Is It Live Or Is It Memorex?

Well, I'm back. In Los Angeles. Home. But it feels weird. Like I just woke out of a coma and have amnesia. Some things are very familiar. My apartment. I was very happy to see my apartment. Especially my kitchen. It was visceral. It's not that I cook a lot. I don't know, it just looked really nice and fancy to me...But my car seemed very alien to me. I wasn't convinced that it really was my car. But....it is. I digress. I really believe I'm suffering from some bizarre version of Stockholm Syndrome. Either that or I have a schoolgirl crush on the city of New York. Making a movie is an intense experience. Making a movie on location is more intense. Making a movie on location in New York is uber intense. At least this one was. There were no easy days. There were dragons to be slayed daily and some of them mortally wounded us. But we were a rag tag band of warriors who hunkered down, shoulders together, honor bound to finish. And finish we did. We lost people along the way. Some too weak in character to continue. Awed by the daunting challenge early on, they fell away with excuses. Other's left to join more profitable ventures. Others were fired...There were only a handful of us who were emotionally connected to the project. But again, I digress. After all of this intense, isolated experience, you are suddenly released. Spit out. Pushed back through the looking glass. You go back to what you knew, and it's so far removed from all that you've gone through. You know that you'll most likely never see any of the people you stood shoulder to shoulder with on the front lines - every day, again. Stockholm Syndrome. Now here's the remainder of my Blackberry Pearl cellphone snapshots. Their flaws make them all the more adorable to me. Ugh. I'll be back to normal soon but for now New York still has my heart in it's hands...














This Double Decker tour bus became home to us several times. There's no more exciting way to see the city. Not the regular tour mind you but with a camera crew on top and barely clearing low hanging traffic signals at 40 miles an hour...














This is a kitchy part of Times Square that took on a special magical quality when seen from atop the bus at 6AM when the streets were still relatively empty and quiet. A nice giant cup of hot cocoa on a chilly morning. Ack! I know...














The front of the Ed Sullivan Theater, home of the David Letterman Show. When I took this picture I had no idea that this location would later become the scene of one very vigorous verbal ass raping handed out by the Mayor's Office due to a major fuck up...All I can say is I wasn't up to giving the brave John McCain "thumbs up" on the way back to my cell...














The front yard of a home in Queens we used for one small scene. The statuary is awesome! It was very soothing somehow...and somehow the perfect segue to the next picture...














On the way to scouting a potential location in Brooklyn, I passed this intriguing establishment. I wonder if it's a hot tub club like the once swinging, now defunct Splash in LA? Since they were closed, I didn't get to ask. But the whole thing kind of rolls off the tongue, don't you think? "Liquid Love, A sophisticated meeting place" The imagination runs wild, while covering it's eyes and screaming "EWWWWWWWWWWWW!"














Which leads me to this. This nifty, recently remodeled bathroom was in the corridor outside a tiny Russian Bookstore we shot in. There was only one sink. While using it I pondered sitting across from someone...a coworker? A friend? In a private home maybe it would be some av ant guard way of keeping a couple connected. Can't you imagine a couple spending quality time here in the morning or in the evening? Downloading each other's days? There's just enough room between the two toilets to put a room service cart...I don't know why I think of these things...














This is a Dust Monkey. It's actually a puppet and it's covering a can of Pledge. Which led me to believe the homeowners were using the puppet to dust with. Anyway, some people are afraid of puppets and were freaked out by this...














This is Olenka, our script supervisor. Don' let her sweet innocent smile fool you...She was in on the Dust Monkey shenanigans...














Our line producer prays to be put out of his misery...














This is the rooftop of the Ravel Hotel in Long Island City, Brooklyn. We came thisclose to shooting this as our nightclub but then rain was forecast. This is an amazing hotel, albeit in the middle of nowhere. But if you are in town to work at either Silver Cup Studios, Steiner Studios or Kaufman Astoria Studios and you need to put people up nearby - this would be the place. It's upscale and affordable. The rooms are twice the size of any hotel in Manhattan and it's at the foot of the Queensboro Bridge which makes it minutes away from the city. I would totally stay there. Anyway, the roof top lounge is really cool looking and at night the backdrop of the Manhattan skyline is breathtaking. If you're looking for a place to host an event or a location to shoot, Eddie - the GM, is great to work with and very accommodating. I needed new towels for my apartment and had no time to shop and Eddie gave me two fluffy white hotel towels that I will treasure...














Neptune Ave., Brooklyn

This and the next few pictures depict what became an ongoing obsession with McDonald's. This was punctuated with shouts of "There's one! Oooh, that's a good one!" and me whipping out my Blackberry Pearl to try and get a picture before we had passed it. I'm obviously slow on the draw because they are everywhere and I only have four pictures...














Greenpoint Ave., Brooklyn...














Union Square, NYC...














11th Ave., NYC...














This is taken from the ladies room at 230 5th, the hip nightclub we shot in (instead of the Ravel Hotel) until the sun came up. At dawn, the city could have been from any era. Looking out, in that light you could imagine being back at the turn of the 19th century...














This is our director with two of our leading men. On our very last day. In Brooklyn, at the Old Fulton Road dead end. Right by the River Cafe. A very memorable and dramatic location for us. Grimaldi's, the best pizza place in NYC is right up the street. I had the pleasure of eating one slice of their pizza before the wolverines otherwise known as non union extras descended on it...


















This is what the city looked like, out my living room window the day before I left. Why do our crushes always have to look so damn appealing when we are about to leave? So that is it. My cell phone retrospective is over. I've been back exactly one week and had several crappy restaurant meals. Seriously, you have to look very hard to find bad food in New York. WTF LA? Right now, I need LA to do something brilliant to remind me of why I returned to it. Is that asking too much? Could you at least not be on fire? And now, I'm off to nurse my broken heart and drown my sorrows...


BTW, this hat is stolen.