low

        February 20, 2006 – 12:36 pm ·

        Getting back into the swing of things. Might as well talk about music.

        Valentine’s Day comes and goes this year. I spend the evening at Amoeba with many other single folk. And most of us feign bitterness, but inside we all realize that Valentine’s Day is just a fake holiday, a totally crass commerical ploy to get people to pretend they’re in love for a day and deny that relationships always end in tragedy and unhappiness and that there’s no such thing as true love.

        We’re a well-adjusted bunch.

        My own Valentine’s gift comes quite unexpectedly from Mary Lorson, whose latest album drops into the store that day. I love Mary Lorson. My earliest memory of her music comes from her Madder Rose days. I had taped a video for “Panic On” from their second album. This was back in ’94 I think. I was supposed to hang out with Gaby one night. It was a first date kind of situation, where I’m ready and anxious about an hour before she’s supposed to come over. So to kill time I watched that video over and over and over.

        To me, that song is about falling in love. How Valentine’s Day is that?

        Mary Lorson, then and now:

        Madder Rose: Panic On (mp3)
        Mary Lorson & Saint Low: Realistic (mp3)

        Mary Lorson - Realistic

        By will | Posted in mp3, Music | Comments (1)
        • Hollywoodland

        HOLLYWOODLAND reborn (sort of)

        February 15, 2006 – 2:10 pm ·

        blueOkay, so I’m giving up. With enough time, energy and cups of boiled down espresso I could have been successful at executing a clean port from Blogger to WordPress, but I just don’t have access to those luxuries.

        Here’s the new HOLLYWOODLAND. Not much different, is it? Well, that was the idea. As I begin to settle in and take advantage of some of the cool flexibility WordPress offers you’ll see some disctinct changes. As for now, I’m just going to return to posting. All the clumsy styling and awkward layouts will come together soon. What’s disappointing is that the comment import function hasn’t worked the way it’s supposed to. I think this has to do with recent changes to both WordPress and Blogger. All previous comments are gone. If I figure out a way to get them in, I’ll do it.

        Also, as I mentioned, I was never able to get the permalinks to match the old site. This instantly breaks all my previous page URLs. As with the comments, there may be a ray of hope, but I’m too, too busy to search for it right now. Maybe all will be right in the future…

        The old blog is still there. The new one has duplicated all the old posts and given them new addresses. Categories are coming. So is a search tool. And maybe some other goodies. Mostly, though, the posting will resume. That’s the most important thing to me.

        It’s not necessary to update your links (this URL is a bit different) because I’ve got re-directs in place. And I’m planning on moving the blag back to the old address. But like everything, it’s going to take a little time.

        By will | Posted in Hollywoodland | Comments (2)
        • Hollywoodland
        • space invaders

        Just a little longer…

        February 7, 2006 – 10:38 am ·

        Okay, this is getting ridiculous. It’s not that switching to WordPress is difficult in itself. In fact, it’s quite easy. But WordPress saves post URLs differently. A simple import to WordPress would break every single permalink in the site. In other words every link I’ve made to other posts and every link made to posts by other sites would no longer work. There IS a way to pull it off, but it requires some serious elbow grease and a greater knowledge of databases than I pereviously had. But since the alternative is so much less appealing, I’m working on it.

        In the meantime, check out this article in the most recent issue of Los Angeles Magazine (there’s a mention of my dormant Invader site counterinvasion.com:

        Space Invaders

        By will | Posted in Hollywoodland, space invaders | Comments (0)
        • Hollywoodland

        Hang In There

        January 31, 2006 – 1:39 pm ·

        rita hayworth

        I’m still here. Tackling the learning curve on the WordPress thing is like ascending Everest. I’m at the Hilary Step. Just a little ways to go. When the blog is looking good and feeling okay, I’ll come back with a post about pandas (or something else cute and fuzzy.)

        in the meantime, go hang out at FunkyJenn’s joint. She loves me.

        By will | Posted in Hollywoodland | Comments (0)
        • Hollywoodland

        Happy Birthday

        January 23, 2006 – 1:08 pm ·

        A couple days ago a minor milestone slips past us. This blog, in its current incarnation, turns two. I’d started a blog four years ago, but I abandoned it when I decided to move to Los Angeles. That explains the odd gap in the archives.

        The blog hasn’t grown much. But the posts have gotten a little better since this inaugural entry and I have a pretty consistent readership of about a hundred or so inquisitive souls. Tiny, by blog standards, but I’m having fun and its popularity is still growing. This move to WordPress is part of the two-year birthday celebration.

        So Happy Birthday, Hollywoodland. And bear with me as links break, layout goes haywire and things change a little around here. The new blog will be slightly more user-friendly. And I think we’ll see a return of Rita Hayworth as the mascot.

        I know that’s not Rita Hayworth. But I’m at work right now, so I have to use what’s available. Just pretend that she’s reacting to the news that this blog will soon be searchable.

        By will | Posted in Hollywoodland | Comments (0)
        • Hollywoodland

        Blogger to WordPress

        January 21, 2006 – 10:47 am ·

        Just a note. I’ve begun a transition from Blogger to WordPress. I like the flexibility and elegance of WordPress. Also, think I’d like to archive this thing a little better. Someone looking for “music stuff,” for example, should be able to click on a category and see all my posts about music. Same goes for Screenwriting posts. Or better yet, there could be a One-Eyed Kittens category and little Cy could have a page all his own.

        Anyway, posts might get a bit spotty around here as I make the change. And it may take a week or so, thanks to my killer schedule. I just wanted to give y’all a heads-up.

        BTW, you can see HOLLYWOODLAND trapped in a basic WordPress template here. I’ve managed to import all the comments, but the comment counters aren’t working. Wait, wait, calm down, don’t get excited. This was just a test run of future import. Just relax….easy now.

        Coming soon…

        By will | Posted in Hollywoodland | Comments (0)
        • keefe
        • Music

        Keefe Matters | Cy the Wonder-Kitten

        January 16, 2006 – 8:21 am ·

        Hey, any of you who’ve been reading along as Michael Keefe’s been reviewing tunes for this site might be interested in the most recent email I got from him. Michael sez:

        I have been taken on as a CD reviewer for PopMatters, a daily arts/pop culture review site. It is one of the two CD review sites I read constantly, so I’m especially excited to be a part of something that I already loved.

        Based in Chicago, they have a readership of 700,000 unique website hits per month and a staff (spread all across the country, maybe farther) of around 200. It is an amazing operation, and I’m very proud to be a part of it.

        Thanks to all of you who have supported me in so many ways. Many of you
        have specifically encouraged me to take my CD reviews to the next level, and
        your nudges were a big inspiration.

        To those who have rocked, I salute you!

        That’s very cool.

        And since we’re nowhere near the subject, did anyone catch that amazing story of Cy, the one-eyed kitten? Cute and horrifying at the same time. Poor Cy didn’t last long, but he seems to have made an impression. Some had suspected fakery, but Cy was no hoax.

        Poor Cy.

        By will | Posted in keefe, Music, one-eyed-kittens | Comments (1)