Driving past another dead Blockbuster Video the other day made me think in general about the deaths of locally owned video stores a decade earlier and then, more specifically, the death of my own little store in Brooklyn. Far from celebrating the possible karmic backlash represented by the retail failure of a large company like […]
It’s a well-known fact, and even a hoary cliché (which is I guess itself a cliché) that New York City is a gathering place for creative people who want to express themselves in a larger, more fertile setting. But there are places even within New York where that matriculation of talent is even more refined, […]
Living in Hollywood with a single mom who was trying to support herself and her three kids was hard; especially with all of the kids in school and a mother that was, by necessity, not home much of the time. Lucky for us, and due to our close residential proximity to Hollywood Boulevard, Uncle Mann […]
Going into a new school in a new city, state and way of life was not without its challenges, particularly for a 12 year old. Luckily, and almost right off the bat, I acquired the services of a motivational coach. Seeming to perceive my need, fellow student Shawn was obviously attracted to the pathos I […]
When the Oscar’s come around I always think about how different that area used to be when I lived there. The Kodak Theater is the site of the Oscar Awards and has been for 10 or so years. A visit back there 3 years ago was surprising for me because the only thing I remembered […]
Even at a very young age I knew I wanted to be multilingual, or at least bilingual. Having finally learned enough of my own language, by the 8th Grade I was able to take a foreign language class. I chose Spanish, mostly because I had several friends I could practice with. But I was already […]
One show marked the beginning of what we could call ‘modern times’ in TV entertainment. That show is, of course, “The Greatest American Hero.” Agent Bill Maxwell, played by Robert Culp, took the baton in the great zeitgeist relay race that marked the beginning of “military industrial complex” as entertainment. After many years, most of […]
My homage to Stephen King
Hollywood has always attracted talented people trying to get into the business. It has also always attracted the B.S.er, the poser, and the conman (I was gonna say wannabee, but for some reason that sounds too harsh). There is no six degrees of separation for these guys, it’s either two degrees, or, if they […]
As I sat in an empty classroom at Hollywood High reading the LA Times story of the death of John Wayne, I anticipated my own entry into Junior High a few weeks later. I had no idea how different going to school in Hollywood could be. I was tagging along with my sister Laura as […]